#and this year they stopped and i'm finally doing good

[itsminjify]

SLOW DOWN ㅤ★ PARK SUNGHOON

𝗦𝗖𝗥𝓲𝗣𝗧──── 𝗌𝗁𝖾 𝗌𝖺𝗂𝖽, "𝖿𝗎𝖼𝗄 𝗆𝖾 𝗅𝗂𝗄𝖾 𝗂'𝗆 𝖿𝖺𝗆𝗈𝗎𝗌," 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗂 𝗌𝖺𝗂𝖽, "𝗈𝗄𝖺𝗒."

❪ 𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐒 ❫ ｡ hockey player!sunghoon & fem!rea 1OOOwc. smut, MDNI. unprotected sex, fingering ˊᯅˋ situationship, oneshot

( minji says ) : 6 months since i've posted. i'm back ! i'll post fluff next week! who missed me ㅠㅠ

you don’t really remember what your birthday cake looked like this year. only that your ex broke up with you before it was even lit. said some bullshit about “timing,” and “pressure,” and how “maybe we’re just not meant to be.”

but a few weeks after that, sunghoon came along like a delayed punchline — except he was a better joke than your ex ever was.

park sunghoon. rival team’s golden boy, captain, heartthrob, five penalties this season for fighting — most of them against your ex’s teammates.

you hadn’t meant to kiss him after the game. you really hadn’t.

but maybe the way he’d looked at you that night — smudged eyeliner under his eyes from the team paint, a bloody lip, sweat glistening on his neck — maybe that had meant something. you kissed him anyway.

and then you kept kissing him. after practices. after away games. after your classes. in the backseat of his car. in the stairwell of your dorm. once — recklessly — with his jersey still on.

you don’t know what to call it. not dating. not just fucking either. but it’s been three months. and he’s in your bed again tonight.

"you locked the door, right?" he mumbles against your neck, lips dragging warm and unhurried, tongue flicking at your pulse just to hear your breath stutter.

you roll your eyes, fingers threading through his hair, tugging. "why? scared someone’s gonna see you with me?"

he huffs a soft laugh against your skin, something equal parts amused and fond. "if anyone sees me with you, they'll think i won the fucking lottery."

“you are the captain. shouldn’t you act a little less pathetic?”

“you want me to stop calling you my girl when i’m fucking you?” he murmurs, low against your collarbone. “say the word.”

you don’t say it. you never do.

he climbs over you slowly, his bare chest warm against yours as you sink deeper into the sheets. you’re wearing nothing but one of his t-shirts, and sunghoon’s hand sneaks under the hem with zero shame, gripping your hip like he owns it.

"why do you always do that?" you whisper, breath hitching when his thumb brushes low over your waistband.

"what?"

“act like i belong to you."

his eyes flick up. his hair’s messy from your hands, his lips slightly pink from where you've been kissing them. he looks so annoyingly good it makes you want to scream. or kiss him again. or both.

"because you do," he says simply, shrugging like it’s not a confession.

you narrow your eyes. “don’t.”

“don’t what?” he says lazily, but his hand’s moving again, dragging up your thigh. “don’t say things that make your pretty thighs clamp shut like that?”

“sunghoon.”

he smirks. "what. you want me to lie? pretend this isn’t the best thing i’ve ever had? pretend i don’t want to fuck you stupid every time i see your face?"

you bite your lip, and he notices, of course. his hand slips between your legs then, fingers warm and firm through your underwear.

“you’re soaked,” he mutters, like it’s your fault. “what’d i say that did it, hm? calling you mine? or saying i want to fuck you dumb?”

you gasp when he presses harder, fingers circling gently, but not nearly enough. your hips twitch against his touch, but he pulls back just enough to make you whimper.

“too busy dripping all over my fuckin’ hand, aren’t you?” he mutters, brushing his fingers over your folds, middle and ring finger spreading you open just enough.

“shut up,” you whisper, eyes fluttering.

“make me.”

you don’t. you can’t. not when his fingers finally slip inside, slow and deep, curling instantly like he already knows what makes your toes curl. you arch off the bed with a gasp, grabbing at his shoulder, nails sinking in.

“fuck—sunghoon,”

"that’s it,” he grins, biting gently at your jaw as his fingers start thrusting, unhurried. “say my name like that again."

you do. you say it more than once, breathless and broken and desperate, hips chasing his hand, thighs trembling already.

his thumb finds your clit with unfair ease, circling slow as his fingers keep pumping into you, tight and warm and slick. you hear yourself whining. actually whining.

“shit, baby,” he groans, voice dipping into something lower. “your pussy’s so tight—keep clenching like that and i’ll cum before i’m even inside you.”

“then get inside me,” you choke out, gasping, eyes glassy.

“fuck,” he groans. “you’re gonna kill me.”

he strips the rest of his clothes quickly, tossing them to the side like it doesn’t matter. and when he kneels between your legs, cock heavy in his hand, tip glistening — you swallow hard.

he leans down, kisses your mouth slow.

“you’re so pretty,” he whispers against your lips. “like this. legs spread. eyes glossy. waiting for me.”

he sinks in slow. painfully slow. your breath leaves in a gasp.

“shh,” he murmurs, voice strained. “i got you.”

you whimper under him, fingers clawing at his back, the burn between your legs making your thighs shake. he groans against your shoulder.

“tightest fuckin’ pussy,” he hisses, starting to move. “so wet—fuck, baby, made for me.”

you can’t speak. your mouth falls open, a moan stuck in your throat as he starts to fuck into you harder, hips snapping, cock dragging against your sweet spot again and again until your legs are wrapped around his waist.

his hand cups your cheek, fingers brushing your jaw. he groans low, hips stuttering just slightly.

"you’re mine,” he growls, fucking into you deeper. “doesn’t matter if you say it or not. you’ve always been mine.”

“sunghoon—” your voice cracks, and his thumb finds your clit again, pressing harsh circles as you tighten around him.

"cum for me, baby," he pants. "cum on my cock, fuck—let me feel it."

you do — crashing over the edge with a strangled cry, body spasming, legs shaking as you clamp down around him. he curses loud, fucking you through it, pace turning rough and desperate.

and then he’s pulling you closer, hips jerking, and you feel the warmth flood inside you as he spills deep, groaning your name like a prayer.

the room’s quiet after that. your chest rises and falls fast. his arm wraps around your waist.

“…still mad at me for calling you mine?” he whispers against your ear.

you snort, burying your face in his shoulder.

“no,” you mumble. “good,” he breathes. “’cause i’m not letting you go.”

and he doesn’t. not that night. not ever.

even if you never say it out loud. you’re his. and he’s yours. even when you’re both too stubborn to admit it.

[sigrid-of-solstheim]

Annoying nit-pick I have with some of the Oblivion fandom. Not infrequently do I see posts about AUs where Martin lives and relights the dragonfires only to shirk and/or despise the role of emperor or worse yet, dismantle the monarchy rule and establish something like a democracy. You can personally imagine whatever you want for your own entertainment or even the entertainment of others via fanfiction, but you have to realize none of that is actually in character for the Martin Septim the game gives us.

At first and for the majority of the game, Martin prefers to be called just Martin and stops you and the Blades from calling him Your Majesty saying either "I'm just a man" or "who am I but the bastard soon of a dead emperor?" I think people tend to misinterpret this as him wanting to reject the position or treating it flippantly when really he's just being humble. He fully understands the weight and responsibility of becoming emperor and he is willing to accept it when it's time, but for the moment he wants to hold onto being simply Brother Martin for as long as he can.

This all changes during the defense of Bruma when he puts on the armour of Tiber Septim and rallies the soldiers of Cyrodiil against the forces of Oblivion, his name in-game changes from just Martin to Martin Septim. Even without the Amulet of Kings, he's ready to become emperor and lead the people. and later when you do return with the Amulet from Paradise, he's waiting for you, dressed for the role. He doesn't stop you from calling him Your Majesty anymore, he's completely resigned to his fate. He even says it himself:

"After all, this is my destiny. No man can deny his destiny."

From this moment on he's made his peace and is committed to being emperor. He sees this as necessary and knows he's the only one that can do it. He doesn't complain, he's prepared to give his life to serve the people of Tamriel, and he does.

People often get carried away inserting real-life politics and modern sensibilities into fantasy, but this is a roughly medieval fantasy universe, monarchy is the most common form of government across all of Tamriel for most of its history, and Martin is an Imperial man, there is no way in Oblivion the thought of dismantling the monarchy and trying to establish something so foreign in concept as a democracy or republic would even cross his mind. It just wouldn't happen.

If you want further evidence just look at the genres and movies that likely influenced the games writing; Oblivion came out in 2006, Return of The King, a landmark film of legendary proportions and worldwide acclaim, had just released 3 years earlier. There's a reason Sean Bean was cast as Martin's voice actor. Martin is a very Lord of The Rings themed, Aragorn-esque character; a long lost heir returning to rightful kingship. Like Aragorn, he's extremely humble and all too painfully aware of the enormous responsibility of becoming a king/emperor and is at first hesitant towards taking up the role - not because he wants to selfishly go live his own life and do his own thing, but rather because he doesn't feel personally worthy of taking on such a tremendous position. These are the ideal traits of a good and just monarch, someone who is humble and puts the needs of the people before their own wants and ambitions. And further like Aragorn, in the end he finally embraces his fate completely with all the grace and dedication of a true king, even leading an army into a seemingly hopeless battle for the freedom of their respective kingdoms.

This is just my opinion, but I do think the game writing is pretty clear about Martin's motivations and hesitations regarding becoming emperor.

[elladcat]

Fluff | Yandere CRK x Baker Reader | Chapter: 1

「Sweet Little Baker」

Note: It was really hard to write that part without reminding me that I tried to do that in real life. I'm not really good with words but if you ever feel like you're worthless or wanting to do something like this then please don't do it, your loved ones will always love you no matter what even if they're not perfect or anything, and they'll be sad if you're gone, so what I'm trying to say is that you're not alone and you're special in your own way even if you don't think that you are. Sorry if I sound so cheesy when I said this.

Summary: You used to play cookie run: kingdom until you stopped playing it to focus on your life, leaving the game dormant for years. Then one day, you were reminded about it and finally played it again, not realizing that the cookies were aware of your absence and took the chance to drag you to their world so you wouldn't abandon them again.

Warning/Tags: yandere tendencies, platonic/romantic, horror, depression, suicidal thoughts, attempted suicide, self-hatred, angst, cookies are monsters literally, isekai, etc.

~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~

[Narrator POV]

Your life is normal and you're fine with it. You live in an apartment and have a decent job to earn money. You also got in touch with your parents since they're worried about you, and they often text or call you to make sure you're alright. Sometimes you find it annoying, but you don't blame them for their behavior.

Everything is fine in your life, and yet why aren't you happy?

You sigh and open the door of your apartment after a long day at work, doing your usual routine before night falls. You head to your room to change into your pajamas before plopping down on the bed. You pull out your phone and see a lot of text messages from your mom asking if you're eating well and doing alright. You sigh and reply to her message as usual before closing the app and searching on youtube to watch something to distract yourself from that heavy feeling again.

You watch some cat videos and gaming videos about your favorite youtubers just to put a smile on your face, even if it's only for a little while. Just then, a single video catches your eye. It's about a new update for your once-beloved game cookie run: kingdom, and it features new playable characters known as the beast cookies. They look so interesting and are apparently the parallel of the ancient cookies. It also introduces a new story called Beast-Yeast, as well as beascuits, topping tarts, new toppings, other new playable characters, etc.

The video reminds you of the first time you were introduced to that game. You were looking for a new game to play out of boredom until you stumbled upon a game called cookie run: kingdom on play store. You found the game interesting, so you downloaded it and played it for the first time, and that's how you grew attached to the game and the cookies you had collected.

Whenever you got home from school or finished doing your chores, you always played that game to your heart's content, making your cookies stronger, doing tasks, completing missions, granting wishes for them in the tree of wishes, trading, building houses and stuff, and even decorating your Cookie Kingdom to make it more lively for them because they deserve it.

You remembered how your cookies loved what you did for them and their home. You thought it was strange for them to say that, but thought that maybe the developers added some fourth wall break dialogue, like most games do. So you shrugged and smiled, happy to see they were enjoying themselves in the Cookie Kingdom.

It sounded weird, but you used to talk to them as if they were real people. Whenever you felt down or that life was hard to deal with, you would talk to them, telling them about your struggles, your fears, your frustrations, your hatred towards one of your classmates, teachers, and even your parents. Sometimes, you wished that they were gone for hurting you. You remembered how you ended up crying in silence while tapping your cookies to say something to make it look like they were comforting you, and that made you happy, even for a little while.

But as time passed and life became even more difficult, you rarely played the game until eventually, you stopped playing it to focus on your life instead. It was hard for you to not play and interact with your cookies anymore, but you had problems in your life that you had to deal with, and so you left cookie run: kingdom on your phone, untouched, for years.

You tried your best; you really did. School was hard, but you tried to study harder without help so you wouldn't feel like a burden to everyone. You made some friends who were nice to you, though they probably felt bad for you since you spent time alone because you didn't know how to socialize with others very well. Your relationships with your parents weren't the best. You tried to make them happy and proud of you, but sometimes it didn't work out the way you wanted it to.

You tried to be good; you didn't mean to make your parents mad by making a mistake or doing something bad. It felt like your world slowly crumbled each time you reminded yourself that you're not good enough for them. Then, one day, you did something that you still regret to this day.

You didn't know why you tried to do it; maybe you believed that once you were gone, you wouldn't have to feel depressed anymore and that you wouldn't have to carry the burden of being born if you just closed your eyes and never woke up again. So, when your parents were asleep, you tried to end your own life, but it didn't happen; you're still alive. Maybe you didn't cut your skin hard enough, or maybe the knife wasn't sharp enough to make you fall asleep, but regardless, you're still alive. You ended up crying and told your parents what you were doing last night. They were obviously horrified by what you had planned to do. Eventually, they cried with you and hugged you tightly.

You felt so guilty and ashamed back then, blaming yourself for making them worried because of your stupid actions that you were trying to do to yourself. Luckily, you only had deep bruises on your body, so your parents put medicine on them to hopefully help them heal better. Your parents took you to see a psychologist to help you with your mental health issues, but they just wanted you to be cured because you overheard them talking with the psychologist in the other room while you were sitting outside, and that made you feel like it was your fault for having them in the first place.

You knew that your parents were trying to help and knew what was best for you, but sometimes you just wished that they would try to understand you better. However, you knew that even if they did, they would probably just do it the same way, trying to make you normal. Sometimes, you hated them, but you also felt happy that they still cared about you, even though you felt guilty about it.

After that incident, your parents always helped you when you were feeling troubled in your life. You felt bad, but at the same time, you felt happy that you no longer had to worry about anything, thanks to your parents' persistence in helping you whenever you felt confused or worried about something.

Years later, you graduated and found a job and an apartment to move into. Your parents still help you, even though you don't live with them anymore. For a while, you felt happy with your life; you didn't feel depressed anymore, and you could do whatever you liked now that you live alone. Though life can have ups and downs, overall, you manage to get through the day without any problems.

But then that heavy feeling returned, and you didn't feel happy anymore. You didn't know why you were feeling like this; you thought you were doing better. You did what your parents and the psychologist asked you to do to make you feel better. Maybe it's because of the bad day you had when you got yelled at by your boss for running late at work, or one of the customers was rude to you and even spilled coffee on your uniform for doing something wrong, or something else. But whatever the case, that heavy feeling just came back again to remind you that you're still worthless, even if you try to be better.

You tried not to think about ending your life again and tried to think of positive things because you didn't want to go through that again, just to make your parents worry about you even more. You hated yourself for not getting used to it, thinking that you should stop being a selfish moron for believing that your life is meaningless and wanting something more in your mundane life.

Why can't you be normal like everyone else, you worthless piece of shit!?

You shook your head at that awful thought and exited youtube after finishing watching the video. Maybe playing cookie run: kingdom again isn't such a bad idea. You'll play the game and interact with your cookies again, even if it's for nostalgic reasons. With a smile and a little bit of excitement, you updated the game and started playing it, expecting to see the familiar devsisters intro at the beginning.

But it didn't happen; instead, there's only Pure Vanilla Cookie standing there behind a black screen, looking straight at you with a somber expression. Then he spoke to you, but no text appeared on the screen, nor was there no sound to convey his speech, which sometimes happens if the voice actors didn't have time to voice act the characters. No, he really is speaking to you in his full voice.

Pure Vanilla Cookie: "Baker... you finally returned."

Y/n: "W... What?"

This didn't happen before; is that what happens if you don't play the game for too long?

Pure Vanilla Cookie: "We thought that we would never see you again, but you finally came back to us!"

He smiled.

Pure Vanilla Cookie: "I'm not mad that you left; you have your own reasons for leaving us, but I think it's best that you live here with us so you won't have to face something that is troubling you anymore!"

Y/n: "W-Wait, what?!"

Before you have time to react, you see a flash of light, and your world fades to black.

~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~

You heard voices ringing in your ear, and they all sound so familiar.

Strawberry Cookie: "A-Are they really the Baker?"

Wizard Cookie: "Of course they are, dimwit! Why do you think Pure Vanilla Cookie brought them here if they're not the Baker?"

GingerBrave: "Baker, are you still here with us?"

You groan and sit up, feeling so dizzy that you rub your temples to ease yourself from the irritating headache you're experiencing.

Y/n: "Wh... huh?"

You open your eyes but quickly widen them in shock. What you see in front of you leaves you feeling confused, wary, and filled with dread. It's like you're being surrounded by predators looking straight at you, but they don't look hungry. Well, maybe some of them are, but what confuses you the most is why they look like cookies you know so well, yet why do they look so different from what you remember.

They don't look like cookies; instead, they look like monsters from folklores you used to be obsessed with as a kid. Although some of them look like hybrids of two or more creatures, you have a hard time figuring out what they're based on. You look at them with nervousness, and you can't even form a sentence of your own.

Y/n: "I-I... um..."

Custard Cookie III: "You don't remember us, Baker?"

The little prince said in worry as his sheep ears lowered to reflect his real emotions.

Chili Pepper Cookie: "Don't tell me you forgot about us!"

She looks rather annoyed as she crosses her arms, though there is a slight hint of worry in her eyes.

Y/n: "I-I do remember you all; it's just that y-you don't look like cookies..."

The coo—no, everyone looked at you weirdly as they muttered to each other about what you just called them.

GingerBrave: "Cookies? What do you mean, Baker? We have always looked like this before you came into our lives!"

Y/n: "But you all were..."

You stopped your sentence when you heard a familiar voice.

Pure Vanilla Cookie: "Alright everyone, let's give them space since they are still in shock after I brought them here to their kingdom."

Y/n: "Wait, kingdom....?"

You turn to the voice expecting to see Pure Vanilla Cookie, but you're met with a tall, bipedal sheep creature that kind of resembles Custard Cookie III, except he has four ram horns that curl up and down and four eyes, but they're closed because of the noticeable scars on his face.

Y/n: "Oh my god, your eyes! What happened?"

He smiled at your words and shook his head.

Pure Vanilla Cookie: "You don't have to worry about me, dear; it's not that important."

You wanted to know what happened to him that gave him these scars, but then you remembered what he said earlier. You stood up from the grassy floor and looked around the place; it seemed so familiar, but you wanted to know if it was true or not.

Y/n: "Where exactly am I?"

Just then, Gumball Cookie spoke up to explain where you were.

Gumball Cookie: "You're in the Cookie Kingdom, Baker. You did amazing decorating our home like this; it's a masterpiece!"

You blushed as you felt flattered by his compliment, and you scratched the side of your neck sheepishly.

Y/n: "Oh, um, I'm glad you all enjoy it."

Cherry Blossom Cookie: "Of course, we all enjoy it. You did so much for us, and we're all grateful that you gave us a place to call home!"

Everyone agreed with her, and then Cream Puff Cookie came forward with a somber look on her face.

Cream Puff Cookie: "But then you left without warning, and everyone is heartbroken when you're gone. Did we do something wrong to make you leave, Baker?"

You widen your eyes in surprise at her words. Just then, everyone starts begging you not to leave them again; some of them even tear up in sadness at the thought of you disappearing from their lives again.

Pancake Cookie: "Please don't go!"

Cherry Cookie: "We need you here!"

Pumpkin Pie Cookie: "Please stay with us, Baker; Pompon and I don't want to feel sad anymore."

Just then, Snapdragon Cookie came flying towards you and hugged you tightly as they let out baby noises, as if to say that they didn't want you to go away. You looked down at the little fellow; they didn't look like they were made of dough; they looked so real to you. You wondered if these former cookies were meant to look like monsters in their world rather than what you thought they were in your world.

You look at everyone for a moment. They're all worried about you leaving them behind again because they love and care about you. You always thought that they didn't have real emotions since they're characters from a game, but you were wrong; they do have emotions, and those are fear, worry, anger, and sadness in their eyes.

You're left speechless; no one is worried about you besides your parents like this before. You always thought that no one would love a worthless trash like you. You're just a nobody who's forgotten by everyone because you're not memorable enough to stay in their minds, and yet these people never forget about you even after so many years, and they love you so much that they never want to let you go.

All these feelings of worry and dread about them suddenly wash away from you; all you really feel now is sadness and guilt, and you can't help but cry. Everyone widens their eyes in surprise when you cry as you hug the baby dragon back.

Y/n: "I'm so sorry; I'm so sorry for leaving you all behind!"

As you said that with tears in your eyes, all of the children start hugging you and crying with you. Most of the adults join in, while the others stay with somber expressions on their faces. Pure Vanilla Cookie stares down at you with sadness. You were unhappy with where you came from, but you don't have to worry about that anymore because he'll make sure that you won't go through that ever again.

[To Be Continued]

[nocturnebite]

Clickbait [+..••]

(is this real) - gamer! Ni-ki x fem! reader

synopsis: He wasn’t supposed to swipe back. But now you’re trading late-night calls with a too-perfect gamer, and it feels real—until his past comes crashing in. Was he genuine… or just another kind of clickbait? fic notes: dating apps... ew || banter || mild trust issues || fluff :3 wc: 4.87k

ash's notes: this idea has been in my head for so long and i really wanted to write it and now i'm finally done! i've got so many drafts i need to post it's unreal. but i hope you enjoy this little story :3 !!

“Okay, spill. How was it?”

You blink at your friend, the flickering glow of the café’s fairy lights reflecting in her eyes as she leans forward, resting her chin on her palm like she’s about to hear the juiciest gossip of the year. The table between you smells of burnt caramel and overpriced matcha, and you’ve barely touched your drink. You draw a slow breath, the kind that tastes like disappointment, and offer a flat smile.

“Just more clickbait,” you say.

Your friend groans like it physically hurts her. “No way.”

You nod, slouching in your chair as if gravity itself has finally gotten too heavy to resist. “He said he was six feet. He was five-seven, max. His pictures were from, like, 2018. And he talked about crypto for an hour straight. I didn’t even know people still did that.”

She winces. “Oof.”

You sigh again, softer this time, letting the frustration settle in your chest. “I’m so tired of people pretending to be someone they’re not. I get it—it’s a dating app. Everyone's performing. But why does it feel like I’m the only one actually showing up as me?”

Your friend plays with her straw, thoughtful. “So... you’re giving up?”

You shrug. “I think I’ve officially retired. I’ll knit. Adopt a cat. Maybe start writing angry Yelp reviews.”

“Oh, come on.” She bumps your arm. “You can’t just quit. I had a good date last week, remember? It’s not all trash.”

“Yeah, and I’m thrilled for you,” you say honestly. “But you’re, like, the one-in-a-million success story they use in the ads. I’m the cautionary tale.”

“Stop it,” she says, dragging out the last word like a scolding mom. “You’re gorgeous, funny, smart. You deserve something good.”

You smile, a bit tired around the edges, and tilt your head. “Tell that to the last guy who said ‘no thoughts, just vibes’ on his profile.”

She groans and grabs your phone from the table. “Let’s just look, okay? You don’t have to marry anyone tonight.”

You eye her skeptically. “You’re relentless.”

“And you’re tragic. Come on.”

You sigh but relent, taking the phone back. The app lights up like a slot machine as you open it. Familiar profiles slide past your thumb: shirtless mirror selfies, vague bios with gym stats, a suspicious number of “entrepreneurs.”

Some match with you. You don’t swipe back. Some are clearly bots, or worse—people who look like they borrowed someone else’s face.

And then you see him.

Your thumb freezes.

Tall. Jet-black hair, slightly tousled like he just got up from a gaming chair but still looks model-ready. Hooded eyes. Full lips. That smirk—cocky, unreadable, like he knows something you don’t.

“Holy—” your friend leans over the screen. “Swipe. Now.”

“No,” you say immediately, locking the phone like it just burned you. “Absolutely not. He’s definitely fake.”

“Are you kidding me? That man looks like a Greek god and you’re not even curious?”

“He looks like trouble,” you mutter. “He’s hot. He knows it. Probably a Twitch streamer with a Discord full of girls who call him ‘daddy.’ I’m not signing up for that.”

Your friend laughs so hard she nearly spills her drink. “You don’t know that.”

“I do,” you insist, though your heart is pounding for reasons you can’t explain. “It’s written all over his face.”

“But what if it’s not? What if—plot twist—he’s the one that breaks the pattern?”

You hesitate.

“Just swipe,” she pleads. “Worst case, you don’t match and never see him again. Best case…”

You shake your head, but you can already feel yourself giving in. Still, before you can decide, your friend snatches the phone and swipes right with a dramatic flourish.

You gape at her. “Did you just—?!”

“No match,” she says, showing you the screen. “Happy?”

You exhale, weirdly deflated. “Honestly? Yeah. I mean, he’s probably got a million people trying to match with him.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it just wasn’t your moment.”

You nod, lips pressed together as you slide your phone into your bag. “Well, I’m done for the night. I’m going home, washing my face, and watching something stupid.”

She stands with you, grinning. “Good. You deserve to turn your brain off. But hey…” she pauses, her smile softening. “Don’t give up completely, okay? I’ve got a good feeling.”

You roll your eyes but give her a hug goodbye.

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

That night, you toss your keys onto your desk, the screen of your phone lighting up just as you’re about to plug it in.

1 New Message - [Tinder]

You frown, opening it automatically, expecting another “hey cutie” from someone who can’t spell your name right.

But the screen shows something else entirely.

You matched with Riki.

Your heart stops.

Your hands go cold.

You blink at the message, then again—just to make sure your eyes aren’t playing tricks.

The same face. The same smirk. The guy who was too good to be true…

Matched with you.

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

You don’t open the message right away.

You tell yourself it’s because you’re busy—brushing your teeth, feeding the dog, picking at dinner you don’t even taste—but deep down, you know it’s because you’re scared.

You already decided not to get your hopes up again. You’ve already been down this road before—the one where a hot guy matches, flirts, builds you up like you’re the only girl on earth, only to ghost you the second things feel real.

Still.

You tap the app. His message is waiting.

Riki: Thought I was imagining things for a sec. Didn’t expect the girl with the death-glare profile pic to swipe back 😅

Your nose scrunches. Death glare?

You flip to your own profile, stare at the photo your friend picked—half-smiling, eyes a little dead inside.

Okay, fair.

You: Yeah well. Didn’t expect the cocky gamer guy to swipe either. So I guess we’re both glitching tonight. Riki: I’m not cocky. I’m just... factually confident. And good with my thumbs.

You roll your eyes and try not to smile. You fail.

You: That’s exactly something a cocky guy would say. Riki: Damn. She’s clever too. I’m in trouble.

You don’t respond right away. Not because you don’t want to—but because something in your chest tightens at how easy it is. The flow. The banter. Like slipping into an old sweater you forgot still fit.

And somehow, it stays like that.

No “wyd” texts. No pressure. Just long, meandering conversations that start late and end later. You find out he streams sometimes, but only for fun. He has a little sister he’s protective over. He learned to cook because his mom works nights. His favorite genre is horror, but he’s a total baby when it comes to jump scares.

He doesn’t ask for selfies. Doesn’t hint at anything sketchy. In fact, half the time it feels like he genuinely just wants someone to talk to.

Which is kind of nice.

It turns into a rhythm: He messages. You reply. You laugh. You tease. You talk until your phone is warm in your hand and your eyes sting from lack of sleep.

Riki: You’re fun. You: You’re not what I expected. Riki: That’s either the best compliment or a red flag in disguise. You: I’ll let you know which later.

It’s two weeks in when he says it.

You’re half-asleep, curled in bed, squinting at his message through one heavy eyelid.

Riki: Random idea You should come visit sometime

You blink. Sit up a little.

You: …what? Riki: Like, no pressure. Just throwing it out there. I’ll even pay for the flight if it makes it easier.

You stare at your screen like it just called you by your middle name.

You: Uhh. Red flag alert. Guy offering to pay for your flight? That’s how true crime documentaries start. Riki: Rude. I don’t even own duct tape. You: That’s exactly what someone with duct tape would say. Riki: Touché.

You toss your phone onto the bed, pull the blanket over your face, and scream into it.

Then obviously you FaceTime your best friend.

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

“You’re being dramatic,” she says, chewing a mouthful of chips. “You two have been talking nonstop for, what, three weeks?”

“Two and a half.”

“Exactly. That’s like, seven months in internet time. Honestly, if you were dating IRL, people would be asking when the wedding is.”

You throw your head back with a groan. “It’s not like that. We’re just… friends. Kind of. With... light sarcasm and subtle tension.”

“So... dating.”

“NO!”

She levels you with a look. “You like him.”

“I like the version of him that lives in my phone. That doesn’t mean he’s real.”

“Then FaceTime him.”

You blink. “What?”

“If you’re nervous he’s not who he says he is, video chat. If he’s a catfish, boom—case closed. If he’s real... then you’ll know.”

You sit with that for a second.

Then you do it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

The first FaceTime is awkward in a cute way. He’s lounging in a hoodie with messy hair and a controller in his lap. You’re in your worst pajama shirt, already regretting not putting on concealer.

But he smiles when he sees you—no hesitation, no filters, no pause.

“Yo,” he says like it’s no big deal.

“You’re real,” you blurt before you can stop yourself.

He laughs. “That’s what I was gonna say.”

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

One call turns into two.

Two turns into three.

Three turns into four—until it’s a quiet comfort, this unspoken ritual of being online together, even when you’re not talking.

You study. He games. Sometimes he curses under his breath. Sometimes you hum without realizing it. Neither of you hangs up first.

The screen just stays on.

And somewhere between late-night calls and sleepy “goodnights,” it stops feeling like a maybe.

It starts to feel like something real.

One night, while adjusting his mic and opening some game you don’t recognize, he says it again:

“You should come visit.”

This time, it sounds less like a joke.

And more like a hope.

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

“You should come visit.”

It’s not the first time he’s said it. 

But this time… it’s different.

His voice is soft through your laptop speaker, his hoodie bunched up around his elbows as he clicks through some loading screen. You’re lying sideways on your bed, textbooks open, highlighter uncapped, but your focus vanished the second he said those four words.

You don’t answer right away. Just chew your lip and stare at the screen where he’s pretending not to look at you.

“That’s like the fifth time you’ve asked”

“I’m serious,” he says after a beat. “I mean… if you want to.”

There’s that voice again. Casual, light, no pressure. Like he’s talking about ordering takeout, not asking you to fly across the country and see if he’s actually the person you’ve been falling asleep on FaceTime with every night.

You close your textbook.

“Riki.”

He glances over. The game’s paused now. You can see the flicker of the screenlight reflected in his cheekbones. He looks tired. Warm. Real.

“Yeah?”

“You’re not like… secretly plotting to harvest my organs, right?”

He snorts. “I literally stream Minecraft, not organ trafficking.”

“Not a convincing alibi.”

He grins, then sobers. “I get it. It’s a big ask. But I meant it when I said I’d help. I’d book the flight. You’d stay at a hotel if you want, no pressure. I wouldn’t be weird.”

“That’s what all the weird ones say.”

“Okay,” he says, deadpan. “I’d be only a little weird. Like, manageable-weird. Charming-weird.”

You laugh, and that’s the problem.

Because you like him. More than you meant to.

You liked the idea of him at first. A distraction. A match your friend forced. But now… it’s not just the banter or the voice you’ve memorized or the ridiculous way he says “dude” when he’s excited.

It’s how he makes you feel like the only person in the room—even through a screen.

And that? That’s dangerous.

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

The next day, you bring it up to your best friend over lunch.

Her response is immediate: “You have to go.”

You blink. “Okay, but what if he’s not—”

“You FaceTime him literally every night.”

“What if he’s different in person?”

“He watches K-dramas and talks to your dog through the phone. You already know him better than half the guys you’ve actually dated.”

You stare at your untouched sandwich.

“I just…” You swallow. “What if I go and it ruins it?”

She’s quiet for once.

Then: “What if you don’t… and it ruins you?”

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

That night, you don’t say yes.

You say, “I’m thinking about it.”

You say, “It’s a maybe.”

And he doesn’t push.

Instead, he smiles at you—gentle and slow, like he knows you’re a scared thing on the edge of something, and he’s not going to rush you off it.

“I can wait,” he says simply.

You believe him.

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

The next week, something shifts.

Not in a dramatic way—no confessions, no intense moment of clarity—but in all the quiet ways that matter more.

You fall asleep on call, and he whispers, “Goodnight,” like a secret. You wake up to a message from him with a screenshot of a dumb meme he swears “just felt like you.” He starts calling you by your name more, not just your username.

One night, in the middle of a game, he glances at his screen and says, out of nowhere: “Do you always look at me like that?”

You blink. “Like what?”

“Like you’re trying not to.”

You don’t have an answer.

So you call again. And again.

By the time it’s the sixth night in a row, you’re not even nervous anymore. You’re just… used to it. Comfortable. You study, he plays. You breathe. He listens.

Sometimes you don’t talk for twenty minutes.

And it feels like home.

That night, he says it again—quieter this time.

“You should come visit.”

And this time… You don’t say no.

You just look at him—pixelated and beautiful—and whisper, “Maybe.”

And he smiles like maybe is everything.

- - - - - - - - - - - - 

It starts with a ticket in your inbox.

No subject line. No message. Just an email that reads:

“Your flight to Seoul has been confirmed.”

You blink.

Then your phone buzzes.

Riki: Don’t panic. You can still say no. I’ll cancel it in a second if you’re uncomfortable. Just… wanted to make it real. In case you say yes.

Your heart is doing weird things.

You stare at the screen, your thumb hovering over the keyboard, your thoughts a loud chorus of what ifs and you’re crazy and this boy could be everything or nothing or both.

You: Give me three days. If I don’t back out by then… I’ll go.

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

You don’t back out.

Your friend screams when you tell her. She helps you pack—overpacks, really—like you’re heading into battle instead of a long weekend. She even shoves a tiny pink can of pepper spray in your purse “just in case he’s secretly a weirdo.”

(You both know he’s not. But still. Pepper spray is ✨ aesthetic ✨.)

The night before the flight, you barely sleep. You FaceTime Riki and end up playing “21 questions” until 2am, your voices slow and sleepy.

“What if it’s weird?” you ask.

“What if it’s not?” he replies.

You hate that that makes you smile.

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

At the airport, your nerves riot inside you. The terminal smells like pretzels and nerves and new beginnings.

By the time the plane lands, your hands are cold and your thoughts are loud.

You look around baggage claim, eyes darting.

Then—you see him.

He’s leaning against a pillar, hoodie half-zipped, hair tucked under a black cap. There’s a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He’s scrolling his phone, one hand in his pocket.

He doesn’t see you yet.

And in that second, you think—he looks like trouble. But the good kind.

Then he looks up.

And smiles.

Not the polite kind. Not the awkward oh-hi-nice-to-meet-you kind.

The I know you already kind.

And just like that— You’re not nervous anymore.

The first five minutes are weird.

Of course they are.

You both talk too fast. Or not at all. He goes in for a hug, and you kind of flinch, so he backs off and jokes, “Guess I deserved that.” And you say, “No, I’m just—processing,” and then neither of you talk for five minutes straight in the car.

But then he says, “You hungry?” And you say, “Always.”

And suddenly… you’re fine again.

The first night is a blur of fast food eaten in his car, music playing low, and a midnight walk through a neighborhood you don’t know but don’t mind getting lost in.

At one point, he bumps his shoulder into yours and says, “You’re taller than I expected.”

You deadpan, “You’re not.”

He laughs so hard he nearly drops his drink.

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

The next day, you hang out at his place.

He’s more nervous than you’ve ever seen him—rambling about his cable setup, offering snacks every five seconds, adjusting his monitor like he’s auditioning for HGTV.

But you sit on his bed, cross-legged, and just watch.

And after a while, he calms down.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he mumbles.

You shrug. “You’re real.”

He gives you a look. “Still convinced I was a catfish?”

“No,” you say. “But this part still doesn’t feel real.”

He sits beside you. Not touching. Just close.

“Same.”

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

At night, you fall asleep on his couch watching him game—your legs draped over his lap, your heart refusing to chill out. You pretend to be tired just to stay where you are.

He doesn’t move.

Just shifts the blanket higher over your knees, one hand resting lightly on your shin. You catch him glance at you once. Twice.

But he never says what you both know.

Not yet.

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

And then—on the last night—you’re both lying side by side, watching some movie neither of you are really paying attention to. His fingers are brushing against yours on the bedspread. Barely. But enough.

He turns his head. “Hey.”

You look at him.

He looks nervous.

“Do you ever think… if we’d met in person first, it wouldn’t have worked?”

You blink. “Why?”

“I think I needed to know you before I liked you. Like, for real. The real you.”

You smile. “I was a mess when we met.”

He laughs. “You still are.”

You kick his leg. “Hey.”

He looks at you then—really looks.

“Still the best kind of mess I’ve ever met.”

Your breath catches.

But before either of you can say anything else—your phone buzzes. Loud. Jarring.

You frown and reach for it, expecting your friend checking in.

It’s not.

It’s a direct message request.

From someone you don’t recognize.

And it says:

“You think you’re the only one he’s talking to?”

Your blood goes cold.

You look up.

And Riki—still smiling, still relaxed—doesn’t notice the shift in your face.

Yet.

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

You read the message again.

“You think you’re the only one he’s talking to?”

The screen blurs. Your chest tightens. The room—warm and dim and full of the scent of Riki’s hoodie you’ve been curled in—suddenly feels foreign. Hollow.

Riki says something beside you. A dumb joke. You don’t hear it.

“Hey.” His voice cuts through. “You okay?”

You lock your phone and force a smile. “Yeah. Just my friend checking in.”

A lie.

You’ve never lied to him before.

It feels worse than the message.

You try to ignore it. Brush it off. A troll. A bot. A jealous girl with no life. Whatever.

But the message festers.

The next day, you wake up to another.

“I hope he told you about me. Or about our FaceTimes.”

You don’t reply. You can’t.

You don’t know what to believe.

So instead, you test him.

“Hey,” you say casually, the next time you’re lying on the couch with him.

“Hmm?” he says, eyes on his screen.

“You ever… talk to other girls on here? Like, before me?”

He pauses. Glances at you. “You mean on Tinder?”

You shrug. “Or in general.”

He leans back. “I mean, yeah. Before you. But nothing like this. Nothing real.”

You nod. Try to smile. But the words loop in your head.

Before you. Before you. Before you.

But what if before never ended?

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

By the third message, it’s not subtle anymore.

“He sent me the same flight email. I still have it.” [Attached: a screenshot]

Same subject line. Same dates. Different name.

You feel sick.

You don’t want to accuse him. You don’t want to need to.

So you ask.

“Riki… have you ever done this before?”

He blinks. “Done what?”

“This. Flying someone out. Meeting people from the app.”

There’s a beat.

Then: “Why are you asking?”

He doesn’t deny it.

And that hurts more than any answer.

You go silent.

The car ride back to the hotel is heavy.

He notices. Of course he does.

“Okay,” he says, pulling into the parking lot. “What’s going on?”

You don’t look at him. “Just tired.”

“You’re lying.”

You snap. “So are you.”

He goes quiet.

The kind of quiet that confirms everything.

You swallow. “Someone messaged me. Said you were FaceTiming them. Said you flew them out. Same message. Same dates.”

His jaw tightens. “It’s not what you think.”

You laugh, sharp. “That’s funny, because it looks exactly like what I think.”

Then—softer: “I didn’t expect this to be perfect, Riki. I just didn’t want to be stupid for trusting you.”

He doesn’t say anything.

And that silence? It feels like betrayal.

You go inside the hotel alone.

The second the door closes behind you, you slide to the floor.

You don’t cry. Not yet. You’re not sure you’re allowed to. Not for someone who was never yours.

But your phone buzzes again.

Riki: I didn’t lie. Not about you. Can we talk?

And you don’t know if you’re ready.

But your heart?

It already misses him.

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

You don’t answer his messages.

Not at first.

Not because you want to punish him—but because you’re scared that if you open the door, you’ll let him talk you back into something that maybe wasn’t even real.

You need space. He gives it to you. For about twelve hours.

Then your phone rings.

It’s your friend.

“You need to check Twitter,” she says.

Your stomach drops. “What?”

“Just… look.”

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

It’s a clip.

From one of Riki’s streams.

He’s laughing in it, leaned back in his chair, wearing a hoodie you recognize because you wore it two nights ago.

One of his friends says something off-screen:

“So you’re just gonna disappear for four days and not explain why?”

Riki shrugs. “I’m flying someone out.”

“A girl?”

He grins. “The girl.”

The chat explodes. Emojis. Screaming.

His friend hoots. “You’re in love.”

Riki doesn’t deny it.

Just goes quiet for a second. Then says, low and sure,

“She’s different. You’ll see.”

You stare at the screen.

Your breath stutters.

You scroll down. The comments are a storm. Most of them are pure chaos and ship names and thirsty fans screaming “SOFT LAUNCH???”

But some…

Some are ugly.

And one account keeps showing up.

One you recognize from the message requests.

@ KikiLuvsRiki: don’t fall for his act. i used to be “different” too. he just wants content. @ KikiLuvsRiki: bet he sent her the same flight confirmation template he used last year LMFAO.

Your hands shake.

Then a post from her, timestamped four hours ago:

“Imagine thinking you’re special to someone who rehearsed the same lines with me. He just swapped the name.”

There’s a screenshot attached.

Of a flight confirmation email.

But it’s dated last year.

Same airline. Different destination. Different name.

But the same tone.

You click the profile.

Scroll.

And what you find?

It’s not a random hater.

It’s his ex.

That night, your phone rings again.

Riki.

You don’t want to answer.

You do anyway.

“I should’ve told you,” he says, voice low, rough. “I just didn’t think she’d find out. I didn’t think it would matter.”

You sit on the edge of the hotel bed, silent.

“I mentioned you on stream. I never do that. You know I don’t. And I didn’t even say your name—I was just… talking. I couldn’t help it. I was excited. I’m always careful, but this time I wasn’t.”

“Because of me?”

“Yeah,” he says, barely a whisper. “Because of you.”

Your heart twists.

“She saw the stream,” he adds. “And I guess she still had old screenshots or whatever. She’s not wrong—I flew her out once. A long time ago. We weren’t even a thing for more than a couple weeks, but she stuck around online. And when I stopped responding, she got weird.”

You exhale. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I was scared you’d think I was doing the same thing again. That I was collecting girls off the internet and making them fall for me or something.”

“And aren’t you?” you ask, voice quiet.

Silence.

Then:

“No.” “I wasn’t trying with anyone else.” “I didn’t even plan to swipe on your profile. I saw you, and it just—hit me. Harder than I expected. You weren’t just pretty. You looked real. Like someone I could ruin myself for if I wasn’t careful.”

You bite your lip.

He continues. “I didn’t swipe right first. But when we matched… I knew. I’ve never been like this with anyone else. Not even her.”

Your chest aches.

“But I should’ve told you,” he says. “That’s on me. I’ll make it up to you. Or I won’t. If this ruins it, I’ll live with that. But you deserved the truth.”

You let the silence sit.

It’s not that you don’t believe him.

It’s that you want to.

And maybe that scares you most of all.

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

The airport feels colder than it should.

Maybe it’s the early flight. Maybe it’s the sleep you didn’t get. Maybe it’s because you thought he’d fight harder.

You roll your suitcase forward.

Every step feels heavier than it should. Like maybe your heart stayed back at the hotel. Or in that voicemail you haven’t listened to yet.

“I get it if you’re done. But I’m not.” “Not with you.”

You clench your jaw. Shake your head. Keep walking.

You did what you were supposed to.

You gave him a chance to explain. You didn’t scream. Didn’t cry. Didn’t make a scene when your feelings got kicked around like some bonus level prize in his online world.

You let him talk.

You just didn’t stay.

Not this time.

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

Your gate is five minutes away.

You wrap your arms around yourself and try not to think.

The check-in lady takes your ID.

“Round trip?” she asks, typing.

You hesitate. Then shake your head.

“Just one way.”

She nods, unfazed. Prints your ticket.

You turn around—

And nearly crash into him.

Riki. Standing there. Breathless. Hoodie crooked. Hair messy. Like he ran.

And didn’t stop.

You freeze. “What—how did you—?”

“I tracked your flight.” His voice is hoarse. “Don’t be mad.”

You blink. “Are you serious right now?”

He swallows hard. “I wasn’t gonna let you leave thinking I didn’t mean it. That you were just some... random screen name.”

“Riki—”

“No,” he says, stepping closer. “Let me talk. Please.”

Your heart races. Your throat tightens.

He exhales. “I don’t care who’s watching. I don’t care if this is pathetic. I’ve never wanted something like this before. Not like this. I didn’t know how to handle it.”

You don’t say anything.

He runs a hand through his hair.

“I messed up,” he says. “I should’ve told you. I should’ve known she'd try something the second I opened up. That’s on me. But don’t let her be the reason we don’t happen.”

You feel the tears sting before they fall.

He sees it.

Softens.

Steps forward like he’s trying not to scare you off.

“I’ve never had what we have,” he whispers. “The FaceTimes. The quiet. The way I don’t need to perform when I’m with you. You didn’t fall for the persona. You fell for me. And I—I need you to know I fell right back.”

You sniff. Wipe your eyes.

“And if that means I have to fly to every city you run to just to say it again, I will.”

You meet his eyes.

“I wanted to believe you,” you say. “I still do.”

“Then do,” he whispers. “Let me prove it.”

You pause.

Search his face.

And for the first time in days, the panic starts to melt. The ache eases.

Not completely. But enough.

You step closer.

And his shoulders drop—like he was holding his breath for too long.

“I hate you,” you whisper.

He smiles.

“No you don’t.”

You shake your head. “I don’t.”

Then, softer: “You’re lucky I like dramatic airport gestures.”

And when you wrap your arms around him, burying your face into the hoodie you never gave back—he just holds you.

Not like he won.

Like he’s grateful you stayed.

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

BONUS :)

Later, after the flight you didn’t take…

You’re on his stream.

Just your voice.

He reads a question from chat:

“Are you guys together now?”

He looks at you off-camera.

Smiles.

Then to the chat: “She’s sitting right here, isn’t she?”

You groan. “You’re so annoying.”

He grins wider. “But you like me.”

And you don’t deny it.

Not this time.

tl: (read rules before asking to be added to any list ᥫ᭡. )

[eru-vande]

Zutter || Kwon Jiyong x Reader

Summary: Jiyong's old friends visits him while he's being held cuffed in the cellar of his boss' rival's company

word count: 2,5k

warning: smut (hand job), knife play, low-key sub/dom interaction

A/N: inspired mostly by the MV, my first time trying to write sub/dom dynamic i'm not sure if it worked out lmao you tell me (no seriously, you tell me)

A/N 2: i'm rusty now i'm sorry i haven't written in 3 months... :(

✧✧͏✧✧

The blood was dripping to the ground, painting the dirty cemented floor of the cellar bright red under Jiyong’s feet. He would’ve told how many hours he had already spent there if the room had any windows, but the pain in his wrists were screaming it was way too long. His hair was damp, his lips chipped and broken, nose bleeding, he quite didn’t feel the fingers on his hands already and his shoulders became numb. 

Deep down inside? He was enjoying it. Everything, except his friend being knocked out and dragged into another room.

Jiyong knew this cellar. He knew it from his old days. And not a single person that was forced to pay this room a visit had a great life afterwards. Not after being hung by your wrists on the wall for hours, not after being beaten up until you feel it with your bones that the next punch would end everything for you. And not after they left you bleeding out for hours just to come back and beat you up again, trying to get the information out of you. Or just for fun.

But somehow, being the one hung on the wall, being the one who’s got beaten up, he was waiting for something with his heart beating a cheerful beat. As if he knew that something special was coming his way.

And something indeed came.

In the silence of the cellar Jiyong’s ears noticed a sound. A light clicking of heels on the ladder, the leather coat dragging on the floor, a still, cold laughter when the clicking of the heels stopped a few meters away from him.

“Who am I looking at? Kwon Jiyong himself…” 

Your voice ringed through the silence, rewarding you with a sly smile from Jiyong, who lifted his head just slightly enough to look at you.  

“And what are we doing here? Finally missing your old friends?” You took a step closer, wrapped your fingers around his chin and lifted Jiyong's head higher, squeezing his chin uncomfortably. “Bullshit, right? You were so happy to ditch us, suddenly getting so fucking upstanding…” your face shivered with disgust as you let go of Jiyong's face. “Betrayed us for good, and now what? Wanted to steal from us? Not so morally good again?” 

You wiped the blood on your fingers off with a piece of cloth, cleaning every inch of your fingers precisely as if his blood alone disgusted you.

Jiyong tried to laugh, but instead only a gnarly wheeze left his mouth. 

“You're doing better than your friend anyway.”

His eyes darted at you. “Where… is he?” 

“You know where, don't you? He'll be dealt with.” 

The coldness of your tone would send shivers down anyone's spine, but not Jiyong's. He got used to it long ago, years ago when you both were only starting to work with each other. 

Jiyong tried to move his hands, adjusting to the pain in his joints. 

“Why did you come?” his voice was barely audible, blood still dripping down his chin from his broken lip. “Why you?”

“Came to mess with you.” Looking him over, you moved his legs with yours so he wouldn't reach the floor, making him whimper from a sudden tug on his wrists. “You really thought you could just come and steal from us? Did it take you so little time to forget everything about this place?” 

Jiyong greened, laughing, his laughter mixed with silent wheezing. “No, I came to see you, Y/N. Missed your childish insolence.”

You haven't seen him for two years. You forget how unbearable he was, and how he used to annoy you being so damn hot when he was bleeding, his smile sly yet so captivating. 

“Did your friend come to see me too? So cute.”

“He came to take what you've stolen from our boss.”

Your razor sharp laughter ringed in his ears. “You think it's so easy to just take what you want from us?”

“Well, it was easy enough to take you back in the days.”

You huffed at him chuckling, placing your hands on his shoulders and pressing them down to make him cry out from the pain in his joints. “Don't fuck with me, Jiyong, you're not in the right position for that right now.”

“I'm always in the right position to fuck you.”

This brat. Even when cuffed, still toying with you. But it would be a lie to say his raspy voice didn't make you curl your toes. You did come there to mess with him, though, so maybe it's the right time to start. 

“I just know what you want most from me, you haven’t changed…” you said, coming up even closer to Jiyong, bending over right to his face. Too close but too far away. Your breath teasing his broken skin, you eyes piercing his with undeniable desire to fuck him up while he can’t do anything to you. Your leg pushing his crotch to the wall, giving him as much friction as you possibly could.

The challenge was accepted. He let his head hang loose, pressing his forehead to yours as he chuckled. “Try me.”

You pressed your palms flat to his chest, sliding them down until you felt the belt on his pants. 

“You’re gonna punish me by fucking me, seriously?” Jiyong’s voice resonated off the four walls, disappointment mixed with curiosity. “You can do better, Y/N.”

You smiled, tugging the belt out and throwing it away on the damp floor. One sharp glance into his eyes when you fingers undone his pants and let them fall loose to the ground made Jiyong weak in the knees. “Who told you i’m gonna fuck you?”

Jiyong was still smiling at you, but you saw a quick shiver of his lips as he drew the air in. “If you’re not, then you’re doing a weird thing going for my dick.”

The next thing he felt was your nails sliding up and down his dick —  the touch almost unnoticeable, the pressure was barely there, but his dick was twitching with every little touch of yours, getting harder.

“We all know what’s the purpose of fucking, right?” Your voice laced his ears like honey, but he couldn’t shake off the feeling that this whole performance won’t end well for him. 

The outrageously smug smile that has been plastered on his face this whole time went blank as he watched you getting down on your knees, without any intentions to break eye contact. From all those years you knew it turns him on.

Your fingers were still running up and down Jiyong’s dick when you leveled with it. Your eyes plastered to his face detecting a twitching of his muscles, his Adam's apple going up and down slowly as he struggled with gulping, as you breathed out way too close to his sensitive tip. Your warm breath coated his head as he whimpered silently, trying to back off with zero success. 

You let one of your hands go up under his shirt tracing light circles on the skin of his stomach, feeling his abs tensing under your touch as you kept on blowing the warm air on his tip.

“You always liked to play games, yeah? With me…” A heavy grant escaped his lips. Jiyong’s mind couldn’t understand how to react to everything that was happening to his body: the excruciating pain in his arms that was driving him crazy for the last few hours, you, playing the touch game on his dick and stomach. The pain versus the pleasure. His mind was too busy going insane to detect your movement, but the coldness he suddenly felt on his abs sent him back to reality.

“Now, game’s mine, Jiyong.” You twisted a knife, the sharp point of it dancing on Jiyong’s skin, sending hundreds goosebumps running all around his body. “I like to see you like this. Helpless, but… what if?..”

And you dropped the knife lower, you slid the point of it down his shaft to his head, careless, not looking at it to be sure you won’t actually hurt him, but yet again checking his reaction. The way his chest heaved as he drew in a breath when he felt the knife touching his dick almost made you lose your sanity. He couldn’t realise if it was because of pleasure or out of realisation that you could chop off his dick, but he yelped, swirling around and trying to get away from the knife.

“You just have to ask me nicely, there’s no need to act like this, Jiyong.” You grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer, trying to stop him from swirling. “Didn’t you want to play?’

Jiyong shrugged, sucking in air. “Y/N get the fucking knife away!..” He tried to scream but his voice cracked when he felt the wave of muscle tension going through his body as you pressed the cold blade of the knife to the hot flesh of his tip. “fuck…”

“Just accept that you like it.” Your little laughter filled the room mixed with Jiyong’s babbling and cursing as you started rubbing the blade on his tip. “Well…” Suddenly the rubbing felt easier and smoother and as you curiously checked the blade you chuckled, teasingly. “I already see that you quite like it, Mr Kwon.”

The blade was wet with his pre-cum. A few seconds later, Jiyong’s whole body spasmed and he bucked his hips forward, his body trying its best to find some needed friction, but you were fast enough to back off.

You hissed, stopping him midaction by pressing a hand to his hip and pressing it back. “Oh, no-no, Jiyong, you won’t get it. Only if you beg, maybe then I’ll think about it.”

You stood up carelessly, putting the knife in the pocket of your coat, and lifted Jiyong’s head just slightly by just barely tapping his chin. “Good boy.”

Your hand went up to mess with his damp hair, tangling your fingers in between his strands, you tugged on it, making Jiyong tilt his head back. His mouth fell open and you didn’t waste an opportunity. You launched on him aggressively, almost making him choke out of surprise. 

Jiyong didn’t back off, not that it was possible anyway, but he savoured your kiss as you were giving it to him. Passionate, wet, bloody from you biting his lips. You put your other hand back to his crotch, rubbing and tugging on his dick, playing lightly with the sensitive skin, eliciting the groan of pain from all the feelings out of his mouth. Your fingers were drawing light circles on his tip, coating itself in his wet sticky precum. 

“You want it bad…” You lulled, bringing your fingers to your mouth and licking the liquid off them, watching Jiyong visibly shake as the disappointment decorated his face.

Damn, the view turned you on. His head hanging loose between his cuffed to the wall arms, his chest muscles so tense you wanted to bite it, his dick dripping from your touch and body twitching in desperation. 

“Just say ‘Please’...”

He looked at you, something in his stare was animalistic and desperate, when his lips parted slightly he breathed out. “Please…”

His chest heaved a little when he felt your light touch on his dick. It was just a play for you, you only were teasing him, but it gave you so much power over the man that had all that power over you all those years. The way he toyed with you, making you feel so damn wanted and desirable, you could do anything he asked you to. And then he left. Without saying a word, he just left. 

You were rubbing his tip until you felt Jiyong breathing slowered and his muscles tensed. You won’t give it to him just like that.

“Y/N, s-stop, just…”

“Just what?” You pressed your fingertip to his dripping head again, drawing a low moan from Jiyong’s mouth. “Just say it, baby, it’s not that hard. I said it plenty of times to you.”

Jiyong gulped his pride down, the desire to stop this teasing and just cum was excruciating, it was tickling his skin painfully, swirling his stomach and curling his numb fingers. He wanted it. He needed it. But it was so hard to even mutter these words.

Jiyong heard you chuckle, watching him battling with himself for so long. “Okay, you can hang here. I’ll go visit your friend.” You took a few steps backwards, tapping your chin with your fingers. “What was his name again? TOP? Tabi? Whatever…” 

You almost turned around when the silence was interrupted with a breathy whimper.

“Y/N…” You looked at Jiyong, he was visibly waging war within himself. “Please… I…” he bit his lips in disgust, but the twitching in his stomach made him continue speaking, leaving all the male pride behind. “I beg you.”

“Damn? where is my camera? I should’ve captured this for future generations… mr. Kwon Jiyong begging me to let him cum.

You came closer to him, wrapped your fingers roughly around his chin and squeezed it tightly. “Okay, I'll let you.” You kissed him loosely, biting into his lower lip and tugging it away until you felt a drop of blood on your teeth.

You grabbed his dick again, firmly and started tugging on it in a quick rhythm, rubbing your thumb against his tip. The movements sent a wave of arousal up Jiyong’s body, his chest started heaving and dropping hectically, his stomach tying into a knot, as he panted heavily.

“P-please, tighter…”

He groaned on the way you tighten your grip around his shaft way too hard. “You think you can boss me around?” Hearing him groaning and squealing, you might have wanted to squeeze the living soul out of his dick, but with a few more rubs of your thumb against his wet tip, his whole body spasmed and he mellowed, coating your palm in his semen.

“Are you good now?” You wiped your palm on his shirt, slapping his cheek with another hand. “Now, it’s time to pay a visit to your friend. I didn’t come here exclusively to see you. Too much honor.”

You turned around on your heels, and walked away to the door, a smug smile shining on your face. “Maybe I’ll come visit you again if your friend bores me.”

When your hand was reaching the door handle, you heard Jiyong laughing. It took you a split second to turn around and dart a sharp look at him only to see him standing free on his feet, his hands uncuffed.

“So you could’ve stopped it anytime?” That man made you crazy again, putting a wicked smile on your face. “You’re really a sick weirdo, Kwon Jiyong. See you!”

The door closed on the other side of the room, locked.

Jiyong left standing there, in an empty cellar all alone. Why didn’t he stop you? Didn’t overpower you? At the end, he only toyed with you again.

On the other side of the door you’ve been thinking on how to recoup.

✧✧͏✧✧

Open ending i'm guessing it's a part 2 coming......

Event tag list: writers: @namsgyu @mashtatosworld @gds-daisy @gdinthehouseee @ldydeath @wcnderlnds @eru-vande @emmiesoverthemoon @petersasteria @breakmeoff @makeitworse

readers: @seungttttop @keiraryan @moontabi @mintandmuse @steponupbabe @heartubeatusalon @burningheartdetective @thanosspills @aizshallnotbefound @ttturnitup @szonyix6277 + personal tags! (comment to be added)

my tag list: @loveesiren @infinetlyforgotten @sevendaysummer

[whiskey-tango-matcha]

The Way You Care for Me (M, illness)

I'm shifting out of my comfort zone, aka writing the guys outside of the restaurant!!! A huge thank you and props to @ghostlychill who came up with this amazing prompt, on which this fic is based, and also gave me additional scene ideas. they're the real MVP of this fic.

In this, Greyson and Elijah are both sick and Elijah helps Greyson get to the doctor. It takes place before Greyson gets with Reed, but after Matt and Mark are together, just to place y'all in the timeline correctly. It's REAL whumpy for me, to the point where it's much more of a traditional sickfic or hurt/comfort fic than a snzfic. But I'll be honest, it's maybe my favorite fic I've written. I think I might try writing more outside the restaurant soon.

I'd love to hear any feedback, good, bad, or otherwise :) and if you have anything you'd like to see from these guys, as always feel free to send it. My inbox is always open.

CW: Male illness/snz, coughing, high fevers, contagion, passing out. 5.5K words under the cut

The Way You Care for Me

“Well, that escalated quickly.”

From across the prep table, Greyson shot his boss a dirty look before pulling a handful of tissues out of the box beside him. “I don’t wandt to talk about iiih – hhIGTZCH-ue!” He pitched forward into his hands, a soft groan escaping his throat. “’Least we’re closed the ndext two,” he muttered, tossing the tissues. Elijah pressed his lips together.

“Yeah, lucky you, sick as a dog for the only two days off in a row you’ve had since high school,” he said, prompting a stuffy laugh from the chef. “I thought you said it just felt like a cold yesterday?”

Greyson shrugged. “It did,” he said, shivering despite the kitchen heat and the sweatshirt – was that Elijah’s sweatshirt? – he had on over his chef’s coat. “I’mb sure it’s ndothing, Lij, just mby stupid body rebelling at the thought of time off.” He held his hands up as if to say, What can you do? “I’ll mbake it,” he finished, coughing.

“You’re sure you’ll be okay tonight?” Elijah asked, tapping his fingers nervously on the butcher block on the prep station. “I mean, there’s no Matt.”

No Matt or Mark, Elijah thought to himself, grim and foreboding. The two junior managers were celebrating their one-year anniversary this week, and as a surprise for the two of them, Greyson and Elijah had agreed to work double time for two days and close the restaurant for the other two to give Matt and Mark a full four-day-weekend together. Of course, as soon as Matt and Mark had waved their bosses goodbye from Elijah’s car – letting them borrow it to drive to the Jersey shore was the other half of the younger men’s gift – Greyson started coming down with whatever this shit was. Yesterday had been annoying, but fine; Greyson sneezed his way through his prep, hoarsely expoed throughout service, and promised he’d be fine for the next night. Now, though?

A sudden “HNGTSCHH-ue!” escaped Greyson’s lips before he could answer, a sneeze so harsh it made Elijah take two steps back.

“Dude,” he said, wincing while Greyson grabbed more tissues to clean himself up. As he watched Greyson blow his nose, he couldn’t help but press two fingers to the base of his own throat. The tiny pang he’d felt when he woke up this morning had not gone away with water, as he’d hoped, but had blossomed into a full sore throat. It burned brighter the longer Elijah watched Greyson cough, as though upon seeing how ill the chef was, his body had been given permission to start its own downward spiral. Finally, Greyson tossed the tissues, cleared his throat as well as he could.

“I’ll be finde,” Greyson growled. “Let’s just get through this fuckigg ndi- HRRTSHH-uhh!”

***

There was absolutely no way in hell Greyson was going to make it back to Brooklyn tonight.

The shift had gone about as well as Elijah expected; Greyson lost his voice halfway through the night, couldn’t stop sneezing long enough to garnish the plates, and eventually had to retire to the office to put his head between his knees to quell the dizzy spell he’d coughed himself into. Eventually, Elijah put Riley, his head server, in charge of watching the floor and went to the kitchen to expo while Greyson snored on the floor of the office.

Meanwhile, Elijah spent the evening well-and-truly coming down with Greyson’s disgusting illness. His head ached, his throat felt sticky and painful, and possibly most annoying, his breath kept hitching around a sneeze that – “Hh-! Hhh… hnnghh” – never quite came.

It had been, to put it mildly, a true fucking nightmare.

Now, at nearly one in the morning, Greyson was burning up with fever and high on cough medicine, glassy-eyed and chatty, spinning the office chair round and round like a kid. Beside him, Elijah was rapidly deteriorating.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Lij, of course I’mb goigg hombe,” Greyson rasped, rubbing his nose with the back of his hand. “I’mb fine, it’s a cold, it’s ndot a big deal.”

“Greyson,” Elijah said, rubbing an eye with the heel of his hand, “you are not fine. Did you somehow forget the last seven hours?” He grabbed Greyson’s chair then, stopping it in its tracks. “And stop fucking spinning you’re going to pahh – hh… pass… huh… passoutNGTSZH-oo! Huh-! HGTZCH-ue! Fuck, finally,” Elijah sighed into the sleeve of his shirt. From over his glasses, Elijah could see Greyson fold his arms.

“Bless you,” he said, accusatory. “You feeling okay?” Elijah rolled his eyes, painfully.

“Yes, Mama Greyson,” he said, sucking in through his nose and sitting up. “How do you plan on getting home, anyway? Isn’t an uber out there like a million dollars on a Saturday night?”

Greyson raised a confused eyebrow. “I’mb… what am I, Warren Buffett? Ndo I’mb ndot ubering, Elijah, I’mb taking the train.” Again, despite the worrying amount of cough syrup he’d ingested, Greyson dissolved into a painful-sounding coughing fit. Elijah bit his cheek to keep from snapping.

“Grey,” he said, massaging his throat. “You’re not taking the train an hour home when you have a fucking fever. Just – fuck – GTSCHH-uhh! NGTSZCH-ue! Snrf.” Elijah snatched a tissue from the box Greyson thunked next to him, wiping his nose before finishing. “Just stay with mbe,” he said, congestion finally seeping into his voice. At this, Greyson visibly perked up.

“Stay… you mbean stay at your apartment?” he asked. “Like sleep at your apartment?”

The look on Elijah’s face betrayed his every feeling. “I – yes, you fucking freak, like sleep at my apartment, why are you being weird?”

“You ndever let anyone stay over at your apartment,” Greyson said, pushing out of his chair and putting his winter coat over what was definitely Elijah’s sweatshirt. “Like, it’s a whole thigg Matt and Mark and I joke about, that ndo one is allowed at your place past seven p.m because you have sombe sort of weird bedtime ritual ndo one can see. Mby theory was you’re one of those people who sleeps in those who-goes-there-ass old-timey pajamas. The ones with a hat.”

Elijah blinked. “People stay at my apartment,” he said. Throwing the GM’s coat into his lap, Greyson scoffed.

“Yeah?” Greyson asked as Elijah slowly pushed up from his chair. “Whend?”

“I mean, it’s been awhile,” Elijah mused. Now that he thought about it – when was the last time he had someone stay at his place? Greyson had never asked or needed to stay with him; if he was gallivanting through the city after work, he was staying with whoever took him to bed. Mark lived practically next door to the restaurant, so he and Matt had never asked to stay even if all of them were out drinking. And the last time he’d had a date come to the house… well, if he was being honest, he couldn’t remember ever having a date stay the night at his apartment.

“That’s what I thought,” Greyson said, grabbing onto the back of Elijah’s chair to keep from falling over. “Oh – jesus, shit, hold on.” The chef closed his eyes, took as deep of a breath as his spasming lungs could handle. Slowly, he let the breath out, unfurled his fingers from the chair, and opened one eye. “Okay,” Greyson said, “mbaybe the train would be out of the question.”

Elijah bleated out a laugh. “You think?” he said, clapping Greyson on the shoulder. “C’mon, patient zero. Let’s get you to bed.”

***

As the winter night sky parted and made way for the blue-black light of morning, Elijah let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding for hours. Okay, he said to himself, time to get him to fucking urgent care.

Despite his goofing-off, his quipping, his inability to be serious for five fucking seconds, the moment Greyson’s body collapsed into Elijah’s bed, he crashed harder than Elijah had ever seen anyone crash. The shivers he’d had at the restaurant turned to shaking that rattled the headboard against the wall so loudly, Elijah assumed his neighbors would come and bang on the door. His teeth chattered in his head hard enough to crack the enamel, and his eyes, in the brief moments they were open, were bloodshot to hell. Greyson’s fever – however high it was, Elijah could only guess since he wasn’t exactly the type of guy who kept a thermometer lying around – just would not budge.

Elijah tried everything he knew to help get his friend’s fever down. At first, he tried to get Greyson to feel comfortable, to feel warm – piling blankets on top of him, forcing wool socks and a coat on him in bed, the whole nine. When that didn’t seem to do anything except make his skin burn hotter, Elijah tried moving on to old reliable: medicine.

The issue here was Greyson was barely conscious, and even getting water into him was proving difficult. “Greyson,” Elijah whispered after an hour of trying and failing to get the other man to swallow some ibuprofen. “Please, man, just take it, I promise you’ll feel better.”

Greyson’s eyes flitted open for a few moments, and Elijah pressed the pills into his hand. “Please,” he repeated. The chef attempted a nod, put the pills in his mouth, and immediately coughed them onto the bed; he shook his head, grabbing at his throat as the coughing continued. Unfortunately, Elijah related deeply to what his friend was implying: his throat was too swollen to swallow pills. Elijah swallowed around the knives in his own throat. Nodded.

“Okay,” he said, handing Greyson a cup filled with water instead. “Okay, fair enough.” God, why didn’t he keep any fucking Nyquil on hand?

After that episode, Elijah came to his senses and pulled out his phone to google how to get a fever down. One of the websites – one that looked to be for mothers of small children, but whatever, he’d try anything at this point – mentioned a lukewarm or cool bath, which didn’t sound like a terrible idea, but ultimately Greyson was seemingly unable to move and with the five inches and thirty pounds he had on Elijah, no shot was he getting carried to the bath.

Ultimately, Elijah ended up pressing a cool washcloth to Greyson’s forehead from three a.m. onward, the night spreading endlessly around him. The sleepless, worrying hours of trying to care for Greyson were only made worse by the fact that Elijah felt like absolute fucking dog shit; his lungs constricted with angry, bubbling coughs every few moments, and breathing out his nose was, as of about five in the morning, an absolute no-go. Worse still, as Greyson sweat through his sheets, Elijah could feel the stifling heat of his own fever spreading itself behind his eyes. Whatever it was that Greyson had managed to pick up, it certainly didn’t fuck around.

At seven a.m., when the alarm Elijah had set on his phone notified him that the closest urgent care would be open in thirty minutes, Greyson, who’d finally settled into a true sleep about an hour before, gasped himself awake.

“’S timbe for work?” he slurred, attempting to sit up. Elijah coughed out a hoarse laugh.

“Ndot exactly, bud,” he said, clearing his throat. “C’mond, let mbe help you uhh – uh… up-NGTSZCHH-ue!” Elijah wrenched to the side to avoid sneezing directly in Greyson’s face as he pulled the chef to a sitting position. Greyson pressed his eyebrows together, reached out to place a hand on Elijah’s forehead.

“You have a fever,” he mused, as Elijah pulled a few tissues from the near-depleted box on the end table. “I thought you said you weren’t sick?”

“I lied,” Elijah said plainly, shoving the tissues into the pocket of his hoodie. “Let’s go, up and at ’em, we’re getting you to urgent care.”

“Wh -? Urgent care, what do you mbean? I’mb fine.” Greyson said as Elijah slowly helped him to his feet. Elijah laughed again, this time doubling over into his elbow to cough.

“Please don’t mbake mbe laugh,” Elijah said, helping Greyson into one of the winter coats he had hanging in his closet – Greyson’s coat had been sweat through multiple times over, and Elijah wasn’t about to brave the doctor’s office with the smell of fever sweat coating the two of them. It seemed, frankly, a little too on the nose.

“Ndot trying to be funny,” Greyson mumbled as he shakily put on the coat. “’S just a cold, Lij.” As he said it, Elijah could see his eyes starting to roll back in his head, felt his fever-warm body go limp – fuck.

“Grey!” Elijah yelled, jerking the chef back to a standing position. Greyson came back to quickly, collapsing into a barking fit of coughing that wouldn’t subside until Elijah sat him back on the bed. This is going to be harder than I thought. “Are you okay?” Elijah asked, Greyson’s arm still gripped in his hand. Shakily, Greyson nodded; clearly the near-fall was enough to scare him.

“Fuck,” Greyson moaned, pulling a hand down his face. “I haven’t felt this shitty in…. I don’t even kndow how long. Hh-! HRRSHHT! Fuckigg ow.” Greyson pressed the heel of his hand into his eye, his headache palpable even to Elijah. The GM sighed, rubbed his friend’s back.

“That’s why we’re goigg to urgent care,” he said. “This is clearly beyond mby scope of ability. I almbost took you to the ER last ndight.”

Greyson looked at Elijah as if he were completely deranged. “I appreciate you ndot bankrupting mbe over a fuckigg fever,” he said, some levity breathed back into the room. Elijah croaked out a chuckle. “But… I mbean yeah, okay, I guess it couldn’t hurt to go.”

At this, Elijah pat Greyson once on the back. “Good mban,” he said, once again helping the chef to his feet. Greyson squeezed his eyes shut as he stood, an attempt to not lose consciousness again.

“Ndot sure I’mb gonna mbake it down the elevator, you mbay have to carry mbe to the car,” he joked, an attempt to keep Elijah calm. At the word car, Elijah’s heart sunk.

“Oh, fuck,” he said, pressing a palm to his face. “The boys have the fuckigg car.” Greyson pressed his lips together, remembering. Matt and Mark were hundreds of miles away at the Jersey shore. With Elijah’s only mode of transportation. With Greyson sick as a fucking dog, and Elijah well on his way to being down just a bad. The fucking boys have the fucking car.

“Where’s the clinic,” Greyson said, his voice thin. Elijah looked down at his phone.

“Three miles away,” he said. “It’s… oh, fuck mbe I forgot about the fuckigg mbarathon this weekend.” He pressed a few buttons on his phone, shaking his head in disbelief. “Ubers are like a hundred and fifty bucks,” he murmured. Greyson groaned.

“Don’t tell mbe we have to take the fuckigg subway,” he said, eyes still closed. Elijah bit his cheek; their options were more than limited. Without a car, and with the possibility of an uber even picking the two of them up looking the way they did near-zero, their choices were basically train… or walk. A glance in Greyson’s direction proved that walking was simply not an option.

“Let’s try to get sombe ibuprofen in you,” he said, guiding Greyson towards the kitchen. “It’s gonnda be a long train ride.”

***

The fact that they made it to this god-forsaken clinic was nothing short of a complete fucking miracle.

Getting to the train was bad enough; after pumping Greyson with enough ibuprofen to kill an elephant, topped off with four shots of espresso to keep him awake enough to get to the subway, the two of them set out on their jaunt. Still, it took nearly thirty minutes for the two of them to walk three blocks to the subway station.

“Greyson,” Elijah said for what felt like the thousandth time, “we gotta pick up the pace, kid, you’re killigg mbe here.”

“I – HGTSCHHH-uhh! Snrk. I’mb goigg as fast as I possibly cand,” Greyson mumbled, wiping his running nose on the coat Elijah had lent him. If this nursing-home shuffle was as fast as he could go, Elijah mused, they’d be lucky to get there next fucking year. Pursing his lips, Elijah looped his arm through Greyson’s and started dragging. “Stop pulling,” Greyson said, placing a hand on his own forehead. “’M gonnda pass out if we go any faster.”

“Then pass out,” Elijah said, continuing to pull. “It’d take the same ambount of timbe for me to drag your lifeless corpse through the street. We ndeed to get theehh – holdon-NGTZCHH-ue! Hh-! Hhh…” Elijah held an elbow up to his face, trying to use the very few exposed rays of sunlight to coax out the second sneeze. It was in vain; Elijah let out a shaky breath, annoyed.

Beside him, Greyson regarded Elijah with bloodshot, half-lidded eyes. “Bless you,” he said, sniffling. Elijah returned his watery gaze with a venomous scowl.

“I should, like, sue you for givigg mbe this,” he said, arm still locked in his friend’s. “This is a fucked-up illndess to give to someone.”

Elijah couldn’t tell if Greyson was nodding, or if he momentarily lost consciousness, causing his head to bob. Either way, when he lifted his gaze to look Elijah in the eyes again, he was finally smiling. “Yeah,” he said, coughing away from his friend. “Yeah, I mbean, when you’re right, you’re right.”

By the time they reached the train, Elijah was completely spent. Greyson had been so dizzy for the last half of the walk that he’d pulled the hood of his coat over his eyes and pressed his face into Elijah’s shoulder while they trudged forward, adding what felt like a billion pounds to Elijah’s already-weighed-down-by-fever body. They had made it, though, down the stairs and into the train and – blessedly – into two seats that faced the outside. Finally, when the tinny voice canned in from above asked them to stand clear of the closing doors, please, Elijah dropped his head between his legs and let out a brutal fit of coughs.

“Y’okay?” Greyson asked from behind the hood with both hands shielding his eyes like a visor. When he finally caught his breath, Elijah slowly turned slowly towards the chef and gave an exhausted nod.

“Great,” he rasped. “Ndever better.”

Urgent care was five stops away – five of the longest fucking stops Elijah had ever endured. Each time the train jerked forward or ground to a halt, Greyson made a tiny, terrible whimper in discomfort, a noise that broke Elijah’s heart each time it escaped his lips. “You’re okay, kid,” Elijah muttered, rubbing his friend’s arm while he silently cursed himself for not just paying the two hundred dollars for a stupid uber. “Almbost there.”

After what felt like an eon, the train finally pulled into their station, and Elijah summoned all the strength he had left to hoist Greyson to his feet and pull him out the door. By the grace of whatever-the-fuck entity was watching this scene unfold, the clinic was the first thing he saw when they made their way up the stairs. Small mercies, he thought, dragging Greyson across the street and in through the double doors. Small fucking mercies.

***

“I take it you’re Mr. Abbott?”

As the nurse practitioner breezed through the door she smiled at Elijah, who was sitting in the chair immediately to her right. The GM swung his head around to look her in the eye – fuck, she was pretty. Figures, he thought, wiping under his nose.

“Uh, ndo, I’mb Mr. Morrison – uh, I’m Elijah. That’s the patient,” Elijah said, pointing at Greyson swinging his feet loopily on the exam table. The NP hummed, taking her seat on the stool next to the computer.

“My apologies,” she said, adjusting her mask so it was more secure over her nose and mouth – can’t blame her there, Elijah thought. “Mr. Abbott, I’m Emily. I’ll be helping you out today.”

“Ohh, you cand call mbe Greyson, Doctor Embily,” Greyson said, smiling sloppily. From his chair, Elijah’s face burned red – only Greyson would be able to flirt with a hundred-and-three-degree fever. The NP smiled.

“Just Emily is fine,” she said, her voice kind and cheerful. “Can you tell me a little bit about what’s going on with you?”

Greyson, still with a half-drunk smile pasted on his face, just shrugged. “I’mb good,” he said, before turning suddenly to cough into the collar of his jacket, long enough for Emily to wince and bring him a cup of water from the machine right outside the door of the exam room they were in. “Thangks,” Greyson rasped, sipping the water with his eyes closed. “D’you mbind if I, uh, lay down for a mbinute?”

The NP nodded, then stood in time with Elijah to help him lay Greyson on the crumpled paper. While Greyson fought back the dizziness, Emily the NP turned towards Elijah. “Maybe you could help us with the details?” she asked, smiling.

Elijah nodded, cleared his throat. Fought back a shiver – why the fuck do they keep these offices so fucking cold? “Yeah,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “Sure thiihh – hh..scusembe-NGTXCH-uhh!” Elijah attempted to stifle the sneeze into the sleeve of his sweatshirt, to no avail. Before he could even look around for one, Emily placed a tissue box on the chair next to Elijah, giving him a sympathetic look.

“Bless,” she said, simply. Elijah nodded, taking a tissue and wiping his nose to keep from seeming any grosser that he already was.

“Thangks, sorry,” he said, swallowing painfully. “Uh, yeah, I mbean he’s had a fever since… Friday, I thingk? Thursday ndight, mbaybe? And a cough, which has definitely gotten, uh, worse…” Again, Elijah held up a finger as though to say give me a minute, before turning away in hopes of a sneeze. This time, he wasn’t so lucky – it evaded him, and left in its place a crunchy, painful cough. On the exam bed, Greyson coughed in time with his boss. The NP raised her eyebrows.

“And… is there a reason you aren’t up on that exam table with him?” she asked, her voice light. Greyson croaked out a laugh, not opening his eyes. Ignoring the chef, Elijah attempted a smile.

“I’mb okay,” he promised, clearing his throat. “Anyway, last ndight the fever just got really intense, he was shakigg and couldn’t get mbedicine down and uh… yeah.” Elijah blinked, trying to clear his head. “Is that… does that help?”

Emily nodded, standing. “It does,” she said. “Let’s take a look and see what we can do.” She approached Greyson then, placing a hand on the bed. “Mr. Abbott? Is it okay if your husband and I help you up?”

At this, Greyson’s eyes flew open. “Mby what?” he asked, coughing out another laugh. A look of panic passed over Emily’s eyes, and she looked back at Elijah as if for confirmation. Elijah just rubbed his face with one hand, a modicum of embarrassment on his face.

“We’re, uh… he’s ndot mby husband,” he said, standing to help the NP lift Greyson to a seated position. “We’re busindess partners. Friends, y’kndow, and… business partners.”

“I keep askigg and askigg, and he keeps sayigg ‘ndo’,” Greyson said, a hand kept over one eye to keep from falling down or passing out as he sat up. He smiled at Emily, a charmer to the end, even when he was half-dead. “You’d thingk I’d kndow how to deal with the heartbreak by ndow, but it just ndever gets easier,” he said, turning once again to cough away from the other two. Emily flashed Elijah a confused look.

“He’s kidding,” Elijah promised, sniffling. “I’d say it’s the fever, but really this is just… how he is.”

Emily nodded slowly. “My apologies, I shouldn’t have assumed anything,” she said, putting the earbuds of her stethoscope in her ears and placing the cold bell on Greyson’s chest. Coughing into his sleeve, Elijah lowered himself back into his seat.

“All good,” he said, voice mangled. “You wouldn’t be the first person to assumbe it.”

The NP worked quietly then, asking Greyson to breathe as she listened to his lungs, checking his throat and ears, swabbing his nose for a flu test and his tonsils for strep. By the time she was finished and the rapid tests were back, Greyson looked ready to pass out again.

“Alright, Mr. Abbott,” Emily said, breezing into the exam room with a clipboard in hand. “Good news and bad news; the good news is, you tested negative for strep. Bad news is you tested positive for Flu A, and based on how your lungs sound, I’d say you also have bronchitis. And most likely, a sinus infection.”

From his laid-out position on the bed, Greyson attempted a smile. “Yay?” he said, coughing into his hand. Emily laughed a little behind her mask.

“I’m going to prescribe you an antibiotic for the sinus infection; unfortunately, there’s not much I can do about the flu or the bronchitis, unless you’d like a steroid shot. Obviously get rest and lots of fluids, over the counter medicine is fine, too, you can take it with the antibiotic. Do you need a doctor’s note for work?”

Greyson smiled at Elijah from the bed. “Mmm, ndo pretty sure mby boss believes that I’mb sick,” he said. Elijah rolled his eyes, then pressed his hand deep into one of their sockets when pain spread behind them. Emily also turned to look at Elijah.

“Ah, yeah, I forgot. Business partners,” she said, swiveling the seat of her chair to face Elijah and scooting herself towards his seat. The GM’s heart thumped in time with his head as she approached. “As for you, Mr…?”

“Elijah is finde,” Elijah said, suppressing a cough by swallowing hard.

“Elijah,” Emily repeated. “Is it alright if I touch you?”

When was the last time a woman asked you that? Elijah thought to himself, nodding. Emily gently brought her hands to his face and pressed under his eyes and holy fucking shit, fucking ouch.

“Jesus,” Elijah said, reeling back before turning away from her to suddenly – “HRRTSH-ue! NGTSCHHH-uhh!” The NP’s eyes betrayed the smile behind her mask.

“Bless you,” she said, backing up to her computer. “That’s what I figured; listen, I don’t normally do two-for-one type stuff, but it’s pretty clear that you have what he has, so I’m going to go ahead and prescribe a round of antibiotics for you as well. Keep you from having to come back in a couple days.”

Elijah’s face flamed as he grabbed another tissue and quietly blew his nose. This woman was the first person he’d felt those adolescent butterflies for in – he didn’t even know how long, honestly – and of course he was laid out, barely able to talk and sneezing in her face. The universe has it out for me, I swear to god.

“Uh, okay,” Elijah said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Thangk you.”

“Don’t mention it,” she said, typing into her computer. When she finished and turned back to the two ill men, she smiled with her eyes. “Is there anything else I can do for the two of you?”

“You could hit mbe with a blow dart and wake mbe up when this shit is gone,” Greyson said, coughing again. Elijah bit the inside of his cheek while the NP laughed.

“Outside my jurisdiction,” she said, standing. “My apologies. Well, if that’s all then I’ll let you two get home. Take care of yourselves, if things get worse don’t be afraid to come back in.” Emily opened the door, pulled her mask down to smile at the two of them. Fuck, this woman is gorgeous. “Feel better,” she said, and closed the door behind her.

***

“So, do you thingk you’re goigg to go by Mr. Doctor Embily?” Greyson asked, propping himself up on an elbow. “Or is that, like, too on-the-ndose?”

From under the warm washcloth he’d placed over his aching sinuses, Elijah snorted and threw his friend a playful middle finger. “You’re an asshole,” he muttered, pulling the blanket Greyson had moved when he shifted positions back over his torso. “That womban wouldn’t touch mbe with a ten-foot pole after the fuckigg performance we put on in there.”

“Mmmb, I don’t kndow about that,” Greyson mused plucking the washcloth off of Elijah’s face and placing it over his own. “Seemed like she thought you were cute.”

This time, Elijah was the one who sat up. “Yeah,” he said grabbing both his and Greyson’s cups of TheraFlu off the side table and pressing the chef’s cup into his hand. “Ndothing cuter than sombe guy nearly sneezing into your open eyes. Dringk your damn mbedicine.”

Greyson did as he was told, sifting through the arsenal of Doordashed medications the two men had laid out on the bed as he sipped. After they’d stumbled out of the urgent care Elijah, who’d held it together as well as was humanly possible the past thirty hours, hit a wall so hard he nearly dropped to his knees. Without saying anything, Greyson had pulled out his phone and ordered an eye-wateringly expensive uber to cart them the few miles back to Elijah’s apartment; in return, Elijah had sent for an equally expensive courier to pick them up a pharmacy’s worth of medication and the best soup that the upper west side had to offer. While they waited for everything to be delivered, the two shivering, coughing men curled into Elijah’s sweat-soaked bed, listening to the labored sounds of one another’s breathing until they both passed out.

Now, an hour later and finally medicated, Greyson seemed wont to talk, while Elijah felt himself slipping into a deeper rung of illness. His whole body ached; he could think of nothing but sleep. Still, Greyson continued to prod.

“I’mb being serious,” Greyson said, unwrapping a cough drop and popping it in his mouth. “Mbaybe you should go back and ask for her ndumber.”

Elijah, eyes laden with bags from a sleepless night, flushed and sweating and breathing through his mouth, looked at Greyson, deadpan. “Look mbe in the eye and tell mbe that’s a goooo – hh… snrf. A good ideahh – hhGTSCHHH-oo! HRRTSCH-uh!” He wrenched to the side just in time, groaning at the pain. Out of the corner of his eye, Elijah saw Greyson wince.

“Well, obviously wait a few days,” he said, prompting Elijah to throw a pillow at him. The chef laughed, a soupy cough punctuating it.

“God, this is fuckigg mbiserable,” Elijah muttered, laying down again. “I can’t believe you worked yesterday feeling like this.”

Shrugging, Greyson placed his cup back on the side table and laid down as well. “I’mb mbade of different stuff, what can I say,” he joked. Elijah made a sound between a laugh and a snort before closing his eyes, the soft tendrils of sleep curling their fingers around his fevered mind. Moments before he dropped off, Elijah heard Greyson speak up again. “Hey, Lij?”

“Mmm?” Elijah muttered, sleep still right on the horizon. When Greyson didn’t immediately speak up, he opened one eye just a crack. Greyson, face pale and lips cracked, was looking right at him, clearly thinking of how to put whatever it was he wanted to say. Finally, he spoke up again.

“Thangk you,” Greyson said. “For takigg care of mbe.”

For a moment, Elijah just stared back, the sincerity of the sentiment setting him off-balance in a way he wasn’t expecting. Elijah rubbed his face to wake up enough to speak, nodded without letting his head leave the pillow. “’Course, Grey,” he said, attempting a weak smile. “That’s what friends are for.” He shrugged then, nonchalant, and closed his eyes once again. “I kndow you’d do the sambe for mbe.”

“Yeah,” Greyson said, voice soft. “I would.”

Right on the edge of sleep, Elijah allowed himself the last word. “Grey?”

“Yeah?”

“If you ever get mbe this sigck again, I will shoot you with a gun.”

For the first time in days, Greyson laughed in earnest. “I’ll hold you to that,” he said. “Ndight, Lij.”

“G’night,” Elijah mumbled before finally, blessedly, drifting into sleep.

[mintchocolove]

Before you go

They meet you one last time before they leave to follow their destiny, as if fate had given them something to return to afterward.

Pairing: OT7 x f!reader Instead of yn I'm going to use Eunjin as the readers name, but each Eunjin is different. I'll take recomendations. English is not my first language so please be kind.

Lee Heeseung - Late-night harmony

One week before I-Land starts, Favorite, 2020

Heeseung was pissed at himself. I-LAND was less than a week away, and even now, he couldn’t stop messing up his performance. Not everyone was rooting for him, he knew that. Many trainees had been denied the chance to participate in the reality show, and they were mad at him.

News and rumors traveled fast in the building, and he wasn’t surprised that many believed the show had been created solely to guarantee his debut. The pressure was becoming unbearable, making him want to cry. His feet moved on instinct, only stopping when he found himself in front of practice room A-16. Once again, music drifted from inside—but this time, it was accompanied by a soft voice.

His hand moved to the door handle, pushing it open gently as the voice sang the lines to “Locked Out of Heaven” by Bruno Mars. A smile tugged at his lips as he caught sight of the girl inside, her back to him. She wore a bright orange sweater with purple bows—instantly recognizable. It was the same girl from the end of last year.

Suddenly, the song stopped, and Heeseung locked eyes with you through the mirror. You looked almost scared to see him standing there. But he didn’t want you to run away again like last time—his mouth acted before his brain could catch up.

“Your voice is good. Want to sing together?”

You froze, beginning to gather your things immediately, then looked up at him like you’d just heard a ghost whisper in your ear. You seemed to be searching his face for any sign that he was joking. Instead of saying more, Heeseung walked into the room and stopped in front of you, waiting.

“Sure… yeah, that…” you let out a breath and smiled, gesturing to the floor beside you. “That would be good.”

And gods, he thought, if your voice was good when you were singing, it was even better when you were just talking. His cheeks warmed with a blush, slightly embarrassed, as you grabbed your phone and opened Spotify, glaring at it like it had personally offended you.

“You choose. I’ve been having a crisis over this for the past hour.”

If it was possible, his smile grew wider. Heeseung took the phone from your hands, scrolling through songs before settling on one. You grinned at his choice, whispering how much you loved that track.

Time passed quickly. You sang together, sitting side by side, and the tension in your shoulders eased. Heeseung no longer felt the pressure that had been eating away at him all day.

After a few songs, you decided to get a snack from the vending machine down the hall. You walked quietly beside each other, and Heeseung finally took in your clothes—the hideous sweater, the mismatched Converse. You definitely had a unique style. And it made him smile.

“My name’s Eunjin, by the way,” you said, not looking at him, too focused on deciding between cookies or chips. “Sorry I ran away last time. You kinda scared the shit out of me.”

This time, he couldn’t hold it in. A laugh burst out of him, loud and genuine. You turned to him, startled, your cheeks now a deep shade of red.

“Sorry for scaring you. I’m Heeseung.”

Your eyes softened as you looked at him, then turned back to the machine, shrugging as you pressed the button for chocolate cookies.

“Yeah… you’re well known in the building.” Stepping aside so he could pick his snack, you stared at his face, still boyish under the soft hallway lights. “I heard about the reality show. I bet you’ll do well, Heeseung. Don’t pay attention to the jealous trainees. Just do your best every time.”

His heart skipped a beat. He looked at you, studying every line of your face. His eyes stung unexpectedly with tears. It wasn’t that your words were the grandest encouragement he’d ever received, but somehow, coming from you, a near stranger who seemed to believe in him anyway, they meant everything.

“Then root for me while I’m there. If I debut, I’ll treat you to dinner.”

You smiled, nodding before whispering your reply. That night, when Heeseung arrived home, his phone buzzed with a message. He wasn’t surprised to see it was from you: “Lee Heeseung, I was rooting for you anyway.”

Park Jongseong - Bookstore browsing

One month before I-Land starts, Manga, 2020

Jay had not rested well last night, even as he walked around school with his hands shoved in his pockets, he wasn’t entirely paying attention. His eyebrows were knitted together as he tried to remember the lyrics of “The 7th Sense”. It had been happening a lot these days, maybe he really did need to rest. With a sigh, he started heading toward the library.

The library was silent and almost empty, except for a few students sitting near a window, apparently too focused to notice him. His eyes drifted to the second floor, and since he couldn’t see anyone from where he stood, he started climbing the stairs. The second floor was indeed deserted; the chairs and tables were perfectly in place. This was where the fantasy books and manga were kept, so it wasn’t surprising that not many people came up here.

He considered falling asleep at one of the tables. He only had two classes left, and one of them was P.E.—missing them wouldn’t be the end of the world, and he could get some rest. Finally giving in to the temptation, he sank into one of the chairs farthest from the entrance and took off his jacket to use as a pillow. The manga section was just in front of him, so chances were slim that anyone would come to bother him.

His mind drifted off quickly, falling asleep without paying much attention to his surroundings. He didn’t know how much time had passed when the sound of movement stirred him awake.

There was a girl standing on top of a chair, reaching for a manga with a slight frown, standing on tiptoe. Jay watched as the chair wobbled slightly, his body moving before he could think, just in time to stop the chair (and the girl) from falling.

“God, that was close.”

He looked up and met your eyes, you looked startled, a shaky breath escaping your lips as your trembling gaze landed on him. “Can you help me down?” you asked softly.

He nodded immediately, finally exhaling a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Once you were safely on the ground, you bowed politely. “Thank you, if it weren’t for you, I probably would’ve fallen.”

He nodded absentmindedly, glancing up at the shelf you had been reaching for. The Attack on Titan collection stared back at him. “What volume were you trying to get? I’ll help.”

Your eyes widened slightly, and you murmured that you were looking for volume two—if it wasn’t too much trouble. Less than a minute later, the manga was in your hands, and Jay was putting the chair back in its place, not noticing that you were following him. When he turned around, you were standing there again, facing him.

“I’m sorry if this sounds rude, but… have we met before?”

He almost joked that you were in the same school, so it was likely. But there was something oddly familiar in your face, the way your eyes looked at him with quiet curiosity.

Then it hit him. You were Soyeon’s friend, the one who had been at his cousin’s wedding, smiling politely but looking a little out of place in the middle of the party.

“You’re Eunjin” he said, more like a statement than a question.

Your eyes lit up, a smile spreading across your lips, revealing braces. “Yes! How do you know that?” He smiled as well, walking back to the table he’d been sleeping on while you followed. “Wait, I do know you! You’re Soyeon’s cousin, Jay, right?”

He nodded, and you looked oddly pleased with yourself, your smile widening as you sat across from him. “She said you went to the same school, but I didn’t see you after that day.”

“You were looking for me?” he asked, a teasing lilt in his voice. You blushed, muttering something about how you weren’t. “I’m joking, Eunjin. Why don’t you tell me about the manga?”

Your face lit up at that, and you launched into an explanation, telling him you were rereading the series for an art project inspired by it. You talked for what felt like hours, and when you finally parted ways at the school entrance, Jay stood there for a moment, watching your back.

Then, suddenly, you turned around and jogged back to him, eyes lowered to your shoes as you pulled out your phone. “Could I have your number, Jay?”

You parted ways with a big smile on your face—and his heart felt lighter, his mind more at ease, even if he had only napped for half an hour. He was already looking forward to talking to you again.

Sim Jaeyun - Coffee shop

Four months before I-Land starts, Cold days, 2020

Jake tugged his scarf a little higher around his neck as a gust of wind slapped his face, his cheeks already red from the cold. Seoul winters were brutal, nothing like the ones back home in Australia. He exhaled, watching the fog of his breath disappear into the busy street, and pushed open the door of a coffee shop he’d stumbled across during a walk meant to clear his mind.

The warmth inside greeted him instantly, along with the soft sound of indie music and the hum of hushed conversations. He stomped the snow off his boots and looked around. The place was small but cozy; brick walls, warm lighting, and shelves filled with mismatched mugs and books.

He ordered a caramel latte and made his way to a corner table by the window, unwrapping his scarf and pulling out his sketchpad. He wasn’t the best artist, but lately, he’d found that doodling helped with the nerves. Practices were getting more intense—more pressure, more eyes watching. The weight of what if I don’t make it? had been sitting on his chest all week.

He was halfway through drawing a messy-looking tiger wearing sunglasses when a familiar voice made him freeze. “Jake?”

He looked up instantly, blinking in surprise. The girl in front of him had a black beanie pulled low, a thick puffer jacket engulfing her frame, and a steaming cup in one hand. But the face—and that smile—he recognized instantly. A grin spread across his own face. “Eunjin?”

She grinned, her nose red from the cold. “I thought it was you! I almost didn’t say anything because I wasn’t sure. Wow.” The familiar accent almost made him tear up; he missed having someone to speak English with.

He stood up quickly, warmth flooding him despite the chill outside. “Wow, yeah,” he laughed softly, rubbing the back of his neck. “What are the odds?”

“I know, right?” She rocked on her heels before glancing around, eyeing his table. “Mind if I sit with you?” He nodded immediately, pulling out the chair in front of him. She smiled and plopped down, setting her drink on the table.

“I was at a makeup store down the street,” she said. “Thought I’d grab something warm before heading back to the dorm. I didn’t expect to run into my airplane buddy.”

Jake chuckled, the memory warming him. “That flight feels like it was a year ago.”

Eunjin nodded, muttering something about her hands still being cold before looking at him again. “How’s training?” Jake blinked, surprised she knew. Had they talked about that on the plane? He certainly couldn’t remember. At his confused look, Eunjin smiled.

“You said you were here for an audition,” she reminded him, eyes twinkling. “I guessed you made it in. I did too—not idol stuff yet, but I’m getting there, I guess.”

“That’s amazing,” he said, leaning in a little.

The conversation flowed from there, both opening up about how they were feeling these days, the pressure of not being enough, of falling behind. After a few minutes, Jake felt his hands tremble as he looked down at them.

“I want it so bad, you know? But I wonder if wanting it is enough.”

“You’re here,” she said, tilting her head. “That already means something.”

Her words settled something in him, soft and grounding. They sat in silence for a few moments, sipping their drinks, the city muffled by the foggy window beside them. Then Eunjin reached over and tapped the sketchpad.

“Your cat’s got swag, I’ll give you that,” she teased, grinning.

Jake snorted and rolled his eyes, but he was smiling for the first time in days. “It was supposed to be a tiger, actually.”

They talked for almost an hour, sharing stories of their dorms, their daily routines, and how much they both missed their moms’ cooking. When she finally stood up to leave, Jake felt the familiar tug of hesitation he’d had at the airport months ago.

“Hey, wait…” he said, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out his phone. “Let me get your number this time.”

Eunjin smiled, pulling out her own phone. “Took you long enough.”

They exchanged numbers and stood outside together for a while, the cold biting at their fingers as they awkwardly lingered before saying goodbye. As she walked away down the snow-covered street, Jake looked down at her name now saved in his contacts.

Maybe Seoul’s winter wasn’t so cold after all.

Park Sunghoon - Ice rink

One week before I-Land starts, One last dance, 2020

Sunghoon pushed the door open slowly, letting the cold air hit him like a familiar embrace. The same scent of resin, polish, and faint sweat lingered in the air. He knew it too well. Tightening the scarf around his neck, he let out a breath, watching it fog briefly in front of him.

This place had been a second home for years, early mornings, late nights, bruised shins, and blistered feet. But in a week, it would all be behind him. I-LAND was calling, and skating would become just a chapter in his story.

Still, he laced up his skates, needing one last glide. Just one. He whispered it to himself as the ice creaked under his weight. The floodlights were dimmed, and the playlist that usually echoed through the speakers had long ended.

There was another skater on the far side of the rink, moving slowly, lost in thought. Sunghoon let the silence carry him, his body moving on autopilot; a quiet loop, a small jump. Nothing special, just a goodbye.

Then came the sound of another pair of skates scraping the ice. He turned instinctively, blinking through the low light. A slim figure in a black hoodie was gliding toward his side of the rink, her long ponytail swaying gently as she moved.

“Sam Eunjin?” he called, voice cracking just slightly. He wasn’t sure she had heard him until she turned, startled, then slowed to a stop. Her face lit up with recognition, cheeks pink from the cold.

“Park Sunghoon” she said, skating closer with the grace of someone who had practiced most of her life. “Didn’t think anyone else came this late.”

Sunghoon looked around, rubbing the back of his neck, suddenly aware of how awkward he probably looked. “Just… needed one last skate.”

She smiled at that, a sad kind of understanding in her eyes. He hadn’t noticed it before, but her gaze spoke more than her words, filled with emotion, sparkling under the soft lights. “Same.”

They stood in silence for a moment, the only sound coming from the blades beneath their feet. “I heard from the coaches you're retiring,” she said after a beat, glancing over.

He nodded slowly. “And you?” he asked, skating in sync beside her as they traced a wide loop around the rink.

She shook her head. “I got a role in a drama. Not a huge part, but… enough to finally make the switch.”

There was a pause, heavier than it should’ve been. Her voice trembled slightly when she spoke again, eyes drifting across the empty bleachers. “Feels weird, doesn’t it? All those years of routines, music, medals, and then just—”

“Gone,” he finished for her.

They circled the rink in silence for a while. It was peaceful, two people giving a quiet farewell to a version of themselves they weren’t sure they’d miss yet.

“I used to think you hated me, you ran away everytime as kids” she teased after a moment, smiling as they both slowed to a stop at the center of the rink.

“I’ve never been good with girls, I get nervous” he admitted, lips tugging into a half-smile. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then, quietly, Eunjin stepped back and gave a small bow.

“One last time?” she offered. “Just for fun?”

Sunghoon hesitated, then bowed too, a smile finally reaching his eyes. “You lead.”

They moved by instinct—no choreography, no music. Their skates glided across the ice like they had for years, two quiet souls saying goodbye not just to the rink, but to the people they had been within it.

When they finally slowed to a stop again, both breathless and smiling, it felt like something had lifted.

“Thank you, for skating with me,” Eunjin said softly as they sat side by side, unlacing their skates. The silence was no longer heavy, but warm. Outside, snow had begun to fall. Like a curtain closing on a long-awaited final scene.

“Thank you,” he said back. “For letting me.”

“Hey,” Sunghoon said as they stepped out into the night. “When your drama airs… text me. I want to watch it.”

She looked up at him, a small laugh escaping. Her eyes were full of emotion—so much that he wanted to drown in them. “Only if you debut.”

And with that, they parted ways again, their steps light despite the weight of goodbye. Maybe their paths had only crossed briefly, like lines etched in ice, sharp, fleeting, and beautiful in their impermanence. But they both hoped they would cross again.

Kim Sunoo - Convenience store

Two weeks before I-Land starts, Rainy day shelter, 2020

It was raining the kind of rain that clung to your clothes no matter how fast you ran. Sunoo pulled the hood of his school jacket tighter around his face, clutching his bag to his chest as he hurried down the street. His clothes were already soaked, and the cold had crept into his bones.

He didn’t even know where he was going, really. Just... walking or running. Anywhere that wasn’t a dance studio, a classroom, or a cramped practice room. Anywhere he could just be Kim Sunoo for five minutes, not “trainee Kim Sunoo”

A neon glow appeared through the foggy blur of rain ahead: a small convenience store, buzzing quietly against the gray. Without hesitation, he darted toward it, the bell above the door chiming as he stepped into the warmth.

He shook out his hair and rubbed his arms, slowly pacing down one of the aisles, letting his breathing slow. “Still craving ice cream in this weather?” a voice said, lightly teasing. Sunoo turned, blinking in surprise.

There she was — a yellow backpack hanging heavily from her shoulder, the same one from that tiny ice cream shop weeks ago. Her bangs clung to her forehead from the rain, but her expression was bright.

“You” he said without thinking, his tone sounding almost accusing as she stepped closer, her smile widening.

“Me,” she replied, mirroring his tone with a light laugh. “I’m Eunjin, by the way.”

“Sunoo” He let out a small laugh, his shoulders relaxing a bit. “Didn’t expect to run into you again.”

“Same. I guess fate just wants us to keep meeting near frozen desserts” she replied, glancing toward the freezer section. “Though I think they don’t have many flavors here, right?”

Sunoo made a face, and Eunjin laughed, then reached into her backpack and pulled out a small, half-wet hand towel. She walked over and gently tossed it toward him. “You look like a drowned cat.”

“Wow. Flattering.” He dabbed at his face with the towel, suppressing a grin. His mood had definitely improved. “Thanks. I really needed that today.”

She tilted her head. “Bad day?”

Sunoo hesitated. He wasn’t sure how much to say. But her voice didn’t feel judgmental, and there was something comforting in the way she just stood there — as if they were picking up an old conversation instead of meeting for the second time. “Just… tired, I guess.”

She nodded, and they ended up in front of the warm drink machine, both choosing hot chocolate. They paid in silence, then sat at the small tables near the entrance, watching the rain blur the world outside.

“I’ve been thinking about you” Eunjin said suddenly.

Sunoo blinked. “Really?”

“Well, not obsessively,” she added quickly, cheeks turning pink. Sunoo noticed that she didn’t seem to have a filter — and somehow, that made him smile. “Just… sometimes.”

He looked down at his cup, embarrassed but smiling. “That day was weirdly important. I didn’t even realize it until later.”

She glanced at him, curious, so he continued. “Because everything feels temporary right now,” he admitted. “I keep meeting people, or seeing places, and wondering if it’s the last time before things change. That day, it felt like a small moment I got to keep.”

Eunjin was quiet for a moment. The rain softened slightly outside. “That’s kind of nice, she finally said. “Sad, but nice.”

They both sipped their drinks in silence again, this time a little more comfortably, like a secret moment neither of them knew they needed. Eventually, Eunjin glanced at the time. “I should head out before it gets too dark.”

“Wait,” Sunoo said before he could stop himself. “Do you want to—” She looked back at him, eyebrows raised, a lopsided smile tugging at her lips.

He cleared his throat. “I mean… do you want to meet again? Just, you know, in case we keep ending up in the same weather.”

Eunjin smiled. “I’d like that.” She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a crumpled receipt, scribbling her phone number with a blue pen.

“Text me next time you need someone to rescue you from bad weather or bad flavors” she said, handing it to him with a grin.

Sunoo took it like it was something precious. “I will” he said, and meant it.

She stepped out into the rain, pink umbrella snapping open, her yellow backpack bouncing with every step until she disappeared into the blur of city lights and drizzle. This time, he wasn’t going to let the moment slip away.

Yang Jungwon - Amusement park

One month before I-Land starts, Pretty smiles, 2020

The amusement park was loud, messy, full of laughing children and overpriced snacks — not the kind of place someone with a secret folded tightly in his chest should be. Jungwon was supposed to be resting — whatever that meant when your world was about to flip upside down. Only the company knew. He carried the truth quietly, like a note slipped between pages, waiting to be opened.

So he wandered. One last walk through the city. His feet brought him to the amusement park before he even realized where he was going. And that’s when he saw her.

Eunjin.

She stood in line for ice cream, laughing at something Minhyuk had said. The late afternoon sun caught in her hair, making it shimmer like something from a memory. Jungwon watched from a distance, wondering — not for the first time — if her smiles were always that soft. If she ever frowned in a way that wasn’t playful or tired. If she’d ever thought about him since the skateboard accident.

Because he had. Maybe too often.

He waited until she stepped away from the vendor, two cones in hand. Minhyuk turned, his sticky fingers pointing in Jungwon’s direction.

“Hyung!” Minhyuk called, his voice far too familiar for someone he’d only met once. He waved enthusiastically, nearly spilling his cup.

Eunjin followed the boy’s line of sight. Their eyes met. And just like that, Jungwon couldn’t breathe.

“Oh,” she said softly to herself, the word barely carried by the breeze.

Then she smiled — slow and warm, the way a smile should feel. Jungwon stepped forward, brushing imaginary dust from his jeans, trying to steady himself. “Didn’t think I’d see you here,” he said once they reached him.

Her smile grew and she leaned down to whisper something to Minhyuk, who nodded and took off running toward the playground. “You look tired,” she said, stepping up beside him.

“I’ve been busy,” Jungwon answered, gaze drifting to the crowd bustling around them, everyone unaware of how strange the world felt right now. He was going to miss this. All of it.

They found a shaded bench beneath a tall tree. Eunjin sat beside him not too close. The air between them buzzed with the quiet static of things unsaid.

“I’m going away soon,” he said suddenly. He didn’t know why he said it. Maybe he just wanted her to know. Even if they weren’t close. Even if she didn’t know him, not really.

“For long?” she asked, her voice low.

“It’s… complicated.” He fiddled with his hands in his lap. She nodded. Like she understood. Maybe she didn’t. But she didn’t ask questions. That meant more to him than she probably realized.

“I’ll miss this,” Jungwon murmured. “Not the park, exactly. Just… days like this. Normal days.”

“Yeah,” Eunjin replied. “Those are rare.”

He turned toward her, really looking.

There were faint shadows beneath her eyes, like she carried too much for someone her age. But her smile was kind. And there was something open about her — not loud, but like a window left ajar. He noticed a freckle near her jawline he hadn’t seen before. And when she smiled, it reached all the way to her eyes.

“You have a really nice smile,” he blurted. His ears immediately turned hot. He could feel them reddening. Eunjin blinked, surprised, then laughed — soft and bright, her eyes crinkling as she did.

“Thanks,” she said. “Yours isn’t bad either. The dimples make you look… cute.”

He looked away, chewing on the inside of his cheek, smiling to himself.

Life was moving. And in a month, Jungwon might be on a screen somewhere… or nowhere at all. “I probably won’t have a phone for a while,” he said, suddenly. “But I’d really like to talk to you before that happens.”

Eunjin tilted her head. “I have your number from last time,” she admitted, her tone sheepish. “But I never called because it felt awkward to say I just wanted to see you again.”

Jungwon stared at her, surprised. His ears somehow managed to get hotter. “Call me,” he said. His voice was quiet. “Please.”

A whistle blew in the distance, signaling the next parade. Music bloomed in the air, grand and glittering. Minhyuk darted toward them again, grabbing Eunjin’s wrist with sticky fingers. “Come on, they’re throwing candy!”

Jungwon watched her get pulled away, her laughter like a ribbon trailing in the air. She looked back at him before the crowd swallowed her whole. And smiled. Her lips parted as she shouted over the music “I will call you, Jungwon!”

And that smile — wide and real and full of promise — stayed with him long, long after she vanished into the crowd.

Nishimura Riki - Bus stop

One month before I-Land starts, Umbrella, 2020

The rain had been steady since early afternoon, not heavy enough to cancel anything, but persistent in that moody, drizzling way that clings to your clothes and makes the city feel smaller. Ni-ki’s sneakers left damp prints on the sidewalk as he neared the bus stop, hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets. He didn’t mind the rain, really—it gave him an excuse to slow down, listen to music, and pretend the world was quieter than it really was.

The stop was nearly empty. Just an older man with a briefcase and...

His steps faltered. Her.

She sat beneath the narrow awning, a pale pink umbrella closed and leaning against her knee. Even from behind, he recognized her. Same baby blue hoodie. She was staring at the bus schedule taped to the pole like she was trying to will it into making sense.

He hesitated. Debated pretending he hadn’t seen her. But before he could decide, she turned and their eyes met. For a split second, neither of them said anything.

Then her eyes widened slightly, like the memory had clicked into place. “Ni-ki?”

He pulled out one earbud and gave a small nod, a shy smile breaking across his face. His Korean was still a little rough. “Eunjin.”

“Twice in one city,” she said, standing to brush off the bench beside her with a napkin. “That’s either luck or fate.”

“I vote luck,” he replied, sitting beside her with a murmured thanks. “Fate sounds too romantic.”

Eunjin laughed softly, glancing at him from the corner of her eye while tugging at her hoodie sleeve. “Maybe I like romantic.”

He gave her a scandalized look, and she laughed again, light and warm. The silence that followed wasn’t awkward; it settled between them like something familiar. Rain tapped steadily on the metal roof above them. She stared at the road, her foot tapping to a rhythm only she could hear.

“You’re out late,” he said eventually. “Were you at school?”

“Drama club practice.” She turned slightly; cheeks pink. “I want to be an actress. I mean—someday. Right now, it’s just school plays and getting stage fright in front of twenty people.”

“You want to be famous?”

She shrugged, eyes lifting toward the gray sky. “I want to be seen. Heard. I want to play someone else and still be me inside it, you know?”

He nodded slowly. “I dance. Kind of the same, I guess.”

She grinned. “What kind of dance?”

“Mostly hip hop. A little contemporary.” He toyed with the edge of his sleeve. “I’m training full time now. Not sure if I’m allowed to say more.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “Secret agent vibes?”

He laughed quietly. Just then, the bus pulled up with a screech and a hiss of steam. They both stood. Ni-ki noticed it before she said anything, her umbrella was broken, one rib bent uselessly out of shape.

She stared at it and groaned. “Of course.”

He held out his own umbrella—one of those plain black ones the company probably bought in bulk. “We can share.”

She blinked, surprised for just a second before her expression softened. She stepped in beside him, and for a moment, he forgot about the cold. They sat together on the nearly empty bus, still a little damp from the rain. Eunjin leaned her cheek against the back of the seat, watching the raindrops slide down the window.

“I almost didn’t go to the store that day,” she said suddenly and Ni-ki looked at her.

“But I was craving something sweet,” she added. “Funny how one decision can make you meet someone.”

He smiled faintly. “I was too scared to ask the manager for help.”

They rode in silence again, but this time it felt full. Just before her stop, she reached into her pocket, pulled out her phone, and placed it gently in his hands. Then she took his and started typing something into it.

“Put your number there. I’m giving you mine,” she said. “Just in case you need a translator.”

Ni-ki did as told, and when the bus doors closed behind her and she waved from the sidewalk, he looked down at the contact’s name she’d left:

Eunjin 🎮

The bench beside him was empty now, but somehow, he still felt warm.

If you read this, thanks. I accept requests.

[argumate]

I think we're genuinely witnessing the final desperate death rattles of race/ethnicity based nationalism, but it's a long and annoying and violent death rattle. Technology has made the ability to physically change which place you live (transport), access information about how to speak a language used in a place (language-learning resources), communicate with people in a place even before speaking a common language (translation resources), communicate with anyone in any place (social media, e-mail, calling), set up a new place to live (IKEA, flatpack furniture, new homebuilding tech), and more all significantly quicker, cheaper, and accessible! More than any argument about "ethnicity" and "people who look different", the core thing that creates race is that for thousands of years, you usually lived nearby to the person who shot you out of their uterus, other people shot out of the same uterus, etc. This creates ethnicity, race, nationality, etc. Now that's not as true anymore. Certainly, race will continue to exist for a few hundred years, but more than that? I'm a half-korean, quarter white australian, one eighth latvian one eighth polish person. What race do I belong to? If I have genetic progeny, what about them?

I think genuinely, housing is the only material fact about the world that lets ethnic nationalism hang on. If a place is good, and people want to go there, if we can't house them all we have to come up with some method of deciding who gets to stay and who has to leave/stay out (which ethnic nationalism is a very efficient way of doing). That technology kind of racketed up to 100 from my perspective when people were building quarantine housing as quickly as possible during the pandemic. Unfortunately, racism will continue to exist until it gets good enough to basically render "er durr housing" arguments obsolete. (and for a good while after, but it'll lose most of its steam by then, in my opinion).

hmm housing is definitely a big problem, but borders seem a bigger issue; so many people are emotionally invested in stopping people from moving.

[luxiomahariel]

Hi um. First of all, just wanted to say that I really like your posts and what you've been doing for the transmasc people in this terrible fucking time. Second, and sorry and feel free to ignore me, I just saw that ppl can vent in your asks and I'd like to do that if you don't mind. Sorry if you do. Also, you don't have to answer anything, but if you want to, sure.

Um, TWs for suicide thoughts, self hatred and a lot of transphobia?

You see, I'm just Russian and several years ago, just after I turned 18, our government basically just banned all transition for everyone including adults. Completely. Funny enough they passed this law while I was taking my final exams for graduating school, so. These exams were very fun while I was considering killing myself. I did pretty good, though!

Also we literally have a law that states that talking about LGBTQ+ people is propaganda and being LGBTQ+ is being an extremist (a terrorist, basically). You can be in jail for that!

Anyway, my life is shit. I'm extremely dysphoric, I'm closeted pretty much everywhere and when I do come out, most of the times it's useless, because who the fuck cares about other people's pronouns, right? My family is extremely transphobic and I'm forced to live with them because I don't have the money and opportunity to move anywhere. They won't ever accept me as a son and I'm just so tired of being misgendered and deadnamed every day.

I hate my body, my voice, my personality, everything. I genuinely hate the person I'm becoming. I'm bitter, I'm miserable, I'm hateful and envious, I'm terrible to be around, and I'm so sad it's unbearable. I genuinely don't think I've ever had a good day since I was a kid and even then I'm not sure because I don't remember my childhood.

I barely, if ever, pass. I can't even wear a binder because of my fuckass family (and I already have bad ribs). I can't transition. I'm fucking 20, ffs. I lost so much time that I'll never get back. I got so many traumas that I'll never properly heal. There are things I've already completely lost by going though this fucking puberty. And I see all these people who have supportive families and got to transition young and have queer communities and queer friends and I feel so much envy. They're living in better countries and I don't think I'll ever leave this hell of a country where I was born. I'm stuck. I'll die here, never having experienced happiness.

I genuinely am a terrible fucking person, and I can't even try to be better, because I spend all my energy on not killing myself and being somewhat functional. Well, I'm not, like, actively horrible to other people, I genuinely try to be nice to everyone, even this one fuckass girl who can't seem to memorise 6 letters of my chosen name that I fucking introduced myself as and seems to think that if she stops using my deadname it will kill her. I'm even nice to HER. But I feel so much guilt for being this way, because I know just how spiteful and angry I am on the inside. I look at older women and I'm so afraid I'm going to grow up and look that way. I look at men and it's killing me that I'll never look like that. I'll never be loved.

I also guess most people also feel that I'm somewhat queer, and fuck, do they fucking hate me for it. I genuinely am barely treated like a human being by some professors (a few, not a lot, but fucking still).

So, I go through all that every fucking day, and then I get on tumblr, and then I see all these fucking people talking about how the moment someone identifies as a trans man, they gain ALLLL the male privilege in the world and also immediately become guilty of all misogyny and transmisogyny in the world and also they pass perfectly and nobody is ever shitty to them. Yeah. Because that's how it happens. Great job, guys. But transandrophobia isn't real, because...um... Men = privileged!☝️🏻 Transandrophobes are a fucking joke.

Anyway, thank you so much for reading that, if you did. Sorry for my English, as I said, I'm Russian. And sorry again if you don't accept people venting to you, I just had nowhere to go. I do feel a bit better having written all that.

.

[princessofghosts-posts]

Grudges

It's been a while since I've done a long post,but finally here it is. I'm going to talk about Nico's fatal flaw and why Riordan misused it (coming from a girl that hold a lot of grudges,even for the stupidest thing ever from when she was a child-).

So,first off,having grudges means holding onto feelings of resentment,bitterness,or anger towards someone (usually because you feel they have wronged you in the past). These feelings are persistent and can last a long time,causing ongoing negative emotions and potentially impacting relationships and mental well-being. In some cases,they can also lead to a desire of revenge.

Now,a great part of Nico's development is the growth he had during BotL,where he decided to stop holding Percy accountable for his sister's death. His character arc in this book is basically him starting from having a grudge,towards Percy,to accept reality how it is. It's not bad,especially considering that we are taking about his fatal flaw (and Nico himself has a big golden heart),but the way it got solved is totally wrong.

Nico's grudge towards Percy start at the end of TTC because of Bianca. It's uncalled for because Percy wasn't a fault here but Nico wasn't thinking this logically,he was a kid that got to know that his only living relative is now dead and he is now alone in a world he doesn't know well enough. Blaming Percy,another kid that actually felt responsable for her death (also uncalled because Bianca knew what she was doing and could happens)for this was also extremely horrible but from Nico's point of view that's the only thing he can do.

When people are hurt,because of something out of their control,they usually tend to blame someone for their suffering. Percy was the only one Nico could blame at the time for this,grieving his way through it. Was it ok? No. Was it right? Also no. Was it fucked up? Extremely. Was it a child natural respond to a tragic event? Yes. Am I justifying him with this? Nah.

Anyway. Nico's feelings about Bianca's end are pretty strong from the start,he literally opened the ground to the Underworld and used his powers out of grief and rage for her (there are still a fear factor,about him thinking the skeletons where going to kill him,and a feeling of betrayal,towards Percy and their "promise",that also play here). And that was only after he just found out.

The months prior to BotL and the halfway through it,Nico turned into almost a murder,while also being suicidal. I saw few people pointing it out,but we actually needs to talk more about this because this is an eleven years old that already tried multiple times to exchange his soul for his sister's,at fucking 11. And the same child almost become a murderer because he wanted his said sister back (while being also manipulated by Minos). Nico lost his morality there for a good part of the book before the arc could end in "let go of your grudges because they are our fatal flaws". Which is stupid.

Nico "letting go" of his grudge because Bianca asked him to do so,was only a demostration of how much he cared about her (not like it's reciprocated) and how big his heart is. While it's a good way to show Nico's kindness and willingness to forgive someone once he let go of his anger (and isn't being manipulated by a very scheming ghost),it's also....not how grudges works in general???

It doesn't take a "stop it before it destroy you" type of talk to stop holding grudges –especially if they are linked to something deep. I hate Bianca,but her death was an important part for Nico development (and a good wake up call because things were starting to get actually real) and Nico obviously cared about her. His reaction to the news was devasting and so is his grief (not to talk about how much Bianca answering for Percy,instead of the little brother "she raised" made it worst). But he still ended up forgiving himself (and her).

Now,one of the few thing that is a bit misleading about this subplot is "Nico blamed Percy for Bianca's death". AT THE START it was like that,Nico was hurt and needed to put the blame on something or someone,and unfortunately that person was Percy since he was the one to tell him the news (he also probably felt hurt about their "promise" and how it was "broken"). But that's a distraction for what the real deal was here: Nico was projecting his own feelings on Percy. Nico blamed himself for her death because he wasn't good or strong enough to do something,but since he couldn't accept that,his mind made sure to project those insecurities and his view of the situation on Percy. He was angry at himself because he wasn't enough (something that Bianca and Hades both amplified),he was angry at Bianca because she left him,and he was angry at the world for taking his sister away from him. The "It's your fault that my sister died" to Percy is just a facade for all the other things unsaid. Still,doesn't excuse his behavior towards the guy,since Percy was in a similar position. Bianca truly traumatized both of them in the same way.

Got a bit sidetracked here,sorry. Anyway! Going back to the main topic-

The way Nico's grudge got "solved" that way was extremely lazy writing. You go on about how grudges are Hades's kids fatal flaw,then you have a character that hold one and puff,it vanish because another character he cares about said to do so. I'm sorry,but as someone that is a very resentful person,this isn't how "solving" your grudges work.

First off,when you hold a grudge against someone you actually take time to hate their guts (it's sound extremely petty and immature but it is how it is). You don't let go of them in the span of a conversation or 2 because you built the resentment for that person for a lot of times,it could be weeks,months even years. The time-skip between TTC and BotL is of 6 months –of which Nico had all the time in the world to build said resentment (especially with Minos around). And you are going to tell me that 6 MONTHS of resentment are wiped out like nothing? I'm sorry but that's is impossible. You don't spend so much time building negative feelings towards someone or something only to change your mind last minute,because someone told you to do so (it wasn't even from him this realization,but from Bianca???). There are so many negative emotions to unpack there that it will takes time,like,a lot of time. Ence why it doesn't work.

Having Nico slowly realizing that his own fatal flaw was destroying him and the few connections he tried to build (Percy,CHB,the campers,etc...) would have be much better,because it was something that would have begun from him. Because Nico himself realized it was wrong. Also,having him try to change his attitude towards the people he was holding grudges against would have be good,starting with Percy especially. Learning also how to forgive himself and letting go of his guilt and fatal flaw,without being rushed,would have been actually healing for him. But nope,one book he is all "It's your fault!" (with all the hidden feelings) and the next one he and Percy are pretty fine with each other.

Listen,I love BotL and TLO because of their strange friendship development,but it's still lacking when it cames to Nico's fatal flaw. It's impossible that after so many months projecting on him and "hating" Percy,Nico wouldn't feel awkward with him or trying to not involve himself much at the start. Not to talk about the whole fiasco with Hades's plan (fuck him for that). And even after that,he tried so hard to make Percy see he could still trust him,because he changed from before and was different from his dad,but Percy was still hurt from what happened before (which was misleaded because Nico didn't knew shit and Hades even said so). Those two are a mess,when Nico isn't holding a grudge against Percy,Percy doesn't trust him enough and viceversa. While I liked how Nico wanted to show that he is trustworthy because he is that stubborn,be taking into account the fatal flaw that should be at play......meh.

Again,Nico here should be still trying to let go of his resentment,which is very effective because he and Percy are ok now (keyword: should). But he should definitely feel resentment towards Hades because of what he pulled and said (but he doesn't,and if he did we never knew about it) and Percy too,because the guy first tried to kill him and then didn't trust him anymore even tho Nico got him out of the palace and helped him to get to the Styx. Realistically,Nico's past feelings towards Percy (the negative ones-) should have resurfaced but they didn't. Another thing about working through grudges is that,sometimes,even a single thing can tackle you off. Especially if you spent so much time disliking them. That's why it isn't simple and it takes time. But here? 0,nada,nothing,Nico is the one that is acting like he did something wrong,which he didn't because he didn't knew. He should be angry and have every right to leash out,especially with his fatal flaw,but he didn't (idk how to feel about that-). Hades and Percy on the other hand...

I feel like Rick totally missed the shot with Nico (what's new at this point) when it cames to his fatal flaw. It got said multiple times that grudges are children of Hades fatal flaw,but then you have Hazel that doesn't hold any (idk if for children of Pluto it's different) and everytime Nico does it's not even permanent like a grudge should be,it's just there for a while and then goes away.

I'm not saying that Nico needs to be a resentful person and have grudges forever,just that we should actually see him struggling with his fatal flaw. But that's something that's not only about Nico,because in general everyone fatal flaw is kinda just there in the background without weights (looking at you Percy in BoO),expect Annabeth's because hers actually had consequences in the narrative multiple times (and Thalia's when she almost gave up and killed Bessy).

[trainsinanime]

People keep trying to explain why the ML fandom is so relatively quiet right now, and I'll be honest: I have no idea. There are parts I get and parts I don't. (Some criticism of the show below the cut)

First of all, the end of season 5 - yeah, I don't think a lot of people dreamed of this particular way to conclude the Gabriel Agreste saga. I get it.

And more in general, the ML fandom has always focused more on potential than the actual show; on the open questions rather than the day-to-day. Season 5 has answered most of these open questions, and most of these in ways that were not super satisfying.

How will Adrien and Marinette get together? — Oh, he just asks her nicely.

What impact will the tension with their secret identities have? — None whatsoever, Ladynoir are just friends now and happy that way.

How will we both reveal the truth about Adrien's father while making it a happy ending for both of them nonetheless? — We won't.

There's been something going with Chloé, who has tried being a hero, sucked at it, backslid, got a little sister who loves her and might show her a better way, where is that going to lead? — She gets deported by her dad.

99% of ML fanfics are reveals, and now many feel the show has taken away the reason to care about that. Not me personally, I'm going to keep writing reveals and all sides of the love square and first kisses until I die. But I get why it's made some people less than fully enthusiastic; why there's less incentive to post theories and head canons than there might have been once. The show took most of the "wonder what happens" points and answered them, and not even in interesting ways most of the time.

Here's my problem with that theory: The finale of season 5 came out in September 2023, almost two years ago. We've discussed all this to hell and back already. And yet the numbers I have access to show a clear decline between 2024 and now. What changed lately?

The only thing I can think of is that season 6 came out, but, like… season 6 is fine? At least as good as seasons 4 and 5 on average. Do people actually dislike the new art style? To me it's better in every way, so I have trouble wrapping my head around that, but it is a take I keep seeing.

A related point I've seen is the idea that the discussion culture about the show has gone to shit, something I actually see in equal amounts both from those who are very critical of the show and those who intensely dislike the strong criticism.

Personally I am more on the second side of this divide (though maybe only 95% instead of 100%): I'm still having a lot of fun with this show no matter what anyone else is saying. But there is valid, potentially even interesting criticism. But also a lot of people who are doing criticism are going "<insert writer name here> sucks and is a lazy hack!", which is usually neither interesting nor fun to engage with. My long-standing policy is that you can safely ignore any hot take that mentions any particular writer by name, and that still feels as true today as it did back when season 3 aired.

Again, we've been having the same discussions since 2023, and it's not like there is a lot of new insight to be had. The angry people have either left the fandom or gotten angrier, the very invested people have stopped talking to them and gotten angry about the anger, and it's all gotten very polarised… but again, this isn't new. This doesn't explain a drop-off between 2024 and 2025. I think.

I'm probably missing something here, I just can't make much sense of it either way. I can find things to point to, but I have trouble forming a coherent theory. How about you all?

(Discussion, including strong disagreement, is absolutely welcome! But as I said, I'll absolutely ignore you if you mention any writer by name.)

[fmluder24]

 "I'm Sure There Ain't a Heaven/ But That Don't Mean I Don't Like to Picture You There"

Summary: After the events of "Existence," Mulder and Scully left the FBI to raise their son. Then, on the 30th anniversary of Samantha's disappearance, Mulder honors her in a small but meaningful way. The title is from The Wonder Years' song "Cigarettes & Saints."

Author's Note:

This is for the @jewsinfandoms "Anniversary" prompt. It's also a part of my post-Season 8 AU I've been adding to, and is me playing with my headcanon that Mulder would become a professor someday. I'm also presenting through fic my interpretation of the "real" meaning of "Closure"— Samantha's dead and Mulder's vision was a fiction he needed to move on.

Esther means "hidden" but also "star," so it's a way better middle name for Samantha!

TW for slight mention of The Field Where I Died and associated antisemitism. Also tagging @today-in-fic. Read below or on AO3.

“No, Muhda. Don’t go!”

Will was a very panicky two-year-old today, who failed once again to realize yet that the two times a week he spent a few hours with Grandma Maggie did not constitute abandonment and certain death. He wrapped his little arms as tightly as he could around Mulder’s thigh and wailed. 

“It’s Dad, not Mulder. Mom can call me Mulder, but not you. I gotta go to work. It’s just for a little while. Mom will come get you after she’s done at her work for today. And you like spending time with Grandma, don’t you?”

He pried Will from his leg and swung him up into his arms for a final hug before depositing him onto the couch. Mulder was always puzzled at the lack of plastic covers on Margaret’s furniture. His mom sure had made that practice seem universal. 

“Thanks for watching him these afternoons. It’s really helping things that I can work too.”

“Don’t mention it. Bill Jr. and them are all the way on the other side of the country and Charlie is in Colorado, so this is great to get to be grandma a few times a week. Now, go to work already.”

…

He began to drive. It was fall in the D.C. area, a beautiful time of year. He had about an hour to make it to his comparative folklore lecture at the community college, but there was one stop he was going to make first. He parked in the Children’s Hospital lot and walked into the main lobby. His destination was right by the front desk. The workers recognized him well enough to not stop him or question what he was doing. 

He finally reached the plaque and brushed the name with his fingertips. Samantha Esther Mulder Z”L 1964-1978. Missing from his life for 30 years, today. November 27th, 2003. He didn’t feel like muttering a prayer to a God that had taken her from the world, and he didn’t believe in any type of afterlife where she could hear him. The starlight children… that had been a necessary fiction that had softened the blow for a little while. She was no more, and there was no justice to be had for her. There were many children like that in the world, whose own families did them harm, as Samantha’s parents had done to her. There were other children who tricks of fate and biology had cut short or radically changed their lives. Those were the children this hospital looked after. Children that were like Emily, in a way, now that he thought about it. For want of a grave for Samantha, Mulder and Scully had decided to arrange for a plaque at the hospital so that he could pay his respects somewhere. Besides, you were supposed to give in the name of the dead and they had paid a pretty penny for the plaque. 

He said the lyrics to the Jackson 5’s “I’ll Be There” under his breath. It had been her favorite song as a little girl. 

I'll be there with a love that's strong

I'll be your strength, I'll keep holding on

Done with the song lyrics, he got in line to approach the front desk and wrote them another check. He dropped off a check every year, normally with more zeroes than was strictly speaking a good idea. But Scully didn’t say anything, because she knew he wouldn’t say anything about her honoring Melissa were she to choose to make donations in her name. Eyes and bank account a little drier than when he’d arrived, he left the hospital and drove to work. 

…

Of course, only four students had bothered to come to a Wednesday afternoon lecture right at the tail end of the semester. Everyone would rather contemplate the upcoming Christmas holiday than apply their minds to life’s deepest questions.

“Today’s lecture is on something that I’m sure most of you think is fundamental to religious and folkloric traditions around the globe. You.” 

He motioned towards Jake, fresh out of high school and bright, but closed-minded. He had a tendency to zone out in lectures, which is why Mulder had decided to pick on him just a little bit. This afternoon, he was half-asleep at his desk.

“Jake, what would you say is one of the most fundamental questions religions are set up to answer?”

“Um… what happens when you die?”

“What happens when you die?” he repeated for the class. “Who agrees with him?”

Everyone in the classroom raised their hands. He turned and wrote the word “afterlife” on the board behind him. 

“Now, what do I always ask you guys when we come up with an idea universal to all religions?”

Alyssa, who was a bit of an aspiring teacher’s pet, if Mulder was being honest, answered without raising her hand.

“Is it universal or is it Christian?” 

“Yes. The afterlife figures large in Christian and culturally Christian spaces. Not every culture is as focused on the afterlife. Where do the popular Christian tropes originate from, though? Anyone know?”

A rather hard-nosed atheist kid named Aaron raised his hand and Mulder motioned for him to speak.

“Dante’s Inferno. A self-insert fanfic written by a guy fantasizing about becoming best friends with his favorite poet and watching everyone who banished him from Florence and his teenage girlfriend— pedo alert— get tortured for eternity.”

Mulder struggled to hide a laugh.

“Well, Beatrice was only a few months younger than him,” Mulder replied. “So I think we can call off Benson and Stabler. Other than that, that is where the origin of a lot of the ways a lot of us in this room think about heaven and hell, for better or worse.”

He heard a huff from the girl one row back from Aaron. Mary’s faith was very important to her, and she could get a little prickly about it. Luckily, Mulder had a lot of practice with that sort of thing at home.

“Mary? Do you have a thought you would like to share with the class?”

“Okay, let’s say Dante’s Inferno is ‘fanfiction’ as you called it. What’s to say it wasn’t divinely inspired? It being a story doesn’t mean it’s not true and isn’t what we face when we die.”

“So, it being a story doesn’t lessen the potential metaphorical impact of the story?” he asked.

“It doesn’t make it literally not true!” Mary protested. “Heaven and hell. They are literal.”

“Alright, Mary. You believe strongly in the Christian idea of heaven and hell. Angels? Fire and brimstone?”

She nodded.

“Does anyone else want to share the version of heaven and hell they grew up picturing?”

Pretty much every student shared a vision that was more or less like what Mary had laid out, sometimes in more or less detail, or in ways that attempted to secularize the vision of the afterlife. Mulder switched on a slideshow— he really loved a good slideshow— and took them through the various versions of the afterlife that the students might think of as “heaven” and “hell” that had existed in various cultures throughout the ancient world to the present day. Then he switched gears to the topic of reincarnation, something that had intrigued him ever since his own hypnosis session in Tennessee. 

But, even with that one, the closest he had ever come to proof of an afterlife, the doubting Scully in his head, not to mention the flesh and blood one he lived with, had come up with an admittedly compelling alternative explanation — a Jungian, Freudian expiation of the epigenetically engraved fears that had been etched on him his entire life. He tried not to dwell on the memory he’d either uncovered or created. It inevitably brought back the nightmares. Luria, beaten and shot. Himself, gun to his head, driving a car as fast as possible while he suffered abuse from his passenger. Held down, fingers snapping like twigs. The sound of Nazis goose-stepping towards him, cornered on a boat. And to think, after all his family had done to assimilate. That’s why he looked at his own son with fear. Sunday school attendance would not save his son or Scully from them when they came again. They could deny Judaism, but never Jewishness. He shook his head a little to clear it and continued discussing with the students the various forms of reincarnation that existed in various cultures. 

Alyssa raised her hand.

“Professor Mulder? Did you ever find proof of any type of afterlife? When you worked for the FBI?”

“Proof? I guess it depends on what you mean by proof. I’ve had… experiences. I have had knowledge that I possibly couldn’t have had, that some may attribute to a past life. I’ve seen visions of another plane of existence. But… I don’t think any of it it was ultimately real.”

“I have a question,” said Mary. “What version do you believe in?”

“I don’t. I don’t believe in an afterlife.”

“So when we die that’s it? Doesn’t that make you sad?” she asked.

“Yeah, it does. But, if you’re asking me, sometimes people get so fixated on this idea of a beautiful afterlife that they forget to live here and now. But it’s a nice idea to picture. It’s something I myself indulge in from time to time. So when I do think about heaven and hell, this is what I picture.” He swung himself up to half-sit on one of the desks. “It’s the allegory of the long spoons, from Rabbi Haim of Romshishok, although there are similar ideas in a lot of world traditions. In the allegory, heaven and hell are the same. Everyone is given a very long spoon to eat with.” Mulder paused, walked up to the board, and drew a spoon with a very long handle on the board, so that the clumsy illustration covered the width of the board. “So long and unwieldy they can’t feed themselves. In hell, everyone tries to feed themselves and starves, but in heaven, they all work together and feed each other. But when I think about it, I think, we don’t have to wait until we’re dead to feed each other.”

Jake raised his hand.

“Can’t they just hold the spoon closer towards the round end and eat? They don’t have to hold it all the way at the end. I don’t get it.”

Mulder smiled.

“It’s about how we treat other people in this world,” he said. “It’s not literally about the afterlife in the way you’ve thought about it for much of your life.”

“It’s like that Sartre quote from ‘No Exit,’” offered Aaron. “He wrote that ‘hell is other people.’ In the story about the spoons, heaven is other people too.”

“Well put, Aaron. Now, let’s go over the requirements for your final paper…”

…

After he arrived at home, he sat in the car for a little while, in the quiet. He felt a pang of guilt.

How could he feel happy when she was gone?

There was no answer and no justice. He thought back to when they’d be investigating Roche, when he’d been so sure of Samantha’s terrible fate. Not that the fate she’d wound up with was much better. Tortured for years by their father. He thought back to Addie’s father, Frank Sparks, who they’d had to break the news about Addie’s death to. How for him, knowing was worse than not knowing. How strange it was that for Mulder it was the opposite. The truth was terrible, but at least he knew it now, or at least a version of it. 

He closed his eyes for a moment and let himself picture the final vision he’d had of Samantha, glowing in the dark. He could feel her with him again. Had this soft, beautiful world been a taste of the world to come, a safe little pocket benevolent spirits had spirited her away to? Try as he might, he couldn’t bring himself to believe that. He opened his eyes again and felt an odd sense of relief. He’d fought for so long to know what had happened to her, and he was beginning to settle into the freedom of his new life without the quest that had hung over his head for decades, despite the horror of the answer that he had found. 

He went up to their apartment, and hugged Scully and their son. Scully had put out the Advent wreath, ready for the upcoming Sunday, and Mulder pulled out a small blue-stickered Yehuda candle to light in honor of Samantha. It was small and plain next to the Advent wreath, but it still made him feel Samantha’s spirit with him.The day she went missing was the closest he would ever have to a death date for her, so that was the day he lit a Yahrzeit candle. He didn’t pray when he lit the candle— what was the point if no one was listening? But, Scully muttered something or other under her breath while he nestled the candle in the wreath and he figured that probably counted.

He settled into making dinner with Scully, while Will “helped” by clumsily feeding the dog— they’d be sweeping up kibble for days. He held out a wooden spoon with sauce on it for Scully to taste and she leaned forward, tip of the wooden spoon grazing her lips. Mulder figured that this moment in time was a far better taste of the world to come than his vision of dead children, were there any world to come at all. 

[harmonyrae]

Last of Us AU drabble:

"Sylus, Caleb, seriously slow down!"

"You're the one who wanted to get extra samples. We told you we wouldn't carry them!" Sylus shouts over his shoulder to Zayne, who is still stumbling as he secures the satchel.

They'd surived the trip to Linkon for a resupply. However, when they saw FEDRA was no longer in control, things got... complicated.

Caleb had gotten injured, delaying their return journey to Whitesand Bay. Xavier has probably killed Rafayel by now. Those two love to argue, mostly for entertainment, but without Sylus to break them apart when things turn personal. Yeah, they'll be returning into a war zone.

While Caleb recovered, Sylus agreed to join Zayne on a quick medical supply hunt. Which turned into a specimen hunt. Which turned into an all-out sprint for safety. That spray paint told them to stay out, but curiosity got the best of them.

"How many clickers again?" Caleb shouts.

Sylus chuckles as Zayne jogs to catch up, finally falling in stride with the other men.

"At least two dozen. And I couldn't tell you how many runners and stalkers."

"The bloater was a pleasant surprise."

"Sylus, you must have a very fucked definition of the word 'pleasant.'"

Sylus and Caleb laugh as Zayne sighs. Just because Sylus took down the bloater relatively quickly didn't make it a good experience.

"But you got a specimen from the fucker, so it worked out."

He's not wrong. Zayne hadn't stopped his research, not for a moment. Years have passed, the infection spreading, evolving, destroying cities and entire countries. But Zayne was determined to find the cause. What made this infection spread so rapidly? And how can he stop it.

Lost in thought, Zayne misses the snap of a branch, Sylus and Caleb, however, were on high alert. Caleb grabs Zayne and yanks him back behind a tree. Sylus steadied his pistol, aimed in the direction of the sound.

"Fuck fuck fuck..." A soft female voice reaches their ears.

Now that all three men have their weapons drawn, they cautiously approach the source of the disturbance. Sylus took the lead, scanning the forest and talking quiet steps.

As they approach a clearing, they spot a girl, hunched over. The backpack on her back was threadbare, held together with duct tape and a dream. She cradles her ankle and struggles to get her boot off. Zayne steps forward and looks at Sylus, who rolls his eyes but nods. Zayne jogs a few steps ahead, his gun still raised.

"Do you need some help?"

The girl gasps and turns around so quickly that she almost falls over. Zayne raises his hands, trying to show he's friendly. She winces as she tries to crawl backward away from the three strangers.

"I'm a doctor. I can help." Zayne uses his patented doctor-voice, and the girl seems to calm down.

"I tripped... I wasn't paying attention."

Zayne approaches her and kneels to examine her ankle. Once her boot is off, he can see the swelling has already begun.

"Not paying attention could get you killed. Or worse." Sylus's sing-song tone makes Caleb laugh, but does little to ease the girls nerves.

Zayne guesses she's around his age, maybe younger. Dirt coats her clothes, there's dried blood in her hair and a thick bandage around her forearm. He squints at the bandage, noticing there's no blood like the rest of her tended to wounds. As he wraps her ankle and tests its mobility, he leans forward.

"What happened to your arm?"

She goes pale, immediately pulling her arm in close and tugging the torn sleeve of her jacket down. She shakes her head.

"Nothing. Just a scratch."

Leaves crunch as Sylus and Caleb get closer.

"A scratch? Or a bite?" Caleb growls.

She stays silent, staring at Zayne with pleading eyes. He tilts his head as if he's waiting for the answer as well. The girl tenses when Sylus steps up, his large hand reaching down to take her wrist.

"A scratch, or a bite?" He repeats Caleb's question.

"I'm not infected!" She whimpers. Sylus drops her wrist and scoffs, standing to cock his gun.

"No! No, wait, look!" She hastily unwraps the bandage on her arm to show a nasty scar. Sure enough, a clear imprint of teeth.

Caleb raises his rifle, but Zayne pushes the barrel away. He rotates her arm and examines the wound. It's healing. There's no discoloration, no discharge. The weaving tendrils of fungus beneath her skin are dormant.

"Holy shit."

"You believe her?" Sylus crouches down beside Zayne, his gun still in his hand.

"I... I don't know... But we can't leave her here. With a busted ankle and a bite mark."

"We absolutely can leave her here! What do you mean?!" Caleb smacks Zayne on his shoulder.

"If she turns, you're putting the bullet in her skull." Sylus stares at Zayne until he nods, accepting responsibility for the girl.

Now he has a new problem to solve.

(This was so fucking fun to write. Gonna write the Supernatural blurb later. K byeeee!!)

I'm still struggling to write more than a few sentences, but I'm coming up with so many ideas for fics... It's ridiculous...

Still working on Vow, part 2 of the Regency series & I need to write Caleb period smut to complete the collection. But, there are 2 edits I made that are living RENT free in my head atm and I need to write an outline for at least one of them.

Which one would you want to see me write first?

Last of Us AU - zombies, heavy evol usage, possibly romance (harem style tehe), Zayne is searching for a cure (of course), Sylus is thriving in chaos (of course x2)

Supernatural AU - myths & legends, Dean Winchester coded Sylus, Sam Winchester coded Zayne, not snowcrow romance wise but they besties (not brothers), no evol usage, lots of humor, maybe random romances with people they're helping, lots of humor and then a sprinkle of angst

I will probably end up writing both, but need to know where to start. Vote pls? You dah bestest. Tanks.

𝕿𝖆𝖌𝖑𝖎𝖘𝖙 gets to vote first, smile. @trishiepo0 @not-so-quite-human @kitsunetori @babyx91 @libriomancer @lilyadora @crowskitten22 @letharue @silverbrain @alastor-simp @drama-trauma @0tterteeth @mysticcollectionvoid @godzillaglitter @godoffuckedupcats @klmpun @ariallaisawesome @spidy-spider01 @m00nchildwrites @plsdonttakemyname @hauntedbysmutm0 @withering-dream @lostwingz2236 @simpfortheseven @bubbleteakittyy @stellar-seas @babylilxc @havenhope-art @lly5duck @freddy-2002-blog @sylus-hunter

[egophiliac]

I don’t think we’ve ever seen you draw knight of dawn before 🤔 what are your thoughts about him? Or take?

I've drawn him a couple of times, just really little/in the background. but I should draw him more, I love this guy a lot! I have many, many thoughts about him and the way he parallels Silver...and also I think it is extremely funny that his ghost is stuck in a ring. especially considering where that ring has been for the last 16-ish years.

[an-absolute-nightmare]

last time it was 15 august on a tuesday was 2017... i had an exam on wednesday which i missed because something prettty shit happened.. such a different time

[kenzan-brainrot-mp4]

Adding to the post credits scene a bit. The way Majima kept staring up at the hospital (presumably the floor Kiryu is on) made everything just that much more painful.

And I know this is a reach but I got serious flashbacks to Majima's one-sided attraction to Makoto. It happened again, he fell hard and I don't think he can let go this time. Can they please stop tearing into his feelings like that my god.

OUGH I DIDN'T EVEN THINK OF THAT Of course I guess we can't know for sure, but god. God, Imagine the possibility. *holds head in hands*

Also now that I think about it, you're right, when you put them side-by-side, the shots of Majima walking away from the camera in pirate yakuza is a bit reminiscent of the shot of him in yakuza 0.... Oughh imagine the parallels though, Majima walking away from the viewer and away from Makoto in yakuza 0 (and yk2) with the intent/hope that they never speak to each other or see each other again, vs Majima walking away from viewer but towards Kiryu (y8 gaiden) to spend whatever time he's able to afford left with him.

Obviously there's a lot of factors surrounding why Majima decided to keep Makoto specifically at a distance post-y0, but I think what's killing me with this parallel in particular is the idea that Majima, by the time we get to post-pirate yakuza, doesn't really have anywhere left to run/can't afford to walk away like that with Kiryu in this game.

Like, it's not like with Makoto where he can keep their relationship suspended indefinitely until they forget about each other (or rather Makoto forgets about Majima), it's not like yakuza like. Five-to-infinite wealth where Kiryu was keeping everyone at arm's length, which prevented Majima from really reaching him in general (Majima's own avoidance at being anything but roundabout with Kiryu aside), or all the previous games where Majima could just get away with not voicing his feelings towards Kiryu directly. They're on a very directly stated time limit now (in all fairness rgg has left a window of possibility of Kiryu surviving, but typically you'd probably assume the worst), and now they're in a situation where Kiryu can't push people out anymore, and Majima can't keep this distance going for much longer because he's already spent years and years dancing around this and now he's officially running out of time and he Knows it (basically there's no room left for the possibility of them reaching a point where they can just 'forget about each other and move on', that he was hoping to achieve with Makoto (not that he'd want that atp with Kiryu probably but you get what I mean)). There's nowhere for them to run anymore, so this time when Majima walks away from the viewer, he's actually going to fact the object of his interest, rather than run away from it.