#and suddenly i am so emotional and so exhausted

[fallenfawnn]

i have lost count of how many times i have cried today, i have yelled and screamed more than 10 times, collapsed to the floor more than 5 … im so exhausted now .. and slightly more stable.. but still the tears won’t stop. im a little glad they won’t.. i haven’t *felt* so much in a while. and maybe it is a little bit nice after months of dissociated autopilot.

[bunnyboy-juice]

do any other autistics struggle with family because you want so desperately to be understood by them but, even when they mean well, they just Fundamentally Misunderstanding what u are saying? like u could literally tell them "i am not feeling upset or angry, i want to do this thing, there is just a little resistance mentally because it is a stressful task/behavior/thing. think of it like doing an exercise but adding a resistance band you know? like it just is taking extra effort i didnt account for but i will be okay!" and they interpret it as you saying"i am triggered, this is upsetting, this has to happen right now or never, i am going to cry from stress" and then try to comfort you but its like!!!! im not upset!!!!! but im Becoming upset bc im trying to explain my perspective and being treated like im broken and need gentleness when i dont really need ANYTHING other than like "alr cool sorry ur struggling" (and i can say this all Explicitly and even give a demo/mock convo of what feels good for me when sharing and its like in one ear and out the other)

[daemonoferror]

If you're wondering what's taking Asgard's Bard chapter 2 so long: it's this motherfucker's fault

I had not planned on him being SO INSUFFERABLE TO WRITE FOR that I get so angry I have to STOP WRITING and calm down.

[hobisexually]

x

[pucksandpower]

Thwack

Charles Leclerc x pregnant!Reader

Summary: pregnancy hormones tend to make you a bit emotional … as your husband’s team principal learns firsthand

The scorching July sun beats down on the Hungaroring as you waddle through the paddock, your swollen belly leading the way. The disappointment of Charles’ P6 qualifying result hangs heavy in the air, mingling with your hormones to create a potent cocktail of frustration.

“I can’t believe this,” you mutter, adjusting your sunglasses. “P6? After everything he’s been through?”

Your eyes lock onto a familiar figure — Fred Vasseur, engrossed in conversation with a group of engineers. Without thinking, you march toward him, your designer purse swinging at your side.

“Fred!” You call out, your voice sharp enough to cut through the buzz of the paddock.

The Ferrari team principal turns, his eyebrows rising as he takes in your approaching form. “Ah, Y/N, how are you feeling today?”

“How am I feeling?” You repeat, incredulous. “How do you think I’m feeling? My husband just qualified P6 after weeks of being your guinea pig!”

Fred holds up his hands placatingly. “Now, Y/N, let’s not overreact. We’re all working towards the same goal here.”

“Overreact?” Your voice rises an octave. “You want to see overreacting?”

Without warning, you swing your purse, connecting solidly with Fred’s arm.

“Ow! What the-” Fred stumbles back, shock written across his face.

“That’s for Canada!” Another swing. “And that’s for Spain!” Thwack. “Austria!” Thwack. “Britain!”

Fred dances away, trying to put distance between himself and your surprisingly effective weapon. “Y/N, please, let’s talk about this rationally!”

“Rationally?” You seethe. “You want rational? How about explaining why you’ve been sacrificing my husband’s performance for weeks and then blaming him for it?”

A crowd begins to gather, murmurs of surprise and amusement rippling through the onlookers.

“It’s not that simple,” Fred protests, ducking another swing. “We needed data for the upgrades. Charles understood-”

“Charles is too nice for his own good!” You interrupt. “He’d drive a cardboard box if you told him it would help the team!”

A familiar voice cuts through the commotion. “Mon amour? What’s going on?”

You turn to see Charles jogging towards you, concern etched on his face. His race suit is unzipped to the waist, revealing his sweat-soaked fireproofs underneath.

“I’m teaching Fred a lesson in loyalty,” you declare, brandishing your purse menacingly.

Charles’ eyes widen as he takes in the scene. “With your purse?”

“It’s Hermès,” you say, as if that explains everything.

Charles can’t help but chuckle, despite the situation. “Okay, mon cœur, maybe we should take a step back and-”

“Don’t you ‘mon cœur’ me, Charles Leclerc!” You warn, turning your ire on him. “This is partly your fault too!”

Charles blinks, taken aback. “My fault? What did I do?”

“You let them walk all over you!” You exclaim, gesticulating wildly. “Always saying yes, always being the good guy. Sometimes you need to stand up for yourself!”

Charles approaches cautiously, as if you’re a wild animal he’s trying not to spook. “I understand you’re upset, Y/N, but-”

“Upset doesn’t begin to cover it,” you interject. “I’m furious, I’m disappointed, I’m ... I’m ...” Suddenly, your lower lip trembles, and to your horror, you feel tears welling up in your eyes.

Charles’ expression softens immediately. He closes the distance between you, wrapping his arms around you as best he can with your pregnant belly between you.

“Shh, it’s okay,” he murmurs, stroking your hair. “I know it’s been a tough few weeks.”

You bury your face in his chest, your anger giving way to exhaustion and hormonal tears. “It’s not fair,” you hiccup. “You work so hard, and they just ...”

“I know, I know,” Charles soothes. He looks over your head at Fred, who’s watching the scene with a mixture of confusion and concern. “Perhaps we should continue this conversation somewhere more private?”

Fred nods gratefully. “Yes, that might be best. My office?”

Charles guides you gently towards the Ferrari motorhome, keeping a protective arm around you. As you walk, you can’t help but notice the stares and whispers from the paddock personnel.

“Great,” you groan. “Now I’m going to be all over social media as the crazy pregnant lady who attacked the Ferrari team principal.”

Charles chuckles softly. “Well, at least they can’t say our life is boring, eh?”

Despite yourself, you crack a small smile. “I suppose not.”

Once inside Fred’s office, you sink into a comfortable chair, suddenly feeling the weight of your actions. Charles perches on the arm of your chair, his hand resting supportively on your shoulder.

Fred takes a seat behind his desk, rubbing his arm where your purse made contact. “So,” he begins cautiously, “I think we have some things to discuss.”

You take a deep breath, trying to collect your thoughts. “I’m sorry for hitting you,” you say finally. “That was ... not my finest moment.”

Fred waves a hand dismissively. “No permanent damage done. Though I must say, you have quite an arm on you.”

“She’s been practicing her swing,” Charles quips. “Says it’s for protecting the baby.”

You elbow him gently, but can’t suppress a small laugh.

Fred leans forward, his expression serious. “I want you both to know that we value Charles immensely. These past few races have been challenging, yes, but it’s all part of a larger strategy.”

“A strategy that’s left Charles floundering in the midfield,” you point out, your frustration bubbling up again.

Charles squeezes your shoulder gently. “Y/N’s right, Fred. I understand the need for data, but at what cost? We’re falling behind in the championship.”

Fred sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I know, and believe me, it’s not a decision we’ve made lightly. But the data we’ve gathered is crucial for our upcoming upgrades. We’re playing the long game here.”

“And in the meantime?” You press. “Charles takes all the heat from the media and fans?”

“That’s not fair,” Charles interjects softly. “The team has been supportive.”

You turn to look at him incredulously. “Supportive? Charles, they practically threw you under the bus after Silverstone!”

Charles winces at the memory. “It was a misunderstanding. They didn’t mean-”

“Stop making excuses for them!” You exclaim, your hormones sending your emotions on another rollercoaster. “You deserve better than this!”

Fred clears his throat, drawing your attention back to him. “You’re right, Y/N. We haven’t been as ... transparent as we could have been. Charles, I apologize for how things were handled after the British Grand Prix. It won’t happen again.”

Charles nods, a small smile tugging at his lips. “I appreciate that.”

“And what about going forward?” You press, not quite ready to let the matter drop. “Are we done with the guinea pig phase?”

Fred leans back in his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face. “The major data collection is complete. From here on out, we’re focused on implementation and fine-tuning. Charles, you’ll have the full support of the team to maximize your performance.”

You feel some of the tension leave your body at these words. Charles, sensing your relaxation, gently massages your shoulder.

“That’s all we wanted to hear,” Charles says softly. “Thank you.”

Fred stands, coming around his desk to stand in front of you both. “I want you to know that we believe in Charles. He’s the future of this team, and we’re committed to giving him the car he deserves.”

You nod, feeling a lump form in your throat. Damn hormones. “I’m sorry again for the ... purse incident,” you manage.

Fred chuckles. “Let’s just say it was a uniquely passionate expression of team spirit, shall we?”

As you struggle to your feet (no small feat at eight months pregnant), Fred extends his hand to Charles. “We’re going to turn this around, starting tomorrow. P6 isn’t where we belong.”

Charles shakes his hand firmly. “Agreed. I’ll give it everything I’ve got.”

“You always do,” you murmur, leaning into Charles’ side.

As you make your way out of the office, Charles keeps a supportive arm around you. “Feeling better?” He asks softly.

You nod, a mix of emotions swirling inside you. “I’m sorry for causing a scene. I just ... I hate seeing you struggle when I know how talented you are.”

Charles presses a kiss to your temple. “I know, mon amour. But remember, we’re in this together. The good days and the bad.”

You stop walking, turning to face him fully. “Promise me something?”

“Anything,” Charles says without hesitation.

“Don’t let them take advantage of your kindness,” you say seriously. “You’re allowed to stand up for yourself, to demand what you deserve.”

Charles’ eyes soften as he gazes at you. “I promise. And thank you for always being in my corner. Even if your methods are a bit ... unorthodox.”

You can’t help but laugh. “Hey, desperate times call for desperate measures. And let’s be honest, my purse probably got the message across better than any words could have.”

Charles grins, pulling you close. “Remind me never to get on your bad side. I’d hate to face the wrath of the Birkin.”

As you both dissolve into laughter, you feel a weight lift off your shoulders. Tomorrow is another day, another race, another chance. And with Charles by your side, you’re ready to face whatever challenges come your way — purse in hand, just in case.

[leviathanspain]

OMG I am living for the Finnick content!!! Could I request something with angst to fluff, with the prompt “look at me, look at me, you’re okay, we’re okay”? Maybe set after catching fire when they both wake up in district 13? Thank you!!

watercolor eyes

finnick odair x reader

synopsis: you didn’t think you would ever see those watercolor eyes again…

a/n: i used hearing loss as reader’s injury, there is no real explanation, so make one up :)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

it was a stunning color, almost indescribable. he was saying something, his hands moved frantically, you could see them in your peripheral. yet you remained in a trance with his eyes, watching them as they frantically searched yours. then, you realized his lips were moving, and you couldn’t hear him.

“do you think she can hear us?” he blinked, refusing to get emotional at just the thought. from how close you had been, it definitely could’ve resulted in hearing loss. the rescuing of who they could get in the arena didn’t go very well, and he hated to admit that he almost lost you. how he lost peeta and johanna, something that already weighed heavy on him.

suddenly, a scream erupted from you. finnick rose from your side, hands trying to calm you down. you were getting redder as you screamed, exhausting yourself.

“y/n!” he shouted, hoping you’d hear him and stop, but didn’t realize that you were screaming because you couldn’t hear your own voice.

you were panicking. from the looks of finnick, he could hear you, but you couldn’t hear your loud screaming. you felt the vibrations of your own voice, hand at your throat. but nothing was heard. your breath hitched as the stark realization dawned on you. you couldn’t even hear ringing in your ears.

helplessly, you gripped finnick’s arm as he searched your eyes. a doctor practically sprinted towards you. you panicked, gripping onto finnick as you fought off the doctor, a syringe in his hand. you screamed again, now out of reflex. finnick was trying to calm you down but it was hard for someone who had gone temporarily deaf. or at least he hoped it would be temporary. there was no knowing the damage.

“y/n.” he spoke as if you could hear him, shouting wouldn’t change things. you could feel his fingers on your cheek, gently wiping them as tears escaped your eyes.

you wanted to look at him, focus on his eyes, imagine the engulfing waters of the ocean, free to take you and finnick to places you could only dream of.

but the needle stabbing you wouldn’t let you float your mind away.

you wouldn’t be able to hear the ocean, let alone see it.

you grilled finnick’s arm, eyes fighting to stay connected to his, but they fluttered shut, getting one last glimpse of those watercolor eyes.

finnick watched as your eyes fluttered shut. he had been comforting you in a way he knew wasn’t helping. “you’re okay…” he whispered, “you’ll be okay.” he brushed a hair from your voice as your expression calmed. the doctors had decided to sedate you upon your outburst. “i’m sorry.” he whispered more, laying you down back into the bed, words repeating like a broken record.

it had been a week.

your ears were still sensitive, and you had been ordered to stay away from any and all loud noises, which meant you often stayed behind for when president coin called her meetings.

katniss had been making progress, from what you had gathered in whispers from finnick.

“only whispers.” he had whispered the first words you were able to hear. “doctor’s orders.” he smiled brightly. you exhaled, nodding as you matched his whisper. even the sound of your own voice was excruciating in volume. you had tried to force yourself to get used to loud volumes, but it was impossible.

it was more pain than it was worth, that even sometimes the whispers were too sharp.

so you and finnick often settled for a comforting silence. he would hold you in his arms, brushing your hair from your face as you stared deep into his eyes.

he grounded you, from the moment you met him, he had been nothing but kind. he loved you, killed for you, saved you.

“i love you.” you whispered so quietly you wondered if he could even hear you.

he looked down at you, having glanced away for a mere moment. his smile extended up to his eyes, “i love you more.” he whispered, still careful to be quiet.

[ghostfacd]

I’M A JEALOUS, JEALOUS, JEALOUS, BOY. | TOM BLYTH

PAIRING. tom blyth x fem!actress!reader

SUMMARY. after gaining massive popularity, you star another show where you have to kiss your co star, which tom isn’t exactly happy about

AUTHOR NOTE. Two posts in one day? Who am I??anyway! This was self indulging because I love Steven Conklin and nobody writes for him 😔 As always, reblogs and comments make me more motivated to continue this series :)

installment of this au | the reader plays fictional character “ella fisher” in tsitp!

Tom wasn’t a jealous guy, at least, he didn’t think so. He was very secure in your relationship, always making sure he didn’t let his emotions get the best of him.

Like when you told him you had gotten the role of Conrad and Jeremiah Fisher’s sister in The Summer I Turned Pretty, and how you were Steven Conklin’s love interest, he congratulated you with a big hug.

He knew who was playing Steven—Sean Kaufman. There was no doubt that Steven was a very charming guy.

“You’re here!” You say giddily, engulfing your boyfriend in a hug when he approached you. “Daisy was just patching up the last of my concealer. Did you get any food?”

Daisy was your makeup artist—and one of the sweetest girls you’ve ever met in your life. She knew the cast pretty well, so when you first got here, she helped break the ice between you and them.

“You know I did,” Tom says, placing the paper bag down on your table. He opened it up, retrieving an iced matcha latte and a poke bowl. You squealed in delight, excited to eat after filming for so long.

“So how was your day?” You say, cheekily grinning at him as you ate your bowl.

“Tiring? I did a photo shoot, it was fun. Then I went home and took a nap, and then I drove to buy you food.”

“Well thank you babe,” you say. “Today was such an exhausting day, so much retakes cause of all the sand. But God do I love this show to death. It’s so much all at once but in a good way, you know?”

“Well I’m just excited to see my girl on the big screen,” Tom smiles, leaning in to give you a kiss on your forehead.

“YN! Time to film again!” The voice of your director calls out, making you shove your bowl into Tom’s hands and rushing over to the cameramen.

Tom carefully places your bowl down, walking over quietly behind the cameras to watch your scene up close.

He watches as you talk to Lola, who plays Belly, about your plans after high school, and how you wanted to apply for Princeton just like Steven. She rolls her eyes, saying how she doesn’t get how you and Steven get along so well.

Later in the scene, you and Sean sit close together in front of a campfire. Tom remembers vividly of you telling him there was a scene between your character and Steven where the two of you would get extremely close. Tom feels his breath hitch when he sees Sean make you laugh. He knows that it’s just acting—that your character and Sean’s character are love interests in the show, and that it means nothing in real life.

But he just feels so weird. His stomach is in knots, and it feels like his mouth is dry.

“You know,” Sean begins, leaning in close to your face. “I know Belly doesn’t want me liking any of her friends, and your brothers would totally kill me if they knew; but you’re making it so hard.”

“Really Steven?” You fake giggle, leaning closer to his touch. “Well they don’t have to know.”

Sean laughs at your comment, his head falling against your shoulder, something that Tom had always done with you.

And then he sees the director cue the cameramen to zoom in, and then there it is. — You and Sean kiss, and Tom feels his feet move away from the scene without even realizing.

“And… cut!” The director says, clapping. “Good job Sean and Y/N! You really captured the tension between Steven and Ella. That’s a wrap!”

You hug Sean afterwards, the two of you laughing about how stupid the kiss must’ve looked but you knew the viewers would eat it up once the episodes aired.

“Where’s that boyfriend of yours?” Gavin asks, suddenly showing up behind you and Sean.

“Gavin!” You say, putting your hand to your chest. “Way to scare a girl to death!”

Gavin laughs, poking at your sides teasingly. “Just kidding, I know where he is. Stormed off where Lola and Christopher are standing.”

“Storm off?” You say, confused.

“Seems like lover boy wasn’t too keen on you kissing our Sean over here.”

You quickly make your way towards where Lola and Christopher were standing, and just like Gavin had said, Tom was standing behind them. He didn’t look too happy.

“What’s wrong?” You ask, pulling the boy away for some privacy.

“It’s nothing.”

“Oh c’mon,” you scoff. “It can’t be nothing. Gavin said you stormed off earlier.”

Tom sighs, clearly wanting to drop the topic. But one look into your genuine concerned eyes makes him crack.

“I was jealous.” He admits, biting his lip back in embarrassment. “I’m sorry.”

You bite back a smile, arms linking with his. “Awe babe, it’s okay. Just acting. Just like how you kissed Rachel in the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Yeah,” Tom sighs, bringing your body close to his. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have felt that way.”

“It’s okay,” you reassure him, smiling brightly. “Feeling jealous is bound to happen with our job, as long as we communicate about it, everything will be fine.” You hug his side, snuggling your face into his coat. “Plus, you know Sean has a girlfriend, right?”

“What?” Tom seems baffled, but he quickly covers it up. “No, yeah, I knew that.”

“Uh huh,” you tease, “don’t worry Tom, I love you the most.”

He leans down, making eye contact with you. “Well I sure hope so, because I love you the most as well.”

And everything was perfect until Gavin lets out a fake barf, telling the two of you to “get a room”.

“Oh get out of here Gav!” You say, shooing him away.

“Yeah Gavin, let the couple have their moment!”

That makes everyone laugh, and you swore you never felt happier than you did right now.

[jaysng]

sulking when he has to leave for work | park sunghoon

pairing: nonidol!husband!sunghoon x pregnant!reader

genre: fluff

summary: pregnant reader feeling overwhelmed, asks sunghoon to stay. he reassures her with love and comfort, promising he’s always with her.

you wake up to a familiar dull ache in your back, the kind you’ve grown used to during your pregnancy. you groan softly, shifting to try and find some relief, but nothing helps. no matter how you twist and turn, everything feels uncomfortable these days.

sunghoon is still asleep beside you, his arm resting protectively over your waist. you glance over at him, taking in the peaceful expression on his face. his lips are slightly parted, his soft breathing mixing with the early morning stillness. despite how frustrated you are with your own discomfort, seeing him like this makes you feel a little better.

you snuggle closer to him, craving the warmth of his body, wishing you could stay wrapped in this moment forever. lately, everything has felt so overwhelming—the aches, the exhaustion, the constant emotional rollercoaster. but in these quiet moments with him, you feel grounded.

as you trace his jawline with your fingers, his alarm suddenly goes off. you freeze, instantly dreading what’s coming next. you know he’s going to have to leave for work soon, and just the thought of it makes your chest tighten with sadness.

sunghoon groans softly, reaching over to turn off the alarm. he shifts to sit up, but you quickly tighten your grip on his arm, refusing to let him go. “no,” you mumble into your pillow, your voice muffled but full of stubbornness.

he glances down at you, his sleepy eyes softening when he sees your pout. “baby, i’ve got to get up,” he says quietly, though there’s a playful edge to his voice as he leans down to kiss your temple.

you turn your face away, sulking even harder. “i don’t care. stay. i need you here.”

he chuckles softly, amused by your sudden clinginess, but there’s a tender look in his eyes as he lies back down beside you. “you’re being extra cute today, huh?” he teases, but his arm slides back around your waist, pulling you close again.

“i’m serious,” you whine, nuzzling your face into his chest. “i don’t want to be alone today. it’s hard when you’re not here…”

his smile fades into something more serious as he looks at you, his fingers brushing your hair away from your face. “i know it’s been tough, love,” he murmurs, his voice full of understanding. “but i’ll be back before you know it. and when i am, i’m all yours, okay?”

“that’s not enough,” you grumble, though you can’t help but melt a little at the way he’s holding you. “i want you here now.”

sunghoon sighs softly, a mix of affection and exasperation in his voice. “you’re really not going to let me leave, are you?”

you shake your head, holding on to him tighter. “nope.”

he smirks, clearly amused by your persistence. “fine, fine… i’ll stay a little longer.” his tone is teasing, but you can tell by the way he wraps both arms around you that he means it.

you relax against him, a content smile spreading across your face as you rest your head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. his hand moves gently to your belly, rubbing slow, soothing circles over your bump, and you sigh in relief as the tension starts to fade from your body.

“i love you,” you whisper, feeling the words spill out without hesitation.

sunghoon’s hand stills for a moment before he leans down, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead. “i love you too,” he murmurs, his voice low and serious. “so much.”

you close your eyes, soaking in the warmth of his embrace, the sound of his voice. you know he’ll have to leave eventually, but for now, this moment is all that matters. you hold on to him tightly, unwilling to let go, even as your eyelids grow heavier with sleep.

“you’re everything to me,” he whispers, his lips brushing against your hair. “and i promise i’ll always be here for you, no matter what. even when i’m not physically here… i’m always with you.”

his words send a wave of comfort through you, and you can’t help but smile as you feel his fingers intertwining with yours. “i know,” you whisper back, your heart swelling with love for him. “i just miss you so much when you’re not here…”

sunghoon tightens his grip on your hand, his voice soft but full of determination. “i’ll always come back to you. always.”

the room falls quiet again, the only sound being the soft hum of the morning outside, and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your cheek. you feel safe here, cocooned in his arms, and for the first time in a while, the weight of the world doesn’t feel so heavy.

you drift off to sleep again, feeling sunghoon’s hand still resting

@/jaysng all rights reserved. do not copy or repost.

[mysicklove]

Summary: Yuuji has a bad day, and all he wants is for you to make him feel better <3

Warnings: cheesy/sappy writing!!!!!! like so cheesy. I can't help it. he makes me sick. slight dom/sub dynamics (reader being dominant), suggestiveness/talks about sex, kneeling + praise heavy, aged up! character! gn! reader

Wc: 2.0k

A/N: i saw this in my drafts and just wanted to finish it up before starting my other wips. i am lovesick with him, do not mind me. i am actually embarrassed at how sappy this is

art here! by @mpsql - super super super cute!!! <333

Yuuji was exhausted. It was just one of those days that seemed to drag out – the watch Nanami gifted to him seemed to tick as slowly as possible. Nothing was going his way, and although he never made a fuss to the people around him, he still was frustrated by all the events. 

But now he was home –  he didn’t have to worry about those things anymore. He could crawl up to you, and with the gentle caress of your fingers through his hair, he was bound to be left thoughtless. Or maybe you would touch him tonight – he has been good, so he doesn’t suppose that it was out of the question. 

He takes a deep breath, snapping out of his thoughts – getting a hard-on would not be appropriate right now. The man opens the door to your shared apartment, mumbling out a greeting and scanning the room. He calls your name, setting down his bag and walking toward the living room. You pop your head out of the office, wearing your blue light glasses. “Ah! Welcome home, love,” you call, smiling at your boyfriend, “I am doing some work right now, but dinner is in the oven. You are welcome to eat it without me. Gotta finish this!”

He doesn’t say anything, but a frown pulls at his lips. Suddenly, he feels his previous emotions resurfacing just from the sound of your voice and the familiar warmth of his home. Itadori pads over to you, ignoring the wafting smell in the kitchen until he stands directly next to you. Then, he grabs the back of your rolling chair and flips it away from the screen. You blink at him in surprise, being torn away from your work. “Yuuji?”

His lip wobbles at the concern in your voice, and the boy immediately falls to his knees in front of you without a word. He presses his head against your clothed thigh and wraps his arms around your waist. “Just….bad day.”

You frown at him and place your hand on his head, gently petting him. “Poor thing,” you coo, and his whole body shivers, but he nods into your leg. “Do you want me to do anything for you?”

He thinks back to his previous idea: sex. Something that he was opposed to, but now, in the moment, he didn’t crave it as much. He wants your touch –  he always does, loving physical affection more than anything, but maybe tonight, it didn’t need to go below the waist. He was content just being close to you.  

“No. But, can I stay here?” Itadori asks, voice soft and barely above a whisper. He was content in this position, finding that it strangely made him feel small, and your words made him feel safe. 

You cock your head to the side, slightly confused. “Kneeling? You might get uncomfortable.”

He blinks at you, shaking his head stubbornly. “No, ‘s fine. Like it down here.”

You grin at him, now using both hands to rub through his hair and gently massage his scalp just the way he likes it. “Does it have anything to do with what you are facing?”

He eyes at your crotch for a split second and then looks up at you, a small pout on his face. “‘I’m not some perv, you know.”

“Just teasing you,” you sigh, ruffling his hair slightly. “Anyways, I have to do work, Yuuji. I can’t keep petting you.”

He yawns into your leg and sighs. “It’s alright. I’ll sit and be quiet.” Then, he closes his eyes, cheeks pressed against your thigh, content. 

You face back toward the computer screen, not paying attention to the boy who seemed to be pressing himself impossibly closer to you. Ten minutes go by, and you are more than surprised to not hear Yuuji’s usual light snore. He tended to fall asleep pretty easily, so it was shocking that he was awake right now – you dont comment on it, letting him rest his eyes.

But his silence doesn’t last much longer than that. His dark eyes peer open, and he glances up at you. His voice is soft, as if afraid that you will be upset at him for distracting you. “Can you do the thing?”

“Hmm?”

“Where you uh…compliment me.” 

Your eyes flicker to him, and you notice the tips of his ears turning a shade of red. “You want me to praise you?”

He readjusts himself on the floor nervously, but nods his head. A hand returns back to his head and the boy seems to melt at the touch, eyes already fluttering shut again. “Well, I suppose it’s not hard to. I could list about fifty things I love about you without even thinking about it.”

He gulps, face now a bright shade of pink, and sighs into your pants. “Me too.”

You trace the tips of his ears with your pointer finger. “Cute,” you say, smiling at him as your computer screen darkens with its lack of use. “Hmmm. Where do I begin?” you ask yourself rhetorically, and Yuuji waits in silence, trying not to buzz with excitement. 

He readjusts himself on the floor, pressing more of his muscled frame on top of your lap. It reminded you of a great dane trying to be a lap dog, because they believed they were the size of a chihuahua. It’s cute, and you didn’t mind his extra weight. “Well, I guess I could start with how kind you are, but that sort of a no-brainer.”

 “’s not,” Yuuji mumbles into your pants.

“No? I disagree; everyone knows Yuuji Itadori is kind. It’s been like that since high school and probably before that. The boy who makes everyone feel comfortable. Who radiates warmth, light, and happiness. Y’know, you could easily compare to the sun.”

Yuuji squirms in your lap, making a small noise of complaint. “Now you are just exaggerating.”

You beam at him, shaking your head. “I wouldn’t lie to you.” Your fingers ghost over his lips before he tries to argue again, and he remains quiet at the gentle warning. “I think you are very pretty Yuuji.”

You use both of your hands to cup his face, rubbing your thumbs against his cheeks that were warming up steadily. He wants to complain about the word choice, but he finds himself remaining silent, finding the compliment strangely endearing to him. He has been called handsome before, hot even, but pretty was not common. You preferred to call him cute most of the time, which he has grown to love even if most men didn’t. 

You lean down and press your lips to his hair. “Your hair is pretty, soft, and easy to pet.” Then you move down to his eyes, kissing at the scars beneath them and his eyelids when he instinctively shuts them. “Your eyes are pretty, a warm shade of brown, or maybe an amber color?”

He squints at you, one eye remaining shut from where your thumb pads just below it. “I just call them brown.”

You pout at him. “Aw, you're no fun! They are much more than brown, and you know it. Now, your nose.” You peck the tip of it, and he blinks at you, waiting for what you are to say next. “Hmm, I guess I don’t have too much to say about it, but it is really cute.”

“I like your nose a lot,” Yuuji interrupts, and you bark a small laugh. In return for his remark, you teasingly press your thumbs into the corner of his eyes when you catch him staring at it. He shuts his eyes with a whine, trying to pull away.

You breathe out another laugh and then move your fingers again to trace his skin, peppering it with small kisses. You go back to complimenting him. “The prettiest skin, with the cutest scar beneath your eyes.”

“Dont remind me,” Yuuji grumbles, thinking about his time with the curse. He was exorcised a while ago, and Yuuji can safely say that he enjoys being able to think for himself once again. Plus, the flirty comments about you from the king did not sit well with the boy.

He shifts on the floor again from the thought, and you frown. “Are you sure you don't want me to grab you a pillow for your knees?”

When you try to stand up, he simply presses more of his weight onto you – successfully pinning you to the chair. He looks at you with a small pout, “I said I was fine. I was comfortable in that position!”

You pinch his cheeks with a teasing smile, ignoring his small whines of protest. “So whiny. I just want to make sure you dont get bruises on your knees. Could lead to some misunderstanding, hm?”

He looks away, rolling his eyes but smiling again. “You have a dirty mind.”

“Y’know, I can’t help it when it comes to you.”

His cheeks flush again, and he groans into your pants. “Please dont tease me. You know how easy it is for me to get turned on.”

Your nails drag over his neck, and he does a full-body shiver, while he hides his face in your leg again. But you continue running your fingers over his shoulder and down his back. Then, you tilt his chin up to look at you. “Dont hide. I am not done praising you.”

“Sorry,” Yuuji mumbles, trying not to gulp at the way your thumb drags over his lips. He keeps looking away, but also leaning closer in hopes that you may kiss him. It was so easy to in this position.

“Did I compliment your whole face already?” you ask, knowing the answer. You have kissed and praised every facial feature except for his lips. 

He was waiting for you to finally kiss him for real. Your lips grazed every part of his face except his own. So, he shakes his head and blinks at you. “Uh, you haven’t said anything about my lips yet…”

You cock your head to the side, frowning at him. “No? I am sure I did.”

You were teasing him – he knew it. You knew that he wanted you to kiss him, and you were being purposefully cruel. But, Yuuji was known to getting straight to the point. “Please kiss me now.”

A laugh falls from your lips at the whiny demand, and you shake your head with a grin. But, you listen and lean forward and peck at his lips. Yuuji pouts at you, furrowing his eyebrows and shaking his head. It wasn’t the type of kiss he wanted, and the both of you knew that. “You were so nice earlier. Why are you teasing me now?”

Your thumbs rub at his eyebrows, smoothing them out until he relaxes them. “You make it too easy.”

“Can you kiss me for real?” Your thumb continues to rub at his lip, and you stare at it, waiting. Yuujis face was flushed from embarrassment, and his tongue runs over his teeth before he says, “Please?”

And with that, you smile at him and gently press your mouth to his. This time you dont pull away and instead let Yuuji lead the pace. He, like you expected, nearly pounces on you, tilting his head up and placing his hands on the back of your hair. He makes a small moaning noise and pushes himself closer to you until his knees hover above the floor so that he can reach your mouth more easily.

You are the first to pull away, and he tries to follow you, chasing the trail of saliva connecting you two. Pants leave your mouth, and you laugh breathlessly as he obviously waits to kiss you again. You lean back in your chair, and to this, Yuuji leans forward, now resting his arms on either side of your legs.

The action makes you raise your eyebrows, and you gently squeeze his cheeks together, shaking your head. “You are quite spoiled.” 

He frowns at you, upset that you dont want to kiss some more. “Not spoiled enough,” he mumbles, and at this, you laugh while he continues to pout, even when you let go of his cheeks.

Your hand goes back to tracing the skin on his face, and Yuuji leans into the touch like he is some sort of cat. “Is there anywhere else you want me to praise, Yuuji?”

The comment was meant to be lighthearted, hoping that you could compliment something he was insecure about. But, the boy, in return, pauses for a moment and looks at you with wide puppy dog-like eyes before slowly dragging his hands down his body until his hands touch his crotch. He gulps and says, “I think, um–I think here needs some attention too…”

Your lips curl up in a grin. “Aw, I thought you said you weren’t a pervert?”

He thinks back to what you said earlier and lets out a small laugh. “Y’know, I can’t help it when it comes to you.”

Your lips are back onto his in an instant. It always ends up like this: Yuuji says that maybe he didn’t need sex tonight, but somehow, one way or another, the two of you end up in bed together. He didn’t mind it one bit.

[temiizpalace]

Can i have Malleus and Leona with prompt 3?

☆┊PUT YOUR HEAD ON MY SHOULDER! NOT HIS! (🐉 vs. 🦁)

SUMMARY: THEY BOTH OFFER HIS SHOULDER TO REST ON. WHO KNEW IT BECAME A FULL BLOWN WAR!

CHARACTERS: malleus draconia vs. leona kingscholar

EVENT MASTERLIST

WARNINGS: no determined end couple, jealousy, crowley sucks at being a guardian 👎👎👎

NOTES: leona suffering chronicles part 3!!! /j tysm for your request!

reader is g/n, reader is yuu

˚∘☆∘˚

helping crowley had many benefits.

weekly payments, a home and shelter, and a beloved father figure. that’s what he claims anyway. however, from yours and grim’s experience, there were also many drawbacks; he forgets to pay you, he forgets about you, you’re his favorite errand runner, and you tend to pull all-nighters in order to finish up his chores.

in short, helping crowley was just asking for a death wish. finally finding some free time in your day to rest, you sat onto a nearby bench hidden by the trees, basking you in some shade.

“urgh.. if i have to run down anymore papers to crewel i think ima be sick.” grim groans, stretching himself into your lap before curling up to nap. “tell me about it.. im sick of being sam’s supplier.” you sigh, leaning your head onto the back of the bench. “child of man? what are you doing outside of class?” a certain prince calls out, suddenly sitting by your side.

“tsunotaro? i could ask you the same question.” you laugh, suddenly snapping yourself awake. “wasn’t there a housewarden meeting today?” you ask, seeing his face twist into a pout. “if that is the case then they have failed to invite me.” he sighs, crossing his arms with a frown.

“seriously? again?” you scoff, shaking your head. “i’ll have a talk with crowley about this when i see him later.” you smile at him, patting his back. “i appreciate it. you’re too kind, really.” malleus looks into your eyes, not being able to resist smiling back at you. as you both continue to converse like normal, you have yawned far too many times for the poor boys liking.

“are you sleeping alright? i believe you yawned at least 10 times during our conversation. are my topics too boring for your liking?” he frets, sudden worry overriding his emotions. were you losing interest in him? are you going to leave him?! oh no. no no no no no no no no—

“why would you think that?! im always interested in what you have to say. crowley has been working me ragged lately, that’s all.” you reassure malleus, giving him a thumbs up as if what you said wasn’t concerning in the least. “why that lousy..” he mutters, eyes narrowing at the facts. how dare that stupid insolent prick drive his poor beloved prefect to the brink of exhaustion. it’s inexcusable.

“im on a break for once, so me and grim were just resting here.” you smile, pointing to your sleepy catlike companion. speaking of catlike companions, leona watched from a faraway tree your little chat with malleus. yuck. he’s already annoyed when you talk to other beastmen, but talking to that horned bastard just left a bad taste in his mouth.

“well, you’re more than welcome to rest on—”

“hey.” leona huffs, plopping himself beside you. malleus’ eye twitched at the sight. are you shitting me. what is he doing here? isn’t there a housewarden meeting for him to attend to? go away. “leona?! shouldn’t you be at the housewarden meeting?” you exclaim, practically taking the words right out of malleus’ mouth.

“mm, ditched. no way am i attendin something stupid like that first thing in the morning.” he shrugs, crossing his legs and making himself comfortable. “looks like someone wasn’t invited.” leona grins, pointing at the obviously annoyed prince sitting beside you. “if you had just come to insult me, then you can take your leave and save it for later, kingscholar.” malleus replies with a polite yet harsh tone.

“not everythin’s about you, lizard. can’t i care for my own underclassmen?” leona frowns, wrapping his arm around your shoulder. “..pardon?” malleus furrowed his brow, watching as the lion prince got far too touchy for his taste. “they got eye bags, probably haven’t been sleeping well. since im such a kindhearted senior, i don’t mind if they rest a lil.” he smirks, leaning you onto his shoulder.

“really?!” you shout in disbelief, nearly waking poor grim up. leona was one to never admit to anything, always keeping you guessing. seeing him so.. direct threw you and malleus for a loop. “would you rather rest on tree bark?” he raised a brow, leaning closer to your face. “nope! thanks i guess, leona.” you hastily accept, deciding not to question it.

“thanks for talking to me malleus, it kept me from falling asleep.” you smile, now shutting your eyes. in a matter of seconds, you had already fallen asleep, relieved from all the previous exhaustion. the two princes glared at one another, tensions rising to new heights. “your services are no longer needed, you can go to the housewarden meeting. consider it an invite.” leona chuckles, waving malleus off towards the hallway, earning a genuine look of anger from the usually calm and collected fae.

“i appreciate the sentiment, but i believe the child of man and i were having a heartfelt conversation before you showed up. as king of briar valley, consider yourself excused.” malleus retorts, moving you over onto his shoulder. leona scowls in return to his obvious insult, very gently moving your head back to him. “if i remember right, they chose to lean onto me. not nice taking what’s not yours.”

“don’t act like you didn’t just steal their attention.” malleus scoffs, tugging you back towards him. “why you horned bastard.” leona growls, bearing his fangs at the now smug prince. and so, the game of tug of war began. constant pulling back and forth, back and forth, it was a miracle you hadn’t waken up yet. poor prefect..

HOWEVER, a certain someone else felt the shaking, and just couldn’t stand it. grims eyes flutter open as he looks to the two housewardens tugging you left and right with a frown. “HEY,” grim shouts, startling the two as they looked down. “do ya mind?! some of us need to get a lil shut eye.” he hisses, trying to look at the very least intimidating. “shut it, pipsqueak.” leona grunts, glaring at grim.

“grim, i believe it is best if you don’t intervene.” malleus stated sternly, moving him off of your lap. “HOW DARE YOU! GRIM THE GREAT LISTENS TO NOBODY! [MC]! WAKE UP, WE’RE SLEEPING SOMEWHERE AWAY FROM THESE FREAKS.” grim shrieks, almost rupturing both of their eardrums.

you stir awake at grim’s shrill voice, rubbing your eyes with a grumble before looking downwards. “huh..? oh, tsunotaro? leona? you’re still here?” you mumble, turning your your sides to see the two boys covering their ears. “let’s get outta here and sleep somewhere else. crowley might find us and give us somethin else to do.” grim frowns, tugging your hand.

“alright, alright, jeez. calm down, will ya?” you sigh, reluctantly getting up and following him inside. “i’ll see you both later! don’t go arguing more, ya hear?” you show them a smile before grim drags you out of sight, leaving both boys dumbfounded.

“it’s your fault they left. tch, dumb lizard.” leona grunts, glaring daggers into malleus. “my fault? how about saying that again after i shave off that mane of yours?” he jeers, feeling a vein about to burst. “haah? what was that?!”

they did indeed, argue again.

A/N: three leona requests in a row is crazy 😭😭 he can’t catch a break (imagine leona bald tho)

date published: 8/25/24

© temiizpalace — do not copy, steal, or put my work into ai. thank you!

[chocosvt]

HER | part two.

✧✎ synopsis: wonwoo, a heartbroken and burnt out writer nearing the end of his math degree, wants nothing to do with the seemingly perfect, intimidating girl who has everyone under her thumb. you. unfortunately, his literary talent has got him shoved him between a rock and a hard place when you want to write a book and require his expertise. you two are the furthest from compatible. wonwoo can’t see this going well. at all.

pairing: wonwoo x fem!reader word count: 22.7k genres/tropes: writer!wonwoo, university!au, plug!vernon + boyfriend!mingyu as prominent side characters, SLOWBURN (i am not fucking around this is my slowest burn yet), relationship drama, soul searching, strong angst/hurt (i’m coming for the jugular), comfort, romance, smut, a smoothie of every emotion on earth.

(!) warnings: drug use (weed, cocaine, ecstasy), wonwoo has anxiety + anxiety attacks + fairly dark thoughts, prescribed medication, gambling, intense language, infidelity, throwing up.

✧✎ a/n: just some quick things i want to make apparent!

the fic is told from wonwoo’s pov, not the reader’s! 

all major timeline events are organized through chronological dates

any smut or potentially triggering scenes are NOT MARKED bc the content is already quite mature, so just plz be aware of that! 

bolded and italicized text implies the characters are conversing in korean, tho it doesn’t happen often!

the fic in its entirety is 140k, so it has been split into 6 parts.

updates: in terms of a posting schedule, i'm pre sure i'm just gonna post every saturday night ~12am EST (so technically sunday lol). taglist is included in the comment section since tumblr now has limit as to how many peeps are mentioned per post :p

thanks againnnn! 🌟

⇢ part one | part three | part four | part five | part six ⇢ soundtrack for those curious! ⇢ read at ur own pace! :)

—MAY 12TH.

Wonwoo was sat on his couch with your laptop glowing in front of him, one hand holding up his chin while the other scrolled slowly through your writing. Finally, you’d let him actually glean your work, and he was quite impressed with your natural skill. He supposed the biggest issue was the choppiness—your sentence structures were much like your racing tangents, and in some areas the writing lacked flow and a smooth continuality. But that sort of ability would just develop on its own as long as you were practicing.

For the most part, Wonwoo was leaving behind small notes and highlighting areas that you could revisit at a later time.

“Okay, I’m going to do a handstand.”

However, as Wonwoo had been combing through your work for the past half-hour, that left you with an apparent boredness which somehow translated into an acrobatics session in his living room.

“I’d really prefer you didn’t,” he answered through the fingers covering his mouth, his eyes trained with focus on the document.

“No, no. I used to be so good at them. Watch.”

Wonwoo was in the midst of typing a note when a small, circular embroidered pillow had suddenly struck the laptop, nearly forcing it shut. It was then that Wonwoo looked up with a long sigh, acknowledging the devious, shining smile that sprung to your face.

“Now that I have your attention—”

Wonwoo titled his head, folded his arms, and propped one foot onto the coffee table, somewhat like an exhausted parent who was being heckled by their child to watch the “special trick” they’d just learned. He was internally praying you actually were good at handstands, because that fragile pottery vase and the antique gold clock sitting on the fire mantel had never looked so breakable until now. A cool breeze slivered in through the open window as your arms began raising above your head, and he heard you inhale steadily.

“Go!” You then shouted, either in motivation or impatience aimed at yourself, loud enough to make Wonwoo flinch.

The next moment, you were basically flipped upside down, your socked feet sticking pointedly in the air while your hands stumbled about on the brown rug for a few seconds, attempting to find their place rooted in the fuzz. Wonwoo pursed his lip, impressed.

“See! Told you!”

“I mean, I never said you couldn’t.”

“Are you amazed?”

He watched with a slight bit of nervousness as you walked a few paces forward with your hands, though he kept his calm composure from the couch and dealt you about three dull claps.

“Cirque de Soleil is asking for you, actually.”

To Wonwoo’s utter relief, you collapsed back onto your feet, probably because the blood was gushing to your head and he’d rather not have you faint squarely on the face in his living room. You then sat on your knees for a moment, rubbing slowly at your scalp.

“I’m almost done,” Wonwoo reaffirmed, moving aside the stitched pillow you’d chucked at him earlier and reopening the laptop.

“Don’t let me rush you.”

He chuckled instantly. “You mean to tell me you’re not bored out of your mind? Why else would you be doing cartwheels.”

Finally, you got up from the rug.

“Um, it was a handstand,” you were hasty to correct him, now sinking into the seat beside Wonwoo on the couch with the circle pillow pulled onto your lap. “I could do a cartwheel, though.”

“Yeah, not in this house you’re not.”

“Not in this house you’re not.”

He merely smirked at your attempt to mimic him by employing a cartoonishly deep tone that you found very amusing, made evident by your prideful giggles close to his ear. Just as Wonwoo scrolled to the end of the document to type his last note, you were piqued with curiosity and leaned over his lap, grabbing at the screen to examine how far he’d come during your hour together.

“So, where are you at anyway?”

Wonwoo pressed himself back into the couch, immediately removing his hands from the keyboard. It felt like at the most random, unpredictable times you would swoop in so close to him, and he never quite knew how to react. Most times he would freeze, become stiff and hardly breathing, run his eyes in all different directions around the room because everything seemed easier when he pretended you didn’t exist.

He adjusted his glasses, cleared his throat.

“I’m basically done.”

“You are? Okay. Hm… it seems like you made a lotta notes.”

Wonwoo squirmed in his seat as though it were scratching him. You eventually pulled away, but your knee was now resting on the side of his thigh and you were sitting much closer than before—close enough that your shoulder was digging into his and he could sense your full, bright eyes burning a stare at his pink cheek.

“They’re mostly easy fixes…” he mumbled, refusing to look at you, instead scrolling impetuously through the document with jerks of his pointer and middle finger.  

“Well, what do you think of it?”

He paused, still staring at the laptop.

“Of what?”

“Wonwoo, my writing, obviously,” you said with a warm laugh and a soft breath that rushed over his neck in such a pleasurable, lightheaded way. “And look at me,” he heard you ask in a lower, more sincere voice, your fingers then ghosting along his tense jaw in a fleeting, sensitive touch as you guided his head gently in your direction, “I just want to know you’re telling the truth.”

He was accustomed to your eyes being filled with sparks and the readiness to pit the most sharp-tongued comment in history, and so Wonwoo was able to relax ever so slightly upon realizing how your gaze had become increasingly mellow, welcoming even.

“Well, you’re obviously good at it,” he managed to answer the question without his voice trembling, “just some pacing issues, mostly. You’ve got a bit of an issue with run-on sentences and closing up a scene. But you plan a lot, which is nice. I mean, you can only get better.”

An earnest smile picked its way across your face, framing your polished teeth and pushing up the apples of your cheeks. Wonwoo had to look away—sometimes it was too much—you were too much, and he refused to let himself drown beneath your intensity that he found purely terrifying. Your knee proceeded to pull from his thigh and you were now dragging your body off the couch, which meant that Wonwoo could safely exhale the breath he was holding. He wondered if you just wanted to hear the compliment, or if you were legitimately pleased with his praise.

You walked up to his fireplace mantel, examining the items left along the white, sparkling trim he’d spritzed clean of all dust.

“Did you make this?” Came your inquiry, a curious finger pointing toward the round-bottomed, thin-necked red vase.

Wonwoo shook his head.

“No, it was a welcome gift from the landlord.”

“She made it?”

“Yeah,” he hummed. “Didn’t I tell you? She owns the pottery business downstairs. Saskia. She immigrated here like, eighteen years ago, now. From Poland. I thought you might’ve run into her.”

Shaking your head, you turned back to the vase.

“I didn’t see her at all.”

“She was probably in her office.”

“How did she make all these little emblem thingies? Around the base? Like, this one’s got an elephant. This one is a fruit tree.”

Wonwoo squinted at the vase from his place on the couch. He hadn’t really examined it much, apart from when his landlord had thrust it into his hands while she welcomed him to the building. It never held any flowers, either—not even the brilliant ruby coloured poinsettias his ex-girlfriend's mother was supposed to send.

The relationship has disintegrated before it could ever happen.

“Fuck, don’t know. She has a bunch of little tools down there for more detailed work. Maybe a stamp. You’d have to ask her.”

“It’s really pretty.”

His brows furrowed. “Yeah? You like ceramics or something?”

You turned back to him, shrugging.

“I don’t know. I was just saying, it’s pretty.”

“It is. It’s very pretty.”

With a sigh, you climbed back onto the couch.

“Do you think you’re done editing?”

He picked up the laptop and set it down on the coffee table.

“I think so. For the day.”

“Perfect.” You smiled. “I’ll make time to read your notes tomorrow morning, if I can. Seems like there’s about eight-hundred.”

Wonwoo chuckled, “not eight-hundred. Try twenty.”

“Twenty?!” Your eyes bulged in shock as you gripped onto the embroidered pillow hugged back into your lap. “That’s so many!”

“What—twenty is somehow more than eight-hundred? What fucking planet are you living on where numeracy works like that?”

“Wonwoo, I have so much to do tomorrow!” You winced, tossing your head against the couch and slipping down the cushions.

“Okay, like what?”

“… Gosh… no, no. Fuck it. It doesn’t matter.”

“No, tell me. What have you got to do tomorrow?”

“I don’t want to tell.”

“Why not?” He murmured.

“If I talk about, then I’ll want to do it even less.” There was an empty sigh he heard from your chest as your arms curled tight around the pillow. “Besides, it’s squished all into my colour-coded block on the schedule. The pink one. I just—I don’t want to think about it.”

“Fair. I get that.”

“It’s complicated family stuff.”

Wonwoo huffed sympathetically. “I get that even more.”

“… So, we’re still good for Spring Street on Sunday?” You asked, staring up at Wonwoo from your sunken, defeated slump.

He nodded.

“I’ll be there if you are.”

—MAY 14TH.

The Spring Street Fair. It happened every single May, for three days straight, usually Friday to Sunday. In the daytime it was cheerier and more watered down for the children that came hand in hand with their parents, looking to feed the alpacas and ride those nauseating teacups and sob until exhaustion because they accidentally let go of their kitten-shaped balloon. However, at night, the fair had become a beacon for the older, rowdier university crowd.

Wonwoo never went despite all his recent years living in the city, but Vernon had, usually on accounts of “business” which really meant selling drugs for idiotic prices behind the Whirler or the Starship. You wanted to go, but hadn’t told Wonwoo the reason. He opted to assume it was another part of your story—maybe you ran into Mingyu at a similar fair when you were younger, and it was therefore very integral you go Spring Street tonight. It was the exact opposite of what Wonwoo typically appreciated doing on Sundays, and he knew for a fact he’d loathe it, every single part.

“No fuckin’ way!” Vernon’s voice exploded through the crackly static on Wonwoo’s phone as he stood in line for the fair, gazing over top everyone’s heads to gauge the ticket booth. “I can’t believe your loser ass actually crawled outta bed for that.”

Wonwoo scoffed, “yeah, it wasn’t my choice.”

“Then what for?”

“Her. She wanted to go. It’s for the book.”

He was supposed to meet you inside the fair. It was almost ten o’clock at night. The sky was beautifully clear, illuminated with pinpricks of starlight, and the air had once been crisp. Now, Wonwoo was beginning to smell sparked cannabis, and he assumed a likewise scent would follow him all damn night. The horrid, anxious process of standing in the mile long line was made palatable through his conversation with Vernon, who—shockingly—wasn’t even there.

“Ohh, the book, the book. Wait—she’s gonna write her book at the fuckin’ Spring Street Fair? How the fuck does that work?”

“No, it’s not like that,” Wonwoo chuckled. “It’s stuff about the settings, the environment; she uses it to help with her writing.”

“Hm, doesn’t make much sense to me, probably ‘cause I don’t like readin' or writin' or anything with books. But, damn, I’m jealous of you, Glasses. Do y’know how hard I tried to smooth talk my way into that girl’s pants? N’somehow, you can write good—”

“Write well, not good.”

“Oh, fuck you—write well—so she takes you everywhere like a little purse dog. When does that happen to me, yeah?”

The line started slowly pouring forward, and Wonwoo felt himself get dragged along. Probably another five minutes and he would be at the ticket booth, getting one of those neon bracelets circled around his wrist that were nearly impossible to rip off.

“Why didn’t you come?” Wonwoo asked.

Vernon groaned, “got into some bullshit with this guy who’s not payin’ up. I’m handlin’ it, though. If I can manage to get it all sorted, I’ll come later. It’s too fuckin’ easy selling those gummies to the first years, dude. Shit, it could be some Flintstone vitamins and they’re actin’ like Chicken Little. Cracks me the fuck up.”

Wonwoo cleared his throat, smiling. “You’re such a cunt.”

“Hey, hey, you are what you eat, okay? And, when you get inside or whatever, text me where you’re hangin’ so if I do come, I can see you for a bit. Dunno if your girlfriend will approve.”

The air began mottling with a thin, chalky smoke that drifted from somewhere down the crowded string of university students. Again, the line shuffled, and the congestion gradually broke up as more people were allowed into the fair. Wonwoo switched the phone to his other ear, getting his wallet ready.

“Don’t even start.”

“Start what? I said nothin’.” Vernon’s laughter was raspy and obviously laced with a smirk that Wonwoo could hear.

“Don’t be such a prick. She’s not my—”

Suddenly, Wonwoo’s phone began vibrating against his palm, and when he pulled it down an immediate lump conjured in his throat upon reading your name. His heart jolted, and it wasn’t until someone pushed hard on his back to urge him forward that he realized the line was once again ambling closer to the ticket booth.

Vernon sighed, “so, again, tell me where you’ll—”

“Shit—uh, gotta go. Talk to you later.”

A few remnants of Vernon’s miffed, guttural cursing managed to leak through the phone before Wonwoo could press to accept your call. In an instant, his friend was blipped away, and he heard your voice instead. He held back a cough from the astringent, cottonish air.

“Wonwoo, hello. I’m glad you picked up. So, where the hell are you? It’s nearly ten! Did you not get in line early?”

Wonwoo kept the phone secured between his shoulder and ear while he shimmied the coins out from his wallet.

“No, I did, promise. Just about to pay. Where are you?”

“When you get in, just follow the arrows. They're lit up with those blue lightbulbs. They go to the tavern. I’m having some drinks with my friends. Don’t worry. You won’t have to do much socializing.”

“Uh, okay,” Wonwoo answered, internally counting up the money in his hand until he was certain of the amount. “Mingyu’s there?”

“No. He always plays poker with his friends on Sunday.”

An unbeknownst pressure escaped his chest.

“Okay. I’m close to the front. I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Sure. Don’t be late!”

“I know. Bye.”

Hanging up the phone, Wonwoo had just enough time to wriggle the device into his back pocket before handing the ticket booth clerk his coins. She dropped the cold change into his hand, then asked to see his wrist, where she proceeded to attach the bracelet with the words Spring Street Fair etched into the orange, plasticky-feeling paper.

Finally, he was let inside.

Blue arrows, blue arrows—that was all Wonwoo kept reiterating in his head like some religious hymn as he followed the glow throughout the fairgrounds, weaving his way between large groups of people that he gleefully didn’t recognize. Eventually, he saw the tavern you were referring to—an outdoor bar with picnic tables set up everywhere, beneath cheap little strings of warm, lambent lights.

Even with his glasses on, Wonwoo was still squinting as he walked between each table, attempting to discern your dolled-up face somewhere amongst the strangers sipping on their large mugs of alcohol, that was until he heard his name being called over the music rumbling from the bar’s horrible speakers. When he looked straight ahead, he saw you cutely waving him over. With each step he took, Wonwoo reminded himself to breathe, to loosen up, to stop clenching his fists so painfully tight as though he were going to split someone’s eyebrow. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Just breathe.

You stood up from the table to welcome him, and he felt your hand settle softly on his lower back. The touch was grounding.

“So, everyone, girls, if I could get your attention for just a moment despite the general impairment going on here—this is the mystery guy whose been helping me write. Wonwoo.”

God—he wanted to puke, all those big, curious, unabashed eyes soaking him in like freshly dipped watercolour to a cloth canvas. There was a cluster of high-pitched voices that repeated his name in a shrill, unison greeting. However, Wonwoo was unable to meet a single girl’s gaze, and so he opted to stare down at a paper plate on the table aligned with cinnamon-sprinkled churros.

Again, he wanted to throw up.

“So, of course, Wonwoo’s been the biggest help with everything,” you said, to which he could sense your nails subtly digging at him through his clothes, most likely a silent urge to say something so he didn’t seem so unprecedentedly stiff and metallic.

He cleared his throat.

“Uh, yeah. I’m just proofreading, really.” Wonwoo had to swallow. “Some tips here and there. But, she’s pretty good as is.”

“Is that your actual voice?”

His eyes darted to find who asked the question. She was toward the end of the picnic table, tucking a lock of short, coffee brown hair behind her ear. Before the girl was a gigantic and fluorescent pink drink, the glass resembling the shape of a fish bowl.

“… What do you mean?” Wonwoo replied.

She sat up on her knee, continuing to ogle him with those fixated but glazed chestnut eyes. Her mouth seemed to drag as though it was thawing when she spoke. Wonwoo could tell she was already well inebriated. There was no way that was her first drink.

“Your voice,” she repeated, “it’s so… deep.”

“Well… I don’t know. Puberty.”

His comment elicited some giggles from around the table, to which he could feel the cartilage in his ears burning.

“Wonwoo—” another girl then leaned forward with her head tilted up and a coy, drunk smile flittering on her mouth, “—I think it’s so, so great you’re helping Her write. I actually think it’s the sweetest, ever.” Her lashes were coated in smooth mascara and her eyelids were remarkably glimmery, drenched in an electric shade of blue that he couldn’t stop staring at. “Also, sorry, but you’re like, super gorge.”

“Super what?” He repeated, confused at her wording.

But she didn't seem interested in repeating herself, instead scooping the long and impressively silky black hair off her shoulder to spill down her pale back.

“Okay, okay, okay. We’ve all shared some impetuous conversation and we’ve all swooned over him now. Yippee. Unfortunately, we’ve gotta get going, friends.”

Wonwoo felt your hand land on his shoulder and gently tug him backward, away from the table. You then proceeded to grab the glass left at your seat, chugging the remaining alcohol until there was nothing but a melting block of ice cubes clicking at the bottom. While you wiped your mouth, you began aiming a finger at each girl.

“To make a long story short, that’s Princess, Clara, and Bells. Do you have any comments for them before we go?” The impatience in your tone was bleeding through with sheer apathy.

Wonwoo shrugged. “Uh, nice to meet everyone? I guess.”

“Short and efficient. How perfect. Okay, I’ll see you guys later, I think. Actually—probably not. So can someone eat my churros?”

Your arm curled around Wonwoo’s bicep as though to whisk him away as hurriedly as possible. Everyone left at the table began waving, and Wonwoo couldn’t even bring himself to force a fake, pleasant smile because he was still attempting to understand what all those comments even meant. You walked briskly until the poetic, firefly lights of the tavern were lost long behind in the distance, and when you finally paused, he had not a clue where he was standing—a busy centre with people mingling all around him, the wild whirring of carnival rides and chaotic, blinking hues strobing above his head.

When he looked down at you, he was surprised to see you were already staring back, and he could only hold the eye contact for no more than a few seconds or else his heart would skip a beat.

“Sorry about all that,” you said, rolling your shoulders, “I tried to be somewhat reasonable with my drinking for once. I can’t say the same for Clara and Bells. They guzzle cocktails like apple juice.”

“Bells is… the one with all that sparkly blue eyeshadow?”

“Oh—yeah. She loves sparkles. Glitter. Anything glimmery. She’s been like that ever since I’ve known her. Clara was the one who asked about your voice. She has a thing for guys with deep voices and you unfortunately fit the bill. And I’m sorry that Princess didn’t say anything. She kind of just looks and observes. Also I’m like ninety-eight percent sure she popped something in a porta-potty before we met up so she’s probably in a mental state of star-surfing. Anyway. You don’t have to worry about them, alright? It’s just us for tonight.”

 “Well, that’s… easy enough.”

“I’m not sure if we should stand here.”

“Hm?”

You then pointed to something behind Wonwoo, and when he turned his head, he felt a gust of wind from the gigantic, spinning ride that resembled a flying saucer in the nighttime sky. It was always beyond him why anyone would choose to strap themselves into a machine that terrifying. It made him sick just watching.

“If I get throw up on my head, I’m killing myself.”

“Okay, so let’s find somewhere else.”

As he began walking away in search of a quieter area, you grabbed onto the back of his clothes. Wonwoo raised his eyebrow.

“We have to hold hands, or have arms linked,” you said.

For some reason, Wonwoo presumed you were joking, and so he tilted his head at you with a questioning smile. But when your serious expression didn’t crack, he realized it wasn’t a joke at all.

“Oh… why?”

“Because—” you then took a step toward him and spoke matter-of-factly, like you were reading a rule book, “—it’s the buddy system. Always have someone at your side, and make sure you’re linked in some way. It’s too easy to get separated in places like this, otherwise. Have you never heard of that before?”

“I have,” Wonwoo answered, adjusting his glasses. “My—um, my hands are a little cold. I don’t have the best circulation.”

The truth was, Wonwoo didn’t want to hold your hand. He didn’t want to link arms with you. He didn’t want you pressed into his side all night. He didn’t want to have the scent of your hair under his nose or feel your ticklish breath against his neck each time you spoke.

But he didn’t have a good enough excuse to fight it.

“Oh my god, who cares,” you retorted. “And I have super sweaty hands. Like, uncomfortably warm. We'll balance out.”

 “Actually?”

“Yes! Is that a problem for you, sweetheart?”

Wonwoo quickly shook his head in response to your condescending tone. You then reached for his hand, which he offered up for your required holding, and chose to ignore the butterflies in the deep pit of his stomach when he realized how perfectly your fingers slotted with his. He followed your lead through the fair until you came outside a small lemonade booth. Wonwoo thought you would drop his hand, but you didn’t, and his knees felt like gelatine.

“I want another drink,” you told him.

He squinted at their options, which didn’t really consist of much. The prices were obviously insane—it was another reason he hated going to fairs. His wallet always got cleaned out.

“You’re going to have to use the washroom a lot.”

“Ugh,” you gritted in response, brushing some hair from your face, “I hate public washrooms. They’re so gross. Completely unsanitary. Awful maintenance. One time I was here and I walked into the washroom by the Mirror Hall and I swear, a freaking rat ran across the floor! I screamed bloody murder. I’d rather squat in the bush and risk getting, like, poison ivy. But the washrooms have mirrors obviously, and I like checking my makeup and stuff. I wish I could check now.”

“Right now? I mean, your makeup looks fine.”

Wonwoo saw your entire face freeze, and then begin to warp, as though he’d just said the most dreadful thing he could think of.

“Fine?” You glared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He started stumbling over his words, feeling his chest tighten.

“So, what you’re saying is that I look ugly? That my makeup looks bad? Because if you really thought it was ‘fine’ then you wouldn’t have said it looks ‘fine’ because everyone knows that word is a substitute for passable and passable is just a substitute for ugly!”

He opened his mouth, then instantly closed it.

“So what’s wrong with it? Are my under eyes creasing? Is my contour too dark? Is my lipstick smudged? Did it get on my teeth? Ugh, I knew I should have brought my compact!”

“No, no, no.” Wonwoo squeezed your hand, hoping that he could somehow undo the damage he had no intention of even inflicting in the first place. “Uh—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. You look—” he wasn’t sure he could say the compliment without shivering, but Wonwoo didn’t care in the moment, “—your makeup is beautifully done. There’s no creasing or smudging, there’s none of that."

You kept touching worrisomely at your face. “Are you sure?”           

“I promise.” Wonwoo confirmed, giving your hand another tight, reassuring squeeze that seemed to calm you down.

He had never seen someone switch gears that quickly. You could be perfectly amicable one second, and then break down into near hysteria the next, a slew of anxious thoughts running straight from your brain to your mouth like clockwork.

Wonwoo wondered how Mingyu dealt with such tangents all the time. The trait almost didn’t seem to fit your image.

The line moved forward another step.

“Are you going to drink anything?” You asked after a moment of silence, in a quieter voice. “I want to get the strawberry refresher.”

“Maybe.”

“What will you get?”

“I… don’t know. A regular lemonade?”

“No,” you shook your head, pointing toward the corner of the booth’s menu, “get the pina colada thing. I want to try it, too.”

“Okay,” Wonwoo agreed with a shrug as he retrieved his wallet, not really caring about what he drank. “I’ll pay for it. No worries.”

The longer Wonwoo was at the fair, the less he actually thought about why he was there, until the question leapt into his mind at random while he stood beside you, waiting for a seat on the dauntingly large Farris wheel. He removed the straw from his mouth, swallowing a gulp of his pina colada flavoured drink, and peered down at you. His hand was still interlinked with yours. You had finished the strawberry refresher in about five minutes.

Now, you were texting someone. He didn’t know if it was a friend from earlier or perhaps your boyfriend, but Wonwoo wasn’t a serious sleuth, so he opted to look away despite the natural urge that was pricking him. When you finally tucked the phone back into the small bag slung around your shoulder, Wonwoo lowered the plastic cup from his mouth, making sure to clear his throat.

“So, uh, why are we here, exactly?”

You sniffled. “What do y’mean?”

“Does the fair have anything to do with your writing? Is that why we’re riding the Farris wheel? Oh—speaking of which, I didn’t think to bring the camcorder, in case you wanted any footage.”

“Oh, no,” you said, waving a dismissive hand, “this has nothing to do with my book. We’re palate cleansing.”

“Palate cleansing?” He echoed.

“Yeah. It’s like, doing something different in between a routine, to keep yourself fresh. You always eat breakfast at home but today you skip it and go out for brunch. Y’know, shit like that.”

Wonwoo huffed in amusement. “You could have told me beforehand.”

“Uh, no—” your face scrunched up in clear disagreement, “—I couldn’t, because then you wouldn’t have gone. No offence, but you’re a hermit, Wonwoo. You don’t really like going anywhere or doing anything and you’re definitely one of those people who bores themselves into hating their own life because your stimuli is so limited. That’s why I didn’t tell. Again, no offence.”

“Oh.”

That was all he could string together in response—not even string together, because it was just one boring, monotone sound that basically got carried away in the chilly wind, tinted with the smell of buttery popcorn and weed. It sounded like something that was supposed to sting, but it didn’t really. Maybe he was growing more accustomed to your unprompted judgements on his personal life.

Suddenly Wonwoo had blinked and you two were next in line for the empty cart. The clerk pointed at Wonwoo’s drink.

“You can’t bring that with you,” he said.

Before Wonwoo could think to respond, you had already grabbed the cup from his hand, chucking it straight into the garbage.

“We’re not.”

Pulling on his hand, you guided him into the shaky cart, both of you squishing onto the cold, metal bench. It was quite literally the tamest ride in the entire fair, and yet Wonwoo was still feeling nervous about it—though, that was possibly the fact he was going to be sailed one-hundred feet into the satin black sky, left amongst the stars and the bright, shimmering halo of the moon with you and you alone. He was actually relieved you had tossed his drink, otherwise he might have dropped it due to the trembling in his fingers. It was easier to fiddle with them in order to disguise their shakiness.

“I guess I should have asked if you’re afraid of heights,” you said.

The cart jerked abruptly as the ride began to move and lift you two ever so gradually from the ground. Wonwoo peered over the edge for a brief moment to watch his distance grow from the people below, their jumbled mess of conversations fading in place of quiet.

“Uh, no. I’m okay with heights,” he finally answered.

He saw you glancing down as well, smiling to yourself.

Wonwoo wasn’t sure if he should attempt at conversation or just maintain the stillness between you. Usually, he couldn’t stand it, and the pressure to talk and fill the silence always tended to fail or squander something potentially enjoyable. But he supposed it was typically like that in a situation where two people weren’t the best acquainted—that’s why Wonwoo always quite liked Vernon, despite his rough, nonconformed edges and often vulgar way of speaking.

He was able to carry a conversation so naturally that the quieter moments never felt suffocating, instead falling exactly where they should, like puzzle pieces. But that was harder with you.

Maybe it was because you could be intimidating, unpredictable—Wonwoo was never truly relaxed around you because there was this intangible, looming worry that he needed to have the perfect responses and be the most perfect person. He found that perfect people only hung out with other perfect people and Wonwoo was certainly not that—perfect. You must have seen it by now. He was just as rough as Vernon no doubt, but in a different, hidden way that had to be dug into like an archeologist looking for broken bones.

The Ferris wheel slowed down, coming to a stop. You weren’t at the very top, though the air was notably cooler and much fresher. When he inhaled a long breath, it smelled purely of night and not overpriced, buttery fair food and burning weed. He noted that you stared straight ahead, at the crescent-shaped moon, which mirrored a backward stare with how squarely it sat in front of the ride. For once, Wonwoo wasn’t squirming, wriggling, stressing at the silence. When he spoke, he did it because he genuinely wanted to.

“How was your Saturday?”

“My Saturday?”

“Yeah. I saw the schedule. You had to run a bunch of errands with your mom. Looked like you were pretty keyed up.”

“Oh, yeah. I mean, I want to say I was overreacting the day before about how much I was dreading it. But then it fucking happened. And… I, uh… I realized I was exactly right. It was awful. I did get to your notes, though… yeah—I just—I squeezed them in between brunch with my mom’s friend who could talk herself to death and the excruciating car ride to the publisher’s office.”

“Mmhm.” Wonwoo smiled tenderly. “Did they help at all?”

“Yeah,” you breathed out, “a lot, actually… thank you.”

“I’m sorry your Saturday went so terribly.”

Huffing in response, you nibbled on your inner check.

“Yeah, well, it is what it is… I already knew it was gonna be a shit show. So, what is it that you write about, anyway? Because you seem like you know a whole lot. Seokmin says you let him read some of your poetry, but it was only like, two excerpts.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Wonwoo recalled the memory of Seokmin picking up his leather notebook when it fell out from his bag one day. He’d pestered him about the contents until Wonwoo succumbed and presented him with some lifeless, impatiently scribbled prose that he’d most likely jerked out on the bus or in between his lectures. Seokmin seemed to treat it like fine, prestigious gold, though Wonwoo knew it was the least personal of his work that he would never let another living soul on the planet breathe—not one scent of the ink or even the paper.

“So, you write poetry?”

“I started writing poetry, haikus and all that easy stuff. I developed the interest a lot more through high school. But I never sat down and tried writing anything like a novel until I... I started uni.”

“Yeah. Deciding to be a math major. I still don’t get it,” you sighed, fidgeting with some rings on your fingers. “But what do you even write about? Like, what’s your inspiration?”

Wonwoo paused, looking down at his knees.

“… Life.”

“Life?” You defeatedly slumped into the seat. “That’s the million dollar answer your intelligent brain chose to erect? It’s just that when I think about it, I’m letting you help me with my writing, but I’ve never even read a little smidgen of yours. How’s that fair?”

The higher the Farris Wheel climbed, the stronger the breeze blew, and Wonwoo could feel its tendrils lashing across his cheeks and parting through his hair. You huddled further into your jacket.

“Well, you took Seokmin’s word for it,” Wonwoo laughed.

Your eyes rolled, but you smiled gently. “I know.”

Suddenly, your hand had reached out, and you were pushing the floppy, black tresses off his forehead. Wonwoo’s fingers dug bluntly into his arms. You then angled yourself in the small cart, looking back at him, sculpting your gaze to each crest in his face.

“Why don’t you ever push your hair back?”

The question hit the dark, cold atmosphere like a sizzling ember and Wonwoo was afraid to even open his mouth because he was certain a dying squeak would come out. You continued to play around with the locks, earthing your fingers deep into its texture and attempting to style it despite the persistent, fluttering breeze.

“Um…”

“If you styled it like this—” you moved in closer, staring with so much focus at your nimble movements, “—yeah, like that. It shows off your forehead, gives you a bit of class. I mean, the wind’s messing it up. You don’t tend to do anything with your hair.”

“No.” Wonwoo swallowed, hard.

“Well, you should. Not all the time, obviously. And I’m not saying you look bad with it down—not at all. But you’ve got nice, smouldering features and they’re so much more… framed… when you show your forehead.” You collapsed back into the seat, and that tingly feeling he experienced when your fingers had been tugging and pulling was disseminating throughout his entire body. “I mean, look at how my friends reacted to you. I should apologize for that again, by the way. O-M-F-G, they see one hot guy, and they lose their grip.”

He nearly choked. “Hot?”

It didn’t sound right. Not at all.

“Well, what the fuck, Wonwoo? You’re not ugly.”

“Did you think that when you first saw me?”

You had folded your leg again as the Farris wheel came to another stop. This time, at the very top, at the centre of the night.

“Did I think what? That you’re not ugly?”

“Never mind,” Wonwoo grimaced, hearing the cart creek as you better positioned yourself to face him. “It’s pathetic like that.”

“No. I didn’t think you were ugly. Did you think I was ugly?”

Wonwoo wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of the question, but he smothered it down because he knew one little laugh might hit your ear the wrong way, and it would be flames, sputtering and spewing. Obviously, he didn’t think you were ugly—he never had, even before he ever spoke to you. But he wasn’t so shallow as to only regard someone’s physical appearance. You were still terrifying.

“I wouldn’t consider anyone ugly... and I wouldn’t ever use it to describe some aesthetically. But—I mean, I think people can become ugly through their personality, if that makes sense.”

“Yeah, like, if they’re rotten inside.”

“Mmhm.”

“I agree.”

“What was that word your friend Bells said?”

You shrugged, “which word?”

“She said something like, you’re super… I don’t know… super something.”

“Oh—” you sat up more in the cart, your back pressed against the uncomfortable corner, “—Bells said you were super gorge.”

“Meaning…”

“Meaning super gorgeous.” You made a big show of the rehashed compliment, parroting your friend's tone and swaying your shoulders.

“Oh… really?” Wonwoo shook his head. “I thought she was referring to gorge as in when you gorge yourself, from eating.”

“No,” you giggled at him, “it’s a short form, dumb-dumb.”

“Why make a short form out of that? Is it really that strenuous to say the word gorgeous? It’s only an extra syllable.”

“Okay, well, this isn’t the nineteen-twenties. We don’t all cross our T’s and dot our I’s. It reminds me of how you text.”

He furrowed his brow. “How do I text?”

Your eyes rolled frivolously. “I dunno. Like you’re typing to a business colleague or something. You’re so formal. When I think of you texting, I imagine it’s like someone using a typewriter. And that funny little ding sound it makes whenever you start a new line.”

“Oh.”

“What—no one’s ever told you that before? No way.”

“That I text like I’m using a fucking typewriter? No, actually. I can’t say I’ve heard that.”

“Well, it’s not a big deal. You’re just not very plugged into the internet, I suppose. Which is a good thing. It gives you prestige.”

At that, Wonwoo chuckled. “Does it?”

“Yes,” you smiled, eyes full of starlight, “and—just ignore Bells, okay? She was being kind of weird but that can be fully attributed to those three shots I told her not to take.”

“Hm.”

You continued to stare at him with a plotting smile.

“Hm what? What’s the matter?” The metal of the cart squeaked as you leaned forward, your voice suddenly lathered in mischief. “Did you think she was cute?” He heard your tone drop, and your low, smooth voice breathing hot against his ear. “Did you think about fucking her, Wonwoo?”

“No—what the fuck—not at all.” Quickly, he’d pushed you away and off his shoulder, to which you retreated into the corner with a giggle that should have made his skin crawl, but didn’t.

“Well, how would I know?” You answered, tilting your head and stretching out your arms high into the blackness, as though you were trying to reach for a star. “I never know, because you never look at me. It makes me think you just lied and you do think I’m ugly.”

Wonwoo glanced over the edge of the cart, at the almost nauseating distance between himself and the fairgrounds, covered with miniature, bustling people that seemed like breadcrumbs by comparison to their place in the sky. He didn’t want to sink into this conversation. Besides, how was he supposed to look at you when your fingers were just gliding through his hair and your lips were whispering close enough to brush up against his ear? How was he supposed to act composed? Normal?

“Hey, Wonwoo?” Your fingers snapped.

But he just kept thinking. Like he was cut from a separate cloth than you—the fabric of his universe wasn’t woven with yours and he could ruminate as much as he wanted to and it was impossible to hear your intrusions. Why couldn’t he look at you?

You intimidated him, yes. You scared him, double yes.

He already knew that. It couldn’t just be that.

“Wonwoo? God… you shut down over the simplest things.”

“I don’t know.”

You paused, staring him up and down, perplexed.

“What? What do you mean?”

“I don’t know why I can’t look at you.”

There was a lasting silence between you. Wonwoo felt like he might throw up for acknowledging the fact out loud, and his fist tightened in his lap as though to ground himself—to remember where he was and to breathe slowly, because having a panic attack on top of a stupid Ferris Wheel was the last place it should happen. He hadn’t even realized that you’d shifted closer, one leg curled beneath you while you spoke at the side of his head. But he didn’t hear you, couldn’t see you—there was a harsh void inside him that sounded like suctioning air and static. His fingernail was pressing so deeply into the flesh of his pale skin that it was beginning to faintly bleed.

And—all of a sudden—there were these hands cautiously gripping onto his face, pulling him toward you. He kept staring at the movement of your soft lips, focusing on their pronunciation until everything flooded back in one overwhelming whirl and it felt like being slammed by a freight train.

Wonwoo then grabbed onto your bare knee as a crutch. He didn’t mean to. But you didn’t seem to care.

“—everything okay? Wonwoo? Do I need to like, call someone? Because you look like you’re going to be sick.”

He heaved in a gaping breath, feeling how cold the midnight air was in the thinning atmosphere that encompassed him. It was soothing, akin to a hand massaging along his back.

“Wonwoo?” You repeated his name, sounding awfully scared.

Pulling off his glasses, he rubbed at his eyes. He blurrily saw you touch the spot on your knee where his hand had buried into.

“Sorry,” he then coughed through the heartbeat raspy in his throat, bringing the glasses back to his face, “I spaced out.”

“Spaced out?” You echoed. “That wasn’t spacing out.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He thought you fight might it.

“Well…” you sighed, glancing around uncertainly, “are you okay? Is there someone you want to call? I don’t know.”

But you didn’t. Thank God.

“No, I’m—” he stopped, gulping back the words.

“… Yeah?” There was a softer intrigue in your cadence.

Wonwoo looked at you. Fully this time. He looked straight into your eyes that were like a glossy, moonlit ocean, detailed with swirling riptides of surprise and apprehensiveness, but also immense depth that seemed genuinely appreciative of his gesture.

“I’m fine.”

And then he watched you nod, smile, and in return study his cavern eyes with the same intensity and wonder. It was such a peculiar experience, staring at you, understanding a little more of your truth, your gentleness.

He didn’t feel as scared.

—MAY 16TH.

Wonwoo had been standing before the mirror in his washroom for the past half-hour or so, primarily just staring, examining, and pulling at the long, limp fronds of his hair. There was a point in his life when he legitimately put effort into styling it, and all his old hair products were still sitting in the cabinet. Though, his ex-girlfriend had tended to help him with it most days, because he found the strands were just too thick and stubborn to work with.

However, since the Spring Street Fair, Wonwoo hadn’t been able to shake those comments you made—about how nicely his face could be framed and the smouldering nature of his features. He would never think to describe himself that way as it seemed particularly pompous and kind of foolish, but hearing you say it was different. The thing was, Wonwoo had no idea where to start, and attempting to rummage his fingers through his hair just didn’t feel as stimulating or electric compared to your meticulous, sweet touch.

In the midst of opening his cabinet for a comb, Wonwoo heard his phone vibrate. He looked down at the sink, seeing the screen brighten with a text notification from Vernon.

[ Vernon | 12:54 pm ]: hey Glasses

[ Vernon | 12:54 pm ]: Solar Pop at 2?

Wonwoo thought about it for a moment, running his thumb down the spine of the comb to hear the little thwip. And then he sighed in decision, texting back a thumbs up. It’s not like he was working later, and as much as Wonwoo would love to believe that today might be the day he made actual progress on his own story, he knew it was just wishful thinking. In reality he’d waste ample time staring into the document, pondering all the scenes and emotions and nuances he could write rather than moving to write anything at all.

Besides, he hadn’t eaten yet today. The thought of a juicy, sauce-slathered, bun-toasted burger being his first meal prompted the boy’s face to sallow greenly with sickness, but the longer he stood in the washroom, combing and slicking and running styling balm through the black bird’s nest on his head, Wonwoo felt the hunger start to bite like an emaciated, starved dog. He left his apartment knowing he would be somewhat late, but Vernon was always later.

And while Wonwoo sat in one of the booths at Solar Pop, flicking the laminated menu back and forth despite knowing the exact order he was going to place, he thought about sending Vernon another text to ask where the hell he even was. Wonwoo could only sip his slippery glass of coke for so long until the waitress decided he was crazy and had been one-hundred percent stood up.

“Hey, fuck, I’m here.”

2:24 pm—that’s when Vernon finally arrived, sliding himself into the leather bench opposite to Wonwoo while tossing his big, metallic clump of keys onto the table. The boy then proceeded to shimmy off his black jacket, propping his elbows onto the table.

If Vernon ever pulled a tardy stunt like that with you, Wonwoo imagined his friend would probably get stuffed into one of those boxes for sawing people in half. Except it wouldn’t be magic.

“Did you get pulled over or something? Police raid? Traffic stop?” Wonwoo asked, now resting his menu down flat.

Vernon laughed, shaking his head. “Uh, no. Couldn’t find my fuckin’ car keys,” he spoke in a breathless voice. “Sorry ‘bout it.”

“Couldn’t find them?” Wonwoo almost scoffed at the excuse while his friend began scouring his way through the menu. “Dude, they’re the fucking size of a bowling ball. How could you lose them?”

“Okay, okay. Fuckin’ skin me alive, why don’t you?”

“You didn’t come from your place, I’m guessing.”

At that, Vernon began to grin, the metal on his pierced lip glinting underneath a ray of sunlight through the blinds. He was still occupied with choosing which burger he wanted. Wonwoo picked the same choice every time. Vernon always tried something different.

“No, I didn’t,” he rasped, flashing his sharp teeth and flipping the menu over, “but when Maleeha Rabia sends you a text at goddamn one in the morning of her tits, you don’t roll over n’ go to bed like some loser. Besides, my ecstasy was just sittin’ around and I had to use it one way or another. Anyway, doesn’t fuckin’ matter. I think I’ll get the Double Bacon Crunch Burger. Sounds good as hell.”

Finally, Vernon threw the menu down with conviction.

“Jesus Christ—” his copper-burnt eyes then flared open as he looked across the table at his friend, “—who the fuck are you?”

Wonwoo itched his nose. “Um, what?”

Vernon leaned forward, seeming captivated. “Uh, your fuckin’ hair? How’d you get it like that? It’s all brushed over and soft lookin’ and shit. I feel like I shouldn’t be sittin’ with you, Prince Charmin’.”

“I just put some balm in it, combed it around,” he answered, reaching for his drink. “Took me a humiliating amount of time.”

“Well, consider me starstruck. What’s made you do all that?”

Before Wonwoo could answer, the waitress returned to the table with her small notepad and shiny pen. Vernon pitched his order first, and Wonwoo followed, asking for the regular quarter-pounder with a side of hot crinkle-cut fries. Once she whisked the menus away and promised to grab Vernon’s root beer float, Wonwoo realized he still had to answer his friend’s question. He didn’t exactly want to tell the truth, because he knew Vernon would never let him hear the end of it, but Wonwoo also didn’t want to be too dishonest.

“Your face is doin’ that thing.”

“What thing?” Wonwoo answered, swallowing his sip of soda.

Vernon crossed his arms on the table, accenting the canvas of darkly-inked tattoos needled into his skin. He shook his head.

“It’s ‘cause of your little girlyfriend, isn’t it?”

Fuck. Wonwoo should have just opened his mouth straight away and spieled out some quick-witted lie. Now he would be painfully subject to Vernon’s unfiltered teasing. Leaning back in his seat, Wonwoo unearthed a miserable sigh at Vernon’s smirk.

“You’ve gotta drop that bullshit.”

“It’s true,” Vernon pressured.

“No, it’s not.”

As though to interpret Wonwoo’s steadfastness as a challenge, Vernon leaned further over the table, dropping his voice but still smiling devilishly through every word he mimicked between his teeth.

“Oh, Wonwoo, your hair looks so fucking sexy like that. It makes you look so perfect. You’re from my dreams. Please, just fuck me right here, right now so I can push my fingers through it ‘cause it’s so soft and silky and I’m basically in love with you.”

“Shut the fuck up. Please.”

“That was a good impression, though, wasn’t it?”

In the loud space of Wonwoo’s disgusted silence, the waitress placed Vernon’s drink onto the table and ensured the food would be coming soon. Vernon watched her walk away, back into the kitchen.

“Hey,” he then grinned in capitulating fashion, “take a stupid joke, alright? I know she’s not in love with you and she doesn’t wanna suck your dick—she’s got a fuckin’ boyfriend. If it makes you feel any better, I’m just projectin’ ‘cause you know I’m jealous.”

Wonwoo sucked in a sip from his coke, shaking his head.

“There’s nothing to be jealous of.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Vernon dismissed, poking his spoon at the near perfect scoop of vanilla ice cream afloat in the frosty mug, “but just so y’know, your mopey ass left me out to dry on Sunday night. Shoved me off the phone, didn’t respond to one of my texts. You’re lucky I even asked you t’hang today. Did she take your phone or something’?”

Shit. When Vernon said it like that, Wonwoo seemed like a terrible friend. Maybe he did deserve a deal of teasing. But at the same time, Wonwoo knew how easy it was for your attitude to flip and he hadn’t been at all interested in starting the night with hostility.

“Okay, fair.” He admitted, rolling up his sleeves.

“And?” Vernon raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“I’m sorry.”

“There you fuckin’ go. That’s all I wanted t’hear, Glasses.”

The truth was, Wonwoo actually quite enjoyed his time with you that night—despite the transient, bickering hiccups and his nearly faltering panic attack, he had fun. Actual fun. Of course, as soon as your ride ended on the Ferris wheel, you’d clutched onto his hand like a snake sinking in its fangs and dragged him throughout the entirety of the fair to find a washroom. Nonetheless, he really loved playing some carnival games with you, like skee ball and the water pistol. He was even able to win you a pink stuffed bear that you had carried close to the chest for the remainder of your time at the fair.

Wonwoo thought he could spend another night like that with you again. Just to get out of his apartment, to feel exhilaration in the pit of his stomach, to laugh until his lungs dried out, to hold your warm, comforting hand in his even when it became too clammy or inconvenient because otherwise you would scold him for letting go.

“Food’s on the way,” Vernon perked up like a child about to be served a slice of birthday cake as the waitress walked over with two full plates, “if you can’t finish yours, I’ll take it.”

“Yeah—how about you focus on chewing and not choking to death first,” Wonwoo sighed, watching his friend’s metaphorical tail wag.

Once she set the food down, inquiring about any refills, and left while flashing her perfected customer service smile, Vernon grabbed the burger with both his hands, taking a gigantic, succulent bite that somehow didn’t singe the roof of his mouth. Wonwoo winced, instead going for his crisped, golden fries.  

“Damn. You’re really that hungry?”

“I’m ravenous,” Vernon mumbled, picking up a few caramelized onions that fell onto his plate. “Dude, I woke up at noon in Maleeha’s bed. She was out cold. Nothin’ in her pantry but some stale fuckin’ Fruit Loops that I may have tried. I’m a grown ass man. I need a meal.”

“I’m glad you’re so proactive," Wonwoo answered, sinking his burning hot fry into the small side-bowl of ketchup.

It took them less than half an hour to clean their plates. Wonwoo tended to eat at a slower pace, with smaller, more savoury bites, while Vernon sloppily devoured his entire burger and gobbled down his fries with the occasional dipping into the root beer float’s ice cream. They scarcely talked in between, too focused on eating and drinking. Wonwoo pushed away his plate when he’d finished and proceeded to wipe off his salty, crumb-speckled fingers with a napkin, meanwhile Vernon took a moment to sink backward into the leather seat, placing a hand over his full, satiated stomach.

“Hey, do y’think they have any Life Savers?” He eventually piped up while sticking a toothpick into his mouth. “I want grape.”

Wonwoo scoffed, tossing the napkin onto his plate and taking out his phone. “Who the fuck likes grape?”

“Me, you smartass,” Vernon answered, turning backward in his seat and scanning the restaurant for any colourful candy bowls.

He couldn’t deny that he was hoping to see a text from you, but there was nothing, and his chest dropped. Wonwoo decided to open the schedule you had made, curious as to what you were even doing today—work until five o’clock, and then you were going out for supper with some friends at Terra Cotta.

He thought about texting you. His thumbs kept hovering above the keyboard in contemplation, even though he knew for certain he wouldn’t text anything. He would just stare and hope.

“Holy shit. Uh, oh my God. Wonwoo. I-I see—”

Vernon had suddenly reached a hand onto the table, slapping the lacquered wood a few times to garner his attention.

“What?” He mumbled in agitation, keeping his focus glued to the phone. “If you see the Life Savers just go up and take some. I swear, they’re not gonna fucking care you’re not twelve years old.”

“No, no, no, dumbass,” Vernon hissed, turning back around in the booth, his honey eyes glistering in oils of dread and panic. “Look, actually look. That’s Mingyu, isn’t it?”

Immediately, Wonwoo clicked off his phone, instead squinting into the distant corner of the restaurant where a notably tall, black-haired boy with tanned, amber skin had emerged from a doorway, standing in a somehow casual but imposing way that only be Mingyu.

It must be Mingyu, and that fact became glaringly obvious when Wonwoo made the unintentional, floundering mistake of staring straight into the boy’s wandering and earthen brown eyes.

“Oh my fuckin’ God, oh my fuckin’ God,” Vernon kept reiterating under his breath, bouncing his knee like an anxious student waiting for their test. “He definitely saw us. Or—he definitely saw you. This is so bad, man. I think he’s gonna rock me.”

“What?” Wonwoo whispered back harshly, attempting to float his gaze away from Mingyu in a casual manner. “For what reason?”

It seemed like Vernon almost wanted to gag at him. “Um—because of what fuckin’ happened between me n’ his girl! At that party? I told you about that shit, didn’t I?” He rasped from across the table, his bottom lip worried between biting teeth. “Dude, what if he tries to pull a fast one? You’re what—like six foot something? You have to help back me up. I can throw a pretty solid punch—even better when I’m shit-faced—but that might not be enough. Lady Liberty’s built like a brick.”

“Okay, you’re acting crazy,” Wonwoo uttered in disbelief. “I doubt he’s going to be anything but physical, especially in a public place. And, you said you didn’t know Her was in a relationship.”

“How the fuck do I know he knows that? Can’t exactly use my infectious charm on someone whose girlfriend I tried to rail.”

Vernon somehow dared to spare another rapid glance over his shoulder, only to shed an entire mould of colour from his complexion.

“He’s coming, he’s—”

“Shut up and relax,” Wonwoo mumbled. “I’m sure it’s nothing big—he’ll say a thing or two and be on his way. God, I’ll handle it.”

For some reason, Wonwoo thought he should be sinking into consternation a lot more than he actually was, but it’s not that his chest wasn’t thumping or his mind wasn’t spinning amuck with worry. It was more so that he was managing the whirlwind, as best he could, as much as he could manage. Mingyu wasn’t a complete stranger, and all their past interactions had been boringly cordial or even forgettable. Nonetheless, Wonwoo would still prefer to avoid the boy because that made his life simpler in the grand scheme of anxiety.

“Hey, Wonwoo,” Mingyu approached the table with a confident, leisurely stride, extending his large hand for Wonwoo to grab, exchanging a dap. “I almost didn’t recognize you for a sec.”

“All good,” Wonwoo answered, attempting a polite grin that felt much more sweltering on the inside than out. “How’ve you been?”

Mingyu shrugged, burying his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants while he gazed at the slitted curtains for a moment, pondering his reply. “Decent. Playing a lot of basketball. I don’t think I’ve seen you since I came to the pharmacy. You still there?”

“Still there.”

“Well, at least I haven’t had to come in for a fuckin’ pregnancy test yet. That’s good I suppose, yeah?” The boy chuckled, then tilting his head a certain way to crack a stiff spot in his neck.

“Aisle five if you ever need it.”

Mingyu responded with a smirk that perhaps lasted a second too long, and these slimming, analyzing eyes—a gaze that Wonwoo felt ripple in his gut. He chose to believe it was nothing dire, or else he would spiral right there on the spot and lose all fine-tuned control.

Meanwhile Vernon had been sitting quietly the entire time, most likely hoping he would remain in the dark, skulking shadows outside Wonwoo’s spotlight. But he must not have been hoping hard enough, because Mingyu proceeded to smile at him, again extending his hand for another dap, which Vernon yielded apprehensively.

“You’re a pretty recognizable guy, unfortunately,” Mingyu acknowledged with a husky laugh—a clear reference to the boy’s identifying tattoos and numerous facial piercings, “I think you deal to at least a third of my friends. It’s Vernon, right?”

“Mmhm. Yes sir.” To Vernon’s luck, he had a well-polished and gleaming smile that made it impossible for him to seem disingenuous, though Wonwoo knew he was wilting inside.

“I’m sorry about Dots.”

“Oh, uh. All good. It is what it is, y’know?”

Mingyu nodded.

“Hey—those tattoos are crazy good. Where’d you get them?”

Vernon looked across his arm. “Thanks. Mostly Liquid Impact—dude there that I call Funfetti ‘cause he eats Funfetti box cake all the time. Uh, but his actual name’s like, Axel or some white-boy shit like that. He’s done a majority of it. The others—man, I don’t know. Half the time I’m off my fuckin’ face and wake up with shit I never remember.”

“Oh, yeah?” Mingyu sniffed, running a hand through his long, shiny onyx locks of hair. “Guess you also don’t remember promising my girlfriend the best sex of her life, right?”

At that, Vernon looked straight to Wonwoo, and Wonwoo returned the enlarged, incinerating stare straight back, reading the split-second terror that swam like flopping fish in Vernon’s eyes. The atmosphere hit the ground with a palpable and ugly shatter.

“Yeah, um—about that—”

Mingyu then balanced backward on his foot for a moment, beginning to chuckle, sway his head, as though to dismiss the entire accusation in the same intense breadth it was mentioned.

“Nah, nah. I’m playing around,” the boy chuckled, rubbing at his nose. “You didn’t know she was taken. No hard feelings, yeah?”

Vernon immediately nodded his agreement, and the tension nailed into his broad shoulder line seemed to melt. “For sure. No hard feelings. I mean, she’s beautiful. Can’t even imagine what it’s like bein’ her boyfriend when you’ve got sluts like me around.”

Mingyu grinned, “no, you’re good. I know she gave you some attitude about it. Bit of a troublemaker herself. But, yeah. Water under the bridge.” The boy’s attention then turned back to Wonwoo, who was more than eager to somehow extinguish the conversation from you as a topic. “I know she’s hangs out with you right now.”

“Oh, yeah,” Wonwoo hummed, “the book thing.”

“She doesn’t like talking to me about it.”

“Well, don’t stress,” he answered, catching the sunlight that blitzed through the curtains and dipped like a gold paintbrush into the boy’s eyes, turning them to warm molasses, “she’ll show you the whole damn thing when it’s over and done with.”

Mingyu huffed, “I thought she’d have dropped it by now.”

“I don’t think she will. She’s pretty committed.”

“Hm.” He nodded simply in response, kissing his teeth.

Vernon folded his arms, leaning back into the leather seat with the toothpick again sitting in his mouth. “You got any plans for the summer, then? Doesn’t your pal always throw a huge party?”

“Yeah, actually. Doing it this year if we can manage. Seungcheol’s parents pretty much spend their entire summer bouncing around all the Great Lakes. We’re gonna do a co-hosting type deal and—shit, since you’re here, this is really good timing.” Mingyu then looked down at Vernon and lowered his gravelly voice. “I know what your main gig is. What about blow? You sell it?”

A slow but gradual, catlike grin trudged the edges of Vernon’s mouth, to which he pulled out his toothpick and set his elbows onto the table. “Look, can’t chop it up here, man. Ask one of your friends for my burner. I can get you to the ski slope, but it costs, obviously.”

“Nah, that’s fine. It’s just—my last plug fell through.”

“Tough.”

“Yeah. Okay, well, I should get going. I’ll follow up with you later. Do you care if Seungcheol knows the number, too?”

“No,” Vernon shrugged, planting the toothpick into the corner of his mouth and flicking it with his tongue, “just don’t go throwin’ it around. I could only get enough for a couple people, anyway.”

“All good. Okay—later, guys.”

Mingyu stepped away from the table with a wave and a flash of his pearled, charming smile, nothing but the mild scent of his fresh and expensive-smelling cologne to swirl through the now vacant space. In true espionage fashion, Wonwoo and Vernon both picked open the slots between the restaurant curtains, cautiously observing the boy’s stride into the parking lot and onto the sidewalk, where he at last disappeared into the warm, sunny afternoon.

Heaving a gigantic exhausted breath, Wonwoo took off his glasses and set them in his lap, massaging deep into his eye sockets.

“Y’know, he’s not that fuckin’ bad,” Vernon commented, “I mean, he scares the shit outta me, but that could have gone worse.”

"Jesus Christ—I can’t believe what I just watched.”

His friend laughed, banging his fist excitedly enough on the table to engender the silverware clattering on their plates. “Ha! I know, right? Dude—Seungcheol and Mingyu are the kingpins of that fuckin’ university you go to. They can cough up the big bucks for that shit. Just imagine the distribution pay I'm gonna get with them on my roster—actually, that couldn’t have gone better.”

“And where are you gonna get it?” Wonwoo pressured, at last settling his glasses back on, clarifying Vernon’s smudged, blurry face.

“Well, let me fuck around and work my magic.”

“I don’t want him to use you.”

“Pfft. I don’t give no fucks about being used,” Vernon cackled, wearing a self-indulgent, luminous smile and continuing to play around with the toothpick while he readied his wallet to pay. “You know what you should worry about, Glasses? Sweet talkin’ the fuck outta that dude’s girl and securin' yourself an invite. You probably don’t even need to try sweet talkin’—she obviously likes you.”

“No,” Wonwoo grumbled, “no way.”

“You don’t want to go?”

“Why would I want to go, dumbass? The last time I went to a party, I ran into you. They’re loud and suffocating. I’ll pass.” Wonwoo also pulled out his wallet, taking his card. “Besides, I get the sense Mingyu doesn’t trust me a whole lot. I’m not gonna stir the pot.”

Vernon shook his head. “You stir the pot every time you hang out with his girl to go write romantic poetry and run around, gigglin’ at Spring Street. N’yeah, exactly. You met me. I don’t get the fuss.”

“It’s nothing like that," Wonwoo answered in frustration.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re a Patron Saint. I just want my Life Saver.”

—MAY 19TH.

Wonwoo was going to your apartment today for the first time, and it had nearly killed him in the process.

His abhorrent sleep schedule hung over his head every single instance he woke up at lunchtime, the entirety of his mornings wasted to weathered heartbreak and its lasting, stained consequences. Needing to be at your apartment for ten had Wonwoo buckling his face into anguished hands the night before, wondering how he was going to pull off such a triumph without wishing for death.  

He did know one thing for certain—the sound of his alarm erupting into its timely, strident beeping made him instantly sick. In fact, the first thing Wonwoo did was half-stumble in complete bleariness out from his bed, dragging a white sheet along by his ankle as he burst into the washroom and hung his head over the toilet like he was sweating through a wicked hangover. But it wasn’t alcohol. It was months of bad, soul-stitched habit festered up in stomach bile and perhaps, a hatred for himself. It was his own fault, in a way.

And yet, when you texted him a half-hour later to reconfirm your address, Wonwoo replied with not the slightest hint that he was feeling pretty fucking terrible. The headache and shudders followed him down the street, onto the bus, and into the lobby of your notably opulent apartment complex. He felt rather incongruous amongst all the marble—the white trim, the clean, untainted air, even the breakfast table with dispensable lemon water and small, fruit-topped pastries that somehow made Wonwoo want to kill himself.

He looked down at his phone.

[ Her | 9:10 am ]: 717 thorton street, unit 61

[ Her | 9:45 am ]: are you almost here? :)

Wonwoo pressed the button to the elevator.

[ Wonwoo | 9:50 am ]: Yes. In the building.

His phone vibrated immediately with a text.

[ Her | 9:50 am ]: I’m so excited

The doors pulled apart. Wonwoo stepped aside for a couple who were leaving the elevator before he entered. Quickly, he clicked the button to close the doors, not wanting to share the space with anyone but himself and the headache throbbing at the forefront of his cranium. He sighed, glancing at his texts again to reply.

[ Wonwoo | 9:51 am ]: Do you have any Tylenol?

[ Her | 9:51 am ]: most def

[ Her | 9:51 am ]: what’s wrong?

[ Wonwoo | 9:52 am ]: Nothing much. Just a headache.

When he didn’t receive an immediate answer, he assumed you had put the phone down to search your medicine cabinet. Getting off the elevator, Wonwoo proceeded to find the correct apartment. He put his fist up to the door, and then, at the last second, stopped.

There it was again—the same melting pot of anxiety and butterflies that had bubbled up when you first visited his place.

He supposed the feelings never truly disappeared each time he would see you, and he was beginning to detest it. Why couldn’t his body just adapt? Get over it? What purpose did it serve to constantly remind him of his unkempt emotions? It was like the idea of you terrified him more than you as an actual person, because in person, he felt comfort, as crazy as it sounded. So why couldn’t his anxiety and security just complete that stupid sliver of a synapse for once?

Knock knock.

After a moment, the handle clicked, and the door to sumptuous unit 61 was pulled open. For the first time, Wonwoo saw your face without any makeup, and it sort of made him stutter in his words—not that he was shocked in abhorrence at the contrast, more so the vulnerability behind it, the fact you felt comfortable enough to shed your compulsion with always presenting a perfect, glamoured face. He was pleased to see you were in a fuzzy pair of pink shorts and a white, thin long-sleeve that were basically pyjamas.

Maybe it was weird to think, but you seemed more human.

“You made good timing. I’m impressed.”

“Thanks,” Wonwoo answered while stepping inside, toeing off his sneakers next to your plethora of shoes at the doormat.

“I would obviously say tour first, but I have your Tylenol sitting on the counter over here, for your headache. Can you dry swallow or do you need water?”

“Dry swallow?” Wonwoo laughed, following you toward the kitchen area. “Who the fuck dry swallows any sort of pill?”

“I don’t know! Personally, I don’t. But there are some freaks out there who do. I was actually testing you. And you passed.”

“Lucky me,” he sighed.

Taking a seat at one of stools displayed around the large, granite-surface island, Wonwoo waited for you to pour him some water. Obviously, the apartment was spacious, gorgeous—the large, white-fluffed rug in the centre of the living room was definitely suited to you, though he was surprised by the tall, lush potted plants aligned by the window panelling. He didn’t know you had a green thumb.

While placing down the water, you shifted closely into the seat beside him, and Wonwoo could smell the scent of strawberries on your skin. You let your chin press into the hammock made with your hands, watching as he set the pill on his tongue and gulped it down.

“So, is it really bad?”

Wonwoo turned the glass back and forth atop its coaster, deciding on whether or not he should tell the truth. It always tended to sting him when he lied, and so he turned to you, shrugging.

“I felt it when I woke up. But it’s manageable.”

“Oh, I get that sometimes.”

“It’s because of my repulsive sleep schedule, no doubt.”

You smiled at him, adjusting your leg under the island.

“Is that why you prefer afternoons all the time?”

“Pretty much. It’s a horrible habit. I’ll break it somehow, I’m sure. Just a stupid hump to get over. Anyway—” Wonwoo slung the laptop bag off his shoulder and onto the counter, “—your place looks pretty sweet. How are you? What’s the plan for today?”

“Well,” you hummed, slapping an arm down onto the reflective granite, “I’ve wrote some more this week. I’d love for you to proofread it. Maybe we can go out for lunch later, but you’d need to give me time to get ready. I mean, I did shower this morning…”

He watched you pause, and then swallow. "You don’t care, do you?”

“About what?” Wonwoo answered.

“Oh, well—never mind, then.”

“No, what is it? What don’t I care about?”

You started to grin, hiding half your face with a hand that slowly scraped across your cheek, as though to rub off any remaining lethargy from the morning light. Wonwoo waited for you to answer.

“… I look like a mole.”

He at last realized what you meant.

“No, you don’t.”

“I was just feeling lazy. I know, gasp, what an insane word to come from my mouth. But I’m glad you don’t care. I didn’t think you would, but I still wasn’t sure. At least your reaction wasn’t obvious. My chin is breaking out so please don’t stare at it, if you can help it.”

“Oh, well, you know, you look—” that one banished word almost slipped, but Wonwoo smoothly mended the break, “you—you have nothing to worry about. I get breakouts, too. It sucks, but it’s life.”

Your bare, soft face turned cheerful in a fawning smile.

“I know. I guess I'm just not very used to the feeling of people seeing me like this. Did you want to do lunch later?”

Wonwoo leaned back in the small seat, running his hands up his knees, knowing damn well he hadn’t eaten breakfast.

“Uh, I should probably start with like, cereal or something.”

“You didn’t eat?”

“No appetite.”

“I’ll fix you something. Unfortunately, no cereal. But I'll get some the next time Mingyu and I do groceries. So, what do you like best? Toast? Oatmeal? Scrambled eggs and toast? Orange juice? Bagel?”

At the mere mention of orange juice, his fist clenched. Attempting not to dwell so obviously, Wonwoo straightened up and smiled.

“I like toast.”

“That’s good. It’ll be easy on your stomach.”

Wonwoo watched you squeeze off the stool and open the fridge to pull out a plastic bag of bread. He watched you stand on your tiptoes to reach into the highest cupboard and grab a plate. He watched you pop open a jar of fresh raspberry jam and slot the bread into the toaster. He could watch you do anything, it seemed.

Anything at all.

It took Wonwoo about half an hour to eat his raspberry toast and skim through the newest additions to your document. You were getting more into the thick of your relationship with Mingyu—just as you’d warned—but Wonwoo was able to gloss most cloying paragraphs without too much bitterness or personal weight clouding his possible critiques. Wonwoo was still seated at the island, meanwhile you were lying face down on the plump-cushioned couch, an arm dangling off the side. In a morbid way, you looked very much dead if not for the shallow rising and dipping of your back.

“Done, for the most part.”

Your head perked up, and he was relieved to see you hadn’t fallen asleep or suffocated. “When will you add your notes?”

“After lunch. Is that okay?”

“Mmhm.”

“So…” Wonwoo slid down in the chair, reaching out his arms with a gigantic yawn, “you actually snuck into his basketball game?”

“Yeah,” you sighed, letting your chin snuggle into the blanket strewn underneath you, “I was obsessed with him. I couldn’t help it.”

“I wouldn’t expect your first date to be at the nature museum. The way you wrote about the butterfly exhibit was nice, though.”

“It was fun. Mingyu wasn’t the biggest fan, but I had always wanted to go. There was this huge skeleton of a blue whale, and sometimes the museum would play the whale’s ballad—” you flopped onto your back, staring up at the ceiling with a tender, ardent laugh as your fingers twirled the fluffy knots of the throw, “—it used to scare Mingyu so bad. He kept telling me he was gonna leave our date unless we went to another exhibit.”

“The sound can be pretty jarring if you’ve never heard it before, to be fair,” Wonwoo reasoned, now massaging down his legs.

Shoving your body to sit upright on the couch, you poked out your tongue at him, grinning, “don’t defend his loserness.”

He huffed in response, “my bad.”

“Should we do a tour now? I really want to show you my room. And if I keep lying on the couch, I’ll fall asleep.”

“Uh, sure. Do you want me to wash my plate?”

“No, no, it’s fine. Just leave it in the sink.”

After Wonwoo cleaned off the granite island, he came to join you in the living room, the white rug resembling what he imagined a cloud to feel like underneath his socked feet.

A thought had suddenly popped into his head.

“There’s a nature museum here, too.”

You grabbed the blanket, wearing it like a shawl around your shoulders. Wonwoo had never seen you so sleepy before.

“I know.”

“Have you ever gone?”

“No. Not at all. I did ask Mingyu once when we first came here for university. But I think he was still mortified from the whale thing. I dunno. Anyway, is that your round-about way of asking if I ever want to go? Because I would, to help with the story.”

Wonwoo scratched along his collarbone, heated with the itch of being blatantly exposed for his plotting. However, he hadn’t suggested the museum with the intention of employing it as a visual to sharpen up your scene-work. He was hoping to go just for the sake of it—like a palate cleanser, as you had previously mentioned.

But he obviously wasn’t going to articulate that.

“We can plan it more later,” he said.

The tour started in the living room, which Wonwoo had become well acquainted with throughout his half hour of sitting at the kitchen island, occasionally flicking his eyes toward the couch to ensure you were still alive. You explained that the pristine white rug was a housewarming gift from Mingyu’s parents when you first moved into the apartment, and he felt guilty for even stepping on it.

He decided to ask about the plants by the windows.

“Oh, I don’t actually look after those,” you answered, touching at one of the heavy and balmy-looking green leaves from a plant nearly as tall as you, “Seokmin comes over to water them and stuff, gives them special nutrient food—even sprays their leaves with this misty bottle thing. I tried giving them all to him, but he says he’s got no space at his apartment—which is total bull by the way.”

“Maybe he just wants an excuse to see you.”

“Yeah,” you scoffed, rolling your eyes, “doesn’t everyone?”

Wonwoo bit back a stupid little smile as he followed you into your bedroom—the place you seemed most enthralled for him to finally see. You twirled into the open space and threw the blanket off your shoulders, then whipping your hands into the air akin to a magician who’d just performed the most grandiose magic trick.

“Tada! Bedroom reveal!”

He pushed up his glasses, taking a good, solid look around at everything he could: the prestigious makeup vanity with the drawers left half-open, your dresser, lined with photographs of what he assumed to be friends, family, and Mingyu, the beaded, dangling chandelier, the ajar closet doors that revealed your unsurprising magnitude of outfits—skirts and dresses and professional blazers and lascivious things from threads of lace and silk. He finally looked to your beautiful bed, which you proceeded to flop onto.

“This is my favourite part,” you hummed.

Taking some further steps into the bedroom, Wonwoo began recognizing smaller details, though he couldn’t explain what he was feeling. He always thought a bedroom was such a personal, intimate space, like a treasure chest stuffed with memories and pieces of person’s essence that couldn’t be captured using words alone. To sit on someone’s bed, or sift through their drawers for a pen, or even grab a shirt from their closet—he felt it was all so… sacred. It was the reason he had such a hard time having others in his bedroom.

“The bed is your favourite?” He wondered.

“Yes,” you giggled, a glimmer flashing into your eyes like diamonds in the sun as you climbed onto your knees.

Before Wonwoo knew what was happening, you had clutched a hand into his shirt and jerked him toward the covers. He landed beside you, and his heart thrust with electricity.

“You could have just asked me to sit,” he chuckled, wiping some wrinkles off his shirt and adjusting his glasses.

“Nope.”

“Bed’s comfy.”

“Duh,” you sunk backward, smirking at him, “it’s a bed.”

“Hey, you should have seen the bed I had growing up in Changwon. My older brother and I, we hated it. Shit was like sleeping on a piece of cardboard. It didn’t get better for years.”

Propping your head onto a pillow, you continued to smile prettily at him with those entrancing eyes, and for a second, this piercing fear struck in the core of Wonwoo’s chest that he had just spoke about himself—actually spoke about himself—in a manner that screamed of vulnerability. He felt terror. Why did he do that?

“Hm. I guess I’m just spoiled, with my memory foam and all.”

At least you didn’t push into the topic. You were getting better at that, almost like you could interpret the subtle tweaks in his face or the stiffening of his bones. Wonwoo rested his elbows on his knees.

“Your room’s nice. It smells like you.”

He heard you giggle, “what? Like strawberries?”

Wonwoo pursed his lip, looked down at his fingers. “Yeah…”

For a moment, his eyes lingered unfaithfully on your exposed midriff, down to the fluffy hem of those pink lounge shorts. He squeezed his wrist tight, practically stopping his own blood flow, willing himself not to think anything unhinged that would simmer up to fuel his self-hatred later. The longer your head spent sinking into that plump pillow, the more your lids fluttered with sleep. As he continued to gaze about the room, he spotted the pink stuffed bear that he’d won you at the Spring Street Fair, sitting atop your bedside table.

“You’ve still got that?”

“Hm?” You pushed up onto your elbows, yawning. “Oh, yeah! ‘Course I still have her. It’s a perfect little memento from that night.”

“Well, I did go through a lot of effort to win it.”

“Oh, I’m aware... wanna know what I named her?”

“What?”

“Miss Priss.”

Honestly, Wonwoo was surprised you hadn’t stuffed it into your closet or abandoned the toy in some innocuous corner of your apartment. Instead the bear’s vibrant pink face and slightly lopsided eyes were staring him down, making him rerun Vernon’s words in his head: ‘you stir the pot every time you hang out with his girl to go write romantic poetry and run around, gigglin’ at Spring Street.’

Wonwoo immediately shoved the memory aside, letting the implications sizzle up and burn on the hot coals of his brain.

“Hm. Funny.”

You rolled your eyes.

Wonwoo tapped his wrist, thinking.

“So, uh, I hope you don’t mind me asking this, but why don’t you live with Mingyu? I know he stays over some nights.”

Lifting yourself up with one arm, you shrugged, opting to stroke a hand along the blanket to smooth out some crinkles. “I don’t want to move in with anyone unless I’m engaged.”

“Actually?”

“Yeah. I mean, that's what I told my parents, at least. They used to really push for us to have an apartment together. Which makes sense. They freaking love him. I swear, more than me," you laughed, picking at your shirt. "I get it, too. Mingyu and I have pretty much been tied at the hip all these years. But we agreed that we wouldn't live together until things went to the next level. He does keep a lot of his stuff here for when he does stay over, and vice versa. He’s got an extra key and everything, his own nightstand, bathroom stuff.”

“And that’s for certain?”

You tilted your head. “What’s for certain?”

“The engagement thing. Or was it just to shake off your parents?”

“Well… I guess I mean it. Is that weird to you?”

“No,” Wonwoo said. “I personally haven't heard it plenty.”

“Yeah, most people are surprised to learn we don’t live together. I guess we really give off the impression that we're together in most things, if not everything. It's good to get a little space, though."

“Well, I understand it—wanting to have your own space. I mean, I think everyone should try living alone, just once if they have to. You learn more about yourself, I suppose.”

You cracked a smile at him. “What have you learned?”

Wonwoo chuckled, knowing all the things he could never say were tingling right on the tip of his tongue. “Well, I meant in a general sense. I wasn't exactly talking about myself.”

“Ha—you learned how to be a hermit.”

“I'm pretty sure I was always like that.”

“Yeah, but probably not that bad.”

“That bad?” He furrowed his dark brows at you, staring straight into your eyes that twinkled with challenge. “Meaning what?”

“Please, you would not leave that apartment if it wasn’t for your commitment to the book. Maybe for work, some groceries every now and then. Otherwise, your ass is not leaving.”

“Damn. Just call me a loser.”

“Fine,” you huffed, pushing up onto your knees, “loser.”

Wonwoo managed to hold the penetrating, spirited strength of your gaze, and he was proud of himself for doing so, even if his heart felt like it was going to leap into his throat. It was still difficult for him to be routinely engaged in eye contact, but he knew how much you appreciated it—the feeling of being listened to and experiencing someone’s dedication to presenting their full attention.

Since it was getting close to lunch time, Wonwoo figured you might want to start thinking of where to eat. He was getting notably hungry, and having to function off some toast coated thinly in raspberry jam wouldn’t be enough to power him throughout his proofreading. He pulled out his phone, wanting to check the time, and began sliding off your comfortable, warm bed.

“Did you want to—”

“Hey, wait, wait, wait—” Wonwoo felt your hand curl around his bicep in a firm grip and begin to pull him back down, “—before we get up and everything, I want to talk to you about something.”

Oh no.

His stomach writhed.

Wonwoo started praying it wasn’t about his and Vernon’s encounter with Mingyu at Solar Pop—not that anything particularly terrible or concerning had happened—but maybe Mingyu had mentioned something to you. Maybe he didn’t like Wonwoo and thought it was best you stop writing together, stop seeing each other.

His mind started quivering with a steadfast hurricane of awful thought and Wonwoo knew the flushed colour had most likely drained from his face as quickly as a popped balloon.

Your hand remained on his bicep, squeezing it.

“Why do you look so worried, already?” You chuckled in a quiet voice, rubbing his arm until Wonwoo visibly relaxed. “I haven’t even said anything yet. Unless, you think I should be worried, too.”

“No.” Wonwoo shook his head. “Just—never mind.”

“Hm, well, that’s kind of what I want to talk about.”

As your hand drifted off his arm, Wonwoo sat crossed-legged, narrowing his eyes at you in question. “What do you mean?”

The conversation began with a clunk of silence, to which you glanced down at the bed for a moment, clearly biting on your inner cheek in contemplation. Wonwoo desperately wanted you to spit it out. He hated when empty words hung so burdensomely in the air.

“Well… there’s no easy way to bring it up. And I’m not sure you’ll even want to talk about it with me, but I keep noticing it, again and again. I think it’s at least worth it to put it on the table. And, if it’s not my business, you can freely tell me to screw off.”

“Oh… okay.”

And then you were looking at him, not with any sort of accusation or anger or even disappointment. Somehow, Wonwoo knew what you were going to say, and he braced himself for it.

“Do you… do you have anxiety?”

Wonwoo said nothing. He wasn’t sure if it was an issue of not wanting to speak or being unable to.

You breathed out heavily in response.

“Okay, silence, I definitely saw that coming—but, um, I’m not stupid, you know? Your face just gets so pale, and I feel like I can see the heartbeat in your chest… and you always do that thing with your fist. Clenching it. It always looks so painful but you never seem to care and—anyway—I just… I can tell when it happens and it kind of bothers me that you try to like, shrug it off or call it ‘spacing out’ when it’s really clearly not. And, maybe that’s my fault.”

His gaze had shifted to lock with yours.

Again, you weren’t staring at him with any malice or dejection—he’d come to learn that your eyes were actually quite soft most of the time, soft but always glittering, like a handful of silk. Still, Wonwoo couldn’t yet find his words, which must have come across as remarkably shocking for someone who spent their whole life grabbing all the shiny bits of possible vernacular.

You sat up straighter, touching his knee.

“Is it my fault you don’t want to talk about it? Can I at least know that much?” There was an imploring desperation in your face.

Wonwoo at last cleared his throat.

“I don’t talk about it with anyone.”

“Okay, I get that. But, did I make you feel like you couldn’t bring it up? At all?” Your fingers dug a little harder into his knee, though Wonwoo knew you probably hadn’t realized it. “I just—I do want to know, actually. Because sometimes I let myself get in the way of being present for other people. But I care. I honestly do.”

He nodded, cracking his knuckles.

“I mean… I definitely wouldn’t have thought to bring it up with you. I guess I felt like, if I did, what would it accomplish? You might think I’m incapable or… I don’t know.” He shoved his hands underneath his glasses, rubbing at the indents on his nose. “As you can see, I’m not the best at talking about it. I don’t talk about it.”

You folded your legs in similar fashion to Wonwoo.

“Well… um… do you… is there anyone that could, like… I don’t know what I’m saying. I guess, are you coping alright, is what I’m asking. I really don’t mean to overstep. I swear.”

At that, he chuckled quite loudly. Your face twitched in surprise at his reaction, and the hand slipped off his knee.

“It really doesn’t matter. I just deal with it.”

No. He took nothing. He did nothing. Wonwoo just sat and suffered and felt no initiative to help himself. At that point, he really didn’t want to dissect the topic any further. He could sense the slithering under his skin, the way his body physically bristled like a perturbed cat at the thought of having to be any more open than what he'd already shared. The choices he made in his life weren’t important if he was going to end up back in the same slippery trench.

“Oh. Well, I hope you take care of yourself,” you said with a smile, giving his bicep another gentle squeeze. “That’s all.”

—JUNE 2ND.

About two weeks had passed since Wonwoo visited your apartment. Afterward, you had met up four times to continue writing and making small ventures to places that you deemed vital for developing your story. Wonwoo found himself enjoying most trips.

He remembered the ice cream shop. Apparently, it was the date where Mingyu had officially asked you to be his girlfriend. You had gotten their most popular strawberry cheesecake flavour while Wonwoo ordered mint chocolate chip, which was a rather boring but favourite classic of his. No doubt, you sat across from him on their outside patio the entire time, pitting remarks about how awful his choice was in lieu of writing anything down in your document. With every spoonful he ate, Wonwoo had to keep reminding you to stay focused, and eventually, his repetitious ordering worked.

"Did you actually come here to get any writing done or did you just want the ice cream? We're not palate-cleansing are we?"

"Why can't two things be true at once?"

“Can I see your laptop?”

“No—hey! Don’t try to grab it!”

“Why? Because you’ve written fuck all?”

"For your information, I have a bullet-point list going."

"Oh, yeah. A bullet-point list, hm?"

"Yes. It has all my major writing points. Point number one: Mingyu seats me down at the table. He's clearly nervous. We've only been in the shop for a minute or two and he won't stop brushing his hair behind his ears. Point number two: Mingyu grabs our ice cream from the counter. He gives me his flavour, rocky road, by accident, and then we awkwardly laugh and switch. Point number three: I remember thinking his nerves were endearing, and—"

"Okay, okay. I get it."

"Exactly. Let this be a lesson in poor assumption. Don't try to assume anything about me, Wonwoo. It's probably wrong."

And then there had been the journey to Mooney’s Bay, one of the most well-known beaches outside the city—probably because the lake actually looked a clean, salty blue and the soft sand wasn’t littered with drifting pieces of plastic. It had been the first place Wonwoo took his brother when he came to visit from his office in Korea, and the picture they had taken together with their pant legs cuffed up, standing knee deep in the water, was still pinned to the corkboard in Wonwoo’s bedroom. However, Wonwoo hadn’t been back to the beach since, until you dragged him there in an hour-long car ride. He had mostly looked out the window, thinking, as always.

You said that Mooney’s Bay reminded you of a cove from your hometown, a more clandestine one, where you and Mingyu used to splash around in the isolated, iridescent waters at night, laughing into the chilled breeze and coughing up all the liquid splatted into the other’s face. Wonwoo had used the video camera to record some footage of the beach per your request. By evening, most people had packed up their coolers and umbrellas and sun towels, granting him more freedom to film wider, panned shots. He remembered standing at the foam shoreline, feeling the sand squelch wetly under his bare feet, recording you wading further and deeper into the water that reflected like a bleeding, scarlet portrait of stained glass.

“It feels amazing! You should come in!”

“I can’t. It’ll ruin the camcorder.”

“So put it down! In the bag! There’s enough footage.”

“But the sun is setting behind you. It makes for a good shot.”

"So just hurry up! The water is the perfect temperature."

"But—"

“I’m not asking you. I’m telling you.”

"Well, I don't know... I, uh—I can't swim."

"This isn't swimming, this is wading. Just go up to your knees. It's been a hot, long day. I think this will help get the scowl off your face."

“… Fine. At least give me a second to fix my pants.”

The third location, while not his favourite, had been an open bar that was conveniently placed a few streets over from his job at the pharmacy. Wonwoo had went there a number of times with Vernon in the past, usually after he finished a midterm or handed in some grating assignment, though Vernon tended to drink more than his body could sufficiently handle. By the end of the night, Wonwoo would most often find himself being a mediator between his tattooed, foul-mouthed friend and whatever blundering, equally drunk idiot he happened to be arguing with.

It was too much for his anxiety.

Nonetheless, he’d met you there after work despite the churning cauldron of memories that he harboured, unsurprised to find you seated at a small table swarmed with dewy drinks and shots that interested observers had sent over. Wonwoo felt each digging, plying stare that sculpted against his back as he sat beside you—he even choked down one of your retched tequila shots (while not the best idea), hoping it would mellow him out.

You never really explained why the bar was pertinent to your history with Mingyu—or, maybe you had, and Wonwoo was simply one flaming shot past coherent of properly digesting your words. He did, however, remember your entire, almost scientific explanation of why you liked wearing low-cut or heavily revealing tops at the bar, and Wonwoo had listened along as best he could manage, even when that floating sensation started hazing through his mind. At one point, this girl who Wonwoo had never encountered once in his life came up to him with a polite tap on his shoulder and an inquiring smile.

“Hey—sorry to intrude—and this may be a super dumb question, but you are guys together?”

“No, no. Not at all. I���ve got a boyfriend. He’s single.”

“Oh, perfect. I was just—I was sitting over there, in the corner with my friends, if you can see. Anyways—I said something dumb about how you were really good looking, and now I’ve been dared to come up and ask for your number. So, um, yeah…”

“No, I’m good. Thank you.”

“O-Oh. Wait… are you… being serious?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Sorry. This is really fucking embarrassing… uh, I guess I won’t linger then. Bye.”

“… Jeez… had a bit much to drink or something?”

“No—just don’t like giving out my number to strangers.”

“She was cute, though. Probably a fun one-night stand.”

“Then you have sex with her, yeah?”

“Ha! You’re so funny. When’s the last time you even had sex? I mean, you obviously pull. At least, I think you do…”

“I don’t remember. Months and months ago, I guess.”

“Wow! Zero play. I kind of respect it. I could never, though. So… actually, let me guess: you’re the type of person that can’t have sex without attachment? You need to be in love?”

“What’s it to you?”

“I’m just asking.”

“I don’t know.”

“God. You’re so fucking boring, Wonwoo.”

“Because I don’t go out of my way to find some pretty girl to have sex with every week, I’m boring? How does that make sense?”

“No, not that. I mean the fact you never really want to discuss anything about yourself. Honestly, sometimes talking to you is like pulling teeth, y’know? Anyway, move back a little. Backwards cap with the earrings has been staring on and off for the last ten minutes and I want one more free shot before I call it a night.”

The most recent place you had been together was the popular drive-in at Richmond’s Farm. Wonwoo knew that in the autumn months leading up to Halloween, the venue was turned into a haunted carnival with all the typical attractions: pumpkin patches, horror movie screenings, corn mazes, and masked, fake blood-spattered psychopaths chasing people around with a roaring chainsaw.

Seokmin, despite being quite weak-stomached and completely disastrous when it came to anything horror-related, had actually implored Wonwoo to go the year before after hearing the raves about their newest House of Nightmares, although Wonwoo declined in order to study for a test.

Really, there was no test.

Wonwoo just hadn’t been in the mood for losing all his hair and being crammed into pitch black, narrow corridors with a murderer promptly waiting around the corner. He hoped Seokmin wouldn’t ask him again this year—then his excuse would be obvious.

In the spring and summer, however, the farm mostly broadcast screenings at their drive-in theatre behind the maize field, and you had leaped at the opportunity to go because it was the perfect chance to relive one of your favourite dates with Mingyu. By your explanation, he’d taken you to see Crazy, Stupid, Love before you two had departed your hometown for university. But the drive-in obviously wasn’t playing that movie, and so you two had to settle for watching their only available screening, 500 Days of Summer.

Wonwoo hated that movie.

Of course, he hadn’t told you that.

Before the movie had started, Wonwoo helped you throw down a blanket into your trunk alongside some couch pillows that you grabbed from your apartment, creating a makeshift lounge in the rear of the car. Since the screening was late at night—and way past your typical good girl bedtime—you were worried about falling asleep halfway into the movie, though Wonwoo promised he would keep an eye on you to ensure you wouldn’t miss anything important.

Since it was too dark to film anything of quality on the camcorder, Wonwoo left you alone in the blanket-pillow trunk to scribble down any nostalgic, limerent sentiments while he grabbed some snacks. You had told him to get gummy bears, because you hated the way broken pieces of popcorn kernel shells would sliver between your teeth and dig into your gums, neither did you want a soft drink since it would be an abundance of sugar before bed, and it always resulted in a breakout the next morning. He was able to make it back to the car just before the screening started.

He remembered how strange it all seemed, sitting so close to you underneath the blanket, occasionally feeling your elbow dig into his arm or your knee bump his thigh, and the sharp blip it would cause in his pulse. Wonwoo remembered how often you complained about the temperature throughout the movie—first, it’s too hot, now, it’s too cold, you’re too close to me, you’re too far away and I’m cold again, I need the blanket, I don’t want the blanket—Wonwoo hadn’t realized a person’s body temperature could fluctuate that drastically. 

However, the worst part of that night happened about half an hour before the movie ended, just when Wonwoo was beginning to feel relieved about going home. You were getting sleepier by the minute, and Wonwoo could tell from the yawning every now and then, wanting desperately to rub at your eyes but refusing because it would smother the mascara into somewhat concerning, black whorls.

You had nudged his arm, and when he glanced over at your face, exhausted and half-illuminated under the watery, bright cast of light from the screen, you asked him in a quiet, dulcet voice: “is it okay if I rest my head on your shoulder for a few minutes?”

Wonwoo had wanted to say no—of course you can’t, because if you do, I will sit here stiff, and hardly breathing, and listening only to my own heartbeat. It will be the sole thing I’ll think about for the next three days no matter what I do to mask the memory. I’ll keep thinking about it until you burn out in my mind like a star.

But then Wonwoo had agreed instead.

He proceeded to clench his fist upon feeling the weight of your head sink softly to his shoulder. Your legs had been curled up underneath you, and your knees were then pressing flush against his leg. Every breath he inhaled was faintly tainted with the scent of your sweet, fragrant shampoo and it was fucking killing him.

“You’re so tense,” you had whispered in a giggle, “if it makes you uncomfortable, I don’t have to. It’s just because I’m tired.”

“No—” it had come out somewhat like a blurt, and Wonwoo just knew the tips of his ears were tingling red, “—it’s okay. I promise.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure… what?”

“Just wanted to look in your eyes when you said it.”

“Fuck, not that again.”

“I have to know!”

“Okay, that’s fine. Movie’s almost over, anyway. Just don’t fall asleep because then I really won’t know what to do.”

That had been four days ago.

Now, it was almost midnight. Wonwoo was sitting on the roof of his apartment with a messily rolled up blunt in his fingers—the second one he prepared, mostly out of impatience—drawing in a slow and deep breath that ghosted from his lips like wispy fog flowing down a shallow hill. He then coughed twice by his elbow, attempting to clear the stinging prickle that caught against his throat.

“You’re so fucking full of it,” Wonwoo laughed.

“No! I’m not.”

“You did not write thirty pages in a day.”

“Uh—actually, I did! And the fact you don’t believe me is a testament to your own wilted motivation. I am very motivated.”

He smiled at the sound of your voice crackling through his phone, which he’d been holding with the latter hand. Breathing in another hit, Wonwoo pulled at the sides of his black beanie, grinning through the thin cloud that was exhaled in a quick, neat puff.

“Okay, you wrote thirty pages. Didn’t have to fucking drag my career through the mud in doing so. I mean, I guess it’s a hobby.”

“For all I know, you’re the biggest poser that ever posed.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. I still don’t know what you write about.”

“I told you.”

“No—you fucking didn’t. You said something vague and ambiguous that could have meant literally anything. All I had to go off were some sing-songy praises from Seokmin.”

“I give you pretty good notes, though.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“So I must be decent.”

“I don’t even know why I bothered calling you. I was supposed to be in bed, like, an hour ago. You’re such a distraction.”

“Fuck,” Wonwoo laughed, tapping the warm blunt to knock off a clump of papery ash, “it’s been an hour already?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I don’t know why you called either.”

“To complain about that lady whose makeup I had to do today! She was horrible. God, were you not listening?!”

“No, no, I was. She told you the makeup she wanted, you said it wouldn’t suit her too well, and then she got all pissed off when it looked exactly how you said it would. That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh. Well… I just thought you should know about it.”

“Mmhm.”

Silence followed his velvet, almost teasing hum, but Wonwoo didn’t mind it, and he assumed you didn’t either. Your phone call had been completely out of the blue, only a few minutes after he’d climbed onto the roof and started sparking his lighter. An hour had already passed—Wonwoo couldn’t believe it. Time had never seemed so blurred and insignificant before, like tomorrow didn’t exist at all.

“I didn’t know you smoked.”

Wonwoo repositioned the phone in his hand.

“From time to time, yeah.”

“What strain?”

“Northern Lights.”

“I’ve never had that one. I mean, I’m not much of a stoner, and neither is Mingyu. I don’t like the way it feels in my throat—that dry, burning feeling. And I hate the cotton mouth afterward.”

“Shouldn’t be that bad if you’re inhaling it right.”

“Well, maybe you can teach me one day.”

He let the blunt hang from the corner of his mouth for a moment, a very fluttery-feeling smile taking shape. Not wanting you to hear that slight bit of giddiness in his tone, Wonwoo took another hit, holding the smoke in for longer than usual before exhaling.

“Do you, uh… do you still want to go to that museum?”

“Oh—the nature museum?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll have to do some poking around in my schedule. I have this stupid leadership council meeting for SSA that I have to go to.”

“That’s fine. Text me when you figure it out.”

“Okay… gosh, it’s really fucking late.”

“Yeah, you should get some sleep.”

“Are you pushing me off the phone? If anything, I should be the one pushing. You’re not doing anything to fix your terrible sleep schedule. And I certainly don’t want you to ruin mine.”

“That’s what I’m saying—you need to get some sleep.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have said it like that.”

“How did I say it?”

“Like you were pushing me off the phone!”

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. How ‘bout this: I know how important structure is to you, and I am deeply concerned that this late night conversation we’re having may somewhat affect your sleep. And while I’ve thoroughly enjoyed talking to you and hearing your pretty voice through my shitty phone speaker, I think we should both go to bed.”

“That seems fair.”

“Great. So, goodnight then.”

“No! I want to be the first one to say goodnight.”

“Why?”

“Because, I say goodnight, then you say goodnight back, and then I get to be the one who hangs up first. It’s a courtesy thing.”

“Uh, okay then... I’m listening.”

“Goodnight!”

Wonwoo smiled. He smiled so fucking widely and brightly that he could feel the muscles in his face aching.

“Goodnight.”

—JUNE 7TH.

Since the quickest route to the nature museum was about half an hour from Wonwoo’s apartment, he suggested that you stop by around lunch time so that you two could make the walk together. It wasn’t too warm outside—the large smattering of clouds dotted in the sky and the typical city breeze helped to keep the temperature down.

“We’re not allowed to film in the museum,” you said from your seat at his small dinner table, “so don’t bother taking the camcorder, I guess. I’ll just try to soak up everything as best I can.”

Wonwoo was sat across from you, waiting for you to finish the heated-up carton box of creamy mushroom pasta that you’d raided out his freezer. He’d tried his best to eat beforehand as well, but the most he could stomach was some milk and cereal in addition a handful of blueberries. It was still better than his usual routine, which involved skipping any sort of meal post lunchtime.

“If you really needed to, I’m sure you could take a couple pictures,” Wonwoo answered, brushing a hand through his styled, pristine black hair that you had earlier littered with a flustering spiel of compliments. “I doubt the exhibits will be exactly the same, but if it's more so to capture the feeling, then it won’t matter much.”

You patted the corner of your mouth upon finishing the last few noodles left in the box, nodding your head in agreement.

“My journal’s in my bag. It should be fine.”

Wonwoo flipped over his phone to check the time.

“How was the SSA meeting yesterday?”

“Oh—I didn’t go.”

“Really?” Wonwoo asked while settling back in his chair, watching you toss the fork into the carton. “How come?”

“Because, it’s mostly pointless. We always sit there, in front of all those old, crusty men, trying to explain to them how we can improve the campus, the student experience, blah blah. And they act like they’re legitimately consuming our input, using phrases like: ‘oh, we hear you, we understand, we’re gonna try our hardest’—just for them to put, what? Another fucking seating area in the dining hall that no one asked for or cares about? It’s totally ridiculous.”

“Hm, yeah.”

“Anyways, I hate being on it. I hate going. I understand it looks good and whatnot, but it’s a huge waste of my time.”

Wonwoo picked up the pasta box, continuing to hum his agreement while taking it into the kitchen. He dropped the fork into the sink and folded up the cardboard to stuff into his recycling.

“It’s one meeting. A skip won’t kill you, or them.”

“That’s what I’m saying. Mingyu thinks I went, though. So, if you run into him or something and the topic fucking miraculously pops up—just don’t give anything away. It’s a little white lie.”

Coming back to the dining table, Wonwoo snatched up his wallet and shoved it into his back pocket, raising an eyebrow.

“Why wouldn’t you tell him?”

You pushed back in the chair, sighing heavily.

“He really thinks I should stick with it.”

Wonwoo didn’t say anything in response. He simply nodded, not wanting to hover on Mingyu as a conversation piece for too long, and waited for you to shoulder on your purse.

“Okay,” you then smiled, “let’s go look at some nature.”

Despite their boring, lacklustre reputation, Wonwoo had always enjoyed going to museums—art, history, science—he’d even been to a museum that delved into ancient coin minting and the development of currency. He supposed it was his appreciation for learning new information of his own free will, unlike the fast-paced, passion-draining, wringer system that was university. Furthermore, he was surprised that you would share his interest in the matter.

“Why wouldn’t I like museums?” You had stopped just before the acclaimed beetle species wall, aglow behind a glass sheet. “I wrote in my draft that Mingyu and I went to a nature museum, remember?”

“I know. I’m just surprised you have that much of an interest in them. Your life seems so upbeat. I didn’t think you would be into something that most people find fairly dry and anticlimactic.”

“Right.” Twirling back around, you continued walking down the corridor, your eyes tracing the organized arrangement of lustre-shelled beetles. “Because everyone else is too stupid and you’re the true upper echelon who actually possesses the mental capability required to appreciate something as seemingly trivial but totally enriching as…” you then paused at the glass, squinting to read the embossed label below an oblong-shaped beetle with an iridescent green shell, “… as the Chrysochroa Fulgidissima? I don’t know, something like that—also known as the Jewel Beetle. Its species is native to Japan and Korea. It’s a… woodboring beetle?”

“Why would I know?” Wonwoo laughed, coming to stand beside you and look at the plaque settled to the white background behind the display glass. “You’re the one reading it.”

“Ugh—doesn’t matter. I was going somewhere with my speech and now I forget… oh, yeah! So, you think you’re smarter than me?”

Placing a gentle hand on your lower back, Wonwoo urged you to keep walking forward in order to let the people faintly mumbling behind you examine the wall, who seemed much more interested.

“I never said that,” he answered softly.

“Okay—but, do you think you’re smarter?”

“In what sense?”

“Did you take the Frontiers evaluation for calculus?”

“Yes.”

“What’d you score?”

“9.8.”

“Shut the fuck up! No you didn’t.”

Wonwoo merely tapped the black-framed glasses further up his nose, smirking slightly, and began shaking his head while continuing down the exhibit. You hurried after him, remembering to lower your voice to match the collective quietness.

“Prove it,” you whispered.

“Go to prof Bradbrook’s office. My name’s on her wall.”

“I hate you.”

“Why? What did you score?”

“I’m obviously not going to say it now.”

Wonwoo still remembered the day his test score came back—he’d opened the envelope in Miss Bradbrook’s office, and while she sat across from him, practically squirming and jittering with anticipation, Wonwoo had glossed over the paper slip with the smallest, most low effort smile. He knew he was supposed to feel relieved in that moment—overjoyed probably—to realize his notable success and the upstanding conformation he was legitimately good at something. But in truth, he hadn’t really felt anything at all. He sort of just smiled. That was it. That was all he could muster.

And his life had mirrored that moment ever since. In the past, it would come and go. Yet, that day, it just stuck. The only time he ever experienced any glint or sparkle of happiness, it had come from his girlfriend—but even she couldn’t imbue much from him that day.

“Well, that’s not what I expected you to ask.”

You glanced over at him, adjusting the bag on your arm.

“Meaning?”

“There are different types of intelligence. I thought you meant, in a more general sense, am I smarter, or more knowledgeable. To be honest, I can’t say. I mean, I feel like I’ve experienced and seen a whole lot, but that’s just life’s illusion.”

“You won’t really know ‘til you’re on your death bed.”

Wonwoo returned your glance, squinching his brown eyes in a judgemental but innocuous way that gave bloom to his smile.

“Thanks.”

“I can’t help it. Museums make me think of death. I think it’s the really cold, still air. Especially in nature museums where they need to preserve things. Like, look at that fox. It’s a bit ominous.”

On the exhibit to his right, Wonwoo observed another display protected by glass. There was a fox, with a rusty, auburn coloured coat, poised atop a fake precipice of grass. Wonwoo knew what you meant—it was the eyes, like two leaf green beads, so immensely detailed but lifeless to an almost uncomfortable degree.

“I want to see the aquarium exhibit next,” you said, tugging twice at Wonwoo’s sleeve. “I heard it’s really dark in there.”

“Well, we can go take a look.”

“And we can eat afterward? There’s an atrium.”

“Sure.”

Wonwoo let your arm link with his, following the natural flow of museum-goers into the next exhibit, leaving behind the shiny, colourful wall of beetles and the auburn fox in its lonesome enclosure.

The aquarium exhibit was one of the most spacious in the entire museum, placed in a large, dome-topped room, with shadows creeping at every corner. There were some lights—deep, blue lights that rippled and wriggled across the floor, like waves patterned against ocean sand by the sun rays. He didn't know from where, but he could hear water sloshing, a very soft sound that led him to imagine the wet sand squelching under his toes.

You approached another display wall, filled with a school of lemon-yellow and azure coloured fish placed around vibrant, unique corals.

While you busied yourself with reading the informative plaque, Wonwoo spent his time taking a more in-depth inspection around the mystifying exhibit. He noted the stingrays and luminous jellyfish flocking above his head, held on near-invisible little wires that would occasionally glimmer if they twisted the perfect angle.

After a generously long venture throughout the room, reading all the plaques and pointing to different fish behind the glass just to comment, “I think that was in Finding Nemo,” you had wanted to sit down, spotting a bench positioned before an aquarium.

Wonwoo agreed, and you collapsed on the bench together.

There was a period of comfortable silence where you both watched the aquarium, meanwhile the dappling, blue pattern cast to the floor danced and flickered around at your still feet. The atmosphere seemed so vivid that Wonwoo was surprised the next breath he took wasn’t a mouthful of liquid and sea salt, or that his body wasn’t miraculously suspended and floating about in the echoey shadows.

And that’s when Wonwoo decided he liked the aquatic exhibit very much—more than all the others.

He looked down at the hands folded in his lap, specifically at the scarred, ruined cuticle belonging to his right thumb and how it had withstood years of his anxious scratching. Wonwoo then breathed out softly, feeling his heartbeat begin to pick up.

“Want to know something?” He asked.

You stared back at Wonwoo with an intrigued pique of your brow.

“Like what?”

“Well, first of all, we both took creative writing, you know.”

"Uh, okay," you sniffed, "sure."

"No, like, we took the course together. In the fall. Prof T?"

"Really?" You pinned him down in a non-believing stare. "Wait, you're talking about that basement auditorium, right? In Gildan Hall? It always smelt like old computers and dust bunnies?"

"That's the one."

Scoffing out some dry air, you leaned back.

"Woah. I don't think I ever saw you... did you go to each class?"

He nodded a few times. "Almost all. To be fair, I sat more in the back, off to the corner. I wasn't exactly thrusting myself into the limelight."

Folding one leg over your knee, you chuckled. "Sounds like you."

“I have this really specific memory from that class, when that random guy, whoever he was, sat in the seat you always took. Your so called unofficially-assigned-assigned-seat. And I remember that really tense feeling right before you walked in, because we all knew you were gonna chew him out for it. The way you marched straight up to him was already violating enough, and then you basically ruined his whole day.” Looking down at his hands again, Wonwoo smiled at recalling the memory. “You absolutely terrified me. I don’t even think you understand how much I wanted to avoid you.”

He caught your eyes, shimmering like the water-stained floor, with an emotion he couldn’t place.

“Actually?” Was all you said, hardly sounding surprised.

“Yeah.”

Your face began searching around the shadowed, sloshing exhibit for something unseen. He decided to let the silence settle like a thin sheet, instead listening to the tidal pushing and pulling. The soft sounds reminded him of being a child, wandering beaches into the late evening with his older brother during summer vacations, and picking up shells just to hear the ocean speaking inside them.

Aloud, you breathed in, shaking your foot.

“I can’t really remember what was going through my head that day. I know I’d had a fight with Mingyu before going to class, so I was feeling pretty amped up and short-fused. I knew I was going straight to another SSA meeting that I hardly cared about immediately after, and then I would work until the evening. I knew I would have to make dinner when I got home, even though I’d be downright exhausted, and the next morning, I’d have to wake up early to attend some bullshit press, social, interview breakfast thing for my mom’s new lifestyle magazine. Having that idiot sit in my favourite seat was probably just the straw that broke the camel’s back, I guess.”

“Hm,” Wonwoo hummed, suddenly experiencing a profound sympathy for you that he never imagined he would feel. “When you give it a bit more perspective, it doesn’t sound so…”

“Completely and utterly bitchy?”

“Well, I wasn’t going to use that word, but, sure.”

You grinned at him through the dusky rippling of auroras that flitted across the exhibit, seeming like you were under the sea—and he was, too, sitting side by side in the somehow peaceful depths of the chaotic whirlpool that had pulled you two together.

“I have a memory.”

“Okay,” Wonwoo returned your grin, “I want to hear it.”

“So, remember earlier how we were talking about the Frontiers evaluation for Bradbrook’s calculus class?”

“Mmhm.”

"So, after all the Frontiers scores came out, I'm not gonna lie—I really thought I had one of the better marks. It's not like I specifically trotted around, throwing out my grade to anyone passing by, but I was parading a little bit to my friends. And then, like, Clara or something, told me that there was this guy who almost got a ten. I asked her who, and she said she didn't know—just that she overheard some of the basketball guys talking about it.

I thought she was lying. I didn't say that, though. But I remember it was on my mind every night. Like, it was itching me so bad. I wanted to know who the fuck was smart enough to get a damn near perfect ten on Frontiers. Some of those problems are ridiculously hard. I started writing nonsense around A-block. They straight up give students problems that serious, esteemed mathematicians can't fucking solve. So, honestly... I was quite jealous of you... despite not even knowing who you were. I can't believe that was you, asshole."

Wonwoo cracked his knuckles, beginning to laugh at that intense but lighthearted glare you were sending his way. Of course, you mellowed everything out with a big smile he felt his heart skip a beat over. You had actually went to bed thinking about him.

Holy fuck.

Maybe not him in physicality. But in spirit.

That was close enough.

"I just did the study guide." He shrugged.

Your knee pushed into his. "Oh, yeah, the study guide. Jeez, why didn't I think of doing that? Let me go kill myself right now."

"Keep tabs on it for next time."

With a roll of the eyes, you laughed almost to scorn him.

“I hate people like you.”

And Wonwoo laughed back. “Meaning?”

“Things come to you so naturally. You don’t have to try.”

“Sure,” Wonwoo agreed, scratching his nose and proceeding to nudge up his glasses, “things like mathematics, numbers, problem solving, taking something whole apart and then looking at its pieces. I guess it does come to me naturally. I can’t complain. But there are also plenty of things that don’t. And… if I could, I’d probably trade all my stupid math and logic and puzzling for what I’m missing.”

You tilted your head, staring intently at Wonwoo through the blue sea between you, almost into his brain, it felt like.

“What are you missing?”

At first, Wonwoo didn’t respond. To answer your question meant an intimate exhumation of the flaws that he’d been willfully ignoring for the past year, if not his entire damn life. It meant at last turning over the round, flat rock that had been sitting at the foot of his wooden porch since childhood, and realizing the bottom was sculpted with the grittiest texture and wet with the thickest dirt. The rock was hiding long-legged spiders and ugly, skittering bugs and it would have probably been better to let the rock sit there, untouched, only facing the warm and comfortable glow of the sun.

Wonwoo didn’t want to turn the rock.

Not at all.

“A plethora of things, I’m sure.”

Squeezing onto your wrist, you smiled at him.

“I think I’m the opposite.”

“How so?”

He watched you inhale a long, slow breath, and then huff it all out through your nose. Wonwoo bumped his knee against yours.

“You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to.”

“No, no. It’s not like that…”

Looking up to the glowing aquarium, the dull light reflected back unto your face, and Wonwoo again saw the glisten in your eyes.

“I just feel…” for a moment, your chest stilled, “… I feel like I’m so much of everything that I just blend into nothing. You know, like when a child takes a whole bunch of paints and squirts them all together thinking it’s going to create this beautiful, never-before-seen new colour? But, instead, it’s just greyish-brownish, nothing.”

Your face turned back to him. Wonwoo watched you chew down on your bottom lip, meanwhile your eyes glazed aloof, off to the side, as though you were rummaging through so many different thoughts and experiences that it required your utmost mental focus.

“And—” you swallowed tightly, and it sounded so painfully dry with stinging emotion, “—I just don’t want people to see that I’m so much of nothing. I just find myself covering it all up.”

Were you going to cry? Wonwoo felt himself jolt inwardly with panic. He had never seen you cry and he had therefore never developed the best protocol to tackle such a situation. Some people preferred immediate comfort, others—a reassuring stroke on the back, maybe some uplifting monologue. Or, maybe, they didn’t want to be touched at all. They just desired the simple, thinking silence and all its clarity. He remembered you saying something about it—that you did like to be comforted, but only in very certain circumstances.

First, Wonwoo subtly wiped off his hand against his thigh, and then he took in the softest breath. Through the flickering, midnight blue mirage, Wonwoo reached for your hand. He settled his cold fingers inch by inch under yours, and, with a timid but gentle thumb, Wonwoo caressed in a slow path along your knuckles.

You glanced to him appreciatively, saying nothing, but squeezing his hand in return. He figured he’d done right.

Maybe more things came to him naturally than he thought.

Before leaving the nature museum, you and Wonwoo had stopped at their atrium as promised to get in a quick meal. While you poked a fork into your sad-looking salad, making small scribbles every now and then to the journal at your elbow, Wonwoo ate a grill-pressed sandwich and flicked through his phone. He was surprised to check the time and realize you had spent about three hours there—it felt so much shorter. Wonwoo hated how quickly each moment flew past when he was with you. It was always so bittersweet.

He had wanted to know what exactly you were penciling in the journal, though he never asked, knowing he would probably be proofreading it from your document later. Obviously, you were thinking about that particular date with Mingyu from years back in your life—that was the principal point in going to the museum. However, Wonwoo had chosen to regard it more as hanging out, not caring if that was a particularly delusional or untruthful choice.

After finishing your meals and tossing the plastic remnants into the recycling bins, Wonwoo looked outside the atrium’s towering glass wall to note how cloudy the sky had become. From the bright, eggshell turquoise in the afternoon, to an especially muted grey that seemed brewing and heavy with a downpour. You adjusted the bag over your shoulder and suddenly grimaced at the sight.

��Jeez, is it going to rain?”

“It could,” Wonwoo sighed. “It very possibly could.”

“I swear. I obsessively check the forecast in order to plan all my outfits around it. It never said it would rain!” You then threw the bottle of iced tea you’d been drinking into the garbage with an aggressive slam. “This shirt is a horrible choice. It will be stupidly see-through."

Wonwoo glanced around the atrium.

“There’s lots of empty tables. If we want to sit and wait it out, then I don’t think anyone would get mad. But, I mean, it’s up to you.”

“Why’s it up to me?”

“I don’t know. Just—if you don’t want to get your outfit all soaked. I’m sure if we left now, we could make good distance before it really started raining. I’m not opposed to getting a little wet. But I have no issue with staying here and letting the clouds go over.”

You folded your arms, and your head fell to the side. He’d seen that look before. It was your own patented prelude to disaster.

“I never said I was opposed to getting wet.”

He laughed. “Well, you certainly insinuated it.”

“Do you think I'm some sort of whiny little priss?”

"I think you named your bear Miss Priss."

"I think you're a smart ass. Take that smirk off your face. Now."

Wonwoo wanted to sigh, but he didn’t. He then thought about trying to tenderly explain his way out of it with his smooth words. As much as he would think he’d figured you out, there was still a part of him that was very confused by you and how to adjust to your behaviour.

This time, he decided he would do nothing.

“Okay. Let’s go, then.”

He reached out his hand for you to grab.

“As if,” you scoffed, walking around him toward the exit doorway, into the museum garden, “not after you just insulted me.”

Wonwoo could do nothing but laugh in response, because he had caught that faint smile on your face as you passed him, and the sweet beading in your eyes. He simply followed you out the doors.

During the walk back to his apartment, it had yet to rain at all, not even a typical, humid summer drizzle or the smallest bit of spitting. Maybe it was just way more cloudy than usual, or it was a concerning spread of city smog tainting the sky. It’s not like he wanted it to rain, anyway, though more so for your sake than his.

About a little more than halfway through the walk, however, you came to an abrupt stop outside a flower shop, and Wonwoo watched you lift a doubtful hand to your cheek and wipe something off it. Before you could say anything, Wonwoo felt a big, cold, wet drop smack just above his eyebrow and begin leaking down. He used the sleeve of his shirt to clean it up, only to experience another fat droplet strike a second later, right onto his glasses.

“You can’t be serious…” he heard you mumble.

Making the mistake of looking up, more and more droplets fell swiftly from the daunting, dark grey blanket strewn across the entire skylight. They began painting all over the sidewalk, the roadway, shaking down into the brilliant purple and white petunia pots outside the florist shop. And Wonwoo froze for a moment, because he honestly hadn’t expected to be caught in the rain, let alone the downpour it was unfortunately shaping up to be.

“Ow!” You winced sharply. “One just fucking hit my eyeball!”

“Shit—let’s hurry.” Wonwoo hid his phone. “My apartment’s only like, ten minutes away, less if we run really fast.”

“Run?!” You gawked at him. “I don’t run!”

“No, you fucking sashay, I get it.” In a matter of seconds, those intermittent raindrops had evolved into an unrelenting, bathing barrage. Wonwoo could feel his clothes beginning to dampen, and his glasses were streaming with water. He slapped his hand onto yours, jerking you forward despite your stiltedness. “And I’m so sorry but you’re going to have to sacrifice one part of your pretty fucking princess routine for just five minutes so we can get back to my place.”

“My pretty fucking wha—!”

Once Wonwoo’s fingers were clasped tight with yours, he started to run, and whether it was voluntary or not, you ran along with him, shouting something that he couldn’t quite hear over the rain that bounced in loud splatters against the sidewalk and the adrenaline echoing in his own ears. He could hardly see through the downpour, but he’d walked that path so many times that it almost wasn’t necessary. At one point, he’d stepped onto the street prematurely, and he heard the loud, startled honk from a car.

“Jesus Christ, Wonwoo!” You half-laughed, half-coughed, clutching onto his slippery hand even tighter, “I’d ideally like to live!”

“We’re almost there!” He chuckled back.

“I think I’m going to lose my fucking shoe!”

“I’ll buy you a new pair!”

Wonwoo didn’t stop, and you didn’t either. He was soaked to his bones, with thick, drizzling fronds of hair plastered to his forehead and the glasses nearly slipping from his nose—the scent of earthy but ashen rain all around him—and still Wonwoo kept running, a very blithe smile permanent to his mouth despite all his discomfort.

Upon reaching the entryway to the pottery shop, Wonwoo almost skidded completely past it since the sidewalk was so slick and pouring like an angry river. You slammed into his back, and it was then that your hands unintentionally separated. Instead, he felt your fingers flesh into the sopping cloth covering his shoulders.

“Be careful on the steps!” He shouted overtop a reverberating crack of thunder that shook from behind the grey sleet sky.

“If I slip, I’m pulling you down with me!”

Wonwoo was pleased to hear the equally bright smile that bled into your words, meanwhile your fingertips dug even deeper into his muscle. Once inside the shop, a gust of wind proceeded to blow the door shut, and all Wonwoo heard was hard rain against the glass.

—END OF PART TWO.

[hannibals-favourite-meal]

.⋆｡Let Me Be Your Bear｡⋆.

Halsin x plus size reader (Tav)

An accident involving a fiery touch and your beloved stuffed teddy leads you to something wonderful

Warnings: Tav!reader, fluff, mutual pining, daddy Halsin, cuddling, reader has no specified gender or pronouns

WC: 782

Minors DNI

Library- @hannibals-favourite-meal-library

It had been an accident really. You knew Karlach was just curious about the small stuffed animal that was sitting on top of your open pack, she didn’t mean to turn it to ash as soon as she touched it and you didn’t resent her for it, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t break your heart just a little bit. 

Especially now as you lay by the dying fire, clutching a small bag Wyll had given you for the ashes tightly to your chest in some vain attempt to receive the same warmth the toy had given you before. You knew it was silly, it was just a small bear you found at the beginning of your journey but it was comforting on the darkest of nights when you were stuck with your thoughts or nursing some wound. 

Sighing, you rolled over onto your back and came face-to-face with the massive druid who was standing over you, looking at you curiously. You inhaled sharply in shock, clutching the bag even tighter. Halsin just tilted his head. “Why are you holding a pouch?” 

Heat crawled up your neck in embarrassment. “It’s dumb.” You mumbled, but his sensitive ears caught each word. Firelight flickered over his face yet the light in his eyes was even brighter.

“You can tell me you know. I have been told I am a good listener.” You sighed, patting the ground beside your bed roll. With no hesitation, Halsin took a seat beside you, his muscular thigh only a few inches from your soft one. 

Your fingers toyed with the small braided rope that tied the top of the pouch together, the ends already frayed from your nervous fiddling. “It was my bear, it was accidentally burned up which I understand, it wasn’t deliberate. But I can’t sleep without it.” 

Halsin hummed under his breath and you braced yourself from some teasing remark (perhaps you were spending too much time with Astarion) but it never came. Instead, the druid smiled softly at you. “Perhaps, you would allow me to help, with your permission of course.” He must’ve noticed your confused expression because he quickly spoke again. “I think you forget, I myself am a bear.”

Realisation dawned on you then, which was quickly followed by bashfulness. He was offering to let you cuddle him just so you could sleep. That of itself was an enticing offer, he was an incredibly handsome man, only a fool would deny that. But more than his outward appearance, he had a gentle and kind soul, one you had quickly fallen for.

“You don’t have to.” You replied but Halsin laid one massive palm on top of your knuckles, easily enveloping your much smaller hands.

“I want to.” No other words were needed. He pulled away from you just far enough for him to shift without hurting you as his eyes began to glow a beautiful gold. You blinked and suddenly there was a brown bear standing before you. He huffed and nudged your shoulder, pushing you to lay back down.

You didn’t even notice as the pouch slipped off your lap, too focused on the way that Halsin’s huge front legs now straddled your wide hips as he himself lay down between your legs. A soft groan was forced from your lips when he placed his head onto your soft stomach but it wasn’t uncomfortable, far from it actually. His weight on top of you eased the tension throughout your body and you quickly found yourself overwhelmed with exhaustion.

He gazed at you with emotions you couldn’t quite comprehend, watching with some satisfaction as you relaxed beneath him.

Your arms curled around his head as best you could, rubbing one of his ears between your fingers. He gave a satisfied groan, his black eyes shutting. “Thank you.” You whispered and he nuzzled further into you, almost purring as your closed your eyes.

“What in the bloody hells are you doing!” Astarion’s shrill voice cut through the tranquillity of the morning, startling you from your surprisingly deep slumber. Hot breath fanned across your face as the massive bear on top of you growled before settling back to sleep, his huge maw resting on your sternum.

“Sleeping.” You grumbled and your fingers tangled in his dark fur.

“Well yes I can obviously see that but why do you have a bear on top of you?” You cracked open one eyelid to glare at the elf who looked greatly put off by this whole thing.

“He’s my bear.” You answered simply as Halsin groaned in agreement, both of you wishing to go back to sleep and maybe get another blissful hour of just holding each other.

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[catch1ngmoths]

Hi ok so I was wondering if you can do a comfort fic with joost? Like joost sees readers past SH scars and reader really hates them and finds them disgusting but joost just kisses readers wrist and reader just starts bawling 😔🫶 if this makes u uncomfortable you don’t have to write it I won’t be upset! 🫶🫶🫶

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ STRAWBERRY GASHES⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

𝄞⨾“Watch me falter, Your living like a disaster. She said kill me faster with strawberry gashes all over” - jack off Jill𝄞⨾𓍢ִ໋

Summary: you have self harm scars but you’ve never told your boyfriend, Joost. One day you forget about the scars and wear somthing that reveals them. Much to your surprise Joost isn’t as disgusted in them as you are.

Note: thank you for all the love on my last fic, I am currently running on….0 hours of sleep and it’s like 1pm where I live so I’m pretty exhausted so this will probably be my last fic for today unless I get bored! Also!! I see all y’all’s requests and even though I don’t respond right away doesn’t mean I’m ignoring them or don’t see them! I like to respond to the request with the fic so you won’t know I saw it until the actual fic comes out! ^_^

Warnings: SELF HARM TW!! other then that just comfort and fluff >~<

༘⋆₊ ⊹★🔭๋࣭ ⭑⋆｡˚ ༘⋆₊ ⊹★🔭๋࣭ ⭑⋆｡˚ ༘⋆₊ ⊹★🔭๋࣭ ⭑⋆｡˚

You and Joost had been together for a few months and everything was going great! He loved you more than anyone else ever could, even if they tried. He held you when you felt anxious or upset. Felt excited with you when you were happy and made sure you were always take care of. Always.

But there was one thing you hid from him, something that ate you alive every single day. Joost always questioned with a chuckle why you wore long sleeves in 90 degree weather but you just shrugged it off, saying you were always cold. That was a lie, you were sweating but you were also hiding something that’d hurt you a little more than a little sweat.

Your old sh scars. You struggled with it on a daily basis, sure they were old but they still managed to haunt you. You felt disgusted by yourself everytime you caught glimpses of them and you were sure Joost would too. I mean…who would want a partner that has scars like that.?

Today was the day you find out because being to caught up in excitement to hang out with Joost you forgot about the scars that littered your arms (or anywhere else, so so sorry to be so an inclusive ( •̯́ ^ •̯̀)) you put on a pair of your favorite shorts and shirt and head out the door to joosts place, not even looking twice.

Once you arrive, an equally excited Joost greats you and drags you to his room. You weren’t even thinking about it, so in love with your boyfriend to even care. He didn’t even notice either, finding every part of you perfect…until.

Until you lifted your arm in a certain way, that put your scars on full display. You noticed that Joost stoped mid speaking and looked over to him to see his face that was full of emotion that you couldn’t quite put your finger on. It was a mix of sadness, confusion, fear, and shock.

You look at him confused until your eyes follow his that were deadpan staring right at your scars. You gasp softly and cover your scars, sitting up immediately. You felt ringing in your ears and your heart rate quickening. You lower your head and feel the tears of shame and embarrassment start to burn in your eyes.

You feel the touch of your beloveds soft fingertips grab your hand, interlocking y’all’s fingers and pulling your arm towards him. You keep your head down and squeeze your eyes shut trying to block everything out.

When you suddenly felt soft kisses on the places your scars were spread. Your eyes snap open and your head raises to look at Joost. He presses soft and gentle kisses on every.singe.scar. He makes sure to press 3 to each one for good measure.

Your heart feels heavy and you just burst into tears, Joost is close to tears as well. Once hes done you immediately jump into his arms, he strokes your back and whispers soft words of praise to you waiting for you to calm down.

Once you’re calmer, only small tears flowing down your wet cheeks he props you in his lap and holds you close. “I knew something was up when you kept wearing all those long sleeves..” he whispers almost kicking himself for not noticing sooner.

“I-I’m sorry… they’re old I promise!! A-and I just didn’t want you to see because they’re ugly and i just didn’t-” your cut off by a soft kiss being pressed to your lips. “Shh…you don’t have to give any explanation or reason unless you want to, okay?” He speaks with that signature smile that you loved so dearly

“You’re…you’re not disgusted.?” You ask looking up at him, he almost looks exasperated at your words. His eyes widening and mouth parting. “Disgusted.?! Why the hell would I be disgusted mijn geliefde, you’re so beautiful to me. Everything about you, even your scars.” He says with a soft smile and a kiss to your head.

“They’re gross, I ruined my skin and now they’re gonna be there forever…” you argue as you lower your head back down and play with his fingers, “so? Who cares, first of all they’re not gross, they’re not disgusting, you’re not ugly and will never be ugly. You’re not ruined and they just show how much of a fighter you are baby. Nothing to be ashamed about, promise.” He says interlocking your pinkies together

You smile and giggle softly, tears still staining your cheeks which Joost quickly kissed away making you laugh and push his head away, “Joost that tickles!!” You squeal as he smiles and peppers ticklish kisses over your face.

You knew no matter what you looked like or what happened or hell even what you went through he would always be there for you. He would forever and always be your biggest supporter. He loved you for you and nothing less.

[birdofmay]

"What words are there to describe the situation when I suddenly can't speak anymore?" - Masterlist

If you suddenly can't speak/struggle to speak:

losing words

losing speech/speech loss

no mouth words

out of words

speech loss episode

situational speech loss

going/being silent

becoming/being unspeaking

verbal shutdown

verbal crash

low/weak verbality

Coined by @witchy-fennec :

demi-verbal:

Handle with care (because it can be misunderstood easily as it reminds of selective mutism, which under no circumstances should be mixed up):

autistic mutism

Some general words:

low words

no words

speech averse

voice averse

speech pause

being/becoming voiceless

being tight-lipped/tongue-tied/close-mouthed

being verbally uncommunicative

being untalkative

being tacit/taciturn

If you want to express that you only use nonverbal communication to communicate:

communicating nonverbally/using nonverbal communication - NOT being nonverbal, that doesn't refer to you using nonverbal communication and is something else entirely ☝🏼

If you want to express that internally you're really struggling with speech atm, but you're able to force yourself to speak:

masked-verbal

If you can't speak anymore and can't make sense of language anymore simultaneously:

losing language

If you could speak theoretically, but simply choose not to do so (or to speak less):

word resting (for example if you want to save energy)

choice verbal

on vocal rest (well-known, likely won't raise further questions)

Words by @carpsstuff :

despeechify - when verbal communication begins to slow or shut down. example: i’m about to despeechify, can you hand me my tablet so i can use my app?

larynx laziness - you want to speak, but for whatever reason but at that moment you cannot. example: i am feeling some hardcore larynx laziness, because i really want to use my voice but ugh! i just can’t!

talk tired - being temporarily unable to use verbal communication due to physical, mental, or emotional exhaustion. example: i am so talktired right now, it’s making it hard to speak.

untalkable - being unable to speak in that moment for an indeterminate amount of time due to neurodivergence. example: i am pretty untalkable right now, so i’m using pen and paper to communicate.

voicebox variable - your level of speech capability varies from time to time. example: i am voicebox variable.

wonky worded - saying things like up when you mean down, or left when you mean right, or yes when you mean no, like your words are getting mixed up somewhere along the way from your brain to your mouth. example: i am seriously wonky worded right now, everything is coming out of my mouth all wrong.

Some newly coined terms I find really cool by @archival-arrival , might especially be interesting for those who aren't autistic (definition in the linked post):

nullvox

tacevox/tacetvox

siovox

siofoni

ochifoni/chorisfoni

ochilogia/chorislogia

pagofoni

pagolexei/pagologia

[munsonsreputation]

am i allowed to cry?

steve harrington x fem!reader

word count: [2.8k]

warnings: cursing, allusion to depression and anxiety, reader nearly has a mental breakdown over the stress of work/school/and life, steve comes to the rescue don't worry (honestly just wrote this because seasonal depression combined with school and work and life is real as fuck and we all need some comfort), also semi proof-read, sorry!

summary: it feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders, something too heavy for you to bear all alone, but you do, anyway. and when you finally collapse under pressure, the last person you want to worry is your boyfriend steve, but he’s your safe space, and all he ever wants you to know is that he’s going to be there for you through smiles and tears.

The fatigue settled under your eyes and in the depths of your bones like a heavy weight pulling you down. There was an exhaustion seeping from the inside out, eating you alive until you were merely a shell of yourself. Your stomach twisted in knots unsolvable even with the help of sleep or tea—you felt beyond defeated with no way out.

It didn’t matter where you were and how ‘fine’ you thought you were. The feeling of dread became embedded into your entire existence and it was getting harder to keep up the act and blame it all on school or work. Perhaps it started there, but slowly and surely did the feeling morph into every avenue you steered towards in order to escape.

Your hangouts with friends suddenly turned into an inner panic attack of sorts, feeling the need to keep up with everyone who was doing so well whilst you were barely making it out alive.

Family dinners then turned into interrogations, where they poked and prodded probably with the best intent to figure out why you were so absent, but it all just felt like an attack coming from left and right.

No matter how hard you tried to keep up the facade of being fine and telling everyone they were making a big deal out of nothing, you knew you were moments away from falling apart. At this rate, you were a machine breaking down piece by piece, rusting and stalling until you couldn’t move anymore.

And the absolute last person you wanted to shrink away from was your boyfriend, Steve.

He was the most supportive and present person in your life you could have ever asked for. He never doubted you in anything, and most times he was the one egging you on to go after your dreams. Telling you to take risks and go for it, because you always succeeded in everything you did, and even when it wasn’t on the first try, he knew you were bound to get a hang of it.

A special trait about him that you adored so much was his trust in you. He knew what it was like for people to always question his worth, to try to make it seem like he wasn’t capable or smart enough to make his own decisions so much so that other people had to step in and save him. But to be fair, Steve Harrington never needed to be saved—he just needed the right people around to show him it was okay to make mistakes and learn from it.

And you did just that.

When Steve didn’t know what he wanted to do after graduation, you never pestered him on to go off to college, committing himself to something he wasn’t one hundred percent certain about. Instead, you encouraged him to find his calling, to scour town in order to find different hobbies that had potential job opportunities. To volunteer and possibly shadow in order to widen his options.

You were always supportive and did your best to guide instead of control—and because of that; he was able to find a job that made him happy, surprisingly enough.

And likewise, while Steve never was the biggest fan of structured school, he guided you through your college path. Providing all the moral and emotional support he could offer you, and at times even going as far as to reading a textbook chapter alongside you to help you understand concepts that were all too confusing.

He never pushed too hard, and never made it seem like he didn’t care. There was a perfect balance between your understanding and his—a sort of tune that always was in perfect harmony…until it wasn’t.

You had been assuring Steve that while school and work were surely kicking your butt, you had it all under control, but that was far from the truth. Date nights were seemingly pushed back…not that he minded since he understood you needed to study and rest—but things were beginning to feel more off.

You avoided having him stay the night at your place or even just stopping by to drop you off some food. When you did spend time together, you were physically there, but not mentally. You listened intently to what he had to say, but when it was your turn, you shared little about what was going on with you, and diverted the questions back to him.

A lot of the time, you just seemed out of it. Too far away in your mind for him to reach you, and while he knew everyone had their off days and even off weeks, yours was becoming imminently permanent, and you were beginning to realize it, too.

You sat hunched over at your desk, eyes welling with tears as you stared down at your notes, then back to your textbook, then back to your notes once again. Nothing was making sense, and your patience was slim to none, batting your eyes as the tears fell onto the pages where you were too fed up to care.

Your mind was scattered all over the place, thinking about how you needed to make sense of the content in front of you, but also about the many deadlines of other assignments you had under your belt. On top of that, you had other responsibilities that needed your full attention, yet you sat there wondering how you were even going to complete one of them.

There was something that snapped inside of you. A guttle cry that you let out as you pushed yourself out of your desk chair and stood with your hands threaded roughly in the roots of your hair. Hot, vicious tears floated down your cheeks while you paced in circles attempting to calm yourself down, but nothing worked.

You needed Steve, even when you didn’t want him to see you like this.

He was at your doorstep not even a whole ten minutes after you had phoned him, asking if he would drop by. It was almost midnight, and usually at this hour your nose was buried deep behind textbooks and assignments, but he could just tell something was the matter.

He had asked rushed and worriedly, if everything was okay, but you refused to give him a definite answer, just sniffling back your cries and humming, telling him to come over as soon as he could. The drive was short, and yet for him it felt like eternity until he was face to face with you on your front porch.

“Baby,” His voice was rigid yet gentle, striding closer to you as his warm hands came down to hold your arms, “Hey, what’s going on? Are you hurt?” He breathed, half catching his breath from his haste, and half worried out of his mind.

He bent a little at the knees, trying to get a better look at your face in the dimly lit doorway. All the color was drained from your skin, except the red path your tears took down your cheeks and your bitten lips.

You sniffled hard, an unevenness apparent in your breathing, “N—nothing,” you lied pathetically, closing your eyes as you shook your head, “I’m just a little stressed. You don’t have to worry about m-me.”

There was lots to worry about, especially seeing you in the state that you were in. Steve had seen you stressed out many times before. Worried about running late, leaving something behind, nervous about a final exam, but nothing ever to this extent. This was more than stress, and he knew it.

“Let’s go inside and talk, yeah?” He murmured, ignoring your comment and leading you back into your home, hoping to get you to talk some more.

Guiding you to the kitchen, he switched on the lights, pulling out a chair for you to sit at the dining table while he got you a glass of cold water and some paper towels.

“Have some water, baby,” He knelt on the ground, holding the cup of water to your lips.

You sniffled, closing your eyes tightly as you tried to catch your breath before taking a sip, letting him help you, and pulling the cusp away from your lips before you could cough up. You could feel his eyes boring through you, filled with fret wanting to get down to the bottom of the situation yet letting you go at your own pace.

He took the paper towel, crumbling it up into a small ball to dab over your cheeks and under your eyes, doing his best to soak up all the tears that kept pouring. His heart shook and broke in his chest, wondering what had happened to get you to this state of no return.

“Talk to me sweetheart,” He started, letting one of his hands come to hold your trembling one, giving you a firm squeeze. “What can I do to make it better?” He implored, just wanting to make whatever that was hurting you stop.

The desperation in his voice made another sob rip out from chest, face pinching into something painful as you hung your head low and wept as quietly as you could. You felt so weak and helpless, hating that you pushed yourself to the point where you made the one person who vowed to always be there for you feel as though he wasn’t.

“Babe, shhh, hey c’mon,” He murmured, immediately wrapping his arms around your body, pulling you close to him and burying your face in his chest, “It’s okay. I’m right here, baby. S’okay.”

You hadn’t said anything just amounting yourself to a mess of tears and unspoken feelings, not knowing how you could possibly articulate what you had been going through all this time.

“I—I’m sorry,” You muffled against his chest, causing him to pull away slightly, just to look at you and shake his head wondering why you were apologizing.

“You don’t have to be sorry baby—”

“I’m fucked up, I know I am.” You blurted out, a cruelty in your voice Steve could tell was directed towards yourself, not him.

“I-I’ve been so caught up with school and work that I know I haven’t been the best girlfriend, but I swear—”

“Hey stop it.” He didn’t let you finish, furrowing his brows, determined to make you understand the words you were saying about yourself weren’t true.

“This isn’t about you not being a good girlfriend. You’re so good to me, baby and I promise you whatever it is that’s going on, isn’t because of that. Talk to me. Don’t be scared.”

He assured you with warm circles rubbed over your back, just wanting you to focus on your feelings and not on what you thought you were making him feel. The only thing that mattered to him was understanding you, and how he could fit himself into the puzzle to make it all better.

“I’m just so tired,” You broke down once again, “I don’t feel like myself anymore, and even when I look at myself…I don’t see me.” You croaked, voice breaking in between words.

“All I want to do is relax, but my brain is just on a live wire where I can’t stop thinking and then I start spiraling. If it isn’t school, then it’s work, and if it isn’t work, then I’m thinking about all of the others things I don’t have time for in between school and work.” You heaved, just feeling the panic and frustration arise at the mere conversation.

He hated how he could see the contempt you had for yourself. Fingernails biting into the palm of your hands and a deep-seated frown over your lip, as if you wanted to crawl out of your skin to be someone completely different. But there was no one like you, in his eyes. Whatever it was that you were going through he was going to stand beside you and help you get back to feeling like yourself, the girl he couldn’t imagine living without.

“I’m here for you. I’m sorry I didn’t realize sooner,” He murmured, pushing the tear soaked strands of hair out of your face. “You work so hard all the time, you deserve a break.”

“I can’t,” you cried, shaking your head, rubbing exhaustingly at your eyes, “I physically can’t. I can’t fall behind when I already am.”

You wanted to listen to his advice, the knowing that deep down he was so very right, but you couldn’t look past the idea of letting people down and falling behind when you knew it was impossible to play catch up.

Steve knew how you operated on a one track mind to get things done and out of the way, which was obviously ideal. However, the amount of physical, emotional, and mental strain the work ethic had put you in was enough confirmation that he needed to step in before it got worse.

“Listen to me, hon,” He said tenderly, grasping your face in his hands, “You need a break. I’m not saying you have to abandon everything, but you need to take it easy on yourself. Learn how to step away and breathe. You’re going to work yourself to death if you keep this up…and you know I can’t live without you.”

His sentiment was true and sweet, something he was able to be at all times, even at times like this.

“I’m not going to let you fall behind, baby.” He promised you, swiping his thumbs over your cheeks, pressing a chaste kiss over your lips before he continued, “I’ll help you and we can take it on together, but you can’t keep stuff like this from me okay? The last thing I ever want you to feel is like you have to do it all alone.”

You sniffled, nodding as you swallowed back the lump in your throat, hiccuping slightly, “I-I know, I’m just usually so good at taking on everything, but I don’t know what happened.” You admitted with a shrug.

He nodded understandingly. “You might not feel it, but you’re overworked and that’s okay. I’m going to be here to help any way I can. With school, with work…with breaks.” He smiled softly.

“I’m sorry for not telling you sooner.” You stared up at him apologetically, wishing you hadn’t waited so long to tell him, knowing that he was always your number one confidant and supporter through everything.

Still, he shook his head, caressing your cheeks, “Don’t apologize, I’m here now and I promise it’s going to get better.”

He held you in his arms a little longer, letting you cry the rest of your tears into his chest, before suggesting to head up to your room. Agreeing, he grabbed a fresh cup of water to keep at your bedside before following you up the stairs and into your room.

Books and papers were sprawled out across your desk, hinting to him what had gone down before you called. He knew that school was beginning to take a toll on you with bigger projects and finals approaching, but had no idea it was getting worse and worse as the days passed by—but no longer, not with him around.

“Let me just…” You spoke under your breath, heading towards your desk to get everything cleaned up, now that Steve was spending the night and not wanting him to deal with the mess.

But he was quick to stop you, grabbing you gently by the wrist before you could even close the textbook, causing you to follow his lead to your bed.

“Hey…” He murmured, setting the cup down on the small table beside your lamp, “we’ll figure it out in the morning okay?”

“Hmm,” You hummed with a nod, letting him situate you into bed before toeing off his shoes and getting in beside you.

You turned to face him after he switched off the lamp, encasing you both in complete darkness. Eyes adjusting to the light, enough for you to make out his face, eyes closed peacefully, as his arms went instinctively around your frame, pulling you closer into him—the feeling you had been missing so desperately, wondering why you ever even thought to push it away.

“You know I’ll be here whenever you need me, all the time okay?” His voice broke the silence, nuzzling his face closer to yours, hoping you knew how true every word was.

“I know,” you promised, jutting your chin up to press a kiss to his lips that he smiled into, kissing you back a little harder wanting you to remember the feeling and that alone.

All the stress still lingered in the back of your mind, but the feeling that consumed wasn’t the fear or the exhaustion that had been weighing you down. It was the knowing that you were allowed to feel your feelings around Steve, and the security to know he was your person, rain or shine—and that in itself was enough for you to know it was going to be okay.

💌 reblogs, tags, comments, + likes are greatly appreciated! leave a comment and let me know if want to be added to my taglist!! 💌

a/n: very short one shot in honor of seasonal depression doing its big one on me...but don't worry im surviving through my safe space fiction characters!!! i hope you are all doing well and thank you again for sticking around!

taglist: @translatemunson @kennedy-brooke @manda-panda-monium @tvserie-s-world @givemeth @steveharringtonswife @astolenkiss @loving-and-dreaming @awkotaco24 @engenelxver @elfiaaaa @pbs-theundeadmaggot @johnricharddeacy @gaysludge @keerysfolklore @micheledawn1975 @ihatepeanutss @bakugouswh0r3

[flowerandblood]

The Fall from the Heavens (40) (End)

[ canon • Aemond x Strong • niece female ]

[ warnings: description of childbirth, breeding and lactation kink, sex content, smut, angst, fluff ]

[ description: A cool distance turns into friendship and more when two children see that they can find refuge and understanding in each other. However, naïve dreams collide with the reality in which every event has consequences and what once could have been love becomes a dark, newly painful obsession. Angst, sexual tension, obsession, violence, madness, very dark Aemond. ]

The story in this series is an alternate reality from the oneshot Stay and love, leave and die, in which Aemond reads the letters his niece has sent to him over the years. They are the same characters and it shows what would have happened between them − I have changed the background story from their childhood slightly for the sake of the plot.

Characters & Series Moodboard Lady Strong Moodboard Aemond & Lady Strong Moodboard Aemond & Lady Strong Childhood

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Next chapters: Masterlist

_____

Nothing terrified her more than giving birth. During the night, she often dreamt that she was dying an agonising death, that her husband was ordering her womb to be cut open as her grandfather had done to her grandmother.

She would then wake up drenched in a cold sweat and sigh with relief when she realised it was only a dream. She didn't tell her husband about it because she knew he would have been furious at the mere suggestion that he could do something so monstrous to her.

To her surprise and the initial panic that gripped her, though she would never have expected it, the presence of Alicent and Alys eased her delivery. The two experienced women told her exactly how she should sit and when to walk, how she should breathe, when to push and when to rest, stroking her hair and her back.

They comforted her with warm words, told her how perfectly she was doing, how brave she was, that everything would be well, that she could do it.

She felt like her baby was about to tear her apart, moans and screams erupted from her throat as if she were a monster or an animal, tears of exertion and suffering running down her cheeks hot with emotion.

"– I can see the head, Princess – the baby is placed in the right position – all is well – when I tell you, push –" Alys said, peering at her from between her thighs, and she nodded quickly, feeling relieved at her words, thinking that she would not die.

That she would give her husband a son and end the war.

She screamed, clasping her hand over Alicent's palm as she tried with effort to bring her offspring into the world, this brutal act unknown to the man full of blood and fluids, sickening and beautiful at the same time, giving life.

And suddenly she was relieved when something large finally slid out of her body and began to quiver. Alys smiled, as if she was genuinely happy about what she was seeing.

"– it's a healthy little boy –" She said, and she laughed with joy while simultaneously crying from relief and exhaustion, tilting her head back, panting loudly.

When her son's umbilical cord was cut he was wiped quickly and given to her, rolled up in a soft white cloth so she could see him.

His hair was white.

She looked at Alicent, who pressed her lips together, tears one by one running down her face.

"I'm so happy for you, my love. I truly am."

When her husband was summoned, she had the feeling that he had survived her labour worse than she had – he walked into the chamber shaky and pale, breathing loudly through his mouth as if he was about to faint. When he closed them in his embrace, when he saw their child, there was a smile on his face that she had so rarely seen: wide, joyful, full of life.

They had a son.

They had an heir.

They had an heir to the throne.

The word was immediately sent out to Dragonstone and King's Landing along with the signatures of Daemon and the Queen to attest to the truth of the message.

Both Aegon and her mother arrived in Harrenhal to see that it was true, and were greeted by the head of Lord Larys Strong impaled on a spike, as promised by Daemon.

She ran out to greet her mother as soon as she noticed Syrax in the distance – Rhaenyra embraced her immediately as she slid from her saddle, sobbing with joy at the sight of her, kissing her forehead and cheeks.

"– my only daughter –"

Aegon was already waiting for her, together with her husband bent over the cradle in which their son lay.

Viserys looked at the newcomers with his big, bright eyes, hiding his face in his small hands, watching the historic moment when a settlement was to be written between her mother and her uncle that would change the order of succession by their agreement, establishing her and her husband as ruler-regents until their son reached the age of sixteen.

According to Rhaenyra's will, neither of them was to wear the crown or sit on the Iron Throne – that honour would be bestowed only on their son, Viserys, when he reached the right age.

She watched, cradling her son in her arms, who put his whole little hand in his mouth, mumbling something squeaky, as Aegon and then her mother put their signatures to their arrangements written down by the scribe, and she clenched her eyes shut, swallowing hard, knowing that it had finally happened.

This was the end of the conflict.

Although the atmosphere in Harrenhal was tense, and Aegon had immediately returned to the Red Keep, the exact date had been set for when she, her mother and her husband would appear in King's Landing to present the will of her mother and her uncle to the entire kingdom in the Great Sept.

She was horrified that what had remained only in her imagination was now to become a reality.

Her husband was to become King Regent and she was to become Queen Regent.

They were to rule the kingdom together.

She was not prepared for such a life and was terrified, her husband, however, seemed calmer and more confident than ever, as if he had been destined for it.

She trusted him and wanted to be his support.

Viserys was changing every day, growing in front of her eyes. It seemed to her that he had more of his father in him than of her, for he was a sweet but shy child, hiding his flushed face whenever anyone but her or his father looked into his cradle or touched him.

To her delight, her husband, although at first afraid to take him in his arms, began to do so to ease the strain on her and her back as their son began to grow heavier.

She watched from the sidelines as the physical contact began to bring them closer together – Viserys stretched his small, chubby hands towards him when his father merely leaned over him, and her uncle was taking him in his arms, whispering something to him, from which their son giggled loudly.

She knew that he wanted to be a better father to their son than the one he had.

Because of what was happening they were too tired to do anything at night other than sleep, so they cuddled exactly as they had when they were children, falling asleep with their foreheads touching each other, holding hands, silently reminding each other that they were not alone.

Her uncle loved watching her feed his son. When she took him in her arms and slipped her shirt off her shoulders, he always interrupted whatever he was doing and came over to them, sitting down next to her, looking silently at this mythological sight of a woman breastfeeding her offspring.

One night as she put their son down, sleeping peacefully with a belly full of her milk back into his cradle, her husband looked at her with a look she knew well. He licked his lips as he sat spread out on the bed, watching her entire figure from afar.

"– come here –" He commanded with a grimace from which she felt a pleasant shiver, his eye fixed on her expression of satisfaction.

"– it's time for your husband to taste you –"

She didn't think he meant it, but as it turned out, her childhood friend still managed to surprise her. His lips kissed her soft thighs and stomach, where white lines had formed, and although, indeed, her body looked different, he didn't seem to notice.

"– my brave wife – she brought my son and heir into this world – shouldn't I, as her husband, caress her every night in return? –" He gasped, sliding his tongue down between her thighs, his light, taunting lick traveling up her puffy bud made her throw her head back, all thirsty.

"– yes –" She exhaled, feeling in her loins more than ever how much she wanted it, how much she needed those words, her cunt swollen with arousal.

"– mmm –"

She almost cried out as his nose pressed against her warm, sensitive folds, and his tongue invaded deep between her slit, trailing its tip and teasing the spot from which her thighs trembled in the grip of his hand.

"– fuck – Aemond, oh, fuck –" She mumbled, rocking her hips so that her pearl rubbed again and again against his face, feeling the tension and tingling in her lower abdomen, in her hard nipples and lips, her hands clenched in his hair, begging him for more.

"– dirty little cunt – all sticky – am I wrong? – He cooed with a sneer and she shook her head, feeling a wonderful shiver of delight run through her body at his words as his tongue slowly built her path to fulfillment.

"– my wife is unmannerly – she can't even answer her husband – what a pity –" He hummed, rising on his arms, wiping his face with a grin. She looked at him with her eyes wide open, panting loudly, feeling her whole womanhood pulsing and quivering with desire.

"– n-no – please –" She muttered pleadingly, and he chuckled under his breath, delighted apparently at her condition.

"– what shall I do with you? – how to teach you good manners? – treat you like a mere wet-nurse? – a source of milk for my offspring? – hm? –" He sneered, making her turn red with embarrassment, her fingers clenched on his hot, naked body.

She squirmed, startled, when he suddenly leaned over her chest and pressed his face against her breast, enclosing her puffy, delicate nipple between his lips, and then began to suck greedily.

She heard him swallow her warm milk and moan low at the same time as her, as if something about the act aroused them both.

"– fuck – fuck, fuck, fuck, please –" She mumbled out and sighed as his knee hit her leg and forced her to spread her thighs – not letting go of her breast from between his lips, which he kept squeezed between his fingers, he blindly tried to meet her entrance with the tip of his cock, into which she herself guided it with her fingers, desperate, spreading her walls in front of him.

"– here – here, uncle – gods, yes, right here –" She mewled and threw her head back as he slammed into her with an aggressive, deep thrust, sliding into her with ease. She squealed when he put his arm under her back and suddenly lifted himself to a sitting position, pulling her against him.

He forced her to fit his hard, throbbing erection inside her again and again with sharp, quick thrusts while keeping his hands clamped on her waist and breast – his lips released her nipple and clung to her mouth, letting her drink her own milk, warm and sweet.

"– fucking delicious –" He exhaled, sliding his tongue down her throat, embracing her tightly, her full, swollen breasts bumping against his chest, rubbing against her oversensitive nipples again and again. Their bodies slapped against each other loudly, her walls slick and wet, welcoming him easily deep inside her.

"– I've missed this little cunt – gods, Rhaenys, 'm close –" He muttered, ashamed and flushed at not being able to persevere any longer after such a long break, and then groaned loudly in pleasure along with her, his mouth wide open in relief and bliss.

"– Aemond –" She panted, along with him coming down from their peak, her fleshy walls squeezing his half-hard, twitching manhood, the remnants of his seed filling her womb.

"– six – you promised me six more –" He muttered, and she nodded quickly.

"– yes – yes, my beloved –"

The day their little son was to be presented in front of the crowd and the terms of the agreement were to take effect was one of the most terrifying of her life. She and her husband had returned to King's Landing several weeks earlier to oversee the preparations and what was to happen.

They and their families had travelled in carriages to the Great Sept as agreed. She rocked their son in her arms, who would not be calmed, crying loudly, feeling her terror and fear, the thought that something would happen, that someone would betray them, that there would be a tragedy that would destroy everything.

"Give him to me." Said her uncle, and she pressed her lips together, handing him squirming, whimpering Viserys.

"There, there. Easy. Your mother is just very scared, but we are not in any danger." He whispered to their son, rocking him calmly. Viserys looked at him, putting his small hand into his mouth as was his custom when he was intrigued.

"– no –" She and her uncle said at the same time, but her husband forestalled her, pulling his hand from his mouth.

"– you can't do that –" He rebuked him, apparently believing that the several-month-old infant would comprehend the weight of his words.

However, it turned out that he did not when, after a moment, his little fingers reached his chubby face again. Her husband grabbed his arm to stop him from doing what he wanted.

"– he's stubborn just like you –" He said, looking at her reproachfully, as if it was her fault that their son was displaying behaviour incomprehensible to him. She sighed heavily, shaking her head.

"– you haven't replied to my letters for eight years and you're going to lecture me on stubbornness? –" She asked with raised eyebrows and saw her uncle press his lips into a thin line, exactly as he had when they were children and she had told him that Aegon the Conqueror spent nine nights out of ten with Rhaenys.

He was just as she remembered him.

"Did you hear that, son? Your mother never forgets anything." He muttered, looking her straight in the eye. She smiled at him with a sneer.

"Never."

Her husband responded to her words with the same expression, grinning.

"Little tease."

When they finally arrived in the Great Sept, to her surprise, they were greeted with flowers and cheers; contrary to what she thought, the people of the kingdom were not in favour of a bloody solution to the matter and wanted peace above all else.

They went inside through a side entrance, her mother, her uncle and everyone else waiting on a large stone platform, onto which they stepped, accompanied by the solemn sound of trumpets.

"Heir to the Iron Throne, Viserys Targaryen, his father, King Regent Aemond Targaryen and his mother, Queen Regent, Rhaenys Targaryen." She heard the voice of one of the guards and looked at him in shock.

Rhaenys Targaryen.

Her husband had ordered that her real name not be read out, only the one he had given her.

That was how he perceived her.

Her mother looked at her, furrowing her brow, thinking something bad had happened, but she nodded at her with a smile, feeling tears under her eyelids.

The crowds began to cheer, and an overwhelming relief could be felt all around her, as if fresh air had suddenly filled her lungs, and she began to breathe again. She kissed the temple of her son, who snuggled into her body, terrified by the sudden screams and loud sounds, seeking refuge in her.

The more Viserys grew, the more he reminded her of his father. He quivered with contentment as her husband leaned over him with a book, showing him drawings of dragons, reading aloud to him the history of their lineage. When he was alone, he spent his days in the library, sitting in the exact chair her uncle had sat in when they were still children.

His role overwhelmed him and she knew it; he was a polite, composed and sensitive child. He had watched his father when, cold and mocking, he had dealt with members of the Small Council who had aroused his frustration, also spending a lot of time with his uncle, Prince Aegon.

"I took the throne from him. What was rightfully his as first son." He told her once, pale, bent over a book as usual. She ran her hand through his hair in a subconscious, maternal reflex and hissed when she felt the baby kick inside her abdomen.

Her husband had told her the night before, kissing her rounded belly, that he had hoped that after three sons he would finally have a daughter, and indeed, she had hoped so too.

The whole kingdom benefited from how stable their relation was, how strong their partnership was, their union, their trust in each other.

"The matter of succession was unclear because, before his death, your grandfather said that Aegon should become King, even though he had forced the Lordships many years earlier to pay tribute to my mother as the heir to the throne. This caused both her rights to the throne and your uncle's to be challenged throughout the kingdom, and there was no way out of the situation except war, which would have destroyed us all. Your appearance was a sign from the gods." She said softly, and her son nodded, something like relief on his face. He stared ahead for a moment, playing with his fingers.

"Do you know when Princess Alyssa will return?" He asked quietly, as if embarrassed.

She raised her eyebrows in surprise, remembering that, in fact, Alicent, Helaena and her two daughters had travelled to the Old Town some time ago to visit Dareon.

"Well. I do not know that." She answered truthfully.

Alyssa was the youngest child of Aegon and Helaena, already born after the Targaryen family's great truce, and in accordance with this agreement, she lived with her parents in the Red Keep.

She had inherited her mother's beautiful, delicate beauty and her father's cheerful, loud character, while retaining her gentleness and warmth. She used to laugh and speak a lot, hence it seemed to her that her son, withdrawn and quiet by nature, watched her from afar with indulgence and irritation rather than curiosity.

"Are you fond of her?" She continued, wanting to get more out of him, and he simply nodded.

"She is kind." He replied, playing between his fingers with the page of the book on his lap.

She smiled at him involuntarily, placing her hand on his shoulder.

"Let's write her a letter then."

______

Author's note: This is my most important, favorite and longest series since The Impossible Choice, Glass Cuts Deepest and The Man in the Black Mask and I must admit that I didn't expect it would have so many chapters. The story of Aemond and Rhaenys is special to me. Thank you for the wonderful reception of this series. There is also an epilogue coming, which you will read from the three diffirent perspectives: Viserys's, Aemond's and Rhaenys's.