#but i googled the school again and i guess it feel off or something
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littlecafe · 5 years ago
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🍆🍑
at my k-8 school i think during 6th grade they started trying to make a mini middle school within the school so we could pretend to have the same experiences as a “normal” middle school so instead of having one classroom like how it’s always been they had the teachers focus on one or two topics each and gave us periods (like english for an hour then we go to math class, etc) but it’s a small school so like we’d literally just walk like two doors down to the next teacher and there were only 3 teachers per grade level but i guess??? and also we still had recess asjfhsuefheks
i think the best part of it was they also made a lot of extracurricular or miscellaneous classes for us since that’s also something middle school students get...i guess....like music! within my 3 years i “learned” keyboard, clarinet, and the flute (”learned” because i really could not play much of anything other than keyboard like at our recitals and stuff and i would just lip play 💀💀) i think keyboard we did as a class but the other instruments i picked, i also did art, sign language, and ballet (also things we could pick)
thinking about it now kinda wild they gave us all that for free just not the ballet shoes i have some vague memory of trying to go buy those
other than that, i’ve learned that learning the recorder in grade school was....a thing??? asjfhksdf why did we all get taught the recorder lmaooo seeing stuff on twitter about it is always so funny i thought it was just something my school made us do
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atlabeth · 3 years ago
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turn back the clock - rafe cameron
summary: your boyfriend breaks up with you days before your best friend's wedding. you're dreading having to face it alone, but when some behind-the-scenes tampering by the bride brings you back into contact with your high school crush, more comes to light than you could've ever imagined.
a/n: thank you to ri for helping me decide which current wip to finish and this post i saw on ig for inspiring it in the first place. i love second chance romance so much and the obx3 trailer made me wanna start writing for rafe again so here we are lmao.
this has been in google drive hell since august and i finished the rest of it all in one go at midnight when i was supposed to be doing homework. so i hope you enjoy
wc: 4.2k
warning(s): small bit of angst at the beginning but basically all fluff, like toothrotting. also reader was a college track athlete but nothing else about her is described
(no i will not stop using this gif of him in the blue suit<333)
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You didn’t really wanna have to make this call. Instead, you just wanted to stew in your own misery, watch some sappy rom-coms that make you feel even worse about what happened, and maybe go out and buy a couple pints of ice cream. 
But the day wasn’t supposed to be about you. And you owed it to Elizabeth to at least explain why you might be in a vaguely shitty mood at her wedding.
Honestly, though—you should have expected this. 
“He what?” 
“Liz—” you started, but you knew once she got going there was no bringing her down until she was done. 
“He broke up with you?” 
“Yes,” you said, and you clenched your free hand in a fist to keep from choking up. He didn’t deserve any of your time, you knew that, but that didn’t mean you weren’t hurting. It didn’t mean tears didn’t well up every time you thought about him. “He just sprung it on me out of nowhere last night. I thought we were doing pretty well, but,” you let out a watery laugh, “I guess not.” 
“I can’t believe him,” she seethed. “I told you not to trust guys with J names, and Jason is like, the biggest offender! I told you the moment we met him at that frat party he was bad news—” 
“You don’t need to go on a rant!” you interrupted with a laugh. “I already know how much of a jerk he is— well, I might’ve just had my eyes opened to it, but I know. I just wanted to tell you that I’m… going through some stuff, I guess, in case I seem off during all the planning. But that’s all—you have to promise me that none of the focus is gonna be on me, because this is your day.” 
“...Okay,” she said after some hesitation, “but you can still rant to me whenever you want. Just because you’re one of my bridesmaids doesn’t mean all you have to talk about is the wedding.” 
“How can I not talk about the wedding all the time?” you exclaimed. “Lizzie, I’ve been involved in so much of the process with you that it’s basically all I can think about. This is the most excited I’ve been for anything ever.” 
“Didn’t your brother get married last year?” she said. 
“You know what I mean,” you chuckled. “I just can’t believe you’re getting married, and to Nate, too. It feels like it was just yesterday that you were telling me about the cute boy in your trig class, and six years later and you’re marrying him in a week.” 
You could hear the smile in your words. “It really does feel like yesterday, huh? I remember going on and on about how much I liked him after that group project we got stuck together for—y’know, your encouragement was the only reason I ended up asking him out.” 
“Then I’m glad I kept bothering you,” you said with a smile of your own. “You guys are so great together.” 
“I just wish you would’ve taken my—” Liz suddenly stopped talking on the other end, and you frowned a bit. 
“What?” 
“...Nothing,” she said very suspiciously after a pause. “I, uh— I just remembered there’s something I need to do. Wedding related. I’ll talk to you later?” 
“Yeah—” you said, but she had already hung up. You chuckled and shook your head as you set your phone down. 
You didn’t really know what that was about, but you were looking forward to the wedding—it didn’t matter that you were suddenly single. 
You and Liz had been best friends since you were put next to each other in the seating chart in sixth grade science—and even though she went to NC A&T and you were all the way at San Diego State, you talked basically every day for all four years of college. Sometimes you even made the flights to see each other, and it was worth every single dollar. 
It made you feel a lot better, knowing she had your back (and knowing that she had likely already blacklisted Jason from the guestlist made you feel pretty good too). 
What you didn’t know, though, was that what she was doing at that moment would make the wedding night a whole lot more interesting for you. 
And it all had to do with one Rafe Cameron from high school. 
-
The air was thick with a thousand different perfumes and the stiffness of hairspray along with a whole lot of anxiety as a result of the eight bridesmaids who inhabited the room trying to make sure they looked their best before the procession started in T-10 minutes. 
You were, of course, stressed as well. It was like everything that was fine for the months leading up to the wedding had suddenly decided to go wrong just to spite you. You’d forgotten to take a tag off of your dress and it was digging into a very particular spot of your back, your hair was not cooperating—Ariel and India and Natasha might have said that you looked beautiful, but it was just not working with you—and you were about to run out of your favorite mascara. All small things, but they were beginning to add up. 
And to add to your stress, your phone started to go off. When you opened it, you saw it was a text from Lizzie. 
girl I am so sorry to ask you this I know we’re so close to the start 
but Ayana just told me that she left my bouquet on the table in the sideroom of room 139, she forgot to take them out of the vase! 
sisters aren’t even on top of things when they’re your maid of honor apparently 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃 
you’re the closest to the room and the only other person I can trust rn because Im going slightly wedding crazy, can you please get it??? I will love you more than my future husband and you will have my eternal gratitude 
using my track past against me i see 
you are pushing it babe 
I know 
help me obi-wan kenobi you’re my only hope 
lol 
dw I got this 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️
You are my savior and all your drinks are on me next time we go out 
You sighed and shook your head, slipping your heels off in favor of the flats you came here in. The last thing you needed was to break an ankle before the procession. 
“I’ll be back!” you announced to the rest of the bridesmaids—though you weren’t sure any of them heard you in the havoc—before you ran out of the room. You were thankful this dress had a slit. 
It took a minute for you to get there, makeup and hair still intact, but when you did you didn’t see a vase. You huffed a sigh and got to work going through everything. The actual last thing you needed was for Liz to not have her bouquet as she walked down the aisle. 
“Oh— I’m so sorry, I didn’t even know there was another person in here.” 
You turned around from your crouched spot on the floor at the voice, and you nearly toppled over when you saw who it was. 
“Rafe?” you marveled. Though it was posed as a question, there was no doubt about it. You’d only thought about him basically every day for all of high school. 
He said your name with the same surprise, his eyes widening slightly at the same time as he stared at you for a moment too long. You swore his eyes went up and down, a slight pink tinge on his cheeks, when he blinked and shook his head. A wide smile spread across his lips in its place, and it did the same sort of thing to you that it did in high school. You weren’t immune to a Rafe Cameron grin as a freshman, and apparently you weren’t as a college graduate either. “What are you doing here?” 
“Trying to find Lizzie’s bouquet ten minutes before the wedding,” you said with a slight laugh. “What are you doing here?” 
“Uh, Topper left his pocket square in here, apparently,” he said. “We drove here together, and he’s the best man so he’s scrambling all over the place, and—” Rafe paused and he breathed a laugh, his eyes crinkling at the corners in the same way they did in high school. “You get the idea.” 
“Oh, yeah,” you nodded, and a smile pulled at the corners of your lips. “I had no idea you were gonna be at the wedding. I—” you chuckled and shook your head. “I guess I forgot that you and Nate went to UNC together.” 
“Yeah.” Rafe laughed again, though it was a bit nervous as he ran a hand through his hair, stuffing his other hand in his pocket. “It’s uh— it’s been forever since I’ve seen you, though. What, the last time we actually had a conversation was—” 
“That one party at UNC,” you supplied, and you stood up, leaning against the countertop. “The one that Liz dragged me to when I came to visit her for spring break sophomore year. We saw each other there.” 
“...Yeah,” Rafe repeated, and his smile softened. “Yeah, it was then. I didn’t know you remembered that.” 
“‘Course I did,” you said. “I mean, the last time before that was the huge party you, Kelce, and Topper all threw in the last week of summer. Before we all went our separate ways.” 
“Oh, that was…” he laughed as he bowed his head a bit. “That was something. Uh, it should be a rule pre-college boys should not be allowed to be around that much alcohol without supervision. I’m surprised no one died that night.” 
You grinned as the memory of it all came back. It was hard to believe that it was one of the last times you saw Rafe. That it was the last time you saw Rafe for two whole years, and the next time you got even the slightest glimpse of him was a minute long conversation with your very drunk self before you were dragged out by your one sober friend. 
Seeing Rafe was the only thing you remembered from that night.
“I can’t believe it’s been so long,” you said, your voice a bit softer. “College really did something to us, huh?” 
“Yeah,” he said, and his smile faded the slightest bit. “Being on separate coasts’ll do that to you.” 
Your expression softened, and you were about to say something when your phone buzzed in your hand. Panic jolted through you for just a moment before you read what the texts said. 
just kidding lol. It turns out that Alicia got the flowers when she was picking up the drinks from there for the reception
crisis averted!! 
I’ll still cover your drinks though since I prob gave you a mini heart attack and Im very sorry about that 
“Huh,” you said, and you glanced back up at Rafe. “Looks like I was sent on a mission for flowers that weren’t even here.” 
“Elizabeth’s probably all over the place,” he said. “I mean, I’ve been kinda stressed out and I’m not even part of the wedding party. Bridal nerves have gotta be a lot worse.” But then Rafe paused and took his phone out of his pocket, and his brow creased. 
“What’s got you lookin’ like that?” you asked. 
“Huh,” he said. “Topper actually just had his pocket square in his… other pocket. So I guess I was here for nothing then, too.” 
A laugh bubbled out at that. “We’ve got some very organized friends today, huh?” 
“Seems so,” he agreed with a smile. “But I’m glad he misplaced it.” 
“Really?” 
“Yeah,” Rafe nodded, and he shrugged. “I got to see you.” 
You felt the heat rush to your cheeks at an astronomical rate, and you had never been more thankful for your phone to buzz. 
But seriously you gotta finish getting ready we have like five minutes left before the organ starts playing 
liz if this was not your day i would be so mad at you
please. you can never be mad at me 
“I gotta go before I single handedly ruin this whole procession,” you joked, and you went past the entrance and Rafe. But just as you got a few steps away, you turned around and smiled. “I’m also glad that Liz sent me here.” 
Rafe chuckled, smiling inwardly as you hurried away. You didn’t know it, but his eyes didn’t leave you for a second. 
-
The wedding ceremony went fabulously. 
You got back in time and finished getting ready—for some reason, you felt a lot more confident in your appearance—and walked down the aisle arm in arm with a very lovely groomsman before taking your place at the front of the bridesmaid line. 
You cried. A lot. 
When you saw Liz walking down the aisle, when you looked up at Nate and saw the way he gazed at her with all the stars in his eyes, when her father gave her away, when they said their vows, when they kissed, when they walked off—you were a mess basically the entire time. Thank god for waterproof mascara. 
And then when you sat with the bridesmaids for the Liz and Nate's first dance and the parent dances, you cried again. And when Ayana gave her Maid of Honor speech and Topper gave his Best Man speech—you were like a waterfall. A complete mess, but a very happy one at that. 
But you managed to stop by the bathroom and fix yourself up in record time before you all went off to your normal seating charts, and god, you had never been more glad to have done so when you walked in and saw who was at your table. 
Liz either knew everything or nothing, because this... this was really something. 
“So we meet again,” Rafe said, another easy smile appearing as he turned to look at you. “Looks like this wedding is trying to make up for all the years we missed.” 
You chuckled and took your seat next to him. “Guess so. It’s not an easy feat, though.” 
“Six years was a long time,” he said. 
“Didn’t really help that my parents sold our house in the OBX after I graduated,” you said dryly. “I missed all those Rafe Cameron summers during college.” 
“‘Rafe Cameron summer’?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. “Didn’t realize there was a word for it.” 
“What can I say?” you shrugged. “I graduated with an English minor. It allows me to make up phrases whenever I want.” 
“Ah,” he said, nodding sagely. “I guess my… finance concentration means I control the stock market?” 
You laughed and shook your head. “You’re ridiculous. It obviously means you’re the head of the treasury. Keep up, Rafe.” 
“My bad.” He held up his hands with mock austerity. “Our time apart is the reason for such a ridiculous mistake.” 
You smiled, but it sobered a bit and you bit your lip. “On a serious note,” you said, “I’m… I’m really sorry.” 
Rafe frowned. “For what?” 
“For that time apart,” you said. “I came back to North Carolina more than a few times to visit Liz and some other friends, but I never came to see you. We were— we were good friends, Rafe, and I shouldn’t have just disappeared on you like that all because I was at a different college.” 
Somehow, his brow furrowed even deeper. “What? You can’t possibly be blaming yourself for this—people grow apart in distance. That… that just happened to us. I mean, you were in California and I was in Chapel Hill. That’s crazy distance.” 
“I still came back, though,” you said. “Just… never for you.” 
“...I didn’t expect you to,” Rafe said, looking right in your eyes. “No matter how much…” 
“What?” you asked after he trailed off. 
Rafe sighed, then shook his head, trying to clear his mind before he looked back at you. “Do you wanna dance?” 
“What?” you repeated, mostly because you couldn’t believe it. 
“Dance with me.” He stood up and offered a hand, passing a glance at the dance floor. All of the official dances had been done already so it was open to anybody, including you and your high school crush. 
“Okay,” you said with an almost breathless laugh, and you really felt like your freshman self again the way butterflies fluttered in your chest as you took his hand and walked over to an open spot. 
You and Rafe fell into an easy rhythm, like you’d been doing this all your lives, and it didn’t take too long for your conversation to follow. 
“So what did you get up to in all those years at SD State?” he asked. “All I really know about your college career is what I’ve gotten from Instagram and your parents’ Facebooks.” 
You laughed a bit. “Regular college stuff, I guess. I did track all four years and I won some awards, which was pretty cool. Went to a lot of parties, got drunk a lot, swore off drinking a lot, studied until I thought my eyes were going to fall out, then graduated with a chemistry degree. I’ve been working as a technician in a lab for the company I interned with for the past two years.” 
Rafe whistled. “‘Regular college stuff’, she says, as she describes an insane balancing act between student athlete life, partying, and schoolwork, and still being able to graduate with a STEM degree.” 
“You’re such a flatterer,” you admonished, but there was no real bite in your words. “That’s one thing that’s never changed.” 
“It’s easy to flatter a woman like you,” he said. “I mean, you’re out there changing the world. I feel like I’m not even worthy to stand in your presence.” 
You chuckled as Rafe spun you, and as your hands joined once again you offered a coy smile. 
“You know,” you said, feeling a surge of confidence with his words, “I had the biggest crush on you in high school.” 
Rafe’s eyes widened slightly, but he covered it up with a well placed smile of his own. “Really?” he marveled, and he said your first and last name, “you had a crush on me?” 
“Yep,” you nodded. “And she had it bad. If freshman year me could see this, she would be losing her mind.” 
Rafe laughed, and it spurned butterflies in your chest yet again—they were the same kind you’d felt whenever you talked to him back then, trying to catch whatever moments you could between your busy schedule and his own responsibilities. You were too scared to admit your feelings, but you enjoyed spending time with him nonetheless. 
If there was one thing this was proving, though, it was that your feelings definitely weren’t as settled as you thought. 
“Well, you know,” he said thoughtfully, echoing your previous words as he brought you back to the present, “I had a pretty big crush on you in high school too.” 
That completely threw you off your rhythm. So much so that you stumbled, totally missing your next steps—if it weren’t for Rafe catching you, you would’ve face planted. 
“Are you good?” Rafe asked, concerned. 
“You had a crush on me?” you asked instead. 
He laughed again and ran a hand through his hair before you fell back into your rhythm together—he had let it grow out some, you realized, and it looked infinitely better all ruffled and mussed up than styled. 
“Yeah,” he said. His smile wasn’t as confident as it always was, a boyish charm mingling with unusual shyness. “It, uh— it kinda snuck up on me. I didn’t really know how big of a crush it was until I was at your signing ceremony. Like, right after you signed the contract was when I realized I had it bad.” 
“My signing ceremony?” you marveled, and you shook your head in disbelief. “You really have great timing, Rafe. Couldn’t have realized a couple years earlier when we were still in the same place?” 
Rafe laughed softly. “Yeah. I really do. But I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to make it harder for you. I mean, I was staying in the OBX for Chapel Hill, and you were taking the opportunity of a lifetime to run track in San Diego. I wasn’t gonna take your mind off of that because some hometown guy had a crush on you.”
“Some hometown guy,” you repeated, and it was your turn to laugh. “You thought that little of yourself?” 
“It’s true,” he shrugged. “I was just a friend that fell for you. I mean,” he gave you a crooked smile, “not that it was hard to fall for you. Pretty sure I was one of ten guys who wanted to ask you to prom senior year.” 
“Okay, that is not true at all,” you said, but you were stumbling over yourself just as quickly. He wanted to ask you to prom senior year? When the one thing that you thought about whenever you looked at him that spring was dancing with him at prom? “Grant Millwood was the only one that asked me.”
Rafe nodded with a laugh. “That was because he threatened everyone that he knew had a crush on you to make sure he would get to go with you.”
“And then he ditched me halfway through the night because he got too drunk to function off the alcohol he smuggled in himself,” you said dryly. “Yeah, he was a great date.”
“High school was the best,” Rafe said with mock austerity, “wasn’t it?”
“Oh, yeah,” you nodded. “I miss the kook academy every single day.”
“I still can’t believe you wanted to ask me to prom senior year,” you said, shaking your head. “Rafe, how did I not even know? Why didn’t you do it?” 
“And let you miss your chance with Grant Millwood?” Rafe over exaggerated his scoff. “Please.” 
A laugh spilled out as a smile shone through. “You would’ve saved high school me a lot of angst if you told her you had a crush on her, y’know. Then I wouldn’t have had to spend four years pining in high school.” And four more in college, and two more postgrad. 
(God, you wish he had told you sooner. You would’ve blown all of your money on tickets to North Carolina if you had even the slightest inkling your eternal feelings weren’t eternally hopeless.) 
“Goes both ways,” he said, tacking on your last name. “Why didn’t you tell me how bad you had it?” 
“Because I thought that there was no chance in Hell that Rafe Cameron would ever share my feelings?” you said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Come on, Rafe—you know who you are, who you were. You say a couple guys wanted to ask me to prom—every girl wanted to date you. I didn’t stand a chance.” 
“And yet you did,” Rafe said with a slight chuckle. He shook his head. “Y’know, if I could turn back the clock, I would’ve done so many things differently.” Rafe smiled boyishly. “I would’ve mustered the nerve to ask you to prom before Grant even got the chance. And I definitely would’ve asked you out instead of liking you in private.” 
You smiled and shrugged. He liked you then when you thought there was no chance—why not now, when you also thought there was no chance? 
“Who says you have to turn back the clock?” 
Rafe’s own grin grew immediately, and he pulled you off to the side of the dance floor. He held your hands in his own, the cool metal of his signet ring at odds with the rough calluses on his palms brushing against your skin. 
He said your name with such earnesty you felt like you could melt, and when you gazed into his eyes, you nearly did. “I think you are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met in every single way. I can’t believe that it took me meeting you by chance at a wedding for me to do this, but I’d like to fix a mistake I made five years ago by never doing this. Can I take you on a date?” 
“Rafe Cameron,” you said, and it was a physical effort to contain the joy nearly bursting out of you, “I would love that more than anything.” 
He grinned. “Great.” 
And then he cupped your face in his hands and pulled you in for the best kiss of your life, one that you immediately fell into with all the vigor of six years spent longing. 
When he pulled away, leaving you completely breathless with widened eyes and bruised lips, his sultry whisper nearly took you out. 
“I’ve been wanting to do that for years.” 
You only had eyes for Rafe as you pulled him back into a heated kiss, pulling him by the cuffs of his baby blue suit. The only thing that got you away from him was the need for air.
"Me too," you murmured.
(And in the background, you were far too dazed to hear Liz’s victorious cheer.)
-
perm tags: @dv0412 @siriuslyslyslytherin @maruchan77 @simonsbluee @kwyloz @masteroperator @louderfortheback 
obx tags: @milkiane @lilgoddesshines @sexytholland
rafe tags: @lurkymurker
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xnchxntmxnt · 3 years ago
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5 Moments Kagami Taiga Realized How Much He Liked You, and the One He Finally Did Something About It
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Fandom: Kuroko’s Basketball
Character: Kagami Taiga
Warnings: cursing, several food mentions, it’s assumed that reader isn’t a basketball player but knows a little, minor injury mentioned, plz dont listen to the fic ur not actually supposed to use hydrogen peroxide on cuts but i didnt know that till i googled it after i read this just use cool water to clean it,
Notes: wrote the ending when i was sick so its shitty however this is officially the longest fic I've written and posted on here. beat the last one by like 20 words or something. congrats to me
gn!reader!
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#1 - Los Angeles
Kagami smiled at his phone. It was only a few more days until he’d be back home in Japan after spending some time with his family and Alex. It was nice to see his young cousins (who, he found out, idolized him) and parents, plus playing a little street ball like he used to was always fun. 
But he missed Japan. 
He missed his friends. His team. 
He missed you, too. 
And that’s why it was four in the morning and he was still up talking to you. Because as much as Alex teased him about it, he really did miss you. 
“Ah, young love,” Alex teased, laughing at the basketball that flew next to her head from him. “You’re impossible, y’know, Taiga. If you don’t fess up soon, you might lose your chance.”
“There’s nothing to fess up!” he argued, like he had been for the last several hours on and off. She was impossible. 
She rolled her eyes and ruffled his hair. “You’re not stupid, although you act it. I know you can figure out just how wrong that sentence is.”
And she was right. He was wrong, at first. Because you don’t non-stop think about kissing someone you’re just friends with, or get sickening butterflies, or anything else he’d been dealing with. 
He yawned while you were in the middle of talking about something—he’d been ready to sleep for houts, but he needed to stay up to spend time with you. Even if it was over the phone. 
“And then Koganei said—” you paused. “Kagami, what time is it there?” 
He checked the clock. “Uh…4:17, why?”
“Please tell me its 4:17 in the afternoon.”
“No…?”
“Go to bed!” you half-yelled at him. “You have to be up and awake in the morning, please get some sleep.”
“I like talking to you, though.”
Maybe it was how tired he was, but that was too cheesy. 
You paused again, then he heard you laugh at his comment. “I like talking to you too, Kagami, but you have to sleep. Please.”
He yawned again and nodded. “Yeah, yeah…I guess. I’ll talk to you tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Night, Kagami.”
“Night.”
He hung up and sighed—you had no idea what you did to him, did you? He could fall asleep listening to your voice because it was so soothing, but at the same time he never wanted to miss a word of what you said. You made him smile easier than anything, and he was starting to think you were up there with basketball on his list of things he cared about. 
Now the question was what to do about these feelings…
#2 - Homework
After returning home, he realized he had a lot of work to catch up on—a week off of school and practice was fun (even though he wasn’t exactly not practicing), but it meant a lot of homework for him to work on. Luckily, you offered to help him through it and study. 
The two of you took a break to cook and eat dinner, during which you lounged on the couch and watched a basketball game. It was the same routine he had every night, but for some reason it was better with you. When he first sat down to eat, he threatened to sit on your ankles if you didn’t make room for him, too. He got kicked in the arm when he did, actually, sit on your legs when you didn’t move, but he got his spot on the couch back so he didn’t mind.
“Oh, that was shit,” he cursed at the TV, sitting forward to yell at it. “That wasn’t even his fault! He was—”
He paused when he heard laughter next to him. Why were you laughing at him? He was right! The ref was being stupid! What else was new, though—
“They can’t hear you,” you teased through your laughter. 
Once your words sunk in, he rolled his eyes and shoved your leg. “Shuddup, I know that!”
“Then why are you yelling at them?”
“Because I can!”
You laughed more, as did he. It was always the little things that made you laugh, he noticed. Even if you were laughing at him being stupid, you were still laughing, he figured. His smile softened a little when he looked at you, but he quickly averted his eyes when you looked back at him. 
“Oh no, Kagami, you’re thinking about something. Tell me.”
“I’m not thinkin’ about anything!” 
“What else is new,” you teased. “What was that look for, then?”
“What look?”
You scoffed at him. “You looked like you wanted to kiss me for a minute there.”
Maybe because he did. But he wouldn’t tell you that. 
“Wh—no, gross,” he said, coming up with any negative words he could to deny that. He definitely didn’t want to do that. Definitely. “Like I’d ever do that.”
You kicked him again, making him complain again. “What, don’t think I’m cute enough? Or would you rather be kissing Kuroko?”
He laughed again. “You’re…I dont even know where you come up with this shit,”  he siad, standing up from the couch. “Don’t jump in my spot, jerk. Want more?”
“I’m good, thank you. You cook well, though. Dinner’s great.”
“Thanks.”
He could freak out about that comment to Alex later. Yeah, he knew he could cook, but you complimenting him on it was different than someone else. Especially if it was his team barging in and suddenly he was cooking for eleven hungry teenagers. 
He could get used to dinners with you, though. 
#3 - Sunny Days, Popsicles, and Basketball
There was nothing better than playing basketball on the weekend with friends, Kagami had decided way back in middle school. And it was even better with his current team. 
He and the Seirin boys were bored and decided to get together for some streetball. Fukuda was busy, leaving uneven teams, so he decided to call you. Ever since Kuroko dropped that he had a crush last week at practice, they hadn’t stopped bothering him about it and wouldn’t get off his case about it until he called to see if you were busy. 
He’d taught you a thing or two about basketball not long ago, and while you were no pro, he was proud of how well you played for a rookie. Then again, he always went easy when you two played a game. 
The scrimmage went over as well as expected—with him and Kuroko on the same team, they easily won, but no one was keeping track of points after the first twenty minutes. They were too busy having fun and running around for the hell of it. 
They decided to call it for the afternoon—they’d been playing for at least an hour and it was sunny and hot. It was the perfect day for popsicles, which everyone volunteered you and Kagami to go buy. Based on Furihata and Tsuchida’s cheeky smiles, he knew they planned that. Kuroko looked clueless as usual. 
It was a good thing the convenience store was less than a fifteen-minute walk there and back. He might not have lasted much longer in the silence if not. 
To be fair, it wasn’t awkward silence. He was just tense. He was always tense around you, lately—trying to be the most impressive he could, trying to figure out if you liked him back…it was an internal struggle daily. But he wanted to spend all the time he could with you despite the butterflies. 
“What’s up with you lately?” you asked, turning the corner so you were in sights of the court. “You’re…weird. I dunno. But you’ve been different, lately.”
“What? No, I’m not different.”
“Yes you are.” You sighed, looking over at him. “Did I do something? You can tell me if you’re upset with me, Kagami.”
No! No, no, no, no, no, no! That’s not at all what he wanted! Just the opposite! He wanted you to know how much he liked you! He was too much of a wimp to say anything about it, though…
“Nothing’s wrong,” he confirmed, trying his best to smile and be convincing. Nothing was wrong, nothing was different. Just two really good friends hanging out, and not him almost getting hit in the head with the ball because he was too busy watching you during the game. “You didn’t do anything. Don’t, ah…don’t worry about it.”
There was no more time to argue that since Furihata saw the two of you, cheered, and got the other three boy’s attention. 
Crisis averted, he guessed, but how long would it be before you started thinking something was really wrong?
#4 - Patch-Up
He wasn’t exactly a saint when it came to cursing, but he usually tried to hold his tongue more than he was right now. 
He let out a string of curse words, yet again, as you poured a bit of hydrogen peroxide over the scrape on his knee. Kagami sucked air through his teeth, trying to pretend it didn’t hut as bad as it did. “Aren’t you done with that, yet?” he complained. 
“If you’d quit moving your leg every time I tried to put the peroxide on it, I wouldn’t keep missing.”
“You aren’t!”
“Yeah, but I haven’t gotten the whole thing yet, so hold still!”
You smacked the side of his calf and continued on. Serves him right for trying to pull off some skateboarding trick he saw his cousin do in America. It didn’t look that hard, he thought. Apparently they weren’t exaggerating on taking them three months to learn it.
Finally, you put the bandaid on his knee and helped him off the couch. He poked at the scrape and winced, receiving a slap on the arm for it. 
“Hey! What was that for?”
“If it hurts don’t do it, stupid.”
He rolled his eyes, sitting back down. “Thank you, though. For doing that.”
“Who would have thought Taiga Kagami had such a low pain tolerance?” you teased, sitting down with him. That time, he shoved you. 
“Its not low pain tolerance, that shit just hurts!”
“Mhmm. Whatever you say.”
He shoved your arm, which you shoved back, so he shoved back harder. This pattern went back and forth until all of a sudden you were beating him with a throw pillow. He was trying to find any sort of ammo to use against you, when he realized, he had all he needed there. The next time you hit him with the pillow, he snatched it from your hands, threw it to the side, and began to tickle you. 
It was a minute or so of laugher and breathless complaining from you, when you suddenly kicked out at him and made his arm that he was putting most of his weight on give under him. 
This knocked him down till his face was inches above yours. 
Shit. 
He stared wordlessly for what felt like an eternity, trying to figure out what to do. Should he kiss you? Would that make it weird? Would it be awkward? What were you thinking? Was he too close?
You opened your mouth like you were going to say something, but nothing came out. Instead he sat up, blushing like a mad man, and helped you up as well. 
“Sorry about that—”
“Oh you dont have to apologize—”
“Still, I—”
It was eerily quiet and awkward after that. The tension in the room was thickenough to cut with a knife and he hated it. He never had that kind of tension with you. Things were always easy when he was with you. But not right now…
After a few minutes of this, you made some excuse about needing to get homework done so you had to get home, but he knew it was an excuse. You told him Friday you’d gotten all your homework done so your whole weekend was free to hang out. 
Damn, he’d really screwed up, hadn’t he?
#5 - Lunchtime
“Yo, what’s dumbass moping about?” Kagami asked, sitting down at the lunch table across from Kuroko. Next to him was you, who was face down and groaning about who knows what. 
“Don’t call me dumbass, asshole…” you complained, sitting up straighter. “And, for your information, Kagami, I’m hungry. And forgot my lunch. And money.”
He scoffed, opening his lunchbox and shoving a box toward you. “How’d I know you were gonna forget?”
He watched you open the box slowly and rolled his eyes. “Nothing in there is gonna kill you, y’know? You’ve had my cooking before.”
“I wasn’t sure if it was a prank.”
“With food? Never, that's a waste.”
You scoffed, digging into the lunch he made for you. He wasn’t sure how he knew that morning, but something in the back of his head told him to bring extra food. Maybe he thought he’d be extra hungry after practice or something, but he was glad he did. 
The three of you chatted for a while, mostly him talking about basketball and Kuroko chiming in every once in a while. Most of it, he was pretty sure he’d mentioned before, but anytime he was talking you made sure he knew you were paying attention. 
Shortly after the lunch bell rang, the three of you parted ways for your next classes. He was planning on dropping his crap in his locker, grabbing his crap for math, and leaving, but those plans flipped on him when he felt someone grab his shoulders and use him to jump in the air. 
“What the hell?!” he asked, flipping around to see who it was. He couldn’t stay pissed off for too long, though, because it was you. He half-expected Koganei or one of the other boys from the team. He rolled his eyes, grumbling about how you shouldn’t scare him like that. 
“Oh, shuddup, Kagami.” You elbowed him in the arm, matching his pace as he kept walking. “I came to give you your box back. Realized I had it when I left.’
“Surprised you found me.”
“Dude, you’re a giant and you’re the only kid here who’s got BRIGHT red hair. Wasn’t hard.”
“True.” He laughed, taking the box back. “Thanks. For this, I mean.”
“I should be thanking you, Kagami, that stuff was amazing. Every time I have your cooking I can’t believe you cook that well.”
“Hey!” 
He shoved your shoulder, and you shoved him back in retaliation. “It wasn’t an insult, stupid, it was a compliment!”
“Sounded like an insult.”
“Maybe you just sound like an idiot.”
He made a face that made you laugh. There you go, making him think about all those dumb feelings again. He loved seeing you happy, though, even if it was at the expense of a little of his dignity. 
You smiled at him, pausing in the (now mostly empty) hallway. “I gotta get going, but I’ll see you later, right?” 
“You bet.”
You waved and ran off—he simply stood there, thinking about how incredibly adorable you were when you were excited about something. He hoped his face wasn’t too red. 
This was getting ridiculous—or at least Alex thought so. And the rest of the team who knew how embarrassed he got when they brought you up. He was down bad, and he knew it. For days, everyone had been telling him to say something about it, but what if it didn’t go how he wanted it to? Would that screw up your friendship? He didn’t want anything to change, but if it changed for the better, that wouldn’t be a bad thing…
The bell rang, and he cursed under his breath. Now he was late and a mess. This was going to be a fun rest of the day. 
#1 - The Winter Cup
He still couldn’t believe it. 
After all that work over the summer, and all the work during the game, they’d won. 
It was no easy feat, going up against Touou. And they had more (no doubt, harder) games coming. But for now, the entire team was buzzing with the excitement of victory and looked like they were ready to pass out from exhaustion. 
They were on their way out of the arena and heading home when Kagami heard his name called from behind him. 
He looked up and turned to see who it was, and there you were, running towards him and his teammates. He looked to Riko for permission to leave them and go talk to you, which she didn’t even give before she and Hyuuga were shoving him along. 
Kagami broke into a run towards you at the same time, only slowing down when he got closer to you. You didn’t, however, and ran straight into him, jumping and pulling him into a tight hug. 
“You did it!” you cheered in his ear, somehow squeezing him tighter. “You really did it, Kagami!”
He held you that tight, too, only letting loose a little on your waist when you pulled your head back to look at him. “What, did you doubt we wouldn’t?” he teased.
You laughed. “I always believed in you. You’re just…incredible, Kagami.”
I always believed in you. 
You’re incredible. 
Those words hung heavy in his mind, unable to speak once they sunk in. He was certain there were some things he could do most people couldn’t, but it meant so much more coming from you. 
He stared in disbelief for a moment, only breaking out of his thoughts when you ruffled his hair. “Earth to Kagami,” you teased. 
The words left his mouth before he could stop them. “I really like you, (Y/N).”
You stared. He’d screwed up. No, no, this was bad. He was caught up in the excitement, and now he was screwed. He wanted to eat his words, but there was no taking back what he said. 
Kagami opened his mouth to apologize, starting to pull away. You hugged him again, making it unable to let you go. 
“You idiot,” you said into his shoulder. “About time.”
He (gently) shoved you off, holding you at arms length away. “What do you mean, about time? You mean this isn’t going to be super awkward now?”
“I like you too, stupid! Took you long enough to say something!”
“Why didn’t you then??” 
“Because I wasn’t certain if you liked me, too!” 
“But I do!” 
“Now I know that!” 
“Captain told me to tell you to kiss or something so we can get going.”
The both of you jumped, not realizing Kuroko was standing right next to you. After the initial shock, you both started laughing, and he walked back towards the group (most of which who were watching the two of you). Kiyoshi flashed you a smile and a thumbs up, and Hyuuga smacked him for it. 
“If you kiss me, you can tell your captain over there to man up and get himself a girlfriend. Ask your coach out, finally.”
He made a face in confusion. “What are you talking about…?”
“Oblivious. You’re actually oblivious.”
Any remark he could muster out fell silent against your lips. He smiled, trying to ignore how loudly Koganei yelled “get it, Kagami!” from far enough away anyone else outside would have heard him. It was hard to ignore, however, and soon the both of you parted, too busy laughing. 
“I’m gonna kill him one of these days.”
“Make sure it’s after the finals.”
“Finals, huh?”
“Like I said. I believe in your guys—in you, Kagami. You’re gonna make it.”
Even if he wasn’t already, he was pretty inclined to believe that now.
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@sirimirihiro​ @emswordss​ @iwaso​
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lucyandthepen · 3 years ago
Text
a lesson on style - v . [ ljn | njm ]
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pt. i, pt. ii, pt. iii, pt. iv.,  pt. v, pt. vi
you’ve always been content with being associated with one word and one word only: average. average in looks, academics and social skills, you’re just looking to graduate high school without causing disasters you’ll have to live with until you kick the bucket. when you’re paired with school king lee jeno for the semester-long physics thesis, you can’t help but think the entire situation has pretty much set itself up for failure. that is, until you strike a deal with your partner. alternatively: an au tale involving lessons in popularity, eleven consecutive B­ minuses, a secretly sensitive, chess­-loving jock, and an amateur sex tape.
pairing: jeno x fem!reader, jaemin x fem!reader    verse: high school au { jocks!nomin ft. a super cute whiny ap physics genius renjun }  rating: M for sexual themes ( there are allusions to sex but no explicit smut! ) chapter warnings: none!  word count: 10.9k
author’s note: is this twice as long as any other chapter? yes. do i believe it might be twice as devastating? also yes. side note, i sincerely hate proofreading and the thing i hate the most is trying to figure out where i applied italics and stuff because it doesn’t transfer over from google docs to this gosh darn tumblr text editor and i refuse to use the weird beta one so if anyone has any ideas on how to retain it please lmk :^(
tagging: @justalildumpling, @spiderrenjunfics
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It’s a yes or no question, you tell yourself. It’s literally one answer, one word — yes or no. And you don’t even have to second-guess it, because you know the truth, and it’s not a complicated one. It shouldn’t be that difficult to answer.  With Jeno looking at you, though, you feel a little off-kilter, as per usual. Still, even with his gaze on you, you think that your response should be as normal, calm, and truthful as possible.
What comes out of you is a derisive laugh that clearly shocks the both of you.
“Wh — dating you — I wouldn’t — that’s preposterous,” you splutter out, gripping your laptop so tightly that you actually hear the bottom of I make a soft sound as the metal tightens. You’ve never used the word preposterous in any real life conversation, and it’s clear Jeno hasn’t heard it in a similar context either because he looks at you weird.  
“I mean, I’m not saying I’m mad about it,” he goes on. “I’m just wondering why he’d say that, unless you said something.”
“He — I — he — he’s crazy. All smart people are loopy,” you laugh again, and it sounds even grosser this time, with your voice going up really high and breathy like you’re being strangled to death. Which, come to think of it, you’re pretty much doing to yourself, figuratively. “That had no basis whatsoever. I would — I would never. Ever.”
“Never… date me?” His eyebrows shoot up so high they almost touch his hairline.
“Yes! I mean — no, no! I mean, I would definitely not say that we were dating when we’re obviously—” you laugh derisively again, which just causes Jeno to look even more confused. “We are clearly, obviously, clearly not. Not dating.”
“Obviously,” he repeats simply.
“Yes. That’s… I mean, obviously, I would date you, like in the hypothetical way, because… I mean, why not? but we — you know. We’re not. Dating. Definitely not.” Your heart rate, thankfully, is starting to decline from the thousand beats per second it had been going in; Jeno’s eyebrows are also calming down. “Right?”
“Right,” he confirms slowly.
“Right. So. I didn’t say we were to him. Or anyone. Nothing.”
“Oh, okay,” he finally says after a moment of silence. “That was just… plain out of the blue, then.”
“Totally,” you agree wholeheartedly. “So, so weird.”  
“Okay,” he shifts his position now, turning more deliberately towards you; you instinctively grip your laptop tighter, pressing it harder against your stomach. The bottom corners dig in, and in your peripheral vision, you can see that you’ve been pressing the A key down for so long that you have an AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA in your chat box with Renjun and he’s typed out a very concerned and confused WHAT IS TAKING YOU SO LONG TO TYPE. You move your thumb away from the keypad. “Sorry for the sudden question. I just wanted to clarify because, you know, I don’t want anyone else to think we are yet, or anything. And I definitely don’t want Huang Renjun attacking me for the wrong things, considering his track record.”
Your heart suddenly skids to a stop at the yet. He’d said it so offhandedly you were sure he wasn’t giving it much thought, but to you, this kind of felt like one of those weird, fever-induced dreams you had, except it seemed to be going fairly well as long as you didn’t factor in just how much you’d blubbered just now.  
“Um. Right,” is all you can say.
“That being said,” he jams his hat back onto his head, which is ludicrous considering he’s inside, but it just makes him look cuter, and you’ve never minded that. “Thanks for saying you’d date me. Hypothetically.”
“Oh — that. Right. You’re welcome,” you reply, and you desperately want to ask if he’d also hypothetically date you, but you sort of also don’t really want to know the answer. In the moment that it takes for you to tell your brain to quiet down, he claps his hands, startling you a little.
“All right. So. Project. Proposal. Graduating.” He points to your laptop, and you nod vehemently, shifting it against your stomach a little to make sure he doesn’t see the chat box with Renjun. “Let’s get to it, then.”
You hurriedly exit your internet browser and open a blank Word document. It kicks off slowly, with you taking a good fifteen minutes to format the title page because you’re not sure which citation style to use and also because you can’t stop thinking about the previous conversation, which causes you to misspell both your names wrongly. Luckily, Jeno doesn’t say anything, even though he clearly sees your blunders; the fact that he is clearly attempting to be interested (or pretending really well to be) in getting things done allows you to pick up a slightly more comfortable pace of discussion later on. He even agrees to do a lot of the supposed heavy lifting in the experimentation phase, which involves playing musical instruments, and you volunteer to do the mathematical work, which is the only thing you think you’ll be able to do in that part of the experiment anyway.  
Everyone in your house is up at this time, so it gets increasingly louder as the hours move on. There’s some kind of intermittent yelling coming from your brothers’ room that could either be Jiho gaming or Jiho getting strangled, but no one seems too alarmed apart from Jeno, who learns to let it go once you tell him that your other brother is in there with him and is probably the one strangling him, if the latter scenario is true. Either way, your dad comes out, banging on their room door to keep it down, which adds to more of the noise pollution.
Sooyeon also makes it down later than everyone else, dressed but still clearly out of sorts, stopping mid-yawn when she sees you and Jeno sitting together as you’re trying to drag out an explanation of what the significance of the study is.
“Oh. Good morning,” she sidles over to you, sitting on the arm of the couch next to you to peek over your shoulder at your laptop; you know she’s not really interested in your work, but her inherent nosiness makes her acting so natural. “What are you guys working on?”
“Physics term project.”
“Oh, right. You mentioned you guys were partners. How’s it going?”
“It’s going… well. Fine.” You bend your laptop’s monitor down halfway so she stops looking.
“Oh, I know you,” Jeno suddenly snaps his fingers, pointing his finger at her. Your sister looks up, beaming. “You’re on the cheerleading team. I’ve been trying to figure out who you look like since last year,” he turns to you, amused. “Can’t believe it took me this long. Small world. Hey, how come you’re not on the cheerleading team?”
“Because she wouldn’t give up Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo for late-night cheer practice,” your sister reasons out for you before you can find a cooler (and less honest) excuse. “Hey, dad’s taking me to the mall. Do you need anything? We’re also picking up lunch, so Jeno oppa, if you’re staying for lunch, the cuisine choice is all yours.”
“Raincheck,” you deflate at Jeno’s response. “I’m supposed to be having lunch with my sister. Thanks for the offer, though.”
“Can you get me a new USB drive?” You weigh in. “And not the crappy Daiso kind.”
“Okay. Text me so I don’t forget. Not now,” Sooyeon pushes down your hand before you can pick up your phone. “Wait ten minutes, then text me. Hey, dad, can we get tangsuyuk today?”
Your dad is by the door, two brothers in tow, having probably convinced them to leave the house as well, and Sooyeon joins them, pushing them all out hurriedly. You don’t miss the fact that she winks at you just before closing the door, and you resist waving her away.
“You… have a really big family.” Jeno finally speaks up again once you’re alone.
“Yeah. Sorry. It would have been worse if my mom were here. She might have tried to adopt you.”
“Jaemin’s mom technically has first dibs,” he lifts a hand to his face, rubbing his eyes a little aggressively. “Do you think we can call time of death on this for today? My eyes are falling out of my skull.”
“Sure; I can finish up the conclusion anyway. It’s just… repeating everything we said, but really fast. I’ll just e-mail you a copy for safety.” You save the document as he nods, working your trackpad so you can open your NAVER mail account and attach the file. Your fingers hover over the keyboard, suddenly feeling like an idiot. “Uh… sorry, but I just realized I don’t have your e-mail address.”
“Oh. Yeah,” he reaches out, and you retract your hands quickly, planting them firmly onto your lap. He starts typing away, pressing send and turning the laptop back to you with a satisfied groan. “Cool. So — serious question. Why aren’t you on the cheerleading team if your sister is?”
“Well, I was going to come up with a great excuse, but since I got ratted out — I don’t really like staying in school late. Plus, they practice on rainy days, which is not my thing.”
“I mean, we do too on the football team, and it’s usually fine. It’s weird; do you not dance? Or… I don’t know, cheer, or whatever?”
“I mean, I don’t fail PE, or anything. I just… never had the interest.” You admit, shutting down your laptop.
“I could talk to Jimin — you know, the captain? We’re pretty close.” He pauses, then adds an afterthought. “She’s dating one of the other guys on my team.”
“Who?”
“I’ve told you about Jisung, right? That enormous tree of a guy with the small face?”
“Kind of weird for a guy as tall as you to call a similarly tall guy a tree…” you trail off, and he laughs — laughs! Score for your unintended humor. “But yeah, I’ve seen him around.”
“Yeah, so they’re a thing. Anyway, what was I sayi — oh, yeah. If you want me to talk to her, give you a shot at it, I think she’d be open to it. You don’t have to be a gymnast or anything, I’m pretty sure.”
“That’s a really nice gesture, but I’ll pass.”
Jeno sighs, leaning back onto the couch and lifting one of his legs to cross it casually over his knee. He looks at you disapprovingly, which is a little terrifying until you realize he’s feigning it because his lips are curling up a little. So cute. “Come on, _______________. Okay — lesson number one.”
“What?” You’re at a loss, and you don’t bother hiding it this time. “Lesson?”
“I told you I’d help you get more popular, right?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t think we were having lectures and quizzes.”
“No quizzes,” he corrects you. “Lectures, very brief. Five minutes tops. I have no time to grade anything.”
“Well let me just—” you grab your phone, trying to navigate to the voice memos app, but he takes it from you and plants it back onto the table. You note how his fingers brush yours briefly, leaving you frozen, your hand still shaped around a phone that isn’t in your grasp anymore.
“No need to record anything. Note taking is for nerds. Just listen to me. Be in the moment. Absorb it,” he instructs. “First lesson in being popular: don’t turn down things that will make you more popular.”
“Okay, that one was fairly obv — what are you doing?”  
“I’m texting,” he really is, unlocking his phone and scrolling through his contacts before he starts tapping away on his phone screen. “I told you; I’m sure Jimin will be more than happy to —“
“Wait — okay, stop, stop,” it’s your turn to seize his phone from him, but you don’t do so very smoothly, and it ends up falling midway from him to you, wedging itself into a crack in your couch cushions. Jeno doesn’t really seem like he minds in particular, but he does offhandedly reprimand you for it.
“You’re being a horrible student.”
“I’m not — look, no, thank you for… you know, going the extra mile to ask for me,” you fish his phone out of the couch, making sure to exit the messaging app. “But I can’t join the cheerleading team.”
“Why not? It’ll make you infinitely cooler. Is it because your sister’s on it? Because we can get her kicked out if you really want —“
“Wh— no, I don’t want my sister kicked out!” You raise your voice in tandem with your palm, and he desists, a little surprised at how loud you’ve gotten. “I’m just saying that it’s the last semester of high school. There’s no point in me joining. I won’t even last a full year on that team.”
Jeno falls silent, suddenly struck by the logic in your words. “Huh. I guess you’re right. I didn’t think about that.”
Now that you feel like it’s kind of safe, you perch his phone back onto his thigh, and he takes it, slipping it between his legs without a second thought. You try hard not to think about how his phone may have brushed against his… never mind.
“So I… you know, I appreciate what you wanted to do for me. Really; it was… extremely cool of you,” you say with utmost sincerity. “But as a plan, I feel like… there might be better ones.”
“That’s true,” he agrees. “But the lesson still stands. The things I recommend that you do, I really feel like you should do them.”
“I promise this’ll be the last time I reject your suggestions.”
“Cool. Well — we just have to think about what else we could do to help you get up that ladder.” He looks up at your ceiling, a little wistful, and you feel so useless that you just busy yourself with shutting your laptop down. This sudden silence drags on until he snaps your fingers and you start, turning your attention back to him. “Oh, I know. You can come to this party I’m throwing next week.”
“You’re throwing a party?”
“Yeah. I just thought about doing it. Like, right now.”
This time, you don’t even have to try to push away the idea that he’d just thought to throw a party for you; a surge of unpleasant memories arises to do the job. The last party you’d been to was back in middle school, and it had ended with you skidding across the floor because someone had puked on it. You were only lucky that the extremely furious parents who actually owned the house and didn’t know that there would be a party in their living room had caught you before you’d broken something of theirs.
You remember Jeno had been there. He was in a different section at that time, and you’d never spoken with him; in fact, you’re fairly certain you hadn’t known his name back then. But even so, he was still the coolest kid in attendance. Everyone liked that kid that was extremely tall and good-looking and also knew how to play the electric piano.
“That’s… cool.” You inhale a little reluctantly, and Jeno cottons on, looking at you warily. “It’s just… you know. Parties. They get messy. People get drunk. Puke. Make out.”
“Yeah. That’s what they’re for.”
“Not really my scene. Especially the puking part.”
“Oh god, I remember I was at this party once in middle school. Some kid had puked in the middle of the living room and some other poor chick had slipped on it. Hilarious.”
“Ha,” you feign laughter, and it sounds disgustingly dry. “Hilarious, yeah. Can’t remember that happening, but I’m sure that was super funny.”
“Come on. It’ll be fine. Besides, you said you wouldn’t reject any of the other stuff I recommended.” He tilts his head like he’s asking, but his face is pretty resolute. You wring your hands together, and he notices. “If I promise to make a no-puke rule, will you go?”
You know he’s doing this because he’s fulfilling a part of the bargain; it’s really more of an obligation to him than anything else, and that much is clear. Still, the way he talks, the way that he presses the subject makes it really easy to trick yourself into thinking he actually, really, really wants you there, which creates this huge, almost terrifying and overwhelming wave of elation that muddles you into agreement.
“Okay. I’ll go.” He smiles at your response, and the feeling in your chest just swells to a new height; it’s almost like he’s happy you’re going, or you can at least delude yourself into thinking that much.
“Awesome. I’ll let you know about the details, although it’ll probably be at Jaemin’s.”
You point to the opposite side of your house, in the general direction of your neighbor’s lot. “That Jaemin?”
“The one and only.”
“I guess it’s cool if I don’t have to look for a ride.”
“You can still hop into my car. Make a grand entrance. People will love that.”
“That’s okay,” you laugh again, but this time, it sounds genuine, to your relief. “But is Jaemin going to be okay with it? His parents?”
“Yeah, it’ll be fine. They all love me,” he chuckles. “Jaemin won’t say no, anyway. It’s not like we can have it at my place.”
“Why… not?” You suddenly get flashbacks of Jaemin calling you nosy, but you shake him and his loud laugh off once Jeno starts talking.
“Too small. Not good for entertaining. You guys would probably have to eat dinner in my bedroom.” He says lightly, jamming his cap back onto his head just as his phone starts ringing, a light blinking from in between his thighs. He looks down at his phone briefly before turning his attention back to his cap, making sure his bangs aren’t flattened by the rim. “That’s my sister. I’m supposed to pick her up from work. I have to get going, but hey — I’ll see you next week?”
“Yeah, definitely,” you stand with him, and he grabs his backpack before patting his pockets to make sure if he has everything valuable to him. You walk him to the door, opening it for him, and he steps out into your driveway, walking towards his car. You stand by the doorway, hugging your laptop. The assumption is that he’s just going to drive off, but he turns around as he opens the driver’s side door, pointing a finger at you like he’s just remembered something. You freeze in place, once again squishing your laptop close to you so hard that it makes a noise.
“You should probably text your sister about that USB drive, by the way.” he reminds you with a small smile before folding his enormous body and climbing into the car.
You don’t even have the opportunity to say anything because he’s shut the door behind him. Through the tinted glass, you see one pale palm move; it takes you a second to realize he’s waving at you. Your hand instantly shoots up, waving back at him as he pulls out of the driveway and back into the road.  
You wait for his car to zoom out of sight before you close the door, red in the face and ready to explode with joy.
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Lee Donghyuck gives you back your proposals with a smile on his face near the end of the next physics class. Technically, he smiles like that all the time because he’s required to, but his grin looks a lot more genuine as he approaches you with your proposal, which Jeno takes from him.
“Cool topic,” he even comments, pointing a finger to the huge B-minus on top of the paper that’s circled in red ink. “You guys need to work a little on the content development, though, but it’s just the proposal. If you guys work even harder on other requirements, you’ll ace it.”
You seriously don’t think he expects you to actually ace anything, but you appreciate the quick pep talk, especially since Jeno actually looks impressed.
“I would have never thought I would have gotten a B-minus in anything for this class,” he whistles under his breath. You smile at him, not bothering to add the fact that B-minus isn’t as breathtaking of an achievement. Still, you think that if you can push each other — and also maybe Renjun into helping you out here and there — you might at least secure him a slot into the graduating class.  
You’ve gotten used to parting ways with everyone else in the class to have lunch together with Renjun, and even on days when Physics classes fall before lunch, you only linger a minute longer than usual to accord Jeno the traditional gaze of longing that he doesn’t notice before dashing off. This time, though, as you’re gathering your books and making to leave, Jeno stands up with you, slinging his bag over his shoulder.  
And there they are — the words you’ve always wanted to hear from him. Well, some of them.
“Want to walk to the cafeteria together?”
You look around to make sure he’s not calling out to anyone else, which becomes clear once you realize the only other person who’s left behind is Lee Donghyuck, and he doesn’t even turn at the sound of Jeno’s voice.
“Really?” You can’t even mask the elation in your voice, which just spikes when you see the corners of Jeno’s lips turn up slightly in amusement. “Yeah — yeah, okay.”
No one actually looks at you while you walk next to him in the cafeteria; the probability is that his height eclipses yours so much that you don’t even look that noticeable, and neither of you is causing a scene, which is always a great bonus. You have to take two steps for every one of his, but you also notice that he’s taking a much slower pace than usual, which can only mean that he’s making sure you can keep up.
You spot Renjun at your usual table, reading Lee Ho Cheol’s Panmunjeom anthology, which he’d posted about on his Facebook status over the weekend. The feeling of being able to like his statuses again was fairly nice, and you’d given it the little heart reaction. On instinct, your feet carry you towards him until you feel a warm hand wrap around your forearm. It covers more than half of that part of your arm, so it can’t be anyone’s but Jeno’s, and you look up in total shock as he stares down at you with equally strong confusion.
“Where are you going?” He asks, genuinely perplexed.
“What… are you doing…” you breathe out, feeling a little faint. He doesn’t notice that you look like you’re close to drooling on him since he’s starting to steer you away from Renjun. “What…”
“Table’s this way,” he says plainly, like this should be obvious to you. You can see that he’s headed towards where he normally sits, which is already filled with people, laughing loudly and talking over one another. You jerk your head back to Renjun, who has noticed you now and is watching you with an unreadable expression over the top of his book, half of his face hidden.
“Um — yeah, but I just thought —“
“Okay, so second lesson — don’t write this down,” he stops you from reaching into your pocket to bring out a pen. “If you want to be popular, you need to make sure you surround yourself with equally popular people.”
“Are these rules stuff you just sort of make up on the go, or…?”
He gives you an amused and patronizing look. “Obviously.”
“Okay — okay, but can’t Renjun sit with us?”
“He can if he’s not just going to ignore everyone by reading his book. Or if he’s not going to make any mean comments about anyone.”
You open your mouth, ready to promise he’s not going to, but you’re struck by the realization that he might just sit there and finish Panmunjeom without even saying hello. Even if he didn’t, you can’t guarantee that Renjun will be pleasant around everyone being noisy all at once about things he doesn’t really care about. Being pleasant around one person — Jeno — is already kind of a herculean task for him.  
“Yeah, okay, fine. But can’t I at least tell him I’m sitting here?”
Jeno slowly releases your hand, nodding. You try not to make it too obvious that you’re disappointed at how quickly that moment of contact had come and gone. “Yeah, okay. I’ll get my food and save you a seat, then.”
You wait for him to walk towards the cafeteria line, noticing that a couple of freshmen give way so he can go first; you can tell he smiles at them because they giggle as he walks by and grabs a tray. Making a beeline for Renjun, you also see that he suddenly lifts his book higher to cover his face, probably to hide the fact that he hasn’t flipped a page since.
“Hey,” you say, and he puts the book down, looking disgustingly innocent in his fake surprise.
“Hey. When did you get here?”
“Just now,” you slip into the chair across from him. “What’s for lunch?”
“Something they say is bulgogi but might be yesterday’s fake steaks cut into really thin pieces.”
“Okay, cool,” you don’t even look at the bowl when he tilts it your way so you can see. “Anyway, um, I really hope you don’t mind, but Jeno asked me to sit with him today for lunch.”
“Oh.” Renjun takes a bit of bulgogi on his fork, examining it with feigned interest before popping it into his mouth, chewing slowly. “I see.”
“It’s just for today. I promise. Are you — is that okay?”
He studies your expectant face, thumb brushing over the spine of his book. Your fingers are knotted on the table like you’re praying.
“Yeah, it’s okay,” he finally concedes. “I said I’d support you… so… this is me. Supporting. You. The both of you. If that’s already a thing.”
“It’s not, but you’re the best,” you reach out, giving his hand a squeeze. He mutters something that sounds like I know, taking his hand back and using it to shut his book.  
“But we’re still going to see Love and Thunder  this Saturday, right?” He confirms.  
“Ye— oh, wait,” his expression darkens considerably when you backtrack, looking a little sheepish. “I think I might have something to do over the weekend, so I can’t really make any promises right now.”
“Dude, seriously? It’s the movie of the year. What could be more important than three hours of Marvel hero ass-kicking?”
“Well, it’s just,” you drum your fingers against the table, trying to think of a less direct way to phrase such a basic statement. You come up with nothing, so you just come clean. “There’s a party…”
“You hate parties,” Renjun replies immediately. “You’ve haven’t been to one since middle school.”
“I know that, but —“
“Do you? Does it make sense that you know that you hate parties but are thinking of going to one anyway?”
“Well — you know. Jeno invited me.”
Renjun makes a slightly sour face, but it isn’t directed at you; he’s looking at Jeno, probably, seated a little way away. You turn to look apologetically at him, but you notice that he’s already looking your way, his eyes narrowed in effort like he’s trying to read your lips from this distance but can’t.
“What if something bad happens? Parties aren’t exactly the safest, cleanest, least traumatic events in the world,” Renjun points out. “You could turn someone’s house into a puke slip ’n slide again.”
“Or,” you raise a finger. “Is this the party I could go to so that I can forget about that event that happened ages ago and, thus, free myself from that trauma?”
“Thus? What is happening to you?” He shakes his head, fingers coming up to knead at his brow. “But — so no Love and Thunder?”  
“We can go the day after.”
“You’re not going to be too hungover?”
“No, of course not. Besides, it’s going to be at Jaemin’s house. If it gets too much, I can just walk home.” You can see he’s softening at the mention of it being in a nearby location and not in like, some abandoned warehouse. “Plus, you can come. You know, we can have fun together. Just… eat, dance a little, mingle. It’ll be fine.”
“Am I allowed to come?”
“Of course,” you don’t know if there’s a guest list, or anything, but Renjun seems to get along with most people in your level as long as their names don’t start with a J and end with a eno. “Please? We can even walk there together.”
“It’s like twenty steps from your house, so it’s really not the appealing case you think you’re making.” He sighs. “Fine, fine. I’ll go. And we can watch Love and Thunder the next day. But I’m holding you to that.”  
“Awesome,” your heart feels infinitely lighter, and Renjun even gives you a half-hearted grin. “Great — so, I’ll just — you know —“ you point towards Jeno’s table; Renjun nods slowly, picking up his book again.
“Yes, yes. Go on,” he shoos you away, once again pretending to grow immersed in his book, even though you know he’s snorting to himself when you give him an excited thumbs up before leaving the table.
You even feel like there’s a small skip to your step when you walk to the line, and the grin never leaves your lips as you get your tray and pile what really does look like fake bulgogi on your plate; the cafeteria lady is surprised by your expression, considering you’re surrounded by generally somber ones, and she mistakes your smile as you being excited to eat the food and tells you to take more. Somehow, you’re in such a good mood that you do, which earns some alarmed stares from the people behind you.
The conversation is in full swing when you approach Jeno’s table, and your heart jumps a little when you’ve noticed that he’s kept his word and saved a seat for you — right beside him, no less. His food is half-finished, and he’s talking to Park Jisung about what sounds like some massive multiplayer online shooting game, but he stops when you sit down.
“You guys don’t know _______________, right?” He addresses the whole table; a whole set of eyes lands on you suddenly as his voice rings louder than everyone else’s. “She’s my physics project partner.”
“Of course we know her,” the girl to Jisung’s right, Jimin, pipes up. “We don’t live under a rock, and we’re almost all in the same year, dumbass.”
“I was just announcing it for Jisung’s and Minjeong’s sakes,” Jeno fires back easily. “Who, by the way, aren’t in the same year level.”
“Well, address them specifically next time,” she laughs. “Hey, _____________.”
“Hello,” despite your excitement, your voice comes out way smaller than normal, and it even cracks, which causes you to clear your throat, a feat that mysteriously causes most people to laugh.  
“I know Jimin noona is dazzling to everyone,” Jisung says. “But just for the record, she’s taken. By me. Obviously.”
You stare at him, a little dumbfounded, as Jeno tosses a wilted leaf of lettuce at his face. It doesn’t even make it to the halfway point of the gap the table makes between them. Jisung sticks out his tongue childishly.
“Anyways, I told you guys earlier that we were having a party, this weekend, right?” He points at Jaemin, who, until now, has been quietly wrapping his bulgogi into his lettuce and stuffing them whole into his mouth. “Your house, dude.”
Jaemin rolls his eyes good-naturedly, still in the middle of chewing his food, but he takes one big gulp to respond. “Did you even ask me?”
“Does he ever?” Jisung contributes, amused. “Jeno hyung, why can’t we ever have parties at your place? Jaemin hyung’s house has like ten million pictures of his family that we might break.”  
“Okay, fine; my house. You guys better pull food weight this time, though,” Jaemin agrees suddenly, like he hadn’t been indignant a moment ago. Jeno looks satisfied with this response, not bothering to answer Jisung’s question, which is a little weird; you’d assumed that everyone he was close to also knew of the reason why he never held any events at his house considering the answer he’d given you when you’d asked the same thing had been so simplistic. You don’t take the time to dwell on this, however, since Jeno speaks up.
“I’ll bring the drinks,” he volunteers before adding, “Ice included, Jisung.” The latter makes a face at him, and everyone laughs again, and you presume it’s some inside joke. You smile for a second before you realize it probably seems disingenuous.
It’s weird, you think, that they’re so comfortable around each other, even with their seemingly different personalities. It had always just been you and Renjun, which suited you just fine, but it’s also robbed you of the opportunity to figure out how to interact in a much larger, more outgoing crowd, which is a missed opportunity you’re feeling the effects of now. People start piping up about what they’re going to bring, with Jisung getting a small smack upside the head from Jimin after he volunteers (again, apparently) to bring utensils and “himself, which is gift enough.”
“What should I bring?” You whisper to Jeno.
“Nothing,” he sounds surprisingly sincere and reassuring, not to mention he matches the volume of your voice somehow, making it seem like you’re having your own private conversation. “Just come and have fun.”
“Okay,” you half-wheeze, and he smiles down at you before rejoining the conversation, responding immediately when Jaemin speaks up.
“This time, you guys seriously need to stay away from my bedroom. And my brother’s. And my parents’. Actually, what I’m really saying is that you people need to unlearn how to use stairs.”
“You’re really going to deny your room any action?” Jeno fires back easily.
“I don’t want to go to sleep on a bed someone else made out on,” Jaemin sighs, in a heavy way that somehow causes you to think he’s probably been through it more than once before.
“No one just makes out on a bed.”
“We’re in school, Jeno. You know what I mean.”
“We’ve made out on a bed,” Jisung wiggles a finger between himself and Jimin, who tells him to shut up, something he does almost immediately, even if he and Jeno exchange a high five that creates a sound so loud you’re surprised there’s no physical aftershock.
“________________, Minjeong and I were going to go to the mall on Saturday morning,” Jimin calls your attention underneath Jeno and Jisung’s long arms. “Want to come with? We can have lunch together, too.”
“Oh — yeah, sure,” you agree, and she smiles so brightly and sweetly at you that you blush. Jisung was right about the dazzling thing, then.
“Cool. Text me your address and we can come pick you up.”
You spend the rest of your lunch mostly listening and learning about these people, and you’re somewhat thankful they don’t put you in the hot seat and just interrogate you about yourself. You find out that Minjeong’s trying to get her driver’s license soon, and Jisung had actually been interested in joining an entertainment company as an idol trainee before he’d found out that they confiscate your phone for years, something that ended up being a dealbreaker for him. You learn that Jimin is applying for a English Comparative Literature undergraduate degree in Seoul National University, which Jisung says is inexplicably both “the hottest and the most boring thing about her.”  
The weirdest thing you learn about this band of friends comes up when Jaemin suddenly stands, saying goodbye to everyone hurriedly before rushing off with his plate. No one finds this weird except you, so you bring it up.
“Oh, Jaemin hyung is on the chess team. He has practice during lunch once a week,” Jisung informs you when you ask.
“He’s on the what?” You glance at Jaemin, who’s walking out of the cafeteria at a brisk pace.
“The chess team,” he repeats without any further explanation. You look at Jeno, who shrugs at you.
“Yeah, he likes that stuff. Everyone in our year is a big nerd.”
“Except you and me,” you add, and his lips turn up again, seemingly pleased with your statement. There it is again — your heart flipping over and screaming wildly.  
“Exactly. Except you and me.”
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You don’t actually expect Jimin to follow through with her shopping invite, but she actually ends up texting you on Saturday morning instead of the other way around, asking for your address again after saying that she’d gotten your number from Jeno. You’re so out of sorts when they arrive not ten minutes later that you actually have to double back for your wallet and your phone.  
Jimin has almost always been in a separate section from you in school, while Minjeong is a whole year below you, and they’re also extremely close, so you’d never really gotten the chance to know them, and your expectation is that this excursion is going to be an awkward and pitiful event. They end up being really nice, though, and Minjeong even asks you about your physics project with a tone of genuine interest, commenting about how Jeno is exceptionally good at playing the guitar. You also naturally assume that they’re going to just mill around the boutique area for clothes, but Jimin actually drags you around to some electronics shops to look for a gaming headset for Jisung, and Minjeong goes to three different pet stores to look for the right dog food.  
“You should have tried out for the cheerleading team,” Jimin says when the three of you have settled down at the food court with bowls of bibimbap. Minjeong wordlessly picks out the carrots from her bowl and dumps them in Jimin’s, who doesn’t even bat an eyelash. “We’re a little under the member quota right now. No one likes risking their lives on human pyramids anymore.”
“I can’t imagine why,” you say, and Jimin laughs.
“Seriously. It wouldn’t hurt for you to try. Besides, even if it’s the last semester, we could really use some extra members. Right, Minjeong?”  
Minjeong looks up at you, her egg dangling between her chopsticks.
“Do you want my egg, _____________?”
“Sure,” you reply, amused. She quickly lays the egg on top of your own, even going so far as to arrange them neatly so that their yolks are aligned. “Are you allergic to something?”
“She’s a picky eater.” Jimin explains, using her spoon to squash her egg’s yolk.
“I have a refined palate,” Minjeong corrects her, fishing out a stray piece of carrot and placing it in Jimin’s bowl.
“You eat like a baby.”
“Baby food is pretty good.” Minjeong admits. “The banana-flavored ones are nice.”  
“Gross,” Jimin laughs. “This is exactly why you and Jaemin broke up.”
“You and Jaemin dated?” You raise your eyebrows. Minjeong nods, mixing her rice methodically with her spoon. “What happened?”  
“He got tired of ordering banana-flavored baby food for her,” Jimin quips.
“Will you shut up? Anyway — yeah, we dated last year, really briefly. We just didn’t work out. I did some work for my dad over the weekends back then, so we just never got the chance to go on actual dates. We said we were going to take a break or something, revisit the dating thing when we were less busy, but we just kind of left it in the past, and we started seeing other people.”
“You started seeing other people, you mean,” Jimin corrects her. Minjeong nods, thoughtfully mixing her rice before taking a slow bite.  
“Yeah. Besides, it just sort of felt like a relationship of convenience. Like, we were both there, we were both single, so we tried it. It was okay while it lasted. We’re still friends.”
“But I’ve already heard about Minjeong’s boring love life six hundred times,” Jimin points her spoon at you, a grain of rice flying at high speed in your direction. “Oops, sorry. So what’s going on with you and Jeno?”  
“Oh,” you have to swallow your own spoonful of bibimbap hard because your throat has suddenly constricted. “Nothing’s going on with us. We’re just partners. And… friends?”  
“You’re not dating?”
“Not in the slightest.” Your mind flips back to when Jeno had said he didn’t want people getting the wrong idea about the both of you. Yet. Whatever that meant. “No way.”  
“Oh,” Jimin looks weirdly disappointed. “I thought you were, since he suddenly started asking about who you were seeing. We thought it was a trick question, like we were supposed to answer ‘him.’”  
“But you like him,” Minjeong says it like it’s not a question but a factual statement, which it is, but you still take a while to respond, feeling put on the spot suddenly.  
“I mean… he’s nice.”  
“And cute,” Jimin adds.  
“And cute,” you agree. She smiles triumphantly, as if this is some kind of game she’s winning. “But… nothing’s going on.”  
“Well, Jeno doesn’t date often. I mean, he goes out with girls. But I don’t think he’s been in a relationship for a while,” Minjeong adds thoughtfully. “Maybe he’s starting to think about getting serious with someone?”
“I don’t know.” You like the idea of it, but realistically speaking, it’s not like you two were that close. Then again, you also weren’t sure about how close any two people should be to start thinking about dating each other. It’s not like there’s some kind of rule book. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Coy answer,” Jimin sounds approving. “Definitely a sign that something’s going on.”
“Wh— no, I mean, I’m not sure about… you know, we don’t really talk—“
“You don’t really have to,” Jimin winks, and the seaweed pieces in your bibimbap suddenly get very interesting, even though you know the two of them are exchanging looks.  
They drop you back home after lunch, waving goodbye (with Jimin screaming out a see you later!) as they drive off, and you’re so exhausted from the walking and the fact that you’d had to carry Minjeong’s bags of premium dog food back to her car that you fall asleep the moment your body hits your bed. You wake up with a considerable amount of drool on your pillow and three missed calls from Renjun.  
“Not that it’s a big deal,” Renjun says when you call him back. “But I don’t know what to wear to parties.”
“I don’t think it’s a black tie event,” you rub the sleep out of your eyes. “Just wear something casual? Cool? I don’t know either. Also, when did you suddenly start caring about how you looked at parties?”  
“You make it sound like I’ve never tried beforehand.”
“Your signature style is graphic tee and jeans, so…” There’s a loud noise on his end of the call and you hear him mumble a swear word. “What happened?”  
“The closet rod fell,” he whines. “Also, graphic tee and jeans are Jeno’s signature style too. He even had ripped jeans, which make him look more homeless than I do.”  
“Jeno’s jeans are artistically ripped,” you correct him. “Yours are ripped because your dog tries to eat them when they’re hanging out to dry.”
“And you don’t know if Jeno’s own dog has ripped his jeans artistically,” you can hear him struggling with the metal rod, and his voice becomes more and more muffled as you assume that his phone is sinking deeper into his neck as he holds it between his shoulder and ear. “I’ll call you back. Or — you know what, I’ll just be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Make it twenty, I’m still half-asleep.” You hang up and press your face into your pillow, falling back asleep until Renjun arrives within the promised twenty minute time span, chastising you for your lack of punctuality the entire time you sluggishly change your clothes. The only helpful thing he does is call your sister in to help you fix your hair, which she does enthusiastically as you yawn at your reflection and Renjun criticizes your poor scheduling even further while he plays online minesweeper on your laptop.  
“So we only stay for an hour, hour and a half max, right?” He confirms as you walk towards Jaemin’s house. The door is open, and there are people outside, already deep in conversation.  
“Right,” you agree. You don’t hold the fact that Renjun wants to leave quickly against him; for some reason, being around this many people is making you a little queasy, and you don’t know what people do in parties apart from truth or dare. Unfortunately, no one seems to be sitting in a circle around a spinning bottle when you enter; instead, all the furniture has been cleared out for a table that has food piled onto it, and the coffee table is stacked high with paper cups and drinks. Mark Lee and Jaemin are by the ice bucket, and the latter notices you first, waving at you.  
“Hey, ______________, Renjun. You guys made it,” Jaemin pushes a cup of what looks like Hwanta at you, taking Mark’s cup of soda as well and handing it to Renjun. “No traffic, I hope?”  
“Just the same old pile-up. It takes really long to get here, you know,” you smile, and he laughs easily.  
“So your parents are okay listening to trashy music from upstairs?” Renjun asks, looking around for any sign of parents.  
“No, they’re out for dinner with friends, and my brother stays in a dorm in college, so they’re not affected that much.” Jaemin looks like he’s about to say something else, but something beyond the two of you catches his eye and he mumbles an I’ll be right back before speeding off, disappearing into the crowd. Mark is pouring himself a new cup of soda, throwing Renjun a wounded look when he isn’t looking. You decide to strike up a conversation instead of watching him wait for Renjun to apologize for the technically stolen drink.  
“So has this been going on for a while, or…?”  
“No, it’s been maybe half an hour, or something. Oh, I think Jimin was looking for you. She’s somewhere—” He points around the room, clearly unsure. “Somewhere around here. I’m sure you’ll bump into her later. She and Jisung are probably groping each other in the garden or something.”  
“Since when did Yoo Jimin start dating Park Jisung?”  
“Since they sat next to each other on the KTX to Daegu over the break. You should ask Jisung about the make-out session that steamed up economy car A. He says seats 13 A and B still smell like her perfume and his cologne mixed together.”  
“Ew,” Renjun comments, and Mark makes a noise of agreement.  
You’re only half-paying attention to their disgust about Jisung and Jimin’s history of desecrating public spaces since you’ve spotted Jeno, who’s watching a group of juniors play what you assume is beer pong. You keep thinking about going over to him and saying hi, but you can’t seem to figure out when the right time is. Also, your nerves get the best of you, so you just stand beside Renjun as he starts a weird bonding experience with Mark Lee.  
Luckily, you don’t have to do anything at the end of the day; Jeno suddenly notices you, pushing himself off the window he’s been leaning against and walking over. You grab Renjun’s arm by instinct, and he lets out a sharp ow as you squeeze him. He manages to shake you off just before Jeno stops in front of you.
“_______________,” he looks pleased. “You made it. And… you brought Renjun with you.”
“Hey,” Renjun says flatly, handing his half-drunk cup of soda back to Mark, who takes it with a dumbfounded look on his face. “I think I see Donghyuck, so I’m gonna go say hi.”
He slips away before you can say anything, but Jeno doesn’t even look perturbed; he glances at Mark, who meets his eye then suddenly turns to walk off, and you hear him asking someone where the trash bag is.  
“So, are you enjoying?”  
“I just got here, but it seems great,” you try to sound enthusiastic even if you’re shouting a little over the new song that’s started playing. “Music’s a bit loud though.”  
“Makes awkward pauses less awkward,” he says sagely, and you can’t help but think there’s some logical inconsistency in that, but you just shrug it off, nodding up at him. “Did you get to try the pizza?”
“Not yet; why, did you make it with your own two hands, or something?”
“No,” he shrugs, grinning. “But I ordered it with my own voice.”  
You laugh as he does, but the sounds get drowned out by EXID’s Up and Down playing at full blast. He makes a motion, but you don’t catch on, so he just takes your wrist and leads you through a throng of people back to the beer pong game. Upon closer inspection, you see that the liquid inside is a lot darker than you expected.  
“It’s just cola,” Jeno explains. “We were thinking of buying beer, but most people here can’t drink anyway, so it would have been a waste of money.”  
“Smart,” you comment sincerely, watching the two guys on the opposite ends of the table consistently miss their targets. “So you just have to get the ball in the cups? And then what?”  
“The other person drinks. Hey, Jaehyun,” he calls out to one of the guys playing, who looks up and consequently gets hit in the cheek by a flying ping pong all. “Show _____________ how to play.”  
“She can just take Taeyong’s place; he sucks anyway.” This comment elicits a rude gesture from the other boy, and you notice they’re both wearing similar jackets with a logo you can’t really place but looks suspiciously official.  
“You both suck. Let her take a turn; I’m gonna go ask Jaemin if he has more ice or if we need to make a run.”  
Jeno places his hand on your back, leading you forward; the guy named Taeyong reluctantly steps aside as Jeno walks away, greeting some guy that looks familiar but who you also can’t place in your memory as he passes by.  
As it turns out, you’re not half-bad at beer pong; you manage to get Jaehyun to drink four cups of cola, which has him burping all over the place and begging for a break for his stomach. The party is in full swing now, but this is the part that starts to feel uncomfortable, and you excuse yourself from the game with the promise that you’ll play with the two of them again once you’re all of legal drinking age.  
The garden is no better when you exit; there are people in groups that you know you won’t be able to squeeze yourself into. You do actually see Jimin after a moment of scoping, but her limbs are intertwined with Jisung’s in the mini gazebo, and you don’t really want to interrupt, so you just head back inside.
The music is extremely grating now, and you’ve eaten two slices of pizza and downed at least three glasses of different kinds of soda, so you also feel a little bloated and sleepy. Jeno hasn’t resurfaced either over the last hour or so, and you think it’s high time Renjun must be antsy to get home. The problem is that you can’t find him in the living room or the kitchen; you actually knock on the bathroom after gathering up some courage, but the female voice that answers that it’s occupied makes all that effort go down the drain.  
You trust Renjun wouldn’t leave without telling you, but you’re also not sure why he would be missing for this much time. The fact that you’re just standing by the food table while people pass by, say non-committal hellos, and leave with pizza slices in hand makes it even more uncomfortable. In the end, you decide to text Renjun to meet you back at your house and weave through the crowd to get to the door.  
There are still people outside, and while some are leaving, others are also talking or flirting, and you notice that these are more people that seem familiar but unfamiliar all at once. They all look a little older, too; a couple of guys are all wearing sweaters with the same obnoxiously large logo you’d seen on Taeyong and Jaehyun’s jackets, and it dawns on you that these people must be from the university level, hanging at a party away from younger kids. You scan the grass for Renjun, but you don’t see him anywhere either.  
What you do see is Jeno standing extremely close to a girl who’s wearing a similar university sweater. He has one hand around a cup, but his other hand is sandwiched between the girl’s palms. You can’t really discern his expression, but his brows look knitted, and his mouth, while open, doesn’t seem to be moving.  
You feel like you’ve seen this scene before, back at the dance where you had snapped upon seeing Lee Gyuwon and Jeno together, leaving poor Chenle behind. You’d only recently learned to laugh about that situation, so this one comes as both a painful reminder and an unfortunate addition of scenarios that made you extremely uncomfortable. You have to placate yourself with the reminder they just seem to be talking, even if they are standing really close to each other; nothing is actually happening, save for the fact that you can sometimes see Jeno’s hand gripping the cup in his hand a little tighter now and again.  
All of this just goes out the door when the girl leans in, pressing a hand to his chest, and kisses him.  
A voice inside your head tells you it’s frankly masochistic to keep staring at two people kissing when you like one of them, but you just stand there, rooted to the spot, watching the girl wrap an arm around Jeno’s neck. He pulls away after a while, and his mouth starts moving really quickly. His eyes dart around, like he’s watching for something, until they land on you, and his lips stop mid-speech. The scene gets blurrier, and you think you’re going to pass out for a second until you realize you’re just crying a little.  
Soft fingers wrap around your forearm, pulling you away gently. You think it might be Renjun, who’s finally found you after all that hullabaloo, but when you regain some sense, your attention focuses on Jaemin, who’s leading you back to your house. He’s doing so wordlessly, without even looking at you, and the noise of the party fades into an easily ignorable buzz once you reach your driveway. He stops you right at your front door, pausing a little before facing you with a small smile.  
The part of you that hates yourself the most tempts you to look back, to see if you can still glimpse Jeno from this far away; your head actually starts to turn, but Jaemin reacts quicker, trapping your face between his palms and keeping your head steadily towards him. His smile grows a little, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, and his teeth don’t show like they usually do.  
“Hey. Just look at me first, okay?”  
“Um,” is the only thing you can say considering you’re not sure if he’s doing this randomly or for some unknown reason.  
“Your hair’s kind of a mess, you know that? Did you get in a fight, or something?”  
“No, I was just… you know, there were a lot of people, so I probably bumped into a few of them,” your voice sounds distant, but you’re glad to hear that it still works and that you can form something of a coherent sentence. Jaemin laughs softly.  
“Yeah, it did get kind of crowded back there.” He starts to gently put strands of hair back into place, but it’s clear he has no clue what he’s doing because he sighs and drops his hands to your shoulders after a minute. “Anyway, you seemed a little out of it, so I thought you might want to go home for a quick break. If you want to go back, though, we can.”  
“No,” you say quickly. “I was… actually just looking for Renjun. So we could leave quietly.”  
“Well, usually, if you’re leaving a party, you’re supposed to tell the host,” he chuckles softly. “But since I dragged you here, I guess it doesn’t apply.”  
You want to laugh, but all your body seems to want to do is produce tears; you can’t even understand why you want to cry, considering you and Jeno aren’t dating, and he’d made that extremely clear. You suppose that it had just seemed like all the events were leading up to you getting together, although you may have just been reading between the lines when you weren’t supposed to thanks to your endless bounty of personal delusion.  
Either way, you didn’t want to cry about it — especially not in front of his best friend, who probably thinks it’s pathetic enough that you’re hopelessly deluded. You inhale in an attempt to calm yourself down, but all it does it signal your body into letting out a soft sob. Jaemin doesn’t move, and his expression hardly changes, save for the fact that the smile is back to its unnaturally small state. He actually looks like he’s… sad? That doesn’t seem right, though; maybe it’s really more like he pities you, which you can’t even blame him for.  
Still, he gently raises his right hand again; this time, instead of attempting to fix your hair, he gently places his palm against your head. Then lifts it. Then places it back down again. Soon, you’re standing in your driveway, crying silently while the guy from next door is awkwardly patting your hair like you’re a wounded puppy. It doesn’t last more than five minutes, but it’s still a fairly embarrassing period of time, and you wipe at your eyes aggressively while he retracts his hand.  
“Kind of stupid, huh?” Your voice is thick and ugly. “Crying after a party.”  
“Crying after a party, yeah. Crying after seeing someone you like kiss someone else? Not stupid at all.”  
“So I didn’t hallucinate?” You sigh, hiccuping yourself into a slightly calmer state.
“No, unfortunately. I mean, Jeno is — anyway, it’s not really any of my business, I guess. Do you want me to look for Renjun back at my house, or something?”  
“No, it’s fine. I texted him that I was going home anyway, so he can just come find me when he sees it, I guess.” You feel like your voice is childishly sullen, and Jaemin must think so too, because his smile grows again, like he wants to laugh. “But… thanks for walking me home.”
“I almost dragged you home.”
“But I used my two feet,” you crack a smile, wiping away a stray tear that’s just fallen from your eyelashes. “So I still technically walked.”
“Can’t argue with that logic,” he agrees.
You both stand in front of your door, not moving; you’re not making eye contact either, but it doesn’t feel too uncomfortable. There are a ton of things you want to ask him, but all of your questions seem either too upsetting or too invasive, so you just stay quiet until Jaemin looks up again, focusing on something past your head.  
You turn to find Jeno approaching, and his eyes are flickering between you and Jaemin. His hands ball into fists for a second, like he’s steeling himself.  
Jaemin’s voice seems different when he talks again, and he’s not looking at you when he speaks. “I should get back home. See you, _______________.”
He brushes past Jeno, not looking back as he returns to the party. Jeno watches him go, making sure Jaemin’s past your property line before turning back to you.  
“You left so quickly,” is how he opens the conversation.  
“Oh. Yeah, it just got crowded. I lost Renjun, and I couldn’t eat anything more,” you explain lamely. “Sorry. I guess I should have told you.”  
“No, it’s — that’s totally fine. I just… I guess you really didn’t have a good time.”  
“I did; no, I totally did.” Up until a few minutes ago, you want to add, but there’s no way you would. Jeno nods, not really looking like he’s fairly interested in how much you enjoyed the party. “I found out I’m… pretty good beer pong, so that probably bumped my cool points, right?”  
“She’s my ex-girlfriend,” he suddenly blurts out, skewing the conversation’s falsely casual atmosphere drastically towards a topic you were desperate to avoid. You stand in silence, fairly stunned, and Jeno looks like he’s about to burst completely, his words coming out a little too fast because he wants to say so much. “She used to go to our school. A year older. We broke up during her last year; she said she didn’t want anyone from her past tying her down in college. I mean — we — she — we were over. It was fine. But she showed up tonight, I guess since she heard from Jaemin’s brother that there was a party… I didn’t know. She never told me. We just — I guess she thought we could get back together, so we talked, and she kissed me. But we’re not. Back together, that is.”  
“Uh,” you say, once again at a loss for words. “Okay.”  
“It didn’t mean anything,” he starts to slow down, looking a little relieved that he’s gotten the crux of the story off his chest. “She was a little drunk before she got here. It was just a spur of the moment — no, sorry. It was just a mistake. That’s it.”  
“It’s… I mean, it’s… it’s fine?” It’s not, you know, but you don’t know what else to say considering it’s supposed to be fine to you. “She’s your ex-girlfriend. You’re bound to still have feelings for each other. Also—”
“We don’t,” he interrupts you. “We don’t have feelings for each other. I mean, I don’t. For her.”
“Okay, but I also don’t know why you’re telling me all of this.”  
“Because. Because I know you saw us outside.”  
“I did,” you admit, still feeling the uncomfortable pang of distress at recalling the sight. It seems to be triggering your fight or flight instinct because you’re taking slow steps back, but Jeno is just moving forward with you too. Even when you run out of space to step, he’s still advancing, eyes focused on you, like he’s watching for your expression. “And it’s your right to make out with your ex-girlfriend. It doesn’t have anything to do with me.”  
“Doesn’t it?”  
“Does it?” You’re thoroughly confused now, and it looks like Jeno is too. “We’re just friends, aren’t we? We’re not really even that. My opinion on your relationships doesn’t really… matter.”  
“It does though. It does to me.”  
You fall silent, dumbfounded; your mind can’t decide on which feeling to focus on first, so you just stand there looking stupid. Jeno is standing really close to you now, and you can actually smell the fabric conditioner on his hoodie and the cologne that’s fading off from his skin. When he speaks again, his voice is barely above a whisper.
“You like me.”  
It’s not asked like a question, but he pauses like he’s waiting for you to respond. You’re too close to him to feel comfortable enough to lie and deny, plus the situation seems so intense that the thought of doing something wrong doesn’t even cross your mind. You nod, and he doesn’t even look the least bit surprised.
“I’m telling you all of this because I know you like me. Because I don’t want you to misunderstand something like that.”  
“It doesn’t matter, though,” your voice is also soft, less because you’re trying to be quiet and more because if you speak up, you’re afraid you might start crying again. “You don’t have to explain something like that to someone who likes you just because they like you. It shouldn’t be a concern.”  
“But I want to,” he says firmly. “I want to make sure you know — I’m really not with that girl. What happened back there — it didn’t mean anything.”  
“But why?”  
He reaches out, and the action feels eerily similar to Jaemin’s; his fingers idly toy with loose strands of hair, but it doesn’t feel laden with the motive of comforting. Instead, his hand skims down the side of your face gently, stopping just below your jaw. You wonder if he’s noticed you’ve stopped breathing, but if he has, he doesn’t make it obvious. His thumb extends away from his hand, lightly tracing the height of your cheekbone.  
“Because I don’t want something like this to push you away from me,” he murmurs. “Because I want you to like me. Just me.”  
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lemonreadsfanfics · 2 years ago
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Language barried fanfic (Xiao x gn reader)
🍋This inspired by @eroslove88 but their fanfic was really horny and I wanted to write one that is more wholesome lol- since I feel like it fits Xiao more.🍋
Xiao x Gender neutral reader (I am so in love with this man 💋💋💋) it's modern au kind of? Sorry if I make any mistakes:))) Disclaimer - I do NOT speak Chinese, but well google translate does so this is that basically. I hope it all translated correctly :''').
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So summary -
Xiao moves to a new school as a transfer student and the teacher makes him sit next to y/n (SHOCKER!!! OMG!!! SUCH PLOTTWIST!!!DRUMROLL)
So they befriend Xiao.
Xiao speaks Chinese and English and y/n wants to learn the language so they can speak Chinese with him. They have been friends for some time now.
Y/n and Xiao sat in the library. Xiao had gotten a Chinese translation book and he was teaching them some basic words, because y/n begged him a lot of times and he got annoyed so he decided to finally agree.
"So now that you know the basics, try saying something..." He said pointing at the book in front of them.
"But I can't..." Y/n whined.
"Hm. Then I will just leave." He said with a stoic expression.
"Nonono!!!" Y/n exclaimed. "Please okay...uh can you start by saying something?"
Xiao sighed."你很笨."
"Oh uhhh...I have no idea what that...means" y/n looked dumbfounded
"You will figure it out someday." Xiao looked at the ceiling.
"Heeey I thought you were meant to teach me, not keep it a secret..." Y/n looked at Xiao, furrowing their brows.
"Find out what it means yourself." Xiao said, his gaze at the book. "Go on."
Y/n looked through the pages, trying to figure it out.
"You are dumb...? HEY!" Xiao chuckled.
"Yeah. Good job."
Y/n punched his arm lightly.
"Okay, okay. I will try to say something...你好你好吗?"
Xiao nodded. "我内心快死了"
"oh what did that mean, did you uhhh say you are doing good???'' y/n smiled awkwardly.
"No, I said I am dying on the inside" he said, with a deadpan expression.
"Ouhhhkayyy." Y/n smiled awkwardly. "Glad I am making you feel that way"
"Next. Go. Say something again." Xiao crossed his arms.
"Okay, aaa uhhh???...我很臭 ?"
Xiao chuckled. "Yeah, that's correct."
"Really???" They smiled.
"It's true that you are...smelly." Xiao laughed a little.
"WHAT NO I TRIED SAYING THAT I AM HAPPY, NOT...SMELLY!!!" They covered their face with their hands.
"Well at least you were honest". Xiao smiled.
They chuckled. "Whatever...say something more complex, I like listening to you speak."
"Alright, this is going to be the last thing for the day because It's getting late and I have to go... Okay, this one is more complex I guess. 我爱你 "
...a very small hint of a blush appeared on his face.
"Ohhh what did that mean?" Y/n said, they were completely clueless.
Xiao pretended like he was coughing.
"I will uhhh tell you some...other time. I have to go. Bye."
'hm. Why did he leave so quickly was it something dumb?' they thought to themselves.
Grabbing all their books, they left the library,very confused.
(The next day)
"Xiao!" They waved at him.
"Hi" he nodded.
"Thanks for the lesson yesterday." They smiled.
"I wouldn't call it a lesson...but no worries." He said with a stoic expression.
They took a deep breath in.
"I just wanted to say one thing before I go off for class...I learned it yesterday. 我也爱你 " they smiled.
The realization hit Xiao.
"So you...did translate what I said??? Forget it, I just uhm wanted to say something different...since you wanted something more... complex" He blushed a little.
They chuckled. "Yeah...whatever you say. Still I appreciated it."
They kissed his hand and ran off to class.Xiao just sat there flabbergasted, until the bell brought him back to reality. He smiled to himself a little and hurried towards his next class.
THANKS FOR READING!!! this is my first fanfiction and you know I had to include MY MAN💋💋💋 (real) in there. The fanfic itself isn't the best but I had fun so who cares!!! >:PPP So yeah, bye. Drink water and have a nice day/night.
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olderthannetfic · 3 years ago
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Hope is okay to ask for like, tips and such for something.
I want to write again, because I'm entering the stressed and depressed state of mind where I can't do shit for my own mental health. In vacations I was fine, I wrote 7 fics in a row, it wasn't a problem. But now University consumes everything of me (again and again), my mind just shuts down and I'm incapable of doing anything but boring and loooooooong obligatory readings and essays (and sometimes I can't do that at all) and when I have free time I just... go to YouTube, see videos I'm barely interested in and scroll and scroll and scroll until is night and time to sleep to go to the academic suffering again because my mind just screams "I'M EXHAUSTED NOT WANNA DO SHIT".
Has anyone tips for overcoming this? (Just one thing: my cellphone is all I have to do jobs, write, listen to music, read (physical books are expensive), etc. The "just don't use your cellphone" tip is not an option for me sadly.) I don't how to even search what the fuck is wrong with me in Google to see if there's tips there in the wildness (I'm guessing there must be a term lol).
--
You're overwhelmed and stressed. "How do I do more creative writing?" is the wrong question here. You may or may not be able to get back to where you can do that at the same time as school.
"How do I manage this stress and get my brain back?" is more the thing you should be pursuing.
During the pandemic, people have talked a lot about anhedonia and about how amorphous long-term stress takes up all your extra mental processes till the unconscious churning of ideas your brain normally does that helps you come up with creative ideas is instead all taken up with this overhead of worry. Many professional writers have found themselves unable to write. Granted, yours is a school-triggered problem, but I think it's the same basic deal.
Time management and sleep patterns are something to look at, but the biggest thing is probably finding a way to completely turn off your brain and decompress... that is not mindlessly scrolling through social media. That doesn't fully shut you down and reboot you. It takes up time while maintaining low-grade anxiety, whether about the world or about feeling like you haven't scrolled far enough to be caught up. Things that make you experience FOMO or feel behind are especially to be avoided. Things that are relaxing and that give you a sense of finishing a task and doing a good job should be sought out.
Basically, your brain wants a cookie, but nothing about school is giving it a cookie, and because you're so stressed, nothing else is either. You seek out short things that don't require attention in the quest for some little hit of happy brain chemicals, but these aren't satisfying and further sap your energy.
It's a common problem for neurodivergent people, for people with depression, and for basically everyone in the pandemic or other long-term shitty situations.
Look up terms like 'executive function' for the part about getting stuck in one task and being unable to switch to something else.
Look up terms like 'anhedonia' for more on the depression-y symptoms, and combine with 'pandemic' for copious self help articles.
Here's one for example.
Self help on "mindfulness" and tips on how to meditate may also be relevant.
--
For me personally, physical exercise, being outside where there are trees and plants, eating fresh vegetables, spending time offline with friends, and hobbies or even chores that are physical things with a success/finishing condition (doing the dishes, knitting, repairing my own clothes) are the biggest help.
If you don't have physical books, then you don't. But getting off the cell phone is still key. TBH, even if you had paper books, Things That Are Not Books are often key.
I don't particularly want to get off the couch and go take a walk, but my ability to write or even read is often better after I do so.
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natsukicookies · 3 years ago
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In love with an older woman
Ship: shousuke x f!reader
Summery: shousuke falls in love with an older girl who is also a friend of his older sister.
1,966 words 10,103 characters
Not readpoof
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Part 1 || part 2 || part 3
"He left?" Y/n mumbled as she saw komi chan little brother go out in the hallway.
"Y/n chan it's your break time so you can take a rest now" one of her classmates said and she replied with "okay" she then went out to check out the other classes.
Some guys were looking at her since he was wearing an off shoulder maid outfit, But she didn't care.
While she was in the hallway looking around she spotted komi chan's little brother. A key chain fall out of his pocket it seem.
"Ah! The key chain." Y/n speed wallked there while she called out for him but he didn't hear her or at least it seem like so.
She picked up the Keychain and run toward where she last saw him and fortunately she saw him again!. He was looking out the window.
"um komi kun!" Y/n called out to the younger boy as she walked closer. Shousuke stared at the female in front of him who was now trying to catch her breath. "You doped this.." she somehow managed to say in between, And hold the Keychain in font of her.
After finally catching her breath she stood up straight and gave him a closed eye smile. The boy just looked at her with unreadable expression.
"Thanks" he simply said and toke the Keychain then was about to go but was stopped by the 1st year girl "come again" she said with a cheerful voice but then remembered what had happened in the classroom.
"Wait no- those girls will make you uncomfortable again! Uh um" she stuttered and went into her mumbling mood. "Ah if you-.." when she finally looked at the front she noticed he was gone.
Her face hold a frown as she thought 'maybe I was annoying him..'
While in the other hand
shousuke had an unreasonable expression as he was walking away but his heart was feeling quite warm and bubbly. It was a unknown feeling to him and he doesn't like this too so he ignores it.
✎ ∙︓⋅⠄✯∘⠄✧
Y/n was right now standing in front of komi household. And is nervous.. sure it was not her first time going to komi's home but it was her first time going "alone" which was kinda nerve-wracking.
Y/n ring the door bell and then wait, soon the door opened.
It was shousuke who opened it and as soon as he show her, his lips slightly turned into a line. it was barely noticeable but the h/c haired did not missed it.. "hello.." she greet trying her best to have a happy smile on her face.
But in response she got none. Well if that wasn't upsetting, this sure was. Now she was sure she hated her or something.
"Um I'm here to meet komi-chan.." she said then bite her under lips nervously and fidgeting with her finger.
He just pointed towards the stairs "um I guess I will go to her room?" She mumbled and went in.
Shousuke watched her go up stairs and again he felt it the same exact feeling he got when he first meet her.
"..."
He went to his room and he could hear her laugh and talk clearly since his room is right next to komi's room.
It did no good to him. Y/n voice sounded like a melody to him but he didn't know why.
Later that night he google search what it meant and well... he didn't not like the result it showed.
He did not have a crush on her.. way no! He doesn't even know that girl's name plus who would have a crush on their older sister's friend.. right?
He sigh'ed at how exhausted this thing is making him. Never in his life did he had a crush on someone so why now?
✎ ∙︓⋅⠄✯∘⠄✧
As the time went y/n and komi chan hang out more often and that mean shousuke had to see y/n more and more which was good? Or bad? He still doesn't know..
By now y/n had been told shousuke doesn't like talking but she still feel as if he hates her. Which was the opposite of what he felt.
Soon shousuke become a high schooler. He thought maybe now he's a high school he might not have a crush on y/n.
Oh how wrong he thought...
Now that he's a high schooler he had to see her more since both of them goes to the same high school. And not only that but there's this annoying girl in his class too that annoys the hell out of him.
Oh poor shousuke..
But now that he goes to the same school as y/n. He can see how she is in school. He's trying to figure her out like when he thinks no one's looking at him he stares at her.
But unfortunately for him, y/n can actually feel him giving her death glares.
So one day when she and komi chan was having a launch together y/n decided to finally ask komi chan.
"Um komi chan can I ask you something?" Komi chan quickly looked up a bit nervous and nodded "does your little brother hates me?"
Komi chan eyes went wide and before she could say something y/n went on "i-i mean I don't know but it seem like he does.." h/c haired girl looked down.
"N....n-no!" Komi chan said but it was barely above a whisper but y/n head and looked up at the girl who was shaking her head.
Actually komi knew her brother doesn't hate y/n since whenever y/n was in their house shousuke always came where y/n was. Making excuses saying he needs something from that room.
Sure at first it looked normal but then she noticed that he would always look at h/c haired girl with the eyes that sure doesn't hold 'hatred'.
✎ ∙︓⋅⠄✯∘⠄✧
Y/n was at library work today. she had to place all the books in the right shelf.
"Man this is gonna be a long day.." she Sigh'ed looking at all the books.
Shousuke, Hitomi, Ai snd Yamada was studying at the library well shousuke didn't wanted to but was dragged by Hitomi while Ai went because of him and as for yamada well he followed because why not?
While the two girls went to pick soda to drink the 2 male were studying or at least shousuke was. "Woa.."
The woa got the attention of shousuke who then looked where yamada was looking at.
A h/c hair girl was placing the books in the shelf. Wait h/c hair girl...!
It was y/n he realized and it made him mad that yamada was looking at her. So he took the book that was in front of the brown hair male and smack him in the face with it.
✎ ∙︓⋅⠄✯∘⠄✧
Y/n were too busy to notice the 1st year study group since she wanted to finish the work as soon as possible.
Time passed. Hitomi left then yamada then ai (even though she didn't wanted to) now it was just shousuke and y/n in the library.
Shousuke actually wanted to go home but he just can leave her alone. Since he did took notice of how clumsy she is.
The 2nd year girl steps on the ladder and put the last book on the shelf 'thank God this is the last book because I swear to God i never want to climb this unsteady ladder.' She thought to herself as she step down
but guess what since she called the ladder "unsteady" the ladder decided to fuck her up by falling and also taking her with her.
"EkkAah!" She yelled and closed her eyes shut, as she was falling but she stopped as soon as she felt a pair of hands grab her. She opened her eyes to meet with an pair od worried dark purple eyes.
The ladder was fallen on the ground (probably thinking 'I will take my revenge someday') while there are also some books which falled due to the impact and stuff.
And then finally the 2 teen. Shousuke who is on the ground in a seating position while Also out of breath since he ran to catch her. Y/n in other hand was in shousuke arm and lap kinda overwhelmed at what just happened.
"Are you okay?" The boy asked, Worries clearly shown in his voice and eyes. The girl blind a few time before the realisation hit her very hard and she crawl away at the speed of light to the corner of the library. Her face turning 100 shades of red.
"Y-YEA IM OKAY" she yelled out embarrassed as she looked anywhere but him. The 1st year frown a bit, again it was barely noticeable.
He nodded his head and stood up. he was about to go but a hand stopped him.
He looked behind and saw the 2nd year girl. Honestly he was surprised I mean the girl was in the corner of the library (literally 6 meters away from him) how the hell did she just came here in speed of light..?!
"Your elbow is bleeding though your uniform!" Now that she said he noticed it and the pain suddenly hit him.
But of he didn't show it. Y/n grabbed his arm and dragged him to the infirmary with a "you need to bandage it!"
Also it is a thing now like shousuke getting dragged by girls without his will?.. it seem so it me.
✎ ∙︓⋅⠄✯∘⠄✧
"Take your jacket off" y/n ordered and started looking for alcohol wipe and for bandage on her own since the school nurse is not there.
Shousuke did what he was told and took off his jacket. The female was stood in front of him and took his arm and roll up the sleeves of his shirt.
"It's gonna take soo" she tailed off in the end and not even for a second did she took her eyes off of his injury.
While shousuke never took his eyes off of the girl. This was a side he never saw of her, it's actually making his heart beat a lot faster. He's also worried that the 2nd year girl might heard his heart since she's so close to him right now.
"Why did you save me?" The h/c colored hair mumbled again not looking at him but this time it was from embarrassment.
The male just stare at her and so she went on. "You wouldn't have gotten hurt if you hadn't save me.." she continued but her voice hold guilt "and you are weird like which person save the person they hate and then get hurt too"
She finished wrapping the bandage around his elbow "I don't" the male started which could the female by surprise. "Huh?"
"I never hated you." He exclaimed his voice was calm and soft? He was looking straight at the older girl's eyes. Making her eyes widened in surprise as the wind (that literally came out of nowhere..) passed though their hair.
To be honest it made him a bit sad to know that she thought he hated her.. but then again his actions do be like that.
✎ ∙︓⋅⠄✯∘⠄✧
Ever since that day both of them became more closer, Maybe friends?.
Well it was good to know shousuke doesn't hate her it made y/n felt now relieved then she had realized.
But that aside y/n now had to packed her bags since tomorrow is the day their school decides to go to a field trip.
Suddenly her phone rings and it was from najimi. "Hello?" She picked up and said "DID YOU KNOW f/f ARE GOING IN SELL"
His yelled literally made her deft.. but then she realized what he had said. "SAY WHAT!"
✎ ∙︓⋅⠄✯∘⠄✧w
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cherry-velvet-skies · 2 years ago
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Welcome back to another installment of Rating Beatle Eras By What They Looked Like! (Still kinda working on the title 😅)
Part 2: Ringo 🥰 Now our sweet bby Bongo has had many eras so let's get right into it 😁
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Stormy Hurricane (Pre-Beatles Era)
Now I will say out of all the Beatles, Ringo definitely looked the best in the Teddy Era
The bit of facial hair he has paired with that sleek silver streak is totally working for him
Plus I see that he knew rings were going to be his theme from the very beginning
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7/10 we're starting off pretty strong here and I hope it stays that way lol
Tough Guy Attitude (1962)
Honestly still giving Teddy Era vibes even though he looks completely different
Ringo had baby bangs before they were cool
I know the outfit is kinda basic but he looks fabulous anyway
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8/10 nothing too extravagant but he's still handsome regardless
Aspiring CEO of a Hairdressing Franchise (1963-64)
The Mop Top has officially emerged
I feel like if he wasn't a musician the hairdresser thing would've totally worked out
The look is softer than the previous two eras and I feel like that suits him better
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8/10 again because even though it's a simple look he still rocks it
Human Sacrifice (1965-66)
I know y'all thought this hairstyle was atrocious but I gotta be honest it's not THAT bad
Like in the Help! movie I thought he looked really cute, and in '66 his hair is the same just longer
I will agree though that the whole longer sideburns thing did very little to help this look lmao
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8.5/10 and I know that's a high score but he looks adorable and I will stand by that
Master's Degree From Fashion School (1967)
No because I love this. I used to not like it but now I love it
This era didn't feel like Ringo to me at first which is why I didn't like it, but now I see how he embodies it and I'm so into it
This photo doesn't even need to be in color for me to know there are probably 17 different colors in that outfit and I fucking love that
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10/10 and I also love that little pin he's wearing it's so sweet
Textbook Definition of Tareme (1968) (pls google tareme if you don't know what it means I don't know how to explain it)
RICHIEEEEE MY SWEET BABYYYYY 🥺💕
He officially entered Poor Little Meow Meow status when he looked like this and I will not accept criticism
I know I didn't choose a picture from it but the Mad Day Out photoshoot I'm- he looked so precious
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1000/10 I want to hug and kiss him NOW 😤
Tumble Starker (1969)
AWOOGA (sorry)
Ringo's best era change my mind (you can't)
I know it looks super similar to the previous one but there is something different here. The last one was cute this is just sexy I mean we can't lie
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37561239/10 this man could do anything he wants to me 🥴🥴🥴
500 BC Genetics (1970)
I'm- no. I'm sorry I can't.
Richie bby what were you thinking
He looks like he's wearing his hair and beard like a bicycle helmet
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1/10 only because I like his outfit. The rest is unredeemable.
Jesus Impersonator (1971)
The hair is cool but I'm not liking the beard so much
His sense of style is still going strong but between the last era and this I feel like I'm on a rollercoaster
How does his hair grow so fast
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5/10 I'm going right in the middle because I neither love nor hate this
Full Coverage (1972)
Well would you look at that the hair got better and the beard got worse
I swear he must secretly be one of those hair salon dolls where you press a button and their hair grows like ten inches in two seconds because HOW
I mean I'm sure it keeps his face warm so I guess that's a plus
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6/10 I like it slightly more than Jesus Impersonator but not by much
That'll Be The Slay (1973)
This look had me twirling my hair and giggling like bro he's so fine omg 🥵
I usually don't like this hairstyle but it so works on him
Plus the star earrings are yoU KIDDING ME
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100/10 also his character deserved SO MUCH BETTER IN THIS MOVIE I'M STILL MAD ABOUT IT 😤😤😤
Beard Redemption Arc (1974)
What a surprise the beard is back
But would you believe me if I said I liked it this time
It's like a combination of the last two eras and I think I've finally found a hair and beard combo I appreciate
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7.5/10 a pretty damn good hair to beard ratio
The Rise of the Silver Streak (1975)
WE HAVE OUR FIRST DILF ERA Y'ALL
I know he had already been a Dad for several years at this point, but this is the first era to actually exude that dilf energy we all know and love
Also I know that the little silver streak in his hair can be seen in many previous eras as well but I feel like he really embraced it here idk
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9/10 I'm really vibing with this one
Character Development (1976)
Why does every person who has such luscious hair have that one era where they decide to chop it all off
I mean if I remember correctly he was going through a lot during this time so maybe he just needed a drastic change or something
I do appreciate the silver streak being on FULL DISPLAY
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4.5/10 not for me but I respect it
Ognir Rrats (1977-80)
I must say his fashion was on point during this time
A lot of these eras start to blend together after a while since they all look pretty similar lmao
But that doesn't mean that the quality factor goes away. He still manages to pull off most of them
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8/10 and the Ognir Rrats movie lives in my brain rent free
YMCA (1981-82)
SEXY COP RINGO NATION RISE UP
Why does he look so good like this omg
I'm not even attracted to the cop uniform usually but I guess that's just the power of Ringo
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9/10 this is my guilty pleasure Ringo era
*asdfmovie voice* I Like Trains (1983-86)
Even though I wasn't born yet when Ringo was the Thomas the Tank Engine narrator I somehow still remember hearing his voice when I watched it as a kid
Which is even wilder because he was the narrator for the UK version and I live in America
The conductor look does suit him though
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8/10 because watching the show now and hearing him make little voices for all the different trains is top tier comedy
Commercial King (1987-88)
Ringo did more ad cameos in this era than I can count
I'm also confused about the commercials where he couldn't even actually try the product because of his food sensitivities (looking at you, Pizza Hut)
This era is similar to Rise of the Silver Streak, except a little less dilf and a little more "rockstar who wants to branch out and try new things"
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8/10 and if you haven't seen the commercial he did for a Japanese sparkling apple juice company, I highly suggest you watch it it's hilarious 🤭
Volleyball Player Braids (1989)
You either get the title or you don't there's no in between
These little braids both suited him and looked very out of place
At least his hair was long enough again to the point where he could braid it
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7/10 not my favorite, but he looked good and he knew it too
Experimentation (1990-92)
This is pretty much his default look at this point but the title does have a purpose
He had a mullet briefly in '91 and then promptly got rid of it lmao
Something tells me he made the right choice because despite not choosing a photo of it, it honestly didn't look that great
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7/10 I respect him for not only experimenting but acknowledging when something is not working for him
Classic Rock Chic (1993-96)
When I tell you this look goes SO HARD 🥵
He IS a rockstar and is making sure everyone is gonna know it
I know he looked like this for about four years but I wish it lasted longer. This look peaked in '95 and there was nothing else like it 😌
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25/10 I feel like I have to file this under the dilf category because I'm too attracted to it for it to be anything else 🤭💕
Fountain of Youth (1997-2020)
I am not joking when I say that he looked EXACTLY the same for TWENTY-THREE YEARS STRAIGHT
He cut his hair short again in '97 and then said fuck it we're staying like this
I do think it's funny how he had so many different eras when he was younger and once he entered his sixties he just found one he liked and stuck with it
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5.5/10 I guess the short hair suits him but I'm just admiring the fact that he wanted something more low maintenance as he got older lol
All-Starr (2021-Present Day)
His hair is longer again and honestly I think he looks great
I love that the earrings and ombre sunglasses have not left since the 70s/80s because I absolutely love them
The peace sign necklace is also a serve and I'm not ashamed to say that he is the reason I bought one that looks exactly like it 🤭
8.5/10 he's really just adopted that rich guy aesthetic where he either dresses so cool it makes him look thirty years younger or he just wears tracksuits 90% of the time and honestly I love that for him 😌💕
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fortuositywritings · 4 years ago
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Collide
Part 1 Wanda x Reader
Summary: You bump into Wanda Maximoff at a grocery store. Wouldn’t be a problem if either of you were anyone else but you two were no ordinary people.
You would think having the ability to take anyone’s power would be awesome. It’s not.
With a simple touch, you could take any person with special abilities’ special powers from them. You figured this out in grade school when you high-fived one of your friends for the first time. Suddenly you could see through walls. That same year, you figured out they could take those powers back. 
A few years later you found out they could only take those powers back if they wanted them. You tried giving someone their invisibility back but they would not have it. Now you are stuck with it. You are stuck with a few others too, like walking through walls and mimicking voices. Those you got from random strangers on the street. 
Obviously, you tried to give them back. You wouldn’t take what isn’t yours, but it was an impossible task. Finding a stranger you bumped into in New York is kind of hard. 
You’ve tried passing off powers to other people but it never worked. You could only return them to the person who gave them to you. To give them back, all you had to do was touch them again and they had to want the powers back. It was that simple. 
So when you bump into Wanda Maximoff at the grocery store, things get a little complicated. 
You’ve made a friend recently who turns out to be Sokovian. Seeing as his birthday is coming up, you thought it would be cool to cook him a traditional Sokovian meal. A few searches on Google and you print out a list of what you need. 
You leave to the nearest store that would have all you need. You check off your list, heading toward the aisle of spices. You finally find the one the recipe calls for and lucky for you, it’s the last one. You reach for it but you feel someone else’s hand touching yours, reaching for the same thing. 
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says. You look at the woman who is standing really close to you for a stranger. She has intense green eyes, you notice. She pulls her hand away. 
“It’s alright,” you say. 
“Was that the last one?” she asks, awkwardly.
“It seems so,” you confirm. “But we can ask an employee if they have more somewhere?”
You flag down an employee two aisles down and ask. They shake their head and then tell you they won’t be getting more until next week. The woman with the green eyes sighs. 
“We can split it,” you suggest. “I don’t need the whole thing. At least I don’t think so? I just need it to make a Sokovian dish that calls for it. I probably won’t be using it for anything else.”
“I don’t know. Sokovian food is delicious if I may say so. You’ll get a taste and might regret sharing this with a stranger,” she teases. 
You smile and ask, “Oh, are you Sokovian?”
She nods and you add, “Well, then I insist on sharing it with you. Maybe you can actually give me a few tips on this recipe?”
“What are you making?” she asks you. You show her the recipe on your phone and she kindly shares some of her expertise which you’re grateful for. She follows you around the store making conversation as you grab the rest of what you need. Technically, you follow her around as she suggests you other stuff to add to the recipe. 
You add a mini mason jar to your cart. You both head to pay and outside pour some of the spice into your mason jar and give her the rest of the bottle. You thank her for all the help and wish her a great day. 
Wanda gets back to the tower in a positive mood. Everyone notices and asks her what happened. She replies that she just had a nice interaction with a stranger and it made her day. 
Though her day was made, the rest of her week was hell. She doesn’t know what is wrong with her. Her powers have been failing her. She doesn’t understand. At first she thinks it’s just the more difficult things she can’t do but then she notices how no one’s thoughts appear in her head. It’s quiet. She only hears her own. 
Something was definitely wrong.
You thought you were imagining things but after guessing what your friends’ were thinking for the umpteenth time, you knew you had taken someone else’s power. 
You don’t think it’s too bad at first. Only your friends’ heavy thoughts made their way into your head. Unfortunately, some of those thoughts you can never unhear again. 
The problem comes when you go to the library for the first time with this new power. The library is hell. It’s full of people who are just thinking loudly. See in public, there are people who are thinking loudly of course, but there are more people distracted and speaking without thinking, which you never thought you would be so grateful for. 
You don’t last in the library for very long. So libraries are on your list of places to avoid. Soon, movie theaters are also on that list and then so are museums. Any place where people are meant to be quiet is where it’s loudest in your head. 
You wish you knew who you touched to get these powers. You begin to think back at everyone the past few weeks that you might have had direct contact with. A hand you shook or an arm you bumped into. You’ve always been cautious about your surroundings so these things wouldn’t happen.
Everyone you greeted at your Sokovian friend’s party you’ve greeted before. No one was new there. The Sokovian at the store!
Damn it. You never got her name or anything. Maybe you’ll encounter her at the store again. The next few days, you spend hours at the same store. People begin to think you’re an employee and you almost feel like one, knowing exactly where everything is from spending so much time there. 
You’ve even made plans with one employee to go hangout. But no green eyed Sokovian makes an appearance. 
Three weeks you have this power when you find that not only can you read people’s thoughts, but you hold things without actually touching them. It happens when you drop something in the kitchen. You reach for it to catch it before it hits the floor but it’s nowhere near your grasp. However, it never hits the floor. 
You then notice a red mist-like substance coming from your hands floating in the direction of the object. You see that it’s holding it up. After that, you start practicing with random things around your apartment. You begin with lighter things, thinking you would only be able to hold weight that you could in your actual arms, but it is not so. 
You work your way up to lifting your car in the air and in that same moment you learn you could do multiple things like lifting your car and replacing the flat tire. 
Two months with these abilities and you feel you start getting the hang of it. You still can’t go to the library. You’ve tried again but the voices are too loud. You still go to the store where you met the woman that unintentionally gifted you these powers to try and return them. She seemed like a decent person and you don’t know what she used these powers for. Maybe she needs them.
You still have yet to find her. 
Wanda hasn’t been on a mission in three months. Instead, Bruce has been poking and prodding her with needles and running countless tests trying to figure out what happened with her powers. Three weeks ago she began to go to a therapist because Steve thought it might be a mental block of some sort that she had to work through.
Though therapy was doing wonders for her, they weren’t getting her anywhere near having her powers back. Bruce’s tests weren’t helpful either. She’s been stuck in the tower for three months and her days have never felt so repetitive until now- train, go to therapy, undergo tests. Rinse and repeat. 
The media had begun to notice as well. She turns to another TV channel where the news anchor asks “Where is Wanda Maximoff?” as if she’s disappeared from the face of the earth. In a way she has.
Fortunately for her, you are watching that same channel. You are cooking dinner and have the television channel on for background noise. You hear them talking about the Avengers. They’ve never been of much interest to you, although they should be seeing as though you live in the same city and something is always going down here because of that reason.
“For those who have been living under a rock,” the new anchor starts, “Wanda Maximoff is one of the newer additions to the Avengers.”
“She’s the one with the red magic, isn’t she?” the co-anchor asks. That grabs your attention. You turn to look at the screen. “That’s right. She joined about a year ago after the fall of Sokovia.”
That had to be a coincidence, right? 
“She hasn’t been reported to be on any missions the last three months,” the reporter continues. That definitely couldn’t be a coincidence, you think, counting back the time you’ve attained these powers. 
“Here is a clip of Maximoff using her magic to save diplomats at the embassy five months ago when…” You don’t hear the rest as you watch the clip play. 
It’s the green eyed Sokovian who helped you out at the market. Your suspicions about it being her who had these powers were correct. You just didn’t think you took powers from an Avenger. Someone who definitely needs these powers to do her job and save people like the clip shows. Shit.
You smell the food you’re cooking burning. 
“Shit!”
Wanda pounds her hand on the mat. Sweat clings onto her shirt. She’s tired and out of breath. 
“Again,” Nat commands. Wanda huffs and stands up, getting back into her fighting pose. She takes a swing that the Black Widow easily dodges. Not two moves later, she hits the mat again.
“Again,” Nat repeats.
“Natasha, give the kid a break,” Steve says, watching from the side. 
“It’s okay,” Wanda assures him.
Natasha explains, “If therapy and tests aren’t working, maybe self defense will.”
Steve seems doubtful but allows it. They really need Wanda to work through whatever is blocking her from using her powers. He winces seeing Wanda hit the mat.
“Again.”
“I’ve told you for the millionth time. My name is Y/N L/N and I need to speak to Wanda Maximoff. Or any of the Avengers, really. Or even one of their assistants or something. It’s vital,” you try helplessly. 
“Unless you have clearance, I can’t let you up,” the guy at the desk says to you for what feels like the hundredth time. You’ve been coming in the past few days trying to get someone to let you see Wanda. 
“Look, it’s really important. Can’t you, like, give her a message or something?” You’re desperate at this point. He laughs. 
“Ah, yes, let me just text her real quick. ‘hey Wanda. It’s that one guy you said hello to once downstairs. There’s some girl here that needs to talk to you’,” he acts out sarcastically, which you do not find amusing. 
“Listen, buddy. If you do me this favor and get your boss or whoever can give me clearance to see her, I promise she’ll be so grateful for you helping me get to her that she’ll come and thank you herself,” you vow. 
“I can’t help you, Miss. Now please go or I’ll have to call security,” he warns.
You rub your temple in frustration. “Fine. There’s no need for that...Michael,” you read his name. “I’m going.”
You turn around as if to head for the door but then do a 180 and sprint past a security guard who shouts at you to stop. You make your way for the elevators as the security guard runs after you. You press the button for the elevators but you notice they’re nowhere near the ground floor. 
The security catches up to you and in panic, you push him away with Wanda’s powers. He goes sliding across the floor and you bolt for the stairs.
You don’t even know which floor you would find Wanda in but you assume it would be somewhere up top. You begin your ascend. You reach the fourth floor and realize you should start using the StairMaster at the gym. You hear multiple security guards quickly making their way to you. You panic and walk through the wall, not knowing what was on the other side. 
You’re in some kind of engineering lab. You don’t think anyone saw you walk through the wall, so you try to act casual and stroll through the lab trying to find an exit. Then you hear someone call you. “Hey, you.”
You ignore them and act like you didn’t hear. They tell you to stop walking, loud enough that you can’t ignore it. You turn around to see a woman in a lab coat. She asks, “You’re not allowed on this floor. Who let you up here?”
“Oh, uh. Michael sent me,” you lie. “Sorry, I’m new. I must have gotten off on the wrong floor. Maybe you could help me find my way?”
“Where are you meant to be working?” she inquires and you’re stuck not knowing anything about the Stark Tower or Avengers Tower, whatever it’s called. 
“The lab,” you say. Your vague answer obviously creates another question. “What lab?”
“They haven’t told me yet? I’m not actually working in the labs. I’m doing more secretarial duties, taking notes and scheduling stuff.”
“For whom?” she asks, narrowing her eyes at you. You can feel her catching onto you and it’s the only reason why you try this.
“For the big guy, obviously,” you say and then focus really hard trying to read her mind, hoping that a name will pop up in her head. Did Bruce get an assistant? You smile. “Bruce.”
“Well then you are way off. He’s usually working on the 87th floor,” she tells you. 
“Well, thank god there’s an elevator,” you chuckle nervously, pointing behind you. “Well, I should get going before I’m any later. You turn around confidently but as you walk away she stops you once more. You think you got caught but she says, “Elevators are that way.”
She points to the opposite way you came from. You laugh to play off your mistake, “Duh. Sorry, the lab is so big. Thanks.”
You head the right way. You speed walk to the elevators and then jog when you hear a rougher voice telling you to stop. “She’s on the fourth floor.”
You assume they spoke into their walkie, and you know you don't have much time before they catch you. You think quickly. You can’t make your way to the elevator because then obviously they’ll just stop the elevators. You don’t want to walk through a wall; the dangers of that are extreme given this is Stark Tower. You could accidentally walk into an ongoing experiment. 
You had to hide. And suddenly, you had the perfect plan. 
The security guard runs to you. He thinks you’re running for the elevator but then you turn before you get there. He sees you dive behind some clunky machine, presumably to hide behind. You clearly never have won a game of hide and seek in your life, he thinks as he goes around the machine to catch you. 
He’s left utterly confused when you aren’t there. The only trace of you are your clothes down to underwear on the floor. Four other guards make it to the floor. One asks him, “Where is she?”
He doesn’t know how to answer. “She was right here. Search the floor. She’s hiding and I think she’s naked.”
They disperse taking your clothes with them. You let out a breath of relief at not getting caught but then mentally curse that they took your clothes. You still haven’t learned how to make other things invisible yet. You never really used this power. Maybe you should start practicing.
You hustle your naked ass to the elevators, feeling incredibly exposed even though you know no one can actually see you. You press the elevator button and wait impatiently. It dings and opens. 
“The elevators!” You hear one of the guards yell. Two run your way as you step into the car. You put all your energy into staying invisible. It would be really awkward if you were suddenly exposed. You hold your breath when one of them looks in the elevator. You keep yourself in the corner furthest away from them. In their eyes, there is no one in the elevator. 
“She’s not here.” They leave and the doors close. You click the button for the 87th floor.
____________________________________________________
This will probably have 3 parts. 
476 notes · View notes
memetaped · 3 years ago
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most popular girls in school taken from the tv show.
i said where, not when, you idiot.
what, did you suddenly adopt the vocabulary of bob the builder?
i’m sorry, doc, but i don’t live in a goddamn mentos commercial.
do you guys ever talk about anything other than, like, revenge?
we should probably go eat an entire meal and reorganize.
i’m coping. i’m celebrating. i’m copebrating. i’m celebroting.
oh my g.
we’re kind of in the middle of something right now, so if you could, you know, not.
god, i want to fucking murder you.
oh, you are a calm breeze in my fuckstorm of a life that i’m living.
are you gonna try to nickname yourself again?
note to self: corn dogs and mountain dew do not mix.
you look like a tampon that was dipped in skittles and vomit.
psst. psst. psst.
i want to poop here. whenever i want for as long as i want.
welcome to the new reality.
stop trying to force your full house references on us.
byeeeee.
but the “me” i want to be likes to curse.
i don’t really think that this is the kind of thing that anybody should be laughing at.
you were supposed to be watching the door.
someone threw a rock at me today.
why do you say “how do you say” before words you clearly know how to say?
om, nom, nom, nom. i’m hungry for lunch.
TMI but thanks.
whoa, i think i’m going to pass out.
well, well, well, sounds like there’s discord on cheer mountain.
i’m recording it on the DVR so that i can fast forward through commercials.
i didn’t believe that for a goddamn second.
you have the worst timing ever. we’re kind of dealing with a situation here.
jesus christ, is that a fucking gremlin?
i’m not saying anything. i’m just saying.
the answer to a question i never asked.
now where the hell is my nonfat skinny caramel hazelnut jamocha cappuccino?
the ghost of christmas past wouldn’t sell me anything.
it means whatever the fuck you want it to mean.
by a nap, do you mean ambien and a box of wine?
you cursed me out in the bathroom earlier today.
i think i know how to mix ex-lax into a fucking drink, okay?
well, i don’t want to be rude, but that story was very long and much more involved than i originally thought it would be, and i’ve had to poop through most of it.
just give me one second. annnd it’s on twitter.
i’m sorry, but why the fuck is everybody yelling over here?
no, write-in, like with a pen.
don’t erase my DVR.
so much technical jargon, jesus louisus!
that’s a nightmare. a nightmare i call my life.
and it can’t be me because i’m halfway through shark week.
what the fuck is wrong with you?! throwing hacky-sacks all around willy-nilly like this was the goddamned x-games.
don’t worry. i’ve got this.
oh, jesus christ, you’re a fucking trainwreck.
my ears will never be clean.
i’m trying to keep my stress levels down. i’ll explain later, but just know that i agree with pretty much everything you said.
i guess the only part of your plan that didn’t work was the whole goddamn thing!
don’t ever fucking cut me off again, do you understand me?
but if you put too much, then it won’t mix with the liquid and it’ll just sit on top like semen on root beer.
and that’s why i always say, “trust a decepticon and you’ll get burned”.
you think you can maintain consciousness for the next five minutes?
“not the best idea”? it’s a fucking ridiculous piece of shit of an idea!
i know you got your own issues, but we’ve literally spent the last three weeks talking exclusively about that.
hit the bricks, bitch.
we’ll make you an admin on our facebook page, include you on the google docs and start cc’ing you on all emails.
oh my god, i feel like it’s staring right at me. it’s like the eye of sauron.
never mind. posted, tagged, your life is ruined.
i wanted to play angry birds, not read wuthering fucking heights.
oh my, somebody’s gonna be walking very funny tomorrow morning.
is chiffon a material or a person? or both?
i’m in the matrix.
oh, well that sounds like a perfectly rational decision.
son of a – son of a gun, son of a freaking gun.
i’m glad this is gonna be a fair fight. like rocky and apollo creed.
i think you meant to say fudging poop-show.
do you think anyone will notice i’m bald?
you’re right. because a fly is an innocent creature that never knowingly did anything to anybody. you, however, i would maim.
how about i come back there and kick your ass?
if i didn’t have splash mountain coming out of my ass, i swear i’d rip your fucking head off.
you look up “bitch” in the dictionary and you’re gonna see my fucking face!
i just threw up in my mouth. please stop talking to me, and walk away.
you want me to say no, right?
because i’ve seen every single robocop, and i know how to take you out.
the only true happiness comes in death.
but in exchange for that, you have to watch a whole episode of glee with me.
it was barely a joke. it was just an insult with no laugh line.
i’m here to tell you two things. you’re famous and you’re welcome.
wait, why did you just answer a question that you just asked?
i ate the last bag of gushers while you were taking your afternoon bath, you dirt ball.
ew, it has a bloodstain on it.
that just made me think of something to put on my vision board! i’ll be right back.
this is pizza street, not a toddler’s kitchen.
i’m sorry, but someone like you wouldn’t really understand what i’m going through right now.
what the fuck is the wi-fi password?
i had to leave. i had to reinvent myself.
you have my full and complete attention.
wait, so is hipster a technical term for people who get dressed in the dark?
less talk, talk. more make, make.
what the fuck do i have to be stressed about? 
311 notes · View notes
captains-simp · 4 years ago
Note
hi! can you write a yelena x fem!reader based on best friend’s brother by victorious where reader is nat’s best friend but falls for yelena?
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I love the best friend's sibling trope🤧 Yes, I used Google translate for some parts. Yes, I am sorry in advance
7k words
Warnings: brief injury description and R getting tipsy (and having less of a filter than usual 👀)
[ masterlist ]
Buy me a coffee ☕
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"Nat you're not going to believe what I just saw! It has single handedly made my week- whoa!" You exclaimed as you threw your hands up and backed against the nearest wall.
"Who are you?" Demanded the blonde from the other end of her gun. You glanced frantically between her hand gun and her stone cold grey eyes, not knowing which you should be more afraid of.
"Y/n." You answered shakily, your mouth and throat suddenly feeling like sandpaper.
"Yelena!" Natasha shouted as she came into the living room. "Put your gun down you сумасшедшая сука (crazy bitch)!" Yelena hesitated as she gave you the once over and slowly lowered her weapon. You didn't fail to notice how she kept it in her hands until Natasha snatched it away.
"Hey!" She argued and tried to grab it back.
"You get gun privileges back when you stop pointing them at my friends." Natasha said as she put it in the safe under the kitchen counter.
"She didn't knock!" Yelena defended with a thick accent.
You were still stood awkwardly against the wall as you watched the interaction. You had no idea who the blonde was much less why she had acted like a paranoid guard dog. Not that you were offended, being friends with someone who had a lot of protective friends and coworkers meant this had happened more than you wanted to admit. JARVIS actually had some very over the top weapons pointed at you twice.
"I don't knock when I go to her place." Natasha pointed out. You smiled nervously at the blonde when she looked over at you again.
"Well as your new roommate it seems like something I should know."
New roommate? Natasha hated the idea of a roommate and had always been very vocal about it. It was why she insisted on having her own apartment rather than living in at the Avengers compound.
You glanced around and couldn't see any moving boxes or suitcases or really anything that indicated anyone else was living there. Either Yelena had already packed or she just wanted to keep all her personal things to herself.
"Temporary roommate." Natasha corrected making the blonde huff. "Who still hasn't gotten the groceries." Yelena mumbled something under her breath in Russian as she trudged towards the door. She glanced your way once then looked back as if second guessing you. She narrowed her eyes slightly and you fidgeted on the spot, feeling nervous under her gaze.
"What did you see?" She asked.
"I'm sorry?" You replied, not knowing where the question came from.
"What did you want to tell Natasha about." You stared at her blankly for a second before you suddenly realised what she meant.
"Oh! I saw a man walking seven ferrets." You said with a fond smile as you remembered the way their leads were getting caught up as the scrambled over each other. Yelena stared back at you. "Seven is a lot." You said. She still didn't seem to get it. "I like ferrets." You mumbled as you felt embarrassed.
She didn't say anything as she looked you over one more time and opened the door to leave, shutting it firmly behind her. You released a breath you didn't know you had been holding once the door clicked shut.
"Seven?" Natasha teased with a smirk as put some toast in the toaster. You grumbled as you walked over to the kitchen island and leant against it.
"She's intense." You commented and whipped your head around to the door, afraid she would walk back in.
"She's my sister." Natasha said casually.
"Sister? What?! Since when did you- Sister?!" Natasha chuckled at your reaction and shrugged simply.
"It's complicated."
"Everything with you is." You fired back. "Look I'll tell you our life story later." She waved off. You had known Natasha for years and considered each other your closest friends. You told her everything but you understood early on that there was a lot about her life she couldn't talk about. Whether it was because it could endanger you to know or it was simply to painful to recall, there would always be something.
"And I'm sorry about her wanting to shoot you. She's a lot." Natasha sighed, clearly tired. She had been away for months and you guessed she had found Yelena at some point during that mission. She had only been back a week and clearly needed a break. You wondered if she would finally take Fury up on his promise of a vacation.
"She's just protective." You shrugged. "Like someone else I know." You eyed the redhead with a smile. Yelena honestly seemed nothing short of terrifying to you, but you weren't going to admit that to your friend who would remind you of it every chance she got.
"Trust you to defend someone who put a gun on you." Natasha rolled her eyes and pushed a hot drink towards you.
"She seems nice." That wasn't the right word and given the look Natasha gave you she agreed. "Witty?" You tried. Natasha pulled a face in disagreement and you sighed in defeat. "Whatever, she's cute though." You thought aloud. Natasha shot you a warning look.
"Don't go crushing on my sister, y/n." She said with a serious edge to her tone. You laughed at her sudden shift and fell down on her sofa to grab the remote to start binging the shows Natasha had missed with you.
"I wouldn't dream of it."
*
It was a Friday night when you saw the blonde next. The bar you worked at was surprisingly quiet for the day but you didn't mind at all. Less people meant less chance of having to deal with a drunken fight. Not that that ever really happened there.
You worked in a small bar that had been running since long before you were born. It wasn't the most out there establishment and combined with it's location on the quieter, arguably more sketchy, parts of the city, it wasn't massively popular. In fact, everyone who showed up at the bar you recognised instantly, lest the rare groups of people who stumbled upon the building. No one who went there was all that talkative, but you had come to know each of them over the years.
It wasn't that the bar itself was sketchy. It wasn't involved in illegal gambling or drug dealings. It was just that it seemed to remind people of home. You had alcohols there that you just couldn't find in shops or other bars. Behind the bar was everything from Mexico's brightest palomas to Russia's strongest vodka. The latter was what had drawn Natasha to your worn down place of work the first time you met her. While she didn't like to be reminded of her past in Russia, like a couple other customers you had, she couldn't deny she missed the booze. So you guessed you shouldn't have been surprised to see Yelena joining her that night.
"Just give it a chance will you." Natasha scolded her younger sister in a hushed voice. You smiled at the encounter as the pair came towards the bar. Everything the redhead had been able to tell you about her time away was evident from the way the siblings interacted. It really hadn't taken them long to fall back into the squabbling sisters role, like they hadn't ever been apart.
Yelena grumbled something in Russian as she glanced around the bar, her eyes soon landing on yours and just as unreadable as the last time you saw her. The memory had been playing a lot in your head.
"Hi again." You smiled at her before turning your attention to your friend. "The usual?"
"For this one too." Natasha nodded to her sister as she sat down on a stall, soon followed by Yelena.
You took two shot glasses from the shelf and put them infront of the sisters and opened a bottle of Natasha's favourite bottle. You filled the both to the brim and put the bottle on the counter, knowing the redhead wanted it there. Natasha wasn't really a regular drinker, but when she did enduldge herself she didn't seem to have a limit. You had never once seen her drunk.
Natasha didn't hesitate in tilting her head back with the glass at her lips and didn't flinch when she swallowed the drink. Yelena rolled her eyes but copied anyway.
You carried on with drying some glasses and tried not to pay close attention to the blonde's reaction. You always loved the moment that customers realised they had found the drinks of their country. And as Yelena was harder to read, it took extra attention to detail to spot the moment of realisation. Natasha was watching for it too.
Yelena shrugged. She shrugged, clearly underwhelmed. "It's good." She commented. Natasha sighed dramatically and poured herself another shot as she grumbled about never being able to please her sister.
You went back to your duties properly and shook your head with a sigh. First time for everything. However when you risked a glanced at Yelena you saw a hint of a smile tug at the corner of her lips. You grinned to yourself, deciding then that you were determined to see a proper smile from the blonde at some point.
"What's got you smiling?" Natasha asked with a smirk.
"Am I not allowed to just smile, Tasha?" You quipped back.
"I take it your date went well." You groaned at the mention of the event.
"It actually really didn't." You huffed. It was actually one of the worst dates you had ever been on. You had been giggling like a school girl when Natasha told you a shield agent had eyes for you. The two of you exchanged numbers and arranged a date but it became clear to you pretty quickly she wasn't as ready to date again as she thought she was. "She's definitely not over her ex." She grimaced. Natasha hummed in thought.
"Okay, but do you want me to key her car?"
"She paid for my coffee!" You laughed, she always had to be dramatic with her protectiveness.
"Is that a no then?" Yelena asked. You honestly had no idea if she was joking or not.
"It's a no." You confirmed with a smile.
"I'm sure I can find you someone else." Natasha said confidently. You hummed in response and watched her pour another pair of shots.
"That's okay, Tasha. Maybe you should focus on yourself and a certain other redhead." You grinned. Natasha shot daggers at you as Yelena whipped her head around to stare at her sister.
"You have a boy..." She paused and scanned her sister quickly. "Girlfriend?" She concluded. You snickered and poured a drink for another customer, focusing on him momentarily as the pair bickered further.
"There is nothing going on with me and Wanda!" Natasha exclaimed.
"The magic one?" Yelena asked with interest.
"The magic one." You confirmed with a grin.
"What's she like?" The blonde continued as she leaned forward.
"She's better than you Сволоч (jerks)." Natasha mumbled as she rolled her eyes.
"And a total babe." You added and leapt back when the redhead went to hit you.
"Y/n!" You spun around at hearing a familiar voice. Joseph, your oldest regular, was making his way through the room towards the end of the bar, a fond smile etched into the deep lines on his face.
"Hey, pal." You smiled back and went to prepare his usual as he started to chat away at you.
"You never had anything with her?" Yelena asked boldly as she tilted her glass towards you.
"Y/n?" Natasha was surprised to say the least. She had never thought of you that way and no one else had ever asked about it. "No." She chuckled, thinking of all the times you had done everything in your power just to get her and Wanda alone in a room together. "Why'd you ask?"
"I just wondered." She said as she tapped her glass in thought, grey eyes watched you actively engage in conversation with the older man. Natasha narrowed her eyes at her sister.
"Right. Just don't crush on my best friend." She warned as she poured her sister another shot.
"You got it." She nodded and threw her head back as she downed the shot.
*
You ended up seeing Yelena quite frequently. Not only did she join Natasha in coming to the bar, but she seemed to always be there when you visited your friend too. She wasn't much of a small talker, you learned that quickly, but the passing moments you happened to be alone in each others company stopped being awkward quickly.
Yelena was surprisingly easy to get along with. Once you had found a common ground of interest (making fun of Natasha) you could easily carry a conversation with her, but she was still closed off - something you were expecting given her past. There was one evening that made that as clear as it could be.
"I'm just saying the Avengers would be very happy to have you!" Natasha exclaimed with a smile as you sat giggling next to her.
"I'm not going to be a hero." Yelena waved off. She had quickly began agitated when she had nothing to do. There had always been something. Some mission. Some test. Some important training. Anything. And now she was free from the Red Room Yelena was struggling to know what she could do. You could tell she wanted to have a meaningful role, you just doubted she was going to admit that.
"There's always bounty hunting." You suggested as you flicked through the thin file in your lap. Sometimes when Natasha was struggling with a particular case file she gave it to you for a new insight. You never got a name or any big details in the files and it still wasn't entirely within the rules, but sometimes you actually helped.
"He bled to death from the stabbing, then he was shot." You muttered to the redhead as you passed the file back. Turns out being a drop out med student was good for something. While Natasha was the best of the best, she was still human and there were things even she overlooked from time to time that you picked up on.
"That's a good one." Yelena agreed as she sipped on her beer, pondering the suggestion.
"But why even go for something like this at all?" You said. Natasha and Yelena gave you a confused glance.
"I'm sticking to what I'm good at." The blonde said slowly.
"I'm sure you're skill set expands beyond all...this." You waved your arms around aimlessly. "Was there anything you remember enjoying before?" You asked curiously and Yelena instantly stiffened.
"No." She said bluntly and put her bottle down on the table. "Bounty hunting sounds good, I'll look in to it." She said as she left the living room area and headed towards her room without a second glance.
Your throat felt dry suddenly as guilt washed over you. What kind of a question even was that? She was only a kid when it happened, part of you wondered if she even remembered the part of her life before the Red Room.
"She's okay." Natasha assured, as though reading your mind.
"I shouldn't have asked." You muttered.
"Probably not, but for what it's worth" Natasha started as she went to put the shield file away "I thought you were onto something."
So you never asked about her past again, but that didn't stop you from thinking about it. You wondered if it was something she and Natasha talked about, only able to confide in one another about the nightmares they shared. Or was it an unspoken thing, something that they kept in the deepest darkest parts of their minds? You didn't expect to ever get an answer to that question.
Not so deadly assassin: THERE'S A FUCKING RAT IN MY ROOM
Not so deadly assassin: come deal with it!!!
Not so deadly assassin: Y/N
Not so deadly assassin: oh NOW you have a life
Not so deadly assassin: if you don't come over in 5 minutes I'm killing it
You huffed as you took your phone out of your pocket to see who had been blowing up your phone. You skimmed over Natasha's messages and sent a quick threat telling her if she ended the rat's life you would end hers and sped up your walk.
Luckily you were only a few minutes away from Natasha's apartment and after running up the stairs a few at a time you knocked on your friend's door and licked your partly spilt drink off your hand with a curse.
Yelena opened the door and motioned for you to come inside, seeming unfazed by your arrival and no doubt knowing why you were there. "Is she okay?" You asked as you looked around frantically.
"She just got called away for a mission." Yelena said as she led you through the apartment to Natasha's room.
"I meant the rat." You mumbled and spotted it in the corner. Yelena snickered at your comment and leant against the door frame as she watched you slowly approach the rodent.
"How did it even get in here?" You asked as you cooed and held your hand out to the rat that considered you curiously.
"Came in through the window apparently. I think Natasha wants to tear down the fire escape now." Yelena deadpanned.
"Like either of you need it anyway." The rat came closer to you and sniffed your hand before walking onto it. You picked up the small creature and placed her down gently on the fire escape before shutting the window.
"Was that so hard?" You said with a smile.
"They carry disease, you know?" Yelena fired back.
"So do we!" You exclaimed and paused when Yelena gave you a side eye. "Okay some of us." You corrected as you washed your hands.
"I hope she didn't call you away from anything important." Yelena said as she glanced at the hot drink you had left on the counter.
"I was just about to go to the pharmacy." You shrugged.
"It's your lucky day, I need band aids." Yelena declared as she picked up her satchel bag.
"Band...aids?" You questioned with a shit eating grin as you grabbed your drink and headed for the door with the blonde behind you.
"Yes, y/n. I need band aids. You're as bad as Natasha, she doesn't seem to think we need them either. We have everything in that bathroom except band aids!" You giggled as you watched her ramble in exasperation, finding it undeniably cute when she got lost in her own world about something.
"So if you're bleeding to death you'll be fine but if you get a papercut then things are gonna get bad?" You teased as you left the building. Yelena rolled her eyes at you but seemed to not be able to stop the small smile fighting for it's appearance, tugging at the corner of her mouth.
"It's a pretty big papercut." She mumbled as she inspected the cut on her forefinger.
"Well I think you're very brave." You grinned.
You walked in a comfortable silence for a while until your eyes landed on something that spiked every happy hormone in your body. "Yelena!" You grabbed at her arm and pointed across the street. The blonde was understandably alarmed at first and you noticed her reach into her back pocket for something until she saw what you were pointing at.
"Seven ferrets." Yelena muttered as she watched the small animals half run down the street infront of their owner.
"Seven adorable ferrets." You corrected as you watched them continue to scurry along.
"I can see how that could be the highlight of your week." Yelena recalled and you couldn't help but blush slightly. "I think this is the highlight of mine." She admitted.
"You're only human." You sighed as you turned around to keep walking, a content smile on your lips.
"Why don't you have pets if they make you so happy?" Yelena asked curiously.
"Not allowed in my apartment." You said gloomily. It was probably for the best, you would have a lot of pets if you could, too many to handle.
"If you think about it, rats are just small ferrets and you see those everyday. You could go find some more." Yelena teased and you chuckled.
"Haven't you heard? They carry disease." It was Yelena's turn to laugh lightly at that. You smiled proudly at causing the beautiful sound and felt your stomach do a small flip.
*
It turned out all the Avengers were keen to have Yelena on their team. Tony and Steve had introduced themselves to the new Russian one evening and bored (Yelena's words) her with stories of their latest successful missions and how great it was to be an Avenger. She didn't buy it.
Then she started getting emails and texts from the team, inviting her to different events and trying to get on her good side. Tony had even sent an extravagant gift basket to the apartment one day. Yelena had asked you to spend the afternoon sorting through it with her, snacking on all the expensive chocolates on the way as you told the blonde you thought she had a secret admirer.
It was early in the afternoon when she finally agreed to meeting the whole team.
"I just think it could be fun. I know they probably seem like annoying children right now, but at those parties they have to behave." You said into the phone as you balanced it on your shoulder.
"I don't think I own the right kind of clothing for it." Yelena said.
"I'm sure Natasha can lend you something, she is your big sister after all." You teased and heard her groan.
"You don't even have to stay long. But once you actually meet them they'll lay off about you joining if you still don't want to."
"It's just not-"
"Your thing." You finished with a smile. "I know, Lena. They'll get it." She hummed in thought and a silence fell over your phones until you cursed. "Shit." You muttered when the table leg fell down again.
"You need help putting that table together?" Yelena asked for the umpteenth time. You sighed as you sat back and glared at the parts sprawled out across the floor.
"Yes please."
*
Yelena Belova wearing a suit was something else entirely. Every outfit her sister offered her she turned down until Natasha grew frustrated and took Yelena out for a suit fitting, and god it paid off. The blazer hugged her body closely in a way you partly wished you could feel. You knew the blonde wasn't big on any form of affection, especially physical, but you loved it and Yelena had become a good friend. During late evenings when she was sitting comfortably in an armchair with a large hoodie on you thought she looked so soft and warm. You could only imagine how safe you would feel in her arms. You always had to put those thoughts aside quickly, not wanting to let your mind linger on things so intimate.
"Told you this place isn't so bad." You laughed nervously as Yelena approached you. She smiled and shook her head, her eyes looking so much brighter in the new lighting.
"I can't argue with that." The blonde shrugged and followed you to the bar.
"You um, you look amazing by the way." You said as she avoided Yelena's gaze, not wanting to let your eyes wander the way they were straining to. Unfortunately that meant you missed how she took in your attire and the admiration she struggled to hide.
"So do you." She smiled.
"Evening." Natasha said with a smirk as she came up to you and Yelena from the other side of the bar.
"This does not feel right at all." You winced making the redhead smile, more so when she prepared what she knew was your favourite drink.
"Yelena! You running away from me?" Sam grinned as he strolled towards the bar. You smiled into your drink when you saw the blonde shift on her feet in slight frustration.
"You gotta come meet Maria, you're gonna love her!" He exclaimed as he tried to steer Yelena away. She looked back at you with a face that was clearly asking for help but you just giggled as she left and waved goodbye to her.
"Has she met Wanda yet?" You grinned at Natasha knowingly and a slight blush appeared on her cheeks.
"She has." You hummed and looked across the room to spot the Sokovian in question. "And?"
"And they only just stopped talking when you arrived." You nodded with a triumphant smile, knowing the pair would get along. You missed Natasha's short analysis of your expression, trying to find the thing she knew you were hiding until someone else arrived at the other end of the bar and she rushed off.
You leaned over the bar to pour yourself another drink and started across the room. It didn't take long at all to find Wanda, or rather for her to find you.
"Y/n!" She exclaimed as she pulled you in for a crushing hug barely a second after you had turned around.
"Hey Wan." You laughed as you tried to hug her back.
"How are you, sweetie?" She asked as she let you go.
"I'm good, how have things been for you?" It had been far too long since you had seen the Sokovian and you missed her company a lot. She had such a calming presence that you always felt so comfortable around. You had told her that once, not knowing the fears she faced of her powers and the mistrust she had in herself, and she had teared up as she pulled you in for your first Wanda hug.
"So, I hear you met Yelena." You smiled after a while of catching up with the redhead.
"I was slightly terrified of her at first." She admitted with a laugh.
"She had a gun on me when we met!" You exclaimed as you remembered it clearly.
"So I heard." Wanda teased. "I also hear you guys are getting on like a house on fire." She continued as she watched you carefully.
"Yeah." You muttered as you spotted her talking to Maria. "She's pretty great." You said easily.
You spent a while catching up with various team members between drinks. You kept steeling glances at Yelena, mostly catching her in conversations she clearly didn't want to be in but a few times you caught her eye and paused to smile at her. She was always beautiful but you really couldn't get over how she looked in the navy suit.
You were sat by the bar when the party started to come to an end. You usually would have left a while ago but you wanted to be able to say goodbye to Yelena before you did.
"I'm exhausted." Came the familiar husky voice from behind you. Yelena leaned on the bar next to you and poured herself a vodka and downed the shot.
"Me too!" You said loudly with a slight slur. Yelena paused before letting a smile creep onto her lips as she watched you with an amused glint in her eyes.
"How much have you had to drink?" Yelena asked as she took your glass away from you.
"A few." You thought as you tried to calculate in your head but just shrugged in conclusion.
"легкий (lightweight)." The Russian muttered.
"Hey, come over here." Natasha called as she rounded a corner and spotted you and her sister. "We're putting a film on." She declared. You glanced around and noticed that everyone had gone. When did that happen?
"Let's go, Lena!" You called as you took her by the hand and led her through to where Natasha had gone.
"Are you sure?" She questioned as she looked down at your entwined hands.
"Absolutely!" You jumped up a few steps and saw the group sitting around the large TV on the comfy sofas.
"I missed these." You said to Yelena as you fell down onto the nearest sofa and pulled her down next to you. Natasha placed some snacks down on the table and eyed your joined hands without a comment.
You brought your legs up underneath you, not unlocking your fingers when the blonde's who didn't seem to mind. The other Avengers didn't seem to take much notice or interest in how close you were to Yelena and thanks to your slightly tipsy state you didn't bring much attention to it either. All you knew was that you felt comfortable sitting so close to the Russian that your bare arm was touching her soft blazer.
"Your hands are really soft." You whispered to her. She smiled to herself and tried to fight off the slight blush painting her cheeks that you, lucky for Yelena, didn't notice.
"So are yours." She whispered back.
What you didn't realise was that Natasha was still paying close attention to you both with Wanda smiling knowingly besides her, even when the film started and the lights dimmed. She finally stopped when she heard Wanda laugh lightly at something on screen, turning her attention to the girl besides her and then the film.
Barely 10 minutes in you found yourself growing sleepy. The dark room and the warmth of Yelena were certainly part of the cause but you found you really didn't mind, especially when your head fell onto Yelena's shoulder and she didn't shake you off.
Your eyes struggled to focus on the screen and really anything that wasn't the blonde when she shifted on the sofa to let you lean back against her. You smiled faintly as you let your eyes close and relax against Yelena, your hand still in hers.
*
You awoke when the main lights started to come back on and you felt Yelena stretch behind you. Her blazer was draped across your front and you smiled like an idiot when you realised. She had only worn it for a few hours and it already smelt like her.
"Hey." She husked and you felt a chill run through your body when her breath hit your neck.
"Hey yourself." You grinned back.
"Come on, let's get you home." She said as she sat up on the sofa.
"Can you get me a cab?" You asked as you rubbed your eyes.
"I'll drive you." Yelena stood up and held out her hand to help you up too. You took it happily and leaned against her for support for a moment.
You said goodbye to the team and made your way slowly out of the living area and eventually out the building in a concentrated silence. Concentrated for you, Yelena didn't have any issue putting one foot infront of the other.
"You guys okay getting home?" Natasha called from the entrance as Yelena helped you into her car. You gave Natasha two thumbs up and grinned her way as Yelena nodded. The redhead nodded back and folded her arms as she watched you carefully leave the building site.
It wasn't that long a drive to your apartment. Yelena drove in silence while you hummed along faintly to a song playing quietly on the radio, unaware of the smile playing on the blonde's lips.
When Yelena had parked outside your apartment complex she helped you out the car and up to your apartment, unlocking the door for you and guiding you through to your room where she lay you on the bed gently.
"You should change." Yelena said as she got some of your night clothes from the closet and went into the kitchen to get you a glass of water.
"You should stay." You grinned at her. She arched a brow at you in question but you didn't respond, only turning around on the bed. "Can you help me with my zipper?"
Yelena nodded and put the glass of water down on your bedside table and pulled the zipper down, trying to ignore the urge to see if the skin on your back was as smooth as it looked. She cleared her throat when she realised the zipper went lower than she thought, reaching your tailbone. Yelena took a step back and turned towards the opposite wall as she heard you step out of the dress and into your bed clothes.
"You should take some too." You said when you pulled the duvet back.
"You really want me to stay?" Yelena questioned, it looked like you were starting to sober up.
"Of course!" You grinned as you leaned on your elbows to watch her and patted the space in bed besides you.
"Okay." She smiled and got some clothes from your closet that she quickly changed into when you looked away to drink the water she had given you.
Yelena folded her suit on a chair in the corner of the room before hesitantly getting into the warm bed besides you. But she surprisingly felt a lot more at ease when you draped an arm over her stomach as you closed your eyes. Yelena sighed lightly at the contact. She never thought she was one for physical contact, but she had been wondering what it would be like to receive it from you for a while. Even craved it after you had held her hand earlier that night.
"Night Lena" You mumbled sleepily. Yelena put her hand on your waist to pull you closer to her and brushed a stray strand of hair away from you face.
"Good night y/n."
*
Despite the killer headache that greeted you, you actually woke up feeling pretty great. Your bed was warmer than usual and you didn't feel quite as alone as you always did in the large bed.
You rubbed your eyes and groaned but froze when you felt a hand on your bare waist where your shirt had ridden up. Yelena was sleeping soundlessly besides you and your breath caught in your throat when you took in her appearance. The sunlight seeping into the bedroom hit her face just right and you had to remind yourself not to stare, even if she wasn't awake to notice it.
You spotted a bottle of advil on the bedside table and a fresh glass of water that you took together. You tried to be careful not to wake Yelena but she started to move when you did, her soft hand slipping from your waist.
"Morning." You said after finishing the glass of water and wiping your mouth with the back of your wrist. Yelena groaned as she stretched out like a cat and looked up at you.
"Morning to you too." She smiled and you wondered if she knew she had her hand on your waist just a few seconds prior.
"Feel free to take a shower and borrow some of my clothes." You offered as you stood up from the bed and made your way across the room.
"Thanks." She hummed quietly. "Hey." You turned around by the door when she called you. "How did you sleep?" She asked curiously as she sat up to face you properly.
"Like a rock." You recalled happily. "You?"
"Yeah," Yelena smiled back, "pretty great." You nodded and made your way to kitchen as Yelena got out of bed with a content smile.
Yelena was in the shower when you started on breakfast. Usually you would have made something simple like toast or some fruit but you figured as you had a guest you should make something better and settled on pancakes. You also wanted to thank her for staying the night with you.
"That smells amazing." Yelena said with wide eyes as she trudged into the kitchen, still drying her hair. Your heart swelled at the sight of the blonde in one of your band shirts with some loose shorts. Your thought that your clothes probably looked better on her and you imagined how soft she would look in your favorite hoodie.
"Take a picture, it will last longer." She teased when you didn't respond. You snapped out of your daze and smiled sheepishly as you avoided her eye and continued to flip the pancakes. You put a plate down on the kitchen island and motioned for her to eat as you put some juice and fruit down too.
"No pressure, but what I think of you as a chef is going to be determined by these." She quipped as she started to cut the food. You smiled and turned around to watch the blonde's face change into a childish grin.
"Not too shabby." You concluded before shovelling more of the food into her mouth.
"No too shabby." You repeated with a sense of pride as you sat down next to her.
"That's what they used to say on the American shows I watched as a kid." She explained. You were about to tell her you had heard the expression before but paused when you realised it was the first time Yelena said anything about her childhood to you.
"Weren't they translated?" You asked carefully.
"No because they were copies from America. My father got them for us." She said and you noticed the far away look in her eyes, no doubt remembering that day as best she could.
"Well if you remember what the show's called we can try watch them again." You suggested with a shrug. Yelena considered you for a moment before she smiled at you softly. "Okay." She agreed. You opened your mouth to speak but there was a sudden loud thudding on your apartment door. You went to stand up to see who it was until Natasha opened the door and slammed it shut making you jump.
"I locked that door." Yelena said with certainty.
"I have a spare key." Natasha showed the metal piece before putting it back into her pocket.
"You want pancakes?" You asked as you stood up to put some more batter in the pan.
"What's going on with you two?" The redhead demanded, ignoring your question.
"What do you mean?" You and Yelena used in unison.
"You know exactly what I mean!" Natasha exclaimed as she raised her voice and looked between you and her equally baffled sister. "Are you dating? You could have told me." She continued as a hurt expression flickered across her face.
"We're not dating." Yelena said slowly but glanced at you. "Are we?" You could have sworn you heard her voice hold something hopeful rather than teasing.
"Not since I last checked."
"Can you quit fucking around and just tell me?" Natasha took a second look at the shirt Yelena was wearing before her jaw clenched.
"Oh no no no. We didn't- she just slept over!" You rambled as you started to panic. Natasha looked far from happy. You had been thinking a lot about what your friend had said the first time you met Yelena. You were never sure if she was really serious or not. All you knew was you that you started to feel guilty when your eyes lingered too long on her sister or when you felt the butterflies in your chest at her contact or really anything she did. You told yourself you kept your promise and didn't have a crush on Yelena, but it was becoming increasingly harder to convince yourself and now Natasha.
"You can tell me." The redhead said quieter as her stance softened. You looked to Yelena who seemed set on staying silent as she stared at her empty plate.
"Natasha I really don't know what to say..." You honestly didn't. You were baffled by the whole situation and Yelena was hardly helping. She really thought you were dating?
"Right, I just wanted to know." The older Russian sighed as she trudged towards the door. There was a heavy silence over the apartment until Natasha stopped by the open door to turn towards you both with a frown.
"I didn't mean it. What I said about..." She glanced around as she fidgeted in the doorway and searched for words. You and Yelena waited patiently. "Wanda said you guys are cute." A smile flickered at the corner of your mouth and you looked to the floor. "She's right." She left without another word and shut the door gently behind her. You exhaled heavily once you heard the click and leaned against the counter.
"Crazy, right?" You laughed nervously. Yelena didn't respond. "You okay?" You started filling the washing up bowl with water, needing to do something as you talked.
"She thinks we're dating." Yelena muttered.
"Yeah that's what I... that's crazy." You laughed more and scratched the back of your neck.
"Is it?" She questioned as she turned around to face you. You couldn't help but stare back at her light eyes that you struggled to read.
"Maybe not." You shrugged. The blonde looked back at the ground with a conflicted look. "No... no it's not." You concluded.
"I like spending time with you." Yelena continued. "Just hanging out, helping you put together that damn table, sleeping next to you. Even at that damn party with like one hundred people I still just wanted to be with you." She admitted and you exhaled a breath you didn't know you had been holding. "I just like being around you."
"I like being around you too." Yelena looked up and you held her gaze as your hands shook with nerves.
"Would you still like being around me if we were on a date?" She asked boldly. You couldn't contain the smile that grew at her words. You reached out and took her hands in yours as you took a step closer to the Russian.
"I would love it." Yelena smiled and stood up slowly, her eyes flickering to your lips as you licked them. You closed your eyes and leaned forward bravely, finding your hands were no longer shaking. Yelena's left hand left yours and came up to your neck to steady herself and close the gap between you, pressing her lips ever so softly against yours.
You snaked your hand around her waist to bring her somehow closer and deepened the kiss you realised you had been craving for so long. You pulled away softly and rested your forehead against Yelena's, suddenly feeling very dizzy.
"I have a huge crush on you." You admitted with a sigh, to yourself and Yelena.
"I have a huge crush on you too." Yelena laughed softly. "Can we do that date now? I think I've waited long enough." You giggled lightly and nodded your head as excitement rushed over you.
"Sounds perfect." You smiled and went to your bedroom to get changed but paused in the hallway. "You should call Nat."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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erenoir · 4 years ago
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cry baby
“the assistant and the pharmacy girl”
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previous chapter | chapter 3 | next chapter | series masterlist
after spending two weeks trying to distract yourself from eren, you finally confront a demon that’s been weighing on your shoulder with the push from your new unlikely companions.
💿 𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚢𝚒𝚗𝚐: 𝚎𝚕𝚎𝚙𝚑𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚋𝚢 𝚝𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚒𝚖𝚙𝚊𝚕𝚊
❥ genre: rockstar!eren, modern au, high school sweethearts to toxic lovers, love triangles, drama, dark, angst, nsfw
❥ chapter warnings: 18+ dark content, toxic relationships, vomiting, oral sex [m,] weed, light mentions of drug use, discussions of food/eating, MDNI
❥ featuring: s4!eren jaeger x f!reader
❥ word count: 5k
❥ series summary: you used to be the muse to his lyrics, the reason he sang, but give a sick man enough money and soon you’re a pawn in his addictive cycle of love and destruction. everyone loves cry baby, but eren loved you most. he loved you as much as he fucking hated you.
a/n: omg chapter 3... we're really in this now huh?
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“Shit… fuck…”
The morning light slipped through the cracks of your curtains and blinded your murky vision. Each of your limbs remained stuck to your bed, you struggled to move them, every wiggle was met with a burning fire. Often your eyes were swollen in the mornings, a result of you crying yourself to sleep, cursing whatever god was up there for dealing you such unlucky cards. This was one of those mornings. A pain shot up your back as you fought to pull yourself out of bed, the comforter pooling around your hips. You stretched to one side and took in the view from your window, the streets bustling below you eight stories down. Then you stretched to the other to see the opposite side of your bed disturbed, the covers loose and the blanket crumbled. Shit…
Jean.
It’s been two weeks since he first popped into your apartment that day. Guess what? You’ve fucked nearly everyday since. Was it the same old numbing shit… yeah… but it was something. And for now you’d take something, anything to get your mind off of how sick you’ve been feeling since you last saw Eren. He probably gave you mono, that’s what you’ve convinced yourself. WebMD is a reliable source for self-diagnosing, right? Well first you thought it was the flu, but Jean didn’t catch anything after you puked in his mouth. Though mono is quite contagious as well, you conveniently glossed over that in your research, better known as the first Google search result you saw. The smell of bacon was aromatic in your room, rolling your eyes when you realized he was making you breakfast again. It’s not like you didn’t enjoy it, you just weren’t particularly fond of being coddled. Jean was more than attentive, he’s actually been the one pushing you to go to the doctor for the past week, since you weren’t exactly getting any better. Time and time again you’d tell him why you hated it in that sterile hellhole, the needles, the smell, the cold rooms, it’d take a lot more than nausea and a stomach bug to get you there.
“Hey… I made you some bacon and pancakes, okay?” Your head shot up to see Jean leaning on the doorframe, a timid smile on his face as he beckoned you to come eat. He hasn’t warmed up to you yet, still pushing his “Mr. Perfect” agenda on you. Or maybe that’s what you couldn’t understand, the idea of there being a guy that was actually just a good person was something foreign to you. You shielded your vision and threw the covers over your head as Jean pushed your curtains open, “Hey… it’s really good. I put chocolate chips in them. You need to eat… you-”
“Where did I have chocolate chips?” Your hoarse voice poked through your comforter.
“You didn’t. I went to the corner store… the one open 24 hours… that girl that works there is… she’s something right? I was afraid I’d looked at her the wrong way,” He laughed while sitting next to your lump of a body on the bed, pulling at the covers until your eyes poked through.
“Wouldn’t know, I’ve never been in there,” you jabbed, leaving him alone in the wrinkled sheets, trodding over to the kitchen. You shuddered as your bare feet hit the cold tiles, clanking through your cabinets to sift for a plate.
“Yeah… well… I also got you something for your stomach,” You watched as Jean opened his mouth like he was about to say something, watching him dispute internally as to whether or not he should say what he really wanted to. He looked at you with pleading eyes, begging you to not snap at him. You’d been so on edge lately and Jean could only walk on eggshells for so long before his skin started to rip. The two of you had yet to discuss what you guys actually were. Eren’s name never left your lips and truthfully you didn’t know if it was worth it or not, being that Jean never bothered to pry anyway. Digging up that situation would only hurt more, so until you were about to break at the seams, you’d suppress it.
“Go ahead Jean, say it. I should see a doc-”
“A doctor… yeah, but I’ve told you enough and I’ve only known you a few weeks and you’re an adult so-”
“Breathe… Jean,” you mumbled, your cheeks stuffed with warm dough and salty bacon.
“You’ll go if you want to. I was gonna say that the girl at the pharmacy said to come back if those meds don’t work… she said she might have what you need but to try that first,” he uttered hesitantly, his hands running over the cold countertops, “Coffee?”
You hummed and watched his tall figure fix you a cup, shaking two of the pills from the container into the palm of your hand. You let them sit on your tongue, swirling them around, the medicinal coating coming off with your saliva, before you sink them down your throat along with your coffee. Jean watched as you cut your pancakes, sipped your coffee, and wiped the grogginess out of your eyes. Though no matter how many times you wiped, the darkness that hid within them remained, something in you was unshakeable and it left you uneasy. Anyone that looked at you could tell that.
“So… how long until this shit works?” You asked as you shook the pill bottle in your hand, your fork in the other still jabbing at the last pieces of your breakfast. Jean nursed his coffee, holding the mug tightly between his hands, taking sips here and there while he leaned against the counter and watched you eat. He’d usually try to start a conversation on occasion, though you knew the real reason why he always stuck around until the morning was over was to make sure you’d actually eaten something. You’ve emptied the contents of your stomach so often that you weren’t even sure if there was any point in full meals anymore… you’d be seeing them in a few hours anyway.
“She said to give it an hour or so… it’s um- supposed to be fast-acting,” Jean said matter-of-factly, downing the last bit of his coffee. You swirled a piece of bacon around the streaks of syrup that coated your plate, watching him trip as he shoved his shoes on his feet and threw his jacket over his shoulders. Jean never did anything with the intention of being funny, but you couldn’t help but laugh at his mannerisms at times. In the past week you’ve learned the basics about Mr. Kirschtein. Well... for starters, you learned that his last name was Kirschtein. You spent the morning after the first time you slept with him sounding out his last name with your first.
“Kirsch- no.”
“Kirsch-tein.” “Kirsch-tein.”
“Ugh, ew… Kirschtein.”
You learned that Jean was a dog person, and that if he was smart enough, he would’ve studied to become a veterinarian. The first time you sucked him off he made small talk with you about it to “make you feel comfortable.” His words- not yours. While your lips were wrapped around his cock, you found out that his favorite kind of dog was a golden retriever, that he didn’t mind cats, but he could only take them in moderation- whatever that meant, and that he would prefer to, “Adopt rather than shop- Oh fuck baby… yeah, right there!”
Once again, his words- not yours.
But, since Jean wasn’t smart enough- according to Jean standards, he studied business. My god, how fitting for you. He worked a job writing those cheesy greeting card slogans. You know… “I love you a latte!” or “I forgot to get you a gift so I got you this card.” Sometimes it was hard for you to get off on riding Jean’s cock, once you imagined him pitching a shitty idea for a tenth birthday card that you probably got for your younger cousin last year, for some reason your sex drive… just disappeared? Or it could’ve been that Jean thought it would also make for good “small talk,” as you rode him cowgirl style. It could’ve been that.
“Y-you know… fuck… I write greeting card slogans… I d-don’t think I’ve… shit baby… told you that!”
“Oh my god, fuck… J-Jean, that would be your job… god- oh!”
That last thing he said to you before you came around him was, “Life’s like a golden retriever, once you find it… you never want to let it go.”​​
That was the pitch he had to give later that day.
You told him it wasn’t very good so he left your apartment in a panic.
This morning, Jean left with one thing on his mind- you. He gave you an awkward wave and hesitantly pulled you in for a hug, though he’d kiss you on the forehead if he could, if only you weren’t such a myth of a woman to him. You let out a breathy laugh when Jean put an arm around your shoulder and pulled you in, if only you knew where you stood with him, perhaps you’d be daring enough to peck him on the lips, but Jean kept to himself and you knew that. There was no point in prying where nothing needed to be cracked.
“Have a good day at work…” You mumbled, the fact that you were speaking like a married couple in itself made you want to puke. The idea of getting bored… being held in one place couldn’t have sounded less appealing to you. With him, you'd be lucky if you ever knew what was going to come next and you loved it. He was rain in the middle of a drought, unexpected, unplanned, leaving you wanting more every time his water hit your skin. You absorbed him just as quickly as he came and went, and you’d sit and wait for more, it could’ve been months, days, even years… but when he came back he came like a storm. Torrential, heavy, giving you more than you could soak up, drowning you completely. He left you with enough to last you until the next time it rained… whenever the hell that would be.
“Thanks… take care of yourself alright?” Jean bid you farewell like it was the last time he’d see you. To be fair he could never really predict when the next time would be, often reaching for his phone before you reached for yours. You were Jean’s storm, dark and windy, watering him much more than he needed, but giving him enough to last until the next time you decided to rain again. You were Jean’s storm, whether you’d realize it or not, except when Jean drowned he hated it, and he did it silently. He’d let himself die under your hold before ever admitting that maybe your weather was just too much for him.
“Yeah, so it didn’t work…”
She looked at you analytically, leaning over the counter a bit to get a good look at your face, eyebrows pursing upon noticing the bags under your eyes. You were wearing a knit sweater that hung at the middle of your thighs, the ends of your- well Jean’s boxers peeking out from underneath. Taking a minute to decide how to respond to you, she took a drag of her cigarette, blowing the smoke in your face and watching your nose scrunch up.
“You’re smoking… in a pharmacy?” You asked the girl dressed in black plaid. Your eyes followed her pupils as they trailed to the back of her head, the whites of her eyes greeting you before she scoffed and tapped the end of her cigarette out on the counter.
“Did you get dressed in the dark?” She asked you back, the serious expression on her face unwavering. She folded her arms underneath her chest and leaned into you, the sound of her chewing gum smacking around inside her cheeks becoming louder with every inch towards your face. It looked like her makeup hadn’t been touched in days, waking up to just smother a new layer of black eyeshadow over the days past. Fishnet sleeves hiked up her arms, her fingers playing with the holes on her elbows as she tried to piece your puzzle together.
“Did I… what? I- no... Can you just get me that thing you said would work?” You snapped at her blunt comment, playing with the ends of your sweater as your eyes darted around the pharmacy, taking in every detail just to avoid making eye contact with the girl. Her tongue pushed at the inside of her cheek, waving her cigarette in the air in confusion. She didn’t know what the hell you were going on about.
“Have you been here before?”
“No but-”
“So then how the hell am I supposed to know what that thing is?”
Your eyes widened at her tone, before you brought a hand up to your forehead to massage your temples. The blue lights of the establishment along with the persistent sick feeling in your gut wasn’t exactly helping you think straight.
“My boy- um… my friend came in here this morning-”
“Oh! Greeting card guy?”
Has he told everyone that? Suddenly the look on her face turned into one of sympathy, her smirk dropping and her lips pulling into a thin line. She let out a deep breath as she put her cigarette out by rubbing it underneath the counter, unsure of what to do with her hands now as she awkwardly smoothed out her skirt. It was her turn to break eye contact, her fingers adjusting her raven hair into a ponytail as she bounced on her heels nervously. Her back turned to you as her hands hovered over the shelves behind her, stocked with over-the-counter medicine and first aid supplies. You raised an eyebrow in curiosity as you tried to peek over her shoulder, before she angled herself to where you couldn’t see what she was grabbing. She turned to you slowly, hiding whatever she just pulled off the shelves behind her back. With all color drained from her face and her breathing heavy, she began to ask you questions.
“Nausea, you said?”
“What- yeah?”
“Hallmark said you’ve been puking… like a shit ton?”
“Hallmark?”
“Sorry, greeting card guy- whatever-”
“Jean.”
“Okay, Jean- whatever…”
“Y-yes… I puked in his mouth.”
“Okay, ew? Cramps?”
“Always… I’m probably just getting my period but-”
“When are you supposed to get it?”
“My period? Well it was supposed to come last week… Okay doctor, what’s happening? Can I have the medicine so I can leave?”
She blinked at you with dead eyes, wondering if any bit of you was prepared to digest what she was about to imply. You’ve known each other for a whopping ten minutes, in fact, you didn’t even know each other��s names. To you, she was the pharmacy girl, with dark hair, dark eyes, dark clothing, and a seemingly dark personality. And to her, you were the bitch she was about to drop the biggest bomb on. You watched intently as she slid a pink box over the counter to you, your heart dropping as you read the big, white letters.
Rapid Detection Pregnancy Test.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“W-what? No way…”
“And the dad?”
No.
His dark hair flushed every other thought out of your brain, his green eyes all-consuming, haunting every corner in your head you tried to run to. Blood rushed the extremities of your body, fingers going numb, and face feeling cold as you raked your mind for any possible explanation. Backing away from the counter, the girl reached out to you, but the distance between the two of you grew with every second, her figure being sucked out of your vision as everything went static. It was that feeling again, the one where Jean tried to speak to you while you held your body under the water of your bathtub. Your ears were ringing and the only thing you could think about was this possibly being the start to the end of your life. That feeling in the pit of your stomach rose, and on the way up it prodded and poked at your insides, dragging its nails until you bled out all of the security you thought you had, though there was never much there to begin with. Your hand clutched over your mouth when you felt the pharmacy girl's hands grab your shoulders and push you to the back of the shop, seeing double as she took you down a dimly lit hallway and stuffed you into the employee bathroom.
“There… there… you’ll be fine?” She comforted you unconvincingly, she didn’t know if you’d be fine. All she could do was rub circles into your back awkwardly as your hands gripped the toilet seat and the vomit left your mouth, a scene that’s become far too familiar to you. Her eyes scanned the bathroom, groaning at the grimy walls and dirt caked in between the tiles. The sickly lighting flickered, the overwhelming stench of urine only provoking your stomach more. You felt your hand open and looked over at it with teary eyes and slimy lips as the girl stuck the pregnancy test in your hand.
Fucking hell-
“It’s better if you just know, you know?” That was the first ounce of warmth you’ve heard in her voice this whole time, up until this point you were just another customer she didn’t want to deal with. But as she looked at you hovering over the toilet seat, your bare knees against the wet floor, she felt it, a spark of sympathy. So she ran a hand over your head and made her way out of the bathroom, getting one last look at you before she closed the door.
“I’m Mikasa by the way, shout if you need anything.”
“Armin! Arminnnn! Ar-”
“Eren, what the fuck do you want now?”
“Shit man, just wanted someone to talk to…” Eren shot his assistant a telling grin, pushing his knees up to his chest so he could make his way to the couch. The blonde sat hesitantly, letting out a forced sigh as his body sank into the seat, his figure still tense as he side-eyed his childish boss. Eren let out a shaky laugh, coughing on the ring of smoke that left his lips before swatting it out of the air and nudging his joint to Armin, who declined with a simple hand up to Eren’s disappointed face. Eren slid his long legs across his lap, using Armin’s thighs as a footrest while he began to read off Eren’s schedule for the day, his words seething through gritted teeth. Armin didn’t like being Eren’s footrest, but the things he’d do for good pay. So he put up with Eren’s bullshit on the daily, which mostly consisted of him running off to go smoke something or fuck someone, and when he wasn’t doing either of those things he was asking Armin to go look at a certain someone’s socials.
“Alright Eren, so today at 3 you have that fitting for-”
“What do you think she’s doing right now,” Eren asked nonchalantly, eyeing Armin through another cloud of smoke.
“Who Eren?”
“You know who.”
Armin knew exactly who, he just liked to make Eren say it. The stubborn brunette paraded around so often, overriding his own emotions just to tell everyone how over you he was. But Eren liked Armin. He had fired many assistants before his trusted golden boy came around. The first got Eren’s coffee order wrong, the second told him he sounded great during a soundcheck, and when Eren listened to his vocals back, well… that assistant went home crying. The third kept calling him, “Mr. Jaeger,” he insisted it was too formal for someone like him. And the fourth didn’t do anything, Eren was just having a bad day.
But then came Armin. It was safe to say that Eren really never had a best friend other than you, he’d never allow himself to get so close. He wasn’t sure if Armin truly reciprocated his emotions but… the day Eren referred to him as his best friend, Armin just gave him a blank stare and said, “Thank you.” That was the most affection Eren received from anyone in his time in the music industry, so he whole-heartedly accepted and gave Armin a raise.
To which Armin made sure to say, “Thank you,” all the time, sometimes for nothing at all.
“Why don’t you call her and ask? How long has it been since you last talked?”
“Shit Armin… always the voice of reason,” Eren drawled, crossing one ankle over the other,  “Just be fucking unreasonable for once man…” With his intelligence and ability to retain information… pointless or otherwise, Armin could’ve written a novel about you. He’d never even met you and yet he knew that you pulled the tomatoes off of everything, you hated to look at clocks when the minutes were at an odd number, and that you gave him the best head he's ever gotten. Eren said that of course, he said a lot of things, a lot of which was bullshit, but the rest was about you. And because Armin was Eren’s best friend, he only ever talked about you to him, for all everyone else knew was that Eren hated you and he ended things in a bloodbath. He smirked as he played with the joint between his teeth, watching his innocent counterpart formulate a way to be a reckless mess like he was. Fucking angel boy, Eren thought to himself, watching the gears turn in blondie’s brain.
“Be unreasonable… okay… you should definitely not call her? At least wait until we leave Paris, yeah?”
“I have to fucking call him…”
Those two fucking lines. There were two, right? Two pink lines that let you know just how fucked you were.
You were huddled in a corner of the bathroom with your knees tucked under your sweater, your body rocking back and forth as you waited the agonizing ten minutes. The dripping of the sink drove you up a wall, smacking a palm into your forehead repeatedly as you tried to shake yourself out of the daze you were in. You rose to your feet, unable to sit still as you awaited your demise. God, don’t think about a baby like that, you scolded yourself.
A fucking baby.
Every minute that passed you’d return to the sink and squint one eye open, flinging the test back into the ceramic bowl when you saw that nothing had appeared yet. You dived back to the floor and let your legs extend in front of you, knocking your head on the wall behind you in torture. What would you do with a baby? To say you were unprepared was an understatement, to say you didn’t want to tell Eren was an even bigger one. To nurture something, to let it grow inside of you, share your body and then bring it into the world was… permanent. It was forever and how could you commit to forever? How could you afford forever? It cost everything. You felt them, the tears, they were pricking at your eyes, begging to be freed but you wouldn’t let anything fall. This was a moment far too numbing for you to even feel anything. And as you got up to make another round to the sink, what you saw was what broke the dam, and the tears came running to greet your cheeks, and the pins came shooting to impale your chest, and you finally fucking felt something.
Those two fucking lines.
And there were two, bright pink and pigmented, they stared back at you and they laughed. After all, this was a happy moment, why wouldn’t they? You should be rejoicing, for you’ve been blessed with the gift of life. You’ve been kissed by an angel, another life sprouting inside of you, the seed of a man that hated you, germinating in your gut. You felt fucking disgusting. So you did what you’ve been doing for the past two weeks, though this time you understood why you were doing it and that made you hate doing it even more. You puked, hurled, you gave up everything inside of you and even harder this time, you wanted it all to end.
Mikasa stood outside of the bathroom door, where she had been for the past hour, and she listened to you cry. She listened to you wail and gasp and gag into the toilet. She listened to you scream into the ceiling. “Why?” Your voice broke. “Why the fuck is this happening?” Your voice bled. It bled fear, hatred, the bile that came up your throat scraping at the edges and watching as the skin bled pain and helplessness. You were helpless. And all Mikasa could do was stand guard and smoke her third cigarette until you finally opened the door.
“Mikasa…” Her head jerked to lean an ear up against the door, only to trip into the bathroom when you opened it. Her eyes blinked repeatedly, trying to take in the sight of you covered in dried vomit and tears.
“Isn’t this supposed to be a happy moment?” You laughed, though there wasn’t an ounce of joy within it. She watched as you flipped the pregnancy test between your fingers, your hands shaking under the sleeves of your sweater.
“Well… that depends… is it?” She held her hand out and motioned for you to hand her the stick, biting the inside of her cheek when she confirmed that yes, there were in fact two lines.
“Shit… is it?” She asked again, watching as you shook your head slowly, dropping to your knees before her.
It started raining again, Eren wasn’t even here and it started raining. You didn’t have an umbrella, a jacket, or shoes, you were naked in the storm. His storm. Unexpected. Unplanned. Unplanned. He didn’t even know, fuck him, he didn’t even know, your thoughts turned vicious. Your fists clenched as you knocked them against the doorway and cried, inhaling sharply, not realizing that you’d been holding your breath. You wiped a hand over your face and stared at Mikasa’s shoes on the floor in front of you. Your eyes trailed up her body until they met her face, as serious as ever as she took another drag of her cigarette. In your eyes she saw the last pieces of you flee, run to a better home, one filled with spirit, a lust for life, one that wanted to be where you were right now. You should be happy, right?
“So… who’s the dad?”
Eren’s eyes rolled to the back of his head, dropping his mouth as he guided the girl’s head up and down his length. “Fuck yeah… that’s it,” he whined as her lips worked around his cock, pushing her down until he hit the back of her throat. His fingers knotted in her hair while his other hand picked up his phone, the one that had been blaring for the past five minutes.
“Yeah?” He snapped at whoever it was calling him at a time like this. It’s been weeks since Eren got head, the last time was… well it was you. The silk linen of the bed tickled his skin, the breeze from his balcony that had a view of the Eiffel Tower igniting a trail of goosebumps down his spine. Eren was content, so who the fuck was calling him right now?
“Shit…” He moaned, teasing the silent caller on the other end, yanking the girl's head back and placing a wet kiss to her lips. “You’re my good luck charm,” another kiss, “Right before my show right?” and another, “Gonna do so good ‘cause of you…” He whispered into her neck, her long hair tickling his nose. Eren didn’t know who the fuck this girl was, he actually told the girl from yesterday the same exact thing. He felt his stomach churn at her obnoxious laugh, like nails on chalkboard as he showered her in forced compliments.
“Thank you for the necklace Eren…” She mewled as she sucked on his earlobe, grinding her hips into his cock, causing him to groan into the phone once more. She was just another distraction, one from the voices that constantly ripped into his being. The ones that couldn’t give less of a shit about him, the ones that loved him conditionally, as long as he could give them what they wanted. A distraction, that’s all anything ever was for him, and he picked up a new distraction to distract him from the last distraction. It kept going and going, a spiral, a hole, a deep one, until he couldn’t pull himself up. He created a world filled with so many distractions from his real life that he grew content suppressing his emotions with things like sex and drugs and more sex and more drugs, so why would he give that up? It felt fucking good and he couldn’t exactly snap his fingers and let it go. So for now Eren would continue to indulge his distractions, it would take something earth-shattering to ever get him to stop.
“Yeah yeah, you’re welcome um- baby… Hello? Can you fucking speak already?”
He snapped once more before the call dropped, the line going silent, the disconnect tone bellowing in his ear as he chucked his phone across the room in anger.
“Mikasa, I can’t fucking do it.”
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josiesaltzmanstyle · 2 years ago
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Some People Just Want to Watch the World Burn
Here we are again! From what I remember, Josie spends a lot of this episode in her jersey and shorts, so there may not be a lot to say. But let’s find out!
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Actually, Josie starts off the epsiode in this white Universal Thread blouse with ruffle sleeves. It’s a bit similar and shape in style than her white blouse from the last episode, but the collar is more traditional, the sleeves are bigger, the fit is flowier, and it just generally looks a little more comfortable. It’s also a button-up, making it fairly standard school-uniform fare, just with lot more personality. The material is somewhat translucent and heathered and the ruffled sleeves are hemmed at the edges to be an isolated detail. Once again, I kind of hate this blouse while simultaneously loving that she wears it. The duality of man.
Once again, a scoop-neck camisole is visible below, as the shirt is slightly translucent, and I would bet it’s the same one or a duplicate. The neckline looks exactly the same. We love a girl who stock-piles multiples of a basic for layering purposes. (Actually, it’s probably the same one. I think it’s fairly standard practice to reuse undershirts once or twice after initial use, so long as there aren’t any major sweat or other stains. But who knows? I also definitely think Josie is neurotic enough to have mutliple.)
I’m once again forced to assume her tie is from ASOS, as I can’t find a listing or google-reverse search Hail Mary anywhere. I think it’s cute (though certainly not my style), but I don’t feel it goes especially well with the outfit. The silver against the white becomes sort of washed out. But the sparkly silver nature of it has a lot more personality than last episode’s tie.
Her hair is also up in her space bun with wisps look! I’m liking it a lot more than I liked her half-up, half-down updo from the first episode. There seems to be a lot of emphasis on pulling her hair back and out of her face and her forehead, though, which is interesting, as I don’t feel like that tendency sticks after the first few episodes. 
The whole look is... not really as well-coordinated as her outfits from last episode, though that may be intentional. As mentioned in my last post, she was putting her best face on for the school tour (or what she thinks of as her best face), but she doesn’t have reason for that now. The whole outfit is a little more childlike and playful than her 1.01 outfits, though, especially with her hair styled the way it is. We’re seeing a bit of a different side to her style personality here.
Also interesting: her not being dressed for the football game yet when Lizzie is. In this episode, she seems less invested in the game in general than Lizzie, and we’ll also see her hesitance about using their powers to win later on. Her lack of enthusiasm could be read into pretty easily here. 
That being said, there’s not an especially screenshot-able moment here, but she’s wearing her plaid unifom skirt along with it, her blouse tucked in as we’re learning is standard for her, and she’s carrying books with her. So it may be more likely that she had a class before the game, and maybe Lizzie had a free period or something.
Once again, tragically, the shoes are only visible in a blur of movement in .7 second shots, but they’re definitely black and they’re either the loafers from last episode (I can own being wrong!) or black dress shoes. My money’s on the loafers. She’s wearing white socks with them, though interestingly, they’re not knee highs this time, at least while she’s in her school clothes. 
The look as a whole reads a lot simpler than her comparable blouse + skirt outfit in 1.01, and more utilitarian.
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Adorning her ears are: a two-ring silver cuff sitting highest (maybe hoops, but my best guess would be that they’re not pierced), a gold bar (I think; it’s partially covered by her hair, but this was the best earring shot), and a gold stud directly underneath it.
She’s also sporting some adorable face-paint. Go Stallions!
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Aaa, missed one! Her two star-shaped studded flat earrings became more visible in this shot. It’s really cute becaaaauuuse...
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Lizzie’s rocking star earrings too! (In the first part of the episode, anyway. She takes them off sometime before the game, which is actually probably smart, lol.) I love finding little details the costume department chose to connect them as sisters and show their closeness. Interestingly, it’s the second episode in a row where Lizzie’s been wearing one longer hanging earring, where Josie’s wearing multiple that rest closer to her ear.
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It’s hard to find a lot to say about her outfit when it’s the same as what everyone else is wearing, but: she did change into knee-high socks for the game! They’re striped with grey at the top, giving them a sportier look. Her sneakers are white and striped with either grey or a muted blue. She went for utility here, but makes up for it with the aforementioned adorable hairstyle (that also happens to pull her hair out of her face; smart for running around in the heat), and a ribbon that’s ribbed or sectioned in some way, and matches the cobalt blue of her shorts exactly. (I’m gonna be constantly repeating myself if I keep saying the accesories are likely from ASOS (or a similar store), but that doesn’t make it less true.)
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When we next see Josie after the game, she’s dressed for bed in her PJs and she’s let her hair down to fall in its natural waves. The shirt could be from literally anywhere - you can even find a basic scoop neck sleep tee at big box retailers in the apparel sections. Same for the shorts honestly, though these Tangnade drawstring shorts look pretty close. I’m not sure they’re the right shade, though - Josie’s are clearly a muted grey-blue, and the linked shorts fall closer to a pure grey. 
Every girl I know (and I’m sure many non-girls too!) have a pajama look like this. It’s probably my go-to, though I would likely trade the t-shirt for a camisole if possible. It’s especially good if you’re someone who overheats easily in the night.
Not pictured, but Josie’s also wearing blue slippers that match her shorts. Cute!
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Obligatory “how is Kaylee Bryant so pretty” meltdown. Look at that hair. Oh my god.
And that’s all, folks! 
Number of Outfits: 3 again!
Favorite Piece: Even though it’s simple, I really like her sleepclothes outfit, as I feel it’s very relatable and Kaylee Bryant can wear simple really well. A big fan of the shorts, personally, as they’re sort of a universal standard.
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Thanks for reading! That’s all for now.
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maddsmallow · 2 years ago
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tagged by @thirium-800 !!! fuckin love doing these things lmao let’s goooo
Rules: Tag 10 (or less) people you want to get to know better
relationship status: married for 3 years! will be 4 in september, and we’ll have been friends for 11 years in october ❤️
favorite color: i’m honestly not sure i have a favorite color. it was indigo for a really long time, like during my entire teenage years, but when i moved to be with my husband, i went from trad-goth to more cottagecore?? really weird lmao, so these days i REALLY love, like, muted browns and greens. it’s pretty funny how much it contrasts with the music i listen to, i’ll be in a soft blue sundress with a petticoat and pastel moomin clips in my hair, and then have fuckin like, type 0 neg playing or some shit idk lmao. ANYWAYS to answer the damn question. maybe brown. maybe green. i like those. earthy tones. good stuff
song stuck in my head: ‘runaway’ by aurora. i knew it was popular on tiktok for a while (at least during the short time i used it) but i never heard anything past the little sound clip that was used over and over again, but literally last night i was like, i should hear the whole thing. and holy fuck, the chords n shit that start like halfway thru the song?? goosebumps, its SO GOOD
three favorite foods: [my type 1 diabetes screaming in the background] CHOCOLATE. and then i guess maybe cereal? real healthy stuff i know. and then i guess anything chicken-and-rice related. big slut for rice these days
last song I listened to: besides the one i just talked about above, i think it was ‘i love you’ by woodkid. i got over my stupid fuckin superiority complex about only listening to 60s/70s/80s that i had as a teen a few years ago and i’ve been trying to catch up with more 90s/00s and especially 10s and now 20s music since then, so i really dont know anything about that artist because im still really not like, “in the loop,” but i do really like that song. idek how i found it, probably randomly payed on spotify or something lmao
dream trip: no idea tbh. pretty much just anywhere with my husband [audience boos me off the stage for being sappy] no but real talk, maybe germany? i wanted to go there when i was in elementary school but i cant even remember why. i have a friend here who’s from germany and is moving back in a few months, which makes visiting a lil easier, so that’s cool. i guess japan and china and maybe thailand would be cool to experience. maybe this is really stupid but a video game i liked as a kid made me really interested in like, tibetan monasteries?? so i think it’s be dope to see something like that, assuming it’s, y’know, a respectful thing to visit. i’ve never actually looked into it cuz i just always assumed i’d never have the money to travel :P
last thing(s) i googled: a picture of a poster frame i wanted my husband to get for me haha
tagging: this is always the hardest part im such an open fuckin book when people ask me shit, but reaching out to other people?? im so shy uhHHHH just ignore this if you dont wanna do it, dont feel obligated!! @versailles-dove @the0ldmann @marieantonanton @walkingencyclopediaofweirdmayo @styx1an @felinaszsz @pure-plums @partyinthemysterymachine @starlitflowers-secretgarden @silverloreley TEN WHOLE PEOPLE WHEW
okay byeeee i love uuuuu
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cinnamonest · 4 years ago
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Albedo idol girl darling thoughts M A N I F E S T E D
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Well, to be entirely honest, he thinks the whole idol thing is a little dumb.
For someone like him, at least. He's a PhD student in his final semester, lots of work to be done and all that. So, you know, he's a responsible, accomplished adult. Not the kind of person who gets into "that stuff," as he calls it in his head.
Nor does he even know how he encountered it... He just takes the occasional break from work to mindlessly open whatever app first pops into his vision and scroll through the feed. He's never watched anything like it in his life, so he's not exactly sure why he gets recommended some idol girl thing, and even less sure why he taps it without really thinking. Probably one of those videos that gets recommended to everyone. Well, can't be that, it doesn't have that many views... Probably loosely connected to some video game he's searched before or something. He's familiar with idols and what they are, and the subculture surrounding them, but he's never really cared about it.
Honestly, it's kinda pathetic that a bunch of grown adult men get so obsessed over these girls, he thinks as he watches. He's seen the type. Lonely, asocial dudes, most definitely virgins whose only female attention in their entire life is their mother, well into adulthood with no real social group to speak of.
...Not that he's much better off, but he hasn't quite sunk down to their level. The only reason he doesn't talk to people much is because they're busy, and he's even busier. He managed to make a few friends in undergrad years. Well, study partners who mooched off his notes since he was one of the top students, but same idea. They were people he spoke to more than once, which is what constitutes a friend, right? And for the record, one time in high school a girl in his class said she liked his hair. He hasn't changed the way he wears it since. Whenever he's sad, he thinks about that compliment from 10+ years ago, and it makes him feel a little better. But now, he's constantly slammed with work and research.
And his acquaintances are also all busy. He sees notifications every now and then from social media he never checks. Everyone is getting married at this stage in life, both friends and even other PhD students in his department. Not that he's ever been invited to a wedding, he just overhears a lot of conversations, sees notifications of posts. And he will too, eventually. He just has to finish up his degree, and then... Meet a girl. Well, that's actually the second step, step one would be finding out how to go about meeting a girl. He's... Never done it before. Probably does not happen sitting in the research lab at 11:30 pm on YouTube. He's talked to one of the other PhD students who's a girl before. And only stutters sometimes. He was even able to look her in the face while he talked to her once. That's a good start.
Ok, so maybe he is a little bit pathetic, but not as bad as... These guys. Reading the comments of the video actually make him feel a little better about himself, because frankly, they're kinda wild. The worship and fawning over girls is one thing, but they even have timestamps referring to various members like "she's super cute here!" Or "you can kinda see her thigh at 3:12!" Etc etc. Yeesh, creepy. And they get into comment fights over who is the best member, as if it even matters. It's fascinating in a human-social-experiment sort of way, the manifestation of a subculture and how humans interact with each other. On and on it goes, hundreds of commenters. He pays more attention to the comments than the actual video, but the song is kinda catchy in that annoying sort of way, and the girls are cute, just kinda... The typical thing he'd expect from idol groups. But the building will close soon, so he taps back to home screen and swipes the app closed.
Unfortunately, the algorithm remembers.
And he's not certain why he clicks the next one either, the following day. The lunch breaks he takes are usually pretty rushed. Not that he has specific class times at his level of academia, but he likes to get his work done. He intentionally eats either a bit later or earlier than the lunch crowd to avoid crowds and interactions. Finds a nice secluded little table tucked away. So when he opens it back up, what do you know, several more videos get recommended. It's absent minded when he taps on one, the kind of numb-brained entertainment every modern person indulges in, videos you wouldn't really be interested in but just watch because they're there.
Ok, this is really creepy. These dudes have made compilation videos of close ups of each specific girl. It's the same group as the video he saw before, same little lewd costumes. Admittedly the girls are kinda cute. He can kinda understand the appeal. But he's not like those guys, he would never become like, obsessed with them.
The song is actually really catchy. The kind of mindlessly addictive, repetitive pop music that's the same four chords over and over, each song is so similar you can't really tell them apart, but it gets stuck in your head anyway. This group has... nine members. Who needs that many singers in one group? It's not like a band or anything, they all just sing and do their little choreography. Guess that's a form of talent, even though he doesn't really get it.
Some of the groups he sees in recommended videos are cute and wholesome, and while this group is cute too, there's a very... Blatantly intentional lewdness to their poses and costumes. A hypersexualized sort of cuteness. Clearly marketed at lonely losers who have nothing better to do with their time than obsess over a girl who will never even know they exist.
He taps another video.
So many compilations, yikes. He has to give the guys credit, they're insanely loyal to the individual member that they decide to fixate on. Oh, and they even make official figurines and posters for these girls, that's... Something.
And a few days later he can kinda recognize the girls. They have color themes, you know, identical costumes except each girl's is a different color. This lead one is red, this main backup is blue, etc etc. Lots of bright colors. Kinda hurts his eyes to be honest.
And he's seen compilations of every girl except... The pink one. The pink one is always kinda off to the side. Well, these groups do have their favoritism, there's apparently one or two lead singers in all of the major idol groups, and the rest are basically backups and dancers. Still, a lot of dudes get super devoted to the non-main girls. So yeah, he's never seen a compilation for the pink one... He can't always exactly remember which one is which but now he's seen enough to know the other girls' names. He's not sure what hers is though. So he googles it and gets the name.
Wonder why she doesn't have as many videos...? Oh, it's because she's the newest member. Only been around a few months. There's... A whole board dedicated to the group, which he's getting this information from. Wow, pathetic. What kind of person spends their free time browsing a forum for an idol group? Well, he's just doing it to find information, not for fun or anything. He was just curious. Now he knows and he can forget about it and never look at anything related to them again... after he types her name and group name into the YouTube search bar and checks the results out, that is.
Oh, so they do have some compilations for her, just not many. "(Name) thigh compilation." Fuck, these people have no limits to how creepy and pathetic they can get, he thinks... as he watches the video. Ok, admittedly there are some good thigh shots there. There's a comment. "At 4:26 you can see her panties." Pathetic. They're not wrong though. Just to be sure, you see, he tapped the timestamp, and you can, in fact, see them. Stripes. Cute.
But he still has to do his work. Can't get too invested in watching mindless videos all day. He's got a thesis to work on.
That makes him curious, though, he thinks as he goes about his research. Do these girls go to school? Do they like, skip college, or do they join some kind of performing arts school or...? So he googles it. He can remember the pink one's name now, so he just finds her Wikipedia page. Oh, so she joined right out of high school and has been in various groups ever since.
Wait, various groups? So she has more groups she's been in? What are those? Before he typed her name into the search along with the group name, but if he just searches her name he gets... A lot more content from earlier years. Huh. Didn't know some of them did group-hopping like that.
Still, no education. Must be all smiles and body and no brains. Guess that's all you really need. Yeah, looking at that whole act they do... All giggly and childish and lewd... She's probably not too bright. At least she's pretty and sings nice. And the thighs are rather good. Smooth looking. They have a sort of jiggle when she jumps up and down on stage. The thigh highs they make those girls wear have that nice little dip where the skin is compressed by the fabric. Like... right there at that closeup. He takes a screenshot.
It's readily available, he's already seen the video and knows the best parts, whereas searching for porn would take time. The sooner he can get the daily stress relief out of the way the sooner he can work on his thesis. So this way is faster. That's why he's jerking off to the thigh video and not taking the time to look for porn. Plus, it makes him cum faster. Which it probably shouldn't since it's just thighs, but... Probably has something to do with the tease of it all maybe. That makes sense.
Or maybe it's that cute little giggle he can hear at some parts. She smiles and jumps and spins and laughs.
...It makes him wonder what she'd look like crying. Scared. Whimpering. Covered in bruises and bite marks. The contrast between that state and the one on the screen. The process and the things he could do to get her from one to the other. Yeah, he realizes, it's that thought, rather than the happy giggling on video or tease aspect, that makes him cum.
He's aware that his... tastes... are a little on the fucked up side, but hey, there's plenty of bastards out there far worse than him.
One day he discovers she has social media platforms. He... Doesn't really have any. He doesn't have Twitter or Instagram or any of that but... He downloads the app and makes an account for each. Just to follow her. Ooh, they even have the option to get a notification every time she posts... That's good. Otherwise he might check too frequently. He sets a special sound effect for notifications for her socials. The first few times, you see, he would get super excited when his phone went off, only to be disappointed when it was just a work email. Thus, he made the separate sounds.
He wouldn't say he has a favorite, that sounds really cringey you know? He just... Likes her more than the others. ...Dammit, that's what a favorite is. Ok, maybe he has a favorite, that's not that bad. He's not obsessed. He hasn't bought any merchandise at all or anything, especially not member-specific merchandise. Which they do have, because he visited the store page for a while and spent all his willpower physically restraining himself from buying something. It's not that he's biased, he just thinks she's objectively better than the rest of the group. Which can be backed up with evidence, anyone with eyes could tell by watching the performances.
As to what specifically draws him to her... he's not certain, to be honest. Maybe it's because she's the least appreciated out of the group, new and all. The less popular one. Or maybe her personality... She seems so sweet, even though he knows it's probably just an act for the fans. Or maybe just those thighs. That's also a valid possibility.
He cracks and buys some of the merchandise. Only about $300 worth. But honestly, he gets more invested into just printing out pictures of you. Pasting them onto the wall above his desktop. It keeps him going when the nights are hard.
But he refrains from ever commenting on anything. Some of these losers are just... so embarrassing, he can't stomach the thought of being associated, even if it's just an anonymous comment online. It's still pretty... Distasteful. He still browses the boards every day. You're his lock screen now. And home screen. And also your solo is his ringtone. He only sets his phone on sound when he's alone at home, though, when he's at work he puts it on vibrate. He... doesn't want anyone hearing that. No offense. He has some appropriate amount of shame, unlike the other bastards.
And the girls probably know that most of their fans are these kind of loser men, right? She'd probably be surprised someone nearly graduating with a chemistry doctorate is sitting around watching these dumb videos. Is that more or less pathetic? He thinks less, hopefully.
In fact, the other fans kind of irritate him. They're really cringy and annoying and it gives him secondhand embarrassment. And something... Deeper. Something about seeing the comments upsets him on a visceral level. It's gross. Sure, he's grateful for the dudes who sit around and make a list of timestamps for upskirt shots and the like, but... It kinda bothers him, feeling like there's some other dude out there sitting around, watching these long videos with his gross eyes and recording the times of shots that get him off. It feels gross. But more like... A violation against you. Sure, your group is very blatantly sexualized and intentionally risque in clothing but... Still, it feels wrong for someone to go through and get to see all of that.
Well, someone else. It's ok for him, since he's not a gross degenerate like the rest of them. He does genuinely see himself as... Above them. You know how like, back in the day, how the nobles used to sit around and watch plays from the far back while the peasants gathered around the stage? It's like that. He's not a gross loser or a NEET or anything like that. He's got a life. Well... Not a social life, but he's doing better than them, at least he has a degree, and soon a higher degree, and a job. He has a lot of things they don't. Basic hygiene. Student loan debt. And uh... Well, he's probably more pleasant to interact with, at least he's not gonna be frothing at the mouth like an animal if he saw you in real life. He would certainly freeze up, but that's preferable, isn't it?
And one day there's a video circulating in the idol community - not that he's a part of it or anything, he just keeps getting the dumb videos and watching them for mindless entertainment - where some girl group had an attempted kidnapping. Not her group, but some other group. The video has gone viral. Some dude tried to rush the stage and pull one of the girls away. Apparently the cops found he had an obsession with her.
What an idiot. If you're gonna kidnap someone, put some effort in, jeez. It's not hard to figure out how to do it right.
If that were him, he wouldn't be that stupid, he'd just look for an interval where she's alone. They have those solo or breakout group songs where some of the girls are backstage, just get her then. Memorize the concert schedule, wear something over your face, chloroform her, and stuff her into something and walk right out. Easy.
....
He catches himself in the thought and realizes that might have been a bit creepy, but he was just thinking in terms of hypotheticals. If he was the kind of crazy to do that, that's what he'd do, that's all.
He's always enjoyed entertaining strategic thoughts, really. He's had a couple fantasies about how he would commit murders of this or that person before, and he's never murdered anyone, so thoughts don't lead to actions. He just... Really doesn't like those people, and the fantasies help him... Deal with it. He just likes to strategize about methods, and how he'd get away with it... Stuff like that. Actually, he's convinced it's a very normal thing, but no one wants to admit it. Everyone has detailed murder fantasies every now and then.
Which is why this is no different. He's just strategizing because it's fun. He has no intentions of doing anything for real. He just plans out the details like a game. And tells himself to just never think about it again.
Until one specific night that he's staring down at his screen. Lying in bed. He should be asleep, he needs to be up early tomorrow but... He's just checking to be sure he's reading this correctly. You're coming to his town? He wouldn't think so, since it's not too big, just your average college town. But still, you'll be right here, right in his general vicinity, not far away at all.
Not that he'd ever actually go to such an event. No way. He hates crowds with a passion. He hates loud environments even more. A concert is like his worst nightmare. Besides, knowing the general audience of your group, it'll be a bunch of sweaty NEET dudes who haven't showered in a month and haven't crawled out of their house in even longer. No thank you.
But.
That's when the thought pops back up. It's been a few months since that night he had that strategizing fantasy, and, well, he tried to forget it but... It kinda lingered in the back of his mind. And now it's back in full force.
He shrugs the idea off. It's crazy. He'd never actually do something like that. It was just a fantasy.
...But he could get away with it if he wanted to.
He's not scared or anything, no, he's confident in his strategizing. He knows he could. Totally. It's foolproof. There's no need to carry it out to know that, besides, what would he even do with you?
Well, he's pretty certain he does know what he would do with you. He's watched that thigh video maybe a hundred times now. And even if he won't admit it, he's jerked off to the exact same fantasy for like, several months.
He doesn't really... Think about it. Just kind of slips into subconscious actions. Autopilot. One click and well, there goes $400 on an amp case. His eyes gaze over the dimensions... And then there's your height on the Wikipedia page... Yeah... That should work. He gets it sent to the address a few doors down just in case, and snatches it from in front of their door, but he finds himself backpedaling. What the hell is he doing? He would never actually go through with this, what a waste of money... But he still opens it. Sets it beside his front door. Tests the wheels to make sure they work.
He knows how to make chloroform. He doesn't need YouTube tutorials (unlike a certain someone else), he knows exactly how to do it, even alternate methods besides the usual acetone and bleach combination - so long as you end up with the same chemical makeup, it's all the same. He just goes with the traditional way though... Doesn't really know why he does it. Just mutters as he stares down at the concoction wondering why he wasted his time... But he pauses before pouring it down the sink, and instead puts it in a container and keeps it on the counter. Your weight is on Wikipedia too. Taking into account your height and weight you would need about... Yeah, a very specific amount to knock you out for about three hours.
The concert day draws closer and closer and he can't sleep very well. His mind keeps running what-ifs. Just, hypothetically, what if he did go through with it? What then? What would he do long term? How would that all work out?
Well, you'd probably hate him for a while, right? But that changes. Stockholm syndrome sets in. He would know, he had to take Psych 101 back in undergrad, and the professor talked about it for a full 10 minutes, so he's basically an expert. It's been like, 7 years since then, but he still kinda remembers it. He remembers that it's supposed to set in at about 2 weeks, and solidify with time. If the captor is nice, that is, which he totally would be. ...Maybe not in bed, but most of the time. He would be nice to you, and you would start to like him. Besides, they said Stockholm syndrome set in faster if the abductor has good qualities, so, he could also reason with you, remind you that you're lucky you got abducted by someone with money - or, well, he will have money once he graduates! - and isn't some ugly gross slob. He's clean and neat. Sorta... He'll clean up all those dishes that have been sitting there a few days now, pick up all those clothes off the floor... Ok, now he's clean and neat. And, uh, what else would girls care about... He's smart. He's pretty sure he can say that with confidence, if nothing else.
Ok, so, it would work. He could... Keep you kinda... Tied up here... If you started complying within that two week period, he could get you up and walking before atrophy set in. You'd probably have to get used to the lifestyle... Right now he's kinda on a budget, but, he can get you things to keep you occupied... And so, yeah, it could work. It's simple, just keep you with him and isolated for a few weeks and uh, you'll transform into some kind of hypersexual obedient cumslut and never want to leave. That's... How Stockholm syndrome works right? Maybe he should have paid more attention in that class... Oh well. He never liked psychology.
So the day draws nearer and nearer and he starts really getting into the right... Headspace. It's a sort of manic state that he's in. Operating without really thinking, all inhibitions removed by simply refusing to think about it. He lets the subconscious take over and do all these little things to prepare, until finally that day is tomorrow. And then he kinda snaps back to full awareness and questions, again, what the hell is he doing? He can't just... Kidnap a person! Normal people don't do that... It's illegal, he'll get caught, it'll ruin his life and....
What life does he really have to ruin?
That's the thought that sort of solidifies the decision. He realizes why he's even on this path in the first place. Sure he's got a lot of academic accomplishments, but his life is... Rather empty. He doesn't really have anyone. Maybe that's why he's slowly become... Consumed by this obsession that yes, he's now willing to admit to himself is indeed an obsession. It's kinda slowly taken over his everyday life without him even noticing it was happening. He's... Kinda miserable. And very lonely. And... If nothing else... This one girl makes him feel kinda happy.
... Which is why he's going to go through with it.
And he slips back into autopilot, ends up standing outside the building. It's every bit as loud and headache-inducing as he knew it would be. Ugh. He can't wait to get out of here. If this doesn't work, well, he'll be forced to turn around. The plan is a very simple one, actually... Act like he's supposed to be there. And he does. Dresses in all black like stage technicians do, dragging his big amp case behind him, holding a bunch of cords from random things he grabbed in his house, and tries not to look nervous, keeps a neutral face and walks straight forward and... He slides right in. The security guards off to the side don't even bat an eye.
And then he has a moment of "well, I didn't expect to get this far." Pauses. So uh... what now? Well, probably should find you first. He memorized the setlist, so he knows when you'll be off... And alone. Right now there should be three of the girls backstage. It's pretty easy to find where you are, but he's paranoid that the amp case is too loud as he's dragging it around. It's necessary, though. And then, finally, he stumbles upon the room... Opens the door, half expecting to be immediately stopped, but... He can just kinda waltz right in here, some open backroom, a person here or there coming through, a lady that looks like a makeup artist doing something over there, and an actual, real tech guy over there... And over to the far back corner... Oh. That's you. He takes a moment to revel in the sight, unable to move or even breathe, and has to mentally prepare himself before moving forward. He's... Not sure exactly what to do at this point... It's kind of perfect, to be honest, there's no one around you, and you're right out of sight, where he could turn the corner and not be seen. But he's not sure how to... Approach? He thinks about it as he walks, but again, autopilot is on in his brain and he's just numbly walking forward. Does he just... Keep walking until he's right at you and just... Or...?
And a miracle happens. You hear someone coming and you turn and smile and ask are you the tech guy here to fix my mic? You point to the little microphone attached to your face. They told you someone would be coming to fix it before your next song. You presume that's him, since he's dressed in all black like all the other stage techs. He hesitates a moment, wide eyed, but then nods. Yeah, that's him, he says. His voice cracks when he says it. It's kinda cute.
You smile at him. It's wide and sweet and genuine and it almost makes him pass out on the spot. He has to swallow for a second before continuing.
But, uh, he can't do it right here he says, because fiddling with it could disrupt the uh, frequencies, cause that really shrill sound you hear sometimes. So, um, come over this way a sec, over in this dark corner of the studio conveniently out of the view of all people and security cameras. You don't know how any of that stuff works, so you trust him, it's his job after all. So you get up and straighten your little skirt out - wow those are even more revealing in person - and walk over it the dark corner where he's waiting and... it's the last thing you remember.
He does a quick look left and right to ensure no one saw you collapse in his arms, but sure enough, this area is empty. You fit into the amp case with ease. Just curl your body up and pop the lid on. Wait, can you... breathe in there? Well, it won't take long to get outside. He just rolls the case right out the door, right past the guards again, and no one stops him, no one suspects a thing. Puts the case in the backseat, opens the lid, does a quick check go make sure you're breathing alright. So he props it open by keeping a book in between the case and lid as he drives home.
Once he does get home, he just does the same thing he did before - close the lid, roll you into the elevator and up the stairs and into his place, looking back over his shoulder over and over. And once he gets you inside he just kinda... falls to his knees. Shivering. Disbelief. Because holy shit he actually did it. He actually went through with it and it worked. He sits there and stares at the case and - oh, fuck, gotta open it again for you to breathe. Actually, he might as well... take you out... when he first shoved you in, he was so high on adrenaline he didn't really process any of it, but now... he almost can't bring himself to take you out. That means he has to, like, touch you. He's gotta take a moment to mentally prepare for that. So he does. Deep breaths. And finally, with trembling hands, pulls you out, carries you on shakey legs over to the bed and sets you down.
You know, you're a lot... Smaller... Than you looked on screen. Sure, he knew your height and weight but... somehow you still seem so much smaller than he expected. That's good. Will make everything a lot easier, since you're easier to restrain. And your thighs. They're... so soft. This is so much better than the video. They're so... fleshy and warm in person. Perfect. And wow, that skirt thing is... scratchy. Actually, up close, that whole outfit thing you wear looks super uncomfortable. It probably is. ...Well, guess he now has a reason to take it off.
The rest of your skin is... also fleshy and soft. Warm. Your face... chest... stomach... everything. Your tits are really cute, too. It occurs to him that all those rabid commenters on all those boards and videos would probably kill to be him right now, pinching and squeezing at your nipples. He's seeing something they will never see. It gives him an ego boost, to be honest, makes him feel proud to get a sort of one-up on them. He gets you naked, but refrains from pulling your legs apart. He probably... wouldn't be able to control himself, and he's aiming for some self-control right now.
So he waits. Breathes deep. Restrains himself with every ounce of willpower he has. It occurs to him he has no fucking clue what he's gonna say to you. Unfortunately, that thought occurs to him as you're starting to twitch and mumble, so, he doesn't have too much time to think. Oh, fuck, you're not restrained... well, he bought some duct tape and handcuffs and blindfolds off of amazon too, so he quickly puts those in place as you're starting to wake up, and then finally, you come to full consciousness -- that telltale jerking at the restraints, the muffled little cry of confusion and fear. It's kinda hot to be honest. Well, fuck, very hot actually. You're so scared. It gives him a rush of power. Said rush goes straight to his dick.
He's got a mixed twist of guilt and arousal at the whole thing, but... he's still trying to have some self control... and if you start begging and pleading and crying, it would be too much. Oh, no, not that it would be too much in terms of guilt, no no, just that he wouldn't be able to stop himself from fucking you if he sees you cry. So he leaves the restraints on for now, so he can't see your face emote.
Then, he does something really, really mean. He knows it's cruel, honestly, it's just... so cute. What that is, is that he does nothing. Says nothing. He goes about his work, typing away, knowing you can hear, but doesn't say a word. He knows you're awake, he just wants to see how long you can sit there scared out of your mind before you finally make another noise to draw his attention. Right now, he thinks, you're probably debating, you're probably questioning whether you should keep quiet and make him think you're still out or make a noise... but eventually you will. He can see you trembling. You're probably thinking so many horrible things right now, wondering what will happen, what he'll do to you... it fills him with a sort of sadistic glee that overrides the guilt it comes along with. Sure, the guilt is there, but fuck, he could almost cum just watching you shiver, and that's more important.
And you finally make a noise. A little whimper. He stops typing, and swears he sees you tense when he does. And when he stands up, walks over to you (making sure to stomp hard and walk slow for extra effect, watching the way you curl in on yourself with each step he takes), and stops right in front of you. Finally, tells you not to scream. He's gonna give you water, ok? You nod. And, surprisingly, you don't make any move to scream or anything, you let him give it to you. You don't move a muscle besides your shaking and sucking the straw and swallowing the water. You must be really scared of him. He knows that's technically not what he should want, but... it feels nice.
He spent that time of silence coming up with what to say to you. He says that for now, you're going to stay right here. Don't ask questions. Don't make any attempt to escape. If you really need something, tap the headboard until he hears. Understand?
You're... Surprisingly receptive. You give a twitchy smile and stammer out an o-okay. He's almost pleased, but quickly realizes what you're doing.
You've been trained for this, you see. This kind of thing is attempted rather frequently in the industry. You received training for this situation - comply, don't fight, prioritize your safety, because in 99% of these cases, the missing idol is found and recovered within 48 hours. So you do what you were told to do -- smile, pretend you're ok with it, don't do anything to anger your captor.
He knows that too. He doesn't do much in that 48 hours, in fact, he even tells you he's waiting to "see what happens." He knows he can't control himself very well, so he stays in his living room for the most part and works on research, it might be pointless if he's in jail a few hours from now, but oh well. Sleeps on his couch. He offers to feed you, but you say you don't feel good. He understands.
See, in his mind, if he gets to fuck you once or twice and then be hauled off to prison and never touch you again, well, that would be actual, literal torture, so much so that never fucking you at all would be more bearable. So that's why he forces himself to wait now. He feels like he can't breathe, he's so nervous, like any moment police are going to come knocking on his door. Every little sound makes him jump. He can't sleep.
But 48 hours pass and... nothing happens.
He breathes a bit easier. Finally dares to go online, which he's been avoiding, and check on your situation... Oh, wow, social media has exploded over your disappearance. But... They have no leads. Nothing. Says she basically vanished out of thin air. Situation is, quote, "looking hopeless." Huh. He did an even better job than he thought he did. There's videos from loved ones begging the captor to let the girl go, offering to give him money even. A lot of money. But, you're more valuable than any monetary measurements could ever conceive. And he's happy. It really worked out. Everything went right, and for once, he has something that really, really makes him happy.
Likewise, the 48 hours are even more torturous for you. You start out telling yourself it'll be fine. Hopeful. But that hope in your chest slowly, gradually dies out as you realize you've hit the 48-hour mark. Even for a normal missing person, you've always heard that if they don't find them within 48 hours... the chances of ever finding them goes down significantly. But, that's because they're usually dead, right? And this guy won't kill you, so, your chances are better, right...?
He comes back after that 48 hours and finally, for the first time since you woke up, crawls onto the bed, touches you, grabs your hips with his hands. Tells you that, well, they haven't found anything yet and it looks like they aren't going to, so you're officially his now, and he's no longer worried. You should accept it. It'll make things easier for both of you if you do. You'll get adjusted in no time, you'll see.
Unsurprisingly, you're a bit less compliant than you were when you had hope. You whimper and and struggle, but it's really weak. So much so it's cute. You ask who he is. No one important, he says. Just... A fan of yours. You can hear clothes shuffling. He doesn't waste time, he's already waited two whole days suffering, so he gets his dick in you pretty quickly. Manages to make you cum. It horrifies you and kinda surprises him too to be honest. You must kinda like pain, huh. Well, that works out well.
As time goes on, what hope you had left dies completely. Weeks pass. You realize they're not coming for you. In an attempt to get you to accept it, he even shows you that you've been replaced. They're rather quick to fix the absence. They have a new girl in your spot by the end of the month. He quickly realizes maybe he shouldn't have told you, from the way your face falls and you get all hysterical. Sorry. It's the way the industry is. Don't worry. She's not even half as cute as you.
He shows you the announcement when they close the investigation, too. This also earns a rather hysterical response, but he thinks it's important you see it, so you can finally come to terms with your fate, the way things were always meant to turn out. He gets a bit frustrated. Just accept it. It's not that hard. The sooner you do, the happier you'll be. It's for your own good that you accept it.
And you do. Try as you might. You begin to make conversation. He's the only source of interaction you have. You learn about him and his life. You become invested in it. You start to cum more easily. When he's sitting on the opposite side of the bed typing away, you find yourself slowly wiggling your way over and pressing yourself against the warmth, and he certainly doesn't mind. You ask him about his research just to hear a voice talk.
And sometimes you sing. It's absent minded, soft and quiet, when you have nothing else to do. He likes that a lot. You get sweeter. Nicer. Fight less. It does take a bit longer than two weeks to set in fully. But it does in the end.
He can't be with you 24/7, as much as he would like to be, so sometimes he has to tell you to just hang on a little while. Be good and sit still for just a bit. He'll be back soon. Just give him an hour. You're just really distracting and, well, his progress report is due tomorrow morning.
And you keep getting upset over the new member, bring it up a lot... It must have really bothered you, huh. Well, don't feel bad about being replaced. To him, nothing could ever replace you... you're still his favorite.
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storiesforallfandoms · 4 years ago
Text
small world ~ corpse husband
word count: 2053
request?: yes!
“Can I get a Corpse x fem reader where reader an corpse are both streamers and they meet each other for the first time and realize they used to know each other as kids? I know Corpse has said that he didn’t have many friends when he was younger so maybe have it where reader was someone that was really nice to him? Sorry for the long request and thank you if you do it! 😊🖤”
description: he never would’ve thought that the new addition to their friend group would be someone from his past
pairing: corpse husband x female!reader
warnings: swearing
masterlist (one, two)
Tumblr media
“Hey Corpse,” Karl said. Corpse hummed in response, focused on the drawing he was doing for their Jackbox game. “(Y/N) is also from San Diego. Do you know her?”
(Y/N) chuckled. “Karl, San Diego is pretty big. We’re not bound to know one another. Besides, just because he lives here doesn’t mean he grew up here.”
“I did grow up in San Diego actually,” Corpse said. “I don’t think we would’ve known each other though. Even if we happened to be in the same area, I didn’t talk to many people and I dropped out in the seventh grade.”
“I was, regrettably, popular in school,” (Y/N) added.
“Regrettably?” Karl asked.
“Yeah. Looking back, I hated being popular. I hated it when I was popular even. My friends were mega jerks and made fun of everyone, even me sometimes. I would try and make them be nice but they just let the popularity go to their heads. I haven’t spoken to any of them since we graduated. There was this sort of outcast in middle school I used to have a crush on. I tried to be friends with him, but he preferred to keep to himself. I always wished I had been friends with him because I feel like I would’ve been so much happier. I never saw him again either. I wonder whatever happened to him.”
Something about her story triggered a memory in Corpse. The year before he dropped out, there was a girl in is class who was always nice to him and tried to talk to him. He brushed it off as another way he was being made fun of. When it kept up, though, he realized she was likely being genuine. He still kept his distance, but he found himself gaining some feelings for her as well. When he dropped out, he never heard from her again.
I wonder where she is now, Corpse thought to himself. Man, what was her name?
Corpse accidentally gasped, drawing the attention of everyone in the Discord call.
“You good Corpse?” George asked.
“Y-Yeah,” Corpse responded. “Just uh...just realized I fucked up my idea a bit. No big deal, I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
The game started prompting for everyone to show what they had created. Taking the opportunity of not having to speak, Corpse went to Google (Y/N)’s YouTube channel. She had come into the game as a friend of Karl’s and Corpse hadn’t heard of her channel, but now somethings were starting to click together.
The first thing that popped up with the top Google Image for (Y/N)’s channel name. It was a beautiful girl laying in a garden of flowers with a wide smile on her face. Corpse sucked in a breath as he realized that the girl in the picture looked familiar.
“Corpse,” came Karl’s voice, snapping Corpse out of his trance. “It’s your turn.”
“Sorry,” Corpse said. “I was distracted.”
The rest of the stream Corpse felt like he was in a daze. He continued to play the games and forced out laughs when he realized someone was making a joke. Every time (Y/N) spoke, he felt his heart flutter with excitement. He couldn’t believe that after all these years he had finally been reunited with her. And what was better was that she had actually admitted to having feelings for him too!
Don’t get too excited, he thought to himself. She said she used to have a crush on you. That was a very long time ago.
He tried not to seem too eager when the stream finally ended. He waited for someone else to leave the call first before he exited out of it himself. He waited another few minutes before messaging (Y/N) directly on Discord.
hey. it was fun playing with you tonight. weird request, but can we voice call maybe? just the two of us?
Corpse didn’t expect her to respond any time soon. It was late in San Diego, like nearly 3am late. Most people were going to bed by now. She had mentioned once during the stream that she was starting to get sleepy. He figured she’d see it in the morning and either call, or just ignore the message.
To his surprise, near seconds later, she was calling him.
“Hey stranger,” she said when he answered. “Long time, no speak. You must’ve missed my voice a lot, huh?”
Corpse chuckled. “Exactly, I really did.”
“Makes sense. I do have the best voice on the internet.” She laughed this time. It sounded like such a perfect sound. “For real though, is everything alright? Why did you want to call?”
How did he even tell her? Hey, so you know that outcast you liked? It was me! Surprise!
No, he couldn’t say that. Maybe she wouldn’t even remember, or maybe she wouldn’t believe him. He had to figure out some way to bring it up.
“I kind of wanted to talk more about your popular school days,” he said, trying to keep his voice light and teasing. “It’s not every day I meet a streamer who’s in my own area code. It would be nice to get to know someone who isn’t like a five hour drive away.”
“Oh!” She seemed excited by this response. Her excitement was almost contagious. “Okay, where should I start? The shitty friends or the shallow popularity?”
Corpse chuckled. “You pick.”
She talked for nearly an hour about her high school experiences with her popular friend group. Despite how much she despised being popular, (Y/N) still spoke with a light tone in her voice. She tried to bypass a lot of the more negative details and speak only of the good experiences she went though, which was nice to hear.
Corpse nearly jumped with excitement when she began to talk about middle school unprompted.
“It really was the last good years I had in school,” she admitted. “All my friends, the ones who went on to be super popular with me, they were nice then. Annoying, but all middle schoolers are. We didn’t care about popularity or social rankings. We were just...we were just kids. We didn’t even really know the difference between ‘losers’ and ‘popular’, which was why it was so easy for me to talk to that guy that I liked at the time. My friends weren’t mocking me for having feelings for an outcast.”
“You said you never saw that guy again,” Corpse said. “Do you know what happened to him?”
She sighed heavily. “No, I don’t. He just stopped showing up before we hit high school. I thought he moved, but I knew his mom and I saw her around everywhere. I don’t even remember his name anymore to look him up. Wherever he is, though, I hope he’s doing better. Even if they weren’t sucked completely into their popularity at the time, my friends and the other kids were still awful to him.”
“I feel that,” he said. “I wasn’t exactly the most liked kid in school. Before I dropped out I didn’t even have any friends.”
“That’s awful.”
“It wasn’t too bad. I’m not really a friendly person I don’t think. I’ve worked on it since that time, but the thought of trying to maintain a social relationship still gives me anxiety from time to time. There was one girl who tried to be friends with me the year before I dropped out though. She was nice.”
“What happened to her?”
Corpse smiled to himself. She would figure it out soon, he knew she would.
“I just didn’t hear from her after I dropped out,” he responded. “I guess that’s mainly my fault. I never reached out to her or anything, but I barley knew her name. Just her first time, and she never gave me a number or anything. I couldn’t look her up online. Maybe we just weren’t destined to be together.”
“I don’t know about that. Maybe you two were just right people, wrong time. Maybe you’ll cross paths again and finally have that opportunity to be friends with her again.”
“Maybe you’ll cross paths with that guy from your middle school, too.”
There was a prolonged silence. Corpse wondered if (Y/N) was starting to put the pieces together. He could barley even hear her breathe. The longer she went, the more worried he was becoming. He was about to say something when she finally spoke again.
“I made him a Valentine,” she said, her voice soft. “Special handmade one. He was the only one I gave it to. It had some really badly written, sappy poem in it. I watched him open it and...I really think he got emotional while reading it. Of course, he’d never tell anyone that.”
Corpse had gotten emotional over the Valentine (Y/N) had given him. It was the first real Valentine he had ever gotten. It wasn’t one of the generic ones that everyone gave out to every classmate so no one felt excluded. It was made from the heart, and that fact alone touched his. Like (Y/N) said, though, he didn’t let anyone know how emotional he had gotten. It would’ve just been more mental ammo for them to use to bully him.
He quickly got up from his chair, racing to his room where he had his box of memories shoved in his closet. It was little things from throughout his life that he kept in a shoebox. Whenever he felt particularly down or depressed, he would open the shoebox and look at all the things that made him smile.
At the very top of the box was (Y/N)’s Valentine.
He went back to his computer and took a picture of the Valentine using his phone.
“That sounds really nice,” he said as he went into the Discord app on his voice. “It must’ve meant a lot to him that you put so much time and effort into a handmade gift.”
“I don’t know if it did. I never got to ask him what his reaction was.”
“Oh, I’d bet anything he was happy.”
He sent the picture through Discord and waited for (Y/N) to open it. The silence between them felt deafening. The seconds felt like they had slowed to hours. He wondered what (Y/N)’s reaction would be. Maybe she’d be weirded out by the fact that Corpse kept the Valentine, or by the fact that Corpse was the middle school crush in general.
What if she’s upset that this is who I am now? he asked himself. What if her crush was just a middle school thing, and the moment you dropped out she moved on?
“I knew it.”
Corpse couldn’t help the smile on his face when he heard the slight excitement in (Y/N)’s voice.
“I knew it was you!” she continued. “Well, I didn’t know know, but when you asked me to call you I had a bit of a suspicion. I can’t believe it...it’s actually you!”
“It is me,” he confirmed. “And it’s you.”
“Small world we live in, huh?”
“Yeah, small world.” Do you still like me? Did you ever stop? Do you know that your kindness stuck with me for so long?
The silence returned. Corpse was starting to get sick of it, but he didn’t know how to fill the void between them. When he heard her yawn, he realized how late it had gotten. “I’ll let you go, you sound tired.”
“We just had this breakthrough and you’re asking me to sleep?!”
Corpse chuckled. “You have to sleep eventually, (Y/N). It’s like 3:30am, normal people sleep at this hour.”
“I am offended you would think I’m anywhere near normal.” She yawned again, cutting off her short lived rant. “But you’re right, I am tired. Listen...promise me you’ll answer when I call tomorrow. I...I’d really like to catch up. Maybe...to pick up where we left off.”
“Okay,” Corpse said, then realized that wasn’t really a response. “I promise. I’ll be waiting by the phone the moment I open my peepers.”
(Y/N) giggled. “I’ll be sure to call you the moment I open mine.”
“Goodnight (Y/N). Sleep tight.”
“Goodnight Corpse underscore Husband.”
kind of a bad ending, but i wasn’t really sure where else to go with it as i wrote it. sorry! :(
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