#While this chapter has so many flaws

[formula-ghost]

Wildflower (OP81 x fem!reader x LN4)

Chapter 1

SERIES SUMMARY: You’ve been best friends with Oscar Piastri since you were seven, far before the dream of Formula 1 even seemed possible. You’ve been with him from the very beginning—due, in no small part, to the fact that you’ve been in love with him since you were a teenager. But when a breakup and championship battle rattles the very foundations of your friendship, you begin to question if you ever really knew him. (Best friends to lovers, based on the song Wildflower by Billie Eilish)

WORD COUNT: 11.1k

WARNINGS: Oscar is not a very good boyfriend to Lily and Lily is not a very good girlfriend to Oscar. Potentially changed some dates (I think Oscar and Lily started dating when they were 17 or 18, but I’m making them 18 for the sake of the flashback scenes). Reader is “the girl he told me not to worry about” through no fault of her own. This story has a lot of complex character dynamics and everyone is flawed! References to sex but no actual smut.

A/N: Ah new series! I hope this is good—I’m trying some new stuff with the flashbacks and story layers, so I hope it doesn’t read too confusingly! Also, I’m trying to be more intentional with showing instead of telling with my dialogue and such, so hopefully that is an improvement. I always welcome constructive criticism, but either way, I hope you all enjoy this.

Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

“Lily left me.”

He only needed those three words to convey the gravity of the situation. On the other end of the line, you were silent. He was too. What was there to say?

No, it couldn’t be real. Oscar and Lily were inseparable. The dream couple of Formula 1. Your best friend had been in love with her since the pair were 18, attending boarding school in the UK together while Oscar pursued his dreams of making it to F1. 

They were each other’s everything. At least, that’s what the world thought.

But you had seen this coming for a while now. It was just a shock for it to actually happen. 

Finally, after an eternity, you spoke, still too shocked to formulate a coherent thought. “What do you mean?” you asked.

“I mean she fucking left me. What else do you want me to say?” You could hear the quivering in his voice, giving away the sadness behind his abrasive response. You weren’t offended one bit. 

“Shit, Osc, I’m so sorry. I… don’t know what to say. Do you want me to come over? Or you can come to mine?” 

“I’m outside yours right now. In the car park.” 

“I’ll let you in,” you said. The mental image you conjured of Oscar outside your apartment crying in his fancy McLaren would have been comical, if not given the circumstances.

He let himself in only a few moments later, hoodie covering his tall and muscled frame. He was soaked from the rain outside—he must have come directly from the confrontation. 

“Oh, Oscar,” you said, pulling him into a hug, cringing at the contact with his soggy hoodie, but knowing that there were far more important things to be worried about. 

You rubbed your hands up and down his shoulder blades that now heaved with sobs. His entire body shook with the fervor of his tears, and you just held him, gently shushing him and promising that everything will be okay. 

“I don’t know how she could do this to me,” he said, gasping out the words between haggard breaths. “The championship—I can’t do it without her.”

“I know,” you assured him. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“No it’s not, YN, it’s not gonna be okay. I love her. And she just threw away so many years.”

“I know.” You just kept assuring him, tightening your grip on him as his sobs became more intense. “Just breathe.”

“Why would she do this to me?” he asked. “I don’t understand. I don’t know what I did to deserve this.”

You knew. And deep down, Oscar did too. That was a conversation for another day. But he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t seen this coming. 

You didn’t have it in you to lie to him. You had always been the type to pride yourself on being honest, even when the truth hurt, but you couldn’t bear to do it now. You changed the subject.

“Oscar, you’re soaking wet. I’ll find you something else and warm that up in the dryer, yeah? Just sit down, take a deep breath, and let me get this figured out.”

He sat down on your couch and took off his hoodie and t-shirt underneath, revealing his toned body. It wasn’t anything you hadn’t seen before—you’d been friends with him since you were seven, growing up together. He almost felt like a brother to you, sometimes.

Maybe it wouldn’t be weird at all, except for the fact that you’d been in love with him for over a decade now. 

But right now that didn’t matter. He had plenty of old hoodies over in your apartment, which you carefully folded every time he forgot them. Placing his wet clothes in the dryer and setting the temp on high, you reached to the shelf above you and grabbed a random one. You unfolded it—an Alpine hoodie from back in the day, before his time at McLaren. You smiled at the memories that flashed in your mind, before quickly returning to Oscar with the garment. 

He had moved from your couch to your bedroom, holding a pillow on his lap, hunched over where the top of it met his chin. He was staring off into space, not breaking his gaze at the plain white wall.

You sat next to him, handing him the hoodie, and he mumbled a small thanks as he grabbed it. He didn’t put it on, instead just holding it with the pillow, as if filling his arms with the plush material would fill the hole now left in his heart.

“Oscar, I… don’t have anything profound to say. I’m so sorry.”

He didn’t respond at first, instead just silently letting the tears well up in his eyes. 

“I guess I should have seen this coming,” he said quietly. 

You paused, unsure whether or not you should agree with him. But you were nothing if not honest.

“Yeah,” you said, “it’s been a rough few months.”

“I guess we just both fell out of love.”

“I mean… how did the conversation go?”

It would be stupidly easy for Oscar to lie and say he didn’t remember Lily’s every word. But he knew better, and so did you. As he explained, the memory replayed in his head.

“I can’t do this anymore, Oscar,” Lily said, a simple yet devastating statement.

“What do you mean? What’s wrong?” His confusion was genuine, much to the chagrin of his angry girlfriend.

“The fact that you even have to ask that proves my point.”

“Lily, talk to me. I don’t know what you’re trying to say.” Oscar stood up, now understanding the full gravity of the situation he found himself in. 

“I’m trying to say that I’m not happy anymore, and neither are you. I wanted to at least give it until the end of the season, but I can’t keep pretending that everything is okay when we both know bloody well that it’s not! Don’t you want something better than this, Oscar?” Lily pleaded. 

“I just want you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Don’t lie to me. You say that but you put everything else before me. I’m not a priority to you. I haven’t been in a long time.”

“I’ll quit F1. We can go back to the UK and live a normal life.”

“No. We both know that you wouldn’t do that.” Her tone was incredulous, twinged with a slight anger at the mere suggestion. 

“Yes, I would. I’d do anything. Don’t do this, Lily. Not now, not when I need you the most.”

Lily grabbed his hand, leading him to sit down on the couch next to her. “Oscar,” she began, “we had a good run. You made me so, so happy for so long.” She reached up to gently cup his cheeks and wipe away where tears were now forming at the edge of his eyes. “I saw you achieve things that neither of us ever thought were possible. But…I can’t stay any longer. Not when there’s no place for me in your heart anymore.”

You sighed. You knew every word that Lily had said was right. But you also knew you couldn’t get that through to Oscar, at least not until the shock wore off.

The words remained unspoken. You had been there for all of it. Lily was his first love, his only girlfriend, and everyone assumed that he’d marry her one day; you included. 

“I just…I don’t know how I’m supposed to go on acting like my life didn’t just fall apart. How did you do it?”

This was Oscar's first breakup, but you had been through too many, it seemed, since he was asking you for advice on how to handle them.

The truth? It was very easy to get over a breakup when every partner you’ve ever had was a feeble attempt at denial. When they all inevitably failed, you just went back to bask in Oscar’s platonic love. It was enough. 

“I won’t lie to you, the first one is always hell. You feel like you’re going crazy for a while. You lose hope that you’ll ever feel happier, because everything reminds you of them. And then one day it just…doesn’t. The only thing that heals it is time and finding love around you, you know, friends and family.”

“No offense, but that doesn’t make me feel any better.”

‘Well, I’m not going to lie to you and say it’ll be easy, because it won't. But it will be okay—not today, but someday. You’ve got something to focus on with the championship. And I’ll be here.” You gave him an empathetic smile. 

Maybe you weren’t the most comforting friend to most. But you and Oscar had a bond that was very different to most friendships. You understood each other’s idiosyncrasies in ways no one else could. So when shit hit the fan, it was always each other that you went to.

You continued, “You can stay here as long as you like.”

“Thank you.”

There was only one problem: your apartment only had one bed. And to the dismay of fanfiction writers across the world, you all would not be sharing it. 

You distracted Oscar by cooking a meal and watching a comfort movie—Cars, a classic. You could tell he was exhausted by the way his head on your shoulder sloped just a little too heavily downwards as the credits rolled. 

“Okay, let’s get you to bed,” you said, gently pushing him awake. He sleepily stumbled back into your bedroom and collapsed on the bed, almost instantly falling back asleep.

You took the couch, but despite the money you spent splurging on the extra cushioned sofa, no sleep came to you. 

It wasn’t any physical discomfort that fueled your insomnia, but rather, the events of the previous evening. Lily had actually left Oscar. She had finally pulled the plug.

Yes, in some ways, it was expected. But at the same time, you couldn’t imagine a version of your best friend that wasn’t madly in love with his girlfriend. 

From the outside, though, you couldn’t blame Lily one bit. You wondered what had been the last straw. 

You could think of three possible moments. First: The Apartment. 

“I’m moving to Monaco,” Oscar began, and you felt your heart drop in your stomach. Of course, one day he’d make it to Monaco. That was the dream of every Formula 1 driver, right? The beauty of the French Riviera and tax evasion. And you’d be left at your aging flat in the UK, waiting for those precious few days a year where he was free to grace you with his presence. 

“That’s amazing!” you said, only half believing it to be true. 

“In a few weeks I’m gonna go look at condos. Come with me? Lily can’t get off work.”

“Of course,” you replied. You’d already been to Monaco before for Oscar’s races, but you wouldn’t turn down any reason to get out of the constant dreary rain of the UK. 

You felt like a celebrity as you coasted through the Monte Carlo streets in the passenger side of Oscar’s McLaren, on your way to tour fabulous properties for your best friend (the actual celebrity). You breathed in the saltwater breeze, fresh and tinged with the air of wealth and splendor.

But it hurt your heart to know that you were helping your best friend leave. You imagined him getting up and doing his morning runs along the harbor, the sun blazing down the strained muscles on his back. Then you laughed to yourself at the thought of Oscar, the pastiest Aussie you knew, getting sunburnt. 

At the first property you met the realtor, who (after mistaking you for Lily; not the first time, and certainly wouldn’t be the last) took the pair of you to different condos throughout the day. 

Oscar decided on the final one you saw; two bedrooms, plenty of natural light, and a great view. Elegant, refined and practical—just like Oscar himself. 

The realtor handed him the paperwork and left as you stood on the balcony, looking at the beauty of the city before you. You were quiet, unusually so, and Oscar noticed. 

He sat the paperwork on the kitchen counter and walked onto the balcony next to you. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” you said, your voice lowered. “You’re gonna make such beautiful memories here.”

“Are you getting sentimental on me now?”

You smiled and laughed. “A little,” you admitted, “I can’t help it. I’ll miss you all.” 

“You could always come with us. You seem to like it here,” he teased, tilting his head toward the edge of the balcony.

“You’d have to give me a raise if I was gonna afford Monaco rent prices.” You’d been running Oscar’s merch store and social media for the past few years, making a great wage, but nowhere near the immense wealth you’d need to call a place like this home. You joked with him, knowing Oscar actually had nothing to do with how much you got paid. 

“I would if I could. But, I mean, if you had a place to stay it wouldn’t really be that bad.”

“Are you suggesting I move into your guest room?”

Now he laughed. “No, but I’m just saying, if you had an apartment, you could make it work.”

You raised an eyebrow, confused, but trying to go along with the joke. “Well, sure, but apartments don’t just appear out of thin air.”

“You never know.” Oscar scratched the back of his neck and looked away, a sign of the awkwardness that now blanketed your moment on the balcony. 

“What are you getting at?”

“Well, theoretically, if someone were to have a spare apartment that they weren’t using, you could live there and Monaco would be a reasonable place to live, no?”

You didn’t answer his question, instead just giving him another confused glance until he gave up whatever he was trying to say. He still couldn’t meet your gaze. 

“Look—I don’t want to live so far away from my friend. Is that such a bad thing?”

“Oscar, you…”

“I got you an apartment.”

“You… bought me an apartment. In Monaco.” It came out more like a statement than a question, evidence of your shock. He reached into his pocket and dug out a key, holding it out to you.

You just looked at him with an incredulous expression. “Oscar, I can’t accept that.”

“Why not?”

“How much was it?” 

“I have more than enough money.”

“Answer the question.”

He pursed his lips and shrugged. “About 4 million?” 

Your eyes widened in shock. “Before you say anything,” he began, “I made over 30 million last year. I have more money than I’d ever know what to do with, so why not just spend it all on the people I love?” 

“Oscar… I can’t, that’s too much.”

“Will you at least go look at it with me? Actually, I’m driving, so you don’t have a choice,” he joked, walking back into the apartment. “Let’s go.”

You sighed, smiling to yourself. There was no way you could let Oscar buy you a 4 million dollar apartment, but also, how could you not? The wind whipped through your hair as you rolled down the window of his McLaren, drinking in the beauty of the city around you. 

The apartment was smaller than the one he had picked for himself and Lily, but you didn’t mind one bit. It was perfectly cosy, and God, the view was spectacular. You could see the whole city from his apartment, but here, you could see the water. You stepped on the balcony and took a deep breath, taking in the sound of the ocean waves beneath you. 

Oscar followed you. “It’s a bit small, but I figured you’d like the view.”

“Oscar…”

“If you really don’t want it, I can rent it out. But I’d much rather have you close.” He held out the keys again. “What do you say?”

You could have told him you needed more time to think about it, but deep down, you already knew what you wanted. You took the keys. “Thank you. Thank you so much, Oscar. Seriously.”

“No need to thank me.” He smiled.

Back in the UK, he showed Lily the photos he had taken of the condo he had chosen for them as they went over the paperwork one last time.

He grabbed the pen to scratch out one of the boxes Lily had checked, hoping she wouldn’t notice. 

“Oh, did I mess something up?” Shit. She leaned over his shoulder, reading the paperwork aloud. “Please indicate if you own any additional properties in the principality of Monaco.” She looked at Oscar. “You already have a property there?” 

“Oh, erm, yeah,” he said, hoping the conversation would end there. 

“How come I never heard about this?” 

“Um, I just got it a bit ago.”

Lily could sense her boyfriend’s hesitancy. “Is this something I wasn’t supposed to know about?”

“Oh, no,” he said, “it’s not like that. I just didn’t think to mention it.”

“So, what is this property?”

“An apartment.” 

Lily hated feeling like she was having to interrogate Oscar, but clearly there was some piece of the puzzle missing that was causing his reluctance. 

“An apartment?” she questioned. “You got another apartment?”

“Yeah, I, um,” he looked at the ceiling while scratching his neck, a clear sign of his nervousness, “I was planning on giving it to YN.”

“You bought YN an apartment in Monaco? When were you planning on telling me about this?” 

His walls of defense had finally broken down. “It’s not a big deal. I made more than enough last season, I could afford it.  And it’s just easier to have her there for the brand shoots and media stuff. Plus, I mean, she came to London to support me after graduation, even though I know she hates it here. I just figured I should repay the favor.”

“...Okay,” Lily began, her voice tinged with skepticism. “So, you do realize what this looks like, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, my boyfriend bought an apartment for his “best friend” and tried to hide it from me. That’s the kind of thing cheating husbands do in movies, buy an apartment for their mistress for her to keep it quiet.”

Oscar wasn’t sure what annoyed him more, the air quotes Lily placed around “best friend” or the insinuation that he had been unfaithful. 

“Lily, seriously? I’m not cheating on you, I love you and you know that.”

“When were you going to tell me about this?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. You know YN and I have been friends forever, it’s not like I did this for some random woman. I don’t appreciate being accused of lying.”

“But you were lying by omission.”

“Lily—”

“You know, nothing against her, but one of the reasons I was looking forward to this move was having more…us time. Without YN.” 

The statement brought a bitter taste to his mouth. Despite what she had said, it seemed like Lily did have something against you.

“You know, this kind of thing is why I was putting off telling you about it.”

“What are you saying?” she asked. Oscar knew he was tempting fire, but he didn’t care.

He continued, “You’re freaking out because I did something kind for a friend. I’m allowed to do whatever I want with my money.”

“I never said you weren’t, and I’m not freaking out. But I guess I’m just such a horrible person for saying I want to spend more time with my boyfriend.”

“If you’re putting down my “best friend” to do it,” he said, mocking her air quotes, “then yeah, that’s not cool.” 

“Oscar, you’re being so…weird about all of this. I’m not insulting YN. I just want to spend more time with you.”

“We’re literally going on vacation in February!”

“With friends. You invited your friends to our romantic getaway, Oscar.”

“You know I only have so much time off during the off season, and I’m spending most of it with realtors and accountants and eight thousand other people preparing us for this move. God forbid I want to invite my friends to Italy with us. Not everything can be just us, Lily.”

“Okay,” she sighed. “I’m done with this conversation.”

The second next instance you could think of happened on the trip.

It was a beautiful getaway to the Amalfi Coast, your dream destination that you’d somehow never made it to.

The group of Oscar’s friends, including you and Lando, had plans to come and go, with everyone being gone before the fourteenth so that Oscar and Lily could have their Valentine's Day date. Of course, you knew nothing of the arguments they’d had in the past about this, but you had common sense enough to not be a third wheel. Oscar thought this was a good enough compromise. 

Well, he thought. 

From the moment he picked you up from the airport, you could tell that the energy was different than usual. He blamed it on jet lag, but you knew better. You knew your best friend too well.

It didn’t take you long to figure out the problem was between him and Lily. She was colder towards him; not enough for anyone but you and him to notice, but still there and undeniable. 

Even weirder was Lily’s…preoccupation, it seemed, with pointing out single and attractive men to you. It wasn’t a hushed reality that you were single, and had been for some time. You'd given up on dating a long time ago—you knew that you had already found the love of your life, and he just happened to be Lily’s boyfriend.

But, of course, you’d never tell anyone this. Lots of people were confused because you seemed so fine being single. But you thought that Lily, one of your best friends (at least, by association), would know that you weren’t really interested in meeting anyone. 

You sat with Lily in a restaurant overlooking the coast, the balcony having been rented out by Oscar for one of your last dinners. You all were waiting for him and Lando to join you, passing the time by ordering wine and appetizers.

“He’s cute, isn’t he?” Lily said, gesturing her head to your waiter that was walking back into the main restaurant. 

You didn’t really know what to say. You glanced at him through the glass wall. “Lily, he most definitely plays for the other team, if you know what I mean,” you joked, reaching for a slice of bread on the table. “I didn’t know that was your type.”

“Well I don’t mean for me, I meant for you.”

You chuckled. “For me?”

“Well, yeah. Don’t you want to get yourself a hot Italian man?”

“I’m perfectly happy being single.” You tried to diffuse the awkward conversation, keeping a kind tone in your voice as you ate the bread and looked into the distance at the coastline.

“Oh, come on. We’ll get you someone, don’t worry.”

“I really am fine being single.”

“You know who else is single?” she asked, clearly ignoring your protests. “Lando!”

You laughed aloud. “Oh God, no. If I wanted to be cheated on, I would have stayed with my ex. Besides, Oscar would kill him.”

A curious fact: Oscar had never approved of a single person you had ever introduced him to. You had to spend hours talking him out of running over your ex with his F1 car after you found out about his infidelity. 

“Oh, who cares what Oscar thinks? I think you should go for it,” she said, watching as the waiter returned to pour your glasses of wine. 

“Lily,” you said, holding your glass, ready to take a sip, “I don’t want to be in a relationship, like, at all. It’s just…not for me.” You sipped the wine, but through the reflection on the glass, you could see that Lily had pursed her lips in an expression you couldn’t quite read.

“If you want me to stop third-wheeling you and Oscar, you can just say so,” you joked as the boys made their way to the balcony to join you. 

You didn’t know it, but your joke cut deep in Lily’s heart. 

Nothing was said about it during the dinner, but Lily’s strange energy continued. It quickly became uncomfortable how much she was pushing Lando and you to interact. 

And when you all made your way to a local nightclub after the dinner, it didn’t get any better. Lando quickly got himself lost in the crowd, and you were once again left to be the third wheel. 

You could tell that Lily was getting annoyed, but to be fair, she was also annoying you. 

“Go dance with Lando!” she shouted over the thumping bass. She gestured to the opposite corner of the small club, where Lando was currently making out with some random Italian woman. 

You pointed this fact out to Lily, who just grimaced. 

“Do you just want me to go away?” you joked.

“Yes!” she said, and you were taken aback, because she was definitely not joking. 

Oscar was at the bar getting drinks, far enough away that he couldn’t hear. To be honest, you didn’t even want to be in this club anymore. 

So you snuck out and began your walk home without telling any of them.

As you walked along the cobblestone streets, Oscar handed Lily a drink, pausing when he noticed that you weren’t there to receive yours. “Where’s YN?” he asked.

“She wasn’t feeling well, so she headed back,” Lily said. 

“By herself? Should we go check on her?”

Lily wanted to roll her eyes. “No, she’s just tired. C’mon, let’s go dance!”

Oscar obeyed, but couldn’t ignore the feeling inside him that something about this whole night had been odd. 

The next time he saw Lando, he decided to say something about it. 

“Hey mate, are you going back soon?” he asked. Lando nodded, clearly tipsy. “Can you check on YN? Lily said she wasn’t feeling well.”

“Sure,” he said, annoyed at the mention of you again.

He did come back to the house soon, but with an equally drunk and giggly woman on his arm, the same girl he had been making out with in the corner of the club. 

You didn’t expect any of them for a long time, so you sat in the living room of the AirBNB, watching the waves cascade into the shore, romanticizing this complicated feeling that coiled itself inside of you. 

That was, until Lando stumbled in. 

His eyes got wide as dinner plates upon seeing you. The girl on his arm giggled and walked off into the nearest bathroom. 

“Hey YN,” he slurred. “Are you dying?”

You laughed. “I’m fine.”

“Lily said you were sick.” 

“Nope, I’m good.” 

He looked to the closed door of the bathroom. “Sorry about that,” he said.

“You’re fine. I’m…uh, not interested, anyway. I don’t know what Lily’s been on about today.”

“Oh, thank God,” he exhaled. You laughed, despite the sting of rejection in his relief. “Well, I’ll keep it quiet.”

“I’ve got headphones.”

You made your way to your room and put on your noise cancelling headphones, passing the time by scrolling and catching up on work emails, before falling asleep.

You didn’t sleep through the night, instead waking up in the early hours of the morning, when the sun was just beginning to round itself along the golden coast. You left your room to get a glass of water, not expecting to see the rest of your friends in the kitchen.

Lily looked hungover as hell, leaning her elbow on the counter, her hand resting uncomfortably on her forehead. Oscar was leaning against the counter on the other side while Lando sat at the bar next to Lily, drinking something out of a mug. His flight home was going to leave soon. 

You nodded to your three companions as you sipped your water glass, feeling the tension around you like an oncoming migraine. 

“You feeling okay?” Oscar asked. “Lily said you weren’t doing well last night.”

“Ah, just tired,” you answered. Lily had lied to both Lando and Oscar. That was a conversation for another day. 

“Well rested now?” Lily asked, her voice tinged with anger and fake sympathy.

“I’m fine,” was all you could answer. You glanced at Oscar, who gave you a knowing look. You had no idea what had gotten into her.

“Are you feeling okay, Lily? You look like you’re about to throw up,” you said, a more genuine concern in your voice.

“I’m fine too,” she said, clearly not fine.

Lando’s Uber pulled up, and you took the opportunity to help him transfer all his bags in one trip.

“Do you have any idea what’s going on with her?” he asked as you heaved the suitcase up into the trunk.

“No idea,” you answered. “Before you all got to the restaurant last night she was being…weird. For the record, I didn’t put her up to any of that.”

“I figured as much. You’re not the type.” Lando was right—it was common knowledge that you were happily single. 

“I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable. For the record, it made me uncomfortable too.”

He exhaled. “Eh, we’re cool. No hard feelings, yeah? I’m sure she’ll snap out of it.” 

“I hope so,” you said, giving him a wave as the car disappeared into the winding roads of the coast.

Back in the house, you could hear Oscar and Lily whispering to each other. You wanted nothing more than to disappear and act like this weird night and morning had never happened, but unfortunately, you had to cross through the kitchen back to your room. 

A hush went through the room when you entered. You walked as quickly as possible through the kitchen, but were stopped by a voice.

“YN,” Lily called. “I think you should leave.”

“Lily—” Oscar interjected.

“I was just going back to my room anyway,” you explained.

“That’s not what I meant. I think you should go home.”

“Lily, don’t do this—” Oscar pleaded. You just stood in shock.

“Actually, let me clarify,” she continued. “YN, I don’t want you here. Go home.”

“Lily!” Oscar interjected. “Don’t say that.”

“No, it’s fine,” you said, even though it was definitely not fine. “Let me pack and I’ll be on my way.”

You turned and continued back to your room, fully prepared to do as you had just said. But Oscar followed you.

“YN, wait. Stay,” he said. 

“Oscar, it’s fine.”

“I am so sorry that Lily said that, but I want you here.”

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on between you two or why she’s so upset at me, but if someone tells me to go, I’m not going to overstay my welcome.”

“Still, that was so rude.”

“I’ve got thick skin. I won’t cry myself to sleep over it.” You looked out the window to the coast. “Look, I’ll just find someplace else to stay. A hotel for a few nights is cheaper than trying to reschedule my flight, anyways.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t worry about me, Osc,” you said, patting his shoulder. “Go talk to her, figure out what’s wrong.” 

He sighed, scratching the back of his neck. “I already know what’s wrong. She’s mad that we don’t spend enough time together.”

“Then go spend time with her.”

“That was the plan! But, I mean, I’m pissed that she said that to you. And she spent all day yesterday trying to set you and Lando up, which was fucking weird.”

“Yeah,” you exhaled with a twinge of laughter. “Look, with my record I can’t exactly give you love advice, but I don’t mind leaving. You all clearly need some space, anyway. Just text me if you need anything, okay?”

Oscar gave you a flat smile and nod. 

You packed and quickly booked a private room at a local hostel for the next few days, planning to enjoy the last few days as a solo trip. You truly didn’t care, but in the back of your mind, you hoped that everything would be okay. You never received that text from Oscar. 

Back at the house, Oscar and Lily were alone. And neither of them were happy.

“Just fucking go with her if you’re that mad,” Lily said, egging Oscar on. He had always been slow to anger, but he couldn’t deny that he was pissed.

“What is wrong with you?” he questioned. “Why would you say that to her? Do you understand how rude that is? And not to mention the fact that you were being fucking weird with her and Lando all night.”

“Oscar, I’m not having this conversation right now.”

“No, I’m pissed!”

“And, as usual, it’s all about your feelings, hm?”

“What are you talking about?” 

“Don’t act stupid. Do you know how much I’ve put up with because I don’t want to hurt your feelings? Every vacation, every race weekend, she’s always there. And I put up with her because she’s your friend, but I don’t like her, Oscar.” 

“What did she do to you?” he asked. But Lily couldn’t answer. It wasn’t like there had been a specific incident or falling out; in fact, you had always been kind to her. Lily’s silence was all the answer that Oscar needed. 

“You knew that YN and I were a package deal from the beginning.” 

Tears came to Lily’s eyes. “But this was supposed to be our trip. Just us.” 

“Lily, they were only here for a few days. I specifically set it up so that we’d have 2 weeks to ourselves after they left. Is that not enough?” 

She was silent, at first. Then came a question out of left field. 

“Were you going to propose?” she asked.

Oscar made a face. “Propose?”

“I thought the point of the trip was that you were going to propose.” She looked away, trying to hide her tears. “I’m tired of feeling like an outsider in my own relationship. I’m sick of YN third wheeling, so I thought if I set her up with Lando, maybe she’d leave us alone for a while.” Her voice was tinged with an angry mocking. 

She continued, softer, “Oscar, I want to be your wife, I want to grow old with you—”

But Oscar had little sympathy for her. “That’s really what all this was about? Lily, I’m not proposing any time soon.”

“We’ve been together for nearly five years.”

“I know. But with the season starting soon—”

“There’ll always be another season, another race. Is your plan to just marry me when you retire?” The sarcasm had returned to her voice. “Do you even want to marry me?”

“Of course I do. But we’re young, we have time. I’m in no rush.” 

“I feel like you don’t care about what I want at all.”

“Lily, I’m trying. But I feel like you want me to cut off my best friend and settle down at 22. You’re asking things of me that I can’t give you.”

“Then why are we even doing this?” Lily asked.

“Because I love you, and I want this to work! But Lily, you can’t treat my friends like that. If you’re angry at me, talk to me, but don’t take it out on them. YN is an important part of my life, too.”

“I’m well aware.”

Oscar sighed. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I’m going back to bed,” Lily announced, leaving the conversation altogether. 

When she woke up, her head was pounding. Oscar was asleep beside her, his back towards her, no warmth even in his unconscious state. She had slept through the entire day—the moon hung high in the sky. 

As she quietly made her way to the kitchen and got some water and a snack, the memory of what had happened came back, rushing over her. She felt horrible. 

The sleep and food had reset her mind. Make no mistake, she was still upset at Oscar, but what he had said was right—she shouldn’t have taken it out on you. She needed to make it right. 

She texted you. Hey YN, are you awake? I’d like to talk. In person, if you can. 

Only a few minutes later you responded, affirming that you were available and sending the address of your hostel. Lily got there quickly, quietly walking through the rooms to your private room in the back. When you shut the door behind you and you both sat on the bed, she broke down. 

“YN,” Lily began, “I am so sorry about this morning. Truthfully, I was upset at Oscar and I took it out on you, and I shouldn't have. I was so rude.”

“It’s okay,” you assured.

“No, it’s not,” Lily interjected. But she seemed at a loss for words. “I just… sometimes, I feel like I hardly get any alone time with Oscar anymore.”

“Because I’m always there?” you joked, not knowing how close to the truth you really were. Lily didn’t respond. “Look, if you want me to take a step back, I can do that.”

Her response was quiet. “Would that be too much to ask?”

“No.” But it was, in a way. You felt your heart shatter into a million pieces, but your expression gave away nothing. “I understand.”

“I don’t think he loves me anymore,” Lily confessed. You normally didn’t want to know the details of their relationship, because the truth was too heavy to bear. But it seemed cruel to cut her off. “I feel like he never wants to be around me, like he prefers his work and his friends over me. I want to get married and he doesn’t. He keeps saying it's too soon and he’s busy, but it’s been nearly five years! I mean, how long does he want me to wait?”

You felt uncomfortable, not sure how to comfort your best friend's girlfriend. So you were honest. “I don’t know, Lily. I don’t know what goes on in Oscar’s head any more than you do.”

“Yes you do,” she replied. “You’ve known him longer.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I think he’s in love with you.”

“No, no, no,” you said, wrapping Lily in an embrace as she cried. “No, he’s not. He loves you so much.”

“No,” she echoed. “He doesn’t.”

You didn’t know how to respond. You just held her. 

At one point, your phone buzzed, illuminating the screen. Some unimportant notification, but you noticed the date and time more than that. It was past midnight; Valentine’s Day. 

The third instance was during the first weekend of the 2025 season; the Australian Grand Prix.  

You hadn’t heard from Oscar since the trip. You didn’t really know what to say, and part of you was dreading having to speak to him, knowing that your mere presence was now a strain on his relationship.

Of course Lily wanted more time with him. It made sense. You were present at…most things, actually. But Oscar always invited you, and besides, they lived together. If you had known that you had overstayed your welcome, you never would have gone in the first place.

But on the other hand, you and Oscar had been a part of each other’s lives for nearly double the time that Lily had been around. It wasn’t a competition, but you couldn’t shake that sour feeling that rested in your stomach, that if given the chance, Lily would want you gone for good. 

Regardless, between the trip and the grand prix, life went on as normal. It was odd, since your job was literally running all the official OP81 media pages and merch website. You couldn’t not be a part of his life—you made your living by posting memes about him on the internet and organizing all his merch sales.

So, naturally, you went to nearly all the races to take photos of fans, the paddock, and the garage. It was one of your favorite parts of the job. 

But Australia was different. It was Oscar’s home race, and a place full of memories for you. 

Your family had moved to Australia when you were only seven, having absolutely no friends, except the sweet boy next door in your cul de sac. At first he was cold. You thought he hated you. But you were nothing if not stubborn. 

You remembered it like it was yesterday; for Christmas, you asked for a pink motorized jeep, just like the black one that Oscar—the neighbour boy, back then—had. You squealed for joy when you got it. And the very first thing you did was challenge him to a race.

He ignored you. So you rammed your car into his, causing both of them to break. Ever since, somehow, you’d been inseparable. 

Your parents traveled a lot for work, so instead of constantly going with them, you found yourself staying with the Piastri family for months at a time. Nicole truly felt like your second mom, and Hattie was the sister you never had. And Oscar was…Oscar. It was impossible to describe the bond between you. 

Your parents were never too keen on Oscar, though. They kept it quiet when you were little, but as you grew, their dislike became more outward.

He was 14, leaving for boarding school in the UK. When he told you, you cried. That’s the only time he ever saw you cry.

You wanted to go with him, but your parents couldn’t afford it. He promised he wouldn’t let your friendship die, and he was true to his word. When he got into the higher formulas in racing, he helped you get your job so that you all would never be that far from each other again. 

But your parents always said he was using you, stringing you along, exploiting your labor. Though you’d never admitted it to another soul, they knew you well enough to understand that you loved him. 

You cut your parents off a long time ago. 

Sometimes the fans were worse. Half of them loved you—the half that understood that you could give them access to your idol—but the other half of them called you a beneficiary of nepotism, a gold digger, or a homewrecker. You learned at a young age to develop thick skin. 

And it was how you both behaved on race weekends that really exemplified the difference between you and Lily. 

You liked to be everywhere at once—in the garage trying to interpret the engineers’ technical jargon, in the grandstands taking photos of fans, in the pitlane shooting the shit with the race stewards. You always wore Oscar’s merch, and you wanted to be in the middle of all the action.

Lily, in contrast, was more reserved. She always looked put together, and frankly stunning, at all her appearances. She preferred to watch the race from the comfort and privacy of McLaren hospitality, and when she did interact with fans, she was respectful but short, very conscious of her space.

Neither of you were better or worse than the other. But no one could deny that you were polar opposites. 

You got to Australia before Oscar himself did, having been invited to spend a few days with your surrogate family before you’d have to stay in the hotel, per F1 employee policy. Nicole had told Oscar, who you assumed had told Lily, and when you didn’t hear anything for a few days before you were meant to fly out, you thought everything was fine.

Of course, you thought wrong. 

You spent 3 days with Oscar’s family, relishing the warm feeling of belonging that you’d missed. The Piastri guest room felt more like your own childhood bedroom. Of course, Nicole asked how you’d been, but you were politely distant, wanting to respect the fact that Oscar and Lily’s relationship was none of your business. 

When the pair finally landed in Australia and made their way to Oscar’s childhood home for the night, though, things worsened. 

When Nicole got back from picking them up from the airport, you were in the kitchen prepping dinner. Hearing the front door close, you looked up and smiled, greeting the group.

“YN! What are you doing here?” Lily asked, her voice tentative. 

Nicole answered for you. “Oh, she’s been here since Sunday. I’m so happy to have all my kids under the same roof again,” she joked, turning to Oscar to reach up and pinch his cheeks.

Lily just gave a pained smile. 

You didn’t know what to do. You hadn’t talked to Oscar in nearly a month. You wanted to honor her wishes—but it seemed like her wish was for you to vanish into thin air. 

The rest of the night you were unusually quiet, trying to blend into the background. It wasn’t difficult for Nicole to notice that something was up, but she knew better than to bring it up in front of the whole table. 

After dinner she wanted everyone to gather in the living room and watch a movie, which you quickly bowed out of, complaining of exhaustion. 

As the credits rolled, Nicole leaned over to whisper to Oscar, “Is everything okay with YN?” 

Lily overheard and interjected, “She’s fine.” Nicole raised an eyebrow. 

Oscar responded, “The home grand prix is always busy for her.”

The answer wasn’t sufficient enough to crush Nicole’s suspicions, but she didn’t have any more time to pry as her son and his girlfriend quickly decided to retire for the night themselves. 

The next morning, as everyone was packing to get to the hotel, Nicole decided to ask you herself if everything was okay. But predictably, again, you just said that you were fine. And the morning was so hectic that she didn’t really have the time to interrogate you.

Once you all got settled and to the track for media day, work mode took over, and you forgot all about the tension at the Piastri family home. Though you quite literally were paid to follow Oscar around all day, you felt more like the paparazzi than his friend, hardly ever speaking to him.

And as you went back to the hotel room alone to edit and post for tonight, you felt like a stranger in your own body. 

You didn’t want to do this anymore. You missed your friend, but more importantly, you missed being yourself.

But what were you supposed to do? You loved Oscar. Oscar loved Lily. Lily hated you. 

You were stuck between three impossible choices: stick around and be forced to subdue yourself into a shell of your true personality until Lily decided she wasn’t upset at you anymore, lose everything you’d ever built by quitting and moving away like you knew she wanted, or continue being yourself and possibly cost Oscar the love of his life. 

Yeah, this was a wonderful predicament you found yourself in, through no fault of your own.

You moved like a zombie through the free practices and qualifying. When it was finally time for the grand prix, you assumed your usual place in the McLaren garage, for work if nothing else.

But then, Oscar won. 

No team rules. No convoluted strategies. Just Oscar doing what he did best.

You couldn’t hear your own thoughts over the shout of the garage and the crowd in the distance, cheering out for their hometown hero. You ran out with everyone to the barricades to greet your best friend.

Though he still had his helmet on, you could see the effects of his smile in his squinted eyes. He pumped his fist in the air, cheering to himself before running to the barricades to jump into the waiting arms of the crowd. You cheered with them, overwhelmed with pride. 

Oscar locked eyes with you, cupping your face with his gloved hands and pressing the top of his helmet to your forehead. “I did it, YN!”

“You did!” you yelled, smiling ear to ear. 

Of course, people took photos. Photos that Oscar posted later that night. 

Lily didn’t like it—the sweet intimacy of the moment, front and center on Oscar’s Instagram page. Why would you post that? It was like you were taunting her. 

Lily sat on the edge of the hotel bed while Oscar showered, both of them preparing to meet you, Lando, and a few McLaren team members to celebrate his win. 

When Oscar emerged from the bathroom, Lily asked him, “Osc, can you do me a favor?”

“Hm?” he murmured as he dried his hair. 

“Can you take down that picture that YN posted?”

“YN posted something?” he questioned, grabbing his phone. As his social media manager, you had access to all his accounts, but occasionally he’d post something himself, too. “I don’t see what you’re talking about.”

Lily pursed her lips. “The first picture from the post she made an hour ago.” 

“Oh, this?” Oscar held up his phone. “I posted that.” 

Lily was silent. 

“Why do you want me to delete it? It’s a good photo.” 

Lily just looked at him. Oscar sighed and archived the photo. “There, happy?”

His tone was much harsher than he intended, but to be honest, he was getting tired of the constant fighting, and his patience was wearing thin. 

Lily kept quiet, just silently going into the bathroom to start doing her makeup.

In the lobby of the hotel an hour or so later, you awkwardly stood with Lando waiting for the couple to arrive. Once again you were torn—should you miss out on celebrating with your best friend on his first ever home win, or should you go and strain his relationship further? 

You were just going to say screw it and go back up to your room when you saw Lily and Oscar walking towards you. Though there was no tension between them, there was no love either. They both just looked…tired. 

Everyone had decided to keep it relaxed for tonight, just doing a nice group dinner with Oscar’s family. It was fine, albeit a tad awkward, because you were sitting between Lando and some McLaren employees you didn’t know, at the opposite end of the table from Lily, Oscar, and his family. 

You knew this couldn’t continue forever. Something had to break. And it did, when you and Lando ended up back in Oscar and Lily’s room, drinking your way through a bottle of nice champagne. 

The alcohol seemed to have calmed Lando’s nerves, as he was actually normal with you. And Oscar was a blushy, smiling mess and he and his teammate laughed at something you couldn’t remember. 

You opened your mouth to say something, but the mood was ruined by Lily’s drunken slurring. “Oh my God, YN, just shut up! Go away!” she giggled and grabbed Oscar’s arm. 

Usually, you were calm, letting any infraction roll off of you like waves on the beach. But the alcohol emboldened you. 

“Lily, what the fuck is your problem with me?” you asked.

The mood shifted, and Lily gave you a look of disgust. “I was just joking, God.”

“No you weren’t.” 

Lando chimed in. “Well, I think I gotta call it a night.” He got up and patted Oscar on the back. The two men stood up to walk out, leaving just you and Lily alone in the hotel room. 

“I don’t know what the fuck your problem is with me, but don’t act like there isn’t one. It’s obvious that you don’t want me around, I don’t know what I ever did to you.”

Lily had clearly been sobered up by your seriousness. Still, she burst into tears. 

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I keep doing this.” 

You sighed, unable to keep your anger in the face of her cries. She continued, “I just… Oscar and I were each other’s first everything. First love, first kiss…first time. I love him so much.”

“I’m not trying to steal him from you.” 

Lily was quiet, and so were you. Something she had said gave you pause. 

They were each other’s first everything—no, that couldn’t be true. 

Because you were Oscar’s first. 

It had been many years—you were both 18—and you had never spoken about what happened. But you remembered. 

He came back home for Christmas from the UK. It was before he had even met Lily. 

You welcomed him home with an embrace—even with the frequent phone calls you had, you couldn’t help but miss your best friend, now here before you, in the flesh.

Neither of you could sleep that night, and somehow you both found yourself in Oscar’s childhood bedroom, quiet in the early hours of the morning.

Though it was warm outside, Nicole had a habit of keeping the house frigid, so you and Oscar huddled together under the handmade quilt that decorated his bed. The moment was tender and quiet, together in the soft darkness. 

“Do you like it in the UK?” you asked him, your question searching for a genuine answer. 

“It’s okay, I guess. It’s what I have to do for the races.”

“But do you ever get…lonely?”

He paused. “Yeah. Sometimes.”

You traced small circles on the skin of your leg. The closeness of the moment was uncomfortable. 

“But you have friends, right?”

“Yeah, but they’re not, y’know, friends for life.”

“I get you.” You really did, not having many friends of your own since Oscar left. “But you must have a ton of girls, though. They all want the cool race car driver.” You smiled, trying to use your humor to lighten the intimacy of the moment. 

“No,” was all he answered. “And if I had a girlfriend, you’d be the first to know, anyway.” In the dark of the room, you could only see the outline of his features, but you could feel the pull of his eyes looking at you. “What, do you have a boyfriend? Is that why you’re bringing this up?” he asked. 

“Of course I don’t.” 

“What do you mean, of course?”

“I mean, why would I have a boyfriend? I have no friends and half the people at school think you don’t even exist.”

“What?” he laughed.

“Well, yeah, when I say my best friend drives race cars in the UK, most people think I’m making you up.” 

“Shit,” he laughed. 

“So, yeah, it doesn’t exactly get me dates,” you laughed. You felt your throat stiffen. “I haven’t even had my first kiss or anything.”

The silence in the room was thick. “I haven’t either,” Oscar confessed. 

You found it hard to believe. Oscar was handsome, funny, everything a girl could want. Neither of you had ever been social butterflies, though. 

Under the blanket, Oscar reached for your hand, placing it in his. Your heart was beating out of your chest; you had never even held a boy’s hand. 

“We could just…do it now,” he said. “Just to get it over with.” He feigned his usual nonchalance, but you could feel the increase of his heartbeat and the ever so subtle tremble in his voice. 

It would be easy for you to laugh it off like a joke. But you knew it wasn’t. And you wanted him. 

“Okay,” you said, your voice breathy with nervousness. 

You sat up on the bed, and saw the dark outline of his figure leaning towards you, gently tilting your head. 

And when his lips met yours, it felt like home. Like everything in your entire life had left you up to this moment, here in the warmth of your best friend’s childhood bedroom.

The kiss lasted longer than you anticipated, but when he did pull away, it was too soon. You were grateful for the darkness that hid your expression. But even without the light, Oscar could see the truth behind your eyes.

“We could…keep going.”

“Okay,” you repeated. 

One of his hands found your waist now, pulling you closer, as his other hand pushed back your hair that had fallen in your face.

Once again his lips met yours. It wasn’t like a spark within you—more like a calming, a sense of peace and safety. Of all the boys you’d crushed on before, Oscar was different. You trusted him with everything. 

And you showed him so. 

He slipped his tongue past your teeth, tentative, as if he was scared to do the wrong thing. But you let him close the gap, your own tongue gliding along his, goosebumps going down your back the closer you got. 

He wanted to put his hands all over you, but he was nervous.

He pulled away. “I…don’t really know what I’m doing.”

“I don’t either. Is it actually your first time?”

“Yeah. You don’t mind me being your first?”

“I trust you.”

So you both took it slow, taking each other’s hands where you wanted to be touched, not focusing on anything but the other. 

The love you made was quiet and simple, beautiful yet imperfect. But you didn’t need perfect. You just needed him. 

The next morning, you slipped out of his room before anyone was awake, afraid of what would happen if they found out.

But no one ever did. Oscar never said a word about it ever again, and neither did you; after the holidays, he went back to school and met Lily, and the rest was history. 

But you remembered. And as you sat in that hotel room years later waiting for him, you felt numb. 

By the time he got back Lily had calmed down, but you couldn’t stand to be there anymore. You announced your departure, but Oscar decided to walk you out, too. 

You closed the door behind you, but Oscar pulled you to not leave so quickly. 

“Hey, is everything alright with you and Lily?”

“No. It’s not.” 

He sighed. “I don’t know why she’s being like this.”

You just stared at him, your face blank. 

“What,” he asked, “don’t tell me you’re mad too.”

“Was Lily your first?”

“Huh?”

“You heard me.” 

Oscar looked over his shoulder. “I’d really rather not talk about this in the hallway…”

“So do you want to go in the room and talk about it? In front of her? Because you lied to one of us. Which one was it?”

“YN, it’s—”

“Which one of us did you lie to, Oscar?”

He let out a sharp exhale, knowing there was no way to escape your line of questioning. He leaned down to whisper to you. “I didn’t lie to her. She just…assumed, and I never corrected her.”

“That’s still lying.”

“You really think I should go in there and tell her the truth?” His voice dripped with frustration.

“Yes. She deserves to know.”

“You know why I never told her? Because I knew this shit would happen, she’d get jealous and try to push you out of my life. If I tell her now, she’ll make me choose between the two of you.”

“Do you blame her?” you asked, astounded at how Oscar could be so clueless.

“Seriously?” he retorted. “You think she’s justified in doing all this to you? The entire reason she’s mad is because she knows if she tries to make me choose, I’m not choosing her.”

“Don’t say that! Oscar, she’s your girlfriend. You should love her.”

“I do. But things just…aren’t the same anymore. It’s like she wants me to change my whole life for her. I can’t do that.”

Unbeknownst to you, Lily got up from the bed and walked to the door, pressing her ear to it, where she could faintly hear you and Oscar arguing. 

“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” Oscar continued. “And if you don’t want her to split us up, just let me handle it.”

“Oscar, she deserves better than this. I’ve missed spending time with you, but… you’ve got to tell her the truth.”

Lily opened the door. “I knew it,” she said, her eyes full of tears. “I knew you were cheating.”

Your eyes were wide as dinner plates as Oscar cursed to himself. “Lily, I swear to God that is not what happened—”

“Don’t. Don’t even try,” she said, but Oscar pushed his way back into the room anyway. He looked back to you, and even without words, you knew it was time to go. You needed some sleep.

Unfortunately, Oscar would not be getting any sleep tonight. 

“Oscar, just stop lying to me! I’m tired of this!’ Lily cried, curling her legs to her chest as she sat on the bed.

“Lily, I swear, I have never cheated on you. What YN and I were talking about was something from a long time ago.”

“We’ve been together for five years!”

“Can I just explain myself? Please?”

Lily just broke down in sobs. “Do whatever. I don’t care anymore.”

Oscar sighed. “Look, I…I have lied to you. You weren’t my first. YN was.” He looked at his girlfriend, who was still just silently crying. “It was before we even met, and it was just once, and we’ve never done anything since. I would never cheat on you, I love you and—”

“When and where was it?” Lily asked, cutting him off with her statement more like a command than a question.

“The December before we met, when I came home for Christmas.”

“In your bed?”

He nodded.

“Oscar, I slept in that bed next to you the other night.”

He said nothing. 

“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked, her voice cracking. “Haven’t I been good to you?”

“Lily, I promise, I love you more than anything.”

“Then why would you lie to me for five years?”

Oscar took a deep breath and said, “Because I was afraid you would be upset. People don’t understand that me and YN are just friends. I mean, we were raised together, she’s like my sister.”

“You had sex with her. You took each other’s virginity.”

“It wasn’t…like that.”

“How can it not be like that? Do you even hear what you’re saying?” 

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

About an hour after you left, you heard a knock on your hotel room door, and you answered. It was, of course, Lily. 

“Tell me whatever Oscar wouldn’t,” she said. Her eyes were still puffy and red. 

You welcomed her in, beginning to tell her the entire truth. “Oscar and I had sex when we were 18, before he met you. We never talked about it afterwards. After you met I didn’t want to bring it up, I just assumed he’d do the right thing and tell you. I didn’t want to pry into your relationship.”

So, your stories matched. And Lily knew that you were nothing if not honest. 

“Do you love him?”

“Of course I do, he’s my best friend.”

“No, I mean, are you in love with him?” 

You didn’t answer immediately. What were you supposed to say?

Tears fought their way to the corners of your eyes, but you blinked them away. “I don’t know,” you began, but that was a lie, you did know. “I guess…I have a special type of love for him. We grew up together. When we were younger, yes, I wanted to be his girlfriend. But then he met you, and… Lily, he was so happy! I just…I realized that I wanted him to be happy more than I wanted him to be mine. So I made peace with the fact that this is how it had to be.”

Lily was overwhelmed with your honesty, in the face of so much deception. 

You continued, “I don’t blame you for being upset at me. Oscar should have been honest about what our friendship was like from the very beginning instead of lying to you. But I swear, we haven’t done anything while you all have been together. I’ve been cheated on and I know how much that hurts, I would never do that to anyone else. I’m so sorry it ended up like this.”

“No,” Lily said, “You’re the only one who’s been honest with me throughout all of this. Thank you.”

After that, you hadn’t heard from Oscar after that for a long time. Or, at least, a few weeks felt like a long time to you. But you had other pressing matters—your workload was through the roof with Oscar’s wins. Lando had snatched himself a win too, setting up an early battle for the championship. It was too early into the season to call it, but you knew Oscar was feeling the pressure with the possibility of his first championship dangling so close in front of him. So you kept your distance, not wanting to be a distraction.

That was, until he called you, saying just those three painful words.

“Lily left me.”

The sun was cresting over the horizon, illuminating the thick glass of your balcony and flooding light into your living room. You hadn’t gotten an ounce of rest. 

From your bedroom, you could hear Oscar snoring. You just let him sleep. 

God knows you both needed it. 

[danganronpadespairtime]

As you may know, Chapter 2 of Danganronpa: Despair Time has finally concluded, after a long 3 years since the end of Chapter 1. Thank you to the staff members who made this possible and thank you to everyone who has stuck with me during this long journey! I was very nervous about a lot of things, so I hope that chapter 2 has been received well.

This is unfortunately where I have to talk about some bad news. DRDT is going on hiatus. In fact, it will probably be quite some time before I even begin work on chapter 3. I know this is probably disappointing news for many, I am terribly sorry. I will talk about some of the reasons behind why.

I felt as if there was a lot of mixed response to this chapter. Please know that I take your complaints seriously, I want to produce a work that can be enjoyed by everyone. In truth, I have no experience or education in writing or producing, and I do not even consider myself a "writer" or "producer." This is the first story I have attempted to write. I hope you can acknowledge that it is a long learning experience for me, and be lenient with the amateurish first work that is full of flaws. Even though DRDT has become a popular Fangan, it doesn't mean that in turn I have become an experienced creator. Because of my lack of experience, I have little confidence as a creator. When fans are dissatisfied with something that happened recently in DRDT, I worry about how they will respond to future episodes of DRDT. It is difficult to maintain faith in the decisions I make and I keep second-guessing myself, worrying about how something will be received. Working on chapter 3 in this state is too difficult.

I am also burnt out from working on DT. Even though it was once possible for me to draw multiple sprites in one day, now it is a struggle to even make a single sprite of a small face modification. Nearing the end it was difficult and painful to draw such things like the execution or closing argument. So it will probably be a while before I am even capable of writing or drawing for the DT main story again.

TL;DR: I don't foresee myself even beginning to work on DT Ch3 (including bonus episodes) for a very long time. I apologize for delivering this disappointing news. With this in mind, I will be working on and posting things that are not DT CH3. Some of this will relate to DRDT and some of it will not. I ask for your patience as I continue to create and gain experience as a creator. I hope that you can support these works too.

Thank you again to all those who have supported me and enjoyed my work. Please support the amazing staff who worked on DT as well, I am eternally grateful for their work. If my work was able to inspire you or move you or bring you enjoyment even a little, I would be happy.

[ahundredtimesover]

Something About You (03) | JJK

Pairing: Jungkook x (f.) Reader

Genre/Tags: friends au, vacation au, slow burn, romcom-ish vibe; adulting; inspired by AYS; PE teacher!JK and researcher!OC; fluff, comfort, smut (?)

Chapter Warnings: foul/explicit language; alcohol consumption, minor injury (18+)

Word count: 17.9k

Series Masterlist

Status: Complete

Series Summary: You and Jungkook have been friends for a decade. And while he’s the charming and dependable, often reserved boy-next-door, he’s also just been a friend - a constant in your life, a part of a whole, and someone who’s seen all the flawed and probably unattractive sides of you.

A resumption of your friend group’s out-of-town trips has caused you to spend more time with him. And somewhere in between the morning coffee in the forest, running around in the snow, and watching the sunset on a boat, he’s become something more. And you’re not quite sure how to deal with it.

🎶: Beautiful Soul by Jesse McCartney || Yes or No by Jungkook

A/N: My favorite Koo look! Hope you're enjoying this series so far!

[From: kook] Leaving in a bit. Be there in 20.”

You turn off your laptop camera and quickly give Jungkook a call, wanting him to hear your cutesy, pleading voice for this request.

“Hey, what’s up?” He asks on the other end.

“Hello to my amazing friend. I’ve run out of tea and I really need one,” you cry out. “Do you think you can get or make me a cup? Please?”

“Sure, there’s a cafe near my place,” he chuckles. “Anything specific?”

“Chamomile or jasmine,” you respond. “Thank you! I’ll see you in a bit!”

You end the call and quickly get back to your meeting, your fourth one of the day, and it’s only been seven hours since you clocked in at work. You’re thankful for work-from-home Fridays but somehow they’re even more tiring, at least recently, given the upcoming holidays and people taking their respective leaves. 

Like many at your firm, it’s your last day before you take a few weeks off then return in early January. Everyone’s doing end-of-year meetings and pre-planning for next year. There are financial reports to submit and project updates to consolidate. You were able to get all the paperwork done overnight so you could focus on your meetings during the day and you just can’t wait for it to be over so you can completely switch off.

“I guess that wraps it up,” your manager says after you provide a progress summary of all your ongoing research projects. “You got everything on-track and we’ll be starting next year on a good note. Thank you, ___. You deserve this break.”

“We all do,” you smile. “Enjoy the break, everyone! I’ll see you next year.”

You end the meeting and drop your head on your desk. Today was a marathon and you feel like you’re still running on adrenaline so you take deep breaths to calm yourself down. You’ve got a couple of days of vacation with your friends and then several more with your family when you go to your hometown and that technically starts right now. 

So you turn off your laptop, clear out your desk, and do a final check of your things before dressing up in time for Jungkook’s arrival in five minutes. 

He’s already standing by the trunk of his car when you scurry down the driveway and drag your luggage to meet him. You apologize for making him wait but he waves you off to say that it’s okay. You load your things and quickly get into the passenger seat.

“Here’s your tea,” Jungkook says, handing you a hot cup that you excitedly receive. 

You take a sip and hum in satisfaction at its warmth. The scent and the taste are already making you feel better, and you sink in your seat at the comfort it gives you. Releasing a drawn out hum, you feel your muscles slowly relax.

“Looked like you needed that, huh?” Jungkook says as he starts driving.

You’re both headed to the airport where you'll meet your other friends who are on their way there after work, too. Living close to Jungkook, he offered to pick you up so that there’s only one of your cars you’ll leave at the parking for the duration of your trip to Sapporo.

“Totally. I was up until 4AM getting all of my paper work done,” you sigh.

“And what time did you wake up?”

“7:30.”

“Yah, that’s not a healthy sleeping habit,” he reprimands you.

“Says the guy who used to do exactly that,” you point out.

“Those were college days. I’m an adult now, you know? I get at least seven hours of sleep because any less and I’d be a dysfunctional mess.”

“It’s so weird how we’re at that age where we require a lot of hours of sleep but then in 10 years’ time, our body will just decide it can survive with four.”

“We produce less melatonin as we age,” he informs you. “But you know what’s funny about my 4 - 10 AM sleeping pattern before? People thought I was up studying but I was really just playing video games for most of it.”

“Oh I’m not surprised,” you shake your head. “I already knew you're the one who influenced Jimin’s sleeping habits. He used to follow a strict curfew and then you messed it up.”

“Yeah and now he thanks me because he’s now used to it. He says it’s how he survives his job.”

“Working in advertising requires that, I guess,” you frown. “At least he gets to have a break. At least we all do! I am completely shutting off so please call me out if I talk about work.”

“Sure, that’ll be fun,” he chuckles. “Can I call you out on other things, too?”

You make a face at him and say he’ll do that anyway even if you tell him not to.

You yawn for the third time in the past minute and Jungkook turns to you. 

“Sleep. It’s a long drive so might as well get some of your energy back,” he says. “I’ll wake you up when we’re there.”

“Okay,” you say as you yawn again. “If I snore… just suck it up.”

He playfully rolls his eyes then points to the lever that adjusts the seat so you can lie down more comfortably. He puts some mellow music on and you fall asleep instantly, curled against your arms and soft snores escaping you. 

Jungkook can only laugh to himself as he sneaks glances at you during the ride. It was about a month ago when he told himself that the way to deal with this maybe harmless and fleeting crush he has for you is to spend less time together. That was only slightly possible because there was some lunch or dinner with your friends every weekend, but it wasn’t as if not seeing you meant he wasn’t thinking about you. 

Of course he still was. He thought about you a lot and wondered how you were doing. For the first time, he was thankful for his stressful job and the busy days of making student reports for the end of the semester, which meant he couldn’t always meet you every time you asked if he was done with work or if he was in the area where you were. He was always tempted to just drop things to see you but he knew that would make things more complicated for him. 

But then again, he hasn’t even fully grasped exactly what he feels yet. Is it admiration? A newfound fondness? Did he just need to rid himself of some past baggage that he didn’t even realize he was carrying for things to make sense to him? 

Regardless, he knew that spending more time with you - for an extended period of time, and in close proximity - isn’t going to make things easier. But Taehyung just had to spring this trip on all of you and no one could refuse because he’s actually the other baby of the group that everyone has a soft spot for and he’s leaving for who knows how long again in a few months. 

Jungkook’s not complaining at the least because he’d go anywhere with his friends. He just finds it a bit comical that this is exactly what he said he shouldn’t be doing but here he is now - on another long drive with you asleep next to him, with a two-plus hour flight ahead to a city he always wanted to go to, and a few days of winter coldness that might cause him to seek your warmth in one way or another. Or you might seek his for all he knows and that might actually be worse.

He just shakes his head and focuses on the road after glancing at you again. He’s not really the type to overthink things. He’s fared well in most aspects of his life by going with the flow and dealing with whatever comes his way. 

Though his relationships are another story, he supposes those youthful years were characterised by a level of insecurity and lack of trust in himself that made him hold onto things that didn’t feel right. He thinks he’s a lot more mature now - he’ll have conviction in whatever he feels for you, whatever it is, and he’ll accept rejection if that’s where it’ll lead to. 

He’ll see where things go but for now, what matters is that he, you, and all of your friends get to enjoy this trip as much as possible.

Jungkook finally makes it to the airport and checks in his car for a few days of parking. He wakes you up and you take a while to open your eyes. He pats your head when you do and reminds you that you’ll have more time to sleep on the plane.

You dazedly drag your luggage and you pout at Jungkook who giggles at your sleepy state. 

“I’m so tired,” you pout at him as you both make your way to the check-in area where the rest of your friends are waiting.

“I can tell. Let’s just get through the gates and then you can sleep somewhere there, okay?”

You nod as if you’ll cry any moment, and part of him wants to just pull you close so you can lean on him while you sleep but that might be too unexpected so he just puts his hand on your shoulder to stop you from falling. 

“Princess can’t stay awake?” Jimin’s voice cuts through the airport chatter.

“She barely got any sleep last night and she had meetings all day,” Jungkook informs your friends who have gathered where you are. 

“Aww, poor thing,” Jimin hums as he hugs you, and you respond by hugging him tighter.

“Let’s get to the gates then,” Yoongi orders. “There are lots of places we can eat and rest at.”

You all line up and slowly get through the check-in line before you’re able to head to the gates. Gyu-rim finds a table big enough for 12 at a restaurant and while all of them order their meals, you stay seated, with your head on Jimin’s shoulder and on your way to dreamland once again. 

“Let’s take turns,” Mo-eum tells him, as she finishes her rice bowl first then shifts your head to lean on hers after.

You briefly wake up to have a few spoonfuls of your bulgogi before offering the rest to Jungkook and then taking quick naps again. You’ve seriously never been this tired. But you feel like your body knew it could afford to just shut down because you’re on vacation. It just didn’t plan it well enough because you’re in the middle of the airport, just randomly dozing off. 

You finally board the plane and find that you’re seated next to Jungkook who’s on the window seat, and Taehyung and Mo-eum are on the row in front of you, while an aisle separates you from Jimin. It’s a good enough arrangement, and Jungkook helps you load your carry-on in the overhead compartment before you take your seat and immediately rest your head on his shoulder.

It’s a natural thing for you to do, and you suppose your friends are used to you by now. You make yourself comfortable then look up to smile at Jungkook.

“I’m gonna fall asleep once we take-off,” you tell him.

“I’m sure you will,” he chuckles, as he looks through the emergency instructions. 

“Have we sat next to each other on a flight before?” You ask.

“Uh, I think this one flight to Jeju,” Jungkook responds. “But that was some time ago. I might’ve been asleep then.”

“Hmm, that’s why,” you hum.

“What?”

“I didn’t realize how comfy you are.”

“It’s probably the clothes, ___,” he reasons, more to himself. “I need them to be fluffy and warm because it’s winter.”

You adjust yourself again before resettling your head on his side.

“Maybe.”

Jungkook doesn’t overthink it. You’ve leaned on his shoulder lots of times before. This isn’t out of the ordinary. But with you pointing out that you haven’t really sat next to each other on flights before reminds him again of how you’ve always just been part of the whole. And now he’s got this time and proximity with you and it’s comforting but also exciting.

Even if yes, he’s just playing games on his phone while you flick through the airplane magazine while waiting for take-off. Once you’re up in the air and the seatbelt light has turned off, you push back your seat and start dozing off.

Your head keeps slipping from the position it’s in, even as he tries to straighten it so you don’t hurt your neck in the process. Perhaps out of discomfort, you briefly wake up to unlatch the table then lay the pillow and your head on it. Even then, it constantly bounces from the slight turbulence so you sit back again and shift your body in search of the right position. 

Jungkook sees you cross your arms against your chest and assumes you’re cold, but just as he’s about to cover you with his airline-provided blanket, Mo-eum peeks her head from between the seats. 

“She needs to hug something when she’s asleep,” your best friend says. 

“Oh, uh—”

You curl your body in the seat and snore softly, and Jungkook can sense your body’s need for a proper position. So he lightly taps you awake, grabs a spare hoodie from his bag on the floor, then places it on his lap. He gestures towards it and you take the offer, immediately pulling up the arm rest and laying half of your body on top of his. 

You bend your legs and adjust yourself. You have your pillow on top of his jacket that’s on top of his lap, your blanket over you and then his blanket for you to hug. You release a low moan then your breathing steadies. Figuring out your position must’ve tired you, but with how fast you’ve fallen asleep, he figures you’ve found the right one.

Is he glad it’s on his lap? Not exactly, and only because it’s a kind of closeness he’s not used to with you, and he’s worried he’d look for it. But it doesn’t matter because you’re comfortable and he’d gladly help you get that much deserved rest in whatever way. Even if it’s at the cost of his stupid heart. 

Mo-eum peeks again to check on you and giggles when she sees where you ended up. She turns around and kneels on her seat to take a photo of you slumped on Jungkook’s lap while the said man poses. 

“Cute,” she smiles, before sitting back down and showing it to her seatmate.

It prompts Taehyung to turn around, too, laughing under his breath at how Jungkook is trying to figure out where to place his hands, now that you’ve hijacked his personal space. 

But Jungkook does figure it out, as he holds onto your arm to keep you from falling in case there’s another turbulence. Thankfully there isn’t, and when it’s announced that the plane will now start its descent so everyone must sit upright, he wakes you up and tells you that you’ll be landing soon.

You were in deep sleep and having a good dream that you don’t remember and the next thing you know, someone’s shaking your arm and telling you to wake up. Feeling like you’re on a bed, you shift your body and stretch your arms. But then you hear a groan and you look up to see Jungkook glaring at you.

“Did I hit your face?” You gasp, suddenly sitting up then turning his chin to check any damage. “I’m sorry! Are you okay?”

“You hit my jaw,” he groans. “But yeah, I’m fine.”

“Oops,” you sweetly smile. 

“Hey, you don’t apologize like that to me or Jimin when you hit our faces,” Taehyung remarks, turning his head and cocking his eyebrow. 

“That’s because Kook has a precious nose that must always be protected,” you reply with a straight face. “You don’t.”

“Yah!” Jungkook exclaims, knowing it’s a running joke in your group.

He pinches you in retaliation but you giggle at him and pinch his cheeks in response. 

“I’m kidding. Thanks, Kook. I’ve regained my energy and now I feel ready to take on the day,” you confidently say.

“___, it’s 9:30 PM,” Jungkook deadpans. 

“I’m really hungry, too,” you add, disregarding his statement.

“So now we have to deal with an energetic and hungry you? At this hour?” Jungkook groans. 

“Order food with me when we get to the hotel?” You ask, not minding his complaints. 

“And if it’s closed?”

“The convenience store, then!”

“Now I’m the one who’s tired.”

“No, you’re not! You can’t be!” You pout at him with your puppy eyes.

“Fine, whatever,” he gives in as he always does.

You’re talking about the dream you don’t remember when the sight of the snow-capped streets catches Jungkook’s attention. You see his doe-eyes go wide and he looks so innocent,  but you understand the amusement - it looks stunning outside and you can’t wait to bury yourself in the pillowy ice and breathe in the chilly air.

Both of you just look out while waiting to land and disembark. You manage to get all your luggage quickly then head to three separate rented cars to drive to your lodging for tonight.

The hotel restaurant isn’t taking orders anymore so you announce to the group that you and Jungkook are going to the convenience store across the street. Jimin, Namjoon, and Suhyeon join you, and you’re skipping out the lobby to get your snacks in no time. 

Jungkook tells you to be careful because the roads are slippery but you show-off your sliding skills that make you feel like you’re ice skating. He copies you and shows off, too, speeding his leg movements as he walks down an icier path.

But then he slips and falls to the ground, and you can’t help the way you laugh at his mishap. You can hear your other three friends laughing as they walk towards you, and Jungkook remains lying on the ground, laughing, too.

“You’re so clumsy,” you mock him, as it’s one of the things he says to you whenever you fall or hit something. 

“I was just trying to show you what not to do,” he makes a face before taking the hand you’ve reached out for him to take. “So don’t go skating and shit, okay? You might hurt yourself.”

“I won’t. I’m not a show-off nor a klutz,” you say and stick your tongue out.

He frowns at you then pulls you by your cheek to enter the store.

You, Jimin, and Jungkook stay together while you go around and drop various things in your basket that you think Taehyung and Mo-eum would like, too. You all get some chips, matcha cookies, chocolates, mini-cakes, instant ramen, beer... and about a dozen tuna mayo triangle kimbap because Jungkook is obsessed with them. You meet Namjoon and Suhyeon at the counter where they’ve filled their basket with a bunch of other things as well then head back to the hotel.

As is often the arrangement, the five of you share a suite while your seven other friends share one as well, and you make your way to the living room where all your purchases have been dumped on the table. 

Being that you barely had dinner and Jungkook’s stomach is a bottomless pit, both of you make ramen and get one rice ball each while the rest munch on snacks and dessert. Spread across the couch and the floor, you all hold up your beer cans and make a toast to this trip. 

Later that night, you watch the snow fall from the window as you sip the chamomile tea that Jungkook bought for you at the store. The city is beautiful at this hour and it feels cozy and romantic and exciting yet peaceful all at once. It’s a kind of feeling you’ve always wanted to experience, and now you know how a place can make you feel that way. 

Like all the times your mind has travelled somewhere, you suddenly wonder if it’s possible with a person. And if maybe, somewhere in this town, they’re right by their window, thinking the same thing, too.

You wake up to the sound of your alarm the next morning. For the brief moment right before you open your eyes, you feel that sense of relief over what turned out to be a really good sleep. 

Despite being knocked out the whole flight then eating and drinking late at night, you managed to get enough rest. You’ve truly switched off now. All you can think about are the sights you’ll see and food you’ll eat and all the time you’ll spend just walking through the snowy streets. 

The last time you all went to Japan, it was an action-packed trip. You went to amusement parks and went partying at night. This time, everyone decided on taking things slow. Sapporo’s perfect for that, and you suppose it’s what you all need.

Sitting up from the bed, you see that you’ve kicked your blanket off the edge while Mo-eum is cocooned under the sheets. You like the cold and you wish you had the aircon at a lower temperature, but your best friend freezes easily so you let the room stay warm. 

You tap her on the foot as an attempt to wake her up before heading out to the living area. The boys are in the other room and they seem to still be asleep. Wanting to see how the sun shines on the street outside, you pull open the curtains to let the light in and the way it does makes things look more enchanting.

But then a grunting sound disrupts your moment, prompting you to turn around.

It takes five seconds for you to notice Jungkook, who had camouflaged on the black couch with his black shirt and sweatpants and his arms behind his head. He seems to have slept there, as evidenced by the rearranged pillows and his half-lidded eyes gazing at you. The sun probably woke him up, so you apologize and try to close the curtains but he tells you it’s okay.

“Did you sleep here?” You ask, as you sit on the other end of where he is.

He groggily nods his yes.

“It was too hot in the room. Tae and Jimin had the aircon on fan mode.”

“Oh, that sucks,” you say. “Mo-eum had the temp high, too, and I ended up kicking my blanket on the floor. I like it cold.”

“Me, too,” Jungkook hums. “Good thing the couch is comfy.”

“You and Mo-eum can just switch places then,” you suggest. “The three warmies can stay in one room and you and I can enjoy a cold night.”

If Jungkook wasn’t awake five seconds ago, now he is. It’s not like he’s never shared a room with you before but with his little feelings recently, it might as well be the first time. He knows he can stay up with you just talking or saying nothing at all. You could also pass out and snore like crazy but then again, he wouldn’t mind that either. It’ll just be something new he’d tease you about, as if your snoring video that he shows to your friends isn’t enough.

“Sounds good,” he manages to say. 

Yawning as he stretches, he asks you what the itinerary is for the day.

“Do you not read the group chat?” You laugh at him. “The schedule is pinned on there.”

“Not really.”

“How do you ever know what’s going on, then?”

“I wait for Jimin or Tae to tell me when it’s about something important because they know I don’t check messages,” he shrugs. 

“You’re weird,” you playfully roll your eyes. “But anyway. We’re gonna have lunch, go to a beer museum, go to a mountain, check the–”

“You’re climbing?” He exclaims.

“We go by cable car, duh! Do you expect me to climb? In this weather?”

“You wouldn’t do it either way.”

“Excuse me, I climbed that mountain in Chungbuk,” you remind him.

“You mean I dragged you,” he chuckles. “And come on, ___. That wasn’t a mountain mountain. It was a short hike because we were already on the mountain. I just wanted to know if I had to drag your ass again or something.”

You make faces while he talks, prompting him to hit you with the small pillow.

“Yah!” You whine, hitting him back. 

Jungkook turns into a childish man when he’s challenged or provoked. He tends to be nonchalant about most things but you also know that he likes to play around and tease. He also likes to show off his athleticism and agility because now, as you try to hit him back again, he’s effectively dodging you while landing his pillow shots on your face.

“Kook, I’m gonna get your annoying ass,” you groan, grabbing the bigger pillow and then hitting him a little harder, knowing it’s not gonna affect him anyway. 

This dude is built like a brick. It just doesn’t seem like it because he’s always in loose clothes, but you know enough that not much hurts him. But you’re so into the pillow fight that he ends up lying down on the couch while you sit on top of him, your legs wrapped around his waist, and he’s there chuckling and blocking your hits. 

You take a rest, essentially giving him an opening. But instead of attacking, he turns to you and places his hands behind his head.

“Okay fine, I’ll let you make one last hit then we call it quits,” he says, challenging you.

You consider it, and as you act like you’re going to smack his face, you instead drop the pillow and make a tiny pinch on the sliver of his stomach that’s been exposed from all his movements. He yelps in pain and you manage to get off him in time, or else he would’ve easily wrestled you or turned you over.

He chases after you to the kitchen though, and you’re definitely not fast enough for the Jeon Jungkook. Before you know it, you’re getting pulled by your shirt and being tickled in your torso that you easily give up, facing him in submission then catching your breath.

“You’re such a brat,” he frowns. “That hurt.”

He slightly raises his shirt and discovers the red mark on his stomach that you caused.

You gasp in surprise; you didn’t realize you hurt him that bad. You pout then hug him - a reflex almost because this is how you apologize to your friends when you get a little too intense - and apologize.

“Nah, a hug won’t cut it,” he says, not returning the act.

You look up at him with sorry eyes.

“Coffee?”

“Nope.”

“A 6-pack in the beer museum later?” You sweetly smile, knowing that’s his weakness.

He gives in. “Deal.”

“Wow, that was easy,” you chuckle as you let go of him. 

“You leave a mark, you get me beer. It’s that simple,” he shrugs. 

“I bet it didn’t even really hurt,” you cock an eyebrow.

“___, it’s literally red. Look. It might even have a bit of your nail stuck in there.”

He pulls up his shirt again to show you the crescent on his abdomen and though you feel sorry, you also can’t help but tease.

“Show-off,” you stick your tongue out.

“Hey, I worked hard on that.”

“I’m sure, and they look great,” you flash a smile. 

“Kook, why are you giving ___ a private show this early in the morning?” Jimin says as he enters the kitchen. 

Jungkook tries not to look scandalized at the comment even if he knows it’s just his best friend’s way of teasing.

“She pinched me.”

“The tiny, painful kind?” Jimin asks.

“Yes. And I was just showing her the damage.”

Jimin turns to you with a disapproving look. “You’re a brat.”

“I said I was sorry,” you pout at Jungkook again. 

You look adorable and he can’t really be angry. 

“She’ll make it up to me with beer at least.”

“That’s not too bad,” Jimin laughs. “Just be her punching bag and you’ll end up with lots of free things.”

Jungkook chuckles in agreement and proceeds to boil water for coffee. It’s 10:30 AM and you’re set to meet the rest of your friends in an hour for lunch, so you munch on another triangle kimbap and some snacks then get dressed.

As you’re going down the stairs to the lobby, you slow down to walk with Jungkook and you turn to him.

“You’re not mad, right? I’m sorry again,” you say softly.

There’s an innocence in your eyes as you utter the words and Jungkook has to stop himself from engulfing you in a hug. 

It’s fondness, he convinces himself. It’s this tenderness that always cuts through at the end that gets him. You can be playful and rowdy and unforgiving sometimes but you’re affectionate and gentle and it catches him off guard. He doesn’t know why it’s never affected him like this before because he knows you’ve been like this to him before.

“I’m not,” he says, nudging your shoulder in assurance. “It’s stopped hurting and your nail marks will go away. You’re all good.”

“Good. We don’t want blemishes on those pretty abs,” you wink.  

He laughs in your wake. He hopes the fondness he feels for you stays. He also hopes that’s all there really is.

The ramen place you find for lunch is a tiny restaurant that manages to fit all of you. You and Taehyung moan in satisfaction at the richness of the broth, content with your weak people’s palette that can only handle the lowest level of spiciness, whereas Jimin next to you winces because he definitely didn’t expect his level 7 to be that hot. But still, he says it’s one of the most delicious things he’s ever eaten and you’d have to agree. 

The restaurant is buzzing in chatter and laughter because of all of you, especially when Gyu-rim calls out Jungkook’s bottomless pit of a stomach once again.

He ordered chashu don with his ramen but is on his second serving of the rice bowl after Suhyeon offered the one she couldn’t finish. 

“You know how normal people stop eating after they’re full?” He says. “I end up eating five more portions.”

“Oh, we know,” most of you answer in unison. 

“How good is it anyway?” You ask.

“Dude, it’s so good,” he moans, furrowing his brows; he tends to look angry when the food is delicious.

You open your mouth to signal that you want to try it and Jungkook prepares a spoonful for you. He’s about to hand it over but then you stand and lean over the table, so he feeds you and tips the spoon to make sure you get everything in your mouth.

It’s something he’s done with you lots of times before but this feels different. There’s that fuzzy feeling of doing this intimate act for you, even as a friend. 

Because it’s just that, he reminds himself - an act of affection towards a person dear to him.

You hum with a full mouth with how good it is and urge Mo-eum to try as well, so Jungkook feeds her, too - something completely normal that doesn't elicit any unusual warm feeling. But he can’t keep his eyes off you still chewing your food while asking for another spoonful with the ramen broth this time after he said it was even better together.

You lean over again and Yoongi tells you to just order your own. 

“We’re not in a rush. We can stay here for as long as you all want,” Hoseok - the one who keeps you all on track with schedules during your trips - says.

You smile in response then scurry to the ticket machine to order more. You’re served two bowls not long after, and you announce that you got another one so each person can try it at least once, starting with Jimin who gets two spoonfuls. 

You prepare one yourself and lean over to Jungkook to feed him this time. He’s caught off guard but he opens his mouth in time before you complain that he’s taking too long. Returning to your seat, you get another bite for yourself then another.

“Yah, I gave you two spoonfuls,” Jungkook reminds you.

“Get from the other bowl,” you frown at him. “That’s why I got two!”

He laughs, only wanting to rile you up, but he does finish what your friends couldn’t, and there he goes again with his unnecessary fifth portion.

Once you’ve finished, you head to a local park that’s covered in snow. Jimin immediately runs and dives on one of the mounds he sees and you follow, loving the pillowy ice almost as much as he does. Soon enough, Mo-eum, Jungkook, and Taehyung are next to you, lying down and making snow angels, all the while giggling like little kids.

Your seven older friends all stand around and watch with the softest smiles on their faces.

“This is why we came here, right?” Hoseok hums. “To watch them be like this?”

“It’s like I’m watching our grown up children,” Yoongi says.

“We’re two years apart,” Gyu-rim points out. “They’re not that young.”

“I don’t know. I kinda feel like they are,” Yoongi replies.

“You’re just old,” she counters, quietly laughing when the other man chuckles to himself.

It’s a struggle getting off the ground when it’s so soft and cold. But your jacket is also added weight and you’re scolding yourself for not being agile like your friends who can easily get up and then run further into the park.

“Kook, help me,” you plead with your legs bent to your sides and your one arm raised. “I can’t carry myself.”

Jungkook sighs but pulls you anyway. You pant as you try to walk towards the frozen pond and he teases by saying that you probably need a piggyback ride or something.

“Will you give me one?” You smile sweetly.

“Nope,” he smiles back, and you pout at him in return. 

He easily could, but Jungkook - normally - likes to tease you. He gives in most times, but he’s been trying to recall how he was prior to these possible feelings surfacing and he remembers that there were times when he turned you down or argued with you first before granting your request. 

He’s trying to balance it out for that sense of normalcy he wants to maintain. He can’t have anyone, especially you, suspecting him of treating you differently, even if deep down, he wants to give you that piggyback ride or hold your hand while dragging you all the way to the center of the park. 

But he goes with the latter. Similar to what he did during your hike months ago, he pulls you by the wrist until you reach the pond. 

He watches you look around in awe. He does the same while stealing glances and he hopes no one notices. He’s not really ready to explain himself to anyone about something he’s still trying to make sense of.

The hour flies by. You spend it just walking around and having mini snowball fights where you all ban Jungkook because he was making snow boulders and burying Jimin in them. You buy coffee from a park stall and finish it by the time you’re back in your cars.

You head to a Beer Museum after. The building itself is stunning and you spend time just admiring it. Inside, you explore Sapporo and Hokkaido’s history and take time reading and watching the information presented. Jungkook, of course, heads straight away to the tasting section and begins eyeing which drinks he wants to sample.

He loves beer, which is ironic for a PE teacher who teaches his students about healthy living but like he says, too much of something is what makes it unhealthy. Plus, there are doctors who have worse vices and so he gets a pass. 

And maybe he’s right. Jungkook has a high tolerance for many things and he knows when to stop but you also know he truly enjoys the taste, and not just the social aspect of drinking it. 

You’re still exploring, as you’re more interested in learning more than drinking, but most of your friends have already gone ahead, with only Suhyeon and Hoseok walking alongside you.

“Don’t forget that you promised me a six-pack,” Jungkook reminds you once you get to him.

“Why, what did you do?” Gyu-rim asks you, knowing that’s the only reason you’d agree to buy Jungkook something.

“She pinched me on the stomach this morning and it left a mark,” Jungkook narrates. “It hurt like hell.”

“Is that why you were showing your abs to ___ in the kitchen?” Taehyung asks. “I was half asleep but I saw you. I thought you were being kinky or something.”

“I said the same thing!” Jimin exclaims, causing your friends to laugh.

“Yah! I had to show her proof because she didn’t wanna believe me!” Jungkook defends. 

“Because you don’t even get hurt!” You answer back. 

“Wow, that’s deep,” Jimin hums. “And totally off-mark. Kook is a sensitive one.”

“Yeah, but his body isn’t,” you pout, knowing exactly what your best friend means. 

Jungkook laughs it off then returns to his beer tasting, claiming that he wants three cans of two different exclusive flavors. You agree and taste them at his insistence and decide to buy a variety of alcohol as well. 

It’s close to sunset when you finish, then you all head to Mt. Moiwa for some scenery. It’s a chilly and entertaining ride to the top, with Hoseok and Jimin going from amused to terrified in seconds, and you’re glad you decided to join their cable car instead of Jungkook and Mo-eum who’d probably be dancing around because they’re not really scared of anything.

As you expected, the view is pretty special. Everything is blanketed in snow and the city lights add that urban charm. You stay there until the sun has completely set before going to your final stop of the night - the Christmas Market. It’s something you’ve always wanted to experience, so all of you walk through the streets and look at every stall for something to buy or taste.

Jimin and Yoongi try some mulled wine and Namjoon buys some cute figurines. Seokjin and Hayoung buy something to commemorate their last overseas trip before getting married, and you and Suhyeon munch on a pretzel. 

And then there’s Jungkook - a gourmet sausage on one hand and a donut on the other. 

“Kook, we still have dinner. You know that, right?” Hoseok laughs from next to him, clearly amused at how his younger friend can still have an appetite. 

“Of course he does, that’s why he’s eating all this now so he has space for more later on,” Gyu-rim states. “Go on, Kook. Eat to your heart’s content.”

You stand next to Jungkook as you wait for Suhyeon who said she’ll order hot chocolate for you.

“Is it good?” You ask.

“Yup,” he mumbles. “Try some!”

Like always, you open your mouth and he feeds you the donut, prompting you to complain that sweets always go last. He just laughs at you and waits for you to finish chewing before letting you bite off his sausage.

“That’s good,” you hum, uncaring about the juice that drips on the side of your mouth.

“Yah,” Jungkook groans. He takes his napkin and wipes it off your face. “Are you a child?”

“You literally eat with sauce all over your face,” you call him out.

“And you’ve never wiped them off. Gee, thanks,” he counters.

“You’re an adult.”

“And so are you,” he chuckles while he continues to wipe you clean. 

You stand there, clad in a loose jacket and a beanie that makes you look adorable, and he can’t help but smile once again. You’re such a handful sometimes but he likes this. He likes giving in to your requests and watching you enjoy it and maybe cleaning up your mess, too. He likes seeing you appreciate the things that he does. He likes knowing you’re curious about what he’s up to and then sharing it with him.

He doesn’t recall ever caring this much but he’s down that slope of finding everything you do so captivating that he might as well smile every time you breathe.

Suddenly he feels silly, and he makes a face at you to mask whatever he’s feeling. 

You leave him once Suhyeon calls and Jungkook’s left there to shake his head and internally scold himself to get it together.

You return to the hotel, drop your things in your rooms, then head to the restaurant for dinner. It’s a spread of premium meat, hotpot that tastes like cabbage water, and some of the freshest seafood you’ve ever had. 

You jump in your seat in delight and Jungkook does the same. After all the bickering, you know that both of you love food so much even if he enjoys it because he knows how it’s supposed to taste, whereas for you, most things are just delicious. It’s just funny that you’re only realizing now that both of you react to things pretty much the same way.

You’re back in the suite by 10 PM, and the five of you take turns in the bathroom while the boys play a card game with push-ups as punishment for the loser while you and Mo-eum act as both penalty enforcer and cheerleader. 

The tiredness from the day slowly creeps in so you all retire to your rooms, upholding this morning’s agreement about who’s sleeping where. 

Jungkook lies down on Mo-eum’s bed and half wishes that he’ll fall asleep soon so that he doesn’t have to spend more of this time alone with you. The last time that happened, his heart was doing weird things and now that might just happen again.

He starts to slowly doze off when your voice wakes him up.

“Do you want to put on a face mask?”

“Uhm, okay,” he stupidly gives in easily.

You grab two packs and a mirror from your pouch then try to put the mask on properly. You turn to Jungkook who now kneels next to you, as if asking him to fix it. He shifts it a little before putting one on himself. He turns to you as well and you flatten the edges, making sure you spread the serum from his jaw down to his neck, completely unaware of how you’re affecting him.

For some reason, you decide to sit in the space between the beds so Jungkook follows suit. There’s not much distance between the both of you but this isn’t the first time. He supposes he’ll just keep doing what he’s been trying to do - try to act normal while also figuring out exactly what he feels without making it obvious that something has changed. 

“Today was good,” you hum. “I liked playing in the snow and walking around. And now it’s 12 AM but we’re not passed out. What a change from years ago.”

“Such a change,” he laughs, reminiscing about your post-university trips where you were finally earning money and spending it on shopping and partying. “Hong Kong was the worst.”

You and Jimin were drunk and entered the wrong hotel, and Jungkook was the one who looked for you and dragged your asses out of there before you fought the hotel staff for not letting you into your room.

You remember that night and smile behind your mask. “Oops.”

“So yeah, this trip is good,” he chuckles. “We just get to relax and do whatever we want and actually remember everything and you know, not end up fighting strangers and stuff.”

You laugh in response.

“I liked the park, too. And my free beer. Thanks again, ___.”

You’re reminded of your comment from earlier about him not getting hurt. It’s not that deep but given the conversations you’ve been having with him and the things you know that the others don’t, it may not have been the best thing to say.

“What I said when we were at the museum…” you start. “I know it might have a double meaning but you know what I meant.”

It takes a while for him to figure out what you’re referring to but when he does, he just shakes his head. 

“I know what you meant and it’s totally fine. I didn’t take it the wrong way.”

“But still, I’m sorry,” you mutter. 

“It’s okay. Why are you always apologizing though?”

“Because I… don’t wanna do or say anything that’ll hurt you,” you admit. “I mean duh, I don’t want to do that to any of my friends but with you, it’s different.”

Jungkook’s thankful that of all the times he agreed to put on a mask, it was tonight, because at least you can’t see the way his face falls at your statement.

Different? What does that mean? Surely it can’t mean the same different he feels towards you because you haven’t acted out of the ordinary with him at all. 

But you’re unpredictable sometimes and he doesn’t really know what to expect.

“What do you mean?” He manages to ask.

“Like… it’s simple and unproblematic. We bicker, we tease, we comfort each other… You’re there when I need you; I’m there when you need me, but we don’t need each other all the time. You get what I mean? We’re close but not–”

“Too close?” He finishes.

“Yeah, and it’s a good thing,” you clarify. “It’s not like with Jimin where we get on each other’s nerves all the time but we worry about the other just as much. But that’s always how we’ve been. And with Tae… I miss him so much when he’s away but I can’t tell him that because I don’t want him to worry. And he worries a lot and that affects him.”

“Tae does worry a lot about you. At one point I thought there was…”

“Something more?” You chuckle, and Jungkook nods in response.

It’s something he asked his friend years ago but Taehyung insisted there wasn’t anything.

“I pushed myself so hard in university. And when I worked there after graduation, I lost myself for a bit and Tae was just always there. I guess I became dependent on him as a friend to an extent,” you explain. “So a bit of that still lingers. I want to tell him things but not every little thing so he doesn’t worry. And Jimin’s like family and families fight sometimes. All of that said, you and I have always been… normal, for lack of a better term.”

Jungkook hums, as he tries to find the right words to say. But he gets it. It’s not like he was ever jealous about your closeness with Taehyung or Jimin; it was just a fact he accepted because it had always been like that. A big part of it was definitely because he had Joo-yun early on, and that kept him from developing a closer bond with you unlike his friends. 

And while he regretted the part where he could’ve gotten closer to you much earlier, he supposes maybe it wasn’t that bad. Like you said, what both of you share is simple and unproblematic. There are no expectations, no fights, no secrets.

Well, maybe now there is, and Jungkook is a little guilty for feeling things while you continue believing that everything between both of you is simple. He reminds himself there are no expectations on his end and that as far as he knows, he’s not fully acting on whatever he feels. He’s just… going with the flow.

He recalls that conversation at your apartment about both of you wishing you’d been better friends to each other back then. For him, it was about knowing your struggles and being there for you. Perhaps it was that distance that led to this kind of friendship you have now. He stops himself short of thinking that while this is normal, so is getting used to each other and developing feelings. You’re not a believer of friends turning into lovers so maybe your definition of normal is also different.

He wills his thoughts to stop forming right now, not when you’re in the middle of something pretty serious. He wants to assure you that he’ll keep that unspoken promise you made about being better friends to each other. On one hand, that could mean not crossing any line and keeping things simple, like you said. On the other hand, it might also mean just being honest and making you feel comfortable in being the same.

“I don’t want to do or say anything that’ll hurt you, too,” he finally says. “Tell me if I do, yeah?”

“I will,” you nod, and he can sense a smile behind the mask. “Can I be honest though? It’s hard to continue being serious when you look like that.”

He nudges your knee. “You’re the one who wanted to put this on!”

“I know, but then I got carried away,” you laugh, pulling the sheet mask off your face now and throwing it in the trash. “We’ve been having more deep conversations lately, Kook. It’s like we turned 28 and then poof, we became mature.”

“It doesn’t work that way but sure, ___,” he chuckles, clearing his face now, too. “I think experience does that. We realize what we want for ourselves and others, what we’re willing to tolerate, and what we want to focus our energy on. And we’re barely 30. We’re not even close to our peak.”

“So I’m gonna be even more mature?” You gasp. “Are you gonna be ready for that?”

“Okay, much as I’d like to tease you, you honestly don’t give yourself enough credit. You’re wise and mature and deep and shit, and not just because you’re an intellectual,” he clarifies. “You’re a smart person who also feels things, and I think maturity stems from that.”

“Hmm, I suppose,” you say, yawning as you crawl into bed. “But you’re a lot more mature than I am.”

“I’ll take that,” Jungkook smiles. 

He lies in bed and turns off the night light. There’s a beat of silence before your sleepy voice echoes in the room.

“Kook?”

“Hmm?” 

“Thank you for always making me feel better about myself. It means a lot.”

Your deep breathing follows and he supposes you’ve already fallen asleep. He wishes he’d said something right away but he couldn’t find the words, like always. 

He holds onto the fact that that was your last thought before you knocked out and he was at least awake to hear it. He’s sure you know he heard you and that should be enough.

You wake up much better the next day, given that the room temperature was what you wanted. You were curled under the covers with your feet warm from your socks, and there’s just something refreshing about feeling cold in the morning. 

It’s a much earlier call time today, as you’ll be taking a train to a nearby town. You all get ready, and you’re doing your makeup in the living room while you glance at Jungkook doing his morning skincare routine. 

You remember a time when Hayoung used to scold him for not wearing sunscreen despite spending all day outdoors. Eventually he developed that habit, including putting on toner and moisturizer. He has a headband on and it causes you to giggle. 

Even without trying, Jungkook looks adorable sometimes. His oversized tan hoodie swallows his body. The way his hair falls over his forehead and his large, bright eyes make him look like a boba ball. There’s something so endearing about him as he alternates between two pairs of sunglasses because he can’t figure out which to wear. 

“Second one,” you call out. “It settles cutely on your nose.”

“I can’t tell if that’s an insult or…”

“I’m disappointed you’d even think I would ever insult your nose!” You gasp.

Walking towards him, you adjust the black jacket over his hoodie and fix his bangs.

“You’re so dramatic,” he chuckles, feeling his throat immediately dry up with you being so near him.

It’s another one of those normal things you do often that suddenly means more to him now. You’ve also always looked nice barefaced but when you’re made up and this close to him? He wonders if you’ve always been this pretty. 

“I mean it. This nose has super powers,” you say, pinching them out of reflex.

“And what does it do?”

“It keeps me from getting angry when I’m hungry. Too cute.”

“You’re so annoying,” he groans, as you laugh and yell out for your other friends to finish up.

They eventually do and you decide to separate from the older ones at least for today’s coffee run. You find a nice cafe and order some drinks and fluffy pancakes that’s perfect for this weather, and then you meet the rest in the train station for this morning’s little excursion.

The coastal train ride to Otaru, especially during winter, is apparently a must-do. And you agree, as you lean your head on Taehyung’s shoulder while the ocean comes into view. It’s so scenic, as the waves crash on the shore, just like that famous painting, and there’s that enchanting feeling once more in seeing the snow-covered town.

The 45-minute trip is spent looking at the views while talking to Mo-eum who sits in front of you, and occasionally taking photos of Jungkook and Jimin right behind you. You savor the simplicity of the experience and the fact that over a decade in, you still get to enjoy this with your friends. To remain this close and to have them so constant is a blessing, and something you don’t ever want to take for granted. 

You arrive in the port city and immediately fall in love with it. From the architecture to the historical mansions and quaint streets, it gives such a unique and warm vibe despite the icy winds and snowfall. 

You all decide to get hot drinks while you make your way to the frozen canal. There’s so much to see and just like yesterday, you take your time in taking in your surroundings, with the occasional snowball fight care of Jungkook at the expense of poor Jimin. It’s one of the few entertainment sources of the morning. There’s also making a Yoongi snowman and trying your butts at snow sledding using your puffer coats. The film cameras that Jungkook and Hoseok bring capture it all.

The group separates into two when you find a Music Box Museum that you want to explore while Jungkook and Yoongi choose a brewery to taste their season-exclusive drinks. Jimin and Gyu-rim join them so the rest of you head to the stunning building and look through thousands of music boxes and Christmas decorations. You reconvene after two hours and aren’t surprised when the other group brings back a few bottles of liquor that they said they wanted to try tonight.

You choose one of the dozen seafood restaurants on a popular street for lunch and you really can’t go wrong. This, for certain, is the freshest seafood you’ve ever had, and you spend the majority of your time eating just humming in satisfaction at everything you put in your mouth. And laughing, because while you admit to being dramatic sometimes, your friends overtake you in the eating department.

Because there’s Hoseok clapping after every new dish, there’s Jimin bowing his head down while moaning after every bite, there’s Gyu-rim cursing every five minutes, and then there’s Jungkook jumping in his seat and making the most bizarre hand gestures to express how delicious the food is. 

It was definitely an experience, and you’re glad that Taehyung insisted on doing this. 

You all walk back to the station to look at the other structures and to digest everything you ate. In less than an hour, you’re back in Sapporo and in your hotel room, needing the short break before the long drive to your next destination.

It’s hilarious Japanese reality TV shows and more convenience store snacks for an hour and a half in the living room before you leave late in the afternoon to head to another town. 

You decide to sit in the backseat with Taehyung and Mo-eum this time. If it were with any of the other two guys, there’ll definitely be a lot of smacking and pinching and you can’t afford to be violent during the drive. It’s peaceful enough, as you spend it just talking about random things and before you know it, you arrive at a restaurant for your yakiniku fix for dinner. 

The sun has set and you spend most of the ride with the windows down. The cold doesn’t seem to bother anyone and it’s just quiet - perhaps sentimental, too - until you reach your rented home for the next three days.

The place is stunning and you all thank Taehyung and Seokjin’s parents for covering your lodging because they said it’s been a while since you’ve been complete and you deserve the luxury this place brings. It’s something they often did and you suppose it’s just a rich family thing to do and you’re not one to complain. 

All four bedrooms are on the first floor and like always, the five of you younger ones take the biggest of them, which already has the mattress on the floor anyways that Taehyung calls dibs on. You climb up the stairs to the living and dining rooms and find a huge open space that’s perfect for all of you. It opens to an outdoor area that houses the hot tub and sauna.

You’re glad it’s a detached house. That way, you can laugh and stay up late as much as you want and it won’t bother anyone. You can’t wait to spend your nights here.

It’s just past 8 in the evening and Jimin suggests going for the hot tub and taking turns because not everyone’s gonna fit.

“Well, not everyone’s gonna dip,” Yoongi shrugs, as if you all don’t know he’s one of those people.

But he’s right. Seokjin, Hayoung, and Hoseok join him in being spectators as they sit on the table outside while the rest of you take a spot around the tub and take turns on entering it. 

You feel comfortable in your olive green bathing suit. Despite being out in the open, the heat from the water is enough to balance things out. There’s a spread of alcohol and other snacks that you pick from and like you expected, it’s a lot of laughter and reminiscing and discussing plans of future trips. 

You look at each of your friends, the people who have been with you for over a decade, and you think about all the years in between. You’ve all definitely matured. It’s not just in the wrinkles or the responsible alcohol consumption or the complaints about sore legs after today’s walking spree. 

It’s in the comfort of each other, the fulfilled promises of making time to be together despite the busy schedules and the distance. It’s in indulging what one person wants because doing anything as a group is the priority. It’s in the relief in your eyes knowing that at a time when people tend to lose sight of the important things, you’ve all made it a point not to lose each other. 

That brings you to another thought, something you voice out.

“We are such a good looking group of friends,” you state, almost out of nowhere. 

But really, from the camping trip that had you all looking a bit raggedy to this trip where you’ve been bunched up in thick clothes or with barely anything on, like right now, it’s something that just entered your mind.

“I’m surprised no one else decided to date each other apart from Seokjin and Hayoung,” you continue.

It’s not an uncommon topic amongst you. In fact, it’s one of those things you like teasing each other about, given all the history.

“Yoongi and Gyu-rim will. In 10 years,” Jimin states, and the people in question just shake their heads in response because this isn’t the first time and they’re unfortunately used to this. 

“Mo-eum and I have a pact that if we’re still single at 55, we’ll marry each other,” you announce.

“___, I was drunk when I agreed,” your best friend laughs.

“No taking it back. We pinky promised,” you glare at her.

“Yah! Both of you will surely find someone before then,” Taehyung exclaims.

“Well, it could’ve been you,” Mo-eum tells him.

A round of “oohs” echoes in the room, prompting her to smile sweetly and Taehyung to chuckle and say that’s probably true. 

It’s that kind of history you all like unearthing and resurfacing every once in a while. Come to think of it, it was over five years ago during your trip to Tokyo when your best friend revealed that she actually liked Taehyung during your junior year of college but she never had the guts to say anything, only for him to start liking her right after she got over it. 

The confession shook everyone because no one knew, even you. And knowing how your best friend is, it would’ve been something she was really shy or nervous about if she never told anyone. 

“Hoseok, care to top that?” Jimin teases now as he smirks at Suhyeon, who understandably splashes him with water. 

“No, I don’t,” Hoseok laughs. “Brat.”

“Well, that ship could’ve sailed if someone wasn’t such a coward about it,” Seokjin eyes him. 

Hoseok’s “what-if” with Suhyeon happened in real time, where everyone knew they had feelings for each other except for both of them. Despite all of you urging them to just make a move, one made a small step but the other was too scared to risk things and it didn’t fall through. 

Both of them now have partners outside of your friend group though, and they’re even better friends this time, something that Suhyeon points out.

“When you think about it, it’s really just about timing,” Namjoon reflects. “Whether it’s liking someone at a certain point or believing you’re ready enough to go for it, it’s about the other person being on the same boat - liking you at the same time and being ready when you are.”

“True. I mean, Hayoung and I luckily liked each other at the same time,” Seokjin nods.

“Liar. You had a crush on her the year before she admitted her feelings,” his younger brother calls him out.

“It was harmless!” Seokjin argues. “We went to a farm where the chickens chased her and she started running and yelling like crazy and I thought she looked adorable. It didn’t mean much until she couldn’t hold herself back from saying that she thought I was handsome.”

“It was still a crush,” Taehyung points out. 

“And it materialized a year later! That happens, too. Admiration or affection for someone doesn’t always mean it has to be something more right away,” the older man counters. “Sure, we could’ve dated much earlier if I’d said something but it also could’ve gone nowhere if I went for it right then. Or she could’ve rejected me. I didn’t wanna pressure her or make it feel like she had to return the feeling, which really was just a crush.”

“True,” Hayoung hums. “I probably would’ve thought he was unserious about it or I would’ve kept my distance because I didn’t feel anything then. Like Joon said, it’s about timing. Seokjin held out and thankfully, I got to him in time.”

“She ended up falling more in love with me so… it all worked out well,” Seokjin winks.

Everyone just laughs because you all know the truth - Seokjin is crazy about Hayoung. It’s a given that he’ll be the one bawling his eyes out during their wedding.

Jungkook laughs along as the teasing continues, thankful this time that given his history, people are a bit cautious of asking him about his thoughts when it comes to relationships. 

But his friends’ words linger in his mind, even as the conversation shifts to something new. 

Seokjin and Hayoung’s love story always seemed so simple to him - two friends who always got along well and one day realized they felt something more. Looking at how they are, it’s as if there’s really no one else made for them but each other. 

But of course, it’s never as simple as just confessing their feelings and being lucky that the other person felt the same way. It’s also about knowing what’s worth risking and when to do so. It’s about being ready to deal with the consequences, whether you’re taking a step back, forward, or staying right where you are. 

Like what Seokjin said, it isn’t always about being something more right away. Jungkook thinks that maybe feelings aren't something you just have; it’s something you settle into. 

The hours pass and Jungkook doesn’t notice them flying by. Between the conversations, the premier Japanese liquor and convenience store snacks, and lying on the snow by the edge of the deck then retreating to the hot tub, there’s a lot going on.

But he’s far from tired, and even if the temperature has dropped even lower, he still wants to stay out here and let his body relax.

The others have gone ahead to wash up and get ready for bed but there’s still you, Jimin, and Gyu-rim with him outside, talking about the latter’s non-existent but probable relationship with Yoongi. 

“You’re the most comfortable when you’re together and it’s the same with him,” Jimin points out. “That doesn’t happen overnight and it certainly doesn’t happen with just anyone. I’m just saying that it’s something to think about. Finding someone new isn’t the only option, you know?”

Gyu-rim, who surprisingly hasn’t smacked Jimin yet for all the years he’s been insisting on this, just chuckles in response. 

“I admire your commitment to this ship,” she concedes, knowing it’s better to just go along with the teasing than to react negatively. 

It’s Yoongi anyway and there’s nothing to feel negative about.

“Let’s just say that I have deep love for my friends and I want them to be with people who know how to love them, or would learn how to,” Jimin responds. “I’ll shut up about it after this but I just wanted to give you that nudge. I’ve learned my lesson with the two what-ifs in our group because we just all stood by.”

She argues that sometimes, standing by is the better option but that she’s also at that age where she just wants a companion. Jimin says that he knows that Yoongi does, too. 

Both of them eventually decide to retire for the night and you say you want to stay a little longer since you barely stayed in the tub. It’s just you and Jungkook now and with two people left, you take the chance to stretch your legs and submerge yourself in the hot water that you’ve slowly gotten used to. It even starts snowing and somehow that adds to your relaxation.

“So,” you turn to the man next to you who seems to be in awe of the snowfall as well. “You were quiet during all the relationship talk. You okay?”

“Yeah,” Jungkook replies, his head leaned back but facing towards you. “I guess I’m like you when I’m with more mature people. I just listen.”

“And reflect?”

“A bit of that,” he hums, shifting his gaze towards the trees now.

With you in that bathing suit next to him, it’s just another version of you that he suddenly finds pretty.

“About what?” You ask. 

“Settling into feelings, I guess. How we don’t always need to act on them right away because they could be mild or fleeting or confusing or just… something that develops over time and that needs time for it to be right or enough. Or certain.”

You let his words linger. It’s something you definitely can’t relate with.

“Wow. I wish I knew that before my past relationships that failed because of my feelings that I immediately acted on,” you laugh, almost mockingly, at yourself.

“Acting on them isn’t always wrong, though. You shoot your shot when you can and you don’t always have time,” Jungkook tries to comfort you. “You could lose your chance completely.”

“That’s true but then like I said before, I get excited and impatient. Looking back, I guess I never really settled into my feelings for the people I liked because, well, it wasn’t something I thought about.”

“Me, too. It’s just something that got to me while listening to them earlier. Nothing too deep. I guess time and experience make you see and realize things that were always there but never really thought much about,” Jungkook states. “Suddenly they mean a lot more now.”

It’s the closest to being honest he could be with you about the thoughts he’s been having. Somehow this makes him feel better. He’s not lying to you or anything. He’s just settling into these newfound feelings for you. 

Maybe they are fleeting or mild or confusing. Maybe it just needs time to develop into something that could be right and good enough for you, if it ever gets to that point. 

Being with you right now, he’s trying to figure out what it is. It’s still a mix of everything but he’ll be patient this time. One thing is for sure though - he doesn’t want to scare you. If anything, he just wants to keep you close enough for a little while longer. 

As you both lie in your beds later in the night - you next to Mo-eum and him next to Jimin - there’s space in between that perhaps resembles where you both are right now. You’re both lying on your sides and you stick your tongue out at him as good night right before you turn the light off. 

He smiles to himself. It’s a good view from where he is.  

It’s a little chaotic in the morning as all 12 of you take turns in the three bathrooms to get ready. People are washing their faces and brushing their teeth next to and behind each other. The men are dressing up in the hallways and in the living room while the women are behind closed doors. 

And then there’s Hayoung and Suhyeon making sure there are enough water bottles for everyone and Hoseok who’s reminding you all about the proper outerwear and boots for today’s activity. 

Right as you’re dressed, you feel the energy surge through you. You haven’t gone skiing in years and you’re looking forward to trying it again this time. Everyone else seems to feel the same way, especially Jungkook who keeps mumbling that he’s excited and pretty much skipping all around the house.

You put your heavy coats in the trunk and head out for a fairly long drive. You call shotgun because you like getting a wider view of the snowy streets and everyone agrees because it’s you. Jungkook drives like always, insisting that he genuinely enjoys it.

You arrive at a rest stop shortly after, as you all decided to just get snacks from there for breakfast. You divide and conquer - Jungkook orders the food and you join him because you’re curious, while the rest get the drinks. 

Ordering at the ticket machine, you and Jungkook get excited about which snacks to get, even if you were confused about which buttons to press and when to pay. But you manage and buy a few flavors of the fried rice balls and croquettes then head back to the car. You start eating before Mo-eum and Taehyung return with the rest of the drinks and by the time Jungkook restarts the engine, he’s already devoured two of them.

He keeps both hands on the wheel and his eyes focused on the road while the rest of you munch on the food, humming in satisfaction and singing your praises. 

You see his gaze constantly flit to the rice cake you’re eating. You think he’s probably itching to have one right now but he doesn’t want to risk putting you all in danger so you take out a piece for him to eat. Knowing he’s wary of the drive, you feed him and cup your hand under his mouth in case a piece falls. 

“Hmm, that’s so good,” he moans, angling his head to the side for another bite.

You chuckle as he tries to get as much of it in his mouth so you appease him and say you’ll feed him so he can still eat them while they’re hot. He beams at you so endearingly and with his blue beanie and loose jacket on, he looks like a kid with his bunny smile and innocent doe-eyes. 

It’s a complete shift from last night where he was half naked in the tub, toned abs and tattooed arm on full display. Like boys do, he, Jimin, Taehyung, and even Namjoon were all showing off their biceps and posing ridiculously like bodybuilders, triggering a pose-off and tummy ache-inducing laughter from the rest of you. 

You can’t say it’s something that surprised you. Jungkook’s always been an athlete. You watched some of his swimming competitions when you were in college. You’ve also had dozens of beach trips. Toned bodies like what your friends have are normal to you and you’re often unbothered. They’re used to walking around without a shirt on and they have never felt shy around you; none of you girls ever felt bothered by it, either. 

But you’re still a woman with fully functioning eyes and can appreciate a pretty physique when you see one. Jungkook just happens to possess it and being in close proximity to him reminded you of that. It’s just a funny thing to remember seeing how he is now. There’s just something so charming about him that makes you smile.

You continue feeding yourself and him throughout the drive, with him losing it with the cheese croquette, his favorite one out of everything. You bring up his iced americano to his lips, too. It’s your way of thanking him, you tell yourself, as he’s been taking on the long drives like always. 

You finally make it to the ski resort and Jungkook skips all the way to the lobby. You all rent your accessories and equipment then head to the gondola all the way to the top. Despite the powdery snow, there’s still so much of it that it’s a struggle to even walk.

The view is stunning and the weather is cold and bright yet you already know you’re gonna suffer. But it’s the good kind. You’ll just brace through all the falls and face plants you’ll make but you’ll at least have fun.

It’s a group decision to snowboard first. As expected, there’s the group that can do it, and another that can definitely do better. The Kim brothers grew up doing this so their skills are not a surprise. Hayoung has done it a few times since dating Seokjin so she’s not bad at all. Namjoon is surprisingly good with his balance, Mo-eum is just good at anything sporty, and Jungkook obviously quickly relearned the ropes even though it's been years since the last time he’d done it.    

And then there’s Yoongi who settles with little hops down the mountain and Gyu-rim just laughing along as they semi slide all the way. There’s Suhyeon content with cheering you on despite constantly landing on her butt, Jimin who falls after every turn, and then you who falls right behind him. 

You’re just as tired at laughing at your mishaps than you are with all the face planting and swimming through snow you’ve both been doing. But you always end up turning on your back and marveling at your surroundings and the feel of the snow under you. At one point, you and Jimin almost give up.

You do manage two rounds down the slope while the others end up with a few more. You all rest at the cafe for a bit at Yoongi’s request and watch the few clips some of you managed to get of each other going down the mountain. 

Skiing is a lot more doable. It’s something you’ve done more than once so it’s not hard to relearn it. But with now-sore legs and overworked muscles from all the laughing and tensing up, it’s still definitely a lot more than you can handle. But you push through because it’s seriously a lot of fun. 

The snow is falling hard by the time you finish. Your hands feel frozen and your nose feels numb. Your legs and knees are definitely sore, and you feel the pain once you start going down the stairs. 

Hayoung, who overdid herself a little, climbs on Seokjin’s back. You whine because you’re in pain, too, but you don’t want to trouble any of your friends who might be just as tired.

Taehyung stands next to you and chuckles at your pouty face and your eyes that are focused on your cousin and his brother.

“Do you want a piggyback ride, too?” he asks.

You nod and give him your puppy eyes, waiting for him to offer you one.

“Okay. Kook!” he yells out behind him. “Our princess needs a ride.”

Jungkook looks at him questioningly then you. “What?”

Taehyung eyes the couple not far ahead and Jungkook takes the hint.

“Ah,” he says, looking at your tired form. “Your legs hurt?”

“I can’t feel them anymore,” you wail.

You’re so dramatic that it makes Jungkook chuckle, prompting you to weakly smack his arm. But he gives in this time, seeing how helpless you look.

“Fine. Jump,” he tells you, bending low to help you get on his back then gripping your thighs to keep you steady.

It’s not a long walk back to the car but it isn’t an easy one, so you constantly apologize in between your grumbles of being in pain. 

“I’ll pay for your drink at the whiskey museum tomorrow,” you promise him. 

“Tempting but you don’t have to,” he says. “It’s fine. Being your carriage is totally a normal thing.”

“Hey,” you cry out. “Please? I’ll treat you something.”

“Or you can just say thank you. Really, ___. You don’t have to pay me back for every good thing I do for you.” He slowly puts you down and turns to face you. “Just… stretch and relax. The hot tub will help so get on it later. And maybe don’t snore too loud tonight.”

You laugh at the last part because of course he’ll sneak that in even if it’s unrelated, but you agree.

Sitting at the back this time, you lean your head on Taehyung’s shoulder as you slowly doze off. He opens the window to let the cold air in to wake you up a little but you still fall asleep shortly after.

Jungkook glances at you from the rearview mirror. His heart did a thing again earlier when you had your arms around his neck, and then again when you sweetly smiled at him and said thank you before you entered the car. 

It’s a little different this time though as it feels more like floating. Looking at you peacefully napping, it continues to do just that.

The famous soup curry is famous for a reason. It’s rich despite the thin broth and the meat is soft and tender. It’s exactly what you need after this morning’s adventure and paired with the draft beer, it’s every bit satisfying. 

You gain a bit more energy after lunch, which you quickly expend during the car ride. Taehyung is the designated driver this time. Jungkook couldn’t resist the beer earlier, so you sit between him and Jimin and they alternate between teasing you mercilessly and cooing at you. 

You play the injured card, quickly clarifying that it’s your ego that's bruised after face planting so many times. Mo-eum from the front says everyone was laughing at Jimin and Yoongi more than they were laughing at you. They expected you’d fall but that the other two looked like adorable baby pandas who couldn’t get their shit together in the snow.

It’s mid-afternoon by the time you get home, which is where you’ll be staying for the rest of the day. Everyone picks their spot in the common room and you take your place on the large couch next to Hayoung. The Switch is turned on and a battle begins but you can barely keep up as not long after, you doze off.

Jungkook manages to win one game of Mario Kart before he heads out with Yoongi to buy what they’ll need for tonight’s dinner. It’s an hour later when they return and when they do, you’re still lying down on the same spot, softly snoring and getting some needed rest. He brings out the muscle spray he bought at the pharmacy and Jimin is the first one to take it. It’s passed around and when it’s returned to him, he briefly looks at you to check if you’re already awake.

You aren’t, even with the shrieking going on because of everyone’s epic fails on Fall Guys.  You have your hands together tucked under your cheek and your head laying on a pillow on Hayoung’s lap. There’s this urge to tease you about still being so tired but also to move your hair out of your face and caress your cheek.

He’s a little alarmed when you start opening your eyes, paranoid that he might’ve said something while fondly looking at you or if telepathy is actually real and you’d read what was going through his mind. But you mumble something instead and shift your body for a more comfortable position. He kneels down next to you and asks what you were saying.

“Did you beat Hoseok?” You mutter.

“Yeah, earlier,” he replies. “But I haven’t played since. Yoongi and I bought stuff at the supermarket. I got muscle spray for soreness, too.”

That piques your interest, as you open your eyes wider and ask where it is. 

“Jimin’s hogging it. Let me get it from him.”

He gets back to you with the bottle and you lift your pajama pants to expose your legs. Your puppy eyes tell him that you want him to do it for you. He chuckles but gets to it right away, gripping your foot and spraying the liquid on your limbs. You linger, and Jungkook instinctively sits down and lays your legs on his lap, gently massaging them. 

You moan in satisfaction and urge him to continue, earning you another chuckle. He works on your joints and your calves, knowing they just need to relax and that you’ll feel better soon enough. You’re lying on your back this time, but then Hayoung says she’ll go to the bathroom so you sit up and watch Jungkook work on your legs. 

“You would’ve been a good therapist if you chose that path instead of teaching,” you tell him.

“My dad said the same thing. I used to massage him after a long day of laboring when I was younger,” he laughs. “Glad I haven’t lost my touch.”

“You’re good. I approve.”

Your face contorts in pain when he kneads the tender parts and you try to move his hand towards a different area.

“But that’s where it hurts,” he insists. “I’ll go gentle, I promise.”

You let him, but your hand remains gingerly on top of his just in case. He keeps his word and goes easy on you. 

“Get in the hot tub later, yeah? That’ll help,” he advises.

You nod and instead of lying back down, you lean on his shoulder while he continues massaging you. You think you can fall back asleep with how this feels.

But then Gyu-rim suggests watching a horror movie because the last time you did that in the forest was so memorable that she wants to laugh at the scaredy-cats again. 

So Taehyung puts some Japanese thriller he finds on the shelf and dims the lights, resulting in 90 minutes of shrieks, curses, the occasional “I give up” from Hoseok, and the timely laughter from the horror enthusiasts. It’s quite the experience but it’s the perfect build up to dinner.

Yoongi lays out a spread of sushi and various salads for your appetizer while baking slabs of premium beef in the oven. Jungkook makes a Japanese pork offal and vegetable soup dish that sounds so perfect for tonight. Everyone else is busy drinking and eating while he’s glued next to the pot so you go to him.

He turns to you and eyes the plate of sushi you’re holding.

“Is it good?” He asks.

“So good. So fresh,” you hum. “Here, have some before they finish it all.”

You feed him some, an act that’s somehow become reflexive for you these past days, and he nods in approval. You get a few more pieces and alternate between feeding yourself and him.

The aroma of the broth wafts through your senses and you can’t wait to dip your rice in a bowl of all that goodness.

“Is it done yet?” you peek inside the pot.

“You wouldn’t know even if you tried,” he teases,

“Oh shush,” you nudge him. 

He laughs but he takes out a spoon, fills it with broth, then blows on it before feeding you. 

“Yup, my chef palette says that’s good.”

To his surprise, it is, and you make a claim that you’ve gotten better at this. 

It’s at the same time when Yoongi says that the meat is ready so you all gather at the dining table and have dinner. You finish with matcha tiramisu and cheesecake for dessert.

You start cleaning up with Namjoon and Taehyung while the rest of your friends either move back to the living room or head to the hot tub. You can hear them laughing and playing around outside, no doubt lying on the snow again or doing something silly, but you focus on your task then get dressed before heading out the deck.

You sit with Jimin and Suhyeon while the others take a rest. Just like last night, you alternate again so everyone gets a chance to take a dip. You end up staying a little longer, hoping the hot water will relax your muscles and get you feeling better for your last full day tomorrow. 

One-by-one, your friends leave the tub to wash up, as the temperature continues to drop. You’re left with Jungkook once again and he sits next to you, both of your heads rolled back, and the sounds of the wind and bubbling water filling the space.

“Feel better?” He asks.

“Yup. I wanna stay here longer but I don’t wanna stay up too late and I still wanna drink,” you say, somehow feeling like the day is too short for you to do everything you want, even if you’ve done so much already.

“We can stay for a couple more minutes. Being here for too long isn’t good, anyway.”

“Fine,” you agree. “But today was a good one. Thanks for my massage.”

“What have I not done for you at this point?” He laughs. 

“I’m a spoiled brat, aren’t I?” You call yourself out. 

“A little bit,” he playfully shakes his head. 

“Well, thanks for putting up with me,” you mumble, and he assures you that it’s not as bad as you make it sound.

Namjoon, Yoongi, and Gyu-rim go out to drink at the picnic table on the other end of the deck and they raise their glasses to you in acknowledgement, warning you of Jimin possibly finishing off the sake if you don’t stop him.

You say you’ll wash up soon but remain on your spot, occasionally stretching your legs, until you return your focus to Jungkook and shift to face him. 

With his whole lower body submerged in the water and only his neck and his damp hair on the surface, he doesn’t look as intimidating so you start playing around with his hair and attempt to tie a ponytail at the top, resembling a sprout. He grumbles under his breath but he doesn’t say a word. He just closes his eyes and lets you do what you want.

For Jungkook, an attempt to stop you would be futile. That would entail fighting you off and getting a little too close in such a small space, which again would be deemed normal if it wasn’t for his growing fondness for you. He tries to just watch what you’re doing but given your proximity, he thinks that closing his eyes would be better for his stupid heart.

“Ooh, you’re letting me tie your hair,” you point out. “That’s new.”

“I’d have to pry you away for you to stop and I don’t want you falling out of this tub or something,” he reasons.

“Hmm, you have a point.”

You giggle when you finish, and it’s at the same time that Taehyung appears behind the glass door and waves. He spots Jungkook’s sprout and starts laughing, too. Opening the door, he coos at his friend and pulls up his phone to take a photo.

You immediately scoot closer to Jungkook and pose multiple times before your friend gives a thumbs up sign and walks back inside the house. You can see the rest of them still in the dining room, looking like they’re playing card games and downing the remaining bottles of alcohol you’ve all been buying since you arrived.

Jungkook stands up from the tub and turns to the door to see what he looks like through his reflection. He frowns at you in response.

“Okay, sprout off,” you say once he sits on the ledge. “It doesn’t fit the muscle bunny Jungkook vibe.”

“What?”

“Your hair has to match your body. It looked fine when you were submerged in the water,” you reason, pulling the hair tie off him. “Now with these muscles and these abs and this tattoo sleeve, it’s a mismatch.”

“How is it that you analyze even these things?” He questions.

“It’s my brain. It just does.”

He descends back down once the cold air becomes too much and you’re just there, so close yet so far like many times before. There’s that urge to get even closer and just examine your face, now that he’s looking at you in a new light. 

Settling in the feeling, he reasons to himself. Figuring out if it’s fleeting or something more. 

He repeats the words in his head as he watches you flounder in the tub. You move to the end near the railing and the snow lightly falls on your head. It almost feels romantic, as you sit there with a soft look on your face and a sweet smile as you let the snow touch your skin. 

But with you, unpredictability is a thing. Before he knows it, you’re scooting back close to him. You lift his right arm from under the water and start pointing out the tattoos that you think are new.

“I just had them colored. Some were redone,” he explains.

“Ahh,” you reply, wiping off the droplets on some areas so you can see them better, unknowing of the shivers you’re causing. “So do you just wear a jacket every time you’re at the school?”

“Pretty much,” he hums. “When it’s hot, I wear a shirt and then an arm sleeve to cover it up. Thankfully they weren’t too strict about it, although I was almost not accepted because of it. I just made up some story that I was trying to be cool in college so I got them but I straightened myself out and wanted a fresh start so I became a teacher.”

“Wow what a liar,” you respond. “You were getting new ones even after you got the job.”

“I know. But they don’t know that,” he laughs.

“I think it looks cool on you.”

“You called it a muscle bunny vibe,” he deadpans.

“It’s because you have an adorable bunny face but your body’s ripped. Bunnies are fluffy, chunky babies. They have puffy cheeks. They don’t have abs.”

“They could. If they exercised.”

His comment sounds ridiculous and it makes you laugh, as an image of a bunny doing crunches flashes in your mind. You think he imagines that, too, as he laughs right after. It’s a silly thing but it’s one of many things that you talk to Jungkook about. One evening you’re reflecting about feelings and relationships and the next, you’re picturing bunnies exercising. 

“Yah, you two,” Yoongi’s voice cuts through your muffled laughter. “It’s getting too cold. You might get sick. Wash up soon.”

“We will already, uncle,” you grin at him. 

You stand up and slowly make your way to the steps but Namjoon tells you to stop so Jungkook can help you down and avoid a probable accident. So he does, walking ahead of you then down the stairs before you take his hand and follow him. 

Your room is still empty when you get your clothes. When you return after your bath, Mo-eum and Taehyung are on your bed, watching something on the laptop. Clearly yesterday’s conversation about their history didn’t change anything between them, as they’re as comfortable next to each other as they’ve always been. 

There are still a few people at the dining table when you go there for a few drinks. You get the sake before Jimin finishes the bottle and you drink it and then some. 

One-by-one, they start to retire for the night. You have a glass of beer that you want to keep drinking whereas Jungkook lost to rock-paper-scissors so he’s finishing the cup of mixed alcohol as penalty, so you both stay behind.

You tell him that he can throw it down the drain and you can keep it a secret but he honors the rock-paper-scissors code, he insists, so he’ll finish it off.

Keeping each other company has become a pattern for both of you recently, but you suppose it’s just the timing of everything. He moved into an apartment his cousin owns that’s closer to his school last year; it also happens to be 15 minutes away from you. 

Both of you aren’t in relationships so it’s easier to hang out. Plus, you committed yourself to maintaining a work-life balance after you suffered burnout some months ago, and that’s meant switching off during the weekends and being a lot… calmer, you think. Probably less erratic and maybe more bearable.

All of those circumstances just happened to take place around the time Taehyung came home and commenced his role of being the trip planner. Before then, you and Jungkook were either in a relationship or neck-deep into your job or both. 

You were definitely a different person back then and you suppose he was, too. Now, you get to spend time together and just enjoy each other’s presence, something you always have but something you get to experience differently this time. 

And it’s a good feeling, something that you don’t express out loud. Not that you think he’ll judge you or anything but only because somehow, you think he’s thinking the same thing. 

You do your final cheers then clean up before brushing your teeth and heading to your room, ready to finally rest.

Except when you get there, you find Jimin sprawled on the mattress on the floor this time with the phone on his face, no doubt having fallen asleep while playing his games. Mo-eum and Taehyung are fetus-curled on either side of your bed, softly snoring. 

That leaves one bed for you and Jungkook, and the realization that this has never happened before hits you. Not that it’s uncomfortable; it’s just that you’ve always been closer to the other guys and he’s always been closer to Mo-eum. Still, you don’t mind but he seems like he does.

“I can sleep on the couch,” he mumbles.

“It’s soft but not as soft as this bed. We can just stay here. You need proper sleep and this is big enough for both of us,” you insist. “Is that okay with you? I mean, I’ve slept next to the guys before.”

“Yeah, and you’ve either elbowed or kicked each one of them. More than once,” he reminds you.

“Is that why you don’t want to sleep here?” You ask worriedly.

He hates it but Jungkook half-lies.

“Yup.”

You think about it for a second but still insist. He’s already slept on the couch in the other hotel and you don’t want him to do that again.

“Nah, you’re strong. You can handle me,” you wink.

“Fine,” he grumbles, mockingly laughing at himself for giving in so easily once again.

“Don’t worry, there’ll be a pillow between us,” you assure him.

“Yeah, whatever. By the way, they left the blinds open. You don’t like the light, right?”

“Hmm, I usually don’t and I know you don’t, too, but uh… Can we leave it up? I wanna fall asleep and wake up to that sight,” you say, gesturing towards the snow-covered branches of the trees right outside the window.

“Sure.”

Jungkook climbs in bed next to you with the pillow in the middle, even if he knows you’ll hog that, too, because apparently, you like hugging something when you sleep. 

You’re on your side with your eyes glued to the window and he lays on his side as well, facing you.

“I’ve been so enchanted by this city and how the snow covers everything,” you whisper, no doubt being sentimental at this time. “I just want to ingrain the image of this place in my mind as much as I can. Jimin got me so fascinated with snow. I used to not care much about it.”

“I’ll get you a snowglobe in one of the shops tomorrow then,” he smiles. “That might help.”

“It will,” you groggily smile back. “You’re so sweet, Kook. I’m glad we–”

And just like that, you’ve fallen asleep.

It’s fitting how the night ends, he thinks. There’s a short distance separating both of you but so many years and memories in between. You’ve always been there just as the snow has always been around, yet it takes something, or someone - perhaps a moment - to make him look at things in a different light.

Has it always been like this? Have you always been like that? What was it these past months that made the difference? 

He’s unsure but he doesn’t want to overthink. Just like you, he wants to ingrain this in his mind as much as he can. He’ll deal with whatever comes after when it comes.

The first sliver of light cuts through your eyelids and you curl yourself closer to the pillow to hide your face. It works only a little, and you mentally curse yourself for leaving the blinds up. No one else seems bothered because no one’s put them down yet. It would’ve been Jungkook but you suppose he’s too exhausted.

You turn to your side and find his tattooed arm over his eyes and you kind of feel bad. So you get up and walk towards the window, marvel at the trees for a few seconds, then pull down the blinds. You return to bed and go back to sleep, knowing you’ll see it again later on. And tomorrow, too, for the last time.

You wake up two hours later to Jungkook saying that the guys have made breakfast. You stretch your legs and ask him if he can put on the muscle spray again even if you’re feeling a little better. He does, and you smile when he briefly massages your calves before he pulls you up from the bed.

Everyone else has gone up so you head to the dining table and find a spread of scrambled eggs, bacon and sausages, toast, and pastries. Hayoung and Gyu-rim apparently watched a cooking show this morning and immediately craved a Western breakfast, so Yoongi and Seokjin went to the supermarket to grab ingredients and cooked them. 

It smells amazing, and you hum in delight at how good it is. It feels so foreign yet it tastes like comfort. 

There’s no rush in spending your last full day. You drive to explore a quaint town then hang out at a cafe to play with cats and drink coffee. You go to a whiskey museum and laugh at Jungkook and Jimin doing some role play by the bar. 

You try some samplers and end up getting Jungkook one of the bottles he chose not to get because he’s used up all his alcohol budget for this trip. You give it as a surprise while walking back to the car.

“___, I told you you didn’t need to get me anymore,” he groans.

“Yeah but.. You carried me, you've been massaging me… And you’re gonna drive me home tomorrow,” you say.

“So what, should I expect you to get me something every time I do something for you?”

“Uh… no.”

“Exactly, so there’s no need to.”

“Too bad, it’s already paid for,” you shrug. “Plus, you looked so sad when you had to give it up. You were pouting your lips and pep talking yourself into accepting that you weren’t gonna get it.”

“I’m also an adult who’ll get over it,” he points out.

“Well, just think of it as a birthday or Christmas gift or something.”

“You’ve never gotten me either of those,” he deadpans.

“Exactly! So here,” you chirp, placing the bottle in his hand. “Belated happy birthday and advanced Merry Christmas.”

He laughs at your persistence but accepts that this is how you are. Again, it’s the tenderness of your personality that he’s been experiencing these past few weeks that builds on the fondness, that makes him enjoy being around you.

“Fine. Thank you,” he finally smiles and accepts. 

Not long after, you go to a street lined with local shops. That’s where Jungkook finds you a snowglobe of this town. He gets you another one of a tree with a deer next to it. He’s also never gotten you a gift so he says it’s for all the years that he missed out on. 

Later in the night, after having dinner at a hotpot place and spending the rest of it reminiscing about the trip over tea and milk, you lay on your side next to Mo-eum, as you’ve returned to your original sleeping arrangements. You place both snowglobes on the night table next to you, as if in replacement of the view from your window. 

“Careful, you might hit and break them,” Jungkook warns from not far away.

“I think my body can only recognize body parts when it’s hitting something,” you laugh. “But don’t worry, they’ll be safe.”

“They better. They’re your reminder of this place.”

“Well, years from now when I still feel my sore joints, I’ll be reminded of Sapporo,” you laugh. 

Jungkook laughs, too, and thinks that while you’ll have those as a reminder, he has this other than the bottle of whiskey you got him - this view of you smiling at him as you fall asleep.

Even if you remain as friends, years from now he’ll think of this trip and how you made it enchanting for him with the moments, the silence, and all your unspoken words.

You leave Sapporo the next afternoon.

It’s quite a drive to the airport and you savor the scenery as you pass the snow-covered mountains and frozen lakes for the last time. 

You sit next to Jungkook again on the flight home, with your head leaned on his shoulder while you both look at the photos in the shared photo album. He drops you off at your apartment after you all have dinner at a restaurant and the entire drive had you laughing and teasing each other, same as how you spent the entire trip.

He helps you unload your luggage and walks it up to the entrance to your apartment building.

The snow starts falling at this time and you ruffle Jungkook’s hair and call him out for not wearing his beanie.

“I’ll live,” he laughs.

You just smile in response, thankful that you spent the past week making new memories with this man you feel you don’t have enough of. It’s weird how a trip can do that - make you experience someone you’ve known for a decade as if for the first time. 

But you suppose life is like that. We focus on certain things at certain points of our lives depending on who and where we are at that time. We rediscover people and feelings and friendships and maybe that’s what living means. Those that remain are the ones that matter.

“Enjoy the holidays, okay? And have a safe trip home tomorrow,” he says.

You’re riding with Hayoung to Gwangju in the morning and Jungkook’s driving to Busan with Jimin in the afternoon. 

“And don’t hurt yourself. Your legs are still a bit sore,” he reminds you.

“I’ll be alright,” you say confidently. 

He chuckles and heads back to his car. You wave him goodbye for the last time then head to your apartment.

Five minutes later, you text him.

[To: bunny kook] I stubbed my toe on the couch 🙁

He laughs out loud and decides to call you. You don’t need him to come back, you say, but you wail that you miss him already.

He knows what you mean but it doesn’t stop his heart from doing that thing again. He ends up talking to you on the phone throughout his drive and while you’re both unpacking and then packing again for your respective trips. 

You hang up first and Jungkook already dreads what these next few weeks of being away from you would mean.

Settling into the feeling could mean accepting that proximity is the biggest factor and that being physically apart is what’ll make him get back to how things used to be. He could also be convinced it wasn’t much anyway. 

It could mean settling into the idea that both of you have changed over the years and have truly committed to just being better friends for each other. 

Or it could mean that there really is something more, and he’s gonna have to figure out how to live with that, whether or not you feel the same way.

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[evellynssocbrainrot]

Something that always irks me is when people create an imbalance between Kaz and Inej. What I mean by that is... Kaz is not superior to Inej, but Inej isn't superior to Kaz either. Which is something a lot of people tend to believe. Neither one is more superior to the other. On the contrary, they are equals. They have always been equals, and that is one the most beautiful aspects of their relationship.

Kaz and Inej are both severely traumatized

They are both flawed characters who make bad decisions

They both have questionable coping mechanisms

They are both closed off from other people and tend to share little to nothing personal about themselves

They are both violent and vengeful

I bet you Inej has killed as many people as Kaz

One helps the other feel less isolated

They both help each other's trauma (Inej's voice grounds Kaz when he is drowning and Kaz's ability to always "see" Inej helps her feel present)

They are both so devoted, supportive and protective of each other, but simultaneously, are also able to pick up things they do that are wrong

Kaz shedding enough blood to paint a barn red = Inej wanting to kill a whole room full of people for Kaz

They are crime partners, confidants, and best friends first and foremost

Kaz trusting Inej enough to expose 1/2 of his skin in her presence = Inej trusting Kaz enough to let him stand super close to her while her arms were exposed (chapter 26 of CK)

Kaz calling Inej an investment and joking about Inej being at the Menagerie due to bad luck = Inej being slightly insensitive about Kaz's trauma at the end of SOC (the "gloves on, fully clothed" line) and joking with him about having to limp down the stairs

But Kaz and Inej making up for these things in CK by Kaz admitting to Inej that she matters more than her skill and that he would come for her regardless, as well as selling every asset to pay off her indenture while Inej reflects on what she said to him on the boat and beginning to be more patient and considerate with him, not wanting him to immediately remove his gloves, loving him regardless of the things he's unable to do currently realizing that she struggles as well with intimacy and telling him that she would return to Ketterdam

Kaz and Inej healing together and finding happiness and love with each other

You see? They are equals. One is not better than the other. It's one of their defining qualities and also proves why Kanej is the best ship to ever exist.

[ctgp]

incomprehensible longish suselle post incoming

i was inspired by someone else who commented on my last post but everyone knows that suselle is the big ship coming in deltarune obvi. i wanna talk about why i find them compelling under the readmore. feel free to agree or disagree idk

- starting off with noelle. everyone with eyes can see she has a big crush on susie. but genuinely, think about it. noelle had a fucked upbringing, her mother is shown to be strict, cold, emotionally distant. there’s a line of dialogue that implies she was like this prior to Dess’s disappearance in chapter 2. additionally, her father is terminally ill, so unfortunately he can’t be as present as he wants to be in her life. what this meant, is that noelle was likely given extremely high expectations on any performance. carol is a workaholic, implied to be super controlling, and restricts much of what she honestly wants. As a result, it’s hard for her to stand up for herself or even voice her opinions, such as when she’s forced to work with berdly on her project or when he tells her to attend the festival alongside him.

- Another aspect that (this is kind of me snorting crack cocaine) I think is likely true is considering how the holiday family is set up, noelle is definitely going to be idolized or pushed into a perfect and sweet girl role. I’m not denying that she’s a good person, but you can tell being super nice and trying to appease everyone exhausts her greatly. It’s why when pushed to a certain point, she’ll lash out (seen with berdly, kris, and queen), indicating her frustration.

- So why am I talking about this? When it seemingly has nothing to do with Susie? Oh, it actually has everything to do with her. Susie, in her eyes, is probably everything she wants to be, or desires, and practically her inverse. Susie isn’t afraid of standing up for what’s right. There’s no real expectations thrust on her. She’ll fuck up anything in her way and marches to her own tune. There’s no connection to her family, nothing about being put on a pedestal, or anything conventional about her. Susie, in Noelle’s eyes, sees her as a normal person. No forced interactions, no heavy secrecy around or a false persona, unlike many of the people around them both. Her crush on Susie is perhaps the only semblance of normalcy and freedom that Noelle will ever have, and an escape from all the baggage that’s plaguing her life.

- In contrast, while we know little about Susie’s background, everything in deltarune so far paints a grim picture. Susie constantly moves around, specifically avoids going home whenever possible, and is afraid to form a connection with anyone lest that get ripped from her. Her behavior is off putting (not to mention she eats inedible objects and drinks out of Alphys’s milk saucer each day, which further indicates she’s not being treated or fed well at home), and she purposefully shows herself as scary to avoid being close to people and also showing their true colors around her. As a result, pretty much most of everyone, including townspeople, try not to engage with her.

- So with all of that in her character, imagine her surprise when someone like Noelle treats her kindly and not as some kind of strange and violent creature. Despite all her flaws, Noelle genuinely wants to form a connection with her, to be close with her. And Noelle, possibly in Susie’s eyes, is a girl that’s also everything she’s not. Good academic and behavioral standing, liked by her peers, how effortlessly sweet and kind she is to everyone (and I’m not denying the sweet parts of Susie’s nature either, it’s way harder for her to be vulnerable), and seemingly has a big home she can always turn to. Never does Susie think Noelle is faking herself towards her or forced into, moreso surprised she even sees her as somewhat of an equal in the first place. Noelle is authentic and honest in a way that Susie highly values, something she snapped at Ralsei for in chapter 4. It’s part of why she pushes her to defend herself from her own mother.

- When the two spend time together, you can see that neither of them are fully ready to have a full conversation without fumbling a bit, which is part of their contrasting dynamic. Noelle is afraid of being weird, blatantly obvious and otherwise unconventional. Susie has no idea how to tread their conversation without potentially pushing Noelle away, but when they finally get the ball rolling, they are far more comfortable, open, and softly joking with each other, like they’ve known each other for a long time. They have common interests, play around, and Susie even gets bold enough to playfully scare Noelle. It’s also a gameplay mechanic to force you to explore Dess’s room but they make excuses to extend their time together. I think everyone should read the full conversations between them when the soul is separated from Kris, it’s very sweet. While once again, everyone with eyes can see Noelle’s crush, there’s tidbits suggesting it’s mutual to some extent. From Susie saying she likes Noelle’s smile to her getting flustered when she sees her in dark makeup, for example. There’s items that remind her of Noelle unprompted when you equip them to her. In addition, both used and unused sprites show her blushing around Noelle in the ch4 scene.

- I think it culminates to the big turning point in their relationship, when Susie loudly declares that she’s taking Noelle to the festival with her. she got a glimpse at Carol, decided she was bad news and stood up to/attempted to protect Noelle from her wrath. This is why I brought up Noelle’s freedom – the festival is potentially her ticket out of Carol’s grasp (and whatever the fuck she’s cooking with Kris and the knight) and a way for her to further explore themselves.

- There’s so many tragic elements in Deltarune – Kris’s lack of autonomy, the ominous prophecy haunting everyone’s narrative, failed and broken families, an uncomfortable air of secrecy and danger that’s plaguing the town despite its seemingly friendly nature – that a positive, lighter and genuine relationship blossoming between two loaded characters like Noelle and Susie is a breath of fresh air

- tldr they cute sorry for incomprehensible salad of words i can’t sleep

[indecisivemuch]

hii first of all luv the username cause as a libra rising, samedt ;-; i'd like to make a request for a luke x f!reader fic pls!! um, so they're best friends, and luke decides to confess to r by giving her gifts, letters, trinkets, etc. with hints about his identity, but she doesn't know who they're from. so she asks for luke's help to find out about the identity of her secret admirer. but what if there's like a mistaken identity and she thinks it's someone from the hermes cabin (maybe chris? or one of the stoll brothers idk) and luke's just all pouty but nonchalant or something, but deep down he's like 'how do i even make her see' or something (while also second guessing that maybe he shouldn't confess it's him) like fluff with tiny angst :>

Message in a Bottle

Pairing: Luke Castellan x Reader

Summary: You got a secret admirer and recruited Luke to help you find out who they are...ignoring the most obvious option (Fluff, angst, best friends to lovers, happy ending)

Note: I'm so sorry for the six month hiatus. It wasn't by choice, I swear 😭. So many bad things kept happening that prevented me from writing (is this the writers curse people kept talking about?). Also, the request wanted only a sprinkle of angst, but I kinda got out of hand with it I think 😭 (sorry).

Word count: 4.4k (whoops)

You’ve always thought that too much of something is bad. Yet, ever since the day your life intertwined with Luke Castellan’s, you weren’t very sure about that anymore. 

The two of you arrived at camp around the same time, entering a friendship that felt like hitting the jackpot. Your early days together were something that you both treasured dearly. Every time you thought a certain time period would someday be reminisced as the golden days of your friendships, new things would come, and top it off. 

However, golden skies were soon evaded by clouds of pink hues. You found yourself noticing and appreciating small details you haven’t noticed before about your best friend. Initially, you acknowledged the growing feeling but decided that they better remain as footnotes in chapters of your life. However, fate’s design was different to your plans, because two years later, here you were: you looked at him almost in the same way a fool would look at the world with rose-colored glasses (but then again, maybe it was because you have learned to embrace and adore his flaws).

“Luke!”

The Hermes cabin counselor snapped his head towards the sound of your voice, eyes straying from his duty of the hour. A smile began forming on his face as you came to view, almost like he has always been programmed to do so. There was a certain spring in your steps. Moments like these made Luke feel like he was a minimalist because your happiness was somehow enough to guarantee his own. 

You situated yourself next to Luke on the ground, not minding the dirt.

“Hey now, I’m meant to be watching these kids train, don’t come over and distract me,” the Hermes cabin counselor warned, though he didn’t move his eyes away from you. He simply couldn’t.

Everything about you served as a distraction to him. From the soft smirk gracing your lips to the innocent tilting of your head. Every little detail about you was captivating and was equally capable of drawing his attention away from wherever it was meant to be. 

In fact, his attention issue around you was getting rather shameless because his friends have begun picking up on it and started teasing him for it. Personally, Luke doesn’t think it was his fault. His eyes just happen to draw to you in every room like second nature, while his mind short-circuited every time you were near. 

Maybe, and just maybe being rational and able to function properly has stopped being his forte…at least whenever you were around.

Your eyes moved to the group of kids that were only going to be at camp for the summer. From the looks of it, Luke has just assigned them to practice sword fighting in pairs. You then glanced back at your best friend, discreetly drinking in the sight of him. 

No doubt he did his fair share of demonstration before letting these kids go off on their own, because right now, his face was slightly flushed, veins evident on his forearm while the familiar orange shirt clung onto his body with glistening sweat.

You shook away the non-platonic thoughts and teased him, “Oh, come on, you wouldn’t pass up on talking to me. You adore me too much.” 

Damn right, he does. Luke could feel his cheeks heat up again.

“Fine. What are you here for, firecracker?”

“I got another gift,” you informed, presenting the bracelet in your hand. 

For the past month, you have been receiving small letters and gifts. This time it was a handmade bracelet with beads of your favorite colors, as well as charms that represented some of your hobbies and favorite things. It was clear that your anonymous admirer had put a lot of thought into such a small item. However, as always, there were no identities attached to it, leaving you clueless about the person behind these gestures.

Luke took your hand in his, eying the accessory that perfectly fitted your wrist. He started toying with the beads around your wrist that were shining in your favorite color.

The boy’s gaze flicked from the object to you, catching your soft and warm look. Gods, if you kept looking at him like that, he might just actually stop thinking logically. He could practically feel a confession lingering behind his lips, threatening to spew the second his ropes of restraint died.

“Anyway, I came here with an idea,” you broke the silence. “What if I try to find out who this person is? I mean, some of these gifts are quite specific. They seem to know my favorite color, flowers, and things I like. Surely, it wouldn’t be that hard to narrow it down and figure it out?”

Something shifted in your best friend’s behavior and you could feel it. There was a slight flustering look on Luke’s face as he avoided eye contact with you. It was rather strange to see the Hermes cabin counselor so fidgety. Luke has always been confident and composed, and you’d often be the one to humble down his playful cocky remarks. Half-way through looking at his behavior, you began speaking:

“You…”

Luke could feel the blood draining from his face at your facial expression, his face paling despite how flushed he was seconds ago from demonstrating sword fighting. The boy tried to regain his composure, though his attempt at seeming nonchalant failed as you touched his arm. Did you—

“You can be my inside man, talk to these guys to see if they’d slip up or something like that.” 

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Luke hastily replied, clearing his throat.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did that come across as a suggestion? I hate to break it to you but being best friends means you sorta have to participate in my schemes,” your lips curled as Luke grunted at your words. 

“Yeah, but—”

“Luke, please…it’ll be fun,” he almost scoffed at your words and unconvincing argument. Clearly, the two of you had different definitions of fun. Just as he opened his mouth to reject your idea again, his eyes caught yours. You were looking at him in such an eager and heart-warming gaze that it made him forget what he was intending to say.

Ah, there was no denying anymore. Being rational and able to function properly has truly stopped being his forte.

“Fine,” Luke uttered, the word pricking his tongue as regret started kicking in as he accepted being your accomplice. This decision could only come back to bite him in the ass. He watched as you quickly celebrated his lack of restraint.

“Ah, you gave in quite quickly,” you jabbed.

“Shut up.”

Oh, you were going to be the death of him.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Two days have passed since you got Luke to agree to help you find your secret admirer. Though, the boy must say, the last forty eight hours have been slightly comedic for him, watching you trying to track down your secret admirer…

While the real sender of those gifts was right beside you, nodding along to your every word. 

Luke’s mind trailed to the origin of this “secret admirer” idea. He started it as a way to abate the urge of straight-up blurting out how love-struck he was with his own best friend, while also testing out the waters before finally confessing his feelings for you. 

Though it was slightly amusing how the idea led him to where he was right at that moment. The Hermes cabin counselor zoned out as he pretended to speak to another boy you thought was behind those sweet gifts and letters. 

Luke used to have those feelings under rein, but self-repression only caused it to grow exponentially. Initially, the Hermes cabin counselor dismissed those beyond friendly thoughts, thinking they would eventually fizzle away. However, against his predictions, this fondness towards you became a sort of companion to him for three long years. 

Not only that, years of excessively burying these feelings six feet underground also came back to bite him in the ass because instead of having his feelings under control, they now have the upper hand. 

Sometimes he felt like a puppet, while his feelings plucked the strings. His facial expressions were forever cursed to be sculpted in raw yearning whenever around you, having no choice over how he reacts to everything related to you.

But it didn’t matter, because he was going to finally confess soon.

Luke almost burst out laughing at the way you were standing in anticipation, waiting for his intel on the most recent candidate. It was entertaining, to say the least, pretending to engage in investigative conversation before heading back to you, shaking his head in feigned disappointment. 

However, it didn’t take long before the Hermes cabin counselor started feeling sour.

Just as he made it back to your side, he watched as you started talking again, already discussing the next guy you thought might have done these things that Luke himself came up with. He eyed your in sync footsteps with a heavy heart. Despite the matching movement, he somehow still felt eternally behind. Luke was so close, yet so far away, and never quite able to grasp onto your ever moving attention. 

Did you not consider him as an option at all? Did you truly not see him as anything other than a good friend? It started stinging him knowing you were considering all these other guys as potential candidates — the faces that now haunt him in his sleep, poisoning his mind with an acidic jealousy that was eating away his common senses and fueling immoral thoughts. 

Soon enough, that same jealousy seared his mind with this overwhelming self-doubt. Luke’s foot started feeling cold at the thought of confessing. Gods, he never thought the same security behind anonymity would now make him feel desperate to be seen by you. 

“Maybe I should give up,” you concluded, mindlessly staring ahead. Your attention elsewhere gave Clarisse and Chris an opportunity to send each other knowing looks. The two have been watching you run around in circles on a goose hunt, not knowing to look right behind at the sulking figure that was trailing after you. 

Your distracted state also meant you didn’t notice the moping human situated beside you. However, hearing your declaration of ending your chase, Luke saw a window of opportunity. Maybe now was finally the time to be truthful. After all, if he doesn’t tell you, then how will you know and see him? Luke’s momentary motivation carried him through waves of dejection.

“Y/N, I need to tell you something,” Luke blurted out without much more thought or preparation, and his tone made you fully turn to him. Just as words finally formed and the boy opened his mouth to tell you—

“Hey Y/N, can I talk to you privately?” Somebody interrupted. Your eyes didn’t leave Luke immediately, but when you saw your best friend’s momentum had faltered, you turned to the stranger. It was another Hermes boy, somebody who you’ve seen around. You politely agreed and left with him. 

“So, I heard you’ve been looking for the person who’s been giving you anonymous gifts. And well, it’s your lucky day, 'cause…” the boy stared you up and down while you subconsciously took a small step back when he leaned forward. “...I’ve decided to come forward and reveal myself.”

“Okay…well, prove it” you squinted. Though your skepticism didn’t make the Hermes boy in front of you falter. Clearly, he expected this.

“The first thing you were given was a note, and…the two most recent gifts were a cassette tape and a bracelet — which was made from beads of your favorite color and charms like…” you zoned out as the boy started listing out some of your favorite activities that were indeed the charms on your bracelet. You fiddled with the bracelet that you had purposefully hidden out of his view right behind your back.

There was a pinch in your heart that signaled the last bit of hope dying. 

Oh…so Luke really wasn’t your secret admirer.

You internally scoffed at yourself. You should have known right after he said yes to helping you out with finding your secret admirer — which was originally an idea used as bait to determine if Luke was the sender or not, because if it was really him then he wouldn’t have agreed to help you out with this. However, not only did your best friend agree without much convincing from you, but he had seemed so nonchalant and unaffected as you named all these boys you wanted him to talk to. 

Perhaps this secret admirer thing was something good. Somebody has shown interest and their actions have been nothing but sweet. Those letters contained words that were eternally bound to your memories, even altering the way you view yourself for the better. Maybe you could get to know this person and move on from hopelessly crushing on your best friend.  

Halfway through, you realize you were so engulfed in your thoughts that you have zoned out to half of the things the Hermes boy was saying, and merely caught onto the last bit of his speech:

“...thinking maybe we could go on a date and get to know each other more tonight?”

Your stomach churned again, yet you nodded your head.

Move on. Move on. Move on. Move on. 

Your friends gave you questioning looks when you got back to where they were, clearly curious about what you were pulled away for.

“So…that was my secret admirer, and I’m going on a date with him tonight,” you hoped you sounded more enthusiastic than you were feeling. You tried convincing yourself at least it was good knowing definitely how your best friend actually felt about you. Quickly sitting down, you kept your eyes on Clarisse, knowing if you even looked over at Luke, he’d be able to tell straight away that something was wrong.

Your lack of focus also meant you didn’t think much of the quiet murmur from your best friend: “Sorry, I just remember I need to do something.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You looked at yourself in the mirror one last time. It was now the afternoon and you just finished getting ready for your date. As you were leaving, you spotted a note at the foot of your cabin. Seeing your name written on the paper, you picked it up while eying it peculiarly.

“You could be the one that I love, 

I could be the one that you dream of,

Message in a bottle is all I can do, 

Standing here hoping it gets to you.”

Your gut feeling stirred, hitting you with waves of higher certainty over suspicions you have previously had and denied.

Those lyrics were directly associated with a memory from summer two years ago. 

Luke and you were sitting by the campfire when he asked what your favorite song was. You told him the name and mentioned you hadn’t listened to it in a while because using technology devices with signals were dangerous for Demigods. The conversation slipped your mind but clearly loitered in your best friend’s mind, because two months later while on your way back to camp from your quest together, he gifted you a tape player along with a cassette of said song along with others that you liked.

You blinked away the image of you leaning on Luke’s shoulder while the two of you listened to the song together on the train back to camp.

You re-read the note again while shaking your head. Perhaps it was a coincidence. Perhaps, that Hermes boy knew the song and it was also one of his favorites. Perhaps—

Your hand started trembling around the paper. Your eyes landed on one small detail in the note: a particular handwriting choice. The rest of it matched with previous notes, but there was one singular scribbling feature you’ve never seen used before. 

Everything came crashing down and your internal eternal cycle of excuses and denial shattered.

You ran. It didn’t matter that it was raining and your attire was getting soaked. It didn’t matter at all because you were frustrated and confused. In other instances, you would have been elated at the possibility of mutual affection, but in that moment, exasperation blinded you from sensibility. 

If what you have concluded was true, then why on Earth would he allow you to go on a date with a person who stole credit for things they didn’t do? This whole time, he made you feel like a fool — for waiting that long and having hope after all that time; for asking the person you were looking for to hunt them down with you; for sulking despite having what you thought was a good opportunity to come along; for borderline going on a date with an imposter; and for not seeing it all along that it was him. 

“It’s you, isn’t it?” you called out.

Despite the rain, you could see your best friend’s figure stiffened before turning around to face you. The boy stood with his hands behind his back, not yet daring to look at you. 

“The “th”. You connected the cross in the ‘t’ directly to the ‘h’,” you presented the note in your hand, pointing specifically at the slip up that Luke had made in the latest note, not caring of the raindrops that were hitting the paper. “It’s how I write it, and you started writing it the same way a year after we got to know each other because you liked the way it looked,” you pressed further.

The expression on Luke’s face painted your theory into the truth of the situation. You felt your hand slightly shaking at the revelation.

“Why? You left anonymous gifts and notes and watched me put on this hunt — which by the way, was for you. And didn’t even say anything when a guy lied and said he was my secret admirer? Is this one big cruel prank?”

“No—”

“Oh! Well then, surely at one point in this whole thing, you felt like you should just tell me?” 

“I was going to.”

“Then where were you when I was just about to head out with that fraud? Maybe if you really liked me and really cared for me, like all those damn notes say, you would have fought for m—”

“I did,” Luke finally raised his voice, his face briefly hardened in an attempt to convey his desperation. His chest heaved, and the way it did almost made you think the anger radiating off every inch of his skin right then was directed towards you. But it wasn’t, and he knew you knew. 

“I confronted him right after he claimed that he was the one who gave you all those things.” 

Invisible ivies rooted your foot to the ground. You gulped, trying to digest the information you were given. However, it finally sunk in when Luke’s hands appeared from behind his back. It was then that you could see the bandage wrapped around his knuckles. Your breath hiccuped in both flattery and worry at the implication of what he had done. The darkness behind those deep hazel-brown orbs reflected a certain side of your best friend that you hadn’t seen before. Although, part of you felt like you wouldn’t mind it.

It made Luke’s blood boil knowing what he dedicated to you from the bottom of his heart was spoiled by ill intentions. Luke should have known better than to carelessly write all the letters and craft those gifts right on his bunk bed, rather than discreetly. 

Once again, the Hermes cabin counselor was pulled back to memories from an hour ago. The way the other boy shot remarks at Luke’s lack of precautions, boasting his wrong-doings like someone incapable of having a guilty conscience. Luke's jaw tightened as the image of the sly smirk on the other Hermes boy's face flashed in his mind, but a wave of satisfaction ran through him as he recalled how quickly that smirk was wiped away by his own fist.

They might be brothers by a fraction, but blood or not, that boy was dead to Luke the second he tried tricking you.

“And no, I wouldn’t have let you go out with a fraudster. Never,” Luke’s eyes softened. “And in case it’s not implied enough: I like you…a lot. I was going to confess but then this guy came along lying,” Luke could feel that tremor returning once more to his fist. He hated that something he built, from scratch, on the foundation of sincerity was momentarily tainted by the hands of a spineless liar. Not only that, he hated witnessing somebody so dear to him getting deceived in such a tasteless manner.

“I also…didn’t want to get hurt. It was starting to seem like you would ever consider me as more than just a friend with the way you were listing out all these other guys. So for a bit there I was considering just keeping quiet…forever” he confessed, eyes now straying away from you and down to his shoes.

You observed your best friend through a new perspective. So your initial suspicions were true. You had thought it was him because all the things you have received hinted to somebody who knew you so well, and who else at camp but Luke knew this many things about you. But ultimately, another part of you — the proclaimed “logical” side — has hyper-analyzed every split second you two have shared and deemed that Luke has not given any true signs of interest in you beyond as a friend. Thus, you dismissed the thought of Luke being your secret admirer.

You know now to trust your gut feelings more.

“Oh, Luke Castellan, you dumb ass…” you spoke softly underneath your breath, but you knew he heard you perfectly clearly from the way he slightly peered up. Your heart almost shattered at the dejected look on your best friend’s face and the thought of him burying his feelings eternally. You sure as hell would not allow that to be this timeline.

“I’ve liked you ever since the day you went out of your way and gave me that first cassette tape,” the marveled look on Luke’s face over your confession made you continue, “I guess I should have known it was you…cause gift giving has always been your love language.” It seemed like the boy was too stunned and struck frozen. However, his shell-shock state didn’t last long, because soon, your best friend’s gaze reverted back to the way he has always looked at you, only slightly more intense.

Your eyes fluttered at the sight of Luke Castellan in front of you at that moment. You were finally able to see the effect you’ve always had on him. The way his lips hung slightly agape, eyes dilated in such a way you were no longer able to see their usual color anymore, chest slightly heaving despite lack of physical reasons for such a reaction. You almost wanted to hit yourself for being such a fool and not spotting these details sooner. 

“Now, Castellan…you have two options,” you stepped closer to him, leaving an appropriate amount of personal space in between. “You either kiss me or—”

Luke grabbed your wrist with his uninjured hand and pulled you in. The same hand-guided your arms around his neck while also effectively eliminating the remaining distance between you two. 

Without hesitation, he kissed you.

Likewise, you returned the action without a second thought. You frankly didn’t care about the rain that was soaking the both of you. Kissing Luke felt like such a natural act that it felt simply like diving home. The way he held you made you feel like you were a national treasure he was so afraid of losing. Gods, you don’t think you mind doing this ever so often.

Though, there was a certain urgency in the way Luke kissed you, as if afraid you’d either vanish or you’d change your mind. You pressed your lips harder against his, hoping he’d understand you didn’t intend on leaving or having a change of heart.

A grunt escaped his throat as you kissed him harder. Oh, Luke Castellan already knew he was in immense trouble. He knew almost immediately that the concerning number of thoughts he had about you each day would only increase tenfold from this day on. He wondered if you could taste all of his unspoken words. If kissing you felt like this, he might as well sign away his heart, body, and mind to you. In fact, he’d sign anything you put in front of him without even considering the fine prints. 

Luke slowly backed you against a tree, giving you a bit of support to lean against whilst shielding the both of you from the heavy rain. He smiled into the kiss as you hummed at his action, feeling it echo against his lips. His heart tugged, almost leaping out of his chest when your hands made their way to both sides of his face, cupping it intently like holding something yours. Yours. Fuck, he loved the sound of that. 

You were the first to break the kiss. The both of you gasped for air while maintaining eye contact. The close-up view of his intense gaze drove your cheeks rosy. You could not help but admire the way his locks of wet curly hair clung onto his forehead, while raindrops fell from his face, some following the length of his eyelashes before falling — Oh, the way he glanced down at your lips at that second made you feel almost like you had the power to convince him into anything at the moment. 

“You’re my best friend…” he broke the silence.

“Mhm.”

“...but what if I want you to be more than that?”

“I can be both,” Luke’s lips broke out into a smile, and you mirrored his facial expression. He leaned his forehead against yours whilst softly rubbing his thumb soothingly against your waist.

“I’m not against that.” 

As a larger grin broke out on your lips, Luke’s eyes further softened. He realized right there and then that anything you wanted, he would not be against it. A breath of relief quietly escaped beneath Luke’s breath. He could not wait for whatever was in store for the both of you in the future.

Good thing his messages in a bottle did get to you.

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

masterlist

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[jinxie-117]

Shin Soukoku: Why BSD cannot be told without Atsushi and Akutagawa

How's everyone feeling after chapter 121.5? Pretty great, right? Pretty SSKK-brained, right? Well, I've got good news for you - Atsushi and Akutagawa are absolutely the emotional core of Bungou Stray Dogs.

That's right chat - whether you ship them or not, these two are absolutely fundamental to the entirety of BSD. Take whatever perspective you want on them - as lovers, as friends, as rivals who despise each other fundamentally but learn to trust one another - these two and their relationship cannot be separated from the overarching themes of their tale.

Naturally, I will be using the mainline manga as reference, as I believe it to be the best source for the overall story of BSD as well as information on Akutagawa and Atsushi's characters (since the light novels and spinoff mangas tend to focus predominantly on characters like Dazai and Chuuya, and BEAST doesn't count). Obviously, spoilers for everything. So, with that in mind, let's begin:

What is BSD about?

Many people would agree that one of the main themes of Bungou Stray Dogs is the value of a human life. Numerous characters struggle with issues surrounding their right to even be alive (Atsushi, Dazai, Akutagawa, Kyouka, Yosano, I mean the list goes on), their status as a human being (Dazai, Chuuya, Akutagawa, Sigma, and arguably Fyodor), or the amount of life required to be taken in order for the 'greater good' (most specifically the conflict between Fukuzawa and Fukuchi, but also Fyodor).

Pretty much every character in Bungou Stray Dogs struggles with some sort of suicidality or has assigned themselves a purpose that they must never stray from (Kunikida and his ideals come to mind - he believes he should not live unless he can follow the exact principles that he has composed for himself), causing them to equate the value of their lives to this one purpose.

It makes sense, then, that three of the most major villains we've had so far - Fitzgerald, Fyodor, and Fukuchi - have their own ways of cheating death: Fitzgerald in his quest to use the Book and resurrect his daughter, Fyodor with his ability, and Fukuchi with Shintou Amenogozen. What's more, all of them aim to cause immense loss of life (Fyodor is willing to kill anyone and everyone in pursuit of purging sin, Fitzgerald didn't mind loss of life in pursuit of money, power, and access to the Book, and although Fukuchi is ultimately on a smaller scale, he still aimed to kill a large number of people in order to achieve his ideal of peace). The value of a human life is the most sacred thing in this world, and so being able to cheat your own death while causing many others is naturally the most evil thing to do by this world's rules.

A final thing to note that, despite every character believing in some divine (especially in Fyodor's case) purpose for themselves that will finally give their life value, this purpose tends to cause more harm to themselves and others than they would care to admit. Kunikida's ideals especially (I keep using him as an example, it's because I recently read Dazai's entrance exam lmao) are emphasised as ridiculous and overdone, and his rigidity frequently causes him harm. This self-destruction brought on by purpose will become especially relevant as we move on to discuss our two beautiful boys:

Atsushi Nakajima: Useless Self-Pity

News to the people of the world - Atsushi is my favourite character in all of Bungou Stray Dogs. He is perfect to me and I love him. Many people I encounter on the internet have some sort of quantum beef with this man, which I can only assume is because they see in him that their own self-hatred and pity can cause harm, and get extremely butthurt about the fact that self-flagellating does nothing for them. I, however, have no such qualms, and thus I can see that he is certified peak.

One of Atsushi's major flaws, despite all his kindnesses, is that he cannot fathom a reason why he should be allowed to live, and constantly searches for that reason in other people. For a long time, he based his entire worth around the orphanage headmaster's opinion of him, as he was his only involved guardian - and thus, as a result of his abuse, believed himself worthless. Upon leaving home (or more accurately, being forcibly removed), he no longer had a purpose to live, but his survival instincts kept him alive for long enough to meet Dazai.

Meeting Dazai and joining the detective agency was only a short solace - because Atsushi, who wanted to live but truly believed that he did not deserve to, was now on the hunt for a new reason to live: protecting others.

It makes sense that in a high-stakes environment that Atsushi sees the only value of his life as protecting other people. This is first demonstrated during his entrance exam, in chapter two, when this freak of nature jumps on top of a bomb in order to protect the people around him. This seems to earn him approval from others (which he believes is his reason to live, for people to give him their approval and thus confirm he is allowed to exist), so he begins to participate in more battles and save more people's lives and generally act in defence of other people in order to earn his right to be alive.

There is more to be said here, but maybe I'll make a post only about Atsushi some other time. Moving on, one of the main drawbacks of Atsushi's desperation to live and his belief that he needs to protect others, is that he suffers from his main weakness in times of stress - dwelling on the past. Despite possessing the capability to protect and fulfil his purpose, Atsushi will freeze up and begin to spiral into self-hatred whenever anything goes wrong for him.

This is most obvious in the latest chapters, when witnessing all of his friends in the ADA die at the hands of Ame No Gozen and Dostoevsky. He seems entirely unable to take any action and fight back, believing his foe to be insurmountable, despite Fyodor's confirmation that this may not be the case:

So, we've established Atsushi's weakness as his inaction, passivity, and self-hatred. It makes him often useless in battle, and prevents him from creating a purpose for himself and interacting with the value of his life in a healthy way. Instead of protecting others and maintaining his own self worth, he fails to protect others, demolishes his self worth, and thus attempts increasingly dangerous and reckless ways to prove that his life has value. Most notably uh....

This suicide is demonstrative of Atsushi's terrible self-image. He foolishly believes that his life will have value if he literally kills himself, despite the fact that his life will no longer have value if he cannot do anything with it. Atsushi's belief that self-sacrifice is noble when he should be aiming to preserve as many lives as possible, including his own, is the culmination of every scrap of self-hatred he's been developing over the course of the entire story.

However, this can also be perceived also a good act - for once, Atsushi takes action instead of protecting mindlessly, and I will get into how this relates back to Akutagawa and how he teaches him how to take action instead of dwelling on the past, but that's for a later section. Either way, this act of self-sacrifice is both Atsushi moving onward in his character arc - learning how to take action in times of stress, instead of standing still, but also remaining stagnant - he refuses to preserve his own life, preferring instead to sacrifice it in the name of his purpose.

So, to move things along...

Ryuunosuke Akutagawa: Mindless Self-Servitude

More news to the world - you're never gonna guess which BSD character I relate to the most. This freak. This section will hopefully be a little shorter because this post is really dragging on, but no promises!

Akutagawa was very dissociated for the first years of his life - but he still had a purpose right up until his friends died. Being the strongest in his group of children in the slums, he was their assigned protector, and believed this to be his only purpose. It is the loss of this purpose that managed to break the haze around his emotions and first experience hatred - before it causes him to realise he has no reason to go on.

Immediately, Akutagawa takes up a new purpose - to prove his strenght to Dazai. Dazai personally tailors this purpose himself, ensuring that Akutagawa's entire sense of self-worth is dependent on him, willing to sacrifice any hope or joy that he might have had a chance at feeling. At the same time, however, Akutagawa despises Dazai for his treatment, being at least partially cognisant of his abuse, and wishes to kill him - thus creating a paradox in which he shall always wish to destroy his reason for live, but never be able to out of fear of losing said reason to live.

It is pretty important to note that I do not think Akutagawa wishes to die, unlike Atsushi who wholly believes that he should. Rather, Akutagawa becomes what he sees as a heartless monster when he is without a purpose, and thinks that he shall rot away on his own without one, as he believed that he did as a child in the slums, one day away from death at all times (now no longer being wholly aware that he was a fierce protector and once saw that as his reason to live). As a result, he adopts a philosophy that Dazai introduces him to - that the weak shall die, and the strong shall live, and that he better hope to be strong.

So, Akutagawa's worst weakness is that he despises the weak and will quickly and recklessly cut them down, refusing to sheath his sword, as he believes those strong enough to be worthy of life shall be able to hold their own against him in battle. Rather, instead of diminishing his own life in pursuit of saving others, Akutagawa diminishes others' lives in pursuit of saving his own. He acts recklessly and impulsively, underestimating his foes, the opposite of how Atsushi acts. He is actively called out on this by Pushkin upon encountering him:

To rub salt in the wound, earlier this chapter Atsushi calls him out on it multiple times, and Dazai calls him out on it for about... two years straight. So we can parse that Akutagawa really doesn't know how to slow down or quit, always dealing with the present and the now, believing that mass destruction will be a proof of his strength that he can then demonstrate to Dazai and earn his right to live.

This purpose, however, actively harms Akutagawa - in particular, it removes from him his humanity. He is repeatedly referred to as some kind of dog (see: the heartless cur, the silent mad dog, the black-fanged hellhound, the list goes on), and treated like his only use is to fight - which he genuinely believes, and so exists only to hurt and fight others. This causes a vicious cycle - Akutagawa hurts others recklessly -> gets called out on hurting others recklessly and denounced as a dog that doesn't know how to do anything else -> he internalises this idea of not knowing how to do anything but kill -> he continues to hurt others recklessly.

So, we have Akutagawa who will kill others to prove he is strong and thus allowed to live, and Atsushi who will kill himself to prove that he can protect and thus allowed to live. What a pair! So let's get onto the main event that shouldn't have taken this long.

Shin Soukoku: To me, you've always had a right to live

This post isn't about it, but the amount of panels these two have together where they are perfectly mirroring each other is wholly unsubtle. I've never seen anything like it. It is totally ridiculous.

To create an effective narrative foil, one must first create as many similarities between two characters as they can. So let's begin:

Both studied under Dazai

Both struggle with a flimsy reason to live

Both have all-devouring beasts that can cut through things most people wouldn't be able to as their ability

Both think themselves worthless save for one thing

Both are haunted by pasts of physical abuse that cause violence to be their accepted norm

Both feel their emotions very strongly

There's more but I've been at this post for two hours

These similarities, especially the one surrounding their reason to live, are very accessibly noticed in another human being. Overall, both of these two need to learn how to dispense of their current reasons to live, which tend to hinge on another person and a set of narrow-minded ideas (in Atsushi's case, protecting everybody, and in Akutagawa's, the strong needing to defeat the weak).

As a result of being able to notice these flaws very easily in another (having only subconsciously noticed it in themselves), these two do not get along, and repeatedly call each other out on foolish behaviour, enabling each other to improve. This looks slightly different on either side, so I'll go one-by-one.

Let's begin with Atsushi's side of the deal, because I talked about him first. As we established earlier, what he needs to learn is to take action, stop dwelling on his past, and view his life as something worth holding onto, as all human life has value.

The one thing Akutagawa absolutely despises about Atsushi is his absolute unwillingness to take any action at all.

Akutagawa, who is so used to moving forward and fighting and acting in the now, hates Atsushi for being able to dwell on his past and still have Dazai's approval. It fills him with complete and utter rage, and so he unwittingly motivates Atsushi to learn how to take proper action.

Another example is on the boat, when Atsushi's resolve is failing, and he comes to assist.

Ah, the famous line. Unironically though, it is perfectly demonstrative of Akutagawa's ability to instil self-confidence in Atsushi and motivate him into taking action - which does work later on when Atsushi saves Akutagawa from an inevitable death at the hands of Fukuchi, allowing them both to escape with their lives (for now):

So, good job Akutagawa! You've managed to teach Atsushi the power of not sitting around being dead miserable, not doing anything about the things that are visibly going wrong all around him. You know, I bet this won't have any other consequences for both you and him!

Oh, hey, Akutagawa. Guess what else you taught him:

So. We've already established why this is kind of an... issue. But as we can visibly see, Atsushi is able to take action. For the first time in several chapters, he is motivated by the prospective death of the man who warned against his passivity, into acting, not sitting by and watching everybody he cares for die, acting. Akutagawa, whose recklessness and impulsivity Atsushi once criticised, seems to be the one thing that enables him to take action after a period of extreme self-doubt and passivity.

This is especially special because Atsushi is motivated into this action by hallucination Dazai, who was once the hallucination of the orphanage director - who is now, at least implicitly, revealed to be Byakko, or Atsushi's tiger (if I am proven wrong on this then it's SO joever but whatever my theory still holds up). Throughout the entire story, Byakko is used as a metaphor for Atsushi's self-image (which I will possibly go into in another post because I'll be here all day if I do it now). So, if hallucination Dazai motivates Atsushi into acting, that means that Akutagawa has pressured him enough that he has literally permanently altered his self-concept. Insane.

Another thing that Akutagawa criticises Atsushi for is his belief that other people need to be protected, and that he can destroy himself for the sake of others, and thus earn a right to live. He demonstrates this particularly in chapter 35:

Akutagawa's main philosophy is that he who is the strongest shall come out on top, and that sacrificing anything for others is useless. So, he's (still in the process of) teaching Atsushi how to live for himself and look out for himself, which he is able to do whenever they fight against each other, and also when they fight with others - the combination of their abilities is incredibly powerful, and also represents Akutagawa giving up his defences and giving them to Atsushi, thus teaching him how to look out for himself.

This absolutely comes to fruition when Akutagawa sacrifices himself for Atsushi on the boat against Fukuchi and tells him to get away while he still can - however you slice it, he is unintentionally teaching Atsushi that he has the right to live and that Akutagawa is willing to die for it - that it doesn't matter if he protects or if he doesn't, that no matter what happens, he deserves to live. And these guys hate each other! What the hell???

Another thing to note is that now that Atsushi is presumably dead from Akutagawa's POV, he is very visibly devastated, even being able to recall his memories upon seeing the man who he fought so hard to defend take his own life. Should they reunite, I imagine that Akutagawa will be at least slightly angry with Atsushi for sacrificing himself like that - thus moving his arc of self-preservation forward.

Now, let's move onto Akutagawa's side of the deal, after that incredibly long amount of time spent on Atsushi's end.

Akutagawa believes that he does not have the right to go on unless he can prove his strength, specifically to Dazai, and does this via cutting down anything in his path.

Atsushi cannot shut up about how idiotic Akutagawa's impulsivity is. We see this on several occasions, the usually kind Atsushi devolving into downright bitchiness at points:

These are only two examples, because I didn't want to have to go chapter hopping that many times. Sorry chat.

Regardless, Akutagawa needs to be taught how to take things slow and learn how to preserve life instead of absolutely demolishing it. This comes to fruition via the six-month promise that Atsushi forces him to make, playing upon Akutagawa's principles and forcing him to not kill anyone for several months. Akutagawa begrudgingly follows through, and ends up successfully managing it right up until his death at the hands of Fukuchi. In addition, it could be argued that this same impulse-control Atsushi insists on inspiring in Akutagawa is what allows him to be able to stay hidden through most of the terrorist arc. Had the promise not existed, he likely would have killed to get his way, and ended up mistakenly revealed.

So, similar to how Akutagawa unintentionally motivates Atsushi to take action, Atsushi unintentionally motivates Akutagawa to slow things down and avoid impulsively killing. He is able to ensure Akutagawa's sword is sheathed when necessary, a feat that even Dazai couldn't achieve.

In addition, while I'd say the 'Dazai's approval' conflict is still in murky waters with Akutagawa, as he's only just recalled Atsushi and it's unclear if he's recalled anything else, Atsushi unwittingly motivates Akutagawa into reducing his impulsivity by allowing him to realise that Dazai won't be pleased by it:

While this exchange can be interpreted as Akutagawa resigning himself to Dazai's hatred of him, we do see him later postpone the killing of the two guards, both because this mission is literally made to work against him (if the guards die, a signal is sent out) and because Atsushi is constantly pulling him up on his shit.

In addition to this, Atsushi teaches Akutagawa a very important thing - that the lives of the weak matter. This is such an insane breakthrough for Akutagawa's character, also represented by the six-month promise. Despite how he's operated all this time, he learns to see Atsushi - who he has perceived as weak all this time due to his constant self pity - as a valuable ally and a life that matters, even sacrificing himself for him in the end.

Akutagawa sacrificing himself for Atsushi is such an insane move because he has never conceptualised something close to doing anything like that before, not once in his life. Atsushi, through all they have been through together, has reawakened the protective instinct in him that hasn't been active since he was a child. This is directly after Fukuchi attempts to convince him to work for him, too - right after he promises strength and Dazai's approval and everything Akutagawa has ever wanted.

Indeed, his life is that important. It is directly after this exchange that Akutagawa and Atsushi are able to trust each other to launch the surprise attack on Fukuchi, only stopped by the fact that his sword can literally exist outside of space and time. For the life of a weak man, Akutagawa gives up all he ever wanted. He gives up Dazai's approval, which he says that he fears dying without. He gives up a chance to become stronger. He gives up his life, which he so desperately wants to live. All for a weak man. All for somebody who he doesn't believe should live, if he cannot beat another in battle.

This is especially evident in the fact that despite the fact he's lost all of his memories, Akutagawa still adheres to the promise that he made to Atsushi. He has learned to respect the weak enough that he refuses to take a life, even when he is visibly winning in battle. And even though he was inspired by Bram, I would like to point out that Akutagawa has sworn his sword to protect others now, a promise that he will still likely adhere to despite the fact he now retains his memories - after all, we still see him in his knight getup at the end of S5E11, which is at least partially symbolic of his pledge.

In addition, Akutagawa is a character who is likely foreign with grief now that he's basically removed himself from the memories of what happened to him and to his friends in the slums - he never mentions his past, and is very visibly attempting to distance himself from it by engaging with luxury items such as antiques, and enjoying food such as figs, which can be seen as somewhat luxury depending on the context.

However, when Atsushi seemingly dies, he is absolutely devastated, something that I do not think we've seen him be for anything not related to Dazai (correct me if I'm wrong, but this depth of reaction isn't usually present in him). He, who never feels grief, likely because he believes those who die are weak and thus have it coming, is so shocked by Atsushi's death that he regains his memories and feels utter despair at the idea of losing him.

Conclusion

So, Atsushi and Akutagawa, both characters whose reason to live is deeply intertwined in their outlook on life, are able to balance out and improve each other's characteristics tenfold. I imagine as the manga progresses that both of them will teach each other the value of their own lives simply for existing, something that the overarching story of BSD seems to be trying to communicate.

Shin Soukoku is a perfect microcosm of the overall themes of BSD, representing the one question from which the entire story stems. Without these two, this particular theme would mean nothing, considering there would be literally no relatable plane to experience it on. Sure, we can acknowledge that millions of people dying is bad, and accept that human life is valuable through Fukuchi and Fyodor and Fitzgerald, who all attempt to demonstrate the opposite - but without Akutagawa and Atsushi, it wouldn't nearly mean as much.

I am sorry that this post was so long! If you stuck to the end you are an angel sent from the very heavens. Don't be afraid to reblog or comment your thoughts, this is just my opinion and I would love a discussion. If there are any typos I'm also sorry I've been sitting here for three hours trying to collect sources and write. But actually I'm not sorry cos I'm really based

[fushiglow]

Gojo cares a lot, actually

Perspective and empathy in Jujutsu Kaisen

Once again, I see accusations that Gojo only cared about people in relation to their strength. I can't believe that 236 and 261 haven't put this idea to bed already, but let's go over it again for the class. Here are some thoughts on the importance of perspective and empathy in JJK. Spoilers for chapter 266 ahead!

In 236, Gojo tells Geto he loves everyone. This single line, direct from the man's mouth, should be enough. However, moments later, Nanami says, "You never cared about protecting people". So why do some readers only take one of these perspectives at face value?

Perspective matters in JJK. Often, characters and even the narrator state things that are only true from their perspective in a given moment. What you choose to believe says more about you than it does about them — an idea I explored in my analysis of 236.

This is particularly important when it comes to Gojo and Megumi, because the moment they meet is the only (?) scene in the whole of JJK that we get to see from two perspectives.

The second time, the reader understands the emotional weight of it for Gojo — but Megumi doesn't. He's kept in the dark, so of course he thinks about their meeting in different terms.

Once again, whose perspective are we going to take at face value? From Megumi's point of view, he wasn't offered a choice. From Gojo's point of view, he extended to a child the little agency available to him.

Offering a choice is something Gojo does consistently throughout JJK — pick your hell. It's one of the ways he shows care for others that goes unrecognised, so it's ironic that readers and characters alike misinterpret it for a lack of empathy. However, this is no coincidence.

For much of the series, Gege keeps Gojo at a narrative distance from the reader. Most of what we know about Gojo comes from what other characters tell us, and our view of him is therefore coloured by their perspective.

However, while Gojo laments the distance between himself and others, he fails to recognise that he's the one maintaining it — and not because of his strength or his technique. He has admirable goals, but he chooses to work towards them alone.

There are many occasions where characters reach for Gojo, but he refuses to let them past his metaphorical Infinity out of a sense of duty and perhaps misplaced belief that he alone can or should bear this heavy burden.

All of Gojo's actions are about preserving the humanity of others at the expense of his own. That's precisely why he chooses to become the "monster" alone. In this way, Gojo is flawed but he isn't uncaring. Again, it's a matter of perspective.

Gojo sees strength as the solution because it's all he's ever known. However, recognising the strength of others doesn't mean that's all he sees — because Gojo knows that dehumanisation acutely. What's more, 261 also suggests he thinks of "strength" in different terms to others.

When they meet, Gojo tells Megumi not to get left behind. However, he later says he was "left behind" when Geto defected. We know Gojo's physical strength eclipsed Geto's, yet Gojo only refers to himself as "the strongest" alone after Geto dies.

Before that point, there's nothing in the text to suggest that Gojo ever stopped thinking of the pair of them as "the strongest" — as a unit, as a duo. This suggests that strength, for Gojo, is something much more intangible, much more sympathetic, and much more human too.

What do the strongest characters in JJK all have in common? Indomitable will, courage in their convictions, an overwhelming sense of self. Looking at strength through this lens shines a new light on Gojo's goal of raising "strong" allies.

When he forces a third option in Shibuya, Gojo proves that strength doesn't have to come at the expense of compassion. In the later chapters of the Shinjuku Showdown arc, Yuta, Yuji, and the rest of Gojo's allies reinforce that idea ten times over, and I have every belief that Megumi will soon do the same.

To suggest Gojo only saved Megumi for his technique is unfair when he has consistently proven himself committed to protecting the futures of others, even "weak" non-sorcerers who have nothing to offer him. Once again, it's all a matter of perspective.

Gojo's way of caring is still caring, even if it doesn't look familiar to you. His only flaw was closing himself off from others and choosing to care from afar. However, just like Gojo never stopped reaching for Geto after he left, Gojo's allies never stopped reaching for him.

There's a phrase we use to describe looking at things from another perspective: putting yourself in someone else's shoes. I think it's very telling that Gojo's allies have taken that literally — Yuta by stepping into his skin, and Yuji by standing in his place in 266.

TL;DR: Gojo cares a lot, actually. If Gojo talking about his innermost feelings can't make you empathise, and the students he supposedly "doesn't care about" recognising his burdens can't make you empathise?

Well, that says far more about you than it does about him.

Come read my fics about this!

In His Shadow explores the ways Gojo keeps his distance from Megumi, who isn't equipped with the tools he needs to reach him but finds his own ways to show he cares, born from ten years of history together.

Rivers Crossed, Mountains Scaled explores Gojo and Megumi's relationship through the vehicle of SatoSugu — why Gojo took him in, whether Gojo really gave him a choice, how Gojo sees him.

Hope you enjoyed the post! I love you, Gege Akutami ♥️

[teruthecreator]

gimme 1 and 17 dialtown ☎️

hiiiii griffin i hope you're having a good time at graduation. probably not since u sent this ask but hey man i get i too was on my phone during graduation. anyway

1. the character everyone gets wrong

oh boy where do i start with this. i mean like. tee bee aych i feel like most people have a fundamental misunderstanding of randy. like he's not pathetic for pathetics sake he kind of intentionally puts himself in the worst situations imaginable to feed his worldview of everything being bad for Him specifically and no one else. the fandom kind of babygirls him? like treats him softer and generally makes him more of a shy uwu guy rather than a person stuck deeply in his own fractured worldview that is intentionally letting himself get worse. like randy's whole route is about making him realize his happiness is His Choice, His Decision and not a work of fate/luck/unseen outside force that he has to relinquish control to, and everyone just goes "yeah but what if we make him sopping wet uwu yaoibait guy with oliver".

speaking of oliver i feel like EEEEEEEEEVERYBODY makes him way too wacky and not actually grounded. like, despite his many odd mannerisms and such, he is still one of the few characters who has a job and is able to Maintain That throughout his route (though, of course, in the good route it changes). oliver is a pretty stable guy, all things considered. sure he talks funny and has a general inclination for the ridiculous, but a lot of people kinda coke him up and let him run loose like he's a wild animal. and i think it's more fun if you ground him in a place of reality and then let him play. instead of being the guy to drag people into stuff, let him be a part of a scenario and see what his reactions are. much more fun. also i feel like a lot of people forget how, like, awkward he is? like he tends to apologize when he says really outlandish/forward shit and seems to view Himself as a "freak" in a way that would suggest he's aware of how he stands in comparison to most people. like dude knows he's weird, and that's not Always a good thing.

and yknow what while im talking about the main dateables i would be remiss to bring up karen because like. WOW. i mean this is a problem with most fandom spaces unfortunately but the way people straightman her is so fucking sad. like people forget she literally quit her job on a Whim because someone vaguely suggested leaving and she went full throttle. karen is impulsive and karen makes bad decisions based on rash judgments and she is generally not that hard to goad into doing something stupid. i mean, she agreed to a date with gingi. twice! that takes some real loose grips on impulse control to just go along with that. like sure she is a bit more deadpan than, say, oliver, but she does have a sense of humor. she likes to use sarcasm! she has wit she has sass. also she is like. INSANELY jealous and i feel like a lot of people dont hone in on that aspect of her being the reason why she is sometimes so rash. she is fiercely protective of those she considers "hers". she wanted to Kill A Giraffe because gingi liked it. she is jealous she is rash she is impulsive PLAY IN THE SPACE STOP MAKING HER THE DEADPAN STRAIGHTMAN ITS SO BORINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

okay that's enough of that but just know i could've done it for every character

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

maybe i am insanely ridiculously biased but there should more content of mingus and norm. or just mingus. or norm. those two are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO fascinating and i feel like people kinda gloss over that. like they're similar beasts in their rampant paranoia and flawed perspective on callum/the world and they butt heads about it like crazy. generally their dynamic is one of the most interesting parts of chapter 3 to me and i feel like there really isn't enough chapter 3-focused content out there. we should talk about these guys more. and if i have to stand on a podium and take a stand there should be more content of MINGUS. girl is the driving antagonist of AN ENTIRE ARC. BASICALLY THE WHOLE GAME IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT. AND NOOOOOO I DON'T SEE HER ANYWHERE. IS IT BECAUSE SHE DOESN'T FIT IN YOUR FOUND FAMILY DYNAMIC? IS IT BECAUSE SHE'S A WOMAN? I DON'T KNOW I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DIRECT YOU PEOPLE TOWARDS HER BUT I WANT TO. if my brain was functioning at the capacity it was last july i would've written ten million fics about her i have so many days. alas, i don't know if they'll ever happen... (but if people were curious i would gladly share)

but in a slightly more biased take, i think there needs to be more normingus in the world. how we were the chosen few to proclaim the good word of normingus is beyond me. like don't get me wrong i'm happy tryt had its impact but JESUS CHRIST I SHOULD NOT BE THE MOST POPULAR. SOMEONE ELSE COME TRY AND PLAY IN THE SPACE WITH ME. I CAN GIVE YOU IDEAS. I CAN GIVE YOU SO MANY IDEAS.

[sasheemo]

Friday Thoughts

Chapter 3

Chapter Summary: Sharing dinner with Agatha and Nicholas shouldn't be too hard, right? But Saturday night at Agatha’s has other plans. As the evening unfolds, tensions escalate and desires ignite, promising anything but an ordinary end.

Chapter Tags: Mutual Pining, Power Dynamics, Gay Panic But Make It Domestic, The Tension Is Tensioning, Accidental Eavesdropping, Masturbation

Word Count: 7.4k

A/N: Chapter 3 is here! Spoiler alert: it’s long. Like, the longest chapter I’ve ever written for any multi-chapter fic, it took a lifetime because I wanted to pack in so much. Honestly, I don’t even want to think about how many times I wrote, re-read, and completely tore it apart because I hated it. It’s been through the wringer, y’all.

Am I 100% happy with it? No. Will I ever be? Also no. But if I keep tweaking it, it’ll never see the light of day, so… here it is, flaws and all!

Let’s just say things are heating up, and this chapter sets the stage for the spicy goodness that’s coming in Chapter 4.

As always, feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank you for reading, enjoy 💜

Chapter Index

Read on AO3

The clock creeps closer to seven as you sit on the floor with Nicholas, your hands idly stacking blocks while your thoughts wander to the kitchen. 

Agatha has been in there for a while now, the faint clinking of dishes and the soft rush of running water weaving through the quiet of the house.

At one point, unable to resist, you’d stood and smoothed your sweater nervously before edging toward the kitchen doorway. 

“Do you need a hand with anything?” you’d asked, your voice hesitant as you lingered just outside.

She’d glanced over her shoulder, a wisp of hair falling loose from behind her ear. Her lips curved into a faint, almost absentminded smile. 

“No need, hon.” she’d said lightly, returning to the cutting board without missing a beat. “After a day like today, this is how I unwind. Just keep Nicholas entertained, and make sure you’ve got an appetite.”

You’d nodded, retreating to the living room with a strange mix of relief and unease, unsure whether to feel dismissed or reassured.

Now, your gaze drifts toward the kitchen doorway again, catching fleeting glimpses of Agatha as she moves gracefully through the space. The subtle flicker of her silhouette, the fluid motion of her hands as she reaches for something on the counter, it’s almost hypnotic. 

You find it harder and harder to look away, your eyes drawn back to the doorway every few moments.

Then, the realization that you’re about to sit at the same table as her hits you like a brick wall, and your brain immediately kicks into overdrive. Where will you sit? What will you say? How will you stop yourself from staring at her like some starstruck idiot? The thought alone makes your chest feel tighter, and you let out a quiet, resigned sigh. 

Dinner hasn’t even started, and you’re already losing it.

Finally, her voice calls out from the kitchen, announcing that dinner’s ready.

Nicholas springs up instantly, his blocks forgotten as he rushes toward the kitchen. You follow more cautiously, your pulse quickening as you step into the room.

The table is set simply but elegantly, with the kind of care that feels distinctly Agatha. At the center, there’s a steaming dish of herb-roasted chicken rests on a platter, surrounded by golden baby potatoes and vibrant roasted vegetables. 

The scent of rosemary, garlic, and lemon fills the air, rich and inviting, but it only makes your stomach flip—not from hunger, but from the realization of where you are and who you’re sharing this moment with.

Agatha stands by the head of the table, placing the final plate in its spot, her expression is calm as she straightens and meets your gaze.

“Sit.” she says lightly, gesturing to the seat across from hers as though this is all perfectly normal.

You glance at Nicholas, who’s already climbing into his chair without hesitation. Taking a steadying breath, you lower yourself into the seat she’s indicated, trying not to think too much about how surreal this feels.

Agatha moves with her usual composure, taking her place at the table. She leans back slightly, one hand curling around the stem of her wineglass, her gaze drifting over the food before landing on you. It lingers just long enough to send a flicker of heat up your spine, your pulse quickening under the weight of her attention.

“Let’s eat before it gets cold.” she says, her voice warm but commanding, the kind of tone that makes it sound less like a suggestion and more like a quiet decree. 

“This is so good, Mom! Did you make the potatoes crispy on purpose?” Nicholas asks with a grin, already halfway through his first bite.

“Of course.” she replies, arching an eyebrow as her lips curve playfully. “Is there any other way to do them?”

Nicholas shakes his head vigorously, his mouth now too full to reply properly. You suppress a laugh and glance at Agatha, who catches your eye with an amused glint in her own.

“And what do you think?” she asks, her gaze settling on you like a spotlight. “Passable for a last-minute effort?”

You blink, caught off guard by her directness. 

“It’s delicious.” you say, and you mean it, though the compliment feels inadequate. “I think Nicholas might be right about the potatoes. They’re perfect.”

Agatha tilts her head slightly, as if weighing your response, before giving a soft hum of approval. 

“Good.” she says, her voice low and velvety. “I’d hate to disappoint.” 

Her eyes lock on yours, a spark of mischief flickering just beneath the surface, as if she’s gauging your reaction, or outright daring you to respond. 

Then, as if to twist the knife just a little deeper, she adds a slow, languid wink that sends a sharp jolt straight through you. 

You’re left speechless, grasping for a response that never comes. Agatha, of course, doesn’t wait for one. 

She shifts her attention back to Nicholas, asking about his latest castle design, her tone light and engaging as though she hasn’t just left you squirming in your seat. 

As they talk, you force yourself to focus on their conversation, chiming in occasionally, but your mind keeps wandering. Every so often, your gaze drifts back to her, trying—and failing—to reconcile the poised, commanding Agatha you’ve come to know with the one sitting at this table.

There’s a warmth to her, something relaxed and comfortingly domestic. It’s strange, watching her here, casually slicing into a piece of chicken and humoring Nicholas’ endless stream of questions.

And yet, as foreign as this moment feels, there’s something about it that tugs at you, a quiet sense of belonging you hadn’t anticipated.

As dinner ends, you rise from the table, stacking your empty wineglass atop your plate in an effort to make a smooth exit.

“Thanks again for dinner.” you say, keeping your tone light but sincere. “It was wonderful. I should probably let you two enjoy the rest of your evening—”

“Wait!” Nicholas bursts out, his chair scraping against the floor as he jumps to his feet. “You can’t go! We have to watch a movie!”

You gape at him, eyes wide, like he’s just suggested skydiving without a parachute or eating soup with a fork.

“Uh, a movie?” you repeat, glancing between him and Agatha. 

Surely, this is where she steps in to say it’s too late, that it’s time to wind down.

But to your surprise, Agatha simply raises an eyebrow, her expression amused. 

“A movie.” she echoes, swirling the last sip of wine in her glass. “Isn’t it a little late for that?”

“You always say that! Come on, mom. It’s Saturday!” Nicholas complains dramatically, his hands on his hips in a way that’s almost comical.

You open your mouth to help, to offer a dismissal Nicholas might accept—“Maybe next time” or “Your mom probably wants to relax.”—but before you can get a word out, Agatha’s gaze shifts to you.

“You did say your evening was wide open. So, what’s it going to be, hon? Care to join us?” she asks, leaning back slightly in her chair. 

Each syllable feels like a finger pressing to the one thought you’re trying desperately to bury: that not only do you have nowhere else to be, but if you’re honest with yourself, there’s nowhere you’d rather be.

Her lips curve into a knowing smile, the kind that suggests she’s already read your mind and is simply waiting for you to catch up.

“I—well, I don’t…” you start, your voice faltering as your mind scrambles for a coherent response. “I mean, I don’t want to intrude or—”

“Intrude?” she interrupts, her brows lifting in mock surprise. “On my son’s demands and my… oh-so-thrilling evening of cleaning up after dinner?” She leans forward slightly, her smile softening but never losing its edge. “Come now, you’ll have to try harder than that.”

Heat rushes to your cheeks, and you scramble to find the right words, your tongue suddenly feeling two sizes too big. 

“I just thought—you know, maybe you’d rather spend the evening relaxing. Just the two of you. I wouldn’t want to… overstay.” you manage, your voice wavering as your face burns hotter by the second.

“I wouldn’t exactly call the cinematic torture Nicky usually puts me through my ideal way to relax. But if you stay, at least I won’t have to endure it alone.” she muses, the words landing with practiced subtlety, as though she’s tossing the suggestion into the air to see how it falls. 

It’s not quite an invitation, not explicitly—but the subtle curve of her lips and the way her eyes insist on finding yours tell a different story, one she keeps ambiguous enough to leave you guessing.

If you choose the professional route—thank her again, grab your things, and leave—would you ever forgive yourself? Could you really walk away now, knowing you’d just turned down the chance to sit in her orbit a little longer? 

But staying… staying feels like opening a whole other door. The kind of door that leads to a night even more absurd than this one already feels, where the lines between reality and your own impossible daydreams blur so completely, you’re not sure you’d know the difference.

You’re stuck in the tension of that choice, the possibilities pressing down on you, when Nicholas’ voice explodes through the moment, shattering it entirely.

“I’ll go pick a movie!” he announces, his excitement bubbling over as he bolts toward the living room, a blur of motion and enthusiasm. The spell is broken, and you exhale, blinking as reality floods back in.

You glance back at Agatha, half-expecting her to change her mind now that he’s out of earshot. Instead, she leans back in her chair again, her eyes glinting with that usual quiet amusement. 

“There you have it.” she quips lightly, gesturing toward the living room. “Looks like the decision’s been made for you.”

Her words land with a calm finality, and for a moment, you simply stand there, unsure of what to do next. Before your nerves can get the better of you, you decide to grasp at the first thing that feels remotely purposeful.

“I’ll help clear the table.” you offer, your voice quick, almost rushed. “It’s the least I can do.”

You reach for a plate before the words have fully left your mouth, but as you stack the dishes and carry them to the sink, you can feel her gaze trailing you, quiet and intent.

You roll up your sleeves, the simple motion grounding you as you turn on the faucet. The water’s warmth seeps into your skin, and the rhythmic clatter of dishes offers a fragile sort of focus. 

For a moment, you dare to think you’ve managed to steady yourself.

But then, the scrape of her chair against the floor echoes through the room. 

The steady rhythm you thought you’d found falters as you hear her footsteps closing the distance between you. She moves into the space beside you, her presence altering the air itself. 

The faint clink of glasses being placed on the counter pulls your focus for a second, but it’s the feeling of her hand brushing against your waist that makes your body freeze.

With the warmth of her palm burning through the fabric of your sweater, the plate in your hands slips through your grip. You fumble, the sharp sound of porcelain against the sink cutting through the quiet as you catch it just in time.

“Careful, hon.” she murmurs, her voice impossibly close, rich with that maddening calm. But there’s no hint of apology, just the smug confidence of someone who knows exactly what they’re doing.

All of a sudden, the water streaming over your hands feels unbearably loud, each droplet amplified against your skin, but it’s nothing compared to the roaring in your ears. 

Each of your senses narrows, zeroing in on the spot where her hand rests against you. Her touch isn’t pressing, nor forceful, it’s just there, as if she’s delicately testing the boundaries of the moment.

Your cheeks burn, and you’re sure she can see it, but you can’t bring yourself to look at her, not when every nerve in your body feels like it’s caught fire. 

Before the moment stretches into something unbearable, Nicholas’ voice cuts through the stillness. 

“I found the movie!” he calls from the living room, his excitement palpable. “Come on, it’s starting!”

Agatha straightens, her hand leaving your waist, and the absence feels almost as intense as the touch itself. 

“Duty calls.” she says smoothly, her composure unshaken as she heads toward the living room without looking back.

You exhale shakily, gripping the edge of the sink for balance as you force yourself to calm down. With one last glance at the water, you shut it off and follow her, stubbornly pushing aside the ghost of her touch that refuses to fade from your body.

When you step into the living room, Nicholas is already curled up in one corner of the couch, wrapped in a blanket with the remote clutched triumphantly in his hands. His grin is so wide it’s almost glowing, radiating the pure victory of having secured his movie of choice.

It’s a scene of pure innocence, simple and easy, but your focus falters when your gaze shifts to Agatha.

She pauses at the edge of the couch, leaning down to unfasten her heels with graceful precision. The soft thud as they hit the rug feels somehow amplified in the quiet of the room. A low, contented sigh escapes her lips as she straightens, the sound carrying the unmistakable weight of a long day finally set aside.

Then, she sinks onto the central cushion of the couch, elegantly tucking one leg beneath her, folding into the space with casual confidence. One arm lifts to drape over the backrest, her fingers splayed idly.

You hesitate, your heart stuttering as the realization hits.

You weren’t prepared for this. You’d assumed Nicholas would sit between you, a natural, innocent buffer that would keep you at a safe, comfortable distance. But now, the couch looks impossibly small.

Panic rises even more when you realize you’ve been standing halfway between the kitchen and the couch for far too long, awkwardly frozen in place like prey caught in a snare.

For a fleeting moment, you genuinely consider sitting on the floor. But, as always, Agatha’s timing is impeccable. 

Her voice cuts through your inner turmoil like silk, laced with that signature teasing amusement that makes you want to both melt and scream.

“Are you planning to stand there all night?” she asks as her eyes lock onto yours. She tilts her head slightly, patting the cushion beside her. “Come, sit.”

Forcing your legs to cooperate, you move toward the couch, every step slower than the last. By the time you lower yourself onto the cushion, your body feels coiled, as if every muscle is bracing for impact.

You try to sit casually, like you’re perfectly at ease, teetering on the very edge of the cushion as if that extra inch might save you. 

But the effort is useless. The space between you is practically nonexistent, laughably small, and you’re acutely aware of every inch separating you.

She makes no effort to adjust her position or move her arm, leaving it draped lazily across the backrest, her fingers resting just shy of your shoulder. 

You clasp your hands tightly in your lap, fixing your gaze on the screen with a determination that borders on desperation.

Nicholas, oblivious as ever, starts the movie. The opening scene bursts to life on the screen, colorful and loud, his excitement spilling over as he narrates every detail. 

You nod along absently, keeping your eyes fixed ahead. But the truth is, you couldn’t explain a single thing happening in the movie if your life depended on it.

All of your attention is wrapped around Agatha, around her presence and the quiet weight of it. It’s nothing short of consuming, and every movement she makes feels seismic: the subtle shift of her posture, the barely audible rustle of her clothes as she settles deeper into the cushions, the gradual ease of her shoulders as though she’s letting the weight of the day melt away.

You feel like you’re about to lose your mind trying to understand how she can appear so perfectly composed while you sit there, silently coming apart at the seams.

And then, without warning, her knee brushes against yours.

Instinctively, you shift slightly to the side, leaning further into the backrest, but the movement only makes things worse. 

The arm that had been resting lazily behind you is now definitely touching your shoulder.

Your breath catches, your body locking up before you can stop it, every nerve screaming at the contact. 

Surely, she’ll move away. She has to.

But she doesn’t.

Neither her leg nor her arm budges, as if the contact is completely natural, as if she didn’t even notice. You, on the other hand, feel like you’re drowning in the sensation. 

Her proximity completely floods your senses. It feels as if the world has shrunk to the points were your bodies are touching, the faint pressure on your leg and shoulder anchoring you to the spot. 

And then, as if to seal your fate, you feel her gaze on you.

You don’t dare look at her, but from the corner of your eye you can see her head turned toward you. Her eyes are fixed on your face, and they might as well be burning holes through your head for how intensely she’s staring.

Everything begins to blur, the room fading as your thoughts swallow you whole. Once again, you find yourself grasp at rationality, trying to explain away her behavior and your own feelings, convincing yourself it’s all in your head. 

But the longer you sit there, the harder it is to believe that.

It’s been four months since you started working for her, four months of walking into this house, telling yourself you were foolish for even entertaining the thought that someone like Agatha Harkness could ever see you that way, as anything more than Nicky’s babysitter. 

During all this time, you’ve dismissed every fleeting glance, every teasing word, every ambiguous gesture, chalking it all up to her natural charm. You convinced yourself you were imagining things, creating meaning where there was none, deluding yourself into believing you could ever hold her attention.

But tonight? Tonight feels undeniably different. Especially after what she said last night. 

The tension has been simmering beneath the surface for this whole time, each moment building on the last, and now there’s no mistaking it: Agatha’s behavior is intentional, deliberate in a way that leaves no room for doubt.

These aren’t the actions of someone indulging in a meaningless game. Sure, Agatha has a very teasing nature, you know that. But she isn’t careless, she doesn’t do unprofessionalism. She wouldn’t risk making you uncomfortable—or worse, crossing a line—without a reason, especially when it involves someone so closely tied to Nicholas.

You wonder if you’ve been blind to something that’s been there all along, oblivious to what’s been right in front of you—if you’ve had an actual chance all this time and simply refused to see it.

Because at this point, no other explanation fits.

Your heart races, the possibility exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure, a mix of longing and fear swelling in your chest.

When the credits finally roll, Nicholas lets out a loud yawn, stretching his arms above his head before slumping back into the couch. His eyelids droop heavily, but there’s a satisfied smile on his face.

“That was the best movie night ever!” he declares with a sleepy grin, his voice softening as exhaustion starts to win. 

He turns toward you, pushes off the blanket and practically climbs over Agatha to crawl over and wrap his arms around your shoulders in a hug that’s warm and unexpected.

“Thanks for staying.” he murmurs, his voice muffled against your sweater. “It was really fun doing this with you and Mom.”

Your heart stutters in your chest, and you blink rapidly, taken aback by the tenderness of it all. 

Words fail you, any attempt at a response dissolving into nothing as an involuntary smile tugs at your lips. You feel yourself melt into the embrace, your hands settling lightly against his back as you return the hug gently.

Nicholas pulls back, his grin bright despite his sleepy eyes, and he turns toward Agatha, who’s already rising from the couch.

“Mom, can we do this again soon?” he asks, rubbing his eyes as he pushes himself to his feet.

“We’ll see.” Agatha replies smoothly, resting a hand on his back to steady him. “Now come on. Bedtime.”

Just before they step out of the living room to head upstairs, Agatha glances back over her shoulder. Her head tilts ever so slightly, the soft glow of the room catching the sharps curves of her profile. Her eyes find yours, holding them with an intensity that feels almost disarming, and for a moment, it feels like the air stills around her.

“Wait here, won’t you?” she asks, her voice barely a whisper laced with quiet insistence “I’ll be back in a minute.”

You don’t even think, your head nods instinctively, a reflex before your mind can catch up.

As she turns away, you catch a faint glint in her eyes, something unreadable that looks almost like… anticipation?

The quiet sound of their footsteps fades into the background, leaving the room steeped in silence. It’s just you now, alone in the living room, with nothing but the weight of her words and the echo of your own thoughts.

The thing is, the babysitter would have left already. 

You’d planned to leave the moment she was done working, when Nicholas no longer needed you and when Agatha was free to reclaim her evening. 

But then came dinner, a polite invitation you couldn’t bring yourself to decline. And later, when the plates were cleared and you’d readied yourself to go, the movie became yet another reason to stay.

But now it’s late. Nicholas is heading to bed. There’s no reason for you to be here. And yet… she wants you to. For the third time tonight, you’re faced with a choice, though deep down, you know the decision has already been made. 

You’ll wait. Because she asked you to. Because it’s her.

You lean back against the couch, exhaling shakily. Your mind spins, grasping at the threads of the evening, trying to weave them into something coherent.

Agatha descends the stairs a few minutes later, the faint sound of her steps barely registering over the buzz of your thoughts. She doesn’t spare you a glance, doesn’t say a word, moving with singular purpose as she crosses the living room and disappears into the kitchen. 

The faint clink of glass and the soft pop of a cork being pulled echo faintly, carrying with them a sense of inevitability that sets your heart racing.

Moments later, she reemerges with the bottle of wine from dinner in one hand and two glasses in the other. Her movements are smooth, practiced, as if this is all part of some unspoken ritual. 

She sets the glasses on the coffee table and pours the wine with precision before handing you one and taking the other for herself.

Then, despite the now ample space on the couch, she chooses the same spot as before, her knee brushing against yours once again when she crosses her legs.

“Cheers.” she says lightly, raising her glass in your direction.

“Cheers.” you reply, the word coming out softer than you intended as you lift your glass. 

The first sip settles warmly in your chest, cutting through some of the tension of the evening.

For a while, the two of you talk easily. She asks about Nicholas and your morning job, and you gladly share little stories about his antics and your shifts at the café. 

Agatha listens intently, her occasional hums and soft chuckles weaving seamlessly into the conversation.

You ask her about her work, though she keeps her answers vague, offering only the occasional quip about paperwork, tedious calls and demanding clients. It’s clear she’s deflecting, but her tone is so effortlessly charming that you don’t press further. 

Instead, you find yourself relaxing into the rhythm of the exchange, the wine loosening the edges of your nerves.

By the time the third glass is poured, the atmosphere feels incredibly comfortable, like the two of you have settled into a pocket of time removed from the rest of the world. 

You’re leaning back against the couch now, your own legs crossed on the cushion, and the soft hum of casual conversation filling the space between you.

But then, completely out of nowhere, the words spill out of your mouth with an abruptness that shifts the air immediately.

“Do you always drink this much with your babysitters?” you ask, your tone is light, almost playful, but there’s an edge of nervousness beneath it.

Agatha’s response comes slower than expected, but when it does, it lands like a deliberate blow.

“Only the ones worth breaking the rules for.” her voice is low, sultry, and laced with an edge of amusement that makes the room feel impossibly smaller.

Your throat goes completely dry on the spot, and you try to will your brain to keep up, to find something clever to say. A snarky remark, a witty comeback, an equally teasing reply, anything.

You fumble with your glass, taking a sip longer than necessary, the wine coursing through you like liquid fire. Each drop seems to stoke the embers in your chest, unfurling in waves, merging with the simmering frustration that has been tightening its grip on you all night.

Boldness—fueled by the wine, the smoldering tension, and the enigma that is Agatha—surges to the surface.  Before you can think, the words slip out.

“Why do you do this?” your voice is sharper than you intended, and it cuts through the air between you like a knife.

Agatha raises an eyebrow, her smirk deepening as she leans back against the couch. 

“Do what, exactly?” she asks, feigning innocence, though the glint in her eyes betrays her.

“This.” you gesture vaguely between the two of you, frustration bleeding into your tone. “The teasing, the looks, the… the way you—” you break off, exhaling sharply. “It’s like you enjoy watching me lose my mind.”

She chuckles darkly, the sound almost dangerous, and it sends a shiver down your spine. She sets her glass on the coffee table, her movements unhurried, calculated.

“Maybe I do.” she murmurs, her tone dropping into something quieter, more intimate. Her gaze locks onto yours, and she leans forward slightly, slowly closing the distance between you inch by inch.

Your pulse quickens, every nerve in your body on high alert. She’s close enough now that you can feel the faint warmth of her body.

But she doesn’t stop. She leans in further, her face now just a breath away from yours. Her eyes flick down to your lips for a fleeting moment, and your breath catches.

“You’re not the only one losing their mind tonight, you know.” her voice drops to a whisper, low and raw, and you’re pretty sure your pulse flatlines. 

The world around you fades, the only thing grounding you is the way her icy gaze holds you captive. Your heart pounds in your ears, and you think this is it—this is where the line between you finally blurs.

But then your eyes flicker down, catching sight of the glass still clutched in your hand, and reality slams into you like a freight train.

The wine—it’s been warming you, emboldening you, loosening you. And now, with her so close, you can’t shake the fear that it’s not just you under its influence. What if this moment isn’t real? What if it’s the wine, not her, driving the spark in her eyes, the closeness of her breath? The thought twists in your chest, sharp and painful. You don’t want this, her, to be something fleeting, something hazy and tainted by doubt.

You pull back, the movement abrupt and jarring, completely annihilating the moment. 

Agatha freezes, her body leaning back instinctively, confusion flickering in her eyes.

“I can’t.” you say quickly, your voice trembling slightly. “Not like this.”

Her brow furrows, and she tilts her head. 

“Not like what?” she asks, her tone still smooth but tinged with curiosity, fascination even.

“With… with the wine.” you stammer, struggling to find the right words. “I don’t want to— I mean, I don’t know if—” You let out a shaky exhale, setting your glass down beside hers. “I just… I can’t.”

You rise to your feet, your movements hurried and almost clumsy as you try to put some distance between the two of you. 

Agatha doesn’t stop you, but her gaze follows your every move, unreadable and heavy.

“I should go.” you mumble, your frustration bubbling to the surface. Even though you’re not sure if it’s directed at her, at yourself, or at the entire night.

You barely take a couple of steps toward the door when Agatha’s voice calls after you, firm and unyielding.

“You shouldn’t leave.” 

Her voice echoes through the room, and even though her words aren’t a real command, they sure feel like one.

You halt mid-step and slowly turn to face her, your chest tightening at the sight. She’s still seated on the couch, her posture casual but her gaze piercing, pinning you in place.

“It’s late.” she says, her tone measured, as if explaining something obvious. “You’ve had wine. The roads are dark. I’d rather not spend the rest of the night worrying about whether or not you made it home safely.”

Her words are practical, almost dismissive, as though the charged moment between you never happened. But there’s something beneath the surface—a subtle current in her voice that makes it impossible to tell if she’s truly unaffected or simply hiding it well.

“I’m fine.” your reply is automatic, defensive. But even as you say it, the shakiness in your voice betrays you.

“You don’t look fine, hon. You look like someone about to storm out into the night just to prove a point. Agatha says, her tone steady, though her expression softens just slightly. 

There’s still an edge of steel in her eyes, a quiet challenge buried beneath her words.

“I can handle myself.” you bite out, though the words sound hollow, even to you.

She exhales softly, the faintest flicker of something—annoyance? amusement?—crossing her features. 

Then, with a surprising grace for someone that just had three glasses of wine, she rises from the couch and closes the distance between you.

“I don’t doubt that. But tell me this: what exactly are you proving by leaving right now? And to whom?”

Her words hit their mark, and you feel the fight drain out of you. Because she’s right, you’re not leaving because it’s practical. You’re leaving because you’re overwhelmed, unsure, afraid of what staying might mean or lead to.

Agatha’s eyes stay locked on yours as she continues, her voice taking on a tone that’s almost… tender. 

“Stay.” she says simply, the single word carrying so much weight it feels like it might crush you. “It’s late. There’s no reason for you to go rushing out into the night when you don’t have to.”

You glance toward the door, then back at her, weighing your options.

The truth is, you are tired—tired of the emotions, of the push and pull of the evening that’s left you feeling completely unraveled. The idea of staying, of letting the night end on a quieter note, is far too tempting to resist.

“Fine.” you finally answer, your own tone colder than you expected.

“Good.” she says, stepping back to give you space. “The guest room is ready. It’s not much, but it’ll do for tonight.”

She turns and starts toward the stairs. You hesitate for a moment, your mind still spinning with the events of the past hours, before following her.

You sigh, exhaustion settling into your bones as you reach the top of the stairs. Right now, none of it matters—not the tension, not the confusion, not the endless spiraling questions that have chased you all night. All you want is to sleep, to let the haze of the wine fade away in the quiet refuge of a bed. Whether it’s your own or the one in Agatha’s guest room, it doesn’t seem to make a difference anymore.

You barely notice as Agatha pauses by a linen closet, pulling out a neatly folded towel and an oversized t-shirt.

“This should do.” she states, handing them to you. 

Her tone is neutral, almost too casual, as if nothing about the evening had been remotely unusual. Her gaze doesn’t linger as long as usual though, she doesn’t meet your eyes for more than a second before nodding toward the guest room door.

“That’s yours for the night.” she gestures briefly, indicating the room between the bathroom and Nicholas’ door at the far end of the hall. “Bathroom’s just here.” she continues, pointing to the door next to hers on the opposite end.

“Thanks.” you mutter, your voice barely above a whisper as you grip the towel and shirt tightly.

Agatha hums faintly, stepping back toward her room. For a second, you think she might say more, but instead, she simply glances over her shoulder.

“Goodnight.”, her tone is warm, yet the word feels strangely clipped. 

Before you can respond, she slips into her room and disappears in the ensuite bathroom.

You stand there for a few seconds, awkwardly rooted in place. Your own “Goodnight” comes out almost as an afterthought, mumbled into the silence as you step into the guest room and close the door behind you.

The room is elegant and cozy, a neatly made bed dominating the space and a single lamp casting a warm glow over the soft cream walls. 

You drop the towel onto the edge of the bed and hold up the shirt, its fabric soft and worn in a way that feels oddly intimate.

You undress and slip it over your head, only to be immediately engulfed by Agatha’s perfume. It clings to the fabric, potent and intoxicating, and for a moment, you allow the scent to wash over you and flood your senses.

Heat coils low in your stomach, and you shake your head quickly, brushing off whatever effect wearing something of hers seems to be having on you. 

With a steadying breath, you fold the towel over your arm and step back out into the hall, heading towards the bathroom.

The splash of cold water against your face is grounding, but even as you dry off and prepare to head back to your room, you can’t shake the way her scent fills you nostrils with every minuscule movement.

Stepping into the hallway, you’re greeted by darkness, broken only by a faint sliver of light seeping from beneath your door. 

You take a step toward the guest room, but a faint sound slices through the stillness.

It’s almost imperceptible, a noise so soft and muffled that, for a second, you wonder if you imagined it.

You hold your breath as your eyes flick toward the ajar door of Agatha’s room. You think about just brushing it off, receding to the relative safety of the guest room and pretending you heard nothing.

But then you hear it again. 

Your feet move before your brain can catch up, carrying you a step closer, as quietly as possible on the wooden floorboards.

And the closer you get, the clearer the sound becomes.

Another low, broken noise escapes, this time accompanied by a faint rustle of fabric. 

The realization dawns slowly, burning through you like wildfire. Your stomach twists, heat pooling low in your abdomen as the truth of what you’re hearing sinks in.

You consider retreating. You do. But your legs refuse to move. 

Something keeps you rooted in place, drawn forward as though compelled by a force beyond your control.

Your bare feet barely make a sound against the cool wood floor as you edge closer to Agatha’s door, muffled moans growing more vivid with every inch of space you gain. You can hear her breathing now, shallow and uneven, each exhale laced with pleasure that seems to echo in your own chest.

Your knees weaken as you reach the doorframe. And then you hear it.

“Yes… oh fuck, yes.”

Her rough voice rips through you like a physical force. The raw intimacy of it, the unguarded need, sends a sharp jolt straight down your spine. Your lips part on a shaky breath, your thighs pressing together instinctively against the unbearable ache building between them.

Every nerve in your body is on fire, wetness pools between your legs, and you feel a flush creeping up your neck, your skin hypersensitive to even the faintest brush of air.

Another broken moan follows, and it takes every ounce of restraint not to make a sound in return.

You close your eyes for a moment, trying to will yourself back to reality, to sanity. But all you can picture is her—Agatha, in the darkness of her room, her head tilted back, her lips parted as she whispers filthy, desperate things into the still air.

You can’t stop imagining what it would feel like to be the reason for those sounds.

The thought is intoxicating, dangerous, and far too tempting.

But you know you can’t let your mind go there. You know this is the moment to turn around, to leave, to escape before you lose yourself completely.

Pressing your back against the wall beside the doorframe, you focus on steadying your breath, though every nerve in your body feels alive, thrumming with a tension that leaves you trembling. Each sound she makes only tightens the coil in your stomach, the ache quickly approaching unbearable levels.

You take one last, shaky breath as she whispers another low curse that shoots straight through your core. Then, with every ounce of willpower you can muster, you step back, your movements shaky and reluctant. 

Each step toward the guest room feels like a battle, every fiber of your being screaming at you to turn back.

You step into the guest room and close the door behind you, leaning against it trying to steady yourself. Your heart still pounds, each beat reverberating through your chest, your entire body tingling in the wake of what you just experienced.

The room feels quiet, mercifully so, the sounds that had haunted you moments ago are now gone, silenced by the thick walls of Agatha’s home. You take a moment to reassure yourself—there’s no way Nicholas could hear anything, not from his room at the other end of the hallway. Agatha knows her house, knows its secrets. Of course, she’d be careful.

With that thought, you push yourself off the door and move toward the bed. You slip under the covers and reach for the lamp on the nightstand, turning it off. 

Darkness envelopes you, but it does nothing to quiet the sensations coursing through your body. The ache low in your stomach has only intensified since you left her door.

Your fingers tighten on the edge of the blanket, your breathing uneven as you squeeze your thighs together, desperate for even the smallest bit of relief.

But it’s no use. The ache is too insistent, too consuming. The memory of her moans, her breathy curses, fills your mind. You can still hear them, low and filthy, the rawness of her need reverberating throughout your whole body.

Your hand moves on its own, slipping beneath the fabric of her shirt. Your fingers trail over your stomach, climbing higher until they reach your breast. The moment your palm cups the soft flesh, a sharp jolt of pleasure shoots through you.

You suck in a breath, biting down hard on your lip to muffle the quiet whimper that escapes your throat. 

Your thumb brushes over your nipple, circling it slowly until it hardens beneath your touch. The sensation sends a wave of heat straight to your core, your hips shifting restlessly beneath the covers.

Your other hand moves lower, brushing over the waistband of your panties. There’s a moment of hesitation, but it’s brief. The heat pooling between your thighs is unbearable now, and you can’t deny yourself any longer. 

Your fingers slip beneath the fabric, sliding over the wetness that greets you. You gasp quietly, the slick evidence of your arousal coating your fingertips. 

“Fuck…” you whisper, the word slipping out unbidden, the sound barely audible but laced with desperation.

Your fingers glide over your clit, the swollen bundle of nerves already sensitive, and you bite back another moan. You begin to circle it slowly, the pressure just enough to stoke the fire burning in your stomach.

But you need more. You press your fingers lower, sliding one inside yourself, then another. The stretch is delicious, the rhythm instinctive as your hips buck against your hand. 

You curl your fingers, hitting just the right spot, and the pleasure that ripples through you makes your toes curl.

Your hand moves faster now, your palm grinding against your clit with each thrust of your fingers. The wet sounds of your movements would be obscene if they weren’t muffled by the covers, but instead of embarrassment, it only fuels your arousal.

And then, Agatha seizes complete control of your mind. You imagine her fingers instead of yours, the way they’d explore you, claim you. You picture her leaning over you, her voice condescending and commanding as she tells you how good you feel, how she can’t get enough of you.

Your back arches off the bed as your hand moves to your other breast, kneading it roughly. Your nipples are so sensitive now that each pinch, each roll between your fingers, leaves you wetter, the slickness between your thighs growing with each needy, breathless motion, soaking your fingers as you lose yourself completely to the sensation.

You imagine her lips replacing your hand, her tongue flicking over the hardened peak before she bites down, just enough to make you gasp. Your hips jerk involuntarily, the image too vivid, too real.

Her voice fills your mind, rough and low, the way she cursed earlier. But this time, it’s for you.

“That’s it, baby. Just like that. Let go for me.”

You can almost feel her breath against your skin, her weight pressing you into the mattress, her fingers fucking you with a precision that leaves you shaking.

Your fingers thrust deeper, harder, curling just right as your thumb flicks over your clit. The tension in your stomach coils tighter, impossibly tight, until you’re teetering on the edge.

“Agatha…” you whisper, her name tumbling from your lips like a prayer.

The sound of it, the feel of it on your tongue, pushes you over the edge. 

The tension snaps, pleasure exploding through you wave after wave, so intense it leaves you trembling.

Your thighs clamp around your hand, your hips grinding against your fingers as the aftershocks ripple through you. Your other hand grips the sheets tightly, your knuckles white as you ride out every last pulse of pleasure.

For a long moment, you lie there, your chest heaving, your body a trembling, oversensitive mess. Slowly, your hand slips away, the wetness on your fingers a reminder of just how badly you want her.

You don’t bother cleaning up, your limbs too heavy to move. Sleep tugs at you, irresistible in the aftermath of your release. 

As your eyes drift shut, her name rests on the edges of your consciousness, a soft echo you can’t help but chase.

[doctorwhoandfairytaillover]

Loving Arms (6)

Summary: The children of Viserys I from his wife Alicent Hightower had always been lacking in affection from their parents. They simply didn't realize how much until their widowed aunt was brought into their lives. (AU where Alicent has an older sister and her kids get the love that they deserve, takes place some time after the Driftmark event)

Part VI: A Ring of Green

|| Loving Arms Masterlist ||

A/N: I sometimes struggle giving multiple characters dialogue, so I thought why not give each of the kids their own focused chapters or moments. Hope you all enjoy this part and leave a comment! I love to hear from all of you.

"Muña, would this not be easier if we did all of this by dragon instead of horseback?" Aegon whined.

"I will not have you and your siblings become layabout nobles," she replied. "This hunt is meant to put in practice your skills with the bow, equestrianship, and to learn how to skin and prepare the game that you catch. We will not be the kind of people that forget the work that is put into having a meal on our table, is that understood?"

Aegon whined a bit more with a pout.

"I don't understand whines, I need an articulate response."

The boy huffed once more, "Yes, muña. But why is it only the two of us? Why are Aemond and Halaena allowed to wait for us at the camp?"

"They will join us tomorrow but I thought this would give us time on our own to talk about whatever you like, my sweet love."

"Whatever I like? No judgement or scolding?"

"Now I question if I should scold you if that is the response," she laughs.

He frowned, "It's just... I am sure that in your time away from King's Landing that you must have heard a thing or two about all of us and I can not help but imagine of all that you must think of us. Me in particular."

"I will admit, I have heard a thing or two while in Dorne but that does not mean that I have a fully colored image of who you are" she sighed. "And if we are being sincere, I felt many things about all that I heard regarding you."

Aegon looked away in shame, "I see. And what was it exactly?"

"Pity," she shrugged. "A bit of anger, but not at you, anger at your Mother and Grandsire. Mostly I felt that I wanted to protect you but I was uncertain how to go about it. There was some helplessness as well since my husband had fallen ill and could not come to visit sooner."

"Did you not feel shame for having a lily - liver'd and slow nephew? I'm not the Realms Delight or even worthy of being considered heir" he said bluntly.

"Is that truly what you think of yourself?"

"How else am I to think of myself, muña? Mother and Grandsire are always so quick to point out my flaws and my tutors never said it, but I could sense that they thought of me as a hapless fool."

His aunt pulled at the reigns of her horse to slow the beast down to trot alongside Aegon's own horse. "Let me ask you something, and when I ask it, I need you to be completely honest with me."

"What?"

"You said that you aren't the Realm's Delight, who was given this monicker?"

Aegon looked confused, "Rhaenyra? Who else?"

"When was she given this title? And by who?"

The boy thought for a moment, uncertain as he said "My Father? It is something I have always heard said of Rhaenyra. But why is that relevant?"

"Aegon, I need you to listen closely" she said. "She was given this monicker when she was a child of eight years, simply because courtiers thought her to be sweet and beautiful." She pointed at him with a short laugh, "You are a handsome young man, quick - witted when you choose to be, and amongst a variety of courtiers and diplomats. If you gave a smile and a few well placed laughs to certain nobles, it wouldn't be long until the perception of you has changed."

"Do you want me to behave like a clay - brained, sodden - witted fool? A smile and a few laughs aren't enough to change anything" he scowled. "It would be better to run off to Essos and live a life of comfort than have to grovel for even a modicum of respect from the likes of the court vultures."

She clench her jaw in mild frustration, "I am not asking you to do anything that is more than you are capable of Aegon. I am saying that the tides can be changed with a few things, because do you think that Rhaenyra can hold onto her title for much longer?"

"Muña, you are treading a dangerous line."

"If we ever wish to see change in our lives, sweet love, then the line must be trod whenever we see the opportunity given."

The young prince was mildly frustrated and hoped to change the subject entirely, and to his good fortune in the distance Aegon spotted a buck of a substantial size.

"I think we can drop the topic, muña because I intend on catching that buck!" and with a snap of his reigns, Aegon sped forward.

His aunt sighed with a wry smile and chased after the boy and buck, "He can try all he likes but we'll finish this talk whether he likes it or not!"

The aunt and nephew duo had managed to catch up swiftly to the buck, an arrow from Aegon was able to slow it down but it was a swift arrow behind the elbow of the buck's lead leg from (Y/N) that brought the great beast down. She had the young man strap the buck on his own so that they could quickly return to camp and skin it and prepare it for consumption later.

Rather than have Aemond and Halaena take part in the preparation of the meat, their aunt was quick to have them set off with their guards to prepare the fire and find herbs that could be used. Allowing for Aegon and herself to have more time to continue their discussion.

"Have at it" she said handing Aegon her sharpened knife. "Slice along the beasts belly and let us finish our talk."

"What is there -" he struggled to cut through the flesh "To talk about. We said all that need - needed to be said."

She pointed at the spot he finished cutting, "Stick your hands in and pull out the intestines. Aegon, don't make that face."

He scowled in disgust, "I don't want to take out the intestines that is disgusting."

"What's more disgusting is this attitude" she said. "Now take out the intestines before they swell and implode, it would contaminate the rest of the venison. And don't think because we caught this stupid thing, it means I will drop our subject from earlier."

Begrudgingly, he did as he was told and plopped the bloody organs into a bucket beside the table in which they were preparing the meat. She took the dagger from him and carefully began to remove the fur from the meat while rolling it up.

"You think to - " she cut further and handed him back the knife "to little of yourself Aegon. Keep skinning."

Shakily he did so.

"I know that you have heard things and taken them to heart because no one has said this otherwise, but I truly think that you could accomplish great things. If and only if we work together to find the things that you could put your time into, not simply because it is expected of you."

"You will be sorely disappointed muña, because I have had tutors that gave up long ago."

Gently she pushed the boy aside and took another dagger to help him skin faster, "Your previous tutors lacked creativity to trod the line and failed to consider that you learn better with other methods. Not everyone can read a text and execute the knowledge, some of us do better by example and practice." She pointed her blade toward the half finished deer carcass, "Or do you mean to tell me that you knew how to skin this beast until now?"

He flushed in embarrassment, "I suppose I hadn't thought about it. The letters of texts have always jumped and I was always forced to sit for hours until I finished what was given."

"It might surprise you Aegon, but your uncle Gwayne has the same condition" she chuckled. "He was never much for sitting still at a desk and couldn't get through a page without the letters mixing around. Thankfully our Uncle noticed and found other ways that Gwayne excelled, making my brother quite the formidable swordsman and knight."

Aegon chewed at his bottom lip in thought, "Is it possible then? For me to truly be accomplished? Even if it isn't in the areas that my Mother and Grandsire want?"

"It is why I argued with your Father" she said. "I knew that there were expectations but I know that together we can create reasonable goals that can lay the way towards a future you want to reach." Setting aside the blade in her hand, (Y/N) washed her hands free of the blood from skinning the deer and dried them quickly.

"If you really think that I can muña, then I would like to try, please?"

Gently and lovingly she cupped his face in her hands, "All I want is for you to try. Don't give up because others say that you cannot or because they have set the limits for you."

"It's difficult when all your life it feels that everyone is waiting for you to make the next mistake," he teared up and pressed into her embrace. "I already think that about myself every day that I awake."

"Sweet love, can you look at me?"

Nervously his eyes met her own.

Slowly she reached into the pocket of her skirt and procured a ring to show it at his eye level. Its stone was a yellow green peridot, the prongs were a bronze while the rest of the ring was a faded silver.

"I know that perhaps I pushed quite a bit at some of your boundaries today," she began. "But the main reason I had your brother and sister do other things today was because of this." Carefully she took one of his hands and placed the ring onto his palm, "Aegon? Would you be my heir?"

His eyes widened and he looked at her in shock, "You want me to be your heir?"

"In the grand scheme of things, I don't have quite as much to my name but I am asking you, my sweet Aegon if you would be my heir? I am giving you a choice, become the boy that they wish for you to be or the man that I know you can become with the right guidance."

He sniffled softly, "My Father wanted a son but has never wanted me. The realm has their flawless heir and despite all this, somehow you want me? Flaws and all to be your heir?"

"The choice is yours."

With a teary laugh, Aegon put the ring of green onto his pointer finger in admiration. "I hope you know that you are never getting this back, muña."

"And I would never ask, sweet love. It absolutely suits you."

There was no fanfare from trumpets, cheers from adoring peasants or nobles, and certainly no flowers tossed in the air. But in that moment; the muggy tent, sticky entrails, and slightly too big ring were enough for the young prince.

Someone he loved had chosen him.

And for him, that was enough.

[koimethehorizon]

DELTARUNE: A Masochistic Reading of Noelle Holiday and Trends of Masochistic Invalidation

(MASSIVE SPOILERS for all of Deltarune!)

To preface beforehand… everything I’m about to discuss is purely from my own reading, observations, research, and knowledge from friends within alternative communities (S&M and kink) while having very little personal experience with those communities myself. If this makes everything I’m about to discuss feel fraudulent, you are valid for assuming so. Frankly, I’ve been musing over whether I should even be the person writing this analysis. But as a fan of the Deltarune community and especially this character, I felt as if this topic has been disappointingly under-discussed, and I wanted to put any of my pennies into this bucket in hopes of finding those voices. If anyone with real knowledge and lives within these communities happens to read this and finds any of my observations off-base, please inform me in this post’s replies or tumblr asks. I yearn for more analysis on this topic and this character from your voices instead.

Art: @slugg-it-out

Last week... uh, wait 2 weeks ago (shit), I asked this kinda out of nowhere:

“Is Noelle Holiday a masochist?”

My answer? Yes!

… but I want to rephrase the question slightly. Noelle is a minor, so linking her to masochism, even when specifically talking about S&M relationship dynamics and psychosexual analysis is pretty touchy. 

Instead, let me rephrase it this way:

“What observations can we gather from Noelle’s arc under a masochistic reading?”

I don’t think I have to elaborate that Noelle, at the very least, has masochistic tendencies. All of her wiki pages say it, fan communities make constant jokes about it, and thanks to the voters last week, I know a decent majority also agree.

thanks everybody!

So why the heck am I talking about this like some big deal if this is mostly agreed upon?

I’ve combed across tons of Noelle analysis from psychological profiles, her metatextual relevance to Deltarune, the shipping wars, etc. I’ve scoured quite a bit ever since Ch 2… yes, for that long.

And to speak frankly… I think a lot of fans aren’t willing to take Noelle’s masochism seriously.

Not just in the “oh isn’t it funny that she wants to be stepped on” kinda way (though those memes are still very funny), but sometimes in a “Noelle’s masochism is a character-flaw” sort of way. 

And I have some concerns that I’ll get into later about that…

(btw, I’m only linking comments that are genuinely in good faith in this post, I’d rather not draw attention to the malicious ones.)

Here’s my piece: I don’t think Noelle is down bad just for the fun of making thirst jokes, I strongly believe that Noelle was explicitly written to be a repressed adolescent exploring her masochistic tendencies. 

Originally, when I finished Chapter 2, I had many thoughts on the Weird Route that I couldn’t quite put into a sensitive reading because I had no concept of masochism as both a real kink and especially not for artistic analysis.

But since those 4 years, I’ve gotten a bit more familiar with queer communities I’ve only started to see more and more things I hadn’t before.

Let’s check out two major introspective moments from Chapter 2 again:

Ferris Wheel dialogue:

Noelle and Kris below the City:

The reasons for where masochism comes from are varied, and I want to be very careful with making any oversimplifications… but man…

Noelle’s background and the specific way she words her introspective thoughts sound remarkably familiar. Let’s go over Noelle’s traits one by one and connect them to common sentiments shared about the appeal of S&M dynamics (not sexual activity but the more relationships between them) and the psychology of its participants:

"At first, I cried, but now… it’s like… watching them… makes me feel… comforted?" "It’s scary, but I can just turn it off, right? Now it’s mostly… people, that are scary. Haha."

Noelle seeks out extreme stimuli like being scared from horror movies, pranks, and deep diving disturbing video game secrets. Noelle expresses that the reason she loves these situations is because she knows that they aren’t real and that by the end of them, she’ll be ok.

S&M and kink participants create “scenes” in which people act out extreme, specific scenarios not simply to blindly experience pain or intensity, but to willingly engage in a fictitious version of their desires that in real cases would be dangerous to be in.

"I know we never found anything interesting back there… I mostly remember… crying because I was scared." "But for some reason I feel… nostalgic thinking about it... I guess I didn’t mind being scared if it meant… someone would comfort me."

Noelle also associates fear with a source of nostalgic comfort. This stems from long-gone days where she would frequently be scared, then comforted by someone she loves at the end of these experiences.

There are many cases of masochists seeking out scenes that are reminiscent of the punishment they had received in the past. Some even being re-enactments of deeply traumatic experiences, only this time, THEY CHOOSE to relive it with someone compassionate and will stop when they say so. (this is where safe words come from)

"(Sigh. Kris is the only one who knows how weird I am. It's not fair y'know?! Everyone knows how weird YOU are!)

Noelle lives with a lot of self-loathing and powerlessness in an emotionally neglectful household where she needs to hide her feelings and interests from her mother constantly.

Many masochists grew up in religious or puritanical households that forced them to bottle up their feelings. Some of these feelings transform into a sadism that is turned inward as a way to punish themselves for failing the expectations their environment placed on them.

"You’re the… good kind of scary. You aren’t afraid to… break the rules, y’know?" "… I wish I could do crazy stuff like you."

Noelle spends an exhaustive amount of time helping other people, despite the emotional baggage she already holds. In moments of introspection, Noelle tends to beat herself up internally about being incapable of rebelling and seeking adventure on her own.

While researching this topic, I came across a lot of beautifully written comments from people who expressed that masochism was a way to achieve freedom from themselves. By having someone else occupy their thoughts, they were free from their own intrusive thoughts, from controlling their own bodily sensations, and to have to stop worrying about themselves for a fleeting moment. 

While there are situations where Noelle will often confuse her boundaries and let people walk over her, she’s still at her happiest and most fulfilled when assisting people who genuinely appreciate her.

One of the biggest emotional appeals of masochists creating scenes for others, is a pride in serving as a conduit for other people to explore reactions that they weren’t allowed to share with anyone else beforehand.

And I haven’t even mentioned Susie yet!

Noelle fantasizes “scenes” with Susie, even to a degree that when she witnesses Susie’s bullying as an outsider, even to her childhood friend, she wishes she could be the one taking the humiliation instead.

Noelle is into people like Susie for a very specific quality. A person she considers “the good kind of scary”. Someone who is fiercely independent, who uses intimidation as an act, but comes out as emotional and kind-hearted when simply talked to.

And hell, for the Kriselle or the Krusielle crowd, Noelle seems to find these same qualities in Kris as well.

Art: @Kuroto_Draw

Their entire childhood relationship was based on similar foundations.

Kris used to scare Noelle through play-tearing out their heart, jumpscaring her from under her sheets, and covering themselves in blood like a zombie. A majority of these pranks were done innocently, and if any were to go too far, Kris would apologize or protect her from real danger.

Even if Noelle doesn’t have romantic feelings for Kris, they undeniably played a big role in forming experiences that Noelle now associates with companionship and desire.

Real practices of S&M or sadomasochism aren’t about inflicting/experiencing pain just for the sake of it. The point is to create a consensual relationship with the awareness that they ultimately have control over whatever is done to them.

All parties in an S&M dynamic MUST trust each other to only go as far as they need to.

It’s consent from all parties that makes the relationship legitimate.

This is the most important fact to keep in mind moving forward. Remember this.

If you’ve read up to this point, I imagine (hopefully) this all sounds plenty reasonable… except…

At the cost of undermining everything I typed up beforehand… again, it’s tricky to just label Noelle as a masochist and call it a day because she’s a teenager. 

Teenagers are famously incapable of understanding themselves, second-guessing their identities and orientations constantly. It’s still a developmental phase. Noelle is especially more emotionally stunted because her home life thrives on her masking through a jolly smile.

She’s barely had the chance to figure out or commit to her interests, so there’s no way to tell if she’ll still like these things or even still like Susie if they ever get into a serious relationship.

So… I just owned myself, right? Essay over?

Well… I have more evidence, but unfortunately, we’re going to have to get into the weird route. Where, unfortunately, these traits are far more obvious.

While this next part might be a tough read, I implore you to sit through as I think some of the MOST important messages of this reading are attained in this route.

(Content Warning: Topics of real-life abuse and toxic power dynamics.)

To me, the most disturbing aspect of the Weird Route isn’t the mass murder, it being the path to an alternative, darker ending, or even Noelle becoming a second player vessel or whatever.

Instead, it's the raw portrayal of an abusive romantic relationship.

When combined with the reading I’ve been using for Noelle so far…

In an extremely twisted way, the Weird Route acts as a sadomasochistic awakening for Noelle. And by selecting very specific options, the Player conditions her existing tendencies to make her unable to distinguish between consent and abuse.

Let’s look over the details:

While Noelle ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT ENJOY THE PLAYER’S ABUSE OF HER, she seems to increasingly become more and more willing to inflict harm on Darkners with the justification that doing so will make her more independent. All with a frozen smile on her face that only breaks when encountering Berdly.

While sadism and masochism are different in definition, a lot of masochism is defined to be sadism inflicted onto oneself. One reason for masochism I cited earlier is that some people desire pain and punishment because they feel like they deserve it. In this case, I feel as if Noelle is redirecting the sadism inflicted onto herself onto the Cyber City mobs once the Player has convinced her that this is all just a game.

Throughout Ch 2’s Weird Route, Noelle is subject to so much stress that she enters a trance-like state where she surrenders her mind, her memories, and even her physical sensations to our commands. In spite of everything, she interprets her predicament as freeing.

“To some, masochism was a way to achieve freedom from themselves. By having someone else control them, they were free from intrusive thoughts, from controlling their own bodily sensations, and to have to stop worrying about themselves for a fleeting moment.”

While freezing enemies on the way, you need to take Noelle to Spamton’s door, which she excitedly calls creepy… but also nostalgic. It’s very likely she is remembering the times she, Kris, Asriel, and Dess used to explore scary places together.

Again, some masochists seek out scenes that depict traumatic memories as a way of re-living them with a higher degree of control over those events. Noelle says that on each of these adventures, she would usually just cry and run away, but on the Weird Route, SHE is the one literally breaking the rules of the world and deciding the course of events.

Post Snowgrave, Kris returns to her to apologize. Then promises that none of it will happen again and to stay away. Instead, Noelle obsesses over Kris all day, even seeing her crush on Susie, as secondary. When they finally get to talk again, they both start at the end of a long couch, but as the conversation progresses, Noelle tenderly scoots all the way over to lean on Kris… despite them being the physical entity that she had just experienced a day of pain, trauma, and abuse from. 

…

Ok… let me cut off from the disturbing shit for just a second…

…And tangent onto something else I find very kinda disturbing.

Let’s talk about the weird ways anti-Suselle discussion incidentally or even purposely delegitimizes Noelle’s crush BECAUSE of her masochistic fantasies.

Art: @the_weaver

I’m not waging a shipping war here! It’s fine if Suselle isn’t your cup of tea, and strictly writing-related reasons are all valid. But I gotta go over some of the weirder sentiments I’ve run into during the agonizing post-Ch 2 era.

“How can Noelle still be into Susie knowing all the red flags? She even saw Kris get bullied badly and did nothing!” “Noelle barely knows Susie, what if she got into serious trouble by ending up with a rotten person?” “Noelle is unhealthily obsessed with Susie, it’s almost dehumanizing how so much of her attraction is based off of humiliation fantasies.” “Does Noelle even like Susie or just the idea of her?”

Here’s the thing… I actually don’t disagree with these comments in a broad sense.

It’s true that Noelle is already a very defenseless, self-sabotaging person who is seeking out a dangerous girl. A bully whom most of her classmates are terrified of being approached by.

It’s also true that Noelle knows so little about the real Susie that a lot of her expectations are definitely idealized. 

Susie’s bully persona was always a facade to keep other people away. And now that she’s become comfortable, no longer needing to use it… it’s reasonable to wonder if Noelle might have the wrong idea about Susie.

However, I feel like some of these sentiments, even if I’m certain 90% of are just out of goodwill and protectiveness for Noelle’s sake. The Deltarune community is dominated with queer support and I don’t mean to imply the community or these comments are bigoted.

However, I think a lack of sensitivity in addressing masochistic personality traits comes dangerously close to invalidating Noelle’s autonomy in a similar way to how femmes who participate in kink and identify with submission are often policed online.

Because of the misguided notions that masochists just LOVE pain and abuse for the sake of it, people are immediately discomforted whenever they hear of people engaging in S&M dynamics. Leading to shit like this:

“This is why bullies and abusers feel comfortable in their spaces.” “Victims are enabling these situations to occur more” “These helpless girls are going to end trapped in an abusive relationship or even dead” “Bad actors love that you let them take advantage of you” “Masochism is a mental illness, you need serious therapy”

Trust me, I relate heavily to being worried for other people and not wanting anyone to get seriously hurt… but these comments exist as a microcosm of people who are unwilling to see kinks and S&M as a valid experience.

The more comfortable people get invalidating masochism as an illness, the easier it is to distance yourself from them through jokes and shame.

And the real sad thing is: It’s easy to ignore victim blaming done by incoherent misogynists… but it’s polarizing to address victim blaming performed by overprotective online policing.

Oftentimes, hate speech and concern can seem indistinguishable.

…I’ve been struggling to write this part of the analysis for quite a while because one of the most upsetting realizations I made was that the Weird Route could be interpreted as fuel for victim blaming directed towards masochists and submissive femmes. 

After all, why should people like Noelle be trusted with her freedom when we have palpable proof that she will fail to assert herself when real danger shows up?

The fine line I’ve been trying to balance is that Noelle IS mentally unwell. Noelle’s masochistic tendencies ARE rooted from trauma.

And in a way, Queen and Rudy DO have a point that Noelle is deeply vulnerable to outside forces and needs watchful protection.

But I’ll repeat again, S&M is NOT a willing acceptance of violence and abuse. Legitimate S&M dynamics are found on consent!

The Weird Route is a cautionary tale on relationships that form when consent isn’t part of the equation.

Noelle becomes trapped into this abusive relationship NOT because of her masochistic tendencies, but because she has NEVER been able to explore a romantic relationship or her tendencies and hasn’t properly established her boundaries.

The moment Kris (the Player) returns to their commanding voice and physically endangers her, her longing for Kris is GONE.

I’m certain that Toby knew and predicted potential bad faith readings that could’ve been applied to Noelle’s behavior on this route. Which is why Noelle’s background is so absurdly detailed and specific.

Let’s go over the REAL necessary context that led to this:

Noelle lives in an unchanging, puritanical household trapped eternally in Christmas. Enforced by a very collectivist, matriarchal family dynamic that, as the next woman of the family, she must live up to. 

It’s almost to a comical degree with Carol preserving artifacts of the traumatic Dremurr/Holiday split scattered all over the house to remind her every day of what they’ve lost.

Carol is not just a strict mother but also the Mayor of Hometown.

She’s extremely neglectful of Noelle and is told to be “hard on her” whenever she’s around.

Despite being a valedictorian, a pillar of her community, giving gifts to her, and staying put, Carol never seems to show any open appreciation for her. To her, the success and safety of her daughter is more important than a loving relationship.

Perhaps to avoid ever having to relive what happened with Dess...

Noelle just seems scared of her. She won’t argue back or complain even when she is locked out of her house for hours. And throughout all her life, she’s had to hide her interests and relationships from her.

Rudy is at most a mediator of these domestic issues, but doesn’t fix them.

He even neglects serious matters by hiding behind smiles and jokes. And a lot of her inability to admit her emotions could be inspired by her father.

Noelle is also living with some PTSD or even guilt over her sister’s disappearance. Kris, Dess, and Asriel have vanished from her lives one way or another, and with Rudy bedridden, she’s running out of people to love.

Is it any surprise that Noelle, once The Player promises her some liberation, wearing the skin of a person she yearns to connect with again, and who also happens to know the ins and outs of Noelle’s psychology, easily folds to them?

The Weird Route is the consequence of restrictive parenting, emotional neglect, and most of all, invalidation. 

This is why talking about this is so important. And it’s why I’ve spent this ungodly amount of time researching this just to talk about a pixelated deer girl.

I didn't write this. But it is facts.

Even if I’m just completely bananas on Noelle’s tendencies being a serious plot point and even if it’s kind of ridiculous to diagnose fictional characters that we literally cannot question or talk properly to…

Fandoms read personality traits onto characters based both on their writing AND vibes. I mean look at the trans Noelle debate that popped up a few years back.

Brainrot Artistic analysis isn’t about scientifically dissecting the exact psychoanalysis bucket we can put a fictional character into, but the RELATABILITY of the struggles of fictional characters, where we can base entire readings off of.

If we can find valuable connections and lessons in fictional characters, even if we just hallucinated those intentions, those conversations can help us connect to ourselves and other people.

If even someone who only has a broad understanding of masochism can somehow see Noelle as a masochist, even if Toby never intended this (even though I think he did), it is still a valid reading.

And if I’m allowed to be slightly more inflammatory, popular characters like Noelle from a massively popular game, consequentially often have their less relatable qualities erased from discussion and headcanons. I’ve seen it time and time again with degrees of insensitivity.

It’s been done with Noelle, and you’ve definitely seen it with Kris.

46 citations! You didn't want to leave them a chance, huh?!! Did you feel anger? Hate? They were bleeding, begging for you to get out of their body. But you misgendered them! Again and again!

People should be allowed to explore their sexuality and seek relationships that they can grow from. That’s how a person finds their threshold for consent in the first place.

And just because Noelle has a weird, fetishistic love for someone, doesn’t mean it’s not real or worth delving into or questioning herself.

But here’s what I hope I’m trying to get across here is that, and hopefully for the FINAL time:

IT’S ALL ABOUT CONSENT!!! Consent is the difference between valid romantic experiences vs straight-up abuse.

That’s how marginalized people and people who have felt invalid their entire life FIND their communities. Through LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of trial and error!

Maybe the relationship will shatter. Maybe these desires will be preyed on by an abuser. And for Noelle’s case, maybe by seeking this danger, she’ll experience another traumatic experience and shatter her already broken conscience further.

But here’s the thing. 

How often does Noelle ever show confidence about what she feels? How often does she act on anything for her own sake? 

If Noelle’s desires can be exploited, doesn’t the blame fall on the aggressor and not the person who had the right to seek them out?

And lo and behold, Susie’s actually pretty chill after all! 

And by Chapter 4, I think you’d be delusional to still assume Susie doesn’t reciprocate some feelings back.

She gets so distracted by finding out if Suselle is canon that Kris can go down a large hallway, undergo an entire art therapy session, and eat that sweet sweet moss without her noticing.

Knowing how little Noelle ever allows herself to express her own interests, I think it’s actually healthier to just let her find out herself and see what truly makes her happy.

And let’s be perfectly honest - teenage relationships almost never hold up anyways. Suselle, Kriselle, …….Berdelle? It doesn't matter.

Regardless of who she ends up with at the end of Deltarune, it’s not guaranteed to be positive or even last… but the learning experience absolutely will. 

AKA: Don’t be a Carol.

PS. Holy [$?%!] this took way too goddamn long.

Everything I’ve said here is honestly very surface-level and more a result of my distant fascination for all sorts of people across marginalized spaces. 

I don’t know these people well enough to truly connect to them, but the best I’d like to offer is to explain why they are so interesting. At the very least, this character gave me a great excuse to delve into this topic further.

But for now, I need to give irl serious topics like this a break, I’ll be back to more fun posts until then.

[mapoeggplant]

skip to loafer chapter 71 analysis // spoilers

the chase for the perfect motherhood: for many chapters, we had the chance to hear the monster; now, it's finally time for the scientist to share her side.

the play is about to start, but the story has been going on for a while. for a long time, we had the chance to listen to shima and understand his side like never before, and now, it's time to stop and listen to the side of those who made the mistake. it's finally time for the scientist to give her account of the creation of the monster.

it's very difficult for me not to feel empathy for shima's mother in the present, but unfortunately there's no other way out for her than to reap the fruits that she herself planted. which makes me feel even more sorry for her, since i can understand that she was doing her best to do what she thought was right, but unfortunately the truth came out when it was too late.

in my opinion, motherhood is one of the hardest things in the world, especially when you have no support network whatsoever. you have to, all by yourself, raise a human being in the way you understand to be the best, giving them what you believe to be all the best opportunities you can give. but of course, we are all living life for the first time, so making mistakes is almost impossible.

we don't know exactly what yuki's family life was like and everything that really happened until sousuke came into her life. what we do know is that she lived in a completely abusive relationship and that she had a child with a man who doesn't even remember that he is a father. when we look at it from this perspective, we can understand where all the fear and control that she began to place on shima came from.

motherhood, loneliness. a home, a life, a new world in her hands. the fear of losing her child, the fear of making her child suffer, the anxiety of giving him everything she always believed to be good. the glass dome, the external pressure, the fear of others. the need to protect.

the problem is that, at some point, fear and overprotection dissolved into abuse.

it is undeniable that misaki takamatsu has a writing style that shows the characters' pain without turning them into villains. even if we only have one side of the story for many chapters, at some point the other person will have their chance to speak and the reader will be able to gain a little more depth about this character's life. but, of course, the story simulates a human life, so it is to be expected that the reactions and consequences will also be completely human.

i remember writing, in my analysis of chapter 68, that taiga was both a salvation and a tragedy in shima's life. a salvation for having given him the chance to be a child for a while, a tragedy for having been the butterfly effect that would cause all the subsequent events involving shima and ririka's careers (more details in my analysis). now, taiga once again fulfills this role and finally forces shima's mother to face her own flaws by exposing all her mistakes, something that everyone around her did know and gossiped about (which even shima knew about), but never had enough courage (or strength or they simply didn't care) to face her.

having all her actions exposed so coldly in front of yuki doesn't make her angry, but rather makes her finally see all the pain she had been subjecting her son to for so many years. the fog that covered her eyes, which she believed so much was care, finally disappeared, revealing something much more painful.

and she does what many parents can't do, or simply don't want to do, don't think it's right, don't see any point in it: she apologizes to her son and starts seeking treatment. when she says she's going to the hospital, i interpret it as her seeking psychological help to understand where she went wrong and how she can move forward from here. her life has changed, she found someone who makes her feel good and who takes care of sousuke. her son can finally be free to be whoever he wants to be...but what was done is already done.

it's understandable how angry shima feels about his mother and why he's so reluctant to open up and give her a new chance. for years, he didn't have a mother who was there or someone who took care of him the way a mother should. the wound that opened and remained exposed for so many years cannot heal overnight: it takes years and years of trial and error until the pain begins to be more tolerable than agonizing.

shima has been showing a desire to change ever since he took the initiative and invited his mother to go see his play. this is a huge step, which is the result of a lot of struggle on his part to want to change and find his own happiness. shima's growth is very explicit and palpable, being explored in several chapters — but it still needs a lot of work.

the story of the two still needs a lot of forgiveness to start moving forward. yuki also needs to forgive himself, just as shima needs to forgive himself. the struggle to find a healthy relationship between mother and son requires a lot, a lot of work and dedication, which i believe has already started on both of their parts. but, if shima decides, after all, that he doesn’t want to have any relationship with his mother, he’s in the right to do so and it’s his choice to make.

i hope that yuki one day finds the strength to be the mother she always dreamed of being in sousuke's life. i am very happy to know that now there is someone who is willing to help her and who treats her son with immense respect, as a stepfather should be. i'm also happy that she had a new chance with kieri, but sad that she can't change the past. 

now, for sousuke, i hope this play is his way of letting off steam and finally accepting this monster that lives inside him. embracing his past self so that both of them can move forward. taking all the scraps you left behind and analyzing what is still valid to be used in your new life and what needs to finally be left behind.

life is made of successes and mistakes, of scars that we cause to others and that are caused in us. made of wrong choices, badly said words and feelings much greater than we ourselves can control. it is up to us to understand where we went wrong and where other people went wrong with us and to find a new reason to continue. forgiveness is something that is entirely ours and should only be given when we feel safe enough.

ah! before i finish, just a little note: you can see that shima is way more comfortable with keiri now than he was before. i do believe there's a lot of mitsumi's influence there, but we can't deny the fact that keiri fought hard for his big brother's love!! it's clear that he admires sousuke a lot and wants to be closer to him. great to see them being so comfortable around each other.

what a ride, huh?? another chapter that highlight sensei's beautiful writing, that's for sure!! can't wait to see shima acting in the play and being way more open. sensei do love to make the school festival to be a very crazy arc!!!

thank you for reading 💛!! please support sensei if you can!!

see you next month :)

[thefandomenchantress]

DRDT Character Popularity Poll Results

The results have been tallied! It's finally time to find out who the most popular DRDT Character really is! (...According to this specific format on this specific website).

For those unaware, this poll was conducted by asking people to write down their top 5 favorite DRDT characters in no particular order. Each time that character's name was written, it counted as one vote towards them. And, without further ado, these were the results!

---

18th Place: Elliot Cuevas/Felicity Giles/Unnamed Classmate

Elliot, Felicity, and Unnamed Classmate managed to receive exactly 1 vote each, putting them in last place. I can't say I'm too surprised, since there are so many excellent characters in the main cast to choose from. Still, Felicity, a character mentioned only in an ask game, managing to tie a character with a whole-ass MV dedicated to them as well as a character featured in two bonus episodes, is pretty impressive! So props to her!

(Someone wrote 'Relaxation Room Fish' in one of their slots, which I considered including to be funny, but I decided not to. One day the minnows will get the bonus episode they deserve).

17th Place: Mai Akasaki

Mai managed a whole 5 votes. I was a little surprised by that, since she only really has a hypothetical personality, but hooray for Mai! She's the most popular non-main cast member. I can totally see why people would be intrigued by the mystery surrounding her.

16th Place: MonoTV

MonoTV, self-proclaimed most popular DRDT character, is the least popular main cast member. How sad. With only 6 votes, it barely outranks Mai, and ties with her if you count Unnamed Classmate and Mai to be the same person. While it's silly emoticons and lore implications won a few people's hearts, it still can't compete with the human main cast members.

15th Place: Hu Jing

...I doubt many people are surprised by this. While Hu may have been one of the characters helped most by my decision to make people write down their top five characters instead of only their favorite, she still couldn't gather enough votes to get out of last place within the (human) main cast members.

Hu gathered 26 votes. While that came pretty close to 14th place's number, she ended up here. Like I said earlier, this isn't surprising. Hu's behavior is supposed to be flawed, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be the kind of behavior that most people enjoy watching as much as the more cartoonish character's antics. Still, she has her fans (including me, in case you couldn't tell haha).

Well, if there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that Hu should definitely slap the shit out of David next chapter. /j

14th Place: Min Jeung

Min barely managed to beat out Hu for 14th place with 28 votes. Her low placement, sadly, also isn't a surprise.

Min died in chapter one, and her screentime being limited definitely hurts her here. Not only did she have only a few mentions in chapter 2, but she also didn't haunt the narrative quite like Xander did. Xander managed to leave quite an impact on both David and Teruko. And to put it bluntly, Xander is a conventionally attractive male character with a ton of screentime during his time alive. With the way fandom is, he was almost definitely going to have more staying power than a female culprit, especially one with as little screentime as Min.

That doesn't mean she has no fans, though! There's a ton of cool Min content on this website, and she is one of few characters I have never seen anyone say they vehemently dislike. And how could they? She's such a charming little bookworm.

13th Place: Arturo Giles

Arturo received 33 votes. His relatively low placement isn't exactly something I didn't see coming, seeing as he spent all of chapter 2 stalking J and being generally pretty creepy.

That's not to say he's devoid of charm, of course. His backstory was also expanded on, and I don't think we'll ever forget "Shut your whore mouth!!!!". Arturo's a pretty interesting character, but until we see his full potential in chapter 3, this position in the ranking is pretty understandable. At least Aceturo was confirmed canon in the last five minutes of chapter 2 (/j).

12th Place: Levi Fontana

Oh, Levi. Such an interesting little guy who may or may not have committed multiple felonies.

Levi received 41 votes, beating out Arturo by a good margin. He seems to have gained a little popularity after his backstory was expanded on at the end of chapter 2, and I'm sure we're all excited to see where his character goes in chapter 3! Well, if he survives, but I refuse to admit him not surviving is a legitimate possibility haha.

Overall a decent showing, about what I expected for him! Our next character, however...

11th Place: Xander Matthews/Nico Hakobyan

Attentive readers may have noticed that, despite there being 16 main cast members not including MonoTV, there were only 15 slots when we started ranking them.

And that's because, against all odds, Nico and Xander managed to tie each other at 44 votes each, 3 votes above Levi.

Not only am I a little disappointed I managed to get a tie in these results, but I'm also rather surprised! I was always under the impression Xander was a rather popular character, so I was fully prepared for him to break the top ten. Seeing him underperform like this wasn't what I expected. I suppose the popularity of Xanvid may have always been what carried Xander's popularity, not Xander himself. After all, one of the few things keeping Xander relevant right now in canon is David.

As for Nico, they performed closer to my expectations. I was prepared for them to be somewhere in the middle ground when it came to popularity. I suppose them being alive longer than Xander was evened out by them almost committing murder...Except Xander also did that, but that's a whole other can of worms. A shame neither they nor Xander can make it to the top ten, but maybe next time.

10th Place: J Moreno

Woohoo, J makes it to the top ten! She got a total of 47 votes, and was one of the hardest to count since she has so many name variations haha.

J managed a pretty good showing. With more backstory details and her based-ness during the trial, I'm not surprised she was able to score a top ten spot. As someone who thinks non-violent tsunderes are very fun and amusing, I totally get the appeal.

9th Place: Eden Tobisa

Eden managed to also make it into the top ten with 49 votes, beating J by only 2 votes.

I'll be honest, I'm pretty impressed with Eden. I think she probably benefitted from the top five rule, since she got a lot of points from the 2nd to 5th slots. While the first slot didn't have to be your favorite character, most people probably did put their favorite there. So even if she isn't always people's most favorite, how could they possibly dislike such a sweet character?

8th Place: Arei Nageishi

Next up, Arei Nageishi, the Ultimate Bowler with 63 votes. That's quite a gap between her and Eden. But they still ended up next to each other, which can only mean one thing: Areden is canon /j.

Arei doing well is something I expected, since she's a bit of a wild card. If you like jerk characters, she's got you covered. If you like nice characters, she tried so hard to be good at the end. If you like crying, she died before she could achieve her dreams. Truly a character that pleases everyone, haha.

7th Place: David Chiem

...Holy shit. Seriously? Only 7th place? He barely made it into the top half of the main cast? Damn.

David got 64 votes, only beating Arei by one measly vote. Gotta say, David barely getting to the top half of the main cast in this list surprises me. I mean, he's so popular, right?!? Everyone was so obsessed with him right after chapter 2 ended! Who knows, maybe the hype died down a bit after people got used to his new act--I mean totally 100% real personality reveal.

6th Place: Rose Lacroix

After David shit-talked Rose, I'm sure we're all very amused to see her beating him, haha.

Rose gathered 66 votes, scoring 6th place by only 2 votes. Rather impressive, I didn't expect to see her up so high, but I'm pleased! After her little angsty speech during the second trial, I have to say I'm more endeared to her as well, so it's nice to see her defy my expectations. But then again, she's yet another character I've never seen a single person say they particularly dislike, so maybe I should've expected this.

5th Place: Whit Young

Whit makes it to the top five! Yay! He got here with 69 votes, a number I'm sure he'd have at least one joke about.

This is pretty expected, since I think most people are aware Whit is decently popular. A seemingly happy jokester who's secretly depressed is an archetype that usually endears a lot of people, in my experience.

Though I would like to give a shout-out to the person who wrote: "1. Whit, 2. Whit (mastermind version), 3. Whit (traitor version), 4. Whit (psychotic kanade version), 5. Whit (pinkie pie version)". I considered counting it as only 1 vote, since voting for the same character five times is against the rules, but I decided it was too funny to not count and counted it as 5 instead. So If you want to get technical, Whit is technically only 6th, without me breaking the rules. Sorry Rose.

4th Place: Charles Cuevas

See, my intervention allowed Whit to be next to Charles, it was meant to be. /j

Charles got 71 votes. I expected him to do well, but almost on the podium of top three? Wow! Congratulations, Charles. Like I said with Arei, people who like jerk characters and those who like nice characters are both appeased by characters like this, so it makes sense that he's rather popular. Especially since he has a bunch of cute sprites.

3rd Place: Veronika Grebenshchikova

Our top three begins with...Veronika, who got 72 votes! She barely managed to get past Charles by a singular vote!

I'm impressed with Veronika! I knew she was popular, but not top three popular! I suppose she is basically every Danganronpa fan to the extreme, so it makes sense most people like her at least a little bit. Not only does she have a super awesome design, but an interesting dynamic with many cast members as well.

2nd Place: Ace Markey

HOLY SHIT???? SECOND?!?!

Ace received a total of 77 votes, beating Veronika by a solid number, though not a crazy amount. And I'm...Super impressed with this! I knew more people started to like Ace after he died, but second? Wow! I guess I can never claim he's not one of the top three most popular characters ever again, haha.

Though...Since I hosted this poll, and I'm an Ace Markey-centric account, I should recognize Ace probably had a liiiiittle bit of an unfair advantage, since many of the people guaranteed to see the post the poll was in had to like him at least a little. Whoops! If a completely neutral party hosted this poll, maybe he would've ended up losing to Veronika or Charles, but I suppose we'll never know.

Anyways, Ace probably benefitted the least from this format, since he took an early lead in the first slot only to get closer to the others as time went on. A stark contrast from our champion, the most well-liked DRDT character...

1st Place: Teruko Tawaki

Congratulations, Teruko! She won by a HUGE landslide, getting a whopping 104 votes and blowing everyone else out of the water!

Teruko started out well, but not super well during the first slot, only to consistently get high numbers all the way through the 2nd to 5th slots. She was probably the character who benefitted the most from my top five system. While she may not be everyone's favorite, a lot of people still really like her! Making her the most well-liked, popular DRDT Character!

Since you see so many people saying that Teruko is hated on too much, it's nice to see her being able to pull out a victory on this one! There were 185 voters, which means more than half of the people who participated wrote down Teruko as one of their top five favorites. Her luck truly pulled through on this one!

---

And that's the end! Sorry this took so long, schoolwork has been mean to me lately. That's the reason I haven't posted in general that much either. But the results are finally complete! I hope you enjoyed this little experiment, and one of your top five did well!

[bennetsbonnet]

If you were to ask me to select a single passage which demonstrates the respective pride and prejudice of the hero and heroine from the novel of the same name, I would select the following exchange between Mr Darcy and Elizabeth from Chapter 11.

There are many conversations between Elizabeth and Darcy during her stay at Netherfield due to Jane's illness that greatly inform us about their respective characters. The following discussion clearly demonstrates to us how oblivious Darcy is that his ego is the size of Jupiter, but evidence of Elizabeth's obliviousness to her own flaws and her hypocrisy is also on display at this moment, which follows shortly after Caroline Bingley (rather ridiculously) insists that Mr Darcy possesses no flaws which could be laughed at:

'Mr Darcy is not to be laughed at!' cried Elizabeth. 'That is an uncommon advantage, and uncommon I hope it will continue, for it would be a great loss to me to have many such acquaintances. I dearly love a laugh.' 'Miss Bingley,' said he, 'has given me more credit than can be. The wisest and the best of men—nay, the wisest and best of their actions—may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke.' 'Certainly,' replied Elizabeth—'there are such people, but I hope I am not one of them. I hope I never ridicule what is wise and good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can. But these, I suppose, are precisely what you are without.' 'Perhaps that is not possible for anyone. But it has been the study of my life to avoid those weaknesses which often expose a strong understanding to ridicule.' 'Such as vanity and pride.' 'Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride—where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.' Elizabeth turned away to hide a smile.

Though Darcy seemingly admits (despite Caroline's insistence to the contrary) that it is impossible for anyone to lack any sort of personality traits which others could joke about, he immediately undoes that hint of self-awareness by bragging about his 'superiority of mind.' Admitting that even he may be flawed might appear to be a moment of vulnerability at first glance, but in fact Darcy is essentially telling us that while he might perhaps be a bit prideful... it's to be understood because he is such a magnificent, incredible and awe-inspiring individual who is (in his mind) aware that everyone else is flawed, and thus can easily avoid making those same mistakes because he is smart enough to recognise them in others. Which is hilarious in itself... because if he was indeed so good at recognising such flaws, he would have observed them in himself long ago!

You can clearly see his prideful belief of his superior mind; you can also see his prejudice against the rest of society, as he believes that only he can understand their follies and is thus determined not to be like the rest of them.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth is similarly so close to connecting the dots but alas also falls short of recognising her own hypocritical behaviour and the double-standards she holds those she likes to, compared to those she dislikes. Despite her hope that she will never be the sort of person who ridicules others, especially those that are inherently good, she proceeds to judge Mr Darcy and demonstrates both her prejudice against him and her pride in her belief that she is an excellent judge of character.

Darcy is wrong for believing that his 'superiority of mind' protects him from becoming too prideful... but Elizabeth is equally wrong about his true character, and though her harsh judgment of him is understandable given his abhorrent behaviour at the Meryton assembly, she hardly knows him well enough to laugh at his assertion. Yet, she 'turned away to hide a smile,' clearly (and rightly) tickled at Darcy's failure to recognise his own pridefulness, yet without the ability to observe it in herself... for she is just as guilty of misjudging others.

Over the course of this passage, you can see the pride that both Elizabeth and Mr Darcy possess in their own abilities to assess the shortcomings of others, without being able to identify those failings within themselves, and also their tendency to slip into prejudice against the rest of the world and especially those that they do not like, as they tend to hold the rest of society to different standards than those they set for themselves or people they like.

It's a particularly pertinent moment which highlights how they both possessed flaws which needed to be addressed before they could become the best versions of themselves and lead a happy life together.

I love it when Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen contains characters that are both prideful and prejudiced.

[ghelgheli]

hey you might've been asked this before sorry if so, but have you read or do you have any thoughts on A short history of Trans Misogyny?

I have read it! I have a few thoughts.

I think it's a strong and important work that compiles historical archives into sharp analyses of how "trans misogyny" (using Jules Gill-Peterson's spacing) is not a recent phenomenon but a globalized structure with centuries of history. I also think it's flawed, for reasons I'll get into after a quick summary for those who haven't had the chance to read it yet.

JGP divides the book into three main chapters, the first on the notion of "trans panic". There, she traces how variants of this anxiety with the trans-feminized subject have presented—to deadly effect, for the subject—in such different settings as early colonial India, the colonization of the Americas, the racialized interactions between US soldiers stationed in the Philippines and the local trans women living there, and of course the contemporary United States itself. In every case she analyzes this "panic" as the reaction of the capitalist colonial enterprise to the conceptual threat that the trans-feminized subject poses; we are a destabilizing entity, a gender glitch that undermines the rigid guarantees of the patriarchal order maintaining capitalism. Punishment follows.

The second chapter is my favourite, and considers the relationship between transfeminine life and sex work. I posted a concluding excerpt but the thrust of the chapter is this: that the relegation of so many trans women and trans-feminized people to sex work, while accompanied by the derogation and degradation that is associated with sex work, is not itself the mere result of that degradation inflicted upon the subject. In other words, it is not out of pure helplessness and abjection that so many trans-feminized people are involved in sex work. Rather, sex work is a deliberate and calculated choice made by many trans-feminized people in increasingly service-based economies that present limited, often peripheralized, feminized, and/or reproductive, options for paid labour. Paired with a pretty bit of critical confabulation about the histories of Black trans-feminized people travelling the US in the 19th century, I think this made for great reading.

In her third chapter, JGP narrativizes the 20th century relationship between the "gay" and "trans" movements in north america—scare quoted precisely because the two went hand-in-hand for much of their history. She emphasizes this connection, not merely an embedding of one community within another but the tangled mutualism of experiences and subjectivities that co-constituted one another, though not without tension. Then came the liberal capture of the gay rights movement around the 70s, which brought about the famous clashes between the radicalisms of Silvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson (neither of whom, JGP notes, ever described themselves as trans women) and the institutions of gay liberalism that desired subsumption into the folds of capital. This is a "remember your history" type of chapter, and well-put.

I think JGP is correct to insist, in her introduction, on the globalizing-in-a-destructive-sense effects of the colonial export of trans womanhood. It is, after all, an identity conceived only mid-century to make sense of the medicalized trans subject; and "gender identity" itself (as JGP describes in Histories of the Transgender Child) is a psychomedical concept conceived to rein in the epistemic instability of trans existence. This is critical to keep in mind! But I also think JGP makes a few mistakes, and one of them has to do with this point.

In her first chapter, under the discussion of trans misogyny in colonial India, JGP of course uses the example of the hijra. Unfortunately, she commits two fundamental errors in her use: she mythologizes, however ambiguously, the "ascetic" lives of hijra prior to the arrival of British colonialism; and she says "it's important to say that hijras were not then—and are not today—transgender". In the first place, the reference to the "ascetism" of hijra life prior to the violence of colonialism is evocative of "third-gender" idealizations of primeval gender subjectivities. To put the problem simply: it's well and good to describe the "ritual" roles of gendered subjects people might try to construe contemporarily as "trans women", the priestesses and oracles and divinities of yore. But it is best not to do so too loftily. Being assigned to a particular form of ritualistic reproductive labour because of one's failure to be a man and inability to perform the primary reproductive labour of womanhood-proper is the very marker of the trans-feminized subject. "Ascetism" here obviates the reality that it wasn't all peachy before (I recommend reading Romancing the Transgender Native on this one). Meanwhile, in the after, it is just wrong that hijra are universally not transgender. Many organize specifically under the banners of transfeminism. It's a shame that JGP insists on keeping the trans-feminized life of hijra so firmly demarcated from what she herself acknowledges is globalized transness.

My second big complaint with the book is JGP's slip into a trap I have complained about many times: the equivocation of transfemininity with femininity (do you see why I'm not fond of being described as "transfem"?). She diagnoses the root of transmisogyny as a reaction to the femininity of trans women and other trans-feminized subjects. In this respect she explicitly subscribes to a form of mujerísima, and of the trans-feminized subject as "the most feminine" and (equivalent, as far as she's concerned) "the most woman". Moreover, she locates transfeminist liberation in a singular embrace of mujerísima as descriptive of trans-feminized subjectivity. As I've discussed previously, I think this is a misdiagnosis. Feminization is, of course, something that is done to people; it is certainly the case that the trans-feminized subject is in this way feminized for perceived gender-failure. This subject may simultaneously embrace feminized ways of being for all sorts of reasons. In both cases I think the feminization follows from, rather than precedes, the trans misogyny and trans-feminization, and there is a fair bit of masculinization as de-gendering at play too, to say nothing of the deliberate embrace of masculinity by "trans-feminized" subjects. Masculinity and femininity are already technologies of gender normalization—they are applied against gender deviation and adapted to by the gender deviant. The deviation happens first, in the failure to adhere to the expectations of gender assignment, and I don't think these expectations can be summarized by either masculinity or femininity alone. I think JGP is effectively describing the experience of many trans-feminized people, but I do not think what she presents can be the universalized locus of trans liberation she seems to want it to be.

Now for a pettier complaint that I've made before, but one that I think surfaces JGP's academic context. In her introduction she says:

In truth, everyone is implicated in and shaped by trans misogyny. There is no one who is purely affected by it to the point of living in a state of total victimization, just as there is no one who lives entirely exempt from its machinations. There is no perfect language to be discovered, or invented, to solve the problem of trans misogyny by labeling its proper perpetrator and victim.

Agreed that "there is no perfect language to be discovered"! But JGP is clearly critical of TMA/TME language here. Strange, then, that less than ten pages later she says this:

this book adds the phrase trans-feminized to describe what happens to groups subjected to trans misogyny though they did not, or still do not, wish to be known as transgender women.

So JGP believes it is coherent to talk about "groups subjected to trans misogyny", which she thinks consists of the union of trans women and what she called "trans-feminized" groups. If this is to be coherent, there must be groups not subjected to trans misogny. So we've come around to transmisogyny-subjected and not transmisogyny-subjected. Look: you cannot effectively theorize about transmisogyny without recognizing that its logic paints a particular target, and you will need to come up with a concise way of making this distinction. But JGP dismissing TMA/TME with skepticism about "perfect language" and immediately coining new language (basically TMS/not TMS) to solve the problem she un-solved by rejecting TMA/TME... it smells of a sloppy attempt to make a rhetorical point rather than theoretical rigour. It's frustrating.

I have other minor gripes, like her artificial separation of "trans women" from "nonbinary people" (cf. countless posts on here lamenting the narrow forms of existence granted TMA people if we want recognition as-such!) or her suggestion that "a politics of overcoming the gender binary" is mutually exclusive from rather than necessarily involved with struggles around "prison abolition, police violence, and sex work". Little things that give me the sense of theoretical tunnel-vision. But I don't think all this compromises the book's strengths as a work of broad historical analysis. I would simply not take every one of its claims as authoritative. Definitely give it a read if you have the chance, especially for the second and third chapters.