#but i have issues. i have massive fucking issues and i had suicidal thoughts even before i left kindergarten because my early childhood

[swallowtail-ageha]

The devastating effects that my anxiety-induced ED left on my body and health and me SHing with needles when i was 15 suddenly leaving me because dafne said that my problems weren't as bad as hers because she got diagnosed with depression and i didn't:

[strayed-quokka]

babydoll || ji changmin || act ii

↳ Changmin isn’t popular nor is he rich, whereas you run on the other end of the spectrum, spoilt and living on your dads credit card. when you’re tasked with kicking him out of the biggest party of your year, you come to realise he’s not all that bad. unfortunately, falling in love with the ji changmin is your one way ticket to social suicide.

↳ pairing: ji changmin x female reader + ex lee juyeon x female reader

!!! this is not a love triangle !!!

~ rating: NC-17 minors please do not interact with this work

↳ genre: enemies to acquaintances to reluctant friends to lovers, slowburn, drama, angst, happy end but it takes a long ass time, rich girl broke ass uni boy

~ warnings: everyone still kinda sucks, juyeon is toxic and a red flag, manipulation, emotional abuse, toxic relationships, family abuse (implied, vaguely shown), bullying, reader is still a pain to deal with, alcohol, drug use, the classism is strong in this one still, implications of an eating disorder, body issues, body modifications (tongue and nipple piercings), changmin is basically a chainsmoker but we love him, minnie teaching ya'll and reader how to roll a cigarette, cocaine is common, so is imported wine, swearing, pet names (little doll, doll, darling, princess), whore and bitch, suicidal ideation, mild violence, first degree burns, taller reader with long hair, is anyone redeemable?

everyone is an adult in their 20s

!!! if I missed anything or I remember something else I will add it !!!

↳ words: 28,173

a/n: this is late. I apologise this shit is long as hell to edit and it broke tumblr and my computer.

I have said this previously but I will be stating this every chapter. There are some specific physical attributes to this reader which I usually avoid doing but for the story itself it was necessary.

Also, please note that the warnings are applicable to the chapter in question, not necessarily the whole story. You can find all the general warnings on the masterlist to babydoll. I also take no responsibility if you take issue with the topics and characters at hand once proceeding as I would hope you have read the warnings beforehand. If there is something I did genuinely miss in the warnings you are more than welcome to tell me though, since there is a lot and some might get overlooked.

let me know if you wanna be on the taglist and please I beg love up on this changmin he's taking all the strength I have and possess.

babydoll playlist || act i

You could go without hearing Changmin’s voice for the rest of your life. It’s not that it was an unattractive tone or that it was harsh, but it was the person behind it that immediately brought you to a halt. There was a very big part of you that almost knew what this was going to be about, and you were set on avoiding it. 

It was the very first time you didn’t stay to catch his attention. You walked away, heading down the stairs to the first floor in an attempt to shake him off. But Changmin was stubborn in his pursuit of you, especially today, and he persisted in running after you until he caught up and stood right in front of you to block your path. 

“Why am I wrapped up in a rumour that you want to fuck me?” 

It’s painfully embarrassing to hear those words from him. You’d expected it, given that in the past few days, the looks you’d received were ones that made you feel cornered, like prey being chased. Chanhee had even asked you, in a tone that sounded so judgemental that for a moment you thought he’d slipped into the opposing side. Juyeon’s side. 

Hyunjae had been worse. You’d deemed him a maybe friend, especially considering how he’d been standing up for you recently, but his tone, like he was amused and laughing at your massive fuck up and that it was somehow funny to him, had made you cold towards him. 

Younghoon was a nightmare. He’d grabbed your long hair by the roots and dragged you into an empty hallway to shame you. You’d embarrassed Juyeon and everyone knew about it. You fucked your ex boyfriend, used him for his money like a whore and then had the audacity to think about someone else.

It’s not like you had wanted to. 

It had been an honest mistake, a thought that fell away from you. 

Your social status had fallen to a new low. To a degree that had even Chanhee wary of speaking to you around others. You didn’t blame him, as you knew if it had been him, you’d likely cast him out much the same. See, that was the thing in both your circles, when it was all wealth and appearance and nothing of substance. Looks mattered, behaviour mattered, how awful you were to keep it perfect didn’t matter at all. 

You missed Chanhee but you didn’t beg for him. He spoke to you when he desired, asked if you were okay, even apologised once when you were alone, but the damage was done. 

Chanhee couldn’t fully understand it either. He knew you so well, he knew you’d never jeopardise yourself to this extent, so how were you possibly so stupid?

You straighten your posture but you’re more nervous than usual, hiding your palms underneath your hoodie as you fiddle with the sleeves. 

Yes, the same hoodie the man before you had returned perfectly new, wearing it like an oversized dress with heels that once again made you just a little taller, and right now, it reassured you. You were above him, both physically and in status, and that still remained true. He would never be better than you. 

“Says who?” 

You’re stoic and nonchalant in your behaviour, even ice cold as you try to keep all your expressions away from his prying eyes, but Changmin only raises his brows and leans against the wall in disbelief because he doesn’t believe it. You’re not sure why he doesn’t, anyone usually would, but he looks at you like you’re see through, like everything is laid out in front of him, like he knows you down to the bone and it makes you extremely uncomfortable to know that he’s analysing you for more than just your body. 

“Half the school is asking me why you moan my fucking name when some asshole fucks you and your concern is who?”

To be perfectly fair, both were of your concern. The fact that so many people approached a social outcast to ask him what the fuck you were doing, what you had done, all because Juyeon ran his mouth, just as much as who specifically had been the one to bring this to Changmin’s attention. 

“Juyeon?”

“No, though I hear he’s been riding out the emotionally torn up victim perfectly,” you almost laugh because you can imagine it so well. Juyeon’s ego had been bruised and he had to run around so that everyone would know about it, but you caught yourself by hiding the slight smile behind your hand. 

It wasn’t funny. 

“I really don’t care, you know? You can fantasise about me all you want. Is that why you kept my hoodie?”

He’d been so close. So close to making you take a step back, if even just for a minute to tell him it was okay. Because the reality, as much as you hated it, was that none of this was really Changmin’s fault, even if you wanted it to be. 

And then he went and ruined it, and it made you snap.

“You think I fucking like Juyeon going around telling people that I said someone else’s name when I fucked him?! Like you so graciously told me to?! 

“I didn’t-”

“Don’t you think I’m humiliated enough?! It’s so fucking embarassing that it had to be you,” and that’s when you break. The cruelty of your words aren’t lost on you, but the emotional torment and humiliation you feel is even worse. You don’t let yourself, but it happens almost on its own when you start to cry, and you never cry. 

Not like this, but the tears fall so freely that you couldn’t catch the droplets between your fingers even if you tried, and Changmin just stands there like an idiot. He stands there and you’re not sure if it’s because he’s amused in watching your vulnerability or because he genuinely feels bad, but either feel equally as bad at this point. 

You run away as a result, and this time it proves successful as Changmin doesn’t seem to be following you, so you keep going. You run all the way to your car and when the door closes you allow yourself to really break, because you feel like your life is ruined. You feel like everything you worked for, and everything that was so unbearably painful to work towards, was for nothing. People looked at you now and saw one thing. You were the one who hurt Juyeon, someone well loved, in a manner that is so utterly humiliating that anyone would say he deserved better. 

Juyeon was never the bad guy, and you just had no idea how to possibly spin it so that he could look to be the one who’d caused you more pain than you’d caused him. For the truth to your relationship had ran deep behind closed doors and you’d never let anyone in on it, and yet you slip up once and he lets the mask fall on who you are. 

At least, who you are in his eyes. 

You were sure now more than ever before that you and Juyeon were over, and it was like experiencing a break up all over again. It hurt, a lot, because there was once a time in which you would’ve said you maybe loved him. And the reality of him at the very least never caring to preserve your dignity and appearances when he knew how hard you worked for it and what you did to attain it, was a brutal reality that you simply did not want to face. 

Weeks go by and you’re sure your life has hit a wall that you’ll never get over. You felt dramatic, sure, but you were certain you could simply cease to exist and it wouldn’t really matter anymore. It wasn’t that you’d made any plans at your life. It was more so a feeling of if you faded away, would it even make a difference? 

You didn’t think it would. You’d let yourself sink to the status that Juyeon had asked for. You crashed, horrifically, falling so depressed that getting to class was a challenge, much less looking presentable. Your endless pairs of heels were replaced with trainers, ones you liked from dior but not nearly as graceful and elegant as what you usually had on, and you practically lived in hoodies that posed as dresses because they were just about long enough. 

You still wore make up, but it was far less intricate than before, and your hair was usually up in a high ponytail because you just wanted it out of your face, and you wanted to hide the fact that you barely had the energy to brush through it. 

Everything was tiring. Having everyone stare at you, treat you so far beneath yourself for something that had been no one's business was an awful, terrifyingly isolating feeling. You’d never been more aware of your appearance ever before as you were now, and yet you’d also never been as unenthused to fix it in your life. What was the point when the looks were the same. You were judged, beneath them. 

You’d sunk to Changmin’s status, and for the first time you wondered how he could do it. How was he able to brush almost anything off, to seem so unbothered, when he was being torn apart from all directions. You’d done it to him, but you’d seen others do it far worse, and yet he acted just the same. It was something you wished you knew how to mirror, for maybe then it would at least earn you some respect back where he couldn’t, because he lacked the privilege you had. 

Chanhee had brought you a coffee in the morning, your absolute favourite order and therefore you knew how expensive it was. A mix of extra shots of coffee and syrup, but it was refreshing and made you smile as he kissed the top of your head. You appreciated it more than he probably knew, because Chanhee hadn’t been around you much in recent weeks. Ever since it happened, you wouldn’t call it distance, but more missed chances to cross each other and neither of you made an effort to fix it. 

Normally, Chanhee loved to pry. He wanted all the dirt and tea he could get out of you, but it’s like he knew to not cross this line, and the end result was distance. It was ironic, really, because you could’ve really used someone to talk to. For someone to ask with a non judgemental tone what the actual fuck had happened. 

Even if in truth you didn’t fully know either where the hell you had gone wrong. 

Changmin had tried to talk to you one more time but you’d turned him away. It’s like he’d chosen the worst moment, exactly when Hyunjae and Juyeon turned the hallway towards you both, and if you had even considered staying for a bit to hear what he had to say, it all went out the window as they showed up. You turned so fast to run that the three of them would likely fail to catch you. 

Juyeon had somehow managed to spread more rumours, because the kicked little kitten had seen you with the very man you’d thought of. It felt ridiculous, even pathetic, the way he was dragging it, and yet the way you knew to stand up for yourself was entirely lost on you. You forgot to speak, forgot how to be firmly yourself with your thoughts to tell them all to go to hell. You forgot how to exist in yourself.

You went home that day and saw Changmin’s dark hoodie laying on the edge of your bed where you’d left it in the morning, and you decided you’d had enough. You weren’t a weak person, and you were letting yourself be walked over and dragged with the name of someone you didn’t even like. Why the hell would you stand for it, like he was worth more than you? 

It was five in the morning when you got ready for your lecture three hours away. You dragged yourself into your shower, your little cat watching you with peculiar eyes because you were never up this early. She knew that, so she found it rather odd and just sat there perched curiously on the counter where all your makeup was messily strewn about for someone else to clean. 

Changmin might’ve forgotten about the hoodie entirely, accepting defeat and transferring ownership, but you wanted to cut any and all strings with him. You wanted to have no part of you be intertwined with him, no association or ties that meant you even knew each other. 

And you would do it looking absolutely stunning. 

Your dress sits so tight it threatens to hurt you, but it forms around your body well and the length is just enough to be acceptable if you tape it to your thigh before it rises above your ass. Not class appropriate, but its never bothered you before. 

You decide to wear one of your three red bottom heels, the highest ones you own, the colour black to go with the same coloured dress, paired with your silver jewellery. The ridiculous hoodie in your hand ruins the entire aesthetic, but at least you’d be rid of it soon. 

When your driver drops you off at school, you make the not so unusual albeit stupid decision to cut a line of cocaine on a small piece of decorated glass that you keep in the car to break and distribute the powder into lines, because you’re tired as hell and have to withstand a lot of stares today. That, and you would willingly go looking for Changmin, his piece of clothing hidden away, folded neatly and delicately in a discarded designer shopping bag from one of your many expensive trips on your exes dime. 

Maybe you needed a cigarette. A bottle of wine wouldn’t hurt either.

“You look very nice today,” it was a careful voice, Hyunjae, but you frowned when you turned to look at him. He was alone, well dressed with a cologne you couldn’t recognise, rare in your case, but nice. It wasn’t overbearing, and it mirrored the man in front of you quite well. 

“Since when do you take the time to give me a compliment?”

“I just think you look nice,” he sounds honest and sincere, which in truth you do believe he means. You don’t think he’s carelessly choosing to say words to make you feel better, but it still doesn’t sit well with you, so you smile at him gently and touch his shoulder to squeeze it and ask for his attention.

“Well don’t, Jae,” he lets you leave, and you’re determined more than anything to find the man you wish to blame everything on. There’s a bounce to your step, wide awake now as the drug infiltrates your bloodstream, and you’re almost a little excited to get it all over with. 

You’re even more excited at the prospect of dragging Juyeon down beneath you, but that was for later.

You’d just about given up on finding Changmin when after your final class, the library proved successful in your search. However, it also proved to be a mistake. You’re not sure what the reason is, but seeing Changmin makes you stop. You hit that familiar wall, except now it's a dam and it’s threatening to break. And if it breaks, so do you. 

You’re emotionally charged in a way you don’t want to be, simply because you see him standing there, reaching for a book dressed in a simple t-shirt with his glasses perched over his nose that looks almost crafted from the side at which you're standing. It hits you suddenly, that you find Changmin to be physically beautiful. Even when he isn’t well dressed, there is a simplicity to him that is welcoming, and it makes you want to turn away. 

He notices you, probably because a shadow loomed to his side and he was notified of your presence because you simply stood there. He’s carrying three books, and you wonder what they are, but then he moves towards you with a confused stare that has you thinking you couldn’t do this. 

“Is there something on my face?”

His voice breaks you free from your mind in which you are a prisoner, or at least feel like one with your overwhelming thoughts that you simply never wish to have. Everything seems so easy for him, talking to you seems simple, and you’re wondering why you can’t formulate words to return it when it shouldn’t require any effort at all. 

“I have your hoodie,” you keep your voice low just in case, but he hears it and seems to curiously perk up at the prospect of getting his clothes back. 

“Oh? I figured you were keeping that,” honestly, so did you. You’d really wanted to, because it was still insanely comfortable to you. You loved it, in truth, for the way it wrapped around you felt soft, like you were nestled up in something that wouldn’t hurt your skin and never sat too tight just to form your body a certain way. 

“I don’t want anything that ties me to you,” you wonder if it stings, when you insult him like this, but he makes no face that tells you it does. He’s perfect at hiding how he feels, and you nearly wish to ask him how he does it. How does he remain so okay, when things so cruel and hurtful are thrown his way? 

You wish to emulate it, even in this moment, but you can’t. 

It’s the one part of him you wished you could learn to take for yourself.

“Are you okay?” 

Those three words hit you like a knife straight through your chest, reverberating deep in your bones as your entire resolve breaks. Your walls fall apart yet again and he’s the one to do it, because in truth you aren’t and he’s the only one to even ask the questions in weeks apart from Chanhee. People you consider your friends, or would consider anything at this point that Changmin isn’t, haven’t even asked, and yet he stands before you and doesn’t even seem to stumble over the words to pose the question. 

And it makes you cry. 

It’s absolutely humiliating to cry like this and the mascara burns your eyes in an instant, and yet every effort to stop forsakes you because it all makes it worse. Changmin stands there so awkwardly, like he might have ways to comfort someone but no ways of knowing how to comfort you, and you’re fairly certain he wishes to turn away because he finds it uncomfortable to simply stand here with you, in a corner, far from others yet not far enough that no one could see if they didn’t go to look

“I… listen… I really didn’t mean to make you cry,” you can tell he doesn’t like it. Maybe because it’s you or he’s uneasy by it in general, but it fills you up with even more embarrassment as you try to will your body to walk away. Yet you’ve turned to stone, accepting your humiliation because how much lower could you go before his eyes? You’ve broken entirely and he’s witnessed almost every second of your demise as you became nothing of value to absolutely everyone around you. You really were like a whore.

“Can you just t-take it?” 

Forcing the bag into his fingers doesn’t work, and you note for the first time the silver rings he wears. You’re surprised you missed it before, or maybe he wasn’t always wearing them, but they’re intricate in their simplicity and you wish to have a closer look, though you wouldn’t be the one to ask. 

“Listen… I know you have some pathetically unjustified hatred towards me-” you scoff, only to prove his point that has him rolling his dark brown eyes because he’s exasperated that you simply can’t let him finish, “I also find you incredibly fucking annoying and a raging bitch-”

“Hey!” 

You want to hit him, yet you’re not going to disagree with him. You know how to hurt people well, how to manipulate a situation and how to come out on top above everyone else and so it earned you occasionally negative titles that were sometimes deserved. 

Nevertheless you weren’t quite sure what he was getting at. 

“Do you want to get some ice cream?”

Whatever it was, it hadn’t been that. You hadn’t expected to be asked to go anywhere with him, and yet here you both were, in a position of vulnerability for him and one even more for you. You were conflicted and uncertain in what you’re answer should be, because even if your first thought was to say no and reject him, it wasn’t what you truly wanted. 

“What?”

“Ice cream makes anything better. Don’t you think?” 

Well, no, you didn’t think so, for it added weight where you didn’t need it, and yet you didn’t want to turn him away. You were upset, evidently, and he was trying to do something to bring a smile to your lips and you hated that it felt like it was working. It shouldn’t be working, and yet you were heavily considering it. 

“Fine, but I don’t need us to leave together.”

“I have another class, anyway,” but the way he spoke made you wonder if he’d been willing to skip it, if you’d immediately said yes to something you’d never thought you’d hear him ask. He almost seemed bitter but you weren’t quite able to feel bad. 

But you wouldn’t mind ice cream, if you were honest.

“I can meet you there,” Changmin seems surprised, perking up in a way that is strangely endearing yet you refuse a smile, waiting for him to tell you where to go. 

“It's just a ten minute walk from here. Amorino, I think.”

You’d heard of it, but in truth you’d never been, but it was meant to be good for the little it cost, so maybe it was worth a try. 

“Fine. I’ll be there,” you’d get some of your assignments done, maybe, but first you’d need to spend the next hour in front of a mirror so that you didn’t look like an absolute mess, even when you felt like one. Changmin looked like he wanted to say something else, but he bit his tongue and walked away from you with your hands still firmly latched around the strap of your shopping bag. You wondered if he’d intentionally left it in your grasp, if there was a reason he was no longer so hellbent on getting it back, but you weren’t going to dwell on it. 

And you were not keeping it any longer either. If anything, you’d blame your willingness and brief vulnerability to say yes on the fact that you simply just wanted to be rid of him, and that included the item you were holding. 

You almost wished the rain had put him off from walking through the glass doors that led inside a sickly sweet smelling cafe, slightly cool because of the various ice cream needing the lower temperature. Sadly, it hadn’t, and Changmin walked in just a little over an hour after you had taken a seat in a corner far inside the shop, hoping that if anyone you knew would walk past, they wouldn’t recognise you. When he spots you, he seems almost as apprehensive as you to approach, brushing through his matted down wet strands of dark hair to move them away from his forehead. 

“I’m surprised you’re here,” it seems true. Like he hadn’t expected you to really show up and in truth it seemed like the most reasonable assumption to make, because you really had no idea either. 

“Me too,” he smiles at you and it makes you uncomfortable, for the shift in the way he treated you seemed disingenuous, yet nothing about it told you that his kindness in looking at you wasn’t real. It’s like you’d genuinely managed to amuse him with little to no effort, after the countless times in which you were a pain in his ass. 

“Do you know which flavour you’d like?”

“I… honestly can’t decide,” it all sounded heavenly. You couldn’t remember when you’d last indulged in a sweet treat like this, even if it hadn’t been intentional to go so long without. It just never came to be for a very long time and suddenly you were overwhelmed with flavours that you wanted to try. You could’ve eaten half the menu, and yet you barely desired one in terms of calories.

“I think you can choose up to three for one cone,” three seemed absurd. It seemed excessive and yet the temptation to try three was so overbearing that you wanted to give in.

“Are you having three?”

“Probably,” you nod, falling silent because you really don’t know how to talk to him normally. Changmin was a stranger to you, and you fully realise it when you sit across from him and realise that you don’t know him at all. You don’t know who he is, how he thinks, aside from what he tells you, and the only other thing you know is what he looks like, and that he often adjusts his glasses as if they sit just a little too big. 

“I can order for us both,” he offers, breaking you out of your trance to once again be reminded of how strange this is. You don’t like Changmin, yet sitting with him like this is simple. It’s weird, but it’s easier than expected. It’s very awkward, but it’s simple. 

“You don’t have to order for me.”

“It was an offer, not a demand,” you roll your eyes, though his kindness isn’t lost on you and you’re once again sat here wondering what you’re really doing, and wondering why Changmin’s shift in personality was so sudden but genuine. 

“Stracciatella, dulce de leche and coffee.”

“I can tell you’re rich,” you wonder if it’s an insult, but if it is he’s smiling and that almost makes it worse. You know how to do it best, smile through something you didn’t mean, or something that was an insult but you wanted the other person to maybe have hope that it wasn’t meant that way. Or maybe he was joking, and the slight tease just went way over your head. 

“What’re you think?” 

“Vanilla, lemon and amarena,” you nod, as if to just tell him you were listening but have nothing to say. 

“But I’m the rich one,” it’s your way of figuring out if he was teasing too, by doing so back and seeing what his reaction will be. Changmin seems amused and you relax in knowing that he wasn’t mocking you. 

“What’s wrong with those flavours?”

“Nothing,” you draw out, staring back at the menu to decide on a coffee, “I’ll get a drink.”

Changmin seems to hesitate just briefly and realisation dawns on you. You’ve always looked down on him for having less money, for not affording things, but it didn’t cross your mind that he might not even be able to afford this. The issue then became that you had no idea how to delicately approach it. 

“I’ll pay for it,” you tell him, but there’s surprise on his face and a hint of frustration, and you wonder if you read it all wrong. 

“I’m not in poverty, you do know that, right?”

Honestly, you didn’t. It might’ve been embarrassing to admit but you weren’t quite sure at what point someone was considered within poverty because very often, your parents had shown you that even the most common ordinary people lacked money and therefore weren’t content in life. You had no real way of measuring what was really considered little. Hell, you barely knew what your family had in regards to wealth, because you rarely looked at the money you spent. You knew you always had it, so you spent it, without having to think about it. 

In your mind, anyone that had to consider their spending was poor. 

Sat here now with Changmin was probably the first moment in which you briefly think that might’ve been wrong. That maybe he was cautious with money but not without it. If he was without it, he would likely not be as inviting to sit with and dressed the way he was, even if you’d never buy clothes like the ones he wore. 

“I’d still like to pay,” you offer, and you’re not really sure why. You’re here to give him this stupid bag that’s been weighing down on your mind all day as you chased after him, and maybe you’re also hoping to buy his silence on the fact that you cried before him and have done so twice now. 

“I invited you here,” he was right. Usually, at least how you were raised, the one inviting the other is the one to pay unless otherwise agreed, which had never been the case for you before, yet it was now. 

“And I’m telling you to let me pay.”

“You’re really demanding you know?”

You knew. It’s how you got what you wanted, to make demands rather than ask questions. Changmin seems displeased but he doesn’t argue with you, shrugging his jacket off to drape it over the chair before he gets up and waits. 

“What?” 

“You’re not coming with?”

“Just take my card. Three, five, seven, two,” you hold it out to him between your long manicured nails and he looks at you like you’re insane. It’s another reminder of how different you two are, of how giving him access to sums he’s never even seen or hoped to dream of meant absolutely nothing to you, because it really didn’t.

“Thanks?”

Changmin walks away, but it’s only brief before he’s turned back around to approach you, “which coffee did you want?”

“A latte macchiato,” he nods, leaving you alone with your thoughts again as you watch his back. The weather has since gotten worse, but it’s quite cosy from here, to simply watch the rain fall, the droplets chasing after one another from top to bottom, only to repeat over and over again in different patterns. The heating was on too, and it was quite comfortable to simply sit here. 

The girl at the counter smiles at Changmin in a way that makes you want to turn away, not because someone flirting with him bothers you, but because you can’t believe how ridiculous she’s being in doing so. He’s here with you, and she’s practically begging for it. 

Whatever she says, he seems polite but distant enough for her to straighten her posture and adjust her smile to a more professional one, and so you take that as a rejection on his part. You’re not sure why you find that so satisfying, that she didn’t get her way, but you’re happy about it regardless as he’s handed two ice cream cones that seem far more intricate than you’d expected. 

It’s only when he comes closer that you realise that the ice cream has been layered together to form the shape of multiple rose petals and ultimately a flower, three separately assorted colours that make up the flavours you asked for, “they’re still making the coffees.”

“Thanks,” you take the ice cream from him carefully, admiring its shape and look. It’s beautiful, really, and it does put a gentle smile on your face as you manage a little laugh in amusement, “it’s pretty.”

You wonder if Changmin knew how they put the ice cream together. If maybe he suggested this place because he figured something as simple as an ice cream shaped like beautiful petals belonging to a rose would cheer you up or make you feel better for the absolute mess that had become your life. For the emotional turmoil you felt as you fell in importance and high regard in others’ eyes. 

You mattered less to almost everyone you knew and it bothered you greatly.

Both of you fall silent, likely because neither of you have anything to say. There’s nothing to talk about, not between the two of you, and there’s no attempt at changing it either. Neither of you want to become friends, and yet here you both sit being friendly. 

How strange the world worked sometimes.

“I’m sorry Juyeon’s such a dick to you,” it takes you by complete surprise to hear him speak, and whilst normally you’d find yourself frustrated to hear him even bring it up again, it’s oddly comforting to hear an opinion you agree with, albeit planned to have kept from Changmin. You want him to believe that things are perfect, that you and Juyeon are perfect, because you hold on to the false belief that maybe it would be. 

“Juyeon’s just… a guy, I guess.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” you wonder why he says it. If he’s trying to tell you he’s better than Juyeon and if so, why it would matter. You have no interest in him and never would, so there was no need for Changmin to make himself better than the man you somehow spent still loving, despite all his horrifying flaws.

And there were many of them, and yet you still saw it with rose tinted glasses. Whilst aware of it, it mattered less to you. 

“I don’t plan to ever have sex with you if-“

“That wasn’t an invitation,” again, your eyes roll almost instantly. He’s too good at being frustrating, and he sits there with his body leaned forward like he’s engaged in you while he takes a bite of his ice cream. 

A bite.

“You’re insane. Why do you bite it?”

“It’s food?”

“It’s cold.”

“Why would I want to just lick it? I barely get any ice cream and then it melts.”

You watch as he bites into another petal and you push your body up a little to see what flavour it might’ve been. 

“Vanilla,” he answers and you nod, sitting back with your one leg crossed over the other.

“Isn’t vanilla a little plain?”

“Is that a double entendre?”

It’s so easy to give up when the conversation is so static, so forced because you truly have nothing to talk about. What the hell do you both even have in common?

“I have a cat,” Changmin laughs and it’s a little unexpected, his smile so light and his dimples set deep in his cheeks. It’s an inviting smile, warm, and his tone of laughter is unique and suits him. There’s a childlike amusement to his features as he looks down at the table. 

“I also have a cat,” you were curious to see her, or him, but you didn’t really want to ask. Both of you sharing photos of your pets over ice cream and coffee was a little bit too friendly, but you supposed there was now something you had in common, “but I don’t really like cats.”

Nevermind.

“Then why do you have one?”

He thinks, just for a minute as he drinks some of his coffee that had been brought over just a few short minutes before, and you must say now you really want to know why he has a pet he doesn’t even like. 

“I found him on the streets. He was put in a box and it was raining. Wasn’t going to take him first because I didn’t want one. But when I went to call someone in the shop nearby, he’d somehow jumped out of the box and started to follow me. He just wouldn’t leave.”

It was unexpectedly sweet and very much something you would’ve never considered. Of course your cat was store bought, expensive and from a litter from a breeder that had done this for the past decade or two. Getting a cat of the streets, even if unintentionally was so out of your character, but you knew when to admit you found it to be kind of Changmin to have done so. 

“You kept him?”

“I did. He’s very sweet.”

“Chanhee says my cat is a diva.”

“So she takes after you. Figures,” you could hit him, but you bite your tongue and try a new flavour of the ice cream petals. Coffee. Definitely. 

The conversation dies again when it would be so easy to keep it going, but it’s like neither of you have any desire to do so. And yet, you find yourself far more at ease sitting here than you would’ve thought when you first agreed to it. You didn’t feel like you had to make up the silence that you both shared.

He seemed to share the same thoughts, though he didn’t often share eye contact with you. You weren’t sure if he was hesitant to or maybe he just didn’t want to look at you, but previous times you’d met him, he’d always been good at looking you in the eye. It was a little strange that he seemed to look everywhere else but at you now, unless you spoke. 

“You smoke, right?” Painful. These occasional conversations littered into being sat here were just simply weird, but you watch as he grabs a bag of loose tobacco out of his jacket as well as some rolling paper and a filter. 

“Didn’t you smoke straights last time?”

“You remember?”

Fuck. 

“I didn’t forget you offering me one,” he shrugs and you watch as he distributes the tobacco onto the paper carefully between his jewellery adorned fingers. It was distracting and you could curse again for it, because he was doing it all effortlessly with one hand. 

“You want one now?” 

“I can do it…” he seems to hesitate though ultimately pushes the bag of tobacco over to your end of the table, and you fiddle with the cone of your ice cream between your one hand whilst figuring out how to do this with the other. Actually, how the fuck had Changmin done this? 

“How did you-”

“Put it on the table first. You can roll with one hand,” he was definitely more confident in your abilities than you were, and maybe that was sweet but it was also giving you far more credit than you deserved. 

You didn’t even want to admit that you couldn’t roll a cigarette at all. You always bought straights, the times you bought any at all. Doing it yourself seemed like extra effort for not much pay off. 

You try to mirror Changmin, seeing how much tobacco he used and loosening up the dried leaves between your fingers the way he had done as they all clung together in the bag, then adding a generous amount to the paper you’d taken out of its flat packaging. 

“Do you always smoke American spirit?”

“I tend to. Or marlboro. Why?”

You shrug, going back to what you’re doing but you very quickly realise you’ll need both hands. Watching him do it, pushing and pinching the thin paper together to tighten the tobacco with two fingers, maybe three at best, was ridiculous. 

“Do you want me to hold your ice cream?”

At this point, you’re determined to prove both him and you that you can do this, when you know the reality is you can’t. Changmin doesn’t know that though, and how hard could it be to roll a cigarette, really?

“You can have it.”

“You have more than half left,” he frowns, putting his nearly rolled cigarette down on the table as he holds your ice cream, watching you and the way your fingers take both ends of the paper to pinch it together, “is it not good?”

“It’s nice. It’s not the flavour,” hopefully, he knows to drop the conversation. Though you look up and can tell by his expression that he likely wants to keep asking but you don’t see why you should need to justify it. 

“You need to… no… you have too much,” he sighs, wanting to reach over but both his hands are occupied with both of your ice cream cones and so he can only sit trapped wishing to intervene as you try to make adjustments when he complains with no real instructions as to how you can do it better, “you’ve never done this before.”

“So I’ve been caught,” as if one of the cafe staff had noticed him struggling, they bring over a holder for two ice cream cones that are scattered on a few tables, yours not having been one of them. 

“Thank you,” he redirects his attention to you, hands free, “look, I’ll teach you,” you scoff, crossing your arms as you’ve let go of the damaged bundle of tobacco in a scrunched up paper, looking between its state and back up at Changmin. You didn’t want him to teach you anything, because you didn’t think he had anything worth showing you. Yet at the same time, you didn’t enjoy not knowing how to do something, and if he was willingly prepared to show you how to actually do it, maybe you shouldn’t deny him. 

“I don’t really smoke…” 

“I won’t encourage you to,” he grabs another rolling paper, holding it out to you and you hesitate but ultimately take it between your fingers as he does the same, ignoring his near finished cigarette to start over, “but I smoke a lot, so I’ll take it off your hands if you don’t want it.”

“You’ll get cancer,” you’re disgusted but you don’t have much of a right to be. You smoke too and do far worse things. Every party could bring you to the brink of death if you aren’t careful enough with what you’re using, and yet you’re telling him he’s risking his life. 

“Thanks, the packaging hadn’t told me,” you recognise Changmin’s sarcastic tone well by now, given that it’s the tone he mostly spoke to you in, but you also don’t retaliate this time. You had nothing to say, nothing to add that wouldn’t be another circular back and forth of neither of you ever getting to the point or settling a fight. 

“The tobacco is quite tight, so you’ll have to loosen it with your fingers a little before you put it on the paper.”

“What about the filter?”

“It’s harder to roll with a filter. Try without first,” but you’re stubborn, and you grab a filter and bring it to one edge of the rolling paper before he can take it away from you. Sighing, he relents and grabs one too to demonstrate more accurately. 

“You’re ridiculous,”

“And I won’t be caught dead smoking a non filtered cigarette.”

“You should try it. The nicotine high is amazing,” okay, so maybe you’d reconsider. You’d never thought of it, even if it was obvious, “you’re curious now.”

“I might be,” Changmin smiles and your cheeks feel a little warmer, but surely it’s the warm coffee and the indoor heating and not the fact that he looked at you with eyes that were gentle, like his happiness in showing you something wasn’t structured into an act of false behaviour.

Then you wonder why it makes any difference. If he wasn’t being genuine, did it matter?

He leans back over and slips the filter away from your paper, then adjusts and sits up a little straighter before his body moves back into your space to be a little closer to demonstrate. 

“So, you loosen some of the tobacco between your fingers. This one is quite dry- and then you bring it onto the paper like so,” you follow his lead, though you could’ve managed this part on your own. This was the one part you’d done correctly without his help, “you want it to be pretty even but don’t worry about it not being perfect.”

“It has to be perfect,” he sighs, his head rolling down in defeat before he slowly looks back up at you. 

“Perfection is an unattainable fantasy. Now take your fingers and move them to either edge and pinch while rolling it like so.”

You follow his lead though if you’re entirely honest, you have no idea how he makes it look so easy and effortless. His tobacco bunches together into a beautiful neat line perfectly, whilst yours is a disaster in which it falls or thins out too much on one end. It feels awkward and incorrect, the way you do it, and yet you’re following his exact instructions. 

“You’re terrible at this.”

“Or you suck at teaching,” giving up was tempting, but showing Changmin defeat wasn’t an option. You wanted to get this, no matter how awful the end outcome would be. 

“You have the ends. Move your fingers more into the middle to roll.”

“It doesn’t work like that!”

He looks exasperated, his glasses moving slightly as he raises his brows and huffs out in annoyance at your inability to do something he deemed simple, “you’re just bad at this. That’s okay.”

“Absolutely not. I’m not bad at things.”

“Just roll the paper over once you have the right shape. Wet the end and seal it and then you can tap the end against the table,” he shows you how, but he does it so quickly you barely manage to follow his movements. He’s amazing at it, you do have to admit, but you hate him for it because you want to be better. It’s irrational, because how realistic is it for you to be better at rolling a cigarette when you’d never done it before, when Changmin had probably done it for years?

“It’s not tight like yours though.”

“Just try. You have the movement right,” but it doesn’t feel right. It feels awkward and you might just blame it on your acrylics for not managing, but the end result is so pathetic that you’re surprise the cigarette even holds. 

“It’s… a cigarette.”

“I’m not smoking that,” Changmin doesn’t seem surprised, but he does surprise you when he places his perfectly rolled cigarette right before you and takes yours instead, placing it behind his ear before retrieving his jacket and taking his melting ice cream, “you coming?”

Well, you suppose you were now. 

You grab the bag with his hoodie in one hand, Changmin’s cigarette in the other as you follow him outside, leaving your ice cream to melt before it’s thrown away. It’s not unnoticed by him either, and he turns around to grab it between his fingers, “if you won’t have it, I will. You’re wasting money and good ice cream.”

“I’m watching my figure.”

“Why?”

He holds both cones in one hand with their remnants of sweet gelato, placing his cigarette between his lips and lighting it with one hand turned away from the storm and rain. The shop has an overhang to shield you both from direct downpour, but lighters are stubborn with wind and he seems to know it well. 

His one worded question seems strange. It’s not worried, nor is it judgemental. At least you don’t perceive it to be. It’s simply confused, like he’s genuinely surprised that you would even bother at all. 

“Because I want to be thin.”

Changmin wants to say something. You can tell he does, that there’s something right on his lips yet he doesn’t speak it. He resists words he probably knows you really don’t want to hear. He would be right, because any comments about your body aren’t welcomed unless they’re compliments that remind you of what you’ve worked for. All the times you don’t eat are rewarded with the acknowledgement of it. 

“Here,” he holds out his lighter, the flame igniting right by your lips in which the cigarette is perched carefully, and you lean in enough and inhale so that it burns. 

“Thanks.”

“You really are peculiar,” you don’t see how you are. From your point of view, he’s the abnormal one. He dresses cheap despite the school he attends, he doesn’t socialise, and he seems so ignorant to his surroundings and the importance of appearance, “I have to go.”

It takes you by surprise. Your thoughts had been so tangled and convoluted that you hadn’t seen him take his phone out, much less fumble with the ice cream, his cigarette and the device to answer whoever it was. 

You wondered who it was. 

“Who is it?”

You can’t help it. Call it morbid curiosity, even in regards to Changmin of all people, “I completely forgot I have a date.”

The thought of anyone going out with Changmin was a concept you weren’t ready to wrap your head around, but maybe if it was a girl he’d met online, she’d based it merely on appearance and even you wouldn’t fully be able to say that he was ugly. You knew he wasn’t, as much as it pained you to admit he was actually rather beautiful when he didn’t open his mouth. 

“Is she cute?”

“She’s cute, yeah,” but he doesn’t seem excited. It almost feels like an insult to hear how he speaks about the prospect of his date. Were all men like this?

Had Juyeon been so disinterested when he first dated you?

“You’re going dressed like this?”

“What’s wrong with it?” 

Boy, he really wasn’t trying. It felt near cruel, because you were almost certain that the girl would be beautiful, and even if her physical appearance wasn’t as gorgeous, she would make up for it in every way with the way she chose to dress. 

And Changmin was in casual attire, his hair had fallen to his face and he seemed tired. 

“Poor girl.”

“It’s really not your business,” and then he discards his cigarette and grabs the bag you’d been holding without warning, practically ripping it out of your hand and the movement feels more aggressive than you’re used to from him. His tone could be harsh but his actions never were, and so it surprised you when he didn’t even ask to take it. 

“Thank you for the hoodie.”

He doesn’t sound thankful at all. Changmin sounds annoyed, as he throws the little remnants of ice cream cone with next to no ice cream left, in the trash he passes as he walks away from you. You stand there, empty handed aside from the cigarette that was burning but barely smoked, and you honestly feel lost. You’re strangely confused and unsure, and you really don’t quite know why.

You felt like maybe you’d managed to really get under his skin, and if that were the case, you were sure it was the first time you’d ever managed it. Yet you’d expected it to feel different, to frustrate him enough to show true emotion in his anger and discontent towards you. 

Instead it just felt like nothing.

You’re not sure what to make of Changmin. But you had bought a packet of loose tobacco and pink rolling paper to fiddle with in the comfort of your large bedroom. You were near naked, just out of your shower and only in underwear whilst you fiddled around with the cigarette in your hand. It was fucking difficult, and you’d probably gone through ten different videos on youtube teaching you how to do it. At least trying to, and each time you just failed to fully do it right. 

Juyeon had called you and while you’d originally wanted to pick up and even thought to, by the time you made any attempt to move your hands, he’d already hung up.

Chanhee had also called though and you had picked up, asking how he was though he pushed for you to answer first, and you hadn’t known what to say. You felt fine yet simultaneously you felt strangely numb. It wasn’t that you didn’t care, it’s that Juyeon had worn you down. He’d broken something in you and collecting the pieces wasn’t possible because not all parts still existed. 

Convincing yourself that it was over was difficult when Juyeon was right there to call back. 

You wanted to. 

It takes about ten failed attempts at rolling a cigarette before you manage one that’s just decent enough to smoke, and in your mind you wish to share your success with Changmin, since he was the one that had witnessed your inability to do it in the first place. You wanted to prove a point, as petty and unimportant as it was. You could roll a damn cigarette. 

But you’d rather roll over in your grave than ask anyone for his phone number. If anyone even had it. He’d said he was supervising a friend the night you first really spoke to him but you’d yet to see him talking with anyone at all. Who was Changmin friends with, if anyone at all?

The question dwelled on you curiously. You didn’t think he’d lied to you that night, you had to at least give him the benefit of his annoying ability to always speak what you assumed to be his truth. He didn’t care of the consequence or if it hurt, and you supposed maybe that was where your one similarity lay. 

If you hurt someone, it didn’t really matter as long as it made you look good.

“Dear? Could I come in?” 

Your mother being home was unexpected. Her knocking on your bedroom door to ask if she could come in was even stranger. It made you worry, and you quickly discarded all your rolled cigarettes in a drawer as well as any other damning evidence aside from the one now considered a masterpiece to show off. You placed it behind your ear and straightened your posture, “yeah?”

“You need to draw the curtains,” she criticised, walking over to the massive window to give you far more than you bargained for with the natural sunlight despite the depressing clouds, “and we do not smoke indoors.”

“I’m not smoking it!”

“Attitude,” you want to sigh but you’re sure that runs in the same category as what she’d just warned you about in your tone, so you bite your tongue and just wait to hear what she wants. 

“I’ve been told you’ve missed a lot of your classes.” 

“By who?” 

“We had dinner with the Lee’s. Juyeon expressed his concern over you. Why you ever broke up with that handsome young man is beyond me, Y/N,” yeah, it was beyond you too, at this point. Clearly you were the fucking idiot, as everyone so rightfully had begun to assume. Juyeon was the perfect man, one most girls would probably dream of and you had him. You had him, and you wasted the opportunity to be happy with him. 

And what for? 

“I know, mother.”

“You should come with this time. Maybe you can both make up before we go on that lovely vacation together.”

“What…?”

She stands by the edge of your bed with condescending eyes that look down on you and make you feel small, which was ironic because your mother was about a head shorter than you and incredibly petite, but her personality was so in your face, her stare so cold that it made you feel like nothing. She made you feel insignificant and she did so perfectly. 

“Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten? You’ve always been forgetful,” you cast your eyes down to your lap, listening to her berate you and having no real way of defending yourself without it earning you a slap or worse. 

“I’m sorry. Just have a lot on my mind.”

“Go on a walk. You could go to the docks on one of the boats. I don’t care. But stop missing classes because I will not have a failure of a child when she gets everything handed to her,” it stings. It really stings to be insulted so genuinely. Your grades were by no means terrible and your mother rarely cared before about any of your stupid behaviour, but you supposed as soon as your mask slipped and you fell towards lower status, she could sense it like a blood hound and she was intent on destroying you to a point in which you’d need to remodel yourself to be perfect again. 

You were grateful for her, because she knew how to shape you into someone you wanted to be. 

“And invite Juyeon if you’re taking the boat out!”

She leaves without another glance your way and you feel like nothing, but you also call Juyeon, so you suppose her harsh words and loveless demeanour worked. They worked at beating you down and you listened to her, but you couldn’t say you weren’t at least a little relieved when Juyeon didn’t pick up at first.

“What?”

Damn it. 

“You called me first.”

“And now you’re calling me back,” it felt like a game. It was constant at this point and it never felt healthy and yet you knew no better. You weren’t dumb but Juyeon had an incredible way of making you appear to be the greatest idiot. 

“My mother wants us to take the boat out,” you wait for a response, not hearing one first until there’s shuffling on the other line. 

“Just us?”

“Well, she likes you,” you add, which you knew would work well for his bruised ego. Juyeon loved being told he was liked and you knew how to feed into it well. You’d spent years learning the intricacies that made up Lee Juyeon, and you doubted that would ever fully go away. You weren’t sure if you wanted it to go at all. 

“Have you told her why I haven’t been around?”

“You could always tell her yourself. She hates me enough, you can’t make it worse,” you hear him on the other end and you hope he feels bad for you. You want him to, even if it’s just for a little moment. 

“That’s just not as fun,” he breaks your illusioned disbelief that he could be sympathetic towards you and you wish yet again for your remaining feelings to go away. 

Instead, you decide to be stupid and slip up. 

“I really loved you.”

The silence is so painfully long you could honestly throw yourself out the two story window of the view your mother had just revealed to you moments before. 

“You don’t love me anymore?”

The way you fell into his traps was so effortless. Juyeon wasn’t having to really try and yet you fell right into his hand every time without fail. You were so drawn to him and you couldn't tell for what reason. Because in truth you didn’t really see yourself as wanting a relationship with him, he was an asshole and yet you ran in circles because you somehow still liked him despite it all. 

“Juyeon…”

“Do you love me?”

He asks it again and the question is a demand for you to answer and yet it doesn’t come naturally to you the way you want it to. It feels false, maybe because you know you’re walking yourself into a trap. Yet the trap being laid out for you to see doesn’t hinder you any less from falling into it because of the reward you see in the midst of it. 

“I love you.”

“Then why don’t we celebrate?”

A yacht party was not at all what you had in mind when celebrating your pathetic attempt at clearing your image by being back on Juyeon’s side. But Juyeon had insisted and your mother had somehow overheard at some point and was practically beaming just at the prospect of Juyeon being back on one of your family boats. Her timing was masterful and you hated everything about it. 

You also hated the looks you were getting, judgement, whilst Juyeon was on the opposite end of the yacht gleaming and taking in every ounce of sympathy like it fed him. He’d so graciously forgiven you, told everyone that it was an honest mistake and that he understood you both were over, and now everyone stood at his feet as if ready to do any and all of his bidding.

It was insufferable.

“I think he likes attention more than you,” Chanhee mumbles, standing next to you now with a champagne flute between his delicate fingers and you turn to him with a frown on your face. 

“I think it’s pathetic.”

“I’d agree,” your best friend leans back a little, staring into the dark water as night time beams above you in the shape of a crescent moon, “but you go for it every time.”

“I’m not here for a lecture,” you have a sip of your drink, grimacing at the strength of it. You’d been a little too generous on the rum, even for your standards, but you need the alcohol if you’re going to get through this night out on open water. 

“Have you seen the new kids?”

Chanhee nudges you towards another direction, one that has two younger men downing a glass of something each, and being urged on to do so by Younghoon and Hyunjae. Juyeon was now talking to a girl you didn’t care to know the name of, but he occasionally glanced over too. 

“Freshmen?” 

“Mhmm, one of them is kinda cute, no?”

You give your best friend an odd look before glancing back over. They both look young, not older than twenty, playful and energetic and so full of life that you wonder when that’ll go away. You wonder when both of them will realise the world is dark and being so carefree was simply being naive. 

“Which one?”

Chanhee gestures to the one on the left, with dark hair and full lips that you’re sure has made girls jealous in the past, and if not jealous, at least more than willing to kiss him. He seemed to know it too, because something about him felt cocky and maybe even arrogant, despite his sweet playful smile and loud laugh that you could hear from this far away. 

The other, a striking blonde colour of hair that he’d definitely bleached with a sharp pointed nose that seemed surgical, making you wonder if he’d invested in a nose job as soon as he’d turned eighteen. It wouldn’t surprise you if he had, for if it was real it was almost absurdly perfect. 

“Juyeon invited them?” Chanhee shrugs, though given that neither you nor your best friend seemed to have any clue on who they were and had no influence on them showing up, you were almost certain it was Juyeon. It was near confirmed when your recent lover approached the blonde and wrapped an arm over his shoulder, ruffling through his hair playfully though you could see the roughness in his grip. 

It’d surely be blamed on boys being boys.

“I’m gonna grab another drink,” you say, and you can see Juyeon’s eyes meet yours as you do. He detaches from the blonde and approaches you, and god do you wish it wasn’t noticeable to everyone that he was doing so. 

“Little princess,” he leans against the railing, watching as you pour yourself more rum but in truth you are ready to down the whole bottle when he talks to you, “why’re you frowning?”

“Did you invite freshmen?”

“Who? Oh- you mean Sunwoo and Eric? I did, yeah. They’re cute, right?” 

There had to be a motive. You didn’t trust Juyeon to have pure intentions and simply so graciously bring a pair of freshmen onto a party such as this. There was no way in hell Juyeon would introduce someone into his social circle without gaining something out of it. Especially someone younger than him. 

“What’re you doing with them?”

“I’m thinking a sex party?” you laugh because it’s absurd, but Juyeon laughs too because he’s managed to humour you and it’s nice. It’s nice to laugh with someone you consider close, someone that is similar to you and that understands the importance of status and appearance. 

“Now what is it actually?”

Juyeon looks over, seeing his friends and the two in question playing around with a lighter and the not lit outdoor fireplace. At least not lit yet, given that they were clearly trying. Hyunjae was sat on the circular couch, Younghoon lying next to him, Sunwoo standing and berating Eric who was hunched over trying to light the coal, “he needs ignition.”

“I’ll go grab it for him.”

Juyeon leaves you standing there with a bad feeling. Drunk people around a fire, intoxicated people in general around live flames was a recipe for disaster. Yet you weren’t stopping it. Maybe because you knew it wouldn’t be you to fall into it. 

Chanhee had joined them, sat next to Hyunjae with his legs curled under his thighs as he held a new glass in hand, looking so delicate and regal he felt most like royalty out of all of you. He was so beautiful, it made you jealous again. It was worse, too, to know that he had naturally just formed to be this way, whilst your parents had discretely paid for your nose to be fixed, your breasts to be augmented and to have some leftover fat dissolved to appear even smaller. 

Not that you’d outright admitted it to anyone, though you were sure those who’d known you long enough, knew that a part of you simply wasn’t real anymore, because reality wasn’t pretty and you wanted to be.

Juyeon joined them a few seconds after with lighter fluid, thankfully not being too generous with how much he coated the charcoal in. At least he seemed sober, more than anyone else that was sat there, and you watched Eric attempting to light the flames again, this time successful in sparking a fire that jumped high enough to nearly hit his face, making him jump back in surprise and panic at the thought of getting burned. 

Unbelievable. 

You walked over to them and sat down at the very edge, Eric turning his attention to you with a bright smile that surprised even you. He seemed energetic and sweet, but why he was so open to you simply coming over was a strange feeling. Juyeon noticed it too, and before you realised, he’d moved to sit between you both.

“Are you jealous?” Juyeon looks at you with a forced smile, shaking his head before having more of his drink and turning his attention to you. 

“I have no reason to be,” he answers, and you suppose he’s right though just the same you wish for him to be, “I’m not the jealous type.”

It felt like a lie. Juyeon’s characteristics that made up who he was were all fairly negative and jealousy was one of them. But then he’d have ways in which he showed kindness with gentle touches and you fell into it because those touches were warm and those words were sweet. 

“Not like me, right?” 

You attempt a joke you both know to be true. You could easily get jealous, because the prospect of having romantic competition made you feel worthless, like you weren’t good enough, and so anger came naturally whenever your worth was threatened. 

“Not like you,” he has more of his drink and you drown out the conversation, watching the way your best friend cuts up two lines of cocaine with Sunwoo now, as if he’d made a quick natural friend and you’re just at the very edge being forgotten. It’s the feeling of unimportance and being replaced that bothers you, and instead you focus on the fire right in front of you. It’s enchanting and beautiful, tempting enough to fall into because it’s warm and inviting. 

It’s dangerous too and that isn’t lost on you, but you still lean a little closer, being careful to push your hair back whilst you watch the flames. You’re in a little world, one none of them are in and you honestly don’t think they ever really noticed how close you’d gotten to the fire, which ends up being the big mistake. 

You’re not sure what happens, but the flames make a crackling sound and the fire rises so incredibly close to your face, you feel the heat sting at your skin. It sends you into high alert and panic, causing you to scream and turn around just quick enough to avoid it burning your face. Unfortunately, the wind and your hair among the flames causes the strands to start burning.

“What the fuck, Eric!”

“We need to put it out!” Chanhee. That’s his voice and the only one you can make out. The others barely seem to move and you’re not sure if it’s shock or because they don’t care, but Chanhee is genuinely the only one moving at first.

You can feel the way it hurts your skin, but it all happens so fast that the pain barely registers with the way the back fabric of your dress singes. 

“Are you fucking stupid?” Chanhee, again, but then you feel another force that sends you falling forward and the sound of a fire extinguisher. 

“YOU’RE NOT MEANT TO USE THAT ON A PERSON!”

So many voices, complete panic and you barely register any of it. You feel dazed, nearly unresponsive and it’s likely the shock settling in that just leaves you numb to it. At least the fire seems to be out, given the darkness that had cast over all of you. Your skin feels cold at first, until you feel a heavy blanket over your shoulder and Juyeon crouches in front of you. 

He’s speaking to you, but you really have no idea what he’s saying. Even when he cups your cheeks, it’s completely lost on you. Nothing he says is audible and for just a brief second you wonder if maybe you’d entirely lost your hearing, though you don’t see why you would and you’d heard voices just seconds before. 

You feel him touch your hair and you’re relieved more than anything to know it’s still there at first. The very relief of knowing that makes you want to cry, but you refuse to show any of them that you were scared. 

“She needs a hospital. Turn the boat around,” you hate attention like this. When you’re vulnerable, it’s not what you want. 

“How bad is it…?” 

You sound hoarse, but Juyeon doesn’t get time to answer because Eric intervenes with panicked eyes. He looks so genuinely guilty, like a kicked puppy and you know almost immediately that deep down it was likely a genuine mistake. Though it didn’t really matter as the damage was done either way, “I’m so, so sorry. I’m really sorry.”

You don’t think you forgive him. Even if he looks sorry, you’re more than a little upset, rightfully so, “I can’t believe you’re so fucking stupid. Who’re you trying to impress, anyway?”

It cuts him, you can tell. That childlike energy that had been there before dies the second you speak to him like he means nothing. Eric looks like he could cry and you’re certain you don’t really care but something about his eyes make you feel guilty. And you don’t do well with guilt. 

You force yourself up and away from everyone, pushing past Younghoon harshly because you can see him trying to bite down laughter. You’re near close to slapping him, but you don’t want even more unwanted attention. 

You hide away in the bathroom and no one seems to follow you first, locking the door after yourself  before stripping down to your underwear, discarding your heels and letting your feet rest bare against the tiled interior. Every bit of sound is slowly coming back, and you seem to be returning to your senses as you cast your eyes outside through the small circular window, seeing the distant city and the water break into aggressive ripples of small waves. 

You run your hands through your hair, trying to adjust the mess that it probably was before you realise that certain strands come to an abrupt harsh stop. It feels uneven, shortened and burned and that’s when you first notice the smell that becomes so sharp so suddenly that it overwhelms you. 

You open your palm up to be met with charcoals of black burnt hair that you’d broken trying to brush through it with your fingers and now you’re completely certain that you fucking hate Eric. He’d ruined your appearance, and it’s only confirmed when you look in the mirror and are met with something so ugly, you could break the glass in front of you. 

So you do. You break down and shatter the mirror because what you see disgusts you. A part of what had made you so feminine and pretty was scorched unevenly, in parts up to your shoulder, and it was so ugly and heart wrenching you could’ve thrown up just remembering what it looked like. 

It was so ugly and unattractive and the worst was knowing that everyone else had seen it before you. They had seen it, and said nothing. Juyeon had touched your strands of hair near the root and yet said nothing to indicate that a part of it was missing by the ends of where your hair usually fell.

You can’t take seeing it, and in your slightly intoxicated mind it makes you sink enough that you throw up into the toilet, hating yourself more than you ever had. It would take years to grow back the hair you’d lost, and worst was that you’d have to let go of the length that some strands still held. The ones that went unscathed and were still perfect would be lost just the same. 

It was so embarrassing. 

Your hand was bleeding, shards of broken glass between the knuckles but you made no attempt to get rid of them. You could’ve been dying and it would’ve meant nothing to you. 

A knock on the door snaps you out of your dazed mind but you don’t respond. You hope maybe they’ll go away, but then there’s another knock followed by a third in quick succession, “want a line?”

Chanhee. You laugh at the way he speaks and then you soften because he’s there, standing on the other side and looking for you. So with the little strength you can bother to conjure up, you unlock the door for him. 

“Holy shit,” it’s not you being naked that really surprises him, but rather the utter damaged state this room was in, “your parents are gonna kill you.”

“Fuck, I didn’t even think about that,” you groan, watching your best friend lock the door once more before grabbing a towel and turning on the faucet, the water presumably cold. 

“I hear Juyeon’s pissed,” Chanhee starts, and it manages a smile out of you just briefly as he comes over, “Eric feels horrible, though.”

“He should,” you snarl, watching the way Chanhee grabs a pair of tweezers from his purse, disinfecting it with a wipe before grabbing your hand. 

“Should I book you a hairdresser?”

You know he’s trying to lighten the mood, but you don’t find it funny. You don’t say anything as he starts to remove some of the glass from your skin, carefully and precise as to not cause you more injury. He seems to get the hint, that you’re not in the mood for anything lighthearted, so he stops and falls silent that only you break after a few minutes. 

“I’m ugly, Chanhee.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll get a cute haircut and you’ll be perfect again.”

Even if that were to be true, you’d never be Chanhee. You felt so jealous, the more you thought of it. So much so, that you wanted to hate him. You wanted to tell him how unfair it was, that he didn’t deserve it when you did, but you would never dare to break what made you two so close. You loved him.

“I don’t want a haircut. I want my hair.”

“I know,” but he says it like you should know that it’s not an option. You do know, and it makes you want to die inside. 

Another knock and a voice you make out to be Juyeon’s, so you let Chanhee reach over and unlock the door as a familiar figure leans in with a smirk on his face. Maybe it’s seeing you sat here naked, but you turn your head away to avoid looking at him, “ambulance is here. We’ve docked.”

Chanhee finishes getting one more piece of glass out and helps you up, Juyeon handing you your dress and helping you with your shoes, touching your bare legs so carefully that it makes you feel a little shaky. He smiles, looking up at you with sweet gentle eyes that are so unlike him and once again bring in the idea of a motive to your mind, “your mothers gonna kill you for that glass, by the way.”

Everything else after the boat docked had become a blur. You had some mild burns but your now ruined dress had protected most of the flames before they were put out, so most of the marks were faint angry red shades on your back that would likely fade over time if you kept it well treated and applied an ointment to avoid scarring. You’d been grateful that it hadn’t been worse but the state you were in didn’t quite feel better.

Your hand wasn’t broken, but one of the gashes had been pretty bad unbeknownst to you and it had needed five stitches, everything being wrapped up in a bandage as you were told to rest a couple of days. 

You’d wanted to rest, but the following morning, your mother had other ideas.

“Juyeon tells me you had an accide- my god, what happened to your hair?”

“I burned it off,” came your response, feeling your blanket being ripped away from you, your bare legs being met with the cold air as you tried to adjust your shirt. 

“Why in heaven's name would you ever do that?” God, you could laugh. She clearly didn’t know you, if she ever thought you’d do such a stupid thing intentionally. 

“I’ll get it sorted,” though you’d made no attempt at making an appointment. As long as the outside world didn’t see you, you could be as ugly as you wanted. 

“You, young lady, are headed to class,” she slaps the bottom of your leg before running over to your beloved curtains, tearing them open and letting the offensive light blind you, “you’ve missed far too much already.”

“I’d rather die than go looking like this,” you mutter, earning you another slap to your skin that makes you sit up sharply and glare at her with such discontent, she must know that you hate her. 

“Should’ve made an appointment in the morning then. You can fix it later, but you’re going, now.”

There was no point in arguing. Even with a valid doctor's note, it was pointless. She’d make you go to uni and whatever you said would be entirely without point because it wasn’t valid. It didn’t matter. The best you could do was attempt to look presentable despite your singed hair and then run to your family's go to salon for help right after.

You made sure to wear something revealing. Something hopefully distracting enough so that the hair you’d tied up in a bun, wouldn’t be very noticeable. You actually thought you managed to hide it with fair success, but you had to pull out nearly every trick you knew about a tight ballerina bun to hide most of the damage. The biggest issue was the damaged strands being so short in length sometimes, that they kept falling back out and refusing to lay the way you wanted them to. 

Your mother had already left the house by the time you were ready, in a tight mini skirt and a shirt kept together by string in the middle, showing plenty of skin all the way down to your pierced navel. It was just enough to grab attention away from everything else that needed fixing. 

Getting to class made you realise just how much people talk. As if the vitriol from Juyeon humiliating you with Changmin’s name hadn’t been bad enough, now everyone seemed to know about your burns and the bandage on your hand didn’t help either. You’d overheard someone say that they thought you’d gone off the rails, making you shove your shoulder against theirs so that they fell off balance. 

But that girl hadn’t been the only one to say it. It felt like everyone was looking at you again, like this was high school and your dirty little secrets were all exposed to be mocked and tormented until you well and truly became the off the rails mess that they already claimed for you to be. The looks were horrific, but the fake sympathy in trying to speak to you was worse. 

Though you’d truly wanted to lose it when you overheard the sympathy Eric was getting. How sorry he’d been and how it had been such a horrible accident. How bad he felt, that you’d rejected his apology and been so cruel to him. That you were truly a horrible person. Even if it might’ve been true that Eric felt bad, he had hurt you, and yet no one spared any real empathy for you. No one cared. 

You had one more class for the day but a long gap in between where you’d need to find something to do, and so you settled on the park nearby with a small lunch and a coffee, having a sip before you reached for the tobacco in your bag. 

You still wouldn’t call yourself a smoker, but you could use one now and it was still practice and improvement from the absolute travesty you had rolled before. Besides, you found it peaceful, to sit there and roll a cigarette to then smoke or save for later. 

“It’s getting better,” you look up and see Changmin already with a cigarette between his lips, placing it between his fingers to move it down and away from his mouth as he exhales. He’s dressed warm, in a dark sweater and jeans with a coat over both, his eyes staring at your own as he takes you in, “you want help?”

“I don’t need your help.”

“I didn’t ask if you needed it. I asked if you wanted it,” you were struggling and he could tell. Your hand still hurt from injuring it and it made rolling even more awkward, so eventually you relented and just shoved the bag of tobacco out for him to take. He sighs and sits next to you, turning his body a bit towards you as he discards his own cigarette entirely in favour of starting over. 

“Why’d you waste it?”

“Well, I figured if I offered it to you, you’d refuse it,” he was right, “I’ll roll two.”

Normally you’d be tempted to argue and fight with him using your stuff, but you have no energy and he was kind enough to share with you last time. You watch him, the way his fingers work together to roll the first cigarette, and you can’t say you’re not entranced because you are. The way he does it makes it all seem so easy. 

He seals the first cigarette with his tongue before placing it behind his ear, and you swear for the first time you saw a hint of jewellery, “do you have a piercing?”

“I have more than one,” he gets to work on the next one, looking over at you briefly as you try not to stare too obviously. You’d seen the ones on his ear but the one on his tongue had been new to you. 

“I never noticed.”

“We don’t really talk,” he hands you your cigarette and you nod in thanks, twisting it between your fingers once to inspect it before placing it between your lips. You end up fiddling with your lighter, huffing in frustration each time it refuses to light. The wind worked against you and it seemed low on lighter fluid already, but still you persisted. 

“Here,” his cigarette is lit, and he places the burning side against yours, “just inhale.”

You listen to him and the flames transfer to your cigarette when you do, thanking him again, though you’re not sure why he didn’t just offer you his lighter instead, “I had it.”

“Sure,” you both fall silent again and you must admit it’s getting a little bit annoying to have nothing to really talk about. It seems so pointless, like it holds no real purpose and yet there’s a comfort in just being sat here and clearing your head. 

“What did you do with your hand?”

“You’re telling me you haven’t heard?” you don’t believe it. Changmin might not socialise but he does hear about things. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have been so wrapped up in the last one. Or maybe that one only reached him because it directly involved him. 

“Isn’t it better to hear the truth from you?” he surprises you again. You hadn’t really thought of it that way. In your eyes, people were always quick to believe what they were told from others whether or not it was the truth. Especially from those whose words held more weight simply because of who they were. And if someone like Younghoon, who you suspected, was running around telling people you were insane, they were bound to believe it without fact checking his claims at all.

“I broke a mirror,” he laughs, as if it’s amusing to hear about your screw up and you wonder if it would be worth hitting him again. 

“You really are something else, even for a rich person,” you want to know if that surprises him. If he’s as confused by you as you are by him and his strange behaviour. He seems to bite back less in sarcasm today, but he still speaks like he’s unimpressed, unphased by your violent outburst and rather finding it amusing. 

You stare at him for a long time, taking in his side profile up close. The way his glasses frame his face, how his dimples aren’t as deep but still there because he’s trying to bite back his amusement in a smile that you find pretty, even if you won’t say it. He takes another drag of his cigarette, then turns his attention back to you, though it quickly falls from your face to your hair as he gestures to it, “and this? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you with your hair up.”

“You pay attention to things like that?”

 “Unintentionally, yes.”

“But you don’t notice it’s burnt?”

“Oh, no, I noticed it,” of course he did. He was probably waiting for the opportunity to tug your hairpins out so he could see the disaster that is your hair. It probably didn’t matter, really, if he saw it, but you liked the belief that you could remain beautiful, at least in someone's eyes, regardless of who they were. 

Then again, Changmin might not find you pretty at all. 

“I wasn’t meant to come today but my mother told me to. I haven’t been able to fix it,” you’re not sure why you’re honest, especially to him, but he doesn’t really say anything at first while he continues smoking, “I don’t know why I’m even telling you this.”

“Neither do I,” god, what an asshole. He simply couldn’t keep his mouth shut and accept it, “is it true a freshmen burned it off?”

“So you did hear about it?”

“I saw him getting coddled in the hallway. I think a girl brought him flowers,” of course she did. He gets flowers and you get to drop a couple of hundred at the hairdresser to salvage what’s left. You’re not even sure you want to go at all and be faced with the vitriol. 

“I really don’t need our family hairdresser to tell the whole community about my hair being charcoal black because of a drunk night out.” 

“You have a family hairdresser?” it’s like it’s the most absurd thing you’ve said, stranger than your hair being burnt by an open flame, or the fact that you smashed a mirror and your mother dragged you out anyway, or the countless other things, actually, that you’d said and he hadn’t really cared to comment on. 

“You focus on the wrong things.”

“And all you focus on is superficial at best,” you wonder what he considers the worst, “so you’re not going to get it fixed?”

No, you are going to get it fixed. That’s what you want to tell him, that of course you’re going to drag your ass there right after your final lesson is over. That it’ll be perfect again tomorrow and you will be perfect and you can forget all about it. Maybe you can even forgive Eric if you’re feeling extra generous, although you don’t think you will be. 

“I will. I just… have to find another hairdresser. I don’t really know how to do that.”

“Google it?” you grimace, eyeing him strangely yet he looks at you like you have three heads. Like something is seriously wrong with you and you wonder if he’s right or if he just has no concept of the real world.

“I don’t want them to say something.”

“I doubt they care,” Changmin offends you, but he says it nonchalantly and casually as he puts out his cigarette and discards the filtered end, “let me do it.”

“I’d rather die than let you touch me,” it’s a quick answer, snapping back at him with determination because you really would rather sign an early death than let him any closer than he already is just sitting here next to you. 

“But I don’t care about how ridiculous you might look,” so he admits you probably look insane. You know better than to believe that he wouldn’t laugh at you, yet you also wonder if maybe that was better than it being spoken around your closed community and bringing embarrassment to your parents for your drunk failings. They didn’t care what you did if it didn’t affect them, yet this might and therefore it became a bigger problem. 

“Do you even know how to cut hair?”

“How hard can it be?”

“Absolutely not,” you think that’s the end of it, but you hadn’t known Changmin to be so determined with something such as this, for he seems persistent in making a case for himself as he turns to you fully. 

“I think you should think about it.”

“You could make it worse. You have no idea what you’re doing and you hate me too,” he doesn’t disagree with it, though he does seem to think. Perhaps another way of making his case though you really don’t know what could convince you when you had money at your fingertips to even fly halfway across the globe for someone to fix it for you. 

Which, actually, might’ve not been a bad idea. No one would know you abroad.

“I wouldn’t cut it any more than where the strands are burnt.”

“No.”

“Fine, at least let me see it.”

“Absolutely not,” he huffs like a child, watching the clouds pass while the sky dims to a depressing grey, indicating rainfall. You don’t need to be laughed at, especially by someone lesser than you.

“I have to go,” you want to ask him how his date went. You remember it now that he goes to leave. Yet you also know not to ask him. The last thing you wanted was his assumption that you might be interested in him, “you can think about it.”

“I don’t think I will.”

“Suit yourself, little doll,” he leaves you alone and you simply stay sat with a frown on your face until the raindrops start falling and you’re forced to go inside. 

They had all been right. You’d lost your mind, completely, because the hairdresser you had found completely destroyed your ends even more and you refused to let yourself be seen by anyone until it was fixed. Like a dog with his tail between his legs, you drove to university without the intent of actually going to class, but rather waited like a stalker for Changmin to appear at some point, because he had to, right?

It took far longer than you’d hoped, because the first time he had appeared, there were far too many people around for you to give in to his suggestion of doing it himself, but turns out paying for it to have it done professionally hadn’t done much of a difference and had been far from worth it. 

The second time he came out, he had his nose in a book and was barely watching where he was going, and you figured it would be the perfect time to step out and talk to him. You’d still dressed up, albeit not as much as you usually might to avoid detection, when you approach him and stand right before him. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles, his head not moving up to look at you as he keeps walking. You felt ridiculous chasing him, but you grabbed his shoulder and stopped him in his steps, finally looking up to face you, “oh, it’s you.”

“What do you mean, oh?” 

“Exactly what it sounds like. What the fuck happened to your hair?” Changmin asks, seeing that you kept it out but hidden under the hood of your jacket, and he could still see the damaged parts as you’d eventually gotten up mid hair appointment to leave before she could finish and do any worse.

“Someone fucked it up, obviously. Are you stupid?”

“No, but your insults when you want something from me are a poor choice,” you cross your arms, standing straighter to look down on him, heels just tall enough to do so while he adjusts and closes his book, “so, what is it?”

“I… need your help,” fuck, that pains you. It really kicks your ego and confidence to have to ask something of him. Well, not that you had to, but you were refusing the family hairdresser even more now and if Changmin fucked up too, at least his services were free. 

“You want my help?”

“You offered it,” you bite back, but he doesn’t seem pleased. If he was taking his offer back, you felt like he should just say so, but instead he was smiling as he lit a cigarette. 

“That I did,” he was so cocky, it reminded you of Juyeon, “I guess I could give it a try.”

“You said you would.”

“I said I can do it if you’d like me to try.”

“And I’m telling you to.”

“But you should be asking me.”

“Changmin, you think I haven’t been through enough embarrassing shit because of you? You owe me this fucking favour before I break your neck with my heel.”

He stops entirely, eyeing you up and down briefly before he finally settles on your eyes again. It’s a little intimidating to have him stare at you so intently, but you refuse to show discomfort and stand your ground. He fucking owed you this and you knew that he did. He did owe it to you, at the very least for the rumour involving you and Juyeon.

“Okay, sure. But I’m driving.”

He discards his cigarette and holds out his hand for the key, and you really think he’s joking before he gives you another look telling you to hurry up. 

“Are you serious?”

“Think of it as payment,” it’s crazy to you but you ultimately agree. Curse you for not using your driver for one day, but why should you when you weren’t even planning to attend classes. It just left another witness to tell your parents that you had been faltering in the one thing they expected you to do well on. 

“I hate you,” his hands hold the key to your Mercedes and he seems content, and you watch as he steps up inside your car so carelessly that it makes you nearly cry out to tell him off.

When you get in, he leans over and places his bag down by your feet and you note that same cologne that had sat on his hoodie that you took so long ago. A creature of habit, whereas you went through various perfumes depending on the type of outfit you were wearing. 

“Can you be more careful? The interior is custom.”

“Of course it is,” he adjusts the seat and you realise what a bad idea this really was because everything he changes now, you’ll have to change back, but it was too late. He settled and reversed the car far faster than you would’ve liked, barely looking in his rearview mirror to see if he’d hit someone. 

“Do you even know how to drive?”

“It’s an automatic. Even an idiot can drive one. Exhibit A,” he looks at you and you ignore it by looking ahead before he abruptly hits the breaks because someone crosses the parking lot completely unexpectedly, “god, some people just want to die.”

“Do you even have a licence?”

The silence confirms your expected fear and you cannot believe you just put your life in his hands. You wish you could hit the brakes, but he’s turned into the main road and now you’re wondering if you’ve well and truly lost your mind. You can practically hear Chanhee’s voice berating you for the insanity that you’re currently in. 

“Where am I going, by the way?”

“I guess my house,” he sighs, and your hand instinctively falls to the wheel to pull him more to the right to avoid the left lane.

“Yeah, and where is that?”

“Oh, right. I’ll write it in the nav,” he scoffs like it’s absurd, but you’re not really in the mood to give instructions and honestly you didn’t think you’d be very good at it. You knew the way well and your mind would naturally think where to turn without saying it outloud. 

“You’re driving too fast,” at this point you’d fully accepted your potential demise, because making him pull over seemed like an almost worse idea at this point. 

“I thought it was sixty.”

“It’s fifty,” you answer him, and at least he listens and slows down, maybe because being caught meant you’d both be in horrific trouble. 

There’s no music and the silence in such close proximity isn’t exactly your idea of fun, but it’s becoming a little more familiar than you’d like to be like this with Changmin. It wasn’t that you liked him or enjoyed his company, but the way you both sat together without speaking had become a little common, at least enough that you found it to be okay. 

“This cannot be real,” he mumbles, the gates to your community closed before you hand him the keycard. He looks at it like it’s alien, but he opens the window and reaches for the keypad to open the gate, “I actually hate rich people.”

He doesn’t sound genuine, more baffled if anything as he drives in and over to your house. His eyes just widen more as he parks outside the front steps leading to the massive entrance door, but you’re more relieved that you survived driving as a passenger with someone that had no right to even take you anywhere with a car, “I was gonna say park in the garage but I suppose you can leave it.”

“I think I’m good, yeah.” 

You step out with him, taking the key back as soon as he lets it dangle between his fingers for you to take, and you walk in with him and greet one of your cleaners that seems more than a little surprised to see you with someone. Normally you might make an attempt to hide who you were with, but she was nice and didn’t speak often, especially to your parents unless it was work related, so you knew her to not be the type to say something. 

You really hoped, anyway, or you were definitely fucked. 

“Do you have scissors for cutting hair?”

“I think we do somewhere. I’ll ask someone,” though Changmin doesn’t seem to be listening, because his eyes are cast elsewhere and you notice your little ragdoll perched on the railing and looking at him with curious eyes. 

“Oh, look at this little cutie,” he approaches her carefully, holding his hand out gently but she seems more than a little excited, which you find unusual, though maybe she sensed his compliment to stroke her little ego. 

“Thought you didn’t like cats?”

“How can I not when I see this little dear, hmm?” 

She purrs in response, pushing her head up into his palm as he scratches her ear, and you nearly roll your eyes at seeing her unusual affection. She liked Chanhee, sure, but even that had taken some time, but with Changmin she’s practically on his lap within the first minute. 

“Do you have any treats for her?”

“Sure, they’re in my room. Or the kitchen.”

He follows after you, the little lady prancing after him like she’s straight out of the aristocats, elegant in how she moves and so confident in her step. Lady really is a diva.

“They’re on the desk,” you gesture over to the corner and Changmin moves over to find them, but he’s slow and looking around like he’s taking it all in. It leaves you a little vulnerable, only because the way you’ve decorated is a look inside who you are, feminine and expensive, with simple colours and beautiful plants and endless books that are overflowing on your shelf. 

“I didn’t know you read.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know you’re a pain in my ass. Here you go, darling,” he crouches down, holding out a treat for your cat while you open a window. She seems pleased, tapping his hand for more with her little paw and even you admit it’s a cute display of affection from her. 

“I’ll look for the scissors.”

Changmin doesn’t answer, busy being loved by a cat and so you leave them both while on the hunt for some scissors. In the end, you ask one of the cleaners if he’d seen any around while finishing up your parents’ bathroom and to your surprise the search is successful when you go through one of the drawers. 

You pass the kitchen and grab a bottle of water from the fridge, one for Changmin too because you hadn’t asked and you were not prepared to walk back downstairs again in case he wanted some. That, and you brought a packet of gummy bears, not for you but him, and then came back upstairs to see Changmin still on the floor waving a string with a little tiger on the end that Lady was chasing relentlessly. 

“I found them,” he looks up at you and she takes the opportunity to pounce on the toy, dragging it between her claws as he tries to push against her, “I also have water.”

“Voss?”

“Yeah?”

“Isn’t that overpriced tap water?”

“Tap water tastes like blood. This is citrusy,” you hold it out to him, and he takes it despite his apprehension.

“Put a lemon in it,” he says, before adding, “and why do you know what blood tastes like?”

“Why do you not?”

He gets up while you rummage around your room, moving your chair right in front of your mirror to give you a view of what he’s doing, “I might need wine, on second thought.”

“I’m not going to ruin your hair any more than it already is,” at least he acknowledges the horrific state it was in, but you knew that, “did the hairdresser cut it that weirdly?” 

“I didn’t let her finish. Look at this,” you show him one of the butchered strands and even Changmin looks more than a little shocked that a professional had done such a horrific job.

“I’ll have to cut quite a lot. You realise that, right?”

You did. Of course you knew your once beautiful long hair would be no longer than right by your shoulder and that fucking shattered your heart and confidence, but you could not keep it like this either and magically having longer hair again wasn’t happening without a wig or extensions. 

“I won’t cut before you tell me it’s fine but a lot of it is still burnt up to about… here,” he gestures to your collarbone, though he’s careful not to touch you. Maybe he knows you won’t like it and he’s right, you wouldn’t like it, but you were surprised by his way of keeping boundaries. 

“If you manage to do this well I’ll buy your groceries for a week,” Changmin perks up, like he hadn’t expected it but they were words he was happy to hear. Almost like he needed it. 

“I wouldn’t mind that,” and now your mind wandered again, because he’d insisted he had at least some money and yet he made it sound like he was struggling just to buy some food. Though you try not to dwell on it as you grab your hairbrush to gently get the knots out of your hair.

“I really don’t want you to cut more than you need to.”

“I already told you I won't,” he’s getting frustrated, you can tell, but you want to make sure he gets it. If he didn’t listen to you, it would be so much worse and you’d be absolutely destroyed, and Changmin likely wouldn’t care because it didn’t affect him. 

“Okay, so I have a plan,” he says, and even those words cause you worry but you’re willing to hear him out before you both commit, “I’ll just cut all the long hair that’s left up until slightly above your chest and then I’ll actually be neater and more precise with what’s left to work with that’ll get rid of all the burnt hair.”

Not a terrible plan, actually. It’s not like he’d have to be neat cutting up to a certain point if it wasn’t going to stay. It would be a waste of both your time if he did it that way, “okay, we’ll try that.”

“Do you want any music?” Changmin asks you, your cat jumping up onto the bed to perch herself on the edge and watch the way you both move and speak. You wonder if she can tell you both dislike each other, or if she thinks maybe that’s a friend. It makes you curious to know how cats think, but that was a whole other thought process that you were honestly too sober to consider really having. 

“I can turn some on,” you connect your phone to your speakers, pressing the shuffle button and leaving it on one of the coffee tables you had next to the mirror full of perfumes and some accessories. 

You take a seat and place a towel that you’d gotten around your back and a little towards the front of your body, adjusting your back so it’s straight as Changmin stands behind you. You watch him in the mirror, the way he studies your hair and seems to be contemplating on how to best approach it. It makes you nervous, and once again you’re wondering when you became this insane. 

“Okay, I’ll just start cutting.”

“Okay.”

You both fall silent, though you’re left still staring at him in the way you both reflect before you amongst a few polaroids stuck on your mirror. Your heart picks up when you feel his fingers brush the back of your neck as he takes some of your hair between his fingers, but you push it away and try to focus on something else. Anything else. 

The first strands of hair fall and you feel like crying. You see the way they end up on the floor, how they lay there and you feel terrible. It feels like you’re ripping away a big piece of yourself and you didn’t wish for it to ever happen. 

“I can’t believe Eric did this to me.”

“Wasn’t it an accident?”

“I don’t care,” you snarl, crossing your arms and watching him cut away more and more pieces. For a second you wonder if he’s cut too much but he seems to know how to read your mind because he brings what’s left of it to the front of your body so that you can see its length, most of it the promised length he’d agreed on with you aside from the bit of hair that was already ruined or made shorter before he ever got to it. 

“If it helps, I think short hair might suit you,” might. Not that it would, that it might, and that really doesn’t sit well with you, because what if it doesn’t?

“Short hair isn’t pretty on women,” you tell him, but he looks entirely perplexed at your statement, as if he finds it to be absurd.

“According to who? You?”

“Everyone,” a lot of men, mostly, and some women. Juyeon didn’t like it either, you knew that. He’d told you once when one of your female acquaintances had cut her hair and he looked at her like she’d grown two heads. 

“I think some women look better with short hair,” he tells you but you don’t really buy it. Then again, you don’t really know Changmin’s type, and once again you’re reminded of his date. Maybe you could ask now, right? 

“Did your date have short hair?”

Subtle. You could laugh at yourself, laugh at how pathetic you’d become and how Changmin was often the reason for your downfall. Of course he was, and you cursed yourself for ever agreeing to kick him out of that forsaken party months ago. 

“She did not, no. Unless you consider a little over the shoulder short.”

“I do,” he sighs again and maybe you want to smile because honestly, it is a little funny at this point, how quick he is to be annoyed and how quick you are to be the same, “did it go well?”

“Do you really want to know about my dating life?”

“I’m just trying to make conversation,” you lie, because honestly you were really curious to know. You wanted to know what she looked like, if she was beautiful, more so than you. 

“It was fine. Didn’t really have much chemistry,” he tells you, adjusting his glasses briefly as he dusts off some of your cut hair from your back. 

“You mean like sexually?”

“What? No. I mean in general. Chemistry isn’t just sex,” to you, it was most of it. At least you believed it to be. Good chemistry came from desire and lust, which is why you and Juyeon had worked so great when you were in love. You wanted to answer, maybe even defend yourself where he didn’t know you had to, but instead you kept your mouth shut, “I’m going to cut more now.”

“A lot?”

“I think if I play my cards right, it’ll just about be touching your shoulder,” he answers you and you agree, sighing as you adjust the way you sit again and watch him in the mirror. 

You watched the way he concentrated, how he bit his lower lip and occasionally adjusted his glasses if he leaned forward too much. He seemed so intent on doing well that it calmed you just a little. At least he would try, you assumed, and all you’d have to do in return was get his groceries. 

You were both silent for a long time, simply watching his hands move between strands of hair, trying not to tug too much or break off more hair with what was burnt. The music wasn’t overbearingly loud, and your cat was soft asleep now, sprawled out comfortably in your duvet. It was all very peaceful, strangely so. 

You came to realise even more in such silence that Changmin really was just so pretty. 

“You’re staring at me,” he tells you, not once making eye contact with you and yet he’d caught you. 

“What am I meant to look at?”

“I was only telling you.”

“Does it bother you?”

He stops, meeting your eyes in the mirror and suddenly you look away, “no, I don’t really care.”

You both fall silent again and you watch as he fixes the broken ends and frowns when it doesn’t seem to be going how he wants it to. Seeing him concentrate is a little amusing, because his nose occasionally scrunches and he lets out a little breath of air in annoyance when it just doesn’t work. 

“Did you ruin it?”

“Do you really want the truth?”

“Changmin, what the fuck did you do?” 

He laughs, and it sounds so happy and amused you turn around and hit his arm, making him jump back and hunch over even more to clutch his stomach while he chuckles. You want to know what the hell is so funny when he’s potentially done worse to you, but he doesn’t say a single word. 

“Changmin!”

“It’s nothing. I just find your lack of faith in me hilarious,” your arms cross and some of your hair falls to your face, but to your surprise it seems shockingly neat. 

“I was just going to say that I was right. Short hair suits you,” you heart lurches forward again and you’re stunned on what to say. It’s clear to you that it’s a compliment and maybe an attempt at making you feel far better, but all it manages to do at first is make you feel more vulnerable. He’s the first to see you like this and he’s not turning away from it or insulting you the way you would’ve insulted yourself. He’s kinder to yourself at this moment than you would ever be, and it doesn’t even feel forced. 

You don’t know what to say. 

“You don’t need to say that. We’re not friends,” he looks exasperated, like he’s near given up on ever being kind to you and you hope he truly stops trying. You don’t want to be friends, and while you’ll admit he’s not been as bad as you might’ve initially presumed, you would never want to speak of this after. 

“I think it’s nearly done.”

“Are you sure?” Changmin looks at you through the mirror, his eyes finding yours so quickly it makes you stop and stare back at him with strange interest. 

“Mhmm, where’s your hairbrush?” you hand it to him and he thanks you, brushing through the strands with a gentle touch you’ve never even given yourself. He’s so careful, like he truly doesn’t want to hurt you, and you’re not really sure when that became important to you but it makes you smile, “I think I should change majors.”

You know he’s teasing though his confidence leaves you curious. From what you can see, it isn’t terrible, but you have yet to see the full result and it’s scary to realise that your hair no longer reaches very far. You’re not even sure how the hell you’re going to style it when you have to have it up, or want to. In the end, maybe you would need extensions. 

“Do you have any hair oil?”

“I can’t believe you know what that is,” you get up, intentionally ignoring the mirror to stare back as you move to your bathroom, rummaging through one of the drawers before you find the serum you’re looking for, bringing it over to him, “here.”

He nods, standing in front of you and you don’t make an attempt to move. You let him reach for your hair behind your ear, bringing it forward between his delicate fingers with the oil you’d brought him, bringing it to your short ends and you simply let him. He’s never been this close to you, you don’t think, but it surprises you how it doesn’t make you grimace and want to turn away. Changmin’s in your space, but he isn’t invasive with it either, so very careful with his movements like he’s wondering when you’ll actually shrink away. 

“Done,” okay, fuck, now you’d have to look. It would either make you want to curl in on yourself or you’d be content to deal with it, even if you hated the short hair either way. You were already prepared to not like it, but you turn around and it hits you again. 

“I hate it,” Changmin’s face briefly falls, maybe with worry or just genuine upset because it sounds like an insult towards him. It’s the very first time where your heart sinks because you feel bad for making him believe he’d done something horrific when he’d helped you. He looks so genuinely pained, almost like he’s afraid that you’ll turn violent for what he’d done, and how truly sorry he looks makes you feel awful. 

“I’m sorry,” you shake your head, turning back to him so you can avoid the mirror, and you make an effort to look into his dark brown eyes framed by his glasses, the softness in them not going unnoticed by you. The way he looks like he’s ready to walk out with a knife in his back. 

“No, I just… I hate having my hair short,” you attempt, awkwardly reaching for his arm in an attempt to make it better, but it’s awkward for you both and so you remove your touch and look back at him instead, “I think you did great, Changmin.”

“You can be honest.”

“I am. I think it’s really neat,” which was true. He’d cut it precise and straight just along your shoulder and nothing seemed out of place. It was hard to believe he’d never done this before.

“I should get going,” there’s a voice in the back of your mind offering him to stay a little longer, but your mother could be home at any point and you knew very well that she wouldn’t like Changmin at all, even if he’d done you a favour. 

“Wait…” he stops, his jacket just pulled over one of his sleeves as he looks at you, “what about your groceries?”

“Forget it, it’s fine,” he’s upset. Something is on his mind and you want to know what it is. You don’t really believe him to be the type to be so hung up on one of your insults. He’d never been before, and some had been far worse than this, and yet he’d never been so quiet towards you. 

“No, I think I should,” you reach for your purse and while you can tell he wants to leave, he doesn’t walk out. He waits for you to gather your things and then stares at you. 

“I really don’t need your charity.”

“It’s not charity. You cut my hair,” he looks like he wants to agree with you. Like he knows that he did and yet he doesn’t really want to acknowledge it. 

“Fine.”

It was already late in the evening when you got to the store, not realising how time had slipped away from you both while you were at home. You’d thought Changmin had been quick, but reality had been different and time had simply flown away from you. 

“This place is expensive.”

“Is it?” you shrug, never having thought of it as you step out of the car, waiting for him to follow suit though he hesitates for far longer before he finally comes out of the car, approaching you with apprehension, “does it matter? You’re not paying for it.”

Changmin huffs, nails digging into his knuckles while he stares ahead at the store in front of you. You weren’t ready to admit to him that you hadn’t done groceries in years because it was always done for you, and you were not going to admit that the corner store when you were missing some snacks was as far as shopping for food went for you. 

“I don’t need you to spend money on me.”

“I doubt I’ll notice it’s gone,” he scoffs, clearly unimpressed as he walks with you. You don’t like it, because it feels like he’s looking down at you again, like you’re lesser than him when that has never been the case. You don’t understand the issue or why it should even concern him if you’re spending your allowance on him, but for some reason it does. 

“You realise the problem with that, right?”

“What problem?”

His kind eyes are gone, replaced with the ones you know far better. The eyes that judge you, that see you as frustrating and annoying, the ones that hate you and think you’re unimportant. You hate that gaze, the way he looks at you, and yet it doesn’t go away, nor does it fade in intensity, even while you watch him grab a shopping cart and step inside because you simply refuse to do it yourself.

“What would you like?”

“I haven’t really thought about it,” he starts, clearly in thought before he adds, “I need cat food.”

It catches you off guard. Changmin feels selfless, in that regard. How his first thought for what he needs isn’t for him at all but rather his pet. It makes you look at him differently, even just for a moment.

“That’s at the back.”

He follows you, completely silent and now it feels awkward again. It’s almost amazing how quickly you both revert back to this. 

“What does he eat?”

“He likes tuna,” he reaches for something, a packaged box of cat food with an assortment of different flavours and you grimace. 

“Is that good for him?”

“It’s all I can afford,” he snaps back, putting it in the cart but you don’t seem pleased. If he had a cat, he should at least put in the effort to feed him well. You’d never understand pet owners who practically fed Mcdonald’s to them in jelly form. 

“I’m paying for it.”

“And I’m not changing his diet for a week or two just because it’s not on my dime,” well, you lost that argument, albeit begrudgingly because you didn’t agree with it. 

“Can I at least choose some treats for him?”

“Do whatever you want, princess,” you freeze up, briefly reminded of Juyeon and his voice and the way he calls you princess. How that’s his thing to do, not Changmin’s, nor anyone else’s. You didn’t want anyone else to call you that, yet you were so frozen in place by surprise that you couldn’t tell him to stop. Instead, you fall silent and pick something out for him that you hope he’ll like, placing it in the cart before you follow Changmin to another aisle. 

You don’t speak to him for a while, and it’s so awkward to watch him find random things, and even worse when he finds something only to put it back because the price makes him do a double take. And each time you make an attempt to offer to get it anyway or tell him it really doesn’t make a difference to you, he gives you a look of such discontent, like he wants you to keep your mouth shut and it surprises even you that you do. 

You were stubborn and weren’t one to back down, and yet you would find it so embarrassing if an argument ensued between you both in public. It was bad enough that you were both together with the potential risk of someone you knew seeing it, but even worse if you brought on that attention through your disagreements when you could’ve avoided it. 

“I think I’m done,” you look down at all the items and frown, wondering how the hell that’s meant to last a week. It makes you think again, if he really could make this last for a while or maybe he just really didn’t want to live off your dime and you’re not so sure what bothered you more. 

“Do you not eat?”

“Coming from you?”

Another insult and it leaves you angry, but you also wonder if he’d noticed. If he had, you wondered how. If he was simply attentive or watching you constantly when you weren’t looking like some creep, “I eat.”

“I’d hope so,” you want this evening to be over. It would be nice to go home and curl up in your bed, to maybe call Chanhee and hear your best friend’s voice, to maybe text Juyeon to get a goodnight that was kind and sweet, to maybe ask Hyunjae if he was planning a party any time soon so that you’d have something new to look forward to and redeem yourself and your reputation. 

“There’s nothing else you want?”

“Nope,” you look down at all he’d chosen again and it just doesn’t sit right with you, but you don’t say anything else. It’s none of your business, how he chooses to consume his meals or what his motive or intentions are in not taking advantage of you buying everything for him, but it feels like an insult to you and your money that he’s not using it properly. 

It also bothers you, how he’d seemed enthused earlier at the prospect of you getting groceries for him, how he’d even laughed while doing your hair and how when he'd smiled it even reached his eyes, only to stand here with him now and see the way his eyes seem lifeless, how his smile has faded and he seems so miserable and over being around you. 

“Fine,” is your answer, cold just like him as you both go to the check out, paying for all his things whilst he packs them up. You’re both so silent, the woman scanning all his items gives you both a look, as if she knows you’re both fighting and can feel the tension between you both. 

You don’t end up spending much at all, far less than you’d expected, and yet when you try to pay, Changmin steps up to you, “I’ll just get it.”

“No, I want to get it,” you push him away from you, but he surprises you in his strength and resistance, barely moving an inch while you try to tap your watch against the card machine. 

“I don’t want you to.”

“I said I would!” you snap and he finally stops fighting you, maybe in his shock because you’ve raised your voice publicly, but you manage to pay and the woman gives him a sympathetic look with kind eyes as if to tell him she’s sorry for your behaviour. 

It’s silent as you both go to the car but you can feel his anger radiate off him. You already know he might snap, the question is what his anger will look like. You’re not afraid of it or Changmin, because while you don’t know him well, you don’t believe he’d hurt you in frustration. But you do wonder what he’ll say, if anything at all. 

You try to ignore him by drowning it all out with music, occasionally glancing over at him though he’s on his phone not paying attention to you. It was like having a random strange man in your car, one that wouldn’t take any time to get to know who he was even with, but you supposed that was better than the alternative. 

“I don’t know your address,” you tell him eventually, realising you were just heading back to your place when you should very likely be going a whole other direction.

“Drop me anywhere. I’ll take the bus.”

“I’m already driving,” he sighs, but he doesn’t fight you either, reaching over to the touch screen in the centre of your car to find the navigational system so that he can type in his address. You knew the area by name, though you’d never done more than pass it by. When you were younger, your parents had insisted on avoiding places such as the one you were now going to, for it was full of criminal activity and rather dangerous at night. At least so they said. 

“Thank you for helping me,” it takes a lot for you to say it, so you hope at the very least he’ll realise how difficult it is for you and to appreciate that you managed to say it anyway. He doesn’t react at first, looking outside into the dark, up at the city lights and the way everything reflects, but eventually he pays attention to you again when the trees get boring and a droplet of rain falls onto the window. 

“It’s nothing.”

“Yeah but… you didn’t laugh at me.”

“There was nothing to laugh at,” he made things difficult. It was hard to speak to him, sometimes moreso, because he just seemed so indifferent when you didn’t want him to be. You also knew him to be different, just sometimes, because you’d had little glimpses of it, and you wondered where they went when he stopped smiling. 

“Juyeon would’ve found it hilarious.”

“I’m not Juyeon,” he interrupts angrily, this time turning his head to look at you properly and it distracts you. You were near certain though you’d gotten no real confirmation that they didn’t like each other at all, and yet his instant protest made it far more evident than you’d presumed it to be. 

“You make him sound like a bad person.”

“If he would’ve laughed at you, then isn’t he?”

No. You want to say no. Juyeon was flawed but not bad. He was always so kind to you, until the moments in which he wasn’t but you knew how to ignore those for the good things you got. But then you wondered why you’d broken up at all if he was what you wanted. It was hurting your head to think about it, to think about Juyeon was always so complicated and painful, yet here you were again wondering if you could ever have him back. 

“He’s not that bad.”

“Right,” you’re not sure why you wanted him to fight with you. To tell you you’re wrong, that Juyeon was fucking terrible and destroyed every little bit of confidence within you so that he could mold it back together into the perceived beauty that he wanted. Until you were created to be only his. 

You’re not sure why you want Changmin to say it, because you know you’ll resist him anyway. 

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t, really. I just don’t get it. I’ll never understand wanting to be hurt by someone you think should love you,” you fall silent first. You want to defend Juyeon but you’re not sure how to do it without sounding pathetic. 

“He does love me,” Changmin doesn’t say anything else. He rolls down your car window and lights a cigarette without even asking if he can though you say nothing about it. Maybe you might normally, but you stop yourself this time because your thoughts are muddled and you’re not sure you can even really think. 

“It’s just here,” he breaks you out of your thoughts and you park just a bit down the road where there’s space, watching him get out of the car but you stay put at first. You feel a little numb, frozen even, though when he opens the trunk of the car, you finally snap out of it and follow after him. 

“You don’t need to help me,” you don’t listen to him, grabbing one of the bags before shutting the back of your car and looking at him expectantly, “you’re not coming inside.”

“Fine.”

You’re a little disappointed. Mostly because your curiosity has grown and you really want to meet his stray cat, but Changmin seems determined to keep you away from the little furball, “next time then.”

He seems as surprised as you by your words, although deep down you think you both know they’re not meant. You likely won’t ever be here again, and so the final steps to the front door of the apartment complex is all you’ll ever get a glimpse of into his life. You wonder how he lives, what it looks like, if it’s neat or cluttered, dark or bright.

You wonder if his interior reveals his interests and hobbies, or if it’s monotone and hard to decipher. You realise you wonder so much in this moment, about Changmin and who he is, what he’s really like away from what you see. But maybe what’s inside is too vulnerable for him to reveal, that he keeps it to himself because it feels safer. 

You wonder even if just for a moment, what it would be like to get to know him beyond you both standing here in the light rain.  

“Well, thank you for the groceries,” you hold the last bag out to him for him to take and he does, leaving you to stand there with no real purpose other than to look at him. 

“Yeah… of course,” you don’t know what you’re saying. You’ve forgotten how to formulate a sentence and it feels suffocating to stand here with him. You really want to leave, though not because you detest Changmin in the way you might sometimes believe, but rather because it feels so strange to just stand there with him, with no real purpose or gain out of it, “goodnight Changmin.”

He nods, reaching for his key rather awkwardly and you’d help if it didn’t mean reaching into the pocket of his jacket. You watch him struggle though he manages eventually, turning only briefly before he ultimately sighs, “I should walk you to the car.”

You want to ask why until you remember what your parents had said. Maybe they were right, that it really was unsafe and Changmin knew it too, “I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t care,” he puts his bags down in the hall right next to the door, letting it fall shut after him as he comes back down the steps to where you stand to begin the short journey back to your car. It’s so awkward between you both, so painfully silent and you think back to the woman at the grocery store again, the way she’d stared at you both. 

“Well, I survived the walk to my car,” you think you see a faint smile on his face, but you don’t want to comment on it in case he notices and lets it fade away again, “goodnight Changmin. For real this time.”

Changmin smiles. He genuinely smiles and his dimples show on his cheeks enough to make you want to mirror a similar upturn of your lips. It’s contagious, and he stands there as you shut the door though let your window down just a little in case he wants to say anything else to you. 

At first, you don’t think he’s going to. You think he’s going to let you leave but when you start the car, he leans his arms against the opened window and looks up at you again, carefully, as if his eyes are searching for something within your own and you wonder if your cheeks look as warm as they suddenly feel. 

“Get home safe, little doll,” you want to answer but you’re left completely stunned by him. The wave of emotions you go through in his company can’t be quite good for you. It makes you feel vulnerable and a little confused and you can do nothing to help it. It’s simply there, every single feeling is right at the surface and you can’t hide it. 

It makes you feel so exposed, enough that your words get caught in your throat and you have to simply drive away, seeing him in your rearview mirror, and you hope he gets inside and off the street if it really is as bad as you’d been told here. 

You don’t mean to do it, but after a few minutes you turn around just to check that he’d gone inside, slowing down when you don’t see him anymore, nor do you see the groceries he’d placed down just inside when he’d chosen to walk you back to your car. 

Which meant he was okay, and you could go home. 

You’re at another one of Juyeon’s parties and you’ve had a little too much to drink. You don’t know what time it is, nor are you sure on where you’re even going. It’s disorienting for you to even walk, dizzying in hallways you’re familiar with and yet you can’t make out where you are. Eventually you give up and try to roll a cigarette, but you swear you’re seeing double and can’t even imagine the state you’re in. 

Wondering if you look like a disaster, you try to see if you recognise anyone, though you’re alone aside from a couple making out not too far away from you. It bothers you a little, but you don’t want to bring their attention towards you and instead remain silently sat on the hardwood floor, beautifully dark and expensive. The music is still loud so you figure you must still be close to the main living room but you can’t be sure. 

“Little princess, I’ve been trying to find you,” Juyeon’s worried voice breaks you out of whatever daze you’re in, looking up to see him stand there in his dress shirt that clings tight to his thin waist. He’s beautiful, of course, and you become aware of the state you must look like, now that something so gorgeous is in front of you. 

What is happening to you?

“Am fine,” you mumble, wanting to close your eyes as much as you want to go outside to have a cigarette. 

“You look awful,” you know. He doesn’t need to tell you, and yet when he does it stings deep and makes you wish he hadn’t said anything at all. You wish for just a moment that he’d lie to you and tell you otherwise, in a way that makes you think that the opposite might be true. 

You want Juyeon to tell you that you’re pretty. 

“I know,” he stares at you, silently first before he crouches down to your level. Your eyes meet and his are dark but pretty, a certain glazed spark that makes you want to kiss him, but you don’t. 

“I can take you to my room,” you nod, holding your hand out to him so he can help you to your feet, and you stumble into his chest when gravity decides to not be in your favour, “when did you turn into such a drinker?”

You’re not sure, really, what had made you drink so excessively tonight, but Juyeon knew that you drank and could drink a lot so the question still takes you aback. Does he think you’ve gone off the rails? 

“Am not…” though your lack of coordination and the fact that you feel increasingly ill from being intoxicated seems to suggest otherwise. Remembering how much you’ve had would be impossible to decipher so you wouldn’t even attempt it. 

“Here… you should shower first.”

“Don’t wanna…” as if you’d trust yourself to even stand upright in the shower, but Juyeon seems just as persistent as you. 

“I’m not letting you in my bed in this state,” you scoff, thinking it’s unbelievable that his first concern would be his silken bed sheets though simultaneously you know you’d be just the same. No way you’d ever let someone this drunk on your mattress with the chance that they’d be sick. You understood perfectly, and yet it still made you angry. 

“Why’d you care so little about me?”

Juyeon doesn’t say anything first, leading you to the bathroom and you sit against the door, watching him move around without his attention ever going to you. It almost confirms the question, that he’s so indifferent and careless because you’re not worth even worrying about. 

“You’re being dramatic.”

“Am I?”

You’re getting angry and it shows, pushing your body up with all the strength you can possibly find in your body, Juyeon catching you the moment you threaten to fall back to the floor. Even if he caught you, he seems to push your body away from him, like he doesn’t want you any closer and it kills something in you to have him act this way towards you when he’d been so sweet before. 

“Why’re you doing this?”

“You should go home. I’ll get Chanhee,” normally, he would've let you stay. Juyeon would let you stay in his bed and the fact that he isn’t even offering it makes your heart sink deep, a heavy weighted feeling in your chest that’s just equally as hollow. Your heart is breaking and he doesn’t seem to care at all, nor does he seem to care for the consequences. 

You stand completely alone, looking around the bathroom before you get a burst of energy that has you looking for any remnants of cocaine in any of his drawers. Juyeon hid it well, just in case the cleaners rummaged more than he’d requested, because he did not need anything to get back to his parents in regards to some of his more worrying behaviour. Unfortunately, you come up entirely empty and the door opens to you surrounded by a mess of his things. 

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Juyeon is so angry, you truly want to fear him with how he looks at you, but Chanhee and Hyunjae both stand there too, with Hyunjae even moving to block Juyeon’s body from you. You’re not sure why he does it, but to know he seems more concerned for you than the man you loved brought a new pain to your chest that really made you want to cry. He was so careless and it hurt. 

“I’ll just take her home- don’t,” Chanhee glares at Juyeon when he makes an attempt to move towards you, and you’re grateful for your best friend when he helps you back up, albeit you have no way of really focusing in on him, your vision blurry and tired. 

“Did she take anything?” Hyunjae. You think it’s Hyunjae, his voice soft and gentle, sounding entirely sober and you wonder if he’d had anything to drink at all. Usually he did, a bottle always famously in hand yet he seemed so okay now, you couldn’t imagine it. 

“Don’t know,” cold. His voice sounds so cold and careless, it’s the only thing you can focus on. You can’t pay attention to Chanhee holding your body up or the fact that Hyunjae is right in front of you. You don’t even notice.

“It’s like she’s been drugged,” Chanhee. It’s Chanhee, and he sounds more angry than Juyeon, though for an entirely different reason. He’s concerned for you, but in a tone you’re not familiar with. 

“Just get her out then.”

“She’s about to pass out, Juyeon.”

“I don’t care, Chanhee.”

Your vision is spotted and you start to think that maybe Hyunjae’s question has merit. You’d had plenty to drink but in your mind it hadn’t been enough to act like this. Yet you were so out of it, so unaware and so ready to sink back to the floor where your heart already lay in pieces. 

“I’ll carry her. Let’s just go,” you can’t make out the voice anymore. You can barely make anything out as you feel yourself being lifted up onto someone’s back. He’s warm and strong, a cologne you recognise but not familiar enough with for it to belong to Chanhee. If it’s not your best friend and it isn’t Juyeon, it had to have been Hyunjae. 

You hope it’s Hyunjae. He’s the one you’d trust the most after the two other men in the room with you. 

You don’t remember falling asleep nor do you remember waking up, but there’s a sharp cold breeze and wind blowing through your short cut hair, earrings swaying with every step of the man who’s carrying you. 

“Should we take her to the hospital?”

“I think she just needs to sleep,” you think that’s Hyunjae. You hope it is. He’s so comfortable to hold and so warm if that’s the case. 

“I can’t believe Juyeon’s such an ass he can’t even let her crash in his bed.”

“I’m gonna talk to him about that,” the voice closest to you tells your best friend. At least you presume it to be. Eventually you let your eyes reopen, nuzzling deeper against Hyunjae’s shoulder once you confirm it really is him.

“You’re awake,” your best friend looks at you with a concerned gaze that has you wanting to turn away. You don’t like that look of pity and concern for your state. You’d much rather ignore the mess you are in favour of pretending it never happened. 

“Hi pretty,” Hyunjae says, turning his head slightly to look back at you. You have to admit it’s incredibly nice to walk with them like this though you’re not sure why they didn’t just get your driver or one of their own, “we’re nearly at my place”

“Mhmm, why didn’t we uber?”

“Figured you could use the fresh air. It’s not much further,” Hyunjae answers, Chanhee walking in silence with you both. 

“You’re really sweet Hyunjae,” you feel him laugh, the vibrations in his chest reaching you and it makes you smile against him. It’s nice, the way he laughs, the way it reaches deep in his chest and sounds so low and carefree. 

“That I am, darling.”

You make it to Hyunjae’s place not long after and you’re not really sure what happens beyond that. You think you remember Chanhee asking if he could stay in the bathroom with you while you shower, just in case you fall or hurt yourself, and you do remember agreeing and even telling him to leave the door open in case Hyunjae had to come in to help. 

After that, it becomes a little more muddled, though you do get a change of clothes from Hyunjae that swallow you whole because he’d already warned you ahead of time that it was too large for him too, and then you’re curled up in the centre of his bed with both your friends on either side of you. 

You’re turned facing Chanhee, far less space between you and your best friend than you and Hyunjae, though Hyunjae had insisted on keeping a larger distance because he didn’t want you to feel weird about sharing a bed with him. He was right, it was a little weird at first to be in bed with him, but you got used to it quickly because you think he made a joke and you know you laughed and then you must’ve fallen asleep before they followed suit. 

And suddenly you didn’t mind it at all.

You swear you’d been hungover for two days after that cursed party at Juyeon’s house. When you had first woken up in Hyunjae’s bed, you’d still felt drunk, and that drunk feeling turned into being hungover with a throbbing headache and the following day it still persisted. It had persisted but you needed to catch up on a lot of studying, having put it on the back burner long enough that soon your parents would notice and say something, or worse, take your allowance from you. 

So you found yourself back at the library, overdressed to compensate and hide how absolutely shit you felt from the amount you’d had to drink, trying to find somewhere to sit. You decided to sit on a table far in the corner, away from everyone yet still within sight of the main area, opening your laptop up and grabbing one of your many notebooks and one of your textbooks. 

You think an hour goes by when you briefly leave to grab a coffee from the cafe just down the street, coming back with a warm drink and another painkiller down your throat because the headache persisted and you had at least a few more hours to study before you could tell yourself it was enough. 

It hadn’t even been a minute since you’d sat when a shadow of a person stood across from you, completely still first as if debating before he speaks, presumably towards you, “you don’t mind, right?”

You raise your head to see Changmin with a coffee from the same place you’d just been to, his hair wet from rain and his glasses a little slanted, his hoodie too large for his body and covering even his palms to imitate little paws. 

“I guess it’s fine,” he sits diagonally to you, adjusting his glasses and you just stare as he gets his books and a notebook out, full of coloured little tabs and sticky notes. It was colourful, unexpectedly so, and very messy in a way. You wondered how he learned anything like that, but maybe he had a method.

“You got home okay last week?”

It’s a question directed towards you but it takes a minute for you to process it while you were in a daze, blinking out of it and focusing on him properly again, the way his hands rest under his chin, two of his fingers twisting one of his rings. 

“Well, I’m here, right?”

He nods, having some of his coffee before he starts to write something. You think that’s all he’ll say, so you turn back to what you’re doing and try to focus on literally anything but him. He was such an easy distraction, and yet he did nothing to be that. 

“Are you hungover?” Shit.

Were you really that obvious, or was Changmin just that good at guessing? You honestly couldn’t tell, and you weren’t sure what you favoured less. 

“I look like shit, don’t I?” Changmin surprises you when he smiles, not in a way that tells you he agrees but in a way that tells you he’s amused. Like he genuinely finds it funny that that was your conclusion to his question. 

“Is that what I said?” Well, no, you supposed not, but it surely felt like it first when he’d posed the question, “you just look a little out of it.”

You were. God, you were so fucking over everything and you couldn’t fully describe or explain what was happening to you. Something was, but you couldn't control it nor did you control your feelings or outcomes of the situations you put yourself in when you didn’t need to be in them. 

“I am, yeah,” he opens the lid of his coffee, as if trying to reach the foam that normally clings to the lid of the cup like glue. You stare at him again like a bad habit, only realising after a while that neither of you are attempting to argue with the other and maybe you don’t detest him so much. 

Just maybe. 

“Juyeon’s, right? I heard about it,” you look away from him in favour of finding your coffee and having some of it before it gets too cold and bitter to taste. You’re not sure what to answer to that, not more than a nod because it feels weird to know that he wouldn’t even have been invited yet he knows that it happened and that you were there. 

“Yeah,” it sounds weak and you try to clear your throat, coughing instead as a result and turning your eyes back to the words in front of you, the mathematical equations that make you want to die the longer you look at them and the scribbles you’re trying to decipher even though you were the one to put them there. 

“You look confused.”

“I am confused,” you tell him, and he surprises you by getting up and coming over to you, hovering into your personal space before you can ask him what the hell he’s doing. He’s close but never too close, and you hope no one is watching you both or peering in to the fact that you’re being friendly. “I can solve it for you if you want,” now it’s your turn to be amused and laugh, because no way in hell is Changmin able to look at your notes with anything other than a giant question mark over his head, “What? You think I don’t know how to do mathematical analysis?”

“Honestly, no,” you confess, and he looks at you strangely before reaching over for one of his pens. 

“I can do the first one. It’ll help you figure out the second question,” you’re not sure why you agree or why you let him so easily take control of your notebook, but he does and you don’t say anything first, watching the way he writes out the equation. His motions are so fluid, the way his fingers grip the pen with confidence in what he writes. There doesn’t seem to be a single mistake as he writes, like he knows exactly how to get the answer and it amazes you. 

“I didn’t know you were smart,” you’d meant it as a genuine compliment and genuine amazement but it’s clear to you that it sounds quite backhanded, which you suppose mirrors your personality towards him more. He doesn’t flinch, ignoring you entirely before he pushes your notes back to you.

“There you go,” he gets up before you can even say thank you, and it’s the sudden absence of his presence beside you that makes you realise you didn’t mind him in your space at all. You feel like you should, that you did just recently, but his closeness to you had felt like a safe presence, not a familiarity yet and not foreign enough to make you alert to it. 

It was just sort of there. He just sort of existed with you. 

“Thank you,” you’ve never sounded so sincere with him before, not that you had ever wanted to be nor meant it, but even when he’d been kind enough to cut your hair and not fuck it up, even then you hadn’t thanked him the way you did now, even if you’d argue that that gesture was far more important to you than this.

“You really don’t need to thank me. I find it weird,” what a way to ruin it. You roll your eyes and turn back to your work instead, using his method of solving the equation to help you figure out the rest. His handwriting was a little sloppy but you could read it fairly well, though the few times you struggle you still refused to ask him to tell you outright what it meant.

“How’s your cat?”

“You don’t have to make conversation either,” he adds, but it doesn’t sound troubled or annoyed, rather a statement that you don’t have to put in effort where you don’t want to. And then you wonder why you’re putting in any effort at all so suddenly, “he’s fine. How’s yours?”

“She’s fine.” “That’s good,” he never once looks up at you and it’s starting to bother you. Are you that ugly, that he simply didn’t want to see you at all? Was there something about you that was so easy to detest that even someone like Changmin couldn’t find it in himself to be decent and meet your eyes?

It’s like he could sense your thoughts and your bitterness of his refusal to meet your eyes, because suddenly his deep brown ones were staring into your own and you found it almost overwhelming to meet his gaze. His eye contact lingered and he didn’t falter with it, and eventually the way he stared back at you became too intense and you had to look away. 

“You’re terrible with eye contact,” you were, he was right. It wasn’t very comfortable for you, and the longer someone lingered on you, the worse it got unless you were angry and intimidating someone. 

“It’s weird to stare at someone.”

“You stared at me first,” fuck, so he’d noticed it. Of course he had. You knew what it was like, to feel that stare of someone enough so that you tried to find where it was coming from. In this case, Changmin had felt it yet there hadn’t been enough people around to hide that it was you. He knew instantly, because it had been obvious. 

“I daydream.”

“How cute,” it sounds sarcastic coming from his lips. You don’t think he genuinely finds you cute. Honestly, you’d take it as an insult if he did. Cute was for animals, not for a grown woman, and so you were glad to know that for once he was mocking you.

There’s no words said between either of you for a while. You finish your coffee and he finishes his, and after a while he gets up and grabs both empty cups once he’s sure there’s nothing left in yours, “where’re you going?”

“Bin,” he leaves you alone and you’re left staring at him dumbly, watching his figure disappear behind rows of books and shelves. But then he doesn’t come back, and a few minutes turn into a quarter of an hour and you want to start looking for him. His things were still with you, including his phone, and you wonder why or when he became so trusting of you. Surely you could take it all or worse, you could ruin it, and he just had faith that you apparently wouldn’t. 

Eventually he reappears, but you only notice because another cup of coffee is suddenly right in front of your eyes, held by hands you recognise because of the jewellery adorned, and it’s only further confirmed when you look up again to see him standing there. 

“You got me a coffee?”

“Why’re you so surprised?”

Many reasons. You don’t like each other very much. His money was tight, that you knew. Or just the fact that it was the last thing you naturally expected when he’d disappeared for so long.

“How do you know what I drink?”

“Guesswork. It’s skimmed milk, too.”

Even Juyeon messed that up. He’d mess it up nearly every time and you could always taste the difference, you swore it, and yet he’d lie and say he’d gotten it right just enough for you to want to believe that maybe you were wrong. Maybe it wasn’t him that screwed up.

Surely it was always you. 

“I really don’t want to keep thanking you today.”

“Then just get the next one in a few hours,” you’re rendered a little speechless on the silent assumption that you’d both be here for most of the day, but you suppose he’s being fair and that it’s very likely you’ll be here for a while, still. 

“I guess,” you mumble, bringing the coffee closer to you to warm your fingers. You hold it for a while, fingers laced together before you bring the liquid to your lips to drink. It tastes exactly like you would’ve wanted it to, and briefly it makes your mind wander on how he could’ve known it so well. 

You’re back to sitting in complete silence and after a few hours go by like that, Changmin seems disinterested in his work and instead wanders off before returning with a book to read. It brings amusement to your lips, an upwards smile that you try to hide under your hand because you don’t want him to comment on it. Thankfully he doesn’t seem to notice, or if he does, he ignores it. 

“Well… I suppose it’s my turn,” you mutter, reaching over for his empty cup before taking your own. He looks up at you with warm eyes, adjusting his glasses again and you start to think that it might be a habit given the repetition in which you see him do so. 

“I’ll have a cappuccino.” 

“Do you want it with the chocolate powder?”

“Yeah, just as it comes is fine,” you leave your things aside from your wallet and phone, as well as the two empty to-go cups and make your way out. It’s a strange feeling, running an errand of sorts you suppose for the both of you. And yet studying with Changmin across from you isn’t bad at all. Actually, you find it strangely peaceful, because he doesn’t bother you at all but his presence makes you feel less isolated. 

You like that he doesn’t really make an attempt at a conversation where there isn’t one to be had. 

“Here you go,” he mumbles something similar to a thank you, at least you think, his hand reaching out for you to place his coffee into. You do so, watching as he doesn’t once look up but his fingers dust over your own and it makes your heart jump to your throat because the feeling is foreign and strange but you want to welcome it. 

You don’t like that you do, huffing in frustration at yourself and your stupid mess of emotions that have been scattered ever since that forsaken incident weeks ago. Maybe you’d have to consider therapy at this point, if the mess that was your mind persisted and the results were hangovers spread over multiple days and heart palpitations because someone simply touched you. 

“Thanks,” you nod but he doesn’t seem to notice, so deeply caught up in his work that you think it might be something important, or at least incredibly interesting. He’d put the book he’d found earlier down and held his pen between his lips, fingers running through his now dry hair as he gripped the ends when he seemed frustrated.

Again, you were staring, but it was far too easy to do when he was right there and practically the only source of entertainment for your mind when your work was boring you to death. 

“Struggling?”

“I suppose,” he draws out, pen no longer between his lips so he could answer you. You want to ask him what he’s doing, what exactly he’s even majoring in because you realise you have no idea. Then again, it had never interested you enough to ask and you’re not so sure if you ever will. 

“Biochemistry,” he says outloud, presumably spoken to you. When you don’t answer, he looks up and stares right at you, “that’s what I’m studying.”

Wow, so he really was smart. 

“Willingly?”

“Surprised?”

“Maybe,” the back and forth felt a little like flirting, and yet you knew it wasn’t that. It was a back and forth simply because the conversation never really went deeper. It was quick because there was nothing else to say. 

It’s early in the evening when you decide that you've had enough. Changmin had left a few times for a cigarette, always rolling one at the table with you right there, making lazy conversation before he’d leave for a few minutes and then return. You debated asking if you could come with him just once before you remembered where you were and who you were with, so instead you sat and accepted the nicotine withdrawal. 

“I think I’m done for the day,” he looks up at you briefly before he stretches his limbs, turning his shoulder either direction to warm his muscles and rid them of the tension from being mostly sat all day. 

“That’s fair,” you start to pack up and there’s something in your mind wondering if you’d end up doing this again. You wouldn’t entirely mind it, as annoying as he is, when you simply sit with each other it’s rather nice and easy. It’s when the two of you start to speak to one another that problems arise. It’s when you realise again who he is that the calmness in your veins turns into something else. 

“You’ll take a break at some point, right?” 

“I plan to, doll,” his eyes meet yours again and you’re left staring, unsure what to make of that nickname anymore. It still bothers you and yet you perceive it as a compliment just the same, for if he calls you a doll, surely you’re delicate enough to be one?

“Don’t forget dinner,” he adds when you start to walk away from the table, and it brings you to a halt. Changmin doesn’t look up from his work, although you know that he’s aware that you’ve stopped, that you’re probably frustrated and that you want to tell him to go to hell when you let out a frustrated sigh. He has no right to tell you that, and yet the very fact that he’d brought it up at all with such casual nonchalance yet clear determined voice makes you think he might say it because he’s worried but doesn’t want to push a boundary further than he thinks he needs to. 

He wants to remind you without pressuring you into a corner.

First you think of saying something, to maybe make a comment back but for the longest time you’re left standing there with nothing coming out of your lips. You simply can’t find anything to say. 

“I’ll remember dinner when you forget to smoke,” he looks up from his textbook but you’ve already turned away from him, disappearing behind the shelfs and he’s left staring after you, a little lost before a faint smile falls back to his lips and his dimples become prominent despite just the faintness in which his lips curve. 

You’d never know that he didn’t smoke for the rest of the night, but you did have dinner before you curled up in your bed with a book and your cat sat lazily beside you. 

Changmin was starting to interest you. Not because you liked him but rather because he left you curious and a little stunned because of how strange he was. You were also wondering how or why he always managed to read you so well, it was all guess work and yet it was simply always correct just the same and you had no idea how he did it. Aside from the thought that he might be stalking you but you were always more than certain that he’d claim to have better things to do than follow you. 

You hadn’t studied with Changmin since the hours spent in the library together but you had used the few notes and solutions he gave you the next few days as you revised. It was incredibly helpful, annoyingly so and you were beginning to feel a little dumb because why couldn't you have just written this out yourself? It wasn’t difficult now that you saw the answer.

Sunday night comes around and you’re lazily hanging around in bed listening to the rain outside. You’re so bored, but there was no party to attend and nothing else to really do. Chanhee said he was too busy and you weren’t going to ask Hyunjae, even though you had his number. You considered it truly, but ultimately didn’t want to give him the wrong idea of you nor were you sure how that would look if Juyeon found out. 

Juyeon. A thorn in your side that pinched and twisted. He wouldn’t go away and you were conflicted on whether or not you wanted him to. You cared for Juyeon deeply and yet he seemed to prove the opposite in return, that you were worth the minimum if nothing at all. The final bit of evidence wasn’t even too long ago, when he left Hyunjae and Chanhee to carry you home instead of simply letting you stay in his bed to recover. 

It was starting to feel, just a little, like Changmin might be right. Maybe the bad did outweigh the good though you weren’t ready to face the consequences of that being true. You weren’t ready for any of it. You didn’t want it to be true, because if it was you would have to grieve something only you seemed to love and you really didn’t want to be faced with that reality. 

The doorbell rings and it breaks you away. It takes you a minute to realise that you’ll have to be the one to answer, as your parents are out and none of the staff remained given the late hour. You wondered why your parents still didn’t invest their money on a live-in butler, but they insisted he would attempt to steal with all the extra time given to him in which he simply stayed here. 

When you come downstairs you’re already a little annoyed. The ringing persisted and whoever it was was incredibly impatient with you getting there, so you’re already ready to yell at whoever it is but when you finally meet the gaze of who it is, you stop in your step and stare.

Juyeon. 

act iii

this chapter was meant to be longer but tumblr said no so I apologise for the cliffhanger it's not my fault and also apologise that this won't be three acts only pfff

taglist: @sanaxo-o @mosviqu @sunramzi @tbzhubrecs @caratsmatic @synnocence

again, let me know if you wanna be on the taglist 💜 comments are always appreciated

series masterlist || tbz masterlist

©️strayed-quokka, please do not steal, translate, reuse or rewrite as your own

[hell-is-not-an-excuse]

Not so sorted Ghostfuckers thoughts

Firstly, this episode was an improvement over the last few, at least in my opinion - That isn't to say that it's great, or even particularly good, but I can say that I was more invested in this episode, even if only a little. It had more focus on the original concept of the show with an I.M.P mission finally not just being reduced to a short... Though the mission still doesn't take full priority, something I will expand on momentarily.

Before that though, I'll start off with the things I did actually like.

The bankruptcy joke got a quick giggle out of me. It may be that I'm still an immature little homonculus, but the jokes that don't fall into the unnecessarily crude/sexual category still elicit a reaction from me.

This joke got me too - I know that this was almost definitely intended as a jab towards critics, however it loops back around to being funny to me, as I joke a lot about being "objectively correct".

These frames of Moxxie specifically - I love him a lot and wish he was in a show that took better care with its character writing

I enjoyed seeing the flashback designs for the I.M.P crew - Moxxie isn't too different, but I actually sort of prefer the others past looks here.

Lastly, this specific moment/line! This is a massive improvement over what was given to us in those leaked boards - In the original boards, I had a hard time believing that Millie would have this suicidal fit out of seemingly nowhere because... Some other demon told her she was a bad wife? This is a much more "in character" line for Millie, given what we already knew about her as an audience (which admittedly, wasn't a lot, but she never gave off the sort of insecurity/suicidal ideation that the original boards appeared to have been pushing for).

I think I've gotten all the praise I can wring out of my system - Now comes all the issues I take with this newest episode. These criticisms come in no particular order.

There's the usual thought that comes whenever a new episode drops - The swearing and sexual humour is too frequent and over the top. I'm an enjoyer of well placed crude and sexual humour, but this isn't well placed. With every second line containing profanity, innuendo, or explicit sexual content, they become less and less special and interesting to hear, to the point that watching characters interact becomes a slog.

Blitz is supposedly having this month long breakdown because... He had a breakup that wasn't really a breakup? He himself admits they were never in a relationship, and gets upset at the concept that him and Stolas will never be together. Obvious criticism of Stolitz notwithstanding, until Apology Tour, there have been no genuine moments of "love" between the two - This all comes off more as Blitz mourning this potential (now dead) relationship because the writers feel it's time for him to do so, without selling to the audience why he would give a damn about Stolas in the first place. I hardly believe Stolas and his pining back in Ozzie's, let alone the shameless display that we're getting now.

Speaking of Stolas, this is a perfect segue into what I said I was going to expand upon further down in this post; despite this episode having an I.M.P mission be a main setting, that's all it is - A setting. I wouldn't mind so much if this was purely for character building, but it's yet another instance of things happening because of Stolas. This feathered fuck haunts the narrative even when he's not present! The mission is presented more as an avenue of helping Blitz "get over" Stolas as opposed to just being a job that the members of I.M.P need to, you know, live.

Speaking of, how financially stable are I.M.P and its employees? Despite having nearly two seasons to expand on the concept of a business owned by the lowest caste of Hell's systems, nothing is done with it. With a setup like that, there should at least be some narrative drama involving the company facing challenges and instances of being in financial dire straights. Instead of this however, Blitz is able to blow a months worth of money on useless knick-knacks and owls to burn? With no real show of consequence as a result of this?

While I enjoyed seeing a bit of Millie backstory and her relationship to Blitz, Helluva still suffers from its "tell don't show" rule. Millie mentions she loves to have fun with Blitz, but we have never seen an instance of these two having fun together in show.

Honestly, the backstory of Blitz/Millie's meet and subsequent partnership should have been its own episode; we could have actually seen her steal the target from I.M.P as a solo assassin, we could have seen the state of I.M.P before her addition - If you wanted a bit of shipping fuel, you could also have an instance of Moxxie being too starstruck by this mysterious, wrathful rival to take a shot on her. So many possibilities! All wasted.

Millie's development episode shouldn't have come at the tail end of season two - She's been in the show since episode ONE, she deserved something in the first season to flesh her out.

I do not buy her reasoning for looking up to Blitz; if she thinks of herself as only a simple country girl or a brute, this would have been nice to actually see hinted to us throughout the show.

The casual ableism in the joke about the Hotel Owner's new cleaner - Not only is the way he is depicted simply dehumanising, framing him as this object of disgust rather than a person, this is driven further by being called a "poor thing" and only being reacted to with vague disgust by Blitz and Millie. And of course he's barely verbal, with the exception of a funny swear word (/sarc).

The whole sequence where Blitz is alone and being tormented by visions of Millie and Tilla is... It sure exists. Subtlety is lost in most of this dialogue here as once again, we are bluntly told what the problem with Blitz is - We know he makes decisions that fuck over others for his own benefit, we know he's selfish. We've seen this time and again!! This is not something that needed to be explicitly spoken for what feels like the millionth time in this (so far) two-season run.

Speaking of mothers! Millie and Loona get shafted into a role of taking care of their respective man for the episode - As a matter of fact, both their conversations involve Blitz or Moxxie. After nearly two seasons, I don't think they've had a conversation that wasn't about their male coworkers/relationships.

What is an infestor demon? Have they shown up before? What in God's name am I supposed to know about them? Somehow when it comes to worldbuilding, the need to explain everything explicitly is gone.

Why is Blitz being emotionally tortured again while Stolas sees no real consequence? This is getting to be a really tired pattern.

The whole ghostfucking bit was already testing my patience within the first couple of minutes.

Anyway, that's all I have of like... More surface level critiques of this episode. I'll probably make a few more minor posts about this episode later and elaborate on some new thing my brain is sticking to.

[boneappleteethsplural]

serious post again, CW: brief mentions of suicide and death threats

i saw a post that stated "bullying alone can not cause USDD/OSDD" i dont remember the exact words but that was the jist of it.

kids are fucking brutal. story time! when we were in grade 10 (freshman year, i believe) we got our head slammed in a locker door. we got a concussion from that. we have permanent double vision, we had one surgery, and we have another lined up because it will not go away. we had to do a full year of eye therapy and exercises in an attempt to fix it that did not work. that same kid has been verbally tormenting us since before kindergarten. that kid has gotten multiple of our classmats to berate us and bring us down. that kid has genuinely caused us to consider suicide. he turned everyone against us, spread rumours, the works. we had NO friends from school. we never had anyone over for birthdays except cousins who were obligated to come. we never got invited to anyone elses birthday, because no one liked us. we were the 'weird kid' (undiagnosed autism, undiagnosed adhd, undiagnosed other disorders that fuck with our mind and make dayto day life more impossible than it is) no one ever wanted to be our friend we were isolated and neglected and! bullied! HARSHLY! PHYSICALLY HARMED by classmates. we are 20 years of age bodily, we have a few issues (that i will not name) that makes our mental age be the equivalent of 15-16. we will always be a few years behind our physical age. our mom says that once we turn 24, 25 that itll be easier to pretend we're the right age mentally. all of this shit got us bullied to the point where this other kid deemed it acceptable to screw up our fucking vision by smalling our head in a locker door when we bent down to pick up a binder and make our parents shell out fifty thousand+ dollars to try and fix it. you wanna know what they did to make sure we didnt get bullied again? took us out of the same classes and moved our locker. he didnt get suspended or expelled or even punished. the bullying stopped after we dropped out due to suicidal thoughts and self harming tendencies. we have not gone back, and we legally cant go back as we're legal adults now.

when our aunts went to school, they received threats such as "im going to bring my dads b*tch*r kn*fe to school and ch*p your head off". do you know how fucking upsetting that is to a child? do you know how terrified our aunts were when they got told things like that DAILY? they could not go to the teachers, because the teachers would step in, talk to the bully, and then the bully would call them tattletales and bully them harder.

we got hit with a motercycle by our brother and then got blamed for it. it wasnt our fault. we were on a bicycle, driving on the right side of the road, pretty much in the ditch. and he hit us and lied about it to our parents so he wasnt in trouble and they believed him and yelled at us and took our bike away. even lying like that can be horribly horriby damaging to a small child.

when youre a small child and dont have a big concept of 'things could be worse!' and stuff like that, bullying is a massive deal and it can, and has, driven people to suicide, kids recieve literal death threats and then dont tell people because they will get bullied harder. other kids will lie about big things and then you get blamed for something very serious that is not your fault. kids get physically harmed, and the teachers do nothing about it and the child learns early on that they are on their own. traumatizing, right? people also seem to forget that parents are the bullies sometimes. parents who bully their kids also count as bullying. bullying is bullying no matter who it is.

obviously our trauma and OSDD wasnt caused solely by bullying. we have a rough home life, our parents are actively preventing us from getting a job and moving out, but thats a story for another time or maybe even never. i dont mind sharing those three stories as they happened a long long time ago, we have come to terms with it and accepted that they happened. we cant do anything about it anymore.

dont share your trauma online unless you know for a fact you wont be bothered if someone attempts to harass you or use it against you, this was to prove a point and let people know how fucking awful and traumatizing bullying can be from anyone.

DISASSOCIATIVE IDENTITY DISORDERS CAN BE CAUSED BY BULLYING.

[preyseisgone]

Hi ! This is a callout post on @gloomylace also known as @clingyidol. Before I start , I hate doing these kind of things and it took me alot of effort (+ encouragement from friends ) to do this. Also please do not go and harass Lolita. Cher is a minor and I just overall do not condone harassment. I was originally going to stay quiet .

tw for , abuse , r//pe , violence suicide and more .

Before I start , “weren’t you two just friends ?” Yes but that is until this popped up in my feed. Lolita and another friend are the only two people that know about a situation that roughly happened 2 ~ ish days ago. I was insanely panicked and anxious being accused of stuff like this. I know this is Lolita on anon due to being my ONLY friend in the editblr community and the only one who knows this situation. (besides Avery, Avery isn’t on editblr or the same scenes as me) You know how deeply this affected me. So yeah kinda your fatal flaw assuming I tell my life story to more then 2 people 🤷 also STOP using fucking freyr on me. 🤍 massively appreciated. “An Ex friend” I have only one long term friend and that is Avery 🤍 I am not a fucking freak and copy people , even if I do have identity issues I know it’s weird to copy someone! This is really fucking low of you Lolita and I genuinely trusted you with information and my thoughts and feelings! But no you went behind my back for no reason. It seems like you wanted a reason to turn on me. 🤍

First of all , Lolita said this ! At the time , I did not know anything about oyasumi punpun . I don’t willfully consume media with the following topics

I am massively triggered by almost ALL of those topics . I felt like I was being essentially compared to an abuser , which overall made me feel very, very icky. When confronted about this - ( as seen in the images below )

Lolita ignored me . Cher has done this to another friend of cher’s , making an uncomfortable joke and then when confronted went on a dni and days later replied with something random . Lolita cannot take responsibility for cher’s actions. Che just ignores you essentially and then replies with something random! I am just sick of this behaviour and I will not be surprised if che or someone else will spread rumours about me JUST because I came out about this. I originally thought this wasn’t serious enough to be a call-out post and I felt like I was being overdramatic.

these two screenshots ^ .

multiple people (including me) have had their mental health DRAINED due to your actions. You have lied multiple times. It’s also such a coincidence that hate anons seem to follow you around and when asked you blame it on your exes ? In reality you probably sent them and you sent someone into a really bad episode! You make baseless claims off of little to no proof, broke SEVERAL boundaries of one of your ex partners. You also compared one of your bfs to someone who abused you which is just! plain! fucking wrong. You claim to have high empathy / sympathy and yet when someone who is also mentally ill did not react well over small things you went to shittalk them to their boyfriend.

props to you if you defend a liar and someone who makes nazi jokes xx lying about your exes stalking and harassing you is fucking crazy! Also sent my personal messages to someone and talked shit about me so yeah !

@artistrydoll + @magnoliawriter please reblog if you see this . ^_^

[deafknell]

If you took a random 10 minute section of both Joshua and Otto's lives and viewed it as an outside observer, what is the probability that Otto would appear as the more pathetic man?

My gut was saying Otto easily, but thinking about it? Equally difficult to tell.

Joshua's internal monologue is extremely depressing. He spends every second berating himself and critiquing the people around him all because of his lack of self worth. Since he's alone a lot of the time, those thoughts can range from just being the ultimate hater to being the most miserable man around. In that regard, he's pretty pathetic, in how he's so openly hostile to Subaru and implicitly hostile to Reinhard over their treatment of his brother. He's got codependency issues up to his neck with how he tries to raise Julius to live a life Joshua couldn't.

This posts gonna be a long one, bear with. Arc 8 spoilers (up to c24) under the cut.

He's so fixated on Julius being perfect for his role it shatters him that they're not in sync. The whole debate about his role of head of house sticks with me heavily. "It was exactly that, handed over. Never stolen." The clinginess Joshua has with Julius is immense. The only thing that really offsets it is, well, he gets to know a wide range of people through him. Tivey and Hetaro are his closest friends, while he's fond of people like Mimi, Ricardo, Cecilus, and Schult. He's able to spend time playing with the triplets in the garden without being as controlling over what Julius does by the time canon rolls around.

Even for people he's not fond of, like Anastasia, Joshua's the one who pushes Julius to go after her when he fucks up and upsets her. He's the one who takes up a sword for the first time in 10 years to protect her because it's what Julius would want, even though he's terrified and weak and thinks she's an awful influence on him. Joshua grows up a lot between his obsession as a child to his obsession now, both in how he handles Julius with others and in how he is by himself. So while he's very much a pathetic person, there's a number of times he's actually... respectable, given his awful circumstances.

It makes me wonder how messed up his dynamic with Julius would be if they never met Reinhard when he was 9.

Otto, on the other hand... He's a lot more put together on the surface. You disrespect Julius to Joshua, he'll be foaming at the mouth, but you disrespect Subaru to Otto? It's not as obvious stepping over that landmine. In terms of situations, though, Otto's a lot more pathetic to me when you compare the two and their dynamics with the others.

Comparatively, Otto's had a far more nuanced upbringing than Joshua. His parents are so sweet, and his family's generally supportive of him, despite everything. He's struggled with his DP and later with Diadora and Russell's shit, where Joshua's just been plagued with ill health and a very warped family dynamic for years. They're somewhat direct opposites in how they're brought up in that regard.

By the time he meets Subaru and eventually joins the Emilia camp, he's been through some awful stuff. Frufoo's a massive pillar of support but in terms of healthy communication with people? He's been drinking at the bar regularly, which is a pretty telling sign of how things are for him. His attachment comes on quick, as people like Pluto have spoken about in their ottoposting (which I would highly recommend!!) from writing a suicide note over deciding to help Subaru all the way to making himself almost indispensible to the camp, despite telling everybody his plans of leaving and running his own store.

Joshua's fixation on Julius comes out of a mix of resentment, survival mechanisms and genuine loneliness, I feel. He's so afraid of being left behind that he tries to make himself integral to Julius, and I think part of that is also reflected in Otto's behaviour to the camp. How he asks all of them if they're worried about him over and over because he wants to feel wanted. Subaru gives him that, leaves him plenty of room to just, latch on and it feeds massively into his own issues of self worth and loneliness.

Don't get me started on how poorly he reacts in arc 8 when that closeness is indirectly (contrary to Otto's own belief) challenged by Julius. How quick he is to lash out and paint him as an outsider, that this does not involve him when it very clearly affects Julius the same as everyone else there. Julius and Emilia's light, able to believe that people are fundamentally good, where Otto nips at Subaru's heels like a lingering shadow.

Both Otto and Joshua are extremely pathetic people. They'll lash out at people, barking at whatever hand comes near them, and then project that rage unto themselves before the thought of talking their problems out dawns on them. I think between them, 10 minutes with Joshua would be a lot more tame for me, if solely down to me being much more fond of Julius praise than Subaru praise. Though sitting through 10 minutes of self hatred vs 10 minutes of whatever's going on in Otto's head is enough to drive anybody insane.

If nothing else, at least Joshua didn't make me read this line with my own two eyes:

[p0rchc0ll4ps3]

Thinking about fucked up angst bw Harry and Jean. Headcanons for my au, warning for suicidal thoughts and the like

Anyways they were roommates and their old roommates kicked them out bc they were just way too much so they moved into a super tiny horrible apartment bc it was all they could afford bc Harry refuses to take bribes and he's busy doing his job instead of being a good corrupt cop like the rest of them. So he and Jean are sharing this super small one room apartment with only a gas stove in the corner as a kitchen and inevitably Jean reaches his limit with Harry and can't stand him anymore so he moves out and gets his own apartment and Harry can't handle it

Harry gets all aggressive and upset and fucked up over it and all the 'of course you'd leave, everyone always leaves me'

He tries killing himself one time and it doesn't work and he just starts to get worse and deeper in the hell and completely relapses

And then he just blows Jean off entirely like I don't need you I don't need anyone I'm god fuck you fuck you fuck you

And Jean has massive guilt and super upset about it bc he feels it's his fault for ditching Harry and causing him to spiral this hard but he's done with his bullshit he's had enough he's not going to deal with him anymore

And then Harry goes to Martinaise without Jean and he gets so fucking upset like he tries to get rid of the ledger and tries to quit and tries to kill himself with the car trying to drive himself into the sea

Harry's supposed to have died multiple times. With one time when he got shot, with the hanging, with the car crash, with the amnesia, with the time he gets shot with Kim, with the alcohol poisoning being so severe, but he just doesn't die

And Jean has all these guilt complexes bc yeah he did ditch Harry in the end and he did choose the selfish path of 'I have to survive so I have to leave him behind bc he's dragging me down' and yeah technically it is his fault Harry hung himself and Harry blew him off the case and all that but also Jean is like well actually no

I worked really hard to get you better. And you kept relapsing. And you never got better.

Even though I managed, and I thought you could manage coz you're my brother basically and you're like me, apparently you don't want to live and you're not strong enough and ok fine. If you won't listen then fine. See if I care. Go and fucking rot in hell

I'm done

And now Harry's forgotten him completely and his issues seem to have evaporated and what's more this new partner of his (who Jean really sees as a better cop) seems to be doing a way better job than Jean ever could at helping Harry

So it's gonna take a LOT to mend this whole thing even if Harry does remember. Bc basically Jean and Harry go from being REALLY close and fraternal and like I'll take care of you you'll take of me etc. having both survived horrendous traumatic shit together. To just this huge rift in their relationship bc Harry just cannot for the life of him get better. He cannot unstick himself out of his rut. He just wants to keep tearing himself apart

And Jean feels hugely guilty for leaving him behind but also he just can't stand him anymore AND ALSO it's a form of self harm that he destroy this relationship further, that he completely blow Harry off. Because he knows in his heart of hearts that the closeness and brotherhood they shared before was too good to be true. That he (Jean) will NEVER have anyone who understands him on that level again AND THAT even more so he does not and never will deserve closeness like that

So yeah. Jean is basically 'go fuck yourself. Go kill yourself. See if I care. I don't fucking care. I hate you.' <- said while caring way too fucking much

[shiroandblack]

[TW: abuse, suicide, incest, matricide, pyrophobia, underage sex, Freudian mother-son relationships, mental illness, SA]

PART II OF MY VAMPIRE FICTION PHASE: DIABOLIK LOVERS

I seperated it because this guy *slaps like Apollo slapped Patroclus* deserves their own post. Also, despite the dark romance/felony of it all the soundtrack absolutely slaps especially 'Gin no Bara'.

So basically priest's daughter gets trapped as a blood bank to 6 vampire brothers who are the sons of the vampire king who is fantastically creepy and yet never around except when he's pretending to be the school doctor, but you just know he's fucking shit up. Damn it, Karlheinz.

So these 6 guys, they all have issues. MASSIVE, MAJOR ISSUES. I mean, if you think Madara from Naruto has issues? These guys absolutely win.

Let's start in order of whoever I can remember most.

1. Shū

Ah yes, Shū the eldest brother. I will say that if I had to choose who I'm stuck in an elevator with out of any of these people, I would probably pick Shū. Shū is basically the eldest child and he is the son of Beatrix, Karlheinz's second wife. Did I mention that vampire king daddy had three wives at the same time? No, well it's gonna be pretty relevant later. So Beatrix was the typical high expectation mom, she constantly told Shū that he was the heir and told him to behave appropriately. Think Alicent and Aegon from House of the Dragon, but Beatrix was much more severe with Shū who for all intents and purposes, was just a kid who wanted to play around with other kids, instead of banging servants. Anyways, due to Trauma™ involving his best friend dying in a fire (started by his younger brother, but we'll get to that) he's pretty apathetic towards everything and everyone. But when he does care, he will indeed pull you out of a burning building despite his immense pyrophobia. I don't know how, but out of all of them I'd say Shū is the most well adjusted individual but then again, the bar is in hell. Also, fun fact, this guy once got a part-time job as a cashier which I find absolutely hilarious.

2. Reiji

He shares a mother with Shū, Beatrix. Basically while Beatrix was busy trying to get Shū to do whatever the hell an heir is supposed to do, Reiji was pretty much ignored. However, in the game Beatrix catches Reiji studying and was like "good job" genuinely complimenting him, but then Reiji was like "you're bothering me". So I don't know man. The anime made him more sadistic and psycho in terms of personality which I don't think was really needed cause he's plenty psycho already. He seems to be the most well adjusted, but keyword being seems. So because he was ignored by his mom, he pretty much tried to get Shū's attention but like most older siblings, Shū thought hanging out with his younger brother was uncool and so what does Reiji does? This vampire youngling sets a whole ass human village on fire, coincidentally Edgar is in that village. Reiji thought "great, now that Edgar is out of the way Shū will acknowledge me!" but no. Instead Shū just becomes apathetic and a shell of a person. To those of you who've read/watched Twilight, this feels very Aro and Marcus but unlike Aro who is genuinely worried that Marcus might off himself, Reiji just feels bitter and angry that now his elder brother is ignoring him even more. But that's not the cake, oh no, the cake is that Reiji killed his mother. I mean technically he hired a vampire hunter to do it (said vampire hunter being Yui's adoptive dad. You know, the priest who threw her to the wolves. Literally), but as she was killed because Cordelia (one of Karlheinz's wives) was making her so miserable with life Beatrix died with a smile and she was also proud because Reiji killed her because to vampires, part of being considered an adult is committing homicide. And this pisses off Reiji so much, cause he wanted his mom to beg him to spare her life out of some twisted desire of revenge and when that didn't end up happening. Well, Reiji is motherless and bitter now. The anime really did him dirty, because in the anime they made him super duper serious and just very stiff and constantly degrading Yui for just breathing basically. Whereas in the game, he's a lot more chill than he seems and while he casually insults Yui, he casually insults everyone and I have to say his insults are good. Also in the game, he actually smiles so much more but it's a very condescending and bitter smile it's the smile of someone laughing at the world for how screwed up it is. I will say that he does casually poison Yui several times to test out his poisons, but he always gives her the antidote when she starts exhibiting symptoms.

3. Ayato

Ayato is basically Gojo if Gojo had no human conscience. He acts childish because his mother Cordelia was basically the same way Beatrix was to Shū. Cordelia, however, tried to drown him because pookie couldn't like solve a math equation or some shit. The bar is in hell, but Cordelia is by far the most horrible out of the three mothers. Anyways, he's pretty much a man-child with a propensity for being an ass. He sleeps in an iron maiden (with spikes removed) because despite beds being a thing in their mansion, dude just likes it and he does try to shove Yui into an iron maiden (without the spikes removed) but Yui was not having it. I wouldn't want to be stuck in an elevator with this dude cause he would eat me and make me suffer while he's at it.

4. Laito

Unlucky number four and I have to say out of all the brothers, he is my least favourite. The reason? Well it's simple, he commits SA just by breathing. Also, he's the one to nickname Yui 'Bitch-chan'. Listen, I get that he was sexually abused by his mother and Cordelia did her absolute best to instill sex = love even if that sex is non consensual. But honestly? I don't get the point of his character. What was the point of Rejet making a character like him? Because he is just plain sexually abusive. If it was to show how the abused can become the abuser, there are much more nuanced ways to do it than have Laito SA Yui every five seconds or something. Also, if we're talking about "the abused becomes the abuser" all these characters are already stunning examples please save Yui.

5. Kanato

To anyone into HOTD, think Larys Strong but with a teddy bear and his childlike. Kanato seems the easiest to bear with cause of his childlike attitude. That is until his temper completely flips and the next thing you know, he's threatening to murder you and would actually go through it. Kanato had a very fucked up childhood of his mother making him sing her songs while she's out here banging her brother-in-law because Kanato singing apparently gets her into the mood. Kanato likes to collect dead corpses and stuff them like animals which is why there's an entire hall filled with all the sacrificial brides before Yui. He says he can't wait to add Yui to the collection.

6. Subaru

Now Subaru, Subaru is sadistic as all his brothers are and ill-tempered. This man be punching walls and tables and breaking everything. But he doesn't really raise a hand to Yui at all. I'd say other than his shitty temper and blatant sadism, he is moderately bearable. Why? Well he's got self-worth issues you see. His mother was seduced by her older cousin (his father) and when Krysta realised that Karlheinz didn't love her, she went crazy because he basically convinced her to commit incest which is apparently a no no in the vampire world. Krysta thought of Subaru as an abomination and treated him like crap, but she then would oscillate between thinking him an abomination and her a sinner and feeling guilty for hurting him. Subaru looked after his mother instead of the other way around.

Anyways, this is my long overdue rant of fucked up vampire anime.

[twilight-good-yall-dumb]

I have genuinely seen some of the most horrific takes on Liam Payne's death, and even though I don't often get controversial on this website, I'm about to.

First of all, labeling Liam Payne as nothing but some shitty abuser is such an obtuse observation. Obviously, I understand that the power of the internet has had a large part in this. People listen to whatever other people say without second thought or further research. So sure, if you hear from more than one person that Liam was this awful abuser, most people just take that on faith.

The problem is that it's so much more complicated than that. Firstly, a lot of the current information we have about Liam and his ex-fiancé is alleged. Not to say that it isn't true or that I don't believe her. That isn't the message I'm trying to get across at all, but still, it is alleged information, and it's coming only from her. Secondly, a ton of people have been massively misled because Maya released a FICTIONAL book that is supposedly "inspired" in part by her relationship with Liam, and people are taking instances from the FICTIONAL book and assuming they are true to life. Which is...unintelligent to say the least. Secondly, I've seen one account of a fan claiming she was "manipulated" into sending nude photos to Liam, but this fan was literally 25 years old. And according to her, there was no blackmail, threats, or serious pressure involved. We're not talking about naive 18 year old girls like I've seen people claim. And again, I've only been able to find this one account. This was not some kind of trend with him.

Again, my intention is not to blame any of these women or claim that they're lying. It is only to reiterate that other people have been exaggerating the evidence we actually have.

Secondly, the only thing Maya has outright claimed about Liam was his obsessive contact during and after the end of their relationship. She ordered a cease and desist to keep him from further contacting her and to try and put an end to the emotional abuse she had faced. This included him threatening suicide, obsessively apologizing, etc. Which to be entirely truthful, is manipulative and unacceptable behavior. That being said, it is also the behavior of, and a clear symptom of, his poor mental health and substance abuse issues.

Seeing people straight up say that they don't care that he died because the world is "better off without an abuser" or that women shouldn't mourn him because it's somehow anti-feminist to care about a man who has harmed a woman in any way is...such a crazy fucking take. Like I genuinely hope these people never come across somebody in their lives who is dealing with trauma, addiction, or mental health struggles, because holy shit that lack of compassion is crazy. Like, yes, he was not a great guy to Maya. He has literally admitted that in interviews before, admitted that because of his addiction and mental health issues that he has hurt people he loved. This is not behavior in any man that should be excused, but it is behavior that, in my opinion, can be forgiven if that man has the time to make amends.

Liam Payne was not Diddy. He was not a fucking monster. He was not the sort of man who seriously harmed and traumatized countless women. He was a man who was unwell and who made mistakes in his relationships. But as we've seen from so many of his loved ones in the last few days, to his core, Liam Payne was a kind person. He cared about his family, his friends, his son. He wanted people to be happy, to smile. He wanted to entertain people, to be there for people, and to be loved. He was a human. And he was a victim of the music industry. He was overworked, objectified, and commodified as a literal child, and then he was left on his own after spending his most formative years in an extremely high stress environment. I mean, honestly, the fact that any of the boys wound up somewhat stable is beyond my comprehension. There was bound to be at least one of them who struggled to adjust.

And so, to say that you don't care that he died, to say that the world is better off without him, is a wild fucking stance. To have so little empathy for somebody who was a victim himself, to care so little for somebody who brought love and joy to the lives of so many people, who left behind a seven year old son, is fucking cold hearted. Nobody is asking you to cry over a man who you have no personal connection to, and we're also not asking that any of his potential victims receive hate or blame. But that doesn't mean those of us who are grieving should have to hear discourse about your "morally superior" Liam Payne take.

Some of us just want to mourn somebody who was a massive pillar in our lives, who brought us joy in dark times. Who, because we cared, we worried about for years. Not all 1D fans are the same in this regard, but I never hated Liam. I never blamed him for any of the foolish things he said in interviews. I understood his actions as those of somebody struggling, of somebody who was calling out for help, who needed that help, who needed support. Liam Payne, had he lived longer, could have become the man that he wanted to be, that everyone close to him knew he was capable of being. He'd been to rehab, he'd had periods of sobriety. He was working on himself. He was slowly getting better. So yes, I am mourning for the man that he was, not just the boy in the band, but the man he was working towards becoming. I am mourning for the man who made silly videos during Covid that helped me get through the monotony. I am mourning for the man who took silly selfies that made me laugh. I am mourning for the man who was talented beyond belief or recognition. I am mourning for the man who wanted to be loved and accepted so badly, and who the rest of the internet treated like SHIT for years before his death. Which, by the way, almost always had nothing to do with serious allegations but rather actions that the internet deemed "cringe."

I am so tired, and so upset.

None of the women who are mourning Liam's death are "betraying their own sex" or whatever else some of you seem to believe. They are simply exercising a thing called empathy. Try it out sometime!

[thaly-does]

Sooo I came [back] to the SPN fandom after many many years of being completely out and [thanks to my dearest] this time I'm going to fully dedicate myself to wincest.

Naturally, I'm a multishipper. I don't care much how many other pairings with my fav chars exist / usually I ship more than one thing per fandom or per character.

But them. Oh, them.

The Winchesters. Sam and Dean. Dean and Sam. I hear how their names merge in my head into something entwisted so much it'll never get unraveled again.

They. Have. Everything.

In my usual little doll plays with the characters I prefer to go rather dark. Rather sick. Sometimes, rather dirty. Not for the sake of general evilness, naturally and inevitably inherent to being an artist, but for the sake of feelings.

The contrast is better where it's darker. The light is brighter. The love is sweeter when there's pain, the hope is luminous when there's despair. The contrast enhances the emotional impact.

But Dean and Sam? Sam and Dean?

They already have it. They have everything and anything. The pitch black and the beam light. It's been made canon, probably, years ago.

Then I thought: what had ever made my brain go full-time crazy mod? What had ever squeezed my heart so tight I couldn't breathe?

Here are some of the best [imo] moment of my other fandom's biggest OTPs. Some ships are canon, some are not. But all of the moments DID canonically happens. [I'm using X & Y so it's more descriptive]

X & Y are constantly being forced to fight each other despite their genuine connection. the forcing power massively prevails their own. that's how their relationship starts... and how it ends, with X finally forced to kill Y. then X has to restart the whole world so they could be together again.

X & Y met when both were mentally down and then spent a horrible amount of time being tortured in the cruelest way alongside each other. later, they could let go of their twisted connection. but they don't.

X silently begs Y to kill him after committing the Literally Worst Crimes Possible for which he'll never forgive himself. Y complies. Y never stops thinking about X.

X spends his whole life protecting Y with growing understanding that Y will never accept his nature.

X sacrifices himself sexually, mentally and physically at once to the person he despises the most - simply in order for Y to get away from that monster.

X (who's kind of been a psycho murderer) went through a terrible experience where half his personality got destroyed. Y takes care of him despite the previous attempt of X to kill Y in cold blood. They end up fixing it (in a way).

X is obsessed with Y to a weird, absolutely not redeemable level. Body dismemberment included.

X is successfuly fighting the massive-level brainwashing so he doesn't hurt Y, although everyone they both knew and loved die around them.

X goes so mental after Y dies that he is committing a terrorist attack suicide so the world could feel their pain.

X goes full on self-sacrifice during a rescue attempt for Y [okay that's way more than one thing but it gets me every time!]

X says "Hey Y, we die together or no way at all". and so they do.

X never recovers after betraying Y and later goes through big torture time with the thought it was deserved for that betrayal.

X & Y [& a kid] slash through an endless amount of enemies so they could be a family together

X & Y are destined to be together but they go "fuck destiny"... and stay together for who they are.

X & Y fight together against a clearly overpowered villain. and win.

X & Y seem to desperately want to finish each other off but never act upon it when there's an opportunity. they're so different that they're the same.

X dies in a stupid accident. Y tries to save his life, and, when it's not possible anymore, dies alongside, refusing to live in a world without him.

X dies and Y can't let go of the corpse. Even when the rotting visibly starts.

X has memory issues but he's done some terrible things (child murder, massacre). There is solid proof. Y does not believe that for a second, because Y knows X to the core.

None, I mean it, none of these is wincest.

But, looking back... How many of them fit to be? How many of them could fit with the right situation? How many of literally (imo) most heart-moving tropes seem to be made for this pairing of brothers whose love trascends any normal limits?

So, yeah... I'm really gonna dedicate myself to wincest these days.

[romana-after-dark]

hear me out hear me out hear me out, could dolly NOT stay pregnant and somehow have a miscarriage/abortion??? If the pregnancy was terminated, dolly would actually be able to see if Logan will keep his word in never hurting her again while being who she needs/wants him to be; or if he really is just like all the other people in her life that lied to her, abused her, and manipulated her. ALSO, dolly didn't have any bodily autonomy until she got away from her abusers, which Logan was aware of. So, the fact that Logan knowingly took that recently gained human right away from her makes it all the more impactful on their relationship, and definitely would've broken every single ounce of trust she had in him. It's obvious dolly doesn't trust Logan and is already exhibiting the behavior of a victim in an abusive relationship. So, if an abortion/miscarriage were to happen, Logan would have the opportunity to gain back dolly's trust and possibly repair some of the damage he's done.

If dolly carries out the pregnancy, and there's somehow a 'happy' ending for her and Logan, she may still have those same fear/trauma responses to Logan's touch, voice, presence, etc.; which would in turn have a massive impact on her mental health over time leading to possible addictions, self-mutilation, suicide, etc... I think going through w the pregnancy would re-traumatize dolly and probably cause her to have a mental health crisis; not to mention the fact that 1 in 8 women develop postpartum depression/anxiety/distress, which would definitely impact her already fragile state of mind.

but hey! That's just my opinion, take it w a grain of salt. Love ur work regardless:3

thank you!

can i just say how much i LOVE getting these sort of asks!!!! I love how much thought yall put into these things.

I wana start by saying, in general, I don't write miscarriages with a few exceptions.

In Seattle, a Moon Knight story over on my main, Rebecca had a miscarriage but it was super early, and the day she found out she was pregnant. I just dont have the stomach for miscarriage or child death. It has to be very very specific circumstances for miscarriage.

For some reason, this rubbed an old mutual of mine wrong, who somehow took issue with the fact I'll write rape and all the horrible things i wrote in the wrong way, but then in that story i assured people the baby was okay??? anyway, you of course probably had no idea of any of this nor did you know i generally dont write that, so absolutly nothing wrong!

as for abortion... I dont know, honestly? Well, for this series, no. I have a specific plan for a lot of it. I do, at some point, want to write on my main a reader whose had an abortion or she decides to get one. I think It's important to make people whove had abortions feel seen. But this unfortunetly isn't the story for me to explore that.

However, this IS a very pro-choice page, and no matter dolly's reservations on the topic, her voice is not mine. I said before, I was raped as a teen and if I had gotten pregnant, i dont know if i would have gotten one, even though my views were pro choice by then.

I loved your insights!!!!

I think it would be interesting to see what Logan would actually do. would he be mad? would he try to get her pregnant again?

I think, and my friend Katie would agree, that Logans actions in this story is a certain kind of fucked up.

In TWW, Joel rapes LO but all shes ever known was a life of abuse, and she knew what was going to happen when she was sold. In ROF, madonna goes through all this shit and its so sudden for her, breaking her idealic world

But in this series, Dolly goes through some absolutely horrifc things, and trough her own sheer tenacity she escapes (more on that later!) and for a while, she thinks she's safe. She meets Charles who takes her in, gets her a knew identity and sets her up at a job she LOVES. Dolly adores teaching those teens. She has Remy, whose her bestest friend, and lots of good people around her. And then she had Logan, who shes falling in love with and thinks she doesnt deserve. Even still, the world is lighter with him around.

And then logan rips the first hope shes had since childhood away from her, traumatizes her over again and destroys this pretty life she was building

and im not saying logan is better or worse than Joel or Santi... but i just think thats a special kind of fucked up. Taking the autonomy she had just gained, you are absolutly correct, and intentionally trying to gt her pregnant is insane.

[icedteaandoldlace]

i often wonder how badly her being kidnapped by zoom relates to killer frost successfully overtaking her. like caity has been kidnapped the most out of any character in the flash, but the time zoom took her was a multi-episode spanning thing and she actually gets to realistically suffer for it for an episode after getting away from him. the ptsd gives her panic attacks and hallucinations. and when kf comes out definitively after after julian tears that necklace off, after another fucking man decides he can choose her life for her, that he's entitled to make her decisions, that he has the right to make her into what he wants her to be. she must have been so tired. it started with her father and it never ended. but if she was a killer, if she was someone else... she would be too cold to ever be touched again. caitlin can just go to sleep while the new girl piloting her body gets to be a god. and the going to sleep forever thing, that's suicide ideation.

tl;dr was caitlin choosing not to fight frost that hard anymore a motherfucking suicide attempt???

Okay, I gotta tell you, it is honestly fascinating getting your take on this because you're such a big Killersnow fan, so there's a lot of emphasis there on them being separate individuals, and I (before the big Frost retcon in later seasons) always saw Killer Frost as literally a part of Caitlin. Like, not just in the sense of sharing the same body, but like, they're two sections of the same mind, just kept separate because Caitlin couldn't reconcile her darkest thoughts and emotions with the rest of her identity, so she buried them deep down where she wouldn't have to deal with them, and then the perfect storm of trauma and stress finally caused them to surface and take over. There is so much in the first three seasons that seems to point to this, most notably Hartley's comment about how she doesn't like emotions because they're messy, and also, YES, the Zoom trauma, which absolutely played a major roll in her frost powers coming out. Like, they stopped Zoom, and then Paradox takes place THE NEXT DAY (it just doesn't seem like it because of time travel and the between-seasons hiatus and a series of scatterbrained writing choices). Dude totally jump-started her powers/Frost surfacing by being a dick and inflicting all that psychological damage on her. This is something I have thought forever.

BUT, all that being said, from season 4 and onward, the idea of Killer Frost being Caitlin's dark side gets chipped away bit by bit, until finally it's chucked out completely, and Frost is now a full-fledged person with her own mind and agency that doesn't involve Caitlin, and as a result, you have this weird continuity issue where season 3 Killer Frost is Caitlin, and Caitlin is the one responsible for stabbing Barry and kidnapping Cecile and all that other stuff, but season 7 Frost is Caitlin's "sister", and Caitlin had no hand in the crimes Frost committed, she was just stuck riding shotgun in her own body while Frost was at the wheel.

So that's where my head has been, basically, that there are some points in the show where they're two sides of one person, and there are some points where they're two people sharing one body, and however you interpret who Frost is in what season just depends on how you wanna view it, I guess.

But the angle you're coming at it from here provides a way for Caitlin and Frost to have been two different individuals the entire time. It's not foolproof, because the show's writing is still inconsistent in places, but it works a whole lot better than just saying "Frost went rogue in season 3 because she finally got to call the shots, and she just wanted to make up for lost time." Like, what was that all about?? Frost's motives being entirely separate from Caitlin just doesn't make sense. Even when it's played like Frost just enjoys violence and hurts people for the heck of it, it doesn't fit with the massive chip on her shoulder in season 3. What does fit is Frost acting on Caitlin's anger. Whether it just gets transferred to her as a result of sharing a body, or she is actually angry herself on Caitlin's behalf and acting out of a protective impulse, it just makes more sense for what Caitlin is going through to be Frost's driving force when she's out committing crimes, than for her to just be randomly violent out of nowhere.

I feel like this has strayed so far from the original subject, and also I'm very sleepy and not sure if it makes much sense. You just got my wheels turning so fast because now I have material for headcanons involving Caitlin and Frost being different people from the beginning, and there is so much to think about. It's like you just handed me a bag of asphalt patch and now I can go fill plot holes I kept bumping over before.

In response to your main point here, Caitlin basically giving Frost control as a means of letting herself escape is a very interesting takeaway of the situation. I don't know if I see s3 Caitlin as dealing with suicidal ideation (s1 Caitlin is another matter), but I get where you're coming from on that, and it is a thought provoking point. Also, never thought about the fact that Julian taking off the necklace is another case of a man choosing something for her, so major props for pointing that out (and this adds more layers to the end of the season when she turns on Savitar after being given a choice on who she wants to be...)

[millionancientbees]

An overly personal love letter to this ridiculous book series and the people who love it because I am deeply sleep deprived and also high as fuck

Growing up, I was very mentally ill. I started self harming before I can even remember, and moved to cutting in third grade. In middle school and early high school I dealt with my deep depression and severe trauma by abusing medication like my life depended on it. Probably because it did. When I wasn't self medicating or hurting myself I vacillated between being horrifically suicidal or deeply dissociated.

I'd known for years what it was to be taken apart by someone who is supposed to care for you and have to say I'm fine and grit your teeth through sitting down at school and work. Nobody knew what I was dealing with; I burned on the inside, attempting to keep myself safe. I lied through my teeth and said I was fine, I was fine, I was fine.

I was also a deeply caring, deeply loyal friend when given the opportunity. I could cut through bullshit and see into the deeper issue and oftentimes caused massive blowups because my dysregulated undiagnosed autistic ass didn't know what a normal conversation looked like. I had exactly zero tact but all of the positive intent. But I would ride the wave and love my friends through it because they were all I had.

I wanted someone to see through my bullshit and call me out and back me into a corner until I fessed up almost as badly as I feared it. I would get the cold sweats and a deep thrill every time I even thought about it.

I was preemptively mean and defensive to anyone who was not part of my inner circle because I simply did not have it in me to deal with more people and more lying and also, I did not trust anyone to have my back and not have ill intent.

Then I had to flee my mother's abuse when I was 19 and move across the country. I had no mental health medication, no therapy, and no support system besides my partner. I white knuckled my way through my grandmother dying. I was consumed by grief and trauma and self hatred.

And then Nora Sakavic delivered to me on a silver platter Neil Josten and all of his fucked up teammates and I saw myself in them in a way I had never seen myself in anyone before. These books, in tandem with The Raven Cycle and their respective fandoms, were my sole reason for staying alive for longer than I would like to admit, and when I was finally ready to put them away and move on, I was a changed person.

Reading about Jean and all of his miseries felt like going home in a way that was so healing and so profound I genuinely do not have the words. Seeing a character tear himself apart to keep secrets no man should ever have to keep. Seeing him bully his way out of love and care and then crumble when they kept backing him into a corner. Seeing him find his reasons, which were, in the grand scheme of things, just as silly and inconsequential as my love for these books, was...truly something.

Seeing it from the other side was incredible and soul crushing.

I haven't felt this deep bone aching satisfaction to be neck deep in fandom in years. I have honestly been struggling tremendously with my physical and mental health and this is healing in a way I forgot it could be.

So anyway, thank you Nora, thank you ridiculous feral fandom, thank you Neil Josten you creepy fuck, thank you Andrew Minyard, thank you Jean Moreau, thank you Jeremy Knox, the man that you are, thank you Coach Wymack, thank you Kevin Day.

I'm going to sleep.

[bad-science]

yo wait ur sister was arrested?? On your birthday??

🤪🤪 lol yUP. She’s… yeah. “A mess” doesn’t even begin to cover it. There’s a massive amount of detail spanning years that I can’t even put in a single post but I have no issue putting her on blast here LMAO. A bit of a vent I guess, Warning for mention of suicide, abuse, and sort of domestic violence

I’ll put it under a cut sjdhsj but the TLDR is she fought with her shitty bf and threw an empty soda can at him, threatened to kill herself and all the cops, and now has a charge for domestic violence.

Happy birthday to me!!!!! My life is a divine comedy and I am not laughing <3

The summary is that she’s a shit tier person who’s dating another shit tier person and they abuse each other until she threatens to kill herself, which she has done for basically the last 10 years if anybody tells her no about anything at all and if she doesn’t get her way. It’s always just a threat and she uses it to get attention and manipulate everyone around her - and I would NOT say this lightly. She is legitimately a sick and horrible person who has mistreated and abused me and my mother to the point of our own mental health reaching a very seriously bad state. I do believe she has some sort of mental illness which could be influencing her actions but my god she refuses to get any help and nothing we do or offer her is ever good enough. When she was a teenager a psychiatrist diagnosed her as a narcissist?? But nothing ever came of that and she never got treatment. (Auto-disclaimer that people with NPD are not automatically abusers, but my sister absolutely is one lol). She is also a compulsive liar and has made up outlandish lies since she was a literal toddler (another thing the psych pinpointed immediately, but again nothing was ever done about it since she outright refuses treatment unless she can abuse or sell prescription drugs.) Back then it wasn’t as big of an issue. But now I see it as a red flag.

Today at 6am I woke up to a call from my mom and learned that my sister had finally been arrested for “domestic violence”. According to her, and this may not be the full story, her boyfriend accused her of cheating (again) (she is a cheater but to my knowledge has not cheated on Him specifically). They fought. She threw an empty soda can at him?? And then he called the police who apparently drug her out and arrested her. They said she was resisting arrest, she says she wasn’t. Acab per usual but my sister is the type to actually fight the cops when she’s in this mental state.

She did in fact threaten to “come back and slit (the cops’) throats”, they asked if she knows that threatening an officer is a felony, and she said “well then I threaten you with everything EXCEPT that,” which is a normal thing to say… and then they put her in a straight jacket bc she was acting out and threatening everyone. Lol.

My mom went to bail her out, $1,300 later my sister was screaming bloody murder in the car, yelling FUCK YOU in my mom’s face over and over, and got even more angry when my mom would not drive her to her bf’s house “to kill him”. Somehow she has decided that all of this was our mother’s fault? Bc she cannot ever be wrong ever and flips out when she doesn’t get her way. She is 24 years old.

They came home, I heard her scream outside, she came in screaming the same typical fuck you’s and all at my mom, I was honestly trying not to laugh bc I’m so desensitized to it by now and everything she says is ridiculous. Then she stormed out and started walking barefoot down the road claiming to be going to her bf’s house. Refused to get in my dad’s car when he found her. Then she stopped at the lake, texted a picture to her bf, told him essentially “it’s ok, you’re setting me free.” The picture was of his shoes by the lake; her intention being that she thought it was perfectly horrible to leave his stuff in the place where she “planned” to kill herself. Specifically to manipulate him and scare him. Bc guess what! She didn’t do anything. She just wanted him to think of having to go to the place where she “died” to retrieve his shoes and feel like everything is all his fault. Again… she didn’t do anything and it was all a threat to guilt trip him.

Bf called the cops AGAIN not even 12 hours into her bail djdgjd but this time the cops did nothing. She is now as okay as she can be I guess, and… we’ll just have to weather the aftermath storm bc she takes a long ass time to stop treating all of us like shit. NEEDLESS TO SAY, if they don’t fuckin break up after this they’re both lost causes and they can drive each other crazy for all I care.

We are all exhausted and stressed and I put up my own birthday decorations… but I do have a lemon cake. So that’s nice.

[delusion-of-negation]

there's a letter to an ex-friend under the cut - i know that he won't know about or read it, but i've been told that expressing myself might help me find closure and support. apparently, men don't talk about our emotions enough, or some bullshit - idk, i don't read feminist literature, i'm a shitposter. note: if you do read the letter, please don't take the opportunity to insult or demean my ex-friend in the notes, you know that i'm not a fan of internet gossip culture or bandwagon insult parties, especially not when you've only heard one side, especially not when you think that you deserve more information, especially not just to be a dick.

date posted: 17/08/2023 date last edited: 20/09/2023

this is unrebloggable because i don't want private emotions circulating, but i also made playlists that express how i'm feeling (because i find that putting songs or pictures in nice orders helps me express myself, i'm autistic, and music conveys feelings better than my long-winded explanations of the reasons). initially, one was in the post itself, and another was linked, along with an update post.

the letter:

frankly, i'm not a very succinct person, and when i initially wrote this i had a lot of very complex, not-yet-fully-understood feelings that i was processing with it, and it quickly became disorganised in a flurry. i want to express the points better and have edited it to do so. you callously, knowingly ruined my entire life, on every level you could, for your own amusement. i have no opportunity to even convey to you what you've done to me, and that's why i wrote this, to understand and convey those thoughts to the void. i'm explaining that the reasons for my hurt and my ever-increasing suicidality are nuanced and complicated, historic and current, and they feed into each other, yes, but the part that you played is not to be understated. this was originally more balanced and sympathetic, more mourning and sad, as an anonymous post about a complicated, personal situation that you want to wash your hands of - but you want to wash your hands of fucking me over, not once or twice, but endlessly and cruelly for weeks. you definitely have no room to judge an anonymous post to process feelings (where nobody who knows you would even see, except anyone you sent to send me hate), which doesn't talk about a single personal thing about you, when you air deeply personal info, with god knows how much selective quoting and twisting and demonising of a conversation that happened specifically while i was incapable of an ounce of coherent thought, overdosing and drunk, to people who actually know me.

you and your buddies spew callous bullshit gossiping, twisting my words (for example, when i was talking about struggling with self-loathing and depression and dark thoughts - while i was, as mentioned, drunk, on a massive overdose of various psychotropic meds, and in the midst of a suicide attempt, wherein you decided to bait and lead the conversation, to get things to take out of context later - i said that a couple of events [ie moments of struggle with the aforementioned issues] led to me talking to my previous therapist about things; it seems this may be amongst things taken out of context, put alongside other rumours, past and current, with chronic gossips and people you went to who you knew i didn't trust [who, it should be noted, i dislike and blame more than you tbh, but this isn't to them], to imply "events" meant some kind of behavioural issue, that is not and has never been something that i've done; me having a depressive episode whilst drunk at a later date, expressing that i felt like i was becoming somebody i didn't want to be, seemingly taken to again mean a behavioural issue, not likewise about struggling with my own inner experiences and darker thoughts). even without the twisting, it's so inappropriate and risky to mockingly gossip about somebody's private situation and health issues, which they told you about in a very vulnerable state - to try to expose them to harsh and undue judgement from anyone and everyone. at least one person, possibly more, (who it seems you told about the situation, or more specifically some twisted version of it, amongst other bits of obscure personal information) sent me many awful hate messages and stalked me online. and all this immediately after somebody attempted to murder me in a hate crime, which i had messaged you about from the hospital right after it happened - you are well aware of the sort of danger i was facing generally in life at the time, and the obvious ensuing fears. at first, i thought that you merely didn't understand the risks posed by hospitals and threatening gossip and harassment, but evidence just keeps cropping up that you were always well aware, and simply didn't care.

you disregarded my every boundary and my autonomy by doing what you did that night, i received no respect or consideration at my most vulnerable, and instead it was a means to an end. everything that you said (and the ultimate reveal that any niceness was all just a lie to keep me talking, while the police came to arrest me for being suicidal, or to spin something later) played on repeat in my brain, while i lay in various hospital beds, despite breaking down at mere attempts to re-read it all (i have since, and i could talk endlessly about how nice i tried to be, while you lied and pretended you wouldn't do what you have recently even if i had died). i was listening to music, monitoring my phone battery because we weren't allowed chargers (as insignificant as it sounds in the grand scheme of things, knowing that the whole time you knew that the very next morning, while my kidneys were still failing, you would demonise me and leave; you knew how abusive and distressing hospital would be too, you knew it was dangerous, you say as much in some of the chatlogs). knowing that i had nobody else close by, and that life was about to get a whole lot worse because of you, and that i was still incredibly suicidal, you left forever with a cruel final message - it really just felt like you didn't care if i was alone, hurting, in a highly abusive environment, because of you, and time has only proven this true. and then you demonised me to everyone. and that hurt feeling stewing inside of me as a result is not just losing a friend, it's a plethora of complex feelings, all mushed up together. i obviously don't think that you're obliged to be my friend (the date that this was posted alone should tell you that this is about everything that you've done since), at most i felt that dropping people for minor slights, as you seem to, isn't healthy - but regardless, to do all of this, to make it worse, to simply not care how much it hurts, that was unnecessary and cruel.

an example of the complex interactions with past trauma would be how me and a guardian (along with others) were horrifically abused (throughout my childhood). the abuse gave us c-ptsd (amongst other things) and, as a result of it, during her emotionally abusive depressive episodes, she would say that having his dna meant that i would become an abuser like him, she would tell me to go somewhere out of the way to kill myself, as i've told you before. i was a child, it stuck in my brain and formed how i respond to being thought of as evil. that fed into how much it hurt when you demonised me, when you acted like i was dangerous when i'm not, all over me being ill. on top of that, it felt doubly unfair, considering the mild hypocrisy, considering how i comforted you when you felt demonised, when you cried about how unfair it was to have your innocence and internal experience invalidated by a presumptuous bias others forced upon you - you knew how it would feel. another example, one that conveys an aspect of how and why my life got so much worse because of what you did, would be - because of being abused, tortured, in childhood, the health issues caused by it all, other health issues, the mountains of childhood trauma (from the aforementioned people and others), homelessness, and so forth - i was hospitalised for months as a teenager; i was severely abused while there, which made being thrown back into that exact same hospital (for weeks and weeks this time) because of you an even more agonising experience than it would've otherwise been (which isn't to say that it wouldn't have been agonising and dehumanising either way, it absolutely would've been).

i was sleeping in identical beds and rooms to those that i was sexually abused in (by a staff member coming into my room at night, as reports went ignored), around every corner there was another flashback to the half-a-year of agony that i endured years ago, to incessant and unending daily violence and misery that you physically cannot escape, locked in a room, with isolation, starvation, beatings, electrocution, force feeding, and so on - whatever you didn't endure personally, you were threatened with and/or saw others endure. and while some things had changed this time, others certainly hadn't, it fucking sucked. while i was there this time, i lost almost every friend i still had, i lost every irl friend (any not gone, and any feeling of safety in this godforsaken town, are certainly gone after your gossip and rumours); i couldn't see my dying relative ever again, i never saw her again, i never will see her again, and i was only able to see my bunny, who i loved more than anything, once more, very briefly at the vets, before she died, while staying with an old friend who had decided that she wanted to get rid of her (because of being in that fucking hospital, because of you, all this shit); the local mental health service continued to (and still continues to) refuse therapy or additional meds (because nothing is or will become available); i was sexually harassed by one patient and received bigoted abuse from another, and i could go on and on with more examples of the traumatic and isolating ripple effects. in short, my whole life and any remaining joy was ruined by what you did. you had me locked back there, the worst fear of my entire adult life come true, more afraid and more lonely by the day - like the last time, alone, no support network, no visitors. and any pain, sickness, or noise that caused was twisted to also be weaponised against me.

i reached out to you that night, when i was scared and needed a friend, to ease your potential concerns and to talk to my friend (i only ever wanted my best friend, although i know that you don't believe me on that point at this point, if you ever did, and i know that all innocent intentions and happy memories will have long since been twisted and tarred in your head). i never asked or expected anything of you whatsoever, then or prior. that night, i remember no suggestion of planning to hang out tomorrow, no phone call, nothing concrete, just saying that maybe you'll see me in a year, just lies and pretend understanding and manipulation. i know that it's a complex, difficult situation to navigate, respecting boundaries and choice when you're scared of the outcome that they want, and falsely thinking that handing responsibility to abusive systems will fix it - you didn't even try to help me at all, and you achieved nothing but misery. and now all of this. i know that i spiral and overthink - i don't always trust myself to be correct when i connect the dots that you're trying to hurt me. it made sense - it does track with your consistent disregard for me, with your remarks clearly knowing that there's risks in a psych ward, with your later behaviour. but it's largely interpreting a series of confusing, conflicting events/statements. i know that you spiral too, and that however much you hated me that night, you almost certainly hate me exponentially more now - i know that you'll have talked yourself in circles with whoever you gossiped to, or even alone, until i'm barely even a human being in your mind, if i ever was. i know that, if you were to ever read this, or hear me out to any degree, in any format, every sentence would be met with petty mockery, or at best the inclination to spend more time thinking of a response than hearing how another person feels.

i know that i will never have the chance to soberly explain the things that we talked about (or anything, for that matter, i don't get to correct things, defend myself, clarify things, i don't even get to know any more than vague references in insults what's been falsely claimed, and all i know from that is that whatever it is definitely isn't fucking true), ie what was poorly conveyed or misunderstood or intentionally twisted or only you baiting responses - i was drunk and on a massive overdose of various psychotropic drugs (amongst other things), and i was in a compromised and vulnerable emotional state, i couldn't say anything how i would prefer to, i could barely think at all, i couldn't account for needing careful phraseology or anything, and now i can never clear things up, all because you want to see me in the worst way possible. that said, the more words i say, the more words you have to twist. you've been doing that for a while though - for the latter half of our friendship, so much of what i said was taken in the worst way possible. you embarrassed me around friends more than once, when i was high, over a "that's what she said" level joke that you found distasteful, or something similarly benign. you'd ignore me for weeks on end, but if i wasn't available whenever you wanted for whatever topic you wanted, it'd be an issue (you once contacted friends when i didn't reply for just a day; when i expressed some concerns, it was met with frustration that i hadn't done so earlier, despite the implicit pressure not to do so that had built over the years, despite me actually having expressed concerns in the past and getting shut down with obvious excuses, that you later said were such, and despite all of the eggshells that i was walking on, your unfounded judgements; it felt like i had to fight more and more to be treated like a human being).

it wasn't a healthy dynamic for either of us. and i'm partially (quite largely, in fact) responsible for enabling and cultivating it - for one, i was so desperate to stay friends that i would permit anything, i would ignore every uncomfortable feeling (as i've told you before, i never even wanted your phone number or discord to begin with, and only agreed after repeated pressure and running out of excuses to keep refusing them, and then our level of contact increased, because you were ill and covid was happening, despite my desire to avoid it doing so, as we once somewhat discussed; but then it only grew worse as you made me more and more afraid of your constant judgement; that's not me theorising and reading into things, you admitted that it was happening), i'd limit complaints and disagreement to as mild as possible. bringing this up isn't some "got'cha, you were the asshole all along" - you know i don't think like that, i don't play that stupid heroes and villains game, it's just me trying to explain how and why this has all fucked me up. and now i have two versions of you in my memories that couldn't possibly get along - the deeply unhealthy idealisation that i fed with the scraps that you begrudgingly provided, and the asshole who ruined my entire life on a whim and then left before having to deal with the ramifications, who knowingly sent me to one of the worst places for me, without any sympathy, and who now trots around having a happy, free life, with an occasional interlude to gossip maliciously and dubiously about my personal struggles, without a single thought to how i'm left here in the mud and the rot, having to deal alone with every single consequence of your actions (and all of the shitty things from prior, which haven't been eased, in fact they're much worse), having to deal with the risks and stressors that come with people knowing really personal stuff (or at least some twisted and demonised version of it).

as much as i've bemoaned the inability to clarify myself to you, for a while i more desperately needed you to clarify yourself to me, and yet i had to drag myself kicking and screaming into the unfortunate reality that i'll never have either of those things - all the while not knowing how long i will be forced, by circumstance (my family couldn't afford another funeral at the moment, and i'm nothing if not courteous to a fault) and the few loved ones that i have left, to live in that reality. but you weren't happy to stop making my life worse at that, you weren't happy to let me even try to live my life. everything fucking sucks. and you're responsible for a lot of that suck. and, as i've said, there's far more than i could convey in a single, simple letter. and you will never know the extent of what you did, nor will you ever care about it - i've said it before, but deep down i know that you see me as nothing more than a dodged bullet despite you being the only one who shot (on the rare occasions that you briefly deign to see me at all), and that every time i writhe in frustration, confirmation bias will turn it into further proof of that conclusion, twisting and demonisation will make it feed the narrative. you said once that you simply don't think about me when i'm not around, and i am keenly aware of how little i ever mattered to you. and yet, despite all of that, despite all of this pain, i wanted my friend back, i missed my friend, i missed the person who i thought for a short while that night actually didn't feel disgusted by me, and i missed all of the good times prior. but to you, i'm nothing but a fun thing to bitch about, no matter how much danger and suffering a few minutes of your amusement causes.

i'm stuck here with nobody to talk to, and a million confusing things bouncing around in my head, and even sicker than ever from that fucking place, and you spend moments that you're bored making it worse for your own shits and giggles. nobody is or should be oversimplifying the situation, or arguing that i'm flawless, i've never claimed to be (although i'm starting to realise i need to clarify that by this, and historically anything like it, i mean things like "i word things poorly from time to time", and not whatever horrid ways you'll twist it to imply things i've never done), but i'm a harmless dumbass who got fucked over by you. in an old update, from the day my bunny died, i said "everything fucking hurts. you fucked me over. you screwed me over. you did not save me. you have no idea how much pain you've caused. i am so fucking angry and hurt. i didn't deserve this shit. because of you, what you did, i never saw my relative again and i only saw my bunny once." when i was at her funeral, which i had posted about, you organised a random effort to inform me of how far you'd spread this shit, how much danger i was in, and i said "you're not even trying to hide gossiping and shit while i'm struggling most. you're not even going to feel guilty for any of this. you destroyed me for fucking fun, for nothing but your own entertainment, it's callous. it doesn't benefit you to ruin my life and demonise me to everyone." i spent these few weeks stupidly holding on to the false hope that you would leave me be, telling myself maybe i was overthinking all the signs, working (apparently hopelessly) towards a better life. if there's an ounce of you that ever cared, which i highly doubt, just know that twisting vulnerable moments, to falsely imply that somebody has ever done anything that they haven't or to ruin their life even more and further ongoing isolation and harm that you've already fed into, is sick; someone tried to kill me, i was actively suicidal, and you thought "i know what this calls for, even more fear." you left because it'd be "good for you", but put my health, safety, even life at risk, for fun, for no reason. is that good for me? is that what supposed friends do?

goodbye

[nathank77]

11/23/24

4:29 a.m Added to Significantly 4:50 a.m bc clearly the useless pile of shit brain i have can't sleep.

I woke up at like 3:10 a.m tried to fall back to sleep. I needed to pee but not badly.. and all of a sudden I got hungry. I ignored it until about 3:40 still couldn't sleep so now I have eaten. I am smoking a cigarette.... I peed, Before I lite my cigarette, I had a protein bar, benadryl, Hydroxyzine and Melatonin and laid there for an additional fucking 25 minutes.

I'm about to end it all. Life is pointless..If I can't fall back to sleep when I barely need to pee and i keep my eyes closed, every night will be Torture.....

I just want to die already and stop trying. My brain is a useless pile of shit incapable of sleep without massive amounts of fucking sedatives.... and all it does is hallucinate...

When i first woke up it was quiet... and I thought i could fall back to sleep... then my hallucination started popping off and I had to turn on the TV to stop myself from killing myself...

Hopefully the useless pile of shit figures out how to fall back asleep otherwise I'm set up for constant auditory hallucinations all fucking day. Getting 7 hours is virtually impossible now with this pile of useless shit.

I want to die. I'm a no one and no one is going to date me. I have no happiness in my life. I have nothing to look forward to. All i do is struggle to sleep, stay asleep and then hallucinate. All I do is live in a toxic environment... that'll I will never escape and it's pointless....

And at this point it may be easier to not even bother surrendering Riley bc my sister and liv will likely lie, take Riley out of the house for the day claiming they found her a home and then bring her back and make sure the rescue can't rescue her and then I'll have to worry about liv rubbing shit on my food and pouring piss in my fucking juices left in the fridge. They'll fucking despise me and treat me like fucking shit for trying to save her. NOT THAT THEY DON'T TREAT ME LIKE SHIT ALL THE TIME ANYWAYS... BUT I MEAN ITLL GET WORSE. AND THAT SNAPPLE.. YOU MAY THINK IM CRAZY SAYING THAT ABOUT LIV BUT I ACTUALLY BELIEVE SHE TOOK THE BOTTLE OUT OF THE TRASH AFTER THE RACOONS GOT INTO THE TRASH I LEFT ON THE PORCH AND SHE POURED MY OTHER SNAPPLE INTO IT AND MIXED A LITTLE BIT OF RILEY'S PISS IN IT BC SHE RESENTED ME FOR BEING TOO MENTALLY ILL TO CLEAN UP AFTER MY MOTHERS DOG.

And I have Thanksgiving to look forward to where I'll sit there silently as the scapegoat and won't be able to talk about anything. I'm fucking so unwanted and that's if I cancel the rescue and never tell skye and we keep fucking Riley. If the rescue is revealed to her before then it'll be even worse.

My life is pointless and it's never going to get better. At least if I kill myself and write a bang up suicide letter Kristen will lose her license when my father pursues her in court and my life will have some form of a purpose.

I never had an issue falling asleep or staying asleep before psychosis when I could smoke weed. And tbh I think suicide makes the most sense December 1st I'm going on that trip and once I pay for the fucking cabin I'll be locked into my decision bc I can't make noises in my room and be fucking saved...

So I mean yea but hey at least I'll be able to have one thing to look forward to a fucking tiny vacation. And a peaceful SILENT death.