#basic signs i was getting mixed up so I gotta start practicing by talking to myself all the time

[dykeandballs]

good morning chat

[ahundredtimesover]

The Light of Dead Stars (03) | KSJ

Pairing: Seokjin x (f.) Reader; side Seokjin x (f.) OC; side Reader x Namjoon

Genre/Tags: arranged marriage, fake romance, boss/workmate aus; angst, drama, fluff, smut; slow burn

Chapter Warnings: Foul language; deceit; shirtless Jin (18+)

Chapter Word count: 9.8k

Series Masterlist | Muse Moodboard | Setting Moodboard

Status: Complete

Series summary:  Your unconventional arranged marriage with your company’s President, Kim Seokjin, is necessary, practical, and simple - both your families benefit, and he minds his own business and so do you. But when a slip-up causes his parents to believe that you and he are in love, you have no choice but to pretend you are, especially with the trip to France for his brother’s wedding coming up. When you get back to Seoul, things start to change, and Seokjin is faced with the most difficult decision he has to make.  

Seokjin hauls your luggages and arranges them on a pushcart, including your carry-on bag that he carefully places on top of his. He makes sure they’re all secured before he turns to you and nods towards the right, motioning for you to go ahead.

“Just go straight,” he says after you look at him questioningly. “Emile‘s waiting for us; he’ll have a sign with our names on it.”

“Why can’t I just walk next to you?” You ask.

“You can, but at least you know where we’re going.”

You nod and keep up with his slower pace, given that he’s pushing the heavy trolley with one hand now as he takes out his phone for a call.

Your eyes widen as he speaks to the person in French, and you admit that if there’s anything that would make him more attractive than he already is, it’s this.

“I didn’t know you spoke French,” you say amusingly after the call ends. “And who’s Emile?”

“Ah. France was always my grandparents’ favorite vacation spot and we’d come here all the time,” he replies. “I just picked up basic stuff. Emile’s been patient in teaching me. He’s one of the butlers but when I visit, he’s the one who helps me around.”

You nod, a mix of excitement and nervousness overtaking you. First class from Incheon to Nice, a butler at your service, and so much more, as Jin’s pretty much enumerated what his parents said they’d paid for both of you to enjoy - it’s all so lavish and you feel undeserving, especially given that you’ve both decided to pretty much deceive his family about the true nature of your relationship.

You’re being cruel, as your brother had said that time you told him about the whole plan, and then again when you spent that 3-hour phone call with him 2 nights ago before you left. He wasn’t sold on the arrangement of your marriage in the first place, and now you have to lie to a bunch of people, as if your relationship wasn’t already founded on it. 

But you and Jin hashed it out; you’ve been talking about it ever since Taehyung made the bold suggestion of faking your romance in hopes that you and your husband would warm up to the idea. But the more you talked about it - more of what to do and what not to do and how to manage tricky situations - the more comfortable it felt. Seokjin doesn’t force anything, and he doesn’t make it awkward or intimidating. 

“Just act normally,” Taehyung had said. “Just don’t overdo it, but you gotta crank up the romance machine sometimes, okay? I’ll coach you.”

And here you are with Jin, in the city of Nice, about to take the long drive to the Kims’ holiday chateau and see just how much faking you and he could stand to do. 

You finally see the man holding up a placard of your names and he cheerfully greets your husband. They exchange pleasantries and Seokjin introduces you. 

Emile shakes your hand and takes the pushcart, with Jin taking your carry-on and putting it over his shoulder. It has your laptop and tablet, and he seems determined to not let you carry anything other than your purse. 

He helps Emile place the bags in the trunk, and if you were an outsider, you wouldn’t think that Seokjin is as rich and powerful as he is. There’s no demand for service and there’s even a vibe of simplicity. 

He’s wearing his favorite loose white shirt over whitewashed jeans and a navy blue baseball cap, the one that Taehyung had customized for him as a thank you gift for helping out in the wedding. 

One should just not know that he’s dressed in Louis Vuitton from head-to-toe, and the ‘simple’ vibe will fly. But still, he’s being his usual kind self, not complaining if he has to wait in line or dodge his way around the small crowd in the waiting area. He pulls you closer to him when you’re too distracted, though, and your smile softens at the gesture. 

You all safely make it to the car and Emile asks if you’re both okay before he starts driving. 

The ride to the commune of Montauroux is picture-perfect, with all the hills and quaint buildings and homes. The blue and pink skies add to the beauty; the temperature has increased a bit, enough to let you savor all that southeastern France has to offer.

“Still nervous?” Seokjin asks some time after you’ve both settled next to each other in your seats. 

“A bit,” you say, with less conviction now as his soft smile begins to comfort you. 

“Yeah, me too.”

“Hey, we said we can’t both be nervous at the same time,” you pout. “This is your territory so I get to be the one who’s nervous.”

“Fine,” he chuckles. 

He then spreads out his left hand and urges you to take it, which you do. It’s one of the things you’ve “practiced” before coming here, knowing it's perhaps the simplest gesture you could do consistently that isn’t much, but enough to show that you’re a “couple.” The other one was a hug, which was a little awkward; the leaning on his shoulder and having his hand on your back were more bearable. 

His hands are soft and his fingers are slender, clean, and quite frankly, attractive. You stare at them wrapped around your palm when he clears his throat, prompting you to turn to him.

“Weird?”

“Nah, just admiring your fingers,” you say. “They’re so pretty.”

“So I’ve been told,” he grins, and there’s no air of awkwardness at this, too. You’re playful and honest with each other; it's why it works.

You both sit in silence after, with Seokjin answering some of Emile’s questions while you look out the window, marveling at the rolling hills and sights of the ocean. Your husband has one hand on his phone, perhaps responding to emails, his other hand still wrapped up in yours. He thumbs your skin every few minutes, and it does alleviate your nervousness.

Just 2 weeks, you think, as the gate of the property comes into view and the reality of your situation hits you again; there’s no turning back from this anymore. You’ll try your best to not be nervous, but whenever you are, you just know that comfort is readily available - it just happens to be coming from your boss, your husband, and now, your fake lover. 

You’re immersed in the scenery before you until Seokjin nudges your arm.

“We’re here,” he hums. 

Your eyes widen and you feel like you’re in a dream, as the car enters the gate to reveal a stunning chateau, with white windows accentuating a cream stone exterior. The lawn is lined with olive and lemon trees and various flowers, and to the left, you eye a courtyard that looks beautiful even from afar.

Two more butlers await you at the entrance and start taking your things from the trunk. Seokjin hands over your carry-on to Emile, who doesn’t hold anything else. 

“They’re all outside. Let’s meet them first and I can tour you later on,” your husband says. 

You nod but he pulls you by your wrist before you start walking.

“It’s gonna be fine,” he reminds you, smiling softly. “We’re gonna be fine.”

You nod and smile back, taking his hand and walking past rooms and staircases and the large living room to get to the garden. Your mouth parts in awe; he definitely undersold the whole ‘it’s got pretty views’ statement that he gave before you left. It’s more than pretty; it’s absolutely breathtaking.

Sure, the pool looks refreshing, but it’s the hills and vineyards against the perfect, vast sky that takes your breath away, and you take in just how calm and picturesque the view is. 

“Oh, my darlings,” Seokjin’s mother chirps, taking you into a hug before you even get to process her presence. “I’m so glad you’re both finally here. Our little angels have been asking when their Uncle Jjan will be making them their favorite pizza.”

She calls out to her grandkids - Sejeong’s children - who all squeal from the pool.

“Uncle Jjan! Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!”

You both laugh at the little ones and their excitement. You’ve spent some time with them and like everyone in the Kim family, they love food. 

“Alright, alright. I’ll make them for afternoon snacks, okay?” He yells back.

The rest of his family go over to both of you for hugs and questions of how the flight went. You and Jin left 2 days later than originally planned. Your father needed to undergo a minor procedure and you wanted to make sure that all was well before you left, and Jin wanted to be there with you, too.

It’s the early afternoon but you already feel sleepy. You don’t usually get to sleep well whenever you’re on a plane or even a bus or car ride, and it’s something that Jin picks up.

“Hey, why don’t you freshen up first and take a nap?” He turns to you. “I can tour you around later after we have that pizza. It’s been a long trip and I’m sure you’re tired.”

“I am,” you yawn. “What about you?”

“Grandmother asked me to go over the menu for my grandfather’s party this Saturday. I’ll just help her out a bit and prepare snacks and marinate meat for dinner.”

“You won’t rest?”

“I got to sleep on the plane, so I’m fine. You didn't, so you should rest. It’s gonna be a tiring first few days.”

“Hmm, maybe. But with this view, I’m sure I’ll be relaxed and not feel any tiredness whatsoever after today. But alright, take me to our room, then.”

He calls out to your family that you’ll just head to your room before he leads you back inside and up a stone staircase to the second floor. There are so many doors - all of them wooden but different in color and design - and he opens the teal colored one towards the end of the hallway. 

It’s a spacious room with a large bed, a round table with 2 chairs, and a small balcony overlooking a quaint village. It’s been beautifully but simply restored given the exposed beams and wooden floors, and even with some modern luxuries added, the space is accented with antique furniture like the vintage standing fireplace, a wardrobe, and a small chandelier. 

He chuckles at your shocked face, something he’s been seeing since you landed in Nice. Europe is a continent you’ve mentioned that you’ve always wanted to visit, and he’s happy that he at least got to help with that. 

You hear him and you pout. “Yah, I’m still not used to all the luxuries connected to being your wife, so don’t laugh. This is all a lot to take in, and I feel bad and—”

“Don’t, please,” he sighs, holding you by your shoulders and motioning for you to look at him. “We can’t keep on thinking negatively about this. I mean, at least you like me as a person, right? So don’t feel like you’re undeserving or cruel or whatever. Treat this like your home, okay? I’ll feel more comfortable with you feeling comfortable here.”

“Okay,” you smile, knowing it’s all you need to hear. “I’ll take a shower and rest up. I’ll see you later, yeah?”

“You better,” he winks then closes the door, leaving you alone with your thoughts, the initial fear and worry about this trip slowly melting away.

You head out of the bedroom to go outside, the 2-hour sleep you had having refreshed you enough. You spot Jin in the covered terrace that houses a fully-equipped kitchen, with Geonhoo and Ji-hoo sitting on the counter, and Sung-min being nursed by Sejeong. 

“What’s Uncle Jjan making?” You ask, announcing your arrival.

Seokjin looks up at you with a grin, but it’s the little boy and little girl who answer excitedly.

“Cheese pizza! And Nutella pizza!” The middle child, Ji-hoo, says. 

She’s got chocolate spread smudges on her face and her mother tells her older brother to wipe them off, but Geonhoo is too busy watching his uncle toss the dough to care. 

“I’ll do it,” you offer, taking wipes from the table and going to Ji-hoo to clean her cheeks, cooing at her adorable smile that all the Kim siblings seem to have. 

“Thank you, Auntie!” She squeals, before she stands on the counter, and you hold her up to keep her from falling.

“How was your sleep?” Jin asks as he continues to work.

“It was good, now I’m starving,” you smile, tiptoeing to take a peek of what he’s making. 

He’s never made pizza for you before although he says he enjoys making it, and you can only imagine how good it’s going to be since there’s a stone pizza oven here. 

“This’ll be done shortly, don’t worry. These kids are stressing me too much,” he chuckles, and once the little ones have settled down on actual chairs, you sit next to Sejeong who chats you up about the schedule for this week.

“We’re going to a nearby village tomorrow afternoon. You and Jin should join us,” she says. “Then there’s grandfather’s birthday the day after, and then we’re all gonna head to a beach on Sunday. And then you can have my brother for the rest of the week, unless you don’t wanna join him with my husband to play golf on Tuesday because I don’t, so I’m gonna go shopping instead,” she laughs. 

“Shopping, definitely,” you chuckle, and from your periphery, you see Seokjin playfully shake his head.

“She thinks it’s boring,” he calls out.

“It is,” you and Sejeong say at the same time, earning you both a monologue on why it isn’t.

“He only got into it because he and Tae had this competition growing up of who did what better,” Sejeong narrates. “They competed in tennis, snowboarding, golf, gaming, car racing, and so many more. Even dancing, which Taehyung says he’s better at, and I kinda agree, although Jin isn’t that far behind.”

“Jin, you dance?!” Your eyes widen. 

You know he’s talented in many things; he’s also said that much when he was drunk, which is when he usually gets cocky, but you didn’t know he danced, and a part of you feels giddy at the thought, not really able to imagine your usually serious and laid-back husband shaking his hips.

“A little,” he grins. “It’s the only thing I’ll admit that Tae is better at, but I obviously am the more handsome one.”

Sejeong rolls her eyes, and you can only imagine this to be an ongoing argument between the two men growing up that Sejeong had to suffer through. 

“Hey, affirm me,” Jin calls your attention, and you stick out your tongue to say “yeah, whatever,” to his disappointment. 

You all continue random conversations until Taehyung arrives then leaves after being told to call everyone else since the pizzas are ready. Pretty soon, the rest of the family - Jin’s parents, grandparents, Hyun-a, and Sejeong’s husband, Hyo-seop - all arrive, and you sit on the long dining table to enjoy the pizza that he’s prepared. 

His grandparents haven’t stopped talking to you, asking how work’s been going and if Jin is spoiling you, and you respond that you’ve asked him not to, and you wouldn’t be lying. 

Aside from the dress for the wedding, he doesn’t buy you things without your approval, and though he’s offered a few - like this YSL coat you saw at the mall or the Birkin bag that you commented looked nice - you’ve always turned him down. You’re not his lover, you always told him, and somehow, he just accepted it. You assumed his non-argument meant that he’d get Seri those things instead, and you never really minded. 

Seokjin pours you another glass of grape juice and puts his arm on the back of your chair, though he still keeps his distance. The conversations continue but Jin excuses you both so he can tour you around. 

“Let’s go before the sun sets. There’s a lot to see,” he suggests, so you follow him.

He takes you over the gate to a small space with lawn chairs that overlooks the town below. It’s the best place to watch the sunset, he says, although there are other spots in the property where you can enjoy it either way. He points which town is which, the direction of the beach you’re going to on Sunday, and even where he likes to go fishing. He then leads you to the other side where the courtyard is, then past it to a pond surrounded by trees, and then to the front of the chateau to enter again through the front door.

He talks a bit about the history of it, how your grandparents used to rent it as a summer home but fell in love with the property and the town that they eventually bought it, 10 years ago, adding their own touches to the place. They spend most of their time here over their other vacation homes, and you pass on asking what other properties they have. 

You’re able to take in everything better and appreciate the little details and the elegant simplicity of it. Of course, it’s still a little overwhelming, with another living room, a sitting room, a study, and a separate library, a large kitchen and then another small one, and 7 other rooms across 3 floors. It’s stunning; you feel like a princess, almost - a fake one. 

You both find yourselves in the spot where he said the sunset is best viewed, and you sit in silence for a while as you marvel at the sun dipping behind the hills. 

“You’ll get used to it,” he says once the lights have turned on as the darkness envelops you.

“To what?”

“All this.”

“Jin, we’ve been married for 6 months, and though it’s an unconventional one, I’m still not used to it. Your grandparents were asking when we’re going to the jewelry store to get our matching bracelets, and that’s on top of the customized perfumes that your parents said we’d have. And those are also on top of the 4-day stay in Saint-Tropez.”

“Oh, those aren’t much,” he chuckles. “They were gonna get you a car. And that’s also on top of the property they were gonna get us to build our own holiday home.”

“What?!” You yell. “A car? Property? Where? What? Are you serious?”

“You know my family; of course I’m serious. But I told them to hold off on the car first because I didn’t want you to freak out. I just said your own car has sentimental value because it’s the first big thing you bought for yourself and they understood,” he explains. “But the property… yeah. They asked me where we wanted and I just reasoned that we still haven’t traveled much to find a place we’ve fallen in love with, given our circumstance, so that could wait, too. But the offer’s there. I mean, Sejeong and Hyo-seop have a house in Switzerland; Taehyung and Hyun-a are buying a house in Peru. It’s… it’s a thing.”

“A thing,” you snort, like it's so natural for a family to give those to their in-law. But then again, you’re a mere commoner and you ended up marrying into a rich family whose daily life screams of old money and luxury. “But thanks, though. It would’ve freaked me out too much, as if I’m not right now. Your family’s been so wonderful and welcoming, and I just–”

“Hey, what did I say about feeling bad about it?” He turns to you, knowing it’s what you were gonna say. He places his hand over yours as a comforting gesture. 

“To not feel it,” you pout, but it’s hard, not when there are a lot of things to feel bad about. 

There’s the lying, the use of all the stuff they’re giving you that you can’t say no to even if you try, and then there’s Seri. She’s the one who should be here, shouldn’t she? She was first. And she’s the one he wants, not you. 

“Good. You’re here, in this stunning place like you said, and the least you could do is enjoy it,” he says. “I’m freaking out, too, but the least I can do is to also enjoy it. I’ve never had anyone here, or anywhere, actually,” he shares. “None of the girlfriends; no one was serious enough and well, I was always busy. Plus, I liked doing my leisure travels on my own. So what we can do for ourselves and each other is to just savor it. We don’t know when the next time will be.”

If there will be a next time, you think, and somehow that thought is what makes it all better. 

“Sorry for being a downer,” you place your hand on top of his. “I’ll follow your lead. We’ll… do what we need to do, and talk it out if the guilty feeling creeps in again. Deal?”

“Deal,” he smiles, taking the hand you’ve now reached out for him. “But I hope that doesn’t happen again. I like just enjoying this with you.”

Seokjin doesn't know what compelled him to say that last line the way he did - grasping your hand and looking into your eyes that are reflecting the dim light from above. 

But he means it. Your warmth has been nothing but comfort for him in just the past day of traveling. He feels terrible for several reasons, and he just wants to hold out without breaking as long as he can, just so you don’t have to feel any more terrible than you already do.

The dinner was a feast, and you’re thankful for your capacity to eat a generous amount of food and knowing exactly when to stop, not like Taehyung next to you who suddenly felt sick after inhaling his meal. 

There were all types of skewers that Jin marinated earlier, there was pasta and pita that his mother made, salad that his grandfather prepared, and French macarons that were bought straight from Paris this morning as a welcome gift for you. 

Jin squeezed your hand under the table in comfort after another show of his family’s special treatment, and the guilty feeling went away as quickly as it came.  

You’re now heading back to your bedroom after walking down the hall to refill your jugs with water. Opening the door, you see a sight that causes you to yelp and turn around, trying to make sense of the view of your half-naked husband. 

“Oh my god, Jin! What the hell!” You whisper-yell. 

You feel a piece of cloth hit the back of your head, and you have a feeling that it’s his sock or shirt again because he likes doing that. 

“That better be clean, Kim Seokjin, or else!”

“Yah! Are my blue pajamas that terrible!” He whisper-yells back. “I had these custom-made, you know?”

“The fuck?! I don’t care if you have Pink Bean or Spiderman or even your face on your pajamas. You’re naked.”

“Seriously? That’s why you’re freaked out?”

You hear his footsteps come closer and you panic and turn around, dodging him, but he follows your movement and you both turn and dodge each other until he finally holds your arms to keep you in place, and you do the silly thing of closing your eyes.

“I have my top on now. You can open your eyes,” he huffs.

Not trusting him, you poke where you feel his shoulder should be, and you at least don’t miss. He seems clothed, so you open your eyes as he asks. 

“Am I that appalling?” He gasps. “And here I was, thinking I’d impress you with my body.”

You snort at him but you know he’s playing. You did catch a glimpse of a toned torso and bare shoulders that are way too pretty to be constantly covered up, but you’d never tell him that. 

“I’m kidding, I’m sorry. But seriously, are you that freaked out with me being half naked? I mean—”

“You have a girlfriend, Jin.”

He covers your mouth with his hand and gives you a warning look. “Be quiet! Someone might be walking around the hallway. It’s still early.”

“Sorry,” you smile apologetically after he lets you go. “Well, you’re dressed now so it’s okay. I’ll just, uh, I’ll just wash my face. You should get some rest now.”

You place the jugs on the bedside table and head to the bathroom, the image of Jin in pajamas and the bed slightly unmade reminding you that this is the first time you’ll be sleeping on the same bed. 

Obviously, on your wedding night, you didn’t have to. You had a suite so you slept in different rooms, and you’ve both been doing that ever since. Given that his family now believes you’re both in an actual relationship, you can’t do anything that will make them think otherwise. 

There’s only a small wooden bench and one-person sofa in this room; the bed is queen-sized, and there’s really no other place to sleep in. You did talk about this, but it hadn’t dawned on you much earlier that there isn’t really a way out of this particular “couple thing” you have to do. 

You take your time in the bathroom, hoping that when you go out, Jin’s already asleep. 

Unfortunately, when you finish, he isn’t, and he seems to be waiting for you, as he’s propped up against the bed frame with his phone in hand. He turns to look at you and pats the space next to him. 

“Is this your side?”

“I’m not choosy; that side is fine,” you say, slowly walking towards the empty spot.

“I’m a stiff sleeper, don’t worry.”

“Well, me too,” you smile. “Guess we won’t be waking up in an uncompromising position, then?”

“Probably not,” he assures, lying down now and waiting for you to settle in before he turns off the lamp. “That okay?”

You nod and start to feel comfortable. There’s only the light from the moon outside but it doesn’t bother you. From your periphery, you can see him wide awake, and you wonder how he’s still not passed out when it’s been a long and tiring 2 days.

“Is that what you’re worried about? I mean, with seeing me… like that? Because of Seri?” He asks in the quiet of your room. 

He sounds worried, almost sad, so you turn to your side to face him, and he looks at you before he shifts to face you, too. 

“Pretty much,” you respond with a sigh. “It just kinda feels unfair to her, seeing you like that, being a couple with you. And even now, sleeping next to you like this.”

“She knows about all this,” Jin says. 

“Doesn’t mean she’s okay with it,” you reason.

“Quite frankly, I’m not sure what she’s okay or not okay with anymore,” Jin responds, with a tinge of sadness in his voice. “When I told her what happened that day, she profusely apologized for even calling me. Then she didn’t bat an eye when I said what Tae proposed about us faking during this trip. She even said that we have to do what we have to do to convince my family, and to not worry about what she’d feel because she understands what we need to do.”

“And how did that make you feel?”

“Honestly? Relieved,” he huffs. “Every time I say I should be better for her, I just… I don’t know, it’s just been easier to trust and believe her that it’s all okay, the way it was easier to trust and believe you at the beginning that being with her was fine with you. But that also makes me feel terrible. Especially because she and I, uh, we haven’t been intimate in a while.”

Your eyes widen and you curse yourself for reacting, and he sighs again, apologizing for being too candid, fearful that he might’ve made you uncomfortable.

“It’s okay. I just… didn’t expect it, I guess? Well, you’ve been busy, but you still see her, don’t you?”

“I try. I’ve only had her at our guesthouse a few times and mostly just for dinner. She’s still her usual kind-eyed, cheerful self and that helps, you know? There’s no added stress of being with her even if she’s a big part of why I’m also stressed,” he chuckles, the irony and stupidity of it all not lost on him. 

You see him hesitate a bit, and you think back to your agreement that both of you can’t be stressed and nervous at the same time, so you give him a smile and say that it’s okay, that he can be the worried and honest one this time, and you’ll comfort him as much as you can.

“It’s kind of more real now, you know? The consequences of my decisions then,” he admits, dismissing you when you insist that it was both of your decisions. “It was all me. You had to make one decision; I had to make two - agree with the arranged marriage or not, and stay with her or not. And I don’t know if I’d done the right thing, of not breaking up with her if I’d just end up doing this to her, too.”

You can’t imagine how difficult it must be for him, having to think of 2 other people aside from himself all the time, but perhaps it’s the fact that he gets hurt regardless, and he’d be the responsible one if Seri gets hurt, assuming she isn’t already. You hate that you weren’t harder on him, that you somehow enabled him and added to the complexity of the situation. 

Yet given all this, you truly believe that his heart is in the right place. He didn’t want to hurt Seri, and he doesn’t want to hurt you, too. And he’s stuck in a situation where every move he makes will contribute to someone losing in the end, and there’s a high chance that it would be him.

So you try to lessen it somehow, and for all the times that he’d been the one to comfort and calm you down, you know more than anything, he needs you to do that for him, even if he won’t deliberately say it. 

You place your hand over his that’s settled in between you, and you give him an assuring smile. “We’ll be alright, Jin. You’ll be alright. You have me, okay? And we’ll figure it out. We’ll take it one day at a time, and I won’t be weird about any of this anymore, I promise,” you say, realizing now that your over-cautiousness perhaps adds to his own stress. 

“Thank you,” he smiles tenderly, as if a big weight has been lifted off his shoulders somehow. “That really means a lot.”

You’ve accepted a long time ago that Seokjin is objectively handsome. But as you open your eyes, being greeted with his sleeping form and the light from the sun casting a glow on his face, you can fully accept that this man is unfairly, breathtakingly, and unbelievably handsome. 

You’re immune to his professional look. Though you remember gasping when you first saw him 8 years ago, you can say that his immaculate suits and slicked-back hair is a natural occurrence already. In your 6 months of marriage, the most casual he’d look would be when he’s in jeans and a dress top or a simple shirt under a luxurious jacket. You got a whiplash last night seeing him in pajamas because even at home, you’d spend most of your time in your office clothes, not seeing each other much when you’re in your sleepwear. 

And every one of those times, he always looked so well-put together with his flawless skin and pretty locks. But right now, the man is asleep with but a few strands of hair out of place, yet he still looks so flawless - angular yet soft features, satin-like plump lips, and no scar or mark on his face, as if he doesn’t have pores at all, and it kind of blows your mind away. 

You let out a deep breath and it’s what prompts him to wake up, as he opens his eyes briefly to see you gazing at him, before he chuckles.

“What’s that look?” he mumbles, shifting a little bit but still facing you. You both are in the same position as you were when you fell asleep last night.

“Just… in awe of your natural beauty,” you answer honestly.

“Wow, I never thought I’d see the day,” he responds, eyes still closed. “But thanks, I’m glad you finally acknowledged it.”

He smiles a little, and you can’t help but poke his cheeks at the movement. “You also do have bread cheeks,” you say. “I never really noticed it up close.”

“It’s because you don’t look at me enough,” he says too quickly.

“You should smile more.”

“I do,” he defends. “I smile a lot when I’m with you.”

You freeze on your spot and you’re glad he’s still half asleep so at least he didn’t see you, and you’re hoping maybe he’d forget what he said.

“Sorry, was that weird?” He turns to you, more awake now. “I mean it, though. You're charming sometimes. It’s quite refreshing, especially since I know how serious you are at work.”

“Only sometimes?” You arch a brow.

“Yup. Other times you give me a headache.”

You playfully smack his arm and he laughs, hugging the pillow that he held onto all night and looking at you again. “I’m kidding.”

“Can I poke your cheek? Just wanna know if you’re real.”

He nods and just takes your quirks as they come, and you poke his cheek and squeeze it for good measure. “Yup, your face is real. Seriously, you and Taehyung look out-of-this-world. And if it wouldn’t freak your sister out, I’d say the same thing about her. She’s stunning, Jin. You all are. I’d be happy if I made babies with a man with half of your genes.”

“That’s a big ask, considering there’s no one like me but sure, I wish you luck.”

“God, you’re annoying even in the morning,” you frown, continuously pinching him again until he’s laughing uncontrollably. 

It’s a sound that you didn’t realize until now that you want to hear more of, because at least for this moment, you know he’s worry-free, and that right now, he’s got enough reasons to laugh.

You both freshen up and head to the smaller of the two indoor kitchens for a late breakfast. Everyone else had gone ahead, Emile says, and you’re expected to leave in a few hours for a trip to town for lunch, to walk around, and then to have dinner at Jin’s grandmother’s favorite restaurant.  

Breakfast is your favorite, and you’ve always enjoyed your morning meals during your work trips because of the various types of food you get to enjoy. Today isn’t any different. The cook prepared a serving of French omelet and radish on a baguette, and the colors are so inviting. You feel like you’re in heaven, and paired with the coffee, you really feel like you are.

You and Jin talk a bit with Emile then head outside with a cup of hot chocolate each, enjoying the late morning breeze. You both answer some emails and then decide that tonight would be work night, so you’ll enjoy the rest of the day with his family and not worry about much else. 

It’s 2 hours later when you’re all in the driveway, waiting for the cars, and the wind sweeps in and messes Jin’s hair a little. Dressed in a plain shirt tucked in tailored pants, he looks like your regular boy-next-door, except in really expensive clothes. With Ji-hoo in his arms, you fix his hair for him as he tries to shake it off his eyes. 

“You should just wear my cap,” you offer, a favorite accessory of yours, which currently matches your loose top over denim skirt ensemble. 

He nods and you put it on him, and you suddenly don’t know which look you like on him better - when he’s in a baseball cap or when his forehead is exposed. Either way, he looks handsome, a thought that you’re more comfortable now admitting.

“Is it okay?” He asks.

You nod. “Ji-hoo, does Uncle Jjan look good?”

“Yes!” She squeals, and when Jin smiles, you get that urge to poke his bread cheeks. So you do.

His smile doesn’t leave his face. All throughout the 30-minute ride to the nearby town with his hand over yours in the small space between you two, he’s smiling or laughing - at the view outside or something you said. 

During lunch, you’re both deconstructing your dishes and talking about making them at home, too. And as you stroll around the plaza, you both get lost in your own world as you enter stores that sell salt, herbs, and different types of cheese. So many times, Taehyung has to call Jin and ask where you’d both gone because he couldn’t find you.

“Ah, we should probably shop on our own,” you laugh, clutching the bags you have but wanting to buy some more.

“We should. We can do it on Monday, or after the wedding. There are many nearby towns and farmer’s markets we can go to,” Jin says, sounding more excited now. “Even Saint-Tropez has good stuff.”

You smile widely at him, ecstatic yourself. It’s what you enjoy doing the most. During your work trips all over Asia, you make sure to always go to the markets and buy whatever ingredients or food-related items you can. You find it very therapeutic - especially when there are free tastes - and you just get lost in the scents and ideas you have about what you’ll make with them. The fact that you get to do this with Jin is something that excites you, given that he loves food as well.

The rest of the day goes by without a hitch. You go to a nearby park for the kids to play and then find a lake where you all watch the sunset while eating ice cream. You’re all taken to a restaurant for dinner with Seokjin’s parents and grandparents, and after watching a street performer play jazz music that had Taehyung - the romantic that he is - asking Hyun-a for a dance, prompting others to do as well, you all go home, tired and satisfied.

After your nightly routines and getting some work done in your rooms for a few hours, you’re now in bed with Jin, in the same position as you were last night.

“Today was fun,” you say, recalling how you and Jin bickered in every store on which item to get that he just bought everything you both wanted. “It didn’t feel like we had to fake anything, actually.”

“Yeah?” He smiles, clutching his favorite pillow that he brings everywhere he goes. 

You nod. “It’s like we were just being us, except your sister was there smirking at us every time you contradicted what I said,” you laugh. “But yeah, it felt natural, like how we’d act at home without the added pressure.”

“Well that’s good, since I felt that, too,” he says. “But then again, the party’s tomorrow and that’s gonna require us to do more. To, uh, act more husband-wife, you know?”

“I do,” you smile, feeling more comfortable. “But I feel like we’ll be fine. I mean, it’s a good thing you’re handsome. It’s easy to be all dreamy eyes for you.”

You laugh at his shocked face, and to prove your point, you pinch his cheeks like how you find yourself wanting to do every time. Then you cup it with your hand and caress it with your thumb, sharing your warmth and tenderness in a way only you can as you look at his deep-set eyes. “Good night, Jin. I’ll see you in the morning.”

You settle back to your position and close your eyes. And while you’re off to dreamland, as your soft snores had started not long after, Jin is left with wide eyes and his heart in his throat.

That was probably the most intimate, non-fake thing you’ve done. Why did he get goosebumps at that? And why did he like it?

You wake up the next morning feeling refreshed. You easily got over the jet lag and you’re thankful for that; you were told to treat this like your vacation that you rarely ever take, so you want to rest and enjoy as much as possible. 

Finding an empty space beside you, you wonder where Seokjin had gone. You’re about to give him a call when you spot something on the round table, and your face softens at the spread before you - a variety of pastries and a pot of coffee with a note on it. 

Grandfather asked to go fishing, it reads. The kitchens are packed since they’re preparing for the party so have these first. I’ll be back soon.

The note makes you feel cared for. Jin is a closet sweetheart, you’re now learning, that is, until he has to ruin it with something written at the bottom.

P.S. I woke up early because of a natural alarm - your snore. Hahahaha.

What a dick, you snort, but it’s Jin - he surprises you with how sweet he is but he annoys you to no end. And even this feels natural - just like yesterday was, just like last night’s caress of his cheek was. 

You don’t know what prompted you to do something so intimate as that, but a part of you wanted to affirm him again. 

He seemed so care-free during your visit to the village. Neither of you seemed to feel bad or guilty, but you realized that it’s when you’re both back in bed, without the need to fake or do anything for show, that he allows himself to feel vulnerable and worried, and you wanted to allay whatever his fears were by telling him that it’s all okay, and somehow a tender touch seemed right. You closed your eyes right away in fear of what he looked like since it felt too intimate, but some time after, when you took a peek, he had a relaxed look on his face, and that’s all you really wanted. 

You proceed to have your breakfast over a call with your parents and Hoseok. You promptly fill them in, assure them again that everything is okay with you and Jin and his family, and then promise to send them more photos. 

You’re now doing your makeup, readying for the party when a knock on the door gets your attention. Jin enters in a bathrobe after having taken a shower elsewhere so that the fish smell doesn’t follow in your bedroom. 

“Hey,” you say. “How was fishing?”

“Ah, it was so fun. We caught some huge trout and carp,” he chirps, taking his phone from his bag and showing you.

He’s standing so close - freshly bathed with his damp hair and natural, masculine scent, and there’s something oddly comforting about how he is right next to you. 

He’s animatedly talking about almost falling off the boat when he realizes you’re in the middle of fixing up. 

“Ah, sorry. I should tell you about it later,” he chuckles. “I’ll just go dress up in, uh, in the bathroom.”

“It’s okay,” you say. “I’ll do my makeup there so you can comfortably change here,” picking up your things before he can say anything.

He lets you know when he’s done and you exit the bathroom, and at this point you should just really get used to seeing Jin in non-business clothes and looking stunning every time.

“I didn’t realize we’re matching,” he smiles, taking in your mustard-colored midi dress with a bare back. 

He’s wearing a light orange short-sleeved linen shirt and white tailored pants, with his sunglasses perched on the top button of his blouse, the neckline lower than what you’re used to. He’s already styled his hair, side-swiped with a bit of his forehead exposed.

“We are,” you smile back. “But do I look okay? Jimin helped me pick out this dress. I didn’t want to overcompensate with something fancy but you said your grandparents’ friends and your other relatives are coming so I didn’t want to look too simple.”

“You look great,” he says, meaning it. 

You look chic, with your hoop earrings and the scarf on your hair. It’s simple but classy. He’s heard you freak out a few times before this trip about what you were going to wear, not wanting to look too plain in front of people who highly regard his family. And though he was a tad bit upset that you rejected his offers to buy you clothes, he’ll admit that he couldn’t have chosen anything better than what you have on right now. 

There’s no teasing tone or a hint of uncertainty in his voice, and you like this Jin - the comfortable and assuring version, and it does a lot to your confidence as you get on with the day. 

“Shall we, Mr. Kim?” You say, reaching out your hand.

“We shall, Mrs. Kim.” He winks, takes your hand, and leads you out the door.

The garden is buzzing with last-minute preparations and guests who arrived early, socializing already with the rest of your family. Jin takes you around, his hand on your back guiding you to which relative you should greet first. 

Some of them are familiar, as you’ve seen them during your wedding but you were still too stunned to let it all register. They seem happy to see you again. It’s one thing that you appreciate about their family - sure, they love their money, but they aren’t assholes about it. Jin had said that your parents and grandparents easily cut off relatives who take advantage of them and other people, so you know that those who are here at least respect their family to extend that to you, an in-law, who doesn’t come from privilege like them.

You walk around with your hand on his arm, following his lead, greeting guests and engaging with them in casual talk as you practiced in your head. 

It’s not until Jin’s mother comments on it that you begin to rethink it.

“Oh, darling. You and Jin look so formal,” she giggles. “This isn’t a business event, it’s a family event. Just act natural.”

You know she means well; Jin assures you that, too. And you get it - you and your husband aren’t supposed to be playing a part; you’re family, and this is a family event. But it got you nervous that maybe you’re overthinking it, about how to act and what to say to somehow feel accepted, like you want to convince them that you’re indeed a couple when it should just come out naturally.

So you slide your hand off his arm and loosely grip his awaiting hand. “That better?” You smile nervously. 

“It is,” he tightens his hold. 

He leads you to your table for the plated lunch and just like all your meals so far, you can’t be any more satisfied. From the bouillabaisse to the beef tartare, the duck confit dish to the salmon en croute, and the sparkling wine and cheese plate to cap it all off. Chocolate soufflé was served shortly after with coffee.

It was all so delicious that you kept squeezing Seokjin’s hand after every first bite of the dish, earning you a laugh each time. 

“I am having an intense foodgasm right now,” you whispered in his ear. “It’s so embarrassing how many times I moaned internally at how good it is.”

He’d choked on his sorbet then, unable to keep his laughter in at how serious you were. He disregarded the slight goosebumps at what you’d said, and how low your voice sounded, and how close you were, and instead focused on your bickering after, and the way you were planning on recreating some of the dishes from this trip when you go back home.

You socialize some more after. You got engaged in deep conversation with some of his cousins, before being pulled by his grandmother to meet some of the friends she made here. All the while, you constantly find Jin and are surprised to see him looking at you before your eyes even settle on him. You know it’s his subtle way of comforting you, and calming down becomes immediate for you. 

Later in the afternoon, the entertainment begins. Jin’s grandmother starts with a toast, and then she proceeds to serenade him with his favorite song. Then his father, who apparently plays the violin, is joined with Sejeong, who apparently plays the harp, to give a classical rendition of a lullaby that old Mr. Kim used to sing to them. 

Next is Taehyung, whom you’d expected would perform because of the many times you’d heard him burst into song after a long, tiring meeting. He takes the mic and starts singing a slow version of “Thorn,” which Jin whispers next to you is one of his grandfather’s favorite karaoke songs. 

Hyun-a is blushing and you’re in awe as Taehyung’s low tone transitions to a high one, and you’re about to tell your husband how amazed you are when the younger Kim calls on his brother during the instrumental. 

“Hyung used to act too cool for this song when we’d sing it with Grandfather before,” Taehyung says. “But all of us love it. So hyung, please join me. I’ll admit that you sing the second verse much better,” he winks. 

“Ugh, that brat. I told him I didn’t want to do this,” Jin groans from next to you. 

You’re too stunned to say anything because while you assumed that Jin is good at a lot of things, you didn’t think he was good at everything. He’d never mentioned being musically inclined; heck, you didn’t even know he danced. 

Everyone calls on Jin and he doesn’t seem to have a choice, so you squeeze his hand in comfort and he starts walking to the center. He starts a bit shy, complaining between lines and playfully smacking Taehyung who keeps teasing and whispering things in his ear. But when the chorus, that’s much higher, comes, you’re blown away. 

Leave it to Jin to do his best even if he wasn’t amenable to the impromptu performance in the first place. His voice is rich and warm and sultry and you’re left stunned with how natural he seems at it. You wonder when he started singing, and when he does it, and who he sings to. 

“I didn’t know Jin could sing like that,” Sejeong’s husband tells you. “He’s so good!”

“Yeah, me too,” you chuckle, wondering what else you don’t know about him, and why suddenly learning more seems exciting for you. 

Taehyung and Seokjin give short messages to their grandfather before they return to their seats, and you can’t help but playfully smack your husband’s arm in shock.

“Yah! Where did that come from!” You squeal. “You didn’t tell me you could sing!”

“You never asked,” he chuckles, suddenly looking shy.

You notice his reddened ears and blushing, puffy cheeks, your hands cupping them mindlessly and you laugh at the heat you feel. 

“I’m like this when I get nervous,” he explains, suddenly feeling more flustered at the feel of you like that. “You might not believe it but I’m not too fond of being in the spotlight.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have known because one, you love attention,” you tease, and he glares at you before you continue. “And two, you’re a natural, so why wouldn’t you be comfortable in the spotlight?”

“Another compliment from you?” He feigns shock, and he catches your wrist before you can smack him again, and he pinches your nose in another act of retaliation, earning a groan from you. You both end up laughing, anyway. 

“You’re so dramatic,” you say, massaging your wrist.

“Oh shit, did I hurt you?” He suddenly looks worried, taking your hand to inspect it. 

“No, you didn’t. It’s fine,” you smile. 

The performance portion ends with Geonhoo and Ji-hoo doing their own dance number, as choreographed by Taehyung. Everybody is cheering and taking photos of the brother-sister tandem who’s plucking flowers from different areas of the space - as suggested by Jin - and giving them to their great-grandfather. It’s a lovely moment, as it all ends with photos with the entire family, including you.

Jin holds you by the waist the whole time, asking if you’re okay in whispers, and his soft eyes do make you feel like things are the way they should be, even if it’s all temporary. 

Before you know it, it’s time for dinner, and it’s Korean food this time. Plates of premium grilled meats, seaweed soup, tofu stew, stir-fried seafood, black bean noodles, and an array of side dishes are served per table, and it suddenly feels like home. 

The party continues, and you’re thankful for the chilly air that makes you feel less hot, as the alcohol starts to do its thing. You could tell that people are slowly getting inebriated, as they’re more unhinged and unfiltered this time - teasing each other, laughing loudly, and Jin, well, apart from his red cheeks, he’s a little more loose yet a little closer, too.

The live band continues to play music and Taehyung has taken the microphone again, this time dedicating a love song to Hyun-a, causing her to blush and join him on the floor for a dance while he continues to serenade her. Other couples join them, including your grandparents, parents, and Sejeong and Hyo-seop, leaving you and Jin on your table.

One of Jin’s uncles pats him as he makes his way to the dance floor, so you and Jin have no choice but to follow. 

“Don’t be shy,” he teases. “I won’t embarrass you with my exceptional dance skills.”

You laugh and hold his hands, letting him twirl you around, as the song is lively and upbeat. You exchange embarrassing solo dance moves, and it’s probably the alcohol, but he moves well and you’re not too shy yourself. 

That is, until a slow song starts playing, and you know it’s not a good idea to leave because of this. 

Jin places his hand on your waist, a little lower than normal, and he steps closer to you. “Is this okay?”

“Of course,” you smile, trying to temper your beating heart because any time a guy as handsome as Jin asks you that with his deep-set eyes gazing at you, it’s kind of impossible for it not to be. 

He’s captivating as he is intriguing, and you realize all the different layers of this man are hiding underneath, waiting to be shown, or maybe be accepted. He did say he’s more than just his looks, and though you know he meant to prove that he’s a competent professional, you also know it means more - he lets himself loose and have fun, he’s caring and comfortable, he’s dependable and protective. And this once, you allow yourself to be a little jealous of Seri, the one who probably gets to see all these versions of him.

With your one hand on his chest and the other on his palm, you feel safe, and the way he looks so beautiful right now isn’t because you’re tipsy. This is Jin, and you get to appreciate him from up close. 

You almost think you’re imagining the ringing sound in your ear until you realize it’s the forks that are clanking against the glasses - as initiated by Taehyung - signaling the couples to kiss. It used to be a familiar sound, as during your wedding, you heard it a lot during the evening, and you always found a way to dodge it or not make it last. But tonight, you don’t mind, really. 

“Should we?” You nervously ask him.

“Okay,” he smiles, leaning over to you and closing his eyes. 

You follow, feeling his plush lips against yours for longer than a second, unlike your first kiss. It’s still quick, but you still feel its lightness and tenderness. He pulls away and you’re partly glad he does. 

Opening your eyes, he has this softness in his and a shy smile, but then in classic Jin fashion, he ruins it again.

“Hmm, your lips are actually soft. It felt dry the first time,” he furrows his brows.

“Yah! Don’t be mean! I was probably dying of nervousness that time,” you say, tickling him again, causing him to yelp and slightly ruin the mood for the other couples as well.

Jin glances around to see how the others are, and in doing so, he catches sight of his mother and her soft, almost proud smile. He hates that he’s lying to his family because he knows just how much they’ve been waiting for him to introduce someone, to show that there’s someone he loves and who loves him back. But quite honestly, he hasn’t really found one, and the fact that he’d kept Seri a secret as long as he has should say enough. 

But somehow, doing this with you and hearing your laugh doesn’t make it all too bad. At least, he doesn’t have to fake this. 

He doesn’t have to fake telling you that you look great; he doesn’t have to fake being protective or worried; he doesn’t have to fake his smile or having fun around you, because those all come so naturally. And he doesn’t have to fake being okay with the kiss, because he is; the way he heaved a sigh says enough, too, perhaps. 

He may be lying to them, but he’s not lying to himself, and that’s a relief that only you could give. 

Seokjin hugs you, catching you by surprise. “Thank you,” he whispers, and somehow, those 2 words say so much more. 

What is he thankful for? You don’t ask; you’re not sure if you’re ready. What you’re sure of, though, is that today was amazing. And if it’s an indication of how the rest of your stay here would be, then you wouldn’t mind it at all. 

Later that night, you and Jin fall asleep after another one of your laughter fits. And the next morning, you wake up a lot closer than before - your heads slightly touching, and your hand on top of his.

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[rodeoxqueen]

SMELLS LIKE QUARAN-NEROKIRI SPIRIT 

Nero/Kyrie

“In quarantine, Nero and Kyrie spend time together.” 

Rodeo’s Two Pieces: 

First time writing for Nero/Kyrie. Tread lightly with my take of their dynamic. 

(I)- Dalgona Coffee and Cookies. 

Despite how everything was shut down and the grocery was found vacant of basic necessities, Nero was grateful to at least be with someone he loved the most. 

“Look, we probably need some time off from kickin’ demon ass anyways,” Nico explained, smoking a cigarette during the video chat. 

“Yeah, not like demons care about being six feet away. People don’t even do that.” Nero looked at himself in the little square in the corner of his phone. Clad in a grey hoodie, he hadn’t even bothered putting on anything over his boxers. No one had come to visit since the mandate to stay inside, what was the point? 

Nico was in her garage again, from what he could see in the camera view. Cigarettes and old cups of coffee littered her desk, warbled country music playing off-view. 

“Who knows, maybe I’ll make something to fix that. I was thinking a mask-gun, rapid-fire reloading.” 

“Artisan of Arms, huh?” Nero laughed, getting up from his bed. 

“You fuckin’ bet. Now I gotta go. Got some things to weld.” 

“See ya, Nico. Stay safe, alright?” 

“Yeah, yeah.” He gave a peace sign before pressing “end video call.” 

The video chat ended and Nero tucked his phone into his pocket. Even banter just wasn’t the same virtually. 

“Who was that? Nico?” Nero made it down the hallway to see Kyrie, bustling about getting things from the cupboards. 

“Yeah, still building stuff as usual.” 

Kyrie had been in their apartment’s kitchen, deciding to try her hand at some recipes she saw online. A bag of flour, too many bowls, and more chocolate than Nero remembered buying, all laid out on the table. 

Just when he wanted something to eat, he’d have to wait or his girlfriend would practically make enough to feed an army and be surprised when he didn’t want anymore. 

He opted for a cup of water instead. 

Nero admired her hair, how it looked when it wasn’t in a ponytail, how it sat perfectly on her shoulders. Seeing how she started to measure some ingredients, he took the hair tie on his wrist, careful fingers bringing it into a low ponytail. 

“Oh, thank you.” She commented, opening her booklet of recipes she had handwritten. Neat, slanted cursive in a smattering of blue, red, and black read out recipes for cookies, cakes, and bread. 

“You look busy, planning to make all of those?” Nero rested his chin on her shoulder, shrouding her with warmth. 

“Well, I don’t know how long we’re going to be stuck at home, might as well try some recipes out. Maybe we can deliver some to the orphanage.” 

“That is if I don’t eat all your prototypes first.” She laughed, birdsong to Nero’s ears. 

“As long as you help me I don’t mind if you do.” Kyrie handed him a measuring cup. Nero sighed, taking it. He always lost count of how many cups of flour he was supposed to put in the bowl. 

A jar of porous dough caught his eye as he sifted some baking soda in his white mixture. He took it from Kyrie’s side of the island. 

“Whoa, what is this? A science experiment?” Kyrie chuckled, watching Nero scrutinize the date on the white tape to the top of the mason jar. 

“No, it’s a sourdough starter! It’s basically wild yeast. We can make bread with it since people bought out all the dry yeast in the grocery store.” 

Nero shook it with curiosity and then opened the silver lid, making an “eh” face at the smell. 

“It’s yeast alright.” 

Kyrie continued whipping up the sugar and butter mixture, Nero helping himself to a handful of chocolate chips. 

“Have you talked to your uncle and father? They must be staying at the shop in Redgrave.” 

Nero shrugged. 

“Most likely, I haven’t talked to them yet. Dante probably didn’t pay the phone bill and Vergil doesn’t know how to use the phone anyways.” 

“Let’s just hope they’re getting along during this time.” 

Nero thought back to all the “family outings” he had since his uncle and father returned from hell, mostly just jobs becoming contests of strength that turned to friendly family fights. Endless banter and elbowing. 

Honestly, compared to that, standing next to his girlfriend while they shaped cookies for the oven was heaven. 

Once the chocolate chip cookie dough was done baking, Kyrie insisted they make some whipped coffee while they cooled.  

“I thought you didn’t like coffee, Kyrie.” She stooped down to find something in the lower cabinets. A robotic hand that was colored dark blue and black, his old Devil Bringer, appeared with a tiny whisk duct-taped to it. 

“Yeah, but that TikTok made it look so good.” Nero handed her the glass container of instant coffee. 

Turning on the Devil Bringer, the tiny whisk spun to life, rapidly mixing sugar, coffee, and water together. With her back turned, Nero popped a thing of cookie dough in his mouth. 

“Honestly, Nico should have patented these Devil Bringers, make a bunch of money, and maybe she’d stop trying to rip me off all those times.” 

“Support local businesses, Nero.” 

He looked over her shoulder, surprised at how an abysmal brown mixture had become fluffy and thrice its previous volume. 

Two cups of milk poured, the practically instantly whipped coffee laid on top like a decadent Mount Everest next to a still-warm plate of cookies. 

“Cheers!” Kyrie clinked glasses with him, stirring her mug vigorously with a spoon. He copied her, taking a sip of surprisingly light and sweet coffee. 

When he lowered his cup, Nero both revealed to the world a mustache of whipped coffee. 

Kyrie snorted into her cup, covering her mouth as she bit back a laugh. Embarrassed, Nero went to wipe it off when Kyrie pecked him on the lips. She drew back to reveal an imprint of the ‘stache on her own upper lip. 

“We match now.” Kyrie giggled, helping herself to another gooey cookie. 

Half a plate of cookies and two mugs properly drained of its contents, Kyrie and Nero loaded up the dishwasher to do the work. 

“This is coffee, why am I tired?” Kyrie yawned. 

The couch was this god-awful IKEA purchase that took hours for Nero to just figure out what the instructions meant. But right now, it perfectly supported both of them while they slept away their food coma. 

(II)- Curl Up And Dye. 

After the second time the mandate got lengthened, Nero could sense that Kyrie was starting to wane in her ever-positive attitude. The news had nothing good to say, and the number of shows they had binged left them indifferent to watching anything more. 

They did a lot of singing during quarantine, Kyrie always being the musical one. Evanescence was one of their favorites to sing together, Nero’s guitar skills and Kyrie’s ability to hit those high notes left many memorable nights of laughter. 

After a while, Kyrie began to just sit on the couch a lot and have Nero pay her company. 

“What’s wrong?” Kyrie sighed heavily, curling into Nero’s hoodie as he opted to stay shirtless. 

“I don’t know Nero, it just feels like everything is the same. We go through the same things every day and I just feel...trapped.” 

Nero kissed the nape of her neck, humming in agreement. 

“Look, I’m usually the one going to you for stuff like this but...it will get better. It’s been a really hard time for all of us, and we’re just watching everything go downhill. It’s not a good situation but, you got me. Always. And there’s still a lot of things we can change up if that helps.” He stroked her hair and rubbed her back, feeling her take a deep breath. 

“You’re right Nero. That really did help. Thank you for listening.” 

“Of course.” 

While he scrolled on his own phone, he didn’t heed all the things Kyrie was watching. She touched her own long hair, seeing the way other people recorded their own home-salon trims. 

“Things to change, huh?” She mumbled. 

So here they were now. 

“It looks so bad!” Kyrie exclaimed, her face in her hands, hair on the bathroom sink. Nero shook his head. 

“No it’s not, Kyrie! You look fine, just let me fix it!” In the mirror, Nero cringed at the way her hair was ridiculously over-layered. 

“Um, what did you try to do-” 

“Curtain bangs! Oh Nero, I shouldn’t have tried to change up my hair!” Kyrie was thoroughly upset, seeing how her bout of bravery lead to her bangs being mauled by her own hands. 

Nero hugged her, noting that she had been wearing his shirt while she trimmed her hair. 

Okay that shirt’s gonna itch for a while until all the hair comes out. 

“It’s okay, let me see if I can fix it.” Kyrie blushed in the mirror, groaning at how bad her hair was cut. 

“There’s no way you could make it worse than what I did.” 

Nero gingerly took the scissors Kyrie put in the sink, a little bit too small for his hands but good enough. Although he was no stylist, he could tell where Kyrie had either cut too much off or unevenly. 

Eventually, they did manage to cut it in a way that hid the previous mistakes. Kyrie took another deep breath. 

“I shouldn’t have been so impulsive.” She murmured, arms crossed. 

Nero chuckled at her rare emotional outburst. He was glad to have been able to be there for her. She always hid how she felt, helping others her way of expressing herself. Now with no one around but him, he totally understood that she felt helpless. 

No one liked being helpless. 

He kissed her cheek and a lightbulb went off in his head. 

“You wanna dye my hair?” Kyrie turned around in surprise. 

“What?” 

“I mean, who knows how long this shutdown is gonna be, it’ll be fun,” Kyrie noted how Nero had forgone shaving, his peach fuzz becoming something more. 

Honest blue eyes peered at her, wondering what she would think. Her surprise softened to a sort of relief in their solidarity. 

“What color, Nero?” 

“Neon green-” 

“Nico’s going to make fun of you.” Kyrie giggled. Nero shrugged nonchalantly. 

“I don’t mind it.” 

(III)- Can’t Get Out Of It, Get Into It. 

“Nero, you look so fucking ridiculous.” 

“Shut up, Dante.” 

His uncle finally managed to figure out how to work the virtual chat on his fossil of a computer, and Nero was already prepared to end the call. 

His father sat slightly off-camera, not in the mood to entertain Dante’s antics to ridicule his son. Although, he did look oddly radioactive with his washed-out green hair and strong quarter-past five o’clock shadow.  

“Quarantine did not do you a favor, good lord,” Dante commented, kicking his feet up on his desk. Nero flipped him off. 

“Good to know you’re still living in shambles, not surprised neither of you cleaned up after yourselves.” The number of bottles on the floor was a travesty and the couch littered with poetry books Vergil had slowly begun to hoard. 

Nico entered the zoom call, smoking another cigarette Nero was lucky to not have to smell. 

“Nice broccoli head.” 

Nero flipped her off as well. Kyrie came into view, smiling at her boyfriend’s family and their shared friends. Nero decided to get a drink, clicking a few buttons before letting Kyrie have the seat. 

As they discussed how the business would continue with Devil May Cry, Kyrie sat next to Nero. 

It was mainly business, until it got to a certain line that Dante said. 

“I don’t know, it just feels like things are just going to keep staying like this. Hate to break it to you Nero, but it’s going to be tough for a while.” 

Kyrie finally heard enough, scooching Nero aside so she could talk. 

“Kyrie, wait-” 

“We’re going to get past this. As long as humanity still keeps coming together for the sake of benefiting each other, and we keep working to make sure to keep safe, we will get past this. We just have to keep hoping, and sure, hoping isn’t always going to make you feel better. I would know. But in a time where we do feel helpless, we should connect with other people in a different way. That’s why we succeed, we keep moving, we keep adapting! And hope, hope keeps that going.” 

Kyrie took a long breath. Looking at the dumbfounded group, she waited for a response. 

“Um, Kyrie. You were muted.” Nero finally said. Kyrie realized her blunder and how Nero’s hand was attempting to unmute them. 

“Oh.” Kyrie flushed, looking embarrassed. 

“I have no idea what you just said, but that’s okay.” 

“I’m sorry, that was so awkward.” 

“Don’t worry yourself, Kyrie. I bet it was real sweet whatever you had to say,” Nico assured. 

The zoom call was full of laughter since, a business call turned to a time to discuss how each person was doing. 

Dante and Vergil had spent days and nights sparring, Vergil learning more about humanity from Dante, and “making their own pizzas.” 

Nico had continued welding and making weapons for her own curiosity rather than based off of commission-based instructions. The van finally had the vinyl player fixed and she apparently gave herself a stick-and-poke. 

“So what did you two love birds do?” Nico asked, lighting another cancer stick. 

Nero and Kyrie looked at each other, smiling at their shared memories of this strange period in human history. 

“Where do we even start?”  Kyrie said, thinking of all the days and nights that seemed to breeze by and also slowly progress. 

Nero ruffled his longer messy green hair, Kyrie tucking her curtain bangs behind her ear. As they were two peas in the pod, Nero had decided to get another set of gray sweats for Kyrie, matching finally. 

Kyrie bit into a cookie, offering Nero some. 

“Smells like quarantine spirit, huh?” Dante finger-gunned.

Nero chuckled. 

“Hell yeah.” 

[luvknow]

parasitic | bang chan

genre: bang chan x fem!reader | college au ; roommates au ; enemies-to-lovers ; alcohol mention summary: your roommate is going abroad for the semester and now you’re forced to share your apartment with bang chan, who you basically lived with for the past semester except he didn’t pay rent, he ate all of your food, and crashed on your couch after a long night out. you were going to do everything in your power to avoid him until your roommate comes back. that doesn’t work out so well. wc: 11.8k a/n: omg a month late, but merry christmas to @channiechanchan!! did you know it was me?? LMAO I’M SO SORRY LKJDSLKFJ IT’S ALSO NOT EVEN XMAS RELATED BUT....... I HOPE IT WAS WORTH THE WAIT, ILY SLKJDSL

The sun rays peeked through the gaps of the curtains letting you know that a beautiful Sunday was upon you. You would spend the morning making breakfast for you and your roommate, clean your room of all the bad vibes, knock out some homework, and light an overpriced candle to conclude a stress-free day.

A long morning stretch in bed was the start to your day, and you had the widest smile on your lips upon exiting your room as if there was nothing that could ruin your energy. That dropped quickly once you were greeted with a loud, snoring, almost-naked man face down and passed out on your couch.

“Sorry about him,” roomie Yeri said out of habit while practically crawling out of her room. “Again.”

She looked like a hot mess, with her hair frazzled in all directions and last night’s make-up still smeared around her eyes. Her timing was impeccable - it was like she could sense your annoyance through her walls. 

“Why?” you whined childishly. This had to be the tenth weekend by now!

“You know why! Lucas had his birthday party last night, remember? Which you were invited to but totally flaked last minute.”

“I have an exam this week.”

“We have an exam this week and it’s not until Thursday!”

“So? I like to be prepared!”

“Can you two shut up?” the bane of your existence interrupted. The newly brunette (who had dyed his hair in your living room, thanks to Yeri) ran a hand through his wild hair, hoping it’d alleviate some of the pain from his hangover. “I have a pounding headache.”

“And whose fault is that?” you scolded bitterly before yanking your blanket off of him. The poor man below you shriveled up and buried his musty legs under your beautiful couch pillows for some sense of warmth. “Not like you pay rent here for you to have the right to complain, or anything.”

“Lighten up, buttercup. You’re so uptight.”

“Gotta do my job around here and exterminate the parasites.”

“Suck my dick.”

“Too many STDs.”

Yeri chucked a pillow each at the both of you so you’d shut up and avoid waking up any grumpy neighbors. “Please, for the love of God, can you guys chill out for once so we can have a relaxing Sunday together?”

“Together?” you and Chan groaned simultaneously.

Yeri was not having it and shot a glare like an angry mother, to which you and Chan mumbled some sort of noise of confirmation and went about your separate ways. You inhabited the kitchen and Chan dragged himself to wash away the sticky shame and Hennessey in the shower. Yeri hopped over to help you make pancakes as if her two best friends weren’t just itching to pull each other’s hair out. She liked to think of herself as the glue of the group, like the quirky friend in the middle who was delusion to the tension in between. Neither of you had the heart to ruin her sitcom fantasy.

“Morning ~” she sang cutely.

“I hate him.”

“He’s not that bad!”

“You’ve been saying that the entire fall semester, but almost every weekend of mine has been ruined by his presence!”

Yeri winced and took a step back as she watched you vigorously mix the pancake batter faster than an electronic stand mixer. Another step back was taken while you violently dumped in the blueberries. Cooking and baking was one of your favorite hobbies and she knew you could be quite passionate about it, but she never saw you angry-cook before. It was a scary site to see, as if you being angry wasn’t scary enough.

“He’s only the way he is because you never gave him a chance.”

“What does that even mean?”

“He’s the type of person who likes to be liked, you know?”

“So? Don’t we all?”

“Of course, but it’s different with people like him. When those types of people meet someone who doesn’t like them, they can get a little… How do I say this? Defense mechanism-y?”

“Wouldn’t you think that would motivate him to, I don’t know, be nice to me and not inhabit my space and eat my food every weekend? Perhaps he’d kiss my ass a little?”

“Like I said, defense mechanism-y…”

“More like melodramatic.”

No matter how Yeri tried to explain to you how Chan was ‘different’, you weren’t buying it nor did you care to argue any longer. Why should you have to like him just because he was your best friend’s other best friend? This wasn’t some algebra problem that could be easily solved by the transitive property - this was a matter of respecting each others’ personal spaces and each other in general, and Chan had been the one to cross both of those lines first, that dick. While Yeri lectured like your math professor, you mindlessly hummed here and there pretending to understand, just as you would in actual math class.

The bathroom door opening prompted you and Yeri to shut up immediately. Then, a moist Chan walked out of the steam with nothing but a familiar lavender towel wrapped around his disgustingly chiseled waist.

“Is that my towel!?” you shrieked in fear.

“Yeah. Hope that’s ok with you!” The fake honey sweetness in his tone made your skin crawl like there were bees under the dermis. “By the way, you’re out of shampoo. I love this scent! What is it, tea tree and mint?”

Yeri had to hold you back from hitting him with a hot spatula and Chan managed to escape back into the bathroom with a change of clothes that he kept here ‘for emergencies’, of course. They hung on the open clothes rack in the living room that was meant to show off yours and Yeri’s tasteful jackets, but the aesthetic was ruined early fall and even your jackets began to smell of Chan’s sophisticated cologne.

“I’m gonna kill him in his sleep,” you seethed.

Yeri patted your head like you were an angry kitten. “Killing the captain of the basketball team isn’t exactly kosher, love.”

“I’ll show you kosher.”

“Can’t keep on threatening me, babe,” Chan tisked while throwing on a t-shirt upon entering the A and B conversation.

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

“I’m just trying to make our friendship better. You know, since we’ll be roommates soon.”

Excuse me, what? “What are you talking about…”

“Oh, you don’t know?” a sly Chan smirked.

When you turned to interrogate Yeri, she quickly stopped the sign language that clearly meant ‘shut your GODDAMN MOUTH, Christopher’ and gave you that sweet, innocent smile that let her get away with practically anything because who could say no to her rosy cheeks and rainbow-shaped eyes?

“Yeri, what is he talking about…?” you asked hesitantly.

“Yeah, about that… I got accepted into the study abroad program!”

“That’s amazing and I am very proud of you and I love you, but what does this cockroach mean when he says we’ll be roommates soon!?”

“Hey!” he pouted.

“Oh, shut it!”

“Ah, well, I figured to lessen the burden of paying double the rent, I thought it’d, you know, take it upon myself to save you the stress of finding a subletter and Chan was the only one available…”

“Really? Of the entire cheerleading team, the pottery club, the damn pilates and cycling club, hell even the other players on the basketball team, Chan was the only one free to sublet? The only one?”

“Um... yes?”

“You know, I don’t really consent to this -”

“Please, _____, it will only be for the semester, I promise! I leave next week and I can’t take much with me, and Chan is the only person I trust to stay in my room and not ruin anything and steal my underwear!”

“How can you say that when he’s probably going to bring girls home and do them on your bed!?”

“I would never do that!” Chan interjected.

“Yeah, ok.”

“No, really! Why would I ruin her bed when I can just ruin yours while you’re gone?”

“Don’t you fucking dare, Christopher -!”

“See!” Yeri brought the two of you into a esophagus-crushing headlock so you two would shut up. “You two are already getting along so well!!”

Chan managed to slip away and steal you from Yeri, giving you a rough knuckle sandwich. “We’ll get along swimmingly, Yer-bear, I promise. Isn’t that right, _____?”

Yeri couldn’t help but look at you both with sparkly eyes, thinking that yes, maybe there’s a chance that a beautiful friendship could blossom from this! Jabbing an elbow to his ribs with a fake smile of your own, you wordless agree with a nod.

As long as Chan stayed in his room and you stayed in yours, maybe there wouldn’t be much to worry about, right?

--

The first week with Chan was exactly how you expected it - seeing his bare ass because he never closed the bathroom door, stealing your snacks, taking up the living room space, and blasting his loud soundcloud music that you could hear through your paper-thin walls. Still, even through all the frustration and the annoyance, you thought it would be best if you two just lived your lives separately and didn’t bother making nice with each other. Rather than fighting and yelling, ignoring each other for the sake of everyone’s sanity was for the best.

What pushed you to the edge was when he took the last pack of fruit snacks you were really looking forward to after a long week of classes.

“Oh, come on!” you groaned into the cupboard. “Chan!”

“Yes, darling?” he called from his - Yeri’s - bedroom, to which you stomped over to confront him. Seeing a grown man on Yeri’s white desk on a pink gaming chair playing some PC game was truly a sight to see.

“Did you eat the last of my fruit snacks!?”

The sly boy swiveled the desk chair to face you. “Ooh, was that the last one? I swear there was one left…”

“Come on, dude!”

“I’m sorry, ok, it’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal! That’s not cool!”

“No, what’s not cool is that you’ve been avoiding me all week.”

You were taken aback by his bold, although correct, assumption. You really didn’t expect him to call you out on this so early. “I… have not…!”

“You’re such a liar!” He pointed accusingly. Although you seemed heated in the argument, Chan was grinning because of course he was right, that dick.

“You don’t think I have anything better to do, like do my homework or-or hang out with friends outside of this apartment?”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean every time you come home and see me in the living room, you go straight to your room.”

“That’s normal!”

“Ah yes, but then you wait until I go into my room -”

“Yeri’s room.”

“- to cook dinner or grab a snack.”

“That’s just a coincidence -”

“How about the opposite, when I come home and you’re chilling in the living room and then you go to your room and shut the door? No ‘hi, how was your day’, or anything.”

“Well -”

“Or how about the mornings, when you’re sitting at the kitchen table relaxing and drinking something warm and sweet-smelling with a tired smile on your face because this is the only time in your day where you get to truly relax, but the second I leave my room to go to the bathroom or grab some water, you chug whatever’s barely boiling in your cup, dump it in the sink, and head out.”

“... I’m that obvious, huh?”

“Wow, look at that smug look on your face,” he pointed again. You didn’t even feel that proud smile on your lips. But Chan didn’t think it was amusing. His lips formed a frown, like he was insulted or even hurt at how cold you could be towards him. “What have I done to make you hate me this much?”

Your eyes bulged incredulously. “Let’s go down memory lane, shall we? Almost every weekend of the fall semester you; crashed on our couch, ate all of our ramen and eggs and sriraicha the morning after to recover from your massive hangover, used our laundry detergent, and used our bath products just to name a few! All without a simple thank you or even asking beforehand!”

Chan couldn’t deny that yes, maybe he’d been a little, um, unceremonious with his intrusion on your life, but come on, everyone deserves a second chance! The very prideful man in front of you rolled Yeri’s pink chair to the threshold only to clasp your hands together in his and now you were sweating.

“Ok, I’ll admit that I was a terrible guest this past semester.” Does an apology count if the guilty party rolls his eyes? “So, out of the goodness of my heart, I am very, very sorry.”

“My ass.”

“What!? Does this not look sincere to you?” he asked, pointing to his fake pouty face.

“Ok, I’m leaving.”

“No no no, c’mon!” Chan whined as he chased you into the living room. He grabbed your trailing hand to stop you. “Look, I’m truly sorry that I sometimes use your things -”

“Always use my things.”

“Most of the time use your things. I am sorry, really. Please believe me, ok? Aren’t you tired of avoiding me all the time?”

A tired sigh escaped you because you were absolutely exhausted from it. “I accept your semi-sincere apology. But why, for the love of God, why don’t you ever use Yeri’s things!? Why mine? She’s the one that’s your friend!”

“Honestly? I wanted to get your attention.”

“Oh, my God, what are you, five?”

“Hey, you’re the one who ignored me like a rude hostess from the get-go! You never gave me a chance!”

“My first impression of you was all I needed to not give you one.”

“I couldn’t have been that bad.”

“You puked in my backpack with some of my textbooks in it and poor Yeri had to clean up your mess!”

“Oh yeah, I remember that… That was on Sunwoo’s birthday.” You tried walking away again, but Chan’s grip was too strong. “Ok, fine, I’ll admit my first impression was horrendous, but you never let me redeem myself after that, so I kept annoying you so you’d confront me about it! That’s not fair that you judged me so quickly!”

“Yeah, and look how annoying me turned out! It went from my first impression to my thousandth impression.”

“I mean, it eventually worked, right?”

Another tired sigh. “Chan, is there a purpose to this?”

“Yes. I want to start over.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Start over? Like, erase all the shit that happened between us?”

“Exactly. A clean slate. Clean plates, I’ll even do your dishes tonight.”

You did hate doing the dishes… And you were so tired of stressing out over avoiding him, even if it had only been a week. After a long, painful pause, you held out your hand for him to shake. “Fine, a clean slate it is.”

A prideful and grinning roommate gladly shook your hand. “I pledge to not be an asshole anymore.”

“And I promise not to have a stick up my ass.”

“Wow, look how far we’ve come, huh? Cheers to a new friendship?”

“After you do my dishes.”

“... Fair enough.”

To commemorate this new and fresh friendship, you joined Chan in the kitchen. You didn’t do anything as he hand-washed your handmade dishes made in pottery class, but in return for eating your last fruit snack pack, he offered you some cookies he’d been hiding to which you gladly obliged. It was a peaceful silence in the kitchen other than the clinking of dishes and running water that offered some white noise while you read one of your books (after Chan called you a nerd). This had to be the most stress-free thirty minutes of your life.

“So,” your new ‘friend’, if you’d generously call him, began after finishing the dishes. He took a seat next to you and grabbed a cookie of his own. “Now that we’re cool and all, I would like to formally invite you to our basketball game tomorrow.”

"First of all, we're not totally cool just yet. Think of this as like a trial. Gotta pay your premium subscription fees before getting the premium benefits.”

“Yeah, yeah, so do you wanna go or not?"

"Hm, a basketball game? Like you're playing in it?"

"As the captain, I sure hope so."

You thought about it for a second - what terrible things could possibly come about if you went to one of Chan's basketball games? Well, it's set in a crowded and sweaty arena, whose crowd and players are also sweaty, it was loud, the food and drinks were expensive, and you literally could not care less about basketball. But, out of the goodness of your heart, which was now willing to give people a second chance for some reason, maybe you could tolerate sitting through a quarter or two.

"Sure, I'll go."

"Really? I wasn't expecting that."

"Then why'd you bother asking?"

"I'm tryna be homies, and that's what homies do! Invite homies to their basketball games."

"Please don't call me homie."

"Ok, home skillet."

"I'm gonna be honest, I don't know anything about basketball."

"Like, at all?"

"I know the cool far shots are worth like three points, right?"

"Oh, darling, you have a lot to learn. Here, lemme do a spark notes run down."

Professor Chan, PhD in sports and partying, took however many hours to explain. You lost track after two. At the end of the night, all of the cookies and milk were gone and you both went to bed at two in the morning.

--

"You, at a basketball game!?" Yeri snorted from the other side of the world. "And you and Chan being civilized!? Lord, how long have I been gone?"

"I have many regrets…"

"Don't say that! I think it's cute that you guys are finally getting along. Who would've thought that locking you two in the same apartment for one week was all that it took?"

"It might have been sooner if he'd just apologized right away instead of stealing all of my stuff to get my attention."

"Yup, sounds like Christopher."

"So you're coming back soon, right…?"

"If soon means a couple of months, yes."

"Yeri ~!" you whined, hopelessly missing your Sunday night partner watching crime documentaries.

"Chill, you big baby, just hang out with Chan if you're so lonely."

"Ugh, gross." Ironically enough, you stepped on a freshly-spat wad of gum upon entering the half-filled gymnasium.

"But not too often cuz, you know, you might fall in love ~"

You hoped no one saw the way your face twisted in disgust. "Are you delusional!?"

"Or even worse, you two might get drunk and make out and then fu -"

"OH-KAY, bye, Yer-bear love you!" You hung up immediately, traumatized at the thought she planted in your head. You hated how your face heated up so brightly. Don’t sweat it, _____! There’s no way that something like that could blossom from something that was nothing!

"Hey, you actually made it -" Chan had burst into your bubble without a warning, causing you to jump and drop your phone. After wiping off another fresh glob of gum from your phone screen this time, you bucked up the courage to stand face-to-face with a confused Chan wearing his basketball uniform. "Jeez, you good? You're all blushy. Ah, you saw Jaehyun's nudes, didn't you?"

"No, idiot! You just startled me, although I should be used to you invading my space by now."

“Ha ha. Stop being weird and take a seat. We’re still warming up, but hopefully we’ll start soon.”

“Uh, is there like, designated seating, or?”

Chan’s dimply smile accompanied a rough hair ruffle. “How cute, you’ve never been to a game before, huh?”

“I would rather die than willingly pay to go here on my leisure.”

A strong, sweaty arm wrapped around your shoulders. “Sit right over there,” he said, pointing to a single spot in the middle of the one hundred level that allowed for the best view of the entire court. “You’ll see me in action the whole time.”

“Next to the dude eating a chili dog and the chick with a cut-out of Woojin’s face?”

“The superfan section truly is not of this world.”

“If I came all the way here just to watch you lose, I’m gonna be pissed.”

“Don’t worry, baby, we never lose!”

The coach called Chan back to warm up some more which left you no choice but to enter the germ-infested purgatory and sit in between the superfans. Glancing at the other team, it was clear that they had the intimidation factor of being the taller and bigger players, so you weren’t sure how this was going to turn out. But your team, although smaller, had an enormous amount of unwavering energy. Perhaps it was because they were playing at home and had the entire half of this court filled to the brim cheering their names.

Chan was busy next to the couch, watching the form of his teammates as they were shooting three pointers. There was no doubt to anyone, even if no one had ever seen him before, that he was the captain. Who knew the barf-filled, void for a stomach, almost always naked asshole had the mindset of a lion? Every now and again, he’d pull one of his teammates to the side, probably a newbie to the varsity team, and help him with his form or give pointers or remind him of what play they were going to execute once the buzzer rang.

At some point, you realized you were watching him for far too long because he caught you right where he placed you. By the smirk on his lips, you’ll never hear the end of it if you see each other back at the apartment, and you would have looked away almost immediately if he hadn’t grabbed a ball not a second later. What was he doing?

Chan dribbled the ball to the free throw line (at least you think that’s what it’s called). He looked at you again, but this time he was pointing, like he was challenging you. Every pair of eyes in the gymnasium managed to pinpoint his target to you and if he thought you were blushy before, he should really see you up close now. After the very dramatic scene, Chan focused on dribbling the ball a few times which brought everyone’s attention back to him, thankfully. He dribbled a bit more, stopped to set up his shot, followed through and swoosh, there it went, right into the basket like a mathematician's perfect parabola.

“That was for you,” he mouthed silently with a sense of tease dripping from every word.

Normally, you might have flicked him off, but who were you to ruin the vibe just before the game started? Out of the goodness of your heart, you lightly clapped at his performance like this was the opera.

And so the game began! Mingyu, since he was the tallest member, did that thing where they toss the ball up in the air and they try to get it on their side, and since he was like 6’5”, it was easy for Chan’s team to start with the ball. There was a lot of back and forth head movements and eye scanning and you felt like your brain was being shaken up. To be honest, before you stepped into the stadium, you thought that none of this was going to excite you in the least. The idea of sweaty boys running around with a ball was completely barbaric, didn’t you think? But when someone, especially Chan, shot the ball or blocked it or did some weird dancey footwork, you gasped and cheered with the rest of the gym, the spirit of the game blooming in your soul much to your resistance.

The game ended almost too quickly and thankfully your team won. All of the superfans and the cheerleaders ran towards the team, congratulating them with cheers and hugs and mounting their beloved captain on their shoulders. Chan had his bright and dimply smile you’ve been seeing too often this week. You considered waiting until the crowd died down so you could congratulate him right then, but being the captain meant he was the center of everyone’s attention, not just yours. You shrugged off the impatience and headed for home. You could always congratulate him tomorrow, so long as he hasn’t puked anywhere.

Just before exiting the gym, you heard your name being called.

“_____, wait!” Chan yelled, sprinting to you as soon as his people made a walkway.

“I guess a congratulations is in order,” you said. “Congrats on winning. You looked super cool out there.”

“Hold on, can you say that one more time?” he teased, whipping out his phone to record you.

“Congrats, asshole!” you greeted the camera with double birdies.

“Thank you, m’lady. Where are you going now -”

“Channie!” a cute voice cried. Channie?

“Miyeonie!” he parroted back at the pretty cheerleader.

“Are you coming with us to Mingyu’s or what?”

You almost forgot it was the weekend already. It was time for drunk Chan shenanigans to ensue and that meant locking yourself up in your room and hiding the newly-bought fruit snacks.

“Oh, uh…”

Chan looked back at you like he was about to ditch his little sibling who had asked to play with him. Before any embarrassing pity invites were thrown out, you quickly bid your farewell.

“I’ll see you later, Channie ~” you waved off playfully.

“_____, hold on,” he said in urgency. Oh no, please don’t do what you think he’s doing… “Uh, I think I’m going to skip out on tonight, Miyeon.”

Both of you looked at him like he had three heads and two tails. Miyeon’s the only one brave enough to speak up on it. “Party Boy Channie is ditching us tonight? Why?”

“I’m super tired.” You’re full of shit, Chan! Why are you ruining my quiet night in!? “I’ll catch you guys next week, though.”

“Fine. Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Ok ~” She then quickly kissed him on his lips and he welcomed it fully like they’ve been doing that for some time now. Could it be that Party Boy Channie has finally settled down, despite all of his sloppy stories he used to slur about every weekend? How was it that he, of all scumbags, was able to have a significant other and you couldn’t even get a tinder date! “I’ll see you later.”

“Don’t get too wild tonight.”

“No promises!”

Chan sighed helplessly and turned to face a disgusted? Shocked? No, a very uncomfortable you who had watched a corny teen drama movie unfold right in your face.

“Sorry about that,” he said sincerely for once.

“Oh please, I absolutely love watching true love express itself right in front of me, Channie.”

He rolled his eyes. “First of all, it’s not love.”

“Really? You’re telling me kissing pretty cheerleaders isn’t your love language?”

“Not when they cling to me like mothballs.”

“You’re so cruel, Channie.”

“Stop calling me that,” he warned. “Secondly, what are we doing tonight?”

“We? I don’t know who this we is, but I’m going home.”

“Aw, c’mon, really? I just ditched a Kim Mingyu party and perhaps some ass for some quality roommate bonding time!”

“I did not ask you to do that.”

“Don’t you wanna go out to eat or something? I’ll even pay for you.”

“No, because there’s food at home.”

“There isn’t food at home, you liar!”

“Well ok, not yet, I still have to go to the market first and then I’ll cook.”

“Oh?” You can cook? He certainly didn’t know that. “You’re cooking us dinner?”

“I’m cooking me dinner.” Chan folded his hands and gave you a poor excuse for puppy eyes. But he did just win the game, and you bet doing all that sporty stuff made him starving. “But I guess I can make you a plate... I guess you and I can… eat together…”

“Don’t sound too excited.”

“I’m clearly holding back my excitement.”

Usually in movies or tv, they have the head chefs of famous local restaurants come to the markets between four and five in the morning. The amateur chefs like yourself prefer to pick off what was left for much cheaper at night time. It’s not that the stuff left over was any bad, it was just the important people managed to pick out all the perfect prawns and symmetrical vegetables and what have you. It was much less stressful in the evenings anyways, when everyone was already home cooking and you were left to wander as you pleased before the vendors packed up for the day.

“Do you come here all the time to grocery shop?” a freshly-washed Chan asked beside you. When he went grocery shopping, as long as the produce didn’t have any bruises and the meat was red, that’s all he needed. He never inspected the peaches for its plumpness or asked what time the fish was caught today, unlike you, though now and again he’ll slap a watermelon to test its juiciness.

“Goodness, no, am I made of money?”

“How expensive can this place be, they’re not even in a store.”

“Oh, Chan the naivete. Think of the most expensive piece of produce you’ve ever bought. It’s probably organic, right? Free of pesticides and the like?”

“I think it was an avocado.”

“Right, completely ridiculous that you’re paying $2.50 per avocado. The avocadoes here? Double that.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I really wish I was. Those are the morning price avocadoes though. Nighttime shoppers like us are lucky to snag them for $3.50.”

“Why bother paying so much when you can go to the local store across the street from your house?”

“Even though I can get much more for the price I’m paying here,” you paused and handed Chan the brightest and quite possibly the smallest strawberry he’d ever seen. “You can taste the difference.”

Snipping off the green stem and leaves, the clueless boy popped the berry in his mouth and you watch the flavor brighten his eyes.

“Quality over quantity,” you bragged.

The rest of your time there, you had to stop Chan from eating a single grape from every little basket at every single vendor.

“You are a child.”

“Baby me, baby.”

Coming back to the apartment with your’s and Chan’s arms full of groceries, anxiousness rushed in the second you stepped beyond the threshold. It occurred to you that you’ve never actually cooked for anyone before besides Yeri. This will be the second time you’ll see someone’s first reaction to your cooking, and it’ll be from your worst enemy.

“Need me to sous chef, head chef?” he asked while unpacking.

“Actually, that would help me a lot. Could you wash the vegetables?”

“Sure. While we’re at it, can I get your opinion on something?”

You raised your brow in confusion. “Do I have the knowledge for it?”

“You have ears, so yes.”

From that point moving forward, you decided not to question Chan because he was going to do whatever he wanted anyways. As you prepped the kitchen, you ignored the loud rustling in the living room with the occasional ‘ow, fuck’ following a stubbed toe. Out of curiosity and right before yelling at him to hurry up, Chan had finally pressed the play button and an unfamiliar song played through his massive speakers that he brought outside.

“Is this your new song?” you asked.

He did the ‘hand-sexily-but-also-shyly-running-through-my-hair’ thing before answering. “Yeah, and I’m not sure if I like it that much. The guys say it sounds good, but they’re my homies so they have to say that, y’know?”

“At least you know I won’t bullshit you.”

“Be gentle at least, please.”

“I will once you help me with dinner finally.”

“Right, right.”

Of course one song didn’t cover the entirety of the dinner preparation. After the one, which you honest to God liked a lot (“Stop lying.” “I’m not! You asked me to be honest, dick!”), Chan shyly but happily showed you more of his work. Some of it was already posted to his Soundcloud and some weren’t uploaded because he either hated them or he was stuck and left unfinished.

“Like, how is it possible that I can’t finish a project whose finished product is less than three minutes long!?” By now, Chan gave up trying to help after he cut his finger several times and sat at the table munching on his expensive basket of berries as he explained his creative block to you as if you were his therapist. “It makes me seem lazy, doesn’t it?”

“People hit creative walls all the time,” you reassured. “Don’t get yourself down about it.”

“Have you ever even hit a wall before?” he challenged.

“I do in the kitchen all the time, you ass.”

“How is that even possible? What walls can you even hit in the kitchen?”

“The difference between baking and cooking is that baking has less room for error, but tons of room for visual creativity, which is why I think baking is much harder. Cooking measurements for a meal, on the other hand, are meant to be adjusted with freedom which is nice, but how many times can someone change the presentation of a bowl of rice, meat, and vegetables?”

A bowl of said food was placed in front of a drooling Chan who had to sit through the tortuous cooking process smelling the aromatics and satiate his rumbling tummy with sour fruit. He hadn’t even taken a bite yet and his eyes were already sparkling with anticipation. It was reactions like his that made you the most embarrassed because what if he tasted it and hated it!?

“Whoa, this looks delicious!” he beamed.

“You didn’t think I could cook, did you.”

“No, I thought you were joking and when you weren’t I was like, ‘I HAVE to taste her cooking’. I'm a little disappointed that it doesn’t look inedible.”

“Ha ha, just eat your food, parasite.”

With anticipation, you watched Chan take a huge bite with all the fixins on the spoon. You could sense the awkwardness when he turned away.

“Stop staring at me,” he mumbled with cheeks full of rice.

“Not until you tell me what you think.”

“Well, of course it tastes good.”

“Really?”

“Yes, now stop looking at me, I’m not your zoo animal.”

A huge sigh of relief escaped you and a heavy weight off your chest was relieved. Something about cooking for new people always made you want to pass out, but if both your best friend and your best enemy admit to how good it is, maybe you’ll become more open to the idea of cooking for others more often. You DID like that huge sense of pride that rushed in.

Chan finished the bowl in two minutes. He held it up for you to take. “More, please.”

“Wow, ok.”

You were lucky enough to get a bowl yourself with Chan practically inhaling everything, and even then he still had room for dessert. It was atrocious how much a college man could eat.

“They say someone’s cooking says a lot about them,” Chan proposed while washing down his food with soda.

“They who?”

“I don’t know, the internet?” he shrugged.

“Oh, yeah? What does the internet say about a bowl of rice for dinner?”

“That you’re uptight and don’t like to have fun.”

“Hey!”

“And probably a virgin.”

Your cheeks burned an embarrassingly bright red at the proclamation. “Wh-What makes you say that!?”

“It’s a safe meal to make. You know, hard to mess up and a little simple so it’ll always taste good?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Where’s the excitement, _____? The improvisation!?”

“There’s not much room to improv in cooking, Christopher.”

“Don’t you want to live a little? Have some spontaneity?”

“Are we still talking about my cooking or…?”

“No, dumbass, I mean your life, too!” Chan hopped up from his chair and took your hand to twirl you around the kitchen like the scene in Beauty and the Beast. Oh God, you hoped you didn’t accidentally poison him or that he was having a weird allergic reaction to sesame, or something. “Have some fun for once!”

You somehow broke away from the hypnotic dance and stood as far away from that crazy man as possible. “Don’t act like you know me all of a sudden because you read some corny Buzzfeed article about a fucking bowl of rice and meat, Bang Chan!”

“What do you mean, I’ve come to know you for a whole semester.”

“A whole semester of being blacked out.”

“Hey, that means nothing!”

“Ok. Tell me one thing you know about me from a whole semester of being unconscious on my couch.”

“You have an in-depth skin care routine.”

“Anyone can guess that.”

“From the books you have lying around and a few paintings on the wall, you dabble in that horoscope bull shit.”

“So do a lot of girls, next.”

“You like heart and star-shaped marshmallows in your hot cocoa.”

You’ll admit that one had you silent for a moment. Only Yeri knew about that, but that was because those were the only marshmallows you bought specifically for hot cocoa. They add a little pizazz to your drink, especially with the edible glitter. “That doesn’t count, there’s no other marshmallow in the apartment.”

“True,” he began, pointing an accusing finger at you. “But you like a whole handful of marshmallows in your mug.”

“... S-So -”

“Ah ha, got one!” 

“So what, a ton of people like marshmallows!”

“Yeah, but not pink hearts and purple stars ones!”

“How do you even know that?”

“Hm. I think it was the night of Hongjoong’s birthday. Yeah, I passed out, woke up, whined to Yeri, and she made me hot cocoa and said, ‘Do you care if the marshmallows are shaped like hearts and stars?’ And I said, ‘I ONLY want hearts and stars’.”

A shy smile spread across your lips. It’s moments like these when you weren’t chewing his ear off that he finds you a little cute. Just a little.

“Is there a reason for those specific marshmallows?” he asked.

“They’re cute,” you pouted.

“Well, do I get a prize for knowing one thing about you?”

“Yeah, doing the dishes.”

“What!?”

“I cooked now you clean!” you said before running off to your room.

A tired, but willing Chan dragged his feet to the sink. He could just throw all of the dishes in the dishwasher, but somehow hand-washing while reminiscing about all the Fridays he’s crashed here with you barking like a chihuahua the next morning was much more fun.

His cheeks hurt from smiling too much by the end of that night.

--

A virgin… How the hell does cooking a bowl of rice for your roommate somehow make you a virgin!?

Ok, so maybe it wasn’t the most outstanding meal you’ve ever made or could have cooked for him, but that ungrateful man who couldn’t even fry an egg shouldn’t be so picky!

But why, of all the insults and swears he’s ever thrown at you, was virgin the one that hit you the most?

Who cares if you were or weren’t one! What difference did that make you as a person, right!? At first glance, of course no one would be able to tell whether you were or weren’t one, but what did that say about people who did know you, like Chan and Yeri? Was that the kind of vibe you gave off? Were you too goody-goody, too play-by-the-rules? Was Chan right when he said your life lacked that spark, that spontaneity he seemed to so-crave?

Now that you thought about it, you haven’t gone out on a date or even found someone remotely interesting in a very long time… Since your first year of college at the very least.

Maybe you should show him how spontaneous you could get.

“That’s another thing I noticed last semester,” Chan’s charming accent shook you from your thoughts. You looked to the boy intruding in your room who leaned against the door frame, once again in only his pajama pants and a wet towel slung over his neck to barely cover his torso. He was built like he was carved from the finest slab of marble - how was his skin so white and smooth? “You tend to space out a lot, especially when you’re working on something.”

“How can you tell?”

“You get that dumb look on your face.”

“You mean the same one you have on all the time?”

“Ha ha, very funny.”

“Thank you. What are you getting all dressed up for on a Tuesday night?”

“Miyeon said she was coming over like, ten minutes ago and I felt musty, so here I am, half naked in front of your door like this is the greatest dream you’ve ever had.”

“Is that the cheerleader from your game last weekend?” Chan hummed as a response, drying his hair with the towel around his neck and a toothbrush in his mouth. “Is she your girlfriend?”

You heard him choke on the toothpaste. “God, no, why do you think that?”

“I mean she kissed you… ?”

“Eh, it’s kind of an on-again-off-again thing, but nothing was ever official between us.” A sudden realization hit Chan and then that sly smirk that loved to tease you came back to haunt you. “Why? Are you jealous?”

“Jealous of some cheerleader who’s clearly in love with a man who has no interest in her while he lives with another woman?” you scoffed. “Green with envy.”

“At least I have someone in my life!” he called from the bathroom.

That, too, hit a little too close to your heart. He was right - at least he had someone who kept him company, who adored him, who he could go out on dates with… And what did you have? A lousy roommate who uses your body wash.

“What are you doing tonight?” he asked after coming back fully clothed. Your bed was much softer than Yeri’s, who had a rock hard firm mattress. Perhaps Chan should take his naps here instead.

“Nothing. What is there to do on a Tuesday night?”

“Lots of things! It’s Taco Tuesday at that food truck on campus, it’s Tteokbokki Tuesday at that Auntie’s restaurant by the bookstore, ooh and the record store down the street gives out free seltzer water for the hipsters.”

“Is that what you and Miyeon are doing tonight?”

“No, she just wanted to make-out I think.”

“How romantic…”

Chan laid on your bed and kept his thoughts to himself for a while. Somehow after only a few weeks of living together did you tolerate his presence enough to not nag him to get out of your room, let alone off your bed. While you studied the infinite pages of words in your textbook, Chan was able to steal a few glances. The way your brows furrowed in frustration, the messiness of your hair, the slight pout in your lips, it was all quite cute for someone as grouchy as yourself. Although he supposed he’d be an asshole, too, if he was studying seven days a week. You must be tired and frustrated.

Without you paying attention, he whipped out his phone and texted his date.

“Darn,” he sighed convincingly. “Miyeon just cancelled on me.”

“Good for her.”

“Well, now that I’m free, it looks like it’s just you and me tonight.”

“Sike, I have some homework to do.”

“Oh, yeah?” Chan hopped off the bed and peaked over your shoulder at your homework. He was so close that you could smell his woodsy cologne. You kind of liked it. Kind of. “Homework that’s due on Friday? God, _____, at least try to be cool, you nerd.”

“Hey!”

“Get dressed, those tacos and tteokbokki won’t be piping hot forever ~”

“I’m not going!” you tried to argue, but that annoying boy was already out of your room and putting his shoes on. Evil chuckling could be heard from the living room - what a weirdo. As your stomach violently growled, it was really hard to resist such a tempting offer of food, even if it meant going with Chan.

An impatient roommate danced his way to exit. “I’m walking out the door ~”

“Chill, will you?” you mumbled while throwing on your coat. “How are you going to invite me and then abandon me?”

“Then move faster.”

“You move faster…”

“Ah ~” Chan pinched your cheek lightly. “You’re kinda cute like this.”

“Shut up.”

“You know, with trying to kick up the spontaneity in your life and what-not.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

It’s a cold Tuesday night and you almost heavily regret wanting to be spontaneous and cute and uncaring, all because a soundcloud rapper called you a virgin. But the thought of a hot cup of spicy rice cakes was enough for you to travel through the polar vortex. It helped that you weren’t the only one suffering.

“All those nights I crashed on your couch, I’d always buy a cup of this gold before heading over,” Chan admitted. “It was a shame for the days I threw it up.”

“Ah, no wonder your puke is red! I thought you were always almost dying.”

“Sometimes I wished I was.”

Of course the auntie knew Chan by the amount of times he’s stumbled upon the place drunk off his ass (“Wow, you’re walking straight and talking in sentences today!” “Ha ha, auntie…”). The fiery cup of rice cake was the perfect hand-warmer.

“Do I not give off the virgin vibe yet?” you half-joked.

A charming burst of laughter came from your annoying roommate. How could he forget that he called you that! “You’re not hung up on that, are you?”

“I just… I mean, do you think that’s the reason why…” you struggled to speak your insecurities into existence because once you did, that meant they were real and totally holding you back.

“Why what?”

“Tell me something - am I really that uptight? Does it make me seem… I don’t know, unapproachable? Unlikable, even?”

“Please, you are totally uptight.” A loud, unladylike groan echoed throughout the crowded streets of campus. “Unapproachable, yes. Unlikable? I mean, not necessarily? Some guys think that’s hot.”

“So what you’re saying is I’ll be single forever or marry some pushover.”

“Hey, don’t put words into my mouth! Look, if you really want to change how your aura appears to people, you already have! You’re out on a Tuesday night eating rice cakes with the sexiest guy you know. That’s progress in my book, all thanks to me.”

“Somehow you’ve turned my insecurities into praising yourself.” It was impressive, honestly. “You’re something else, Christopher.”

“Thank you!”

“What’s next on our impromptu tour of the town?”

“Ya like vinyl?”

“Huh?”

Chan said nothing else as he cut you off and walked right into the record shop and low and behold, potential buyers were holding skinny cans of flavored seltzer.

“C’mon, princess, there’s not enough seltzer for everyone!” Chan urged.

The vastness and number of collections of the record shop rivaled the local book shop down the street. Although much noisier and haphazard, the concept was still the same and the neon signs and signed posters gave the shop quite the personality. Actually, it was almost as if it was Chan personified. 

In front of you was a basketball-loving ear-pierced punk-ass roommate who wore leather jackets in sub-freezing temperatures and didn’t know how to fold his laundry flipping through the Wu-Tang Clan basket. And there was you, the personified small local bookstore, watching him longingly and wishing you could be like him, who was cool enough to attract other cool people and be someone so approachable and likable. He was the complete opposite of you, and yet somehow you’re both here together, acting like you never had to kick his ass for using your toothbrush four too many times.

How was it possible to think that one day, someone could be in love with a plain and boring bookstore like yourself? Could someone like Chan love someone like you one day?

You hoped so.

Chan wondered where you were and found you looking at him with tired eyes. Of all the things to look at, you somehow could only look at him. With his dimply smile, he said, “Falling in love with me?”

Something made you want to say yes. “Did you find something you like?”

He silently gestured to you to come over with a lazy hand. As expected, he pulled out one of the Wu-Tang Clan records and played it on one of the modern record players that had one set of headphones at the station.

“Here, put these on,” he instructed while putting the over-ear headphones on. A smooth and unique rap style voiced over the equally-smooth instrumentals. It was unlike anything you’ve heard before. Perhaps Chan’s intellectual layers lied within his knowledge in music.

A slight pressure pressed against your right ear. You couldn’t see from your peripherals, but you could smell Chan’s rustic cologne again, and that itself already made you blush deeper shades of red than you could ever imagine. Since there was only one set of headphones, Chan obviously had no other choice but to listen to this track with you like this - invading your space bubble and making you weak in the knees.

“Do you like it?” you could barely hear.

“I do,” you replied. The song wouldn’t be over for another two minutes and Chan refused to move. “Is this what you like?”

“It’s inspirational to me.” The vibrations of his voice almost sent you into shock because wow, was he close to you or what.

He knew you were nervous. He could tell simply by how your shoulders squared the moment his ear pressed on the outside of the headphones. That’s yet another detail he’s come to notice while crashing on your couch and living with you. Whether you were nervous because he was shirtless after coming out of the shower or you were annoyed because he’d eaten all of the ice cream you were saving in the back corner of the freezer, you always straightened your posture upon seeing him because God forgive you ever show any emotion. Why were you like those stuck-up librarians at the hipster bookstores down the street who turned a blind eye to anyone who didn’t look like they read books?

Or maybe, just maybe, you were liking this. You liked being in close proximity to the sexiest guy you’ve ever laid eyes on. You liked the almost-but-not-really skinship you almost-but-not-really shared. You were nervous, not annoyed, weren’t you? Or were you annoyed that you’re nervous around your most hated enemy?

Either way, Chan wins, and that’s all that mattered to him.

You spent most of the spontaneous night in the record store listening to soul, trot, pop punk, underground hip-hop, and everything in between. Quite literally in-between, as Chan would not stop pressing his face to yours because he refused to find a second pair of headphones for him to borrow.

“Stop doing that!” you whined for the fifth time.

“I wanna listen, too ~”

“Then go steal another set of headphones!”

“But I like this. It’s way more fun. And your cheeks are so hot that the radiated heat is warming my face up.”

You’re silent at that point forward because your cheeks thought their purpose in life was to burn as hot as the sun and serve as a radiator to intrusive boys who wanted nothing more than to listen to good music with you.

Honestly, what’s there to complain about?

The record store didn’t close until midnight and you practically stayed until then. At that point, Chan with his black hole for a stomach was hungry again and led you to the taco truck he talked about earlier.

“Is it Taco Tuesday still if it’s past midnight?” you wondered.

“It’s still Tuesday until the sun comes up in my books.”

Tacos weren’t exactly an easy-to-eat street food, so you used the tin foiled rolls as hand warmers until you were back in the comfort of your kitchen where you could happily eat greasy tacos with your sworn enemy.

“What do midnight tacos say about me now?” you questioned the food and vibe expert across the table.

“They say you like cliches and you care a little too much about what people think of you.”

“How the hell did you come up with that?”

“Please, Taco Tuesday is so cliche! And you conformed to it because you want to seem more playful and less of a stick-up-your-ass, am I right?”

The pout on your lips was enough of an answer. “Now I feel like a virgin in sheep’s clothing.”

“Hey, we all have to start somewhere.”

“Do you think I’m more likable this way?”

Perhaps Chan was a little harsh with his words the one night you cooked for him. He thought he would be able to know you front and back after nearly a month of living together, but it seemed that he was farther away from that than he thought. After all this time, he thought you didn’t care one bit about how people perceived your feisty self. Maybe instead you cared too much and you had built a wall to prevent others like Chan from knowing.

“You were always likable,” he admitted honestly.

“Please stop lying,” you groaned.

“I mean it! Even when you were yelling at me or trying to kick me off the couch or stealing back the food I was trying to eat, I never hated you. It was so much fun messing with you because you were not afraid to cuss me out.”

“And that makes me likable how?”

Chan shrugged. “I have fun when I’m around you. Do you think I would have kept coming back to crash here if I hated you?”

“Yeah, to torture me.”

“Well, to clear things up, I don’t hate you. And I bet my bottom dollar that you don’t hate me, either.”

“Sike.”

“You’re telling me you still hate me after the fun we had tonight? Or the night you watched me play and cooked for me? Or even the one night after Lucas’s Halloween party when I passed out here even though your heater was broken and you wrapped me up in your fuzzy blanket?”

Another blush spread across your cheeks. “You remember that?”

“How could I forget the first night you showed me any compassion?”

“Fine, you’re right, I don’t hate you… You’re, in fact, quite tolerable.”

Who knew Chan’s eyes could light up so brightly at such a mediocre compliment, if you’d even call it one. “You like me ~”

“Stop.”

“You’re gonna fall in love with me ~”

“Chan -”

“I bet you already have ~”

“Ok, I’m going to bed.”

“No, you aren’t!”

You tried to run out of the kitchen and into your room to lock the door, but Chan got to you just as you reached the living room. He entrapped you with his big, strong arms and held you in a suffocating hug, drowning out his giggles with your screaming. Your resistance was strong, but you were smiling brighter than he’d ever seen before. Today was a long day for both of you and the moment Chan rested his chin on your shoulder was when you stopped struggling to break free. His tufts of chestnut hair and slow breathing tickled your cheeks.

“Oi, wake up,” you demanded, hitting his forearms.

That only made him hold you tighter. “No.”

You stopped fighting him and let the poor boy rest on your shoulder. “You don’t think this is weird?”

“No. We’re just two roommates fighting, right?” he teased, shaking you in his arms.

“Yeah, fighting.”

“Do you think it’s weird?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“Please.”

His giggle rang in your ear and made goosebumps travel throughout your skin. Then Chan did what spontaneous Chan does and surprised you by kissing your cheek with a loud, moist, audible smooch.

“A-Ah, Chan!!” you gasped.

“Goodnight, beautiful.”

Before you could scold him further, he had already let go and went to his room. How long was he holding you? Because now you’re left stunned in the living room feeling the cold from the draft of your windows. Your cheek felt like it had been branded by his soft rose petal lips. It burned so much that you ended your night lying in bed staring at the ceiling cupping the tainted cheek.

“I hate him,” you mumbled to no one. Your words hold zero weight the moment you screamed into your pillow.

--

The first couple of days after the incident were a little weird, to put it simply. You circled back to your old habits of avoiding him and keeping conversations short and that didn’t slip past Chan for even a couple of hours. At first, he thought he might have ruined whatever weird friendship you had together, but the way you avoided him was not how it used to be.

You were embarrassed - dare he say even shy. Your avoidance held no malice and didn’t feel icy as it did last semester. Rather, you fled because you felt vulnerable. Your words were no longer full of insults, but instead were soft and sprinkled with stutters. It was like a scene from a drama set in high school where the cute shy nerd has a massive crush on the super sexy jock and won’t admit her feelings because she doesn’t think she has a chance. And knowing you, you would never admit to having feelings, so how was Chan supposed to get a confession out of you?

Cornering you was the only option he thought could work, but sadly that didn’t.

“Chan, c’mon, I have to use the bathroom,” you whined on the other side of the door.

He didn’t say a word when the door opened and steam spilled out into the halls. Yet again was he dressed only in his pajama bottoms and a towel around his neck, hair still damp and hanging loosely over his eyes. He took a step forward and you’re given no choice but to back up.

“What are you -”

You cut yourself off when your back hit the wall and Chan had you in the palm of his hands. Proximity was close to nothing as your toes touched and you could smell your body wash from his freshly-washed chest. Seriously, he still used your body wash!?

“C-Can I use the bathroom or what…” you stuttered.

He stared right in your eyes, then admired your cute nose, and finally down to your lips. He was teasing you! Like, actually teasing! He’s making you think that he wanted to kiss you! All of the possibilities of him making a move on you were just as equal as him not going through with it and your mind was racing like crazy and it was really starting to stress you out! Why, why was it stressing you out!?

Then he took a huge step back to let you through.

“All yours,” he whispered.

Well, that sort of worked… You didn’t say a verbal confession, but your face sure showed it. But no, that wasn’t enough. He needed to hear you say it. He had to do more, and he knew exactly what to do to push your limits.

For the whole week, whenever you did something for him whether it was answering a simple question or giving him a plate of whatever you cooked for dinner, Chan would kiss your cheek. That’s right, those soft rose petal lips would every-so slightly graze your cheeks almost everyday and even when you tried to scold him or fight back, you didn’t, as if you were stunned frozen every single time. This of course scared Chan - no emotion meant uncertainty on his end. Well, did you like it, or not!?

At some point, after a whole week of cheek kisses, you kind of… got used to it. Got used to the damn kisses, his flirtatious winks, the invasion of your space bubble, eating all of your food, using all of your bath products, taking unsolicited naps on your bed while you studied, all of it! You’ve gotten used to being around the man that is Bang Chan and you would almost admit that you liked being around him… almost.

And neither of you spoke up about it.

So… what were you two…? That’s right, you’re asking yourself the infamous ‘so what are we’ question - it’s really reached that point. No longer were you enemies or just plain roommates living separate lives, and of course you two weren’t dating, either. So did you consider him a friend? Sure, I mean you wouldn’t cook dinner for just anyone, right? But everything Chan did was not what normal friends do. At least in your experience - who knows if he’s doing this type of stuff to his other ‘friends’, like Miyeon.

Speaking of which, you hadn’t heard about her in a while, and you were almost convinced whatever relationship they had was over when she called off their date that one Tuesday - until Friday night.

The night was still young when you arrived home to your roommate mixing and playing with some beats over those impossibly loud speakers. It’s been a long week dealing with school work on top of figuring out your conflicting feelings of the boy in the next room and a quiet night without any games from Chan would be ideal, but life never worked out for you in that way, did it?

“Welcome home, darling ~!” he greeted playfully over the blasting bass before turning it down. “Cookin’ anything for dinner?”

The tiredness in your sigh didn’t go unnoticed. “Nah, I don’t feel like cooking tonight. I might do delivery if you’re up for that?”

The charming man came out of the room all dressed up like he was planning on going out and not coming back for the night. “That’s ok, I actually have plans tonight.”

“Oh? Where are you going?”

“Miyeon’s taking me out to one of her friend’s birthday bash, or whatever rich girls like to do, before we all go out tonight.”

Miyeon, the gorgeous cheerleader. Somehow, you’ve completely forgotten her existence. Of course they were still talking, idiot! How could you even think that you could compete with someone like her?

“Are you her date?” you asked hesitantly, not wanting to know the answer.

“If that’s what she’s callin’ it, I guess so.” Chan adjusted his shirt collar and unbuttoned the top. “Do I look good?”

“Do you not consider her your date?”

“Not really. All I have to do is sit and look pretty.”

“You don’t think she’s asking you because she likes you?”

“Please, she probably only asked me because Mingyu said no.”

“Chan, you don’t know that for sure.”

You began to feel his frustration when he threw his hands in the air in disbelief. The truth hurts, doesn’t it? “Why are you so hung up about this? Why does it matter to you?”

“It doesn’t!” you said a little too defensively. “I just don’t think you’re being fair.”

“How?”

“What if she really likes you? What if she’s asking you out to this thing because she wants you to know that? If she does like you, can you even say that you like her back?”

“Tch, no.”

“Then why even bother going and leading her on!?”

“Who said I’m leading her on? I’m just keeping her company!”

“What, so you’re going to have your arm around her waist, look into each others’ eyes and kiss and it’s going to mean nothing!?” At this point, you were screaming before you knew it. “Because that’s what you two normally do, right? Kiss each other like it means nothing?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what it means, nothing! I -” Chan sighed heavily. “Ok, it does sound a little ridiculous when I say it out loud, but I promise it doesn’t mean anything! Wait a minute, why am I even explaining myself to you? Are you jealous, or something?”

No, you’re not jealous. You’re angry that Chan was that kind of guy who played with women like they were toys or little pawns on a cheap chess set. You’re angry that you were one of them.

“Have fun tonight,” you said flatly, retrieving to your room.

“_____, wait.” You didn’t wait and instead locked your bedroom door. “Fuck.”

Well, Chan’s End Game plan to get you to confess out of jealousy backfired badly. The party wasn’t even real! Dammit, now where was he supposed to go looking like this!?

A small lightbulb went off in his head. Off to the grocery store!

Maybe going to your room was a terrible idea because now you were left to reflect on how you poorly reacted. You had your strong points about how Chan didn’t know how Miyeon truly felt about him, but the flipside was that she could have felt the same - that she was just using Chan as some accessory and he was totally ok with that. Who were you to judge the weird mutualistic relationship that they had as head cheerleader and captain of the basketball team? The concept seemed corny and straight out of a teen movie, but perhaps those movies weren’t too far off base as you thought.

You’re also left to reflect on what he said before you stormed off into your room - were you jealous? At first, your anger could easily be mistaken for jealousy, but what was the truth? Of course you’re furious that Chan played these stupid fucking games with you! But you’d be less mad if you were the only one he cared to fool around with. 

You finally left the room around an hour after your sulking to bump into Chan’s rock-hard chest.

“Jesus Christ!” you screamed. “Chan, what the hell!” 

“Sorry, I was about to knock!”

“What are you doing right in front of my room, you werido!?”

The cheeky, dimply boy held up a paper bag. “Buzzfeed said people who like desserts are emotionally-driven and a little cold-hearted, but sweet as sugar once they get their fix.”

“Buzzfeed said that or YOU said that?”

“Both.”

You shook your head tiredly. “What are you doing here?”

“I… I lied. I don’t have some extravagant party to go to tonight. I haven’t texted Miyeon in weeks.”

“What? Then why did you…?”

“I had this dumb idea that you would confess your undying love for me if I somehow made you jealous. Clearly that didn’t work.”

“You’re right, you’re dumb ideas never work.”

“Hey, I didn’t say that! Fine, let me try Plan B. Let me know it it’s also dumb.”

“Gladly.”

“_____, I like you.”

Your breath hitched in your throat. “Y-You what?”

“I like you. A lot. Since you threw that blanket over me that one night last semester and I knew you didn’t truly hate my guts after all. And then I got to live with you - to witness your multi-faceted personality, to talk with you, and to get you to laugh at my dumb jokes and cheek kisses. Tell me, _____, am I dumb for falling for you like this?”

“Well… I’d say yes, but that would admit I’m stupid, too.”

“Oh?” He smirked playfully, taking a step forward. “And that’s because…?”

You mumbled something incoherent. Then, Chan dropped the bag of desserts and scooped you in his arms again, nuzzling his nose in all the ticklish places on your neck.

“Chan, stop!” you giggled.

“Hm? What was that?” he asked. “I can’t hear you ~”

“I like you!”

Finally, he stopped, lifting his head to look at you but keeping you safe in his arms. “Do you? I mean, really, do you?”

“I like you. Surprisingly a lot. And I hate it.”

“Music to my ears, baby,” he grinned. He buried his face once more to flower you with cheek kisses. “Say it again.”

“Don’t make me say it again.”

“Please ~” his kisses trickled down to your neck.

“It tickles!” you giggled some more. “If I say it, you gotta stop.”

“As much as that burdens me, fine.”

“I like you, Bang Chan.”

“See? Doesn’t that confession feel great? Like a huge weight lifted off your chest?” He pulled you in closer, to which you oblige and it only made his ego bigger and his heart beat faster. “I could get used to this.”

“Me too,” you sighed dreamily.

“Would you like dessert to commemorate this beautiful union, my love?”

“Sounds delightful.”

“Will you kiss me first?”

You pulled on his shirt collar to bring him down for a long, deep kiss that Chan thought he could only ever dream about. It left him dizzy and a little light headed and the way you break the kiss to let your sweet lips linger so closely was torturous and almost had him begging for more. Almost. Bang Chan did not beg.

“Whoa,” he sighed breathily.

“That’s what you get for the past couple of weeks.”

“Ah yeah, I suppose I deserve that…”

You left the stunned Chan to go ahead into the kitchen. “Let’s go, lover boy. I want some ice cream, please.”

“Anything for you, princess.”

--

EPILOGUE

“You two are what!?”

You and Chan looked at each other with fear written on both of your faces. Yeri was on the other end on speakerphone screaming curse words and ‘are you kidding me’s and ‘I fucking knew this would happen’s.

“Yeah, we’re uh, kind of dating now,” Chan repeated bravly.

“I cannot believe what I’m hearing! This is disgusting!! _____, what do you have to say for yourself, you hypocritical piece of poo!”

“I have nothing to say, I am just as ashamed as you are.”

Chan nudged you playfully. “Hey, we’re in this together, you know!”

“Ugh, I hate how I have to support this!” Yeri whined and cried and sobbed. “Just… Just don’t do it on my bed!”

“Don’t worry, apparently to Chan I’m a huge virgin because I know how to cook.”

“I was kidding!! And that’s gonna change now that I’m here -”

“Oh, gross! Stop! Please stop!” Yeri groaned. “I hate you both, I’m gonna kick your asses when I come back!”

“Love you too, Yer-bear,” you and Chan said in unison.

[mysterylover123]

Mysterylover watches Bleach episode 293-294 "Aizen, this is why Syndrome said No Monologuing."

1. Aizen vs Ichigo, right off the bat! That was fast. Anyway let's see how long Ichi can last. Take your bets. Five minutes? Half an episode?

2. Aizen is like "Bitch I'm so the GOAT you'll never ever ever be able to touch me" and Ichi is like 'oh shit' while everyone else joins in so Aizen can be distracted with more SideFights. Le sigh. Please overpower them all really fast, Aizen, I need this arc to MOVE.

3. Damn Aizen really is good. He can practically teleport. He's like maz power Frieza but now "final form" stuff. Oh shit maybe this isn't even his final form. Dammit how long IS this arc?!

4. Aizen brings up Momo again to piss of Hitsu, which I'm SURE is going to turn out well for hitsu.

5. WOW Aizen actually drew his sword and looks a litle worried. I guess I underestimated the SideGuards. Well, they have Hitsu on their team so technically there is a main character in the mix

6. Aizen however, who knows he's the Main Villain, is totally unimpressed now. And he decides to sexily beat them all while gin watches and fanboys over him

7. And really evil demonic music starts playing while Gin explains "they follow him cause he's really really OP ya'll. That's all". Um OK.

8. Basically Aizen aces all of them because he's too OP to ever ever lose. I guess this is gonna come down to Ichi going Super Saiyan or something like that. I mean technically he already did that this arc. Though if he combined powers with Orihime's healing...I'm just saying dude.

9. Poor Ichi watches and Aizen just slashes through all the SideVillains in seconds, because he,s' well, Aizen. Gotta get a move on Ichi he's gotten through the side fights, now he's gonna go after actual MCs

10. OMG Aizen vs Soi Fun. THIS GONE BE GOOD. You're not dealing with a SideFight now dude, you're dealing with a REAL badass. And Soi Fun immediately STABS AIZEN IN THE FREAKING CHEST. Cause she's a BAD-ASS-M-F.

11. Ichigo you just got shown up. I mean, it doesn't work, but hey, she landed a hit on him, which is more than our MC has done yet.

12. AND HOLY CRAP while she had him occupied freaking Kenny impaled him! HOW THE HELL IS HE ALIVE FROM THAT. Anyway the Mainish guard characters are actually getting Aizen looking a little worried, but since he's Aizen I assume he's fine.

13. And somehow, because he's Aizen, Aizen tricked Hitsu into killing Momo instead. WHAT. HOW. WHAT. He swapped with her? How'd he do that? Did he talk her into doing that? Or just puppeteer her?

14. Basically Aizen's been hypnotizing everyone All Along. Damn poor Momo. He really is a dick to her. What'd she ever do to him. Hitsu loses it and Aizen gets him. And Soi fun. And everyone, because Main Villain.

15. So after 294 spends most of its runtime on recap we finally get back to WHAT WE CAME FOR AT THE START OF 293, Ichigo vs Aizen. Geez took you two long enough.

16. DAMMIT OLD SHINIGAMI DUDE NOT YOU TWO. STOP INTERRUPTING DAMMIT.

17. Anyway so Aizen is facing off with Old Dude whose name I still don't remember. I'm gnona call him Shinigami Dumbledore.

18. Dammit Ichigo stop standing around while Aizen sets the city on fire! Or is it Shinigami Dumbledore, I can't tell.

19. Some weird ass skull faced thing attacks Shinigami dumbledore from nowhere. Wonderweiss Aizen calls him, which is a cool enough name that I'll probably remember it

20. Oh it's that weird ass shinigami that makes strange noises. OK so he was a chekhov's gun.

21. Long story short Shinigami dumbledore kicks Wonderweiss ass. Aizen monologues a bit about how Actually I Am Not Evil Casue They're Just Shinigami whatever. Whatever dude would you JUST FIGHT THE MAIN CHARACTER ALREADY.

22. Aizen delivers another monologue that can also be best summed up as ALL ACCORDING TO KEIKAKU and redirects a bunch of fire into a big explosion to destroy Karakura town. And possibly kill Shinigami Dumbledore. Or at least try to. Damn dude you had that big an explosion and you only managed to singe SD's face a little?

23. Aizen, coat billowing dramatically, goes into the pit to kill SD, but spends too much time MONOLOGUING about how he's gonna kill him, so SD has time to grab his foot and blow them both up.

24. And Ichigo finally DOES SOMETHING, goes Super Saiyan, and slashes at him, just in time for the To Be Continued sign. So we end exactly where we started.

[actress4him]

Whumptober 2020 - Day 13

We’ve got another POV change today, this time to Lance! Gotta give not only my semi-regular shout out to @trope-appreciation-tuesdays for providing inspiration, but also a special shout out to the mod @the-wandering-whumper since they have declared two different tropes used here to be “their jam”. ;) Don’t expect the chemical pneumonia part of this to be medically accurate haha. This is called science fiction for a reason.

Day 13 - Chemical Pneumonia/Oxygen Mask

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Warnings: death mention, respiratory distress, needles

The Yadselites were brilliant scientists. Pidge and Hunk had been in their element all day, oohing and aahing and making googoo eyes over all the equipment and experiments they were being shown.

Lance? He was the opposite of in his element. Sure, some of that stuff was pretty interesting, once someone, anyone, bothered to explain to him in plain English what the heck they even did. But most of the day had been a whole lot of science-speak that he only understood every five words of, and he had zoned out so many times that he was about to fall asleep.

“So, it’s a gas that does...what exactly?” Shiro asked. At least he wasn’t the only one who didn’t get the techno-babble speak. 

Pidge pushed her glasses back up on her nose with one finger. “It incapacitates the Galra. Basically it’s like throwing in a smoke bomb before the SWAT team goes in.”

“Yeah but this doesn’t just make their eyes water,” Hunk added. “Sounds like by the time you got in there every Galra would just be lying on the floor.”

“Dead?” Shiro sounded a mix of fascinated and horrified.

“No, no,” their tour guide, Rokuba, assured in that perpetual soothing tone that was part of the reason why Lance was falling asleep. “Only, as your Green Paladin says, incapacitated.”

“So it would, like, do our work for us? I’m okay with that.” It wasn’t like he minded how difficult his job was. He just wouldn’t mind if it was a little less difficult. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Keith had taken a few steps backwards away from the group. Oh. Right. Galra-incapacitating gas, half-Galra Mullet. He’d probably be a little nervous, too, if it were him.

“Is it safe for other species...humans, for example?”

“Oh yes, very,” Rokuda smiled. “The gas targets a very specific combination of genes that are only found in Galran DNA. For humans, Yadselites, and all other species, there is only a light, sweet smell.” She reached for the canister. “If you will allow me to demonstrate…”

Before Lance - or apparently anyone else - could even think to protest, a flowery-smelling mist erupted into the air. Shiro and Hunk both shouted and lunged for the canister. Lance spun around to face Keith, who had clapped a hand over his nose and mouth and was staring at the gas in wide-eyed panic.

Then Pidge was bodily shoving him out of the lab, everyone following close behind while Rokuda stammered out multiple apologies. Ignoring her, Shiro shoved his way forward and clapped his hands onto Keith’s shoulders. 

“Keith! Keith, talk to me. Are you okay?”

Keith coughed. 

But it wasn’t, like, a terrible sounding cough. Just pretty much your typical “I have a tickle in my throat” cough, not one that seemed like he was about to keel over and die. 

Slowly, he lowered his hand, swallowing visibly. “I...I definitely inhaled some. But...I think I’m okay?”

They all let out a collective sigh of relief, despite the fact that he didn’t sound all that sure. He wasn’t choking or falling over, so that was as good of a sign as any. 

“Dude,” Hunk groaned. “Don’t scare me like that!”

Keith’s nose wrinkled and he looked as if he was about to protest that it wasn’t his fault, but Pidge interrupted. “Either you didn’t inhale enough to do any damage, or you don’t carry all of the right genes for it to affect you.”

“It could be either,” Rokuda offered. “We have not yet tested the effects of a minuscule amount, or on any species mixed with Galra. Again, I apologize greatly, your heritage momentarily slipped my mind.”

Shiro gave her a tight smile. “Well, he seems to be alright, so that’s what matters.”

The tour continued. Vargas passed, or at least it felt that long. By the time they finally, finally got back to the Castle, Lance had completely forgotten about the incident with the gas. 

Everyone gathered at the bridge so that Allura could lecture...ahem, brief them on the diplomatic meeting they’d be having the next day. Lance and Keith were standing side by side, the former tapping his foot rapidly, about to have a nervous breakdown if the Mullet cleared his throat one more time.

And of course, he did.

“Dude!” Lance exploded, throwing his hands up in the air. “Stop it with the throat clearing already! What is your problem?”

Keith’s eyebrows knitted together, and he raised one hand to his neck. “Sorry. My throat is just…” He covered his mouth with his jacket sleeve and coughed. 

“Our briefing is almost done, and then perhaps you should drink a hydration pouch,” Allura suggested. “However, it will be much easier for me to finish if there are no more interruptions.”

“Sorry,” both boys mumbled in unison.

They fell quiet as Allura resumed, not even any more throat clearing from Keith, though it kinda sounded like he was having to try really hard not to. The breaths he was pulling through his nose were loud and extremely deliberate. Lance was torn between still being annoyed and starting to be concerned, but leaned definitively more toward concerned once his breathing began to stutter both in and out.

Shooting glances out of the corner of his eye, Lance pressed his lips together and wondered if Keith was somehow even paler than usual. There was a strained look on his face, and Lance was debating whether or not he should interrupt again to ask if he was okay when Keith lost his battle to hold everything in and burst into a coughing fit.

The rest of the room fell silent as he doubled over, sounding like he was about to hack up a lung into his sleeve. Shiro crossed to him and rested a hand on his upper back.

“You okay, bud?”

Keith nodded through the last of the coughs, then straightened and swiped his hand across his eyes. “Yeah,” he rasped. “Sorry. ‘m fine.” He sucked in another labored breath, and coughed once more.

Coran edged his way toward the door. “Perhaps I should go get you that hydration pouch now.”

“Yes, please,” Shiro answered for him. 

“Sorry, ‘llura. You can -” Keith tried to draw another breath, but it seemed to get stuck in his throat and sent him into another coughing fit.

“Would you quit trying to talk?” Lance protested. “You’re clearly not okay right now.”

“‘m fine,” he whispered, but then his eyes went wide and he froze, his mouth hanging open as if to gasp in more air but the sound of his heavy breaths had completely stopped.

“Keith? Keith!” Shiro shook his shoulder. “Hey, look at me, what’s going on?”

Without further warning, Keith listed to the side, stumbling a few steps until he was falling practically into Lance’s arms. He scrambled to catch him before he slammed into the ground, though they both went down in the process.

“What the heck, Mullet?” Lance would never admit it to anyone, but he was scared. Keith’s head was laying on his shoulder, the rest of his body sprawled out inelegantly in his lap, and his eyes and mouth were still open wide. This close he could just barely make out a faint gurgling noise coming from the back of his throat. 

Lance snapped his attention up to Shiro, who was crouched next to them. “He’s not breathing. Shiro, he’s not breathing!”

Their leader bent over with his ear next to Keith’s face, then suddenly scooped him up off of Lance, standing and immediately breaking into a run. The others followed, looking just as alarmed as Lance felt. 

“What’s going on?” Allura demanded.

“I don’t know,” Lance replied, “but he needs the infirmary, now. Page Coran!”

He was close on Shiro’s heels when they entered the infirmary and Keith was dropped down onto a cot. His lips had taken on a blue tint, and he was definitely paler than usual this time. Hovering over him, Lance waved his hands around frantically, desperate for something to do to help but unable to think anything past, he’s not breathing he’s not breathing he’s not breathing.

“Here!” Pidge launched herself into his field of vision with something in her hands that she slapped down over Keith’s nose and mouth. An oxygen mask. Lance felt an inkling of relief at seeing the device, but it was quickly overshadowed by fear.

“His throat, though. His throat was...if it was closed up, then he still won’t -”

“I know.” Shiro’s voice was terse, all his attention focused on the boy who might as well be his brother. He stroked his human hand through Keith’s messy black hair, pressing his bangs back from his forehead. “I know. But I don’t...we need Coran in here.”

“He’s on his way,” Allura assured.

“I’m here!” The advisor burst into the room with all his usual gusto, and Lance felt his chest loosen the tiniest bit. Immediately snatching up the scanner, Coran frowned and mumbled to himself as he waved it over Keith’s prone body. After examining the screen for only a tick, he spun around and pointed at a cabinet against the far wall. “Number Five, I need an injection of stavunairalducord!”

As the only one of the humans who could read Altean, Pidge accepted her assignment right away and dashed to the cabinet, rummaging until she found the correct item and bringing it back to Coran just as quickly.

“Thank you, Number Five.” Twirling the needle around in nimble fingers, he popped off the cap and plunged it none too gently into the side of Keith’s neck. Lance flinched and cut his eyes away.

“What is that? What are you doing?” Shiro demanded.

“Number Four has extreme swelling in his throat and lungs, preventing air from passing through. This injection will begin to take the swelling down while we prep him to go into the healing pod.”

Sure enough, as Lance watched, Keith’s chest began rising and falling again, almost imperceptibly. Behind the oxygen mask his mouth relaxed, and his eyes fluttered shut as if in pure joy of being able to breathe. Shiro slumped a bit when he saw the reaction, though his hand never stopped carding through the black hair.

“What does he need the pod for?” Hunk asked, wringing his hands together.

Coran was already methodically beginning to remove Keith’s jacket and gloves. “To clear out the foreign substance that caused this reaction, and also to heal the damage that it caused. Whatever it is, it seems to have started eating away at the lining of his lungs.”

“Foreign substance?” Lance echoed.

Pidge gasped. “The Yadselites’ gas! You know, the...anti-Galra stuff!”

Groaning, Shiro dropped his forehead into his hand. “How could I have forgotten? But I never expected it to take this long to have an effect. I should have brought him back to get checked out right away.”

“He seemed fine, though,” Pidge offered. “It must have something to do with him only being half, or because it was just a tiny amount.”

Coran hummed. “Well, whichever it is, it’s a nasty little bugger. I’d hate to see what would have happened if he had inhaled any more.”

“Is he...gonna be okay?”

Lance had been almost certain that Keith had lost consciousness by that point, but his eyes slitted open then and found Lance’s. His hand twitched, and Lance glanced down to see him giving a weak thumbs up.

Coran chuckled. “Yes, I think he’ll be just fine. That is, if we get him into that pod as soon as we can, so let’s give him some privacy to get changed, shall we?”

Hunk ushered everyone out of the room, eager to let Keith start healing. Lance kept looking back over his shoulder at the pale, still figure on the bed. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be relaxing at all until the Mullet was up on his feet and throwing jabs at him again. The feeling of him collapsing into his arms and the sound of his struggles to breathe would be sticking with him for a long time to come.

[hiuythn]

do u have any krbk fics that u can rec? any favorites of urs! ☺️

you’re in luck bc i just made a rec list for a friend so i have this ready for you

also i’ve got over 200 krbk bookmarks on ao3 so feel free to check that out if you finish this rec list.

all (except one) of these are completed. they're in no particular order. i tried to find ones that are less known, bc idk how much you've read but i'm assuming all the popular ones are familiar to you. happy reading! 💖💖💖

Inevitable - Legendaerie - 8k - mature CLASSIC 'bkg thinks they've been together and kiri thinks he's still pining' TROPE. it's INCOMPREHENSIBLE to me why this doesn't have more fucking kudos!!! why!!!

Tiny Truths - Quirk Archivist (OneHitWondersAnonymous) - 4k - teen bkg gets de-aged. kid him reveals sth to class 1a, more imptly, to KIRI, abt some ideas about what it means to open a hero agency together. it's super adorable!!

Punch My Mouth with Your Mouth - QuestCat44 - 4k - teen bkg spars with deku more bc OfA is acting up and he's the only one in the know. kiri gets jealous but he's so good-natured that his jealousy is only bc he misses sparring/spending time with bkg. BKG, on the other hand, is worried kiri is mad for different reasons asdkjfhasdhfa

all according to keikaku........... - carolinaa - 8k - teen the title should already tell you how good this is. I LOVE JEALOUSY FICS WHEN THEY'RE MORE FUNNY THAN ANGSTY AND THIS IS SO FUNNY. kiri gets tired of deku being a pussy around todo and decides to flirt with todo to get deku jealous enough to do sth about it. bkg and todo are both horrified for VERY different reasons DHADSKDFHJS

doll me up - shizuumi151 - 6k - gen kiri gets turned into a doll by a kid's quirk and no one knows. bkg still ends up caring for him :’)

These Words Are Ours - deviance - 2k - teen soulmate au but bkg figures who's going to say his words before it happens, and honestly that's kind of the point. he's not the type to fall in love at first sight. he MAKES the choice to love kiri and that, my friends, is my kind of soulmate au.

all good things need sunshine - shizuumi151 - 3k - teen FLORIST KIRI. BKG WANTS A BOUQUET THAT SAYS  'FUCK YOU'

Flour Power - WingSongHalo - 26k - teen KRBK HAVE TO TAKE CARE OF A BAG OF FLOUR AND PRETEND IT'S THEIR BABY

feedback loop - bigstupidjellyfish - 1k - teen PRO HERO BKG GETS THROWN BACK IN TIME FOR A BIT AND MEETS MIDDLE SCHOOL KIRI AND HE'S SO SOFT TO HIM ASDFHKASDFJ. i am a big fan of bkg being a fan of kiri. i can't get ENOUGH OF IT. can someone give me more fics like this

mixed signals - bigstupidjellyfish - 2k -teen a short 'what if' fic where kiri and bkg went to the same middle school. bkg's still an ass but kiri's still his equal it seems, and is just as good as handling him as ever

Trash Goblin Finds Love - wrunic - 4k - teen COFFEE SHOP AU. BARISTA   KIRI GETS SICK ONE TIME AND BKG MAKES HIM SOUP AND FORCES KIRI'S COWORKER TO DELIVER IT ASDJHFS

Dreaming of a White Mocha Christmas - let_me_wander - 8k - teen ANOTHER COFFEE SHOP AU.  BARISTA KIRI AND HIS FAV CUSTOMER ;) GET SNOWED IN  

Something Warm - let_me_wander - 15k - teen YES FOLKS IT'S A A A ANOTHER COFFEE SHOP FIC, THAT'S RIGHT!! BARISTA BKG THIS TIME. also kr is in a band and writes a song for bkg asdfhksjd

Kneel - deviance - 7k - explicit idk if you wanted explicit stuff but this is pretty light sub stuff, they're not even properly together at the beginning, and there isn’t sex til the end. i just liked how kiri is the only one bkg would rely on for sth this private, and it's more emotional than it is sexual?

Everyone Knows That Cats Are Independent - PurplePersnickety - 39k - teen YET. ANOTHER. COFFEE SHOP AU. but also?? daemons?? katsuki's got a lionness, and kiri has a...i'll let you find out. anyway they become closer and closer and closer and the flirting is so fucking excruciatingly obvious but cute and sdkjfhasdjs it's such a queer experience like 'is he...no he cant be...but what if he did like me - no that's not possible. but what if?' and they get so domestic sometimes i swear i'm about to puke from how cute it is. this is my fav coffee shop au ngl

Broken Bridges - DeathBelle - 68k - explicit plot fic!! krbk loses touch after gradutation. kiri comes back from korea and starts to work together with bkg, dealing with a series of murders and MAN the action is 👌 easy to follow but it hits all the beats, has that Flow. krbk being a power couple will never get old!!

Of Ghosts and other Inaccurate Things - chezka - 56k - gen pretty sure you've seen this one around but STILL. BKG FALLING FOR 'GHOST' KIRI IS BEST. this au really takes FULL COMPLETE advantage of the fact that krbk CANNOT TOUCH and the yearning practically astral-projected me back into the my past life when i was a dung beetle that got crushed under the foot of an elephant. it hurt, basically. but it hurt so good. JUST LET BKG HUG KIRI!!! happy ending ofc.

Catching Bees - MonocerosRex - 2k - teen bkg has to pay his classmates compliments. class 1a hijinks. the krbk in this is short but it made me squeal sdhfkakjl

i'm going to the forest to kick my own ass - WannabeMarySue - 5k - teen TODO PRANKS BKG BUT UNLUCKY FOR HIM BKG IS COMPETITIVE AND ACTUALLY LEARNS SOMETHING

Hair Care 101 - overlymetaromantic - 7k - gen ASDHFASDFHAJKS KIRI MEETS BKG'S MOM BY ACCIDENT AND GETS HAIR HELP AND THEY TALK ABOUT BKG AND IT'S SO. CUTE. AND THEN BKG DYES KR'S HAIR IN THE SECOND CHAPTER AND THEY'RE SO BLUSHY AND SWEET I CAN'T!!

Sometimes We Fall in the Dark - timetoboldlygo - 16k - teen BKG TAKING PHOTOS OF THINGS FOR THERAPY. YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT HOW YOU PHOTOGRAPH THINGS YOU TREASURE 👀👀👀

Corn Chip - smol_bird - 23k - teen I DONT FUCKIGN KNOW WHY THIS DOESN'T HAVE MORE KUDOS. IT'S LITERALLY SO GOOD. DEMON KIRI IS JOKINGLY SUMMONED BY BKG AND FRIENDS. THEY FALL IN LOVE. KIRI HAS TO LEAVE. BKG IS DETERMINED NOT TO LET THAT HAPPEN. HAPPY ENDING. WHAT ELSE COULD YOU ASK FOR

'cause i love you for infinity - multiclassmaps - 23k - teen SDHFADSJFASD DEMON AU AGAIN. THIS TIME IT'S KIRI THAT DOES THE SUMMONING. BUT WHY DOES BKG SEEM SO FAMILIAR??? WHAT CAN KIRI DO TO MAKE HIM STAY??

to the beat of your heart - drifting_i - 8k - gen BAND AU. KIRI WORKS AT A RESTAURANT AND SOMEHOW BEFRIENDS DRUMMER BKG AND BKG'S BAND CAN'T BELIEVE THAT KIRI GETS AWAY WITH HALF THE SHIT BKG ALLOWS HIM TO

Playing Favorites - vaporeon_ninja - 2k - gen AKSDJFHJADHFKA BKG GETS CALLED OUT ON HIS KIRI FAVOURITISM

(Not Quite) Proposal - imatrisarahtops - 783 - teen DRUNK BKG IS SAPPY WITH HIS BOYF

something worth remembering - bbuggs - 1k - teen DRUNK BKG AGAIN!!! THIS TIME HE DOESN'T REMEMBER KIRI IS HIS HUSBAND AND HE'S SO DISTRAUGHT ABOUT KIRI BEING TAKEN SDFJHSK

A Dragon's Hoard - chezka - 10k - teen kiri gets turned into a dragon bc of a quirk. LOVE HOW DRAGON KIRI STILL LIKES BKG BEST

Love Notes - PurplePersnickety - 5k - teen LOVE NOTES BKG LEAVES LOVE NOTES FOR KIRI IT'S SO SWEET

Define: Oblivious - PurplePersnickety - 45k - teen this is the second part to Love Notes, it's still updating BUT PLEASE CHECK IT OUT TOO BC KIRI DOES STH SO BADASS DURING PRACTICAL TRAINING I LOVE HIM I REREAD THIS NOW AND THEN JUST FOR HOW COOL HE IS IN THAT ONE CHAPTER. also the steady, careful way krbk define their relationship and bkg's demisexuality is so sweet, so good.

The Hard Easy - dirtbag - 4k - teen this one is pretty popular but i still gotta mention it bc. kissing lessons. KISSING LESSONS!!! i love how eagar bkg is askdfhks

Kitsune's Pride - kytrin, Mslead - 147k - explicit okay this was A DOOZY like i???? the plot???? the time travel and the oni and kitsune stuff???? bkg and kiri being badasses??? bkg wanting the best for kiri and angrily supporting him??? this was the first time i kept up to date with a fic when it was still updating and commenting every chapte,r i was so hooked. and ALSO like the authors have written SO MUCH more longfics like this like they have NOVELS and i REALLY rec you check them out like....bro idk how they do they have so much out already and i think and they're updating two more rn and i'm. their bitch tbh

Burden of Proof - kytrin, Mslead - 153k - explicit OK ONE MORE REC FOR THESE AUTHORS. burden of proof is so. so fcukign good. i have adhd and these guys have never one lost me even tho their fics are upwards of 60k. this fic has dragons, it has plot, it has growth and healing and found families and i WISH i could write sth this intricate.

Burger Kings - plantegg - 5k - teen stupid teenage boys being stupid. kiri blackmails bkg into going on a date asjdfhkdsjfakd

Worth a Thousand Words - awareoftheconcept - 43k - teen SDKJFHASKH THIS IS A GUILTY PLEASURE OF MINE I KNOW THE LACK OF COMMUNICATION TROPE IS OVERUSED BUT I CAN'T HELP FALL FOR ANGSTY KIRI AND OMG THE CONFRONTATION SCENE AT THE END IS SO. SO. SO MOVIE-ESQUE I HATE HOW LAME I AM. basically everyone thinks bkg is dating camie asdkjfhskd

Day 6: Fandom - PullingAllMighters, SweetBrew - 9k - mature bkg and kiri don't know each other until they're pro heros and only bc they start a competition to see who's better and they go to each other's signings undercover and develop crushes on each other and deku is an enABLER ASHAHAJFS

Scales Ain't The Same As Feathers - Julietwasanidiot - 2k - gen GOD THIS IS SO CUTE BABY BKG "FINDERS KEEPERS" A BABY DRAGON KIRI SKDHFHD but he thinks kiri is a chicken

Charades - orphan_account - 4k - teen this is just soft....game night....at one point bkg acts out a really romantic word for charades and he's EMBARRASSED SDJFHA. also kiri falls asleep on him and there's some hair stroking....soft...

Cranky-rishima - PurplePersnickety - 29k - teen kirishima is the one with nightmares in this one and he gets CRANKY and BKG has to be the one to reach out and i thought that was such a fresh reversal loved it

No Secrets to Success - kingdoms - 7k - teen THIS IS MY FAV!! MY ABSOLUTE FAV JUST BC I LOVE IT WHEN FICS MAKE PEOPLE GAPE IN AWE FROM HOW SOFT BKG IS WITH KIRI. also krbk forming their relationship outside of school in this au was so??? sweet??? it's just them hanging out together. ALSO KIRI IS SO GOOD AT POKING BKG'S BUTTONS ASJDFHASK

Built to Fall - bigstupidjellyfish - 68k - explicit pro heros fic. they had a bad breakup in third year and oh god the angst is QUALITY. DW THEY TOTALLY MAKE UP AND IT'S SO FCKN WORTH IT. bkg also got therapy so he’s a little more stable as an adult lol

A Name That You'll Remember - heronfem - 33k - mature bkg is a fail!villain. he fell in with the wrong crowd when he was younger. he doesn't actually do anything wrong. in fact, all of his 'crimes' are generally stopped by kiri and somehow all end up exposing corruption anyway, so he's actually helping. kids love bkg. he always makes sure they're safe before he robs a jewelry store or sth. somehow kiri ends up flirting with him in all their fights and bkg has no idea what to make of him. the public can't get enough of them

strawberry mango sweet - redriotinggg - 9k - teen it's just a really sweet smoothie shop au!!! it's good reliable fluff!! what else can you ask for!!

cultivating something so divine - redriotinggg - 10k - teen redriotinggg yet again, i love this au, it's vet!au and kiri is so good at loving animals that bkg hires him and they fall in love and it's also got some competency porn, as in krbk are hella good at their job like power couple ayy

Tension Reduction - acernor - 10k - explicit Kirishima is a massage therapist and Bakugo needs help relaxing.

Mistletoe? Mistletoe. - Tearsaresalty - 2k - teen class 1a keeps making bkg kiss kiri and neither of them really mind wow i wonder why 🙄

[hybridfanfiction]

Owner Training - 6 (M)

This chapter is filled with smut, so skip this one if you’re not interested! Warning for unprotected sex. Don’t be a fool, wrap your tool. (Unless you’re Yoongi, then it’s cool.) He might also kinda have an impreg kink. Look, these things write themselves, okay? 

Word Count: 2,800

Your hand clenched the sides of the open doorway as your jaw dropped, the scene before you turning your brain to mush. Your last remaining brain cell was battling between the urge to flee and the desperate desire to stay. Finally, one of your feet managed to take a single step, despite how it felt like pure lead. 

Looking back, it really should have been obvious what was going on....

Since the heartbreaking fight a few days before, you were wondering if there was perhaps some sort of parasitic animal in his DNA. Yoongi has been practically latched onto you every moment that he could be. You’d expected him to open up more and be more into physical affection, but this was extreme. 

From the moment you got home from work he would wrap himself onto you, scenting your neck for a solid twenty minutes. He would barely let you get up to fix dinner, insisting on holding onto your waist and laying his head on your shoulder, which making cooking extremely difficult. If you tried to push him away, even to go to the bathroom by yourself, it was like a switch flipped and he’d turn into this upset moody brat that would practically cry until you sat in his lap. 

Even stranger, he’d suddenly become incredibly hungry, like all the time. You were used to him trying to talk you into the occasional treat, but overall he didn’t eat very much. Now, it was the complete opposite. Just yesterday he’d gone through two whole roasted chickens by himself, a steak dinner, three bags of banana chips, and even a couple chocolate bars. Not to mention the way he’s gone through an entire carton of ice cream every single night, pouting when it was finished. 

You knew something was wrong, but you didn’t know what. You’d tried to consult your hybrid books but it seemed like it could be any number of things. You had even started to wonder if it was time to force him to the vet, but what would you say? Hi, I’m here because my hybrid hugs me all the time and eats a lot? 

Anyone that didn’t know Yoongi personally wouldn’t understand why his behavior was worrying. 

And then there was that smoke scent. It was strange how just all of a sudden Yoongi walked around smelling like the campfires you used to have all the time when you were a kid. It was just a strange crisp burning smell mixed with this rich and sweet undertone, like it was made expressly for your tastes. You couldn’t get enough of it.

And every time you let yourself give in and bury your nose in his hair to catch more of it, his purrs to get louder and he’d butt his head up like there was nothing he wanted more than for you to smell him. Which was totally weird, right? 

This morning you’d actually woken up early because Yoongi’s body heat was practically making you drip sweat. You’d sat up and checked his brow, finding the temperature blazing. Little droplets of sweat littered his forehead and dripped down to his neck, even as you noticed his body shaking like he was freezing. You’d woken him up and had a good long fight, trying to convince him to let you take him to the vet. He kept insisting that it wasn’t needed, that he was fine, but you were so worried. You were nearly late to work by the time he finally agreed to go if he was still like this by the time you got home. 

Yeah, you had known something was up, but nothing could have prepared you for what you came home too. 

As soon as you’d opened the door, you’d known something was wrong. The lights were all off except for the one shining from your bedroom. The AC was cranked up high. Yoongi wasn’t nestled into his usual corner on the couch, so you assumed he was still napping in the bedroom. It was fairly quiet until you got closer to the room. 

Then you heard it. 

It was light at first. You could have easily mistaken the sounds as whimpers of pain. In fact, you nearly did, which is why you started walking towards the bedroom in the first place. But it was soon followed by a ragged moan and the sounds of your bed lightly squeaking. 

“Fuck...”

Yoongi’s gravelly voice gave away exactly what he was doing in there, and yet your body still went forward like it was on auto-drive. You grasped the side of the doorway and peeked in, your heart beating wildly in your chest. You couldn’t even breathe. 

There on the bed that the two of you shared was Yoongi - but one you’d never seen before. He wasn’t wearing a single stitch of clothing, and his pale skin was damp with a light sheen of sweat. He was on his back with his fluffy black tail trailing off the side of the bed. His hand was wrapped about a surprisingly pretty pink cock as he tugged on it, biting his lips in what looked like both arousal and frustration. 

“Ahhhhh....”

You could feel every moan travel straight to your own body. God, he sounded amazing. Was this a heat? You forgot all about those. Fuck, you were a shitty owner. 

“Can smell you. Come help me.” 

You jumped guiltily, peeling your gaze off the entrancing sight of his hand at work to meet his eyes. He was staring at you hungrily, a flicker of something there that was almost a challenge. 

“I’m so sorry, Yoongi. I forgot about ruts and heats. I can go call the hybrid place and have them send someone,” you sputter, quickly averting your eyes and making a show of pulling out your phone. “I can ask Jimin to let me stay there for a few days.”

Damn, you were trash. How violated he must feel after you just stood there watching like some pervert. 

“Send someone?” You heard the squeaking stop as he seemed to pause. “What do you mean send someone?” 

“Oh, they have these hybrids that volunteer to...uh...you know. Help. With that. I remember Tae had someone once before he and Jimin got together.” 

“I know what heat assistance is. Why the fuck would I want that?” 

His voice was trembling enough that you snuck a peek at him in curiosity. His hand was clenching his thigh as he breathed heavily, his tail flicking the way it does when he’s irritated. 

“Because you’re in heat?” You respond with a furrowed brow. Was there something you were missing? 

“Jesus...fuck. If you don’t want me just fucking tell me,” Yoongi growled as he awkwardly threw the sheet over himself and stared down at his hands. 

And...was that a sniffle? Was he crying? 

“Hey, Yoongi sweetie? Remember we established that I’m an idiot? You gotta tell me what’s going on here?” 

He huffed angrily, still refusing to meet your eyes. 

“What’s going on here is that we’ve been heat bonding all week and now you’re rejecting me. It’s fine. Whatever.” 

“Yoongi - “ you begin softly, taking a few more steps into the bedroom and gently lowering yourself next to him. “Are you saying you wanted to do...that...with me?” 

“You can’t even say it,” Yoongi sighed and rolled his eyes when he finally looked over at you. “I thought that’s where we were headed and I thought you’d want to. Guess I read the signs wrong because you’re a fucking human and probably want nothing to do with a fucking cat.” 

“Yoongi, it’s not like that at all! I like you too!” you blurt, gasping and covering your mouth after because, oh no, he never said he liked you. He just said he thought you guys were going to have sex. 

He pierces you with one of his stares, the ones that feel like he’s picking you apart all the way down into your soul. 

“Really?” 

You nod. “Guess, the cat’s out of the bag.” 

His momentary sneer lets you know he is not amused. 

“So, you’ll help me? You won’t send off for someone?” 

You blush so hard that you can physically feel it growing on your cheeks. 

“I mean, if that’s what you really want. Sure,” you mumble shyly.

He quirks his eyebrow in challenge and flings off the sheet before beginning to crawl closer to you. You can already feel the fur on his tail teasing against your leg. 

“Last chance to back out.” 

Little does he know that you’ve never wanted anyone more. 

You’re proud of yourself as you stand your ground, letting him advance towards you with minimal signs of flinching. You can feel how much his skin is burning once he’s next to you, the heat just emanating off of his body. 

You give a little startled twitch when you suddenly feel his long fingers curling under the bottom of your shirt. He studies your face as he tugs on it a little, giving you a silent warning of what’s to come. You nod and breathe out, his little pleased grin enough to help you relax a little. 

He pulls it off completely and throws it across the room while you unhook your bra for him in a rush of bravery. He doesn't even bother to look at it before he grabs it and throws it behind him, obviously in a rush to just get you naked already. You were both flattered and a little alarmed, but you had to remember that Yoongi was basically in heat right now and was probably hurting and desperate. 

To speed things up, you take care of everything else quickly on your own, letting him sit back and stroke himself slowly as he watched. He gave a pleased hum when you were finally as bare as him. 

“Sit on my face,” he grunted, scooting up onto his pillow. 

“Huh?” 

You knew what he meant, but your brain short-circuited a bit at the thought. 

“I want to taste you.” 

God, he was so blunt. You gulp and crawl awkwardly across the bed until you’re hoving above his face. You can feel the little warm breaths of air hitting your core and he grasps your thighs. 

“Careful, I’m sure I’m heavy.” 

He rolls his eyes and tugs you down onto his mouth. You squeak a little bit as you try to balance yourself against the headboard. The first few touches of his wet tongue on you were almost ticklish. Light, like he was getting to know you down there. Your heart was hammering with anticipation as he suddenly flattened his tongue and ran it all throughout your folds, the just barely rough texture strange but intriguing. 

You couldn’t help but moan and twitch a little as he finally paid attention to your clit, circling it and suckling it into his mouth hard. You could feel him smirking against you. 

“God. Yoongi, feels so fucking good.” 

“Mmm. I know.” 

The next few minutes were the closest to heaven you’d ever been in your life. No one had ever paid that much attention to you before. If you stiffened, he’d stop. If you gasped, he did it more. He was eating you out like a man starved and you loved it. Even when you would accidentally grind down harder than you meant to, he would groan loudly against you, like he’d love nothing more than for you to smother him with your pussy. Kinky bastard. You should have known. 

Finally, he taps on your thigh and you lift up, looking down at him. 

“I need you to fucking ride me, right now. Gonna cum.” 

“O...okay,” you answer shakily. You honestly weren’t sure if you were going to be able to hold yourself up that long, especially since you were pretty close yourself. 

“I don’t have condoms. Do you?” 

“Don’t need em.” 

You glance up at that and...oh. You’ve never had anyone look at you like that before. 

“But I’m not on...” 

“I know.” 

“If...uhhh...ya know - “ 

“Y/N. Get on my cock so I can fill you up with my kittens,” he growls, though his soft eyes belay the harshness of his voice, making it all so very emotional. And hot. He had your feelings flying everywhere and you couldn’t think straight. 

With a silent nod and slight blush, you crawl down and straddle his waist. You inhale harshly as you touch his cock for the first time and position it under you. He’s so soft and warm, and if you weren’t both frantically trying to hold off orgasms then you’d want to take your time with it. 

You slowly slide down, both of you releasing harsh breaths as you finally connect. You start a slow rocking at first, letting your body get used to having him inside of you. Fuck, he felt so good stretching you out. 

Yoongi reached over and grasped your hips, helping you increase speed until he was practically doing it all himself. You’d push up and he would slam you down, until the both of you were groaning and damp, the headboard smacking loudly against the wall. 

Suddenly he drops one hand down to your pussy and harshly rubs circles into your clit. 

“I’m gonna cum. Gonna fill you up so good, baby. The whole world's gonna see you filled with kittens and know you’re mine. Cum on my cock.” 

You’d never thought you’d hear such lewd words coming from your tsundere hybrid, so it’s enough to shock your body into doing as he ordered. You throw your head back and moan loudly as tremors fill your body. The gravelly moan is your only warning before he holds you still as warmth fills you. 

You let your upper body drop, draping yourself across his chest. He surprisingly doesn’t seem to mind or be in a hurry to pull out - instead holding you close enough to his chest that you can hear his racing heartbeat and harsh breaths. 

“Thank you.” 

You peek up at his soft words, smiling gently. 

“You don’t need to thank me. I wanted to. I liked it.” 

He seems to puff up a bit at that, making you giggle. 

“So, uh. Not to be one of those people that has to have the talk after sex, but we did some things and said some things that made me need to have something made clear. So, we’re like...a thing?” 

He rolls his eyes at you and hugs you closer. 

“Ahhh, I must have something wrong with me if I fell in love with such an idiot,” he says with a dramatic air and amused grin. 

Your eyes widen in surprise. “You what now?” 

“I’m in love with you. And I want to be whatever you’ll let me be.” 

“So this wasn’t just you being desperate?” 

He sighs and explains. “No. Heats make me horny as hell. They don’t suddenly make me have thoughts that aren’t my own or desperate enough to hump a couch or whatever. I meant everything.” 

“So you want to...date?”

Yoongi shrugs. “We can start with that. Sure.” 

“Okay. So I can tell Jimin that you’re my boyfriend and get him to stop trying to set me up,” you exclaim excitedly. 

He growls lowly. “If that doesn’t work, tell him I knocked you up.” 

You’d nearly forgotten. “Oh yeah, about that. Were you being...serious?” 

His smirk makes him appear very pleased with himself as he hums what he apparently thinks is a valid answer. 

“And if I am?” You question curiously. Somehow the thought doesn’t frighten you as much as you think it should.  

“We’ll figure it out,” he shrugs. 

“And if I’m not?” 

The grin that he pierces you with is nearly feral. 

“Then we’ll try again.” 

And with that, you felt something twitch inside you and suddenly became aware that he still hadn’t slipped out of you - he was growing larger instead. 

You glance up at him in surprise as he shrugs lazily.  

“I’m in heat.” 

You gulp as he starts to rock gently against you. 

“Hey, Yoongi? How long do heats last, anyway?” 

“Depends. Unassisted, about four days. With you, I might take my time.” 

This was how you were going to die. 

And what a sweet death it was going to be. 

*

* 

((I can’t believe I just wrote that. Okay, off to hide my blushes in a pit of shame. I hope you all enjoyed!!))

[snarkwrites]

03 | gangsta, sweetpea

Notes:

Honestly, I do not know where I got the idea for this chapter beyond just.. Wanting to throw Sweetpea and Alyssa together in situations to see how it worked. I think it was cute? Probably not logical IRL, but this is fanfic. And some people just can’t deal with the smell of formaldehyde or dissections. Facts because I am one.. I think I might have gone a little overdramatic with some areas in how it played out, but I just decided to lean into it because it made things interesting.

Annnyway. another chapter absolutely noone asked for but I totally needed to write, apparently. Lmaooo.

Summary:

Opposites attract. But when they can’t fight that attraction any longer, will there be a comforting warmth, an inferno from the sparks, or a messy explosion?

Pairing:

Sweetpea x Andrews!OFC, Alyssa.

Warnings:

Angst. Slow burn. Eventual filth. Typical teenage drama. Embarassing situations. Boyfriends behaving like oblivious idiots. Pining. Language. Fighting / Violence. Going to go on a limb and say that this is kind of non canon compliant.

As far as this chapter goes.. The class did a dissection. But given the nature, I went as vague as possible in describing it. There’s mention of fainting and the fact that Alyssa wants to puke at one point, but beyond that, there’s really not much.

Other Parts:

[ one - two - soundtrack ] 

Other Stuff:

[ faq - tag list doc ] 

Tagging:

@brithedemonspawn​ 

- if you wanna be tagged in this fic or in my riverdale writing tell me. I’ll happily add you to my tag list thing.

                                         THREE.

I wasn’t expecting Toni to actually spare me a passing glance the next day, let alone look up from reapplying my makeup to find her standing behind me when I turned around after shutting my locker.

Reggie’s throat cleared and I felt him tense up almost immediately. I nudged him in the side, shaking my head “No” at him before he even got a chance to start.

But he went and did it anyway.

“What do you want?” Reggie spoke before I could.

I couldn’t resist the smirk that came when Toni flicked her eyes over him dismissively before deadpanning, “ I came to talk to Cherry. Not you. Pound sand.”

Reggie eyed me.

“I’ll catch up to you, Reg.”

He refused to budge and I felt my jaw clenching.

“I’m not leavin you by yourself. Not after what happened with the Ghoulie in the hall yesterday.” Reggie folded his arms over his chest. Speaking up with a calm smirk. “Whatever you gotta say to princess, you can say to me too.”

Toni studied him, unimpressed. “Where was this energy when a Serpent handled that Ghoulie you speak of, hm? Now you wanna play the protective boyfriend?”

I tensed a little, shooting her a pleading glance. She eyed me a second or two but luckily, she let the issue drop.

We started to walk towards the direction of our classrooms, talking about music and bands we’d seen live, basically continuing our conversation from the afternoon before when we’d been lounging on the bank down by the quarry.

“Hey, we’re gonna go hang out by the quarry this afternoon if you wanna come with again.” Toni slipped it in just as we got to the door of Biology. Reggie tensed even more, his gaze settling on me as if to ask what she meant by again.

I honestly didn’t give it a second thought, smiling and nodding, a lazy shrug. “Yeah. I mean the Vixens aren’t practicing and pretty much done all the stuff around my dad’s. Hey, remind me around lunch and I’ll go by my dad’s after school and grab that mix tape.”

“Definitely. I’ll see you later.” Toni smiled at me and gave Reggie a dismissive eye roll and as she walked away, Reggie spoke up. Calm and firm.

“Absolutely not. Are you out of your mind, babe? They’re in a gang. Is that where you were when you blew off school and practice yesterday afternoon? I thought you were at home. That prick Sweetpea wasn’t with you… Right?”

Reggie looked far less cocky when his eyes met mine. Almost as if he felt threatened by my choice to branch out. Stop losing myself in this person I was becoming. I’d talked to Archie the night before and Archie had basically told me that he’d been able to tell something was bothering me for weeks now, since even before Reggie and I became a thing. He thought I was homesick.

I’d explained to him how I’d been feeling out of place. Like an imposter because everyone in Riverdale either only knew the me I’d been presenting since I moved back, or remembered me as his younger sister only and that it bugged me because I wasn’t the same person they remembered or were expecting.

He basically told me that as long as being myself didn’t mean sneaking off to frat parties and older boyfriends or anything dangerous, if it made me happier, I should try just being myself more. He seemed to think that I might be surprised by how people reacted to it and sadly, from the looks of it, my own boyfriend was not going to be one of those who welcomed any sign of change.

,, because when you’re truly being yourself, you know he’d never be able to control you, let alone begin to be able to keep up with you. The balance of power is off now and he’s insecure.” 

It worried me, more than I cared to admit.

I didn’t want anything to come between us. I didn’t want to fight with him all the time like we’d been doing lately. I just wanted to enjoy being his girlfriend.

“What if I was, huh? They’re normal. You talk like they’re all hardened criminals or something.”

“What’s this like.. A random act of charity?” Reggie eyed me, searching my face for any hint of an answer. 

,, maybe the random act of charity is the time I’ve been spending pretending to be someone I’m clearly not.” the thought came but I stopped myself from giving voice to it. I sighed and shook my head, disappointed that Reggie was having such a hard time grasping the fact that I could be friends with whoever I wanted… Not excluding Toni Topaz.

Because we’d just kind of clicked. And I actually wanted to be friends with her.

“Reggie, if you really care about me, you’ll lay off this.” I said it as patiently as I could.

“It’s because I care about you, princess, that’s exactly what I’m not gonna do. They’re dangerous. Half of ‘em have a rap sheet as long as this hallway! What if they do somethin and you happen to be out with them, huh? How are you gonna explain that you were just there and not taking part?”

“Do you have to die on this hill?” I asked, giving him a pleading look. 

The last thing I wanted right now was yet another argument with him. But the way he kept assuming he knew me like the back of his hand was starting to get exhausting. I wasn’t that same shy sweet little pushover I’d been when we were kids. I mean, I was still the same girl who hid with him in a tunnel on the playground and split a Hostess cupcake when his father came to collect him and happened to see him mess up a pass while just playing a casual game of toss the football with my brother and the other boys and started to yell and cut him down in front of everyone… I was still her, but I was also different... In so many ways.

“I’m willing to, yeah. Why’s this matter so much?” Reggie studied me intently. 

I swallowed hard and took a deep breath or two to calm myself down. “It matters because I’m not the girl you think I am, okay? You’ve had this image of me built up in your head since I moved back and I’m sorry to say it, I’m not her anymore. I’m not the quiet little kid who used to hide behind my brother or tag along with you guys to play in the park like a lost puppy.” 

“You’re not a Serpent, either, princess.” Reggie explained, a coaxing tone as he raised a hand, resting it against my cheek. “That’s one thing I like about you, okay? You were always the one to take in the strays. All I’m saying is there’s a time and a place for that and now is not the time. They don’t like us any more than we like them.”

“Don’t lump me in with the rest of you.” I glared up at him. “ As far as your earlier question as to whether this is a random act of charity, no. It’s actually not. I enjoyed talking to Toni yesterday.”

Reggie’s brows raised. “Why?”

I shrugged. “We have a lot in common.”

“Yeah, not likely.”

I took a deep breath. Trying to stay patient. Trying not to push this conversation even further into argument territory.

Because I knew that despite the way it felt, Reggie was only doing this because he cared. He didn’t really have any ill intent. He was merely being overprotective. Probably to make up for the rough time we’ve had being on the same page for nearly three weeks now.

Because I’d be lying to myself if I tried to pin all our fighting lately on the fact that Sweetpea was my Biology partner and Reggie was jealous because this started before that. I’d put it off to tension then, but maybe it was just me, starting to realize that no matter how hard I tried, things just weren’t working.

Before that thought could rear it’s ugly head again, I shoved it back down.

We walked into class and I sat down in my seat. Drumming my pencil against the desktop.

From beside me, Sweetpea spoke up. I didn’t have to be looking at him to know he was smirking when he made the remark, either. “Trouble in paradise, cherry?”

“Sweetpea, not today.” I muttered quietly, fixing my gaze intently on the open text book between us. The teacher rolled in the specimens we were supposed to dissect and my stomach rolled as the scent of formaldehyde filled the air.

I could feel my breakfast creeping back up my throat slowly. I took a deep breath.

That was probably the first way I fucked up.

As soon as we got our specimen, I grimaced. Gingerly picking up the scalpel. I could feel myself getting paler in the face by the second. Sweetpea grabbed the scalpel from me and eyed me with a brow raised. Pointing away from us. “If you’re gonna hurl, do it towards that side. Not into vomit on my leather.”

“I’m fine.”

Except, oh no. No I was not fine.

And the scent of formaldehyde was so thick in the air that I honestly felt a little dizzy…

XXX

She almost looked green.

Sweetpea shot a glance back towards the back of the classroom where Mandy and Reggie were absorbed in their conversation… More to the point, Reggie was so caught up in Mandy pouring on the dramatics that he hadn’t spared a single glance towards his actual girlfriend. The thought had Sweetpea’s jaw clenching tight. Alyssa’s hands shook as she picked up the scalpel.

“Give me that.” Sweetpea reached out, taking the scalpel. Because shaking hands and a sharp object in their grasp was never a good idea. He’d been around enough to know that if the person with the knife had a shaky hand, more often than not, things tended to get messy.

,, right and this has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that even the thought of her injured kind of makes you physically ill lately. You did move that entire fight between the team and your boys to a vacant lot because you weren’t willing to risk her rushing out to try and stop it and getting hurt by somebody...” his mind taunted him, but he shoved the thought right out of his head. And then more thoughts came.

Like a replay of the argument he’d caught the tail end of between Alyssa and Reggie as he shoved past them to take his own seat. The way she actually didn’t fold under the pressure of Reggie’s argument, but stood her ground instead. Admitting that she enjoyed talking to Toni and she wasn’t going to stop just because it made Reggie Mantle uncomfortable.

Maybe he’d written her off a little too quickly.

He made the first cut in the specimen sitting between them and he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Luckily he happened to, because he saw her swaying a little right as the color drained from her face completely and she started to slump just a little. He grabbed her up quickly and shoved through the aisle, pushing open the door of the classroom to step out into the hallway, completely ignoring the threat of yet another detention from their Biology teacher.

“Did you not see her about to pass out?” Sweetpea snapped as he peered back in the door of the classroom. Their teacher stepped out into the hallway, giving him a firm warning look as he pointed to the classroom and Sweetpea clenched his fist, grumbling. Lingering for a few seconds before the teacher spoke up in a crisp tone, “Inside now. Unless you enjoy a month of Saturday detention.” before turning attention back to Alyssa, trying to make sure she was alright. 

Alyssa met his gaze over the teacher’s shoulder, flashing him a weak smile, giving him a pleading look as the teacher warned him a third time to go back into class. “Sweetpea just go, I’m fine. I’ll be back inside soon.”

Sweetpea eyed her a second or two and finally stepped into the classroom, shutting the door behind him. Turning to find himself body to body with an angry Reggie Mantle. Glaring at him.

“I know you didn’t touch my girl, Serpent.”

“Would you rather me touch her or have her crack her head on the floor, dog?” Sweetpea stood taller, cracking his knuckles. Nodding to Reggie’s lab partner, who was grumbling and pouting, rolling her eyes because all the attention had been taken off her. Sweetpea stepped closer, smirking at Reggie, “Mad because you weren’t paying attention and another guy picked up your slack, asshole?”

Reggie went to shove him but the teacher’s throat cleared from behind the two, putting an end to the confrontation.

“This isn’t over, Serpent.”

“ I can do this all year, Bulldog. Just gives me the joy of kicking your ass over and over.”

“Enough you two!” the teacher yelled, silencing both males. “You two can settle whatever this is off of school grounds. In your own time. Understood?”

Sweetpea smirked, rolling his shoulders. “Gladly.” he muttered as he stormed over to his seat.

Alyssa made her way back in and over to the seat beside him, not looking at anyone in the room instead, burying herself in the text. Letting Sweetpea make the cuts as she pointed out the parts of their specimen’s anatomy they had to label and show.

XXX

“Are you okay, princess?”

“I’m fine, Reggie. For the thousandth time. I guess the smell of formaldehyde got to me. It happened at my old school once in eighth grade. I’m just embarrassed.” I answered. The scent was still stuck in my nose. It drifted through the entire hallway.

I knew I should’ve gotten my dad to write me a note so I could go and sit with the other students who’d chosen to opt out. It slipped my mind.

From across the table, Mandy spoke up. “ What was worse? That freak putting his hands on you or almost fainting in front of everybody?” with a smirk as she gazed at me.

Reggie tensed and I gave Mandy a dirty look. “Almost fainting in front of everybody. Hands down. Can we not call him a freak? He’s not in a side show. And he’s not any different than the rest of us.”

“He’s  from South Side. Of course he’s different.” Mandy looked at me as if I’d grown two additional heads. I rolled my eyes and went quiet.

Irritated by her remarks.

Irritated by her in general.

Reggie cleared his throat, taking a bite of his burger. Nodding to mine. Coaxing me to eat. I shook my head, glancing at the burger in disgust. “I’m good.”

“You need food, princess.”

“If the drama queen doesn’t want to eat, Reggie, don’t make her. She could stand to lose a few pounds anyway.”

I tensed. Under the table, my fists clenched. Since I moved back to Riverdale, Mandy’s had it in for me. And she doesn’t bother hiding it.

And I was sick of playing nice. Looking stupid when I know what she’s about.

It wouldn’t have flown in my old school, why was I letting it fly here?

Was it really worth it to just come off like a doormat? I was really questioning my logic on that front a lot lately, it seemed.

I smirked at her and bit my lip. The smirk was replaced with a smile as I spoke up. “In that case, maybe you should skip the ice cream. Since we’re talking about losing a few pounds here. Just trying to help.”

Mandy’s jaw dropped and I shrugged, going back to my cell phone to scroll my Snapchat. Checking the stories of my old friends from my school in Chicago. Responding to a few snaps they’d sent me.

“ Mandy you’re so fuckin rude.” Reggie spoke up, surprising me. I kept my gaze fixed on my phone and Mandy shrugged as if his criticism rolled right off her. “I was just trying to be helpful.”

“You were being a bitch.” Reggie grumbled, fixing his eyes on me. He leaned in and asked quietly, “You wanna get outta here?”

I eyed him, biting my lip. Something told me if I hadn’t had my little incident in the lab, Reggie wouldn’t be trying so hard right now.

,, maybe that’s not true, you don’t know that..” my mind argued.

“It’s okay. I don’t like her enough to give a shit if I’m being honest.” I muttered, making Reggie chuckle quietly and smirk at me. “That’s my girl. It’ll be okay. People are totally gonna forget by last period, you’ll see.”

“It is what it is.” I shrugged, eager for the conversation to switch topics.

XXX

Toni caught up to Alyssa in the hallway, tapping her shoulder. Alyssa turned around, smiling. For a second or two, Toni thought she’d beg off. Change her plans under pressure. She rolled her eyes at Reggie when their gazes met. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah! Just give me a second.”

Reggie’s facial expression told the tale. He was not even remotely happy with being stood up.

“Babe, you were gonna watch me practice.. Remember?” Reggie butted in, pouting at her. reaching out to pull her close to him. Alyssa hugged him and gazed up at him, biting her lip, a patient look on her face.

Toni watched their interactions with amusement. The panic was plain to see on Reggie’s face. She found herself scowling at him. The guy was a fuckboy. For the life of her, she hoped for Alyssa’s sake the whole interest in him was just a phase because guys like that only hurt people...

“Reggie, I can watch you tomorrow. It’s just one afternoon.” Alyssa held firm, surprising Toni. Maybe she hadn’t been wrong to trust her gut like Sweetpea and Fangs insisted she was going to be proven to be.

After a whispered exchange of heated words, Alyssa jogged over, grumbling and rolling her eyes at the whole thing. Smiling at her. “Hey, if you want, we can stop by my dad’s together. Oh and the construction site. I usually take him a snack when  I get in.”

“Aww, that’s cute.” Toni gave her a gentle but teasing smile, nodding. “Let’s go.”

They took off, falling back into conversation. Losing track of everything else.

After stopping by Alyssa’s to pick up the food for her dad and the mix tape she’d promised to lend Toni, they found themselves wandering around. Flopping on the grass at the park, watching the clouds roll overhead.

“ What made you join the Vixens anyway?”

“Cheryl strongarmed me into it. They needed a gymnast. I used to hate the cheerleaders at my old school.”

“ You’re the only halfway cool Vixen I’ve met so far.” Toni admitted, shrugging.

Alyssa stood, holding out her hand. Pulling Toni off the grass. “Let’s do something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. What is there to actually do in Riverdale if we’re being honest?” Alyssa joked, making them share a laugh.

“Oh.. Oh.. no, you’d probably hate that idea.”

“No, what?”

“There’s a Mortal Kombat machine in the Wyrm…”

“Pretty sure Fangs and Sweetpea would be thrilled about me showing up there.” Alyssa mulled it over before smirking a little. “Okay, let’s go. It beats absolutely not shit to do here.”

“Don’t let them get to you. They’ll be assholes until they warm up to you.”

“Sweetpea confuses me? Like.. I know he’s being a jerk over half the time, then he does something like he did in Biology this morning and I don’t know what to think.. Anyway, I need to just not worry about it either way.” Alyssa tried to dismiss it, but Toni smirked to herself.

Determined not to just let her dismiss it.

Because any idiot could see what was going on.

Or she could, at least.

“No, what do you mean?”

“You know what I mean… Sometimes I feel like.. I don’t know… Like he’s trying too hard to be an asshole?”

“Oh no, he’s an asshole. Mega grouch. But you’re right. He does have his moments.” Toni kept things vague enough that she wasn’t putting her best friend Pea in any compromising positions, but she hoped that she said enough to get Alyssa really thinking.

It wasn’t like they were close enough friends just yet that Toni could go and tell her that she just needed to open her eyes. Pick a better boyfriend, because Reggie Mantle only liked the idea of her. Or the her that he’d known years ago from what she’d been hearing around school.

,, not to mention there’s the whole conversation you happened to overhear about there being a bet between Reggie and some Chuck asshole about getting in her pants..” the thought came but Toni shoved it down. Because how did you go about telling someone something like that?

Especially when you really didn’t know them well at all.

She didn’t want to lose a friend she was only just getting to know yet. She just needed to come up with a way to break it to Alyssa so that Alyssa understood. And wasn’t hurt or embarrassed or angry. So that Alyssa believed her.

Because she was disgusted with the fact that the guy had done that in the first place. The fact that she’d had the misfortune of overhearing only made things worse...

[hyunjin-bun]

The  Good Mistake {Bokuto x Akaashi and Kuroo x Kenma}

synopsis: Where Akaashi and Bokuto have to come to terms with how they feel and Kuroo and Kenma have to discover their feelings.

pairings: Bokuto x Akaashi and Kuroo x Kenma

genre: FLUFF! (or at least trying to be) crack (but like it wasn’t supposed to be that’s just what happened) mutual pining some light angst here and there.

warnings: Swearing if there are anymore you think i should add just dm me.

note: oh my god guys. Idk what to tell you just that this chapter is MASSIVE. Its over 4k words😲 and not my intention but i just couldn't find it in my heart to split this one up. Uhm so its the second last chapter and I’m honestly really proud of this one so hopefully ya’ll like it👀

If you’d like to be tagged just send me an ask (or a message if you feel to awkward with asks cos same👀💛) Enjoy!💕

I Missed You

Kuroo woke up with a start as his alarm on his phone blared. It was Monday and time to get ready for work. Turning around to switch his alarm off he remembered Kenma breaking down in his arms last night. And looked back to his other side and saw Kenma right where he’d left him. His eyes, although closed, were still puffy around the edges.  Otherwise, he seemed peaceful.

It made Kuroo’s heartbreak because he knew how important last night was for both of them but he wouldn’t be able to spend the day with Kenma. He didn’t want to wake him up but also didn’t want to leave without a word. He carefully untangled himself and walked towards Kenma’s pc, which was still on. He opened a new document and typed out a note knowing Kenma would go to his computer first.

I don’t know when you’ll wake up but I will most likely be at work when you do, and I felt that leaving without saying anything would be wrong. But Kozume, I will try to get home as soon as possible this evening because I really feel that I need to talk to you. So be ready at about six and we can go out tonight like we used to. See you then.

,Tetsurou  <3

After finishing the note, he got up, grabbed his phone, and closed the room as quietly as possible.

Only to walk straight into Bokuto. “Jesus Bo,” he whispered harshly while reeling back slightly. He let out a sigh as he closed his eyes rubbing the sleep off his face. “Wow, I’m sorry I have to go to practice early. Where you with Kenma the whole night, what happened?” Bokuto said with a questioning look.

He wouldn’t have been so curious if Kuroo hadn’t confided in him all the emotions he had been feeling for Kenma that one night the both of them got unnecessarily drunk and the other two boys had gone to bed early. “No no nothing happened we just haven’t spent a lot of time with each other recently so we watched some movies and caught up that’s all,” he said as he walked passed Bokuto to go get ready in his room.

Bokuto caught put his hand on his shoulder to keep him from moving further, “Look Kuroo, I have a feeling that you should say something to Kenma. I’m sure you’re scared of what it would entail between the two of you but you gotta take that leap bro.” Kuroo looked back at him and nodded slowly, “Thanks Bo, I’m thinking about it.” He started walking away as he remembered what he would be doing that evening. “Oh and I’ll be taking Kenma out tonight after work so we probably won't be home until quite late.”

Bokuto smiled at that, “That’s great dude! Okay well, I’m taking Keiji out for dinner tonight so we’ll probably be leaving the house after you fetch Kenma.” Kuroo nodded thanks and went to take a quick shower. He then grabbed his bag as well as all the documents he needed and left for work hoping that his day wouldn’t be too long.

<----->

The sun was fully up and shining intensely through his window when Kenma woke up. The air around him felt empty as he noticed the absence of Kuroo. He sat up as he remembered it was Monday so he probably woke up early to leave for work. He flopped back down onto his bed breathing in the scent of Kuroo mixing with his. It was intoxicating and sweet and he instantly missed the warmth that was next to him not so long ago.

His eyes felt heavy and he had a slight headache.  It had been an exhausting evening the night before trying to keep himself from doing anything stupid with Kuroo but he broke in the end and nearly fucked it up. After touching Kuroo’s face causing him to wake up, he panicked and just broke down, but even then, as he was falling apart, Kuroo held him and it felt like all the pieces of the puzzle that made up Kenma were glued together. He felt safe in Kuroo’s arms. Safer than he’d ever felt.

Deciding that maybe taking a shower would help with the slight headache and the puffiness of his face he got up slowly. He looked toward his pc and noticed a document open. He didn’t remember opening one the night before so he went towards it and noticed a short paragraph, it was from Kuroo.

He read the note over and over again and kept freezing at the heart Kuroo put after his name. He wanted Kenma to be ready at six so they could go out and talk. What could Kuroo possible want to talk about tonight?

Kenma started to get worried and figured Kuroo had realised what the problem was and was just trying to find a way to let him down easily. The time was 12 pm so he had a few more hours to psyche himself up for what was going to happen. 

<----->

The day moved agonizingly slow for Kuroo, but finally, after he finished some filing his boss said it was okay for him to go at ten to six. Kuroo groaned in frustration as he got into his car. It took 15 minutes to get back to their apartment, that’s if he was lucky and there was no traffic. As he got onto the highway he switched his radio on to have some music in the background to calm his nerves at least a little. He thanked his lucky stars as he saw there was no traffic.

He looked at his watch and noticed he was five minutes late already so opting to not make Kenma wait any longer than he had to he decided against going inside to change. He loosened his tie and threw it into the back of his car and unbuttoned the first few buttons of his shirt which helped cool him down while his heart raced a mile a minute.

He pulled up in front of their apartment building but there was no sign of Kenma. He hadn’t messaged him or gotten confirmation if he even wanted to go or not so he decided to send him a message.

Kuroo: Hey, I’m waiting outside. Do you wanna go out tonight? It's okay if you don’t

His palms started sweating as he expected Kenma to say no. He sighed with relief as a notification popped up.

Kenma: I do, I’m coming.

His response was short and simple but it made Kuroo’s stomach burst with butterflies. He smiled and couldn’t stop. He put his phone into the console and got out to stretch his legs for a couple of seconds and take off his blazer.

He heard the buzzer of the door to the building and looked up to see Kenma stumbling down the steps towards the car.

Kenma looked up at him looking almost defensive. Kuroo smiled at him hoping to ease him up a bit, “You ready to go Kenma?” Kenma looked at him almost annoyed, “I’ve been waiting since six so I guess so.” He said as he opened the car door and Kuroo laughed at the playful rudeness.

Kenma hopped into the passenger seat and Kuroo got into the drivers. “Okay so, what do you wanna do first?” he said as he buckled his seat belt.

“I thought you had something already planned,” Kenma looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“I mean, I don’t I kinda just wanted to do things you want to I guess,” Kuroo said as he shrugged his shoulders.

Kenma sighed as he put his legs up on the dash, “Okay well, I’m kind of hungry I guess.” Kuroo praised his choice because he was practically starving; the last time he ate was a quick sandwich he bought from the café down the road from his work.

Starting the car, he drove to their favourite restaurant, which was not very far from where they stayed.  As they got out of the car it gave Kuroo a moment to notice Kenma’s appearance, he was wearing an obnoxiously bright yellow hoodie and black sweatpants. His hear was tied back in a low messy bun. Some strands of hair were too short to fit so they just hung loosely and almost angelically framed his face.

It was a bit chilly out so Kuroo grabbed the spare sweater he kept in his car. Now he looked somewhat less formal.

Kenma shivered as the walked up the path to the restaurant. He almost thought that the air around them would be awkward and uncomfortable but as per usual with Kuroo he somehow managed to put Kenma at ease. Every time.

This time it was the smile he got from Kuroo as he walked to the car earlier. It relieved some of the anxiety that had started to build up in the pit of his stomach. They got a booth almost at the back of the restaurant and Kenma couldn’t help but feel like he was on a date with Kuroo but he knew it was anything but that.

It felt very private sitting where they were sitting. Kenma liked it like this. He watched as Kuroo sat down and opened the menu to pick something. Kenma mirrored him even though he knew what he’d be getting. They ordered their drinks and food at the same time and the waiter left.

Kuroo put his elbows up on the table and balanced one hand under his chin looking at Kenma, “You wanna talk about what happened last night or not now?” Kenma placed his hand on the table trying to seem more open. He didn’t want Kuroo to think he’d keep being defensive. “I don’t think I’m quite ready to talk yet Tetsu.”

Kuroo huffed out a small chuckle and smiled at him, “That’s okay we can build up to it, what did you do today?” Kenma started to relax as he recounted probably his most boring day ever. He wasn’t really in the mood to stream because he knows his fans would have noticed how anxious he was and he wasn’t up to answering the questions they would throw at him so he’d basically sat and played games.

Kuroo looked almost sympathetic, “Why didn’t you feel up to streaming?” Kenma shrugged, “I don’t know, I guess it’s the same reason for last night.” Kuroo nodded and was about to say something when the waiter arrived with their order. While eating he listened carefully as Kuroo told him about how boring his day was too and how it went by so slowly because he was looking forward to tonight. This surprised Kenma. What was Kuroo so excited about?

He decided asking won't kill anyone except maybe his will to live. “Wha-Kenma why wouldn’t I be excited? We haven’t hung out like this in a long time and well,” he paused and couldn’t help the blood rush up to his cheeks, “Well I missed you Kenma.”

Kenma was taken aback at how forward Kuroo was being. Of course, they’d been forward with each other in the past about certain small things but never about each other. He felt a glimmer of hope in his heart at this.

Kuroo was worried if he’d said too much because of the look of surprise on Kenma’s face. Kenma looked down at his food and mumbled just loud enough for Kuroo to hear, “Well I’ve missed you too.”

Kenma looked back up to see Kuroo practically beaming, and Kenma couldn’t help but smile at him in return as his ears burned. They continued to eat in comfortable silence.

Kenma was nearly finished with his sushi when Kuroo asked what he wanted to do next. “Mmn no I chose the first thing, it's your turn now,” Kenma said after gulping the last bit of food down. Kuroo just smiled at him, “okay fine.” He didn’t say anymore and asked for the bill.

After paying they went to the car and Kenma stopped before opening the door. “Okay, where are we going Tetsu?” The man supported a mischievous grin on his face while shaking his head, “You’ll have to see when we get there Kenma.”

Kuroo drove for about 10 minutes and suddenly they were in the heart of the city. He parallel parked on the side of the street and looked at Kenma “You ready?” “Kuroo I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be ready for,” Kenma said incredulously. “Come on then,” Kuroo said as he stepped out of the car.

Kenma followed suit and shuffled closer to Kuroo when he walked around the car. It was busy in the city. Not as busy as it would be on a weekend but close enough. “Hold my hand so you don’t lose me?” Kuroo said, observing the fact that Kenma was becoming reserved at the sight of all the people walking around.

Kenma looked up at Kuroo with his eyes wide, “uh-uhm, you want to hold my hand?” he said as his face gradually got hotter. “Well yeah so I don’t lose you in the crowd,” he noted as he held out his hand for Kenma to take. Kenma hesitated long enough for Kuroo to think it was too much but Kenma took his hand. Holding Kuroo’s hand is everything he felt it would be and more. His hands were surprisingly soft and of course bigger than his.

Kuroo tried his hardest to hide the blush that had wound its way to his cheeks when Kenma took his hand. He had to remind himself that he used the excuse of not losing Kenma in the crowd of people and that they aren’t just like all the other couples he’d noticed walking around.

He led Kenma down one of the many alleys and stopped in front of a shop with lots of bright colours and lights. It was a game store he was told about by one of his colleagues at work and instantly thought about taking Kenma there. He wanted to do it for their first date but obviously, he hadn’t asked Kenma out.

He looked down at Kenma expectantly and his breath hitched when he saw how the lights reflected against his skin and how the lights made his eyes seem especially bright. “Tetsu how did you find out about this place it's beautiful,” Kenma said looking through the window at all the shelves and things on the walls.

“Beautiful,” He mumbled still looking at Kenma. Kenma turned to look at Kuroo, “What?” The sudden eye contact threw Kuroo out of his trance and he looked dowm, “Uh, yeah so one of my colleagues who is like 70 years old was telling me about his grandkids favourite store and its uh, this one.” Kenma just nodded and looked back through the window, “Well can we go in?”

Kuroo laughed and looked into the store too, “No of course not I just felt like making you look into your version of heaven and then drag your ass back home, seriously Kenma, of course we can.” Kenma gave him a small smile and pulled him into the store.

Stepping into the store was a big relief to Kenma because he was able to get out of the crowded and loud streets. There weren’t a lot of people inside the store maybe about 7 including him and Kuroo. The walls and ceiling were black and they had blue and red lights on either side of the room. There were posters all over the walls showing the new releases and life-size figures of characters were dotted here and there.

Kenma realised he was still holding Kuroo’s hand and let go thinking it wasn’t necessary anymore. Kuroo’s expression was unreadable as he let go. He was smiling but his eyes seemed to convey something different. He walked further into the store running his hands along the shelves, Kuroo watched him for a couple of seconds before following after him slowly. His hand felt empty without Kenma’s hand in it and he yearned to satiate his need for the feeling of Kenma’s skin against his.

They walked around and talked in the store until the owner said he’d be closing in 15 minutes. So Kenma quickened his pace and grabbed things he saw that he wanted to get. Kuroo was following him until he stopped and saw something that he wanted to get for Kenma.

It was a small pendant of one of the cats from Animal Crossing who Kuroo remembers was very similar to Kenma. They were both lazy and both would do activities if told they could get something like food out of it and just his general feel about him was very Kenma-ish. He smiled as he took the pendant off the shelf.

“Are you coming Kuroo?” he heard Kenma call for him. He looked up and Kenma had finished paying and was waiting for him by the door. “Oh yeah, I’m coming just wait for me there.” He replied as he gave the chain to the man at the register so he could pay for it. He declined a packet and slipped the chain into his pocket and thanked the cashier.

He and Kenma left the shop back into the street which had calmed down a bit so there were not as many people. Kenma looked up at Kuroo as they started to walk back to the car, “Hey thank you for tonight. I really enjoyed myself Tetsu.” Kuroo nodded and smiled in response, “I’m glad, and you seemed happier too.”

He then thought of an idea remembering what Bokuto had said to him that morning, “But, we aren’t done yet,” he said as he stopped in his tracks. Kenma stopped midstride and turned to look at him. “What do you mean, what else do you want to do?”

Kuroo then continued walking with a grin on his face. “Wh-what’s up with all these surprises Tetsu.” He grumbled as he followed Kuroo. Once they were back in the car Kuroo put the heater on as the temperature dropped a bit and his sweater was not nearly warm enough. He started to drive leaving the city and Kenma hooked up his phone to the cars speaker system to play some music that he liked.

Kuroo actually preferred listening to whatever Kenma played because he had a wider variety of genres that he listened to so he could go from hardcore rap to the softest and romantic music you could find yourself listening to. His favourite was a song called carry you by Ruelle which Kenma started to play.

He found himself humming along to the words and feels them resonate through the way he was feeling about Kenma at that moment. He stopped at a spot that was halfway up a mountain but had a beautiful view of the city. He stopped the car but kept it on to let the song play through until it ended.

Kenma looked out onto the view with wonder. He wasn’t the kind of person to travel much even if it was just down the road and even then he didn’t take much notice of the scenery around him. He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. “Wow, Tetsu. This is…” he let out a huff as he smiled obviously speechless, “why did you bring me out here though?”

Kuroo continued to look out the window with determination. He had to go through with this. He couldn’t just keep himself from finding out what would happen. He was scared but it had to be done. “I have to confess something to you Kenma. I can’t keep it inside anymore it’s not fair to me or you.”

Kenma instantly felt a cold feeling wash over him. He knew what was coming and could feel his eyes start to burn as the tears threatened to flow. He tried to remain calm though. This needed to happen. No matter how much it hurts him it's necessary. He braced himself for the rejection.

Kuroo turned to look at Kenma but couldn’t see what was happening on his face as he was facing away. So he took that leap, “I think I’m in love with you Kenma.” As he said this he saw a tear roll down Kenma’s face.

Kenma whipped his head to the side so he could look at Kuroo, the look of absolute surprise very evident on his face. His jaw dropped open in complete disbelief. “What! is it that surprising?” Kuroo said. Kenma tried to regain his composure, “Tetsu are you sure?” he couldn’t believe what was coming from Kuroo’s mouth. Kuroo raised his eyebrow at him, “What do you mean ‘am I sure’ Kenma I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life.”

Kuroo couldn’t quite read the emotions on Kenma’s face but he knew they weren’t bad. Maybe he had nothing to worry about?

Kenma moved so he could sit facing Kuroo directly, “Jesus Tetsurou I-well I love you too.” He looked as if he was close to tears as his gaze found its way to Kuroo’s. It was Kuroo’s turn to be surprised and he instantly smiled and looked down as if he was embarrassed about it.

Kenma rubbed his eyes to get rid of the tears that had threatened to fall not even minutes before. Kuroo looked back up again, “Is that what’s been bothering you lately?” Kenma laughed as he sniffed. Kuroo was oblivious but he wasn’t a complete idiot. “Yeah actually I wanted to talk to you about it but I was too scared that it would mean losing you and I don’t think I’d be able to handle that.”

Kuroo looked at him with a serious expression on his face. “So are you okay now, since it’s in the open?” Kenma nodded his head with a small smile. Kuroo lifted his hand to push back some hair that had fallen into Kenma’s face and he kept it there as he moved closer, his eyes keeping Kenma’s locked into place “May I kiss you Kenma?” Kenma nodded as he moved closer.

Kuroo cupped Kenma’s face between both his hands and lightly grazed his thumb over his cheekbone. Slowly he brushed his nose against Kenma’s and pressed their lips together as softly as he could to test out the waters to make sure he was completely okay with this. Kenma leaned more forward as he wrapped his arms around Kuroo’s neck and tangled his hands in his hair.

He sighed as Kuroo deepened the kiss, their lips moving in sync with each other. Kuroo bit Kenma’s bottom lip softly earning himself a small moan from him. Needing air, they pulled away from each other but Kuroo kept his forehead pressed against Kenma’s.

“God I’m so sorry I didn’t say anything sooner.“ He huffed out with a laugh and continued, “will you go out with me. On a date next time?” Kenma opened his eyes and smiled, “Yes Tetsu.” Kuroo giggled and kissed him again longer this time. After what felt like hours they untangled from each other but still stayed close.

“Oh I meant to ask you Tetsu, what did you get from the store earlier?” Kenma asked with a curious look on his face. Kuroo blanked for a second before remembering, “Oh shit, yeah. Well, remember when you introduced me to Animal Crossing and I told you my favourite villager in your village was that lazy cat named Bob?”

Kenma nodded, “It was actually because he reminded me of you. And when I walked past one of the stands earlier I saw this.” He reached into his pocket and brought out the chain with the pendant on it. “So I wanted to buy it for you.”

Kenma looked down at the chain hanging between them. He looked at Kuroo and smiled, “This may be the cutest thing anyone has ever gotten me Tetsu, thank you.” He took the chain from Kuroo and slipped it over his head holding the pendant of the lazy purple cat in his hand.

Kenma grabbed his phone to play music through it and they sat together listening to love songs that somehow deepened the already ocean depth love they had for each other.

Tagging: @gabbywubby  @shou-kunn @super-noya @thequeenofpotatoeunicornss @pudding-head-kenma @thirsthourdemon @thesecretlifeoflilly

[howtodisassembleyourdeviant]

Once in a Lifetime Ch.5

I can’t find enough RK900 gifs... -_-

"I'm going to go look for them, " Connor looked irritated.

"Has it been five minutes, already?" You regarded him, brow raised. Connor crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against a desk. You both know it hasn't, he probably even set an alarm for five minutes, but every second that went by made him more and more anxious.

"You don't really think Gavin would do anything to hurt Nines, do you?" You finally asked.

"Why not? All detective Reed has ever done is express his dislike for androids, especially Nines and I, " the real question is how you could think otherwise, scoffing at his answer. Were you trying to set him off?

"I don't think you understand Gavin's motives as well as you think you do." Your laugh died in your throat when you met his eyes.

"And you do? Please, tell me what I'm missing." His words had a bite to them that even surprised him, not that he let it show.

"Clearly not your attitude, " you snapped. He should have known aggressive interrogation tactics were the quickest way to shut you down and sour your mood. He knew better than to add fuel to your fire, but he wanted to know why you would trust Gavin, of all people, with Nines and what secrets you were keeping between the two of you. The irritation was likely a result of the terrible news he had gotten from Fowler, mixing with his dislike of the reckless detective that risked his brother's life. You were just trying to help and he was being, as Hank would call it, an "ass". If he wants to get any information out of you, he will have to switch tactics immediately, and possibly back down for now.

"Sorry. I'm just worried."

"I know, just... We all gotta work together on this. You might not believe it, but Gavin does regret how yesterday went down." Connor only huffed out a breath, skeptical of your statement. If so, he has a funny way of showing it.

Gavin and Nines walked back over. Seeing Nines in a different set of clothes was surprising enough, but what really caught you off guard was the juice box he was sipping at. Where did he even get a juice box? How does Gavin know he can have a juice box?

"You two would make shitty parents, " Gavin tossed a small duffle bag, which Connor caught effortlessly. "Those clothes were causing a rash. He also started coughing on the way back. Lucky for you assholes, I know how to care for a kid."

"Shame you don't care for your partners as well." The words were out of Connor's mouth before he even registered they were there. You elbowed him in the side.

"Fuck you, plastic prick!" Gavin looked like he was about to pop off, but decided to storm off in the direction of the break room.

You sighed, "Come on, Nines, we're gonna wait for Connor by the car." You gave him a pointed look before taking the small android's hand and leading him out.

Connor knew what you wanted him to do, as much as he disliked it. He followed after Gavin, finding him leaning against a counter, waiting for the coffee to fill up. The hot headed detective refused to look at him.

"Gavin, I-"

"I don't wanna hear anything from a piece If shit like you, so why don't you just get the fuck out of here, " the man growled, still refusing to look Connor's way. Was that... Were his eyes wet? The android regarded him for a moment, realizing that he didn't know how to handle this. Gavin had never done this before.

"I SAID GET THE FUCK OUT!" The man pushed off the counter, seething. A single tear escaped from his eye, and the realization only seemed to anger Detective Reed further.

"Sorry." Connor murmured, leaving as quickly as possible. Maybe he didn't understand Gavin as well as he thought.

..............

"What about this one?" You held up the shirt for Nines to inspect.

"No." He answered curtly, not even really looking at the shirt. You sighed. Surely shopping for a kid isn't really this difficult. How do regular parents do this?

"You're going to have to choose something, " Connor tried to reason.

"They are too childish." You wanted to bang your head against a wall. It's been almost an hour and they haven't so much as found socks for him.

"You know what, why don't you have a look. We'll be over at the car seats."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Connor's brow was scrunched up in concern. He didn't like Nines being unsupervised when he is defenseless.

"It's fine, this store is specifically for children. They even have security guards at the doors."

"I'm not a child!" Nines exclaimed. He was growing tired of being compared to one.

"We know, but that doesn't change the fact that you are for the time being, so just go find some clothes you can tolerate for a couple weeks and you'll be back to your turtlenecks and trousers in no time." You pinched the bridge of your nose. It wasn't even noon yet and you were already done with this day. "-and Nines, if you don't find something, I will choose for you, and I guarantee you will regret it. If you thought Hank's clothes we're atrocious..." You walked off, not even seeing what the other two were doing. Connor looked to Nines, shrugged, and followed after you.

Nines could do this, he wasn't some helpless kid. Surely he could find something that was at least halfway decent. Looking up, he couldn't help but think that people are stupid. Why would they make the clothes racks so high? Spying a blue sweater, he wanted to see if it was in his size, but he couldn't reach the hanger. After trying to shake it off, he stopped and took a moment, thinking his way around the problem. He tugged down on the sweater a bit before releasing it. It bounced up and off the rack.

Relishing his victory, he was happy to find the sweater was just his size and was soft to the touch. He found some button-up shirts and another sweater, this one in forest green, and even found a black turtleneck. It wasn't much, but his bundle was getting a little heavy. Looking around for the car seat department, he practically jumped out of his skin when a voice spoke from behind him.

"Hi," The little boy shouted from behind him, "my name's Jordan, what's yours?"

"N-Nines, " he shuddered, feeling uncomfortable, holding his bundle a little closer to himself. Conversation was never his strongpoint. Unlike Connor, he only had a basic social interaction program, as they had been working on fine tuning one for him when the revolution peaked. As he was a functional android, he was released without it. He would be lying if he wasn't envious of how easy his brother could make friends.

"That's a funny name. Is it 'cuz you're an android?" The boy blatantly stared at the LED on Nines head. His hands itched to shield the flashing light from the boy's gaze. Are kids usually this... rude? Technically, yes, Gavin had given him his nickname because it was easier than saying RK900, before he had registered a name different from Connor. It was the first sign that their relationship had shifted from animosity to partners. He liked his nickname.

"Jordan?" A woman's voice rang out, prompting both boys to look over to its origin, "Jordan? Jor- oh! There you are! I told you not to run off!" A plump, gaudy looking woman plodded over, spying Nines cowering slightly in his clothes.

"Why, hello there! Jordan, who's your little friend?"

"His name's Nines!"

"I-I see, " she clearly thought his name was weird too. Is this what everyone thought about his nickname? Was Gavin actually being insulting when he started calling him that? No, that didn't make sense. "Are you lost?"

"No, my-"

"Hey Nines! I found something I think you might like!" You came up, Connor right behind you, pushing a cart with several items in it, including the accursed car seat. You spotted Jordan and his mother. "You making friends or causing trouble?" You asked with a smirk.

"Wow, you look just like your fath-..." Jordan's mother's voice trailed down, eyes making contact with Connor's LED. As you took Nine's bundle of clothes and put them in the basket, she could see his LED too.

"Ma'am? Are you alright?" Connor looked to the mother. Her face hardened.

"You should keep your robot on a leash and away from human children! He could have hurt my little boy!" She snarled, grabbing her son and yanking him against herself. You instinctively took Nines and pulled him behind you, squaring your shoulders.

"Only thing hurting your child is your bigotry. Nines' is free to go wherever he wants, and I'm not gonna let some ignorant bitch tell him otherwise! You don't want your son talking to androids, maybe you should keep him on a leash. Already raising him to be close-minded, might as well confine the rest of his world. Now, if you excuse us, I need to go wash the taste out of my eyes." You kept Nines close to you as you walked past, arm across his shoulder, as if you expected the woman to lash out, and from the look on her face, it wasn't exactly unjustified.

"Least I didn't havta buy my man, " the woman mumbled when she thought she was out of earshot.

"Could have fooled me from all that make-up you're wearing. Old hag." You'll be damned before you let that bitch have the last word. The woman took her son's hand, dragging him away.

"Bye, Nines!" Jordan shouted, immediately being reprimanded by his mother.

When she was gone, you dropped down, looking Nines over.

"She didn't hurt you, did she?" Nines shook his head. Not many people harassed him for being an android in his old body. His stony face and piercing gaze kept most away. Even criminals cowered from him. Matter of fact, only Gavin had taunted him, but he saw it more like a small dog trying to act tough, more adorable than annoying. It was... Upsetting to experience this first hand. He also felt bad for Jordan, to be raised in such an oppressive environment.

"No, she didn't do anything. Can we go home?" you checked him once more before you conceded.

"Alright, " you guided him to the cash register, Connor following with the cart behind. Nines was trying so valiantly not to cry, biting his lips as he quietly sobbed. Unable to stop yourself, you hoisted him into your arms, balancing him on your hip while pressing his head into the crook of your neck.

"Shh, shh, shh, shh... You're alright... It's okay..." You spoke gently, rubbing his back soothingly. Nines hid his face against you and weeped.

Connor unloaded the cart, watching the interaction. He was mesmerized. It seemed so natural and if he didn't know better, he would have thought he was watching a nurturing mother comforting a troubled child. He didn't even hear when the teller told him the total.

"Sir?"

"Right." He snapped out of his thoughts, placing his hand on the palm reader and confirming the transaction. He couldn't believe how much everything totaled to. Kamski will be reimbursing him.

You continued to console Nines as Connor set up the car seat.

"I want my old body back, " he whimpered against you, so softly it broke your heart.

"I know, sweetheart, I know. We'll get it back for you, I promise, " Connor nodded to you, informing you that he was finished, "come on, let's go home." Gently, you placed him in the car seat, fastening him in. Nines wiped at his face, trying to calm himself. Before you backed out, you reached for the center console, pulling out a small packet of wet wipes.

"Look here, " his eyes met yours, watching as you smiled at him, softly wiping his cheeks, the coolness of it felt good to his flushed cheeks, "you know, he must like you, the little boy you were with. Why else would he blatantly disobey his mother?" He nodded. That is true, Jordan did say goodbye to him. Surely, he had to know that would upset his mother.

"Why does she hate us?" He asked.

"People always have their own reasons, some self-justification why they are the way they are. We will probably never know why, " his head fell forward, disheartened, but you took his chin in your hand and made him look back at you, "but don't believe that everyone is like that, and people change. You should understand that better than anyone, " you grinned knowingly. Nines cheeks heated when he realized what you were insinuating, cracking a small smile. You ruffled his hair, watching him fight to fix it before climbing out and shutting the door. Connor was standing next to you.

"You're really getting the hang of this, " he smiled, leaning down and kissing your cheek.

"Thanks, " you blushed, "we still need to get to the grocery store. We better move quickly, his model requires an afternoon nap or he'll get cranky."

[modmamono]

Why Space Channel 5 is one of SEGA’s best dumbest games ever, no questions asked. (Report 1 & 1/2.)

Space Channel 5 on the Dreamcast is one of my favorite things ever, let alone favorite video games. Though I more often watch it on YouTube then actually play it.

For those not in the know, Space Channel 5 is a game series developed by United Game Artists and published by parent company SEGA. And that’s the most Wikipedia quoting I’m gonna do in this gush piece.

There aren’t many games quite like this rhythmic, Simon says game. At least in style because this game has that in spades, the gameplay anyone can do. And I am not at all qualified to explain its style because I wouldn’t how to describe it as besides maybe very 70s?

Point is there’s something charming about this game, and I think SEGA agrees with me on that. The lead character, Ulala (seen above), appear in these games to name a few years after new Space Channel 5 games stopped being made after 2002:

2004: Sega Superstars

2006: Sonic Riders

2008: Sega Superstars Tennis and Samba de Amigo

2010: Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing 

2012: Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed and Project X Zone

2015: Project X Zone 2

And not to mention the invading aliens have been skins of the titular Puyo Puyo in that series for a while I can’t determine. Possibly since at most 2007 up until current day with Puyo Puyo Champions in 2018/2019.

ALSO not to mention the VR game that came out recently! (How could I forget that? That’s the main reason I’m doing this.)

So it is clear SEGA loves this game and it’s sequel a lot. I don’t think their most beloved cult classic NiGHTS: Into Dreams gets that much love from the company though it certainly does get a lot itself, most games wish their parents still loved them that much long after they had a game. Anyway...

Now the part where I actually talk about the game.

I wanna say, first and foremost. This is not a review of the game. This is just gushing about why this game makes me happy.

And everything I’m gushing about is just what you get from the from one playthrough of the game. Save for one exception, I will not be talking about supplementary material, nor Space Channel 5′s lore.

And yes, this colorful dancing/rhythm/simon says game has lore. Basically any non-repeated character model has their own biograph. So I will not go into that.

You’re not missing too much, there are interesting tidbits, sometimes they fill you in on background details of the story.

Speaking of the story. I’ll start in a second. But if this is new to you, you can watch it here first (The first playthrough is only half the video):

Prologue:

We start off with a bunch of alien sitting on a space couch watching space TV. These aliens are known as the Morolians and they’ll be the main antagonists for the evening.

This cutscene has no dialogue, so this is all open to interpretation for a first time viewer. Though I do enjoy this split second foreshadowing:

And that’s when the title screen appears. Blasting you with the series’ main theme Mexican Flyer. Look it up if you must. You’ll be hearing it a lot, it’s the game and Ulala’s leitmotif.

Report 1: This is terrorism attack on an airport... I’m gonna ignore that.

This is the only piece of supplemental material I’ll talk about, as it’s present in the game itself, but not elaborated on, and it is important to two of the character.

The game starts in a flashback. In the year AD 2489 a spaceship exploded. Everybody on board died safe for a little girl.

She was rescued by a man working for Space Channel 5. A news organization that with a specific focus on dancing. That last bit is nothing special though, as everything in this galaxy revolves around dancing.

After the little girl is saved by this kindly Channel 5 Gent (Age 25) she knew what she wanted to be after she grew up. She wanted to be a sexy dancing reporter for Space Channel 5 just like him (presumably). And to meet him so she can thank him in person.

10 years later......

It is AD 2499! And the Morolians attack a space airport and their ray beams hypnotize people to dance silly.

THE HORROR!

And that’s when Space Channel 5 sends in Ulala to report on the progress.

But what they’re actually doing is for Ulala to solve the problem instead of the Space authorities.

One character I do wanna mention now is that Ulala’s producer, Fuse, is an unseen character yet is important later. He’s the one briefing Ulala in the screenshot above. And oversees Ulala’s every move.

Also Ulala never got to meet her rescuer. He either left shortly after Ulala got rescued, or shortly before Ulala joined. Given what we learn later, likely the former.

Anyway onto the show:

BAM!

BAM!!

BAM!!!

I will always love that. Ulala got down on the ground in the panicking space air port to coolly report on the panic.

As quick aside, I wanna mention that Ulala doesn’t run in this game, she slowly struts and all of her struts are simply majestic. And those amazing struts lead her to the first gameplay section of this game.

Some Morolians hold a few hypnotized people hostage. This is is a dance battle. Meaning you got repeat exactly what the aliens do in the exact rhythm they did it in order to save the hostages. And I love this gameplay. It’s simple yet fun (provided you got minimal lag, you should look into that if you wanna play this game).

The controls are:

Up: Up

Down: Down

Left: Left

Right: Right/Light

Button 1: Chu (Aliens)

Button 2: Chu (Humans)

And this is how normal people settle things in this world apparently:

Party 1 (usually the Aliens) make up a tough but fair pattern for Ulala to copy in the hopes of psyching her out.

Party 2 (Ulala & Co.) gets as many chances ad she got. And the better she does more people tune into her news report. If she wins she gets what she wants. Saving the hostage and getting Party 1 out of her hair.

Every single one lives by this code of honor and I honestly have no clue if there’s an in-universe reason. But I love it regardless. I love it when people say: Up Down Chu Chu Chu. And the Ulala repeating it.

Though frankly, I don’t like it when the Morolians issue the commands. I like it when others do the exact same commands in this same game, so it’s a little bit of a bummer the Morolians do it.

Anyways. You save the hostages and they join in on Ulala’s unstoppable strut as will always happen if you rescue people. And they strut to the second gameplay type: The Shoot-out.

The controls are the same as the above but now you gotta watch out for humans in the mix.

In general these are trickier. And I might go into that later. But they do work on the same rules.

Don’t worry I won’t go over every dance or shoot-out unless there’s something special about it.

Also I’m pretty sure you kill people if you push the wrong Chu. Don’t do that, it’s bad for the ratings!

Skipping over three battles.Something new happens, rival space news station: Space(?) Channel 42 has a reporter of their own out on the field. And that reporter is planning to steal Channel 5′s viewership. And this is HER!

You do a dance battle and she dies.

Though seriously, I like this game does this. It’s not only aliens you fight, but other factions of the Space News Media. And it’s always a nice shake up when someone besides her shows up.

You see, for the most part any reoccurring enemy has recognizable mannerisms you gotta batlle, and her is no different. It’s hard to describe for me. You kinda gotta play or watch the game for yourself to see what I mean, but I think it’s best exemplified in Report 2. And the following games.

Though one thing’s for sure, each non-normal Morolians or rival reported does bring their own genre switch with them. Heck sometimes even normal battles have unique genres. I’m am not musically inclined so I wouldn’t know hers or most others. 

Any way, before she dies she give an emotional speech and gracefully suggests to take her Channel 42 guitarist with her and Ulala accepts that’s the least she could do for a lousy reporter like her.

And then it’s boss time!

Yeah, actual bosses with actual boss characters. And not like the recently deceased as shown above. She’s practically for all intents and purposes another Morolian dance battle.

And it’s down to funky jazz music, not unlike what you’d see in Sonic Adventure! Even Ulala comments on it, confirming it’s dietetic  Where does it come from? Not sure, there might be an explanation somewhere. But do keep that in mind. That the music we hear is also the music the characters hear as well.

Anyways:

Not Pictured: Super Stretchy Arms.

I think it’s a bit of a misnomer. Invader is correct, that’s what it’s here for. But is it really a robot? It moves like an organics and is a bit rubbery. This basically goes for all Morolian robots.

I can suspend my disbelief. You shouldn’t nitpick too much about Space Channel 5, it doesn’t want you to think too hard about it’s world even if there’s a lot to it. I’d be concerned if Space Channel 5 did wanna put its story and world building first and foremost.

But “Hypnotized Robot Invader”?

What?

Spoiler.

Robots and hypnotism... I’m pretty sure a sign that we made perfect human-like Artificial Intelligence if they can fall susceptible to Hypnosis. Even then I doubt it.

Sorry, that’s always bothered me, I get what they mean by it. It’s just the word choice... Did they mean Hypnotizing Robot Invader? This boss is great.

It starts off with a normal dance battle, but you get to watch a new Morolian enemy’s moves. It’s also quicker on the draw along with a few softballs to throw your timing off. Pretty good stuff.

And that applies to the next phase as well, where the the shooting starts.

I don’t have much to say.

Unlike the robot’s final phase where it’s the first phase again, but with guns and the robot goes to berserking speeds with the input commands.

And after you beat it, it joins you in a strut.

As does everyone you saved, No matter the gender, nor age, nobody is embarrassed imitating Ulala no matter what she does. We’ll be half as lucky to get a cool future as cool as 2499.

And with that the first report is over.

Report 2: (Age 35)

At the Morolian HQ (Presumably), their boss doesn’t like failure.

But like a good boss he doesn’t dwell on failure and moves on to the next plan. One of his lackeys has this plan: Another boss battle dance robot who operates on:

The everyone at the table is impressed. So I guess Ulala is screwed, game over.

This level is more of the same as the last one more or less, it’s possibly the most boring level in the series in that regard. It’s not bad, this is just the game bulding enough a status quo before they change things up in Report 3.

But that doesn’t make this level any less interesting to talk about, so I won’t go over it much.

The short story until something new happens is: Space Ship (think of it as a fancy yacht but in space) is being attack by Morolians, Ulala is send to report on it, and being the professional she is saves hostages as well.

She saves the captain, crew members, stewardesses, waitresses, the Space Diva (OH NO! NOT THE SPACE DIVA!), passages and the like.

UNTIL!

He voice says “I’m gonna steal you show, Space Channel 5”. And you see this ship flying by:

Another rival reporter, this one a pirate broadcasting station.

Side note: That’s sounds like the most important kind of pirate ever. Alternative news/non-mainstream with no money/rating motive blinding everything with journalistic integrity? Yes, by all means. If they’re pirates then so are Secular Talk & The Humanist Report.

Back to the silly dance game. The Pirates either jam or hack Channel 5′s signal and the Ulala is stuck with them for a while.

And then we meet that where we meet the gent above.

“[His] name is:“

“JAGUAAAAARRRR!!!” “JAGUAAAAARRRR!!!“

(Age 35)

LET’S DANCE!

Dude, I love Jaguar (Age 35) he’s gotta be my second favorite character in the series on account he’s just cool and incapable of embarrassment.

Remember the deceased of the last report? The Channel 42 reporter in the blue dress? He’s her counterpart for this chapter.

But whereas the deceased’s gimmick sounded air headed for a lack of a better term. Maybe, girly? Point is, battling her didn’t feel too dissimilar to battling Morolians despite her rhytmic mannerisms.

Jaguar (Age 35)’s gimmick is that he just adds. He starts with a simple Up. And then he adds a Chu, and another Chu. Eventually it becomes a really long chain of commands, it has to be some of the longest in the series. And you have to do them all from start to finish because he does them all sequentially. Can you repeat?:

Up. Chu. ChuChu. Right. Left. Down. DownDown. Down. Chu. Chu. Chu.

He is easing you into it, but it is by no means an easy fight. Because after the chain is at its longest, he just spamming ChuChuChu in quick succession. And then a simple Chu.

After defeat Jaguar & Co, escape by jet-pack, saying they will meet later.

This battle is a highlight for me. Coco Tapioco and the big bosses to come are better if you ask me (with exceptions). But Jaguar (Age 35) is some of the best the normal gameplay goes.

And you could argue what normal means in the context of Space Channel 5. But effectively, like Channel 42′s deceased, functionally he might as well be another Morolian if he wasn’t there to be set up for later. Because you do get person that just joins your Strut Club like everywhere else.

You gain his Jazz Man and you get a great sax solo as a reward beating him. Like how you got Channel 42′s guitarist for beating them. I like the think the Jazz Man can work for Jaguar (Age 35) again while the Channel 42 Guitarist is blacklisted.

And before we move on from Jaguar (Age 35) check out his Chu pose:

BOSS TIME!

Jaguar (Age 35): The alien mothership is retreating. Don’t you have to follow them, Channel 5? Fuse: Blast you, Jaguar [Age 35].

With the pirates giving chase, Ulala is left with the cowardly alien robot to elegant music.

Ignoring the robot’s title, while silly, its cowardice is its greatest asset. For it has kidnapped some space schoolkids, making their space teacher worry. Their space teacher can actually be seen at the start of the report.

Space fashion, am I right?

I’ve exceeded Tumblr’s invisible limit of what to put in a blog post. I’ll have to rewrite this boss what I have to say for this boss. So full, can’t spell check! We’ll be back!

[chemicalmagecraft]

A Black Wind Howls Chapter 3: The Fight

A/N: I hate finals and am glad that I'm done with them. Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone!

By the way, if you haven't noticed by now I decided to give all the chapters titles. A chapter that follows the events of an original ATLA name will share its title, but original chapters will have original names.

Also, in case anyone was curious, my mental image of Lhamo is that she looks and sounds like Scorpia from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, except not a scorpion and with black hair. Meanwhile, I may or may not have thought of Old Toph from TLoK a little when writing Tsering. To be honest, though, I don't really have any one character to point to for Dorji, aside from the in-universe comparison between her and Aang (though it might be more accurate to say she looks like a mix between Toph and Aang, just nobody's seen Toph yet and therefore cannot make that comparison). As for personality, according to TVTropes she might be described as a Rei Ayanami Expy, though I haven't seen Neon Genesis Evangelion so I can't say for sure if that's the best comparison. And just a little fun fact, despite being currently the shortest member of the Gaang (roughly 3'11, and I found a thing that says that Aang is 4'6, Katara is 4'9, and Sokka is 4'11, though it wasn't exactly official so it might be slightly off) she is the second oldest, being a few months older than Katara. Assuming you count Aang as 12 and not 112.

oOoOo

Previously on Avatar...

The firebender that the girl had hit shakily got back up and punched at the airbender's back. Only a puff of smoke came from his fist.

"My name is Dorji. I'm an airbender."

"The power of airbending may have survived through my family line, but unfortunately the spirit of the Air Nomads lives on only through you." Aang winced at that comment.

"Should you really be stealing moon peaches?" Aang asked her in a slightly accusatory tone.

Dorji shrugged. "Not stealing."

Lhamo gasped and hugged the three. "Dorji has friends her age!"

"Is that you, Tsering?" Aang asked.

Tsering grimaced. "I survived."

At some point Katara had shifted in her sleep, ending up with her arm hooked around Dorji's waist. Judging from the red glow dusting her cheeks and ears Dorji had some very conflicting feelings about this. "Shiiiiit..." she muttered softly.

Aang simply couldn't sleep.

oOoOo

Aang and Dorji, both very tired, grunted at each other sleepily when they met in the hall, both rubbing their eyes. "Couldn't sleep?" Aang asked.

"Couldn't sleep..." Dorji nodded after a few moments, like she hadn't heard Aang at first. While Aang had fully opened his eyes, Dorji's were still half-closed drowsily.

"I kinda stayed up all night thinking. You?"

Dorji's cheeks turned a nice shade of pink. "...Also thinking." After a silence that could have been either her insomnia-addled brain trying to think or just her having dozed off for a bit she said, "Actually could you please put your hand on my stomach?"

"What? Why?" Aang asked.

Dorji's blush returned. "I'm... curious about something."

"Oookay..." Aang looked at her weird, but carefully placed his hand on her stomach. "Why?"

Dorji grabbed Aang's arm and twirled around so that his arm ended up hooked around her waist. "Hmm... Nothing..." she muttered as she leaned on Aang's shoulder.

"What are you doing?" Aang asked.

Dorji released his arm and started walking away. "Checking something." She sniffed the air. "Smells like Lhamo made breakfast. Let's go." She walked away before Aang could ask her more questions. Aang sighed and followed her down the hall.

"Hey, Lhamo," Dorji muttered when she walked into the dining room, turning her head slightly to face her cousin who was currently placing food on the table. Katara and Sokka were seated at the table, eating.

"Hey, what'sh up!" Sokka said in between chewing. "You two are up late!"

"Sokka, please don't talk with food in your mouth," Katara scolded.

"Itsh sho good, though!"

Lhamo smiled. "Thank you! I made it myself!"

Dorji stared at Sokka, seemingly deep in thought. Sokka swallowed. "Something wrong?" he asked.

Dorji jumped, sailing through the air to land gently on Sokka's lap, causing him to squawk in alarm. She forced his free arm around her waist. "Ew. Weird," she muttered.

"One of us is weird here and it isn't me," Sokka objected. He put down his food and picked Dorji up, placing her in the seat next to him. Dorji started snoring despite sitting up. "She is weirdly light. Is that an airbender thing?"

Lhamo rushed over to Dorji. She placed one hand on her shoulder and the other over her forehead. "Dorji are you okay? Have you been eating well?"

Dorji grunted lazily and touched the thumb of her open hand to her chest and then her chin, then started snoring again.

Lhamo put some food in front of her. "Still, you need to eat."

Dorji made a small noise, but started eating. She made another sign after a few bites of food, then stopped eating.

"Ya gotta eat more, kid," Tsering said as she entered the room. "You're worried about your dad, right?"

Dorji sniffed and nodded after a few moments.

Tsering sighed and sat down next to her, facing her despite the fact that her eyes were closed. "I am too, kid. You have to eat, though. I remember, back when I'd just escaped the massacre, I couldn't bring myself to eat at all. It... wasn't good for my health. Felt like I was floating all the time, nearly passed out a lot. Think I did pass out a few times. Remember dreaming about everything being upside-down or something... Where was I?" Dorji touched her thumb to her forehead. "Right, your father. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if he busted out of prison and assassinated the Fire Lord or some of his generals, or simply razed their capitol to the ground. He can take care of himself. Now eat."

Dorji nodded and started eating again, ignoring Aang, Katara's bewildered stares from what Tsering had said about her son.

oOoOo

"Goodbye, everyone!" Lhamo said with a wave as Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Dorji boarded Appa. "It was nice meeting you all! Take care of Dorji!"

"Goodbye, Lhamo," Dorji said.

"Thanks for the pie!" Sokka shouted.

"Speaking of pie," Tsering said as she walked into the clearing, followed by a few workers bearing a box, a few sacks, and a few tubes. "I have a few gifts for you all." Despite not moving her hands from where they were clasped behind her back, the packages started floating in bubbles of air and were loaded onto Appa. "One of those is the rest of the pie from last night. Eat it before it goes bad. Those bags contain some of our produce, freshly picked." She smiled and stroked Appa's fur. "I'm sure between the sky bison and the three growing teenagers, you'll need them."

"Thanks!" Aang said. "We'll be sure to use them."

Tsering chuckled. "That's not even the thing I figured you'd like the most. The scroll tubes contain, among other things, copies of genuine Air Nomad scrolls."

Aang's eyes widened. He grabbed one of the tubes, one with the Air Nomad sigil on it, and with shaking hands carefully opened it. He reverentially pulled out a pristine scroll that also had the Air Nomad sigil on it. He unfurled it, revealing instructions for advanced airbending techniques. His eyes welled with tears and he quickly rolled the scroll up and put it back before wiping his eyes. "Y-you..."

The old woman smirked at him. "Figured you'd like that. I may not have been too cut out for the whole monk life, but I'm still an Air Nomad. I decided a while back to preserve as much of Air Nomad culture as I could, hopefully for future generations but at the very least to preserve records of my people." She chuckled. "Made a bit of name for myself in the field of anthropology as a result."

"And you're just giving these to me?" Aang asked.

She shrugged. "As I said, they're copies. I made sure to put the originals in safe hands, so don't worry too much if you lose them."

"What are the other scrolls?" Katara asked.

"I also wrote down some techniques Wangchuck and I made that Dorji might want to refresh herself on. And you might want to learn some of those, Aang." Aang looked a little uncomfortable when she said that. "Just a suggestion, kid. There's also some stuff on Air Nomad culture in there that I thought you might like, plus some recipes in case you want something from home. Aside from that, there are a few scrolls on bending the other elements that I've managed to obtain. Figured that as the Avatar you might have more use for those than me. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get much more than theory for fire and water, especially because Wangchuck never fucking told me where he put his scrolls, but it's better than nothing, huh?" She smiled at Katara. "Plus I figure you might appreciate it too, Katara. You are a waterbender, are you not?"

Katara nodded. "Thank you."

"I also managed to find a scroll on healing with waterbending. It's not anything you can use in a fight but, well..." Tsering rolled up her sleeve, revealing a faded but still slightly visible burn scar. "Let's just say I speak from experience when I say that healers are the kind of thing that are always great to have around. I'll try to find practical waterbending scrolls to get to you."

Katara bowed. "You've already given us a lot. I'll try to work with what you've given me already."

Tsering shrugged. "Don't worry about it, I've got enough connections that I should be able to get you a few scrolls eventually."

"That stuff's cool and all, I guess, but I don't suppose you have anything I can use?" Sokka asked.

She nodded. "Fair enough. It might not be quite your fighting style, but there are also a few scrolls on chi blocking in there. The art was originally developed by nonbenders to give them an edge against benders. Dorji can teach the basics to you, if you want. And finally, I added in a few scrolls on Earth Kingdom Sign Language."

"Is that that weird hand thing Dorji was doing earlier?" Sokka asked.

Dorji winced and Katara glared at Sokka.

Tsering stared at him flatly. "Little rude to phrase it like that, but yeah. It's good for sneaking around because you have to be pretty fucking bad at it to make noise while doing it. And while it's not my place to tell you why, Dorji sometimes prefers talking in it so it'd be for the best if at least one of you learned enough of it to hold a conversation."

"Thank you, Grandmother," Dorji muttered shyly.

"Right, you all should leave now. Goodbye, Dorji and Aang." She waved them off with a smile.

"What about us?" Sokka asked as Appa started to rise.

She shrugged. "Yeah, I suppose you too." Despite being far away from them at this point and not speaking up at all, her voice traveled perfectly to them.

oOoOo

Aang touched Appa down in a large forest clearing so they could rest for the night. He patted Appa on the head before jumping back onto the saddle. "All right, buddy. Let's see what Tsering got you." He was a little woozy from lack of sleep, but hopefully they'd be sleeping soon so he didn't say anything about it.

Dorji jumped off of Appa and pointed at the ground by his side, making a small circle with her pointing finger. A small cloud of dust kicked up where she pointed. "I'll cushion your fall," she offered.

"Thanks!" Sokka said, then jumped down. When he hit the dust cloud his fall slowed and he fell on his ass with a yelp.

"Sorry," Dorji muttered. She moved her hand to the right slightly, and the dust cloud moved to where she was pointing. She widened her circles, causing the dust cloud to grow larger and wider. "This one should be better, hopefully."

Katara jumped. She also lost her balance when she hit the cloud, but Dorji quickly stepped forward and caught her.

"Thank you," Katara said.

"Y-you're welcome," Dorji said, blushing slightly. She immediately let go of her and stepped back a bit.

"Thanks for catching me, too," Sokka deadpanned as he got up.

"You're welcome," Dorji said.

He looked at her flatly.

Dorji tilted her head and blinked. "Was that sarcasm?" she asked.

Sokka sighed. "Yes, that was sarcasm," he said exasperatedly.

"Ah," she said. She looked a little nervous for some reason. "I'm sorry, I... have trouble with detecting tone, sometimes."

Katara glared at Sokka yet again. "How was I supposed to know that!?" Sokka snapped at Katara.

Katara sighed. "Sorry, you do have a point there. Is there anything else we should be aware of, Dorji?"

Dorji eyes widened. She blushed and gave Katara a very appreciative smile. "I... Sometimes I have... problems processing sounds. It's not too bad anymore, I hope anyway, but please be patient if I need you to repeat things," she muttered.

Katara nodded. "Okay. Is that why your grandmother said you sometimes prefer to use sign language?"

She bit her lip. "It's... part of it. I would also prefer if you faced me while speaking to me, for similar reasons. I can read lips, in case I'm having trouble with hearing."

"How do you read lips?" Sokka asked.

"Lots of practice. Start by looking at lips."

Sokka shrugged. "Fair enough."

Aang jumped off of Appa's saddle after putting the bag of apples he was feeding Appa back. "What're you guys talking about?" he asked.

Katara gave Dorji a look, as if asking her if it was okay to tell him. Dorji nodded to her. "Dorji was telling us about how she has a few... issues with hearing."

"Oh, is that what the sign language was for?" he asked.

Dorji nodded. "I can hear, but I have trouble processing sounds sometimes, if that makes sense," she clarified.

Aang nodded. "I remember one of the boys I grew up with, Dema, had an issue like that too." His face fell. "Dema..."

"I apologize," Dorji said.

"For what?"

Dorji fidgeted. "I... brought up a memory. One that must be painful for you."

Aang shook his head. "No, you didn't even know that'd remind me of Dema."

"Would... would you like something to take your mind off of it?" she offered.

"Thanks!" He smiled at her. "What do you have in mind?"

"If you're going to be fighting the Fire Nation, you need combat skills. Traditional airbending may have had martial arts, but they were mostly restricted to evasion, disengaging, and defense," she explained. She unsheathed one of her daggers and swiped it at a tree off to her side, not even breaking her gaze with Aang. A blade of wind rushed from her blade, slicing a deep gash in the ground as it kicked up a large cloud of dust and slicing the tree almost in half vertically when it hit it. "All of that is good, but you might be a bit lacking in your offensive capabilities, decisively ending a fight." She spun her dagger, then sheathed it. "Shall we begin?"

"I don't feel comfortable with that," Aang said nervously.

"Why not?"

Aang clenched his hands, a sour expression on his face. "That's... That's not airbending."

"Um... Aang?" Sokka put his hand on his shoulder. "Maybe..."

Aang forced his hand off. "No. That's not airbending."

"It is, though," Dorji rebutted. "Well, some of the moves I intend to teach you don't need airbending, but for the one I just showed you? Doing it requires you to stream air along a thin surface, like my daggers or your staff. It might be a little hard at first if you haven't done anything like that, but-"

"That's not what I mean!" Aang shouted. "You're doing it all wrong!"

Dorji sighed. "It's not wrong. Just... different. I understand that it might be upsetting to see such a different style from what you're used to, but... it's not wrong."

"It goes against all of airbending culture!" Aang shouted.

"Aang..." Katara said.

Dorji frowned slightly. "I see. You know, I had always been fascinated with grandmother's scrolls and books about the Air Nomads. Part of it was just that reading was... nice... for me, I will admit, but..." She turned away from Aang and walked a few steps away from him. She stood there for a few seconds, then sniffled and wiped her face. When she turned back around her eyes were a little red. "For a while, I wanted to be like them. They were my people, my ancestors. But at the same time, I was always worried a true Air Nomad would despise me, as I am still my father's daughter, and my father was not a traditional Air Nomad. Thank you for confirming it for me. I told you before, the pacifistic monks of the past died out a century ago. I'm not an Air Nomad. I was never an Air Nomad." She touched one of the green highlights of her clothing. "I was born of the Earth Kingdom. I was raised by the Earth Kingdom. Why should I call myself an Air Nomad?"

Aang's face contorted in anger, then softened slightly. "Fine." He turned around and walked away.

"Fine," Dorji echoed. She pulled the two halves of her father's staff from her belt and started walking towards a large rock.

Sokka and Katara sighed at the same time. "I'll talk to Aang, do you want to talk to Dorji?" Sokka asked.

"That sounds good," Katara agreed.

"Cool." Sokka started climbing back onto Appa, struggling a bit. "Let me just... get something... real quick."

While Sokka was doing that, Katara walked over to Dorji. Wielding the two halves of her father's staff like dual swords due to how long they were compared to her, Dorji swung at the rock with one segment. A wide gash appeared in it despite the fact that the staff never made contact with it. She swung with the other segment, creating a second gash. Next she slashed both, deepening and widening both of the gouges she'd made. She quickly put the two halves of the staff together and started twirling it with insane speed. The wind in the area picked up, and dust clouds flowed towards her staff. She jumped back and threw the staff at the boulder. The spinning staff cut cleanly through the boulder, grinding it in half with little resistance. After it was on the other side Dorji held her hand out to it. The staff shot back, pulverizing the upper half to smaller rocks with pure windy force. Dorji caught the staff and swung it, blowing all the rocks and dust away. She used the momentum of the swing to turn around, jabbing the end of the staff a few inches away from Katara's throat. Tears streamed down the shorter girl's face, and her hands were trembling. The air stilled again.

Katara slowly put her hand on Dorji's shoulder. The airbender stiffened a little, but didn't resist. Katara smiled at her and slowly lowered Dorji's staff with her other hand before pulling her in for a hug. Dorji dropped the staff and started sobbing. "W-why?" she asked. Katara let her go, and she rubbed her eyes. "Why can't I go a day without crying?"

Katara sat down on the remaining part of the boulder, which had conveniently been cut and smoothed into a serviceable, if a little tall, bench by Dorji's practice. She patted a spot next to her and smiled at Dorji, inviting her to sit next to her. Dorji hesitated, but slowly sat down. She tilted her head slightly to Katara, staring at her.

"When my mother died... It was hard on all of us. And the first few days were the hardest. But... it does get easier. And I'm sure I speak for Sokka as well as myself when I say that we will both be here for you when you need a shoulder to cry on." She sighed. "And I'd have hoped that I could say the same of Aang, but now I'm not sure..."

Dorji whimpered.

Katara scowled. "To be honest, I didn't think Aang would blow up like that. I mean, he was a little touchy when he saw what happened to his old temple, but I thought that that was just from seeing the remains of someone he knew..."

Dorji winced. "Did I... some of the things I told Aang must have hurt him. I should apologize." She tried to get up, but Katara put her hand on her shoulder.

"Don't. I think he should apologize first. He's hurting, yes, but he has no right to take that out on you."

Dorji leaned on Katara. She didn't say anything else, but Katara hugged her.

oOoOo

Aang sighed. He sat at the edge of a small lake near where they had landed, prodding at the water with some attempts at waterbending. "Maybe I shouldn't have..."

Sokka slapped him on the back of his head, then sat down next to him. "Yeah, you really shouldn't have." His tone was annoyed.

"I'm so-"

Sokka slung his arm around Aang's back, clamping his hand on his shoulder. "No. You're gonna listen. You lost your people and found out the world crumbled after you left. I can't even imagine how horrible that feels. But." He tightened his grip. "If you even begin to think that gives you a right to dump all that out on a girl you just met, who recently lost her father, that's unforgiveable. Imagine if some old friend of that one monk guy you were fond of... Gyatso, I think, came out of nowhere and told you that you weren't fit to be the Avatar, or even an Air Nomad. That's what you just did to Dorji."

Aang sighed. "You're right. I should never have said that. I... I'm sorry."

Sokka patted his shoulder. "I'm not the one you should be apologizing to, buddy. And first... maybe we should talk a bit. You've got a few issues to work out, clearly."

Aang looked down. "I... I miss them."

"Yeah, that's pretty natural. But what made you lash out at Dorji like that?"

He sighed. "I guess... I'm sure she's not trying to, but she always seems to... remind me they're gone. That I was gone for a hundred years, and my people are long gone." He sniffed and rubbed his eyes. "But... I should never have taken it out on her."

Sokka patted his back. "You know, I know I always complained about the lack of meat and everything, but... If you want to make a traditional Air Nomad dish or something, I'd totally be willing to help." He grinned. "And I'm sure Dorji would, too. But first you gotta apologize to her." He pulled out a scroll. "And I have an idea of something you can do for that."

oOoOo

Dorji had fallen asleep, resting with her head on Katara's shoulder. Katara smiled and stroked her hair gently, as not to wake her. Sokka walked up to her, Aang trailing sheepishly behind.

"I hope you're here to apologize," Katara glared at Aang.

Aang shrank back slightly. "Yeah, I... Shouldn't have taken my feelings out on Dorji." He got out from behind Sokka and faced Dorji. "Dorji, I want to apologize to you," he said, raising his voice to try to wake her up. "My suffering was no excuse for what I said to you. And I was wrong, you may be other things, but you are an Air Nomad, too!"

Dorji, perhaps due to her hearing impairment that she had yet to fully explain to the others, did not react at all to this.

"Maybe you should wait until she wakes up, Aang?" Sokka said.

He nodded. "Right, sorry. Should... should we wake her up or..."

Dorji stirred, then sat up and started rubbing her eyes. "Sorry, did someone try to wake me? You'll need to shake me awake, shouting won't work..." She noticed Aang and stiffened slightly. "R-right. Y-you..." She bit her lip.

Aang placed his hand, a loose fist, on his chest and made a small circular motion with it. The sign, as best he understood the EKSL scroll, for 'sorry.' "I'm sorry," he said, as sincere and contrite as possible. "You reminded me of what I've lost, and I couldn't take that and lashed out at you. But that's not an excuse for how I acted towards you. I understand if you don't forgive me. For what it's worth, you are a real airbender." He smiled. "You are airbending culture, as much as I am. And you have every right to call yourself an Air Nomad."

Dorji sniffed. She rubbed her face, but a few tears fell onto her shirt still. "Th-thank you. And... f-for what it's worth... I'm sorry for hurting you, even if it was unintentional. I'll... I'll try to be more mindful of what I say in the future."

Aang smiled at her. "Thanks. If you want, you could show me that one airbending move. I don't think I'll ever use it on a person, but if I need to cut down a lot of trees really fast I could use it for that?"

She smiled slightly. "Actually... I think I know another move that my grandmother made that might... suit your tastes slightly better. When used on a trained warrior, especially a firebender due to how firebenders train their lungs, it will never cause any lasting damage. And at the same time, it will temporarily disable the person you use it on, especially if they are a firebender."

Aang hugged her. "That sounds great! And later, I can show you some airbending moves of my own!"

Dorji backed up nodded when Aang released her. "I'd like that. But first..." She got into a fighting stance and took a deep breath. "The best way to explain this is with a demonstration. And the best way for you to learn how to do it is to experience it yourself. But I will not do it without your permission, as it can feel... unpleasant."

"Um, is this a good idea?" Sokka asked.

Aang nodded. "Do it. Is there anything I should be paying attention to?"

"Your breath." In a blur, Dorji was suddenly standing inches away from Aang. She paused for just long enough for Aang to focus on her, a rush of wind punctuating her stop, then jabbed him in the solar plexus with two fingers. The amount of force she put into the physical movement was negligible, but Aang still toppled backwards as he felt his lungs empty against his will. He struggled on the ground for a few seconds, finding it hard to regain his stolen breath. Eventually he coughed and shakily took the hand that Dorji had offered him at some point.

"Are you okay, Aang?" Katara asked.

"Gimme... a minute..." he said between pants, a pained grimace on his face as his breathing slowly returned to normal.

"Sorry, I should've mentioned it can be... unpleasant." Dorji said, taking a few steps away from Aang and the others. She looked nervous again.

"No, it's fine," Aang assured her. He chuckled. "I probably should've guessed it wouldn't feel too good, anyway. Still, I can see what you were getting at. And you're sure it doesn't hurt people you use it on?"

She nodded. "Unless you use it on the same person multiple times in a row without letting them breathe, or use it on someone with weak lungs. But a trained soldier should be fine, and the technique will let you take them out of a fight for a few seconds at least, as well as open them up to a finishing move. And most notably, it temporarily disables firebending."

"It disables firebending!?" Sokka parroted, incredulous.

Dorji nodded. "Grandmother made the technique with some principals involved in chi blocking, after performing some... research on firebending." She breathed deeply, in and out, and when she exhaled her breath was very warm. "In fact, she learned that the breathing techniques the Air Nomads used to keep themselves warm in even the coldest of weather were originally based on knowledge given to them by firebenders. Firebending does not come from muscles, but rather the breath. So a technique that disrupts a firebender's ability to breathe..."

"Also disrupts firebending," Sokka finished. "That's... that's amazing!"

"It only lasts a minute or so at best, but it will still throw a firebender off," Dorji continued explaining. "And a master of it can do it from a distance, or even without moving at all, or at least my father and grandmother can. If you need more guidance to learn it, Aang, ask me. But..." Dorji turned to Sokka. "Perhaps you would like to learn chi blocking? You seemed pleased with the concept of disrupting firebending. And it can do more than just disable bending for a few seconds."

He grinned. "That sounds awesome!"

She nodded. "Then let us begin." She collapsed, but still somehow managed to hit the ground lightly. "Tomorrow. I'm tired." She closed her eyes, already asleep.

[jyndor]

Cop-thing-anon here:

(I don't believe in the blue lives matter thing by the way)

I do get where you're coming from. I guess I see the thing about cops and cop AUs differently because the police is different and not as fucked up in my country. The thing about the fanart is just..I think you're reading too much into it. I don't think the artist really focused on the skin colour of Sokka, I mean, it's a kids show. Skin colour was never really mentioned or important in atla. But Sokka's personality is most likely why the artist was inspired to draw him as a "gangster", with azula (the villain) being a cop. It is kind of insensitive to draw that with the events going on, but I think that a lot of people in the fandom take some things way too seriously, for a kids show back in the late 2000's anyway.

hey anon, I say this with love and I am being sincere. I'm gonna need you to rewatch the show if you think skin color didn't matter. and it doesn't matter where you live because there is no part of the world, no culture, that isn't shaped by colonialism. I don't mean to be condescending so please bear with me, I truly believe in educating people as a part of allyship and anti-racism.

Anon, please know that I am not angry or anything but sincere in what I’m about to say. Just bear with me because I know that unlearning shit is difficult and can be painful, but we’ve gotta do it. I do appreciate you wanting to have this conversation at all. And I’m not writing this just for your benefit - this is for anyone who wants to learn about why A) race is a part of ATLA’s narrative and B) why critical analysis of mass media is actually important. So I’m not assuming you don’t know basic things about this stuff, I’m not trying to be condescending.

Now we’re gonna fix colonialism and imperialism XD wee okay here we go.

No matter where you live in the world you have some awareness of skin color. Your understanding of race might be different than mine, in fact it probably is. Race as we know it today is a social construct that stems from many things (and I wrote several hundred words on it but it was too much and too far removed from the point I’m trying to make so I edited all of that out. Yay.)

You don’t usually see imperialism, one of the major themes in Avatar, without colonialism. Imperialism is slightly different than colonialism - you can think of it like the ideology behind the practice of colonialism.* Imperialism can be used to describe expansionism in general - which has been going on since the bronze age lol humans, I stg - but usually when people today refer to colonialism and imperialism they’re talking about imperialism starting in the 17th century.

Now imperialism is not just a European concept. ATLA is set in a world that we know is supposed to be like a combination of different Asian cultures (with some influences from the Americas). And the Fire Nation is clearly influenced by Imperial Japan. So briefly:

Japan had a policy of sakoku (chained or closed country) which kept it mostly isolated (out of concerns that Japan would fall victim to something like the Opium Wars in China, among other things) from the rest of the world for a couple hundred years until the 1850s when a US Naval commander named Matthew Perry (I am not kidding) forced Japan to open its borders for trade to the United States by gunboat diplomacy, an oxymoron if I have ever seen one before.

Japan ended up signing unequal treaties with a lot of Western countries, and this bred xenophobia and hostility in Japan. The Emperor who signed these treaties died of smallpox, and after some internal conflict his son decided try to renegotiate these treaties. The US and European countries were not interested in renegotiating dick but the mission wasn’t unsuccessful because the diplomats A) exchanged some islands with Russia and B) were inspired by western economic policy and society to “modernize” Japan. Japan began industrialization and it converted to a market economy with the help of the US and other western powers.

So over many years, Japan went to war with China, Korea, Russia (and took back some of the land they exchanged with them), and others. From wikipedia:

Using its superior technological advances in naval aviation and its modern doctrines of amphibious and naval warfare, Japan achieved one of the fastest maritime expansions in history. By 1942 Japan had conquered much of East Asia and the Pacific, including the east of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma (Myanmar), Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, part of New Guinea and many islands of the Pacific Ocean.

But ATLA is not a Japanese story. The Fire Nation is not Imperial Japan. The Earth Kingdom is not China or Korea, the Air Nomads are not Tibetan monks, and the Water Tribes are not Inuit. The creators definitely drew heavy inspiration from all of these places and others, but ATLA is a story written by American people in the United States for American kids. It is an American story.

And it was created at a time when the United States was victimizing people in Afghanistan and Iraq (and other places) in many similar ways to how the Fire Nation victimized people. In fact, the show starts in the Southern Water Tribe, which represent Inuit people, indigenous people in Alaska, Canada and Greenland, I think it’s safe to assume that the genocide being referenced here is not one by Japan but rather by European colonizers and later by the United States and Canada.

Imperialism is in the show’s DNA. 

And so is racism. In our world they are inherently connected. And visual cues from the show along with things the characters say suggest that we are meant to make the comparison between our world and the ATLA world. Every story has a purpose - it doesn’t have to be political, but for Avatar it is political, it is anti-imperialist.

In this article about how ATLA resonates with us in 2020, Aina Khan of the Guardian interviews Professor Ali A Olomi about using ATLA to teach at Penn State. “One of the things we see with the Fire Nation is the ideological justification for what they’re doing. We are a glorious civilization. We have abundance, we have wealth, we have technological advancement; we need to share it with the rest of the world. That’s almost word for word European colonisation.”

Zuko and Azula both call Katara a peasant. In fact, Azula calls her a dirty peasant. This is one step away from calling her a s*vage I mean come on. While peasant might just be purely classist (lol no) because Zuko and Azula are royalty, um it’s clearly racialized classism because of real life context. There is real history with colonizers calling indigenous people this, dismissing their cultures as primitive and barbaric.

Add into the mix colorism, which is bias against darker skin and privileges fair skin (which is a byproduct of imperialism) and you have clear race shit happening in Avatar.

When I saw that fanart, I was immediately reminded of black lives matter of course, but mainly of the fact that indigenous peoples are also at high risk of being victimized by police. Not just in the US. And how gross it is to depict a colonizer like Azula as an angry cop (representing the state) turning her gun on an indigenous man who is dressed like a gangster which... yike.

Mass media influence everything we do. The messaging we get, our politics, what we want to eat for dinner because we’re hungry and have been writing this stupid essay for three hours LOL. It’s important that people think critically about what they consume. Otherwise you get the goddamn United States with half of our population stanning a racist fraud. You want to know why US Americans are so ignorant? Because our education system sucks, because we don’t have any real media literacy. But apparently the rest of the world has some fucking nerve making fun of Americans** because all of us suck at it. No one is thinking critically about media.

A really terrifying thing about people is our ability to take whatever message we want from stories, even if it is in direct contradiction with the narrative of a story. There’s a movie called American History X which is explicitly anti-fascist, but because it’s a drama and Ed Norton is cut and looks badass and uncucked or whatever LOL, the iconography in that movie is fairly popular with neo-nazis. Yike. This is not at that level of course, this is some random niche fanart for a rare pairing.

For better or for worse, US media and entertainment gets a lot of attention and people around the world eat it up. Maybe you don’t need to know every little detail about US American shit, and I know we tend to dominate media, but black lives matter is not just a 2020 thing. People have known about it for years, since it started. If that fanart was created in 2019, which I think it was, the BLM movement had already existed for six years. If you’re watching an American show like Avatar and you’re making fanart on social media but you don’t know what BLM is in 2019... well educate yourself lmao.

Considering that Black fans have expressed frustration and discomfort in fandoms over and over again, and I am sure indigenous fans have too because fandoms are racist sometimes, it’s important that white fans help make fandoms better. And I am a white fan, and I consider myself an anti-racist. Which means I have to be active about racism when I see it.

btw I found this great essay by @cobra-diamond which you should read if you want more details about the similarities between Japan and the Fire Nation.

* that is very reductive but it’s fine lol

** I am kidding, unless you are english feel free to make fun of americans for non-gun, non-trauma related things pls

[thestrippershateyou]

I’m forced to conclude that radfems who advocate gender separatism have never actually lived it for any amount of time longer than it takes to go to the bathroom or get dressed in a locker room.

I used to be a practicing Muslim. Mosques are almost all gender separated. I’ve never actually been to a mosque that wasn’t and even the most liberal one I went to that didn’t have actual solid barriers up for meals and had mixed gender festivals still had separation for almost everything else. I know there’s some in recent years with female Imams and no separation and I know there’s a Muslim LGBT summer retreat that has no separation but I’ve never gone.

And, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the separation there. Most of the women I know either do or are neutral about it. I’ve even seen women advocate for more separation or say they’re going to start wearing niqab unless it’s made so that no men can even glimpse them from afar. But here’s the thing...None of these women are living this 24/7. This is in western mosques. So the mosque is a refreshing break from the rest of life. Not something that they’re wanting in every aspect of life.

Let me fill you in on what happens in gender separation:

- Husbands and wives cannot pray side by side at mosques. Mothers cannot pray beside their sons and Fathers cannot pray beside their daughters. I’ve never seen children over the age of about 5 with their opposite sex parent in the prayer area and not older than maybe 10 for meals. At home, the women stand behind the men who lead prayer. But at mosques you’re behind a partition at a minimum and likely in entirely separate rooms. Sometimes you can only watch on a monitor and hear through a speaker.

- Spouses and even parents can’t contact each other unless they’ve got their phones on them and on sound or vibrate which isn’t always a thing at events and especially not during prayers. I’ve seen fathers standing at the tiny window of space in the barricade trying to wave and get their wife’s attention because their son needs something out of the car and she’s got the keys, needs to run home, needs something from mom, etc but his wife didn’t see him and no one will speak to him because he’s a man and he’d face backlash if he just walked over to find his wife. I’ve seen women doing the same thing trying to contact their husbands. 

- If you’re bringing a guest to the mosque that is the opposite sex, you can’t go with them to their area. So if a son converts and decides to invite his mother or sister to learn more about Islam, then she’s is going to have to go stay fully separate from him in a room full of strangers. If she doesn’t speak Arabic, she’s going to be very lost.

- Families cannot eat meals side by side in mosques or the community centers commonly attached to them for events/holidays. Ramadan dinners (iftars) are a big damn deal and families cannot share them if they’re attending the community dinners at Mosques. They have to choose between family and community. 

- Meals are stupid wasteful too because there has to be 2 of everything. 2 buffets, 2 dessert tables, 2 seating areas (sometimes 2 rooms even), etc. If you can’t provide two of everything, men and women have to be fully separate when going through the lines which takes up so much extra time. Regarding the wastefulness? You got a giant expensive decorated cake for Eid? Cool. Now you gotta pay for 2 of them because you can’t just cut a pretty cake with writing on it in half and carry the other half to a separate room. You gotta make all your dishes twice over with separate serving dishes instead of just making one big one and sharing it. You gotta order pizza (or whatever delivered food) in even numbers instead of just ordering odd numbers and sharing it. Towards the end of meals, I’ll see people going around and combining the dishes to bring more to the sex that has run out of something or to prepare take out boxes. And there’s almost always take out boxes because there’s almost always so much extra food that people take home whole other meals.

- Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha are the two Islamic holidays....and families can’t pray and eat together for them at the mosque. Imagine if you couldn’t watch your own child open Christmas presents because you were their mother and your child was a 15 year old boy. There’s literally only TWO EIDS and if you celebrate them at the mosque, then you do it without the members of your family who aren’t the same sex.

- Wedding receptions are often gender separated. This means a husband and wife can’t even celebrate their own wedding together. The wedding itself will almost always be separated as well though you’ll be in the same room for that of course and obviously the couple is together when signing the Nikkah. But they’ve got to separate for the reception.

- Non school classes (I never went to an Islamic school and can’t speak for that but I know the smaller one attached to my Florida mosque had mixed classes due to being so small. The graduating class there in my year was like 7 people.) and sports are separated. This means if there’s not enough demand for EACH SEPARATE CLASS then one sex won’t have a class. Men almost always get more classes and sports because a lot of them don’t have enough interest only among women for women to have one. At one mosque I used to go to women got ONE SPORT NIGHT A WEEK because that was the only night they could drum up enough interest and get enough women to show up to shut down the community center to men to all men and boys. Men got the other six nights. ICLR, my prefered of the local mosques, actually had TWO WHOLE YOGA CLASSES FOR WOMEN but they couldn’t maintain enough interest in them. If you could mix men and women, you’d have enough attendance for almost any sport or class you want. But without mixing, the smaller attendance events get cut. Unlike with men, there’s no rule in Islam that says women actually have to go to the mosque ever if they don’t want to. So the result of this is that men wind up more involved in the community there. 

And finally...

- Western dating is...not really a thing. It’s changed more with dating sites and tinder and the like. But a lot of marriages (especially first marriages) are still worked out through a glorified game of Telephone. Here’s how it goes... - A person glimpses someone of the opposite sex they decide is physically attractive from what they can see of them (modesty is a big thing in Islam for men and women). They have most likely never spoken to this person except maybe basic greetings in passing and might not even know their name because of the separation. So you’ve got nothing more than “I think they’re physically attractive” to decide if you want to build a lifelong relationship with this person. - They go to their opposite sex sibling (if they have one), a close friend’s opposite sex sibling (if they have one, and if their friend if on board with chaperoning the conversation), or their opposite sex parent (if they have one who is also Muslim, alive, around, and agreeing with their pick) and say “Hey, so I saw this person who I think is attractive. I’d like to get to know them and see if they’re interested in marriage” - That opposite sex person goes to the person deemed attractive and asks if they would be interested in getting to know the original person with the intent of marriage if everything works out. The answer is largely gonna depend on “do I feel like getting married at this point in time” and “are they physically attractive?” because, again, that’s all you get to know about them when you are separated - If yes, then families get together and work out chaperoned public dates. If you’re like me and you don’t have a family then you will likely either not get married in the mosque community or you will have to find a family to adopt you. Not literally, of course. Just in a parent friend kind of way. I had a husband and wife kind of adopt me like that because their little daughter decided I was her sister now. They told me if I ever wanted to get married to let them know and they’d find me a good spouse.

Now. All this assumes that radfems gender separatists aren’t just lesbians who are advocating for heterosexuality and bisexuality to be abolished from humanity. But we all know that won’t happen so let’s not entertain idiocy. And of course this is just mosque things and not all of life. And yet there’s already problems with it. Especially in the dating thing. But also...if I need spiritual guidance from the Imam? I gotta go find his wife. If I need to discuss something like renting the community center or finances with the mosque board? Gotta go hope they didn’t gender segregate that too or else I gotta go find the brother I don’t have. 

Story: When I was 18, my (non muslim) grandparents were being abusive and my phone had gotten wet and broken. So a woman from the mosque wanted to use mosque charity funds to get me a phone to they could keep in contact with me and I could call them for help if I needed it. She had to call up her husband to drive back out to the mosque and talk to the Imam because the woman in the mosque’s board (Yes, only one. Mosque male population vastly outnumbers the female population. The one was specifically there to counter the separation so women didn’t have to talk to men to communicate with the board) was out of town. Because, of all people, the imam ESPECIALLY couldn't be seen violating the gender separation and especially not with so young and so unmarried a woman as me. So what should have been a 15 minute “can I fill out this form for these funds?” turned into over an hour because her husband had to find someone to wait at home for their kid who was on the way home from school.

In short. Gender separation can be fine when it’s a short time and not strictly enforced. Women only spaces are a great concept though measures should be taken for things like emergencies. But asking the world or even a whole individual society to be like that? Oh hell no. That’s not how societies were meant to be. And if you’re out here advocating it then I’m honestly forced to conclude you’re just talking out of your ass, are reacting based purely on emotion with no logic, and that you have no idea what you’re talking about. 

[kagehinataboke]

Im so fucking guilty of staying up late just to binge on your works because your writing is so great ! I just cant help but need to request a tdbk college au where katsuki is a punk with a loud bike and Shouto is just this perfect good boy who got roped into bad boy Katsuki’s lifestyle, basically a good boy/bad boy dynamics, pretty please ?? 🥺🥺 (gonna use emojis to be more convincing)

awww omg thank you, you sweet angel ❤️😭 ily uwu

and yassss ✨❤️ here’s pre-med student Todoroki ft. bad boy Bakugou 👏🏻

accidentally made this super long ooops

***

Todoroki thought he knew what tired was, but his pre-med course has completely reinvented the word. Exhausted, debilitated, and lifeless are better words to describe the kind of fatigue he feels. It’s class to class to class, with endless homework in between. Sleep? It’s basically a foreign concept at this point.

Heck, Todoroki is barely awake now, which isn’t such a good thing when one is walking down the street alone at night. He keeps almost drifting into lamp posts and street signs. The last lecture was just so long…

“Fuck.”

For a second, Todoroki thinks the expletive is directed at him. Then he lifts his head. There’s a bloodied figure hunched over in the nearest alley, both hands pressed against a large wound in his lower abdomen. He’s swearing at the sky, which is probably the only place he can look without passing out. Todoroki, despite not being the one in peril, feels a jolt of adrenaline spike through him. He knows he shouldn’t be approaching someone who has what is clearly a stab wound, but his medical training is already kicking in.

“Move your hands.”

The stranger squints at him with crimson eyes. “…What? Who the fuck are—“

Todoroki forcibly pushes his arms back. “You’re pressing on the wrong spot. You’ll bleed out.” He puts his own hands on the wound, altering pressure until the blood stops gushing between his fingers. When he has a solid position, he meets the stranger’s gaze. “What’s your name?”

“Bakugou Katsuki…” He closes his eyes to take a shuddering breath. “Shit. Don’t call the fucking cops, okay?”

“Well, that leaves me with very limited options…” Todoroki struggles to think of an alternative. His apartment is close, but he can’t take his hands off the stab wound. “Bakugou, If I tell you where to hold your hands, can you keep even pressure while I carry you to my place?”

“I don’t have much choice, do I?” Bakugou weakly rolls his head to look at his stomach. “Just tell me what to do before I fucking bleed out.”

As much as Todoroki doesn’t want this obvious delinquent in his house, he can’t exactly let someone die in an alley, either. “Put your hands here. Yeah. Keep pressure. Good.” As soon as his hands are free, Todoroki moves to slip an arm around Bakugou’s shoulders. He flinches and delivers an intimidating glare, but Todoroki can’t be swayed when he’s in Doctor Mode. “Don’t move your hands.”

“Fine… Don’t fucking touch me anywhere weird, asshole.”

“That isn’t how you should be talking to someone who’s saving your life,” Todoroki mutters, pushing himself to a standing position. Bakugou isn’t as heavy as he expected. “Try not to pass out before we get there.”

“Fuck you.”

***

After Todoroki treats him and sends him on his way, he never expects to see Bakugou Katsuki again. Fate, however, has different expectations. While he’s walking home from his morning class, Todoroki hears the rev of a motorcycle through his headphones. When it stops suspiciously close by, he turns to find a familiar blond delinquent smirking at him.

“Bakugou?” Todoroki takes out one earbud. “What are you doing here?”

“I was in town when I spotted you walking.” Bakugou leans his arms on the motorcycle, grin widening. “Want a ride?”

“On that?” Todoroki raises an eyebrow at the rumbling Harley. “No thanks. You’re nine times more likely to become injured while riding a motorcycle than while driving a car, you know. It’s not safe.”

“Oh yeah?” Bakugou lifts his own brow in retaliation. “But it still looks fucking cool, at least.”

Todoroki sighs and starts walking again, but Bakugou doesn’t give up easily. He follows at a snail’s pace, calling out childishly every few steps. “C’mon, pretty boy, live a little!”

The phrase ‘live a little’ gets to him. As a med student, Todoroki feels like he definitely lives on the safer side. He lost many friends in high school because he was “too boring.” Hearing Bakugou say it presses on an old bruise. He shouldn’t get so worked up over it, but…

Even though he knows he’s being an idiot, Todoroki stalks over to Bakugou’s motorcycle and slides on. The seat is humming gently, and Bakugou’s back is warm. His smile is still, however, incredibly annoying. “That’s more like it.” He passes Todoroki a spare helmet. “Where to, angel?”

“Fourth and Main.” Todoroki pauses. “Don’t call me that.”

“Hey, I call it like I see it.” Bakugou flips down the visor on his helmet, revving the engine obnoxiously. “Hold on tight.”

They take off, and Todoroki quickly lurches forward to grab Bakugou’s waist. He’s never felt this kind of adrenaline before, not even in the alley when they first met. The wind whips against his face and tugs at his clothes, and the street whizzes by underneath his feet in a blur of gray asphalt. Todoroki doesn’t even realize they’re not heading in the right direction until they stop.

“This isn’t Fourth and Main.” Todoroki’s hands shift away as Bakugou puts the Harley in park. “Where are we?”

“Just gotta grab something real quick. Don’t look so scared.” Bakugou pulls off his helmet, his hair somehow pristine underneath. He brushes it out of his face before shooting Todoroki a grin. “Coming?”

He isn’t about to sit out here alone, so he nods hesitantly. “I guess.”

“You’ll have to let go of me, then.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.”

They dismount, Bakugou taking the lead. He uses a key to get into the decrepit brick building they’ve parked in front of—probably his apartment complex, if Todoroki were to wager a guess. It’s covered in graffiti outside, but the interior is normal enough. Todoroki trails Bakugou down the hall to a door on the far end, pausing while he fiddles with the lock. “This damn thing always jams. Fuck. There.”

Todoroki isn’t sure what he’s expecting, but it isn’t this. Bakugou’s apartment is flawless. In fact, it’s cleaner than Todoroki’s dorm. The floors are dark hardwood, the walls are painted a nice shade of orange, and in the windowsill, there’s a neat line of potted succulents. It looks more like a high-rise magazine ad than a lived-in space.

“Fuck, where did I put it?” Bakugou digs noisily through a stack of papers on the coffee table, disrupting the peace. He certainly contrasts sharply to his apartment with his spiked hair, scowl, and ear piercings. And his attitude, of course. “Ah, fuck. Here it is.” He pulls something out of the pile with finality, sliding dislodged papers under the table with his foot.

It’s a textbook. Todoroki recognizes it from a class his sister took. “Advanced Biochemistry? You take that course?”

“Don’t look so surprised, asshole.” Bakugou ushers him out the door, locking it behind them. “Just because I swear and look intimidating doesn’t mean I’m a fucking moron.”

“I never thought you were.” Todoroki waits to be passed a motorcycle helmet before saying anything else. “How’s your stomach doing?”

“Huh? It’s fine. I’ve been hurt way worse than this. More importantly…” Bakugou smirks in a worrying and heart-stopping way. “What time does your class get out? I’ll pick you up.”

Todoroki shouldn’t tell him. He’s been thinking he shouldn’t do a lot of things recently. Unfortunately, he never takes his own advice. “Ten thirty. Don’t be late.”

***

Seeing him becomes a habit. Every time Todoroki gets out of class, Bakugou is there, leaning against his motorcycle with a smirk and a wave. When exactly they started spending so much time together is a mystery, but Todoroki can no longer remember the time when he walked home alone. When he was alone, period.

He asks Bakugou about it while he’s sitting on his spotless white sofa, eating take-out soba. “When did we become friends?”

“Huh?” Bakugou looks up from his chemistry textbook with a scoff. “Why the fuck are you asking that? I dunno.”

“Well, it was after you started harassing me all the time,” Todoroki continues with a frown. “Following me around on your motorcycle, calling me to patch you up after a fight—”

“That was one fucking time!” Bakugou interrupts, throwing a packet of soy sauce at Todoroki’s head. “Are you trying to piss me off, bastard? I swear I’ll make you walk home.”

“I’m only kidding. I like being friends with you.” Todoroki finishes his noodles and smacks the back of Bakugou’s head on his way to the kitchen. “I’d patch you up again if you asked me. It’s good practice for med school.”

“Asshole.” Bakugou rubs his head irritably. “Fuck, did you know that you give off mixed signals? God damn.”

Todoroki doesn’t answer. ‘Mixed signals’? Ha. If anything, Bakugou is the one who gives them off. He follows Todoroki everywhere, and he’s constantly flirting with him, but that’s as far as it goes. He still swears an ungodly amount, is the exact opposite of considerate, and has the crudest sense of humor in the world. It’s impossible to believe that he fell in love with a person like that.

Yes, unfortunately: he did fall in love. With Bakugou Katsuki, of all people. It’s a rather unfortunate turn of events, mainly because Todoroki finds himself worrying about Bakugou more than he worries about himself. He’s more conscious of him, too: he can’t help it. Even now, he’s studying the blond out of the corner of his eye. He’s been holding his arm awkwardly all day.

“Did you get in another fight?” Todoroki finishes washing his noodle bowl and turns a scrutinizing gaze on Bakugou, who flinches.

“…What gives you that idea?”

“You just confirmed it.” Todoroki narrows his eyes, and Bakugou’s widen. He leaps to his feet like a startled cat, putting the couch between them as a protective barrier.

“You stay the fuck away from—“ Todoroki jumps at him before he can finish the sentence, vaulting the couch in a single movement. Bakugou screeches and barely dodges him, sprinting around the coffee table. “You fucking psycho! Don’t do this again!”

“Let me see your arm, then!” Todoroki picks up a magazine and nails him in the back with it. Bakugou stumbles, his socked feet slipping on the hardwood floor. Todoroki takes the opportunity to grab his shirt collar, yanking him onto the couch in a headlock. He pulls up Bakugou’s left sleeve, revealing a long bloodied bandage covering his arm. “I knew it… When did you get this?”

Bakugou, sulking over the lost struggle, lets out a heavy breath. “Last night, after I dropped you off.” He glares out the window. “There was a guy outside. He said some shit, and we got into it. I’m fine.”

“Let me see it.” Todoroki relaxes his grip and Bakugou slides onto the floor, but he doesn’t run away. He surrenders his arm to Todoroki, grumbling irritably the whole time he unwraps it. It’s bad, to say the least, but at least it doesn’t look infected. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

Todoroki already knows the answer: Bakugou thinks they belong to different worlds. He keeps Todoroki out of trouble, even if it means being a reckless idiot. It makes him so angry that he wants to scream. But he settles on leaving, instead. He lets Bakugou go and grabs his bag. “I have to go.”

“Wait. It’s late. I’ll drive you—“

Todoroki slams the door, cutting him off. So what if it’s late? He’d rather walk alone in the pitch black than risk saying things he’ll regret later.

He really needs to get a handle on these feelings, before they get out of hand.

***

He really should’ve let Bakugou drive him home. If he had, the idiot would’ve stayed out of trouble. When Todoroki gets a text with three words and a location ping before dawn, he already knows it’s bad news.

from: blond moron at 4:32 AM.

>> i need you

>> blond moron sent his location

Todoroki stumbles around pulling on clothes in the dark. His heart is hammering so loudly in his ears that he can’t even hear himself breathing. The location is an alleyway a few blocks away. That can’t be good. What the hell has Bakugou gotten himself into this time?

By the time he arrives, Todoroki has been through every worst-case scenario. But nothing could have prepared him for this. Bakugou, unconscious in a pool of blood. Three guys surrounding him, one of them with Bakugou’s cellphone in his hand. They’re gang members: he recognizes them from around town. Oh god. And as if things couldn’t get any worse, Todoroki was in such a hurry that he didn’t bring his phone or a weapon. Basically, he’s screwed.

“What’s going on here?” At least he can keep the tremor out of his voice.

One of the gang members scoffs. “Fuck. This is who this asshole saved as ‘angel’? I thought it’d be a chick.”

Todoroki shifts nervously, realizing what their intentions must be. Panic rises in his chest, but he shoves it down. Fight or flight is a natural response. He can ignore it if he tries. “You… You should get out of here before I call the police.” Hopefully, the bluff is believable.

The group of guys ignores him. “Even if he’s not a girl, he’s got a pretty face,” one says, giving Todoroki a creepy once-over. “Shame about that scar, but the rest of him could get me off.”

Todoroki is so offended that he almost scoffs. Why the hell didn’t he bring his phone? God, he’ll never yell at Bakugou for calling him stupid ever again… But what’s important right now is getting them both safely out of this situation. There won’t be people out on the street so late at night, so helpful bystander intervention is out. Todoroki is all alone on this one.

The gang members seem to have reached a consensus. They drop Bakugou’s phone and circle him, smirking and heckling. He figures he’s got two options: run or beat them up. Maybe fight or flight isn’t easy to ignore, after all.

“If you don’t put up a fight, this’ll all be much easier,” one of the men says, slowly inching closer, like a lion circling its prey.

Todoroki takes a page from Bakugou’s book. “Fuck you.” 

Making them angry will make them clumsy. 

Probably.

***

“Do you want to explain to me how you got these injuries?”

Todoroki shifts in his hospital bed, avoiding the officer’s gaze. “Not really?”

“What about the gentleman you came in with?” A pencil taps impatiently against a pad of paper. “Did you two get into some type of altercation?”

“No. I told you, he’s my friend.” Todoroki scratches the bandage on his head nervously. “The two of us were mugged by those three men. Unprovoked.”

“Uh-huh.” The pencil stops tapping, and the officer sighs. “Alright, then. I’ll go talk to those three and see what information I can get. If you’d like to change your statement at any time, I’ll be here.”

As soon as he’s gone, Todoroki sags against his pillows. He still can’t believe they actually escaped. He got lucky, that’s for sure. That wrench he found probably saved both of their lives. His, most definitely, even if it didn’t save all of him. He’s got a nasty gash on his head, dark bruises around his neck, and scratch-marks all over his chest and back.

Bakugou is pretty banged up, too, but not as badly. He’s only got a minor concussion and a nasty cut on his torso. Just when that stab wound was starting to scar over, too.

“Todoroki-san?” A nurse knocks and sticks her head in through the open door. “Are you up for a visitor?”

“A visitor?” Todoroki’s heart leaps. It must be him. “Sure.”

Bakugou appears in the gap the nurse vacates, holding onto an IV pole with one hand. He’s ditched his hospital gown for a loose cotton shirt and jeans, most definitely against medical orders. “…Hey.”

“Hey.” Todoroki waits for him to sit down before sitting up. “Are you allowed to be walking around?”

“Not really.” Bakugou looks at him, and Todoroki is shocked to see tears slip down his face. He’s never seen him cry. Never. “You’re a fucking idiot.” The swearing isn’t new, though.

“I know. I’m sorry.” Todoroki presses his fingertips together, then relaxes them again. “It’s not like the situation was avoidable,” he murmurs eventually. “They texted me pretending to be you. I couldn’t just ignore it. And if I hadn’t come—”

Bakugou slams a fist into the wall, startling Todoroki into silence. “If you hadn’t come, those motherfuckers wouldn’t have—” He takes a measured breath before continuing. “They told me what those bastards tried to do. I was so pissed, I wanted to punch myself. If I wasn’t an idiot who got into fights in the first place, you wouldn’t have had to go through that shit. It’s my fault.”

“I’m fine,” Todoroki tells him quietly. “They barely touched—” He trails off when Bakugou’s fingertips brush against the bruises at his throat. He expects to feel a jolt of suppressed trauma, but there’s nothing more than a lump building in his throat. “Bakugou, I’m really…”

“You’re not fine.” He runs a hand through his hair without meeting Todoroki’s eyes. “Fuck. I can’t…” He flinches when Todoroki takes his hand.

“I know you think I can’t handle myself. And don’t try to argue: I know it’s true, too. But I can. I took care of us both this time.” He squeezes Bakugou’s hand. “I’m strong, too. Even if I don’t look as intimidating as you do.” He tries to smile. “This didn’t scare me. Not in the least.”

For a while, they linger in silence. Then Bakugou sighs, pressing their joined hands to his forehead. “Yeah,” he relents, “I know you’re strong. It’s part of the reason I like you so damn much.”

If he didn’t know any better, Todoroki would think he‘s dreaming. But his head throbs too much for him to be asleep. “What did you say?”

“I like you.” Bakugou doesn’t let go of his hand. “But you knew that, right? I didn’t mean to take so long to tell you. I guess I didn’t want to make myself seem less cool in your eyes? Don’t laugh. I know it sounds fucking stupid now.”

“This is kind of… the worst timing for a confession,” Todoroki mutters, but he can feel himself smiling. “I have a concussion.”

“What? Why does that matter?”

“I just really don’t want to forget this.”

“Really?” Bakugou snorts. “Idiot… Don’t worry. I won’t let you forget it.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?” Todoroki raises an eyebrow, and Bakugou’s smile stretches against his fingers.

“Definitely a promise.”