#also the fact that Jake actually seemed to get sad about that | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

asahicore · 10 months ago

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bad news first - sjy (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact pairing. jake x fem!reader synopsis. From the moment you'd met at eight to the day he moved to South Korea at fourteen, you and Jake were inseparable. But after years of being apart, you've come to terms with the fact that at twenty, you and Jake just aren't what you used to be. That is until you get a text from him, and all of a sudden, he's back by your side, doing his year abroad at the university you study at, and all your feelings for him float back up to the surface. genre. college au, childhood friends to ???? to lovers, painful mutual pining, one bed trope..... a sprinkle of angst (my hand slipped) but mostly fluff i promise and smut (mdni!!!), also i made sunghoon really weird in this and idkw, this is set in scotland.. edinburgh uni rep!! word count. 23k author's note. everybody say happy belated birthday to @zreamy.. happy belated birthday zo!!! being 22 years and 6 days old is cooler than just 22 years old anyway.. hope you like it bestie... if you dont... well theres a building on campus thats 17 stories high sooo.. enjoy! i hope everyone else enjoys too, since this is a bday fic for zo she couldnt beta read so i had to raw dog this so if its terrible.. not my fault! lmk what u think!! i also made a playlist for this, do listen along!!

“Alright kids, good news or bad news first?”

You looked at your teacher, then at the boy next to you, then back at your teacher. “Bad news first,” you said in unison.

You were only eight, but you were both wise enough to know that hearing good news second would assuage the blow of whatever these bad news were. Miss Dawson sighed as she crouched in front of you. “The bad news is your bus driver is on strike and won’t be coming. The good news is that your parents have been informed and are coming to pick you up soon.”

Following her instructions, you headed to the gymnasium and sat there silently among the other kids. Not many kids in your class rode the bus home, and the ones who did seemed to have drivers not on strike, so it was just the two of you. You were used to that, though - over January and February, you had made a sort of silent pact to stand and wait for the bus together. You sometimes shared snacks, but you never spoke. For some reason, you felt at ease with this boy, even though you didn’t know much about him. You had heard he had moved to Brisbane just at the start of this year, all the way from South Korea. You were pretty sure his name was Jake.

You handed him one of your Twix bars. Then he spoke. “I thought a strike was when you did really well in bowling.”

“Same,” you replied, mouth full of chocolate and caramel. “I’m not sure why that would keep the bus driver from picking us up.”

Jake looked at you with wide eyes, distress clear in them. “Do you think he went bowling instead of picking us up?”

This made you frown. “That’d be really rude.”

“It would. I always make sure to go bowling on the weekends, ‘cause if I missed school that’d be rude to Miss Dawson.”

You nodded your head in fervent agreement. “For sure.”

That weekend, his mum called your mum to ask if you wanted to go to the bowling alley with them. From then on, for the next six years, you were stuck together by glue.

Twelve years later, Jake’s name appearing on your phone screen has become such a rare sight, you don’t believe it right away. It takes you a few seconds of intense squinting at the letters to actually realise your eyes aren’t deceiving you.

jake.sim15 hey y/n!! you go to edinburgh uni right?

You type and delete three different responses before settling for a simple yeah, I am! what’s up?, hoping you sounded nonchalant even though you very much felt chalant. You thought that whatever you sent wouldn’t be as weird as taking forever to answer such a straightforward question.

As you wait for Jake’s reply, you scroll through your previous shared messages, noting with sadness that for three years in a row, the only instances you’d texted were to wish each other a happy birthday or when he reacted with a fire emoji to Stories of your dog, Milo. Before that, your last conversation was to congratulate each other about getting into your top choice universities and to discuss plans for your respective futures.

Futures that used to include each other, you think. His reply appears at the bottom of your screen before melancholy can fill your heart.

jake.sim15 i applied to go there for my year abroad next year annnnd i got in !! heh

You shoot up straight from your seat on the lounge chaise you’d been sunbathing on, a loud “Oh my God!” involuntarily escaping your mouth.

“What? What happened? Is everything okay?” Chaewon asks frantically, rushing over to your side. “Oh,” she says when she sees your phone. “It’s a text… from a boy?”

This makes Yunjin, previously unbothered by your panic, rise from her seat and take off her sunglasses. “A boy? Show me,” she demands, snatching your phone from your hands before you can protest. Upon seeing the texts on your screen, she lets out a loud gasp. “It’s not just any boy! It’s the one and only Jake Sim himself.”

“Give that back!” you plead, hand reaching for your phone, but Yunjin is already walking away.

“And he’s coming to Edi this September, apparently. He says he’s sorry for not saying anything earlier, but he was waiting for an answer up until now.” She scoffs. “Leave it to our uni to tell someone they’re in less than two months before term starts. Oh, you’re the first person he’s told, Y/N! After his parents. How cute,” she coos, protesting when you snatch your phone back from her. “Hey! I was reading that.”

“Those are my texts, Yunjin. I’m the one who’s meant to read them.”

She shrugs. “You would’ve told us anyway.”

“What are you going to reply?” Chaewon asks. With the both of them hovering over your shoulders and watching as you type a response, a sort of stage fright comes over you, making you send what might be the most unoriginal reply known to man.

“Awesome? Seriously, Y/N?” Yunjin reads, disproportionately disgusted with you.

“That’s a lot of exclamation marks. It almost makes it look like you don’t mean it,” Chaewon says.

“I do mean it!”

“Well, he seems to like it. A smiling-with-teeth emoji is a good sign, right?” she asks in an attempt to make you feel better.

“He has automatic caps off. That man is run-through,” Yunjin says, shaking her head as she walks back to her sunbed.

“You were excited about him texting me just a second ago,” you reproach.

“Yeah, before I found out he was a whore.”

“Yunjin, you know we don't slut-shame here!” Chaewon exclaims. Before Yunjin can say anything even worse in response, your phone starts ringing, and Jake’s name appears on your screen. “He’s calling you?” Chaewon gasps, making Yunjin sit up with a start for the second time in less than five minutes.

“This man is insane,” she remarks with all the seriousness in the world.

You run away from your friends, finding refuge in the outside kitchen area out of earshot. They don’t need to hear your conversation with Jake. You love them, but they can be weirdly unsupportive in moments like these.

“Hey, Jake,” you greet, hoping he doesn’t notice the breathlessness in your voice. It was because you had just ran, of course - you didn’t want him to think you were so nervous about talking to him after such a long time, you could barely breathe. Because you weren’t. At all.

“Hey, Y/N!” he replies, and the excitement in his voice makes your heart melt. “I hope it’s not weird that I called, I just thought it’d be nicer than texting, is that okay?”

“Yeah, it’s fine, it’s nice to hear your voice,” you say before you can really think about it, and cringe at your own words. Years without talking and the world’s worst line is the first thing you say to Jake. Thankfully, before you start excruciating yourself, a chuckle pours out of Jake’s throat and blesses your ears.

“It’s nice to hear your voice, too. What are you up to?”

“Oh, I’m on vacation with my friends. One of them has a rich aunt who owns a villa in southern Italy, so we’re just chilling by the pool right now.”

“You always wanted to go to Italy! That sounds so nice,” he says. Your breath catches gently in your throat - he remembers, you note.

“Yeah, it really is. What about you, how are you spending the summer?”

Jake tells you about the local bookstore owned by a grandpa that’s always had a soft spot for him and that gave him a part-time job for the summer. “I’m trying to save up as much money as I can before I leave. If I treat you to a meal, will you show me around the city?” he asks, and you can hear the grin in his voice. It makes you realise how much you’ve actually missed him.

“You don’t need to treat me to a meal, I’ll show you around anyway.”

Still, he insists, and you find yourself giving in quickly - because it’s Jake or because free food is on the table, you’re not sure. Probably both.

You and Jake get to talking, but fitting years and years of catching up into one conversation is an impossible task, and before you know it, when you check your phone, you’ve been talking for over an hour. Yunjin is angrily waving at you, pointing at her stomach to indicate hunger like a caveman who’s just learned how to communicate. You apologise to Jake, telling him you have to go, and plan to meet during fresher’s week before you hang up.

A few hours later, you get a text from him saying it was nice talking to you and jokingly asking whether Yunjin was satisfied with lunch. It’s innocuous, but it opens a gate for more texting, which leads to long, rambling voice messages, which leads to late-night phone calls that remind you of when you were fifteen and still kept in touch. When August fades into September, you feel like you’ve got your best friend back.

You remember why you were so in love with him at fourteen.

You see Jake before he sees you.

Among the throngs of people, you manage to spot the dark, messy flop of hair on his head weighed down by a nice pair of wireless headphones. After a thirteen-hour flight from Seoul, a four-hour layover in Frankfurt and a final, two-hour flight to Edinburgh, he looks rightfully exhausted, using what looks like the last of his energy to spot the exit and the airport bus stop. Even wearing a simple denim jacket, white tee and grey sweatpants, he’s so gorgeous you forget what you came here for, until he almost walks right past you without seeing you. You put yourself in his path and hold your hand-written banner up, making yourself as obvious as you can as you call out his name.

When he sees you, he stops dead in his tracks for a second, someone almost running into him before he remembers the crowd behind him. His tired features break out into a bright smile that has your heartbeat speeding up so much, you think it might run out of your chest.

He had told you not to come, that it would be late for you and he didn’t want to bother you, but you had managed to get the information of his arrival before he forbade you from picking him up so you did it anyway, wanting to surprise him. After years of being apart, rather than waiting another day, you wanted to see him as soon as possible.

Jake briskly makes his way to you, dropping his bags next to him on the floor as he engulfs you in a hug, warm and tight as if he’s trying to make up for all those years. You hug him back as if someone would appear out of thin air and take him away from you again.

“This was the longest day of my life, I’m so happy to see you,” he says when he pulls away, and you’re so happy you can’t even say anything back, resorting to giggling and lightly swatting non-existent dust off of his shoulders.

As you wait for the bus, he tells you about every trivial thing that happened to him on his trip, from how expensive a sandwich is at the airport to the German kid sitting in front of him that kept turning around to stare at him on his second flight.

“How did you know he was German?” you ask, amused.

Jake pauses. “Just vibes.”

Conversation on the bus is slightly disjointed as you jump from topic to topic with random pauses here and there before one of you finds something to talk about - but it’s okay, you hadn’t expected for the two of you to be as easy as before. It’s more awe at seeing each other after such a long time than awkwardness. Even though you’d caught up over summer, there was a world of difference between speaking on the phone and actually sitting next to him. You notice things like the shine of his hair, the creases that form on the sides of his lips when he smiles, or, unfortunately for you, the veins that run along his forearms and hands - things you hadn’t noticed previously thanks to the sometimes questionable quality of the front camera of his phone. Once in a while, your thigh brushes against his, and it reminds you that he’s really here. Even that he’s real, at all.

In a tragic turn of events, Jake lives in the student accommodation you used to live in in first year, and coming back to it two years later is slightly traumatising. His three-person flat is in a different building as your old one, and you marvel at how it somehow still smells the same - like dusty, decade-old carpeting and the permanent stench of students’ dubitable cooking. He’s the first one to move in, which makes the place slightly eerie, but it means that you’re not bothering anyone by unpacking Jake’s stuff and cooking Shin Ramyun the previous tenants had left behind at 11pm.

Your late dinner was meant for you to take a small break, watch a couple episodes of Friends which Jake had been shocked to learn you’d never watched, and you had been shocked to learn he was a die-hard fan of (since one year ago), then get back to unpacking. But the ramen sends an already exhausted Jake into a food coma so intense, he falls asleep on your shoulder five minutes into the second episode.

You let him sleep as long as he needs, turning the volume down on his laptop and stifling your chuckles as much as you can. You feel like a cat has fallen asleep in your lap - you are now obliged by law to stay still until Jake wakes up. It’s not until an hour later that Jake’s uncomfortable sleeping position forces him awake, lifting his head off of your shoulder with a grunt. He looks around himself, at his room that’s not quite familiar to him yet, then at you, eyes still scrunched with sleepiness as a grin blooms onto his lips.

“Sorry,” clearing his throat of its grogginess. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost one a.m,” you reply, and his eyes go wide.

“You should’ve woken me up! Does your shoulder hurt?” he asks, much more alarmed than he should be, and it makes you laugh.

“It’s all good. But now that you’re awake, I should probably head home.”

“I’ll get you an Uber,” he says, already pulling out his phone.

“It’s fine, Jake, my place is a ten-minute walk from here. I live just up the road.”

Jake’s fingers on his phone pause as he looks up at you. “Then I’ll walk you home.” He lifts a finger in warning when he sees you start to protest. “And don’t fight me on this. You did so much today, it’s the least I can do.”

As much as you love the idea of spending more time with Jake, even if it’s just ten minutes, you still don’t want to bother him when you know how tired he is. “It’s really safe around here. I can just text you when I’m home, if you’re worried about me getting kidnapped or something,” you say, taking his jacket from his hands and placing it back on his desk chair.

He grabs it back, putting it on before you can take it from him again, and rummages through one of his suitcases for a black, woolly scarf. Neither of you speaks as he wraps it tight around your neck, even though the early September weather isn’t cold enough to warrant it. His hands stop briefly on the scarf and a small smile spreads on his lips. You hope he doesn’t hear your sharp intake of breath when your eyes meet. “It’s not about that,” he says simply, voice low and unlike you’ve ever heard it before. You don’t think his voice had quite finished cracking when he’d moved away back then.

Suddenly, he steps away, grabs his keys, and heads for the door. “Let’s go!” he says, voice back to its usual cheery tone. You don’t find it in you to question him, so you just follow him out, welcoming the night breeze that cools down your burning cheeks with open arms.

The walk to your place is mostly done in comfortable silence, but it still goes by too quickly for your liking. You keep your hands in your pockets to prevent yourself from doing something stupid, like reaching out for Jake’s hand that swishes back-and-forth as he walks. Instead, you bury your nose in his scarf and relish in the unfamiliar but comforting smell that his cologne has left behind on the fabric. You hug goodbye when you reach your flat, and you have to remind yourself to let go. He insists on you keeping the scarf. “My mum packed me, like, three, so you can have that one.”

“Your mum still pack your things for you, does she?” you ask, tone playful.

“No-” he says, voice slightly whiny, before he realises you’re just teasing him. “Whatever,” he chuckles, ruffling your hair. You hope the streetlights aren’t bright enough for him to notice the flustered look on your face. The both of you stand there awkwardly for a second, before he lets out another chuckle. “Right. See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” you beam.

“Okay,” he says, but still doesn’t make a move to leave. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll be off then.” He gives you one last smile then turns around, burying his hands in his pockets, and you watch as he walks away.

“Get home safe,” you call out after a few seconds.

He pivots on his heels, and, with a wave of his hand, says, “I will! Go inside.”

“Good night!”

“Night, Y/N!”

When you walk into your living room, Yunjin is sitting on the couch, arms crossed over her chest, gaze trained on the wall opposite her, one lamp lighting the otherwise completely dark room. She looks like a detective in one of those bad cop shows.

“Gosh, what’s all this for?”

“You’re back awfully late,” she says, neither looking at you nor answering your question.

“Yeah, I was with Jake,” you shrug, heading into the kitchen for a glass of water. She abruptly gets up from her seat, following you into the other room and staying close behind you.

“And?” she demands, mouth way too close to your ear and making you start.

“And what?” you ask.

“What do you mean and what?!” she says, clearly agitated. “I want to know everything!”

“There’s nothing to say, really. He seemed happy I picked him up from the airport, then I helped him unpack. He lives in Riego, by the way.”

“Ew.”

“I know, it was awful going back there.”

The two of you stare at each other as you drink your water. “Well?” she asks.

“What?”

“Is that it?”

You fill your glass again to take it into your bedroom. “I don’t know, we just ate and watched Friends.”

“You hate shows with laughing tracks,” she states like it’s an accusation.

“It wasn’t actually that bad,” you reply, shrugging.

She tuts. “Love will do ugly, ugly things to a person.”

“You’ve been in a loving relationship for the past two years.”

“This isn’t about me. Can we talk about how you’re still in love with the same loser from when you were ten?”

“I was fourteen, and don’t call Jake a loser when you haven’t even met him.” You ignore the roll of her eyes. “And I’m not. Not anymore. I’m just happy to have my friend back.” Yunjin gives you a look. “Okay, maybe I’m still a little bit in love with him. But it’s so little, it’s barely there.” Her expression is unchangingly unimpressed and you can’t help but throw in the towel. “Alright, fine. I still love him, what about it?”

“You’re pathetic.”

“I know that, no need to remind me.”

“Are you gonna do something about it?”

“My patheticness? I’ve tried, didn’t really work.”

“No, idiot, about Jake. You should go and get him! It’d be so sexy if you got together as 20-somethings after knowing each other since you were babies.”

“We were eight when we met. And I don’t know if sexy is the word I’d use here.”

“Anything is sexy if you try hard enough,” she says, and you have to laugh. “Anyways, you should confess your undying love and tell him you’ve felt that way since you met.”

“I wasn’t-”

“Guys might not show it, but they probably get all hot for stuff like that. Boosts their ego and shit.”

“Yunjin, I just got my friend back, I’m not gonna risk it. Plus, who knows, I might not actually be in love with him. It might just be my emotions acting up, like, seeing someone I used to like after a while. We’ve both changed so much, once I get to know him more now, I might not even feel the way I used to.”

“Notice how you’ve used the word might twice in ten seconds? You’re just trying to find excuses.”

You groan. “This is why I hate English Lit people.”

“You do English Lit.”

“I know, and I’m the only nice person that does it.” In your head, you add and Jake, but saying it out loud would only make this conversation worse for you.

“What’s that scarf, by the way? Did he give you that?”

You look down at the scarf like it’s a piece of incriminating evidence. “Can you stop grilling me, please? It’s late.”

“You’re not answering my question.”

You sighed deeply. “Fine. Yes, he gave me-”

“It’s not even that cold outside!” she exclaimed in an outrage. “Don’t tell me he also walked you home?”

You pause. “He did.”

She gasped. “He walked you home because he’s in love with you.”

“He walked me home because he’s a good friend that looks after me.”

“He walked you home because he realised how hot you’ve gotten and he wants some of that.”

All you can do is sigh. “Whatever. I’m going to bed.”

“If you weren’t such a coward, you wouldn’t be going to bed alone.”

“Whatever!” you say, shutting the door behind you, shaking that preposterous conversation out of your head. When you get into bed, it takes you at least half-an-hour before you can settle down, but you know your constant tossing and turning isn’t due to your inability to find a comfortable enough position to sleep in. Between your evening with Jake and Yunjin’s pestering, thoughts run wild and incoherent through your head.

You want to tell her every little thing that happened with Jake tonight, but you’re afraid it might do you more harm than good. She is most definitely the type of friend who will take the smallest action a guy did for you or the most meaningless thing he might have said and turn it into a sign that he has the hots for you, which usually does wonders for your confidence, but right now, you don’t need that kind of delusion. Did seeing your childhood best friend you used to secretly harbour feelings for make you feel some type of way? Of course, but that doesn’t mean you still love him after all this time, after six years of being apart, the majority of those years spent with no contact. It wasn’t like you parted ways with resentment, or anything of that sort, far from it; rather, you drifted apart naturally, as two teenagers with over 7000 kilometres between them would. At first, you’d call frequently and even write each other letters - but as you became more preoccupied with school, friends, and extracurriculars, your phones gradually rang less and your mailboxes became gradually emptier. You don’t even remember who sent the last, unanswered letter.

Tonight isn’t the first time you replay the moment Jake announced that he would go away, but it’s the first time it’s a bittersweet memory. It used to only be bitter - but now that you’ve reconnected, you can look back at it with fondness, wishing you could tell fourteen-year-old you the hurt would only last so long.

It hadn’t started unusually.

“So, bad news first, right?”

In your six years of friendship with Jake, this had been the first time you’d really been wary of what he would say next. The look on his face told you that this bad news wouldn’t be as easy to shake off as usual. Your definition of bad news was things like I got grounded so I can’t hang out, I forgot we had a test tomorrow so I can’t hang out, my allergies are acting up again so I can’t hang out.

“I’m moving to Korea next month.”

I’m on another continent, so I can’t hang out.

You remember the words not quite making sense at the time. “Oh? How long are you staying there?” you said, taking a bite of your strawberry ice cream which Jake had insisted on paying for, even though you knew he didn’t get much allowance.

“Forever.”

You stopped chewing, and the ice cream melted uncomfortably in your mouth. You don’t know how long you stayed there, frozen as you stared at your best friend in disbelief. It wasn’t until he lightly shoved your shoulder, only meeting your eyes for a split second, that you remembered to swallow and to say something.

“Forever as in… You won’t live here anymore? At all?”

Jake shook his head. He kept his eyes trained on the vanilla-chocolate ice cream sandwich he’d left in its wrapper. In the blazing hot Brisbane summer, it had probably fully melted two minutes ago. “At all.”

“Oh,” was all you found yourself able to say. For some reason, you hoped that continuing to eat your ice cream would stop you from crying, but to no avail. Hot, salty tears quickly started raining down your cheeks, mixing with the sweetness of your ice cream when they reached your lips.

“It’s my dad’s work. Same reason why I moved here when we were kids in the first place. They wanted him here then, they want him back there now. We just have to follow,” Jake explained, sounding just as upset as you felt.

“Right.”

“Are you mad at me?” Jake asked, worry clear in his voice, and finally turned to face you. At the sight of you crying, he let out a small oh, tears of his own pooling in his eyes.

You frowned. “Of course not. I’m never mad at you, you know that. I just… You’re my best friend, Jakey. It’s gonna be so lame around here without you.”

“It’ll be lame there without you, too.”

You attempted a smile. “Well, of course. But at least you’ll get to make new friends, see new places. You’ll be in a whole other country, I’m sure you’ll have fun there. I’m gonna be stuck in boring old Brisbane for the foreseeable future.”

“Do you know how offended our friends would be if they heard you speaking right now?” he asked, nudging your shoulder with his.

You sniffled and let out a chuckle. “They’re all great, but… I don’t like them nearly as much as I like you,” you said, staring down at your hands, hoping he wouldn’t realise exactly what you meant by that statement.

A weight was lifted off of your shoulders when Jake answered. “I like you the most too, Y/N.” You tried not to think too much about whether he’d meant it platonically or romantically - none of that mattered anymore. All that mattered was the feeling of his arms around you, his warmth enveloping your whole body, his familiar scent that you already missed.

You felt him take a deep breath against you before he pulled away. He sniffled and did his best to put on a smile. “Right, enough of that. I’m not leaving until next month, so don’t think you’re rid of me just yet,” he joked, and it helped alleviate the weight on your heart, even if just a little. “You said you had something to tell me? Good news after bad news, and all that.”

“Oh. Right. I forgot about that.”

You thought for a second. Today was the day you had planned to confess your feelings to Jake - you’d only told him you had good news to share. But what was the point now that he was leaving? If he felt the same way, it would only make his departure that much harder, and if he didn’t, it would ruin your last moments together. It just wasn’t worth it.

Jake tilted his head, waiting for you to speak. In a split second, you made yourself forget your disappointment over having built the courage to tell him how you felt only for it all to fall through, and resolved to make the most of Jake’s last month here. You wiped your tears and mirrored his small smile as best you could. “Um, it wasn’t anything much. My mum made those cowboy cookies you like.”

Jake’s head fell back as he groaned in anticipation. “If she wasn’t happily married with three kids, I’d marry your mum. Let’s go right now.”

You laughed. “There’d be a bit of an age gap there.”

“We’d make it work,” Jake joked, throwing his arm around your shoulders as you walked towards your house. He beamed down at you, his bright, boyish smile that you loved to bits, and you beamed up at him as you grabbed the hand that hung off your shoulder in your own.

You walked as happily as you could. “Do you even speak Korean?” you suddenly asked.

Jake halted abruptly in his steps, a gravely offended look on his face. When you looked back at him in confusion, he rolled his eyes and started walking again, pulling you with him. “It’s literally my mother tongue, Y/N. I speak it every day at home.”

“Oh, right.”

At the time, you thought nothing could come between you and Jake. Not anyone, not anything, neither distance nor time. But they did. A week after he’d left, a boy from your class you’d talked to maybe once or twice asked you out on a date. You weren’t sure why, but you said yes. Then you said yes to being his girlfriend, even though you didn’t like him all that much, and you even said yes to reducing your texting with Jake because it made him jealous. When you’d broken up with him and wanted to catch up with Jake and apologise for your absence, you’d found that his new school in Seoul was a lot more demanding than yours in Brisbane, and he had to spend most of his evenings in academies if he wanted to get into a nice university. It’s when you learned that he’d be staying in South Korea for college that you decided to leave Australia too. Brisbane was a lot less fun without him there - why bother staying? You couldn’t go to him because of the language barrier and the cost of university there. If you were to essentially uproot your life, might as well go somewhere you could get a scholarship and understand the people around you.

It seemed insane that someone you had thought would be by your side for the rest of your life, someone that was part of your most cherished memories, had been reduced to someone you casually texted once in a while. It seems even more insane that now that you’re finally done essentially grieving your friendship with Jake, he stands in front of you again, six inches taller but still donning those puppy-like eyes and smile of his.

For your sake, you just hoped you wouldn’t be as in love with him at twenty as you were at fourteen.

The next day, you show Jake around campus, which wouldn’t normally take more than ten minutes, but takes double that time because of the sheer amount of people there. Between the Societies Fair taking up most of the square, the tour guides leading freshers, walking slowly and taking in their new campus, and the pizza and drinks stands, freshers’ week always turns campus into what feels like the busiest place on Earth. You try not to let it hit a nerve for Jake’s sake, who’s clearly ecstatic at all the activity, but you like this place a lot more when it’s quieter. You walk through the Fair, laughing as Jake marvels at all the different clubs and societies at the Uni.

“Gardening Society? Dungeons & Dragons Society? Wine society?” he exclaims, astonishment growing with every passing stand.

“And this is only the first day. They also have a Taylor Swift Society.” He grabs a flyer from about every society, even though you know he’ll join between two to zero of them.

When you walk out, there’s a girl handing out samples of shampoo and conditioner, and you let her give you one, more out of politeness than anything.

“These are so useless,” you start, and Jake chuckles, unaware of the incoming rant. “I had that job of distributing them last year, and we would get a tip if we gave them all out. So naturally I put a bunch in my bag, but then I had to use them for like two weeks.” You sigh. “First of all, my hair did not like it. And second, the ratio is so off. There’s way more conditioner than shampoo when it should be the other way around, so you have to condition your hair even though it’s not properly clean. So stupid.”

“Sounds terrible,” Jake says, laughing. “Is that why you’re not doing it this year?”

“Oh… Not really. I dated the guy that takes care of this promo stuff, so it would’ve been kinda awkward…” you trail, immediately wishing you could backtrack on conversation. Talking about your ex with Jake wasn’t on your to-do list for today. Or ever.

“You dated your boss?”

“The manager, yeah, I guess. He was only 24, though, don’t worry.”

“I’m more worried about the power imbalance than the age gap there.”

You shrug, looking down at your shoes. “It’s not like he was that high up.”

“So, what happened? Why did you break up?”

“Well, he acted like our four-year age difference meant he could treat me like a little kid. It was nice being taken care of at first but then I realised how condescending he was and dumped him.”

“How long were you together?”

You pause. “Two weeks,” you admit abashedly, making Jake chuckle. “At least he didn’t waste my time and showed his red flags early on.”

“Any boyfriends since?” he asks, and you wonder whether you’re making up the unsure tone of his voice. As if he’s curious, but doesn’t want to show it too much. You hope you’re not making it up.

“A few, but they never last very long with me,” you say, a meek smile on your lips. “Furthest I got was three months.”

“And why didn’t it work out with three-months-guy?”

“He started comparing me to his mum a bit too often.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, I ran out of there without looking back.”

“Well, it’s nice to see you’ve got high standards. I would hate to see you date just any loser.”

You want to say, High standards or issues?, but you don’t want to make it weird, so you play it cool instead. “I would never. I have a mental checklist with everything a guy needs to have for me to date him.”

“A checklist? I have to hear about this.”

You sigh, debating whether you should tell him about it. Would he notice it’s based on him? Would he notice the only person that could tick practically every box was none other than him? Jake gently elbows your side, goading you on. When you look at him, he’s got a shit-eating grin playing on his lips, and you give in. You look off into the distance as you start listing your requirements. “Well, there’s all your basics like funny, taller than me but not too much, ‘cause I don’t want neck cramps, smart, takes uni seriously, has plans for his future, easy to talk to, not emotionally stunted and can actually have a vulnerable conversation. It’s also a bonus if he has a nice face.”

“How much of a bonus?”

You think for a second. “It’s more a dealbreaker than a bonus, actually. Nice smile is a must, definitely.”

“Okay. Got any more specifics?”

“I do have some particular ones. It’s nice if he’s a reader, but it’s terrible if it makes him think he’s better than everyone or if he tries to sound smarter than me. I like it if he has experience, I don’t want to have to teach him everything. But obviously I don’t want him to still be in love with his ex. Guys and their first loves, I swear… I also don’t really like picky eaters.” You look over at Jake and take a double-take. He’s typing away on his phone, but because of his privacy screen protector, you can’t see anything. You huff. “I also don’t like it if he has those protective screens on his phone. What’s on there that’s so important that I can’t take a peek? What are you even doing?”

The sweet sound of Jake’s giggles erases any trace of annoyance that you felt seconds ago. He turns his screen towards you, showing the list of mostly ticked boxes that he’s written up. “See? I check most of these,” he says with a proud smile. “Guess your standards aren’t that high.” You don’t tell him that your standards are high, he’s just that amazing.

You do your best to look only amused at this even though inside, you’re all but freaking out. “Which are you missing?”

“Well, I clearly own a privacy screen. And I don’t have much experience. Not nearly as much as you, by the sounds of it,” he admits, somewhat sheepish. “But other than that, I’m practically the perfect man for you.” He looks down at you with a smile so bright, it makes you wish you had brought sunglasses. It takes everything in you not to scream right then and there. Yes, Jake, you are the perfect man for me, but I wish you wouldn’t say it like it was a joke.

You let out a stiff chuckle, and, rather than saying something stupid and possibly damaging, shift the conversation to him. “What do you mean by not much experience? Have you not dated anyone?”

Jake sighs. “Nope, not anyone. I went on a few dates, you know, went through a few talking stages and all that, but it never went much further. There was always something…” He glances at you then. “Missing.”

“I know that feeling,” you say with a chuckle, and he laughs too, a breathy sound.

“I don’t have a checklist to pinpoint what it is, though.”

You smile. “You should try, it might help.”

“I just… I guess I’m like you in that I also have high standards. But it made me not even want to give anyone a chance, especially since I knew it wouldn’t end up anywhere.”

“Don’t tell me no one has ever managed to reach the great Jake Sim’s standards?” you ask, trying to keep your tone light.

Jake smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Of course someone has. She’s the whole reason I have standards in the first place. It’s not my standards I compare people to, it’s her.”

Jealousy has never made you feel as sad as it is right now. “And… it didn’t work out between you?”

Jake looks at you, eyes searching for something in yours but seemingly not finding it, and so he turns his gaze away. You don’t know why you feel so disappointed. “Nope,” he says, popping the ‘p’. “She didn’t feel the same way.”

Whoever this girl is, you can’t believe how stupid she is for passing up the opportunity to have Jake Sim. “That’s… It sucks, I’m sorry,” you say. You don’t think spitting on this girl would make him feel any better, so you keep those thoughts to yourself.

“It’s okay,” he says with a small smile. “It was a while ago already.”

“Doesn’t sound like you’re quite over it, though,” you say, and you’re surprised but glad to see his smile widen.

“That’s true.” His eyes meet yours again. “I don’t think I’ll be over her anytime soon, either.” You have to look away to shield the pain that flashes through your eyes from him.

Pretending you don’t have feelings for your best friend and that you’re okay with him being in love with someone else is like riding a bike: even after years of not doing it, it only takes a few minutes for you to be able to do it perfectly again. Muscle memory, if you will. So you sigh dramatically and throw your arm around Jake’s shoulder, slightly pulling him down to your level. “Don’t worry. We’re going to have so much fun this year, you’ll completely forget about her. Promise. She doesn’t know what she’s missing. Yeah?”

He smiles down at you. You want nothing more but that glint of melancholy in his eyes to be gone. “Yeah.”

Jake is only half-glad to see you haven’t changed much from your childhood and early teenage years. You’re still just as pretty, just as warm; it’s still as comfortable to be around you. You’re also still as dense.

Then and now, he did everything he could to make his feelings for you very, very obvious. Either you’re completely oblivious, or the idea of dating him is so horrifying to you, you understand but pretend you don’t. He really hopes it’s the former.

He arrived in Edinburgh just a bit over a week ago, and you’ve seen each other almost every day. Out of those times, there isn’t a single one where he hasn’t tried to send something your way - something that says, hey, what if we stopped being friends and dated instead? Wouldn’t that be cool? Can’t you see how desperately I love you?, but you never latch on. The ball’s in your court, and he wants you to throw it back, but it’s been feeling more like a boomerang that always hits him right in the face when it circles back than a game of catch.

But he’s reminding himself not to be too greedy. Even if it’s just as friends, at least he has you back, so he’s satisfied with that. For now.

His first class of the year is on the following Tuesday morning, a ninety-minute seminar specifically made for exchange students called Discover Scotland. (He has Mondays free, resulting in a three-day weekend, which you and your 9am Monday tutorial are very envious of.) As interesting as the English Lit courses he’s taking seem, it’s this one he’s most looking forward to - except for the one class he shares with you, of course. Not even because of the seminars themselves, which will be about all sorts of topics on Scottish culture and history, but because of the coursework, as crazy as that sounds. It consists of a singular project, not due until the very last day of the semester, in which he has to travel to at least three different places in the country, research its background and provide a detailed account of his experience there. It can take any form: a written report, an in-class presentation, a podcast, anything. He could even film a TikTok if he wanted. Jake knew that being part of the Arts & Crafts club for two years in a row back in Seoul wasn’t for nothing - his scrapbooking skills would finally have their time to shine.

That afternoon, he practically snatches you as you come out of your lecture, giving you little time to say bye to your friends, and makes you take him to the biggest stationary store you know in the city. If he wants to ace this project, he will need supplies. Many, many supplies. And it’s more fun shopping if you’re with him. You seem happy following him around the store, and when he asks you if you want to come on his trips with him, he can pretend it’s because you seem so excited about his project and not because he had thought of you accompanying him as soon as he heard about it.

As you stand in line at the till, you tell him that if he wants to start his project now, you could go to the beach together. You raise your eyebrows at him when he snaps your head towards you. “There’s a beach here?!”

“Did you not look at a map before coming here?” you ask, amused.

“I guess I didn’t…” he says, distraught at the new information. It only lasts a second, though. “Okay, let’s go now.”

“Now?” you echo, and he nods. “But-” you start, but are interrupted by your thoughts. “I guess there’s no reason not to. The weather’s nice and it’s not like I have any uni work yet. Let’s go,” you agree, looking up at him with a smile. You’re so pretty he almost forgets to look away, until the employee calls Next in a bored drawl.

An hour later, you’re at the beach, barefoot on the sand and ice cream in hand. Strawberry for you and vanilla for him, he notes with a smile. Really not much has changed, he thinks. From the sand, to the water, to the promenade along the beach, Portobello is worlds away from the beaches back home in Australia, or those of Jeju Island. But it’s still nice, and because you’re with him, it’s even better. You’ve been walking around for an hour, splashing each other with water and mercilessly ruining sandcastles left behind before he realises you technically came here for his project. He writes down things he doesn’t want to forget on his phone and snaps a few pictures, sneaking a few of you when you’re not looking. He wants to tell you how beautiful you are with your hair blowing in the wind and the way the chill bites at your cheeks, but he keeps it a secret between him and his Notes app.

Even though he lives two stops further down, he gets off from the bus with you, containing his excitement as best he can when you invite him up for a cup of tea. “Depends. What tea do you have?” he asks, trying and failing to play it cool. He’s just grateful he doesn’t have to come up with an excuse to spend more time with you.

You roll your eyes playfully as you unlock the front door to your building. “I can make you hot chocolate, Mister Tea-Is-For-Old-People.”

He chuckles. “Actually, I’ll have you know I started drinking tea at uni.” When you turn around to look at him, a surprised look on your face, he nods proudly. “Mh-hm. I got addicted to caffeine very quickly into first year so I started drinking black tea for the sake of my heart,” he explains.

“God,” you say breathily, sounding mildly horrified. “A caffeine addiction sounds intense.”

“It was, yeah,” he says, laughing as he follows you into your flat.

Yunjin and Chaewon are sitting at the living room table, watching an episode of what he thinks is Gossip Girl, and they greet him as normally as these two can, but he wonders what the knowing look they exchange is all about. He’d met them the previous weekend when you had all gone for drinks together, along with Jay, Yunjin’s boyfriend, and they had all but grilled him on his relationship with you. He hadn’t thought much of it, chalking it up to your friends feeling protective of you, and truthfully, he was just happy to get to talk about you. But now, he was wondering if you had told them anything about him that made them so curious about him. If you did, he hoped it was something positive.

He stands awkwardly in the kitchen, chatting with you as you boil the water and get cups out, but he can feel their gazes burning the back of his head. Clearly, whatever conversation he’s having with you, he’s also having it with them. “How do you take your tea?” you ask.

“Um, three sugars and lots of milk, please,” he says, smiling innocently when you slowly turn to look at him, a mix of disapproval, disgust, and offence on your face.

You sigh deeply. “I mean, I’ll do it, but I’m not sure that’s even tea anymore.”

“You’re one to talk, Miss Caramel Frappuccino,” he says, recycling your bad joke from earlier.

“At least I don’t claim to be drinking coffee when I order a frap,” you argue. “And this is how you battled your coffee addiction? You’ll be getting another kind of heart problem, Jakey.” He doesn’t know if you even notice your use of his old nickname - the first time you’ve used it since he’s been here - but you don’t make a big deal of it, so he doesn’t either. Not outwardly, at least. Mentally, he’s running laps around your small kitchen.

Jake laughs it off. “I thought I came here for tea, not a health check-up,” he says, smile growing wider at the sight of yours.

“Right, sorry,” you say, giggling. “I’ll make your tea just how you like it,” you add in a sweet voice. Jake knows you’re just doing it as a joke, but it still manages to make butterflies erupt in his stomach.

His tea tastes even sweeter that day.

A few days after your impromptu trip to the beach, you’re waiting for Jake outside of his class. He heard of this donut shop he “absolutely needs to visit” and is dragging you along with him - well, “dragging” is a big word considering you’d follow him anywhere. You got here a few minutes early, not needing much of a reason to leave the library, so you scroll through your feed until Jake calls out your name. You’re only mildly surprised to see Jay leaving the classroom behind him.

“Y/N! Can you believe that Jay and I are in the same class?” he says excitedly as the two boys walk toward you. You feel like a dog owner being greeted by their over-enthusiastic dog after a long day (about three hours) of being apart.

“I can believe it, actually. You two do the same degree.”

You exchange quick greetings with Jay before the three of you start heading out. As you walk, Jake throws his arm around your shoulders so casually, it almost throws you off balance. Physical contact always came easy to him, but there’s something about him doing it next to someone else that catches you off guard. It reminds you of walking somewhere with Jay and Yunjin as they discretely held hands. It makes you feel like it’s not the three of you, but Jay with the two of you. Like you and Jake come as a pair rather than as two individuals.

All of that from a simple arm around your shoulders.

Jake asking you in a very unsubtle whisper whether Jay can come with brings you out of your head and back into the conversation. “Yeah, of course,” you say, smiling. It’s not a bad idea to have Jay along: hanging out with someone else might snap you out of your delusion.

Most of the walk to the shop is done in laughter as Jake and Jay realise how much random stuff they have in common, from their peanut allergies to the embarrassing Harry Potter phase they had as fifteen-year-olds. Grassmarket is really busy on Friday afternoons, and there’s a bit of a queue of other donut-enjoyers in front of the boutique, but you don’t mind. The sun is shining down gently on the square and it gives you time to choose your donut out of the ten or so flavours available. In the end, you go for white chocolate and raspberry, while Jake chooses Biscoff and Jay, tiramisu.

“My friend Sunghoon would love this,” he says after taking a hearty bite. “He goes crazy over tiramisu. Like a cat with catnip.”

Jake chuckles, mouth full of Biscoff. “That’s funny, I also have a friend named Sunghoon who loves tiramisu back in Seoul.”

Jay punches Jake’s shoulder, eyes wide in amusement and shock. “Bro, that’s crazy. You have to be lying at this point,” he says, but Jake shakes his head fervently.

“I promise I’m not. I’ve even saved his number with the tiramisu emoji.”

“There’s a tiramisu emoji?” Jay asks, already over questioning the existence of Jake’s Sunghoon.

The conversation circles back to the courses you’re all taking this semester, and Jake tells Jay about Discover Scotland and the trips he’s planned so far. “Well, if you really want to discover Scotland as a student, you need to go on a night out in Glasgow,” Jay says. Going by the look on Jake’s face, Jay’s idea seems to have struck a chord in him.

“Y/N?”

You nod, finishing your mouthful of donut before speaking. “Yeah, Glasgow’s really fun. We should go,” you say, laughing when the two boys high-five in victory. Between the train, the drinks and the club entry, going out isn’t a cheap ordeal, and getting to and fro also takes a while - even so, the smile on Jake’s face makes it worth it.

He wipes some raspberry jam from the corner of your mouth, shooting you a wink, and you want to disintegrate right then and there, become one with the bench you’re sitting on and never have to face him again. The conversation resumes as Jay tells Jake about all the best places to go out in Glasgow, but you don’t hear a word - the feeling of Jake’s thumb so close to your lips takes away your ability for coherent thought.

“It’s decided, then. We’re going out tomorrow night,” Jay loudly announces. “Let me gather the troops.”

That’s how you find yourself in line for the club the next day, already tipsy from pre-drinking on the train and at the pub. It’s still warm enough for you and the girls to wear as little clothing as you want, but Jake insisted on giving you his flannel jacket anyway. If not for the warmth it brings, you’re glad to have his scent enveloping you.

The five of you work exceptionally well together. You, Chaewon and Yunjin have been a given since you met in first year, and Jay and Yunjin went so well together that he was but a natural addition to your little group. Jake’s only been here for over a week, but it’s like he’s always been around, and you couldn’t be happier about it. Him and Jay hit it off immediately, and although the girls needed some time to warm up to him (it’s not everyday that you meet your friend’s ex-best-friend she’s practically always been in love with; you understand why they might’ve been wary at first), they now tease him just as relentlessly as they do Jay. He takes it like a champ.

For a little while, you watch your friends speaking over each other, bickering over nothing, a smile on your face. Two pints of cider and some of Jay’s fancy vodka have made you more grateful than ever for them - if you drink too much in the club, you’ll be hugging them and crying about how much you love them. You’re not sure what that might look like around Jake, so you decide to keep yourself in check for the night.

It takes about thirty minutes before you manage to get into the club. It’s not coat check season yet, so you head straight to the bar. “Sunghoon said he’d meet us here,” Jay says, lifting his head to spot his friend in the sea of drunk students. “Oh yeah, there he is! Hoon, hey!”

You hear a loud “Jongseong!” being shouted from somewhere in the crowd, but you’re not sure who Jay is waving at until a boy whose face is mostly eyebrows is standing - well, standing as best as he can, with the copious amount of alcohol he’s obviously already consumed - in front of you. He gives Jay a hug and the three of you a nod of his head, a lopsided smile on his face. When he turns to Jake, his eyebrows lift first, then his face breaks into a wide grin.

“Jake, my man!” he shouts, taking a stunned Jake’s hand and bringing him into a hug.

“Sunghoon? What the hell are you doing here?” he asks, chuckling and frowning in confusion.

“I’m just partying, man! Same as you!”

“No, I mean here in Scotland, you dumbass!”

“You two know each other?” Jay asks, looking back and forth between his two friends.

“Jake’s my man!” Sunghoon exclaims, unhelpful and stumbling as he throws an arm around his man’s shoulders. Jake shoots you a distressed look but you just laugh at him.

“This is Tiramisu Sunghoon I told you about,” Jake says, helping Sunghoon stand up straight.

“God, what I would do for a tiramisu right now,” Sunghoon says, looking at Yunjin like she might relate. She chuckles awkwardly.

“I have no idea what he’s doing in Scotland, though. Hoon, I thought you were going to NYU for your exchange?”

Sunghoon pauses to think for a second, looking like he’s never heard of NYU in his life. “Oh, that! Yeah, I did an online orientation thing and… it did not go well. Let’s just say there’s someone in New York City who wants me dead,” he says conspiratorially. You all stare at him but he gives no further explanation. On your right, you hear Yunjin whisper what the fuck under her breath. “So I transferred here instead!”

“I didn’t know you were an exchange student,” Jay says, still looking just as confused.

“Yeah, man! But anyways, let’s not talk about uni right now. I’m on a bender, day three, baby! Do not talk to me tomorrow,” he says, chuckling until the smile suddenly drops from his face. “I mean that.” You look around yourself, glad to find everyone is just as baffled as you. “Let’s party!” Sunghoon cheers, intoxicated grin back on his lips. Jake and Jay follow, but you and the girls stay back for a second, taking in everything that has just happened.

“That. Is the most beautiful man I have ever seen,” Chaewon blurts, staring blankly at the spot Sunghoon stood in a second ago.

“Yeah, he also seems to be a raging alcoholic. And he’s what, twenty-one?” Yunjin says, a scowl on her face.

“I could fix him.”

“Okay, let’s go,” you say, grabbing your friends by their wrists before either of them can say something worse.

Feeling generous, Sunghoon buys shots for all six of you, and you quickly down them before heading to the dancefloor. On your way there, a group of sober-looking girls hand Chaewon a giant, still almost full jug of red liquid, something that costs at least twelve pounds here. They say they’re leaving and don’t need it anymore, smiling as you profusely and astonishedly thank them. You look at your friends, mentally weighing the risk and drugging possibility this might present, but shrug and pass the jug around after taking hearty sips anyway. It tastes so much like fizzy cherries that you wonder if it even contains any alcohol, but sure enough, twenty minutes later, the three of you are spinning around on the dancefloor, screaming the lyrics to your favourite pop songs at the top of your lungs. Jake at a club is a completely foreign sight to you, and you can’t stop laughing at all the silly moves he pulls.

You’re shaking your whole body to a Nicki song from the early 2010s when you suddenly feel a hand on your hip. Before you can turn around and slap whoever this random man is that thinks he can touch you, a familiar voice whispers it’s just me in your ear, and you simultaneously relax and tense up knowing that Jake is standing right behind you. “There’s a creep staring at you,” he explains, lips and breath gently tickling your ear as he speaks. You look around the room and quickly notice a man standing in a corner, drink in one hand and the other in his pocket, unmoving as he eyes you with a smirk so slimy it makes your stomach turn. To avoid his gaze, you turn around, but you’re not sure the sight you’re met with is much better for you.

Jake peers down at you, eyes slightly glossed over and cheeks flushed from the alcohol, jaw locked in annoyance. He glances at the guy in the corner, who you assume is still staring when you feel Jake’s hands brush along your sides until they reach your waist. His gaze returns to your face as he brings you a step closer to him. Reflexively, you wrap your arms around his neck.

“Is this okay?” he mouths. All you can do is meekly nod. You watch as his eyes deliberately scan your face, going down and down. Time stills when they reach your lips and stay there. It’s like someone has put the booming music of the club on mute, and the only thing you can hear is your heart loudly beating in your ears. You suddenly feel very sober.

You swear Jake’s face is slowly inching its way towards yours when you’re abruptly taken away. Yunjin has grabbed you by the forearm, leading you and Chaewon to the bathroom as she chants “Bathroom break! Bathroom break!”, clearly unaware of the moment she’s just interrupted.

Because of the queue for the girls’ bathroom and Chaewon’s decision to console this random girl who was in the middle of a breakdown, it’s not until half-an-hour later that you emerge back into the crowd. You spot the boys at a table, two empty shots each in front of them and all three with a beer in hand. They will not be happy checking their bank accounts tomorrow morning.

“Y/N! You’re back!” Jake calls out happily when he spots you, and you can tell right away that he’s much drunker than when you left him. His whole face is flush, his eyes don’t open quite all the way, and a lopsided smile won’t leave his lips - even like this, he’s so pretty that you want to grab his hand and take him somewhere it’s just the two of you.

Chaewon gets drinks for the three of you and then you’re dancing again. It’s already one am at this point, and the remaining two hours until the club closes, fueled with alcohol and good music, go by in a flash. Before you know it, the DJ is playing All of Me by John Legend and the lights have been turned on, clear signs that you’re overstaying your welcome. The few people that have made it to closing time stumble out of the club and into the street, heading for either the nearest subway stop or the next party of the night. Since there are no trains at this time, your group walks to the close-by bus station, listening to Jake and Sunghoon grumble about how the clubs in Seoul don’t close until at least five or six and how trains run all night there.

The bus is already at the station when you get there, and the driver doesn’t seem too pleased about having six mildly drunk kids get on his bus, but he’s probably used to questionable people taking public transport at this time of the day anyway. Physically, Sunghoon is sitting across from you, but mentally, he’s off somewhere far, far from this bus. With his head against the window and mouth wide open, saliva pooling at the corner of his lips, he looks like he’s any second away from obnoxiously snoring. Jay and Yunjin are sitting somewhere you can’t see them, probably eating each other’s faces; she once told you they had their “most mind-blowing sex” when both a little drunk, and much to your dismay, you haven’t been able to get that piece of information out of your head since. Chaewon is on the phone to her long-distance bestie Sakura, for whom it’s a nice eleven in the morning right now.

This means that you and Jake are left alone, both of you still tipsy and not tired enough to fall asleep. You drop your head on Jake’s shoulder, and not only does he let you, he also takes your hand in his, interlacing your fingers and placing them atop his thigh. Clumsily, because he now has to use his left hand, Jake slips his phone out of his back pocket and shows you the photos he took all evening. As the night progresses, they get blurrier and blurrier, so much so that towards the end, you can’t tell what he was even trying to capture, and you laugh at how inappropriate some of these would be to submit in a university project.

When he softly says your name, you don’t raise your head, simply humming to let him know you’re listening. You close your eyes, cherishing the way your name sounds on his lips. It’s his tone, tentative and vulnerable as he tells you there’s something he’s been wanting to ask you, that makes you look up at him. He, however, won’t meet your eyes, and settles his gaze on the window, even though it’s so dark outside you can’t make out a thing.

“How come you never replied to my letter? I know it’s been ages, but… I still find myself wondering about it.” The question is softly asked and you know he by no means wants to hurt you, but it still feels like a punch to the throat. You hadn’t remembered who it was that had sent the last letter, while he’d been wondering all these years why his words had been left unanswered.

He seems set on not looking at you, so you rest your head back on his shoulder. Your hand is still in his. “I’m not sure, Jakey. I’m sorry,” you say, aware it’s not a satisfying answer. You’ve thought about why you and Jake had stopped talking for hours on end; you’ve discussed it with your friends and your mum, looked at it from all sorts of angles, tried to come up with real reasons other than time pulling you apart. But now that Jake himself is asking you about it, the words don’t come easy. You’ve theorised that you were afraid putting effort into sustaining your friendship would only hurt you in the end, because it was just that - a friendship. You could fool yourself into thinking you were okay only being friends with him when he was with you, that putting your feelings aside was worth it since you could at least spend time with him. But now that he was away, you didn’t have that anymore - it just hurt. So what was the point? And how could you phrase all this without betraying your feelings for him?

“Our letters were so sparse anyway back then, even our texts and calls were getting less and less frequent… And whenever I had a new boyfriend, I’d get into the same argument about being too close to you over and over again, even though you were literally on another continent.”

“You know, I always felt sorry about that.”

“About what?”

“Those boyfriends of yours. I felt like you waited for me to leave before you started dating-”

“It wasn’t like that!” you exclaim, lifting your head again. Finally, he meets your eyes, gaze softening upon seeing your affronted expression. “It wasn’t like that,” you repeat, relaxing your tone. “If anything, they were the ones that waited for you to be gone. I'm sorry I let their jealousy get to me.”

Jake smiles, the tenderness in his gaze making your whole body turn to jelly. He squeezes your hands. “It’s okay. I just… I felt like I was always in the way of your relationships, even after I left.”

“You don’t have to feel sorry about that. They should’ve had more trust in me.”

He pauses, gaze dropping down to your intertwined hands. “I would’ve been jealous.” When his eyes find yours again, there’s something in them that you quite can’t place. It creates a ball of nerves that pull at your stomach. “If I were dating you, and you had a guy friend you were as close with as we were back then, I’d be jealous. You know, I’d assume he had feelings for you. And that you might have feelings for him, too.”

Because I did, you think. I did, and I still do. You try to communicate that thought to Jake, but telepathy works especially bad when one has as much alcohol coursing through their veins as you do right now. So instead, you say the opposite of what you’re thinking, turning away from Jake to avoid his gaze. You watch the dribble of saliva trickle from Sunghoon’s lips. “That’s not a great view of male-female friendship.”

Jake’s retort comes immediately. “But we were different, right?”

His words echo through your head until they make even less sense than they did initially. Different from what? From who? You’re not sure - but you like the idea of you and Jake being different, special. You especially like the idea of Jake thinking so. So you look at him and smile. “Right.”

Slowly, his grin fades and turns into a worried expression. “Y/N?”

“Mm?”

“We’re still different now, aren’t we?”

You want to wrap him in your arms so tightly neither of you can breathe. You settle for running a hand through his hair and pinching his cheek. “Course we are.” Your whole being relaxes when his face breaks into a smile again.

The next morning, you wake up to Yunjin plopping down on your bed unceremoniously, shaking you awake, and asking you if you want anything from Snax Café. On one hand, you’re grateful that she thought of you and that in thirty minutes’ time, you’ll have the greasiest sausage wrap and hash browns known to man in your hand; on the other, you’d like to think that she knows you well enough to know to order your regular from there without asking. But that’s probably the hangover talking.

You stumble out of bed, thanking last night’s you for having remembered to take headache medicine before crashing. Even if your stomach is very upset with the copious amount of alcohol it needs to rid your body of, and your throat is begging for water, at least your head doesn’t feel like it’s been split into two. As Yunjin barges into Chaewon’s room just as she had done yours, you head for the kitchen to get yourself a tall glass of revitalising tap water. You’re only mildly surprised to find Sunghoon passed out on your living room couch - it takes you a few seconds to remember that the three of you took pity on him when you learned he lived over an hour’s walk from the station, so you let him spend the night on your uncomfortable, cold leather sofa. While you down your glass in three gulps, you hear Yunjin shaking Sunghoon awake and asking him loudly if he wanted something from Snax.

“Fuck, I’d kill for a Snax right now,” he groggily says before he’s even opened his eyes. When he does, they dart around the room until they land on Yunjin, who's crouching in front of him. He looks like he thought her question was asked in a dream and not in real life. He also looks like he's not quite sure where he is, or who Yunjin is. It isn’t until Jay comes wobbling out of Yunjin’s bed to the couch opposite Sunghoon that the memories seem to piece back together in his head. The three of you watch him like he’s an unstable mental patient and you’re his doctors.

“No need for that, I’m ordering it on Deliveroo.” He nods his head and goes back to sleep for the time being.

Just as you’re about to text Jake, your phone rings with a call from him. His raspy morning voice as he asks you whether you slept well makes you want to put your head in an oven heated at 200 degrees Celsius. However, you resist the urge, and answer him with a smile, then ask him the same question.

“I slept pretty well too. I’d have slept in longer but one of my flatmates decided to have a Sunday fucking brunch and his friends are so loud. Can I come over?”

You’re very aware of the other people in the room, especially of Chaewon who has just walked in and is eyeing you suspiciously as if to say, Why are you smiling so hard at ten in the morning? You know the girls would jump at any opportunity to tease you about Jake, and with the added presence of Sunghoon in the room, you can’t have that. So you stifle the giggles bubbling in your throat and answer as nonchalantly as you can. It also gives you the chance to reflect on why Jake Sim asking you whether he can come over makes you want to giggle like a giddy schoolgirl so much.

(Maybe it’s because when it comes to him, you’re still the giddy schoolgirl you used to be.)

“Yeah, of course. I was going to ask you if you wanted anything from Snax, actually.”

“Snax? What’s that?”

“Oh my God, Jake, am I about to introduce you to Snax right now?”

Twenty minutes later, the six of you are sitting around your small living room table, all varying amounts of tired, dehydrated and famished as you dig into your breakfast. Given your current levels of energy, it’s fairly quiet; plus, the food hits such a spot that it’s hard to talk and eat at the same time. Jake eats like he’s never had a breakfast wrap and hash brown in his life. It’s an endearing sight if you’ve ever seen one.

You spend the afternoon together, watching movies curled up in your bed, and you try desperately not to think about the implications of that - except that’s hard to do when Jake is right next to you, legs and arms ever-so-slightly brushing against yours, his warmth so close yet so out of reach. You purposefully let him pick movies you’ve already seen so that you don’t have to focus on anything but your own thoughts and the faint but dizzying scent of his body wash. The both of you had an innumerable amount of sleepovers as kids, so this shouldn’t feel weird, but it decidedly does, probably because you’re much more aware of him now in a way you weren’t before.

As hard as you try to figure out what exactly he meant by “different,” you draw a blank. The only way you’ll understand is if you ask him, and you’re far too scared to do that. You don’t want to seem so hung upon a singular word he used when he was tipsy. It might be slightly dramatic, but you felt like some sort of balance had been restored since Jake was back in your life - the problem was it made you scared to do anything that might threaten this newfound equilibrium. It at least seems like different means a good thing to him, and that’s enough for you.

You look over to him when the second movie comes to an end. He’s sleeping peacefully, lashes caressing the skin under his eyes and cheeks looking rounder than usual. It’d be so easy to reach a finger out and trace the line descending from the top of his forehead to his chin, gliding along the bump of his nose and feeling the plumpness of his rosy lips, but you settle for drawing that line with your eyes instead.

You don’t think you’ll be able to fall asleep with him next to you and your heart beating so loudly in your ears, but you find yourself waking up a few hours later, the sun already starting to set. Jake is already awake, scrolling on his phone, one arm casually behind his head as if being in your bed is as comfortable to him as being in his own. When he sees you’ve woken up, his honey-coated smile washes warmly over you, and he makes a joke about how he keeps on falling asleep when he’s with you. “I feel that at ease, I guess,” he says, and you hope you’re not making up the small blush that spreads over his cheeks.

Semesters are always a short and intense affair, but this one passes by even quicker with Jake by your side. Before you know it, it’s midterms already, and you and Jake have travelled enough for him to complete his project and make another one just for the hell of it. He had scoured the internet for the cheapest train tickets and most noteworthy sites, planning trips that lasted anywhere between three hours and a day for the two of you. All you needed to do was follow and trust him, which was the easiest thing anyone could’ve asked of you.

You’ve gone back to Glasgow, during the day, this time, as well as St. Andrews and Aberdeen. You’ve practically visited every loch and castle in a one-hour train ride radius of Edinburgh, and Jake has more lined up for the second part of the semester. He’s even said that your trips should continue being a thing next term, and you couldn’t have agreed faster. With every new destination, every train ride spent looking out a window or laughing about everything and anything, any odd Scottish food you try for the first time, you somehow fall for him a bit deeper. You didn’t know your love for him could bloom any more than it already had - but Jake is the gift that keeps on giving, and, unwillingly or not, he always finds new ways to make your heart speed that much faster.

Attentionate, affectionate, sweet Jake who always makes sure you’re comfortable wherever you go, always gives you his jacket or tucks your hair behind your ear to prevent it from falling in your face. Who, as time passed, grew more touchy, would hold your hand, ruffle your hair, pinch your cheek, which was simultaneously devastating and elating. Who, you could tell, started to linger more, both in his touch and in his gaze. Questions of does he love me back or am I seeing what I want to see? nearly drove you mad.

“I feel like at this point the only way she’ll understand that I like her is if I kill myself and write in my suicide note that it’s her fault for not loving me back.”

Jake has been pacing back and forth in Jay’s living room for approximately twenty minutes, with no end in sight. At least he’ll have gotten most of his ten thousand steps of the day in.

Jay sighs heavily. “Okay, I really don’t think you need to go that far.”

“Sounds romantic to me,” Sunghoon says, mouth full of salted caramel popcorn.

“I hope you never get a girlfriend,” Jay retorts, looking at his deranged friend with a scowl. He turns back to his (slightly more) normal friend and gives him a sympathetic smile.

“I mean, I told her we were different. Different. That we weren’t like regular friends. I tell her she’s pretty every chance I get. I give her my jacket all the time, even though this country is fucking cold. I’ve even given her a t-shirt of mine, sprayed with my perfume and everything. And don’t get me wrong, I do it ‘cause I love doing that for her-”

“Simp,” Sunghoon snickers.

“But what the hell else can I do? Like, she has to be ignoring it on purpose at this point.”

“You could always, you know… tell her?”

Jake scoffs, fixing his friend with a derisive look. “Wow. What a great idea, Jay, I never thought of that one before!”

A popcorn lands right on Jay’s cheek. “You’re so clueless, man,” Sunghoon says, a shit-eating smirk on his lips. As if he knows any better.

Jay looks back-and-forth between his friends, an expression on his face like he’s been disparaged. “Sorry, I didn’t know being straightforward and honest was such a bad thing. It would just make things a lot clearer for the both of you.”

“But… I’m scared,” Jake says.

“Man up!” Sunghoon suddenly yells, punching the sofa next to him, making his friends jump. “How can she ever figure it out if you don’t tell her?”

“You were on my side just a second ago, man, what are you doing?” Jake asks, confusion written all over his face. Sunghoon’s eyes dart back and forth between the two boys, retreating into silence as he stuffs his mouth with another handful of popcorn.

“Just ignore him,” Jay says. “But for once, he did say something that makes a modicum of sense. You think you’re being really obvious, but you might not actually be. Which could be a good sign, you know. I heard girls were super aware of a guy liking them if they weren’t into him, but being totally oblivious if they did like him.”

“Where did you hear that?” Jake asks, an eyebrow raised in suspicion.

“...Instagram Reels,” Jay reluctantly admits, frowning at Sunghoon who bursts into laughter.

Jake holds the bridge of his nose between two fingers like his head aches. “You’re both so useless, I’m never coming to you with my problems ever again.”

“I’ll pretend I’m not offended by that.”

“I’d rather you didn’t, anyway,” Sunghoon says. He’s smiling but Jake genuinely can’t tell if he’s joking or not.

“But seriously, if you think you’ve done everything, then just do one last thing that’s so obvious she can’t misinterpret it,” Jay says.

“Like what?”

“Like kissing her, or some-”

“Kissing her?!” Jake echoes.

“That’s wild, man,” Sunghoon uselessly butts in.

“It’s just an example, calm yourselves,” Jay says. “Or, again, just straight up tell her how you feel. It’s what I did with Yunjin, and it worked.”

“You and Yunjin are dating?” Sunghoon asks, bewildered.

Jay shakes his head at him. “Where the hell have you been, bro? We were literally cuddling on the couch the other day.”

“I just thought you were really good friends, or something.”

Jake groans, holding his head in his hands. Sunghoon was of no help whatsoever, and Jay was so on point that it annoyed him. Confessing was the only solution - but Jake was so afraid of being rejected and losing your friendship that he had barely entertained the thought. But he had found the courage to do it once, and even though his planned confession had fallen through back then, he could get himself together and do it again.

It was the day he had told you he was moving to Korea, which he himself had learned that morning. Originally, he’d texted you because he had news to share - good news. Or at least, he hoped they were good. He hoped the soft, lingering looks you gave him weren’t a figment of his imagination but rather the confirmation he needed that you liked him back. He hoped that like him, you cared too much about your friendship to make the first move into something else; that by confessing first, you’d be relieved of that responsibility; that his wish to hold your hand and kiss your forehead wasn’t one-sided.

He decided not to prepare anything - just a couple sentences that he’d rehearsed over and over in his head. Declarations of love, bouquets of flowers, chocolate and couple keychains, all that could wait until after you’d said yes to being his girlfriend. He didn’t want to win you over just once, he wanted to show you every day how much he loved you. Fourteen-year-old Jake was absolutely head over heels for you; so imagine his disappointment when, as he was getting ready to meet with you, his parents called him downstairs, a tone to their voice Jake wasn’t familiar with, but that couldn’t mean anything good.

“Your dad’s job is sending us back to Seoul next month,” his mom announced, not beating around the bush. He felt everything quite literally crumbling down around him. His friends in Brisbane, his school, his hobbies, but above all, you. He’d lose it all. And what was the point now in telling you how he felt? If you felt the same way, it would only make his departure that much harder, and if you didn’t, it would ruin your last moments together. It just wasn’t worth it.

What he had planned to be good news turned into the most awful ones. The thought of it happening all over again makes twenty-year-old Jake shudder. But he wouldn’t let himself be trapped by time again - sure, in seven months, the academic year would be over, and he would go back to Korea. But that didn’t mean that those seven months should be spent in agony, or the following ones either, for that matter. You would make it work. What was long-distance to someone who loved someone else as much as Jake loved you?

But he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself. He has to start by really resolving to do this, and in the off-chance that it actually goes in his favour, he’d start worrying about long distance then.

First, he has a trip to plan.

You should’ve known that a trip to the Scottish Highlands in the middle of November was a risky choice in terms of weather. The day started off nicely enough - no sign of rain when you woke up or as you watched the sunrise through the train window. Clouds turned the sky a bright white at first, then increasingly greyer and greyer. You feel the first drops of rain after lunch as you walk around a small village. By four pm, it’s pitch black and storming like you’ve rarely seen before. You head into a pub to grab a drink as you wait for the rain to subside, but subside it does not. You end up ordering fish and chips, one each, although one serving is enough to feed three. Even after taking your time eating, the bad weather does not let up. The last train, which is meant to be at eight pm, has been cancelled. Luckily, there’s an inn right across the road from the pub; you have no choice but to spend the night.

The inn receptionist is sitting so low on her chair, you can barely see her over the desk until you’re standing right over it. Her face is hidden by a book and it’s only when you say hiya that she seems to realise you’re there. You had never heard of the book or of its author, but you recognized the cover design as that of those romance novels with repetitive plots and weirdly misogynistic love interests your mum and every other middle-aged woman was obsessed with.

Her smile widens as she looks between you and Jake. “Hi there. One room for the lovely couple?”

“Oh, we’re not-”

“Yes, please,” Jake interrupts, smiling down at her, then at you. “It’ll be cheaper if we share a room.”

“Our only room with two single beds is already taken, I’m afraid. One double bed okay for you two?”

You feel like you’re about to faint, so you’re glad Jake is there to answer. “Yeah, of course.” How the idea of sharing one bed with you is so okay to him, you’re not sure - granted, you’ve done it before, but this feels different. For all intents and purposes, this is a hotel room you’re staying in. And you’re staying in it with Jake.

You try to calm your breathing as the receptionist guides you to your room, chatting casually with Jake on the way there. As she unlocks the door for you, she informs you that check-out must be done before eleven in the morning tomorrow, then bids you good night and leaves you to it, still wearing that smile you swear has mischievousness to it. The door clicks shut behind you, and it’s just Jake and you again, together in this small room until tomorrow morning. Your chances of survival are very, very low.

Your room is a humble one, consisting of a desk, a cupboard, two armchairs, a small, separate bathroom and the infamous bed. Every surface seems to be covered with wood, from the ceiling, to the walls, to the old-fashioned furniture. Only the floor is a soft, beige carpet. Especially with the darkness outside, it makes for a gloomy room until you turn on the lamp by the entrance; it casts a warm, golden light in the room, one that would make you feel at ease if it wasn’t for Jake’s presence next to you. The implications of being essentially trapped in a barely-lit room with him are heavy on your mind, especially when he looks this gorgeous with his hair still damp from the rain and the soft lights playing on his face.

His voice brings you out of your thoughts. “Right. Do you, um, do you wanna shower first?” he asks, setting his bag on one of the armchairs.

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” There has never been such an awkward tension between the two of you, but you know you’re not doing anything to ease it. You hope a shower will help you get out of your head and make you relax.

You feel the tension leave your muscles under the hot water, but your stomach is still in knots. You’ve never been this nervous around Jake before; back when you were fourteen and again in these past few months, you’d gotten so used to dealing with your unspoken feelings for him that you could almost forget about them when you were with him. They’d come back to you when you were alone and dwelling on the moments you’d spent together, on his words and actions you desperately tried not to read too much into but always ended up doing anyway. But right now, they’ve floated to the surface, becoming as obvious to you as a stain on your skin you can’t rub away. You’re scared Jake will notice it, and, in the worst case scenario you often thought about, would run away and never speak to you again.

At least the raging storm outside would make that a bit harder.

When you step out of the shower, you curse yourself for not having worn more comfortable clothes on this trip. You definitely can’t wear these jeans and button-up sweater to lounge around. Thankfully, the inn provides two long bathrobes that you could wear over underwear and your tank top, but you wonder where on the scale of inappropriate this would be to wear with Jake in the room. He’s seen you in short pyjama shorts before, but this, like everything else that would usually be normal between the two of you, feels weird today.

You wrap the bathrobe around yourself, tying it in place around your waist, and decide that it’d only be weird if you made it weird. And if Jake found the sight of your bare legs weird, then he was the weird one.

The scene you’re met with as you walk into the room makes you want to retreat into the bathroom immediately. Jake is lying on the bed with his upper half against the headboard, one leg extended and the other one bent, resting his head against one palm, using his free hand to scroll through his phone. His t-shirt has ridden up slightly, putting the waistband of his Calvin Kleins into view. Worst of all, when he sees you, his face breaks into a grin.

Your stomach twists when he gives you a once-over, letting his gaze linger on your legs. “Did you bring a bathrobe with you or was it included?” he asks with an annoyingly handsome smirk.

You roll your eyes. “Yes, I bring a bathrobe with me wherever I go,” you say sarcastically. “Now shut up and go shower, you stink.” Reverting to insults is always the solution when you’re internally freaking out.

“Yes, ma’am.”

He takes so long in the shower that by the time he comes out, you’ve dozed off in bed. As if you were a child, he wakes you up with a boop to the nose, crouching next to the bed and smiling at you. His wet hair falls on his head like that of a movie star in a shower scene, which you find extremely unfair, and his cheeks are red from the warmth of the water.

“It’s still early. Do you wanna go grab another drink?”

“In our bathrobes?” you say, laughing. “Nah, I don’t really feel like drinking anyway.” Read: I’m not sure what I’ll do with alcohol in me.

“Okay, no worries. Um, I think I saw they had board games in the lobby?”

Your ears perk up at this. “Ooh, what kind of board games?”

Putting jeans on underneath his bathrobe, Jake slips away for a minute and comes back with Monopoly, Uno, and a deck of cards. “They didn’t have much for two players,” he says, dumping everything on the bed.

You already knew that anything would become fun if you did it with Jake, but you definitely didn’t expect to spend almost five hours just playing Monopoly and card games with him. Neither of you stays put for very long, always switching from sitting criss-cross to laying on your stomach, making fun of the other’s bathrobe even though you’re wearing the exact same thing. You make each other laugh as you make up your own nonsense rules and disregard the laws of your games, attacking the other ruthlessly for a couple extra points or coins. Jake even makes you go get snacks from a corner store that’s miraculously still open because you lose the first round of Uno.

After some time, Jake lets out a loud yawn, which in turn makes you yawn too. He checks his phone to find that it’s close to midnight already. “Time for bed?” he asks, and your nervousness that had finally dissipated as you played came rushing back.

You nod. “Yeah, sounds good.”

The two of you clean up before brushing your teeth. Even that, with Jake by your side, becomes a silly affair as he pulls faces in the mirror and nudges your hip with his. You stay behind to use the toilet, and when you come back out, Jake’s already in bed, bathrobe tossed on one of the armchairs. This means that Jake is just casually in a t-shirt and boxers, waiting for you to join him in bed. Luckily, his back is turned to you, so you quickly take off your own bathrobe and slide under the sheets, careful to keep your distance from him. The sheets are cold underneath you, and you know it’ll take a while before your body heat warms them up - although you feel very hot and bothered because of the man lying next to you.

“Gosh, I’m really sleepy all of a sudden,” he says, words distorted by a yawn. You only hum in response, and he reaches for the lamp to turn it off. Just like that, you’re in complete darkness, and Jake’s body is mere inches from your own.

It’s eerily quiet for a while, and when you’ve managed to slow your heartbeat and regularise your breathing, you start trying to fall asleep. You toss and turn, unable to find a comfortable position until Jake’s low, sleepy voice breaks the silence. “Can’t sleep?” he asks, and you freeze.

You sigh. “No. I’m sorry for keeping you up,” you say guiltily.

“It’s okay. I can’t really sleep either. It’s a bit cold in here.”

You pause. “Right. Yeah, it is,” you say, even though you feel like you’re sweating buckets.

The room plunges into silence again, long enough for you to think Jake has fallen asleep. You feel something cold against your foot, only realising as it slides up your calf that it’s his foot. “Jake!” you whisper-yell, withdrawing your leg as he bursts into giggles that warm your heart. “Your feet are so cold,” you say in-between chuckles.

“I’m cold all over,” he whines. “Have they not turned the heating on yet? It’s already mid-November.”

“People are used to the cold here.”

“Well I’m not. Can we cuddle?” he suddenly asks, and he must somehow feel the way you freeze in place because he stammers out a justification straight away. “For, I mean, just for warmth, you know. I don’t think I’ll sleep otherwise.”

His foot finds yours again and you can’t help but laugh. “Sure, fine,” you say with a sigh as if you were doing only half-heartedly for his sake. As if this was some big sacrifice you were making, and not something you’d daydreamed about one too many times before.

Your heart is beating a thousand miles a second when you scooch closer to Jake, his hands finding your waist as easily as if they’d been there a hundred times before. He pulls you in much closer than you had expected, holding you tightly against his chest, one arm for you to use as a pillow and one hand resting on your lower back. You try to calm your respiration so that he can’t hear how short of breath you are, but based on his own breathing, he seems to be out in five minutes. It takes you longer to fall asleep, every shift of his body sending shivers down your spine, but you manage to relax after some time, letting his warmth envelop you as you drift off to sleep.

The feeling of waking up with you in his arms is so unreal, Jake thinks he might still be dreaming.

He looks down at your peaceful sleeping face and can’t stop the smile that spreads on his lips. Jake always thinks you’re pretty, but this is a sight he particularly wants to commit to memory. He watches fondly as the bright sun rays of the early morning hit your face, making you scrunch your eyebrows and bury your face deeper against him. You grunt softly, and when he feels you shifting and stretching your legs, he pretends to fall asleep so you don’t catch him staring. It seems like you’ve raised your head, chin tilted towards him - if he’s lucky, you’re watching him “sleep” just like he did seconds ago.

He contains a smile at the joke that forms itself in his brain before shooting his eyes open, catching you off guard during what you thought was a private, secret moment.

“Shit!” you yelp, practically jumping off of him and rolling onto the other side of the bed. He bursts into laughter, proud that his little prank was effective. Before you can scold him, he makes his way to you, wrapping an arm around your waist and bringing your back against his chest. He thinks he feels your body tense; but then you bring your hand over his, swiping your thumb back and forth against his skin, and you relax in his hold. “You’re so annoying,” you complain, but your voice is tender, almost weak.

He buries his face in your hair, trying not to be too loud when he inhales there. “Sorry,” he says, the smile evident in his voice. “The opportunity was right there. Caught you staring, huh?”

“You’re such an idiot.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” It’s quiet for a few minutes, and Jake is more than happy to enjoy this moment in silence, but there’s something burning the tip of his tongue. It’s been there for a while now, but he thinks he’s finally found the right moment. “Y/N?”

“Mm?”

“There’s something I couldn’t tell you last night, but I feel oddly okay saying it right now. Are you listening?”

“I am, yeah,” you say gently, voice so soft it caresses his skin and draws goosebumps from it.

His chest expands and falls with a deep, shaky breath. With your back right against it, he’s scared you’ll hear that his heart is beating faster than it should. “Bad news first?” he says with a nervous chuckle.

“Uh-oh.”

“There’s no roundabout way to say this, so here goes, I guess.” He takes another breath. “I’m in love with you, Y/N.” You tense in his embrace, and he waits for you to say something, anything before he continues.

“Oh,” is all you say. He hopes it’s a good oh - even if it isn’t, he doesn’t let it deter him.

“Yeah. I really debated telling you this… I know you might not feel the same way. But I also know that if I don’t say anything and make the same mistake twice, I’ll beat myself up over it for the rest of my life.”

“The same mistake?” you ask, looking at him over your shoulder.

He gazes down at you tenderly, pushing hair away from your face with a gentle hand. “I already felt that way back when we lived in Australia. I was about to tell you but when I learned that I was moving, I didn’t wanna risk ruining the little time we had left together.”

The look on your face both breaks his heart and patches it up again. “Jakey…” you say, voice just a whisper. You turn around to face him and bury your face in the crook of his neck. The fact that you’re not saying much is making his stomach twist in agonising stress, but he takes it as a good sign that you’re still holding him tight and not running away.

“I think I’d be the luckiest guy on Earth if you felt the same way,” he says, hopefulness clear in his voice.

And then he finally hears the words he’s been dying to hear all these years. “Of course, I feel the same way, Jake,” you say, eyes meeting his. “This isn’t bad news at all, it’s like, the best possible news ever.”

It takes him a few seconds, but when your words sink in, a bright smile graces his features. He feels tears coming up - tears of relief that you feel the same way, of sadness that it took the both of you so long to get here, of happiness that something new might start - he’s not sure. Perhaps everything at once.

“Of course?” he echoes, smiling wildly. “It wasn’t obvious to me.”

“Oh, gosh,” you murmur, burying yourself into him once more. “I can’t believe this is actually happening.”

He tightened his hold around you, bringing you to him as close as physically possible. “Me neither.”

The feeling of you tangling your bare legs with his and bunching up the fabric of his t-shirt in your fist awakens something in him - he had been in his head, thanking the heavens that you loved him back, reeling from his belated confession, but he was now very aware of his body. And of yours. He was reminded of Jay telling him to kiss you - although he hadn’t needed to go there to reveal his feelings to you, it was still a possibility. It was even more so now that he knew you felt the same way.

He tries to be subtle as he brushes a hand up your back to the nape of your neck, gently grazing his fingernails against the skin there. He has to suppress a self-satisfied smirk when he feels you squirm under his touch, lifting your head to fix him with a scolding look. Your stern expression fades as soon as his eyes fall on your lips, however, and you quickly mirror his gaze. His lips part, and he feels his whole body shake as he takes a deep breath in. Who knew that you’d share your first kiss on a random Sunday morning in the fuckass middle of nowhere in Scotland?

Maybe you take pity on him, or you recognise the effort put into being the one to make the first move, or, as he’d like to think, you just really want to kiss him - either way, you’re the one who closes the gap and presses your lips to his.

Your lips. So soft, so delicate against his, absolutely perfect. It’s a simple, tentative touch, but he’s craved it for so long that it makes his head spin. He frowns, despite himself instantly needing more than this feather-like feeling of your lips brushing against each other. His mind tells him to calm down and take it slow, but his body takes over, urging him to grab the nape of your neck a little harder, to hold you a little closer to him, to kiss you a little stronger. Thankfully, you let him do all of this and more, hands finding purchase in his hair and returning his intensity tenfold.

He doesn’t know what’s better - the fact that you’re kissing him or the kiss itself. The way your lips move against his is intoxicating; it wraps itself around its mind and leaves no room for thoughts that aren’t of you. You seem to want him as desperately as he wants you, to have waited for him as long as he did for you, and this is what drives him crazy. You press your body against his and he sees stars; you let out a moan against his lips and he kisses you deeper, ready to do anything to hear that melody again.

Unfortunately, the only melody he gets to hear is that of his phone alarm, informing you that it’s quarter to eleven and that you have fifteen minutes to leave. Check-out at eleven am had sounded nice yesterday; now, he would stay in this dingy inn his whole life if it meant he got to keep kissing you.

The both of you reluctantly break apart, bursting into giddy laughter when your eyes meet. As said before, Jake always thinks you’re pretty, but with your pupils blown and your lips plump from kissing, this might just be the prettiest he’s ever seen you.

“You know, I like you a lot, but I’d like you even more if you could stop time,” you say.

He looks down at you with a smile, pushing away the strands of hair that had fallen on your face. “Sure, I’ll learn how to control time for you.”

“Thanks, Jakey.” You peck his lips, lingering, and he closes his eyes to savour your sweetness.

“Anything for you, baby.” His eyes widen at the nickname slip, but you erupt into giggles.

“Baby?”

“Would you look at the time, we really got to go,” he says, detangling his limbs from yours. He pauses for a second. “Baby,” he repeats, pressing a quick kiss to your forehead before bouncing from the bed.

You get ready together, and the mundane tasks of stripping sheets from a bed and packing bags become the funnest things he’s ever done. You’re all over each other, attacking the other with kisses and hugs; Jake doesn’t think he’s ever felt quite this happy.

And this is only the beginning.

There’s a glint in the receptionist’s eyes when you check out of your room, as if she knew something you and Jake had been oblivious to all along. It’s the only one in town, so you go back to the little pub for a full breakfast with eggs, hash browns, haggis, and sausages. You get coffee so strong you think you might not sleep for the next four days, while Jake drinks tea that is equal parts sugar, milk, and actual tea.

From the moment you leave the pub to the moment you arrive at your doorstep, Jake’s hands barely leave yours. When they have to, like when you’re searching for the perfect seat on the train or when the controller checks your tickets, they’re back together within a minute, like two magnets that can’t stay apart for too long. The rain has long subsided, leaving place to a bright blue sky and wet blades of grass that shine in the sun.

Now that your mutual feelings don’t need to be kept secret, you tell each other about everything you had to go through, like you pretending your good news was your mum having baked the cookies Jake liked and him seeing your new boyfriends every two months on your close friends story. He tells you about all the hints he’s dropped, causing you to facepalm over and over again. It feels like two friends catching each other to speed on all the latest gossip, except the topic of that gossip is you.

The juxtaposition of your familiarity with Jake with the novelty of behaving like a couple, of not having to hold back with your touches or gazes or words, is nothing if not jarring. But you have a feeling you’ll get used to it in no time.

As you unlock the front door to your building, you don’t ask him if he’s coming up - to you, it’s a given that you’ll be spending the rest of today and every day after that together. So when he doesn’t follow you, staying still on the threshold, you turn around with a questioning look on your face.

“There’s something I need to do this afternoon,” he says, taking both of your hands in his.

“Can’t I come with?” you say. Jake wavers for a second, but sadly, he stays firm in his decision.

“Sorry, baby, it’s a surprise. I’ll be back at seven with takeout?”

You can’t possibly be mad at him when he calls you baby and offers food in the same breath. “Only if you bring takeout.”

“You only love me because I feed you, don’t you?” he asks, a smile on his face.

“Yup,” you reply. You’re standing on a step, so you bend down to kiss him - you intend for it to be a peck, but when your lips touch, you’re unable to pull away. You let yourself get lost in the feeling of his lips on yours, in the warmth that takes over your body and makes your brain all fuzzy.

A loud, affronted gasp from behind you makes you jump from Jake, and when you turn around, Chaewon and Yunjin are standing in the stairwell, staring at you with wide eyes and gaping mouths.

“So this was a sexcapade?” is, much to your horror, the first thing Yunjin says.

Thanks to Chaewon, neither you nor Jake have the time to dwell on this sentence as she comes running down the stairs and pounces on you. You don’t know how a woman so small can have such force, but her hug is so tight you can barely breathe, let alone hug her back properly. “I knew you could do it!” she exclaims. When she pulls away, she seems so moved, it looks like she’s about to cry. “You finally popped your Jake cherry,” she whispers, but it’s loud enough for Jake to hear. A bark of laughter escapes his throat.

“Okay, thanks, guys,” you say, escaping this awkward situation and going up the stairs. “I’ll see you later, Jake!” you yell over your shoulder. The girls seem to be on their way out, and you’re more than happy leaving him to deal with them on his own. God knows you’ll get the worst of it when they come back.

As soon as you get to your flat, you make a beeline for your bedroom, plopping on the bed. You’re the same person, and this is the same room. But something within you feels entirely different, like a scar that you had been carrying around had, without you even noticing, healed so well you could barely see it anymore. You lifted your hands in the air, looked at the back of them, then at your palms. They were the same old hands that had been with you your whole life, and you were almost shocked that there wasn’t something utterly different about them after having held Jake’s hand for so long. Just to be sure, you sniffed your right hand, but it didn’t smell any different, either. But you still felt Jake’s hand on yours, like headphones you’d been wearing for hours and still felt on your ears after taking them off.

Yunjin and Chaewon are back from their shopping half-an-hour later; they got you a chocolate fudge cake from Tesco to congratulate you. “You guys are acting like this is my birthday…” you say, eyeing the cake greedily as Chaewon cuts it into three equal parts (even though it says serves eight on the packaging).

“This is more important than your birthday, Y/N,” Yunjin states as she pours oat milk into three cups of Earl Grey tea. “This is, like, the moment of a lifetime.”

“Are you saying a girl’s importance depends on her having a boyfriend?”

“Yes, Y/N, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Especially when said boyfriend is the guy she’s been pining after for all of her teenage and adult life.”

You sigh. “Well, he hasn’t exactly popped the boyfriend and girlfriend question yet.” They both turn to look at you, an annoyed look on their faces. You stand up straight, uncomfortable under their gazes. “What?”

“Usually, I’m all for clarity on this issue,” Chaewon starts. “But isn’t it pretty obvious here?”

“You’re still gonna have to tell us everything in minute detail, but Jake’s already told us what happened. He had no qualms referring to you as his girlfriend, so I really don’t think this is something you need to worry about. What you should worry about is when and where you’re going to hop on that dick.”

Chaewon bursts into laughter, and you can’t help but follow suit. “Gosh, Yunjin, you really do have a way with words.”

“I know. This is what having a Jane Austen hyperfixation at fifteen will do to you.”

Following Yunjin’s orders, you tell them about the events of the previous day and this morning over tea and cake. They ooh and ah and gasp in all the right places, ask you very specific questions and even make you draw a picture of the room you stayed in. You’ve talked to them about Jake so many times that there’s only so much to say now - but still, you talk for hours on end, deviating off-topic so often you end up talking about something else entirely.

You’re in bed reading for your Middle English Literature class when the doorbell rings. It’s seven on the dot, so it can be no one else other than Jake. It’s been mere hours, but you’ve missed him enough to last you for weeks.

He brought takeaway from the Indian place you’d raved about a hundred times but hadn’t brought him to yet. Somehow, your heart grows even fonder as you watch his reaction to the food, the raise of his eyebrows, the widening of his eyes, the excited shimmy of his shoulders. When you ask him about his afternoon, a wide smile breaks out onto his face, like a lightbulb illuminating a room. Without a word, he scurries to your room, bringing back some sort of book with him. He hands it to you with a shy smile and curious eyes, eagerly anticipating your reaction. The cover reads Y/N and Jake in his clumsy but endearing handwriting, with the date of his arrival in Edinburgh and an em-dash scribbled underneath. “I haven’t booked my flight home yet, so I’ll add the second date later,” he explains.

When you flick through it, you’re met with photographs of you and Jake on all of the trips you’ve done so far, as well as the various adventures you got up to in the city. There’s even one of you sleeping in the library at two am during midterms when you had forgotten about one of your essays, due at midday. Jake had come with coffee and words of encouragement, and now he could brag that the high mark you got was thanks to him. It’s not only photos - it’s also ticket stubs, receipts, stickers, and even a dried flower you had found pretty on your trip to St. Andrews. He’s also written quite a lot, from diary-like entries about what you got up to that day or songs that reminded him of you.

“You misspelt right here,” you say, pointing to a sentence that reads This is the café write next to the hotel where the last Harry Potter book is said to have been written!!! under a photo of you drinking a massive cup of hot chocolate. The more you look at the typo, the more it makes you laugh, until you have tears brimming in your eyes.

Thanks to Yunjin’s messiness, pens and pencils are strewn over your coffee table. Jake, flushed red in embarrassment at the small mistake, snatches a pencil and aggressively erases write, spelling it correctly the second time around. “This is the level of today’s English Lit undergrads,” he murmurs under his breath. His frown disappears when he looks at you and he laughs along.

You continue looking through the album until you land on a page titled Why I love Y/N. From top to bottom, left to right, it’s filled with Jake’s tiny handwriting. You can tell he put effort into making it neat. There’s a singular photograph of you, one that dates from the first days after Jake’s arrival when you were walking around in the Meadows, the park right next to campus. The sun shone down on you and you smiled brightly at Jake behind the camera.

You’re not a quarter through reading when tears swell in your eyes, rendering your vision blurry. You wipe them away before they can fall and stain the page. Jake has detailed every last thing he loves about you. It can hardly get cornier than this, but the fact that he wrote this about you makes your heart so full, you’re afraid it might explode in your chest. It ranges from basic things like the way she makes me laugh or her pretty face when she falls asleep in the train (or anywhere, for that matter) to more you-specific things like the strict pastel colour-coding she uses for her notes and her perseverance when eating spicy food even though she can’t take it. He mentions things about you that you didn’t even know, and that feeling of being known in-and-out, of being really seen by someone else only brings more tears to your eyes. Your favourite line comes at the end - the way she makes any place feel like home. A proper sob pushes past your lips at this, and Jake, who had been watching you with an anxious smile, rests a palm on your knee and inches closer to you.

“Why are you crying, is- Did I write something bad?”

You shake your head fervently. “No, no, Jakey, this is… It’s perfect. I’m just…” you trail, letting out a half-sob, half-chuckle. You look at him with a smile before pulling him into a tight hug. “I love it so much. I love you so much.”

You can feel Jake relax against you. “I love you too, baby. I’m glad you like it.”

You pull away after a small while, and turn the next page over. It’s a picture of you over breakfast this morning, with words WE’RE DATING!!!! written underneath it, and those simple words make you so happy, your cheeks ache from smiling. But every page after that is empty. Jake scratches the back of his neck. “I, um, I thought we could fill the rest out together. I debated just doing it myself and giving it to you at the end of the year, but I thought it’d be more fun doing it together.”

“It would. This is such an amazing idea,” you say, flicking back through the pages.

“I thought of it because of that project I had. When I started working on it, all the photos I wanted to include were of you, but I wasn’t sure how much my professor would appreciate that… So I decided to make one more personal. One for us,” he says shyly, shrugging like it’s no big deal.

“Thank you so much, Jakey.”

He smiles. “It’s no worries.”

“Did you do it all this afternoon?”

“I had started it before, but I added it most of today, yeah. Which, by the way, awful timing. I wanted nothing more than to spend today with you.”

Your heart leaps. You’re not sure you’ll ever get used to hearing such words from Jake’s mouth.

Sometime later, you’re laying in bed with Jake between your legs, watching the most recent animated Spiderman movie. With the tips of your fingers, you draw random patterns on his forearm, and if it wasn’t for his occasional chuckles, you’d think he had fallen asleep. You chat for a bit after the movie, but you find that after such an emotionally-packed day, you’re ready to call it a night fairly early. But when the lights are off and it’s just you lying against Jake’s chest, his fingernails grazing your scalp and his familiar, comforting scent clouding your judgement, all thoughts of an early night are thrown out of the window.

You shouldn’t feel so nervous - you had fallen asleep in his arms last night, and it had gone well. Really well.

“This is different from yesterday, isn’t it?” Jake suddenly says, breaking the heavy silence with a low voice. It’s like he read your mind.

“Yeah,” you whisper against his skin.

No other words are needed. You brush the tip of your nose along his neck until you reach his jawline, pressing soft kisses there and delighting in the increasing shakiness of his breath. The feeling of your lips meeting is so intense, so all-encompassing, that you don’t know if you’ll be able to handle anything more.

This is still new territory, but you’re both so eager to discover it that it makes for a messy kiss, lips moving against each other ravenously, tongues beckoning moans from the other. It’s a kiss that somehow leaves you breathless and breathes oxygen back into your lungs at once.

In a matter of seconds, Jake has flipped you on your back and is hovering over you, one hand holding him up and one hand free to roam your body. He slips it underneath your t-shirt, brushes it along the side of your waist, his touch leaving behind a trail of fire blazing on your skin. It’s so distracting, you can’t even kiss him back properly anymore. Jake doesn’t seem to mind. At first, when he starts pressing hot kisses to your jawline and your neck, you think he’s giving you a respite - but when he gently sinks his teeth into the skin there, leaving marks that will later remind you tonight wasn’t a dream, chuckling as you squirm and whine under him, you understand that this is anything but a respite.

You curse your earlier decision of not wearing a bra, because it gives you no preparation whatsoever to the sensation of Jake brushing his thumb against one of your nipples. With a loud gasp, your back arches off of the bed, which only aids Jake in raising your t-shirt up over your breasts.

He takes a minute to admire the sight of you panting and half-naked underneath him. It makes you feel shy, and you want to do something so that he stops looking and starts doing, but his gaze holds you in place. His pupils are blown with lust, eyes raking over your body and taking everything in. You have a hard time wrapping your head around the fact that it’s you he’s looking at with those eyes.

His soft lips attach themselves to your nipple while his fingers continue their work on the other one. You’ve never felt this sensitive, never felt this on edge, like you might fall apart at any second even with so little simulation. Your core throbs, impatiently waiting to be tended to, but you’re already trembling so hard from Jake’s attention to your breasts that you don’t know what will happen to you once he actually touches you down there.

“You doing okay, baby?” he asks, the rasp in his voice making you want him impossibly more. You grip his hair and he looks up at you, a tender smile on his lips. You nod your head yes and he laughs. “Yeah? You want more?” You pause at his question. You do want more, but is it worth your sanity?

It takes you a second to decide that it’s worth that and more. You nod again.

Jake seems to have sensed your hesitation. He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I am. It’s just a lot.”

His expression of worry softens into a smile. “I’ll take it slow for you, love. It’s a lot for me, too.” He leans in to press soft kisses to your cheek, and some of the tension in your body diffuses. Whatever happens, Jake will be there to take care of you. “But it feels good, right?” he asks, lips moving against your ear, sending shivers down your spine.

“So good, Jakey,” you reply shakily.

“Good.”

You can tell that Jake really does want to take it slow - his movements are more deliberate, gentler. But eagerness, both yours and his, soon takes over, and a minute later, he’s trailing kisses down your body until he reaches your lower stomach. Your breath quickens as he hooks fingers underneath your leggings and underwear, sliding both garments down your legs and leaving you bare to him. You think the feeling of his lips on the fleshy parts of your inner thighs is what might actually do you in, make you lose your sense of reality forever - but then his tongue darts out against your clit, a barely-there touch, and your whole body flatlines.

Your reaction eggs Jake on, who, more confident now, takes the sensitive bud in his lips and alternates between sucking and licking motions. A knot ties itself embarrassingly quickly in your stomach, a knot that tightens and tightens as Jake flattens his tongue against you, licking up your juices from your entrance to your clit; a knot that threatens to come loose when he slides a long finger inside of you. You can’t take more than thirty seconds of this.

“Jakey,” you say, voice practically a moan. Your brain is fuzzy and it takes a distressing amount of time to form a simple sentence. “Can you come here?”

“Is something wrong, baby?” he asks breathily, sliding his finger out of you and coming back up so that his face is right above yours.

“No, just… I want you.”

Any trace of worry on Jake’s features dissipates as he cocks an eyebrow, one corner of his lips tugging up into a smirk. “Is that so?”

This kind of boldness would usually have you rolling your eyes, but here, it only makes your core throb more violently. It’s almost humiliating how much you want this man. It’s definitely humiliating, how easy it is to swallow your pride and play into his game. “Yes, please,” you say, eyes pleading with him.

He smiles almost giddily before burying his face against the side of yours. “My baby’s so polite,” he says, pressing a kiss to your cheek. “I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“Take this off, then,” you say, grabbing the bottom hem of his t-shirt.

“So she says please and gives orders,” he jokes, quickly obliging anyway.

Not once in your time apart had Jake posted any sort of beach trip or pool photos, so this was the first time you saw his bare chest. God, was it one for the history books. You trace the defined lines of his muscles with a finger and wonder how he had managed to get even more perfect. He lets you marvel at him for it, clearly proud that you’re gawking so shamelessly, but your mind drifts back to more urgent matters when he presses himself into you, his clothed cock, hard and hot, brushing against your folds. “Fuck,” you sigh, bucking your hips into his to feel him over and over again.

It’s so much, but it’s not enough; Jake instantly gets your message when you hook your fingers under the waistband of his boxers, pulling him to you and kissing him feverishly. Your lips don’t part as he slides his boxers off, and you drink up the nectar that are his moans as you take him in your hand, pumping him a few times.

“Condom?” he asks, but you shake your head.

“I’m on the pill. And even so… I usually always use a condom, but I don’t want to now. Not with you.”

Jake closes his eyes as he takes a deep, stabilising breath. “I feel totally normal about that. Not crazy at all.”

You giggle, and he opens his eyes, a wide smile gracing his lips before he bends down to kiss you. “You ready for the night of your life?” he asks against your lips. “It’s gonna last five minutes, tops,” he says, making you laugh again. “I’m sorry, baby, I can’t do anything about it. I think I could’ve cum just from eating you out.”

“That would’ve been hot.”

“Really? We’ll make it a challenge for next time, then.”

When Jake plunges into you, it’s unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. He fills you up, slow inch by slow inch, until he’s buried to the hilt inside you. You both need some time getting used to the feeling - Jake drops his head in the crook of your neck and lets out a sound between a grunt and a moan, something you’ve never heard from him before. You grab onto his shoulders, fingernails digging into his skin as you try to tether yourself to him. You hold him so tight that he has no choice but to let his body rest on top of yours, his arms coming to circle your waist and bring you even closer.

His movements start out halting, the pleasure so overwhelming that it makes it hard for him to move steadily. In time, he falls into a torturously slow rhythm, but it’s the perfect kind of torture, the kind that has tears brimming in your eyes. It’s so hard to take, and yet you want more. You’re brought closer to the edge with every thrust of his dick into you, especially as he picks up the pace and lifts your hips to meet his. The new angle has his tip brushing against that spot deep inside you that makes it hard to breathe.

You can tell he’s just as close as you when he loses that steady rhythm he had found, his motions growing more desperate, harsher, quicker. Conscious of your roommates, you slap a hand over your mouth to muffle your moans as your orgasm washes over you, your whole body on fire, so sensitive that the few more seconds Jake needs to come undone himself drive both your body and your mind into overstimulation. Even the feeling of him pulling out, drops of hot liquid dripping out of your entrance, is too much and makes you let out a small, tired whine.

Jake peppers your face with kisses as he holds your waist tightly, brushing his thumb back-and-forth on your warm skin, sticky with sweat. “You did so well, baby. So good for me.” You think you might be ready for a second round if he keeps talking to you like that. “I love you so much.”

You sigh deeply, as if you were just told disconcerting news. “Okay.”

“Okay?!” he echoes, looking up at you with an outraged expression on his face.

“I’m sorry, I love you too, I just- I’m not used to this yet! You can’t just tell me you love and expect me to be normal. You have to warn me first.”

“Can I just warn you now that I’m going to tell you I love you every time I get the chance?”

You sigh. “I guess.”

“Can I tell you now?” he asks, and you hum. “I love you.”

“I love you more.”

Jake tuts. “I highly doubt it, but whatever makes you happy.”

You hold Jake close to you, one arm around his shoulders and the other hand playing with his hair as you come down from your high. You think he might’ve fallen asleep, and you’re close to drifting off yourself when he speaks. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this. Not just the sex, although that has been on my mind for a while now,” he says, making you laugh, “but all of this. Being together, getting to be in your arms like this, kissing you whenever I want. Calling you my girlfriend.”

“Me too, Jakey. I waited so long I didn’t think it would ever happen.”

Jake chuckles. “How stupid were we not to have noticed we felt the same way?”

“Very stupid. I think we felt so sorry for ourselves that we were stuck in one-sided love, that we didn’t even realise the other was going through the exact same thing. But at least we’re now.”

“At least we’re here now.” You and Jake yawn at the exact same time, making you burst into giggles, giddy with sleep and love.

“Let’s sleep, baby,” you say.

Jake hums, burying himself deeper against your body. “Sleep well, my love. I’ll be here.”

After years of pining after each other, you and Jake find it a bit hard to keep your relationship to yourselves, or your hands off of each other.

At the beginning, all of your friends had been happy for you, but that quickly went away when your and Jake’s honeymoon phase never died down and the PDA just kept on going. If the glue you were stuck with previously was metaphorical, this one was pretty close to being real. Superglue kept you together, your moments together rarely spent without some sort of physical touch. Yunjin fake-gagged so often, you were afraid she might actually vomit one of these days. It took Sunghoon two weeks longer than everyone else to clock you and Jake had started dating.

This meant that in private, there was truly no holding back. Jake back-hugged you any chance he got, to the point you started to think he was more koala than human - although that’d imply he saw you as a tree. Make-out sessions were a particular favourite of yours - how could they not be when your boyfriend’s lips seemed to have been carved by God himself, soft and plump to the heavens, like they were made to be kissed. Really, you were just honouring God’s will when you kissed Jake.

The goodbye that comes at the end of the year is not an easy one, and the month spent at home before you fly to Korea seems to never end. But you get there eventually, and as nice as it is to catch up with Jake’s parents after so long, you feign sleepiness after lunch as an excuse to get some time alone with your boyfriend. Ironically, this “time alone” is spent so intensely that you do end up falling asleep afterwards.

You have to admit, you really did a number on your boyfriend this time - what can a girl do when she missed her boyfriend this much? Jake is still passed out when you wake up from your nap, so you slip out as discreetly as you can from his embrace and get out of bed. You head for the closet first and swipe the comfiest looking sweater of his that you find there so you can stay warm as you look around his room. A pang of melancholia hits your chest - most of the pictures and objects on his walls and shelves are parts of his life you weren’t around to witness. Friends you don’t recognize, places you’ve never heard of, phases you’d never known he’d gone through. But then you see the frame on his desk, a faded photo of the two of you at ten years of age, eating ice cream on the bench outside of your house. Milo is sitting at your feet. Jake’s family hadn’t adopted Layla yet. You realise that even if there’s whole parts of your life you didn’t get to share with each other, nothing could touch your memories, or your future.

You want to go back in time and tell fourteen-year-old you that no matter how painful it might seem at the moment, it will all be worth it for the sight of Jake Sim slowly drifting into wakefulness, patting the bed next to him, and noticing you’re missing with furrowed eyebrows. When he opens his eyes and they settle on you, a sleepy smile will grace his dazzling features, and he’ll say, “Come back to bed.”

You’ll be even more in love at twenty than at fourteen.

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 @baekhyuns-lipchain @hyuckslvr @vernonburger @amorbonbon @fluerz (ask to be removed/added!)

#enhypen smut #jake smut #enhypen x reader #jake sim x reader #sim jaeyun smut #sim jaeyun x reader #enhypen oneshots #jake sim oneshots #enhypen imagines #jake sim imagines #enhypen fluff #jake fluff

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marymary-diva17 · 10 months ago

Note

Heeeyyy it's been a while since I've been here, but i got another idea.

So you remember me telling about the trope of readee being hated and suxh by the sully, well, instead of the usual 'sad reader wanting to fit in the family and gets hurt in the process', i actually thought of a reader who is overly calm and very strategic and honestly doesn't care about the fact that her family hates her, cause she spends more time with her friends and such and only comes when it's an emergency. She's also better than Neteyam at being a warrior that she trained many new warriors and has a very high spiritual connection with eywa, even more than Kiri

sully family x sister/daughter

The sully family had live by two quotes one of them being " sully stick together" and second on being " that their family was a fortress" well that was all true but false. There was one family member that didn't get the same love and treatment like all the other children within the family and outside of the family. That family member is Jake and neytiri daughter, who never seem to with over her parents and even her siblings along with the rest of the clan. A child who does not get love and care will soon grow up by themselves and becoming independent, and might not return love and care to those who never gave it to them.

y/n " ........" you soon rolled out of bed way before any of your siblings wake up, even before your parents as well. This is the norm for you from such a young age you learned to stay out of your family way.

y/n " good morning grandmother" you soon went to the healer hut to see your grandmother as she was getting ready for the day.

mo'at " hello my granddaughter you are here early"

y/n " well it best if I stay out of toruk makto way along with neytiri as well" mo'at was the only few people who cared for the child, and over time grow dislike towards Jake and neytiri for their treatment of their daughter.

mo'at " yes it seems like goes well for you when you keep out of their way along with majority of the clan"

y/n " well I do stay around to make sure everyone is safe I even watch over tuk and younger kids when they play, far from their mothers watch but make sure not to get caught"

mo'at " you are might warrior my child and pure of heart as well"

y/n " well I only have a few more years of being a teen until I'm an adult and toruk makto will tell me to leave or kick me out"

mo'at " well you always have a place in my home my child"

y/n " thank you grandmother I might stay her a bit longer when I'm older then leave to seek out more of our world as eywa has been calling me"

mo'at " follow your heart my dear" you smile at your grandmother the happy mood had been changed, when the other healers had arrived young and old but none of them set towards the hut.

mo'at " don't stand there like fools come we have to get ready for the day"

y/n " it best if I take my leave grandmother my present make everyone uncomfortable"

mo'at " dear you can stay your sisters will be coming for thier lessons, and I will love you to join them"

y/n " I will like to honor your wish but that will lead to trouble for you grandmother, with our mighty leader I will see you later on" you bid your grandmother goodbye and soon left the hut, getting glares and hearing whispers but you didn't care you stopped care many years ago.

y/n " sisters good morning"

kiri "morning y/n"

tuk " big sister good morning I have missed you ... oh I mean good morning y/n" you sighed as tuk had been the only sibling to call you sister, but it seems like Jake and neytiri actions and words had finally made her start calling you sister.

tuk " are you here to help grandmother and learn with us"

tuk " that not fair or nice"

y/n " it okay little one I understand well I shouldn't hold you all up anymore, I pray to the great mother to watch over all three of you" the duo said nothing else as they soon walked away from you, but it seems like they felt bad about their behavior. You were walking around the village trying to get somewhere.

y/n " ......" you had realized you had forgotten something that home, and soon ran back to get it. You soon reached the home and went to your bed and grabbed it, the home smells like breakfast meaning the family had morning meal together. You had sighed it was normal for you to not have meals with your family at home.

y/n " time to get going" you had grabbed your armband and soon put it on before you walked out of your home, you soon made your way through the village once again.

navi man " there that girl again"

navi women " I still can't believe she toruk makto daughter she nothing like her parents or siblings, even kiri a better daughter then her"

navi man 2 " I have heard rumors that toruk makto has plans to send to live on her own"

navi women " well I heard him and neytiri were trying to find a boy to become her mate, they were given any man a good offer to be with her" you had gotten use to hearing all the hate and rumors made about you, over time when you were younger you tried you best to prove you were good enough but soon stopped over time. The feeling of not caring about other had started when you become 13 and stayed that way since then.

Jake " if we hunt on these grounds we will be able to bring back a good hunt" you soon came across Jake and his hunting group as he had your brothers and spider with him.

y/n " ........" one of the warriors had noticed you and soon whispered something to the group, as everyone soon looked at you.

Jake " y/n you are wake you were not up when we served morning meal, your mother works hard on these meals it rude to miss them"

y/n " I'm sorry sir but something came up that morning and I went to meet with grandmother"

Jake " sure whatever just stay out of trouble I don't need you causing anymore trouble"

y/n " yes sir"

lo'ak " hey sis well dad giving you the same lecture over and over again, when are you going to learn"

y/n " when are you going to stop being so hothead brother"

spider " haha she got you good bro"

neteyam " enough the people are watching stop picking on him y/n it rude"

y/n " what he started it"

neteyam " well you need to be the better person dad is stress enough he doesn't need more work about you, and have you been practicing you skills .... you know how dad and mom are"

y/n " I ....."

neytiri " yes have you been training or act like your child your younger sister has better skills then you"

neteyam " mom"

y/n " yes I have been practicing ma'am"

neytiri " not enough if you haven't pass the test like your brother"

y/n " I'm doing my best that all I can say"

Jake " enough y/n I and your mother have more important stuff to deal with verse your failing to caught up with the family .... just go and stay out of the way of everyone and everything" you didn't say anything else as you soon walked away. Your brother and spider said nothing else, even tsutey who was there said nothing as well.

norm " hey there kiddo off again"

y/n " yes same as usual"

max " had another fight with your dad again and mom"

y/n " yes it seems like I'm not enough for Jake sully and neytiri, always blaming me for stuff like some of the others and always judging me"

norm " he does care"

y/n " stopping lying we all know that false norm he doesn't care and he will never care" norm and max along with some other humans knew that was true and hate how you were treated, but they couldn't say and do that much unless they wish to start trouble with the clan.

max " you know one day you will do something amazing kid"

y/n " thank you max well I'm going off if you need Jake sully he about to leave with his hunting party along, with my brother and spider" you soon ran off getting far away from home tree and soon calling your ikran, she was not allowed to stay with the others because she looked different and was not wanted around.

y/n " come on girl lets go for a flight and to see what we will happen today" you soon took off on your ikran and started flying around the skies, feeling for free and happy. After some travel you soon reached a part the end of the forest and where the sea began. This was so a beautiful place.

y/n " ........" you were walking around the area exploring everything and having a bright smile on your face. Then you felt someone place their hands on your waist.

y/n " ahhh kawwney" you had turned around to see you friend kawwney standing there, he soon smirked at you. As he soon backed away from you and smiled.

kawwney " hello ma y/n I was waiting for your arrival"

y/n " well I'm help to me here it better then being at home right now" kawwney had become your friend many years ago when you both of you were small. He was not from the forest he was from reef clan the metkayaian, you had meet him when you were with your grandmother on trip and kawwney was with his mom. After that day the both of you had become the best of friends.

Kawwney " almsot there hold it like that ... okay now fire the spear" you soon fire the spear and soon hit the target as kawwney had cheered for you.

kawwney " good job you are doing a well job with using a spear and your breathing as well"

y/n " thank you"

kawwney “ what the matter”

y/n “ family problems once again” kawwney soon sighed he knew you didn’t have, a good relationship with your parents. He really didn't like your parents and clan for their treatment of you, and he really wished to do anything to make your life better.

Kawwney “ y/n you are perfect no matter what they have to say or do, they are blind fools for treating you like this”

Y/n “ thank you kawwney there are whispers going around that Jake will kick me out or true to marry to off not anyone who will take the offer”

kawwney “ I will take the offer or even he does kick you out if you leave come join my clan, out of all forest Navi we have seen we only likes a few … you make those names of people we like even my father likes you and wishes to have you stay with us”

y/n “ thank you kawwney you will make a great leader one day and bring pride to your clan and people”

kawweny “ thanks you and one day you will make a great tshiak and leader, as well maybe you can rule by my side as well”

kawwney “ here a gift my dear a necklace I made for you perfect for you, and it will symbolize our bond” you smile as kawwney as he place the necklace around your neck, kawwney soon pulled your closer to him not caring who saw them.

later at night

y/n " ......." you soon had arrived home after being gone all day with your friends having a fun time and practicing as well, you heard your family laughing and talking. Once she had stepped into the home everything had become silent as everyone looked at her.

Jake " it seems like you have decided to come home after all"

y/n " yes sir I was out doing some practice"

Jake " that seems like a bunch of lies young lady"

y/n " ........."

Jake " you know you will soon be an adult you will need to make, the right decision if you wish to have a place in the clan and family" you didn't say anything as you nodded your head.

neytiri " if you can't be a hunter then lets hope you can do something else for the clan and family, or maybe your father and brother can find you a good match to strengthen the family and clan" your siblings stay quite as they watched your parents speak to you.

Jake " y/n you can't stay act like a child for the rest of your life, soon you will have to grow up and become an adult and give up your childish for once and a while"

y/n " yes sir"

Jake " good now this conversation is over with I hope you will take I and your mother words to heart" you stayed silent you knew the day will come when your family will have to make the decisions, to allow you to stay in the family of to have you leave. You had taken some soon went to bed to stay out of your family happy moment together, you soon thought about the words Jake will say " sully stick together" and " that our family is a fortress". You soon scoffed at those words they were false words coming from a man that has failed to be father to his daughter. When the time will come you will make the decisions you want that will mean no longer being a sully, even if it mean parting some the life she had live for so many years but maybe it was time for some change in her life.

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queenlucythevaliant · 6 months ago

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Okay, here we go. Rating literary allusions in Taylor Swift songs:

The Outside: "I tried to take the road less traveled by /but nothing seems to work the first few times/am I right?"--Starting off pretty well! She tried to take the road less traveled by, but it didn't make any difference. 8/10

Love Story: Whole song allusion to Romeo and Juliet-- All those 2008 jokes about Taylor not having read R&J weren't funny then and they aren't funny now. It's a fun, satisfying subversion. However, I am going to dock points for the fact that Romeo and Juliet aren't a prince and princess, just rich. 7/10

Love Story: "You were Romeo/I was a scarlet letter"--Is the Juliet character in "Love Story" being publicly shamed? Did she do something scandalous? There are zero other lines in this song to suggest that she did, and a fair amount of evidence that she didn't. This allusion confuses rather than clarifies and tbh this is the one people should've made fun of in 2008. 2/10

New Romantics: "We show off our different scarlet letters/ trust me, mine is better" --Hooray! She figured out what the book is about! This is a beautifully executed allusion, where "scarlet letters" represents a mark of something shameful which, in a fun subversion, is being shown off with pride. Fits the song really well. Most improved award, 11/10

Getaway Car: "It was the best of times, the worst of crimes" (A Tale of Two Cities) -- Goes in the category of "fun wordplay, but doesn't really mean anything deeper" 5/10

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things: "Feeling so Gatsby for that whole year" --This is a perfectly serviceable allusion, but not a super interesting one. Sub "Gatsby" out with "nostalgic" and the song wouldn't change at all. She could've done a lot more with the reference, given the subject matter of the song. 6/10

cardigan: "I knew you/tried to change the ending/Peter losing Wendy" -- This works! You get a sense of Betty losing her innocence and choosing to leave James and of it being inevitable somehow. Plus, it imbues the song with a lovely fairy tale quality. 10/10

illicit affairs: "take the road less traveled by/tell yourself you can always stop" -- To take the road less traveled by is to do something risky, unpopular, or unfamiliar, not just to take a route through town where you won't run into people. Not totally egregious, but the regression from Debut is disappointing. 4/10

invisible string: "and isn't it just so pretty to think/ that all along there was some/ invisible string tying you to me."(The Sun Also Rises)--Ugggggh. Okay, so "Isn't it pretty to think so?" is this sad, tired, ironic note in The Sun Also Rises. Brett tells Jake, "We could have had a damned good time together" and Jake says "Isn't it pretty to think so?" because their whole situationship was never going to work. It's not a positive thing; it's pure, bitter Lost Generation irony. Completely out-of-place in a song about how two people we're supposed to believe will actually work as a couple. This one drives me nuts, and I don't even like Hemingway. 0/10

happiness: "I hope she'll be a beautiful fool/ who takes my spot next to you" (Gatsby)--Saying this about an ex's future SO is so... off. Like, the reason why Daisy hopes her daughter will be a beautiful fool is because it's easy. The two situations have nothing to do with one another, and not in an interesting way. 1/10

The Albatross: whole song allusion to "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," but most notably "She's the albatross/ she is here to destroy you"--The albatross in the Rime is a good omen. The Mariner shoots is for no reason, and the albatross's death is the ostensible source of bad fortune. I wrote a whole separate post on this here. That said, culturally "albatross=bad omen" is common enough, so whatever. 3/10

I Hate It Here: "I will go to secret gardens in my mind/ people need a key to get to/ the only one is mine" -- I like this one a lot. Exactly the right vibe for the song, trying to escape something miserable by going somewhere pleasant. The key is a nice touch. Poor Archibald. 10/10

The Prophecy: "I got cursed like Eve got bitten" --No Taylor, that's not what happened. Famously, Eve was the biter in that situation. 0/10

Cassandra: whole song allusion -- correct me if I'm wrong (I haven't actually read the Illiad), but my understanding is that Cassandra died fairly far into the Trojan war, and not by burning. 4/10

#this probably isn't exhausive lol #but it's what i've got off the top of my head #this was weirdly cathartic to write #you guys know i adore taylor swift but literary allusions have always been my biggest nitpick with her #i would just like to send her to an English class or gently help her out or something idk #tay tay #i'm aware that i'm not addressing Peter off ttpd but that song is such a nothingburger that i really can't be bothered #pontifications and creations #literature makes us more human

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ensaz008 · 2 months ago

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---

ATTENTION

If ur an ENGENE or some sort of K-pop stan PLEASE TAKE UR TIME TO SPREAD AND READ THIS.👇

Hello good morning/ afternoon/ night. So if ur an engene this might be a very hot topic, #LETENHYPENREST.

To be honest this whole situation is so ridiculous and sick, I want engenes to spread more of this info to other fellow engenes because things r getting extremely serious. Let me give u a little summary of what enhypen has been thru since dark blood.

After around 10 months enhypen had a mini album coming, Dark blood which i know they worked their asses off to and it continued with fate tour. After around 6 months enhypen got out with another mini album, Orange blood. Those albums were amazing and fire but between those 6 months do they get rest? I'm pretty sure they don't have much rest, why? Enhypen literally had fate tours around the world. not only that promotions and shows, filming's, sponsors and practicing, etc,.. just as bad as it seems, things r just getting worst.

After Orange blood enhypen continued with some more fate tours and FATE PLUS?! Not only that between those times they feed our asses with lives, variety shows like enoclock etc. And in those concerts Jay, has been unwell for quite a while, his knee. His knee has been injured for quite a while as his cast can be seen in some pictures as well as in some concerts because.. well he has a knee injury how the flip will he dance? Some k-engenes also have the nerves to mob and be such weird obsessed asses to the members during airport departures and arrivals, flights keep coming and going.

Then, enhypen came out with memorabilia. It's connected with their darkmoon shits and lets say due to their works, they were obv all bops as expected. But during the music show, the members got really abnormal amounts of sleep.. like what do u mean u slept for an HOUR? WHAT DO U MEAN, U DIDNT SLEEP? it's affecting their healths! Guys remember fate hadn't ended, there r still fate plus! Gosh and just like 2 months after that they announced a full album will be coming out... 2. Months. Guys. What the actual hell?! The album is ofc amazing but when they perform I can't help but feel so sad and angry for them. They looked so tired and unwell like heeseung couldn't even walk straight, some members like niks even fainted?!they all looked tired and done and I would be too. And what do u mean enhypen is having another comeback in September like? Oh yay it's in my birthmonth. But I don't even care atp? I swear jay and Jake couldn't even perform a few days ago. park FUCKING jongseong was in the Goddamn hospital, belift count ur FUCKING days. Jake Is unknown but probably sick too which I'm so furious of. Seeing them mention about wanting to go on vacation with no cams just breaks my heart, they just want a break.

I'm gonna be extremely honest, I wouldn't give a fuck if they go hiatus for a year just to rest go vacation or take a break, I just want them to be able to have energy and strength, I really hope they can be all healthy and thriving again. I'm praying for enhypen with my whole heart.

***

I understand enhypen are kpop idols and have jobs as them, but does that change the fact that they are humans with actual organs, actual living bodies? Of course not! Belift obviously has a problem with that? I understand it's their job but this is over the line, humans have limits and I swear belift is going thru the limit. It's not even a joke anymore, enhypen is extremely overworked and it's so disgusting.

Please give this message a spread and use the #LETENHYPENREST not only in tumblr but other platforms like Twitter TikTok Instagram etc. We need to tell belift that engenes aren't joking because it's getting so so fucking concerning.

A job that slowly kills people.

#enhypen #let enhypen rest #FUCKBELIFT #LET ENHYPEN FUCKING TAKE A BREAK U GOLD DIGGING FISHY ASS HOES #boost #pay attention #enhypen jay #enhypen heeseung #enhypen jake #enhypen sunghoon #enhypen sunoo #enhypen jungwon #enhypen niki

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seenoversundown · 5 months ago

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For Death Or Glory : Chapter Seven

Jake Kiszka x Charlotte (Fem OC)

Warnings: A lot of Gentle Bullying (it's done with love,i promise), Drinking/Mentions of Alcohol, Peer pressure, Mentions of Sex (don't get your hopes up; it's not happening yet) Fluff, yearning, pining, hopeless romantic-ing, maybe a smidge of flirting and lastly- more pirate references.

Word Count: 6.2k !!

Summary: The weekend plays out a bit differently than Jake anticipated, but aside from the endless teasing from his family, I don't think he has much to complain about.

Author's Note: IT'S A LONG ONE FOLKS. We're getting to the good stuff and i'm SO excited. This chapter has me kicking my feet and blushing (I wrote it, I know) but GOD it's so cute watching their little friendship grow. I hope you love it xoxo next weeks is a TREAT. 😉

She Calls Me Back - Noah Kahan "Everything's alright when, she calls me back,"

Friday

I didn’t expect to spend so much of my evening texting Charlotte. Granted, I also never expected anybody to willingly let me tell them about pirates, a pretty girl, no less. We kept talking until she was finally ready to sleep, and I told her that she was more than welcome to reach out if she wanted. She definitely took me up on the offer. What I wasn’t prepared for was her to send me a random fun fact at 10 am. Though I’m glad, she seems to be in a better mood.

Charlotte: Did you know the creator of the Xbox was obsessed with sourdough bread?

Jake: I did not

Charlotte: Mhm! Which makes the logo funnier, because it looks like a nicely scored loaf!

Jake: Why do you know this? Also goodmorning?

I’ve already been down to the bar and finished getting her ready to open. A habit that I probably can’t break at this point. I started going down to get the bar set up when I first opened because I was really the only one who was actually working there. Once I got Josh on board full-time, we split a lot of the work, but I still try to make it as easy as possible for him. He’s doing a lot to help me out; it’s the least I can do.

Charlotte: Oh, goodmorning! I guess I should have started with that lol

“What are you so smiley about this morning?”

I look up to see Quinn rounding the corner into the kitchen, their floppy curls all over the place.

“There’s still coffee left if you want some,” I tell them quickly.

“Don’t avoid the question, Jack,” their smirk growing as they pour coffee into one of Josh’s mugs.

“Do I usually look sad?”

“Not sad, but you look especially happy right now,” tossing the creamer back into the fridge, “but you’re gonna need to wipe that look off your face if you don’t want your nosy brother harassing you.”

My smile definitely falls at that statement. Unfortunately, they’re so very correct. If I can’t hide it better, Josh will know something’s up. I swear he can smell it from a mile away.

“I’m joking,” they sip on their coffee, “I’m gonna tell him anyway!”

Shit. They scurry towards Josh’s door before I can say anything or try to bargain with them. I practically launch myself up from the couch to follow suit when I hear their sing-song little voice, “Jaaaaakes got a cruuuuushhh.” Stopping me in my tracks just outside the bedroom.

“A crush, you say!” Josh’s voice is just simply loud; there’s no changing it, “Oh, Jacob! You can’t hide from me now, brother!”

I round the corner, leaning against the doorframe.

“You’re lucky I love you,” I point at Quinn, “It’s not a crush, just a .. friend?” Realizing that I’m not even sure what this is.

“Well, that just wasn’t convincing at all,” They mumble, taking another sip of coffee.

“It’s not that serious is all.”

Josh finally chimed in, “You know, you don’t have to be ashamed if it is a crush. If anything, it’s relieving for the rest of us.”

My eyes roll involuntarily as I cross my arms over my chest, “Why are you so concerned about my love life? Shouldn’t you just be happy that I’m not bringing random girls home?”

“Don’t disrespect Danny without him present,” Josh barks out a laugh, “But at least he was getting laid, so maybe he was onto something.”

“Plus, he has Melody now,” Quinn pipes up, “You’re the last man standing.”

Josh looks over at them, “Nice guys do finish last, I guess.”

“One is the loneliest number!”

“The lone wolf.”

“Okay, you don’t need to kick me while I’m down,” my eyebrows pinch together as they keep piling on.

“Well, are you actually gonna try to bag this one?” Josh asks, “ Or you just gonna rot away in the bar and pine over her?”

“First of all, I already told you it’s not a crush,” I start, “Secondly, are you convinced that I can’t lock down a girlfriend?”

“Jake, you’ve been single for how long? It’s getting hard to believe you even know how to flirt with a woman.”

“Especially after you tried flirting with that pretty redhead the other day,” Quinn cringes quietly.

“Okay, that wasn’t my best work,” I had been trying to forget that. “But she was also busy yelling at me for being bad at my job, so the timing was less than ideal.” My face sells me out as the red settles in my cheeks.

“Wait,” Josh pipes up, “is that who you’re texting?” Leaning forward as he stares at me. How is he so quick?

“Uh,” I hesitated a second too long.

“Oh my god, it is!” His voice was rising with excitement. “A friend? My ass. I saw how you looked at her.”

“She was very pretty, to be fair,” Quinn interjects, nudging him with their elbow.

“Oh, she was stunning,” he says, looking back at them. “So you two have been talking?”

My heart is pounding as we have this conversation because I don’t even know what’s going on. The last thing I need is him hounding me over it.

They both just stare at me with that sympathetic look that people give you when they find out you lost your job or your dog ran away.

“Can you two quit interrogating me?” I whine, “I promise that either of you will be the first to know when I have a potential girlfriend.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll stand down,” Josh throws his hands up, “but only because I need to get ready for work.”

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Jake: i’m assuming youre feeling a bit better today?

I decided to walk to some of the stores nearby, trying to enjoy the last few days of autumn. The Old Port is a wonderfully odd place. With the cobblestone streets and terribly old brick buildings, it’s nothing short of having character. The way the city won’t tear any down but just shove new businesses in will always amaze me. But being able to walk to a fair amount of things has been my favorite thing since moving over here.

The crisp air of fall warrants a hot drink. I slip into a smaller local coffee shop. It’s a crowded little space with several tables and the actual bar. There’s minimal room to move around or not be noticed.

“Well, look who decided to show up!”

My head whips to the right, and I see my favorite ladies parked at a small table in the corner: Eleanor with her book in her lap and Linda with a small notebook set on the table. I take my drink from the barista with a quick ‘thank you’ and carefully weave through the scattered chairs.

“Goodmorning ladies, is this seat taken?” I tap the chair facing them.

“All yours, sweetheart.”

Linda leans forward, sliding her notebook to the side, “So Josh told us that you were flirting with that pretty young lady the other day,” sending a little wink at me.

I drop my head with a long sigh. I should have known he would tell them because, of course, my brother is best friends with two older ladies.

“Well, I tried flirting,” I mumble, sipping my coffee, “But it wasn’t necessarily well received.”

The collective ‘awwww’ feels almost offensive, but I know they aren’t trying to bully me. That’s everyone else’s job.

“You’ll find someone, dear. You’re much too sweet and handsome,” Eleanor finally says. “At least you’re not wasting it on someone who doesn’t deserve you.” She gently rubs my arm for a second, a soft smile on her face.

“Thank you,” I tell her, placing my hand over hers, “You’re right. I’d rather wait for the right girl than spend time on whoever is willing to go on dates.”

Truth be told, I’ve played that game already. Meeting girls online or on dating apps and taking them out to dinner. Only to have them tell me, “You’re so sweet,” and then ghost me after the date. I’ve only made it to the kiss at the end a handful of times in my life, and lord knows the last time I got laid. Never a proud moment for me when it happened. Both of us are usually incredibly drunk, and I hardly remember anything from it the next morning.

Since officially opening the bar, I’ve just not bothered dating. I have too many things I could be doing or helping Josh when he is working. I think if another girl ghosted me, I may commit arson. Not to the bar; obviously, I’ve worked too hard. So, I keep to myself and just enjoy the minor flirting from girls who are already a drink or two deep. I also spend a bit longer in the shower some nights trying to relieve some of the tension.

“Ellie’s right, ya know?” Linda sits back, “And don’t let those pesky boys pick on you over it! We both witnessed how ‘smooth’ their paths were, they have barely any room to speak.”

I look between the two of them with a lazy smile on my lips, “You’re the best, both of you.” I let out a small sigh of relief.

We all sit and chat while Linda writes up her list of what to bring to the Farmer’s Market this weekend. She passes the notebook to Eleanor so she can decide what plant pots to bring. Watching their friendship over the last year has been so precious.

“Alright girls, I think I need to head out,” I scoot my chair back.

“Don’t work too hard, sweetheart,” Linda quips, “But we’ll probably see you in a few hours.” She glances over at Eleanor.

“Oh, probably,” she lets out a long sigh, “This old bat drags me out late every Friday.” Holding back a laugh, she side-eyes Linda.

“Play nice, ladies!” I giggle, sending them a little wave, “I’ll see you two later.”

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It’s Josh’s night to close the bar, but I can’t help myself from at least being around. I’ve been sitting in my office for the most part. Trying to focus on admin stuff, but it becomes incredibly apparent why I let Dan handle a lot of it. It doesn’t help that I have also been texting Charlotte all night. But, in my defense, why would I turn down the opportunity to text someone who seems interested in what I have to say? The fact she’s hot is just a bonus.

I pick up my phone, unprepared for what I am about to endure. I see the blue dot next to the group chat with all the boys in it. We use it daily, but I just had a gut feeling about tonight’s conversation, considering how the rest of my day has gone.

Employees of the Month 🏴‍☠️🏆 (& Sam) :

Sam: Birdie says you may be able to pull someone if you shave your face

Josh: quinn agrees

Jake: i didn’t ask for opinions from the peanut gallery

Daniel changes the groupchat name to “ Operation: Get Jake Laid 🫡”

Daniel: melody is also in favor of no mustache

Josh: it’s not our fault you look like a chimney sweep

[Jake left the conversation]

[Sam added Jake to the conversation]

Sam: not so fast, Dick Van Dyke

Jake: So literally nobody thinks it looks good?

Josh: not at all

Daniel: …no

Sam: ABSOLUTELY NOT LOL

Josh: you already have the long hair, you’re giving jesus a little bit.

Josh: or homeless. take your pick.

Sam: Definitely homeless, there’s only room for one jesus in this family

Daniel: good point sam

Jake: i hate all of you

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Saturday

“I’m off to work,” Josh says, rounding the corner from his bedroom.

“Have fun,” I reply, looking up from my phone, “I’ll be down there in a little bit.”

As soon as the lock flips on the door, I sit up from the couch. Usually, I’m not affected by the boys’ commentary. Still, for whatever reason, the simple act of shaving my face struck a nerve. I’m not particularly attached to having facial hair, but I wasn’t under the impression it was that bad.

I stare into the mirror as the water is running; I mean, I know it’s not a big deal. If a girl didn’t like me for this, that sounds like her problem, as I throw my hair into a low bun. Grabbing my razor from the cabinet and stealing some of Josh’s shaving cream, I carefully dab some just above my lip. What if I look worse? No. Maybe they’re right; maybe I should just get rid of it. Fuck it.

Making the first pass, I let out a small sigh. I slather on some more shaving cream to the rest of my face, quickly shaving it off. Well, I guess this looks okay. Bzzzt.

Charlotte: helloooo

Jake: good morrow m’lady how did you sleep

The shower creaks a bit as I turn it on, giving the water a few minutes to heat up. It always feels like forever this time of year. Once the steam starts fogging up the mirrors, I pull my sweatshirt over my head and toss it on the counter. Bzzt.

Charlotte: not bad. How are you?

Jake: aside from falling into peer pressure, i’m okay haha

I set my phone on top of my sweatshirt, quickly sliding off my sweats and swiftly moving into the shower. Letting the hot water run over me. What if she doesn’t even notice? Pouring shampoo into my hand and scrubbing it into my hair, maybe she’ll like this better? What am I even worried about? We’re just casually talking. Rinsing and then grabbing the conditioner, Though.. I wouldn’t be opposed. I run the conditioner through my ends and then lather the rest of my body with soap. I feel like she must at least think I’m an okay person if she’s listening to me ramble on about pirates? I move back under the water, feeling the temperature start to change.

“Shit, shit, shit,” I mumble to myself, trying to rinse everything off as quickly as possible. There’s nothing worse than the hot water running out mid-shower. As soon as my hair doesn’t feel slimy, I shut the water off with a quick shudder. I wring my hair out and grab my towel, drying myself before wrapping it tightly around my waist.

I see my phone light up.

Charlotte: Excuse me?

Charlotte: Who peer pressured you? Into what?

Charlotte: Jacob! You can’t just say that and then disappear!

I audibly laugh at her yelling at me, quickly replying to try and ease the suspense.

Jake: i’m sorry i was in the shower LOL

Jake: oh just the boys per usual im just dumb and fell for it this time

I migrate to my bedroom, scanning my closet briefly before grabbing my staple long-sleeve button-up shirt and my black jeans. I pull them on as I hear the small buzz of my phone.

Charlotte: Why are you avoiding saying what IT is? It can’t be that bad.

Oh, sweetheart, I wish I knew if it were that bad.

Jake: i haven’t decided if it’s that bad

Charlotte: Well, let me help!

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Rounding the corner to the bar, I set a handful of clean glasses on the back counter. Listening to Josh as he small talks with some of the customers. Having Josh bartend was probably one of the smartest things I could have done; everybody loves him. He’s much more extroverted than myself, on top of just being a sociable person. Bzzzt.

I have to fight the urge to grab my phone every time it vibrates. She knows I’m working, so she won’t be upset if I take a second to reply. I’m cleaning up the back counter to try and help out Josh; I wipe down everything quickly to make sure I’m not in his way.

Turning around, I see the door open as Willa walks through. It’s always a gamble to see who will be with her, Sam, or Quinn, and tonight's lucky winner is Samuel. I’ve watched them since the day they first met, and as much as they like to annoy each other, they are rather cute together. If there’s anything I know about my brother, he doesn’t ever actually want to annoy her; he just likes to ruffle her feathers. Get it- Birdie.. Feathers.. HAH.

He pulls out the barstool a bit for her before taking the seat next to her.

“OH MY GOD-” Willa yelps, “YOU SHAVED,” excitedly clapping her hands. Well, that didn’t take long.

“It’s nice to see you too,” I slide small napkins in front of both of them, grinning at her excitement.

“Jake, I literally see you all the time,” Sam torts back.

“I was talking to Willa,” I deadpan, rolling my eyes before looking back to her, “What can I get for you, dear?”

“Just something fruity,” she requests between laughs, “thank you!”

I glance at Sam with my eyebrows raised, “and you?”

“Wow, the customer service here is amazing,” laced in a sarcastic tone that quickly disappears when he quietly mumbles, “Whatever you make for her, just .. the same thing.”

Turning to make their drinks, bzzt, I slide my phone from my back pocket.

Charlotte: Can you PLEASE just tell me what it is?

Jake: i promise you it’s not that exciting

I quickly shoved my phone back into its rightful place and put together their drinks. Willa’s more carefully than Sam’s, at least she doesn’t cop an attitude with me.

“Here you go, madam,” setting her drink on the napkin, “and here’s yours.” more abruptly setting Sam’s down.

“So, Jake,” she starts, “how’s dating going?”

My eyes wander over to my brother, who is looking everywhere but at me. That little shit.

“Oh, it’s um.. It’s going.”

“Well, I do have a friend who I could set you up with,” she continues, “ya know, if you want.”

Finally, making eye contact with Sam, my eyebrows pull together as I cross my arms over my chest.

“What? I didn’t say anything?” he says, putting his hands up.

“Yes, you did!” Willa calls him out, “Don’t be dumb, Sam.”

She looks back at me, putting her hands out across the bar, “I’m a girl, I can help, okay. What are you looking for? Tell meee!”

Bzzzt. Shit.

I can feel the warmth settling in my face, and my hand finds its place on the back of my neck.

“Oh, you’re so sweet,” I start, “but I don’t think I really have time to date right now.”

She sighs, “Oh come on– are you gunna let yourself wither away in this bar? You’re handsome; you shouldn’t have any problems dating.”

“Hello? I’m right here?” Sam butts in.

“This isn’t about you right now, babe.”

Charlotte: What if I just tell you that it is super exciting? Does that help?

Jake: oh my god you’re ridiculous hahaha

“What are you smiling at over there?” Willa’s tone was taunting.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” I tell her, unable to contain the uncomfortable laugh that follows.

“That doesn’t look like nothing.”

I smirk, “I promise!”

She looks like she will fling herself over the bar if I don’t tell her who I’m talking to.

“Promises mean nothing to me, sir!” she quickly rebuttals, “give me the juicy deets!”

My ears perk up at the ‘sir,’ but I’m not so easily swindled.

“You almost got me there, but there’s nothing to tell.” I smile at her, raising my eyebrows as I walk to the other end of the bar.

Charlotte: I promise I won’t laugh at you! I’m just too invested now

Jake: Charlotte

Charlotte: Jacob

Charlotte: For the love of god, just tell me what it is

I don’t know what comes over me, but I immediately walk to the bathroom. Holding the edge of the sink with my free hand, I pull up my phone, clicking on the little camera. Click. I don’t bother to look, simply clicking ‘done.’

Jake: [ sends photo ]

Read 9:37pm. ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

The next few hours go by quickly. This is sort of the blessing of Saturday nights here; the nights tend to fly by with the number of people you talk to. I sent Josh home a little early. We were slowing down a bit, and he’s been here quite a lot lately. Which is a little my fault, but none of the bartenders I hire stick around long.

I don’t want to cave, but I finally opened Charlotte’s messages. Seeing the ‘read’ makes me nervous. My thumbs defy me.

Jake: is it that bad?

Does that seem too needy? She doesn’t have to say anything. Maybe I scared her off with the picture. My mind races until I see her typing.

Charlotte: What are you doing after work?

The sense of relief when she responds is great, but why was she avoiding the conversation? Maybe it was just too weird for her.

Jake: I get out at 2am.. what else am I going to do haha

Charlotte: You’re so right

Looking up to the corner, 1:15 a.m., before replying to her.

Jake: what are you doing awake? ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

I spent the last forty-five minutes of the night trying to clean while slowly collecting everyone’s payments. Following the last customer to the doors, I locked myself in and felt the calm wash over me again.

Charlotte: I don’t really know

Jake: well i’m sure you’re asleep now, but i’m free to keep you company if you’re still up

My screen lights up before I can put it back into my pocket. Why is she facetiming me? This can’t be serious? My thumb hovers over the ‘accept’ for a second, quickly tapping it.

“Hi,” her voice softly rings through my ears. God, she’s so cute.

“Helloo,” I say, matching her volume, “I definitely wasn’t expecting you to be up.”

“I just can’t sleep lately,” Poor thing.

“Well then,” propping my phone up against a glass, “lucky for you, I’m always awake into the wee hours of the morning.” I glance over from the POS.

“Doesn’t help when you don’t clock out until after two in the morning, huh?”

“You would be correct,” I let out a small laugh, taking a quick scan of the room. She tucks some hair behind her ear, then leans into her hand.

“Do you have much left to do?”

Clicking the power button on the screen, “Mmm, no, I’m actually done.” She smiles at my response. SHE SMILED.

Flipping the lights and locking the doors behind me, I start up the stairs to the apartment.

“I need to say hi to Josh real quick, so I’ll just put you in my pocket for a second?”

Her small laugh sounds like heaven, causing my own grin to grow across my face.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

I softly knock on Josh’s door a few times before opening it, sliding my phone into my front pocket.

“Hey, I have a proposition for you,” I say, leaning against the doorframe.

“I’m listening.”

“Would you like to take the earlier shift tomorrow and then be able to see Quinn?” I raise my eyebrows, knowing that if it involves Quinn, he will always say yes.

“Obviously,” his voice suspicious.

“Done deal. I’ll close so you two can spend some time together.”

He cocks an eyebrow at me before questioning me, “You’re being too nice to me… what’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on, I just know you’ve been working a lot, and Quinn’s free tomorrow, sooo,” I giggle.

His eyes squinted, “I'm not going to argue it.. How was your night?” His tone going back to normal.

“Not terrible, but I’m exhausted,” I lie.

“YOU’RE TIRED?” Loudly escapes him, clutching his heart dramatically.

I laugh, “Shocking, isn’t it?” To which he just nods.

“Sleep well. Love you bub.”

“Love you too, kiddo!” ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

“Sorry about that,” I whisper, softly shutting my bedroom door.

“You shouldn’t lie to your brother.”

My eyebrow raises at her comment, “And what am I lying about?”

She crosses her arms over her chest, “I’m exhausted,” she mocks me. I can’t help but laugh at her; I wasn’t prepared for her to make fun of me.

“Well, shit,” I sit back on my bed, “you got me, huh?”

I can see some color creep into her cheeks, making my heart shake.

“Hold on, I’m just gonna set you down,” I toss my phone onto my pillows. Grabbing the navy sweatshirt sitting on the end of my bed. I slide my shirt off, quickly pull the sweatshirt over me, then toss my jeans into my closet.

I move myself up to lean against the wall, grabbing my phone and taking her in while she’s looking off to the side. The freckles on her cheeks look like they were individually painted on. Perfect.

I catch a glimpse of myself, rubbing just underneath my nose a few times before just settling into my usual fidget.

“You look cute,” she says, just above a whisper. I feel my face warm as I gaze at her through my phone screen. I gently pick at my lip as I fight the smile threatening to come out.

“Oh, I’m sorry, um,” she quickly says, I can see the subtle panic on her face.

“No, no, it’s okay. I uh,” I stammer a bit, “I just think that you’re the cute one here,” I spit out as fast as I can.

“Jacob quit it!”

“Unfortunately, I can’t,” I giggle, “Trying to break that pesky lying habit or whatever.”

She rolls her eyes at that, fighting the smirk on her face. We both just stare at each other for a second before she finally breaks the silence.

“So, you’re working again tomorrow night?”

“Mhm,” I watch as she rubs her eyes. “Do you want to go to bed?” She quickly shakes her head, ‘No.’

She quietly adjusts herself so she’s almost lying down on her couch; this isn’t going to last long.. oh? Hearing the faint sound of a sea shanty, I know and love.

“What are you watching?”

“Pirates of the Caribbean,” her lazy smile wide, “it’s the third one.” Oh god, you’re killing me.

“Hoist the colors high” I sing along under my breath.

I’m genuinely unable to look anywhere except for her; the way her smile hasn’t faltered since I clocked her watching pirates. Her eyes struggle to stay open as the lights from her TV flicker across her face.

“Go to sleep, hun,” keeping my voice soft, “You can text me as soon as you wake up.”

She blinks incredibly slowly, followed by a sigh. “Okay,” she murmurs. She waves quickly, tucking her hand back under her chin.

I send her a small finger wave, lingering for an extra second to take her in, “Goodnight,” I whisper before hanging up. Oh, I’m so fucked.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Sunday

“Have you tried any of those dating apps? You know, the swipey game-like ones!” Josh says, sounding a bit too excited.

“I think I’m good on those.”

“What about the lovely redhead you have a crush on?” he presses further.

“I told you, it’s not like that.”

Not pleased with that response, he rebuts, “Well, you need to get a girlfriend at some point.” He glances over to Quinn for a second before turning back to me. They’ve been sitting at the bar since he clocked out a while ago. I swear they hang out just to torture me.

“It is a little strange, Jake..” They start, “You haven’t dated at all since I’ve known you.” Putting on their best ‘I feel bad’ face.

“How is it strange?” I don’t know why I asked.

The smile on their face was telling enough, “Are you sure you’re not.. ya know?” Following it with a subtle head nod towards Josh.

“That would be a fun twist!” Josh spits out excitedly.

My jaw slacks at the question, “WOW. No, I promise I like women.” Shaking my head as I lean against the back counter, folding my arms over me.

“Sounds like something someone who’s-”

Josh laughs before he cuts them off quickly, “Oh Bug, he’s just woefully bad at flirting and can hardly speak up enough to grab the attention of the ladies who come in.”

“I’m right here, hello?” I scoff, quietly pulling out my phone.

Me: not my brother’s partner questioning if i’m gay or not

Charlotte: Well.. everybody is allowed to have questions!

Me: I’M NOT GAY DONT SIDE WITH THEM

I look up to see Josh staring at me, only to glance quickly at my phone, which is still in my hand. Shaking my head quickly with a slight frown, I avoid answering the inevitable question: “Who are you talking to?” I know it’s coming because I know my brother, and boy, oh boy, does he love to know everything and anything that happens.

As more people sit at the bar, I spend more time making sure that they’re all happy and just casually glance to the end, where Josh and Quinn are sitting. How they look at each other, like the other one created the stars and hung the moon, has always been so sweet to me. I haven’t seen Josh this happy in so long, and I’ll be eternally grateful to Quinn for being so good to him. I couldn’t have asked for a better person to come into his life.

I scan the room, seeing a handful of empty bottles and glasses. I do a quick lap through the tables to grab everything. I make sure to say ‘hello’ to any regulars who are in tonight while noticing a few fresh faces.

Seems like a lot of couples tonight. Seeing the amount of people sitting on the same side or the causal holding hands on top of the table. It’s all adorable to see; unfortunately for me, it’s always just witnessing romance.

Coming back to my rightful place behind the bar, I catch a glimpse of Quinn planting their lips on my brother’s cheek. I can’t catch a break.

Bzzt.

Charlotte: Can we Facetime when you’re done working? I’ve napped too much today and I’m going to be awake all night.

Me: i’m honored, of course we can ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Flipping the lock after the last customer strolls out, I can already feel my phone vibrate.

“Well, aren’t you just breathtaking?”

There she is, with her long red hair tied into possibly the most messy bun imaginable, in a too-big sweatshirt, curled up in what must be her bed this time. She looked like she had been napping all day, yet she was still insanely beautiful.

“It’s SO late, and you can’t hold that against me!”

“To be fair, you called me- I didn’t force this.” I tease, holding my one free hand up.

Her smile widens at my point, “touché, Jacob.”

After closing the bar and running upstairs, I prop my phone on the counter and rummage through the fridge.

“What are you going to make?”

“That is a great question,” I say, staring into my fridge with minimal options. Cooking at 2:30 am has always been a humbling experience, but at least I have company this time.

Grabbing the leftover soup Josh made, I pull out the smaller saucepan we have. I take the time to reheat it properly because it means getting to sit on FaceTime with her.

“What did you spend all day doing?” I ask mindlessly, “Besides harassing me while I worked.” I look at her, trying to contain my smirk.

“Oh, hush,” she waves her hand at the camera, “mostly watching movies and trying to not let myself work since it’s Sunday- well.. was Sunday and all.”

She still hasn’t told me what happened, even though I unfortunately figured it out. I won’t make her uncomfortable by asking, though seeing the way her face fell when she mentioned trying not to work makes me wonder if she has a hard time doing anything else.

“I’m glad you let yourself rest,” I tell her, “you’re allowed to take days for yourself.”

The look on her face is sinister as she says, “You should probably take your own advice there, Sir.” Letting out a small cackle, she knows she clocked me a little too fast on that.

I can’t decide if my body is warm because of her calling me out or the fact she called me ‘Sir.’ Either way, I dramatically let my jaw slack, clutching my chest just to hear her laugh again.

“You got me there, Red,” I admit.

“Have you taken a day off since I first came in?”

I simply shake my head. Maybe I do work too much, but what else am I supposed to do when I enjoy being there? The benefit of it being just downstairs as well is that I can visit my favorite place in the world within a matter of a minute. I know I could take days off and probably stand to at this point, but I also don’t know what else to spend my time doing. I’ve been eating, sleeping, and breathing for this bar since I bought it almost two years ago. I spend most of my time with my brothers, and most of my friends have moved away for college or just to escape the cold. Can’t blame them.

“Jacob?”

Her voice pulled me out of my thoughts, causing her to giggle when I jumped at the sound.

“Lost you there for a minute, huh?”

I chuckle, “Maybe for a second, but I’m back now.”

We move off the topic of work quickly as she tells me about the movies she watched in between naps today. She loves older movies, and I tell her I’m sure she and Josh would have a field day talking about them. She’s watched everything from Casablanca to A Walk To Remember and The Notebook. It’s cute how much she loves romance.

“What other movies do you like?”

My eyes widened when I realized my other favorite movie was a rom-com.

“Hah, well, besides Pirates obviously, I uh-” I hesitate for a moment, worried she will think I’m just trying to play into it.

“You, uh, what? We’ve done this once before. You know you’re going to tell me,” she taunts me, and she’s absolutely correct. I want nothing more than to tell her anything she wants to know, which is definitely not stressing me out.

“Love Actually,” I spit out quickly, rubbing my hand over my face. I’m not embarrassed that I enjoyed it; it’s a good movie- a great movie, even. I just don’t think anybody aside from Josh knows that. We’ve spent countless Christmas seasons watching it multiple times leading up to the holiday.

“Are you serious?” she sounds mildly shocked.

I nod my head, waiting for her to poke fun at me.

“That’s precious.”

I was unprepared for her response, fully ready to defend myself, and all I could say was, “Oh.”

“If it weren’t October, I would put it on,” she says, and honestly, this woman will be the death of me.

“Good thing November is right around the corner,” I manage to mumble out, still taken aback by the subtle compliment. We sit in comfortable silence for a moment. I can’t help but try to make eye contact through a screen, but when she looks into her camera, it feels like a small jolt shoots through my body. What is going on?

I finally make it to my bedroom a while later; it’s now nearing 4:00 a.m. My phone is dying, and my exhaustion is creeping in, but not nearly as much as hers. Slowly but surely, she’s gotten more and more comfortable as we talk about anything that comes to mind.

I let my phone sit in my lap as I pull my shirt over my head, leaning forward to toss it onto the pile of laundry I should take care of. Grateful it’s a bit easier to get rid of my jeans without her seeing it. Still, I can’t help noticing how her eyes wander to my necklace.

“Sorry, I couldn’t take the subtle scent of beer anymore,” I speak lower, unintentionally.

She quietly clears her throat, “Oh, haha, that makes sense.” Her eyes darted away from the screen as if she were caught.

It was quiet for a moment until she let out a yawn, trying to hide it in her elbow. Her eyes stayed closed for a second longer.

“Why don’t you go to sleep?” I whisper, “It’s 4:00 am.”

Her eyes slowly open to look at me. I can’t tell what she’s feeling besides being exhausted. She sighs slightly before whispering back, “But I want to talk to you.”

My breath catches at her statement. She wants to talk to me? My heart feels like it could explode at any moment, and my hands start to shake.

I nervously laugh, “What if I go to sleep too?”

Her lazy smile creeps across her face. “Promise?” She sticks out her pinky to me.

“Promise,” I return the gesture quickly, “You can even bug me later if you want.”

Her tired giggle engraved into my brain, “Just you wait.”

“I’ll be on the edge of my seat.”

“Goodnight, Jake.” Jake.

“Sweet dreams, Red.”

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

Chapter Six

Chapter Eight

FDOG Masterpost | Masterlist | FDOG Playlist

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accirax · 4 months ago

Text

initial thoughts on DCAS episode 13

i guess Marcus cares about everyone. Marcus characterization jumpscare.

it's so interesting to me how much Alec seems to care about his family in retrospect when we've seen illustrated time and time again that he didn't seem to care about them (or at least his son) in the moment pretty much at all. i guess it's a "you don't know what you have until it's gone" type of thing?

hey, we finally got names!

well, that happened. once again, congrats to the AleRiya shippers. i probably still prefer them as friends for now, but i'm not opposed to them becoming a ship in the future. i doubt they will, since the writers seem to really like Connor and Riya and probably want that to be endgame, but i digress. it's really important to Alec's character, i think, that he was one of the only completely new characters created for s1, and was quite possibly crafted with an All Stars season in mind. thus, as much as Alec was created for Fiore in s1 (to help her have numbers and allies and stuff), he may have also been created for Riya in DCAS. i wouldn't be surprised if a lot of Alec's traits were crafted with this friendship and possibly even this plot beat in mind.

this whole scene is so sad :(

i... really don't understand Aiden's motivations here? like, what will happen if you tell the group "Alec and Riya kissed"? who would care other than Connor, who you already acknowledged would be crushed by the news? do you really think that Gabby or whoever would stop working with the villains under the knowledge that two legal adults smooched? is this about ruining Riya's reputation? the footage will certainly air on TV regardless of whether you tell anyone or not. am i just missing something? what game is Aiden playing at???

here's how aro Kristal truthers can still win.

waterBENDING? does Grett watch Avatar? :D i suppose she is in a good age demographic for it.

QUIRK??? DOES ALEC WATCH BNHA????? that's way more surprising than Grett watching Avatar. i do not know what Alec would possibly enjoy in BNHA. like, who's his favorite character? Aizawa???

this is WAY funnier than him being invisible. props.

Alec may have the looks of a mastermind strategist, but he has the heart of a simp. truly tragic. you know, if you want a family again, you could always direct that (platonic) love at a certain other competitor...

what a fucking loser (affectionate)

"have you considered that your employees might think you're cringe?"

LMAOOOOOOO this says so much about Jake. of course he's a villain shipper. but, see, to my point-- Jake literally doesn't give a fuck about this! what are you planning to gain!!!

Jake get the banana

potassium

ALEC FUCKING DIES?????? AIDEN KILLED A MAN??????????

i didn't put it together after watching the trailer, but it's really interesting to me that Yul and Grett were lightning and water respectively. i guess it's saying that if they could actually work together, they'd be a super deadly pair? or, maybe it was a coincidence.

nobody is wearing a cape, Gabby included. i thought she said she was working on her mask and cape designs :(

it's... a massive geological structure that weighs and should be able to withstand several tons of force? what?

TURN INTO A BIRD.

cathartic and appropriate that Yul becomes desperate once he feels his power is lost.

this was a real L episode for Alec. sorry buddy.

neither disappointed nor surprised. it truly was Yul's time to go.

THE TWINK TRUCE!! they're even making, like, the same face, lol.

GOTTEM

SO interesting how closely this mirror's Grett's exit in S1. Grett grew from her experience, while Yul can only manage to POSSIBLY be at the emotional maturity of s1 Grett now. and, tbh, he's not even close to that.

HOORAY!!! now make sure you apologize to her. thoroughly.

HOW?????????? i seriously don't understand this... maybe Aiden will explain himself better when this happens next episode.

yay, fun superhero challenge! love a good themed episode. i do think the fact that like... five people could have had immunity in this one was kind of weird, but, eh. as it turns out, Grett and Gabby could have won immunity as well as Aiden and Jake and it would have changed literally nothing about the outcome of this vote. it was really just about Yul (and kind of Connor, i guess).

i do wonder if Yul's elimination will essentially spell the end of the "heroes versus villains" portion of the game, and the gameplay will shift to being more individually focused. we do kinda have four groups of two at the moment-- Gabby and Grett, Alec and Riya, Aiden and Jake, and... Connor and Ally, I guess? that could make for some interesting votes.

after a somewhat longer hiatus than usual, now we're going to be doing one episode per week! how exciting! in that case, i'll see you again on (presumably) Wednesday for the power rankings, and if you don't read those, once again on Saturday for Episode 14. bye for now!

#disventure camp #disventure camp spoilers #dcas #dcas initial thoughts #i can't believe they “stole” my disvengers endgame joke...#great minds think alike #great minds should hire me to work on disventure camp /j

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gyll-yee-haw · 10 months ago

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heyyy! missed you a lot omg 😭😭😭💖 do you write for all jake characters? i was thinking of something like, detective loki has a very sensible and sweet girlfriend and she loses a pet and he comforts her while she's going through it. a very sad but also really soft and cute because of how much he takes care of her

Hii, angel!! I missed you too!! 🥺❤

I think the only characters I wouldn't write for would be Jack Twist (cause I only write female readers), like bubble boy lol, and Jeff Bauman (cause he's a real person, I think it would be weird). But except from those, I believe I would write for all! And I ADORED your request because Detective Loki is my absolute favorite character ever, the actual love of my life, think about him all the time <3

Warnings: the absolute cutest thing I ever wrote, hurt/comfort, pet death, sad as heck (my cat was making biscuits on my belly as I wrote it, I almost cried), a few swear words, buuut with tons and tons of fluff <3

Like 2k words

I named the dog Nugget because nothing makes me happier than pets with food names 😭

_____

Knowing that day would come couldn't make it any easier. You just lost your childhood best friend. Someone who has always been there and... the fact he won't be anymore is almost unbelievable.

David had been by your side through the whole process. When Nugget started getting sick, he rushed him to the vet countless times. On his last days, David would always come home with a million treats and pillows, and blankies, everything to make your baby as comfortable and happy as possible. When you and David started dating, Nugget was part of the package. He had never had a dog before, but once you moved in, bringing yours along, he went full dog dad mode.

"No, don't worry, you should get some rest..." he would say, as an excuse to be the one to take Nugget on a walk or play with him.

And it really went both ways, Nugget was absolutely IN LOVE with David. He would wait for David to come home for hours by the door, and never leave his side when he does. You were jealous at first, but it was really adorable... having a dog really helped Dave with his stress.

But now... now the house felt so empty. Even though David was extremely heartbroken, he knew he had to stay strong for you.

He helped you bury Nugget on a special place with all the things he loved, and have a little funeral, where he made sure to say a few words, cause he knew you couldn't.

The day after the funeral, you woke up after noon, and could barely open your eyes from crying all night. You heard noises coming from the kitchen. Weird... David should be at work.

You walked downstairs to check. You found him cursing at something in the oven.

"Dave?" You called softly.

"Love?" He answered, pretending he had everything under control. "Hi, did you... did you get some sleep?"

"I did. Shouldn't you be at work?" You asked confusingly.

"I... yeah, it's just..." He sighed. "I didn't want to leave you here alone, I took the day off."

"You took the day off?" Your eyes widened. "David, you worked on Christmas. And on Thanksgiving. And on your birthday. And..."

"I know." He interrupted. "I'm sorry, baby... I know I work too much. But I thought... you might need some company."

His words seemed to hit both of you at the same time. It was always Nugget who kept you company during David's countless working hours. Now everything would be so much worse... not only you would be without David, you would be completely alone...

Your eyes filled with tears. He rushed to your side.

"Hey hey hey..." he held you tightly. "It's okay, baby, you won't be alone, okay? We'll figure it out."

You allowed him to hold you, closing your eyes and trying to just feel that moment. You needed to cry, you needed to hurt, and he knew that. It's part of the process and he would be right there until you were strong enough to carry on. As he held you, you could feel his warm embrace. His heart beating softly as he breathed slowly. His soft belly and strong arms. The smell of... what was that smell?

"Dave?" You wiped your tears and looked at him. "There's something... burning?"

"Oh, FUCK!" He rushed back to the oven, quickly turning it off.

"What's going on?" You followed him.

"I was... I was trying to bake a cake. Just... to make you feel better, and you weren't eating, I thought that maybe... oh, fuck, I knew I should just buy something, but I didn't want to leave you here and go out, then..."

He stopped his rambling immediately when he looked at you. You were... smiling?

"Dave, you're the best, I swear." You hugged him from behind, giggling.

"Wait, hold on..." he chuckled. "I fucked up."

"You didn't." You explained to him. "I didn't need a cake, I needed someone to care this much about me."

"Y/N..." he turned around to face you, staying inside your embrace. "You have no idea how much I care about you... you are my everything."

"I love you, Dave. I don't know how I would do this without you."

"You won't do this without me, I'll be right here, okay?"

"I don't know..." you shrugged, feeling the pain coming back to your chest. "I feel like it's not gonna go away... ever."

"I know." He sighed, caressing your hair. "I'm gonna miss him too. But I just know he was the luckiest dog who ever lived. To be loved this much by you, to grow up by your side... I just know he lived his best life."

"He did." You allowed yourself to smile again. "He was so happy. Specially after you came along."

David had to fight his emotions. He felt a little sting in his heart. He loved his little family, but he felt so undeserving of all that love. He thought about how Nugget got attached to him so quickly and he couldn't understand why. Just like he couldn't understand why burning a cake was the only thing that made you feel better, after all he tried... maybe love was still a little bit of a foreigner concept for him to understand. But maybe that was the point... as a detective, he was always trying to understand everything, and maybe love wasn't something to be understood... all he knew was that it was all over that kitchen.

-----

Weeks passed and you were still healing. You still cried sometimes, but you were starting to accept it.

David had to go back to work, of course. Lives depended on him and keeping him home made you feel worse. At first, he took it slow. Didn't work as much as he used to. But as he started to go back to his normal rotine, you realized it would be harder than you thought.

After one particularly stressful day, around 1am, he went back to his car, ready to go home.

He started the car. Then paused. He could swear something moved on the backseat. He turned around and inspected it for a moment. There was nothing there, he was probably just exhausted.

He started driving. Something moved again.

"What the fuck..." he murmured, keeping his eyes on the mirror.

That's when a pair of yellow eyes looked back at him.

"Shit!" His eyes widened.

It was a kitten. As black as the seats, which is why he couldn't see it before. He left the car windows open and the kitten must have jumped in...

What the fuck was he gonna do now? He couldn't leave the kitten on the streets. But he couldn't take it home either... he had no idea how you would react, you were still sad about Nugget...

His mind raced until he got home, trying to decide what to do.

He had an idea.

As soon as he parked the car, he grabbed a box, put an old jacket of his inside it and placed it in the garage. He went back to the car and grabbed the kitten. He didn't realize how small it was before, but it fit in his hand. The kitten started purring as soon as David's hand made contact with it.

"Oh my god..." he murmured. He had never held a kitten in his life... he probably didn't even know they... vibrated.

He placed the kitten inside the box.

"Okay... I'll see what I'll do with you in the morning."

As soon as he turned his back, the kitten jumped out of the box, following him. It ran between David's legs, making him trip.

"Fuck!" He tried not to fall, at the same time as he tried not to step on the cat, that was the size of his boot. "Listen... you need to stay here, I'll figure out what to do with you in the morning, okay?"

He picked the cat back up, putting it inside the box again.

It jumped out. Of course.

On the 5th time that happened, David just sat on the floor, absolutely exhausted. He rested his face on his hands, cursing his luck. The kitten climbed up his legs and laid down.

David was starting to wonder if he was gonna have to sleep on the garage that night. That's when the door opened.

He and the cat looked at you with a terrified expression.

"I can explain." He said, with the most desperate look you had ever seen on his face.

"OH.MY.GOD." You gasped and brought your hand to your mouth.

"He followed me... I've been trying to get home for half an hour, I swear, he won't let me, I..."

"David." You looked at him with tears in your eyes. "You've been chosen."

"What do you mean?" He was trying to figure out if you were happy or upset. "I'm gonna take him somewhere tomorrow, I'll just..."

"David!" You kneeled next to the kitten, offering your hand for it to smell, and it immediately headbutted your hand. "Don't you dare say something like that, you're his father now..."

"Y/N..." he got even more desperate after hearing the word 'father'.

"This is the most affectionate kitten I've ever seen in my life..." you continued petting the small kitten, who was now loafing on David's leg. You picked it up to look for any signs that it might be hurt or sick. "It's a girl, by the way..."

"It's a girl..." he repeated, trying to process everything.

"You think...?" You got excited for a second, then calmed down. "Well, nevermind."

"Tell me what's on your mind, baby." David gave you space, as you sat beside him, holding the kitten on your lap.

"I... I was wondering if we could... keep it." You kept petting the kitten, who looked very relaxed. "But I understand if you don't want to... I mean, I know I've been a pain in the ass since Nugget is gone, and you probably won't want to go through that again..."

"Y/N, you haven't been a pain in the ass for a second in your life. I love you." He laughed. "I just... didn't know if you were ready yet."

"Well, I..." you thought about it for a second. "I didn't think I was. But... she chose you, it just... happened. I mean... I know it's hard to lose a pet we love, but... there are others out there who deserve a loving home too, you know? Like Nugget had. And there are so many animals suffering on the streets... specially cats..."

"You know what?" He smiled, really proud of you. "I think this is what Nugget would have wanted."

"DOES THAT MEAN SHE'S OURS?" You spoke excitedly.

"She's ours." He shrugged.

The kitten stood up, stretching and walking from your lap to David's, where she laid down again.

"She LOVES you..." you felt the tears starting to fall. It was so exciting that David would be there since day one for the kitten's life... with Nugget was different, and he deserved this. "She chose you."

"She's... vibrating again..." he raised his eyebrows.

"SHE'S PURRING, DAVID, YOU ARE HER DAD!"

"Jesus Christ..." he sighed, wondering what the fuck he got himself into.

#detective loki #detective loki fanfic #david loki #detective loki x reader #jake gyllenhaal #jake gyllenhaal x reader #jake gyllenhaal fanfic #prisoners

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aprilias · 3 months ago

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Just for my own documentation (and anyone else’s if they want it) here’s a summary of Thursday at Silverstone. This is going under the cut because while this is a summary, I myself cannot summarise the words lmao.

The basics/area/idk how to describe it:

- Arriving at the track it really feels like more people are here for Thursday than last year (hopefully this continues for the weekend since this is regularly not a well attended race in comparison).

- There was also so many people wearing different merch whereas the last 2 years have been pretty much Marc and Vale. Fabio I think actually looked the most popular this year, but there was a surprising amount of Martin fans.

- The one thing I’m disappointed about is that last year they changed the bit around the fanzone from grass to gravel and it’s the same this year. It makes it a lot more inaccessible and its so difficult to get to the activities and stuff.

- In fact I think they changed the layout way more this year but it was still fine, just weird that they don’t want us touching grass lol.

- The fans as a whole behaved well but there were a few people that were rude, not necessarily towards the riders but towards other fans.

The paddock:

- The paddock opened at 11 but the queue started at like half past 10, but it really didn’t take long to get in so it was fine. It was ridiculously hot though.

- The paddock itself is massive, but for the GP teams its too small unlike the old layout. They’ve had to add a secondary part at the back for some of the smaller teams in Moto2/3 for their hospitality and motor homes.

- They didn’t have anywhere to get drinks in the paddock unlike last year. We wouldve had to leave to get drinks but luckily we bought water and they had refilling stations.

- We wanted to get to the pitlane for the bike reveals and the queue was… well just absolutely ridiculous to put it mildly. We decided to skip it which was sad but we got to watch the reveals on the screen (Yamaha and Pramac won for me and I love Trackhouse’s too).

The auction:

- The auction is so fun. Basically all the riders put something of theirs, for example a knee slider or boots or something, and then people bid (slightly ridiculous) amounts of money for them for the two wheels for life.

- Joe Roberts was brought on stage and he was giving away part of his race winning bike from mugello??? They got 4k for it.

- Jake Dixon was there on stage but he was ill. He brought Summer (his daughter) out on stage and she waved at all of us which was so cute.

- The auctioned a Prosecco bottle that was signed by Johann Zarco, Jack Miller and wait for it…. Pecco Bagnaia. No one else seemed to care how ironic that was but I burst out laughing.

- Johann Zarco talks a lot. By a lot I mean he may as well have presented the auction himself. That’s all I can say about the MotoGP riders that I didn’t know already.

- Actually I just want to say that Fabio seems really shy and reserved but he knows how to work a crowd. The British crowd absolutely love both him and Rins but I genuinely think he’s the best supported rider here, maybe even more than Marc.

- He also did the auction for his boots which was absolutely hilarious. He wanted to buy them himself too but got outbidded 😭

- Also Remy kind of said on stage that it appears he will be doing another year of WSBK with Yamaha!!!!!

- We left early because of the rain but it was so fun, if I had money then I would’ve been bidding on stuff but it was fun regardless.

The riders (and team people i suppose):

- Met the Moto3 baby goats extremely early and David and Collin are both lovely and so polite too.

- Ran into Massimo Rivola. I have a picture with him and he smiled at me when he saw I was wearing Aprilia merch. Also found Pablo Nieto and Frankie Carchedi and said hello to Nadia Padovani.

- My friend saw Somkiat in the motorhome and shouted at him, and he kind of jumped and pointed but he came down for a chat and a photo. Again, he is probably one of the, if not the, nicest person in the whole paddock.

- Found Celestino and again he is so nice but also comes across as really shy. I actually told him he was my favourite out of everyone and he seemed really grateful for it (unless he thought I was crazy which is also possible).

- Saw somebody who I thought was J.A. Rueda but I’m not 100% sure. Also ran into both Senna Agius and Jeremy Alcoba and when I tell you those boys look the same its crazy.

- Saw Albert and had to stop myself from apologising that I jinx him every weekend. Also a great guy it seems and we saw him a few more times after that.

- Not saying it’s necessarily him all the time but it’s two years in a row I’ve had a very negative experience of a certain #1. Never said hello or anything when people said it to him, unlike literally every other rider (yes including Fabio and Marc and any other person you want to try a pull a gotcha card on).

- I need to issue a public apology to Jorge Martin because I saw him on his scooter and shouted “Hola Jorge” from a distance and following that he got swamped. He’s not off the shit list but he was actually a nice guy. I also asked if he could sign anything Aprilia yet (thought I’d ask because i had my pen and cap) and he smiled and said not this time.

- I have had skin-on-skin contact with Fabio (not even out of context: he touched my arm while I was helping him escape on the scooter from a crowd).

- I didn’t see him but my friend did and the good news is for the first time in two years Pedro has arrived at Silverstone not on crutches!!!

- Saw Maverick, Aleix and Enea (who was walking back and forth around Aprilia for some reason). They were down the opposite end to all of us but all smiled and waved. Maverick disappeared somewhere so I’m pretty sure he’s a wizard.

- Found Luca who was lovely again. Also Miguel who said he has given up dentistry now!! Again lovely and stopped for as many as he could, as did Bezz.

- We stopped to get some shade, which conveniently ended up being outside the Yamaha hospitality. Got a picture with Remy and I got thrown off because he was speaking perfect Italian to someone.

- Saw Sarah (Jake’s wife) and we said good luck to him for the weekend, and we asked where he was but she told us he was ill (which you could tell from the auction lol)

- David Muñoz was laughing at everyone queueing for and just sat there on his bike.

- Saw Ai and he was really patient because I could not get the camera to work. Again such a lovely guy and in case anyone was curious: he and Somkiat are still really good friends and Somkiat was riding Ai around on the same scooter so they’re still cool.

- I said it earlier but favourite rider of the day: Tony Arbolino aka loml. I cannot even tell you how nice he is because that deserves a post in itself. He was so happy I had his cap that he thanked me before I could thank him for signing it (his signature is interesting to say the least lmao I put the picture so you be the judge). Also some man offered to take our picture but I didn’t realise and I’m fairly confident it was his manager.

So yeah this was basically my day. If you wanna ask about any other riders cause I saw so many (the ones I’ve mentioned are the ones I have pictures with or of) then feel free to ask but yes 11/10 day, would recommend it to everyone. Hopefully we have a good weekend to follow!

#motogp #eden at silverstone 3.0

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moonstruck-muses · 3 months ago

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same taste of heaven anon back again :) i have so many thoughts omg. first, your idea of the flashes of memories coming back to yn- that would make me so sick. it's so bizarre the first time that surely it must've been a weird dream that just came back to her or smth. and then she gets more and more and seems too vivid to be a dream. literally would have me throwing up bc wtf do you mean my bf drinks my blood without telling me and then makes me forget. god i would be so scared too LOL. idk if you've developed the lore this much in your head but like, would that mean yn just has blackouts in her memory? like she has no recollection of that night if the venom made her forget? oh and also, does the venom get into her blood automatically and the memory loss just happens to be a side effect? and then once jake realizes she forgets after he's like oh nice i didn't know it works like that i'm gonna keep doing it. or does he deliberately poison her to make her forget? either way he's shitty but like lmao

also i loved the fic btw so this is not hate!! but how shitty is he to literally get into a relationship with her and just keep the vampire part a secret when this man is literally IMMORTAL so like eventually she would have to choose to leave him or stay. because he wanted to tell her the entire time but just didn't. how selfish 😭

i needed to finish the plot before bed last night i imagined that the venom wasn't as strong as he thought it would be to fully make her memory go away, so it's hazy when she wake up but she has enough of it to remember and confront him. so he's like oh shit did not see this coming. and then she gets really upset and mad. like she is SO hurt, the angst is going CRAZYYYY. then she's like you're my boyfriend, how could you do this to me! how could u literally pierce my skin multiple times and drink my BLOOD and deliberately make me forget about it! how could you lie to me the whole time!!!,, i asked for the truth and you promised you would tell me how could you do this! and he's like i'm sorryryyy i was just saur scared ilysm i couldn't bear to lose you :(( and she's like yeah that's real i understand, and ilysm but jakey i do not want to be a vampire i literally do not want to live for eternity :/ i like being a human and there is no reason for me to live that long (it was getting a little personal here, like i think 90 years on earth is enough for me tyvm). and then they get sad and hug it out and wtv. i didn't know how to resolve it so i left it there lul

SWEET SWEET NONNIE!!! I almost cried when I saw this, you have no idea how much this means to me have somebody interact with my art like this <3 I hope your pillow is always cold and your blankets always fluffy.

SO the mechanics of how the mind wipe works (and with the wound disappearing with the lick) is actually a little power I borrowed from Vampire the Masquerade, which is a ttrpg I really love. There's two abilities one called Cloud Memory and the other The Forgetful Mind. Cloud Memory is simple--you simple erase a moment of the memory and the victim will be none the wiser to it as long as they don't press on the memory. Then they'll realize something is wrong. The Forgetful Mind is a little more complex, as in that one you're actually rewriting the victim's memory, and giving them false memories to replace it. I wrote Jake's little stunt as a middle ground between the two. So Y/N would wake up the next morning and she'd know they fucked and boy it must've been spectacular but she'd definitely forget the details of what exactly happened (i.e. the venom). A shitty move of Jake for sure--but alas I am a vampire apologist, and wasn't lying when I said this was self indulgent (God please send me a vampire boyfriend I can make him worse). Two things about me: I will die for Jake, and the only thing I love in this world more than Enha is vampires (as you may guess, me discovering Enha's concept was very detrimental to me. In fact my roommate laughed in my face and said "Good Luck!' when I forced him to watch the Drunk-Dazed video).

And yes sweet nonnie--not interpreting this as hate at all! As a reader, I hate being given very morally black and white characters, it takes a lot of intrigue out of a story, and doesn't give us the tension we seek. Morally grey characters (like my vampire Jake) give us two sides of the story. He's being objectively shitty, and taking away so much agency from Y/N, and yet he loves her, and doesn't know how to face the truth because he is, like you said, selfish! His fear of being alone causes him to act in a way that endangers Y/N and only worsens his case when the inevitable happens. I like to think it adds a little spice, where you can see the sweetness and we see the POV of Jake giving Y/N what she's dreamed of and more, but from his POV we see the selfishness and the monstrosity of what he's doing and the danger he puts her in every time he drinks and then wipes her mind.

And TEEHEE just giggled and kicked my feet. I love your interpretation of the ending. I think it's just so fundamentally sad if Y/N wants her mortality but that doesn't mean she'll always be able to keep Jake, and because of that Jake doesn't have a choice but to let her go. How long will they let this relationship last? People will realize he doesn't age, and what happens when she gets to an age where she doesn't feel comfortable being with him anymore? What if she wants a family and a life? So many thoughts so many possibilities! <3

#chat.txt #nonnie #I CAN YAP ABOUT THINGS FOREVER

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peachycrime · 2 years ago

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Neytiri and Spider

let’s talk about it, ik y’all gon eat this up @be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie @spicymiilk

To start, Neytiri has lost so so much, her home, her father, Tsu'tey, Seze and now her eldest son. The child that made her a mother. With all of these losses all sense of safety and trust has disappeared from in her short life. It's unreasonable to expect her to ever get one these things, she has grief that no one could ever understand. Except Moat. I don't think it's realistic for her to just love him despite everything, I don’t think she doesn't have enough room left in her heart and that's okay. She’s lost so much, and was undeniably betrayed by Jake, her mate for life. She really doesn't owe anyone anything. She does however owe respect to an innocent teenager, who's also given up a lot for her and her family.

Her being wary and scared of him isn’t the odd part. The odd part is that even after years of having known this kid, watching him grow into the kind, funny, sarcastic and empathetic young man he is, she still never saw past day one. From day ones he’s been the ‘demons spawn’ nothing more and nothing less, even with the best intentions in heart, she only ever saw a ticking time bomb wrapped in a pretty package that everyone seemed to love.

You’d think that after 16 years she’s maybe start to free herself from all the hate, at least stop targeting it at him but she doesn’t. You can’t blame her for not letting her guard down, but you can’t deny that’s it cruel to hold a child to such standards. I personally find it very conflicting😭

Now Spider, a kid who's been handed the worst hand in the world. The only human child within light years of Pandora, even if some scientist had kids after a while he was still the first and grew up mostly alone. No mother to sing him to sleep and read him stories about earth. No father to comfort him and tease him about small things. On top of that his actual parents were shitty people anyways, Quaritch is Quaritch and Paz was insane enough to sleep with that demented marine. So not only is he an orphan but his parents are people that any person in their right mind would hate. But a child is not just a reflection of its’ parents.

A child also reflects the environment they brought up in as well as the people who raised him aka the lab guys/McCoskers and Na'vi.

The only thing I really resent Neytiri for is for never giving him a chance, she never saw past his parentage which is so unfair I can't even begin. But for her the whole situation is unfair too, someone can only open their heart so much after it being broken so many times.

Jake disappoints me the most tbh. As a former human, how can he not see the utter hypocrisy of the whole situation? I don’t care that Neytiri would’ve been mad, after killing the kids dad you’d think he’d take more accountability? Not only that but leaving him in the hands of the RDA, didn’t even try to shoot the t’exilas down as they watched him get taken. The kids were the ones to actually bring him up after they kidnapped him right under their freaking nose.

Bro went through torture and never gave any information up. The only reason they ever found the Sully's is because Max & Norm used that stupid helicopter. The fact that Quaritch was literally the only adult who had the sense to help him is insane.

Then Neytiri has her son for a son moment.

I don't blame her for that. She did what she had to do to save her daughter as a mother should and it worked. It's just sad that all he amounted to was a bargaining chip. The reason he got caught in the first place was because he was constantly keeping Kiri in check and making sure she was in his line of sight and and to make sure she was keeping up. That backfired ofc because when they dropped the bomb(thing) he was too close to the blow and fell.

So for me I just hope that she can come to accept him as an individual. Not as a son cuz that's way too drastic but as someone worthy of her family, loyalty and maybe- her affection. That'll take a lot of self work but I'm sure one of these days she'll find it in her to do so because at heart, she’s a shy, stubborn, but also very kind person and even if she doesn’t naturally feel empathy for humans, U don’t think it’s impossible.

I love Neytiri and I hope she gets all the happiness she deserves after everything she's been through.

Put some respect on my girls name bro. She’s fought for her, her family and her people time and time again and never gave up. She’s also just genuinely a good mother and I love the woman she grown into, I just wish she was happier. I also love Spider and I just hope he gets accepted for who is, a kind, empathetic snarky and sarcastic little tree climber who just does his best.

This is my personal opinion so don't be rude please.

#neytiri #avatar the way of water #lo’ak avatar #spider socorro #avatar james cameron #avatar spider #neteyam #avatar headcanons #jake sully #spider kiri and lo’ak #god bless these kids

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be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie · 1 year ago

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Hey, so I saw your post about some fics demonizing Neytiri. That has actually been one of my major fears as a fic writer, attempting to balance Neytiri's extremely valid trauma and the POV I'm writing from (that is typically flawed in some way). I was wondering, since you seem very well-versed on the topic, what do you define as "demonizing" for Neytiri? Is it ok to write from a perspective where a character doesn't really like or trust her, as long as the trauma is noted? Do you have any resources so I can educate myself to properly write this kind of character?

I really want to make sure I'm doing right by Neytiri and improve as a fic writer overall, so any advice you could offer would be very much appreciated!

Whoa, what a complicated and nuanced question. A great one! And I'm super flattered you came to me! Just one I'm going to try to answer to the best of my ability. I'm assuming you're referring to Norm's pov in your fic?

First of all, I do not want to at all proclaim to be an expert on generational trauma; I am not a person of color, and I have been lucky enough to have a very normal and healthy family. I just had a best friend growing up in an abusive household and took steps to educate myself best I could to understand the situation, which I believe anyone would do. So I'm just gonna try to word vomit out my thoughts for you, please ask questions or challenge any of what I say if any of you see anything you think is incorrect. Buckle in, this will be long.

What do you define as "demonizing" for Neytiri?

Demonizing means portraying someone as wicked or threatening, as evil or worthy of contempt and blame.

For me, demonizing for Neytiri is the trend I've seen lately of portraying her as this unyielding, animalistic type character who's hatred of humans, Spider specifically, goes so far that she gets physically violent with Spider and eventually ends up tearing apart her family. In these fics, Jake is always a sad sack loser bystander, loving his wife too much to step in but of course shamefully knowing how wrong what she's doing is. Infantilizing poor white savior Jake Sully, being brow beaten by his mean indigenous wife into neglecting a child is a weirdly strong take in this fandom. Often Mo'at is a wise elder chiding Neytiri for being unable to get over her prejudice. Mo'at and Jake understand Neytiri as much as anyone would, they wouldn't shame her. To me, it's an extremely reductive and frankly borderline racist characterization. When paired with a sympathetic view of Quaritch, it is at best irresponsible and at worst knowingly dangerous.

Neytiri is representative of an indigenous woman. I feel like I don't have to explain why making her violent, volatile, and completely unreasonable is a little bit of a harmful caricature. In these fics, for me, Neytiri ceases to be a person. She looses autonomy to sort of represent this monolith of hatred and prejudice that has hurt our little baby boy Spider. It's crazy to me that people can't apply the exact same empathy they have towards Spider (saving Quaritch) to Neytiri (not being able to trust Spider). They are the most foil of foil characters. Their storylines are extremely similar, if I'm being honest. Essentially, ignoring the fact that Neytiri is a member of a minority community being actively genocided by Spider's people is intentionally reductive. If you can empathize with Spider, and ESPECIALLY if you find Quaritch sympathetic, finding Neytiri's actions unforgivable is racism, plain and simple.

Also, side note, the lengths people go to where Neytiri just literally will not budge under any circumstances at all is INSANE.

(I read a fic the other day where she gave Spider to child protective services behind everyone's back. That's LUNACY. She only came around after she almost lost Tuk when Tuk was suddenly born prematurely and Mo'at came in and was like "Eywa made it so you can never have kids again because of what you did, have you learned your lesson yet?" Like?? I do not understand the HATRED some of ya'll have for her, the suffering you all think she deserves. She's having an EXTREMELY NORMAL trauma reaction to surviving GENOCIDE? Examine yourselves greatly).

But where I was going was Neytiri is the same character who pushed her parents to let them go to human school, fell in love with human Jake, defended him and trusted him despite her family, mated with him and lost her religious position because of it, and then had a bunch of part human kids with him, and adopted a fully freak of nature kid born of a human she loved and respected. She has human friends, she wears and uses human tech, and she forgave Jake after he had betrayed them. Basically what I'm saying is Neytiri, despite her continuous trauma, is the most open and curious and non traditional Na'vi of all time. Girl is READY to meet new people and learn new shit, and to be open to everyone. Sometimes I think about a no trauma Neytiri and I get emotional. I think it's crazy to say she would never budge on Spider, if it wasn't for his dad I'm pretty sure she would've softened lonnnnng ago, if not having liked him from the get go.

Um, that got way too long I have too many thoughts. Second half of your question.

Is it ok to write from a perspective where a character doesn't really like or trust her, as long as the trauma is noted?

This is a tricky question, because technically there is nothing you can't do as a writer. Of course, it also means there is nothing anyone can't criticize you for writing. Like, Colleen Hoover can say she's writing realistic depictions of domestic abuse until the cows come home, I'm still going to say she's romanticizing and normalizing it in a super callous way. Neither of us can stop the other. So yeah, of course you're okay to write from the perspective of a character that doesn't like Neytiri. I just think the point will be what your prerogative is. One of my MFA professors says it in a way I like and I'm sure I've referenced before, if you aren't trying to make a point about something that might have to have a trigger warning then don't include it. I always say I would take it a step further; if your point is to defend that thing, don't do it. So for me, my big points would be try not to project my own feelings onto the character either way; if the character is wrong about something and the narrative intends to show that they will either learn, or we the reader will grow past them. But to be sure what you feel the takeway of the piece is is what you wanted it to be, I guess.

Do you have any resources so I can educate myself to properly write this kind of character?

Well, I have a few on white writers writing BIPOC characters and the ethics of that if you're interested in that. But I don't have any on specifically writing generational trauma. I guess I'd say reading and absorbing are my biggest tools; so reading books/watching movies or TV that use the speculative to translate generational trauma, and learning about and taking in the real life examples the character is based on. Read up on some genocides, and indigenous people today and how their lives are still affected. Even just watch the news; we're witnessing a very public genocide being pushed right to our attention right now. And of course, that is not the only genocide happening rn, it's just the only one we're talking about, so there's plenty of real world case studies unfortunately right in front of us.

#this got way way too long #it's almost midnight and i still have work tomorrow #i was goING to answer a few asks during amazing race tonight and instead #just this #lol #my bad #hope this helps! feel free to ask or dm with any questions or grievances haha #keep in mind i am not an expert!#i am just someone who likes knowing things and is really annoying about consuming ethically #anyways spider fandom i need u to lay off my girl #fandom criticism of bipoc characters is somehow always a little rooted in racism #but that's because we've all got internalized racism my friends and we cannot escape it without daily intentional thought and conversation #neytiri sully #miles spider socorro #spider socorro #spider sully #jake sully #jeytiri #mo'at #miles quaritch #tuktirey sully #norm spellman #avatar #avatar the way of water #james cameron avatar #melissa og #melissa on avatar (cameron)#melissa is an english major

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boypussydilf · 1 year ago

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Tell me youryour thoughts of details that don't effect anything please I'd love to hear more of your thoughts (No need to if you don't feel comfortable though!!!)

i am so brain full of thoughts to talk about all of the time, Until people ask, hey what are your thoughts, and my brain Evicts them with great prejudice. Let’s see what i can scrongune up. I meant scrounge, but okay. I’m inventing scronguning.

I think that Finn and Jake moved into the treehouse BEFORE their parents died. I base this exclusively off the fact that Joshua’s first holo-message for them in Dad’s Dungeon was in the attic of the treehouse. It’s entirely plausible that F&J were just taking some of their parents old stuff and went “sure bring this and shove it in the attic” and completely forgot about it. But I like to think that Joshua actually put it there while he was still alive, since like, going off how he looks in the scene at the end of the BMO Distant Lands special, Finn was really young when he & Jake started living in the treehouse, and I just prefer to imagine that Finn was not a literal toddler when his parents died because it makes me a little less sad. Jake probably moved out as soon as he was whatever-the-mutant-talking-dog-equivalent-of-18 is and just took Finn with him because they are Literal Honest-to-God Soulmates and could not be separated. Also what with the “being dogs” thing Margaret & Joshua were probably too old to have the energy to take care of a really young child by the time Jake and Jermaine were adults. Still, since Finn is 12 at the start of the show, and he and Jake are clearly not actively grieving by then, Finn still had to be pretty young when they died. Ten at most, I think.

That… feels like a sad note to end that on. Oh dog family, you are sweet and I love you, and I kind of wish we got to actually see some Dog Family Moments from when the kids were still kids (and not babies) and Joshua and Margaret were still alive.

I was rewatching Elements and Finn has a line where he says “This is Simon, the Ice King,” and it finally clicked for me what’s actually going through his head when he switches between saying Simon and saying Ice King. He’s approaching it the same way he approaches addressing every other royal he’s friends with! He calls PB Bonnie, but he also calls her Princess Bubblegum (and variations thereupon) all the time. He calls FP Phoebe sometimes, but he also calls her Flame Princess, even while they’re dating, because to Finn - and to everyone in Ooo - titles and names are interchangeable things. A princess’s title is commonly used as if it is their name. And Finn does the same thing with Ice King. He goes “oh, I’ve learned the Ice King’s name now,” and starts calling him Simon sometimes, but also calls him Ice King sometimes, because in the society Finn was raised in, that’s what people do. This, truly, is a detail that affects nothing, but it was something I had not consciously thought about before, and it’s neat to me.

“Simon, the Ice King”… Finn, can we get more of your thoughts on this? Man I wanna see what their interactions were like not long after Come Along With Me.

On a tangentially related topic, I am fascinated by the Ooo systems of… government? I’d say that seems the wrong word, but they’d probably say it’s right. They just use it a bit different. I think that Bonnie might have been the first person to call herself a “princess” (I think this is true? but I can never remember the episode Bonnibel Bubblegum super clearly), and then she kind of… presumably-accidentally shaped the recovering world by doing so. She called herself a princess, and began to build a kingdom, and as more magic beings and mutants started to fill the world they went “oh, kingdoms, this is what we’re doing,” and organized themselves that way, and in most cases it does not mean the same thing as our idea of kingdoms at all. Raggedy Princess just rules a junkyard. It seems like anyone can call themself a princess as long as they have, like, a plot of land distinctive to them… and yet it’s treated like a special title, and lots of princesses have crowns with, like, Significant On A Large Scale jewels (for the Enchiridion multiverse-opening spell and stuff) so maybe there are more qualifications we just don’t see because why would that be relevant…

“Princess” and “King” are also terms that just refer to rulers, they’ve lost their gendered connotations in most parts of the world. Phoebe refers to herself as having become the Flame King, and King of Ooo becomes Princess when he takes over the Candy Kingdom. The Flame Kingdom is ruled by a King, that’s just how it works, a Flame Princess will become a Flame King, and the Candy Kingdom is ruled by a Princess, that’s just how it works, it will never have a King or a Prince.

Most of the major kingdoms are ruled by princesses, by God there are so many princesses, so like… Are the kingdoms ruled by kings (Flame Kingdom, Goblin Kingdom, I guess technically the Ice Kingdom but I have questions about whether or not it is considered an actual government and whether or not Ice King is actually considered a ruler of jack shit…) seen as like, outliers? Is that considered unusual by people?

Also what’s the economy like in Ooo. Finn and Jake don’t need to spend any money to get by, they just walk into a random treehouse and apparently don’t need to spend money on food or anything else because they just accumulate treasure and have an entire episode dedicated to them deciding to spend all the gold they never spend on anything. Is this part of the Adventuring Hero’s Lifestyle, or are there lots of people in Ooo who just walk into whatever unoccupied space counts as a house to them and live off of… food from not entirely clear sources? In F&C we see Simon paying with like, just straight up a regular dollar bill. Does everyone pay like that in the Candy Kingdom or is that a special thing they allow him to do. I don’t know. We don’t see people paying for things that often, I think. Not sure how money works in Adventure Time. It’s mildly interesting.

Okay I’m tired now and losing my trains of thought goodbye. Thank you

#basilask #atposting #long post

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skylarstark4826 · 1 year ago

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Tonowari and Ronal (+ their children) (fic)

After Neteyam's death. Tonowari and Ronal knew how much their children suffered (Aonung, Tsireya and Rotxo). So after Neteyam's funeral they finally decided that enough time had passed, so they decided to talk to them, but at the same time that they tried to cheer them up, they also ended up in something very different than expected.

************************************************************************ Both Tonowari and Ronal saw their children with sadness knowing that they are still mourning the death of Jake and Neytiri's eldest son, Neteyam. As they looked at them, Tonowari realized how his youngest adopted son, Rotxo, was fixing a few nets and despite the fact that Rotxo physically seemed calm as if nothing had happened. Both Ronal and Tonowari knew that he was actually suffering and they both already knew it because Rotxo had done exactly the same thing when his biological parents died, the same day that so much Ronal, how her husband decided to adopt him when Rotxo was only four years old, was the same age as Tsireya despite being a few weeks younger than her, while Aonung was six years old when that happened. On the other hand, Tsireya was fixing some baskets that had been damaged while Aonung fixed his spear and also found that nothing in his family's Mauri was broken. What caused more sadness in Tonowari and Ronal because they both knew their children perfectly and knew that they were only trying to keep busy so as not to think about their pain.

Both simply couldn't bear to see them with such sadness, so with the help of Tonowari, Ronal, holding her very pregnant womb, walked gently to where her children were.

Ronal sat down softly and wrapped his arms around Aonung from behind his stomach while he watched him work on fixing his spear. Ronal gently kissed his son's cheek but immediately realized that his hair by gently rubbing his ear had made Aonung shuddered and will try to cover himself discreetly in his ear so that he would not be touched again.

Ronal: *Aonung, my dear, you have to rest even if it's just a little bit*

Aonung: *No thanks, I'm fine, mother. I don't need it*

Despite what Aonung had told her, Ronal could see that her son had curled up against her when Ronal had mentioned that he had to rest. And he had also noticed that Aonung had also tightened a little when his hands gently touched his stomach.

Aonung: *haha mother have m-more care-care hahaha*

Ronal: *Oh sorry Aonung but well who would say it seems that you still have as much tickles as when you were still little*

Ronal began to remember when Aonung, Tsireya and Rotxo were small and also remembered that both she and Tonowari used to tickle them a lot... in reality they only tickled Aonung and Rotxo because Tsireya didn't tickle at all. Ronal recalled that she and her husband constantly tickled them and above all they did it when they did not want to go to sleep or rest and then they both resorted to using that method to make them tired enough to go to sleep. In that, the idea came to Ronal, he turned to see Tonowari who seemed to be thinking about the same thing as her and Rotxo also approached. Before Rotxo realized that his father was behind him, Rotxo heard his father talk to him before he also felt his father caressing his back before sitting next to him.

Tonowari: *Rotxo, hey little one...*

Rotxo immediately turned around when he heard the voice of his adoptive father. Tonowari smiled softly at him before kissing his head, getting as close to him as possible.

Rotxo: *Hello, what's up, father?*

Rotxo asked him, observing him before then Tonowari will ask him the following, hoping to encourage his adopted youngest son.

Tonowari: *Hey son, don't you want to go out maybe I don't know how to see your friends?*

Rotxo: *No thanks, I'm not in the mood, I'd better stay here and I still haven't finished fixing the networks that I'm missing*

Ronal observed how Tonowari gently moved his fingers with one hand on his left side and with his other hand on Rotxo's right ribs before then she saw how Rotxo had tensed and discreetly tried to get away from him. On the other hand, Tonowari began to approach Rotxo again.

The next thing Rotxo knew was that his father had begun to move his fingers again and now on both sides of his sides. But not before Tonowari will gently hold him and sit him on his lap and begin to gently tickle him. Immediately Rotxo snorted before he started laughing hysterically while trying to get away from the tickling.

Rotxo: *HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA DADDY!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA WHAT ARE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA YOU DO-DOING? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA RELAX!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAA I'M AL-ALREADY!! HAGAHAHAHAHAHAYYAYAYA TOO BIG HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH FOR THIS!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH NO!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA PLEASE!! HAYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAYAHA THERE HAHAHAHAHAHAYAYYAYAHAYA IS NO!! HAHAHAHAGGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAH TSIREYA NO!!.*

Tonowari held Rotxo against his body while he continued to tickle him, Rotxo's girl's squeals caught Tsireya's attention. Who stopped doing what he was doing just to see his father tickle his baby brother adoptive. Tsireya smiled at the sight, followed by getting up and joining his father and baby brother.

On the other hand, Aonung who was still watching them with his mother sitting next to him. When Aonung saw the tickling attack that his father was doing to Rotxo, it made him extremely nervous. Aonung felt his skin tingling at the sight. Aonung was somewhat distracted observing what was happening so he didn't know what had happened until it happened. And that was that while Aonung watched his little brothers and his father, his mother inadvertently began to mercilessly tickle Aonung in his armpits. What immediately caused Aonung to begin to leave with absolute hysteria.

Aonung: *HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAAH WH-WHAT!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAYAHAY NOT!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHJAJAHAHAHA MOMMY!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAH STOP!! HAJAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH PLEASE!! JAJAHAJAJAHAHAHAHAHAHAH NO!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH I BEG YOU!! YAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA PLEASE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH DON'T TICKLE ME!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH THERE!! PLE-PLEASE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHJAAJ STOP!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAH.*

Aonung immediately fell to the floor trying to dodge his mother's hands that were still tickling his armpits without mercy. He squealed laughing like a girl when she breathed a raspberry in his ears without warning.

Aonung: * HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHSHAHAHA MOMMY!! HAHAHAHAHAJAHJAHAHAHAAH NO!! HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH PLEASE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA NO MO-MORE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA NOT MY EARS!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA I BEG YOU!! YAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHYAHAHA PLE-PLEASE!! HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH IT'S HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HORRIBLE!! NO!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA WAIT!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAH THERE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH IS NO!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHQQH THIS HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH ISN'T FUNNY!!.*

At the same time that Aonung was trying to get away and save himself from tickling, Rotxo was no better than him. Well, while his adoptive father. His father had laid him on the floor and while he was still tickling his side he also blew raspberries on his ribs and when Tsireya joined his father she had also started tickling him. Things were much worse for Rotxo and that was when Tsireya had started tickling all over his stomach by blowing raspberries all over his stomach.

Rotxo: *HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA DADDY!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH NO!! PLE-PLEASE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHH NO MY RIBS!! YAYAHAHAHAHAHAU AH TSIREYA!! GAGAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA IT'S HORRIBLE!! HAYAHAHAUAUAUAUAUAUAU RELAX!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA I BEG YOU!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH I ALRE-ALREADY HAD!! HAGAHAHAYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ENO-ENOUGH TICKLING!!.*

Rotxo tried to escape the tickling but obviously not without his older sister adoptive who at the same time blowing raspberries in his stomach mercilessly had also begun to tickle his feet. Which were his points of death. Rotxo was so tickled, he just couldn't stand it at all.

Rotxo: *HAHAHAHAHAHHAYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHA WAIT!! HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA I CAN'T STAND IT!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAJAJJAAJAJAJA PLEASE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAJAJAJA I CAN'T STAND HAGAHAHAHAHATAHAYAYATA IT THERE!! HAYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH THIS IS HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH ALREADY TOO MUCH ENOUGH!! YAYAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHHHAHAHAHAHAH PLEASE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH I WON'T BE ABLE HAYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA TO STAND!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA FOR A LOT HAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA MORE TIME!!.*

While that was happening, Aonung shrieked so loudly that he caught the attention of his father and baby sister making them stop tickling Rotxo to his great relief before he also turned to see his older brother adoptive. Seeing that Ronal was giving him raspberries all over his stomach while also attacking his armpits without having mercy on him. Both Tonowari and Tsireya and Rotxo looked at each other before they approached Ronal and Aonung. Tonowari held Aonung's hands at the same time that he blew raspberries in his ears while Rotxo was replacing his mother and he begins to tickle Aonung's armpits while Ronal concentrated completely in his stomach and then Tsireya mercilessly tickled his older brother at the waist making him scream with absolute hysterical.

Aonung: *HAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHHAYYYYA NO!! HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH MERCY!! GAGAHAHAGAHAHAHAHAHYAYAHAHAYAYAY IT'S TOO MUCH!! YAYAYAYAYAHAHAHAYAHAHAYAYAYAYAY I HAVE TOO YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYYAAY MANY TICKLES!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAYAHAYAY PLEASE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAUAHUAAUAH NO MORE!! HAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I'M TOO SENSITIVE!! YAYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH STOP!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAU IT'S GOOD!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAYAYAY I GIVE UP!!, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAH I GIVE UP!!.*

Aonung screamed like a little girl while he was still trying to get away from his parents and his baby brothers before they decided to give him a break from tickling and then they will let him breathe a little. Aonung hugged his body still laughing at the tickles before he then felt how his father hugged him against his body from behind him just like his mother but in front of him at the same time that his baby brothers also hugged him. Before then, Tsireya climbed on top of his dad.

Tonowari: *Tsireya? What are you doing, daughter?*

Tsireya: *Right now I'm trying to get on your back*

He told him before he started trying to get on his father's back again and while he was going up...Tsireya stood firm as she went up just like she did when she was still a baby and a little girl. Tsireya heard her mother laugh as she watched her and when Tsireya had been close to getting on Aonung completely turned to curl up against his father and accidentally moved Tsireya's hand making her slip unintentionally fortunately that was only for a very brief moment.

One of Tsireya's feet pressed against his father's waist and then everyone (except Ronal) was caught off guard. When suddenly and out of nowhere Tonowari let out a squeal along with a laugh.

Tonowari: *HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA NO!! HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH WAIT!! HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHHA TSIREYA!! HAYAHAHAHAHHAYAHAHAYAYAYY NO!! HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHA.*

Tonowari let out a surprisingly sharp laugh and laughed hysterically as he moved his arms so that they were against his sides.

In an instant, Tsireya had been amazed because she would never have thought that she would make a new discovery that was also her favorite with respect to her father... she would never have thought that her father, like her brothers, could also get tickled! Tsireya curiously began to prepare him and scratch his father's stomach.

Tsireya: *DADDY!!, I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!! NEVER TOLD US THAT YOU'RE TICKLED TOO!!*

Tsireya was very excited about this. He also began to tickle his father's armpits. What made Tonowari scream, laughing hysterically.

Ronal: *Oh-oh, Tonowari. It seems that Tsireya now has you under his control*

Ronal told her, smiling at her husband. While she watched, how Tonowari tried to cover himself and prevent Tsireya tickles him more and like her also Aonung and Rotxo looked at their father with mischievous smiles knowing that now they could also take revenge on him for the tickling attack he did to both of them.

Tonowari: *HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAYAYAYAYAYAY RONAL!! HAHAHAHYAYAYAHAYAYATYAYAYA YOU'RE NOT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA HELPING ME!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHATHAYAY TSIREYA!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAY STOP!! HAYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH THIS IS HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH ALREADY TOO MUCH!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA PLEASE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAH STOP!!.*

Tonowari tried with all his strength to contain his laughter while at the same time trying to escape the tickling attack of his youngest daughter. At the same time that his own laughter was also starting to give him cramps and his throat hurt by the force in which he laughed. Tonowari could feel his laughter turn into a whirlpool all over his stomach... he could feel it going up. He kept moving and smiling, unable to stop him no matter how much he tried to contain him, and the more he moved, the more he realized the rest of his family was now also approaching him. Looking at him with evil smiles.

Aonung: *LET'S GO DADDY!! YOU HAVE TO BE HAPPY AND SMILE MORE!!, AS TSIREYA SAID!!*

Aonung laughed. And then before Tonowari realized what was happening, he immediately felt his eldest son climb up and sit on his lap. Thinking quickly, Aonung also began to tickle him only that he concentrated on his father's waist, began to pinch his father's waist as well as massage and quickly move his fingers against his skin. Joining his baby sister to tickle him without mercy or mercy to his father.

Tonowari: *HAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHHSHAHAHAHAHAHHA NO!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA RELAX!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHSHA AONUNG!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHSHSHSHSHSYYSYSYAYA DON'T TICKLE ME!! HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHSHSYAHAYAYAYAYYA YOU TOO!! HAHAHAHAHUAYAYAHAHAHAHAHAHA NO MORE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA SERIOUSLY! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH PLEASE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH THIS IS TOO MUCH!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAYAYAYA STOP!! HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH WAIT!! HAHHAHAHAYAYAYAYAYAYAYA ROTXO!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHYHAYA THERE IS NO!!.*

Aonung laughed at his father. Noticing how his two legs shook and pressed them as he crossed them with each other. And that was one of the few things that Tonowari felt most sorry for since he was a baby boy... since even after 15 years, he still ended up shaking his legs they will tense and cross as if he were still a little boy who was about to pee every time someone tickled him.

Suddenly animated, the head of the Metkayina turned on his back... Tonowari was very sure that that would make both Tsireya and Aonung fell off his back... but unfortunately for him his children simply made happy sounds and clung to his back laughing. And while Tonowari was still distracted, he didn't see how his wife along with his youngest adopted son also approached him. And before Tonowari realized again Rotxo was also mercilessly tickling him by moving his fingers all over the abdomen of his muscular stomach, while Tsireya still tickled his armpits without having mercy on his poor man with his small hands, as if he were painting a messy canvas with his fingers.

Tonowari: *HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AONUNG!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH ROTXO!! HAHAHAHHAGAHAHAHA TSIREYA!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA PLEASE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA RELAX!! RONAL HAGAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA HELP ME!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH WAIT FOR THAT!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAH NO!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA PLEASE!!.*

Aonung as well as Rotxo and Tsireya laughed at their father. Seeing how I could barely talk because of the tickling.

Ronal: *Don't worry, kids. I'll hold it, I already have it*

Ronal told them with sweet and playful tones. Her mother stood on the side of her husband's head and then before Tonowari could be saved Ronal had taken his hands and put them under his two knees as well as his hands and kept them above her husband's head firmly, without letting the poor Tonowari moved and much less that he covered himself... The only disadvantage that all the Na'vi boys had was the fact that his whole torso was naked without protection and that was something that Tonowari was fully aware that he was naked. Oh no, now I'm really not going to be able to protect myself, his eyes begged his children to leave him before then Tonowari released a sharp scream as a child followed by the fact that he will begin to hysterically.

Tonowari: *HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA RONAL!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH THERE'S NO HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAH RELAX!!... HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA THERE IS NO!!, HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH DON'T TICKLE ME!!, HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHHAHAAHAHAH PLEASE HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHY HOLD BACK!!, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH THAT'S ENOUGH!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA I CAN'T STAND HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHA IT MUCH MORE!!, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAY I'M TOO TICKLING!!, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA PLEASE!!...*

Aonung along with his little brothers smiled, when they saw that his mother was giving raspberries in his ears to his father without having mercy on him and was also biting his ears making him scream with laughter while Tsireya increased the tickling in his father's armpits by tickling him mercilessly while he heard him scream with laughter. Tonowari couldn't think he was having a lot of tickling. Every little jolt of him made his wife and children laugh.

Tonowari: *HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH NO!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH PLEASE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA RONAL!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HAVE MERCY!! HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA IT'S TOO MUCH!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I CAN'T STAND IT!! HAYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH NO CHILDREN!! HAYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH NO MORE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I BEG YOU!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA PLEASE!!.*

Tonowari frantically shook his lower body while he had begun to cry with laughter. While he tried to protect himself with his legs, his wife and children increased the tickling against him. It was official this was absolutely horrible... and the fact that he will turn around hadn't really done him any favors. He could defend himself from a whole herd of Akulas with his own hands and never be bitten... a child's game. Cutting the GDR soldiers from the depths of the ocean... easy. But not even the powerful leader of the Metkayina could fight against all Pandora's THE TICKLE MONSTER with six arms on her own... one of the most vicious and hungry beasts to stalk the jungles of the moon!

Tonowari: *HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA NO MORE!! HABAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHHAAHHAHAHA I'LL GIVE UP!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH PLEASE, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA NO MORE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU WIN!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH YOU WIN!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHSHSHSHAH PLEASE!!.*

Tonowari laughed hysterically before he realized that his arms were free. He quickly pressed his elbows against his sides, hoping to still save himself from Tsireya's hands. But something stopped him. Oh no, great mother, please don't that Tonowari froze when out of nowhere he felt like Aonung his wife blow raspberries in his ears at the same time that his daughter also gave him raspberries in his stomach and Aonung also tickled his waist and was even giving him raspberries on the side of his waist but the worst thing was that his armpits were swept away with a lot of tickles that seemed to have no end by torturing him completely while they moved and vibrated against his bare skin. The combination of all that made Tonowari immediately go crazy with laughter while he had completely fallen into silent laughter and could no longer speak. Now he could only laugh hysterically.

Tonowari: *HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAGAGAHAHGAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAGHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.*

Tonowari was getting exhausted... his throat hurt and his eyes irritated him... he didn't know how much more he could bear, Tonowari wasn't going to lie. It was official he was going to urinate on his loincloth and it was also official the fact that he was probably going to faint. His children continued to tickle him but to his relief he had slowed down the speed of his fingers although Ronal was still giving me raspberries in his ears.

Tonowari: * HAHAHAHAHAHSHAHAHAHHSHAHAHAHAHAHSHAHSHAHHAHHAHAHHAHHHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHHHHHHAHAHAHHHHAHAHHHHAHHAHHHAHAHAH TSIREYA IS ENOUGH!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHSHAHAHAHAHAHAHSHAHSHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAONUNG HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHAHSHAHAHAHAH PLEASE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA ROTXO HAHAHAHAHAHSHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA DON'T TOUCH ME THERE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA RONAL NO MORE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HE BEGGED FOR THEM!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHSHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHA PLEASE!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHSHSHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHSHAHAHAHH I'M GOING TO PEE!!.*

Tonowari felt how his face turned red with the shame of having to say that. But I really couldn't stand it anymore and in fact it was true that he was about to pee. But to his relief Ronal as well as Rotxo had stopped tickling him despite Tsireya and Aonung were still tickling his waist and also his armpits.

Ronal: *Tsireya, Aonung, my life, I think your father has already had enough ticklish*

Ronal told them, laughing a little at what her husband had said, still having his lips against his ears. Surprising Tonowari exploded laughing hysterically again because of that. Apparently they tickled his ears even when they only talked against them without blowing raspberries.

As soon as Tsireya and Aonung got off his back. Tonowari was quite relieved that at least now he had been able to pause to take the air by hugging his torso while he trembled still laughing at the residual tickling. He was not going to lie he was happy that he had managed to make his children laugh and smile although of course they tickled him until he almost peed he was not on his list he had to accept that he was happy that at least his children had smiled again especially after Neteyam. No one in his family could stop smiling at each other. Tsireya got off him only to curl up against his father just like Aonung who also got off while Rotxo curled up hugging his older sister adoptive. While his mother also hugged him against her being careful with his pregnant belly and Aonung got on top of everyone although with his mother he moved his head so that it was on his knees and not in his belly pregnant. Since Aonung not only did not want to inadvertently hurt his mother, he also did not want to accidentally hurt his baby brother or baby sister about to be born.

When Tonowari finally calmed down with laughter, he turned to hug his family. Kissing his children's heads before he kissed Ronal on the lips while with his arms he surrounded everyone so that they could sleep together.

Like the family... that they themselves should have been for a long time.

************************************************************************

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hyperfixated-gvf · 2 years ago

Text

Chapter 4

Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3

Pairing: Sam Kiszka x Danny Wagner | Rated Explicit | Words: 4.5k

Warnings: Language, angst, making out, one slight mention of homophobia

Chapter Summary: The resolution comes about and the making-up begins.

In collaboration with/edited by @gretavanfreaky

Author's Note: Again, PLEASE let me know if you don't want to be on the taglist for Sanny fics; I know this isn't everyone's jam and this chapter gets spicy, so I don't want to be the one to tag you in things you don't want to read. You can stay on the general taglist, I'll just take you off any Sanny works!

18+ / MINORS DNI

~~~

Sam’s initial emotional response to the scene playing out was confusing. Sam angry to see Danny so reckless. And the biting antipathy he had for himself only exacerbated it, amplifying it to the point now that all his fury and all his sadness and all the desperation to get back to Danny and how they used to be was at a boiling point.

Except, also not how they used to be, because he wanted to feel what he did on the mountain without the stress and anxiety of worrying about what the consequences would be.

Jake and Josh finally took the initiative to join Danny in the water while Sam stood there, stewing and grinding his gears until Danny could practically see the smoke coming out of his ears once he got out of the water, shivering and with a blue tinge to his lips, to retrieve his towel.

“That was really fucking stupid,” Sam said in a tightly controlled tone, even though his voice trembled lightly with pent-up emotion. “You’re acting really fucking stupid.”

Sam knew he was coming off as an asshole, but he could be an asshole sometimes whether he was angry at Danny or not, and Danny always somehow knew what was actually bothering him. In this particular situation where Danny himself was the source of his bitchiness, Sam didn’t know if he’d be able to see through his attitude to the fact that he was stressed and only wanted what was best in the end. That his anger was coming from a place of anxious care and coltish love, even if he didn’t know how to convey that.

Danny froze, towel wrapped around his waist as he fumbled for his dry clothes. Sam was getting more and more ridiculous by the day, it seemed. How he was acting, what he was saying – perhaps it was because he had never been this angry with him and Danny didn’t know how to process that, but everytime he looked toward his friend for some sign of their old push and pull, their old effortless understanding, all he saw was an opaque wall. And, because of that, the statement blindsided him, knocking the lid of the box he’d been keeping all his volatile feelings in right off.

He was acting stupid? After all his agonizing, he still had hope that maybe Sam would take some of the blame and realize that Danny was only part of the problem, because he sure as hell wasn’t forcing himself on Sam at the peak, if Sam really did regret it that much.

It was his ‘Et tu, Brute?’ moment, and it hurt like a motherfucker.

“I’m acting stu– you know what, Sam?” he said, his fight or flight response kicking in on top of the adrenaline that was keeping him from really feeling the bite of the cold. “Go fuck yourself. Play the victim all you want, but I can’t– I can’t undo what happened, and I’ll never change your mind about it, but I…”

At his own statement, Danny’s mood turned on a dime from unfathomably angry to heart-breakingly hopeless, because he knew he was right. Sam very rarely changed his mind about having been wronged, and it made him sick to his stomach to know that he played the role of villain in Sam’s narrative.

He pulled his pants up and threw his sweatshirt on, grabbing his phone to arrange for an Uber back to the hotel, even though they’d only been here all of 20 minutes.

“But you what?” Sam asked, mind in a tizzy and swimming around the fact that Danny seemed to want to take everything back. When had that happened? Was Sam really so blind that he couldn’t see Danny regretting what they’d done in the car? And the whole ‘victim’ thing – that was a whole other can of worms.

He knew Danny would likely blame himself, but calling Sam a victim? There was mutual blame, if anything. Both the victims and both the perpetrators in their fated “shit we messed up one time but never again,” story. But there was nothing one-sided about the experience at all, and Sam didn’t like the fact that that seemed to be what Danny was implying.

Danny dropped his phone, but chose to study the sand instead of looking anywhere near Sam’s direction. “I can’t undo what happened, but I hope you know that I never would have done it if I knew it would make you hate me,” he said miserably. There was a small pause of silence between them after his admission, the only sounds coming from the ocean and the twins - Sam and Danny didn’t particularly notice, though.

After a couple more moments, Sam collected his thoughts and finally said, “Hate you?” in such a disgusted, dumbfounded way that Danny closed his eyes and braced himself for the animosity he’d felt growing since that fateful night. “What the hell, Daniel?”

“When you–” Danny felt helpless trying to explain himself, shrinking smaller and smaller by the second. “I kissed you, Sam, and now you want fuck-all to do with me. You’re angry with me all the time, and– and you can’t look me in the eye even now!”

Sam was so confused, but he matched Danny’s energy as he always did, making the situation more agitated and more confusing as their voices stayed hushed but grew in intensity. “No, I kissed you, Daniel! Why would I– I could never hate you, you dumbass. You can fuck right off with that shit!” He got even more worked up, and despite his words and what they meant, the tone didn’t match. It was the raise in pitch and increase in volume at the end that finally drew the attention of the older brothers, who looked at each other because although they were too far away to pick out any specifics, they were more than familiar with Sam’s anger. “I’m not doing this ‘cause I hate you, I’m doing this for you!”

As the sound of two teenagers who spent enough time together to want to strangle each other, Jake and Josh appeared by them suddenly for damage control, wrapped in towels and looking very cautious.

“Hey now, kiddos,” Josh said as he approached. “We sense some pubescent emotions over here. What are we fighting about?” He kept his tone light, not wanting to contribute any tension, especially not knowing what he was walking into.

“We’re not fighting,” Sam snapped immediately, not really proving his point at all.

Jake raised his brows, unconvinced as well. “Oh. So you haven’t been fighting since, like, Connecticut?”

“No.”

Danny stayed quiet, but the last thing Sam wanted was for his brothers to find out – that was halfway to realizing his fears.

“Then why have you been acting so shitty towards Danny these past few days?” Jake continued to ask as he nodded towards his younger band mate, zeroing in on the problem and addressing it to clear the air. “We’ve noticed,” he assured Danny quietly. “We don’t know what’s happening here, but you’re yelling at him on a public beach and telling us you’re not fighting. Can you see why we’re a little confused?”

The only problem with a direct approach if this particular situation was that Sam was already tense and emotional, and having his very much shitty behavior that hadn’t been acknowledged by his brothers yet thrust into his face so suddenly made him feel like he was being cornered and crucified by all three of his bandmates.

“I haven’t– well, I know that I have, but I’m not meaning to be!” Sam said, heart racing. “I can’t help it!”

“Can’t help what?” Josh asked, still confused.

Sam pointed to Danny, wanting to keep everything hidden and under wraps from his brothers, but unable to deny it outright anymore. He knew it was shitty of him to do it while Danny was standing right there, petrified by how things were developing and wondering what Sam was gonna say, but he couldn’t stop it from coming out. “He– we…did something, and I can’t keep doing it or else you guys are going to kick him out of the band and hate me for it.”

As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Sam realized how silly it sounded. It seemed like so much more in his head, and actually talking about it out loud was…jarring.

“What? Hate you?”

“Kick Danny out of the band? What did he do?”

The twins were grasping at straws, but at his words, Sam’s perspective, as strange as it was, finally came into focus for Danny. He stared openly at Sam, feeling all sorts of things that he was trying to sort out. “That…that’s why you’ve been mad?”

Sam met Danny’s eyes and really looked at him for what felt like the first time in 10 years, and the twins ceased to exist at the connection. He shook his head a little bit. “I’m not mad,” he said in a small voice, finally able to clarify. The words came out so easily, though, that Sam didn’t know why he couldn’t have just said them sooner. “Not at you, at least. I’m mad because there are consequences and I hate that they’re keeping me from…I dunno,” Sam admitted softly. “From what I really, really want.”

Danny’s heart soared at his words.

“Look,” Jake said slowly, glancing like a tennis spectator between Sam and Danny, “you can talk in whatever code you two do, but please just tell us: you didn’t, like, rob a bank or kill someone and hide the body, right? That’s not– when you say, ‘we did something’–”

Danny chuckled, glancing towards the twins as he finally gained some clarity on his own situation. “No,” he said, right before his phone dinged with the notification that his driver was there. “Um…that’s the Uber I ordered.” At the thought of finally resolving this situation and, admittedly, what could possibly happen when they did, Danny’s cheeks pinked but he forged on, “Would you– would you guys mind getting your own ride? I think Sam and I need to talk.”

Sam stared at Danny, and he swallowed, his hope for a revived relationship rising steadily and, funnily enough (not really, as Sam hadn’t stopped thinking about it since it happened), his arousal slowly disengaging from the guilt it had been attached to. Not entirely — not until they got the matter completely settled, at least, although it wasn’t going to be enough to stop him from participating in whatever ‘talking’ Danny wanted to do.

They didn’t wait for the twins to answer, and Sam followed Danny like a duckling, resisting the urge to reach out and grab ahold of the back of his sweatshirt like an anchor. But it was a short walk back to the parking zone where a car was waiting, and the silence between them no longer felt like a time bomb ticking down until total destruction, so he was able to go the distance relatively assured that Danny wouldn’t suddenly change his mind and bolt back into the sea.

Their comfortable silence made for a much better ride home than it had to the beach – still tense, but this time for a different reason. Sam was no longer straining away to make sure he didn’t touch Danny; I’m fact, their thighs were plastered together now, sending heat radiating from that point of contact.

Danny felt every bounce of his knee scrape against his own, but he didn’t mind.

He wanted to reach out and touch Sam – to put his hand on that shaking knee because he knew it was out of nervous energy that Sam sometimes didn’t know how to expend without getting in trouble, but he wasn’t certain that the gesture wouldn’t be too ‘50s housewife and husband’ for Sam.

“So we’re stupid, right?”

Sam’s question jarred Danny out of his staredown with the exposed skin of Sam’s knee. “Um…” In terms of stupidity, what had Danny really done wrong? Besides overthink everything and attempt to shoulder all the guilt he knew deep down wasn’t his to bear. “I mean, you were stupid. Me, not so much.”

Sam fixed him with a deadpan glare. Fights or no fights, fucking or no fucking, he wasn’t about to take that kind of insult laying down. “Shut up, Wagner.”

He wouldn’t deny it, though, either. He just wouldn’t say that Danny was right.

Danny nudged his shoulder into Sam’s. Despite what they had done (and what now seemed like an option on the table again), the thing he missed most was the comradery. He missed the connection that he and Sam shared, and he felt like they were finally on the same page again after reading totally different books for the past week and a half.

“But we literally left the beach to talk, Sam. How are we supposed to do that if I have to shut up?” he said cheekily, the car pulling up to the front of the hotel and casting fluorescent shadows across the planes of Sam’s cheekbones.

The fluttery feeling from the peak was back.

“I mean,” Sam started, getting out of the car and waiting for Danny to pile out after him and thank the driver before continuing, “I thought ‘we need to talk’ was like, codeword for something else, but if you actually wanted to just talk…”

Sam trailed off and peeked at Danny, hoping that his bait would catch.

And it did – hook, line, and sinker.

Danny stared at him and visibly gulped, slowly dragging his lower lip between his teeth that belied his active mind (scrambling to come up with words, a hand gesture, a facial expression, even– anything). “Yeah…ok,” he croaked finally. “Let’s– um, you wanna continue this conversation upstairs? In the room?”

Danny knew his voice would go higher before it dropped lower. It had even after he hit puberty — when something riled him up and he found his words, his pitch perked up and then took a deep dive. And this was undoubtedly one of those times, because he had images in his head of soft, hot skin in the back of a Honda Civic, steaming up the windows, Sam’s face as he–

“Agreed. Unless you wanted to ‘talk’ out here – you seem a little hot under the collar, Daniel,” Sam crowed, spinning to waltz lazily towards the back entrance that was closer to their stairwell. And anything closer was the way Sam wanted to go, because despite his teasing and his flirting, there was a dull ache in his groin, now that the idea had been introduced once more, and he’d spent the last week and a half agonizing over the very thing that he wanted.

Danny caught Sam by the wrist before he got too far and tugged him back, putting them face to face as both their chests froze on a breath. “This way; it’s faster,” Danny exhaled, ushering him into the lobby and to the elevator, a hand on the small of Sam’s back as both a guide and a push to keep up with Danny’s ambitious pace.

He didn’t worry about how ‘50s housewife and husband’ it was, this time. And judging by the way Sam’s gloating tease stopped abruptly and the way he fell compliant with Danny’s touch almost immediately, it seemed he didn’t mind Danny’s eager manhandling, either.

No, he really didn’t mind. If anything, Sam was flattered to the point of being red in the face at the prospect of Danny being so worked up that he just took what he wanted – sweet, docile, agreeable Danny, pushing him towards the elevators because he wanted Sam in his bed that damn bad.

Yeah, he didn’t mind this new side of Danny at all. Didn’t mind when the elevator doors finally pinged open and as they rushed inside, he felt Danny’s fingers grazing his waist, just waiting for the privacy they’d be afforded. Didn’t mind the slightest nudge of Danny’s hip against his ass as the space between them became negligible while waiting in anticipation for the doors to close once again.

Sam’s insistent pushing of the ‘close door’ button went on until the metal slid shut, and then his fingers were yanked away as Danny spun him around to kiss him for the first time since the peak.

Suddenly, they were back in the Vermont air, high and happy and feeling so good, they never wanted to stop.

Sam’s breath left him as Danny backed him into the unyielding side of the elevator, insistently pressing his lips to Sam’s, pushing his agenda with his tongue in his mouth first and then quickly with his thigh between Sam’s knees. Sam let a whine of pleasure soak into Danny’s skin directly from the source, born from the whisper of friction against his travel shorts and the fact that Sam never really got the chance to feel small but, here, being forced onto his tiptoes so that Danny could get him fully seated and flush against him, he’d never been more aware of the few inches that Danny had on him. Never more appreciative, either.

All too soon, though, the door pinged open, and Danny tore away from Sam, panting and red-faced and not exactly hiding the fact of what they’d been doing.

But there was nobody there.

“Wha–” Danny started, confused as the door started to close again. He was cut off by Sam’s grabby hands as they fisted his shirt and pulled him back to his body, where Sam opened his legs first this time and guided Danny by the elastic band of his sweatpants to slot his thigh between them again.

God, Sam’s ability to take what he wanted without shame had never been more attractive to Danny.

“Doesn’t matter, just– again, please,” he demanded, rolling his hips forward and into the missing friction he’d been denied for a half a second. Danny groaned at Sam’s hunger for him, the way he couldn’t help but be greedy when it came to what Danny could give to him – and Danny would give him everything.

Well, he would if the damn door didn’t keep opening again. And what was worse, this time there really were people on the other side, and while they recognized the ding with enough time to separate, Sam turned bright red and shoved his forearm in front of him, hoping that the couple wouldn’t happen to look down and see the glaring tent in his shorts.

Danny wasn’t in much better of a situation, but his sweats at least had pockets, and he was able to casually push the material away to make it less noticeable.

The couple nodded to them and stepped in, and the doors closed before the elevator shook and continued its journey upwards. Maybe this would be their stop, finally. Sam looked down to the buttons and froze, turning to Danny with a smile growing on his face. “Uhh…” he uttered as the door opened on the next floor up with no one on the other side.

Danny looked to where Sam was and blushed – when he pushed Sam against the wall for better purchase, he’d chosen the wrong wall, apparently, and there were scattered buttons all the way to the 8th floor lit up and shiny, even though they were certain no one on the other side had called for the elevator.

The doors started to shudder close again, but Danny took Sam’s hand at the last second and stopped them, pulling him out of the elevator and yelling, “Sorry!” to the couple behind them before taking off towards the staircase on the other side of the hallway.

“Faster my fucking ass,” Sam said breathlessly as they climbed the last couple of flights of stairs to their room. It was probably better that they had to spend that time away from the other’s bodies (excluding their tightly clasped hands, of course), because they really did need to talk before they were swept away in uncontrollable urges for each other that had been held back by a singular thread since they’d discovered them.

Danny slipped his keycard out of his pocket, a little distracted by the way Sam plastered himself to his back and wrapped his arms around his waist so that his fingers could crawl up under the hem of Danny’s t-shirt and map out the skin of his torso. Eventually, though, he got it scanned and the light beeped green to let them in.

Neither cared if their tour manager or their sound guy, or if their mothers themselves coincidently stepped out of their rooms as Sam and Danny stood in the hallway, slowly tangling themselves together before the door even opened.

“Sam, we really do need to talk,” Danny whined. His entire body seized up and shivered as Sam placed his lips to the arch of Danny’s neck, relishing in the fact that he finally got to touch Danny.

What could they possibly have to talk about now? Everything was aired out, and Sam was under the impression that they understood each other perfectly, regardless of the fact that he’d had the same thought at the beach.

Still, he knew it was the morally right thing to do, as much as Sam hated the fact. “Okay, fucking…fine,” he pouted, glaring at the skin he’d just been worshiping as if it was doing him a disfavor by existing when he couldn’t touch. “Talk, then.”

Danny smiled a little and took Sam’s hand. “So…I just want to get your story straight: we made out, I got you off, and then you automatically assumed that your own brothers would magically turn into homophobes and hate us?” Sam’s lips flattened at the poor summary and he rolled his eyes, but Danny didn’t let him pull away. Instead, he laughed a little bit and asked, “Did I get that right?”

Sam huffed. “Actually, no, you didn’t.” Danny waited for him to go on and Sam felt like stomping his feet. They had already been at the fun stuff – why’d they have to backtrack? “I wasn’t afraid of Jake and Josh hating us because we were…you know, together–” He hesitated at saying ‘gay,’ not because he was ashamed, but because he had honestly never had feelings for another dude that wasn’t Danny. Gay for each other, maybe, but nobody else. “--I was afraid that they’d see a Yoko Ono situation of our own.”

Danny narrowed his eyes in thought and cocked his head. “You thought I’d introduce you to heroin and make you want to leave the band?” he joked, understanding what Sam was trying to say, but also trying to clear up the details.

“No, dummy,” Sam scoffed affectionately, still connected by their hands and their chests, pressed together so that they couldn’t be too far from the other. “Everyone knows relationships mess things up, and if it came down to it, and we had a big blow up and hated each other and decided that it was either you or me staying in the band…” Sam looked away. This was always the hardest part of his anxiety to clearly formulate because everything in his body revolted against the idea. They couldn’t be Greta Van Fleet without all four of them. “They’re my brothers,” he said softly. “If it came down to choosing–”

Danny’s heart squeezed, and he tried to ignore the slight drop of his stomach at the thought, but he nodded anyways, trying to validate Sam’s worry, even if it didn’t always make sense. “They’d choose you,” he finished.

‘I’m not doing this ‘cause I hate you, I’m doing this for you.’

It all came into better clarity, but after everything that happened, and everything they’d been through as a band, Danny had less doubts now than he did before about his place with the Kiszkas. He was a brother. To Jake and Josh, at least. Not to Sam. Not at all.

“But then at the beach, when you were all ganging up on me–”

“We were not–”

“--when you were all ganging up on me,” Sam said again, more forcefully to drown Danny out with a smile, “and they took your side even when they didn’t know what was going on, cause they’re bastards like that–”

“--oh, how dare they,” Danny interrupted again, sensing a close to the story. He took the opportunity to slip his fingertips underneath the waistband at the back of Sam’s shorts to pull him closer.

Sam took a deep breath to recenter himself and focus on finishing what he was saying (why it was so important now, he wasn’t sure, but it felt good to get this off his chest). “I think I realized that they know just how important you are to the band, too. To them as a person. Even if I told them you cut my balls off and sold ‘em to a fan for cocaine money, they’d fight tooth and nail for you.”

Danny flushed at the strange compliment, warming to affirmations of belonging that Sam was providing him with. He was satisfied, now. They didn’t need to talk any longer. All he wanted was to show Sam that he was all-in on this relationship, and that no matter how it ended, they were here now. The future had never been certain for them, but it hadn’t stopped them from making stupid decisions before.

“I get it,” Danny breathed quietly, a half-inch from Sam’s lips and a half-inch from where he wanted to be. “But rest assured, I like your balls right where they are.”

Sam snorted out a laugh as he dove back into Danny’s neck, and he hummed when he was walked backwards across the room, assumedly to the bed. Before the backs of his knees hit the mattress, though, Danny slipped his fingers under the material of Sam’s shirt and brought it over his head so that he wouldn’t have to do it later.

Once Sam had fallen back on the sheets, he stared up at Danny, who had gently pried his thighs apart so that he could stand between them. “You’re not gonna say that I’m stupid and that it’s my fault for torturing us both?” he asked as Danny gazed right back down at him, taking in his state of undress when it was again all for Danny’s eyes.

“No,” he said, grazing a finger across Sam’s abdomen to his shorts, “I’m busy.” The button came undone in a simple movement, and Danny began to tug them down.

Sam groaned, head swimming with his own lust, Danny’s obvious desire, and the subsequent promise of his big hands all over him again. But he hadn’t forgotten that he’d been denied everything except for his own pleasure the last time they did this – they hadn’t even gotten Danny’s wet jeans off, for fuck’s sake. So, not to be left idle this time, he pushed himself up on his hands and tightened the hold he had on Danny’s hips with his thighs to balance as he impatiently rucked the material of Danny’s soft t-shirt up.

“Well, you’re a better man than me, then,” he said, right before attaching his mouth to where Danny’s throat led into the center of his clavicle.

~~~

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