#and crafted yesterday omg why

[grassintheclouds]

2024.6.18

2024.10.29

2024.11.11

[selfishdoll]

❛ ..SO, SO MUCH.❜

I need you bad I can't take this pain | Boy I'm 'bout to go insane ⁺ 𓂋 𓈒 ♡ NEED U BAD.

ཐིཋྀ ⊹ 𓈒 SUMMARY.

you thought you were fine breaking up with your highschool sweetheart & avoiding him for a year. when, in actuality, you were not.

ཐིཋྀ ⊹ 𓈒 CONTENT WARNING.

angst (tiny amount), jaded reader (at first) exes to lovers, y’all were highschool sweethearts fr, tattoo artist! choso & college student reader (both 21+), “i missed you” type sex, choso being a sweetheart & very understanding, reconciling, multiple orgasms, oral sex (fem receiving ofc he’s a munch), soft dom choso, pet names & praise, excuse the amount of plot i got carried away, etc.

ཐིཋྀ ⊹ 𓈒 NOTE.

jasmine sullivan & yoci carrying most of my plot ideas. this took way too long omg. also, excuse any typos or grammar mistakes as this wasn’t proofread. also this is 4k+ words so yeah.

How did relationships work? How did love work? Relinquishing a part of yourself to someone, expecting them to cherish and take care of it; doing the same for them. It was something you found silly, maybe even a little arrogant. You’ve seen too many woman in your life give a part— even their entire selves to their partners, only for the relationship to fall apart. Cheating, lies, simply drifting away from one another; so many excuses, so many reasons on why you avoided relationships like the plague.

Until you met him, Kamo Choso.

You remember clearly as if it was yesterday. Freshman year, he was seated in the back of your shared English class. Boredly looking ahead as if he didn’t want to be there. He looked rugged, maybe even a little depressed; overall, you didn’t see yourself becoming friends.. let alone lovers.

Oh, how wrong you were.

Choso had somehow slipped into your life through your beloved shared friend Yuki Tsukumo. From then on things fell into place. You don’t know when or why you started falling for him.

Was it because he was so caring to his younger brother Yuji? Or maybe how sweet he was to you? Always asking if you were okay, always by your side when things got tough, always encouraging you..

You fell, and you fell hard. But Choso fell much harder.

To him, you were perfection. Carefully crafted with zero flaws. He wanted to get on his knees and thank your mother personally for creating you. That’s how much you meant to him.

The moment these thoughts entered his mind he acted fast, declaring his feelings for you sophomore year of highschool. Not even letting himself linger for a month. He wanted, no, needed you as his. And to his happiness, you returned the feelings. From that day, highschool was nothing more then a bliss-filled blur.

You two became known for your loving relationship, many believing you two would marry after highschool. It was silly, you two were teenagers— yet the thought did make you smile. Everything was just.. perfect. There was nothing more you could ask for.

Until, talk of the future entered the bond you two had.

You wanted to become a nurse, planning to attend a college that had an excellent reputation for its program. While Choso wished to become a tattoo artist in your city. One wanted to stay, and one wanted to go. Choso declared he could handle a long-distance relationship, but you couldn’t. As selfish as it was, you simply couldn’t bare the thought of being away from him for so long. What if he strayed? What if you did? You couldn’t bare it at all— something you tearfully confessed to him the week before you moved onto campus.

You vividly remember the scene, it burned into your mind with no chance of escaping. How Choso stood silently, patiently; listening to your concerns and worries— expressionless when you apologized and ended the relationship. And what did he do? He approached you, carefully wiping away your tears as he’s done for you before.

“Take care of yourself.. okay?” He spoke, taking your cheek in a gentle grasp and leaning down; kissing your forehead— sealing the deal.

That chapter in your life was over. You weren’t with Choso anymore, mind focused on your studies and nothing more. A relationship would drag you down anyway.. you didn’t need him.. you didn’t miss him.

“Shit..” You hissed softly, quickly pulling the wand away from your eye, blinking rapidly. It was your own fault; rushing to put mascara on. You should have better time management skills given you were in college and all— but no. Here you were, fighting against time while attempting to finish getting yourself ready for a block party. You hadn’t a clue who was throwing it, only told — or more like forced — to attend by Yuki.

You jolted in your seat when a loud honk come from outside your house, moving around your vanity to peer outside; spotting Yuki’s familiar car. You breathed softly, standing from your chair and fixing your attire. You wore a cute white ring halter top, along with blue jean shorts and black wedge sandals. Gathering your phone, keys, and purse; the gold chain around your ankle jingled as you exited your bedroom and soon house, locking the door behind you.

Yuki rolled down her window, grinning at you as you walked down your driveway. “Uber for (Y/N)?”

You playfully rolled your eyes at her shenanigans, opening the passenger side door and entering, shutting it behind you. You buckled up after placing your things down, sinking into the chair. “Thanks for picking me up.”

“No problem, I just wanted to see your face firsthand when I tell you Choso would be there.” The words came out of her so nonchalantly, messing with her radio for a moment all while you stared at her blankly.

You reached for your door, but the woman was much faster; locking and starting up the car. You whipped around to glare at her, “Tsukumo! You told me he would be working.”

“Guess the client cancelled..” She mused, taking the car out of park and beginning to drive away from your house. Yuki side glanced, catching your annoyed expression which caused her to sigh, rolling her eyes. “Look, there’s gonna be quite a few people there— maybe you two won’t speak.” She shrugged, raising her eyebrows in hopes you would relax. You only sucked your teeth, leaning into the car door.

An entire year, you’ve two been away from each other. Contact dwindling into nothing after the second month of college. You two were simply busy leading different lives, you told yourself.

But again, it didn’t matter it’s not like you, missed him anyways.

The rest of the car ride was filled with random radio music and brief chatter, Yuki catching you up on things. You had avoided coming back for any holidays, knowing it would be too much for you. Luckily, she was more than happy to tell you about all the dirt she had on your shared friends.

She soon slowed infront of an unfamiliar house, putting the car into park and soon shutting it off. You glanced around, feeling your anxiety lift when you realized you didn’t see Choso’s car. Good, you could somehow melt into the crowd without him noticing you.

Silently you grabbed your phone deciding to leave your purse and charger in the glove compartment, you exited the car and shut the door behind you. Following Yuki up the driveway, porch, and into the house; music quickly overtook you, with the sweet smell of the grill and alcohol. Some people were resting in the living room or crowding the dining room table, but most were in the backyard playing football, or simply shooting the shit.

You glanced around, eyes twinkling at the familiar faces and waltzing up to them. Laughter and hugs ensued, catching up on things given you haven’t seen each other in about a year.

Your arm was locked around Shoko’s waist, talking about nonsense whilst watching Gojo and Geto play beer pong. Or more like Gojo mocking his best friend for missing such an easy shot.

It was nice seeing everyone like this, the stress of seeing your highschool sweetheart leaving rather quickly. For now you were swept away in nostalgia, enjoying being around the people you cared for.

A cup in hand, you recalled the time you walked in on your dorm mate having sex, cheeks burning from the permanent smile etched onto your features. One that faltered the moment excited voices called out to the pink-haired male entering the backyard.

“You’re finally here, Yuji!” Nobara grinned at her close friend, walking over to him; Megumi close behind. The young man apologized, talking about traffic or what not. You weren’t too concerned about that, given your eyes settled on the person walking in behind him.

Anxiety spilled into you, heart thumping against your chest as you took him in, your ex— Kamo Choso. Nothing much had changed about him, still as rugged and handsome as ever; dressed in a simple black compression shirt and baggy pants. It seemed he decided to forgo his usual hairstyle, the black tresses resting on his shoulders in a messy fashion. One that suited him perfectly.

Your breath hitched, watching his eyes zone in on your instantly. You didn’t wait for a reaction, quickly turning away and busying yourself with your phone. Your eyes did lift a little however when the man passed you, the familiar cologne burning your nostrils and causing your stomach to stir. Before you could even think you were lifting yourself from the chair and waltzing back into the house.

Luckily no one noticed or either failed to comment on your disappearance.

You found yourself heading over to the kitchen, grasping ahold of the silver fridge door and opening it; eyes scanning for some water. You murmured to yourself while continuing to look, attempting to ignore the harsh beating of your heart. You sighed the moment you finally found one, grasping it from its place on the shelf and standing up, closing the door.

Taking the cap off you lifted the bottle to your lipgloss stained lips, taking a few sips whilst leaning against the counter— relishing in the cold beverage. Your eyes closed in thought, attempting to map out a perfect plan on how to avoid Choso.

The backyard was a medium size, yet he was bound to be around Yuji. So, as long as you avoided him, Nobara, and Megumi— you could avoid Choso too! It was foolproof and perfect, nearly bringing a smile to your face.

Leaning up you pulled the bottle from your lips, twisting the cap back on and lifting yourself from the counter, turning and freezing. Breaching the threshold of the kitchen was Choso in all his glory, face turning from talking to someone to stare in front of him, eyes landing on you.

A brief silence entered the kitchen, simply taking the other in. Finally, Choso was the first to speak; “Hey, (Y/N).”

“Hey..” You spoke, annoyed by how small you sounded. You watched as he opened the fridge, grabbing a water bottle and shutting it closed. The man leaned against the wall beside the kitchen’s opening, opening the bottle.

You glanced around, noticing there were no many exits. You were trapped.

“How’s college?”

“Huh—“ Your head snapped back to the man, spotting his raised eyebrows, awaiting your answer. You nervously licked your lips, leaning back against the counter. “It’s uh.. been good. Classes are a little hard but, ya know.” You shrugged, feeling a heat crawl from your cheeks to the back of your ears. You dragged your gaze from the ground to him, “How’s tattooing? I heard you got your own booth, congrats.”

Choso nodded slowly, a lazy smile pulling his lips. “Yeah, thanks.” He mused softly, placing the cap back onto his water bottle. “Clientele has been good. Been going to tattoo parties and special events.. and things.”

“That’s good.” You forced a little smile, gaze faltering the moment his eyes landed on you. You felt the way they carried down your form, a familar gaze, one that always made you feel far too warm.

Another silence entered the room, both of you refusing to speak.. or leave. You told yourself time and time again you hadn’t missed Choso, that you were done; stuck on the path you’ve chosen. Yet here you were, anxiously waiting for something, anything to happen. You just.. couldn’t let go.

You gripped the bottle you held, eyes drifting back to him, zoning in on the bracelet he wore. It had red and black beads, ones all to familar to you. Starboy, was the words etched onto seven of them. You knew this, given you had your own pink and white charm bracelet labeled Stargirl.

“You still wear that?” The words left you before you could think, Choso blinking from his thoughts and glancing at his wrist. The man breathed softly, nodding soon after. “Yeah. I do.”

“Why?”

Choso went silent, leaning his head back against the wall as his eyes turned up to the ceiling. Finally he shrugged, “I don’t know.” He spoke lowly, causing you to bite your lip. Feelings you had pushed to the back of your mind began to flood within you, flashes of memories you had kept locked away following after.

You turned, rapidly blinking to eliminate the tears threatening to tread down your face. You were kidding yourself for months, thinking you hadn’t missed him. Thinking you were better then the woman in your life, able to cut a man off without a second thought. Yet your heart betrayed you in the most painful way, wanting nothing more to leap into his arms and cry.

His cologne became stronger, a gentle, familiar hand hesitantly being placed onto the one that held your bottle. Your eyes drifted to his face, spotting the concerned look he wore. That was enough for you, tears spilling and traveling down your dark brown cheeks, mouth opening but unable to speak.

But Choso knew what you wanted to say, knew how you felt. The man gently grabbed the bottle from your hand, placing it off to the side whilst his arm wrapped around your waist, pulling you into his chest. He ignored the wet feeling that tainted his shirt, resting his chin onto your head all while continuing to hold you. Choso breathed as your shaky hands reached around, grasping his shirt as your buried your face deeper into his chest.

“I’m so sorry Choso..” You managed to whimper out, sniffling shortly after. The words escaped you again, delving into a soft mantra that caused the man to pull you even closer, softly shushing and soothing you. You stood there in his arms, feeling every bit of resolve melt away.

You missed Choso so much, it hurt. The pain rendering your whole body limp, using him for stability.

It took a moment to calm yourself down, soon pulling away, warming as the man reached over to wipe your tears. Just like he did a year ago and so many years prior.

“Why are you apologizing?.. You don’t have to—“

“I didn’t compromise. I was so stuck on myself, running at the first sign of conflict.” You spoke softly, leaning into his palm the moment held your cheek. “I want to try again.. I want to be with you again, Choso. You don’t know how much I missed you.”

The words had barely left you before his lips were covering your own, taking your breath away easily. The familiar, wonderful feeling took over your mind, hands sliding up to wrap around his neck; fingers curling into his messy hair. The moment his tongue swiped across your bottom lip you were parting them, pressing your body into him as a needy sigh escaped you. His hands traveled to the underside of your thighs, lifting you up and placing you on the counter— all while continuing the kiss.

Your legs opened wide, locking around him the moment he stepped between them. The kiss deepened, his hands resting on your ass as soft moans and hisses entering the atmosphere. Sooner then you hoped the kiss ended, pulling away as soft pants fanned on each other’s skin.

“I missed you too.. so, so much.” Choso murmured softly, gripping your plush form as if you would disappear in thin air. No other words followed, the man capturing your lips with such intensity you were tugging at his tresses. Languidly moving his lips, leaving you breathless, threatening to devour you. Your legs tightened around his form, feeling hot beneath your clothes.

His name fell from your lips in a soft whimper, pulling back and resting your head against the cabinet— gasping the moment his lips attached to your neck. Your eyebrows knitted close together, biting your lip as his teeth gently grazed your skin. “Choso, Choso.. not here— we can’t..”

While his lips didn’t stop he listened to your warning, sliding his hands underneath you and lifting you off the counter. You tightened your arms around his neck, face hot with embarrassment as he walked you from the kitchen and towards the back of the house— everyone luckily none the wiser given they were all in the backyard now.

Moving towards a random bedroom he opened the door, shutting and locking it behind him. Waltzing over to the bed he sat down, placing in you in his lap all while his lips continued to press gentle kisses against your neck, collarbone, and throat. Your hands traveled, finding the edge of his shirt and tugging on it, feeling his hands fall from your body to his shirt— peeling it off for you. Tracing his skin, feeling his sculpted sink in the moment your feathery touches reached low— gasped as Choso gently bit your neck, pushing to lay you down on the soft blankets.

“Missed this.. missed your touch, smell, how you taste..” His words drifted, catching onto the the edge of your shirt and slowly pulling off your body. Choso breathed, taking in your naked chest, leaning down. The cool, silver chain he wore tickled your skin as his lips ghosted your chest, a warm hand grabbing your breast to gently squeeze.

You gasped as his tongue glided across your areola and slowly hardening nipple, feeling his free hand flicking the button on your shorts, entering them shortly after. Choso began to suck on your hardened bud, all while his fingers breached your panties, two fingers slowly circling your clit. Your legs rose, hips rising into his touch as your head leaned back against the mattress. Soft breaths of pleasure escaped you, gripping his hair as your eyes were pinched closed.

“You missed this, pretty girl? Missed how easily I could drive you crazy from just my fingers?..” He questioned softly, fingers lowering to push into you, hissing at the way your walls clung to his digits all while his thumb busied itself, rubbing tight circles onto your hard button.

You nodded, clinging onto him as his fingers thrusted and scissored inside of you. “Yes.. fuck— yes.. Missed this so much, Choso.” You gasped, whimpers escaping you as another finger came to stretch you. Wet muffled squelches carried with each thrust and curl into your pussy, bruised lips parted as melodic moans escaped you.

The man hummed softly in enjoyment, leaning down to capture your lips in a sweet kiss. Sweeter, softer then the way he was ruining you with his fingers, pushing against your gummy walls affectively leading you closer and closer to your orgasm. You whimpered in his mouth, nails dragging from his hair to his arm, feeling the muscles tense with each movement of his hand.

You legs tightened around him, pulling back to gasp, throwing a hand over your mouth the moment you came— muffling the moan that escaped you. Your mess soiled his fingers and your panties, legs shaking as you felt him slowly withdraw his fingers. You breathed into your palm, barely registering his hands latching onto your shorts and peeling them off your body, panties following.

There, his hands slid to the inside of your thighs, pushing them open to reveal the price between them. Choso moaned softly from the sight, hands rising to place his thumbs onto your soaked folds, spreading them. “So messy, princess.” The man teased softly, reaching to press his thumb against your sensitive clit, grinning at the way you whined.

“Choso, please..” You breathed, watching as his body lowered, breath hitching the moment his cool breath fanned across your wet cunt. You whimpered as his thick tongue dragged a stripe up to your clit, the tip circling the button. Your legs threatened to close, causing the man to pull you closer, legs stretched out and resting on his shoulders. Your fingers curled into his hair, crying out the moment his lips wrapped around your clit, sucking and running the flat of his tongue against it.

The man pulled back for a moment, hands sliding under your ass and gripping the warm globes, lifting you a little just to smother himself in your pussy. His tongue moved wickedly, gliding up and down your slit before dipping into your warm entrance, thrusting and curling against your walls.

Your fingers clung to his hair, free hand placed against your mouth as you bit your palm, covering the desperate moans that escaped you. Your hips moved, grinding into his face as little tears built within your eyes. Slurping and lapping, enjoying every single drop that dripped from your pussy, moans escaping him. His hips ground into the blankets, chasing your orgasm with such intensity.

Your stomach clenched, arching up off the bed as a muffled swear escaped you, creaming all over his face, feeling his hands tightened as he licked you clean. Your limp body fell back against the blankets, breathing heavily as your legs shook. Soon enough he released you, rising from his spot between your legs and dragging his hands from your ass to your thighs, soothing the warm flesh.

Pushing forward he leaned over your body, hand carrying to your throat and gently grabbing it, pressing his wet lips against your own; you softly moaning at your taste. Slowly, the two of you continued to kiss, his other hand drifting to his sweats to push down his body, boxers following.

Choso pulled away, placing his forehead against your own, sliding his cock between your slit— rubbing against you slowly. Your fingers locked around his wrist, desperate pleas escaping you as your hips rose, searching for more. The man gave a breathy chuckle, smoothing his thumb against your throat. “Needy aren’t we?” The man mused, leaning to kiss between your eyes, hearing you whine.

“Need you, Choso..”

“You need me so bad, put it in yourself.” The man spoke, watching you bashfully blink at him, grinning as you attempted to shy away from his gaze. His hand rose, grabbing your wrist and carrying it between the two of you. Your much smaller hand wrapped around his cock, a hiss escaping his lips from the touch. “Go on, princess..” Choso breathed, gripping the sheets beside him as your hips rose, adjusting to line him up with your entrance before slowly sinking inside.

You never got accustomed to how Choso stretched you— not the first time and definitely not now. Your lips parted, soft moans escaping you as your hips continued to slowly rise. A choked cry escaped you however the moment he flicked his hips forward, burying himself deep inside. “Ch—choso! You..” You whimpered, walls pulsing around his heavy length, feeling him kiss your cheeks.

“Guess I’m just as needy as you baby.” Choso spoke, lip twitching into a subtle smirk. He rose, releasing your throat and resting on his hutches. Hands found the back of your knees, a steady grip as he slowly pushed them down to your chest, watching you breath sharply. Pulling his hips back until the tip was inside, Choso thrusted forward, taking in the way your body jumped and the prettiest moan escaped you.

His rhythm stared quickly, hips snapping back and forth, reaching deep inside; pushing against a spot that caused you to see stars. Your fingers balled up the sheets underneath you, moans escaping you. You had long forgotten the party going on outside, long forgotten the fact you two were separated for an entire year— your mind only focused on how his cock so easily ruined you, toes curling and anklet jingling with each thrust.

The man leaned down, folding you even more as he pressed a hand against the bed, the other curling in your hair, lifting you into a messy kiss. Tongues curling, teeth bumping into each other, eating up the other’s moans as pleasure consumed you. His chain tickled your heated skin, dragging across each time he rutted into you.

“Fuck..” Choso gasped, pulling back to breath, hand moving to gently grabbing your cheeks. “Keep your eyes right here, princess.. that’s it.. look so pretty like this.” He spoke, feeling you clench with each praise that left his mouth.

You felt so damn good, hugging him close; sucking him in each time he pulled back. Your arousal dripped down his length, a sticky ring forming at the base of his cock. Just when your hand rose to cover your mouth again, Choso was snatching your wrist, pressing it against the bed.

“No, no— waited far too fucking long to have you covering your mouth.” He hissed harshly, intertwining your fingers as he buried himself deeper, hitting your cervix.

The pain was quickly washed away with pleasure, eyes rolling to the back of your head as you came around his cock— a high pitched cry escaping your throat. Tears trickled down your cheeks, other hand falling to his waist to push, and whine; the overstimulation becoming too much.

All for Choso to simply shake his head, pace quickening as he drilled you into the bed. “Know you got another in you.. come on (Y/N).”

You whimpered, head pressed into the blankets as sobs escaped you. “Cho—Choso! Hah.. Can..can’t think, fuck!”

“Then don’t.” The man chuckled in a breathy tone, leaning close as his lips ghosted your lips. “Let me fuck everything out of your mind except for how good I’m making you feel..” A groan escaped him shortly after, eyes glossing over as he felt himself getting close.

Thrusts became desperate, the two of you dissolving into pathetic fits of moans and whines, hands moving across the other’s skin to grip and mark up. Just when you felt your mind going blank you shook, convulsing as you came all over his cock again.

Choso was close behind, burying himself deep and coming; eyes pinched close as he gripped you tightly. His hips stilled, heavy pants escaping the two of you.

The man pulled out shortly after, rolling off your body and falling to your side. Choso didn’t leave you alone long, reaching for your waist and pulling you into his side, turning to place a feverish kiss to his forehead.

A blissful silence covered the silence, simply enjoying the other’s company and warm bodies. Soon though, you rose up slowly, ignoring the aching of your body as your hand found his cheek. “I love you, Choso.”

He smiled at you, thumb caressing your skin as he kissed you gently— mumbling the same on your lips. Moments passed before you two pulled away, you snuggling in his neck arm strewn across his body.

Until.. you blinked, glancing around the room. “Wait.. whose room is this?”

“It’s a guest room.” He murmured back, chuckling softly after. “Gojo might be a little pissed if he finds out about this.”

You shook your head a little, sighing softly. “Choso..”

[ddejavvu]

omg I BEG of u to write a fic about the thing anon mentioned about dbf obi-wan 😭 /nf maybe reader is like anakin's age and her master is yoda.

i also think it would be really interesting if reader tends to be quite similar to her master yoda where she's usually calm and collected and zen and all that, but just cant keep her head clear when obi-wan's around NFNAJFJSKDB i'm already blushing just thinking about it!!! i just know you'd write this beautifully!!! /gen

Brewing and serving a perfect pot of tea is something inescapable as Grandmaster Yoda's padawan. You'd been trained in proper steeping rituals before you were ever trained in lightsaber combat, and you take a bit of pride in your craft even though it's a skill most might consider less-than-impressive in the overall catalogue of a Jedi's skills.

All of that is why you should not have dropped the teapot you'd been carrying upon seeing your master's houseguest, but Master Kenobi catches it with wide eyes and a steady hand. The teapot hovers mere inches above the ground, giving you a measly two seconds to gather your composure before a twitch of Master Kenobi's hand lifts it back up onto the tray you're miraculously still carrying.

You have very un-Jedi-like feelings towards Master Kenobi. You'd never thought much of him- nor anyone for quite some time, but you'd travelled outside of the temple, spent time on other planets, socialized with hundreds of different people in the galaxy, and the auburn-haired man in front of you has recently topped the charts of people you would be attracted to, if you weren't a Jedi forbidden from attachment.

"Sorry." You stammer, heart hammering in your chest from a mix of adrenaline and something else you refuse to name, "I- I lost my balance."

Your master snorts from his place on his tea cushion, a tiny thing at the head of the coffee table where you set the tea tray, "Uncoordinated, you are today, Padawan."

"Yes, Master." You agree miserably, pouring tea for Masters Yoda and Kenobi before pouring your own cup. You want to come up with an excuse, overtiredness or a troubling class assignment on your mind, but there's nothing your master won't see through.

"It's quite alright, dear." Master Kenobi places a hand over your own where you set the teapot down, and your eyes dart towards his own. Your trained Jedi composure allows for you to keep your face in a neutral expression, but there's very little hiding the slight shake to your hands as you reach for the sugar.

"Anakin has a habit of spreading his mechanical projects over our carpets like we live in a junkyard. I know that they're there," The bearded Jedi master smiles, "And every morning I still step sure-footedly out of my bedroom expecting not to be impaled through the foot with a jagged wire. Jedi agility cannot completely remove natural clumsiness."

"Remove clumsiness for me, it did." Your master huffs, squeezing the sap out of some deadly looking berries and into his teacup, "A better Jedi I am, than you two."

"You tripped over your own walking stick yesterday," You point your spoon accusatorily at him, and you nearly lose your conviction when it draws a warm chuckle from Master Kenobi's throat.

"Hmmph. Disrespectful, you are." Yoda gripes, but you see through his stern facade, "Sleep outside tonight, you will."

"Master!' You shriek, nearly choking on both your laughter and your tea, "That's not fair!"

"Don't worry, dear." Master Kenobi stretches his leg out beneath the coffee table to rest against your own, "You're welcome to stay the night in my quarters if your Master kicks you to the curb." He winks, "Anakin is gone on his first solo mission, so the two of us will have plenty of room."

You know the whole thing is one big joke, and you also know that Master Kenobi's offer is nothing but platonic. But still, the invitation, the assurance that you'll be alone with plenty of room- room for what? - you're barely able to nudge his leg back teasingly and glare half-heartedly at your master.

"I'm reporting you to the Council." You decide, but your threats come out weaker than intended due to the continued press of Master Kenobi's leg against your own beneath the table, "You may be the Grandmaster, but the neglect of a padawan is serious business."

"Two nights," Master Yoda snickers, "Two nights, you will sleep outside."

You let out an exasperated groan, but the last of your composure slips away upon meeting Master Kenobi's kind gaze, his eyes twinkling with gorgeous mirth, "You can stay with me for as long as you'd like."

[spider-jaysart]

My friend @theredheaded-stuff showed me this panel of Damian carrying this giant sword around and then I just came up with this whole scenario lol😂

Damian just walking into the Justice League base with Bruce, while carrying his giant sword around like in the picture above, just shocking everyone in there with it

Clark: Bruce???? You just let him carry that around with him?????

Bruce: Well, it's what he wanted, so I said it was fine with me

Hal: ARE YOU SERIOUS???? JUST LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THAT THING!! HOW DOES HE CARRY IT AROUND WITH SUCH TINY ARMS????!!!

Damian, points sword at hal: DON'T CALL MY ARMS TINY!!!

Barry: DON'T HURT HIM!!!!

Oliver: ....Now I can see why my son Connor was begging me to let him get a giant sword last week. Good thing I said no to him CAUSE THAT WOULD JUST BE CRAZY JUST LIKE YOU RIGHT NOW!

Bruce: Hey! Don't tell me how to raise my kids!

Oliver: WHERE DOES HE EVEN PUT THAT THING WHEN HE'S TIRED OF HOLDING IT OR WHILE DOING SOMETHING???? IN HIS BACK POCKET????!!!

Bruce: You know what? Yes he does, CAUSE I BUILTED ONE FOR HIM! AND IT'S CALLED THE BAT POCKET!! And maybe if you would get your son a giant sword too, than maybe he would feel just as cool as my son right now, because just using arrows to fight crime is nothing new and it's just boring!!!!

Oliver: Take that back right now

Diana, suddenly walking into the room: (GASP!) OH MY! WHAT IS HE HOLDING????

Bruce, with his arms crossed in annoyance: A sword. Are you gonna start giving me some judgey comments about my parenting skills too?

Diana: Absolutely not! I believe it is one of the best choices for being used as weapons!! Let me see! (Runs over to Damian to get a better look)

Diana, examining it: Oh, it is just very marvoules!

Damian: Thank you

Diana: You've made the right choice setting him up with such a wonderfully and beautifully crafted sword that would protect him very well in combat! It is even big enough to destroy dangerous beasts during battle as well!

Bruce: Why thank you (looks at the rest of the League with a smirk)

Everyone else: ????

(Both Damian and Diana bond over their love for swords after this)

Damian showing it to Jon during a fight on patrol in Metropolis:

Jon: OMG! What is that?!

Damian: It's a sword, Corncob (=_=)

Jon: Well, yeah, I can see that for sure, I'm just wondering about how are you even carrying it???? And where did you get it from???!

Damian: Simple! I'm just that strong enough to carry it! And it was gifted to me! Now watch this!

(swings sword at a random tree behind him, making it fall on top of an incoming giant Lexcorp robot as he turns around to face Jon with a confident proud smile)

Jon, jaw dropped: (GASP!).... I'VE GOTTA ASK MY DAD TO GET ME ONE TOO!!!!

Damian: You should

Later:

Bruce, calling Clark: Clark? My son said that he left his Twizzelr pack at your house during a sleepover

Clark: What? Which one?

Bruce: We'll, he only brought one with him. They were specificly the red cherry Twizzelr's that he had with him-

Clark: No, I mean which son?

Bruce: The older one

Clark: Dick?

Bruce: No

Clark: You don't mean Jason than, do you?

Bruce: Of course not, I'm talking about my smaller one

Clark: Damian????

Bruce: No! Tim! How could you not know???? He was having a sleepover with Conner yesterday, remember????

Clark: I-....Ugh, It's just that I'm having a hard time focussing today since Jon keeps begging me and Lois to get him a sword after seeing Damian with it and I keep telling him no

Bruce: Get it for him

Clark: Absolutely not! He could hurt himself with it

Bruce: You and your son are both invulnerable, Clark, so I think he'll be just fine

Clark: I'm not getting him a sword!

Meanwhile with Jon:

Jon, flopping onto his bed with annoyance, talking to Damian on his phone: Aughhh! Damian, you wont believe it! My Mom and Dad won't let me get a sword! They say it's too dangerous!

Damian: -tt- Nonsense! It is a perfectly fine weapon to use in combat as long as you have enough training with it!

Jon: I know! It would just be so cool if I could have one! But they think that I won't be able to actually use it properly! Hmph!

Damian: Well, that stinks

Jon: Totally!

Damian:

Jon:

Damian:

Jon: Is it okay if I could maybe try out yours-

Damian: No, you're not touching my sword

Jon: :(

[shayshaybiscuit25]

Goodness me, my original ask started some mess I see. 😅

Shay this is a bit long, but I think I make decent points & dropped some truth bombs that everyone can agree with regardless of how they feel. Thank you all for reading and ……..here we go……… 🫣😮‍💨

Let’s begin……..for those who really believe Chris is racist or ain’t shit for associating with these fools……why be here at all?

As mentioned before, many of us believe this is PR and understand we do NOT know details. On the outside looking in it’s very easy to go “omg why didn’t he just end this, he’s just like them”, yet we also understand Hollywoood is a business, yes?

We understand complex things go on behind the scenes that look so simplistic and easy to us from our limited perspective.

Yes, I understand things look awful, but I need people to understand we don’t know what the hell is truly going on and I say that because it’s clear as day that something is off.

Look if Chris were selling this and acting like nothing was wrong then everyone would be losing their minds, and she would have ammo, but enough stuff has happened where you can see he doesn’t like her, he’s performing and that’s probably why he’s acting has switched up (having to horribly act in real life is affecting his actual craft) there are numerous holes in the cheese 🧀 of course the question stems…..then why marry the girl especially knowing she has racist friends…….please go back and refer to the previous and third red paragraphs.

We might not know details but we know Chris isn’t comfortable in this arrangement, of course many reading will roll their eyes at this statement, okay fair. 🙄

I’ll do you all one better, karma is real and for those that aren’t aware. Yesterday Justin (the wife’s soulmate) stood up for one of his racist friends in a post. He has some female friend on a Big Brother type show in Europe and the girl has been recorded on camera doing the damn Nazi Salute and people are pissed…..Justin’s dumbass makes a post basically saying the girl (his friend) doing the Nazi salute is “misunderstood” and a good person or some crap……. The entire time I’m like…..let me sit back and see how this plays out…..and if it gets tied back to Evans, I doubt it but let’s see. 👀 🧋 (this emoji represents me sipping my boba “tea”) 🤭

Chris does need to be called out and if this shitshow goes public public to the point the general population learns what fans know and it becomes a big deal, you’d better believe we’d end up getting a BUA and then some within mere hours or days (remember his response to the bomb pic)……do i believe any of that will happen…..nope. And if that went down like that, I’d question his ass even more.

No one here has issue with people calling Chris out, it’s those who act like they know more than they do, who take their own opinions as facts and are 100% sure he’s racist and calling him pedo or whatever else that has me like……well damn if you think that’s true and hate him that much…….then leave. I would not waste my time on a person I truly thought was evil and vile.

See, I care about this man and as time goes by we see truth and some of us see what we want while ignoring the rest, apply that as you will, come next month, I think people will finally end up determining their final thoughts on things and if it ends with “fuck Chris Evans”, then so be it. He made his bed and now he’s laying in it.

Eventually we’ll all find out the truth if it’s real or if this is all bs and the pr eventually ends…..well just know they’ve parted ways and many will still claim it was real.

I say don’t get overly invested in this emotionally, but TOO LATE! 😬 This could be the situation Chris needs to be and do better and finally own his awful choices or to take and not run from accountability (remember how we’d always use to get Dodger pics when he did something stupid publicly) or it could be a situation he’s initiated that went out of control and he has to FINALLY reap the consequences of his actions/inactions. I don’t know what is going to happen next, but if him and Mrs. Shower scrubber do anything else other than breakup next month, it’s a wrap on my end.

Yeah I think it’s pr, but I have limits and he’s on his 73892929 strike. Keeping it honest, most of us should have left once he claimed to be “married”, yet we’re still here, so yeah can’t no one point any fingers. We’re all still here hoping something ends up making sense and to hope our fav actor really isn’t out here playing in our faces.

It’s very easy to go well Chris is this and that due to this situation, but once one starts remembering in detail everything that’s happened, part of you goes…….something is 110% off here. @anneslibrary is a great reference because it’s so easy to forget how much things don’t make sense and that blog helps people see the big picture and go……yeah…..I’m not falling for this bs. 😂 So to sum it up, yes many of us are pissed at Chris, but his saving grace is that there are so many holes in this mess that it’s easy to jump and attack him without knowing details and so we’re hoping more details arise to the point we can go……yeah this 100% is fake and was never real, he got looped in some mess and only discovered things once the fandom did but it was too late and I’m glad it’s finally over. Okay….yes I’m reaching like crazy, but you’re still here reading my long as diary entry, right. 😉 For me September 2024 will be thee month I decide if I’ll permanently walk away. If they do any more crap, I’m done, point blank.

Enough is enough. I do understand those pissed and wondering why we’re still here…..I’ve been a fan of this man for years and it’s not so easy to walk away, call it excuses, but I just don’t think this situation is a grand total of who he is but if I’m proven wrong then it is what it is, but I don’t think I’m wrong.

Chris needs to take accountability and ending this bs would be the first step and then we can all judge in grand detail how he handles the aftermath of shit, would he give clues to show it wasn’t real, will he do a grand gesture that is a lowkey apology to the fandom…..doubt it, but I refuse to believe this mess is legit, unless he’s proven with legit detail (other than he publicly claims to be married, yet there’s no evidence he’s actually gotten married other then a oversized ring and orchestrated bs) that he’s just a shitty racist husband who can’t keep his eyes to himself and really married her and if so then I’ll GLADLY FINALLY move on with my life. Noted. And yes those snarky few of you still reading, I’m in the denial phase of the grieving process. 😂

Either way ya look at it Chris doesn’t get of Scotch free and even if this does end next month……too much damage has been done. Part of me is here because I’m watching a train that already crashed multiple times and I’m wondering if it’s going to keep going with limited damage or will it eventually blow up into pieces.

I hope I was able to make you guys laugh, piss you off and in the end make you go, yep you summed up my multiple thoughts. 🤗🫠 or you’ve probably read all of this and went, this bitch is crazy, I’ll take it because you still sat here and read to the end so,….. Hi crazy! 😝

I’m done now. 😆 thanks!

Oh Sweetheart this was beautiful and longggggggggggggggg but so beautiful.

Thank you.

[serendipnpipity]

Hello!! I was busy yesterday but if you're volunteering I will absolutely scream about phanfic with you! So, MAJOR SPOILER WARNING for the fic I wake up to your dream report by The_Blonde!! For whoever reads this lol. Anyway! I loved this fic so much but i have to say the ending threw me for a loop!! I'm specifically talking about how phil choses to save the 1920s dream. I really feel conficted about that decision, but ESPECIALLY SO after phil tells dan that he smashed all the mirrors, which we later find was a lie :00 it feels wierd that he would keep that from dan, and almost a little shady lmao?? i feel like it's strange that phil chose to keep the dream, bc wasn't it kind of established that the dream versions of dan are different than the real dan? So, if phil loves the real dan, why the need to keep the 1920s version too? Yk what I mean? Idek what I mean tbh lol but!! Thank you for hearing out my rant :)))

Hi, Manda!! Yessssssss omg this fic. You brought it up and then I kinda spiraled and no joke started writing a fic last night on the fly inspired by the concept (TTPD and this fic possessed me and now I have yet another project for a fandom that isn’t even *the phandom* that won’t let me rest. Help.)

I honestly have to go back and read it to formulate a real opinion about the 1920s detail!! Hard agree that it’s kinda shady to keep that a secret from real Dan bc if you think about it, that’s the one that should matter most? But the development of each and every one of the dreams was so well-crafted it astounded me back then and now that I’ve recently read it in full.

On the topic of fics, do you have any others that you’ve read lately that you’d rec? This lil rant was so fun, thanks for sharing 🥰

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Open Circuits

I'm kickstarting the audiobook for "The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation," a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and make a new, good internet that picks up where the old, good internet left off. It's a DRM-free book, which means Audible won't carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:

http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org

Every trip to Defcon – the massive annual hacker-con in Las Vegas – is a delight. Partly it's the familiar – seeing old friends, getting updates on hacks of years gone by. But mostly, it's the surprises, the things you never anticipated. Defcon never fails to surprise.

I got back from Vegas yesterday and I've just unpacking my suitcase, and with it, the tangible evidence of Defcon's cave of wonders. My gear bag has a new essential: Hak5's malicious cable detector, a little USB gizmo that lights up if it detects surreptitious malicious activity, even as it interdicts those nasty payloads:

https://shop.hak5.org/collections/omg-row2/products/malicious-cable-detector-by-o-mg

(In case you're wondering if it's really possible to craft a malicious USB cable that injects badware into your computer and is visually indistinguishable from a regular cable, the answer is a resounding yes, and of course, Hak5 sells those cables, with a variety of USB tips:)

https://shop.hak5.org/collections/omg-row2/products/omg-cable

But merch is only a sideshow. The real action is in the conference rooms, where hackers update you on the pursuit of their obsessions. These are such beautiful weirdos who pursue knowledge to ridiculous extremes, untangling gnarly hairballs just to follow a thread to its origin point.

For the second year in a row, I caught a presentation from Joseph Gabay about his work on warshopping: slicing up shopping cart wheels and haunting shopping mall parking lots during resurfacing to figure out how the anti-theft mechanism that stops your cart from leaving the parking lot works:

https://www.begaydocrime.com/

And of course, I got to give one of those presentations, "An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet's Enshittification," to a packed house. What a thrill! It was livestreamed, and if you missed it, you'll be able to catch it on Defcon's Youtube page as soon as they upload it (they've got a lot of uploading to do!):

https://www.youtube.com/@DEFCONConference/videos

After my talk, I went back to the No Starch Press booth for a book signing – which was amazing, so many beautiful hackers, plus I got to share a signing table with Micah Lee. As I was leaving, Bill Pollock slipped me a giant hardcover art-book, and said, "You're gonna love this."

I did. The book is Open Circuits: The Inner Beauty of Electronic Components, by Windell Oskay and Eric Schlaepfer, and it is a drop-dead gorgeous collection of photos of electronic components, painstakingly cross-sectioned and polished:

The photos illustrate layperson-friendly explanations of what each component does, how it is constructed, and why. Perhaps you've pondered a circuit board and wondered about the colorful, candy-shaped components soldered to it. It's natural to assume that these are indivisible, abstract functional units, a thing that is best understood as a reliable and deterministic brick that can be used to construct a specific kind of wall.

But peering inside these sealed packages reveals another world, a miniature land where things get simpler – and more complex. Inside these blobs of resin are snips of wire, plugs of wax, simple screws, fine sheets of metal in stacks, wafers of plain ceramic, springs and screws.

Truly, quantity has a quality all its own. Miniaturize these assemblies and produce them at unimaginable scale and the simple, legible components turn into mystical black boxes that only the most dedicated study can reveal. Like every magician's trick, the unfathomable effect is built up through the precise repetition of something very simple.

A prolonged study of Open Circuits reveals something important about the hacker aesthetic, a collection of graphic design, fashion and industrial design conventions that begins with this realization: that the crisp lines of digital logic can be decomposed into blobby, probabilistic lumps of metal, plastic, and even wax.

It reminds me of George Dyson's brilliant memoir/history of computing, Turing's Cathedral, where he describes how he and the other children of the scientists building the first digital computers at the Princeton Institute spent their summers in the basement, hand-winding cores for the early colossi their parents were building on the floors above them:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/03/12/george-dysons-history-of-the-computer-turings-cathedral/

You can see my hacker aesthetic photos in my Defcon 31 photo set:

https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort=date-taken-desc&safe_search=1&tags=defcon31&user_id=37996580417%40N01&view_all=1

In this video, Eric Schlaepfer illustrates the painstaking work that went into decomposing these tiny, precise components into their messy, analog subcomponents. It's pure hacker aesthetic, and it's mesmerizing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byKyJ0b04Lo

But Open Circuits isn't just an aesthetic journey, it's a technical one. After all, Oskay is co-founder of Evil Mad Scientist Labs, one of the defining places where hardware hackers gather to tear down, pick apart, mod, improve and destroy electronics. The accompanying text is a masterclass in the simple machines that combine together to make complex assemblies:

https://www.evilmadscientist.com/

Defcon is a reminder that the world only seems hermetically sealed and legible to authorized parties with clearance to crack open the box. From shopping cart wheels to thermal fuses, that illegibility is only a few millimeters thick. Sand away the glossy outer layer and you will find yourself in a weird land of wax-blobs, rough approximations, expedient choices and endless opportunities for delight and terror, mischief and care.

Back my anti-enshittification Kickstarter here!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/14/hidden-worlds/#making-the-invisible-visible-and-beautiful

[chibimui]

The Apothecary Diaries Idol/Boyband AU (JinMao)

Omg. The brain worms really struck me yesterday after @blur0se shared these scan and like... I just cannot get this idea out of my head. This ended up being a 1000+ text note on my phone which I wrote before I went to sleep and am now cleaning up and fleshing out for public consumption.

Hiding the rest under a cut cause giddy up folks, you're in for a ride.

(also if anyone wants to take this idea and make it their own, by all means go ahead).

So, my thoughts/outline for "What if Jinshi joined an idol competition where Maomao was the dance instructor and one of the judges?" (she's no longer a judge).

Setting:

Jinshi is part of an idol competition TV show being produced by Li Entertainment owned by Ka Gyouyou (You, the Emperor). It's an elimination style competition where folks get to remain based on popular audience vote AND the judging panel. A new 5-member boyband will be debuted based on the winners of the competition.

Jinshi:

Jinshi is an immediate audience favourite mainly due to his looks and ~charming personality~. Jinshi is also a stage name - his real name is Ka Zuigetsu. He is the son of You and Ah-Duo - he is aware of this, but was raised by both his grandmothers mostly and kept out of the public eye. You and Ah-Duo never got married, it was a teenage pregnancy that was kept hush hush since both of them were up and coming celebrities. The public has no knowledge of Jinshi actually, but it comes out at some point during the show due to the scarily competent/intrusive detective work that only fans are capable of.

His dancing and singing skills are also pretty decent. Unfortunately, his skills get unfairly judged by viewers who are overly critical, so they end up downplaying his talent, to offset his fans who tend to put him on a pedestal. This gets even worse once his background is revealed.

In reality, on stage he does often appear to be kind of stiff/awkward due to his lack of self confidence. However, behind-the-stage clips show that when he thinks he's alone/off camera he's actually really damn good at both singing and dancing, and he clearly puts in a ridiculous amount of effort (some would argue too much).

You actually just wanted to debut Jinshi without any real prior exposure when he started showing interest in the idol industry, but Jinshi felt he didn't deserve that so he was the one that chose to enter the idol competition to prove himself. Of course, once the public finds out his connection to Li Entertainment they start assuming the competition is rigged anyway.

Maomao:

Maomao is one of the dance instructors. She was in last years production as well and is known for being a bit of a taskmaster, incredibly blunt and sharp with her critiques, but she's not mean. Previous watchers know that Maomao takes her job as an instructor seriously, she really wants to teach the craft well and genuinely hopes the talents succeed. She's also really quick to know when someone is just hoping to coast and will immediately put them in their place.

Viewers know that if you want to succeed you a) don't mess with Maomao and b) LISTEN TO WHAT SHE TELLS YOU CAUSE SHE'S RIGHT.

The reason Maomao knows dance is because she was raised in her families dance academy (The Verdigris House)! Maomao also personally enjoys choreographing dances - she's not interested in performing herself, but she likes the "puzzle" of matching dance moves to a song and creating a captivating performance. This was why she accepted the offer to be a dance instructor for the show when producers came knocking on the door of the Verdigris House. She is also a university student studying pharmacology and hopes to become a full-time pharmacist like her grand uncle, Luomen.

Other Characters:

Basen, Rikuson, Lihaku and Lahan are all part of this competition as well. They are the guys who end up debuting with Jinshi to form the idol group "Flower 5" otherwise the F5 (Yeah, I'm unoriginal, but COME ON. HOW COULD I NOT JUMP ONTO THE FLOWER IMAGE).

People do not know Lahan and Maomao are related and at first just think Maomao super hates Lahan because he seems like one of the guys who just wants to coast. When Lahan calls Maomao his "little sister", fans just think he's purposely trying to piss her off (they're not wrong...). Of course, eventually it's dug out that they are actually cousins which adds more fuel to the "this competition is rigged" agenda.

Much to Maomao's chagrin, Lahan is actually quite a competent all-rounder in singing and dancing -- he just seems to have an innate understanding of rhythm and music. He constantly says "It's just numbers". No one gets it, but it works for him. She doesn't get how, but he also manages to gain a lot of the audience vote. Because Lahan has such a good sense of rhythm and words, he ends up being very good at rapping.

Lihaku is his typical himbo self. He's super physically fit and a great dancer, has amazing stamina and his personality is A+++. His singing is a bit lacking, but it's not terrible. He's also dating Pairin, never tries to hide it, and will come to defend her honor whenever anyone tries to talk bad about her. She was the one who encouraged him to try out for the competition.

Basen and Jinshi are closer to childhood acquaintances, rather than friends, but they end up bonding on this show more. Basen is a great dancer as well. Him and Lihaku are absolute powerhouses when it comes to doing some insane dance sequences. Fans love it. When it's off-stage, fans really enjoy seeing Basen and Jinshi losing brain cells around each other because both were raised in rich but sheltered environments so neither of them know how to do a lot of basic tasks. These are the two idiots who set off the fire alarm trying to make instant ramen.

Rikuson is the biggest rival when it comes to Jinshi's popularity. Rikuson fans and Jinshi fans DO NOT GET ALONG (except for the shipper fans). Rikuson also has the face, the dancing and singing skills, and instead of being awkward and lacking confidence (like Jinshi) he's just politely humble about it. There's definitely a portion of the viewers who think he's just a major fake.

Once Jinshi is able to come into his confidence a bit more, him and Rikuson get along decently. They're not friends, but they have a healthy amount of respect for reach other. Rikuson has a bit too much fun teasing Jinshi with a lot of backhanded sarcasm though. When the two of them come together to ring in the rest of the group, they're terrifyingly efficient at it.

You and Ah-Duo, as mentioned, are Jinshi's parents. You was a former star who retired to take over his father's production agency. We do not speak of his father. He is the Johnny Kitagawa of this world (if you know, you know). That is why the company is called "Li Productions" and not "Ka Productions". No one wants to remember the name of the former CEO. Ah-Duo is currently still the most famous female solo artist. They hooked up when they were teens, Ah-Duo got knocked up, they decided to keep the baby, but neither of them really were mature enough or free enough to be proper parents so Jinshi kind of got shuttled between both their grandparents (Suiren and Anshi).

Jinshi has okay relationships with both of them. Ah-Duo actually shows up as one of the guest celebrity judges one of the weeks and that's how fans put two and two together that they're related because they look stupidly alike. Also because some BTS footage gets leaked that shows they're clearly familiar with each other and Ah-Duo calls him "Yue" and fans are like "??? WHOMST IS YUE???"

Fengxian and Lakan are married and Maomao's parents in this AU. Fengxian was also a former celebrity, but she retired after giving birth and took over running the Verdigris House from granny. The La Clan in general are just a rich family--they have a hand in a lot of business, but mainly agriculture and food exports. Lakan started investing a bit in the entertainment industry after meeting Fengxian.

Pairin, Joka and Meimei were all students at the Verdigris House. Pairin is now a model. Joka is an dance instructor and Fengxian is training her to take over the academy, and Meimei is a freelance back dancer.

JinMao-stuff

People immediately start shipping Jinshi and Maomao right from their first interaction. Of course, the Jinshi haters were immediately like "Ya'll are nuts, Maomao clearly doesn't like him, he sucks". The Jinshi fans actually really appreciated how Maomao seemed to take Jinshi seriously and is patient with helping him, even if her words are sharp. There are definitely the jealous fans as well, but they are able to keep to their own lane for the most part. Casual viewers love the banter between them.

As the competition continues there are definitely more and more moments where people witness Jinshi and Maomao actually just getting along. Fans are shocked when in the background they witness Jinshi saying something to Maomao that has her basically rolling on the floor laughing.

There are also cute moments like Jinshi pulling a muscle and Maomao immediately giving him a massage, or Jinshi always going out of his way to buy Maomao drinks or bring her snacks (although some viewers see this as bribery).

Maomao's first impression of Jinshi is... basically like the novel. She's kinda iffy about him, but eventually she is able to realize he's actually really serious about becoming a proper idol and he does have the skills to be a top star. Some astute shippers enjoy creating compilation clips of all the time Maomao inadvertently ends up blurting out how she finds Jinshi super attractive when that isn't even the topic at hand.

It'll be like "Yeah, the dance this time is quite tough, but many of the talents have worked really hard. Especially Jinshi. I mean, his face is already a 10, but I think his dancing is reaching that level too now, and I'm sure his efforts will pay off tomorrow".

Jinshi is 1000x worse. Anytime he does an interview it's basically "Maomao has helped me so much. She's so smart. The other day she taught me how ibuprofen and acetaminophen operate differently as painkillers... anyway, what was the question?" Like this guy is down bad and literally everyone can see it from 1000 miles away. Even his die hard fans can't deny he's absolutely smitten.

The relationship in this AU is just as much of a slowburn as it is in the novel. They do not get together during the competition, or even after Jinshi debuts. Maomao justifies it as she's too busy with her studies and Jinshi doesn't really push her on it.

The reason they stay in contact after the competition is mostly due to Jinshi's efforts, but despite how much Maomao insists she doesn't like him "that much", she never turns down an invitation from him to grab a meal or hang out, and oh yeah---she absolutely attends all his concerts (she justifies this by saying she's also supporting Lihaku, Rikuson and Basen. She ignores Lahan). She also happens to choreograph almost all of his solo performances, and when she's being extra generous, she'll choreograph a group performance too (and either stick Lahan in the back the whole time or force him to do something she knows will make him want to cry).

But she definitely doesn't like him.

Jinshi is willing to wait though, and he's busy enough with his debut and getting used to being a proper full-time idol. Spending time with Maomao is always a breath of fresh air to him regardless. Her opinion of him never changes even after everyone finds out he's basically popstar royalty, but she also doesn't immediately write him off as just a pretty face. She takes him seriously when he asks for help, and he knows that he can trust her comments are always true. Whether she's saying he did a bad job or an amazing one.

For Maomao, she respects Jinshi's work ethic and how grounded he actually is. He also actually remembers stuff about her studies even though it is not relevant to his life at all. He is also one of the few people in her life who encourages her to just do what she wants (the first person being Luomen). Jinshi is the one who actively plants the idea that maybe Maomao can do both pharmacy and maintain her work doing professional choreography work. Most people in her life have told her that eventually she will have to pick one and stick with it. Jinshi actively helps her to do both by insisting Maomao is the only person to choreograph his solo performances (the first time he asks for this after the F5 debut, she purposely waits until 3 days before the concert to give him anything to spite him - Jinshi pulls it off flawlessly. She expected this result - she wouldn't have done it if she didn't trust him, but she's still impressed nonetheless).

And that's all I have for now. Thank you for indulging in my brain worms.

[bomberqueen17]

the home stretch

Went over to the house yesterday morning and Jim was there sawing a hole in the exterior wall.

Not alarming at all once I remembered part of this remodel that i'm really excited about is that we're getting an actual exhaust hood for over the stove. Not one of those ones that goes through a microwave either, a real exhaust hood that goes to the outdoors. (The real ones are mounted 30" above the stove top. Microwave ones have to be lower so you can reach the microwave. i can't stand cooking in such a constrained space like that. No thank you. Keep my microwave separate!)

He had sawed out a big chunk of drywall on the interior too, and replaced it with plywood, which is much sturdier to screw mounting hardware into. At my request, he'd extended the plywood down a couple more inches (it'll be covered by the tile backsplash so it won't even show!) so I can screw a couple of heavy-duty mounting hooks in there and have a place I can hang both my cast-iron skillets when they're not in use. I don't like leaving them on the stove (my mother's approach) or stacking them on a shelf (dude's approach) because one is untidy and the other requires me to lift every piece of cast iron i own at once to access any of them. (I also have a square griddle and a Dutch oven and also a tiny skillet which Dude uses all the time when I'm not around and neither of us uses at all when I am around, because it is very much a Cooking For One mini skillet LOL.)

He paused to show me the deer hunting hut he'd meticulously constructed for himself while he was on Christmas break and then artistically had painted camoflage. ("My friends were like omg how long did that take you? I dunno, I wasn't counting, I had a blast. Had a beer in one hand, spray paint can in the other, I just let it take as long as it took. It's like arts and crafts! Who's keeping track of the time?") It did look great. As he was swiping his finger accidentally slid onto the later bits of the camera roll and it showed me the deer he'd gotten on the last day of hunting season. "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you look at that," he said, and then looked at me and laughed, remembering I had told him I work in a slaughterhouse. "Right, you don't mind that kind of thing, but still." It was a nice big doe, cleanly felled, nothing to object to there.

I went and called the appliance company, who'd said they'd deliver my dishwasher and vent hood on new year's eve probably. They seemed confused that I'd called, and then were confused when they discovered that indeed both my items were in stock and should have been delivered. I said I figured the holiday had confused things (genuinely, probably the vent hood had come in on NYE like the salesman had thought it might, but I bet somebody had the day off and they weren't on the ball about calling people) so I just wanted to call and find out if anything needed sorting. They told me they'll call me today to tell me the two-hour delivery window. So I'm getting my dishwasher today! Pumped. It's gonna go into the living room to start with but like, y'know, that's fine.

The counters are going in on Thursday. Hopefully, Jim said, the counter people could do it in the morning, because then he could start on the tile that afternoon.

Ah they've just called, my delivery window for the appliances is 11-1. OK cool.

The plumber can't come until Monday. But then once he's been there I'll have my stove and sink and dishwasher. And, Jim says, that means the final, last little button-up details will be done on Tuesday.

"And then," he said, amused, "I can go back to the regular schedule, because the people who refused to have their houses torn up over the holidays will be clamoring to get the work done now. It's good you didn't mind." Which is precisely why we thought we'd gotten bumped up by two months, but it's funny to hear him so directly confirm it.

"I'm the luckiest person in the world," I said, "with my mother-in-law's house vacant walking distance away for this whole time, so it's been genuinely no trouble at all." And I am. She's coming back on Tuesday, so I figure we'll move back into our house over the weekend, and I'll deep-clean her house and (sighhh) put all the beautiful sewing equipment back where I found it. I won't really miss her fancy modern sewing machine (which she just got and is third-hand and I don't think she knows how to use either) but her old workhorse straight-stitch machine is a beautiful, unfussy beast I've really enjoyed spending time with.

OK i gotta get off my ass and go get the grocery shopping done so I can go sit in my house for the delivery window. I saved plenty of things to do, don't worry. I'm starting to put stuff into the cupboards, made Dude come sit with me over the weekend and give his opinion-- he's been busy at work and has had no attention span but I refuse to take his "idk just put stuff wherever" at face value, he spends more time in this house than me and i will NOT have him after the fact annoyed with how I chose to organize things. So he did give opinions, finally. And I need a few more lazy susans and storage baskets and half-shelf-rack kinda thingies here and there but I'm getting there.

[clairehadenough]

CapT wrote a post about how she will not be writing real person fanfic and the reasons why, and they're all very good reasons. EXCEPT, she says this:

"You don't know Them. So for them to be subjects in your fanfic, in MY opinion is disrespectful. You are projecting what YOU want them to be like and writing a story about this "Real person" that never gave you consent for that. I'm personally NOT comfortable with it. I don't read it, and I certainly won't write it."

So, who wants to tell her that's exactly what she and her scam crew have been doing this whole time? Projecting what they want him to be and writing a story, aka CRAFTING A NARRATIVE.

Hellooooooooooo????

Omg thank you Anon you’re a star😂 I saw this yesterday but I was tired and couldn’t be bothered with posting about it and said I’ll do it in the morning. Now the morning’s here and yours is the first ask I see lol, all nicely done and ready to post.

I’m not sure if it’s hilarious or sad, probably both. She’s “not comfortable” bless her. Funny though she seems more than comfortable to me in “projecting what SHE wants them to be” on her blog. She wants them not to be married, she wants Alba to be the devil personified, she want Chris to be this sad little helpless man. And because they aren’t all those things in real life, she makes them on her blog.

Her whole blog is a real person fanfic actually.

[apoptoses]

omg I'm having fit because I typed this up in my notes app yesterday on the subway and just realized I never actually sent it you lmao I'm a clown 🙈

Anyway what I wanted to say was for the writer feedback thing: I actually think about this a lot because you're one of the fic-writers I take literal notes on because you have the Midas touch imo -- it's all gold 💖

Three things about your style that stand out to me the most are

You take risks! I don't mean the sex stuff (although that's great and I love it), but like you don't shy away from the gritty, painful, raw stuff that cuts deep and oozes all over the place. Your Daniel is no saint, and neither is Armand. When I read your D/A, I feel like I'm reading them the way Anne intended them to be read, and I think that's why CPMS nestles so perfectly within canon DM to your readers.

You show and don't just tell! It's never just "Armand is sad," you really weave the narrative to create the experience of physically being in the room with him, of seeing, sensing, knowing he's sad. When I read your stuff it's not just a well-crafted sentence on the screen; it's a full-body, five-senses experience. I usually need a joint and nap afterwards lmao.

You really nail the whole Ricey technique of weaving in the past with the present in a way that's organic and contributes to the overall story. Nothing you write is filler because it all serves a purpose.

tl;dr: reading your stuff makes me a better writer and overall enriches my entire life and ily, I can't articulate myself well enough atm but i'm so glad you're in my fandom 😭😭💘💘

lol it's only natural that clown things happen here at clown school (and I swear tumblr is the biggest clown of them all when it comes to formatting stuff)

Anyways this has had me all verklempt all day because these are really big compliments and I'm not even sure I've earned them but the sentiment is just so nice.

Risk taking is like...the most important thing to me in my work. I feel like if I'm not doing something unexpected there's no point in even opening a doc. I have to push a boundary with the setting or what Armand decides to do, and then it becomes really scary because I pushed the boundary! And now I have to share it and hope people trust me enough to go along for the ride.

And I'm so happy that so many people do! Because Armand and Daniel are both so precious to me and so near to my soul in so many ways. Sometimes my life feels like a series of experiences that happened just to culminate in me understanding them, which makes sharing my interpretation of them a vulnerable thing. So to hear that they're that right is hugely validating ♥

And then like- I've been in this weird place with writing right now. where I feel like I like what I do, and I can read other author's works and identify what I love about what they do. But I can't figure out how to polish my own skills enough to achieve the same thing. I can't figure out how to take my descriptions to that next level.

So yes. Hearing that I'm doing good right now and if I only ever stay doing things like this it'll still be good is a huge comfort to me.

So just. Thank you 🥹 Hearing that my little hobby has that much impact is so gratifying and fyi if these notes are an actual thing i'm going to bully you until you show me them just saying Thank you for always encouraging me ily 💖💖💖

[glitterparpaing]

the thing is i can’t do shit for myself but if it’s for a friend??? i’ll do everything i can

long story short yesterday i spent hours crafting a playlist for one of my best friends out there (@confused-nanoparticle ) and like. it’s just songs that we have in common/ that i think he’d like

it’s 11 hours long, with 166 songs.

it’s in order, it goes from sad to angry to happy and there’s plenty of nuance: the sad goes from helpless to hopeful, but then falls into doubt and anger, which starts just full of hatred but the energy becomes more controlled and ends up as a coping mechanism (dancing to escape reality or to denounce it) and the cheerfulness is less and less toxic and consuming and more and more genuine as time passes. in the end, the songs are calm again, but they’re much more appeased. (the bottom 3 songs are just jokes)

im still working on it (Lost by The Cure was way too high in the sad part, when it’s obviously got a lot of doubtful and angry tones) and it’s not perfect but i’m so proud of it??? it’s a whole experience

and i genuinely enjoy listening to it like omg why didn’t i do this earlier

[stardust-in-my-mind-blog]

the golden box

pandora wasn't curious about the box

she fucking knew what was in there

it was her own rotting heart

she'd already crafted something that ticked

well enough to keep her going

but the flesh was just in there

rotting and decaying and being consumed

slowly by whatever managed to get in there to feast

cassandra giggled and said she told her so

and asked if she wanted a match

looking into that box and that old heart

meant having to see exactly how it got in there

why it got in there and how she was responsible

for becoming blind to the intentions of others

she didn't want to see and the shitty problems

she was now going to have to solve

after fashioning some kind of strength out of all this

and she worked tirelessly to do so

although no one works tirelessly

you're tired but you just ignore it

I can't even imagine a life where I'm not tired

so fucking exhausted and seething

festering beneath deep breaths and peaceful thoughts

using spirituality as a form of salvation and avoidance

ok fine whatever the box is open

and it stinks and it's awful and I hate it

and I'm so angry and I'm so sad

and the evils of my world are all pouring out

and all my alarm systems are going off

like a smoke alarm that you can't get to shut up

or like my car yesterday that went into panic mode

for ten minutes honking so loud I couldn't get it to stop

but then I remember how goofy that swan looked

swimming over to me honking in a lower key

happy to see me and looking for treats

or how silly the heron looked when it stood up

I thought at first it was a duck but it had those long legs

I've never seen a heron with the swans before

it's okay to be angry and it's okay to be overwhealmed

it's okay to have an imagination that is absolutely chaotic

and comes up with so many ideas that you can't believe

that you can have thoughts like that but... okay they're there

not judging but jesus christ I can't believe I can think like that

alright first things first I need to get something to eat

satisfy the predator within so it calms the fuck down

and yes, I know, I know, regina george eats steak

then I will get some dopamine related to finances by

getting the kids some fall and winter clothes

and then I will make a list of financial problems I have

and let the paper hold the burden instead of my mind

just write the problems down

and then I can make a map on how to solve them

just like I was able to walk through everything yesterday

and my brain did begin working like it used to

during that conversation so that means the skills

must be under some layer of shame based thinking

it's the anger and disgust and injustice I was afraid of feeling

but I'm feeling it and it's not killing me

just kind of really really darkly inspiring me

I will not make things worse to make myself feel better

I will make things better and get the same result

making things worse only makes things worse

plus an opportunity to equal things out will present itself to me

and I'll feel much better taking that route

I think I understand why villains laugh so much

like sometimes there's nothing left to do but just

fucking laugh because if you don't

who knows what the fuck would happen

destruction is more satisfying when you're on higher ground

I will not make things worse just to make myself feel better

omg sometimes maturity is so hard

I need to eat something

[moodywyrm]

those are so cute!! and omggg those tops are the best and they always look so good

i’m a pretty fast reader,, or at least i used to be? i think it’s just because i’m a lot busier now bc i have a job and school and stuff 💀 maybe i’ll try to read more during my vacation :o

bright lights are the worst! my gf and i refuse to use the big lights in our apartment unless absolutely necessary, it’s all lamps and fairy lights 😭

fair!! i like listening to music or watch a video/show while i game or do other things but like i said i just tune it out 😵‍💫

it was very nice :) we always spend time together but we almost never get a day where it’s just like, nothing really going on. and ik!! i’m so excited!! we booked everything yesterday and we’re going to villa del balbianello and i can’t wait :) i’ve been wanting to go since i was a kid !! and he rlly is, he loves watching movies with us. i’m rewatching the whole star wars series with him because he’s my son now

that’s good!!! i’m glad you’re having a good day so far <3 lord i need to buy new supplies but ! target is still having their 20% off deal for college students so i might use that to my advantage. and yes omg stock up on yarns just in case !! make some cute lil outfits for class with your new crochet skills <3

my day is good so far!! i’m off work today so my gf and i are at ikea rn :) we’re in need of some new furniture and a new shelf for our balcony bc it broke </3 we’re going to order pizza and have a lil date night at our apartment to build our new things ! she has been really antsy today and idk why, but she’s going somewhere for a couple hours with a friend when we get home so i’m like ?? not sure what to do ?

- 🩷

Yeah!! Once I’m significantly better at crochet, I wanna try and make one!!

That’s so fair!! I only have so much time bc I’m on vacation rn, and then during school I have blocks of time before my classes to read bc I get there early!!

I agrée!! I hate overhead lights, lamps and fairy lights all the way!! And they’re prettier 💕💕

That’s so fair!! I have somehow managed to watch Three and a quarter twilight movies while I’ve been practicing today 🧍🏽‍♀️

Aww, im glad y’all got a nice day together 💕 and that’s so cool!! And omg italy??? That’s so fucking cool, it looks so pretty!!! A win for childhood you!! He’s your son!! And he’s a film bro!! What a sweet lil man, the first of his kind, a sweet film bro 😩 I’ve never actually seen all the Star Wars movies 🧍🏽‍♀️

Thank you!!! I love crafts, I have a bunch of paint but I don’t really use it :( new supplies!! I do think I need some stuff, but I don’t remember what I have back at my apartment :( and yes!! I’m gonna ask my dad if we can go to michaels this weekend so I can grab a few more skeins, I only have three rn and I’m using pretty much all of the red to practice! And I would love to make clothes and accessories, but I’m definitely not at that skill level yet 😭 I might make shoelaces though!!

That’s good!! I fucking love IKEA, i wanna go so bad 😩 that sounds like such a cute date omg, pizza and building with the sapphics!! Me and my girl When. That sucks, I hope it passes :( getting antsy sucks :( hopefully it’ll help her to hang out with a friend? It’s gonna be okay pinky, just be there for her and try and have a sweet night 💕

[miekasa]

cowboy/southern jean😫

i’m not the type for yeeyee type guys but jean will definitely make me do a double take. the manners, the hospitality, the sly pet names when he’s got a crush on you (which i think you touched on before)😫

see jean doing:

sorting and stacking hay in the barn

speaking of hay on tiktok last fall white farmer boys were beefing about their hay and it was the best😭 i could see him getting into a spat abt that

HORSE MAN but we already knew this!!!

cowboy/heavy duty boots and a hat has to be added to the ensemble sometimes i fear, it’s a small price to pay, really

see him feeding the farm cats in the morning

just really great with animals overall😫

ugh stawpppp this makes me think of small town things, he’d def take you to the town festival as a date

great cook but we knew this!!!

he probably accidentally tracks hay inside the house sometimes

chopping wood for the fire place omg

i feel like most-if not every food product in his house is homemade by his farm or another, really takes pride in agriculture

see: frozen/fast food slander (shut up, what does he know about a taco bell steak chalupa with no tomatoes🙄). with the exception of a few places, i also think he loves a good cafe and little joints like that

always brings you something back🥲

FLANNEL/ THERMAL TYPE GUYDJFNCNXNXNSJDNDNNDJDNFNF

he’s got a thing for candles, maybe after a couple purchases he learns to make them on his own

i definitely see him having a creative outlet with arts and crafts but he’s taking it to the grave

coffee drinker, drags eren for surviving off monsters (bye they taste like battery acid to me, where the sugar, huh?! original red bull supremacy!)

ugh and he’s just so responsible, doing his chores around the house, upkeeping the house and the farm, GIVE HIM TO ME

bye i just realized that out science teacher gave us an extension till 11:59 PM again yesterday (it is now 12:30 AM, for I am eternally damned), and i missed the deadline- AGAIN, so guess what? I’m gonna watch saiki AGAIN🤪

- 🥖 anon

STOPP THE WAY I WAS THINKING ABOUT THIS OTHER DAY he’s the only country bumpkin I’d let hit 😚😚

No because just imagine how jacked he is from doing all that farm work… working out was basically built into his day: lifting things off and onto his truck, pushing shit around, building new pens for the animals and just generally fixing up things around the house for his mom. His arms… his thighs… his chest because you know damn well in the summer he forgoes a shirt.

The frozen food slander stop thats so accurate, why would he let you eat that when he could make you something from scratch. He also probably physically can’t even digest it that well since it’s not what he’s used to it’s kinda funny he’d get folded by Taco Bell so quickly please.

So good with animals, he’s basically been raising this one horse since he was 12 and it’s absolutely his baby; he’s good at nursing injured animals back to health and has a soft spot for them. You notice then when you first meet him at uni, and you don’t piece together why he’s that good with animals until he talks about having raised a few back home… then things start falling into place. You don’t know why he was embarrassed to tell you he essentially grew up on a small ranch at first, but you’re glad you finally know.

When he takes you back to his mom’s place for the first time, you can tell just how much love and care Jean’s put into the place. His mom points out all the work he’s done, tells you stories of Jean getting chased by the farm dogs when he was younger, shows you some of his earlier arts and crafts ventures. The place is a little too small for Jean—he has to duck into the door frames, he can easily step over some of the fences in the front yard, his knees hit the table when he sits, but it’s home and he’s happy here and he’s happy you seem to love it too.

[soobadnoonecanstopher]

Touch it for Real, Part 4

Genre: Humor / Fluff / Eventual Smut

Warnings: OMG they were roommates / slice of life / slow burn / mutual pining / crude humor / cursing / virgin!baek / idiots to lovers

A/N: The song featured in the kitchen scene is Fantasy by Mariah Carey.

Characters: Baekhyun X You/Female Reader

Description: You teach Baekhyun how to date. (Basically the Get You Alone M/V)

Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5

You were puzzling. Alone in your bedroom, laying within the comfort of your own bed, you were positively puzzling.

After sorting out just who Ben was and fixing the damage Baekhyun had done to your reputation by explaining that your idiot roommate had just gotten a hold of your phone, you reintroduced yourself and apologized for the confusion.

This ‘Ben’ actually seemed to laugh off the odd behavior he’d gotten as a first impression of you, mentioning that your roommate seemed funny, if not weirdly protective of you.

You could see what he meant when you read through the rapid fire questions Baekhyun had asked him from his age, to his preferred operating system, whether or not Ben had Facebook so “you” and him could be friends, his profession, and his parents line of work, his current place of work, how long he’s worked there and whether or not he moves around a lot, his hometown, his hobbies and even whether or not Ben has now or has ever had any pets; it seemed that Baekhyun had actually done a whole lot of legwork to give you a pretty good idea of what Ben might be like.

But the moment Baekhyun’s conversation topic changed to innocently ask Ben for his astrological sign, something struck you as off to see Baekhyun proclaim you to also be the same sign and after the two compared birthdays you began to find the whole exchange quite odd.

You realized that Baekhyun had simply lied about your birthday. Baekhyun knew your birthday. Why had he given a fake date to Ben? Unless there was something else happening that you didn’t understand. Then again, Baekhyun had always been rather stingy about giving out personal information; both yours and his. He was probably just being cautious about revealing too much to a stranger.

And actually, Ben seemed rather …. nice. You always hesitated to give them this adjective right off the bat as most of the guys you met who seemed nice right away turned out to be very good at faking nice and stringing along at least three or four girls at once for the shot at fucking at least one of them, and the hopes of fucking all of them.

You’d been called the wrong name late at night, whispered through a sleepy voice over the phone. You’d been sweet-talked and then abruptly called a bitch for refusing to send nudes to a guy you’d been talking to for only a week. Apparently a week was his limit and all his other girls gave him what he wanted within a couple of days. You’d been ghosted by nice guys who felt victimized and led on when you said goodnight politely with a smile and a wave instead of inviting them inside for ramen.

You did want a nice guy. But you wanted a real one.

What you wouldn’t give for one of them, for just one of them to be honest with you and really show you their true self.

Perhaps you had been going about it all wrong.

Your conversation with Ben quietly fizzled and you put your phone away to charge and now, now you were simply puzzling.

It panged at your heart to think of it, but the upset with Baekhyun hours earlier kept replaying in your mind. You propped your feet up on your wall and let your head hang off the edge of your bed, enjoying the way the gravity pulled at the blood in your brain and you tapped your fingers on the bed absentmindedly to the soft beat of music you heard playing from his room.

And you puzzled.

Don’t use your beauty as a weapon against me.

You hadn’t been this bothered by something since you’d watched that Mission Impossible movie the first time and spent an hour and a half trying to wrap your head around the complicated plot.

A Weapon.

Your beauty … a weapon … against me.

Why did it bother you so much? Why had he been so upset that you were playing with him, that you were messing with him. He messed with you all the time. You messed with him just as much. He never got this upset. No, he never got upset in this way. In such a way as to call you out on using something you had, against him. Something that you hadn’t even known had any power at all to attack the man. Your beauty. Did you have such a thing?

You thought about the other times you fought with him.

Not really fought, the two of you never did that, but that fake sort of fighting like when he’d woken you up at 2am for the third night in a row with his loud working music and you found him out in the kitchen disassembling your favorite toaster, the one with the wide slots for bagels that also toasts four slices of bread at once and even has special buttons for frozen items. The stainless steel one that you won in a work raffle and proudly marched through the office carrying with a huge smile on your face. It was a deluxe model. Supreme even. The master of it’s craft. Said so right on the box. Your toaster in a million pieces on your kitchen counter; all because he needed some components or resistors or whatever the fuck it was and he decided the best move was to take your toaster apart rather than to just order what he needed online and wait two business days for them to arrive.

Sure, he put it back together a few days later but not without enduring the laser eyes you shot him over breakfast when you had to toast a piece of bread in a frying pan on the stove like a loser who did not own a four slice Deluxe Toastmaster Supreme.

You’d planned your revenge then. It was something tiny and it involved his TV remote. His precious TV was enormous, took up almost the whole wall, OLED or SUPER-NANO or ULTRA-NANO some similar nonsense words and had 8-Ks of pixels or so he claimed and had so many smart functions you could hardly get comfortable using it for anything that didn’t involve the Netflix button. And no, no, you didn’t do anything to the actual TV. Relax, this was just the remote. This was harmless. Absolutely harmless. Easy to solve really if he had half a brain in his head.

You just carefully cut out the smallest tiniest piece of IR blocking tape that fit exactly over the infrared sensor on the remote control and fit so well it was undetectable to the human eye. Unless you knew it was there and knew exactly where to stick your fingernail in under the plastic bezel to peel it back. You simply applied the tape and left the remote right on the coffee table before you left for work.

You’d come home that night to a pile of assorted battery packs all strewn about the coffee table, and the remote completely taken apart down to the tiny circuit board and Baekhyun was quietly touching the tip of some tiny tool to the different spots on the scary looking green part from inside of the remote with all the metal bits stuck to it and when you slowly walked by he looked up at you through the magnifying eye glasses he wore. His eyes looked comically enormous and you swallowed away your laughter and considered how long you’d let him suffer.

“Something wrong with your remote, Peanut Butter?”

“It was working fine yesterday. I just don’t understand it.”

“Maybe it’s the batteries,” you offered innocently and he just ignored your helpful suggestion as he began screwing tiny screws into place with a precision screwdriver.

He was reassembling it all now and you sat down beside him on the sofa about as amused as you had ever been to sit and watch him suffer.

He grabbed two new batteries from an unopened pack on the table and aimed the remote, pressing the buttons again and again. Nothing happened.

He was surprisingly calm about the whole thing and judging by the various shopping bags and different brands of batteries you saw, he seemed to have been working on this all afternoon. Probably for hours now.

“I’m going to have to take the TV apart.”

He was already standing up and walking across the room toward the wall mounted monstrosity when you leaned forward for the remote. He glanced back at you as you did it and he looked at you just in time to see you shake the remote back and forth and then hit it twice lightly against your left hand. Just a little knock-knock should do it. You were careful to keep the expression on your face calm and well controlled.

When you pressed the power button, the big TV came to life and you pressed the button for Netflix and scrolled through your recommended titles. You had a new episode to watch. You’d have to make time tonight for that. After he was done with his little project here.

Baekhyun instantly pulled his hands away from the TV and hopped back and away from the screen, peering up at it with his mouth hanging wide open. His eyes shot back to where you sat on the sofa holding the remote control. You did not allow your smile to form. Nothing in your whole life had ever been so difficult. You felt as if you could pop right here. You casually flipped through the menu on the screen and the man looked back up at the TV and back down at you again.

You could see him coming in then. He was moving fast with several large steps toward you and with the quickest movement you could manage you used the tip of your finger to slide the IR tape back over the remote sensor. You could not be as precise as you had been before with him coming right at you so quickly, but hopefully it wouldn’t be visible.

He reached for the remote. “What did you do, how did you fix it?” He held it up and pointed it toward the TV. Again, the remote did not work. You bit down hard on the inside of your cheek.

He was pressing buttons again and nothing happened with each new button he smashed down. You could see the madness growing in his eyes the more he tried.

He made the smallest whining sound from the back of his throat and it took every ounce of self control to keep from laughing as he lightly tapped the remote twice against his hand just as he had seen you do. Nothing.

You tried to hold it. You tried so hard. A tiny sound escaped, the smallest sniffle with a laugh broke free from your throat and you coughed lightly to hide it.

His face turned on you and those crazed eyes were back only instead of directing them at the remote, he was looking at you now.

“How did you fix it? Do it again.” He looked insane and desperate and a tiny smile betrayed you as you grabbed the remote from his hand. You played the smile off as part of the help you were willing to offer him but you also had to inhale a deep breath and carefully and slowly exhale it through your mouth to keep from breaking completely.

You held it up in your right hand and gave it a little shake. As quickly as you had done it before you turned the remote on its side as you gave those two little knocks and his head flipped toward the TV when you aimed. With his eyes averted you were able to slip the tape off just before pressing the button.

The Netflix logo greeted you and Baekhyun threw his head back and let out a loud frustrated yell into the ceiling above him.

You’d been holding your laugh for too long. It was becoming too difficult now and he was back, reaching for the remote when the first suffocating giggles took your composure and you laughed out loud.

Your laughter brought all of his attention right to you and only you. The entirety of his focus shifted and that brought those crazed eyes of his bearing down on you, wide and demanding.

It was, by far, the most successful and meanest prank you had ever played on him to date and you were gasping for air and laughing as he reached for you. He grasped both of your shoulders and he shook you as you laughed and laughed at the absolute madness in his eyes. Oh he was crazy. It was just so damn funny.

The remote was still in your hands and you flipped through the different inputs on the TV as you cackled and tears formed at the corners of your eyes.

“How did you do it? You devil! Tell me how you did it?”

He balanced with his knees on the couch and his hands were on you, roaming over the fabric of the sweater you wore, lifting your arms to look under them, maybe for spare remotes or for hidden batteries or secret formulas, who knows what he thought he might find.

You’d stashed the tiny circle of tape by sticking it to the skin inside your elbow and he was currently examining the fingers on all of your hands up close as if they concealed all of the secrets he was looking for.

It wasn’t until he searched higher, pulling your hand forward toward his chest and his thumb grazed against the shiny plastic of the tape circle you had on your inner arm when he did a double take, pulled your arm harder and lifted an accusing finger to point at the tape.

“What is that?!” He clearly thought himself to be the world’s greatest detective.  

You allowed yourself to be manhandled by him a little bit more as you got every bit of humor about your recent victory out of your chest and you lifted your other hand, the one he did not have held hostage right now to wipe at the tears that had fallen from your eyes.  

“Stop laughing and answer me, woman! What is it?”

“It’s my birth control patch,” you said through a laugh and his eyes widened as he pulled his hand back. It was a tiny movement but you were so close to his accusing eyes that it felt monumental and the dramatic reaction to your teasing lie made a fresh wave of laughter bubble up in your chest. You knew he would react this way. Any mention of your contraceptives always made him clam up.

“It’s IR tape, Baekhyun. Infrared blocking tape. I put it on the sensor this morning after breakfast. After I made toast in a pan instead of in my toaster.”

The truth pulled his whole head back and he fell down on his butt on the sofa briefly before he slipped and fell right off the couch onto the floor and he sat there with a blank lifeless look on his face; staring ahead without any focus in his eyes.

“Do you know how sad pan toast is, Baekhyun? Tell me, how am I supposed to be satisfied with pan toast when I should have been having Deluxe Toastmaster Supreme toast?”

He was shaking his head back and forth as you spoke and when he did move it was to lay down flat on his back on the floor of the living room. His hands were up and he rubbed roughly over his face.

“Oh my god. Oh my god—it’s so good. I would have never checked for tape over the sensor. Fucking tape. A piece of goddamn tape. I was so focused on the batteries.I went to three different stores today. The circuits to the sensor were all intact, I checked it, it was good — I never even considered this. Are you an evil genius? My sweet innocent Bug ... is actually an evil supervillain.”

You left him on the floor and made your way into the kitchen to make dinner. It was your night to cook and thanks to the man stewing on the floor of the living room you had to do it around the scattered carcass of your third favorite kitchen appliance.

You remembered the way he reacted then. He pouted and moaned on the floor for a few moments until he smelled the stew you were cooking on the stove. It was comfort food. Something with meat and potatoes and warmth and spices. It would lift anyone’s mood and his had been lifted almost immediately. There were no apologies or any tears. Just a promise to put the toaster back together tomorrow after he went to the store for the parts he needed and that was the end of it.

He didn't storm away. He didn't raise his voice or say you were mean or unfair or too beautiful for him to withstand. He didn't get angry about closeness being used the wrong way, in a way that was unfair to him. In a way that could hurt him, like a weapon.

If he said you had the kind of beauty that could be used against him, didn't that mean he found you beautiful? Wouldn't that mean that Baekhyun found you attractive?

The words protested inside your mind. You shook your head.

That was impossible. Definitely. You’ve been so close to him for so long without even a hint of that sort of a feeling from him. Sure you were close to each other. Sure you cared for each other. It was a familiar sort of affection you shared. But attraction? Because he found you beautiful in a way that was unfair?

The puzzling was giving you a headache. There were some things that just did not exist in the same space in your mind and that was the existence of your roommate, Byun Baekhyun, and the possibility that he was attracted to you in any way.

You’d been inside your bedroom for hours now and you were no closer to answers than when you first came in here.

Baekhyun would be done with his episode. He would have watched it with Mia and discussed themes or scenes or dramatic moments with her. Did he talk to her on the phone or maybe though a headset as they streamed the episode together.

Did he like her voice and did she like his jokes?

Did he make her laugh? Of course he did. He made everyone laugh. Baekhyun was charming and hilarious. But could she make him laugh? Could she make him giggle and shake like he laughed with you?

It was late. That didn't really mean all that much to Baekhyun, as the man didn't really have any set bedtime and usually just fell asleep when the sun began to come up. It was a weekend night and you didn't have work in the morning and frankly your curiosity had grown too much for you to just stay in here and fall asleep without at least checking on how the streaming date went.

You knocked lightly on his door. You could hear music playing inside. Nothing too loud or crazy. The man seemed to be having a somewhat low key evening.

“Yeah,” his voice called lowly and you opened the door and peeked your head inside.

“How is our girlfriend doing?” Baekhyun was sitting on his butt on the floor in front of his bed with his head laid over his arms and his phone abandoned in the middle of the floor out of arm’s reach.

He let out a long low groan but did not lift his head up when you stepped inside.

“I don't even know. I don't know.” He sounded defeated already and this had only just started.

“Peanut, what happened?” You picked up the phone and unlocked the screen, searching through his apps to find the dating app so you could see if they had said anything to each other that might give you some clues about what went wrong.

“Nothing happened. I was too quiet. I couldn’t talk at all. I didn't say anything during the entire episode. Why is this so scary. Uggghhh...I feel unsafe. It’s gross.”

You stepped over him and climbed onto his bed, sitting up against the head of the bed as you scrolled through the chat logs.

It looked normal. Not unfriendly. A little terse and abrupt on his part. The man didn't know how to loosen up when he talked to girls and you wondered if maybe you needed more one on one lessons with him before he was really ready for this stuff.

When you leaned back against the headboard you felt the bed dip and he climbed onto the bed beside you and angled his body toward where you sat up against the pillows.

When you got to the end of the chat you could see that she was the last one to speak and she remarked that he felt a bit different from when they spoke at the beginning of the day. He didn't say anything in response to that.

Baekhyun moaned with his eyes closed and he turned his head into your waist. He was obviously reliving some perceived embarrassment he must have felt during the interaction with Mia and when he moved his arm around your waist you looked down to find yourself trapped under his arm that constricted as he pulled tightly, hiding the entirety of his face somewhere in the shirt you wore. He was warm. The weight of his arm around you felt nice.

“I felt so unsafe,” he repeated his complaint from earlier and his voice was obscured and muffled as he hid himself. He switched the tense though and you wondered if he no longer felt unsafe now that you had come in.

You typed out a quick response to Mia. You didn't think it was right to just leave her hanging without an explanation for his strange silence during and after the show.

“I’m going to tell her that you were so quiet because you were nervous. I’ll also thank her for watching the episode tonight.”

You heard and felt a hum and the tightness of his arm around your waist relaxed a little as his arm went slack. He did not move though. He still hugged you. He was still warm and it took only a moment for your nose to pick up the pleasant smell of his clean bed sheets fresh from the dryer. You both had a schedule for washing things like towels and bed sheets. Yours had been cleaned today as well, but something about the smell of his bed felt better than yours had. Perhaps it had been all that difficult puzzling that had tainted yours.

Mia responded right away to your message. She was flattered by his nervousness. You could tell with the way she reassured that he really didn't have to be nervous around her. That she was an easy going kinda girl. Low maintenance she said. You scoffed at the thought of a computer geek being low maintenance. As if you didn't know how difficult to obtain fancy GPUs were and how expensive high powered CPUs, high capacity SATA drives, and their required cooling systems were. You looked around Baekhyun’s set up and figured it had to run somewhere in the multiples of tens of thousands of dollars; just in this room alone.

Low maintenance. Please, she was just as high maintenance as any other regular girl just with a different catalogue of parts.

You switched to the emoji keyboard and keyed off some random happy faces and closed her chat window with more force than was necessary; suddenly and unexpectedly irked when she responded with similar emojis and the notification popped up on the screen. You swiped it away quickly to be rid of it.

“She sounded nice though, even if I couldn’t talk. She sounded nice. Do you think she will even want to talk to me again? I think she likes you more than me.”

“She will like you. If she doesn’t she’s an idiot. A girl would have to be an imbecile, Peanut, to not fall for you.”

He lifted his face then, just enough for the corners of his eye to peek out and you looked down at the side of his face as he looked at you for a moment, absorbing the encouraging words you spoke to him. His leg began to shake somewhere on the end of the bed. You could feel the rhythmic motions. He often did this when he was tired.

You had been scrolling through matches on his phone, building on an idea that popped into your head.

The man needed some practice to build up his confidence. Maybe, just maybe you could find another girl. Someone who he could talk to, chat with, be friendly with, that maybe wasn’t just so wonderfully perfect for him. Someone just to break the ice with.

You stopped on a girl. Her dress was short and the neckline was low. She really left very little up to the imagination with this outfit. Outside of the revealing clothes, it was clear that she was a beautiful woman. She was sexy and very confident in herself despite the glaringly obvious grammatical typo in her bio.

You spun the phone around to show him.

“She looks nice,” you said. Baekhyun blinked at the phone and pulled his face back a little to see the image clearly.

“—-follow you’re dreams — you are — Never too old to follow you are dreams.” Baekhyun read out the sentence with the typo out loud and you laughed.

“Come on, she’s pretty,” you said softly, “right?” You probed gently and he chuckled once to himself and closed his eyes up with a sigh.

“Yeah, she’s pretty,” he said after a while and you felt yourself stiffen just a little bit with his admission. Of course she was. Anyone could see it. He’d be lying if he didn't admit it.

“Okay but like, just pretty or do you also think she’s beautiful?”

He hummed some non response and you focused your attention back on the phone in your hands. After scrolling through a few more profiles you found another woman whose beauty shone brightly right through the screen at you.

“And her? Is she pretty or is she beautiful?”

Baekhyun’s eyes opened again but just barely. He looked half asleep and you wondered if the reason his arm was still around you was because he was so sleepy he didn't realize he was still hugging you like this on his bed.

“Pretty,” he mumbled and pushed his face into your waist again. This time the shaking in his leg began to settle and you could hear a slow steadiness in his breathing.

“Should I message her? Maybe we can practice talking to her so you’re not so nervous talking to girls?”

“Sure Bug,” he said quietly, “you can do anything you want.”

He was falling asleep now. You could feel the change. It didn't matter. You’d let him rest a bit while you opened up a chat window and began talking to Candy.

She responded quickly and had a completely different feeling from Mia. Maybe this was good. Candy was easy to talk to but she had nearly nothing in common with Baekhyun. She casually asked what a computer programmer did and when you went into specifics you had trouble finding synonyms for words that didn’t just make it all more complicated. You finally settled on a simple explanation of what kinds of computer software Baekhyun had developed and left it at that.

After a while Baekhyun shifted in his sleep and uncovered his face. His lips were parted and from the upside down angle you could see the dark splash of his pretty eyelashes that landed over his soft cheeks. He looked lovely and peaceful. All the worries and fears of the day were gone and he was sleeping so calmly. You watched his sleeping face for a while, growing warm inside with the strange contentedness you felt.

You could see some light movement behind his eyes and you wondered if he was dreaming about anything.

Candy had asked for a picture. She was asking something superficial like what sort of car Baekhyun drove and you slipped into his picture gallery for the folder with the shots you took for him when he first bought his car. You found a nice one with him smiling behind the driver’s seat, bright red seatbelt across his chest and the logo of his fancy ride on the steering wheel.

‘Wooo, baby boy an Audi? you must be loaded. When are you gonna come pick me up in that?’

You laughed at her obvious reaction. Candy was exactly as you expected her to be. Baekhyun would be able to laugh and chat with her easily without too much pressure of impressing a complicated woman like Mia was. Candy was an open book. The stakes were lower with Candy.

Your giggle made him stir and you looked down to see his eyes open a tiny bit before he closed them again.

“It’s going well with Candy,” you whispered and he inhaled a breath and nodded his head as he closed his eyes again.

“Mmm, the pretty one?” he asked in a sleepy voice and you hummed your confirmation. Something buzzed inside of you; just a bit of nerve. Call it gumption.

“Baek,” you called quietly and his lips parted with his breathing but his eyes stayed closed this time. He did not respond. He didn't give any indication at all that he heard you call him.

“Baek, what about me?” Your voice was tiny when you asked it. You felt more warmth in this bed suddenly. You felt it in your chest and it seeped up to warm up your face too.

He hadn’t responded at all to your question. It had been pretty unclear though. He might not have heard it, or might not have understood it. Or his sleep may have just been too deep to register your words.

“Am I pretty or am I beautiful?” You said it so quietly there was little chance of him actually hearing it. He was asleep and you were just here, trapped in his embrace on his bed as he slept and you puzzled over the words he had told you during an upset. The words that you had pried from him when he was vulnerable and emotional. The words that you shouldn’t be over analyzing like this. Those words felt too risky to be giving this much thought to.

Here you were again, using your sneaking methods to try and trick him into something when you knew it wouldn't work, when you knew there was nothing really there and you were reading too far into things.

His steady breathing continued. His eyes remained closed and his arm still gripped around your tightly, holding you still, holding you close to him as he slept.

So you gave up. You’d moved back to the phone to respond to Candy; something silly and lighthearted, something easy just like she was, when you heard him speak.

“You are so fucking beautiful,” he said so far under his breath the statement sounded more like air than actual vocalization of any kind and your fingers stopped their rapid typing in the middle of your sentence.

Your eyes looked down. Your entire body was frozen. Half of you expected to find his eyes open and a wide teasing smile on his lips, begging for you to take the bait and believe his words just for the chance of laughing at your shocked face and making fun of you for being stupid enough to believe them.

He was asleep. His eyelids did not pull open when you looked down at him and his breathing remained as steady as ever.

Baekhyun was asleep.

That damn puzzling — your jaw was sore from clenching your teeth down and your lips were dry and chapped from biting them.  

You had dropped the phone and it disappeared somewhere amid the bedcovers.

Baekhyun’s sleep was deeper now. He must have been very tired to be falling asleep so recklessly like this. You shifted downward and made some attempt to find the phone without waking him up and your small movement made him inhale a deep breath through his nose and he was moving now. You felt him shifting, moving his sleepy body up higher in search for some comfort; for something to lay on that was a bit more comfortable than flat on the middle of the bed like that.

You used the movement to reach for the blanket and pull it over his body so he could be warm at least and when he finally settled he shared the same pillow as you. His forehead rested against your shoulder and he was once again, fast asleep.

His arm though— you found yourself still very much trapped in nearly the same embrace as before, just shifted. A forearm landed over your chest and you felt a new heaviness of his bent leg land over your thigh.

You could wake him.

You could push him off and let him roll the other way so you could make an escape back to the peace of your own bedroom.

You would. You would do that soon.

Your current state of thoughts was simply too overloaded to follow through on any game plan. If you could only have a few more minutes of his warm steady breathing, you would move away from this. You would do it.

It wasn’t that you had never considered it. It was that you had gone through many lengths to come to this place. You were safe and secure here.

It was that you had nowhere else to go when it was over.

This place was your home.

Peanut was part of that home.

Things were nice right now; the way they were at home.

But…

As they sometimes do, and against your own will, your thoughts wandered.

You wondered as they wandered — wondered about him.

From the deepest parts of your mind; down where you’d shoved them roughly many times before, those wondering thoughts danced and swayed lightly to the soft music playing in this room.

Those secret thoughts about the sweetness in his eyes. Secrets about the fondness you felt for the little tips of him; the tip of his nose, the tips of his fingers, the pink tips of his ears. Thoughts you refused to encourage.

Baekhyun was asleep and you were thinking.

With the thinking came the shame and your skin was hot to the touch. The last thing you wanted was to ruin your home. With the thinking came the denial. You could not encourage anything. You could not afford to become complacent. You did not need these thoughts to become so brazen. You did not need them taking root. The last thing you needed was them making an appearance again.

The sounds he made while dreaming pulled your closed eyelids back open. You turned your face toward the sound. It was soft, the small groan from the back of his throat. But his face changed then; eyebrows screwed together and his lungs constricted as he let out a softer sound, like a whine. It was a complaint. His face showed signs of pain. The dream must have been unpleasant.

You lifted a hand then, shifted within his embrace you raised your palm and laid it carefully over the side of his face.

The shift happened with the warm contact and his features evened out and that pained look was gone.  

You smiled then. So sleepy but satisfied that you could help when he needed it.

You would move after he got a little more sleep. After he’d had a little more comfort from you, you would move.

You weren’t the first to move. And it seemed by the change in light that shone through the windows that your visit had lasted much longer than you had intended.

It was the untangle that woke you up. A conscious and deliberate lifting of limbs; the careful grip of a hand lifting your arm by the wrist and setting it gently down on a flat mattress.

You opened your eyes when he pulled his own leg out from between your thighs. The temperature change was most jarring. You had felt so warm before.

Baekhyun was sitting up in his bed. His hair was standing up in places all over his head and he was moving slowly and carefully, in an attempt to disengage himself from the tangle of this woman he had just woken up with.

The sleep was still very thick in your head. It hadn’t been a full night’s sleep had it? You felt like you had just closed your eyes a minute ago and yet the sunshine was so bright outside already.

“Sorry,” Baekhyun whispered when he realized you were now awake and looking at him, “guess I got too comfortable...must have fallen asleep.”

His voice was thick with sleep and with embarrassment too, you could hear it everywhere, with the quick words he spoke to you and the pink that covered the back of his neck and flooded his cheeks too.

This situation...this was an embarrassment. Of course it was.

This was something that should not have happened. Not with two adults of similar age who shared so many liberties with each other; spending time in each other’s arms at night, well…

You felt awkward all over. What if—what if you’d done something in your sleep? What if you said something?

And he already wasn’t meeting your eyes as he climbed out of the bed and awkwardly made his way into his bathroom.

You could hear the sound of the running water faucet and the door closed with the smallest click like he went out of his way to close it as softly and quietly as possible to avoid disturbing you any further.

You could feel the heat burning on the skin of your cheeks and you used his absence to get up and get out of his bedroom before he came out and found you still, still tangled in his bed sheets like you’d been tangled in his legs and in his arms all night.

You had to ignore this. You had to forget it ever happened, and anyway, you were best friends with the guy...right? Wasn't this thing bound to happen in the course of a friendship? What if you went on a holiday with him and the hotel only had one bed? These things really did happen, you read about it on twitter once. Would you be that asshole best friend who let him sleep on the floor just because he was a man? No! You could build a little pillow wall between your bodies and sleep as still and motionless as possible, like a corpse.

This feeling would go away. The red hot embarrassment would wash down the drain of your shower. The sticky warmth left behind by his skin would go with it.

You’d made it as far as to undress and turn on the hot water when an awful memory dawned on you.

Baekhyun still had your shampoo.

You didn't have any other shampoo in this bathroom that you could use. You pulled open cupboards and drawers, searching for anything; tiny hotel sized travel bottles, a nearly empty bottle under the sink for a rainy day, even maybe something in the trash can that still had a few drops. Nothing.

You eyed the hand soap on your sink and pictured stepping out of the shower a frizzy, tangled mess.

A soft knock vibrated against your bathroom door.

“Bug, your shampoo.” Baekhyun’s voice called out, muffled by the sounds of the running water and the door itself, “it’s almost empty, but there’s a little left. Sorry, I’ll run to the store and get more.”

Your ear was pressed against the door so you could make out everything he said; so you could listen carefully to the tone and delivery of his words to see if he was still embarrassed about last night or if he’d brush it off easily like he did most things that seemed to bother him.

There were another two soft knocks, “B-Bug?”

“Yeah, Peanut, thank you. Can you just...put it by the door. I’m already undressed. I’ll grab it in a bit.”

He did not respond right away and you stayed with your ear against the door waiting for some sound. Some indication that he had left. The click of your door, anything.

“I left it by the door,” you heard his far away voice shout and then the click of your door.

When your shower was done and you were dressed in your favorite weekend outfit, the high waisted comfy shorts with pockets and a cute top that made you feel somewhat pretty even on a casual day and you emerged from your bedroom feeling ready to face whatever weird moods or wacky situations accosted you today.

You found him singing a song to himself in the kitchen as he made something that smelled delicious for breakfast. The radio was on a pop station that played hits from all the past decades and the upbeat rhythm of the song that played was a definite favorite that had him dancing at the stove.

It was a groovy little love song, quite old now that you thought about it and you felt the beat hit hard in your chest with each pop of his shoulders and hips. The joy you could feel in this song hit you just like that beat hit; heavy and prominent, and you smiled wide to welcome this morning mood it brought with it.

When you stepped into the kitchen to grab a mug to make yourself some coffee you couldn’t help but sing along to the song, you loved the song as much as he did and when he noticed you enter the room you could hear him singing the main parts; expertly, even though the singer was a woman, his voice could always reach the high notes as well as the low ones. She was the kind of epic singer with one of a kind of talent that was world dominating. Baekhyun was singing along, doing the same kinds of ad-libs and vocal runs that she did and he did it while holding the spatula up to his face like a microphone.

As you walked by he dipped his head and looked into your face and his eyes caught ahold of yours. You knew what was coming. You could hear it coming in the song, the chorus. The part you had to sing. These were the rules. He leaned hard and brought the spatula up to your lips just in time for your part to come on. You did not disappoint. You gave it your all closing your eyes up tight and throwing your head back, singing from the very center of you, this part you always sang during this song. The part that was made for you; he knew it and you knew it.

His smile was genuine and breathtaking and he grabbed your hand with his spatula-less hand and pulled you into him, the beat taking over whatever bit of nervousness he might have had before. This was different. This was dancing. This was singing to simply the best song for a Saturday morning and it was moving and laughing with your best friend and you let him spin you in a small circle, careful to keep your coffee mug lifted so it didn’t hit anything during the spin.

His sense of rhythm was perfect. His hips moved as if they were made for this. You had no choice but to follow. An occasional hand on your hip told you where to go. The song was reaching its peak and you knew it was a short one. The best ones always were. It was going to begin winding down now. It was always such a sweet and short lived moment of happiness that you always appreciated immensely.

As a final move, he gave you a little spin and released you to go on your way toward the coffee maker you so desperately wanted to get to when you first entered this kitchen.

He finished the eggs with the last notes of the song.

As you both sat down to eat, his eyes met yours and yours met his and you dug into the eggs and bacon he’d prepared. You offered him a perfectly buttered toast slice and he took it, nodding his head as he bit into the crisp corner.

“So Bug,” he spoke up between bites of eggs, chewing and swallowing thoughtfully, “about this...Candy.”

You swallowed the hot coffee in your mouth and clasped your hands together, suddenly remembering how asleep he had been when you had hit it off with Candy, his practice girl.

He listened to your explanation. Your theory that the stakes were simply too high with Mia and he needed someone to talk to that was a bit more of a relaxed task for him. You called it easy mode so he might get the game reference. He ate and listened to you talk and occasionally his eyebrows would lift or screw together with whatever sorts of thoughts he was thinking inside his head. You could tell by his body language that he didn't exactly want to start something with Candy and you had to emphasize that it was really just for practice, talking to her. It was to help build his confidence.

“She’s already in, Peanut. She thinks you’re super cool, she thinks you’re rich and thinks you have a very good job and plus, you make lots of money and she seems super into that.”

He was not speaking yet, despite how much you had talked and you were beginning to get worried that he didn’t see the benefit of practicing his conversation skills a little bit.

“It’s not even real, Baek, you just have to make some things up with her. Just to get over that anxiety about talking to women. Just until you are more comfortable.”

When he finally did speak, it was as you feared.

“It just feels kinda gross, Bug. She’s a real person too, even if she is obviously a gold digger. It just seems wrong. I’ve been...thinking lately. What if this is...wrong of us?”

“What if I just have to tough it out with Mia and get the fuck over it and just,” he thrust his hands forward over the food on the table for emphasis, “just — blehhhh — talk, just fucking talk to her.”

You lifted a fork with eggs toward your lips but your stomach protested. You suddenly didn't want any more food. The coffee you were drinking had suddenly gone too cold for your liking and you pushed the plate and mug away from you with your fingertips.

You were bothered.

Why did he choose right now to suddenly grow a conscience about this? Did he forget that Mia was chatting with both of you and not just him?

“I...I just — I want to try with Mia. I know I can get over it and talk to her. And I don't want to talk to Candy. The person Candy thinks I am, well...that’s just false. I can’t be the person she’s expecting me to be.”

He had obviously read through the entire conversation with Candy last night and found the tales you told simply too stretched out for him to try and live up to.

“But that’s what people do when they start dating. They stretch the truth, make themselves sound just a little bit better, make themselves taller, or make themselves look richer. They all do this.” You simply could not understand why he didn’t get this. Why he didn’t just play by the rules that everyone followed to get through the door so he could stand a chance here.

“Well I don't. I don't want someone to fall for a fake version of me. I want someone to like me now. This me. Byun Baekhyun. The Peanut with anxiety who lives with Bug who almost killed him over a cheese stick, but who makes really great toast.”

He was smiling now, joking about the funny memories. You pulled your lips into a forced smile and lifted the coffee for another drink so you didn't have to smile any more.

He was watching your face. You were sure he sensed it. Something had bothered you to the point of giving up on your breakfast and every pass your eyes made over his face led to the same thing. He was watching you.

“Why are you upset?”

You shook your head lightly. Willing the obvious signs to leave your face. You didn't even know why. You didn't have a name for this. So you just shrugged in response to him.

“Because I don't want to practice on Candy? Did you actually like her for me?”

You really made your best attempt. You inhaled deep and closed your eyes and you shook your head.

Candy did not matter and you knew it. There was something ugly inside of you maybe. Something that did not want Baekhyun to get along with perfect Mia. Something that was fighting against the idea of him being happy and healthy and free of this unhealthy attachment you had to him. Free and happy away from you.

“Then why?”

Enough. You were being unfair to him. You had promised him that you would help him. You had gotten him this far and you’d be the worst kind of asshole if you didn't see him through to the end; if you didn't follow through with your promise to find him someone who would love him like he deserved to be loved, exactly as he was now. The amazingly wonderful Byun Baekhyun.

“It’s nothing like that,” you smiled softly. It felt like a sad smile, but at least it was genuine. “I just worry when you get so anxious. You know you fell right asleep last night. As soon as I came in, you passed right out.”

Your words skillfully slipped out of your lips and you successfully changed the subject. You felt like a coward, but you simply did not have words for what was happening to you.

“I didn’t...say anything did I? Before I fell asleep?”

This question was quiet. His fingertips grazed over his lips as he asked it, nearly muffling the words he shyly asked you at the breakfast table, the morning after.

You are so fucking beautiful.

You are so fucking beautiful.

You lifted your coffee cup to drink the tepid liquid inside and dropped your eyes from his shaking ones. The answer to his question sat on the back of your tongue even after you swallowed away the liquid.

You swallowed again and it refused to budge and yet you sat in silence, unable to utter a single word in reply to his quiet question.

Your silence went on for too long and he looked up into your face. An instant smile lifted at the corner of your lips and you forced it up into your eyes.

“You just slept, Peanut. We—” you had to exhale the breath that you had been holding for too long in your lungs, “we just slept.”

 Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , Part 5

Tag list: @j-pping  @blahblahblah-boo  @his-mochi-cheeks  @amyeonzing@littleflowercrown13  @baekinmylife  @insta1010  @nana-banana  @f4ncyvelvet@bbhbeth  @totallynerdstuff  @byunbabybaek @maijinki @bbyunz@theclawofaraven