#also trying really hard to not feel as though i have Wasted My College Degree

[truecorvid]

what if i became an accountant.

[halimpark7]

When you ask people about me,

from any section of my life,

wherever I've lived. I've lived in a lot of places.

The first thing they say about me is,

"Oh HaLim? The Asian girl? .... She's crazy." And a brush off.

I used to think. When I looked at my photos growing up, if I could hate myself more than other people, more than my haters, more than my parents, that no one could ever hurt me.

It was true. They couldn't hurt me. But I didn't like myself either.

I was always doing things, fun things, ridiculous things, mean things, sexual things. And I could never understand how I was feeling. I just kept trying to move forward while I was so stuck. I was crazy. I still am in ways.

I think I'm grateful to be poor right now. Call me, "crazy".

Even though it sucks when my vanmate yells about how I waste money.

[I took the wrong turn and we have to drive an extra 4 streets, I bought the wrong item at the grocery store so I have to go back into the store and return it and then buy the right one, I made a product wrong and have to remake it bc I have to do something as wrong as I like to be wrong, I have to fight with the entire grocery store because no one and I mean no one is going to bully me in my mid 30s.]

Being poor means people have the "right" to judge you, be mean to you, think you're stupid, steal from you because they have more resources to carry out your ideas.

Being poor means you have to be precise. All the cards are stacked against you. People like lording money over you. Playing keep away with things that would have been easily given to you, if you were rich. It's an uphill battle for human decency. "Poor you, guess you should have done things differently..." "You poor thing" with their eyes dancing.

Being poor teaches you tough lessons. I wouldn't glorify it. If you're not poor, you might have been in a previous life.

But for me, when I was comfortable, taken care of. I was too depressed to move. I was with someone who wasn't right for me but I ate, slept inside. I couldn't do anything but lay in the living room, take off my clothes, and watch Netflix.

It is much easier to be ok in the Midwest than it is in metropolitan areas. It is also easier with a good family (the ones that come with money), and it's easier with a sought after degree. (The tough ones that come with money).

I couldn't force myself through any of my degrees. Not to be depressing, but I was beaten up by dad, narcissisticly taken out of everything I was good at by my cognitively impaired mother. Who even followed me to college because she likes the feeling of stealing from me. She squeezed me till I was a stone in her womb and then she massaged me back to life. She hasn't stopped squeezing me since.

Miserable people, like to slowly kill things. In case you didn't know that.

Im not complaining, everyone's life is hard. I just didn't know there was a timeline, like a race, to do something by a certain time. Bing! your motivation to want to be a doctor dried up here. Bing! your motivation to fulfill any of your career options ended here. Ding, ding, ding. Who are you really? How do you want to make money?

And I feel like Moses going round and round, circling all things I'm good at, compelled to do, and how do I spin it to make money without being a monster/without selling my soul.

Send me money. cashap-halimpark7 venmo HaLim-Park PayPal hapark7 ❤️ my dog threw up tuna on my car seat and it's starting to make us sick. 🤢🤮

Life is one shit show until it isn't, right Mike?

[natreads]

Ramblings about uni and the future

I'm trying to make a difficult decision. Since I've spent the last five years trying to break into the publishing industry and mostly failing (I'm freelance but can't get a full time job), I've been thinking very seriously about going back to uni to become a librarian instead. It's not really a career I've ever thought of, or wanted, but the same can be said for publishing. I decided I wanted to go that route when I already had a my bachelors degree. It felt like the "right" path, but I wasn't aware of how difficult it would be. The industry is so closed off, and I'm not very good at putting myself out there, so I've been struggling a lot. Not to mention people keep getting fired left and right so even if I do get in who knows how long that will last. I guess part of deciding to study something else, despite already having a masters degree and over six years of uni studies behind me, is that I feel like I need to essentially give up this dream, which would make the past five years feel like a waste even though I don't necessarily think they are. But I will have to give up the identity I have built around the industry. But I also feel like going another route won't mean I can't one day make it there too. But I also don't want to get another degree just to still be focusing on an industry that's this unattainable. I will have to focus on making it as a librarian instead and the idea of having to properly give up publishing makes me so sad, but I also know it will bring me relief once I actually do it. I need to study something where I will actually find work.

Another issue is that I really really REALLY don't want to study for another three years lmao. I talked to some people and there's a possibility that I COULD skip one semester due to previous studies, but I feel like it will be complicated and also not necessarily set in stone to manipulate the degree like that. I also got the tip to go take a masters instead which is two years, but here are the pros and cons to all of this:

Three year undergrad:

The school I did my BA at, so it's familiar

Since it's undergrad I'm not worried I will fail

Close to home (even if I move)

Unfortunately it's three years

It feels "silly" to get another BA when I could get an MA immediately instead

Two year masters program:

It's only two years

It will probably be hard

Could be done online, but I don't know if I have it in me to sit at home for two years again

It's in another city, but only takes an hour by train to get there

Unfortunately the train (pendeln) SUCKS and is super unreliable

And I would have to pay a bunch each time

But I like the idea of experiencing something new, since I both like the city (it's a college town) and don't think one hour is that bad

Another problem is that we'll be doing lots of group work so I might have to be there a lot which will be annoying

If I knew just HOW often I'd have to go I feel like it would be easier

I'm gonna be moving soonish to an apartment in the city here in Stockholm so I don't wanna move to Uppsala and do student housing, but my lease will only be one year so maybe I COULD during second year. I've never expeirenced student life like that before

Do I really wanna write another fucking masters thesis omg

I like the sound of two master degrees tho lmao

One semester will be dedicated to writing my thesis so I will mostly only have to commute for 1.5 years I guess, which makes the student housing in year two maybe unnessecary? But my lease will be up anyway soooo. In an ideal world I would be doing student housing my first year and then move into the other apartment after, but I can't do that and I don't wanna give up on a great opportunity

We'll be visiting libraries and whatnot and if it's in Uppsala (I kinda assume it is) I will have to figure out the public transit looool

Essentially, I think the undergrad one is safe but longer, while the MA is shorter but scarier. If I do the MA online I will be more comfortable, but also probably lowkey go crazy. Maybe if I knew if and how much I would be working at the bookstore after the summer I would pick the online version, since work would get me out of the house, but none of us know how needed I will be.

I know I need to change lanes, since I'm getting older and I need stability. Working in a library is the next best thing I can see myself doing after publishing (I kinda wanted to do marketing but I've realized it unfortunately goes against a lot of my morals and libraries are ethically the one and only place I stand 100% behind).

Idk if anyone has any insight or advice please lmk I'm so torn

[lgbtkendricks]

who else decodes you? (mitchsen fic)

Beca Mitchell was the editor-in-chief of the Barden Music Journal, and she loved it. She got to interview bands, write up reviews, and work with her best friends. She was pretty good at student journalism. Her readers loved her. The problem was, her readers were also Aubrey Posen's readers. Aubrey Posen, editor-in-chief of The Barden Gazette, and ex...person...in Beca's life. High school was a long time ago, but unresolved feelings had a funny way of coming to light through damning articles and meddling friends.

read chapter one on ao3 here, or below.

BARDEN MUSIC JOURNAL

You ever stop and think for a moment – what the hell am I doing?

When you’re lounging in the library in the middle of the night, the god-awful coffee from the vending machine on the third floor already cold by the time you reach your desk, a couple equally unlucky souls hanging around the desks nearby, all dutifully typing up their assignments whilst you’re struggling to focus. What the hell are we doing?

What is it about the world that forces us into these situations? Capitalism, obviously, but beyond that. Why do we need to work on assignments about some fucked up centuries old King of England when what we really want to do with our lives doesn’t concern royalty at all? At least, not the generational kind.

It’s really no secret that I – being this journal’s editor in chief – want to work in the music industry. I want to work with music royalty. I want to earn music royalties. It’s all rad being a college student and getting a degree until that degree drives you further and further from your dream. It’s no longer rad then, it becomes trite. Exhaustive, a waste of time and energy and brain power.

That’s when music brings you back to life.

That’s what music is for, really.

The assignment is long forgotten, buried in a sea of tabs and documents that I have no desire to revisit. Spotify opens (for the tenth time today), and all liked songs are shuffled. In the dead of the clinically lit night, music is the only thing that can bring me back to life. It doesn’t matter how many times we try to convince ourselves that what we’re working on is worthwhile, it can’t be, not if it isn’t electrifying. The first song that plays will determine my mood for the next several hours. Will it be some sappy love song, forcing me into a well of yearning and heartache, allowing me to consider King Henry’s tragic love life in a new (still clinical) light? Or will it be heavy metal, screamed lyrics bouncing around my brain so fervently that I scrap my assignment on the King altogether and instead focus on the extreme anger half of his ex-wives must’ve been in by the end of his reign?

The Way – Ariana Grande feat. Mac Miller.

Okay. I guess it’s time to write about the only good relationship he had? Jane Seymour it is.

Music governs my life. It would be impossible to do anything without it. I don’t know how they coped in the 1500s. Heads being chopped off left, right, and centre, and no Spotify to numb the pain. Sounds like hell.

By Beca Mitchell

THE BARDEN GAZETTE

Some students at this college feel as though life is an endless, meaningless array of pointless assignments and lacklustre library trips for degrees that don’t matter in the grand scheme of life.

How wrong those students are.

They are even more wrong to write about it.

Attempting to convince college students that they’re wasting their time and money on a degree as if it won’t increase their job prospects, credibility and comprehension of the world is ridiculous. A degree cannot make you famous overnight, it’s true (unless you have an exceptionally high GPA, and a near-perfect essay paper worthy of publishing). But what BARDEN MUSIC JOURNAL fails to reconcile with is that hard work is what leads people to working with royalty, however that royalty may come.

One does not simply snap their fingers and find their way into their dream profession. If I were to do that, I would be the worst lawyer on the planet.

Barden does not prepare you for dreams, it prepares you for reality.

Statistics state that 61% of employees with degrees advance to higher ranking positions within 12 months of beginning their careers outside of the academic sector. It is statistically proven that those long nights in the library pay off in ways that governing your assignments on whichever song blares into your headphones cannot. If I were to argue a case based upon the plot of the last fiction book I read, I would fear for my client. It is highly unlikely that my book would relate to the international, criminal, property, or even environmental law I may be practising.

We as journalists have a duty to tell the truth. First person pieces are great, but no reason to pass by objectivity. Objectively, every assignment set at Barden is set for a reason. Every hour you put into your studies will pay off in the end, no matter what you decide to do with your degree, your time will not have been wasted at this university. I for one am sick of people pretending otherwise. Through all the complaints, we’re all still here. Thousands of students graduate Barden every year.

As my father always says: A school of fish is no school at all if they all drown.

Study hard. Don’t be distracted by the fool’s paradise of flimsy dreams. Don’t leave your assignments to the point of all-nighters with undesirables, like those who allow algorithmic playlist shuffles to control their GPA. Take it from the editor in chief of the award-winning Barden Gazette. Take control of your own life.

By Aubrey Posen

“What a fucking bitch!”

“Beca. Not cool.” Cynthia Rose frowned at her from the desk across the small office. She swore all the time, but she didn’t tend to appreciate when people called women bitches for malignant reasons.

“This calls for some fucking profanity, dude. Look at this.” Beca stood up, snatching up the paper she had just angrily tossed onto her desk and stalked over to her friend, throwing it down in front of her. The small brunette waited with a deep scowl etched onto her face, tapping her fingers against her thigh as she watched Cynthia Rose skim the article on the front page.

“Shit,” Cynthia Rose’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “This feels…uncalled for.”

“I can’t believe she’s starting this again. We had a truce. Where the fuck does she get off?”

“Probably at her typewriter,” Amy sang from the corner of the room, where she was busy scouting the internet for some fresh talent. Or so she said, but her friends knew that was simply code for online shopping.

“This is low. Even for her.” Beca fumed, grabbing the paper again and skimming until she found the right quote. “I mean, she basically called me a ridiculous liar who can’t write an assignment on my own. What the fuck?”

“It’s a lot,” Cynthia Rose said.

“It’s fucked up. I’m not standing for this. She thinks just because she controls that fuckass gazette that she should control the minds of everyone at Barden.”

“They get more readership than we do.” Amy mumbled.

Everyone turned to her incredulously, as if she was poking the bear. Beca glared daggers at her across the room.

“We’re a specialist journal!” Beca snapped. “Of course the gazette which publishes boring ass shit about the new paint in the Chemistry lab gets more readership than a journal aimed at one group of the student demographic!”

“Didn’t you write that everyone listens to music, so everyone should care to read about it…”

“Shut up, Jesse.” Beca shifted her glare to the boy reading a sappy fiction novel in the bay window.

“Why don’t we just…go over to the Gazette and talk this out with Aubrey?” Benji asked gently. He was seated next to his boyfriend, being the only other person in the room actually working on the layout of their next issue.

“If I see that fucker’s face I will punch it in.” Beca growled, scrunching the paper up in her hands and throwing it aside. She needed to get out of there, right now. It didn’t help that her friends weren’t as angry as she was. It made her feel like she was overreacting. She tore her jacket from her desk chair and stalked out. “Be back later.”

The journalists were silent for some moments after Beca left.

“Yeesh,” Amy said, trying to diffuse the tension. “Hasn’t it been like, a whole semester of their truce? I thought she’d be kinda over it by now,”

Cynthia Rose shook her head immediately. “It’s too deep for that. You know they went to the same high school.”

“I actually cannot imagine what Beca and Aubrey would’ve been like in school.” Benji looked uncomfortable. “They’re at each other’s throats now without all the high school stuff to deal with.”

“I bet they were homoerotic.” Jesse said, making Amy bark out a laugh and Benji stare at him in surprise. “What? You think two gay girls on the same newspaper was wholly platonic? Why do you think they hate each other so much??”

“Nah, you’re right,” Cynthia Rose nodded, leaning back in her swivel chair. “I’ve been thinking that. I mean, no one else gets B so riled up. And she claims to hate half the people here.”

“There’s a fine line between love and hate,” Amy grinned. “Are you all thinking what I’m thinking?”

“We are never thinking what you’re thinking.” Jesse gave her a pointed, but amused, look.

“Duh! Get them together!”

“Hell no.”

“I don’t know about that…”

Jesse spluttered, “you want us to get in the middle of the crossfire? Are you out of your mind??”

“Awh, come on, it’ll be just like that movie! With the ginger twins!”

“The Parent Trap? That’s a pretty good movie,” Benji perked up.

Jesse turned to his boyfriend with a disapproving glare. “Pretty good? Benj, that film is a masterpiece. It’s right up there with Ferris Bueller.”

“Debate your movie preferences at the movie journal.” Cynthia Rose said, not wanting to have to hear yet another spat between the boys about the colour grading of one scene out of an entire film. “Ames. Meddling is fun but this shit is too deep to meddle with.”

“The parents in the parent trap had literal twins across the ocean. That was deeper than a potential high school breakup,” Jesse pointed out. “I’m in. Beca needs to get laid, anyway.”

“She never wants to date any of the girls who hit on her. Maybe she’s saving herself for a special blonde someone,” Amy waggled her eyebrows.

“How do you propose we do this, Amy?” Cynthia Rose sighed. “I’m not agreeing. Just curious.”

Amy stood up and paced for a moment, biding her time as she made an exaggerated thinking face. The other three watched her in anticipation. Eventually, she clapped her hands together and grinned. “We need to infiltrate the gazette.”

“The gazette would never let us inside their office.” Cynthia Rose shot back immediately.

“I don’t mean literally. We need to talk to someone on the paper. Boytoys. Which one of you has a class with that fashion editor? Stella?”

“You mean Stacie? She’s in my labs,” Benji said cautiously. “But I’m not really that close with her…she also does astrophysics. And I look at 3d models, so it’s not really compatible-“

“Apples I don’t need to know your life story.” Amy rolled her eyes. “Okay. Try and get the downlow from Stacie on what Aubrey’s like. If she ever talks about Beca. You know…”

“Why would she tell me? She knows I’m from our journal.”

“Bribe.” Cynthia Rose shrugged. “Obviously. Offer her something.”

 Benji’s eyes lit up. “Oh, I could show her-“

“Not magic.” Three voices chorused, making the curly haired boy blush lightly.

“Sorry,” Jesse chuckled, nudging him.

“We need a backup plan.” Amy continued. “Because no offence, Apples, but I don’t trust you to complete this mission.”

“That’s fair.” Benji said quietly.

“Cynthia Rose. You’re in charge of online stalking.”

“I never said I was in.” Cynthia Rose huffed.

“Don’t give me that bullcrap, like you don’t want to get people off your back about how you and chief should be an item.”

“Why do people think all lesbians are in love with each other!?” Cynthia Rose slammed a hand down against her desk. She and Beca were best friends, but that was all. She hated the insinuation that they were more, especially when she was in a perfectly loving long distance relationship with a girl from her hometown. “Fine. I’m in.”

“In for what?”

The four of them nearly jumped out of their skin at the sound of Beca’s voice wafting in from the hallway. Seconds later, Beca appeared with an iced coffee, looking decidedly calmer than before, but still frowning. She shrugged her jacket off and threw it to the side, revealing a vintage Lauryn Hill hoodie which she hadn’t been wearing earlier. She pushed her headphones off and walked back over to her desk, before eyeing her unusually quiet friends. “In for what?” she repeated herself.

“Sushi.” Benji panicked. “And-and fries.”

“Sushi and fries?” Beca asked, her mouth forming a disgusted line. “What?”

“We’re hungry.” Amy nodded. “I want fries. Benj wants sushi. Jesse suggested both. CR’s in. You in?”

“We haven’t done any of the lay in. I know you dopes haven’t been working whilst I was gone. And you’re talking about food?” She narrowed her eyes at them. Beca loved to slack off when she felt it appropriate. But she wasn’t in the mood today. Especially not after the barrage of insults the pristinely perfect Posen threw at her in the paper today. Posen with her big team of journalists and editors, ultra-organised.

“It’s not due to publish for another three days.” Amy whined. “Come on, Bec,”

“No!” Beca snapped. She tugged her laptop out of her backpack and grabbed her headphones again. “Don’t disturb me unless you’re dying.”

Once they were sure Beca was lost in her computer and listening to music loud enough to blare them all out (they could hear it bleeding from her headphones), Jesse turned to Amy dully.

“Great. Now she’s mad at us too.”

“Don’t blame me, blame your boyfriend!"

[gentlemenprefergirlbloggers]

I'm so overwhelmingly depressed lately. My anxiety is my main trait at this point, and it's making it almost impossible to maintain anything. It's two weeks into school and I already feel overwhelmed and stressed. I had a ton of plans and things to look forward to (my first tattoo, valentines and galentines, a new photoshoot i directed, etc.) but I can't bring myself to be excited for any of it. I simultaneously feel like I must plan things, so I have stuff to look forward to and remind myself that life is worth living, while also feeling like there is no way I can do any of it. I feel overwhelmed by things I planned. I can't quit college. I want to get my degree, and to me that is a non-negotiable. But other things, like plans with friends/photos/etc. are entirely my fault. I have no one to blame but myself, and I'm trying so hard to not cancel events this year and to generally be better. But it's so hard. I just want to cry all the time but I can't even bring myself to do that.

I'm so just so afraid. I feel too scared to leave my house. I'm so afraid for my dog, who is sitting next to me, healthy. But she will just eat anything and I've had to take her to the emergency vet 3x in the past 6 months and that's unattainable for me. I've cleaned my whole house so she can't get into anything but I can't convince myself that she'll be okay, because if she needs to go to the emergency vet again, I'm worried I won't be able to pay for it, even with pet insurance. It's so much stress.

I'm afraid of the future. I'm afraid of the current political situation. I'm afraid that I'm wasting my time (but then I think about Vienna by Billy Joel, but that comfort only lasts a minute.) I love my boyfriend but I'm worried that we'll never be married or that we're not the right fit even though it feel so right most of the time. But people will be married for 30 years and still get divorced because they weren't right. Do I really want that possiblity? But I also don't want to be single and 30 (nothing wrong with that, but it's my standard.)

Just so overwhelming. Everything.

[eazysause]

tw// aftermath of severe depression, anxiety, huge existential crisis

It’s my last “young” milestone birthday. I can drink now. people my age will be having marriages soon. Maybe kids a little while later. People are graduating with degrees. People around me are rising high in their lives. something.

I can’t help but be nervous even though it’s not a competition- but it really is one in more than one aspect.

I feel I’ve done a lot more than previous years. But also I feel like I’m falling behind. I didn’t think I’d get here this far with how deep I was, but I’m scared of not getting there.

This year, I’ve learned how to drive after having a fear of driving. I’m taking medication for my depression, though not for my anxiety. I’m trying to reign in my poor lifelong physical health, and I’m trying to stay away from dairy after I realized it caused me more inflammation to drink it. I still work part time.

There’s a lot bad too. College is hard to do still for me to get even an AA with everything I need to do. Taking care of myself and loving myself is still hard. I feel like I can barely comfortably speak to others (or be accidentally rude and say too much) even though most times I feel like it’s driving me crazy not having others around.

No dates, no other milestones like first kisses, or loves… none of that. It’s too quiet at home, and I don’t have siblings. My friends irl and sometimes online feel like they are slipping away and I’m not sure how to tell them I feel this way. Sometimes I wish they got help or told me the truth, though this isn’t for every friend I talk to.

I wonder if I’m just boring or not funny at all, and really, I just make myself look stupid/naive. Or maybe I’m just so fucked up and in my own echo chambers that no one can really understand.

This is just the stuff I think about individually, anyway. Not going into the external stuff too much.

…I try not to think of the bad and inevitable the best I can… but these feelings are overwhelming and real in days like these. I haven’t really felt at peace with them even though I want to be. The pressure in my head when I think about these things suck ass.

Life is short, and mysteriously people not too much older than me are dying from cancer. I’m already predisposed to that. I want to be complete before I die and I feel like my time is running out. There’s so much I want to do still and I feel like I wasted my life away in high school.

…So, I have mixed feelings about this. My birthday isn’t anything special, but I feel like it should. Shouldn’t there be a giant celebration? I’m not sure how I’d go about it.

I wish I knew, knowing all of this. The only solaces I really have now that I know give me some sort of sense of progress are my own head and art. Or maybe it’s just validation from others.

I know maybe most people who would be living their lives wouldn’t be on sites like Tumblr. But it’s better than Twitter.

Whichever the case… happy birthday, everyone. Hope it’s a better one than my own out there. And even if it isn’t, I hope this post kind of… helps you not feel alone out there. 🎂

[mitigatingacademics]

{10.01.23}

A very productive evening.

Won the Diamond Tournament.

French is coming along, at a intermediate level of competency, as it has been for almost as long as I can remember.

One of these days I will go back and actually learn the Dutch grammar that goes with the Dutch vocabulary.

I started learning Dutch because I completely burnt out on LSAT prep and my brain demanded to be learning something or, alternatively, suffer a complete collapse of uselessness.

(It was a whole thing.)

In the meantime, where slapdash French grammar won't suffice (I have YEARS of translation training with specific noun/adjective placements...we're not going to stop now), I'll just have to muddle through with the paid version of Duolingo that allows you to make all the mistakes without requiring you to take a time out to reflect on the travesty of your actions.

More Meaningful Productivity:

Completed LSAT Trainer Lesson 22

This was a Reading Comprehension lesson. Notably, the first in this book. It went really well. I like the approach here and feel like it might prove more helpful than other methods I've attempted. Looking forward to future lessons.

NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. (1937) -- Reading Outline

United States v. Darby (1941) -- Reading Outline

I am reminded by these cases, about the concept of "plenary powers," and the first time I ever recall hearing said term being Liz speaking at a J6 Committee Hearing.

Intuitively feeling the importance of her words, wanting to fully understand, I looked it up.

If that wasn't the exact moment that I fell in love with both her AND Constitutional Law, it was a missed opportunity.

(It also concerns me about the state of education that I could have a college degree as well as an entire Master's degree and not know what a plenary power was -- but I haven't had a civics lesson since 7th grade. 🤷🏻‍♀️I vividly remember dropping APUSH because, at the time, it was World History that I'd really enjoyed and wanted more of. Psychology was the only advanced placement course I wasted time on Senior year. I didn't take the test...I don't know anyone that did. I did well in the class, but an official evaluation was a different story. Public schools are a mess. 🤦🏻‍♀️)

Currently Reading:

Law Man: Memoir of a Jailhouse Lawyer by Shon Hopwood

It's free on Kindle Unlimited. We got here because of the Plea Bargin book. The author of that book did nothing at all to endear this man to her readers. She made a valiant effort, but he's a pal of Jared Kushner and a member of the Federalist Society; it's a hard sell.

I wasn't expecting much. I was fairly certain I would end up rage!quitting before it was even worth mentioning.

Would love to know how much of it is ghostwritten...because, though it's still early (I'm in chapter 4), the story telling is actually very, very good.

How To Be Sort Of Happy In Law School by Kathryne M. Young

Author seems to think having studied Sociology along with Law gives her a unique and superior perspective.

I, too, have a degree in Sociology. It basically requires acceptance of reality/your surroundings, how we got here and how it perpetuates. It doesn't make you special.

I'm trying not to be too judgy. I really am. I've only gotten through the introduction and the first chapter...but I'm already feeling like, despite insistence that said book is for anyone with an interest in legal education, a non-traditional, part-time law student hopeful is just not the audience she's writing for.

For what it's worth, I do appreciate the research she's done and is reporting on. Survey is solid (save for the potential non-traditional gap). Sociological methods on point.

[elidokie]

i’m so scared that i’m faking being happy but at the same time i know i’m not because happiness is a choice (and also not a destination) and i choose it every day.

even though right now i have to urge to go, i know it’s all temporary. i keep imagining myself. when i die, all my stuff will go to Mar. even my 3DS, and even my copy of soul silver.

yikes. i hate feeling like this. i feel so icky and gross whenever i do. cmon eli! this isn’t you! you’re supposed to be happy and full of joy on the time! think of all the tender mercies! you fucked up bad yesterday, and God still let you get another chance! mom made breakfast! dad went out to buy us a drink at the new gas station they built down the road! and Mar is in the living room waiting for us to go outside and tell her about the new book we are reading!

cmon! think of how much you love being alive! because you do.

i have a hard time accepting the bad feelings as feelings of my own. my brain is so frustrating sometimes. it feels like it’s not mine.

i miss being little. i miss being 14. my parents were mean, and i didn’t have any friends, and i had the ugliest hair cut in the world — but i was 14 and i played my favorite video game for the first time, and all Mar n I had to worry about was our stupid Government class that we were taking for college credit.

Mom was really happy when we told her that we got accepted into the dual enrollment program, even though she didn’t understand that dual enrollment was for the students that were smart enough to be looked at as a waste. It’s a school in south Texas, with only 15% of the students actually going on to get a degree after graduation. Even if it was only for the numbers, it really did help out.

I didn’t think I was going to go to college. I get frustrated when people say that a Bachelors is the same as a HS Diploma. I didn’t decide I was going to college until my junior year. At most, I thought I was going to just finish off whatever I had left of classes at the community college I was already attending during high school. But then during the state exams, Mr Austin looked at Mr Sowell and went, “You are looking at the two brightest minds of the 21st century.” (referring to me and Mar), and even though it’s not true, because I’m just a 19 year old girl, it still gave me a sense of hope.

Mom never went to middle school (secondary school I guess) and has a 5th grade education. I do everything for her. We told her about World War 2. It’s crazy that she doesn’t know anything about it. Then we tried telling her about outer space, she doesn’t know much, but she knows about planets! we told her that there is a myriad of planets, and we told her what galaxies are, and how galaxies can collide, and how stars can die beneath their own weight.

i feel like that sometimes.

she says it’s too late for her, but i don’t think so. i’ve been trying to teach her english, but she doesn’t care to learn. she can order at the drive thru by herself and she can have a conversation with Bailey’s parents. that’s enough.

dad first told me he loved me during graduation. he hugged me too. i miss the feeling of dad being proud of me like that. i know moms always proud of me, but it’s in a different way.

i like seeing dads face light up. i hate the stigma that i have to take care of my parents once they get older, or that children of immigrants live for their parents, but it’s so true. dad always looked so happy after i performed.

when i passed my drivers test (after going to the DMV like 4 times) he hugged me and was like “i’m so proud of you!” and i think about that a lot. i told him how i was planning on going to UT (my literal dream school and i’m so glad to God that i even got accepted) for aerospace engineering. and he was so happy. then i ended up “following my dream” and going to liberal liberal arts school in Texas for fucking ENGLISH. and he still was so happy. i cried when they dropped me off at my dorm, and i still cry thinking about it.

andrew was so right when he said that moving away from your parents for college is some white people shit. i’m still grateful to the universe for the experience though.

when i came back home during the winter break, i think he could tell that my depression was coming back. maybe that’s why he was so supportive about me dropping out. i had 4 days left until i had to move back to Denton when i had decided to withdraw. fuck, i was so scared. i remember asking him over and over what he thought i should do, and he just went “whatever you want mija, it’s your life not mine” until i ended up actually withdrawing. i know that he knew i was scared.

the next day he took me to dallas to pick up my stuff. a 6 hour drive, 2 hours to pack, 6 hours back — and he didn’t complain. i was so miserable the whole spring, which sucks because it’s my favorite season.

we would take Mar to class 2x a week (Mar can’t drive, she’s too scared to, so dad would take her and i would tag along) and then sit in the Circle K parking lot for two hours until her Latin class was over (the drive to her uni was 45 minutes, so it made more sense to just wait there). He’d buy me an horchata and a hot dog, he was always like “these are good today!” and i would agree, i never told him that i don’t like hot dogs, but it’s okay because i think he was always trying to convince himself / trying to make me feel better about not being in school.

sometimes we would go to Taco Bell, or to Costco. it was always the same thing. me being miserable about having to be at a uni i don’t attend, and him trying to make me feel better without knowing how. i’m grateful though.

i told them i was going back to school in fall. they never asked me about it. that’s the only thing i’m jealous of white people for, that their parents know how to do all the college stuff. they wouldn’t check up on if i was caught up in the paperwork, or if i had talked to the school, or if i did my financial aid — they just assumed that i would do it on my own. and i did do it on my own, because i knew that they wouldn’t know how to help me.

i pushed myself.

after finally doing all the stuff for the school here, and finally setting up my classes and everything (thank god), i told dad how i was thinking of switching my major. i told him i was gonna switch to architecture. his only response was “that sounds like a reliable degree!”

i always switched up what i wanted because i want multiple things. but the one thing that i know for a fact i want, is to write. so he was still as happy when i told him that i was going to keep doing english, but i’m dropping the education courses. im switching to creative writing.

then we talked about grad school for a bit and i told him that i was planning on going to Utah or Minnesota near Juni. i think he’s more supportive of Utah, just because it’s closer to Cali. Mar is going to Cali for law, she takes all her law exam shits later this school year, and then is probably going to talk to grandma about moving in to the little studio in the back. grandma is obviously going to say yes.

dad also didn’t care that i stopped working. i mean, i know a part of did, but he never said anything. i like to think that i did a good job hiding how i was doing mentally, but every week dad would ask if i wanted to get a slushee from Sonic, which i know is his way of trying to make me feel better.

i stopped with the TEFL program i was doing. i know i’ll pick it up sometime later. right now i have to worry about getting an internship, grad school, applying for the study abroad program, and this upcoming semester. the fact that i’m graduating next winter feels like a sin. i just started college. maybe i should be more appreciative of the fact that i’m finishing early early.

also getting a job. but i have confidence that God has something better for me planned. i have enough money to pay for my car bill next month, and just barely enough for the one after that (i might have to ask dad to help a bit). the only reason i feel bad leaving the school in dallas, is because i was on a full scholarship. i think my parents paid like $1000 the whole semester and that was for the room i was staying in.

i don’t expect mom and dad to pay for this semester, especially since it was my choice to move back home. so i know i have to pay for it on my own. i’m okay with working 24/7 if it means they don’t have to worry about it. but, i know how dad is. he’d go into debt if it means i get to go to college.

Mar and i are on our own for grad school though, they made that VERY clear LMAO. i might check out that women’s only university that Ms. Burger told me about. she got her M.F.A there and said she loved it. she was a crazy woman, talking about how she lived in London, how she’s okay with being 57 and single because she has her dog, how she wrote her thesis on Little Women.

anyways, i feel like i’ve written enough. even though nobody reads this. it’s like i’m bothering my future self for whenever i do reread this. i talk a lot. i only really took notice of it because of how often i keep YAPPING to 26y/o. he said he doesn’t mind, but i’m scared that he does. because why would he want to hear some stupid 19 year old vent about stupid shit. either way i’m appreciative of it.

yesterday we played fortnite. he’s really good lmao. we won most of our games! it was really funny. the dynamic of our relationship is really funny. there’s like a 7 year (about to be 6!!) age gap between us which for the most part doesn’t really matter. but he’s experienced so many more things than me, and it’s very obvious at times. like when i talk about uni and my future, and then i realize that this mf already has his shit figured out. like, he’s GROWN. it’s really funny though. i made this grown man play fortnite with me. and it was fun!

ugh, i said i was gonna stop this text post but i always have to much to say. i miss juni. so so so very much. he’s literally my soul partner. i dream that im at his house sometimes. in the living room, i’m laying sideways on the couch and he’s laying on the recliner. his parents in the kitchen making dinner. his younger sister in her room playing roblox. i always feel at home when i’m there, as strange as it sounds. i’m eternally grateful that his family accepted me so easily. and that his mom loves me. it’s july there too.

i miss mn. i’m not going to be going there anytime soon, because juni is coming here in september. so i probably wont be there until december. which sucks because it means that i’m going to have to get a new job. since i’m taking 2 weeks to go to mexico, 1 for mn, and then 1 to go to georgia to visit Cav. so that’s like, the whole month! i’ll stress about it later.

none of these things are permanent so why stress? im just 19 (ugh i’m gonna keep saying this even after im 20.).

20 is so close and its scary. i feel like a baby. my dad still has to drive me around the city, and mom still eats dinner with me.

i think mom knows that my eating is getting worse again. she’s not very (i forgot the word but it has the same meaning as “slick with it”), as she’s always calls me during her lunch break to go “oh what did you eat for breakfast?”

that’s the only reason i have lunch with her sometimes. to ease her worries i guess. juni is more normal about it, he ask “did you eat?” like once every few days. i’m glad he’s like that but it also upsets me. i don’t think he understands my mental health issues, or my issues in general. he told me he didn’t care to learn about it because i’m a human and not an animal. which i understand. but also like, this is a part of me that isn’t going away.

i feel like we are at two different places sometimes. which is crazy because of how close we are, literal soul ties. i’ve known him all my life.

anyways. i think i’ll end this here. i’m sorry if there are any typos or inconsistencies in my writing here. i use this as a diary, i guess. i graduated with a 4.3 and got so many scholarships to write (because woo! there’s a lack of representation when it comes to latin authors getting published in the US! especially women!) so how jarring would it be for me to say that i never paid attention during english class. i don’t know what a preposition is, i don’t know how to properly structure sentences sometimes, but that’s okay!

i lied again. i did pay attention to english class. i just forgot almost everything i learned.

i’m getting hungry. i think i’m gonna get boba later. anyways. goodbye, i love you.

[yyxgin]

lee felix’s guide to hating you

— ♡ FIC BANNER MADE BY THE AMAZING @chogiwow !!

pairing: lee felix x fem!reader genre: college au, tutor au ; fluff, angst, slice of life, slow burn word count: 21 k warnings: mentions of alcohol, mention of weed, swearing, bad family relationships

a/n: this story is very briefly inspired by jaemin’s drama ‘the way i hate you’ :) also this idea has been in my mind for such a long time, so i’m happy i finally managed to write it. this is also my longest fic so far, i hope it’s worth it. uhh yea enjoy <3

taglist: @feyregels​ @missskzbiased​ @hyunyin​ @koishua​ @crispy-chan​ @rindomo​ @soulssung​ @thatrandomoneinthecorner​ @90shermione​ @chogiwow​ @creatichee​ @freckledberries​ @hyunnies-stars​ 

There’s a list of things Lee Felix knew before applying for college-- and that is: 1) he really, desperately needs a degree for his grandparents to value him as an equal adult, 2) college in young adult movies seems like fun and partying and alcohol really does sound like his wettest dream, 3) he doesn’t need to work for another 4 years, which is fun and 5) he is really, horribly bad at studying.

Here’s a list of things Lee Felix, however, did not know before applying for college, and even though it’s fairly shorter, it hits you in the guts deeper, and that is: 1) studying for college means never ending chapters of insomnia and 2) he is always going to feel like the second choice for everyone. 

You see, girls don’t like Felix that much. Well, that’s a lie-- girls do go after him, tell him he’s cute and his freckles are adorable, but that’s only after they find out there’s no use in chasing after his best friend Han Jisung when he gets himself a new significant other. Boys don’t go after Felix either. Why, you may ask? Read the paragraph over again-- just change the word girls to the word boys. It’s as simple as that. He’s always the second choice, the back-up plan. It feels silly to drag his grandma into this, really, but the truth is, he’s a second choice in every aspect of his life, and that, too, includes his big (and still growing) family that treats him as something less than a human just because of the fact that his grades aren’t as good as his cousin’s are and he doesn’t have a degree in biological science, although he’s too young for that and his college years only started. It’s hard, living in his shoes.

What is Felix, however, really good at? 

Cheating.

Yeah, well, you see-- it’s not funny to be the outcast of the smart Lee family and it’s also not enetaining in the slightest to be the only single one at family gatherings (read as: weddings, because every single one of his relatives decided to fuck up their life with marriage in the past three years for some unknown reason). So Felix does what he’s the best at, and that is going by his favorite life motto: fake it ‘til you make it. 

He cheats on every single one of his exams and believe me when I tell you he’s the top of the class just because he’s the best cheater in town. Good cheating techniques equal good grades and suddenly, Felix’s life seems much brighter when he spends his sleepless nights with creating cheat sheets instead of studying and copying essays written in korean, translating them to english and submitting them as his own because no one will ever notice-- his degree is within the reach of his hand and he can already feel all the grandmas of the family clapping in joy, maybe even wiping away a stray tear on his graduation ceremony in a few years with bouquets of flowers in their hands and expensive watches in their gift bags, ready to welcome him back into the family.. 

What he doesn’t expect, though, is the cute little saying of ‘every lie has short legs’ he swears he heard sometimes in his linguistic class before, coming to life right in front of his eyes as the professor of his Biology class makes him the assigned tutor of the sweet Y/N Y/L/N, because, well, he clearly doesn’t know anything-- what’s he supposed to tutor now? 

The best cheating techniques?

The freckled boy sitting in front of you looks at you with furrowed brows and you wonder what’s the matter with him. Is there something on your face? Are you not dressed appropriately for the occasion? I mean, it’s only a tutoring session, so you didn’t put that much effort into it, but judging from the casual outfit enveloping his body, he didn’t really try to look fancy either. So what was it with him that made him stare you down as if you had horns on your head?

“Shall we start?” he asks once he’s done staring, voice sounding determined. You wonder if he sees the hints of nervousness on your face and if he notices the way you shrink in your seat in the mention of biology, but you guess he doesn’t know you that well to know that you fear the subject as much as you fear dying. 

“Yeah, sure,” you nod, scooting closer to the edge of your seat so you’re not so far away from the table. Felix-- your new biology tutor-- is sitting opposite of you and it’s quite difficult to read the text book once it’s upside down, but you don’t dare to mention it to him for a reason that’s unknown to you as well. It’s like you don’t want to overstep any invisible boundary on your first tutoring session, and telling the person that is teaching you to turn around the text book so you can actually see and learn something seems to be one of the taboos in your eyes. 

You take a quick glance at the waiter that just stopped next to your booth and smile, opening up your mouth to order yourself a meal. “Can I get you anything else?” she asks.

“No-” Felix offers her with a shy smile, but you cut him off with a voice a little higher in the octaves, not wanting your tutor coming in between you and reaching your biggest goal you’ve set for yourself.

“Actually, yes. Could I please get the chicken wings? With fries?” you ask, trying to look as innocent as you can, smiling at her in politeness. You ignore the confused look Lee Felix is offering you from the other side of the table. You mentally send him a signal to tell him to mind his own business, watching the waitress leave with a nod and a polite smile. 

“Okay, now we can start,” you nod at him and focus all your attention to the boy with sandy hair in front of you.

“O...kay?” he answers, obviously trying to bat away his rising confusion, because ordering yourself chicken wings on your tutoring session is prohibited now, apparently. “So,” he starts, sighing and scratching the back of his neck, “what do you not understand from this section?” 

You nervously chew on the bottom of your lip. Well, that’s a sweet question, you think. It would have been much sweeter and much easier to answer, though, if you understood at least a bit from the things you’re supposed to know. You went to university with the urge to prove something to yourself, but the only thing you’re proving to yourself right now is the fact that you are actually kind of useless, when it comes to biology.

“Just like the… whole thing, actually,” you nod, trying not to look as defeated as you feel and also trying not to burst out in a manic laugh as you always do when you feel slightly nervous about anything.

“Cool, cool, yeah,” he nods, taking a deep breath in, turning the textbook around and sighing, “I don’t think I can help you with that.”

“What do you mean you can’t?” you ask, confused. 

Lee Felix is the top of the grade. He is the best at biology, he is the best at chemistry, he is the best at his farmacy class. You’re sure he’ll be a fine biochemist in a few years, when his college times are over. Lee Felix is the smartest boy in your biology class and you are, coincidentally, quite the opposite on this spectrum. Which is exactly why your teacher managed to make Felix tutor you in his free time. You weren’t surprised at the fact that the blonde boy agreed to this-- he was quite the sweetheart, really. All the girls in your class fawned upon the way his freckles shined in the sunlight and the way he opened the doors for older professors. He was quite the boy you would want to introduce to your parents. Not quite the one every girl goes after, but the one that you would want to settle down with after your college years are over.

So why is he, the sweet, but also smart boy that agreed to tutor you, now telling you he can’t help you?

“It’s just.. I’m not really good at this section, I mean-”

“Felix, you’re the top of the class. Of course you’re good at this section.” you mumble, gazing deep into his eyes, trying to search for an answer.

“I-” he says and takes a sharp breath in, stopping himself in continuing his train of thought and just opting to shrug, not giving you a proper response either.

You feel like someone just punched you in the gut, and that’s when you realise-- here it is again. Another person that doesn’t believe in you-- another person that needs proving that you really can do it, you just need a little push. You can see it in his eyes that he doesn’t think you’re smart or bright enough to pass the exams, you’re not good enough to get good grades. It’s nothing new to you, but it still haunts you just the same.

“Is it because you know I can’t do it?” you bluntly ask, sighing. 

“No! No, no, I never said that-” he says, almost panicking with the way his hands fly into the air hurriedly, waving them around as if it was meant to calm you down. 

“You’re acting like it, though. I promise I’m not stupid- well, maybe I am, but-”

“You’re not stupid! It’s me! I’m the stupid one here.” he says, effectively silencing you with his words as you stare at him, dumbfounded. He’s joking, right?

“How can you be stupid when you get only the best grades? Felix, if you just don’t want to waste your time here, tell me, but don’t try to hide behind poor excuses.” you roll your eyes, feeling frustrated at the boy’s antics. Does he really think you’re that stupid that you can’t see right through his lies?

“I cheat.”

You blink a few times as if to reset your brain, gazing at him with pure confusion written in your orbs. He cheats? No. That’s a lie. A person as good at biology as Felix can’t cheat. All his exams are on 100% and he never makes any mistakes. He’s the epitome of the smart kid. The little Einstein. The prodigy. There’s no way it’s all cheating.

“No.” you shake your head in disapproval. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying! Look, I genuinely, really want to help you. I really do. The thing is, though, I don’t know how to study. I make cheat sheets and I use them at every exam and every test, that’s why everyone thinks I’m super smart, but that is really not the case,” he shakes his head, staring into your eyes with his wide open in honesty, wanting you-- no,-- needing you to understand. “I would tutor you if I could, really, but I just don’t know how to,” he sighs finally, acting like he’s just given birth or ran a marathon, exhaustion written all over his face.

“So why did you offer to tutor me, then?” you ask.

He takes a moment for himself to collect his thoughts, before he speaks up again. “Well, I didn’t really want to get caught. You see, I would never turn my back to anyone. Really. So I thought I could at least try to learn something? So I could help you? But I failed, as always, so I’m just coming clean in front of you and you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone.”

The moment the last sentence leaves his mouth, you notice the apparent fear in his eyes, realising that he just shared an information with you that nobody really knows. It’s a secret he’s been hiding and keeping from everyone just to appear as the smartest one-- fooling everyone, including you. You feel even more stupid now, under his gaze. You feel played. You came to the tutoring, hoping to finally get a grip, when all you get is a person that is stepping all over the sandcastle of your fragile dreams, kicking every little piece of sand away with his lies. You know you shouldn’t feel so invested in this. You shouldn’t feel so hurt. But somehow, you still do. 

“So you just told me you are lying to everyone and cheating on tests and you want me to keep it a secret from everyone?” you ask in disbelief.

“Yes.” he nods, eyes hopeful. He’s been lying for the last year as if his life was depending on it and now he wants you to do the same-- keep quiet in front of everyone.

“And what do I do when the professor asks me why I’m not getting any better? Huh? Ever thought of that?” you leash out, harshly chewing on your bottom lip in nerves. “I want to pass. And I want to do it fair and square.” you get out in between your teeth.

“I didn’t… I didn’t think of that yet, but-”

“Leave.” you say, looking him sternly into his eyes.

“What do you mean, leave?”

“I don’t want to talk to you anymore. And you’re clearly not here to teach me anything, so you can just take your things and leave.” you spit out, crossing your hands over your chest.

“You leave, then,” he mutters, looking rather offended. You’re not sure why he’s the one hurt right now, but you guess that’s just how men and their egos are, there’s nothing more under his hurt eyes and shattered self-esteem.

“I ordered food, I’m not leaving.” you calmly respond. Once you say this, you’re reminded of the little quest you made for yourself. Never once did you feel silly for taking it so seriously in front of your other friends, but now, in front of Lee Felix with freckled dusted cheeks, you feel almost invisible as you realise why you even ordered the chicken wings and how you’re going to write a yelp review about them later.

Well, someone has to do it, and if not you, then who will, right? It’s the only valid way to find out who makes the best chicken wings in the town and not even your traitor-tutor is going to stop you now, when your list is only getting shorter and shorter. 

He stares at you for a few moments, dumbfounded, before he sighs and accepts his defeat. “Okay, I’ll just have to text my roommate to pick me up,” he admits.

You nod, just in time the server comes back with your food, offering her a welcoming smile. “Fine. But don’t even think of talking to me from now on. I’m not interested in more lies,” you spit at him, scowling as you take a look at the plate of chicken wings sitting in front of you in their full glory. You sense a very bad review, judging from the way the chicken wings look nothing like wings, rather full on small chickens dipped in oil, but dive in nonetheless. 

“Why do you have to be so dramatic?” he asks, voice coated in disbelief.

“Because I was scammed!” you yell out, mouth full of chicken, not caring a second about the way you might look in the boy’s eyes. Yes, you could have at least swallowed before speaking to him, but did you do it? No. No, you didn’t. 

“Oh come on-”

“Don’t even try arguing with me!” you spit at him-- quite glad that this time, it’s not literal-- and huff out in annoyance, when the door opens and a short boy with a bucket hat on steps into the bistro, the red fabric of the seats of the booths contrasting with his shoes in a way that makes you feel captivated, your eyes refusing to tear themselves away from him. 

The boy is taking quick steps to your booth and you almost choke on your chicken wings as you admire his full glory-- tanned skin and car keys in his hand, but his eyes meet the boy sitting opposite of you and that’s when everything clicks. This is not the boy of your dreams, this is Han Jisung. Your tutor’s best friend and roommate-- also known as the resident heartbreaker. You shouldn’t feel weak in your knees when you look at him, but that’s exactly what happens and you won’t feel ashamed about it. Well, not now, at least. In a few hours when you’re lying in your bed? Maybe. But I’ll tell you then.

“Yo, dude, I texted you like five minutes ago that I’m waiting for you outside, what are you still doing here?” he asks, furrowing his brows at his roommate and slowly moving his eyes to you, scanning you up and down, leaving your heart to do the stupid cartwheel you haven’t felt since, like, middle school. 

“We were in the middle of an argument, so I didn’t hear my phone ring.” Felix answers, glaring at you with spiteful eyes. You almost prepare to kill him with yours, but you focus on wiping the oil from the corner of your mouth and smiling heavenly, trying to look like a lady in front of your new visitor.

“Was Felix being absolutely unbearable again?” he asks you, surprising you with his subtle way of engaging you into the conversation.

You giggle, rolling your eyes slightly. “Yeah. You know him too well, don’t you?”

“Unfortunately,” he admits, looking defeated, when he moves his eyes to Felix, looking rather sulky on the red seat in front of you as you chat with his roommate, when Jisung’s tone of voice changes into a more worried one, speaking up again, “does she… did you��?”

“Yeah,” Felix just nods. 

Jisung sighs, sitting down next to his roommate, pushing him a little so he has more space in the booth. “What are you supposed to tutor her anyway?” he asks.

“Biology,” you mumble sooner than Felix gets the chance to speak up, motioning to the textbook still sitting at the table in front of you. 

The boy takes a look at the papers, his face changing from a focused one to a one more lighter, his eyes scanning the papers with ease. You notice his mouth moving a little as he reads the words under his breath, catching yourself from staring when you feel Felix’s eyes burning into the crown of your head, snapping you back to reality. 

“You know… maybe I could help you with that.” he says, looking like a business offering you a deal that you’re sure involves something illegal. He looks like a focused squirrel with his cheeks puffed out a little in what you sense is pride, something in his eyes glowing as you nervously chew on your bottom lip.

“Really?”

“Yeah, of course. I’m actually quite good at biology, to be honest. Well, not as much as Felix over here-” he jokes, scowling when the blonde boy punches his arm, “but I think I could tutor you a thing or two.”

“What’s the catch?” you ask, nervously watching him. Something in his composure is telling you he’ll want something in return, but you don’t know what yet. You’re quite sure you’ll sell your soul for the adorable boy in front of you if he asked you to, but it never hurts to ask beforehand, right? 

“What do you mean, what’s the catch?”

“Like… what do you want in return?” you muse out, taking a bite of a fry, noticing how soggy it feels under your teeth.

“Woah, you spend 15 minutes with Felix and you already think there’s something illegal behind everything? I’ll let you know, I’m better than that.” he scoffs. “I’m just doing it because I see how miserable you are. And I also don’t want you to tell on my buddie over here.” he adds, smiling warmly.

You take notice of the way Felix’s eyes grow twice their size and how Jisung’s knee lightly bumps into his under the table. It’s subtle, but you think that maybe this is when you fully fell for the short boy in front of you-- when he offered to save his best friend’s ass by helping out a lost girl with biology. And who are you to say no now? I mean, you need the tutoring nonetheless. Who cares if the boy tutoring you is someone else? Maybe it’s even more appealing to you this way, but you’ll never admit that out loud.

“Okay then, sure.” you nod, grinning from ear to ear, feeling satisfied.

“Great. Now, give me half the fries and we can arrange our next tutoring session,” he smiles, “oh, and I’m Han Jisung, by the way.”

He winks. 

You should be disturbed, but strangely, you’re not. You grin back at him, offering him the soggy fries you’re sure you’re going to give a really bad review in the evening, watching his composure change into a more laid-back one, engaging you in a conversation and slunging an arm around his best friend’s shoulders.

Lee Felix remains silent. He feels it once again-- he feels the loneliness of being left out. 

And he’s sure it won’t be the last time.

Lee Felix knows damn well how it feels to be the third wheel. He’s hung out with Jisung and his potential love interests multiple times, he’s even been on double dates with the said male, yet, he always somehow ends up being left out. So why does it still feel the same? Why does he still feel that restless feeling in his stomach, the emptiness in his chest, just like the first time? I guess you never get used to some things and emotions are one of them. No matter how much you argue that you know a feeling so well it doesn’t even surprise you anymore, it still hurts the same. That’s funny about emotions. Sometimes, they can’t even make you numb.

“Hurry up dude, the bistro closes in an hour and half!” Jisung rushes the taller male (not tall, just taller. Don’t misunderstand.) with his car keys in his hand, twirling them around his fingers in a nervous manner. Felix notices his roommate has put some effort into his outfit today, considering the lemon supreme shirt enveloping his body that he saves only for special occasions, yet, Felix doesn’t realise why he had to put it on when they’re literally just going out to eat some soggy fries in the bistro close to their house. He doesn’t ask, though. He doesn’t want the car key stuck in his forehead. He also doesn’t know why they have to rush so much, since they have an hour and half left before they close, but again, he doesn’t dare to say it out loud. 

Felix quickly puts his shoes on and rolls his eyes at his roommate. “I’m ready,” he announces.

Jisung swiftly takes a bottle of cologne from the table in their small hall (it’s so small they don’t even have a mirror in it, because there was no use in taking mirror selfies when all you can see on the picture is your phone case due to the fact that the room is too narrow for you to move further away) and sprays his body wit hit, efficiently confusing his roommate. “You wanna smell great for the waiter there? Because from what I remember, he was a stoner-”

“Oh, shut up. You never know when you’re gonna meet someone cute, am I right?” he asks, grinning from ear to ear like a cat, taking his backpack with him and opening the front door, “gotta look and smell presentable at all times.”

Felix wonders if this is why everyone always goes after his best friend. 

No, he thinks, it cannot be the cloud of cologne hanging around his body. It’s heavy and it makes Felix cough a little, but he tries to mask it, because he’s fairly sure Jisung won’t pay for his fries today if he doesn’t. And Felix is a simple man-- if he can get something for free, he will do anything to achieve it.

They arrive at the place in a few minutes and Felix can already feel his mouth watering at the thought of the salty fries and cheeseburger he’s going to get himself, joyfully skipping inside the bistro and waiting in the queue. Jisung follows him, standing next to him, efficiently covering the smell of the oil and all the good things on this earth-- read as fast food-- making Felix scowl. The boy behind the register, is, in fact, Na Jaemin-- the resident frat boy. Felix’s heard all about him from the girls staying at the dorms and to be honest, he’s quite glad he doesn’t have to live the stories of getting caught with weed at Jaemin's party on his own. That, and the fact that hot water runs in his apartment. Na Jemin might have the weed, but he surely doesn’t have that in his college dorm room. 

“Three milkshakes, two large fries, chicken wings and a cheeseburger, please.” Jisung orders, confusing Felix in one sentence. Since when is his best friend a bottomless pot for food? Is he really going to eat all of that?

“Coming right at you. Anything else?” Jaemin asks, voice considerate and polite, still turned on his customer service mode, even though Felix is sure him and Jisung have had shared a joint or two on one of his parties before.

“No, that’s all. Thanks, man,” Jisung answers, leaving with Felix right behind him. 

“Who’s gonna eat all of that? I hope you know you’re paying, and before you protest, yes, I did purposefully leave my wallet at home-” he rambles, still moving, when his train of thought is cut off by a person in his view.

You are sitting there in your full glory, smiling brightly at the boys approaching you. You’re dressed nicely, he notices-- you look like you put some effort into what you’re wearing. You don’t look that much different, but he can still see the slight changes you made to look neat. You’re glowing, Felix notices. You look excited.

“Hi, Y/N,” Jisung greets, taking a seat opposite of you. He doesn’t even give Felix an answer, he doesn’t even give him an explanation. He’s left there only to take a seat next to his roommate after collecting his thoughts, chewing on his bottom lip.

The conversation never moves his way. He is silenced. Felix wonders why he was even invited, watching the people behind the window laughing with their friends, happy to order some tasty food and have fun on this Thursday evening. He watches his friend and his classmate have fun-- well, as much fun as a tutoring session could be. You’re laughing at every single one of Jisung’s jokes and he swears Jisung’s eyes never leave your face, even when he’s explaining something to you. He wonders why Jisung didn’t tell him where they’re going. He wonders why he even had to come.

Lee Felix knows how third-wheeling feels. Yet, it still makes his little foolish heart hurt just the same every time.

You nervously chew on your bottom lip, cracking your knuckles in a habit your friends always scream at you for, waiting for your tutor-- well, he’s not really your tutor anymore-- to appear in the bistro on the other side of the town. You admire the decorations for a while, liking the way it looks modern here and the purple led lights make the whole place look aesthetic. You can already imagine multiple college kids going here and taking instagram pictures to look cool. It’s nice and you’ll definitely include it in your yelp review-- it won’t make it more stars, though, if the chicken wings don’t taste like heaven.

You tug on the sleeves on your hoodie, as if you were trying to make yourself disappear. I mean, you do feel embarrassing. You feel pathetic that it had to come down to this, but you guess desperate times call for desperate solutions. You’re not here to look put-together anymore. You’re going to show him your full glory and although you regret it a little, you still have a little spark of hope in you that Han Jisung-- the boy you, admittedly, were crashing on real hard right now, won’t find out.

Felix comes into the bistro in his full VSCO boy glory, as always. He is wearing a jean jacket and his freckled cheeks are dusted pink, you’d almost think he’s blushing all the time. He doesn’t quite fit the aesthetics of this futuristic looking bistro, you notice. The retro places you’ve been to so far fit him much more-- his sandy hair contrasted well with the yellow walls and red booths. It was starting to get a little repetitive, though, you must admit.

“Hi,” he greets you as he takes his seat, smiling at you with what you can only describe as a feeling of full uncomfort. You wonder what made him feel this way about you, but you don’t dare to think of it twice as you focus on the main quest of the day-- forcing him to teach you his ways.

“Hello,” you smile. 

Felix notices how natural you look-- it feels like now is the first time he’s seeing you in your full glory. You aren’t wearing your neat clothes for a meeting with Jisung and you’re not too casual like you were at your first ‘tutoring session’ either-- you’re just you. The way he doesn’t even see you in classes. He likes the fact that no one else than him can see you like this-- he likes the fact that Jisung is nowhere around, yet, he wonders why is that, exactly, since the two of you seemed to be hitting it off quite well so far.

Felix hasn’t been with Jisung when he last tutored you. He figured there’s no use, he’s going to get ignored all the time anyway. 

“So… what’s the matter?” he asks, folding his hands into his lap. He dares to take a quick look at you, noticing your worn-out shirt and dark circles under your eyes, worry washing over him. Did something happen? Was Jisung a jerk to you? 

“Well, I sort-of have a little problem,” you mumble out, tearing your gaze away from him. You seem shy for the first time in front of him and he wonders why. He doesn’t understand your sudden change of behaviour. This isn’t the you he’s used to. “Well, turns out, I am really stupid.” you propose, leaving Felix to gaze at you in surprise.

He chuckles. You swiftly look up at him with piercing eyes telling him to stop, and he almost does, but your face looks too adorable when it’s scrunched up like that, so he only giggles once more. “You’re not stupid.”

“I am!” you whine out, finally letting your whole shy facade fall, exposing the true you once again right in front of Felix’s eyes-- direct and fierceful. “Even Jisung’s tutoring isn’t helping and I feel so stupid with him! And I don’t want him to think that I’m stupid, even though I am, and I just… I can’t pass my exams like this, so I need your help.” you say, eyes big, looking almost pleading.

“And I am supposed to help… how? Exactly?” The confusion is written all over his face, and it almost makes you frustrated. You knew he must be smart, if his cheating has been so good he’s getting through college with straight As, but really, is he really that smart if he can’t read in between the lines?

“Help me cheat.” you quickly get out, biting down on your lower lip just as you say it, as if you were regretting it.

The silence that overtakes the two of you feels like it’s slowly going to eat you up alive, angrily biting into your skin. It feels heavy and suffocating, your palms sweating as you watch Felix blink at you with mouth agape, breathing in and out. You pray for him to make up his mind soon, or else you’re going to run out of the bistro without a yelp review, tearing the skin of your cuticles as you see him blink quickly a few times before shaking his head in disbelief, clearing his storage.

“You want me to help you cheat?” he asks for clarification, furrowing his brows at you.

“That’s correct.” you nod, chewing on the inside of your cheek. You haven’t been this nervous since you took your college entrance exams, and that shows a lot, considering you used to say that has been the most difficult experience of your life so far.

“Because Jisung…. isn’t tutoring you well enough?” he asks again, making you roll your eyes in annoyance.

“Hey, don’t put the blame on Jisung! I’m just stupid, that’s all.” you say, looking down into your lap, because his gaze suddenly feels like he’s judging you and you really don’t feel like maintaining eye contact with him when you’re under pressure.

“If you don’t stop saying that, I will kick you.”

“You wouldn’t dare-”

“I would and I will-”

“Okay, but is that a yes, then?” you look up at him with hopeful eyes, resembling a puppy just a little too much, and, well, Felix can’t just reject you now, can he?

“I.. guess…?” he says, watching your face light up in joy as you clap a few times in excitement. 

“Great! Can we start today? We have to start today! I brought my text books and papers and sharpies and-” you are cut off by Felix’s face lighting up at the sight of you, his eyes looking warm and admiring. You quickly shake away the excitement before it goes too far and you actually go to hug him or something, taking a deep breath in and out to calm yourself down.

Just in that moment, the server appears with two servings of chicken wings and two large fries, making Felix look at you in confusion. 

“I ordered you food, since I thought we’ll stick around for a while..” you mumble, seeing him eagerly nod and take one fry into his hand, biting down on it with a face full of pleasure. 

“Perfect. Just let me eat a few of these and we can get right into work, I promise,” he mutters with a mouth full of food, prompting you to take a bite yourself. It doesn’t taste the worst-- the bistro you went to after prom last year was definitely worse than this, but still, you don’t think Felix’s face quite resembles how the food tastes. He looks as if the Queen of England made it. In reality, it’s just a soggy fry. 

“Why do you always order the same thing? Aren’t you tired of eating the same thing over and over again?” he asks suddenly, examining your face with real interest. No one’s ever noticed your eating habits before, just shrugging off what you order every single time. Your little fast food experiment has been a secret so far, even though it wasn’t that hard to cover it up-- nobody really cared until now. 

You feel blush creeping on your cheeks as you shrug, feeling a little embarrassed for like the hundredth time today, when you reply to the boy in front of you. You know his secret, so it only feels valid for him to know yours. “I have this experiment… like, I try chicken wings and fries at every single bistro, restaurant and fast food chain in the town to find out which one’s the best…” you mumble, looking into your plate instead of facing him out of the ugly feeling of patheticness creeping up your back.

“Oh, that’s cool!” he exclaims, pointing his fry your direction, a response you didn’t quite expect, “Where do they have the best ones so far?” he asks, genuine interest painting his features.

“Oh,” you get out, feeling your lips unvoliteraly tug into a smile, “I don’t.. I still have a few bistros and the McDonald’s on the highway out of the city left, but I’d say the best ones so far were at Wendy’s. I didn’t quite like the chicken wings there, though, so…”

“Hmm,” he nods, deep in thought, “we just get food at where’s the closest.” he says, munching on a chicken wing. “I guess we could pay a little more attention to the food from now on, because after eating this, I’m never going to eat the food from the bistro right in front of our flat again.”

“Yeah, that bistro’s really awful. I only gave it around 2.5 stars, I think-” you say, before you realise you just spilled out another secret to him, feeling your cheeks heating up. 

“2.5 stars? What, do you write yelp reviews or something?” he asks, clearly amused by your accidental spill-out.

“And what if I do?” you defend yourself, glaring at him with fake annoyance. No man will ever make fun of you because you write yelp reviews. Not Lee Felix, even though he seems too nice to actually make fun of you because of something, not anyone. 

“That’s cool, though! Those help so much when you travel,” he says, eagerly nodding at you with big eyes and an adorable grin plastered on his face, making you feel understood and happy with just the sudden sign of acceptance. Turns out your little weird obsession isn’t as embarrassing as you thought it was. Or Lee Felix really is the sweetest guy walking on this earth. Either one is fine in your books.

You stay there for a few hours and Felix teaches you the basic cheat codes-- never meet the teacher’s eye, never finish your tests too quickly, always forcefully pick the wrong option before scribbling it out and putting in a correct one to not seem too suspicious. He even takes a piece of paper from you and scribbles down the basic cheat-sheet making structure. 

He feels good with you. He feels useful. He knows he shouldn’t be teaching you this, but really, is it really doing any harm? We all have to go through college somehow.

Yet, all evenings always end the same for Felix, with a bad feeling in his gut and a fake smile on his face hiding the true meaning behind his actions. He’ll never be the first choice and you remind him even today, after you leave the ‘tutoring session’ with a quick hug to the male, lowering your voice so only he can hear when you pay him your goodbyes.

“Don’t tell Jisung, okay?”

Of course. It’s all because you don’t want to look embarrassing in front of his best friend.

It goes all how you planned it to-- you’re sitting at your next tutoring session with two males in front of you. One of them is your supposed tutor and one of them is a boy that’s helping you pass your exams for real. You’re into one of them, even though you shouldn’t. You wonder how you even ended up in this mess. You swear you were a good student in high school, always submitting your assignments on time and making sure your tests were on 100%. It was kind of fueling your ego, in a way. You had no other plans in your life to hold on to, no dreams to dream, so you reasoned to do the only thing that you were good at-- getting good grades. You had to prove to yourself that there was a reason, a meaning behind your life. You had to prove to yourself that your existence was valid.

You watch Jisung with interest. You pray to god that he doesn’t catch you in your act, because that would surely be embarrassing. You don’t want him to find out that you’re just fine with cheating, because that meant your tutoring sessions with the male would end and there was no other reason for you to see him. You knew Han Jisung wasn’t interested in you. You were sure you’d see it on him if he was. And even then, you weren’t interested in only a short relationship without any good point. You liked Jisung, but you didn’t like his reputation. One week wasn’t long enough for you to waste your time on him and get your heart broken. You weren’t sure if he was a player, or if he just wanted to desperately find the one by trying all the possibilities, but you weren’t going to find out. 

Felix watches you with interest in his eyes-- but you don’t notice. He prays that Jisung doesn’t find out about your secret little ‘tutoring sessions’, because that would mean he wouldn’t have a reason to hang out with you anymore. And Felix really doesn’t want that to happen. For some reason, he doesn’t want you to ever frown. And he’s sure that’s exactly what would happen if Jisung cancelled.

It doesn’t click to him what’s happening inside of his little, foolish heart when he sees you smile at Jisung and his stomach fills with worry. 

It doesn’t click to him what’s happening with him when every time Jisung subtly takes your hand in his makes his insides twitch in frustration. He thinks it’s just because of the fact that he’s third-wheeling again, like all his life, and maybe that is partly true, but it’s not the whole reason behind the cloud around his head.

It clicks only when him and his roommate are back home, sitting at the dinner table with the left-overs from the new bistro you three went to, munching on the chicken wings and another pack of soggy french fries and the cola they had in their fridge.

“So… what do you think about Y/N?” Jisung asks suddenly, making Felix furrow his brows in confusion.

“What should I think? She’s smart, I guess…” he mumbles, mouth full of food, not quite grasping the full meaning of his roommate’s question. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Jisung quickly nods in approval, “she’s getting really good. I mean, you can still see she’s having some troubles when I’m tutoring her, but at least she always gets good grades on tests now,” he says, biting down on another piece of chicken wing. Felix feels a wave of pride wash over him after hearing the words-- of course you’re doing well on exams. It’s all Felix’s doing. You’re a quick learner, when it comes to cheating. 

“Yeah, she’s good,” he says. 

“Well,” Jisung suddenly starts, meaning to sound nonchalantly, but only sounding like he’s determining his biggest life secret in front of his friend instead, “I like her.”

Felix almost chokes on the piece of chicken in his mouth, trying to play it off with a small chuckle. “Oh? You do?”

“Yeah. Should I.. Should I ask her on a date or something?” he asks and Felix swears he can see his friend’s cheeks reddening a little, even though the last time he’s seen Jisung embarrassed was when he accidentally called their Math’s teacher mum in eleventh grade. 

“You don’t date, though,” Felix opposes.

“That’s not true-”

“Two weeks long relationships aren’t relationships, Jisung.” 

“Not my fault they’re never the one! It gets boring after a while, Felix, I can’t just-”

“Why are you even asking me this?” Felix suddenly cuts him off, glaring at him. He doesn’t know why he’s reacting in such a way. It’s not like it’s the first time Jisung is going to date someone for two weeks just to break their heart, it’s not the first time they’re going to run after Felix a week after just so they can still be around the one that broke their heart. This time, though, he does not want to see another heart get broken.

“Jesus, chill, man… I was just asking, since you two seem closer. Did she mention anything about me? Is she dating anyone?” Jisung asks, eyes lighting up.

Felix could be an asshole. He could tell Jisung that you’re already dating someone, he could tell him to back off and that you’re not interested. However, he does not do that. Instead, he does the quite opposite. He pushes his best friend into asking you out, he tells him he should try it, because that’s just the kind of person he is. Besides, he knows you’re into him. Maybe the smile on your face could make him forget about the fact that you’re going to get your heart broken. 

“Sure, go for it.” he shrugs, “I don’t really care anyway.”

“Fine, then-”

“I’m gonna shower.” Felix says, quickly standing up from his chair and moving to the bathroom, quickly escaping the conversation.

Only then he realises what he feeling in his gut means, only then he notices the way his sigh feels like the weight of the world is sitting on his shoulders and he can’t breathe any time you’re around Han Jisung. 

He realises he likes you. 

And clearly, you don’t like him back.

Emotions are something you never quite get used to. Even the emotion of feeling rejection, the emotion of always being behind his best friend’s shadow. Lee Felix is always just the friend. Never the love interest. This time, though, it feels even more heavy, because in a way, you seem way more special in his eyes than the people that went after him just to get with his best friend.

This time, he does not want to see another heart get broken. Because it’s your heart we’re talking about.

And to prevent his heart shattering to even more pieces, he has to do something.

He has to stop liking you.

As soon as possible.

“Y/N?” 

“Mhhm?” you ask, raising your eyes up from the cheat sheet you’re creating with Felix’s help, the grease of the fries you’re eating glistening on your chin. You’re with him in a yet another crappy bistro, trying yet another soggy fries, and even though there’s nothing special on you to a stranger’s eye, Felix’s heart can’t help but run twice the speed of light. 

“How do you stop liking someone?” he mumbles, furrowing his brows a little, deep in thought. 

“Oh, do you like someone?” you ask, and Felix momentarily lights up at the thought of you caring if he’s interested in someone, but when his eyes meet yours and he notices them glistening and lightening up in curiosity, he realises it’s just because you’re happy for him. As a good friend should be. 

“No, no,” he quickly shakes his head in disapproval, snickering to himself, “I’m just asking. Because, think, what if, hypothetically, there’s someone who is into someone else. Easy, right? But what if their best friend likes the same person? And you know you shouldn’t like them because they’re into their friend as well? What is there to do at that point?” 

You scan his face for a few seconds, thinking to yourself. “Hmm,” you start, “I guess you have to start hating them. So the feelings disappear.” you nod, satisfied with your answer.

“How’s that possible?” he asks, scoffing.

“Well, I don’t know, since it’s all hypothetical anyway,” you giggle, focusing back on your cheat sheet. Your notes are getting smaller and smaller and Felix notices the improvement in your small lettering, making your cheat sheet less noticeable. You’re learning quickly.

“Oh come on,” he whines, kicking your leg under the table, “talk to me. How can a person start hating someone? Give me a tutorial.” 

“Well, since you really need to know,” you roll your eyes, putting away the pen from your hand and resting your back against the seat of the booth, “there are a few steps you can take.”

“For example?”

“Well, you have to stop hanging out with them, first thing’s first.” you start. “Because if you don’t hang out with them, you will eventually hate the fact that they’re not near, which will, logically, make you hate them instead.”

“Is that really logical, though?” Felix asks, furrowing his brows at you. In his books, this made no sense at all, but you seemed pretty satisfied with your answer.

“Of course it is! Then, you have to find something about them that you can hate. Anything. Find even the smallest thing, and blow it up in your mind until you hate it. Easy, right?” 

“...I don’t think that’s helping at all,” he says, tone of voice unsure. 

“Of course it is! You’re just refusing that it can be true, because you think I’m stupid.” you stick out his tongue at him, focusing on your work instead.

He kicks you under the table, making you scowl. “Ow! What was that for?”

“I told you that if you’ll make that comment again, I will kick you. So I just did right that.” he says. “Besides, your ideas are stupid. Not you. There’s a difference in that.” he smartly points out, making you roll your eyes at him.

“So, who is it that you like?”

“No one. I told you, it’s hypothetical.” he glares at you.

“Right,” you nod, sighing, “well, I’ll just stick to that, since that means Jisung doesn’t like anyone and I still have a chance.” you smile at him, obviously missing out on the way your words just punched him into the gut. Felix laughs it out, kicking you in the shin instead.

“Right. Of course you do,” he nods. He wishes he didn’t mean that.

You two remain in silence for a moment, while you get back to your work and Felix pretends he’s playing a game on his phone. You don’t notice the way his eyes scan you over, admiring you, once in a while. No one ever does. He guesses this is the perk of always being just the friend. The one people are friends with just because they want something from him. The one that gets taken advantage of. He chooses not to think about it more. Maybe if he did, he could hate you over it, if he wasn’t so used to that feeling anyway. 

“We should hang out on the weekend,” you say, taking him by surprise.

“Oh?” he mumbles out, “with Jisung?”

“No?” you furrow your brows, “look, I know I look like I’m obsessed with him, but I actually just want to hang out with you alone as friends once in a while, you know.”

“We’re hanging out now, though.”

“It’s midnight, Felix,” you point out, “and we’re working. I want to hang out with my friend, like a normal person, you know.” you shrug.

“Yeah…” he says, when your words resonate in his mind like a broken curse. ‘Don’t hang out with them.’ Don’t hang out with her. You have to hate her. He has to start hating you-- there’s no other way. And so, he turns to taking your words into consideration. He can’t meet with you if he’s not ‘tutoring’ you. There’s no way. “We’ll see. I’ll tell you if I’m free.” he smiles warmly instead, because truth be told, he’ll never tell you no to your eyes. He’s always been a bit of a coward. And he also doesn’t want you to frown. Ever.

“Great!” you smile. 

And when Felix comes home that night, at 2am in the morning when his roommate is already asleep-- not knowing of your secret meetings, he lays down in his bed and repeats your advice like a broken mantra. He can’t like you. He has to hate you.

Lee Felix’s guide to hating you: 1. Don’t hang out with her. Only meet her when it’s necessary. If you don’t meet her, you’ll start hating her absence, resulting in hating her altogether. 2. Find a small thing about her to blow up so much you start to hate it. 

That’s not difficult. He hates that you like Han Jisung. It’s a small mistake, a small flaw, but he’s ready to blow it up so much he hates you for it. He hates that he’s not the first choice. He hates that you don’t like him.

Maybe he would hate you more if you were dating his best friend for real.

Lee Felix’s guide to hating you: 1. Don’t hang out with her. 2. Find a thing to hate about her. SUCCESS! 3. Set her up with Han Jisung.

Now, this plan is bulletproof, isn’t it?

Felix unexpectedly breaks the first step of his guide only a few days later-- on a chilly friday afternoon, when his body is hurriedly skipping to the edge of the town centre only to meet with you. Just for the record, though, Felix didn’t intend to break the promise he gave to himself. He really wasn’t going to hang out with you if he didn’t specifically need to, but, well… you called Jisung to hang out. Felix’s heart almost skipped a few beats when he was added to a three-person big group chat with you and his roommate and at that point, he wasn’t going to reject an invitation to the fare in town, because he was fairly sure Jisung didn’t like rollercoasters and he wanted to see you laugh your ass off at him in front of everyone. Is it a little spiteful? Possibly. Does he care? Not that much.

Besides, it’s only one time. It will never happen again!!

He finds you with your black leather jacket on, stepping from one leg to the other, looking around like a lost puppy. Felix mentally curses at himself for not coming sooner so you wouldn’t feel so alone and awkward in the mass of people, when he realises he’s already 15 minutes late because of his afternoon class and his roommate is nowhere to be found.

“Thank god! I thought you were going to bail on me as well,” you call out when Felix is close enough, smiling at him.

“Where’s Jisung?”

“He texted me like 5 minutes ago that he can’t make it today. Something about his mum being in town? I’m not sure,” you furrow your brows, “at least you’re here now, though.”

Felix is met with the realisation that he’s left alone with you again, mentally cursing at himself. This surely does not look like a plan to hating you. It looks like a bullet-proof plan on how to fall even deeper for you, with how your stray hairs are flying around your head and you adorably scrunch up your nose and sniffle from the cold. 

“Should we go?” he forces out of himself, looking at you hopefully.

“Yeah!” you nod, striding a few steps in front of him like a happy school girl excited to go to school for the first time. Felix can’t surpass the gentle smile forming on his lips, shaking his head in disbelief. You look so cheerful and so joyful, making his heart swell with how easily you manage to make him feel so young again. 

He follows you gladly, managing to match his speed with yours, almost forgetting for a moment that he’s not on a date with you, almost forgetting about the fact that you like his best friend and the smile you’re giving him is nothing against the wide grin you offer to his roommate.

“Let’s go on that one!” you cheer, taking Felix by the hand and tugging him your way, not once giving him the opportunity of letting go as you drag him all around the fare. You remind him of his younger sister with how excited you get about the smallest things and he realises he wants to protect your heart from the world just as much as he wants to protect his little sister’s. It’s not the same feeling, though. The affection he feels for you is different. 

Felix doesn’t find it in him to tell you no whenever you tug him on another ride, even when his legs are tired and his jaw hurts from smiling. He finds himself wanting to capture your image into his brain forever, imprint the happy memory in there so he can find it and look at it whenever his heart feels lonely. For the first time in ages, he forgets about everything. He forgets that he’s just the friend, the other choice. He completely forgets that Han Jisung was supposed to be there, at his place, sitting next to you on the ferris wheel as you watch the night city under you with cold cheeks and frozen bodies.

“You must be sad that Jisung isn’t here with you right now. That would surely feel much more romantic than sitting here with me,” Felix says bitterly once the reality hits him for a second, once his heart is unsheltered for a short moment and your eyes meet.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” you roll your eyes, “Jisung can’t be romantic. Besides, if I really wanted a date with him so badly, I wouldn’t have asked you to come with us, would I?” you smile at him, swinging your legs forward and backward, focusing your eyes somewhere into the distance again.

“Well, if you really want to go on a date with him, you can just ask him, you know?” he mumbles, playing with the dead skin on his thumb.

“So he can stand me up and go on a date with his mum again? I don’t know, Felix, is that really worth it?” you giggle, not noticing the way you’re messing with the boy’s head, not noticing the way a small spark of hope lights up somewhere in the deep pits of his stomach when you mention not wanting to ask his best friend out. 

“I don’t know, is it?”

“I’ll have to think about it.” you muse out, and the spark is gone. Of course it’s not that simple. 

Felix just nods and grins at you. The chilly air helps him hide his red cheeks when he thinks of how embarrassing his thoughts must have been in the past quick seconds. He focuses on your face, on the way your eyes crinkle up a little when you stare somewhere far into the distance and your hair flies a little with the breeze. The ferris wheel just reached the top, so he has plenty of time to keep admiring you from so close, but somehow, the moment still feels so short and he wishes he could stop the time. He wishes he could stop the time so he didn’t have to face the reality when he comes down from the ferris wheel. He wishes he didn’t have to see you fall in love with his friend, he wishes he didn’t have to act like he doesn’t care at all. 

“Thanks for helping me, by the way. I wouldn’t have passed my exams if it wasn’t for you and that… that would be really hard on me.” you get out, locking your eyes with his sincerely. He sees your eyes shining even so high above the ground, convincing him the sparkles really must be the stars, when he takes a deep breath in and responds.

“It’s no problem, I get it… I mean, it’s what you gotta do. What we gotta do, when we want to pass. And graduate,” he chuckles. 

Does he really want the degree, though? Or does he just need it to feel like he has some worth? Does he want to graduate or does he just want his parents to value him as an adult, does he really want to continue working so hard on passing or would he just be so much happier if he just dropped out. And saved himself so much stress. He should have known he was never smart enough for college.

“Yeah. I despise the smart kids in our class. I wish I were them,” you scoff, “I despise Jisung, in a way, too,” you add after a dramatic pause.

“Jisung?” Felix furrows his brows.

“Yeah,” you nod, like it’s the clearest thing in the world, “I mean, he’s smart enough to pass. He’s… he’s got his life figured out, in a way. He’s just fine. Getting all the girls and the guys, getting good grades, going on dinner dates with his mum on Fridays,” you giggle, “I mean, I want that. That sounds nice.”

Felix huffs, staring into the distance, “I guess you’re right.” He knows damn well how jealousy feels. 

“I came to college to prove to myself that my life has some worth, but I guess the only thing I prove to myself is that I can’t even pass my exams without help.” you sigh, sounding defeated.

“Hey,” he nudges you a little with his foot, “don’t say that. Life isn’t about grades, degrees and that shit. Of course you have worth and value.” 

He sees you smile in defeat, leaning your head on his shoulder. The feeling of acceptance, pure understanding washes over the two of you, when you gently speak up again. “Try to explain that to my brain.” 

He lightly giggles. “I’m trying, as you can see.”

You look up at him from his shoulder, scrunching up your nose and leaning closer to him, whispering. “It’s not working.” you laugh.

“I know it’s not easy,” he shakes his head, “I’ve been trying to tell that to my family for the past 21 years.” he slips out. Something about you makes him spill out even things he’s never told anyone before, but he finds himself not caring as you approach his eyes with pure serenity mixed with melancholy.

“Is it all because of your parents?” you ask, “the cheating, I mean.”

Felix feels his eyes giving him out, so he chooses not to look at you anymore. “I mean, I would have dropped out long ago if I didn’t have to feel so worthless around my family then. Every single one of my cousins is smart, has a degree and earns a killing. I’m just me-- living from the money I earned over summer, trying not to lose my mind with biology.”

He hears you humming next to him, your head moving as you nod in understatement. The ferris wheel is slowly reaching the bottom again and Felix finds the fact quite relieving. He doesn’t mind having deep talks with you, he just fears he might spill out something both of you don’t want to hear.

“I’m glad you came with me today, Lix.” you smile at him once the two of you reach the bottom, “wanna hear a secret?”

“Spill it out,” he dares you, grinning.

“I only invited Jisung because I thought you didn’t want to hang out with me alone.” you confess, quickly turning around in your spot as you jog a few steps in front of him, carelessly, as if you just didn’t make Felix’s heart stop and insides twitch in excitement. He prays and hopes it’s not just you giving him false hope, he wishes it’s not his mind playing tricks on him. 

“I-” 

“And now that I know you don’t mind being around me, do you wanna go to the dog cafe with me next Wednesday? You know, the one I talked about.” you turn around, flashing him a smile worth a billion dollars, taking him by surprise as his breathing hitches and he doesn’t find it in him to reject you ever again.

“Sure.”

Second step of Lee Felix’s guide to helping you: find a small thing about you he doesn’t like to blow up so much he starts hating you altogether. 

He was so sure that he found the small thing just a few days ago. He thought that the fact that you like his best friend could be enough for him to start hating you. He could sit on that thought for long enough to pick it up to the smallest pieces and over-analyse it to the point he could start hating you. 

And he tries to do just that-- he lies awake at night thinking of how every single person he’s ever been interested in slipped right between his fingers just because of Jisung’s existence. He wonders why he’s never good enough to anyone, why he always has to be the second choice even for tutoring (even though it’s not even tutoring, but we won’t talk about that anymore). He thinks of how you’re so foolish to think your relationship with Jisung is going to last, because Jisung’s feelings never stay the same for long. He over-analyses the smallest things he notices on you when you’re in Jisung’s presence until the point he’s almost sure he can do it, he can hate you for it just a little, in a way, but then, the thought flies right out of the open window as his roommate crashes into his door in the middle of the night.

He startles awake, sitting up at his bed, watching the short male going in with much difficulty, sitting on his bed without a word.

“Jisung?”

“Lixie, I fucked it all up, didn’t I?” Jisung whines, laying down on the bed next to his friend. Felix doesn’t think it’s only due to the late hours of the night that his friend’s words aren’t making any sense, but he doesn’t dare to put his finger on it until he makes sure for himself.

“What are you talking about?”

“Y/N.”

Your name coming out of his lips hits Felix like a baseball bat, hurting in all the right places, as the young male finds it in him to continue the conversation.

“What about her?”

“She asked us to hang out together. And I didn’t go. I know it wasn’t my fault, because my mum was in the town, but still, I feel so bad, because now it must look like I’m not interested in her and that I don’t care and I really don’t want that, you know?” he stummers, making Felix realise his friend talks a lot when he’s under the influence of alcohol just the same second Jisung’s breath catches in Felix’s nose, only proving his point. 

“You didn’t fuck it up, don’t worry.” he muses. And it’s true. Jisung could never truly fuck it up with anyone. Even his exes always crumble up around his feet, wanting attention even after getting their heart broken. Will it be the same with you?

“She must think I don’t like her. And that’s horrible-that’s- that’s- I like her. Very much,” he whines again, getting closer to Felix and wrapping his arms around the blonde’s torso in a wave of affection that only washes over him when he’s drunk.

“Sung-” he stutters, desperately trying to push him away, but even though Jisung doesn’t look like it, he is a strong individual when it comes to involuntary cuddling. Felix can never escape his arms.

“I think she’s special, you know? She’s like- I can’t explain it. It’s like with her, I actually want to try. I want to ask her on dates and love her and give her my heart, because you know, I never dared to give my heart to anyone. And no one’s ever made me feel truly special before…” he mutters, forcing his nose to Felix’s neck, “I’m rambling too much, aren’t I?”

“Yeah,” Felix sighs, nodding. He doesn’t battle his arms anymore. Jisung is his friend, at the end of the day. He can hold him when he needs it.

“Sorry.” he says shortly, sighing as well. The room falls into silence and Felix’s head spins again, his thoughts spiral like a tornado and the eye of the storm is you-- standing there with that stupid smile on your face and he once again realises that he needs to hate you in order to shelter his own heart, because you’re like a hurricane when it comes a to a person’s emotions.

The fact is, though, he could never hate you for liking his best friend. 

Han Jisung is too likable for his own good. His heart is too big for this world, and truth be told, he’s been sharing it with everyone for such a long time now, he deserves to find someone he’s willing to give his all to. 

He could never hate you for liking Jisung-- the boy who smiles at everyone in the halls, the boy that offered him to live in the flat his parent’s bought for him in freshman year, the boy that helps him hide his cheating secret every day. He could never hate you for liking Jisung, because he himself knows too well how much of a treasure his dear friend is. 

He gets it. He gets why people always choose Jisung over him. He could never blame you.

“Sung?”

“Hmm?”

“Ask Y/N out to the dog cafe on Wednesday. She'll love it.”

Felix could never hate you.

Step three of Felix’s bullet-proof guide to hating you is quite simple and actually the only one he completes with success. Setting you up with Jisung on a date is easier than he ever imagined, considering the fact that his roommate decided to finally take things into his own hands and call you on a date after the drunken weeping episode in Felix’s bed. 

Jisung invites you on a date to the dog café in town. The two of you go on Wednesday and although Felix feels like he just gave his roommate a piece of him, an invitation that was never meant for him in the first place, he feels at ease, because at least one part of his plan is working. He could never hate you, but at least now, it will be easier for him to ignore his growing feelings for you when you spend all your time with Jisung on dates and ice cream runs. He only has to ignore his feelings in school and at your ‘tutoring’ sessions. He wonders how long these will be a secret in front of your new boyfriend. Jisung’s not your boyfriend yet, but Felix can only imagine how short the time he isn’t is going to last. 

Felix does the stupid mistake of opening the instagram app in the evening, when he’s curled up in his bed with an embarrassingly big bowl of popcorn on his bed side table, serving him as his depression food. He sees your post show up, an adorable picture of you from the dog café, a big golden retriever in your lap as you giggle at its face. The picture is candid and looks like the kind Felix would like to keep as his lock screen if he had the chance. He’s sure his best friend took it for you not only from the fact that you went out with him tonight, but also for the fact that he’s tagged in the post’s description with a big blue heart emoji. 

He could stop staring at the picture if he really wanted, he could mute your posts and pretend you never existed to shelter his poor heart. He could do everything in his strength to cut all his ties with you. That would make it so much easier for him, wouldn’t it?

But he doesn't. And maybe he doesn’t even want to-- he’s used to the pain anyway, isn’t he? The bitterness, the feeling of being pushed away, ignored and left forgotten. 

He was supposed to be in Jisung’s place now, but that doesn’t change the simple fact that he isn’t-- maybe it was never his place to claim anyway. 

Felix stares at the picture for minutes, wondering of how things could be if you only didn’t fall for his best friend. Or if he came with you today. Who knows, maybe it wasn’t too late for him to ask you on a date. Maybe he could still change your mind. Felix likes to give up on things too quickly, though, and that is the curse that will follow him his whole life. 

Lee Felix is good at cheating. He is insanely good at it, he would also say it’s the only thing he’s ever been good at. Pretending.

It’s his time to shine again. It’s time to pretend he doesn’t like you, pretend you don’t hurt him, pretend he isn’t in love with his best friend’s crush. He’s been always the best at cheating and now it’s time to cheat his way out of liking you. 

Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

“You must be really hungry, if you’re planning to eat all of that in one setting,” Felix mumbles, watching you as you eat yet another plate of chicken wings in yet another pointless bistro in town. Felix wonders how you even know about all of these, since the one you’re both sitting in right now, in the middle of the night, looks rather lonely. It doesn’t even seem that welcoming-- it has graffiti on the walls and the seats are a little torn on the edges, but you don’t seem to care as you munch on the chicken, eyes big when you stare back at your companion.

“I eat a lot when I’m stressed,” you mutter in between your bites, mouth full. You look natural like this and Felix realises this is you in his mind-- cheeks full of food, that little wrinkle in between your brows when you look at him, eyes staring big into his like a loyal dog. This is how he knows you, in your rawest form, and this is coincidentally, also, how he likes you the most. He loves and treasures every single version of you, but your late-night meetings feel of different kind of intimacy to him that he’s sure he’s going to think of even when he’s old and his college years are dusty like an old polaroid picture.  

“Stressed?” he asks, tone of voice a little more worried than usual. Felix always worries about you. Even when you quietly take out your cheat sheet from under the table and write your answers down. He doesn’t fear being caught-- he frankly doesn’t care that much, but he knows that you are having a battle with yourself and he really doesn’t want you to feel like you lost. He didn’t know it was so easy to put someone else first when you worry for the future. 

“The finals are coming up.” you clarify, the words coming out a little bashful and smitten.

“Oh.” he nods. 

You’re both quiet for a while. It would be cheesy to say the silence was comfortable, and Felix knows, he’s seen enough teenage dramas to know these words are used in situations like this, but the truth is, there’s no other way to describe it, and he understands that now. Your determination shines through all your edges and he’s glad you’re doing what you can with the resources you have. You’re not exactly studying for your Biology finals, but it’s still as hard and as stressful as that. It can feel a little embarrassing at times, but there’s no other way around it. You have to battle your enemy, even if it means the game is not fair.

“And those chicken wings are fucking good, dude,” you mutter after a while, offering him one of the paper baskets the server brought you a few minutes ago, looking rather stoned and not interested in your presence at all.

“Don’t tell me this rotten place is winning your chicken wings and fries contest,” Felix snickers, taking a bite that, to his surprise, actually tastes the best out of the amount of fast food chains and restaurants you’ve brought him to. You should never judge a book by its cover and this bistro is clearly one of the examples.

“I have only one place left to go, so we’ll see then, but I guess it might just be the top place right now,” you muse out, a wide grin decorating your features as you glance up at Felix that watches you scribble down your notes on a mini piece of paper.

“Wanna go with me there? After the finals, of course. We can celebrate if we pass,” you point out, licking your lips in nerves, “I don’t think I’ll need these ‘tutoring sessions’ anymore then, but I still want to hang out sometime.” you say, putting air quotes around the words tutoring session, looking at him with expectations in your eyes.

“Oh, sure,” he agrees, nodding. “I have to be there when you finally declare your last yelp review.”

You only laugh at him and shake your head, eating some more as you look down into your notes again, lost in work. “I still don’t get how you can do these so fast.”

“I already know what’s the most useful. You don’t have to copy the whole textbook on there.”

“You can never know! What if I’ll need it all?” you exclaim, only making him laugh harder.

He points his eyes out of the window, watching the empty parking lot. You didn’t come in your car today, telling Felix your house is close anyway, and Felix doesn’t dare to drive his car anywhere unless he doesn’t need to. He has a little bit of a trauma since the last time he drove with his dad and he almost ran the car into a tree, getting a shower of swear words and exclamations from his dear father, so he only drives his small white Renault when he needs to go home. Which is, coincidentally, next week. 

“I really don’t want to go home next week,” he sighs.

“Your family is still onto you for the smallest shit?” you ask, tone of voice sympathetic.

“Yeah. Can’t wait to graduate so I don’t have to listen to them talking about a degree anymore,” he rolls his eyes, “I only have to find myself a partner so my grandma can shut up about me being single all the time.”

You softly laugh, making Felix look at you for a moment, his heart skipping a few beats when your eyes meet for a little more seconds than usual. “I’m sorry. You can always text me, though, if you need anyone to talk or gossip with.” you say, averting your eyes from his.

“You’d have to be on your phone 24/7, then. My mental stability comes down by 70% when I’m back home and it’s already only on 15% now,” Felix snickers.

“Oh, I don’t mind. I’ll be staying here anyway.” you say, giggling.

“You’re not coming back home?”

“No,” you shake your head in disapproval, quickly glancing into his eyes before speaking up again, “it’s my parent’s wedding anniversary, so they’re going on a holiday. There’s no use in me coming home if I’m just going to be alone there anyway,” you shrug.

Felix hums, nodding in understatement. “That makes sense. I’m sorry you can’t meet your family on holidays, though.”

“It’s okay,” you say, “I see them often anyway. One Christmas won’t kill me. I have a whole season of Game of thrones to catch up on anyway.” you light-heartedly laugh, sounding like Felix’s favorite song. He smiles with you, shaking his head in disbelief at how positively you can always see the world, when he glances out of the window for a moment again, only to be met with a surprise. 

There are white flakes of snow falling from the sky and something in Felix wakes up-- something he’d call happiness, maybe even joy, when he quickly shoots up from his seat and calls you with excitement coating his voice, “Y/N! Y/N! Come on!”

“Come where? Felix, what are you-” 

He doesn’t let you finish as he takes you by the hand and tugs you on your feet, tugging you out of the empty bistro out into the dark parking lot, admiring the snowflakes falling onto the ground and every surface in his sight. He sees some stick into your hair, making him giggle as his outstretched hand dusts them off subconsciously, when he starts running around like a happy child, laughter coming out of his throat filling the silence.

“It’s snowing!” you exclaim, when Felix reaches your body frozen in its place again. He reminds you of a golden retriever when he jumps a little in his place, his feet happily crouching in the snow. You laugh at his antics when he starts acting like a little boy, this side of Felix being so new to you, yet you can’t help but feel your heart swell with admiration when he asks you to catch some snow into your mouth.

“Felix! That’s disgusting!” you refuse, laughing.

“Oh come on! It’s just water!” he cheers, leaning his head back and opening his mouth wide, waiting for the snow to fall into his mouth. 

“But it’s unhygienic and dirty! You have to be kidding me!” you still reject his idea, standing your ground firmly as always in your life so far, when a face of a boy looking like an angel takes you by surprise and his big eyes plead you in a way that makes you drop all your grudges and all your beliefs down, rolling your eyes when he pouts, leaning your head back as well and opening your mouth with a loud ‘aaaa’ sound to satisfy his foolish heart.

Once you both feel a snowflake hitting your tongues, you look at each other with your tongues out, laughing at how stupid the other one looks, pointing to your tongues. You shake your head. “It melted off, you stupid!”

“You did the same thing!” he bursts out laughing, bending over in the force of his emotions. You watch him with a wide grin plastered onto your face. It feels like watching a movie. You don’t think you’ll ever have a brighter memory with the boy in front of you, with his cheeks red from the snow and smile so wide it hurts both of your jaws.

You instinctively take his hands into yours, looking down on your feet as you start going around in a circle with him, going quicker and quicker as you watch your footprints in the snow mixing with his, the dry skin of his hands making you feel strange. You laugh out when your head starts spinning, looking up at him to find him already staring at you with stars in his eyes, when you wonder,

isn’t this how love is supposed to feel?

All of his life, Felix had thought that family gatherings could always either go two ways, and that is: 1) a normal, boring meet-ups where your grandma asks about how school’s going, when you’re going to finally find a partner and another one of your cousin’s announces their engagement party, or 2) the actual engagement parties-- every single family member including the senile grandma from mum’s side gets drunk and you don’t have to think about more fake reasons why you have yet to lose your virginity.

You see, Felix is wrong in a lot of things. And this was surely one of them-- it’s the December 27th and he’s sitting in his grandma’s old kitchen, the wind blowing through the cracks of her window and the sweets on the table have already melted from the heat being too high, because his aunt is always cold and they can’t compromise. That sounds fine, even usual, Felix would say, however, the fire lights up a few moments later when his head starts to hurt from all the talking and he begins to dissociate a little too much, meaning that his grandma now has to shift her attention from all of his other relatives to him, because how dare he stay quiet on a family gathering where he has nothing to add to the conversation, right?

It starts off as usual, the answers to these questions digged deep into Felix’s brain since the first year of college. He doesn’t even bat an eye when he answers the questions directed at his studies and grades, telling all of his interested relatives that he’s working hard and it’s paying off. Nobody complains or disagrees-- his grades are awesome. His degree is here soon. Felix almost thinks he’s over with when his grandma laughs at a poor joke that comes out of his mouth, but that was only a bad prediction as he moves on to questions about his love life, which are, believe me or not, much more boring and much more ego-hurting for the blonde.

“Do you have a girlfriend yet, Felix?” she asks, tone of voice sounding rather interested, but don’t believe her-- it’s only an act. She’s ready to laugh into his face when he gives her the answer she’s hoping for.

“No, not yet, grandma,” he mumbles, averting his eyes from her wrinkley face as soon as possible. He really doesn’t need to look at her any longer to know she’s silently judging him on the inside, because that’s just how his grandmother is. 

“That’s such a shame… I wonder why… You’re such a pretty young boy, aren’t you?” she mutters under her nose, tone almost whiney, “what about your roommate? Jisung, was it?”

Felix takes a deep breath in, closing his eyes for a second to calm his rising heart beat. He could have predicted questions like this coming, because the conversation always somehow diverted to his roommate even when he was at home with his family. It’s crazy, how everyone just seems to adore Jisung much more than their own family member. 

“He’s.. Yeah. He’s always with someone, you know him. Not now, though, now he’s single,” Felix nods, explaining.

“Well, I’m sure he’ll find someone soon,” she admits, “he’s such a gentleman. And so handsome as well, isn’t he?” she asks, his aunt from her right side nodding quickly at the mention of Han Jisung. 

“He always has so many people around him, he’s so charming. If only you were more like him, maybe then someone would date you as well,” his grandma says calmly, not even noticing the way her words cut deeper and deeper into Felix’s heart, kicking him and punching him like a boxing bag, “you should try to be more like him.”

Felix bites down on his lower lip, rolling his eyes. Frustration coats his voice once he speaks up, the built-up anger living inside of him like an animal kept well in its cage. He doesn’t want to let it out, because he fears what it might do once it’s free, but he still retorts to a dig addressed to his grandma, huffing in annoyance. “Should I send Jisung home instead of me next time?”

“Oh no, Felix, what are you even saying right now?” his grandma looks rather offended, eyes twice their usual size as she glares at him.

“Well, since you like him so much.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I was just saying that-”

“Leave it.” Felix says. 

The atmosphere is too heavy now, all eyes on him as if he was in a circus, watching him just moments before his breaking. He realises he no longer feels welcome in this place and maybe he never did, he just chose to ignore it by now, because that’s what he always does when a problem appears-- he chooses ignorance. Ignorance is Felix’s best friend, and although it may sound like he’s running away from his problems all the time, it’s always worked so far. He’s just protecting his heart, building walls around it. 

He doesn’t want to fight. He hates conflict. So, even though he’d like to snap, even though he’d like to leash out like an animal, he doesn’t. He steps back-- as he always does, taking the car keys from the table and escaping the house, hearing the calls of his mother after him. He doesn’t bother to say goodbye, he doesn’t even bother to look back nor take the Christmas gifts his grandma brought for everyone. 

He sits into the small white Renault he drives once a year when he comes back home, starts the engine and speeds up to the limit, driving away from all of his problems. He doesn’t want to hear their complaints, he doesn’t want to listen. It’s the best this way. He wants to ignore the words that came out of his grandma’s mouth, but he can’t find it in him as he hears them resonate in his head over and over again. 

He’s the second choice even in his own family. He’s a joke to everyone, isn’t he? Just the side character, the one that never gets the spotlight. It hurts, it hurts him so much, but he pays no attention to his blurry vision, because even though he’s fairly sure no one from his family would miss him, he doesn’t want to drive off the road and kill himself with his escape.

He parks the car in front of his and Jisung’s flat after a few hours. He’s fairly good at it, considering he never drives, and mentally puts up a middle finger to his dad in his head for screaming at him so much. He was in a much calmer headspace when he was driving with his dad than he was now, yet, he didn’t manage to drive anyone over. 

Putting his feet into the cold, empty apartment, turning the heating on and plopping down on the sofa, he once again realises how lonely it feels. Not only because of the feeling of abandonment the dark flat resonates, but also due to the fact that it truly feels like now, he’s all alone in this world. The silence screams louder than any words ever could, his ears lowly ringing without any sound in the small room, which makes him wonder if he’s truly the only one that has to spend his holidays pretty much alone. Maybe it’s his fault that he’s fucked it up with his family, who knows-- but that’s a topic for another overthinking session of his, when he decides to let it go once his eyes meet the snow silently falling down behind the window. 

The dark mixed with the white balls of fluff in the air remind him of you. Your bubbly laugh, the feeling of your skin on his when you held his hands and danced around with him in the snow. He feels a smile growing on his face, despite everything he’s heard today, his fingers involuntarily texting you to see if you’re doing anything and if you can hang out with him today. 

He meets you at the door a few minutes later, your nose runny from the cold and hands dry, smiling at you with a sense he can only describe as belonging, because he realises, maybe you feel just as lonely as him on holidays and suddenly, he no longer feels sorry for leaving.

“Why are you even here, Lix? Shouldn’t you be at home?” you ask him when you’re taking off your shoes and hanging your coat on the hanger by the door. He bites down on his lower lip to suppress a bitter chuckle. 

“Christmas got cancelled this year.” he shrugs. 

It’s not like he doesn’t trust you. You know better than anyone what his struggles are-- he asked you to keep his secrets numerous times. It’s just that now that you’re here, it’s like his soul finally feels calm and he no longer wants to whine about his grandma or his aunts anymore. It’s just you and him and the empty apartment. If he was anyone else, maybe he’d try to get into your pants. He’s just Lee Felix though, and he’s absolutely, wholeheartedly in love with you, he realises, and believe me, it kind of takes him over the edge, and so he doesn’t try anything. 

And you look at him in understatement, no other questions asked.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s all a capitalistic holiday anyway,” he shrugs.

You follow him into the living room and he throws the remote control into your lap, telling you to choose a movie before he comes back with popcorn. 

“If you don’t pick anything before I’m done, we’ll just watch Venom, I don’t care,” he says, seeing you adorably scrunch up your nose at him in response. 

When he comes back and you’re waiting for him with Howl’s moving castle paused on Netflix, he can’t help but grin at you. He places the popcorn on the coffee table and notices himself staring onto your body next to his far more often than the TV and wonders if he really drove away from all of his problems or if he just drove away from one problem to another, because now, it’s getting really hard to focus on staying away from you. 

And when you shiver and curl up into his side, placing your head onto his shoulder, he can’t help but jolt at the contact, staring at you in surprise. 

“It’s cold,” you mumble, pouting.

Felix smiles. He rolls his eyes at you, even though on the inside, he finds you absolutely adorable, taking a blanket from the side of the sofa and putting it over your cold bodies, tucking you both in. You feel warm against his side, your hand resting on his chest. He wonders if you can feel his quickening heartbeat, his stiff body and the nerves rising in his heart. Everything else disappears, the fight back home long forgotten and Han Jisung left somewhere home with his own family, the weight of your body overwhelming him when you fall asleep and that’s when he stops and thinks,

isn’t this how home’s supposed to feel like?

The halls of the university building are empty as Felix stands right in front of the closed door, silently pacing around the corridors and bumping his knee up and down. He just got his final’s results and even though his soul was supposed to be at peace, he finds himself stressing over you, currently sitting in the room behind the closed door in front of him, getting your final’s results from biology back. The professor decided to split your class into two groups for the finals so you can, quote, ‘focus better when there’s less people around’ and even though you managed to cheat on your exams without any problems, he still wonders if you did well and if you passed. 

Once the voices behind the closed doors get louder and louder, he figures it’s near the end of your lecture and he can finally see you again and ask you how you did. 

The last time he talked to you without the stress of finals breathing onto your back was back on Christmas break-- more than a week ago. Ever since then, you two have been meeting in the middle of the night again, preparing for your upcoming tests. You didn’t really manage to talk a lot about anything else and even though Felix didn’t mind, he still missed your mindless rambles and weird jokes you used to crack when you weren’t stressing your mind off. 

The door opens and reveals people coming out, a few of them wearing a toothy grin on their faces as they glance on the paper in their hands, a few of them frowning as they pin their eyes to the ground. It’s not easy to differentiate the ones that passed and the ones who did not do that well and even though Felix feels sorry for them, he wonders why they just don’t cheat their way out of bad grades just how he does. It’s not that hard. It just takes a lot of practice. 

Once he finally sees your face, a big, toothy grin decorating your lips, a big stone falls off his heart, a weight lifts itself from his shoulders, because frankly, you wouldn’t look so happy if you failed, right? You’re not a total psychopath.

“How did you-” 

His words are cut off from his mouth, all air kicked out of his body once he feels you so close, the soft skin of your lips pressed up against his in a happy kiss. He’s startled, to say the least. His cheeks are reddening in the instance and he doesn’t even know if time stopped or if it’s just the rising anxiety and excitement in his chest, but he bites down the confusion and kisses you back finally, closing his eyes and bringing you close by your shoulders. The kiss is a little sloppy and messy, but he doesn’t mind-- all that’s occupying his mind right now is you, your sweet lips, your mouthy kiss, your excited hands creeping up around his neck, your bag that fell to the ground next to his feet, your exam paper marked with the big red A+ flying around the two of you when you let it fall from your grasp, your hair tickling his cheeks, you, you, you.

There’s only you. In the air he breathes, in the ground he walks on, in his hands and on his mind. You’re everywhere. Intoxicating.

You pull away from him after a while, grinning at him. It still manages to startle him a little-- how just the small gesture can light up his whole world, how your smile can make him feel like he’s the luckiest person on this earth. He sees stars in your eyes and he wonders who put them there, hoping to be the one, believing he could finally be the one, with how you look at him and hold him in your arms-

but it’s Felix’s life we’re talking about. There’s only you, you, you and maybe somewhere, far away in the distance, there could even be him, but who’s always there for sure is Han Jisung.

Han Jisung staring at the two of you from the open door, mouth agape in shock. Han Jisung with trembling hands, Han Jisung with his books clutched close to his chest as Felix’s heart drops and reality finally hits him. You were never supposed to be his to kiss. You were supposed to be Jisung’s-- his roommate’s, his best friend’s -- you fell for him long, long ago and that’s how it’s always been. 

He opens his mouth to say something, anything, to comfort his dear friend that looks like he’s heart’s being broken, but he finds no words in him to console his actions. He feels bad, he feels so, so guilty when their eyes meet, but he doesn’t manage to say anything before Jisung turns around the corner and leaves. 

The sound of Jisung’s quick steps is the only thing resonating in Felix’s mind like a bell, a signal for him that he fucked up, he did a really, really bad thing. 

His insides clutch and eyes water in the empty college corridor when he wonders,

is this how it feels to break someone’s heart?

You kick the small rocks beneath your feet, gazing into the distance. The cold in your bones makes you shudder, your eyes trailing around the neighbourhood so foreign to you, putting your hands into your pockets so you shelter your fingers from the frozen air. You think how this place looks exactly as you imagined it to-- tall apartment complex and a single big tree in front of it, the cars parked in the driveway obviously having their spot as the neighbours have lived together for a long time to know not to park anywhere else, because it’s more efficient this way. 

You’re waiting and waiting, hoping to see the one you’re waiting for soon, because you doubt your confidence will last you for any longer if you don’t talk to him now. You could lie and tell yourself it’s okay and that you’re not nervous at all, but after Jisung ran away the other day and his roommate followed him a few moments later, you feel nervousness creeping into your skin after not seeing or hearing from Felix for three days now. 

You remember him telling you that he likes to go for late-night convenience store runs every evening to get his favorite snacks. It wasn’t hard to find out where he lives-- it’s the 21st century, for god’s sake. You asked a friend of his friend and here you are, waiting  for him to appear in the door of his apartment complex, ready to talk to him about the events of this week.

Once you hear the door opening, you feel your head snap to its direction quicker than the speed of light, knees almost getting weak at the sight of Lee Felix standing there, confusion written all over his face once his eyes meet with yours. The frown forming on his face only deepens your stress as you wonder if he didn’t want to see you today, which, considering the fact that he’s been ignoring you for the past few days, might just be the case, but it still makes your heart break just a little when you hear him sigh once he makes his way over to you, the sound of his sneakers on the ground being the only thing heard in the middle of the night.

All the snow has melted-- as if all the bright things have left just in time with it, leaving you sad and cold, the clouds of your breath hitting the cold air being the only thing reminding you of the weather as you feel your body heating up in his presence. 

“Can we talk?” you ask, voice steadier than you expected it to be.

“I- I mean,” he starts, a shaky and husky voice hitting your ears, signaling that he probably hadn’t spoken to anyone for a long time now, “you’re already here, so I guess…”

You nod at him, averting your gaze quickly to the ground, when you realise you suddenly don’t know what to say. You try to search for words, yet none come out of your mouth. Your mind is blank and it seems like his presence took away all your vocabulary, but deep on the inside, you know damn well that if you don’t speak up now, you won’t have a second chance and you really have to get it now.

“Why- why…” you mutter, “why did you leave without saying anything the other day?” you ask.

The silence is overwhelming as you start to hate the sound of your own breath, opting to hold it for a few seconds as you await his response. 

“I mean, isn’t it obvious?” 

You shake your head in confusion, finally meeting his eyes again. “No.”

“Jisung… Jisung saw us. I didn’t feel like it was right,” he explains, cracking his knuckles in a nervous habit you noticed in him a long, long time ago when he first tried to teach you how to cheat in class without getting caught.

“What does he have to do with anything?”

“You two like each other.” he says bluntly, taking you off-guard.

The moment these words come out of his mouth, you realise not one, but two things. One of them is fairly new to you, the fact that Han Jisung liked you back was something you never knew you could experience, but even though you should be flattered, you realise it no longer holds a meaning in your heart. The second thing is connected to the first-- and that is, Lee Felix doesn’t know that you like him now. His foolish, silly mind convinced him you were still in love with his best friend, his confused and frustrated brain didn’t let him realise that for a long, long time now, the freckled boy in front of you has been the only one you thought about when you were falling asleep at night.

You don’t even know when it happened. You guess it just did. You wondered how it’d feel to know what exactly made you fall for Felix, what that moment was, but something inside of you is telling you that maybe, it was even more wonderful this way. Unexpected, but totally reasonable.

“Why would I be kissing you if I still liked Jisung?” you ask, the fear of directly confessing to him and getting rejected creeping up in your shadow.

“I- I don’t know-”

“Exactly.” you cut him off before he rambles and manages to find a stupid, silly reason in his head to justify his wrong expectations. You know how he is-- if he overthinks things hard enough, he’ll surely find an answer. There’s none, though, so you don’t dare to give him time to think about it and ponder on the thought for any longer.

“But that doesn’t matter now anyway,” he shrugs, putting his hands into his pockets.

You wonder what’s going on inside of his head right now. You wonder if he regrets what he’s done-- if he wants to turn back time and never let you kiss him. The nerves make you bite down harshly on your bottom lip and you only catch yourself when you feel iron in your mouth, quickly licking your own wound on the surface of your mouth and take a deep breath in. 

“Why?” you ask. 

“Why would it?” he says, eyes boring into yours.

“Because… I thought it meant something to you? I mean, it meant a lot to me, at least. That’s why I’m even here in the first place,” you chuckle airly, feeling your throat get dry.

“I’m not saying that it didn’t, I just think it had no point.”

His words feel like knives thrown into your chest, like a fire burning the pit of your stomach. You feel your legs getting weaker at his arguments, your fingers harshly tugging at the skin of your cuticles hidden in your pockets. You don’t trust your voice to sound steady this time when you speak, but you don’t care. Maybe it’s time to show your real emotions. Maybe it will change Felix’s mind.

“And why is that?”

“Because people like you don’t date people like me. You’re supposed to be in love with Jisung. You’re supposed to be dating him, he’s supposed to date you. You’re too good for me anyway.” he shrugs.

“Is this all about Jisung?” you ask, eyebrows furrowed.

You watch Felix sharply inhale in and out, averting his eyes from your figure. The distance between the two of you is unnatural, as if to singal how the two of you are slowly drifting apart. You see him fold his hands on his chest, preparing for what he’s about to say.

“It hurt him, back then. And I hate that. He loves you and I just.. I can’t do that to him, when I know  how much he cares about you.” he says.

Love is a strange thing. You hear Felix say how much Jisung loves you, but is that really true? Does Han Jisung even know you? The real you?

Does Jisung know how you look with your mouth full of fries and a greasy forehead? Does he know how you look when you’re stressed out of your mind because of finals? Does he know your favorite bistro, does he know your favorite movie? Did you cuddle up with Jisung on the couch just because you wanted to be close to him, comfort him and tell him you’re there just a few days after Christmas? 

Or does he just know the self you put up in front of him when you went to meet him? The put-together you that cares even about the sound of your own laugh, not wanting it to sound ugly in his ears? 

Han Jisung can’t love you. He doesn’t even know you.

And you never loved him-- just for the same reason. The feelings you had for him were merely a feeling of attraction, so far away from love.

But now you know how you feel about Felix, how his smile lights up the world and how his presence makes you feel understood. How even the silence with him speaks louder than a million words, how he knows you like the back of his hand and how he treats you like his closest friend. You know that what you feel when you’re with him is stronger than anything you ever have and although it used to scare you for a moment, now you’re ready to embrace it and live with it, if he lets you.

Lee Felix doesn’t tell you he loves you. Maybe you can see it in his eyes.

Why does he have to put everything above love? Why does he care about Jisung more than you? It’s breaking your heart. 

“Felix… I’m sure he’d understand. He’s a good person. I’m sure he’d want you to be happy.”

“Y/N, you don’t understand-”

“He’s a grown adult!” you yell out, the built-up emotions coming to the surface in the form of frustration, your words sunding spiteful and angry. Maybe you are furious, maybe you are full of fire right now, but it’s all because of the boy in front of you and the things he refuses to let himself enjoy.

“Why do you even care about it so much, huh? I was your fucking second choice all along anyway!” 

You look at him in shock, your eyes watering at the sight of the frown sitting on his face. Something inside of you breaks and you think it’s safe to say it was your heart, choking you up as you shake your head in disapproval. 

“Felix-” you protest, but there’s no use.

You see him turn around on his heel, opening the door to the apartment complex and leaving. It feels like you’re losing him, it feels like he’s gone forever. He turned his back on you, refusing all the love you were willing to give him, all the love you were offering to him right here, your heart in your hands.

He gave up on your love.

People in movies go out to party after a break-up to get drunk and numb their feelings. They either go to the club or go to a stupid college party, which is, coincidentally, your case today, but you’re not here to get drunk tonight. You’re not here to drown out your feelings and numb your pained soul-- you’re simply here to try to have some fun.

Your mum told you long, long ago that happiness is a choice. You could argue with her and tell her that depression and heartbreak aren’t a choice and that they, by themselves, are causing people the most sadness, but you had to give your mum a point. If you don’t choose to try, if you don’t do anything to at least try to stimulate your own brain, you can’t expect happiness to find you by itself. That’s just, sadly, not how life works, and you weren’t going to drown out in your own tears just because of Lee fucking Felix, because if you weren’t worth trying for him, he’s not worth any of your tears.

You appear on Lee Haechan’s end of the semester party. You have A+ finals to celebrate and although you would be much happier to drink to them with the one that basically helped you get through the semester, you won’t pass the chance to socialize. You worked hard and you did a good job-- you deserve a party. Alcohol truly isn’t the best for your brain, but you will just decide to call it selfcare. It’s not like you’re getting blacked-out drunk tonight anyway.

You manage to have small talk with a few people from your class. Though it’s not exactly what’s stimulating your brain, you don’t mind it. You barely know these people and you couldn’t care less, but you guess this is the downside of socialising. 

The alcohol in your veins doesn’t give you a chance to loosen up, though. You only feel your body warmer with the beer hitting your system, but your feelings still taste of salt, your brain not cooperating with your grandiose happiness plan and you think the people talking to you notice, since no one really tries to keep you in a conversation long enough when you start to absently nod at them and pay zero attention to what they’re saying. You don’t blame them, though. You’d probably do the same in their place.

Your feet move their way to the front door when you decide that maybe your mum wasn’t right, completely ready to go home and pity yourself for a few more days before coming back to life, when a familiar voice calls you from behind, making you freeze in your spot.

“Y/N, long time no see.”

Han Jisung watches you with glossy eyes, yet he tries to look nonchalant at the sight of you. It doesn’t feel like his heart is breaking when he sees you right here and there, chewing on your bottom lip, more or less, it feels numbing to his heart and his head. It’s like he expected it all from the start-- the outcome that once so surprised him. But after all this time he spent overthinking and dwelling on the memory of seeing you kissing his best friend, it made sense to him. 

“Jisung…”

He can see your eyes growing worried when you watch over him and he mentally slaps himself for not handling his emotions with more care back then. He could have spared you a lot of pain and trouble if he hadn’t reacted in such a way in the doorway of your classroom, but the truth is, Han Jisung hadn’t really known just how much a true heartbreak feels and nothing could ever prepare him for the physical pain numbing his chest. He didn’t know it could hurt so much. 

He doesn’t want to worry you. You are still his friend, after all, right? That’s all you always have been and he should have understood it from the first moment he saw you gaze at his friend so lovingly in the university halls one day. He thinks you, yourself, didn’t even recognise the emotion in you when you watched over Felix with so much care, with so many stars in his eyes and a big grin on your face. He could never compare himself to Felix.

He doesn’t want to worry you anymore, and so he decides to talk to you like a friend would. You looked like you could use a friend tonight.

“How have you been?” he asks, smiling at you. He hopes his eyes convey the emotion he feels-- how after all this time, he still feels comfortable with you and desperately needs you to do the same. He can’t lose another friend. Not to love. 

That happens every single time. Truth be told, Jisung used to have a problem with differentiating true love from platonic feelings sometimes. He used to think he falls out of love just as quickly as he falls in, but the truth is that it was never even love at all. Sometimes, it was just pure admiration. Feelings for a friend. And he managed to ruin all his friendships just because he started dating them. 

And then, he just kept searching and searching for the right one, because no one ever felt right. No one ever made him feel loved, no one ever made him feel love. It felt suffocating, but so, so addicting. He could never give up on trying to find love.

And then he met you. And it finally made sense-- it finally felt right.

“I’m… I’m fine, thanks,” you say, smiling at him with that smile that still, admittedly, made his heart race and swell with love. He’s not afraid to call the emotion by its name. It doesn’t feel wrong. He used to think he wants it to stop, but the truth is, it still feels nice. 

Love feels like loneliness sometimes. It’s a bittersweet feeling. But it’s still so, so addicting.

“Are you sure?” he asks. He knows you. He knows when something’s wrong.

He also knows your eyes have been searching for his roommate for the past few minutes of your conversation. He knows you want to meet him and avoid him all at once, love him and leave him-- it was a paradox. 

He knows his roommate way too well, though. He knows he can’t fall out of love with you. He knows, though, that he’ll never act upon it. Lee Felix has always been the sweetest person in this whole entire world-- putting the needs of others before his own. He can’t keep doing this to himself.He can’t keep doing this to you.

“I think you know the answer, Jisung. Why do you keep asking, then?” you bitterly snicker, going around him and escaping the noisy house. Jisung doesn’t know if you want to leave, if you want to escape his presence, but he can’t leave you just like that, and so he follows you outside, seeing you sitting at the doorstep, as if you were waiting for him.

“You don’t have to think of me, you know that, right?” he says once he takes a seat next to you, watching your expression change into a pained one. 

“It’s… I don’t know. It’s complicated. And Felix- he doesn’t think it’s right. I can’t force him into anything. It was his choice anyway,” you mutter. Jisung sighs heavily, the feeling your words on his chest heavy and solemn. He hates the fact that he is standing in the way of your happiness. He hates the fact that he is the problem, the invisible wall keeping you two from each other. 

“It’s simple, though.” he shrugs.

Your eyebrows furrow in confusion, a heavy sigh escaping your lips. He takes it upon himself to explain before you begin to tell him that it’s not, opting to open your eyes on his own.

“You two are in love with each other. So you should be together. Isn’t that simple?” he asks, smiling at you subtly.

You scoff and shake your head. “He gave up on us.”

“Did he, or did he just do what he felt was right?” Jisung argues. “You can’t keep hiding from each other. You can’t keep trying to ignore your feelings just because I like you. That’s not fair for either of you.”

You don’t argue with him this time. He wonders what’s going on inside of your head at the moment, with your eyebrows furrowed and your bottom lip trapped in your teeth. You look just like all the times he watched you during your tutoring sessions-- focused and lost in thought. It will feel weird to not see you in that way anymore, but he has to try.

The same way Lee Felix always tried for him.

“You’re too sweet, Han Jisung. What a shame our timing’s off.” you say, bitterness coating your voice. He looks up at you again, wondering what your words mean. “I used to like you back then, you know,” you smile.

Here it is, the strange emotion again. The emotion of almost physical pain, a hand squeezing his heart, a knife stabbed into his back. It feels like his world is crumbling down on him, because he’s stupid-- so stupid. He could have had you back then. He could have been with you all this time, only if he wasn’t late. He missed his biggest chance, the biggest opportunity, the happiest time of his life. All because he was too hesitant. 

He didn’t deserve you anyway.

“But now your timing’s right with Felix. Don’t waste that,” he says, biting through the pain.

Because the truth is, if anyone deserved love, it was his roommate. The one that refused you for him, the one that rejected you for him, the one that set him up on a date with you even though you invited him in the first place. The one who gave up on his love only so he wouldn’t hurt his friend. You could say that Jisung was too good for this world, but Lee Felix is the one that deserves the whole entire world, in his eyes.

Maybe these two were just too good of friends. Caring about the other one twice as much as about themselves. And that’s exactly why Jisung will get over this-- he’ll push you to his friend. So he could be happy, finally. 

“Jisung, I don’t know-”

“Do it,” he cuts you off, “reach out to him again. Try it. For me.”

y/n: meet me at the 8Bistro at 9 

Felix can’t believe himself when he finds his legs moving to the direction of the bistro at the edge of the town. He knows it’s the last one on your list, the one you invited him to so you could celebrate your finals in and he finds himself wondering if he could have gone here with you earlier only if the two of you didn’t share that kiss back then.

That damned kiss he couldn’t stop thinking about for the last few days-- even weeks, every time he opened his eyes in the morning and closed them when he was about to sleep. It kept following him like a curse, a thing he couldn’t escape, as if it was testing him like the snake tested Eve in paradise. Foreign fruit. 

You’re sitting there already when he arrives, fingers playing with each other as you gaze at the door in expectation. He sees your usual order already on the table, assuming you got here early, but it’s untouched as your knee bumps up and down under the table and you bite down harshly on your bottom lip.

He takes a seat, allowing himself to look at you again after such a long time. It feels like it’s been ages, yet you still look the same to him-- the same beauty that hit him when he first met you and shared his biggest secret with you.

“Why aren’t you eating? You have to finish off your list,” he mumbles awkwardly, motioning to the food at the table.

“I wanted to wait for you.” you say. Your voice is quiet, almost shy, when you speak to him. He wonders just how much he fucked up that it made you act this way. He knows it’s probably a lot, but considering he’s sitting here right now, he can still fix it.

At least he hopes so. 

“Did you.. Do you want to talk to me about something?” he asks, nervosity filling his veins as he feels his hands form a little swimming pool with just how much he’s sweating.

“Yes,” you nod, taking a deep breath in and out. He wonders if you’re just as nervous as he is. The answer is probably yes, considering your tense shoulders and restless legs, but he doesn’t comment on it as he watches you begin speaking again. “I wanted to tell you that I’m- I’m in love with you. And that it’s for real, and it’s for you and no one else,” you start, quickly wetting your lips and continuing again, “and I know you must feel like a second choice, or like you weren’t important to me at all, but that’s not true.”

“You helped me so much, really, but the more I hung out with you, the more I realised just how wonderful you are. And how your heart is so big, how you’re fun to be around…” you ramble, taking Felix by surprise with your heart-felt monologue, “and that Jisung is not the one for me, because, well, it was just.. it was just a crush. I didn’t know him. He didn’t even know me that well. Crushes… they don’t mean anything. They’re silly. But what I have with you, Felix…” you say, drifting your eyes away from him for a second,

“I know you. The real you. And you know me. You’ve seen me at my worst. You’ve seen me struggle and you know exactly how to help. You know me and I know you and the feelings I have for you are much more than a silly crush. I love you, Felix. And I don’t want to just forget about us.” you complete and Felix swears he can feel his eyes watering at your words. He chooses not to speak up, afraid of his voice breaking, afraid he’s going to embarrass himself in front of you. His emotions got the best of him and right here and now, no one else matters. 

It’s you. You that feels like home, you, the only girl he’s ever loved. You, the only girl that ever loved him back, you, who he foolishly rejected. 

You’re everywhere. In his veins, in his heart, in his foolish, stupid mind.

“Felix… I don’t want you to give up on us.” 

He looks up, seeing your sincere eyes and a look full of worry. You seem so wonderful to him, even now. You’re everything he’s ever dreamt of, a home without a roof and walls. With you, he feels at ease. He trusts you. He’s never felt this way for anyone before.

He watches you and he hears your laugh, he hears your whines when he used to tease you so much. He hears the sound of your memories when he chased you around in the snow. He hears the opening song of Howl’s moving castle, reminding him of the warmth he felt when you hugged him so close that evening.

He used to want to hate you. He should have known that could never be the case.

You’re all he needs-- all he wants. You’re everywhere he looks, in every beauty of the world and in everything that’s dear to him. 

You, you, you, you.

And so he decides-- it’s time to change his plan.

Lee Felix’s bullet-proof guide to loving you: 1) hold her hand, 2) get rid of the guilt, 3) lean in and kiss her.

“Does that mean you’re giving us a chance?” you ask, hopeful eyes glaring at him with millions of stars in them, sparkles swimming around in perfection.

“We’ll talk after you eat. You have a yelp review to write,” he laughs.

“Feli-”

Lee Felix’s bullet-proof guide to loving you: 4) shut her up by forcing french fries into her mouth.

“I love you too.”

[atsvmi-x]

my personal characterization of eren bc i’ve been thinking about him a lot🥰 this is all modern!au bc canon literally never happened.

these aren’t x reader headcanons but i have more than enough thoughts about eren in a relationship to provide those soon!

General

Loud, brash, and loyal to a fault - you either love him or hate him (or if you’re Jean, you both love and hate him)

Those that he allows into his inner circle are friends for life. He’s easy to piss off but he’s quick to forgive when it comes to friends and family. If that doesn’t apply to you, or you cross those closest to him, he’ll hold a grudge long after the issue is resolved. You’re on his shit list for life.

He wears his heart on his sleeve. It’s literally impossible for him to conceal his emotions. If he’s angry, sad, annoyed, happy, literally anything his feeling you will be sure to know.

The same goes for his opinions. Blunt beyond belief. If he thinks something is stupid he won’t hesitate to say so. He’ll backtrack to soften his delivery if he notices that it offends other parties though.

All of these factors can lead to awkward moments. 99% of the time he’s confident enough in his stance to ignore how others might receive him but the other 1% of the time you might catch the rare sight of his cheeks heating up.

Contrary to popular belief, Eren is actually smart. Not to the same caliber of Armin, Erwin or Hange when it comes to critical thinking and analysis, but it is still above average. That being said, he doesn’t necessarily apply himself to subjects that don’t immediately interest him. However, he has impeccable game sense, making him quite the accomplished athlete.

Anger issues. Clearly. It made him a difficult child... for most of his life (and probably the reason he’s an only child) but as he’s gotten older he’s learned to manage his temper. It’s still easy to rile him up though, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before he backs down from a challenge. But for the most part his attitude is a running joke between those he’s closest with.

He has a strong moral compass and sense of justice. Not in the sense that he’s conservative, far from it. His personal ideology is: as long as it’s not hurting anyone people should do what they want. and anyone that messes with that is wrong. He’s a simple guy

Bad at flirting. He can be super oblivious and when he does catch on, he’s not smooth at all. But he’s tall and pretty so it comes off as endearing 99% of the time. It’s his boy-ish charms that save him every time.

Childhood

Cute as a button as a baby. Poor Carla and Grisha were blindsided when he hit his terrible twos.

Had no friends besides Armin until middle school when his parents adopted Mikasa.

Before Mikasa, he and Armin were the black sheep of the neighborhood kids. Eren easily alienated himself from the neighborhood kids and his schoolmates due to his brash nature. Looking back on it, he still stands with his decision since it meant he found his first friend.

(Armin didn’t fit in for his old soul thanks to being raised by his grandparents)

Super curious and didn’t realize how small he was in such a big world. On several occasions he wandered off because of his curious nature. Would have been a leash kid if leash kids were a thing when he was growing up.

Could technically be considered a school bully for talking down to kids on the playground. HOWEVER, he was smaller than other kids for a while, meaning his haughty attitude resulted in petty school yard fights that he lost most of the time. Still, he never cried and never learned his lesson.

Since we was never against a fight, he made it his mission to take up for Armin. When Mikasa joined his family he did the same for her when their peers made comments about her different looks. As we know, those roles soon reversed with Mikasa taking on a protector roll

To try and find a suitable outlet for his excess...energy...Carla and Grisha signed him up for every sport under the sun. Was pretty good too but excelled at football and track and field.

Teen

Was on a first name basis with administration during his school years for getting too invested in classroom debates. His fired up nature easily boiled over outside the classroom resulting in several fist fights

Got suspended once for said fights, but more often than not Mikasa saved him before he could get into more trouble.

So angsty. Literally a textbook case of teen angst from the loud music, dark clothes, to butting his heads with his parents he was truly a nightmare. (He recognizes this and is forever apologetic to his parents for being so difficult during this time)

Started to grow out of his rebellious phase by his junior year. There was no real explanation for it he just...did. That’s not to say that he was any less combative, he just knew what battles to pick. Good job Eren.

By the time he graduates he’s such a mama’s boy. He’s always loved him mom but now his eyes have been opened to how much of a handful he was growing up. He’s embarrassed anytime she brings up old stories but he knows it’s all in good fun.

He’s also had a major growth spurt by the time he graduates and his years of playing sports have definitely paid off. He’s a total heartthrob by his senior year and unintentionally a heartbreaker. Again, it’s hard to break into his circle, nothing personal.

Young Adult (College/Post Grad)

Commits to playing football exclusively. Not out of hopes of going pro but he just really likes the sport. He’s well known around campus between sports and his personality.

Still, he can be found with any one member of his crew at any given time. It’s rare to find him by himself unless he’s in his dorm room. He’s a total extrovert and gets bored easily when left to his own devices.

BUT he’s not a total party animal. Definitely prefers kickbacks to partying. But he will show his face if someone personally asks him to come.

Smokes and drinks the normal amount. Knows his limits and isn’t a lightweight for either. But under the right conditions (i.e. drinking games, bets, etc.) he’ll over indulge. Far too touchy when he’s under the influence.

Struggled to find his “calling” in school. Most of his friends fell into majors that they clicked with but it wasn’t that easy for him. He probably ends up with a fifth year under his belt. since he didn’t officially declare a major until maybe junior year.

Graduates with a political science degree! 1) He fooled his parents into thinking he’d go to law school which satisfied his doctor dad. 2) While he doesn’t exactly know how, he wants to improve daily life for the less fortunate and he thought this was a good step to do that. 3) He loved being able to argue for a grade during in-class debates

I know we all love streamer!Eren but I really do think he’d end up going down a creative/independent route where he’s not tied to a desk 9-to-5. It really stressed him out to think about doing thing for 50 years and then being able to enjoy life after retirement.

Other

Like previously mentioned, his music tastes were pretty narrow. But as his social circle grew and he was exposed to new genres his musical pallet has expanded. His go to genres are still heavy, but he’s not against asking what song just played if he liked it (unless you’re Jean, he’ll never give him the satisfaction).

I feel like his celebrity crush is Doja Cat. I have no evidence I just feel like he’d be into her.

Baby can NOT dance. if he tries hard he can bust a two step but usually he doesn’t usually put forth the effort though. It just gets worse if he drinks.

Very much a night owl but surprisingly, he doesn’t like to sleep in either. Feels like there’s too much stuff to do in a day to just waste it in bed. He contradicts himself though bc he can spend all morning in bed playing around on his phone (he’s addicted)

[jarofstyles]

Teacher’s Pet

A/N: As requested, here is the first part of our professor!harry series. As usual, this we put our little twist on things and we hope that you enjoy! - n+d

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masterlist

pairing: Harry Styles x Reader

warning: smut, mutual masturbation, use of sex toys

word count: 6.2k

While Harry tried not to show favoritism in his courses, it was hard not to be caring towards the students that showed effort but struggled. That was the case with little Y/N. She was young, pretty, had a bit of an edge to her. From what he had noticed she was kind and often let people borrow pens and once gave a diabetic classmate her muffin when she saw he was a bit pale and taking his blood sugar. 

He wasn’t everyone’s favorite professor. He was a tough grader, had a bit of a resting ‘bitch’ face, and he wasn’t necessarily warm and fuzzy. It wasn’t what Harry wanted at all— but it had to be done so that the students wouldn’t just see him as a peer. He had learned that early in. He had to be strict and get respect or he would be stuck with slackers or people who thought he would ‘do them a solid’ as one student had tried to ask with a fist bump. But when it came to sweet students with dyed hair, a devastated little pout, and even watery eyes, he knew he would have to say something. 

‘If you would like some help, please come to my office any time after 4. I would be happy to assist in figuring out the material.’

It was written next to a poor grade. He could tell that she had potential— she just wasn’t getting it. He also worried about her word usage. If what he thought of was correct, it would make sense why she was struggling.

School was never one of Y/N’s strong suits. From the beginning of her school career she struggled with getting the hang of concepts and her teachers grew a distaste for her because they thought she wasn’t trying. Y/N was a hard worker though, she did genuinely try, but her best was never enough. A few teachers pointed out that she might have a learning disability, but her parents denied that ever being a case. Her other siblings, both older and younger, were able to grasp concepts easily and were all incredible book smart in addition to being talented outside of school. It seemed that Y/N was just the bad apple of the bunch. Her parents would joke, but of course it hurt. She didn’t even want to go to college originally, but her parents forced her to at least try and get a degree so she wouldn’t be a low life. Y/N only agreed because they said they’d keep paying for her band. Of course, you can only really go to college if you pass though and Y/N wasn’t doing too well. 

Professor Styles had always intimidated her, but he just took his job seriously. She could tell by the way he talked about everything that he was passionate about making sure people understood the deeper meaning behind these books and Y/N could appreciate that. It was just a shame that she struggled so much in his class. There were students that excelled in his classes and he was always giving them praise, little surprised smiles and nods, a small ‘good job’ or ‘correct, yes’ here and there. Y/N found herself wanting to try harder in his classes just to get a praise out of him, but she was too nervous to raise her hand even when she did know the answer. This was her third time getting a not so passing grade in this class and Y/N was growing more and more frustrated. She understood the material, or she felt like she did, but whenever it came to reading and remembering, she found herself getting stuck. Little frustrated tears formed in her eyes but she blinked them away, thinking she wasn’t going to muster up the courage to see him today. 

But she did.

He had a soft spot for the students that he helped. It was human nature to care for those you spent time with. It wasn’t like how he thought about Y/N though. Okay— he knew it was bad. But he was intrigued by her. Why? He wasn’t able to pinpoint exactly what it was. Maybe her edgy look, maybe it was because she was seemingly submissive and every time he caught her eye she looked like a deer in headlights. She stares at him a lot, he could notice that. But he likes it. So he was pleasantly surprised when she came to his office, looking skittish but also curious. She needed help and he would offer it to her. 

“Y/N, it’s nice to see you.” Harry adjusted his glasses and sat up straighter, putting the final mark on a test before looking back up at her with a gentle smile. He had to approach with caution, she already looked like she was going to shit herself. “I’m glad you got my note and weren’t offended. But I was wondering if you’d like some help.” He didn’t say what because he wanted her to tell him what exactly she was struggling with.

Y/N was very nervous, mostly because she didn’t like asking for help from anyone. She didn’t like to seem unintelligent in front of men, especially when they were as attractive as Professor Styles. All the girls on campus talked about how hot he was, how his dominance was a turn on and how none of them were properly able to focus in class. At least they were getting passing grades. 

“Hi, professor...” Y/N said softly and closed the door behind her before taking a seat. “I, um... I’m not really good with asking for help.” She explained, pushing a few pieces of hair behind her ear before fixing her septum piercing. Y/N was playing with the hem of her skirt, one of her fingers playing with the fishnet stockings she had on. “I feel like I understand when you’re explaining it and then I go and take the test and it’s like I can’t remember anything you said. But I’m not good at academics anyway so...” Y/N let out a sad chuckle. Her self confidence was pretty low in all aspects, it was a shame because she was a pretty girl. She didn’t seem to think so, hence why she dressed up. At least her clothes she could control.

“Now, don’t say that.” Harry tutted. “I’m sure that’s not true. I bet you just have a different way of learning. If you understand verbally, but freeze when it’s written, that may be the case.” He hummed, flipping through the last work she had handed in. “My question is... it isn’t meant to offend you at all. But do you find difficulty in reading itself?” He approached it gently. You’d be surprised how many adults realize later on in life that they have dyslexia. They were labeled as not the smartest but he was because it took so long for them to understand because the words and numbers get jumbled up. “I’m asking because I notice in your writings, you spell things in a unique way. Or it seems the letters are flipped. This isn’t to embarrass you so please don’t be upset— we just need to figure out why it is that you struggle with the tests.” He leaned forward on his desk, licking over his bottom lip. She was beautiful. In that way when women didn’t know they were beautiful. He wished he could see more of her body— fuck, not going there. Absolutely not. Even though technically it wasn’t like he would be fired, seeing as half the damn staff fucks students. It was always that forbidden element. Either way, he was far too much for this sweet thing to handle. “I would like to help you if you would let me do so.”

Y/N felt really anxious, bouncing her leg to try and keep her composure. She didn’t think she was smart. She wasn’t good at math, wasn’t good at science, she was decent at English but even that seemed to be difficult now that she was reading classics that were barely in modern English. She just decided that learning wasn’t for her. 

“I’m not a reader, no.” She shook her head, Y/N found herself having trouble focusing for a long time and when it came to reading words get jumbled up and she struggled a lot. Especially when she started thinking about it too much. Of course Y/N was embarrassed even though he said he wasn’t trying to embarrass her. It was more just her feeling incompetent. She didn’t like making eye contact with him for too long because she felt like he was staring straight into her soul. She was a bit shy and timid when it came to new people. She appreciated that he wasn’t judging her though. “I don’t know what you could do to help, but if you’d like to try we can? I—I don’t want to waste your time.”

“There’s no wasting time if it helps improve your learning, yeah? Please don’t think of yourself like that. You are an important person, just as important as my other students. I want you to succeed.” Harry promised. It kind of broke his heart that she was so sure that her time with him would be wasted. It made him sad that she felt that way. Why? “How about we set up a time... let’s say two days a week? I have time around now, so 4:15 to 5 where I can help you.” He normally wouldn’t do it for most  but he wasn’t going to let her suffer. A passion project, so to speak. “I don’t know your schedule but I would be here during that time normally. I basically live in this office anyways.” He smiled in a joking way. “We can work on understanding first what was wrong and then we can have time to work on the new material.”

Y/N nodded her head in agreement, but it did make her worry. Of course she could only try her best but she was so used to failing that she wasn’t sure how much harder she could try. She was barely passing her other classes and frankly she was thinking about dropping out all together. Maybe she was the lowlife her parents made her out to be? 

“Can do... Monday’s and Thursday’s..” Y/N told him, “if that’s okay, I have band practice on Wednesday’s.” She wasn’t sure why’s she told him but part of it was to show that she wasn’t just a stupid girl that she did have some talent or at least she thought she did. “It’s um... it’s really nice of you to do this, thank you.” She told him genuinely, though she was terrified of letting him down. He seemed so cool. He wasn’t like this in his classes, he seemed much more approachable this way. Maybe in another life they could have been friends or more than that... no, he probably wasn’t into girls like her. She needed a cigarette.

“Of course. You have my email if you need to reschedule.” But he could see right through her. Of course he could. “But... if you’re nervous, tell me. I can soothe the worries. I’ll be awfully disappointed if you don’t show up and don’t let me know.” He knew she was skittish. He didn’t want her to back out and not take the time to try at the very least. “Let’s just work on it a day at a time. I hope to see you soon.” 

When she walked out, he was ashamed to say he was entranced by her ass. He was such a bastard for thinking about a student like that. So bad. But it didn’t stop him from seeing her eyes when he fucked his fist later that night.

----

The next couple of days left Y/N worried. Coming out of professor Styles’ office had left her feeling on edge, wondering if it was even worth trying. She felt like nothing would save her at this point but this was going to be her last attempt. If it didn’t work out she’d just drop out and couch surf. But she didn’t want to have to do that, her kitty Jinx would have to find a new home and that was something she certainly didn’t want. It was Monday and Y/N didn’t go to her classes today, feeling like it was justified because she was meeting with Professor Styles today. 

If she was going to work on herself she wanted to be in the best shape possible, so she smoked some weed in the morning to get her day off right and got her things together before getting her skateboard and making her way to his office.

Harry was pleased when she actually showed up at his office. He was half expecting her to drop his class with how terrified she had seemed the past time, and he was curious to see how she had thought about what her grades and his revisions on her test. He had worn a dark red button up today with suspenders, his blazer off and hair a tiny bit messy. His glasses hung off the end of his nose while he looked up at her with surprise, before a smile came on his face. 

“Y/N! I’m very glad to see you’ve come.” He hummed, sitting up and leaning back in his chair. “Go ahead and make yourself comfortable on the couch. Would you like a water?”  He had a mini fridge in his office. Without listening to an answer, he pulled one out anyways and handed it to her, rounding the desk so he seemed less scary. The desk was a position of power. One he loved, but also didn’t want to take advantage of when Y/N obviously was terrified of it. “Alright. So... you’ve seen my revisions?” He sat on the other arm chair across from the couch, glasses pushed up now with his copy of her paper. “Good. What do you think about your mistakes? Were they because you didn’t understand the material, or didn’t know what to say in paper?”

Y/N gave him a small smile, setting her skate board up against the side wall before taking a seat on the couch. No amount of weed could have calmed her down, she wasn’t even that high anymore it was just the residual feeling. Right now, she was more concerned about having to tell him what was going on inside her mind when she was working on assignments. 

“I—I um... both?” She felt a blush creeping in on her cheeks. “I tried to like... watch videos about it, cause whenever I try to read I just get frustrated.” Y/N explained fiddling with the paper. She didn’t like this feeling, it was obvious that it was something that made her emotional which was why she didn’t really talk about it. She let out a breath, looking over what she wrote and seeing all the red pen. It made her want to crawl up into a ball despite how nice he was being. He was trying and so she would also try her best to keep it together. “I find it really hard to focus..”

“I don’t doubt that you do, Y/N. I’m thinking that maybe this isn’t something to do with your focus, but maybe it’s with your reading? You could learn differently than other people and that's absolutely alright.” Harry felt poorly that she was so sad and embarrassed about it. “Look at me.” When she didn’t respond he was trying a different tactic. Soft but very obviously meaning business. “There we are. Now, this doesn’t mean you’re stupid or unable to learn or do well in my class. You just may need to learn differently.” He stood up and grabbed a book from his shelf. “So this book— I got it online. It has some illustrations in it, and I find they’re pretty self explanatory. Maybe this will help you understand it better. Having an image opposed to words in your mind.” He handed it to her. She didn’t need to know he had bought it himself.

Y/N glanced up at him as he told her to look at him, seeing his face go much softer but his eyes still held that same intensity. She followed his with her eyes as he went to get the book. It was much thicker than the others due to all the illustrations but of course it made her feel like a little kid again. She just wished she could be normal. 

“Okay...” She said softly, willing to try anything at this point. Of course she was nervous about going forward with his class seeing as she knew things would only get more difficult. Y/N gave him a small thank you as she looked through the book but part of her felt like it wasn’t going to work. No one was determined in helping her learn, they never have been. She’d always gotten very poor, passing grades because she assumed teachers felt bad for her or knew her siblings and assumed maybe she was just the rebellious one. “Sometimes I feel like I do better on the essays, cause I feel like I get it... but I end up getting better grades on the tests than the essays and it’s... disheartening.” She explained with a small frown, “cause I guess on the tests a lot of the time.”

He furrowed his brows, listening to what Y/N had to say. It made sense if she had dyslexia that she would be frustrated and upset with learning altogether but it was important to her and him as well, that she was able to do what she was meant to do. Whatever it was she had wanted. 

“I think you should outline your essays more. Each body paragraph, with reasoning and thought. Come up with 4 to 6 reasons for each, word them how it makes sense to you, and write it that way. The structure taught isn’t the only way to do it.” He explained. Writing down on a piece of notebook paper an example of how she could do it. “I know it must be very frustrating— especially if it’s been years that you’ve had to deal with this. I understand. But I do have faith that you’re able to do this. You are intelligent, Y/N. You just have to figure out the right way to show it.”

Y/N let out a sigh, swallowing thickly as he gave her some advice on how to structure her essays in a way that would make more sense. She would try her best, especially with knowing that he was going to be grading things knowing what her situation was. Y/N was going to try her best to sound smart or collected, but she will admit she hadn’t been paying attention for years. 

She pulled out a folder of her English work, pulled out the notes she had taken and the lay out for her essays and bit the inside of her lip. Y/N handed it to him and immediately went to pay with her own fingers. Observing him as he looked through what she had done previously. 

“I—I try my best, I really do.. but anytime I get the courage to try it just gets worse and I go back to not trying at all because at least then I know I’m failing cause I’m doing it on purpose and not cause I’m stupid.” Y/N was trying to share her feelings to try and make him understand. “‘s really intimidating being in class with people who pick up information easily and I end up just tuning out cause it’s too fast for me to follow... and I don’t want to be that one girl that holds up the whole class with a stupid question.”

“You aren’t. If you have a question that you aren’t comfortable asking in front of everyone, you are always welcome to email me or come to my office at any time I’m here.” Harry promised. Poor girl. Jesus, what happened to her to make her self esteem like this? “You are very capable. Very much a smart girl. You need to tap into different areas of your brain. I promise, we can get your grade up together, alright?” He felt softness and fondness because he knew that sometimes professors weren’t the most understanding. Granted, he was only like this towards students that came for help— and oddly, even more so towards her, but still. “You don’t have to stop trying. You just need a different approach and we can help you find the right one. Do you like movies?” He suddenly remembered that. At her confused look, he continued. “Movies are scripts. Books. Visual. Do you find it easy to follow along with movies?”

She found it hard to believe him because no one really called her smart, ever. Y/N gave him a small smile and nodded her head, pushing pieces of hair away from her face before nodding and realizing she reversed the work she’d just done. He was a very nice man, it was clear that he was committed to helping her and it was definitely appreciated. She just didn’t know why he believed in her so much when no one else did? 

“Well yeah... I can follow conversation and stuff.” Y/N let out a small chuckle, sniffling a bit before she continued. “I think another problem is I get too confused about things like.. the deeper meaning stuff in books. Like the themes and whatever you call it. Cause in my head I know what I think it means but then it’s meant to mean something else and then I think I just didn’t understand correctly.” Y/N was definitely more of a creative. She didn’t like following set rules, she liked going with the flow and following her own thing. It worked when it came to her music, she was able to focus then. But she taught herself guitar.

“I think that you need to first take the book at face value. Don’t look for the hidden meanings the first time you read because it will confuse you more.” Harry cleared his throat. She smelled really good. Like peaches and citrus. He wondered if her bed smelled like that, but stronger. 

“Tell me some things you like.” He leaned back into the seat. “Things you think we can connect to projects. You said you’re in a band? Have a band?” He remembered that from last time. At her nod he continued. “You can find a song or make a playlist of songs that connect your head to the book. Say... Romeo and Juliet. Hmm.. check yes Juliet, We The Kings. If you’ve heard of that. You can find songs that help you remember.”

“Yeah, I’m in a band.” Y/N nodded her head a bit at him, “it’s like a indie punk thing...” She wasn’t sure what kind of music he listened to but he seemed young enough to think that indie music was good. Who knows, maybe he was one of those jazz guys with all the sweaters he wears. Y/N wasn’t one to judge though. The check yes Juliet reference made her chuckle, remembering middle school and highschool momentarily. He couldn’t be that much older then. “Yeah, I know that song.” She giggled and shook her head, “but yeah, I understand.” She spoke and took note of that in her mind. Y/N didn’t know how she was meant to explain to him that she spent the rest of her free time doing drugs. Tripping and writing music, hanging out with her kitty. That’s about it. Skating, going out in nature. Fucking. She definitely was a bit of a nympho. She assumed it was because of her need for attention.

“Okay. That’s good then. Use that to try and correlate.” He had felt weird watching her leave the room, seemingly in a better mood than she had been before but still nervous. It didn’t help that he hadn’t gotten laid and didn’t really want to have sex with someone else right now. God, if only he could spread her open and dip his cock into her soft cunt. That’s something he was dreaming of. 

He thought about it the next night too. So, with his bored and needy thoughts, he went home and did his chores he needed to do, before he went to lay in his bed with his laptop. To be honest. Most porn didn’t do it for him. He much preferred erotic writing or even more so, cam girls. Sex workers deserved support and he always tipped well, though rarely talking in any of them. He was scrolling down the alternative tab when he found what he was looking for. Tattoos and plump lips, tits for a profile photo and a tongue sticking out. Interesting— and she was live. 

He just never expected the exact woman in his head to be placed on the screen, smoke coming from her mouth. 

Fuck.

Y/N wasn’t exactly sure how she thought about starting camming but it all sort of just fell into place. She started off just selling her nudes and videos for attention and money but then she realized that people would pay really good money to watch live stuff. It’s a good thing too because Y/N loved being watched. Her cams were usually regularly scheduled, but other times they were spontaneous because she was really horny. bbybunnie was her username, most people just called her pet names though, never by her actual name for obvious security reasons. She had quite the following too. People seemed to love her content. She was fun and bubbly and she felt like she put in a great show both literally and physically. Y/N had just done a bong rip, having her windows open to let the smoke out. She didn’t like smoking around Jinx so she’d let her in once she was properly stoned. She was dressed in a black crop top that said princess on it in gothic font, fishnets, and little black panties. 

“Been really stressed lately with college and stuff...” Y/N answered a previous question as to what she’d been up to. “Working on assignments in stuff but it gets hard.” She pouted, turning her head when she heard Jinx scratching at the door. “One second.” She giggled and went to grab Jinx, leaving the door open so she could roam. “Here she is, say hi to everyone.” Y/N cooed in a baby voice. It was quite the sight. An alternative girl all soft with her cat, just starting the broadcast. Her vibrator was clearly in frame, already plugged in. A subscriber bought a heavy duty one for her.

And Harry should have clicked off. Right away, he should have exited the screen and said ‘gotta go’ because this was his student. His student he tutored and had fucking come on here to jerk off to a look alike. But he couldn’t. Not finally getting a look at her body. Soft and curved and delicious. Her tits strained the tank top and little tiny panties, some fishnets. Jesus fucking Christ. He let out an audible moan as he watched her sit back on the bed, talking back and forth with some of the comments.

He wasn’t sure what made him comment. 

DaddyH: you look beautiful. I love the fishnets.

She did. And he loved them. A lot of the comments were dirtier but not to the point he could see it turning a woman on. He didn’t get an associates in sexology for nothing.

Y/N was pretty good with responding to comments, they were paying after all, but a lot of them were much nicer than most would think. Her community was used to her streams taking a bit to get going because she liked to get super horny, so once she was properly high she usually talked with her comments about things she’s been fantasizing about and what they’d like to see her do. 

DaddyH. He was new. 

“Hi daddyh, thank you! You’re new aren’t you?” Y/N said with an excited smile, she liked newcomers. It meant someone was interested in her. “Well we’ve got a special show on our hands then.” Her viewers loved when new people came because the shows were always better. She was visibly hornier. She shifted a little bit so she was leaning farther back on her pillows, bringing her legs up and out so she was spreading like a little butterfly. Of course the panties kept things covered but not much. Y/N pulled them up so they were tight on her, “Gotta get me real wet first, yeah?” She hummed, “love knowing you’re watching me... love when you tell me what you like...” It was strategic to talk dirty as if she was talking to one specific person.

Fuck shit motherfucker. Fuck. 

Harry didn’t even see her pussy fully yet and he was nearly drooling. What the fuck had he done in what past life to get this type of luck? He wasn’t sure but he did know that whatever he did, he was thankful. He got a good look at her, her lusty eyes. He was a dirty talker. He loved to sex— fuck the English teacher in him. He loved making women a mess of whines and slick and speaking their darkest fantasies into their ears as the writhe underneath him. Y/N would be a fun one to play with. For sure. 

DaddyH: you could play over the panties. They’re cute.

He had a thing for panties and fishnets, and she was going right to his kinks.

“But that’s no fun.” Y/N pouted at the comment, wiggling her panties a little bit so she could rub against her clit some. She let out a tiny moan and hummed, letting her hands move up her body to squeeze her tits through her shirt. She was properly eye fucking the camera too, teasing as she started to pull up her shirt. “I’m frustrated, daddy...” Usually she waited till she got a certain number of tips before she took her clothes off, but she was only a few dollars away so she pulled off her shirt revealing that she wasn’t wearing a bra. The tightness of the tank top kept them up, but these men seemed to love natural tits. Her hand slipped down to start rubbing over her clit over top her panties, letting out little breathy moans of pleasure. “Really want to be fucked...” She explained, “Wanna be full...” Y/N pouted and quickened her pace. 

“Bent over a desk.”

Harry had a big oak desk he could bend her over and absolutely destroy her. If that’s something she would want. Harry would wreck her. His hand palmed Over his cock as he took her in and looked at her tits. He was an everything man but tits? He could happily suck on hers for an hour and make marks all over, just to listen to her mewl and feel her on his tongue. He squeezed over his sweatpants, feeling himself heat up as he watched her. She was topless, his student. His student was topless and rubbing her clit over tiny little panties, giving a pout and looking at the camera too fucking similar to the way she looked at him in his office today. And while his rational mind knew he wouldn’t be able to look at her the same— he would want to fuck her even more than he had— he couldn’t stop watching.

It was clear that Y/N’s interactions with Harry had spilt over into her mind while she was getting into it. It was that intense stare that he had, his ringed hands, of course there was also the tone of his voice. How he asked her to look at him that one time. She could only imagine him asking her much rougher and in a deeper voice. 

“Daddy...” She whimpered out, teasing her own self over her panties as she read over the comments. Y/N giggled are some, loving he praise if men calling her cute and telling her she was pretty and her moans were turning them on. She went and took off her panties cause she really couldn’t take it anymore, revealing her fishnet covered cunt. “Want a better view, hmm?” Y/N smirked, moving to rip them right over the crotch so everyone could see. “I’m so fuck wet for you... look..” She said all excited, pulling her fingers back to show the strings of wetness on her fingers.

Harry was in heaven. Truly. Or hell, because he wasn’t able to be the one ripping the fishnets up and fucking her in them. Her thighs looked soft and delicate and probably so easily bruised. He could do some incredible work down there. 

DaddyH: Lick it clean, sweetheart. I know it’s sweet.

There was no way she wasn’t so sweet that his teeth would fill with cavities. No way. He wanted her taste all over his tongue. He was a very giving dom, very much eager to make his lovers cum again and again and again so long as they complied with his soft rules. It wasn’t difficult.

Y/N’s stomach filled with warmth as she read over the comment, bringing her fingers to her mouth and sucking on them properly as if they were a cock. She was starting to like the Daddyh character. He was so sweet and polite in his choice of words, paid well. What was there not to like? She removed her fingers from her mouth giggling a little bit as she decided to show off some more. Y/N pushed the laptop back a bit, turning so they could see her ass and how she arched her back for them relieving that she’d had a butt plug in the whole time. Sleek and black with a little gem at the end. A lot of the things she had were gifts from subscribers. She had an Amazon wishlist specifically set up for them as well as a regular P.O. Box that then routed to her home. She had tons of back up fishnets, some used ones she sold online as well. Lots of other things. She quite enjoyed it.

When did she put that in? Harry needed to know. Was she wearing that when she was sat on his fucking couch? He would surely lose his goddamn mind if that was the case. 

He tipped her $50, asking the question he needed the answer to. 

DaddyH: Have you been wearing that all day, pretty girl?

The idea of her squirming in class occurred to him. And then the idea of a little vibrator inside of her that he had the remote to, pressing it on to see her reactions. He would buy her one, fuck. He would buy this girl anything if it meant getting to see her squirm and hear her beg him to let her cum.

Y/N wiggled her bum a bit, turning on her back again with a hum. “I’ve been wearing it all day...” She nodded, reaching over for her vibrator because she really couldn’t wait anymore. Everyone who streamed her knew she was impatient, sometimes if they paid a good amount she’d wait and tease herself first but she was needy today. She just kept thinking about professor Styles. “‘m so needy... been so horny lately, might be on for a while.” Y/N blushed, “or I’ll film some special requests on my onlyfans...” She smirked because she knew she would get lots of money for men begging her to stay but loads for custom content too. Y/N turned the vibrator on it’s lowest setting, starting to move it down on to her cunt where she let out a pleaser sigh. “I wanna cum so bad... just wanna cum.” She pleaded, reading to see what everyone was saying. Y/N turned it up a few notches, letting out a content sigh as she moved it over a specific spot. The feeling was indescribable and the noises that left her just showed how relieved she was.

Harry nearly fell over. Her ass was stuffed when she sat on his couch— and it wasn’t from his cock. Harry particularly loved anal, it was a very hot thing to him and the fact she hadn’t been warming his cock like that was near criminal. Truly. 

“Sweet Jesus.” He breathed, finally taking himself out of his pants. Spitting thick on to the head, he spread it over his cock and waited for her to continue. She had an onlyfans? He would be subscribing and buying content. He didn’t give a fuck. He wanted it and it would be the best way to keep her close but far. He was watching how her legs trembled and her mouth fell open at the feeling, her body arching into the buzzing of the vibrator. Oh, how he would hold it against her and finger her until she squirted all over the bed and make her clean it up with her tongue. He was a sexual man but kinky more than anything. The idea of it all... it was so hot and wrong and taboo and it was even better in his cock’s mind that she was a no go zone. Made it hotter. 

DaddyH: you’ve got such a pretty pussy. How many times can you cum?

Y/N read his comment and let out a whine, turning up the vibrator a few settings higher once again so she could get even closer to her brink of orgasm. “Let’s find out.” She breathed out and continued to crank up the settings. The closer she got the more she thrashed and bucked her hips both up and away from the vibrator. She was very enjoyable to watch she’s been told, specifically because she just couldn’t keep her mouth shut and that she was willing to take a lot. Y/N must have sat there for a few hours just making herself cum over and over again, both with the vibrator and the dildo she had. Once she was all fucked out, 5 orgasms deep, she just laid there and watched the comments roll in. She giggled at a few, breathing heavily as she slowly walked herself down from the blissful headspace she was in. “Thank you, I’m feeling so much better...” Y/N cooed, giving them a smile. “Have a good day or night!” And with that she’d logged off, happy that she had made a new regular.

-------------------------------------------

[part 2]

A/N: bet you weren’t expecting that huh? 😈 and yes!! punk!y/n - n + d

let us know what you think!

masterlist

[lavdrag]

Model Student(Dom.Midoriya Izuku x Sub.Fem.Reader)

All characters are aged up 18+

word count: 1,158 this took fucking forever, i really thought it was going to be longer than that....rip🙂😭

genre: smut

warnings: 18+, oral, semi-public, overstimulation

a/n: i was trying to do homework, but people kept teasing me on tumblr and in discord, and thus, this fic was born.

You were trying.

Even though your college had practically been transformed into zoom university, you had been one of the few students who managed to stay caught up. You attended all of your online classes, did all of your homework, and were still well on your way to receiving your degree. There was just one thing distracting you:

Your horny fuck of a boyfriend.

“I know everyone is tired, 8 am class is never ideal, but I appreciate everyone being here.” Your professor said as the last few stragglers entered the zoom call. “Now, staying muted is ideal so we don’t have too many people talking at once or background noise, but I’d prefer if you all kept your cameras on so I can make sure everyone is paying attention.”

“Noooooooo!” you groaned, knowing you were already muted. Reluctantly, you turned on your camera to reveal yourself.

“Babe, whats wrong?” you heard your boyfriend inquire from the other room. 

“It’s nothin’ ‘Zuku,” you assured, “my professor is just forcing us to keep our cameras on.”

“I thought all of your professors let you keep it off.”

“That was last semester, this girl is new,” you stated, “and I already regret taking this class.” 

You heard him walk to your shared bedroom. “Don’t say that,” he consoled, leaning against the door frame, “keeping your camera on could be fun.”

“How could it possibly be fun? You never know who’s looking at you, and I can’t wear pajamas anymore!” you complained.

“It’ll be more fun than you think.”

*

*

*

Midoriya had distracted himself by filling out some paperwork from his last mission, but it didn’t take long before he was finished with that. He tried to think of other things to occupy his interest until you were done with class.

TV? No.

Training? No.

Food? No.

Friends? No.

There was really only one thing he wanted to be doing, and that thing was five feet away, sucked into her zoom class. 

Moving from his place on the bed, he knelt down beside your desk chair, just low enough that he couldn’t be seen by the camera. 

You were diligently taking notes and didn’t even notice him until his hand was gently rubbing your calf. 

“What the—” you squeaked, finally noticing your boyfriend.

“Shh, it’s fine. Just keep working.” he whispered as he positioned himself between your legs, now completely under the desk.

“‘Zuku, my camera is still on,” you warned, “and I can’t turn it off.”

“Yeah,” he affirmed, running his hands over your thighs, “that’s the point y/n.” 

“Mhmmm, come on Izu’,” you pleaded, “class ends in like five minutes.”

“That’s too bad, y/n” he said as he slowly started rubbing your clit through your shorts, “because I want to taste you now.”

Immediately, your face contorted in pleasure. You quickly realized your mistake however, and continued paying attention to your professor.

“Come on y/n, there’s gotta be, what? Like 40 people in your class? Who’s gonna know” your boyfriend asked, continuing his attack on your clit.

Being honest with yourself, this wasn’t a good idea. Although your microphone was muted, you knew you had absolutely no control over your facial expressions, and you were sure someone in your class would immediately catch on. But you also knew how good your boyfriend was with his mouth.

In the end, his mouth won over the possibility of getting in trouble.

You lifted your hips to help him slide your shorts and panties to the floor.

“Wow y/n, already this wet for me?” he teased. “Try not to make any faces babe. You wouldn’t want to get caught now would you?”

Before you could answer he lapped up at your slit, effectively shutting you up.

If there was one thing Izuku was good at, it was sex. He was kind and caring in nature, always making sure everyone’s needs were filled to the best of his ability. There was no shortage of that attitude in the bedroom.

 After lapping up your juices for a while, he moved onto sucking your clit. His tongue swirled around the sensitive bundle of nerves as a finger started pumping into you.

You were trying.

You were trying so hard to keep your face normal.

You weren’t doing so well.

“Are you feeling alright Ms. y/l/n?” your professor asked.

well

shit!

With a trembling hand, you unmuted your microphrone.

“Never better.” you weakly uttered, your face hot as ever.

“Are you sure?”

“Yup! I feel great! Thank you for asKING” you squeaked as your boyfriend started curling his finger up towards your G-spot.

“Alright then.” your confused professor continued, “Well, that just about concludes our class! Thank you so much for attending everyone!” With that, the professor ended the zoom call. 

“Oh thank god!” you groaned, finally able to let yourself go. 

“You did such a good job baby.” Midoriya praised against your heat while adding another finger, “Now I need you to come for me.”

You let out a moan. Weaving your hands through his green hair, you started bucking your hips and grinding yourself against his face.

“That’s it baby, just like that.” Izuku whispered, “Fuck yourself on my face”

Basking in his lewd words, you felt a familiar coil, rapidly tightening.

“I can feel you getting closer, you can do it baby. Cum for me”

Your eyes rolled into the back of your head as waves of pleasure crashed through your body. You came hard and Midoriya wasted no time in lapping up all of your juices.

Just as you went to stand, Izuku pulled you back into place and continued his assault on your pussy.

“I know you have another one in you princess.” he cooed.

The nickname made your face feel even hotter than it was before, but it couldn’t distract you from how intense you currently felt.

“Izuku” you panted, “I-I can’t”

“Yes you can, I know you can. Cum for me baby.”

Izuku angled his fingers to hit your G-spot with each thrust and it was all too much for you. The coil inside of you snapped. You once again clenched around his fingers, letting out a sinful moan. You felt an unfamiliar peeing sensation this time, and looked down to find you had, for the first time, squirted, all over Midoriya’s face.

“I’m sorry!” you immediately squealed. 

“Sorry?” Izuku asked, “For what? Y/n, that was so hot.”

He ran his hand over his face, guiding all of your liquids to his mouth, where he eagerly sucked him in.

“Now,” he said, crawling out from under the desk, “I have an assignment or you.” He stood while you were still sitting, your face now level with the hard-on he was palming.

“Oh really?” you inquired, gaze never leaving his erection, “And what makes you so sure I’ll follow your directions?” you teased. 

“Because,” Midoriya said, pulling out his cock, “you’ve always been a...

model student.”

[lizbotw]

it’s only sharing a disgustingly sweet milkshake at the local college town diner after both of your evening classes that suna graciously provides the answers to the math homework.

the spongy pencil eraser is easy for you to sink your teeth into as you puzzle over his handwriting. “you know,” you mumble around the nib, trying to figure out if that’s a 5 or a 6, “i never know why you do this to me every week.” this time the drink with two plastic straws floating in an unhealthy heaping of whip cream is a syrupy strawberry flavor.

rintarou tips forward to sip at one of them and in your peripheral, chunky pink-coated fruit pieces travel up the clear tube and disappear between his lips. he releases the straw with an annoying ah that makes you frown, even if you weren’t concentrating in the first place. “aw, don’t tell me you don’t like hanging out with me.” he feigns hurt.

a well placed sip of your own allows you to avoid having to answer that—you have a personal rule of never being sappy in the presence of calculus. if you didn’t like him, suna knows you wouldn’t be hanging out with him—there are just some things you can’t do, even if it’s for the sake of your grade. none of this has to be said out loud of course, but he decides to be annoying and ask anyway.

actually—well... maybe hanging out is... not exactly how this appears to bystanders.

sharing a drink like this, you two probably look more like a couple on a (terribly cheap) afternoon date, rather than two broke college students that split meals to save money and believe that sharing answers for homework isn’t cheating, it’s collaboration.

ha, as if it would ever be different—things like the former never come true. maybe in movies, but that’s about where the line is drawn.

as if he knows what you’re thinking, suna raises an eyebrow at you over the glass, a smile playing on his lips—the same stupid look he always gives you. it feels particularly worse this evening.

it’s hard to avoid eye contact with him mere inches away, but you manage when a car painted a very interesting shade of red rumbles past the fingerprint covered window. you’re grateful for the distraction.

the subject changes when you realize suna has terrible taste when it comes to ordering milkshakes. “what flavor is this?” you spit out the word as though the very concept of calling this a real flavor is more disgusting than the drink itself, smacking your lips and screwing up your face at the excessively saccharine, artificial strawberry aftertaste.

this is no ordinary strawberry milkshake. no, this is a so-bad-only-suna-rintarou-would-order-something-this-horrible-(and-not-necessarily-on-purpose-either) strawberry milkshake.

“valentine’s valor,” he states matter-of-factly like those words mean anything to you. you stare at him until he elaborates. “their valentine’s special,” he clarifies and is gifted with a sarcastic thumbs-up from you in thanks—it is pointedly ignored and suna slings an arm over back of his seat. “dunno the exact flavor though. forgot.”

it tastes like the embodiment of pink, you decide. valentine’s valor. what a stupid name. there are a million and one better words that start with v... you can name at least five with a little thinking. you should ask them to hire you as part of their marketing team, you decide.

maybe it’s fitting title though. you certainly need valor to even think about taking another sip of that... concoction—which you do because you are obsessed with getting your money’s worth.

“valentine’s day was half a week ago?” your mental calendar helpfully supplies.

the clatter of pans in the back kitchen somehow mingles charmingly with the way rintarou throws his head back to laugh—a scene straight out of a movie really. you decide you hate him in the moment. “right you are. want a prize?” ugh. you stick your tongue out at his tone.

great. as if to add insult to injury, of course you’re sharing an out-of-date love holiday special with suna of all people. valentine’s was four days ago and this is where you are on a thursday night. the sticky upholstery of the booth seat, ripped and fraying at the corners, squeaks and groans and attaches itself to the fabric of your jeans as you shift around, suddenly hot. what a strange situation to be in, you think. this has to be a metaphor for life—then again, you’d been thinking this whole... thing has been a metaphor anyway.

yup, ever since suna sat next to you in a calculus II lecture all those fated months ago and took pity on how much you fucking sucked at math, up until the present where he takes slightly less pity on you but does enjoy emptying your dorm mini-fridge and making you pay for his milkshakes—all of it. this entire thing with him. one big stupid metaphor.

the specifics of how you came to have a routine like this are certainly murky, but two things are for certain—one, your calculus grade is certainly a lot better than it would have been otherwise, and two, you have one friend more than you did at the start of the school year. (that last one is kind of a big deal, you think. the college social scene is brutal. the word friend has started to become more disappointing than exhilarating lately though.)

rin reaches to your left to pick at the fries you’d ordered as a side—you’ve learned not to try and stop him. “also,” he adds, mouth full, “you’re totally getting me a new pencil after this.” yes, true, the pencil you’re currently leaving frustrated teeth marks all over isn’t yours. very easy to forget in the moment. you’ve probably destroyed 15 of his pencils by now for the 15 weeks of the last semester—only 7 so far for the current one. you do the mental math.

instead of drawing in the sharp lines of the differential equation that should be going in the question box, you lightly trace in the curves of a 2 and then another one next to it in the corner of the worksheet, graphite underlining them both in one swoop. the horribly thin paper of the school library’s printer is scratchy as you write but soon you flip the pencil over and under your fingers to tap the eraser (that has seen better days) just below what you wrote. “this is pencil number 22.”

suna leans over to look at the number as if you hadn’t just told him what it said. what an idiot. “glad you’re keeping count.” he settles back into his seat. “when can i expect my reimbursement?”

“you’re funny,” you say, without a hint of humor in your voice. the pretty 22 you had written now has flower petals growing off of the sides as you get distracted doodling along the edges of your work. it’s quiet for a moment as he watches you, or maybe as he takes the chance while you’re distracted to shove more french fries down his throat—either option is plausible and you don’t lift your eyes to check.

something occurs to you.

“rin.” you take an extended pause in between the words as you continue drawing, just to annoy him. you don’t continue speaking until he grumbles in acknowledgment (you try to hide your smile). “do you ever doodle in your notebooks?” now that you thought about it, suna was surprisingly pretty straight-laced when it came to class—you couldn’t ever recall him ever slacking off to the degree that meant his pages were filled with hearts and stars and flowers and suns and atomically inaccurate animals and tiny people in different colored ink. your work was always certainly the more vibrant out of the two (perhaps that could explain your grades and how you understand like... nothing in your lectures, but you decide correlation does not equal causation).

“waste of time,” he says around another mouthful of fries, another one already halfway there to his mouth.

suna is also surprisingly negative at times—but the blue book flipped open to his homework says maybe he’s just a liar though. you squint at it.

“it’s still pretty early but we probably should get out of here soon,” suna says, pulling his phone out from his pocket to check the time and leaning his elbows on the table. “i’ll walk you back. your roomie doesn’t leave the gym until 9—before you ask, yes i’ve been keeping track. it’s not stalking if it’s for my own sake.”—rin is, of course, referring to the long standing rivalry between him and your (very nice, might you add) roommate you don’t really understand but which has cumulated in him deciding he would avoid them as much as humanly possible purely out of spite. (“the only person i like in dorm 302 is you,” he’d told you one time and the throwaway sentence maybe made your heart flutter more than it probably should’ve.)

the bell above the front door jingles behind you as another patron enters. rin glances up at the sound and then returns to his phone with a bored bat of his eyes, probably scrolling through twitter or replying to texts, and picking at his teeth with a toothpick (where did he even get that?).

you try to get back to work (copying) but something in your gut tells you there’s more to his notebook than the messy handwriting and crossed out words that meet the eye.

with suna distracted, you take the chance to carefully slide the book towards you and then, in a single quick swipe, pull it into your lap under the table, already leafing to the back pages—everyone knows that’s where the real secrets are—not sure what to expect. a flash of color makes you pause and you flip back to a page that has the corner folded into a tiny, crisp triangle.

whatever you were thinking suna had stashed in the back of his calculus notebook certainly does not match up with what’s staring you in the face currently. sparkly, gel-inked hearts in neon colors glitter under the fluorescent overheads. in each of them, written in capital letters neater than you thought possible for suna, is your initials, a small plus sign in the middle, and then S.R. (for none other than suna rinatoru) next to it. it instantly makes sense to you. “rin, what the fuck.” one side of the book dangles from your hand, pages fluttering, and you hold it up for him to see, other hand flying to cover your mouth because you don’t know whether to laugh or pretend to be mortified or what.

it’s very amusing to watch how suna goes from a disinterested stare, to widened eyes, to reaching over the heaps of school supplies to attempt to grab the book from you, frantic. you hold it just out of reach. “what are you—” an old lady at a table shushes him when he half-screams. “—give that back,” suna whisper-yells instead in the greatest verbal equivalent of tiny caps you’ve ever heard.

“not a chance.”

he looks like he wants to lunge across the table and pry his prized possession from your meddling hands, but also has half the mind not to make a scene. getting kicked out and then subsequently banned from his favorite diner all on a noise complaint and disorderly conduct accusation was not ideal.

you hum, flip back to your place, and observe the drawings covering the lined pages. you shoot him a venomous smirk over the edge of the cover, one that’s more theatrics than anything, and say with all the satisfaction of someone who knows they have all the power, “oh, this is gold.” he deflates and you feel grateful he doesn’t see right through your facade because oh man are you sweating inside right now. what the fuck? no way suna rintarou is drawing little hearts with both of your initials in it like a lovesick middle schooler. no fucking way. you almost want to tell him that you did the same thing once when the thoughts about him had gotten especially bad (you felt guilty afterwards though, thinking you never had a chance with him, but... now... if he’s doing the same—well, that kind of changes everything).

suna is utterly defeated you think—doesn’t even try to defend himself, just slumps in his seat with a groan. you at least expected a “i can explain!” from him, a last attempt at dignity, not the resigned “i’m never going to live this down, am i?” he mumbles after a few seconds. well, either works for you.

“nope,” you quip, maybe a little too cheerfully because the response you receive is a distressed wail and him banging his head against the table. the old lady shushes him again. you chuckle at that (it feels a little wobbly though because once again, freaking out here) and flip the page. you stop.

this one has similar perfect little hearts drawn all over it, but there are other things. cute, standard shaky drawings of misshapen dogs and volleyballs and other things you never thought suna would take it upon himself to create but all of which make sense are there. but there’s something else. little scribbles in the corners with your last name swapped with his and even him trying out his name with your last one—all of them are scratched out but not so much you can’t read them. a list on the right in a very tiny font that makes you think he was embarrassed even penning the words is titled “date ideas?” (the question mark is in red and the dot is a heart) and has several popular spots around town written down in the local lingo of unofficial names for them.

“listen... please let’s forget about this.” rin’s voice is muffled and he’s still faceplanted. “it’s fine if you don’t... you know... yeah.” if you don’t feel that way, he means. true, the doodles were a pretty good indication of his feelings.

what to do...

well... you take pity on him, let your lips upturn and your eyes soften to reflect the sentiment, and shut the book with a quiet thud. you slide it back across the table from where it came and back to him silently. you give it a resounding pat when suna peeks up at you, expression saying it all—he was so going to get you back for this. you stick your tongue out—acceptance of the challenge. and just like that, you’re friends again—maybe that’s what’s so great about suna.

as you get ready to leave and slowly begin the trek back to the dorm buildings with him, street lamps glimmering a pasty yellow, there’s no awkward tension, no need to ask questions, no verbal wonderings about what ifs between you two. it’s just joking and shoving each other around and challenges to see who can run to the next tree the fastest in the middle of the chilly february night. you know, maybe for now you’ll keep your own thoughts a secret.

[horansqueen]

Stuck With You - Chapter 38

Chapter 38: Stuck With You

🡪chapter 1  🡪chapter 2  🡪chapter 3  🡪chapter 4  🡪chapter 5  🡪chapter 6  🡪chapter 7  🡪chapter 8  🡪chapter 9  🡪chapter 10  🡪chapter 11 🡪chapter 12 🡪chapter 13 🡪chapter 14 🡪chapter 15 🡪chapter 16 🡪chapter 17 🡪chapter 18 🡪chapter 19 🡪chapter 20 🡪chapter 21 🡪chapter 22 🡪chapter 23 🡪chapter 24 🡪chapter 25 🡪chapter 26 🡪chapter 27 🡪chapter 28 🡪chapter 29 🡪chapter 30 🡪chapter 31 🡪chapter 32  🡪chapter 33 🡪chapter 34 🡪chapter 35 🡪chapter 36 🡪chapter 37

College Enemies To Lovers AU

characters // masterlist // instagrams // mood board

I wanna get stuck with you In the middle of the party We're just getting started I wanna get stuck with you  In the eye of the tornado Rowing in the same boat I wanna get stuck with you Get stuck in the middle with you I wanna get stuck with you

Gotta go with the flow And ride the wave right where we're supposed to Yeah, we can go through all the highs and lows Yeah, life's a crazy roller coaster

click here to be on the update list

NIALL

                                              We were lucky enough to find a store still open, buying everything she needed to snowboard before renting more equipment. I looked at her getting ready with a small smile and tried not to chuckle. She was endearing, and the fact that she was ready to try this just for me meant a lot and also proved a lot.

"Shit, I forgot my phone!" she let out, rolling her eyes and making me raise my eyebrows.

"Do you really need it right now?" I asked with a chuckle. "I have mine." I patted my shirt pocket and grimaced immediately, letting out a groan. "Fuck, I forgot mine too."

"Do you really need it right now?" she teased with a grin, making me smile more.

"Yes, one of us has to have one, just in case something happens." I took my gloves off and put them on the couch next to her. "Wait for me okay? I'll do quick."

She nodded and I looked around, realizing the place was more quiet than I thought it would be. I rushed to the hall and took the elevator, running to our room and walking in. The light was still on and I grabbed my phone on the nightstand where I left it but finally decided to search for hers, too. It took me about a minute to notice it on the desk placed against the wall and grabbed it, turning around to leave, before something caught my attention.

I frowned, recognizing the back of my head on a picture, and took it in my hand to look at it better. My eyes quickly roamed on my shoulder, neck and hair but when they stopped on Devon's forehead and hair, I held my breath. My fingers were slipped in it and my heart started thumping in my chest. I remembered exactly how I felt at that moment, how deep inside her I was, how her lips parted in pleasure. It was the very first time we ever had sex and looking at that picture made me realize we would always have something to remind us of this moment, something that would always bring many emotions inside me, including lust and love. I already loved her at that moment and I wanted to believe she did too.

I ran my finger on the part of her forehead I could see and sighed. It was still not completely clear between us, I knew we had a lot of things to talk about, but I was not sure what exactly stopped her from giving us a chance. I loved her, and she loved me, and obviously, we had been been through bad relationships and I was sure that neither of us would want the other to suffer again the way we had before. Besides, it was totally different. Abby didn't love me and I was pretty sure Henry didn't really love her either.

I couldn't believe she had brought the pictures with her and it made me wonder why she never showed them to me. She had talent to take pictures, there was no doubt about it, but this picture had probably turned out that good mostly because of luck. She couldn't have put much thought into it, giving the position she was in, but the result was incredible and something twisted in my stomach as I looked at it. I didn't know if other people beside us would be able to feel all the emotions that emanated from it but at the same time, I didn't really care. I liked to think we were the only ones who could understand, the only ones who could really feel deeply about it because of how involved we were. It was even slightly scary to know that some people could look at it without understanding the degree of intimacy in it.

I was about to put the picture back on the desk where I found it when the light of the room reflected something behind it. I turned it around and read the words written quickly at first and then slowly the second time. It was Devon's handwriting and I immediately recognized the second part she had scribbled. My heart skipped a beat as I re-read my own lyrics of the song I had written for her and I shook my head slightly. She had an incredible memory and it made the left corner of my lips raise in a small smile. I went back to the first part and my smile fell when I realized she had written an actual verse for my song.

"Darlin', are you always tryin' to blame me? Is it me or 'cause you came here? Just accept that time was wrong Oh, change thee I've been thinkin' bout it lately We never finished what we started Now I'm fearful that it's gone."

I sang it in my head a few times before doing it out loud but still very low. It fitted perfectly and I sighed, my eyes still roaming on the words. It was amazing to think we sort of wrote a song together and I loved knowing that each verse was the point of view of one of us. Did she know the song was about her? That thought made my heart jump in my chest before I rolled my eyes and let out a chuckle. It was not a secret that I loved her, not anymore, and it was a good thing. I wasted so much time trying to hate her even though I knew it was impossible.

I grabbed my phone and snapped a picture of the lyrics she wrote but also of the picture she took to be able to look at it whenever I wanted and finally checked my watch. I had been gone for a while and I rushed out, reaching the elevator as fast as I could. When I walked back to her, she was sitting on the couch, her head leaned on the back and her lips parted. I could hear her snore lightly and I chuckled, shaking my head.

"Devie, hey." I said softly, bending down to shake her gently and making her whimper. "Wake up."

She groaned and sat up quickly, rubbing her eyes and letting out a sigh. She was cute when she slept and I waited a few seconds until her eyes fluttered open to talk again.

"Come on, we only have time for a few basic things."

She got up but almost tripped and I held her, chuckling again.

"You okay?" I asked, moving my face a bit closer to look at her.

She sent me a small smile and nodded. "Yea sorry, just give me a few minutes to wake up completely." she licked her lips and finally raised her eyebrows. "Hey, what took you so long?"

"Oh, I couldn't find your phone." I half-lied, searching my pocket and handing it to her. "I put it in a plastic bag for you, just in case you drop it in the snow or something."

Her head tilted and she sent me a fond smile before pressing her lips together. I felt my heart skip a beat when she moved closer but she stopped herself suddenly. "Thank you."

I wanted her to kiss me. I wanted her to do it first, for once. It seemed like I was always the one who made the first move no matter what we did, especially when it came to something romantic. Maybe she's had had a few initiatives when it came to sex but somehow, whenever it was about love, she seemed reluctant.

"You're welcome." I whispered, fighting the urge I had to kiss her.

We grabbed our stuff and walked outside. I saw her shiver next to me when a whiff of cold air hit us but she still followed me to a very small slope. I tried to show her the basics but she was clearly scared to hurt herself and I finally sat next to her in the snow after she fell.

"How about we go a bit higher?" I proposed, smiling gently when I saw the alarmed expression on her face. "I'll be there with you, okay?"

It took her about a minute to answer. Her eyes roamed on my face and once again, I thought she was going to kiss me and my eyes dropped to her lips. She probably noticed because she licked them nervously and my gaze moved back to her eyes.

"Okay."

I helped her up and we walked slowly to the chairlift in silence. I kept glancing at her and she did the same but it's only when we were half-way there, completely up in the air that everything stopped. My heart jumped in my chest and my eyes got bigger when I realized we were stuck and I swallowed hard, turning to her as she did the same. Her lips curled a bit and she burst into laughing, throwing her head back and making my lips curl.

"It's good luck, remember?" she pointed out, smiling more. "That's what you said!"

"I still think that!" I laughed with her, taking my gloves off to grab my phone. "I'll text Lewis, I know he's near his phone. He can inform them and they'll come get us."

I typed something quickly and sent it, my eyes stuck to the screen until I got an answer from my friend that simply consisted of a laughing emoji and a thumb up.

"It's weird isn't it?" I finally said after a few minutes of silence. "How we always get stuck together somewhere when we have something to solve."

She turned her head my way and tilted it, sending me a small but curious frown. "We have something to solve?"

I turned my body as much as I could to face her and shook my head, my eyebrows raised. "Yes we do. Devie, why don't you want me to say you're my girlfriend?"

"We.. We didn't even discuss it."

"We are now." I pointed out with a sigh. "You said you loved me, we made love this afternoon. I didn't tell our friends because I saw how you reacted when I said the 'g' word this morning in the closet but, what do I have to do?"

"You don't get it."

"No! No I don't!"

I was trying to keep my cool but I wanted her to open up to me, I needed it. I needed her and I needed to be with her. It sounded obsessed, it was intense, but It was driving me crazy to know how she felt without being able to really be with her.

"I do love you! I love you so much Niall I don't think you understand!" she let out before breathing in deeply. I saw her tear up and my lips parted slightly. "You remember when you said I moved you? That my art moved you? Henry used to say that too. I know you're not him, but it's not easy for me to put aside all the pain I went through with him just to throw myself in a new relationship. I don't know how you do it. Abby has hurt you so much too and you're just ready to... to jump back into something official and serious with me." She breathed in and I noticed a tear falling down her right cheek. I wanted to reach out to her but I couldn't, I felt paralyzed. "I am nothing special. I am not like the girls you've been with. I am... I am lost, and scared, and scarred! I love you but I'm scared! I'm scared I'll give you everything and that you'll break me the way I was broken before! But I love you so much more than I loved him! I feel so much closer to you than I ever felt to him! And if you... if you leave... When you realize I'm average... or even below..."

I waited a few seconds, staring at her and she sniffed. It was crazy that she kept all that inside for so long, and at the same time, I was so happy she was finally telling me how she feels.

"Are you done yet?" I asked making her look in my eyes again before sending her a small smile. "Devie, I'm scared too. But I love you, I'm in love with you, and I'm ready to take that chance, because being without you is worse than being heartbroken by you. It's ok to love again!"

She sniffed again and pressed her lips together. I brought my hand to her face and brushed my fingertips on her skin, smiling more. "If you shut yourself from feelings, you may make sure that nothing bad happens and that your heart won't be broken, but you also miss all the good things and all the love you could get." I explained in a low tone. "I can't promise you that everything will always be perfect, but I promise I'll keep trying because that's how much I love you. I told you, Devie, you're my main girl. You're the protagonist of this story. No one can take your role. No one."

Her lips curled too and she chuckled before nodding quickly and bending closer to me. She pressed her lips on mine, making me smile too. "I wouldn't want to be stuck here with anyone else." she whispered, making me chuckle before kissing me deeper.

We started laughing against each other's mouth when the chairlift started moving again and finally walked back inside. We were both very cold and we decided to just go back to our room, taking the elevator in silence again. We both got changed into warm clothes and sat in bed together. She leaned her head on my shoulder and moved her legs over mine. I smiled when I saw her warm socks and left a kiss on top of her head.

"That painting you made here the other night..." I started gently, leaning my cheek on top of her head. "It was the first time I saw you paint with light colors. It was beautiful, it looked like a summer sky."

She reached for my hand on her thigh and intertwined our fingers. "All the paintings I made since I arrived here were about you. My art has been about you and my feelings for you, the emotions you made me feel." she explained, surprising me a bit, especially that all my songs were about her. "You make me feel those colors. You make me feel light and clear and warm. You make me feel alive."

"That's not what the painting in our room says, the one you gave me. There's yellow, but there's so much darkness in it. Every time I look at it, I feel horrible for ever making you feel so bad. I'm sorry, Devie."

She moved away slowly to turn around and face me. Her lips curled softly on the left and she licked her lips, shaking her head slightly. "You got it all wrong, Niall." she pointed out gently, raising her eyebrows. "You're not the black in that painting. You're the yellow. You're the light trying to reach me, stopped by my own demons and fears. You're the light in my life, Niall. You've always been the light."

I brought both my hands to her face and cupped her cheeks, kissing her harder than intended. I felt her move closer and straddle me and I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her as close to me as possible. "I love you, Devie, I love you so much." I whispered in-between kisses. "Since the first day."

"I love you too." she murmured back, slipping her hands in my hair. "I always have."

----

We got prepared together the next morning and whenever I'd walk near her, I'd pull her close to kiss her lips and she'd giggle or smile. There was something natural in the way we moved together around the room, even in a place we were not used to, and I couldn't help but think it was a proof that we were made for each other. When we were ready, I grabbed her hand and pulled her closer, making her twirl around as she started laughing and I walked to the door, bringing her with me. We took the elevator to meet our friends downstairs but when the doors opened, I let go of her hand, not really sure if she had changed her mind. I didn't want to rush her, and I didn't want to lose her either. She glanced at me but still followed me to the main room where all our friends were waiting for us, talking and laughing together.

I turned to look at her as her eyes roamed on everyone and after about a minute, I felt her hand reach mine and grab it tight. It took a few seconds but Lewis finally noticed us, his lips curling into a smirk when he noticed we were holding hands. He hit Louis a bit roughly who just frowned but finally turned to us too before our friends noticed us one by one. I cleared my throat when Louis jumped off the couch with a big smile.

"Fuckin' finally!" he yelled, catching the attention of almost everyone in the room. "That's it? That's official? You two are dating?"

"Yes, it's official." Devon replied loud and clear, surprising everyone.

I noticed Mandy winking at her and squeezed her fingers tighter as Louis walked quickly to us, throwing his arms around my girlfriend's neck and holding her close.

"Took you long enough." he told her with a chuckle as she wrapped her free arm around him. "I'm so happy for you two."

Lewis walked to me to hug me too and then almost everyone followed. I noticed Abby sending me a small and sad smile from afar and I just smiled back gently at her, surprised that she took it so well.

"Okay!" Louis let out, clapping in his hands. "Who's hungry?"

Everyone started talking at the same time and they all decided to go to the restaurant to get some food before starting the day. I stopped Devon as she was following them, pulling on her arm to bring her closer to me and just wrapped my arms around her as she tilted her chin up, sliding her hands on my back.

"So that's it? You're my girlfriend?" I asked with an amused grin, making her smile too.

"Mmhm, I'm ready to try that boyfriend/girlfriend thing with you."

"Are you happy, Devon Eaton?" I whispered low, looking down at her.

Her traits softened and she looked at me fondly, in a way no one else had ever looked at me. "Happier than I've ever been. I love you, Niall Horan."

"Not as much as I love you."

[fruityutas]

heart-shaped box

taglist ~ @puppywritings , @xiaojours , @svchengss , @prettyjaems​ 

part of @du0tine​ ‘s 21 ways to kill your lover collab

cannibal!stalker!sicheng x reader

not proofread

genre ~ horror, angst, suggestive but no smut

wc ~ 2.5k

warnings ~ the following writing is FICTION and has very heavy and unsettling themes like murder, stalking, and cannibalism. if these themes are triggering or otherwise uncomfortable to you, do NOT read this story.

synopsis ~ you meet sicheng unexpectedly when out for groceries. he seems to be the most normal person in the room, but what you don’t know can’t hurt you, can it?

the basis of all life is the heart. it beats so we can have oxygen delivered to our organs. it is precious and works hard to let us live. one must protect it at all costs, never let it weaken, not even from love.

sicheng walks the aisles of the store slowly, inspecting each item, analyzing its contents. he keeps his focus until it’s interrupted by a sweet voice. yours. “excuse me?” his gaze floats to meet yours. you stood before him, smiling shyly. “can i help you?” sicheng stands straight, his figure taller than you’d expected. “um, i just need help getting that box of cereal off the top shelf.” his eyes follow your arm up to the top shelf, the cereal clearly out of reach for you. he grabs it and hands it to you. “thank you so much! i really didn’t want to climb the shelves.” the giggle that accompanies your statement makes his ears turn red. sicheng is enthralled by you, your scent, the soft tendrils of hair cascading down your shoulders, your sweet smile. he feels the urge come up. one he hadn’t had in months. Obsession. sicheng knew he’d be seeing you more, he’d make sure of it. “it’s not a problem…” “oh! y/n, that’s my name.” you laugh awkwardly, the pause between him implying to ask your name a bit too long. he grins and nods before wishing you a good day. 

it hadn’t been hard to find your sns, a foreigner in mainland china was rare. the pictures you posted did no justice to what you truly looked like. you’d be a good addition to his collection of hearts stolen. he doesn’t follow you and doesn’t like any posts. he has to stay invisible for the time being. he finds out the college you attend and lurks there whenever possible to figure out your schedule. the first two days gives him what he needs, now he stays just to see you. sicheng eventually gets the gall to trek closer to the actual campus, sitting on the benches of the park on the edge of it. you spot him one day, waving at him. strike one. you make your way over to him and sit beside him. strike two. your compassion was going to be your downfall. “fancy seeing you here! are you a student?” sicheng knows better than to lie, so he says no. “i just like to sit at this park from time to time, it’s very relaxing.” you hum in response. “well, i have to get going to my next class, but it was pleasant seeing you again!” he nods and sends you off with a smile, but little do you know, he’s planning the main course for his next feast.

you see, sicheng and his six friends are all what some would call disgusting and horrible people. they don’t understand though, the delicacies of the human body. eating together brings you closer, but eating a person brings you impossibly close. but sicheng was a smart man, and he didn’t need people to call him disgusting, so he prefers to keep his tendencies in the closet. 

sicheng’s daily routine rarely changed. he got up, fed his cat, made breakfast, ate, showered, and went to work. though he didn’t need to work, his parents had left him an empire of wealth to live off. he got bored with no work, so he decided to use some of the said wealth to get a degree and use it. and what better degree than a doctorate in biology? he used it to his advantage, he knew the exact cuts to make, and how the body could be used. throughout his cannibalistic diet, he’d eaten nine people. sicheng had picky tastes, though. no minors, no one over 30, and absolutely no one he didn’t deem pretty enough. gender wasn’t an issue, sicheng admired both. his victims were unsuspecting, falling for his good looks and seemingly sweet personality. sicheng would usually bed them before killing them because while eating someone connects them to you, he felt as if sex powered it more. 

the next time sicheng sees you, it’s at the grocery store again. he uses this as his chance to try for your number. “fate really wants us to see each other huh?” you laugh at the coincidence. he gives a small chuckle back. “well since fate wants us to see each other, maybe i can take the chance and ask for your number?” his question takes you back, and you turn red in slight embarrassment. “well, of course you can, but i’m not looking for a relationship right now, so just friends?” annoyance spreads through sicheng, but he agrees nonetheless. this would make it hard but not impossible.

for the next week sicheng was texting you and gaining your trust. you’d agreed to meet up with him at a cafe for a “friend date” as he put it. he offers to pick you up, and you naively give him your address. sicheng is getting closer to what he wants, and it’s making him giddy. the outing goes well and sicheng takes you home. he lurks around that night, though, and sees you leave your house dressed up nicely. a car pulls up and a man gets out to greet you. sicheng’s blood boils. how were you not looking for a relationship when clearly you were going on a date with this man?

the entire night, sicheng watches and follows your every move. his rage heightened each time the man touches you. you were his, not anyone else’s. sicheng clearly had to get rid of this problem. he’s done it before, and even though he won’t be dining on this man, his friends will. there is never a wasted meal between the seven of them. a quick phone call to kun, to who he gives the address of the restaurant, and the man is taken care of. sicheng decides to leave before he gets mad enough to do the job himself.

not a word is mentioned by sicheng, because if he did, you’d know he followed you. the “friend dates” continued and sicheng was as unsuspecting as any normal person, but behind the scenes, his obsession grew. he was getting impatient, he wanted to have you now. but he just couldn’t push it. you were becoming more flirty with him after the other guy stood you up. at least, that’s what you told sicheng, not knowing the man was long dead and eaten. 

“sicheng, are you alright?” your honey voice pulls him out of his thoughts and back to reality. he nods feverishly and shoots a shy smile, one that hides his true intentions. today is the day, he thought. nothing could stand between him and your extravagance. you smile at him, and place a hand on his arm. “would you like to come to my apartment? i have water and medicine if you don’t feel well.” of course, he agrees. his plan was coming together. throughout the last seven years, the nine victims he’s claimed have all been to his basic standards.

 taeil, the street musician he encountered while still in high school. he was the first, a quite easy job, as he was desperate to find connections to anyone -street performing wasn’t enough to pay the bills- and sicheng was just the perfect person for that. 

yeri, his first girlfriend. sicheng had a lot of fun with her, she was almost always yearning for him, begging for sex whenever the chance arose. but sicheng grew tired of her constantness and got rid of her. 

irene, his best friend’s aunt. she was much too old for sicheng when he’d fucked her, but she was just too cunning to pass up. her seductive nature got the best of sicheng, and her kill was his most gruesome to date, the anger of falling for another’s trick clouded his mind. 

yuta, his first true love. sicheng doesn’t regret killing his lover, but the heavy guilt of what could have been had sicheng not been this way weighs on his mind at all times.

yangyang, the small cousin that annoyed him to no end. sicheng showed no emotion at the boy’s funeral, and he was the only family member he’d killed.

wendy, the girl from college. she was also in the medical department and had a small crush on sicheng. he used this to his advantage, killing her swiftly and secretly.

jaehyun, the secret boyfriend. his junior year of undergrad school was filled with parties at frat houses, and jaehyun being the president of one proved sicheng showing up to many of them. jaehyun was a whore in every sense of the word, and it extended towards men.

renjun, the only other chinese boy in his graduate school. sicheng was a mentor to him, and even cared deeply for the boy. but renjun wasn’t special, he was still just another meal to be consumed.

seulgi, his dance partner. many days after school were spent fucking her in the dance studio on campus, until one day he got tired of her. the dance studio was closed for weeks due to the amount of blood.

and finally you. you were different from the rest, you were the tenth victim, and the fifth girl. an even number of victims, something he took pride in achieving. he knew he had to do something special for you. the pink heart-shaped box he’d got to hold the very organ it was modeled after. it had golden details painted on, and the latch had a pearl on it. sicheng thought it was beautiful, and the perfect thing to hold your heart. he was going to keep it close to him, as a token of remembrance. 

the way back to your apartment was filled with sensual touches and flirty kisses on each other. it wasn’t far from the small cafe you both chose to eat at, so the walk wasn’t too long. a passerby would look and see what appears to be a happy couple when the reality of the situation was much darker. sicheng was hungry, and you were the main course. the door to the apartment was in sight when a policeman stopped the two of you. sicheng hides his annoyance well and puts up an unsuspecting front. “good evening, officer.” the officer nods before speaking to you. “miss, you were one of the last people to see johnny suh last week. do you know anything about his whereabouts?” the shock from his sentence washed over your face as you shook your head no. “i ate with him last tuesday, and arranged another meeting, but he never showed nor answered his phone and i haven’t seen him since.” the officer nods and writes a few things down before turning to sicheng. “and do you maybe know anything about him?” sicheng analyzes the picture of the man he sent kun to kill, almost smiling. “no sir, i’ve never seen him before unfortunately.” the officer nods again and thanks the both of you for the help.

sicheng starts to rush along, wanting to complete the task at hand. the walk up the stairs to your door seemed endless, tunnel vision forming at the thought of what was about to go down. an evil smirk graced sicheng’s features, and as the sunset glowed down on you, he knew your time on earth was ending soon. you both didn’t get even a foot in the door before sicheng was all over you, kisses exchanged between clashing of teeth, hands roaming everywhere that was in reach. clothes discarded around the floor, not to be worried about until later. the only thing that mattered to sicheng right now was getting you in bed. he guides you there quickly, kisses getting messy, the rest of your undergarments gone. the only sounds in the room were the escaping moans from you and the creaking of the bed. 

you’re fast asleep, sicheng makes sure of this. he creeps around your kitchen and finds a knife suitable for his art. the gloves he brought already on, he picks the knife up and examines his reflection. he sees himself as a wonderful human, there are no flaws in him, he is the perfect being. his trek back to your room is hasty, his excitement barely contained. he is moments away from having the best meal of his life.

his body hovered over your sleeping figure. how peaceful you looked, soft breathing, a neutral look on your face. it was such a shame that you’d be dead in less than a few minutes. sicheng took his time preparing his weapon, the carving knife shining in the moonlight. he silently plans out where to take the first stab, even a small error would result in a faulty kill. the pink heart-shaped box in his bag yelling at him to hurry up and do it. taking in a deep breath, sicheng raises the knife, but only enough to get momentum. as he plunges it into your chest, he covers your mouth as to not let the scream out. he can’t have anyone hearing this, for obvious reasons. you awake to a painful sensation. eyes still raw with sleep, you scan your surroundings as best you can, the painful burning almost too much. the figure above you looks familiar, and you thrash around to get away from him. the sleep now long gone and adrenaline coursing your veins, you realize it was the man you’d been seeing around often, sicheng. you try to get away from him, but he is inevitably stronger than you.

“you’re only making this harder for yourself.” his voice comes out deep and full of annoyance. you pay it no mind and continue to wriggle your body, though it is slowly weakening. sicheng continues to carve around your heart, and you try to scream out but the large hand on your mouth blocks it. the pain is unbearable at this point, and you find yourself losing this fight. your skin pales at blood loss and you start to lose consciousness. the last thing you hear before the dark was sicheng’s sultry voice whispering in your ear. “my present to me is the only means of life you’ve got left.” 

you go limp in his arms, your heart ripped from its cavity. sicheng takes one glove off to grab the box, placing the heart inside it gently. he admires his work, standing and taking pictures to save for later. he thinks about how delicious you will taste. sicheng simply cannot wait to be fully connected to you, the excitement making him hurry with transporting you to his house so you can be prepared. sicheng calls up kun, and the only thing he says before hanging up is simple. “tonight, we shall feast on a delicate one.”

the basis of all life is the heart, and you let yours be taken by a man you truly didn’t know.

[pacifymebby]

Age gap crush anon back because I forgot to say that you totally do not need to be sorry for not replying to my anons right away!! I’m sorry you’re having such a hard time right now and I hope things get better soon!!

I also forgot to talk about how I’m super worried about if he wants me to meet his mom or even just if he starts to take me to meet his friends. Because I’m currently unemployed and out of school (I’m going back soon hopefully but I had to stop for a while). I’m totally unsure of what I want to do in school and with my entire life and I don’t want to embarrass myself. I’m just so embarrassed about my situation because he’s got a really good job and he’s a full on adult while I’m here unemployed and trying to figure out if I’m even smart enough to go to college or university. I just think my situation really makes our age gap stick out like a sore thumb. I know it’s stupid and that his mom is probably really lovely and wouldn’t judge me and that if anyone else did judge me it wouldn’t matter but I can’t help ruminating on these things. Ugh I’m probably just being over dramatic again aren’t I?

Thanks lovely, I'm doing a bit better mental health wise, I'm just up and down i guess. I'm working a lot and I'm tired and I miss B a lot haha. All in all I'm one sulky girl atm haha.

So also I'm living through your updates!!!

Okay I get this, I really understand actually because I'm coming to the end of my course and I'm getting a lot of people ask me what I'll do when I finish and honestly, my answer is that I will take on more hours in the care home and just try to do writing I guess? And it's not much of an answer and I don't feel like an adult at all.

BUT this is literally your 20s now ngl. It's everyone's 20s. Not to be morbid but the world has run in such a way that now your whole 20s is spent piecing together some kind of life, trying to become an adult when the generations above you keep burning the instruction manuals and rewriting the rules.

Not knowing what you want to do yet is not a weakness, it's an opportunity. You can tell people you're preparing to go back to school but that you're trying to work out what your best options are. You can say shit like, you don't want to waste time on a degree that won't lead you anywhere, you want to work out the best path to go down or whatever. There are adult ways of saying you don't know what you're doing trust me.

Have you spoken to ur man about any of it? Like when he was ur age he probably had fuck all clue what he was doing either and you never know he may be able to help guide you or at least offer you a little reassurance/encouragement or whatever.

Like with me and B I have this complex where I think he's soooooo much more intelligent than me because he's already got his degree and his masters and he got 1sts and he did amazingly well at them. And I did not get a 1st for my undergrad and idk I'm scared I won't get a Distinction for my masters. I'm constantly worrying about stuff to do with uni and at first I wouldn't ask B for help because I thought he'd think I was dumb but actually now he proof reads my essays and he's really good at helping me out with stuff, he gives me so much encouragement. It was the same when I was applying he read my application and guided me through the whole process.

I think if you tell him you're worried ur man will do the same.

You're not being dramatic though I totally get it, there's a lot of B's family I haven't met but every time I meet someone new I have the fear all over again. I also always think that like I'm so shy and awkward in social situations and I do just hide behind B, I think his family probably must think I'm not good enough for him or that it's weird we are together, but like they actually don't and it's all just in my head. And also, the same that you don't care what your family think of your man, you still like him anyway, your man will be the same. He won't care, he already likes you.

❤️