#and i realised it was cut off at the end in the poster LMAO

[ghostlylulla-by]

i did an art trade with @marsnoodlesoup, @twist-dg, @strawberrymangosoda and @monstrous-fusion!

this was my piece for @marsnoodlesoup, with her aconite, marigold and hibiscus! they're playing the goddess harp, ocarina of wind and conch horn <3

[wanders-in-stars]

Started thinking about my OCs and what crimes they've committed/are wanted for after a convo with @kreinvulon hope u don't mind the tag and I couldn't stop thinking about it so here we are (also this is headcanon, not actual in-game crimes). Under a cut because it got long lmao

Samira (or Eravis. Whatever name I settle on.)

Wanted by Imperial law for military insubordination, murder, and desertion while in service to the Empire

Fairly law-abiding besides that but still they're some pretty serious charges

Maybe bribery to keep some folks quiet about her location if they recognize her from the posters

Tamar

Wanted by both Vigilants and the Silver Hand for being a rather infamous werewolf and daedra worshipper

Wanted in a couple holds for poaching (when she hunted without realising she'd entered protected territory. She usually tries to get a permit though)

Theft. Also kind of on accident. The apple tree was just sitting there, how was she supposed to know it was on somebody's property when there wasn't a building in sight?

Assault. Because she's not above whacking a bitch with her staff.

Technically kinda murder too but mostly in her werewolf form

Rasyira

Probably the only one with no crimes

Girl's just here to study magic and sling spells around the College

Maybe wanted somewhere for accidentally setting something on fire, or having a book overdue from the college library, idk

Definitely wanted by the College professors for being all around careless with her magic but nobody says shit once she's the Archmage

Niryani

Like Tamar, probably wanted by the Vigilants, tho in this case it's cause she's a vampire. Doesn't give a shit about Molag though, probably worships Mephala and Nocturnal instead

Also wanted by the law for breaking and entry and subsequent theft. She's master of the Thieves Guild so it's kind of what she does

Murder too, much to Brynjolf's exasperation. Less witnesses means less people to report the theft, after all. Also cause she needs her blood-snacks.

Bribery, if she's feeling generous.

Blackmail if she's not, but also not quite at "murderous".

Esme

Just murder. Feel like she probably killed somebody in Hammerfell and fled to Skyrim

More Murder, but like. Nebulously. Bc at that point she's part of the Dark Brotherhood and nobody can really pin her down as the culprit for sure.

Bribery but only occasionally. Usually it's just murder.

Tauri

Piracy. Because. She's a pirate. pirates of the Caribbean theme starts playing

Theft. Because land or sea, she doesn't really give a fuck

Assault. What, was she just supposed to let some drunken creep grab her instead of cutting off his hand?

Murder. Again because she doesn't give a flying fuck. Somebody gets in her way, she'll ask once, but never twice. Maybe not at all if she's in a particularly bad mood/has a bad history with said person

Slander and defamation, probably. Both the Imperials and the Stormcloaks can go rot in Oblivion, for all she cares. They both suck.

Impersonation. Because 100% she's done that to weasel her way into somewhere/aquire something she's not supposed to.

Bribery. Money solves most problems, after all.

Blackmail. She's intentionally slept with a few people in high places, 1) just for kicks and 2) as a regular source of income. Probably also collects under-the-table child support, claiming she had a kid from the affair (she does not. Probably leads to some shenanigans though, like fake-adopting a kid when the "dad" demands proof of the child's existence, and then eventually actually ends up adopting the kid when it's all over).

[alicentsgf]

hey! i started following you only recently so i don’t know if anyone has already asked you, if that’s the case i apologise in advance, but i like the way you express your opinions and the way you put things when you talk about things you like/don’t like, so i wanted to ask you if you liked emily carey’s and olivia cooke interpretation of alicent in hotd ,,

hope you have a nice day/night ✨

Hi babe! Thank you so much - I'm gonna try and sum up my feelings on this because I do have some thoughts. I think by and large we've got it really good with the HotD cast in general theres only very few comments they've made where I personally disgree, and none of those are from Emily or Olivia.

Beyond all the repressed lesbian jokes I do think making the subtext of Alicent's character repression and queerness and shame was... Inspired actually. And that apparently came primarily from the actresses. Emily and Olivia saw the potential on the page and really elevated it. Alicent in the book was sometimes implied to be a bit of a (heterosexual) sex pest, as women are oft remembered to be when history wants to blame them for every terrible thing that happened to them... (should I reference Anne Boleyn again?) So the writers critiquing that element by flipping it on its head for the show, and the actresses taking that and going 'actually she was incredibly sexually repressed and its at least in part because this world would never have even let her recognise what she desired' was a great direction to go with it. Because this is a world that does not encourage women to have any sexual agency, or even an awareness of their own sexuality (in Alicent's case). Just look at Rhaenyra - look at the consequences she faces for the semblance of sexual agency she enjoys. So yeah, call me biased lmao but making Alicent the poster girl for catholic shame and queer sexual repression and then putting her next to Rhaenyra, who isnt ashamed or sexually repressed at all, really drives home how neither of them could win; gilded cage, gilded handcuffs, a gilded knife at your throat... choose your pretty affliction if you like, it all ends the same anyway. And they were always going to make Alicent her father's puppet, someone who cant comprehend her own desires, so the actresses building on that and making her a closeted lesbian, who cannot even fathom what desire means because she is so repressed that she doesn't even know how to want anymore. In a lot of ways her longing for intimacy with Rhaenyra isnt even sexual, because she'd have to cut through the calcified surface of her sexual appetite for what she feels to become lustful. And Olivia herself basically said this I think.

I do think I prefer Olivia's portrayal, even though Emily's young Alicent is still incredibly important to me. I just think Emily's youth worked against her even as it was so necessary to role because Olivia's just a more seasoned actress and she seems relaxed enough to make choices that really added to her performance where Emily has a slight stiffness sometimes. Also its not really a fair comparison because I truly believe Olivia is out-acting every single person on that set, not just Emily. Don't get me wrong they're all incredible actors but the only other person coming at all close for me is Paddy, or maybe TGC (but I haven't seen enough of him yet to say that definitively).

I just keep coming back to the knife scene and how well acted that was by Olivia. The pain and righteous anger was all too palpable and you could really plot Alicent's emotional journey playing out so beautifully in Olivia. She and Paddy really were the dream team the way they played off each other - that shot where Viserys gets in Alicent's face, the uncertainty and guilt in Viserys eyes even as he all but growls at Alicent because even he doesn't really believe what hes saying but hes not going to back down, and Alicent with her tear-streaked face - the realisation he will never ever choose her or her children first even when they are bleeding and pleading for him so obvious in her eyes. I really feel the framing did Olivia so dirty because they made it so difficult for people to truly understand Alicent's perspective but absolutely none of that was Olivia's fault, she played Alicent to a T.

[sophsun1]

brian pisses me off when he gets justin and him caught with the stockwell posters bc why would you even open the door naked or not ask who's there loool

Hey anon!

Lmao yes the running gag of Brian answering the door naked and it being the worst decision. I mean it's clearly for plot reasons but it's not very realistic, it's even funnier when you realise he grabs his underwear to cover his modesty but instead of wearing them like a normal person would he just holds them as a shield asdfjkl;

I'm sure I read in one of the script drafts they actually had Justin make a joke referencing this saying smth like haven't you noticed every time someone's pounding on your door and you answer it naked it always ends up being a bad decision? They obviously cut it but I wish they'd left it in. Did he not learn from it happening previously with his mother that time he outed himself and this time he lost his job!

[archived-kin]

some ramblings about luke as a playable genshin character

thanks to this anon right here i couldn’t stop thinking about this so HERE, take obey me luke as genshin barbara's brother 

(i’m not formatting this like a formal writing post but it is a bit lengthy so i've put it under the cut)

luke would probably be a deacon in the favonius church just like his sister

i see them as twins so they’d probably be the most sympathetic to the traveller’s situation - they can’t imagine how it would feel if they’d lost each other like that

now at least someone other than amber is actually trying to help you find your lost sibling lmao

anyway! luke could definitely work as another hydro user, but personally i think it’d be brilliant to have him be a cryo catalyst user with a defence-oriented moveset

(this also has the added bonus of finally giving us a male catalyst user)

like!!! his elemental skill would create a cryo shield around him that applies the cryo effect to any enemies that get within a certain distance and causes ongoing cryo damage the longer they stay close (it wouldn’t be a lot of damage since i don’t want to make him too op - maybe it’d do 10% of his attack in terms of damage at intervals of one second). the shield would last for about fifteen seconds, during which you can switch to barbara and freeze all the enemies around you as well!!

in homage to his original identity as an angel in obey me, i’d like to think his elemental burst would be growing a pair of cryo wings from his back that flap at intervals of 1.5 seconds for six seconds, applying the cryo effect and dealing a relatively large amount of damage to enemies with each flap. the wings would increase movement speed while in effect as well!!

partially because i see him as a five star with this moveset and partially to match with his sister, luke would definitely get an animation for his elemental burst. imagine how pretty it would look!!

if luke got a banner, barbara would definitely also be on it, along with maybe razor and bennett?

genshin doesn’t really have this function but imagine that putting two characters with a close relationship on the same team gives you bonus effects -  luke and barbara on the same team would definitely give you buffs!! for example:

both of their attack and elemental mastery automatically goes up by 10% if you put them on the same team

if barbara’s hp is below 50%, luke’s defence immediately goes up (the strength of his shield would be dependent on his defence stat), and his crit rate also increases

and if luke’s hp is below 50%, barbara’s healing effectiveness and crit rate immediately increase as well

if one of the siblings ‘falls’, as the game puts it, the surviving sibling’s attack and crit rate immediately goes up

man i really be out here creating whole game mechanics out of thin air haha

barbara and luke’s story quest would be a joint one!! since luke’s a five star (and it involves two characters), it would be one of those story quests that you need to obtain through keys

it would start out with you going to the fountain in mondstadt and speaking to the locals, who are talking about how weird it is that barbara and luke keep going around practically interrogating people when they usually tend to keep to themselves in the cathedral (apart from barbara’s performances, of course, which luke always attends in full support)

then you need to go around and ask a couple of the locals which way they went, after which you’ll meet barbara outside angel’s share talking to diluc 

it turns out that the page twins have been going around mondstadt as often as they can to look for leads on your lost sibling, as well as asking diluc for help looking for intel and putting up missing posters in further areas of the region 

so sweet ;.;

barbara then realises that she promised luke that they’d do some baking this morning and rushes off. once she’s out of earshot, diluc suggests that you should do something nice for the twins as a thank you for your help. 

depending on which dialogue option you choose, diluc will either unsubtly pressure you into doing it anyway (if you refuse) or offer a helpful suggestion as to what to do (if you agree). either way, you’ll end up needing to go to find barbara and luke in mondstadt somewhere.

you’ll find them just outside the city gates, and talking to them (as the quest tells you to) reveals that the siblings have run out of apples for the apple pie they want to make

paimon suggests that they just buy some, but because (for some reason) no one in mondstadt sells apples, they need to go out to pick them

on your way there, however, you encounter a group of hilichurls bullying a poor hunter from springvale, watched by a calculating abyss mage that immediately turns and flees when it sees you and the page twins watching it

your next task in the quest would be to defeat the hilichurls, after which you, barbara, and luke speak to the hunter who was being attacked. he explains that he walked in on the abyss mage explaining something to the hilichurls, and that he thinks it might be planning something.

your next task is to use elemental sight to track down the abyss mage, and the next bit that plays out is pretty much like all of the domain finales for story quests

this domain is where you get to trial barbara and luke together! there are a bunch of puzzles that require hydro and cryo elemental pillars to be activated, and the abyss mage you fight right at the end is a pyro one, so you get to experience their moveset and how well they work together to the fullest!

once the abyss mage is down, there’s one last part to the quest: picking apples, taking them back to mondstadt, baking an apple pie with the siblings, and then going around and helping them offer a piece to the locals of the city. the story quest ends with diluc treating all three of you to a hot meal at good hunter!

the rewards you receive at the end of the story quest would include a recipe from each sibling as well! the recipe barbara gives you would be a spicy meat and vegetable dish of some kind that regenerates hp, while the recipe luke gives you would be a sweet pastry that increases defence and shield strength. 

(cooking these two recipes with the respective characters that give you them may give you a special dish!)

it’d be a pretty light story quest compared to some of the other five star’s story quests (like venti’s, which made me cry more than i’d like to admit), but luke wouldn’t be a particularly tragic character, so i think it makes sense for it to be like this

annnd that’s all i’ve got for now! i’m aware that i’m writing for a very small group of people right now and that not many will see this but honestly this was more for myself than anyone else, haha

[creampievampire]

Could you go into the difference between the subtext and queerbaiting in it, I'm still kind of -well it's obviously gay but nothing was really ever said or shown that says that expect for people talking about it- Like are the characters and their relationship just queer-coded (positivly ofc lol) but the baitiness comes from them sort of confirming it off the show?

of course! im assuming by ‘it’ you mean merlin, but rather than explaining the reasons why i think bbc merlin is a matter of subtext (or queer coding) and not queerbaiting, i think it would be easier and more productive to explain the difference between the two in general. they are very similar - which is why i think a lot of people are unable to tell the difference between them - but they have important differences

just a warning, this is going to be a LONG post lmao ive bolded exactly what each term means below, after which i go into more detail on the whole issue. this is something im passionate about so,,, ♥

queerbaiting specifically refers to a marketing technique in which creators hint at but dont actually depict a queer character or relationship. They do this in order to attract a queer audience with the suggestion of a character or relationship they can relate to, while also avoiding alienating their queerphobic audiences

queer coding is the subtextual coding of a character as queer through the use of things like metaphor, allegory, hinting, recognisable traits/stereotypes/experiences, etc. This is done to build believable characters and create more complex plot lines, and it is also regularly used by people who want to tell queer stories but are unable to do so explicitly. it CAN be used negatively to enforce damaging stereotypes, but that is just a small part of its usage

both of these things utilise subtext in order to work. subtext is not only a crucial part of the creation of any piece of media, but is impossible to avoid.

an example of the most basic types of subtext is when a character tells someone that everything is going to be okay, but you can tell they dont believe it. or when youre watching a story unfold and you suddenly connect the dots and realise whats going to happen before its explicitly stated - you used subtext and the hidden meanings and hints to figure it out!

the people involved w a piece of media create their story with a specific purpose or meaning in mind, and they construct the subtext of the story to reflect that purpose/meaning. HOWEVER, the viewers dont always see things the same!

your experiences and personality shape the way you view and interpret every piece of media you consume. if you hate cops youll see the insidious undertones in cop shows - if you grew up with an abusive parent youll see the biting implications in a characters dialogue that others find innocent - if youre queer you will search for and fine queer characters everywhere, regardless of the creators intentions

now, both queerbaiting and queer coding use subtext to function, right? so how do you know which is being used and whether or not its a bad thing? its all about intention

to give a specific explanation of the difference im going to use two examples that are (arguably) very similar in the way their queer characters became canon

example 1: adventure time featured the characters marceline and princess bubblegum, who have been forever depicted as a couple in fan content. their interactions in the show were read into and latched onto bc we saw ourselves in them and we saw it as positive queer rep. but their relationship was never explicitly discussed during the course of the show and was only confirmed at the end of the final episode.

that makes 10 seasons in which their relationship existed only in subtext, and when it did finally exist in canon it was only for a few minutes, if that.

example 2: supernatural featured the characters dean and castiel (lol) who have been depicted as a queer couple pretty much since the first episode cas appeared in. i personally hung on their every interaction, analysed every glance between them, bc i interpreted deans character as a parallel to my own childhood trauma.

cas joined the show in season 4, so that makes 11 seasons in which him being gay existed only in subtext, and when it was confirmed he was immediately cut out of the show. the exact nature of dean and castiels relationship still remains in subtext.

so why is it that adventure time is widely considered perfectly fine but supernatural is dunked on as being the poster boy for queerbaiting?

its bc adventure time involved queer creators and was an earnest representation of queer characters, but they were boxed in by their publisher, Cartoon Network and thus the only way for the relationship to exist in the show was through subtext.

supernatural, however, consistently neglected their queer character and employed transparent tropes and stereotypes - bringing him in just sparingly enough to keep queer audiences interested while never being gay enough to alienate their macho manly man queerphobe audiences. they would have dean and cas stare into each other eyes for a full 30 seconds and then almost immediately follow it up with an episode about dean banging a disposable female character.

so imho adventure time falls under queer subtext, and supernatural falls under queerbaiting

when it comes to a show like bbc merlin i see a lot of debate about whether or not its queer coding or queerbaiting, and my intention is not to convince you of either. merlin was very much a product of its time, and i have argued the same about seasons 4-6 of supernatural as well, before the queerbaiting escalated and became exhausting to me

the purpose of this post is to start giving you the information you need to analyse any piece of media and come to your OWN opinion as to whether or not its queerbaiting or whatever else

people will ALWAYS have differing opinions about this shit yall. i have debated so many times w so many people about where the line is and whats okay and what should be ‘cancelled’ and if consuming something deemed problematic makes you a bad person or not

and my conclusion?

if youre capable of acknowledging the flaws and issues w a piece of media without trying to defend it as a shining beacon of purity simply bc you like it, then you do you. enjoy whatever you want to enjoy - if i think its reprehensible i simply will never interact with you lol

at some point everyone has to stop regurgitating these generic woke speak cancel culture speeches and buzzwords and formulate their own opinions

my advice to anyone reading this is to learn how to do close reading (ill provide a link to a wonderful short guide on it in a reblog bc tumblr hates links) and start really considering where you draw the lines with all types of content. decide for yourself whether merlin or supernatural or adventure time crosses the line into content you cant stomach, but respect other people whose interpretations differ from yours

i know a HUGE amount of people think supernaturals confession scene was homophobic and toxic - a slap in the face - but when i watched it i saw myself reflected in dean. a repressed bisexual whose emotions had been stunted by lifelong trauma, who wasnt ready to face his feelings for cas but quickly realising that his chronic avoidance and fear was about to tear them apart possibly forever. to me it was tragic and beautiful, and i loved it

i also think merlin is a tragic and beautiful love story, and to me its a pivotal piece of queer media that changed the way i viewed love and made me believe that it was a possibility for me bc i related so deeply to arthur

i hope that you can draw a satisfying answer from this, anon, and i apologise for this post being a full essay lol but i believe it needed to be said  - i dont think there is a right or wrong answer here

[taelme]

Don’t Need Your Love Club - Recruiting Now! (Welcome, Na Jaemin!)

genre: high school!au, community service club president!jaemin (LMAO) (fluff, mild angst w a happy ending!!) 

pairing/s: Jaemin / Reader (ft majority of nct dream, nct Doyoung, Astro Sanha and Stray Kids Seungmin and Hyunjin!) 

word count: 16k+ 

tw: none! mild tension between Jaemin and his parents 

a/n: happy valentines day~~~ happy Jaehyun day~~~~ ❤️❤️❤️❤️ hope you enjoy this! Donghyuck’s chapter will be coming soon so please look forward to it!  

"Y/N," your friend called over her shoulder, "what do you think? Chocolates or balloons?" she asked you.

“Huh?”

Your lips parted in confusion, though you realised what she said quickly, shrugging in response to her question.

“I don’t know,” you hummed.

You glanced at the display of items nearest to you, eyeing the pretty roses laid out on the table.

"I like the flowers," you offered, a hint of teasing in your tone, knowing very well her boyfriend didn’t like flowers.

You heard your friend tut her tongue at you. "For my boyfriend, not you," she told you, making you giggle, making you shoot her a patronising look, dodging when she tried to swat at your shoulder.

“I don’t know why he doesn’t like flowers, he’s pretty convinced they attract bees no matter how much I try to convince him,” she elaborated, making you wince.

“I hate bees, though. I get what he means,” you pulled your lips into a frown, almost eliciting a giggle from Jaemin, who had to turn his head away and cover his mouth in an attempt to stifle his endearment.

“Just—” She groaned. “—help me pick between the chocolates or balloons,” your friend shook her head, directing your attention back to the topic at hand.

You hummed in thought, oblivious to the way Jaemin was listening in on your conversation as he pretended to arrange the chocolate boxes next to the roses, catching your attention.

"Chocolates," you muttered, letting your gaze wander down the set-up of the booth, noticing the pretty posters and banners they'd pasted up.

"Wow, whoever designed the banners this year should get a pay raise..." you commented, inspecting the banner but feeling like there was something off with the spelling.

"Right? I thought so too,” your friend murmured, though you didn't know whether she was referring to the chocolates or the banners. Turning to Jaemin, she gestured towards the boxes of chocolates.

"Can I get one box of that, please?"

You looked up at who she was talking to, recognizing him to be Na Jaemin, your senior who you'd first seen during the club fair in your school, looking away immediately because you weren't used to seeing him so up-close, not realizing what a nice smile he had until now.

Noticing your distress, your friend eyed you suspiciously, deciding she would put her suspicions to the test.

"Are you getting anything for anyone?" she turned to you, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively as she had successfully directed Jaemin's attention towards you, making you shake your head vigorously.

"Nope," you replied, shifting your weight on your feet, “don’t give me that look...it’s just that, you know, my Valentine's day this year's looking pretty.....uneventful," you huffed with a nervous laugh, making Jaemin frown.

Though he was well aware that the custom he was used to was that Valentine's day was for girls to give guys gifts, he figured a little 'chivalry' as Jaemin liked to put it, may just be the right thing for this situation. Before he lost the sudden surge of confidence, Jaemin recalled what you'd mentioned about liking the flowers.

Packing the box of chocolates into a bag for your friend, Jaemin swiftly handed her the bag along with her change, and you were about to leave when you saw a flash of red almost being shoved against your face.

"Here," you heard his voice.

You leant back, staring at the rose in front of you in surprise, your gaze flickering between the rose and Jaemin who was holding it out for you.

“From me. Happy Valentine's day." Jaemin tilted his head at you ever so slightly, giving you a small close-lipped smile.

You weren't sure whether your mind was registering your movements when you took the flower from him gently, a short silence falling between the both of you (well, and your friend too).

Jaemin opened his mouth to speak again, “What's your na—”

"Y/N!" your head snapped around when you heard the unmistakeable voice of that menace sound in the school's foyer, Jaemin’s question going unnoticed.

"Your 'church brother' is here..." your friend trailed off and you felt a weight on your shoulder, turning to spot Donghyuck next to you, hand pressing down on your shoulder harshly.

Jaemin's eyes widened at the sight of his friend, narrowing his eyes at Donghyuck, "Yo...Lee Donghyuck," he called in a slightly louder voice, making Donghyuck's head snap around to face him quickly.

"Ohh! Right, I forgot you’d be here. You two haven't been introduced yet, right?" Donghyuck gestured between you and Jaemin, earning a shake of the head from Jaemin.

"Well I was about to before you came out of nowhere," Jaemin muttered bitterly, going ignored by Donghyuck, who fiddled with his tie with one hand, gesturing back to you with his other hand.

"Jaemin, this is Y/N, a family friend of mine. Y/N, this is Jaemin." Donghyuck let go of his tie quickly, bringing his hands to yours and Jaemin's wrists, forcefully pulling your hands closer.

"C'mon. Shake hands, make friends," he told the both of you in a tone that fearfully resembled the way he spoke to his pet turtles (whether they were still alive or not, Jaemin was scared to find out).

You hesitated only momentarily, but tensed when you felt Jaemin close the gap and grasp your hand in his, dismissing all those knowledge from etiquette classes and his parents on a firm handshake, choosing to simply squeeze your hand reassuringly before letting go.

Donghyuck, looking satisfied, had let his gaze fall on the rose in your hands, a confused sound falling from his lips.

"Who'd you get this for?" he frowned, and you'd looked at Jaemin in panic, unsure whether you should tell Donghyuck you weren't getting it for anyone.

Looking at Donghyuck with wide eyes, you pointed a finger at Jaemin, making Donghyuck mirror your expression.

"You got it for him?!"

Donghyuck's tone rose, unmistakably about to kick up a fuss since he knew Jaemin’s horrible track record when it came to professions of love from girls in school, but Jaemin intervened before he could do so.

"I gave it to her," Jaemin blurted, looking elsewhere once Donghyuck had directed his wide eyes towards Jaemin.

Narrowing his eyes at the both of them, a realization struck Donghyuck, making him nod slowly, casting a knowing look at your friend.

"Oh....interesting....I'll uh....good for you, bro” Donghyuck shrugged, pulling your friend aside under the pretence of heading to class first so you and Jaemin would be able to have some time alone together.

You glanced nervously between Jaemin and the other members at the booth, seeing him smooth down the sides of his hair, shaking his head to adjust his hair, his slightly curly hair bouncing with the movement.

"So uh....you're a first year, right?" you heard Jaemin clear his throat, his voice coming out a lot more confidently than you'd expected.

Not trusting the pitch of your voice, you nodded in response, seeing his lips curve into a smile, showing off his (very straight) teeth, his head tilting slightly as he looked at you curiously.

"That's cool," he smiled, the conversation falling silent between the both of you before Jaemin spoke up again, wanting to continue your conversation in the hopes of finding out more about you, "are you in any clubs?"

You shook your head, "I put my name down for a few but they're mostly event-based ‘cause I was scared I wouldn't be able to like...cope and stuff," you explained, twirling your rose between your fingers.

"Ahhh...I get it," he hummed, sounding fairly empathetic, though he knew his choices were rather different, seeing as he was used to biting off more than he could chew when it came to commitments.

Jaemin's gaze flickered to your hands, and you wondered why he was glaring so intently at your rose, almost jumping in shock when he'd held a hand out.

"Sorry, can you hand me the rose for a minute?"

You frowned, your panic making you react with a joke.

"You're taking it back?" you asked, handing him the rose anyway.

Jaemin simply gave you a soft smile, shaking his head and turning away from you. You watched as he picked up a pair of cutters, clipping off a thorn on the stem that you were surprised you hadn't cut yourself with from how much you were twirling it.

"There, all better," he smiled, handing the rose back to you.

"Oh.....thanks," you felt your cheeks heat up, "I better uh...head back to class and shit—I mean. Yes. Bye," you waved quickly, not waiting for him to respond before you walked off.

===

That same day, Jaemin had met Jeno on his way back from school, said boy looking very tired after playing for ungodly hours at the computer cafe.

"Do you have dinner at home?" Jeno asked Jaemin, nudging the frame of his glasses up his nose bridge, shaking his head slightly to get his hair away from his eyes.

Jaemin shot Jeno a knowing look, narrowing his eyes at Jeno, “you told your mom you were staying over today again, didn't you?"

Jeno scoffed, “I didn’t—” Jeno sucked in a breath, “okay, maybe I did, but hey, are you trying to fault me for wanting to spend time with you?” Jeno raised his eyebrows, challenging Jaemin.

Jeno relaxed when he saw the way Jaemin broke into a grin, shaking his head good-naturedly at his friend.

“It’s fine, my mom’s been asking me to invite you for dinner anyway,” Jaemin sighed, tucking his thumbs behind the straps of his bag, looking up and letting out another sigh when he saw the way the sun was setting, the sky beginning to get darker.

Jaemin directed his gaze away from the sky, glancing at Jeno.

“So, we haven’t had a good time to chat in a while,” he began.

Jeno snickered at the unnatural wording Jaemin used, making Jaemin tut his tongue in annoyance at Jeno.

“As I was saying, how have things been for you?”

Jeno’s lips pursed, looking as though he were contemplating as he spun his phone in his hand like it was a fidget spinner, letting out a small sigh and shrugging, “I don’t know, I guess I met this girl at the computer cafe the other day when Chenle bailed on me,” he started, ignoring the smirk that Jaemin was giving him.

“You ‘guess’ you met her?” Jaemin laughed, raising his hands in defence when Jeno gave him an exaggerated glare, “okay, sorry. Please, continue.”

“At first I was just looking to kill boredom so I just invited her to play a game of battleground with me since she looked pretty bored too, but then after that she just- okay. Long story short, she played a lot better than I thought she would.”

Jaemin’s eyebrows raised, pressing his lips together in a poor attempt to conceal his amusement, “mmhmm,” Jaemin prompted Jeno to continue.

“‘Mmhmm’ what? That’s it, that’s all that happened,” Jeno responded defensively, making Jaemin roll his eyes.

“You wouldn’t be telling me about her if you didn’t have more to say, Jeno. You can’t fool me, idiot.”

Jeno inhaled, letting out a tired sigh, eyes lighting up when he saw Jaemin’s house in sight, “I can’t wait to eat your mom’s food again,” Jeno frowned, rubbing his stomach.

“Don’t dodge the question. Spill,” Jaemin’s tone was firm, making Jeno slump his shoulders in resignation.

“I don’t know, I guess it bothered me? That I just kept thinking about her? Like, I wanted to know more about her, you know what I mean?” Jeno looked at Jaemin for affirmation.

Jaemin’s eyebrows raised, a thoughtful pout on his lips. His lips soon curving into a knowing smirk.

“So you were attracted to her, basically,” he commented dryly, making Jeno tut his tongue at him.

“You make me sound so stupid,” Jeno sighed, their pace quickening as they walked down Jaemin’s driveway, Jaemin already fishing out his keys from his bag to unlock the door.

“Am I wrong?” Jaemin scrunched his nose up in amusement, a groan of pain leaving his lips when Jeno smacked him across the arm. “Is she from our school?”

Jeno hummed in affirmation. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure you’ve seen her before. She’s friends with Yoon Sanha and Seungmin.”

“Oh, Seungmin’s friend! Yeah, I think I know who you’re talking about,” Jaemin nodded, recalling seeing Seungmin with this said girl-space-friend before in school.

Opening the door (with his good arm), Jaemin caught a whiff of his mom’s cooking when he stepped into the threshold.

“Jaemin, honey, you’re back? Come, let’s eat,” he heard his mother call.

“Hi, Aunty!” Jeno called out loudly, tossing his bag aside next to the sofa and entering the kitchen, sounds of Jaemin’s mother cooing over Jeno echoing to where Jaemin stood in the living room, taking his time to put down his things.

Checking his phone for notifications, he let his bag drop off his shoulder as he scanned through the messages from the teacher in charge of the Community Service Club and the group chat, talking about upcoming preparations or proposals they were waiting for Jaemin to send to them.

“Home from school so early?” Jaemin heard his dad’s voice.

“Huh?” Looking up from his phone, Jaemin made eye contact with his father who was standing near the entrance of the kitchen, waving Jaemin over.

“Put your bag down, let’s eat,” he told Jaemin, who obediently did so, following wordlessly behind his dad into the kitchen. He wasn’t surprised to see that Jeno was already seated opposite his mother.

“How’s school, baby?” His mother asked, “Jeno told me your overseas trip is coming soon.”

Nodding in response, Jaemin swallowed his mouthful of food.

“Yeah,” he answered, hearing his dad chime in with a sound of approval.

“You’re signing up, right? I’m sure you don’t need me to remind you that you need all those specs to look good on your school applications,” he said matter-of-factly.

Jeno scrunched his nose up in distaste, bowing his head in the hopes that Jaemin’s father wouldn’t notice his dissatisfaction with where the conversation seemed to be heading.

“Is it really a must for you to go?” Jaemin’s mother cut in, making him raise his eyebrows in question.

“It’s....a volunteer trip......” Jaemin murmured, spooning his last spoonful of food into his mouth, already feeling full.

“Yeah, I know, honey. But why do you want to do all these things, isn’t it tiring? I’m sure if you just donate the money they can get people to do it, right? Why don’t you ask your teacher for other alternatives that won’t be so physically taxing?”

Jaemin’s father shrugged, “True. All these people want is the money at the end of the day.”

Jeno winced, knowing this was a particularly sensitive topic for Jaemin, looking at his friend furtively to gauge his reaction, a wave of concern washing over him when he saw the way Jaemin scoffed slightly, his fists clenching around his cutlery, directing a very harsh stare to the salt and pepper shakers at the centre of the table.

“That’s not true....these people deserve help, and I’d be happy to be the one to help them.” Jaemin muttered, trying to calm himself down so as not to act out rudely to his parents (as much as he wasn’t agreeing with what they were saying now).

“Jae, it’s great that you have this perspective of it but...you know it’s just an excuse for your school to show that they care about the community…right?” His father laughed, picking up his glass of wine and bringing it to his lips.

“Is that such a bad thing? That I’m offering help to people that need it more than me?” Jaemin tilted his head, letting go of his cutlery, a soft thud sounding from the metal hitting the placemat. Jeno watched with wide eyes as Jaemin’s mother picked up the rest of the meat on the serving plate, placing it on Jaemin’s plate.

“Here, eat some more. I don’t want to keep the leftovers.”

Jaemin wanted to tell her off, to ask her to just throw it away like she always does, but in his anger thinking about the wastefulness of the action, he jabbed at the meat with his knife, bringing it to his mouth and eating it despite how full he was, Jeno’s gaze at Jaemin’s plate as pitiful as it could get.

Standing up abruptly, Jaemin spoke over the last bits of food in his mouth, desperate to leave the kitchen, “I’m done with my food. Thank you for the meal,” he murmured, storming off upstairs after grabbing both his and Jeno’s bags from the living room.

Jeno sighed, bowing slightly as he thanked Jaemin’s parents for the meal, walking upstairs after Jaemin, seeing his bedroom door ajar when he reached the top of the stairs. Jeno shrugged off his jacket, hanging it on the back of Jaemin’s desk chair, watching as Jaemin rummaged loudly through his cupboard, pulling out the spare set of clothes and underwear Jeno kept here for the days he stayed over.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Jeno heard Jaemin say from behind the door of his closet, soon seeing his head of (very dishevelled) hair when he shut the door, handing Jeno his clothes.

Jeno shook his head, knowing that it was common, it not having been the first time he witnessed- or heard -Jaemin’s parents views on Jaemin’s schooling situation.

“Don’t worry about it, man. Just go take a shower, cool down. We can talk about it later if you want, alright?” Jeno looked at Jaemin whose eyes began to gloss over, and Jeno swore he saw Jaemin’s lips quiver slightly.

Jaemin nodded, thankful that at times like this he still had Jeno to keep him sane. Nodding wordlessly, he left to shower, hoping the time alone would let him calm down like it usually did.

===

You'd failed to spot Jaemin around in school much after Valentine's Day, and even now as you walked into the mass hall for morning flag raising, you couldn't help but search for him among the crowd of 2nd Years, but obviously not finding him.

Taking your seat next to your friend, you went with the normal proceedings, practically ready to leave the hall after the announcements sounded as if they were about to end, until your friend had tapped your thigh rapidly.

"Dude, dude look who's on the stage," she told you hurriedly, excitement laced in her tone.

Frowning, you lifted your head only to see Jaemin standing at the podium. Microphone and cue cards grasped in one hand as the other adjusted his collar.

"Good morning, teachers and students. My name is Na Jaemin, a member of the Community Service club." he began, and you saw powerpoint slides being flashed on the screen hanging next to him.

"I’ll try to keep this short but I'm up here today to talk about the upcoming overseas community service trip that the school will be having." You watched as the screen showed a video titled 'CSP-2018'.

Glancing at the screen, Jaemin smiled, "here's a video to let you know more about the purpose of the trip as well as the types of activities we do on the trip. Since this is a cultural experience trip as well, there will be various activities planned for students to incorporate both work and play in the trip,“ he said, nodding to signal to the people in the control room.

Watching the video, you noticed how Jaemin had gone for the trip last year as well, seeing many shots showing him playing with the children from the orphanage or showing them building a room for the children. A part of you felt strangely touched by the video, appreciating the effort they put into bringing a positive impact to the lives of the people there, making you feel more spurred on to sign-up for the trip.

"Are you gonna go?" your friend nudged you, gesturing to the video.

You nodded, ”I mean...I want to but I gotta know the details first.."

The video had ended, and Jaemin had picked up the mic again, "This year's trip will be at the same location, and the dates of the trip can be found on the screen," he stated, “sign- ups are currently open, and there are about 20 slots that are yet to be filled so we hope you can join us on this trip..."

Nothing but silence could be heard around the hall.

"Oh, and extra-curricular points will be awarded, of course," Jaemin added as an afterthought, only then sparking murmurs and whispers around the hall.

"I'm free on those dates.." you hummed, after mentally going through your schedule, you made a mental note that the trip would be less than 2 weeks from now. "What about you?" you asked your friend.

She shook her head, “I can’t, I’m going overseas with my family during that time, but I mean…there's no harm in you still going. Maybe you can make some friends," she shrugged.

You winced, giving her a hesitant look.

Jaemin unconsciously searched for you in the crowd as he signalled the club members at the back of the hall to give out the details to the teachers.

"If you have any questions, feel free to approach any of the members of the club, including myself," Jaemin almost smiled when he found you in the crowd, squinting at the screen.

Turning your head back to face the front only to make what you thought was eye contact with Jaemin, he spoke, "Thank you for your time today, and I hope to see you there," he smiled, giving a small bow before exiting the stage.

===

"What did you send me? I'm literally sitting next to you," you told Donghyuck as you sat next to him in the church pews.

"Sign-up link," he murmured, and you could just about hear him over the sound of the priest's voice giving announcements.

"Sign-up link for what?" you frowned, genuinely confused at what he was sending you.

"The overseas community service thing," he told you, choosing not to add the part about Jaemin asking him to send it to you.

"I want to go but like...my friend can't make it so if I go there's literally no one I know there!" you shrugged, hoping Donghyuck could sense your stress about having to be in an overseas environment with people you didn't know.

"Who knows? Maybe this'll be a good chance for you to make friends! I know some of them, they're really nice people."

You hummed, "Lemme ask my parents first...when do sign-ups close?"

Donghyuck hummed in thought, "Monday."

"That's tomorrow!"

"Precisely. Which is why you gotta make your mind up soon," he threw his hands up in a shrug, giving you an unapologetic look.

You'd left it at that, and you were glad Donghyuck hadn't mentioned it after that. And a part of you hoped that would be the last time you would have to think about it, since you didn’t think the chance of you going was very high.

But being confronted by Jaemin about it on Monday morning when you were trying to buy your lunch didn’t make your dilemma any more solved. (well, not confronted but it might as well have been to you)

"Are there any more of this one?" you pointed at the empty section of bread, asking the lady operating the shop.

Shaking her head at you with a sad smile, "sorry, sweetie, we're all sold out."

You frowned. “Oh man,” the frown almost audible in your tone.

"Hey, Y/N,” your attention was taken away from choosing what alternative bun to get when you heard someone call your name, turning in the direction of the voice only to see Jaemin standing next to you, wearing the school sweater this time instead of the usual sweater vest.

He already bought his food, the plastic bag hanging from his wrist, but you were still stuck deciding what to get among the selection.

"Oh, hi," you smiled, diverting your attention to the bread before you. "Why d'you look so sad?" He asked you, an amused smile on his face.

"There's no more of the bread I always get," you frowned.

“S’this your lunch?" he pointed at the bread, earning a nod from you. Jaemin had noticed you looking rather sadly at the empty section of bread, glancing in his plastic bag to see that he'd bought the last few for him and the guys in the dnyl club.

"Oh, right, Donghyuck told me you were thinking of signing up for the trip?" you grasped the packaging of the bun you were holding tighter, suddenly feeling like eating more.

Picking up another bun, you glanced again at Jaemin's plastic bag, wondering if he was going to eat all those by himself.

"Did your parents agree to it?" you nodded.

“Yeah, they agreed. It’s just me...I’m just kind of hesitant since I don't really...know anyone in the club?"

Jaemin gave you a hurt expression, "Aren’t we friends?"

You opened and closed your mouth, not being able to defend yourself as he took the buns from your hands, paying for you while you were distracted trying to formulate a reply.

"I mean, yeah, we...are," you gave him a smile, still feeling unbearably shy at the thought of it, feeling him hand the plastic bag with your buns back to you, not noticing that he'd dropped one of his buns into your plastic bag.

"Then you have nothing to worry about! I know all of them, they won't bully you, they're really nice."

"Wait, you-" you glanced at the cashier, back to the bag of buns in your hand, turning back to look at Jaemin in shock, "you shouldn't have.."

Jaemin grinned, shaking his head at you as he led you away from the crowd at the bakery, "you don't have to pay me back. This isn't a bribe, I promise."

"Anyway, I have to go, got a...um...meeting. See you around?" Jaemin wished he hadn’t agreed to Harvey’s idea of joining the ‘don’t need your love club’, since that meeting was the only thing that was currently the only thing standing in between him being able to spend more time with you.

You stared at him blankly, nodding, mentally deciding that you would sign up for the trip.

“Uh-huh....see you around."

When Jaemin returned to the club room, the boys had immediately noticed the giddy smile he had on his face while he distributed their buns to them, Renjun eyeing him suspiciously.

"What's got you looking so stupid?" Renjun spoke up.

Jaemin shook his head dismissively, leaning back in his chair and trying to conceal the smile from his face, never remembering feeling like this in a long while.

"Aren't you eating? Where's your food?" Jeno asked, and Jaemin could practically hear the frown in his voice.

Jaemin let out a loud sigh, “I think I’m already fed enough to last the week.”

“....Do I even wanna ask..?” Donghyuck murmured, chewing on his bread while giving Jaemin a questioning stare.

Jaemin lifted his head, casting Donghyuck a satisfied smile. “I’m so glad you have friends,” Jaemin told him, making Donghyuck scoff, having a feeling he knew what was going on with Jaemin.

“I’d like to solve the puzzle” Donghyuck raised his hand, his tone similar to that of a gameshow contestant, earning an expectant look from Renjun and Jeno.

Staring at them in silence, Jeno nodded slowly, unsure why Donghyuck had kept silent despite the green light.

“Go on??” He prompted again.

“Jaemin has a crush,” Donghyuck’s tone was firm and decisive. This made Jeno and Renjun’s eyes widen.

“Huh? Since when?”

“No way.” The boys chimed in simultaneously.

“Valentine’s Day,” Jaemin sighed when Donghyuck brought up the day.

“I don’t believe in love at first sight, but she was really cute...and all my interactions with her have been pleasant...but that’s it.” Just like that, it was as if Jaemin had snapped out of his giddy daze, brought back to earth by his many responsibilities he should be busy with instead of being lovesick.

Renjun was sceptical, “Then what’s got you looking as though she asked you to marry her?”

“Last I heard, she was considering signing up for the overseas trip,” Jaemin explained, making Jeno nod, a hum of understanding leaving his lips.

“But you don’t actually know if she’s going, do you?” Renjun shot him a look, his question sounding more like a statement, making Donghyuck brush Renjun off.

“Hey, let the boy dream. It’s the first time I’m seeing him actually like someone and it’s a lot more entertaining than I thought it would be,” he snickered, taking another big bite out of his bread as though he were attempting to fit the whole thing in his mouth, his cheeks puffing out from the action.

“When’s the next time you’re gonna see her?” Jeno asked, curious about who you were.

“The pre-departure briefing’s on Wednesday. But that’s if she signs up, of course,” Jaemin gave Donghyuck an pointed look, knowing he’d sent Donghyuck the sign-up link to forward to you.

Donghyuck raised his hands defensively, “I swear I sent it to her.”

Jeno on the other hand simply nodded, figuring he should be supporting Jaemin since it was rare to see Jaemin care about anything other than his oh-so-many responsibilities, and maybe—just maybe, it was a change of scenery that Jaemin needed.

“Keep us updated.”

“Yeah, you better.”

When Wednesday came, Donghyuck assumed you’d shown up to the briefing when he’d received a flood of messages in the chat group.

jaemin 1:55pm- oh my god she’s here she’s actually here for the briefing- 1:55pm - r u guys SEEING these messages- 1:56pm - o I’m stupid I was the one that checked the groupings but I didn’t even realise she was in the same grp as me- 1:56pm - wait she’s in the same grp as me omg- 1:56pm -ok the meeting is starting bye wish me luck-

“Hi guys, so for starters can you take a look at the board and see which groups you belong to, and assemble yourselves accordingly around the room? With group 1 here and group 4 here?” You heard the young teacher instruct, their tone sounding fairly urgent, so you quickly searched for your name among the names on the board, not wanting to end up as the last one standing.

You were quick to spot your name, but you felt a strange wave of relief wash over you when you saw Jaemin’s name under the same group as yours, turning around and spotting him at the side, already sitting with a few other people.

Making your way over to the group, you saw Jaemin look up from the sheets of paper he was analysing, giving you a wave when he saw you. It seemed to you that the people here already knew each other, but only upon reaching your group and sitting down you felt their gaze on you when Jaemin had greeted you.

“So, I see you decided to sign up in the end?” He leaned back, resting his weight on his hands behind him, giving you a smile.

Nodding and reciprocating his smile, you tried to peek at the papers he had arranged neatly in front of him but failed when he'd reached his hand forward to fiddle with the side of the papers, shielding the words from your vision.

"I'm glad," he let out a small content sigh, glancing at the direction of the teacher before nodding, "sorry, I’ll be right back."

You gave him a small smile, eyes widening when you looked back at the rest of the group, realizing they were all looking directly at you.

"What's your name?" one of them spoke up to ask, her tone fairly eager, making you unconsciously try to match her level of energy.

“Y/N,” you replied as cheerfully as you could, scanning the faces in the group and recognizing some of them to be from your cohort.

"Oh, is it the same Y/N?” you saw one of the girls turn to whisper, earning a sharp nudge from whoever was sitting next to them.

"I don't know about you, but I’ve never seen the pres act so comfortably with people other than his group of friends," you heard the girl next to you murmur, making your eyebrows raise.

"Much less a girl," the boy sitting next to her had agreed.

"So.... is it your first time coming for one of our events?" a boy with light brown hair asked you, taking your attention from the girls, eyebrows lifting in question. "I'm Seungmin, by the way."

You nodded, "Yeah, uh... Jaemin was asking if I wanted to go the other day so i figured like... why not, and stuff.." you trailed off, nervous huff of laughter leaving your lips.

"Are you and the pres dating?" a girl that you recognized to be from your class had interrupted, narrowing her eyes at you in disbelief.

"Who? I'm not dating anyone right now," you replied, confused as to why they were accusing you of dating their president, whoever it was.

"But wasn't he the one that gave you the rose on Valentine's day?" the girl sitting next to you had cut in.

"Wait, I always thought he was gay. He’s not gay?” A boy sitting in the other group next to you had turned to join the conversation.

You laughed, more confused than anything, "Oh, that? The rose thing- that was Jaemin."

You saw Seungmin press his lips together in an amused smile, "You don't know who the pres is, do you?"

You were about to defend yourself, pretending as if you knew before giving up, slouching in your seat and shaking your head at Seungmin, seeing him point at the front of the room, and you followed his gaze to where Jaemin was standing, discussing something with the teacher and what you assumed was the travel agent at the front of the room.

"That," Seungmin said, "is our pres."

Your mouth formed an 'o' shape in realization, eyebrows raising in surprise at the unexpected discovery, turning back to Seungmin with a determined expression on your face. "Wait, is he really gay?”

Seungmin scrunched his nose up at the question, shrugging innocently, “It’s kind of unknown...personally, I’ve never thought that way, but he has always seemed pretty uninterested in dating. You’d be surprised at the amount of love confessions he’d refused from just this Valentine’s Day period alone,”

You frowned in confusion, "then why'd he give me the flower?"

"You see that's what all of us are wondering. But from what we know, the pres is a massive flirt," Seungmin divulged, smirk playing at his lips as he watched your eyes widen.

You were about to ask something else when you heard the sound of Jaemin getting everyone's attention.

Introducing the travel agent to the group, Jaemin let him take over and came back to sit with your group, (conveniently) placing himself next to you. As the travel agent briefed you guys about the details of the trip, you noticed how Jaemin was silently double checking whatever he had on his paper with what the agent was showing on the screen, nodding along as he talked.

Halfway through the briefing you heard the travel agent start to wrap up, inviting Jaemin to carry on with the rest of the briefing, seeing the boy next to you make his way over to the front of the room.

“You guys are already split into your assigned groupings, right?" you heard the teacher speak, feeling Seungmin lean over to inform you who the teacher was.

"That's the teacher in charge of the community service club, his name is Doyoung." You made a face of realisation, recalling hearing Donghyuck mention him many times (and the fact that he was a ‘major pain in the ass’) before.

“Basically, now that you know the itinerary, each of your groups will be assigned with an activity that we will be doing during the trip, some will be preparing gifts for the visits and others will be planning things like games or designs for the mural.”

Doyoung had walked over to the centre of the room, directing his instructions to a particular group sitting on his right.

“For the groups in charge of the murals, please come back to me with your designs preferably latest by the day of the flight itself, because we need to confirm it with the orphanage for the approval of the design.”

You frowned, unsure why he was directing such a stern gaze towards the group next to him, only realising afterwards that it was because one of them was very obviously falling asleep right in front of him.

“Jaemin, your group is doing the gifts, right?” Doyoung turned to ask Jaemin, who stood at the front of the room, with his back leaning against the whiteboard, arms crossed in front of his chest as he nodded.

“Alright, then the rest of the session will be for you guys to prepare your activities, group leaders please take charge, check with Jaemin or me if you need any clarification about the visits.”

“How come Jaemin does so much of the planning?” You turned to ask Seungmin, not realising that Jaemin was already making his way back to where your group was.

Seungmin’s gaze darting between yours and Jaemin’s approaching figure, he lowered his voice to a mere murmur, “Honestly, I think it’s just always kind of been like that...our last teacher before Doyoung was crap at organising, so Jaemin just took the lead, but now I guess the habit kind of stuck, so Doyoung just lets him carry on and just oversees it and stuff,” he explained to you, making small gestures as he spoke, turning around to face the circle promptly once Jaemin had returned.

You almost jumped when you felt Seungmin lean over to tell you, “don’t let this scare you but... another factor is because Jaemin has always been pretty strict about the club activities. Not saying that we don’t have fun—we definitely do have fun. But to put it simply....if you’re not really..genuine about it, he can usually tell right off the bat, and he won’t really be silent about it either, so....I would suggest treading a little more carefully around him, especially if you’re just...in it for the points or as a one-time thing.”

You nodded slowly, turning back to see Jaemin looking at you with his eyebrows slightly raised in question, “did you hear what I said, Y/N?” He asked, a teasing lilt to his tone, not to mention the hint of a smile at his lips.

You opened your mouth to reply, almost nodding, only to remember that in fact you didn’t hear him, deciding on giving him a sheepish smile instead, shaking your head slowly, “uh...sorry, I didn’t um... hear that,” you admitted, seeing him visibly relax, letting out what was a mix of a sigh and an amused huff.

“It’s alright, what I asked was whether you guys had any suggestions for gifts that we could make for the children at the orphanage we’ll be visiting.”

“Should we give them something more educational? You know, since they probably don’t have as many resources as we do,” you heard one girl from the group speak up, earning various nods from the group, including yourself.

Jaemin jut out his lower lip in a pout, nodding, “we could do that, did you have anything specific in mind?” He asked her.

The girl’s eyes widened, shaking her head and shrugging, “I’m not very sure..”

“What about like those stationery sets? We could buy them online and I’m pretty sure it can ship in before the day of the trip,” another girl offered, and you nodded, figuring it was a pretty good idea.

“Hey, Jaemin, do we still have leftover stuff from the bracelets we made for the fundraiser?” Seungmin spoke up from next to you, catching your interest.

“Bracelets?” You turned to him and asked, glancing back at Jaemin when you heard him let out an affirmative hum.

“Yeah, we have a lot left over from the last event we did, I can bring them and we can make some, since the trip is in less than a week,” Jaemin murmured, turning to the rest of the group, “do any of you think you can meet before the trip to make the bracelets? I could pass them to you if you guys are free,” Jaemin suggested.

You’d wanted to mention that you were available, opening your mouth and nodding at Jaemin, but your enthusiasm subsided quickly as you succumbed to the majority when you saw many of them shaking their heads, commenting about how they had yet to pack for the trip.

“Then, it’s alright, then. I don't think I’ll have time to make any beforehand anyway. We can just make them during the trip on one of the nights, after all, the trip isn’t very long.”

===

“You totally missed your chance, dude, you could’ve just asked her to make the bracelets with you, you know?”

Jaemin let out a resigned huff at Jeno’s chiding followed by the sound of the rapid-fire gunshots from Jeno’s game. Shaking his head as he shoved the last of his shirts into his luggage, staring at the bag full of beads and string tucked in his luggage.

“It doesn’t matter anymore, I’m literally flying off in a few hours,” Jaemin shrugged, letting out a grunt as he heaved his luggage from his desk chair to his bed, making Jeno yelp and shift to the left before getting crushed, not without casting a glare in Jaemin’s direction.

“So do you have a plan?” Jeno asked, hissing loudly before setting his phone down next to him, bringing his other hand behind his head to support it as he lay on Jaemin’s bed.

“What plan? Plan for what?” Jaemin frowned, neatly folding his jacket and fitting it nicely into the corner of his suitcase.

Jeno shot him an unamused look, “for Y/N, dude.”

Jaemin’s movements halted for barely a second, shaking his head dismissively.

“There’s no plan. I shouldn’t pursue it,” he said, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself.

“What do you mean you ‘shouldn’t pursue it’? You were the one that gave her that rose on Valentine’s Day and freaked out just because you gave her bread so what are you going on about saying you have no plan?”

Jeno’s tone was exasperated, “rule number one of gaming dude, doesn’t matter if u have a plan or not- just go with your gut. We die like men.”

Rolling his eyes, Jaemin walked into his bathroom, fishing out his toiletries as he replied Jeno, his voice echoing from the bathroom, “this isn't battleground, Jen.”

“Okay, fine, whatever. Game or not, you can’t close this case so quickly. At least try to get to know her first, before you totally write it off.”

Jaemin didn’t reply, letting a pensive silence fall between the two boys as he zipped up his luggage loudly, moving to double check if he had whatever he needed in his carry-on bag, going to the bulleted list in his phone and checking the items off as he went.

Jeno knew why Jaemin was so averse to the idea of pursuing you or even thinking about a relationship with you, the Jaemin that Jeno knew never would have let himself get into a relationship if he knew he wasn’t ready to commit and set aside time to make it work. Jaemin was one of the most romantic people he knew, but refusing a chance at love was just something he’d been forcing himself to do, until now at least. Which was why Jeno was determined (but mostly hopeful) to see this through.

“You know how I feel about these things...” Jaemin’s tone was warning, but it wasn’t like Jeno cared.

“Yes, I do,” Jeno replied confidently, “I’ve known you for like....ever, and don’t fight me when I say this because you know it’s true. But what I know....is that you love love.”

Jaemin opened his mouth to protest, only to close it back shut, his brain going against him by imagining all the possibilities of what kind of person you would be once he got to know you, curiosity getting the better of him, but more-so the hope that the vibe he was getting about you was correct.

Slinging his bag across his chest, he waved Jeno off.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, just send me to the airport.”

===

"C'mon, don't look so disappointed, you're making me feel bad that our seats are assigned," Seungmin joked, noticing the way you kept glancing at where Jaemin and Doyoung were sitting on the aeroplane.

You flushed at how you were caught staring, shaking your head hurriedly so Seungmin wouldn't get the wrong idea, "no, no, no! Don't feel bad! You're a great seat buddy!”

Seungmin shot you a look of disbelief, eyebrows raising and lips parting, "wow, your tone was so reassuring," he murmured, shaking his head, "but that doesn't hide the fact that you were staring so spill."

Your eyes widened. "Spill?"

Seungmin nodded, leaning back in his seat, "we've got the whole flight for you to tell me about your ‘pres-agenda’," he waggled his eyebrows, a serene smile on his face.

Not being able to help the gasp that left your lips, you made a disgruntled sound, "what makes you think there even is a ‘pres-agenda’?"

Seungmin gave you a wide eyed look.

"No...don't tell me... it's a doyoung-agenda?!" he joked, making you roll your eyes, swatting at him with the sleeve of your jacket.

"Look, I know as much as you do, okay? At this point I still can’t tell if his flirting is to hit on me or if it's really cause it's second-nature to him," you huffed, recalling your annoyance at how he helped so many girls put their luggages in the cabin while you fumbled with yours.

"Well," Seungmin shrugged, "you have the whole trip to find out, if you think about it."

"Yeah, but how is a whole other story."

Seungmin shook his head dismissively, glancing at Jaemin's direction only to see Jaemin look away quickly, having been caught looking your way as well.

"Trust me, with someone like Jaemin...I don't think it's gonna be that hard."

And maybe Seungmin was right.

Once you'd landed, you barely had time to rest before Doyoung had announced that you were about to visit a university in the country, asking everyone to hurry and get on the bus so you wouldn't be late.

Jaemin got into the bus with the rest of the members, while you stayed at the door after being assigned by Doyoung to do a headcount. Only after you were done counting and had trudged up the bus, you realized that the numbers were uneven because Doyoung had occupied the seat next to him with the bags of snacks for the gifts. This meant that Jaemin had to find another seat, and Seungmin was sitting alone as well, making you wonder why no one had sat with Jaemin.

About to approach the empty seat next to Seungmin, you saw him lift the big bag of gifts from the floor to plop it on the empty seat next to him, mouthing something to you while gesturing wildly with his head at Jaemin's direction.

‘sit with him’ you managed to decipher.

To Jaemin, you clearly looked like you were having a dilemma regarding where to sit, and he took the liberty to glance around the bus, seeing that the only seat left was next to him.

"Y/N!" he called, waving his hand to get your attention, "you can sit here," he offered with a smile (though it didn't really seem like you had a choice). Feeling the bus start to move, you decided you'd better hurry up and sit before you fell over.

Landing on the seat next to him with a thud, you felt him take the things you were holding from your hands.

"Seatbelt," he murmured gently.

Mouth forming an 'o' shape in realization, you quickly did the buckle, taking your things back from him with a murmur of thanks.

You noticed Jaemin was scrolling through something on his phone that you thought resembled an itinerary, your curiosity getting the better of you.

"What's that?"

Jaemin turned to you, "huh? oh this, this is just the proposal the university sent to me."

"Proposal? What are they sending you a proposal for?" you frowned in confusion, making Jaemin have to look away lest his smile grow any bigger.

"It's kind of just like a formality, 'cause we're planning on working with them to like give like support to the orphanage we're visiting and all," Jaemin shrugged, and you hummed in understanding.

"Wow...that's really nice, that it's not just like a one-time thing but that we can actually give them like... continuous support," you smiled, and unconsciously, so did Jaemin, who nodded at you in agreement.

“Yeah, that’s what I told Doyoung, since we’ve been to that orphanage before I felt like it was a good opportunity for us to help them,” he murmured, and you couldn’t help but notice the way he looked so happy talking about it, tugging at your heartstrings (just a little).

“Also,” you added, a hint of playfulness in your tone, “you never told me you were the president of this club,” you accused, seeing him huff in amusement, fiddling with the papers in his hands.

Leaning against the window so he could face you better, Jaemin looked at you and shrugged.

"Didn't think it was important information, I guess."

"Is that why you kept trying to recruit me to sign up?" you laughed, feeling like you shouldn't have been laughing when you saw how seriously he shook his head.

"I asked you to sign up because I wanted to," he murmured, his voice almost getting drowned out by noise from the rest of the club members.

Flushing at the implications of the statement, you shoved his shoulder lightly, “Didn’t peg you to be such a flirt,” you laughed, your heart almost stopping when you saw the smile he gave you, only serving to draw you in further to wanting to find out just who Na Jaemin was.

“Seems like there’s still lots of things I don’t know about you, huh,” you huffed, feeling strangely confident talking to him (contrary to how you’d imagined yourself fumbling over your words in your head).

Jaemin shrugged, unbuckling his seatbelt and that was when you realised you’d already reached your first venue which was some university, if you remembered Seungmin telling you correctly on the plane.

“You’ve got the whole trip to find out,” he winked, standing up and briefing the class when Doyoung called for him. His words reminding you of what Seungmin had said on the plane.

You stared, dumbfounded at Jaemin’s behaviour even after he’d finished briefing the group in charge of the university visit, letting your limbs move mindlessly to manoeuvre yourself out of the bus and to where Seungmin was, the said boy wiggling his eyebrows at you as he spotted you approaching him.

“So? What’s the update?”

You shook your head, still at a loss of words from Jaemin’s sheer confidence. You heard Doyoung briefing the group on the details of the university visit, saying that the first agenda was to meet with the heads of whatever department you were visiting.

Following the group, you were led into this room where you saw various students dressed in blazers standing at the sides of the room, offering you bottled water and snacks as you walked past.

You took your seat next to Seungmin, as Jaemin spoke with Doyoung at the front of the room, introducing themselves to the heads of the department.

You watched as Jaemin had taken a seat at the tables near the front of the room with Doyoung, setting his bag down onto the chair before turning around to glance around the room.

Doyoung had stood up to set up the powerpoint slides at the computer, whereas you simply watched as Jaemin scanned the room, raising his hands to beckon one of the blazer-clad students, who rushed over to Jaemin, letting him whisper something to them before they’d promptly went to the table of refreshments, taking a few water bottles and bringing them to the corner section of the room who you were only realising now hadn’t received the gifts.

In your silent admiration, you hadn’t noticed that Jaemin had caught your gaze, his eyebrows quirking upwards ever so slightly and his hand raising in an ‘ok’ gesture to ask if everything was alright, earning a delayed nod from you.

Smiling, he’d turned back around, which Doyoung took as his queue to pick up the mic, introducing your school and saying a few words before passing the mic over to the group that was in charge of the university visit, and you’d let yourself zone out temporarily.

You noticed that there was one person in particular that had been very nice to you and Seungmin, which you were very appreciative of, giving you the impression that the students there were really friendly.

This friendliness had only increased when you had gone to sit in in one of their classes, and that student had taken a seat next to you, introducing himself to you and trying to make conversation, but your attention was rather unevenly split since Jaemin had been invited to introduce the school in front of the entire class.

Jaemin’s eyes narrowed at the student that was speaking to you, unbeknownst to you but going very much noticed by Seungmin, who gave Jaemin a shrug. Jaemin figured he would let it slide, consoling himself with the thought that ‘hey, maybe the students here were a little on the friendlier side, but that’s okay, at least they were welcoming instead of unwelcoming’.

You’d been led to another room where the group of you had sat in a circle together with the blazer-clad students, and you’d taken your seat next to Seungmin again, Jaemin sitting next to Seungmin. The blazer-clad students had initiated a discussion with the students from your school, talking about what they were and what their committee did, and inviting some of the students from your school to share about your experiences in the country so far, typical overseas-trip stuff, you figured.

You were pretty attentive to the discussion, until you heard the student next to you speak up, “so, uh...do you guys study this department as well?”

You turned to him, a hum of confusion leaving your lips, realising then he had directed his question towards you.

“No, actually, we don’t,” Seungmin answered, though you felt a little awkward under the student’s unwavering gaze.

“Ohh... cool, how old are you?” He asked, earning a hum from Seungmin, who didn’t know whether to laugh or be scared at the dagger eyes Jaemin was directing towards the student.

“Oh, uh..he’s 19, I’m 18,” you murmured, hearing the boy hum.

“Oh, I’m actually one of the oldest members of the committee, I’m like 22 this year,” he told you, making your eyes widen, not having expected him to be so much older than you. 


“Oh....” You laughed nervously, directing your attention elsewhere, pretending to fiddle with the badges on Seungmin’s bag.

“What kind of messaging apps do they use in your country?” You furrowed your eyebrows, naming the few that you used frequently, not understanding why he would ask you that.

“Ohhh,” Seungmin swore he heard disappointment in the boy’s tone, “over here we mostly use other apps, we don’t use those,” you scrunched your nose at his reply, looking back down at Seungmin’s badges.

You hoped the conversation would end there, afraid that he would ask for your number since you weren’t sure where this was heading, but it seemed as though he’d read your mind when you heard him open his mouth to speak again.

“Hey, you know maybe we can ex—”

Your attention was diverted when you heard their teacher’s voice sound through the microphone, asking for volunteers from your school to say a few words about how their experience has been in the school so far, everyone in the club immediately turning to Jaemin, hoping he would save the rest of the members from having to go up there and talk.

You felt the boy nudge you, gesturing for you to volunteer, making you wave your hand dismissively, “no, no, please.”

You missed how Jaemin glanced around at the club members (his gaze lingering on you and the blazer-wearing boy for a little longer than appropriate), seeming to have gotten the hint when he raised his hand lightly, giving the teacher a courteous smile as he got up to accept the microphone from her.

“Hi, my name is Jaemin and I’m the president of our club. Firstly I would like to say a big thank you to the people here such as the committee members and the teachers for being so...” Jaemin had to withhold himself from glaring at the boy seated next to you, “welcoming,” he drawled, narrowing his eyes at the boy next to you.

“But nonetheless, my experiences here have been pleasant so far, and I hope that our school has a chance to continue partnership with you in the future after this project that we embark on this trip,” you nodded, flashing an encouraging smile to Jaemin, which he returned sweetly, before handing the microphone back to the teacher.

After Doyoung and Jaemin had presented the gifts from the school to the university department head, you had all been called in for a group picture, Jaemin finding his way next to you (totally not just so that the boy couldn’t stand next to you), draping his hand over your shoulder casually as you all squeezed together for a photo.

“We’ll be heading for lunch after this, so let’s be quick so our itinerary doesn’t get delayed,” you heard Doyoung tell a group of the club members, and you and Seungmin had quickly made your way out of the room, the boy waving goodbye to you with a smile as you walked past him.

Seungmin couldn’t help the snort that escaped him, making you raise your eyebrows in confusion.

“Hmm?” you hummed.

“Nothing,” Seungmin smiled innocently.

The restaurant you were eating at for lunch was within walking distance, and you were eager to sit down and eat once the aroma of the food had hit you when you entered the restaurant, Jaemin beckoning you over to sit with him.

Taking a seat opposite Jaemin but next to Seungmin, you glanced up to see Jaemin turning around to scan the room again, and you could vaguely hear him muttering numbers under his breath.

“Does everyone have a drink?” He stood up slightly to ask, his hand resting on the back of his chair to support his weight, receiving murmurs of acknowledgement and affirmation, Jaemin invited everyone to start eating.

You took that as your queue to reach over to grab the bowl of rice just as Jaemin was about to take it to distribute the rice to the people sitting around him, not knowing that you had similar intentions.

“It’s okay, let me,” you insisted, beginning to scoop the rice onto Seungmin’s plate, seeing Jaemin withdraw his hand quickly, a hint of pink tinting his cheeks as he tilted his head down.

“Thanks,” he murmured once you had scooped the rice onto his plate, followed by the guy sitting next to you and lastly onto your own plate.

"How'd you guys find the university visit just now? Fun? Boring?" you heard Jaemin begin, glancing at the few of you expectantly as he chewed his food.

“You spent quite a while talking to one of the committee members, right?” The guy next to you had asked you, his name was Hyunjin if you remembered correctly.

You recognised him to be one of the guys on the school’s dance team, since you remembered going with Donghyuck to one of their performances before.

“I mean,” you laughed nervously, your gaze on your plate unwavering, “he was just being really friendly so I guess-”

Seungmin made a sound of disbelief, “you’re really too nice, he was totally hitting on you!” Seungmin pointed out, turning to Jaemin in his excitement, the latter letting his spoon linger between his lips as he pretended to be uninvested in the conversation.

“Don’t you think so? You saw it too, right?” Seungmin asked Jaemin, making Jaemin turn his head ever so slightly in Seungmin’s direction, his gaze moving to yours, before giving you a small nod.

“Yeah, I may have...heard a little bit of the conversation,” Jaemin shrugged, making your eyes widen, embarrassed for some reason that Jaemin had noticed and you hadn’t.

Jaemin set his cutlery down on his plate neatly, leaning back in his seat to dab at his mouth with a tissue.

“Thoughts?” Hyunjin held his fist out in front of Jaemin’s mouth to act as a microphone, earning a shrug from Jaemin.

“Wouldn’t have made it far with whatever strategy he had,” Jaemin shrugged.

You pursed your lips at his comment, unsure what to make of it, and you’d only wanted to sink into your seat even further when you heard Hyunjin make a low impressed noise.

“Ohhh...what’s this... is there some tension I feel here?”

Seungmin took that as his queue to join in, narrowing his eyes at Jaemin as Hyunjin continued, “Is our pres perhaps.... threatened?”

Jaemin scoffed, standing up, which the other members took as their queue to finish up and start heading back to the bus as well. Turning to glance at you before he turned back to Hyunjin to shake his head, “you wish.”

===

You hadn’t noticed you’d fallen asleep on the bus, being nudged awake by a particularly hard bump in the road the bus drove over, making you groan slightly, your jacket covering you snugly which added to the list of factors that may have lulled you to sleep without knowing. You only realised then that you were leaning on something, making your eyes widen, getting up slowly because you had assumed Jaemin was asleep, not wanting to wake him.

Turning your head to look around the bus, (as much as you could because falling asleep in that position was starting to kill your neck), you noticed that almost everyone had fallen asleep, even Doyoung and the tour guide.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” You were startled when you heard Jaemin murmur softly, turning your head as fast as you could without straining your neck, seeing him with his phone in hand, looking at you with a sheepish expression.

You opened your mouth to speak, shaking your head, “oh, no, don’t worry you didn’t,” you assured him, not being able to help but glance at his shoulder that you had fallen asleep on, a rush of heat going to your cheeks. “Sorry, I must’ve fallen asleep without knowing, sorry for making you uncomfortable.”

Jaemin gave you a tired smile, shaking his head, making the hood on his head shift slightly, “It’s fine, I wasn’t uncomfortable. Did you manage to get some rest?” he asked, and his tone was so reassuring that you almost actually believed him.

Nodding at him, you sunk back down into your seat, hearing him yawn. “Did you?”

Jaemin shook his head, “couldn’t sleep,” he let out a soulless huff of laughter, holding his phone up, “was working on my uni applications.”

“So early? I thought you were only graduating next year?” You asked, your ignorance making Jaemin feel a strange sense of relief.

“I’m doing early applications...” he sighed, “so I’ve got to kind of get a few things ready like my essay and like testimonials from teachers and stuff like that,” he murmured. Making you think of Donghyuck, who you knew usually left things to a little later since he would have to discuss with his parents before making any big decisions.

“Oh, so you’ve like already like discussed with your parents and stuff?” You asked, spilling out whatever information you knew that you could relate to this situation, seeing Jaemin press his lips together in a tight line, frowning slightly before he eventually shrugged.

“They uh.. don’t really care as long as it’s the top 2 universities,” you couldn’t help but sense something sad in his tone, urging you to prompt him but at the same time rendering you unsure if it was a sensitive topic for him.

“Oh...um, so like... you’re more on the science side?” You asked, recalling Donghyuck telling you that he would never be able to find a course that suited him in the top 2 universities since he was more inclined towards pursuing music.

Jaemin shrugged, “I guess it’s kind of what I have to pursue to get ahead. Like...money wise and stuff, I guess,” you raised an eyebrow at him.

“You don’t sound very convinced,” you laughed, feeling yourself relax when you saw Jaemin give you a smile, shaking his head.

“No, you’re right. I’m not.” Jaemin told you, fiddling with his phone in his hands as you hugged your jacket closer to yourself.

“Would I be reading too much into it if I take this as you would choose a different course if it weren’t for your parents?”

Jaemin’s smile dropped, something in your words resonating with him, since he wasn’t used to talking about this with someone other than Jeno, and even when he did talk about it with Jeno, Jeno wasn’t as straightforward about it with him as you were, but something in Jaemin felt as though he needed to hear it.

Jaemin gave you a firm nod.

“I wanted to do photography, or like...social work” he told you, a hint of yearning in the way he spoke, his choice of words making you feel as though he didn’t consider it to be an option anymore.

“But I chose to do medicine instead, figured that it was the only way I could appease both my parents...and myself,” he shrugged.

“Wow,” you murmured, admiration at Jaemin’s consideration hitting you, thinking about how different he was from Donghyuck.

“My friend Donghyuck, he would never. Even now since he wants to do music, he was planning on just choosing it for his uni application and dealing with the aftermath from his parents,” you told him, seeing Jaemin’s lips quirk up in a smirk at the mention of Donghyuck.

Jaemin shook his head, “that’s just Donghyuck for you,” he laughed. “My parents....have pretty strongopinions. And I guess it’s just always been like that since I was young?” Jaemin searched your expression for any sign that he was oversharing, but your attention only prompted him to continue.

“And I kind of...I think there was a point of time when I realised I had my own strong opinions??...and most of the time they didn’t line up with what my parents wanted for me or what they thought was right so I just...had to find other ways to be a few steps ahead of them, you know? So I could do things that I actually wanted to do,” he explained, though still in a very vague way.

You felt a billion thoughts rush through your head, thoughts ranging from how Jaemin’s interests were in social work, and how Seungmin had told you that the club meant a lot to him, followed by the way he even sacrificed things like a simple nap on the bus to work on his university application essay.

You were starting to realise just what an angel Na Jaemin was, thinking about how he mentioned that he had to be a few steps ahead, to do things that he wanted to do.

“Like this?” You asked, referring to the overseas trip.

Your question seemed to have caught him off guard, and you ignored how everyone else had already started to wake up, since you were already reaching the destination.

Jaemin gave you a smile, and you made a mental note: this was one of his more genuine smiles, and you could feel it.

“Yeah, like this.”

Throughout the rest of the day, when you were having dinner, you noticed the way Jaemin would bring his hands up to massage his neck and shoulder, wincing every so often, and you didn’t have to think twice to know this was because he’d sat in the same position for too long.

Taking it upon yourself to text him to ask for his room number that night as everyone was getting ready to go to sleep, you took a few of your muscle ache relief patches, resolutely making your way to his hotel room and knocking on the door.

Jaemin had opened the door, dressed in a simple white t-shirt and pajama pants, a small towel draped over his wet hair.

“Hey, what happened? Is there anything you need?” He asked, and you shook your head, an embarrassed smile on your face.

Holding out the pain relief patches to him, you saw his eyes widen, before looking back from the patches to you with an incredulous look on his face.

“Wh-...how did you...”

“I noticed,” you told him simply, and he reached his hands away from the door to accept the patches from you, bringing one of his hands up to cover his growing smile, shaking his head at you.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

“Make sure you get a good rest tonight, goodnight,” you told him.

Jaemin was still at a loss for words, inhaling before letting out a short sigh, nodding at you with a smile, “I will. Goodnight.”

===

The next day was more tiring than you had initially expected it to be, and you were thankful you’d given Jaemin the pain relief patches, since painting the mural required a lot of arm movement.

You’d sat next to him on the bus again today but you were too tired to talk, falling asleep quicker than you would’ve liked, since your discussion from the day before was just left hanging in the air like that, a part of you still curious as to know more about Jaemin.

You had gone to the orphanage to paint a mural with the children, and if you weren’t already head over heels for Jaemin before you went to the orphanage you sure were now. 

You weren’t sure where he got all his energy from to interact and be so lively with the children, not seeming to mind when they’d gotten paint on him and his clothes, or even the way they kept trying to jump onto his back for a piggyback ride. You were glad the children had taken a liking to you as well, the feeling strangely bittersweet to you, since you would love to interact more with them from the sheer happiness it brought both you and them, but you knew this was a rare occasion for them to do activities like this. 

You were too busy interacting with the children to notice the way a few of the club members had already started coughing and some were beginning to feel unwell. Only when you’d returned to the bus did you realise that Seungmin was one of them, huddled in his seat desperate to get some rest because of how horrible his throat was feeling.

Jaemin had gone to a convenience store nearby and bought vitamin supplements for the club members, not to mention a coffee for himself, passing the energy drinks and vitamins around when you were all taking a break after completing the mural and it was almost dinnertime, handing it to you last before sitting down next to you on the pavement.

You watched as you were eating the vitamin as Doyoung had walked over to where you and Jaemin were, giving you a small smile before turning to Jaemin, “you guys haven’t done the gifts for the orphanage children yet, right? I heard who was it telling me just now you guys had planned on making bracelets, right?”

Jaemin’s eyes widened, nodding, biting on his straw absently as he pulled his phone from his pocket, “right, almost forgot, I was planning on texting the group to ask if they would be alright to do it tonight.”

You saw your phone light up with a notification, glancing down to see Jaemin’s message he had just sent to the group of you that were in charge of the orphanage visit.

jaemin 6:15pm - hey guys! just a reminder that we still have to make the bracelets for the kids at the orphanage so I was thinking we could meet tonight to do them? we can meet in my room to do it since my room has a little more space -

You saw a few of them acknowledge the message, so you figured those were the club members that were still feeling well enough.

Jaemin stood up when Doyoung had announced that the bus had arrived to take you to the dinner location, and you’d all boarded the bus quickly, using your phone and looking at social media to kill time as Jaemin was busy with his phone.

Jeno 6:20pm - any updates??? -

Jaemin typed out a reply quickly to the dnyl groupchat

Jaemin 6:20pm - we just finished painting the mural, heading to dinner now. the kids were so cute :( -

Jeno 6:20pm - thanks for telling me but I meant updates about HER -

Jaemin shot you a furtive glance, suddenly hyper aware that you were seated next to him

Jaemin 6:20pm - honestly, shes really nice, like...rly rly nice -

Jeno 6:21pm - ANDDD???? omg ure so frustrating ure just like Renjun -

Donghyuck 6:21pm - truth -

6:22pm - and nothing! idk what ure expecting –

Donghyuck 6:22pm - do u get the sense whether she likes u or not at least?? –

This made Jaemin wonder, was your niceness caused by your like towards him? Or did you even like him? At this point, Jaemin wasn’t sure which answer he wanted more.

6:24pm - idk I can’t tell u guys r stressing me out -

Donghyuck 6:24pm - please u’d be stressed even if we didn’t bring it up -

Jaemin locked his phone when he felt you tap him.

“Hey, we just reached,” you told him, grabbing your water bottle as he stood up, holding his hand above your head so you wouldn’t hit your head on the overhead cabin as you straightened up.

You noticed that Jaemin hadn’t left his jacket on the bus, instead, he’d kept his hoodie on, the hood draped over his head as he walked next to you to enter the restaurant, taking his seat next to you this time, which earned many looks from the club members—unbeknownst to you.

Seungmin had taken a seat in front of you, looking very tired, making you frown in concern.

“Hey, are you feeling alright?”

Seungmin shook his head, “I really just wanna go back to the hotel room and pass out, I feel a fever coming on,” he told you, earning a disgruntled noise from Jaemin.

“You should, you don’t have to join us to make the bracelets. Get as much rest as you can so you don’t get more sick,” Jaemin told him, earning an appreciative nod from Seungmin.

“Thanks pres. Sorry, I really wanted to help, but at this rate I don’t know if I can stay awake.”

Jaemin shook his head, and you took the liberty of distributing the food as he spoke, “it’s really fine, your health is more important.” (How ironic, Jaemin knew if Renjun heard this he’d be giving an earful to Jaemin about hypocrisy).

You knew that there were many bracelets to be made, but you were hoping that if enough of you showed up tonight you would be able to get it done quickly, and you were just as eager to get it done so you could go to sleep.

When you’d gone back to the hotel, you took your time to shower and get changed since you knew the meeting time was a little later, coming out and seeing your roommate already getting ready to sleep on her bed.

“Hope you don’t mind, I’m really tired,” she told you, giving you an apologetic smile.

You shook your head reassuringly, taking a seat on the edge of your bed as you dried your hair, checking your phone as you did so, seeing a flood of texts in the group chat saying that majority of them were feeling unwell, with some of them even puking and others running a fever.

Your heart sank, though a part of you questioned if they were really sick or not, since you remembered a few of them to have been perfectly fine during dinner but you figured you should give them the benefit of the doubt.

Coming out from the group chat, you saw that Jaemin had messaged you privately

Jaemin 9:56pm - looks like its just both of us left, are you alright to make the bracelets? you can just come up to my room when you’re ready -

You’d sent him a message saying you were on your way, thankful that his room was on the same floor as yours, telling your roommate you would go make the bracelets, receiving her tired hum of acknowledgement before you left.

Upon reaching Jaemin’s room you entered, you could hear some upbeat Ariana Grande song faintly playing from the inside of the room. His hair was messy, dressed in a pink hoodie and black sweatpants, waving at you in greeting before letting you enter the room.

You pointed a finger in question at the upbeat music he was playing at this time of the night, an eyebrow raising in question. 

“How are you feeling?” you asked him. 

“Feeling great! That coffee I drank just now really got me awake.” you shot him a look, clearly not having asked about his coffee, wanting to know about whether he was feeling unwell instead.  

“Sorry, I really wasn’t expecting so many of them to fall sick,” he told you, making you laugh, raising your eyebrows at him in amusement.

“Why are you apologising? It’s not your fault,” you told him, seeing him close his mouth abruptly, taking a seat on his bed where he already had the beads and string laid out.

“Can’t help but feel responsible for them,” he admitted, making you let out a dissatisfied hum.

Looking at him with a firm gaze, you took a seat on his bed next to him, “you don’t have to be. They can take care of themselves, you know,” you huffed.

Jaemin shrugged, though he would never admit your words made his heart skip a beat, keeping his gaze averted as he handed you a string and picked one up for himself, starting to string beads in as he pleased, and you heard the song change.

You were almost done with your first bracelet when you heard Jaemin’s phone start ringing, the music stopping. Picking up his phone and holding it up to his ear with one hand, clasping his bracelet tightly between his fingers in his other hand, he answered the call.

“Hello?” Jaemin spoke.

“Hey, I just saw your texts, so are you making bracelets with her now?” Renjun’s teasing tone was heard through the phone, and Jaemin was thankful he hadn’t decided to put the call on speaker mode.

“Uh-huh,” Jaemin answered.

“Anything else been happening? I heard from Jeno that heard from Felix that heard from Hyunjin that there’s some sort of virus going around there?”

Jaemin sighed, “yeah, it’s pretty bad, but it’s alright I guess, I mean, I’m not sick yet so I guess I’m fine,” you wondered who it was that Jaemin was talking to, a part of you wondering who it was that could warrant such an affectionate tone from him, your first thought being maybe this was somebody he was interested in.

You needed to make sure your bracelet was big enough, so you reached over, asking Jaemin silently if he could lend you his wrist, which he offered wordlessly, letting you wrap the bracelet around his wrist, smiling in satisfaction when you found it was long enough, pulling it away from his wrist and tying a knot to secure the beads.

“Can you please drink more water? Please take more care of yourself,” Renjun reminded, making Jaemin nod.

“Yeah, my throats been feeling pretty scratchy, but it’s fine, I promise.”

“You always say that but you still end up getting sick,” Renjun’s tone was warning, making Jaemin giggle.

“I’m touched, you’re always so concerned about my health,” Jaemin teased, making Renjun scoff.

“Yeah, and from what I’m hearing from Jeno, you’re giving me reason to be concerned about your love life as well.”

“I’ll be fine, trust me. Okay I gotta go now, bye,” “Bye, Jaemin.”

“Love you,” Jaemin drawled, teasing lilt to his tone, earning a gagging noise from Renjun before the latter had hung up.

Jaemin set his phone down next to him, continuing to string his beads as you looked at him curiously.

“Umm...girlfriend?” You blurted, shocked when you saw Jaemin choke, coughing and patting his chest as he calmed down, shaking his head at you profusely.

“No, no, friend. No girlfriend,” Jaemin said clearly, making you hum, feeling him lean over to wrap his bracelet around your wrist, pulling it away and tying a knot.

“That’s interesting...you’re pretty popular in our school, you know,” you told him, seeing him flush, shaking his head at you in dismissal.

“Please, I’m flattered but...,” he sighed, making you tilt your head in confusion, tying the knot on your third bracelet.

“But?” You prompted.

Jaemin knew his reason for not wanting to get into a relationship—mostly his fear of not being able to commit, not wanting to lead whoever it was on if he knew he had too many other commitments that would keep him from being invested in the relationship.

“Nothing,” Jaemin shrugged, and if you were dissatisfied with his answer, you didn’t show it.

You continued making bracelets in the relative silence, the silence only broken when Jaemin had let out an excited sound when he glanced at the bracelet you were making.

“I like this one! It’s pretty,” he complimented, making you smile.

“Thanks, do you want it? We have more than enough beads left for the kids,” you offered, wrapping it around his wrist to measure it.

He gave you a surprised look, “can I, really?”

You nodded, “yeah, sure why not?”

Jaemin smiled, his childlike demeanour making you awfully want to squeeze his cheeks.

“Nice. I should make one for you too! Then we can have matching ones,” he beamed, making you laugh.

“Whatever makes you happy, Jaemin.”

He took the bracelet from your hands, following the colour scheme closely so he could make one identical to yours, and you took the time to make the remaining bracelets, seeing as you only had a few left. By the time you were done, so was he, and he held it up for you to see, one hand reaching over to pull your wrist towards him, slipping the bracelet onto your wrist, smiling in content as he wore his.

“Are we all done?” he asked, earning a nod from you.

Jaemin picked the bracelets up again to count them just to be sure, he knew he wouldn’t completely be at ease until he double-checked that things were in order.

“...42, 44, 45! Nice,” he grinned. Setting the bracelets down, Jaemin leaned back on his bed, supporting his weight with his hands. “Thanks so much for helping me, by the way.”

You noticed Jaemin’s voice sounded more strained, making you recall what he told his friend previously about how his throat felt scratchy.

You shook your head, “it’s really nothing, I’m glad I could help.”

A silence fell between the both of you, making you feel a sort of tension that you couldn’t place an emotion behind, figuring you should leave before you did anything stupid, especially when you had Jaemin looking absolutely angelic just sitting there, messy hair and boyish smile, practically begging you to kiss him.

Standing up abruptly, you stretched your arms over your head, yawning slightly as your arms fell limp at your sides.

“God, my throat feels horrible,” Jaemin sighed, standing up and walking over to the desk in the room, picking up the kettle to pour a cup of water for himself.

“Are you falling sick?” You asked him.

Though you knew the answer was pretty obvious, you weren’t surprised when you saw him shake his head, “no, I mean like, there’s so many other people that are way sicker than me, I think-“ he stopped to cough, wincing from the pain. “I’ll probably get up earlier tomorrow morning with Doyoung and see if I can get some medicine for them or something,” he told you, feeling guilty under your hard gaze.

“Hey, don’t give me that look, I’ll be fine, I promise,” he opened the door for you, and you were about to step out when you turned around so you were barely inches away from him, bringing your hand up to press the back of your hand against his forehead, frowning at how he’d felt as though he was running a fever.

Jaemin gave you a reassuring smile, pulling your hand away from his forehead by your wrist, his thumb running over the beads on your bracelet.

“I’m responsible for the club members, I have to try my best to make sure they’re okay, I can’t just let my own sickness get in the way of making sure they’re okay,” he answered your unspoken question, making you sigh.

“Okay fine, but Jaemin, let me…be ‘responsible’ for you, then, alright? I’m perfectly fine, but you’re falling sick. And I know for a fact that with this attitude you’re not gonna be paying much attention to yourself,” you told him, seeing him open his mouth to speak but you shook your head.

“You don’t need any more worries,” you told him, and just like that, Jaemin started to think that maybe he should be taking Jeno’s advice, not sure when the next time he would be able to find a girl like you was gonna come along, if ever.

You noticed it too, the way how now when Jaemin was looking at you, there was something different about the way he was looking at you, it was...almost affectionate.

Jaemin nodded, squeezing your wrist gently before letting go, his hand rubbing your shoulder soothingly, “goodnight.”

The next day, while Jaemin was busy making sure the club members drank enough water or were taking their vitamins, your job was the same, making sure Jaemin was drinking enough water, getting rest on the bus and eating his vitamins, you were glad you’d realized you brought throat soothing lozenges that you’d given to Jaemin (who thought they were a Godsend).

You made a mental note of things Jaemin did or how he behaved when he was unwell, his demeanour surprisingly cute to you.

1.    Jaemin didn’t mind the taste of medicine, his tastes tended to be on the extreme ends of the spectrum

After you’d given Jaemin something to drink to soothe his cough on the bus, you started to feel as though you wouldn’t mind doing this forever from the way he leant his head against the seat, looking down at you with a soft tired smile on his face, murmuring a soft ‘thank you’ to you.

You knew it wasn’t as if your actions went unnoticed, but you just didn’t expect it to be noticed by Doyoung of all people.

It was evening time when you were already at the airport departure terminal, waiting for those who had gone to the toilet to come back so you could get ready to board the plane.

“You and Jaemin seem pretty close,” your eyes widened, turning around to make sure that it was Doyoung who was talking to you.

Shrugging, you let out a nervous laugh, “uh...I guess? What makes you think that?” You glanced at Jaemin, who was currently sitting at a bench next to the big glass windows, not having the energy to stand for so long.

Doyoung almost snorted, folding his arms over his chest as he spoke, “Literally no one in the club other than you dares to do what you’ve been doing for the past few hours, much less actually have a conversation with him about community service.”

You couldn’t help the confused hum that left you. “Why? He’s so nice.”

Doyoung shrugged, a fatherly smile on his face as he glanced over at Jaemin.

“Not many people get to see that. He tends to trust very few people,” Doyoung glanced around as he spoke, giving him a distracted look, “but I guess he trusts you, from the looks of it.”

You watched as the students had started coming out from the washroom, Jaemin coming back from the big glass panes to where you were, shocking you when he’d linked arms with you, and you had to pretend you weren’t affected by it as you walked into the plane.

Jaemin looked almost disappointed to sit next to Doyoung, making the older boy agree to letting Jaemin and Seungmin swap seats (not without an eye-roll from Doyoung of course). You added to your mental list of all things Jaemin related.

2.    Jaemin wasn’t used to being taken care of,

And you knew this because you could sense how shocked he was whenever you did simple things like drape his jacket over him or adjust his head so his neck wouldn’t be sore.

New findings, 3. Jaemin gets more affectionate when he is sick

You knew this when you felt his head fall onto your shoulder gently after the plane had taken off. Little did you know, this was Jaemin’s way of letting his walls down to you, finally comfortable enough around you to let himself stop being so on-edge all the time. The sight was one to behold, Jaemin with his hood draped over his head, snuggled against your side with his arms tightly hugging the small pillow they’d given, but at the same time, the both of you could so get used to how it felt.

===

The next night, when Jaemin returned home and worked on his university application, he’d started to feel the anxiousness getting to him, thoughts of what would happen to the community service club once he graduated littering his mind, together with other thoughts like how he was going to portray himself in a way the university would find worthy of accepting him, to thoughts of whether he’d done a good enough job in planning the community service trip.

Did I even do that good of a job? Half of them fell sick, so there must’ve been something wrong with the catering—

Jaemin’s thoughts were interrupted when he glanced at his phone, suddenly getting the urge to call you.

“Hello?” he found his body moving faster than his mind could process, hearing your voice on the phone.

“Hey, it’s really late. What’s up? Did something happen?” your tone was concerned, calm. Something Jaemin never knew he needed to hear as much as he was realizing he did now.

“Nothing just…wanted to check on you, see how you were doing after the trip,” Jaemin lied, his heart swelling with butterflies when he heard you laugh.

“I should be the one checking on you, I’m fine. How are you? Have you been resting?”

Jaemin hummed, “yeah…I mean, no, not really.” Jaemin wasn’t sure what was taking over him when he murmured again. “I was kind of feeling a little shitty…but honestly..I’m feeling a little better now.”

You’d assumed he was referring to his sore throat and fever, “that’s great! Make sure you drink a lot of water and sleep early, alright?”

Jaemin smiled, resting his arm on his table and leaning his head against his arm, nodding even though you couldn’t see him, “Uh-huh, I will. You’d better go to sleep too, sorry for calling you so late. Thanks,Y/N.”

You made a sound of confusion, “thanks? For what?”

“Picking up.” Jaemin hated how breathy his voice sounded, hoping he didn’t sound too whipped.

You huffed, not being able to help your smile as well, “Anytime.”

===

“Jeno, I think I’m in love,” Jaemin buried his head in his pillow, earning a groan from Jeno who had just woken up from his slumber on Jaemin’s bed.

“Dude, it’s 4am, can this discussion wait a few hours.”

“It can’t! It’s gonna be white day in a few hours! Okay, technically it’s already white day but it’s gonna be white day in school!”

Jeno sighed, sitting up on Jaemin’s bed to look at the distressed boy, “what’s stopping you?” Jeno murmured, fatigue laced in his tone, his eyes shut as he spoke to his friend.

“What if like...I have so much.......shit going on in my life that I can’t like fully give her the attention she deserves?” Jaemin’s voice lowered to a murmur, and Jeno opened his eyes, knowing that this was something that always held Jaemin back.

“Okay, why not...I give you some situations and you tell me how you would deal with it.” Jaemin nodded, sombre expression on his face as Jeno began his quick fire.

“Let’s say...what if you had a date with her and then suddenly Doyoung texts you asking for a proposal due the next morning,” knowing Jaemin’s usual reaction would be to cancel the date and finish the proposal that night.

Jaemin answered in a heartbeat, “I’d go on the date, then just stay up to rush the proposal or something. Doyoung can wait.”

Jeno’s eyes widened in surprise, “okay next, what about...um...okay! What if you had a volunteer event but it coincides with like her award ceremony or something.”

Jeno asked, recalling a similar incident when Jaemin had skipped his cousin’s award ceremony to go for a volunteer event with the club.

“She doesn’t receive awards every day, I’d go for the award ceremony,” Jeno shot him a knowing look which Jaemin promptly ignored.

“Your parents don’t like her,” Jeno shot at Jaemin, seeing the latter shake his head.

“Don’t care, it’s my girlfriend, not theirs.”

Jeno almost squealed, taking the pillow nearest to him and shoving it at Jaemin. “I’m pretty sure you already solved your dilemma for yourself.”

Jaemin sighed, knowing that Jeno was right, again.

Jaemin’s heart was at unease after that, leaving the house early to buy chocolates for you, preparing his speech in his head for when he would tell you how he felt.

You’d already figured your White day would be just as uneventful as Valentine’s Day, seeing your classmates gushing about what their boyfriends had gotten them, some even walking in with big teddy bears that they struggled to fit in their lockers. So you didn’t think much of it when Jaemin had texted you when you were in the middle of your project meeting.

Jaemin 12:31pm - hey, r u free to meet? -

You frowned, knowing your consultation wasn’t going to be ending anytime soon, but still wanting to see Jaemin nonetheless.

12:31pm - sorry :(( im in a project meeting right now, but i can meet you after school? At like 6? -

Jaemin’s reply came in quickly,

Jaemin 12:31pm - sure!! 6 at the football field -

You thought nothing of it, almost forgetting what day it was as you went about the rest of your lessons, whereas Jaemin, who was done with his lessons earlier than you were, was already waiting at the football field, starting to get restless with his chocolates and balloons, not to mention oblivious to the fact that he was drawing attention from other students because no one could believe that Na Jaemin of all people had prepared to give someone things on White day.

“Do you think she’s actually gonna show up?” Donghyuck asked from where he and the rest of the dnyl boys were sat on the bleachers.

This earned him a (harsh) nudge from Renjun, “of course she’s gonna come, she’s really nice.”

“You say it like you actually know her,” Jeno snickered, making Renjun sigh.

“I hope she comes soon so I don’t have to listen to you guys any longer.”

Lying on the fake grass of the football field, Jaemin was momentarily distracted by the pretty colours the sunset cast in the sky, not noticing that you had already showed up.

“He kind of looks like a supply crate in battleground, should we ask him to sit instead of lie down?” Jeno wondered.

Renjun let out a strangled scream, “oh my god, too late. I think she’s here.” He nudged Donghyuck, the three boys’ attention turning to the girl walking towards where Jaemin lay on the field.

You’d walked to the field, a part of you growing very amused when you spotted the balloons next to a figure lying down in the middle of the field, walking closer until you were standing over him, seeing him furrow his eyebrows before his eyes widened, sitting up quickly and almost bumping heads with you if you hadn’t moved back quick enough.

“Wow, what’s all this? Got swarmed with gifts again today?” You laughed, seeing Jaemin get up off the floor, holding the box of chocolates with the balloons tied around them in his hands.

“Um...not quite,” he murmured, a shy tint of pink making its way onto his cheeks.

“What’d you wanna meet me for?” You asked.

Jaemin had his whole speech rehearsed in his head, but it seemed as though his body thought otherwise, holding the box of chocolates out for you.

“Here,” he murmured, this time, a lot more confident than he was on Valentine’s Day.

You tilted your head at him, an amused smile playing at your lips.

“How do you think it’s going?” Jeno whispered, “she looks more amused than flattered.”

“I don’t know why you’re whispering, I could shout and he wouldn’t be able to hear me. I’m sure they’re doing fine,” Renjun shrugged.

You hummed, laughter bubbling from your lips, “is this gonna become a tradition of yours? Giving me things on special occasions?”

Jaemin pursed his lips, pretending to be in thought.

“Only if you let me,” he smiled.

Your eyes widened, unable to help yourself from the implications of his statement, making him nod at you in affirmation.

“I kinda asked you here to like...yeah, ask you if you uh...wanna like go out with me?” He asked, and you fiddled with the ribbon of the balloon, your breath suddenly getting caught in your throat.

“Like...date?”

Jaemin nodded.

“For real?” You blurted in your panic, seeing him nod again, suddenly exuding a confidence you weren’t used to.

“Yeah...like date. For real,” he smiled, bringing a hand up to run through his hair, and you couldn’t find a better reaction in you than to nod dumbly.

Jaemin smiled, pushing the balloons aside, leaning closer to you. “I really wanna kiss you right now,” he murmured, frowning.

You glanced around nervously, embarrassed that there were students watching, not wanting to kiss Jaemin in front of the school.

“Jaemin, there are people watching,” you muttered, embarrassment creeping up on you, seeing Jaemin straighten up to glance around, shooting a grin at the dnyl boys before looking back at you.

You grasped the box tighter in your hands, feeling Jaemin bring his head down so his lips were next to your ear, “I think I have a better idea.”

Reaching his hand around to grasp the strings of the balloons, he pulled them down so that the balloons would shield the both of you from view.

“May I?” He asked, his voice gentle and smooth, enough to make your head spin.

Nodding, “of course,” you huffed, closing your eyes when you felt his lips press against yours, sweetly and so, so much like Jaemin.

One of his hands went up to tuck your hair behind your ear, going to the back of your neck and grasping it gently, feeling him smile into the kiss, enough to make more excitement bubble in the pit of your stomach. Your hand going to grasp gently at his waist, your other hand going up to cup the side of his face gently, feeling him smile into the kiss when you did so.

Pulling away before you got carried away, you heard the faint sound of cheering, turning to see 3 boys sitting on the bleachers shouting what sounded like cheers for you and Jaemin.

Squatting and covering your face in embarrassment, you couldn’t help but laugh, “Jaemin! Who are they?”

Jaemin turned casually, gesturing at the bleachers with his thumb, “oh them? They’re my dnyl club members!”

“Dnyl?”

“Yeah, it’s a ‘don’t need your love’ club one of the exchange students started, something like those lonely hearts club things,” Jaemin shrugged, earning a confused hum from you.

“Why are you in the club?” You found the whole idea pretty amusing, to have someone as flirtatious as Jaemin be part of some anti-love club.

Jaemin shrugged, giving you a small smirk, “come to think of it, I won’t be needing the club meetings so much now, will I?”

===

“Woah, who gave you those?” You and Jaemin were stopped by Doyoung on your way out of school afterwards, the teacher gesturing to your balloons with his iPad.

You cupped your hand around your mouth, looking around to make sure no one was listening, “Jaemin” you whispered, earning a wide eyed look from Doyoung, who looked at the grinning Jaemin as though he’d just told Doyoung he adopted a child.

Shaking his head with a good-natured smile, Doyoung sighed wistfully, “can’t say I didn’t see it coming. Congrats on your um...whatever young people call it now,” he waved the both of you off, making you laugh.

“Thank’s Doyoung!” Jaemin called, turning to you, smiling giddily.

“What are you smiling about,” you scoffed, seeing him shake his head, linking arms with you. 
 Jaemin looked away to hide his blush, shaking his head as he led you out of the school, for the first time, leaving school without his mind filled with worries, instead, it was filled with thoughts of you, and oh, how Jaemin loved the way it made him feel.  

“Nothing, just...happy.”

[bladengineer]

Bladebreakers: College Edition

anyone who’s already read my fics knows exactly what i’m about, so lets get straight to business about the college headcanons im about to slap yall with

also all under the cut bc this went way too long lmfao Hilary and Kenny should follow shortly bc it got really long and im just. oops

Kai is the first to go which is like. logical considering he’s the oldest and most driven out of all of them

not to mention he had the entirety of Hiwatari Corp. about to be put into his name as soon as he reached 18 and he’s just like aw man here we go

to be honest? he’s not keen on taking over the company, never has been (excluding the time where he felt obligated to under his grandfather’s influence) and the thought of actually having too just kinda. embitters him

so he gets himself sucked into the whole Business classes to get himself the necessary qualifications – and despite being bitter, he doesn’t half-ass shit so he studies on the regular

it isn't until Max wrangles him into finally giving his own interests a go and he changes his path to a History Major with a Minor in Business

he is so much happier

History, specifically Ancient History, had always been an avid interest in Kai’s books so he basically dives into his new studies with his own brand of stoic enthusiasm

its also the sole reason why he’s been amassing so many books in his personal collection at home, Hilary had implored him to buy bigger shelves after Max nearly broke his neck tripping over a loose pile

Kai likes to study alone, preferably in his private study (Tyson keeps making fun of him for having a private study at the age of 18, what are you, a grandpa? damn rich kid lmao) with soft instrumental music playing – he’s especially fond of rainy ambience music

of course, Kai is often seated at the back of the classes, but is indisputably one of the best students with very insightful and well-researched essays, naturally, most of his professors adore him

except a select few traditional-minded professors – they’re still bitter that Kai stood his ground when they had overlooked Cleopatra’s history and reduced her to the Ancient Sex Symbol and Kai was ready to cut a bitch at the blatant disrespect towards an Ancient Political Mastermind

the majority in his class has a fat crush on him but thats nothing new

Max, for a long time, had a bit of a dilemma as his parents urge him to start choosing his preferred path; was it going to be Engineering like his Mother or Mechanics like his Father, and honestly? the poor boy was so torn

in the end, he confessed he wanted to do neither – he loved Beyblade but it wasn’t something he wanted to dedicate his life to forever

instead, his heart had always belonged to the ocean and he dreams of being a Marine Biologist

his father was very supportive, while Judy had her doubts so it took a little convincing – in the end, her son’s joy was more important to her and she too gave her blessing for him to pursue his dream

Max goes on to major Zoology, directed towards marine animals, and takes up a minor in Engineering because hey, it pretty much runs in his family and it stayed an avid interest of his

his university wasn’t too far of from Kai’s own, so sometimes when he stays over at Kai’s he gets a free ride to class

he returns the gesture by always providing the best butter croissants for breakfast (they’re still warm too!)

Max usually studies in the campus library, noise-cancelling headphones on, bopping silently to whatever music he’s listening to as he reviews his notes for the next exam

he researches a lot for his topics and has collected so much trivia about the ocean and its inhabitants in general

Max: did you know jellyfishes have no brain? Kai: Max don’t bully Tyson Tyson: excuse me?

the professors love Max tbh, he’s always fully engaged within class so they usually let him get away with things mainly bc he’s just their Favourite

pretty sure half of the university knows of Max in some way or another, being a social butterfly and all and maybe having flooded the campus once by accident

Ray also had a hard time deciding what to do and what to study; being from a rural village with traditions certainly made him question wether he should pursue a modern career or stay within his community

the White Tigers were quick to kick his ass over it however, booting him straight to Kai’s doorstep and telling him to do what he feels was right for him

now, he’s managed to get himself applied to one of the prestigious university for culinary arts – he’s not too sure yet which path he wants to take in terms of culinary skill

he loves cooking and working in a kitchen, however after many work experiences he has found that working at the command of someone else wasn't exactly to his tastes, not to mention, he’d like to dabble in more traditional culinary arts

as of now, Ray particularly enjoys the sweeter side of cooking, preferring to create intricate pastries and confectionaries, often stemming from his chinese roots but also applying his skill within the japanese side of things

his homemade mooncakes are honestly to die for

next to his obvious passion for cooking, he’s also taken up classes in horticulture, mainly bc he’d love to grow his own ingredients and create his own sets of spices and various artisan products

since his career path is very labour focused, he often practices at home and takes inspiration from various chefs all around the world. his bookshelves are full of recipe books and general insightful cookbooks

Max had suggested to him to make videos of his dishes, mainly for self-improvement, but also being able to put them online to start a crowd interest for his work

its going pretty well actually, his videos have become quite popular since they are aesthetically pleasing, the food looks tasty as hell and also a wide crowd of older people have voiced their joy in seeing more traditional confectionary being made

his friends secretly love their birthdays nowadays bc without fail, Ray always gifts them homemade foods, from neat boxes of handcrafted chocolates to cute jars of sweet jams

he knows, he always takes time to create flavours he knows they will appreciate

Tyson, surprisingly, knew exactly what he wanted to do, and it wasn’t anything to do with Beyblade

Hilary: WHAT ARE YOU SICK Tyson: i- no? i just– Ray: hold on maybe he’s running a fever Tyson: would yOU GUYS JUST LISTEN–

look, he loves Beyblade, it’s something he’ll treasure all his life, something he’ll still pursue in the future, but

it won’t be what he wants to do full time

instead, he majors in Anthropology in order to pave his way into Archeology and everyone is so proud they start crying

next to his Major, he also minors in Business, mainly due to his longstanding position within the BBA, with whom he stays as a particular poster boy and star

next to his work with the BBA, he occasionally helps out in the Dojo and everyone kinda realises? that this guy is literally holding down two (2) whole jobs while also studying and if that isn't hardcore my dudes i don’t know

then again, he’s grown a lot and his interest in his father’s career had always accompanied him since he was a kid – however, his studying habits are still all kinds of atrocious and the only reason why he can even halfway ace his exams is bc he refuses to go down quietly, actually is really critical and analytical is he puts his head into it, and the fact that he employs Hilary to stand vigil with a rolled up magazine to smack him back into focus should he slack off

otherwise, he’s friends with most people in his class and regularly exchanges notes with them and even has become a favourite with a select few of his professors

most just find him exhausting but can’t refute his elaborate essays, which are both thoughtful as eyebrow raising

he attends the same university as Kai (much to his chagrin) and they stick together just as much as they bicker (one-sidedly) just like old times – however, they are both ancient history buffs and its one of the very few topics that they can be heard talking about in actual peace without Tyson going apeshit when Kai loses interest in the conversation

Tyson and Kai are also those college students who pull ridiculous all nighters to study

Max once got so nervous for an exam he made a terrifying concoction of Red Bull and Instant Coffee to stay up and study

he aced the exam but he cannot for the life of him remember what he did in those 24hours bc as soon as he went home he crashed for nearly 32hours straight

Tyson and Ray who were present at the time refuse to speak about it and when asked about it, they kinda just. disassociate for a minute at the sheer horror they had witnessed

Kai rarely ever communicates with classmates yet somehow gets always invited to all the frat parties

who are those people? he doesn’t know

[seoulscenarios]

College AU! Han Jisung

i may have gotten a little carried away with the linguistics part,,, i studied a linguistics module and poured my own damn feelings into this lmao

-Major: Linguistics with TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages)

-Minor: Lyrical Composition,, though he kept pretty quiet about it

-Sports: none,,, he tried joining Hyunjin’s basketball team but he got cut from the team during tryouts for Naruto running across the court which was apparently against the rules

-Clubs: Jisung joined the dance club but gave up after two weeks bc Minho kept making him do all the difficult stuff lmao, is a part of the art club bc he likes to draw, esp characters, and design artwork for 3RACHAs posters/mixtape covers,,,, all the posters you see advertised around campus for the next 3RACHA gig, yeah those were designed by J.One lmao

-So,,, linguistics???

-Jisung honestly couldn’t tell you why he ended up majoring in linguistics when he first got to college bc it’s such a weird niche subject

-9 times out of 10 he ends up having to explain what the hell linguistics is to people bc they have no clue

-It’s the study of language

-So like you’re learning a language??

-No,,, I study how language is formed and used and structured

-……. So no actual language??

-NO

-Honestly Jisung is a bit sick of it tbh, like there’s only so many times he can explain what it is before he wants to explode with anger

-So whilst Jisung didn’t know why he chose linguistics at first, he soon realised that he loved learning about syntax, semantics and pragmatics behind language,,,, he just really loved it

-It also helped him when he was writing lyrics and more often than not, he ended up helping Chan and Changbin with their lyrics when they had an awkward phrase or there was no flow in the lyric

-It really did come in handy for the three of them when they were writing songs late at night and Jisung’s linguistic brain took over when he was checking lyrics

-However,,,, as much as he enjoyed linguistics he actually really despised it at the same time

-I mean,,, idk about you but linguistics is really really REALLY hard to learn and get your head around

-Like if you don’t get something, it makes learning and understanding literally everything else so difficult

-Jisung constantly had an IPA chart in his hand trying to learn the symbols for different consonants and vowels when he was trying to study

-Which,, was hardly ever bc linguistics revision made him want to CRY most of the time bc he couldn’t think of anything worse than writing out the correct pronunciation of sentences or annotate sentences with their different particle abbreviations or,,,, the actual worst which was learning the different phonological rules

-So yeah, Jisung was the literal definition of winging it when it came to his linguistic exams having crammed the night before and bouncing off the wall from 4 espresso shots he had just downed

-He wasn’t that stressed about the exam bc,,, well if everyone else finds it difficult they’ll just lower the grade boundary lmao

-Whilst Jisung seemed like a good kid during class,,,, most of the time was not

-Boy has a LOT of energy and spends most of class literally bouncing in his seat or constantly yelling to a friend across the room from him

-He was asked to leave a few times bc of class disruption and Jisung literally did the Naruto run out of class whilst everyone cheered him on bc of how distraught their teacher was at him

-They didn’t hate him, oh no, bc he was a kind hearted kid he just,,,, was a bit too much sometimes esp for a 9am linguistic class where everyone was literally dead on their feet and he was bouncing off the walls, yelling the answers out even if they were wrong

-He was a much appreciated addition to the class though bc otherwise,,, that class would be DEAD and no one would participate so they were just glad Jisung was there so they didn’t have to answer

-And you bet ur ass when he had to a presentation there were tons of anime references and bad slideshow transition bc that’s who Jisung is a person and he thought they were funny,,, tho the look on one of the examiners face made him slightly regret it but his other examiner was crying at the effects so u win some u lose some Jisung thought

-So alongside his linguistics major, he also took a TESOL path bc he learnt how to speak English so he wanted to help others learn how to

-He always tested out his methods on Jeongin bc,,, they lived together and Jisung literally locked him the living room so he could practice his teaching methods on him lmao

-Jeongin always protested and tried to run away to literally anyone’s house but Jisung just caught him in a hug,,,, and Jeongin could never refuse a hug even if it was from one of his most annoying hyungs

-Besides,,, it meant he got free English lessons without having to be taught by a stuffy professor

-Jisung was a very,, enigmatic teacher and the kind of teacher that would never make a class boring

-In fact, many of the students who signed up for English classes tried to request him despite the fact that u know,,, there were quite a few TESOL students who needed the students to teach as well

-But for the 1-1 sessions,,, Jisung was so oversubscribed that they literally had to redistribute the students so Jisung could get some damn rest,,,, I mean he tried to protest saying that it was fine but the professors were like JISUNG NO

-JISUNG YES he yelled, trying to redo his schedule so he could accommodate all the students before one of his classmates literally had to rip his planner out of his hands and another one grabbed his pen so he couldn’t write any of it down

-Poor baby,,, he just wanted to teach

-A lot of his students came out of their 1-1 classes extremely overwhelmed and had gone to his professor to ask if Jisung is always that enthusiastic and that maybe he should calm down on the coffee

-The gag? Jisung doesn’t even drink coffee unless he accidentally pulls an all nighter before an exam

-The professor just shook his head and was like,,, no that’s just Jisung

-O h

-Jisung wasn’t always the most well prepared for his classes though, preferring to have a very lax lesson plan and once he got called to the head of departments office bc apparently teaching the students English using Beyonce lyrics wasn’t appropriate no matter how much they seemed to enjoy it

-Jisung was offended bc,,, did she just insult Queen Bey just now?? He was going to argue but he didn’t want to get ANOTHER warning bc the last time he was called there was bc he showed his students The Bee Movie and one kid on the feedback form just quoted the opening monologue for his response to “what did you learn that helped improve your English skills?”

-Jisung just felt that learning English through academics wasn’t interesting and certainly wasn’t going to make anyone enjoy it or learn much from it so he liked to use a lot of songs and films and tv shows that had helped him learn English all those years ago

-He still went to Chan and Felix’s flat though just to make sure he could still understand English and that he was still able to English bc lbr here,,, English is extremely difficult

-Like even for Jisung, who lived in Malaysia in his childhood and could speak and understand English well, it’s still hard bc it’s not his native language

-Sometimes Chan had to look over his teaching notes and correct all the English on it bc Jisung had made them the night before and was clearly extremely tired bc it was a jumble of Korean and English that shouldn’t even be together and,,,, were those Zico lyrics in the corner???? JISUNG NO

-But yeah, Chan was very helpful towards Jisung bc of all the help Jisung gave to him when they wrote lyrics together so he was extremely willing to help Jisung with his English

-Heck, he even taught Jisung English once a week so Jisung would feel more comfortable speaking English with his students and his professors bc he wasn’t afraid of getting the answer wrong exactly,,, but still at the back of his mind was that lingering feeling of disappointment if he got it extremely wrong and everyone knew that it was wrong

-The English lessons chan gave to him was extremely useful and he felt even more confident when he went to teach bc he knew that Chan’s lessons would pay off

-You, however, were not a linguistics major

-You studied TESOL full time bc you really wanted to be an English teacher

-You used to volunteer at elementary schools whilst you were a high school student, giving out free English lessons to the kids

-Whilst you may not be as crazy as Jisung was when he taught English, you were still extremely charismatic and enthusiastic bc you had so much passion and love for it

-You met Jisung in a rather,,,, unusual fashion

-It was your first day of classes and you were running late bc you had a meeting with your academic advisor which should have only been a few minutes but ended up being way longer,,, you were polite enough to hear her out but honestly u just wanted to blast

-You didn’t want to miss your first TESOL class bc hello,, that was your damn major

-LUCKILY

-There was still a seat just by the door which you managed to grab before the professor could give you an evil glare for being late to class lmao

-You knew that this would be your spot for the duration of this module bc that’s just how seating arrangements worked,,, u choose one spot and suddenly it’s yours for the rest of the semester/year

-Unfortunately, you couldn’t make that class the next week bc you had doctors appointment during that particular class

-Which, fortunately, for Jisung meant there was one free space when he actually turned up to class that week

-He didn’t mean to not turn up the previous introduction class,, but honestly he kinda gathered he wouldn’t miss anything that he couldn’t find out from the information pack online or by talking to other students lmao

-So when he turned up the week and saw everyone else sat in their respective seats he sighed but spotted a spare one just by the door

-You weren’t there so, without thinking, he just went and sat in it pulling out his notes

-The third week of class comes round, and you arrive to class to see a boy sat in “your” seat and ur fuming bc hello,,,, did he not realise that the seat was already claimed by you

-You stalked up to it and placed your hands on the desk, tapping impatiently

-The boy looked up from his phone and pulled a headphone out, and you could hear a heavy beat with a melodic voice rapping over the top bleed out through the now free headphone

-“I believe you’re sat in my seat”

-The boy just looked at you confused from under his black bangs and beanie

-“But,,, I was sat here last week?”

-“And I was sat here in the first week which makes this MY seat so move it before I drop kick you outta this seat”

-The boy just laughed, before gathering his stuff and placing it on the empty seat next to you,,,, guess that person didn’t want to go to class this week

-(Plot twist: they did turn up albeit 10 minutes late and they realised,,, they lost their seat to Jisung forever and rumour has it the department had to steal a new table for the classroom)

-You just sighed, placing your bag heavily on the table whilst the other boy just sat there, tapping his fingers in time with the music

-Little did you know that this was going to be the beginning of your friendship with Jisung

-As the class started you couldn’t help but be drawn to the boy next to you as he bounced excitedly in his seat whilst your professor spouted some nonsense about how to teach the possessive case as easily as possible

-You couldn’t help but smile as Jisung yelled out nonsense answers to the questions asked by both professor and students, and you full on laughed as Jisung got into a friendly debate with the teacher and the teacher just gave up halfway through

-You caught Jisung’s eye as he sat back down in his seat once the teacher turned his attention elsewhere and he just grinned at you, seeing the smile that was playing around your mouth

-When the two of you were partnered up for a quiz that was going to happen next lesson and the class split off in order to delegate revision

-“I’m Jisung!” the boy, Jisung you now knew, burst out excitedly

-You laughed at his enthusiasm and he smiled at you, before introducing yourself

-“And I’m Y/N, pleasure to meet you Jisung”

-And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the beginning of a beautiful if slightly crazy friendship

-You see, Jisung brought out the loud, childish side in you especially during class whilst you had the ability to mellow him slightly when he got just a little too raucous when challenging a teacher or throwing out answers

-The two of you became extremely close friends, even hanging out with each other at the others flats

-You could be seen playing video games most days instead of studying or having Netflix binges when you should’ve been making lesson plans

-But it was all in good fun, considering you hadn’t failed any classes yet and you had a good social life as well

-Jisung introduced you to his friends and you were essentially one of them now

-Like, you frequently had the boys over in your flat even without Jisung being there

-You came back one day after class with Jisung in tow and found Seungmin and Hyunjin sat outside your door, pouting bc Changbin kicked them out of their apartment bc he “needed space to think for his new track and he couldn’t hear himself think over the sound of a law book being thrown at Hyunjin whilst he was playing overwatch so you NEED TO LEAVE BEFORE I DRAG YOU OUT” to which Hyunjin had replied with “can you even reach my neck?” and Changbin nearly tackled Hyunjin so Seungmin dragged him away before he would be looking for a new flatmate

-You just roll your eyes before unlocking your door and letting them in, knowing they feared the wrath of Changbin lmao

-I mean, they knew where everything was in the flat now so nothing was sacred

-But only Jisung knew where your secret stash of snacks were :’)

-True friendship

-Before you knew it, everyone but Changbin had turned up to your tiny flat for an impromptu movie night

-Chan and Woojin had brought along snacks and drinks, and a very disgruntled Jeongin who just wanted to sleep, whilst Felix and Minho brought more blankets and pillows and set up a pillow fort in front of your TV

-You watch in utter horror as popcorn ends up in every corner of the room before the film had even started bc Hyunjin was retelling his story of nearly being killed by Changbin that afternoon and they all retaliated by throwing popcorn at him

-The boys decided to watch a horror film, and you were less than thrilled

-You didn’t hate them,, you just hated the jump scares and sometimes you had to sleep with the light on just in case

-As you grabbed the drinks bottles from the kitchen, you navigated your way through the pile of boys that had accumulated on your sofa and floor placing the bottles on the floor next to the table

-Frowning, you couldn’t see any free spaces to sit on your sofa and you were slightly annoyed,,,, bc hello it’s your flat AND you sofa u didn’t care that you had guests they were your friends

-As you stood there trying to figure out where to sit, a hand wrapped itself around your wrist and you looked down to see Jisung staring up at you, gesturing to a space next to him

-Knowing there was nowhere else to sit, you begrudgingly sat next to him and Jisung smiled really widely as he felt the heat from your body next to his

-As the film progressed, you found yourself moving closer and closer to Jisung the more jump scares that occurred

-Safe to say, you whimpered quite a lot and at one point you buried you face into Jisung’s chest trying to calm down

-Jisung,,, was pretty concerned with you bc he didn’t know that you were scared of horror films so rather than laughing at you like he would do with the boys,,, he grabbed your hand and rubbed circles onto the back of it soothingly in an attempt to calm you down

-By the end of the film you were basically sat in Jisung’s lap and he had one arm wrapped around your shoulders and his other hand holding yours uwu

-You didn’t realise the film was over until you heard someone, who sounded suspiciously like Seungmin, cough and you practically leapt out of Jisung’s lap

-You didn’t see the smirks Hyunjin and Minho sent Jisung’s way bc you were too embarrassed to admit the fact you were scared and needed Jisung to protect you lmao

-Deciding the night was still young, the boys picked another film and at this point,, you were extremely tired

-The last film had worn you out emotionally and you found yourself drifting off during the second one

-As you did, you shuffled closer to Jisung bc he was warm and soft and you missed the warmth to be quite honest

-As you rested your head on his shoulder, your hand found his and entangled your fingers together before getting comfortable to watch the film

-Jisung was a blushing MESS at your actions tbh,,, like who allowed you to be so cute and play with his heart like this

-The smirks on Hyunjin and Minho’s faces only grew wider as Jisung sent them a panicked look

-You’ll thank us later was what Minho mouthed at him, before turning his attention back to the film that was playing

-Jisung could not find it in him to concentrate on the film, instead choosing to take in your features one by one

-The way your eyelashes rested perfectly on your cheekbones, how your eyebrows would furrow as you shuffled trying to get comfier and the feel on your fingers intertwined with his made his heart rate pick up and left him breathless

-I mean, Jisung had always acknowledged that you were attractive and when you ended up spending more time with him and you got closer,,,, he began to notice everything about you, and whilst sometimes he had trouble recalling what his friends told him sometimes,, he managed to always remember everything you said so clearly

-He gasped,, realising that he had maybe developed a tiny crush on you

-On the opposite side of the room you could see the victory gleaming in Minho and Hyunjin’s eyes

-U see,,, they already knew Jisung had a crush on you and they were just trying to get him to realise it so they could see the two of you happy together bc,,,, boy did they know how much you liked him as well

-Out of all Jisung’s friends, you had grown the closest to Minho and it was to him that you had vented everything about Jisung to,,,, he was just trying to figure out a way to make you realise you had a crush on him too

-Luckily,,, Minho needn’t interfere at all bc after the movie had finished both you and Jisung had fallen asleep and the rest of the boys had left to two you asleep on your apartment floor

-You woke up the next day feeling incredibly warm and extremely uncomfortable

-You rolled over only to encounter an obstacle,,,, cracking an eye open it looked familiar and you realised that your hand was entangled with someone else’s and all of a sudden the images of last night came flooding back into your head

-You clinging onto Jisung, him rubbing soothing circles onto your hand, holding his hand,,,, and then falling asleep

-What you didn’t realise through all this was that Jisung too was waking up

-It wasn’t until you were observing Jisung’s face that you realised his eyes were in fact open and he was staring at you with a soft smile on his face

-Groaning, you reached for a pillow behind you and threw it at him

-Jisung’s laugh echoed loudly in your ears before he launched a pillow at you

-Well,,, it was just a full on pillow fight after that for a good ten minutes until you had all the pillows and Jisung pleaded mercy

-“Fine, I win and you get to make breakfast instead” you conceded, hugging one of the pillows and Jisung begrudgingly agreed, trudging to the kitchen

-10 minutes later, he served you a plate of toast with different toppings and you couldn’t help but laugh bc you forgot how incompetent Jisung was in the kitchen

-As the two of you ate the toast, your eyes kept drifting to Jisung

-His messy hair was almost comical but you found it endearing somehow, and his face was kind of puffy from just having woken up but there was something so intimate about the scene that you kind of wanted to take a photo of how domestic you felt

-As you finished your slice, you took a sip of water admiring Jisung’s features when all of a sudden he made his way over to you

-He leant in and kissed the corner of your lips, before pulling away and smiling at you

-“You had something there”

-Um Y/N.exe has stopped working

-You were literally dying right now,, like wtf

-Why was he being so smooth all of a sudden

-Your brain just went into overdrive and the only logical solution you could think of was pretty damn crazy

-Your head and heart were both in agreement at the solution

-So you just stand up to meet him and grab the collar of his t-shirt and planted a kiss right on his lips

-He was,,, shocked to say the least but goddamn relieved that you reciprocated his feelings

-The two of you pulled apart and sat in silence for a few minutes,,, no one daring to break the silence

-“Soooo,,,, you wanna go on a date?”

-“Sure, let me get dressed and let’s go”

-DATING JISUNG:

-So your relationship,, is definitely not unexpected and was met with great enthusiasm from the boys bc finally,, you had stopped pining

-We didn’t pine!!!

-Look,,, listening to both of you gushing about the other to me was SICKENING and can therefore be seen as pining good day to you

-You and Jisung was very high energy and mainly bc of Jisung bc he would not ! stop! Talking! 99% of the time and u were like,,, babe I love you but pls shut up

-And he would get all pouty which could only be solved if you kissed him

-One day Minho asked you how put up with Jisung being loud for so long and you were like,,, easy! There’s a trick, an off switch of sorts. Care to find out?

-Minho,,, was intrigued but also wary bc hello,,, this is Jisung we’re talking about

-You walked over to Jisung and tapped his shoulder whilst he was talking to Hyunjin about the killing streak he got on overwatch last night you just planted a kiss on his cheek and Jisung stopped talking and giggled shyly before kissing ur cheek back

-You sauntered back to Minho with a smug look on your face whilst Minho,,,, just had a very disgusted look on his face he knew he shouldn’t have trusted you to have a simple answer to his question

-One thing you didn’t know about Jisung was the fact he was part of 3RACHA

-Like you had heard of them,,, you just weren’t big on the campus social life tbh so most things like this kinda went straight past you

-You noticed, however, now you were dating Jisung was that twice a week would disappear for a few hours then occasionally on weekends he would go missing for the entire night

-Not that you were worried that he was doing anything bad bc you trusted Jisung wasn’t THAT stupid to get arrested or something (you hadn’t ruled it out entirely as this is Jisung we’re talking about, he would get arrested for disturbing the peace or something at 3am)

-You just wondered what Jisung was doing bc you were curious

-You waited a few weeks to see if he would tell you and when he hadn’t you just straight up asked him where he went

-He was a little startled, but rather than giving you an answer he just grabbed your hand and tugged you out of the door and towards campus

-“Jisung, babe, please tell me where we’re going” you panted as he weaved through the unfamiliar corridors of a building you had never been in before

-Without warning, he opened a door and pulled you into a,,,,

-Recording studio???

-“Babe,,, what is all this?”

-“I probably told you that I did lyrical composition alongside linguistics right??”

-“Briefly, you were pretty quiet about it to be honest”

-“Well, with Chan-hyung and Changbin-hyung, we uh, write songs and perform them sometimes”

-“Really?! That’s so cool”

-“You think so?” he asked you shyly, ruffling his hair nervously

-“HELL YEAH that’s amazing, could I maybe hear some of the stuff you’ve done?”

-Jisung smiled, slipping into a chair in front of the chair looking extremely professional and began clicking on stuff and bringing up a track

-He plugged in a pair of headphones and slipped them onto your ears, pressing play

-You heard his voice intertwine with the smooth melody and you were in awe at his sheer talent, like you were so shocked that your boyfriend could sing AND rap extremely well

-Jisung sat watching the expressions on your face as the song played, smiling as he saw the different emotions flash upon yourself

-When the song ended you flung yourself at him and began kissing him all over his face whilst he laughed at the sudden affection

-You leant in to kiss him deeply and he just leaned back in the chair pulling you closer to him

-The kiss probably would’ve got more intense if Chan and Changbin hadn’t walked in just in the moment and literally screamed at the fact their friends were tainting their recording studio (it wasn’t actually theirs but the music department graciously let them use it out of hours)

-You threw yourself off Jisung and were extremely red in the face, and Jisung had the audacity to grin at his hyungs

-Changbin just threw a pillow from one of the chairs at him, glaring at him as he took a seat in the other chair whilst Chan just glanced between the two of you

-“I’ll just get going” you said awkwardly, backing towards the door when Jisung shot up and pulled you from the door so he could walk you home

-I can’t believe I have to sit in this seat,,, it’s TAINTED changbin

-It’s your own fault

-???? How ????

-Idk,,, just your bad luck

-…….

-ANYWAY

-You and Jisung were an extremely clingy couple,,, like skinship central

-Jisung absolutely loved loved LOVED it when you would wrap him in a back hug bc it made him very happy and he just loved the feeling of your arms wrapped so securely around him and your hot breath tickling the back of his neck

-Seungmin had to have his law books confiscated whenever you hung out together bc he would just keep throwing them at Jisung whenever he would kiss you or show any affection

-SEUNGMIN IT’S JUST A KISS

-IT’S AFFECTION KEEP IT AWAY FROM ME

-Cue Jisung chasing after Seungmin to try and tackle him and plant a kiss on his cheek,,,, he succeeded but at what cost

-Seungmin nearly throttling him, that was the cost

-Despite the excessive skinship, you and Jisung wouldn’t change your relationship for the world

-You were just the loud, clingy couple that hyped each other up even in the most mundane thing

-Like,, you did a presentation for one of your classes and Jisung waited outside for your class to finish and when you left the class he threw confetti at you before screaming about how much his baby did him proud

-If this was literally any other couple the whole of campus would’ve been like wtf are they crazy but when they heard Jisung scream they were just like,,, ofc

-Hey Y/N u wanna go

-Yeah

-On a date with me./ OH YOU DO./ OHH

-YOU’RE SAYING THAT LIKE I FELL FOR A CUNNING PRANK WE’RE LITERALLY DATING YOU EGG

dating college jisung is just a big meme filled mess tbh

[ichihime]

Here’s a quick rundown of my thoughts on the Live Action. THERE ARE MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD! Consider yourself warned!

Biggest issue right off the bat is Chad’s actor wearing brownface, which is bad for very obvious reasons.

Additionally, I didn’t care for how much Chad and Orihime’s respective roles were minimised- I understand (and fully expected) there to be some cutting corners when it came to characterisation, but for a movie that’s supposedly meant to be the first in a trilogy, it seemed unnecessary.

Even Urahara (who is a character I really dislike!) got shafted in terms of screen time, and he’s an important player in the early events of the series.

Didn’t care for some of the casting either; Yuzu and Karin are obvious, but again I have to bring up Chad. His performance was fine, but is it that hard to hire a naturally dark-skinned actor to play his role? Especially so when the character himself is heavily centered around his pride in his mixed heritage and the color of his skin?

Ichigo & Rukia had hilarious interactions on screen- made me very nostalgic for the early chapters of Bleach. The training montages were a fun new addition that felt true to the characters.

Comedic timing in a lot of the scenes felt really natural and played out well. Uryu and Ichigo’s first interaction in the classroom was funny, as well as Keigo joking about Ichigo dying any chance he gets.

I really liked the sets they used in some of the scenes. Urahara’s shop was cool, and the nods to Ichigo’s character song with his Bad Religion posters (albeit a bit too heavy-handed... I’m sure he likes more than just the one band lmao) were a nice detail.

Ichigo getting a little bashful when Orihime greets him in the park (and frustrated when she misunderstands his relationship with Rukia) was cute. I do like how moments like these made it into the film, but combined with cutting out great amount of her characterisation, it leaves me concerned about her being relegated to nothing more than a “love interest” in potential future films. Canon Orihime, despite being at the receiving end of some bad writing and missed opportunities on Kubo’s part, is still much more nuanced than a mere “love interest” to Ichigo... -but that’s a post for another day.

The music was very fitting of early Bleach and I liked it quite a bit. I only wish there was more of an original score, or they added more bg music in general. Too many scenes felt stagnant because of a general lack of bg music.

I was pleasantly surprised by how well the CGI for the Hollows was done. Loved how the designs were translated into their onscreen counterparts.

Costuming was pretty hit or miss for me. I liked the plain clothes and the school uniforms were fine, but the shihakushos looked a bit cheap to me.

Renji was a bit overplayed to be a villain character compared to his manga counterpart in my opinion. Didn’t much care for it. I also didn’t care for how they changed it so that Rukia AND Renji were adopted into the Kuchiki house? That he’s angry at Rukia for “squandering her upbringing as an elite Shinigami”. It felt like a bizarre and unnecessary change to Renji’s character when Renji’s anger and complex feelings towards Rukia (and his initial entrance as a “villain” to Ichigo) felt much more nuanced and interesting.

And then I had my suspicions when the movie was first being billed that Grand Fisher would be the “final fight” of the film, but I was not a fan of how Uryu stepped in to assist in the fight since I felt it really robbed Ichigo of the personal narrative stakes that he had in the manga. It made for a cool action sequence, don’t get me wrong, but as a battle that was so largely personal and one of the defining moments of the series, it definitely felt like a disservice to his narrative which is so deeply rooted in his relationship to his mother and his survivors guilt and how that shaped his personality.

Maybe I’m just biased because I have the knowledge that later on Renji and Uryu develop a great rapport and make a kickass tag team in the HM arc, but Renji just walking up and stabbing Uryu from behind was so.... disgustingly out of character. I realise he was gunning for Ichigo’s defeat early on in canon and even tried to kill him himself (on top of badly injuring Uryu in their initial confrontation), but even Renji’s earlier iteration where he was a villain directly opposing Ichigo & Rukia, he still had some honor and integrity as a fighter.

Maybe I’m being nitpicky, but there was so little blood. Without seeing the injuries, it made the stakes in battle seem that much lower for me, idk.

Byakuya Kuchiki you’re rich so I think you can afford to get a manicure or clip your goddamn fingernails. God his styling sucked.

The choice to parallel Masaki and Rukia as mother figures to Ichigo in the way that they protected him (basing this off canon comparisons, as well as verbatim from Hana Sugisaki stating Rukia’s relationship to Ichigo to be something similar to motherhood and mentoring) was one that I felt fit very well for the story they were trying to tell in this film.

Final note, I wasn’t emotionally moved by any of this film. The goodbye between Ichigo and Rukia was heartfelt, and I think Hana Sugisaki played it really well, but damn I didn’t get misty eyed or anything and I’m usually a huge crybaby.

TL;DR Pretty much what I expected from a Live Action adaption, changes I felt were unnecessary especially where characterisations were concerned. I knew going in that Orihime and Chad would be done a disservice, but I felt characters like Uryu, Byakuya, and Ichigo to an extent were as well- and worst of all, Renji’s depiction was needlessly malicious, missing the nuance and misunderstood motives behind his actions in the manga. The only characterisation I felt was strong and solid throughout was Rukia’s. 

Despite this, there were some funny moments that made me nostalgic for early Bleach. In general though, it isn’t a film I’d probably watch again because I personally felt the negatives outweighed the positives. Again though, these are just my opinions! Please don’t let this affect your potential enjoyment of the film (except the brownface is definitely a deal-breaker; everyone should be pissed about that).

[macgregorhoughton]

First off, thanks for sharing your headcanons, I love them! I'm really hoping theres gonna be ride references too, from the clips we're getting the puns at least. I'm gonna be watching the backgrounds for any sneaky references to the Society but I bet you're right, its going to be in there somewhere. I’m the same with the Native issue, I’m a bit worried how they’ll deal with it but hope they might have a bit of awareness and address how messed up some of the stereotypes the ride had were- cont

Response under the cut! (following asks copied there too for reference)

First of all before I respond to anything, you do not have to apologise. This is quite literally my dream way to spend my time- talking to someone about a thing I like at length. The fact that you checked all the posts I made and took time to respond to them with your thoughts means the world to me.

2- I’m also really hoping we get a lot for McGregor (wtf is with that alternate spelling Disney?? But I do want the other two to call him Mac, I’d love that), learning to relax and find his place. I LOVE that Lily gets to do physical comedy, you’re right female characters often only get to be funny so long as that means they can still be sexy while doing it. Lily looks like she just goes “nope” to that and dives headfirst into a bit of slapstick and I love her already- cont

3- I really like Dwayne, hes got a warmth to him that comes across in Frank, even if hes trying not to show it to the siblings at first. I really want proper sibling moments too and I love that little one we got in the clip. Like, “you don’t get to laugh at my sister, now excuse me while I go give her a hand while laughing at her”. Like thats a great example of having siblings, I’ll help you out, but I’m totally going to mock you while doing it, but no one else can. BTS have me hopeful too- cont

4- I love your idea for the coming out scene. I think they’d be walking a very fine line in order to get it right, but if they did it could be wonderful. I really really hope we get that scene, no skirting around it or making vague illusions, I want McGregor to say “I’m gay” outright. Like, we’ll all know he is even if they don’t let him say it but for once I want Disney to live up to what they promised and let an actual main character be actually gay.- cont

5- I love the connection with the lights for our trio in the posters, I didn't put that together. I really want them to be a proper Trio, I’m really hoping this is a success so we can get sequels. Even if they’re terrible I still want them to see these three together. FRANK IS HUGGING MCGREGOR, I’VE GOT A GOOD FEELING ABOUT THIS ALREADY. I don’t really have many thoughts on our three villains, other than I'm getting evil musketeer, smug plantation owner & WWII in that order- cont

6- I LOVE THAT GIF SET OF THE PUNS SO MUCH!! McGregor’s little smile and his laugh, hes loving it, Frank is loving getting a reaction, Lily is going to eventually find it funny how unfunny they are. I can’t get over how much I love McGregor’s little face in this, I can’t want for this scene, I’m gonna join you in imploding. Also, in your protective brother gifset, is he wearing a little tartan/ plaid suit? Love it. And on that note, I adore Lily’s costumes- practical and realistic but flattering

7- ok so thats me taken up far too much of your ask box, I haven't even property looked at the press tour things yet, but I do have one more thing, I have a theory about how Jack ends up in the middle of Emily and Dwayne's kiss if you'd like to hear it. Thanks for kickstarting this fandom and the wonderful gif sets, we're so close now! - Skip

So on to my very long response!

I've watched SO much about the ride just so I'm prepared to catch any reference. They just released Behind the Attraction on Disney+ and ep 1 is about the Jungle Cruise ride (Dwayne Johnson is in it too!). He talks about how much he loved the ride as a kid and used to imagine himself as a skipper which is SO cute and I'm so happy his dreams came true (and I find it very relatable as someone who dreams about being a raptor handler at Universal).

I'm genuinely a lil mad that the spelling changed. Because if you google it really everyone thought it was McGregor, they must've at some point released something on the movie for the press with that spelling and then changed their mind. Now everyone has it wrong because I suspect these featurettes are also gonna be the DVD/Bluray extras so I'm confident this is the final spelling. However I will continue to live in denial until I see the other spelling ON SCREEN.

"I really like Dwayne, hes got a warmth to him that comes across in Frank, even if hes trying not to show it to the siblings at first." Yes! I love that every character is a trope that I ADORE. Frank is the cynic who thinks everyone just wants to cheat you anyway and miracles don't exist who eventually cracks and warms up to people and shows that there is a soft, warm person in there after all. Lily is wildly optimistic and aggressively individualistic, not trying to fit in or caring about what anyone thinks and will probably have a moment of losing that optimism and doubting herself after all. And McGregor is the person who appears to think he's better than everyone, who's pampered and refuses to sacrifice any of the luxuries he's used to until he reveals he's gay and you realise most of it was just a show to cover up how hurt he really is. Three PEAK character tropes we're working with here and COMBINED with a reluctant-allies to lovers and a siblings trope.

"Like, “you don’t get to laugh at my sister, now excuse me while I go give her a hand while laughing at her”. Like thats a great example of having siblings, I’ll help you out, but I’m totally going to mock you while doing it, but no one else can" I have a gifset for that queued already, I love that you also focused on that rightaway bc I really went "Siblings! peak sibling energy!!" and gifed it immediately.

Based on the reports (that I cannot stress enough I have no idea how accurate they are) he doesn't say "gay" but it's unambiguous what he's talking about. Let's hope that's true! I'm imaginging some sort of "relationships with men" or "no interest in women but rather men" or sth like that. I hadn't really considered that it might be ambiguous to someone who doesn't know he's supposed to be gay so that's a new fear unlocked lmao

I'm going to be so sad if we don't get sequels cause so many franchises with several movies don't have a core group of actors that are just friends and get along as well naturally as these three. Or if we get more movies and Jack isn't in them or sth like that. Like any future where these three aren't the leading trio in more movies is a nightmare.

"I'm getting evil musketeer, smug plantation owner & WWII in that order" this sent me I swear. I'm most interested in Edgar Ramirez bc I'm curious abt the whole "conquistador alive "today"" thing. also what's up with the snakes lmao.

McGregor laughing at Frank's puns alone could sustain me another year if I had to wait that long for the movie. Luckily I don't have to. It is so wholesome tho, like the fact that they're gonna get along and also get closer and McGregor won't end up sidelined for being a bitch until the last minute or sth is so wonderful.

And yes! It's tartan! We've seen p little of the beginning of the movie in London and since that's gonna be focused on just Lily and McGregor I'm so excited bc we got so little content so there's gonna be SO much in the movie to look forward to that I can barely even piece together!!! (All we know is lily will steal the arrowhead before falling out of the window which mcgregor sees and he immediately follows her so I assume he knew to come there and that there's a scene where she asks him in one of their bedrooms about wanting to go on an adventure. So I'm assuming the bedroom scene comes first and she'll tell him about the arrowhead, he'll refuse to help her but decide to come last minute because he's worried about her (and the worry is immediately proven right as she falls out of a window lol). But we know so little that it's a really loose theory.

And yes!! Lily's costumes are so good. Frank calls her Pants so they will absolutely address that she's dressed very unusual for a woman of her status in 1916/17 and I hope they explore that a little and address where she even gets her clothes and everything. I mean Emily Blunt looks good in everything but the costume department really made something gorgeous with this. She is, for the time the movie is set in, very gender nonconforming which I love in a female lead. And Emily described Lily's fighting style as very Indiana Jones and brutal without much tactic or thinking and just brute force and I really would die for this characterisation. Like when I compare this to similar female leads like in The Mummy for example they're usually highly feminine, aggressive only in their attittude and witty banter but always emphasised to be beautiful and wearing dresses and lots of (usually historically inaccurate) makeup and they get like one scene where they smack the bad guy with sth heavy or sth so noone can say they're a damsel in distress even though they are. But Lily feels very much like a coherent person to me. She's very unusual for a woman at her time, her desire for adventure is in line with how she fights and dresses but she doesn't seem to have the "uwu I'm not like other girls" thing going on, she's just exactly who she is and wants to be.

and of COURSE I wanna hear your theory are you kidding! Cause I still haven't figured it out at all lmao. I just settled on "she probably meant he was off screen but right next to them while they filmed it" or sth bc I couldn't make sense of it otherwise.

also I haven't posted everything new directly here I think, but you probably know where to look for the new stuff. like there's some clips on their instagrams and most stuff is on youtube.

[vaguely-gestures-to-the-void]

Hindsight: My thoughts on Loki (2021)

Spoilers below. Please correct me if I slip up. I am in no way shape or form educated on ANYTHING to do with the making of films, how to critique this stuff etc, this is all just my opinion. If I haven’t covered a scene, it’s probably because it’s already been covered much better than I can. This is my extended episode 1 review.

Episode 1: GLORIOUS PURPOSE

Pre-title scene

The scene titles looking like a train station combined with the scrolling through time is such a cool stylistic choice.

The music is familiar, but followed by an alternate shot of Loki as Cap. A different perspective of something known, how fitting. FYI, I’m going to mention music a lot.

Love how no one questions the Hulk terrifying people.

This is the last time Loki will hear Thor call his name, or speak to him. Oh darn, I made myself sad.

Marvel studios logo

The Marvel logo changing colours + Loki theme finally taking the centre stage. I love it.

The comments made on Loki soundtrack videos saying ‘I see that the Mandalorian soundtrack has become a genre’ are so accurate it hurts. Shout out to Ludwig btw, he deserves all the awards for his soundtracks.

My thoughts so far: This part is setting up the general shift in tone from what we’ve seen in past Marvel projects, even the other shows. It reaffirms the audience’s subconscious that whilst we are familiar with the characters, there’s new twists up ahead, subtle hints to oncoming mischief. Props to the entire team behind the series.

Gobi Desert Scene

As much as I liked the opening bug crawl, the following interactions look a bit CGId. I’m being picky, they really are gorgeous. It’s also difficult after having seen the Mandalorian, but that show really paid attention to scenery as it was an instrumental part of the story, whereas here it’s just one scene and all the others are stunning.

The parallels to Tony in the desert. Loki immediately rips off the muzzle (?).

I just watched the scene and yes, Tony rips off the mask immediately.

Also I think I would have definitely had a crush on young RDJ.

And Gwyneth Paltrow (GOOP LADY) if I didn’t know her now.

Props to Tom Hiddleston’s acting. Loki’s face when he sits up is just pure confusion but with the signature hint of indignation that I’d expect from his characterisation at this point.

The rock lmao.

THE MUSIC WHEN B-15 (MY QUEEN) APPEARS. HELL YEAH!

Also props to the supporting cast of minutemen, where does Marvel find these people? They’re so well choreographed, they all move perfectly and it’s a joy to watch.

Love the time doors honestly.

I couldn’t have been the only one who thought that the temp pads were Samsung phones for a sec right?

Lol is that unintentional foreshadowing about the TVA? Jk I’m just clowning.

Has anyone spoken about what the Temp pad showed?

My theory is that ‘Units’ refer to a predetermined rate of change [e.g. m/s] where one unit = one increment of change.

The steady rate of change here is interesting. I’ll talk about it more at the end of the next episode.

I love the music, just the slow ticking increasing in pace and the dramatic flares brought on by the strings (I think), simply divine. Natalie Holt got it spot on and props to Tom Hiddleston and literally everyone involved for understanding the importance of good music with this series. I’ll talk about this in depth in the next episode, just wanted to mention it when it first started that I noticed.

In retrospect, I can definitely retract my critique of the background in the scene. It holds up well now that I’ve rewatched it.

B-15 doesn’t get enough love. Shout out to Wunmi Mosaku, she’s a trooper and I’m here to hype her up.

Also y'all I just checked the cast list and ???? Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner and Tessa Thompson are on it?????? MARVEL TF IS THIS WHAT TOM MEANT BY EP 4 BEING WILD I-

Tom’s acting chops: The face moment. You know the one. It’s pretty incredible.

Theory from me: the reason that Loki doesn’t see the hit coming is because B15 was moving unnaturally fast.

It’s the immediate change in the music to reflect the audience’s reaction at the standard fight scene taking a strange turn for me lads.

B-15 doesn’t smile, which I think is in character for her.

She’s seen this shit wayyyy too many times.

We’re not even five minutes into the first ep and a) I’ve waffled this much, Gods, and b) the music has changed at least 3?? Times to reflect what’s happening. I love it.

My theory about resetting the timeline: the reset charges get rid of anything in the immediate vicinity of the branch, pretty much a mini-apocalypse of the timeline. If everything is erased, none of it matters. Does that make sense?

Taking away the Tesseract while yes, it serves a purpose with showing Loki the might of the TVA later on, also reflects how nitpicky the TVA are about their time-keeping. They do everything in a very orderly fashion, but as we see later, the outdated nature of things is very human.

The TVA - the elevator thing

Man I love the TVA’s look. Someone (and I’ve heard that Kate Herron was also very particular about the set design) went to extraordinary lengths with every single scene, not just this one, but the one before as well.

Heck I just want to appreciate how much of a visual feast this series is. Good on ‘em.

The shots changing angle is also very interesting. They switch it up between one-takes, close-ups of differing extremities and it just keeps the flow fast-paced, ya know?

Watching Loki run was hilarious.

“Sounds dumb.” - Casey, Null Time Zone.

This weird robot is what I think of when the TVA is mentioned. Advanced tech mimicking a retroistic 70s feel.

The cat’s adorable.

The clock. The cup. The placing of props. Impeccable.

The clock’s hands don’t move whilst they’re on screen.

The realisation on his face when he eyes the stack of papers.

Why is the wall so badly scratched???

I love that the signature is in character. I have a huge thing for attention to detail lmao.

Again, why are all of the walls so scratched? If they could talk, I’d presume it’s just a set design choice but it’s interesting that they did that.

Does anyone else want a TVA sweater vest?

Tickets

The opening zoom in on Loki combined with the consistent brown-orange colours of the set makes the room look uniform and encompassing. I love how the lights are always placed in a repetitive manner so rooms are given the illusion that they go on forever.

Lighting here creates depth, but whilst the lights form a ceiling, we can’t actually see how they’re suspended and I think that’s neat.

The posters. Yes.

This is the first time I noticed the different minutemen uniforms. This one’s half orange-red and black. Pretty cool imo.

Shout out to Tara Strong and the entire animation.

The butterfly was a nice hint to the butterfly effect, and the music is perfect as always.

The wooden walls in the background of this shot. How very 70s.

The reflection showing the guy getting pruned is pretty cool.

Again, another clock with no movement on the wall.

The first 11 minutes are up and we’ve made it to the title! If you’ve read this far, congrats.

1549 Aix-en-provence, France

Just speculating, we’re in a church with an initial high-angled nearly bird’s eye view and then a cut to one looking up at Mobius. I guess it means even if we think as viewers our perspective is omniscient, we’re not spared from the mystery in this series.

Who’s in the stained glass window?

I love how they tie in a detail as small as the gum. It just goes to show when you haven’t got much time, every character interaction is meaningful.

Props to Owen Wilson, he really sold Mobius to me.

Mirrors in a church showing the devil behind Mobius. Or on his side.

Time court 37

The time court 37 really reminds me of train stations.

The chairs remind me of pews. They sure are reverent of the Time keepers.

The lighting is a cool, bluish tinge for the first time I’ve noticed. Especially on Ravonna (MY LOVE!).

B-15 knows Loki’s clowning lmaooo.

Ravonna isn’t here for it either.

Ravonna’s nailpolish is a very nice shade of brown.

Theory: Resetting is ‘being brainwashed for the TVA’. Not very original, but it’s interesting that the TVA thinks that Loki would be useful as a worker, unlike the guy who got pruned earlier.

The TVA exterior is amazing. It also extends forever in all directions, even down.

Time Theatre 25

What is that elevator music??

“I thought you didn’t like to talk” Ragnarok, anyone?

Loki reading the ‘Time theatre’ sign whilst rambling. Gotta give it to him, he’s always aware of his surroundings.

The little TVA logo on Mobius’ shirt.

Shout out to whoever did the costuming. Personally, I liked the shirts with no collars, and the armour of the minutemen and Hunters came off to me as practical but not ignorant of the branding that the TVA likes.

Theory (bear with me): Once you’re a part of the TVA, you’re not collared anymore, though there is an appearance of that on the shirts.

Seriously tho, what are those shirts like? Mobius doesn’t have a collar.

Why do the ties just… end?

Neat details:

Holo projector 35.

The lights being reminiscent of skylights but still leaving the characters in the dark. “The sun will shine on us again, brother.” Not yet.

The reflection of the projector in the table/on the ground.

Loki: *turns away.*

Mobius: *sips Josta.*

Seriously, the lighting is great. Loki moving in and out of the shadows? Great way to show his mistrust/ unease of the situation.

The illusion speech is the last time we really hear 2012 Loki in my eyes, mainly because Mobius really gets into the cracks of who Loki is and then there’s action.

The ‘I was- I am” Freudian slip is perfection.

Side note the music’s changed yet again. It’s definitely setting up the more mournful tones for seeing his mother’s death.

I find it interesting that the door is partially in the shadows.

Doors are symbols of opportunities, barriers and both death and birth from what I remember of high school English.

From what I know in interrogations the person being interrogated is allowed to sit with their back to a door. Initially, both Loki and Mobius are sideways, equidistant from the door. When Loki wants to run, he edges closer to the door, even if it is just to make a point. Excellent blocking in my eyes.

Oh man, Mobius’ little gestures.

“Always so perceptive about everyone but yourself.” I really don’t have to talk about the significance of that line, do I?

Frigga being stabbed in the back. Little solace to a dead man? Ouch. That hurt me too.

Loki’s wounds heal unnaturally fast, because he’s no mortal.

Mobius really drives home the last point. Who says ‘like you did your mother” ??? Owen sold how Mobius can influence Loki's mind.

The ‘best versions of themselves' line and showing Thor must have hit Loki hard. He spent two movies trying to prove who he is, measuring himself against Thor. And then he sees them both working together and being equals.

Loki’s escape

Wunmi and Owen’s line delivery is unforced and charged, completely in character.

Mobius looking under the table is hilarious to me.

The music.

The tidy cubicle = healthy timeline is a bit contradictory because they’re supposedly in the null time zone but okay.

Is no one going to mention the taxidermy ferret?

Loki just had an identity crisis. His ‘gut you like a fish’ seems in character.

The dude’s really questioning everything he knows lmao.

Casey’s ‘what’s a fish’ was really our first hint that not everything is what it seems to be at the TVA.

It amuses me that Loki’s on his knees when he gets the Tesseract.

I’m sure someone’s pointed it out already, but given that Loki takes back the Time Twister, it’s possible he could have stolen an Infinity stone.

Again, point’s already been made but Loki seeing the Infinity stones is what sells the power of the TVA.

Please, the rest of the office not giving a damn when one dude’s having some drama is hilariously on point. They really said ‘not my problem’.

Loki’s future

The screen on the table showing what he’s rewinding as it happens.

Btw if you pause any moment during that, you’ll see a scene.

A quick note on Loki’s characterisation:

He’s been through a lot in a very short period of time, quite literally finding out that his actions don’t have any consequences. He’s lost all autonomy, especially as a god who probably believed he was not as restrained as mortals. More on this in later Eps.

I really liked Ragnarok because it showed Loki and Thor’s maturity; they had to step out of legacies that were thousands of years old and come to terms with a universe that was much bigger than them. It also fleshed out their relationship as brothers, but not at the expense of who they were. Loki still is a schemer, and he talks more because he has less to hide in my eyes. He’s no longer just a villain, and that can’t be shown by just actions, especially in his own tv show.

Loki’s little laugh when Thor talks about giving him a hug. Man that was sad.

What shouldn’t be forgotten is that Loki doesn’t know how it ends. He doesn’t know whether Thanos gets defeated. For all he knows, he died in vain and left behind a brother with no family.

The collar says DANGER.

This is the scene that really nails it home to Loki that his purpose in life was to cause pain. He found out his glorious purpose in that timeline, he’s conflicted as Sylvie points out in Ep 3.

When Loki talks to Mobius, they’re both in medium shots. They’re on the same page.

Loki’s delivery has changed when talking about the 'illusion' but Mobius hasn’t. That may change in the later episodes.

1858 Salina, Oklahoma

Others have covered this better.

Sylvie’s theme is similar to Loki’s but not identical.

It’s got sinister tones which change throughout the series.

I love how you can see the images of the minutemen’s past and future as they walk through a time door, they literally step through time.

I’ve got a whole other post on the end credits scenes. Cheers if you read this all lads.

Ep 1 review

All in all, this was a scene-setting episode. One of my friends texted me and said ‘Loki really went through ten years worth of character development in minutes’ and I think that sums it up pretty well. It’s a great set up, but the next episode is where the plot begins to progress. Really enjoyed it. There’s not too much that was aided by what we know from ep 3 besides Casey’s fish from what I caught.

See y'all next time, if there is anyone reading this. Look after yourselves!

[helloandwelcometomariasblog]

Review #92: Love The Way You Are

I was expecting Our Times. What I got was another My Best Summer. I thought I'd at least written a rating for My Best Summer, but I guess it was so forgettable that I never even did that.

I think Our Times has ruined me. It has made me believe that every Taiwanese/Chinese teen movie will be just as nostalgic, romantic, charismatic and beautiful, with memorable characters and a strong story. I have realised now that it's not true. I loved Our Times, and I loved Fall in Love at First Kiss, but I really didn't like My Best Summer and Love the Way You Are. I didn't like them for similar reasons.

I have to say, Love the Way You Are is much worse than My Best Summer. It just threw in all the successful teenage romance tropes but the actual story and characters were so damn bland and shallow that every single thing fell flat. Really flat. Just because you add in a handsome smart dude and a dumb but positive girl doesn't mean you'll get a stellar teen romance film. They thought they were adding everything that would lead the film to success. But what's the point of all that if the story just downright sucks?

First of all, the film doesn't set up anything substantial. We're not even introduced to the characters properly. I honestly didn't know anything important or special about Linlin or Yuke throughout the entire film. We were never given the chance to get to know them. I still don't know what kind of person Yuke even is! They're just characters. Literally characters. Written in for the damn film. They didn't feel like actual people at all. They didn't feel multi-dimensional and they had no deep or real story of their own. Cookie cut-outs. Gotta move on from this paragraph before I start craving cookies.

And the story. Boy it sucked. I'm not even sure where to start. I can't believe the film whizzed through all these bland and mediocre moments and then in the end gave us the actual entire story through a fucking monologue/flashback. Plus Yuke was so uncharismatic as a male lead. He had no personality as a nerd and no personality as the glow-up version. It wasn't about his appearance at all. He was just... bland and boring and had no depth to him at all (as a character). And were we supposed to be swooning at his final confession and recount of how stalkerish he'd been? Yes it was cute that he crushed on Linlin. But forcefully making her his girlfriend and then forcefully kissing her? Doing all of that while not having the courage to tell her about his feelings? Lmao. Also, it was damn unrealistic how he suddenly knew how to dress well and style his hair and even took his braces off. He's been a nerd all his life and he suddenly knows how to change like that? Unrealistic. He should've gone back to being a nerd after that party day. Plus how did he know how to dress up like that on the party day? So many things in that film made no sense and there was no proper set-up, no build-up, no CONVINCING LEAD UP TO THE DAMN SUPPOSEDLY-SWOONY ENDING!!!!!

I'm angry because it was just so bad. I miss Frankie Chen. Remember how she did the endings in Our Times and Fall in Love at First Kiss? Now THOSE were some good endings and swoony reveals. Fall in Love at First Kiss also threw in a heap of successful teen romance tropes but the story was written waaaay better and the characters were actually built up and relatable and deep and we actually got to know them and like them!

Okay I choose not to use even more time on this movie. I think I've been successfully put off Taiwanese/Chinese movies for the time being. I love Vivian Sung, but... not in this.

Even the entire uni storyline sucked. EVERYTHING was just so one-dimensional and SHALLOW and BORING and DUMB and honestly this is making me so angry I have to leave

And the sudden overcoming of his fur trauma was super dumb too. Who the heck gets over it that quickly? Again, there was no build-up at all. Plus the trauma was used as a joke too many times in the film for his 'overcoming' to even feel like a huge feat. The film tried to be funny many other times too but even that fell flat.

Everything. Was flat.

I found some really pretty (golden time sunlight feel) posters of the film but I can't even get myself to paste that here - because the poster makes the film look so nice and watchable, when it reality it's far from that. And I can't fake it. So I chose the blandest possible poster, because that's what the film was like and that's exactly how I feel about the film.

The end.

[starwrite-er]

Poster Boy [Chapter 8] - Poe Dameron x Reader

A/N: YA GIRL'S JUST FINISHED HER EXAMS SO Y'KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS AND ALSO IT'S COLD AS ALL HELL ATM (you know what's unnecessary? Waking up to -5 degrees celsius) BUT THE SUNRISES HAVE BEEN P LIT LMAO. anyway this is the most 'meh' chapter so far tbh sorry about that but i just kinda wanted to move stuff along and so we just have to trudge through the boring stuff. sorry.

Tags: @vanessawolfblue @kxylo-ren @britishteahater @umbrellabrass @anime-ed @winchesterandpie @yourgodameronright

 The sun spills over the horizon, casting an orange glow over the villagers waiting to board the carrier ships, a chill in the air as we avoid thinking of yesterday's losses.

 "Those who wish to stay here on Pamarthe, please join the Red Squadron over there. Those who are leaving the planet report to Commander Dameron. Anyone wishing to join the Resistance will be with me." I order. The villagers shuffle around, sorting themselves into small groups. As the handful of people staying on Pamarthe begin to board the ship, I feel a tug on my uniform. Looking down I see Keipii.

 "Will I see you again?" The young girl asks, frowning. I crouch down to her height, smiling softly.

 "Of course. I'm sorry you have to stay here, but it's for the best, and I promise I'll visit often." I tell her. She nods, hesitating before throwing her arms around me. I return the embrace, and watch the Pamarthen girl head towards one of the carrier ships when we separate, her bag of belongings secure on her back. I turn, someone calling my name behind me.

 "I'm joining the Resistance. Not as a soldier or anything," Niyele tells me, puffing her cheeks out slightly in determination. "But I'm still joining. I'm going to be a medic."

 "That's great! It'll be nice to see you around base," I say, having taken a moment to recover from the slightly surprising news. She grins at me and I look over her shoulder to see the small crowd. "These my recruits?"

 "Yeah, but it looks like everyone still here is coming with us." I raise a brow at Poe's words, Niyele scurrying away when she catches sight of him.

 "What d'you mean?" I ask, looking at the number of villagers gathered. I glance in the direction of the carriers. Those who wish to relocate elsewhere on Pamarthe are few in numbers and all fit on one carrier with no hassle, and I watch as they take to the air, guarded by the Red Squadron.

 "They all either wanted to be in the Resistance or be near it," Poe explains, eyes on the ships flying away. He pauses. "Your parents wanted to be close to you."

 My gaze flickers to Poe as I take a moment to think about it. He catches my eye and flashes me a smile before turning his attention back to the crowd.

 Though it takes a little longer to load all of the villagers onto the remaining carriers, we're soon making the jump to hyperspace, arriving in the Ileenium system. Our fleet of ships in tight formation quickly approach the green planet of D'Qar, easily avoiding the planetary ring that circles it.

 The base is teeming with personnel as we touch down, all eager to see the result of the mission. Amongst them is General Organa, and I smile and salute at her when she looks in my direction. While the pilots all greet the crowd that has gathered, the survivors from Pamarthe are lead away by some higher ranked officials that had been informed of the situation. With my helmet under my arm and BB-09 by my side, I jog over to General Organa. My teammates notice my actions and follow suit.

 "It's good to see you all. You did well out there." The General tells us, her hands clasped behind her back.

 "Just doing our job," I reply, shrugging with a smile on my face. "I'll have the report ready by this evening, General."

 "That's good to hear, Commander L/N," The General returns my smile, a twinkle in her eye as she sees my mouth fall open in surprise. "And with this promotion, I think you deserve a break. You've been constantly working despite your injuries."

 "I-I don't need a break, ma'am, really. Pamarthe was pretty much a vacation, right? I'm sure there's somebody else that would deserve the break." I stumble over my words, completely taken aback by the sudden promotion. Not only is it a promotion, but I've just completely skipped an entire rank. It wasn't even that long ago I was promoted to Captain.

 "It was your squadron's idea, actually. They agreed to split your work amongst them," My teammates in the Ivory squadron laugh, beaming as I stare at them in shock. I guess they wanted a distraction from those we lost yesterday, and thought this was the best way to do it. Once they settle, General Organa continues, looking at something behind me, confusion on her face. "Who's that?"

 "Who's wh-" I begin, turning around to see what she's looking at. Out of my X-Wing is climbing a youngling. The girl freezes when she realises all eyes are on her, and so she waves sheepishly.

 Poe starts howling with laughter.

 "What are you doing here? You were supposed to stay on Pamarthe!" I demand an answer. Keipii averts her eyes, suddenly finding her shoes very interesting. Poe is almost doubled over, finding the whole thing hilarious. I glare at him out of the corner of my eye, paying no mind to the curious murmurs that have broken out. "How did you even manage to smuggle yourself in there?"

 "I got Niyele to distract you and then hid behind your seat. BB-09 helped me up." The Pamarthen girl admits. I narrow my eyes at the droid who is quick to remove itself from the situation, whistling as it refuses to look at me.

 "And what were you to do if I crashed?" I question, completely ignoring everyone else at this point.

 "You're probably the best pilot in the Resistance. You wouldn't." Keipii argues, crossing her arms proudly. I shake my head, exasperated and frustrated.

 "A Resistance base is no place for a child. I've told you this!" My voice raises at the end, but the girl doesn't flinch.

 "So what? My parents are now dead because of the First Order! You're the person I trust the most to protect me!" She shouts at me, now angry and ready to defend herself, her eyes glazing over with unshed tears. I find I don't have the words to respond to this, guilt lacing my conscience. When she sees I'm not replying, and that a hush has fallen over the crowd, she continues to speak, taking rushed steps towards me. "So whether you like it or not, I'm staying."

 Keipii clings to me, and I return the gesture as I address the General. "I'm sorry about this, ma'am. She hung around with me a lot this past week, and after what happened to her parents, I guess she thought it was best to stay with me," I explain to the General and our audience. I continue with a heavy heart. "I'll... I'll take her back as soon as possible." General Organa regards me silently for a moment, her expression not giving anything away.

 "Well, you heard the girl. Whether you like it or not, she's staying." The General cracks a smile, and once again, I'm speechless. Keipii quickly releases me, darting over to my higher-up and taking her hands.

 "Thank you, thank you, thank you! My name is Keipii, and I promise when I'm old enough, I'll help the Resistance, too! I'll be the best pilot, just like Y/N!" The young girl says excitedly. When she recognises the woman, she gasps, cutting herself off. "Wow, you're the Leia Organa, aren't you? I've heard stories about you."

 "Yes, I am," General Organa laughs as everyone watches, dumbfounded. "So, you want to be a pilot? Just like Commander L/N?" Keipii nods vigorously.

 "Yes, and I know she's the best pilot because I saw her do all sorts of impossible-looking stuff when she was fighting, and she's the best commander because she joined the people of my village fighting on the ground," I smile sheepishly as Keipii rambles on, singing my praise. "Plus, Poe said she was the best pilot yesterday, and he's also a commander and a pilot, so he must be right."

 "I said she could give me a run for my money." Poe corrects, but his chuckle shows he's mostly joking around.

 "Oh, don't be so cocky, poster boy." I say, elbowing him gently.

 "Poster boy?" He repeats, amused. I roll my eyes while my friends snicker.

 "Poe, since Y/N needs to also look after this young lady now, you'll be taking some of her workload while we get this settled," General Organa says, watching us fondly. "Y/N, you'll be taking a short holiday with Keipii in two days time. That's all for now. You're dismissed." The woman nods decisively, taking her leave.

 Poe speaks up once the General is out of earshot. "Why do I get your work?"

 "Wow, complaining already? And after you made yourself sound so capable as 'the best pilot in the Resistance'." I tease.

 "I am capable." He shrugs. I roll my eyes at him again, those who are lingering around snickering at the exchange.

 We just stand around in silence for a few minutes as everyone leaves us, watching Keipii take in all the sights of the base, a welcome distraction from prior events.

 "Really though, you deserve this break." Poe speaks up eventually, and I look at him curiously.

 "Just don't strain yourself while I'm gone." I say, referring to the injuries he received last week. He laughs lightly.

 "I could say the same for you." He grins at me, reminding me of the scrapes I got yesterday.

 "Touché." I reply, smiling. We fall back into the silence, but for now it's a comfortable one, the stress of the days gone by at the back of our minds.