#also had to add a love confession because I'm predictable

[gayofthefae]

My surprise at the I love you speech was mostly sourced at my first watch casual interpretation of Byler.

Why is Mike behaving this way towards Will? Oh, he reciprocates and is being defensive about it. That would make since. The one thing is how are they gonna break down is relationship with El?...................

oh. like that.

So I really thought it was a done deal I was like "I can't see where this is going but of the two, who has a shittier arc if Mike doesn't have feelings for them. That's who he ends up with" and then was like ok that's the what I just don't know the "how" and then the next episode they GAVE ME THE HOW. So my huge confusion was that the ily speech essentially TOOK AWAY THE HOW???

The thing about that is taking away the "how" doesn't contradict the "what". I knew Byler was endgame when I believed Mike could tell El he loved her in 4x02 just as much as I did at the end of 4x09.

But it's funny because since 4x02, my thought has never been "wow, guess they aren't doing Byler!" It was "wow, guess they're taking a different route to Byler than I expected!"

It makes sense though in retrospect. In simple terms, the pieces were falling into place too early and they need to get together in season 5. (I also didn't know there was a season 5 + past seasons have never had cliff hangers so that adds to it I guess lol). I was taken aback because I understood the destination with my only apprehension being - honestly just curiosity about the path. Then they laid down a path. Then they were like "haha lol that path was unrelated! Psych!" and I was left curious "what's the path then?" with the additional question "what was that for?"

And then I remembered Cyrano and the rest is history but the POINT IS. Since believing in it, aside from occasional queerbait fear, I have never had Byler doubt based on ANYTHING in the story. Nothing in Netflix's "Stranger Things" has given me Byler doubt. I was only surprised to be wrong at how they were getting together.

I thought they were doing the "Mike notices Will overenthusiastically correcting his self-deprecation" romance trope when they were doing Cyrano so I was confused. But as I always say, they were only failing at a goal they didn't have. Was that a failure to execute that romance trope? Yes! Because they were never trying to! I may consider it doubt, actually, during the confession, but then because nothing else resolved in the season either I was like "Oh...that wasn't supposed to be it oh ok that makes more sense"

Anyway, now I know that and this is a long winded way of saying the only incorrect predictions I ever had in regards to Byler were how they would get together. From the second Byler was introduced to me as a viable option of an ending, Milkvan felt entirely illogical as an option and only proved to be moreso as the season progressed. Byler is endgame. Sometimes I'm wrong about how, but that isn't Byler doubt. It's an adjustment and then we are back, baby. The biggest proof against Byler is what I interpreted on my watch (once I realized there would be a season 5) as "a different direction to Byler than I originally thought".

[candlecoveisland]

Episode 3: Love and Hate

Oh shit.

OH, SHIT--

NEW MIIS

As promised, I added Calvery, Dr. Heartfelt, Ms. Laughingstock, Sunny, Hoody Hans, and ManBearPig.

ROMANCE

We have our first crack ship of the game!

Of course, I helped this poor lovestruck fool and gave him advice on how to woo Sunny using his best assets.

The man can hit those high notes.

Admittedly, I'm not sure how this will work out long-term seeing that they have opposite personalities (Skin-Taker is outgoing and Sunny is independent) and there are (unverified) claims in the TL community that opposite personalities don't make good couples, but I don't know. You can really never know what'll happen in this game. In any case, they currently seem very happy together.

FRIENDSHIP

Percy wanted to "introduce" Poppy and Milo, but for some reason, they were deeply confused by each other, so they didn't become friends that time.

Milo met up with Poppy again later, so they did eventually end up making friends.

Janice and Calvery are best friends?? I have no idea when this happened.

Percy and Skin-Taker had a MASSIVE fight. What it was about, I have no idea.

Thankfully, Janice intervened, and they made up.

Poppy told me that he and Percy don't seem to be getting along that well. I told him that his and Percy's friendship was nothing special, and (surprisingly to me) he said that he wondered if there was a way for them to become closer, so I have hope for them.

Skin-Taker tried to make friends with Milo, but they didn't really hit it off. He asked me later if I thought he and Milo would make good friends, and I told him that their relationship wouldn't be anything special. (I did this for Milo's safety.)

I predict ManBearPig and Hans will become best friends. They've been each other's only friends for quite a while (two people tried to make friends with MBP and failed, and nobody has even bothered trying to make friends with Hans), and I always see them hanging out together.

They're my broTP.

EVERYTHING ELSE

Basically everything is open now that I've accomplished most milestones in this game (add 10 Miis, solve a decent amount of problems, have a decent mix of males and females, have someone confess their love).

Also, more rankings on the rankings board have been unlocked.

Orange is the popularity ranking (which is based on how many friends a Mii has), and green is the pampered ranking (which is based on how much attention I give a Mii). (Percy, Skin-Taker, and Horace are at the top because they're the ones always asking me to buy them shit--)

Oh! And another thing that has been unlocked is Quirky Questions!

What is it with people asking me for grits?? Janice asked me for grits too last episode. Is CandleCove Island in the south???

On the topic of food, Skin-Taker seems to have a problem with candy.

I feel like Milo is turning into a finance bro. I gave him this snazzy jacket, and he's always talking into this cell phone I gave him, and one time he asked me to look into his head (this a normal Tomodachi Life occurrence btw), and he was thinking about graphs??

(Oh, he also asked me for hair dye btw, that's why his hair is green.)

Speaking of looking into people's heads, Calvery was pondering a cactus (?), and Ms. Laughingstock had no thoughts, head empty.

Also, short announcement: I left out a lot of less-interesting stuff relating to friendships and food, clothing, etc. that I give the Miis just because the huge blocks of text are kind of unsightly (and they're HUGE blocks of text now that I have so many Miis), so I'll start recording that information in separate logs. Also, like last time, bonus footage will be its own post, and that's probably going to be the usual for this series.

Anyway! Next episode, Sea-Dog, Salty Jojo, Banana King, Phillip Fly, Joe Shortlegs, and Susan Siren will join in on the drama. See you then!

[kkf]

I’ve woken up with Ava Max’s “Sweet But Psycho” chorus in my head the last few days. My subconscious is definitely not trying to tell me something.

To be specific, it was the chorus:

Oh, she's sweet but a psycho

A little bit psycho

At night, she's screamin'

"I'm-ma-ma-ma out my mind"

Not the most comforting lyrics to wake up to. While contemplating my current mental health, I considered how my therapist would ask me to deconstruct that particular thought.

Which, because of my recent Buffy rewatch brain, eventually led me to think about how badly Buffy needed a therapist. In 144 episodes, she had only three brushes with mental health professionals. I’m going to set aside 6.14 “Normal Again,” because that not only does that episode merit its own post, but I also don’t have enough chocolate on hand to grapple with the mind fuck that is that episode. I’m just looking at 3.04 “Beauty and the Beast” and 7.07 “Conversations with Dead People.”

In season 3, Buffy is recovering from the implosion of her relationship with Angel. As a Bangel fan, it hurts me to write this, but the relationship from the point where Angel loses his soul is a metaphor for an abusive relationship (dude tries to kill her, her friends, her classmates, end the world…not a healthy route to take a relationship).

So as the season starts Buffy is traumatized from losing Angel and Jenny, as well as being the one who had to sacrifice the person she loved to save the world. After her three month sabbatical to LA, our girl CLEARLY needed some professional help to sort through everything. And for once, Buffy gets some of this help in the form of Mr. Platt, the school guidance counselor.

Buffy’s conversation with Platt is impressive when one considers how much ground he covers in such a short amount of time.

Of course, in true Buffyverse fashion, this help from a qualified professional only lasts about the 15 minutes it takes for him to become a victim of our latest monster of the week, a Jekyll-Hyde classmate whose own abusive relationship is meant to serve as a foil for that of Buffy and Angel. Buffy never gets professional help again. Until Holden, Buffy’s former classmate-turned therapist-turned newly risen vampire.

(Confession: I have a soft spot for Holden, because the actor who plays him was also in one of my favorite episodes of Firefly.)

Now Holden’s therapy session is an interesting blend of analysis and fisticuffs, as he IS a newly turned vampire and is, thus, evil. As he reminds us.

For this reason, Holden has a slightly more confrontational style when getting Buffy to open up. He challenges her, pushes her not to hold back. And as a result Buffy is open about her inferiority-superiority complex, which really, he says, is the root of the loneliness that Buffy feels. Being the Slayer makes her feel superior to her friends, however her performance as the Slayer makes her feel isolated and inferior. As Holden states, “it all adds up to you being alone.” But then goes on to argue that “everybody is until you die.”

Thinking about loneliness and isolation as recurring themes for Buffy, both of which are experiences trauma survivors tend to experience, I’m reminded about a recent YouTube short (which was originally a TikTok) that I saw which stated two pieces of food for thought. The first was that “the reason why we self sabotage is because it allows us to predict what is going to happen which gives us the illusion of control over our own pain” and the second was that “they’re not your type, they’re your pattern.”

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fx12Lxxojvo

Buffy’s sabotaging patterns of behavior (choosing men who are centuries older than her for example, or men who she is in no danger of falling in love with) offer her the illusion of control over what kind of pain she is inviting into her life.

Additionally, Buffy’s patterns of behavior - the self isolation, the relationships she chooses, all of them work as ways of protecting herself. She chooses emotional isolation from her friends as a method of protecting herself from the possibility that they won’t understand the choices that she’s making or that they will call her out on repeating sabotaging patterns of behavior.

It’s not a coincidence that it’s someone outside her immediate social circle who calls her out on her pattern of choosing relationships where she doesn’t have to completely open up. As Holden is someone to whom she has weak social ties, Buffy is more likely to be receptive to new ideas coming from him than from someone within her close social circle.

Often, especially when starting therapy, the fact that the person you’re speaking with is someone who has no “horse in the race” enables a patient to be more open, not just to being completely honest with the therapist, but also to receiving feedback. With my own therapy experience, having a complete stranger validate that while my reactions to certain triggers were not disproportionate, they didn’t make me crazy. They didn’t make me broken.

I wish, looking back, that Buffy had more of an opportunity to interact with mental health professionals. The metaphor of the show is “growing up.” How much more interesting and helpful would it have been for young viewers to have seen that the patterns we can find ourselves in can be challenged. That we can change. That with a little help, we can stop feeling so “psycho.”

[neowinestainedress]

- so what is hyuck wearing? nothing? oh fuck me. shirtless hyuck baking oh my god I DONT EVEN WANT TO STSRY

tbh i think i pictured him with just a shirt he was wearing underneath but you know what... i love this different point of view!!!

- of course, a relationship without an actual title, with hyuck, honestly i will take anything too.

unfortunately i love this dynamic way too much and i think it shows... oops...

I'M SORRY BUT I LOVE HOW YOU SAID "here's the crucial part" ten times lmao i'm sorry for making you suffer

- I SCREAMMMMM LIKE HOW ARE YOU SO GOOD WITH THIS??? 😭😭😭 like after all the narration and you put these 6 words in one simple paragraph, i just-- IT JUST FIT AND IT FIT PERFECTLY I LOVE YOU SO MUCH THANK YOU SO MYXH FOR WIRTING YEAH THIS IS MY SUSDEN CONFESSION IN THE MIDDLE OF RWADINF

THANK YOU OMG AOJSOAOSA

- YALL ARE ACADEMICALLY RIVALS BUT NOT RIVALS IN ROMANTIC FEELINGS OH MY GOD BUT YES I UNDERSTAND THAT BUT GOD THE TENSION WHY ARE SMART PEOPLE DOESNT KNOW HOW TO COMMUNICATE GODDAMN

it's the way this time it wasn't even about miscommunication but about pride ahskajsa

- lemme tell you both the answer, you two want to do it together. YEAH I KNOW THE CAREER PATH IS SO PERSONAL AND INDIVIDUAL BUT since you two are working on it together and it suddenly sparks the interest, it's because the two of you work on it together.

CONGRATULATIONS! you predicted the future

- STFU YOU TWO 😭😭 the way i want this to end here cuz lets be real im not ready for another misunderstanding (which i think there wil be or im just traumatised with hits different but i also want this to be longer CUZ YOU WRITE IT SO GOOD AND I JUST WANT THEM TO BE HAPPY BUT I ALSO WANT TO FEEL THE ANGST CUZ THAT IS WHAT BUILD FOR OH GODDDD IM SO INDECISIVE

omg i really traumatized people with hits different 😭😭😭 but i've been good this time, i think i should be forgiven

- FUCK YEAH I LOVE THE EVERLASTING ACADEMIC RIVALS EVEN WHEN ROMANTIC FEELING ALREADY OFFICIALLY INVOLVED

THIS!!! i hate when rivals/enemies get together and the tension dies i needed to make sure this wasn't the case!

-MY PARENTS???? GIRL THEY ARE MY PARENTS!!!!! - SHUT UP SHUT UPPPP OH MY GODDDDD THIS IS NOT HITS DIFFERENT 2.0 I CHEERS (well hits different does get their happy ending BUT OH MY GOD TO GET IT ON THE SAME FIC RIGHT AWAY GLDHSLSHSLSHSKS GOODBYE SANITY)

wait is this a pov question or am i just stupid and you're saying you love them so much they're you're parents 😭 I DON'T ALWAYS GO AROUND CAUSING HEARTBREAK I PROMISE!!!

DON'T WORRY! i love reading about your thoughts and it doesn't matter if it comes out a year after i posted the fic, i will always enjoy reading it! i'm glad you liked it, i love academic rivals to lovers but i'm also picky with this trope so to know someone who enjoys it loved this fic makes me really happy.

SO PEOPLE GET THE DETAILS I PUT IN THIS OMG THANK YOU!!! i mean i know it's stupid because if you bias haechan this are known things and i know that's why people don't come gag in my asks or comments and be like "omg you put this" but i still have to think about it and to write everything in a way it makes sense so i'm happy when people point it out 😭 OKAY I EVEN HAVE A SCENE OF THEM CALLING THEMSELVES WITH NICKNAMES "BEAR" AND "HONEY" THAT WOULD BE SO CORNY BUT ALSO CUTEEEEEE no no i agree and i LOVE THIS OMG it's canon that that's how they have each other saved in the contacts idc

the friendship wasn't even that present at the start but i really wanted her to find a group of people so here we are... yeah lmao i kinda forgot about it and i have the profiles half done (tbh i only had in mind to post the after of haechan and the mc, but simply because i have to make two of them if i want to add the reader and it would take time) i also have to post the song project design. i'll try to post it next week!

thank you so so so much for this! you have no idea how happy it makes me to know you like my writing so much! (toxic!hyuck is something we don't talk about around here (no but seriously we came a long way lol)) love you! 💙

wave | lee donghyuck (part two)

part 1 | masterpost | full fic not split in two

pairing: lee donghyuck x fem reader genre: college au, academics rivals to lovers, kinda fake dating, forced to work together on a project, smut, fluff, humor (idk), music major!haechan, music major!mc | not really requested but thank you 💌 anon for the inspo summary: your indifference toward Lee Donghyuck, also known as Haechan, becomes rivalry when he decides to sabotage you. The battle turns into a war, the war turns into a plan, and the plan, well, the plan fails miserably... or succeeds wonderfully. After all, it’s all about points of view. Or, Haechan thinks he found a way to distract you and be better than you, but doesn’t think it thoroughly and screws it up. warnings: smut, weed/alcool consumption, thigh riding, oral (receiving, giving), unprotected sex, teasing, etc | inclusivity notes: reader wears different hairstyles (no mention of texture, type and color), no mention of body type (but haechan lifts her a few times), no mention of skin color, no use of y/n wc: 20.3k (out of 42k)

a/n: here’s the second part. please if you liked it leave feedback (comments, reblogs, asks), i love knowing your opinions and it keeps me motivated to keep posting my writing. enjoy!

After too many dates, too many studying sessions together, and in general too much time spent together —even with his group of friends— you feel like this is a relationship that simply hasn’t been named, yet. Something about everything doesn’t feel like just sex and hate.

You’re fine like this, for once believing you can let loose a little and still do well in your studies.

Haechan, instead, thinks his plan is going amazingly. He knows he has you distracted, he knows he takes away your time, and he knows everything is technically perfect. But the plan is not the best made of his life, and the more time passes, the more he forgets about it, and the more he thinks about you.

He never planned to use you, that had to be clear. He just wanted to distract you with sex —something you both wanted to have— and give you a boyfriend experience so you could write the song in the best way possible. But in doing all that, he is more caught up in you —and not only because of the plan, he is just caught up in you— than in his studies.

It’s nine pm on Sunday after he dropped you home around four pm this afternoon. He made you meet his girl friends too for lunch and then you went back to his place to stay together for a while. But even if you spent almost the entire day together, he still misses you.

He rolls on his back as he goes into his contacts to text you again, he doesn’t have to scroll down, you’re second on the list since he last annoyed you forty minutes ago but you still haven’t replied. 

haechan: can you answer me?

haechan: i miss you : (

haechan: you didn’t even let me eat you out

haechan: you looked so pretty in that skirt i think it looks better with my head underneath it

haechan: fuck and now i’m hard thinking about you

mortal enemy: the only hard thing should be the books you should be studying on, remember we have a test tomorrow?

“Fuck,” he screams, sitting up. “What?”

He never forgets these things. He always writes them down in his agenda that he maniacally reads every day to make sure he’s always on time with his studying schedule. He can’t have forgotten about it. But, apparently, he did.

His thumb quickly wipes to call you and your answer doesn’t let him wait.

“I’m studying,” you huff annoyed as you pick up his phone call right away.

“Why would you go out with me if tomorrow we have a test?”

Your chuckle reaches his ear through the phone before he gets to hear your voice again. “Why not?”

“Don’t you want to be the top one? What about your grades? This adds up for the finals.” Panic fills his voice, he’s hoping you remembered just now and haven’t been studying since you went back, but you’re too relaxed for that to be true.

“Yeah, I know,” you reply, too calmly for his liking. Was his plan working? No, because you knew about it. And he completely erased the test, too busy thinking about you.

“And you go out?” He asks again as anxiety starts to take over him.

“Why would I lock myself up before a test? It’s not even that serious. There’s the topic you pick, and then like four questions that will surely be the main things we discussed in class, Professor Kim only knows one way of making tests.”

He groans, he can’t believe you’re always so ahead of him. “How do you know these things?”

“I use my brain,” you reply nonchalantly.  

“So you started studying… when you got home?”

“Last week.”

“Last week? Are you kidding me?” He screams so loud that he’s sure you have to move the phone from your ear.

You sigh, rubbing your temples, Haechan knows it, you always do that when he pisses you off somehow. “You didn’t open the book at least once until now?”  

“I…” I would usually read through the notes at least once a week, but I’ve been too busy. “I’ve… I read the notes, until some weeks ago. I got busy, okay?”

“Were you perhaps distracted by something Hyuck?” You ask teasingly, and he can see you twirl the end of your hair in your fingers while your tongue pokes at your cheek.

“Nothing distracts me,” he mutters, frowning even if you can’t see him.

“Then hang the call and try to read the notes at least, I’ll send you the recordings of the lessons, play them all night maybe something will stick to your brain.”

“Okay, bye. Wish me good luck, please,” he says, and you chuckle. “No seriously, don’t manifest against me, I need all your good energy.”

“I will, Hyuck. Just give it a quick read and then try to get as much sleep as possible. You have a brain and you’re smart with it, it’s better for you to be active tomorrow than force information that just won’t get in, alright?”

He hums, weirdly feeling a bit calmer at your words. “’kay, goodnight, babe.”

“Goodnight.”

Haechan sighs, slumping on the bed, boner long gone and anxiety on his chest, until the screen lights up again and a few messages from you show up.

mortal enemy: 10 audios + 10 files ‘music theory notes’ sent the audios anyway but my *perfect* notes should be enough to not make you pull up an all-nighter also don’t stress too much, I appreciate the act of chivalry to make me top this class grades again :;

He forgot about an exam, he didn’t study for it, yet he’s smiling like an idiot because of you.

Haechan’s screwed.

“So, how did it go?” You ask, blocking Haechan as soon as the bell rings and Professor Kim dismisses the class, letting you know the results will be in next week.

Haechan glares at you, and you suck your teeth. “Come on, it wasn’t that difficult,” you say, sitting on his desk, as he looks for something in his bag.

“I did great, I just don’t want to admit your notes are perfect and were enough to save my ass,” he says, and you can’t hold back the smile.

“You’re welcome,” you say, standing up and kicking him playfully with a swing of your hips.

“Hey! You could’ve made me fall,” he jokes, grabbing his bag before taking a step back so you can lead the way out of there. “And thank you.”

You chuckle, lowering your head to hide that dumb grin on your face. “You know, I wanted to ask you why we never revisited music theory but I thought you wanted to do it on your own, maybe you were scheming something against me.”

“What? I would never scheme against you,” he says as you start walking to lunch.

You stare at him with a raised brow, and he huffs. “It was in the past and you did it too. Also, what would I scheme?”

“I don’t know, maybe you sneaked into his office and stole the test to already know the answers?”

“That would be cheating, not beating you. There’s no fun in that,” he says, holding the door of the cafeteria open for you.

“You’re such a fair rival,” you joke as you head to the buffet to grab something to eat.

“Wait,” he stops you when your plates are full. “Why don’t you sit at our table? I hate seeing you eat alone.”

“Have you ever considered I can’t stand how loud your friends are?”

“Oh come on, you already deal with them when you come to my place.”

“Exactly.”

Haechan huffs, standing in front of you to stop you from going toward your table. “We can go to yours today.”

You furrow, lightly tilting your head to the side. “We don’t have anything to study.” You try to decipher his expression and think if you could get so distracted to forget something you had to work on or revisit.  “The song?”

He shakes his head. “I might…” he pauses, trying to find a way to say what he wants to say that’s not so humiliating, but then he gives up with a heavy sigh that rolls from his lips. “Okay, I need help.”

“You?” You scream, attracting some attention on you, and Haechan glares at you, pulling you to the sides so that the curious gazes can linger away from you.

“Yes, me,” he replies through gritted teeth. “It’s just a small thing, but I don’t get it.”

You smirk smugly and he rolls his eyes. “Fine, I can’t wait to tutor you,” you reply, starting to walk to his group of friends’ table.

“Why can’t I ever win with you?” He whispers, shaking his head and following you.

You’re not sure Haechan told you the truth. He is smart but he isn’t the best actor ever, and when he came to your place to try to understand that small thing he didn’t understand in sociology, you were pretty sure it was just an excuse. You explained it in less than five minutes, he got it too quickly and immediately started messing around.

You don’t mind it, though. You enjoy spending some time with him. He’s a good distraction. Surely you would’ve fixed some notes or listened to some lessons instead of… well, instead of being on his lap with your fingers in his hair and his hands on your ass, grinding on him.

You hold in a moan when he concentrates on your neck, kissing, biting, and sucking the spot that makes you shiver. And you’d like to go on like this, but you need more. So you shift on top of his thigh, while yours presses against his hardening dick and makes him growl.

“What are you do—”

“Shh,” you shush him quickly, pressing your thumb on his lips before replacing it with your lips. “Ouch,” you gasp when he bites on your lower lip. “Why did you do that?”

Haechan chuckles, shrugging before leaning close to you again. “Why not?”

You frown but have no intention of carrying it any further. You can feel your panties stick to your skin and you just want to come, not really caring if it’s just like this.

But the moment of intimacy, if you could call it that, gets interrupted by the buzzing of his phone in his pocket.

“God, just answer,” you yell when Haechan ignores the third call but whoever is on the other line has no intention to stop trying.

Haechan rolls his eyes as his right hand leaves your ass to search through his pocket and huffs annoyed when he sees the name on the screen.

“Jaemin, what?” Haechan groans as you keep moving on his thighs, ignoring his deadly glare. “No, I’m busy.”

You faintly make out an angry reply from the other side, but you don’t care enough to understand what Jaemin’s saying.

“No, I can’t go out with you.”

“We can,” you reply loudly enough so that Jaemin can hear while Haechan scowls at you again, muttering a scold under his breath, but his anger is quickly addressed to his friend on the other side.

“Yes, I’m with her,” he huffs, rolling his head back, trying to stop your movements but failing. “Don’t ask questions. And yes, fine, fine.”

When he hangs the call after mumbling a quick, annoyed goodbye, you chuckle. “Thought you didn’t want to hear my annoying friends?” It’s all he asks, leaving a small, teasing slap on your asscheek.

“What were we supposed to do? Stay inside all day?”

“Yes, we have everything here,” he says, spreading his arms to point around. “And you’re still grinding on me.” He looks down, eyes narrowing as he stares at your hips. 

“I’ll finish and then we’ll get out,” you wink, starting to move faster but he has no intention to get back into the mood, not yet, at least.  

“You’ll stain my pants and where do I come?” He huffs, and you’re sure he’s trying to find an excuse to don’t go outside rather than one to don’t fuck with you. He would never say no to that, especially when you two are already in the middle of it. 

“Take them off,” you urge, jumping off him, waiting for him to get undressed as you do the same, your panties the only thing staying on.  “Come on. You don’t want to be late.”

Haechan groans, “you’re so… so greedy. You just want everything.”

“Yeah, am I allowed to have one flaw?” You bat your lashes at him, grinning when his eyes roll in the back of his head. “Oh, will I stain the underwear, too?” You ask when his lower half is completely bare to your eyes.

“Honey, I’m not coming inside my boxers, can’t wear your panties to hang out with the boys,” he says annoyed.

You chuckle, climbing on his thigh again, watching him whimper when your bare leg brushes against his dick and you press on him to be as close as you were before.

He doesn’t know why you didn’t take the panties off, but he knows he doesn’t want them there. He wants to feel you on his skin. As hot as this is, he wants to feel your pussy drip down his thigh, and your panties are stopping the full experience.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Donghyuck!” You scream when the sound of the fabric ripping hits your ears and the chill air of the room hits your warm core.

He groans. “It’s so hot when you say my real name with an angry tone, makes it hard to hold back fucking you.”

“You need to stop ripping my stuff,” you complain, trying to hide how hot you found that, the ripping of the panties and that fucking smirk on his face now that he lays back against the headboard of your bed, so proud and snotty that is hard for you to hold back fucking him.

“Shut up, you love it,” he says, pulling you into a rough kiss, pushing your body closer while his hand rests on your hips to guide you in the movements. “Also they weren’t a good pair, if you were in lingerie I would’ve asked you politely to take them off.”

“You will never see me in lingerie,” you retort, pulling away as your hand sneaks down and starts moving up and down on his throbbing cock.

“Fuck,” he groans, “at least warn me?”

“I’m half naked, grinding on top of you and I have to warn you when I grab your dick?” You ask. “If you don’t want, I won’t make you come.”

“No, just —fuck,” he glares at you when you concentrate on the tip, “don’t be a bitch.”

“Sorry, sorry,” you chuckle but still move your hand quickly, following the steady rhythm of your thighs. Your head rolls back when one of his hands creeps under your shirt and cups your boob, his thumb brushing against your hard, sensitive nipple.

Haechan sucks in a deep breath when your thighs start shaking around his and your cum drips down his thigh. “Fuck,” he moans, eyelids fluttering as he looks at you, head reclined back as you hold onto him with only one hand, the other still busy taking care of him. “This is so hot, you are so hot.”

The compliment pushes you closer to reaching your high and when he lifts your shirt to wrap his lips around your sensitive nipple, you lose it.

You whimper and quiver, hips moving messily as you keep riding your high, breath getting stuck in your throat when he accidentally bites you as his orgasm washes over him unexpectedly.

“Fuck, sorry,” he mumbles, and if you weren’t still so lost in your pleasure you would let him know you liked it.

When your hips still, and the dizzying sensation calms down, you lay your head against his shoulder for a while as his arms wrap around your waist.

“Can we stay in?” Haechan pouts when you try to get away from him, reaching for your hand to keep you next to him before he rolls over when you shake your head and jump off the bed. “Please.”

“We can’t always fuck and study and study and fuck,” you reply, cleaning yourself up, holding in a sigh when you realize he stained the cover of your bed with his cum.  

“Who said I want to do either of those things?” He says, looking up at you with puppy eyes, pushing his lower lip out to pity you.

“I know you,” you reply, glaring at him before pulling your pants back on, not even caring about putting on another pair of underwear, you would’ve had to wash all those clothes anyway after taking a well-deserved shower, but for now you only had to pick some clothes to go out with the boys.

“No, let’s stay in and, I don’t know. Should we sing?” He proposes, jumping on his feet and putting his discarded underwear on.

You laugh, staring at him in shock. “You want to sing?”

“Yeah, you have a guitar, right?”

You nod, turning around the corner where your guitar is.

“Don’t you want to hear my angelic voice?”

You take a deep breath at his brag and then exhale loudly. “But Jaemin?”

“Fuck him, I don’t care,” he says while a small victory grin already starts widening on his face. He knows you’re about to give in.  

You huff, rubbing your temples and giving up fighting him when his fingers are already typing on the phone to tell his friend you two can’t come anymore.

When he puts the phone away and smiles at you in anticipation, you sigh. You really are stuck with him, aren’t you?

“Why don’t we prepare biscuits?” You suggest. You wanted to bake something for a while now, but you never really find time to dedicate to the kitchen.

“Biscuits?”

You nod, stealing his sweatshirt to wear on top of your shirt before walking to the kitchen —that space you consider the kitchen. 

“I’m a mess when it comes to cooking, you know, right?” He confesses as he leans against the countertop, watching you move around to grab all the ingredients and tools you need.

“You? Admitting you’re bad at something? To me?” You ask with a teasing tone, but you’re genuinely surprised he let you know without turning even this into a competition.

He fakes a laugh. “Very funny,” he says. “I just don’t want to hear you complain if I make some mistakes and ruin your perfect biscuits.”

You chuckle. “Can you weigh the ingredients and then put them all in a bowl?”

“All at the same time?”

You nod, handing him what he needs and showing him where the scale is. “Is not that hard, even you can do it. Plus, it will be another thing I teach you today,” you wink.

“Careful, baby. Don’t start thinking you’re so much better than me,” he says, starting to weigh the ingredients and putting them in each separate bowl.

You scoff. “Honey, I won’t start thinking that,” you say, resting your head on his shoulder, “I already think that.” You leave a teasing kiss on his cheek before he hits you with the flour and you gasp.

“Oh, no, we’re not doing that,” you warn, taking a step back, seeing how he’s ready with another handful of it.

“Then take it back,” he says nonchalantly.

“I never take back the truth —oh, Jesus Christ, Donghyuck!”

He laughs loudly, bending forward as he glances at you, flour on your face and well, his sweater. “Don’t call my name like that again, though. I won’t resist this time,” he says when he finally stands up and stands right in front of your face. “Now, will you take it back?”

“Never —Ah!” You scream when he lifts you up without a warning and sits you on the table before he starts tickling you. “No, no, please,” you babble, shaking your head and trying to stop his hands on you but he’s faster. “Okay, fine, I’m not better than you — I’m not better than you!”

“Good,” he says, stopping his torture and smiling proudly. “I love it when you listen,” he jokes, kissing you again.

You should hate it —or at least don’t like it so much— when he kisses you like this, out of nowhere, for no reason at all other than wanting to shut you up, or maybe to feel you. But you truly don’t mind. Actually, you lean in for another one, and another one and another… until you feel this is once again going in another direction and, as much as you’d love to indulge in the moment, you want to prepare those biscuits.

“Enough,” you say, pushing him away and jumping off the table. “No more food waste and we’re doing this together.”

You discover you and Haechan work better in the kitchen than in other fields, maybe because there’s no tension pushing you to do better but you are listening to each other, teaching tricks, and simply having fun. And this atmosphere stays with you even when he grabs the guitar and starts playing the tune of your song, you sing some bits of the lyrics and then jokily propose to add some about baking cookies on a cloudy spring afternoon, expecting him to laugh at it but he just smiles and tells you to go on. And you do, mumbling something about being in the kitchen, humming, baking, and laughing. You think it’s too cliché, and you will surely go back to it obsessively until it comes at you like you want it, but he loves it.

Then the oven rings, signalling the biscuits are ready and none of you can believe they came out good, nothing burned, and they’re tasty. Somehow, those cookies, feel like the biggest achievement you two ever made together.

“Maybe we should stop fighting each other,” he mumbles, after chewing his last bite. “We make a pretty great team.”

You smile, cleaning your lips with a napkin, crumbs falling on the table. “Hate to agree, but we do,” you say. “I mean… we kinda teamed up months ago, don’t you think so?”

“We want to kill each other, and you call that teaming up?”

“It’s our way of teaming up,” you reply, handing him a clean napkin so he can clean himself, and he takes it. “We just like to keep the flame alive, if we stopped bickering at all, it wouldn’t be so funny.”

Haechan shrugs, he guesses so. “Not like anybody else ever stood a chance with us on top.”

You chuckle. “Imagine if someone is using our rivalry to get to the top and we never noticed them.”

“Honey, trust me, I would’ve noticed.”

Once you’re done eating, you push him into the shower. There’s flour, and dough on all your clothes, and you still need to wash off the sex of before. You’d opt to shower separately but you’re tight on water and you have to make the best out of the confined space, reason why his plan to fuck another time fails.

“Why are you wearing my pink robe?” You turn around two seconds to grab the towel you prepared for him, and he betrays you. “This was for you,” you say, holding up the white towel as you stand there naked.

“I already put it on, it’s wet,” he says. “Come on, it’s pretty.”

“Yeah, that’s why is my favourite robe,” you pout, but still wrap the towel around you because you don’t want to freeze.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he says, and, before you can even think how, you don’t feel the ground under your feet anymore. Your arms immediately wrap around his shoulders for more safety as you let him carry you outside. You have no idea what is going on today, but you like this, how he’s taking care of you —in his way, of course— and how this feels good.

“You have to change it anyway,” he says when he drops you on the bed and, as soon as you open your mouth, he knows you’re about to complain about the wet towel on the dry covers. “I’ll help you change it later.”

While you change into your new clothes, your pink pyjamas with small black hearts as a pattern, you watch him walk around as if he’s so familiar with the place —not that it would take much for anyone to know where everything is, considering how small it is— but something about it makes a feeling of comfort and warmth spread in your heart. Nobody else had ever been inside that place.

But then you snap out of it and realize he’s naked, and his clothes are dirty, so you rush to the closet to find something to give him.

“So, mhh,” you say, making the things you grabbed fall in front of him, who’s sitting at the table. “I have those sweatpants and a sweater, or these pyjamas if you want it, it’s pink, but it doesn’t look like you care much,” you note, looking at how much he’s rocking your robe.

“Pink pjs! We’ll match,” he says, eyes lighting up as he wastes no moment getting out of the bathrobe.

“Out of the kitchen!”

“There’s not even a wall?”

“Still, get out,” you say, pushing him with force away from there. “Better.”

He rolls his eyes but still grabs the shirt and pulls it on him, blinking when he sees a pair of clean boxers. “Why do you have these?” He still studies them, thinking he has seen them before.

“Because they’re yours,” you say nonchalantly while fixing your hair in a braid.

“They’re mine? I left them here?”

“I might’ve accidentally dragged them with me once,” you confess, looking at him with a big, awkward smile.

“When?”

“When Jaemin almost pushed the door down and we had to rush to get dressed. I just stuffed everything in my bag and your underwear was next to mine so, ta-da,” you say, stretching your arms and shaking your hands to complete the sound effect.

Haechan sighs, nodding. “Of course, it must have been because of Jaemin, somehow.”

“Well, it turned out useful, just put them on. I don’t want to see your dick more than necessary.”

Haechan scoffs and bites back a comment as he finishes getting dressed. “You have to admit I look really good in pink.”

You look at him up and down while he twirls, and you smile. “You would be my favourite Barbie at the mall if they sold you in boxes.”

“God, you’re so annoying, can’t ever make normal compliments,” he complains. “Come on, help me with the bed. It won’t clean itself.”

Making the bed with him is tiresome. His weird way and theories about making it lead you two to bicker more than you should and remake it twice to see who is right —you, obviously. So, once you’re done with it, laying on it with him by your side, you know not even God himself will make you stand up to cook dinner. You don’t need to say a word, Haechan already has his phone out ready to order, and you couldn’t be happier.  

You spend ten minutes deciding what movie to watch and another five bickering because you don’t want to eat on the bed, but he insists you won’t make a mess, and if you do, he will help you clean up. It ends with you giving up and the bell ringing with your order ready.

You never have nights like this. You always try to cook on your own and don’t waste money on eating out, and you also never finish the movie or the series you start, either too tired halfway or with something more important to care about, for example, some notes to copy, or lessons to listen.

But this is nice.

You two joke, laugh, eat, and then you start to feel the sleep take over you, and you don’t think about sending him home or falling asleep on the pillow.

And as you rest your head on his shoulder, Haechan’s more and more sure that his plan failed.

“You’re playing with me, right?” You ask when Haechan messes up for the nth time. The end of the year is approaching, and you two are getting ready for yet another test, the last before the finals, but right now he’s testing your patience not getting a single answer right. You’ve been stuck in his room for hours now.

“I wish I was, my brain is fried,” he huffs, throwing his head back on his chair.

You’re speechless and you shake your head. “It’s super easy, you were better than me in this class, what the fuck is wrong with you?” You snap.

“Hey! Why are you so pissed? Shouldn’t you be happy you’ll beat me even in this?”

“Be serious,” you say, sending him a deadly glare. “What are you thinking about?”

“I’m…” he huffs, shaking his head, and turning around in his chair to avoid you. “I’m just stressed for a lot of things. I’m tired, I didn’t sleep tonight.”

“You struggled even last week. And when the Professor asked you something in class you gave an answer that is just not you,” you say, cutting off his bullshit, grabbing the armrest of the chair, and forcing him to face you with a rough tug on the chair.

“There are too many things to remember,” he says, after frowning at how harsh you have been. “It’s not that I don’t know, it’s that I mess it all up.”

You sigh, rubbing your temples. “Do I have to motivate you?”

He lifts his head, staring at you with a furrow. “What do you mean?”

“Let’s play a game,” you say, sitting better on the chair, and Haechan gulps when doing so your skirt —short skirt, incredibly short skirt— rises. He will never tell you, but the way you show up on your dates is another reason why he can’t concentrate. It’s May, it’s so hot. It’s your excuse, but he would bet you’re also doing it to mess up with him.

“No,” he replies, already fearing your proposal.

“Why not? You didn’t hear it, yet.”

He sighs but signals you to go on with a quick movement of his fingers.

“So, we’ll revisit once again, I’ll try to explain all your doubts. Then, I’ll ask you a question, if you get it right, I’ll take off one piece of clothes, if you get it wrong, you’ll take off one, and vice versa.”

“How studying with you butt-naked would make me learn more things?” He almost screams in a high-pitched voice.

“See!” You say. “You’re already starting with the idea you’ll lose.”

“Because I can’t get anything in my brain, and if I get it right then you’ll have to take something off and all I’ll think about will be… you.” I already only think about you, he’d like to add, but that’s too humiliating. Just like the grin on your face. He hates how weak he is. He hates how easy it is for you to win battle after battle. And he hates even more that his plan is showing flaws with each passing day. He doesn’t want you to be his Waterloo, but he’s not sure he can come up with another strategy soon enough to beat you. 

“Fine, then no study-strip-poker,” you give up, but the smug smirk on your face doesn’t drop when you start to think of something else that could motivate him, it only grows bigger when you finally get it. “If you answer right to at least ten of the fifteen questions, I’ll suck your dick.”

Haechan gulps. His eyes immediately fall on your lips as his brain starts to wander on lands he shouldn’t think about, not now at least, not when he has a bigger obstacle to face if he wants to get there.

“Hey,” you call his attention, snapping your fingers and waving them in front of his face. “It has to be motivation, not distraction. Do you want me?”

He huffs, throwing his head back. “Can’t we just fuck and then we’ll start again?” He pouts like he does every time he wants something from you.

“No,” you reply sternly, stealing his sweatshirt from his chair and putting it on you. “You don’t get the prize if you don’t win.”

“That’s not fair. And why are you covering up?”

“So you can’t distract yourself,” you say. You might like to tease him with more revealing clothes, but your intent is never to get him to be this distracted. You don’t want to be the reason he will fail this last test.

“You’re not my distraction,” he scoffs, diverting his gaze, and moving closer to his desk.

You decide to ignore him, you know the truth, and as much as the idea of him starting to lose because he’s too busy thinking of you, sends you on cloud nine, you also don’t want him to do terribly, especially in a class you know he loves and is good at.

“I know the theory,” he says, stopping you from going back to the start. “I wouldn’t be able to produce songs if I didn’t.”

“Yeah, but you just failed to explain how you create and add effects, and you forgot the basic difference between the dry sound and the wet sound, so revisiting some theory won’t hurt.”

Haechan sighs but soon gives up as you hand him your notes. He always thought you were crazy for also having printed pictures of how the software works but now that he needs it, he couldn’t be more grateful that you’re so precise with everything.

You start explaining things once again, cutting short about the most basic notions and diving deeper into the last lessons, as you try to stop as much as you can to make sure he’s still following you. And, after almost an hour, you’re done.

“What are you doing?” He asks when you take off his sweater again. “What about my concentration?”

“I needed your focus while I was explaining, now you have to answer even if you have distractions.”

He huffs loudly, throwing his head back. “But don’t play dirty, you can’t touch yourself or anything like that.”

“I’m not that cruel, I just want you to answer me,” you say. “So, let’s start with an easy one, should we?”

Haechan answers the first questions with ease, not like he usually would, but it’s still better than the mess of before. And he would be so close to getting the last one that keeps him on thin ice, he only got five wrong...

“No, no, no, please,” he begs, trying to stop you in place. “Please, give me one last chance. Ask me just one last question.”

“You got six wrong, babe,” you reply, loving how he’s almost on the verge of tears as his big brown eyes look up at you.

“But it was hard, I will never remember all the types of old reverbs unit,” he whines, coming closer to you.

“Then why do I?”

“Don’t lie, you don’t remember them either, I can’t even pronounce some of those names.”

You chuckle. “Oh, it’s really funny when the lack of a good fuck gets in your brain.” It’s not about sound design anymore. It’s about the desperation behind his eyes; knowing he wants you so much even if you’re the biggest reason for his despair gets your body hot and your pussy wet.

He groans, slumping back on his chair as he gives up on you. Or so he thinks because when he doesn’t pity you enough and you’re still packing your things to leave, he’s back again with his complaint.

“Please, one last chance? I didn’t mess the others up, I just made some tiny mistakes.”

“And you didn’t answer to two,” you say, ignoring him, trying to keep a serious face to not show your true emotions.

“Do I have to get on my knees?”

You snicker. “You look good on your knees,” you taunt but you don’t expect him to do that. “Get up!”

“Not until you give me another chance,” he retorts. “Please.”

You huff, rolling your eyes. “Fine, but just one.”

He nods enthusiastically, almost looking like a puppy being teased with a treat before he sits up in front of you.

“The differences, all the differences, between the shelving equalizer and the peaking equalizer.”

“Okay, I know this one, I know it,” he says before he starts explaining without missing a single detail. “So?” He asks with eyes full of hope as if he doesn’t know he just gave you a perfect answer.

“It was… great,” you tease him but you can’t keep a straight face when you see the pout on his face. “Kidding, kidding, you answered perfectly. So, I guess you deserve your prize.”

“Yes,” he screams, and in a second he throws himself on you but you shake your head and push him back on his chair. “What?”

“You sit there and let me handle this,” you say, placing your hands on his thighs. “Take them off,” you order, tilting your head to point at his grey pants. You see he’s confused about where you want this to go, but he obeys you anyway. “Everything,” you add when he’s still in his boxers. “Good boy, come here,” you say, patting your lap.

Haechan frowns. “You said you were going to suck me off.”

“I know, and have I ever break my promises?”

“I don’t know.”

“Just trust me and come here,” you order, waiting for him to follow. “Can’t believe you’ve been this hard all this time,” you say, wrapping your hand around his hard cock, starting to pump the pre-cum that leaked.

“You teased me,” he huffs, trying to keep his composure as he watches your hand moving on him delicately.

“I know, babe. I’m sorry,” you pout, one hand sneaking under his big white shirt to tease his nipples.

“Don’t,” he mutters, but you only laugh.

“Don’t, what? Let me take care of you, you’re stressed.”

He doesn’t reply, his head falls back as your movements on his dick quicken. He feels so small in your hold and he should find this more embarrassing but he doesn’t care. He loves the way your hand wanders delicately on his body and your lips leave pecks on his neck while the movements on his dick are fast enough to give him what he wants but not too fast to ruin this moment.

Your hands keep moving while your lips kiss his neck and jaw.

“Feels so good,” Donghyuck hums, shifting in your lap.

“I told you,” you chuckle, watching him roll his head back on your shoulder as his eyes close. “The others will hear you,” you say when his whimpers get louder.

“Don’t care,” he moans. “Feels too good.”

You smile and shrug. If he doesn't care, who are you to worry about it? It’s not like they don’t know what happens between you two.

So you quicken your hand, sliding up and down his sensitive dick so fast you make him tremble in your hold.

“You’re so cute like this, you know?” You say. “You look so small and delicate.” You expect him to get mad but instead, he moans and nods swiftly. And you know that stress got him good. Donghyuck, admitting to be vulnerable in your hands? You can only thank the weight the University is putting on his shoulders. But if that’s a way to make it go away, you can’t complain.

“I’m gonna — gonna come,” he whimpers when you start rubbing your thumb on his tip. “Fuck.”

You trap his scream with your other hand, staring at him as he slumps against you as his orgasm washes over him, squirting white strings of cum on your hand and his crumpled shirt.

“Get on the bed,” you urge while lifting the shirt off his body, leaving him naked. He barely has time to put himself together, but you don’t care and you know he needs more too.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit unfair that you’re still all dressed up?” He asks, still sitting on top of you.

“Do you want me to suck your dick, or do you want me to leave?” Is the only thing you have to say to make him obey with no more complaints. “Good. You should be thankful I gave you another chance. Right now you would be masturbating all alone and have no knowledge of sound design, so… what do we say?”

“What do you want me to say? You didn’t—”

“What do we say?” You shut him up, pulling his hair back harshly as your body weights on his lap, eliciting a broken groan.

“Tha — thank you,” he mumbles, cock throbbing right against your thigh. “Thank you but, please, do something, I’m… I need you.”

You snicker, letting go of his head and crawling back on the bed. “You’re so pathetic,” you mock, grabbing his dick again. “Begging on your knees just because you wanted my mouth.”

Haechan groans, throwing his head back but the harsh slap on his thigh makes him snap his eyes open.

“Why?” He squeaks.

“Eyes on me when I’m talking to you,” you order before lowering down so you can tease his tip with your tongue, making him bite back a loud moan.

“Please,” he pleads, and you finally give in. When you take him in your mouth, the broken breath that rolls from his lips makes your pussy clench around nothing.

“Shit,” he moans, fists clenching in the sheets as you suck harder, moving your head up and down in quick movements. He wants to look at you, knowing it will be even harder to not come on the spot, but he’s fighting with so many parts of him, he doesn’t know what to do.

When you pull away to look at him, he whines, hips bucking up in search of physical contact. You snicker, “and then I am the greedy one?”

“You’ve been teasing since you stepped inside the house,” he whines, trying to grab your hand but you don’t let him. “Come on, I’ve been good.”

It’s true, he has been good, but you don’t want him to come yet. “You can’t come, not yet.”

“Fine, just — just don’t tease me. Please,” he cries, begging you with his eyes.

You start taking care of him seriously; bobbing your head up and down while your hand wraps at his base to touch him where you can’t reach. Your movements are quick, but not too messy, since you’re trying to avoid creating a pool of spit and pre-cum all over his lap.

“Your mouth, fuck,” he groans, involuntarily fucking into your throat and uttering a slurred apology. “You’re just so good. God,” he curses, and you catch him rolling his eyes. “Even at — even at this you’re good.”

You snicker to yourself and keep focusing on his dick, heavy on your tongue as you suck with force.

You might be too good, cause it doesn’t take a lot for him to explode in your mouth; a brief warning for you to choose if you want to pull away and then the pleasure runs through his body for the second time.

You barely have time to clean your chin from the cum that dripped down that Haechan pulls you close to him, kissing you intensely while his hands are all over your body. “Want you, please, please fuck me,” he begs against your lips.

You slip out of your panties, quickly grabbing the base of his cock to line it with your soaked entrance because you can’t wait anymore.

“Oh, fuck, you’re so wet,” he hums when you sink, wrapping your hands around his shoulders.

“Want to take merits for this, too?”

“Well, yes,” he retorts. “Shit, don’t move, it’s not fair.”

“Everything is fair between us,” you say, starting to pick up a rhythm that makes him struggle to come up with a snarky reply. “Loss of words?”

He groans, throwing his head back and tightening the hold around your waist. “You can —mmph— you can talk all you want but —ugh— I am the reason why you’re soaked.” Somehow the way you’re bouncing on his dick it’s not enough to wipe away that smug smirk off his face, and you can’t stand it.

“Just shut the fuck up and enjoy this, will you?” You snap before kissing him roughly, cupping his chin with force before nibbling his lower lip, making him hiss. “I like it when you moan, so please, just fucking moan. The only words I want to hear are my name and begs.”

Your “threat” is effective because he doesn’t dare to open his mouth again.

“Good boy,” you praise without ever stopping to kiss him and moving your hips at a quick but regular speed.

You quickly realize that stress has gotten to you, too. You love to pretend it doesn’t affect you, and that you don’t need to let off steam, but you do. You are desperate to feel carefree for a few moments, put all the books and papers behind and have fun. And worst, you need him.

Donghyuck is what makes you feel good. It doesn’t matter if it’s mostly physical, he takes you to another world every time. He makes you feel wanted, he puts you through the test, but he makes everything worth it.

You’re so sure of it as you let your body crush against his, your fleshes meeting in a messed-up tangle of flaws. The kinds of flaws you both grew close enough to show each other.

In a few minutes, waves of pleasure hit you both and your bodies collapse into each other as you keep lazily riding that sensation; muscles on fire, lips meeting in messy kisses, moans panting the room, and your hands looking for each other.

When you lay on the bed side by side, you feel disconnected, and, truly, the only thing you’d like to do is to close your eyes and fall asleep, but your eyes fall on the clock against the wall and remind you why you went to his place.

“Five minutes and then we’re revisiting again,” you say, knowing the only way to get up is to say that thought out loud.  

Donghyuck groans, pressing his face against you and mumbling, “can I eat you out if I make no mistakes this time?”

“We’ll see.”

You’re woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of the piano playing from the living room. The other side of the bed is empty, and the sheets are crumpled up, signalling you Haechan got up somewhere during the night.

You two went on a trip the whole weekend. Not like you had a choice when he passed by your place and told you to get in the car without giving you any information. You got mad at him when he told you it wasn’t a one-day thing, but you were too far from town to even think of going back. And even if initially you were angry because your plans for the weekend were different —studying all day for three days— your anger disappeared quickly.

This is the second night out; you spent the entire day wandering around a town you didn’t even know before and got closer to each other. You love the thrill with him, but you soon realize you also love it when there’s peace between you. It’s impossible for you to don’t bicker, but you learned how to balance everything. And the more you get to know him, the more you like him.

“Can’t sleep?” You ask, watching his features being lit up by the faint moonlight and a small lamp at the side of the piano. It’s an old one, almost left abandoned in the living room of the small, cheap house you’re staying in for the night.

Donghyuck shakes his head. “Got a tune I couldn’t get off my mind so… here we are.”

You smile, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear as you sit next to him. You don’t talk, you only watch his fingers move on the notes looking like ballet dancers. You’ve never seen him play the piano before, you weren’t even sure he could. But you’re amazed at how many things he’s talented at, the guitar, the piano, production, singing, dancing —and making your days less grey.

You don’t tell him, you only lean in, resting your head on his shoulder as he keeps playing the sweet melody.

“It’s…” he huffs, stopping for a second. “Doesn’t it sound messy?”

“Not at all,” you reply. “It sounds upbeat. Happy.”

“Out of all the ways you can describe music,” he chuckles, looking at you.

You look up, shrugging. “I’m describing how it’s making me feel.”

“Yeah? And what does it feel like?”

“Play it again,” you say, closing your eyes and letting the tune lull you. “It feels like spring. Like a field full of sunflowers, the ones you see at the side of the highway, passing by so fast before you can even get lost in their beauty.”

Haechan chuckles, holding back the big smile on his face. “It reminds me of those late summer evenings, when the heat dims a bit and the sky is pale pink and purple and blue, and time is frozen.”

“Yeah, when you’re ten and you don’t want summer to end because it means you have to go back to school,” you smile. “When you would stay out all day and come home with the smell of your favourite cake that your mom just baked.”

“Really? Your mom would bake that too?”

You nod. “Chocolate cake, basic and too messy for the heat of summer. But my mom loves me too much to don’t bake it for me, even if it’s 30° outside.”

Haechan chuckles, and his fingers start moving faster, starting the melody of what could be the chorus of the tune.

“In this part, it feels like a wave. I’m picturing running on the beach as the waves crash at your feet and the wind blows against your face.”

“Why are you smiling?” He asks.

You shake your head. “I — I can… it feels oddly romantic, a bit tormented, maybe confused, but in love,” you whisper. He gives you a weird look, and you’re not sure if it’s because you’re not using technical words to describe it or because you’re just weird. But there’s a reason you’re not being technical, you’re saying what it makes you feel, the vivid pictures in your mind. And, somehow, there’s you and him.

You two on the beach, walking on the sand before he starts running, teasing you to follow him. There’s the scent of the sea filling your nostrils and your lungs burning up as you reach him and then fall in his arms and feel your heart explode.

“It’s an unexpected feeling, something that wasn’t supposed to happen and then… changed everything. It’s thrilling. Scary, but satisfying.” You avoid his gaze but hear him hum in agreement, and wonder if he’s thinking the same, if he can feel this tension.

“So, something that sweeps everything like a wave,” he asks, and you nod. “Sunset,” he adds, smiling at you, slowing down the rhythm of his fingers. “I can also see the sunset colouring the scene. The kind that makes you look up and stare in awe like a child.”

“The one we saw yesterday,” you reply shyly. “It made your eyes look even more brown,” you confess, watching his cheeks tint up of rose.

“The kind that leaves you breathless,” he whispers. His fingers are still moving but they’re playing the same notes, he’s too busy staring into your eyes, leaning closer to you.

“And speechless.”

And a bit closer.

“And grateful you’re on earth.”

And closer.

You move back, coughing and lowering your head because you feel on fire. Is he making fun of you? Does he feel this? Why is he so confusing?

“It feels like a road trip with nowhere to go,” you say to fill the silence, and your words make him play again. “The calm while everything outside is falling apart.”

“Like running to your safe place?”

You nod. “It feels like… home.”

He smiles, looking in your direction while his fingers still play that sweet melody. “I always believed home is a person, even people, but not a place.”

You swallow, staring at his lips before your eyes meet his. “I’ve forgotten that feeling quite some time ago,” you whisper, feeling your head spin. You left home and never looked back, eager to chase your dreams, the ones you’ve been fighting hard to achieve since you were a child, but in that marathon to success, you’re starting to realize you lost something.

“You just need to find the right people, and then never let go.” He leans closer to you, hands falling from the piano as he leans in completely to trap your lips in a kiss. His hand cups your face while the other moves to the back of your neck, pulling you closer and moving his thumb in small circles. You feel like your lungs are on fire, and your legs are weak, but your heart never pumped harder than this. And when he slowly pulls away, you’re staring into each other’s eyes.

You know all the words to your song.

It’s true you’ve tried to avoid Donghyuck’s group of friends as much as you can —mostly to preserve your brain from early injuries— but it’s also true that the end of the second academic year is tearing you apart and you need to do something to don’t go insane.

So here you are, it’s Friday night, at their place, and you’re surrounded. Haechan has left you alone for a moment, busy talking with Mark. Jeno is trying to set up the table in the living room, while Renjun runs after him because ‘things are not perfect enough.’ Yangyang —no, he doesn’t live with them, but for some reason, he is always around— is in the kitchen doing only God knows what.

For your luck, you have Jaemin and the girls by your side. Ningning, who apparently has something going on with Mr Loverboy at your side. Yeri, who is there just to bully Haechan, Mark and Yangyang  —an old tradition that goes on since high school, and you love her for that. And Minjeong, who’s the nicest and yet smartest person you know, you are relieved she is in creative writing with Jaemin. You met them all before, one of the thousand times Donghyuck dragged you around with him, and the four of you got along right away, quickly becoming friends.

“They’re so loud, I would have a constant headache living here,” Yeri huffs loudly, rolling her eyes and falling backwards in Ningning’s arms.

You raise a brow as a ‘told you’ moment.

“They’re not that bad usually,” Jaemin defends, looking at his friends, now all too interested in something that regards what they are supposed to eat.

“Pfft, please, Jaem,” you say, glaring at him.

“How would you know?” He says. “Oh, no, yes, actually you would, you’re always here.”

“See, so stop defending them,” you say before becoming aware of the three sets of eyes boring holes into you. You turn around meeting your three friends and lift a brow in a questing look.

“Why would you always be here?” Ningning teases, nudging you.

You roll your eyes. “Don’t wander too far with your brains. I’ve got a project with Hyuck.”

“Hyuck? You used to go around calling him by his stage name just a few months ago and now it’s Hyuck?” Yeri points out, smirking smugly.

You throw a pillow at her. “He’s always attached to my hip, of course, we got closer,” you explain, frowning.

“Sure, sure,” she laughs. “Not even the boys call him Hyuck.”

“They do,” you retort.

“Of course you know, you’re always here,” Minjeong giggles and you gasp.

“You traitor!” You say, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her as you both laugh.

“Move your asses over here, motherfuc—” Yangyang screams before Renjun slaps a hand on his face.

“I will kill you all one day,” Renjun says, storming into the kitchen to bring more drinks as you sit down around the table.

“Please leave us out of it,” Yeri screams loud enough so he can hear.

“Sure, you can even help me get it done if you want to,” he says, sitting between Jeno and Yangyang, handing the bottles around.

“I’m in,” the four of you say simultaneously, raising your hands and they all gasp as they glare at you.

“Guess we better sleep with our eyes open tonight,” Yangyang mutters.

“You should always sleep with one eye open,” Yeri threatens, smiling creepily.

You chuckle at their antics, but your attention is caught by Donghyuck who sits by your side. “Would you kill me?”

You smile, caressing his hand on his thigh. “Honey, what are you saying? You would be the first that has to go.”

The smile on his face drops and you laugh, turning to the table to grab something to eat.

“You know,” he whispers, leaning in so only you can hear, “no dick tonight.”

You lower your head, trying to hide the embarrassment, but then lift it up and shake it, fixing your hair behind your ear, and turning to him. “Not like something could’ve happened tonight anyway.”

“Period?”

“People,” you say and he chuckles, opening a can of beer before taking a sip.

“As if that ever stopped you.”

You roll your eyes, stealing the beer from his hand, “as if that ever stopped you.”

He smiles, resting his head on his palm as he looks at you. “You never said no, though.”

You wave him off, returning your attention to the table, but it doesn’t last much, they’re deep in a heated conversation and you’re missing something. “Why are they bickering… again?”

Haechan chuckles, shaking his head, grabbing a spring roll, dipping it in the soy sauce before taking a bite. You roll your eyes because you need to be updated right away but when you look at him munching happily you can’t hold back a smile.

“So,” he says, cleaning his lips after he swallowed, “Jeno wants Renjun for a project, but Renjun has war traumas of the last time they did a shooting together and doesn’t want to.”

You giggle, grabbing a spring roll too, and dipping it in the same small cup of Donghyuck, while you both pay attention to the conversation.

“But you’re perfect for it,” Jeno insists, shaking Renjun from his shoulders, not caring about the pissed-off expression of the older.

“I’m literally not, ask anybody else but me,” Renjun repeats, a deep crease visible on his forehead.

“But you look like an angel,” Jeno pouts, finally stopping his movements and batting his lashes to gain some pity.

“I might look like an angel, but I feel Satan rising in me every time you talk,” he says, making everybody laugh before he glances, and the room goes quiet.

“Come on, how bad can it be?” Minjeong says, and you see her shift closer to Mark, but you don’t say anything.

Renjun groans, throwing his head back. He can’t believe he might be convinced into this by the end of the night. “He’s too much of a perfectionist, and I’m not comfortable in front of the camera. Also, he’s not rich enough to have a studio and he always takes ages to put the light boxes in their place once he’s done.”

“Oh, I won’t annoy you, I promise,” Jeno begs again.

“We can rent a studio,” you say, all eyes on you. “I mean,” you cough, placing the small bite of the roll left on the plate in front of you, “me and Hyu— Donghyuck have to shoot the cover for the songwriting project, I don’t think we can wait any longer since we also have to record the song and then come up with an advertising strategy.”

“Then rent a studio?” Renjun says, coming out colder than he intends to. “No, wait, I just don’t get why you have to drag me in this.”

“Jeno proposed to be our photographer, but I doubt we can do it at home. And since we wouldn’t be paying for his job. Sorry,” you mouth quickly glancing at Jeno who shrugs and smiles at you. “We can at least put the money for the studio.”

“And where do I fit in this,” he cries, shoulders slumping as he knows there’s no way out of this, no matter what you say next.

“Well, since you pay the studio per hour, I don’t think Jeno will torture you much. He takes two hours with you and two hours with us and in a day, we are done. Also, if there are four of us, we can be quicker,” you finish explaining, hearing some hums of agreement from your other friends.

Jeno doesn’t say a word, he’s only smiling widely with his face close to Renjun’s as the latter regrets all the life choices that brought him here. “Fine, I’ll do it,” he exhales, groaning when Jeno hugs him and screams a cheer in his ear. “Step away before I change my mind,” he warns, slapping Jeno’s arm and glaring at him when he does as told.

Yeri sighs deeply at your side, rolling her eyes and muttering, “children.”

You chuckle, finishing your roll, and stealing Donghyuck’s beer again before talking to him. “So, I guess we’re almost done.”

“Almost done? You still didn’t show me the lyrics, have you even written them?”

“Hey,” you scold. “Are you doubting me?”

“I don’t know, last time I checked, you were the one struggling. I offered you four bases, and all the words I’ve read from you ended up crumpled in the bin.”

You sigh. “I’ve got the song,” you reassure him.

“Really?”

“Yeah, and I also picked the production. I mean, I… I wrote it because of that production.”

Haechan’s smirk widens when you start stuttering and looking away, trying to look unsuspicious in your friends’ eyes. “Really? And why are you shying away?”

You almost jump when you feel his hand on your thigh, resting on your bare skin under the skirt. “I’m not,” you whisper, trying to keep cool.

He snickers. “You know I’ll have to see it and you can’t keep it a secret from me, right?”

“I know, I don’t want it to be a secret. You’ll read it.”

He squeezes your thigh, and you glare at him. “Not now.”

“Right, later, under the cover when we’ll watch a movie,” he jokes.

Yeri coughs beside you and you see your entire life pass in front of your eyes, but you fake nonchalance and turn to her. “Need something? Some water?”

“Some tea, honey, some tea,” she says, raising a brow and pointing at the man at your side, now busy talking with Yangyang.

“I can make some.”

“Stop playing me,” she whispers, sending you a deadly glare. She can be scary at times, you’re not surprised the boys listen to her in the blink of an eye.

“He’s just being stupid, he flirts even with walls,” you say.

“Does he touch their thighs?”

“No, he’s not,” you say, only to gasp when she looks down and his hand is still on you. You push it away but he puts it right where it was and you can only sigh.

Yeri snickers. “Ah, l’amour.”

Your head rolls back as you let out an annoyed sigh. “Love my ass.”

Yeri shrugs, sipping from her small bottle of soju. “Don’t care, there’s still something going on, and I’m interested.”

“I’d love to mock you with somebody but you’re more closed than an unopened can of beans.”

“You are so bad with words. How do you write songs?”

“I don’t write about beans, clearly,” you say seriously before you both laugh.

“You two, mind to share what’s funny with the class?” Ningning calls you out.

“Sorry Professor Ning, we’ll be even more annoying next time,” Yeri retorts.

“Why do I feel you’re quoting something we can’t understand?” Renjun says.

“Because you’re right,” Yeri replies.

“Yesterday Yeri almost got us expelled,” Ningning says with a forced smile on her face, making you all gasp.

“What happened to sharing information?” Mark screams, leaning in with interest.

“Why do you care so much?” Yeri shrugs, grabbing a bowl of tteokbokki to eat.

“Mh, hello? You got your asses out of Uni,” Minjeong says.

Yeri only rolls her eyes, resting her head on Ningning. “If a tteokbokki falls on my clothes you’re dead,” the blonde-haired warns before bringing her gaze to all of you. “In her defense, it wasn’t her fault. Not at the start, at least.”

“No,” Yeri retorts, sitting up straight again, and placing the bowl on the table, “it wasn’t my fault, period.”

“Here she goes again,” Ningning sighs, puffing and shaking her head, making you chuckle. But Yeri is not paying her attention, too busy telling the facts right.

“Professor Choi hates us and treats us like kids. Not only his lessons are boring, and I would like to add, useless, but he also thinks we’re in kindergarten.”

“Did you fight with him?” Jeno questions, frowning, already fearing a positive answer.

Yeri gulps, looking around to take time to answer.

“Oh, God, tell me you didn’t,” you say, staring at her with a worried expression.

“He asked for blood,” she says, getting fired up.

“You fought a Professor?” Jaemin gasps loudly.

“She didn’t,” Ningning intervenes when Yeri is about to open her mouth again. “Just because I was there to babysit her, but she didn’t.”

“I didn’t come here to be treated like a child,” she says, crossing her arms on her chest. “We weren’t even being loud. We were sitting in the back of the class, minding our business and he called us out. There was a group of boys in the middle row watching fucking porn and he called us out.”

“Ew,” it comes out collectively.

“But unless the headphones weren’t connected how would he know?” Yangyang asks.

“I don’t care! He hates us,” she groans.

“So you decided to make him hate you even more? Smart move, Yerim, smart move,” Renjun says sarcastically, and she glares at him.

“I just decided to drag her out when things got a bit heated,” Ningning says.

“Not in a Beyonce way I guess,” Haechan jokes, and Yeri slaps him as you move back to give her space to hit him.

“Hey! Why are you helping her bully me?” He asks offended.

“Cause you deserve it?” You shrug.

Donghyuck looks around in disbelief, groaning when everybody agrees. “Fake ass friends, can’t even trust your own shadow in this group.”

“Back to what matters, safe to say you won’t pass the class,” Renjun says.

“We will, there’s only one lesson left, and we’ll pay attention,” Ningning says and Yeri raises her brows. “We will pay attention. He might hate us, but, you know, a bit of boot-licking and we’ll be fine.”

“Fine,” Yeri gives up. “But only because I don’t want to see him ever again.”

“We once fought so hard we got kicked out,” Haechan confesses, bringing the attention to him.

“You and?” Jeno asks.

“Dumbass, Miss Better than him, thought you heard them bicker every two seconds,” Renjun replies instead, pointing at you with his index finger.

“Hey!” You say. “I mean, thank you for acknowledging I’m better than him but it wasn’t so bad.”

“Oh, trust me, it was,” Mark comments before drinking his beer.

“And you were teaching us a lesson, uh?” Yeri teases, eyebrow raised at you two.

“We didn’t insult the Professor,” you explain. “We were just at each other’s throat.”

“Why?” Minjeong asks.

“Honestly? Can’t remember, we fight about everything,” Donghyuck replies.

“We don’t fight,” you clarify. “We discuss. And sometimes things take a bad turn. Not anymore, we learned how to survive with each other.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” giggles Yeri and you kick her knee with yours, making her groan.

Haechan sends you a look you ignore, and you go on explaining. “We were just stating our thoughts, but we weren’t exactly agreeing, and we couldn’t stop, so the Professor told us to take it somewhere else.”

“And you did? You simply could’ve stopped,” Renjun asks in disbelief. He can’t believe he thought you were normal.

“We had business to settle, okay?” You explain.

“Oh, and we sure did,” Haechan chuckles under his breath or so he thinks because the room goes quiet, and you think you want to strangle him.

You have to come up with something.

“You only won because I gave up,” you say, looking into his eyes, seeing the devilish glint behind, warning him to not say a word more.

“You always give up if there’s a prize you can take,” he clicks his tongue and you gulp.

“Oookay, weird tension in the room, it’s clear the only one not getting laid is me,” Yangyang cheers, bringing you two out of your competitive stare. You’d like to complain, saying it’s not what he thinks about, but you’re still stuck, brain busy thinking about something else.

“This night it’s boring, if we don’t do something funny, I’ll act out my plan of killing you all,” Renjun says, standing up.

“I still don’t know whether you’re joking or not,” Mark says.

“Because I’m not.”

“Caught you!”

“Hyuck!” You scream, turning around, holding a hand over your chest as his arms wrap around your waist and his chin rests on your shoulders. “You could’ve killed me.”

“You’re eating cake without me, that’s the crime,” he says, pulling your hand to his face to take a bite.

You roll your eyes. “Jaemin told me he had to store it away because Jeno and Minjeong were eating it all.”

“So, you were hiding, uhm?”

You hum, cutting another piece and diving it in two to give it to him. “He said I could eat it. Also, I think I had too much alcohol and I need to put something in my stomach.” You sit on the countertop and he takes his place between your legs.

“Am I allowed to eat it?”

“I guess so, I’ll take the blame if he says something,” you giggle.

“Don’t think he will notice, too busy dancing with somebody,” he says, hinting at Ningning.  

“They look cute together,” you say, smiling fondly.

“Oh, they do. If only he could grow some balls and confess,” he says.

“Do you confess, Casanova?” You tease.

Donghyuck smirks. “How does it look like?”

You shrug. “Don’t know, you tell me.”

He rolls his eyes before he realizes you two are not together. “Wait, are we… no, never mind,” he says, pulling away, and turning to the door.

You grab his hand, stopping him. “What?”

“Jeno called,” he lies, trying to escape your hold.

“No, he didn’t. He’s sitting with Yangyang passing the blunt around,” you jump off the top and face him. “Are we?” You’re not sure what you expect him to say.

Donghyuck gulps, struggling to keep his eyes on you. “Are you fucking somebody else?”

Whatever you were expecting, that wasn’t it. “Are you?”

“I asked you first,” he retorts.

You blink. “Oh, really?

“Yeah, really.”

“Do I look like I know somebody else besides us?”

“Jeno likes you, and he told me you two are texting.”

“As friends, Hyuck. I already told him I’m taken — I’m not, I’m… I’m taken by other things in my mind. Uni, fighting you, especially fighting you.”

Donghyuck snickers, not really what he expected from you, but deep down —not even so deep, truly— what he wanted to hear. “Yeah, I agree, you’re taken, mostly by me.”

You’re about to retort but he slips from your hands too soon, leaving the small kitchen to reach the others. But you’re smiling. It’s a dumb, small smile that lights up your face in the dark of the night, and your heart pumps. You two didn’t name any of this, but —bickering aside— you objectively know you acted like a couple. It’s not about the sex, it’s about everything else. He started to pick you up before lessons so you could go to class together and sit next to each other —while he did everything he could to distract you. You ate at your friends’ table at lunch, went out for dates, and occasionally even slept over. You are taken and probably for longer than you even realise. Donghyuck started filling your days months ago, and even your life.

You’re still caught up in your thoughts that you don’t hear Ningning enter the kitchen.

“I spy with my little eyes something suspicious,” she sings while pouring herself a glass of water, leaning against the countertop where you were before.

“First Yeri, and now you?” You ask, a small smile curling your lips while you walk to lean next to her.

Ningning gasps offended. “She knew before me? Is this how you betray me? After I helped you style your hair?”

You laugh, resting your head on her shoulder, and inhaling deeply; she always smells nice. “I didn’t tell her,” you confess. “Honestly, I don’t even know myself.”

You can’t see her, but you know she’s smiling when her arms wrap around your body.

“So, what is that, love?”

You hum. “I don’t know what it is, but I know I like it.”

“I knew you were a romantic at heart,” she jokes, pulling away to squeeze your cheeks.

“I’m just happy. I don’t think I need to put a name on this… on this happiness.”

A big smile spreads on her face and her eyes crinkle, her hand softly caresses your cheeks. “It’s not only Donghyuck, is it?”

You nod, pressing your lips in a flat line because something about this feels too emotional for you. It’s 11 pm and there’s faint music playing in the living room while people laugh, and joke, sharing a blunt or bottles of alcohol. And you’re in the kitchen talking about a boy you want to kiss and strangle with who, you’re sure, can now consider your best friend. It’s the stupid fun of the early 20s. It’s the sense of something you’ve been missing for too long since you only let yourself be absorbed by your studies, leaving friendship behind.

And when a lonely tear rolls down your eyes, Ningning coos, gently wiping it away. “I’m happy,” you say, nodding.

“I know,” she replies, cupping your face.

“I’ve been on my own since I came here and I never regretted believing in my dreams even if it meant leaving the ones I loved the most behind, but now I realize what I’ve been missing,” you confess. “I love that they’re so loud they give me a headache.” You both chuckle and your hands intertwine. “And I love that we all sit together at lunch even if most of you have to run from the other side of the building. I love how none of you hesitated one moment to consider me part of your group.”

“I’m so happy you’re with us,” she says, smiling. “I guess Donghyuck does something right sometimes.”

You both laugh.

“Yeah, he definitely made my second year less boring than the first one,” you admit.

“Come here, I guess we both could use a hug,” she says, not giving you time to reply before you’re into her arms. You stay like this for a while, and you know more than before that this is what you missed the most. This is what college means. It isn’t in the loud parties, the sex, and the drugs, it’s in the people you do things with. Nine young people like you, trying to survive this craziness by being each other’s strength. You can still look at your goal right in the eye even if you have fun, even if you date, even if you have someone to walk down this road with.

“You know, I knew you were a good one when you slammed your fist on the table at lunch when he made you fuck up the essay,” Ningning confesses when you pull away.

You laugh, wiping away another tear. “I’m glad he did, I wouldn’t be here today if he didn’t.”

“You and Ning disappeared in the kitchen before,” Donghyuck says, searching in his closet to find something to make you wear for the night.

“Yeah, we talked about us. I know I might not show it, but I’m glad I found this,” you sigh. “I like them.”

Donghyuck smiles, sitting next to you. “They all like you just as much.”

“It’s like I finally have a place where I belong. I have people to rely on, so maybe I’ll learn to stop wanting to deal with everything by myself.”

“I told you life doesn’t have to be lonely,” he says. “I know that coming from me sounded like sabotage but I meant it. Having someone by your side makes everything easier.”

You smile and nod, grabbing the shirt he’s handing you. “I hate to say it, but you were right,” you chuckle. He doesn’t reply and you don’t drag the conversation, simply enjoying the thousands of words you two should be telling each other, but are not ready to face, yet.

“Can I use the bathroom? I need to freshen up a bit,” you say, breaking the comfortable silence. Most of the others are crushed in the living room, you think you saw Ningning sneak into Jaemin’s room but you were too caught up in Donghyuck to be sure of that, Renjun and Jeno might still be awake but you’re sure that all the weed they smoked won’t make them pay attention to you.

“Sure, if you need towels they’re in the cabinet under the sink,” he tells you, and soon you’re out of the room.

It doesn’t take you long to clean yourself up; you wash your face and steal someone’s products to get rid of your make-up, quickly get rid of your dress, put on some perfume —you’re pretty sure it’s Donghyuck’s cause you smell like him— and then wear the shirt he borrowed.

Once you’re done, you quickly make your way to the kitchen, and, passing in the living room, you see your assumptions are right; there’s no sight of the two love birds, and the only ones awake are Renjun, Jeno and Yeri, while the others are crushed on the sofa. You expect a remark from the girl, but she barely notices you, too busy playing —trying to— something with the other two.

After a few minutes, you’re back in Donghyuck’s room, and you notice he’s changed into something comfortable, too. He’s lost folding his clothes, and you let yourself get lost in his beauty. Too busy fighting him and trying to prove something, you realize you never noticed the smallest details that make him so handsome. The bridge of his nose, his soft lips, the moles on his cheek, his soft brown hair falling around his face.

“You alright?” His voice brings you out of your daydreams and you nod shyly, feeling embarrassed for being caught staring.

“Yeah, everything fine,” you reply, quickly walking to the bed. You see him staring at you with a confused expression, but avoid any awkward moment by reaching for your phone and pretending to be busy. But you’re not busy, you’re confused. You’re not used to this, any of this. Your nights have always been filled with yourself and books (whether for school or your entertainment), and if you felt wilder a movie, rare were the occasions when you would go out with your friends. And regret is creeping on your back. You feel like you lost a lot, you feel like you’ve punished yourself to get where you are now. And you think about love, how you treated your relationships, how little weight you gave them. And when you think about what you felt in these past months you wonder if you have ever even been in love.

“Remind me to never make you drink again if you get this sulky.” Once again, Donghyuck’s voice brings you back to earth, and when you turn toward that sound, you see he’s sitting next to you.

“I’m not sulky,” you chuckle. “I was just thinking about what I said before.”

He hums. “And?”

You shrug. “Nothing. You can’t change the past, I was just… having some bittersweet emotions.” It’s the truth, but you know that deep down your brain is trying to make you focus on the friendships because you don’t want to think about your biggest problem: the man you have by your side. This wasn’t supposed to be whatever it is. It wasn’t supposed to happen. And you don’t hate that it did, but you don’t know how to feel and act about it, cause you didn’t plan it. You couldn’t study this, you couldn’t put this on a PowerPoint and have it all laid out for you to understand it, it’s not logical, it’s not a theory, a study, a thesis, it’s emotion.

“You seemed happy before,” he whispers after a few minutes of silence passed. His hand gently rests on your stomach and you feel your heart race.

“I was,” you reply. “I am. I just wish I found this sooner, I always focused on my studies and career, and looking back at it now, it was lonely. And…” you sigh, rubbing the bridge of your nose, “I’m jealous of you, ‘cause you managed to be at the top with all of this.”

He chuckles, but it’s a tender sound, and then smiles at you. “Well… I managed until you came around. You…” he coughs, struggling to confess, “you distracted me a bit, so I think you’re better than me at this socializing and rocking your career at the same time thing.”

You laugh. “I distracted you?”

“Just a bit, don’t get too excited,” he warns, falling deeper into the mattress and laying in silence. You have your thoughts tormenting you, but for him, it’s no different. He knows his plan failed. You’ve been filling his thoughts, days and seconds for a few months now. Even when he was studying or recording, somehow, you were always there. At first, for spite, surely, but then, it turned into something else. Hate turned into teasing, teasing turned into lust, and lust turned into something more. He knows he doesn’t just simply want you or need you. He craves you and your company, your study sessions together, your smart talks, your witty words, your annoyed eye-roll when he’s right, and the soft eyes when you listen to him. He craves you and your laugh, the suppressed one during lessons and the loud one when you are alone, or your hidden smirk when he makes you smile even if you don’t want to.

He constantly comes back to you.

“Are you listening or are you avoiding me?” You ask when he doesn’t reply to your question and he shakes his head, mumbling an apology.

“Sorry, I was thinking.”

You chuckle. “It’s alright, it was a bitter question anyway.”

“No come on, ask me again.”

“It was just for fun. I wanted to know if I was the reason why you’ve been doing a bit worst than me lately,” you say. There’s no mockery in your tone, instead it’s light and hides a timid blush as the words roll down your tongue.

Donghyuck’s body shuffles next to yours and only then you realize how intimately close you are, with your legs almost intertwined, his hand still on your stomach and his face resting on your chest. “Well, yes, you were an unexpected presence in my life, so…”

“So…?” You laugh. “Am I so hot I got you horny all the time?” You joke but he doesn’t crack a smile, instead he furrows and stands up to sit on the bed with his arms crossed.

“I’m not that horny,” he murmurs.

Your body mirrors his, and then your hands lift his chin up. “Sorry, I was kidding. I didn’t mean to offend you. I just didn’t think you thought about me that much. I wanted to be on top but not like this.”

“Technically, you’re not on top of everything, but anyway, we just spent a lot of time together, you know? So different studying methods and so on, shocked me a bit.”

You raise a brow, not because you’re so pretentious to think you distracted him that much, but because you think you learned to read him a bit and he’s not being honest at all. “Sure, and you weren’t busy thinking of me after our… dates? Coming home and texting me, and telling me how you should’ve been between my thighs instead?”

He blushes, and you can’t believe your eyes. “It only happened once, and either way I never study at night, my pretty brain can’t handle it.”

You laugh. “Your brain is pretty, now?”

“Yeah, of course, everything about me is pretty.” He shrugs.

“You’re a bit of a liar, you know? First telling me I distracted you and then taking it back, but it’s alright, I think we settled this war. We’re equal now, right?”

“I guess you could say that.”

You huff rolling your eyes. “You’re so competitive, God.” You fall on the mattress again. “But maybe it’s good, we can keep this healthy and competitive.”

He hums, thinking about it and then nods. But you don’t expect him to cage you with his body as he sits on top of you and reduces the distance between you. “Doesn’t sound bad, we could try.”

You smile, trying to act nonchalantly, but it’s hard when he’s so close; hair a mess, face tired but still so fucking handsome, and plump lips so temptingly close to yours.

“I want you,” you whisper, looking straight into his eyes even if they make your knees buckle.

“I want you, too,” he replies before diving in and kissing you.

The last weeks before finals are hectic. You and Donghyuck spend all the time studying together. When you’re not locked in the library you’re either at your or his place, and most of the time you end up sleeping over with the excuse of “spending just a few minutes together without thinking about exams.”

Yet, none of you confess anything. Your relationship lingers in that limbo.

In all that chaos, what takes you more time is the songwriting project. You spend days in the studio to record and mix it. Then when you are done, you move to the studio with Jeno to shoot the concept photos. And it would been enough for the exam, but you and Donghyuck just have to go an extra mile, making an entire booklet with the photos and the lyrics inside, the physical CD with the track, the instrumental, and an acapella version.

Even if the shooting is long and tiring, since you have to style and do each other’s make-up, and the only help is from Renjun, you have a lot of fun.

If at the start you feel a bit insecure with the poses, Donghyuck is the perfect partner to have to feel at ease. And Jeno knows how to do his job, making you feel like a queen after the first awkward shots.

“I love how the photos turned out,” Jeno cheers happily on your way to their place. “The three of you are the perfect models. I will annoy you again to build my portfolio.”

Renjun rolls his eyes as his head slams against the bus window.

You chuckle. “Come on, Jun,” you say, pinching his cheek. “You had fun too, you can’t deny that. Also, you got so many beautiful photos for free, I wouldn’t complain.”

“Free? I’d like to remind you I helped you pay for the rent,” he retorts, sitting straight again. “But yeah, I had fun,” he admits, making Jeno clap happily. “But, I will do this again only if she comes with us.”

Jeno bats his eyes at you and you snicker. “Yes, if I am what he needs to be dragged into the studio, I will come with you.”

“I love you,” Jeno screams, hugging you tight. When you hug him back, you make eye contact with Donghyuck, but he swiftly turns his head. Not quick enough to hide he’s not enjoying this so much; jaw tense, fingers closing in a fist.

You find his jealousy of Jeno quite interesting. Even if it’s true you got very close to him, it’s hilarious how Donghyuck thinks anything would happen between you two when Jeno is clearly taken by someone else; someone too busy plotting his murder to realize his feelings, but that’s another matter.

And Donghyuck shows his jealousy even more when, once at home, you sit around the table to watch Jeno post-produce the photos and create the mock-up for the entire project with your supervision.

His arm wraps around your shoulder as he keeps his leg pressed against yours, and you have to hold back a chuckle. Yes, it’s obvious there’s nothing between you and Jeno, but this makes you feel wanted, and you let him show it.

You know you’ll have to deal with other menaces tomorrow; a hangout is already scheduled in the group chat with the girls after a quick text sent right away by Yeri. You love her, you do, but without that, maybe, just maybe, you wouldn’t have four other pairs of eyes set on you — Jaemin and Yangyang are very curious when they want to.

“Are you listening?” Jeno’s voice brings you out of your thoughts.

You blink twice and then mumble, “what?”

He shakes his head. “Do you like the font?”

“Oh,” you whisper. Your eyes adjust again on the screen that you were mindlessly staring at and focus on the project. “Yeah, I love it.”

“We were thinking of not putting our name on it since it’s more trendy lately,” Donghyuck says.

You nod. “Yeah, I think it’s better like this. I also love the picture, I think it would be more powerful without the name on it but we’re not that famous, yet,” you joke making them laugh.

“That’s why I didn’t make it too big, so the focus would be on you two.”

“Love it, that's perfect,” you praise. “Honestly, seeing it all almost done, I feel guilty for not giving you anything.”

Jeno shrugs. “It’s alright. I’m having fun doing this and can put it in my portfolio anyway. I did much worse and less fun for some courses.”

“We will offer you a dinner,” Donghyuck says. “Somewhere cheap, though.”

After a few hours, everything is almost done. Jeno still wants to double-check everything tomorrow before sending it to be printed but the final results won’t differ much.

“So, I think we should celebrate the project that brought you two so close,” Ningning says, winking at the last words, before raising an empty cup.

You chuckle, trying to escape Donghyuck’s hold, but it’s still firm on you. “It’s just a Uni project, there's nothing to celebrate.”

“Well, mine and Mark’s is not that good,” Yangyang snorts. “I don’t understand why you two always want to do so much extra work but whatever makes you happy.”

“We love the song,” Donghyuck replies. “And we’re proud of it so we might as well fool ourselves it might get more than 30 listens on SoundCloud.”

“For me,” Ningning says, “this is huge. One day you’ll be famous and we will get to say we were here from the start, so we need to treat ourselves and party.”

“Yes, let’s treat ourselves to the cheapest pizza on the block. Oh, how I love being an adult,” Yeri huffs, slumping on the couch. “No, but really, this is something to celebrate.” She then moves closer to you so that only you can hear. “And maybe if we get you drunk enough we’ll get juicy info before tomorrow.”

You roll your eyes and shake your head. “Fine, order these pizzas and let’s celebrate.”

The girls don’t get you drunk enough to spill anything but get themselves drunk enough that Jaemin has to drive them back to their place. Truthfully there’s nothing to say anyway. You and Donghyuck still didn’t talk, you didn’t even have sex lately. Too busy with everything, that was the last of your thoughts. But you did sleep together and basically lived in symbiosis. So?

You should feel happy about this project. Academically it will be another success, and honestly, one of your best works so far. So why do you feel this emptiness in your chest now that you’re sitting on a chair in Donghyuck’s bedroom?

This is the end. Now nothing holds you two together, and you fear that what you built over these months might not be strong enough for you to still hang out with you. You wonder if this meant anything to him. Sure, he likes you, but how much? Sex means nothing, and even if said between the lines, he got you to try out romantic things to make you come up with the song. And he succeeded. You have the song, the lyrics you tried so hard to put down. Fake dates, fake flirts, fake everything, but everything you put down is real. And it’s terrifying.

So absorbed by your torments, you don’t see Donghyuck stare at you, standing in front of you changed into fresh clothes.

“Hey.” His voice makes you flinch in surprise and quickly look up at him. There’s a frown on his face. “What’s with that face?”

You shrug, diverting the eye contact.

“Are you not happy with the result?” Donghyuck asks, grabbing the closest chair so he can sit right in front of you.  

“No, I love it. I loved everything so much and that’s why I’m sad.” There are many reasons why, and you’re not a master at dealing with too many emotions at once. Subjects? Books? Essays? Projects? They can fall and pile up on you and you won’t feel the weight of it. But real life? Feelings? Not where you excel.

“Cause you won’t have any excuses to spend time with me and see me?” He teases, chuckling. He’s still the same person you met one year ago but behind his playful voice and acts there’s something tender, at least you like to see it this way.

“Uhm, I hope we will keep seeing each other,” you confess shyly, doing everything in your power to not meet his warm gaze. His hands on his lap are a beautiful view now. “But no…”

His teasing smirk turns apprehensive. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

You shrug. This should be the easy thing to confess. A bit humiliating considering showing some weakness to him still feels like letting your mortal enemy pour salt in your open wounds, but you’re hiding more vulnerable things from him.  

“Nothing but… I was so sure I didn’t want to be a singer, and I was more and more sure of working in Pr, and now… I don’t know. I loved writing the song, like I always do, but this time felt different, as if… that’s what I’m supposed to do in my life, you know?” You look up because even if you can’t take a mocking look you have to see his reaction.

He smiles, caressing your cheek. “I think you’re good at it so yeah, you should.”

You’re taken aback by that reply. Deep down you wanted him to shred your dreams cause you feel like all of this is insane, and if you have nobody supporting you maybe you won’t indulge in it. But it’s clear that Donghyuck is not an enemy anymore and has your back now.  

“Yeah but… I loved singing and doing it with you. Being in the studio, recording, but even before when we were working on the melody and everything. And working on the concept? We did all that with just one song, can you imagine what working on an album feels like?”

He smiles and nods. “Well, yeah, I fantasized about it a lot, so yes. But why is it a problem? Why can’t you pick this as a career?”

You can see in his eyes that he’s confused. Not by your change of path, but by your sudden insecurity. Deep down you’re shocked by that too. You have changed goals a few times in your academic career but somehow this feels so different.

“Cause it’s rare to make it,” you mutter, nervously playing with your hands. Truth is, the chances of failure are so big, and you’re not sure you could take it. You and your perfectionism and your need to succeed on the first try.  

“Can’t say you’re wrong, it’s hell out there, but… you’re good, and beautiful, and I’m sure that with your songwriting skills and your voice, someone will notice you.”

He had tried to make a name for himself longer than you, he knows it. During some vulnerable night conversation where you showed him your songs, he told you how many demos he had sent, and how hard he tried to build something at least on the socials. So you don’t care if his words are driven by sympathy, he could discourage you, but instead, he’s supportive, and that’s all you need.

“And what am I without your production? Will you be my Jack Antonoff?”

Donghyuck laughs. “I’d prefer to be your Aaron Dessner.”

“Yeah, fine. I like that Haechan,” you say, highlighting that name that now sounds foreign.

“I don’t want to hear that name roll from your lips anymore,” he chuckles and you hum laughing.   

“Talking about lyrics,” he says after a few seconds, the phrase lingers in the air… “this song was interesting.”

“Interesting? What do you mean? Is it bad?” Your eyes widen and the anxiety that left you jumps at you again.

He shakes his head. “I said interesting, not bad. You should know the difference.”

“It’s not funny, interesting means nothing.”

He chuckles. “Some phrases are interesting… that’s it. They look familiar.”

You feel your body burn up in flames and you have to shift your gaze from him. You should’ve scrapped that, he isn’t dumb. (You believed he was up until two seconds ago, but apparently, he was just waiting for the right moment to trap you.)

“I wonder if something, or someone,” he winks, “inspired you.”

“The sea. When we went there together. The sea inspired me,” you whisper swiftly, nervously biting the inside of your cheek. “That’s why I called it wave.”

Donghyuck laughs. “I’m not talking about the title, and you know it,” he says, resting his hand on your knee. “Flow that I’ve never felt before? Meeting you through distinctive distraction is a miracle?”

“You told me you liked it,” you say, playing innocent.

He rolls his eyes. “I do. I love it, actually. I just wanted to analyse it with you.”

You gulp when his fingers start rubbing on your skin. “We should’ve done it before recording it, don’t you think?”

He clicks his tongue. “Nah, I want to do it now. I think I already know who inspired you.”

“The sea —”

“Drop it,” he retorts sternly, squeezing your knee. “I think our plan worked. Well, unless you found someone else who inspired you to write a love song.”

“It’s barely a love song,” you stutter, body heating up.

“Right, some lyrics felt sexy,” he giggles. “You’re such a master in holding me here and there and going up and up down and down again.”

You try to scoot away, but he blocks you by putting his feet under the leg of the chair. “So what? Also, you’re dirty-minded, that’s not what it means…”

He snickers, rubbing his thumb on your cheek. “Why are you so flustered then?”

“Cause you’re too close to me, I can barely breathe.”

“Mhh… it reminds me of something.”

You roll your head back and mutter a curse under your breath. “Isn’t it what you wanted? To inspire me? I did it. I romanticized everything and we got the song.”

“Romantized everything,” he hums. “In this wave called you that’s pushing in, I fall in love. You are the center of my heart. Feeling new, feel now. The wave that started because of you, babe. Dive into the world called you. Damn, your creativity is so good, you are talented.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“No, I…” he sighs annoyed. “If you wrote it down in a song, why can’t you say it to my face?”

You gulp. “I have nothing to tell you.”

He raises a brow. “So you’re still confused. Should I satisfy you to hear you say it?”

You hide your face in your hands and groan. “Fine,” you snap. “I — I wrote that about you. And I, God, this is humiliating. You heard the song, you sang it. Do you want me to say it out loud? Was that not enough?”

Donghyuck smiles, and, for a moment, you fear he will break into a mocking laugh, but instead, his smile gets bigger. “Yes, I knew it,” he screams.

“Oh… of course it’s funny to you, maybe this is what you wanted all along, make me fall in love and then make fun of me.”

“Fall in love?” He whispers, stopping in his tracks to look at you, and only then you realise you said it loud and clear. And it’s worse than saying it in a song. “You love me seriously? Like it’s not just attraction and maybe liking me?”

You feel like choking up on tears but try not to show it. “So you can laugh at me more?”

“Why would I laugh at you? I just want to know if what you feel is real,” he replies, and somehow he sounds even more annoyed than before.

You hum and nod, no words can leave your mouth.

“Did you really think I would use this against you? Don’t you trust me?”

“I — I… I don’t know, okay? I do, but also, this was… this was all fake, just to write that song and now it’s real. And it was never supposed to be real, and maybe you never wanted me, cause I’m not your type and you hated me and we both wanted this to be over and now I feel like I can barely breathe without you, and I know that in the song I said I would’ve left the decision in your hands but the idea of you not wanting me back makes me sick and I —”

Your words fall into a void as he kisses you with no hesitation. Hands cupping your wet face and holding the back of your neck to keep you close.

“You’re so fucking stupid. So, so smart and yet such an idiot when it comes to feelings,” he chuckles when he pulls away. “You said I was an unexpected thing that completely changed your flow but do you have any idea of what you were to me? You ruined my second year,” he confesses, and your face quickly shifts into a worried expression, but he clears your doubts right away.  

“I thought I could beat you, I thought I could have the upper hand and… you messed up my days and nights. I thought you couldn’t fill up so much of my time when I already had so many friends but, fuck, I was wrong. And instead of distracting you, I let you distract me.”

“But I — I didn’t plan it, I didn’t want to —”

His thumb shushes you as his eyes crease in a smile. “You didn’t do anything, I just miscalculated. I didn’t know the amazing person you are, and let jealousy consume me before love took its place without me even noticing.”

You almost gasp. “Love? So, you do love me back?”

He nods. “Strong word, I know. But goddam, you were ten times cheesier in the song.”

You laugh and he does the same.

“But I am hurt, though. I can’t believe you thought I was playing you.”

“What were the chances you were going to fall for me, too? Nobody ever falls for me.”

“Good thing you only needed me to fall for you,” he says, kissing you. “So… did you fall for me at the beach?”

“I was confused back then. I knew I felt something but I didn’t know what it was. I thought it was only attraction, but at the same time, I felt like I needed you, you know?”

“And to think I wasn’t even sure of taking you there,” he giggles.

“Really?”

He nods. “I wanted to study, I already felt like I was falling behind and I thought I could use those three days to catch up, but then you crossed my mind and I forgot about the rest.”

You look down to hide the big smile on your face. No, you’re not happy you almost made him fail his second year in this war, but you love knowing how much he cares about you. The old Donghyuck would’ve never confessed this, he would’ve never shown how weak you make him. But now he’s proudly telling you how you genuinely occupied his thoughts.

“I know I didn’t show signs of failure, but you did succeed in your plan just a bit.”

He snorts. “Don’t need fools gold.”

“No, I’m serious. I mean, maybe you’re right, you didn’t, but I think you succeeded in something better. You showed me I can achieve my academic goals and still live life. You showed me so much. I had fun on my own, and I loved it, but I also only had myself and nobody to count on, and that sucks.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“Yes you did, you pushed me out of my comfort zone and trust me, I did panic sometimes. I just hide it better. But you gave me the chance to meet seven amazing people allowing me in your friend’s group. Some of you have known each other for so long, that’s probably when I should’ve put my heart at ease and realised you truly cared about me.”

“You fail to understand how likeable you are. Everybody loves you, you just don’t pay them attention.”

You shrug. He’s probably right. You never cared about that, but you won’t start caring about it now. You found your people, you found your place.

Staying at his place for the night is tempting, but, truth be told, you two want to be on your own on your first night as lovers. So, with the excuse of wanting to eat an ice cream (not an excuse, you will eat ice cream), you slip out of the place.

The others don’t care. Honestly, it’s clear that everyone except you two was expecting this ending, but you will deal with this tomorrow at lunch with the girls. For now, you chuckle at Jeno’s wink before he rests his head on Renjun’s shoulder again, who barely waves goodbye before going back to the movie they’re watching. Mark seems to be the only one confused at the way your arms are linked when you walk through the living room, but you’re sure that Yangyang, who has a teasing smirk on his face, will fill him in as soon as you’re out of the door. Jaemin will sneak at the girls’ hang-out tomorrow, his face lets it all known.

“I love this place,” Donghyuck says when you enter your apartment.

“Really? This hole?” You chuckle, leaving your bag at the door and getting rid of your shoes.

He nods. “It’s cosy and quiet, and I get to have you all to myself.” Before he finishes the phrases he pulls you in his hold, almost making you lose your balance and you scold him.

“Can you be less clumsy?”

“Mhh... no.”

“Also, it’s not like not being alone ever stopped you from being the clingiest man on earth.”

He huffs, throwing his head back as he slowly starts walking backwards to reach the bed. “As if you don’t like it.”

“You got us many suspicious looks,” you complain.

“Girl, everybody knew about us,” he says, falling on the bed with you. “I fear they were betting on a situationship but well, we didn’t do anything to keep this on the low.”

You shrug. “Whatever,” you say, caressing his face to move the hair on his eyes. “I don’t care. Tonight I just want to think about us.”

“Now you’re talking,” he hums happily. “Can I get a chocolate-less kiss?”

You laugh. “You can get all the kisses you want.”

Your lips connect to his to start a sweet kiss that lasts for a while. You never truly pull away as your hands start moving on each other to get rid of the clothes and leave you half-naked on the bed.

“Wanna taste you,” he murmurs, rolling around so your back is on the mattress before he starts going down. His fingers hook with the band of your panties and pull them down. “A bush?”

You huff. “I was just a bit busy, and didn’t have time to shave.”

“Good. I hope you don’t find time to do it ever again,” he says making you laugh.

“You like it?” You ask.

“I love it,” he replies.

You don’t have time to react because his lips are on you as soon as he's done talking. Your hips buck up and you fail to hold back the moans.

Donghyuck takes his sweet time, licking up stripes to get you wet before he starts sucking on your hardening clit.

Your head rolls back against the pillow and your hands can’t help but tangle in his hair to pull him closer. The groan of pleasure that comes out of his mouth at your gesture makes you tremble.

“So fucking sweet for me,” he mumbles against you. “My sweet girl.”

A dumb grin curls your lips and your eyes try to open to get a glimpse of him. You regret that action cause his pretty face smashed against you as he eats you out as if you're his last meal sends shivers straight to your core.

“Please,” you whimper, making him open his eyes to stare at you. Your throat tightens and you feel like you might pass out from that, but still force yourself to finish the phrase. “Don’t stop, you’re so good. I — I never felt like this.”

He grins, pulling away only to reply. “Yeah? Am I that good?”

You groan. He’s still so competitive and always has to prove a point. But you don’t care. That’s fun. That’s what you love about him. “Yes, you’re that good. Just please, keep doing it.”

“Never planned of stopping.”

When his mouth starts moving on you again you see stars. Your neck falls behind, enjoy the softness of the pillow, and you stop trying to keep it together, moaning loudly and chanting his name.

His hands wrap around your thighs, keeping you close to his mouth. And each flick of his tongue pushes the climax closer, making you see stars.

Your breath gets messier as you hit your peak and pleasure takes over your body as you let go to that blissful sensation running inside you.

You’re still gasping for air when you feel his fingers prodding at your entrance, slowly entering you.

“Hyuck, what are you—?”

“I want you to be ready for me,” he says. “I won't make you come another time, I promise. Just getting you wetter.”

You mumble a sound that makes no sense before you decide to relax and enjoy the sensation. It’s not like you would ever complain about his fingers, you simply don’t want to be too sensitive already. But he’s true to his words, his two fingers fuck into you, curling up right on your sweet spot, turning you on more and coating them white.

“Always so good for me,” he praises when he pulls out, sucking them harshly before he leans in to kiss you. Your hands wrap in his hair as you pull him closer, letting your legs wrap around his waist to pull him down. “Damn, calm down,” he chuckles close to your lips. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I know, but I want you close.”

Donghyuck smiles. “Unhook your legs for a moment and I’ll be as close as possible.”

Reluctantly, you do as ordered, knowing that as soon as he’ll slip in, your legs will be exactly in the same place.

You barely pay attention when he does, too focused on the gentle kisses he's leaving on the crown of your head, cheeks and neck. Your eyes only open when he bottoms in and brings your legs around himself.

“Happy now?” He asks, brushing behind a few strands of hair that fell on your face.

“More than happy,” you reply smiling. Your body moves on its own when your hips buck up against him, eliciting a deep moan to slip past his lips.

That’s the sign he needs to know he can start moving. One hand places on your waist to keep you in place and the other supports his body as he starts dragging his hips out.

You can feel your heart skip a beat when he leans down and hides in the crook of your neck, inhaling deeply. “You always smell so good, that’s what tricked me to always be close to you,” he mumbles, nibbling your skin.

You chuckle, shaking your head. Even now he has something to say. Still, his words don’t distract him from his actions. With each stroke, he hits deep inside of you, hitting sensitive spots that make your toes curl and your fingers close into fists on the sheets.

After finding the perfect angle, Donghyuck starts speeding up, his thrusts not harsh but fast enough to build up a steady rhythm. And, with each one, you feel a wave of pleasure invading you.

“Come here,” you whisper, cupping his face to pull him close. “Wanna kiss you.” Your lips are on his right away and you both let go to a long passionate kiss as the hold of your legs around his waist tightens. One hand leaves his face to run on his back, feeling his muscles flex.

Your moans get louder with every passing second but they end up muffled in the messy kiss you’re still sharing.

When his hand sneaks between your bodies, so he can touch your clit in quick circular motions, you know you won’t last much longer. Your walls clench hard around him, and more wetness coats him as your hips buck up for more friction. And the last drop comes from his lips, leaving yours to wrap around your sensitive nipples.

“Hyuck,” your voice trembles as you call for him. Pleading eyes looking up at him. You should say something sex-related, maybe praise how good he’s making you feel, or how close you are, but even if those are the thoughts on the tip of your tongue, the words that come out are completely different. “I love you,” you whisper in a hush, feeling the weight disappear from your chest. Saying it clearly is like finally coming to the real realization.

Donghyuck smiles, kissing you repeatedly on the lips. “I love you, too.”

And soon after, you both reach your peak. The pleasure shoots through your bodies like fireworks in the sky.

You stay like that for a few minutes, kissing each other as you wait for your bodies to calm down.

When he slips out of you gently, putting his shirt under your body to avoid a mess, you still have a dumb, but content, smile on your face.

You don’t have the energy to move, so you lay there as you watch him move around to grab new clothes and two glasses of water. Just the time to pull yourself together, and you’re once again under the bedsheets, cuddled up against each other. You relax at the feeling of his fingers rubbing circles on the back of your neck and let his heartbeat be a sweet melody.

Mamma Mia is playing on the TV, but none of you has much energy to sing along to ABBA’s songs —he has a bit more than you as he hums the words.

When he chuckles, you look up at him.

“What’s so funny?” You ask, staring at the tv with a frown on your face. The SOS scene not being exactly one of the funniest one.

“I was thinking about us,” he says.

“I do hope we won’t end up like this.”

“Yeah, no, but you ended up being my Waterloo, I guess,” he whispers, looking at you. And then you get it, remembering when he sang it to you.

“I told you,” you reply, making him gasp offended. “What? You expected me to say something nice? You mocked me, you bragged and I cursed you with eternal love for me.”

Donghyuck laughs and then wraps his arms around you to pull you flatter against him, resting his chin on your head.

“You know this doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying to beat you, right?” He chuckles, but when you lift your gaze, getting a glimpse of him, you see his serious expression. And you hope he's true to his intention and that that spark set by your ambition will never die.

You smile smugly before relaxing against his warm embrace. “Yeah, but we’ll see if I’ll let you.”

YEARS LATER

“Is everything alright? Why are you looking at us like this?” You ask, shifting on your seat on the couch, looking at the girl in front of you.

“Is it true?”

“What?” Donghyuck says.

“Is it true that you two couldn’t stand each other?” She says, big brown eyes staring at you with curiosity.

You quirk a brow, giving your full attention to your daughter. “Why this sudden question?”

“Cause it’s embarrassing to see tweets of people going insane over you two, but also I think it’s unfair how these strangers seem to know more about my parents than me.”

You and Donghyuck laugh. “And what do they say?"

She rolls her eyes. “That they can’t believe you hated each other and that you started dating her to distract her but ended up falling for her?”

You look at each other smirking before a tender, nostalgic smile takes its place.

“Would it be so terrible?” He asks, tilting his head.

She thinks about it for a moment and then replies. “It would be a bit embarrassing for you, Dad. But also... cute. So?”

“I’d say it’s true,” he replies, shrugging.

“Wait, so you really started dating because you hated each other?” She screams, sitting straight on the loveseat, leaning toward you with her body.

You chuckle. “We didn’t hate each other. We believed we could outdo the other. And your father did too much, as always.”

“You were miserable before me,” Donghyuck replies, tightening his hold around your waist. “I had a plan, and it would’ve worked.”

You roll your eyes. “Imagine thinking you could make me fall in love and not fall in love with me,” you say to your daughter. “I was a real heartbreaker back then.”

“You still are,” she replies, smiling. “My friends go insane every time they realize who my parents are.”

Your daughter never brags about being your child. The famous singer, producer, and dancer Haechan, and you, who had a good launch as a singer before you realized that wasn’t your world and decided to stick to be a choreographer and PR manager (well, mostly Donghyuck’s choreographer and his manager). But everyone close to her knows who she is, and it’s not easy to act nonchalantly about it.

She has heard many stories about you two. The gossip about your story running wild since you broke into the industry. But you never sat down and explained it to her, not until now.

“We still have our charm,” Donghyuck laughs.

“I think the most important thing is your love and that you might be the best parents in the world. But I’m saying it officially only if you don’t turn it into a race.”

“Us? Turning something into a competition? We would never,” Donghyuck jokes.

She rolls her eyes, huffing loudly. And you can’t help but smile thinking how similar to your husband she looks right now.

“Honey, forgive us. How do you think we’re still having so much fun after all these years? That’s how we thrive, we learned how to push each other healthily.”

“Yeah, fine, I’m glad your love story is still perfect, but seriously, no competition when it comes to me. I love you both so much.”

“Come here,” you say, patting the space in front of you on the couch. Hugging her when she sits down between you two. “You are the only thing we won’t turn into a competition.”

Donghyuck hums in agreement, wrapping his arm around you two. “We both won with you.”

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[sr-colle]

my latest tenso package came in!!

first thing i see after removing the air packaging is shulegs. real unmei moment.

the way the clear file was packed is kinda concerning, as it looks like it's just slightly too big to fit perfectly and one of the corners got bent upward...

but it'll probably be fine after i flatten it under something heavy for a day or two.

so here's everything unplastic'd!

the tcg cards spooked me for a second because i was looking at claude's face through the plastic sleeve and turned him over and saw a weiss schwarz blau card back and i was like !?!??!?!??!??!? until i remembered yuto was in there too lol. claude will be joining my two byleth cipher cards, and i think it'll be cute if i surround yuto with my bandori weiss schwarz cards so it looks like he has an audience 😊

the reiji title pin surprised me with how big it is!!! for some reason i thought it'd be like 3cm wide at most, but it's 6.5cm across and almost 2cm tall!! guess it's to make sure the dense kanji are more legible in itabags and stuff. i only got this title pin since i didn't care as much for the wording of the other one, plus this one is the higher ranked title in dbes so i'm showing the proper amount of oshi-ism 😎

soooo happy to finally have the janus reiji and lrfes shu tickets. when i first decided to start collecting, these were the items i wanted most, as they're my favorite cards for each of them in dbes and the frame design is really beautiful for them!! i love the dots in reiji's romanized name forming an elegant little arc, and the holo elements are really vibrant and gorgeous. i'm going to try my best to make these stand out on my board arrangement since they're so special to me.

confession: i had little idea what the egoistic才Φ shikishi even was when i ordered it. i was just like "song jacket art in some kind of collectible form? add to cart" but i really like it!!! now i want the yume no ato one too lol. there's something really satisfying about nice cardboard (<- predictable words of a collector)

not much to say about desfes sol except that its disc case is identical to the pwy s-sol case, so if i go through with customizing them it's nice that they'll match. not sure if these are original cases or supplied by suruga-ya.

the real prize of this batch is my beloved original reiji acrylic stand, who i never thought i'd be able to obtain for less than 3k... instead i was pointed to a 330 yen listing— unopened!— on some secondhand shop i'd never heard of (lashinbang) and i ordered this thing faster than when i got a stock alert for the tears of the kingdom collector's edition.

interestingly, he appears slightly shorter than suit reiji! it might be the pose though. the art printing quality is also lower, which i'm chalking up to its age in the franchise history, as they probably had a lower budget for merch back then. i won't be looking that close though, so no problem!

his matching kusogaki is on the way, so for now he gets to stand between the suits like a king.

lastly there's the clear file; it has this odd offset effect around the character art and i'm not sure if it's a printing misalignment or intentional or what.

but who cares look at how cool it looks when i put it in front of the window light!!!!

so that's everything!! i've got a buyee order coming soon so i'm holding off on rearranging my board til then. i'm gonna go watch the desfes disc 🌸

[broccoliboix5peepeeman]

Hi~! I’d like to request a vampire!Shouto x human!Izuku wearing a sheet because he’s terrible at costumes tddk Halloween fic in these trying times.😭 I didn’t wanna be too specific in order to not limit your creativity. Thank you! I appreciate you💜💜

Gahhhhh you’re so nice, thank you! 😭 Of course - hope you enjoy! 💜

Shoto stood in the common room, his body awkwardly stiff and juxtaposing all the boisterous teenagers buzzing around him. His class was hosting a Halloween party in the dorms, seen as Aizawa Sensei had ruled out actual Trick or Treating as a definite no due to safety reasons.

While most of the class had been outraged at the news, personally, Shoto didn’t see what the big fuss was about. His family had never celebrated Halloween for obvious reasons, but he just couldn’t comprehend what was so exciting about going out in costume, knocking on random doors and threatening strangers into giving you sweets.

It just seemed like villainy but with more steps… And legal apparently.

He fumbled with the frills of his poet shirt and ran his tongue over his fake teeth. The girls had insisted they all dress up for the party, even though they couldn’t actually go Trick or Treating. So, with the help of Yaoyorozu and Jirou, Shoto had managed to procure a decent enough costume.

A vampire, traditional but not outlandish, which he liked. He also had to admit that he liked the black and red cape he was wearing. Everywhere he went, it flowed behind him - it reminded him of when he used to wrap a towel around his shoulders and play heroes with his mum when the old man wasn’t around.

As the memory played in his mind, Shoto reached up and ran a hand through his hair. The right side was styled back while his left side drooped down, covering his scar, which had faded slightly as a result of the makeup that had been applied to his face.

His eyes scanned the room, watching as his classmates chatted to one another while snacking on the various treats that Satou and - surprisingly - Bakugou had baked for them. Still no sign of Midoriya yet though.

Shoto's heart fluttered at the mere thought of his boyfriend. The two of them hadn’t been dating long and things were still relatively new to the both of them, so obviously Shoto still got butterflies in his stomach just thinking about Midoriya… Not that he believed these feelings would stop any time soon.

Shoto’s eyes were trained on the doorway to the common room, waiting. He could happily daydream about Midoriya all day, if he were honest. Sure, having him here in person would be preferable, but for now, this was his only option.

He wondered what Midoriya had decided to dress up as. The first thought that came to mind was All Might, but Shoto quickly wrote that off - after all, All Might wasn’t scary. Maybe an old villain that All Might had defeated though, or a monster from one of those American films the class liked to watch during their movie nights?

It had to be something intricate - Midoriya was the sort of person who put 100% into everything that he did. That was one of the things that drew Shoto in from the very start. His determination, his intelligence, but also his smiles. They always had a warmth to them that, when directed at him, made Shoto feel like he was the most important person in the world. Yes, Midoriya was beautiful and smart and…

The door flew open.

And he was wearing a bedsheet…

Shoto’s eyebrows shot up and he regarded his boyfriend with a mixture of surprise and amusement. A white sheet with several hero-themed patches sewn onto the material was draped over his body and kept in place by the comical top hat on his head. A circle had been cut in the fabric so that Midoriya’s round face was peeking out, not looking scary at all.

Cute.

His boyfriend must’ve felt him staring, because he suddenly turned and spotted him, before smiling happily and bouncing over to him.

Shoto squeezed his eyes shut and held his arms out, bracing himself for impact. However, instead of a hug, calloused hands came up to interlock with Shoto’s own. Confused, he opened his eyes to find his boyfriend gazing at him fondly.

‘That was unexpected.’ Shoto gestured to their hands. ‘I was prepared to be knocked to the floor.’

‘And risk ruining your costume?!’ Midoriya gasped and let go of one of his hands to place it over his heart. ‘I think not!’

‘You like it?’ Shoto let out a small smile and wiggled his shoulders, causing his cape to flutter around him.

He froze when Midoriya ran his hands along his arms, only the thin fabric of his shirt separating them.

‘You look gorgeous.’ Green eyes stared into his earnestly, and Shoto felt himself blush. Clearly, satisfied with that reaction, Midoriya giggled and gestured to his own costume. ‘You like mine?’

‘Well, er...’ He trailed off.

‘What?’

‘Er...’ How could he put this? Shoto rubbed the back of his neck. ‘You look very cute, but what are you?’

Midoriya looked at him, aghast.

‘I am not cute! I’m a ghost!!!’ He exclaimed, flailing his arms everywhere. ‘I thought it was obvious?!’

When Shoto shook his head slowly, he let out an exasperated sigh. ‘What did you think I was?!’

Good question. Shoto thought. He scratched his cheek in thought until Midoriya reached up and gently pulled his hand away from the makeup. ‘Maybe the moon? I honestly had no idea...’

‘Todoroki-kuuuun!’ Midoriya moaned, leaning forwards and faceplanting his chest. Shoto’s arms automatically came up to wrap around Midoriya, even as his boyfriend lightly banged his fists on his torso. ‘Betrayal!’

‘Well, for what it’s worth, you still look beautiful.’ Shoto replied easily, scowling at Kaminari and Ashido, who were gesticulating wildly at him and wolf whistling from across the room. However, his attention quickly shifted back to Midoriya, who looked up at him with wide eyes, face flushed.

‘Really?’ He breathed. Shoto flashed him a smile reserved only for Midoriya and reached out to stroke a freckled cheek. He ran his thumb along a red mark from where the sheet had left an indent and huffed affectionately.

‘Really.’ He met Izuku’s eyes. ‘You always look beautiful.’

‘Stooooop!’ Midoriya buried his face in Shoto’s chest once more and shook his head with embarrassment before suddenly pulling away and pointing an accusatory finger at him. ‘Well, if that’s the case then so are you!’

‘In the wise words of Kaminari, “Press X to doubt”.’ Shoto deadpanned. Midoriya’s lip wobbled at that and Shoto almost thought he had gained the upper hand; but alas, his boyfriend could not be stopped so easily.

‘While I am proud of you for the reference, my point still stands.’ Midoriya stepped closer. ‘You’re without a doubt the hottest vampire I’ve ever seen.’

Without thinking, Shoto’s hand came up to the left side of his face and hovered over his scar. Midoriya immediately seemed to understand what he was thinking before Shoto could even say anything. His boyfriend got on his tiptoes and wrapped his arms around Shoto’s neck. ‘Vampire or not. Scar or not. You’re beautiful and very very sexy, and nothing could stop me from loving yo-’

Recognition dawned on both of them and Midoriya hastily pulled away as if burnt. Shoto frowned at the loss, feeling slightly hurt.

‘Midoriya-’

‘I’m so sorry, Todoroki-Kun! That was completely random of me and probably way too soon.’ He scrambled to cover his face with his hands. ‘I must have made you so uncomfortable with that and if you want some space I’ll completely understand. Don’t feel pressured to say it back as well. Holy All Might, I’m rambling again but I can’t stop myself. I can’t believe I just did that-’

‘Izuku.’ His use of Midoriya’s given name startled his boyfriend, who paused to look at him like a startled rabbit. Shoto chanced a step closer and carefully removed Midoriya’s arms from his face. ‘Did you mean what you said?’

His boyfriend swallowed heavily and, after several moments, nodded shakily.

‘Y- Yes.’

Shoto let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding and closed the distance between them. He took his boyfriend’s face in his hands and kissed him softly, trying to ignore the way his plastic fangs pressed against the back of his lips. When they broke apart, Shoto laughed quietly and rubbed their noses together.

‘I love you too.’

Tears welled up in Midoriya’s eyes.

‘Even though I’m apparently terrible at Halloween costumes?’ He sniffled, causing Shoto to smile wider.

‘Especially because you’re terrible at Halloween costumes.’

Deleted scene:

‘YOU TWO DORKS REALLY PICK YOUR MOMENTS, DON’T YOU?!’ Bakugou yelled at them from across the room. ‘Right in front of my salad too!’

Shoto pulled away and looked at the blonde, tilting his head to the side questioningly.

‘Werewolves don’t eat salad?’

[pocket-luv101]

Spoilers with Xingqiu's voiceline about Shenhe.

Shenhe is said to have a "sharpness in her personality" and Xingqiu finds her cold towards him. He predicts that it could be because he upset "someone close to her". Chongyun? There's a possibility that Shenhe and Chongyun are from the same exorcist family. We know that Chongyun is Xingqiu's favourite victim when it comes to prank. Also, Xingqiu's character story states that he often has a facade due to his family name. The one he shows his more mischievous side to is Chongyun.

I can write so many XingYun fanfics around this :3

Chongyun plans to visit Shenhe in the mountains. It has been a while since he saw his sister and he wanted advice on how to control his constitution like she does. He invites Xingqiu to join them because he's oblivious to how she would glare at Xingqiu behind his back. At first, Xingqiu is hesitant to agree when it's clear she dislikes him. He decides to go in the end because it's physically impossible to say no to those blue eyes of him. Xingqiu also thinks the visit will be a good opportunity to try to change her opinion on him. He loves Chongyun and he wants his family to support their relationship before he asks him out.

He does his best to be polite but her icy expression doesn't change. She only softens if Chongyun is there and she's doting on her little brother. While they're making dinner, Chongyun is outside gathering ingredients and leaves them alone in the kitchen. Shenhe tells Xingqiu not to add chili into Chongyun's bowl. Xingqiu directly asks her why she doesn't like him when he tried to be the perfect guest. She looks him in the eyes and says, "You know Chongyun has a huge crush on you but you do nothing but tease him and mock his feelings. He has since you two were six years old. He told me about the night he thought you were going to kiss him but then you played a prank on him. He cried for hours that night."

Xingqiu is shocked silent until he just blurts out: "Chongyun likes me?!" At the same time, Chongyun enters the kitchen and he yells: "Shenhe, why did you tell Xingqiu about my crush?!"

Chongyun is understandably upset with his sister and scared that Xingqiu would reject his feelings (assuming he would only see him as a friend). He runs out of the house and into the snowy mountain to be alone. Shenhe and Xingqiu runs after him but they lose track of him because of how dark it is. They decide to split up to find him quicker.

Shenhe is the one to find Chongyun first, sitting next to the lake. She sits next to him and apologized that she overstepped in his personal life. Chongyun has calmed down at this point and he says he says it's okay. He knows she was just trying to protect him. They talk more and Chongyun asks her to give Xingqiu a chance. "Xingqiu is a good person. I'm not only saying that because I love him but also because he's my best friend. He had helped me so much and supported my dream to be an exorcist. When Mom and Dad said I could never be a traditional exorcist, you and Xingqiu were the only two who believed in me. Let him show you the chivalrous person I know."

Then, a hilichurl attacks them. Shenhe goes to protect Chongyun but there's no need because Xingqiu takes down the hilichurl before it could reach them. Qiu rushes to Chongyun and worries over whether he's hurt. It quickly becomes apparent how much he cares for Chongyun. His fretting is interrupted when Xingqiu sneezes because his clothes are soaked after he uses his vision. Chongyun gives him his jacket and says they should go back to Shenhe's house where it's warm.

Back in the cottage, Chongyun and Xingqiu huddle beside the fireplace for warmth. Shenhe brings them two tea and Xingqiu notes that she isn't as cold as before. She leaves the room so they can talk alone and Chongyun takes the opportunity to ask Xingqiu if he loves him as well. Xingqiu blushes and he confesses that he does. Usually, he won't bother with how other people sees him but he wants his sister to like him because he knows she's important to Chongyun.

Xingqiu takes a sip of the tea and he immediately spits it out because it's spicy. Shenhe may have decided to give Xingqiu a chance but she wanted to get revenge for his pranks one time.

[marximoff]

Hi ! First of all, thank you very much for blessing us with your fic, I absolutely love the way you portrayed someone who suffer from the Blip and I wish it was something we see more often in Marvel. The angst is amazing and my heart hurts everytime. :'D

I have a few questions if you don't mind to answer : Is Wanda physically just the same as Wanda from 838 (by that I mean their look in case I'm not clear) ? Are you going to add some interactions with the others Avengers (like maybe Clint or Sam) ? I know it's a Wanda/Read centric story of their healing, both as a couple and individually, but I was curious if they both would ever come back, hypothetically, as superheroes (maybe it's a spoil so if you don't want to answer it's totally fine by me) ? Are you going to show more of their background as young girlfriends (if not I would love to request in the future maybe a one shot of their first date, first confession, first time... 👀) ? Who was the closest Avengers to the Reader, excluding Wanda ?

Thank you very much again for your fic and I hope I didn't bother you with my questions.

ok, first of all, i'm really glad you're enjoying the fic so far! it's really important for me to get feedback from readers (and i particularly like it a lot 😳👉👈)

but ok, let's go by parts (i really enjoy answering questions about my work, so get ready because it's going to be a lot don't mind me i'm excited)

Yes, our current Wanda has the same physical appearance as Wanda 838 - honestly i don't know why the heck they decided to keep her a redhead after Endgame or even Wandavision, but because we follow the same idea here as the variant, that is a retired Wanda who focused her life on being a mother and enjoy her family life (and not be a fugitive anymore, of course), there's no reason for Wanda to remain a redhead like, at all give me back my brunette Wanda you cowards!

Yes, there are plans for more Avengers to appear as the story unfolds (and the prediction is that there will be about ten chapters in all btw, not to mention the one shots that i'm still dying to write to add more content to this universe bc well, i'm gay).

Honestly, i don't think there's more room in both R's and Wanda's lives for them to be superheroes again. Although they do care about helping people as a whole, those days are behind them and now their focus is just living an ordinary life (even if for different reasons) - superpowers are just mere consequences, details. Wanda might still focus on her magical studies with Agatha, but not in a way where she uses those powers to defend the world in the vigilante kind of way (she just knows her importance as a Scarlet Witch to the wizarding community, but is more like a mystical figure than as a hero per se). None of them really had a sense of heroism like Steve or Sam, for example, and they just did it because that's kind of what they felt they had to do at the time, being teenagers with superpowers. But probably their focus right now is just raising the twins and living a peaceful life.

Yes, there will still be some flashbacks about R and Wanda's past as teenagers and the most defining moments of their relationship before the Blip (I just love emo Wanda and want to write more about her ok let me be fjksdjfks), but i do intend to write some specific one-shots about some moments that will end up not getting in the main series - spoiler alert, i'm working on a one shot rn about how teenagers R and Wanda came to the conclusion that they were in love with each other 👀

And finally, Natasha was the closest to R besides Wanda - she kind of saw R as a little sister (since she reminded her a lot of Yelena), and vice versa. That's why a big part of R's post-Blip trauma, in addition to losing her entire family, of course, was witnessing Nat's death and not being able to do anything to stop it. But i think it's also worth mentioning that she had a closer relationship with Sam and Steve, especially after their days as fugitives, yeah... and she kind of had a soft side for Vision, tbh.

well, that's a lot, but I hope I've answered all your questions! and feel free to ask more (anything that isn't a spoiler and i can answer lol)

[the-darklings]

╱ i only love it when you touch me, not feel me.

pairing: jean & clara verse: npfh word count: 3.1k+ warnings: nsft, bathroom/mirror sex (because that's who they are as people), rough sex (but they're both so into it I'm not sure it even counts), cockwarming. notes: so this was written all the way back in January but it's the first piece of what I considered to be the real beginning of their dynamic (which I've expanded upon in ASE) despite writing them a lot prior to this point. it's also the first time I ever tried to write from jean's pov so enjoy. this is not super explicit and more character exploration because apparently smut is good for those. as always, any feedback is loved and appreciated 🌿 ✨

He’s never cared much for his name.

Or, more accurately, never cared what sentiment it was spoken with. He’s heard his name being called lovingly, with hatred, suspicion, fear, and hatred alike. Moaned desperately and worshipped—latter he’s always preferred the most.

“I'm not going to touch you unless you beg.”

Clara, however, has an infuriatingly persistent ability to make him crave his own name. From her mouth specifically.

Jean could fuck her until she’s barely coherent and it still won’t be enough. This woman fights and fights, and doesn’t give him an inch of ground. All liquid flame and viciousness, and he can’t help but wonder where the hell she’s been hiding all this time.

With Camorra, a sly voice reminds him, Giovanni De Stefano’s deadly little matchstick. So good at death.

She is. She's a master at death and maybe that’s what makes this so fun, so good, and addictive. Why he irritatingly finds his blood burning whenever he sees her. Why he looks forward to every occasion their bodies touch. Whenever those dark eyes fixate on him and pin him in place, a monster deep down stirs, purrs at her presence. His desire is a monster with its own life, its own insatiable appetite for her.

Jean prefers when she pins him with her lithe body—eyes flashing and teeth bared, a powerful but dangerous package of hunger.

He had expected her to be meek. Broken. Especially after Tokyo. She’s proven to be anything but. Even at her worst, she’s still a sharpened blade. A danger, a promise of destruction. Damaged, certainly, but unbroken and unyielding. The more he learns about Tokyo the more his head rings with but one downright greedy thought.

The Viper hasn’t taken another lover since then. No one has touched her or tasted her since her rebirth. No one has fucked her, brought her to the edge, made her moan and shudder. Given her an escape and a release. Satisfied her.

No one knows the scrunch of her nose or the way her lips part softly. A whisper of air slipping free with every slow, lingering kiss against her throat.

Expect him.

His hips stutter at that thought. It always makes him feel good. To know that he alone has claimed some tiny part of her. Jean knows full well it’s only because she allowed him to claim it but that’s its own kind of buzz. He likes how she burns. How she yields only when she wants to. Liquid flame melting into his body like she was made to fit in his arms.

It’s sex at the end of the day. It doesn’t have to or even need to have meaning—he would know—but she makes it mean something. Emotions aside, she challenges him with such acute precision, he can’t help but come and meet her in the middle; an unending battle of wills. For all the dullness and predictability of their world, she’s a tempest, utterly untamed.

“And would you prefer if I begged?” he whispers against the shell of her ear, watching their reflection—the way they fit, the way she leans into him, trust, trust, trust, that he won’t let her fall, and they exist in these tiny victories. “Mmh? Ma vipére.”

He hums with a wolfish grin, his words throaty, pressing another greedy kiss against the back of her neck, then side, his lips dragging over her soft skin. “For you, I might,” he adds slyly, meeting her stare in the bathroom mirror again.

He might be losing, but she's losing quicker.

Clara doesn’t answer right away—a clever, careful thing that she is, his viper—and they watch each other for a moment, his pace slowing.

The bathroom door is closed, secured with one of her blades, they don’t need to rush but Jean wants to. He can savour her later, in their bed, where she’s his and his alone, where he can do everything to her. If only because he knows she’s no better. Because any scrap of pleasure she will return with an intensity that will leave him bloody.

She has in the past. His back is a colourful tale of her ravenous hunger. The Viper likes to mark him. It likely pleases her, to know she has her venom in his system in the form of her sultry whispers, kisses and moans. Blazing eyes and coil of her limbs around his.

Clara’s stare is, as usual, burning—an almost physical thing. Even like this, with him so deep inside her—and fuck if she isn’t hot, and slick, and welcoming in ways he quite remember fitting with others, and there've been plenty—she doesn’t lose her proud edge. She enjoys it, getting under his skin. Pushing him. Melting the ice, she once murmured with her mouth pressed against the taut skin of his lower stomach and sinking ever lower. Testing his self-control with her mouth wrapped around him, and her tongue searing and wet; a viper delighting in her poison spreading so effectively.

It does say something about his self-control because, despite the temptation, he doesn’t simply fuck into her until they’re both lost in pleasure so deep they can’t get out of it.

The skin of her chest is flushed, her swollen lips parted, her expression slacker with pleasure but she still stares him down.

His fingers sink into the cut of her hip, pushing her harder against the cold marble of the bathroom sinks, rolling his own hips, and it makes her shudder in his hold. So Jean presses another hungry kiss to her pulse, lets his teeth scrape against it, sucking on it. Prodding at the weak spot masterfully. He can be mean, too. She likes it when he is. Just as much as he likes it when she lets those sharper edges of hers out.

Her strong legs hold her upright but she clenches around him in reply and fuck, fuck, fuck, what is it about her?

All he wants to do is bend her over this fucking counter and fuck her until she’s screaming his name. Not that it would do him much good. Clara is as likely to let him do it as she is to graze her blade across his throat for trying. He would be lying if he said the thought of that fight doesn’t thrill him, makes him want to try it anyway. He’s only managed to get a drop on her like this a few times. Sink himself into her from behind so deeply she hadn’t been able to shake him off till she was sated and panting with pleasure.

Then, of course, the viper had tightened her grip on him in return, paying him back in kind with her bite and her venom.

The bite he enjoys a little too much. The venom is becoming… a concern.

He’s worked for years to remove any ties, any weaknesses, from his life. No one can ever have anything on him. He’s the one with the web, he’s the one who controls others. Sly implication and whispers and they’re oh, so destructive but she…

Jean snaps himself inside her, pulsing and so hard he has to grit his teeth. Clara’s hand seeks purchase desperately, her fingers snapping behind herself. Breathing deeply, she lets her nails sink into the back of his neck—firm, near painful—and he hisses through his teeth, pulling away from the hollow of her neck.

“You would like it, won’t you?” he gasps into her ear, and her nails sink deeper, so he fucks her harder. His hips are merciless against the soft skin of her thighs. Yet Clara stands unmoving, near silently goading him with her resilience and coyness. She’s so fucking wet. He’ll need a cigarette after this, or three. “On my hands and knees, non? Vicious vipère. Give in first.”

“No.”

He almost laughs at that. At the caustic hiss of her voice. Of course, she won’t. It’s why even though he’s gotten her, it makes him wonder if he truly has. If he ever will.

The more he has her, the more he wants her. And it’s a dangerous thing. To want, to crave, to hoard her the way he does.

“Then I’ll just fuck you harder, chérie.”

He wraps around her tighter, nibbling on the shell of her ear, dragging his other hand between her thighs. He feels the muscle there, the strength, he likes those legs around his waist and head too. Usually when her taste is hot on his tongue and she’s a squirming, hateful mess above him, tearing at his hair as hard as she can while she grinds onto his face.

He sucks on the curve of her neck at the memory, nibbling, wanting nothing more than to mark her with his teeth as she marked him this morning. Crinkled eyes and a content smile when she curled around him after. A predator satisfied with her hunt.

She’s addictive.

Usually, it’s the other way around. Maybe still is. But he can’t let it go much further than this. A carnal need and nothing more than that.

If he knew about this, about her…

Jean doesn’t allow the thought conclusion.

She’s nothing, he repeats to himself with every push and every strangled exhale, just a means to an end.

She never once looks away.

Clara gazes at them, takes in the way he moves in her, her eyes hooded and intent. Daring him. Even after she confessed to him how that man used to watch her. How it made her abhor every touch, despise being watched. She watches him—them, joined, with his fingers hard against her clit, drawing more of those little gasps of pleasure that sound like music to him—and he can’t help but stare too.

He should take advantage of the weakness, prod it and scrub at it until he can bend her to his will, but he loves her fire too much. Covets it like a man starved—and they both are, aren’t they—starved for more. Each other.

He wants her. For more than just a quick fuck. More than just a means by which he can bury his problems. Just more, more, more. And it sickens him, but it also makes him feel strangely relieved as well, that realisation. The acceptance of it. He would never admit it to anyone but himself but he does. It forces him to feel raw, unbalanced. He hasn’t felt like this in years. He hates it but it also makes him feel high, alive.

In revenge, he sucks on the smooth skin again, lets his teeth bite and nibble, releasing her hip and burying his fingers in her pulled-back hair. Chestnut strands loosen in his iron grasp and he only does it because he knows for a fact she doesn’t have any sharp pointy metal hidden up there. He watched her get ready. Her graceful, supple body was an open invitation for him. A sight to admire, and he did. He worshipped her with his attention, letting her know without a word how every curve and every freckle of hers sang to him. Beguiled him further.

He pulls on Clara’s hair, forcing her chin upwards, at an angle, and she still defies him. Still glares and brims with power.

A strangled pant escapes her at the change of angle, in how he slams back into her, her nails slicing into his neck. Jean hopes she draws blood even if he would have to get creative about explanations later.

“Jean.”

It’s a breathy, bewitching thing—snaring him, pulling him deeper into her, and he audibly gasps a breath, feeling even more starved. Now he wishes to claim a litany of those tiny, appreciative exhales of his name. He feels the muscles in his lower stomach grow tauter with every thrust, with every taste of her skin, and the sounds of their shared pleasure.

They penetrate the air, echoing off the walls, and they are as animalistic and as intensive as the pleasure they create.

“What?” he groans appreciatively, their eyes still locked, and heat between them sweltering. She drives him insane. He’s removed emotional attachments from himself years ago—didn’t even realise he’s still capable of them—but nothing about her, them, makes sense. She’s the one thing he can’t predict or control. “What do you want? Tell me.”

Drive me to the edge, he wants to goad her, tugging on her hair again, and he manages to dislodge a moan from the back of her throat, push me, claim what you want.

“You,” she whispers in teeth-clenched defeat but to him, it’s a symphony. This time, he won. He knows she’ll get him back. Twice as badly most likely. But saints above, did he win? She’s so open and warm, the scent of jasmines and earth mixing with his cologne and musk of sex, and he pushes into her deeper till they’re completely pressed into each other. Moulded into one being. “You.”

He feels every tense muscle in her body, and his fingers slip from her hair, curving around her throat instead, and a flutter of a smile appears, coy and knowing.

Fuck.

The things this woman does to him.

He speeds the already merciless pace until she’s a shivering mess inside his embrace, clinging out of sheer stubbornness alone. Deeper, deeper, deeper—a cruel part of him is set on planting himself inside her very marrows, so she will never be able to feel or know another lover. Not even the Italian, a voice deep down snarls. It’s so wholly and truly selfish yet he craves it. If he is to lose this game between them, he will make her lose first. Make this need between them mutual until neither of them knows where one ends and the other begins.

Jean can’t look away from her, certainly not when pushes and pushes, not when he feels her throat bob under his hand as she swallows. Wanting and needing and trusting his touch. He feels her quivering, her muscles tightening, whispering to him that—

Her orgasm washes over her like a tidal wave—slow but so intense that for the first time, he feels Clara’s legs tremble. His hold on her constricts, steadying her, and his viper withers in his embrace, a beautiful undoing. He lets her ride her orgasm out, watching her mouth, her fluttering lashes, the bead of sweat clinging between the dip of her breasts.

It's then—watching her, memorising how she looks like this; relaxed and glowing—that his own orgasm finally overpowers him. For a moment, Jean finds himself robbed of sight because she washes everything away. He spills himself inside her, letting her feel his pleasure this time. He moans for her, splinters for her, lets the world fade away just for a moment.

This is his gift, he wants to tell her then, the fact that when it’s them, it’s just them alone. There’s nothing else outside of her and he’s never allowed another this close, not since…

But he can’t adequately put that into words for her, nor does he want to. She can’t know. He hopes there will never be a day when he has to explain everything to her.

If she knew him—saw all the festering darkness like a rotting carcass out in the open—she would hate him. It would be better if she did. Maybe her hatred would make it easier to let her go.

He can’t think of that right now.

Instead Jean sinks his teeth into the slim arch of her throat, savouring the appreciative gasp she releases, dragging her nails down the side of his neck. He promised her this morning he will return the favour sooner rather than later after all.

He laps at the bite with his tongue—heat, sweat, and remnants of her soap tingling his tongue—and looks up from beneath his lashes. Her eyes appear black with pleasure. He can barely see blue in his own.

Two monsters, a thought comes then, unbidden. It’s as pleasant as it is seductive. Mainly because he knows he’s right. Cut from the same cloth, sewn into being by similar hardships, and capable of such awful things.

He’s still semi-hard inside of her but his grip on her throat loosens—and the thought she trusts him enough to let him touch her like this is thrilling enough—his palm journeying downwards. Clara sighs quietly when his palm settles against her lower stomach, and he pushes gently, savouring the breathless gasp that follows. He has to choke one back himself. She feels like heaven. Or hell. A mix of both. Still, he keeps pressing, letting the pressure sit there, feeling himself twitching inside her. Them, joined together at the seams, and the heat between them overbearing. They could go again but he doesn’t want to move just yet. It feels good to be inside her like this; a promise of more gratification sitting snugly between them.

His nose drags up the length of her neck, and he buries his face in Clara’s hair, inhaling deeply. She’s wearing his favourite perfume tonight. Something warm and deep with jasmines blooming in his lungs. If it were her, she would go on a whole monologue, breaking each chemical ingredient down and every scent used in creating it.

He likes her distracted, mind-boggling dialogues. Then nearly scoffs at the mere thought. Since when? Since when does he give a shit about something like that? It serves no purpose to him and he doesn’t waste time on things that don’t.

Because it’s her, comes the sinking realization, because she says these things, so they matter.

Merde.

He tenses when her hand settles on top of his, pushing once, harder. Another soft sigh leaves her while Jean doesn’t bother biting back his groan of appreciation at the flare of fierce hot pleasure.

Clara’s mesmeric expression arrests something inside of him when he spots it. For a second, his vision blurs and the black dress drips into white, and she wears that same peaceful expression as she sinks into a river and doesn’t resurface. A dream that haunts him near-nightly now.

He blinks and then he’s back in the bathroom, his arms still around her. She’s here, with him, and his grip constricts further. He can make it work. He’ll find a way.

When has he ever compromised?

She means nothing, he tries to convince himself once again now that he’s back from his high.

But as he peers her—tiniest of smiles on her face, her freckles a roadmap for him to re-examine, loose strands of dark hair framing her flushed cheeks—a voice scratches itself from deep inside his chest.

A voice he hasn't heard in years, not since he called somewhere earthier and greener his home.

Liar.

an: head empty, just them. I could go on about them for five calendar months but hope you all enjoyed this little peek inside his head. ASE does contain Jean's pov so you'll def be seeing/learning more about him outside of just smut dfjhgdfg

[swarmkeepers]

happy sleepover saturday sola!! hope u had a good day :) for the dnd asks: 10, 12, 18 and for all your characters 26 & 27 !!

i did have a good day ty leo!! right back atcha i hope u've had a lovely one <3

10 - How do you come up with characters?

usually world (eg. where do i want them to come from, what’s a part of this world i want to explore?) > class/subclass > vibes > backstory > other parts of build

so thi was “i want to play an ashari bc arlowe’s mentioned there’s something up with them in ehas” > ashari are nature-y vibes, let’s go ranger or druid > swarmkeeper sounds cool > warforged full of bees > their dad found and built her, why they’re leaving the wastemarsh, etc.

12 - What’s your favorite part of playing DND?

not to be cliche, but hanging out with my friends and spiralling about stories told for an audience of six people.

18 - Do you prep for sessions?

YES!

way before session - for ehas, i usually post my notes from last session (i take notes on paper, then type them up as a gdoc and share to our discord) which helps refresh what’s going on. i also have an ongoing to-do list of miscellaneous things - conversations i want to have, bits of dialogue, things my character is keeping in mind. tâm and ari in wandering isles had a BIG unrequited love confession/rejection moment and i had been planning some of those lines since pre-campaign. these are mostly 3am thoughts that i remember to write down.

right before session - does setup count as prep? open all my tabs (wikidot for class/subclass, character doc, character sheet, sometimes worldbuilding doc if my dm has one). make sure avrae has the current version of my character sheet and spells. if we’re in combat, i have a quick reference post-it that i usually write before session (eg. reminding me to add add 1d4 favored foe and 1d6 swarm damage to thi’s first hit, “you have bardic,” # of attacks). if i have a reaction ability, i liked having a piece of paper that says “no reaction/yes reaction” on either side that i turn over so i remember if i’ve used it. check which dice are rolling hot, get my notes out.

putting the character q’s under the cut bc this got long!

26 - What kind of music would they like? (answering the following for my campaign characters since they're more fleshed out <3)

tâm likes brian david gilbert's castle chase playlist, like upbeat genre-funky fantasy music. kima likes maritime folk/work songs (predictably; they're literally a pirate dockworker). thi likes ethereal-sounding irish trad with lots of improv/variations - if they could breathe they'd probably play the whistle or something. sum likes metal, because i think i'm funny.

27 - What three songs remind you of them?

answered for sum, so:

tâm - free - mother mother. featherstone - the paper kites. love you back - metric.

kima - bones in the ocean - the longest johns. fingers to the bone - brown bird. easy come, easy go - the decemberists.

thi - here i am - the crane wives. temple - thao. is there anyone out there - delta rae

and some single songs for oneshot characters:

miya (artillerist/arcane trickster pirate airship technologist) - the specialist - will savino

canto (rune knight tinkerer gnome) - we all lift together - keith hammer

nesse (arcane archer fantasy megafauna biologist) - misty forest - louie zong

cat (arcane archer trigger happy rabbitfolk) - bang - ajr

antimony (standoffish air genasi inquisitive) - transparent soul - willow

[gracielitamargarita]

Thoughts on Kyoru in Fruits Basket: The Final as a manga reader

(and bad metaphors about lava cake)

So with next week's impending shit storm of a Furuba episode next week, I've been doing some reflecting on our favorite Mutual Pining Idiots, Kyoru--and thinking about how the anime adaptation's choices in rearranging or removing content has impacted things, specifically with Se3E6.

And just to preface, I think the anime adaptation has been terrific overall. I also think loving something and critiquing something aren't mutually exclusive either. The goal of what I'm about to write is not to incite negativity, just to get some feelings out about my favorite pairing from my favorite manga series and provoke some deeper thought, I guess.

ALSO, I hope you don't mind metaphors--specifically ones about chocolate-raspberry lava cake, because that's what I've decided works best for explaining Kyoru. So FASTEN THOSE SEATBELTS PEOPLE 

MANGA SPOILERS regarding previously omitted content as well as VAGUE ANIME SPOILERS that can be implied/inferred from the ending of Se3E7 under the cut.

I think one of the (many) reasons I find Kyoru to be such a satisfying ship is because of the slow-burn element. Come season 2 through the beach arc, their chemistry is palpable, natural, and growing stronger and stronger with each episode. When Kyo finally admits to himself that he's in love with Tohru in Se2E9, it feels like we've been rewarded with a chocolate lava cake topped with raspberry sauce--it's delicious, complex, and full of gooey and satisfying substance.

Now like many, I'm a sucker for the pining idiot trope--let alone the MUTUAL pining idiot trope--and we do get to see this through the end of season 2 as Tohru's feelings for Kyo become more apparent to everyone BUT her. It's like we're LOOKING at the chocolate-raspberry lava cake, so close that we can ALMOST touch it, but we as viewers aren't allowed to cut into it yet--which makes every little encounter between the two of them all the more exciting, because we wonder what's finally going to allow us to ravish this goddamn lava cake (sorry).

Which is why I realized I'm actually struggling more than I initially thought in the final season. As it's been widely speculated, discussed, and now officially confirmed, we're getting 13 episodes this season. And while like most everyone else, I'd be thrilled with two cours, I don't know the ins and outs of anime production, AND, while I'm bummed, I've accepted that it is what it is--and that it isn't the reason I'm writing this post.

Of course not every panel or fleeting moment can be adapted from the manga to the anime. There were small little cuts here and there over the course of the first two seasons, but nothing in my opinion that's really SO substantial that it drained the lava cake of its filling--maybe some of that raspberry topping, but generally, the good stuff is all there. (Though I do love this moment below from chapter 82, which was skipped over in Se2E19)

The final season has been different, though. As we know in the manga, the inner turmoil for Kyo--and Tohru to an extent--really starts escalating immediately after Cinderella-ish with Kyoko's backstory and Kyo's nightmare from chapters 90-93. I also understand that Cinderella-ish was Se2E23, and with only 2 episodes left in the season, it made sense from a directorial standpoint to end with the Kureno/Akito reveal versus Kyoko's backstory and Kyo realizing he needs to know his place.

But without this context, it leaves moments like the flower scene from Se3E2 less impactful--like a lava cake made by someone who skimped on the filling. To an anime-only (and even as a manga reader), it's likely still a satisfying moment to watch: we know that Tohru clearly has a lot of inner turmoil following her conversation with Kureno. Kyo's turmoil following his nightmare, however--and overall, the sentiment of him thinking he needs to stay away from Tohru, yet still finding himself drawn to her above all odds--is deeply diminished.

Which leads me to the main reason (finally, sorry) that I wrote this post--Se3E6, or the episode when Tohru finally admits to herself AND to Rin that Kyo has taken the place of her mother as the most precious person to her. 

In the manga, Se3E6 is made up of chapters 107, 108, 109, AND 114, spanning the end of volume 18 through the beginning of volume 20 of the TokyoPop mangas. Volume 19 in particular is one of my all time favorite mangas in the entire series for one clear reason: just as we've seen Kyo get to do in season 2, we finally get to see Tohru slowly own her feelings for Kyo, and MY GOD, is cutting into that lava cake and enjoying that delicious filling satisfying AF. The Mutual Pining Idiots are in full swing here, both dealing with inner turmoil but also being unable to stay away from one another either. In addition, they're dealing with normal teenage awkwardness too, which feels like a bonus topping (would nuts go well, do we think? LOL) to the Kyoru lava cake.

But between the producers adapting Momiji's arc prior to episode 6 AND the producers ending episode 6 with a 2-minute horror movie essentially--AND, lest we forget, none of the Kyoko backstory at this point--we lost essentially all of that satisfying filling. 

And again, I understand, only 13 episodes and the producers are trying to make shit work and I do see why they made some of these changes in the overall big picture of things, but I wish it weren't at the expense of Tohru's character development and also for Kyoru, which had been so thoughtfully and delightfully well-developed in the first two seasons.

My biggest issue BY FAR with episode 6 is Tohru's confession to Rin happening before the sheets scene. The producers combined 109 and 114 for the second half of episode 6. In the manga, Tohru is able to openly admit that Kyo is the most important person to her BECAUSE of how he accepts her after she "opens the lid" to reveal the ugly feelings she's been harboring for years about her father. And in the manga, since we have the context of Kyoko's backstory and can see how she nearly committed suicide and left Tohru alone for days, it is gut-wrenching to finally hear Tohru confront and express her trauma in her own words. 

The sheets scene is arguably my favorite scene in the entire series. The anime portrayed it beautifully. Jerry and Laura ripped my heart out with their performances. It was a deeply moving scene (even with all of the changes) and the romance and pining was there--but, I hate to admit it, the feeling of cutting into that delicious lava cake to reveal that even more satisfying filling was not.

And now, come the end of Se3E7, we're approaching the climax of the series that we've been salivating for for so long now, the result of all of this inner turmoil and secrets and deep, deep longing for one another--and it almost feels now like the cake was baked too quickly, in addition to being drained of much of its filling. 

I was debating waiting to write this until next week after we see how Se3E8 goes, but my thoughts have been swirling about and this clown couldn’t help herself. I'd like to end this post on a hopeful and more forward-thinking note, though, if you've made it this far into my novel LOL.

There is definitely the potential to add a little more about Kyoko's backstory in next week's episode. I also expect that we'll hear more of Tohru's inner narrative and thoughts, which I’m really looking forward to. As several others have speculated as well, I predict that we'll be getting chapters 119-122 next week. Despite it being 4 chapters, everything should happen in sequence (versus with episode 6) and there's a lot of action, so I do feel like it won't feel rushed or disjointed. And while I could see them possibly ending with 121, 122 would be my preferred ending for many reasons (manga readers know where I'm going with this ;P) and I honestly see it fitting best there.

And regardless of what happens, I'm looking forward to eating whatever variety of lava cake is served to us next week.

And at the end of the day, we'll always have the manga, which will probably always be my favorite lava cake of all.

(and now I'm hungry for an actual lava cake)

[strangertheory]

After you so thoughtfully answered that last anon, I'm wondering a few things. Most importantly, how do you think The Duffers could write it, if mileven ends up not being endgame, in a way that was accessible and easy to understand and like for casual viewers?

The “shipping war” between Mileven and Byler fans has never sat well with me because I think there’s an elephant in the room that is rarely acknowledged by fans of either ship. I’m unsure if it’s because they don’t want to acknowledge the elephant, if it’s because they haven’t noticed the elephant yet, or if it’s because they have heard rumor of the elephant but have decided to dismiss it as unimportant.

I believe that what is going on in the story is truly not what most fans think. I think there's a meta layer that hasn't been shared with us yet but that will start to be unraveled in season 4 or 5. I cannot say for sure what that layer is: but I'm thoroughly convinced that it is there. Things are not as they seem.

El and Will are mirrors of one another, and there are details that connect each of them in a way that goes beyond mere coincidence. Their stories appear to be intertwined intentionally, and although the reasons for this remain mysterious to us currently, I suspect their connection will become relevant in later seasons.

Yes, I believe that "Byler is endgame" in the sense that I believe that Mike is in love with his childhood friend that he's known since he was 5 and he met them on the swings and that he's played D&D with and that went missing in 1983 and he was devastated upon seeing the body being lifted out of the Quarry and was relieved to find was still alive and that he greeted at the hospital when they woke up.

But I believe that something is going on here that we (as fans) are not completely aware of yet and that El’s story and Will’s story are deeply intertwined.

How do I think The Duffers could write the conclusion of Mike and El’s romantic relationship in a way that is accessible and easy to understand?

I hypothesize that the writers will eventually reveal a very specific connection that exists between El and Will. It will surely be a huge plot twist.

I believe that characters will begin to be more open and honest about their feelings in season 4 and season 5. Season 3 lacked open communication and honesty. In my opinion there was so much lying and miscommunication that it verged on being the main theme of season 3! (You can read my notes on that in this blogpost.)

I think the writers will reveal that Mike has been afraid to allow his true feelings and his true self to show because of his fear of being judged by society and by his friends. I think that we will have a storyline that involves Mike realizing that he's comfortable rejecting society's expectations of him and embracing who he really is and who he really loves.

But we can completely disregard my suggestion that El and Will are connected in some mysterious way and simply look at this as a “boy-meets-girl and boy and girl decide to stop dating” situation too.

Telling a story in which a lead character suddenly realizes that they had feelings for someone else is not complicated and is not unusual. It would only be surprising to fans that have funneled their attention and their devotion into believing that a long-term romantic relationship between Mike and El is an unchangeable certainty.

How do I think The Duffers could write the conclusion of Mike and El’s romantic relationship in a way that is easy to like for casual viewers?

The truth is: there will always be viewers that dislike discovering that a main character has feelings for a different character than the one they hoped they would stay romantically involved with. Add to that the unfortunate existence of homophobia and some fans might also be upset because they don’t like the idea of two teenage boys having romantic feelings for each other, either.

Sometimes the story a writer wants to tell might deviate from the fandom’s expectations. It happens all the time. A writer’s goal is to tell a good story, and sometimes telling a good story involves subverting expectations rather than affirming them. The Duffer Brothers seem the type to enjoy a good plot-twist. I could be wrong, but I think they enjoy layering Stranger Things with secrets and carefully crafting scenarios so that when the truth beneath the surface is revealed everyone watching the series can say "Wow! What a twist! We should have seen the foreshadowing but we can only see it now in hindsight.”

I think that Mike and Will realizing and confessing their mutual feelings for one another is a very likeable story. Mike and Will’s love story can be an incredibly well-written friends-to-lovers, slow-burn, mutual pining, angst-with-a-happy-ending, queer coming-of-age love story in the midst of a supernatural scifi fantasy horror adventure. I find it very easy to like this story. It’s FANTASTIC. And I don’t see why “casual” viewers couldn’t love this story, too. I do think they might have to be open-minded and unprejudiced in order to enjoy it, however. They will also have to be open to respecting that El is more than capable of having a happy ending that isn’t dependent on a teenage boy dating her. I hope that fans that invested all of their hopes and dreams into El dating Mike indefinitely will still have an interest in cheering for El and her new dreams and goals even if (hypothetically) she is no longer romantically involved with Mike by the end of season 5. If they care about El dating Mike more than her happiness, then perhaps they need to re-evaluate how they relate to fictional stories and also make sure that they respect when people in their real lives decide that they are better off as friends.

Whatever is going on in the story: I look forward to seeing what happens between Will, Mike, and El in seasons 4 and 5. I understand that my theories and my interpretations of the series might be incorrect, but these are my thoughts on what has happened so far in the story and what I predict might happen next.

Thanks for Asking!

...

If you’d like to read my blogposts regarding what I think is going on between Will and El and read about the Stranger Things theories that I find the most compelling you can find them all listed at my pinned index post here at this link.

[rawliverandcigarettes]

Also, speaking of salarian planets : since Trigestis predicted a planet's existence and location mathematically when all the planets in the Pranas system in ME3 are close enough to be seen from Sur'Kesh (Halegeuse is closer to Pranas than Jupiter is to the Sun), do you have a headcanon to fix that ? Like, faulty interface in ME3, or something fancier, like Trigestis's planet being exploded during the Krogan Rebellions ? I hope I'm not being a bother.

Hello again! I'm sorry it took me AGES to get to it and I will, shamelessly, blame it on new job syndrome again.

So I kind of want to use this ask, if that's okay, to confess something slightly embarrassing coming from a narrative designer and someone who slugged through releasing a fic under the guise of "I want to get it right" for so many years: the more time goes by, the more I realize I am not as much of a lore nerd as I thought I was.

It's more complicated than that actually: I adore, ADORE lore that deepens art thematically. Whatever I can get that gives me insight on societies, culture or characters, even biology/geology **that adds an insight on theme**, love it. Can't get enough (ish when it comes to HH, because I'm actually a coward and I'll get to that).

But lore that exists to fill up Codex pages, lore that I sense have been written under pressure of deadline or does not intrisincally tells me more about why is this story told... It can tire me pretty easily. That's why I do not care, could not possibly care less about the obligatory million details about gun and weaponry in videogame codexes (not just ME), or the fetishism around military hierarchy breakdowns (unless it's used as a jumping point to explore character or world, but it's rarely the case and ends up being just weirdly reverent, nearly ritualistic --the attention given to these details does inform on themes, but way more on what has been prioritized than the actual details in these cases imho). It got way worse since I started doing the work myself; there's at once so many thoughts put on the details, and also so little in certain cases --you just gotta cram something and it's the compromise that you got at the eighth meeting on the matter, and it's kind of meaningless by that point and a weird middle ground nobody is truly happy with, but the deadline's looming and you have bigger fights to concentrate on so whatever, ship it I guess.

A lot of videogame lore gives me this sort of vibes now, and the planet descriptions of Mass Effect, while honestly pack-fulled with treasures of characterization that gives some underwhelming species more characterization that we ever got in the main missions, have probably been written either by a contractor with a tight deadline that proposed concepts fast and had to iterate on the rejects even faster, or by a core team member that did this on the side when no fire was currently roasting the game alive. It's speculation of course, but most of this "codex" game writing is very dense and high-input work that does not really allow for self-reflection or letting the content simmer and slowly shape sense out of itself. So while I love the details and some are so good, I have to admit I generally choose and pick from whatever speaks to me in this sort of descriptors, and it's been a hot while since I last cruised the galaxy searching for these treasures of worldbuilding. I should do it more! But it did slide down as a the bottom of priorities, just like this writing probably did in real life....

But to actually answer your ask instead of going on a weird tangent about game writing work: I'm gonna be honest, I completely forgot about that bit. I could make up an explanation on the spot, but the truth is: I was kind of waiting to get on The Empire of Preys to do a checkpoint on deep salarian lore (especially location related), and have it inform the detailing of the writing past the big lines --actual salarian culture shows up surprisingly little in Halfway Home given Shlee is completely allergic to his salarianness and runs away from it as fast as he can!!!!

Another embarassing confession that I took an even more embarassingly long time to work through: for the first years of working on the project, I felt very vulnerable and defensive about my interpretation of the story and themes, and I was terrified, absolutely terrified of illegitimacy. So confronting myself to lore again after my initial judgement/gut feeling, after all the emotional attachment I put into the story and all the deep meaning it took for me, was not an option I enjoyed at all, and I avoided everything Andromeda because I was so scared of what it could do to my fragile reasonning. Since then I decided I cared way less about doing a completely valid and diligent reading of micro-details of lore than to put my own spin on the universe, in conversation with it rather than restricted and bound by its, sometimes, arbitrary limitations. I still have to ploy around plot points (UGH Cerberus DLC *shakes fist*), but only if I can make it into a Point somehow (I think I did with the aforementioned after years of battling with it). But paradoxically, letting go of this insecurity (which is still in process of deconstruction, I am not completely above it yet) allowed me to rediscover hidden gems of lore, question my biases and interpretations, and helped me deepen my story. So I'm super glad you bring it up, I'll definitively look into it and see if I can twist this inconsistency into A Point or let it go!

I'm sorry I replied exactly 0% of what you asked, but I think the opportunity to go a lil' Author On Main (TM) was too good to pass. Sorryyyyy. ._.

[singingmice]

energy & how water moves,

[I’ve not done much I’ve loved too little And I’m tired of running] - Frank O’Hara, from ‘Lines Across the United States’, Poems Retrieved Tin, It's past midday, Energy has been low for a while and I tell myself, is it just - to go more slowly, or is that - death shows its shadow and shows us what it is not to live? I try to go deep, but energy dictates everything. One wants to run down the mountain but moves like a sloth, turning the pages of a rain drenched book, an old rusted train unused for centuries. Then I think: spirit wants me back. Nature calls for me. It's there one must go rather than the endless productivity that dictates our times. Perhaps it is not the time for finishing writing, instead to clear through...to open up after this last year and a half of constraints, of collective fear and hesitation. I remember how water calms. I've been spending time recently with those who struggle to notice or appreciate poetry. Os spends most of her time inside or at work and there she is content. I cannot name where our attraction to each other came from, but feel a little foolish for it now. Perhaps loneliness accumulates. Perhaps one sometimes goes exactly in the direction where one is not heading in order, for the millionth time, to know what it is that one needs. I don't understand her at all, or perhaps I do, and this worries me more. The mechanisms of comfort, of predictability - ways to ward off the chaos that attacks us from all angles. And in that ruin, I find strength, and in it - she cleans and scrubs and tidies away that which can creep in unexpectedly. I led a yoga session yesterday and she said, "I feel nothing" and my heart sank. "Mr Duffy lived a short distance away from his body..." - James Joyce But I had missed / being held. And I've been with C in the north of Catalonia, who's living beside a large lake. At least with him we've been heading out to nature, having emotional talks at night. But I confess I miss literature. I miss the challenge to intellect. There is so much safety, routine...soon, I tell myself. Soon all of that will disappear and for the next month slow travels will await. Hiking, meeting some friends. You, snorkelling. How is it to live so close to such a vibrant sea? Have you noticed differences over the years of the life that can be found there? I went to the sea last week with C. Speedboats everywhere. Back on the island where I've been living since April it's much better for wilderness areas, but even then - boats everywhere. I long for a sea too rough for sailing, or too cold, too unpredictable. What happened with your March? We have much to catch up on... I often make Kombucha just with like it is, but sometimes add things like mint. I find it interesting to experiment with the kinds of tea... Fear. There is so much of it everywhere. I will have to go far, far from the city to get away from it. Here in Barcelona I feel it immediately. It's far different from the lake where C lives. I suppose it's my first direct confrontation with it. Fear attacks the immune system, the health inside, all the good we carry. Survival instinct kicks in, but when it never has an off button, because it's constant - exhaustion comes. I've been doing a lot of breath work the last months. It's helped a lot, though I have to be careful to keep up with it while travelling, as it's easy to resist all kinds of routine when away from it. Sometimes I just focus on releasing all the poison from the body and mind with the outbreath. The longer I can go the better. But I feel time also slipping away, as if all this period of inactivity...events to separate the days - brings time into a collective soup of which is there is little escape routes. The lentils cling to us and then there is no way out. The spontaneous is more important than ever but can that be forgotten, or is there some secret stash of the wild left in all beings? Those monitoring lizards are crafty...here it's bats, instead. The stories that best serve us... Perhaps it is just those that go towards

understanding, wisdom. But how to select them? I'm reading a book of a man's walk across Afghanistan currently. I found it in the garage of C of books travellers had left. I walk in the streets of Barcelona and see donkeys and deserts. Perhaps there is little worthwhile news stories, and what has worth is the personal, the way back to our origins, to the nests of where we belong. And breath, the body, the wind, gleaming eyes, animals. The rest - media seems to be stronger and stronger and leaves me weak. Little by little, disentangling, giving it up... My heart would be full of underground passages, some accessible, some not so much. C told me that I'm so much more open about my past than we last met seven years ago, on the way down to Morocco in his camper van. That I speak of my childhood without hesitation, of my father and the darkness there that envelopes. I keep reminding myself of gratitude. It helps a lot. My brother is becoming an ordained Hindu monk next week. It's like getting married / only to an elephant god (amongst others) rather than to another person. Been doing a lot of ancestral work recently, of the past - but I'm somewhat allergic to people romanticising the ancestors. For some of it - this is where trauma gets passed down - all the unresolved - the conflicts, the turned away from, that which is repelled. I for one am not particularly proud of my blood...but it's good to imagine some that are. I prefer, when offering a drink to the land, for it to be pachamama and not my ancestors, who likely had enough alcohol in life and don't need it in death too. You're in rain season now? On the island there are continuous floods even in summer. The lands are changing and people refuse to believe it. For years it brought me great despair to witness the extinctions, the loss of habitat. Somehow now, though the sadness and despair still remains - it almost rejoices, for perhaps now people finally realise. And we will not be forever. And some beings can take our place, and perhaps they will take better care... Well, a hug. One last day in the city, and more and more it makes less sense. Jass

[lady-plantagenet]

I'm going to be sooooo predictable and ask for your thoughts on Owen Tudor/Catherine de Valois (for the ship meme)

Hey hey ;) I’m glad I could do this one for you! These two deserve all the love!

Some Comments:

These two are the *definition* of delicious and for all the obvious reasons, though I fear they are never taken seriously enough. That’s the real issue, and I think it’s insulting to both parties. I’m not too picky because given that I have not spent as much time with this couple as I did with some of the others closer to my time period of interest, however, I must confess I feel a revulsion towards the whole ‘Owen wasn’t Catherine’s true love he was second-best to Henry V’ and all that crap. That might also be down to the fact that I’ve never really felt the Henry V hype, at least not at the level it’s usually at. But it can go many directions and I am intrigued, it would take great lack of skill to make such a couple boring. I mean I got through a full-length novel about them (Crown in Candlelight) so I guess you *could* say I read fic for it hh, I would further but there’s not much on them! On AO3 there is that *one* good fic (Caged Birds Sing) but I want more! Romantic and Sexual goes without saying. As for the ‘more interested in the consequences’ square, well I don’t like the insertion of ‘more’, the consequences are surely tied with the ship aren’t they? I don’t mean to say it’s the 16th century Tudors I’m necessarily interested as much as how English society reconciled the fact that Owen was both a welshman but also the step-father of the king. His legal status as a result of this marriage intrigues me (yes I know I am weird). I also like to think Catherine and Owen created a precedent and Jacquetta and Edward IV had this legendary couple in the back of their minds when they entered their own scandalous matches. It really makes me wonder because while modern society (eg 18th century - 21st) had its rigid class distinctions it was just plain snobbery but in the 15th century, there was a belief in a hierarchy on the assumption that it was part of a divine pre-ordained order, so I wonder if this union shocked some people to the degree of some blasphemy (yes I know Owen was of noble blood but at the same time he wasn’t even a citizen!). I put unhealthily and not softly because idk, I can easily be made to see this ship as being full of obsession from either (or both) side and then developing into something more healthy but still very gripping (after all the marriage had longevity), but I can’t really see it as hurt/comfort-y so I didn’t put ‘softly’. I personally have zero problem with that. I didn’t check any of the friendship ones because I feel like this is one of those couples which is very heavily on the eros and romantic side of things that the platonic part is kind of smothered. Personally I think that’s fine, it doesn’t make it any less true. Though of course I could see a an angle of friendship built on the fact that they were both foreigners living in a country that had wrecked havoc in both their lands. I think that’s adorable. Soulmate goes without saying, if anyone in 15th century history was star-crossed it was those two!

The Ship:

I said in my previous that I like couples where there’s that clear sun-moon opposites unite angle. I don’t see it very clear in these two, to me they are both sun-like, but I think that makes it all the more ardent and compelling. However and factually-speaking, it doesn’t have the hallmarks of one of those fast-burn and then nothing relationships (like Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn), there was no infidelity on his side, he never remarried after she died, they seemed to have spent substantial amounts of time in each other’s company. It was anything but shallow. I am also a massive fan of ‘they only had each other’ ‘the world was kind of against them’ (kind of like George and Isabel), and based on my limited knowledge that appears to have been the case. Ok, please don’t shoot me but the main reasons I ship them is because of Rosemary Hawley Jarman’s Crown in Candlelight, fuck-boy rapey Owen aside, they had so so much chemistry there (“cariad” *swoons*). Catherine gets the unfair reputation for being a nymphomaniac (bayed like a drunken whore when she was cavorting with Tudor quote never fails to make me laugh) and I don’t buy that but I buy CIC Catherine where she is one of those people very needing of love (both physical and spiritual) and full of heart (a contrast to the ice princess archetype) and Owen is one of the few people with the amount of heart to match it. I like the idea that they were the only two people at court who didn’t have a stick up their ass and only thought of war hahaha. Also, I love reading the trope of class difference when it’s the man who is below the woman, it’s usually always the other way around in modern media and I’m tired of it, add to that the whole medieval courtly love and marianistic worship and *chef’s kiss*.

[marbled-roses-au]

Marbled Roses

~°Entry #: 002°~

Author's Note: This chapter has a small warning for paranoia and stalking, some bad mental health talk, and Tim thinks he's hallucinating, too, but he jokes about it more than anything. Also demon mention, I know that can be a trigger. Anyways, enjoy this chapter!~ 🌹

Alex smiled, holding his camera in his hand. "So, today, we are just going and scoping out some good filming spots. I asked the faculty yesterday and they said as long as I add the school into the credits, they are fine with it being a filming spot." He explained, smiling at his friends.

"Okay..." Tim said with a nod, "and why are you dragging us along?" He asked in an unamused tone.

Alex huffed a bit, "You and Brian are going to be some of the main characters and Jay is going to help me edit this. We all should be involved in the whole process." He explained. Tim was always grumpy, Alex never understood why. Of course, he never knew much about him...Tim tended to keep to himself. Well...himself and Brian, of course. None of them knew if they were secretly dating, but they all knew for sure that they were pining hard for one another. That much was very obvious.

"Fair enough." Tim said with a soft sigh. He didn't mind it too much, though, he would much rather been sleeping in on his weekend. His friends always had energy and he never knew where it came from. He didn't understand how they could possibly have a job, go to classes at ungodly hours in the morning (and not be late), have an active social life, and still have the energy to do fun stuff.

Jay just smiled a bit and looked around, "So, is there anywhere specific you are looking at for the end scenes?" He asked.

Alex smiled and nodded, "The school has some really nice cherry blossoms. I'm going to film the 'big kiss' there." He explained with a happy hum.

"Why there?" Brian asked, tilting his head a bit. Sometimes, Alex chose things and didn't have an explanation or a reason for his choice. Him, Tim, and Jay had all collectively agreed that Alex probably has ADD or ADHD, though they weren't psychiatrists and couldn't diagnose him based off of a few simple similar symptoms.

"Well, in Japanese culture, if you confess your love under a cherry blossom on the last day they are in bloom, the love will never die. It's a really sweet tradition. I found out about it in this really great anime I watched a few months ago." Alex rambled with a big smile. Sure, he was excited for the film and wanted to add some culture into his romance movie, but hopefully this tradition worked on Tim and Brian. He wanted to see them happily together.

"Weeb." Teased Tim, snickering softly when Alex gasped in mock offence and Jay and Brian chuckled under their breath.

"I'm getting all of this bullying on camera, you know." Alex said with a huff, puffing out his cheeks a bit. He was always the one getting picked on by his friends. "Oh yeah, speaking of camera, I'm going to be recording the 'auditions'. Even though you two have the roles, I want to get it on camera for any 'Behind the Scenes' stuff I do. I'm also going to buy small cameras for you guys to record personal rehearsals with." Alex said, smiling a bit, "That way, you guys can send us the videos and then Jay and I can watch them and send some feedback."

Brian sighed, smiling a bit, "Are the cameras for us necessary?" He asked, "I mean, we could just, like, video chat instead."

"The cameras are a necessity." Alex said, "Most of the time, I'll be running around, going to classes or just busy doing other stuff, video chats are too...inconvient." He explained, waving his hand to emphasize his point. Besides, something deep down told him they all needed their own cameras...he didn't know what that voice was or why it was there.

Though...ever since Alex had picked up that rose on his script, something had been whispering things to him when no one else was around; Things like...flattery...advice...encouragement...predictions.

Alex didn't really care what it was that was telling him these things at this point. All he cared about was that whatever or, rather, whoever this voice was, they were out to help him and his friends, not hurt them...and, somehow, this voice made him feel...secure.

"You know, its weird, its been a few days, and this rose hasn't wilted or anything." Alex said, "The blue has just...sort of faded and its getting more red."

Tim looked at Alex and huffed, "If you ask me, that damn rose is cursed..." He said, "If I were you, I would throw it in the garbage." Something about that rose made Tim uneasy and all he wanted was to get it as far away from him and his friends as possible.

"How much longer are we gonna be running around filming locations?" Jay yawned, "It's our weekend, we should be sleeping in or relaxing or...you know, something." He said, rubbing his eyes tiredly. Usually, he was fine getting up early in the morning...today, however, he was exhausted and just wanting to hide under his covers.

"You guys are such buzzkills, you know that?" Alex asked, looking at all of them, "All I want to do is be out, filming locations with the people that are, you know, helping me with this movie." He complained, "But, if you guys really want to leave, then leave." He started walking ahead of them, frustrated with their constant complaining. He just wanted to have some fun, they were all being moody and boring.

"Alex..." Brian sighed, "c'mon, we aren't trying to be mean." He said, smiling softly. "Tim and I were doing classwork until the sun was coming up and then we couldn't even sleep after that because we were wound up..."

Jay hummed, "And my body and my brain wouldn't let me sleep last night. I think it was...6A.M...? Before I even passed out." He said, smiling sympathetically. He wished he could give more energy into this for Alex, he hated seeing his friend upset.

Alex turned to them, sighing a bit, "I know you guys aren't trying to be buzzkills." He said with a sigh, "I'm just so excited to film this and I want to share all of my ideas with you guys and incorporate some of your ideas, if you have any. I know I get a little...much...when I get excited." Though he hated to admit it, his friends were right in saying that he, in the nicest words possible, hyperfixated. He did that with most of his projects, losing motivation half way through and quitting. This time, however, he had made a promise; not just to himself, but to his friends, too. He wouldn't give up on this project, no matter what happened.

Tim looked around, frowning when he saw something...weird. "Hey...you guys see that, too, right?" He asked, nodding to...what could only be described as a very, very, tall man in a trench coat with a fedora covering his face. Something about the guy made Tim want to run and hide; giving him the same unsettled feeling as the rose did, only stronger.

Alex turned, facing the camera in the direction and tilting his head a bit. "Huh..." He hummed, "that...has to be a prop or something. People aren't that tall, right?" He asked, looking over at Tim, Jay, and Brian. He was the only one of them that didn't feel...worried or panicked.

Brian felt a bit unsettled deep inside, "Not normally." He said, frowning a little, "Has...Has he been watching us?"

Jay chewed at his lip, "Or...following us? He kinda looks like a sex offender..." He said softly.

The 'person' turned to them, a devilish, perverted, sharp-toothed smirk stretching across his white face. He held up a deep red rose before he tipped his hat to them, slipping behind a tree and seemingly disappearing after that; a gentle breeze of red and blue rose petals following behind him and falling gently onto the grass.

Alex walked over, ahead of the others, seeing if he could record any proof of that guys existence. However, when he looked behind the tree, there was nothing. Not a single trace that anyone was ever there, other than the trail of petals.

He couldn't wait to get back to the dorms and take the recording to his computer to see if he could get a better look at that...creature? Monster? Demon?

The group shared a look, eyes wide and a shared, uneasy feeling between the four of them. Without any words spoken, they all agreed that whatever that thing was, it wasn't human and it didn't look all too friendly, either.