#all while not forcing myself to act way older than i am

[ohsweetflips]

like. on the one hand. i get when my supervisors are like "be sure to be personable with your students in a way that still maintains the fact that u are the authority figure bc, since ur all young, it will be easier for them to not see u as a professional" but also. it is very funny when one of my students comes into the TA office, tells me that my undecorated desk is lame compared to the other desks, and then within 30 minutes is like "idk if ur the type of neurodivergent who [proceeds to say something that i absolutely do]" like. they clocked me! they got me there!

[igotanidea]

A pattern : Jason Todd x reader

(Part 1 of How to be a good boyfriend series)

Every word he said to her was a lie...

Or at least that was how he felt.

I'll keep you safe  - when he couldn't even keep her safe from himself. 

You're safe with me - when even as much as her leaving home meant being put on the spotlight. 

I love you - well that was true, but in his love he was so selfish it almost felt like a lie.

Selfish.

That was what he was.

Kissing her with a promise if tomorrow that could never come.

Holding and touching her, knowing he was going to leave her alone for the night. Again and again. Over and over.

Looking at her like she was his sun, moon and stars, even though that excessive attention was putting her in danger from all his enemies, real and potential.

So selfish. 

And yet he could not stop.

Not when she was making him feel the warmth inside. The sense of belonging. 

Not with the way she was bringing something long forgotten in him - happiness.

Then why did It feel like he was using her. Why did it feel like every time she laid her head on his shoulder or chest he was rather taking that warmth and serenity than giving it. Why did if feel like he was nothing more than a little kid, missing the embrace and promise of love and safety then providing it.

He shouldn't be a kid in this relationship. 

"Hey, what's bothering you?" Y/N asked softly, raising eyes onto him, reading his face, searching for the reason for the sudden tension she felt coming from him. 

"Nothing." he muttered. "I'm fine."

"Come on, Jay. Don't act like that."

"Like what?!" He bursted, suddenly getting a heavy wave of self-doubts. Even his Y/N was seeing that he was acting like a child. And this was clearly not what she needed. And now that she knew she was going to leave him alone. Break up with him. Break the heart that slowly started to open up and heal while being with her and--

"Hey. Hey, look at me!" She cried out desperately as he tried to (literally) push her away. Her hands found a way to his cheeks forcing his eyes on hers once more "Stop it. Don't cut me off. Talk to me."

"I don't know how to be a good boyfriend to you." he confessed looking down, unable to see the inevitable mockery that was going to reflect in her eyes. 

"How to--. Wait, what? Jason? Who put that thought in your head?"

"No one. I can tell by myself that I am not what you need."

"Jason--"

"No. Let me finish. I do want to be what you deserve. And that's why I asked Dick-"

"Dick? Oh my god, please don't tell me you asked the greatest playboy heartbreaker for advice in a relationship..." 

"Well, he's got some good tips on that-" Jason mumbled, though admitting that his older brother might have been right about something was at least painful. 

"No." Y/N shook her head, squeezing his hand "No. Jason. Forget them."

"But-"

"Hush. You listen to me now. Although Dick experience in the matter of relationships is undeniable - I don;t think you should take him as a role model."

"Then who, Y/N?! WHO!?" He yelled and regretted it a second later "I'm sorry-- I didn't mean too. It's just--" 

"Look, sweetheart. Lesson one, if you want it, is that there's no pattern when it comes to two people building something together. No one will tell you that when you do things a certain way it will work out. There is no magical number of things a girl and a boy have to do together to make sure they will be happy."

"There isn't?" Jason's face dropped at the sudden realisation. "But-- But then how am I supposed to make sure you are happy with me? How can I ensure that-"

"Jason."

"I really want to --"

"Hey. Stop it!" she chuckled leaning to kiss his forehead "We learn together. That's how."

"But-"

"Stop doubting yourself, okay? I am happy with you, mostly because I get to discover things I never did. Because you like them. Damn, do you think, I would even know I enjoy bike rides, if it wasn’t for you? Or would I know that I actually got the romantic part in me, if not for your Jane Austen addiction?"

"Um--" Jason blushed a little and it was so cute it made her laugh and peck his lips softly,  "Hey... what was that for?" He asked, getting even more flustered. 

"Consider it a gold star for memorising lesson one." she smiled.

"That every story is unique?" He tried to make sure.

"Yes. So let's make sure you don't ruin it with unnecessary silly thoughts, ok?"

He nodded. 

"Then I got one important question to ask...." she took a deep breath - "Jason Peter Todd... will you learn how to be in a relationship with me?"

"I will. And I hereby swear to not listen to Internet couches and tiktok charlatans."

"Finally, you're getting some common sense back..." she chuckled, knowing well enough that his words, even if a little teasing, were a sign that he trusted her. Both with learning, but most importantly - with his heart. And with that knowledge she pledged to keep that part of him safe.

[sohnric]

millennium bug – e. sohn

pairing: eric sohn x fem! reader

genre: 90s au, twenty-five twenty-one au, brother's best friend au, childhood friends au, fluff, slice of life, coming of age. older brother! sunwoo. essentially just eric being baek yijin. oct-nov scenes inspired by weak hero class 1. no plot just vibes im sorry

warnings: minimal swearing and thats all lol

word count: 19k

a/n: posting a fic for a new fandom is always so scary pls be nice to me deobiblr bc im literally abt to cry. also yes i am calling this a 2521 au bc the plot is so heavily inspired it might just be one. a special thank you goes out to @csenke for dragging me into stanning this group i am enjoying myself 🤞

there are some pros and cons to not having friends growing up. cons: you're always forced to tag along with your brother and his group wherever he goes. pros: his childhood best friend is kind of hot.

JUNE OF 1999

Being Kim Sunwoo’s younger sister is no bed of roses sometimes.

Sure, you get the occasional excitement of having him bring you rollerskating with you down the hill or the ever so rare moments of him defending you in front of your mother when you two have done something wrong (while never saying he was in on the bad act as well, of course), but more than often, you are met with his disgusted looks and insults whenever the two years older boy passes by your room and casually bangs at the door just to spite you.

His snarky looks are especially ones to remember. Maybe it’s because he offers them to you often– much like in this very moment, completely unprovoked, and completely not by your fault.

“But mum–”

“I already told you, Sunwoo,” your mother looks at him with a stern look in her eye, the one that makes chills run down your spine, “you can go if you take Y/N with you.”

“But nobody’s bringing their sister! Mum, come on–”

“Take it or leave it, young man.”

And see, your brother may be 19 years old, but he’s still in need of getting permission to leave the house if it includes an overnight stay. It’s an unspoken rule he always follows, since he’s usually granted the right to leave, but the result of his conversation was different than what he expected this time. And see, you may be just two years younger than him (one year left until you are an adult), but even though your mother is too busy to take care of you and entertain your slowly adultling self on most days because of her highly demanding job, she always makes sure that you don’t stay alone for long, and that’s exactly why (you realize, contrary to your brother) she insists on making you tag along on Sunwoo’s trip to the beach house with his friends.

The male grunts and turns on his heel, not giving your mother another response– and with this, you know she won. And that means you’ll have to pack your bag soon, because you know that there’s no way Sunwoo would miss going to the beach house with his friends– even if it meant making his little sister tag along.

And sure enough, Lee Juyeon’s minivan pulls up into your driveway only a few hours later, and the sound of the honking outside is enough for your older brother to aggressively drag you outside of the house, shutting the door behind you and hollering an angry “Bye mum!” to your mother. Your figure is handled with the least amount of care possible as you’re thrown towards the white van, the door opened and 5 heads already peeking out with expecting eyes, waiting for your brother’s arrival.

“My mum made my stupid sister go with me, so I hope we have space for one more,” Sunwoo huffs as he throws his bag into the trunk, slamming it with more force than was necessary (boy does he know how to throw a scene), an encouraging voice of none other than Juyeon– the driver himself– landing in your ear. 

“Sure, just hop in!”

With that, your feet finally unglue themselves off the ground and bring you into the vehicle. You’re familiar with his friends– since a scenario like this hasn’t happened for the first time and you had to spend your fair time with Sunwoo’s circle growing up, mainly because you never really had many friends yourself. You’re not close with any of them, though, and you’re sure you haven’t seen half of them for ages. 

Lee Juyeon is the responsible one of the group. You’re comfortable with the fact that he’s the driver, since you’re not entirely sure if you’d trust any of the other men in this space behind the wheel (you fear the day your brother gets a driver’s license. You'd bet a million dollars that he’ll die while driving recklessly one day). Next to him on the passenger’s seat is Choi Chanhee, his best friend, carrying a map in his hands and twirling it in all possible directions to get his friend on the right track. In the three-seat behind those two is Ju Haknyeon, Ji Changmin and your brother himself, and in the very back of the whole van, almost in the trunk, you’re sat next to Eric Sohn– your brother’s childhood best friend.

“Hi guys,” you offer a greeting to all of them, settling into the uncomfortable leather seat (that’s peeling off, just by the way), watching as the rest of the men pay you no mind and ignore your voice, falling into a comfortable conversation with each other.

Sighing, because this always happens– your brother gets too annoyed because he has to bring you with him all the time, and you imagine his friends aren’t fond of the fact either– you settle deeper into the seat and cross your hands on your chest, looking outside of the window. You can’t imagine enjoying your trip now, since you feel like you’re a nuisance, a child they have to take care of (yes, it embarrasses you just the tiniest bit, you have to admit. Although, you do enjoy getting out of the house from time to time), and the fact that your feelings were probably more than justified and also true has you pouting, an unsatisfied feeling weighing at your lungs.

“Hi,” a voice resonates from your side, the sight of a smiling Eric peering at you taking you off guard. You didn’t expect anyone to react to your greeting– not so delayed anyway– and the sight of your brother’s best friend carrying on in the conversation with you has you shocked beyond belief. “Excited?”

Finding yourself hum in agreement– how much you are still excited for the pool and for the sun, you’re not really sure– and although you are upset, something about his open and nice demeanor has you visibly relaxing, the sparkles inviting themselves back into your eyes. “I’ve never been to the beach,” you admit, seeing Eric gasp at you in surprise.

“Really?” he asks. “I go every year with my parents.”

“Well,” you hum, “you know how my mother is…” you sigh, chewing on the inside of your cheek. It’s easier to joke about it than to actually let the fact get to you– with your mother being the main news anchor, she is too busy to actually go on trips and form bonds with her own children sometimes. That’s why you spent most of your childhood at Eric’s family’s house in the first place– this is what made you the closest with Sunwoo’s same aged friend. His parents were nice enough to let you stay over and have sleepovers whenever your mum had to leave suddenly and take week-long trips abroad, or have emergency shifts during late evenings. 

Eric hums, sympathizing with you. “Well, at least you get to experience it now!”

“Yeah,” you awkwardly nod, playing with the hem of your jean shorts. It’s the shorts you made yourself by cutting the legs off your favorite pants after you grew out of them and they got too short, and they’re starting to look a little worn-out now. Maybe you should beg your mum to get you some new clothing.

The conversation between the boys grows in volume, doing nothing to help you to relax in the crowded vehicle. You can’t really find a place to fit yourself in and talk, the topics too unfamiliar for you and the feeling of not even being welcome in the discussion sitting heavy on your chest, when a finger bears itself to the flesh of your thigh, making you snap your head around to gape at the source of the contact. Eric looks at you with a boyish grin, sparkles evident in his eyes.

“Wanna see something?” he asks.

“Sure.”

The male digs around his backpack, hands searching through the contents of his bag for only a couple of seconds– since he’s the neat one, contrary to your messy brother– before he takes out a small gadget: a square with a little screen on top, a silver, circular button space sitting big in the very middle of the device. Eric throws the thing into your lap, smiling when you take it into your hands and examine it with curious eyes.

“Have you seen one before? My dad got it for me last week,” he boosts, satisfied with your reaction to it. 

Your mother’s job pays quite well– meaning that you usually have the latest gadgets, the latest trends– but if you’re being honest, you haven’t seen one of these in real life before. Yes, you caught a glimpse of an ad for it in the town center, on one of the big billboards while passing by to get to school in the morning, so you know that it’s an MP3 player, but still; this was your first time touching one and examining it in real life. 

“How does it work?” you ask, watching as the boy scoots from his seat to the middle one, so he is now sitting directly next to you, before he takes out wired headphones from the first department of his backpack and turns the little square over in his hands, finding where the jack goes.

“You put those in,” he says, plugging in the headphones, “and then you press this…” he explains, taking the device out of your hand and pushing on the power button for a few seconds, “and then it should play.”

Watching him with expecting eyes, the boy finally puts the MP3 player back into your hold. Then, his fingers swiftly put the respective earphones into your ears– like you’d do to a little kid that has no idea how they work, making you a little flushed at the action– and after that, you’re left with the sound of an unfamiliar song playing in your ears, making the sound of the chatter in the van completely tune out. Eric keeps on watching you, a sense of pride in his eyes as you nod at him, all excited with the new explory, before he takes one of the earphones out of your ear, grinning.

“Cool, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” you nod. “The song is good,” you dumbly say, watching as the boy next to you pridefully nods at the compliment, resting his back against the car seat. 

“It’s the H.O.T album. My dad says they’re good,” he mumbles, moving the headphone he took from you and placing it into his ear, making you nod at him in acknowledgement. The action has your insides bubble with disappointment, thinking that the fun is over as you reach for the other earphone as well, offering it to the male.

Eric looks at you with a shocked pout, shaking his head. “No, we can share!” he says, pointing towards your ear. “If you want, of course.”

The action has you smiling, a shy nod escaping out of you as you reach and put the earphone back into your ear, letting yourself fall deeper into the car seat, listening to the song from Eric’s MP3 player. You’re grateful for his presence– he didn’t have to keep up a conversation with you. He could ignore you, just like the rest of his friend group always has. Maybe it was something about the two of you growing up together that always made the boy at least a bit more affectionate towards you than the rest.

You spend the car ride to the beach house with Eric leaning on your side, listening to music and his occasional blabbering about how his previous days went. 

Somehow, you're glad the seat beside him was the only vacant one when you arrived to the vehicle.

YOUR SEVENTH BIRTHDAY, 1989

You don't quite remember when you met Eric for the first time, if you’re being completely honest. The first memory you have of him is of your seventh birthday party, although you’re almost certain the boy’s been present at some point of your life before– at one point, you think you saw a picture of him and Sunwoo, two chubby toddlers, watching you as you laid on a blanket on the ground somewhere in your photo album. As far as you’re concerned, he may as well have been there when your mother brought you back from the hospital– although you think he must have been too young for that back then.

The first memory you have of Eric Sohn is the day you turned seven– a gloomy, sad day that in the moment, you prayed you wouldn’t have to remember in the first place.

It was already established that while your brother is the social butterfly, you don’t have a big friend group. Actually, you could count the number of your friends on one hand, and since the amount wasn’t as big, your mother allowed you to invite them all over to your house to celebrate your birthday with you. 

She baked a cake, she decorated the living room, hell, she even took a day off from work– something you deemed special, for it doesn’t happen often– and as you sat on the floor of your living room, the cake standing proud on the small coffee table, waiting for your friends to arrive, you hummed a song under your breath, the clock slowly passing the time you agreed for them to come over and celebrate.

At first, you didn’t mind it– everybody gets late sometimes, it’s okay. It was just a birthday party, and you had a lot of time. Not everything had to be set on schedule.

But the closer the clock moved to being one hour, than two after the time your friends were supposed to come, you grew worried. Your mother’s nervous pacing around the living room and her heavy sighs as she sat next to you on the floor, smiling at you in what you can only explain as sad way made you more and more anxious about the fact that you only had three friends, but all three of them seemed to not care enough to come celebrate your birthday with you. And as your mother finally took the final bow in the form of a soft hand on your inner thigh, her tone gentle as she called your name– “Y/N, I think we should light the candles,” you began to tear up.

You were supposed to eat the cake with your friends. You were supposed to hear them sing the birthday song to you. You were supposed to turn on the radio and dance around with your classmates, eat the sweets and unwrap the cheap, but heartfelt gifts they brought along with them to celebrate your birthday. 

But none of these scenarios were happening, and you felt incredibly, incredibly lonely and sad. Forgotten, if you will. Not cared for, definitely.

Hiding your face into your hands, you started to cry. This disappointment was too big for your small heart to take, and you no longer cared about the cake, the candles, the seaweed soup your mother cooked for you to celebrate, the gifts, or the party. All you wanted to do was hide in your room and never come out– something about the whole situation felt deeply embarrassing, and to this day, the moment before the whole day turned around still makes you feel a bit ashamed of yourself. 

Too busy crying, you didn’t notice your older brother watching you with big bambi eyes, a worried glance sent your way each time your sobs grew louder and louder. And maybe the boy only wanted to taste the cake (he’s been bugging your mum about it since the very morning, but he was always sent off with a scolding look telling him that he’ll get a slice when everyone arrives), but no matter what his true intentions were, his actions still managed to pull your seventh birthday party together in a way you never imagined.

The sound of the front door faintly resonated in your brain somewhere in the middle of your aimless sobbing, but you paid it no mind, thinking it was just Sunwoo going out to the yard to kick the ball. See, your older brother had never really known what to do when you cried growing up– it didn’t matter if he was the reason for your tears or if anyone else was. If he was the reason for your emotional outbursts, he tried to shut you up with his palm and get you to stop crying before his mother found out and gave him a scolding, but if someone else was, the small boy sometimes turned angry at the source. Kicking his classmate that once made a snarky comment about you and made you tear up or punching his friend when he was too harsh with you was all he knew to do in these situations, so he wasn’t the one to comfort you with words or hugs. It was only natural for him to escape in this situation.

You were brought to a state of shock and surprise when a hand landed on your shoulder, a familiar voice breaking you from your emotional turmoil.

“Why are you crying? We have to eat the cake!” you heard, your big, sad eyes meeting the small figure of the boy living next door, your brother nervously stepping from one side to the other right behind his best friend. “Can you light the candles, Mrs?” Eric politely asked your mum, pointing towards the cake waiting sadly at the coffee table, the figure of your mother leaving your side only shortly to get the matches from the kitchen and illuminate your face with the small flames.

Confusion mirrored your features as you watched your brother and his best friend sing the birthday song to you while your mum lit your candles, both boys clapping and dancing around, acting silly just to get a laugh from you. You didn't know how Eric got there, but you guessed there are some good sides to having him as your neighbor. The energetic boy did his best to brighten up your mood a bit, and when you blew out the candle, making a wish, Sunwoo even went as far as smashing your face into the cake to bring in the full birthday authenticity.

That got him a slap to the back of his head from your mother, as well as made you stand up from your position– no longer making you look like a disappointed bulk of pity– and chase him around the room, icing falling off your nose to the laminated floor. You got your revenge and smeared the chocolate all over his forehead (he let you chase him down only because it was your birthday and he really, really hated to see his sister cry, but he won’t ever tell you that) and as the three of you sat back down to the floor, watching your mother slice the cake and offer it to you on small white plates, you realized you suddenly weren't as sad anymore.

“What did you wish for?” Eric asked you, mouth full of cake and face messy with chocolate.

“I can’t tell you,” you hummed, eyebrows furrowed. “Then it won’t come true.”

“You probably wished for that doll you saw in the store the other day,” Sunwoo snickered as he swallowed, having you glare at him and send a sharp kick to his shin, unwatched by your mother (thankfully), as the boy fought you back, having no mercy.

Music suddenly filled the room as Eric stood up and put the radio on, his 9 year old brain smart enough to know how the device worked, his small figure dancing away to the songs playing on the single radio station you could play without carefully sorting out the antenna so it faced the north, and truly, you didn’t know how it happened, but it had you standing up and dancing around, exactly how you'd imagined doing with your friends from school.

The day wasn’t ruined– quite the opposite, really. It was one of your favorite birthday parties, and ever since then, Eric was invited to every single one you had after. And while Sunwoo may act like he doesn’t hate anything more in this world than having a younger sister, every time you feel like a burden to him, you remember this very afternoon.

You will never tell anyone what you wished for that day– but just to let everyone in on the secret, 

it was to somehow, just like Sunwoo, find someone like Eric for yourself as well. 

JUNE OF 1999

Standing at the side of the pool, eyes squinting from the inevitable force of the sun, you’re starting to regret your decision of coming along just a little. See, you usually don’t protest whenever Sunwoo aggressively drags you around and brings you everywhere he’s supposed to, because even though you love to see your brother angry (especially when you’re the reason behind the emotion), you’d also hate to see him miss out, but now, as the scorching hot sun is having no mercy on every exposed inch of skin– and believe me, there’s a lot of it, since you’re wearing your swimming trunks– and the sweat on your forehead is no longer culminating in beads, but rolling painfully slowly down your forehead, you do admit you’d be a little bit happier in the shade of your little room than here, watching the guys play volleyball in the comfort of the freezing cold pool.

And as the only female around the house, you settle with the patriarchy and bring out a small folding chair and a camping table alongside with a big, sharp knife, struggling to hoist up the giant watermelon you got in a grocery store on your way to the beach house, with the intention of cutting it and serving it to the guys later. Who knows, maybe they’ll like you a little more after that. 

The knife sinks into the thick green skin of the watermelon easily, and so as you accompany yourself with the excited (and not so excited screams coming from the losing side of the game– mainly your brother himself), you cut up the fruit into halves, then quarters, and as you stare at the moon crescents settled on the camping table, you decide to play nice and cut up the fruit into smaller triangles as well, to really get on everyone’s good side.

The yearning for male validation awakes in a woman pretty early on in life. It’s an inevitable misfortune.

“Told you Sunwoo’s all talk but no game!” you hear Haknyeon yell out as the game seemingly ends, the younger boy lunging at him in the pool, fighting him for the truthful words. Glancing at the commotion, you notice the guys slowly getting out of the pool, making you heave out in victory– you’re finally gonna have your turn in the pool. Well, if they don’t decide to occupy it again before you even get a chance to get in.

“Y/N! You cut up the watermelon?” Eric asks a very obvious question, walking up to you with beads of water all over his half-naked body. His dark hair is damply sitting against his forehead, making him look like a wet puppy, but as the male gets closer to you, he drags his palm through the locks and pushes them back, revealing his forehead– a sight sweet to your eyes, but you refuse to pay it much attention in the heat of the moment. It’s just the sun making you delirious as the idea of finding him attractive flashes through your brain, that’s all. 

“I did! Take one,” you smile, watching as the rest of the guys walk over to your little stand– while also obnoxiously swatting out water out of their hair like dogs, refusing to use towels like normal people– and finally, there it comes: appreciative smiles appear on their faces as they each take a piece, biting down on the fruit with delighted sighs.

Sunwoo walks up to you with a surprised look on his face, sighing as he messes with your hair. “If I knew you’d be our servant, I wouldn’t have even minded you going in the first place.”

“You do something nice for people and they jump on the chance to exploit you,” you hum, shaking your head in disbelief. “That’s just like you, Kim Sunwoo.”

“No, that’s just me having older brother privileges.”

“I hope you choke on that, you know,” you bite at him, pointing towards the piece of sweet watermelon in his hands, the smile on his face turning bitter. There’s a satisfied look on your face when your brother does, indeed, choke on a watermelon seed a few seconds later– and they say dreams don’t come true.

“You didn’t have to,” you hear Eric speak up from the other side, your head turning to face the male, his features appreciative and warm. “Thank you,” he beams. There’s redness on the tip of his nose and his forehead, signaling his quickly approaching sunburn, and you can’t help but laugh out at his clueless, Rudolph the red nosed reindeer self. 

“What’s so funny?” he asks, furrowing his eyebrows at you in question.

“Nothing,” you peep, “you just look like you forgot to use sunscreen,” you mumble, watching as the male gasps and touches his face, a horrified expression overtaking him when the skin under his fingertips burns to the touch. 

“I didn’t forget! It must have rubbed off in the pool,” he mourns, “I must look stupid!” 

“Only a little,” you tease, a grin overtaking your features. See, there’s something about the fact that you’ve known Eric for the entirety of your whole life that makes you more prone to teasing him– you’re familiar with your dynamics and just how far you can go, so his next actions startle you just the tiniest bit as the male looks sternly at you, throwing the half-eaten watermelon slice to the camping table. You thought you had the risks calculated– apparently, you didn't.

“What did you say?”

Examining his features, seeing no signs of anger– just the stoic, fakely-offended face of your brother’s childhood best friend– you shrug. “That you look a bit stupid with your face like that.”

“Oh, okay,” he nods, “you’re going down for that.”

“What do you mea–”

Your words are cut short when the male lunges at you, his arms enveloping your thighs and holding you up. The contact of his cold skin from the pool and your heated figure makes goosebumps appear all over your body, your hands instinctively reaching around him to support yourself as he walks closer to the pool– his intentions are suddenly painfully clear and you start to panic. 

“This will teach you to respect your elders,” Eric huffs, the turquoise surface of the water slowly coming into your point of view.

“Stop! Stop-stop-stop,” you squirm, kicking your feet and trying to take down the predator, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, alright?”

The male takes a halt for a split second– making you foolishly believe he’ll let you off– before he breaks out into a devilish grin and continues to walk to the edge of the pool. “Too late.”

“Eric!” you scream, the volume of your voice resonating through the whole beach, your heart thumping wild against your ribcage with the awaiting process. You’re not even sure what you’re scared of anymore– you can swim and you bet the water will feel nice against the scorching sun– but still, you’re absolutely terrified as the male has no mercy on you, carrying you steadily towards the water. “At least let me tie my hair first! You can dump me in after, I promise,” you mourn, trying to buy yourself more time.

“Alright,” he nods, waiting at the very edge of the pool, leaving you to take the purple scrunchie off your wrist and gather your hair together, preparing to tie it into a bun so it doesn’t get in your way when you’re in the pool. The hair tie is just at the tips of your fingertips, the first loop over the hair ready to be done, when a scream cuts out of your throat.

The feeling of falling suddenly overtakes your body, leaving you no time to prepare yourself for the impact of the cold water against your skin and all up in your nose, since you didn’t pluck it when you were dumped into the pool. The fall only lasts a split second until you’re below the water, the force of it resonating in your ears, and when you finally act on your instincts and stand up in the pool (it wasn’t even that deep in the first place, only reaching to your upper stomach), you cough out all the water and pray to gods you don’t throw up chlorine into the freshly cleaned pool. After you’re done catching your breath and getting oxygen into your lungs again, you do your best at getting all the hair out of your face. 

There is laughter landing into your ears as soon as you manage to get all the water out of them by leaning your head to the side and violently slapping each one, and when your eyes look up, you see an amused Eric Sohn bending over in his waist at your disheveled appearance. 

Grunting and pointing a finger to the criminal that almost made you drown, you huff out. “I’ll kill you! Just you watch.”

Your scrunchie nowhere to be found, forever lost somewhere outside of the beach house, you think, as it flew off your hand in the impact of the attack, shock makes your figure shake alongside of the coldness of the water, making you audibly sigh. 

Yes. You do regret coming along just a little.

JULY OF 1999

Somewhere along the way, Eric Sohn starts acting as if he’s your second older brother. Sure, you’ve known the male your whole entire life and he’s seen you grow up, but it took him 17 years of your life to come to a point where he gives you equal amount of attention whenever he’s over at your house than he does to your brother, and even asks Sunwoo if you’re coming along with them whenever they leave to hang out somewhere else. It’s a change that comes naturally and slowly, and you welcome it unknowingly– the revelation shocks you on a hot summer day, though, when the idea finally comes to you in full force.

You would even argue and say Eric acts more like your brother than your actual sibling does– he asks if you’ve eaten and listens to you when you talk (which Sunwoo never does, well, except from when he’s arguing with you). Eric even compliments your outfits sometimes and lets you borrow his MP3 player from time to time– Sunwoo would never share his things with you, no matter how hard you pleaded and threatened to tell your mum. Yes, your brother's an adult and you’re one year away from becoming one– you still resolve your conflicts through your only parent, though. Some things, you never grow out of.

“I wanna try using the skateboard now, Sunwoo,” you order sternly when the boy finally reaches your destination. You’ve been sitting on the sidewalk for quite some time now, since your brother and his friend decided that they’re gonna try out their new skateboards on the hottest day of the year. Your town doesn’t have fancy skateparks and ramps like the ones you’ve seen in the music videos on TV, so you don’t really know what initially made the two buy those things, but you do admit that even driving up and down the road in front of your house does seem a little fun– so much you’d love to try it.

“What a shame we all wish for things we can’t have,” he shrugs ironically, shaking his head at you from his position above. The male reaches down for his bag, taking out a water bottle and putting it against his plush lips, all while you glare at him from below, still seated in your initial position. Eric comes up to you two, squishing at the soft plastic bottle in Sunwoo’s hold, making the water splash your older brother in the face, leaving a winning grin to be shared between you and the shorter boy, an expression that makes you all warm on the inside. See, at least Eric always has your back.

“You can try mine, if you want,” the latter shrugs, offering you a smile.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he nods, “why not?”

“I don’t know,” you shrug, “I just didn’t expect you to offer, since as you saw, my dear brother just refused when I asked…” you mumble, standing up from the sidewalk and taking the skateboard into your hand. Eric offers it to you with an outstretched arm and watches as you put the board on the floor, squinting at it with much examination.

“Do you know how to ride it?” he asks.

“No,” you shake your head, “but I mean, if Sunwoo can do it, how hard can it really be?” you joke, seeing as the said boy glares at you, finally finishing his water and dropping the bottle to the ground. 

“I’ll remind you of that statement when you eat shit on the pavement,” he shushes you, rolling his eyes. 

Not paying more attention to the grumpy being that is your own brother, you relocate your attention back to the skateboard on the heated road. You’re lucky you live on a street where cars don’t often drive by, since your neighborhood is on the very edge of the town, so you don’t really fear being run over by a pickup truck. What you do worry about, though, is your lacking sense of balance, which you discovered when you learned how to ride the bike for the first time. While your brother was a professional in no time, it took you weeks to get it right, and so with the idea of riding a board that provides you zero sense of security, you get a bit worried for your own life.

Dragging your hair out of your face and aimlessly trying to tuck it behind your ears– there’s no use in trying though, as the strands slip out just as fast as they found their place– you keep staring at the board only a few centimeters away from your feet, mentally calculating your next move. There’s a noise of a backpack being opened and rustling around in the background of your miserable thoughts, and when you look up to see what’s going on, you notice Eric offering you a small, purple bundle of fabric. 

“What’s that?” you ask, even though the answer is clear as the day– you recognise your own scrunchie with no problem. You’re just surprised to see it in his hold. You thought it was forever buried somewhere in the beach house, since you weren’t able to find it after you got out of the pool, no matter how hard you tried.

“Oh,” he shrugs, amidst a little too nonchalantly, “I found it and figured it was yours, but I forgot to give it back to you then… it seems like you need it now, though,” he offers you an explanation, lips pressed into a thin line that slightly signifies a smile.

“Ah,” you gasp, nodding as you take the hair tie out of his outstretched palm, gathering your hair into a bun and tying it up on the crown of your head– the staring contest you’ve been having with the board is much clearer now, when you don’t have your messy strands in the way. The idea of Eric keeping your scrunchie after finding it at the beach house makes your stomach do a weird kind of turn– you guess it made you a bit weirded out, if you’re being honest.

“Want some help with that?” he asks, pointing towards his skateboard.

Nervous, cracking your knuckles as you meet his eyes– he looks a bit amused, but still genuine– you nod, admitting defeat. There’s no way you’re getting on top of that board without help and not falling down. It’s always better to be safe than to be sorry, and so when Eric laughs airly at your composure and takes a few steps closer towards you, you let the male lead you, finding comfort in his secure words and actions.

Eric offers you his arms to hold when you try to get on the skateboard. He is peering at you from under his eyelashes when you put one of your legs onto the wood, his grip on your forearm getting firmer when you try to get your other foot on as well– and you must admit that you suddenly don’t feel like you might die anymore when there’s someone holding you and standing by your side. 

“See? It’s not that hard,” Eric mumbles, his voice low and reassuring from the proximity. You notice your hands sweating a little when his palm envelopes yours– damn the sun and its unbearable heat making you embarrass yourself– but he doesn’t mention it as he firmly holds you and meets your eyes. “I’m gonna drag you around a bit so you get used to it before trying yourself,” he says before taking a few steps forward, preparing to be your own type of personal driver.

Having him instruct you and help you around makes you feel more comfortable on the board. Sunwoo would never do such a thing for you– he’d enjoy watching you fall down and break your neck and possibly die– so you’re more than happy to have someone in your life that takes care of you in ways your older brother refuses to. 

The skateboard moves forward a little, starting slow, but then picking up speed as Eric jogs a little, making you laugh at the action. He does not have to go above and beyond, but he still does– but you guess it’s good for him to let out his energy somewhere. After a while, he looks back at you and meets your eye with a warm gaze, making you nod at him reassuringly and hold up a thumb of the hand he’s not holding right now, signaling that you’re okay and enjoying yourself. That has the male let go of your hand and let you take the road with the laws of physics, moving forward by yourself with the force he created. 

It’s nice. It’s fun. 

Yes, you totally understand why Eric and Sunwoo wanted skateboards after seeing them on TV. Hell, you want one now.

“Try it yourself now!” Eric encourages you as the board naturally comes to a stop under you, and his smiling face is enough for you to take initiative and nod, relocating one foot off the wood and placing it on the floor, then kicking it and making yourself move on the simple vehicle.

A moment of surprise envelopes you like a warm hug when you manage to not fall off and keep your balance, the joy of it making you try to go faster on the board, kicking once, twice against the pavement with the sole of your old, beaten up shoe. “I’m doing it!” you yell, glancing back at Eric standing on the sidewalk, watching you with excited eyes. The male offers you a victorious holler, something that makes you break into a laugh, makes your confidence blossom in marvelous ways.

Confidence rises in you so much you try to take a U-turn and go back to your teacher– perhaps showing off that you really got the hang of it now, or something– but as you try to maneuver the board and turn right, there it comes: the moment where you realize that you were, once again, too overly-confident in your abilities that are, sadly, very poor. Your body sways from side to side, your poor balance laughs at you and points an accusing finger at your attempts, and, well, to put it frankly, your whole life flashes in front of your eyes and the moment plays in slow motion as you lose the board from below your feet– the wood flying somewhere to the opposite side of the road, not at all where you meant to go in the first place– and your body inevitably comes crashing to the ground.

Awaiting the hard pavement meeting your nose and breaking it, you brace yourself with palms outstretched in front of you, the last remains of self-perseverance entering the sane parts of your brain in what you think are the last seconds of your miserable life. Another moment of surprise greets you when your yelp is muffled against something soft and your hands don’t hit the hard pavement, your ears filled with a grunt that belongs to another human swiftly chiming in and catching you before you fall.

Firm hands hold your waist– the touch somehow familiar, enveloping you in a strange sense of deja vu– and even though your body goes limp in terror, the male has you back on your feet in no time, his palms on the exposed skin of your stomach. The realization has you burning up as you look up and meet Eric’s eyes, gasping at the closeness of his face to yours. 

“You okay over there?” he asks as you unconsciously study his face– you never noticed his nose looked this nice up close– before you wake out of it and nod urgently, breaking away from his hold. You’re not gonna try to calculate the effort he must have put in just to chime in and catch you from where he was standing in such a short moment, but something about the passing thought of it has you weak in your knees from gratefulness. 

“Uhm- yeah,” you nod, kicking the pavement with your stained shoes, “I just… miscalculated my skills, that’s all,” you sheepishly hum, hearing the boy snicker at your shaken-up composure.

Watching him take off and retrieve his skateboard from where it wandered off against the curb– much to his golden retriever energy– you sigh and prepare to go sit back on the sidewalk, having enough of new experiences from the shock still lingering in your fingertips. You take a glance down the road, seeing your older brother cruising on the street– when and how he got there, you truly have no idea– when you hear Eric, who seemingly has different ideas for your next actions, call at you from the middle of the pavement.

“Where are you going? Come back!” he asks, having you look at him in surprise, mouth agape and eyes big, staring at him. He now has the board under his shoulder, but puts it back on the road and points at it, shrugging to himself. “I’ll push you down the road, it’s gonna be fun!”

“Eric, I’m literally going to die–”

“No, you’re not. Come on, I promise,” he says, but still, he doesn’t have you convinced. Your feet move against your best conclusions, though, and when you come to a halt right in front of your companion, he offers you a boyish grin. “Sit down on it, that way you’re more balanced. I swear you’re not gonna fall off, okay? I got you.”

“You promise?”

“Yes,” he nods, determined.

“Pinky swear,” you mumble, holding up your pinky finger– all thoughts of seeming childish pushed to the side in the desperate moment– and the male in front of you shakes his head in disbelief, breaking into a laugh.

“Cute,” he huffs, “yeah, okay. Pinky swear,” he nods, interlacing your pinky with his and bumping his thumb against yours, the seal foolishly making you feel more secure as you follow his order and take a seat on the skateboard, your hands gripping the bottom of the wood so hard your knuckles turn white.

“Okay, ready? 3, 2, 1–” he chants as he pushes you, two steady hands coming in contact with your shoulder blades, force making you move on the board, wheels taking you down with gravity. The sound of Eric’s shoes hitting the pavement fills your ears as you go faster, and as you finally get to the part of the hill that takes a downwards slope, he offers you a final push, sending you down the road. 

Wind makes your hair fly back, your surroundings blurring as you yelp and scream, but you can’t say you’re not enjoying the ride. Eric was right– it was fun, you liked it, and something about the gesture had you all warm on the inside. The breeze has you cool down a little in the summer heat, and the board continues to move even as you pass your older brother standing at the bottom of the slope, away from your trajectory. 

Body relaxing when the skateboard finally slows down, you let out a heartfelt laughter. Turning back and seeing Eric jog down the road with a humongous grin on his face, you offer him two thumbs up above your head, watching as he returns the gesture and makes his way back to the two of you on the bottom of the small hill.

The truth is, this was the day you realized Eric Sohn has always found his way to make you feel included and safe. 

You can’t help but feel grateful.

AUGUST OF 1999

“Sunwoo, you have to tie a knot here and then– no, you dumbass, you’re doing it completely wrong,” you mourn as you watch your older brother with a mess of thread in his lap, a focused scowl on his face. There’s a fan standing across from you, blowing cold air into your face, but you still feel yourself grow heated with frustration as Sunwoo just can’t help but not understand the art of making friendship bracelets. It’s not like you’re forcing him to do them– he was the one that asked you to show him how to, muttering something about offering one to his classmate Yeji once he’s back in school– so in theory, he should be putting in effort, no? 

Or maybe he is. Maybe he’s just… incompetent.

“I don’t get it,” Sunwoo hums under his breath, sighing as he leans against the sofa in your living room, the two of you sitting on the floor accompanied by his best friend squinting at you from the opposite side, a comic book in the latter's hand. The myth of men not being able to multi-task is quickly thrown into the bin as you watch Eric pay equal amount of attention to the comic book and the dialogue between you and your brother, and when Sunwoo seems to give up on the art of making friendship bracelets, his best friend can’t help but laugh.

“You’re giving up already? This is how you want to get a girlfriend?” you poke your brother to his side and take the threads off his lap, examining the mess of a safety pin and meters of yarn, all knotted up and not coming along in the shape you taught him to at all.

“It’s not to get a girlfriend, I just-”

“Sure,” you roll your eyes, huffing as you roll his poor attempt at friendship bracelet into a ball and throw it to the corner of the room, making a mental note to pick it up and throw it to the bin later. “You know what, just give her this one and pretend you made it,” you mutter, taking a bracelet you'd already made to demonstrate in between your fingers and throw it into Sunwoo’s lap, the older one catching it and examining it under his nose.

“That looks pretty good,” he hums, making you snort at his appreciative comment. The bracelet is pink and red, the colors just screaming romance and cute energy, which is exactly what a girl needs to be swayed by your brother. You can’t really believe a bracelet will make her swoop into his arms, because truthfully, with your brother’s face and manners, every living thing is keeping a fair distance, but hey, it doesn’t hurt to try, does it? Maybe his classmate is… majorly blind? That might do it?

“Of course it looks good,” you scoff, “that’s because I made it,” you nod, averting your gaze towards your lap, threading your fingers through the yarn you attached to a safety pin on your sweatpants to keep the growing friendship bracelet in place. 

“Then why is the one you’re making right now so ugly?” Eric asks, pointing towards the creation. 

Glancing up at the male slowly, mentally throwing all different kinds of curses at him for daring to talk badly about your craft, you huff. “What do you mean, ugly?”

“The colors… they don’t… they don’t really go together,” Eric sheepishly admits, scratching the back of his neck, quickly averting his gaze from you and gluing it back into his comic book. You think that if he doesn’t stop being a smart-ass and throw jabs at your artistic choices, he’s gonna have to protect his comic book with his own body– and you bet he’d do that, because he borrowed it from the library. The fees for damage are high.

“That’s just… not true at all,” you muse, but groggily take a look at the creation once again, but now, thanks to the remark, seeing it in a completely different way. Shades of orange, brown and purple stare back at you amidst a little disappointedly, and as you thread the yarn and make a couple of knots to end the bracelet, you can’t help but feel a pout growing on your face from the realization. Eric might be right. It does look a little bad…

“Whatever. Your taste is just bad,” you snap as you finish off the craft piece, unclasping the safety pin and sliding the bracelet off the inside, freeing it from the hold. Eric laughs a little at your frustrated state– similarly to what you do when you manage to get Sunwoo upset– and with that, you sigh and put the bracelet on the coffee table.

“I’m going out to the store to get some chocolates,” you say as you stand up, goal clear in your mind, “have fun, losers.”

“You’re still collecting the stickers from these?” Sunwoo asks, a mischievous smile growing on his lips. The teasing is inevitable and coming very soon, and there’s nothing you can do about it– you’re fully aware, which only further makes you want to escape the situation more quickly. Rolling your eyes at your brother’s antics, you move towards the door. 

“Yes, Sunwoo, I am. They’re cute and make me happy, do you have a problem with that?” you point an accusing finger at the male, having him shrug, tongue poking the inside of his cheek.

“You’re such a kid,” he huffs, averting his gaze from you when he lands the comment, the jab coming straight at your fragile heart.

“Okay, then,” you note, “I’ll just have my pretty and cute bracelet back, and you can get your girlfriend something else-”

The male quickly regains his previous composure, swatting his hands in hurry just to make you halt in your sentence. His eyes are big and his mouth is a little agape in terror as he tries to save his ass, plea written all over his face. “I was just joking! Don’t be so petulant… go get your cute stickers, they’re so fun!”

Humming to yourself, your face is tugged up into a victorious smile. “That's what I thought. So, as I was saying, have fun, losers.”

“Wait!” Eric suddenly calls for you, making you turn on your heel in the middle of your escape, eyes peering at the male. “Don’t I get a bracelet too?”

The request catches you off guard. There’s a certain kind of spark in Eric Sohn’s eyes as he asks the question, and you can’t really place it in any category, but it has you nervously shrugging at the preposition. You’re not really sure why Eric would want a bracelet from you, but to avoid confrontation and also the weird leap of your heart surely leading you into cardiac arrest, you only shrug and move back inside of the living room, chewing on the inside of your cheek as you scan the surroundings, searching for something.

“Sure,” you nod, taking the ugly bracelet off the table and offering it to him, “you can have that one.”

You hold a staring contest with the older boy for a couple of seconds, his head undoubtedly swirling with arguments and comments about the apparel of the friendship bracelet, but he’s smart– he must know the survival of his beloved comic book must be at stake. So, he only nods and smiles at you, outstretching his hand to you and nudging his head in its direction.

“Okay,” he hums, “tie it for me?”

A second comes by– a heartbeat, really– in which you chew on your bottom lip and gasp at the request, but still, you nod and come closer, crouching down to be at his level and taking the thread into your fingers. You wrap the bracelet around his wrist, making sure to leave a bit of wiggle room before you tie a knot, bringing the ends together, all while feeling the eyes of Eric glued to your face, watching every micro expression flash through your unsettling composure.

When you’re done, making a move to hide your hands behind your back and standing up, your limbs bump into each other and send an unspoken sense of electricity all through your body. The sensation is so strange you don’t meet anyone’s eye before you leave the room, yelling out a goodbye as you hurriedly open the front door and run out to get fresh air (it’s August, though. The air is humid and only makes your head spin more).

You clear your throat before you take off to the grocery store. It's only when you're halfway there that you realize you'd forgotten to bring your wallet with you. It's okay, though– you take this chance to walk around, regaining your casualty.

You bet Eric will take the bracelet off in a matter of a week.

SEPTEMBER OF 1999

The leaves start turning orange and the weather a bit colder when you become hyper-aware of your shifting composure whenever Eric Sohn is around. The way you feel heat rushing to your cheeks whenever he calls you cutie, a nickname he’s had reserved for you since you two were little kids, the way you feel weak in your knees whenever he casually brings his arm around your shoulders or when he bends down to tie your shoelace in the middle of the sidewalk. You don’t really know what those sudden changes are, yet, you feel a bit embarrassed by them whenever they take place. You don’t think it’s normal to feel this way around your brother’s best friend, and the more you hang out with him, the more you wish you read less books as a child– because now, you’re also hyper-aware of the title those feelings may have. 

Still, it only comes to you on one September afternoon– you wake up from blissful unawareness and jolt with the quickly opening pit in your stomach at the strange revelation.

“Eric! Sunwoo isn’t home, though?” you mumble, confused as you notice the boy standing on your doorway, a plastic bag in his hand and a red Nike jacket enveloping his frame.

“I know, he said he’s hanging out with Juyeon hyung today,” he nods, “I brought you something, though,” he says, holding up the bag and making sure you get a chance to see it, offering you a boyish grin.

“Oh?” you gasp, furrowing your eyebrows at the male. When you do nothing to invite him inside, he does so himself– slightly nudging you in your side as he passes your figure and enters your house. He acts like he owns the place, and by the amount of time he’s spent in your home, you’d think he does– he doesn’t, though. The only thing he owns is just a lot of audacity.

The male takes off his shoes in the entryway and walks his way over to your room– a surprising act, considering he’s spent the least amount of time in this very place– and when he’s sure you’re following his every move, he empties the contents of the bag to the middle of your freshly made bed. Watching as approximately ten items fall out of the plastic, your eyes widen with surprise as you recognise your favorite chocolate– the mini bars with stickers inside, the ones you collect and stick into your journal and look at in the middle of the night, giggling to yourself and kicking your feet at the adorable pictures in your make-shift collect book.

“Woah,” you gasp when the male looks at you, seemingly awaiting your response, and when he gets the wished outcome, pride overtakes his features, shrugging to himself.

“My mum got some for free because she bought a lot of cabbage for kimchi yesterday,” he explains, “I thought of you when I saw them, so I bought you some more.”

“I- you-” you stutter, emotions too big for your own good swelling all inside your fragile, little self, hands running into your hair and tugging at the roots to wake yourself up from the dream. “You didn’t have to!”

“We got them anyway, and I know you like the stickers,” Eric shrugs, scratching the back of his neck, completely ignoring the fact that he said he bought you some more, your heart skipping a beat at the sentiment. Clearing your throat, you tentatively take a step closer to your bed, gathering a bar of chocolate into your hand and opening it, taking a bite.

“You can have the stickers if you give me some chocolate,” Eric says close to your ear, almost as if he was creating a masterplan, to which you eagerly nod and plop onto your bed, moving the bars of sweets into one pile. As you continue to munch on the first one, you unwrap the sticker and look at it, praying to yourself as if you were checking if your lottery ticket was worth any cent– hoping you get a sticker you don’t own yet.

The image of a cute panda would cheer anyone up even in their darkest moments– not you, though, as you mourn and sigh, disappointment clear in your features. 

“What?” Eric asks, eyes big pools of worry.

“I already got that one.”

“Ah,” he nods, seemingly understanding– much to your surprise, “well, we got 9 more tries, let’s get to eating.”

Wrappers are rustling in your bed sheets as you and Eric eat the concerning amount of chocolate, gathering the stickers in a little pile on top of your notebook, promising each other to not look at the stickers as you go and just make a grand reveal at the end. Eric’s full cheeks are a sight you enjoy, telling him he looks like a squirrel– to which he sends a light flick to your forehead, telling you you don’t look much different– and soon enough, the nine bars left disappear from your plain sight (you only had 3 and Eric ate the remaining 5. He’s a growing boy, though, so you understand. He needs to get his undying energy from somewhere.).

“Ready for the reveal?” you ask, locking your gaze with Eric.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

With that, you get to the pile of stickers in the middle of your bedsheets. Looking at the first one, there’s a happy squeal cutting out of your throat, the image of an adorable yellow duck warming you up with euphoria. 

“You don’t have that one yet?”

“I don’t,” you nod, “this is just perfect.”

Eric nods and watches you with a certain kind of warmth in his gaze as you open up your notebook and stick the newest addition to your little sticker farm– or a ZOO, however you wanna call it. The next sticker from the pile is added as well– a brown, big bear– and the next one too, the most adorable colorful parrot slapped to the corner of your page. 

The rest of your stickers are the ones you already own, though– a displeased look takes over your features at the knowledge, but still, you can’t help but beam at the fact that you have 3 new additions to your collection, and they were a gift from Eric Sohn himself. Someone who doesn’t make fun of your childish habit. Someone who feeds your little interest, watches you with excitement in his eyes as you indulge. Someone not like your brother. 

Someone you could never see the way you see your brother.

“What do you do with the duplicates?” Eric asks, pointing to the sad pile on the top of your notebook. His figure is closer to you now, since he wanted to watch you stick the animals into your notebook, his crossed legs almost pressed against yours on the small bed.

“Well, usually, I just throw them out,” you shrug, “but since you’re here…” you muse, the idea plopping into your head like the newest discovery you should probably patent, peeling the back of one of the dog stickers off and swiftly turning towards your companion, mischief sparkling in your eyes.

You put the sticker on his left cheek, making the boy jump. “Hey!”

Giggling, taking another one of the stickers and pressing it to the middle of his forehead, Eric starts to fight you, your bodies wrestling on the bed. You don’t think he puts much effort into getting you off him– that, or he’s insanely weak– and in no time, his face is adorned with all different kinds of animals, his hair messy from tussling in your bedsheets. The image has you laughing before you realize you’re basically straddling him on your bed, his big eyes gaping at you from below, his appearance enough to make something in your brain short-circuit and make you leap off him, clearing your throat.

Heat rushes into your cheeks as you take a seat next to him, playing with your fingers. You pray for anything to come and ease the awkwardness you caused, and sure enough, today must be your lucky day. “Hey, look here!” 

You call for the boy as you swiftly take your polaroid camera off your bedside table– the one that belonged to your dad, the one you fought with Sunwoo about, the one your mum said was yours because Sunwoo is too careless with his things to keep it safe– and snap a picture of the puppy-like boy, laughing at the fact that now, you have the image of him looking dumb and covered in stickers forever. Or at least until he doesn't take it away from you– which he attempts quickly.

“Hey!” he yelps again, huffing as he lunges at you, trying to take the picture out of your grasp as you drop the camera into your soft sheets. Your feet take you to the living room, navigating through furniture, and when you don’t hear footsteps follow you, you think you’re safe– Eric does have a lot of energy, but chasing you around gets tiring for him quickly when he knows you'll never let him win.

Entering your room once again, prepared to find him on your bed like before, you’re taken by surprise as a shutter sound goes off right after you open the door, a polaroid picture taken of your face making you temporarily blind at the flash.

“Eric!” you whine, hating that there’s a picture of you standing shocked at your doorway now forever in the universe– not really caring that the boy just got you back with the exact stunt you pulled on him just a few minutes ago. Before you get a chance to blink out the blind spots in your vision caused by the flash and run after him, though, you feel him gently press you out of the doorway and slip outside, the sound of the front door opening and closing after him resonating along his slowly disappearing, amused laughter.

Serves you right, doesn’t it? 

Sighing, you shake your head and take a seat on your bed, the picture of the boy still in between your fingertips. You only take a look at it when your vision comes back to normal, and as the image of Eric covered in stickers, hair messy and cheeks rosy below the animal print comes into your sight, the revelation arrives the same second a starstruck smile plays with your features.

And with that, you’re absolutely terrified. 

Throwing the polaroid picture onto the bedside table and lunging yourself into the sheets, you scream into your pillow and wish for the feelings to disappear– because in what world does a crush on your brother’s best friend ever come to a happy ending?

OCTOBER OF 1999

Once October hits, you find yourself home alone more often than you’d like. Sure, you don’t mind having some me time to read comic books or watch the TV uninterrupted in the living room, but still– alone turns lonely pretty quickly, and somehow, you start to regret the fact that you’ve been relying on your older brother and his friends for so long instead of making some connections on your own.

Sunwoo started to play soccer at school– something is telling you that he might go far if he keeps it up– and that’s why he’s been stuck at practice every single day, coming home late in the evening all tired, but happy, so you’re not really complaining. Eric works in the little bistro downtown now, since he wanted to make some money and not rely on the allowance Mrs. Sohn gives him every month, and it’s not like you were that close to begin with, but the fact that the boy is now too busy to meet you is making your spirit fall just the tiniest bit. And with your mother always being at work, you find yourself alone in your room, laying in your bed and staring at the ceiling. 

Sometimes, you journal. About anything and everything, really. You don’t really think you’re ever gonna read back the entries once you’re older, since they would just be a reminder of how miserable and boring your teenage years really were, and that’s why you allow yourself to be authentic. On most days, you write about your assignments for school. Sometimes you bad mouth a classmate or two– gossiping with the diary pages, because you don’t really have any human beings to do so in real life– and seldom, you allow yourself to get into topics that evoke the slightest bits of existential crisis in you.

Topics like college. Growing up. Your lack of hobbies and social interaction with the outer world. The newly found crush on Eric Sohn…

Okay, maybe you do write about the boy with brown hair and dark eyes a little too often. You can’t help it, though– when he’s not giving you any new interactions to dwell on, you have to just pick apart the old ones. You think it’s a natural reaction.

And that’s exactly what you’re doing one October afternoon, the lamp in your room on, since the evening comes faster when the weather is colder, as you’re laying in your bed and kicking your feet back and forth, chewing on the end of your pencil. The sound of your doorbell resonates through the house suddenly and startles you, making you jump awake from your delirious delusions.

Mentally going through the list of possible visitors you could have– because it can’t be your mother or your brother, since they never forget to carry their house keys– you’re lost, not really finding any fitting candidates. Furrowing your brows, lost in thought and frankly, a bit confused, you plant your socked feet onto the wooden floor and walk over to the front door just in time for the bell to ring again. Scratching the back of your neck in nerves, thinking of precautions you could take for your own safety– since your front door doesn’t have a peep hole and you don’t want to open the door to a complete stranger– you clear your throat and yell over the door.

“Who is it?” you ask.

“Delivery!” a voice calls through the door, making you huff. 

“I didn’t order any food?” you yell back, confused. “Sir, there’s another house behind ours, sometimes the mailmen get confused and we get their mail. Maybe try there?” 

“The address is right, though?” the voice calls again, and somehow, it sounds kind of familiar… no, it can’t be, you dumb goose. You’re just imagining things because you’ve spent the last 20 minutes writing about the curve of his nose into your diary.

“There must be a mistake-”

“Come on, Y/N, open the door,” the voice on the other side mourns, the mention of your name making you jump, completely startled. The tone the man says it in is sweet like honey, though, so familiar in your ears, that you mentally want to slap yourself– so you weren’t dreaming. It is him.

Dragging your hand through your hair to smooth it down, praying you look at least a little presentable– although in your stained sweatpants and the Pokémon shirt you inherited from Sunwoo when he grew out of it, you doubt that’s even possible– you open the door and try to offer Eric a warm smile. “What are you doing here?”

“Food delivery,” Eric shrugs, pointing with his thumb in the direction behind his back, where his bike undoubtedly stands up against your gate.

“Oh…. but I already told you I didn’t order anything,” you mumble, confused. Studying his face– because a girl can indulge when she has the opportunity, am I right? – you notice his hair has grown a little longer, falling into his eyes. You bet it’s hard for him to see, but you must admit it looks nice, and you almost tell him, before you catch yourself and break away from the sentiment. 

The male snickers. “I know, I was just joking,” he says, “I did bring you food, though.”

“Why?” you ask, confused when he bends over and picks up a plastic bag off the ground, a container of food inside, the warmth of the contents making condensation appear all over the red sack. 

“We made this by mistake and it was just gonna be thrown out if nobody took it,” he shrugs, “and I figured you haven’t eaten yet– or if you did, you just had those cold kimbap rolls from the store– and I wanted to get some warm food into your stomach.”

“Ah,” you gasp, nodding at the explanation. It does explain the source of the food really well, but truthfully, it explains nothing about the fact why Eric thought of bringing you the food instead of taking it home with himself– he’s a foodie if you’ve ever seen one. The idea of him worrying about if you were fed or not is equally as strange and interesting in your head– still, you clasp your hand around the bag and take it, the smell making you involuntarily hungry. “Thank you.”

Eric only nods at you, a smile beaming at his face. “Well,” he sighs, “I’d love to stay longer and hang out, but I’m still on the clock, so…” he mumbles, taking a hesitant step backwards towards his bike, eyes never breaking contact with yours.

“Oh, right,” you nod, “that’s okay. Have a fun day at work!” you muse, watching him as he grins and finally retrieves back his bike, opening up the gate to your property and escaping, waving at you as he gets on.

“I’ll see you soon!” he calls as he rides off, your eyes following him until his figure disappears behind a corner, your ears buzzing with excitement and your lower lip trapped between your teeth with the innocent promise.

Walking back into the house, you grin as you close the front door behind you and carry the food into the kitchen. You quickly get the containers out of the damp bag, putting them onto the wooden table, and gasp when you find a sticky note on the very top one, a messy handwriting scribbled in a rush, but stuck to the food with care.

Eat well and don’t skip meals, Y/N-ie!! – Eric x

Not being able to battle your smile anymore, you decide to open up the containers and stuff your mouth with the food instead– only to find your favorite dish inside, staring back at you in what seems to be a dream that’s too good to wake up from. 

And sure, you are delusional, but are you delusional enough to believe that this wasn’t all a coincidence? You’re not so sure.

Still, you eat the food with feet kicking back and forth as you sit in the silent kitchen, the empty house no longer feeling so lonely. When you’re done, you throw the trash out– everything but the sticky note, which you glue into your diary a few minutes later, hoping to keep the memory forever.

NOVEMBER OF 1999

The world around you is dark as you step outside of cram school, your eyes are tired and your skin is prickled with goosebumps in the chilly air. You despise going to cram school, but your mother told you you have to– since you didn’t have any athletic features that could get you far in life like Sunwoo, you had to be good at studying, or else you won’t get into university. There was a lot of work ahead of you, but since you didn’t really have anything else to do in the day, you didn’t protest and went anyway.

The days are usually very long and you get off very late, resulting in you being tired almost all the time. When you get home, you undress yourself and change into your sleep clothes and doze off until the morning, when you have to wake up and go to school again– it’s an exhausting cycle, but you know you have to endure it for your own sake.

Walking down the steps that lead out the cram school building, you stretch your body and huff, cursing at yourself for the fact that you didn’t bring a jacket– you forgot that evenings get really chilly, and frankly speaking, you didn’t have much time to think when you were rushing to get ready in the morning. You’ll just have to get through it, you think to yourself as you walk in the direction of your house– the last bus to your neighborhood already left an hour ago, when you were in the middle of revising division– your sneakers kicking the stray rocks below your feet as you tug the sleeves of your hoodie lower, desperately trying to feel more heat.

“Do you never watch where you’re going? That’s gonna get you in trouble one day, you know,” you hear a familiar voice say, the joking tone making your heart skip a few beats as you place the owner of the saccharine voice to its face. Looking up, slightly alarmed at being caught in such a distressed state, you gasp.

“I was… watching my step, I guess,” you shrug as you come into a halt in front of him, shivering both under Eric’s gaze and the cold weather at once. “What are you doing here? Deliveries?”

“I just got off,” he says, “so I figured I could stop by. Sunwoo said you’re going to cram school, I thought you might enjoy some company on your way home.”

Gaping at his explanation, you nod, completely startled. The idea of your brother talking about you in front of Eric, the boy you have a very embarrassing, very big crush on scares you, to say the least. See, it doesn’t really matter that the boy grew up with you, pretty much seeing you at your lowest whenever he was around over at your house when you were both just little kids– the image of Sunwoo telling Eric about finding you sobbing at your comic book (the scene got too sad, nobody can really blame you) or about how your favorite jeans ripped right before you had to go to school one morning is terrifying. You don’t really want him to know about these things. He may act like your brother sometimes, but you never really saw him in that light in the first place.

“Well, then,” you clear your throat, “it’s… it’s good to see you,” you say. Eric shows you his boyish grin as your lips utter out the words, and you can’t help but mirror it, your eyes locking with the male. As if you just took a step back, your eyes see him in a light you’ve never seen him before– as if this was your first time meeting your brother’s best friend– and something about the sentiment has your stomach feeling all uneasy, heat rushing to your face. His hair is styled in a way that tells you that he didn’t really style it (or if he did, it looked truly effortless in your eyes, so props to him), pushed back a little and revealing his forehead, a few of the strands carelessly falling into his eyes. His jawline is sharper than how it was when you first met the boy, and with the realization of a foolish teenage girl, you have to admit that Eric Sohn grew up to be a very attractive, attentive man.

“You’re cold?” he says, although the sentence sounds more like a statement rather than a question, before he shakes his head at your antics and heaves out a sigh. “You should’ve taken a jacket with you when you went, you know it gets cold in the evening,” he scolds you. In those times, he reminds you the most of your brother– because although you and Sunwoo act like you hate each other sometimes, you know the older male still cares about you. He just hates showing it, which translates in his scolding tone whenever you do something wrong or against his wishes. 

In those times, Eric reminds you the most of the way your brother treats you, and you somehow hate it. You despise the fact, because that means he must only see you as someone like his younger sister– he never had one, so maybe he just likes to compensate for it by taking care of you all the time. Maybe he feels responsible to do so because of Sunwoo. The thought makes you equally as nauseous– you’d never want him to hang out with you just because he feels like he has to. 

“I didn’t have time in the morning,” you grunt, rolling your eyes at him. You avert your gaze from the male, for it makes you slightly uncomfortable after your previous thoughts, so when the noise of a zipper being pulled down and the weight of fabric on your shoulders brings you back to reality, you snap your head around at him all alarmed. 

“What? Wear it,” he says, head shrugging towards the direction of his jacket on your figure. “You’re gonna catch a cold if you don’t.”

Trying to wrestle out of the red material, you squirm in the hold of the windbreaker– Eric’s hands gripping each side of the jacket, as if predicting your next moves, making sure it stays on you and doesn’t fall down. His strong arms tug you closer to him to make your fight more difficult– and he’s successful with his efforts, because the proximity of him and his smell engulfs you and unarms you, heat rushing to your cheeks as you halt in your movements.

“Stop,” you mourn, “I don’t need it.”

“Yes you do,” he insists, “so stop being a baby about it and wear it.”

Staring into his eyes, as if to mentally tell him to stop what he’s doing– to stop how he’s treating you, how he’s making you all weak in your knees and sleepless at nights because of how much you think of him and hope he’s doing well each day, to stop being so gentle with you and taking care of you, because it brings all sorts of both doubts and delusions into your head– but he doesn’t back down. You’ve known him for quite some time, you should already be aware of just how stubborn he can be.

“Arms in,” he hums, holding on to the jacket and waiting for you to wear it properly. One thing about you– you can always admit your defeat. So, with a sigh, you put your arms through the sleeves of Eric’s red windbreaker, shrinking a little under his firm gaze. He looks at you with a look full of something you can’t decipher, and it’s all making you so, so insanely lost in the many thoughts and feelings swirling around your head, not helping your current state.

“I already have a brother, y’know,” you mumble in a moment of weakness, looking at your feet– your dirty white sneakers almost touching his from how close you are standing right now, “so you should stop treating me like one.”

A moment of silence overtakes you two, and you suddenly feel like you’ve done something wrong. Still, Eric’s hands are holding on to the sides of the opened jacket, keeping you close to him. “Hm?” 

Clearing your throat and shaking your head, you snicker to yourself. “Forget it.”

“No- I mean,” he blurts out, tone of voice a little nervous, “do you see me as your brother figure?” he asks, tone of voice more quiet now, more gentle.

Breathing in the crispy air, taking a moment before you reply, you shake your head in disapproval. “No,” you say, “no, I don’t. I- I don’t think I do,” you say, scared of what your answer will bring out of him. You don’t really know why, but at this moment, you feel insanely fragile– as if any bad move could make you break in his hands, waiting for him to glue you back together. 

Metaphorically, he does just that. “Good,” he nods, leaning down towards you, hands gripping the zipper of his jacket and zipping it together, making sure no cold can get to your bones as his fingers tug it up towards the very top, under your chin. “Because I’ve never seen you as my sister either.”

His answer once again startles you– but when you take a step back from the situation, you think it was in a good way. His hands grip your shoulders for a second as his eyes meet yours and he offers you a warm smile. “Come on, let’s get you home,” he says, tugging you towards the fence where you find his bike, his motions guiding you like a rag doll sucked out of all life.

“Hop in,” he motions towards the back of the bike, where the basket would usually be– Eric moved it towards the front, though, leaving enough room for you to sit at– and as you do, he takes a seat in front of you and looks back at you over his shoulder. “Hold on tight so you don’t fall.”

Like in a trance, your arms sneak around his middle– this was the first time you had this kind of physical touch with him, and just the thought of it makes you want to scream your throat out– before the male takes off on the bike, riding towards your neighborhood. With the cold wind slapping your face, you foolishly rest your cheek on his shoulder blade and close your eyes, enjoying the closeness of his body keeping you warm. 

If anyone asked you about the action, you’d tell them you were just tired.

DECEMBER OF 1999

Socked feet make their way through the room, the sound of footsteps resonating on the laminated floor, as the short male comes up to you with a bowl of potato chips in his right hand and a bottle of soda under his left arm. Eric Sohn sighs at you, shaking his head in disbelief, before he places the items onto the coffee table and takes a seat next to you on the floor, opening up the bottle and pouring the three of you drinks.

“Can’t believe I’m spending New Year’s Eve with you losers, of all people,” Eric snickers, having you roll your eyes at the male and grumpily furrow your eyebrows at his sentence.

“No one’s stopping you if you wanna go, y’know,” you grunt as you take the filled glass off the table, taking a sip of the sweet drink and sighing at him. If he’s gonna take a leap into the new year with you while making you annoyed, he may as well leave now and do whatever his initial plan was– once again, no one’s stopping him if that’s what he wants to do.

“I’m just saying,” he shrugs, “it would’ve been so much more fun if we all went to Juyeon hyung’s. Everyone’s there celebrating, but we’re stuck here in your room.” 

“Well, Eric,” your brother smiles ironically at him, shrugging to himself, “it’s not like it’s my fault you’re not over at Juyeon hyung’s right now. You chose to spend the new years here with me. My mother prohibited me from going there, not yours.”

The argument has the male shrug, his eyes averting your brother’s gaze once his comment gets a bit too honest and realistic. It’s true and he’s right– it’s not like Eric’s mum told him he can’t go celebrate with his friends, because she didn’t. Eric’s mum trusts him and wants him to have fun and do what all the kids his age are doing. Your mum, on the other hand, is making you and Sunwoo stay home for New Year’s Eve to celebrate with your family, because, as she quoted, New Year’s Eve the only time she gets time off work, and she wants to spend it with her kids– forget the fact that you’re currently sitting locked in your room with your friend, protesting the family time just because you can– and when Sunwoo told her she has to stop treating him like a little kid, she told him she has all the right to do so, because he is her kid. And that’s how the party he was supposed to attend with Eric (the party you foolishly thought you’re gonna have to tag along to, not hating the sentiment as much as before now) got canceled from your brother’s plans.

“Well,” Eric chews on the inside of his cheek, “I did it for you two. Be grateful.”

“Whatever,” you hum, “let’s turn on the TV. I bet there’s some variety show on.”

Eric heaves out a sigh as he reaches for the TV remote, clicking the power button and making the boxy device in front of you light up. Your mum got you a TV in your room when you complained about being too bored one November day, and although the box of entertainment didn’t really help like you imagined it to, you’re glad it’s of service at least today. Instead of the expected variety show, though, there’s news on– the face of the old announcer looking at you with a serious look on his face, the professional tone making chills run down your spine, for he reminds you a bit of your mother when she scolds you. You think that’s a common news announcer trait. 

“As the year 2000 approaches, computer programmers realize that computers might not interpret the 00 in the software as 2000, but 1900. The softwares currently running only use a two-digit code for the year, excluding the 19. The data was excluded because the data storage is costly and takes up too much space. Activities that were planned on a daily basis could be damaged or flawed,” the announcer says, making the three of you look at the screen with interest. Maybe it’s true that when you get older, you get more interested in news– you think it’s good to know what’s going on around you, although the topic discussed right now might not even concern you in the slightest.

“Banks, which calculate the interest rates on a daily basis, could face real problems. Interest rates are the amount of money a lender, such as a bank, charges a customer, such as an individual or business, for a loan. Instead of the rate of interest for one day, the computer could calculate a rate of interest for minus almost 100 years!” 

“Oops,” Eric lets out next to you, a reaction so far away from what a real adult would think of the situation. See, you are all just kids, after all.

“Centers of technology, such as power plants, are also threatened by this issue. Power plants depend on routine computer maintenance for safety checks, such as water pressure or radiation levels. Not having the correct date could throw off these calculations and possibly put nearby residents at risk,” the announcer continues, the information coming out of his mouth suddenly making you hyper aware of the reality you’re experiencing right now.

“Do we have a nuclear power plant nearby?” you ask in a hushed whisper, watching as the men next to you almost comically widen their eyes, shrugging.

“I’m not sure,” Sunwoo peeps.

“The worst of all, this software and hardware issue could cause such a big problem in nuclear energy facilities, where nuclear bombs and missiles could be set off, causing the world to go into utter chaos, or worse, an end,” the announcer concludes, the last word making you gasp in terror. 

“An end?” you chirp, sitting up straight in your seat as you look at the two men, now equally as terrified. There’s something in Sunwoo’s gaze that makes chills run down your spine, the reality crushing down on you with heavy measures. 

“I knew I shouldn’t have fought with mum. What if the last words the two of us exchanged before we die are the harsh words I had said yesterday?” your brother mourns, seeing as his best friend chews on his bottom lip, lost in thought.

“What did you say to your mum?”

“That- that I’ll never forgive her for ruining this for me,” he mumbles, his voice breaking at the end, “and… other things,” he adds, the hint of incoming panic making his best friend frantically wave his hands around and try to make your brother relax before he has to deal with the breakdown. If the world is ending, this is not how any of you want to go.

“It’s okay, don’t worry,” Eric says, clearing his throat and pointing to the TV, “look! The show is on, we should watch before the year ends,” he proposes, taking the remote into his hand and turning the volume up to hopefully drown out Sunwoo’s thoughts and have him focus on something else. And it works– noting that your brother has an attention span of a 5 year old– he can hardly remember what he was worrying about just 30 seconds ago.

Still, the thought keeps bouncing around your head like a child in a bouncy castle. The words of the news anchor keep repeating in your brain, making your ears ring as you look at Eric from the corner of your eye, watching his angelic face. Oh how you hate disturbing the peace now that you’ve all calmed down– but still, you can’t deal with the worries alone. Checking the clock hung above the TV, noticing there’s at least 5 minutes left before midnight, you clear your throat, feeling your whole body on fire.

“Do you really think the world is gonna end?” you ask, cracking your knuckles in a nervous manner. Looking at Eric, pupils shaking, you find your brother’s best friend seemingly lost in thought. The music of the variety show program serves you three as a background sound now, none of you paying attention to the TV anymore, instead, focusing on all the things you've done wrong in your life and how somehow, this feels like karma for all of it.

“I dunno,” Sunwoo shrugs, “I mean- they said it’s possible! It was on the news, and they wouldn’t lie on the news…” he nervously mumbles, scratching the back of his head. 

“That’s what’s worrying me,” you sigh, “we shouldn’t have turned on the TV.”

“It was your idea in the first place!”

“And I’ll carry the burden into my grave,” you admit, gulping as you press a forced smile onto your lips.

Momentarily looking back at the TV, you desperately want to keep the thought of the world being over out of your head before you spend your last minutes on this earth going crazy– but now that you started, you can’t keep thinking about it. “Man, the world can’t end yet. There’s so many things I haven’t tried yet! I’m too young to die!”

The men don't reply to that– you presume they’re too busy trying to find other things to occupy themselves with instead of the inevitable– which has you dissatisfied as you throw your body back into the sofa, heaving out a sigh. Seconds go by painfully slow but also painfully fast at the same time, given the circumstances, as you listen to the cheerful song playing in the background and nudge your friend into his upper arm with your pointer finger, feeling his arm encircle your shoulders and pull you closer to him. The contact of his fingers on your upper arm makes you squirm and break out into a smile, feeling a particular lightness in your stomach at the action, a sensation that has you in shock. 

“I’m gonna talk with mum before we die,” Sunwoo suddenly calls as he stands up from his seat on the floor, sighing to himself, “I can’t go with the thought of her being upset with me,” he sentimentally adds before he’s out of the door, rushing towards the living room.

The space falls into momentary silence now that your brother is gone, having you chew on your bottom lip with nerves. You think now is the time to beg for forgiveness with the higher forces– I'm sorry for not studying well. I'm sorry for being rude and ungrateful towards my mum. I'm sorry for being greedy– when the sound of Eric’s voice resonates through the place as he speaks up again, waking you up from the anxious slumber, the clock now striking 2 minutes before midnight. “What would you wanna do before you die?” he asks.

The question is simple. You presume he wants simple answers– things like getting into college, getting a good job and making a lot of money, growing old– but as you lean away from him and get back to your place on his left, your eyes locked with his, you’re left clueless. There are so many things you have yet to achieve, and the idea of not being able to pushes a burden to your chest, but at this very moment, you can’t really name one. 

Shrugging, you chew on the inside of your cheek as your eyes scan his face. His firm eye contact has you a bit flustered, making you shrivel in your seat, and as the sound of the TV morphs from the song into a countdown from 55, you’re overwhelmed with the thought that your friend is insanely pretty– and he always has been, you just hated admitting it to yourself for the past few months, despite still being fully aware– and that now, when the world ends, you’re dying unkissed and alone.

Well, not completely alone, since Eric’s here. And he’s always been here– your whole life, since you can remember, and he’s here now as well, even though he should’ve been at Juyeon’s house. As the clock strikes 30 seconds away from midnight, your eyes involuntarily travel down to his chapped lips, all air knocked out of your lungs, the thoughts in your brain picking up on speed the closer you come to the end.

You’re dying soon. You’re dying in 30- now 29 seconds, and you’ve never kissed anyone before. You’re dying before you get a chance to hold hands with someone and have a partner, and you’re dying before you get a chance to tell Eric how you feel about him. There’s 28 seconds left until the end and you’re just staring at him like a coward, because you don’t really let yourself indulge in the silly warmth of your heart whenever you’re around your friend, but god, you can at least admit it to yourself before you die.

And as the clock gets closer and closer to midnight, now only giving you 20 seconds before it all ends and a missile lands on the top of your house, blowing up the whole town and making you all disappear, Eric’s question repeats itself in your brain. What would you want to do before you die?

The answer is suddenly painfully clear as you take action– leaning towards the boy on your right, face closer to his than it’s ever been before, your eyes counting all his eyelashes and focusing on his surprised, yet unmoving face– and as you hear the countdown reach 15, you close your eyes and press your lips against his. 

The contact makes you weak in your knees as your hands reach to his face to steady him, your own firework show erupting in your stomach, and suddenly you’re completely content with dying tonight– because at least you’re with Eric, at least you did something. You kiss your friend with something close to an unsaid confession, your lips staying on his throughout the rest of the countdown, the taste of soda you’ve both been drinking the whole evening mixing in the contact of your skin. You’re not sure you’re even doing this right– again, you’ve never kissed anyone before– but it doesn’t matter to you much as you let go of your worries, aware of the fact that in a few seconds, nothing will matter anymore when neither of you are going to be around to say anything to each other after the kiss is over.

The countdown rings in your ears– coming down from 5 as you scoot yourself closer to Eric, 4 as you run the pads of your thumbs along his cheekbones, 3 as you still in your movements, 2 as you notice your knees bumping into each other on the ground and finally, 1 as you get ready to die, kissing your first and only love– when the sound of cheers and fireworks from the TV fills your ears instead, the world around you stilling and completely unchanged.

Your kiss started in 1999 and ended in 2000. Your love for him passed a century.

Eyes fluttering open and your mouth letting go of his, the image of the boy with his lips slightly parted, eyes closed and cheeks rosy comes to you in the yellow light of your room, making your heart fall down to your stomach. He looks absolutely angelic, his hair slightly messy and the fabric of his shirt a little disheveled in the front, and even though you’d love to indulge in your foolish desires and kiss him some more, you’re quickly taken aback with the noise of the door to your room opening and making you jump away from Eric, your brother appearing out of thin air in the presence of your room. It serves you like a weird kind of reality check, Eric’s eyes opening and looking at your brother, and even though you two haven’t been caught, the male clears his throat and bites down on his lower lip, looking almost guilty.

Oh no. What have you done?

Suddenly, you feel insanely silly.

JANUARY OF 2000

“You’ve been awfully quiet the whole day,” Sunwoo mumbles from beside you, his whole body engulfed in a pile of snow, “not that I care, but are you okay?”

“I thought you liked it when I don’t talk,” you mutter, playing with the frozen white all around you, seated on the red plastic sled at the top of the hill. You got tired after dragging it up from the bottom, and when you noticed that the rest of Sunwoo’s friends– Eric included– are still on their way up, you figured you could use up the time to relax and sit around for a while. It’s been quite some time since all of Sunwoo’s friends gathered to hang out at the same time, which made you surprised to see that your own brother invited you to tag along with them as they decided to go sledding on the second day of January, using up their break to best of their abilities. Which is also why you didn’t say no to the invitation– you thought sitting at home and moping around wouldn’t help you much.

“I do,” he says, nodding, “that’s why I’m asking what’s up– so I know what to do when I need to shut you up later,” Sunwoo hums, making you roll your eyes at the masked worry.

Shaking your head in disbelief, you scoff. “It’s nothing.”

“Sure,” he shrugs, “so you’re just going through puberty?” he teases, to which you take a handful of snow into your palm and lunge the white at him, satisfaction running through your veins when the snowball lands into his unsuspecting face, the male coughing and swatting his arms around to defend himself.

“Hey!” your brother screams at you once he gets the ice out of his eyes and his mouth, his body jumping into a standing position before he chases you around, the bubble of a laugh escaping your throat for the first time these days– they’re not wrong when they say malicious joy is the best kind of joy.

Running at the top of the hill, not really looking where you’re going– instead looking over your shoulder to see Sunwoo’s actions, preparing yourself to duck if he decides to turn your small quarrel into a snow fight– your legs get tangled with the red sled you left before you started a war with the angered man, a yelp cutting out of your throat as you get prepared to fall over and knock your teeth out.

Your body comes in contact with something half-firm, half-soft, and as your feet slip and the snow-covered ground disappears from below your legs, two arms wrap around your waist and steady you, making sure you don’t get hurt.

Turns out Eric Sohn is there to catch you every time you are about to eat shit. You hate this kind of deja vu.

As you open your eyes (that you had closed on instinct, not wanting to see your own death) once you’re sure you’re safe and sound, the world around you invites itself into your ears in an overwhelming noise. The laughter of Sunwoo’s friends– some hollering at your fall, some at the redness and last remains of snow covering your brother’s face– and the hushed arguments over who’s going down first– with Haknyeon screaming that he’s stealing Sunwoo’s (yours) sled and Juyeon following him. After all those happening in the matter of a few seconds,  you realize you’re left on the top of the hill alone with the male, terror shaking through your insides.

Clearing your throat and taking a step back from him, you tuck your hands into your pockets and avert your gaze from Eric. You two haven’t spoken since you decided to kiss him on New Year’s Eve, and with the awkward tension in the air, you don’t feel like doing so ever again in your whole entire life. 

“Thanks,” still, you hum.

Eric seems a little more light-hearted than you, shrugging as he replies to you. “Haven’t I told you to start watching where you’re going?”

“I’m not good with listening sometimes,” you mutter, huffing. Taking a look around yourself– noticing that there are no sleds left on the top of the hill, therefore, if you wanted to escape the situation, the only way down would be to roll around like a human version of a snowman, you once again admit your defeat, standing around nervously and shifting your weight from one foot to the other.

The silence is uncomfortable. It makes you want to dig a hole in the snow and bury yourself alive, to suffocate under the weight of the icy cold and never see Eric’s face again. You know that you ruined whatever friendship you had with the male– by being stupid and foolish, not really thinking about consequences (because there were supposed to be none and you were supposed to be dead), and the weight of the guilt makes you want to puke and hide away. 

Still, Eric comes out of his way to talk to you. Honestly, you’re kind of surprised– he should be disgusted with you. Realistically, he should be the one avoiding you, not the other way around.“They’re gonna take long to walk back up,” he notes, “wanna get hot chocolate with me?”

“I’m good, thanks,” you shake your head, not once breaking eye contact with the overwhelming white of the hill.

“Come on,” he sighs, “it’s just around the corner. They built a hot chocolate stand because they knew kids would come sledding here. Honestly, it’s an astute business tactic, but I promise the hot chocolate actually tastes nice,” he says, nudging you slightly with his arm, as if to make you look at him and change your mind.

“Thanks, but no,” you definitely say, chewing on the inside of your cheek.

“Are you avoiding me?” he asks, tone of voice casual– as if it was the most normal thing in the world, as if nothing ever happened and he was genuinely curious about the reasoning behind your actions.

“I’m not, I just don’t really like hot chocolate,” you sheepishly mutter, trying hard to avoid the topic.

“So you are avoiding me,” he hums, as if it wasn’t obvious before– and not only because you’re a bad liar. Plus, you love hot chocolate. Somehow, you think Eric knows.

“Look, Eric,” you sigh, running your hand through your hair, “can’t you just drop it?”

“No,” he shrugs, shaking his head, “and that’s why we’re talking about the reason why you’re avoiding me over a cup of hot chocolate. Let’s go.”

His persistence is terribly overwhelming sometimes. You wonder how the male does it. “I already told you-”

“You owe me for the stickers and the meal and everything,” he corners you, and you know you can’t argue with that. He’s kind of right, you suppose– you never paid him back for all the chocolates or for the free meal he brought you that one evening. And that’s exactly why you find yourself sighing as you follow him, mentally preparing yourself for the talk.

You hate how he can always get his way. Walking up to the stand, you crack your knuckles in the pocket of your jacket, nervously coming up with possible arguments to tell him. I didn’t kiss you on purpose, it was an accident. I only did it to know how it feels. We are both supposed to be dead, it’s not my fault the world didn’t end like it was supposed to! Each sentence sounds more stupid than the previous one, and so with that, you shake your head, wiping the thoughts away, smiling at the elderly lady in the stand. You’re just gonna have to be honest, you figure. 

“Two hot chocolates, please.”

Rummaging through your pockets to find your wallet– you do owe Eric, so it’s only natural for you to pay– you’re caught off guard as the male next to you swiftly takes out his own and unzips it, preparing to pay for you. 

“I thought I owed you?” you mumble, hand reaching to tug at his forearm to stop him, to which Eric only grins at you and sighs.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you have to pay,” he says.

“I think that’s exactly what that means.”

“Just take it,” he huffs as he brings out a note from his wallet, the force making something else fly out and fall to the ground with it, having the boy swiftly crouch down and pick the item up, attempting to hide it before you get a chance to see. And now, you don’t have 20/20 vision, but you recognise your face when you see it– that, and you also recognize the small white sheet to be a polaroid picture, and as far as you’re aware, you’re the only one who has a camera in his circle.

The boy hands you the drink with red-tinted cheeks. The idea of him carrying a picture of you that he took back in September makes you flush as well, and when your gloved fingers accidentally meet as you take the cup from him, he forces out a laugh. “We can talk about that after you tell me why you’re avoiding me.”

His nonchalance has you relaxing only for a few seconds. The boy walks with you as you try to heat up your cold hands on the boiling surface of the cup, and when you see a bench a few meters away from you two, you instinctively take a seat.

“So?” he becomes you, eyebrows rising as he takes a sip from the melted sweetness.

Sighing, you try to come up with the best way to go around this. Do you apologize? Do you promise to never do it again– and you won’t, even though you want to so badly and his lips look surprisingly soft today? Furrowing your brows at the war in your head, you place the cup on the bench next to you and put your head into your hands, hiding away from him when you realize the only way to do this is to be completely, utterly honest.

“I’m just so embarrassed, Eric.”

The only noise meeting your eardrums in the moment is the faint yelling of the crowd sledding in the background, your companion remaining quiet for a bit. When he sees you won’t explain yourself, he goes ahead and asks the question. “Why?”

“Do I really have to spell it out for you?” you sigh, not believing his so casual composure.

“Maybe,” he laughs, the airy sound taking all breath away from your lungs.

Well, not all of it, since you have enough oxygen to go on a tangent, it seems. “Because I kissed you, goddamnit. And- and I don’t even know why I did it, honestly, I’ve never thought of kissing you before! It’s just- when I heard the world is ending, I realized I hadn’t had my first kiss yet, and that just felt like such a miserable way to die, and then you asked what I wanted to do before I die and I couldn’t think of anything else,” you say, progressively taking out your head from your hands and facing the male, big eyes staring into his soul. 

To your surprise, he doesn’t seem mad. Or disgusted. Or any of the reactions you expected, really. Eric stares at you with a soft, but amidst a little star-struck look in his eyes, and you’re suddenly painfully aware of every slight shift in his composure.

“Did you kiss me because you wanted to kiss me, or because you thought the world was gonna end?” he asks, awaiting your answer.

And if you’re being honest, 2 days after New Year’s Eve, you do admit the thought of the world actually ending sounds a bit stupid. Why did you even believe that theory? Why did they talk about it so seriously on the news? They tricked you into ruining your own life. 

But still, nothing can be done about it now. “Both,” you admit, shrugging, “I… I kissed you because I really didn’t want to die unkissed, but also… I wanted it to be you, y’know? Like… I thought we were really going to die, and so I thought kissing you might be a nice way to go. I really wanted to spend my last moments with you, I guess,” you sheepishly say, averting your gaze from the male.

Eric offers you his silence again after you’re done explaining. While you do admit you feel a little tense to hear what he has to say, you also realize you feel lighter now that it’s out in the universe and out of your system. A major weight was taken off your shoulders with the confession, and suddenly, you’re kind of glad that your friend was so assertive and insistent on talking about this– who knows how long you’d go before managing to face him. You think you could honestly go on… forever.

Taking a sip of the luscious liquid, you feel your body warm up once the anxiousness slips away from your bones. The boy next to you hums, making you face him with expecting eyes. “Then why were you avoiding me?”

Sighing, you shake your head. “I just told you. I’m starting to think you’re the one that’s bad at listening.”

“No,” he laughs, “that’s still you. Because if you were good at listening, you’d remember me telling you that I’ve never once seen you as my younger sister.”

Shrugging, kicking the pile of snow in front of you with the tip of your winter boots, you’re not quite following. “So?”

“So you should’ve realized that I’m not doing all of this,” he theatrically swings his arms around, “for nothing, you know?”

“All of what?”

“Taking care of you. Feeding you, helping you collect those stupid animal stickers, walking you home…” he mumbles, sighing. “Keeping your picture in my wallet,” he adds with a playful tone, making you smile.

“I thought you were just being a good friend,” you shrug.

“I don’t keep a picture of your brother on me at all times,” he says, tugging off his gloves. The sleeve of his jacket rides up a little as you watch him take his cup of hot chocolate off the bench, surprised (and flooded with warmth) to see the ugly friendship bracelet you made still adorning his wrist.

Grinning to yourself, excitement welcoming itself into the tips of your fingertips, you shrug. “So?” you mirror your own question from a little while ago, wanting him to say it to you instead of relying on your own brain– you think there’s still a possibility of you just being too delusional to see the reality for what it really is. You need to make sure you’re not imagining things.

“So,” he starts, sighing to himself as he turns a little in his seat to face you, “you should stop avoiding me, because I liked the kiss. And you. And we should probably do it again, because I didn’t get the chance to kiss you back the first time,” he says, once again taking all oxygen out of your lungs with the casualty of his preposition.

Locking his eyes with you, having you two staring at each other like two rays of sunshine warming up the cold January, he grins. “How does that sound?”

“Good,” you breathe out, “very good.”

The male takes it as an invitation as he scoots himself closer to you on the bench, his body turning a bit to face you. His free hand cups your cheek, leaning closer to lock his lips with you like he asked you to, your eyes fluttering close at the proximity, the fuzzy feeling in your stomach already expecting to kiss him again. The situation feels a little too idyllic to be real, though– you should’ve expected it to get ruined again.

Something cold and wet comes into contact with the side of your face, and when you sharply open your eyes, you see Eric staring at you with shock and terror in his eyes, the snow dripping down the side of his face as well. Whoever threw the snowball has good aim, you think– managing to target two people at once (even though your faces were that close to each other that it probably wasn’t even that hard), and before you get a chance to look around and see who cut off your kiss, there’s a scream coming from the left side of the two of you, the sound of feet quickly darting in the snow landing into your ears.

“Eric Sohn, what the fuck do you think you’re doing with my sister?” the voice hollers, and before you get a chance to react, the said male fastly stands up from the bench and runs to the other direction, laughter resonating all throughout the place as Sunwoo and his friends chase their shortest friend down.

Snow starts falling as you watch your brother tail his childhood friend, and with a foreign sense of warmth, you get reminded of the birthday wish you made while blowing out the candles on your seventh birthday.

You wished for someone just like Eric. You didn’t know the universe would be so kind to give you him instead.

[kallamars-spouse]

In defense of my wife…

Disclaimer: I use she/her pronouns for Kallamar. Why? That’s a transfemme lesbian squid and she told me that while I killed her with a warhammer. 

I am also viewing this following essay through the lenses of the Bishops and their family and how they treat each other. This isn’t a defense of how they treat mortals, and isn’t about anything beyond Gods at all.

I understand why Kallamar would tell the Lamb to kill Shamura instead of her. I also think there’s more nuance to it than “omg she would sell out Shammy!” when Shamura is absolutely not blameless. None of the Bishops are. I’m the Bishops’ BIGGEST fan, but I’m not going to act like their family isn’t dysfunctional as all Hell. Now, let’s start from the top. 

The age order from eldest to youngest is Shamura, Kallamar, Narinder, Heket, and Leshy. We can tell in the game that Shamura’s favorite was Narinder simply due to the fact they still love him, refused to kill him when we know it’s possible, and kickstarted an entire extinction of a species to ensure he would never be free- but that he would be alive. 

x

From Narinder’s dialogue, we can deduce that he hates Kallamar the most. 

“Kallamar was always a coward. This land is a better place now her pathetic, sniveling carcass is nothing more than a mound of rotting flesh.“

This isn’t elaborated upon, but his words after her death are downright the most vicious. Narinder says that his older sister was ALWAYS a coward.

Shamura also says this about Kallamar, and as the eldest they would’ve known her longer than Narinder has.

“Kallamar was always frightened of the Red Crown. Yes, fear made a coward of her.”

This implies that not only was Kallamar not always what we see her as, but that Shamura believes her to be afraid of the Red Crown itself. Yet, this is what Kallamar says.

“It seems you cannot be stopped by disease or hunger. And he sends you back from death stronger each time. Please know, it was not my idea to cast out the Red Crown! The other Bishops, my siblings, the blame lies with them. Please, I beg you, spare me. Kill Shamura, but do not send me to my death. Do not send me to him!”

Kallamar acknowledges that neither she nor Heket could stop the Lamb, and that she doesn’t believe she could win against them. That’s why she begs for mercy. 

She states that locking Narinder up wasn’t her idea.

At this point in the story if you kill them in the canon order, Leshy and Heket are already dead. Kallamar throwing them under the bus does not matter, as she knows they are dead. 

Lastly, Kallamar expresses fear over Narinder. The Red Crown isn’t what scares her. Death isn’t what scares her. It is Narinder himself.

x

Shamura is the one who made the call to lock Narinder up, as they directly state themself.

“Though no longer wise, I am no fool. I know the end draws near. I can take some comfort in confession. The blame hangs heavy 'round my neck. I introduced him to ideas of change; for my domain is knowledge, and it is ever evolving. An organic state of being for myself, but for him… most unnatural. Death cannot flow backward. It was I who had him chained. Forced into subjugation by the four of us.”

It was not a group decision. It was Shamura’s word, and their siblings obeyed them without question. They blame themself, as they’re the one who was letting him “explore” his domain. Since it’s implied that reversing death (for example, resurrection) is heresy, only then did they step in. I assume after this, perhaps Shamura plotted to chain him, Narinder discovered, and that’s why he struck first. Or he directly attacked due to Shamura and the others “turning against him”, and that’s why he was imprisoned. We aren’t told exactly. 

All we know is the Bishops have injuries, but Narinder does not. There’s no way in Hell that he could take them on all at the same time, nor that he could beat Shamura or Kallamar. Both of them are more powerful than he is. You could argue that Kallamar wouldn’t fight back, but that would ignore her violence towards the Lamb (who she was terrified of). Shamura is the Bishop of War, and they wouldn’t have willingly let Narinder attack them. Heket sure as Hell wouldn’t have let Narinder get away unscathed if he attacked her head on. Leshy is the only one who wouldn’t have stood a chance.

This makes it seem like he stalked and attacked them while they weren’t aware. 

x

So, we know why Narinder did what he did. He said he was betrayed. But we also know that it was Shamura’s idea to imprison him, so why did he target his entire family? 

This I believe was out of spite for Shamura themself, as they were obviously devoted to their siblings. 

They’re willing to fight the Lamb, knowing they’d be slaughtered, simply in the honor of the other three Bishops. 

They kept Narinder alive because they couldn’t bear to kill him. They even brought two innocent children to him so that he wouldn’t be “lonely”.

They already know what’s to come, but they still show up to Anchordeep to send enemies the Lamb’s way just to buy Kallamar more time to live.

They always appear by their siblings’ sides when they confront the Lamb, save for Kallamar. They still are there though, just in the background.

x

Back to Kallamar. This squid could’ve hopped into the ocean and left. She chose not to, even though she was terrified. She doesn’t attempt to fortify the door to her temple. She flat out tells the Lamb where she’ll be. She has her weapons already on her by the time they arrive.

I just feel like if you don’t give a fuck, you wouldn’t do all that. Why is it just assumed that she is selfish and didn’t love her siblings? Because she was terrified and saying anything to avoid being sent to Narinder? 

Would you want to be sent to your abusive relative who despises you? 

Would you not feel a bit angry that your eldest sibling would choose to keep this absolute lunatic alive, even against common sense and the safety of yourself and your younger siblings.

Would you feel a sense of blind loyalty to someone who values your ABUSER over you? 

Kallamar was afraid of Narinder before he ripped her ears off. Why is that? You aren’t just terrified of somebody for no reason. 

The Lamb kills her younger siblings. 

Kallamar knows she will be sent straight to him, condemned to eternal suffering.

Like what are we expecting from her? “Ah yeah, this is fine. I’m fine. I’m not upset at all that my enabler of a sibling chose an abuser over me, refused to put him down after he revealed himself to be unhinged, and forced me and the others into a wild goose chase concerning sheep. I’m not at all bothered that my baby siblings have been slaughtered and that I’m next. Me personally? I’m chilling!”

🙄 Y’all always on this “Narinder redemption”, WHAT ABOUT KALLAMAR? Why isn’t she allowed grace? The Bishops aren’t good creatures, but neither is their brother. We should acknowledge that and acknowledge the nuance. 

This post was brought to you by my homoerotic devotion for Kallamar and my long history of living in an abusive, dysfunctional household. 

[bullet-clubs-bitch]

Can i request a Billy Gunn fic with some NSFW? Possibly he and reader were old friends when he worked for WWE but they reconnect after a long time and get close to each other again and maybe a wrestler cuts a promo on him and says something about y/n and he snaps and kinda confesses his feelings he has for her.

Old Flame

An: This ended up to be way longer than I thought it would be. I decided to play a different route with this request

Summary: Billy and Y/n "dated" (really just sex) a while ago and Billy hates how he let Y/n slip through his fingers all those years ago because he was afraid of commitment. What happens when she shows up in AEW and he relies he still loves her.

Word count: 2K

Warnings: SMUT (18+) Billy Gunn X Female reader, Mentions of Sex and sexual acts, mentions of alcohol and spiked drinks, 18+ themes

Main Masterlist Billy Gunn Masterlist Part 2 Part 3

I had mixed feelings about having Y/n in AEW, sure it was great to see her after all these years but it was strange since how much we had both changed. I remember when I first saw Y/n after all our years apart. I was backstage at dynamite when I saw her, jokingly said to my sons “That chick over there looks like Y/n” and once she turned around I noticed it was indeed her. I felt my stomach drop. She looked different, older, well of course she looked older we were both way older now but she aged like fine wine, still gorgeous as ever. When I asked what she was doing backstage at Dynamite she explained that she was there to help the young talent in the women's division, along with teaching her daughter how to wrestle. I was happy for her but for some reason I was nervous.

The first few weeks went by fast and I barely ran into Y/n which I was secretly grateful for. That was until my sons, The Gunns joined bullet club gold. Although we didn’t work on screen together at the end of the day they were still my children. I guess the boys did some digging and found out about the little fling Y/n and I had all those years ago. I tried to explain to them that it was years ago, way before they were even born, for them to leave it alone, but they knew I obviously wasn’t over it since I had been practically avoiding Y/n. The boys thought it would be funny to ask Y/n to train them even though I already taught them everything they needed to know. So here I am sitting across the ring from the woman I let slip through my fingers years ago. 

“So Y/n, I heard you and my dad used to date back in the day” Austin said. I store daggers at him, but he didn’t care, instead he gave me a smirk, wanting to see how far he could push me before I broke. 

“I wouldn't say we dated necessarily” Y/n said, as she corrected Colten’s grip, making the choke he was practicing on his brother more effective. “Sure we went out on a few dates but we didn’t date. Your father didn’t want to commit to a relationship” Her words stung, the story she told had no effect on her but I still hated myself for it even if it was 30 years ago. “So you guys were just fuck buddies then?” Colten asked. “COLTEN!-” I yelled but Y/n cut me off. “I guess you could say that, but your father was a gentleman and always bought me dinner first” 

To say I was embarrassed would be an understatement. I was just about to leave when Y/n called out “Come on Billy, don’t be such a baby. They are just messing with you” I continued to walk pretending not to hear her, she came up to me and grabbed my arm, forcing me to turn and look at her. As I towered over her, I felt like I had gone back in time. Back to the time where I fucked everything up years ago. 

****

“Y/n I’m sorry!” I yelled out to the poor girl who stood beneath me with tears in her eyes. “I should have known you were only using me to get your dick wet” She yelled back, her words laced with venom. I knew it was only a matter of time before she would ask to be more than whatever it was we had going on but the truth was I was so scared to mess things up between us I didn’t even realize the hole I dug myself into until it was too late. I was trying to protect her but instead I hurt her. 

This little buddy system started a few months ago when a very drunk Y/n admitted that no guy she had been with had made her cum. One day after a PPV we all went out for drinks when Y/n’s got spiked, luckily for her it wasn’t too bad but boy did she say some crazy things. 

Being a good friend I took her back to my hotel room before she could embarrass herself too much and she ended up passing out right as we stepped foot in the room. Carefully I placed her on the bed and removed her shoes before tucking her under the covers. 

When she came to, she was confused. “Did we fuck?” was the first thing she asked me, noticing she was in my bed. “No, but you wanted to” I told her, Y/n looked at me confused. “Someone spiked your drink at the bar. I took you back to my hotel room to keep you from embarrassing yourself” I told her truthfully. “Oh god, what did I say?” “Nothing much, just that you have never had an orgasm before” “Great” “Don’t worry, I'm sure I can help you with that problem” I told her with a smirk.

I couldn't deny the effect she had on me, she was perfect in every way. Seeing her in my bed didn’t help my crush on her. As we made our way back to the hotel she kept rambling about random things and even suggested that we sleep together. I knew that wasn’t her talking, she was drugged and wouldn't remember a thing in the morning. Even though I liked her, no way would I take advantage of her in such a state. I wanted to get with her when she was fully sober, wanting to have something real not just an impulsive booty call or being so fucked up we woudn’t remember anything in the morning. 

So I waited until the time was right. I sat in my private locker room fantasizing about Y/n when I heard someone knocking at my door. “Who is it?” I yelled through the door. To my surprise it was Y/n herself. “It’s me! Are you almost ready to go?” She asked me “Yeah, just give me a minute!” I said before opening the door to let her inside. When I opened the door I saw the shocked look on her face. “Well someones excited to see me,” she said as she looked me up and down. I was confused for a second until I looked down noticing I was fully hard. “Shit!” I could feel my face get red. “Don’t worry, it happens to everyone. You don’t have to be embarrassed” She told me reassuringly. I quickly grabbed all my things, changing the subject. “Do you want to get room service tonight instead? I don’t really feel like going out tonight.” 

The two of us sat in my hotel room in silence. Y/n was first to break the silence. “Does it hurt?” She asked, referring to my still hard cock. “It doesn’t hurt, just uncomfortable” I told her, the effect she had on me still being shown. “Do you want help with it?” I almost choked when the words came out of her mouth. “What?” I asked in disbelief. “Do you want some help with that?” She repeated as she got up from her seat, deciding to sit on my lap. “We could help each other out?” I couldn't believe what I was hearing. 

Everything happened so fast, before I knew it we were tangled in each other, frantically taking off  the others clothes fighting for dominance. “You have no idea how long I have wanted this,” I told Y/n. I could tell by the look on her face she was shocked by my size. “Don’t worry I’ll take good care of you” I told her reassuringly. I wanted to take my time with Y/n. I placed delicate kisses down her body before settling between her thighs. Kissing and sucking her inner thighs before inserting myself in her. I started with slow thrusts, trying to keep my promise of being gentile but she just felt so good, I needed to feel more, I needed to make her cum, I needed to make her have an orgasm so good, she could never be with anyone else, and that’s exactly what I did. My thrusts were hard, the grip I had on her hips as I pounded into her would bruise but neither of us cared. The two of us a moaning mess, my ears where filled with praises that left her lips. “Fuck, you feel so good, you fill me up so good” I could tell by the way she fluttered around me her words were true. “Fuck Y/n” I called out. I could feel she was close. “That’s it baby” I praised “Right there, You're close. Just relax baby. I need you to relax for me, don’t fight it” I told her as I continued my assault on her pussy. I reached my hand between us to play with her clit. That put her over the edge. “That’s it baby, I got you, let it out, let it all out” I told her as I continued to fuck her through her orgasm before I pulled out, cumming all over her chest. 

That became our routine. After shows we would either go out for dinner or order room service then have some crazy sex. As the weeks went past I found myself falling in love with Y/n and it terrified me. I was scared I was going to hurt her so I pushed myself away. I didn’t even realize it but I had become distant with her. Looking back on it I was kind of a jerk, I was never one for aftercare but with Y/n it was different, I almost found it better than sex, it was more intimate. That was why I fell in love, so, I became distant after sex, I acted like I didn’t care but I cared too much. When she asked what changed I avoided the question, when she asked to be more than just sex I turned it down without thinking. By the time I realized what I did it was too late. 

“I’m  Sorry Y/n!”  I yelled out to the poor girl who stood beneath me with tears in her eyes. “I should have known you were only using me to get your dick wet” She yelled back, her words laced with venom. I knew I fucked up. “Y/n wait! I didn’t mean it.” I yelled but It was too late. She was already grabbing her clothes that were scattered around the room and left before saying “And to think I was in love with you” 

****

Since that day at the training facility I couldn't get Y/n out of my head. She was all I thought about 24/7. That day replaying over and over again. But tonight I had a Trois match with the acclaimed against top flight and action andretti and I knew I needed to focus on the match, not Y/n. The match went well, another successful title defense until we were interrupted by bullet club gold. Austin and Colton were obviously still not over how I picked the acclaimed over them, the two of them alongside Juice Robinson requesting a title shot. I was going to say no until they brought up Y/n. “Of course you would say no Billy. I’m honestly shocked you are still with the acclaimed, I know how you are with commitment. I mean you let the love of your life slip through your fingers because you were scared of commitment. I wonder what Y/n would think if she knew you still beat yourself up about it 30 years later. Now you are all alone, still wrestling when you should be retired because you have no one to go home to”  Their words stung but they were true “You want a title shot? FINE, Next week Bullet Club Gold Vs The Acclaimed and Daddy Ass!” I yelled back at them! 

I sure hope Y/n didn’t hear any of that. 

[thementalshawty]

My New Beginning (My way out)

(Mentions of disabilities, mental, emotional, physical abuse, S*x abuse, bullying, self harm, suicidal ideation, Domestic violence, be wary before reading).

So where to begin……. This is about familial abuse, so this has been something happening my whole life!!! My “mother” is a narcissist. She bullied me and my sister our whole lives, I am the third of 5 kids, she would pit us against each other and watch us fight to laugh and make fun, most of my insecurities stem from her clowning me in front of my brothers, funny enough she is NEVER ALONE, my father he abused us including her but he left and I thought we were better off for it, I wasn’t wrong but little did I know the monsters she’d allow into our lives after, I was getting molested by older brother and my mothers boyfriend before I even got to elementary school, my brother started when I was insanely young, and I still protected him as I didn’t know what tf was happening, her boyfriend started when I was in 4th grade, he wasn’t a drunk or anything just a pedophile, she knew he was because he got caught cheating on her with teenage girls and yet she still kept him around for a decade so wherever we moved he was there and I started to become angry, rage grew inside my soul like a fire that had no intention of burning out, on top of that he was abusive hitting and bruising me and my siblings who all have disabilities, you know my sister as she’s a tarot reader on here so I’m not going into specifics about them, but she would sit and watch and do nothing, she would hide food with him, have us stand in the corner for hours on end while they are food in front of our faces “mmmm that’s good”. She even forced to drink her breast milk in front of him, she despised us having friends, soo when I would have a friend she wouldn’t let me see them or go out or we would move, I’ve never stayed more than 2-3 years in any place my whole entire fuccin life! I don’t know anything but toxicity when it came to relationships, I tried to kill myself multiple times but they failed so I decided to be a burner, I just burned myself, the fire it was the rage inside me felt outside, I decided to tell my mother about the molester from her boyfriend when I was 15, because I told someone in school he told me I had to tell her or he would so I wrote her a letter, he had a gun in the house and put it to his head and said he was going to kill himself (gaslighting), she kicked him out for a day, brought him back then told me that I had to share her with him, so at 15 and with her knowledge of him molesting me, we all moved to California, we drove there, and that was awful, we all fought and he screams how he didn’t care about what he did to me and he was laughing in front of her, i ended up just sweeping that under the rug because i went to focus on my career I had acting classes so my mind was focused but I met a guy from school and he automatically hated him (the boyfriend) he told my mother and automatically I was told to stay away from him, I didn’t I had got arrested the year before so I had community service and he was helping me with that, I told him what happened I thought we were meant to be but he cheated on me with his sister and I found myself in her another Jerry springer bind but I found that out months after we broke up, but he stood up for me and he was the only one on the outside that actually came and defended my honor as sick as he is I will give him credit for that. A year later we’re moving bacc to NYC, before we did though, they got Into a fight (my mother and the boyfriend), pretending to break up, he went to the gas station filled a gas canister wit gas came back to the front door and poured gasoline on himself, obviously not lighting himself on fire because it was an act, he went to jail a week or two later she invited him back into her life, I already knew that it was going to happen because the shit was predictable at that point, Skipping ahead to 17, we moved back to NYC, we came separately, I came on a plane with my mother and the rest of my siblings drove back with him, because obviously she trusted him with children why wouldn’t she? She already knew what he was capable of, she didn’t care 🤷🏽‍♀️, when we got back to NyC she

Promises me that he’s not coming back into our lives that it’s over this time, I told her he’s going to gaslight her she says not gonna work, fast forward to when they all made it to the apartment, she approached me with the sob story I said he would come in with so she said she is letting him stay, I was going to just walk away, but my sister told me that she fought with him on the drive here, she stood up for me, he yelled at my older brothers and her that he did What he did to me cos he truly wanted to and he’s unapologetic for it, the flame it was uncontrollable and I blacked out I went into the room and I kicked him out myself. He yelled bullshit but he left, she hated me for that, so she started to sneak him in secretly then they started hiding food again, leaving us to literally shake, starve and feel sick, we learned how to improvise with what little we had. I was going to school so I didn’t care, speaking of school I was supposed to be on my last year of school, and I couldn’t graduate because my principal explained because I moved so much my credits were all over the place, so she told me I had to repeat a year that was devasting to me because in California I only had a few credits before I could graduate, I got two jobs because I just wanted to save up money to leave, she told my grandma lies oh she has a whole bunch of recruits that she tells constant lies too about us and what we do never the truth because they already feel she’s sick but they do nothing about it, family tho right? My grandma called me and so again we told her the truth and she helped us kick him out for good, (so that’s the end of boyfriend 1…. For now) I was finally 18!! So again I have no friendships nothing ever stuck, but I had two jobs and I was saving up for an apartment, I shouldn’t have done this but I was so proud of myself! I told her (my mother) that I was going to move out, get my own apartment and live on my own, she didn’t like that, she was saying that it was disloyal and what was she going to do without me and she needed help because most of my siblings have a disability, so I stayed, I couldn’t be disloyal when she needed me, that was a big mistake. A year later we are moving BACC to California because she has found A NEW BOYFRIEND, some guy she met over the phone, guess who helped her move back to California though (boyfriend #1), my brother who molested me left to go into the army, don’t worry he’s not in it any longer dishonorable discharge (it was fitting). So anyways the new boyfriend was some white guy who I felt meant no harm the fuccin dude was quiet and softspoken so I paid it no mind, but I was wrong, he was a drunk, not only was a he a drunk, he was a RACIST DRUNK! Did she care???? NOOOOOOO! Everytime I tried to leave she stopped me, til we fought then she would say to leave knowing I had nowhere to go, if I had a friend to go too she would hate that friend, funny thing is most friends that want to take me away from this be friends she introduced me too, she wanted to be friends with them but they wanted to be my friend yes they are younger people, I don’t have those friends anymore because they were very similar to her go figure right ? I thought I should call the cops, call for help, but everyone I reached out too did nothing INCLUDING COPS! So I felt backed into a corner, well I had my sister my little sister my rock, funny fun fact though, her new boyfriend ALSO LIKES LITTLE GIRLS oh and BOYS! He got arrested and she stood up for him, while he was doing that in her home, she would run away and leave us all my siblings in the house with him drunk calling us the N word, kicking doors down and causing mess, I couldn’t leave my siblings who couldn’t understand what was happening behind all I knew is that they were scared and their mother wasn’t there all she did was make excuses for him she told me I should kill myself, that I was a cunt that didn’t deserve her name, ( I don’t have it, I have my dads last name), that I was going to be nothing more than a whore, by this time………………

She knows about what my brother did to me I didn’t mention that confession because she just skipped right over it. She literally didn’t care and she told me to my face she believed he was only playing with me and I am confusing it all and that I know nothing about it because it happened to her and she the only one who knows pain and my pain doesn’t matter she tried to assault me and again tried to tell family but she already took the narrative so they weren’t trying to hear me out or help, in august of this year, me and my sister left, we went to stay in a motel for a week or two, with the help of my booking agent we didn’t have enough money to stay and the homeless shelters were all full and we’re not answering back, so we had no choice but to go back, we are back and nothing even a week later back to the drunk racist, not eating, starving routine, I wanted to die and I felt like a failure! I couldn’t even get out of bed I felt like I deserved this I got my sister out to end up right back 2 WEEKS LATER?!?!! I fuccin hated myself! He was drunk and again causing ruckus, she came back a morning later and was telling him to leave, he was going to hit her, my brother (diagnosed with MR) was out there with my younger brother (autism) and they were scared and standing up for her and the boyfriend was in their faces what was I supposed to do???? Me and my sister tried to help and she tried to tell us to leave for helping her!!!!! Me and my sister decided to just call the police, they started to fight, and he tried to kill her, the police got him out, and they told her that she was lucky to have her kids here, we cleaned up her room after he broke her whole house apart, I mean EVERYTHING IS TORN APART RN!!!! she decided that she was going to move down to Texas with the molesting brother because he has kids, (oh yeah other fun fact she kept forcing me to have kids she even wanted me to give her my eggs so she can have kids with both of those boyfriends she approached me TWICE ABOUT IT, one she wanted my eggs and the other she wanted me to be pregnant for her!) So now my brother has kids she was like saying she knows I’ll never have kids and I’ll be forever alone, that no one will ever love me, anyways skipping to now my birthday came and left I’m 27 now! The housing program that me and my sister signed up for began to pend and we found a place! We didn’t tell her we found a place and that we were in a program we didn’t even tell her that we went down the city. We ended up getting a random woman come into the house and serve us she was evicting us (my mother) even on the eviction notice it says no fault just cause, she didn’t even tell me, so we have 60 days to leave and vacate her premises! Funny enough yesterday my sister got her APPROVAL NOTICE!!! Mine is still pending but I know that I’m getting approved and if all goes well we will be in our transitional home on SATURDAY! We finally did it, dug our way out, I didn’t think that I could and that I would, I would’ve been opened up to someone if I didn’t believe that it was against the family or that no one would love me like she did, she painted the world as such a unloving place and that this toxicity was normal and for the longest I believed it, but I am waking up now! And I am looking forward to beginning my life AWAY FROM HER! Just me and my rock @silvershiningtarot I AM NOT ASHAMED OF MY STORY, I’m only ashamed I kept quiet for so long, I allowed them to get away with everything and they took control of the narrative but I’m taking my power back! This is the first chapter of my success story! I’m not looking for claps or sympathy or for yky to actually care or anything I just wanted to put my story out there because this shit shouldn’t be in the dark anymore, mothers can be demons, family can be a dark and scary word for people and they’re not family, only relation! And I wanted to make that clear! RELATION DOESN’T MEAN FAMILY

I feel more familial love from you guys on here than I ever did anywhere! My music gave me hope and tarot gave me community

You deserve to know your reader through and through!

Thank you!!! For listening and taking the time for hearing this sad ass story, I hope I didn’t drag your day down! 💋

[pokemonshelterstories]

Hem! Sorry to send this message to someone from Paldea, but I got the idea considering the close relationship between your region and Blueberry Academy, where I teach history -

Slim Pickens (Snorlax, late adult, male, cowboy hat) and the Little Professor (Gengar, unclear, female, mortarboard cap with bright purple tassel) are two Pokemon I've had since my former career as a Gym Leader, and I like to flatter myself by thinking that I'm in tune with their needs and emotions. (Believe me, when Slim Pickens doesn't like something, he doesn't hesitate to let me know it. His son, Shady, is the same way.) The Little Professor has been moving around and getting excited less and less as of late. While a few years ago I could find her using Pickens' stomach as a trampoline while he uneasily slept and interrupting my lessons at random with demands for attention, she's been doing that less and less lately, sleeping nearly as much as both Slims. At first I thought she was just getting older - we all are, nothing to be ashamed about - and while I admit that I missed the Little Professor's disruptive presence in my life, I assumed everything was part of the natural process of aging - or as close to the 'natural process' as a Ghost-type can manage.

Unfortunately, we've got a new Ghost-type expert teaching at Blueberry Academy, and she says that I'm 'starving' my Gengar. I was shocked since there wasn't any changes in their diet from what I'd been giving them for years - and she says that the Little Professor needs a steady supply of new 'pranks' to pull on people in order to be fulfilled, happy, and healthy, and that my insistence that the Little Professor limit their mischief to me and not permit them to bother my students is resulting in some sort of Ghost-type malnutrition.

I'm not sure I trust her - she's a bit of a mystic and given to anthropomorphization. So I thought I would ask for a second opinion, since Pokemon Centers in Unova tend to focus more on the brute survival and nutrition of the Pokemon they treat rather than 'enrichment' and environment - is my insistence that the Little Professor *not* yank chairs out from underneath my students and then levitate them around the center of the room, spinning them around near the ceiling lights, a physical or mental health issue for her? Am I really being too hard-headed and rules-oriented with my Pokemon, have I let my old Gym Leader instincts make me be too harsh and demanding? And if you aren't sure, what do you think the best way to tell or research more would be?

(NB: If this is serious enough to refer this to your local Ghost-type Gym Leader, please do not mention my identity. It's embarrassing, but I fumbled the ball *badly* when asking her sister if she was married when she visited from the Academy.)

you work at one of the most well-funded and well-regarded schools in the world and you haven't consulted their library for pokemon care information? i'd highly recommend looking there.

as for your gengar, she's just slowing down as you age, because- as i would hope a ghost-type expert knows- they're life force feeders. i'm not sure where this expert has gotten her information, but the gengar line are not like misdreavus or shuppet. they prey upon people's life force by hiding themselves in shadows. it would in fact be unusual for them to draw so much attention by playing pranks. she's less active because she's basically "aging" with you.

now, while i don't mind to reassure you on your care, i do take issue with you saying pokemon center nurses in unova dont worry about enrichment. theyre as hardworking and well trained as any other nurses i've met. if you haven't heard about care outside of battle from them, it's because you haven't asked. and as for ryme, don't assume she's not professional enough to put aside whatever faux pas you committed for the sake of a pokemon. these are professionals, and it's unkind and unfair to act like they won't do their jobs properly.

[queenshelby]

The Fourth Season (Part Seven)

Pairing: Cillian Murphy x Reader

Warning: Age Gap (20 Years), Fluff, Smut

Words: 3,896

Notes: In this Fic, Cillian is 40 and the Reader is 20. Cillian is divorced and the Reader is single. This is not based on Cillian’s real life.

PLEASE COMMENT AND ENGAGE!

The following morning, when you saw Cillian on set, things had improved between you. He was his usual cheerful self and this surprised you. Had he forgotten about your kiss? Had he moved on? Because, you sure did not. You still wanted him as much as you did three or four days ago and, the truth was, that your attraction towards him grew even further since yesterday.

He clearly woke up on the right foot that morning. He smiled at you and interacted with you in a kind way and it was not until James came up to you and gave you an unsolicited hug, that your own mood turned vile.

“I am sorry for your loss” he said and, since you had not spoken to him about your grandmother’s passing, you wondered how he knew. Who had told him about it? Cillian? Natasha?

“How do you…” you thus began to ask but James cut you off mid-sentence.

“Your parents told my parents and my parents told me. You know how it is. They talk” he explained before telling you that he, too, would be attending the funeral.

“Why? You never liked my grandmother” you pointed out and James immediately took hold of your hands.

“Because I want to support you, which reminds me…” James began to say while you were trying to pull away your hands from his. “I booked dinner for us tonight. Just you and me at the French restaurant downtown. I figured this would cheer you up” he then went on and your chin dropped.

“You what?” you asked surprised.

“Common Y/N, let me be there for you. I still love you, you know” he then told you almost desperately and you could not believe what you were hearing. You were flustered and somewhat angry about James’s behaviour, on set, out of all places.

“James, I have no intention to get back together with you. You need to move on and give me some space. Despite, you are behaving very unprofessionally right now” you told him in response before looking over towards Natasha and Cillian, pleading for help and help came in a form you did not expect.

“James, common. Leave the poor woman alone” was the next thing you heard and, just as you did, you turned around and saw James’s sister. Her name was Laura and you always liked her. You used to hang out with her at the congregation and, just like you, she never really bought into the religious practices her parents forced upon her. Unlike her brother, she had always been rebellious, much to the dislike of her parents and her presence excited and surprised you.

After seeing her, you greeted her with a hug before asking her what she was doing here, on set of Peaky Blinders. You knew that she had moved to Liverpool a few months ago but usually guests and other patrons were not allowed on set.

“Well, since dad is financing the show, I took up the opportunity to have a look. You look awesome by the way, in your costume” she said while looking you over.  

“So, are you after a tour then?” you wondered.

“No, I am waiting for my brother to introduce me to the man” she teased in response and this statement confused you.

“The man? Steven Knight?” you thus asked but Laura began to laugh.

“No silly. Cillian Murphy. I am too shy to go over and introduce myself” Laura said before telling you about the crush she has on him. It was an innocent crush and, according to her, she liked him ever since Batman.

“Uhm, right. Well, I guess I could introduce you if you like” you offered, trying to be polite rather than act suspiciously.

“Oh yes please” Laura said happily before James interrupted again.

“Jesus Laura. He is like 15 years older than you. Don’t you think that is a bit weird?” James asked and you could not help but laugh.

“And your point is?” Laura teased before an argument broke out between the siblings, which is when you knew that you had to leave and carry on.

“You know what, I should leave James to introduce you to Cillian. I really must go and film this next scene” you told Laura, excusing yourself and, luckily for you, she was preoccupied with her brother.

“That is fine. I will introduce myself if James won’t and then I have to go back into town myself. I have an appointment this afternoon. It was good to see you Y/N” Laura told you and you gave her a quick hug goodbye before James continued on with his lecture.

***

Over the remainder of the day, you filmed a few more scenes, all of which you had rehearsed several times. The dialogue you were tasked to present was not too difficult and neither was the act you had to put on.

Thus, it all went smoothly and, by around 5 o’clock, you were done and went back to your apartment for dinner.

As usual, Natasha had cooked. She loved cooking and thought that it was relaxing which, as someone who hated meal preparation, was something you never quite understood.

While she was making some spaghetti Bolognese, you got to talk and, of course, she brought up Cillian again.

You told Natasha about your upcoming trip to Cork and she informed you that she, too, was travelling back to Ireland during the break.

“I think Cillian is going too” she said out of the blue, causing you to chuckle.

“Yes, he said he would be flying to Dublin. He is having his kids stay with him for a week before returning to Liverpool” you told her while sipping on a glass of wine.

“So, you are talking again, huh?” Natasha asked with a smile and you nodded shyly before responding to her question.

“Yes. In fact, we are going running again tomorrow morning as well if you would like to come” you offered but Natasha cocked an eyebrow at you and shook her head.

“As much as I like jogging, I think you should go on your own. Just you and Cillian” Natasha said, stating the obvious.

“Why? It is not like it is a date Tash” you giggled.

“Well, it may not be a date but he probably wants some alone time with you” Natasha then told you reluctantly before giving you the run down of what happened today, on set.

“What makes you say that?” you wondered and she was ready to elaborate.

“Intuition” she teased before giving you her real reasons. “And the fact that he told Lorraine today that he needs some time alone when she asked whether he wanted to go for breakfast with her tomorrow morning” Natasha then said and this surprised you.

You knew that Lorraine had a crush on Cillian. As did Laura and several other ladies on set. But, Cillian refused to spend one on one time with any of them. He would only ever spend one on one time with you and even Natasha noticed that.

“He likes you. It is obvious. He might just need some more time to come around” Natasha then pointed out before spurring you on.  “Pursue it again Y/N. You would make a good couple I think”  she teased but you were reluctant to do so.

***

The following morning, and after thinking about what Natasha had said to you, you made an effort to pick out some nice looking running tights and a tight-fitting shirt before meeting with Cillian to go for a run.

As usual, he was punctual and you hit it off at 7 o’clock sharp.

You ran for about an hour, through the nearby park and back, which had become your usual route. It was scenic and somewhat challenging but, unlike other time, on this very same morning, the track had become rather wet and muddy.

It had rained all night and only just stopped raining at around 4 o’clock, which meant that, by the time you were halfway through your run, you were both covered in dirt.

Then, after another ten minutes or so it also began raining heavily and neither of you were dressed for the occasion, which caused you to take a shortcut back to the apartment building.

When you arrived at the apartment building twenty minutes later, you were well and truly soaked. Your shoes were covered in cloggy mud, your clothes were dirty and your hair was wet and frizzy. Cillian, too, wore clothes that had been ruined by the rain but, luckily for him, with his new haircut, his hair was not as heavy and disgusting looking as yours.

You wrung out your ponytail as soon as you got undercover while Cillian opened the building’s front door for you both and this was when you broke out in laughter for no reason whatsoever.

“What’s wrong?” Cillian asked, chuckling himself but you did not really know why you were laughing.

“I just…I don’t know…I think we should have looked at the weather forecast before we went” you then said as you walked into the foyer and saw the mud which you had dragged in on your shoes.

“Probably, but it was fun though, right?” Cillian asked, causing you to nod and, just as he was about to get the elevator door for you both, you tapped on his shoulder and he turned back around to face you.

“Thank you” you then said as your impression was softening.

“For what?” Cillian asked surprised.

“For comforting me last night and for the run this morning…” you stammered with blushing cheeks.

“You are very welcome Y/N” he responded before telling you that he enjoyed it. But what did he mean by “it”?

“You enjoyed it? You mean the run?” you queried but this was not what he meant at all. It was not just the run he enjoyed. There was so much more to it. It was your company, your scent, your laughter, your everything.

“I mean spending time with you” Cillian said before clarifying his statement. “I enjoy spending time with you Y/N” he went on and you immediately shook your head. His statement frustrated you but, just as you were about to speak up and tell him not to say things like this to you, he interrupted you. He had more to say but did not know how.

“Fuck” he thus gasped just as you spoke his name, but nothing more.

“What is it Cillian?” you sighed in frustration.

“I can’t…” Cillian began to say but this time you interrupted him.

“You can’t what?” you spat, upset and confused. Was he going to bring up the kiss again, you wondered?

“I can’t get you out of my fucking head Y/N. I am falling for you” Cillian then blurted out and you wanted to scream right then and there. You were furious and angered by his attitude. He kept on telling you those things without taking it any further. He wanted you, but never to the incitive to give into his feelings.

“Then take a risk on me Cillian. I am begging you. Because I cannot keep doing this…” you said while cupping his face and starring at him with pleading eyes.

“Not here Y/N” Cillian said while doing the same, caressing your face gently, but never kissing you in this instance.

“Your apartment then. You promised me breakfast, remember?” you smiled with a sparkle of hope in your eyes and, with that, Cillian nodded and pulled you into the elevator.

***

The elevator ride itself was awkward as you both just stood there silently, side by side, smiling, until the door opened and you walked to Cillian’s apartment which, luckily for you, was right across form the elevator exit.

Cillian had already taken out his key card and opened the door quickly, causing you both to stumble inside and, without any time to lose, Cillian leaned in to you to claim your mouth with his, kissing you hungrily.

Your lips moved together in an improvised dance, pressing and pulling against one another. Your tongues searched each other out, connecting and swirling together. Your hands moved to his chest, your palms resting against his pecs, making him want to get rid of his shirt that separated you from his skin until he realised that this situation was far from ideal.  

“Stop Y/N. Please. Fuck. I can’t” Cillian said after pulling away from you and it all felt like a DeJa’Vu to you.

“You are not doing this again, Cillian! If this is about the difference in age between us, then…”

you told him angrily but were cut off.

“It is not. But I am all sweaty and wet from the rain…” Cillian pointed out as his need for you was growing fast. He wanted to kiss and touch you everywhere as the sexual tension between you was coming to a head.

“Well, so am I” you pointed out, laughing before attempting to kiss him again but he pulled away.

“Yeah, and it is sexy on you, but not on me” he then said and you could not help but chuckle some more.

“I tend to disagree but, I suppose we could just go and have a shower first if you like” you suggested, causing Cillian to smile.

“What, here? Together?” he asked, almost shyly and you nodded nervously.

“Hmm, uhm, yeah… I suppose why not” you told him with blushing cheeks and all he did after that was to give a quick nod before reaching for your hand and guiding you towards the bathroom.

“I will be right back” he then said and you gave him a nervous nod, panicking a little, but, just as he had promised, he returned to the bathroom within mere seconds.

“You know what? I had a dream, just like this” you said almost shyly after kicking off your shoes while watching Cillian turn on the water for you both. Unlike you, he had left his sneakers somewhere else, in the hallway, and was much calmer. You, on the other hand, just stood there. You were nervous and lost. You could have turned on the water yourself as he was gone, but you did not. You simply waited for him and allowed your nervousness to build up.  

"Oh yeah?" Cillian questioned softly, "How did it go?" he wanted to know and, just as he asked the question, you took up some courage and slipped your tight-fitting shirt over your head.

"A little something like this” you then answered before moving forward again to press your sweaty body against his.

A kiss followed and your lips lingered like that for a few long seconds, dancing slowly, nibbing only slightly until Cillian closed the distance between you, causing you to smiled triumphantly into the kiss, while eagerly responding.

Eventually though, after a minute or two, you pulled away from each other and so that you could remove Cillian’s t-shirt. Then he took off his pants, followed by your shorts until, eventually, your sports bra hit the floor as well, leaving you in nothing but pink coloured panties.

“Fuck, you are gorgeous” Cillian said instantly and, even though he had seen your breasts before on set when you were filming, he never really got a good look at them.

“You think so?” you asked, nervously and Cillian responded with a smile.

“I know so” he confirmed and this gave you the courage to take off your final piece of clothing before quickly and awkwardly retreating into the shower.

At this point, Cillian realised that you were nervous and a little out of your comfort zone, so he raised the question “are you sure that you wouldn’t prefer to have a shower on your own?” to which you shook your head and pulled him through the retractable door.

“I am sure! Now come and join me” you teased, trying to appear confident but your blushing cheeks gave away how nervous you truly were when, finally, Cillian pushed down his Calvin Klein briefs before quickly stumbling into the shower with you.

Your eyes then met again, but even despite the hold his eyes had on yours, you could not look away from the obvious, namely his raging erection.

“I am sorry, but I cannot control this around you. Not with you looking like this” Cillian said with a slight sense of embarrassment as he heard the gasp that left your lips when you saw his length. He was clearly as aroused as you were and, after you took a good long peak, you bit your lip and pulled him close in an attempt to overcome your very own embarrassment.

“Are you okay?” Cillian then asked once more, seeing how you were fidgeting nervously and, after you confirmed that you were just fine, you continued kissing each other passionately again.

Just as you were kissing, you pulled Cillian under the hot stream of water with you and this, in turn, caused his body to press against yours. His erection was now trapped between your respective bodies and you could feel the heat radiate from him skin to yours.

A shallow groan escaped Cillian’s lips and he broke the kiss, at which point you admired his perfect body once again. This time you did not feel guilty about it either and a made a comment which amused him.

“You have so many freckles” you observed in delight before kissing his neck and then biting it gently with need.

“I sure do. Too many if you ask me” Cillian chuckled but, even his chuckle turned into a low groan as you bit harder.

“No, I like it…” you confirmed while nibbling on his skin some more, arousing him further which, ultimately, led him to do what he did next.

“Turn around” Cillian said and, whilst you were wondering what he had planned, you quickly complied with his request.

“Perfect” was what you heard next before Cillian moved your hair out of the way and began kissing your neck from behind.

He then reached for the shower gel in front of you and, after he rubbed it into his large masculine hands, he began to lather your skin with it. Inch by inch.

His hands ran over your arms first and then over your breasts, which is where he seemingly enjoyed to spend most his time, massaging and kneading them softly. His fingers teased your nipples, pinching them slightly and an inadvertent moan escaped you again.

“Hmm” you moaned as Cillian’s hands cupped your breasts before, finally, one of them made their way down to your stomach and then further down towards your thus far untouched mound.

While still kissing your neck, Cillian’s hand then found the soft skin in between your legs and a shiver began to run down your spine. This was new, and different and, almost instinctively, you spread your legs further to give him better access.

“Oh fuck” you then moaned as, eventually, Cillian ran his middle finger up and down your slit. Your lips were swollen, and you knew that he could feel your wetness before he even separated your lips. His touch was delicious torture to you and your wetness certainly did not have anything to do with the shower water running down your thighs. It was a different kind of wetness and he knew it was there, as did you.

“Cillian” you moaned with approval as he cupped your lips and you pushed against his palm to get more friction. The pressure on your clit felt so good while, at the same time, you could feel his erection press against your lower back, which, by this point, drove you absolutely wild.

Cillian then moved his palm in circles as you moved your hips at the same time. Your eyes were closed, and you could hear yourself moan more loudly now.

“This feels so good” you told him and this was when Cillian used his middle finger and separated your lips. He then used the wetness which had built up there to lubricate your clit on which he drew circles, eliciting even louder moans from you now. Then finally, he dipped his middle finger into your dripping hole slightly and it was at this point that you pulled away from him.

Before he could question you, you turned around and smashed your lips back on to his and said “your turn” in a quiet and seductive whisper.

Using some soap as well, you leathered your hands and just watching you do this caused Cillian’s blood rush to his ears. His skin was hot and prickly and the next kiss you shared was slow and languid.

Nervously, you placed your hands onto Cillian’s chest and ran them over his perfectly shaped body. You captured his nipples and the patch of chest hair first before tracing one hand down between your bodies.

“Fuck” Cillian groaned, closing his eyes as, after not too long, your hand made contact with his hard length and, whilst your hands were shaking a little as you were touching him like this, you tried your best to remain calm.

Thus, you gently caressed his length, tracing your fingers up and down before taking him into your hand. You were not really stroking him though, but rather lathering soap all over him, getting a feel for him and this was enough for Cillian as well. He needed more, but not here.

“Should we get out and take this to the bedroom?” he then asked through laboured breathing. He wanted you more than he had wanted anyone else in a very long time and this quickly became obvious to you.

“Yes” you stammered nervously, thinking that, perhaps, this would be it. You may be going all the way with him, but where you really prepared and ready for it? Or was it too soon?

To be continued…

Please comment and engage. I love getting comments and predictions pretty please!

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[d34dpulse]

Why I think Katsuki has BPD

(As a katsuki kinnie with BPD)

Disclaimers:

I'm not saying he definitively has it, just that I headcanon him to have it.

I'm also not a licensed professional or even educated on this topic, I just have it myself and am loosely going off how the symptoms are defined in the DSM V.

BPD is a disorder that can only be diagnosed when someone is 18 or older. Currently, Katsuki is 17, nearly 18, and a requirement of BPD is for the symptoms to be present since the age of 15 (how old Katsuki is at the start of BNHA) so I'm still gonna make this anyways lol.

Manga screenshots are backwards (ie p22 on the left p23 on the right)

This not only includes things from BNHA but also the movies and BNHA Team Up Missions

1) Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).

Do I even need to give proof for this one? Katsuki's temper and habit of getting into fights is a defining trait of his character and has been throughout the entire series.

2) Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms.

Paranoid ideation is characterized by someone having a persistent suspicion and distrust of people around them. People experiencing paranoid ideation might believe that others are trying to harm them or treat them unfairly, even when there's no evidence to support this. While Katsuki exhibits this towards ALOT of people, especally if he intimidated by them, Deku is the one he exhibits it most to.

The reason Katsuki bullied Deku is because he believed it to be mutual. He felt an inferiority to Deku, depite the fact that he was quirkless, and began to develop an inferiority complex, but also a superiority complex, only focusing on Deku’s flaws as a way to cope with that inferiority complex.

He believed that Deku was being condescending towards him and was trying to goad him into losing his temper, angering him more since it felt like Deku knew he was better than him. Later he believes he’s been pretending to not have a quirk so he could purposely embarrass him in UA, believing that he’s finding sadistic enjoyment in Katsuki’s difficulty adjusting to UA and confusion over his quirk and their relationship. That deku was manipulating Katsuki to believe he didn’t have a quirk for 10 years, and he never realised.

Katsuki also prefers to act alone because he hates the idea of being protected or having to rely on other people to assist him. He's got better as the series has progressed and he's gotten to know his classmates, acknowledging the importance of working with others every now and then but he still prefers to be the leader of said group, protecting them from harm while expecting them to do the same for him in return.

3) Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.

Katsuki looks up to All Might and has aspired to be like him ever since he was a child, but outside of that he doesnt really have any sense of who he is or what he wants to be. This is best shown when he notices how close All Might and Deku are and this one assumption makes him question the thing hes been so passionately working for, for years.

On top of this has both a superiority complex as well as an inferiority complex and seems to gauge his identity based of the people around him. He often avoids thinking about himself and instead focuses on the people around him (i.e. "instead of thinking about how good or bad I am at this thing, I'll think about how good or bad this person is".)

An example of this is how Katsuki would try to believe that Deku was nothing because he didn't want to accept that he wasn't living up to his unreasonably high expectations of himself. Being forced to confront this at UA was what caused his superiority/inferiority complex to get worse.

4) A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.

Black-And-White thinking is the simplest phase to use for this and an opinion about a person can go from "white" to "black" over barely anything. Again, Izuku is a perfect example of this. Katsuki and Izuku where best friends as kids but after his quirk didn't form and the infamous lake scene happened, he misinterpreted Deku's care as condescension and it turned into genuine hatred that lasted years.

Then after years of hatred, he has one "conversation" with him, talking things out, and they become best friends again, so much so that he risks his life on multiple occasions trying to protect him. Katsuki even risks his own health seeing if Izuku is okay when he breaks his arms. Risking his health to protect Izuku eventually gets to the point where he ends up killing himself in the war arc to do so. Even when he gets brought back to life, awakened from his coma, he risks his health to see if Izuku is okay.

In the latest chapter he's the only 1-A (Now 2-A) classmate that visits him in the hospital. When he finds out he'll never fully recover from his injuries and has potentially permanently lost an arm, he's more annoyed if anything, but when he finds out Izuku's lost his quirk, he breaks down crying, again blaming himself for Deku's injuries. All of this even though, only a few months ago, he hated his guts.

5) Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).

Affective instability is defined as repeated, rapid, and abrupt shifts in mood and while Katsuki has always been very emotionally driven, this is more accurate to Katsuki post kidnapping arc and especially him post war arc.

An example is in his fight with Deku, after All Mights near death, his mood rapidly shifts from non-verbal annoyance, to angry name calling to tearful venting throughout the entire fight, with Izuku's efforts to calm him down seemingly making him more erratic.

Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.

As mentioned in the previous page, Katsuki got insecure and jealous of Izuku because All Might was paying attention to Deku's progress and "wasn't paying attention" to Katsuki's progress. This actually gets called out by All Might himself in chapter 62. He tries to get rid of Deku and frantically tries to beat All Might on his own to get back his approval, confusing Izuku and All Might who don't understand why he's so upset.

Impulsivity in areas that are potentially self-damaging.

Katsuki is extremely impulsive and gets the "consequences" for it all the time. I'll use getting into dangerous fights as an example.

In the World Heroes' Mission movie, Katsuki fights the Serpenters Twins, Ena and Dio. Katsuki fights them on his own and ends up getting mercilessly shredded apart. Even though he won in the end, he was injured to an insane amount. His entire body is torn apart and he's bleeding out of one of his eyes, but he only cares about how he won.

Recurrent suicidal behaviour, gestures or threats, or self-mutilating behaviour.

Katsuki throws himself into danger, not caring about how much he hurt so maybe you can call that recurrent suicidal behaviour? However, I'd rather focus on something else. This is something I don't really see people talk about much but Katsuki "trains" when he's stressed out. While it's not talked about much, excessively working out can be considered NSSI aka Nonsuicidal Self-Injury and while not suicidal, it's still self harm and considered self-mutilating behaviour.

The following aren't symptoms of BPD but are still relevant.

Difficulty managing/talking about/explaining emotions and struggles

Most people with BPD struggle to vocalise and put into words what's upsetting them and even may not understand what is making them feel like that, especially men since the fear of venting could be greater than a woman's due to societies expectations of men and vulnerability.

Small friend circles/habit of isolation

Due to difficulties socially, many people with BPD will fixate on certain people and ignore others, sometimes even isolating themselves completely. While this was sort of hinted before the kidnapping arc (Katsuki being rude to every one other that Ejiro and maybe Denki and only paying attention to them, Izuku and Shoto.) afterwards, he moved in with the other 1-A classmates and all of them reiterate on multiple occasions that theyre worried about how Katsuki never leaves his room.

Yeah, sure, you could chock this up to the fact that he's coping with the trauma of getting kidnapped and watching his idol "die" days before, but even after he "gets over" that, he's still as quiet as introverted as before

Maybe even more so, since after he and Izuku became friends, he would stay with him and would rarely be seen with other characters without Izuku also being there.

Questionable Childhood

Its made very clear in the series that Katsuki and his mother are very similar an he treats the people around him the same way his mother treats him. Aka, Katsuki was abused as a child by his mother and abuses others because he doesn't understand that his mother is abusive and not just angry at him.

This environment growing up is why he acts the way he does (at least personality wise) and while his mother very obviously cares about him (post war arc is proof of that), she doesn't hesitate to hit him, berate him and victim-blame him, even in front of his teachers.

Also in chapter 165, when trying to teach children to help get his license, Katsuki recommends beating the kids and accidentally confesses to the team that happened to him as a kid and it must fine because of the "My parents did that to me and I turned out fine." mentality he has.

While this is proof that she treats him like this normally, its also completely possible that his home life could be even worse than what's been shown to us, especially because he seemingly doesn't know what happened to him was wrong.

BPD is a disorder that is formed due the environment someone grows up in and in up to 90% of BPD cases, the source is associated with abuse. You're also more likely to get a diagnosis of BPD if someone in your close family has it. This suggests that even if she isn't being abusive towards him, his similarity to her could be that he inherited a personality disorder she has.

Another thing to add to this point is that bullying is also a cause of BPD and while most people don't talk about it, Katsuki used to get picked on by classmates and older kids because of his quirk.

PTSD/C-PTSD

This might sound weird at first but hear me out! Katsuki has PTSD/C-PTSD from the sludge monster incident and his home life (pre 15). Post 15, he also has trauma from being kidnapped and witnessing the near death of his idol (which he blames himself for). This all makes sense if he has BPD, because not only is BPD usually caused by trauma (like PTSD) but a study showed that Borderline personality disorder and complex post-traumatic stress disorder are commonly found together, with between 25% and 60% of people with BPD also have C-PTSD.

Self-blame

When someone close to Katsuki gets hurt or when something he's involved in goes wrong, his first instinct is to blame himself. He blames himself for the sludge monster incident, he blames himself for being kidnapped by the LOV, he blames himself for All Might's near death, he blames himself for Deku being quirkless. All of this when in all these situations, he was innocent or worse, the victim.

Even when it comes to his upbringing, when he finds out Shoto got beat as a kid, he gets worried about him and asks if he's okay, but when he talks about him getting beat as a kid and shoto shows the same concern, he immediately dismisses it because he "turned out fine".

Self blame is very common for people with BPD. It’s usually used as a defence mechanism and is a common response to having a traumatic experience. This is especially true even when the traumatic event occurs through no fault of the victim, as it allows them to feel that they have control over everything that happens to them.

Self-blame can grow into low self-esteem and even self-hate, which could be the case because of how much Katsuki has been apologizing to Izuku in recent chapters and how much he feels in debt to him because of how badly he treated him. It's understandable since he bullied him for a reason he now understands was wrong, but even then it was all over a misunderstanding and he did his best to make it up to him afterwards.

[mysteriawrites]

Hello ,can I request a TWST matchup please !? And thank you .

**Appearance:**

I'm a 5'5" Arab girl (165cm) (she/her, straight )who wears a hijab. I am a brunette with big, light brown eyes and red-framed glasses. People often say I have a soothing aura when they look into my eyes. My face is round with a kind of heart shape with big cheeks, a small nose, and cute defined lips. I'm pale cause I mostly stay at home and avoid getting a tan. I have a lot of beauty marks on my face . I have eyebags, which might be due to anemia, and I always look tired unless i use blush ,tho i dislike the texture of makeup on my skin (but i do care about my skin by applying skincare ,but i dont do it very often 😅)people say I am cute and pretty but it's hard for me to believe them (insecurities and self doub go brr...)

**Hobbies:**

drawing, (sketches mostly) ,I plan to learn colour theory to start painting. I adore all forms of art, paintings , music , sculptures..ect (I love everything that is beautiful ,plus everything is beautiful in its own way).I enjoy reading. Although it's been a while since I found a book that peeked my interest ,I mostly read fanfics recently . Video games hold a special place in my heart, I LOVE the different art styles and plots in each game. I like anime, but I've been too busy lately to watch. I have some sewing skills, mostly for patching things up, but I want to sew clothes and learn crochet in the future. Crafting is another hobby I enjoy, I am good with my hands. I love learning new stuff. biology ,psychology, and physics r my fav subjects(i like learning about anatomy whether it's animal's or human's +plants in the medical field +my fav scientist is Nicolas Tesla). I speak 3 languages: Arabic (native), French, and English. I plan to learn Spanish, Italian, or German next, depending on my mood. I'm a quick learner and adapt easily to different situations(that's something I admire and take pride in) While I can cook simple dishes like pasta and eggs, I'm not skilled at cooking savory foods.but in baking ,if you give me a recipe, i will make the most delicious desserts you've ever tasted(but quiet ironically i hate cooking ,i only do it if i am forced to), lemon tart is my fav due to my sweet tooth.

I forgot to mention my love for horror movies and games(they dont even scare me . Even though I am a good swimmer, I have thalassophobia (ironic), but i do like me some facts about marine biology, with jellyfishes, anglerfishes, and Caribbean reef octopuses being my favorites.

**Personality:**

My personality is quite flexible and depends on both the people I'm with and my mood. When I'm outside , I tend to feel anxious, although I do my best not to show it. I come across as calm, chill, and reserved, often giving off a "don't approach me" vibe, but I'm friendly and won't reject anyone who wants to chat, although I dislike small talk and feel a bit uneasy around boys. I've had trust issues due to past betrayals, so I'm cautious with my relationships now (whether it is friends or family ,no lover tho ,don't get me wrong i can be quiet the romantic but the only man that I would probably get attached to would be fictional for sure lol)

With my close friends, I'm more open, bright, and cheerful. I talk a lot about my interests, sharing random facts (they call me a nerd). I'm caring and sweet toward my friends, and my love languages include gift-giving, physical touch, and acts of service. I give them presents and hugs, always respecting their boundaries.

I would describe myself as creative, passionate, and smart, with a hint of perfectionism. I admit I am lazy and unmotivated more often than i like (i can't help it). I am an INTP-T, Enneagram 5w4, and a Libra. I'm also an older sister.

I am a burnt-out gifted kid , but I try to be the best version of myself whether academically ,mentally or physically(i admit i do feel down thinking that i am never gonna make it ,but i always try to push these thoughts aside but most of the time they get the best of me sadly).I often feel I'll never be good enough for my mother (she has high standards for me that I can never seem to meet). I was bullied cause of my looks and weight, which made me depressed and anorexic for a year. Thankfully, I've changed a lot over time, tho it affected me making me antisocial, having trust issues and insecurities. I like energy drinks. My music taste varies from pop, alt/indie, classical( my fav pieces are moonlight sonata 3rd movement, danse macabre , in the hall of the mountain king and la campanella ) ,jazz, to rock/metal, with a particular love for rock & roll. Comfortable baggy clothes are my go-to(makes me feel good in my own skin) , and I can be quite sarcastic with a sharp tongue at times. Once I get comfortable with someone, you'll find I'm pretty blunt and honest .I am polite and respectful .I can also be stubborn and a pessimist if I am not in a good mood . I like cats, and I am afraid of dogs and horses and can't stand people who underestimate me .I have inferiority AND superiority complex (but mostly inferiority)

Hello hello thank you for the request (first hijabi request I’ve gotten which makes me happy cause i wear hijab too ❤️) sorry this took 80 years my life is on fire.

Anyway without further ado DRUMROLL PLEASE!!!

🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁

VIL SCHOENHEIT!!!

You and Vil are surprisingly similar which makes it easier for you two to click than with most other people. You both try your absolute hardest to be the best people you can be and see the beauty in the world around you although while he tries to bring out the beauty in things you see beauty in the way they already were.

You and Vil met during alchemy class after you dropped into Twisted Wonderland. At first Vil was his usual perfectionist self: ordering you around and being controlling about how to do your project, but once you showed him your alchemic proficiency he was genuinely impressed.

Ever since then not only did you capture his respect, but also his intrigue. Despite being as busy as he is, when he had the time he would try to learn more about who you were by either word of mouth or asking your friends (Rook offered to “observe you” but Vil voted against it for it is rude and creepy).

One day while he was on a run he saw you under a tree practicing your sewing. He decided this was a good opportunity to strike up a conversation with you given he knew a thing or two about clothes.

He walked over and gave you some advice about your stitching. Sadly it came off a lot more condescending then he would like and it rubbed you the wrong way which lead you to giving him the cold shoulder but tried to politely dismiss yourself.

You know those guys that are more intrigued by those who aren’t interested in them? Yeah that’s Vil even if he’ll never admit it. The more you ignore or avoid him the more he wants to make amends and try to impress you.

Until one day where you’re in a particularly bad mood you have an outburst about how him not giving you space makes you uncomfortable due to old wounds and ask what his deal was.

This made him realize his behavior towards you was unfair and disrespectful. He didn’t take your feelings or comfort into account at all. He is as ashamed with himself.

He stood before you and gave a genuine and sincere apology before walking away.

You don’t know how or why, but his apology moved you. He’s not like other guys you’ve met before. You could tell that he felt genuine remorse and met every word of what he said

A week later you two run into each other again and make awkward small talk. You can tell that he still feels bad about what he did, so you propose that you guys start over as true friends.

And he agrees.

After that you slowly but surely grow closer and closer. Bonding over shared passions and views, before long Vil is falling in love with you. You’re not his first crush, but you’re the first one he truly feels love and affection for. Not just a relationship for the press or screens.

And so he asks you out like a classic fairytale prince for a fancy private dinner. And although you accept you let him know that he doesn’t need to do something so extravagant, that you would be happy no matter what. That takes him by surprise, but it’s not an unwelcome one.

You and Vil are like an old married couple once you finally get together.

Always bantering about how you both need to take better care of yourselves. It’s wholesome and funny at the same time.

Because he can’t always spend a lot of time with you, his love language is gift giving and acts of service. What better way to spend his money than on you. He gets you things he sees you eyeing in the store or on your wishlist or things that make your day a bit easier.

Since he’s not the best at showing it he wants to make sure you know you’re loved even without words.

Your dates usually consist of simple things like cooking at home where you have full privacy.

He is the Queen and you are the King/Queen/Royal at his side.

[itsaspectrumcomic]

hii :) first of all, your comics are so relatable and wonderfully drawn, you’re such a good artist!

but i guess i’m just wondering if you could help try and answer some questions i have, it’s alright if not though of course :]

i’m like 99% sure i have autism, i relate a crap ton to people with autism and just experiences commonly had by autistic people

but what i’m wondering about is 1, i don’t think i’ve shown or felt any signs of it up until i turned around 12 maybe, and i’m thirteen now

the only thing i can think of is most definitely having special interests, like i cannot be interested in something casually and it’s been that way my whole life

but now, the past year, i’ve been having so many signs of it, i’ve had meltdowns and go nonverbal when i’m stressed and have been stimming and stuff (i’m tired so my descriptions aren’t going to be good sorry lmao)

and the second thing is that i can understand sarcasm and things pretty perfectly, of course there’s the occasional misunderstanding but i don’t think i’ve ever really taken things too literally, if anything the opposite because i’m very sarcastic and figurative myself i feel

of course it’s a spectrum but pretty much everything i’ve heard about autism is that almost everyone has some level of difficulty with taking things literally and sarcasm

idk man i got <5 hours of sleep last night

sincerely,

sleep deprived confused child

Hi sleep deprived confused child! 😁 Don't worry I understand!

I also didn't think I showed autistic traits as a child at first, until I started talking to my mum about how I used to act, reading old reports, and viewing my memories through an autistic lens. A lot of the stuff I thought was 'normal' turned out not to be. For example, I thought everyone found crowds terrifying and music at events painfully loud, and I didn't realise tapping my fingers constantly could be a stim, and although I thought I was sarcastic (turns out saying things plainly/bluntly can come across as sarcasm) I didn't always get it when other people were.

Also, your traits can get more obvious as you get older and have to deal with more complicated problems. At age 12 there's the weird transition from child to teenager, maybe changing schools, or more complicated homework, or more responsibilities at home, different types of relationships etc, which can all add stress and force you to find ways to cope you might not have needed before.

THAT SAID, there's a lot of overlap between autistic traits and other things like ADHD (eg you might have hyperfixations rather than special interests - they're similar but change more often), or PTSD. While autism and ADHD are generally only diagnosed if you've had the traits from a very young age, things like PTSD and other mental health issues can show up later. And they can all be comorbid to make things extra complicated.

Obviously I am not in a position to diagnose you with any of these! I am definitely not qualified so please talk to a professional about any concerns or suspicions.

Sidenote: have you tried taking the RAADS-R or AQ50 tests? They're generally considered reliable and are often part of assessments, so hopefully they can help answer your questions!

I hope you have a good day and continue to be less sleep deprived :)

[pokemoncenter]

On Team Plasma

... Truthfully, I did not want to share this in this way. But I feel that given recent events, it is best to be open and upfront. In this post, I will share all I know and all I can remember of Team Plasma, their actions, their methods, their reasons, and most importantly, why there cannot be a new resurgence of Team Plasma- Anyone claiming the name cannot be related to them.

Twelve years ago, I was a member of the original Team Plasma. I was afraid to share this until now, for many reasons, not least of which that I was afraid it would cause people to think less of me. I wished to take this secret to my grave. However, given the recent events of someone claiming to be Team Plasma, and potentially seeking to use its name to cause harm, I felt it best to take this chance to write down and post everything I know.

I do not know if this information will help, but it is my hope that it will either lay fears to rest, or help stop whoever is using Team Plasma's name.

First, I wish to clarify that for all of Team Plasma’s crimes, I was never involved in any ‘liberations’. My role was that, when Pokemon were brought to me, I simply examined them and deemed whether they were safe to return to the wild, or if they needed treatment first. I know that this does not excuse it, but even so…

To start from the beginning… Many have forgotten this now, but Team Plasma was originally nothing like what people think of it now. It originally began as a group devoted to Pokemon welfare. It is known now that it was far more sinister, but in the beginning, it was nothing more than a group which preached that humans should not force Pokemon to conform to their ideals.

Though no one knew much about it at the time, Team Plasma actually began in 1996. Ghetsis founded it as a group promoting Pokemon welfare, while raising a boy, N.

(Though I have no proof, due to their physical similarity and circumstance, I suspect that Ghetsis is N’s father.)

At the time, Team Plasma started small. It had no resources to speak of- In fact, when it began, Team Plasma (then Plasma Circle) had only eight members. Those who would go on to become the Seven Sages, and the Team’s ‘prince’, Lord N.

The growth of the organization was… surprisingly swift. By the time of its fall in 2010, it had surpassed 90,000 members. But before that, when it was just starting out, it owed its growth entirely to Ghetsis. The man was a surprisingly powerful public speaker, and has a strong charisma. Though he was at best someone who could be described as a monster, he had a keen eye for seeing through people, and could work a crowd better than anyone else. Combined with his acting as a simple older man, and even using the young N to boost his public image as someone campaigning for a kinder world, he was quick to gain popularity.

I did not join until 2008, when I had just turned ten years old. Rather than going on a journey as a Trainer, I wanted to instead help Pokemon. I joined Team Plasma, and there, I began to learn medicine and treatment to Pokemon.

What I would like everyone to understand is that ‘liberation’ was not originally considered the universal answer to all Pokemon. It changed. Swiftly, and yet unstoppably. 

I am getting ahead of myself.

Before I joined Team Plasma, there were many stories on the news of humans abusing their Pokemon. Many, like myself, had thought this to mean that humans were cruel. That we should try to make the world better for them. 

Upon joining, I studied under some of the older members, to learn how to treat Pokemon. Pokemon were brought to us frequently- Some of them liberated, some of them wild who were injured in other ways. We knew, of course, that some of them were liberated, but the important thing was that we believed liberation was only done to people who abused their Pokemon. And when a Pokemon was brought in with bruises from boot prints… We felt justified. 

As time went on, however, the number of Pokemon brought to us increased. And it had always been that every liberation had been justified. We had too many Pokemon to care for, and not enough time to look into each Pokemon we received, to ensure the liberation had been justified… but it always had been before, so we simply did not think much of it. We simply assumed that it was similar… That every Pokemon was either justly liberated, or wild and injured by human action.

At the same time, throughout 2009 and 2010, things seemed to… escalate.

We started out thinking that we would only liberate Pokemon that had been abused. And then, somewhere down the line, the language shifted without anyone noticing- That if we liberated a Pokemon, then it must have been being abused. And eventually, this turned into the thought that humans keeping Pokemon at all was abusing them, so all Pokemon should be liberated.

It was impossible to speak out against this. After all, we were all united in our love of Pokemon. Everyone agreed. If you disagreed… it just showed that you were another one of the foolish and cruel humans who were abusing Pokemon. The entire group felt unified, as long as you agreed. And if you stepped out of line, then everyone would turn against you. 

We felt unable to trust ourselves, because surely, the organization wouldn’t do anything wrong. But we also could not trust anyone outside of the Team, because so many people were abusing their Pokemon. We eventually could not trust anything except that which our superiors told us. It was horrifying- Without realizing it, you would be swept up by the flow of the crowd, terrified that any disagreement from the norm would be discovered, and you would be cast out.

Most of us did not know anything about the castle, either. 

The underground base was a well-known thing, of course. Most of us had been there a few times- I was there to see Lord N’s coronation, as well as to see a few of the larger or more dangerous Pokemon that needed treatment. We had been told it was simply to avoid crowding out room on Pokemon habitats above the ground. None of us knew it could move. 

It was when the castle rose up that I fled. The castle appeared, the Legendary Dragons were revived, the Gym Leaders and Elite Four were fighting us. That was when I finally realized just how deep in over my head I truly was. And so I ran. I ran for my life. I did not stop running until I had made it all the way back to Castelia City, and then, I shut myself away for the better part of a year.

… The rest of that story isn’t relevant to Team Plasma, however.

Team Plasma as an organization was managed by the Seven Sages, each with their own role. However, Lord N, as the King of Team Plasma, was truly in charge… or so we thought. We believed that the Seven Sages served Lord N, but in truth, Ghetsis was the true leader, and Lord N nothing more than a figurehead.

Among us in the lower ranks, however, we believed that Lord N was the true power. We saw his ideals, and his beliefs. He was pure-hearted, and truly believed in his mission with his whole heart. Between Lord N’s purity and Ghetsis’ foul charisma, most of us were true believers in the mission. However, not everyone was- At an estimate, I would guess that roughly 80% of Team Plasma’s grunts were loyal to Lord N, and the mission of welfare and happiness for all Pokemon. The remaining 20% were… more loyal to Ghetsis. Rather than wanting to benefit Pokemon, they simply wanted power. I was blind to it at the time, but now it is easy to see in retrospect. And most of the (roughly) one thousand members who committed the “liberations” were part of that second faction.

Rood of the Seven Sages was the one whom I worked under. His group operated mostly for Pokemon welfare- We treated Pokemon, as mentioned, and we sought to make things better for them.

Sometimes, though, Pokemon were brought to us that had their hearts closed by the abuses they received. Even when we treated them, they would not return to the wild. Instead, they chose by their own will to remain with Lord N. I believe they understood him, and his dream. His ideal, after all, was a peaceful, gentle world…

When Team Plasma fell, at that time, when Lord N and Ghetsis were both defeated, Team Plasma disbanded. Those of us who were loyal to Lord N and the ideals of making the world better for Pokemon fled, scattered all over Unova, or were arrested. Most of us would have gone into hiding, or tried to continue to find our own work,elsewhere to continue the dream of helping Pokemon. 

Those who remained loyal to Ghetsis and his maniacal plans instead went to ground with him. Without being arrested, they made a resurgence two years later as the second Team Plasma, who had abandoned all pretense of the original’s noble goals. They were nothing more than a military force that wished to conquer the region, if not the world, for Ghetsis’ horrible ambitions.

When Ghetsis was defeated a second time… I don’t know for certain. I’ve heard conflicting reports. That he died at the end of that fight. That he was arrested. Or that by using Kyurem… His heart was destroyed- His body survived, but the man called “Ghetsis” was dead. Regardless, all accounts agree- Ghetsis is no longer a threat. With the remaining Seven Sages arrested, Team Plasma is no longer a threat to anyone. Anyone who seeks to cause trouble using their name has no relation- The power of Team Plasma is all accounted for, and can no longer cause trouble.

Lord N… I do not expect anyone to believe me, or understand. But I can swear that he was not evil. He was manipulated by Ghetsis from his childhood. I have theories, and suspicions, but no proof, so they are not worth posting here. But I can say this:

Once, I had the fortune of seeing his dream. While I was at the underground base, I saw him resting, with a Munna there. In the Munna’s smoke, I saw his dream- A kind, and gentle dream, wishing purely for the happiness of Pokemon.

I hope this was informative. I will do my best to answer any other further questions you have.

[seaweedbraens]

Saw a recent ask of yours about percabeth was sidelined during BoO and totally agree. I've read all of WCWSTHWAS and I think you did a better job than rick at giving the new AND old characters their time to shine. What's your opinion on the new and old characters and their "screentime" through the series?

VERY interesting question - and thank you for the compliments! personally, i am struggling in my own fic to give every character their Moment. i think jason and piper got theirs, and hazel, leo, and frank will get theirs next chapter. i feel like percabeth's getting all the attention overall ahahaha, but i can't stop myself. i JUST LOVE THEM SO MUCH-

hoo is an interesting series. it's very hard to balance a story like that because the way rick did it, he introduced a new cast of characters while keeping the older fan faves (percy & annabeth) still VERY pivotal to the main plot. with this structure, he had the hard task of keeping the new characters fresh and interesting, while also having to make sure that he doesn't do a complete disservice to percy and annabeth, who are already well-known and incredibly loved within the fandom.

it's HARD. i am struggling with it right now, and i have a lot of respect for rick for accomplishing it (partially). i know i criticize rick a lot, but he hit a perfect balance with the first three books of hoo. tlh gave us good stuff from jason, leo, and piper with the PERFECT sprinkling of percy mentions and annabeth acting as a support. the son of neptune gave us all the percy content we were missing + 2 new characters with GREAT origin stories. the mark of athena gave us annabeth. and percabeth. need i say more?

the next two books are FUCKED. rick tried to give hazel her moment, but she is completely overshadowed by percabeth in tartarus. frank gets magicked hot and loses me entirely. leo went from being my favorite new character to my least favorite with the addition of calypso. idk what piper does, and jason is just a vehicle to show off the new favorite - nico. and then rick adds in the nico reveal, which, okay?? i personally was never THAT invested in nico, and his coming out (which is incredible for the lgbtqia+ community, not denying that) came out of left field, didn't align with what we saw of him in pjo, and his coming out itself was forced. literally. which left me feeling...super off about it. if he was gonna come out, it should have at least been his choice.

my point is: the house of hades has SEVEN POVs, a HUGE step up from the usual three, which is...a choice. percabeth (and to some extent hazel) gets the spotlight. the lost hero trio doesn't really get too much screentime other than leo meeting calypso, so why did we get ALL OF THEIR povs? and then...nico is thrust into the spotlight?? why???? we already have 7 characters to focus on. why did we need another? a mess.

and then, in the blood of olympus, we get...five povs. jason, leo, and piper, and...reyna and nico?? MAKE IT MAKE SENSE. i did not give ONE FUCK about the journey back to camp with the athena parthenos, and even if it was necessary, why did we need BOTH reyna and nico's povs? at the MOST we just needed one. i HATED leo's new lovestruck ramblings. and the characters that we had grown up with, percy and annabeth, were shafted on a whole new level. i don't remember frank and hazel getting much time to shine either. it's offensive. it's genuinely offensive.

with those last two books, rick completely shatters the balance he spent the first three books doing VERY well. with the last two books, i lose complete sight of who the fuck to care about within the new cast of characters, and so the only ones i DID end up caring about were the ones i cared about all along: percy and annabeth! and what happens to them? they are completely wasted in the final book. after tartarus, we needed one of their povs to know that they were okay, and we got none of that. yeah, NO.

i know i went the fuck off on this and i didn't mean to, i swear! it just gets me so angry, because rick just...was not making good choices towards the latter half of the series. his choice to include percy and annabeth in an important role in the new series was to keep the old audience hooked while still attracting a new one, and he completely botched it. if he was going to make them lynchpin characters, he should have given them the respect they deserve in the final book. if he wasn't going to use them, he should have just left them in supporting roles, the way he did in toa. you can't get both, and i think hoo proves that.

in the end, none of the characters got a satisfying ending (imo), other than maybe nico (LOL), and the audience isn't fuckin happy. or maybe they are, and i'm just an old bitter grandma in her rocking chair screaming about things long forgotten.

(a very late disclaimer: this is all just my opinion. you can disagree with me, and that's cool!)

[stories-and-chaos]

Tarnished pt 7

[Helluva Boss AU where Blitzø’s childhood theft from Stolas’ palace is discovered and major consequences ensue for everyone involved.]

[18+ rating for language, sex, violence, alcohol consumption, abuse, and general Hellaverse-ness]

[CW: mention of nonconsent, self harm, alcohol abuse]

[Part 7/?? Word count 3178]

—————

The shower being the best place to think is universal across species and realities. Which was unfortunate for Blitzø. He didn’t want to think about anything at the moment. He rested his forehead against the tile wall and just let the water run down him.

The thought of Stolas marrying Stella made his stomach twist. The idea of that girl being around constantly was sickening. Maybe if Stolas would try to find another Goetia this whole thing wouldn’t be so bad.

Except that idea didn’t make him feel any better. Anyone marrying Stolas was an awful prospect. Someone not actively hostile joining the palace at least didn’t terrify him, but the anxiety over the wedding didn’t abate.

Satan’s taint, fuck this! Blitzø punched the wall, irritating his bruised knuckles. No way, I fucking can’t, shitshitshit. He couldn’t have feelings for… He couldn’t. Prince Stolas was demon royalty. He was Blitzø’s master. Despite everything they’d tried to subvert the bond Paimon had forced on them, it didn’t change the fact that Blitzø was Stolas’ slave. The prince had his life in his hands.

He couldn’t have feelings beyond this strange friendship they maintained. Stolas had his life. He shouldn’t have his heart too. And if it was too late for that, Blitzø could never let on that he did.

He stood in the shower long enough to get the worst grime off without scrubbing. The fact that he’d cried almost the whole time and only got out once he couldn’t anymore was incidental. He had enough energy to dry off and fall onto the twin bed in the nude.

back lte, see u wen I wak oop Blitzø texted to Stolas on his flip phone just before passing out.

It was just before noon when Blitzø woke up. He ached from horn tip to hoof. At some point in the night his tail had gotten tangled up in the blanket. He found Waffle Iron, the horse plushie Stolas gave him, in his arms. There was a text from Stolas, sent not too long after Blitzø sent his.

Welcome back. You don’t have to worry about being on time for anything tomorrow. I am up late myself after all. I found a document on creating portals and it gave me some insight on making them for travel between realms. I’ve been practicing most of the night and I’m eager to share what I’ve discovered if you’re interested. In any case, I’ll be getting some rest now as well. Goodnight Blitzø.

How Stolas was able to type these walls of text so fast was still a mystery. Whatever, at least he had some leeway this morning. As they had gotten older, Blitzø had been entrusted with more of Stolas’ personal care. That was generally in the morning, acting as a valet. Throughout the day he was something of a dogsbody, something of a bodyguard depending on the situation.

First up after getting dressed was to check if Stolas was up yet. He could hear hooting snores as he cracked open the prince’s bedroom door. Sounded like he’d stayed up even after sending that text. Blitzø grabbed food from the kitchen (hot dogs, cheese, and crackers) before heading back to Stolas’ chambers.

The prince was still asleep. With nothing else to do at the moment, he grabbed a novel from the book alcove. Blitzø had been expressly forbidden from doing any cleaning anywhere in the palace. Not that the staff hadn’t tried. But Blitzø’s version of cleaning was not up standard and often meant more work for the maid staff in the end. So while he wasn’t much of a reader, it was better than being alone with his thoughts.

Stolas finally woke up about an hour later. “Bout time.”

“Good morning to you too Blitzø.”

“It’s after one.”

“Oh. Good afternoon then?”

“There you go, Floof. You want food or clean up first?”

“If we could have lunch prepared while I’m dressing, that would be preferable. Have you eaten anything yet?” Stolas extracted himself from the pile of blankets and pillows as Blitzø pressed a buzzer to request food from the servants.

“I had something earlier.” He pulled an outfit out of Stolas’ wardrobe; shirt, trousers, and vest that could work with or without the long capes the owl demon liked. He joined Stolas in front of the mirrored vanity.

Stolas lifted an elegant eyebrow as he finished washing his face. “By ‘something’ do you mean a slice of cold lunch meat?” Now that he was so much taller than Blitzø (and essentially everyone in the palace) his friend handed him garments and helped with adjustments instead of actively dressing him.

“No,” Blitzø replied, sounding offended. “It was cold hot dogs and cheese. Some crackers too.” He stuck his tongue out at Stolas while buttoning up the vest.

Stolas didn’t miss the bruising on the imp’s knuckles or his split lip. Looks like some sort of altercation occurred overnight. He thought the protection from the bond was equally effective wherever Blitzø was. Evidently not. “Well that is an improvement.” He sat down so Blitzø could stand on a stool to fix his head feathers. Best to bring up the subject of injuries after food.

“Looks like you had an exciting time last night,” Stolas said as they finished lunch. He grasped Blitzø by the hand, examining the knuckles. “I thought my protection would be at the same strength everywhere. Are you hurt elsewhere?”

Oh shit. Blitzø paled and yanked his hand away. “Wasn’t on purpose. Some punkass Sinners wanted to make trouble. I got banged up a bit but it’s fine.” His shoulders hunched as he tried to pull away without leaving his seat.

Stolas blinked, confused. Blitzø was more agitated than he’d expected over a fist fight. “Did anything else happen? We can talk if you need to.”

Ohhhhhh nooooo that was the last thing Blitzø wanted. Deflect, deflect! “Crashed a party, had a good time. If it wasn’t for this fuckers on my way back it’d have been a great night. Thanks for letting me blow off some steam.”

“Ah, of course. I only wish I could do so more often.” Stolas was flustered. The imp kept insisting things were fine despite looking worn out and upset. He didn’t want to push too hard though. Maybe Blitzø just needed space. He didn’t get too much in general and Stolas didn’t want to take away the little privacy his friend had left.

Indeed after about a day, Blitzø seemed back to normal. Their routine went back to normal for a few days. Blitzø was mostly sleeping on the lounge or in his room but that wasn’t abnormal.

Stolas was relieved it wasn’t anything serious. At least until he had another “date” with Stella. This time they went to her family’s estate, so her older brother was in attendance as well.

Again, afterwards Blitzø asked to leave for the evening and although he wasn’t injured like before, he was just as prickly and closed off. He insisted he had fun, meeting other teenage imps and going to parties or occasionally clubs. Then all would be back to normal by the day after.

This cycle repeated for a few months, with Blitzø becoming increasingly closed off. He was spending as little time as possible in Stolas’ presence and not engaging in their normal conversations. Some mornings he’d obviously been fighting and others he’d overindulged with whatever drinks were available.

The owl demon realized how upsetting the whole situation was for him when he noticed he’d overpreened while Blitzø was out in the evening. The bald patch wouldn’t show when he wore long sleeves but he had to fight to not make it bigger. It was hard however. His best friend was becoming more miserable by the day. His fiancé made little effort to connect with him. Stolas just wanted to keep his mind off it by constantly adjusting and cleaning his feathers; at least that would relieve the emotional stress for a while.

After three months Stolas couldn’t take it anymore. He’d attended an afternoon tea party with Stella. Blitzø had remained at the palace. He couldn’t exactly mingle with the servants and following Stolas as he escorted Stella was nauseating.

Stolas let himself collapse into a chair in his sitting room. Normally he enjoyed his well fitted clothing (he never claimed to be modest about his appearance). Today it all felt claustrophobic and he stripped off everything except for his shirt and boxers. Not a dignified look for a prince of Hell. Dignity be damned, he had enough of dignity at that tea party.

Blitzø picked up the shed clothes. The cape would need wrinkles pressed out but the rest of the clothes needed a wash. He did minor tasks around the chambers to avoid conversation. As the light faded he asked, “Mind if I leave for the evening?” It was something of a routine now, for him to have a night out after a Stella related day. He had to get permission each time though.

Stolas sat upright suddenly. He’d hoped that without having to be around Stella, Blitzø wouldn’t feel the need to get out tonight. Apparently not. Stolas almost gave permission on reflex but managed to stop himself. He didn’t want Blitzø to come back miserable again.

“Actually I’d like your company tonight Blitzø.” He winced as the binding glowed faintly.

Blitzø felt the pressure on his neck. Satan’s asscrack! Stolas might not have intended the order but it was too late now. “Sure,” Blitzø managed to croak. “What did you have in mind, master?” Fuuuuuck why did he say that?

Stolas stumbled over his words. Blitzø had called him master before, but either in a teasing tone or flat and formal when among other Goetia. He’d never heard Blitzø’s voice with that much venom. “We could…watch a movie? Or talk? Or maybe…” he trailed off, not wanting to admit he wanted to cuddle up.

Blitzø took some time to respond. “A movie would be fun.” With the added benefit of preventing conversation. Especially if they picked something they hadn’t watched before. “Wanna use the theater?”

The palace had a private screening room on the first floor. It had half a dozen overstuffed recliners set up in front of a projection screen. There was a fully stocked candy and soda bar, along with a popcorn machine. With the kitchen on the same floor it wasn’t hard to request something more substantial as well.

The two had been known to fall asleep in there as kids, after eating too much junk food and marathoning movies (or as close as nine year olds can manage a movie marathon). They had also broken two chairs, as they made excellent springboards until collapsing.

When Paimon handed over ownership of the palace to Stolas, he opened up use of the theater to the house staff and security. Until then it had been restricted to only the family but Stolas felt it was silly for it to be unused most days. Staff could use it during their time off and they had to clean up after. Evidently it had become a popular spot for dates, since they didn’t have to leave the grounds and spend money to squeeze into a crowded cinema. It was a good thing the recliners were leather.

It seemed gatherings of friends enjoyed it too. A group of five imps and three Hellhounds was cleaning up as the credits rolled when Stolas and Blitzø arrived. “Your Highness!” The Hounds all snapped to attention, one dropped a wastebasket as he did so. “Apologies sir, we will be gone as soon as possible.”

“No rush, we’re still deciding on what to watch after all,” Stolas tried to reassure them.

“Heeeey Bliiiiitzø,” one of the imps called out. Scarlet, a maid about his age and one that was not only civil but very friendly with him. “Blitzø, hey man, haven’t seen you much lately!” That was Vex, one of the footmen a couple years older than him.

“Now that I can go all over Pride, I gotta get the full experience.” He put some sugary temptation in his voice. There were a few hotties working here and these two were at the top of the list. He slipped behind the bar to get his and Stolas’ favorite sodas and buckets of popcorn.

Vex leaned over the counter. “Well, so long as you don’t completely forget all the fun experiences here.” The other imp’s tail was swishing around, eventually the tip lifted high enough to brush Blitzø’s cheek.

Scarlet hopped up on the counter and looked back at him over her shoulder, her own tail wrapping around her coworkers. “We should have a movie night together, just the three of us.” Her tail moved to swirl around Blitzø’s arm. “Or just two of us.”

Jackpot! “For sure, can’t forget old friends.”

The group finished cleaning and left Stolas and Blitzø alone. Watching Blitzø flirt… Stolas felt a stab to the gut. He awkwardly cleared his throat. “There’s quite a few we haven’t watched yet, is there anything you’d like to see?”

“Nothin sappy.” Blitzø settled into a chair with his pile of goodies as Stolas started the film and dimmed the lights. The prince had selected an action comedy; nothing heart wrenching, enough humor to lighten the mood and a satisfying level of blood and explosions. They followed up with the less impressive sequel and the trilogy redeeming third movie. Between the second and third they had an intermission to order dinner from the kitchen. After the last movie it was almost midnight.

The clean up rule applied to them as well so they made sure to leave the theater in a fresh state for the next viewers. Blitzø was excitedly talking about the explosions and blood sprays as they headed back upstairs. Stolas for the most part was listening, laughing along with him. He hadn’t seen Blitzø this cheerful in months. I missed this.

When they reached Stolas’ chambers, Blitzø attempted to head to his own room. Stolas grabbed his hand, saying “I’d like to talk, please?” The imp followed. He was trying to figure out some way to get out of this conversation. He’d been avoiding Stolas just to get away from discussing…anything at all.

Blitzø sat in one of the chairs in the drawing room. Shoulders hunched, feet dangling (it was sized for a Goetia), and tail wrapped around himself, he hoped he made it clear he didn’t want to do this. Stolas sat across from him, twisting his fingers nervously. They both were silent, not sure how to start. After a few false starts from Stolas, Blitzø hopped out of his chair.

“Great, good talk, see you in the morning!”

“No! Blitzø! I … we can’t keep this up!”

“Keep what up?” The imp twitched in place, his back to Stolas. “Everything is fucking fine.”

“No it’s fucking not!” Blitzø jerked up. Stolas almost never cursed, much less raised his voice. “You’re miserable, becoming more so by the day and I can’t stand it! Please, talk to me Blitzø.” He didn’t respond. Instead he stayed rooted in place. “Blitzø I don’t want to order you to talk but-“

“Oh, you’re gonna pull that card prick?” Blitzø knew he was toeing the line, insulting Stolas, but he couldn’t help it.

“No! No, I’m sorry Blitzø, I don- I didn’t- I’ve never-“

“But you can Stolas.” Blitzø finally turned to face him. “Even if you never order me around, you can and I can’t say no, and I… I probably wouldn’t even try. To say no…” Dammitall, he did have feelings for the other demon.

Stolas’ pinprick pupils emerged, something that only rarely happened when he was feeling emotional. “What-“

“How am I supposed to talk to someone who can just drag everything they want out of me?! And what does it matter if I’m miserable? I fuck up everything anyway! So I might as well just be miserable and you can live your perfect prince life!”

“How is my life perfect?!” Stolas’ voice cracked on the last word. “My father hates me so much he made my only friend a slave, I’ve got to marry a vapid harpy who already hates my only friend, who is slowly destroying himself and I can’t do anything to fix any of it!”

Stolas had risen to his feet but now he slumped on the floor, roughly at eye level with Blitzø now. “I don’t know if I can ever break the chain my sadistic father put on you. And it’s grinding you into pieces and me with you because you really are my friend and I like you and I’ll never be able to make you happy…” his words lost their usual deliberate cadence, turning into a babbling flow.

“I know you like me, that’s why your dad was such an asshat.”

“I mean… I think I like you Blitzø. More than friends, as they say. Except you’re bound to me. Trying to be anything other than friends is… You can’t say yes if you can’t say no. I have to settle for making you comfortable.”

Every thought vanished from Blitzø’s head like Sinners during Extermination Day. “You’re fucking with me,” he said with that growling hiss.

Stolas shook his head; it hung down as if he couldn’t support it. “Why else would I be trying so hard with Stella? She despises both of us. But we’re all going to be stuck together and getting her to be civil is all I can think of to do.”

That’s why he keeps bringing me? Blitzø dropped to the floor, near Stolas but facing away. “I…Floof, I don’t want you to marry anyone,” he mumbled. Stolas’ hearing was excellent; he could whisper and the prince would hear him. “I thought it was just because she sucks, but anyone marrying you… it fucking sucks.” He looked over his shoulder, barely peeking out. “I think I like you too, Stolas. How messed up is that?”

“As messed up as a Goetia liking an imp. At the very least. I think the only thing more messed up is an angel liking the first woman.”

Blitzø finally looked straight at Stolas. “You did not just compare us to the King and Queen of Hell.”

“Did I? It was just a hypothetical scenario.”

“Yeah right punk. I know you better than that,” Blitzø shoved Stolas’ shoulder. He was rewarded with Stolas’ hooting chuckles. “I’ve had one too many emotions for today. Let’s talk tomorrow.”

“Of course. Logistics are best sorted in daylight.” The two hesitated, not sure where to go from here. Blitzø finally asked. “Can I sleep here tonight?”

“Please do,” came the instant reply.

Neither of them were up for more than sleep. Even when they started getting physical they both went at a slow pace, to ensure they could both say yes. But the next morning Blitzø was wrapped around Stolas’ back, with Stolas’ arms clinging to his.

A/N : I realize this is probably a more mature conversation than two teenagers would have but I haven’t been a teen in [redacted for old] and I don’t feel like attempting it. We got plot to move people!

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[tiktaalic]

Been watching Supernatural for the first time and am currently in Jo's era. I love Jo, fly into a mild rage at the show's treatment of her most eps., etc., but it's also reeeeeally funny to watch this first sustained attempt at giving Dean a romance with a woman unfold. At the point I've reached they're so clearly going for that, but every time they attempt a Romance Scene they choose they worst trope you've ever heard of and you watch Dean and Jo take turns initiating but they're BOTH so sullen about it. Then the director goes 'okay now have a sad about your father talk' and Jensen goes 'oh yay! approximating dead father emotions is in my wheelhouse' while Alona presumably goes 'finally a chance to act instead of receiving misogynies' and all of a sudden they have a genuine interesting dynamic. And this is so blatant that from what I hear the show eventually just gives up on the romance.

With the very entertaining result that the Man Show's first attempt at romance spanning beyond an episode ends up looking more than anything like two gays halfheartedly trying to perform heterosexuality and accidentally becoming friends along the way.

YEAH the Jo and dean is quite strange all the way through. I remember hitting it in my rewatch and being really shocked that (iirc) jo is the one who initiates it? And is flirting with dean while dean is so so so in the dead dad depression dumps. It goes straight over his head. He doesn’t engage at all. It’s like. Jo voice. We don’t often get big tall handsome men here. Dean voice. Can you help us l track down a demon. And then a few eps from that she stops flirting with him and HE starts flirting with her in the grossest ways possible while she actively spurns him. Because he’s a misogynist. I know Eric Et Al talked about how basically. They added jo to pander to women. And then women were like If you give dean a girlfriend I’m killing everyone in this room and then myself. So they backpedaled on the romance. But I also don’t feel 100% kosher accepting straight from the misogynist’s mouth that CRAZY FANGURLS FORCED them to change how they wrote women. I mean I don’t doubt there were women who hated jo I’m quite familiar with the woman who hates every woman on tv. But. I also am familiar with how Eric wrote women. So I feel like this disclaimer I’ve just put in is necessary. Point is. It’s a crazy dynamic especially when they put a neat little bow on it in season 7 that says Btw dean thought of her as a little sister and jo had a crush on him because he was a Cool Older Man. It’s a hodgepodge of intentions. So it’s like. Jo flirts with dean and dean doesn’t care and then deancflirts with jo and she doesn’t care and he tries to sleep with her and she calls him lame and then jo dies and dean kisses her forehead and feels guilty about her death and then in an alternate reality he’s her brother and then Ghost Jo comes back and says I had a huuuuuuge crush on you and Dean says I always thought of you as my little sister. Comes off Really strange when you look at all of it together.

[parkminijiminie]

i want to say something i’ve been thinking about for a while and figured this would be a good forum for it since a lot of people are discussing how they feel about how Jungkook has changed during this solo era. I think this is something that I thought I was struggling with alone but its starting to look like its not the case based on everything I’ve read outside of Twitter/X (that’s a whole new world these days, unfortunately).

I think what a lot of us are experiencing with Jungkook is really tied to the parasocial relationship we have with BTS, as well as cognitive dissonance. Since I became an army, Jungkook is the member I’ve least been able to connect with at an emotional level, after Tae. Ironically, we have a lot of things in common, including our intense adoration for Jimin. Despite that, I have always thought of him as someone kind, talented, passionate, and ambitious. None of those things have changed so, why is it so difficult for me to be interested or engaged with any of the things he’s doing nowadays? He is obviously the most active member right now, and everytime I go on twitter there is a lot of content and a lot of people reacting to that content. 80% of the time I feel annoyed by this and then I get this very guilty feeling of “why do I feel this way?”

I don’t know if others are like this but in my experience the more I am exposed to something I’m not that interested in the more I start to resent it. Unfortunately, I think that’s been the case with JK since every time I go online in army spaces I just see things about him and not Jimin (who is obviously my bias lol). When you add the whole pseudo bad boy schtick on top (something I’m 100% turned off by) then it starts to become really annoying to engage with his content and all of the overwhelmingly positive (i.e. horny) reactions to it all the time (on army twt that is).

Additionally, my “attraction” for BTS really was based on this perception that they are men that provide this sense of safety, unlike most other men. Their music wasnt fixated on “getting” women or bragging about them, in fact the whole opposite, there was this profound feeling of appreciation of women, among the other topics theyve discussed in the past like mental health. So now, that I’m being spoonfed this music that is exactly what I don’t like from any male artist, then there’s this sort of subconscious feeling of betrayal.

I feel like most of us are trying to convince ourselves to look past everything he’s putting out because he’s someone we’ve admired a lot. But honestly that just puts a lot of pressure on him when instead that we probably need to do is just not engage with things we’re not interested in. I know that’s exactly what I would do with any other artist so the fact that I’m trying to force him to fit into the box of “things I like” when he doesnt anymore is kind of unfair to him too.

There are many reasons that justify why he is choosing to act like this now. I’m a couple months older than he is and I’m also struggling to figure out who I really am and what I want to do with my life. I think its fine for JK to go through this journey and I get why he would need to make these mistakes in order to actually mature. I’ve just realized that the best thing for me to do is distance myself from it without feeling like a solo or an anti just bc I don’t resonate with what he’s putting out and am not interested in engaging with that all the time.

Anon, I love your mind and I think you hit the nail on the head here. In fact, you even helped me realize a few things that have been bugging me ever since Seven was released.

Firstly this: "He is obviously the most active member right now, and everytime I go on twitter there is a lot of content and a lot of people reacting to that content. 80% of the time I feel annoyed by this and then I get this very guilty feeling of “why do I feel this way?” - I have been asking myself this question for months now and you just gave me the answer.

The fact it, that while other members' debut and eras lasted a month or two at most and then sort of died down, I feel like I've been bombarded with Jungkook's content for months now, even during Tae's release. Even since Seven came out, JK is continuously everywhere - Twitter, TikTok, Instagram and almost all the posts I ever see anymore are of him, despite me also biasing Jimin. As you said, since I also don't have any interest in this "pseudo bad boy schtick", but was basically forced to consume both it and "the overwhelmingly positive (i.e. horny) reactions to it" all the time, it became tiring and annoying to me as well.

On top of that, as you wrote, BTS was a safe place for me , too. As a female presenting person, I am so tired of listening to music and consuming content about men “getting” women or bragging about them" (brilliantly said). I really felt safe and secure with BTS, as artists who respect, understand and value not just women, but all genders, and by extenstion I felt safe in the fandom. But the fandom itself changed with the release of Seven. It was never as horny, deranged or overly sexualizing, as it is now. For example, I feel like I have been literally followed everywhere by comments about "champagne confetti" and "Jungkook is a confirmer head pusher".

For me, the type of music JK does now is truly exactly what I don't like listening to from other male artists and the fact that it was coming from a member of BTS, was jarring to me. Rather than it being a "light playful shock", it really was more of "a subconscious feeling of betrayal", as you put it, and I am only now realizing it.

I am not a person to make myself try to like something I don't, but since it was Jungkook doing this music, I still subconsciously have been feeling guilty for not supporting him. Even though I don't actively force myself to listen to it, there is still this urge in me to do it, because this is BTS and I have always supported them, and yet I can't seem to do it, which adds more to my guilt and frustration.

I think these feeling really are due to our parasocial relationship with BTS and Jungkook, who for some of us have been an important part of our lives for years. But honestly, as you said, this truly isn't fair to Jungkook as an individual and an artist. Firstly, this despite JK being a part of BTS, this isn't BTS music. This is Jungkook as a solo individual artist. Whatever reason he had to want to choose this path for his career, it is his right and prerogative. It is time some of us, including me, to accept that the Jungkook we see now and his music, are simply not for us anymore and to distance ourselves from it. Even though I am a heterosexual person , exactly at the age to not mind songs with such adult themes, I actually feel too old for this type of music now. It is maybe best suited for someone in their early 20s, than in their 30s. It simply isn't for me.

We should let go of the guilt for not being able to support Jungkook the way we are used to doing for years with BTS and simply let him live they way he wants to. For his own peace, but above all, for ours.

When BTS reunite again some day, we will have our safe place again.