#dentists deserve respect bro

[simptasia]

what is it with those people who think dentists aren't doctors? medical doctors? they're manipulating teeth with metal. that's surgery. and really fucking impressive. they're doctors. surgeons!

[highvern]

When in Rome

Pairing: Choi Seungcheol x f!reader

Genre: fluff, smut, angst

warnings: alcohol consumption, cheating, nudity, mentions of drug use, explicit sexual acts (unprotected sex, dirty talk, oral, swallowing)

Length: ~24k

Note: excited to have this for the @svthub world tour collab! thank u to @gyuswhore for helping, @wonuvs for fact checking my shitty italian, @the-boy-meets-evil for making sure i actually finished this fic bc i live to torture her and everyone else who contributed to this over the months it took me to finally write it!

this is from cheol's pov which was a new challenge but i loved it (i will never do it again). i'll be out of town when this goes up but can't wait to read everyone's feed back!!!

Summary: After months of no contact, Seungcheol isn't sure what to expect when he sees you again at Jeonghan's wedding. He's prepared to apologize, to grovel, to bear the weight of a cold shoulder. Whatever it takes to have you back, his best friend since diapers; or whatever will ensure the last third of your trio has the best day of his life. But when he overhears the most recent development in your relationship, he must come to terms with something he was never prepared for, or risk losing you for good.

m.list

This blog is intended for 18+ only! Minors/blank blogs will be blocked.

There are fewer places Seungcheol hates more than airports. Dentist offices, his grandparents’ house during the holidays when they ask about grandkids, and even the time he ran into his elementary school science teacher the first time he was buying condoms at the pharmacy, all were more favorable than the hustle and bustle of an international airport. 

Seungcheol likes to be straightforward and direct. Something that becomes seemingly at odds with the average person traveling because at the one place everyone has somewhere to be, they act as if they have all the time in the world.

But the simple thought that it's all temporary, that his personal ninth circle of hell is the only thing standing between him and a week in Italy is enough to grin and bear it. 

On the other side of the terminal, his best friends are waiting for him. It’s not as if they haven’t seen each other for long; Jeonghan and Sofie were at bar trivia last week as their last hurrah before tying the knot. As usual they wiped the floor with everyone, rousing several allegations of cheating that Jeonghan deserved. But Seungcheol is about to watch them get married and it makes him a little misty around the eyes because he loves his friends more than anything. 

The only concern, which is less of a concern and more of a titanic size anchor sinking in his gut, is that you’re one of Sofie’s bridesmaids. And you haven’t spoken to him since New Years when you revealed you were moving to New York with your boyfriend, Johnny.

Another place Seungcheol dreads, right next to the airport, is anywhere Johnny happens to be. He’s everything you aren’t: abrasive, arrogant, catty, disorganized. And those are just the traits at the front of the alphabet. 

You had a plan. A list of criteria he had to listen to over and over again after each failed date. Even the guys Seungcheol set you up with after carefully vetting didn’t seem to make the mark. It was respectable, commendable. You wouldn’t settle for anything less than “perfect.” Whatever that meant to you. 

At a bar, three years ago, Johnny approached you. Seungcheol watched from across the table as you mentally ran over your checklist. Johnny met the physical ones: tall, good hygiene, well kept appearance. The other things would need more investigation. What did he do for work? Was he close with his family? Kids? Opinions on cheating at bar trivia?

The more Seungcheol learned about Johnny after your detailed debrief from a few dates the more confused he became. Johnny worked in banking. You hated finance bros and called them scum of the dating pool. He was an only child and only talked to his parents on holidays and birthdays. You had grand dreams of close grandparents and houses full of cousins. He didn’t want kids. You did. He didn’t think bar trivia was that serious. Seungcheol watched you threaten Jeonghan’s life on more than one occasion over the use of Shazam during the music round. Johnny was everything you said you didn’t want. 

And then you followed him across the country after two years of dating cut with three breakups. 

It didn’t make sense. 

When Seungcheol pulled you aside after you announced you’d be moving, trying to figure why you thought living with the man who once asked if you really needed to wash bath towels if you only use them when you’re already clean, you told him to mind his business. Later that night, after enough drinks to make everything blurry, you two got into a screaming match on the sidewalk with your shared friends attempting to play referee. It was the last time you two spoke. 

In over twenty five years of friendship, founded on the backs of elementary school shenanigans under a reign of terror of one Jeonghan Yoon, you and Seungcheol’s real fights can be counted on one hand. 

The sixth grade field trip where you and Jeonghan left him out, senior year of highschool when the girl Seungcheol took to prom argued about his parents taking more pictures with you than her, and junior year of college when Seungcheol caught you making out with his frat brother after ditching him under the guise of having a stomach bug. That was it. Three fights, all of which were resolved within a week because as stubborn as you both are, you’re best friends. 

Five and a half months of not speaking, except when you called Seungcheol in the middle of the night without leaving a message and when he tried calling you back in the morning you didn’t answer. Not until a month later when he finally swallowed his pride and texted a half hearted apology to which you responded with a quarter of forgiveness. That was it. 

But Seungcheol won’t dwell. He refuses to make things awkward for Jeonghan and Sofie during the most special week of their lives. Knowing you, you’ve probably already come to the same resolution. The only person you’re closer to than Seungcheol is Jeonghan with Sofie a close second. If there is anyone you two will agree to put aside an argument for, it's them.

The sun has already begun setting when he makes it through customs and out towards the Arrivals, painting everything in buttery yellow. 

“SEUNGCHEOOOOOOOOOLLLLLL!” Sofie screams, hands cupped around her mouth.

She’s half outside the cherry red sports car. An Intermeccanica Italia Spyder because Seungcheol knows three things in life: expensive watches, expensive whiskey, and expensive cars. Sofie’s family happened to have plenty of the last and Seungcheol assumed the first two as well.

When Sofie became his study partner in law school she ended up following him on Instagram. He assumed from the way she carried herself, perfect posture with tailored clothes and an ‘air of society’ as you called it, that she was well off. But then, during a late night gossip session, you and he did a deep dive and found out Sofie wasn’t just well off. Her family had more money than God. 

But everything on the surface was a contrast to who Sofie really was. Heiress to a fortune but studied more than anyone in their class just to graduate second. Perfect posture and tailored clothes are a stark contrast to her favorite bar where she’d outdrink anyone, and cheer when the prize for trivia was cheap plastic margarita glasses.

Or right now, where she belts Seungcheol’s name again like some drunk frat boy while sitting in a car worth more than his life.

Seungcheol jogs to where she waits, already smiling. 

“I would have brought a ‘Welcome back from rehab’ sign but my mom thought you’d be embarrassed,” Sofie says as she hugs him over the console. 

“At least make it ‘welcome home from prison’ so people won’t walk in my way.”

“I’ll make sure Jeonghan remembers you have a preference,” she calls over the wind. 

Technically, the house (which is really a mansion) is almost an hour from the airport. With Sofie’s driving it only takes twenty minutes in which Seungcheol thinks he might need to start going to church. 

The pebbled driveway crunches underneath the tires as they approach the imposing building he’d call home for the weekend.

In the evening light, the house is more daunting. An imposing stone facade rises from the ground, akin to a small castle than an actual home. Smooth stone with detailed carvings, windows with huge shutters, and on the top floor, a balcony, fenced with wrought iron, juts out.

Even after years of seeing pictures, Seungcheol still can’t believe his friend grew up here. He can’t believe it actually exists and isn’t some set from a historical drama.

Sofie throws the car in park right in front of the door before jumping out. 

“By the way, there were some issues with one of the rooms.” Sofie drops her voice, “My aunt and uncle are fighting again, so I hope you don’t mind sharing?”

Seungcheol knows most of the guys coming to the wedding. Worst case scenario he’s stuck in a twin size bunk bed with a weird cousin. And with how busy he’ll be as best man, his room will be for sleep and not much else. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

“Perfect! Just leave your stuff, everyones out back.” Sofie pushes him as hard as she can manage which isn’t much at all given she’s five foot nothing. 

The garden is filled with bodies upon bodies crowded together, some old, some young. Seungcheol recognizes a few faces in the mix: Soonyoung, Joshua, Seungkwan. More friends from law school. Jeonghan’s sister waves from across the way. Everyone seems to be paying attention to whatever is happening at the iron garden table. 

And then, like a scene in a movie, everyone parts for a second and time freezes. 

Seungcheol would recognize you anywhere. Even if he can’t see your face, he knows it's you. The curve of your shoulders, the tilt of your head. The bark of laughter as your chin drops forward. He knows it's you and the weight in his stomach lightens and leadens in an odd cycle.

He missed you.

Then everything comes back into real time. Wine and cards. Then he sees the chips on the table, your stack to the side significantly higher than anyone else's. 

Months of ruminating over what he’d do when reunited fly out the window. Seungcheol doesn’t waste a minute as he approaches, hand on the back of your chair as he peeks over your head to sneak a glance at your hand.

“Who let you talk them into poker?”

You’re already smiling when you tilt back to look at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Oh, how he missed you.

“She said she didn’t know how to play,” an old man grumbles from the side. 

Seungcheol doesn’t recognize him but he’s got the same expression as all the people you’ve sharked before: mildly impressed and slightly murderous. Two other guys sit at the table, one old enough to be his grandfather looks almost proud. Seokmin fills that last seat, head in his hands at being swindled so easily. 

“I said,” you start, throwing your gaze to him. “I hadn’t played in a while.” 

You look back up at Seungcheol for some kind of support. Eyes round and innocent in a way you both know you’re not. Pool, cards, darts, any game a man a few drinks in could beat you at was easy fodder for your con. Usually it ended with free drinks, sometimes money, but mostly it’s Seungcheol playing referee for the disillusioned guys you swindled while wearing a bright grin. 

Tossing a few chips towards the three men at table with a smart ‘don’t spend it all in one place,’ you rise and throw your arms around Seungcheol like everything is normal. 

“Hi,” you whisper into his neck.

Seungcheol’s hands are already curled around your waist, pulling you in tight. “Hi.”

“I missed you.”

Seungcheol doesn’t think to question the sudden rush of familiarity after months of silence. Every fight in your long friendship ended this way; you both stew and stew until one day things snap back to normal. It’s how it’s always been.

“I see that you can’t even greet your best friend.” Jeonghan coughs from the side.

Seungcheol squeezes you tighter at the jab. It’s Jeonghan’s wedding but Seungcheol saw him last week when dropping the couple off at the airport to come here. He’s far more interested in dragging out his reunion with you as long as possible. “I’m in the middle of that actually.”

He scoffs in response, walking away. “Whatever, I see too much of you anyway.” 

There’s glasses of wine waiting when you break apart. Seungcheol keeps closeby, not that you seem eager to go anywhere. His staring is obvious but he doesn’t care. You’re really here and the cold shoulder he expected to find is nowhere to be found.

Another two hours of celebrating, filled with drunken toasts and more card games with Sofie’s family that only end with you digging into their pockets even deeper, fly by before the exhaustion of a day starting in one continent and ending in another catches up to him. You’re too busy arguing over if Jeonghan cheated in the last round to notice Seungcheol slipping away from the table and towards the door leading inside.

Sofie is in the kitchen just beyond, another bottle of wine sloshing in hand as she talks animatedly on the phone. “Okay, look. I am on vacation. I’m about to get married. I literally left notes for everything I'm not working on during my wedding week. Figure it out. Bye.”

She hangs up without response, tossing her phone on the counter before taking a swig straight from the bottle.

“Good?” Seungcheol asks.

“Oh, you know, just the usual. I leave and suddenly no one knows how to do their job.” Sofie rolls her eyes. “What’s up? Need another glass?”

She raises the same bottle and the thought of more wine nearly turns his stomach.  

Seungcheol brushes her off, moving to the sink and rinsing his glass with finality. “I think I’m gonna crash for the night.”

“Really?” she asks. “But the party just started!”

“For you maybe, some of us have been cramped on a plane all day.” He feels it. In his back and knees. The cramp in his neck from passing out halfway through and waking up bent at ninety degrees. And the hours he spent agonizing through emails with the inflight WiFi because even on vacation he can’t sit still for more than one minute. But now it’s a ticking time bomb before he curls up in a chair and passes out until morning.

Sofie snatches his glass before shooing him away from the sink and taking his place. “I forgot you’re an old man now.”

“You’re the same age as me?”

“Anyway,” she sings. “I know we promised you’d have your own room but—”

“That’s fine. I really don’t mind rooming with one of the guys.”

“Well… you and Y/N were the only ones not sharing and she said she wouldn’t mind for the weekend.”

“Huh?”

“I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal! Seokmin and Kwan agreed to share and room with Josh so things are pretty tight but I can see if we can switch things around and—”

“No, if she’s okay with it then it's fine.” Seungcheol says. “We just haven’t talked since, you know?”

Sofie seems to soften at that. “I know. But it looked like everything was fine outside.”

“Yeah,” Seungcheol sighs. “I missed her.” 

“I know she missed you too.”

“She said that?”

“Oh please, neither of you have to say anything, you’re both pathetic,” she says while pouring another glass. “But I think this weekend will be good for you guys! Like old times.”

Old times. Before the fight. Before you moved away.

“Yeah, just like old times… At least we aren’t sharing a bed, right?” He jokes. 

“Actually,” Sofie grimaces. 

The one solace Seungcheol is gifted is the bed is massive. Almost the entire room is dominated by the plush mattress, a dresser, and a chair in the corner. He considers sleeping in that instead for all of a minute before realizing you probably wouldn’t let him and the absolute torture it’ll do to his neck. 

At least the forced proximity won’t be awkward since you’ve silently agreed to leave the past behind you. He can’t imagine Sofie would consider this solution if you were still mad at him, even if it was her wedding week. The realization lightens the weight on his shoulders an ounce more.

Seungcheol throws his bag down at the foot of the bed. It’s no big deal; sharing a room with you. Childhood sleepovers had been the norm, a few nights in college you’d shared a clunky old twin bed when you both were too drunk to find your ways home separately. Your first apartment together, when you two had to share a mattress on the floor for the first weeks because all your money went into paying rent, flash in his head. Old times.

Thirty minutes later, freshly showered and in clean clothes, Seungcheol heads back downstairs for a glass of water before bed.

He remembers where the kitchen is after Sofie’s short tour, trapezing through the huge house easily. Behind different closed doors he catches glimpses of pre-sleep conversations: couples spitting harsh whispers to each other, a few cartoonish voices reading bedtime stories to an audience of childish giggles. But when he reaches the threshold of his destination Seungcheol stumbles into an entirely different atmosphere.

“You haven’t told him yet?”

“No. I didn’t feel like the kind of thing to say over text,” you whisper.

“Well you could have called him!”

“And say what? ‘Hey Cheol, I know we haven’t talked in months because we got into a huge fight about my boyfriend but Johnny and I–’”

Seungcheol strains his ears to hear the rest of your sentence but fails to decipher anything before Jeonghan’s voice cuts in. Whatever ‘it’ is, you seem keen on keeping it a secret.

“Just tell him.” Jeonghan says through a mouthful of something. “I’m sure he’ll be happy.”

His mind races with a million possibilities, all related to Johnny, all things you wouldn’t have told your best friend of over twenty years because of some stupid fight. Something you don’t know how to tell him over the phone, something you need to tell in person.

The realization strikes like lightning.

You and Johnny are engaged.

Thirst forgotten, Seungcheol turns back the way he came. He thinks through the new information as he stumbles up the stairs.

How could you not tell him? How could he make you feel like you couldn’t tell him? How long have you been hiding this? And why did Jeonghan and Sofie know before he did? Was everyone in on the secret and he was the odd man out?

You and Johnny weren’t even that serious when you moved away; or, that's what Seungcheol thought. In all honesty he fully believed it was some joke when you told him. A drunken practical joke taken too far but you didn’t laugh when he did. There was no punchline to share. The boxes were packed away and then the moving truck came and you left with it. 

Everything else hits him in the seclusion of the bedroom. Your shared room. He doesn’t even have the luxury of coming to terms with your latest surprise in private. 

Seungcheol isn’t happy. He is, but because you’re you, argument aside. The past few months are the longest you’ve ever gone without each other and seeing you again lifted a weight off his chest he’d come accustomed to in months of silence. 

It’s an easy decision. If Johnny makes you happy enough to tie your lives together then Seungcheol can bite his tongue. You’re his best friend and by default he’d never think anyone was good enough for you but if you loved Johnny, if you were this serious about him, then Seungcheol would support you.

Even if it meant there would always be a Johnny sized ravine between you.

Seungcheol wakes far before the sun breaches the horizon. The room still washed in the shadows of early dawn grants him some peace to think over his own conflicts with the news, your quiet snores a backing track from across the bed.

On your side facing him, Seungcheol gets the first good look at you in what feels like forever. Even with the size of the bed barely a foot of space separates your bodies. You hand twisted in the hem of his shirt like even in your sleep you can’t stand to be apart more than necessary.

You look ridiculous; hair a mess and limbs splayed. But your face is soft in sleep, eyelashes fanned on your cheeks and lips in a pout. 

There’s an odd flutter in his stomach. He wasn't lying when he said he missed you. But now things are complicated. 

He hadn’t slept at all last night; mind constantly replaying the conversation he heard in the kitchen, formulating his reaction when you finally let him in on the ‘surprise.’

Perhaps under different circumstances he wouldn’t struggle with news. Seungcheol wants you to be happy. Johnny is the problem in the scenario. They never got along, barely spoke outside of the few times forced circumstances required them to. Seungcheol was polite. Johnny was polite. 

Seungcheol wanted to kill him and he’s certain Johnny felt the same.

Relationships naturally take priority over time but Johnny seemed to creep in and choke Seungcheol out of all the places he’d been firmly planted for years. Another reason he isn’t happy.

Monday night Bachelor? Canceled, because Johnny plays beer league softball with his friends and you started going to that.

No more sleepovers at Seungcheol’s after a night out because ‘it makes Johnny uncomfortable.’ Fair complaint. Seungcheol wouldn’t appreciate his girlfriend sleeping over at a guy's house after drinking if the roles were reversed. But Seungcheol isn’t some guy and you were his best friend before you were Johnny’s girlfriend.

Traditions at Christmas felt hollow without you. The first one you spent meeting Johnny’s family in Minnesota you texted Seungcheol the entire time about how cold it was, how they were a 5k on a holiday type family despite the fact there was three feet of snow outside. 

All small details that mean everything to Seungcheol, never meant as much to you. 

And that’s why he doesn’t like Johnny. Because he made Seungcheol realize that.

It’s not that you and Johnny didn’t work. Seungcheol just couldn’t wrap his head around why you wanted to overlook all the glaring differences to make it work.

But pointing that out left him with a cold shoulder lasting six months so he plans to keep his mouth shut.

You tried talking to him before bed but gave up when he pretended to be asleep. It took everything he had not to give in and talk into the early morning. Six months was more than enough ground to cover for you two to catch up; he was promoted, you had an entirely new life in another city that he wanted to hear all about. His insane neighbor from across the hall, who you both are sure sells drugs, is actually a preschool teacher (mysteries of the universe). And he knows you probably have kooky neighbors of your own in New York.

But, in all honesty, he didn’t want to hear stories with Johnny’s name attached. Wasn’t ready to hear you say you’re engaged. It’s one thing to know it. But the second the words leave your lips then it’s real. Then Johnny is here to stay and it's only a matter of time before you two are arguing again.

Especially when everything said months ago was still fresh in his mind. Words he’d stand by no matter what. But Seungcheol has figured out that there are conversations he’s allowed to have with you and ones that should never see the light of day if your friendship is to survive. Johnny is one, the other is a memory from college that remains vivid no matter how hard he tries to forget.

But this weekend wasn’t about you and him, it's about Sofie and Jeonghan. If Seungcheol can dive into focusing on them, maybe he’ll survive.

Today is the one day reserved for sightseeing before ‘the inevitably disorganized shit show of an Italian wedding’ as Sofie puts it. 

Seungcheol has already seen some of the big things thanks to his study abroad in undergrad: the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon. So for today, he'll stick by whatever you want to do. You’re the building nerd architect.

When he finally finds the willpower to roll away, carefully extracting your grip on him before ducking from the sheets, you stir enough to release a sleepy whine in protest before burying back under the blanket. 

It’s odd but he notices you’re not wearing a ring. Seungcheol looked closely if you took it off before bed but nothing stands out in the bathroom or on the dresser. He assumes you took it off to make the weekend about Sofie and Jeonghan rather than yourself. It’s something you would do. Or maybe it’s at the jeweler’s for repairs. Maybe Johnny had gaudy taste and bought a ring so flashy you refused to wear it. 

Seungcheol doesn’t know but it strikes him as strange.

The kitchen is already bustling with life even at such an early hour. Family and friends trickle in one by one, joining Seungcheol at the table with cups of coffee and munching on fruit and biscuits as their hangovers ebb. Quickly, the peace he preserved in the early quiet melts into loud laughter and a million buzzing conversations.

You melt into the chair beside him, eyes barely open as you snag his cup and scowl after finding it already drained.

“Coffee?” you mumble.

Seungcheol pushes his plate of unfinished fruit and a half finished pastry you way. “Sofie’s mom is brewing more. But it’s strong.”

“Oh trust me, I know,” you say around a mouthful of jam and dough. “I drank a full cup the first day I got here and felt like Sonic.”

“That’s how you know it’s good.”

“You’re insane.”

“What are your plans for today?”

“So there's this church, the Santa Maria Sopra della Minerva. It’s near the Pantheon!” you ramble, peeling another orange. “It’s just beautiful and it's got a statue by Michelangelo next to the altar and the design is incredible.”

Seungcheol can’t help but laugh at your enthusiasm. A city filled with ancient buildings and history is right up your alley. 

He remembers how you pouted when he came back from his trip in college after yours to Venice was canceled due to ‘not enough student interest.’ The only thing that managed to quell your anger was all the pictures Seungcheol took with you in mind. Close ups of the tiniest details about ancient designs tour guides pointed out to disinterested business majors but he knew you’d care if you’d been there. If you were there then you’d probably be leading the tour yourself whether the guide liked it or not.

“Mind if I come with?” he asks over his fresh cup of coffee.

“Duh,” you roll your eyes with a smile. “I waited for you to get here to go.”

Sofie’s uncle, the one not under threat of murder by his wife, agrees to drive you both out. He drives at full speed from the second he hits the gas pedal. With the windows down. The breeze is as nice as a wind tunnel and cuts off everything Zio Berto tries to point out except for his screams at other drivers. 

On the other side of the back seat, you’re turning green. Seungcheol is glad the window is already down because if you get sick, he will too. And Sofie would refuse any payment for the cleaning fee, Seungcheol is morally opposed to ruining such a nice car with vomit.

The city whips past outside the windows, cobblestone streets slowly growing more crowded as the car edges closer to the center city. Berto finally slows down to avoid pedestrians and mopeds but only by a fraction. He doesn’t seem to share Seungcheol’s concern about body fluids clashing with the car design.

Finally, after what feels like a century, the car jerks to a stop. You don’t even pretend to be polite and exit immediately, hands on your knees while dry heaving for air.

“I’ll be around. Have fun!” Berto calls from the driver's seat. “Call me when you’re ready to head back.”

Seungcheol waves him off and when he turns back where you were standing, you’re already gone; circling the elephant obelisk in the center of the cobblestone courtyard.

“Isn’t it so cool?” You gush, snapping photos.

The exterior of the building is unassuming. Flat sandstone brick without much detail but you see the things that are important. In a few minutes you’ll be in tour guide mode, pointing out the smallest crack no one would see unless they already studied the church's history in depth.

“Soooo cool,” he jests. He appraises the statue with you, turning his head this way and that. 

You slap his shoulder, “Don’t be a jerk!”

“Okay, okay. Give me the tour.”

“It was built on the ruins of a temple of Isis.”

“Okay, and why the elephant?”

“The obelisk was taken from the Church of San Stefano del Cacco down that way,” you point. “It's originally from Sais in Egypt but got moved all the way here. The elephant was commissioned by the pope to display it based on a book that was popular at the time.”

“Interesting.” 

You point at the inscription on the plinth before continuing, “that’s from the book.”

Sapientis Aegypti insculptas obelisco figuras ab elephanto, belluarum fortissima, gestari quisquis hic vides, documentum intellege robustae mentis esse solidam sapientiam sustinere.

“Whoever you are, who sees here the figures of the Egyptian wise man carved on the obelisk carried by the elephant, the strongest of wild animals, understand the symbolism to be that a strong mind supports firm wisdom,” you translate. 

“I didn’t know you read latin.”

“I don’t. It’s in English on the other side,” you laugh. “But I do know, the guy who designed the statue made it look like it's farting because the pope told him to change the design from what he originally wanted.”

“Really?”

“Yep. He said having it stand on four legs was dangerous so the sculptor added the saddle and a cube at the base, but he also made its butt face the convent so the friars would have to see its ass every time they came out.”

“Wow.”

Seungcheol circles the statue and sure enough the tail is angled to look like it's blowing wind.

“I’m pretty sure it’s a lie but I’d like to think people were that petty hundreds of years ago. Now all people do is subtweet and post vague Instagram stories. I want someone to hate me so much they design an entire statue just to minorly inconvenience me each morning.”

You’re fully of facts Seungcheol would never know. It’s one of the best parts of visiting places with you. It’s not just some building or some random statue. You give the architecture a new life.

Seungcheol’s mind flashes back to the first time he accompanied you and Johnny to a monument back home. In the five minutes you’d been there, he realized Johnny truly did not care about your interests.

The look on your face that day told him you realized Johnny didn’t care either.

It’s the same pact everyone that moves to D.C. makes to visit all the museums and monuments and landmarks. Good intentions with zero realistic goals. Except you’re stubborn and the drive to say you did something means Seungcheol has tagged along to thirty out of the one hundred and fifteen on your list. Johnny missed most either from work trips or some other excuse and the one Seungcheol missed had been the only one Johnny came to because of the flu.

Safe to say the first time visiting together was a shit show. Johnny didn’t pretend to evaluate the ‘important’ parts, didn’t ask questions or bother reading the placards detailing events of significance, raced through the entire thing to leave you and Seungcheol behind. It’s not like you or Seungcheol were overwhelmed with beauty and needed hours but Johnny finished his round after less than thirty minutes and told you to text him when you were done. 

So Seungcheol did the only thing he could to get back at Johnny without upsetting you: walked as slow as possible, pointing out things he knew you’d know more about, and dragging things out so Johnny was stuck waiting in the frigid winter wind outside to suffer.

You knew what he was doing, obvious from the way you hook your arm through his and give an affection squeeze. Your smile didn’t reach your eyes but you both pushed through.

Thank whatever powers be that Johnny wasn’t here now.

“See the windows?” you ask, pointing to the three different sized circular windows hanging over the main doorways. 

“Yeah,” he nods.

“Well you can’t tell from here but they’re rose tinted.”

Seungcheol tries to see what you’re talking about but the windows are dark and covered in some kind of lacquer that makes them look gray and dusty rather than pink.

“And why is that important, Professor Y/L/N?”

“Because it’s the only medieval church in Rome like that!” 

You continue rambling off facts, talking a mile a minute as your point at different things and walk Seungcheol around the exterior. A few other people's ears perk up as you go on about how the details had been done over and over; first Romanesque, then Gothic then, some guy named Carlo Maderno added Baroque designs inside, and friars who put in stained glass windows.

By the time you take a breath, the crowd has taken a closer interest in the windows and the elephant statue due to your brief history. A few look at the flood plaques which are some of the best preserved records the city has.

Seungcheol hangs onto every word. He doesn’t care about the old church, it’s an interesting bit of history sure but he could be outside any church in Rome and have the same reaction. He cares about the church because you care. And your passion about old windows and flood markers make it the most interesting place in the world right now.

“Go stand on the steps so I can take your picture,” you demand.

“Do I have to?” Seungcheol jokingly complains.

“Just go.”

Seungcheol poses as you direct, flashing a few silly poses you laugh at. He manages to wrangle you into taking a few photos as well. Ones that will probably be sent to your mom and never see the light of day other than her Facebook. Your Instagram is reserved for, in order: buildings, animals, food, and the rare picture of you with friends at some sort of occasion (wedding, graduation, the time Jeonghan broke his leg drunk on a city scooter and ended up in the ER). 

You’re in the middle of pretending to hold the Leaning Tower of Pisa when someone approaches Seungcheol.

“Would you like us to take your photo?” an elderly woman asks. She is a quintessential tourist: fanny pack, camera around her neck, sun burnt around the ears. A man in a matching shirt approaches with her, donning the same gear and pink tinge. Seungcheol recognizes them from a few minutes prior when you gave your lecture about elephant butts and petty sculptors.

“Sure, thank you.”

He hands over his phone and joins you on the steps. You both pose like normal adults, smiles plastered on your face while Seungcheol gives you bunny ears and you pull his hair.

“Beautiful couple!”

“Oh, we’re not…” You both object.

“We’re on our second honeymoon.” The man croons at his wife, chuffed when she rolls her eyes and focuses on the camera screen. “You two?”

“We’re here for a wedding.”

“Wow! Married in Rome,” the wife gasps. “How romantic.”

It isn’t the first time you two have been mistaken for a couple. Anytime you’re with him or Jeonghan someone assumes you’re dating. Occasionally, you’d play it up, make an entire story about how you met, how long you’ve been together, biting your tongues the entire time as each detail is more ludicrous than the last.

Jeonghan takes the cake as the most ridiculous. Two tornado chasers that ran into each other ten years ago and never let go. Him and Seungcheol, not you. Which really threw the waitress off. Never mind the fact you all were sophomores in college, high as kites and stuffing yourselves full of hashbrowns in a greasy spoon diner for Seungcheol’s birthday.

“Did you two meet here?” the husband asks.

“Oh no, we actually met in a competitive bowling league,” you fib, wrapping your arm through Seungcheol’s.

What the hell?

“Romantic!” The wife belts like she actually believes nothing could inspire love like sharing shoes with countless strangers and cheap beer.

Seungcheol would take the piss under any other circumstances. Except this time you’re actually engaged and the last time you two pretend to be a couple was when you fake proposed to him in a fancy restaurant to score free champagne and dessert to celebrate the end of law school.

“Would you mind taking a few of us?” the man asks.

You snap a few pictures on the wife’s phone and after more coos of ‘romantic!’ and a few thank yous they melt into the crowd.

“Alright, let's go inside.”

“Lead the way.” Seungcheol feels more awkward than before, cheeks red but not from the sun beating down

Upon entering the church, he discovers the inside is much more interesting than the outside. Holy water stoups are held up by marble. Two statues flank the entrance. There’s more things to see than Seungcheol’s brain can handle but he follows behind you, mind lingering on the scene outside.

“‘My husband’?” Seungcheol asks.

“What? We won’t see them again. Who cares?”

Probably your own fiancé but just as Seungcheol opens his mouth a priest silences him with a sharp, “SHH!”

Passing through a high stone archway, you enter the nave. The ceiling, cobalt and gold with motifs of  biblical figures and cherubs, rises high above. 

“Look!” you whisper. “Isn’t it cool?”

Your point at a marble Jesus wearing a bronze loin cloth.

Cool isn’t the word he’d choose but he goes with it.

“Michelangelo started it but two other people had to finish it for him.”

“Oh.”

“But people still call it Michelangelo’s statue because it’s more impressive. Besides, he did most of it before his apprentice took over.”

He observes the paintings and statues, the stone work that bulges from the walls like they’re trying to come alive and escape their immortal capture. There’s even a tomb and shrine with incredible detail. 

It takes two hours to see everything and another thirty minutes to make your way out of the church because you both keep catching missed signs or there's some tiny piece of the ceiling with an odd detail.

He missed this.

Outside, you open your phone and look at the message from Sofie. She made the recommendation to come down here and gave an extensive list of everything else to be done in the area. There’s so many options it would take at least a week to see half of them.

“This hotel has a rooftop restaurant that’s supposed to have a good view of St. Peters,” you say.

The restaurant would have a great view of the city, if it wasn’t shut down for renovations. The staff don’t even let you near the elevator before you’re both swept outside and back on the street.

“Well…” Seungcheol starts.

“Should we call Berto?”

He doesn’t want to. Partially because Berto’s driving might kill him and also because he doesn’t want to end his time with you just yet. One of the things he missed about you living in the same city was weekends in museums for hours. Now that he has it again, he hesitates to cut the time short.

“Wait, I think we’re near one of the parks we visited when I came in college.”

“Oh my god,” you gasp sarcastically. “Did you study abroad? I never knew!”

“Shut up.”

Seungcheol pulls out his phone and dials Berto’s number. “Hey, Berto. No, we're good, everything is fine. But I was wondering how far away is Villa Borghese from us? Oh really? Would you be able to come drop us off? Awesome. Thanks man.”

“Well?”

“He’ll be here in five.”

Five minutes turns into fifteen and in that time Seungcheol burns out. Jetlag and the dull thrums of city streets make him sleepy. You sit in front of him on a bench outside the church. He thought he was better at hiding it but he’s pretty sure if he sits down, he’ll fall asleep.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” you ask once Berto arrives. “We can go back to the house if you want.”

There’s an unofficial official itinerary for today.

Anything before four is fair game. After that there is a welcome cocktail party at a fancy restaurant in the city one of the De Luca’s family friends own.

If Seungcheol doesn’t go home now then it’ll be a close call to nap and shower in time. Not that Sofie is exceptionally punctual about things like that but Seungcheol is.

“I don’t want you not to see stuff just because I’m tired.”

“Cheol, I’ve been here all week with Sofie and Han. I promise this was the only thing left on my list of stuff to do. Anything else would have been a bonus.”

“Only if you're sure.”

“We can always come back again. I’m pretty sure Sofie’s mom is decorating a room for me.”

Yeah, because most men are fine with their fiancée taking international trips with another man. Not that you’d listen or Johnny has the balls to say something about it. But Seungcheol knows the chances of coming back here together, like this, are slim to nonexistent.

“Alright. But you can’t bring it up in an argument.”

“I can and I will.” The corner of you mouth twitches as your head shakes before opening the back seat for him. “Now get in the car, old-timer.” 

Seungcheol falls asleep on your shoulder in a blink. Berto is quiet (or the open windows drown him out enough that Seungcheol can pretend) and the heat of your body next to his lulls his heart. It’s not a peaceful rest and his neck is killing him by the time Berto pulls into the driveway, but it’s nice.

Seungcheol beelines for the bathroom while you slip into the kitchen. Something about centerpieces or napkins or tablecloths; he isn’t really sure but Sofie’s mom says it's urgent so he goes upstairs alone, showers in record time, and dives under the covers.

His dreams are filled with blue and gold elephants, He wakes to the sound of your voice blended with the sound of water.

You’re singing. More so humming some off key melody that bounces off the shower tiles and echoes straight into his brain. It drags him in that liminal space between waking and dreaming where anything is possible. Maybe he’s still dreaming. Of you and him, back when you shared an apartment and things weren’t so complicated. When there weren’t secrets and omissions and he didn’t have to bite his tongue.

His eyes stay closed, refusing to budge until the last minute.

The shower turns off but the humming continues, louder now that you’re out of the bathroom and collecting your things.

You must think Seungcheol is still asleep because when his eyes slit open, only enough to decipher your hazy silhouette, you’re in nothing but a towel. A very very tiny towel that hides nothing but the necessary bits and even then only barely. 

He can’t wake up now. Not when you bend over to look in your suitcase for Seungcheol closed his eyes just in time. But it doesn’t stop his brain from latching on to every sound in the quiet of the room; the humming tickling across your lips, the wet thump! of your towel on the ground. Oh god, now you’re not even wearing a towel. 

Seungcheol won’t be that friend. He never has. Or has always tried not to be. But teenage hormones make a young boy’s brain untamable so it’d be a lie to say he’s never thought of you like that. But despite his feelings, Seungcheol has made sure they never became a factor in your friendship.

Even though there is a peace of his soul that will always belong to you.

So he pretends to be asleep, forcibly controlling his breathing while you shuffle around the room none the wiser to his rising predicament.

Finally, you disappear back into the bathroom to change and Seungcheol’s lungs stretch with air until they burn.

You look pretty. Objectively. You glow in the late afternoon sun pouring in from the window, a ditsy floral print dress of orange and cream that hugging your figure; delicate collar bones on display under the flimsy straps and the column of your neck bare save for the necklace you’ve worn everyday since your parents bought it for your sixteenth birthday.

“C’mon sleepy head,” you whisper.

Seungcheol is thrilled his gawking is easily disguised as jetlag.

He changes in the bathroom. Taking a moment to grip the sink, his reflection stares back in the mirror. It’s the exhaustion and dehydration making his brain muddle. Nothing to do with you or him.

It’s fine. Everything is perfectly fine.

The downstairs foyer is in complete chaos but Sofie commands the room like she always does from the top of the stairway.

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen. Are you ready?” She yells like a WWE announcer.

Cheers rise up from the gaggle of adults. Cousins, friends, parents, aunts and uncles. Most of them Seungcheol has never seen before and is pretty sure neither have Jeonghan or Sofie but it’s fine. The more the merrier.

Except when different cars end up filled to the brim and you end up sitting on Seungcheol’s lap instead of a seat.

His heart leaps with every bump, yo

ur hair flying into his face and leaving the sweet smell of perfume to flood his senses. Seungcheol can’t even think about that because Sofie’s Zia Linda puts her husband's driving to shame.

At some point you nearly fly out the open window–Why does no one believe in keeping the windows up?– and Seungcheol is forced to wrap an arm around your waist to keep you from ending up a part of the cobblestone road.

“Sorry,” you say. The squeeze at his arm tells him your thankful at least something is stopping you from becoming roadkill.

“It’s fine.”

If you notice his strained breath, you don’t say anything.

The rooftop restaurant is gigantic but with everyone it feels small and crowded. Below, all of Rome spreads out. Lights twinkle in the distance and the moon is heavy overhead, ready for a night of revelry. It’s a welcome party so things are casual, finger foods and drinks flow heavily while everyone mingles.

Sofie and Jeonghan laugh at their own table, holding court with family and friends that flood in and out with congratulations. They’re good at it. Jeonghan ventures on the more introverted side but Sofie could have a meaningful conversation with a pile of rocks. 

You're off at another table, talking with Soonyoung and Seungkwan, a second glass of wine in hand. Laughter rings out and he feels drawn to it like a siren call. It was foolish to worry that the scar from Johnny wouldn’t heal over eventually. All you two needed was time.

Seungcheol barely leaves your side during the party. You dance and drink and dance some more until you’re both left in a heap at the same table by the dance floor. Soonyoung and Seokmin provide ample distraction, taking to the floor to do…something Seungcheol hesitates to call dancing because it resembles a child's idea of a circus. 

Dancing, food, and wine leave him feeling loose and sleepy. You’re not much better, head on his shoulder and hand tangled with his across your knees.

“Cheol?”

“Yeah?”

“I missed you.”

“I missed you, too.”

His shirt is unbuttoned, sleeves rolled high. In the back of the car on the ride home, you trace the muscle of his forearms draped over your waist until it lulls him to sleep.

Back at the house, you, Sofie, Jeonghan, and Seungcheol throw out sleepy goodnights and I love you’s before retreating to your separate corners of the house. Jeonghan is technically staying in a room in the same wing as you two (Sofie’s house is big enough to have an east and west wing which still shocks him). Something about family tradition and bad luck for the wedding but Jeonghan follows his fiancée like a shadow to her room at the opposite end of the house without theatrics.

And then there’s just you two.

You lean on each other the entire walk up, like you need the other support or you’ll crumble to the floor and sleep there. Honestly, it’s not a bad idea. Seungcheol has slept in worse places.

The stairs present their own challenges. You go first, Seungcheol right behind in case you fall backwards which has happened enough times that it’s become a habit to walk this way when alcohol is involved. But it doesn’t solve the issue of you tripping up.

Which you do with an effortless lack of grace on the last step.

“Oh, shit!” you giggle.

Seungcheol laughs so hard his knees buckle and he flops on the floor next to you like a dying fish.

“Shhh!” you slur, finger pressed to his lips. “People are sleeping.”

But you're cackling now and he can’t breathe from the painful quaking laughter rooting in his belly. He’s on his back, and you prop up on your arm to loom over him. Twin smiles breaking your faces, eyes watering with drunken mirth.

You go silent first, tracing his features silently like they must be committed to memory. Seungcheol does the same. You’re exactly the same as the day you left. Except for the vacation glow from being here for the past week. He recognizes all the parts of you he’s known for a lifetime. The silver scar on your chin from learning to ride a bike and crashing into a tree. The color of your eyes. The blush of your mouth.

The finger pressed to his lips traces along the plump flesh, then his chin, then it circles the back of his head and you’re ducking down.

Alarms go off in Seungcheol’s head screaming: 

DANGER! DANGER! THIS IS NOT WHAT FRIENDS DO! DANGER!

“Wow, it’s late,” he laughs horsley as he rolls away and to his feet. 

You jump away, dazed for a second before laughing as well. “Yeah, let’s um…let’s go to bed.”

He can’t quite read your expression. Several  emotions swirl across your face but Seungcheol can barely look at you without feeling his face heat so he doesn’t linger. 

Seungcheol takes the bathroom after you finish, rushing through his night time routine in sober silence. 

You're drunk. That’s the only reason you’re trying to kiss him. Or he had something on his mouth and you can’t find the words to tell him. It was a mistake. A momentary lapse of judgment that didn’t mean anything.

It wasn’t even a fraction of an almost kiss. Your noses barely touched, it doesn’t count.

When he comes back into the room, you’re curled up on the bed in your pajamas asleep.

Seungcheol circles to the other side, slipping under the covers and getting comfortable. The room feels smaller after what just happened. But it wasn’t a big deal. Nothing happened. You both were drunk and missed each other. You never would have kissed him.

Despite the fact the first, and only, time you two kissed was in very similar circumstances.

Rolling over, you find him and cuddle into his chest. Seungcheol opens his arms for you on instinct. 

“Did you have fun today?” you ask into his collarbone. The vibration of your voice tickles but it’s dulled from Seungcheol’s heart thudding wildly.

“Yeah.”

His hand smooths the back of your hair, down your back. You readjust, throwing a leg over his own and pulling him in tight.

“Good,” you say around a yawn. “Me too.”

Seungcheol tamps down the piece of him that wants to indulge in this. Just holding you, pretending things outside the door don’t exist and it’s just you and him and no one else. 

But he can’t do that.

“You know,” he starts. “I’m happy for you no matter what, right? You and Johnny…I’m happy for you.”

Seungcheol waits for a response that will never come because you’re out cold, snoring against his chest.

You’re still asleep when Seungcheol wakes around noon. Sometime in the night you shifted to the far side of the bed, taking the blanket with you. He doesn’t try to wake you, still confused at exactly what happened last night.

Seungcheol isn’t naive. He knows what women look like when they want to be kissed, when they're thinking about how his mouth will feel against theirs. Usually he revels in it; loves the flare to his ego, the chance to tease before giving in.

But to see the expression on your face sent him into a panic. He’s seen it once before, indulged in it, and it ruined his life for the better part of college. Lips parted, eyes glassy as you stared. All the telltale signs were there: the lift of your chin, hands twisted in his shirt, eyes drooped low.

And the worst part was you did all that despite having a fiance waiting back home none the wiser. Even if Seungcheol couldn’t stand Johnny, he’d never do that. Never allow you to do that. 

Even if he wanted nothing more than to feel your lips on his.

He heads as far away as he can. Turns out it’s down stairs for breakfast. Sofie is at the kitchen table, typing on her laptop.

“Morning,” Seungcheol croaks.

“You look like shit. Wild night?”

“Just some old timers thinking they’re twenty one again.”

“What assholes.” She laughs. “How's Y/N?”

Seungcheol freezes like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar. Sofie couldn’t know what almost but certainly didn’t happen in the hallway last night. “She’ll probably need an exorcism but she’ll survive.”

“By the way, I meant to give her this last night but everything was crazy. Can you pass it off? Jeonghan and I have to take my grandma to lunch and she’s already called twice sooooo…”

“Yeah, go. Have fun.”

Sofie is up and out before he can blink, a tiny piece of cardstock left in her place.

Kira Long

Artisan Jeweler

Her social media and number are at the bottom but Seungcheol doesn’t need more information.

He hides around the villa most of the day. Catching up with the guys around the pool, feigning fatigue when you come out to join. The gardens are big enough for him to disappear into for a few hours before he needs to go and get ready.

Unfortunately, that also means you are getting ready. 

A leg.

That’s all Seungcheol sees when he opens the door.

Your leg specifically, propped on the dresser while you apply lotion in nothing but that damn skimpy towel designed to torture him.

“AH!” you shriek, shocked by his sudden entrance. 

“I’m sorry!” he shouts.

The fabric unravels around your chest and suddenly you're naked and Seungcheol is not looking. 

“What the fuck? Have you ever heard of knocking?”

He’s not.

“Why are you naked?”

The ceiling is very interesting. 

“Because I wanted to scare you.” you scream sarcastically. The door to the hallway is still open. Seungcheol either stays in with you or goes back out because it can’t stay open much longer. He makes the fatal mistake of locking himself inside with you. “Because I thought you’d knock, you fucker! Jesus fucking Christ, turn around.”

Seungcheol saw you naked. 

He hides in the bathroom like a wimp until it’s time to leave.

—

It’s a short walk to the church down the street for the rehearsal ceremony. It’s all a blur given the million and one things flying through his brain; most of them you. You in your towel. The fact you’re engaged. You looking at him like you’re dying to be kissed. The fact you’re engaged. How everyone has assumed you’re a couple this entire weekend and you’ve played along. The fact you are engaged to a man that isn’t him and Seungcheol can’t help but feel bitter about it for a completely different reason than he ever thought he would be. 

Luckily, the ceremony is only planned to last less than an hour. He knows he isn’t subtle but he tries to grin and bear it for his friends. He can see the same sentiment in you. Your smile doesn’t quite fit but Seungcheol can’t think about what it could be about. 

“Do you take this man…”

Was it his rejection? It wouldn’t make sense if it was. You’re his best friend but not even that dictates cheating. You weren’t the type; in your own words cheating was more pathetic than ghosting someone as a form of break up. 

He doesn’t get it.

“I always love you even though you sleep like a princess, my love,” Sofie gushes.

“And I’ll forgive you for snoring like an old man, love of my life.” Jeonghan fires back.

They’re saving their real vows, the one Seungcheol helped Jeonghan with, for the ceremony. Even with all the confusion swirling in his head, he can’t wait for Sofie to hear what Jeonghan has in store.

The priest is less than impressed but moves forward like he can’t wait to have them out of his congregation as fast as possible.

“Okay, and you two leave and the wedding party follows…”

Seungcheol offers his arm to the Maid of Honor, Maria, guiding her back down the aisle where Jeonghan and Sofie bicker. You follow with Seokmin, break away the second it's polite with some excuse about needing the bathroom before you dissolve into the crowd.

The dinner is back at the house. The outside is lined with chairs crowded around tables covered in exploding bouquets and candles. Family members and friends weave to and fro, drinks and food flowing heavily.

You’re talking to Seokmin in the corner of the courtyard, a glass of wine already in your hand as you laugh along to whatever the other man said. 

“So Sofie said you’re a lawyer?” Maria asks. 

“Yeah, that’s how we became friends. I actually was the one who introduced her and Jeonghan.”

“Wow, so you’re a lawyer and a matchmaker.” 

Seungcheol laughs at the compliment. Introducing Sofie and Jeonghan had been a complete accident with unintended consequences. “I wouldn’t say that. I thought Sofie would strangle him the first time they met.”

“Oh, I heard all about that. When Sofie told me they started dating I thought she must’ve meant a different Jeonghan.”

Maria makes good company through the first rounds of drinks before dinner is served. She takes his focus away from you, how your leg presses against his under the table. She grew up down the road, went to school with Sofie all the way through undergrad. Her boyfriend, Jihoon, is a surgeon back in Seattle while she works in marketing. Unfortunately getting time off for a second year resident verges on impossible so he couldn’t come to the wedding.

“You two are so cute together, how long have you been dating?” Maria asks before taking a swig of her drink.

“Oh we’re not together,” Seungcheol corrects swiftly.

You give a tense nod of agreement. 

“Really?”

“Yep. We grew up together. She’s like my sister.” 

He sounds like an asshole. The words are bile but there can be no room for incorrect interpretations. This weekend had been nothing but confusing so far. Seungcheol needs to set himself straight on where he stands with you.

“Oh,” Maria nods. “Okay. So Y/N, are you dating anyone?”

“Actually I—”

Your response fizzles out because Jeonghan’s dad rises from his seat for a speech.

“I want to take a moment to express my deepest appreciation to everyone here this weekend to celebrate Sofie and Jeonghan. I remember the first time he told us about her, how happy he was and thought ‘oh this poor girl doesn’t know what she’s gotten herself into’.” There’s a smatter of laughter throughout the room. Sofie leans into Jeonghan’s shoulder and he places a kiss on her temple. “But then I met Sofie and I can say, without a doubt, there are very few people more perfect for each other than those two. Sofie, welcome to our family.”

Dinner passes, course after course and more wine until Seungcheol physically can’t have any more. You and Maria hit it off, rambling about Jihoon’s two cats and the abandoned kitten that hangs out around his work he’s trying to bribe into coming home. You barely look at him during the conversation but he prefers it.

Dessert comes with coffee and then everyone dissolves. Some stay around the tables to chat and drink and laugh, others help clean up. But Seungcheol, Jeonghan, and the groom's party head for the back gardens, Seungkwan already queueing up the song for one last practice.

It’s tradition, in southern Italy at least, for the groom to serenade his bride-to-be the night before their wedding. Seungcheol couldn’t believe Jeonghan was planning to go through with such tradition but he’s seen the man do more for Sofie than he thought he was capable of so it shouldn’t come as a shock.

The warm summer air does good for his mood, as does laughing with the guys when Soonyoung and Seungkwan get into a wrestling match after debating if they step-shuffle for three or four counts. But they all agree with four because it’s easier to remember.

The top floor balcony at the front of the house turns out to be Sofie’s room. The light floods out of the open doors, and two sets of giggles pour down to where they stand.

Jeonghan cups his hands around his mouth and calls, “Juliet, Juliet! Let down your hair!” 

“That’s not the saying.” Seungcheol corrects. 

“Shut up, I’m talking to my wife.”

“That’s not the saying!” Sofie laughs from above. 

You and Sofie peek over the side of the iron terrace, grins already splitting your faces. You knew what was happening. It’s why you whisked Sofie away with whatever distraction you could think of while the men gathered outside for a quick last minute dry run. Something about broken heels and needing to borrow a pair of shoes.

“Sofie Cosima De Luca, you are the love of my life.” Jeonghan yells. He’s drunk on love (and a lot of champagne). “I can’t wait to marry you tomorrow. I just hope after this you still want to marry me. Hit it!”

The obscenely large speaker Seungcheol carried out starts humming the instrumental to Sofie and Jeonghan’s song. The very one Jeonghan drunkenly serenaded her with in a dingy bar, back when she didn’t believe he could handle a serious relationship and he was hopelessly wrapped around her finger.

“I’ve got sunshineeeeeeee on a cloudy day…” Jeonghan croons.

“Oh my god,” Sofie cackles.

Everyone else joins in, harmonizing in the back along with the choreo Seungkwan and Soonyoung came up with. A simple side step with occasional jazz hands (much to Soonyoung’s tipsy dismay). “I guess you’d say what can make me feel this way?” 

“MY GIRL,” Jeonghan belts his line, smiling dumbly.

You’re watching the shenanigans unfold, smiling as well. But while you're looking at everyone else, the only person Seungcheol can look at is you; the way your eyes gleam in the moonlight, your chin tipping back to laugh when Jeonghan’s voice cracks. You’re breathtaking. For a brief moment, barely a passing thought in the roaring river of his brain focused on his cue to sing and side step when needed, Seungcheol imagines what it would be like if you two were the only ones around.

Chalking it up to the moment, Seungcheol thinks about anything else as they finish the performance.

The music dwindles away and all that's left is Jeonghan staring up at his future wife as the rest of the group takes exaggerated bows. Other guest peek from windows or the edge of the drive way, cheering loudly.

“Bravi! Bravissimi!” Sofie cries as you both clap. “Can I make a request?”

Jeonghan nods like an eager puppy in response.

“Sing the Thong Song!” you both request through giggles.

“That's for after the wedding.” Jeonghan winks.

Time for Seungcheol to do his best man duties and prevent Jeonghan from making a complete ass of himself. "Alright Casanova, let’s go.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow!” Jeonghan calls over his shoulder, fighting against everyone ushering him away.

“Don’t be late!” Sofie demands.

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” 

After returning Jeonghan to his room for the night, Seungcheol heads back to his completely unprepared to see you again. Too many feelings swirl in his head. Feelings he thought he finally left back in college.

He remembers only a few key events of his early childhood. When he lost his first tooth, when he broke his arm for the first time, and his soccer game at four years old when Jeonghan and he rubbed dirt in each other's faces and rolled in the grass instead of playing. But other than that, his life has been distinctly divided into two parts: before you, and after you. He remembers when you marched into the first day of second grade with a sparkly blue bookbag much too big for your little body. You went to the front of the class, introduced yourself loud and proud, and then looked around the room like you were daring anyone to say something back. 

And like any other childhood friendship is made, you sat at Seungcheol and Jeonghan’s table and asked if they wanted to be your friend. Without even considering the options, they both agreed. From then on out you’d always been Seungcheol, Jeonghan, and YN. Friends in elementary school, all through middle school, and even into the far reaches of highschool when Seungcheol played sports all year while you and Jeonghan did theater. It never occurred to any of you to be apart. Until Jeonghan stayed home to attend university in your hometown. And then it was Seungcheol and YN. Jeonghan came to visit when he could and vice versa. But at university it was you two against the world.

The first time Seungcheol realized he liked you was in third grade after you dumped chocolate milk on Jeonghan’s head because he put a bug in your lunchbox. He married you on the playground and made mud pies to celebrate. And then in high school when Seungcheol realized you weren’t just a girl but a pretty girl and the hormones of his teenage body latched onto that fact and plagued his dreams with the information. 

And he never did anything about that crush because he knew it wasn’t worth losing you to act on those silly notions. They passed just like he thought, melted away as time went on and you both dated other people. 

But that night freshman year of college…

It doesn’t matter. 

Because you have a fiancé and Seungcheol is happy for you.

The sound of running water echoes from the bathroom as Seungcheol enters your shared room. At least it delays the inevitable awkwardness. 

Or he thought it would.

“Hey, Cheol?” you call from the door.

“Yeah?”

“I forgot my clothes. Can you bring them to me?”

“Ugh, yeah.” Seungcheol scrambles for the pile of clean pajamas at the corner of the bed, snatching them up and stepping closer to the door that separates you. “Here.”

Mind caught on other things – like not remember that he caught a glimpse of you make last night, barely a second, no real detail except creamy skin and details his brained filled in on its own accord to his own chagrin – Seungcheol trips over his own feet and slams into the piece of wood head first.

The only thing stopping the door from flying straight into the wall is you.

“Shit!” you exclaim following a ricocheting ‘thump.’ “What the fuck, Cheol?”

Clutching his forehead, Seungcheol is oblivious to the tangle of limbs you’ve both collapsed into. 

“Fuck, sorry.” He blinks against the stark brightness of the overhead light. You’re clutching at your face, hands cupped around your nose and eyes filled with tears. “Here let me see.”

Your eyes crack open enough to glare at him, narrow and rimmed red. As if he didn’t feel awful enough.

Without a second thought, he strokes across the curve of your knee soothingly. “I won’t touch it, I just wanna make sure it isn’t broken.”

A hand shakenly falls away to unveil your perfectly fine nose. Seungcheol tips your chin up, moving in for a closer look just in case. But everything is fine. You’re not even bleeding, just a runny nose that definitely hurts worse than it looks. 

The initial rush of panic ebbs only to be replaced with awareness. Seungcheol is kneeling between your legs, your towel is definitely too short, and the beads of water caught on your collarbone are down right taunting him. He needs to get away.

Now.

“Oh my god,” he gasps, moving back.

Your face morphs into horror at his tone. “What?”

“You’ve got a huge bat in the cave.” Seungcheol rises to his feet, offering you a hand up while ignoring the way your chest struggles against the tie of the towel as you come to your feet as well.

“Fuck you,” you laugh, pushing him away. “Give me my clothes and get the fuck out.”

Seungcheol does just that. As the lock latches back he’s left alone with nothing but thoughts of you.

He remembers. That night you two have never spoken about. And probably would never discuss even under the threat of life and limb. A drunk kiss, in the stuffy bar that didn’t care if your IDs were fake as long as you had money.

Seungcheol remembers the way you felt in his lap, the taste of your mouth, the breathy whine against his lips when he first pulled away from the kiss. Maybe that last detail was a hallucination but it felt real. The heat of your body haunted Seungcheol for the week after it happened. 

Not even Jeonghan knew about it. 

And he’d rather die than open that can of worms. The first time Seungcheol had a crush on you in high school, he swallowed those feelings and never let them see the light of day. Because you’re his best friend, his longest friend, and if it was between the risk of losing you from his feelings (that he was certain would fade eventually despite the fact they never have) or keeping you in his life, then he’d stay silent if it killed him.

It’s your turn to disappear the next morning. You’re side of the bed is long cooled by the time Seungcheol’s alarm goes off, a piece of him gone with it. 

His dreams hadn’t helped. A faceless woman, not even sounds or sights or tangible things he could identify. But he knows the feeling. That alluring warmth of a body firm against his own, the kind that leaves him aching when he wants up. Seungcheol knows it's you. It’s the same images that have plagued his subconscious since adolescence when he’d wake up to messy boxers and the inability to look you in the face for days after.

Feelings he’s long suppressed came out last night. Seeing you in the window, in the bathroom, it’s all too much. And now it chases him into sleep; the one place he thought he might have peace.

Luckily your absence means there's no awkward explanation of why he’s hard. The trip to the bathroom is more of dejected desperation than eager need. Seungcheol hops into the shower and takes care of it, careful to keep his thought as abstract as possible or risk you popping up in his fantasy. Dreaming about you is damning enough. He doesn’t need to add to the guilt weighing on his conscience.

The rhythm of the water lulls his brain into a cycle. He can’t do this. He can’t go another minute 

He can’t even survive Jeonghan’s wedding. How he will sit through yours with a grin will be a true test of his acting ability.

But that is future Seungcheol’s problem. Right now he needs to get through today and then tomorrow and after that he’ll be on a plane back home where he can ruminate in the isolated confines of his apartment. 

He just needs to focus on one thing at a time. 

Right now, it’s getting downstairs in the next ten minutes or risk losing tee time with Jeonghan and the other groomsmen. 

There’s only two people he’d ever turn to in a time like this, except he can’t talk to either of them because one is the problem and the other is getting married in a few hours. The last thing Jeonghan needs is to hear about an issue between his two best friends.

Which is why he’s the first to pick up Seungcheol’s mood. 

“You look like shit,” Jeonghan greets. 

The other mill about the kitchen, snagging leftover pastries and fruit. Usually Seungcheol is the first to show up, not the last. But Soonyoung still seems to be missing.

“Thanks.” 

“Rough night?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“Well if you’re tired you can always join the girls at the spa.” Jeonghan offers. “Sofie said they’re doing mud baths.”

The wedding isn’t until this afternoon leaving the entire morning free. So the boys play golf while the girls go soak in mud.

“That sounds…horrible.”

“I know,” Jeonghan nods. “Alright gentlemen, let's head out.”

Seungcheol eats shit the entire morning. He usually scores around seventy five but he’s destined to break well over a hundred today and even Jeonghan pretends he doesn’t notice. 

“Do you ever think about why nothing happened between you and Y/N?” Jeonghan asks right as Seungcheol prepares to swing.

Kicking a man when he’s down is more of a guideline for his best friend rather than something to avoid.

Seungcheol’s shot flies wide, straight into a fairway bunker a good thirty yards behind everyone else’s ball. He watches for another solid minute, deflating.  “No.” 

“If you’re gonna lie, at least make it believable.” Jeonghan chides, setting up his own tee.

“I’m not lying.”

“Humor me. It’s my wedding day and I’m trying not to freak out.” 

“You’re freaked out?” 

“Dude, of course I’m freaked out. We’ve never gone more than a few hours without talking since we started dating and I haven’t seen her since last night. So just let me focus on something else,” Jeonghan sighs.

Seungcheol thinks about his next words wisely. Jeonghan can smell bullshit a thousand miles away, and playing mind games right now feels a little unfair. “I don’t wonder why nothing happened anymore.” 

“Lying again but whatever.”  Jeonghan grabs for his drive and lines up the shot.

“Why are you asking?” 

“I don’t know. Everyone thought you two would end up together eventually and then you didn’t. I’ve got a lot of people asking and I wanted an official response because you’re not exactly subtle and she isn’t stupid.”

Jeonghan’s shot lands square on the first cut, fifty yards ahead of Seungcheol’s ball. 

“Yeah, well.” Seungcheol huffs. “If she noticed, she never said anything.”

“Okay but did you ever say anything?” 

Jeonghan hands his club over to his catty before they start towards their respective zones. Seungcheol and his friend trailing behind.

Seungcheol argues. “You just said I wasn’t subtle?”

“You aren’t,” Jeonghan snorts. “But Y/N is about as impressionable as rock.”

“Did you think something was gonna happen?”

Seungcheol reaches his ball first. All the other guys are further ahead but Jeonghan sticks by.

“No.” Jeonghan says. “But I know you kissed her.”

Seungcheol turns to the other man, mouth gaped in shock. “How the fuck did you know that? Did she tell you?”

“I KNEW IT.” Jeonghan points at him like a little kid tattling on his friend. “ I fucking knew it! Sofie owes me fifty bucks.”

“What?”

“Y/N is a better liar than you, I’ll give her that but I knew something was off that first week I came to visit. I knew you didn’t have the balls to sleep with her so I must have been something else.”

Jeonghan asked you if you remember the kiss. Jeonghan and Sofie know you kissed. You remember the kiss. But you never said anything. If that doesn’t solidify Seungcheol firmly in the friendzone then nothing else would.

“You made a bet with your fiancée on whether your best friends kissed or not?” Seungcheol shakes his head in disbelief.

“You’ll understand when you have a successful relationship.” Jeonghan touts.

The catty hands over Seungcheol’s driver. He looks about Seungcheol’s age, maybe younger, and by the look on his face he’s trying very hard to pretend he isn’t listening to the unfolding drama. 

Another person to witness how hopeless he is. Great.

“It doesn’t matter. It was a mistake.”

“You never know,”  Jeonghan shrugs, following his catty further up the fairway and ending the conversation.

Back at the house, you’re nowhere to be seen while Seungcheol showers and changes. It’s for the best. No sleep, a horrible golf game, and now all the feelings that returned over the weekend have left him with nothing but a foul mood. 

Every step is dragged out so he doesn’t have to pretend you two are fine. He can’t afford another blow out right now because today is meant to be for Jeonghan and Sofie. Even if Jeonghan thought he should talk about it, Seungcheol couldn’t do it anymore. He wouldn’t do it anymore. But the time it takes leaves his head spinning out of control.

You’re pretending nothing is wrong. Cuddling up to him, calling him your husband. You nearly kissed him. You would’ve if he didn’t stop you. You always said cheating was worse than heartbreak but now here you are, capitalizing on his feelings for whatever satisfaction you selfishly crave; using Seungcheol to hurt your fiancé in secret. Who you seem dedicated to pretending doesn’t exist. 

It’s a nasty cycle. Feeling used, disbelief of who you’ve turned into in months away, that piece of him that always craved something more with you flowering only to wilt because it’s not real. 

You don’t want Seungcheol.

You never have.

The wedding party gathers outside the church. Sofie is tucked away in a private room until her grand entrance. She wanted everyone to be surprised, leaving her bridesmaids to mingle with the groomsmen until it was time to for the ceremony to start.

The lavender bridesmaid dress is nothing special. A tie at the top keeps the entire thing up, the front void of any details. The open back adds a flash of skin but other than that there isn’t much to it. But you’re wearing it and Seungcheol can feel his heart jerk as the fabric flows around your curves. The universe is taunting him with what he’ll never have.

He doesn’t stare despite the fact that every time he blinks his gaze automatically searches for you. It’s hard to ignore the only person he sees in a crowded room. Even if he’s pissed at you.

You excuse yourself from Seokmin, creeping over to where Seungcheol stands with a grin. “You clean up nice.”

“Thanks,” he nods.

“Is something wrong?’ 

A shot of annoyance flashes through him. Now is not the place. Last time he felt like this, you two got in a screaming match on a snowy sidewalk. “No.”

You shake your head, hand coming to rest on his arm in an act of comfort. “Are you sure? Because you’ve been acting weird.”

Betrayed by his own body. Half of him wants to get on the next flight home and block your number so he can forget all of this. It wouldn’t work. The times tried anything remotely of the sort only leave him in circling thoughts day and night.

The other half of him wants to wrap you in his arms and take whatever you're willing to give him. The half that could act like Johnny didn’t exist, at least not in this little bubble where nothing else exists but you and him. Because he's selfish and he’s been in love with you for years and he would never expect something in return for his feelings but he can’t take it any more.

But he can’t pretend anymore.

Pretending he’s never been jealous of your boyfriends, and that the night in college when you kissed meant nothing. That it didn’t flood his brain everytime he looked at you; that it didn’t leave more questions than answers. He’s been pretending everything has been fine, that seeing you asleep on his chest doesn’t make his heart hurt, and that he was stronger than the temptation to kiss you last night.

He remembers that night with clarity despite how drunk he was. Thought it meant you felt the same way he had for years.

“Cheers to finally being adults!” you scream, tequila shot raised over head.

Seungcheol laughs. Nothing is that funny but he’s nineteen and drunk in a dingy college bar with his best friend . “Adults!”

Someone passes by and knocks you forward, straight into Seungcheol's chest where you keep laughing as you look up at him.

You’re close. Closer than ever before. He could count all your eyelashes if there weren’t four of you floating in his vision. But Seungcheol doesn’t need to see clearly. Not when you’re already kissing him.

He’s kissing you.

It’s sloppy and drunk but his brain doesn’t think in big picture. It’s all feeling. Your hand in his shirt, a sweet sigh against his chin when you break away for a second just to come right back. Your mouth tastes like alcohol and lime and he’s never had anything better sweep across his tongue.

Thank god for the booth because you’re in his lap now, grinding against the seam of his jeans until he’s hard and when you finally realize you say his name.

And then Seungcheol pulls away, turns his head, and vomits before blacking out.

He hates that he thinks about it. He thinks about it all the time. What if? But there’s no more what ifs. There's only right now. Just you and him and the widening space in between that's become unnavigable. 

“I’m acting weird? I’m not the one rubbing herself all over me, calling me her husband to strangers, and trying to kiss me.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I can’t believe you would do something like this. Why would you put me in this position? Do you think it’s funny?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m happy for you, really. I just think it’s best if we don’t talk for a while. I think you need to sort things out with your fiance.”

Now that seems to get your attention. “Seungcheol, what—”

The music swells from the organ inside, cueing the ceremony and effectively silencing your questions. 

Good. It’s better that way. Seungcheol is weak for you in all the ways that matter and he knows if he had to stand there for another minute then your hurt expression is all it would take for him to fold and pretend he never said anything.

You join the other bridesmaids and Seungcheol ducks inside the church after the wedding planner opens the doors. One by one the other groomsmen walk in: Joshua, Seungkwan, Soonyoung, and finally Seokmin. Each line up further down Jeonghan’s side. Then the bridesmaids follow. 

Sofie’s cousin, who Seungcheol met once, glides down the aisle followed by another taller cousin who looks nearly identical. Then it’s Sofie’s roommate from college, Mona who Josh had been trying to get with all weekend.

You walk up the aisle, a smile plastered on your face but it doesn’t reach your eyes. You won’t look in his direction. 

Everything is slipping through his fingers and you both have to pretend they aren’t.

Everyone turns to watch Maria, and then Sofie. But the only person Seungcheol is paying attention to is you. 

The ceremony flies by. Sofie cries, Jeonghan cries. 

Sofie cries even harder when Jeonghan recites his vows in Italian. It’s odd, watching his two friends who usually are the couple laughing in the corner, be so vulnerable. Declaring their love for each other in front of a few hundred people.

“Sofie, sin dal primo momento in cui ti ho incontrata, sapevo che ti avrei voluta nella mia vita per sempre. Che tu mi amassi o odiassi, per me andava bene, perché significava che avresti pensato a me tanto quanto io pensavo a te. Mi hai dato il privilegio di chiamarti mia, e non posso aspettare di farlo per il resto delle nostre vite.”

Six months of using Seungcheol as practice, along with Sofie’s cousin, and he sounds decent. Jeonghan wouldn’t win any awards for his language skills but everyone’s faces melt around the room. Even the people that don’t know a word of what he’s say can feel the earnest dedication he has to Sofie. Even Seungcheol gets misty eyed.

“Io, Jeonghan, prendo te, Sofie, come mia sposa e prometto di esserti fedele sempre, nella gioia e nel dolore, nella salute e nella malattia, e di amarti e onorarti tutti i giorni della mia vita.”

“I, Sofie, take you, Jeonghan, as my husband and promise to be faithful to you always, in joy and in pain, in health and in sickness, and to love you and every day honor you, for the rest of my life.”

Then they kiss and Sofie screams something along the lines of “we’re married, bitches!” much to the priest demise before exiting the church. 

From there it’s chaos. 

The entire wedding party is corralled for endless pictures while everyone else heads back to the villa for the reception. You don’t look at him and Seungcheol refuses to acknowledge you until your parents are forcing you two together for awkward pictures like its high school prom.

By the time it’s over and he gets to the reception, the party is in full swing and the sun is setting.

Dinner is a blur. He makes his toast, short and sweet like Jeonghan told him to. The night progresses and people flood the cleared area serving as a makeshift dance floor in the center of the courtyard.

Seungcheol sips his wine. Three glasses in an hour because he isn’t sure what to do with his hands when his obligatory dance with Maria is over and he’s avoided being dragged on the floor by one of Sofie’s more zealous aunts because she herself demands a dance.

“How does it feel to be Mrs. Yoon?”

Sofie turns to watch Jeonghan twirls her great grandmother. Or more like Nonna Cosima leads him. She’s surprisingly spry for someone pushing triple digits. “I think he’s gonna be a great first husband.”

His gaze settles on you, Seokmin leading you across the floor in a ridiculous fashion. The younger man is trying hard to make you laugh and it seems to be working.

“She thinks you’re mad at her,” Sofie says.

“Maybe I am.”

“Care to share with the class?” She prods but Seungcheol doesn’t break, using the ending of the song to find a table at the edge of the makeshift dance floor. “Fine, but I feel like if you’re gonna pout at my wedding I should at least know why. Especially because I owe Han fifty bucks because you can’t lie to save your life.”

Seungcheol is mad. But mostly at himself. For tricking himself into thinking maybe, just maybe, there could be something more. That in all the improbable universes you returned his feelings, this would be one. 

And he did all that knowing you’re dedicated to someone else who is so entirely wrong for you.

“What did she tell you?” Seungcheol asks. 

“That’s not how this works. No pay, no play.”

He studies Sofie for a minute. She’s good at keeping her cards close but she knows about you and Johnny. It wouldn’t be a far leep to assume she knows about everything else.

“God, you sound like Jeonghan.”

“Have you and Y/N talked? Like, really talked, since you got here?” There's a weight at the end of that sentence but Sofie doesn’t elaborate. 

“Care to be more specific?” he asks, grabbing for another glass.

“I’ll take that as a no then.” Sofie takes the seat beside him.

His chest tightens. This is it. 

“About her and Johnny?”

“So she did say something…” Sofie fishes.

“No she didn’t. But I heard you guys in the kitchen the night I got in.”

“You did?” she gasps. “And you didn’t say anything to her about it?”

His jaw ticks in annoyance. “What’s there to say? ‘Congrats on your engagement, you’re too good for him’? I don’t think that's what she’d wa—”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Sofie throws her hands up, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. All around the party continues. “You think Y/N is engaged? To who?”

“Johnny! Who else?”

Her drink sloshes over the sides of her wine glass, narrowly missing the white gown and falling to the cobblestone. “Oh my god, you’re an idiot!”

“Excuse me?”

“She’s not engaged, you dipshit,” she goes on. “Oh my god, you’re both so stupid. I told Han, I told him we should’ve said something.”

“What?” he says quietly.

Sofie continues as if Seungcheol hasn’t spoken at all, “I can’t believe she hasn’t told you.”

“Told me what?”

“She broke up with him!”

She broke up with him. She (you) broke up with him (Johnny). You and Johnny are done. It’s like he’s hearing the news from underwater.

“She broke up with him.” He repeats dumbly.

Someone cheers and then applause follows but Seungcheol is lost in his mind. You and Johnny aren’t engaged. You two aren’t even dating. Haven’t been. 

“When?”

Sofie’s face softens. She knows. The first time he introduced you to Sofie she assumed you two were dating. She didn’t like Johnny for a lot of the same reasons Seungcheol did, but also because she thought you two were meant to be together. “A week after she moved.”

That phone call the week after you moved. It must’ve been something to do with you and Johnny. But why didn’t you answer messages the next morning? Why would you break up with Johnny and then refuse to tell him? Why would you let Seungcheol think he was being used as the other man?

“So this entire week…”

“She was supposed to tell you. I told her to tell you months ago but does she listen to me? Nope.”

“Do you know why?”

“Now that is something she needs to tell you.” Seungcheol looks where you're dancing with Seokmin. Your smile doesn’t reach your eyes but you laugh when the man dips you almost to the floor and struggles to lift you back up. “But first you need to apologize.”

“Is it that bad?”

“When I imagined someone crying at my wedding it wasn’t because of you.”

Seungcheol winces, “She cried?”

“Yep. You owe me a nice ass wedding gift for that one.”

“Sofie, I’m sorry I—” he tries to apologize. 

“Cheol, don’t worry about it.” She pats his arm. “It was actually a nice distraction from the insanity this week.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“It really is.” Sofie rises from the table, snagging a glass of champagne from a passing tray. “Now if you’ll excuse me, my husband owes me a dance. And Cheol?”

“Yeah?”

“You should tell her how you feel.”

Seungcheol takes his chance at Sofie’s departure. With the change in music Seokmin bows out and you're left on the dance floor alone. Cast in the soft glow of garden lights and candles, you’re tragically beautiful. Soft around the edges in a dreamy haze. Seungcheol feels like he’s intruding by approaching you but he needs to apologize before you both return to your separate corners of the country tomorrow night.

“Hey,” he greets.

You look at him apprehensively, eyes dark, before speaking. “Hi.”

You’re just as petty as Seungcheol so he knows if you’re speaking to him then there's some kind of hope he hasn’t completely ruined your friendship. But it could also mean you’re about to rip him a new one in front of everyone for not the first time in his life.

Hopefully, it’s the former.

“Mind a walk?”

“We’re at a wedding.”

Jeonghan and Sofie curl tightly around each other at the center of the courtyard. It’s clear from the way both their faces soften, lax grins reaching their ears, that the world has stopped spinning just for them.

“I’m pretty sure we could light them on fire right now and they wouldn’t notice. Besides, Sofie gave me her blessing,” he jokes but you don’t laugh.

“Fine,” you say before stalking towards one of the paths leading to more secluded parts of the house.

People drape across different parts of the villa as you two walk in silence to find some privacy. The gardens are full of chatting elders, kids running around in the dark or falling asleep in some adults' holds. After ten minutes with no luck at seclusion, Seungcheol has half a mind to go back to your room and talk it out but he doesn’t. The idea itself freezes his blood.

It’s not until you're deeper into the maze of shrubs and bushes that the voices and music fade. The silence is so tense he might shatter under the pressure.

You whip around to face him, still five paces ahead. 

“What did you want to talk about?” you deadpan.

Seungcheol thought through every thing he wanted to say, all the questions and whys and what ifs he’d collected during this trip but they abandoned him now that they have the chance to be answered. Instead, all that comes out of him is a shaky,  “I’m sorry.”

You wait for him to elaborate but he doesn’t. He’s apologizing for more than he could put in words and he’d list them off until the sun comes up if he starts now.

“Okay. Is that all?” you ask.

“Sofie told me about Johnny.”

You blanche. “She did?”

“Yeah, she did.”

“What did she tell you?” your arms draw tightly around your center. Like you’re holding your heart from spilling out your chest. 

Seungcheol regurgitates the limited facts Sofie shared, which is that Johnny hasn’t been in the picture for months and you never deemed him worthy of that information.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I tried. But you didn’t answer your phone and I felt so stupid afterwards and… I just couldn’t do it.”

It hits a nerve deep in his heart. How could it have been easier to spend months pretending he didn’t exist then tell him your relationship ended? More anger slips through. The nasty kind that makes him say things he doesn’t mean but Seungcheol tries to reign it in.

“So you just ignored me and thought that’d solve all our problems?” 

“No!’

“Then why didn’t you say something?”

“Because I moved cities for a guy I didn’t even like that much! I changed my entire life for him just to prove a point. Because you were right about him and I was wrong and only took a fucking week to realize that after I screwed everything up. I should have listened to you but—”

“So you lied to me because you didn't want me to say ‘I told you so’?” Seungcheol fumes. “Are you serious?”

“I didn’t lie to you!” you object.

“Yes you did! You stopped talking to me for months! Months. I can’t even remember we went a week without talking but you dropped off the face of the planet,” he rants. “I thought you were happy in New York with Johnny but apparently I’m the last to know anything. If you had just told me I wouldn’t have said anything. I would have gone up there and moved you back home myself.”

“I don’t want you to fix my mistakes!”

“Then what do you want? Because from where I’m standing I have no idea. All week you’ve been acting weird and because you didn’t tell me I thought you were using me to cheat on your boyfriend. How do you think that makes me feel?”

“I didn’t mean to. Things just kept happening and I got swept up before I could tell you.”

Seungcheol was nothing more than a meaningless distraction, a rebound.

“So it didn’t mean anything to you?” he asks.

“No!” you cry. “I was just distracted.”

“Distracted? Are you serious?”

“You know what? Forget it. You don’t want to listen to me, you just want to be mad and yell.”

You’re right. Seungcheol does want to be mad and yell and pull his own hair out because what you’re saying isn’t helping untangle the knotted mess of his brain. It’s making it worse. Your confessions are watering that seed of hope in his chest despite the fact he knows nothing will ever happen. Even with Johnny out of the picture.

“Why did you break up with Johnny?”

“I—” Your eyes close. Pulled tight like you’re finding the courage to tell Seungcheol some dark secret. “He…” you swallow. “I broke up with him because…”

Seungcheol tenses, prepared for the absolute worst. You moved your entire life for the guy and broke up with him a handful of days later. There had to be a reason. “Because why? Did he do something?”

“No!” you correct. “I wish he did, I probably wouldn’t have felt like such a bitch but he didn’t do anything at all. I just realized we didn’t work.”

“You didn’t ‘work’?”

I told you so, indeed.

“Yeah. It’s kinda difficult to be with someone when you're in love with someone else,” you reply.

Suddenly, Seungcheol wishes he never brought it up. Another guy. One that isn’t him. Again. He’s the other man. Those gut feelings, the nagging voice at the back of his head that reminded him time and time again you couldn’t feel the same has its own ‘I told you so’ moment.

But that’s not what makes him feel horrible. He’d suffer from overthinking as long as needed just so you wouldn’t look so ashamed. 

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Seugncheol waits for you to elaborate. More silence except for the crunch of your shoes across the stone walkway. A bench comes into view and you slip into one of the spots before speaking again.

“I…I always wondered why those dates never worked out. Like, I would like someone but then they didn’t want the same things or they’d want the same things but I didn’t want them. And I guess Johnny was my last ditch effort because maybe if I knew from the beginning things weren’t gonna work out then I’d never be disappointed.”

Seungcheol isn’t sure what to say so he stays quiet.

“And I thought I could just live with it. Knowing I didn’t have what Jeonghan and Sofie have. Like who actually gets that in their life? But…”

“But?”

“But then I realized that there was only one guy my whole life that’s actually been everything I wanted and I was comparing everyone to him.”

“Who?”

“You.”

Him. You’ve compared every guy you’ve dated to him. He’s the person you want, the man you’ve measured everyone up to and found them wanting.

You’re in love with Seungcheol. You broke up with your boyfriend for Seungcheol.

You love him back.

“It’s fine, if you don’t feel that way about me. I’m okay with it. I wasn’t planning to tell you because I expected anything. I just… part of the reason I didn’t say anything is I know you don’t think about me like that but this week I thought— I don’t know what I thought. But I didn’t want to lie to you anymore.”

“You…what?”

“Let’s just agree to pretend this never happened, okay? We should get back to the party.” You move to rush past him but Seungcheol hooks an arm around your torso, light enough you could break through if you really wanted to but you stop all the same.

There is no way in hell you drop that bomb on him and leave him to deal with the aftermath alone.

His voice is unrecognizable to his own ears. “You broke up with Johnny because of me?”

“Yeah,” you swallow. You refuse to look at him, focusing on the neatly clipped grass your heels sink into.

“Because you’re in love with me.” 

You flounder. It isn’t a question. It’s a fact.

“How long?” Seungcheol presses.

“What?”

“How long have you been in love with me?”

“It's always been you.”

Seungcheol’s heart detonates into a million pieces.

“You?” His pulse is sprinting. You’re in love with him. Have been. Maybe as long as he’s been in love with. Impossible for it to be longer because there's no moment in time when Seungcheol didn’t carry his feelings for you like an old friend. “You didn’t say anything.”

Your eyes are wet again, more tears he wants to brush away but he can’t do anything but stare. “I didn’t want to ruin our friendship.”

“You wouldn’t have,” he whispers back.

“What's supposed to mean?”

Your nose brushes along his, eyes soft as you glance at his mouth. 

Seungcheol won’t let himself kiss you yet. He can’t. The first time he feels your lips on his in years has to be in private because he shakes at the idea of it, a part of him chips away from just imagining even the most chaste brush. But mostly because he’s terrified that once he starts, he knows he won’t be able to stop.

“Do you remember that night in college?” he asks. You’re stunned speechless by the abrupt shift in topic but the words fall out of his mouth before he can think of a better way to say what needs to be said. He continues, “when we did a million shots and you kissed me?”

You snap back, slapping a hand on his chest and nearly teetering to the ground. “You bitch! You kissed me!”

“So you do remember!”

“Of course I remember,” you declare. “I thought you didn’t remember.”

You remember. You remember how his mouth tasted, how you ground into his lap, the feeling of his hands on your ass. All of it sticks with you like it stuck to him.

“Trust me, I remember.”

“Well, why didn’t you say anything?” you huff.

“I was going to but you told me you started dating whatever-his-name before I could.”

“Because I thought you didn’t like me back!”

“I’ve liked you since the first day I met you.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“You should’ve said something.” The admonishment means nothing. Not with the way you smile at him. It makes his heart soar, hope bursting at the seams. 

“I didn’t even know you realized I was a dude until college, why would I say something?”

“Trust me, I knew you were a guy way before college.”

“And we’re back to the original question: why didn’t you say anything?”

It's ridiculous. Utterly comical and unimportant of who said what when because they’re being said now and Seungcheol never has to pretend he isn’t hopelessly in love with you ever again.

You cozy up into his chest, fingers tracing the collar of his shirt. “Wow, barely five minutes we’re already fighting.”

“We’re not fighting.” His lips burn the word into your hairline, arms wrapping around your frame so his fingers can finally, finally, trace the bared skin of your back.

“Oh really?” You laugh. “Then what are we doing, oh wise one?”

“We’re having a spirited conversation over the fact you kissed me and never said anything.”

“And now we’re fighting over whether or not we’re fighting.”

“We’re not fighting.”

“You’re exhausting.” Your eyes roll. He can’t see it, not with how you duck into his neck, but he knows you did it. Because Seungcheol knows you better than anyone else.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“And you kissed me.”

“Well then there's only one way to settle this.”

“Which is?”

Seungcheol doesn’t answer. If Jeonghan could be lit on fire and not think of anyone but his wife, then the world could fall to dust and the only thing on Seungcheol’s mind is the way your mouth feels against his.

It’s light at first. Airy because you’re both still laughing over arguing if you’re fighting or not. But then Seungcheol loses his balance and you help by curling a hand around his shoulder but refuse to stop kissing him and the world blinks out of existence for a second.

All the cliches start making sense. Two halves of a whole, puzzle pieces slipping together, all the things poets could say in a million more eloquent ways than him.

But Seungcheol feels at home for the first time in his life.

It’s not easy maneuvering a full grown woman up and into his lap. It’s especially not easy because you’re you and you’re more stubborn than anyone he’s met in his life which means you object to every step, huff and puff at a brief second of broken contact, but the second he spins you around and drags over his lap you melt.

Your tongue glides along his, sending a tsunami of want through his bones. You whimper. Or maybe he does. Seungcheol can’t tell what's up and what's down right now. He finds the open back of your dress and relishes in the arch of your spine, the choppy breath he can feel beneath his palms.

The silk bow holding your dress up teases his hand as Seungcheol traces the notches of your spine. No one would see. No one except him and the moon and the stars who’ve all stopped to watch. He wants to. God, he wants to but he doesn’t.

You tug at his hair and your name floods his tongue like a curse. 

Draped across his lap in nothing but thin satin, you can feel all of him. How his cock hardens against the back of your thighs, shaky breathes in his lungs wrecking into your own chest. You're not wearing a bra. None of that tape or the sticky thing you’d leave hanging in the bathroom when you lived together. Seungcheol knows because he thumbs over the soft swell of your chest and you respond with a rock of hips that leaves his mouth watering.

The last time he kissed you, that fateful night freshman year of college, Seungcheol thought about it every night for months. He thought about it in the shower, in his bed. His mind would wander towards the memory during class and when he walked around campus.

Now he’ll think about this for the rest of his life.

A shrieking laugh almost sends you to the ground in haste to break away, but Seungcheol catches you in time. 

“Um…” you choke. Your lips are swollen, eyes a little dazed.

“We should go back inside.”

“Yeah.”

“Just, give me a minute.”

“Why?” Your smile grows steadily as you press more firmly into his predicament.

“I have an issue right now.”

“What kind of issue, Cheolie?” you stare at him through your lashes, finger tracing down the front of his shirt until you reach the button of his pants.

“Oh God,” he grunts as the heel of your hand rocks into him. “You’re actually evil.”

Your lips trace over his jaw, sucking and nipping at the lobe of his ear until he shudders. “Don’t you want me?” 

“I do,” he breaths. “Shit.”

His hand squeezes across your ass, your breasts, mindful of how much freedom you’re giving him. To feel you like this, to touch you the way he’s wanted to for years. 

“Then have me,” you moan. 

“Don’t say stuff like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you want me to fuck you right here.”

“But I do want you to fuck me.” Your hand is in his pants. “Right.” A tight squeeze on his cock. “Here.” He ruts into the next one.

His insides spark with a hot kind of electricity at the idea of you jerking him off where anyone could see. But he wants to touch you. And that he doesn’t want anyone else to even imagine. He’s shared you enough with the world. 

Seungcheol wants a piece of you that's just for him right now.

“Fuck, okay. Stop.”

“What’s wrong?”

“We’re going back inside.”

“Oh?”

Seungcheol doesn’t give into your obvious goading. It’ll just waste more time. Give you another chance to wring him out to dry and he knows if you get his pants down far enough it’s game over for the both of you. 

He rushes you through the garden, all but dragging you behind him in his haste to get you somewhere secluded. He’d settle for a broom closet at this point. Anywhere he can have you alone.

But you won’t go down without a fight.

You slow to a near stop, whining, “My feet hurt.”

Seungcheol leads you back over another stone bench, immediately kneeling and grabbing your ankle. The pebbles of the path dig into his knee but the slit of silk revealing your bare legs is a good distraction.

“Alright, Cinderella. Let’s get these off,” he jokes. The buckle is delicate and keeps slipping from between his fingers no thanks to your help.

“I can do it myself!”

You try to kick him off but Seungcheol catches your calf easily. Instead of focusing on the teasing stretch of skin, he watches the way your nose wrinkles indignantly after thwarting your attempt to catch him off guard. You’re cute. Probably because he’s in love with you and the rush from knowing you love him back has him feeling a million miles tall.

“Cheol?”

“Yeah?”

Pulling your foot into his lap, Seungcheol brushed his fingers against the knob of your ankle. The tiny buckle that refuses to come undone. Your shaking doesn’t help much.

“Cold?” he asks.

You nod furiously. Warmth hangs in the air but Seungcheol won’t assume your comfort; the silk you're wrapped in doesn’t provide much coverage against the elements. It doesn’t provide him any protection from a wild imagination fueled from years of pining. Without a thought, he shakes off his jacket and hands it to you before moving back to your shoe.

Looming over him, Seungcheol feels your breath hit his forehead. He wants to look up but you’re too close. Too tempting. 

He finally undoes one shoe, then the other. But you don’t say anything and neither does he from his spot between your legs. It’d be easy. So easy to bunch your skirt around your waist, part your legs, and make you cum on his finger. Then his mouth. Then his cock.

You’re thinking the same thing. A hiccup of breath rustling the hair on his forehead, your hands stroking the muscles of his neck give you away. 

But when he starts, he knows he won’t be able to start. He’ll want nothing less than all of you. Give all of himself to you. If you’ll have him.

But a hard stone bench isn’t the place to worship your body the way you deserve. He’d be a gentleman. Even if it killed him to wait any longer. You were worth waiting for. Seungcheol would wait a million more lifetimes if he got to feel like this again.

No shoes means he’s carrying you the rest of the way. He’s done it before and you’re not that heavy but he’s been drinking. And then there's the matter of all the blood in his body heading south, so he struggles more than usual.

“You’re sure you’ve got it?” you cling on for dear life when he nearly stumbles under the first step.

“Sorry, I haven’t been carrying a lot of full grown women around lately.”

“I thought you were looking a little small,” you goad.

“Small?” he objects.

“Yeah, small.” You squeeze over his biceps and his chest like you two aren’t sneaking around a packed mansion where anyone could stumble by. His resolve slips further out of reach at the dig of your nails. “Been skipping the gym lately?”

He feigns dropping you, laughing when you scramble for hold under threat of falling flat on your ass.

“Asshole!” you laugh.

Things fizzle back to comfortable silence. Your companions are far off laughs and the loud music from the courtyard. The garden is all but abandoned, not a single soul in sight. It makes it all too tempting to find another bench and take up what was interrupted earlier. The heat of your breath against his ear with each giggled whisper didn’t help. Neither did the warm weight of your thighs in his hold or the firm press of your chest against his back. 

It’s a mistake to look over his shoulder. Your eyes shine in the moonlight as you stare back, a smile lifting the corner of your lips.

Seungcheol focuses back on the hallway, double checking for any passersby. There’s nothing indecent about a man giving a woman a tipsy piggy back ride. 

But there is something entirely inappropriate about how hard he is while doing so.

And Seungcheol knows you know. Or if you don’t then the universe has a personal investment in his suffering. Every step is more difficult than the last because your thighs squeeze around his torso, and your hands find their way down his chest, and then there’s the giggling every time he back tracks because a drunken guest stumbles by on the way to their own room.

You’re sneaking around like two idiot teenagers and it might kill him from lack of blood to his brain.

But Seungcheol wouldn’t have it any other way.

He pauses at the last staircase to catch his breath. There’s no reason you’re still on his back other than the fact he doesn’t want to let you go and the position is the only reason he hasn’t found a dark corner to do whatever you please yet.

“Awww poor Seungcheol, tired already,” you coo. 

Your teasing tone makes his blood boil, worse how you readjust your hold with more squeeze and stretching that leaves him with nothing but horribly inappropriate thoughts of what you’ll do after he gets up the stairs.

Finally, the hallway housing your room appears and he can’t get through the door fast enough. 

You're pressed flat between the door and his body in a blink, fully at Seungcheol’s mercy as he kisses you again. 

“Wait,” you mutter.

Seungcheol sucks along your bottom lip. You pull him closer, arching into his chest. Your stomach is soft against the gentle grinds of his cock. He doesn’t want to wait anymore.

“We—hmmm,” you sigh. “Need to talk about this.” 

Seungcheol pulls away from your mouth, trailing scorching kisses down your neck that leave you shivering. “What about it? I love you, you love me. Feels like that's all there is to it.” 

The second he says it, Seungcheol knows he’s wrong. But he doesn’t want to think about the fine details. He’s never done long distance but you’re only a train ride away. 

“Cheol.” You prod a finger into his collarbone until he dips back.

“I mean it’ll suck being in different cities but it’s not forever right? We’ll figure it out.”

You dip your chin. “I’m not staying in New York.”

“Oh. That’s—” he cups your cheek, pulling your gaze to his. “I’ll go wherever you need me.”

You smile up at him and everything goes blank. In that moment, he vows to do anything you ever ask if it means you’ll keep looking at him like that.

“I’m moving back to D.C.” You kiss the words into his palm, eyes never leaving his.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” You smile. “Sofie’s friend needed a roommate and my job agreed to let me go remote so…”

“When do you move back?”

“Two months. They want to wait until the busy season is over.”

“But then you’re back. For good?”

“For good.”

It feels like you're promising a whole lot more.. 

You have Seungcheol for good too. As long as you want him, he’s yours. Probably for long after too. 

He’s so happy, it burns across his skin. It can’t be contained. This is all real. He fights the urge to pinch himself because not even in the wildest of his dreams did he think this was possible. 

"When you come back home.” Home he thinks. Home with him. Where you belong. “We're going on a date. And you're going to let me pay, and woo you, and take care of you because I love you. Okay?”

Your hands twine around his shoulders before you respond with a nod, “Okay.”

In the privacy of your room, you’re the one that tugs the knot holding your dress up. The silk slips down your chest revealing inch after inch of what he’s only dreamed off. When it pools around your waist, Seungcheol almost falls to his knees.

You shiver in the cool bedroom air. His eyes drink in the way your nipples peek under his gaze. Every inhale shakes in your lungs and he thinks this might just be enough for him to die peacefully. The silk trickles like water down your figure until you're left standing in nothing but skimpy panties.

“Fuck,” he curses.

Your hands flash to cover your chest, “What?”

“No, don’t,” Seungcheol reassures. His hands find yours, tracing along your thumb. “You’re just…”

“Just?” you ask.

“Wow.”

“I’m wow?” you laugh. 

Seungcheol takes another step into your space. And then another and another, your dress crumbling to the floor and leaving behind nothing but the thin band of your underwear for him to remove. Your knees hit the mattress and he follows you down into the cushion.

You're soft and warm like afternoon sunlight on a winter day under his wandering hands.

“You’re wow,” he responds, angling your chin so your mouth can meet his, noses grazing against one another.

You don’t have the patience to hear Seungcheol ramble about how perfect you are. Instead, you drag him into a desperate kiss, tongue teasing his. He’ll wax poetically later. Right now he wants to give you whatever you demand.

More kissing, the prickle of your teeth along his lip, and Seungcheol is pretty sure he’s never been harder in his life. It’s humbling and exhilarating all at once. Ready to crumble into nothing from some light petting.

He takes his revenge on the curve of your shoulder and it turns out to be extra sensitive. Every nip and suck along your collarbone leaves you panting, hands scratching up his back for some relief. He wonders what else is sensitive.

He laves against your nipple in maddening slowness. You torture him as well, ankles locking at the base of his spine while you grind against him and make more noises he’ll commit to memory forever.

 “God,” you whine when Seungcheol finally breaks and rocks down into the tempting heat of your core.

He needs more. 

“Do you think about this?” he grunts with another torturous press. He could come like this. You could come from this. Two adults, reduced to dry humping like horny teenagers.

“I think about you all the time,” you gasp.

“What do you think about?”

“You.”

Seungcheol snickers, “More specific.”

“Touching me, kissing me. Anywhere. Everywhere.”

A swell of neanderthal pride blooms in his heart. The image of you, touching yourself with his name on your lips breaks another piece of his self control that wants to savor this.

“Here?” he kisses the swell of your breast, waiting for a nod to move on. 

“Here?” A suck on your nipple again until the bed sheets threaten to rip from your hold.

“Here?” A bite at your hip bone.

His fingers part your core, wet at first contact even over your panties. “What about here?”

“Everywhere. I’ve thought about you touching me everywhere.” You sound like you might start crying if he doesn’t fulfill that fantasy soon. 

But he’s dying to know every little thought you’ve ever had about him. If you think about him a fraction as much as he thinks about you. Not just like this, but when he sees a building he’d never think twice about and know you’d have something to say about the construction of the window arches, or when he walks through the park and sees two dogs meeting for the first time and can hear your voice whisper ‘best friends!’ like you’re right beside him. You’re in everything. Every part of who he is.

Your panties come off and he licks between your legs slowly, savoring every part he can while you twitch and curl beneath him. 

“Cheol,” you whine.

There's no need to elaborate. He feels it too.

Your back bows under his touch, and Seungcheol watches you touch yourself with rapt attention. You grab your breasts and squeeze, nipples visible between fingers. 

He sucks your clit, tongue lashing at the sensitive nub. A million times Seungcheol thought about doing this and never did his brain imagine the sounds you’d make, the way you taste, the rough tub at his hair. You're hot and wet under his mouth and all Seungcheol wants is more, more, more.

“Tell me how it feels.”

“So good—fuck—it’s so good,” you gasps as he fucks your opening with his tongue, collection your flavor.

His finger wedges inside your tight walls. You angle your hips, sinking them deeper. Seungcheol pauses for only a moment before giving you a second one. The sting across his scalp from your frantic tugging leaves him straining against the zipper of his slacks.

He cups your ass, dragging you closer to the edge of the bed where he kneels. Your legs spread wider to grant him the space to  savor the pink of your folds under his tongue without obstruction.

Your pitch rises, moaning through a third finger joining the mix and a rough lap of his tongue that has you kicking the sheets.. He can feel it; your end just over the hill. A few vulgar flicks of his tongue and its release in long waves that make you keen his name horsley. 

You melt into a boneless heap. Occasional twitches of muscles flooding with pleasure the only sign of life.

Seungcheol mouths up your stomach, sucking a nipple between his teeth for a second before moving on to your mouth. If all you want to do tonight is kiss and let Seungcheol worship your pussy, then he’ll oblige. But the way pull at his clothes hints at what you want. He draws you back into his lap, your body hot against his, mouth coaxing yours open. 

“Good?”

You giggle against his mouth. “I can’t feel my toes.”

He can’t stop touching you. Probably won’t ever stop now that he knows what it means to call you his. To know your body. You’re no better. Your hands rake through his hair, goosebumps erupting as you tug him exactly where you want.

The soft lines of your throat, the intoxicating taste of sweat and perfume flooding his tongue. It’s better than anything his sorry excuse for an imagination could come up with.

You tug at his shirt, up and up until it’s forgotten on the floor. Your bare chest against his lights an inferno of want. Seungcheol pushes apart your limp thighs, making space for himself to grind against your sensitive core through his own trousers. 

Seungcheol remembers a crucial fact as you slip a hand in his pants and tease his leaking cock.

“Wait,” he mutters into your jaw.

You don’t stop, slowly jerking him off, teeth cutting into the vein on his neck. “What?’

Seungcheol savors your touch before responding, thrusting through your first with blind want. “I don’t have condoms.”

“Oh.”

“I can go and try to find some but I—” he rambles. 

“Cheol.”

“—everyone is probably still at the party so—”

You shut him up with a hand over his mouth, “I’m on birth control and I’m clean.”

“Oh.”

Oh. Seungcheol’s brain swims with lewd imagination; you stuffed with his cum, pussy stretched and worn from his cock. Feeling you raw, again and again until your helpless sweaty messes. 

“Unless you want to use them then that's fine!” you hastily supply.

He cups your face, smiling as you ramble about how okay you are with using condoms. Your face is warm, eyes avoidant while you enthusiastically declare you want to do whatever makes him comfortable. Which is an entirely new problem because if your goal is to make him comfortable, then neither of you will be leaving this bed for the foreseeable future and at some point people will start looking for you.

Seungcheol rolls over. You take advantage of the opportunity for free command of his lap, forcing his pants down until he’s as bare as you. He preens under your wide eye stare, ego flaring under your wide eye stare. Leaning back on his palms, he grows cocky from your silence.

“Like what you see?” Seungcheol goads.

Your gaze cuts to his, eyebrows arched in your own challenge. A flare of fear zaps up his spine. 

He loves it.

Seungcheol is accustomed to taking the lead in bed. Some girls want him to be domineering, others prefer to sit back while he naturally takes the reins. 

But you’ve butt heads with him in every aspect of life, hopefully this would be no different. He’s hoping you might even try telling him exactly how you want him.

“You’re so hard for me,” you whisper. Your hand reaches out, thumbing at the leaking head of his cock with seductive confidence. 

Seungcheol nods in agreement at a loss of words under your touch.

Your head cocks to the side curiously, empty hand slipping between your thighs, making space for the head of his cock to nudge against your clit. “Do you wanna fuck me?” 

He nods again.

“Good,” you smile. You hide in his neck, nosing along the tense muscles straining to break out from his skin. “I thought about you fucking me like this. When we were in high school. I thought—I wanted you to be the first.”

“Really?” he asked dazedly. 

Your first. Not Stoner Ricky from Calculus. But him. You wanted Seungcheol to have you first, possible be the only one for each other. It’s a lie if he didn’t think of you in the back of his mom’s car while Tiffany Something took his virginity. Your lips, your voice instead of her nasally pornographic sounds, when he came it was only because he closed his eyes and thought of you. 

He tells you that and earns a deep bite on his shoulder. 

You continue, “I’d watch porn or read those smut books, and I always pictured it was you.”

“God.”

You sink on his cock, pussy stretched on his length, stars flaring across your vision. There's not enough air in the room to breathe through the tight squeeze wrecking your guts. You’re in the position of control but Seungcheol can already see submission gaining control. You won’t admit you can handle his cock but pride warms his veins at how much energy it takes for your stunted rhythm. 

“Fuck,” you curse.

 “Yeah? Feels good having your pussy stuff with my cock?” Your nails bite into his chest in response. Pink lines flare in their wake, one he hopes are still there tomorrow. 

Seungcheol drags you into a kiss, a dirty culmination of teeth and tongue and your satisfied sighs and his needy grunts. You suck at his lips, focused on that rather than riding him. 

“Taping out already?” 

You ignore the dig. It takes the barest twinge of his arm and you’re rolling on your back, legs spread in invitation. He sinks into the space reserved just for him, sliding deeper than before. Now he’s the one that needs a moment. Squeezed to death between your walls is the sweet torture he’s ever experienced, the wet sloppy drag of your cunt, bare for him and him alone. 

It’s an act of bravery to pull out for the sake of thrusting back in. If he was confident enough you could get off without his hips sinking deeper then he’d never do it, content to keep his cock wedge inside you and play with your clit and tits until you cry from the pleasure. But he really wants to fuck you. 

“God, feels so good.” You break. He keeps his pace steady, building you up until you muster a way to squeeze him tighter and his skins on fire. 

He hoists your leg up, a deeper stretch that leaves him muttering about how good you feel. The wet slap of your cunt grows louder, sloppy clashes of his pelvis against yours.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he chants, stomach caving. The urge to cum is nipping at his heels but Seungcheol is better than that. Better than a quick fuck, at least for this first time. He wants to hear more of your sounds, fold you in every position he can imagine.

“More,” you grunt. “Fuck me harder, baby.”

He gives you what you ask for; plowing you into the mattress until the headboard slaps against the wall. “You like that?”

“Love it—shit. I love it.” You prop yourself up, shoving a hand between your bodies to swipe messy strokes across your clit. Seungcheol collects more sounds from the back of your throat, rough growls and stuttered squeaks. His cock is heavy in your guts, soaked with your arousal and his cum.

Your mouth finds his. Panting breath and loose tangles of lips. It’s a race against time with his vision bleached white. Your stomach caves with effort to meet each stroke with one of your own. 

“I love you,” he groans. 

You clench at his words, growing wetter if possible. Flailing against the bed, he hooks your other knee under his elbow and presses flat, pinning you down under his mercy. “I love you,” you whine back. “I-I—”

Your orgasm floods your veins, brain fuzzy and disconnected from anything beyond Seungcheol. He takes over the circles around your clit. Calloused fingers providing sick friction until you can’t take anymore.

“Wanna feel you come, Cheolie. Please,” you beg.

Something snaps and he’s rushing to pull out, jerking off over your stomach with your hand to help.

Rope after rope shines in the dim moonlight. He can’t even try to pretend the thrill of cumming inside isn’t on the forefront of his mind as the drips of his spend stare back at him. But you look like a fantasy come true cover in his cum, skinned flushed, eyes glazed and chest heaving. His own Venus come to life.

He pushes back in, spent cock sensitive to the squeeze of your cunt. Seungcheol doesn't want to be anywhere else. Now that he has you, he can't imagine a moment without you.

Sinking the weight of his hips, your legs lock him in. A combination of cum, sweat, arousal, and a few tears sticks between your sweltering bodies. Neither of you care, too enamored with cataloguing every bare inch of skin with in reach of your mouths.

‘Ugh,'' you groan. “I need a shower.” 

In the bathroom, where so many horrible dangerous thoughts have plagued Seungcheol since the start of this trip, it’s peaceful. The thrum of the shower drowns out any sound beyond your sleepy huffs and his hums of content. 

As the water heats you press him into the edge of the sink, kissing him as if there's all the time in the world to do just that. That seed of need that has been growing steadily in his gut since he kissed you in the garden comes alive again. You seem to ignore the prod at your thigh though so Seungcheol ignores it too and shepherds you into the stall.

He washes your back with soapy hands and you coif his hair into a shampoo mohawk and it’s feel right no matter how ridiculous he probably looks. You twist every time he touches your waist, shrieking in laughter because you hate being tickled.

Seungcheol is happy. It floods his veins, shoots through the tips of his fingers tracing your hip, forcing a content grin on his lips despite the fatigue of the day. He rests his forehead against your own and takes his first deep breath since New Years.

“I don’t want this to change anything."

“What?” you pull away.

“No!” Seugncehol shouts, wincing at the voluming. “Not—I didn’t mean that I just meant…I-I want you to feel like you can tell me anything. No more secrets. Okay? No matter what changes between us you're still my best friend. If I'm acting like an ass I want you to tell me. If you change your mind then-"

You watch him, features softening. “I won't."

You distract him with your own touches; it’s nice at first. Then it’s nothing short of blissful agony. Teasing nails across his stomach and sides, firm against his body in a way that leaves him weak and wanting. His heart thuds sporadically under your lips as his cock swells against your stomach.

“Y/N,” he sighs.

You kneel in front of him, smirking at how easy he is. You rub his cock with a slick grip. Your mouth comes into play slowly; kissing his hip, then his thigh, your tongue drags up the side until you suck the head between your lips and Seungcheol almost collapses.

You hold his thighs, guiding him further down your throat until there's no more space and you gag. He isn’t sure what to do with his hands but it doesn’t matter because he’s cumming. Fast.

Without missing a beat, you swallow everything he gives you. 

“Oh god—fuck.”

“Good?” you ask, still licking against the head of his cock.

Rather than answer the obvious, he pulls you to your feet with a gentle kiss to your forehead. He’ll make it up to you back in bed. For right now, you curl into his chest, tracing shapes into his collarbone as the water slowly turns cold. 

He pats you dry, ruffling your hair in the humid bathroom with all the time in the world before dragging you back to bed. You snuggle under the covers, still naked. Seungcheol joins immediately, rolling on top of you and caging his arms on either side of your head.

“Hi,” you smile from underneath him.

He can’t help but grin back. “Hi.”

You make love slowly this time. Your back to his chest, Seungcheol curled around you like a second skin, whispering his adoration in your ear until you lurch and cum with a cry. Then he does it again. And one more time because nothing is better than the taste of his name on your tongue.

This time, when Seungcheol finishes, it’s inside you. And when he tries to pull out, you protest with a sleepy threat before slipping into the land of dreams.

“Well, well, well,” Jeonghan tsks from the foot of the bed. “What do we have here?”

You’re still curled in Seungcheol’s arms, bare skin on bare skin only obscured by the blanket he had half a mind to drag over your two in the early hours of the morning. He’s still inside you for Christ Sake. 

And yet Jeonghan and Sofie stand like two cats who caught the canary; unperturbed by the state of things. More like they’re delighted.

It might go down as the shortest honeymoon in history because Seungcheol is going to murder them.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on a boat in Greece somewhere?” Seungcheol croaks, pulling you closer and forcing the blanket overhead. Maybe if he ignores them long enough they’ll go away.

“We were just leaving and wanted to say goodbye since some people decided to ditch our wedding. Now I see why.”

“Jeonghan,” you croak.

Jeonghan preens smugly. “Yes, whore?” 

 “Get out or I’ll show Sofie that video of you from Halloween.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“What video from Halloween?” Sofie asks.

“Jeonghan,” you warn. You’ll do it. The video of Jeonghan sobbing in a party city wig about how much he liked Sofie before they started dating is one of the few pieces of blackmail against him. 

“Fine. But when I’m back next month I want an explanation.”

“What video from Halloween?” She asks again as Jeonghan pushes her out the door.

“I hate him,” you say.

Seungcheol hums his agreement against your shoulder, tracing the skin with his lips until you shiver. “Me too.”

“Now, are you gonna do something about that,” you rock back into his pelvis, a tight squeeze around his cock he bucks into. “Or can I get up?”

“Roll over.”

Seungcheol fucks you for the nth time in so few hours. You whine and whimper and melt into the mattress under his weight, face buried in the pillows in an effort to stay quiet. He doesn’t care that the sun is heavy in the sky and half the house must be able to hear the way he groans around the syllables of your name. 

He doesn’t care one bit.

Seungcheol has seen you in plenty of relationships, been in several of his own, but he’s never been in a relationship with you.

Turns out all the daydreaming and what-ifs couldn't come close to reality.

It’s better.

Most things are still the same. You two still bicker about everything. He finds your hair all over his apartment. His clothes magically disappear from his closet only to turn up at your place. You call him a stubborn jackass and he calls you a drama queen (both in regards to how he loads the dishwasher).

And he loves that even while dating you two refuse to change. 

But Seungcheol also loves all the new things. The firsts you get to share.

The first time you visit home as a couple, your mom spots him kissing along your knuckles as you approach the house and she starts crying. Loudly. He spots his dad hand his mom twenty bucks but not before your dad hands over another ten.

Apparently, everyone was waiting for this to happen. 

His dad claps him on the shoulder and your dad shakes his hand and suddenly he’s no longer Seungcheol, childhood best friend who lived down the street. He is Seungcheol, boyfriend. He’s known your parents since he was in elementary school and his mom texts you more frequently than her own son.

But none that matters because, at the ripe age of thirty, you two are banned from sleeping over during the visit for the first time in your lives.

He’s got a suspicion it’s because none of them know how to handle their kids finally dating. You and Seungcheol have never been normal but they’re trying. 

Even if he sneaks out like he’s a teenager and climbs into your window in the dead of night. Now that's a fantasy come to life.

Back in the city Seungcheol discovers more ways things have changed.

You spend almost every night at Seungcheol’s apartment. When your sublease ends after four months there isn’t a big production about moving in with him. You had a key since he moved into the place years ago. Your stuff ends up in his spare room, which becomes ‘your’ room but you both call it the guest room and it's a new level of domesticity he’s never had.

In the mornings, you find him in the bathroom if he forgot to drop a good morning kiss on your forehead (something he’s started doing on purpose because you totter in with your eyes still closed and pajamas wrinkled, diving straight into his chest and grumbling incoherently until he gives in). It’s enough to make his heart squeeze even after the hundredth time). 

Or how you constantly find a reason to touch him. Curled around his back while he makes dinner, shimmying under his arm when he’s reading case files on the couch. A hand through his hair while you cuddle in bed. Your shared bed, in your shared apartment. Which he is embarrassingly giddy about but you are too and that makes him feel better. You meet for lunch, at either of your offices, and he can see the instinct to drop into his lap making your fingers twitch but only because his own flex with the urge to pull you in first.

The first time you go to a baseball game together and end up on the kiss cam and he doesn’t have to pretend to not notice or awkwardly wait for the cameraman to catch the hint, because you’re kissing him until his ears grow hot and the crowd hoots wildly.

In the best way possible it’s weird. He doesn’t know how to date someone he’s been in love with for as long as he can remember. A lot of it feels like being friends. Like whatever was there before is the bones and all the new things filled in the empty space between.

There isn’t really a guide or set timeline but you’re figuring it out. 

And Jeonghan helps. In his own Jeonghan way.

“You guys have been softcore dating since highschool. Just think of it like dogs. You’ve dated for a year now, right? That's like seven years for your guys.”

Seungcheol will tell you later tonight, after you’ve said yes, how the last part of your trio gave his blessing. How Sofie helped him pick the ring (which was really Seungcheol picking the ring and her providing moral support via muzzling her husband).

But for right now, he watches you across the table, laughing at something the waiter said, the weight of the velvet box burning a hole in his pocket.

And he knows the next first you have together will be the best one yet.

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[gabriel-gabdiel]

Fantasy of Evolution Chapter 6: It Wasn't All Just a Dream…?

Wait. What if it wasn’t all a dream? What will Florante do now?

You can also find more chapters of my original fiction here. Please enjoy.

First | Previous | Next

Back in Fatima High School's science laboratory…

The Biology teacher of Florante Galang and Isaiah Pascual—the soft-spoken Miss Isabelle Del Mundo, known by the faculty by her nickname "Belle" a la the protagonist of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast"—looked over their shoulders to glance at their laboratory work.

After staring intently to check their answers, Ms. Belle Del Mundo said to Florante, "Mr. Galang, don't you think Mr. Pascual should get a chance at looking into the microscope?"

The two former best friends exchanged glances. Pascual was the first to speak.

"We're just about to finish up, Ms. Del Mundo," he said to the soft-spoken teacher before taking the last slide and putting it onto the microscope so he could peer at it.

"Well," she said after a moment of deliberation, "then go ahead, boys. Remember, this is a cooperative exercise between lab partners, okay?" She then walked away.

After she left, Florante began doodling on his notebook.

"Florante," said Isaiah in an almost whiny manner. "I don't know what I'm looking at. Help."

With a sigh, Florante whispered, "The last two we haven't found are prometaphase and telaphase. Telaphase is easy because it's the cell splitting into two. If it's not split into two, it's probably prometaphase."

"How do you spell that, bro?"

"Come on, man."

The two exchanged glances again.

"I'm just kidding, Florante."

"Haha. Funny stuff. Can you spell it or not?"

"Yeah, of course. It's something like 'Pro' as in 'Pro-wrestling', 'Meta' as in 'Metal', and then P-H-A-S-E for 'Phase', right?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"The slide I got is probably the pro-something one, by the way. The cell hasn't split."

"Gotcha," said Florante as he took the slide out to label it. "The last one's probably telaphase but look at it just in case."

"Yep, it's a split cell," Isaiah confirmed after changing microscope slides. "You saved my bacon, bro. Thanks," he added.

Florante harrumphed. "I saved the both of us. You're not going to drag my grade down with you."

And, just as Galang was about to wave off how Pascual talked about his fever dream as his imagination running wild, his imagination apparently chose that moment to run wild again.

"You remember killing me, don't you?" said the pokerfaced Pascual in a deadpan monotone. "You blew my head off. You did all sorts of nasty things to our classmates too."

Isaiah sounded like something out of a horror story. Thusly, Florante resisted the urge to scream, his blood running cold once again.

Was Galang going mad? This wasn't happening, was it? Or was he in a dream again? He hadn't gone off the deep end yet, had he?

He should check out his dream journal when he got home, just in case. It helped him differentiate when something was a dream and wasn't.

It was his sole tether to sanity and objective reality at this point.

***

Fantasy of Evolution

An Urban Fantasy Story by Abdiel

Who keeps dream journals of their nonsensical dreams as though they have any bearing with reality? Florante does, but his is a special case.

Disclaimer: This work may reference copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. It is believed that this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. All copyrighted material referred to in this work belongs to their respective owners. All rights reserved.

***

Chapter 6: It Wasn't All Just a Dream…?

***

Sometimes, Florante Galang wondered if he got bullied because he deserved it.

Nine times out of ten, he'd say no. Like that one dentist who didn't recommend this or that brand of toothpaste even though nine others did.

No one deserved to be bullied the way he got bullied. However, one of those ten times he might reconsider that maybe he got what was coming to him because he did something wrong.

His feeling of inadequacy and insecurity haunted him. Maybe he had it coming. Maybe he was asking for it.

Maybe nines times out of ten, he had a brief moment of self-awareness. He got bullied because he committed the grave sin of social ineptitude.

Maybe he just needed to fit in with his classmates better. Maybe, even though they were mean to him, they were mostly excellent to one another, so there must've been something wrong with him instead.

Maybe he should be the one to adjust to them instead of the other way around.

Was he victim-blaming himself? Maybe. Or maybe he was a narcissist manipulating others to his will only to face karma from his bad behavior.

Maybe a large portion of his life leading up to this moment was a series of huge mistakes of which he learned nothing.

Maybe he should emulate their behavior except for the part where they were being jerks to him.  

Or maybe he should be a jerk to other weirdoes while imitating the manly behavior exhibited by the jocks and tough guys in his class. Find someone weaker than him to pick on so he wouldn't be the one picked on by everyone.

Maybe he simply needed to fit in with his bullies and coexist with them in the social food chain. Maybe he merely needed to grow up like his asshole classmates, who themselves were already having hookups, parties, and girlfriends.

Meanwhile, like a child, he couldn't even hold a romantic conversation with a girl his age, with him stuck in the Friend Zone for all of the girls he was actually in good terms with. Or worse.

He might even have the E.Q. (emotional quotient) of a child too, or at least that was what his mother and teachers kept telling him. Arrested development, if you would.

Outside the Dead Kids, he simply couldn't find a clique to belong with in Fatima School and its roughly 800 high school students, specifically the 200 or so students in the same year.  

He rationalized that he couldn't relate to people his age. Despite what his mother suggested, he was friendlier towards people who were older than him, like college-aged students, teachers, or other grownups.

However, even then he wasn't really all that close to anyone in school. Perhaps the truth of the matter was that he couldn't relate to people period and he was a gigantic weirdo, dork, or wimp.

A wimpy kid with no friends.

Anyway, at least he had an okay I.Q. (intelligence quotient). He sometimes made it to the Top 10 of the class. Sometimes. Bottom three of ten, usually. So at least he wasn't completely pathetic academically.

He was back to his usual ritual of barely eating lunch and finding ways and places to hide himself inside the school every recess and lunch break so he wouldn't look like (more of) a total loser to his peers.

He'd end up eating alone outside the cafeteria, near the boiler room, or under the mango trees with the circular concrete seats surrounding them time and time again. Or reading in the library until his hunger passed.

He was skin and bones practically. The wimpiest of kids. Certain sporty girls in the varsity team could probably outdo him in athletics, he was so pathetic.

So it was probably this insecurity that led him to dream the dreams he dreamt. He had also called them nightmares because it involved him murdering his bullies.

However, if it were proverbial rather than literal murder—like him imagining their murder to let off some steam from their bullying without ever daring to murder them for real—he'd understand how these dreams could be considered as the power fantasies of the powerless.

Like parents tempted to kill their misbehaving children without really meaning it.

Or maybe his being a terrible person who deserved all the bullying he ever got was just the dose of self-awareness he needed.

Maybe he should stop being so dependent on what other people thought. As long as he followed his own moral compass, they had no business dictating how he lived his life!

If he left them alone then they should leave him alone too. Right?

As long as he didn't hurt anyone else—so again, he crossed his fingers that his dream murders were nothing more than dreams—he didn't need anyone's approval.

***

As the class returned from the lab to the classroom to further discuss cell mitosis or whatever, Pascual played catch-up with Galang, walking beside him and asking him how he'd been doing.

Or more like Isaiah talked and Florante half-listened, waiting for the other shoe to drop in regards to them sharing memories of something that only happened in his, well, their dreams.

Maybe Florante misheard him the first time? And the second time? He didn't know. Isaiah didn't press the matter.

He merely asked him for the time instead, wishing to change the subject. "What time is it?"

"Let me see. It's skin thirty," Pascual said with a straight face while pointing to his bare wrist.

It took Florante a minute to get it.

"Oh."

They then both shared a hearty laugh, with Florante laughing in spite of himself. A cathartic laugh from all the stress he felt.

Dammit, Galang kind of missed this. He missed talking to his former best friend like this.

Too bad their friendship went south in the end.

Pascual then told Florante about the rumors he heard about him. How Florante had ended up joining the infamous Dead Kids of Fatima High.

How he finally got his bullies to let up with their bullying by listing their names and sending them to his teacher. A teacher that actually did something after catching Florante's bullies in the act.

How he started wooing(!?) their classmate Jennifer Tolentino.

"I wasn't wooing anyone, don't be weird," Florante told Pascual off. "I just want to be better friends with her, that's all."

Or be friends again at all. They were supposed to be friends when they first met during the first day of school, but they then drifted apart. Kind of like the situation between Pascual and him, to be honest.

Florante avoided eye contact with Isaiah all this time out of embarrassment of being told loads of gossip, rumors, and half-truths about himself.

At the same time, he had to also avoid getting caught stealing glances at Jenny from time to time as she walked on ahead of them alongside Laura Reyes.

Her bespectacled face was such a distraction that he tried not to look at her as much as possible, only to end up staring back at Pascual and his nonsense.

It didn't help that Laura was there too. They still had an awkward air about them when they were near one another.

He didn't know where to look. The floor, perhaps? Or how about the ceiling?

There he was again, falling in love with another girl who gave him an ounce of attention. Or kissed him in his dreams.

On second thought, yeah. He was dreaming, wasn't he?

Once they were back in the classroom, Florante returned to his seat and tried to listen to the rest of Ms. Del Mundo's lecture, who used an overhead projector to project transparencies onto the blackboard with the windows and shades closed.

He couldn't manage his thoughts. Was he hearing things with Pascual? Did he really say what he thought he heard him say?

***

For a change, as the bell rung and Biology class ended, Pascual continued talking to Galang. Usually, no one bothered to do so in their class.

As of late, before she went absent for a week, it had been Jenny who talked to him, but only sometimes.  

"Jenny seems friendlier to you now than before," was the icebreaker Isaiah went with. "You even had lunch with her and your gang."

'Humph. My gang, huh?' Florante thought, with Pascual avoiding calling them by their infamous name of "Dead Kids".

To Isaiah, Galang went with, "Yeah, I guess," while also wondering aloud, "I wonder why she was absent for so long."

"There's been a cold bug spreading. Must've been the change in weather."

"Yeah, that must be it."

Florante frowned, though it felt more to him like the petulant pout of a child. He looked away while resisting the urge to stick his tongue out childishly at Isaiah for good measure.

He couldn't focus on his former best friend's chatter as they grabbed their bags with their P.E. (Physical Education) uniforms and proceeded to have P.E. class at the gymnasium.  

Mixed-gender volleyball at the gym didn't catch much of Florante's attention either. He ended up playing with Pascual and his friends though, which was a relief for him.

Usually, their P.E. teacher had to force one of the multiple cliques or groups in Section St. Francis to include Florante with them. Or he ended up with the rest of the social outcasts who couldn't find a group to team up with.

He was always left out whenever the gym coach instructs the class to group themselves into four or five people.

After doing warm-up exercises and partner drills, they had a simultaneous mini-tournament of sorts. Multiple five-member teams ended up doing a set of games until the end of P.E. period.

Florante ended up in a team composed of four guys—two of them Isaiah and Florante himself—and one girl up against a team of three guys and two girls.

Naturally, Florante Galang sucked at P.E. in general and volleyball in particular.

Most of his volleyball returns resulted in shots that went outside the court, so his teammates covered his position so he wouldn't bungle more shots.

However, strangely enough, both Isaiah and even Jenny (who played against another team at an adjacent court) cheered him on, leading him to surprise himself by serving the volleyball decently, even scoring an ace or two.

Sure, their team lost in the end, but at least the unathletic Florante was able to somewhat contribute when normally he couldn't.

Well then. The day ended up better than he expected!

***

Inside the boys' locker room, while the class either changed back to their regular uniforms or just gathered their belongings to head out of the school for dismissal time, Pascual continued talking to Florante, making him self-conscious.

The introvert felt tired from all that talking—well, half-listening and barely answering—he did for so long. His social "health bar" was spent.

To explain, introverts tended to shy away from social gatherings because being in such situations took a toll on their energy. They could only take so much before becoming anxious or nervous wrecks.

Even though Pascual and Florante were having mostly one-on-one (or rather, one-sided) conversations instead of a more open social encounter with multiple people, Pascual's sudden over-friendliness after they'd acted like strangers for so long had depleted Florante's tolerance for the social situation.

"…Oh, I remember that one time, in the grade school playground, you were playing alone, pretending to be Rambo or something, tying an imaginary bandanna on your forehead…!"

"All right, ALL RIGHT! That's enough," said Florante, who now focused his full attention on his ex-friend Pascual. "I get the picture."

By the way, his bullies had caught him playing alone as a high school kid, since he spent his grade school in Makati.

"Sorry," apologized Isaiah. "You're not going to zap my brain to mush again like before, are you?"

This jolted Florante awake from any more random thoughts. He hoped the earlier declarations from Pascual was just his imagination, but no such luck.

He'd been actually delaying any potential confrontation as long as he could.

Galang's eyebrows knit together in concentration for the first time the whole day, like he had just suddenly noticed that the things happening around him didn't make sense because he was merely dreaming.

Like someone between the verge of sleepiness and wakefulness.

He then exhaled, mumbled, "Susmaryosep," under his breath, and said, "No. I only have those powers when I'm dreaming, not in real life."

The daydreaming asthmatic didn't want to look like a fool and attempt to shoot nonexistent laser bullets at one of his bullies, thank you very much.

Isaiah gave him a quizzical look. "You can totally shoot your power beams or whatever right now."

Florante scoffed at the idea. "No, I can't. That's not how this works. I need to be dreaming in order for me to use those powers. Because none of it is real."

Pascual raised an eyebrow at that. "You sure about that?"

Galang also raised an eyebrow in kind. "What do you mean?"

So Isaiah clarified. "You don't need to dream to use your powers."

What. Now hold on a minute there! "No, I can't. That wasn't real. That was just a dream," Florante dismissed the very notion until something else occurred to him.

"Hey, Pascual. How'd you know what happened in my dreams?"

Although Isaiah had been talking up a storm since Biology class, Florante just now noticed his ex-friend's hands gripping the edge of the bench they sat on in the locker with immense tension.

Like a squashed bed spring ready to uncoil.

Had Isaiah been acting this nervous around him this entire time, unbeknownst to him? Was he talking nonstop to help calm his nerves?

Why was he so afraid of him…? Oh. Right. The murders.

No, please. Not this again. Not him questioning whether his dream happened or not again! Anything but that!

"Florante Galang," Isaiah Pascual said. "That wasn't a dream. You really did kill us all."

No. NO. That couldn't be. No, no, no. Shut up, Pascual.

Pascual continued. "Was that how you were able to cope with what happened? You waved off everything as a dream? You avoided accountability that way?"

"NO! What happened was a dream!" exclaimed Florante.

"You always had the power. To destroy. To kill. It's as plain as the nose on your face," said Isaiah.

"But you can't see the nose on your face unless you look in a mirror," said Galang.

"Then let me be that mirror to your face. Let me prove it wasn't a dream," said Pascual.

Florante productively released his anger, malice, and frustrations in that dream because he was powerless in real life! Also, who had superpowers in real life? How absurd!

"Just because you were somehow able to reset everything back to the way things were doesn't mean you've completely undone what you did."

"SHUT UP!"

It was then that Florante noticed how Isaiah hadn't taken off his P.E. uniform yet even as the introvert immediately took those clothes off and changed into his school uniform.

"We remember everything. I remember everything you've done. And what a monster you were back then."

No no no nonono. Florante was not the monster Mammon accused him of! None of it was real! This wasn't real either! He was dreaming again, wasn't he?

His fever dream was supposed to be catharsis so he could successfully avoid committing a murder in real life! Or at least wish-fulfillment because he was never a violent or particularly powerful person either!

The bullies in his life had always silenced him but the one time he struck back and silenced them instead, he was the bad guy?

How was that fair? He was solely responsible for losing control? They could do whatever they wanted with him but he couldn't to them in turn?

Before the asthmatic could let out a wheezy exhale, Isaiah disappeared from view.

Then the whole world became a blur.

***

The drizzle had become mist by the time they ended up suddenly in the streets, leaving a trail of devastation behind them.

It took a minute before a bleeding Florante Galang realized that Isaiah Pascual had just pushed him from the gym lockers all the way through the soccer field, right past part of the high school building, to the back of the school wall, right into open traffic, with one hand to his chest.

They busted through wall, brick, concrete, and plaster like a bulldozer through Styrofoam.

It all happened within a second. Or a fraction of a second. Before Galang's eyes could even blink or his mind could register what had happened.

Wait. So Pascual was actually an angel too? Or maybe even a demon? An Ophanim or a Minion? Like the spaghetti monster or the maelstrom man?

The impact should've caved Florante's chest in. Not to mention broke and dislocated his bones in 30 different places.

He might've even ended up like roadkill too, if not for his Ophanim halo that served as his shield.

Thankfully, a combination of light energy and gale winds formed a protective vacuum cocoon around Galang's body that kept him safe from harm. His own halo effect, if you would.

Isaiah just looked at the (mostly) untouched Florante, his palm outstretched, his jaw agape, before he gave him a sheepish grin. "Hehehe. Didn't expect that, did you?"

"You have superpowers too?"

"Yep. See? And so do you… AH! Please don't blow my brains out!"

Isaiah flinched or perhaps even overreacted at Florante stepping towards him, with him unleashing a flurry of punches.

"I wasn't! OW! Stop punching me!" One of the fists hit Florante's nose before he could summon his light wind dome again to block the rest of the blows.

Something else then dawned to Florante as he surveyed how far they went out. "You… you almost killed me!" He considered taking a swing at his former friend, but settled with attempting to catch him.

However, Isaiah disappeared the instant Galang tried grabbing his arm. Like a fly disappearing before the fly swatter could hit it.

By instinct, Florante jumped back into the sidewalk as a car beeped at him.

He then looked around. Several onlookers began gathering around the scene of devastation, particularly near what was left of what was once a wall and a planter's box.

Isaiah ran away and Florante was about to chase him when he felt something coming at him from behind. 'What…?'

Instead of multiple supersonic punches, Galang got hit by a single spine-tingling punch that actually blew away his halo shield and rattled him to the bones.

Then it hit him again. And again.

"…Catch me if you can, Slowpoke!"

Multiple Pascuals kept appearing and disappearing, punching his weakening halo shield with supersonic punches that came at Florante stronger and faster by the second.

What was this? In spite of his panic, Florante figured what Isaiah did. He ran in a tight circle at supersonic speeds and incrementally increased the momentum of his punch until it reached an irresistible power at an unstoppable level.

Sneaky bastard.

Pascual ran at the supersonic speed of a racecar going through a racetrack, crashing through Galang's halo shield bit by bit.

The more time passed, the faster the momentous punch got and the harder it was for Florante's halo aura to resist it. Isaiah might actually break through his hallowed field. What was he supposed to do now?

"…Lightning BOLT!"

Florante thusly summoned lightning from the drizzling overcast skies just as the infinite mass punch shattered his halo vacuum field, which electrocuted Pascual while energized Galang.

This jolted and froze Pascual, but his forward momentum remained, which prompted Florante to finally dodge one of the continuous punches.

The resulting blockbuster explosion blasted both of them thirty or so feet clear into the gray heavens.

***

The next thing Florante knew, he'd landed on the roof(?!) of the Fatima High School Building.

What the hell.

He looked around him to see where he was. He felt a tingling sensation travel across his extremities. His acrophobia (fear of heights) had acted up again.

Or maybe that was the millions of volts of electricity he'd just absorbed before making the electrocuted Isaiah miss, resulting in a blast from his massive punch that jettisoned them from the streets of Mandaluyong to the rooftops of Fatima High.

It was times like this that convinced him that the time when he jumped from rooftop to rooftop in order to experiment upon using his powers was just a dream. An acrophobic would never do anything as crazy as that for real. Also, he had superpowers. Of course it was all a crazy dream.

He looked around to make sure he was indeed where he was. That was when he noticed the still figure of Isaiah Pascual beside him.

Huh. He survived the fall too, huh?

"Dammit, you weren't this powerful before," was what Florante thought Pascual murmured under his breath.

'Before…?' thought Florante. What did he mean by that?

However, as Galang braced himself for another assault, he realized Pascual's stiff body still hadn't recovered from the electrocution.

Also, because they were on the roof deck of the building, his former best friend has less running room for his supersonic punch.

Most importantly, Florante still had enough energy left from absorbing the millions of volts of electricity from the lightning strike. Perhaps 1.21 gigawatts of power. Perhaps even more than that.

A billion joules of electricity. Enough to power dozens of homes for a day. Or 10 million light bulbs at the same time. Maybe even a flux capacitor on a time-traveling DeLorean.

Should he do it? Should he test out whether this was a dream or not?

Should he hit him with his five-fingered Light Array bullets, which was now practically his finishing move? Or he could use both hands and fire all ten shots?

Nah. That was overkill. Instead, he elected to focus his accumulated power on one closed fist, cocked his arm back, and then shouted, "Thunder BOLT…!"

It made sense. Even though the high school building had a narrow roof deck, Isaiah could still dodge. So Florante might as well shoot his thread-thin concentrated laser that cut through the air and produced a powerful "thunder" or "sonic boom" shockwaves with a wider destructive area.

However, he hesitated at the last minute when he heard Pascual ask, "Thunder Bolt? So what's different between that and the Lightning Bolt you shot earlier?"

Florante couldn't help himself. It had been his pet peeve ever since he saw "Thunder Bolt" and "Lightning Bolt" used interchangeably in anime, manga, action games, and RPGs.

"…Well, obviously, a Lightning Bolt is the bolt of electricity. The thunder comes after the lightning bolt, correct? It's the rumbling sound from the shockwaves of a sonic boom. So to me Thunder Bolt is basically just a sonic boom."

"Oh, I see. I never thought of it that way."

The two then just stared at each other for a hot minute, with Galang allowing the rivulets of electric might fade away as he relaxed his shoulders and stopped cocking back his fist.

Pascual himself relaxed as well, the paralyzing effects of Florante's electric shocks finally wearing off.

***

The two former best friends sat down on the roof deck overlooking Fatima High while the rest of the world stood still.

The damage they'd wrought on the rooms, walls, and streets earlier slowly but surely disappeared, as though they didn't even touch anything.

Curious. Then again, this only affirmed Florante's stance that his supernatural actions originated from dreams. Perhaps extra-lucid dreams than normal, but dreams nonetheless.

Florante sat beside Pascual, with both doing the "Indian sit" or "Indian style" sitting position with their legs crossed underneath them, which was often linked to stereotypical portrayals of Native Americans.

It was also believed to be rooted on a meditation or yoga pose from India known as the "Lotus Position".

They shared a hearty laugh, with Isaiah stating, "Of course only you can come up with something as nerdy as making a Thunder Bolt be different from  a Lightning Bolt!"

Meanwhile, Florante himself protested, "You're the one to speak! You were the one who gave me the idea!"

Pascual blinked three times then tilted his head to the side. "I did? I don't remember."

"You totally did! That's why I made it a point to use a different kind of attack when doing a Thunder Bolt and Lightning Bolt!" said a grinning, nostalgic Galang. "You once brought the topic up to me."

"Maaan, I can't believe you've grown this strong already," said a wistful Isaiah while scratching his cheek. "I guess I should've expected it. You were among the first to awaken, weren't you?"

"…I guess? What do you mean by awaken, though?" Florante asked.

"Just what like it sounds like," Pascual said. "It's when you awaken your powers."

Oh right. It wasn't just him who awakened. There was also Gerry Jacinto. And Laura Reyes. And now, Isaiah Pascual. They all "awakened" to having their own superpowers along with Florante.

"Hey, Pascual," Florante called out, "you're an angel too, aren't you?"

"…Angel?" Isaiah repeated.

"That's what Jenny Tolentino called us," Galang continued, brushing his damp hair bangs back and heaving a heavy, asthmatic wheeze. "Angels. Demons. Either or."

"Demons, huh?" Pascual rubbed his shoulder. "Yeah, I guess you can call her that. Maybe even a monster."

"…Her?"

Pascual hesitated from revealing anything more. "Sooo how does Jenny know about all this?"

Florante replied, "She's one of us. She's also an angel."

Pascual smirked. "Isn't that just your crush on her talking?"

"What? No," Florante denied, but he has second thoughts. So far, everything tracked. Jenny confirmed they were angels then they fought against multiple demons.

She was telling him the truth, right? She must've told them the truth. He trusted her.

"I meant she has powers like ours and she awakened her powers long before we have, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt," said Florante.

Why shouldn't he trust the girl whose (alleged) back story of being much older than she looked, he found out for himself, without her prompting? He already did the background check himself!

A second later, he asked, "Wait, she hasn't talked to you about it?"

"No, it's the first time I've even learned she even has powers like us," said Pascual.

"That's strange," said Florante. "So you didn't know we're angels and demons?"

"Not a clue," said Pascual. "For all I know, we've become like the X-Men or something. Mutants who've awakened our superpowers, you know?"

"That also makes sense," said a wistful Galang. "We might be the next evolution of man. Deities. Or gods. Or heroes."

"Or villains. Or demons. Or monsters…" Isaiah trailed off.

"What happened?" Florante asked, sensing Pascual's foul mood. "Is something wrong?"

"I-It's nothing," Isaiah said, but then exhaled and shrugged. "It's about Regina…"

"Regina Mariano?" Florante repeated, remembering the girl as the one who said he had fetal alcohol syndrome.

He also remembered blasting her until she turned to ash in his fever dream.

"What happened to her?"

***

By the time Florante and Isaiah left the rooftop (via the staircase), everything went back to normal.

No hole in the wall. No broken glass windows. No interrupted traffic outside of the school. It was if they'd never fought.

Another reset or "Ctrl + Z" had happened, which made Galang presume that his fever dream was one of those resets. Nevertheless, he had to face facts.

He unfortunately did kill his classmates, but something occurred to "undo" the event, making it fade away like a dream. Was this the power of angels in action again?

Regardless, Isaiah gave Florante the lowdown on what happened to Regina. She had awakened her powers like Isaiah, Jennifer, and Florante did.

Long story short, Regina transformed into a mindless Ophanim or perhaps even a Minion. Like the crawling chaos or the spaghetti monster from before, she ended up becoming an out of control monster that Isaiah couldn't stop.

Come to think of it, Florante left out that little detail of him visiting Jenny's apartment in his dreams after seeing her name-alike in a yearbook at the library.

However, because of recent events, he had an inkling suspicion that his visit to the Tolentino abode actually happened. Like how his brief battle with Isaiah actually happened before their collective lucid fantasy disappeared right in their very eyes.  

God dammit all to hell. So he really did kill his classmates. He really did kill Laura.

He felt terrified and confused, but mostly ashamed by the fact.

A wave of guilt washed over him. What he thought was him releasing pent-up stress harmlessly was actually him harming his bullies as revenge. Like a school shooter run amok.

If everything hadn't reset back to normal with everyone still living and their school left in one piece, he'd be no better than the bullies he so hated.

No, he'd be worse than them. He'd be a murderer.

He turned what was supposed to be an eye for an eye revenge plot and instead took an arm and a leg as payment for his social humiliation.

Never mind, "An eye for an eye makes the world go blind". The term, "An eye for an eye" was created with people like him in mind: Vengeance seekers who went overboard with their revenge.

He didn't know what to feel.

On one hand, he felt horrified, guilty, and ashamed after realizing he had hurt his classmates for real.

On the other hand, shamed as he was to admit it, he felt a measure of Schadenfreude or catharsis for mostly, um, unleashing his frustrations on his tormentors back to them.

However, he wanted to crawl under a rock and die over the realization that he really did kill his former crush, Laura Reyes, as collateral damage for his mad killing spree. Ditto his teacher who merely got in his way.

They didn't deserve to die like his bullies. However, did even his bullies deserve death over humiliating him in school? Why couldn't he simply humiliate them in return? An eye for an eye?

Sure, everything went back to normal and everyone ended up alive, but he still felt dirty realizing he really did all those things. He wasn't so innocent after all.

No wonder Jenny kept acting so guarded and awkward around him. On top of him stalking her. Damn, he needed to have more self-awareness!

The more he thought about things, the more he realized he was screwed.

What he originally thought was harmless stress relief was now considered something beyond the pale. He felt like someone pulled the rug from under him.

What if he had no reset button? What if they stayed dead? He would have ruined their lives, the lives of their loved ones, and his own life forever.

He didn't mean to. He just wanted them to leave him alone. Even if they didn't end up friends or acquaintances in the end, just let him be. Let bygones be bygones, dammit.

***

The next day…

That breakfast, Florante ate his sandwich and drank his orange juice in a hurry.

For once, he felt somewhat excited to go to school. Not because he was some nerd looking forward to tests and quizzes or something.

He certainly didn't go there to meet up with any friends save for his Dead Kids acquaintances. No, if he was being honest with himself, he knew his eagerness to get to school was to see Jennifer Tolentino again.

No, no. Well, yes. He did want to see his crush again.

But aside from that, he was looking forward to using his powers for good instead of evil.

For once, he would used his dream abilities to help a (former) best friend in need save his new girl friend (not girlfriend, a friend who was a girl, Isaiah insisted) from herself.

If anything, this was his way of alleviating his guilt and shame over actually killing his classmates for real. He owed it to all the bullies he killed, even though they didn't stay dead.

Hmmm.

So if memory (of his vague dreams) served him correct, the angels who'd been chosen as candidates for the position of Archangel Gabriel was Florante, Isaiah, Regina, Gerry, and  Laura.

Maybe also Mark Zuniga? No, no. Mark only stabbed Florante. Gerry was the one who awakened his own powers, followed by Laura. In his "fever dream" that wasn't really a dream.

***

Back at Fatima High…

Regina Mariano appeared normal enough when she got to school. However, as Isaiah Pascual would explain later, she'd actually gotten mixed up with a "bad crowd".

If Florante could hazard a guess, she must've ended up being manipulated by another full-fledged demon avatar like Mammon.

They all attended classes like usual, with Isaiah giving Florante looks here and there to remind him of their plans to, uh, "save" Regina after school.

From how Isaiah described her transformation, her Ophanim/Minion form or biblically accurate angel/demon body was reminiscent of a geometric polygon. Or pyramids glued together at the bottom.

An object instead of an organism. An abstraction instead of something living.

Isaiah admitted he was no match against her and her growing power, but he thought that maybe with Florante's power and help, they could beat the sense back into his estranged girl friend.

Galang then told Pascual about how Ophanims were actually awakened with the purpose of becoming avatars of famous angels or demons like Gabriel or Raphael.

However, it hadn't quite sunk in that Isaiah, Regina, and Florante were bound to fight for the position of Gabriel's avatar sooner or later.

Florante wasn't too clear on how this avatar business worked himself. He made a mental footnote on asking Jennifer more about it later.

Oh right. Jenny. Should Florante end up facing off against her too? She was already the Raphael avatar, so it should be okay.

However, he ended up breaking his promise to her to forget about this angel and demon business.

He felt at times that Jenny acted too guarded around him. Even hostile at times. Seeing that he had every intention of breaking his promise to her, maybe her behavior was warranted.

No. He had to do this favor to Isaiah. To make it up for what he did to his bullies.

He'd apologize to Jenny later. For now, he had to concentrate on Isaiah's friend Regina.

Sure, Regina wasn't the most pleasant of classmates to Florante himself, but he really wanted to make up for the sins he committed that haven't actually been erased.

Some of his bullies actually remembered him killing them. Remembered his past sins.

His sins that actually happened and were real, despite them disappearing from reality like forgotten dreams.

***

After dismissal time…

It rained particularly hard that afternoon, such that it took every ounce of the clumsy Florante's concentration to make it out of school without slipping on a puddle or getting the hem of his pants wet from wayward splashes.

He even managed to cling to the nearby chain-link fence of the school's entrance and exit to save himself from falling.

He shook his head, wishing the ground would swallow him whole. As amazing as he and Pascual probably looked earlier with their superhuman feats, he looked downright pathetic without his powers and with his actual clumsiness.

If he were a girl, perhaps he'd look more endearing instead of pathetic, like a cute klutz. As it was, he felt less of a man for being an uncoordinated goof with not a single athletic bone in his body.

It was times like this that made him doubt (perhaps hope) that his imagined sins or dark fantasies against his classmates remained as such.

Not that hoping for their misfortune subconsciously was any better, but at least it didn't really happen.

Anyway, Regina Mariano had been hanging out with these shady people after dismissal time and her friend circle—of which Isaiah was a part of—was getting worried about it.

Appropriately enough, she seemed like the poster child for an after-school special on wayward kids who hang out with the wrong crowd.

As typical of such specials, Regina was your average tomboyish girl next door who wore a ponytail haircut and sported a dyed brunette hair that stood out from her tan skin.

Regardless, Pascual insisted that her meetings with these questionable and suspicious persons had something to do with both him and her awakening their angelic powers.

So what was Regina's deal? Pascual alleged she got into contact with some talent agency and they were going to make her into a star. However, they instead awakened her angel self and turned her into an outright monster with their schemes.

Pascual attempted to save her, with the stress of her awakening also triggering his own angelic transformation, but she proved too powerful for him.

As her guy best friend, Isaiah followed her to their talent offices, feeling that something was afoot. From what Florante could surmise, Regina was a bit of a naïve country bumpkin and the agency was taking advantage of her and various other talents.

That was news to Florante, who only knew Regina for her mean girl antics with him whenever they came across each other.

Then things got weird from there.

For his part, Galang could only wonder if his other encounters with Ophanims or Minions involved such schemes.

The spaghetti monster seemed to fly out of nowhere at the school parking lot. Meanwhile, the indefinable shadow man was someone he and Jenny detected along with Mammon in the middle of Makati.

Jeez. Florante could only shake his head.

That American(?) white guy in a formal attire was Mammon? The infamous demon Mammon? Or at least an avatar of his. Wild. And Florante himself was supposed to be the avatar of the world-famous Archangel Gabriel to boot.

Or he would become Gabriel's avatar once he went past being an Ophanim and evolved into a Cherubim then a Seraphim.

Regardless, Florante skipped his school service ride home to (again) commute elsewhere, this time with Isaiah, to Ortigas on Isaiah's dime.

They considered using their powers to get there, but they decided against it to conserve their energy and use their powers on saving Regina instead.

***

The duo sneaked (snuck?) around the conference hall leading to an amphitheater where a seeming talent show took place. Some were on stage singing and dancing. Others served as the audience.

On the front row were some well-dressed judges, including a drop-dead gorgeous Caucasian lady who had the looks of a Hollywood actress.

She had blonde hair complimented by her blue eyes. She also wore a flashy blue gown and shoes that matched her dress yet seemingly decorated a closed heart.

At the back of the stage were various contestants with numbered sashes, among them was Regina herself.

What was all this now? A talent show? Star Search? Tanghalan ng Kampeon (Contest of Champions)?

Or perhaps it was a beauty pageant like Miss Universe or Binibining Pilipinas (Miss Philippines)? No, there were dudes there too.

'What are they planning?' Florante wondered. The setup seemed far too elaborate just to awaken the angel (or demon) within Regina. What was this supposed to accomplish?

Using Pascual's teleportation-like speed, they both got passed through the security guards and ended up at the back of the conference room's audience, with all of them none the wiser.

It was actually pretty packed in there. Standing room only. So Isaiah and Galang stood and observed what was happening.

In front of them was an ordinary talent show. They witnessed acts like an amazing male singer who sung a Whitney Houston song while sounding nearly exactly like Whitney with his impressive falsetto or female "head voice" range.

A minute later, there was a group of break dancers on stage. From there, a long-haired musician with an electric guitar did a three-minute guitar solo. Afterwards, another singer, a girl who was classically trained in opera, sung an operatic version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody".

They even featured drag shows with male cross-dressers who could pass for women.

The pair of classmates stood there, mesmerized by the amount of talent before them. Applauding along with the rest of the audience.

Then it happened. Just like with Mammon's Minion, both Florante and Pascual felt the presence of their fellow angel. Or demon. Celestial being, perhaps.

The curtains parted and then they saw Regina arrive on stage. It was apparently her turn to sing in the talent show. However, instead of singing, she instead began to transform.

They then heard a high-pitched screech, like metal crunching on metal, that became fast and painfully loud.

Startled, Florante looked around him. He saw several things at the same time.

Nothing moved in slow motion the way it did in movies. Rather, his brain felt like it worked overtime due to an adrenalin rush, allowing him to absorb multiple scenes and have them register in his brain at once.

Maybe it wasn't the same case with the speedster beside him who stared at what happened before him with dilated eyes and an unhinged jaw. Florante couldn't tell.

Regina obviously stood out from the sea of faces staring back at her since she was at center stage in this talent show and all, with them wearing the same faces of horror that Pascual did. That Florante probably did as well.

The contestants of the talent show then glowed, as though they themselves had a halo of aura like angels would.

The tendrils of this bright energy got sucked into Regina's body, who herself begun singing a Regine Velasquez song that Florante couldn't quite place.

He also idly wondered if Regina was named after Regine, a famous Filipina singer.

Florante feared that the violently winding soundwaves from Regina's song would converge into a climactic ante, like rapids to a huge waterfall, but then it became a calm lake  that only produced ripples.

Just the purest song.

The fainter variegated spirit energy from the audience swirled along with the more vibrant multicolored auras of the contestants, all converging together into Regina's aura.

This made everyone act lethargic, with the seated viewers slumping down on their seats and the standing contestants plus stage crew crumpling down on the floor in a dead faint.

All of them did so except the two angels at the back—Regina's classmates—and the judges near the front of the stage. Particularly the pretty woman who looked like a Tinsel Town goddess.

"…Pascual?" Regina said, waking from her reverie and breathing into her microphone.

Her eyebrows then furrowed as she squinted and focused them on the person beside Pascual. "Wait. Is that… Florante Galang? Why is he with you, Isaiah?"

"Ay palaka! (Frogdammit!) She caught on to us! The jig is up!" exclaimed Pascual, which only pissed Florante off.

"Susmaryosep, Pascual! What's the plan now?" complained Galang. "You do have a plan just in case she noticed us, don't you?"

"I didn't think things through! Sue me!" said Isaiah. "Just… help me rescue her, okay?! Use your powers or something!"

The Hollywood beauty took a cursory look at the two high school students in uniform and then asked Regina, "Friends of yours?"

Regina stared back and forth between the svelte woman and her classmates then nodded, "They're my classmates, Miss Spelvin," she said aloud, through the microphone.

"Please. Call me Georgia," Georgia Spelvin do declared.

It was then that Florante realized that Miss Spelvin didn't open her mouth when speaking. Like with Mammon, she communicated telepathically. On a frequency only fellow angels and demons could listen to.

Daring to be brave and remembering his former best friend's request to save Regina from the influence of literal demons, Galang shot a Thunderbolt at Georgia instead of his other bully classmate.

The spellbinding Spelvin swatted the Thunderbolt away, which created an ear-splitting sonic boom that made the whole place rumble.

For his part, Florante had already covered his ears, but soon Pascual and even Regina followed suit and did the same.

The three then bore witness to Spelvin changing form from a beautiful blue-eyed blonde in a blue dress to a sultry red-skinned demoness with bat wings, fingernail claws, the wild hair of a harridan, and a black dress seemingly made of the darkest starless night.

An improvement from Mammon's squat gremlin form that Florante and Jenny got exposed to back in Guadalupe Church for sure, but still! Her true form was a She-Devil?

Georgia Spelvin's lips curved into a knowing smile. "Now who told you that's my true form, li'l boy?"

"Wait, you and Jenny fought another demon like her?" asked Isaiah, startling Galang. This telepathic communication between fellow angels and demons was more trouble than it was worth!

As Spelvin strode towards Regina, the two judges beside her turned to dust, which made the hairs at the back of Florante's neck stand on end while beside him, Isaiah turned blue in horror.

Georgia then told Regina telepathically without regard to the two angels who'd overhear, "Now's your chance to use the power you've absorbed from everyone in this talent show to take control of your Minion form."

And soon both Galang and Pascual saw clear as day the literal talent flow like neon tendrils of spiritual energy from the unconscious contestants to Spelvin's hand into a floating sphere of energy. Like an aurora borealis.

The demons had weaponized their passion and used it to their abusive advantage. How devilish of them to do so, but that was to be expected.

Quite a bit of the metaphysical ball of talent then got transferred unto Regina in the form of a seeming solar flare.

Then, like a ghost, the demonic Spelvin vanished and faded into existence.  

From there, Regina opened her mouth, resisted the urge to transform into her geometric self, and sung a song to end the world.

***

Dammit.

Why did it feel like the world was always at stake when Florante dealt with an awakening angel? Or demon?

Regina sang a lyricless hymn of the damned that warped their perception of reality. The sound waves from the song kept Florante's attempts at shooting her down with projectiles from hitting her. They kept missing or dissipating around her.

Meanwhile, on Isaiah's part, he didn't know what to do. He didn't want to hurt his friend and classmate. He certainly didn't wish to use that momentum-filled punch on her.

However, she might become even more powerful now than she was when she went berserk with her first awakening.

So Mr. Pascual bravely ran away.

…What?

Regina took a break from her singing that rendered every energy projectile Florante shot at her into harmless heat and light. "What are you doing even here, you fetal alcohol syndrome baby?"  

"AH! You called me that again! Even after I told the teacher on you for bullying me!" exclaimed Florante, who doubled his efforts by shooting Lightning Bolts at himself and storing enough power inside his body to resist Regina's repellant sound waves.

"You're such a li'l snitch, you dork," Regina said with a roll of her eyes. "You're a wimp and a coward to boot. Shame on you."

She then started humming at a specific frequency that resonated with the rest of the building.

Florante considered asking her if she remembered him killing her in his fever dream, but he pushed such thoughts away before they could fully form into words in his head, fearing she'd overhear him telepathically.

The sound waves from her voice came at a shorter-wave vibrato, almost like a bird's trill, which echoed across the amphitheater then transmitted unto the rest of the structure, making its very foundations shake and dance to the beat of her wordless song.

And so the room and the building started to rumble and shake from the droning hum of Regina's powerful singing pipes.

Soon, all the glass panes and mirrors nearby broke or went on the verge of shattering. Deep faults and hairline cracks appeared from the windows to the plaster walls while the floor below them and the ceiling above them trembled like scared children.

Florante hesitated, with him second-guessing himself now that he realized his past dreams weren't dreams and he and everyone else could die for real if the whole building were to collapse upon them.

However, just in the nick of time, Pascual returned, blasting through the wall from behind Miss Mariano instead and pushing—not punching or striking—her forward.

It took the next second for Florante to realize Pascual might've probably run the entire block or even globe and back to produce enough kinetic energy to penetrate through Regina's melodic defenses with supersonic might.

Regardless, that momentous push did the trick. It stopped the building from crumbling to dust just in time.

However, to Pascual's horror, he went overboard and built up enough momentum to push Mariano away with the strength of a freight train.

"AAHH…! Pascual…!?"

"Oh no! GINA…! I'm SORRY!"

For a split-second, the sonic siren changed into the geometric object Isaiah described from before. She was hard to miss, with her occupying most of the amphitheater.

She probably shifted into that form for self-preservation's sake. Otherwise, she would've turned into a messy red stain of blood and guts on the ceiling and walls.  

Florante couldn't believe what he just saw. He also couldn't react in time before the geometric fallen angel did a banshee shriek that blew him away and shattered his eardrums.

"AUGH!" Galang cried out, and when he gnashed his teeth in pain, he felt the enamel on them crack as well, thus worsening his agony.

The supersonic screech of her Minion self lacked the controlled nuance of her human form's song for sure.

However, for Pascual's part, he couldn't be happier. He grinned and exhaled in relief. "Oh, thank goodness, Gina! You're not dea… URK?!"

Regina Mariano finally shifted back to her human form, her hands throttling Isaiah by his neck. "You almost killed me, you jerk!"

"Wait (cough), I-I didn't mean to…!" Isaiah choked out.

"Whatever. I'm going to control this power and become queen of this world. Just you wait and see," she said, dropping Pascual to the floor before she picked up the microphone and began singing again, her heel firmly stepping on Isaiah's face.

A half-conscious Florante thought, "Rule the world…?"

Huh. Why didn't he think of doing that when he first got his powers?

He was too shortsighted with this angel and demon avatar thing that he didn't realize the full implication of his gifts. He'd rather pettily get back at his bullies than aim at something higher. Like world domination.

But to be honest, why would he want to conquer the world? What good would that do? So he'd become President of Earth? A clueless teenager like him should have that responsibility?

Meanwhile, the compromised position Pascual had with him getting stepped on by Regina also made Galang's cheeks warm up.

Mariano kept Isaiah pinned down to the ground by stepping on his face, huh? Florante wished it were him instead.

He shook his head to wave off such sordid thoughts. He needed to set his priorities straight.

Galang attempted to get up and move, but the ground started shaking again. The building creaked and swayed, like a house of cards about to topple over.

What was he supposed to do now? Her singing served as her shield against 100 percent of Florante's myriad of projectiles. His own halo shield couldn't block off Regina's sound waves either. He was a sitting duck.

Also, if he didn't feel like killing the crawling chaos Minion from before, that went double or even triple for his classmate. Not that he could at this rate, but he definitely didn't want to.

Whatever rage he felt for his bullies back in his fever dream had faded away, replaced with shame and embarrassment after he realized he killed them for real back then.

He could only helplessly stare as the ceiling plaster cracked and buckled while bits of dust, rock shards, and debris fell on the unconscious contestants and audience.

They were about to serve as more collateral damage from the awakening of yet another (fallen) angel. Just like Laura Reyes.

According to Pascual, the people who died when he first tried stopping Regina's rampage the first time she awoke remained dead.

They didn't revert back to normal like with what happened when Jenny and Florante defeated the spaghetti monster and the living maelstrom.

Where was Florante's great power and creativity in using them when saving lives? Was he only useful against helpless people, like his powerless bullies before some of them discovered they too had powers?

He was so helpless against Regina that he might as well turn into an Ophanim himself to battle her full force. He didn't remember his monstrous gyroscopic and multi-eyed form having ears, after all. Just endless revolving eyes on fire.

"Wait, you have an monster form too?!" said Isaiah without thinking after hearing Florante's thoughts, as though forgetting (or not believing) Florante claiming they were angels with alternate, monstrous "true" forms.

Oh, right. Angels and demons could sense and communicate telepathically with one another. Florante should keep his thoughts to himself. Isaiah accidentally overheard his thoughts again.

Hold on a minute. He could project his thoughts to those two, couldn't he?

He got it all wrong. He had his priorities straight from the start!

So he stared and focused on his classmates while making his concrete thoughts known to them even as he, a socially awkward teenager, would normally have trouble expressing himself.

The two seemed unaware of how they looked, what with Regina stepping on Isaiah but hesitating to hurt him or finish him off while Isaiah himself didn't seem to mind it one bit.

Also, from the angle where Pascual lay, he could totally look up from under Regina's dress.

The two received the message loud and clear.

Regina screamed and covered herself up while an apologetic Isaiah reassured it wasn't what it looked like.

Mariano did a swift stomp at Isaiah's head that would've squashed it like a watermelon had he not stood up in time. "Manyakis ka! (You pervert!)" she exclaimed. "You're both perverts!"

"You really are a snitch, Florante!" shouted Pascual at his former best friend while backpedaling deftly across multiple unconscious contestants and audience members.

For that fraction of a second though, Regina left herself wide open. So Florante shot her full of light bullets to force her to change into her Ophanim/Minion form.

"LIGHT ARRAY!"

All ten of Florante's energy projectiles hit their target, with each going off like the electromagnetic pulse version of blockbuster bombs.

It wasn't the most honorable tactic, but it worked.

Also, Galang had the presence of mind to envelop himself in his electric wind halo sphere and push Regina backwards from the stadium through several walls up until they were outside the building to save the unconscious people inside the amphitheater from harm.

"Ah! Florante, you bastard…!" the backpedaling Pascual, uh, forward-pedaled towards the pair. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"What do you think I'm doing? I'm saving everyone before… AH!"

Then, from outside the venue, right in the middle of Ortigas, Regina Mariano began to change and shift forms herself. Like with the flying spaghetti monster, Regina's true angel/demon form towered over Florante and Isaiah like a gigantic geometric monument.

A floating blue pyramid that might as well be an alien ship. Or a tinted Star Destroyer from Star Wars.

'Now what?' thought Florante, which only made Pascual scream at him harder. 'Oh right. You can still hear me, huh?'

"Now it's you who hasn't thought things through!?" Isaiah screeched. He then saw images from Galang's memory flash before his eyes.

Of Florante killing both him and Regina.

She actually forced him to act because she was about to kill all those people back in the amphitheater herself.

With misty eyes and a sniffle, Florante said, "I don't want to kill her again, Pascual. Or hurt her any further."

***

To Be Continued…

The first incarnation of "Fantasy of Evolution" in my mind back in the early 2000s  involved Gabriel De Angeles (currently Florante Galang) ending up seeing his best friend J.D. (reminiscent of Isaiah Pascual) dying because of the War of Angels and Demons.

Also, yes. The Ophanim/Minion form of Regina Mariano is reminiscent of Ramiel the Geometric Angel from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Fascinating how stories and creations change as you yourself develop into a person and as an author, huh?

Farewell, Abdiel

[gizkasparadise]

cdrama rec/review: go ahead

KDRAMA AND CDRAMA MASTER LIST OF REVIEWS

Series: go ahead Episodes: 40 Genres: family, healing/melodrama, slice of life, romance Spoilers in the Rec: for the first 20% ish/set-up If You Like, You’ll Like: reply 1988, le coup de foudre, find yourself (same production company/main male actor), rain or shine/just between lovers, found family stories, meet again stories

Rank: 10/10** (see Drawbacks section)

PREMISE

widower hai chao and his 6 year old daughter jian jian live happily above his noodle restaurant despite the recent, tragic death of his wife. one day, dysfunction junction a married couple (he ping, a police officer, and chen ting, a real piece of work) move into the same building with their 7 year old son, ling xiao. immediately, jian jian attaches herself to ling xiao, who is unexpectedly grim for a small child. 

because ling xiao’s family is less-than-healthily grieving the loss of their youngest child, ling xiao’s sister who died in a terrible accident. The Apartment of Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms eventually implodes, ending with chen ting abandoning her husband and son. he ping, suddenly a single father, and hai chao come to a friendly partnership that is clearly alluding to gay marriage where they co-raise both of their kids--hai chao as the primary caregiver, and he ping supporting them financially through his job as a policeman.

meanwhile, the neighborhood busybody is dead-set on getting hia chao remarried. eventually she introduces him to a divorced single mother, he mei, and her son zi qiu, who is ling xiao’s age. they sort of start to date, but it culminates in he mei skipping town and leaving zi qiu behind. hai chao, man with a heart of gold, informally adopts him and zi qiu becomes jianjian’s foster brother.

from there, the trio grow up happily and become inseparable. but once zi qiu and ling xiao graduate high school, the bullshit parade their respective childhood skeletons reappear in their lives. circumstances lead to the boys moving overseas, leaving jianjian and their fathers behind. 

they reunite after 9 years, when the boys return to a home where they hope to pick things back up from where they left off. things are more complicated than that, as jianjian finds herself in a new life and surrounded by new people. 

MAIN CHARACTERS

li jian jian

hai chao’s daughter and the only girl in the family. she attended the required short-hair-low-grades training program required of all cdrama youth female leads. super positive and outgoing, as well as the youngest of the three pseudo-siblings, jian jian grows up spoiled and over protected by her father and brothers, and as a result is completely devastated once her family falls apart. it’s so sad.

after the time skip, she’s an on-the-verge successful artist who makes woodcarvings, and exudes big art bro energy. inhales sugar like it’s nobody’s business. she inherited her father’s disease called caring too much, and it’s incurable!! 

ling xiao

the eldest brother and resident fun police. ling xiao comes from a seriously toxic home that finally seems to improve once his mother leaves. but then she comes back. fucking great. introverted to the point of being withdrawn to anyone but his chosen family, ling xiao’s had to carry a lot of emotional weight that takes a larger and larger toll on him as the series progresses. please get this boy some therapy. 

becomes a dentist because jian jian needs one. wears a lot of monochromatic outfits with low necklines because heavy angst but make it fashion. has been in love with jian jian since high school and is still carrying that torch 9 years later.

he zi qiu  

the middle child who grows up in hai chao and jian jian’s home, and is her foster brother in all but paperwork. hotheaded, zi qiu and jian jian basically share two brain cells that ling xiao routinely takes from them for safekeeping. he spoils jian jian, sneaking her snacks and junk food and wants to become a pastry chef so he can open a sweet shop for her!!

my favorite character. just wants to be wanted 8( him and hai chao’s relationship is my favorite dynamic in the series. will sob while driving a pink moped. is too proud to beg

li hai chao (left) and ling he ping (right)

the greatest (hai chao) and okayest (he ping) dads in the world! noodle dad/hai chao has never done anything wrong in his life, ever, and we know this and we love him. he ping isn’t a bad person, but demonstrates pretty classic absentee parenting/isn’t as emotionally present in his son’s life as hai chao. hai chao is the heart of the family, and would do anything for his kids 8( 

SOME SUPPORT CHARACTERS 

tang can (left) and qiu ming yue (right)

jian jian’s #GirlGang and roommates. they, like literally everyone in this drama, have some severe mom issue hang-ups. tang can (left) is a former child actress who is struggling with her lack of success as an adult and gives well-meaning but absolutely terrible advice on the regular. 

ming yue (right) is jian jian’s best friend since childhood and as an adult is trying to break free from her mother’s controlling nature--she’s also had a thing for ling xiao for the last 9 years. raises fish for symbolism purposes.

chen ting

ling xiao’s mom and certified garbage human. unable to cope with the death of her daughter that was her fault lbr, she abandons her family and disappears for ten years. she forces her way back into ling xiao’s life when he turns 18, where it’s revealed that she’s remarried and ling xiao has a younger half-sister chengzi (”little orange”). shit goes down, and soon ling xiao is forced to move back to singapore to serve as primary caregiver to both his mother who abandoned him and the half sister he barely knows. 

emotionally abusive and basically hits every single square on the toxic parent bingo card. i just. i just hate her. even typing this out is making me mad.

he mei

zi qiu’s mother. after a few dates with hai chao, she ends up ditching her kid and disappearing for unknown reasons. is a slightly better parent than chen ting but that’s like saying some poison kills you slower. the show tries to bring us around on her but it didnt work for me. 

SOME OTHERS

zhuang bei, zi qiu’s best friend growing up who i would like a lot less if he wasn’t played by the same actor who played my beloved dachuan

zheng shuran, jian jian’s first boyfriend and fellow artist who’s got a weird thing for women’s waists and pretentious artists’ statements

du juan, jian jian’s friend who co-owns their woodworking studio. has absolute trash taste in men

chengzi, ling xiao’s half-sister who can be a brat but dear god does she need to be protected/saved 

**DRAWBACKS

so this is a weird one for me. what i didn’t like i really didn’t like, but what i loved i really loved. ultimately, the factors/uniqueness of this show and the loveability of the main characters outweighed the negatives and it’s one of my favorite dramas.

THAT SAID. i got some #thoughts on this one. 

first, there are literally no positive mother figures in this show. not a damn one. they are all negligent or controlling at best or down right abusive at worst. no woman over 30 is portrayed positively and that’s a big No from me. 

the last 10 eps have some pacing issues and focus on the wrong people. spending the remaining episodes focused on one of the most universally hated characters vs. the main family was a bad move 

the show tried to redeem or make us sympathize with characters that were, to me, completely irredeemable. one case is worse than the other, but both of them were terrible people that deserved to be cut out of the main family’s lives.  

REASONS TO WATCH

the main family. the characters are so wonderful and nuanced, and their dynamics with one another were amazing. you’ll fall in love with hai chao aka noodle dad and the trio. they go through so many trials but they still stick together and it’s ultimately a healing drama and i loved it very much.

the central romance was less in focus, but the pining is enough to make jane austen emerge from the grave. i loved the leads together, and while LOL ling xiao’s attachment to jian jian was not always healthy, they supported each other and it made me smile. i love me a tortured pining dude.

#Acting. everyone played their parts to perfection. the child actors in particular were so well-cast (esp baby zi qiu)

the soundtrack lmao. you watch the opening credits and know you’ll need to buckle up

idk it’s a very unique show, and i haven’t seen one like it. reply 1988 comes close, but it doesn’t tackle the same issues and it was all just very real and earnest. 

Final Thoughts.

GOODNIGHT, GOOODBYYYYYE MY CHILDREEEEEEEN

[jamesbucksiclebarnes]

Rating: Mature - Language, Mentions of Violence.

Chapter List: [1] | [2] | [3] | [4] | [5] | [6] | [7] | [8] | [9] | [10] | [11]

[AO3 Link] | [Fic Page]

SERIES SUMMARY:

“Not human. She was not human. They all knew it. Could almost feel it, but couldn’t make sense of it. That was why they were afraid. Not because of what she used to be Before. But because of what she was now.”

Having found herself serving as the right-hand to the Governor for too long, Synnove le Jacques does her best to make things right with the people of the Prison. Stuck beside her partner in crime, her irritatingly obnoxious and hideously problematic best friend, Merle, she does her best to fight back against the monster she has let the Governor become.

CHAPTER TITLE: Battle is the Want of All Man.

Hershel and Andrea’s voices cut in and out, partially obscuring the Governor’s words. But I’d heard enough.

“I don’t want your prison,” he had said. “That doesn’t sound safe at all. I mean, you lost your wife, another man… What good would that do me? Best you stay where I can keep my one good eye on you. I want Michonne. And I want my girl back. Turn them over and this all goes away.”

I clenched my teeth so hard it was a miracle they didn’t shatter into a million pieces. My girl? Since when was I “his” girl? If I hadn’t been sitting on the car bonnet next to Daryl at that moment, I probably would have launched into attack mode right then and there. Thankfully, his body was between me and the door. It gave me enough pause to think logically.

“You’ve obviously got big plans,” Rick remarked. “Like you’re the guy who’s gonna lick this thing. Bring us back from the brink. So why waste your time with a two-bit vendetta? On this one girl who decided to think for herself? Why risk it all? You could have a statue of yourself in the town square, Governor.” Rick’s low chuckle almost set the hairs on my arms upright. “Killing Michonne, obsessing over Jacques, it’s all sort of beneath you, don’t you think?”

“You could save your son,” was the Governor’s reply. “Save your daughter. Everyone you know. It’s your choice.”

The gap between the Governor’s statement and Rick’s response was almost enough to give me a fucking aneurysm.

“If I give you Michonne… If I hand over Jacques… How do I know you’ll keep your word that you’ll stop?”

He wouldn’t.

Something inside me had to believe that Rick already knew that. Even after only a few days around the man, I knew he wasn’t an idiot. You didn’t get as far as their group had with a leader that didn’t have at least an ounce of common sense.

I didn’t hear the response. Martinez said something to Sean right as the Governor’s voice filtered out through the metal door, obscuring my ability to distinguish the words. A curse escaped me, barely loud enough for even Daryl to hear.

When the Governor pulled open the door, everyone was suddenly at full attention. Daryl and I straightened from our slouched positions by the bonnet of the car, watching him as he walked past us with barely a glance in my direction. He was making a point of ignoring me, of pretending he didn’t care I was standing on the other side of this. I knew better and watched him until the very moment he climbed into their car and slammed the door shut.

Rick emerged a moment later, hand on his belt as he walked purposefully toward our own car. His face was all hard lines, eyes focused straight ahead. Not a word was exchanged between any of us as we climbed into our respective vehicles.

I shot Martinez one last, lingering look, hoping he’d see sense before things got out of hand. He gave me a small, sad smile as they pulled away from the edge of the road.

The drive back to the prison was uneventful. Rick didn’t say a word and neither did Hershel. I began to wonder whether this esteemed leader would be truthful about their exchange, if he would inform everyone that the Governor had put their lives upon the heads of Michonne and I. Was he considering it? He couldn’t truly believe the Governor would leave the prison be after all this. I refused to accept he was that stupid.

The people of Woodbury had known Philip, had trusted him. His manipulation of them was understandable. Many of them had yet to see his dark side. Rick knew only the worst of him, and I had to believe he would make his decisions accordingly.

When we arrived back at the prison, Carol and Maggie were there to open the gate. Daryl’s bike drove in first, followed closely by us. Once we had all climbed from the car, Rick called for us all to get inside.

I spotted Merle by one of the cells lining the corridor. He stood beside Michonne and straightened his back when he saw us entering the cellblock.

Rick walked down the corridor a fraction further than the rest of us, reaching into one of the open cells to retrieve a hunting rifle. He turned back to face us, looking between the gathered faces of his people with a pensive expression.

“So, I met this Governor,” he announced, sounding almost amused by the title as it rolled off his tongue. “Sat with him for quite a while.”

Merle cocked his head to the side. “Just the two of you?”

Rick nodded.

The older Dixon glanced toward me, cocking a brow. I shook my head with a deep frown, which made him scoff. He pushed off from the cell door he had been leaning on and walked across the opening before Rick, looking to his brother as he passed. “Should’ve gone when we had the chance, bro.”

He came to a stop beside me. We both looked up to Rick as he stood a step up on the staircase behind him.

“He wants the prison,” he announced.

I nodded, smiling slightly, glad he had seen through the Governor’s bullshit.

“He wants us gone… Dead. He wants us for what we did to Woodbury.”

Everyone seemed unsettled by this, shuffling in their places on the concrete floor.

“We’re going to war,” Rick said with finality, looking at each of us in turn before stepping down from the staircase and walking out of the cellblock.

The silence was almost palpable. Daryl stepped forward and looked to Merle, who looked down at me, as if questioning whether we were going to stay and fight. I gave him a tight nod, which he returned to his brother.

I was in this fight whether I was with them or not. The Governor would not allow me to live either here or there in peace. He’d want me gone, removed from the equation, so he could sleep fitfully at night. But he was fooling himself if he thought it would be that easy.

If it was war he wanted, a war he was going to get.

#

To say things were tense after that would be an understatement.

Merle, Michonne, and I continued to press Rick about the possibility of attacking first, to which his response had remained the same over the past day and a half. “It’s too risky,” he’d say. “There’s another way.”

Yeah, I’d think to myself. And that “way” involved handing Michonne and I over to a man who wants to shoot us in the face.

I kept that to myself. Hadn’t even told Michonne. It had been a difficult decision, whether to tell or not, but I’d come to the conclusion it was best that only one of us remained on edge. Ignorance enabled Michonne to more genuinely attempt to fit in here, to make friends of the people huddled in the cellblock. I couldn’t. Not when my attempts were spurred by that minuscule sense of doubt in the back of my mind, the thought that Rick couldn’t send me away if his people liked me. When they came up to me, I remained nothing but pleasant, but I was guarded. I didn’t want a tainted beginning to a friendship. These people deserved better than my unintentional manipulations.

Still, it was like I couldn’t help myself. Beth had been first, mostly because of the baby. In case you couldn’t tell quite yet, I had a soft spot for kids. Always have.

Merle had begun to frustrate me quite early in the day. He’d begun ripping into the mattresses throughout the cellblock, no doubt looking for some kind of hidden stash. At first, he’d asked me to literally be his “sniffer dog” and, once I’d refused, he’d given an indignant “who needs ya” before tearing into the damn things like the unrestrained idiot he was. I’d left him there, both unable and not in the mood to try and talk sense into him.

I walked out to the fenced-in section of the courtyard, intent on getting some fresh air, when I spotted Beth, sitting crossed legged on the concrete ground. In front of her was a box, and from the inside of that box, I could hear the senseless cooing sounds of little baby Judith. I hadn’t been game enough to approach her whilst Rick was around, unsure of how he’d react to my proximity to his baby girl, but Rick was nowhere to be seen – at least as far as I could tell – so I began a cautious approach. Carol was nearby, sitting on the steps leading up into another section of the cellblock. She watched me approach Beth with a narrowed, suspicious gaze.

“Hey,” I said softly, announcing my presence to Beth, who had been too enraptured by the book in her lap to notice my approach.

Her eyes, wide and blue, lifted from the pages and fixed on me curiously. Thin, blonde eyebrows pulled down slightly. “Hi. You’re Jack, right?”

“Jacques,” I responded with a little chuckle. “Like, the uh, detective in Pink Panther.”

She blinked up at me, tilting her head the slightest bit as her thin lips pulled down at the corners.

How old was she? Did she not know Pink Panther? Was I old? My God. Twenty-four wasn’t old, right? Right?

I gave her a gentle shake of my head, slowly lowering myself down into a crouch beside her. “No? What about the, um… the shrimp guy from the dentist’s tank in Finding Nemo?”

That made her eyes widen in understanding, her mouth partially opening in an “O” shape before she clucked lightly.

“That’s just my last name, though,” I added, glancing down into the box at Judith. “Le Jacques.”

Her little baby cheeks were so round, so pink. Those eyes, light green in colour, were wide and alert, as if she were listening in on every word. She looked at me for a brief moment and I smiled down at her, which made her face break out into one of those pure baby-grins as she threw her arms about in excitement.

Jesus fuck, I would die for this child.

“What’s your first name?” Beth asked me, leaning in slightly to draw my gaze from Judith.

I glanced at her, still grinning. “Synnove.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Sin-oh-vey.” I shrugged haplessly. “It’s a Norse name. My mum, she was heavy into the whole “my ancestors were Vikings” thing.”

Beth chuckled, nodding. “Oh. It’s pretty.”

I snorted, though gave her a thankful smile as I lowered myself down out of my crouch and into a sitting position. The top of the box cut off my view of the baby inside, but I got a decent look at the side of the cardboard, where someone had written “Lil Ass Kicker” in black marker. I felt my brows scrunch as I looked at it in surprise, coughing out a laugh. Adorable.

“A baby doesn’t get to choose their own name,” I remarked, gesturing to the scrawled black letters on Judith’s box. “If I’d had a choice, I might have picked that.”

Beth laughed. It was a light sound, pure and full of heart, kind of like her singing voice. Had this been a hundred years ago, I didn’t doubt she would be the exact kind of girl that one of my kind would attempt to draw into the shadows, to lure into a ring of mushrooms deep in the silent forest. Thankfully, my kind didn’t do that as often these days, too wound up with their own bullshit to worry about the humans of their neighbouring world.

“Daryl gave it to her,” Beth informed me after a moment.

That made my brows rise slightly as a smile pulled at one side of my mouth. Of course, he had. Why was I not even remotely surprised?

Beth’s own smile began to fade after a moment as she lifted herself partially out of her crossed-legged position to look down at the baby. She reached in with a thin arm, rearranging the blankets within the box with a pursed lipped frown. “Her momma died giving birth to her,” she said softly. “Carl had to – you know. That was before we knew ‘bout Woodbury. One of the prisoners that survived here, he opened the gate and let the walkers in. We all got separated. That was when it happened.”

I gave her a sad look, nodding along with her story as she sunk back down beside me. It had been a cruel world even before the dead had begun to rise. Now, it was almost as if the universe or whatever sicko God was watching over us, purposefully put everyone in the worst position possible just to watch them squirm.

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “Sounds like you guys have had a run of bad luck lately.”

Beth bowed her head slightly, blue eyes focusing on her hands where they fidgeted in her lap. “It’s been rough. But we’ll get through. We always do.”

I smiled slightly at that. “I don’t doubt it.”

She glanced up at me, her sad look slowly fading into a smile. It was small and didn’t entirely reach her tired eyes, but it was nice to see, nonetheless.

Everything settled back into silence after that. Carol, who had been partway through cleaning the rifle now resting across her lap, had watched our entire exchange with a keen eye. I knew she wouldn’t hesitate to use that rifle on me if I’d made even the slightest of moves indicating I meant Beth or Judith harm. Something about that woman struck me as… I don’t know. Capable? Alert?

No. I knew what it was.

She was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. So well hidden beneath that wool that even I had stumbled and stuttered before figuring out what she truly was. It was impressive, honestly. Those keen eyes were the only thing that betrayed her. The way they always seemed to be watching, to be turning those little cogs inside her mind, constantly alert. The tell glow of a wolfs eyes in the darkness.

When Carol caught my scrutinising gaze, she straightened her back, her grip on the rifle slipping down slightly as if intent on pulling up and pointing it at me.

I gave her a slow, knowing grin before averting my gaze, pushing myself back up, out of my sitting position. The sound of my booted feet against the concrete was barely noticeable as I made my way back toward the cellblock door. I’d had half a thought to check in on Merle, make sure he hadn’t destroyed every mattress in the cellblock, when I felt my feet come to a sudden halt.

Voices. I could hear them coming from somewhere to my right, down near the end of the cellblock where the brick wall met the beginning of the fence. They were hushed and barely discernible, but I could tell they belonged to Rick, Hershel, and Daryl. With a glance behind me at the two women to make sure neither of them were watching, I began to slink down toward the sounds of conversation. Using the shadows cast by the tall brick building, I remained partially hidden as I approached the yard where Rick, Hershel, and Daryl stood. Silent, tightly pressed against the wall before the corner, I remained out of sight as I listened in to their voices.

“It’s the only way,” Rick was saying, his voice hushed despite the fact no one other than my nosy ass was nearby to listen in. “No one else knows.”

Daryl looked perplexedly back at the man, pursing his lips slightly in thought. His grip on the strap of his crossbow was tight, as if he were using it for a sense of comfort. “You gonna tell ‘em?” he asked.

“Not till after,” Rick responded.

It didn’t take a genius to understand what they were referring to. Rick was planning to hand Michonne and I over after all. I felt a deep sense of anger rise within me, setting my chest alight. My hands curled into fists against the brickwork of the cellblock wall and I had to take a deep breath in order to restrain myself from marching out there. How the hell could he be so stupid? Did he honestly think this was the “only way”? That the Governor wouldn’t kill us and then immediately turn on them? Where was his common sense? His police-y instincts? Why was I the only one thinking rationally here?

“We have to do it today,” Rick continued, glancing between Daryl and Hershel with a steely-eyed resolve. “It has to be quiet.”

Daryl was partially pacing back and forth, looking out to the forest beyond the gate before returning his gaze to Rick. He chewed his bottom lip indecisively for a moment before asking, “You got a plan?”

My upper lip curled up into a snarl. Seriously? Not even Little Dixon was on my side here?

“We tell them both we need to talk,” Rick answered evenly. “Away from the others.”

Daryl shook his head. “Jacques ain’t gonna fall for that. She’s clued in, man.”

Rick’s brow furrowed, his eyes narrowing at Daryl as his lips pulled tautly down at the corners. “Did you tell her?”

“No,” he answered, sounding a little offended Rick would even ask. “She knows how the douchebag operates. Probably already guessed he’d asked you to hand her over.”

That made Rick pause, a hand lifting up to rub at the scruff along his jaw. He looked to be in deep thought for a moment before meeting Daryl’s gaze with an intensive look. “Would Merle do it? Get her alone? If it were the only way we’d let him stay, would he do it?”

Daryl blinked at him in surprise. It took him a long moment to answer and I wondered exactly what was going through his mind at that moment. The question looked like it disturbed him. “Naw,” he answered plainly. “He ain’t ever been like this with no one. No way he’d give her up to the Governor.”

Rick let out a frustrated sigh, turning on the spot to look out through the fence. “Alright. One at a time, then. Michonne first. Merle will help with her, at least.”

Daryl nodded slightly, though I could see the conflict in his gaze. He didn’t like this. In fact, I was pretty sure he hated it. The idea of giving someone up to save his own life looked as if it made him almost physically ill. He took a series of deep breaths, stepping closer to Rick with a sad look. “This ain’t us, man.”

“No,” Hershel agreed. “It isn’t.”

Rick turned so he could look at the both of them, at such an angle that he was almost directly facing me. I didn’t panic, remaining as still as I could, knowing the distance between us would make it difficult to discern my body through the shadows of the building. It helped that I was wearing all black, of course.

“We do this, we avoid a fight,” he said, sounding as if he actually believed it. “No one else dies.”

That part, he said directly to Daryl. The younger Dixon still looked troubled, as if he wished someone else would say something, give them another option, but he nodded after a moment, realizing that second choice wasn’t going to come.

“Okay,” he breathed. “I’ll talk to Merle.”

“No,” Rick said quickly. “I’ll do it.”

Daryl blinked. “I’ll go with you.”

Rick shook his head. “No. Just me.”

As Rick turned to walk away, back toward the front of the cellblock, I watched Daryl’s face contort into a troubled frown. He and Hershel shared a look, after which the old man shook his head and turned to follow Rick. That left Daryl alone, standing by himself in the empty yard, staring out through the gaps in the wire fence at the forest. Once I was sure Hershel was far enough away that he wouldn’t spot me in his peripherals, I stepped out of the shadows and silently approached the younger Dixon.

One hand lifted to grip the fence, as if he needed it to keep himself steady, the other hand still tightly holding the strap of his crossbow.

He had no idea I was there. Not until I spoke.

“It’s not going to work.”

Daryl almost jumped out of his skin, spinning around so fast one of the arrows on the end of his crossbow caught in the fence. Once he realised it was just me, he let out a huff of air through his nose and looked over his shoulder, prying the arrow free with an irritated yank and stepping away from the fence with a scowl. “Get you a bell or somethin’. Jesus.”

I smirked, amused despite the situation, but it faded quickly as I repeated my initial remark. “It won’t work.”

“What won’t?” he asked, though I could tell by the way he was looking at me through narrowed eyes that he already knew what I was talking about. That I’d been listening.

“Handing Michonne over to the Governor isn’t going to placate him,” I said, matter-of-factly. “Neither of us will.”

Daryl didn’t answer. His gaze dropped to the ground by his booted feet as he chewed the inside of his lower lip.

“He won’t even kill her,” I continued. “You know that, right? Not straight away. He doesn’t function like that. Revenge isn’t a bullet to the head with him. It’s more than that – it’s just as psychological as it is physical. He’ll torture her. Probably take out an eye. Maybe both, just to make a point.”

Daryl swallowed. I watched his Adam’s apple move up and down as he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before opening them, only to continue staring at the ground.

“Me? Fuck knows what he’ll do. I have an inkling it’ll involve a set of pliers. Don’t know why – just a feeling.” Whether it would be pliers, a hammer, or a knife, I knew he wouldn’t just put me on my knees and execute me. He needed to hurt me. To hurt Michonne. He needed to make us feel the pain we’d inflicted upon him, righteous or not. It was more than just a simple case of clearing the field. He needed to win. Needed to be on top. To have himself placed on a pedestal for the people of Woodbury that believed he had defeated the enemy, despite the fact, somewhere in that rotted skull of his, he knew we were an enemy he had created.

“I’m sorry,” Daryl breathed after a moment, still not meeting my eye.

I smiled softly, despite myself. He looked like a scolded child. It made my heart ache in my chest. “Don’t stress it,” I responded, waving a hand dismissively. “Rick’s just trying to minimize the bloodshed. I don’t blame him. Or you.”

That made him look up. His brow was furrowed, the muscles in his neck tensed with his deep, troubled frown. Despite the fact he said nothing, I could tell there was some sense of relief inside him. As if my acknowledgement of the lack of blame I regarded him with had set his mind somewhat at ease.

“If this is what you all think is best,” I said softly, looking out to the forest with a small frown. “I’ll go. I won’t fight it. I’ll tell Merle not to, either, and he won’t. But you and Rick both need to understand that this will not amount to anything. The only thing you’ll accomplish here is the removal of two competent fighters from the board. Two that are standing on your side.”

Daryl breathed heavily through his nose, the skin on his forehead wrinkled as he looked back at me with a sad, helpless frown. He swallowed again before nodding, chewing the inside of his lower lip before turning to make his way up the path Rick had disappeared down.

God. How had it come to this so fast? I needed to find Merle. Convince him not to help. To at least attempt to talk some sense into Rick. Lord knew, he wouldn’t do it on his own inclination. That was the way he was. Obeying the orders, doing the dirty jobs with little question. That was how I used to be, too. How had I become the one looking at things from the outside?

[larryland]

by Jenny Hansell

Is there anything sturdier and more resilient than a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta?  There are occasional professional productions of Pirates of Penzance or HMS Pinafore at opera houses and regional theaters, but I’d bet that it’s local amateur companies that have kept the operettas alive for 130 years and counting.

Why so evergreen? G&S shows offer plentiful opportunities for amateur ensembles to sing complex and lovely music, and the lead roles give the best singers in the community a chance to shine, while leaving room for the character actor with limited singing range or two left feet.  Every G&S production I’ve seen (or performed in, with the late lamented Light Opera Company of Salisbury, CT) has a large chorus of simpering maids played by women from their teens through their 80s, and assorted pirates, policeman or “gentlemen of Japan” played by men who may struggle to hit the high notes of their younger days, or remember which order their feet should grapevine, but are as courtly or dastardly as the moment requires. The simple plots, the witty lyrics, the tradition of updating them with current references, and above all the gorgeous music, so much fun to sing and to listen to, has kept the G&S repertory going in communities around the world, with the traditions passed on like folk tales.

The Gondoliers is less well known than the “big three” of Pirates, Pinafore and Mikado, but with its gorgeous score and perfectly silly plot, it deserves to be seen, and the Valley Light Opera is currently mounting a very entertaining production at the Academy of Music in Northampton. With a cast of thousands (not really, but it’s big) and a full orchestra, this community production fills the stage with color.

The plot concerns two penniless but handsome young brothers, gondoliers Marco and Giuseppe. They decide to choose brides from among the assembled village ladies, who fan themselves and faint at the prospect. It turns out that one of them is the heir to the throne in Barataria, but since nobody knows which, they must leave their brides behind and assume the duties of the monarchy together. They are Republicans, however, of the 19th century sort, which means they don’t believe in hierarchies: they help out with the menial duties of the kingdom while treating the Lord High Footman and Lord High Drummer Boy with outsized respect.

Not much else happens until the identity of the true king is revealed: various amusing characters enter, sing a song to explain who they are, and leave again.

Among those are the down-on-their-luck Duke and Duchess of Plaza-Toro, who support themselves by endorsing dubious products, and their daughter Casilda, who was married at birth to the now-incognito prince.  She, however, is secretly in love with Luiz, the one-man ‘suite’ serving her family.

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As the Duke, Jonathan Klate stands out for his authoritative voice and comic timing.  Kathy Blaisdell is a classic G&S mezzo-soprano, carrying off her songs with verve. Elaine Crane as Casilda has a sweet soprano and is very believable as she puzzles over her fate.  Brad Amidon, as Luiz, isn’t the strongest singer but is a terrific comic actor, and plays an 11th-hour twist to the hilt.

The strongest voices on the stage belong to the four young lovers: George Eisenhauer and Christopher Marcus play Marco and Giuseppe as a goofy Mutt-and-Jeff pair.  As Gianetta, Libby Maxey has a glorious operatic voice, though her words are mostly incomprehensible. Luckily there are supertitles projected in the theater (which synced up with what was on stage about 50% of the time.)  Kimaya Diggs was a warm and charming Tessa.

The orchestra, ably led by conductor Aldo Fabrizi, gave some extra bad-guy music to Don Alhambra,  the Grand Inquisitor who stole away the young prince to begin with, and is played with understated menace by Matthew Roehrig.

As with any G&S production, the script was updated with plentiful and very amusing current references, from Bernie bros to pussy hats, Kardashians and #MeToo, to rhyming Ivanka and Sri Lanka, with a little Macarena thrown in. I was waiting for a tie-in with the two brother gondoliers to Don Jr and Eric but sadly it never came.  As someone who always slightly chafed at playing the giggling girl year after year, I particularly appreciated when Tessa’s line, “those two poor Monarchs haven’t got any one to mend their stockings or sew on their buttons or patch their clothes” was interrupted by a chorister adding “or build their buildings or run for office!”  Happily, the script doctors didn’t overload the production with too many such interludes.

The minor roles and ensemble are filled with Pioneer Valley residents, including a paleontologist, a pastor, a dentist, a massage therapist, a climate activist, several teachers and a passel of delightful middle-schoolers who cartwheel, ride mini-gondolas mounted on scooters, and add even more life to the village scenes.  The ensemble as a whole particularly shone on the opening number, List and Learn, and the lively dance interlude, the Cachucha.

The orchestra, almost without exception, played beautifully, though occasionally were much louder than the ensemble, at least where I was sitting near the front. Friends in the middle of the house reported they had no trouble hearing the singers over the instruments.

Seeing this production reminded me that my grandfather, whom I never met, was said to have played Ko-Ko in a community production of the Mikado decades before I was born. I did some strategic Googling and sure enough, found a notice about the production, mentioning him, in the Detroit Free Press from 1935.   May Gilbert & Sullivan be passed down for another 130 years, at least!

Valley Light Opera presents The Gondoliers, music by Sir Arthur Sullivan, lyrics by Sir W.S. Gilbert, directed by Michael O. Budnick. Music Director, Aldo Fabrizi, at the Academy of Music Theatre, 274 Main St, Northampton, MA, November 2-11, 2018. Choreographers: Susan Edwards Dresser & Nicole Newell; Lighting Designer: Mike Freedman; Costume Designer: Laura Green; Props: Kevin Cox; Stage Manager: Achaetey Kabal; Technical Director: Steve Morgan; Set Designer: Steve Riddle.

Cast: Gianetta: Libby Maxey; Tessa: Kimaya Diggs; Fiametta: Donna Griffin; Vittoria: Heather Williams; Giulia: Nicole Newell; Marco Palmieri: George Eisenhauer; Giuseppe Palmieri: Christopher Marcus; Antonio: Robin Parsons; Francesco: Steven Williams; Giorgio: Jeff Erb; Annibale: Ted Fijal; The Duke of Plaza-Toro: Jonathan Klate; The Duchess of Plaza-Toro: Kathy Blaisdell; Casilda: Elaine Crane; Luiz: Brad Amidon; Don Alhambra del Bolero: Matt Roehrig; Inez: Lucy Robinson.  Featured Dancers: Anju Diggs, Kimaya Diggs, Eli Dresser, Ripley Dresser, Donna Griffin, Sophie Kawall, Libby Maxey, Nicole Newell, Talia Sadiq, Heather Williams. Cameos: Young Marco: Eli Dresser, Amory Maxey (alternate); Young Giuseppe: Henry Maxey; Young Gianetta: Ripley Dresser, Sophie Kawall (alternate): Young Tessa: Talia Sadiq. Ensemble: Katherine Benfer, McKenna Cambo, Anju Diggs, Eli Dresser, Ripley Dresser, Anan Eisenstein-Bond, Gary Felder, Gordon Freed (Baptisto Palmieri), Deborah Jacobson, Sophie Kawall, Nina Levin-Pollard (Party Leader), ELysse Link, Amory Maxey, Henry Maxey, Marc McMenamin, David Mix Barrington (The King), Paul Peelle, Amanda Seymour, William Tobey.

The production goes up at the Academy of Music in Northampton November 2, 3, 9 and 10 at 7:30 with matinees November 4 and 11 at 2:00PM. Tickets are available at the Academy of Music box office or at aom.ticketfly.com. The Gondoliers is presented with the generous media sponsorship of New England Public Radio, 88.5 FM and The NEPR News Network.

REVIEW: Valley Light Opera Presents “The Gondoliers” by Jenny Hansell Is there anything sturdier and more resilient than a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta?  There are occasional professional productions of…

[gabriellakirtonblog]

Why Personal Training Is So Much Harder for Female Fitness Pros

Years ago, I had this client. Let’s call her Sara.

As I do with all my clients, and you do with yours, I used my time and energy to develop a plan to help her get results.

Then one day she told me I was wrong. Actually, she told me her husband said I was wrong. My nutrition advice was off base, he’d told her. And he would know. He’d been a bodybuilder once. Thirty years ago.

Inside my head, a little voice was saying, “Um, pardon me?” Out loud, I stammered something about nutrition research having come a long way since then. “Well, okay,” she said. But I could tell she wasn’t convinced.

Over the following weeks, she ignored much of my advice as her husband continued to pick it apart. And guess who she blamed when she didn’t get results. No, not him.

I finally spoke up. “If we’re going to keep training together,” I told her, “you absolutely cannot listen to your husband.”

I explained that ethically, I couldn’t keep taking her money if she was going to disregard my advice. What’s more, her lack of results reflected poorly on me.

I still remember her bewildered look. But after a few moments of paralyzed silence, she agreed. She started following my advice and lost 10 pounds in four weeks.

I wish I could say this was a one-off, but it wasn’t. Over the years — especially early in my career — I’ve dealt with skepticism from both male and female clients.

Fact is, while women have made great strides in the fitness industry, in many ways it’s still a man’s world. And many women trainers feel we must work twice as hard to be taken half as seriously.

I see this in gyms all the time: men “correcting” women’s form (the fitness version of mansplaining), or holding a captive audience while spouting “bro science.” Meanwhile, the women don’t project nearly that level of confidence, even though they should.

As a trainer for 10 years and founder of the Female Trainer Society, I help women grow their fitness businesses. That means finding ways to overcome this challenge, including the following seven steps.

1. Believe in Yourself

Thankfully I haven’t had to deal with this in a long time. Yes, I’m more experienced now. But I’m more confident too. As a result, my clients are more confident in me.

Confidence is key, and it’s something many of us struggle with. I’ve heard unqualified men deliver poor fitness advice with such gusto that it sounds credible. I’ve also heard well-qualified women hedge their good advice, welcoming skepticism.

If you sound like you’re doubting yourself, your clients won’t believe you.

And I get it. Negative thoughts happen. What’s helped me is realizing that those negative thoughts are just that — thoughts. Too often people identify with their thoughts and accept them as truth. But you are not your thoughts. In fact, you can change them.

Try to replace negative thoughts with positive ones (“I am the expert”), or just blow right past them. Swallow those “ums” and “uhs” and “maybes.” Speak boldly.

READ ALSO: “Five Ways to Deal with a Client Who Challenges You”

2. Act Fast

Looking back, I wish I had spoken up to Sara sooner. Instead, I let the problem slide for weeks, and when she failed to see results she blamed me.

She wasn’t wrong. As a trainer, I take 100 percent responsibility for my clients — if they don’t see results, it’s my fault, not theirs.

If you go to the dentist to have a cavity filled and a week later your tooth is in pain, are you to blame? Heck no! The dentist screwed up. That error is on them.

Back then, I didn’t understand this as clearly as I do now. I ignored red flags for too long and wasted both our time.

Speaking up isn’t easy, and despite your instinct, your brain will come up with a million excuses to keep your mouth shut. Entrepreneur Mel Robbins has suggested that if you don’t act on a goal within five seconds, your brain will kill it.

So don’t wait. Remember that speaking up is your responsibility. Your client may not like what she hears at first. But she’ll like it much less a month from now, when she finds out you allowed the problem to persist.

READ ALSO: “Your Client Stopped Getting Good Results. Now What?”

3. Speak from a Place of Care

Women can have a hard time being assertive. That’s partly because assertive women are too often seen as aggressive or hostile. Many of us wrestle with that. We don’t want to be seen as bossy, but we do want to be respected.

Luckily, I have a solution: Pretend your client is your grandmother. This is how I talk to all my clients. It helps me stay calm, patient, and polite.

If Grandma questions your advice, you don’t respond in anger. You calmly explain how and why it’s going to benefit her in terms she understands. You tell her you care about her and want her to achieve her goals.

This helps me strike an empathetic yet professional tone. It’s the difference between trying to get your way and trying to get results for your client. One turns people off; the other gets them to listen.

You might say something like,

“I’m asking you to do things differently from what you’ve done in the past. Let’s just try this for two weeks, and if it doesn’t work we can talk about how to change it.”

Remind your client that you want the best for her. Speak from a place of care and appreciation, and your client will respect that.

4. Mention the Money

No one wants to be ripped off. When you point out that your client is wasting money by ignoring your advice, you’ll get her attention.

Acknowledge that while your advice may contradict what she’s tried in the past, those strategies haven’t worked. That’s why she hired you.

Say something like,

“You’re paying me for a service. You deserve results, and this is how you’re going to get them.”

Most clients will appreciate the honesty. You’re basically telling them you’re not interested in just taking their money. You want to help them see results.

5. Don’t Be Afraid to Lose a Client

Maybe you fear you’ll upset your client and she’ll leave you. That rarely happens, in my experience. But even if it does, trust me, it’s for the best.

I once had a client who refused to follow her program and complained on social media that she wasn’t seeing results. I told her, “I don’t think you’re ready to make this change. I’m going to discontinue your contract. And when you’re ready, you can come back.”

I invest a lot of time and mental energy in my clients. When one of them isn’t cooperating, that’s wasted effort I could be spending on someone else.

Sure, you may take a hit of a couple hundred bucks. But don’t think of it as losing a client. Think of it as making space for a great new client, someone who’s worth the investment you make in her success.

READ ALSO: “Five Lessons from 10 Years of Personal Training”

6. Go Ahead and Brag 

When Sara finally started following my advice and seeing results, you better believe I didn’t let that slide by unnoticed.

I like to keep it playful by saying something like, “I don’t want to say I told you so, but I told you so.” Generally, people react with a laugh and “I know, I know.”

But it’s important to acknowledge accomplishments, and that’s something else women aren’t always great at doing for fear of appearing boastful.

Women are socialized to stay small, to not take up space. But if you look at the women who are dominating the market, they’re the ones who are taking up the space. They’re saying, “Move over! Let me in!” They’re standing up for themselves and not afraid to make waves.

So I say, don’t shy away from your accomplishments. Highlight them!

7. Help a Sister Out

To all the male trainers out there, if you see a female colleague being disrespected, here’s your script: Walk up and say, “Hey, she really knows her stuff. You should listen to her.”

This is why testimonials work. When real people speak up and show they trust you, it establishes credibility. It’s an easy way for you to help out a colleague, and a subtle move toward greater gender equality in fitness. That’s good for everyone.

Want to Ignite Your Personal Training Career?

Ready to take control of your career? Looking to improve your business mindset, client engagement style, and self-promotion techniques? You’ll find all that and more in Ignite the Fire by Jonathan Goodman, a book that gives you a clear road map to building your career from the bottom up, helping you grow your clientele, your status, and your income.

In this book, you’ll learn how to:

Build your confidence to tackle the job head-on and come out on top (p. 16)

Find, market to, and sell your ideal client while seamlessly dealing with objections (p. 64)

Create amazing workouts for beginners (p. 124)

Deal with the 10 most common difficult client types (p. 160)

Develop multiple income streams without compromising your reputation (p. 202)

–> Don’t delay. Buy your copy of Ignite today!

    The post Why Personal Training Is So Much Harder for Female Fitness Pros appeared first on The PTDC.

Why Personal Training Is So Much Harder for Female Fitness Pros published first on https://onezeroonesarms.tumblr.com/

[fitono]

Why Personal Training Is So Much Harder for Female Fitness Pros

Years ago, I had this client. Let’s call her Sara.

As I do with all my clients, and you do with yours, I used my time and energy to develop a plan to help her get results.

Then one day she told me I was wrong. Actually, she told me her husband said I was wrong. My nutrition advice was off base, he’d told her. And he would know. He’d been a bodybuilder once. Thirty years ago.

Inside my head, a little voice was saying, “Um, pardon me?” Out loud, I stammered something about nutrition research having come a long way since then. “Well, okay,” she said. But I could tell she wasn’t convinced.

Over the following weeks, she ignored much of my advice as her husband continued to pick it apart. And guess who she blamed when she didn’t get results. No, not him.

I finally spoke up. “If we’re going to keep training together,” I told her, “you absolutely cannot listen to your husband.”

I explained that ethically, I couldn’t keep taking her money if she was going to disregard my advice. What’s more, her lack of results reflected poorly on me.

I still remember her bewildered look. But after a few moments of paralyzed silence, she agreed. She started following my advice and lost 10 pounds in four weeks.

I wish I could say this was a one-off, but it wasn’t. Over the years — especially early in my career — I’ve dealt with skepticism from both male and female clients.

Fact is, while women have made great strides in the fitness industry, in many ways it’s still a man’s world. And many women trainers feel we must work twice as hard to be taken half as seriously.

I see this in gyms all the time: men “correcting” women’s form (the fitness version of mansplaining), or holding a captive audience while spouting “bro science.” Meanwhile, the women don’t project nearly that level of confidence, even though they should.

As a trainer for 10 years and founder of the Female Trainer Society, I help women grow their fitness businesses. That means finding ways to overcome this challenge, including the following seven steps.

1. Believe in Yourself

Thankfully I haven’t had to deal with this in a long time. Yes, I’m more experienced now. But I’m more confident too. As a result, my clients are more confident in me.

Confidence is key, and it’s something many of us struggle with. I’ve heard unqualified men deliver poor fitness advice with such gusto that it sounds credible. I’ve also heard well-qualified women hedge their good advice, welcoming skepticism.

If you sound like you’re doubting yourself, your clients won’t believe you.

And I get it. Negative thoughts happen. What’s helped me is realizing that those negative thoughts are just that — thoughts. Too often people identify with their thoughts and accept them as truth. But you are not your thoughts. In fact, you can change them.

Try to replace negative thoughts with positive ones (“I am the expert”), or just blow right past them. Swallow those “ums” and “uhs” and “maybes.” Speak boldly.

READ ALSO: “Five Ways to Deal with a Client Who Challenges You”

2. Act Fast

Looking back, I wish I had spoken up to Sara sooner. Instead, I let the problem slide for weeks, and when she failed to see results she blamed me.

She wasn’t wrong. As a trainer, I take 100 percent responsibility for my clients — if they don’t see results, it’s my fault, not theirs.

If you go to the dentist to have a cavity filled and a week later your tooth is in pain, are you to blame? Heck no! The dentist screwed up. That error is on them.

Back then, I didn’t understand this as clearly as I do now. I ignored red flags for too long and wasted both our time.

Speaking up isn’t easy, and despite your instinct, your brain will come up with a million excuses to keep your mouth shut. Entrepreneur Mel Robbins has suggested that if you don’t act on a goal within five seconds, your brain will kill it.

So don’t wait. Remember that speaking up is your responsibility. Your client may not like what she hears at first. But she’ll like it much less a month from now, when she finds out you allowed the problem to persist.

READ ALSO: “Your Client Stopped Getting Good Results. Now What?”

3. Speak from a Place of Care

Women can have a hard time being assertive. That’s partly because assertive women are too often seen as aggressive or hostile. Many of us wrestle with that. We don’t want to be seen as bossy, but we do want to be respected.

Luckily, I have a solution: Pretend your client is your grandmother. This is how I talk to all my clients. It helps me stay calm, patient, and polite.

If Grandma questions your advice, you don’t respond in anger. You calmly explain how and why it’s going to benefit her in terms she understands. You tell her you care about her and want her to achieve her goals.

This helps me strike an empathetic yet professional tone. It’s the difference between trying to get your way and trying to get results for your client. One turns people off; the other gets them to listen.

You might say something like,

“I’m asking you to do things differently from what you’ve done in the past. Let’s just try this for two weeks, and if it doesn’t work we can talk about how to change it.”

Remind your client that you want the best for her. Speak from a place of care and appreciation, and your client will respect that.

4. Mention the Money

No one wants to be ripped off. When you point out that your client is wasting money by ignoring your advice, you’ll get her attention.

Acknowledge that while your advice may contradict what she’s tried in the past, those strategies haven’t worked. That’s why she hired you.

Say something like,

“You’re paying me for a service. You deserve results, and this is how you’re going to get them.”

Most clients will appreciate the honesty. You’re basically telling them you’re not interested in just taking their money. You want to help them see results.

5. Don’t Be Afraid to Lose a Client

Maybe you fear you’ll upset your client and she’ll leave you. That rarely happens, in my experience. But even if it does, trust me, it’s for the best.

I once had a client who refused to follow her program and complained on social media that she wasn’t seeing results. I told her, “I don’t think you’re ready to make this change. I’m going to discontinue your contract. And when you’re ready, you can come back.”

I invest a lot of time and mental energy in my clients. When one of them isn’t cooperating, that’s wasted effort I could be spending on someone else.

Sure, you may take a hit of a couple hundred bucks. But don’t think of it as losing a client. Think of it as making space for a great new client, someone who’s worth the investment you make in her success.

READ ALSO: “Five Lessons from 10 Years of Personal Training”

6. Go Ahead and Brag 

When Sara finally started following my advice and seeing results, you better believe I didn’t let that slide by unnoticed.

I like to keep it playful by saying something like, “I don’t want to say I told you so, but I told you so.” Generally, people react with a laugh and “I know, I know.”

But it’s important to acknowledge accomplishments, and that’s something else women aren’t always great at doing for fear of appearing boastful.

Women are socialized to stay small, to not take up space. But if you look at the women who are dominating the market, they’re the ones who are taking up the space. They’re saying, “Move over! Let me in!” They’re standing up for themselves and not afraid to make waves.

So I say, don’t shy away from your accomplishments. Highlight them!

7. Help a Sister Out

To all the male trainers out there, if you see a female colleague being disrespected, here’s your script: Walk up and say, “Hey, she really knows her stuff. You should listen to her.”

This is why testimonials work. When real people speak up and show they trust you, it establishes credibility. It’s an easy way for you to help out a colleague, and a subtle move toward greater gender equality in fitness. That’s good for everyone.

Want to Ignite Your Personal Training Career?

Ready to take control of your career? Looking to improve your business mindset, client engagement style, and self-promotion techniques? You’ll find all that and more in Ignite the Fire by Jonathan Goodman, a book that gives you a clear road map to building your career from the bottom up, helping you grow your clientele, your status, and your income.

In this book, you’ll learn how to:

Build your confidence to tackle the job head-on and come out on top (p. 16)

Find, market to, and sell your ideal client while seamlessly dealing with objections (p. 64)

Create amazing workouts for beginners (p. 124)

Deal with the 10 most common difficult client types (p. 160)

Develop multiple income streams without compromising your reputation (p. 202)

–> Don’t delay. Buy your copy of Ignite today!

    The post Why Personal Training Is So Much Harder for Female Fitness Pros appeared first on The PTDC.

Why Personal Training Is So Much Harder for Female Fitness Pros published first on https://medium.com/@MyDietArea

[highvern]

When in Rome TEASER

Pairing: Choi Seungcheol x f!reader

Genre: fluff, smut, angst

warnings: alcohol consumption, cheating, penetrative sex, nudity, mentions of drug use, more tbd

Length: tbd, teaser: ~3k

Note: excited to have this for the @svthub world tour collab! thank u to everyone who helped me brain storm and ofc @gyuswhore for dealing with the insanity that is my brain

Summary: After months of no contact, Seungcheol isn't sure what to expect when he sees you again at Jeonghan's wedding. He's prepared to apologize, to grovel, to bear the weight of a cold shoulder. Whatever it takes to have you back, his best friend since diapers; or whatever will ensure the last third of your trio has the best day of his life. But when he overhears the most recent development in your relationship, he must come to terms with something he was never prepared for, or risk losing you for good.

m.list

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There are fewer places Seungcheol hates more than airports. Dentist offices, his grandparents’ house during the holidays when they ask about grandkids, and even the time he ran into his elementary school science teacher the first time he was buying condoms at the pharmacy, all were more favorable than the hustle and bustle of an international airport. 

Seungcheol likes to be straightforward and direct. Something that becomes seemingly at odds with the average person traveling because at the one place everyone has somewhere to be, they act as if they have all the time in the world.

But the simple thought that it's all temporary, that his personal ninth circle of hell is the only thing standing between him and a week in Italy is enough to grin and bear it. 

On the other side of the terminal, his best friends are waiting for him. It’s not as if they haven’t seen each other for long; Jeonghan and Sofie were at bar trivia last week as their last hurrah before tying the knot. As usual they wiped the floor with everyone, rousing several allegations of cheating that Jeonghan deserved. But Seungcheol is about to watch them get married and it makes him a little misty around the eyes because he loves his friends more than anything. 

The only concern, which is less of a concern and more of a titanic size anchor sinking in his gut, is that you’re Sofie’s maid of honor. And you haven’t spoken to him since New Years when you revealed you were moving to New York with your boyfriend, Johnny.

Another place Seungcheol dreads, right next to the airport, is anywhere Johnny happens to be. He’s everything you aren’t: abrasive, arrogant, catty, disorganized. And those are just the traits at the front of the alphabet. 

You had a plan. A list of criteria he had to listen to over and over again after each failed date. Even the guys Seungcheol set you up with after carefully vetting didn’t seem to make the mark. It was respectable, commendable. You wouldn’t settle for anything less than “perfect.” Whatever that meant to you. 

At a bar, three years ago, Johnny approached you. Seungcheol watched from across the table as you mentally ran over your checklist. Johnny met the physical ones: tall, good hygiene, well kept appearance. The other things would need more investigation. What did he do for work? Was he close with his family? Kids? Opinions on cheating at bar trivia?

The more Seungcheol learned about Johnny after your detailed debrief from a few dates the more confused he became. Johnny worked in banking. You hated finance bros and called them scum of the dating pool. He was an only child and only talked to his parents on holidays and birthdays. You had grand dreams of close grandparents and houses full of cousins. He didn’t want kids. You did. He didn’t think bar trivia was that serious. Seungcheol watched you threaten Jeonghan’s life on more than one occasion over the use of Shazam during the music round. Johnny was everything you said you didn’t want. 

And then you followed him across the country after two years of dating cut with three breakups. 

It didn’t make sense. 

When Seungcheol pulled you aside after you announced you’d be moving, trying to figure why you thought living with the man who once asked if you really needed to wash bath towels if you only use them when you’re already clean, you told him to mind his business. Later that night, after enough drinks to make everything blurry, you two got into a screaming match on the sidewalk with your shared friends attempting to play referee. It was the last time you two spoke. 

In over twenty five years of friendship, founded on the backs of elementary school shenanigans under a reign of terror of one Jeonghan Yoon, you and Seungcheol’s real fights can be counted on one hand. 

The sixth grade field trip where you and Jeonghan left him out, senior year of highschool when the girl Seungcheol took to prom argued about his parents taking more pictures with you than her, and junior year of college when Seungcheol caught you making out with his frat brother after ditching him under the guise of having a stomach bug. That was it. Three fights, all of which were resolved within a week because as stubborn as you both are, you’re best friends. 

Five and a half months of not speaking, except when Seungcheol texted a half hearted apology and you responded with a quarter of forgiveness. That was it. 

But Seungcheol won’t dwell. He refuses to make things awkward for Jeonghan and Sofie during the most special week of their lives. Knowing you, you’ve probably already come to the same resolution. The only person you’re closer to than Seungcheol is Jeonghan with Sofie a close second. If there is anyone you two will agree to put aside an argument for, it's them.

The sun has already begun setting when he makes it through customs and out towards the Arrivals, painting everything in buttery yellow. 

“SEUNGCHEOOOOOOOOOLLLLLL!” Sofie screams, hands cupped around her mouth.

She’s half outside the cherry red sports car. An Intermeccanica Italia Spyder because Seungcheol knows three things in life: expensive watches, expensive whiskey, and expensive cars. Sofie’s family happened to have plenty of the last and Seungcheol assumed the first two as well.

When Sofie became his study partner in law school she ended up following him on Instagram. He assumed from the way she carried herself, perfect posture with tailored clothes and an ‘air of society’ as you called it, that she was well off. But then, during a late night gossip session, you and he did a deep dive and found out Sofie wasn’t just well off. Her family had more money than God. 

But everything on the surface was a contrast to who Sofie really was. Heiress to a fortune but studied more than anyone in their class just to graduate second. Perfect posture and tailored clothes are a stark contrast to her favorite bar where she’d outdrink anyone, and cheer when the prize for trivia was cheap plastic margarita glasses.

Or right now, where she belts Seungcheol’s name again like some drunk frat boy while sitting in a car worth more than his life.

Seungcheol jogs to where she waits, already smiling. 

“I would have brought a ‘Welcome back from rehab’ sign but my mom thought you’d be embarrassed,” Sofie says as she hugs him over the console. 

“At least make it ‘welcome home from prison’ so people won’t walk in my way.”

“I’ll make sure Jeonghan remembers you have a preference,” she calls over the wind. 

Technically, the house (which is really a mansion) is almost an hour from the airport. With Sofie’s driving it only takes twenty minutes in which Seungcheol thinks he might need to start going to church. 

The pebbled driveway crunches underneath the tires as they approach. 

In the evening light, the house is more daunting. An imposing stone facade rises from the ground, more akin to a small castle than an actual home. Smooth stone with detailed carvings, windows with huge shutters, and on the top floor, a balcony, fenced with wrought iron, juts out.

Even after years of seeing pictures, Seungcheol still can’t believe his friend grew up here. 

Sofie throws the car in park right in front of the door before jumping out. 

“By the way, there were some issues with one of the rooms.” Sofie drops her voice, “My aunt and uncle are fighting, so I hope you don’t mind sharing?”

Seungcheol knows most of the guys coming to the wedding. Worst case scenario he’s stuck in a twin size bunk bed with a weird cousin. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

“Perfect! Just leave your stuff, everyones out back.” Sofie pushes him as hard as she can manage which isn’t much at all given she’s five foot nothing. 

The garden is filled with bodies upon bodies crowded together, some old, some young. Seungcheol recognizes a few faces in the mix: Soonyoung, Joshua, Seungkwan. More friends from law school. Jeonghan’s sister waves from across the way. Everyone seems to be paying attention to whatever is happening at the iron garden table. 

And then, like a scene in a movie, everyone parts for a second and time freezes. 

Seungcheol would recognize you anywhere. Even if he can’t see your face, he knows it's you. The curve of your shoulders, the tilt of your head. The bark of laughter as your chin drops forward. He knows it's you and the weight in his stomach lightens and leadens in an odd cycle.

He missed you.

Then everything comes back into real time. Wine and cards. Then he sees the chips on the table, your stack to the side significantly higher than anyone else's. 

Months of ruminating over what he’d do when reunited fly out the window. Seungcheol doesn’t waste a minute as he approaches, hand on the back of your chair as he peeks over your head to sneak a glance at your hand.

“Who let you talk them into poker?”

You’re already smiling when you tilt back to look at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Oh, how he missed you.

“She said she didn’t know how to play,” an old man grumbles from the side. 

Seungcheol doesn’t recognize him but he’s got the same expression as all the people you’ve sharked before: mildly impressed and slightly murderous. Two other guys sit at the table, one old enough to be his grandfather looks almost proud. Seokmin fills that last seat, head in his hands at being swindled so easily. 

“I said,” you start, throwing your gaze to him. “I hadn’t played in a while.” 

You look back up at Seungcheol for some kind of support. Eyes round and innocent in a way you both know you’re not. Pool, cards, darts, any game a man a few drinks in could beat you at was easy fodder for your con. Usually it ended with free drinks, sometimes money, but mostly it’s Seungcheol playing referee for the disillusioned guys you swindled while wearing a bright grin. 

Tossing a few chips towards the three men at table with a smart “don’t spend it all in one place,” you rise and throw your arms around Seungcheol like everything is normal. 

“Hi,” you whisper into his neck.

Seungcheol’s hands are already curled around your waist, pulling you in tight. “Hi.”

“I missed you.”

“I see that you can’t even greet your best friend.” Jeonghan coughs from the side.

Seungcheol squeezes you tighter at the jab. It’s Jeonghan’s wedding but the last time Seungcheol saw him was last week when dropping the couple off at the airport to come here. He’s far more interested in dragging out his reunion with you as long as possible. “I’m in the middle of that actually.”

He scoffs in response, walking away. “Whatever, I see too much of you anyway.” 

Another two hours of celebrating, filled with drunken toasts and more card games with Sofie’s family that only end with you digging into their pockets even deeper, fly by before the exhaustion of a day starting in one continent and ending in another catches up to him. You’re too busy arguing over if Jeonghan cheated in the last round to notice Seungcheol slipping away from the table and towards the door leading inside.

Sofie is in the kitchen just beyond, another bottle of wine sloshing in hand as she talks animatedly on the phone. “Okay, look. I am on vacation. I’m about to get married. I literally left notes for everything I'm not working on during my wedding week. Figure it out. Bye.”

She hangs up without response, tossing her phone on the counter before taking a swig straight from the bottle.

“Good?” Seungcheol asks.

“Oh, you know, just the usual. I leave and suddenly no one knows how to do their job.” Sofie rolls her eyes. “What’s up? Need another glass?”

She raises the same bottle and the thought of more wine nearly turns his stomach.  

Seungcheol brushes her off, moving to the sink and rinsing his glass with finality. “I think I’m gonna crash for the night.”

“Really?” she asks. “But the party just started!”

“For you maybe, some of us have been cramped on a plane all day.” He feels it. In his back and knees. The cramp in his neck from passing out halfway through and waking up bent at ninety degrees. And the hours he spent agonizing through emails with the inflight WiFi because even on vacation he can’t sit still for more than one minute. But now it’s a ticking time bomb before he curls up in a chair and passes out until morning.

Sofie snatches his glass before shooing him away from the sink and taking his place. “I forgot you’re an old man now.”

“You’re the same age as me?”

“Anyway,” she sings. “I know we promised you’d have your own room but—”

“That’s fine. I really don’t mind rooming with one of the guys.”

“Well… you and Y/N were the only ones not sharing and she said she wouldn’t mind for the weekend.”

“Huh?”

“I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal! Seokmin and Kwan agreed to share and room with Josh so things are pretty tight but I can see if we can switch things around and—”

“No, if she’s okay with it then it's fine.” Seungcheol says. “We just haven’t talked since, you know?”

Sofie seems to soften at that. “Seems like everything was fine outside.”

“Yeah,” Seungcheol sighs. “I missed her.” 

“I know she missed you too.”

“She said that?”

“Oh please, neither of you have to say anything, you’re both pathetic,” she says while pouring another glass. “But I think this weekend will be good for you guys! Like old times.”

Old times. Before the fight. Before you moved away.

“Yeah, just like old times… At least we aren’t sharing a bed, right?” He jokes. 

“Actually,” Sofie grimaces. 

The one solace Seungcheol is gifted is the bed is massive. Almost the entire room is dominated by the plush mattress, a dresser, and a chair in the corner. He considers sleeping in that instead for all of a minute before realizing you probably wouldn’t let him and the absolute torture it’ll do to his neck. 

At least the forced proximity won’t be awkward since you’ve silently agreed to leave the past behind you. He can’t imagine Sofie would consider this solution if you were still mad at him, even if it was her wedding week. The realization lightens the weight on his shoulders an ounce more.

Seungcheol throws his bag down at the foot of the bed. It’s no big deal; sharing a room with you. Childhood sleepovers had been the norm, a few nights in college you’d shared a clunky old twin bed when you both were too drunk to find your ways home separately. Your first apartment together, when you two had to share a mattress on the floor for the first weeks because all your money went into paying rent, flash in his head. Old times.

Thirty minutes later, freshly showered and in clean clothes, Seungcheol heads back downstairs for a glass of water before bed.

He remembers where the kitchen is after Sofie’s short tour, trapezing through the huge house easily. Behind different closed doors he catches glimpses of pre-sleep conversations: couples spitting harsh whispers to each other, a few cartoonish voices reading bedtime stories to an audience of childish giggles. But when he reaches the threshold of his destination Seungcheol stumbles into an entirely different atmosphere.

“You haven’t told him yet?”

“No. I didn’t feel like the kind of thing to say over text.”

“Well you could have called him!”

“And say what? ‘Hey Cheol, I know we haven’t talked in months because we got into a huge fight about my boyfriend but Johnny and I–’”

Seungcheol strains his ears to hear the rest of your sentence but fails to decipher anything before Jeonghan’s voice cuts in. Whatever ‘it’ is, you’re not ready to tell him.

“Just tell him.” Jeonghan says through a mouthful of something. “I’m sure he’ll be happy.”

His mind races with a million possibilities, all related to Johnny, all things you wouldn’t have told your best friend of over twenty years because of some stupid fight. Something you don’t know how to tell him over the phone, something you need to tell in person.

The realization strikes like lightning.

You and Johnny are engaged.

Thirst forgotten, Seungcheol turns back the way he came. He thinks through the new information as he stumbles up the stairs.

How could you not tell him? How could he make you feel like you couldn’t tell him? How long have you been hiding this? And why did Jeonghan and Sofie know before he did? Was everyone in on the secret and he was the odd man out?

You and Johnny weren’t even that serious when you moved away; or, that's what Seungcheol thought. In all honesty he fully believed it was some joke when you told him. A drunken practical joke taken too far but then the boxes were packed away and the moving truck came and you left with it. 

Everything else hits him in the seclusion of the bedroom. Your shared room. At least for the rest of the week.

Seungcheol isn’t happy. He is, but because you’re you, argument aside. If Johnny makes you happy enough to tie your lives together then he can bite his tongue. You’re his best friend and by default he’d never think anyone was good enough for you but if you loved Johnny, if you were this serious about him, then Seungcheol would support you.

Even if it meant there would always be a Johnny sized ravine between you.

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