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angryschnauzer · 4 years ago

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Imagine you're Henry's neighbour, you've heard his conquests, have to admit you're a little jealous as they all sound happy. But it make you wonder if they are faking it.

You chat to friend on the phone whilst in the garden, not realising he can hear you.

The knock on your door later that evening was unexpected but when you see your hot neighbour there you have no idea why.

Until he offers to show you just why those other women were so happy

Okay so i decided to continue my PE Teacher Henry series with this one, previous parts below:

Thigh Riding, Jingle My Bells , An Epic Quickie

Warnings: Fluff, a little bit of Angst, talk of breakups, young idiots in love.

The Boy Next Door

The sun was shining and the sounds of late summer could be heard as the four of you settled on dining chairs that had been pulled out onto the ramshackle patio so you could celebrate moving into the shared house for your last year of Uni and doing Post-Graduate for teaching. Opening a chilled bottle of Echo Falls Rose Zinfandel, Marie sloshed it into the four waiting glasses, handing on to each of you;

“Here’s to just one more year of Uni, then we can be set free onto the world of teaching education rather than being taught!”

The four of you had all done your degree’s together, and by the end of your 3rd year you had moved into a shared house to save on halls of residence costs. When you’d all decided to attend the same Uni for your Post Graduates qualification it was the easy choice to decide to rent together, and you’d manage to snag a gorgeous multi level Victorian town house to rent for the year. The landlord had admitted a few things needed to be updated, but it was a short walk from campus so in exchange for a reduction in rent you’d found the perfect place.

By the time the 3rd bottle of Zinfandel was opened you were all pleasantly merry, and from the advantage point of the raised patio where the garden dipped away as it went downhill you could see the road that ran alongside the house next door that yours was connected to. The corner house had looked a lot more appealing, but the rent had been considerably higher, so the compromise was that you’d rented the one away from the street corner. Just at that moment another Removals Truck pulled up alongside the corner house, and you could hear various cars park behind it, the sound of young male voices easily heard. It was obvious you had a group of male students living next door.

Three weeks into term and you were sat at the desk in your room, glaring at the wall in front of you. No matter how hard you tried to concentrate on how to teach fronted adverbials, the screams of the woman obviously on the verge on an orgasm from the guys house next door just reminded you of your lack of love life. With a sigh you set your pencil down and headed downstairs, away from the obvious now orgasming woman.

“Oh hey Hunny, thought you were catching up on some English Lit stuff?” Marie smiled as she poked at an egg she was attempting to fry on the small electric cooker.

“I was… until there was another screamer next door”

“Oh… another one?” she winced, knowing that from the 2nd day the guys next door had moved in, the one that was in the room next to you had been able to bed a different girl about every three nights or so.

You grabbed a glass of water and stepped outside, letting the sunshine warm your face. Opening your Motorolla Flip Phone you scrolled through your texts, smiling as you saw messages from last years classmates, checking in on how everyone was doing. You were vaguely aware of Marie coming outside, setting a plate down on the patio wall and the click of her lighter as she lit a Royals cigarette.

“You still miss him, don’t you?” she asked.

Pulling your gaze up to her, your eyes immediately growing wet. Nodding you swallowed the lump in your throat. Wrapping your arms around your body you looked out over the garden;

“I know… it’s stupid. Its been two years, and it was a mutual decision to part ways, but Henry was my first, you know? He was my first everything. We got together when we were sixteen, we made it through our A-Levels together, we even managed a year doing long distance when we didn’t get into the same Uni…”

“What about that dude… Chris? Didn’t you two have a thing a while back”

You let out a laugh;

“He loves his politics too much to commit to a relationship. If i had to listen to one more rant about Tony Blair whilst we tried to go out for dinner i would have screamed…”

You looked at Marie who was now halfway through her fried egg sandwich whilst her cigarette sat smouldering in the petunias that had mostly gone over for the season, and she gave you the ‘sad puppy eyes’ as she chewed. You let out a grunt of frustration;

“FUCK! I just want to not feel like this anymore! I’ve spent two years moping over Henry-fucking-Cavill, i just want to be able to get on with my post graduate and move on with my life without being constantly reminded of his skills every time i try to do any work in my room!”

Henry smiled and waved as Monica, no Michelle, no… wait… whoever made their way down the front steps of the house, closing the door with a sigh of relief.

“Another one dude?”

Looking at where Anthony was coming down the stairs he nodded;

“Yup. Sorry about the noise”

He followed his housemate through to the kitchen, switching the kettle on. He was now used to Henry’s conquests screaming the house down, but it was still fun to taunt Henry about the noise they would make;

“So, this was was faking it again?”

Henry looked at him in mock-shock;

“I can assure you none of them fake it”

Chucking teabags into two mugs Anthony chuckled;

“I know man. But i also know you’re still trying to fill the void she left. Its been two years man”

“Yeah, but she’s long gone, i’m her past, i’d only drag her down. She’s probably got some hot politics graduate about to propose to her. She wouldn’t want some dumb physical education ass like me anymore”

Handing him the strong cup of tea Anthony nodded;

“Whatever man, but i still think you should message her, you haven’t spoken in two years and you’re still hung up on her, one last try, huh?”

Heading out to the garden Henry sat on the patio wall and lit a cigarette. He’d sworn he’d never smoke again, what with being a physical education student, but there were still times when he buckled to his nerves and stresses. Lighting up he inhaled deeply, enjoying the quiet of the garden before he heard his neighbours come out onto the patio next door. Through the trellis covered in a thick layer of ivy he could hear everything, as although it did a great job at giving visual privacy, the clear voices of the young women next door carried easily through the greenery.

Ten minutes later Henry almost knocked Anthony over as he bolted up the stairs;

“Sorry man, got something to do… gotta get my Blackberry”

The next morning you were on your way to class when your phone chimed, looking at the screen you felt your blood run hot then cold at the name on the display;

“What does he want?” you muttered to yourself, before with a sigh you pushed the phone back into your bag, deciding to look at it later once you had finished your class. The last thing you needed to get your mind off of Henry was a text from him.

Making your way out to the patio, you threw your bag onto the sofa and smiled as you saw the rest of the girls already out enjoying the last of the days sunshine;

“Heeeyyyyy there she is” Janelle called, sipping from a bottle of Becks

“Is there any more of those? I need a drink”

Handing you a bottle Marie smiled as you smashed the cap off using the top brick of the wall, sipping the tart bubbles of Lager you let out a sigh;

“Henry texted me today”

The three girls went quiet before Jo spoke;

“What did he say?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t read it. I’m trying to get over him, the last thing i need is getting my hopes up. He’s hundreds of miles away, no doubt doing something super sporty that only makes him look even better, probably coaching kids rugby or something. He’s not gonna want some boring English teacher wannabe like me”

At the mere mention of the word ‘Wannabe’ the others broke into a poor rendition of the Spice Girls song, unaware of the silent frustration happening the other side of the ivy trellis.

After one beer you’d excused yourself, deciding to take advantage of the quiet to get some coursework done, thankful that your room neighbour on the other side of the wall wasn’t entertaining any female guests again, but you had no idea how long that would last so the sooner you got some work done the better. With your bedroom window open you got back to work, getting in a full hour before your phone chimed again with another text. Glancing at the little screen on the front you scowled, another text from Henry.

Setting the phone down you went back to your work, frowning as you struggled to concentrate, until five minutes later your phone chimed again, your eyes going wide when you saw it was yet another text from Henry;

“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?!” you yelled at your phone.

“A REPLY!”

You sat at your desk, surely your ears were now playing tricks on you, you could have sworn you’d heard Henry’s voice. With a sigh you set your pencil down and opened your phone, reading the messages;

Received 8.46am: Hi. I know its been a long time but i’d love to call you at some point. Would be good to hear your voice. Hen. x

Received 4.55pm: Miss you. Can I call you? Hen. x

The phone beeped whilst you held it, another text coming in;

Received 4.59pm:

Look outside.

Glancing at your window you moved to it and looked out, before a voice so familiar it sent chills down your spine shouted out;

“Down here!”

Janelle shouted out as you flew down the stairs, Jo and Marie both staring at the blur you made as you ran past the lounge and out the front door, letting it swing on its hinges;

“Where is she going so fast?”

The three girls stood at the window and smiled as they wanted to run into Henry’s arms;

“Into her future Husband’s embrace” Marie sighed, the three watching as the young lovers fell back into each other's arms.

“Wait, is he the ‘loud’ one?” Jo asked to no-one in particular

“Unfortunately… i spoke to one of the other guys - Anthony - last week, he apologised for his housemates noises”

“Oh well… guess she can get us some ear plugs then”

#henry cavill #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill fanfiction #rugby teacher henry #au rugby teacher henry cavill

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zillennial97 · 4 years ago

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Enemies to Lovers | Larry Fanfic Recs

Walk That Mile by purpledaisy | 149k | Explicit

Harry stares at him, the line of his jaw standing out scarily. “I wanted to get the most out of this trip so I planned it carefully.” His voice is low and steady and somehow that’s worse than when he was yelling. “So far, you’ve put your sticky fingers on everything I’ve tried to do.”

“Sticky fingers?” Louis repeats, offended. “Are you saying it’s my fault you got stung by a bee? Had you been alone you would have gotten halfway to the Dotty Diner and ran the car off the road because of an allergic reaction, so don’t go blaming me.”

“Polk-A-Dot Drive In,” Harry spits before getting out of the car. He slams the door shut with a deafening reverb and Louis rolls his eyes.- A Route 66 AU where falling in love was never part of the plan.

Unbelievers by isthatyoularry | 136k | Explicit

It’s Louis’ senior year, and he’s dead set on doing it right. However, along with his pair of cleats, a healthy dose of sarcasm and his ridiculous best friend, he’s also got a complicated family, a terrifyingly uncertain future, and a mortal enemy making his life just that much worse. Mortal enemies “with benefits” was not exactly the plan.

Or: The one where Louis and Harry definitely aren’t friends, and football is everything.

we're not friends, we could be anything by nooelgallagher, yoursongonmyheart | 115k | Explicit

Louis narrows his eyes at Harry. “What that supposed to be a fucking joke?”

Harry narrows his eyes right back. “It was a good joke.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Jokes require laughter, Curls.” Louis glances down at Harry’s thighs again, Christ. “Your pants must be so tight they’re restricting airflow to your brain.”

Harry wipes a bead of sweat off his forehead. “Pretty sure yoga is supposed to increase airflow, blood flow, and all that,” he responds dryly, finally jumpstarting himself and walking away from Louis towards his own bedroom.

Louis can’t help but stare at his broad back, still sheen with drying sweat, and his perky bum in the tight yoga pants.

Louis swallows. Christ.

...Or, the one where Harry and Louis are unlikely uni flatmates who definitely don't like each other and definitely won't fall in love (even if Liam and Niall think otherwise).

Our Lives, Non-Fiction by indiaalphawhiskey | 113k | Explicit

Heralded as the next Neil Gaiman, Louis Tomlinson does not appreciate being told that his very serious novel is in dire need of a PR boost. Even worse, that it comes in the form of a joint book tour with the UK’s #1 online romance-writing sensation Marcel Styles. Already turbulent at best, their partnership takes a drastic turn when, overly stressed about his looming deadline, Marcel accidentally blurts out a secret: though he’s famed for his scorching hot literary love scenes, he is, actually, a virgin.

Convinced that the only way to rid himself of writer’s block is to gain some experience, Marcel asks Louis, author-to-author, to sleep with him – for Science. And of course Louis agrees because, well, what on Earth could possibly go wrong?

Or, a lesson in romance that proves that sometimes the best love stories aren’t always by the book.

Soft Hands, Fast Feet, Can't Lose by dolce_piccante | 112k | Mature

American Uni AU. Harry Styles is a frat boy football star from the wealthy Styles Family athletic dynasty. A celebrity among football fans, he knows how to play, he knows how to party, and he knows how to fuck (all of which is well known among his legion of admirers).

Louis Tomlinson is a student and an athlete, but his similarities to Harry end there. Intelligent, focused, independent, and completely uninterested in Harry’s charms, Louis is an anomaly in a world ruled by football.

A bet about the pair, who might be more similar than they originally thought, brings them together. Shakespeare, ballet, Disney, football, library chats, running, accidental spooning, Daredevil and Domino’s Pizza all blend into one big friendship Frappucino, but who will win in the end?

Dance to the Distortion by Lis (domesticharry) | 96k | Explicit

Louis accidentally breaks Harry's camera lens and in order to get it fixed, they decide to participate in a romantic couples study. The only issue is that they are not actually couple. Well that and the fact they cannot stand each other.

You’ve Got My Devotion (Hate You Sometimes) by lucythegoosey | 95k | Explicit

Harry was in the biggest boy band in the world. He was also one half of the best (or worst, depends on who you ask) kept secret relationship in the music industry.

Now, almost five years on, after One Direction has broken up, and Harry and Louis' relationship has as well, a video threatens to put everything at risk.

One determined Irishman, a massive publicity stunt and two begrudging exes are all it takes to bring One Direction back to life and maybe, just maybe, Harry and Louis' mangled love life too.

Or: Harry and Louis are forced to fake-date after an old video from when they were dating emerges.

The Sidelines by RedRidingStiles | 47k | Explicit

"Alright, I know you guys are the best of friends but I'd like you to do this for the rest of the team,” Cowell says, making the rest of the team snicker. "So I want both of you to compliment each other." "I hate your trainers. I mean that in the nicest way possible. They're very...yellow," Louis says, arms crossed as he offers a fake close-lipped grin. "It's really nice of you to blow anyone you find slightly attractive," Harry replies, a sickening sweet smile on his lips. "Thank you, children, let me remind you this is a college hockey team. Try again," Coach says, completely unamused.

Or Harry and Louis play hockey for Penn state and can't stand one another, since they can't keep their hatred off the ice their coach and team do what they can to keep their hard earned spot in the playoffs and their two star players from killing each other

Wonderwall by AFangirlFantasy | 43k | General Audiences

Taking the sheet cluttered with times available for the next few weeks, Louis notices a pattern in the list. The name of the person Perrie had just mentioned: Harry Styles. It’s written at least seven times, and three of which are during timeframes Louis wants.

“Who the fuck is Harry Styles?”

“You’re about to find out,” she answers, pointing over Louis’ shoulder.

Or a Love/Hate College AU where Louis Tomlinson is the lead singer of The Rogue - the most popular band on campus - and Harry Styles is the talented Freshman unknowingly challenging all that.

All the Right Moves by cherrystreet | 32k | Explicit

This is the third game in a row that Harry has been distracted by the noisy boy in the stands, five rows back.

There’s really no reason that he should feel compelled to stare into the audience as frequently as he is, but he can’t help it. This boy is a nuisance. And he’s loud. Even from basketball court with nine other players running by him, shoes squeaking on the shiny hardwood floor, and thousands of cheering college students, Harry can hear this boy nearly shrieking, his laugh more like a cackle than anything.

It’s seriously obnoxious.

Nicotine by KrisStylinson | 32k | Explicit

"We're two different types of people, Liam. He likes sex and drugs, I like theater and tea. Trust me, we'd never date." Except they would, they do, and neither of them plans on letting go anytime soon.

"Just because you can get me hard doesn't mean I like you," Louis whispered. The fact was, he didn't like Harry right now, not at all. Not even a bit.

"Yeah, yeah," Harry murmured, his breath fanning over Louis' cock as he spoke. "You done telling me how much you hate me so I can suck you off?"

Like Candy In My Veins by littlelouishiccups | 31k | Explicit

“Um…” Harry said slowly after a moment. “Okay. That’s… this is… Let me get this straight.” He lifted up a hand and swallowed. “You told your family that you have a boyfriend… and my name was the first one you thought of?” “Harry Potter was on TV, alright? It wasn’t that much of a stretch.” Louis pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t believe he was explaining himself to Harry fucking Styles. He couldn’t believe he was stooping this low. “Forget it. I’m sorry I even thought about bringing you into this.”

Harry snorted. “What? Did you want me to pretend to be your boyfriend or something?”

(Basically the A/B/O, enemies to lovers, fake relationship, Christmas AU that nobody asked for.)

We're Like Bumper Cars by sincehewaseighteen | 31k | Explicit

“I have won, I won the final cross country. I win, Harry--”

“Whoever gets to fucking nationals wins it, pretty boy,” Harry teases. “You haven’t won. Interhouse is nothing compared to nationals, or interstate. You haven’t even won interschool. You can dream all you fucking want that you’ve won.”

Louis becomes so ignorant he decides to no longer eye the boy taunting him. “Trophies prove it all, Styles.”

“Where’s your trophy for biggest asshole?”

“Where’s yours for winning cross country?”

Harry growls before hooking his fingers in Louis’ belt loops and bringing them together for a flat kiss.

Or the AU where Louis and Harry are rivals of the century and Cross Country competitors before things get complicated and they play pretend.

After Hours by Velvetoscar for shipsdrifting | 26k | Not Rated

Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson are the bane of each other's existences. Unfortunately, they're already in love--even if they aren't completely aware of this minor detail.

[A "You've Got Mail" AU]

When It's Late At Night by Rearviewdreamer | 25k | Mature

Louis has zero interest in an ex-boybander turned solo artist when his appearance on the show gets announced, but that's exactly who he gets stuck with when Harry Styles shows up at the Late Late show to promote the release of his debut album. For an entire fucking week.

The Late Late prompt that we all need to get through this excruciatingly hard time.

Love Me Please by angelichl | 23k | Explicit

Louis hates Harry, which is fine because he would really rather prefer to avoid him at all costs.

The only problem?

They're soulmates.

runnin' like you did by orphan_account | 20k | Explicit

“Should we tell him?”

When Lauren is met with everyone either nodding their heads or shrugging, she takes a deep breath. “I mean, I think it’s pretty obvious by now.” She stalls, sounding ominous and Louis doesn’t like it one bit.

“What is obvious by now?” Louis asks. He’s starting getting anxious. “I swear to God, spit it out. Stop being so damn cryptic.”

“I—We think it’s pretty obvious that you’re in love with Harry,” she states simply and shrugs as if she isn’t telling him he’s in love with the second—Nick being the first—most annoying person on the planet.

or, a college au where Louis knows how to hold a grudge and is definitely not in love with Harry Styles

Three French Hems by 100percentsassy, gloria_andrews | 20k | Mature

In which Louis is a designer at Burberry and Harry spends December wearing Lanvin… and Lanvin… and Lanvin.

once bitten and twice shy by pinkcords | 19k | Mature

This time as his stomach rolls, there’s no doubt about it. He’s going to vomit. And if he does, it’ll be on Louis’ shoes, a nice little parting gift to go with the embarrassment he’s caused the both of them. “I’m gonna throw up,” he says just as Louis turns to look at him, blue eyes swimming with shock and confusion, and asks, “Is that true?”

Or, in a rush of bravery only senior year can bring, Harry confesses his feelings in a letter to his neighbor and best friend, Louis, only for the entire school to hear it and laugh him out of their small town in Wisconsin. Ten years later, Harry's a successful lawyer at Columbia Records, coming home for Christmas for the first time since he departed for college. He plans to work his way through the trip, eat his mom's cooking, and avoid everyone from his past for as long as possible. The only problem is best laid plans hardly ever go as intended.

That's How I Know by allwaswell16 | 19k | Explicit

Louis Tomlinson has just landed his dream job, coaching soccer at Augustus University. When he moves into a new house near campus, he meets his very fit new neighbor, English professor Harry Styles. Although their first meeting leads to an instant mutual dislike, the more Harry gets to know Louis, the more he likes what he sees.

Or the one where Harry’s African grey parrot spills his dirty secrets to his very hot neighbor.

Get Off of My Cloud by Marora_Daris | 9k | Explicit

Harry is the most annoying neighbour that sexually frustrated Louis could have. Niall decides it's a good idea to handcuff them together.

Featuring guinea pigs, animal print leggings and inappropriate boners.

Erase My History, (Expo)se Me by BayouSexual, pacificrimjob for Edandcurly | 6k | Teen And Up Audiences

“My hair does not smell like strawberries.”

Louis blinks up at Mr. Styles. “I never said your hair smells like strawberries. How would I even know that?” Harry’s hair does smell like strawberries, Harry himself smells like strawberries, everyone who’s been within three feet of him knows this. ~~~~~~~~ Or the one where Harry and Louis both teacher history, their students think they should date, and one pink dry-erase marker is trying to ruin their lives (with a little help of course).

#larry fanfiction recommendations #larry fanfic rec #larry fic #larry fanfiction #larry stylinson #louis tomlinson #harry styles #one direction fanfiction #one direction fanfic recs #larry fanfiction masterpost #enemies to lovers #enemies to friends to lovers #hate to love #enemies with benefits

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slygirl666 · 4 years ago

Text

the thin line

Warnings: sex language all that shit

authors note: this is one of those drafts I promised because why not, not edited and not my favorite

words: 3453

You flopped onto the couch. Fred, who was nursing a glass of scotch, looked up at you shocked.

“Bad date, I reckon?” He looked sympathetic, a rare trait for him.

“The absolute worse,” you groaned, moving to lean on his shoulder. “First off he was constantly talking about his exes, yes multiple, and not even twenty minutes into the date he tried to put his hands up my skirt.”

“No,” Fred mock gasped. “You wait till at least the third date to let a man publicly get you off.”

You slapped his shoulder but couldn’t hold in the laughter what he said. “What about you? Huh, Fred, correct me if I’m wrong but you're going through a dry spell yourself.”

“This isn't about me Y/N.” he glared at you. You seemed to have struck a nerve.

It was true you and Fred have no secrets between you, having lived together for the last year. In the beginning you had often met women he kept around for a week at most, at times even playing the angry girlfriend when a one off overstayed their welcome. Fred often caught you doing the walk of shame through the joke shops door after your latest night out.

“I’m sorry your date sucked, love.” he stroked your arm soothingly. “If you’d like I can draw you a bath, get you some wine.”

You nodded, It was a ritual. Failed love life, he drew you a bath and let you relax; if he had a stressful day at work you would read to him (something he didn’t enjoy doing himself, but loved listening to) while he rested his head on your thigh.

Fred walked to your bathroom running the water, before moving to the kitchen getting you a glass and bottle. “Bubbles?”

“Always,” you shouted to him.

In a few minutes time Fred was at the doorway to get you, “come on princess Bath is ready.”

You smiled, moving to twist your hair up as you walked into the bathroom. Once you were undressed and in the tub, which was filled to the brim with bubbles, Frec came back in lowering the toilet seat so he could sit and talk with you.

“How many dates is that this time around?” Fred asked, pouring a glass for you.

“Three this week,” you sighed while drinking some of the bitter liquid. “I’m I that horrible to look at? I mean not to sound vain but I have a decent face, and my tits aren't half bad either.”

Fred choked on the drink he took. “I mean-”

“Don’t answer that, let me wallow in self pity for a few hours,” you rolled your eyes kicking up some water. “Tell me, anything new happening in the shop?”

Fred talked excitedly about his newest product. The two of you sat there until your skin started to prune. You shooed him out so you could get ready for the night.

Once again you found yourself on the couch with Fred's head in your lap. You ran your fingers through his ginger hair. He made small appreciative moans that you felt lower in your body than you should have.

“We should get some sleep Fred,” you smiled down to him, before shocking him off lightly to go to your own room.

You spent a couple hours tossing and turning, Pressing your legs together to create some form of much needed friction. It had been months since you’ve slept with someone and the fact that you needed to get laid was more evident in the fact that sounds your best friend made had you hot and bothered.

It was well past midnight, Fred had to be asleep, so you gave in.

“Fuck it.”

You allowed one hand to trail to your underwear teasing yourself through the fabric. You were already wet and frustrated but you didn't want to give in just yet. You trailed your pinky finger up and down your clothed heat applying the slightest bit of pressure over your clit.

You bit your lip to muffle the goan escaping your lips, before moving to your dresser pulling out a bullet vibrator. You clicked it on the sound of the light buzz increasing your ever growing excitement. You pressed it against your navel before guiding it down past the elastic of your underwear it was centimeters away from your center, a loud moan dripped from your lips as it touched that aching bundle of nerves.

A knock at the door interrupted your high. “Y/N, you okay?”

“Yes Fred,” you clicked off the bullet, shoving it under your pillow. Just in time to see Fred peak his head through the door.

“I thought I heard something,” Fred sat on the edge of your bed. “Came to check on you, only to hear it come from your room. Are you alright?”

You refused to meet his eyes, the smirk that played on his lips told you he had some idea of what you were up to.

“I’m fine fred, thank you for your concern.” you tried to end the conversation, but you felt the mattress shift beside you as fred got comfortable.

“So Princess, what were you doing?” his voice was low in your ear, making your breath hitch.

“Nothing, Freddie,” you were breathless and he knew what he was doing. “I’m going to bed.”

You felt him pull you to his chest, his soft breaths lulling you to sleep.

The next morning you woke to Fred stirring awake, he was not a morning person so you struggled out of his grasp to the kitchen.

You put on a pot of coffee before jumping up to sit on the counter next to the machine. You sat there listening to the coffee drip, thoughts flooded with the cheeky bastard you woke up next to.

George came in through the door looking exhausted, he looked to you then to the slowly filling up pot of coffee.

“You are an angel, L/N.” George went to the covert to bring out three mugs. When it was finished he poured the dark liquid adding milk and sugar to the three mugs.

The smell of the coffee seemed to drag Fred out of bed. He walked into the kitchen groggily you picked up and offered him a mug that he took with a sleepy smile. “Morning Princess, Georgie.”

George quickly told Fred about the plans for the shop before the two men parted. Fred to get dressed, and George to their office to do paper work.

Fred came out of his room in a nice suit using his wand to do his tie as he walked towards the front door.

“See you tonight, Y/N.” he smiled at you, straightening his tie.

Being a Saturday meant you didn’t have to go into work for the weekend, you used your wand to clean up the mess you had all made before moving onto your room.

You debated upon making your bed, before moving the pillow you slept under. You were shocked to find your vibraitor not under your pillow but on the nightstand. There was one explanation you didn’t even want to think of.

You laid yourself down back onto the bed, deciding a few more hours of sleep would be best.

Fred came back after work to find you watching a tv show. He settled onto the couch.

“What are you watching?”

“Muggle tv show.” you took your eyes off the tv. “We should go out tonight.”

“Should we?” Fred kicked off his shoes, “does this have something to do with last night? Or maybe what I found under my pillow this morning?”

“Yes,” you answered plainly. “And to be fair you invited yourself into my room, what you found was your fault.”

You got up going to your room to find something to wear to a club. You found a black leather skirt and low cut tank that had lace framing your breast perfectly.

You walked out of your room to find Fred had discarded his jacket and suit vest leaving him in a pair of dark slacks, a lavender shirt and his tie.

You walked to him face to chest with him. You moved to loosen his tie and remove it, “you are still a bit too formal for clubbing. Undo the top tree buttons and roll your sleeves up.”

You instructed going to the shoe rack for your heels, before slipping them clumsily.

“Where are we going?”

“Muggle club, in London,” you put your arm through his. “A lot of uni students go there, so plenty of people our age.”

The two of you disapperated to the three broomsticks to go through to Muggle London.

You pulled Fred around till you found the place you were looking for, a place a muggle born friend of yours had shown you straight out of hogwarts.

You waited in the line of people until you were allowed in. the two of you made a B-line for the bar.

Fred ordered your drinks while you looked around the club, “tall blond, near the door. She’s checking you out.”

“You sure?” He looked in the direction you told him. “She’s pretty, might do for a night.”

He handed you your drink walking off to the direction of the blonde woman. You knew you wouldn’t see him for a while, possibly all night. You sat at a seat overlooking the dance floor, you saw a familiar flash of red hair under the neon lights as he danced jokingly with the girl you pointed out to him.

You sat back enjoying your people watching. “You look far too pretty to be sitting alone.”

You turned to see a man, he was handsome with dark curls and light eyes contrasting with the carmel color of his skin. “Something must be wrong, let me guess you were cheated on?”

“No,” you smiled at his assumptions.

“Girls night out and you are the DD,” you lifted your drink and he thought. “Heart broken?”

You tilted your head giving him a small smile, “it feels like it but i'm not sure, can someone who never had your heart break it?”

“That’s way too poetic for a girl in a trashy club,” he laughed. “Calen Collens.”

“Y/N L/N,” you offered him a hand to shake. “Would you like to dance?”

He smiled taking you to the dance floor, the movements the two of you made close and slow.

Soon his lips found your ear. “Be mine tonight, Y/N?”

That was too much, too forward. Sure she let him flit and held him close but the fact he would be so forward. “I’m going to go to the restroom.”

You ran as fast as you could in heels, you found Fred pressed against a wall with the blonde on his lips.

“I'm going home,” you walked past them out into the cold night tears threatening to fall. It was dark and Muggle London wasn’t the safest palace at night, you just had to find somewhere secluded.

There were footsteps behind you, you ducked into an alleyway hoping they would stop. They didn't. You felt a hand grab your forearm and you drew your wand.

“Merlin, it's me,” you were spun around to be face to face with Fred. his eyes softened when he saw the tears on your face, he brought a hand to wipe at them. “Princess lets get you home.”

He pressed a kiss to your forehead, bringing his own wand out taking the two of you home.

* * *

The two of you were on the couch you had put on a movie and were resting with your head on Fred’s chest. He stroked your hair, “do you want to tell me what happened?”

“I met a man, he was charming and nice. But the moment that he asked if i could be his tonight I broke.” you laughed humorlessly, “i complain about the lack of sex in my life, hell you almost caught me getting off. Yet a hot man approached me and I had a breakdown like no other, and then I ruined your chance for a bit of fun. It’s pathetic.”

“No it isn’t,” Fred sighed leaning his cheek onto your head. “You just aren’t one for casual nights.”

“It would be easier if i was,” you rolled your eyes. “I also want trust and respect, but that's a bit much I guess.”

“It really isn’t Princess,” he lifted your chin to face him. “I think that's admirable.”

Your eyes met his, his hazel ones flicking from your lips to your eyes. You brought a hand to trace his jaw line, something you’ve done many times before but felt different now.

You felt his breath first, his nose bumping yours. He was giving you time to back away, you didn’t want to.

He pressed his lips to yours, they were softer than you could imagine. You brought your hands to his neck as his hands went for your waist.

You pulled him down guiding him on top of you.

“Room?” Fred breathed into the kiss, You let out a soft hum in response.

Fred guided you up, once you were on your feet he pulled you into him, leaning down to give you a breathtaking kiss.

He pulled away slowly dragging your bottom lip between his teeth.

You let out a moan, he pulled you by the hand as he rushed to his room.

“Are you sure about this?” He was hesitant once this line was crossed it could never be forgotten.

“We can freak out tomorrow,” you pushed him onto his bed. “Right now take your clothes off.”

“Gladly,” he moved to take off his shirt. You watched appreciatively as his arms flexed.

You sat with legs on either side of his waist, your fingertips tracing the exposed skin. His lips met your neck with light nips as he tugged on your tank top. You leaned back allowing him to pull it over your head.

You shivered at the sudden exposure to the cold air, Fred stared at you in awe. His hands came to cup your breast, the rough pads of his thumbs traced your nipple teasingly.

Your breath hitched and he threw you a cheeky smirk before bringing his tongue out and flicking one.

You moaned at the contrast of the cold air and the heat of his mouth. Every movement he made every lick, nip and suck felt expertly practiced.

His hands fell back to your hips using them to push you off him and have you land with your back pushed into the mattress. He kissed down your navel before making eye contact with you.

“You are fucking perfect.” he brought a hand under the elastic of your sleep shorts, his eyes went wide in surprise. “No underwear? You princess are in trouble.”

He pulled your shorts to your knees before continuing to trail his lips down to your center. His right hand following his lips while his left kept you in place.

He lifted his head as he brought his fingers to your core, letting out a breathy chuckle when you moaned. He put two of his fingers into you. He put the two both into his mouth, he hummed smirking at your reaction.

“Okay, Fred, that- that was hot.” you let out an airy laugh completely off guard. He kissed your inner thigh, the tip of his nose teasing where you want him the most. “Freddie-”

His name shifted to a moan as he trailed his tongue to your entrance.

A mew left your lips as he worked the flat of his tongue around up and down your entrance. He stopped the movement to allow his fingers back inside you. He got a bit bolder using his teeth to lightly nip at your clit. You moved your hands into his hair back arching as he continued to allow his tongue to flick at it, letting his teeth work in sync as well.

You gripped his hair slightly with a tug. “Fuck, Princess.”

You leaned up meeting his eyes, the sight of him between your legs, his mouth a mess, his torso exposed was the most beautiful thing you had ever seen. “Are you ready? because I absolutely am.”

“Just be inside of me freddie,” you looked up at him through your eyelashes. Got up to remove his pants

The anticipation that you felt watching him stroke himself was insane. You watched him in what felt like slow motion as he pumped his cock, a look of blissful relief crossed his handsome features.

The trob between your legs felt unbearable, “hurry up Fred, please.”

“Needy thing aren't you?” he chuckled, moving his hand back to line himself up to you. When he finally entered you you moaned happy to feel him.

* * *

You woke up sore tangled in sheets that aren't yours,as the weight of the bed shifted. Fred moved to find his clothes.

“Morning, Freddie.” you rubbed the sleep out of your eyes. It wasn’t the first time you woke up in his bed but this time was extraordinarily different. You found your shorts discarded on the floor before moving to pull them on, you felt his eyes watching you. “What time is it?”

“Seven,” you turned to find him sitting in just a pair of boxers. He looked lost so you found your way back to him standing between his legs. “We’ll talk after I finish up at the shop, right?”

You moved your fingers to trace his worried face. “I’ll be right here like I always am.”

You threw on a shirt and went for the door.

“George will be suspicious if we were out at the same time, I’ll make you coffee.” you walked out going to your own room to throw on a robe.

When you put coffee grounds in the machine and clicked it on George walked through the door, pulling you in for a side hug. “If i weren’t engaged I would marry you L/N, Freddie should.’

“Angelina ban coffee again?” you laughed finding three tall mugs for all of you.

“If I didn't love her or the child that we made I would leave because of that coffee ban.” he sighed dramatically.

“You don't mean that, shut up and get the cream from the fridge,” you rolled your eyes watching the drip of the coffee finish.

Fred emerged from his own room with a sleepy grin, faker. You poured him a cup with all the fixings before handing it to him. “Morning Princess, sleep well?”

He winked at you over the brim of his cup. “No, something had me rolling around all night, nothing I can't fix.”

He laughed as George looked between the two of you, “I don't get you two.” he walked out the door down to the office.

Fred pulled you close, “ tonight?”

“tonight,” you tiptoed to kiss his nose.

He smiled with a boyish charm and walked out the door with a small hop in his step. Now was the time to overthink everything.

Was it a mistake?

Did he hate it?

Were you bad?

Would you guys ever be the same?

You went into the kitchen and pulled out Molly’s baking cards. If you were going to talk may as well have something sweet while you were at it. With the wave of your wand music filled the room from the radio. You moved your hips along with the beat. Looking through the cards you decided on her tentacle tart recipe, not finding everything you went out to the store.

You spent your day doing small things, organizing your stuff in the bathroom, doing your laundry and reading two books.

When the door to the apartment opened you jumped up from the couch. “Fred.”

“Y/N, how was your day?” you watched as your usually overly confident best friend shuffled his feet bashfully.

“Sit down Fred,” you laughed. “We don’t have to be awkward, let's be grown ups now freddie. Tentacle tart?”

He nodded letting a carefree chuckle escape him. “Please, so we had sex.”

“I'm pretty sure we were both present, what should we do now? Pretend it never happened-?

“No, I don't want to pretend it never happened.”

“Neither of us have dated any since our school days, and we live in such close quarters I don’t think casual will suit us.”

“We don’t have to label it you know, we can just be us.” Fred finally met your eye, his usual smirk finally finding his face. “Bet mum would be happy.”

“We could just let them figure it out,” you chuckled. “Ginny told me the whole family has money on us.”

#fred weasley #fred weasley fanfiction #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley x you #fred weasley x reader #harry potter fan fiction #Harry Potter

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seacottons · 4 years ago

Text

— uni with atz pt. two

notes: swearing, fluff, mildly suggestive dialogue. tags: @latte-fairytaekwoon

seonghwa — [ early edu. + developmental psych. ]

extremely organized in all aspects of his life

your bookshelf at home consists of books on developmental studies in children.

if he isn't in class or volunteering, he's either cuddling with you or reading.

stressed 24/7.

takes very pretty and neat notes.

randomly spits out facts throughout the day.

sometimes, you join him during his volunteer hours at various daycares and schools.

is all the children's favorite teacher.

extremely patient and soft-spoken when it comes to working with even the most difficult child.

also loves being called 'teacher hwa'.

"i don't know, if i were you, i would make the students call me king san."

"they'll probably end up bullying you," seonghwa replies back.

you don't know how he has the patience for the amount of children he has to take care of.

takes you picture-book shopping with him for his students.

finds himself singing nursery rhymes while cooking or cleaning.

has polaroids of you two stuck on the fridge.

brings lint rollers to work.

gets worked up in public if a parent seems too neglectful in any way.

"y/n!" he tugs at your elbow and points with his jaw to the right, "look! his kid is just spilled all that paint on the floor, and he didn't even bat an eyelash!?"

"don't intervene again, please."

"okay, but-"

the whining of metal and steel cut him off, and the two of you jump in fright at the sound of a shelf falling apart.

"some people really shouldn't have kids."

whines when he comes back home that the paint stain and glitter just won't come off his clothes no matter how many times he rubs the spots with warm water.

or how he has mulch stuck in his socks and shoes from taking the kids outdoors to play.

you somehow always end up finding a googly eye or specks of glitter under the couch.

sometimes brings home finger-paintings with numerous colorful hearts and two stick figures in the middle.

"today's assignment was to paint what makes you happy."

you also help him stitch up little felt and cotton dolls for the kids to keep.

often gets sick from working with children.

and passes it onto you by accident.

you know he's had a bad day when you ask him how it went, and his face scrunches up in pain.

stormed into your shared apartment one day and made a beeline to the bathroom.

forty minutes later, he comes out, towel wrapped around his hips, face and chest flushed, and explains that a child accidentally peed on him.

gets flustered when you laugh at his demise.

sometimes uses his teacher voice when scolding you or your mutual friends.

and you all end up teasing him more anyway.

"do you use that tone in bed too, hwa?" yeosang asks one day. mingi and yunho splutter out in disbelief, followed by loud laughter.

you choked on your bite of cake at the sudden remark.

"what did i ever do to deserve this slander," seonghwa grumbles whilst patting your back.

he often stays up late making lesson plans for both his classes and ones to implement at work as well.

takes full advantage of his teacher's discount at shops and restaurants.

sometimes brags about it to his friends to get under their skin.

"you have it easy. just watching kids and getting free food," san says one day in the middle of their game of jenga.

"it's not easy at all," you hear seonghwa reprimand the younger, and laughter rings out from the other four guests.

"you're learning about children! what's so hard-"

you had a hunch that seonghwa purposely tilted the wooden tower to tumble over an unsuspecting san.

"y/n! your boyfriend is trying to murder me!"

seonghwa paces in circles around your apartment whilst studying for an upcoming exam.

asks you to quiz him on certain materials.

"correct! okay, can you define the preoperational stag-"

"how many kids do you want to have in the future?"

"..what?"

"kids. how many do you want to have with me?" he presses further, eyes trained on your face rather intently.

"can't this conversation wait until you finish studying?"

"no. i'm too curious," he licks at his chapped lips and leans in to poke your forehead, "i need to know. this is important information. please."

yeosang — [ biology pre-med ]

met you through your mutual friend, wooyoung, who invited him to live in your shared dorm.

"you didn't tell me you have a dog?" yeosang turns to wooyoung, brow quirked up whilst pointing to the 'beware of dog' sign on one of the bedroom doors.

"oh, i don't. i just put that up to mess with y/n," wooyoung dismissively explained while making a sandwich.

is the reason why you and wooyoung haven't killed each other yet.

asked you out after five months of moving with you and wooyoung.

designated one of the kitchen's shelves as a medical supply closet.

"because wooyoung always ends up hurting himself without doing anything."

"i do not."

stress is his middle name.

constantly contemplates his life decisions.

"wooyoung! shut up! i can't finish my essay with you blabbering every damn second!"

you had to get used to the sight of a full sized anatomical skeleton in his room.

"okay, but i'm not letting you fuck me with that thing in here."

later that night, wooyoung's heart nearly burst in his chest from fright.

"yeosang! why the fuck is your skeleton in my room!?"

some nights, during dinner, yeosang slams his obnoxiously large textbooks onto the table, and insists for the two of you to quiet down while he skims over the pages a few times.

"can't you just enjoy your meal for five-"

"no. now hush."

not only does he have labs, presentations, and essays to worry about, but he also got accepted for a pre-med internship at a local hospital.

hardly goes out anymore during his free time.

most dates include cuddling on the couch or baking something in the kitchen.

stays up late at night to complete assignments.

towers of thick books decorate his nightstand.

"no, yeosang. i really don't want to see you dissecting a cat," you grimace, turning quickly and shielding your eyes from his phone.

"why not?" yeosang whines softly, hand tugging the hem of your shirt with a frown, "it's not that bad, i promise-"

he's cut off when wooyoung snatches the phone from him with a loud cry, "gross! y/n, you're letting him touch you after he touched that?! and fuck- what is that smell?"

"that's formaldehyde. now give me back my phone before i dissect you next."

you join him at the lab when he has extra work piled up.

"you look so cute with a white coat and goggles."

you prod and poke him repeatedly, asking him numerous questions about the specimens in the lab.

"y/n! don't touch that!"

one day, wooyoung comes home sick.

you insist on taking him to see a doctor, only for him to emit a haughty laugh at you.

"why would i waste my time and money when i have yeosang here?"

"but woo, he didn't even get into med-school yet-"

wooyoung insists he doesn't need to see a professional, "yeosang is practically our live-in doctor! why do you think i begged him to move in?"

you roll your eyes, calling for yeosang to persuade the younger male.

"alright, tell me your symptoms," your boyfriend sighs, plopping down onto the couch beside you and wrapping an arm around your shoulders.

after wooyoung explains everything and takes his own temperature, he peers at yeosang for an answer, "well?"

"you're dying," yeosang nods simply.

wooyoung's visage pales, and he scrambles to sit up on the couch with a disturbed expression.

"what?"

yeosang is always studying.

always.

studying.

you insist for him to take a break sometimes.

"i can't. i have lab tomorrow. oh, and a paper."

"but you always say that!"

you attempt to tug him out of his seat.

"come on! just for an hour, and we'll be back. promise."

he's always reluctant at first, but finds himself agreeing later anyway.

enjoys the small dates at the nearby lake probably more than you do.

mingi — [ accounting ]

a gifted genius when it comes to numbers.

is your very own math tutor.

jokingly asks you to pay him back.

he accepts kisses and hugs. baked pastries are also a bonus.

"y/n? are you okay?" a hand waves in front of your face.

you blink at him wordlessly, mind fogged from the bombardment of information you just received, "sorry- you lost me. can you repeat the process again?"

he playfully smacks your shoulder with the ruler and stomps his bare feet onto the tiled floor, "this is the third time!"

"i'm sorry! you know how i am with math!"

he begs you to take classes with him as electives.

"sorry, baby. i love you, but there's no way i'll ever take statistics."

"okay, what about economics?"

"no."

"management? business administration!?"

"no and no."

"but y/n! it'll be fun! you'll be with me!"

always whines about how much he hates having to take 'stupid management classes' and the group projects that come along with them.

"they never take the assignments seriously!"

said group visits your apartment to work on projects with mingi.

"aren't you supposed to be working on that project?"

you watch as mingi and his friends suddenly erupt in an explosive argument about the game they were currently playing.

"yeosang! what the fuck!?"

"it's y/n's fault mingi was distracted!"

you let out an indignant squawk and glare at yeosang.

"that round didn't count."

"stop being a sore loser, san!"

"so.. i take it you didn't even start?" you grimace, peering over to the untouched books and papers on the coffee table.

"it's just management class. no big deal," san explains quickly with a dismissive wave of his hand before nudging your boyfriend with a glare, "you better not make us lose this time, or i'll kidnap y/n."

stays up late to finish other work that's due.

loves to wear big spectacles when studying.

it 'helps him focus'.

writes notes on his calculator and slides it towards you while you're both home studying.

'n-3^07-!'

"mingi, what is that?"

"read it upside down, you bum."

has a coffee mug with 'i love π' in big, bold, red letters.

refuses to throw it away even though the rim is chipped.

always bugs you about how you should have a budget plan.

insists on teaching you how to make spreadsheets on excel.

"i can't do this, mingi. too much numbers give me a headache."

"do you want my lucky glasses?"

rambles on about things related to his field, and you can only nod in confusion every time.

"how does your brain keep up with all of this?"

"easy. just be one with the numbers."

"that was a bad pun.."

"you're supposed to laugh!"

mingi was that typical student who complained about studying, but is always the one acing everything with the highest score.

"i should just quit university and become a stripper."

"you say that every exam week, and yet, you always pass with the highest grades," you mumble from the other side of the couch, absentmindedly highlighting a few sentences in your book.

"yeah, but studying is a pain in the ass," he exhaled with a loud groan, head thrown back against the back of the couch, "why me, y/n?"

you roll your eyes while reaching over to pat the side of his face in comfort.

"everything will work out just fine."

later that week, he joyfully bounces into your apartment with a large grin plastered on his face, "guess what?"

you snort in amusement.

"let me take a wild guess. you aced your exam."

"and guess who has the highest score?" he tugged you forward by your cheeks with a bright grin.

"yeosang?" the cheery expression on his features suddenly vanished, causing you to laugh, "i'm kidding."

likes to study while attached to your side, wearing comfortable pajamas and warm socks.

sulks whenever his stock investments drop further than he expects.

and is always in a good mood whenever the prices spike back up.

always has a horrible math pun up his sleeve.

sends you accounting memes and becomes a gloomy mess when you don't laugh or understand the joke.

"what if i propose to you with a math problem? and we have pie instead of cake?"

"please don't bring math into our love life."

yunho — [ broadcasting journalism ]

roommates with you, hongjoong, and jongho.

is called 'newspaper boy' by hongjoong.

is well-known around campus for being one of the student journalists for the university's newspaper.

you have the very first published paper, with his full name printed on the front, framed in the hallway of your dorm.

has the prettiest hands.

and longest fingers you've ever seen.

can put them to good use.

especially when typing out essays. they're practically blurred from how swift he is.

likes to ramble about current international events to jongho early in the morning. the latter pretends to understand, giving the other false hope.

jongho always sends you a pleading look to save you from your lover.

always carries a notebook.

article deadlines = stressed yunho.

complains that his friends are 'uncultured'.

helps you with your essays.

if he has enough time, he'll actually re-write it for you.

"was it really that bad?"

"it's okay, baby. you're good at other things."

"how come you don't re-write my papers?" jongho huffs from across the living room.

"you're not y/n."

interviews you and your other roommates for his projects.

you smile from behind him as he zooms in obnoxiously close to hongjoong's disgruntled expression.

"he zoomed in on my nose again, didn't he?" the blue haired male asks you.

"sorry, but that tomato sauce stain is really distracting me."

hongjoong nearly drops his fork.

"what stain!?" he furiously rubs his face with the back of his hand, "see! i told you that you always interview us at the most inconvenient time!"

is constantly writing.

can be very unorganized.

"who took my ap stylebook!?"

"can you stop shouting? it's 6 a.m., yunho!" hongjoong growls from his bedroom.

mingi and seonghwa often visit your dorm because they're usually partnered with yunho for an assignment.

it somehow always winds up with mingi and yunho fooling around, whilst seonghwa struggles to persuade them to help him with the work.

sometimes, you tag along to help film his public social experiment projects.

is a social-bug, so people are instantly drawn to him.

likes to cuddle with you while watching the films for his assignments.

you think most of them are pretty boring, but being in his lap and tucked against his chest makes up for it.

you like to add glittery stickers onto his video camera and tripod.

is very much infatuated with you, so he doesn't mind one bit.

applied for a paid broadcasting radio station/tv internship over the summer and was quickly accepted.

asks you to help him style his hair for his first day at work.

"but it's just a radio station. no one's going to see you?" jongho questions with a perplexed expression.

"i still need to look presentable!"

and later that day you quickly hush the two males beside you once the clock strikes 2 p.m.

"quiet! yunho should be on any second now!"

"i was just breathing?" hongjoong whispers weakly.

over dinner, jongho often mimics yunho's reporting voice.

"y/n, do i really sound like that?" yunho pouts as you and hongjoong burst into fits of laughter.

"aw, don't be sad. i love your reporter voice, baby."

will wake everyone up early the next morning by yelling at the top of his lungs with his reporter voice just to get back at you three for laughing at him.

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koreanmadeingreece · 4 years ago

Text

Why, why, why (3)

University student!Yuta x reader

Genre: slight enemies to lovers au, a bit of angst, a lot of fluff, and several mixups

Summary: You just got into uni and decided to move in with your childhood friend!Taeyong at the city where you are going to study. As you’re about to start your new, adult life, you meet his friends, and you realize that not everyone likes you. Nakamoto Yuta in particular almost seems like he hates you.

A/N: In this fic, Jonghyun from NU’EST appears for a while (just to avoid confusion). Also, wow I never thought I’d post this. I hope you guys like it. Also I thought I’d update every Sunday but I couldn’t restrain myself. Welp.

Warnings: n/a

Word count: 1.8K (I should let you know that I’ve finished writing it so I’ll update it every 3 or 4 days!)

Part 3/I don’t remember First / Previous / Next

Taglist: @melitadala @chxotickpoptrash (please let me know if you’d like to be tagged!)

When you entered the house, V ran into your arms for an embrace, calling you his savior, as you had just brought the food, which made the others laugh. When you reassured them again that you were okay with treating them, you all sat down in your freshly cleaned living room to eat.

That was when you noticed Yuta sitting a bit further than the others, eating quietly, and decided to come a bit closer to him.

“You’re not very talkative, are you?” You tried to joke around since no one would listen to you. The others were arguing about one of the professors at uni and if he’s single, so they wouldn’t even notice you switching places.

“Oh, sorry, it was just that I was thinking about something. It shouldn’t make you worry, really,” he answered.

“Are you sure? Because you haven’t talked to me all day. I mean, I know you just met me this morning and that I’m not your friend, but I’d love to get to know you a bit better.”

“I’m okay with that, don’t worry about me. I’m just paranoid sometimes and I’m thinking a bit too much about certain things, so just ignore me when I do that, okay?”

“So, we’re off to a good start, I guess.”

“Yeah, I guess you can say that.” He smiled at you. This was the second smile he had offered you ever since this morning, and it kind of made you light up a bit. You still didn’t know what made you so interested in him. You just had to get to know him.

The next day was similar to the first, as you had to finish cleaning and start unpacking both yours and Taeyong’s things and decorate the living room. Thankfully, Taeyong didn’t have a much different taste than yours, so it was actually easy to decide what you’d hang on the walls and what color the couch pillows would be. The biggest issue was your rooms and what you’d do with them.

You took the boxes with your stuff and Johnny immediately came to help, offering to also help you with your room. V followed you and Yuta went to help Taeyong. You enjoyed their company a lot if you were going to be completely honest, and you secretly thought they’d let you join them sometimes. You really thought you weren’t a burden for them, as they’ve been friends for years and you just came to disrupt their lives. You’d never even think of causing a problem to them, so you waited patiently for any signs that would show you how they felt about you. There was just one thing you had to ask.

“So, how did you guys meet?” you asked, as you were placing your clothes in the closet.

“Do you mean us two, or…”

“All of you. How did you become like… a group?”

“Ah, funny story,” V said, “I got into a fight on my first day of uni. Someone just came straight to me and called me names because I was zoning out, and Johnny with Taeyong came to my rescue.”

“Aw, they’re true heroes,” you laughed.

“Something like that. Taeyong and Johnny met right there in front of me, and then we all decided to go to lunch together. Then Yuta came. Taeyong had met him a few hours earlier and told him to go to lunch with him, so we all sat together. And we clicked.”

Johnny nodded in agreement and gave you a stack of clothes to put away, while V was telling the story from your bed. You hadn’t put the sheets on it yet, so it was only a mattress, but it worked well for him.

“I don’t know if I should be asking this but are Taeyong and Yuta that close? I mean, he doesn’t tell me much over the phone, and with all the stuff going on because of the house we haven’t really talked yet,” you asked.

“They’re close. They’re not together if that’s what you’re asking. They’re just really good friends. If you ask me, we make a great group. It’s just that he always was a bit more protective over Taeyong, but Yuta’s definitely straight. If he wasn’t I’m sure they’d already been together by now,” Johnny told you and you continued putting clothes away, when Johnny interrupted your thoughts. “Don’t mind him. He might seem a bit distant, but he’ll open up eventually. It’s probably that you’ve been friends with Taeyong for so long and he feels kind of left out.”

“Oh my god, have I done anything like that?”

“No, no. Don’t worry about it. He was thinking about it ever since he found out you’d move with Taeyong but, trust me, you haven’t done anything. I mean, you didn’t make any of us feel bad. You’re actually fun to be around. You can come to hang out with us whenever you want, okay?” Johnny’s words were music to your ears. What you were hoping for was coming true. Your new life had officially started taking its form, and you were ecstatic about it.

Your house was finally ready, your posters were on the walls and your clothes were in the closet. After you made your bed and had V try it out, you could finally sit and enjoy it.

“Did you call your mom? She’s probably scared to death that she just let you handle a new house on our own,” Taeyong told you after the guys left.

“I did and I also sent her pictures. She’s thrilled.”

“Your dad?”

“Mom said he just nodded. I wouldn’t expect anything else.” You sat on the couch next to Taeyong.

“He doesn’t get really involved, does he?”

“Only when he’s in the mood. Which happens about… five times a year?”

“Sucks to be you.”

“Yeah, especially when he missed my gymnastics performance.” You took a bite of your sandwich.

“Well, now you’re here. If he doesn’t want to lose you, he has some work to do. Now, will you give me a bite?” And that was how the evening passed with Taeyong. You were calm, relaxed and it was exactly how you imagined it to be. All you had to worry about for the time being was the first day of uni.

You woke up the next morning and looked too pale to be human, as you had barely managed to sleep last night. You got dressed in one of your favorite outfits, a loose red shirt and black ripped jeans, and washed your face before putting some mascara and lipstick on. When Taeyong confirmed you looked hot, you were ready to go. Taeyong left you outside of the building of your first class and left for his class.

You went inside and found a seat not too close to the professor, and soon after, you noticed a tall guy approaching you and taking the seat next to you.

“First day, huh?” he asked you. “Are you excited?”

“Yeah, pretty much. I’m kind of stressed too. What’s your name, by the way?”

“I’m Yugyeom. It’s nice to meet you.” He extended his arm to you for a handshake.

“I’m Y/N.” And that was your first acquaintance. He seemed really nice. Kind, at least. You liked him at a first glance. He turned to speak to you quite a few times during our first class, but he didn’t annoy you. He was quite pleasant to be around.

After a while, you heard someone enter the room, stumbling on the stairs.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” he said and took the seat next to you, on the opposite side of Yugyeom. “Was I too loud?” he whispered to you.

“No, don’t worry about it. No one’s going to remember it tomorrow anyway,” you smiled at him.

“I hope so. And, if they do, at least I made them laugh.” He smiled back. “I’m Chan.”

“I’m Y/N and this is Yugyeom,” you said and shook hands with him as well.

When the first class was over, you headed to the other classroom for the next period and sat next to the two boys you had just met. They were extremely fun to be with, especially Chan, who was a walking mess and extremely clumsy.

You suggested going for coffee after class, so you texted Taeyong not to pick you up and walked next to Chan and Yugyeom, who knew a nice coffee shop around the corner. You found a table and sat down when you saw a guy approaching your table.

“Hey, Yugyeom, wasn’t he sitting close to us in class?”

“Now that you mention it, yeah. Should we tell him to sit with us?” And, before you could even answer, Yugyeom was already standing up from his chair. “Hey! Wanna sit with us?”

“Uh, sure.”

“We saw you in class, we’re not creeps, I promise,” you reassured him. “This is Yugyeom and this is Chan.”

“I’m BamBam.”

“BamBam?” Chan asked. “Is it a nickname?”

“Yeah, I’m from Thailand and no one actually remembers my real name, so I use this one instead.”

“Oh, that’s so interesting!” Yugyeom was amazed and started talking to BamBam nonstop, which he didn’t seem to mind, so you just talked to Chan until Yugyeom’s rant ended.

“Would you like to order?” The waiter interrupted you. He was standing next to your table for a while, but no one had noticed him.

“Yeah, sorry,” you said and turned towards him, as he was standing beside you. That was when you noticed how hot he looked and, right after everyone ordered, you turned to Chan. “I don’t know if you’re gay, straight, or anything else, but that one was hot as fuck.”

“I’m bi, and yes he was. You should ask for his number.”

“Chan, I’m not that bold.”

“Yeah, but you have nothing to lose. Look, we can send you to pay when we’re done, so you can talk to him without us there. That doesn’t involve any flirting, right?”

“Fine. Give me your money, y’all.” The other two guys turned to you in shock, but Chan promised to explain while you were gone. So, you got up and walked towards the register.

“Hi,” you told him. When he turned towards you, you deeply wished you hadn’t agreed to this. He was too handsome for you to handle.

“Ah, they sent you to pay?” He laughed.

“Yeah, they did.” You paused and contemplated if you should continue the conversation when your thoughts were interrupted.

“Um, I’m sorry if it’s weird to ask, but what’s your name.”

“I’m Y/N.”

“Ah, that’s a beautiful name. I’m Jonghyun. Do you happen to go to uni here?”

“Yeah, film major. This is my first year. What about you?”

“Me too! But I’m in the third year.” He smiled at you, but he was called to a table and had to go. “You should come by again tomorrow. I can treat you to a cup of warm coffee. My shift ends at 6.”

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freakie-deakie · 4 years ago

Text

Lucas // How To: Hurt My Feelings

tumblr only allows 10 images per post so i had to use my transition images sparingly, i hope it doesn’t make the scene changes too awkward. hope you’re all doing well, sending lots of love!

Warnings: there’s nothing too serious, but there’s a mention of toxic family relations and insecurities about friendships

Masterlist

Read Part 2 Here: How To: Kill an Idea

Lucas x Reader (angst // 9.6k words); ft. stepbrother!Johnny

You were a being made up of words. You lived to think words, to write words, to read words, and to speak words. You were jack of all things debate and a master of sounding like a charming smartass. Your words were always chosen carefully, and because of this, your persuasive skills were deadly.

Lucas was a being of action. He moved as his spirit listed, and was often caught indulging in whatever sins his internal chaos prompted him that day. He built the world around him with his own two hands and lived for the sake of creating his own experiences within his own days. He hadn't an interest in the events of the world, nor the stories in it. You don't think he'd ever read a story in his life. Actually, you don't think he'd ever read.

Perhaps that was why the two of you fit together oh-so-well. He was the Yang to your Yin, the left to your right. Your relationship was a perfectly balanced chemical equation. He made a mess, and you cleaned up after him. You were a mess, and he cleaned you up.

Oh, but you can always get messier, can't you?

"Seriously, Y/N? When was the last time you ate?" Lucas folded his arms over his chest and leaned against your doorframe.

"I ate breakfast," you quipped softly, folding your legs up into your rolly chair. You'd been there for almost two days straight, but your project was finally starting to take shape.

"Oh yeah? And what did you eat?" You bit the inside of your cheek, giving him a guilty smile as you twidled your thumbs. "You can't live off of those damn health bars. Christ- Put your shoes on, we're going out."

"Wait, Yukhei, it's okay, I can just-"

"You have ten minutes to get ready before I carry you out of here on my shoulder," he warned before excusing himself to sit in your living room and wait for you.

Groaning, you moved the blanket from your lap and threw on a pair of sweats. You washed your face and brushed out your hair, and with two minutes to spare, you were slipping into your jogging shoes. "Lucas, are you ready?" you asked, stepping out of your bedroom. Oddly enough, he wasn't on that ugly black couch that he loved so much, nor was he in the kitchenette that fit so snuggly in the corner of the room. He wasn't by the window, nor with the plants on your fire escape. You stepped back to check the bathroom. Empty. "Yukhei?" you called out for him again.

Your heart jumped out of your chest at the sudden jolt of your door, followed by three sharp knocks.

"Y/N? I locked myself out..." Breathing out a steadying breath, you placed a hand over your heart. "Y/N?"

"Hang on a second, you big baby." You rolled your eyes and opened the door for him. "I thought you'd been abducted."

"Sorry babe, I had a call. But don't worry, nobody can abduct me when I carry around guns like these," he grinned, flexing his arms.

"I think I liked you better when you were missing." He scoffed. "But you have to promise me to never leave me without any answers. I'd have to hunt you down if you did."

"I'll never leave you, ever," he gleams, throwing an arm over your shoulder and guiding you out the door. You hummed, wrapping an arm around his waist and syncing your steps with his. "Besides, if I ever tried, you'd lock me in your apartment building's basement and I don't really wanna know what else is down there."

"You'd better not try to escape then," you snorted.

You weren't quite sure how you always managed to end up in such ungodly positions, but as long as you were both comfortable, you couldn't complain. However, at the moment, you were very uncomfortable, and the boy laying on top of you was getting an ear-full.

He'd simply barged into your bedroom, saw you laying on your stomach, and decided that you were the most comfortable matress around.

"Lucas, I have to pee."

"Do it, I dare you."

"Lucas, I can't breathe!"

"Then die."

"You are the-"

"Most wonderful person you ever could have hoped to even end up dating? I know. What do you want for dinner tonight? I'm thinking chicken. Thoughts?"

"I'll buy if you get off me," you groaned.

He perked up at that, finally rolling off of you and bouncing over to your closet. "We're gonna match," he said certainly, plucking a black T-shirt and skinny jeans off of their respective hangers and throwing them at you before going back to fish out the jean jacket and belt he'd bought you specifically for occasions such as these.

He rushed you along, ushering you out of your building quickly, excited to go to his favorite marketplace restaurant. Boarding the transit, he took your hand in his much larger one and turned to you to quietly ask if he could spend the night at your place to watch movies and "get frisky," earning a light slap on the wrist which only made him laugh.

You and Lucas were puzzle pieces that fit together. So for the life of you, you couldn't begin to understand why everything seemed to be falling apart.

"I just can't win against you, can I? You have too many debate trophies shoved up your ass!"

"I just-"

"Stop, Y/N. If you won't try to understand my side, we're done here."

"Lucas, I do understand, I just don't agree. And that's okay because we don't have to agree on everything."

"Yeah?" he huffed. "Well on this, we do."

"What do you want me to do? Fly home to (country) and tell my family that their daughter who managed to escape their victimized mindsets and emotional neglect and finally cut ties with them has a boyfriend who wants to meet them? I don't want you to meet them! I don't want you anywhere around them," your composure finally snapped, letting a tear roll down your cheek. You roughly wiped it away with the back of your sleeve.

"Oh, cut the shit, Y/N. You didn't want to introduce me to your 'toxic' best friend either, or your 'overly protective' brother; they turned out to be completely fucking normal. Maybe it's you that's the problem."

"You mean the beautiful best friend, Soomin, that cut me off after I wouldn't give you her number? Oh, and my brother, Johnny, who slept on my couch for a week after meeting you to make sure you weren't staying the night?"

"So I'm the one causing problems? Maybe if you were less insecure-"

"Insecure? Fine, I'll call Soomin and give her your number. And while I'm at it, I'll just ask Johnny to give my number out to all your frat brothers, since that's no big deal."

Lucas slammed his hand down on your island countertop. "Like hell you will. Look, I just want to meet your family. I'm not gonna ask them to move to Korea."

"Lucas, I'm thrilled that your family likes me so much because you're very close with them and that's important to you, but please don't make me contact my family. I don't want them in my life."

He stepped out that night without another word and remained silent for the rest of the week.

You felt like a vase that held flowers but had no water to give them; you were, on your own, too much of some things and not enough of others. Lucas's silent treatment felt like he tipped the scale by hopping off of his side and leaving you to fall.

"Y/N, listen to me," you whispered to yourself as you opened the refrigerator door. "You are a strong, independent woman and your life does not revolve around a boy." You reached for the fruit drawer and pulled out a peach. Fruit was a large part of your diet when you were sad; it was convenient because there was no meal prep. Uni-students like you didn't have time to cook anyways.

A buzzing sound from your counter pulled you from your thoughts. You wiped the peach juice off your chin with your sleeve and put the phone to your ear.

"Y/N? Do you have a minute?"

"Johnny? What's up tree-child?" You hear a soft chuckle over the line.

"Your overgrown boyfriend hasn't left his room since your little fight-"

"Johnny, you know what it was like for me back home. Your mom and my dad- you don't want to go back either, right? You know how bad it was. I shouldn't have to apologise for not wanting to go back."

Johnny sighed loudly over the line. "I'm not saying you have to apologise to him. I'm on your side, but neither of you are trying to fix the situation. So come to our frat, talk, make out, have angry make-up sex; I don't care what floats your boat, just come see him. You're the only person who I know has the ability to convince him to shower."

"See, dearest Johnny, that would mean I would have to shower. And right now, I'm not really feeling up to the task. So if that's all, then I'll be going-"

"Y/N, please? I'll make you dinner, and I'll pay for two- no, three of your textbooks next semester!"

"What do you get out of this, Seo? What bidding of yours will I be doing if I agree?"

"Can't I just reunite one of my best friends with my sister for the- yeah okay, I can't do this. There's a party next week and he's my wingman."

"Goodbye, Johnny."

You didn't know what to expect if you were to text Lucas first. Perhaps he was waiting on you to, or perhaps not, instead opting not to talk to you. However, you were a being of words, and you were desperately trying to sort through all of the Korean vocabulary that you knew in order to find the best words to give to him. You knew he deserved that, the best of you.

Y/N: Hey, can we talk?

You waited and waited, and thought yourself into hours of self torment. Was that text a mistake? Should you not have sent it? Could you have said something better?

After about an hour of stressing over the message and his lack of reply, you manage to pull yourself off of your couch, take yourself into the shower and sulk in its hot, suffocating water and steam.

And then you, naturally, went crawling back to your phone.

"Johnny, is your offer still up? Dinner and textbooks and shit?" Damn your unusually shaky voice, underused in the time you'd spent away from your significant other.

"Y/N? You sound distressed, is everything okay?"

"I don't know how to take care of myself," you admitted without an ounce of emotion in your tone, only growing your stepbrother's concerns. "You know, you're the only person that has checked in on me since our fight? I'm the one in the wrong, and everyone knows it... I need him, I need to apologise."

You hear something clatter over the line. "Now, hold on Y/N. You don't sound like you're thinking straight. I'm all for you guys patching things up, but not to get back into our good graces."

"Johnny, I'm alone. He's the only person that's ever made an effort to distract me from that."

"Hey, wait, you aren't alone. You have all of us. We're all here whenever you need us, not just him."

"John, I'm either your sister or his girlfriend. The guys in your frat don't want to be friends with me, and that's okay. But I want to hang on to what I've got so I'm coming over to fix-"

Your brother cuts you off with a groan. You don't see it, but he sets his afternoon bowl of cereal to the side and runs his hand through his hair. "Hang on a damn minute. I'll be to your apartment in ten minutes. Please, stay there."

"But John-"

"Stay there."

He cursed as soon as he hung up the call, finally noticing the stares he'd been receiving from the others in the kitchen. They'd watched you slowly unravel his composure until he was rushing to pour the rest of his precious Captain Crunch down the garbage disposal. All for his endearing concern for his stepsister.

"Who was that?" his closest friend, a broad shouldered boy by the name of Jaehyun asked.

Johnny paused, looking back at his friends. "My sister doesn't sound like she's feeling very well. She's pretty torn up about- well, you know."

"Can we help? I haven't seen Y/N in ages," Haechan commented, thinking back to the last time he'd had a chance to hang out with you. It must've been the night you joined them for a Smash competition. He remembered that you were really bad at it- or rather, not as experienced as his fraternity brothers who maybe spent a little too much time practicing.

"I honestly don't really know what's going on, so maybe it's best if I go alone."

Haechan and Jaehyun share a look. "Can you tell her to drop by to see us sometime?"

"Sure will," he agrees before slipping into his shoes and heading out the door. He was quick to get to the bus stop, knowing it'd be leaving within minutes.

When the doors to the bus opened, he took note of only one person stepping off. A pretty little girl with features that told any onlooker that she was Japanese. Her hair was lighter than his by a few shades, locks of caramel resting gently on her shoulders, the top layers collected in a little white bow and the back of her head which matched the flowy white v-neck she was dressed in; jeans and white tennis shoes paired to match.

She was a figure of beauty and grace. She offered him a small smile which would haunt him in his dreams that night. Had he not had prior engagements, he would have spent more time drinking her in as she walked down the sidewalk in the direction from which he had come. The gleam off of her pearl earrings blinded him momentarily, and suddenly he remembered that he was on a mission: a mission to get to you and remind you of your self worth.

When you cracked your door, an arm poked through, attached to a bag of goodies.

"When's the last time you ate?" Johnny asked, still not pushing his way into your space. "I brought ramen and cookie dough. I figured we could do with a night in."

You opened the door wider and lead him into the living room. It was a mess, to say the least. A nice collage of wrappers and tissues lay across the floor, the occasional soda can making things interesting. The dishes in your sink were stacked as high as they could go, and unopened letters lay strewn across your coffee table. Your home had become a perfect embodiment of how you felt.

"Y/N..." he said, looking around at the state of things.

"I know, I'll clean up later," you answered, tucking yourself back in to your spot on the couch.

"I'll help you tonight," he reassures you, setting the plastic bag on your counter and taking out two styrofoam cups filled with dry noodles.

"You didn't need to come, Johnny." The look in your eyes told him otherwise. Maybe he wasn't the best older brother in the world, but he could tell that you needed someone right now and he'd be damned if he wasn't going to do his best to help you.

"I know," he soothes. "I came for me. You were scaring me with some of the things you said and I needed to make sure that you were okay for my own sanity. Do you want beef or chicken?"

Episodes of Sword Gai play lowly in the background, a low hum of a language that neither of you understood. He helped you pick up around your house and clean up your living space. He helped you make cookies, and he ate his fair share of them. Your brother, your closest companion since you were young, sat with you all night and talked. The weight of your words though, it was heavy on his chest.

"Y/N, we've always only had each other. We practically fled a country together. You know that you and I are the first and last people on this planet, right? I took care of you back in (country) and I'll take care of you here."

You sighed, rubbing your temples. "I was your scared little sister who came chasing after you. You deserved to have your own life and live it the way that you wanted. I followed you to Korea, and once again I'm your burden."

"Y/N, you're not a burden. I'm glad you came to my University. The closer you are, the easier I can protect you."

"You shouldn't have to protect me though. You introduced me to your friends because I couldn't make any on my own. Then I met Lucas, and you helped him get into NCT and now everyone there has to deal with me-"

"Y/N, they aren't 'dealing' with you. They actually like you. Not because they have to, but because you're fun to be around."

"I don't know..." You didn't want to outright complain that you hadn't even received a text from any of the members of NCT since your fight with the Chinese boy. You didn't want to admit how badly if hurt to realize that they were his friends before they were yours. Now, not only was there a hole in your heart from your boyfriend ripping himself away, but also the growing cavity from the quiet abandonment of your friends. And now, your brother who'd done so much for you your whole life had to take care of you once again.

"What're you thinking about?" He watches your gaze flicker from the TV to his eyes and back.

"I'm willing to admit that Lucas was right-"

"I don't think he was. And neither do you. He has to respect that family is a taboo subject for some of us. Hell, he knows that I don't like it whenever he brings it up. You can work things out without taking all the blame for this, which would be outright unjust."

"I shouldn't have been so sensitive though," you respond honestly.

"You know I hate taking sides-"

"You do not, Seo," you giggle. His face visibly brightens at the sound.

"Yeah, your right, I love taking sides. I'm definitely on your side about the argument. But maybe he's thought about it too. Maybe you should let him explain how he feels about it now. And of course, I'll be sure to give you my opinions afterwards."

"I guess," you offer him an unsure smile. "I want him back in my life. I want everyone else back in my life too. I guess losing him and then losing touch with my- your friends made me realize that maybe I'm rather expendable." Your chuckle was dry, barely making it out of your throat.

In Johnny's eyes, not only Lucas, but his friends as well had been the ones lacking; yet somehow, you thought it was your own lacking that had let them slip away. How dare they hurt you like this? How dare they make you feel unworthy of them?

"I've always known," you continued, "that they were his friends- and yours. I guess I should start trying to make friends in class if we don't get this worked out, huh?"

"Maybe you should talk to them about that before you go trying to replace your friend group. But you're gonna work it out. No one's leaving you. You should see how desperate he looks right now, waiting for you to come marching into our house and demand to see him. He's got too much love in that big heart of his and now that he can't shower you in it, he looks like his purpose in life has been taken away."

Johnny was always there to take care of you, and you felt you could never repay him for that. His advice and soothing words were invaluable to you. Your brother's compassion was the most precious thing in the world to you, especially in your moments of need.

Of course you made an attempt to call Lucas before you showed up on the fraternity doorstep, but if you wanted something to change, for once you were going to have to do something yourself. You had to be able to move your own two feet without him.

Your three sharp knocks were answered by the only Thai resident in the household, a slender boy with cropped bangs and sharp features. Ten was quick to pull you inside, wrapping his arms around your torso and resting his head on your shoulder.

"Buddha has sent us an Angel; we're saved!"

"That bad, huh?"

Ten let you out of his bear hug and looked you in the eye with a look of (semi-) mock disgust. "Y/N, it's been fourteen days since he came home crying and he's showered like twice since then. Mark and I have been trying to coax him out of his room for days. Please, you've got to do something!"

"Challenge accepted," you said, smiling at the boy in front of you. He always knew how to make your day a little bit brighter.

Your heart grew heavy when you remembered that his concerns weren't for you. They were for his real friend, and you could appreciate that.

You tried to shove those thoughts down in your chest as you stepped around him and started on the long trek to your boyfriend's room.

The couch at the end of his bed was a sacred place for videogames and movie nights, a large flat screen just in front of it. His desk was often messy and usually your problem to clean. His chair was a space for studying and the occasional newcomer into his room, a comfortable space to be welcomed. The carpet was a place you liked to lay when you began to think that mattresses were just a little bit too mundane; then suddenly, you'd think the most interesting thing in the world was the orange peel texture on the white ceiling. On the nightstand was an alarm clock, a charger, and a picture of you - and in it was a bottle of lotion and a stash of jewelry you'd given him over time. Even his dresser meant something to you. You'd picked it out with him at a flea market and agreed to split the cost because it was just too beautiful to pass up. The bottom drawer was full of your clothes and he always reminded you that the dresser would one day live in a space with the two of you, together.

His room was a box of memories, and his bed held the most prized of them all. It's where you laid and let yourself be vulnerable with Lucas. It's where your lives came together, and your stories intertwined, slipping from your lips and knotting together like your limbs under the ceiling fan. Promises of the future, swears of the past, and a comforting and cozy present.

You didn't think before you opened the door; it was practically an instinct now. It wasn't necessarily a shared space, but it's a space that's always been offered to you. You'd never imagined that there would be a time when you weren't welcomed there.

It caught you off guard, the body underneath his. A petite girl with Carmel colored hair that was stuck to her damp skin. Your boyfriend moved on top of her, rocking back and forth against her body, eyes trained on hers.

You quietly shut the door and slipped back down the hallway. Doyoung, exiting his room, stopped your frantic attempt at escape from the house, taking in your wide eyes and seemingly disorganized composition.

"Y/N? What's wrong? Wh-"

"I'm okay," you swore, stepping around him. "I'm just not feeling well, I'm gonna step out for a bit."

"Oh," he says, watching you scamper down the steps. "We have medicine if you need it."

You didn't answer. Your priority was to get out of the front door as quickly and as quietly as possible, not even sparing a glance at the boys in the living room who had greeted you earlier.

You walked like a woman with a purpose, fast and in a straight line, away from the house. You didn't bother waiting on the bus, instead you walked right past the bus stop and started towards your home where you would let your composure fall.

Lucas moved one of the light colored strands of hair from Yuri's face. He was propped up on an elbow, admiring the beautiful girl in front of him. She was someone he'd know for a while, having been in his Sociology class the year prior. He'd seen her every now and again, met with her, fucked her, and left her in the morning. The girl with almost orange hair who always wore white was illusive to all but him. Wanted was the girl who always wore her graduation gift from her grandmother proudly, a pair of pearl earrings.

Normally, he wouldn't have allowed the sweet Japanese girl to stay with him after sex, cuddled to his chest, her bare skin against his. It hurt him too much to think that she wasn't the one who was supposed to be in his arms, and as a constant reminder he was always burned by the temperature of her skin. She was hot, a fire that lit in his stomach and yet left his heart cold.

Yuri blinked up at him, stirring from her soft slumber. "Is it nighttime?" she yawned out. He nodded and shushed her, rubbing his thumb over the soft skin of her cheek. He brought their lips together for a kiss that felt so wrong yet so right. Part of him didn't want to pull away and crash back down to reality, the other part of him knew that the girl needed to leave while no one was awake, lest his relationship with you be damaged.

He pulled away first, standing to dress himself in the sweats and Tee that he'd discarded some time ago. He helped Yuri sit up then dress herself. He placed a chaste kiss her forehead and lead her to his bedroom door, expecting her to find her own way out of the house. But before the door closed, he locked eyes with the last person he wanted to see him sending off his rendezvous into the night.

Johnny did not hesitate to put his hands on the door (rather loudly) to prevent it from closing.

"What's a girl doing in your room so late, Lucas?"

Lucas tried to meet Johnny's eyes, but he couldn't hold your brother's fierce gaze. "Studying?"

"Oh yeah? How'd you two get so sweaty while you were studying. You must've been cramming pretty hard." Johnny fold his arms over his chest just as the color of pink on Lucas's bed catches his attention. He stared at it for a moment before the shape registered in his mind. "And how did leaving her thong with you help either of you read a fucking textbook?"

At this point, Johnny has a fist full of Lucas's shirt and is backing him against a wall. Lucas tries to remove Johnny's hand, but only gets shoved harder into the hard surface, pictures rattling on both sides of his head, the picture of your joint trip to the fair the year prior falls to the ground and shatters.

Taeyong comes rushing in from his room, roughly awoken by his neighbor's commotion.

"Johnny? Yukhei? It's one in the morning, what the hell is going on?"

The intense gaze between the two doesn't falter for a moment. "Yeah, Yukhei, what the hell is going on?" When he doesn't receive an answer, he lifts him off the wall and pushes him back against in with one harsh movement. "Don't ever talk to my sister again." Johnny releases his shirt and Lucas's eyes widen.

"Y/N-" Lucas breathes out, grabbing for your brother's arm and stumbling over his words. "Please don't tell Y/N."

"Ya know, Lucas, she just recently told me that she felt like no one cared about her. Her friends were yours, and while you were out of her reach, so we're they. How could you leave her with nobody?"

Taeyong gasped at that. He considered you a rather close friend and cherished the bond he had with you. He understood where you were coming from but it still hurt that you would misread his intentions as befriending a friend of a friend.

Lucas pulled harder at Johnny's arm, keeping him in place as he tried to turn away. Taeyong took this as his que to step between the two and separate them.

"Please don't tell her," Lucas tried. "Please, let me be the one to tell her. She deserves that much."

Your phone had been dead for two days and you hadn't bothered to even look for a charger. You focus your energy on your Korean history essays and devote your time to working on your computer.

Little did you know, this was sparking panic at the NCT dorms. No one, not even your brother, had been able to contact you. Finally, Johnny decided that he had to check on you (along with the ever persistent presence of his younger friend, Haechan, who demanded that he be taken to see you), taking the public transit to your apartment on the northwest border of the campus.

His knocking earned a prompt "fuck off" from your living room, so at the very least they were sure you were still alive.

"Y/N, open the damn door." You didn't even bother moving from your cozy place on the couch. "For fuck's sake- do you know how long we've all been trying to contact you. Let me fucking in or I'll break the door down."

"I'd like to see you try," you mumbled before a solid 'thud' sounded from your entrance. "John, what the fuck?"

"I said let me in. I gotta make sure you're okay so don't make this difficult."

"For the love of fuck, I'm fine, go away."

Thud.

"Let me in."

Thud.

"Okay, okay stop! You're gonna make my neighbors hate me."

You threw your door open to be greeted by, not one, but two friendly faces with murderous intentions in their eyes.

"You can't just drop off the fucking radar, you had everyone scared shitless that something had happened to you," Haechan snapped before bringing you into a warm embrace.

"I'm sorry," you sighed, wrapping your arms back around him. It felt nice to be in someone's arms again, even if it wasn't the touch you longed for. "I've just had a hard few days."

Johnny, who had already pushed his way past you, was beginning to calm himself down like a passing storm.

"What happened, Princess?" Haechan tried. You cringed and he shrugged, still holding you to his chest.

"Lucas and a girl-" Your eyes teared up and the words lodged themselves in your throat. "He's cheating on me."

Haechan's eyes widen and he presses your head to his chest rather forcefully so that he could discreetly pass Johnny a look of sheer confusion. It'd been the hot topic as the frat, but as no one had been able to contact you since they'd made the discovery themselves, he assumed no one had been able to tell you yet. "Y/N, Princess, what do you mean?" he spoke slowly, unsure of how he wanted to frame his question.

"I went to," you hiccupped, "went to see him and there," you hiccupped again, "there was a girl," and again, "underneath him." Haechan's grip tightens around you. The look he's giving Johnny now is one that would've scared armies away from battle. The look on his face was nothing in comparison to the emotion written on Johnny's own features. The storm had returned, the haze of anger clouding both his eyes and his judgements.

Johnny moved towards the door much slower than he'd come barging through it. Like a man marching off to war, he kept his eyes straight ahead and left the same way he'd came. "Both of you, stay here." The door slams shut behind him, mimicking the sound of a gunshot.

Haechan keeps you in his embrace for a few minutes, rocking you back and forth after the tensions in his muscles began to dissipate. He shushed you until you stopped crying, urging you to get your breathing back under control.

"I'm so sorry you had to see that," the silver haired boy mumbled into your hair before sperating himself from you. "Come sit down. Let's talk about this for a minute."

"That's okay, Haechan. I appreciate it but-" you sniffle.

"Y/N, this is an important talk we're about to have, okay? Listen to me very carefully, and after we talk this out, I'm going to order food from any place in this district that you want." You shook your head but did nothing to interrupt him. "We all just found out a couple of days ago. That's part of the reason everyone has been trying to reach you. Johnny caught him, but he agreed to let Lucas tell you. But because no one has been able to get to you, those two have been raising hell at the frat. That's why it is very important that we can get in contact with you, do you understand? If we have things we really need to tell you, your phone needs to be on so we can get to you. We were all worried that something really, really bad had happened to you."

"So it's true? I'm not being dramatic? Lucas really..."

Haechan nodded, pulling you down to sit with him on the couch and tuck you under his arm. "But listen, I know it's aweful. Johnny is probably going to put Lucas in his place right now. So you and I are going to stay here for now, and talk and eat dinner, and get out everything that you're feeling right now. And soon, that boy isn't going to mean anything to you because he doesn't deserve to take up your precious time or energy. Okay? Now what do you want to eat?" He rubbed your back, patiently waiting for your answer. He would move at your pace for the rest of the night.

"Where is he?" Mark and Taeyong are quick to intercept Johnny's trail, desperately trying to avoid whatever chaos was sure to ensue this hour.

"Don't you think it's a little early to start throwing punches this evening?" Taeyong tries.

Ten enters from the kitchen, a bowl of cheap ramen in his hands, Lucas trailing behind him, rocking the college boy couture: no shirt and sweatpants. Ten had by no means forgiven him within the short span of two days, especially not when he picked plenty of the recent fights with Johnny which promised a rather annoying thrill of excitement every night, but Ten knew that in the depths of his heart he felt sympathy and compassion for Lucas. As frustrated as he was with the younger boys, he couldn't abandon him when he had so few people left on his side anymore. Who else would take care of him if not Ten?

Lucas stopped in his tracks when he saw Johnny, slowly handing off his bowl to Ten to be sat on the coffee table. There was a feral beast inside Johnny that Lucas could see right now, and he was afraid that any sudden movements would invoke a violent response.

"I thought you'd be gone longer," Lucas admits. He had avoided the living room recently, especially when he knew Johnny would be home.

"I felt suddenly compelled to come right back and have a nice long chat with you."

Lucas tensed, subconsciously preparing to be thrown into a fight at any second.

"Wait, where's Haechan?" Mark ask, noting that the younger boy did not come in with him.

"He's comforting my sister. He's doing what I should be doing. But I trust him to handle her with care. I trust him to take care of her tonight while you and I have that little chat." He eyes Lucas, reading every sign that Lucas's body is posting, watching as he takes in those words and deflates a bit.

"You guys told her?"

"Didn't have to. She walked in on you screwing another girl." The room falls silent until Ten begins to choke on his ramen. Everyone looks at him as he turns away to hide his wide-eyed expression.

"Ten?" Taeyong asks. "Do you know something?"

Ten slowly turns around to face the group. "Do you remember that night when we were sitting here when she came over, and then she went running out the door a few minutes later?"

Taeyong's face falls. "Oh my God. Is that really the last time any of us saw her?"

"Fuck, and we didn't even know she needed help."

"Doyoung said she wasn't feeling well; he tried to stop her."

"That was almost a week ago, though," Ten thinks aloud. Everyone's eyes fall on Lucas, the boy they'd momentarily forgotten. His eyes are glassy, his composure fallen. There's a beat before anyone dares to ask about the elephant in the room. "How many times did it happen?"

Lucas opens and closes his mouth like a fish. "Did she really see? She saw me with Yuri?"

"Lucas, how many times did it happen?" Johnny's shoulders are squared. He steps towards the boy but is stopped my Taeyong's firm grasp on his arm.

"A lot," he admits as the first tear makes its dash for his chin. "A lot more than I should have. A lot more than I ever wanted to." As wet as his entire face was becoming, he dare not move to wipe away the shame. "I love her. Oh my God, I love her and she'll never want to see me again."

Mark looks between his two best friends seeing nothing but desperation and fury - two ample types of passion for you. "Why'd you do it then?" His words were soft. He didn't want to stir the pot anymore, but he wanted to know.

"I don't know. I love her. Why would I do that to her?" Johnny's composure cracks but doesn't break. He doesn't take off his armor. He was still there, at his own frat, in his own living room to challenge his former mate.

"She was the reason you got into this house in the first place. If she didn't care about you, I would have never helped you get in."

"Johnny stop." Taeyong pulls back on Johnny's arm, reigning him in and telling him to stand down.

"Why? That's how she feels. She feels like she's less than you. I think it should be the other way around. She think everyone only cares about her because they care about you. I think she should realize that you wouldn't even be here without her. How do you even have the balls to cheat on her after what she's done for you?"

"I didn't want to!" Lucas defends.

"Then why did you do it?"

"I don't know! I don't know! I don't know if it was because I was bored, or if I was mad at her one day. I don't know how it started. When I started to see Yuri, it just felt like a small break but then we started to mess around more often. I don't know how it started, but I wish it never had. I never wanted Y/N to have to see that."

In one swift movement, Johnny yanked himself out of Taeyong's grasp and nailed one shot right below Lucas's eye before the other three men in the room jumped in to separate the two as much as the could.

"You wish you hadn't done it because you got caught?"

Lucas holds on to his face but managed to stand up straight. "I wish I hadn't done it because I regret hurting her. It would break my heart to see her with anyone else - I can't imagine how it must've felt for her to see that. So yes, I regret her finding out."

Johnny struggles against the restraint of his friends. "Do you regret doing it? Did you ever question yourself while you were screwing around behind her back?"

Lucas didn't answer, instead he walked away. He gather up the few shards of his dignity that he had left, and locked himself in the first story bathroom for the rest of the night.

Haechan made you put your phone on the charger. He warned you that there would be messages from just about everyone in his frat but that you didn't have to open them all immediately. He stayed up with you that night to help you with both your assignments and your heartache, sending you to bed at a decent time (before two in the morning). He sat in your living room, waiting for any news from the dorms before he went back. He ended up falling asleep on your couch.

When morning came, he was abruptly awoke from a sweet dream by the rattle of the door and three sharp knocks. Annoyed, he pushed himself up and went to check who could possibly be so irritating this early in the morning.

He cracked the door to find a not-so-hot Wong Lucas on the doorstep.

"Haechan?" Lucas asked, sniffling quietly. Haechan shut the door, ready to turn back and resume his slumber on the couch before three more knocks stopped him.

He cracked the door again. "She's sleeping, knock it off."

"Haechanie?" You ask yawning as you wonder to his side. You didn't know that he'd been there all night and came to check the door, not expecting anyone to beat you to it. "Who's at the door?"

"No one, Princess. Go back to sleep."

"Princess?" Lucas questioned, clearly uncomfortable with the younger boy calling you by a pet name.

"Lucas?" Your mind wakes up a bit when you register his voice.

"Y/N," he sighs in relief.

"Haechan," Haechan blurts before shutting the door and promptly turning to you. "Y/N, don't let him in. He's probably here to convince you to take him back and you need to remember what we talked about last night. He made you feel like a small person, don't go crawling back to him-"

"I'm not letting him in, don't worry." You wrap your blanket tighter around yourself. "Why are you still here anyways?"

"I never got the all clear to go home," he mumbled, pulling you back into your bedroom. Three sharp knocks sounded once again at your door. Neither of you moved to answer it, instead you let Haechan lay you down in your bed and tuck you into your comforter before he crawled on top of your covers and dozed back off at the foot of your bed.

Lucas left the flowers and food in front of your door, sending Haechan a text to let him know that they were there (just in case you'd already blocked his number). Pulling his jacked tighter around him, he left the building in search of something to make himself feel better after a night of high emotions.

He found himself at the coffee house down the street from your residence. As he waited on his order, he sat at a booth and pondered ways to get you to, if nothing else, accept his apology. With everything in him, he wanted you back. He wanted to forget the stupid fight, he wanted to forget the other girl - he wanted you. That wasn't fair though, and he knew it. It especially wasn't fair that while you were with him, you felt small compared to him. It wasn't fair that he made you feel like nobody cared about you more than they did him. It wasn't fair that your stepbrother had to be the one to voice your concerns for you; you had never felt comfortable telling Lucas about your deepest insecurities when he was supposed to be the one to get you past them. He was only beginning to realize that he hadn't been there for you the way that you needed him to be - the way that you had been for him.

"Johnny is it true that Y/N thinks we don't like her?" Jungwoo asks, placing himself between both Johnny and Jaehyun on the couch.

Johnny sighed. "She thinks that you guys don't like her, but that you're all too nice to say anything. She thinks that because she's my sister, you guys are forced to spend time with her."

"But I like spending time with her," the younger whines.

"I know," Johnny answers simply. "She just," he inhales through his teeth, "doesn't have a lot of super close relationships. Actually, it was really only me and..." He eyes the staircase. "Can you blame her for having trust issues, though?" he asks rhetorically, more towards himself than anybody else.

"How can we show her we care about her? Like, genuinely?" Jungwoo asks, his simple yet quick thought process spitting out one debacle after another.

"I dunno, Woo. I really don't know. Maybe try to text her more? Maybe check on her every now and again?" Johnny thinks to a moment how much of his private conversation with you he wants to share. He determines that no true friendship deals in lies. "She wanted to apologise to Lucas for the fight they had a few weeks ago. She was willing to be wrong in her principles if it meant she could have that one deep connection back. She said no one had really contacted her since they'd started fighting. She said she felt alone."

Jungwoo's eyes swelled up to the size of saucers. Had he really been so neglectful? Had they all?

"I'm not telling you this to make you feel guilty. She'll never be honest about her emotions, though. She told me that if things didn't work out with Lucas, she would have to start trying to make new friends in class."

"Would she really replace us like that?"

"To her, it's not replacing something if you never really had it."

"She wouldn't even try to talk to us?"

Johnny shook his head. "That's what I'm saying. I wasn't going to tell you that, I don't want you guys to feel bad about it. But if I didn't say something, you'd never know how she felt."

Jaehyun, who'd kept his quiet so far, finally spoke up. "Well I hope she's accepting visitors. We've clearly left her to deal with her problems alone for too long."

"Let's go after breakfast," Johnny suggests, nearly being cut off by the ring of his phone. He excuses himself from the living room to answer it. "Hello? Y/N? What's up? We were just talking about you."

He doesn't see it, but you cringe a little at that. "Uh, hey, are you busy right now? Should I call you back another time?"

As off put as Johnny is by your tone, he doesn't question it. "For my adoring sister? I'm never to busy for you."

You wonder if he was genuinely not doing anything or not. "Really, we can talk later if-"

"Y/N, I'm not doing anything, what's going on?" The line is quiet for a moment. A sickening moment.

"I think I'm gonna transfer back home." Your brother feels his stomach drop. "I've been thinking about it for a while now. I just think it might be the better option for me. I don't know many people here on campus, I struggle to keep up with my Korean classes. I just think it's time I stop following you around like a lost puppy, ya know?" The line goes silent as you wait for his response. "Hello?" You wait. "John?"

"No." His answer is simple and definite.

"What do you mean 'no?'"

"I mean you're not leaving just because you're insecure. You and I both know you're doing wonderfully in your classes this semester. Why would you leave that behind? Because a boy cheated on you? Because you think no one wants to care about you? You're not leaving Korea."

"I wasn't asking. I was just letting you know." Johnny feels his heart break for you.

"On purpose! I care about you on purpose. We all care about you on purpose. Why do you keep trying to take yourself away from us?"

"You shouldn't have to care-"

"You think it's up to you if I care about you or not? That's not your decision. And it's not your decision whether or not the rest of NCT cares for you either. Why are you so hard headed?" Johnny groans loudly into the mic.

"I'm not enough of anything to be cared about."

"Shut up." He promptly hung up and grabbed his jacket.

Your tiny apartment wasn't really made to accommodate many people at once, but the five overgrown boys standing on your doorstep pushed their way into your apartment and made it work.

"Let's take a vote," is the first thing out of your stepbrother's mouth as soon as he crosses the threshold. "All in favor of Y/N transferring say 'aye.'" A silence falls over the boys. "All opposed say no."

"No," Jungwoo is the first to speak.

"No," Jaehyun is quick to follow.

"No," Ten says sternly.

"No," Taeyong adds.

"You have been unanimously voted to keep your ass in Korea and the court rules in favor of putting a bounty on you if you try to escape."

"Wait, wait, wait," you finally get out. "This isn't a democracy; your vote is irrelevant."

"Y/N, why do you want to leave so badly?" Ten asks, crossing his arms and leaning against your island.

"I have to learn to take care of myself. I can't depend on Johnny or Lucas to do that for me anymore."

"Is this really what you think is best for you?" Jaehyun asks, a tinge of guilt in his words.

"I don't know, I guess we'll find out in five weeks when the semester ends in December."

Lucas pressed his palms into his eyes, temporarily making himself see stars. It was cold, a thin layer of snow covering the ground and buildings outside. There was a blanket thrown over his shoulders but it did nothing for the morbid freeze that so deeply effected his mood.

It was midnight when he woke up. Really, he no longer had a desire to eat, and he couldn't make himself sleep anymore lest he grow physically sick. He was left to wallow in his thoughts as he stared out his window, watching the snow fall so peacefully.

"Did I do this?" He asks himself. "She's leaving because of me? Was it me who made her feel so small compared to everyone else? Was it me who made her feel so small compared to Yuri?"

He'd stopped seeing her, his fling. He came to realize that there was a hole in his heart that she could never fill. When he had you, perhaps Yuri was a fun toy to play with on the side. When you were stripped away from him and his sense of comfort was taken from him, he no longer wanted to play with her.

He tried not to contact you. He didn't deserve your time - but he wanted it.

He found himself standing outside of your apartment at one in the morning on a freezing December night. Public transport, if it even ran in this weather, had been closed for the night. There were no students wondering the campus either. He braved the elements alone.

Three sharp knocks. They weren't particularly loud. If you were asleep, he wanted you to remain asleep. But if you weren't, he needed to see you. He wanted to hold you, and kiss you, and love you; he needed to see you. You weren't his toy, you weren't his game - you were his survival, his comfort, his energy, his breath.

"Lucas? What are you wearing? It's snowing out there, are you crazy?"

"Please don't leave."

"Isn't it a little late in the night to be talking about college transfers?"

"Please don't leave me."

You'd seen Lucas cry about a lot of things. For such a physically built man, he was very emotional. He cries when he stubs his toe. He cries when he sees a dead animal on the road. He cries when he laughs to hard. He cries when he's drunk and misses you, no matter how close you might be. He cries over a plethora of movies from sad romcoms to cheesey action movies. Never have you ever seen Lucas sob. He was hysterical and unfiltered, and still in the middle of the hallway.

"Come in, Lucas. It's okay, come in." He steps inside, wiping his runny nose of his sleeve.

"Please don't leave me," he repeats. "I'll be better, I'll do better. I know you deserve so much more than me but please let me be selfish and keep you."

"You'll be better without me," you reassure.

Lucas out himself on his knees in front of you, his hand reaching out unsteadily to hold yours. "Please, Y/N. Please. I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry. If I could take it all back, I would. I swear I would. I hate myself for ruining what we had."

"It's okay, Lucas." You cradled his head to your waist and shushed him, letting his arms wrap around your legs. "It's okay. I wasn't enough and that's okay. You needed something else, that's okay. I wish I would have know, sure. I wish maybe you would have told me that I wasn't enough, but I understand why you did it."

"No, no, Y/N. No, that's not right at all. You were perfect - too perfect, and I wasn't enough of a man to cherish that. I'm not a man without you. I'm a scared little boy. Y/N, please, I love you."

You shush him and run your fingers through his hair until he calms down a bit.

"Lucas?" You ask softly. He hums in response. "Did we ever break up?" You feel his entire body tighten around you as he tensed. He pressed his face harder against your abdomen and cries harder."I'm not going to end it with you," you sigh, "I can't live on my own, you know that better than anyone. I'm so tired of being alone. I need you too."

"I don't have the words to describe you. I'm trying, but I don't know how to tell you what I feel right now."

"Then don't tell me in words."

"You know, I have really hated your life decisions lately." Johnny quips from the driver's seat. "I hate that you're studying abroad for an entire semester. I detest that you got back with your ex, and I am repulsed by the fact that you're wearing sandals in December. Your decisions just suck."

"But I'm making them," you smile at him. "It's only a few months, I'll be back from Bordeaux before you know it."

"I'm glad you're going to France instead of going home. For a minute there, I thought you'd really gone off the deep end."

"Thank you for talking me down from that."

"I really wouldn't have let you go, you know. I would not be driving you to the airport if I wasn't one hundred percent sure that you're going to France."

"Thank you."

"We're going to miss you, Y/N. All of us, we really are." You thank him and offer a warm smile.

"Are you sure you can take care of Lucas while I'm gone? Without killing him?"

Something serious flashes in Johnny's eyes for a second. "I will never see him the same. I hate that you forgave him. But it's your life, and I support you."

"He and I both had to change a lot over the last couple of months. He had to learn to cherish someone that he so often took for granted. He knows now what he did to me, he's made effort to change and I've forgiven him. I had to learn to cherish the people in my life too. I had to learn how to accept that I'm cared for. No body is perfect, but both of us are trying to be good."

"If you've both changed so much, are you still both the perfect opposites?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think I'm the same person I was before the fight."

"Oh yeah? What about him?"

"Hardly." Johnny hummed in acknowledgement. "I think maybe, he's the word now. He's an idea, an emotion. It's my turn to be the action. I get to live my life for me, now."

"You've always been strong," Johnny adds, pulling into the airport parking garage. "I'm glad you finally realized it."

"I'll be back in June," you remind. "I'll come back stronger than I've ever been before. I'll be able to do things for myself."

"We'll all be waiting for you. Six months?"

"Six months."

"I can't wait to meet you again in six months."

#lucas #wong yukhei #nct #taeyong #johnny #mark #ten #lee #angst #smut #fluff #oneshot #series #x reader #imagine #reaction #jungwoo #kim #kpop

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justamonkeyonautopilot · 3 years ago

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So I've just finished my first week (induction week) at level c at University. It didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped it will, before starting back I changed courses. Well half of my course as I'm doing a combined honours. I thought that all my dreams had come at once as I got a place on what essentially was baby Nat's dream course. I was finally going to act. But it became not as simple as that.

Last week I still didn't have the correct timetable, I didn't know what I should do to speak with student finance. I wasn't sure what campus I was on as I was originally on two which were opposite sides of the city. My doctors were messing around with my anxiety medication and the finish of the week in grand style my Uncle (Granddads baby brother) died. Leaving my Granddad who I care for reeling. So not only was I anxious that I knew nothing about where I was meant to be, who I was meant to be with, how I was going to pay, what books I'd need or when I was supposed to be there. I now had this uncontrollable guilt that I was leaving my Granddad behind on his own after loosing his brother.

This kicked off my stress disorder leaving me with migraines, further panic attacks and my hair falling out. Not to mention the chronic fatigue. All this was going on while I was still training for dance exams and a show. I became one of the most negative people anyone could wish to meet leading up to this week and during it. My poor dance teacher had to listen to most of my negativity these last few weeks and calm me down....sorry Janet.

I finally got my timetable on Friday night of last week and then the uni's hub where you get your work off decided to kick me off my film courses information which left me feeling deflated as it was just another problem to add to the mix. But I pushed on anyway and continued to tell myself that it was my dream course we're going to love it.

Sadly this hasn't been true, I got there on Monday to find the campus I'll be attending is not enforcing any and I mean ANY covid guidelines. The first introduction to the campus the theatre was crammed full of students and out of them all only myself and a lad I later learned was called Harvey were wearing masks. Thankfully the talk ended slightly early and I could leave as it was all I had that day. Believing that Tuesday would be better I carried on being hopeful. Tuesday however was not better, I turned up for my class early in the hopes of finding my room. The security who had been lovely the day before were short and snappy when I asked for help. When I eventually found the theatre I managed to calm down and ended up talking to Harvey I'd mentioned before. One of the lecturers turned up and let us all in as by the time it came to the class there were 42 students all crammed in one tiny hallway. This was only supposed to be a introductory class so we were not supposed to be doing anything practical however this lecturer had other ideas. After only talking for 20 minutes out of the 2 hours she decided to get everyone up on their feet as we were going to do ice breaker and team building exercises. She made us stand in a circle and this was the horrible moment when my brain realised the exit was blocked and we were starting to play a game similar to those played at the youth event I attended as a teen where I got attacked. This kicked off my PTSD and I spent the rest of the day locked in my own head, slowly decending into a panic attack. I was having to take time to control my breathing at every opportunity, my eyes were constantly mapping out my exits and whether I had a chance to run given the opportunity. We were once again surrounded in a cramped place without people wearing masks and we had also been asked to remove them at this point and I had never felt as trapped in years as I had done that night. The minute the class ended although I had a film one that afternoon I just couldn't stay I needed to get as far away from the university as possible and as I live 30 minutes on public transport away I saw that as my great escape.

I have never been so grateful for a day off as I was on Tuesday. No matter how many anxiety tablets j took that day or on Wednesday was taking the fear away from me. So when I went back in on Thursday I was a mess before class even started. Thankfully some lovely bloke saw me walking into the building shaking and looking more lost than a year 7 on their first day. He stepped in and walked me to my class chatting to me to try to calm me down. When he left I ended up locking myself in the toilets next to my classroom as I felt so unwell I thought I was going to faint. Pushing myself to actually go and stand outside my class 10 minutes before it was to start I started to calm down when talking to someone who would actually be in my tutorial class. Everything about these drama classes have left me feeling uncomfortable and out of place. The tutorial turned into a seminar of sorts where he got us performing chunks of scripts this being after I'd told him on the break about my LSP and him coming over in front of the class to ask if I'm okay with reading through the scripts out loud because of my anxiety. It just felt like every class went from one disaster to another. Especially as by this point on Thursday night I'd nearly been in two bus crashes.

So today I had to remind myself I hadn't actually taken a film class yet. The tutor had seemed lovely over emails. The building was different (so different it was like a bloody maze!) So I picked myself up and threw myself onto the bus at the crack of dawn (as this campus has no student parking) and kept telling myself as I listened to a podcast interviewing Toby Stephens I was going to be okay. I arrived at uni and just tried walking as confidently as I could to the building I knew it was in. That's when I also realised that all the alarms on the campus were going off and no one knew why. Ignoring them as I didn't want to even risk a panic attack starting I started walking through the building and got lost twice. The second tutor I spoke to for help showed me to the room I'd be in and they had an actual waiting area which had comfy chairs. This was the first time this week I had somewhere that wasn't a hard floor to sit down and just breathe before class. As my friend Callum got shown as I texted him overly excited for the prospect of comfy chairs. When the tutor turned up I started to feel my anxiety slightly increase but from the moment the class started it was nothing like drama had been previously in the week. Everyone had masks on and he requested they stay on. He was so kind and good at putting everyone at ease and made it so easy to talk in class to put your input in. It was like a dream. I'm just glad that I could end the week on this. That this is what I need to focus on for getting myself up on Monday morning. I'm just hoping that drama eventually becomes like my film course.

#personal

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mochachims · 4 years ago

Text

BECAUSE PINK IS YOUR FAVOURITE COLOUR

pairing: park jimin x reader

au: bts quarantining au , university student jimin x student reader

word count: 1.4k

warnings: none , just a whole load of fluff

if only the shortening of daylight hours actually meant that the day didn't feel so long. these days you spent the cold darkening early evenings hold up in your shared apartment. normally, winter wouldn't bother you so much, it was your second favourite season after the calm poise of autumn. yet spending days quarantining, not able to leave your home unless it'd be for your once a week lectures, was really starting to take a toll on you.

and that's how you end up here.

in the closest mini mart to your block of apartments, dressed in an oversize hoodie that wasn't even yours and leggings that were god knows how old with your glasses perched on the bridge of your nose, steaming every couple of seconds as you tried your hardest to breathe slowly. the tips of your fingers that could just about scrape the cloud of fluff that wrapped around your body grazed a couple of items, flinging them into your trolley as you leaned into it, your body weight pushing it along the isles and not even your arms. you let out a sigh staring at the piled packets of ramen, knowing that it had been long since you had eaten a home cooked meal. these days you could only count on your peach flavoured milk, cup noodles and 3am pizza delivery binges to get you through the hard courses of uni. to say you were stressed would be an understatement. it had been so long since you saw your other friends, yes you called and face timed and each of you spammed the group chat- each of you minus jungkook, the graphic designer by day and overwatch killer by night who never seemed to be online, or maybe he was and just didn't respond. it had been the longest while since you had been home and seen your parents and hugged them oh how much you craved physical affection. it wasn't just lack of physical attachments, god help your mental health as that one lesson lecture in uni had been utterly useless, after all you spend all your hours rewatching the videos, searching online, completing assignments and prepping for exams with yourself only. you might as well just not turn up to your friday lecture, i mean you were teaching yourself the entire course anyway. a slight tap of the shoulder popped your bubble of contemplation and brought you back to reality.

there in the middle of the frozen foods isle was your best friend; arms wrapped around you like a koala, tingling breath on your neck as he breathed into his infamous back hugs-the only thing getting you through the lockdown period. you pause for a moment and let the cloth of your hoodies- his hoodies- tangle themselves, basking in all his warmth and familiarity. truth be told, you don't know what you'd do without park jimin. the light of your life- no he was your life. there for you at four am where you screamed at your computer, or there for you at 4pm lifting your drunk and limp body to your bedroom, not before brushing the cheap grocery store wine out from your teeth. sometimes you genuinely think that park jimin was too good to be true, to good to be in your life and the only reason why he happened to be there at every moment in your life was the fact that he was your roommate. he had no choice to stand you because he lived with you and had been living with you for the past two years.

a whine escaped your pale, chapped from the cold lips and a chuckle from his berry ones as he shifted his weight from off your back and leaned on the trolley, taking the cart away from your hold and stacking his items in delicately.

"what have you picked minnie?" and even in the dripping dim white light of the mart, you could still see the small smile that played upon his strawberry lips.

"just some fresh vegetables and sauces, thinking maybe instead of takeaway we could find a recipe online or something?" the huskiness in his voice did not allow you to miss the fatigue that was laced in his words, that and the fact that it was one am and both your online lectures start at eight. he glanced at you, his warm copper eyes finding yours and he smiled.

"let's pay and head back home yeah?" the mask muffling a few of his words but you understood, you had always understood him. you both passed the next few isles, one hand of his pushing the cart and the other wrapped in yours, fingers and hearts intertwined. small talk wasn't needed and at this time, with the both of you drifting in and out of sleep, fighting with the bleaky lights to stay awake, this comfortable silence was enough for you.

"wait here a second babe," he called out to you, and you lazily looked up. a neatly arranged row of hair dye boxes lay in front of you, a range of shades of all colours yet your gaze fell short once it reached the central tones of pink. the same box that jimin had already had in his hands. your fingers called out to his now dark hair and caressed the strands slowly, you always had been in love with dark tones on jimin, the contrast between the black and the sweet honey of his kissable skin.

"pink?" you questioned, quietly trying to imagine the pastel painted on his head. jimin paused and stared at you, your attention busy on running your hands through his hair. he watched you silently, for his heart was loud enough to shatter the glass doors. he watched as even on the verge of falling asleep, the stars in your eyes sparkled. that even when you complained how dry the harsh winter was making your skin, it was still soft when he cupped your cheek with the palm of his hand. that even through your hardest moments and your excessive lip biting, he wanted to so badly kiss away the doubts that spilt from your lips and then plant a slow peck on your forehead, encouraging you that whatever was on your mind he wants to know- he wants to share. he wants you.

"why pink?" you asked, now turning your attention on to him and for several moments, his heart stopped and thumped and then slowed. irregular beats matching his incapability to gather his thoughts and form a single coherent sentence.

because it's your favourite colour, he wants to say. it's the colour of your favourite strawberry lipgloss, your stupid peach milk that takes up all the space in his fridge, your fluffy sweaters that feel like a cloud when he 'accidentally' falls asleep and cuddles into you, the colour of your blushing cheeks whenever you see something you love, whenever you see him and try and hide your flustered state that he loves to see. its the colour of your beating heart that he wants to hold and make his own.

because you are pink and he loves you.

the two of you make it home, running in the cold and out of breath. you dye his hair the same night and he loves the feeling of your soft fingers in his hair so much that he decides that he's going to dye his hair more often for moments like this. and when he washes it all away and catches you struggling to stay awake despite his desperate attempts to get you to sleep before another hard day.

you stop and stare at him in awe. the blush that hugs his soft waves, it's wet each strand is but you can still see its vibrancy that lights up your small living room. the rosiness shining a perfect shade against his milky skin. he notices that its been a good few moments since he had showed you and since then you havent stopped smiling, your eyes havent stopped twinkling. in fact your smile widens at your favourite colour on his hair and jimin knows that he wants you to always smile like this, smiling because of him just makes his heart jump to cloud nine and make a home there.

"how do i look?" he asks after what seems forever in a few unspoken moments.

“beautiful” you whisper, letting out the breath that you had been holding in. fingers aching to reach and just touch it, touch him.

and yes, you are beautiful.

#bts fluff #bts bangtan sonyeondan #bts one shot #bts fanfic #bts park jimin #park jimin #jimin au #jimin fluff

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coldcolourchords · 3 years ago

Text

Turning 21 - an unwanted landmark

It happened an hour and 20 minutes ago, as the clock hit midnight CEST and the date changed so seamlessly to the 12th, without any hesitation, uneventfully and in complete silence, just as expected. The day I've been negatively anticipating for the better half of the past one year has come, and it caught me sitting at my computer alone in the living room, drinking hot tea on a summer night in a sweater and doing my silly little tasks that I call "work" (because despite my best efforts, middle of the night is still the only time of the day I can function as intended).

I remember ever since I was a child I always used to start mentally preparing myself for my birthday from New Year's Day. Even my mother used to say, "now that it's 2010, you're already 10 to me", even though August was still nowhere to be seen. But that felt good at the time. The beginning of a new year and my birthday approaching meant hope and progress, as the only thing I wanted as a child and as a teen was to grow up and not have to be a child anymore. I didn't like going to school, I didn't like being told to do things, I didn't like not being taken seriously, as I'm sure no one does. But by "didn't like", I mean it caused me severe emotional distress, the stuff that happened to me every single day without my control. It's hard to tell now in retrospect what caused what, but I have memories of developing my two most prominent and persistent mental disorders at around 6 years old (social anxiety and a BFRB) which have isolated me and often subjected me to cooler kids poking fun at me, shortly followed by starting school in the middle of my parent's divorce and moving houses. One of our last dinners in my father's comforting family home at the dinner table, I remember being visibly sad and my mum asking me what was wrong. My slightly belated answer ("everything") did not quite get the desired reception, as she and my little brother went on to have a little giggle over making assumptions about what that must include ("I'm sure she's sad over dinosaurs going extinct too..."). And, from then on, it's pretty much been downhill. I didn't like being home and I didn't like being at school (or at any of the million extracurricular activities my mum had picked out for me falsely thinking they could stop me from hurting myself and not just accelerate it). The ever-present social anxiety, bottled up frustration, high academic expectations and confusion about the nature of my very own self-destructive behaviours did not make for an enjoyable time in any of my 12 years at school. So, obviously, all I could do was anticipate the end. The end of being vulnerable to the very systems that were meant to nurture me and protect me.

I think that was my way of thinking all the way until I turned 19. Two years ago. At 19, I had graduated high school, I was about to start university studying something I was interested in, I had a semi-stable student job I liked and I was ready to move in with my boyfriend (a former classmate), separate from our parents. I had an artistic goal that I was ready to work for in my free time, and living away from home I was finally going to get the capacity to do so as well. And then when all of this happened and my thoughts became occupied with the new kind of responsibilities that came with "adulting", I started getting this overwhelming feeling of "what now?". A couple months have passed in the blink of an eye, it was November and I wasn't happy. I was making virtually no progress on my creative goals, my flat was a smelly mess, I didn't see my friends and I wasn't making new ones, and I found university to be draining and incompatible with my brain. I wasn't enjoying anything. I thought, "is this how I'm going to have to spend another 3 years?".

And then a miracle happened. I had to give a presentation at uni with a couple of other girls, and one of them suggested a book to do it based on. Reading my part of the book to prepare for the presentation has unlocked something in me - it was a book about the way people manage to feel like hostages due to their own decisions and thoughts. First it hurt to read because I had to face the truth: I wasn't really a hostage of expectations, university or responsibilities, I was a hostage of myself and my own attitude. I even wrote a song about this (my ultimate way of being honest with myself), and that's when I've felt ready to start working on myself in order to take back control over my life. And hell, I have done it. In a couple of weeks, I was feeling the best I've ever felt and I went into exam season thinking I was capable of the impossible at this point. Who knew I had it in me? I had gotten through a couple of exams and assignments and I was thinking soon I was going to start improving in other areas of my life as well. I was going to make art, see my friends again, go out, have fun, maybe learn to cook and be a better girlfriend too. Not a lot of that has happened. Came the end of exams and the second half of January and I was already exhausted. My job was at a halt and uni wasn't back on until mid February, so I spent a few shallow weeks at home just thinking "why am I doing this again?". It was difficult, suddenly having too much space for negative thoughts and rumination.

But it was only the start of the pandemic when my race with time has really begun. Which is ironic, because when the restrictions were first announced in my country, I really saw a lot of opportunity in them to grow for myself (and I mean this is in the least "this deadly virus is a blessing in disguise" way possible). University moving online and social gatherings being nothing short of illegal all of a sudden felt more than convenient for my social (but very luckily not health) anxiety ridden brain, and I had imagined this was going to be the most prosperous phase in my life, in terms of moving forward with my goals.

Ever since I was little, I had dreamed of becoming a musical artist. No one ever encouraged me - maybe for a good reason - and I tried to keep quiet about it as well. I was so ashamed of desiring something that was so "unlike me" according to everyone who knew me. I never had a good voice and everyone perceived me as shy, on top of being seen as more of a "STEM girl" (until I went to high school for maths and ended up not understanding any of it anymore). I'd been writing lyrics into my phone since 14 and attempting to turn them into actual songs on my laptop since 17. At 18, I even took a beginner's course in Ableton. Still, I just never felt like anything I wrote was of any worth or that I had a single ounce of talent in any part of the process. But I kept on dreaming and pushing because I thought "if I don't try, how will I know?". My work ethic was awful too, I was an inconsistent writer and an even more inconsistent producer. I never got anything finished because I got lost in the details and gave up due to my perfectionism. Plus, and this is what I perceived to be the biggest problem at the time, I could only record music at home, and my family were home all the time. Moving out, I thought I was going to prosper, then I didn't prosper for a bit, told myself it was okay because uni was making me depressed, then I continued to not prosper, told myself it was okay because I had to rest up after exams. And then it's like the universe said "Stop. You're just making excuses. Stay home and produce those songs now because there will NOT be another opportunity like this".

I put so much pressure on myself then to get stuff done. It felt like my time - all my adolescence I was looking at teenage popstars rising to fame and each year they were just getting younger and all I did was compare myself to them and worry. Worry that I was running late, that no one was going to ever care about me because I am late, but growing up I excused it every time. I was home with my family and stressed because of school all the time, duh, how could I have made good art? But right there, at the beginning of "quarantining", it was just me and my willpower. No school, no job, no impromptu social plans. And who knew how long it was going to last? Some people said only four weeks, some others said months, some the rest of the year. All I knew was I was 19, still young and practically a teenager, and I had to act. And I did. I made two of the worst songs you've heard in your life and I put them both out in the summer under my own name. Like proper released them on streaming services and all. Looking back now, holy hell, how desperate was I, posting it on my social media that people I actually knew followed? With my fear of being ridiculed? I was setting myself up for an emotional disaster. Shock horror: my songs didn't blow up (although I have had a few friends say lovely things about them, at least to me). By the time of scheduling the second one for release (mid July) I was already feeling burnt out. Yes, there was another exam season in the meantime, and the unexpectedness of the elongated pandemic has definitely been a factor as well, but generally I was just so let down by the overall underwhelming experience. I made such bad decisions - why my own full name? Why did I have to let people know and thereby handicap myself? Of course I wasn't going to promote my songs now or even speak of them positively because I feared coming off ridiculous. So I just let the whole thing pass without a sound and made myself sad. By last August, I was back to "what now?".

Needless to say, there were no festivals last summer. Festivals used to be my ultimate summer happy place and I always celebrated my birthday at a specific one (the biggest one in my city to be exact) starting with the 15th. Concerts and festivals were somehow simultaneously an adventurous escape from all my worries and the root of a lot of my confidence issues and anxiety. I dreamed of being on stage and presenting my art to the world, pouring my heart out to even just one person who will listen, the same way that I listen to my favourite artists and what they have to say. Some nights were emotional, some nights were energising, some nights were spent worrying about the people who surrounded me and some nights were just pure jealousy and feeling far away from my goals - you never knew what you were going to get at a gig. I think that overall most gigs were bittersweet experiences for me, but that's how I liked them to be. The whole point was just to feel something. But there were no festivals last year. There were concerts, though, put on by local bands, but lord do I wish there hadn't been any. I went to two of those last summer - one I went to alone and walked away feeling like shit, another I went to with my friends and felt extremely guilty and anxious about the virus after. This second one happened to be two days before my 20th birthday. I spent my birthday worried to death that I got the virus (even though numbers were extremely low at the time in my country and going to small gigs was perfectly legal and deemed not dangerous) and that I was going to infect my elderly relatives who I was going to meet with later. That didn't happen, but I haven't been to a single show since then, and it's been a year. So that's how my first non-festival birthday worked out.

Turning 20 didn't feel good and my birthday aligned with the onset of a bunch of new problems as well as old ones accelerated. I began to think deeply about everything. What was the point of anything I was doing? Was any of it going to get me anywhere? Was any of it causing me joy, even? I didn't know what to do about my musical efforts - should I keep trying to put out songs or admit defeat? I still had that creative drive in me and I worried so much about my role in the world - "I'm not a good friend, not a good girlfriend and not a good daughter, and I certainly will never become a good psychologist directly helping people with their problems. I need to give something to the world - I need to find a purpose". I didn't do stuff because I was anxious, and then I was anxious because I didn't do stuff. But I think at that point I also realised I didn't only want to succeed and produce. I also wanted to live. Having fun was missing from my life too. I rarely saw or talked to friends and my relationship wasn't going well either. Every day I tortured myself looking at other people live their lives on social media and thinking to myself I wanted what they had. I wanted to be someone. I wanted to create, to connect and to matter, but all of these things have only ever caused me anxiety in my life and I didn't know where to go from there.

With the virus getting worse again and the start of another online semester, there was one silver lining to locking myself in again though. During the pandemic, I have been playing a lot of video games, possibly even more than before. They weren't only a nice way to numb my brain and relax - no, the opposite, they were actively giving me a temporary sense of direction and progress with each gaming session. I have always loved The Sims for this reason, I had spent so many years building and perfecting my little worlds to my liking and practicing full control over my characters' lives, but this time I began to feel like it was something bigger. I discovered the Sims side of the internet, something I had not really done before, and the amount of content, help, info and Sims-related entertainment has blown me away. Whole new levels of playing have been unlocked for me and I began to dive deeper than ever. I wanted to be part of the community, so in the autumn I started streaming the game on Twitch and this time I knew better than to tell anyone I already knew about it. That didn't quite turn out as I expected, and my streamer phase was cut short in January by someone I knew from high school accidentally finding my stream. Before that, I would only get moderately anxious before streams, not worried much about what viewers were going to think of me (if they find me annoying they'll just leave and I'll never have to hear from them again), but then that unexpected turn of events ruined everything in my head. All my confidence I had built up was suddenly gone. I never streamed again after that. It wasn't really for me anyway, I told myself.

Instead, insistent on further pursuing the only thing that was giving me joy at the time, I started my YouTube channel initially uploading Sims tutorials, because I thought I had useful stuff to show people that has a greater chance of making someone happy than just watching me try to put together a sentence for 5 minutes straight while my Sims struggle to get in the shower by themselves. And much to my surprise, it was gaining decent traction, although I put a lot of it down to luck even today. But either way, it's been growing more or less consistently ever since, and beginning of the summer I stopped to think "could I not just be doing this for a living now?". "Could this be my new creative ambition?". As much as I would have liked to say yes based on my progress and how I managed to earn the same amount I would have earned in a month at my part-time retail job (we're talking Eastern European sums kids!), it wasn't that simple. Thoughts around this have of course been puzzling me for months now. I like to think of myself as a natural talker, just because I am anxious I am NOT quiet or shy. I can even make small talk very well, it's just that because I'm mortified by the possibility of an awkward silence I tend to avoid situations where it might be required. And I talk to myself all the time. So on paper, talking to a camera should not be an issue. And yet every time I record a video I feel my soul being sucked out of my body because I need to make sure I say every sentence correctly and that ends up in draining 4 hour recording sessions. Editing videos, on the other hand, is a rewarding process, a kind of flow-experience I have not really known before, though extremely long and usually detrimental to my sleep schedule (which is far from being rosy by default). Maybe I just put too much effort into everything, but it really makes you question - is it worth it? Can I really be doing this on the long run without destroying myself? And will I ever get used to the social interactions that come with it?

It's weird, suddenly getting recognition for something, people giving me positive feedback on the daily. This certainly happened more suddenly than I thought it would and I don't think I was prepared. Naturally, people taking the effort to leave me nice comments and messages makes me want to reply, appreciate their kindness and return the favour but the trinity of little demons inside me - social anxiety, impostor syndrome and a chronically low self-esteem - makes this a difficult task to complete. To combat the overwhelming weight of responsibility that comes with making sure I appreciate everyone who appreciates me enough, as well as to shut out the fear that what I have now can be taken away from me any second, I have built up a mental wall between me and my relative success. This wasn't a conscious choice, it's just the way my brain has started dealing with this new situation. I do not allow myself to internalise the rewards of what I work so hard for and that contributes to why, when I look back on 2021 so far, all I see is depression despite having "gotten what I wanted". My YouTube channel has been the only thing bringing hope and the only thing I've got going for me and yet I am incapable of embracing it.

The past one year has been enlightening. It has enlightened me that there must be something deeply wrong with me because I have not been able to enjoy life even at times I had all the reasons to. The times I am capable of letting go and feeling happy for short periods come exactly based on that - short periods. I'm drifting into states of bliss only when I know the situation is temporary and doesn't come with commitment and responsibility. Some of these moments of calmness come to me while walking to the store by myself after dark, getting invested in my video games, meeting up with my friends for an evening every once in a while and writing a therapeutic song just for myself using the simplest chords on the piano. The feeling usually doesn't last and disappears at the first attempt to get back to any kind of organised schedule (that attempt on most days is the simple act of trying to force myself to go to bed). Isn't that ironic? I wanted purpose. I wanted to get it together. And yet... every day is a struggle. I know now, I am the problem. Whether it's a chemical imbalance or another anomaly in my brain or my own fault somehow, it's not my circumstances, it's me. I wanted to be free and to make my life my own, and now I just can't. Every day I worry about running out of time, rapidly approaching death and not being able to say that I have lived. This is why turning 21 fills me with so much panic. I am no longer a child and I'll never be again, although I wouldn't even like to be. I just can't help thinking that I wasted so many opportunities to enjoy myself and to push for my goals. But it's gone now and there's no point regretting how I used to think about life back then. If I look back on my life so far I see a lot of stuff that happened that made half of my brain temporarily happy, but the other half was always filled with anxiety, anticipation to get out or dissatisfaction. It was just never fully right and I keep hoping that there will come a time when it will feel fully right. Before turning 19, I thought independence was going to give me that. Now at 21, I'm not quite sure there's anything that's going to give me that if I don't also start to work through every single one of my issues (although part of me still likes to cling onto the idea that once I'm done with my first and last degree, a lot of underlying stress and guilt will be taken off my shoulders and I'll see everything in a different light). So for a start, I just finally signed up for psychological counselling. I don't know if it will help but it's something and I've done it for myself. I need to do more for myself.

There is so much more I could talk about. Like the pandemic, how I've turned into a hermit, my relationship, struggling to be honest with myself and slowly losing touch with my all time number one passion because of it. I could talk about how I know that society has been deliberately making us (especially women) feel scared of aging and yet I still file it under personal issues, how I've been trying to fix my sleep schedule for a year and a half straight now, the guilt I feel from my family and friends all the time, my inability to concentrate and how I fall into despair concerning the future and present of humanity every time I read the news and people's opinions on social media. I could talk about how I want to cry every time I see a picture of somewhere beautiful in the world - a street in Japan, a lake in the Alps or the trees in the Mediterranean - because I feel a longing that is almost nostalgic for places I've never even visited. There is always so much to still be told to complete the story, but why do I want people I'll never fully know to understand me that well? I need to let go of compulsions like these.

Deep down I just hope that I'm not the only one terrified of growing old.

#21 #happy birthday to me #long story long #welcome to my brain #aging #depression #anxiety #growing up #growing old #young adulthood

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woah-were-halfway-there · 5 years ago

Text

The Most Stressful Time of the Year.

A/N: Just a little something I thought up over these past few days that is pure fluff. (And my first hockey player one shot, yikes, so please be nice) Hope you enjoy 😊.

Word Count: 2.1k

“Aus, hey.”

Although your boyfriend was partially aware that he was being called, he was too focused on his phone to even bother giving whoever was talking to him any attention.

“Auston?”

His brows furrowed as he read through his text conversations with you. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The two of you were talking about a possible date to the Toronto Christmas Market in the upcoming weeks before you wished him luck, and he had to put his phone away to get ready for the game in Philly.

It was a tough loss against the Flyers, and the entire team was in pretty low spirits because of it, but what threw Auston off, even more, was how when they were getting ready to leave the arena, and he finally looked at his phone again, there wasn’t a single notification from you.

He was almost positive it was nothing, but he’d grown accustomed to having at least one message from you as soon as he got off the ice. It was your thing. After every game, you would always say how proud you were and how much you loved him, regardless of the score. Auston appreciated it immensely, and although he had grown so used to such a small yet meaningful action, it still made the butterflies in his stomach flutter with affection. So, to not see a message from you after a game; made him worry a little bit.

You were in the midst of exam season at uni and up to your ears in homework, which was why you didn’t tag along for the trip to Philadelphia in the first place so that you could attend the game in Toronto the following night; maybe go to the Raptors game the night after. Before the game, you told Auston that you’d be up late finishing your assignments and would meet him at Pearson just like you usually did. What you didn’t tell him though, was just how exhausted you were with everything going on in life at the moment. Although he did ask you how you were doing on multiple occasions earlier in the day, you insisted that you were fine and made sure to not show how tired you were during a brief facetime call the two of you shared.

As soon as he dipped out of the dressing room, Auston called you. Again, it was something he always did after a game; but when he was instantly met with your voicemail… he was a bit confused. So, he sent you a text.

Auston

Heading to the airport now. Can’t wait to see you, x.

He couldn’t help but anxiously glance at his phone every time it buzzed with a new notification in hopes that it was you saying you’d gone to get a bite to eat or something. However, when the device dinged, and it wasn’t a message from you, his facial features would fall slightly, and he’d let out a sigh; gestures that didn’t go unnoticed by his teammates as they made their way through the airport terminal.

As everyone boarded the plane, Auston tried once more to call you, getting in the way of John and William as they tried to pass him in the narrow hallway. He didn’t realize at the time, but a few of the guys were watching as he began pacing and stressfully pushing his free hand through his hair once reluctantly hung up his phone after being met by your voicemail again. It was then they decided maybe someone should see what was going on.

Freddie was the one who decided to step up and ask what was up. But it still took him a few tries to actually gain his teammates’ attention.

“MATTHEWS!”

Jumping at the sudden outburst behind him, Auston was quick in whipping around to face Freddie. “Woah! What’s your deal?”

“My deal? What’s your deal? You’ve been acting weird since we left the arena. Everything alright?”

Auston sighed.

“You’re going to think it’s pathetic.”

“More pathetic than I already think you are?” Freddie quipped. “I’m kidding. Clearly, something is bothering you. What’s going on?”

With another sigh, Aus explained the situation. He said how he didn’t want to think much about it because maybe you were just busy with schoolwork, but there was also this weird feeling about it all that he couldn’t shake. What if something happened to you?

Freddie was able to see where he was coming from easily. He knew of yours and Auston’s cheesy antics, having seen it first hand since the two of you started dating, and to be completely honest, even he found it a little strange that no one could get ahold of you… especially Auston.

“That is a little weird, not going to lie.”

“I know,” your boyfriend huffed as a flight attendant came by to say they’d be departing soon and for them to please take their seats. “I’m probably overthinking it, but, ugh, I don’t even know…”

“It’s part of your routine, man,” Freddie reasoned. “You’re worried cause you’re not used to suddenly not hear from her, any of us would be if it were our girlfriend. But, we’ll be back in Toronto in a couple of hours. I’m sure she’s fine and will be there waiting to pick you up.”

“You’re right, thanks, man,” Auston replied with a smile before getting into his seat and trying to relax for the flight home.

As soon as the plane landed and he was able to turn his phone off airplane mode, Auston stared at his phone, hopefully, thinking it would light up with just one simple message from, but still nothing. His face fell immediately, growing even more anxious as he gathered his things and exited the plane.

You ended up not being at the gate waiting for him, and that made him feel even worse. Panicked even. So, he tried calling you again to make sure you were ok.

All he cared about at that point was knowing that you were safe. He couldn’t have cared less about you not picking him up or texting him after the game; right then, all he wanted to know was that nothing had happened to you, and all would be fine. But yet, he still couldn’t get an answer.

“Hey, she’s probably at home asleep or at the library studying or something,” Mitch spoke up from behind him. “I just got off the phone with Steph, she was talking to her earlier tonight. Said she was exhausted but had a lot to work to do, I’m sure she’s fine, Aus.”

I’m sure she’s fine. No matter how many times he was told that it was becoming harder for Auston to believe. However, there wasn’t much he could do while stuck at Pearson and you somewhere downtown.

“Yeah, um, I think I’ll just stop by her apartment… Don’t think she’d be at the library this late. Think I could catch a ride with you and Mo?”

“Of course, let's go.”

The three men made their way into the city as quickly as they could with the odd late-night traffic. Your apartment was a one-bedroom in the Church-Wellesley Village. It resided above a coffee shop, and even with its small size, you never complained, despite it being in a rougher part of Toronto’s downtown core when comparing it to where Auston’s fancy condo was. You found it after your first year of university as you were moving out of student residence and had stayed there since. However, after dating Auston for as long as you have, you pretty much lived with him and had plans to not renew your lease in the spring so that you could properly move in together.

But your apartment was near your school, so it made sense that you crammed yourself up there rather than at Auston’s with how early some of your exams could be, and how much you hated waking up for them. Also, that’s where you said you were when you and he talked earlier in the day.

You liked your apartment, to put it simply, and although you’d never admit it… you much preferred being at Auston’s when he was there as opposed to alone because it didn’t quite feel like home just yet.

When Morgan pulled up outside of your building, Auston was quick in grabbing his stuff and bolting. He muttered a quick thanks and goodbye to his teammates, saying he’d keep them updated, before digging the key you gave him out of his pocket so he could use it to let himself in. He made his way up the dingy staircase to the second floor and walked down to the hall to your door, taking a deep breath before opening it and hopefully seeing you on the other side.

But your apartment was dark and empty.

Auston could see indications that you were there at some point when he switched the light on, but after a quick look through the space, he determined you were definitely not there. But where could you be? It was too late for the library to be open, he was sure someone would’ve known if you’d gone to a friend from school to study… but no one knew anything. It was as if you had vanished.

He raked his mind for ideas of where you could be, and the only other place he could think of was his condo. Again, although you never admitted it, Auston knew you didn’t love being at his condo alone. He was determined to make it feel like home for you and things were definitely progressing in that direction, but you still hadn’t moved in fully and he was pretty sure you wouldn’t want to be there on your own until that happened. But he figured there was nowhere else you could possibly be, so that’s where he headed.

It was a short Uber ride from your apartment down to where his condo was, but for Auston, it seemed like ages. He didn’t make very much conversation with the driver, just the basic hellos and how are yous, all while his knee bounced anxiously and, he wished he could just get there faster.

As soon as he arrived, he was rushing through the building's front doors and to the elevators. It took dreadfully long for him to finally get to his floor before the doors opened again and, he hurried down the hallway to his unit. He was quick unlocking the door and pushing it open, before letting out an audible sigh when he was able to see inside.

You were completely passed out. Curled up on the large sectional in the living room, surrounded by various notes and textbooks with your laptop still open on the glass coffee table. The blinds on the windows were still open, showcasing the nights CN tower light show in the distance, while Sportsnet's late-night reruns of NHL highlights played on the flat-screen TV.

Auston couldn’t help but chuckle at himself over how worried he’d gotten, but also at his relieved he was just to know you were safe.

With a slight shake of his head, he dropped his things by the door, took his shoes off, and made his way over to you. He gently scooped you up off the couch bridal style, smiling as you unconsciously nuzzled into his chest, and carried you to the bedroom. He tried so hard to not wake you, but struggled in opening the door while making sure to not drop you in the process; ultimately resulting in you being jolted awake.

“Aus?” You muttered sleepily while knuckling at your eyes. “W-when did you get home? What time is it?”

“Almost 3am,” he replied with a soft smile.

“What!? I- oh my god, I thought I set an alarm to wake me up if I fell asleep. I didn’t even see the whole game.”

“Trust me, you didn’t miss much. Was worried about you though, couldn’t get ahold of you regardless of how hard I tried.”

“Oh,” you said quietly as he laid you down on the bed and tucked you in before beginning to strip down to his boxers. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to- oh shit, I was supposed to pick you up I-.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” he chuckled as he switched off the light and crawled into the bed beside you. The loud yawn you let out as he pulled you into his chest didn’t go unnoticed by him, and he couldn't help his smile as you instinctively cuddle up against him. “I’m just glad you’re safe. Are you ready for your exam tomorrow?”

“I think so.”

“Good. Let’s get some rest then, yeah?”

“Deal,” you answered while letting your body gradually relax as you began falling sleep again. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he replied and placed a soft peck to your forehead before holding onto you just a little bit tighter than usual, and eventually let himself drift off into a peaceful sleep as well.

#nhl imagines #nhl writing #nhl fanfiction #auston matthews #nhl imagine #auston matthews imagines #auston matthews fanfiction #hockey imagines #toronto maple leafs imagine #hockey imagine #hockey fanfiction #auston matthews imagine #hockey rpf #nhl rpf #nhl headcanon

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erischaos · 5 years ago

Text

the beginning

summary: on your anniversary, you remember how you met Johnny.

words: +1,9k

tags: fluffy

It all started a few years ago, in 2017, when you were doing a part-time job in the SBS radio as the script writer and semi-producer for a new show that was going to take place in march. The only thing that they told you about it was that it was going to be host by two newly debuted idols from a very famous company, a new that made you very excited. A few weeks later a meeting with both of them took place but you had a final exam at uni and you couldn´t attend, which made you a lot more nervous since you still didn’t knew who the idols were, because that information was confidential. The first show came sooner than expected, and as a part of the team you were finally going to met the idols. While you were waiting for them to arrive one of your girl coworkers came to you.

“y/n you can’t imagine how handsome they are” she said, almost screaming “you’re going to die when you see them” you laughed but since you were a little picky you choosed to not take her words too serious. But, oh lord, how wrong you were.

Two tall men came through the door, a blond and a brunette one. You weren’t stupid and you didn’t lived under a rock, but you were distracted enough to not notice the name of the show, which gave away completely the name of the group. A very young Jaehyun and Johnny stood in front of you and introduced themselves to the team. Jaehyun was pretty, he was a very beautiful man, his kind eyes and his dimples were to die for, but Johnny, he was a different story. He wasn’t just pretty, his particular features left you breathless at first sight, and his aura was captivating and it made your knees weak. You felt embarrassed, he was an idol yes, but first of all he was your new coworker, and you weren’t a teenager anymore.

After all of the formalities the tallest, Johnny, came to you and started to ask a lot of technical stuff and you did your best to explain but damn, you were blown away. His eyes were a beautiful shade of honey and he never cut the visual contact which made you a lot more nervous and flustered. His voice was deep and assertive, it really looked like he knew what he was talking about, it even seemed like he knew more than you. He called his friend and you explained both some things about the script and when the time came they started the show. You were surprise this was their first time, they looked nervous but at the same time they were eloquent and funny. You tried your best to pay attention to your work, because that’s what they were paying you for, not to look at Johnny. But damn, it was hard.

A week passed and the only thing that you did was waiting for the night to see him. You were going mad. He was just a man. An idol, a very handsome and cute, and funny, and kind man, but at the end he was just a man. You realized you were completely fucked up when you started to watch his fancams. I mean, he was famous, talented, successful, and you were a very average looking exchange student who every month struggled with paying the bills. You mentalized yourself, that night you were going to do your work and nothing else, but he made it difficult though, every night before starting he used to talk to you about whatever was on his mind. But this time you were going to stay strong and tell him you had to be focused on your work.

Everything was going fine at first, but Johnny wasn’t going to let you live in peace. Actually, he was going to change your whole life with a single question.

“y/n would you like to take a coffee with me after tonight’s show?” your whole brain shut down. The only thing you could do was to blurt “yes, yes, sure, I would like that a lot” Great, you sounded like a fucking asshole, and a very, very desperate one, congratulations.

You were nervous like you��ve never been in your life. And confused, was this a date? A simple coffee? What did he wanted to talk about? About the radio? Jesus, you haven’t had a date in years. Time passed surprisingly fast for your liking and soon you found yourself on the cafeteria of the building having a decaffeinated cappuccino and listening to him talk about NCT 127 promotions. You weren’t sure if it you passed out from the stress and it was all a dream or if you actually had Johnny Suh talking to you about his day and laughing at your dad jokes.

Soon it became a routine, every night after the show you both went to the cafeteria and talked until late about your childhood, your dreams, your fears, until you had to leave to go to sleep so you didn’t die at uni next morning. Talking to him was effortless, it was like you knew him all your life, he was even better than what you thought, so full of love to give, smart, thoughtful, trustable, caring, so you weren’t surprised when you realized you were in love. It happened after a little hiatus the program took for a show they had overseas, and when you saw him again for the first time it hit you. He came almost running to you and hugged you tight in front of all the team “I missed you a lot” he said, muffled by your hair. You found yourself breathless once again and mumbled a tiny “me too”. And just like that the realization came: you were deeply and madly in love with Johnny Suh and you wanted him to hold you like that for the rest of your life. You both let go the hug and everybody went back to work, except for you two. “a little bird told me your birthday is in a few days so, I was wondering if instead of a coffee you would like to have dinner with me” you were shooked, if the coffee dates weren’t actually a date, this was. And for your birthday! You were exploding with happiness.

That night also was when the first kiss happened. While the program was going on and Jaehyun was reading some twits from the fans, you and Johnny locked eyes. And it felt different, it wasn’t a simple visual contact, it was filled with a tension of some kind, you could feel it from across the glass and you were sure he was feeling the same too. He went on with the script but he never stopped looking at you and it was getting very intense and it only stopped when it was time for the commercials. Eventually the show ended and like every night you both headed to the elevator to go to the cafeteria floor. Normally being on the elevator with him felt overwhelming but to a normal amount. That time he didn’t even gave you time to feel nervous, as soon as the door closed he roughly leaned his whole body against yours until your back touched the wall, looking at you in the eyes, like if he was asking for your permission, you pushed him down by the nape and connected your lips to his. It was the most intense kiss you ever had, it conveyed so much passion, weeks of holding back now were being unleashed in a single kiss. His lips were heaven and hell, so dangerous but so necessary, like a drug. His hands were all over you and yours were tugging at his perfectly styled hair, now messy. You were forced to stop when the elevator reached its destiny and the door opened but your legs weren’t responding and him didn’t moved either, so you stayed for a few seconds looking at each other, breathing heavily, until you both started laughing and finally came out.

The new routine was making out in every corner of the building everytime you were alone and then go to drink coffee and chat like nothing happened. Like if you weren’t a mess, and like if he hadn’t had to hide a boner everytime. It was surreal.

Since the radio program ended after twelve o’clock you celebrated your birthday along with your coworkers, and when the show ended you went to change your clothes while Johnny waited for you in the hall, downstairs. You wore a red dress and only a red lipstick since you wanted to look good quickly, and let your hair down. When you finally met you noticed he changed his outfit for a more elegant one: black shirt and black pants. You both flustered when you saw each other “you look amazing birthday girl” he flirted with you. “you don’t look that bad yourself JonhD” you said back. “JonhD?”, he asked confused “yes, you know…your name is John and you are a dj” he laughed out loud at your explanation while he helped you to get on the company van. Soon you arrived to a private restaurant, that giving the hour it was supposed to be closed but SM has its ways.

In the middle of it was a table settled for two and Johnny helped pulling your chair like a gentleman. The conversation went very fluid during all the dinner until the champagne arrived. He stopped talking and stared at your eyes, and you realized they got teary so yours did too. He swallowed and spoke “y/n this might sound a little rushed, giving the fact that we only knew eachother two months ago and all that but” he made a pause to breath and you did too “I think I’m in love with you and, I’ll really love to be your boyfriend” a tear fell from his eye. “i know it might be hard because of my work and the fans but I really want you to be my girl” he started to get nervous since you weren’t answering “I fully understand if you don’t want to though”. You couldn’t bring yourself to believe it, but it was real. He was in front of you, looking at your eyes and saying that he loved you. You were paralyzed and the lump in your throat wouldn’t let you speak, but you ignored it and answered.

“John Suh, nothing in this world could make me more happy right now than call you my boyfriend” you grabbed him by his hands and smiled at him “I love you, I truly do”. He left out all the air he was holding and smiled too “thanks god, I though I was going to have to return your gift” he took out of his blazers pocket a medium sized velvet box and handed it to you. “oh Johnny, you shouldn't have brought me anything” he shushed you and looked at you expectantly. Without wasting any more time you opened it and inside of it was a beautiful and delicate heart necklace with both initials and your birthday date, which now was also your anniversary. Needless to say you were speechless.

Even after a year and with him taking a nap in your lap it all still felt like a dream, Johnny declaring himself to you, and now he being your first love and first boyfriend. You gently stroked his hair with one hand at the same time you were playing with your necklace, after a few minutes he slowly woke up and looked at you “nice double chin, baby” he murmured. “I can’t believe that the first thing you do after waking up is making fun of me” he laughed and you lowered your head to kiss him “happy first anniversary headass”.

Hii!! this is my second scenario ever and since the first one got a lot of notes i decided to write another. its not as good as the first one in my opinion but i had this idea on my mind for a while and i wanted to share it! please if you notice any grammatical error let me know! it means a lot for me if you could like and share<3

Thank you for reading me and STAY HEALTHY.

#NCT 127 #nct blurb #nct scenario #nct scenarios #nct fluff #nct johnny #johnny suh #johnny fluff #johnny seo #johnny scenario #johnny fic #seo youngho #johnny soft hours #johnny suh fluff #nct soft hours #johnny au #nct 127 soft hours

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lilwenney · 4 years ago

Text

LONDON BOY (pt. i)

pairing: will x female!reader warning(s): none word count: 3.2k a/n: WHAT A LOVELY LITTLE SURPRISE x coming in five days sooner than originally planned. this is part one of an eventual two-part series. and whoever sent me an anon months ago saying an imagine based off london boy by taylor swift writes itself, you are correct, & i thank you for putting the idea into my head. i hope u all enjoy x

London September, 2019

A nautical twilight began to set over London as (Y/N) trekked home from the Edgeware station. Her headphones were perched over her head and she listened to the sweet sounds of an indie song while admiring the turn of the blue sky. In the distance, behind the towering London skyline, night had fallen. Unlike all of the other days she rushed home right after class, this day she was taking her time, enjoying the warm, late-summer breeze and the smell of the rain in the air.

She had been cooped up in a university computer lab for five hours that day, working on a digital clip for one of her courses, so now she was taking her chance to stretch her legs and take the deep breath she had desperately needed hours ago.

Just a little ways from her flat, while crossing the street, her phone vibrated in her hand. It was a text from a food delivery service, saying that they were on their way to her address with her order. Even though she had lived in London for just two months, she had already caught on to a few things. And ordering food on the tube knowing that she would make it home just as they pulled up with her delivery was one of them.

And just like always, as she crossed the street to her building, someone on a bike pulled up right next to the entrance. She confirmed her order number and the woman handed her the bag, and with ease, (Y/N) scanned her key and headed into the residential building, taking the lift to her floor.

Shoving her key into the lock, she turned it and pushed the door open, greeted with a hello and the smell of food wafting from the kitchen. “Hey Marg,” she said in response, dropping her key into the small bowl on the foyer table.

Toeing off her own trainers under the table, she looked down to see another pair of unfamiliar shoes next to hers. She raised a brow, not recognizing them from any of the friends who came to visit often. “Whose shoes are those?” She asked, walking into the kitchen and into view of her flatmate, Margot. She crossed the hardwood floors and to the dining table, setting her bag of takeaway down.

Margot hummed, plating her dinner. “Oh, those are Will’s.”

“Will?”

“My brother,” she said slowly, looking over to (Y/N) and the girl just shrugged before sitting down at the table and pulling out her food. “The air system broke in his flat so he’s staying in our guest room until it’s fixed. Should only be a couple of days.”

She nodded, deciding to not ask anymore questions. It was a common occurrence for people to come over and spend the night, mostly Margot’s friends. Her and Margot had only been living together for two months now, so there were still some things they were figuring out about each other.

When (Y/N) moved in, her and Margot hit it off quickly, and within six hours of her finishing her unpacking, they were sitting on her unmade bed with a bottle of wine talking about their lives and spilling secrets they swore they would never tell anyone else.

By the end of the night, (Y/N) found out that Margot came from Newcastle, she had a dog and a boyfriend, and that she was the youngest out of three, and Margot knew that (Y/N) was originally from California, an only child, and that she loved the occasional night out with a vodka soda in hand.

They had almost an entire year to find out more about each other. There was no shortage of time.

(Y/N) was only staying in London for a year to study abroad, it was a spur of the moment decision that led her halfway across the world, moving in with a complete stranger, and living in a foreign world. And so far, she loved every single second of it.

“What are you doing this weekend?” She asked, popping open the lid to her chicken and noodles.

Margot flipped off the stove and walked over to the table, sliding her plate down in front of the seat next to her flatmate. “I’m going to Charlie’s tomorrow morning. He’s gotta finish editing and stuff so we’re just going to hang out.”

Charlie was Charlie Albarn, Margot’s photographer boyfriend. They had been dating since Margot first moved to London a couple of years back. (Y/N) had only met him twice, but she liked him. He was cool enough to help her with photoshop for an entire night when she desperately needed to get an assignment done and was on the verge of a panic attack.

“What about you?”

(Y/N) shrugged. “I don’t know yet. It’s supposed to be nice this weekend and I want to do something new besides staying in all day.”

“Do you have anything in mind?” Margot asked.

“No, not yet,” she said, standing and grabbing a drink from the refrigerator and returning to the table. “I have done all the… touristy things. I want to do something new besides going to the same shopping centre or fighting against a thousand people walking down the street.”

“You went to Piccadilly?”

“You didn’t warn me!” She called out and Margot let out a laugh.

“Everyone should experience the absolute hell that is Piccadilly at least once in their lives. It’s a bloody nightmare.”

(Y/N) laughed, picking up her noodles with the chopsticks and taking a bite. For the next hour, they ate together, talking about their busy schedule and the nonsense that ensued during the day - Margot had missed her train, making her late for class, and she panicked before realizing her professor was standing right behind her and he had also missed the train, and (Y/N) had accidentally tripped in front of a tour group while jogging up the library stairs, and of course, laughter followed.

Margot cleaned up her mess, washing the dishes from dinner while (Y/N) tossed her trash in the bin and walked down the hallway to her bedroom to take a shower. She stripped of her clothes and tossed them into her hamper, stepping in and allowing the hot water to steam the bathroom and wash all of her stress and worries away. Sometimes, long days and the university life truly got the best of her. Even though she loved it and wouldn’t regret studying abroad, it was tiring and overwhelming most days.

If it wasn’t a Friday night, she would already be in bed with the blankets over her head. Instead she put on her pajamas, wrapped her hair in a towel, and lounged on the sofa with Margot when she finished the dishes. They laid facing each other on opposite ends of the sofa and flipped through channels and streaming sites before settling on re-watching episodes of their favorite series that they could watch without worrying about falling asleep in the middle of it.

An hour later, in the quiet hum of the flat, the lock on the door clicked open and (Y/N) shot up, her hands gripping the soft cushion beneath her as her wild eyes met Margot’s. “Is someone there?” She asked, her heart skipping a beat in surprise.

Margot nodded, screwing the cap of her bottle back on as she glanced down the hallway. “Yeah, yeah, it’s just Will. I gave him a key earlier when he left for dinner.”

She plopped back against the arm of the sofa with a sigh of relief. The door shut and footsteps began to trail down the hallway, and she turned the volume on the television down as a body stepped around the corner.

(Y/N) looked up and away from the television, landing on a tall figure standing in the doorway. It was Will. Her eyes landed on him and she quickly took in the sight of his dark hair, his sharp jaw, and even caught a glimpse of his black jersey before she looked back at the screen so he wouldn’t catch her lingering gaze.

“What you doing back so early?” Margot finally asked when he stepped into the room.

Will lowered down onto one of their chairs, picking up the throw pillow and holding it in his lap. “Didn’t even get dinner. Just wound up at Alex and George’s and hung around for a bit.”

“So you came back to eat the dinner you knew I was fixing?”

He looked at her and smiled wide. Eyes trained back on the screen, (Y/N) laughed lightly when she saw just how far he and Margot’s relations went. They shared a few physical qualities, and when she noticed his teasing smile, she knew they were siblings for certain. Margot had pulled the same smile on her numerous times.

Margot sighed in defeat. “There’s a plate in the microwave for you.”

“Right, right,” he jumped up and turned around, walking into their connecting kitchen where he grabbed the plate from the microwave. “It’s like you knew I was starving.”

“No, just knew you liked to steal food so I made extra.” And (Y/N) heard his laugh from the other room and she smiled.

A few seconds later, his feet tapped against the floor and he walked back into the living room, lowering down into his chair with the plate of food in hand.

“Oh,” Margot looked at her flatmate and smiled warmly, “(Y/N) this is my bastard of an older brother William, and Will, this is (Y/N).”

In the semi-dark living room, their eyes met across the coffee table and they quietly said hi to each other with a smile. She noticed how the corners of his lips met his eyes with a smile, and when he took a bite of the vegetables on the plate, she realized once again, she was staring. So she cleared her throat and quickly looked away, her eyes meeting the television where the characters were talking, and then she noticed the time on the clock on the wall.

“I should probably go to bed soon.” She said when the clock hand showed near ten thirty. It was around the time she went to bed every night unless she was up studying or finishing homework.

Will raised his head at her voice, taking note of the lack of a British accent. Margot had told him about her briefly, but he hadn’t paid much attention after the words “uni student.” At first glance, he thought she was cute.

Margot looked up from her phone. “Have you figured out what you are doing tomorrow?”

She yawned and shook her head. “No, not yet. I will probably just pick something to do in the morning and go with it.”

“What’s goin’ on?” Will creased a brow, glancing at his sister and then to (Y/N).

“I’m trying to figure out something to do tomorrow. The non-touristy, crowded stuff though. I have had my fair share of fighting crowded streets and pubs.” She explained. “And I can’t think of anything that I want to do. But I just want to get out and do something.”

“Ah, there’s this really cool place that’s out in the middle of like, fucking nowhere, but it’s a huge building filled with neon signs.”

She laughed. “Do you remember what it was called?”

Will paused and then tilted his head as if searching through his memory. He looked back at her and squinted. “I’ll get back to you on that.”

“Okay,” she laughed again before standing up from the sofa, “I’m heading to bed. I’ll see you two tomorrow.”

The siblings quietly said their good-nights and (Y/N) walked down the hallway to her room, shutting the door behind her, and she slipped under the covers with ease, falling asleep no less than minutes after her head hit the pillow.

***

The West London flat was quiet the next morning. Slowly, the sun rose above the horizon and peeped through the buildings of the skyline, filtering in through the curtains of (Y/N)’s room. She woke up a couple of hours after Margot had left, once gently awakened by the opening and closing of the door down the hallway at eight a.m. sharp, and then she fell back asleep for as long as she could.

She woke up and pulled herself from the depths of her bed, facing the day once and for all at ten a.m.. Sliding on her slippers and walking into the connecting bathroom, she quickly brushed her teeth and then brushed her hair before stepping out of her room and into the hallway. The flat was cold and still, the only sound coming from the slight hum of the air conditioning through the vents.

Margot was gone and Will wasn’t awake yet, so she was trying to be as quiet as possible while she made up a quick breakfast. But her attempts at being quiet were another’s “banging pots and pans.” And that’s exactly what she sounded like to Will.

Plating her eggs and slices of bacon, she heard the quiet rustle of the comforter from the guest room and then the door clicked open. A second later she turned to see Will walk into the kitchen - he was yawning, rubbing his tired eyes with the heel of his palm. He was wearing a jumper and a pair of shorts, hair disheveled from his sleep.

“What are you doing awake?” She asked innocently, using the spatula to shovel the rest of the food onto another plate. After last night and him insisting Margot also fix him dinner, she made sure to make extra for him.

“I woke up after the… third time you burnt the toast? When you were trying your best to whisper.”

(Y/N) felt the back of her neck heat up in embarrassment. “You heard that?”

“All the ‘shits’ and ‘fucks.’”

“Ah, you must have missed the ‘bullshits.’ Those were in the mix too.” She picked up the extra plate and turned around, holding it out for him as she walked towards the dining room.

Will dropped his hand and looked down at the plate. “Ah, you didn’t have to fix me anythin’.” He said and she picked up on his gravely morning voice.

“I know. Just felt like you would want some anyways..” She sat her plate down on the table and grabbed a juice from the refrigerator before returning to her normal chair at the dining table.

He looked at her and smiled sleepily before following her steps over to the table. Like Margot last night, he pulled out the chair across from her and lowered down, taking his fork and diving into the food in front of him.

“You decided what you’re doing today?”

She tsked. “Kind of. Just know there are a couple of places I want to go, but I haven’t really planned it out yet.” She said before glancing back down to her plate. “I found the neon sign place you were talking about. It’s way north, but not too long on the tube.”

“Yeah, can’t remember the name of it for the life of me. It’s fuckin’ weird though.” He said and she laughed, taking another bite of her food. Will looked at her for a second before dropping his head back down, poking his fork at the eggs, mind swirling through his plans for the day, and then he looked back up to her. “But I know the area pretty well, so I can show you, if you want me to.”

Her head snapped up and she looked at him with a small smile. “Yeah?” He nodded and she followed along. “Then, yeah, yeah, you’re more than welcome to come along if you’re not doing anything.”

“Ah, I planned on fixing lunch, probably end up burnin’ it, and then waiting for Margot to get back.”

“Well,” she laughed, “I can promise you a slightly more eventful day than that.” And he smiled at her before they turned back to their breakfast.

An hour later, after eating and washing the dishes, the two returned to their respective bedrooms to get ready. In a rush, she blotted on concealer under her eyes and spritzed on sunscreen, and lastly tousled her hair before deciding to leave it be. Back in her bedroom, she slid into a pair of ripped denim jeans, a black tee, and a pair of matching shiny black boots. But when she saw the cloudy sky through her bedroom window, she made sure to grab her green jacket on her way out too.

“What do you want to see first?” Will asked as they strolled down the pavement to the underground a handful of minutes later.

Jogging behind him down the steps, (Y/N) quickly took in his outfit - black skinny jeans, a plain black tee, and a light denim jacket. She cleared her throat while watching him pull his tube pass from his wallet.

“I don’t know,” she said scanning her pass, following behind him in the turnstile, “you know the place better, what do you have in mind?”

Will paused, stuffing his pass back into his phone case while waiting for her to catch up to him, and they began to walk down the set of stairs to the platforms among at least a dozen others. “Little Venice isn’t too far from here, and then there is the junkyard you wanted to go to,” he listed off, “and there is this really cool rooftop beer garden in the city centre that you would like.”

She raised a brow, a curious grin on her lips. “That I would like,” She repeated, teasingly. “What do you think that is?”

Will turned around, walking backwards while leading her down the platform where the tube was coming to a stop at the station. He met her eyes, a brow raised in a test. “I guess you just have to trust me.”

“Should I?” She teased. “Because I just met you for the first time about nine hours ago.”

Will shrugged. When the doors opened next to the platform, he looked down at his feet and then took a step backwards inside, looking at her with a raised brow. “The choice is all yours, love.”

(Y/N) licked the inside of her cheek as she looked at him with a smile. He was a cute boy offering to show her around the city, to show her the places she had once dreamed of seeing. Of course she couldn’t help but follow along.

When the automated voice stated that the doors were closing, she took two swift steps off the platform and into the tube, her body clashing with Will’s as the doors closed just inches behind her. Looking up, she saw him smile down at her, and her cheeks flushed at the realization of just how close they were. She could smell his cologne.

A beat later, he chuckled and she took a step back, straightening her own jacket. “Don’t make me regret this.”

“You won’t.” He said, reaching up with both hands to hold onto the railing above them, and he looked back down at her. “I’ll give you the bloody best non-touristy-tour of London that will make you wish you paid me.”

“That’s up for me to decide though, isn’t it?”

“Nah, not really. I know how good I am.” And she rolled her eyes before he chuckled before the tube began to move onto their station just a few stops away.

#fic: london boy #will

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bangtansfavwriter · 5 years ago

Text

🥞☕brunch café owner! jin☕🥞

tw: a tiny mention of anxiety and shitty people that you may have encountered in school / uni ( but a lot of fluff to make up for it! )

- so far, your day was a complete catastrophe, im not even gonna tone it down, it was a complete shitshow to be honest

-it was like god woke up and went "i’m gonna let y/n have a shit day lmaoo"

-you overslept and missed your bus... on the day you had an appointment with your lecturer about your term paper

- after tripping on the stairs and hitting your knee, you hobbled to the office where this gollum lookalike was already waiting for you

- your lecturer was unreasonable enough to not let you extend your deadline for your paper... the one book you needed wasn't in the library for the past 3 weeks and there was no other edition available. so you explained the situation multiple times even at the beginning of your writing process, you even wrote him mails to explain the issue

- but this man who literally radiated boomer energy with every particle of his being really had the audacity to not answer, not even to your second mail and then he actually said that he does not understand "how someone of your age doesn't manage to even get a simple task as writing a paper" done

-you explained the situation again but he was pretty much tone-deaf to your situation and didn't even care when you said that you're actually gonna go to the library now to get the book scans

- so you went there already drained and exhausted from that conversation

-but the library was an even worse experience tbh .......

[fic mode: on, hohoho]

The lady in the library yelled at you for no apparent reason after you informed her that the scanner wasn't working and made you look stupid in front of other students who were there until one of them intervened and helped you out, which you appreciated. But this whole situation grew even worse on you after you left the library because your anxiety kicked in. You went straight into a quiet alley nearby and started crying quietly. "But hey!" you then exclaimed angrily, while wiping away your tears "At least the paper is gonna get done, right?! because who gives a shit about mental health and all huh, Mr. Go?!" and you started sobbing again. "Dickhead... And that stupid library lady... with her stupid fat 80s glasses. And her ugly yeehaw look...". This was something you wouldn't ever do in public, crying and ranting that is. but the alley was quiet, your only company was a stray cat that was sleeping underneath a tree's shadow. or so you thought. "Ugly yeehaw people and their ugly ass clothes, like... go read a magazine or something...". You started feeling more liberated with each mild insult you'd utter, so you went on. "Ugly library lady and her giant wart, like who the fuck are you? yubaba?" you heard someone snort and start laughing a squeaky laugh that almost sounded like a windshield wiper. Taken aback by the unexpected witness to your mild breakdown, you stood still at first, then looked around, left and right, but you couldn't see anyone. "Over here!" you heard someone say. You looked around again and sighed when you still couldn't see anyone. "Did I finally lose my mind?" you mumbled to yourself, only to hear the squeaky laugh again. "Hey! Turn around and look up!". You got up the bench and did as you were told by the omnipresent voice and finally saw the person it belonged to. Up at the 1st floor, there was a guy looking down to you from his tiny balcony that had plants hanging down from it. He smiled at you when your eyes met and you felt your heart rate go up in an instant, as you realized this stranger, this awfully handsome stranger witnessed how your petty little rant and crying about yubaba's twin in the library. "Tough day, huh?" he asked, you just nodded and quickly wiped your face with your sleeve. "Oh no, hold on" he mumbled and suddenly disappeared from his window, leaving you behind with a surprised look on your face. A box of Kleenex suddenly landed in front of your feet, as he reappeared at his window. "Just one would have done it, too, but thank you. I appreciate it!" you said and smiled at the guy. While you wiped your face, you heard another something land on the bench. You looked up again to the guy who, all of a sudden, avoided your gaze. "That'll help, you know..." he said and looked at you in surprise when you started laughing. What he threw on the bench was a... bar of chocolate. One that also happened to be your favourite. You looked at him and gave him a huge smile that made his heart flutter. He looked away shyly and scratched his head. "Tough day, yeah... but this right here," you raised the chocolate bar, "this makes it all better, you're right about that. Thank you!" The stranger couldn't help but look at you once again. He almost felt compelled to it. It was like staring at the sun when it sets, you know that you shouldn't stare at it directly, but it's so breathtakingly beautiful that you can't help but look. He intently watched you while you happily munched on your chocolate and smiled to himself. "What's your name?" he asked you. "Y/N! How about you?" - "I'm Seokjin. You can call me Jin..." - "Nice to meet you, Jin. I wish it would have been under different circumstances, though. I'm actually quite embarrassed about that, but chocolate helps with that, too." You two smiled at each other. "You know what, Y/N? Sometimes good things happen at weird times. Don't be embarrassed about crying earlier. I'm the last person who'd judge you because of that. I know that library witch, by the way... That Yubaba comparison was spot on!" You laughed out loud - he very much wished to hear this sound more often now. "Y/N, I gotta get ready for work now. But I'm gonna share one last bit of wisdom with you. I know a good remedy for bad days." - "Better than chocolate?" - "Oh, yes. Even better than chocolate. There's a café in XX street. There's a whole lot of lavender growing right in front of it, you can't miss it. That cafe has the best pancakes in the entire city." - Oh my god, pancakes are the best thing on earth!" - "(!!!) You must go there and try then! They're fluffy and come in 5 different variations and the sweetest maple syrup! I'm telling you, if you have a bad day like this again, go straight to that café." He already got you at pancakes, so you definitely would go there. "I'll finish this damn paper and then go reward myself with pancakes! In one or two weeks I'll get like 2 plates of pancakes then!" - "That sounds perfect!", he laughed. Shortly after, he excused himself and you two bid farewell. He disappeared from his window and your troubles had disappeared from your soul. You went home with a smile on your face, thankful for the kindness he had shown you and hoped that you would see him in the café some day. "Who knows... Maybe he's a regular there. It sounded like it."

Roughly one and a half weeks later, many all nighters and a whole lot of take out food, you finished the paper and handed it in. Liberated from this massive pain in the ass, you went straight to the café that your thoughts circled around during the times you weren't busy with your paper. "God, I hope he's there...", you thought and thought of Jin, who you thought about as much as you dreamed of the huge plate of pancakes you were going to get now. The café was not very far from where you lived, you walked there in about 15 minutes and recognised the place by a very accurate description Jin has given you. The smell of lavender bewitched you as soon as you stepped into the alley the café was in. Lots of flower pots were in the front of it, not only was there lavender but also gardenias and petunias. The flowers were all around the tables outside. "Of course, the flower boy loves the flower café" you said to yourself and smiled. The café wasn't too busy, as you came by at a rather early hour, when there were still lectures for most students and older people were busy at the local market place. You were greeted right away when you entered the café, by a younger man, probably also a fellow student, who was wearing an apron and gave you a warm welcome with his bunny smile. He showed you to your table at the window side from where you could watch bees hurdle at the lavender pots outside. You ordered shortly after, it didn't take much thinking when you saw the "Eat the stress away" menu, with regular pancakes, hashbrowns and a tea/coffee option. "Excellent choice! It's my personal favourite~", your waiter added. You glanced at each other. "Fellow student?" you asked and laughed when he suddenly looked at you with a gloomy look, but joined you in laughter right away. "Shared struggle", he said laughing, leaned over real quick and whispered: "I'll get you some blueberry pancakes, too. I'll tell the chef you're a friend of mine." - "Oh my god, thank you!" He winked and went straight to the kitchen, while humming a tune. Well, this was certainly the sweetest waiter you'd ever encountered. But you had your eyes on the door, hoping for a divine intervention that would lead to Jin coincidentally walk into the café when you were there. Around 15 minutes later you finally sipped on your coffee and were about to devour the fluffiest pancakes you'd ever had on a plate in front of you. The hash browns were a tad bit disappointing, as they had a slighty burnt taste and weren't spiced very well, in your opinion. But the pancakes were absolutely amazing. Their soft and fluffy texture was complemented with butter and the sticky-sweet maple syrup that as truly as good as Jin said. And the blueberry pancakes were so good that you feared losing control over your facial expressions. Your waiter came along to your table, after he got the newest customer orders to the kitchen. You invited him to sit with you, which he gladly accepted. "How do you like it? They're really good, right?" - "I think this is what the kids call 'foodgasm'...", you answered and the two of you giggled. He looked at your plate and noticed the hash browns that you put at the edge of your plate. "Oh? Didn't like the hash browns?" he asked with wide eyes.

"They're slightly burnt, I think..." you said shyly. You were never one to criticize the cook when you didn't like your food in a restaurant. The only time when you actually complained was when you once found hair in your soup in a restaurant, and even back then you apologised for the trouble whereas it was clearly the chef who was at fault. "Please don't tell anyone, this can happen sometimes, I accept that." you quickly added, but your waiter shook his head ferociously. "You paid for this, so it is our duty to bring good food to your table. Our chef is a perfectionist, I don't understand how this can happen anyway. I'll get it sorted out, but not without teasing him. Can you wait a little until the customers are gone here. We close for lunch time. So people are gonna leave soon." You agreed and waited, while befriending the waiter - Jungkook, a 2nd year student who was currently doing a side job at "Café Smeraldo". After the last customer left, Jungkook decided to call the chef by yelling across the café. "He's also the manager you know. We're a bit short-staffed, you know... This is gonna be funny~~ JIN-HYUNG!" You almost spat out your coffee and started coughing as soon as you heard that name. "JIN-HYUNG COME OUT OF YOUR BUREAU! YOU BURNT A CUSTOMER'S FOOD!" He cackled after he heard noise coming from inside, while you sat there mortified. The door from the staff room slammed open and you instantly wished to turn into dust, as said manager/chef was the guy who consoled you on one of the worst days you've had in your academic life. The two of you stared at each other in shock, but before he could say anything to you he started scolding his younger co-worker and the two of them started bickering, while you continued sipping on your coffee, because this whole situation was soon more entertaining than it was mortifying. At some point Jin shushed Jungkook who shut up right away when he realized that this wasn't playful bickering anymore. Jungkook bowed deeply and went to the kitchen where he started cleaning. "You're friends with the boy?" Jin asked and sat down at your table. He looked tired, you thought. "No, actually we met earlier, but I suppose we just clicked very fast." - "So this kid got you my famous blueberry pancakes on the house, huh?" - "...I guess so. Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cause you trouble. I really didn't want him to say anything about the hash browns either." He quickly glanced at them and grabbed one to take a bite, but put it down again before doing so. "I can see it already", he said "you don't need to apologise, it's my bad." He sat there with a gloomy expression and sighed. "Tough day, huh?" you asked and smiled at him when he laughed at your reference. "Tough week is more like it. We're a bit short-staffed at the moment. But enough of me and my manager melancholy. Finished your paper?" You were surprised by his sudden change, but you went along. "Yeah, I turned it in earlier and came here right after. I gave you my word after all." You smiled at him, and he felt the same rush that he had experienced the day he first met you. You continued: "You were right, by the way. These pancakes are everything!! Especially the blueberry ones. Is that your recipe?" He laughed and nodded. "I'm glad you liked them!" he said. "I'll serve you better hash browns the next time, pinky promise. I got a phone call while preparing 3 orders, yours was the only one that suffered from it." - "It happens sometimes. Don't dwell on something so minor." - "Says you, who cried beneath my balcony because of some witch!" The two of you giggled. He looked at you with a look, that made your cheeks burn. His gaze was fond and soft, it was the kind of look you have whenever the sky looks pretty, or when a bird lands near you and sings a little song. Neither of you could break the look you shared, as neither of you could describe a bond that was apparently now formed with chocolate and pancakes. It was him who spoke up first: "Got room for more pancakes?". This question took you by surprise, but pancakes are always a welcome surprise. "Hell yeah, you can never have enough pancakes." - "I need more proof for that, but based on that sentence alone I can say that we may be soulmates, Y/N." You started laughing, as did he. "But why? What do you have in mind? Also, I'm surprised you still remember my name." His cheeks got a very apparent pink hue after your remark and you noticed how grossly you were endeared by this man. "Y/N... How could I forget..." he said with a low voice that made your heart flutter. "How could I forget someone who made me believe there was a banshee at my door for a solid minute!" He broke out in his loud and squeaky laughter as soon as he saw the pure offence and shock on your face, after he said that, because *that* was certainly not what you expected to hear. "You're mean, oh my god!" you exclaimed but had to laugh, too. You guys needed two minutes to calm down again. The pink hue on his face was still there and you felt the rush of confidence in you. He noticed you looking at him and spoke up:

"Y/N... How could I forget someone who has made me smile on a day I didn't feel like smiling at all? I got the news my cook had to quit on the day we met. I thought this was the end for my café. But then, I met you, shortly after I got the news. And seeing you going from crying to happily munching on some chocolate despite having issues that made you cry in public in the first place... Seeing you forgetting your troubles with something so small as a chocolate bar. I don't know... I felt hopeful for some reason. And I love this feeling. And, god... I really hoped you'd take my advice and come here to have my pancakes! (he chuckled) But I have to admit something... I so regretted not asking for your number. For the past week I jumped through the kitchen door everytime a customer came in...". You were pretty sure your heart was soon gonna explode through your chest. He hid his face with his hands and sighed. "I'm not like this at all~" he whined, before facing you again. "But... How about I make us some more pancakes now? And hash browns, if you like. I haven't had breakfast yet and well... I really want to make you pancakes. Can I?" His voice became thinner with each sentence he added, since he came shyer with each bit. You chuckled, in disbelief about how your rapidly beating heart became so calm, yet so full when this man told you he wanted to make you pancakes. No nervosity whatsoever, no second thoughts, nothing. An epiphany over pancakes... Who would have thought? This was safe. This was a safe place for both of you, and both of you felt it.

"A breakfast date then?"

"Breakfast date it is."

"I like the sound of that."

💕

epilogue:

-you two enter the kitchen after you insisted on watching him cook for you-

jk: hyu- oh, hi y/n! you guys know each other? ah hyung, i cleaned up everything and tidied up in the bureau. i'm sorry about earlier. (bows again and stands there shyly)

jin: (sighs very deeply) come here, you dodo.

the two of them shared a short but sweet hug, after which jungkook had a huge smile on his face again. jin and you shared a look and the same thought as you looked at jungkook after.

jin: jk, you wanna have pancakes with us?

jk: huh? yeah sure, i'm actually pretty hungry... (he smiles at you two) I'll go clean up inside real quick and prepare the table! yayy, pancake brunch with friends ☺️ (he leaves you two in the kitchen)

you turned to jin and smiled. "don't even start." he said quickly, while he started getting the ingredients out. "AWWW~~" - "NOOO!"

-the end-

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maddiethebull · 5 years ago

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hi! are your requests still open? if yes, could you please, pleaseeee write prompt #17 for lucien? i've read the gavin one and it was so precious!!! i hope you will have a wonderful day ahead of you!! ✨💋

My requests are still open! Just eternally because I barely have a life! Thank you for complimenting my Gavin fanfic!! You’re so sweet! Thank you for making a request

Lucien (MLQC) - Prompt #17 - “You know what? Shut up. Kiss me.”

It had been a hard day at the office. Victor had been on your ass about all of the work that you needed to get done, it was majorly frustrating today, especially, because you were supposed to attend the lecture Lucien was giving that evening, but all you could think of was work work work.

On the way from LFG to Loveland University, you were so distracted, thinking about how you could possibly get that report done in two days or less, that you nearly walked into traffic. ‘Just calm down, MC, no time to think about work right now. You get to see Lucien today.’ With that thought, you smiled, Lucien had always made you feel so comfortable and he never stressed you out like Victor and Gavin, and he was much more calm than Kiro. ‘Lucien is like the perfect porridge, no that’s weird’ you thought, ‘Lucien is like a good middle ground? Ugh whatever, Lucien’s nice to be around and I like him. That’s all that matters.’

You entered the large building, it was so full of students. It even brought back old memories of when you attended the same University you were in now.

If only Lucien was a professor then! Talk about eye candy, am I right? Walking up and down the halls and stopping to look at a couple maps, you searched for the room Lucien was to be presenting in.

When you finally found it and entered, you sat down in the crowded room with the students around you wondering who this new face was. There had been rumors that Lucien was seen going on dates with a certain person, a person who was described to look a lot like you. You were in the dark about the rumors, you didn’t hang around the Uni a lot and you didn’t talk to any of the students, really, so when you heard,

“Is that who the Professor’s dating?” from behind you, you shrunk into your seat.

‘He’s dating someone?’ you thought. It made you feel even worse thinking about Lucien going on dates with someone, the guy you liked, liking someone else. But, you were his friend, so you couldn’t very well leave the lecture you promised to attend. The lights dimmed and he began, showing some fancy charts that you couldn’t understand that well and in about five minutes you were lost. Your thoughts once again ran around in your brain, and now adding on was the fact that Lucien was dating someone. You began nodding off in search for solace, you just needed some peace and quiet for a couple minutes. You were carried away while Lucien’s soft, deep voice echoed through the room.

About an hour later,

“MC?” Lucien was standing over you, everybody had already left the lecture room. You were fully asleep as Lucien nudged your shoulder, asking jokingly what you thought of his presentation. Once you awoke, you jolted up. You saw that the lecture hall was now empty and began furiously apologizing,

“I-I’m so sorry, I can’t believe I slept through it. Was it good? Of course it was good, that was a stupid question.”

Lucien only chuckled at you. How could you be so adorable? He never really cared when you wouldn’t grasp what he was talking about, it only mattered to him that you would show up. He spoke,

“Why don’t we have a cup of tea at my place and I can fill you in on the details,” A sly smile crept up along with a mischievous tone, “a private lecture of sorts.”

After a moment of thought, you gave in. You’d had a hard day, might as well go with him and see what would happen, even if nothing happened, you were still content with staring at him while listening to his smooth voice ramble on about whatever smart thing he had up his sleeve. He took your hand to help you up and the two of you began walking to his place.

On the way, you stopped to get a snack, and Lucien asked you,

“So, why is a certain little MC so sleepy today?”

You sighed, “It’s just work, I have so much to do, but I have almost no time to do it and I’m afraid of being told that my work isn’t good enough. I work so hard on all of the things I do, but they never seem to be up to Big Mr. Victor’s standards.”

He replied, “Don’t even get me started on Victor. He has, what we scientifically classify as, a stick up his ass.”

You almost choked on your food, you were laughing so hard. It felt so good to finally laugh that day, and while you knew Victor wasn’t actually as mean as he seemed, it was nice for someone to agree with you. Still laden with laughter, you glanced at Lucien. He was certainly the most interesting person you’d ever met. He was staring at you, a habit of his, and the way his dark eyes focused so intently on you, it made you feel special. Lucien as a whole made you feel special. You wanted to drink up his presence and never let him go. The way he could be so professional yet have such a lively sense of humor was just one of the traits you absolutely loved about him. But, with this news about him dating someone… it outright sucked. ‘Why can’t I be the one he’s dating?’ you thought. You were too shy to ask him about who it was his student’s said he was dating, not even really wanting to know the answer, you just pushed it to the back of your mind.

“You almost finished eating?” he asked, with his eyes still only on you. He had a hint of a smile grazing his features. Every time he saw you, he felt the need to know more about you. He wanted to be able to ace a test on you, you were just so intriguing. You were so different from the people he’d come into contact with, you were like a flood of bright light on his otherwise dark world. He looked down at the table, letting out a sigh. He was conflicted about how he felt for you, he felt like he couldn’t just outright tell you, he likened it to running black paint over the Mona Lisa. The last thing he wanted was for you to change, for you to become like him, because he knew the extent of things he could never tell you. He knew that he was closer to a devil than an angel, and to him, you were the exact opposite. He never wanted to lose that bright light you gave him.

“Yeah, I’m done now,” you said with a cheery expression. When Lucien was deep in thought, you always seemed to bring back his fading smiles. The two of you went on your way to his house, and by accident, you approached your own door. It dawned on you that you’d never actually been inside of his apartment before and by habit, you simply went your own way. ‘Today is different now’, you thought as you put your keys back into your pocket.

He opened the door for you and took your jacket. The air of the room was sort of awkward, Lucien was excited to have you over for the first time, while you were thinking of how whoever he’s dating has probably been in his house a billion times. Distracting yourself, you looked at all of the paintings on his walls, and a certain one caught your eye. It was a man under the night sky, reaching up to the stars where an ethereal being reached down to the man. Their hands would never touch because of the distance between them, but they kept reaching for each other.

“Who painted this?” you asked as you made your way to get a closer look.

“Oh, I did,” he replied casually, “I’m not the world’s best artist, but painting relaxes me.”

“You’re kidding! You painted this?” You eyed him and then the painting, “this is amazing, I couldn’t dream of doing this, don’t be so humble,” you chuckled out.

Lucien approached you, he thought it fitting that you stood next to a painting inspired by you. ‘By far’, he wished he could say, ‘you’re more beautiful than anything I could ever make.’ He lifted his arm to put around you, but stopped himself. Pulling his arm back to his side, he gave a polite thank you and went to the kitchen to make some tea for the two of you.

The both of you sat down and had a casual conversation, somehow making its way back to his presentation that you completely missed. You were in the middle of apologizing for the umpteenth time when Lucien’s suddenly found his mind cluttered with a billion things he wanted to say. The need to tell you his feelings, the need to kiss you, it ached deep in his heart and this never ending confliction, he thought, needs to come to an end. You were right there, and he knew that he loved you. He simply threw caution to the wind.

You were still talking, saying, “I really do need to have a better sleep schedule, and I promise I won’t fall asleep in your lectures anymore. I know I’ve done it a couple times, but-”

An impish smirk grew on his lips, he stared at you intently, capturing your attention, and said, “You know what? It doesn’t matter if you never listen to any of my lectures, so shut up, only these moments matter to me. Kiss me.” He delivered it so smoothly that you felt like you were melting in your chair.

You were taken aback, and certainly did shut up. You were blushing like mad, fumbling your hair and stuttering like crazy.

“L-Lucien,” you said. That was all you could get out before he got closer to you, much closer. His face was only inches away from yours. You could feel his warm breath as he spoke with that smooth, deep voice, saying,

“Please, won’t you?” Those dark eyes flitting from your gaze to your lips and back.

“But what about your, you know, your significant other…”

Pure confusion. Lucien looked like the meme with that lady surrounded by floating maths.

“M-my what?” He began laughing, he had no clue what you were on about. He hoped that this was the only reason you seemed hesitant to kiss him.

“Your student’s were talking about you dating someone and I-”

“MC, they think I’m dating you,”

Lucien’s laugh was bellowing through the room, while you, on the other hand, were wishing you could climb under a rock. Everything clicked in your head, the reason why you had no idea who he was dating, was because he wasn’t actually dating anyone. You were so embarrassed, but ultimately relieved.

He stroked your cheek, moving himself closer to you as the laughs faded away. MC.exe stopped working. You froze while in your head you were screaming ‘Yes Please Sir!’ Unconsciously you were also moving closer. The fading sun trickled through the window shades, surrounding the two of you in flakes of golden light. Lucien took hold of your jaw. In his eyes you could see so many emotions, he was so complex, like a puzzle you couldn’t figure out. In this tender moment, you thought you saw regret in his eyes, regret and sorrow mixed together with passion and love, an intriguing cocktail of emotion. You knew that you might never get to know him fully, but this was good enough for you. In an opposite fashion of his brazenly asking you to kiss him, he cautiously moved forward, bridging the gap between your lips. Gently, he kissed you, he moved so softly, seemingly afraid of damaging you, damaging this moment. His mind was a hurricane of thoughts, but when you were there with him, it was silent. You gave him serenity. You gave him happiness. You gave him so many things that he was terrified to let go of.

The two of you moved together, only breaking contact to take a breath. When you had finally separated, he pulled you into him. His slender arms holding you to his chest. You could hear his heart beating like a drum. ‘This moment should never end’ you thought, and, just for one night, neither of you would let it. The rest of the night carried on with you in his arms, both of you intertwined, so much so that your heartbeats seemed to merge together in this bliss and newfound passion.

—————————————————————————————————-

Hope you liked this story! I can’t say I’m super into lucien personality wise, but i cannot lie, he’s the sexiest of the boys lmao

My prompt requests are open, so feel free to leave an ask!

edit: real question, are my last few posts just like really bad? I noticed that my likes and reblogs went down tremendously, and I would like feedback about why. Don’t be afraid to give criticisms, I just want feedback. Thanks for reading and there’s more to come

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artificialqueens · 5 years ago

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Not Nineteen Forever (19) (Branjie/Scyvie/Ninex) - Ortega

a/n: hi pals! so this was probs one of my top 3 fav chapters to write out of the whole fic. it’s got so many things that i just love, and i so hope u will love it too. i should probs make it clear that this isn’t the end of the fic! it’s going to have 21 chapters, so there’s two more to come after this (omg only 2????? bitch wtf???? WTF???). thank u guys for all the love my ask box gets flooded with after every chapter, i’m always so so excited when i see it so thank u so much, i really appreciate it!! here we go with n19f19 xoxo

please note: this fic contains young adults often behaving in irresponsible/unadvisable ways with regards to alcohol, drugs and sex. if you are someone who feels as if they could be heavily influenced by fic and incorporate what happens in the plot into ur own life, pls steer clear!

summary: Brooke, Yvie and Nina are three flatmates who forged a friendship in their first year of university and picked up some other waifs and strays along the way. Now in their final year, there are feelings that need to be unravelled and confessions to be made whilst navigating drunk nights, hungover mornings, takeaways, group chats, library meetups, cafe gossiping, and the small matter of getting a degree.

last chapter: there were confessions of love in a karaoke bar.

this chapter: a month on from the events of last chapter and with final exams and dissertations looming, Brooke thinks she can avoid Vanessa until graduation without having to confront anything that’s happened between them. this proves difficult when she’s trapped in the library with her.

***

Brooke was fine. She was more than fine, actually, she was good. She was calm, serene, fucking zen. If it wasn’t for the dissertation she had to hand in a week from now she would have ascended to Buddha-like status, doling out study tips to her friends like proverbs.

Brooke had always been good at exams. She’d been a straight-A student back in Canada, the whole process of revision coming naturally to her. She’d bought designated ringbinders for every subject, poring over textbooks and copying information out in messy cursive until she’d filled her whole refill pad. When she’d walked into the big assembly hall on exam day, she didn’t get the usual churning of her stomach or shaky hands that her friends had always described. It was almost as if the hall reminded her of taking ballet exams when she was a girl- she knew what to do, she had all the information in her head somewhere, and all that was required of her was to think and write.

Essays, however, had never come easy, which was a shame as they essentially formed the basis of Brooke’s degree. There wasn’t the fast-paced element to essays as there were to exams, and lengthy deadlines gave Brooke time to overthink, redraft, panic, delete, then do the whole process over again. She’d never fully got the hang of them; add in the fact a different tutor marked what she’d written every time and her grades were practically a lottery. She knew this element would follow her throughout her career- writing, fashion design, God even her ballet exams from years ago- it was all a form of art, and art was subjective. She knew there were designers out there that were universally respected, but none were universally liked. Nothing was universally liked. In an exam, there was a set of right or wrong answers, but essays were open to interpretation. An interpretation that her degree classification depended on.

Stretching and feeling her spine bump against the hard plastic chair, Brooke let out a huge breath. She could still see her Mum’s face if she remembered hard enough, when she’d told her her very first mark on her very first uni assignment back in first year; the way the woman’s face had faltered a little but forced a smile and a congratulations. It was the first mark below 70% Brooke could remember in a long time, and her Mum’s disappointment still stung. Brooke was currently sitting on a 2:1, but only just. Her dissertation was going to cement what degree she received and Christ, Brooke would be lying if she said the pressure wasn’t getting to her ever so slightly. It was at the stage where she was taking a beta blocker each morning before spending most of the day in the library. Sometimes she’d take another in the afternoon if she felt herself starting to panic. Maybe that was the reason she was so chill.

Looking at her laptop and the block of black text against white digital paper, she rubbed her eyes and glanced through the huge floor-to-ceiling pane of glass to her left. Her own sleepy face gazed back at her, the view rendered invisible due to the pitch black outside. Brooke didn’t dare look at the time, but she knew it had to be late if it was this dark at the end of April. Casting her eyes to Nina, she couldn’t help but give a snort of a laugh.

“What the hell are you doing?” Brooke asked, looking at the exploded rainbow of colour-coded flash cards that were strewn across the girl’s desk and spilling out onto the floor. There were scribbly neon post-it notes stuck all over her laptop screen and Nina probably had half the library stacked up in high-rise tower blocks on her desk. A quick glance at her screen showed Brooke that Nina had roughly sixty tabs open.

“My goddamn best.”

Brooke let out another laugh as Nina gestured helplessly at the mess in front of her. “Jesus Christ, Brooke, how the hell am I going to be a teacher if I’m this disorganised?”

Brooke gave a little shrug and raised her eyebrows. “I dread to think what your classroom desk is going to be like.”

“Probably going to accidentally kill a child on my first day. Nudge over a big pile of papers on my desk, boof. Dead,” Nina giggled, then let out a huge laugh and instantly clamped her hands over her mouth in embarrassment. The action made Brooke laugh out loud too until the pair were having a silent laughing fit in the exact place they weren’t supposed to be making any noise.

To be fair, the top floor was pretty empty given the late hour they were there. The few people that were left were already packing up their things and leaving, laptops shut in a manner of resignation. The yellow strobe lights that hung above gave the whole place a clinical glow, and the patterns on the fuzzy green carpet all seemed to merge into one. As Brooke ran a hand through her hair and was about to check the time on her phone, loud chimes rang out over the speakers built into the ceiling.

“Would all students please be aware that the library will be closing in ten minutes, that’s ten minutes. Thank you.”

Brooke almost jumped out of her skin. She blinked, then looked at the four numbers in the bottom right-hand corner of her screen. “Nina. No way is it almost midnight.”

“God. I’m not even surprised anymore. At this point it feels like we live here,” Nina groaned, cracking her back in a way that made Brooke wince then rolling her shoulders. “I guess we should head back to the flat.”

Brooke’s ears pricked as she heard a commotion from the other end of the floor. It sounded like a thunder of footsteps and a hissed argument. Turning slowly, Brooke’s heart sank as she saw exactly who she’d hoped she’d be able to avoid until graduation day.

Silky and Vanessa were standing at the printer a mere two sets of desks away from her and Nina. Silky seemed to be printing something out and insisting she wouldn’t be long as Vanessa tapped her heel against the carpeted floor impatiently, her Converse almost wearing a hole in the floor. Despite the late hour her makeup was still perfectly applied, and her hair was half hanging loose over her shoulders and half swept up into a haphazard topknot. Brooke pictured Vanessa growing frustrated at her desk, fretting over some form of past paper and tearing her hands through her hair, tugging her brown locks up and securing them with a hair tie. Brooke hoped she wasn’t too stressed about her finals. She remembered that when they were together Vanessa had had some form of big essay due, and she’d sat up in bed exhaling and worrying, typing furiously with her long nails crashing against the keyboard of her laptop like angry waves. Brooke had quietly brought her tea, wordlessly pressed a kiss to her temple, and Vanessa had cast her a soft smile that had made Brooke’s heart set alight.

Just then Silky looked across the room, saw her, and began to wave. Fuck. Brooke watched as Vanessa cast her gaze over to where she sat. Her eyes widened when she laid them on Brooke and she tilted her head to the sky, barely hiding a gigantic roll of her eyes as she followed Silky over to Brooke and Nina. Brooke had in the time it took for the girls to reach their desk to decide how she wanted to play this. It was a tough decision. Because in the month-and-a-bit since their dalliance in the hot tub, and an even shorter time since her crying meltdown to Scarlet in the Swan toilets, Brooke had developed a hard, harsh exoskeleton for herself that involved channeling all the love and regret she felt for Vanessa into venom, poison and dislike. If Vanessa wanted to be petty and unkind and rude to her, then fuck it. Brooke would be the exact same back. She’d tried it out already- responding to thinly-veiled barbs in the groupchat, ignoring her if they saw each other. Brooke didn’t want to act that way, didn’t want to do any of it, but she forced herself to do it in the way a small child had to be forced to eat vegetables; it was what was good for her. Good for them both. It was better that Vanessa hated her. She’d tried loving her and look where the fuck that had ended up.

The issue was, the frosty behaviour she’d return to Vanessa was uncontrollable. She knew it was causing vibes and tension in the group, splitting them all up and causing cracks and fractures in a time where they were meant to be closer than ever. Yvie had had words with her, as had Nina. It hadn’t got them anywhere. Brooke had tried to reach out to Vanessa, offered her so many olive branches that Vanessa had just started beating Brooke black and blue with them. Brooke knew it was for the best if she acted like the complete bitch that Vanessa thought she was.

“Hey, sisters! What you both doin’ here so late?” Silky asked cheerfully as she reached the girls. Brooke stuck a smile on her face, tried not to look at Vanessa and then failed. Her thick eyelashes were cast to the floor as she scuffed the carpet with her shoe. Brooke felt a stab at her heart. Luckily, Nina took over.

“Christ, I was just saying to Brooke it feels like we’ve moved in here. My diss is due on Friday and I’m stressed out of my mind. What’re you guys up to?”

Silky waved a thick stack of paper at Nina as if she was showing her evidence. “We were down on floor one but the janitor’s chucking people out. I needed some readings and figured he’d get up here last, so I just came to the top floor to use the printer.”

“Yeah, and we’re done now, so let’s go. I need to pee before we leave,” Vanessa muttered to her flatmate, her voice dull as she still didn’t tear her gaze from the floor.

Nina’s cheerful smile faltered. Silky, to her credit, looked embarrassed by Vanessa’s sulky behaviour. To Brooke’s dismay, Nina shoved all of her index cards onto her laptop keyboard and slammed it closed. “Well, hey! We were just leaving. We’ll come with you.”

Vanessa’s face twisted into one of discomfort. “Nah, Nina, really, it’s fine. I’m gonna head to the bathroom anyway-”

“We can wait for you! It’s no big deal!”

Brooke’s heart sank. Great. An excruciating walk back outside with the girl that hated her most in the world. Just as she was about to bullshit a reason why they couldn’t, Silky enthusiastically agreed. Brooke watched Vanessa bite her lip in frustration, give a forced fake smile and nod. They were both united in the fact that it was a situation neither of them wanted to be in. It was the closest Brooke had felt to Vanessa in a while.

Nina and Silky filled the silence on their way to the library toilets. They were only beside the lifts so not that far away, but every step felt as if it lasted a million years. Finally, mercifully, the girls came to the toilets and Vanessa ducked inside. As they waited, Brooke just wished and hoped she’d be quick so the awkward situation would be over sooner rather than later. One minute turned into two, and Silky became impatient. Brooke watched as she wrenched open the door and yelled inside.

“VANJ, C’MON! THE PLACE IS CLOSING SOON!” she shouted into the room, muttering under her breath something about Vanessa having a bladder like the Hindenburg. Brooke tried to be patient and cast her eyes up to the ceiling. Looking back into the floor of the library, she was alarmed to find it completely empty, void of people. It could have been that she was startled, but she gave a shout into the bathroom too.

“Vanjie, hurry up! Jesus!”

At this point Vanessa was standing blasting her hands with air from the dryer. She shouted something back at Brooke that Brooke couldn’t hear over the air jets, but she could hazard a guess as to what it was. Finally, Vanessa stormed out.

“Fuck me, will you girls hop off my dick? Can I not pee in peace without you rushing me along? We’ve got ages! It’s fine!”

And then everything was suddenly plunged into darkness.

Brooke gave an involuntary cry of fear, felt someone grab her hand. Looking down at her interlocked fingers and then up to who it was connected to, she was shocked to see Vanessa, her face illuminated in the green fire escape sign and completely petrified. All at once she seemed to realise what she’d done and dropped Brooke’s hand like it was made of hot metal. Nina had fallen silent, her expression one of shock, and Silky was uncharacteristically quiet.

“Fuck,” Brooke found herself saying. Her mouth had gone completely dry.

“It’s fine. It’s fine, they’ll just be turning off the lights before they lock up. Let’s just hurry up and get the lift,” Silky reassured them, but Brooke didn’t miss the worried frown that was set on her face as the four of them walked quickly. Vanessa reached the button first, scrabbled at it with her fingers. The little white light that usually illuminated the panel didn’t turn on.

“Oh my God this can’t be happening,” Nina whispered, her voice panicked and fast. Silky rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but the frown on her face was deepening. Reaching out, she pressed the same button firmly, jamming it into its little metal pad. Nothing. The girls stood in silence for only a few seconds, listening for the metal whirrs and clunks that the lift usually made on its way up or down the building. Nothing came.

“Stairs,” Vanessa said simply, her voice full of worry as she suddenly dashed in the direction of the stairwell. The three other girls followed and all pretence of remaining calm and walking was truly out the window as their trainers squeaked over the linoleum, feet thumping harshly against the steps as they tore down flight after flight. Brooke’s pulse was speeding so fast she thought she would have a heart attack, and the bones of her feet began to hurt more with every step she launched herself down two-at-a-time. Breathless and frantic, they finally reached the bottom floor, Vanessa crashing through the double doors at the bottom of the stairwell and speeding across the lobby to the main entrance. Brooke was hot on her heels, her heart now painful in her chest and her breath coming in thick, uncomfortable wheezes. Any hope she’d had sank to the floor with her gut as Vanessa pounded the automatic doors and almost wrenched the fire door off its hinges in an attempt to get out. It was to no avail.

“Oh my God. Oh my God,” Nina repeated, her hands flying to her face as it blanched in fear.

“Fucking shit- HELLO? HELLO? WE’RE STILL IN HERE!” Silky yelled at the top of her lungs to nobody in particular.

“Guys, I don’t like this,” Brooke said, hearing the shake in her own voice as her eyes darted around the huge, dark building frantically.

“No shit, really? I’m having a fuckin’ whale of a time, personally,” Vanessa hissed, casting a glare her way before going back to shaking the doorhandles in a futile attempt to open them. Brooke felt her face curl up in a sneer, all the fear she’d felt previously moved into a convenient little box and replaced with all-consuming anger.

“Ugh, JESUS, Vanessa, of course, of fucking course, we’re literally locked in a uni building with no way out and you choose to start picking a fight with me. Big fucking-”

“ENOUGH!” Nina shouted, Brooke taken aback. She had known Nina for almost three years now, and in that time she’d never heard her shout. Well, she’d heard her shout with happiness or joy or fear, but never anger like this. She felt like one of her primary school kids as Nina continued. “Both of you just shut the fuck up for one fucking minute! Can we at least just find a way out of here before you start a fucking domestic?”

“I’ll take the cafe,” Silky said decisively, shouting to the others as she ran in the opposite direction. “Nina go right, Brooke and Vanjie go left.”

Brooke narrowed her eyes, looking again at Vanessa whose gaze mirrored Brooke’s. Relenting and not wanting to risk another telling-off from Nina, Brooke obediently tore off in the direction Silky had told her to go. She weaved her way through desks and bookshelves, checking every window only to find them all locked. As she was losing hope, the dull, green light of a fire escape sign caught her eye. Brooke sighed with relief as she tore towards it. This was surely a guaranteed way out. Reaching the tall door, Brooke slammed her hands on the cold, metal bar that lay across it, pushed down, and waited for the cold night air to hit her face and calm down her panic.

Nothing.

Brooke frowned, trying again and pushing harder at the bar. This time she got her shoulder involved, leaning all her weight against it. It didn’t so much as budge.

“We’re outta luck. They’re all locked from the outside.”

Brooke turned to see Vanessa walking purposefully towards her. Her tone was frustrated, but not towards her at least. Brooke felt relieved. She was beginning to regret snapping at Vanessa earlier, even if she was meant to dislike her. She wondered if she felt as scared as she did. Brooke thought about how Vanessa always hid her fear, remembered the time they watched some shit, gory horror movie at hers when they were together. Brooke had flinched and squealed and buried her face in Vanessa’s hoodie every two seconds while Vanessa had laughed at her, told her it was all fine and fake, but Brooke could feel Vanessa’s heart beat fast in her chest and her stomach muscles tensing every time a new horrific sight appeared on screen.

Vanessa leant against the bar that Brooke had tried, punctuating it with an angry kick of her foot. “That shit’s illegal, you know. Locking a fire door. We could sue fuck outta them.”

Brooke couldn’t help the laugh that escaped. “Yeah I’m sure we, twentysomething students with collectively hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of debt, have both the resources and the influence to sue the university. They’d shit themselves.”

She watched as Vanessa looked at her, a glare about to appear in her dark eyes, then disappearing as she allowed herself a small smile and a single snort of laughter. There was a pause of silence. Brooke decided to fill it. “Let’s find the girls, maybe they found a way out.”

As they passed by the floor-to-ceiling windows again, Vanessa suddenly gasped and tore off to bang on the glass. Brooke followed her eyeline and was overjoyed to find what looked to be a janitor, finishing up and walking away from the building. She joined Vanessa and pounded her fists against the window, shouting randomly if only just to make a noise. Her hope began to die, however, when instead of noticing the absolute cacophony of noise the girls created, the man simply got further and further away. Brooke watched as he got his phone out, a long earphone cord attached to it. She slumped against the glass and let out a helpless moan.

“Fucking shit bitch ass motherfucker!” Vanessa hissed in anger, pounding on the glass with her knuckles one last time. Brooke watched as she took a step back from the window, flexed her fingers and gave a hiss.

“You okay?” Brooke found herself asking. She could already feel herself frowning in concern as Vanessa nodded briskly, shaking her hand out and sticking the knuckle of one finger in her mouth.

“Fine. Just got a lil’ over-enthusiastic, cut my finger,” she spoke around her knuckle. Brooke felt a pang at her heart. She took a step towards Vanessa.

“Let’s see?”

Vanessa gave another laugh, harsher and more sardonic than her first had been. “It’s fine, Brooke, I don’t need you to kiss it better.”

Brooke held her hands up, unable to help the way her eyebrows flew up her face. “Okay, I’ll just go fuck myself!“

“Yeah, do that,” Vanessa muttered quietly, sitting on a desk beside the window and pulling her legs up to cross them. Brooke, in lieu of snapping back at the girl she’d once called her friend but had never called her girlfriend, did the same. They sat in a hostile silence, thoughts running around Brooke’s mind as to what she could do or say. So many options flooded her head that it was hard to see any of them clearly for what they were. It turned out she didn’t need to give any of them that much thought, however, as Nina and Silky soon appeared from the other end of the building.

“Oh, good! You’ve not killed each other,” Nina said brightly upon her return. Brooke snuck a quick look at Vanessa, then rolled her eyes.

“Guess you’re as shit out of luck as we are?” Silky asked, her voice quieter than usual by at least a few dozen decibels.

“Can you believe they locked the fire doors? Fuck them, man, imagine there was a real fire?” Vanessa spat bitterly. Nina sighed heavily and shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

“We could try calling someone?”

Brooke frowned. “Who could we call?”

“The police?” Nina said immediately, her naivety causing the others to burst out laughing.

“And say what?! Hey listen, we know you’ve got murderers to catch but we’re locked in a uni building, could you bring round a big battering ram and knock the door down?” Brooke laughed, not missing the way Vanessa laughed in response and feeling a twinkle of pride light up in her heart.

“Well, could the fire brigade get us out?” Nina suggested, Silky groaning and pulling her hands down her face.

“Nina, you need to lower your expectations of what an emergency is. Four dumb uni students trapped in the library is not gonna be considered an emergency. We’re not in danger, we’re all breathing, and none of us have been set alight. That counts the big three out immediately.”

“What about a locksmith?” Vanessa shrugged. Brooke screwed up her face.

“Ah, for those locks that automatic doors have on them,” Silky deadpanned. Brooke laughed at the comment, clearly a little too loudly because Vanessa was back scowling at her again.

“Hey, they do so have locks, bitch.”

“I don’t think you can ask a locksmith to open a house that isn’t yours,” Nina frowned. Brooke raised an unimpressed eyebrow at her.

“I love my house, the university library.”

“Shut up! You knew what I meant,” Nina protested, as the other girls gave a laugh again.

“Surely there’ll be some phone number online for the janitor or something?” Brooke thought suddenly, Silky quickly taking out her phone to check. There was a moment of silence as the girls held their breath in hope. Finally, Silky let out an overjoyed cry.

“Cleaning supervisor main area- based in central library! Yes ladies! We’re fucking outta here!”

Brooke smiled so hard that her face hurt as Silky held her phone to her ear. Thank God. The nightmare was over, she could go back to her flat and not be literally trapped in a building with her ex. She would soon be-

The four girls jumped as a faint ringing of a phone could be heard from out in the lobby. For the hundredth time that night, Brooke felt her heart sink.

“I don’t really know what we expected from that,” Vanessa sighed, looking every inch the kicked puppy.

It was quickly decided that their last hope were the girls who weren’t in the library, although this went down the drain fast as it was discovered that Yvie was over at Scarlet’s flat and they were both asleep, neither Akeria nor Monet were picking up, and Plastique had gone home to revise.

“What about Monique, Vanj? Could we try her?” Nina asked. Brooke was confused at the way Vanessa’s face twisted in discomfort, a little line setting deep on her forehead.

“Nah, she, uh…she won’t pick up,” she said simply, Nina nodding quickly and neglecting to ask any more about it. It didn’t stop Brooke from being intrigued.

“What the fuck are we gonna do, then? We can’t just spend the night here,” Silky’s voice was disbelieving. Brooke gave a resigned shrug.

“Silk, I don’t think there’s any alternative. It’s only a few hours, the place’ll open up again at six. We can go upstairs and sleep in those little pods they have for group projects. Then by the time we wake up again, it’ll be morning and we can all go back to the flat,” Brooke explained calmly, although inside she still had a lot of anxiety rattling about and the dark of the library wasn’t helping.

The girls reluctantly agreed that it was probably the only thing that was left for them to do. In nervous silence they climbed the stairs to the first floor, where Silky immediately set up camp in one of the pods, stretching herself out along the seats that had once been cushioned but had been flattened by hundreds and thousands of sets of bums over the years. Nina took one and set her laptop back up again, arguing that she’d actually been on a pretty good streak before she’d had to pack up and wanted to see if she could churn out another thousand words before she went to sleep. Brooke peeled off from the girls and took her own pod, her tall body unable to fully fit along the seats. As she attempted to sleep, one thing kept stopping her as it usually seemed to around this time of day. She sighed, tossed and turned as she thought about Vanessa. It had all gone so badly wrong. The more she tried to get her off her mind, the more memories she was reminded of. Hurting Vanessa was easier than loving her; snapping at her and being snarky made Brooke feel bad and a bit of a bitch, but loving her and torturing herself for what an idiot she’d been made her feel ten times worse, as if her heart had been removed from its sheath in her ribcage and been stomped on, kicked about, stabbed with a blunt knife and dragged through broken glass. Any attempt to sleep was futile. Brooke’s eyes hurt with fatigue as she sat up, rubbed them and stretched. She would go and see if Nina was still awake, maybe sit up and annoy her for a while.

As she crossed the floor she noticed a small movement out of the corner of her eye. Vanessa was sitting on the floor by the window, her legs crossed and eating a packet of crisps she’d managed to procure from somewhere. Brooke thought she looked so tiny compared to the huge pane of glass and the world that sat outside of it. Now that the lights were off, Brooke could see every detail that lay beyond the window- the soft yellow glow of the streetlights that faintly illuminated the park beside the library, the pink and white marshmallow cherry blossom trees that lined each path. A memory shot through Brooke’s mind like a lightning bolt- the eight of them in second year after their exams had all finished, having a barbecue in the park as the sun beat down and frazzled them all to a crisp, the smell of sausages and weed carried on the light breeze and the warmth in Brooke’s heart as Vanessa had teased her about something, the girls all laughing at Brooke’s embarrassment and protests.

God, they’d all been so happy.

Without really knowing what her plan was, Brooke walked over to where Vanessa was sitting and sat down cautiously beside her. The other girl looked at her, as if she was deciding whether to glare or smile. She ended up doing neither.

“Can’t sleep either?” Brooke chose as her opener, immediately regretting it for the cheesy line from a film it was. Vanessa gave a sarcastic chuckle, gestured around her.

“Apparently,” she said simply, Brooke looking at the carpet and kicking herself. There was a moment where the cogs in her brain whirred quickly, trying to come up with something else to say. Vanessa surprised her by speaking again. “I ain’t been sleeping too good lately anyway, though, so. I guess it don’t matter.”

“Me neither,” Brooke felt something click inside her, a surge of adrenaline coursing through her veins as she spoke again. “Vanessa, we need to talk.”

Vanessa kept her eyes trained on the pane of glass in front of her. “We are talking.”

“God, Ness, please don’t make this harder than it already is,” Brooke sighed, her face pleading. Vanessa’s head snapped round to face her and her eyes were what could only be described as murderous.

“Hard? Don’t fucking dare talk to me about hard,” she said, slowly and carefully and causing Brooke’s heart to frost over in fear. “This year has been shit, absolute shit, the shittest year of my life. You broke my heart- no, fuck that. You broke me. I had to take my goddamn feelings and put them all back together again, start from scratch while you swanned about absolutely fine. I am having to fight to get my average up because of the days I spent in my flat crying instead of going to lectures. Do you have any idea, Brooke, what this has been like for me?”

Brooke was silent as Vanessa continued relentlessly. “And then I finally got myself to a place where, hey, maybe I could be friends with you again! Then what happened? All the old feelings came back, didn’t they, and then we fucking…slept with each other and-”

“Hey, no,” Brooke jumped in, frowning and unable to listen to what was to come. “Don’t try to pin that on me, Vanessa, that was all you. It wasn’t me that fucking…straddled you in the hot tub and stripped off and talked about the sex I was having with other girls, was it?”

“Oh, no! You’re right. You’re correct,” Vanessa smiled sarcastically, soon getting replaced with a scowl. “You only got with me incredibly intensely in front of seven of our closest friends, who knew all the shit that’s gone down between us and watched like a fucking soap opera.”

“Well I didn’t hear you complaining at the time!” Brooke bit back, causing Vanessa to fall silent and play with a thread of her ripped jeans. Brooke let out a breath she’d been holding, took in a huge gulp of air. “Look, this is…this is off to a bad start.”

Brooke watched Vanessa’s throat move as she swallowed, her eyes cast downwards. Brooke was good at holding in her feelings, bottling them up like her life depended on it. She was terrified of feeling too much. She had no idea how this conversation was meant to start, but she knew she had to have it.

“Vanessa, I am sorry. I know it doesn’t mean much to you, but for what it’s worth, I am. I’m sorry for going about everything the wrong way. I’d never…done anything like this before, never properly seen anyone like I was seeing you, so I didn’t know how to behave. And fuck, maybe I was leading you on, and I’m sorry for that too. I just didn’t know what I wanted. Well, I thought I knew what I wanted but then I just…didn’t any more. I’m sorry for hurting you. I didn’t realise how much you liked me until it was too late,” Brooke cut herself off, sighing and feeling a bubble of sadness rise up in her throat. “Fuck, I’m trying to put it all the way I want it but nothing’s coming out right.”

Vanessa was looking at her, she knew it, but Brooke’s gaze had dropped to the floor. She brought her knees up to her chest. There was so much she wanted to say to Vanessa but none of the sentences she constructed in her head seemed to be sufficient.

“That night. You said that you missed me,” Vanessa’s voice was soft and small as she spoke, stripped from all the venom it had held before. “Did you mean it?”

Brooke jumped in instantly. “Yes.”

Vanessa was now looking at the floor, picking at her shoelace. “And did you mean…as a friend, or…just the sex, or…”

Brooke took a deep breath. I love you I love you IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou. The words were so close to coming out, but she stopped them. Now wasn’t the right time, nowhere near the right time. She tried to think about what the perfect response would be, sighed, scrapped it, and decided to just simply speak. “I miss you as…everything. I miss you as whatever you want to be to me. I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me. I just miss you for all that you are, the person you are. I miss us,” Brooke paused, realised her last remark was slightly risky. “Interpret that…however you want.”

Brooke snuck a gaze at Vanessa. A thought struck her as memories ran round her mind, and now she had started talking it seemed she couldn’t stop. “Do you remember after we…after lazerquest. Yvie’s birthday. We met up and we spoke about things and you said something. That whatever happens, we’d be friends always. Do you remember?”

Vanessa gave a little laugh. “You can wear a set of armbands in a current, don’t mean you won’t drown.”

She saw Brooke’s confused look, shot her a bashful smile. “I never expected to…end up feeling so strongly for you at the start. Didn’t expect to get as crazy about you as I got. Man…I wish you could turn feelings off.”

Brooke felt herself frown, a deep regret settling in the pit of her stomach. “I wish that too.”

She didn’t miss the brief look of surprise that flashed across Vanessa’s face. In the lull in conversation that followed, Vanessa wordlessly pushed the packet of crisps towards Brooke. She took one. Chilli heatwave wasn’t her favourite flavour, but it was a peace offering, and she’d take what she could get.

"So I stopped sleeping with Monique,” Vanessa commented, shrugging a little. Brooke blinked, almost choked on her crisp as she raced to get a reply out.

“Uh, yeah, I did notice you were a bit weird about things when Nina said you should call her.”

Vanessa pushed some hair out of her face, puffed her cheeks up with air and blew out harshly. “Monet kinda told me…she was catching feelings, and obviously I wasn’t there for that. So I said to her we shouldn’t keep going.”

Brooke felt a little twinge of pain for Monique. The poor girl had a crush and was just caught in the crossfire. “And how did she take it?”

Vanessa stared through the glass, her gaze steadfast. “I could tell she was sad. Disappointed. She didn’t start cryin’ or nothing, but…God, I still felt bad. I liked her, you know, she was a great girl. Maybe there’s a parallel universe where she took my heart and patched it all up again and we ended up together but…that’s not what it was for me. And the more she said she understood and that she hoped I’d find happiness, the worse I felt for having to tell her I wanted something different.”

Brooke nodded. She wanted to tell Vanessa that she knew the feeling all too well, but she didn’t want to interrupt her. Vanessa turned her head slowly, finally making eye contact with Brooke, and her eyes were the softest they’d been in a while. “I guess what I’m sayin’ is…I know now what it must have been like for you to break it off with me. And yeah, it completely fuckin’ wrecked me but…you did what you had to do. So…I forgive you, Brooke Lynn.”

Brooke couldn’t quite believe Vanessa was in front of her saying all this. Instinctively she wanted to launch herself forward and hug her, thanking her for her change of heart. Just as she’d convinced herself she was almost going to do it, Vanessa spoke again. Her voice held a slightly more steely note to it now. “But I don’t forgive you for kissing me or for that night in the hot tub. That really fucked with me.”

Brooke fought the urge to snap a childish you started it at her and instead said a soft okay. She also fought the urge to reach out and place a hand on top of Vanessa’s. The building was still pitch black and silent and the girls had reached a conversational purgatory. Vanessa had forgiven her for some of her mistakes at least. This was the closure Brooke had wanted. Despite herself, she found herself opening her mouth. There was so much still unresolved.

“You must kind of hate me for that."

Vanessa snorted, tilted her head to the sky. "I do and I don’t.”

A small silence. Brooke knew what she wanted to say, knew what topic she wanted to breach, but it meant plunging head first into the icy chill of the great unknown, and as much as she wanted to talk about it she was terrified of doing so.

“Is that because part of you loves me?”

It was out before Brooke knew it. Vanessa had frozen, her body unmoving with her head still positioned towards the ceiling like a terrifying Exorcist yoga pose. Brooke could immediately predict it, could practically hear it- Vanessa’s quick, sarcastic response, don’t flatter yourself, her getting up and thundering away to another part of the building in some angry game of hide and seek. She couldn’t face any of those options, so Brooke continued talking. “I was in the bathroom at the same time. In the next stall along from you and the girls. I heard you say that you never got to tell me. Did you mean it?”

“Why are you asking me this, Brooke? Is it to add insult to injury? Is it not enough knowing that the girl you broke it off with can still come crawling back into bed with you so easily, you have to rub salt into the wound by getting me to fucking…” Brooke heard Vanessa take a big deep, shaky breath, felt the tears prick at the corners of her own eyes. “…admit that I’m in love with you, yes, okay? I love you. What’s the reason?”

“Because I…fuck,” Brooke jumped in then immediately stopped. She felt her jaw wire itself shut, almost paralysed with fear. She didn’t know if she could verbalise everything she was feeling. “I’m not good at talking about this stuff.”

“No shit, Miss Marple,” Vanessa quipped bitterly, her eyes back looking at the carpet and avoiding Brooke’s gaze. The lack of eye contact helped Brooke. She carried on.

“You know, I used to lie in bed before I went to sleep and rehearse what I would say to you to tell you I liked you,” Brooke gave a laugh, remembering when things were more simple. “Except none of it worked out that way. And now I’ve actually got a second chance at it, I’m almost too frightened to say it. I completely fucked it with you, Vanessa. You’re an absolute one of a kind person. Your smile just makes me happy whether or not it’s directed at me. The love and loyalty you have for your friends makes me proud of you. You’re so determined and hard working and you’re smashing your degree. And you’re kind. You see the good in everyone and you’re not afraid to feel and tell the world all about it. All these things that I just…love about you. It took me being away from you and making the biggest mistake of my life, and that night when we were together like everything was back to normal, it took all of that to make me realise that I’m…fuck..”

Brooke almost hadn’t realised she was crying until a sob bubbled up in her throat, almost choking her. It was almost like her body’s survival mechanism, trying to save her from the potential rejection she might face once the words were out.

Fuck it.

“I’m in love with you. I love you so much that it scares me. It scares me more than being fucking…trapped in the library in the pitch black with no way out,” Brooke let out a hybrid of a laugh and a sob. By now, Vanessa had lifted her gaze to look at Brooke, and Brooke had shifted hers so she could protect herself from Vanessa’s reaction. “Because I don’t want to hurt you again, and you deserve better than someone like me.”

“Then don’t,” Vanessa said quietly.

“What?” Brooke whispered, confused. She tugged the sleeves of her jumper over her hands and jammed them under her eyes, used them to stop the tears from escaping.

“You said you don’t want to hurt me again. Then don’t,” Vanessa repeated patiently. Brooke blinked. She had no idea what that meant, so she went with the knowledge she had at hand.

“I love you, and you love me,” Brooke said softly, finally meeting Vanessa’s eyes. “Can we…do something with that information?”

Vanessa let out a loud blast of a laugh, making Brooke giggle even though she didn’t know what was funny. “God, that’s the most Brooke Lynn Hytes way of asking me out ever. Can we do something with that information.”

Vanessa’s smile was infectious. It lit up Brooke’s heart and she wanted nothing more than to lean forward and kiss her gently, to make Vanessa hers properly this time. As her smile faded though, Brooke felt her hope fade too. Vanessa let out a world-weary sigh. “Brooke, I don’t…I don’t know if I can do this all over again.”

Brooke’s heart dropped to the floor and shattered. She wanted to say something, fill the silence and reassure her, but nothing came out. She had opened up, and it had all been for nothing. This was her karma- she had broken Vanessa’s heart and now here was Vanessa breaking hers. She felt crushed. Lacking the energy to do it properly, she nodded her head once, the action small and probably barely noticeable.

It was so quiet that Brooke could hear Vanessa swallow beside her, hear her breathing deeply to calm herself down before she spoke. “You never hear it in the movies but sometimes…sometimes love isn’t enough, you know, sometimes you need to put yourself first, and sometimes the person you love ain’t necessarily the one who ends up making you happiest.”

Brooke felt her chest grow tight, felt ashamed as her head hung to the floor. She saw two tears fall from her eyes and drop onto the carpet, making identical, miniscule ponds.

“But then also,” Vanessa continued, the but aspect causing Brooke’s heart to dip and soar upwards as if it was on a rollercoaster. “I love you for a reason, don’t I? The way that you say shit that’s all sarcastic and funny. The way you make me laugh. The way you’re always blunt and truthful, and when you say nice things to me it feels like you’re just saying a fact. The way you got this childish, immature streak to you that makes everything feel like an adventure when I’m with you. You listen in the best way, ‘cause you never try an’ force advice down anyone’s throat. You’re always so concerned about everyone you care for and want them to be happy…and even though you ain’t good at expressin’ it, I know you have feelings and I know they scare you. You’re like a fuckin…model, you’re so beautiful and perfect. So that’s as simple as it has to be, right?”

Brooke looked up and saw tears in Vanessa’s own eyes. All the honesty was so raw and painful, like burnt or grazed skin, and it hurt and stung as if it was real. It was real. Brooke hid a sob, took a deep breath. “I don’t, uh. I don’t know where we take this.”

“I want to be with you. I want to love and be loved, feel my heart fuckin’…burst like it’s made of confetti,” Vanessa continued, letting out what could have been a sob or a laugh. “But I want to be happy. I don’t want to be hurt again. I’m scared.”

“I’m scared too,” Brooke nodded, feeling the tracks the tears were making down her face. She sighed, the pain in her heart too heavy for her to carry. “Fuck, maybe we’re just not meant for each other, maybe we got our chance already. Maybe nothing should come of this-”

“But, fuck, I love you, Brooke! And you love me,” Vanessa sighed in exasperation, her mascara collecting under her eyes as her own tears continued to fall. “And that…that means something.”

“I love you,” Brooke repeated, in case it counted for anything. It meant the world to her. Vanessa gave a sad smile, reached out and took Brooke’s hand and laced their fingers together. She squeezed Brooke’s hand twice, and the simple gesture made Brooke hopeful that everything was going to be okay.

“Shit, I waited so long to hear you say that and now it’s like…” Vanessa began sadly, trailing off. Brooke didn’t push her to finish her sentence. Instead, she squeezed her hand like Vanessa had done with hers. The action seemed to work as a prompt, because she spoke again, tilting her head with curiosity. “What do you want outta all this?”

Brooke knew immediately. “I want you. I want us to be us again.”

Vanessa let out a soft sigh, paused. “Okay, well. I don’t know what I want right now, Brooke. An’ it’s gonna be hard to start again. So you’re gonna need to give me time to decide.”

“That’s okay. I’ll wait for you. You can take all the time you need,” Brooke reassured her instantly. “I’ll still be here.”

Vanessa’s hand shifted in her own. Brooke watched as she frowned a little, cast her gaze her way again. "You mean that?”

“I mean it. Whatever you decide. Whether we’re worth an extra chance or not. I’ll wait for you.”

A small smile crept onto Vanessa’s face as Brooke waited for her reply. “That’s the most romantic shit anyone ever said to me.”

“Well, it’s just the truth,” Brooke muttered, feeling her cheeks grow hot and glad that the dark room would hide her pink blush. Then, getting an idea and feeling a little spark of that childishness and immaturity Vanessa seemed to love so much, Brooke let go of Vanessa’s hand and held out her other one for her to shake. The other girl looked at her, a funny, confused smile on her face as she took her hand and shook it obediently.

“Hey. I’m Brooke Lynn,” she began, trying to suppress her smile as she spoke. Vanessa giggled, falling back a little then leaning forward.

“What are you…”

“Starting again. What’s your name, beautiful?” Brooke teased, all the darkness somehow bursting into colour as Vanessa laughed beside her, swatting her on her arm with her hand. She hadn’t seen this Vanessa in so long; happy, laughing, cheerful and playful. Brooke could’ve cried with how much she’d missed her.

“This is some dumbass shit, you know that?” Vanessa giggled, but Brooke could see the blush on her own cheeks illuminated by the streetlamps outside. Vanessa appeared to see her expectant face, laughed a resigned laugh and indulged her. “Nice to meet you, Brooke. I’m Vanjie. Well, Vanessa, but everyone calls me Vanjie.”

“Can I call you Vanessa? It’s pretty. It suits you.”

Vanessa laughed again, making Brooke give a chuckle too. “Bitch! You never flirted with me this hard the first time.”

“Well the first time we were friends, so I couldn’t flirt with you. Not properly like I wanted to anyway,” Brooke laughed, taking a Dorito and throwing it at her playfully. Vanessa squealed, toppling herself out of the way. “You, on the other hand, flirted all the time.”

“I’m a flirtatious person! You shouldn’t have taken that shit personal,” Vanessa protested, attempting to look offended but unable to wipe the smile off her face.

“So Vanessa,” Brooke carried on, trying to stop herself smiling as she carried on with the charade. “What are you studying?”

They carried on like that all through the night, being silly and getting to know each other again right from the very beginning. They had missed out on so much conversation over the past few months that it was actually nice to catch up, to re-establish herself in Vanessa’s life. She was looking at graduate jobs in events management for after uni and thinking of moving home to save money. For a fleeting moment Brooke almost suggested that they move in together but she was glad she had the sense not to verbalise that, a thought that was perhaps better bottled up and saved for another time. After all, Vanessa hadn’t even decided if she wanted to be with Brooke or not yet. Brooke had to cling on to the hope that maybe she would, because she had nothing else. Well, that was a lie. She had Vanessa’s smile and her laugh, the twinkle in her eyes when Brooke made a deadpan comment. She had the way Vanessa opened up to her, told her how scared she was of trying to navigate the world on her own after she graduated. She had the way that Vanessa shuffled close to her when the sun eventually began to rise, its glow a burnt orange ombre into a soft yellow which faded into the gentle blue of the morning sky. She had the way Vanessa’s head fit perfectly into the crook of her neck as, worn out and exhausted, she closed her eyes and dozed off in Brooke’s tentative arms.

Most of all, she had the fact that Vanessa loved her, and Brooke loved her back. And even though it hadn’t been the movie scene confession Brooke had been expecting, that fact, the sunrise, and Vanessa sleeping softly against her chest was enough for her for the moment.

#rpdr fanfiction #not nineteen forever #n19f #ortega #branjie #scyvie #ninex #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #lesbian au #college au #university au #nina west #silky nutmeg ganache #s11

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