#but looking at the physical description post I did of her earlier I *think* I got all the major things

[viperwhispered]

And here she actually is

*jazz hands*

an actual sprite for Emi, if you can believe it

Smushed together from different bits and pieces thanks to @alchemivich's assets. Hair is from pngimg with a CC BY-NC 4.0 license, I'll put the link in the replies.

Thanks to Deuce, random dormless background student, Cater, Azul and random Styx scientist for their contributions for making this happen.

Tagging @scint1llat3 @diodellet @moonyasnow @bibi-cha

If anyone else would like to tagged for Emi stuff, please let me know!

You can find more information on my yuusona Emi here on the masterlist.

[taevbears]

To Be Loved - 02

I want adventure in the great, wide somewhere. I want it more than I can tell.

⤑ pairing: namjoon x reader (a bit of reader x jungkook) ⤑ genre: hybrid au, romance, hurt/comfort ⤑ rating: 18+ ⤑ word count: 6.4k ⤑ warnings: discussions about physical/domestic abuse, descriptions of reader in a toxic relationship, hybrids are seen as sub-human, kangdae is still an asshole, please be mindful of the warnings!!⤑ note: wow, i'm truly overwhelmed by all the notes and comments from the 1st chapter! it's always so nerve-wrecking for me to post new projects, and i can't thank you guys enough for sending me feedback. so i've decided to post this chapter a little earlier than i had planned lol. it's heavily about reader and the bunny hybrid rn, but namjoon definitely will have his chance to shine ;)

Chapters 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 (End)

“Where are we going?”

That’s a good question. The obvious answer is out of this small, provincial town. Away from Kangdae and his owner. To the countryside, in a bustling city, or a summer cabin in the woods. Anywhere, really.

“I don’t know yet.”

Your hands tighten around the steering wheel as you keep your gaze on the road. The hybrid is sitting next to you on the passenger seat, wearing some of Kangdae’s clothes, including a black bucket-hat to cover his long ears.

Hours have passed since you and the bunny hybrid left your home and hit the road. 

You’ve wrestled with the idea of packing your bags and leaving everything behind before. It’s something you thought about more than you’d like to admit. After violent arguments between you and Kangdae, where you’ve had enough and where he’d leave you to “cool off” and come back whenever he pleases, you’d throw your things in a duffel bag: clothes, toiletries, a hidden wad of cash, food, the first-aid kit, whatever you could get your hands on.

But every time before, you weren’t able to cross that threshold out the door. You weren’t able to do this alone.

Fear has a tight grip on you. Insecurity as well. Kangdae is well off and financially stable. He could get any girl he wants and make her feel special, just as he’s done with you and all the other women he’s cheated on you with. He has nothing to lose if you leave, but you’ll lose everything: your job, your reputation, your family, your dignity.

Kangdae’s family has control of every business in town. It’s hard to find a job that isn’t directly influenced by them. Your reputation would be tarnished as well. You’ll be the girl who ran away from the most sought-after bachelor in town, and people would think you’re insane. Your family would be disappointed, and you know that running to them would mean they’d just try to make you change your mind and go back to Kangdae before you make things worse. And if you’re not able to make it on your own, what then? Could you even come back to this town once you leave?

The hybrid follows you from room to room, nervous as he helps you carry your things into the car. There were several times when you had a moment of reconsideration, second-guessing yourself that maybe you can’t do this after all and that this whole thing is stupid and reckless.

But the moment you catch a glimpse of his hopeful, doe-shaped eyes, your morale returns. You weren’t able to cross the threshold on your own, but this time, with another person depending on you, you did. With the engagement ring and your cell phone left behind, you don’t look back.

Soon, you find yourself here. In a car with a hybrid, and no real direction on where to go yet. Your options are limited, and the hybrid’s even more so.

You’ve stopped at your bank and withdrew as much cash as you’re able to before closing the account. You’ve stopped at a car mechanic to check your tires and do a quick maintenance, as you’re expecting to be on the road for quite some time. You’ve stopped at a 24-hour pharmacy to purchase more bandages and antibacterial sprays and ointments before re-cleaning the hybrid’s wounds in a parking lot. You’ve stopped at a library to do some research on inexpensive hotels and lodges that allow hybrids, and click away from any shelters and advertised sanctuaries that the hybrid doesn’t look comfortable staying in.

It’s been nonstop since you finally walked out the door, trying to drown away your fears and doubts by keeping busy. By mustering your courage and being prepared.

But now, things have quieted down. There aren’t many cars at this time of night. Many people are in bed or are out spending the rest of their evening with friends and their significant other. Streetlights illuminate the dark roads ahead, but your mind wanders as the music quietly plays from the radio.

It feels crazy. You feel insane doing this.

What if Kangdae comes home? How soon would it be until he finds you? How long would it take until your parents notice? Or your neighbors? Or anyone else? Wouldn’t the hybrid’s abusive owner be looking for him too? Wouldn’t this be considered kidnapping? Rescuing? Are you going to be arrested if you’re caught?

Yet, as you glance at the hybrid next to you, you know you can’t let Kangdae or the owner continue to hurt him. You have to take him somewhere safe at least, and then you’ll deal with the consequences later.

“Do you have a family? Friends? A place to go?”

“No…” the hybrid answers, shaking his head. He doesn’t have any of those. Your heart sinks at the realization.

So, you ask him something that he can answer. “Are you hungry?”

The diner is relatively empty when you and the hybrid are seated. There are a couple truck drivers that are grabbing a quick meal and a cup of coffee before they continue on with their deliveries. A man in a janitorial uniform seems to have just gotten off his late shift and is tiredly eating a sandwich. And a small group of teenagers are enjoying a very late dinner together after a concert or party before they head home.

The hybrid makes sure that his ears are covered with the hat, tugging on the rim to keep it down as he glances at the warning sign on the window that disallows hybrids from entering the establishment. Though, the night staff seems too tired to really care or notice anyway.

“Go ahead and order whatever you want, okay?” you assure him, noting how he seems fixed on the page that lists their salads.

A waitress comes to take your orders and brings you hot coffee and the hybrid a glass of milk. While the two of you wait for your food, you’re so lost in thought, you haven’t noticed the hybrid eyeing you until he finally speaks up. “You’re so nice.”

“I’m just trying to do the right thing,” you reply with a tiny shrug, grabbing the little cups of coffee creamer and packets of sugar.

“Not a lot of humans would do what you’re doing for me,” he says quietly.

Again, you feel your heart sink a little.

Hybrids have been around for thousands of years, yet they’ve always been treated as sub-human. For centuries, humans would overtake their natural habitats, hunt and capture them for sport or to make money, separate them from their packs, enslave them or force them into violence and entertainment. Co-existing with them is still a fairly new and controversial concept as the politics dictating hybrid rights and laws are a heated topic every year.

How much humanity or animal instincts hybrids have or not never really mattered to you. They’re still intelligent, some even more so than humans are. They look human other than some distinct animal features they can’t hide. Yet, they’re treated like vicious monsters, even if humans are the worst.

“More people should,” you simply say as you mix your coffee with cream and sugar.

Soon enough, the waitress sets a big bowl of salad in front of the hybrid and a plate of pancakes and strawberries for you. Just like before, the hybrid scarfs down his food quickly, barely letting himself savor the taste. As if he’s worried that someone would snatch the bowl away from him if he doesn’t eat it fast enough.

“Hey, slow down a little,” you warn him, and he immediately puts down the salad bowl. His eyes flash with guilt and fear, afraid that he made you upset. You offer him a small, friendly smile. “I just don’t want you to choke. Here, I’ll give you some of mine too. This diner claims to be famous for their hot cakes.”

The hybrid watches as you cut up a generous portion and place it on his plate. He still seems a bit confused and hesitant with your actions, but nibbles on the red fruit first.

“You’re nice,” he repeats, more as a reminder to himself than anything.

“Thank you.”

“Why are you with that mean human?”

Your smile fades a little. “You mean Kangdae?”

He nods his head, chewing on his bottom lip, as if he’s still a little nervous about making you angry.

You sigh. “That’s another good question.”

To be honest, it’s something you wonder about all the time. Other than your beauty, you don’t know what else he sees in you. Neither of you really have anything in common. His lifestyle indulges in women, parties, and whatever puts him in the spotlight. Yours is quieter, calmer, and ideally, surrounded by arts and books.

There have been times when it was actually nice to be with him. Days where he’s in a good mood and makes you feel like you’re the one. When his flattery actually charms you and he remembers things like your birthday or an anniversary. Dating him has also opened doors that you wouldn’t have been able to walk through on your own: your job under his parent’s company, a nice apartment in town, trips to resorts and beautiful places, financial stability among other things.

A lot of people say you’re lucky to have him. And at some point, you started to believe that Kangdae is it. That you can’t do any better than him.

Kangdae loved you, and you thought, maybe, you could love him in return.

Even if it isn’t what you envisioned love to be at all.

Things started to become worse after you two moved in together. His gigs as a rapper, an influencer, or a vlogger, weren’t making much income, and he refused to work under his parents, so he never contributed to the bills. He argued with you all the time: about money, about bills, about some random guy being too friendly with you when he’s taking your coffee order, about you spending too much time away from home when your company throws a mandatory get-together, about you not getting dinner hot and ready for him the second he comes home, about you always being too tired or not in the mood for sex. The list goes on.

Yet, somehow, he convinced you to stay.

Out of convenience. Out of the inevitable threat of financial instability. Out of knowing you’d be disappointing everyone who ever told you you’re lucky to be with him. Out of insecurity that you’d honestly not find anyone else who’d love you.

But the hybrid before you is your last straw.

He’s chewing on the lettuce. The motion of his mouth reminds you very much of actual bunnies as he continues to stare at you with big, round eyes, waiting for you to continue.

“It doesn’t matter why I was with him,” you decide, stabbing your fork into your pancake. “What matters is that I’m never going back to him again.”

“Did you love him?”

You frown at your plate. Other than what you gave to the hybrid, you haven’t taken a bite. “I thought I did. But now, I’m not sure. Love always seems so different in books and movies. It looks nicer. Warmer. Sweeter than anything.”

“I think love can be like that in real life too,” the hybrid tells you, seeming a bit shy. “But you won’t find it with that guy. You’re too nice to be with someone like him.”

You smile a little at that. Perhaps it’s because he’s part bunny, but you feel incredibly endeared by him. “You know, I don’t think I ever got your name.”

“I’m good with any name,” he replies with a tiny shrug. “That guy… the owner… he didn’t give me a name.”

“Is there anything you want me to call you?”

The hybrid rolls his eyes to the ceiling and scratches his cheek in thought. “Jungkook. That’s what I used to be called.”

“Jungkook?”

He nods his head. A small smile forms on his lips. “It’s nice when you say it.”

You laugh a little. “Thank you.”

“No, no. I should be thanking you,” he insists, looking at you quite seriously. “I’ll figure out a way to repay you. I promise.”

“You already did.”

He blinks. “I did? When?”

“Earlier, when you asked me to help you,” you tell him with a wry smile. “I couldn’t save myself, but I had to save you. From your owner, from Kangdae, from all the other mean people. So, thank you for giving me the courage to get us both out of that situation.”

For the next couple of days, you and Jungkook drive as far as you can without much of a destination in mind. 

At first, the two of you stopped at different shelters and adoption centers, but there was always some excuse that made you pull out of the parking lot before you could even make it to the building. The place looked too shabby with faded paint and deteriorating plaster, or the place looked too sterile and heartless to be called a home. Jungkook didn’t trust that they’d actually take care of him, or you’re afraid his owner would find him too easily at that location. 

Eventually, you stopped bothering and skipped potential centers altogether. Jungkook doesn’t seem to mind, though. He seems to rather be with you than to be dropped off at a mysterious and scary place, and part of you doesn’t even mind.

He’s good company and an easy person to talk to during the long hours on the road. Even when the radio is off, he’d sing to you or talk for hours straight.

Sometimes, he talks to you about what it’s like to be a hybrid.

“So, you can actually turn into an animal?” you exclaim, shocked by the news. You assume that hybrids stay stuck as a mix between human and animal forever. When Jungkook doesn’t answer you, you glance over at the passenger seat and see a black bunny with the same, doe-shaped eyes staring up at you. “Oh my god, you can!”

He transforms back in a blink of an eye, grabbing the steering wheel when you begin to swerve off the road as he shouts, “Be careful!”

Sometimes, you talk about what it’s like to be human.

“You’re actually a little weak, aren’t you?” Jungkook teases, helping you carry a pack of water bottles among other snacks and road trip essentials to the trunk. “Are all humans like this, or is it just you?”

“I can return the ice cream you picked out, you know,” you threaten as he loads up the trunk. “And the banana milk.”

“No, no, don’t do that,” he says with a chuckle and a shake of his head. It’s the first time you’ve heard him laugh.

Every now and then, you’d stop by at gas stations, rest stops, convenience stores, motels, and fast-food joints. It’s tolling on your body to drive for hours at a time, but the hybrid tries to keep you entertained. And you’re thankful for his company.

“I didn’t think you’d be into this type of music,” Jungkook admits as he fiddles around with the radio. The passenger side where he’s at is wide open as you hand him a drink from the vending machine.

“Why? You don’t like hip hop?” you ask, opening a bottle of water and glugging it down. The two of you are parked at a rest stop so you could stretch your legs and use the public restroom. 

“I like all kinds of music,” he tells you, his thin lips stretching to a shy smile that exposes his bunny teeth. He uncaps his own bottle and asks, “Who’s your favorite artist?”

You almost choke at the question. Honestly, you haven’t really thought about it much, but there is one person that comes to mind. “I don’t think you’d hear him on the radio.”

“Oh yeah? What’s his name?”

“Rap Monster.”

While traveling on the road is daring, fun, full of deep talks, laughter, and singing, it’s also a little scary. In the back of your mind, there’s always that fear that you’ll get caught. That the police would take you back to Kangdae, or that Jungkook’s owner would find you and force him back into more brutal fights and beatings. That someone suspicious would approach you when you’re filling up for gas in the middle of the night, or that you’d end up in an unsafe area.

“Don’t be scared,” Jungkook whispers to you, placing a hand on the small of your back. He eyes the group of men loitering in front of the motel wearily. “If they try to mess with you, I’ll protect you. I’m strong.”

“Thanks, Jungkook,” you murmur back, feeling a bit safer. Taking a deep breath, you briskly walk across the parking lot with the hybrid right behind you. Your gaze is kept firmly on the building, even as the sleazy men in front of it try to whistle and call for your attention. You hear them laughing at how scared you must look.

Had it been Kangdae instead of Jungkook, he’d either start a fight with those men and put the blame on you – claiming that you wanted it, that the way you’re dressed was asking for unwanted attention, that you’re trying to make him jealous by making eye contact with them. If he really felt like being an asshole, he’d shove you toward them until you’re crying and clinging onto him, and Kangdae would laugh and simply say you should feel flattered by the attention.

By the time you check in, Jungkook is already taking all your belongings from the car into the room so you don’t have to go back out there. He doesn’t question you when he finds you sitting on the bed and crying. And you don’t ask him about the redness on his knuckles when you check on his wounds later that night.

At the motel, Jungkook lets you take the bed as he plops down on the couch. It can’t be that comfortable, but he always insists on sleeping there, claiming it’s better than the cage he usually sleeps in. Your heart drops every time he mentions it.

Without a phone, it’s hard to keep researching hybrid centers, checking on the reviews, and looking up their locations. But there are pamphlets of maps, restaurant menus, and local business fliers on the nightstand.

“This place claims to be a humane shelter for hybrids,” you read out loud, looking at the picturesque photos of a variety of hybrids with humans: dog-hybrids of mixed breeds, domestic cat-hybrids with pointy ears and fluffy tails, birds with talons on their feet, and bunnies like Jungkook with long ears and a cute tail. “No kill, free-range, very thorough adoption process to ensure your hybrid finds a new forever home.”

“They’re lies,” Jungkook bitterly states without even looking at it. “All of them are.”

You toss the flier in the nearby wastebasket and sigh. “We need to at least look at some of these places. We can’t keep driving around like this forever.”

Jungkook peeks over at you. Then, in a quieter voice, he asks, “Why not?”

“I want to find you a proper home. With a home gym where you can workout anytime you want. And a nice kitchen with a full fridge where you can eat actual meals instead of living off ramen packets and potato chips. And maybe even a karaoke machine with colorful mood lights so you can sing your heart out,” you explain, imagining he’d have so much fun and be well-taken care of. “I want you to feel comfortable and happy instead of being stuck in my car all the time, and just wandering around aimlessly until our money runs out.”

You see the pout jutting out of his lip. “What if I just want to stay with you?”

“I’m not exactly living in the lap of luxury right now,” you tell him with a sad smile. It’ll be hard to let him go, but you know it’s for the best. Even if he doesn’t agree.

“Then what about you?”

“I’m… still figuring it out,” you reply, sighing again. Finding a home for Jungkook is a priority, but that doesn’t mean you haven’t been thinking about your next step. “I have a sister who might be able to take us in for now. I haven’t talked to her for years. She might not even remember me or want to help. But I can’t think of anyone else. She still lives far from here, but if we cut through the forest instead of taking the main roads, we’ll get to her much sooner.”

His silence makes you wonder if he’s thinking the same thing: this is a bad idea.

“It’s going to rain,” he reminds you with a frown. You don’t need animal instincts to know that. The looming, grey clouds in the sky tells you that a storm is near.

Still, you turn on the TV to look at the weather forecast. “I’ll drive slow.”

“It’ll still be dangerous.”

Breaking news. Missing person report. If you have seen this woman, please contact your local authorities immediately. Last seen wearing—

You stare at a photo of yourself on the television. Your heart picks up as Jungkook’s eyes widen. If you thought the cops were after you before, they surely are now.

They’ll find you if you take the main road to your sister’s place.

“We don’t have much of a choice.”

A thick tension hangs in the air between you and Jungkook. It’s something that you haven’t felt since the night the two of you spontaneously decided to run away from your abusers. Every passing car has you on edge, making you wonder how long the two of you can pull this off. If you could even make it to your sister’s place.

Would someone recognize your license plate? Are the cops already on your trail? Would Kangdae and Jungkook’s owner be out there looking for the two of you? What if they catch you? What would you do then?

The windshield wipers swipe back and forth against the heavy rain, but it doesn’t do much good. It’s still so hard to see as your car pulls up to the road leading into the dense forest.

“Just drive slow,” Jungkook reminds you, his voice gentle.

You nod your head. Then, carefully, you step on the gas.

Tall trees cover both sides of the narrow road. Under much nicer weather and better circumstances, perhaps it would be a relaxing, scenic drive to go through. But as it is, it’s terrifying. And dark. You can barely see past what your headlights illuminate.

But at least no one is following you two. For now, anyway.

After a while, everything starts to look the same. It makes you wonder if you’re just driving around in circles. In the corner of your eye, you see Jungkook yawning and trying hard to stay awake with you. But the constant rainfall and the occasional rumbles of thunder seems to lull him to sleep.

“If you’re tired, you could take a nap,” you tell him. It’ll still be a little while until you get to your sister’s place anyway.

“No, no, I should stay up with you,” he mumbles, though his eyes are already closed. His head starts to droop as he nods off, but then, Jungkook suddenly snaps awake. His whole body stiffens as his hand shoots up to grab you.

“Ow! Jungkook, what–?”

Then, you hear it.

A deep, animalistic roar.

Your heart hammers in your chest as your car halts to a stop. It sounds so close.

“Don’t stop. Keep driving,” Jungkook urges.

“Right,” you mutter, stepping on the gas again. You’re not even sure what kind of animal it is, but you can’t see anything but shrouds of darkness among the trees. Whatever it is, though, has Jungkook spooked.

“Faster,” he insists. His hand around your arm tightens a little. You push the gas pedal a little more. “Faster!”

Somehow, the roar sounds closer.

The two of you are speeding through the dirt path as safely as you can. Rain continues to fall without letting up. The heavy patter of raindrops hits hard against the rapid swipes of your windshield wipers. You can’t even see what’s even chasing you, but it has Jungkook terrified.

“What do you think it is?” you try to ask him, eyes flickering toward him worriedly.

“I don’t know, but— WATCH OUT!”

A deer is in the middle of the dirt road. Caught in the headlights, it stands frozen.

It feels like everything happens in slow motion.

You and Jungkook are screaming as your hands turn the wheel, swerving out of the way before you hit the poor animal.

Your foot is on the brakes, but the roads are slippery. You’re not able to stop.

Your car slams against a tree. Jungkook’s arm protectively shields you as the airbags trigger upon impact.

Everything feels slowed down, but it happens in an instant.

“Don’t hurt her.”

You’re not sure when, but you must have passed out.

With effort, you try to open your eyes. Your vision is blurry, but you can see that you’ve been pulled out of your car. The front is completely wrecked. Your car door is open and the airbags on both sides are deflated.

It’s still raining. You can feel yourself getting soaked, but you’re pressed against something solid and warm. How did you get here? Is that deer okay?

Where’s Jungkook?

“You don’t need her. You don’t need any of them.”

You don’t recognize that voice. It’s deep and has a bit of a drawl. But you can practically feel the hatred in their voice as you start to drift back into unconsciousness.

“No, she’s different. Please. Please don’t hurt her,” you hear Jungkook begging. His voice wavers as he holds you tighter. “She’s my human.”

“Guys, that’s enough.” A different voice cuts in. This one, somehow, sounds familiar. Deeper than the previous speaker, but warm and smooth. Whoever this voice belongs to seems to recognize one of you too. “Is that— Who are you?”

When you wake up again, you can still hear the rain. It’s soothing this time. The heavy pellets hit the large window, obscuring the view with a watery, grey blur. Your eyes are drawn to the curtains, velvet in color and tied with a knotted rope. There’s a bench in front of the window, stacked with cushions, that looks cozy. You could easily imagine yourself curled up with a book, a blanket, and a bunch of pillows in that spot.

You don’t remember seeing a little nook like that at the motel before.

Actually, you don’t remember any of the motels having one at all.

Where are you?

Panic starts to seep in when you don’t recognize the room you’re in. It looks old. Stuck in a forgotten time with antique furniture and outdated flooring and wallpaper. As you move beneath the duvet, you realize that your clothes have been removed and you’re now wearing one of Kangdae’s shirts that you let Jungkook borrow.

Did he do this? Where is Jungkook anyway?

It looks like you’re alone in this room. But beyond the bedroom door, you’re not sure what’s waiting for you out there.

Across the room, you’re surprised to see your belongings on a chair. Whoever Jungkook was talking to, they must have brought you and your stuff here. You waste no time to get out of Kangdae’s clothes and dress into your own, your feet creaking loudly against the floorboards as you make your way to your duffel bag.

Other than your hybrid friend, nothing else seems to be missing. Everything you packed, including what money you have left, is still there.

You glance over at the door again. One thing is for sure. Jungkook is on the other side somewhere. You can’t just wait around here forever.

The floorboards continue to creak beneath your feet as you make your way to the door. Once you pull it open, the hinges squealing as you do, you nearly scream.

A tall man with dark, wavy hair and small, round ears is just at the other side. His face is strikingly handsome, and his gaze is penetrating as he rests his arm against the doorway and leans so close to you, you can see the tiny beauty marks beneath his eye, on the tip of his nose, his cheek, and his bottom lip.

“Little human. Aren’t you being too noisy?”

“I’m sorry!” you quickly reply, thoroughly mortified. It must have been the floorboards, or maybe even when you were rummaging through your duffel bag for clothes. You didn’t think you were being too loud, but…

“Taehyung, don’t scare our guest away,” another voice says from the hallway.

When you look at the newcomer’s voice, your eyes widen in shock. For a moment, you think you’re looking at an angel. His face looks soft and kind, with full lips and a defined jaw. Some of his dark bangs cover his sharp eyes. But where one of his arms is human, lean and toned with muscle, his other arm is a long, feathered black wing that makes him somehow look more ethereal.

“I’m not scaring her, Jimin,” the one named Taehyung whines, straightening up. It’s when he’s at his full length when you realize just how tall this man is. And how sharp his claws are. He peers down at you and confirms, “Right, little human?”

“Um. Yes?”

The one named Jimin moves so gracefully as he approaches you two. There’s a friendly smile on his angelic face. “Don’t mind him. He usually hibernates around this time, so he’s a little cranky. Bear hybrids tend to sleep more than the rest of us.”

Taehyung snorts and scratches his belly. Even if he doesn’t admit it, Jimin must be right. There’s a hint of tiredness in his stoic face.

“It’s all right,” Taehyung mumbles, now scratching his head.

“You must be hungry,” Jimin guesses, and at the very mention of food, your stomach growls in agreement. Heat colors your cheeks, but Jimin continues to smile and merely nods to where he came from. “Follow me, then. I’ll tell Seokjin and Yoongi to make something for you.”

Again, it looks like he’s floating with every step he takes. It’s obvious that he’s a bird hybrid, but his graceful movements remind you of a swan. A black swan.

Behind you, much to your surprise, Taehyung follows. Earlier, he seemed so adamant about going back to sleep. There’s still a grumpy, tired look on his face – brown eyes glazed over with drowsiness and his lips pouting slightly – yet, he still trails behind both you and Jimin.

The swan hybrid notices and smirks a little. “He’s curious about you.”

You can’t really imagine why. Or if that’s even a good thing.

Jimin leads you both to a foyer. There are more hybrids sitting around the fireplace. It’s warm, orange glow casts lights upon each of their animalistic features.

From the lounge chair is a man with pale skin and leopard-printed ears and a long tail. Along one side of his neck, shoulder, and arm are spots that look like tattoos. His gaze feels intimidating the moment he locks eyes with you, and his long tail swishes back and forth slowly.

On the other chair, another man turns to look at you as well. Like Taehyung, his face is strikingly handsome. Pointed ears and a long tail indicate that he’s a wolf, but bigger. You’re not sure if it’s the reflection of the fire, but his sharp eyes look golden and are practically glowing.

The last one, sitting comfortably with the predator hybrids, is an elaphocentuar – half-human, half-deer. The upper-part of his body is of a human man with strong antlers on his head, but the bottom-half is of a spotted deer. The reddish-brown of his fur matches the hair on his head.

A few days ago, you’ve rarely seen a hybrid in person. Now, you’re in a room full of them.

“You’re awake!” a familiar voice exclaims before a solid mass just pulls you into a tight hug. Relief washes over you when you recognize who it is.

“Jungkook! Are you okay? Did you get hurt?” you immediately ask, your voice a little muffled from his hold. You pull away enough to get a good look at him. There are some fresh bruises from the accident, but no broken bones or concerning wounds from what you can tell.

“I’m fine. I was more worried about you,” he admits as he begins to ramble. “I was a little disoriented, but I managed to get out of the car. I pulled you out of the driver’s seat too. The car is completely wrecked! I don’t know if you’ll be able to drive it anymore. But that deer we almost hit was a hybrid!”

You glance over at the deer hybrid. He moves a little closer to the leopard-hybrid, body entirely stiff since you stepped into the room, and staring at you like he’s still caught in the headlights. You feel awful and you don’t blame him at all for being scared of you.

“I’m so sorry. I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

The deer-hybrid merely blinks, as if he isn’t sure you’re talking to him. Then, meekly, he replies, “I’m not hurt.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re not,” you tell him sincerely.

“Me too,” Jungkook agrees, offering a small smile at the deer-hybrid as well. “They found us right after the accident. You were so cold and wet, I was worried you wouldn’t wake up. They said I had to get you out of your wet clothes or you’d get sick, but I promise I didn’t do anything weird! And then, I just waited for you to wake up on your own. You’ve been asleep for a while, and I’m glad you’re okay.”

“We recognized Jungkook as one of us, so we had to check on him,” the leopard-hybrid explains, his gaze not once leaving you. You vaguely recognize his voice as the one Jungkook was arguing with. “He insisted that we had to help you too.”

“She’s different from the other humans!” Jungkook defends. His arms are still around you rather protectively. “She’s so nice. She’s been helping me and taking care of me. I couldn’t just leave her behind.”

“We don’t normally allow humans anywhere near this place,” the handsome wolf adds on. It’s obvious why. Not only are they hybrids, but they’re exotic. Black swan, clouded leopard, dire wolf. Even the bear and deer hybrids are uncommon compared to the rabbits, dogs, cats, rodents, and bird hybrids. “But the young master of this manor made an exception for you.”

“The master?”

“That would be me.”

The final resident of this house of hybrids steps in. He’s tall and muscular with perfect body proportions. He has short, brown hair and tanned skin. But the fullness of his lips, the deep dimples in his cheeks, and the dark sunglasses over his eyes are things you instantly recognize.

You haven't seen him since that night all those years ago.

“Rap Monster?”

His lips stretch into a smile. “I haven’t been called that in a long time.”

Jungkook looks between you and the master of the house, eyes wide with awe and surprise. “That’s Rap Monster? Your favorite artist?”

Rap Monster arches an eyebrow. “Favorite artist?”

You feel your cheeks heat with embarrassment. “Yeah, you, uh. You rap good.”

The leopard snorts, and you feel the curious gazes of the hybrids around you. You’re ready to crawl back into the room you woke up in and hide forever until you hear Rap Monster’s laughter.

Unlike the other hybrids, Rap Monster doesn’t have any animal parts to his body. No round ears or fluffy tails, no antlers or hooves, no feathered wings or webbed feet.

He looks completely human.

Except for one thing.

“I’ve gotten a lot better at rapping over the years. I’ll have to show you sometime,” he says, taking off his sunglasses. The move is unexpected to the hybrids living with him as he reveals to you his serpent eyes. The irises are a beautiful blend of indigo, deeper and more purple on the outer edges and bluer and lighter in the inner parts – unlike anything humans could naturally have. Warm brown is around the dark pupils that are vertically slitted, and they’re even more beautiful than you remember.

You could never forget eyes like his. They’re mesmerizing.

“That would be really nice,” you tell him, forcing yourself to look away from them. “But I don’t want to be a bother. I really appreciate the help and I can’t thank you enough for bringing us in, but I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

He arches an eyebrow at you again. It makes your stomach flip a little, and not in an entirely bad way. “How? The storm is still going and your car is damaged.”

Your heart sinks a little. “I don’t know. I’ll think of something.”

Truth be told, you have no idea what to do now. Your car was your only means of transportation, and it’s undrivable. It’s too dangerous for you to travel around in the forest by foot, especially if you don’t know how far you are from the main roads. And even then, you’re reported as a missing person. Kangdae and the others are trying to find you.

“Don’t be silly. Just stay with us,” Rap Monster kindly offers. “I wouldn’t have allowed you in if I thought you’d be a danger to my pack.”

You glance at the other hybrids in the room. They’re looking at you with uncertainty, and perhaps, a bit of annoyance. They’ve told you themselves that they’re weary of humans, and given the history between your species and theirs, you can’t exactly blame them for that. “I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”

“You won’t,” he assures you gently. In those two words alone, the doubt and hesitation start to leave your mind. “Stay as long as you like.”

It feels crazy and stupid, but at this point, trying to leave this shelter in the middle of a storm feels crazier and stupider.

“Okay,” you decide, peering up at his beautiful eyes again. “Until the storm passes.”

“Until the storm passes,” he agrees, as the clash of thunder and lightning seem even louder than before.

Thank you for reading ♡ Comments & reviews are greatly appreciated!

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[sanest-bsd-delegate]

CAN YOU DO BSD BOYS HAVING A S/O WHO IS CHILDISH AND SARCASTIC BUUUT THEIR S/O IS SECRETLY HAS FRAGILE PERSONALITY AND OVERTHINKS? ONLY IF YOU ARE COMFORTABLE AND HAVE TIME THO 😭😭 . (I'M SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS REQUEST BECAUSE EVERY POST OF YOURS IS PIECE. OF. ART.) SKSKJSKSNSLWK

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐢𝐞𝐬

headcanon: Who knew that even the boldest overthinks? ft: Dazai, Chuuya and Ranpo

MASTERLIST

Dazai

He was onto the traditional method of suicide, the typical jumping off the roof. Unfortunately for him yet again, someone had to interrupt him. "Oh look its you Y/N!" Dazai comments, laughing as he stood on the hard ground. Shaking your head, you just pinched him on his arm as you drag him back to the ADA office.

"Are you out of your mind Dazai? Oh wait you don't even have the audiency to ow-"

"It hurts Y/NNNNN" Dazai comments, as he rubs the spot where you previously held his arm.

'Did I pinch him to hard? Oh fuck, is he hurt? what if-'

Almost thinking, Dazai wrap his arms around you as he laughs out loud, burying his head on your shoulders. "I was joking Y/NNN". You look at Dazai, as you hold his face, before pouting and holding a childish frown on you face, clearly disappointed. You were about to turn you head away before Dazai holds your face with his hands staring at your eyes before kissing your forehead.

"Why do you keep saving me?"

"Oh I don't know? But that wasn't clearly in my job description"

Chuuya

It was one of those occasions where you would wake up earlier then Chuuya, as you would walk outside the room to see the mess you created last night. You both had been through a really messed up mission and Chuuya being Chuuya, thought too get drunk.

Guess it was you turn today to make breakfast today.

"Morning" Chuuya says, rubbing his eyes while walking towards the dining table seating himself while he half sleep watches you make breakfast. "Oh? is that Chuuya speaking to me or is it Mr bonnie lass am speaking with?" You said jokingly, as you place two plates of breakfast in front of you.

"Seriously Y/N? Its to early for this" He says while trying to stay awake, his body yet to fully sober up. "Early? Its 10 am in the morning...Mr bonnie lass wouldn't act like that" you joked, while drinking the cup of coffee. missing the blush that had formed on her lover's face.

There was an awkward silence after that. 'did I do something wrong? did i cross the limit?'. You look down at the table before giving a sigh, letting the overthinking thoughts consume you, but before it could you hear him speak,

"The breakfast was delicious Y/N"

You look up to reach his eye level, his head tilted on one of his hands, as he gave you a grin something you could never tired off. "Oh really? glad to know"

"You should make breakfast everyday you know?," he says, before walking over and giving you a kiss on forehead before walking towards the sink to rinse the plates.

"No thanks, besides you look cute in aprons. Any who would wanna miss checking you out wearing that?"

Ranpo

"Ranpo! You cant keep eating candies forever!" You commented as you snatch the snacks he held in his hands, before keeping it away on the top shelf, "Geez, How come you haven't gotten diabetes yet from eating so much candies".

Yeah, that was the last time you talked to Ranpo. He had quite been ignoring you at the agency, turning his head away each time you came in his view pounding and secretly throwing a tantrum inside. You on the other hand, just couldn't figure out why he was ignoring you. You both never fought, and infact Ranpo was a type of person who would never try get separate from you. He carved for physical affection, and when he didn't it got you concerned. Was it your fault? Did you do something wrong? Will this become the reason that you and him drift apart? You didn't know.

"Ranpo," You spoke, your arms wide open as you take a step towards him, a little guilty and unsure how he would react. He is mad isn't it? "Did I do something wrong?...Please tell me"

Ranpo seemed to catch your emotions before viewing your arms, he dived into the hug whining and complaining, "Y/NNN you never gave me my candy back, I wanted to finish it"

Oh? So that was the reason he refused to talk to you?

"You are a big baby you know that?" You said, as you reached the cabinet and give him the sweet snack back, only for him to beam brightly and start eating again. You look at him, shaking your head wondering if your boyfriend was a 26 year grown old man or a 6 year old child.

I had the idea to bullet them all, now I dont even know if I wrote a headcanon or a drabble. (ps tysm love😭, your words mean a lot :D srry for the wait)

[greenhikingboots]

Jon’s Pre-Canon Crush

Okay, Jonsa fam. I’ve seen a lot of great posts, especially in the last few months, about Jon’s reactions to Val. Among them, there’s one particular vein I like to assume everyone loves as much as I do. That is, when Jon thinks of Val’s hair as silver vs. when he thinks of it as the color of dark honey. You’ve seen those metas, right? They explain the likelihood of Jon’s future connection to Dany being negative — The air tastes cold. / My tongue is too numb to tell. All I taste is cold. — while his future connection to Sansa will be positive — It had been a long while since Jon Snow had seen a sight so lovely.

Well, in this post I want to expand on the angle of Val-is-sometimes-a-stand-in-for-Sansa. Only, I don’t want to speculate on what will happen between Jon and Sansa in the future, if we ever get GRRM’s last two books. Enough people have already done that, and they’ve done it so wonderfully that I have little to add. Instead, as the title of this post says, I want to focus on Jon’s pre-canon crush. More specifically: I want to focus on what Jon’s thoughts and feelings about Val say about his thoughts and feelings about Sansa.

But let me lay some groundwork first, okay? Until a few weeks ago, I went back and forth on pre-canon crush theories. I agreed they held a lot of potential and were a lot of fun to daydream about — a great premise for a one-shot, to be sure! Oh, and I’ve always loved it when people said things like, “Hey, Jon, your Targaryen is showing.” That’s classic stuff. But did I really think GRRM meant to hint at prior feelings rather than just laying a foundation for future feelings? Again, until a few weeks ago, I wasn’t totally convinced either way. But now I am fully committed to the Pre-Canon Crush Camp, assigned to cabin Jon-Had-Feelings-for-Sansa. [Did Sansa have feelings for Jon too? Ummm maybe? I think there’s some evidence to support that, but not as much. But, hey, that’s not the point of this post. Sorry. Moving on.] So what changed? Well, basically some ideas I’d previously had sunk in on a deeper level. It started with this post from @sherlokiness. It talks about GRRM commenting on a discrepancy in the books, two occasions where Jeyne Westerling’s physical descriptions do not match up. GRRM said the discrepancies were a mistake, a really unfortunate one because it distracts from the times when he intentionally included discrepancies of physical appearances. And basically us Jonsas loved it. Like, “Yep! Make sense! We assumed as much already, Mr. Martin.” And that’s because of the canon line mentioned earlier, right? You know the whole thing, don’t you? Oh, but you want me to quote it here anyway? Okay, fine, I’ll oblige.

They [Ghost and Val] look as though they belong together. Val was clad all in white [bleh, bleh, bleh] …but her eyes were blue, her long braid the color of dark honey, her cheeks flushed red from the cold. It had been a long while since Jon Snow had seen a sight so lovely.

Direwolf. Lots of white. Suspicious ellipses. Blue eyes. Long braid the color of dark honey. Right, okay, got it.  [BTW. Did you know there’s also a point, early on, where Val’s described as having high cheekbones? You know, a feature Sansa has as well!?!?] Anyway, when I saw sherlokiness’s post about GRRM’s comments and the Jonsas relating it to that canon scene with Ghost and Val, I reblogged it. Naturally. And in the tags I said something like, “I’ll have to double check but I’m pretty sure the willowy creature line comes after this line. As in, maybe Jon knew exactly who Val reminded him in that moment and he was trying to talk himself out of his pre-canon crush coming back to the surface.” I’m paraphrasing here. My tags were probably not as clear as that. Also, I was being a bit facetious. It was a thought I’d had before, but just a passing one. Again (AGAIN! Do I say that too much?), I’d been going back and forth about pre-canon crush theories for a long time. But @agentrouka-blog saw my tags and was like, “You might be onto something there.” And then @zimshan saw my tags too and did the double check for me. Thanks! And guess what? GUESS WHAT, JONSA FAM!? I was right about the order. First, Jon sees Ghost and Val, thinks her eyes are blue and her hair is like dark honey, and it is a lovely sight. Second, this line:

Val looked the part [of a princess] and rode as if she had been born on horseback. A warrior princess, he decided, not some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair and waiting for some knight to rescue her.

But guess what else? The order isn’t even the most striking thing. The most striking thing is how closely these two lines appear to one another — within just a few pages!!! That's what zimshan said. So I went back to read it myself. Not just the two lines to check the order, but a little before, and a little after, and everything in between. If you want, you can do the same. It’s ADWD Jon XI.

Want to know what stuck out to me most? The willowy creature line actually seems… so odd, and out of place, and unnecessary. I swear to you. Let me try to explain.

Basically, by that point in the chapter, Jon has already clearly established his take on Val. She’s beautiful, everyone knows it, but she’s more than that. She’s strong and capable. She found Tormund and brought him back to Castle Black when Jon’s Night’s Watch Rangers couldn’t manage it. Like, Jon’s thankful for Val, okay? 

Oh, and he also seems aware that he holds her in higher regard than the rest of the men who keep calling her a princess even though she’s not one. I think he feels smug about it, to be honest. Like, he wouldn’t use these words because it’s ASOIAF, but he knows he’s a budding feminist and he’s proud of himself for it. Like, “I’m so much better than these asshats who don’t respect women and think all Val has to offer is her pretty face.”

How great is that? I love book Jon so much.

Where was I, though? Oh! Oh, oh, oh! This next part is key. Up until the willowy creature line, Jon has not had a single disparaging thought about Val. Val being cruel about Shireen’s greyscale hasn’t happened yet. But for some reason — *Getting too executed. Brain malfunctioning!*

AH! I SWEAR JONSA FAM! If you read the willowy creature in fuller context, it comes across as if Jon’s correcting himself for having a disparaging thought about Val, like he’s reminding himself of who she truly is. She’s a warrior princess, not a willowy creature. But like, why? Why does Jon feel the need to do this? He hasn’t had a disparaging thought about Val, so why correct himself as if he has?

Just because she’s beautiful? Just because he’s tired of other men calling her a princess? I mean, I guess that could be the whole story. That’s certainly how we’re supposed to take it, if we’re taking it at face value. But I’m not convinced. Go read it again, and I think you’ll see that when the willowy creature line happens, it actually feels like a weird logic leap.

The dots aren’t connecting because one dot is missing!!!! Let me put a pin in that for a moment while I turn to other mini metas in our Jonsa fandom. Antis like to say, “Jon doesn’t like girls like Sansa. He doesn't like willowy creatures, he said so himself.” But we know that’s crap, right? The boy who liked Ygritte’s gentle side? The boy who helps Alys Karstark by marrying her to Sigorn? The boy who dreamed his mother was a highborn lady with kind eyes? The boy who wanted to show his hypothetical wife Winterfell’s glass gardens and bath with her in the hot pools?

Yeah, that boy is a budding feminist, like I said.

So again I ask (AGAIN!) why would Jon — who is not especially critical of women in general and has not been critical of Val at all up to this point — feel the need to correct himself by thinking this critical thing about willowy creatures? In other words, why does he lift up Val by putting down some vague idea of other women he’s never had a problem with before?

Well, obviously it turns out that I believe my facetious, tongue in cheek tags more than I realized when I wrote them. My position is that somewhere in the two pages between ...a long while since Jon had seen a sight so lovely… and ...not some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair… Jon realized Val reminded him of Sansa, he felt guilty and ashamed about it, and then felt the need to do damage control. And because guilt and shame are icky, confusing feelings, his damage control took the form of being critical of Sansa even though he isn’t normally critical of such women. 

Am I making sense? How do I explain myself further? Like, why am I so stuck on this idea Jon’s willowy creature line being two pages after the Ghost and Val looking lovely together line must mean Jon had a pre-canon crush?

I think the crux is what I said about the willowy creature line feeling like a weird logic leap — like the dots aren’t connecting because one is missing. The missing dot is Jon being aware that he’s mentally swapped Val with Sansa. He just doesn’t acknowledge this on the page.

Let me be extra clear. I’m now differing from several others who have written about pre-canon crush theories in that I think Jon was aware of his crush. I’ve seen many say it’s all subconscious. But this stuff with Val makes me think otherwise.

I mean, I know Jon has a pattern of dissociation. For him, thinking, and speaking, and acting from his subconsciousness is a common occurrence. So, yes, he could have subconsciously thought Val looked like Sansa and subconsciously felt guilty and ashamed and therefore subconsciously decided to do damage control by subconsciously reminding himself Val is a warrior princess and therefore not a willowy creature.

But I think GRRM was hinting at an exception to Jon’s pattern with these canon lines. Because if the first part is happening subconsciously — Jon thinking Val looks like Sansa and that it’s a lovely sight — then he wouldn’t feel the need to do damage control afterwards? If he wasn’t aware of thinking of Sansa in that moment, isn’t it more likely he’d just carry on with taking Val to meet Selyse, and the odd, out of place, unnecessary line about a willowy creature wouldn’t have been included? What else, what else?

I said earlier that I think Jon’s crush is an innocent, not sexual thing. Let me expand on that. And uuuuuhhhhh... let me clarify that I think that might be changing some over time.  My guess is when Jon was younger, his thoughts were more along these lines: “Sansa is pretty, and a proper lady, and everything men are taught to want. She’ll be a good wife for someone someday. Obviously not me. That’s sinful, I don’t want it, and I’m a bastard so I can’t marry a highborn lady anyway. But objectively, Sansa’s a good catch.” Which kinda matches how Jon thinks of Val at times, right? Like, she’s a catch but he doesn’t want her. He’s not taking Winterfell and a Wife because Winterfell belongs to Sansa and he’s a man of the Night’s Watch, dammit! But hang on a second. Sometimes Jon’s thoughts about Val are more elicit, aren’t they? He thinks about the size of her breasts and she’s the hypothetical wife he pictures romancing in Winterfell. Don’t worry, I’m not saying I’m secretly a Jon/Val shipper. What I’m getting at is this other thing we’ve talked about in the Jonsa fandom. Jone projects his general desires onto Val. He’s getting older. He’s unhappy at the Wall. Winterfell isn’t Robb’s like he thought it would be, and Bran and Rickon are thought to be dead. And Stannis is offering Winterfell and Val to him. Plus he’s now been intimate with a woman, Ygritte. So he knows that sex feels nice. All in all, Jon’s becoming more in tune with wanting Winterfell, and a wife, and a family, and wanting to fu—

You get the idea. ;)

Soooooo. If you buy into the premise that A) Jon considered Sansa a good catch when they were younger B) He’s thinking more and more about romance and sex C) Val is also a good catch and easy to project feelings onto and D) Woopsies, Val just reminded me of Sansa! Well, then where does all that leave Jon? Feeling like he needs to distance himself from positive thoughts about Sansa, right? But without ever thinking her name because of his pattern of dissociation and because GRRM is tricky like that.  Am I making my point clearer, or just talking in circles?  Like, I know plenty of people have already said Val is a switch-back-and-forth-stand-in-for-other-characters. The first two short paragraphs of this post mentions those metas.  But holy smokes! If Jon is aware of A-D mentioned above, that adds a fascinating layer of subtext to his scenes with and thoughts about Val.  Let’s talk about it forever!

Just kidding. I think I’m almost done here.  Basically, I think the willowy creature line is Jon knowingly saying to himself, “Yikes, the thoughts I had about Sansa in the past didn’t bother me much because they were 99% innocent. But they are less innocent now and that’s a problem! You can’t like Sansa! Don’t confuse Sansa with Val,  dummy! Val is a warrior princess! Sansa is a willowy creature and willowy creatures are bad!”

Okay, sure, Jon.  Let me wrap up with one more canon line.

Of Sansa brushing out Lady’s coat and singing to herself. You know nothing, Jon Snow.

We often link this line to Ygritte for obvious reasons, but I’m now in the habit of linking it more to Val and the canon lines mentioned previously. I think GRRM wrote a the three lines — a sight so lovely + willow creature + of Sansa brushing out Lady’s coat — as a subtle continuation of one another. Us Jonsas saw the potential for underlying romantic feelings in the last one, that’s nothing new. But I want to add that it’s a direct contrast to the willowy creature line. As Jon is bleeding out, he can no longer be bothered to put up a front and pretend he doesn’t have feelings for Sansa, feelings that have gotten more complicated as of late.

Oh so subtle. Really not that much different than what others have said before me. But different enough I wanted to mention it. Now someone put it in a fanfic!!

[vickyvicarious]

It looks to me like Jack began feeling distanced from Lucy even before he looked at her tomb to find her (unbeknownst to him) as a vampire. His descriptions of her were kinda getting cold and clinical while she was dying and becoming halfway through vampiric...

Yes, I agre there's a bit of a pattern there! I actually collected a bunch of moments of it happening earlier, but they're together with a very spoilery post. Here, I'll copy/paste the Lucy ones below for people who don't want the spoilers.

There on the bed, seemingly in a swoon, lay poor Lucy, more horribly white and wan-looking than ever. Even the lips were white, and the gums seemed to have shrunken back from the teeth, as we sometimes see in a corpse after a prolonged illness. Van Helsing raised his foot to stamp in anger, but the instinct of his life and all the long years of habit stood to him, and he put it down again softly. “Quick!” he said. “Bring the brandy.” I flew to the dining-room, and returned with the decanter. He wetted the poor white lips with it, and together we rubbed palm and wrist and heart. He felt her heart, and after a few moments of agonising suspense said:— “It is not too late.”

I find Jack’s sudden detachment in this scene so interesting. I think he might have done this before to an extent, describing physical symptoms almost as a separate phenomenon rather than a part of the person. He certainly spoke of Lucy rather formally in some medical contexts (“Patient improved” etc.). But it’s especially striking here how quickly he goes from humanizing language to speaking about her almost as an object. It happens right when he describes her lips and teeth - which holds a lot of significance vampirically.

Jack obviously isn’t looking at Lucy thinking she’s a vampire. But he outright says that the look of her teeth/gums reminds him of a corpse. She looks dead. And seeing that, he describes her more clinically, seeking to distance himself emotionally from the sight. He can’t completely do it (that’s how we get “the poor white lips”, still sympathetic) but it’s not until he gets to Lucy’s heart - and how it is still beating - that he returns to saying “her”.

I found several more instances of this happening with Lucy as well, including what seems like a trend almost of Jack starting to key in to her more vampiric moments over time.

On 18 September, only briefly:

Whilst asleep she looked stronger, although more haggard, and her breathing was softer; her open mouth showed the pale gums drawn back from the teeth, which thus looked positively longer and sharper than usual; when she woke the softness of her eyes evidently changed the expression, for she looked her own self, although a dying one.

Then as she is dying on the 20th it happens more, and specifically in multiple instances when she was more vampiric:

Lucy was breathing somewhat stertorously, and her face was at its worst, for the open mouth showed the pale gums. Her teeth, in the dim, uncertain light, seemed longer and sharper than they had been in the morning. In particular, by some trick of the light, the canine teeth looked longer and sharper than the rest. I sat down by her, and presently she moved uneasily. […] And then insensibly there came the strange change which I had noticed in the night. Her breathing grew stertorous, the mouth opened, and the pale gums, drawn back, made the teeth look longer and sharper than ever. […] I kept my eyes fixed on Lucy, as did Van Helsing, and we saw a spasm as of rage flit like a shadow over her face; the sharp teeth champed together. Then her eyes closed, and she breathed heavily.

When he visits her grave with van Helsing on the 27th he starts by talking about her emotionally then cutting off when he gets to her lips, and after that point doesn’t describe her corpse with humanizing language at all for the rest of that entry:

She was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever; and I could not believe that she was dead. The lips were red, nay redder than before; and on the cheeks was a delicate bloom. […] “Are you convinced now?” said the Professor in response, and as he spoke he put over his hand, and in a way that made me shudder, pulled back the dead lips and showed the white teeth. “See,” he went on, “see, they are even sharper than before. With this and this"—and he touched one of the canine teeth and that below it—” […] He was looking intently at the face of the dead woman, raising the eyelids and looking at the eyes, and once more opening the lips and examining the teeth.

And by 29 September, after seeing her in action he speaks of her pretty firmly as a thing, at least until Arthur has finished staking her:

Then she turned, and her face was shown in the clear burst of moonlight and by the lamp, which had now no quiver from Van Helsing’s iron nerves. Never did I see such baffled malice on a face; and never, I trust, shall such ever be seen again by mortal eyes. The beautiful colour became livid, the eyes seemed to throw out sparks of hell-fire, the brows were wrinkled as though the folds of the flesh were the coils of Medusa’s snakes, and the lovely, blood-stained mouth grew to an open square, as in the passion masks of the Greeks and Japanese. If ever a face meant death—if looks could kill—we saw it at that moment. […] She seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there; the pointed teeth, the bloodstained, voluptuous mouth—which it made one shudder to see—the whole carnal and unspiritual appearance, seeming like a devilish mockery of Lucy’s sweet purity. […] The Thing in the coffin writhed; and a hideous, blood-curdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed together till the lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam. […] And then the writhing and quivering of the body became less, and the teeth seemed to champ, and the face to quiver. Finally it lay still. […] There, in the coffin lay no longer the foul Thing that we had so dreaded and grown to hate that the work of her destruction was yielded as a privilege to the one best entitled to it, but Lucy as we had seen her in her life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity.

Even if he doesn't realize what he's doing, it feels like it happens enough to say there's something there. Him sensing the change and not liking it, without realizing at first why.

[leoremin]

I just finished watching the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen...and I have...thoughts (along with some bad grammar)

This is an overall negative post, so if you don't like that keep scrolling. If you like this movie, go ahead and scroll on past if you don't want to read this. If you want to debate me, then hell, go ahead, I might be wrong in some areas and I'm fully willing to admit that. I'd love to see anyone's take on this movie.

To say real quick, I haven't finished reading Dracula (over 1/2 through tho), Sherlock Holmes, 4 billion leagues under the sea, and a few others.

Also...spoilers...obv

(last note: I am not against retellings or that stuff, I'm just rating it on MY OPINION of these little guys and all that stuff. This is depending on how much I like them from just a writers sense.)

Tbh I really love the idea of crossovers, I love so much seeing the babies all together (I am working on a crossover myself so...) but I feel like this one was just...mediocre

First up Jekyll!

Number one, assuming this takes place after the novella, that is not how HJ7 works. Jekyll turning back into Hyde is not right then. At that point, Henry would be living on a timer rather than Hyde.

Also, little pet peeve...THE POTION SHOULD BE GREEN!!!! THE POTION'S FINAL COLOUR IS GREEN AND THEY MADE IT CLEAR!!!

Also Jekyll is a doctor, he acts like the fucking wimpy Swiss man from Frankenstein. Jekyll is meant to be a (mentally) strong man who experimented on himself and kept good notes during the whole thing. He is a doctor; he is used to seeing some shit.

Also...why would you make Hyde look like that? One of the few clear physical descriptions in the book is that Hyde is much shorter than Jekyll, but he's...hulkish. I don't like that because it takes the monstrosity away, pinning it all on looks and not on action.

Also why Paris? Why did Hyde run to Paris? There wasn't really a reason for him to do that in a writing sense.

Upside: At least he continues to run on rooftops. All Hydes run on rooftops; it is not optional.

Next on the Chopping block is Dorian.

For a moment there, I really thought they ruined Dorian, but hell yeah! They kinda did it!

I wish they'd had another actor to play him, since the dark hair makes him look a little malicious, which is quite the opposite of what he's supposed to look like. He's supposed to be a child-like and innocent; deceiving.

Also...what the fuck was his ending?? Like he doesn't perish if he looks at the portrait. It literally says earlier that "the last time [he] looked at the picture" which literally contradicts what happens later. He can look at the picture, but chooses not to.

I am glad they decided to not have him redeem himself. That fits a little closer to the book.

For Mina!

Quick thing: I have not yet finished reading Dracula, so I have no clue what's happening there or why she's the vampire (please don't spoil it) so I won't say anything on that (cough cough...should've been Carmilla)

I don't like making women the sole love interest. It feels weird. Literally three people liked her (well only 2, Dorian was pretending) out of five. Make it interesting, make it something someone would ship...there is literally no chemistry between any of them (except Dorian, and we don't even get a proper "oh yeah I hooked up with him" moment. It's only implied. When did that happen???). Also, Mina isn't that kind of person. She's (in book) not looking for romance in that sense, she had a husband, and I'm pretty sure she'd probably stay faithful to him even after death.

Speaking of Chemistry, why tf is she a chemist? Jekyll should've been the chemist. Mina is literally known for being able to write in shorthand, and they could've used that to her advantage. Again, please excuse this if somehow Mina does become a scientist after Dracula, but considering people's views on women in that time period, it's unlikely.

Skinner:

I think that's his name...idk. I have not read the Invisible Man, but why would they kill off Griffin? Like Jekyll dies, but he doesn't have a replacement. I can't say much since I haven't read the book.

I think that's all.

Thank you coming to my Little Leo lecture, and I hope anyone reading agrees, or can hopefully handle this as a mature adult. If you have other thoughts on this movie (whether they agree with mine or not) go ahead and share them, I'd be thrilled.

I may update this as I have things to say, but idk.

[hellenichaven]

🦉Athena🦉

Physical Description

Since today is the 3rd, I feel that it's only appropriate to do a post on Lady Athena!

Athena, or Αθηνη in Greek, was known in translation as Minerva. She is the Olympian goddess of wisdom, good council, war, the defense of towns, heroic endeavors, weaving, pottery, and various other forms of crafting.

There are a few different scenarios that are said to have taken place around Athena's family tree, one of them being that Athena is the daughter of Poseidon. This is according to the Libyans (and I'll get more into these stories in a future post).

With that being said, Athena was described, in this context, to have blue eyes just as Poseidon did.

Often, Athena would be depicted wearing a gleaming helm upon her head. This helm was sometimes shown to have an olive-wreath crowning it. Like Ares, she was also given a shield and a spear in order to simulate the fighting role given to her - hence her being the goddess of war. She is also known to equip an aegis - also known as a breastplate.

In the center of this aegis, there are times in which there is an image of Gorgon's head, and that symbolizes the gift she got from Perseus - the head of Medusa. Again, we can get more into these details later on.

In art and literature, she is known to be depicted as a majestic young woman with a stern face, unsmiling. Here, she had grey eyes.

Last but not least, for this post at least, we get into one of Athena's main symbols - the owl. Athena is associated with the owl because it symbolizes her wisdom! That's why, in art and literature, an owl may be seen flying around her vicinity.

Below, I'll post a few photos of Athena depicted in Greek art!

This is from the National Archaelogical Museum of Florence! It depicts Ares kneeling before Athena.

Here is Lady Athena from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. I think she looks very pretty here.

Here is a piece of art that depicts a scene that I mentioned earlier! Gordon's head shown on her shield, Athena is holding Medusa's head before Perseus. This piece of art is from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts.

The main source I use to gather this information is the Theoi Project - Greek Mythology, which I do recommend checking out if you ever want to learn more about a specific god or goddess. The link I included here is Athena's page specifically.

[hello-there]

Communities are a new way to connect with the people on Tumblr who care about the things you care about! Browse Communities to find the perfect one for your interests or create a new one and invite your friends and mutuals!

[horror-beeings-artandwriting]

Big post explaining everything including hiatus stuff,

TW: Mention of depression, suicidal thoughts, parent death, and just trauma dumping so uh yeah

First and foremost I am not going on hiatus On this blog, However @ask-malachite-rot-crkau is on hiatus until further notice, due to mental health stuff and also story stuff I’m still figuring out!

Next why am I going on hiatus. I’m gonna put this under an undercut due to some people on my blog not wanting to see my dumb mental health junk. So uh yeah TW STARTS HERE!!

As I said in an earlier post, my mother pasted away recently, now my mother was not in good health for the last 10 years of my life, I was one of her main caregivers along side my father (my grandparents even though they could help never offered)

I was 7 when my life started going to hell, my mother fell and got an infection in her knee. and due to the state I live in, when my mom was in the hospital for almost a month she had going septic, gotten allergic reactions the doctors were shit. I was never able to see her due to my age. and when I did, her leg was…open. I still remember how her muscles looked.

I closed myself off, kept getting called brave for dealing with her being sick. She became disabled, she couldn’t walk at all. And the doctors never got her into the proper physical therapy. So she never truly recovered. Then another thing happened, she lost her right due to another accident

I started at 7 years old thinking it would be better to not wake up. But I never said anything, fast forward a couple years my mom has to go on dialysis due to the medication that she was given that when she went septic caused her to get a really damaged kidney and hearts, and she already had diabetes. It wasn’t helping.

In April 6th of this year I woke up went to the front room, complaining about school to my father, my mother in her and my fathers bedroom, we walked in to go check on her because she wasn’t answering and saw her passed out.

An hour later she was dead. I watched my mother die.

The paramedics didn’t even cover her body, so I saw her hand poking out from under the sheet.

That day I lost everything.

I started thinking about killing myself every day how it would be better to rot away and die. I hated being alive but the only reason I didn’t do anything was because I thought my dad already lost the love of his life the woman he was married to for 24 years. I will not put him through another loss.

So I kept it together. I didn’t speak I didn’t cry. I was a soild wall, I watched my grandma my mom’s mother go through loosing her daughter.

Right before her funeral I lost it, I told my dad I wanted to kill myself. He immediately got me on anti depressants. And I’m doing better now.

Thanks to my best friend and brother @hunterwritesstuff and my family.

I am okay. I just I know some people wanna know sorry if this is to descriptive I just yeah…

[16magnolias]

How about #25 for the OC ask game for Lucía 👀

25.What inspired you to create them / how did you create them? Were they originally a fancharacter? What was their personality / design like when you first made them?

Boy howdy, the answer to this question just keeps going and going. I don't know if you were shooting for the Abridged Full History of the Development of Lucía Moreno-Hernandez, but that's what you're gonna get.  😅

Originally, Everday Miracle was just going to be a silly little one shot of how Bruno got the dang horse at the end of the movie. With the first draft of the first chapter, Lucía was just a throw away character. 😬😅 I asked myself 'where did Bruno get that horse and how did he get it?', and Lucía was a means to an end - she was just someone kind enough to recognize a desperate man when she saw one and offer him a way to get where he needed to go, without putting up too much of a fuss about who he was.

And then I thought - wouldn't it be nice if Bruno had a friend? And wouldn't it be nice if he could help her in some way too?

....and it ballooned wildly from there. 😂

I didn't know what a fancharacter was until I looked it up and I suppose technically speaking she is a fancharacter because I created her specifically for this Encanto story!

Originally her two main traits were kind and practical, and I think I've stayed pretty true to those traits, though of course her personality developed and became more complex from there. I played around with the idea of her having more than one child and also swapping aspects of her and her sister Sofia - aka in another universe, Lucía might have had 5 kids and run the horse stables while Sofia ran the print shop with Lorenzo. Ultimately I decided that was way too many kids for poor Bruno to have to win over and way too many people for me to keep track of writing. (There are already 12 Madrigals! 12! I did not need to add another 6 main characters 😂.)

As for her design, I admit I came up with her personality and background waaaaay before I ever thought about what she looked like physically. (Back when I was only posting on ff.net, I didn't describe in detail anything but her eyes and height until chapter 22!  When I transferred the story to AO3 I moved some descriptions around so people had a better idea of what she looked like earlier on.)

I settled on the design I ultimately did because it seemed like a lot of villagers had similar traits and I was hoping to find a screenshot/spot her somewhere in the scenes where there are a lot of villagers. I uh....should probably do that some time haha.

And, to a lesser extent, I chose her physical traits because I wanted her to blend in. I wanted her to be unassuming physically. There's a poem by William Wordsworth called 'She dwelt among the untrodden ways' and the middle verse says:

   "A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye! —Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky."

And that's kind of the vibe I was going for with Lucía. To most people she's not particularly remarkable but to the people who love her, she's special and beautiful and means the world to them.

[dreams-of-cerulean]

Having failed to drown myself with my cup of my water (and still unable to delete my posts, damn it), I’m now living the consequences of my big mouth. Aka Sasha giving me knowing looks ever so often and Sato not quite able to stay in the room with me with Sasha being the way she is.

I’m going to punch Sasha in the shoulder myself, even if my arm is sprained from what I did.

So that fight. I lost. I think. I got my eldest sis with my last hit. But only broke a couple of her ribs, which won’t hamper her fighting ability in the slightest. Drew blood only twice. 

She then nailed me underneath the chin with a kick in reply to my “suicidal” attack, which knocked me out. Given that she snapped the head of a lamppost off with a similar kick a minute earlier, I guess I should be glad I didn’t get decapitated or ended up with a broken neck. 

I did figure out something. I can use Brightly Burning in a similar manner to my sister’s body control - the weird pulsing thing she does with her muscles that maximizes the blow at the end - I can sorta mimic that with the technique, though I probably have to physically get stronger to use it properly. 

The other thing is that - I might’ve made a breakthrough in Observe without knowing it. 

Blink says in its description that it’s limited by my line of sight. But half the time I’m usually Blinking to a place that’s not actually in my line of vision. But...somehow I just know it’s an okay spot to Blink too? It’s really weird. 

[namelessmewmew]

Old Art Archive Part 1.

I want to keep this old art on this blog but not retag all the original posts, so going to do what I did for my sideblogs and delete the original posts but reupload them in batches with no tags except an archive tag. This also allows me to (even if I don't have the spoons right now, to add image descriptions to these at a later date).

Original captions under the cut.

I have like over 150 ocs that need refs/redesigns [and many in that 150 that whose design is only in my head] but I only seem to be able to make new characters right now so have this kitty! I have been thinking about tv heads alot lately but also really like kitty robots so kitty Tv Head, [They are also based a bit on a heart rate monitor, they might end up being like a walking heart monitor nurse in a hospital or something, I have alot of medical bots because I think thats cool.]

Felt like trying to give this girl digital colours and starting to figure out how this girl will be personality wise. Likely will have this girl be a graphic designer or an artist in some other regard.

The main form in the center is his preferred form, he is a from a shapeshifting species called Nederians/Nederans [not sure about that] and he is part of a group of Nederians/Nederans that theme themselves after sweets/sweet stuff.

Another guy in the same Group as Mallow [The marshmallow guy I posted earlier]. To clear possible confusion shes a guy. [Lesbians and other w|w using He/Him pronouns and Gay men and other m|m using She/Her pronouns is something that has been part of lgbt culture for quite a while!]

Just your local tired catdude [Been wanting a new icon for a while so here it is].

Vanilla + Strawberry icecream themed guy, Of course another one of the sugar group [want to come up with a better name but not sure what yet].

Orange Flavoured Soda themed guy. They are also a very bubbly dude [Yes literally as well]. I have like 3 more members of the sugar group [still need a better name] to draw some concepts for.

This guy was designed at a completely different time and originally was not meant to be part of the same group [sugar group] but decided to have them be a part of it. Instead on being based on a real food or sweet thing, they are based on a in universe food called Starbites  [Either Gum or Lollipops, haven't decided yet, that have starbust in them and are very fizzy]

I am not 100% on its colours [as well their design as a whole] but I just wanted to try to start to figure out how their design may work. It is meant to be different flavours of Gummy bears melted together.

She is meant to be based on chocolate as a whole [white, milk and dark] but She could also work as a Red Velvet or Dark Forest themed character maybe?

She is meant to be based on chocolate as a whole [white, milk and dark] but She could also work as a Red Velvet or Dark Forest themed character maybe?

Make make them into an oc, though might change their colours as its pretty monotone right now. Just a little gif and test how long it takes to make a simple piece like this with a very simple character design. 45 minutes this is based on a random game note I found on my 3DS.

Decided to change the expression and shade the main pic in her concept sheet because it did take me quite a bit to get it done [started it days ago but went into a very bleh feeling phrase again physically]. Im fairly certain Pup counts as a Sparklewolf? Might redesign their tail and add some more colourful markings idk. Love the way her colours look, its like a sunset [and dawn I think]. If the little faces on the side are confusing [I really cant tell if I properly bring the point across with just the drawings]: Top one is Pups being confused/not understanding something Middle is her not being about to concentrate and think as their are too many sources of noise [ I often have this issue ] Her fidgeting with a pop-it, its a really cool thing and has made going out for groceries something a bit less stressful.

Based on a white [and green and yellow greenish] pumpkins. I very much want to make more of these guys. Yeah I dont have much else to say, uh, I like her markings alot. My brain is veery tired so not many words.

Bunny Tv Head! With antenna ears as I just think making animal ears with tv antennas is cool. The magic electricity legs are also very bouncy [so they are also like springs].  My brain is still very tired so dont have anything of substance to say.

So Xe is a Ghost pony but Xe is also part fire? Idk might add more to this "species" if I can think of anything else. I really like xem colours. Adopted from and was originally by ItzAnnaDraws03 [on deviantart]

Very slight redesign [and first digital] concept for them.  Changed her a bit, because despite the fact I think its important to have gnc characters [including gnc transfem characters], there is also important to have well not gnc trans characters. [I dont know if I'm making sense, I guess what I'm saying yes transfem characters liking/being okay with /wanting facial hair is good but the opposite is also important and good]. Love the colours of their outfit, also I really like giving character dangly earrings.

[research604jo]

Deeper research on Mila Useche

Link to her website Link to her instagram

Website about page: "Mila Useche is a Colombian artist and film director based in Berlin. After graduating from university in 2017 with a B.A. in Illustration, she started working in video games and comics as a designer and illustrator. In 2020 she decided to start freelancing as a character designer for animation and publishing. Among several clients are Disney, DreamWorks, Nickelodeon, Scholastic, Harper Collins, and Warner Bros. Animation. Most recently, Mila’s work has shifted from client-based digital services to more personal and physical artworks."

Looking through her instagram, I saw lots of personal insights in a lot of her posts where I was able to understand her thinking and thought process as she went from character design + animation to physical paintings.

HER EARLY WORK:

Early in her instagram, you can see her diverse skill in animation. She is a character designer and scene builder working in a textured digital style that gives her artwork a very cosy, heartwarming, storybook style. She was getting commissioned by animation studios, even to make promotional art for Disney's Encanto (see above). Che did instagram "challenges" such as the "hue challenge" (see above) which is a big commitment and is mainly to drive instagram engagement but also seems to encourage many illustration styles from her. During this time she mostly did digital painting on her iPad, only ever doing studies and plans in her sketchbooks.

HER TRANSITIONAL WORK:

She had expressed that it had been years since doing something fun and expressive in her sketchbook and was very inspired on her trip to Tokyo earlier this year. She began branching out of her sketchbook, using watercolours on paper, using acrylics on canvas, eventually to pastel crayons on large paper and even having a go at some miniature sculpting of her characters. Drawing oil pastels on paper was the thing that inspired her the most, she says it brings back the feeling of drawing in her sketchbook as a child, and that the pastels allowed her more freedom to make mistakes because it's cheaper than watercolour and acrylics.

Because of her new freedom in creating her personal art instead of animation work, she also began being inspired by memories and personal experiences. Although she never fully describes the meaning or origin, you can see the concept in her art and the expression in it. Quotes from her instagram descriptions in under a few images: "Going back to traditional feels so good!" "I know it's not my usual art, but bare with me, cus I'm having so much fun"

HER CURRENT WORK: (What I'm inspired by)

She began buying larger and larger canvases, showing each peice with pride - even when she doesn't love what she has created she tells us "I'm not very happy about it (the painting), makes me a bit uncomfortable, but that always motivates me to start the next (painting)". This is such a great perspective as an artist.

"I think I will name this art movement Colobia Pop Kawaii"

Her current goals in life are to be able to afford a big, bright, well equipped studio with a view and a garden.

She expresses that her original dream when she left university was to have her art exhibited in galleries and museums and she felt as though she'd lost that dream when she moved to digital only art work. I think it's interesting that despite doing amazing digital art and working for amazing animation studios and projects, she didn't feel fulfilled. That is the dream of many artists and she was able to be honest with herself and her audience and take the leap into an entirely different art style and was able to bloom and express herself in a more truthful way.

I think a lot of creatives and artists can relate to this path and are somewhere along it. Although I'm obviously early in my artistic journey, I'd say I'm in that transitional stage at the moment where I'm looking for my true style and looking for a way to create that is truthful to myself.

[niteshade925]

Well I mean it's not quite a meme post, I just tried to make it funny. Anyways about your question, as far as Confucius is concerned, perhaps he had opponents at the time who may have smeared him, but from what I've seen, most if not all sources about him being tall or physically strong or even "ugly" were sources that agreed with Confucian thought (keep in mind that because Confucian thought was championed by the imperial court from Han dynasty and on, most of these sources that survived to modern times were sources that agreed with Confucian thought). Below are the some of the sources:

Confucius "looked ugly/intimidating/dignified":

“仲尼之状，面如蒙倛” -- 《荀子·非相》

"Zhongni's (Zhongni is Confucius's courtesy name) looks was like that of Mengqi" -- Xunzi, "Against Physiognomy" chapter

蒙倛/Mengqi was an ancient deity that was described as having an intimidating and ugly square face and a lot of messy hair, and because of this, it was called upon during the 12th month to ward off evil plague spirits. Basically it was so ugly and scary it could scare off evil, and Confucius "looked like Mengqi". This is from Xunzi, and Xunzi himself was a Confucian philosopher. However, he did mention what Confucius looked like for a reason. The chapter was named "Against Physiognomy", and true to the title, the entire chapter was about how looks can be deceiving, and how great and virtuous people can look ugly while people who are vile can look handsome. While most of the looks of different people he described are probably hearsay, I do think most of it are at least somewhat accurate, because taking Confucius as an example, if he was indeed handsome, would his followers not call him "handsome"? Why would people who supported his school of thought compare him to Mengqi if he didn't at least look a little...."ugly"?

According to other rumors at the time that was passed down through the ages, Confucius had "seven exposed (features)"/七露 or "seven ugly (features)"/七陋, and they are "(too much) exposed eye whites, protruding ears, exposed nostrils, and protruding teeth" (双眼露白，双鼻露孔，双耳露轮，嘴露齿). There was even a legend (this is a legend for sure lol) that said because Confucius looked so hideous even as a newborn, his mother thought she had birthed a monster, so she abandoned him in a cave, but a few days later her heart softened and she went back to see if he was still alive, and found him being cared for by eagles and tigers (basically the idea that the world wants him to live and he was destined to become a great person), so she took him back home and cared for him.

Sources like 《史记》/Records of the Grand Historian said he apparently also had a "dent" on top of his head ("生而首上圩顶，故因名曰丘云"). However some people have doubted this description, and proposed that maybe he looked like he had a dent on his head simply because of his large forehead.

There are other sources that vaguely described his looks as "indicative of greatness" by comparing him to ancient virtuous figures such as Yellow Emperor/黄帝 (these are legendary figures or at least real people who were heavily mythicized, as there are modern theories that propose these ancient figures as leaders of ancient tribes), but all of the earlier and more detailed descriptions all tend towards Confucius looking at least somewhat "special" (read: different from your average person) and unattractive. Some of them may be exaggerations, and I will get to the why at the end.

Confucius's strength and athletic prowess:

“孔子之劲，举国门之关，而不肯以力闻。” -- 《吕氏春秋》

"Confucius's strength could raise the bolt to the gates of the country, and yet he did not want to be known for his strength." -- Lüshi Chunqiu (I did try to simplify this by making it him opening the city gates, but if the bolt is lifted the gates are basically unlocked anyway)

For reference the gates of ancient Linzi of the state of Qi during the Warring States period are at least 8.2 meters wide (27 ft; can reach up to almost 20m or 65 ft; this is from modern archaeological excavations done on ancient Linzi), so the wooden bolt is at least a couple of meters long, made of solid wood, and strong enough to withstand at least a couple of hits from a battering ram during war time. Imagine how heavy that bolt would be.

“孔子射于矍相之圃，盖观者如堵墙。” -- 《礼记·射义》

"When Confucius participated in archery at Juexiang, the spectators formed a wall." -- Book of Rites, "Meaning of the Ceremony of Archery" chapter

This is ceremonial archery, but it is also a qualifying test. Only those whose arrows can find their mark may participate in the subsequent ceremonies. (“射中者得与于祭；不中者不得与于祭”)

Confucius's height and build:

Here's where there are a bunch of conflicting information, but even the shortest one says he's over 180 cm, or about 6 ft tall (this is from a description of Confucius on the screen divider found inside the tomb of Marquis of Haihun). By contrast the tallest one say he's about 220 cm, or over 7 ft ("孔子长九尺有六寸，人皆谓之'长人'而异之"). Other texts that don't mention a specific height simply say he's "tall". Back during the Spring and Autumn Warring States period, the average height of most men are from 160-170 cm, or around 5 ft 3 in, so for them, even a 6ft tall person would be pretty tall.

There are other sources (including, but are not limited to, visual ones such as artifacts from Han dynasty) that indicate he had a long torso but short legs, and had a noticeable hunch.

Now onto the credibility of these sources. First, we may never know for sure what he really looked like, because there are no direct evidence pointing to any of that, and it's been 2500 years. As such, we can only go off of these textual sources from close to that time period, many of which are from Han dynasty, and as @fouryearsofshades pointed out, Confucianism gained a lot of popularity during Western Han dynasty. The reason is mainly because of the Emperor Wu of Han adopting Confucian values as the official philosophical guidelines for the country, and later dynasties followed suit, all the way to the end of Qing dynasty. So in light of that, some of the sources may have exaggerated some of his physical characteristics, though I didn't present many of those here. For example, the description of Confucius having a "dent" on the top of his head came from Records of the Grand Historian (written in Western Han dynasty by Sima Qian) might be one of these exaggerations (same text also mentioned Confucius being 7 ft tall). The idea was that "because Confucius was a great person, therefore he must also look different from others", and that "difference" can be anywhere from looking "ugly" to having what we know today to be physical deformities. (Although Sima Qian didn't agree with Emperor Wu of Han on many things, and this is hidden throughout his work, Sima Qian himself did favor Confucianism) However, we may never know which ones of these sources were exaggerations for sure. The only fact that remains is that all available sources today point to a Confucius who was pretty tall by ancient standards (even if he's 6ft, he's still taller than the average height today.........and certainly taller than me lol), who was rather strong (can draw a bow, can lift what amounts to a tree trunk that's 2 to 3-stories tall), and who didn't look very attractive. I do think this is a credible rough idea of Confucius's physical characteristics.

Finally, idk if you can read this, but here's a very nice article (this link goes to a pdf btw) from the Palace Museum on the composition of paintings of Confucius and how they have changed through history.

The Confucius in your imagination:

The Confucius in ancient texts:

Not joking btw.

According to ancient texts from that time, Confucius was almost as tall as Yao Ming, and so strong he could push open a city gate barehanded, all by himself. Dude was also a skilled archer and carriage driver.

Imagine a dude that tall and big talking to you about his philosophy lol

[sundere1181]

Snake Hair Lady OC headcanons time!!!!

I decided that she's a Mojave rattlesnake, and therefore a lot of her personality was based off that.

her name is Maia (yes, it's Greek, I wanted a Greek name because yk Medusa inspired)

She/her demisexual lesbian

She has anger issues and is VERY easily startled

Meat Eater

16 years old

(more hc and physical description under the cut i dont want it to get too long)

Physical desc (because I cannot draw):

She's about 6'7" tall, the snakes on her head are the tails because rattlez and they go to about mid neck. They're multiple shades of brown with diamond patterns and white bands. She really likes them and thinks they're super pretty (they are)

Yes, she has fangs AND venom, which is very very dangerous and she constantly has nightmares about biting one of her friends on accident.

She has brown human skin with occasional patches of snake scales (like vitiligo)

Vertical snake eyes, very good eyesight.

Shitty hearing, not to the point where she needs hearing aids, but to the point everyone speaks louder than normal around her.

If you didn’t see my post earlier, some anatomy notes: Shes a rare yokai species that I have yet to name that are basically snake human hybrids. other than the snake hair, fangs, snake scale patches, and eyes, they look fairly human, but their bones are more fragile. Their torsos are also elongated and have a small sternum. They’re freakishly tall and slender, and very flexible. They have two jaws that split in the middle and multiple tiny sharp teeth along with the fangs. (I did lots of snake anatomy research for this like it’s insane)

other hc:

BFFs with Leo, gay and lesbian solidarity fr

Met him at a hidden city pride parade

they hung out a lot and then he introduced her to his brothers

She's taller than Raph and he's honestly a bit scared of her

Almost bit Mikey once when he snuck up on her (unknowingly) and nearly got shot by Donnie. She felt really bad.

Her and Donnie don't honestly get along very well unless they're committing crimes together.

Her, April, and Sunita have a ‘spa day’ every Sunday where they paint each others nails and do skincare and watch bad movies. occasionally Leo or Mikey join them.

Sleeps like the dead. It takes a nuclear bomb to wake her. Yes, Leo did draw on her face one time. Yes, he did regret it. (An absolutely brutal prank war ensued)

Has a younger sister and an older sibling (middle child)

[superphantom]

Enthralled with the idea of Danny from Danny legit dies and has a physical corpse but can still kinda be human au and the Winchesters from just regular canon bumping into each other while... hiding bodies.

Three teens carrying a fourth by his arms and legs into the woods. Would they even be able to tell that it’s Danny’s corpse? It’s gotta be pretty much cooked through at that point. Hold on, I’m going to write something rq, apologies for any mistakes/bad writing but the concept is just too fun. If you think so too, go ahead and try your hand at it, this has so many excellent interpretations.

Edit but not really cuz I haven’t actually posted anything yet: I’ve only read back through this once but I’m pretty happy with how it’s turned out, just wanted to add a quick warning for horrific death and descriptions of a corpse and all that. 

--

Digging graves always sucked, naturally. It’s hard to plow through a good six feet of rocks and dirt and bones and whatever other crap might be waiting below the surface (one time, in some backwoods in Ohio they’d hit a bathtub around three feet down. Never got an explanation for that one). But, of course, the muggy pits of July made things much worse.

Sam had shed his top layer in the car, and was now down to a single shirt. He probably would’ve taken that off too, had it not been glued onto his back from sweat. Dean, who’d made a dig at Sam earlier that night for not being able to “take the heat like a man” still wore his flannel over his shirt, though it was beginning to soak through.

Laborious elements aside, what really made grave digging so tedious was the inability to fill it with anything else. It wasn’t like they could play music or anything, when they were in graveyards they had to keep a low profile, and all the other smart places to go hiding a corpse don’t get radio reception. And talking? With the amount of dust and dirt they kicked up, not to mention the work itself, it was more like trying to reason with a bully as they threw sand in your face. Gritty, painful, and overall, not worth it. So the brothers dug side by side with only light from a half-dead camping lantern and the singing of insects to keep them company.

Sam hit a rock with the tip of his shovel to knock it loose from the wall, the scooped it up and heaved it over the side of the grave. It was still only about knee height, meaning they’d have to put in another two hours minimum if they wanted to get the man hidden.

He’d been working with a witch to dodge death as he cheated his way through some shady business dealings. Actually, he’d been fairly easy to subdue- probably why he needed the witch in the first place- but once Dean had yanked the hexbag from where it hung around his stick-figure neck he’d begun to convulse and when he stopped, well, he wasn’t going to start convulsing again. That, however, was a problem for tomorrow.

Sam knocked a few rocks loose this time, letting them pile around his feet then launching them all over his shoulder at once. With the sound of metal clacking against rock gone, he realized Dean had stopped digging and was leaning against the handle of his shovel cautiously looking out into the woods. Sam moved in next to him and tried to figure out where he was looking.

“What are y-“ he asked. Dean shushed him before he could finish, then signaled for him to listen and pointed just past a thick bramble, to a gap between two trees. It would’ve been impossible to spot without years of hunting experience, out about 100 yards away were little moving. They weren’t even shadows, it was simply just movement in the dark. “Dude-“

Dean shushed him again, and shot him a dirty look before pointing more forcefully in the direction of the movement and focusing back in place. He gestured once again for Sam to listen. For a few moments they stood in silence, barely breathing. It was faint, but Sam began to make out what was unmistakably English. a dull beam of light swung around towards them then went back to facing the other direction, effectively re-blacking out the figures. Sam reached back, not taking his eyes off the movement, and now occasional glimpses of light, and snapped off the lantern.

It took a few seconds for their eyes to adjust to the dark. Once they could see each other again, Dean tilted his head to the left, pointed a few times with two fingers in a two directions then held one finger against his mouth. Sam nodded and they both began creeping in opposite directions with the intention of surrounding who or what was having a chat out in the woods at night.

Sam moved as if he were gliding above the forest floor. He could vaguely make out Dean doing the same, though he was now could see Dean about as well as he’d been able to see the... three? He hovered further. Definitely three people (or, by his guess witches), earlier. Now that he was getting closer, though, he began to take note of a few things.

There were three short witches(?) standing fanned out around something slumped on the forest floor, their dying halogen flashlight held limp in one of their hands, flickering sadly. The witch farthest from flashlight-witch and closest to Sam held a shovel, though didn’t make any moves to use it. None of them moved, they all just stood there and stared at whatever was at their feet.

He signaled to Dean that he was going to go in from the front. He was pretty sure he saw the shadows nod to him, so he took that as an okay. Like a mouse on cotton, he positioned himself just far enough into the forest that they couldn’t quite see, Dean doing the same but behind them.

“I- What do we do?” the one holding the flashlight muttered. His nose was awfully clogged, it sounded like he’d been crying.

“I don’t know, Tuck.” The one holding the shovel answered. She also sounded upset, but more like she was doing everything she could to push back tears, a tone that Sam knew very well. “Danny, are you sure you wanna do this?”

The one in the middle, Danny, shook his head. Each of his arms reached across his middle, like he was trying to hug himself, or maybe more like he was trying to make himself look small, trying to hide. “I-“ his voice cracked and he let out a few sobs. The leaves and sticks made a simultaneous crack as he fell down onto his knees, folding over himself and shaking with pure, cutting sorrow.

Flashlight, or Tuck apparently, and Shovel got down beside him, hugging him from either side. They held one another and sobbed, one of them, Shovel, creaking out some pained “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry”’s between wordless wails. From the looks of them, they couldn’t be more than 12 years old. Or maybe they could, Sam wasn’t a pediatrician. They were undoubtedly much too young to be in the middle of nowhere, all alone in a fragile mental state doing who-knows-what.

Sam looked to Dean then gestured with his head to let him know he was going to talk to the kids. Dean shook his head and violently gestured with his gun at the kids. Wait. Not /at/ the kids, beyond them. He’d neglected studying the white-wrapped body in front of them. That explained the tears. He couldn’t help but feel for them, even though for all he knew they’d just murdered someone in cold blood. He looked back to Dean and nodded, then signaled again.

Keeping his gun at the ready, but tucking it behind his back he slowly and deliberately stepped out of the trees, intentionally making noise so they’d see him coming. Tuck looked up with bloodshot eyes and a runny nose. Danny and Shovel tensed but didn’t further acknowledge him.

“Um, hey,” he said, trying his best for nonthreatening and landing at the border of creepy and awkward. “Are you guys good?”

Tuck’s eyes flooded with tears, but he got up on shaky legs, trying to pull Danny and Shovel up with him. They weakly joined him, leaning against one another for support. Despite the warm night, all three were trembling.

“I’m, uh, I’m not here to hurt you,” Sam started, not really sure where he was going with this, “I’m Sam Winchester, what are your names?”

Tuck gave him the same watery stare he’d had the whole time, like Sam was the saddest thing he’d ever seen. Shovel looked up next, she was more angry. Maybe her smeared and ruined makeup should’ve made her look silly, but all it did was add to the aggression she exuded. He could see her squeezing both her friend’s shoulders and tugging them very slightly to the left, wordlessly signaling- or at least trying to- an escape plan. Sam pretended not to notice.

“I just wanna know what happened here,” he inched his way towards the corpse. As he got closer he could smell burnt hair and flesh, another thing he was all too familiar with. He didn’t break eye contact as he squatted down and gently pulled the sheet back from a tuft of what he assumed was hair.

He bit the inside of his cheek upon seeing the boy. Fried was the only word that could describe him. His mouth hung open, as did his eyes- or at least, what was left of them. Ooze had dribbled from every orifice and re-solidified in horrible mauve blobs. His hair was barely more than a charred mess, his skin was peeling and bubbled in places, and so discolored Sam could barely make out the dusting of freckles across his nose. This was a death in agony if he’d ever seen one.

He folded the cloth back over the boy’s head and straightened up, pulling the gun from where it had waited behind his back.

“Alright,” he said firmly, “I’m gonna need some answers.”

Danny looked up, letting Sam properly see his face for the first time. His red-rimmed eyes widened at the sight of the gun, lips tightening into a thin line. It was a look of fear and resignation. He ran the back of his hand across his nose. Sam noticed a dusting of freckles on it. He looked to the sheet and then back to Danny, then checked once more.

“What the hell is going on here.” Sympathy gone, Sam allowed himself to posture intimidatingly. Whatever freaks these- these- these... freaks! were, they weren’t about to get away with cooking some kid alive. “Talk.”

The “or I’ll shoot” was silent, but understood. Danny cleared his throat, one hand rubbed nervously on the back of his neck.

“It- I-“ he stuttered, then in a barely audible trembling voice he said, “I, uh, I think I’m dead.”  

[wonjaekook]

Residual Starshine

Pairing:  Soccer player!Yuta x fem!reader

Description: You’ve experienced plenty of irritations in your life. For better or for worse, none of them are quite like Nakamoto Yuta.

Word Count: 19.3k

Genre: strangers-to-friends-to-lovers ; fluff, smut, touch of angst

Warnings: my first published full blown smut scene (only one towards the end, nothing crazy), sexual references?, swearing, mentions of alcohol

A/N: Mingyu appears as a somewhat bad character in this, but I absolutely don’t think of him that way. As always, this is entirely fictional. If you want one song to vibe to while reading this, I was listening to Everybody Talks by Neon Trees a lot :-) this is the longest fic I’ve ever written and the first one containing smut that I’ve ever published, so please let me know what you thought!

Taglist: @junglewoos​ @insomni-writing​ @neowritingsnet​

This is my contribution to @/leesmrk’s sports collab, but she deactivated (Dee I miss you) so @lucas-wongs​ has compiled the masterlist in her stead! The link to the master post with all other submissions is in my masterlist.

You didn’t expect to be spending your first morning before classes with your face smashed into your pillow, pressing the cotton over your ears. Yesterday morning had been perfectly lovely - you slept a solid eight hours and you only awoke to the beautiful morning sunshine greeting you through your blinds.  All things considered, it was a very natural wake-up. However, the loud J-rock blaring through the floor from the apartment below you is the exact opposite of natural. Perhaps the music isn’t as loud as you perceive it to be, but you happen to take things quite personally when you’re woken up an hour early.

Except, you don’t take it personally enough that you force your body out of bed. Instead, you allow yourself to let out a loud groan of annoyance before you pull your covers over your head. Thankfully, the music shuts off about five minutes later and you drift back off to sleep.

When you awaken again an hour later, the sunlight coming into your room doesn’t seem nearly as friendly as it did yesterday. Still, this time you do force yourself to get up. You go through your usual routine - bathroom, change into your running clothes, and stretch. You hear no sounds of any stirring from your roommates as you get ready. It’s somewhat of a relief to have the apartment to yourself in the morning. You put your headphones in and step out of the apartment, trying to get yourself in the zone with your workout playlist while also doing a quick look around to see if anyone is out. One set of stairs and you’re at the door leading out of the small complex - a building with four apartments, two on the first floor and two on the second floor. Outside on the step leading to the sidewalk and there’s still no one around. Without a second of hesitation more, you’re off at a light jog. Half of the apartments in this area of your campus are dedicated to student athletes and there’s nothing you dread more than running, quite literally, into someone who’s by far your superior at this activity and who would judge you. As you run, the thought of your lower neighbor comes to you. You wake up early to go run - but they woke up earlier. At that thought, a frown subconsciously makes its way to your face. Shooting a quick prayer to the heavens that you don’t run into anyone, you continue on.

Though you hadn’t started running until this summer, you know your campus well enough in the years you’ve been here to find a nice path. That also means that, when you see pairs of runners ahead of you, you can make unexpected turns to avoid passing them. At one point, you veer out of the way of a pack of people who you assume is the running club. About forty five minutes later, you’re sweaty and more physically exhausted than when you had left, but the energy thrumming in your veins leaves you with a deep sense of satisfaction. You had successfully avoided every person you had come across on your run and-

You nearly open the door of your complex into one of your neighbors. Acting on reflex, you step back and dip your head, avoiding looking at him. “Oh, sorry.”

“That’s alright.” His voice is a smooth rumble and you look up, briefly forgetting about your sweaty and near-unpresentable state. He looks freshly showered, his skin smooth and just slightly sunkissed. Based on his physique, you would have guessed that he’s a student athlete, but his hair seems a little too long to match the stereotype. It’s a bit of a mane, a dark mop sitting atop the throne of his handsome face, and you think it suits him. As your eyes drift from his hair to his eyes to his nose and finally to his mouth, which has been set into the crooked angle of a smirk, it dawns on you that you’re checking him out very openly. Your face, already warm from exercise, turns blazing hot. After all of the hard work you went through to avoid embarrassing yourself this morning… “You’re cute, too, don’t worry.”

Several very intrusive thoughts come to you at once. By his very specific phrasing, he thinks you’re attractive. He also knows he’s attractive. The warmth of the complement fades to indignation at his cockiness. You press your mouth into a thin line and lower your head again, not making eye contact with him as you slip past him through the door. You’re not sure if his gaze follows you as you march back up the stairs to your apartment.

“One of our neighbors is a total ass!”

One of your roommates, Sowon, is lounging on your sofa as you sit at the small table in your shared living room, grinding the pen in your hand into your planner in frustration. It’s well into the afternoon now, the sun casting lines of shadows through your blinds, and you’re still hung up on what happened earlier. Sowon is also perfectly aware that you’re exaggerating, but she encourages you to continue. “The soccer neighbors or the volleyball neighbors?”

“Of course it’s one of the soccer neighbors! The volleyball neighbors would never do this to me.” You huff, eying the nearly empty container of cookies on the table.

“You’re aware that Johnny just brought those over so he had an excuse to hit on Yein, right?” Sowon releases a strand of hair that she had just idly wrapped around a finger, watching it twirl in the air. Your second roommate only sighs at the mention of her name, but doesn’t deny it.

“And Doyoung was the one who actually made them. So, by association, I am entitled to an equal share of cookies.” You consider Doyoung a friend - you shared a chemistry class with him once and he seemed to tolerate your presence, even enjoy it at times. He even sends you the occasional text still. “That doesn’t mean Yein isn’t going to be the one to give the container back, though.”

Yein frowns and opens her mouth but Sowon raises a finger to stop her. “Y/N is correct.”

With a shake of her head, Yein turns her attention back to you. “You were talking about the soccer neighbor?”

After you explain the situation as truthfully and dramatically as possible to them, they look at each other once before looking back at you. Sowon speaks first. “He’s definitely flirting.”

“Or he’s just like that naturally.” Yein counters. “Who flirts at eight in the morning?”

“You’d be surprised.” After you say that, her words sink in. You ran into him at eight in the morning, when he was looking refreshed. He’s a member of the soccer team, meaning he probably exercises in the morning. He also has pretty stereotypical rocker hair. “Holy shit, he’s the asshole who was blasting J-rock through the floor this morning!”

“Okay, never mind. He is a jerk.” Sowon wrinkles her nose.

“Was it at least good J-rock?” Yein prods.

You shrug. “It was alright, I guess. But that’s besides the point!” You slam your planner closed. “I’m giving him a piece of my mind the next time I see him.”

For several days, as classes start, you still get in your morning run and, each day, without fail, you’re woken up by the boy’s J-rock about an hour early. You fail to catch him at any time of the day until, finally, you’re on your way out of the apartment one morning. As you pull open the door, you nearly ram into him once again, though the situation is reversed. He’s the one who’s sweaty and warm, headphones firmly in his ears. That changes as he smirks, popping them out at the sight of you in the door. “So, we meet again.”

“Uh-huh.” You take the position of a displeased mother about to lecture a child, your arms crossed over your chest as you block the door. “You know, I have words for you.”

“Wow, already? People usually don’t have words for me until at least the third time we’ve met. Well, at least not more than a few choice ones like-”

You cut him off before he can inflate his own ego more. “Stop playing music so loud at six in the morning.”

He tilts his head like he’s confused, but the way his lips are quirked up tells you that he knows exactly what you’re talking about. “Baseless accusations. Maybe you should take this up with Jaehyun or Kun. I would never do such a thing.”

“Come on. I know it’s you.” The look you give him is entirely unamused, so he relents slightly, the smile falling from his face.

“What are you gonna do, report me to housing?” Before you can reply that, yes, that’s exactly what you’ll do, he continues. “I’ll tell them about the parties you and your roommates have. I’m sure they’d love coming out here at 3 AM one day just to tell you to keep it down. Almost as much as they’d love to come to my door at 6 to do the same.”

He starts walking towards the door and you turn your body inward, allowing him passage while silently fuming. “You-”

“My name is Nakamoto Yuta. You can say that if you need something to scream.” He gifts you a sly wink as he unlocks his door and lets himself in, leaving you so bewildered that you can’t think of a response at all.

“Stop messing with the soccer boys.” Sowon immediately reprimands you after you recount what happened. “You know the school will punish us before they punish them.”

“Yeah, and if this is your way of flirting, you need to think of something better.” Yein adds from the connected kitchen, tossing the stir-fry in her pan. “I’m not risking getting kicked out because you decided to mess with the soccer team’s star player.”

“To be fair, I don’t think he was really upset about the interaction. He seemed amused by my reaction.” You slump down, your forehead resting on the table. “And I didn’t know who he was until he said his name.”

“Well, he doesn’t know who you are-”

“And I don’t want him to.” You cut off Sowon. “I’ll just… deal with it.”

You get one more peaceful morning of running alone before, two days after you had first talked to him, Nakamoto Yuta comes jogging up to you. You don’t hear him at first. Music blares in your earbuds, drowning out most of the background noise of the morning, and your heartbeat in your ears fills out the parts of your internal sound profile that your music doesn’t quite reach. He comes up behind you, nearly making you jump out of your skin when you see the figure of another person jogging in your peripherals. Your pace falters, but you immediately try to right yourself and regain momentum, praying he’ll just pass by you without saying anything. Except he doesn’t leave. With an internal sigh, you turn your head towards him. He offers you a grin and air-taps over his ear. Resisting the urge to roll your eyes, you pull out your headphones. “What?”

“Great morning, isn’t it?”

You contemplate shutting your eyes so that you can purposefully trip and eject yourself from this conversation. “I guess.”

“It’s soccer season. You know that, right?” You narrow your eyes at him, but nod. “Our first game is coming up soon.” You don’t like where this is going. “You should come.” “You must be hard-pressed for attendees to be randomly asking your neighbor to come to your game.” You reach for your earbuds again.

“Hold on, hold on.” You pause, then immediately wonder why you’re even giving him the time of day. Still, you relent for a moment. “If you come to the game this Saturday, I’ll stop playing music so loud when I wake up.”

“If you were a kind and courteous neighbor, you would just do that without having to threaten me to go to one of your games. And,” you state flatly, “I’ve already been to enough soccer games for the rest of my life, thank you very much.”

As you jog away, he doesn’t try to stop you again, but you could swear that he seems the slightest bit disappointed.

The next morning is more of the same as usual. The same loud J-rock that wakes you up an hour early, your same run, your same shower and breakfast and classes. You consider shifting your sleep schedule so that you wake up at the same time as Yuta, though you dismiss the idea because why should you change your lifestyle to adjust for his? You’d rather suffer the early wakeup.

Except, two days after he asks you to come to one of his games, the music stops. That first morning, you wake up at your usual time. You’re prepared to be upset at Yuta waking you early again, but when your foggy morning brain processes that you had woken up to your own alarm and not his music, you lie there confused. When you go out for your run not long after, you almost hope that you’ll run into him. There’s no way he’s just being nice is there? He has to be sick or something. To your disappointment, you don't run into him and you’re just stuck in your confusion. This goes on for three more days and each day you become more perplexed.

As you’re returning to your apartment after your classes that Friday, someone holds the door for you as you approach. “Thanks-” you start, then see who’s holding it for you. “-oh! Jaehyun!”

“Hey, uh, Y/N, right?” You smile at him, nodding firmly. You’re almost surprised that he remembers your name because you’d only chatted once before, back when you were moving in. He’s perfectly polite, almost shy-seeming, and completely different from his roommate. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, I’m just getting back from classes.” Thinking of his roommate… “I was actually wondering, um…” He gives you a confused look, waiting for you to continue. “Is Yuta doing okay?”

“Yeah, he’s fine. Why?” Jaehyun hadn’t been aware that you were at all acquainted with his roommate.

You appear equally as confused as he does. “Oh, I… never mind. If you don’t mind me asking, where’s your next game?”

He brightens up at that. “It’s a home game. Tomorrow at six, don’t miss it!”

You return his smile. “Great, thanks, Jaehyun! I’ll see you around?” He sends you off with a wave before you go your separate ways, entering your respective apartments.

Should you actually go to his game? You don’t owe him anything, you never agreed to his deal, but he did stop playing his music so loud. You’re not really doing anything on Saturday either… maybe you’ll bug Sowon and Yein so that they’ll come with you.

That evening, the apartment below yours is particularly busy. All of the soccer boys are home - Yuta, Jaehyun, Kun - and the volleyball and art boys are also over - Johnny, Doyoung, Jungwoo, Taeyong, Ten, and Sicheng. After all, as Johnny says, Friday nights are for the boys. Conversation flows from school to girls to boys to soccer, upon which Jaehyun shares a very interesting observation with his friends.

“By the way, it seems like you have another admirer, Yuta.” Jaehyun says as he takes a swig of his soju, recently acquired from the nearby Korean market and grossly overpriced.

“Sure,” Yuta responds, rolling his eyes, “who would that be?”

“You know that girl from upstairs? Y/N? She asked about you today and then asked me about our next game.”

“We haven’t even had our first game and you’re already collecting fangirls? Come on, Yuta,” Kun chimes in this time, breaking away from his conversation with Sicheng about their shared organic chemistry class.

“That can’t be right,” Yuta says, leaning back into the couch, “L/N Y/N? I’m pretty sure she hates my guts. I tried to make a deal with her to get her to come to the game and she just brushed me off.”

Doyoung narrows his eyes at his friend. “Y/N doesn’t just hate people for no reason. What did you do?”

Yuta raises his hands defensively and half-glares at him. “I didn’t do anything! I was just being myself and she decided to hate me.”

“The star-player, cocky version of yourself or the normal version of yourself?” Doyoung says, looking entirely unamused.

Yuta thinks back to all of the encounters he’s had with you and cringes slightly. “Listen, she was the one who was checking me out first-”

“Stupid.” Doyoung shakes his head before taking a sip of the water he’s drinking. “Some people take well to forwardness, but not her.”

“Are you sure? Because if she’s asked after me, I think that means she likes it.”

“I am going to spike a ball into your head, you-”

“Guys, calm down,” Sicheng says with a rather flat tone. Instantly, the two bickering boys stop, resorting to glaring at each other. Jaehyun gently shoves his roommate to get his attention and the room quickly returns to normal. Later, Doyoung passes Yuta a new bottle once his has run out, so he knows that the younger was never truly angry at him. The small party doesn’t go long into the night - tomorrow’s the first game of the season, after all - and, surprisingly, there isn’t much noise from their upstairs neighbor either.

That is mostly thanks to you. You had convinced your two party-addicted friends to attend someone else’s get together instead of hosting their own, so you ushered them out of the house at around ten in the evening. You know that they’ll come back fine in a few hours, rumpled and with their makeup half sweated off, buzzing with alcohol and the blaring music of whatever houseparty they were invited to, but you still tell them that your phone will be off of silent in case they need anything. Previous semesters, you might have gone with them, but, now, you just want to sleep so you can wake up early and go on your usual run.

The morning comes with your sleep uninterrupted by your roommates. After you awaken, instead of lying in bed and contemplating life for a while, you drag yourself up and to their rooms, where you find each of them peacefully asleep in their beds. Yein bothered to change out of her party clothes and into pajamas while Sowon didn’t, her dress half off of her shoulder and bunched up under her butt. Both of them are snoring away, hugging pillows and blankets.

The relief of seeing your roommates in good condition adds a spring to your step. A few minutes later, after you’ve stretched on the floor of your bedroom, you’re halfway out the outside door of the complex when you feel a tap on your shoulder. You know who it is even before you turn around.

“Y/N,” Yuta says, grinning much too brightly for how early it is. He doesn’t seem like he’s been out yet, which is strange. “Good morning.”

“Is it?” You lift an eyebrow.

“Perfectly!” As he talks, you begin to move farther out the door. Down one step. Down two steps. On the sidewalk. “Do you want to run together?”

“Shouldn’t you be just coming back from doing that?” You pull out your phone.

He quickly matches his stride to yours. “I decided to start running an hour later on the weekends. You know, sleep in a bit since I have the time.”

“I’m happy for you.” You select a song and put one ear of your headphones in.

“Are you coming tonight?”

“Didn’t I already answer that?” In all honesty, you feel like you should be more irritated with him than you actually are. He’s at least amusing to talk to. Plus, he stopped waking you up an hour early without you even promising to come to his game.

“Yeah, but then you asked Jaehyun about it.”

You stop moving, turning to look at him. He has another one of those infuriating smirks on his face and all of your previous enjoyment flies out the window. “Maybe I’m a huge fan of his.”

“What position does he play?”

“I don’t have to answer that!” Now, your face is already warming and you haven’t even begun your exercise. You turn away from him again and begin to slowly jog. “Bye, Yuta.”

“He’s a midfielder! And I’m a forward! You can see today at the game!” He calls after you as you get farther away, his voice getting more distant. Part of you feels bad for your neighbors - the windows aren’t exactly soundproof. You just wave a hand back at him in dismissal. A minute later, you look behind you. To your great relief, and mild surprise, he isn’t following you. He went the complete opposite direction.

“Will you guys please come with me? I promise some of the guys on the team are hot.” You tug on Sowon’s sleeve like a child does to their mother when they want something.

“I thought you hated college soccer because of your brother.” She flips a page in her textbook, scribbling down something in her notes.

“I don’t think this one will be so bad. Our team is supposed to be really good this year, right?” You look hopefully at her.

“How am I supposed to know? How is anyone supposed to know? Today is their first game.” She stops attempting to study, looking at you. “Also, I’m messing around. I’ll go with you.”

You look at your other roommate, who is in the middle of the very exhaustive task of sitting on your sofa and scrolling through her phone. She gives you a thumbs up. “As long as I can put on face paint!”

A couple hours later, you find yourselves in the bleachers surrounding the soccer field. It’s a modest stadium, not a stadium at all but just a normal soccer field with bleachers on either side and some decently sized flood lights for night usage. Not too far away is a moderately sized building that is a shared locker room space for all of the school’s athletic teams. Your school never invested much of its funds into soccer until recently, largely thanks to Yuta and some of the other members who are in their third or fourth year playing who made a name for your university in the sport. You also suspect that they probably talked the ear off of the provost so that he finally agreed to give them more funding, but that’s just a personal guess.

From your place on the home side of the bleachers, you have total vision of the field. Both teams are running warm-up drills and it’s easy enough to spot the people you know: someone from your physics class named Mingyu, someone you remember from a party named Baekho, and your lower neighbors, Jaehyun, Kun, and, of course, Yuta. His hair is pulled back from his face in a small ponytail at the back of his head and a small version of your university’s lion mascot stands out proudly on his red jersey.

You purposefully make a point to look for him last, only to find that he’s completely focused. Though it’s just shooting drills, he seems like he’s entirely in the zone, his eyes sharp and calculated. From what you can tell. The physical distance between you isn’t huge, but you can’t read his expressions that well from this angle.

The sharp scream of a whistle being blown indicates that there’s five minutes until the start of the game. The teams both do a bit of last minute stretching as they gather around the coach, a man you recognize as a biology professor. Finally, just as the clock hits six, they squeeze closer together, arms slung over each others’ shoulders in a tight circle, and do some sort of indistinct chant that ends in something like “Go Lions!”

After they break away, you can see the shift in atmosphere. Everyone is completely serious. It’s the first game of the season and they aren’t going to destroy the reputation they’ve built up for the last three years. You watch as Jaehyun moves to his position as a midfielder, Kun moves to his position as defense, and Yuta lines up in the position of forward center. A coin flip gives the kick-off to the away team, a school with a hawk mascot. Everyone shifts slightly on their feet and, for a moment, the world seems to be silent. The crowd leans forward in their seats.

Then, the whistle is blown.

The game gets to a roaring start. From how cautiously the other team is playing, they seem to know the reputation of the Lions - a team that shot up out of nowhere and suddenly has one of the best forwards in college soccer. You find yourself grinning as the ball barely makes it past your team’s defensive midfielder Mingyu before it’s in the Lions’ metaphorical hands. Your midfielders carefully juggle the ball between them, passing and passing and passing, before it reaches Jaehyun at center midfield. He does his job quickly and efficiently, making it almost look easy, and the ball meets the half-tip. From there, the ball is stolen by one of the Hawks’ defense at a failed pass to the second striker, Baekho. The ball shoots all the way to midfield.

For a few tense minutes, you watch the players run back and forth across the field, their eyes never leaving the target. The game pauses every so often when the ball gets kicked out of bounds, but it always resumes with just as much vigor. About a quarter of the way through the game, Yuta finally has his breakthrough. Jaehyun lands a kick directly in his direction, giving him the perfect opportunity. The strike is clean and so fast that you would have missed it if your eyes weren’t glued to the movements of the ball. All of the people on your side of the bleachers launch to their feet in roaring cheers as the ball sails past the opponent goalie’s right side and into the net. You’re standing alongside everyone else, your hands cupped around your mouth as you yell in excitement. It’s not often that you see such a well done shot from a college team.

The boil of the crowd’s blood dies down a bit as the game continues, but soars back up whenever something particularly exciting happens. In the third quarter, the Hawks manage to land a goal on your team, but Yuta comes in clutch a few minutes later and scores two easy goals almost one after the other. The final score is deeply satisfying at 3:1.

The opposing team try to be good sports about it, but they’re obviously sulking when they shake your team’s hands. After they break away, they’re all gloriously sweaty, which you’re sure Sowon is excited about. Some of the spectators immediately rush out of the stands and make their way down, friends and significant others of the players, you presume. Part of you wants to go down there and be a part of the excitement. Luckily enough, a distraction comes in the form of some of your other neighbors before you’re forced to make any decisions.

“Hey, Yein, Sowon, Y/N!”

When you turn, you see Johnny and Doyoung approaching. Yein stiffens slightly and you nearly start laughing at your friend’s embarrassed behavior. Sowon greets them first. “Hi, guys.”

“I didn’t know you guys were into soccer?” Johnny asks, his eyes shifting easily from Sowon to you to Yein, where they remain.

“Not really! But Y/N wanted to go today.” In her nervousness, Yein easily exposes you.

“I wasn’t the only one who wanted to go,” you huff, crossing your arms. Doyoung and Johnny exchange a look that makes you want to change the subject. “I guess you guys are here to support some friends?”

“Yup, Yuta, Kun, and Jaehyun,” Doyoung says, looking towards the field, where some of their other friends are already gathered around the star player. “They played really well. It’ll be a good season.”

“I hope so,” Sowon says, also watching.

“Well, we don’t want to keep you guys from them,” you say, wanting to eject yourself from the conversation before it turns in a different direction. To your displeasure, Johnny is a master of knowing exactly what you don’t want and then doing it anyways. You’ve never really talked to him before, but it seems that he’s similar to Yuta in that way.

“Why don’t we all go say hi?” The tall boy says, grinning. “You guys can tell me how those cookies were, too.”

There is no escape. Now, as you follow them down the bleachers, you reflect Yein in a way. She no longer looks quite as nervous, eagerly chatting with Johnny, while you grow increasingly more fidgety. It’s not that you don’t want to talk to Yuta. You just don’t want to give in to whatever game the two of you silently decided you were playing.

Then again, it is much more fun to play along than it is to outright reject him. Plus, today’s actual game was good. You’ll give him that.

Trying to seem as nonchalant as possible, you join the small crowd surrounding Yuta. If you thought he glowed normally, he absolutely shines now. There’s something about him being in his element at the very top of his game that makes you forget your irritation with him for a moment. In that instant, he’s a star. In that instant, he reminds you of your brother. Then, he spots you and opens his mouth.

“Y/N!” As he calls out to you, the girl he was talking to before you arrived seems perturbed, but he ignores her, pushing his way closer to you. “You actually came.”

You turn your nose up at him slightly. “No one ever said it was for you.”

“Of course not. You and I both know the truth, though.” The wink is nowhere near subtle or sly and you scoff at him. He seems unbothered. “This was your first Lions game, right? Did you enjoy it?”

You nod hesitantly. “I heard you guys were good, but I didn’t know how good. You played a near perfect game.”

The self-satisfied smile drops from his face. “I wouldn’t say that.”

“What do you mean?” Tilting your head, you match his somewhat grim face.

“There’s always better plays to make, better places to have been. You know.” He quickly tries to play it off like he’s uninterested rather than deeply bothered. You’re not sure you know what the truth is. You haven’t talked to him nearly enough to know. This is the first hint of something serious that he’s shown you. It almost makes you want to talk to him more to find out.

“Dude, shut up, you’re good.” From the side, Johnny butts in, elbowing his friend. You’re glad for the interruption, as you once again didn’t know what to say. The mood raises, with some of Yuta’s friends reenacting the best parts of the game, joking about his long hair, betting on what next week’s game will look like. A few minutes later, the Lions’ coach shouts for all of the team members to go shower and get changed, so the crowd slowly disperses.

After you’re alone with your roommates, Sowon and Yein can’t help but give you playful shoves as you walk home. Sowon is the first to verbalize her amusement. “I thought you hated him?”

You grumble under your breath, not saying anything in particular.

“You played a near perfect game.” Yein mimics, making your face burn.

“I do not sound like that! Also, I know a good game when I see one and I know when to admit it!” You kick your shoe against the pavement as they giggle at you.

From then on, it seems like you run into Yuta far too often for your own good. Every few days, you bump into him when you’re either about to go run or when you’re coming back from running. When you go with Yein to return Johnny’s cookie container, Yuta is in his apartment, lounging on the sofa and chatting with Jungwoo, your third volleyball neighbor. Once, when you’re studying at the school library because you need a change of scenery from your apartment, he runs into you. That time, you snap at him.

“Are you stalking me or something?”

He places a hand over his heart, pretending to be offended.  “What do you mean? If anything you’re the one stalking me. I come here every Thursday after practice to study.” He huffs. “If you’re talking about when I was in Johnny’s apartment, I was already there before you even arrived. Unless you’re accusing me of being psychic, too.”

Your shoulders slowly lower at the guilt you feel. Cringing slightly, you raise your hands in apology. “I didn’t mean to imply…” You sigh. “Sorry. Can I buy you a coffee or something to apologize?”

Only after Yuta’s mock hurt shifts to a triumphant look do you realize the implications of your words. You’re really on a roll with implications today. He grins. “If you really want to.”

As you pack up your things, Yuta tells the few teammates he had come to study with that he’s going, and you walk out of the library side by side. Luckily, he actually makes for easy conversation and good company. You don’t know why he insists on the flirting and cockiness in your shorter interactions. As you walk to the campus coffee shop, you learn that he’s a studio art major. He learns that you’re a physical therapy major. You learn that he’s taking a statistics class that you had already previously taken - he put it off while you got it done in your first year - and, without thinking, you offer to help him if he needs it. After you order both of your coffees, finding out that he likes a lighter roast, you sit at a table in the shop with him. Silence comes and goes as both of you do some of the studying that you intended to do at the library. Every so often, he asks you a question. Usually, you answer him. You always return with a question of your own. You find out that his favorite of the bands that he used to blast through the floor is One Ok Rock.

“Sorry,” he finally says, appearing genuinely remorseful with the sheepish look on his face, “I didn’t have upstairs neighbors last year. I didn’t know you could hear it through the floor.”

“It’s fine. Sorry I snapped at you back then.”

It’s very strange to be on perfectly good terms with Nakamoto Yuta.

A few days later, when your brother sends you a ticket for the local professional soccer team, the Ravens, you almost feel like you should ask for a second so you can bring Yuta. Figuring it would be too much to ask, you plan to go by yourself, thankful that the game falls on a day the Lions aren’t playing. Plus, you can’t imagine what your roommates would say if you chose to go out of your way to take him with you.

You’ve taken to hanging out with the long-haired center forward, helping him with his math when he needs it and just… generally enjoying his company. That doesn’t mean you’re all sugar and smiles to him - it’s much more fun to mess around a little, make him think that you don’t like him quite as much as you actually do. The only thing you can think of that would personally offend him would be to say you’re going to one of his games and then failing to do so.

On the bus ride over to the stadium where the Ravens are playing, you’re thankful that you don’t recognize anyone from your school. You’re in the team’s colors, silver and forest green, and it would be clear to anyone where you’re going. Only after you get off of the bus do you realize just how many came to watch. The stadium is full, packed to almost capacity. That’s probably why your brother hadn’t gotten you tickets earlier - all of them were taken. He probably gave tickets to the earlier games to your parents. They would have thrown a fit if he had only invited you earlier, even if you are his favorite.

As you make your way to your seat, you remark on how strange it is to see your last name printed on the backs of the shirts of a bunch of strangers. The vibe of the crowd is completely different from that at your school’s field. While college students are excitable and energetic, these spectators are rabid. At any moment, there’s one hundred people yelling, someone trying to start a chant, someone screaming just for the sake of it. The air is buzzing with the anticipation of the crowd.

There’s a moment of sudden thick silence, like the moment before a dam is about to burst, where the crowd is silent. Then, both teams are stepping out onto the field and the stadium explodes. In the middle of the line of the eleven Ravens players, like he’s trying to blend in even though half of the crowd is chanting his name, is your brother. There’s a coin flip and it’s decided that the Ravens will start. He gets into his position, forward center, and the audience takes another breath.

You’re on the edge of your seat. Half of the game you’re standing. There’s a thrill about the experience that makes you so invigorated and proud beyond belief. If it had been strange seeing your last name on the backs of fans’ jerseys, it’s just as weird hearing the announcer say your brother’s name as he scores. If Yuta had been residual starshine, your brother is a shot of pure gold. He has long given up trying to make himself small where he glows the brightest, smiling as the whistle is blown for halftime. His teammates slap each other on the back when they go for water. Just as the game is about to resume, you feel your phone buzz in your pocket once. You figure that whoever is texting you can wait.

The other team makes a comeback in the second half, scoring on the Ravens and tying the score. You feel a bit bad for the goalie, a guy you know as Kim Yongsuk, who your brother had introduced you to in the past. He’s probably beating himself up over it. Still, the team doesn’t falter, doesn’t repeat their mistakes. It’s a hard game - from how close you are, you can almost see everyone breathing hard. Finally, with just a few minutes left to spare, the ball travels smoothly from the Ravens’ defensive line, to the midfielders, to the offense. Once it’s in your brother’s possession, it’s over. He shoots and he scores.

To be fair to the other team, they try to recover, but it’s just not enough. Time is called and it ends 2:1. The Ravens have won. You find yourself clapping and cheering with the other fans, shouting your elation to the huge stadium. As things begin to wind down and the teams shake hands, people begin to trickle out of the stadium. A satisfied hum is in the air, leaving a smile on your face, too. Perhaps soccer games are the reason you like parties, too. The warm, excited atmosphere, the noise, forgetting about the outside world to become absorbed in something else.

Finally, reality calls again after all of the players filter out to their respective locker rooms. You pull out your phone, about to send a text to your brother. However, when your phone comes to life, the first thing you see is a text from Yuta.

NaYu: Are you at the Ravens game??

An instant later, right on cue, you hear his voice. “Y/N!” Upon looking up, he’s bounding down the aisles towards you, also donning forest green and silver. Watching him weave through the rest of the people trying to leave, you wouldn’t be surprised if he would have slid down the railing if there weren’t other people there. Nonetheless, it doesn’t take long for him to reach you. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Why not?” You tilt your head, smiling slightly. You’re in too good of a mood to outright lie to him.

He blinks. “I thought you hated watching soccer.”

You hold your hands behind your back, swaying playfully. For once, he’s the confused one. “I don’t know what gave you that impression. I really enjoy seeing the Ravens play.”

“But… you said…” He furrows his eyebrows. “Didn’t you say you’ve seen enough soccer games to last your whole life already, or something?” “I changed my mind.” Your phone buzzes in your hand.

B/N: You still in the stands? I’m coming up.

At that, you freeze. Yuta nudges you. “You okay?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine.” You’ve kept the fact that your brother is the Ravens’ star striker away from everyone, besides your roommates, and you can’t even begin to imagine how Yuta would react if he found how. What would he think of you? “You can head out without me, Yuta. I’m waiting for someone.” The concerned expression doesn’t leave his face. “Are you sure? It’s kind of late-”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine, I’m-”

“Y/N!”

You turn just in time to see your brother jumping the gate blocking off the entrance to the field from the stands. Most of the stadium has cleared out by now, ushered out by staff, leaving very few people. Your brother has a hoodie on with his team’s colors, the hood up and partially blocking his face from distant onlookers nonetheless. You cringe internally as he jogs up to you, not seeming tired at all, and you greet him as he engulfs you in a warm hug. “Hi, B/N.”

“I’m glad you could make it. It’s not often that I get to play for my favorite sibling.” You’re looking at your brother, but you’re sure that Yuta has a shocked look on his face as he connects the dots. Now that your brother has directly stated who he is to you, there’s no avoiding it. He looks past you and realizes that you’re not alone. “Who’s this?”

“I…” Now that you’re actually looking at Yuta, you realize he’s entirely starstruck. He looks like he’s stuck in one place, his eyes wider than normal and full of awe.

You take over for him. “This is Yuta. He’s my friend from school and our team’s center forward.”

“It’s nice to meet you, I’m B/N! Since Y/N finally decided to show her face at her own team’s games, I heard you guys are doing well this year. Go Lions!” He raises a fist, giving Yuta a sunny smile.

Yuta blinks hard, looking almost like he might pass out. “Y-yeah. We’re doing alright, I guess. Thank you for your support.” He reflexively dips into a shallow bow, making your brother chuckle.

“You don’t have to be so formal. Any friend of Y/N’s is a friend of mine.” He elbows you not-so-gently. “Y/N! Tell me next time you want to bring him. I’ll throw in a second ticket.”

Yuta unfreezes a bit and looks at you. “You don’t bring Yein or Sowon?”

You shrug. “I don’t like to bring only one of them. It feels unfair to the other.”

“Still, I’m glad to see that you’re not lying about having at least one friend.” Your brother gives you a wicked grin and heat fills your cheeks.

“I have friends!” You insist, clenching your fists at your side.

“Do you?” Yuta teases, making you press your lips together in a look of indignation.

Before you can counter him, your brother interjects. “I hate to part with the two of you, but I have to leave.” He steps back, waving a hand at the two of you. “See you!” “I hope you stub your toe on the way out!” You shout back at him as he retreats.

“Hey, this toe is worth a lot of money! Love you, too!”

There’s a period of silence as you watch your brother disappear. Yuta clears his throat. “Do you want to go back?”

“Yeah.” You follow him wordlessly for a while, making your way out of the stadium. He walks by your side, his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t seem upset, just a bit shocked still. As you approach the bus stop, you finally speak up. “Did you come with anyone else?”

“Some of the guys from the team. I told them to go ahead without me so I could talk to you.” Of all the things he’s ever said, that makes your heart feel strange. A tiny flutter of a butterfly’s wings, if you will.

Then, as you make it to the bus shelter, you turn to him, grabbing onto the edge of his sleeve. “Yuta, promise you won’t be weird after this?”

He blinks, not fighting your grip. “Why would I be weird?”

“Just… I don’t really tell people about my brother. I don’t want you to think any differently about me because of it.” This level of vulnerability isn’t something you usually show and it feels foreign, unfamiliar. When you told Sowon and Yein about it, it didn’t feel this way. Yet, standing under the shelter with Yuta, his deep green sleeve in your hand, his eyes on yours, the light of the city falling faintly on your faces, you feel your heart pound even harder in your chest.

“I already liked you before I ever knew that.” He reaches up oh so slowly. You don’t know what he’s going to do. Touch your cheek, pat your head, kiss you? Before you can find out, the bus pulls up with a loud exhale, spewing exhaust. The doors open and the driver looks at you expectantly as you turn and get in. Yuta follows you, silent. Both of you pay your dues and sit down, side by side, his sleeve brushing yours.

You know exactly what it is about him that drives you insane. At the same time, you have no idea. While you don’t want things to be different with him after tonight, you also desperately wish for the opposite. You’re tempted to slap yourself in the face to try and wake yourself up from whatever strange dream you’re happening, but you don’t know how the boy next to you would react.

The ride passes excruciatingly slowly, as does the short walk back to your complex. Finally, as you’re standing in the stairwell, about to part ways with him, he speaks. “Do you want to study together tomorrow?”

At that, such a normal suggestion, you smile. “Sure.”

He reflects your expression. It’s a familiar look on him, which you’re grateful for. “I’ll text you. Goodnight, Y/N.”

The next day is entirely ordinary. It’s like the previous night never happened. Yuta is perfectly normal, perfectly flirty, perfectly infuriating. In fact, the entire week after is normal. You go to the Lions game, cheer on your neighbors, and pretend to be difficult with Yuta after the game. He’s always so hard on himself after his games, remarking on what he believes are the many things he could have done differently to play a better game, despite scoring all of the team’s goals and securing wins every time. You hope that you talking to him afterwards raises his spirits just as much as you enjoy it.

Then, one Saturday, you’re out running when Yuta jogs up to you. Once again, he scares the shit out of you, making you nearly trip. “Hey, Y/N.”

You tear out your headphones, giving him a look. “Have you tried not jumpscaring me?”

The shrug he gives you looks strange, as he’s jogging slowly next to you when he attempts to emote. “It’s kind of funny.” You grumble under breath about showing him what’s funny, and he continues. “Do you want to run together on the weekends?”

“This again?” You say, frowning.

He rolls his eyes. “Listen, I know you’re lonely. Since you come out to my games, I thought I should do you some sort of favor in return.”

“I also help you with your statistics homework.”

“Anyways, you’re in luck because I also don’t have a running partner. It’s a lot easier to set a pace and keep moving if you have someone with you.”

You know he’s right, but it doesn’t make you feel any better. When you’re running, you’re at your most vulnerable - sweaty, tired, out of your element. There’s plenty of reasons you shouldn’t want him to run with you. “You have to run so much faster than I do. I would just slow you down.”

“Not really,” he says, looking at your feet as you jog next to him, “see? We’re both doing fine right now.”

You realize that he’s right. You keep moving wordlessly for a minute, until you speak quietly. “Would you really not mind?”

You focus on his hair bouncing as he takes each step for a while before you look at his face. In the morning sunlight, he gives you a pure smile. “Not at all.”

On Saturdays and Sundays, he’s waiting for you just outside of the complex at seven in the morning with his hair tied up to keep it out of his eyes. He easily matches his pace to yours. He’s always much more awake at that hour than you are, but the quiet encouragement he whispers whenever you slow down help perk you up. It takes you a little while to realize that he’s doing something very similar for you to what you do for him after his games.

It’s a cloudy Sunday morning. Usually, you don’t talk a ton while you’re running together, but it seems that his curiosity has gotten the best of him. “What made you want to start running?”

“Hm?” You hum, snapped out of the world that was just your feet thudding against the ground and the sound of your breathing in your ears. “Do I have to have a reason?”

“People usually don’t just randomly start doing it. Maybe they want to get stronger or lose weight. Maybe they want to impress someone.”

“It’s not about impressing anyone. I’m doing this for me.” You say it firmly, confidently. His pace stutters and he watches you continue forward. There’s something in your voice that makes him incapable of moving, and all he can do is stare at you for a moment, his heart speeding up in his chest for reasons other than the running you’re doing. When you realize he isn’t following, you turn towards him, jogging in place. The way your face is illuminated by the sunlight being cast upon it makes him sure he’s never met someone as incredible as you before in his life. “Are you coming?”

You don’t know what’s up with him. His expression is something you’ve never seen but can’t quite place. He catches up in a few bounds and you resume your run.

The next Friday, you receive a strange text.

Unknown Number: Hey, is this Y/N?

You contemplate whether or not you should respond, but you get a second text.

Unknown Number: This is Mingyu from physics

Now, that’s strange. You start to type out a reply.

Y/N: Hi! What’s up?

Kim Mingyu: I was wondering if you could help me with the lab report from last Friday? I’m having some trouble

Y/N: Sure, do you want to meet in the library later?

Meeting up with someone who you’ve never really talked to before is strange. Mingyu tries to joke with you, but something about them falls flat. You try your best to laugh and help him anyways, figuring it’s just stiffness from interacting with someone new. Though it’s nice to finally have a physics buddy, you’re almost relieved when you go home.

As you approach your complex, you see a small group formed on the lawn outside. Sicheng and Ten are standing on one leg, holding the other leg up and trying to knock each other down. A small smile comes to your face when you realize that Yuta is in the group, cheering for his friends. Around the same time you see him, he sees you and his eyes light up. He’s quickly getting to his feet and bounding towards you. Taeyong calls after him with a frown. “Yuta, you’re next!”

Still, he sidles up next to you as you walk closer to the circle. “Y/N! Where are you coming from?”

“Just the library. Actually, I was meeting up with one of your teammates, Mingyu. We were working on physics.”

The smile he wears twitches downwards for a moment. “I didn’t know you had a class with him.”

“It wasn’t worth mentioning. I never talked to him before today.” You shrug, shifting the backpack on your shoulders. “What are you guys doing?”

“One-legged fight. You should join.” He suddenly has a sadistic gleam in his eye and you take a tiny step away from him.

“And give you an excuse to push me on the ground? No thanks.”

“Aw, Y/N, I’m hurt. You don’t think I would just push you if I really wanted to?” At his proclamation, you shake your head, trying to force down a smile but failing miserably. “I’m kidding, of course. I would never.”

It’s almost sunset and he looks glorious in the golden light, the sun reflecting off of his dark hair and making his eyelashes cast long shadows on his cheekbones. If you were bolder, you might say something about it. Instead, you let out a snort of laughter, looking away from him. From the circle a few yards away, cheers erupt. Ten is curled on the ground, dramatically bemoaning his loss to Sicheng, who stands proudly over him. Taking that as his cue, Yuta gives you a small wave and rejoins his group.

When you enter your apartment with a small, content smile on your face, Yein looks up from her cooking. “Good day?”

“You could say that.”

The next morning, thankfully, is a Saturday. Yuta is waiting for you, looking just as fine in the morning sun as he did in the evening rays. He’s stretching as you approach him. “It looks like it’ll be good weather for the match today.”

“It better be.” He says it lightheartedly, but you can really imagine him threatening the weather. He’s told you that he hates the rain, partly because it makes it unpleasant to play but also just because it dampens his mood. The team is lucky they’ve gotten good weather for the season so far.

As you’re running, you remember what something you needed to ask Yuta about. “Hey, are you free on Wednesday night? My brother offered me two tickets for his game.”

His eyes light up. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah?” You tilt your head, trying to keep your pace steady. “He said he would pull through, so he did. You made a good impression on him.”

“I am totally free. Completely. Did I tell you how free I am that day?” The child-like excitement in his voice makes you smile in return.

“Wow, with how not free you are, I guess I should invite someone else,” you tease and he lets out an uncharacteristic whine.

“Y/N, I know you’re messing with me, but if you take someone else after asking me, I will never forgive you.”

Now it’s your turn to pretend to be offended. “I see how much our friendship means to you, Mr. Nakamoto.”

He sighs dramatically, bringing a hand to his forehead as he acts like he’s going to faint. “You’re so serious.”

You stick out your tongue at him. “You’re such a fanboy.”

“I can’t help it. Your brother is just so cool. I don’t know how you don’t try to hang out with him literally all the time.”

That gives you pause. You feel your feet connect with the earth repeatedly for a minute, thinking about your brother and your complicated but not complicated relationship. You trust Yuta with so many things, so you may as well tell him. “A few weeks ago, when I said I was only doing this for me, I lied. Just a little.” You say, not looking at him. You’ve never really admitted it out loud before. “I want to get good enough to run with my brother. I almost never see him these days, but if I can start getting up to run with him sometimes… it’ll be like when we were kids. Or something. I don’t know.”

“He’s important enough to you that you want to change something about your life to spend more time with him,” Yuta says quietly, keeping pace with you. “I hope he knows how much you care about him.”

“You don’t always need to change to show you love someone. That’s why it was only partly a lie when I said I’m only doing this for myself.” You flash Yuta a smile, which he returns. Though your lungs burn and your legs ache, the air you breathe in is cool and fresh. “I’ll race you back.”

His eyes flash. “Challenge accepted.”

The next time you see Yuta is later that day, at his game. He’s serious, as usual, in the zone. As the season goes on, the bleachers fill up more and more with students eager to see the Lions throw sparks. The games continually get harder, but they manage to clutch this one out with a final score of 3:2.

Despite the win, Yuta still seems somewhat down. Afterwards, you’re about to go up to him to describe the glorious moment when he slid between two of the opponent defenders and scored, but you’re stopped by a heavy hand on your shoulder.

“Hey, Y/N.” To your surprise, Mingyu is the one approaching you. He doesn’t take his hand away.

“Oh! Mingyu, hi.” You try to smile at him, but your eyes wander over to Yuta briefly. “Good game today! You guys played solidly.”

“Ha, thanks. Could’ve been better on my part, I’m always looking to improve, you know.”

“I get it,” you respond, nodding.

“Are you possibly free on Wednesday night? We have a lab due on Friday and I just think it would be easier to do if we can work together, ya know?”

“Oh, um, I’m actually busy then.” You force yourself to not look at Yuta. “Does Thursday night work instead?”

“Sure, whatever. I’ll see you then.” The way he squeezes your shoulder once before stepping away to talk to some of his own friends makes your stomach turn. Why is he being so… weird?

Shaking your head, you turn back to who you had intended to greet in the first place, only to find that he had been looking at you already. What’s with the look in his eyes? Why is everyone being so weird? Ignoring the feeling, you join his circle. Yuta moves closer to your side, his arm looping around your waist as he does so, pulling you in slightly. The touch is brief but intimate, sending a bolt of electricity through your body. You swear that you can almost feel the heat of his skin through your clothes. Then, his arm is back at his side like nothing happened. You want to speak up, say what you were planning on saying before, get your mind back on a normal track, but you find that Johnny, Ten, and Jungwoo are already recreating the scene, making Yuta smile through the veil of whatever emotions he’s experiencing right now.

When the entire team heads over to the locker rooms to clean off the shine of sweat and dirt that had been accumulated through the game, you can’t help watching him. As he goes, you catch flashes of his smile while he congratulates his teammates. Something stirs in your heart.

That night, you dream of healing smiles dressed in a lion’s mane of black hair. That same visage is waiting for you the next morning when you go out to run but, here outside of your head, he’s solid, real, more than heated touches and soft caresses. At the same time, he is those things. Or, so you wish him to be.

When you study with him the next night, he is as he usually is, theoretically. Sometimes it feels like his eyes linger longer than usual, his hand rests a little closer, he smiles a little wider. It’s nothing you can confirm because, to any normal gaze, he seems entirely the same. Perhaps you’re confusing yourself into imagining things. Has his flirtatious nature finally tricked your brain into thinking he likes you?

Sometime that evening, you go to the bathroom and stare at yourself in the mirror. You pat your face rather harshly to try and drive some sense back into your brain. You should tell him. This new boy who has become so close to you. Why are you afraid of it going wrong? You emerge from the bathroom with the same feelings that you entered it with and, there he is, looking up at your return.

The next day, Tuesday is a brief reprieve from the torture of trying to figure out his feelings through his actions. Then, your brother’s game comes. Your chatter fills the space between you on the bus ride to the stadium, him telling you about the anime he’s watching, you talking about the drama you’re watching in response. He jokes about culturing you by getting you to watch a show with him.

Watching your brother’s game with Yuta at your side is an entirely different experience. While you think you normally have pretty good commentary on your own, he provides an extra edge, excitedly explaining why some players choose to do some things or making observations about small moves that you ordinarily wouldn’t notice. Both of you absorb the atmosphere of the stadium, bursting into cheers whenever something incredible happens, screaming extra loud when your brother scores.

During halftime, when the roar of the audience is less deafening, you realize that you’ve never asked Yuta about his background with soccer before. You nudge him. “Hey, Yuta? How long have you been playing?”

He taps his chin, trying to think back. “Probably since I was five?”

“No wonder you know so much,” you say, “I’m talking to an expert right now.”

“You know too much for just a casual viewer,” he says back, snorting, “don’t tell me you don’t have some experience.”

“I only played a bit when I was younger, but I wasn’t any good. It was always more fun to watch B/N. I ended up just taking care of him whenever he pulled something or fell and scraped his arm… you know.” A wistful smile forms on your face. “It started off as just kissing bruises like my mom would, but then it turned into intense Googling whenever I couldn’t immediately figure out what was wrong with him.”

“Maybe you can kiss my boo-boos whenever I get hurt, too, then.” He’s smirking, the ever-familiar gleam of mischief in his gaze.

You force yourself to roll your eyes at him, ignoring the feeling of your heart jumping in your chest. “You’d better not get hurt, Nakamoto.”

“Only because you asked so nicely.”

A few minutes later, the game resumes. This matchup is considerably more difficult than the game you had attended before. Each time the Ravens seem like they’re close to scoring, the opponent defense sends it back towards your end of the field or the goalie successfully blocks it. All the same, your defense and goalie do their jobs, too, leading to a brutal back and forth. By the time the game is over, the only goal that had been scored was the single one your brother got in the first half.

“Ah, that was tense. They almost took it back there for a second.” You stand, stretching your arms behind your back to loosen them up a bit. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, sure.” Yuta gets up as well, following you as you begin to climb the stairs. “Is your brother not coming to see you this time?”

“He told me he has some press deal after this.” Once you’re in a more open area, Yuta walks next to you instead of behind. You can now see that he’s frowning.

“Does he keep you a secret on purpose?”

“I asked him to.”

“I can’t imagine keeping someone like you hidden like that.” At that strange comment, you stop, looking at him. He seems to be taking the issue very personally.

“It’s easier this way. No one prying into my life, no one asking me for autographs from him all the time. People know who our parents are. What’s so important about an unknown sister?” Is there something else he wants you to say? The look on his face is something you’ve only seen maybe once or twice. He’s in a strange mood, that’s for sure.

“I get it, it’s just…” He sighs, looking at the ground with his hands shoved in his pockets.

“Yuta.” He finally meets your eyes. “It’s important to me that what people think about me is what I show them first. I don’t want to be a reflection of my brother, no matter how much I love him.”

“Is he the reason you didn’t want to talk to me at first?” There’s amusement in Yuta’s voice again, that strange seriousness gone.

You start to walk again and he keeps pace. “No, that was just because you woke me up at six in the morning.”

“I guess both of us have experiences that precede our reputations then, huh?”

The bus comes not much later. The previous reminder of how you met has him offering you one side of his earbuds, saying that this would be a better introduction to J-rock than the one you had before. As you listen, you’re tempted to lean your head against his shoulder or take his hand, which is resting oh so close to yours. Instead, you just sit still and look out the window.

After you get off of the bus, the topic of shows you both like makes a return.

“I will take it upon myself to expose you to great art. Are you free tomorrow? We have to start immediately.” Yuta begins to pester you, practically bouncing as you walk.

“Actually, I’m busy tomorrow. I’m working on physics with Mingyu again.” He doesn’t initially not react to your first statement. However, when his teammate’s name comes out of your mouth, he frowns.

“Of anyone…” The sudden change in his attitude catches you off guard. “Why him?”

“I don’t choose who’s in my classes. What’s wrong with you? I thought you got along with your teammates.” You’re nearing your complex at this point. The lamp posts bordering the sidewalk cast long shadows on the ground as you walk.

“In a team context, they’re fine. Usually. Just, that guy…” He’s scowling now, making you frown deeply in return.

“What about him?”

“I don’t know, Y/N.” He pauses, but then his feet stop moving a moment later. “Fuck it, I do know. He’s not a good person. He’s a manipulator. He’s a good manipulator, but he’s bad at lying when you actually confront him-”

“Yuta, you’re being ridiculous. Even if he is, I’m strong enough to take care of myself.”

“Y/N, he was with me at that first game! The one where I found out about your brother? What if he saw? He’s the type to use information like that to get what he wants. What if he-”

“What if he what, Yuta?” You glare at him, anger muddled with some other hurt now filling you. “He hasn’t done anything. He isn’t going to do anything. Our ‘secret’ isn’t going to get out. I can take care of myself.”

With that, you brush past him, into the complex, into your apartment. Thankfully, your roommates aren’t in the common area, so you safely make it to your room. Once you’re there, you shove your face into your pillow. You consider screaming into it, but you know he’s probably in his own room, where he could hear you. Instead, you just heave breath after frustrated breath.

You don’t know why you snapped at him. Actually, you do. It’s the fear that he’s actually doing what he accused Mingyu of. After every word you’ve exchanged, every conversation, you should be confident that he’s not like that. But, you’ve never been in this situation before. What if he…

It’s a stupid notion and you know it. That’s just the surface. Another layer of your feelings peels away. You hate when people are too protective of you. You want to make your own decisions, to learn for yourself. You hate when your brother is too protective of you and you hate when Yuta is.

That’s not even all of it. Finally, you reach the root of your aggression. What right does Nakamoto Yuta have to try and be protective of you when you aren’t even together? Was that the concern of a friend or the concern of a jealous lover?

You curl in on yourself even more tightly, breathing through the pillow under your face. No one has ever flirted with you as much as he has. You’ve never been so ridiculously on and off with someone before. Still, neither of you are willing to answer the question. You’ve never actually fought like this with him before.

Perhaps he hates you now that you’ve thrown his warnings back in his face.

The next day, after your classes, you force yourself to go to the library to meet Mingyu, Yuta’s words heavy in your mind. As you work, you can tell he’s still trying desperately to get on your good side, even emanating Yuta in a strange, off-balance way. It’s not amusing when he does it.

Finally, the subject you’ve been dreading comes.

“Are you a fan of the Ravens? I think I saw you at one of their games once.”

You swallow back disappointment. Mingyu is the worst fear of your insecure self and you finally have to come face to face with it. “I guess you could say that.”

To your surprise, he doesn’t take it farther than that. If Yuta’s right about him, then it’s probably just one piece of a larger goal. Though you never cared much for Mingyu, it doesn’t feel good to see things begin to unfold.

Not seeing him for two days in a row brings your mood down more than you’d like to admit. At the same time, you’re not ready to apologize yet. You don’t know what exactly is happening on his end, you never know, so when you go outside to run at your normal time on Saturday, you half expect him to be there.

He isn’t. And you don’t run into him on your way back, either. The game it is, then.

As the day progresses, the sky gets increasingly cloudy. In the evening, when the Lions and their opponent team are out on the field running final drills, it’s easy enough to tell that a good number of people had looked at the forecast - the crowd in the bleachers is much thinner than usual. The sky could open up and pour its soul out onto all of you at any moment.

You don’t even bother pretending that you’re not watching Yuta. As he steps off the field for their usual pre-game pep talk and chant, you swear he makes eye contact with you. Normally, he wouldn’t even bother looking, because he’s usually confident that you’re there. You’re not sure what the look in his eyes is now.

The coin toss decides that the other team will start with the ball. That might have been the first omen about the game. Then again, maybe the other team is just… better. Their defense is at least tighter than yours. At halftime, they have a point up on the Lions, 0:1. Yuta seems to take this very, very personally. Within ten minutes of the game restarting, they tie the score back up.

At about three quarters of the way through, it begins to rain. The referee deems that they’ve played far to stop, so the match continues. Almost like they take the poor weather as a sign, the rival team scores nearly immediately after.

You pathetically huddle under a single umbrella with Sowon while Yein shares one with Johnny. The ball slips rather than flies around the field, back and forth, back and forth, until, finally, with barely any time to spare, it’s at Yuta’s feet. The world seems to move in slow motion, then. His right foot moves backwards. It swings forwards. He makes contact.

He misses.

You try not to gasp. Yuta himself seems to be in shock, with how he goes stiff for a moment. Then, he’s back in action, targeting where the goalie had thrown the ball. This time, it’s not enough. A minute later, after another brutal back and forth, the scream of the whistle soars above the sound of the rain. It’s over. The Lions have met their first loss of the season.

The two teams barely wait around to shake hands before they’re rushing off to the locker rooms, away from the rain. Yuta moves slower than the rest, seeming to drag his feet through the muddying grass. Ahead of him, all of his teammates are moving quickly, but moping nonetheless. From your position, you see Mingyu kick the shins of someone you recognize to be one of the younger players. You see Kun’s mouth move as he tells him off, but they’re far enough away and the rain is loud enough that you can’t hear. If you hadn’t been displeased already, you are now.

Might as well kill two birds with one stone, right?

“You guys can go back,” you say, taking a step out from under the umbrella after you’re out of the bleachers with your friends. When Sowon tries to shove her umbrella in your hands, you push it back. “I’ll be fine! It’s only a short distance.”

She narrows her eyes. “You’re going to catch a cold.”

“Don’t worry.” With a sigh, she turns, reluctantly walking back behind Yein and Johnny.

You take off running, trying to outpace the raindrops pelting you. By the time you make it beneath the slight sheltered roof of the locker room building, you’re damp, but not entirely soaked. It’s enough to be an annoyance, your clothes sticking slightly to your skin.

You wait outside for a good few minutes. Small groups of players from either team leave, the opponent players giving you strange looks as you lean against the wall and shiver, Baekho and his group giving you an awkward acknowledgement, and, finally, Mingyu emerges.

“Y/N?” He seems confused, but somewhat excited. As if you’re there to meet him.

“Mingyu. Answer one question for me.” You say it wearily, expressing it like the chore it is.

“What are you acting so weird for?” The excitement you glimpsed before dies.

“Were you going to use me to get in good with my brother?”

The rain is the only sound you hear for a couple solid heartbeats. “Y/N, listen…”

“He was right…” You grumble to yourself. You glare up at him. “You can do your physics labs by yourself. Delete my number.”

He stands before you for a moment more before he realizes that you’re serious. He turns and walks away, into the haze of the downpour. A minute later, Jaehyun and Kun emerge from the building.

“Oh, Y/N,” Jaehyun says, seeming surprised. “Are you waiting for Yuta?”

“Is it that obvious?”

The two of them exchange looks and smile. Kun speaks next. “He’s probably not coming out for a while. He usually gets all depressed when we lose a game, but I’ve never seen it this bad. He’s been standing in the shower for like fifteen minutes.”

You glance at the door. Jaehyun nudges you. “He’s the only one left in there. I wouldn’t tell anyone if you, say, went in right now.”

“A bonafide cupid right here,” Kun says, swinging the bag he has slung over his shoulder around so he can dig through it. He produces something, offering it to you. “Here.”

“What is…” You trail off as you take it from him, your face warming as you realize exactly what it is. “Kun, what is this?!”

“I don’t want any miniature versions of him running around. I’m always prepared.” You stare at Kun incredulously a beat longer before you shove the condom in your damp pocket.

“Good luck!” Jaehyun calls back to you as they begin to walk off, leaving you standing under the overhang. Taking a deep breath, you push open the door and walk inside.

Unsurprisingly, the place has a somewhat sweaty smell to it. The rows of lockers are labeled with names and a little image depicting the sport the owner plays, as all of the school’s teams use the same locker room, and the occasional miscellaneous socks, gloves, and other things are scattered about. A row of sinks is against one wall and past the sinks is an entrance into the shower area. You make your way there.

As you get closer, the distinct sound of one shower running gets louder. The only curtain that’s closed is a middle stall, all of the others open and empty. Parallel to the shower stalls is a long wooden bench. “Yuta?” You call out. He doesn’t respond, so you try again. “Yuta?”

“Go away.” This time, the response is sharp and harsh. He certainly is in a mood.

“Yuta, it’s me.”

“Y/N?” His voice is significantly less negative now. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to talk to you.”

You can barely hear him sigh over the sound of the shower running. “You couldn’t wait until after I was done?”

“No.” When you say that, the water shuts off. A hand sneaks out to grab the towel hanging from a hook affixed to the partition between the stalls. You don’t see anything revealing, but you look away anyways. The scraping of the rings being drawn back tells you he has emerged from the stall.

“You can look at me, you know.”

“I didn’t want to be rude.” You look back, greeted with the sight of his gloriously wet hair and bare torso. He emerged quickly enough that he didn’t have time to dry much of the water dripping off of him. The only part of his body that’s covered is his waist and thighs, though the towel still reveals a tantalizing v-line. You forcibly swallow your thirst.

“Blatantly checking me out again? I get it, but would it kill you to be less obvious?” The comment throws you back to a simpler time, when you were just irritated with him for his cockiness and blasting music through the floor.

“Speak for yourself.” You cross your arms. It was obvious enough that he was enjoying the sight of you in a wet t-shirt and shorts.

“Why didn’t you wear something warmer?” He says, frowning. He steps closer, leaving little space between you.

“I didn’t think it would cool down this much.” You look away, not able to face his bare chest quite yet. The room still has a certain steam about it from the hot shower he was taking that makes it a little harder to breathe. Then again, maybe that’s just him being mostly naked in front of you. He reaches out, touching the hem of your shirt.

“You’re soaked,” he says, rubbing your shirt between his thumb and index finger.

“You’re just making me wetter.” Your face burns something fierce as you say it, contrasting the chill that had settled over your skin from standing outside. “You would think you’d dry yourself off more before getting out of the shower.”

“I was just eager to see you, I guess.” You finally have the courage to meet his eyes again.

“I missed you this morning.” You almost pout while saying it, feeling small under his gaze. It’s not an uncomfortable smallness, but one that makes you feel closer to him.

“I figured you didn’t want to see me.” He reaches out, brushing his fingers softly over the side of your face. His touch is blissfully warm. “Or, I think that you did want to see me, but you would only be angrier if I showed up.”

The thought almost makes you laugh. It would be one of the few times he’s been wrong about your feelings. But, if he always knows so much… “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. I talked to Mingyu a few minutes ago and you were right. I should have trusted you.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t let you handle it on your own.” He runs a hand through his hair, pushing it away from his forehead. “You’re strong enough to deal with assholes like him. You don’t need me.”

“I might not need you, but I do want to keep you around.” The small confession has your bottom lip quivering. “Did I mess up your game today?”

“It was mostly the rain.” He sounds so nonchalant, but you can tell he’s still bothered. “Not you. But, if you do feel bad about it, Miss Physical Therapy, there is something you can do for me.”

His eyes have shifted away from their darkness into a different sort of moodiness. You step closer. “What is it?”

He moves back, taking a heavy seat on the bench. “I’m quite tense. Give me a massage.” His eyes bore into yours. “If you so choose.”

You step behind him. The thrill of what you feel like he’s implying thrums in your veins. The muscles of his shoulders and back are hard under your fingers, showing years of training and toning. You’re almost surprised at how well built his upper body is for a soccer player. His skin is beyond perfect too, and the little droplets of water from his steamy shower that settle on his skin glisten temptingly in the low light of the locker room.

“Sorry my hands are cold,” you practically whisper.

“It’s fine. Feels nice.” He wasn’t lying when he said he was tense - you can feel the knots leaving his muscles as you press down on them, dissolving into smooth flesh that’s soft to the touch. As you work along his back, one particularly tough knot has your thumbs pressing harder into him, drawing a low groan and a curse from his throat. “Fuck.”

The sound turns you on more than you’d like to admit. As you finish his back, you become even more hyper aware of the little noises he’s letting out, the space between you becoming noticeably warmer. Slowly, reluctantly, your hands leave his skin and you circle back towards his front, not quite wanting to look him in the eye. “Is that better?”

“Much.” The air feels heavy. “But you’re not done, yet.” Ordinarily, he’d be smirking so hard you’d be able to hear it in his voice, but there’s only a low command to his tone now. He reaches out, guiding your dominant hand forward so that it’s resting on the front of his shoulder. There’s no hiding from his eyes now. You decide then - if you’re going to do this, you might as well go all out. Sliding onto his lap, your knees pressing into the wooden bench on either side of him, makes you feel both powerful and small at the same time. His face is only a breath away from your own. You swear you can see his eyes flicker to your lips. Trying to play innocent, despite the fact that you can basically feel his dick hardening under his thin towel, you shift slightly, putting your focus on his shoulder and pectoral muscles. Every so often, you readjust yourself, purposefully bouncing slightly on his lap, almost grinding down on him. He doesn’t crack, remaining still and keeping his expression flat. The only signs he gives of being aroused are the slight shiver to his breath and the prominent bulge you’re now certain you can feel. That, and the hands he has on your body, one on your hip and one on your thigh, fixing you in place.

The process is slow, arduous, but you eventually finish with his pectoral and shoulder muscles. You pull your hands away, placing them in your lap and then sitting back, unmoving on his lap, reveling in the way you’ve very clearly made him feel. “Is that all?”

His eyes flicker down to your lips again before boring into your own. “You missed one spot.” Wordlessly, he reaches up, tapping his own lips.

You could walk away right now. His hands aren’t so tight on your body that you couldn’t just get up and leave, go back to your apartment and forget this ever happened. But why would you want to? You’ve been dreaming of his lips for weeks. Finally, you’re about to get a taste. Still, there’s an edge of apprehension digging slightly in your gut.

You’ve sat in silence for long enough that he’s opening his mouth, an apology about to leave his lips, when you swoop forward, pressing your lips to his.

Where he had given you the choice to initiate, he’s the one who really leads. He almost instantly deepens the kiss, dragging you even farther up his lap, pressing you hard against his barely-shielded dick. You feel his fingertips against your skin, under the hem of your top.

“Do you want this?”

“Yes, but-” Where his hands had stilled under your shirt they begin to move again. “Yuta, wait.” He freezes once more, looking up at you. If you didn’t know better, you could swear you see a little bit of fear in his eyes. A shaky breath leaves your lips. “I won’t fuck you unless you tell me you actually have feelings for me. Did you mean what you said back then? After the games?”

“Is that a requirement for all the guys you sleep with or am I special?” You can feel his cock throbbing under you and your own insides ache in response. Of course, he’s delaying what both of you want by being coy. The frustration building up in your gut and in your heart makes you feel like you’re going insane.

“Yuta…” You mean it to sound admonishing, but your tone is more akin to a whine as you lightly drag your nails down his chest. His breath stutters slightly in his lungs at the motion, but in that moment, a sort of gentleness you’ve rarely seen takes over his facade.

“You’re the most incredible person I’ve ever met,” he breathes out, eyes locked with yours, “how could I not have feelings for you?”

You kiss him, sweetly, desperately. His hands begin to move once more, his fingertips digging ever so slightly into your skin. When his hands make it to the edge of your shirt, giving you a suggestion, you cover them with your own, guiding him to take it off. As soon as the garment is out of the way, his lips are on your neck, your collar, the soft skin of your chest. He can feel the hum of your voice through your breast as you speak. “I really like you, Yuta. More than I’ve ever liked anyone else.”

His fingers nimbly unclasp your bra and it falls to the ground somewhere. As his touch ghosts over your breasts, you arch into his hand, drawing a warm chuckle from him. “That’s good,” he says, thumbing slow circles over your nipples, “because I feel the same way about you.”

You pull him back to your mouth, pulling him as close as you possibly can, breathing him like he’s air, tasting him like he’s food. His tongue is slick against your bottom lip, against your own tongue. Almost unconsciously, you rock your hips against his bulge as you move. Impatiently, he tugs at your shorts, pulling you out of the kiss.

“These have to come off.”

“It would kill you to go slow for once,” you laugh, getting off of his lap on shaky legs.

“I go slow for you all the time,” he responds, shifting the towel at his waist, which you realize is barely holding onto him from all the grinding you were doing on his lap, “I’ve been going slow for months now. Isn’t it time to speed things up?”

You roll your eyes, but shimmy out of your shorts, leaving you in your panties and him in his towel. From this angle, he can truly appreciate you. Every curve, every beauty mark, every fold and crease on your body. He leans back, his hands bracing him against the bench. Then, he shifts forward abruptly, taking the opportunity to snap the elastic of your underwear against your skin.

“Yuta!” The cry is half an admonition, half a laugh. You move to push his shoulder gently and he catches you by the hand, pulling you on top of him and kissing you once again. Before you realize it, he has a sneaky hand slipping into your panties, touching you where you’re most sensitive, making you jolt against his hand.

“Is this okay?” He murmurs the words against your lips and you nod, trying to focus on kissing him through the pleasure of his fingers. It’s been far too long since anyone has touched you like this and you’re not used to it.

“Mm,” you moan back, “more than okay.”

He had said he wanted to go faster, but it seems like he’s just going so slow, making you fall apart on his hand, first with just a thumb on your clit, then two fingers pushed more deeply inside of you than you could ever reach yourself. At some point, you’re no longer kissing him and your cheek is pressed to his instead. You nip at his ear, which you now realize is pierced, and the damp spikeyness of his hair rests against your temple.

His free hand rests over your breast, rhythmically squeezing it as you ride his fingers. Oddly enough, you feel like he predicts your climax before even you do, working you carefully through the release of pleasure as you shudder against him and clench around his fingers. Before you can fully regain your senses, he’s kissing you again and removing his hand, wiping his sticky digits against the towel slipping from his waist. You figure you’ll finish the job, reaching down to untwist the cloth so that it falls open against the bench.

You continue kissing him as you take his dick in your hand, your thumb sliding over the precum beading at his tip. It’s his turn to shiver, his cock twitching in your hand. Giving it slow, purposeful jerks, you watch him become perfectly uncomposed under you and you grin, leaning closer to press a kiss to the juncture between his neck and shoulder. He’s stiff, but remarkably soft to the touch, veiny and thick enough that your mouth waters. A couple minutes pass before he’s encasing your hand in his own, slowing your movement.

“I don’t want to come in your hand.” You stop, looking at him with faux-innocent eyes. He blinks desperately at you. “Please.”

“Can I suck you off later?” The words leave your mouth unexpectedly. You hadn’t even really been thinking about the later, but you figure you’re safe to assume that there will be one.

“Of course, pretty girl.” He strokes your hair and you can just think about him holding it back in the future as he-

Trying to distract yourself from the later and focus on the now, you slide off of his lap once again. He almost seems confused, made lonelier by the tiniest distance you put between the two of you. It’s almost a funny image, him half pouting at you while his dick is out, standing up against his abdomen and completely exposed. You let out the smallest exhale of a laugh. “You showed me yours, so I figured I would show you mine.” Your panties fall to the ground, where you kick them in the general direction of the rest of your clothes. The sight of your shorts reminds you of another important thing. “Oh! Also!”

You scramble over to them, reaching into the pocket and producing the little foil packet. Yuta stares at you. “You’re… prepared? I didn’t even think this far ahead and half the time my brain is controlled by my-”

“Kun gave it to me before I came in here,” you say, waltzing back over to him. He takes the packet from your hand, tearing it open. You… give him a hand as he rolls it on. “He’s awfully ready for a great many situations, isn’t he?”

“I think he was expecting this to happen a lot earlier than it actually did, honestly,” Yuta responds, pulling you back on top of him for the third time. Once again, your knees rest on the hard wood bench. “Can we not talk about my roommate, please?”

“I can agree to that.” You smile, kissing him. “Can we talk about how much I like you instead?”

“We can always talk about that,” he says, one hand on his dick, one on your hip, “are you ready?”

The mood dips, making your body shiver in anticipation again. “Yes.”

The way he positions his cock and begins to push into you makes both of you let out noises of relief, a groan from him and a sigh from you. You sink down onto him further until he’s fully sheathed inside of you, hard and pulsing and ungodly warm. He gives an experimental buck of his hips, pulling a moan from your lips and shaping his into a cocky smirk. “Already feel that good?”

“Shut up,” the complaint dies in your throat as you lift yourself up on your knees and sink back down again, bouncing on his lap slightly. You focus on the feeling of him inside of you, the sensation of him hitting your G-spot, the touch of his fingers on your clit again. His breath mingles with yours whenever he takes a break from kissing you. Your hands wander the smooth planes of his chest, your thumb briefly ghosting over his nipple, your palms getting sweatier as you hold onto him. It’s not long before you let your head fall back, your thighs tense as you hold onto his shoulders and move up and down on top of his cock.

His lips are hot as he mouths your neck. You’re not usually the type for marking, but, honestly, the thought of wearing his hickey on your skin sounds beyond appealing. He introduces the slightest bit of teeth, grazing them over your pulse as you ride him. The trail of tiny nips goes down past your collarbones to your breast. Your heart beats loudly in your ears and the desperation of chasing your orgasm makes the passage of time feel fuzzy, but in the sweet, bubbly way a soda does rather than the heavy, blurry way a cold would.

“Yuta,” you whine, the knocking of your legs against the bench growing painful, “can you…”

“I got you, baby.” With a grunt, he stands, lifting you by the thighs. You wrap your legs around his waist, keeping him close. A breath later, your back is pressed to the wall and he’s pushing into you once again. The new angle is a change, and it’s a good change. Every one of his thrusts hits exactly right, pushing you further and further until-

“Yuta, you’re gonna make me...” you pant against his mouth, breathing the same air as him. At some point, after he had picked you up, you had reconnected your lips, and he swallows the little noises you let out hungrily. You clench and unclench your fists behind his back, as your arms are slung over his shoulders.

“Mm, good. That’s my girl.”

All you can think as he pounds into you is Yuta, Yuta, Yuta. You come undone with a final swipe of his thumb and a choked cry of his name. Once your own orgasm has stopped burning quite so bright, lowering to a comfortable simmer in your gut, his hips slow with each thrust until he pushes into you and stays there. You can feel him throb inside of you even through the condom.

Your skin feels like it’s glowing in the aftermath of his love, warm like coals after a fire has just ceased to burn. Warm with the promise of more flames in the future. You lean your face in the junction of his shoulder and neck, breathing love onto his skin. His deep, uneven breaths slow over time as he presses gentle kisses to the exposed flesh of your shoulder. The silence between you is only interrupted by the ambient sound of water flowing through pipes hidden in the concrete walls of the shower part of the locker room. That’s enough of a reminder for you to groan, clutching onto him tighter. “I can’t believe we just confessed and fucked in your sweaty locker room.”

“From my perspective, it’s more ‘wow, I can’t believe we finally confessed and fucked, even if it was in my sweaty locker room.’” That, at the very least, makes you smile. Slowly, he begins to pull out, separating from you with a sticky, wet sound. He backs up, turning so that he can place you gently on the towel still lying on the bench. He disposes of the used rubber quickly, throwing it in a trash can at one end of the room.

Now that he’s no longer touching you, it feels so much colder. “I feel bad for whoever has to clean this place. I hope they don’t find that.”

He shrugs. “I’m sure they’ve seen worse.” He makes his way back to you, naked body still on full, glorious display for your eyes only. “Wanna shower while we’re here?”

You groan. “Yuta, I’m tired. No funny business.”

“Who said anything about any ‘funny business?’ I just suggested we clean off the sweat from all that physical exertion.” He’s smirking, not even pretending to be innocent.

“You’re insatiable.” Still you get up, joining him in the shower stall that he holds open for you. If any follow up activity happens while you’re in there, the only way anyone on the outside would be able to tell would be from the quiet sounds that are mostly drowned out by the noise of the shower.

As you finally redress, accepting the hoodie that Yuta had in his locker so that you don’t have to put your wet shirt back on, he can’t seem to keep his hands off of you, like he’s afraid you’ll go away. The environment between you feels different, but the same. After you’re both fully dressed and start walking out the door, you reach out to take his hand. He accepts the action, interlocking his fingers with yours. Both of you stop under the overhang of the building. By now, the sun has set and a few street lights shine along the walkways of the campus through the haze of rain. “Yuta, are you my boyfriend?”

He blinks a couple times. “Wasn’t that implied?”

You turn away, suddenly shy. “I mean… I just… wanted to clarify…”

“You’re too good for me.” He laughs, then kisses your cheek. Both of you stare out of the rain, as if it’s going to suddenly stop just because you’re politely waiting for it. “I meant it. Every time.”

“Hm?”

“Every time I said I liked you, or that you’re amazing. I was just afraid of- I don’t know. That I’m not honest enough or nice enough, or even good enough at soccer. I just-” He seems so tired as he says it, so brutally truthful, so terribly self-doubting.

You squeeze his hand. “Yuta, it’s okay. Honestly, all this time, I thought you’re too good for me. You’re so much more than the things you say you are. You’re a star.”

“I’m not. I can be an asshole, and jealous, and not serious even when I should be-”

“Yuta, if you like me despite all of my ridiculous bad qualities, I’m pretty sure I can deal with a little jealousy. You’ve shown me who you are and I still like you. You’re loyal and funny and romantic and so many other things. I like you.”

He sighs sweetly, like he was holding in a breath for so long and is finally letting it out. He’s holding your hand so tightly, it feels like he might never let go. Right now, you think you might be okay with that. “Sorry. I’ll never get tired of hearing that.”

You peer into others’ eyes for a long time, content to just look. Then, the cold finally gets to your legs and you shiver, scooching slightly closer to him. You look out. The rain isn’t getting any better. “Do you want to run? To make up for us not going together this morning?”

He doesn’t even respond. He just glances at you, winks, and tugs at your hand, starting to go. The rain pelts you as you go, utterly soaking you, getting in your shoes, darkening your borrowed hoodie. His hair sticks to his forehead, making him look a bit like a wet kitten. Maybe a lion, more accurately. Still, in the passing lights and the sheen of the rain, he glows.

“Yuta?” You say between shallow breaths.

“Yeah?” He keeps going, keeps tugging you along. You have to work to keep up with him, pumping your legs hard.

“Do you want to go professional?”

He looks back at you quickly, but then turns forward. “I would.”

“I really think you could do it!”

Then he’s laughing, truly, mirthfully. “That’s the second best thing you’ve said to me today!”

At that, you’re laughing too, though it slows your pace, though it makes your lungs burn, though it helps rain water run into your mouth. When you make it to your complex, soaked through, looking like you just took a swim in your clothes, you don’t want to let go. Reluctantly, both of you part ways to change clothes in your respective apartments with the promise to meet soon and start Yuta’s effort to culture you with anime.

Sowon and Yein tease you relentlessly, both when you enter your apartment leaving puddles on the ground and when you leave again ten minutes later completely dry. They tease you for the next week whenever they catch you leaving if they know you don’t have classes. The next Friday, you end up staying up far too late watching one of Yuta’s shows, which you admit are at the very least fun, and you fall asleep in his bed. You’re sure you’ll never hear the end of it from your roommates, even if Yein has been staying in the volleyball boys’ apartment every other day for the last month.

In the morning, a mere three hours after you and Yuta went to sleep, you wake up in his arms to a strange blaring of J-rock. He reaches over you to slap his phone and shut it off. You stay awake just long enough to comment on how strange it is hearing the music next to you and not through the floor.

When you wake up around noon to Yuta staring at you, his bangs half covering his eyes, you flip over, checking the time so that he can’t see the absolutely embarrassed look on your face. “You’re so weird.” “Why are you being all shy? I’ve seen you naked. There’s nothing more to see.”

“There’s plenty more of me to see, thank you very much, Nakamoto Yuta.”

“I know there is, darling.” His arm is still slung over your torso like it was when the alarm went off and he tries to wrestle you back around to face him. You squirm in his hold.

“Darling? You’re so weird. Why are you so weird?”

“Weird? I thought I was romantic and funny and-”

“And weird!” You wiggle more until he flips you onto your back, straddles you, and pins your hands to the bed. It’s quite an incredible sight, him pinning you down with his raven hair a complete mess and no shirt, where you can faintly see marks that you may or may not have left on his chest earlier in the week. “No fair. Home ground advantage.”

He leans in, looking ever so charming despite his disheveled appearance. “You know what makes for great morning exercise?”

“You’re weird and a horndog and-”

“Running! Let’s go.” He suddenly rises up, taking one of your hands with him and pulling you into a sitting position.

“Yuta, it’s noon! There are going to be people out everywhere.” He tugs on your hand and you move so that you’re sitting on the edge of the bed. “And it’s Saturday, so there’s going to be even more people…”

“You don’t need to worry about people judging you. If anyone gives you any funny looks, I’ll-”

“You’ll what? Punt a soccer ball at their heads?” You’re standing now, looking at him uncertainly.

He shrugs. “Sure. But, seriously. I promise that you have nothing to be self conscious about. You also have me. That part most importantly.” You would smack him if the smile he gives you doesn’t have you reluctantly agreeing.

He’s right, of course. The run is completely fine. At least, you’re distracted enough by your boyfriend for it to be fine. When you return, you split off to take showers in your apartments. After you emerge from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around your body, you find him waiting in your room. You register him saying something about the tables turning and “great afternoon exercise” before he practically pounces on you.

Afterwards, through your sex-high haze, you hear a loud knocking on your front door. Groaning, you move only so much as to press your face into Yuta’s shoulder. “Don’t wanna get up…”

“Did I make you feel that good?” His voice is a warm rumble, teasing, though full of the same tiredness that yours has. You’re about to jab him lightly in the side when his hand shifts down, two of his fingers running through your folds. Shivering at the suggestion, you wiggle closer to him, hiding your face even more.

“Let me rest, you sex-fiend.” Before he can reply, there’s a few more insistent knocks at your door. “Ugh…”

“Were you expecting someone?” You shake your head against him. He reaches over and grabs your phone. “I heard this going off earlier while we were busy.” You make no move to take it from him, so he turns it on, his eyes scanning the recent chain of texts you’d just received. “It’s your brother.”

You immediately bolt straight up. “What?” Your mind ticks back to the previous day before you’re scrambling out of bed. “Shit, shit, shit, I forgot he was coming today!” As quickly as you can, you try to throw on the various items of clothing that had gotten scattered around the room in your - Yuta’s, more accurately - haste to move them off of the bed, where you had laid them out for after your shower.

Yuta stretches lazily. “Glad I could remind you.”

“Asshole, get clothes on! He’ll kill you if he figures out what we did!”

“Ah, to be killed by L/N B/N. You say ‘what we did’ like it’s a bad thing.”

“He’s my older brother, for God’s sake!” You throw a shirt at him, smacking him in the face. “He will murder you! If he doesn’t murder me for forgetting our plans first…”

“And your plans are?” He slips his arms through the sleeves of his shirt, slipping it on.

“I’m taking him to see your game. Maybe meet the team. Who knows? You won’t be able to see it if you don’t move your ass.” You finish putting your jeans on.

“I’ve never escaped through a window before, but it sounds fun.” He’s still smirking, clearly amused. You’re certain he would actually do that if you let him.

“On second thought, just stay here. I won’t let him into my room.” Your phone lights up with your brother’s face and number and starts to buzz. You pick it up. “Sorry, I’m coming! I was napping.” You hang up. “Please, Yuta?”

He steps into his own jeans. “That’s what I was planning on. Don’t worry, I’m not trying to incapacitate myself before the game.”

With that reassurance, you close the door to your room and head for the apartment door. Your brother, clad in a hat, hoodie, and jeans, weirdly normal for him, is standing in front of your door, his phone in his hand. He narrows his eyes. “Hi, Y/N. For a second there, I really thought you forgot about our plans. Who takes a nap on a Saturday afternoon?”

You step aside, letting him in. “I was just tired today for some reason. Sorry.” “You’re lucky you’re my favorite.” He walks in, sliding off his shoes next to yours. “Are your roommates home? It’s been a while since I’ve seen them.”

“No, but they’ll be at the game later. You won’t miss them.” You stand there, swaying somewhat awkwardly. You’re sure that he’s noticed that you’re acting strangely. “Who let you into the lower doors?”

Your brother steps inside casually. “Your neighbor Jaehyun. Nice kid.”

“Y-Yeah. He’s one of our midfielders.”

“I guess I’ll get to see him in action soon, then. Where near here is good for something quick? We only have an hour and a half until the game.”

You’re thankful for a change in subject. “Depends what you want to eat! Think about it while I run to the bathroom?”

As you head there, you glance at your closed door. You feel kind of bad for leaving him in there, but it’s for his own protection. When you get back to the door, your brother is in the same place, staring at the shoes around the entry. He points at a pair of men’s shoes, which you realize with dawning horror are Yuta’s.

“Y/N? Whose shoes are these?”

“Oh! Those are, um, Johnny’s. Yein’s boyfriend.”

He deadpans. “Johnny. Your neighbor. The one who lives right across from you. Who is dating your roommate who isn’t here right now.” When you don’t respond, he sighs. “Y/N, it would be a lot easier to lie to me if you didn’t tell me so much in the first place. Who’s in your room? I know you hate closing your door if you’re not sleeping.”

Reluctantly, you walk to your room, cursing observant soccer players. Yuta looks mildly surprised to see you, and you walk over to where he’s sitting on your bed, grabbing him by the hand and tugging him over to your brother. If he’s afraid of your brother, he doesn’t show it.

“Yuta, was it?” He’s still expressionless. “I’ll have you know that there’s a few rules.” Before Yuta can even ask about the rules, he’s launching into a detailed explanation about consequences, saying something about maiming and making it look like an accident.

“B/N, you’re a professional now. You should really try not to say such scary stuff. Also,” you say, frowning, “I can handle myself. You know that by now.”

Yuta breaks his silence. “She really can. She’s strong enough to deal with anything.”

“You really believe that?” Your brother’s gaze is unyielding.

“I do.”

“Well, then.” He suddenly lightens up, smiling at the two of you. “Want to join us for dinner? I’m thinking noodles.”

“I actually have to get to warm-ups soon…” Yuta says regretfully.

“That’s a good boy. See, Y/N, I trust your judgement. We best be off, then.” Abruptly, your brother turns, putting his shoes back on. You scramble to join him, grabbing your things and putting your own shoes on.

“I’ll see you later?” You say to Yuta, who’s simply staring, somewhat shell shocked that he survived the encounter.

He blinks, then gives you a sort of smirk. “How about a kiss for-”

“Don’t push it.” Your brother cuts him off, standing in the doorway. He starts down the stairs. When he’s not looking, you lean over, pressing your lips to Yuta’s cheek. Before you can turn around, he sneaks one of his own onto your lips. You run after your brother.

He thoroughly grills you about Yuta during dinner, but you don’t mind. You keep out the parts about sex and the specifics of the relationship coming to fruition and he seems satisfied. You barely make it to the game in time because of your brother’s interrogation, but you still get there early enough to see some of the drills. In work mode, he crosses his arms, making approving comments about Yuta’s footwork. Your boyfriend is in a similar mood, already focused in.

Then, the game starts. The other team starts with the ball, but it makes no difference. The Lions take it back, sending it back and forth across the field, gaining and losing it, until Yuta, as usual, scores, redeeming himself from the previous week. Your brother says something under his breath about potential and skill. Through the game, the Lions make great plays and you find yourself cheering for all of them, even Mingyu. The rival team stands no chance - not for lack of skill, but simply because your team is determined. By the end of the game, the score is a solid 3:0.

You’re one of the first onto the field after the teams break away from shaking hands. You meet Yuta in the middle, jumping on him in a hug when you reach him. You can’t stop the outpouring of praise, telling him how well he played, how brilliant he was. He just laughs, telling you he did his best. It’s the most positive thing you’ve heard from him after a game.

When you let go of him, willing to let the rest of his friends surround him now, you step away in search of your brother. To your surprise, he’s chatting up the Lions’ coach, who seems somewhat flustered by the Ravens’ striker speaking to him. Before you can get close, the coach blows the whistle he has around his neck, getting the attention of everyone around him, but particularly the team.

“Boys! Gather round, we have someone here with something to say to you.”

It doesn’t take long for them to recognize who your brother is.

It’s funny seeing the team rush to your brother, some pretending to be cool, some openly fawning over him. But, there’s one person who isn’t looking at him. From across the mob forming around your brother, you make eye contact with Yuta. And, in the midst of the stars shining in the form of the Raven, the Lion’s light falls on you.

[hello-there]

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