#but she actually did have a story!!! and it was amazing!!!!
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I hate the Eddie story line that's happening. Like I hate that they are putting him through all this bullshit over a mistake that he made because of years of trauma. And i hate reading stories where people make it out like he was cheating on Marisol. Maybe he wasn't great for sneaking around with another woman but if you really look at it? Nothing remotely romantic or sexual was going on. Eddie saw this woman who was a clone of his dead wife and latched onto her because of this, as if she could somehow solve all the answers he'd never gotten even tho he logically knew she couldn't. They spent a lot of time together and maybe some of the things they did seemed romantic but he was always detached with her.
Its never said in the show but this man was raised (using the term loosely) by a Mexican father in an extremely catholic household and so I'm betting all my money on the fact that when his girlfriend got pregnant at 19 it wasn't HIS choice to get married. Even if he was the one to suggest it, it would have been because it was 'the right thing to do'. He was a baby. Having a baby.
He joined the army and came back with ptsd up the whazoo to parents who were raising his child like he was their own, giving him the love they'd never given Eddie, and a wife who resented him. His wife left him with a child he didn't know how to care for and parents who wanted to take Christopher away from him because he worked 3 jobs to get on his feet.
This man moved to LA and yeah he found the 118 and a family but his life revolved around work and Christopher and 'finding him a mother' which he canonically said. It never even seemed as though he wanted to be dating when he was with those women, more perfunctory than anything, even tho he didn't realize it.
And then he meets this woman who looks just like his dead wife who left him and came back and divorced him and died and she storms his fucking castle in cosplay and forces him to open up when he's clearly uncomfortable with it and his child walks in.
And yeah, it's fucking terrible. Like the worst. Oh my god poor Christopher seeing that. Poor Marisol thinking he's been cheating on her this whole time. But also. Poor fucking Eddie. Poor fucking Eddie because he didn't ask that fucking woman to show up at his goddamn house. He didn't ask her to dress like his dead fuxking wife and try and fix all his trauma. Yeah what he did wasn't right, but he cut shit off and that should have been that. He didn't ask to be fixed and he certainly didn't ask for whatever the hell rhat was.
And then his child calls his grandparents to come get him which is fair cause he's a child right? Kids do things like that. But they come and take him without even a call to Eddie. Their son. Who they are supposed to love and cherish. They don't ask what happened. They don't ask if he's okay. They just place blame and steal his child and Eddie let's them because Eddie has trauma and he 'knows' he's never been good enough for his kid and this is just the nail in the coffin so he should let him go right? And they fuxking take him.
But now? Like moving to Texas? Go get your fucking child and bring him home. He's a child. He does not make the fucking decisions. It should not even have lasted that long that he was in el Paso in the first place. Why is no one telling him that he's the fucking parent in this situation. Why is no one telling him rhat he's good enough. That he's an amazing father. That his parents are manipulating his trauma. That yeah maybe he fucked up but he didn't do anything actually WRONG.
And im reading all this fics where he is groveling and saying or being accused of cheating and im like wtf. Disgusting. I hate it. Let him be fucking A+ parent dad Eddie again cause I'm tired of this shit. Go to his parents house. Tell them to fuxk all the way off. Tell your kid to pack his shit he can be mad in LA in therapy.
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Two Peas in a Pod
Husband!Leon × Pregnant!Reader
Tags: Explicit language+Mentions of smut ♡ Implied age gap ♡ Fluffish comedy ♡ No proofreading ♡ No use of Y/N ♡ By non-native English speaker
~ ♡ ~
You feel like crawling out of your skin.
AC feels like too much yet at the same time the living room is still stuffy as fuck. You’re so hungry, you’d kill for spicy Doritos but as soon as you think about those you feel wave of nausea knurling up your throat. Leon’s worn-out shirt sits amazing on your skin, all cotton and his cologne until his perfume suddenly makes you want to throw up.
Surviving through third trimester. Pregnancy is a blessing. That’s what they say, at least.
That’s all jokes, of course. You still can’t believe you actually have Leon’s kid developing inside of you. Someone you two made out of love, a whole ass human. That you’ll have to pop out of your vagina. Crazy.
You try not to think about childbirth, as if it will cancel the fact you’ll have to go through it. That’s gonna be later, though. Now you’re curled up against Leon, your bump against his side, his fingertips stroking the curve of your waist and you are the happiest you have ever been.
Your eyes flicker back to TV and the show playing actually catches your interest. Speaking honestly, you rarely enjoyed something Leon picked out. It always some action type of movie and the whole watching session is followed by him laughing at the unrealistic way movie director pictures the battlefield. But his laugh is always worth it, so if he wants to rewatch ‘Mission: Impossible’ for third time a month, you won’t object. After all, he does watch Desperate Housewives with you. Even though anytime he joins you on the couch, TV screen ends up forgotten and you find yourself bouncing on his cock so desperately, those housewives can only imagine.
But tonight’s different story. Your due date is in two weeks, and Leon is scared of breathing too loud next to you, let alone trying funny business. You don’t find yourself sexually willing as well, having belly the size of watermelon. You can’t even guess how come Leon’s hands still all over you even though your body is a canva of stretchmarks and swolleness. But by the way his hands grope your full tits every night, just touching lightly and tenderly afraid to hurt you as he whispers to your ear how bad he wishes he could make love to you, you start to think he’s into this whole pregnancy body thing. At least because it was a rare time he used the phrase ‘making love’ before—he preferred to say ‘fucking’.
Indeed, pregnancy did change your body—as much as it did change Leon’s soul. Like yeah, of course you’ve always been his soft spot. But now you’re his softest spot.
Maybe that’s because it’s a first child for both you and him. He’s thirty-eight, yet he never even held a newborn. You’re a bit younger and it’s your first pregnancy, so of course you barely even realize the fuck is going on. Being first-time parents together is quite an experience. There’s none else in the world you’d like to share the experience with.
With your eyes still glued to the screen, you reach out to grab a cup of ginger tea Leon carefully infused for you this morning. Your forearm brushes against your big belly—any movement feels like making a clown out of yourself with being this far along. Leon’s eyes notice the way you fuss and he gently squeezes your waist.
”Lemme do it. You’re gonna pop if you do as much as raise your arm,” He chuckles in amusement, reaching over to get you your tea. You take it from him, muttering out a soft ‘thanks’.
Leon’s palm slides towards your belly, rubbing it lovingly. You know what’s coming next, so you open your mouth first.
“No, she’s not kicking now, it’s been just five minutes. And I’m feeling alright. Well… as alright as it is possible to feel when you’re about to burst in some weeks.” You declare, your hand covering his on top of your protruding abdomen. “But she’s gonna be there soon. I honestly can’t wait. So much things I wanna do…”
You start to rant about how bad you want to sleep on your tummy once again and how many iced coffees you’d devour. Leon laughs softly, gazing at you affectionately, “Sure, baby. Anything you’ll want you’ll get. You deserved it. Now all there’s left is to just poop out our daughter and call it a day.”
You scoff immediately, “No labour mentioning.”
”Right, right.” Leon raises his arms in surrender. “No thinkin’ about it. At all.”
You hum, satisfied and you two focus back on TV. Leon’s hand back on your baby bump, his lips pressing occasional smooches against your temple. You relax completely, feeling utterly content.
Doesn’t last long, though.
Another fifteen minutes—and you abruptly feel cramps. Literal cramps. First day of period kind of cramps.
…Can you start your period while pregnant? You think to google it, but before you can even try and remember where the hell your phone is, it just… goes away.
Luckily, Leon remains blissfully unaware, still glued to the TV. Your hand rests on your stomach as force of habit after nine months of pregnancy—and you gasp. Your belly feels stiff. You have zero idea what does that mean. Labor? Miscarriage? Where’s even your baby?
Your hands shake wildly in fear. That’s when Leon finally notices, his brows furrowing immediately as he caresses your shoulder and takes your cup of tea from your trembling hands.
“Baby? What’s wrong? Are you hurt anywhere?” He coos, trying to read your eyes.
While they already go misty.
“I don’t know,” You whine. “Baby feels… weird.”
Leon’s frown deepends, “What do you mean ‘weird’?” He then palms your belly and his own eyes widen. “It’s… firm, huh? Maybe that’s her… back? Like, spine? Wait… Her head’s supposed to be downwards, not upwards, right? Can you feel her head, baby? Does she… God, how do we know if does she even have a head?”
You whimper, “She does! Didn’t you see it on scans? Why’d you even bring up her head? Whatever, I have no idea what’s going on!”
Leon winces at your outburst, stroking your back reassuringly.
”Sorry. Don’t… don’t be nervous, please. No good for the baby.”
”I’m not nervous!” You raise your voice, but before you can express your fury again, you feel another cramp. It goes away as quickly as the one before, but you’re on edge nonetheless.
You slump against the couch… And feel wet, fresh patch of liquid underneath.
“Oh my God!” You practically shout. “Leon! Water! Water broke!”
Leon barely holds back from squeaking himself, his eyes landing on damp spot as well. Then he finally croaks out, “You sure you didn’t… I dunno, piss yourself?”
You do not stand on ceremony and smack his chest, “Are you stupid?! Go get the bag and call Dr. Ambers!”
Leon blinks a few times before he jumps onto his feet and rushes upstairs to collect your duffet bag, the one you methodically packed when you was barely even showing.
While he’s out and about, you whine to yourself. Labour? Tonight? Maybe there’s way to stop it? Need to ask your ob-gyn when Leon phones her.
Leon is quick and mostly calm, perks of being an agent, but the shock in his eyes is still visible. He quickly throws your bag into the car, then coming back to help you to stand up. You both don’t even change. Nor lock the fucking door to your new fucking house.
Leon supports you as he guides you to car, meanwhile you feel weird. Are contractions really that… um, dull? You settle in the backseat, massaging your belly absentmindedly. Leon already turns the ignition on, looking at you through the mirror.
“Hold on, honey. Just a bit. Will you… will you be able to keep her inside for a li’l more?” He rasps, maneuvering car from your front-yard.
You nod in confusion, not feeling any kind of pain at all anymore. Should you… should you tell him about that? But as you feel your still stiff belly, fear comes back again.
Leon in the driver’s seat, meanwhile, was going crazy. He had read the articles, all those parental books, he honestly was preparing intently… But now all his thoughts were filled with panic. Primal, pure panic.
You make your way to the hospital so fast you completely forgot to warn your midwife on the phone that you’re arriving. You discard the thought, Leon already at your side of the door, helping you outside and wanting to carry you, but you walk on your own, surprisingly steady.
Leon blinks stupidly once again, but doesn’t mention. He has never seen a birthing woman before, after all.
Minute later you two are by the reception table.
”My wife’s in labour,” Leon explains in a rush, buzzing with anxiety. “Our obstetrician’s Rosalie Ambers."
Receptionist lady throws a confused glance at you, but clarifies nonetheless, “Surname?”
”Kennedy,” Leon replies before you even register the question. “We’re expecting a girl, due date is 22nd, our medchart is—”
”It’s okay,” The receptionist cuts him off gently, “Second floor, room 218. You can use the elevator. Check in with your ob-gyn first, please.” She squeezes out a knowing (huh?..) smile as she gestures towards elevators.
You two rush in the direction, your hospital bag hoisted over Leon’s broad shoulder and his arms never leaving your body, holding you close and patting your tummy.
Elevator comes to its stop at the destined floor. You and Leon patter to your doctor’s office, him forgetting to knock as he pushes the door open and ushers you inside.
“Doc, we’re in labour,” He speaks in panicked voice, dropping your bag by the entrance and helping you to seat on the settee. “How long will it take? I got work tomorrow and I’m unable to call in, y’know, uh, really important job… Is it possible to speed it up? I mean only if it’s going to be easier for her, of course… Can we get her painkillers? And can I be in operating with her? I brought a bathing robe, thought that will do, also her… Baby, we forgot your ID! Do we need an ID to have a child? I can drive back home, but if—”
”Mr. Kennedy,” Your ob-gyn stops him with all her professionalism, yet there’s a hint of laughter in her voice. “I have to talk to your wife, first things first. Mrs. Kennedy, aren’t we due in three weeks?” She turns to you, arching her eyebrow.
You gulp, “Yeah, but… I had contractions… really weird contractions, and my baby… She went rigid!”
To your surprise, your midwife barely even changes her expression.
”How often you felt your contractions?” She palpates your stomach.
”I… I don’t know, I had to count?” You mewl. “Like… inconsistent… Not painful but… I don’t know, like cramps? I thought I got my period, but I can’t get it, right?”
”…Yeah, you’ll have to count.” Doctor finally chuckles lightly, stepping away from you. “In three weeks, when you’ll be in labour.”
”…Huh?” You bat your eyes in oblivion.
She smiles gently once again, “You’re not in labour tonight, Mrs. Kennedy. And it’s not your menstruation either. That’s false labor. We call it Braxton Hicks. In layman terms, your uterus is preparing for the real action. Your baby is okay, but we can run an uzi if you’re worried nonetheless.”
You turn to look at Leon, his face expression matching yours.
”But… my water broke…” You mutter, looking in between your things for confirmation. You eye the pant leg of your bloomers…
You look up at Leon, your cheeks flushing and you wish you could just get sucked into the ground. His eyes meet yours as he notices the blot too.
…Where tea stain starts to dry already.
And Leon lets out a loud lough.
Your lips twitch, feeling both amusement and embarrassment. But it doesn’t last long, especially after you notice your gynecologist smiling as well—and a genuine chuckle escapes your lips.
So fucking awkward.
But when it’s with Leon, it’s always no big deal.
And there’s no other human being in the whole entire world you’d rather to be loony scaremonger together with.
Because if you’re being a half-wit soon-to-be mother, he’s being a half-wit soon-to-be father.
~ ♡ ~
#leon kennedy x reader#leon kennedy x fem reader#leon kennedy x you#leon kennedy fanfic#resident evil x you#resident evil x reader
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She laughed, a very real laugh, which was something she did not do often. Kit laughed plenty when she faked it, but that was a very different sound - hollow, almost dry and callous. Not with Gann however. He got the real her, the one that was unguarded, who could have fun and just be herself. Because while the sex was amazing, he actually made her laugh too.
Once all the boxes were opened and their plates were filled, she set about eating. "So, dinner conversation....how about we swap funny stories of dealing with our respective 'client' base?".
"If you need help... of course I won't let you go through it all alone if you don't want me to sit back." Gann grinned at Kit and sat down on Kit's opposite side with a lot of the boxes in between them. Some were small, others larger, and they all smelled delicious. He opened the box nearest to him which contained some sort of fortune cookies it seemed. "Seems like more dessert this..." He murmured before looking up and seeing Kit holding out a dumpling to him.
He leaned in and since it was a small bite, he gently took the offered dumpling with his lips and winked at Kit. "Yummy." He admitted after a minute.
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What are your favorite individual things about all the BH members?
Thanks anon, for making me yap about the Hells because I miss them dearly and they mean everything to me. I just went with like - character traits. I don't know if this is what you meant but here I go anyways...
For Imogen I would have to say it's that good mix of her ambition, determination and perseverance. Sometimes that can result in stubbornness but it's just something I find very endearing. And while she is fierce when it comes to what she wants, she never loses her gentle nature. Like, one of my favourite things about her entire arc is the sheer determination she displayed when it came to saving her mom, man...it was amazing to see. And it payed off! A strong and complicated mother-daughter relationship like that is so important to me. Also - you know, with perseverence I also mean being dehumanized and having to listen to vessel-arguments all the time and yet still remaining kind and on track and being willing to do whatever it takes, even though she was questioning the gods.
For Laudna I think it's her persistent happiness and kind heart. I am currently reading What Doesn't Break and honestly, if Laudna actually hated the world and felt the need to watch it burn down I wouldn't blame her. But she doesn't. She sees the good in so many things, be it a situation or just a single person and it's very inspiring. She sees the whimsy and fun in the smallest moments and that's hard to do even for people who haven't even gone through 0.1% of what she lived through.
For Fearne, obviously her absolute unfiltered wildness. This girl gives no fucks, she is unbothered and flawless and thriving and i love it for her. But also - it's gentleness. She seems aloof, sometimes detached (obviously because of her fey nature), but everything about her screams safety to me. It's really like Imogen says, she is like a flame that attracks moths. Like a beacon of hope.
For Dorian it's a very endearing mix of tenderness and selflessness. That man is made 100% out of pure affection and love and everything he ever does is for the people around him. He cares so, so much about others and the world and the way he keeps encouraging people and pointing out their own strengths to them is just so sweet and important to me (The entire war-camp moments, "I always did." "It's just us." "I love my mom too." etc, you name it). Though sometimes it makes me want to whack some self-confidence and self-appreciation into him too.
Orym obviously has this simple calm kindness about him. He tries his very best to keep the world good and generous and it was honestly so heartbreaking to see it all crumble beneath his feet as the stress spiralled out of control. He tried to hold onto one single safe outcome so stubbornly because he was scared to destroy the goodness in the world and honestly it's rare to find such simple, serious motivations in media these days. (I have much to say about Orym's internal biases about justice and what's good and bad btw, but that is a whole other story.)
Chetney is probably one of the most loyal little assholes you could ever find. One of my favourite Chetney moments i still when he snapped and spoke up about the injustice that comes with shipping them all to the front lines of the fight no questions asked. That little gnome was pissed, because how dare people talk down to his crew that went through hell and back and continues to walk through fire and get zero credit for it. Come correct or get the fuck corrected!
For FCG obviously it's selflessness. A lot of the time throughout the campaign they were very direct and sometimes even blunt in their therapy approach but at the end of the day, they really just always wanted to understand their friends and themselves and offer a realitsic and unique solution to their problems. Their inner thoughts during the Otohan fight about how the crew made them feel whole and alive brings it all to its peak.
Ashton always has this deep and intense understanding of the small, broken people and their pain. They are reckless and rude and brash but god are they careful. When they handle something fragile, they handle it with care. They always ask questions, offer help or even just give it without even asking. They always protect everyone. From early on when they ran back to save Dorian and FCG from falling depris, to gently talking to someone whose mind has been tempered with and adjusting to their needs, assuring Laudna "she isn't going to take you" during the Delilah encounter, to dragging Imogen out of Predathos while breaking apart at the edges. They understand and they care.
Braius is obviously a bit harder, so uhm I have to say forgiveness maybe. When he found out about Jester he heard her out and found the strength to forgive her too. Actually that might be one of the most surprising things about him. Good on you, cow! Go draw those dicks now!
Thanks for asking, this is just another excuse to be annoying.
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Gallifrey: in search of lost Time liveblog
Just utterly heartbreaking. I'll miss Ace
it's so sad
Because I just heard all that history and excitement and she doesn't remember anything 😭
that's very emotionally smart of Ace
I wonder if that woman is someone special or just a random person
It's not like I'm a secret agent 😭
Stop deadnaming her
Thanks to this story for actually acknowledging her feelings on that
Did Brax's memory change to something else
Oh art makes me think of Brax again
Oh yes Ace you could do amazing things
This is kind of weird
Very weird
Ace is a very relatable person
The only reasonable explanation would be that some sort of class meeting is going on
But this is doctor who so it's going to be weird instead
Oh so this neighbor is also odd
Oh wow
Not quite what I expected but I suppose it does have to have something to do with gallifrey so maybe that's on me
😭 yeah this is terrible
She's remembering them <3
Oh God this is so heartbreaking
I think memory stuff is so evil
Oh no
They took it all again 😭
This is fucking heartbreaking
#gallifrey#doctor who#jae says stuff#gallifrey audios#gallifrey liveblog#audio: in search of lost Time
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Ok so I feel like a slightly more positive post needs to follow this as I ran out of space in the tags but like
I was coming out of a …I guess I can’t say sheltered environment because naive I was not and I met so many people that were dangerous but…. Isolated? I think isolated is the word. Socially disconnected. And then suddenly having, if I were to estimate, 50ish homeless people over those two years that I talked to, learned from, knew everything about. They told me the daily news. They told me their drama. Eventually I knew about what mental illnesses they struggled with, what prescriptions they were on, what illegal medications they were using to cope with lack of medical care. I helped first responders with medical history when no one else knew. I gained such a perspective on the world talking to people who had it worse than me but were still keeping on keeping on. And I loved all of them.
#one of them that absolutely haunts me ten years later#is this woman with graphomania#who was ‘writing’ a book series#what she actually put on paper was utter nonsense#just repeated words or the same letter over and over for pages#but she actually did have a story!!! and it was amazing!!!!#I asked her to tell it to me verbally and every day for months#she told me this RIVETING story of the cat at 10 Downing Street and his mystery solving#AMAZING!!! she was so talented and sometimes made me CRY#I always hope someday to see her books published and her face on a dust jacket#after she got medicated from whatever was plaguing her#I literally check monthly to see if she’s published anything#it’s been over a decade since I met her but I still think about her all the time
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actually so sick how they made steph into a martyr for everything wrong with gotham when she lived her whole life trying to prove that she was everything right
#im forever thinking about how her autopsy was leaked on live tv. and how babs used her photos to dissuade misfit from picking up a costume#stephanie brown#robin#batgirl#im so conflicted over how her death and rebirth were handled actually. like on one hand i find it so amazing and cool how she came back and#jumped right back into crime fighting no doubts or fear. on the other hearing that my ravaged and tortured body was paraded around as a#symbol for what was wrong with the world and what not to do about it would make me snap. like the babs-misfit thing makes me unreasonably#angry HAHAH they had no right!!!! no right to use her like that when they wouldnt even accept her in life!!!!!!#people are gonna be like 'oh she didnt actually die and it wasnt /her/ body' that's not the point!!!! it's the idea of it!!!!!#even in death! she's just used to say 'it (she) wasn't enough'!!#it drives me insane. insane!!! war crimes is objectively a HORRIBLE story but the concept of this in particular will never leave my brain#i would kill for her to have responded to babs saying that she showed misfit her autopsy photos with 'oh? did you tell her about the teen#pregnancy too?'#freya talks comics
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i am crying at the first episode of a sign of affection… i am thankful for the positive and hopeful representation omg ;; the protag is deaf and wears hearing aids and i love that some scenes actually drop the sound so you can understand what she's experiencing ;;~~~;;
#my text#i tried to read a silent voice once but i did not finish it bc the portrayal of bullying felt too real and too cruel :'(#im so happy for a story that isn't about the character being bullied (although that kind of story also has an important place)#although after watching more episodes; the main guy is initiating physical contact waaaay too fast imo#but im giving it the benefit of the doubt bc its fantasy and i trust them to have it work out oTL#edit: finished it. completely won me over. amazing#what an incredibly sweet show that was ultimately about communication. fantastic and uplifting portrayal of hearing disability#i only wish there were slightly more dropping of the sound to show what she's actually experiencing bc i really liked those parts#but i also understand why they wouldn't want to focus on that or would want to use sound for effect and it's a valid choice
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Yuri's dialogue (JP) is so fascinating to study, like... the repetitive use of certain words/phrases that others use sparingly but he uses constantly. the way it feels like his vocabulary is more expansive than what he uses, but he defaults to a "comfort" level of speech. the way it mixes in with his sort of "street talk" words and the sheer level of informality. the way his "street talk" phrasing is contrasted by the tone of his voice (on that note, people I know who also know JP are also very endeared by these aspects of him so I KNOW IT'S NOT JUST ME!!!).
'cause the thing is, he uses phrases that yeah, other people do use, but he uses a handful over and over and over (contrast to other characters' sparing use of repetition). it's actually... really refreshing? it sounds more relatable and less "video game/anime/JRPG/RPG" writing or something, idk. like closer to how a real person would speak.
I do my best in my translations not to make things sound too stiff across the board, but Yuri makes it so easy. it's why I'm so interested in translating all his lines in Vesperia, like... the actual, original tone for him with his original wording because it's smth Eng only players don't get to experience ('cause even if you listen with JP audio, if you don't know the language, ofc you're gonna miss out on context. it's nobody's fault for not knowing, just... they unfortunately miss out). the thing is, there are a lot of times when the lines in and of themselves are not contextually incorrect in the English ver (usually the situation for smaller scenes, because they altered the text outright for more important stuff which was the stuff that originally set me off, but there were also plenty of cases of just vocal tone shifting with the correct context that still gave off the wrong impression), but Yuri's tone is shifted away from the original in Eng even though it's completely and perfectly translatable.
I am by no means about to translate the entire game because let's face it, I really don't care that much for Vesperia on the whole. I'm kinda stuck with it because Yuri's there lo and behold I actually am WAY more engaged in his stories in Rays, Link and Asteria because it's an amazing character put into circumstances where he actually gets to shine and feels more alive, which Vesperia did not provide nearly as well with its very disjointed story. also, Tales gachas have banger stories that are arguably better than the mainline games, and they regularly make Yuri a very central character to the gachas. Crestoria was also about to do it until they pulled the plug on that game and I'm pretty confident something interesting has been lost to the world. also I just generally don't have the energy or motivation to do that, so... I'll only be focusing on Yuri's lines, especially because his stuff is where the bulk of the messing around was. he's just insanely fun to translate for and I love burying myself head first into his speech.
will I actually finish this project? dunno. will I get around to posting it? whatever I get done (so all of it if I complete it), and if I decide to call it quits then I'll post what I have at the time I decide that. will it take a long time? probably, but I can always mention stuff along the way...
#GTF Vesperia Things#GTF Yuri Things#also the more I comb the script the more I properly notice all the uh... very awkward loc changes in smaller sentences in smaller scenes#like things that change the understanding of a sentence. or in Yuri's case just... the usual annoying personality shifting#noticing lots more stuff than when I did those big posts bc I was less focused on the tiny stuff/not side by side comparing#like a lot of this stuff is plot irrelevant and I knew it was littered around but I'm just getting#a bit more of a proper feel for it and how often it's there while studying Yuri's speech under a microscope bc I like observing him fkjhsjg#the fact that they're extremely largely consistent in tampering with Yuri's verbal (not just vocal) tone still has me LIKE.#but I'm fighting to ignore it so I can study my precious boy for reasons unknown beyond hyperfixation#also with Link I was actually mad at first bc they totally dropped the ball on Yuri's repetitive speech in arc 1. like it just wasn't there#there were plenty of times I noticed that normally he'd be SAYING those phrases but it just didn't happen where it should've#(like ''he'd def have said that here but it's not here'') Rays' main writer was not Vesperia's and she STILL got him down PERFECTLY#frankly I'd argue Rays' writing of Yuri is more correctly Yuri than Vesperia Yuri is which is oddly hilarious LOL#but mainly more that arc 2 Yuri is fucking WONKY sometimes but god knows most of my friends who know JP don't like that writer for#various reasons. somehow he pulled out that banger of a novel but arc 2 forget it. but yeah Rays just... really encapsulated YURI himself#the dialogue for him is spot on. not that Link and Asteria flunked with him bc they didn't#it's just that I think Rays and Miyajima gave the best quality of him bc the circumstances let him be more expressive#that said back to Link arc 2 did actually fix the speech issue so I don't know if they had different writers between arcs or just#realized they forgot to include those points of his character in arc 1 bc I know it wasn't the Link loc's fault#bc Yuri had full JP audio and I could hear that they just didn't have those things#but LORD the ACTUAL RELIEF that flooded me when arc 2 brought that shit back LMAOOOO#but yeah as far as Yuri goes he's absolutely fascinating and unique and he shines so bright in the gachas#it makes me really really sad that his home game is one I don't have much interest in#and that it's one that a lot of ppl feel the writing was wonky for (bc it was)#but I'm eternally grateful the gachas gave him opportunities to really shine as a character in great settings#bc it's not that he doesn't shine in Vesp itself. it's that the circumstances don't rly... allow him to be like PROPERLY unrestrained ig?#idk it's hard to explain. just. he was more. WHOOSH. I guess. in the gachas. yeah. like that. or smth. :')#sorta like. amazing character but not the best circumstances for him to show his true potential which I think he does in the gachas#bc the gachas have such great stories and scenarios and he's put into them#ANYWAY TL;DR YURI'S SPEECH IS FASCINATING AND I LOVE HIM
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There's no feeling stranger than knowing that something is bad but liking it anyways. Not in a 'it's so bad it's good' way. Because that implies that it has become good. I'm talking like this thing is just kinda bad in the normal ways things are bad, but i like it anyways.
#honestly I'm talking about Batgirls rn#because like...it has its moments but I wouldn't call it good. it even has some of my own personal pet peeves#specifically the overabundance of narration boxes that aren't from a character and rather the author is speaking to us.#if I wanted an overabundance Authors Notes I would read fucking early 2000s fanfics#and Babsgirl existing but I've made peace with the fact that we'll only get an Oracle story in a Black Label or similar thing at this point#I love the art and it has among my favorite designs for both Spoiler and Black Bat#don't get me STARTED on the covers holy fuck. the 90s rewind in particular lives in my head rent free because ajlkdfjdsalk;fjdlsa;kf#it also has both moments of REALLY FUCKING BAD characterization and REALLY FUCKING GOOD characterization#Cass being like 'ok but do we HAVE to save Seer?' horrible! demonstrates an egregious misunderstanding of her. what the hell?#Steph being abnormally good at solving the Riddler's puzzles and knowing basically every cipher because of Arthur? then getting incredibly#upset at even the MENTION of him to the point that she gets fucking stabbed by the RIDDLER of all people?#wow thanks for actually addressing a very interesting part of Steph's character that is often left by the wayside. good job.#issue 14 is amazing and it makes me want to implode every time I read it. like I actually recommend it without any caveats attached#it is straight up good. it's the high-point of Batgirls and it's not even close imo.#and wow! there is almost no dialogue and NO NARRATION BOXES??#it's almost like the whole appeal of comics is telling incredible stories through art or something. and that when you have good art#and good art direction you should just fucking let it speak for itself or something#and that maybe using what words you DO have to let your CHARACTERS speak in a way they normally wouldn't is a good idea#even if the in universe reason is that Steph is basically leaving this note as a 'I am either dead or close to it' type of thing#like holy fuck how did they do that?? AND SO LATE IN THE GAME THAT NOBODY FUCKING TALKS ABOUT IT??#and obviously there is a conversation to be had about 'was Batgirls queerbaiting' but honestly since it was cancelled IDK#I could see a universe where given time it could have made a natural shift to a love story between Steph and Cass#I'm not upset about it but I get why other people might be. there are some panels that like...come on.#and as always I am most fascinated by missed potential. because Batgirls showed that it COULD be good with Issue 14#and arguably other of the better issues. the art was incredible and as the issues went on it felt like the kinks were getting ironed out#plus getting a series focused on 3 of my favorite characters was a dream come true for me. ESPECIALLY because we rarely get good#stuff for Cass and Steph.
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lol the absolutely MORTIFYINGGGG ordeal of the situation i just got myself into. god
#purrs#delete later#bc it feels stupid / immature to immediately turn around and explain the situation in detail on tumblr after sending the email i just sent b#but basically. sigh. i went to the thing this morning and the student i went to support did AMAZING but / and her whole story was abt like.#finding her independent self and claiming it despite her family suppressing her which is.. extremely similar to my story. and i made a#social media post abt it on our work account and put one of her quotes abt experiencing freedom in the description and she just emailed me a#askkng me to remove the quote from the post bc she’s scared her parents will see it and get upset / angry. and i removed it immediately snd#it’s fine now but i feel HORRIBLE. i should’ve checked with her first. and i knew better like it actually did occur to me that that would be#a potential issue but i did it anyway and like… it especially is shitty of me bc i literally have the exact same situation going on at home#i know what it’s like to be one person everywhere but your house and to always fear what your parents are seeing you say about them and it’s#like if i know that experience so intimately and know the consequences that come from them… why did i do that. ugh#again it’s fine it sounds like no harm was done she just was worried there would be but i feel so so bad. she doesn’t know how similar our#stories are but i think she will and ughhhh that makes it even worse. :~//////
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why did they make chloe sound so boring in all the newer season, erm boo
#ignorelist#literally her personality trait is just being evil and i literally couldn't gave a shit for her character now lmao#but whatev I can make my own delusion show great#in my mind#anyway guys check out my amazing miracle rewrite lmao#/j do not look at it its a mess and its probably worse then the og show#in my rewrite i made her like the og plan for her in s1 and s2#yes she will still be a huge ass jerk but there will be reason why she did the thing she did but still she will faces consequences#her parents are more awful at this#her mom is like very neglectful like in the show although whether she actually deeply love chloe will be treated as ambiguous though#her dad in here is almost like canon but still kinda very different#her dad like her mom is neglectful and chose to just buy chloe needs because she is a 'busy' man and need to do his job and it seems like b#-uying her stuff was like a shortcut#her arc would go to typical bully redemption path but i will add few twist and there#but at the same time i dont want it to be cliche I want chloe to maybe realize she is being an awful dude and become a better person from a#way that dont fall to the same type of story where it would be the victim that they bullied that helped them#forgot to say yes chloe dad still the mayor#i think that would be such interesting concept and her mom probably wouldn't have the same job#i was thinking she would be a film director but at the same time she being an iconic fashion designer still can do#if she is a film director then adrien and chloe can clashes paths#i want them to still be a childhood friends and maybe has a sibling like relationship#tbh in canon show i think they would've been more interesting if its sibling like relationship#imagine the protective sister Chloe and Adrien#she isnt actually love rivalling with mari moreso just don't like the idea of her and her brother together#that would've been funny lol
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hate to be a hater on the main … but this season of ted lasso excels (once again) at team dynamic and the found family elements and i think the finale absolutely nailed that, i cried, i laughed, it was perfect on that. now as for the individual stories and relationships… yeah, let’s leave it at that
#(rant below ignore me)#i think making longer episodes allowed them to add stories that felt so pointless to me#what was the point of zava? to make jamie understand something about himself? could have done that better with just the roy plot#i would have understood roy and keeley breaking up of it was like ‘let’s both grow as individuals’#and roy kinda did but apparently not enough because his plot at the end is how he do better so i guess he didn’t#jamie had the best development only to then lose part of it by throwing the random video comment?? like why??#keeley my love … from the random friend that added nothing to the story to an undervelopped love interest plot line … they did u so dirty#why the hell was ted so emotionally off this last episode instead of actually talking the time to proper end things with london and everyone#rebecca was SOBBING and ted was like ‘well gotta go’ ??#it’s not about the ship or anything but what ?? and rebecca … love that she stayed with the club#but to have her end up with some random creepy man she met once and whose name WE DONT EVEN KNOW#i have no issues with ted going home to his son. it makes perfect sense. but it felt so weird#the nate plot was wrapped kinda poorly too??#sam colin and most of the guys from the team were amazing#and the found family and team dynamic was still amazing as always#the beard and jane relationship was always weird to me because it feels like joke after joke of.. abuse?#do they get married or was it a dream?? and if so was the whole sequence a dream? and if it wasn’t WHO DID THE CGI FOR THE WEDDING 💀#we spent more time with these characters this season and it doesn’t feel that way and idk this season felt weird at so many points#I LOVE THIS SHOW I DO!! first 2 seasons are one of my all time favourite seasons of a sitcom!! and i still enjoyed a lot about s3 <33#anyway sorry to be a hater on the main but it was just a weird season to end it on#anti ted lasso#<- i really don’t wanna upset anyone i just felt like ranting a little 💀 pls don’t hate me#ted lasso spoilers
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+ yn killing jay just because he killed sunghoon??? THE SAME MAN WHO WROTE ABOUT HER DEATH SO MANY TIMES???? Insane twisted and just so SMART??!?? still holding the same affection for him even after all the things he revealed the twisted love she had for sunghoon onfgwhydg IM SCREAMING it felt like her emotions were my emotions it was so scarily good??!?!!
against the world
PAIRING ▸ park sunghoon x fem!reader x sim jaeyun (ft. park jongseong)
GENRES ▸ fluff, angst, psychological, horror, thriller
WARNINGS ▸ profanity, murder, descriptions of gore, unrequited love, found family, friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, mc is an unreliable narrator
SUMMARY ▸ if you could change anything about your life, it would be meeting park sunghoon.
WORD COUNT ▸ 14,064 words
PLAYLIST ▸ back to black by amy winehouse • the french library by franz gordon • perfectly splendid by the newton brothers
AUTHOR’S NOTE ▸ hello !! this fic is a rewrite of one of my first horror fics that i’ve written :') it badly needed reworking and i completely changed the ending. i hope you guys enjoy my spooky szn contribution ♡
THE TRUTH WAS, YOUR LIFE BEGAN TO FALL APART EVEN BEFORE YOU MET SIM JAEYUN.
You realized this as you woke up, face pressed against the ice-cold, concrete floor of a holding cell; when the guards dragged your uncooperative, limp body into an interrogation room; when you were face-to-face with Detective Lee Heeseung and handcuffed to a cold, metal table as he read your Miranda Rights. The handcuffs dug into the flesh of your wrists, but you only fought against them once and gave up as soon as you realized they wouldn’t give in. You just wanted to thumb away the crusted blood staining your hands and pick out the flakes under your nails.
The room was foreign to you. It was something you’d seen in movies and read in books, but you never fathomed the idea of being in an interrogation room yourself. There was a two-way glass that you aimlessly stared at, wondering who was listening in on the other end.
You couldn’t figure out just how you ended up in this situation. Everything was smooth in your memory up until your supposed arrest—a tear in the fabric of your recollection. You hardly remembered what happened on the way to the police station or when you were getting booked in. You dug your palms into your temples and then pressed against the soft flesh under your eyes, frustrated by the stunted gears in your head. As much as you begged than to click and start spinning, they remained stuck and rusted in place.
But you couldn’t ask the brooding man standing over you. You couldn’t look up into his cold, unforgiving eyes. After all, he knew you were a murderer.
“There’s no use in lying to me, Y/N,” Detective Lee said gruffly with a gaze like steel, “the prints match.”
You drummed your fingers against the table—a habit that was rooted in your anxiety. Your fingers were stained and pruned like roses, and as hard as you tried to paint the table red, it only flaked off. You were sure your heartbeat was faster than the tapping of your fingers, your mind perhaps speeding off twice as fast.
Your stomach twisted. If Jaeyun was going to prison, too, then you could no longer protect him.
There was a limit to how much he could take; you knew that being thrown in the slammer would be intolerable for him. You knew you needed to get to him immediately because Jaeyun was the guy who felt too little and too much at the same time—the guy who looked for the part of him that ran away, who self-destructed when he felt the world closing in on him.
After all, Jaeyun was a stick of trinitrotoluene lit at both ends.
You worked up the courage to look Detective Lee in the eye, which made him stiffen up, biceps flexing under his white button-up.
“Where’s Jaeyun?” you asked.
Detective Lee’s lips pressed into a thin, grim line. Cutting into his pale cheeks. You decided that couldn’t be a good reaction.
You continued, “He didn’t do anything, I swear. He was just there. He didn’t do anything.”
“If you cooperate with us, then you can see Jaeyun again,” the detective answered in a clipped tone. “I can sit here all day and wait.”
Cooperate. You hated that word.
You knew Detective Lee was just trying to sugarcoat your betrayal. You knew he was looking down on you, ready to push you to your limit.
But there was nothing you could do in this room. There was no way for you to escape or talk your way out of it to see Jaeyun. You knew quite well that staying silent would only prevent you from making sure your boyfriend was okay.
You had no other choice but to work with Detective Lee.
“Will you at least make sure he’s not hurt?” you inquired, to which Detective Lee agreed with a nod.
“I’ll ask again: Will you cooperate?”
You stayed silent. You despised your old habit of shutting down like this, but you couldn’t help it.
Detective Lee sighed and sat in the chair across from you so that you both were eye-level with each other. “Listen, Y/N, you’re young. This murder investigation—this is serious stuff, okay? We just need to know the full story before we jump to any conclusions and make a false arrest. Can we start from last night?”
Deep down, you understood. But it’s all too fresh—too soon. The grief had yet to settle. The recollections of blood and lifeless eyes poisoned your head; it was all you could see when you closed your eyes.
You sounded hollow when you said, “It didn’t… start from last night.”
Detective Lee acknowledged this and leaned forward, hands clasped in front of him. “Then let’s hear it from the beginning.”
If you could change anything about your life, it would be meeting Park Sunghoon.
Your first meeting was at the age of fourteen. Moving schools was an unexpected shift in your life, and you didn't expect to find many friends at your new school. Starting new in the beginning of the year was one thing, but entering unknown territory with people already acclimated in their respective groups was another.
People flocked to comfort, and you were sure that no one would want to step out of their comfort zone to bring a stranger into their friend group.
And then Sunghoon swooped in, like an angel sent from the heavens.
Initially, he was awkward. You were both fourteen-years-old and going through the initial stages of puberty—all voice cracks and awkward intervals of growth stunts. Sunghoon was soft-spoken and didn’t have many friends when he approached and befriended you.
It started when you both found out you shared a love for novels. You spent hours talking about your favorite books, and Sunghoon shared his dream of wanting to craft the perfect story. Oftentimes, Sunghoon would share some of his writing with you, and then his eyes would sparkle upon hearing your feedback.
You two were classmates, sitting right next to each other in the back of the classroom, conveniently right next to the door. You got to know Sunghoon slowly—the same gradual feeling of starting to care for someone. You knew his boundaries, though, because you were aware that you could never be the closest to Sunghoon. He and Park Jongseong were attached at the hip, and you couldn’t lie to yourself; you felt like a third wheel in the beginning.
But there was some comfort in the security of your friendship.
“It’s you and me,” Sunghoon would tell you, “the two of us against the world.”
You knew you should have been grateful to have made friends in the first place, but you didn’t exactly know if you belonged with them. As comfortable as you felt, there was always a whisper in the back of your head, telling you that you would never be their number one.
You would never be anyone’s number one.
“I don’t understand girls,” Jongseong said one day, hands tucked behind his head as the three of you were hanging out in Sunghoon’s room. You were flipping through some comic book that Sunghoon had laying around, and you shifted uncomfortably upon hearing the question.
“You don’t have to.” Sunghoon’s eyes flitted from you, and then back to his phone. He swiped through some apps, but you could tell he wasn’t really paying attention judging by the glazed-over look in his eyes. “Girls make no sense at this age.”
Jongseong nudged you. “You have anything to say about that, Y/N?”
To be honest, you didn’t understand yourself much either. You were just starting to go through puberty, and it wasn’t ideal for a teenager as young as you to only have guy friends. You couldn’t relate to any of the girls your age, nor could you ask them if they were going through the same changes you were.
You were acquainted with several girls, of course, but you never got close enough to ask what feelings and experiences they had. You wanted to know if they were becoming as conscious of themselves and others like you were, but you kept those questions bottled up since you only had Sunghoon and Jongseong.
“Nope,” you replied. “I couldn’t tell you.”
You supposed Jongseong was having girl problems again, and it all clicked because lately, he had been hanging around a pretty girl in their class. They were cute together and clearly into each other, but you could pick up on the issue: Jongseong was on the down-low about their relationship. More importantly, he had been on the down-low about it around Sunghoon, which had to have been breaking some sort of best friend code.
Jongseong asked, “You like anyone, Hoon?”
Hoon, your brain echoed, and you imagined yourself using the name as casually as Jongseong did. It sounded awkward coming from you, though. Friends gave each other nicknames, right? What if you gave Sunghoon a nickname? How would he react?
Sunghoon flushed behind his phone screen. You could tell he wanted it to go undetected, but you caught a glimpse of his flustered expression before he was able to compose himself.
“Oh, not really,” he replied with an air of indifference. “I dunno. I guess I haven’t really been looking.”
“How about you, Y/N?”
You faltered for a moment before you realized you had been addressed. It was a normal question; you should have expected it, but it hit you like a tornado and your mind was swirling. Dating had crossed your mind a few times, sure, you had never prepared an answer because you thought it was going to be straightforward—a simple “yeah, there’s a few cute guys in class.” But that wasn’t the case this time, and you were wondering why there wasn’t any clarity in your head.
Come on, Y/N, you urged yourself, as if you were complaining to multiple, uncooperating attendants working in your brain. Just say something—anything.
Your mind was blanking, though, and you were scared. You couldn’t quite grasp why your stomach felt like a never-ending pit, but it only worsened when you couldn’t spit some guy’s name out. You wanted to open up your skull, thoroughly examine your head, poke at the areas refusing to work, and figure out who you couldn’t just list some attractive guy in class; on top of that, you wondered why you couldn’t just flat-out refuse the statement and claim that there was no one you were interested in.
You were struck with a painful realization that there was only one person you could think of.
Sunghoon.
No, no, no, your brain and your heart screamed at each other. Get ahold of yourself.
You quickly decided that it was just a passing feeling that you needed to suppress until it went away. It was just stupid teenage hormones and puberty making you feel this way and starving you of affection that you didn’t actually need in the first place. If you didn’t get a hold over yourself, you were going to crumble and ruin the good things you had going.
You internally convinced yourself that everything was fine. There were plenty of teenagers your age who had moments of weakness like this with their guy friends. You just needed to branch out more, that was all.
Sheepishly, you replied before the boys could chew you out, “There’s no one I’m interested in right now.”
You weren’t a very good liar, but as long as Sunghoon and Jongseong were sold, you were content with how things were.
Your group expanded when you turned fifteen, and you and Sunghoon grew closer—maybe even closer than Sunghoon and Jongseong were.
You were laying down in your bed one night, breaking into sobs when you realized that you needed more than one hand to count the number of friends you had now. Your shell was broken and your world was bigger. You normally lived like your uphills were mountains and your downhills were cliffs, but, lately, the mountains were getting easier to climb and the downhills weren’t that big of a drop. You didn’t need to stop and catch your breath or worry about hurting yourself on the way down.
You never felt lonely anymore. If Sunghoon or Jongseong weren’t free, you would call Nishimura Riki to catch grasshoppers in the creek with you, or you’d go play video games with Yang Jungwon. Kim Sunoo called you nearly every night to bother you, but you didn’t mind. You liked them; they made you feel important, like you were wanted.
“Come on,” Sunghoon teased Jungwon one day as he was blushing over some girl. “What are you being so shy about?”
“It’s embarrassing!” Jungwon complained, and you giggled over how a flush of red started creeping from his ears to his cheeks. “I’m not a smooth-talker like you are, Hoon.”
Sunghoon snorted. “I’m not a smooth-talker.”
“He’s practically, like, bulletproof,” Jongseong chimed in. “We can’t tease him about anyone. He just brushes it off.”
“I’m not bulletproof,” Sunghoon argued, but anyone could see the pride behind his expression. “I’m just not interested in anyone right now.”
You thought you had finally squashed the weird, gooey feeling that arose in your chest every now and then whenever Sunghoon came close. It was primarily due to the fact that Sunghoon was a respectful individual who didn’t try to weasel his way into your personal bubble as he pleased. That was probably for the best because you were sure your brain would go haywire if Sunghoon was too close for comfort.
And then there was Sim Jaeyun.
Jaeyun entered your circle pretty easily. With his radiant personality and warm presence, it was no shocker that he was accepted by the group instantly. He possessed some odd charm that drew people to him, and you couldn’t seem to figure just how that worked. You were almost jealous of him, honestly, with how much of a social butterfly he was.
Out of all of them, Jaeyun seemed to take a particular interest in you. It drove you crazy, though, and you couldn’t figure out how to get the guy to stop teasing and messing around with you. The others couldn’t figure it out either; you just weren’t as bright and bubbly as Jaeyun was, so it was odd that he kept nagging the one person whose wavelength wasn’t on par with his.
Sometimes it was cute—endearing even—but sometimes it was just flat-out irritating.
“Hey, Y/N.” Jake grinned, and his voice was all light and airy as he approached you. “What’re you doing for the summer break?”
“Probably sleeping in, hanging out with the others, and some more sleeping,” you replied, hardly sparing him a single glance.
You were too focused on clearing out your locker of all the books and papers you had tossed in during the year. Gotta keep this, gotta throw this away, gotta return this one, you rattled off in your head, mentally preserving a reminder of your various items. But Jaeyun knew how to push your buttons and grab your attention. He never took your deflection without retaliating back. That was one of the many reasons why you found it so difficult to be around him.
“And hanging out with Sunghoon, huh? Have you realized it yet, or are you still pretending it’s not there?”
You closed your locker with a swift swipe of your hand, revealing Jaeyun’s smug expression. Your eyes were practically bugging out of your sockets as you stared him down. Somehow, you knew exactly what he was hinting at, but you refused to spell it out for him.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” you questioned, but Jaeyun was already walking away from you. He was turned away, but you could visualize that stupid smirk of his like it was carved into your memory.
Jaeyun was smart. Too smart.
Your summer was filled with laughter, beach trips, and shy glances at Sunghoon. He drove you around places and you sat in the passenger’s seat next to him, toes curled in your shoes because you were so overjoyed. The car was always loud with music and laughter, and whenever it was silent, it was because everyone else was sleeping on each other after a long day of being outside.
You still masqueraded around, playing the role of Sunghoon’s best friend who definitely had zero romantic feelings toward him. It was quite hard when you had to pretend like your heart didn’t flutter whenever Sunghoon’s fingers brushed against yours.
“Sunghoon,” Jaeyun would complain, rousing laughter from everyone at how impatient he was, “are we there yet?”
“You’re so annoying,” Sunghoon retorted, clearly as a joke. You couldn’t help but laugh at his outburst, but it quickly died on your lips once you caught a glimpse of Jaeyun winking at you in the side mirror.
Jaeyun had a mischievous glint in his eyes when he said, “But you still love me, Hoon.”
Oh.
He was trying to make you jealous.
You fought down the urge to laugh at him. You might have been harboring a small crush, but you were never the jealous type, especially not over petty things like this. There was one little thing, however, that you couldn’t seem to shake.
For some reason, the anticipation to call Sunghoon by a nickname made you anxious. You never tested it on your tongue; it just floated around in your head. However, when you addressed him as Hoon one day, your heart skipped a beat when Sunghoon responded with a smile that rivaled the brightness of the sun.
You grew closer to Jongseong, too. You didn’t feel like the third wheel with him and Sunghoon anymore; you felt like you were all at the same level of closeness. You and Jongseong hung out sometimes without Sunghoon, and despite a few awkward pauses in your interactions, you two warmed up quickly and you learned how to joke around with him easily.
Jongseong wasn’t all stiff and dry like you were initially afraid of; rather, he was surprisingly fun, and every time you learned something new about him, like how he adored cats but was allergic to them, you were even more amazed.
It wasn’t just Jongseong, though. You and Sunghoon grew far closer than ever before, whether that was for the better or worse.
Sunghoon only lived a street away, so it was convenient to hang out, and when you didn’t hang out with him, you two called each other. You could see him unravel in front of your eyes; he became visibly more comfortable when it was just the two of you—smiling, laughing, and bursting into laughter with tears of unrestrained happiness.
It wasn’t just the jubilant memories that tugged you two closer, though. It was also the despair.
In the first place, it was an accident that you even happened to break down in front of Sunghoon.
You two were in his room when it happened, and things were as they always had been before you sensed the calm before the storm. You joked around as usual and passed the time by playing video games. Sunghoon was perched on his usual spot in the corner of the bed. You looked over at him and realized how close you two had become as friends.
Friends. Just friends.
It was right at that moment when you realized that this wasn’t what you wanted. You didn’t want to just be Sunghoon’s best friend. You wanted to be the reason why he smiled, the one to make him blush, and the one he could share his pain and happiness with.
But your feelings were the scariest thing you’ve ever had to face, and you felt ashamed for even wanting to cross the line drawn between you and Sunghoon.
You couldn’t dare bring yourself to confess. You were almost positive that Sunghoon didn’t feel the same way, and you would be risking a fall-out in your current relationship if you admitted anything. What if Sunghoon ended up hating you? What if you lost him and all of your other friends? What if you weren’t the closest person to him anymore?
That was why you felt like Sunghoon was in another dimension, always a layer away. Always.
This was your own fault. You were the one who fell for your best friend. You were the one who did this to yourself. You broke your own heart.
You couldn’t help it when you started falling apart in front of him. It started with a broken cough that was supposed to cover up a sniffle. You were thankful for the loud battle sounds in the game that drowned out your quiet sobbing. But the video game didn’t stop Sunghoon from noticing your shaking hands gripping the controller.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m okay.”
Your voice is so shaky, so broken. Sunghoon knew you were crying before he could see or hear it.
He paused the game and put the controller down, but your eyes were still trained on the screen, hands shaking as you clutched the controller until you were white-knuckled. Sunghoon was on edge—panicked. Although, it was a different kind of panic from all the times you would be stressing over an assignment and Sunghoon would offer some lame piece of advice in return.
“What happened? What’s wrong?” His tone was frantic now as he searched your face for an answer.
You smiled, although faint melancholy was tucked away in the curl of your lip. “Nothing. I’m fine.”
“Now, I know that’s not true.”
Your smile broke. It was so unfortunate that Park Sunghoon had to have a heart so big.
You could almost hear Jaeyun in the back of your head: Have you realized it yet, or are you still pretending it isn’t there?
You started crying, and it wasn’t something soft with a gradual crescendo. It was loud and all at once, like a wounded animal. Your hands shook more, and you finally dropped your controller, burying your fingers into your roots, as if tugging your hair hard enough would make it all stop, as if it would hurt more than the ache in your chest.
Sunghoon was quick to get off his bed and slide to the ground, right next to you. He wrapped an arm around your shoulder and it only made you feel ashamed. You stiffened up and shrunk back, hoping he wouldn’t notice how you tensed up at his touch. You could hear your own heartbeat, but you were pretty sure you were hyperventilating at a faster pace than the pounding in your chest. The world under you moved, bounced, so you decided to lean into Sunghoon.
The logical half of your brain informed you in a calm, clipped manner that you were having a panic attack. The other half meanwhile was screaming and shutting itself down.
Five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste, you tried telling yourself, but your senses overwhelmed you completely. Your tears were blurring your vision, you couldn’t hear anything but your sobs, and your lungs felt as if they were on fire.
“Y/N, talk to me,” came the softest voice that eased the painful ringing in your ears.
“I can’t,” you stuttered out. “Not right now.”
You wish you hadn’t let it get to this point. You were completely humiliating yourself in front of Sunghoon right now. This was the one thing you couldn’t let him find out about.
Your heavy gasps grew more labored. You then curled into yourself, sweaty hands tugging and knotting at your hair. And, shit, you couldn’t breathe.
“I can’t, I can’t,” you repeated again and again, like a broken record. The desperation in your voice was so ugly.
There was something fierce in Sunghoon’s eyes, like he was ready to protect you from anything or anyone that tried to hurt you, but there was also softness in his voice. “You know, you can tell me anything. Whatever it is, I’ll hear you out. I don’t want you to suffer alone, Y/N.”
With a small smile, he added, “It’s just you and me, right? The two of us against the world.”
That only made you cry even more. You just replayed Sunghoon’s words in your head, like it was your favorite song.
“Alright.” You breathed in real deep, through the aching chest and everything. “It’s really stupid.”
“If it makes you cry this hard, it can’t be stupid.”
You bit your lip, embarrassed. “I think I like someone—someone I can’t have.”
Sunghoon didn’t respond for a moment, and it rattled your brain. He probably was wondering this underwhelming confession warranted a breakdown from you, and you couldn’t blame him. However, it was the only way you could avoid lying to your best friend without giving him the whole truth.
For a split second, you wondered if Sunghoon simply just didn’t hear you. But you didn’t want to repeat yourself; you didn’t like repeating yourself.
To your surprise, Sunghoon just smiled. “Do I know them?”
You opened your mouth to speak, but no words were stringing together in your head to form a coherent sentence.
“Uh, well, you don’t have to tell me if you’re not ready,” Sunghoon continued. He flushed and flicked his thumb under his nose—an awkward mannerism of his that you grew to love over the years. “Actually, I think we’re in the same boat. There’s someone I like, too. Someone I can’t have.”
His words bounced in your skull. Settled. Bounced again.
“Really?” you spluttered out, and it took you a moment to recuperate from the heavy sadness that was filling your chest. You brought yourself to ask, “I mean, you’re so popular, so why don’t you just ask them out?”
“Can’t.”
“Why not? Are they dating someone else?”
There was a sad smile on Sunghoon’s lips when he answered, “No, Jongseong likes her, too.”
At the age of sixteen, you realized that you couldn’t get over Sunghoon, but you could suppress your heartbreak and lingering feelings.
It physically hurt to think about how deeply ingrained your concept of friendship was with him, and the possibility that Park Sunghoon would never think of you as more than a friend. You two had shared too many experiences—worn each other’s shoes and walked miles—to ever become more than what you were.
Nothing would ever change.
You were hanging out by a creek near Jongseong’s house. It was just the two of you—no Jaeyun to poke fun at you, and no Sunghoon to distract you. It was just the two of you, and it was somehow so easy to be with Jongseong like this. You could laugh with your stomach and smile with your eyes without feeling the need to close up or shut down.
“It’s getting annoying, isn’t it?” Jongseong asked under his breath at one point. When you shot him a puzzled look, he clarified, “Sunghoon.”
You picked up on Jongseong’s annoyance toward Sunghoon over the past few weeks, but his words confirmed your suspicions now. You wondered if it was geared toward the girl they both liked—whoever she was.
You never thought to ask, mainly because you didn’t want to know. Either way, if Sunghoon wanted to share, he would’ve done so already.
You swallowed down the lump in your throat, trying to grab at words and shove them together, but you genuinely didn’t know what to say.
It had always been you, Sunghoon, and Jongseong. You never thought about them turning on each other. The very idea made you feel sick to your stomach.
Over the past week, you had seen Sunghoon’s indifference toward Jongseong, but you were too afraid to ask about it. Your friend group was slow to pick up on it, but you noticed the way Sunghoon would purposely avoid conversing with Jongseong, or the way Jongseong would walk quickly past him if they crossed paths. It was odd, though, because everyone knew that Sunghoon and Jongseong were the best of friends—inseparable. How could you hold onto someone for so long and just let go of them like that?
You recalled that Jongseong and Jungwon went over to talk to Sunghoon about his moody behavior, but Jongseong never told you whether the talk went well or not. You figured it just never happened because Jungwon called in sick the very next day.
You prayed that he would hurry up and get over his cold. He had been out sick all week, which checked out since everyone was getting sick around this time of the year. Jungwon would know how to get Sunghoon and Jongseong to reconcile. He was always the friend that helped everyone patch things up.
“You guys are best friends,” was all you could say. “You’ll make up in a few days, right?”
Jongseong clicked his tongue loud enough to make your skin crawl.
But you didn’t want to drop it this time, you asked, “Seriously, what happened between you guys?”
For a moment, you wondered if you should’ve brought up what Sunghoon confessed to you—about him and Jongseong liking the same girl. But this couldn’t have been about that; Sunghoon would never let a girl get between his friendships.
“Sunghoon’s hiding something dark,” Jongseong blurted out. “I don’t think I can get him out of this one.”
“Something dark? What is it?”
“I don’t really know—”
“Jongseong,” you cut in. “If you know something, then just say it. He’s my best friend, too.”
Jongseong shifted uncomfortably, restless. He was silent for a long period of time, so you just waited for him to collect his thoughts. Uneasiness bursted from the tips of your fingers and crawled under your skin. You felt the heat of the sun against your face, so you looked up and covered your eyes with a hand, blinking back red.
“If Sunghoon did something unforgivable,” he started in a murmur, “would you forgive him?”
“I don’t know,” was all you could say.
“Yeah,” Jongseong replied, his terse words nearly making you flinch. “I don’t know, either.”
The sun grew hotter against your face, and all you could see was blood red behind your eyes.
You didn’t know how exactly it started, but you slowly started to find solace in Jaeyun.
You didn’t want to admit it, but you were starting to care for him a little more than the people around you. You were starting to get swayed by him—the things he said, the way he looked at you—and it scared you a little.
But Jaeyun felt safe. He felt like home.
You two called at night, sometimes. You weren’t normally one to be vulnerable in front of others, but you shed some tears in front of Jaeyun a couple of times.
The only other person you had cried in front of was Sunghoon.
“It’s kinda sad,” Jaeyun told you one day. You two were spending the afternoon studying together at his place, and you were feeling self-conscious because you were starting to regret not dressing a little cuter. “I’ve known you for a year, but we’ve only gotten close now.”
“I don’t think either of us cared about deepening our friendship back then.”
He narrowed his eyes at you. “You think I didn’t want to be closer? How do you think I picked up on you liking Sunghoon?”
“Because I was obvious about it?”
“No, idiot, because I like you.”
You blinked a few times until you fully processed his words. I like you, your brain repeated, and then you reprocessed the information.
No, there was an ‘idiot’ before that. Not only were you liked, but he thought you were stupid, as well.
You became painfully aware of your knees touching Jaeyun’s, but you still couldn’t wrap your head around the idea of him liking you romantically. You had never been in this position. Since your crush on Sunghoon had been one-sided for the past few years, you never expected to be on the receiving end.
“You…” you trailed off, floundering to find something to say—something that wouldn’t make you sound stupid or mean. You settled with, “You, too?”
His eyes beamed with hope. “For a year now.”
Your world was so small before. It was just you, Sunghoon, and Jongseong.
Before you could even wonder if there was space in your heart for Jaeyun, you realized that you had already let him burrow his way in there.
“Can I kiss you?” Jaeyun asked.
You couldn’t help but breathe out a laugh, and every once of nervousness slipped away. You always thought you could attain this level of closeness with Sunghoon, but maybe your relationship with him was just that fragile—where you could just grab the string binding you two together and snip it completely.
But it was different with Jaeyun.
“Yeah,” you answered, smiling, “you can.”
And then, with Jaeyun’s breath fanning your lips, you felt Sunghoon completely dissolve from the impounding thoughts racking your brain. Right now, it was Jaeyun and only Jaeyun.
You leaned in first, cupping his cheek and pressing your lips against Jaeyun’s soft ones. It was weird, kissing for the first time, but he leaned into it instantly so that your movements were less awkward and more guided.
A fire blazed inside of you, burning hotter than imaginable. You didn’t expect Jaeyun to drive you this crazy—to crave more, to want more. You drew back before you slid your hand into his hair, although you were tempted to go further when his pillowy lips peppered soft kisses along your jawline.
But you didn’t want to go overboard or ruin anything by going too fast. You settled for leaving another chaste kiss against his lips before pulling back, and you were delighted when you saw how pleased Jaeyun was. He was practically glowing.
From then on, you and Jaeyun had a relationship that extended past something platonic, but it wasn’t like you two were official. Naturally, you ended up confiding in him over everything.
While Sunghoon still held a place in your heart as your first love, you grew to care for Jaeyun, who kindled a gentler fire in you. Sunghoon, on the other hand, left you burned and scarred.
You didn’t want to rush into a relationship, mainly because you didn’t want Jaeyun to think he was a rebound, and he respected that. So he waited for you to figure out your feelings and let your heart choose who was right for you.
You weren’t stupid, though; you knew that chasing after Sunghoon was a hopeless cause.
You and Jaeyun drifted about in a limbo-state of your relationship. You two went on a couple of dates, got to know each other at a deeper level, and spent a lot of time together. He became the person you thought about when you were falling asleep and when you woke up in the morning.
You two got along surprisingly well, and you wondered why you ever had doubts about him in the beginning. Sure, Jaeyun still got on your nerves at times, but you just found it funny after the wave of annoyance passed.
Your friends started to talk about how close you two were and frequently brought up the idea of you two dating. Of course, you always denied it, enjoying the privacy you and Jaeyun had.
But as your relationship blossomed into something more serious, you decided that you didn’t want things to stay casual any longer. So, you asked him out, and Jaeyun, being the lovesick puppy he was, accepted without a second thought.
You thought about how much had changed in your life. Sunghoon stopped hanging out with you completely, resorting to being alone most of the time. Everyone was concerned about his behavior, but after several attempts of failed confrontation, they all collectively gave up. You and Jongseong still kept an eye on him, using roundabout ways to find out how he was doing; it was the most you two could do given how little opportunity you had to talk to him.
You didn’t share many classes with Jongseong anymore, but you two were still close, even after your “two of us against the world” friendship with Sunghoon had gone to shit.
Jongseong was kind, though, and despite how he was rough around the edges, he was gentle enough.
But he knew that Sunghoon was hiding something dark, and that alone made you somewhat nervous around him.
You felt unsettled the entire day, but when your group chat started flooding with texts about Jungwon in the middle of the night, you felt an icy chill travel down your spine.
It was all over the news. The whole story about him being down with the flu was just a cover-up while authorities were looking for him.
You felt nauseous.
HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT FOUND DEAD NEAR WOODS. FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED.
The 16-year-old boy was found dead at the scene. The parents of the deceased student have identified him as Yang Jungwon. As of now, there are no leads, but authorities have ruled the case as a homicide.
Police have asked anyone with information to contact their local police department.
You read the headline again. Over and over again until your vision was blurry and the words were convoluted. Your fingers were raw and bitten down to the nail bed by the time you were able to put your phone down so that you could just cry into your hands.
By the time you got around to reading the details, grimacing at the descriptions of mutilation done to Jungwon’s body and how his body had been decomposing for weeks now, you had to run to your toilet and dry heave everything out.
You weren’t the closest to Jungwon or anything, but imagining such a bright person meet such a horrific end wasn’t easy to process. For hours, you ignored all of the calls and texts and attempts to comfort from your parents. You stared straight at your wall—so terrified that your chest hurt and your breathing was ragged.
Later that night, when the world was quiet and dreaming, you received a text from Sunghoon.
sunghoon: Hey sunghoon: I’ve been thinking about you. Are you doing okay? sunghoon: I haven’t been a good friend lately, I’m sorry sunghoon: It’s still the two of us against the world
There was a time when those words made you feel like you were on top of the world, soaring high over the clouds.
Now, though, all you could feel was a horrible sensation of dread.
It had been months since Sunghoon and Jongseong’s falling out.
You were seventeen now, but you felt hollower as you aged. Sunghoon showed up to school and lingered within your group silently, only contributing when spoken to directly. He didn’t approach you anymore or ask to hang out after school. Actually, no one knew what he did after school. He would head straight home and then go completely off the radar.
Gone off the rails, as Sunoo called it.
You cried several nights over it. You felt like not only was your best friend slipping away from you, but Sunghoon’s disconnect from the group would soon make you pull away, too. You had Jaeyun, of course, but nothing felt the same anymore. With Jungwon dead, the group felt tense and gloomy. You all started hanging out with other people and slowly stopped responding in the group chat.
Part of you realized that Sunghoon’s detachment was because you didn’t reply to him the night Jungwon’s murder was publicized. Back then, you suspected that Sunghoon could have been behind it, judging by your conversation with Jongseong earlier. It all added up in your head, but the only thing that was stopping you from believing it fully was that you couldn’t fathom Sunghoon ever doing something so evil.
“I don’t know what’s going on with him,” you whispered into the phone, even though there wasn’t anyone around that you were worried about listening in. “He’s shutting me out now. Something must’ve happened to him.”
You heard Jaeyun hum and contemplate for a moment before he replied, “Maybe he just needs space.”
“I think something happened between him and Jongseong,” you admitted, “but I can’t imagine Jongseong saying anything that would make Sunghoon ignore him for this long.”
“It must’ve been serious, then.”
“But… but it’s Sunghoon; he’s”—you paused as you recalled what Jongseong once called him—“bulletproof.”
There was a pause.
“I guess that’s the problem with being bulletproof,” Jaeyun spoke gravely. “People think they can just keep shooting.”
What Jaeyun told you that night kept replaying in your head over the next week—over and over again. It hit you a little too hard, and you waited to confront Sunghoon about it. You wanted him to know that he could be vulnerable, too. But you couldn’t even speak to your best friend these days. He had been avoiding everyone like the plague.
You assumed it had something to do with Jongseong, but when you talked to him about it, he was hesitant to get into it.
“You’re the closest person to him,” you told him. Today was colder, and you rubbed your hands together for warmth as you and Jongseong stood by the gates after school. “I think if you guys sit down and talk things out, then he���ll start being himself again.”
“I was the closest person to him,” Jongseong corrected with a scoff. “Plus, there’s nothing to talk about.”
“Nothing to talk about? What about your friendship?”
You couldn’t stop the words from leaving your mouth. Anger roiled deep in your chest, and you were too furious to realize that Jongseong only looked dejected in response. If he wasn’t going to explain what happened, then you couldn’t understand what was eating away at their relationship.
“There is no friendship, Y/N,” he said slowly, in a voice so low that it sounded like the calm before the storm. His words made everything come to a halt, and you felt like time itself had frozen. “I suggest you let go of Sunghoon, too. You’re hanging onto someone who’s beyond help.”
“But I don’t know what you know!” you exclaimed. “I can’t let go of someone just like that, Jongseong. I need answers.”
He was quiet before he asked, “Do you remember when Sunghoon stayed over at your house once when we were fourteen?”
“When his house caught on fire?” you recalled, but the memory was sort of hazy for you. All you remembered was how you were in complete awe that Sunghoon was unscathed and unbothered by the incident.
“Yeah,” Jongseong’s voice was grim as he said, “and I bet he never told you that he was the one who started that fire on purpose.”
It was like a punch to the gut. You could only shake your head blankly, lips parted in disbelief.
He continued, “When we were fifteen, he thought it would be fun to plan out a murder without getting caught—”
No.
“—and, at sixteen, he actually did it.”
No. No.
“Jongseong,” you whispered, your voice smaller than you intended, “was it…”
“Jungwon?” He said the name so carefully, as if the world would explode into nothingness if he did. You had been gnawing at your lip so hard that you drew blood, yet that couldn’t distract you from the haunted look in Jongseong’s eyes. “Yeah, he killed Jungwon.”
You felt like you had just been doused with ice-cold water.
“I shouldn’t have brought Jungwon with me. I knew Sunghoon was gonna do it to someone, but I didn’t know…” He sucked in a deep, shuddering breath that racked his entire body. “I didn’t think it would be him. I brought Jungwon to talk him out of whatever was going on, not to…” Jongseong stopped himself again, covering his face with his hands to wipe away the tears that had started to fall.
It’s you and me, Sunghoon’s voice chimed in your head. The two of us against the world.
You thought your world had been shattered, but then you realized that it had actually been broken for a long time.
That night, you asked Jaeyun to come over, and he arrived at your door in record speed.
You two were sitting on your bed, controllers in hand, but the screen was off and neither of you were even in the mood to play. You must have trusted him more than anyone by now because the words started spilling with no preamble. You ended up explaining most of your conversation with Jongseong after you had Jaeyun swear on his life that he wouldn’t tell a soul.
Of course, you didn’t expect any normal person to compliantly come to terms with the fact that their friend murdered their other friend, but Jaeyun was a bit different when it came to you. Instead of accusing you of lying or denying the truth, he believed you wholeheartedly. You couldn’t tell if he was patient with you, or if he was just horrified by everything you had told him.
It had been an entire year since Jungwon had been found dead and the case closed as an unsolved murder, but your words sucker punched Jaeyun like it had just happened yesterday.
Jaeyun’s tone was urgent when he said, “We have to tell someone.” When he noticed your hesitation, he shook his head at you with a disapproving frown. “Y/N, this is serious. This is Jungwon, my best friend.”
Your mouth went dry. “I-I know, it’s just—”
Jaeyun didn’t have to cut you off. You froze right when you saw tears welling up in his eyes.
“Y/N.” He said your name gently, but you still flinched. You had never heard your name being called with so much despair. “If Sunghoon really murdered Jungwon, then I can’t keep this a secret.”
“Give me a few days,” you pleaded. “I just want to hear Sunghoon out. No matter what he says, I’ll come with you to testify.”
He shook his head immediately, eyes fierce. “You are not going anywhere near Sunghoon—not after what he did to Jungwon.”
“Then let me ask Jong—”
“Y/N,” Jaeyun interrupted, letting his hand slide over yours. His eyes were full of concern when he asked, “How do you know you can trust Jongseong?”
Your hands started to shake.
“Y/N,” he said again, “if Jongseong took Jungwon to see Sunghoon, what do you think he did after Sunghoon killed him?”
Your pulse raced.
“If Jongseong knew about Sunghoon’s behavior for this long, why hasn’t he ever done anything?”
All this time, you thought your world had grown a little bigger ever since you met Sunghoon and Jongseong.
But you were living in a fantasy by yourself.
Not so long after your talk with Jaeyun, your phone rang. You were in the middle of finishing up your history paper when you saw the caller ID flash across your screen.
It was Sunghoon.
You didn’t even give yourself time to think about it first. You just picked up the phone immediately. It was an old habit; you saw Sunghoon and accepted the call without a second thought. You never expected Sunghoon to ever call you again, so you didn’t exactly have any practice in rejecting his calls.
“Y/N?” came the familiar voice of Park Sunghoon—gentle, but almost like he was a caged animal.
“Sunghoon?” You swallowed hard. “Uh, how are you? It’s been a while since we’ve talked.”
“I’m so sorry,” he apologized, but you weren’t sure what he was apologizing for. “It was supposed to be the two of us against the world.”
You frowned. “Sunghoon, what’s going on?”
Instead of answering your question, Sunghoon hesitated before saying, “We should catch up sometime. You can read part of the story I’m writing.”
You paused, and before he could ask if you were still there, you replied, “Yeah, sure.”
“Right.” Sunghoon sounded like he had more to say. You almost didn’t catch it because he was so quiet, and the last thing you heard before he hung up was a quiet, “Bye, then.”
Your deepest regret was answering your phone later that night.
It was hours after Sunghoon called you. Jongseong was more of a texter, so you were surprised when his caller ID flashed across your screen. It was definitely not a reasonable hour for a high school student to be out and about, but nothing could have prepared you for what you heard on the other side of the line.
Jongseong was sobbing.
The sound chilled you to the bone. You never heard Jongseong cry, but this didn’t feel normal; this cry was frantic and mangled, like he was spiraling out of control.
“Y/N, you have to come over quickly,” Jongseong begged through broken sobs and heavy breaths. “Please, Y/N, I don’t want him to hurt anyone else.”
“Jongseong, calm down. Tell me what’s happening.”
“You have my location, right? Just hurry. Please.” And he hung up.
In a daze, you called Jaeyun and asked him to pick you up.
“I really think we should just call the cops,” Jaeyun offered, almost pleading. “I don’t know what’s going on with Jongseong, but this sounds sketchy, Y/N.”
Pitted fear festered in your throat. You knew something was off, but you weren’t sure if you could handle losing Jongseong, too. You had gotten so used to not being alone that you were paranoid of returning to having no one.
“Call them as soon as we get there,” you said. “I just need to make sure Jongseong’s okay.”
Jaeyun pressed his lips into a thin, grim line, but he kept driving.
It was a port that Jongseong’s location directed you to, and discomfort crept into your limbs as soon as Jaeyun pulled into the area. Maybe you should’ve stayed back where it was safer and let the police handle everything, but you must have been a fool. It was just that Jongseong’s cries echoed in your head whenever you started having second thoughts.
You could hear him before you saw him.
Jongseong’s soft sobs could be heard from behind a metal storage unit, and you and Jaeyun inched closer carefully after getting out of the car. Your heart dropped to your stomach; you were dreading the worst, and when you turned the corner into the closed area Jongseong was in, you realized that the sight before you was the worst it could get.
Sunghoon’s body.
You waited for his chest to rise, but not even a shallow breath escaped his blue-tinged lips.
It took you a moment to reorient yourself and realize that Sunghoon wasn’t just passed out, he was dead.
You saw the blood pooling around him and the wounds piercing his torso, staining his white shirt, but you wanted to believe your mind was playing tricks on you. You convinced yourself that Sunghoon was going to get up any second now and start laughing, and then Jongseong would join in and tell you it was all a joke.
But that wasn’t the case.
It wasn’t fear that overtook you—not an overwhelm of emotion—it was numbness. You stared at Sunghoon’s body as he bled out onto the concrete, blood pooling into the cracks in the ground. You felt an odd sort of disconnect.
You tilted your head to see Sunghoon’s face turned to the side against the concrete. His blank eyes just stared into nothingness, and you realized that you would never get to see Sunghoon’s warm, sincere gaze ever again. You were never going to see his bright smile. You were never going to hear his contagious laugh. You were never going to read the wonderful stories he wrote.
You supposed your life was always meant to be a tragedy.
“H-Hoon?” Jaeyun choked up behind you. He was staring down at Sunghoon’s lifeless body in horror before his expression was slowly replaced with anger. “Jongseong, what the hell did you do?!”
“It was self-defense, man,” Jongseong whimpered out before his body was racked with sobs again. “He pulled a knife on me out of nowhere. I tried to stop him, but he was trying to kill me. I couldn’t do anything else. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t—” He exhaled shakily. “I couldn’t do anything else.”
You didn’t say anything. You just stared at Sunghoon.
“Come on, guys,” Jongseong pleaded. “I can’t go to fucking prison. I’m eighteen now; it’s not juvie, it’s a life sentence.” You didn’t know what he was getting at until he requested the unthinkable, “Help me get rid of the body.”
You wanted to puke. You eyed the shiny metal soaked in blood that Jongseong was clutching. You were never going to see Sunghoon again. You were never going to hang out with him over the weekend. You were never going to hear his voice again.
“Get rid of the body?” Jaeyun raised his voice, exasperated. “What the fuck are you gonna do when they realize he’s gone missing? You just killed someone! This is on you, Jongseong, not us!”
“Are you going to help me get rid of it or not?!” Jongseong tugged at his hair. “Just help me throw him off the dock, and we can all walk away from this.”
You watched helplessly, horror-stricken. “I… I can’t.”
“The body’s gonna float and show up somewhere,” Jaeyun countered with stony eyes. “They’re gonna catch you.”
Jongseong looked terrifyingly pale. You wondered if it was just the glow of the moon, or if he was also holding in his urge to puke. “I’ll just cut his stomach so he sinks.”
Disgusted, Jaeyun scowled. “You’re a monster.”
You watched as Jongseong tried hauling Sunghoon’s body before giving up and dragging him by the legs. You shot Jaeyun a warning look, mouthing for him to call the police before Jongseong noticed. He lingered back to do so while you followed Jongseong to plead him to stop. His arms gave out as soon as he stepped onto the planks, and he let Sunghoon’s lower half collapse onto the solid wood.
“Y/N, help me cut open his stomach,” he ordered, hardly sparing you a glance. If he did, he would have seen how horrified you were.
“Oh,” you said, voice wavering, “that’s… that—that’s his…”
“Y/N, help me.”
“Jongseong,” you begged, “please… please stop.”
He paid you no attention, though. You felt ghastly as Jongseong used a paring knife to make an incision on Sunghoon’s stomach. The smell was putrid. You screwed your eyes shut as the metallic smell of blood invaded your nostrils. Your nausea plunged into your gut, and you had to fight the pervasive urge to hurl.
A stream of Sunghoon’s blood made its way to your shoes, staining the soles.
Jongseong was cutting your old best friend open.
The dread had kept you numb for this long, but it was when reality settled in that you finally lost it. You couldn’t handle it anymore and pitched forward over the edge of the dock, throwing up until you were heaving up bile. You sobbed through it all, mournful and low, and your friend paid you no attention while he was cutting through flesh.
When Jongseong was done, he wiped at his cheek, leaving behind a smear of blood. Sunghoon’s blood. You stared at him, and you had never been more terrified of him in your life.
And then you really noticed Jongseong. You noticed how Sunghoon’s blood was coated all over his hands, how he hardly had any scratches or bruises on his body, how merciless his eyes were as he stared down at his old best friend.
The realization that washed over you was frightening.
“Sunghoon didn’t actually try to kill you, did he?” you managed to warble out. “You killed him yourself.”
A deep silence from him followed—heavy and wretched. Sunghoon’s blood was so dark that it nearly looked black under the dim light, and you could only stare helplessly until Jaeyun made his way to the dock, placing his hands firmly on your shoulders.
Jongseong turned to you and Jaeyun, clutching his knife tightly. You could hardly recognize the boy in front of you. You never truly understood the term “paralyzed by fear” until you saw the crazed look in Jongseong’s eyes—cold and haunting.
Jaeyun’s eyes glistened with tears and his throat was thick with emotion when he said, “Jongseong, please—just hang on and… and we can talk this out.”
The hand gripping his knife started shaking. “You won’t tell anyone, right? You guys won’t snitch on me, right?” When there was no response from you or Jaeyun, Jongseong’s desperation grew stronger. He turned to you with his eyes big and terrified. “Y/N, come on, we’ve known each other for years. You know I—”
“Shut up!” Jaeyun yelled. His protective grip on you tightened. “Cut the bullshit, Jongseong. The police are gonna be here soon, and they’re gonna take you straight to prison once they see what you did to Hoon.”
It was like a switch flipped in him. A distant part of your mind wondered if you could get everyone out of this—somehow bring Sunghoon back and go back to your normal life—but you immediately shut down that fantasy as soon as Jongseong’s eyes darkened.
In the darkness, you could make out an amused expression on his face. His smile took on a cold edge.
“Fine,” he bit out. “I’ll just have to get rid of you two before the police get here, then.”
You felt like your world slowed. Your eyes burned with the threat of tears. You could tell Jongseong was walking closer to you while Jaeyun was desperately trying to tug you and get you to run, but you were frozen in place. You wanted to believe that your old friend wouldn’t actually hurt you, but then you didn’t know what to think when he raised his knife.
It had all happened so fast. Too fast.
In your brief struggle as Jongseong tried to stab you, you heard a sharp gasp that tore you from your haze, like you had just been drenched in cold water. Brutally sober. You tried to push Jongseong off of you, but he was too heavy, too limp. Jaeyun shouldered his way between you two and shoved Jongseong back, grimacing when his skull hit the wood with a thud.
You heard one last, strangled gasp from Jongseong before he stopped breathing. The last star in his eyes twinkled until it dimmed for good.
Jongseong laid flat on the dock with his knife piercing his chest.
As you heard police sirens go off in the distance, Jaeyun wrapped his arms around you before you finally broke down into his chest.
Your best friends were dead and your world was broken beyond repair.
“So, it was self-defense?” Detective Lee asked, his piercing eyes boring right into yours. “Purely accidental? You had no intention of harming Park Jongseong?”
You shook your head. “I still couldn’t process the fact that he killed Sunghoon, so I didn’t think he’d actually try to hurt me.”
You wanted to cry. You bit your chapped lip, but all you could taste was blood that you doubted was even there. You couldn’t even say Sunghoon’s name without seeing that radiant smile of his stained with deep red.
You sucked in a shaky breath. “I’ve told you everything I know. Can I see Jaeyun now?”
Detective Lee eyed you for a moment. Finally, you saw some sort of sympathy in his gaze, although you felt sort of repulsed that you were being pitied in this state. The detective muttered something about him being back later, and he left the interrogation room, leaving you handcuffed to the table.
A minute passed by. Another. Several more.
You were pretty sure it had been at least an hour or two of staring at the wall, but the passage of time felt meaningless now. You could wait hours, even days, but you didn’t think you would ever be ready to confront what cruel reality awaited you.
You were so tired of everything, so exhausted that you didn’t even think about your parents until now. Were they here? Were they informed about your arrest? They must have been worried sick all night.
When the door opened, your head shot up.
“You’re free to go, Y/N,” Detective Lee said, pulling out a key to uncuff you from the table.
You were frozen. You just stared up at Detective Lee with your jaw hung open.
“I know this took awhile, but there was no security footage at the scene to confirm your story,” he elaborated. “But your stories matched up, and we found more evidence in the trunk of Jongseong’s car that he had been planning this murder.”
He helped you to your feet and escorted you out of the room. You were able to pick up everything they took from you before you were locked up in the holding cell—your keys, wallet, and your phone. Then, you were taken to the waiting room where your parents were seated at the far end.
At the sight of you, they all but leapt from their seats to rush over, hands cupping your face and arms embracing your weak, battered figure. There was so much love in their eyes, and their fear over possibly losing their daughter replaced any anger they had toward the situation. However, you wouldn’t have been surprised if you ended up getting an earful the next day.
“Mom, Dad,” you whimpered out, suddenly overcome with emotion. You were immediately aware of how weak and pathetic you felt. “I’m sorry, I—”
“Shh, it’s okay,” your father silenced you by rubbing your back in soothing circles. “Jaeyun’s family wanted us to let you know that he’s okay, too. They just took him home about ten minutes ago.”
You were slightly disappointed. Part of you was hoping that he would wait for you, but you figured Jaeyun’s family would have wanted to go home right away. You definitely would have felt better if you got to see your boyfriend in the flesh to make sure he was alive and well, but you weren’t going to complain now.
There was still a ghost of a smile on your lips as your parents walked you to their car. They gushed and gushed about how glad they were about you being safe and sound, and about how they never would’ve expected Jongseong of all people to end up being a murderer.
You were happy to be alive, of course, but you felt so empty.
You pulled out your phone to try and text Jaeyun, but, as you thought, it was dead.
“Mom, can I use your phone?” you asked, and you dialed Jaeyun’s number immediately as soon as she handed it to you. You had it memorized because it was a combination of numbers that was fairly easy to remember.
It rang four times, and by the fifth ring, you were scared that he wouldn’t pick up. But then, it beeped.
“Hello?” Jaeyun answered. “Who is this?”
It was like a huge weight was lifted off of your shoulders once you heard his voice. Despite Detective Lee informing you that Jaeyun was, indeed, alive, you felt more reassured hearing it from your boyfriend himself. You wanted to cry then and there, but you didn’t want to make your parents worry unnecessarily.
You forgot you were even supposed to respond when Jaeyun spoke again, “Is anyone there?”
“Jaeyun, it’s me,” you mumbled softly. “Y/N.”
You heard him suck in a sharp breath. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“I’m perfectly fine.”
Jaeyun gave you the breakdown of how his experience went, which took a completely different turn than yours. After receiving medical attention, they brought him back to his holding cell to sleep for hardly a few hours. The detective interrogating Jaeyun tried to build trust with him, telling him they wanted to help and just needed his confession. They lied about already having evidence that he killed Jongseong, but Jaeyun denied it and told them the whole story. He was only free to leave after they cross-examined his story with yours.
“Jesus,” you whispered into the phone, breathing out a small laugh. By now, you were already parked at your house and walking to your front door. “This is so fucked up.”
“Yeah,” he mumbled, “but we’ll get through it.”
“Yeah, Jae. Us against the world.”
Sim Jaeyun spent nine hours being questioned by authorities.
He knew the nature of the crime that occurred was complex, and he was still reeling from the loss and betrayal that left a deep wound in his chest, but there was something that terrified him still.
It wasn’t the murderous look in Park Jongseong’s eyes, or the blood completely drained from Park Sunghoon’s face.
Rather, what scared Jaeyun the most was that he spent so long pining after you and getting to know you at a deeper level. He genuinely fell hard for you, even though you had monsters in the closet. He thought he knew almost everything about you, like how you were a terrible liar.
Yet, you had just lied about everything that went down last night for nine hours straight.
What scared Jaeyun the most was how clueless he had been about who you really were.
Truthfully, he was also in the wrong for going along with your lie. It was definitely going to bite him back one day. In the moment, though, he was far too much of a coward to go against you. Although he was able to get Jungwon the justice he deserved and allowed his family to finally be at peace with answers, Jaeyun still felt horrible. He just remembered the desperate look in your eyes as your face and hands were stained with blood, begging him to protect you.
Jaeyun’s downfall must have been that he liked you too much to say no.
It was true that Jongseong called you in a panic, begging you to show up at the port as quickly as possible, and it was true that you wanted Jaeyun to drive you there instead of calling the cops first.
Jaeyun knew deep down that you were making the wrong choice, but he had hope that you knew what you were doing. Truthfully, although he liked you a lot, he was still wary about how you felt toward Sunghoon. He just couldn’t understand how you were still unconsciously protecting him after hearing what happened to Jungwon. He knew that you wanted answers, but Jaeyun was worried about how you’d react once you got them.
The real story—the one neither of you told the detectives—never started with Park Jongseong killing Park Sunghoon.
It really started when you and Jaeyun arrived at the port to see that no one was around. It was eerily quiet, and Jaeyun was starting to regret not turning around and heading straight for the police station. When you two got out of the car, you walked several feet down the line of shipping containers before returning to Jaeyun with a confused look on your face.
“I don’t see either of them,” you said, but then your eyes grew unfocused as you stared at something—or, rather, someone—behind Jaeyun.
He turned around to see Jongseong walking over to the two of you in a calm fashion, as if he had no other care in the world. The port was relatively an open space, so he had no idea where Jongseong could have emerged from. Jaeyun rolled his neck, more frustrated than anything.
“Jongseong!” you called out.
When he neared you two, Jongseong shoved his hands into his pockets. “Oh, you brought your boyfriend.”
“What’s going on?” you urged. “Is it Sunghoon? Did something happen to him?”
“Wow, that hurts, Y/N.” Jongseong barked out a laugh, but nothing about his tone sounded sincere. “I call you in the middle of the night and all you can think about is Hoon? Wow. How do you feel about that, Jaeyun?”
Jaeyun didn’t respond. He just glowered.
Nothing about this felt right.
You stammered, “I-I just assumed—”
“Put yourself in my shoes,” Jongseong cut you off with little regard for your excuses. “Sorry to say this in front of your boyfriend, but imagine how I feel when the girl I’ve liked for years only cares about my best friend.”
The air went still.
Your voice was barely a whisper when you asked, “Excuse me?”
Jaeyun pursed his lips together, and, for a moment, he thought his tongue would start bleeding if he bit it any harder. Sunghoon liked the girl that Jongseong liked, and if that girl was you, then Jaeyun was worried that he already lost you. He knew for months that he would never truly have you the way he wanted. Your feelings for Sunghoon were stronger, and although Jaeyun was able to pack his insecurities into a tiny ball and shove it down his throat, it was all coming out now.
His uneasy heart shattered into a million pieces once he caught a glimpse of your expression—hopeful and longing. And it wasn’t for Jongseong; it was for Sunghoon.
“Now that’s a great expression,” came an overly-enthusiastic voice from Jaeyun’s right.
Park Sunghoon was leaning against one of the shipping containers, arms folded across his chest before he uncrossed them and made his way toward the three of you. He must have been hiding behind the containers this whole time because Jaeyun hadn’t seen him at all before.
The situation was getting increasingly uncomfortable. Jaeyun wanted to shrink back when Sunghoon suddenly took great interest in him, keeping his eyes fixed on him instead of you or Jongseong. He used to have such bright and happy smiles, but, this time, Jaeyun almost thought his grin had been sliced into his face with a blade.
Sunghoon slung an arm over Jongseong’s shoulder. “Wow, Jae, now I really wanna see the look on your face when you’re in total despair,” he crooned, almost mocking. Jaeyun’s blood rushed in his ears when Sunghoon’s tongue swiped across one of his fangs. “You should’ve seen the look on Jungwon’s face.”
Jaeyun lunged before he could even think, but he stopped himself as soon as you held onto him, stopping him from hitting Sunghoon.
And that was when he knew he already lost you.
“Don’t,” you insisted.
“Are you serious?” he breathed out, brows knitting into a frown as he looked down at you.
Shame clung to your throat, keeping your mouth shut, but Jaeyun was more concerned now about the sharp blade pointed at his throat.
His Adam’s apple bobbed.
Jongseong had a paring knife pointed straight at him, and Sunghoon’s smile never faltered. They were clearly on the same side. There was a reason why Jeongseong never did anything about Sunghoon after killing Jungwon.
Jaeyun felt stupid for not putting it together earlier.
“I’d listen to your girlfriend,” Jongseong warned. His voice crawled all over him, freezing Jaeyun cold to the bone. “You might as well hear us out before you die here tonight.”
“Can’t exactly let you two run off now that you know what happened to Jungwon,” Sunghoon added.
“Jungwon was our friend,” Jaeyun hissed. “He was my best friend, you sick freak! What did you do to him? Why? He’s never… he never did anything wrong!”
“You’re right. He didn’t do anything wrong,” Sunghoon confirmed, surprisingly calm and collected. “In fact, he exceeded my expectations. It was a great performance, actually.” Jaeyun clenched his fist tight—so tight that his nails dug into his palms and drew blood—and Sunghoon took notice of this with a delighted hum. “You should’ve heard him scream, Jae. I had my doubts about him at first, but when he was begging me for his life, I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”
You were distraught. “Sunghoon, you—”
It all happened in seconds, like a rubber band finally snapping after being stretched too thin. Jaeyun used his elbow to knock Jongseong’s arm out of the way, and he shoved Sunghoon as soon as he found an opening, driving his hands into his ribs. He heard you cry out, but Jaeyun could only see red until he was dragged back up by Jongseong, the sharp blade of the knife being pressed to his throat.
“Stop!” you cried. “Leave Jaeyun out of this! You wanted me, right? Just let him go. Please.”
“I don’t think so.” Sunghoon wrapped an arm around you. “You two already know too much, and Jongseong and I have been waiting for this finale for years.”
Your eyes had a faraway look in them for a moment before you turned your attention back to Jongseong. “You told me…”
“I told you that when we were fifteen, Sunghoon thought it would be fun to plan out a murder without getting caught,” Jongseong filled in the blanks for you, a haunting smile playing on his lips, “and I was in on it.”
Sunghoon tutted. “But you got it all wrong, Y/N. It wasn’t Jungwon’s murder that we were planning; it was yours.”
You looked up at him in horror.
Jaeyun struggled against Jongseong for a moment, face taut with unbridled anger. He just wanted to get to you. Get Sunghoon’s filthy hands off of you.
“I’m a writer. I write stories,” Sunghoon continued. “Isn’t it a great twist? Convincing my childhood best friend that I loved her all this time, only to reveal that she’s gonna die at my hands.” He scoffed. “Jungwon was just at the wrong place at the wrong time, but he was good practice. I was too careless back then. I shouldn’t have left all those drawings and papers out like that when he came over, but now I’m gonna finish the job properly.”
Your breathing was shallow. Jaeyun could see the flood of despair racking your body with soft sobs and quick pants. Your gaze fell to the ground, and Sunghoon peered to catch a better look at you.
“Good,” he praised. “That’s what I wanna see. Wow, that’s great, Y/N. I can’t wait to see more when—”
“Get the fuck away from her!” Jaeyun yelled, grunting when Jongseong pressed the knife harder against his supple skin.
With an exaggerated flourish of his hands, Sunghoon raised both arms and backed up as if he was a deer caught in headlights. He wore an easygoing smile, yet something sinister was tucked behind the curve of his lips. Your inconsolable self stayed fixed in place, staring helplessly at your shoes.
“For the past two years, I’ve been isolating myself from the friend group for the sake of this story and its ending,” Sunghoon said. “I think I deserve a little fun right now, Jae.”
“Fuck you,” Jaeyun spat. “You deserve to go to Hell.”
Sunghoon took a step closer to Jaeyun, ducking his head so that they were at eye-level with each other. Jaeyun tried to struggle against Jongseong once more, but he froze when the knife pierced his skin. He felt something trickle down the column of his neck, and he soon realized it was his own blood.
“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Sunghoon mocked a pout. He lowered his voice by an octave, only for Jaeyun to hear. “Competing with a childhood friend is brave, I’ll tell you that.”
Jaeyun’s blood boiled. To his surprise, Sunghoon gestured for Jongseong to let go of him. He took the paring knife from his friend and handed it to Jaeyun.
“Take it,” Sunghoon said. “Why don’t you try killing me? You wanna get back at me, right? I killed your best friend, after all.”
Owlish, he blinked back at Sunghoon, almost absently. Jaeyun really considered it for a moment—like, really considered it. Some part of him wanted to senselessly beat Sunghoon up until he was unrecognizable, but the morally righteous side of him knew that he could never stoop to Jongseong or Sunghoon’s level.
Jaeyun took the knife by the handle, weighing it in his palm experimentally before chucking it away—far from both Sunghoon and Jongseong. Jaeyun was pretty sure he could overtake Jongseong if Sunghoon turned his back, but he wasn’t sure if Jongseong had another weapon up his sleeve. He heard the blade skid and scrape against the concrete, and he could only hope that Sunghoon and Jongseong being distracted by him would give you time to escape.
But Jeongseong immediately stopped you as soon as he saw you picking up the knife, and he let go of Jaeyun to grab ahold of you. Jaeyun tried to yank Jongseong back by the back of his shirt, but Sunghoon grabbed a fistful of his hair and slammed his head against the metal of one of the shipping containers.
Jaeyun’s world was thrown off-balance. The ground bounced, tilted, swayed. He was so dizzy and disoriented that he couldn’t tell if his head was spinning or if he was collapsing.
The corners of his vision grew hazy with white splotches dancing around. Jaeyun tried hard to focus, making out some of the yelling that was going back and forth, but he couldn’t think at all when a newly-formed cut on his forehead was getting blood all over his face and hands.
He doubled forward, falling onto his knees. Jaeyun had to stay there for a while and ride out the intense waves of vertigo until he was stable again. When the world finally returned to its normal axis and stopped bouncing under him, Jaeyun lifted his head to see you and Jongseong screaming at each other.
And Sunghoon was on the ground.
He stumbled over, and it was as if the white noise in Jaeyun’s ears had drowned out everything in the background. He couldn’t see or focus on anything except the pained look on Sunghoon’s face as the color drained from his neck. Blood was gushing from his jugular vein, and he was digging his palm into his neck to put pressure on the wound.
“—you stabbed him!” you screamed at Jongseong. Your voice was hysterical; Jaeyun had never heard you sound so desperate, not even when he was being held at knifepoint.
“Fuck, Y/N, I wouldn’t have hurt him if you didn’t pull on my arm!” Jongseong yelled back. He sank to the ground, simultaneously dropping the knife and dropping his head between his knees.
The sight was miserable to watch. Jongseong wailed loud and mournful until he couldn’t take it anymore, doubling over so that he could throw up until nothing but bile was coming out. When it seemed as though he had nothing else to heave out of his stomach, Jongseong sat up for a brief moment. You and Jaeyun watched as his eyes rolled back almost instantly, falling onto his back and hitting his skull against the concrete. The exhaustion must have finally caught up to him, and you two didn’t have long until he was conscious again.
Jaeyun turned his attention back to Sunghoon, watching his life bleed out of his body slowly. For some reason, an odd disconnect came over Jaeyun, and he bent down to help apply pressure over Sunghoon’s wound. At first, Sunghoon gritted his teeth, but even he knew when to accept help when it was needed.
Sim Jaeyun was pretty sure he was broken beyond belief by now, but it was impossible for him to ignore someone who was dying right before him.
Even if he murdered Jungwon.
“Y/N, we need to get him to a—”
Jaeyun cut himself off when he looked up at you to see that your expression had changed. Something was different. You looked like numbness had seeped into your body, coiling around your heart until you couldn’t feel anything. The way you looked down at Jongseong, clutching his knife tightly, made Jaeyun worry.
“Y/N,” Jaeyun said again—slower, “whatever you’re thinking… please put it down.”
It didn’t seem like you were listening, though. Almost as if your body and brain were at two different places.
“Y/N—” Jaeyun shuddered when you brought the knife down, driving it straight into Jongseong’s chest.
Jaeyun’s stomach lurched. He watched as Jongseong struggled for his life, hardly conscious as you repeatedly stabbed him over and over again until Jaeyun was yelling at you to stop. He was sure he would never be able to close his eyes again without hearing Jongesong’s blood-curdling screams and seeing Sunghoon’s face drained of color.
“Wow,” Sunghoon choked out. One last amused look crossed his face before it fell apart painfully. “I told you, Jae, there’s no competing with a childhood best friend.” Jaeyun flushed with anger, but it dissolved quickly when he realized Sunghoon’s breathing got slower, shallower. The look on his face was one of someone accepting their untimely death. “Thanks for the show, though.”
In his arms, Sunghoon took his last breath and went still.
It wasn’t grief that Jaeyun felt. It was something far greater.
“Jaeyun, I—I didn’t mean to,” you sobbed out, shakily holding up your bloodstained hands. “It was self-defense! I tried to stop him, but he was trying to kill me, and then he… he killed Sunghoon. I couldn’t do anything else. I couldn’t run, I couldn’t—” You exhaled shakily. “I couldn’t do anything else.”
Jaeyun didn’t respond. He just stared at you in disbelief.
“Come on, Jae,” you pleaded. Oh, so it was Jae now. “You have to help me get rid of their bodies. I can’t go to prison!”
“Get rid of the body?” Jaeyun raised his voice, exasperated. “Y/N, they’re dead! We have to tell the police everything. I mean, what are you gonna do when your prints match?”
Your lips pressed together in a grim line. “Your prints are on the knife, too.”
Were you blackmailing him? Jaeyun couldn’t believe what he was hearing from you. He never expected you, of all people, to be the one to throw him under the bus like this. He had trusted you with his life before, and you threw it all away in seconds.
“Are you going to help me or not?” You looked toward the dock over the water. It was a good enough distance for you to drag Sunghoon and Jongseong’s bodies over to, but Jaeyun sure as hell didn’t want to get involved. “Just help me throw them in the water, and we can both walk away from this, Jae. We can go back to our lives, okay?”
He shook his head sadly. You just sounded like a stranger to him.
“Please, Y/N,” he pleaded, tears stinging his eyes, “please stop this. You have to turn yourself in.”
But his resolve was shaky. Jaeyun knew that he would still be booked once they found his prints at the scene, and there was no telling what you would do to protect yourself. By now, Jaeyun wouldn’t have been surprised if you somehow pushed the crime onto him.
“Jae, listen to me,” you insisted. Your eyes were wide and brimming with tears, and Jaeyun couldn’t help but think you looked a little crazed. “We can both get out of this, but you have to help me out here. We’re gonna tell them that Jongseong killed Sunghoon before we got here, and then he chased us until we ended up stabbing him out of self-defense. I mean, that’s all this was, anyway! It was self-defense!”
A distant part of Jaeyun’s mind wondered what happened to you. He wondered if you had always been this way, perhaps keeping it tucked away. In the end, you were still trying to protect Sunghoon in your own way. You were still trying to protect some fragment of his golden image.
“It’s you and me,” you whispered, kneeling down by your boyfriend’s side until you were cupping his face with your hands, staining his cheeks with Jongseong’s blood, “the two of us against the world.”
Just hours ago, Sim Jaeyun looked at you like you were his entire world.
And now, with your bloodstained hands holding his face, there was unmistakable fear behind his eyes as he looked up at you.
AUTHOR’S NOTE ▸ thank you so so much for reading if you made it all the way to the end !! i would lovee for you to guys to share what you thought, but just to point a few things out, jake's pov was the unfiltered version of what went down that night. the dialogue from mc is similar to jongseong's because while she painted him out to be the villain in the end to protect sunghoon, it was really her who said those things. originally this had a happier ending but i'm a lot more satisifed with this one actually. i hope you guys liked it !! <3 also i am deciding against using my permanent tag list this time because i haven't used it in a year and don't know if anyone exactly signed up to read horror 🧎♀️
#i have so much to say for this fic this is so hauntingly good and have me feeling like submerge into this story & felt like i was part of it#second of all whoever put this up on my dash i hope u have a wonderful day this fic just change the trajectory of my life#THE CHILLS???? THE BATED BREATH I TAKE BC OF THE FLOW OF THE STORY#The characterization is INSANE and PERFECT i love it so much#jaehyun's words hits like a truck when he told us about ppl thinking they could just shoot as they please because its bulletproof#IM SO INSANELY INVESTED ABOUT THIS#THE PLOT TWIST????? AMAZING WONDERFUL#the way i felt all the emotions and it resonated with me i ACTUALLY felt the confusion of feelings for sunghoon and jake#the way I ACTUALLY felt sunghoons emotions and sinister aura just through the words is beyond me & i mean this in the most positive way /pos#the shock & immediate response about the deaths?? INSANE#the spiralling down of the reader itself has been conveyor so astonishingly#jaehyuns realization & fear about the reader his compliance and the confliction of his values and feelings really did shaken me also#you wrote each members so well how a lil bit of their mannerisms were picked up in the story and the cohesiveness of it untill the very end#THISS IS ONE OF THE MOST AMAZING FIC I HAVE EVER READ HERE#the reader is a smart one on this#the way the reader has picked up on sunghoons words habits thinking the way she slowly emerge herself from that same darkness sunghoon had#i felt so sos os sad about jungwon ive actually cried tears and mourn for him#the way thus is all so twisted and fucked up just makes sense in my brain#DARE I SAY ONE OF TEH MOST AMAZIBG FIC HERE THANK YOU SO MUCH DEAR AUTHOR FOR WRITING THIS AMAZING FIC I JOPE YOU HAVE AMZINH DAY#“us against the world yeah?”#will forever haunt me + u have just change this sentence for me and everytime i hear it or read i will always think about this fic#the way i gasped#with everything and my hands was really on my mouth THIS IS SO BEAUTIFUL & WONDERFUL#RECOMMENDING TO EVERYONE!!! YALL SHOULD READ THIS MASTERPIECE#sunghoon x reader#jake x reader#jay x reader#enhypen x reader#꒰ recs ꒱
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Oh being a GM is so fucking fun
#this week the gm (my wonderful gf) had jury duty and was too busy to plan a session#and i want to learn to gm. im going to be a gm at a monthly event maybe. if that guy ever starts it#i wanted to get some gm experience and have fun with my friends. so i asked my gf if i could gm a one shot#low stakes. essentially 'beach episode' mostly character stuff#it actually ended up being a holiday episode#but it was so fun. the dynamic is a lot different. and i liked playing multiple characters#i got to play my favorite girl. shes an npc and very autistic#and i got to play her!#i played my normal character as an npc. and a bunch of others#my plan worked! i wrote a plan and used it as a guideline and we did improv around it and it worked#and it seemed like everyone had fun#i had so much fun honestly. like i love being a player but being the gm was a whole different barrel of fun#something i really enjoyed was. im a writer#i write stories of like book length and they sit in my documents and no one ever really reads them#and thats okay. theyre just for me and ny love of writing#but when i wrote out the plan for the session. it was then immediately acted out by the coolest people i know#people got to experience my writing in a whole different way. i got to experience my writing in a whole different way#i had a scene in which two people discover a small hidden cubby in the back of a shed with a bird nest in it#what i expected: they easily find the cubby and maybe evacuate the nest#what happened: i point them towards a hidden cubby blocking a door from closing. they assume 'the mice have gotten big. thats weird'#they first fail checks to find and open the cubby. they find an ominous bird nest. they write an eviction notice and leave it in the cubby#they take time to reorganize the shed the cubby is in so they can close the door that was being held open#like it went places i didnt expect because ny friends do not behave as i expect characters to in my head#and then i got to think on the fly about how to work with that#i tried to nudge someone towards going out on the lake so i could put her in mild danger. she instead chose a joke npc to take care of it#and i got to recalibrate around a joke person named jimmy jones whos definitely trans and doesnt know it. whos kind of a dipshit#i got to play him. which i wasnt expecting#let me count how many people i played actually. seven. i played seven people. which is six more than normal#im about to run out of tags but it was wonderful and amazing and i had the most fun ive had in forever and omg it was fucking great
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LADS Men React a Picture of You with Another guy
Request: Hii!! I love your writing so so much (pls never stop)!!! How do you think the lads men would react to the following scenario: mc makes one of her girl friends dress like a guy and post that on her story/moments (to ward off an annoying co-worker, like what Caleb did in uni, but mc didnt want to bother the guys with this request so she asked Tara or another one of her girl friends). The picture, though, is convincing enough to make even the lads men question if she actually does have a partner and who tf is he. I think Xavier would absolutely malfunction since they are also neighbours lol
AN: I am taking a break from the ship event to gather some inspiration. But this was super fun to write. Thank you for sending in such an amazing idea.
Warning: Potential Spoilers. Be Mindful 👺
Pairing: Lads boys x fem reader
Genre: fluff and angst
(I do not own these characters)
Summary: Waking up after an amazing girls' night, you and Tara spent the morning taking silly photos, making all kinds of concerning faces, until inspiration struck.
"Wait, wait, hold on," Tara grinned, pushing her short hair back. "What if—"
Moments later, you were both giggling uncontrollably, staging fake hard launch photos in your bed. The blurry, cozy results? Surprisingly convincing.
"Oh, this is gonna blow up at work."
Tara rested her chin on your neck, wrapping an arm around you for the final shot. The picture was better than you imagined, so naturally, you posted it to your story before the two of you rushed to get ready for work.
And just like that, your social media went up in flames.
Rafayel:
623 missed calls. 200 texts. 82 more missed calls.
All hours after your post.
Who is he? Why are you in bed with him? Is he your boyfriend? What is his name?
You barely have time to breathe after your meeting before the onslaught of texts floods in. Even the comment section of your post hasn’t been spared.
Thomas is already on the case. Rafayel is whining, sobbing, crying and absolutely not afraid to play dirty to get you back.
He's already planned a hundred ways to nip this budding romance at the root.
He thinks he has the upper hand, feels kinda smug about it too.
Still… there’s a twinge of heartbreak. A little ache for having to wait longer for you, for the idea that you might have chosen someone else. But if nothing else, Rafayel is persistent.
So, of course, he’s already forgiven you.
But don’t think, even for a second, that he won’t complain about it.
He’s still mulling over it, dramatically painting all his canvases black, getting ready for his villain arc, when you finally call him back.
"A prank?"
He is indignant.
He cried over a prank.
All that effort… for nothing.
"IT’S BEEN 800 YEARS. JELLYFISH ARE WALKING. NAKED SEA TURTLES ARE CLIMBING TREES. SHARKS ARE EATING GRASS—FOR FREE. "
AND RAFAYEL?
RAFAYEL CRIED OVER A PRANK.
HE WENT FULL VILLAIN ARC FOR A LIE.
HIS CANVASES ARE BLACK. HIS PLANS FOR REVENGE? RUINED.
ALL BECAUSE YOU AND TARA WANTED TO PLAY GAMES.
He might never recover. Might. But first, he needs to call Thomas back before his "investigation" starts a national crisis.
Xavier:
He had just returned from a long night of fighting Wanderers when his phone chimed with an alert.
Half-asleep, he smiled at the sight of your name, already thinking of how he'd respond once he changed and collapsed into bed.
That smile froze the moment he saw the picture.
The phone slipped from his fingers, landing on his face. But he didn’t even wince. Too numb to feel it.
His vision blurred. His chest ached. Tears welled, unbidden.
Genuinely heartbroken. So weary. So tired. For a moment, he was shattered.
Did he have the strength to wager another lifetime?
His time was already running out. His strength faded with each passing day. He had selfishly wanted this spring with you...but this was better for you. You were too kind, too caring to bear his loss.
Perhaps this was for the best. His lips trembled at the thought.
You had someone now, someone who would not bring you grief. And you looked so happy in that photo. He stared at the blurred curve of your smile, tracing it with his gaze.
Somehow, he managed a small smile too.
And then he folded into himself. And slept.
For days.
So long that you started to worry, noticing his absence at work.
Until, finally, you barge into his apartment, breathless and frantic, only to find him asleep, moonlight spilling across his face, eerily still.
Your heart plummeted.
"Xavier." Your voice trembled as you rushed to him, fingers shaking as you took his hand.
For a terrible, suffocating second, he didn’t move.
And then, his brow twitched.
Air rushed back into your lungs.
Zayne:
This was to be expected.
He was never what you needed.
He often failed at words. His gestures, too vague to be understood.
You deserved someone who loved you. Someone who had the courage to say those words out loud.
Not him.
Not someone who could hurt you. His scars only grow deeper with time.
So he accepts it. Buries himself in work.
If he could not be your lover, then he would play his part as a friend.
Pays extra attention to your health. Pours over your reports. He must. Because he is no longer close enough to watch over you himself.
And weeks later, when you finally visit him, he keeps up the act—cold, distant, unbothered.
He does all the tests. Runs all the checks. Everything is routine.
But you see it.
The dark circles, deeper than ever. His skin, paler. Cheeks, sunken. His shirt, unwashed.
"You're coming home with me."
Your voice leaves no room for argument as you take his hand. "You never call. You only text about my reports and nothing more. We need to talk."
You tug him forward. He follows, until he stops.
"Your boyfriend won’t like it," he murmurs, staring anywhere but at you.
Silence.
"What boyfriend?"
You blink at him, dumbfounded.
Sylus:
Sylus spits his coffee, choking as he stares at the pictures.
Does not buy it.
That’s clearly not a man.
Yet somehow, he keeps going back to it, again and again.
It’s only when Luke and Kieran peer over his shoulder that his denial starts cracking.
"Ooooh, boss has got competition," Luke chimes.
One minute, they’re laughing. The next, they’re outside the mansion, the door slamming shut behind them.
Luke blinks. "That explains..."
Kieran yanks him into a chokehold for getting them banished for the day.
Inside, Sylus switches to wine.
The day has been too much.
Not a man, right? he muses, scrutinizing the photo, before accidentally pressing the heart button.
And then, he all but chews the glass in his hand.
He’s not worried.
He just suddenly feels the urge to burn his entire closet because nothing looks good enough.
He doesn’t care.
He’s just made a few calls, just to make sure you’re not involved with anyone sketchy. Unless, of course, it’s him.
Then, like an absolute idiot, he gets a panicked call from an associate.
The only person who’s been in your apartment? Tara.
Sylus stares at the image. Facepalms.
That evening, when he picks you up from work, he looks exhausted.
As if a few hours have aged him years.
When you ask, he waves you off, dodging every question.
You raise a brow. "Are you sure? You look—"
"I said it’s nothing," he snaps, before sighing, dragging a hand down his face. "...Can we just go home
Caleb:
Storming to Linkon.
Geared up to blow up the entire apartment complex.
Spends five minutes struggling with the locked door before finally getting it open.
Marches in.
Stops. Sighs in disapproval at your empty fridge.
Good thing he packed snacks. Leaves them on your counter. You’ll thank him later.
Then, back to the mission.
Collects all forensic evidence needed. Marches out.
No time to waste.
Supervises the DNA administration.
Hair sample. Used coffee mug. Both next to yours.
He will find the bastard. He will take him out.
And then, he will whisk you away to Skyheaven, to console you once you learn of your tragic, mysterious loss.
Grief will bring you closer.
Every intern running tests is sweating.
So are the lead scientists, who have been personally forced to oversee this insanity.
No one is messing with the colonel today.
And then, finally, the results land on his desk.
Caleb stares. Dumbfounded.
Is he to fight both men and women for you now?
You better watch out for Tara because he does not discriminate.
#love and deepspace#love and deepspace sylus#love and deepspace caleb#love and deepspace headcannon#love and deepspace x reader#sylus x reader#xavier x reader#rafayel x reader#zayne x reader#zayne love and deepspace#caleb x reader#fluff#angst#love and deepspace reaction#jealousy au#everyone is unhinged
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