#even if you're not necessarily familiar with the series

[senascoop]

TIED UP IN YOU , N.RK !

﹙ 🍫 ﹚ ぃ ──── THIS MIGHT SOUND CRAZY BUT TRUST ME IT'S TRUE!

PAIRING : phone guy ! riki × student ! afab reader

SYNOPSIS : Niki was a good guy, no doubt about it. The only problem? He was your phone. How, exactly, did your phone transform into this strikingly handsome guy? It was baffling, frustrating, and, honestly, a bit overwhelming. Here you were, trying to navigate a world where your device had somehow become a charming, infuriatingly attractive human being. And to make matters worse, he was as stubborn and endearing as any person you'd ever met.

GENRE : fluff + crack

WARNING(S) : I don't really think there's any aside from mentions of period and blood in the start, kissing (can be slightly suggestive) and a possible sad ending but if there's more—please lmk.

WORD COUNT : 15.9K

MORE LIKE THIS? ┊ MASTERLIST

NOTE FROM SENA , it's been exactly two months since i’ve actually written a fic from the dreamscape series lol (but I'll make sure to write the other ones too!!) even a little feedback really fuels me—it doesn't necessarily have to be appreciation, it's okay for it to be constructive criticism. Also, happy birthday to our dearest maknae riki 🫶🏻💕

YOU HATE THIS.

You hate everything about it: the constant ache in your lower abdomen, the bloating that makes you uncomfortable, and worst of all, the emotional chaos you're forced to go through while navigating the constant tension your family adds to your life. It's almost too much. Almost.

Stepping into the bathroom, you peel off your bloodied underwear with a groan. This feels just another battle in a war you are losing. The step forward into the shower brings down upon your body warm water flowing. It streams down along your back and legs carrying away the last drops of blood. For that one instant, it soothes all the pain, but not for long.

You press your palms flat against the cool tiles of the wall, leaning forward as the steam rises around you. “Why can't one thing be easy?” you mutter, your voice barely audible over the rush of water.

The thought of your so-called friends creeps into your mind. Friends? you scoff internally. They aren't friends. They're just people who keep you around to have someone to poke fun at, and you? Too naïve, too hopeful, let them.

Your school's anti-bullying policy flashes across your mind next. What a joke. The only time they ever step in is when someone like you stands up to the bullies. It's infuriating.

With a disgusted huff, you twist the shower handle, dialing up the heat until the water is near-scalding. For an instant, the burn feels even slightly more pleasing than the general dull ache throughout your body. But that comfort loses itself too soon as well as the water becomes unbearable (too hot) to touch. “Great,” you say sarcastically and twist the knob off entirely.

The bathroom is silent except for the sporadic drip of the faucet. You take a towel and dab at yourself slowly, deliberatively drying yourself. You wince as your clothes touch your sore skin but continue through the motions nonetheless.

You then walk into the counter, reach in for the pack of pads, and pull one out. You stare at it for a moment before letting out a deep breath. The thought of using tampons crosses your mind. You shudder. Some things are just too much of a hassle to consider: the fumbling with the applicator before inserting something. You shake your head, muttering “Not for me,” place the pad carefully in a fresh pair of underwear you slip on, and feel familiar, slightly cushioned comfort.

The next comes the outfit. Half-day at school, of course means no uniforms—but, in keeping with the school's dress code, naturally. You rifle through your closet before settling on the usual choice: oversized, baggy. So comfortable. So practical. How can some of those girls make such a racket and carry themselves about in what would have otherwise been flashy, tight clothes? How do they manage to study?

As you pull the hoodie over your head, you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. For a moment, you pause, taking in the faint puffiness under your eyes and the dull expression on your face. You look tired. No, you look exhausted. You let out a sigh as you run a hand through your damp hair, tying it into a loose ponytail.

As you step out of the bathroom, still adjusting your hoodie, your heart nearly leaps out of your chest. There’s a man—a complete stranger—sitting casually on your bed like he owns the place. Your first instinct is to scream, but the sheer absurdity of his presence silences you momentarily. He looks…naive, almost harmless, as if he hasn't just committed a blatant act of breaking and entering.

But harmless or not, he’s still a stranger in your room. Your instincts kick in, and you grab the closest thing within reach—a dusty second-grade participation trophy your sister once won. You don’t care about the trophy. It’s been collecting cobwebs for years, and if it breaks while bashing in this intruder's head, so be it.

With the makeshift weapon clutched tightly in your hand, you take a step toward him. He notices, his head tilting slightly, and for a brief second, confusion flashes across his face. He raises his hands, palms out in surrender, and says in the calmest tone imaginable, “You’re not actually going to hit me, are you?”

His question catches you off guard. What? Of course you’re going to hit him! How dare he act so calm, as if he’s the victim here? You narrow your eyes, gripping the trophy even tighter.

“Well, if you’re going to intrude in my room and act like you’re some innocent little boy who doesn’t know what he’s doing, you’ve got another thing coming!” you snap, taking a step closer. “I’ll call the police!”

Your voice rises with conviction as you mentally prepare to shout for your mom, who’s probably awake by now. Surely she’d hear the commotion and come running. But the man, completely unfazed, leans back slightly on the bed. He rolls his eyes, letting out a dramatic sigh.

“Well, then. Go ahead. Call the police,” he says, his tone dripping with nonchalance, as if this is the most mundane situation in the world.

The sheer audacity leaves you momentarily stunned. Who does this guy think he is? Acting like this is his room, like he’s inviting you to call for help. Your grip loosens slightly on the trophy as your mind races. Why isn’t he scared? Why isn’t he running? Has he done this before?

You glance around, searching for your phone. Where is it? You could’ve sworn you left it on your desk, but it’s nowhere in sight. Panic creeps into your chest. He still hasn’t moved. His eyes flick around the room, scanning the details, but he doesn’t seem in a rush to do anything.

The way he observes everything so calmly only fuels your fear. Your gut tells you this guy is dangerous, no matter how unbothered he looks. Your heart pounds as your brain screams: Stranger danger. Stranger danger.

“I’m serious,” you blurt out, your voice quivering slightly despite your best efforts to stay strong. “I’ll scream. I’ll—”

“Then scream,” he interrupts, his voice sharp but not loud. His gaze finally locks with yours, and for the first time, you notice something unsettling in his expression. A flicker of something you can’t quite place. Not anger, not malice—just…calculation.

Your breath catches. He’s not leaving. He’s not running. This isn’t over.

With a frustrated sigh, you blurt out, “Where’s my darn phone?!”

Your eyes scan the room, darting over every surface in search of it. The guy—still sitting lazily on your bed—doesn’t even flinch. Instead, he tilts his head slightly and says, in the most deadpan tone imaginable, “Why are you searching when I’m right here?”

You freeze mid-step, slowly turning to look at him. What? Did he just…? Your first thought is this guy is absolutely insane. No rational person would say that, and suddenly, you’re wondering if he’s got some kind of mental illness. And, because your irritation is outweighing your common sense, you let the words slip right out of your mouth:

“I’m searching for my phone, you idiot. Just wait—just you see—I’m gonna call the police on you!”

It’s a dumb move, announcing your plan to the potential intruder. But at this point, logic has taken a backseat to sheer annoyance.

The guy blinks at you, seemingly unfazed, and mutters in that same emotionless tone, “I am your phone.”

You stare at him, disbelief written all over your face. “If you’re my phone,” you snap, crossing your arms, “then call the cops yourself.”

You return to searching, hands rummaging through the clutter on your desk. But then you hear something that makes you stop cold: a dialing sound. Not from a phone, but from him. Slowly, you turn back to see a faint, glowing screen appear above his head. The digital display shows numbers being dialed.

Your heart races as the call connects. A voice crackles through the air—an officer, calm and professional, asking, “Hello? Is everything alright there?”

Your jaw drops. What do you even say? Panic sets in. “Y-yeah,” you stammer, your voice shaking. “Everything’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

The officer pauses, clearly unconvinced, but then ends the call with a polite goodbye.

You stare at the man—your phone?—in complete shock. He looks at you as if nothing unusual has happened, his expression blank. Slowly, you lower yourself onto the edge of the bed, pressing a trembling hand to your forehead.

“What the hell…” you mutter, more to yourself than to him. This can’t be real. Phones don’t turn into people. And yet, the evidence is sitting right in front of you—a very real, very handsome guy, casually perched on your bed like this is the most normal thing in the world.

He shifts slightly, his head tilting again. “You seem stressed,” he says, his tone flat but oddly observant.

“Stressed?” you snap, gesturing wildly. “Of course I’m stressed! My phone—my phone—just turned into you! How is this even possible?!”

He shrugs, completely unbothered. “You dropped me too many times. I think I just… evolved.”

“EVOLVED?!” You bury your face in your hands, groaning. None of this makes sense. You don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or check yourself into a psych ward.

“How…” you start, your voice muffled behind your hands, “how is this even happening?”

“That’s what I’m here to figure out,” he replies simply, leaning back on his elbows.

You peek at him through your fingers, still in disbelief. “This can’t be real. There’s no way. You—no, this—” You cut yourself off, letting out a long, exhausted sigh.

Your phone—no, the guy—tilts his head again, studying you. “You’ll get used to it,” he says, almost like a promise.

But you’re not so sure about that.

“So… you’re my phone?” you ask, your voice tinged with disbelief, eyes narrowing as you study the boy in front of you.

“No doubt,” he answers almost immediately, like he’s personally offended you’d even question it.

You squint at him, crossing your arms. “Then prove it. What’s my name, my last semester grade, and… my favorite boy band?”

You’re sure this will trip him up. After all, your phone holds all your secrets. If he’s lying, he wouldn’t know the answers. You’ve texted casually about your life, sure, but your grade? That’s buried deep in your notes app. And your favorite K-pop group? Well, okay, maybe you’ve obsessively streamed their content, but still.

“Y/N, C-minus, and TXT,” he says without hesitation, his gaze steady as he stares you down.

Your jaw nearly hits the floor. “What the hell?” you mutter, stunned. No one knew your last semester grade—not even your parents. You hid it like a crime. And how could he guess your favorite group so easily?

You scowl, determined to poke a hole in his claim. “That’s not enough. Maybe you stalked me or paid too much attention to my life,” you argue, crossing your arms smugly, waiting for him to stumble.

But instead, he smirks—an infuriatingly cocky smirk. “Those videos you watch while pretending to be asleep under your blanket—”

“Shut up!” you cut him off, your cheeks instantly flaming. Oh, my god. That was not something anyone was supposed to know. “Fine, I believe you!” you snap, desperate to stop him before he digs up more embarrassing truths.

But he’s not done. He leans closer, his voice dropping as he adds, “And how about that sob story you wrote in your digital journal? The one you cringed at so hard you almost deleted the whole app?”

Your entire face burns. “I said I believe you! Now shut the fck up!” The words come out louder than you intended, practically echoing in the room.

There’s a knock on the door, followed by it swinging open.

“You seriously aren’t ready for school yet?” your mom complains, arms crossed as she glares at you.

Your heart stops. You whip around, fully expecting her to freak out at the sight of a random guy in your room. But when you look back at your bed…

He’s gone.

In his place lies your phone—ordinary, rectangular, and definitely not a human boy.

You stare at it, dumbfounded, while your mom narrows her eyes at you. “Well?” she snaps.

“I—I’m getting ready,” you stammer, trying to keep your voice steady. You glance back at the phone, half-expecting it to sprout arms and legs again. But it doesn’t move.

Your mom sighs, muttering something about you being late, and slams the door shut.

You flop down onto the bed, your head spinning. Did you just imagine all of that? Was it some kind of stress-induced hallucination? But… no, it felt real. Too real.

Your hand hovers over your phone. “What the hell just happened?” you whisper, the memory of his smug face flashing in your mind. You’re not sure if you’re losing it or if your phone just pulled the biggest prank of your life. Either way, it’s going to be a long day.

You couldn't focus at all during school. The weight of your phone in your pocket felt heavier than usual, as though it was a ticking time bomb waiting to spring legs and arms again. The thought of keeping it in your bag seemed like a bad idea—what if it turned into him again and someone saw? The last thing you needed was to explain that.

And yet, your mind kept wandering back to him. The guy. The phone. Whatever he was. He was… kind of handsome.

You mentally slapped yourself. Snap out of it, Y/N. It’s your phone, not a K-drama lead! Still, the thought lingered, making your stomach churn. What if you’d imagined everything? What if it was all in your head?

You tried to shake the unsettling thought, but it stuck. Maybe you were losing it. After all, you weren’t exactly what anyone would call normal. You’d always kept to yourself, avoided making friends, and generally preferred your own company. Isn’t that how they describe psychopaths in true crime documentaries?

You shivered at the thought. Maybe Eunmi would understand. She was quiet, kept her distance from people too. You glanced across the classroom and spotted her sitting by herself. Perfect. You grabbed your stuff and slid into the seat next to her.

Eunmi turned to you, her brows furrowing in confusion. Without a word, she grabbed her things and moved to another seat across the room.

“Wtf?” you muttered, glaring after her. “Some people are so ungrateful. She could’ve just said she didn’t want to talk.”

You slumped back in your seat, fuming and plotting petty revenge in your head. But before you could dwell on it too much, the classroom door creaked open. Miss Shin walked in, her expression as flat and lifeless as her lectures.

History. Great.

You suppressed a groan as she began her lesson, droning on about wars and treaties in the most monotone voice imaginable. You weren’t saying history couldn’t be interesting—it totally could. But with Miss Shin? She made even the most exciting historical events feel like watching paint dry.

Why was she even hired as a teacher? She should’ve been a librarian or something.

You stifled a yawn, covering your mouth with your hand. The effort was pointless, though. Half the class was already yawning or staring blankly at their desks.

Your hand brushed against your pocket, the outline of your phone reminding you of the chaos from this morning. You couldn’t help but peek down at it. Was it just your imagination, or did it feel warmer than usual?

Stay calm, you told yourself. Don’t freak out. But the thought lingered—what if this wasn’t over? What if he—or it—came back?

You swallowed hard and glanced around the room. No one was paying attention to you, thankfully. But you couldn’t shake the feeling that something about today was far from normal.

“So this…” Miss Shin droned on, gesturing at the board where her half-hearted notes were scrawled. Whatever she was explaining had already flown over your head. You didn’t care. You weren’t in the mood to pay attention, let alone write anything down.

You flipped open your notebook—still blank, as usual—and stared at the empty page. The thought of filling it with Miss Shin’s monotony made your eyelids droop. All you wanted was to go back home, crawl into bed, and pretend this bizarre day hadn’t happened. Maybe that was the real reason you were seeing things—exhaustion messing with your brain.

A faint ding from your pocket pulled you out of your thoughts. You frowned and pulled out your phone. A notification glared up at you:

“Write it down.”

What the…? You didn’t remember setting up anything like that. Before you could process it, you sneezed unexpectedly, the sharp sound echoing across the silent classroom. Heads turned toward you, your classmates throwing judgmental looks your way.

You tried to ignore them, but then your phone started to vibrate—loudly. The desk buzzed beneath your hands, and you could feel the attention of the entire room shifting onto you.

This was a nightmare.

Your classmates whispered among themselves, some shooting you annoyed glances. You were already the so-called “bad influence” in the school, the one parents warned their kids to stay away from. But this? This was next-level humiliation.

The phone wouldn’t stop vibrating. You tried pressing random buttons, but nothing worked. It was as if your phone—or he—was demanding your cooperation.

You sighed, gripping your pen. Maybe, just maybe, the only way to shut it up was to do what it wanted. As ridiculous as it sounded, you decided to test your theory.

The moment your pen touched the page and you started copying the notes on the board, the vibrating stopped. Silence finally returned, and you let out a breath of relief.

But your heart raced. This wasn’t normal. None of it was.

Your father had gifted you this phone before he passed away. It was sentimental, irreplaceable. But now it felt like a curse. A device that had taken on a life of its own—or, more disturbingly, a human form.

You glanced at your pocket where the phone rested quietly, as if nothing had happened. You couldn’t shake the thought that whatever this was, it wasn’t over. For now, though, you had no choice but to keep writing, pretending like everything was fine.

The park is quiet, save for the distant chatter of kids playing and the occasional rustle of leaves in the breeze. You sit on a bench, your elbows resting on your knees, and your gaze fixed on the ground. Your phone lies next to you, placed carefully on the seat, as if you’re afraid it might suddenly sprout arms and legs again.

Your schoolbag acts as a barrier between you and the phone, like it’ll somehow protect you from whatever is going on. You sigh heavily, the weight of the day pressing down on you. “I should really see a therapist,” you mutter under your breath, pinching the bridge of your nose in frustration.

The unexpected sensation of an arm draping casually over your shoulder sends a shiver down your spine. You freeze, your heart skipping a beat as your head snaps to the side. And there he is—again. The guy who claims to be your phone, lounging as if nothing about this is strange.

“Why did you disappear this morning when my mom came in?” you ask, your voice a mix of confusion and exasperation.

He shrugs nonchalantly, leaning back on the bench like he owns the place. His posture is relaxed, one leg crossed over the other, his expression completely void of emotion. “Nobody else can see me except you.”

His answer is so matter-of-fact that it takes you a second to process. You lean forward, resting your forearms on your knees, and glance at him sideways. “Great,” you say dryly, “so not only do I have a talking phone, but it’s also invisible to everyone else. Just my luck.”

He doesn’t respond immediately, his gaze fixed on the sky like he’s analyzing the clouds. The silence stretches, and you realize something that’s been bugging you since the first time he appeared.

“Do you even have a personality?” you blurt out, sitting up straight to face him. The question isn’t kind, but at this point, you don’t care. He doesn’t seem to have feelings, anyway—why would he? He’s a phone.

He finally turns to look at you, his face as blank as always. Then, without missing a beat, he says, “Apparently, the phone takes after its owner.”

His words hit you like a slap. Your jaw drops, and you feel a rush of indignation. “Excuse me? Are you saying I don’t have a personality?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” he replies, completely unfazed.

You stare at him, stunned. Nobody’s ever said anything like that to you before. Sure, you’ve had fake friends talk behind your back and parents who sometimes pointed out your flaws, but being insulted by your own phone? That’s a new low.

“You’ve got some nerve,” you snap, crossing your arms.

He tilts his head, studying you like you’re an object of mild interest. “I’m just stating the facts. You’ve been carrying me around all this time; I’m bound to reflect you.”

You scoff, turning away to glare at the horizon. The breeze ruffles your hair, and you feel the heat of embarrassment creeping up your neck. “You know,” you mutter, “for something that’s supposed to be mine, you’re awfully rude.”

“Rude?” he echoes, sounding genuinely curious. “I didn’t realize honesty was rude. Maybe that’s another reflection of you.”

You whip your head back toward him, your mouth opening to retort, but the look on his face—calm, blank, unbothered—leaves you speechless.

For a moment, you just sit there, glaring at him while he stares back with that same neutral expression. It’s infuriating. You slump back against the bench, throwing your head back and groaning in frustration.

“I don’t know what I did to deserve this,” you say to no one in particular.

He leans forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees and looking at you with something that might almost be amusement. “You kept me for years. This is just karma.”

“Karma for what?” you snap, narrowing your eyes at him.

“For ignoring the warranty,” he deadpans, and for the first time, you think you see the ghost of a smirk tugging at his lips.

You glare at him, utterly done. “I hate you.”

“You’ll still carry me everywhere,” he points out, leaning back again and crossing his arms smugly.

You groan again, pressing your palms to your face because of how annoying he truly was. For a moment neither of you spoke.

“Why would you vibrate in class? That was so embarrassing,” you say, breaking the tension and changing the subject. You’re not about to argue further, so you sling an arm around his shoulder like you’re old friends.

He immediately stiffens and shrugs your arm off with a look of mild disgust. “Because you weren’t writing the notes,” he replies flatly, brushing off your gesture like you’ve personally offended him.

You blink, stunned. The audacity.

“And why do you care so much about that? You’re supposed to be my phone,” you snap, narrowing your eyes at him.

“Because, well…” He pauses, and suddenly, that glowing screen appears above his head again. It’s flipping through your search history.

Your heart drops. “What are you doing?! Close it!” you hiss, panic bubbling in your chest as you glance around to make sure no one’s nearby.

He doesn’t even flinch at your tone, completely unbothered. “Relax. I’m just looking for something,” he says, his voice taking on an infuriatingly smug edge.

“I searched those things because they’re private,” you mutter, your frustration building. You ball your fists at your sides, resisting the urge to throttle him—not that it would make any difference. He’s a freaking machine.

“You shouldn’t have searched them if you didn’t want anyone to see,” he replies, his monotone voice now laced with an evil undertone. His smirk grows as the glowing screen halts, revealing a to-do list. Your middle school to-do list.

You feel the blood drain from your face. “No, no, no,” you mumble, already dreading what’s coming next.

“Let’s see,” he says, clearly enjoying this. He leans forward slightly, reading aloud:

001. Get A’s in at least three subjects.

002. Get a boyfriend before graduation.

003. Make at least one friend.

The list glows mockingly between the two of you.

You groan and press a hand to your forehead. “You’re not seriously going to dwell on something I wrote as a literal kid,” you mutter, voice dripping with disbelief.

“Why not? You still haven’t checked anything off,” he points out, tilting his head like he’s genuinely curious about your failure.

“Because—” you start, your voice rising in frustration, “that was middle school! None of that even matters now!”

“Well, well, well... If I’m looking at your past history and the things in your other notes...” He trails off, his glowing screen flipping again as though searching for the most humiliating detail to dig up.

Then it stops. His screen flashes: 15% character development since middle school.

Your jaw drops. The sheer amount of disrespect—oh, lord. You point an accusatory finger at him, utterly offended by your own phone.

“That is so false! If I hadn’t had character development, I wouldn’t have stood up to the bullies in middle school. Or cut off all my toxic friends!” you argue, arms crossing tightly over your chest. The nerve of this guy.

He tilts his head, unimpressed. “That’s why it said 15% development. The other 85%? Still not there. Let’s just say, you need to study harder instead of spending hours watching those—”

You slap a hand over his mouth, glaring up at him despite the fact that he’s way taller. “SHUT UP!”

He doesn’t resist, just blinks at you like this is all beneath him. Meanwhile, you grab your water bottle and take a sip, trying to calm your boiling frustration. After a deep breath, you lower the bottle and mutter, “If you’ve turned into a human, why can’t you, I don’t know, switch to being female? Maybe I’d connect with you better.”

It’s not really a question. More of a passive-aggressive command for him to get out of your life entirely.

“Well,” he starts, completely unfazed, “cheap phones apparently only transform into males. If your phone was more expensive, maybe I’d be a girl.”

The silence that follows is deafening. His expression is as emotionless as ever, so he clearly doesn’t realize the massive mistake he just made.

You stare at him, the words hitting like a punch to the gut. Slowly, you lower your gaze, your voice quieter now. “It was gifted by my dad… my late dad,” you mumble.

His screen flickers uncertainly, but he doesn’t say anything. You sigh, pressing your palms against your face, trying to hold back the sting of tears threatening to spill.

Your dad had been the best—kind, patient, your biggest supporter. And then, when you were seven, everything changed. After he passed, your mom remarried. You didn’t want to accept the man as your stepdad, not when you still held on so tightly to the memory of your father.

It wasn’t until you were older—seventeen, to be exact—that you realized how selfish you’d been. Your mom had spent years grieving, and she deserved love, even if it hurt you to see someone else in your dad’s place.

The man was nice to you, patient even when you were rude. But every time you looked at him, it reminded you that your dad was gone.

The phone sitting next to you now—this phone—was your dad’s. You’d taken it after growing up, cherishing it because it had been his. Back then, it brought you comfort.

You never could’ve imagined it would one day transform into some smug guy with no tact whatsoever.

“If I wanted my phone to transform into someone… it would be my dad,” you mutter, swiping at a tear that threatens to escape the confines of your closed eyelids.

He stays silent for a moment, his screen flickering dimly before he mumbles, “But… wouldn't it be sad? Seeing him trapped inside a device?”

The softness in his voice makes you laugh—an awkward, bittersweet laugh. What were you even doing? Seeking comfort from your phone?

“Why are you laughing?” he asks, tilting his head in confusion.

“Since you’re so smart and apparently great at giving correct statements, why don’t you figure out yourself why I’m laughing?” you reply, a faint smile tugging at your lips.

He looks thoroughly puzzled, his glowing eyes blinking as though trying to process. Of course, he wouldn’t understand. He was a machine. A device that knew nothing about the complexities of the actual world.

Before you can explain—or tell him to drop it entirely—the skies open up. The first raindrop splatters onto the ground, quickly followed by another, then another. Within seconds, it’s pouring.

Your smile fades, replaced with pure horror as realization strikes. He’s your phone. Not a regular guy. Meaning— “You’re not waterproof!” you yelp, panic kicking in.

“What?” he asks, his confusion somehow even more clueless than before.

“We need to run!” you blurt out, already yanking off your jacket.

You grab his shoulders, tugging him down since he’s ridiculously tall—and far too proud of it. Wrapping the jacket over his head as a makeshift cover, you mutter under your breath, “I swear, if you short-circuit on me, I’m going to lose it.”

He mumbles something, but you’re not listening. You grab his hand, practically dragging him through the downpour. The jacket flutters slightly as you shield him, doing your best to keep him—and by extension, your phone—dry.

If anyone saw you, they’d think this was a scene straight out of a romance movie. The two of you running through the rain, hands intertwined, your jacket protecting his head.

But no. This wasn’t a romantic moment. Not even close.

This was you desperately trying to save your phone. A phone that was probably going to haunt you later by bringing up your middle school to-do list the second it powered back on.

The next day, you hug your pillow tightly, the soft fabric providing a fleeting moment of peace as sleep lingers in your half-conscious mind. The blanket drapes over you completely, cocooning you in warmth, and for a blissful second, you forget the bizarre events of the day before.

That is, until a cold splash of water shocks you into reality.

“WHAT THE HELL?” you hiss, bolting upright, water dripping from your hair and stinging your eyes. You frantically swipe at your face, blinking to focus on the perpetrator.

Standing there with a glass in hand and an infuriatingly calm expression is him.

“Just waking you up,” he says with a shrug, as if drenching someone in cold water is the most reasonable way to start a morning.

Your patience snaps. Without thinking, you grip his shoulders and push him down onto the now-soaked bed, your movements fueled by a mix of irritation and disbelief. You hover over him, faces mere inches apart, as you glare.

“If you ever pull that stunt again,” you growl, your voice low and dangerous, “I swear I’ll punch you. Hard.”

For a moment, he stares up at you, unflinching. His expression remains annoyingly blank, devoid of any real emotion. “You won’t,” he says flatly, his voice laced with the same maddening nonchalance.

The tension in the air is palpable, and just as you’re about to argue—or maybe prove him wrong—the sound of your door creaking open freezes you in place.

Your mother stands in the doorway, her expression teetering between confusion and concern as she takes in the scene: you, soaking wet and hovering over what appears to be… nothing.

You glance down, heart sinking.

The boy is gone.

In his place, lying on the bed, is your phone—completely ordinary, as if nothing ever happened.

You gape at it, then back at your mom, trying to string together some sort of explanation. But what could you even say? That your phone turned into a person yesterday, drenched you in water, and then vanished the second she walked in?

The bed is still soaked with the cold water your phone—now suspiciously ordinary—had poured on you moments ago. Your mother’s voice cuts through the tense silence like a whip, her tone sharp and unforgiving.

“Did you wet your bed?” she demands, though it’s not really a question. Her eyes are blazing with indignation, and you can tell she already believes the answer.

Your stomach twists in frustration. Of all things, this has to happen on a weekend—a day meant for rest, now utterly ruined by this bizarre, unbelievable mess. And all because of that darn phone.

“No, Mom… I don’t know how the water got there,” you mutter, keeping your voice as steady as possible. The truth is out of the question. Telling her your phone had somehow turned into a boy and splashed you awake would sound absurd even to you.

“So the water just appeared there by itself?” she snaps, crossing her arms as if she’s daring you to double down on your story. Her disbelief burns in the air between you, and you feel a spark of anger flicker beneath your skin.

Your mother has always been quick to anger, her patience worn thin ever since your dad passed away. You love her—of course, you do—but moments like this stretch your tolerance to its limit.

She huffs loudly, a sound filled with both exasperation and finality. “I expect this mess cleaned up before you go anywhere,” she says curtly, her words laced with a warning. Then, without waiting for a response, she turns on her heel and shuts the door behind her with a thud.

You’re left alone in the room, staring at the wet mattress and the phone in your hand. The absurdity of the situation hits you all over again, and a bitter laugh bubbles in your throat.

“Thanks for that,” you mutter under your breath to the device, as if it could still hear you.

But it remains silent—an ordinary, lifeless phone. And yet, you can’t shake the feeling that somewhere within its circuits, it’s smirking.

You sit on the soaked bed, hugging your knees to your chest. The chill from the cold water clings to your skin, but in the biting cold of December, it doesn’t really matter anymore. The wet bed is just another indignity added to the list of things you’re enduring today—courtesy of your phone.

Your eyes trail to the closed door, and a heaviness settles in your chest. Your mom hardly speaks to you unless it’s about your studies. Anything else—your health, your feelings—just turns into a sharp yell, as though shouting could substitute for care.

With a sigh, you get up, water dripping from your clothes as you grab a cloth to clean the floor. Kneeling down, you watch the fabric soak up the water, leaving dark patches on the cloth as it gets heavier.

“Such a sad life I have,” you mutter irritably, throwing a glance toward your phone sitting innocently on the desk. Its stillness is almost mocking, like it’s pretending to have no part in this disaster.

Your lips curl into a taunting smirk as you direct your words at it. “Must be nice, huh? Creating a mess and then leaving me to deal with it. Why not become a human and help me clean this up?”

You roll your eyes, half-hoping—no, fully expecting—it to transform and lend a hand. But no. The lazy little piece of tech remains where it is, as lifeless as any other phone. The longer you stare at it, the more ridiculous you feel.

“Figures,” you huff under your breath, dragging the damp cloth across the floor. The absurdity of it all makes you question yourself. Did it ever really turn into a human? Or are you just losing your mind?

Either way, it’s not helping. And now, the floor’s dry, but your patience is wrung out completely.

“When we reach there, you don’t get to disturb me, Niki,” you say firmly to the guy walking beside you. He’s the embodiment of your phone—a fact you’re still trying to wrap your head around.

“Niki?” he repeats, tilting his head in confusion, his expression as blank as an untouched canvas. “Who’s Niki here?”

“You,” you reply with an exasperated sigh. “I’m naming you Niki. Or Riki, whatever. It’s too weird to keep thinking of you as my phone.”

“That’s a weird name,” he comments, his tone matter-of-fact.

Your eyes narrow at him. “Be happy I’m not holding a grudge for what you did this morning,” you snap, barely holding back your frustration.

“What did I do so wrong?” he asks, genuinely perplexed. His human brows knit together in confusion, and it almost makes you doubt his intentions. Almost. “You set an alarm, and I woke you up,” he adds, as if the logic is foolproof.

“You created a mess!” you counter, gesturing emphatically with your hands. “Yes, I set an alarm—but a virtual alarm. Not an invitation for someone to literally pour cold water on me in the middle of freezing winter!”

He stares at you, his innocent expression unshaken, and you groan in defeat.

Scolding him feels pointless. At the end of the day, he’s still a phone—albeit a bizarrely human one. And while his actions drive you up the wall, you remind yourself that yelling at him won’t change anything. Technology doesn’t have feelings.

Or so you keep telling yourself.

And now, here you are, on your way to a study session with two classmates. Not because you’re overly eager or dedicated, but because you’re failing your classes. Hard. And your phone—master of your life apparently—had made it a point to remind you of the ancient to-do list you’d scribbled in middle school.

The list wasn’t exactly groundbreaking:

i. Get a boyfriend. ii. Get a friend. iii. Score at least three A’s in school.

Simple, right? Wrong.

Studying alone never worked for you. If you tried, you’d inevitably end up daydreaming, scrolling through social media, or finding creative ways to procrastinate. So, you’d resorted to digging through the school’s study groups and joining the only active one left. You didn’t know who the other two members were, but that was a minor detail.

You grab your phone—yes, the normal phone, since Riki decided to turn back into his original form. You still cringe at how uninspired his name is, but for now, it works.

The plan is simple: fit into the study group, make a friend (or something that vaguely resembles friendship), and start checking boxes off the list. Not that your phone would ever know, you think with a sly smirk.

Shoving the device into your pocket, you make your way to the designated spot, but as soon as you see the two group members, you freeze.

It’s Eunmi and Jungwon.

Eunmi—the same girl who once shot you a disgusted look and turned her back on you like you were nothing more than yesterday’s trash. Oh, how you’d love to knock that smug grin off her face.

And then there’s Jungwon. Handsome, quiet Jungwon. You’ve never spoken to him, but he has an air about him that practically screams “perfect study partner.”

Suddenly, you realize how this could work in your favor.

Step one: Get a boyfriend. Jungwon’s good looks and his apparent lack of social drama make him the ideal choice. You’re not looking for love; you’re looking to cross a line off your list.

Step two: Make a friend. Eunmi? Ugh. As much as it pains you, she qualifies—even if you have to grit your teeth and fake it. If not her, then someone else will eventually fit the bill. Surely, you’re not that unfriendable… right?

Step three: Score three A’s. With Jungwon’s brains and a bit of effort on your part, that goal might actually be achievable.

It’s a win-win-win, you tell yourself, a cunning glint in your eye. You take a deep breath and plaster on your most convincing smile. It’s time to work some magic—your reputation be damned.

You slide into the seat opposite Jungwon, deliberately ignoring Eunmi. The phone in your pocket is entirely forgotten for now as you focus on your new plan.

“So, I guess I’ll be studying with you guys?” you ask, letting a soft, harmless smile linger on your lips while keeping your gaze locked on Jungwon. You casually unzip your bag, pulling out a battered zoology book and setting it on the table as if you’re here for serious business.

Jungwon, polite as ever, gives you a small nod. “Well, kind of. You can say that,” he replies. He doesn’t seem unfriendly, though you can tell by his tone that he and Eunmi have been in this study group for a while. Of course, that makes you the outsider. Not that it bothers you—this is just a stepping stone to your ultimate goals.

And then Eunmi speaks.

“What made you want to study all of a sudden, Miss Bad Grades?”

You clench your jaw but force your face to remain neutral, even though your fingers itch to grab a fistful of her perfectly styled hair and yank. How dare this girl try to ruin your impression in front of Jungwon? Sure, your reputation in school isn’t stellar, but she didn’t have to say it out loud.

“I wanted to do better,” you reply smoothly, keeping your voice calm and unbothered. Your smile doesn’t waver, though inside, you’re plotting about five different ways to get back at her if she keeps this up.

The study session has barely begun, and already, you’re wondering how you’re going to survive without snapping. You glance at Jungwon, hoping he’ll say something to shift the conversation, but he’s already flipping through his notebook, oblivious to the silent tension brewing between you and Eunmi.

The session drags on, and while your eyes occasionally skim the words in your textbook, your brain is busy analyzing the way Jungwon’s lips press together when he’s concentrating. You imagine how soft they must feel, how it would be to kiss him. But no, not yet. You can’t. Not until you’ve executed your plan.

Time slips away unnoticed until your phone starts buzzing in your pocket, jolting you from your daydreams. Internally, you curse. What does Riki want this time? That mischievous, human-turned-phone was always up to something.

Eunmi, of course, notices. She shakes her head in that condescending way that practically screams, See? I told you she’s not serious about studying. You don’t need to hear her words to know she’s silently plotting to turn Jungwon against you. The smug look on her face makes your fingers twitch.

“Such a bitch,” you mutter under your breath before quickly masking your irritation.

“I’ll—be right back,” you say with a sheepish smile, standing up from the table. The chair scrapes against the floor, earning you a scoff from Eunmi. She doesn’t even try to hide her disdain.

Jungwon gives a distracted hum, barely lifting his head from his book. You resist the urge to roll your eyes. Could this guy act like he cares for once? I’m right here, desperate for your attention, and you’re more invested in spermatogenesis?

Your phone is still vibrating as you weave through the tables, making your way to the restroom. Once inside, you slip into a stall and lock the door behind you. Pulling out your phone, you press the power button like you’re interrogating a criminal.

“Hey, Riki? Why are you buzzing?” you hiss, glaring at the glowing phone in your hand. Frustration bubbles in your chest as you slump onto the toilet seat, trying to avoid drawing more attention.

Before you can even blink, the phone morphs, and there he is—Riki. Towering over you, his presence taking up the cramped stall like he owns it. You freeze, your eyes widening as you realize just how compromising this position looks. His knees brush yours, and his hands press against the walls, effectively trapping you in place.

“H-Hey! Get off me!” you stammer, squirming as much as the limited space allows. But even when he shifts slightly, it doesn’t make much of a difference. He’s still leaning in way too close for comfort.

“You’ve got some nerve,” he says, his voice low but cutting. “Why were you staring at Jungwon instead of finishing the chapter?”

The question knocks the breath out of you. You gape at him, your brain scrambling to come up with an excuse. How does he even know? He’s just a phone!

“That’s—none of your business!” you sputter, crossing your arms defensively.

“Oh, it is my business,” he says, raising an eyebrow. “Aren’t I the one keeping track of your precious little checklist?”

You narrow your eyes at him. “One of the tasks is getting a boyfriend, isn’t it? So yeah, I was looking at him. Got a problem with that?”

Riki’s expression shifts, and for the first time, there’s a flicker of something almost human in his sharp gaze. Disbelief? Annoyance? Whatever it is, it’s enough to make him scoff audibly.

“You’re thinking him? That guy? Seriously?” he asks, his voice dripping with judgment. “Your taste in men is worse than I thought.”

“Excuse me?” You glare, feeling your blood boil. “He’s charming and—”

“You wouldn’t know charming if it hit you in the face,” Riki cuts you off, rolling his eyes with an exasperated sigh. For someone who used to be a piece of metal and glass, he’s got an awful lot of opinions.

Before you can retort, he turns back into your phone in the blink of an eye, falling toward the floor. You scramble to catch him, nearly fumbling in the process, and clutch him tightly in your hand.

“You are the worst,” you mutter, shoving him back into your pocket.

But as you stand up and unlock the stall, brushing yourself off, the thought lingers: Why did he get so worked up? You shake your head, pushing the question away. Who cares? It’s not like his opinion matters, right?

Right.

A week passes, and you’re still not fully adjusted to the bizarre reality that your phone occasionally transforms into a sarcastic, human-sized headache named Riki. It’s unsettling but oddly entertaining—though you’d never admit that to him.

The study group, on the other hand, is a battlefield you didn’t sign up for. Not because of the studying—oh no, that’s manageable. It’s Eunmi, who seems to have declared you her mortal enemy the moment you walked in.

Her latest tactics are as subtle as a neon sign. First, there was the juice incident. She accidentally spilled her drink all over your notes, forcing you to grit your teeth and smile like a beauty pageant contestant while internally screaming. You knew it wasn’t an accident—her little smirk gave her away—but yelling at her in front of Jungwon? No way. That would only play into her hands.

Then came the note-snatching debacle. Eunmi sweetly asked to borrow your notes, even though hers were perfectly fine. Next thing you know, there’s a loud rip as she flips a page too aggressively. Your precious, perfectly organised notes—ruined. You’re convinced she’s trying to provoke you into losing your temper, hoping Jungwon will see you as the unhinged maniac she wants you to be.

But you’re smarter than that. You refuse to give her the satisfaction.

Jungwon, oblivious as ever, doesn’t seem to notice the cold war brewing at the table. Over the past week, you’ve come to realise just how clueless he is—not just about Eunmi’s schemes but also about your less-than-stellar reputation.

How is it possible that he doesn’t know? You were practically infamous for your fiery temper in school. Yet here he is, helping you with notes, explaining concepts patiently, even sharing his own work with you—all without a hint of hesitation.

Sometimes, he surprises you even more. Like when he casually suggests the two of you study alone. Your heart nearly leaps out of your chest each time he does, but you force yourself to decline.

Not because you don’t want to.

You do—desperately.

But according to your well-studied guide on “How to Win a Guy Over,” playing hard to get is essential. If you said yes too quickly, wouldn’t he stop finding you interesting?

So, with every ounce of willpower, you smile, place a hand over your racing heart, and politely refuse.

“Maybe next time,” you say, pretending to be unfazed, when really, you’re screaming internally.

You tell yourself it’s working. Jungwon seems more intrigued every day—or at least, that’s what you tell yourself to justify the agony of sitting through another study session with her.

Lately, Riki—or Niki, or whatever you had whimsically decided to call him—had taken it upon himself to discipline you. Whenever study time rolled around, he would shut your bedroom door with the finality of a prison warden, ensuring zero distractions.

At first, it was kind of helpful. You begrudgingly admitted that. But as the days went on, it started to get unbearable.

Without your phone—because your phone was, unfortunately, a human being now—there was no scrolling through your feed, no binge-watching your favorite group’s reels, and no celebrity TikToks. Worse, you hadn’t even heard TXT’s latest song or watched their new music video because someone refused to let you.

You tapped your pen against your desk, fidgeting with boredom. “Please,” you whined, turning in your chair to face him. “I studied for like, three hours, didn’t I? Now be a good boy and let mama see some reels or TikToks!” You added the last part with a teasing lilt, hoping to fluster him.

But you forgot—this was Riki. Your sentient, emotionally unavailable phone. Feelings? Not his thing.

“No,” he replied flatly, arms crossed like he was the boss of you.

“Please, Miki!” you tried again, throwing in some puppy-dog eyes for good measure.

He raised a brow, unimpressed. “Miki? Didn’t you already name me Riki?” His tone was laced with exasperation, like he couldn’t fathom how you’d forgotten the name you gave him.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” you huffed, brushing off his sarcasm. “I swear, it’s just one music video. That’s it. I’ve earned it!”

He didn’t respond immediately, his face a mix of suspicion and resignation. Finally, he sighed. “Fine. But just one video.”

Your face lit up as a glowing screen materialized above his head, displaying the thumbnail of TXT’s latest music video. As it began to play, you clapped in delight and sang along, fully immersing yourself in the moment.

But just as you were getting into it—pausing to admire Soobin’s part—Riki froze the video mid-frame.

“Enough,” he said, his tone as dry as the Sahara.

You glared at him, fists clenched as if contemplating whether punching him was worth the effort. Instead, you let out an exaggerated groan, slumping in your chair.

Riki ignored your dramatics, a timer popping up in the digital display above his head. It ticked down with cruel efficiency, mocking you.

“Can you believe this?” you muttered under your breath. “My phone is moody.”

“I wish I was with Jungwon,” you muttered, shooting a glare at the sulking figure in front of you. You didn’t even try to hide the exasperation in your voice.

Riki’s eyes snapped to yours, his expression hardening as if you’d just insulted his entire existence. “Why the blonde-haired guy?” he asked, his lips twisting into a bitter frown.

It was the first time you’d seen him show this much emotion, and it was shockingly clear—he despised Jungwon.

“He has a name,” you said defensively, crossing your arms.

Riki wasn’t having it. “So, you’re now his personal lawyer?” he shot back, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “This is why you don’t get good grades. Stop running after that guy.”

You blinked, caught between indignation and disbelief. “Excuse me?” His logic—or lack thereof—was baffling. He’d been the one insisting you get a boyfriend before high school ended. But now? Now he was acting like you’d committed some unspeakable crime.

Before you could form a retort, he sighed dramatically and transformed back into a phone, flopping onto your bed with a heavy thud.

You groaned, snatching him up. “What is your problem?” You pressed the power button, trying to unlock the screen, but the phone didn’t respond. No matter how many times you swiped or tapped, it stubbornly refused to work.

“Are you kidding me?” you hissed, your annoyance bubbling over.

From your bed, the phone-turned-human smirked, lounging like he owned the place before flickering back into a phone. The audacity.

“Aghhh, fine! I’ll study!” you snapped, stomping back to your desk. Your chair scraped loudly against the floor as you plopped down, glaring daggers at the sulking phone.

Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed him flickering in and out of human form, like some glitching video game character. One moment he was there, leaning against your pillows with his arms crossed and an unimpressed look; the next, he was just a lifeless phone.

It was almost…cute? No, no, you shook your head. There was nothing cute about your phone-human hybrid being this petty.

Still, you found your eyes wandering back to him more often than you’d like to admit. And each time, you caught the faintest hint of a smug expression on his face, as if he knew he was winning this ridiculous battle of wills.

“Yes, Mom, I’ll go! Just two minutes!” you shout, pulling on a pair of sweatpants and a passable top in a rush. All this, just to take out the trash. A noble cause? Hardly. But it was enough to earn your mom’s approval.

Riki—or your phone, rather—lay silent on your desk. He wasn’t in human form right now, but if he were, you could already picture him sulking. He’d been unusually quiet since you decided to help your mom instead of following his meticulous study schedule. Not that you minded the silence; it felt like a small victory.

With a sigh, you grab the trash bag, sliding your phone into your pocket. “Be good,” you mutter under your breath, half expecting some smart-aleck comment from him, but the screen remains dark.

Slipping into your worn-out slippers, you trudge down the apartment stairs, the trash bag swinging lightly in your grip. The cool evening air brushes against your face as you step outside, breathing in the faint scent of street food from the stalls down the block.

“Phew,” you murmur to yourself, relieved to have made it out without any drama. That is until your heart nearly stops.

There, by the communal trash bins, is Jungwon. Casual and effortlessly perfect, dressed in a plain hoodie and jeans, his hair falling into his eyes in a way that shouldn’t look this good.

Your gaze drops to your outfit—a mismatched catastrophe of sweatpants, an old shirt, and slippers. You might as well be cosplaying a beggar (according to your mom).

Mentally cursing your life choices, you toss the trash bag into the bin, dusting your hands and praying for a clean escape. But before you can make your getaway, a hand touches your shoulder.

“You live around here?” Jungwon’s voice is light and curious, but it feels like a spotlight on your very soul.

“Uh, yeah… kind of,” you stammer, suddenly hyper-aware of how ridiculous you must look.

“And that is…?” His voice trails off as he points behind you, his brows knitting together.

You turn slowly, dread pooling in your stomach. Standing a few feet away is Riki, in his fully human form, arms crossed, looking like he’s been summoned from the depths of your worst nightmares.

Your hand shoots into your pocket, fumbling for your phone. Except—your pocket is empty.

Your brain short-circuits. He can see Riki?!

“Boyfriend. Her boyfriend,” Riki announces sharply, his voice cutting through the moment like a knife. His eyes narrow at Jungwon, his disdain palpable. If looks could kill, Jungwon would have been incinerated on the spot.

Your mouth drops open, no words forming. Riki, your phone-human hybrid, is showing emotion. And not just any emotion—jealousy.

Jungwon’s lips part, clearly taken aback, but he quickly recovers, a polite smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Oh… I didn’t know.”

“Well, now you do,” Riki snaps, stepping closer and crossing his arms protectively.

All you can do is stand there, torn between laughing hysterically at the absurdity of the situation and wanting the earth to swallow you whole. This is your life now—your phone pretending to be your boyfriend in front of your crush. Fantastic.

“Is it true?” Jungwon asks, tilting his head slightly. His tone is soft, uncertain, like he’s piecing together a puzzle that suddenly doesn’t make sense. He had never known you had a boyfriend. The poor guy had even started thinking maybe—just maybe—you might be interested in him. But now? He thinks otherwise.

“Yeah… I think so,” you mutter, your voice barely audible as you glance at Riki. Confusion swirls in your head like a storm. Why on earth is this bastard acting like a full-fledged human, let alone ruining the sliver of progress you'd made with Jungwon?

“It’s 100% true,” Riki cuts in, his voice low and menacing as he steps between you and Jungwon. “So, I suggest you stay away from my girlfriend.”

Jungwon blinks, his lips parting slightly in disbelief. “Oh… okay,” he says after a moment, his voice a mix of confusion and reluctant acceptance. Relief flashes briefly across his face—better to find out now than after he’d fallen for you completely, he reasons.

He tosses his trash into the bin, bows politely—because, of course, Jungwon’s still a gentleman—and turns on his heel, walking back toward his apartment.

As soon as he’s out of sight, you whirl on Riki, fury bubbling just beneath the surface. “You ruined it, Niki!” you hiss through gritted teeth, your voice a harsh whisper to avoid attracting any curious neighbors.

Riki just shrugs, utterly unbothered. A screen materializes above his head, glowing faintly in the dim light. It displays a graph, bold and undeniable: Jungwon negatively affects your study efficiency by 60%.

“See?” he says, pointing at the glowing data like it’s irrefutable proof. “I’m doing you a favor. Jungwon’s presence is literally detrimental to your academic success.”

You stare at the screen, your mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. You’re at a loss. How are you supposed to argue with statistics? It’s infuriatingly logical, and yet, entirely absurd.

Your foot taps impatiently on the pavement as you cross your arms. “Why do you hate Jungwon so much?” you ask, your voice sharp with exasperation. Deep down, you’re fighting the urge to smack him—though you quickly remind yourself that assaulting your phone probably isn’t the best idea.

“Like I said,” Riki replies, folding his arms with a dramatic sigh. “That boy ruins your studies. You could look for a boyfriend somewhere else.”

You groan, running a hand down your face. The memory of Jungwon’s hurt, betrayed expression as he walked away is burned into your mind. But there’s something even more pressing you need to know. You fix Riki with a narrowed gaze, your brow arching suspiciously. “Why did you say you were my boyfriend?”

For the first time, Riki hesitates. His usually confident demeanor falters, and a sheepish smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. He scratches the back of his neck, avoiding your glare like a guilty child caught red-handed.

“I mean… it’s the most effective method to turn a guy away,” he says finally, shrugging like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you deadpan, but Riki presses on, completely unfazed.

“It’s just basic strategy,” he explains, nodding as though he’s a seasoned love expert. “I’ve read enough online to know that guys back off when they think someone’s already taken. Works like a charm.”

You stare at him, incredulous. The audacity of this device—no, this thing—is beyond anything you’ve ever encountered. “You’re basing my love life on… internet articles?”

“Trust me,” he says with a wink, flashing a smug grin. “I’ve got access to all the data.”

You groan again, louder this time, wondering if tossing him into the trash bin would solve all your problems. If only.

Riki trails behind you as you climb the stairs to your apartment, his steps eerily silent despite his human-like form. At your door, you stop abruptly and turn to him, panic creeping into your voice. “Turn back into a phone, Niki. Now.”

He folds his arms and tilts his head, looking every bit like a rebellious teenager. “You literally named me Riki. Can you settle on one name for once?” His tone carries a tinge of irritation, and you blink in disbelief at the audacity of your phone to talk back to you.

“Okay, fine. My dear Riki, please turn back into a phone—”

Before you can finish, your mother’s voice cuts through the air like a whip. “Y/N! Are you back yet?”

Your heart lurches, a surge of panic shooting through you. Your eyes dart to Riki, your expression pleading. “Turn back into a phone. Now,” you hiss under your breath, motioning wildly for him to do something—anything—before disaster strikes.

To your immense relief, Riki flashes you an exaggerated wink and morphs seamlessly back into your phone, the glowing screen dimming as he settles into your palm. You clutch him tightly, hiding him in your fist just as the door swings open.

Your mother appears, her usual stern expression replaced with something unnervingly mild. “Why are you standing there? Come inside and study.”

Her voice is calm—too calm. It sends a shiver down your spine. If you didn’t know better, you’d almost believe this gentleness was her true nature. But you do know better, and you don’t trust it for a second.

“Coming,” you mumble, stepping inside. Your stepdad is lounging on the couch, the rustle of his newspaper the only sound he makes. You deliberately avoid his gaze, moving as quietly as possible. Your footsteps are measured and light as you head straight for your room, closing the door behind you with a soft click.

Once inside, you let out a long, weary sigh, your body sinking onto the bed. The room is dim, curtains drawn tightly shut to block out the evening light. Reaching into your pocket, you pull out Riki and place him beside you on the bed.

“Hey,” you whisper, exhaustion evident in your voice. “You can turn into a human now.”

Barely a second passes before a familiar presence materializes next to you. Riki sits there, leaning back casually against the headboard like he owns the place. His eyes sparkle with that same smug mischief, and you have to resist the urge to roll your eyes.

The two of you are lying side by side, close enough for your shoulders to brush. The thought hits you suddenly: if anyone walked in right now, they’d think you were a couple. The intimacy of the moment feels strangely... natural.

But you shake the thought away, annoyed at yourself for even entertaining it. You’re not interested in Riki like that. You’re not. Except...

You steal a glance at him. His human form is alarmingly realistic, right down to the faint curve of his lips and the way his hair falls perfectly out of place.

Maybe you’re not interested in Jungwon anymore. Maybe—just maybe—you like Riki instead.

But there’s no way you’d ever admit that. Not to him. The moment those words leave your mouth, he’ll launch into some long-winded lecture about how technology can’t reciprocate feelings. You’d never hear the end of it.

Riki catches you staring and raises an eyebrow, smirking. “What?”

“Nothing,” you snap, turning away quickly, cheeks heating up.

“Sure,” he drawls, his tone dripping with playful suspicion. “Keep telling yourself that, Y/N.”

You groan, grabbing a pillow and smacking him with it. He laughs, the sound annoyingly human, as he ducks out of the way.

This is your life now, you think, burying your face in your hands. And somehow, against all odds, you don’t entirely hate it.

An idea sparks in your mind as you turn onto your side, your gaze landing on Riki. He’s sitting upright, leaning back against the headboard, his expression unreadable. You hesitate for a moment before speaking, voice soft yet teasing. “Hey… since you’re a phone—”

Riki tilts his head slightly, intrigued, the faintest arch of his brow urging you to continue. He lets out a curious hum, his eyes narrowing in suspicion as he waits for whatever nonsense you’re about to spout.

For all his smugness, you remind yourself, Riki is still a phone. And phones are supposed to be smart, right? Smarter than this, at least.

You clear your throat, sitting up just enough to meet his gaze. “So, I’m in search of a boyfriend,” you begin, the words tumbling out too quickly. You falter for a second as Riki’s side-eye nearly makes you choke on your own sentence. His expression is the perfect mix of judgmental and unimpressed—eerily similar to your mom’s whenever she catches you slacking off on your studies.

“Of course, while studying too,” you add hastily, holding your hands up defensively. You know better than to ignore the unspoken priorities Riki seems to share with your mother.

He doesn’t say anything, waiting for you to continue. You take a deep breath, your next words tumbling out in one rushed, embarrassed blur. “Wouldn’t it be nice if you… you know, taught me how to kiss?”

Riki’s reaction is immediate and comical. His eyes widen, and his lips part as if he’s about to say something, only for his voice to falter into a confused sputter. “What??”

His expression is so innocent, so utterly clueless, that you almost feel guilty. But not enough to take it back. A tiny part of you is curious—what would it feel like, even if he isn’t technically human?

“Is that how single you really are?” Riki’s voice drips with mockery, his lips twitching into an amused smirk. “Seriously?”

Heat rushes to your cheeks, and you throw the nearest pillow at him in a half-hearted attempt to regain your dignity. “Don’t act like you’re better than me,” you snap, though your voice lacks bite. “I’m just—curious, okay? And you’re the first guy I’ve been close to, so it’s only natural!”

Riki doesn’t look convinced. If anything, he looks even more amused. “Natural? That’s bold coming from someone asking her phone for kissing lessons.”

You roll your eyes, frustrated but undeterred. “You’re not just a phone! You’re—well, you’re you. And besides,” you mutter, lowering your gaze, “it’s not like you’ll judge me for being bad at it. You’re not even real.”

“Ouch.” Riki places a hand over his chest, feigning offense. “Not real? I’m literally the only reason you’re not failing your exams right now.”

You bury your face in your hands, groaning. “Forget I said anything.”

But Riki isn’t letting this go. “You’re bold, I’ll give you that,” he says, leaning back with a smug grin. “Is it because you think I don’t understand emotions the way a human does?”

You hesitate, guilt pricking at the edges of your conscience. “No! That’s not—”

He cuts you off with a knowing look, his smirk softening just slightly. “Relax. You’re single. It’s pathetic, but I get it.”

“Gee, thanks,” you mutter, rolling your eyes as you grab the blanket and throw it over the both of you.

You roll closer to him, your face buried in his chest as you sigh dramatically. “See?” you mumble, your voice muffled. “I’ve been single my whole life. No boyfriend, no first kiss, nothing. You’re the only guy who’s stuck around, and even then, you’re technically stuck with me.”

Riki rolls his eyes, a mix of pity and exasperation crossing his face. “Wow. Way to guilt-trip your phone.”

You peek up at him, hopeful. “So… will you?”

He shakes his head, clearly unimpressed. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Is that a yes?”

Riki sighs, muttering something under his breath about how pathetic humans are. But he doesn’t move away, which you decide to take as a yes.

After all, he’s just a machine, right? He doesn’t understand what this means. Not really. And that’s exactly why you’re doing this—or at least, that’s what you tell yourself as your heart pounds in your chest.

Your eyes light up the moment Riki nods, the glowing screen above his head dimming to black. Without a second thought, you grab a pillow and plop it over his face as you climb onto him, pinning him down. Or at least, you try to pin him down—because no matter how much determination you pour into your stance, it’s painfully obvious you’re more like an ant attempting to subdue an elephant.

Still, you try to exude confidence, looking down at him with a smirk. “Only for research purposes… of course,” you announce dramatically, hands planted on his chest like you’re staking your claim.

Riki, unimpressed as always, rolls his eyes. “Yeah… research purposes,” he repeats with dripping sarcasm.

He shifts under you, and for a brief moment, you forget he’s a phone. Forget that his abilities extend far beyond your average human knowledge. Within seconds, he’s analyzing articles, tutorials, and even kissing technique videos from the depths of the internet. His hands move to cup your cheeks, startling you with the sheer firmness of his touch.

“Hey, gentle!” you mumble, your words muffled by the pressure on your cheeks. You raise a hand to tap against his shoulder, a mix of surprise and irritation bubbling up. “You’re squishing my face!”

Riki’s hands retreat instantly, a flicker of uncertainty crossing his features. For all his snark and superiority, you realize he doesn’t quite know his own strength—or, perhaps, he doesn’t understand the delicacy required for moments like this. After all, he’s a phone. Why would he know?

He clears his throat, his tone shifting into something more clinical, more detached. “According to the articles—”

You don’t let him finish. Before he can launch into a lecture, you lean forward and press your lips to his, cutting him off entirely.

It’s messy, clumsy even, your inexperience showing in the way your lips move against his. But the taste of him—soft, cool, and faintly electric—takes you by surprise. Not that you’ve kissed anyone else before, but something about this feels… better. Different.

“Just feel,” you whisper against his lips, your breath mingling with his in the quiet room. For once, Riki doesn’t argue, doesn’t mock. His hands find their way to your waist, steadying you with an ease that betrays his otherwise flustered expression.

He’s stunned. Completely and utterly stunned. For a first kiss, you’re better than he would have expected, not that he’d ever admit it. He wonders, fleetingly, if this is what those articles meant by connection.

And then, just as he’s starting to process the whirlwind of sensations, you stop. You rest your head against his chest, your body growing heavier as exhaustion takes over.

“Wait—are you falling asleep?” he asks, incredulous.

Your response is a barely coherent mumble, your lips still lightly pressed against his. “Mhm. Tired.”

Riki sighs, frustration laced with disbelief. He feels the faint trickle of drool escaping from your mouth onto his, his lips parting in distaste. “Hey, you’re drooling—”

“Charge you in the morning,” you murmur sleepily, cutting him off again.

He stares at you, torn between exasperation and something he can’t quite place. He adjusts you carefully, shifting your weight so you’re resting more comfortably against his chest. He makes sure your head doesn’t slide too close to his charging port—because as awkward as this moment is, he’s not about to risk short-circuiting because of you.

Still, as he looks down at your peaceful expression, a strange sensation tugs at him. It’s foreign, unquantifiable, something no article or video could explain. He brushes a hand over your hair, his touch surprisingly gentle, and lets out a soft sigh.

“Is this… what they meant?” he whispers, more to himself than to you.

The answer doesn’t come, but for once, Riki doesn’t feel the need to know.

You wake up with a soft murmur, the warmth of sleep still clinging to your skin. You realize, half-dazed, that your arms are wrapped around what feels like a body—Riki’s body. His form is strangely solid and comforting, and in your sleepy haze, you have no intention of moving. His warmth against you is too cozy, and the soft rise and fall of his “chest”—though artificial—makes you feel safer than you have in a while.

“Riki...” you murmur again, still unsure of what time it is, your words heavy with drowsiness. But then, you feel the slight shift of his body, and you hear his voice—distorted and rough, as though it's being dragged from the depths of a drained battery.

“My battery's low,” he whispers, a groan underlying his words. “Please charge me real quick...” His voice cracks, but you can't help but chuckle at how human it sounds, despite him being technically not a person.

You bury your face deeper into his chest, too comfortable to get up, and in a daze, you mumble, “Just five more minutes... I'm too cozy...”

But Riki doesn’t let you get away with it. There’s a slight, almost exaggerated sigh from him before he says, “No... It's literally six a.m.... Please get ready... for school.”

You groan in response, the panic setting in as you finally start to register his words. “Mom should've woken me up...” You shoot out of bed, suddenly scrambling to get ready. The weight of the morning hits you all at once—your mind still fuzzy but your body on overdrive as you throw yourself into a frenzy of motion.

Your fingers tremble as you tug off your pajama top, realizing with horror that you haven't even showered. You curse under your breath, glancing at Riki, who’s still next to you.

Your heart skips a beat. Wait.

“Riki,” you mutter, an unsettling thought popping into your head. You pause, standing mid-action, your clothes half-changed. “Did you always see me change?” Your voice cracks as you ask, and your cheeks start to heat up, a flush spreading across your face as the realization creeps in.

You’ve always placed your phone on the bed or on the drawer while changing. Could he have been watching all this time, even before his human-phone transformation?

You glance over at Riki, and to your surprise, you see his screen flicker with a rapid flush of red, like he's embarrassed. His voice, strained and hurried, shoots back at you, “NO!” It's a sharp refusal, almost defensive, and it makes you pause in your tracks.

“Did you...?” you ask again, narrowing your eyes suspiciously.

“I said NO!” His voice is forceful now, though still faint from the low battery, and you can see the unmistakable redness flickering across his screen. It’s such a far cry from the dispassionate, cold phone he once was, and it throws you off. Was this the same Riki who had no emotions at all when he first turned into a human? The same one who would have no qualms about anything?

The thought makes you chuckle nervously, trying to dismiss the awkwardness that crawls up your neck. “Okay, okay, I get it. Stop yelling.”

You roll your eyes and go back to getting dressed, though the entire room suddenly feels way smaller than it should. You can’t help but throw a glance at Riki again—who, despite being a phone, seems to be desperately looking away from you, his screen flickering like a bashful person avoiding eye contact.

As you change, you remind yourself over and over that Riki is just a phone—a very advanced phone, yes, but still just a phone. It’s only logical that he can’t be embarrassed. You try to shrug it off, but the blush still lingers on your cheeks.

Once you’re dressed, the urgency hits you again. You’re running late, and the panic sets in like a wave. You grab your bag and rush around the room, tossing items into it without thinking—until you remember.

“Oh shoot! Riki!” You scramble for your phone, your fingers fumbling as you finally find him on the bed. You look at his screen, blinking. Wait. Is he still charging?

But before you can get the chance to plug him in, Riki’s voice cracks again, a little louder this time, and it’s so faint you barely catch it. “You’re really going to leave me like this...?” he asks, almost accusing.

You freeze, your guilt swelling as you gaze at him, knowing that if you didn’t charge him now, he’d be completely dead by the time you get back. With a deep breath, you plug him in quickly, hoping the connection will last until you return.

But the weird thing is, for the first time, you realize that in a twisted way—this phone might actually be the one who understands you better than anyone else.

You’re practically panting by the time you get to school, the weight of your backpack pressing down on you with every step. Your stomach growls in protest, reminding you that in your mad rush, you forgot your tiffin at home. Great. Just great.

But the real problem is the five marks. The professor’s new rule is burning a hole in your mind: Whoever comes late will have five marks deducted. It's just five marks, but it might as well be the difference between life and death. Okay, maybe not life or death, but definitely failure.

You’re barely scraping by in math, and losing even those five marks would push you into the dreaded abyss of failure. You can already feel the weight of your mother’s disapproval on your shoulders, and you really don’t want that. Not today. Not ever.

Your school isn’t far—just a fifteen-minute walk—but with the panic setting in, your legs are moving faster than your brain. Walking = fine. Running = late. You’d prefer to walk but today, you’re in run mode, your heart hammering against your chest, your breath coming in quick, sharp gasps.

“Who even made schools?” you mutter under your breath, sweat trickling down your neck. You can already feel your body protesting against the injustice of it all. As if it weren't bad enough, your backpack feels like a weight you’re carrying to the moon.

You round the corner, spotting a few other late students sneaking in, looking as panicked as you feel. The guard is too busy talking to someone else to notice, and you take full advantage of it, slipping through the gate like a ninja trained by your mother herself. You’ve gotten really good at this.

When you reach the classroom, relief floods over you. The professor isn’t there yet. Thank goodness. You rush to the nearest available seat—right next to Jungwon. It's the only one left, and you’re not about to argue. You plop down with a loud sigh, feeling the adrenaline start to wear off, leaving you a little breathless.

But then Jungwon turns to you, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “Does your boyfriend not come to our school?”

You blink. Boyfriend? Who—what?

“I have a boyfriend?” You ask, clearly puzzled, still catching your breath.

“Uh… the one I met last night when you were throwing trash…” he adds, trailing off awkwardly, clearly unsure of himself now. “Is he not your boyfriend?”

Your stomach flips. Oh, God. This is it. Your brain starts spinning, and suddenly your mouth feels dry. You can’t go back on yesterday's statement. You definitely can’t let Jungwon go back to your mom and casually mention you have a boyfriend. That would end with your mother’s legendary interrogation skills being put into full force, and you’re not sure you’d survive it.

You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.

OPTION (A) : You could admit Riki isn’t your boyfriend, but that would open a whole new can of worms, and you can already hear Jungwon’s voice in your head: “Wait, so who was that guy?” Not a conversation you want to have.

OPTION (B) : You could tell him that Riki is just a friend, but that might lead to even more awkward questions, and you have no idea how you’d explain that whole situation without sounding like you’re caught in a web of lies.

But before you can choose, the door creaks open, and the professor walks in, immediately starting the lesson. You have no choice but to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind.

“Yes, he’s my boyfriend.” The words come out, and you instantly regret them. You can practically hear the sound of your own gulp echoing in your ears. Jungwon, looking slightly taken aback, awkwardly nods, unsure of how to respond. He’s clearly not going to ask more questions—at least not here—and his attention turns back to the professor.

You breathe a sigh of relief, but the panic is still bubbling inside you. You’ve just added another layer of complication to your already messy life. Now, you’re officially that girl—the one with a mysterious, possibly nonexistent boyfriend who has a habit of turning into a human phone. What could go wrong?

You sneak a glance down at your phone, trying to be as discreet as possible. Back in the day, you would’ve been nervously fidgeting in your seat next to Jungwon, trying not to spill your awkwardness all over the place. But right now? You couldn’t care less about Jungwon. All you could think about was that handsome guy who had somehow turned into your phone.

Why are you so cute, Riki?

You tap your phone screen, waiting for it to light up, but nothing happens. You try again, your frustration building. Come on... please respond. This is getting ridiculous.

“Hey, Riki! Respond, please!” you whisper under your breath, glancing around quickly to make sure no one else is noticing your little outburst. Jungwon, who’s sitting right next to you, doesn’t seem to catch on. He’s too busy, probably thinking about his own thoughts. You, on the other hand, are glued to your phone, silently begging for Riki to do anything.

But no, nothing happens. It's like he's just… ignoring you. And that drives you crazy. Why isn't he responding? Was it because you're sitting next to Jungwon? Did he suddenly become jealous?

The thought of Riki acting all possessive, even from within your phone, actually makes you giggle. But your giggles quickly turn into frustration again as your screen stays blank.

So, you do what anyone would do in this situation: you bury yourself in your notes, hoping that focusing on your studies will distract you from the fact that Riki, your human-turned-phone boyfriend, is giving you the silent treatment. You're still a bit puzzled by the whole situation.

Finally when classes end, and your backpack feels impossibly heavy as you hurriedly shove your books inside. You’re already planning your escape when Jungwon calls out to you.

“Hey Y/n, would you be up for a study session? You can bring your boyfriend too…” His words trail off, clearly surprised by how quickly you’re moving to leave.

Your reaction is instantaneous: you bolt out of there like you’ve just been given an Olympic sprinting challenge, the door swinging behind you with a dramatic swoosh. You don’t even wait for a reply, practically disappearing from his sight.

Jungwon, stunned, blinks a couple of times before finally muttering, “What… just happened?”

“Must be her boyfriend,” Eunmi remarks, her voice strangely neutral instead of the usual sharp tone she reserves for anything remotely related to you. She looks over at Jungwon, her gaze lingering for a moment, before turning her attention elsewhere. Jungwon, though, is far less enthusiastic about packing his bag now, his thoughts clearly on something else.

Meanwhile, you can’t help but laugh a little as you make your way out of the building. There’s no way you were going to let Riki’s weird silence ruin your day. Besides, you’d figured it out—he's just being a dramatic phone, and you’re not about to let that control you. At least, not for now.

As you leave, you can’t stop thinking about how ridiculously possessive he’s been lately. Maybe he does feel something. You can’t help but smile, a little too fond of your human-turned-phone.

As soon as you get home, you plug Riki in, sighing in relief as the charging icon pops up on your screen. You can hear your mom in the background, rambling about your day at school, but honestly? You don’t have the energy to care. You flop onto your bed, completely drained, and let out a deep breath as you watch Riki slowly transform back into a human.

“Thank goodness,” you mutter, finally feeling a little more at ease.

“You should've just charged me in the morning,” he grumbles, still holding the charging wire in his mouth. It's almost comical how he’s still acting like a phone despite being human now.

“Sorry,” you apologize sheepishly, a small smile creeping onto your face despite how tired you are. But then, as the moment settles, a thought hits you, and you can't help but ask, “Do you ever think you'll go back to being a normal phone? Or am I stuck with you like this forever?”

Riki hums in response, the charging wire still hanging from his mouth. “Not sure.”

“Of course you're not sure,” you mutter, rolling your eyes. But a tiny knot of worry tightens in your stomach. The idea of him eventually disappearing back into your phone, of him going back to being just an object, stings more than you'd like to admit. He might be your phone, but the human version? He's been becoming something else to you lately. And you don’t know if you're ready to lose that just yet.

Two months had passed, and it was starting to feel like Riki was slowly slipping away. At first, it was subtle—just a few hours of the day where he stayed in phone form. But today? Nothing. No human version of Riki, just your regular, lifeless phone.

You poke at your lunch with a fork, but how could you even eat when your mind keeps wandering back to your phone? It’s just sitting there on the table, performing like a regular device, no magic, no human form.

“Is something wrong?” Jungwon asks, glancing up from his own lunch. Eunmi’s sitting across from you, not even trying to be friendly, as usual.

“You should watch your phone less,” Eunmi comments, and you roll your eyes, trying to ignore her. If only she knew how much your phone meant to you right now.

You swipe left and right, desperately trying to find something—anything—that could explain why Riki’s still not turning human. You’re not sure what you’re expecting, but this feels like some sort of betrayal from a phone.

“Hmmph,” you mutter under your breath, but it doesn't help. The weight of Eunmi’s voice still lingers in your mind, but you’re too focused on the empty feeling of staring at a screen that’s supposed to be connected to something more.

“Why is he not becoming a human?” you mumble, too frustrated to care that you’re speaking aloud. The problem? Only you know about Riki’s transformation, so you can’t even vent about it to anyone.

“What?” Eunmi asks, her eyebrow arching as she shares a confused look with Jungwon.

You wave it off, brushing away the awkwardness, and go back to stabbing at your lunch. But it’s no use—the food tastes bland, almost like cardboard. Honestly, at this point, the only thing that could make it better is if Riki turned back into the human version of himself and saved you from this mess of a lunch. But nope, your phone’s just sitting there, mocking you.

You somehow manage to finish the rest of the school day, the classes dragging by like a blur, but the one thing that kept bothering you was that Riki was still not turning human.

“Ugh, this isn’t working,” you mutter to yourself as you stand in front of the repair shop owner, trying not to look too ridiculous. You can already feel the weight of the situation—the shopkeeper can’t possibly know about your phone turning into a human, can he? That would be absurd.

“What exactly is the problem?” he asks, tilting his head as he takes your phone to inspect it.

You freeze. What exactly do you say? You can’t tell him that your phone is a person who’s been hanging out as a human every now and then, right? It sounds insane.

“Uh…,” you stammer, struggling for an explanation, but it’s useless. You’re not sure what to say that wouldn’t get you committed to some strange techy cult or a mental hospital.

“It’s all good, ma’am,” he says with a sigh, handing your phone back to you, like everything is totally normal. But if everything is “all good,” why isn’t Riki turning back into a human?

You leave the store, confusion taking over. The lighthearted, slightly strange feeling you once had about Riki being a human version of a phone has now been replaced with a gnawing emptiness. You can’t shake the thought that maybe, just maybe, he’s gone for good.

Your bag feels heavier than usual, weighed down by the thoughts swirling in your mind. You drag yourself home, the steps feeling longer than normal, as if the world is slowly sinking into a gray, monotonous fog.

“How was school?” your stepdad asks, the usual cheerful tone in his voice, but you can’t bring yourself to answer. You barely acknowledge his question, as you’re still lost in your own thoughts. You hear your mom sigh, disappointed, but you can’t bring yourself to care.

You head straight to your room, exhaustion taking over. You plug Riki in to charge, desperate to see that familiar human version of him again. The seconds tick by as you watch the charging light glow. But nothing changes. The charging is full. Riki is still… just a phone.

You sigh heavily, sinking down on your bed. What if he’s really gone for good? You can't help but feel like you're losing a part of your world, and suddenly, the idea of just using a regular phone feels... boring.

Tears well up in your eyes as you stubbornly mutter, “I won’t talk to you ever if you don't turn in now!” The words feel hollow the second they leave your lips, but it’s a lie you tell yourself. You would never stop talking to Riki, not for anything. But a small part of you is desperate for him to just... come back. You need to see him as a human again, even if you know that it might not happen.

“Please!” you whisper desperately, pressing your lips against the cold screen of your phone, leaving a red imprint there. It’s a pathetic gesture, but it’s all you can think of. A little kiss for him, as if that might somehow wake him up from whatever spell he’s trapped in.

“Fine. Don’t come,” you mutter, frustration taking over as you place the phone back on the study desk. The weight of the situation settles in as you slump down onto the bed, still in your school clothes. You don’t even care to change—you're too tired, too emotionally drained from everything.

You’re not sure how long you’ve been lying there, staring at the ceiling, but it doesn’t matter. Sleep overtakes you, and you drift off in the quiet of your room, lost in the silence.

Suddenly, you feel it—the presence of someone standing above you. A familiar weight in the air, but not the same as before. You rub your eyes, blinking away the grogginess, and then you see him.

Riki.

He’s standing there, in front of you, and your breath catches. But then, your eyes widen in shock. His body is covered in marks. Red, faint imprints that make your face burn as you realize—those are from your kisses. The ones you left on the screen, desperate for him to turn back. It’s embarrassing, but there's no time for that now. You throw yourself at him, arms wide as you practically tackle him with a hug.

His shirt wrinkles beneath your fingers as you clutch it tight, a mixture of relief and frustration in your chest. You pull away, looking up at him, almost desperate. “Why did you leave? Why didn’t you turn back?” Your voice cracks, the raw emotion flooding through you, but the words tumble out in a mess of desperation.

But then, he pushes you away. You stumble back slightly, the sudden distance between you too much to handle.

“I couldn’t turn,” he says, his voice low, almost pained. “And I think it’s better if you don’t get too attached. I’m just a device, remember?” He speaks the words softly, but there’s a coolness to them that hurts.

You blink, the words settling into your chest like a stone. “Why can’t you stay like this forever?” The question slips out before you can stop it, eyes burning with the need to understand. You feel his thumb brush away a tear that’s escaped down your cheek, but it only makes you feel more fragile. “I don’t understand… How can a phone... with no feelings... like me... feel something?”

He takes a deep breath, his gaze softening for just a moment. And then, for the first time since this entire weird and wonderful thing began, he steps closer. Your heart races as he closes the distance, and before you can even think, your hands are on his shirt, clutching it like it’s the only thing that’s keeping you grounded.

You pull him into a messy kiss, lips moving against his in a rush of desperation, a wild need to feel him close. You kiss him over and over again, each one more frantic than the last, but just as quickly as he was there...

Your lips meet nothing.

You pull back in confusion, eyes wide as you try to make sense of it. Where did he go? You open your eyes fully, but there's nothing in front of you. Just empty space.

Your phone falls to the ground, the sharp sound of it hitting the floor snapping you back to reality. You kneel down quickly, heart pounding, and check it, relieved to see that it's still in one piece. No cracks, no breaks. Just a phone.

And then, it hits you.

You can’t keep holding on to something—or someone—that isn’t real. You swallow hard, tears welling up in your eyes again as you stare at the device in your hands, the phone that was once a person to you. The bittersweet smile on your lips isn’t one of happiness, but of acceptance and yet... sadness.

“Fine,” you whisper to no one in particular. “I’ll check off the three tasks on my to-do list. You’ll be proud of me.”

But as you stare at the phone, your thumb grazing over its screen, you know deep down that it’s not the tasks that need to be checked off.

It’s your heart.

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[telomeke]

THE SIGN – CULTURAL REFERENCES, MYTHOLOGY AND META

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This post comes on the heels of the one by @respectthepetty about mythology and meta of The Sign, linked here. 😍👍 If you've not read it yet, I recommend you do before watching any more of this series, because it will help things make more sense (especially if you're not familiar with some of the cultural references thrumming in the background).

Anyway, I'd previously done some research on the legend(s) of the Garuda and the Naga in Southeast Asia, and so I'm writing this post to share what I've found because it does have relevance to at least some of what we're seeing onscreen in The Sign, and elaborates on @respectthepetty's post.

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The Garuda and the Naga are mythical beings with origins in Indian mythology that have been transposed into cultures across Southeast Asia.

In Hinduism, Garuda is a single deity, depicted in either full-bird form or part-bird and part-human, and is the king of birds and also a divine sun-bird (with physical attributes similar to an eagle's). His elder brother, Aruna, is the chariot driver for Surya the sun-god, while Garuda himself is the mount of Vishnu.

In Buddhist mythology, the garudas (sometimes also spelt garulas) are a society and race of gigantic predatory birds, sometimes also depicted as part-human in form. The garudas are intelligent, social and blessed with might and magical powers.

Thailand may be predominantly Buddhist, but it has also been strongly influenced by ancient Indian culture and Hinduism, and thus both the concept of a single deity Garuda and the race of garudas co-exist in Thai mythological beliefs.

The nagas on the other hand, are snake-like or dragon-like creatures, whose realm is the water world. (The word naga is derived from Sanskrit and is also etymologically related to the English word snake.)

In mythology nagas and garudas are perpetual enemies, although neither side is actually identified with good or evil – they are simply two groups eternally at war with each other (so occidental-leaning minds should dispel any preconception that the water serpents are necessarily the bad guys in The Sign, even though the narrative seems to be tilting in that direction).

When borrowed into popular culture (as has been done for The Sign) you may sometimes see influences of Chinese dragon and phoenix mythology (as Chinese cultural influence is also present in Thailand, and the dragon/phoenix motif of Sinitic culture nicely parallels the naga/garuda conflict pairing). And because of Garuda's association with the sun in Hinduism, and a parallel with the fiery phoenix of Western mythology, you may sometimes see garudas portrayed as aligned with the sun and/or flame as well.

There are some hints of these in The Sign. The naga that Phaya encounters while struggling underwater during the open sea training challenge in Ep.1 is very Thai in appearance (especially with the curved, forward-pointing crest, making it look much like the nagas that adorn Thai temple architecture). But the array of pronged, backward-pointing horns and trailing antennae appear to be a design nod at Chinese or Japanese dragons (East Asian dragons are also strongly identified with the watery realm, by the way). And in the graphics of the series (e.g., in the poster at the start of this post), the sky (the realm of Garuda) is suffused with sunlight and speckled with what look like drifting sparks, referencing sun and flame.

Because of the wings tattooed on his back and his time in the air force, Phaya is most likely the reincarnation of a garuda in human form (and this is why he struggled with the water challenge, as he was completely out of his element).

This is also possibly why we see him smoking early on in the series (because of the alignment of Garuda with the element of fire), and significantly he does this while Naga Tharn (irked by Yai's teasing at the dining table) seeks refuge in the washroom (which is ห้องน้ำ/hong naam in Thai, literally water room):

‌Billy also describes Phaya's character in the promo video for the series (linked here) as being "like fire, always hot and burning... quite hot-headed." 👍

Elsewhere in the same promo video (linked here), Tharn's good friend Chalothon is explicitly identified as the reincarnation of an important naga, which immediately signals that he and Phaya will be at odds in the series:

‌

The water deity that saves Phaya during the open sea challenge – Wansarat, whom he drew in his sketchbook – is not just Freen Sarocha in a fancy scuba suit. 😂

If you look at her arm and hand when she reaches out to save Phaya (before she turns into Tharn) the green scales meld into the skin of her human wrist – they're part of her natural covering, and she's really a nakhee/nagin/nagini, a female naga, appearing in human form to save Phaya.

The narrative has made it strongly obvious that Phaya is a reincarnated garuda, while Tharn is the reincarnation of Wansarat, from the lineage of the nagas. And the teaser-trailer (linked here) tells us that Phaya and Tharn/Wansarat are lovers bound to each other through time:

‌

However, the special promo video (released 24 November 2023) also tells us (in Heng's interview linked here) that Chalothon and Wansarat were lovers in past lives, even while it is Phaya and Wansarat (reincarnated as Tharn) who are paired by fate in The Sign.

And as the nagas and garudas are bitter enemies, the love story between Phaya and Tharn/Wansarat that transcends time and reincarnation cycles is also one that must have been (and will continue to be) forbidden by their respective naga and garuda tribes (especially since Tharn/Wansarat also used to be naga Chalothon's lover), and will undoubtedly be a source of conflict in the series. This is way beyond the Montagues and Capulets! 😍

‌

So with this as the base, I took a look at the characters' names, and those belonging to Phaya, Chalothon, Tharn and Wansarat especially also reflect their garuda/naga origins. 🤩

Phaya's name (พญา) means lord, king or leader. While it can be applied to the nagas (พญานาค/phaya naak refers to the King of the Nagas) it is also used for Garuda (the Thai national symbol) – พญาครุฑ/phaya khroot, or Lord Garuda (and is what his name references in The Sign).

(above) Billy Patchanon as Phaya

‌

Chalothon's name (ชโลทร) is rare, but it is derived from Pali/Sanskrit and means river, sea or body of water, reflecting the watery homeland of his naga persona.

(above) Heng Asavarid as Chalothon

‌

Tharn's name (ธาร) also has a connection to his water-dwelling naga roots. Tharn/ธาร is short for ลำธาร/lam thaan and means stream, brook or creek (and he is thus a naga nong to Chalothon's phi).

(above) Babe Tanatat as Tharn/Wansa

However, Tharn is his chue len. His formal name is Wansa, and is the same Wansa in Wansarat (which the narrative lets us know at Ep.1 [3‌/4] 9.35).

(above) Freen Sarocha as Wansarat

Now Wansarat is spelt วรรณษารัตน์ in the subtitles (at Ep.1 [3‌/4] 9.02), and I can't find any translation of it that makes sense in the context of The Sign's world-building.

But Wansarat's name is spelt differently elsewhere on the Internet (on Thai drama websites, and movie databases, etc. like thaimovie.org), and I assume they've all based it on official releases from Idol Factory because the spelling is consistent across these other sources – it's วรรษารัตน์ there.

And Wansa/Wansarat spelt this way also reflects the nagas' dominion over water, because วรรษา/wansa (an archaic word, referenced in an older dictionary but not newer ones) means rain or rainy season (from the Sanskrit varsha) – in Thailand the nagas are also associated with rain control, and prayers are offered to them for timely and abundant rainfall when it is needed. (The -rat part of Wansarat is a feminine ending meaning jewel or gemstone, and may echo with meaning for speakers of Indian and Sri Lankan languages, since it's derived from the Pali/Sanskrit ratna).

‌

Just out of interest (because nobody asked 😂) some of these naga/garuda elements were also present in the early episodes of KinnPorsche – the den of the Theerapanyakuls (nagas, wealthy beings of the underworld) was full of watery elements (e.g., the waterfall, the various pools, and Tankhun's carp – which in Chinese belief are the original, natal form of dragons). The -nak in Kinn's formal first name Anakin (which is not a traditional Thai name) is also a nod at the word naga. Porsche had the tattoo of a fiery phoenix on his back, and was out of his element whenever water was concerned (e.g., his failed pool challenge, the mermaid costume punishment, his misadventure with the sprinkler when he tried to smoke in the store room – water vanquishing the flame). Kinn was unable to make fire when they were trapped in the forest, despite claiming to be friends with the flame, while Porsche could immediately do it.

But I didn't see the KinnPorsche narrative taking the naga/garuda themes much further than these random nods in the earlier episodes. Maybe it did (like Kinn and Porsche could be seen acclimatizing to each other's realms more), but I just couldn't be bothered to look at the show more closely since it didn't really stand up to deeper scrutiny, and after the first few episodes I just went along for the exhilaration of the ride instead. 👍

‌

Anyway, I'm totally bedazzled by the level of world-building going on in The Sign and look forward to more from the series. If the first episode is anything to go by, I think Executive Producer Saint Suppapong may be on to something! 😍

[onlyyvette]

i need optimus pussy so bad

You're so real for that I'm actually going to make a whole thirst for this

warnings: dom/top reader + sub/bottom optimus prime + cybertronian reader + sloppily eating out Optimus' valve + praise + prime gets wrecked by the power of oral

a/n: thank you so much for giving me the inspo to create this🙏🏾

╰┈➤ Just imagining Optimus laying down on his back and presenting himself for you, large white thighs shyly held open while his digits tentatively hold open his already leaking slit. It's not that he was necessarily scared or nervous, but he can't help but let shivers run down his spinal struts as you admire his valve so intently.

╰┈➤ You were mesmerized by his pulsing blue biolights decorating his valve lips and his oh-so-pretty red node resting in the hood of his valve. His array was the prettiest one you ever saw, When you say that out loud to him, he lets out a small "thank you" and tries to cover his pretty pussy with his servo but you move it out of the way, causing him to let out a whine. You look up from your spot between his thighs and drink in the look on his face. His battle mask was off. His optics are half-shuttered, the light coming out dimmed. A very prominent blue flush is spread across his face and his mouth is screwed into a slight pout. He was so cute and you hadn't even dome anything to him.

╰┈➤ Way too soon, your glossa is on Optimus' valve, and he lets out a short yet embarrassing yelp. In his defense, even though you had done this so many times before, you were always so quick to push your glossa into him and you never held back. Your glossa delves into Optimus' wet heat, forcing it as deep as you can as you listen to the Prime let out moans with his low baritone. He feels your nasal ridge crushing his node and the pleasure bursts under his eyelids.

╰┈➤ Optimus' thighs begin to automatically clamp down on your helm but the slight crushing feeling only raised your charge. You eat him out like a starved mech, sloppily lapping at every node you can feel in the mesh of his valve and making sure he can feel it. By now, Optimus is so close to overloading, he always overloaded quickly from being eaten out. If you lifted up your helm you would see Optimus biting on his servo joints, trying his best to not let out his embarrassing noises but clearly failing.

╰┈➤ With your eager mouth, you'll bring Optimus to overload so hard he won't even know what hit him. He'll let out a series of staticky moans while his thighs clamp down hard on your helm while he squirts, and you'll still work your glossa in his valve despite his recent overload. He'll whine and push at your helm but you both know that those weak pushes don't mean anything-- he doesn't want you to stop and you don't plan on it.

╰┈➤ You'll make him overload a few more times, each overload more powerful than the last. He keeps seeing stars in his vision and--oh Primus-- he's overloading again. He'll sob as he squirts for a last time, his frame trembling from the aftershocks as you suck on Optimus' node for the last time before releasing it. You're almost 100% sure you were left with some kind of helm processor damage, but you really didn't care. After you've eaten his valve out to your satisfaction, you bring helm out from between Optimus' legs and lay your frame on top of his. Your derma meet his and you begin to give each other messy, open-mouthed kisses. His optics shutter close as he whimpers into the kiss. Your servos roam his frame and you map out his familiar curves, lightly groping them, especially his chestplate while the Prime lets out sensual sighs.

╰┈➤ Underneath you, you feel his thighs tighten and rubbing against each other. Making out was getting Optimus charged up again, and it didn't surprise any of you. While your spike pressurized against his abdomen, you knew that you would make sure that your conjunx would be quivering in pleasure by the time you were done with him.

[howtofightwrite]

I'm planning on writing a Pokemon fanfic where the trainer is hard of hearing. They can speak and give commands but it is also normal for trainers to hear the opposing trainers commands and respond to that not just what they see. Which would put them at a big disadvantage, wouldn't it if they could only process visual information? I know you said stuff before about combat being too fast and people don't 'call out attacks' but that doesn't fit here. But also on the other hand, Pokemon don't alwa

But also on the other hand, Pokemon don't always obey their their trainers (usually a trust issue) but perhaps this actually could be a good thing and help turn that disadvantage around since if they trust each other enough for the Pokemon to respond appropriately by themselves if they feel the trainer is making a bad call or not quick enough to respond to an attack called out by the opposing trainer. What do you think? Any other ideas?

Something to remember: Pokemon is a game. I don't mean in the meta-sense that the anime and ancillary materials are based off of the video game and card game, the way you could, for example, describe the Fallout TV series as based on a game. I mean, literally, that the structure of Pokemon itself is a competitive game.

When you start stripping it apart, and really dig into the structure, combat in pokemon is a game where the trainers are the players, and their pokemon are the pieces they're using on the board. This is an important concept to grasp when you're dissecting the material, because it informs why it functions.

There is a concept in games called an action stack. When you're playing a strategically intensive game, you'll often come across some version of this concept. Basically, you announce your action to your opponent, they then get an opportunity to take a legal response (if one exists), and then the action resolves. In situations like this, calling out your actions is a necessary step in keeping your opponent apprised of changes in the game state. It's also (often) necessary as a step to give them the opportunity to respond (whether that's part of the same action stack, or as a following action.)

Now, much like in Pokemon, in casual games, these kinds of declarations, and even the structure of the action stack itself, can become very ad hoc. You wouldn't do this in a tournament environment, but in casual circumstances you'll see players doing things like say, “I'm playing this,” or just drop the card on the table as part of their appropriate action window. (Though, again, this behavior is extremely rude in a tournament environment.)

As you mentioned, the instructions given by the trainer is, technically, for the Pokemon's benefit, rather than the opponent. Also, pieces on the board not following the player's commands is a concept that does exist in some tabletop games. For example: if you botch a Leadership test in Warhammer, you're not going to get the results you were hoping for.

So in this specific case, being privy to your opponent's actions ahead of time is really more an example of intelligence gathering (even though it's at a very limited level.) And, this is, absolutely, a consideration in competitive games. If you can accurately predict your opponent's next action it can let you take preemptive steps to mitigate their move, or even outright prevent them from doing what they want.

Not being able to collect intelligence conventionally is a little bit of a problem, but it's not necessarily a deal breaker. A lot of the time, intelligence gathering in games (for an experienced player) is testing limited information against extensive system knowledge to make educated guesses about what your opponent will do. If you have awareness of the board, you don't always need to actually have specific knowledge about what your opponent is planning. Meaning, if they're extremely knowledgeable about what's out there, they might not need to hear their opponents' every command. With enough familiarity, each pokemon is recognizable on sight, and they have limited move options determined by their appearance (with the occasional outlier or exception.)

Also, lipreading is a thing. It's a lot harder when you're just sampling general use of the language, but when you're looking at a limited number of individual words (and you know which words could be issued because of the aforementioned system knowledge) it can become quite possible for someone to pick out what a trainer is telling their pokemon, even if they wouldn't be able to hear the words normally (or lipread a stray conversation between strangers.)

Incidentally, if you're thinking that it's unreasonable for someone to have the stat sheets for over 1k pokemon committed to memory, that's in line with what you need to have committed to memory for a number of competitive games, if you're operating at a high level. Chances are, if you're a highly ranked M:TG player, you'll probably have at least 2-3k cards committed to memory even if you can't use them in Modern anymore.

-Starke

[pikahlua]

"A deuteragonist has a very different role in the MHA and that is a whole other post ."Can you please write this article? I am tired of Bakugo being constantly downplayed. There are very few people who understand his character and role in the story as well as you do.

Haha I mean hehe it's just hoho I never said fufu that Katsuki is the deuteragonist guffaw shucks haha I mean come on snort why are you putting words in my-

Katsuki Bakugou is the deuteragonist.

Katsuki Bakugou is the deuteragonist

Katsuki Bakugou is the deuteragonist

"Of course you would say that. You're a Katsuki Bakugou stan! You are invested in inflating his importance in the story because you love him." - some people, probably

No. If that were true, I would be arguing Katsuki Bakugou is the protagonist. But I'm not.

Because Katsuki Bakugou is the deuteragonist.

It's not that I love him and therefore assert that he's the deuteragonist. I love him because he's the deuteragonist (plus many other reasons). He is an archetypal familiar shounen hero made interesting in part by the fact that he is NOT the protagonist and deliberately written in the deuteragonist role/function, and I will go into visceral detail about this momentarily.

I promise you I don't go around in other fandoms arguing my favorite non-main character is the deuteragonist. I fully embrace whatever role it is they play in the story. YOU WILL SEE THE EVIDENCE OF THIS VERY SOON, FOR EVERY CHARACTER IN MHA.

What is a deuteragonist?

A deuteragonist is a story archetype. They are the second-most important character in a story (which is a vague as hell definition). They are often known as the "secondary main character."

That's it. Everything else one might say about a deuteragonist is just a sub-archetype.

A deuteragonist can be a sidekick, a love interest, a rival, an antagonist, or even a neutral party. They are often, not always, written as foil characters to the protagonist. They often, not always, provide a different and yet similar outlook to the protagonist's. Their utility in a story can be quite varied. Sometimes they support the protagonist, and sometimes they oppose the protagonist. Often, they are used to help the protagonist complete their character arc.

Sometimes, there can be more than one deuteragonist.

What the hell is a deuteragonist?

The problem is, the function of a deuteragonist can change just depending on the type of story we're talking about. A deuteragonist in an ancient Greek tragedy (theatre), where the term originally came from, won't necessarily function the same way as a deuteragonist in a 2-hour contemporary movie. Things get even more complicated when we're talking about a TV series, a book series, or a comic book series in which the cast becomes so large we're likely to see MULTIPLE deuteragonists.

My Hero Academia, like many long-running shounen manga, has an ensemble cast. Would you be surprised if I told you My Hero Academia not only has multiple deuteragonists, not only has multiple antagonists, but also has multiple protagonists? Because it does!

Sometimes people wanna divide MHA into three or four acts and make the claim that the deuteragonist changes from act to act. I say they aren't going far enough. MHA is divided into arcs, and each arc has its own protagonist and antagonist and sometimes even deuteragonist. This is a STAPLE of ensemble cast shounen manga, where often there will be so many characters they get grouped off into trios (or more) and one among them will be the group's designated protagonist.

Sure, in most MHA arcs, Izuku is the protagonist. But he's not always. Who is the protagonist of the Pro Hero (Endeavor vs Hood) arc? Who is the deuteragonist? It's not Izuku and Katsuki; it's Endeavor and Hawks! What about the protagonist in the My Villain Academia arc? Tomura. The Hero License Supplementary Course arc? Katsuki and Shouto (who can't seem to decide if they're co-protagonists or protagonist and deuteragonist and who is which). The Overhaul arc? Izuku is the protagonist and Mirio is the deuteragonist. Some arcs really play with these roles or make it unclear who is playing which role or if the role even exists.

What is a deuteragonist in My Hero Academia?

So if we have a bunch of protagonists, does that mean the most important one is the series' overarching protagonist and the one second in importance is the deuteragonist? It COULD be, but it's not necessarily true.

There aren't that many arcs where Izuku is not the protagonist. If we look at the number of arcs where someone else is the protagonist, following the above logic, we could end up with All Might or Endeavor as the deuteragonist. Maybe some people would earnestly make the argument Endeavor is the deuteragonist--I don't know, I haven't met those people I guess. The problem with this approach in my eyes is that it entirely discounts the deuteragonists of each arc. Would it not follow that the overarching deuteragonist is the character who has played the deuteragonist in the largest number of arcs? What if that character is different from the character who has played protagonist the second-most number of times? And this is to say nothing about if the protagonist or deuteragonist are the same as the antagonist in a given arc! It's difficult to weight any one character in this fashion particularly when you have an ensemble cast.

This is getting into the question of focus and screentime. How much should we weight this metric? Admittedly this one can also be complicated, especially when it comes to long stories with ensemble casts. The question is how much does screentime actually convey how much a character is the focus of a story, and does that necessarily translate to protagonist and deuteragonist? Because for many the question is: could the deuteragonist be an antagonist in MHA?

It just gets a little harder to argue someone besides Katuski Bakugou is the main deuteragonist the more Katsuki's screentime allocation looks something like this:

Okay, perhaps that exact size of gap is hyperbole. But there is a clear, measurable gap between Katsuki Bakugou and everyone else and I don't think anyone has ever disputed that. Please check out this post by @dekusheroacademia that has compiled some of these statistics (they also make some excellent points about evaluating the elements of a deuteragonist and how various characters fit or don't fit those characteristics).

Still, this is merely supporting evidence, not conclusive. I am well aware of the concept of a false protagonist, where someone appears to be the protagonist until later someone else is revealed to be the story's true protagonist. And while I've never seen a false deuteragonist where someone SEEMS to be the deuteragonist and is later revealed in a twist not to be (as opposed to the deuteragonist just merely changing NOT as a deliberate twist where expectations were set to be otherwise), that doesn't mean it can't happen.

Tangentially related, we could also potentially look at marketing as another piece of supporting evidence. It's not conclusive that just because Katsuki Bakugou is one of the most merchandised characters in the franchise that he is more important to the story than those who aren't, but it's still notable supporting evidence. After all, based on Horikoshi's marketing of his own story i.e. who he draws in which orientations on chapter and tankoban covers, or how he lists characters on character intro pages, we could easily come to the conclusion as casual readers that Izuku is the protagonist. There are many cases where one could conclude Katsuki is the deuteragonist based on such presentations alone. But again, I concede this is not conclusive.

So, if we set aside individual story arc roles, screentime, and marketing, what does that leave us with?

What is THE deuteragonist in My Hero Academia?

Even if we can determine Izuku Midoriya is THE protagonist of MHA based on things like the number of times he's protagonist in story arcs, his screentime, and marketing, I'll set those aside for the deuteragonist and see if there's something else that can help us here.

What element are we missing? The overall story.

Sure, we can break down the story into arcs and assign deuteragonists that way, but that's not getting us to THE deuteragonist. So let's start with the protagonist. How do we know Izuku Midoriya is the protagonist of MHA without considering the previous metrics? The way the story focuses on him. It is easy enough for anyone to recognize the characteristics of a protagonist in him from a functional perspective. He is a POV character. We hear his thoughts. He narrates the story. We see the story over the timeline of his character growth. His character arc coincides with the overall story themes.

I've talked many times about how My Hero Academia at its core is a story that explores the question: what is a hero? MANY characters explore this question, but the character who compiles these answers together and rounds them all out and grows and has his perspective change and exemplifies the moral is: Izuku Midoriya.

So let's go back to the functional elements of a deuteragonist. Remember those sub-archetypes? Well, in a shorter story with no ensemble cast, what do a sidekick, a love interest, a rival, an antagonist, and even a neutral party all have in common? They are defined by their relationship to the protagonist.

You see, in a story where all the characters interact with each other and converge on the major theme of the story, ALL characters are defined by their relationship to the protagonist. But in particular, the function of a deuteragonist is to supplement the story with what the protagonist needs FUNCTIONALLY. When is a sidekick the deuteragonist of a story? When the story focuses on the adventures of the protagonist and their sidekick. When is a love interest the deuteragonist of the story? When the story focuses on the developing relationship between the protagonist and the love interest (i.e. the romance genre). CAN a story with a love interest deuteragonist focus on their adventures and individual character development too? Yes, but sometimes the result is that the love interest is ALSO the sidekick...or the rival. When is the rival the deuteragonist? When the story focuses on the clash and growth between the rivals. When is the antagonist the deuteragonist? When the story focuses on the battle between them. NOTE that when I write this, I don't mean it focuses on the protagonist's adventure that culminates in them meeting the antagonist at the end for a battle. I am talking about when the BATTLE ITSELF is the main focus of the story. See stories like Silence of the Lambs or Death Note for a clearer example of what I mean, where the focus of each is on the psychological games the protagonist and antagonist play with each other. The point is, the story on a structural level, on a meta level, has to focus on these sorts of interactions to determine its deuteragonist.

Obviously this gets more complicated with a large story and an ensemble cast because you could have bits of the story where the structure changes and seems to focus on new things. That's why I pointed out that the more immediate protagonist and deuteragonist and antagonist often change in MHA depending on the story arc.

When I try to determine who is THE deuteragonist of the entire story, I have to look at the entire story. I have to ask myself what the story is about. So what is the story about? What is MHA about?

If you said MHA is about Izuku falling in love with Ochako, I'm sorry but you're wrong.

If you said MHA is about Izuku taking on All Might's mantle, I'm sorry but you're wrong.

If you said MHA is about Izuku defeating/saving Tomura, I'm sorry but you're wrong.

If you said MHA is about Izuku rekindling his friendship with Katsuki, I'm sorry but you're wrong.

MHA is about Izuku Midoriya (and most everyone else) learning what it means to be a hero.

It's in the fucking title. MY HERO ACADEMIA. The story is about Izuku's education (as it takes many forms) to learn what it means to be a hero.

So who is the deuteragonist in the story about Izuku Midoriya learning what it means to be a hero? The character who is second-most important in how Izuku Midoriya learns what it means to be a hero.

A lot of characters do teach Izuku Midoriya what it means to be a hero or at least some piece. But who is MOST IMPORTANT?

See, My Hero Academia is LONG. If we just focus on the parts of the story in which Izuku tries to learn from All Might or take on his mantle, we lose ARCS of the story. The same is true if we focus on his love life, or his rivalry with Katsuki, OR EVEN HIS BATTLE WITH TOMURA AND ALL FOR ONE. In the case of the latter, we're basically excluding HALF the story: the school arcs!

MHA is structured such that it alternates between what we colloquially refer to as "school arcs" and "villain arcs." And while exploring the question of "what is a villain?" is an important subset of the main theme, it is not the entire story. You can't just label all the school arcs as "filler" (because they're not) and chuck them out. Each story arc contributes to the lessons Izuku learns and the theme of the main story.

I can think of something every character teaches Izuku with respect to this theme. I can think of a lesson Izuku has taken away from every encounter and every story arc. But who ELSE is present in nearly every story arc? Who represents the foil to Izuku who allows us, the audience, to learn alongside them what it means to be a hero? Who learns the bits Izuku does not need to learn because he already exemplifies those answers in spades? Who represents the other half of the hero equation that Izuku is missing? Who has his own blanks filled in by Izuku himself? Who has played all the sub-archetypes of a deuteragonist for Izuku Midoriya, including antagonist, rival, sidekick, and even arguably love interest (replace with platonic interest for the rekindling friendship angle if you want so we don't have to go into that whole thing here please, I'm talking about the generic structural elements within a story more than anything)?

Izuku Midoriya cannot possibly have learned the fundamental lessons of what it means to be a hero without Katsuki Bakugou's character arc to supplement him. Katsuki Bakugou is an irremovable, integral player in demonstrating the theme of collectivism that informs the main story, not just for Izuku to learn it but for THE AUDIENCE to see it too. He is one half of "win to save, save to win." He is the standard shounen manga archetype who has to learn the value of teamwork/collectivism so that he can teach it to Izuku Midoriya and save him from himself. The story is structured in such a way that it resembles LESSONS for the characters to learn, and Katsuki's "education" in this respect is VITAL to the story, second in importance only to Izuku Midoriya's.

P.S. Is it actually taking away from Katsuki to call someone else THE deuteragonist?

Yes. I know some people don't want to have to say it that way, but it is. Based on a number of metrics, Katsuki Bakugou is most widely recognized as the deuteragonist. If there's a default answer to the question of who is the deuteragonist but you think the deuteragonist is someone else, then in order to be persuasive you must not only argue why you think your chosen character is the deuteragonist but why Katsuki Bakugou is NOT the deuteragonist. If you want to argue someone else is the deuteragonist, you are taking on that onus, that burden of proof. You have to disprove Katsuki Bakugou is the deuteragonist.

Are there other characters who fit the deuteragonist function at times? Yes! There are multiple deuteragonists! But if in spite of the multiple protagonists we're still able to call Izuku Midoriya THE protagonist of My Hero Academia, then we are absolutely able to call Katsuki Bakugou THE deuteragonist as well.

tl;dr MHA is about learning what it means to be a hero and Katsuki Bakugou's story is second-most important to that theme, which makes him the deuteragonist

[misshoneyimhome]

His tripod would be set up right next to your dripping hole as he lifted the skirt you had on and aimed and zoomed right at it. During the time your back was leaning against his broad chest as his hand traveled down to your folds, you were sat in between his thighs. With his thick digits spreading your pussy lips apart, he was wearing his gold ring. You both felt pleasure rising in the air as he continued to explore your body.

"You're goddamn wet for me." He said, his voice low and husky as he breathed into your ear. "So greedy, huh älskling?" He asked, pressing his fingers into your pussy. As he slowly pulled it out, you gave a small whimper as he brought two fingers to dip in. The camera recorded every delicious second as you felt full, even with his digits inside.

His smile spread across your face as he gazed at your aching clit through the camera. As he rubbed it with his fingers, he saw your folds closely. Then he leaned his chin over your shoulder, spit directly down your body so it ran directly into your messy clit.

It didn't take him long to feel you clench around him, his fingers bruising your sweet spot, as he knew when you were ready to burst. "Willy," You squeaked out your chest heating up, pussy fluttering. In an instant, he rubbed the back of your clit, letting the fountain of cum squirt everywhere as he pulled his fingers out. His hand slapped your drenched cunt before shoving two fingers in deep again as he groaned against your neck. He would proudly tell everyone he was the one who made you make such a mess through the audio as he said, “She's only a squirter for me.” A little inspo for your new series.

🥵🥵🥵 as always this is so so hot!

🔥 But as much as I'd love to use this for my new series, this kind of scene just suits inexperienced!reader perfectly 😏 She's my perfect little slut for Willy, and she definitely deserves all the attention in a story like this!

Tropes & Warnings: inexperienced!reader x Willy, 18+ smut - Quite straightforward 😂

Word count: 1.1K

➼｡ﾟ

Returning to Toronto after an off-season filled with travel and adventure was both a relief and a challenge. You and William had spent blissful days soaking in the serene beauty of Sweden and basking under the sun on the shores of Saint Tropez, surrounded by his family and creating memories that felt like dreams. But now, you were back in your shared flat, just the two of you, and the comfort of home brought with it a new kind of intimacy, one that felt more personal and intense.

The first few days back were a blur of exhaustion and simple routines. You walked the dogs together, made quick trips to the supermarket, and spent most of your time lounging around, ordering takeaway, and catching up on sleep. It was a slower pace than you were used to, but it felt right—like a much-needed rest after the whirlwind of your travels.

And as the days passed, William returned to his workout routine, preparing himself for the upcoming hockey season, while you got back into the swing of your own work. Life gradually returned to its regular rhythm, yet somehow, something felt different. The spark that had ignited between you during the off-season seemed to have dimmed slightly, the excitement giving way to the familiarity of routine.

It was during one of those quiet evenings, as the golden light of the afternoon faded into the soft glow of twilight, that William suggested something new. It was an idea he’d been mulling over for a while, unsure if it would interest you but unable to let it go. He wanted to make a video—something private, something intimate. The thought of capturing your most personal moments together, documenting the way he touched you and the power he had over you, had been on his mind.

The video wasn’t necessarily intended for sharing with others; rather, William saw it as a way for the two of you to experiment and perhaps for him to use when he needed a release while on the road.

When he brought it up, his voice was soft, almost hesitant, but the intensity in his eyes showed he was serious. The idea was bold, and though it pushed the boundaries of what you had explored before, it didn’t feel strange or out of place. Instead, it sparked a thrill within you.

The night was charged with anticipation, the air thick as you settled into your shared bedroom. William had set up his tripod, positioning the camera carefully to capture the moment from an angle that was both intimate and revealing. There was something thrilling about the setup, a sense of anticipation that sent shivers down your spine. You were seated between his strong thighs, your back resting against his broad bare chest as his hand moved with deliberate slowness, exploring the soft skin beneath your skirt.

His touch was both gentle and assertive, his fingers grazing your folds with a tenderness that made your breath catch. The warmth of his body against your naked torso was comforting, but it was the way he whispered in your ear, his voice low and husky, that sent a wave of heat through you.

"You're goddamn wet for me," he murmured, his words igniting a flush of desire through your veins. His breath was warm against your skin, and you could sense the smile in his voice as he added, "So greedy, huh älskling?"

With practised ease, his thick fingers spread you apart, the cool metal of his gold ring contrasting with the warmth of his touch. You could feel the pressure building as he slowly pressed his fingers past your entrance, filling you in a way that made you gasp softly. The camera captured every moment, every shiver and gasp, but your focus was entirely on William, on the way he made you feel.

He was patient, his movements slow and deliberate, drawing out every sensation until you could barely stand it. And as he pulled his fingers out, the emptiness was almost unbearable, and you let out a soft whimper, the sound escaping your lips without you even realising it. But William wasn’t finished. He dipped his fingers back in, the fullness returning as he continued to work you closer to the edge. Curling and twisting his digits with every pump. 

His gaze flicked to the camera, a smile spreading across his face as he watched the way your body responded to his touch. There was a possessiveness in his eyes, a pride in knowing exactly how to make you feel this way. And as his fingers then found your clit, rubbing it with practised ease, you felt a wave of pleasure crash over you, your body tensing with the intensity of it.

He leaned in closer, his chin resting on your shoulder as he watched the scene unfold, the intimacy of the moment heightened when he spat, the warm fluid running down to your sensitive core. It was a gesture both dominant and intimate, sending another jolt of heat through your body, and he stuck his fingers inside you again. 

You could feel yourself clenching around him, the pleasure building to a point where it was almost too much to bear. William knew your body well, knew exactly when you were close, and his touch only grew firmer, more insistent as he drove you higher and higher. His motions were merciless, actions that drove your mind wild and breaths catching in your throat. 

“Willy,” you managed to cry, your voice barely audible as your chest heaved with the effort to breathe. The tension within you snapped, and in an instant, you were overwhelmed by waves of pleasure, your muscles fluttering as your body released in a rush of sensation.

But he didn’t stop there. As you came undone, he pulled his fingers out, only to slap your drenched core lightly before plunging them back in, a groan escaping his lips as he felt your body respond to his touch; your juices spraying like a waterfall. The sound of his voice, low and proud, filled the room as he spoke to the camera, his words brimming with possessive pride.

“She’s only a squirter for me,” he said, satisfaction evident in his tone as he held you close, the aftermath of your release leaving you both breathless and trembling.

The room was quiet except for the sound of your ragged breaths, the intensity of the moment leaving you both spent and content. And as you both settled into the comforting embrace of each other’s arms, you knew this was something special—an experience that would linger in your memories long after the night had passed.

[olderthannetfic]

Hey. Maybe not the place. But people treat your ask box like a forum so 🙏 I thought I was ace because porn does nothing for me and I only like erotica/doujinshi if I like the characters. But I recently discovered watching wrestling does something for me. Is this really weird? How do I know where I fit?

--

I will gleefully embrace the identity of basement-dwelling gremlin who prefers horny fiction to actually dating or having sex with other people.

But porn tastes aren't what defines sexual orientation.

Neither is willingness to get off the couch.

Are you attracted to people, anon? That's usually how people define the various identities on that spectrum: no attraction, very occasional attraction way below what's seen as commonplace, attraction only when you know someone well, etc. (Which, of course, brings up the question of what level is "normal" and whether someone's judging based on Hollywood nonsense or on what's actually typical.)

For me personally, mainstream porno movies have actors I find un-hot wearing clothing I find libido-killing in ugly environments with bad lighting and camerawork. The scenarios lack the psychological depth needed to interest me, and there's little sense of intimacy.

This has nothing to do with orientation and everything to do with film craft.

Doujinshi of characters I'm already familiar with have a lot more context for what's going on, and this can add a lot of zing to kinks or increase the apparent intimacy.

Wrestling has plotlines. It has deeply charismatic stars. It has different body types than a lot of porn. There's nothing odd about finding it hot but not liking the porno movies you've been exposed to.

Plenty of people prefer all of the horny film festival favorites of the 90s to actual porno movies. It seems like funding dried up for those kinds of movies for a decade or two, but they used to be common.

I preferred the kinkier ones. Crash, for example, was a staple of my teenage viewing. Not the cringey one that won too many awards: the pervert one with the eight billion scenes of people licking each other's scars like they were performing oral.

It really digs into the psychology of kink... in addition to being far more visually beautiful and starring far hotter people than most of the commercial porn I've seen. Same deal with The Pillow Book or ¡Átame! or Maurice or Bound.

I've been seeing articles lately talking about a return to 90s levels of sex in arty movies. People point to the likes of Call Me By Your Name and Saltburn.

Live action commercial porno movies do vary, obviously, but it's just so, so, so common to find them tacky or boring while liking other forms of porn, even other live action sex scenes.

Hell, even for poorly shot stuff, I've never seen even amateur porn capture the vibes of this one long-deleted youtube video of a guy giving a lecture on anal massage and treating his subject like a prop while lecturing to a big group of onlookers.

--

Sometimes, people just aren't very into casual sex, and horny art where they can fantasize about people who actually know each other is better than horny art about the pizza delivery guy. Sure, there are pornos that try to have more plot, but porn stars are generally good at being porn stars, not at subtle and naturalistic acting.

Wrestlers are hardly subtle, but they do do different acting from your average porno, and there's more continuing plotline. Unless you mean... like... college wrestling? (In which case, Kink.com has or had some series where people wrestle to decide who gets to top. Wrestling is hardly a niche interest.)

For kinksters, the context and psychology often matter a lot. Showing an object with a lot of cultural baggage, like shiny black leather, can be hot, but the viewer might need more, and your average porno isn't geared up to provide that.

--

Anyway, if you want to determine your own orientation, your interest in art isn't necessarily going to help that much.

If you're only rarely attracted to people, and you have to know them well first, you could be demisexual, but you could equally well be shy or nervous or depressed or repressed or too busy and stressed to spend much time noticing your own feelings—or just surrounded by people who aren't your type. Only your personal interpretation of your internal experience can determine which it is.

But no, being horny for wrestling is not weird.

[runningfrom2am]

cold nights // part eight

summary: may the odds be ever in your favour.

pairing: coriolanus snow x fem!reader

wc: 2.8k

masterlists / nav / requests

tags/warnings: tribute!reader and mentor!coriolanus, r is very sweet (too kind for this world. literally.), sunshine x grumpy trope kinda, he falls first, violence typical for the source material, r is very smart (as she should), district twelve!reader.

a/n: let the games begin!! i'm so excited (and also,, so scared)

series masterlist // playlist

The light streams through Coriolanus's window in the morning, waking him with the sun. He only has a moment of peace, rubbing the sleep from his eyes before the dread sets in; settling under his skin like a sliver.

He hurries to get dressed, letting Tigris help him with his blazer due to his shoulder injury making it necessarily difficult before he kisses his grandma'am goodbye, and they wish him (and you) good luck. They would be watching, of course, and that only served to build his anxiety as he hurried to the school.

You hardly slept for a moment the whole night. When you finally did, the sun was beginning to rise and you were woken up not long after by peacekeepers urging you back into the truck. No one had anything to say on the drive. You all knew what was coming, and the tension in the air was palpable. You felt safer with the scarf wrapped firmly around yourself and the compact in your pocket, which you run your thumb over repeatedly to try and memorize the ornate carvings on the outside. It was Coryo's, and he was with you. You couldn't forget.

As the truck slows to a stop, you take a deep breath. "The third day comes a frost, a killing frost." You mutter to yourself, turning the heads of the tributes next to you as you force yourself to your feet. "The elements be kind to thee, and make thy spirits all of comfort: fair thee well."

Your slightly louder statement is met with hateful glares by a few, ignored by others. "I can't wait to hear your last words. Freak." Coral spits at you, shoving past you as the doors of the now stopped truck are opened. You swallow thickly, catching the eyes of the little one, Wovey. You give her a smile, allowing her to walk out ahead of you. She's scared, and you can tell as you place your hands on her shoulders, soothingly rubbing them while you walk out and see the arena again.

As you're led inside, separated from Jessup, and you quickly understand what Coryo meant. Everything was different. The debris had been cleared but stacked in the center of the floor, and as you got closer, you began to see weapons littered all over the pile of rubble. The thought of what you were about to see made you sick, more so as you pushed through the familiar turnstile. 

"Enjoy the show!"

Coryo is already watching as you walk out. He has been watching for you since the moment the screen shifted from the Games logo to a camera view of the entrance. And there you were. He swallowed, seeing the worsening bags under your eyes and the cut on your arm with healing black stitches. You have that much younger girl under your arms, walking her in front of you as you hold her close. You whisper something in her ear that the microphones don't pick up, which makes her smile, even just a little before you're quickly forced apart by peacekeepers.

"Stand on your marks or you will be shot!" A peacekeepers voice calls out as you feel the weapon jabbed into your back, making you wince. You find your place, looking around frantically now to try and spot the hole in the ground Coryo told you about, or maybe you should try and get up in the stands. But if you get in the tunnel quickly, even if you're being chased that will buy you a few moments where you wouldn't be seen. Maybe you could hide and not be found.

What about Jessup? Or Wovey? Your mind wanders, despite you trying to adhere to Coryo's advice. You decide that wherever you run when the bell goes off, if you saw either of them on the way you would pull them with you. If not, you would just have to keep going. You had no desire in getting close to the mess that was about to happen in the centre as soon as people got their hands on those weapons.

You thought you knew you would die in these games, but as your adrenaline starts to spike, you knew you would at least try to stay alive. Your body wouldn't let you wait for your fate to come. Originally, that had been your plan. When your name was called at the reaping, even though you had planned to run by what you wore, you intended on dropping to your knees at the sound of the buzzer and awaiting whatever fate would take you. What had changed?

Coriolanus. That's what had changed. You just regretted that you wouldn't live to know if he won his prize, and see never see him again. You had to see him again.

That's when your eyes landed on Marcus, hanging by his wrists from a beam across the room from you. "Oh..." You sigh sadly, shaking your head as you look at his state. He had tried to save you along with himself, but he hadn't succeeded and that just breaks your heart. You hear crying as tears of fear well up in your own eyes but you force them down as you hear Lucretius's voice over the loudspeakers counting down.

Only ten seconds, and you had to decide. The vent behind you was looking awfully tempting, but you weren't sure what Coryo wanted. It sounded like he preferred the tunnels, and you had to listen to him. But then, seeing the hole in the floor, you would have to make it past all the chaos and the weapons and the other tributes.

"Three... two... one..."

Then it was the buzzer, and as your heart pounded in your chest and seemingly everyone else sprinted for the middle, you were frozen. You had to move fast.

"Run." Coryo mumbles to himself, silently begging you to remember what he told you.

But you stayed still. "What are you doing, run." He says again under his breath, and it's almost like you can hear him when you start running out of nowhere.

You're already surrounded by screams and grunts as you make your way to the wall behind you, flashes of orange hardly visible under the arm holes of your dress. The vent. Apparently, you decided on the vent. As you begin to climb the debris leading up to the stands you look back to make sure you're not being followed, but among the fighting and the lifeless bodies you see Jessup. He's stumbling, then crawling, and you curse yourself for what you're about to do, but your conscience has given you no choice.

"Don't. Don't go back for him." Coryo hisses, unable to look away.

You can practically hear Coryo telling you not to in your mind, but you're already sliding back down the broken cement and looking for your safest path to the boy from your District.

His mental state had declined rapidly in the last few days, you were sure it was from infection. When you walked into the arena, he didn't even know where he was. In a sad way, that was good. At least he didn't know what was coming for him.

"Jessup!" You call out, making your run for it along the wall, sliding to a stop when something metal clangs against the cement just in front of you that someone had thrown. You don't have time to see who the source was before you keep running, determined to at least get Jessup somewhere hidden.

Coryo is on the edge of his seat as he watches the close call, unable to relax even when their next couple of attempts miss as well. You were far from safe- you were making a mistake and all he could do was watch it happen. You couldn't run alongside the wall forever, so as you departed from it in a beeline for your friend, he holds his breath.

"Jessup!" You call again, trying to attract his attention but it doesn't work. You quickly duck when you hear a scream just to your right, seeing someone's form winding up to swing at you.

You yelp and stumble back as their weapon just catches the top of your hair, pulling it slightly as your dodge just out of their reach. The dirty ground was near impossible to run on, forcing them to slide past you over the dust under their feet. You keep moving even as another flying weapon in your shared direction distracts them.

You have to keep going. You reach Jessup as quickly as you can, trying to lift him up to his feet with a grip under his arms. "Jessup, come on, we have to go. We have to run, get up!" He stumbles to his feet and with an arm over your shoulder, you're running for the tunnels. You're being chased, you can hear it- Coral and her alliance that you had tried to join at Coryo's request but never got the chance, not that they would have approved anyway. You jump feet first into the opening in the ground, not worried about what's at the bottom as you roll down the debris that previously made up the floor above.

"Come on, come on!" You urge your friend again, once again helping him up and dragging him down the hall. There had to be a place to hide here somewhere; Coryo said there would be.

"They've gone underground very quickly, but we're prepared for this." Lucky says, but Coryo isn't paying any attention to anything other than you.

"Go, go, go..." He mutters, nodding as he watches the cameras switch to keep up with you.

Just as you finally find a door, you see others running toward you from down the hall. You pull helplessly at it, hoping it will open. It doesn't. With nowhere to go you look back, knowing you can't go that way either. "Open! Please!" You cry out, shaking the handle of the heavy metal door and kicking it in frustration.

Except, you miss. Your foot seemingly goes through the door, smacking your shin against it and you hiss. There's a hole in the door, just big enough for you to fit through. "Jessup, we've gotta go through. Come on! Hurry!" You urge him, already halfway through yourself.

Thankfully, he's right behind you. You quickly turn to help pull him through when his ankle gets grabbed.

You scream in a moment of panic, desperately pulling on his arms to try and help him up. Hy is who you quickly identify as the tribute holding him back, but luckily they aren't holding any kind of weapon. "Stop! Stop!" You cry out, pulling on your friend as you look around the room for somewhere else to run.

Their grip only loosens when they scream, lifelessly dropping their grip from the boy as he gets up and their body is dragged back through the hole in the door. You don't have time to process how gruesome that was, quickly hiding behind a wall across the room.

"Hey, Lumberjack." You hear Coral whispering from the other side. "Get in there and get her out."

"I'm not sticking my head in there." Treech replies, and you let out a quiet sigh of relief. "She could be waiting with a brick."

"That softy? She's not gonna hurt you! Let's just get them out of the way!"

"Then you do it."

A moment of silence follows before she replies. "Whatever. They have to come out eventually."

Coryo swallows as he watches them walk away. For now, you were safe.

"Okay, Jessup, take a seat..." You whisper to him after a good few moments, sure the other tributes had left by now. He nods, and you help him down, leaning back against the cold wall as you crouch in front of him. "I have to go, okay?"

He looks confused. "Where are you going? The mines..."

"We're not in the mines, Hun..." You remind him, gently pulling his coat tighter around him in some effort to keep him warm. "I just have to go, but you'll be safe down here. You just have to wait it out."

He nods, but he clearly doesn't understand. "Wait... wait for what?"

"A little madness in the spring is wholesome even for the king..." You hum, smiling sadly at him. "I'll see you soon, okay?"

Jessup just nods as you stand, heading back for the door. You have to make it to those vents. Coryo would want you alone, and with Jessup safe enough down here, you had to move on. You look back at him, only briefly, trying to remember the last time you would ever see the boy from your home when your eyes catch on a hatch in the ceiling. The vents.

You walk back over, looking up and squinting to see how you could get in. There's a steady-looking pipe that runs underneath it, but you can't quite reach it.

You're reaching into your top without looking away, pulling out the tucked-in knot of the scarf and untying it. Coryo's handiwork.

"Has she... Has she been wearing that this whole time? Is that allowed?" Lucky asks, looking around but no one has any answers. Except Coriolanus, who would not be responding anyway. You pull it out from under your dress as he watches the screen, smiling to himself as you throw the fabric up over the pipe and use it to hoist yourself up and disappear into the vent. He couldn't see you anymore, but he hoped no one else would find you in there either.

It would be hours before he saw you again. Everyone's attention is drawn at first by Lamina climbing out from inside the debris, heading toward Marcus as he hung from the fallen beam. Then, to Coryo's surprise, the camera flits over to you as the vent is pushed open and you poke your head out. How you had made it up into the stands was beyond him, but the vents must have led you there.

You wince at the loud creaking sound it makes, making Lamina turn quickly toward you. You hold your hands out defensively as you step out, nodding at her in a silent promise before you climb down the wall. "I won't hurt you." You verbally reassure her as you slowly get closer, hands still held out in front of you to prove to her that you don't have any weapons. She did, but you weren't scared.

The scarf is tied around your waist, the long fabric draping down and brushing the side of your bare leg with every step. You were covered in dust and dirt, Coryo notices, as you stop next to her. "Are you going to help him down?" You ask her, and she just nods, both of you looking up at him.

"Let me help." You offer, making your way over to the side of the beam where you think you could climb up. "Marcus, Honey, we're going to help you down, okay? Just try and relax. It'll just be another minute." You call out, but you're met with no response. Your brow furrows, unsure if he's even alive as you climb the rest of the way up.

"Marcus?" You ask, crawling across the beam and leaning over him as you hear Lamina climbing up behind you. You reach down to check his pulse, and you're met with one that's very faint. "Marcus, you'll be okay. We're gonna help." You tell him again and he opens his eyes, turning his head just slightly to look up at you.

"Please..." He mutters, voice raspy and pained.

"I know, I know... Just give us a minute."

"No... Don't..." He coughs out, shaking his head with tears in his eyes. "Please..."

And then you know what he means. You look back at Lamina as she sits behind you, shaking your head as tears well up in your eyes. You can't kill him, you just can't- but if that is his wish...

She looks between the two of you, giving you a slight nod. You can't even look at the axe you know is still in her hand.

You move over to his other side, reaching out to hold his hand in your shaking one.

Coryo wants to look away from the screen but he can't. His eyes are glued to you as tears fall, and you lean down to speak to the dying boy. "Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality." You tell him quietly, a sad smile on your face. "Know that you are loved. And know that I am sorry."

He chokes out a sob as Lamina moves his shirt away from his neck, looking to you as she lifts her axe. You squeeze his hand and nod at her. "You are loved. I love you. I am sorry. I love you." You remind him over and over, wanting the last thing he hears to be a reminder of the truth, but by the end, by the time Lamina brings her axe down against his skin, you're just praying he could hear your words through your cries.

As Coryo watches your donations tick up even further, you and the girl you are meant to kill are crying into each other's arms, Marcus's body limp on the ground beneath you.

[the-lone-writer94]

Wanted Dead or Alive

Dean Winchester x (You) Female Reader

*Contains Supernatural season 5 spoilers*

Summary: Set in late season 5 after Dean finds out he is the vessel for Michael which he tries to not think about. Hoping that a new job will keep his mind off things. He journeys to Texas where there had been a series of attacks. There he runs into an old flame (You - female reader) the thing is you haven't heard from Dean in four years... and you're pissed. Just how will this little reunion go?  

Age rating: 18+ mature content *Warnings: rough sex (sort of), guns and violence*

Word count: 4,248

Crouched down behind a cluster of trees, my finger on the trigger of the flamethrower gun as my gaze scanned the perimeter before me. I had been tracking this fucker for five days now, which had finally led me here. Perhaps, there were worse ways of spending a Saturday night than sitting in the dirt. At this rate, I wanted nothing more than to gank this thing, call it an evening and return to my cabin where I could throw back several bottles of beer.

Suddenly in the distance, there was a faint sound of shuffling. My jaw clenched, as my hold on the flamethrower tightened. I swallowed the lump in my throat as I slowly ascended from the ground. Gently, I stepped forward, my eyes glued to the shadows before me. The sounds of shuffling grew louder, as I knew I was closing in.

My heartbeat quickened, and the adrenaline pumped through my veins. The shadows before me formed, and I raised my flamethrower and just as I was about to press down, my heart lurched forward. It took me several seconds for my mind to recollect what was before me, and I gasped.

The figures before me did not belong to the monster I had been hunting, but two men. The familiarity of his face returning back to me, as I had once upon a time gazed on.

“Woah, woah…” He said, as he raised his hands in the air.

“Dean… Dean Winchester?” I questioned.

Dean’s face softened, and a smile flashed across his face. “Hey, sweetheart.”

Behind Dean was man that I did not recognize, he was taller than Dean, with long shaggy hair. Even under the night sky, I could make out the dark shadows that laid beneath his eyes.

“Friend of yours.” The other man commented, his lips pursed as if he wasn’t necessarily pleased.

Anger suddenly shot through me, as I lowered my flamethrower. My right fist extended, as I swung and my fist connected with Dean’s face.

Taken aback, Dean fell to the ground, and the man who stood behind Dean’s eyes widened. “Not a friend, I guess.”

Dean remained on the ground as he groaned in pain. “Still got that mean right hook.”

I shifted in my position, and rested my hand on my hip. “That is what you get for never calling me.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

We reached my cabin in Lake Worth, as I pulled up and removed myself from my truck. Behind me I watched as Dean’s Impala came to a halt. After I had a moment’s breath, I had felt a slight sliver of guiltiness after punching Dean in the face, that I decided to swallow whatever anger I had in me and invited him, and who I had learnt to be his brother Sam back to my place.

I stalked towards my front door as I jammed my keys into the lock and pushed the door wide open, with Sam and Dean on my heels. My hand patted against the light switch, which immediately lit up the room.

“I’ll get you some ice for that nose,” I said to Dean, then added, “and don’t touch anything.”

I watched as Sam’s eyes narrowed into something in the distance. “Is that a… stripper pole?” He asked uncomfortably.

“Dude, don’t call her a stripper-” Dean immediately interjected, “believe me.” He warned.

“I teach pole fitness on my days off… girl’s gotta eat.” I answered, before I stalked off, and returned with a bag of ice and three beers.

Dean and Sam had both made themselves comfortable on the couch. I flinched at the sight of Dean’s muddy boots on the couch, as I gently slapped his legs. He removed his feet from the couch and leaned forward, then I shoved the ice pack and beer towards Dean, which he immediately took it, then pressed the ice pack against his nose.

I crossed towards Sam and handed him the bottle of the ice cold beer. “Thanks.” He said.

I took the seat opposite them, in a single chair nearby the window, a stack of classic rock vinyl records just adjacent to the chair, where I had been sorting out for days now, I cracked open the beer and took several long gulps.

“What were you doing out there in the woods?” Dean was the first on to break the silence.

“Hunting.” I answered nonchalantly, as I pulled my duffel bag full of weapons into the center and opened it up.

Sam’s eyes widened, as he inspected my weapons. “These are all military grade stuff- where did you get all this?” He questioned.

“What are you a cop now?” I shot back, then shrugged, “I have my ways.”

Dean chuckled, and then asked. “You’re hunting now?”

I shrugged. “I kill whatever disrupts the town… But I guess, now that you’re here, we’re after the same thing.”

“We read in the paper that there were a string of animialistic like attacks.” Sam added.

I nodded. “The locals thought it was wolf attacks,” I scoffed, “wolves in fucking Texas. Give me a break.” I removed myself from the chair, and crossed towards the living room where I had my guns, and computers scattered on the dining room table. It was evident that I hardly had any company around. I grabbed my computer and handed it to Sam. “I didn’t think too much about it at first, but I saw these videos posted by the victims just before they disappeared. If any random person watched them, they wouldn’t think too much about it, but with a little digitally enhanced programmes, it’s obvious that something was there with them.”

Sam inspected the videos on my laptop, as his eyes widened. “Wow.” He commented.

“God bless people for documenting every inch of their life and posting it onto Myspace.” I added.

“What’s Myspace?” Dean asked.

Sam and I shot him a stare, as we both ignored his remark. “Well, with what I can see in these videos and that flamethrower you had earlier, I can only assume that you’re dealing with a-”

“Wendigo.” I said, cutting off Sam.

Dean cleared his throat, and removed the ice pack from his face. “Sammy and I dealt with a Wendigo couple of years back in Blackwater Ridge, but the one we killed only surfaces every twenty-three years. These killings, seem to have never occurred in Lake Worth before now?”

I shook my head. “This one must be new, and it’s getting busy.” I said, then added, “I don’t know- things have been whack recently, it’s as if every monster out there is getting bold, and coming out from the darkness.”

Dean and Sam stared at each other momentarily, an anxious look painted across their faces. “Yeah, I guess I know why that is.” Dean said.

“What?” I asked.

“The Apocalypse.” Dean answered.

“The what now?” I choked.

Dean glanced down at his feet, “we may have-” he muttered beneath his breath, and then peered up at me. His gaze locked with mine. “We may have had something to do with the Apocalypse.”

I exhaled, remained silent and downed the entire contents of my beer. “Well, that’s just super. I guess there’s nothing else to do but to eat, drink, fuck and gank any evil sons of bitches that crosses my path.”

Dean smirked at my remark, whilst Sam on the other hand didn’t seem to pleased.

“So, what now?” I asked, trying to change the subject. It isn’t everyday that you hear the World is ending, yet, after the shit I had seen, nothing really seemed to surprise me anymore.

“If it’s a Wendigo, then I guess Sam and I will take care of it.” Dean instructed.

“Why do you get to take care of it? I’ve been tracking this thing for five days now.” I shot back, and added, “plus why should I sit back out of the action.”

I knew that Dean had always had a savior complex, wanting to protect everyone around him. I didn’t necessarily blame him, given the way he had been raised and his life. Suddenly, my jaw unclenched and I cleared my throat. “Anyway, that thing didn’t appear tonight, it must have known we were closing in on it. I say we go back there, but this time I’ll play the role of the damsel in distress to smoke it out.”

“Use you as bait?” Dean hissed, “hell no! It’s too dangerous.”

“Dean, I can take care of myself… plus I know you will be there backing me up.” I argued.

Dean’s brows furrowed, he was lost for words. Knowing deep down that I was right, as he tried to conjure up the words to fight me back.

Sam cocked his head to the side. “She’s right, Dean,” he spoke, “we were so close tonight to killing it, but it never appeared. Monsters don’t take day offs. If there’s a bait, I’m sure it’ll take it.”

Dean’s lips pressed into a thin line, and his nostrils flared. “I don’t like this.”

“Of course you don’t,” I commented.

“One bad move… if I see one thing that is too risky, I’m jumping right in.” Dean said in a stern voice.

“Naturally.” I commented, and then added, “well, I’m hungry. How about I make us some food?”

The expression on Dean’s face softened, as he shifted in his position. “I could eat.” He said. My gaze jumped to Sam’s, as he simply nodded.

“How about a bacon cheeseburger with fries, and I’ve got some cherry pie.”

A smile flashed across Dean’s face, he was like a child in a candy store. “Awesome!”

“Hmm… you have maybe like a salad or something?” Sam asked.

I cocked an eyebrow as I stared at Dean. “Is he for real?”

Dean shrugged. “I’m afraid yes.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following morning, Dean and Sam had driven into town for some extra supplies that they needed in order to hunt down the Wendigo. It had been a while since they had been in Texas, and Dean had forgotten just how much he had missed the local cuisine.

Sam waited in the car, whilst Dean picked up a couple of things in a convenience store. Whatever it was, Sam hadn’t asked, in fact, on some level he’d rather not know.

Moments later, Dean returned into the car with a plastic bag full of stuff. His hand extended back as he dumped the bag into the back seat.

“All done.” Dean commented, and added, “let’s head back.”

The Impala roared to life, as they continued down the road. An awkward silence filled the car, and Sam’s gaze bounced from the window and then to Dean.

From Dean’s peripheral vision, he noticed the constant looks Sam was giving him and his jaw clenched. “What now?” He said with a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“Are we not gonna talk about her?” Sam began.

“What’s there to talk about?” Dean said, his eyes remained fixated on the road. “I was in town, read in the papers that there was a series of strange deaths. Turned out it was a nest of vampires that was taunting the cabins down in Lake Worth, one of them being hers. I ganked the sucker, and there’s that.”

Sam scoffed. “I remember that, Dean. It was when I was in college-”

“So what, Sammy?”

Sam leaned forward. “I remember that, that job only took you about two days. Dad said you were gone for a whole week.”

Dean smirked, “Exactly.”

Sam pulled a face. “One week to you is the longest relationship you’ve ever been in. Clearly, this girl meant something to you.”

“What? No, she’s cool,”

“She’s literally you, Dean.”

“We have a lot in common, yes- oh man, you know she does this thing on the pole-”

Sam shook his head. “I don’t wanna hear this.”

“Like it’ll ever work… we can’t afford attachments in this job,” Dean shot back, “and now with all this crap about the Apocalypse, and Michael wanting to wear me like a meat suit.” He sighed, “I got bigger shit to deal with.”

Sam held his gaze with Dean’s. There was no denying that ever since they had unleashed Lucifer from his cage, and brought upon the end of the world, that the word complicated wasn’t even enough to describe everything. Sam knew that Dean was too hot headed and stubborn to see what was in front him, but Sam couldn’t help but ponder what would happen to Dean if Sam were to give up himself to Lucifer, trapping himself down in Hell, if they failed to retrieve the rest of the rings from the Four Horseman.

“Look, Dean-” Sam began.

“I don’t wanna hear it Sammy!” Dean shot back, “let’s just do what we do best, kill this thing and move on.” He ordered.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Time had certainly stood still, as I sat uncomfortably in my tent awaiting for the Wendigo to come and claim me. Beneath the tent, we had drawn Anasazi symbols, hoping for an advantage on my behalf. The flamethrower gun laid beside me, concealed underneath a blanket. I wasn’t even sure if the Wendigo would take the bait, but after all, this was the only way. Knowing that the Winchesters were only a mere distance away.

Suddenly, a faint sound of rustling reached my ears. My hand immediately threw away the blanket over the flamethrower gun as I held it and unzipped the tent. Annoyance had found me as my vision fixated on what the noise had belonged to. Before me was a wild rabbit that hopped across from my tent.

I groaned, “Seriously, dude,” as the impatience was growing on me.

All of a sudden, whilst I was lost in thought, in the speed of light claw marks had appeared on the side of the tent. Taken aback, I felt a force grab onto my legs as it pulled me away from the tent, causing my hands to slip away from the flamethrower. Everything had happened so fast, and in a blur, that it took my mind several moments to recollect what had just happened before me.

I stared up, and looked into the eyes of the creature that had taken me. It’s venomous glare latched on and gawked deep into my eyes, the folds on its face, and the razor sharp teeth gleamed underneath the moonlit sky. It growled as it watched me like prey. How was it possible that this thing had managed to cross over the Anasazi symbols that I had etched on the ground?

The Wendigo was fast and I knew we were now a while away from the tent and the boys. I was utterly on my own in this one.

Backed into a corner, the Wendigo towered over me. Immediately, I reached for my knife concealed in my boot. I knew that weapons were useless against it, but I hoped that it would somehow slow it down before I thought of my next move. In one swift motion, the knife glided across the Wendigo’s arm, it hardly flinched before I shot aside and tried to make a run for it.

The action was useless as the Wendigo grabbed onto me and cast me aside as if I had weighed a feather. My back collided against the tree and I hissed in pain.

I reached for the gun in the waistband of my jeans, as I fired once, twice, and again, and again. It did nothing on the Wendigo, and it continued to stalk towards me. With its large hands it pushed aside the gun, immediately it wrapped his hand around my neck as I felt the air disppearing from my lungs. It hoisted me up, as I tried to claw its grip away from me. My vision began to blur, as I was trying my hardest to hold onto the sliver of life in me I had left.

With the small amount of strength, I managed to pull another knife from the breastpocket of my leather jacket. I plunged it into the Wendigo’s neck, pulling it out and then stabbing it repeatly. It was finally enough to irritate the thing, as it roared in annoyance.

Unexpectly, a shot emerged in the distance, followed by an orange and yellow ablaze. The Wendigo was caught off guard, and shrieked as it tried to conceal themself from the light. The hold over my neck had been released and I slumped to the ground, coughing violently as I tried to catch my breath.

I watched as Dean and Sam appeared, it wasn’t long before the Wendigo charged towards them. Just when Dean raised the flare gun, the Wendigo had knocked it out of his hand and cast him aside. Immediately, Sam raised the flamethrower gun and aimed it towards the Wendigo, but within seconds the Wendigo had pushed Sam down.

The Wendigo stalked towards Dean as it towered over him, he lowered himself down onto the ground, and growled. His razor sharp teeth exposed as he was about devour Dean.

Dean stabbed the Wendigo in the eye, which caused it to stagger backwards, as Dean immediately rolled over to the side.

I crawled over towards the flamethrower, as I reached for it and pushed myself onto standing. “Swallow this, asshole.” I said, as I pressed down onto the trigger, and it sent a fiery ablaze straight towards the Wendigo as it ignited, followed by the screeching sounds of pain as we watched it burn.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

After I had taken a shower, immediately feeling like a brand new person, I put on a tight white tank top that read Hooters a gag gift from my friends one Christmas, and a pair of black short shorts. I stalked out into the living room. I watched as Dean packed up his belongings, and all of a sudden, a sense of melonchony washed over me.

Dean zipped up his duffel bag and cleared his throat as our gaze met. “Sam’s just out getting some stuff, but once he’s back we’ll be out of your hair.”

“So you��re just going to leave like that again, huh?” I hissed.

Dean shook his head and pressed down onto his temples. “Please, don’t-”

“Listen, Dean. I’m not the kinda girl that dreams of the perfect white wedding, and wants to fucking slow dance to Lady in Red. But four years! I don’t hear from you in all that time. I thought you were dead!” I argued.

Dean exhaled, and closed his eyes. “I can’t-” he began, and then paused.

“Fine. Go!” I snapped, as I stepped towards him and pushed him.

“Come on, don’t-” he said.

I shoved him again hard. His jaw clenched, and he grabbed a hold of my wrists. Our gazes locked, and my breathing quickened. Dean’s hand reached up and his fingers became knotted in my hair. He tugged at it, as he closed the gap between us, his lips crashed down onto mine. My lips parted as his tongue slipped inside. I felt the urgency behind his kiss, and I pushed him against the wall. He groaned, but he didn’t seem to care. We continued to kiss, but it wasn’t long before his hands reached down to my hips and turned me around, my body slammed against the wall. He hoisted me up and I wrapped my legs around his waist, as we continued to make out. My fingers found its way in his hair as I pulled onto it hard. He grunted, and I felt the bulge forming in his pants.

He placed me down, as his hand slithered towards my crotch. With his other hand he pulled my hair and drew back. “Is this what you want?” He said, and I felt his hot breath caress my skin.

I nodded.

“Say it.” He ordered.

“Yes.”

Dean’s hand found its way behind my underwear, almost immediately I felt two fingers inserted into me. I gasped, and wrapped my arms around his neck. His fingers went in and out, then out and in again, as I grew wetter. I threw my head back and bit down on my lower lip.

His fingers continued to thrust into me, as my nails dug into the back of his neck, plunging them deep into his skin. I quivered, and moaned louder, just then Dean removed his fingers from me.

“You don’t get to come just yet.” He whispered in my ear.

He then carried me to the bedroom, and  threw me down onto the mattress, before he climbed on top of me. Immediately, my hands reached up to him as I grabbed onto the ends of his shirt and ripped it open, revealing his chest. It was then that I noticed the tattoo on his left side of his chest, which was new to me. My hands caressed his broad shoulders, before they drifted down to his muscular biceps.

I felt Dean’s hands on my body, as he tugged at my top, hoisting it up. His hands cupped my breasts as he lowered himself down, his wet tongue caressed against my now hardened nipples and I moaned, and felt a wetness down between my legs.

I sat up and my fingers hooked into the waistband of his jeans, hurriedly, I unbuckled his belt and undid his pants, as I stroked his bulge, before I pulled down his briefs. My hand gently gripped around his length, as I stared up at him through my eyelashes, before I lowered my mouth onto his cock. My tongue glided across the head of his cock, and then I took it all in, and tasted him. I heard Dean moan, as I felt his fingers running through my hair as he pushed my head deeper down into him. He thrusted into me, as I allowed him to fuck my mouth.

He pulled away and raised his hand towards my face, as his tumb grazed over my mouth and he smirked, knowing that my lips were stained with his precum.

Dean kicked away his pants, as he climbed onto the bed, he grabbed me by my shoulders and spun me around, pushing his body into my back, as his hand cupped at my throat and pressed down. Enough for me to feel his force but not hard enough that I was actually choking, and gasping for air.

And then I felt him enter me, his thick and long cock inside of me as I moaned, almost immediately he began to thrust into me, fast and hard. I quivered, and my hand slithered down my body as I was about to touch my clit. Suddenly, Dean grabbed my hand and pulled it away.

“Not yet, sweetheart.” He said, as he took both of my hands behind my back, holding down onto it.

I squirmed beneath his touch, as his other hand was draped across my chest holding me up, knowing that at this moment I belonged to him.

Dean continued to thrust into me hard, as he buried his face into my neck, I heard his low and deep grunts, as I called out his name in pleasure, which seemed to excite him, as I felt him thrusting harder and harder into me, my tits bounced up and down, as Dean’s hand grabbed down onto my breasts, squeezing onto them, hard.

I felt myself wanting to come, as my body quivered. Dean moaned in pleasure, and I knew he was nearing his release.

“It’s okay, shoot your load in me.” I said in a breathless voice.

Dean released the grip on my hands, as I reached up towards him and pulled his face close to mine, my fingers grazed along the stubble on his jawline and my lips found his. My lips parted and he stuck his tongue down my mouth.

Dean grunted as he released into me, and I felt his cum pumped into me. He heaved, and I tried to catch my breath, as he pulled out. I slumped down onto the bed, as did he, and we laid beside each other gazing up at the ceiling.

Once, Dean and I had cleaned ourselves up. I walked him towards the front door, we paused by the threshold, as Sam sat in the Impala in the distance.

Dean turned towards me.

“So,” I said awkwardly. “I’m sorry I was too hard on you earlier, I get it… your line of work, attachments are-” I paused.

Dean shook his head. “You had every right to be mad.”

“Still, I’m sorry for punching you in the face,” I said and smirked, “and for shoving you earlier.”

“I sorta deserved it… plus that was some sweet lovin’” He said, and laughed, then cleared his throat, “well, let’s just say when I’m on the road, I’ll find some time to call, and check in. And if I’m ever in town… this will be a stop, and you can do that thing you did on that pole.” Dean said, and raised his eyebrow.

I smiled, and playfully slapped him across the arm. “I wouldn’t protest to that.”

Dean towered over me, as I tiptoed to kiss him on the lips. He lowered himself down, as his lips found mine, we had lost track of how long we had been making out, and no doubt that Sam was probably growing irritated.

We finally pulled apart, as I watched Dean turn on his heels, and step into the Impala as I watched him drive away into the distance.

[regulusrules]

Yo, I saw your post about orientalism in relation to the "hollywood middle-east" tiktok!

How can a rando and university dropout get into and learn more about? Any literature or other content to recommend?

Hi!! Wow, you have no idea how you just pressed a button. I'll unleash 5+ years on you. And I'll even add for you open-sourced works that you can access as much as I can!

1. Videos

I often find this is the best medium nowadays to learn anything! I'll share with you some of the best that deal with the topic in different frames

• This is a video of Edward Said talking about his book, Orientalism. Said is the Palestinian- American critic who first introduced the term Orientalism, and is the father of postcolonial studies as a critical literary theory. In this book, you’ll find an in-depth analysis of the concept and a deconstruction of western stereotypes. It’s very simple and he explains everything in a very easy manner.

• How Islam Saved Western Civilization. A more than brilliant lecture by Professor Roy Casagranda. This, in my opinion, is one of the best lectures that gives credit to this great civilization, and takes you on a journey to understand where did it all start from.

• What’s better than a well-researched, general overview Crash Course about Islam by John Green? This is not necessarily on orientalism but for people to know more about the fundamental basis of Islam and its pillars. I love the whole playlist that they have done about the religion, so definitely refer to it if you're looking to understand more about the historical background! Also, I can’t possibly mention this Crash Course series without mentioning ... ↓

• The Medieval Islamicate World. Arguably my favourite CC video of all times. Hank Green gives you a great thorough depiction of the Islamic civilization when it rose. He also discusses the scientific and literary advancements that happened in that age, which most people have no clue about! And honestly, just his excitement while explaining the astrolabe. These two truly enlightened so many people with the videos they've made. Thanks, @sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog

2. Documentaries

• This is an AMAZING documentary called Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Villifies A People by the genius American media critic Jack Shaheen. He literally analysed more than 1000 movies and handpicked some to showcase the terribly false stereotypes in western depiction of Arab/Muslim cultures. It's the best way to go into the subject, because you'll find him analysing works you're familiar with like Aladdin and all sorts.

• Spain’s Islamic Legacy. I cannot let this opportunity go to waste since one of my main scopes is studying feminist Andalusian history. There are literal gems to be known about this period of time, when religious coexistence is documented to have actually existed. This documentary offers a needed break from eurocentric perspectives, a great bird-view of the Islamic civilization in Europe and its remaining legacy (that western history tries so hard to erase).

• When the Moors Ruled in Europe. This is one of the richest documentaries that covers most of the veiled history of Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain). Bettany Hughes discusses some of the prominent rulers, the brilliance of architecture in the Arab Muslim world, their originality and contributions to poetry and music, their innovative inventions and scientific development, and lastly, La Reconquista; the eventual fall and erasure of this grand civilization by western rulers.

3. Books

• Rethinking Orientalism by Reina Lewis. Lewis brilliantly breaks the prevailing stereotype of the “Harem”, yk, this stupid thought westerns projected about arab women being shut inside one room, not allowed to go anywhere from it, enslaved and without liberty, just left there for the sexual desires of the male figures, subjugated and silenced. It's a great read because it also takes the account of five different women living in the middle east.

• Nocturnal Poetics by Ferial Ghazoul. A great comparative text to understand the influence and outreach of The Thousand and One Nights. She applies a modern critical methodology to explore this classic literary masterpiece.

• The Question of Palestine by Edward Said. Since it's absolutely relevant, this is a great book if you're looking to understand more about the Palestinian situation and a great way to actually see the perspective of Palestinians themselves, not what we think they think.

• Arab-American Women's Writing and Performance by S.S. Sabry. One of my favourite feminist dealings with the idea of the orient and how western depictions demeaned arab women by objectifying them and degrading them to objects of sexual desire, like Scheherazade's characterization: how she was made into a sensual seducer, but not the literate, brilliantly smart woman of wisdom she was in the eastern retellings. The book also discusses the idea of identity and people who live on the hyphen (between two cultures), which is a very crucial aspect to understand arabs who are born/living in western countries.

• The Story of the Moors in Spain by Stanley Lane-Poole. This is a great book if you're trying to understand the influence of Islamic culture on Europe. It debunks this idea that Muslims are senseless, barbaric people who needed "civilizing" and instead showcases their brilliant civilization that was much advanced than any of Europe in the time Europe was labelled by the Dark Ages. (btw, did you know that arabic was the language of knowledge at that time? Because anyone who was looking to study advanced sciences, maths, philosophy, astronomy etc, had to know arabic because arabic-speaking countries were the center of knowledge and scientific advancements. Insane, right!)

• Convivencia and Medieval Spain. This is a collection of essays that delve further into the idea of “Convivencia”, which is what we call for religious coexistence. There's one essay in particular that's great called Were Women Part of Convivencia? which debunks all false western stereotypical images of women being less in Islamic belief. It also highlights how arab women have always been extremely cultured and literate. (They practiced medicine, studied their desired subjects, were writers of poetry and prose when women in Europe couldn't even keep their surnames when they married.)

4. Novels / Epistolaries

• Granada by Radwa Ashour. This is one of my favourite novels of all time, because Ashour brilliantly showcases Andalusian history and documents the injustices and massacres that happened to Muslims then. It covers the cultural erasure of Granada, and is also a story of human connection and beautiful family dynamics that utterly touches your soul.

• Dreams of Trespass by Fatema Mernissi. This is wonderful short read written in autobiographical form. It deconstructs the idea of the Harem in a postcolonial feminist lens of the French colonization of Morocco.

• Scheherazade Goes West by Mernissi. Mernissi brilliantly showcases the sexualisation of female figures by western depictions. It's very telling, really, and a very important reference to understand how the west often depicts middle-eastern women by boxing them into either the erotic, sensual beings or the oppressed, black-veiled beings. It helps you understand the actual real image of arab women out there (who are not just muslims btw; christian, jew, atheist, etc women do exist, and they do count).

• Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. This is a feminist travel epistolary of a British woman which covers the misconceptions that western people, (specifically male travelers) had recorded and transmitted about the religion, traditions and treatment of women in Constantinople, Turkey. It is also a very insightful sapphic text that explores her own engagement with women there, which debunks the idea that there are no queer people in the middle east.

---------------------

With all of these, you'll get an insight about the real arab / islamic world. Not the one of fanaticism and barbarity that is often mediated, but the actual one that is based on the fundamental essences of peace, love, and acceptance.

[tigerf00d]

Words Inside a Shell

Chapter 3: The Tide Always Moves Fast

Pairing: Spike x Reader

Other Characters: Buffy and Willow, Xander (mentioned), minor original characters

Tags: EXPLICIT! Smut ahead! You are responsible for your own consumption of media, but please don't interact if you're under 18. No use of Y/N. Afab but gender-neutral.

Word Count: 4.3k . I don't. I don't know what possessed me.

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Series masterlist

Summary: While trying to get over a crush on a certain crispy-haired vampire, you end up falling right back into his arms

Or, the one where a night out with the girls goes wrong.

A/N: So What if I said I split up the last chapter and the first 1k(ish) of this one so it wasn't a monster chapter. It's not my fault the spirit of the holidays possessed me, and now we have 4k of smut. Happy Holidays, ya filthy animals.

You sighed, turning to Spike and hanging your head slightly.

“Well, that was a bust.”

“Hoping to go home with him, were you?”

You looked up at Spike before answering in a small voice. “Not really.”

Not for the first time tonight, Spike’s gaze was intense. His bright eyes observed you, focusing on your expression as you did the same in turn.

Unlike earlier, him checking you out didn’t feel quite so cold. Where before you felt like you were stalked prey, you now felt relief at the familiarity of him watching over you.

Spike squinted and then nodded towards the toilets, breaking the spell the two of you were under.

“Yeah, you’re a mess, love. Better go get cleaned up.”

“Thanks, Spike.” you said sarcastically but began walking through the throng of other dancers regardless.

You stopped before entering. “Oh, I need to tell Buffy and Willow—”

“Go. I’ll alert the neighbourhood watch.”

“Thanks, Spike.” You answered, this time sincerely, smiling from the doorway as he fake gagged and turned away to tell the girls.

You ran the tap, splashing cool water on your face. Thankfully, even though it was to cut costs, the Bronze had two gender-neutral toilets, both their rooms and only slightly larger than the regular stalls in the women’s and men’s bathrooms.

You grabbed paper towels from above the thick counters— probably only there so that drunk patrons couldn’t rip the sink out of the wall— grimacing at their gritty fibrous surface, muttering “In for a penny, in for a pound…” and then patting against the wetter spots of skin.

Your reflection looked much calmer now, not necessarily neater, but you felt better either way. Two sharp knocks echoed across the small room.

“Um, occupied?”

“‘S me.” Spike said against the door.

You straighten your posture and crack open the door, wincing as it creaks.

“Did you tell them?”

“Yeah, they wanted to come see you but…” He shrugged, petering off.

“Y’know for all that talk of being an evil vampire you sure are helpful.”

“Take that back.” He said, evidently flustered.

“No I don’t think I will. Thanks for helping me with that jerk, by the way.”

“It’s no problem. I can eat him too, if you’d like.”

“I had considered it.”

He smiled at you and for a moment you forgot to breathe, the smile was small but earnest, an expression that he rarely had after years of guarding his intentions.

You unfroze, remembering yourself and smiled back, no doubt he had caught the moment of unintentional hesitation, but if he had he didn’t mention it.

“So, why are you here?”

“Oh, you know, T.V. stations went to sleep, only the shopping channel’s on this time of night. Or my favourite: static.”

“Enlightening. Now, why are you really here?”

He raised a brow at your repeated question, “I was bored. There’s barely anything to do in Sunnydale. Or anyone for that matter.”

You roll your eyes, and the thought, ‘don’t remind me,’ floats behind your eyes, but you don’t get the chance to voice it when Spike continues,

“And it’s a good thing I did too. That guy was too handsy.”

You hummed in agreement. “Yes. How could I ever repay you?”

“I can think of a couple of ways.” the vamp joked. You hummed, agreeing as you quietly made a decision.

You sank to your knees, not breaking eye contact when your knees landed on the cool tile of the stall's floor.

“Oh, no, love. You don't have to do that.”

“What? I can't thank my knight in shining leather?”

“Well, when you put it that way. Far be it from me to refuse your gratitude.” He brushed the hair off of your face, and you grasped the material of his pants near his hips, hands warmed by his duster.

“Unless you don’t want me to.” You clarified.

“I never said that.” He responded quickly.

“So, to be clear, you do want me to suck you off in this bathroom right now?”

He groaned, nodding as he widened his stance for you to better slot against him and said, “Of course I do.”

You leaned against him, your legs straddling one of his own as you rested your head against his groin, tent growing from his clothed member beginning to strain against the fabric, and peered up at him.

“Do you promise?” You asked, teasing him now.

“Yes, love, I promise.”

“It’s good to check.”

“Sure.” He mumbled absent-mindedly while fumbling with his belt buckle.

You took pity on him, nudging his hands out of the way and then undoing the button and zipper of his jeans while you were at it. Hooking your fingers into the waistband of his pants and the elastic of his briefs on either side of his hips and you gradually pull them halfway down his thighs, releasing him from the confines of his clothes.

Spike lets out a faint unbidden sigh of relief as his hard cock springs free, so quiet you're not certain he's even aware he made it.

You run your hands back up his thighs, fingertips lingering under his shirt, feeling the Adonis lines for yourself and emitting a soft, excited noise, your tongue darting out to wet your lips as your breath quickens.

He was long, slightly curved, and not skinny. The head was only slightly paler than you had expected, though in consideration of his supernatural nature, it wasn't anything that couldn't be explained.

From Spike's perspective, he watched as you placed a kiss to where his torso met his thigh. Heard your heart beat faster, blood rushing in excitement as you become more aroused. More aroused because you wanted to blow him, even in this dingy stall.

Your warm, soft hand gently gripped the base of him, tilting him slightly to give an open-mouthed kiss to the shaft. Even as you shifted away, he could feel your warm breath against his skin, only making him all the more desperate for you.

Fortunately for Spike, you weren't the most patient either. You briefly removed your hand and spat into your palm, returning it to his dick almost immediately after. You held him more firmly and began to stroke him. Pumping the wetness over him with your fist.

You sat back, letting out an almost silent gasp as you felt the hard material of his boot make contact through your clothes and Spike's lips parted as he fought the urge to buck into your hand at this reaction.

It was then that he felt your warm tongue swipe over the head of his cock, swirling around it a few times to get used to the taste of him. Without realising he had closed his eyes, Spike opened them and looked down to find you looking up at him, bright, eager, eyes shining as you licked up the length of him.

“Is this all you wanted? Someone's cock in your mouth, hm?” His voice cracked as you sucked the tip of him into your mouth and hummed an affirmative to his question before releasing with a salacious ‘pop’.

“Not just anyone.”

“Is that so?”

You hummed around him again, not removing him from your plush lips as you sucked him further into your mouth, already wanting to take more of him in. The vibrations sent a shock wave of pleasure through Spike’s whole body, and he was practically salivating, watching you try to stimulate yourself as a result of his shuddered reaction.

“Go on, pet. Y’ can hump my boot if you'd like.”

You whined around him, body gyrating as you manoeuvred your legs to do so less awkwardly.

What you couldn't reach with your mouth, you continued to stroke with your hands, twisting around him in time with the motions of your tongue.

Spike hadn't expected your eagerness, hand reaching out to comb through the hairs on the side of your head, clutching you tightly. He also didn't expect you to moan because of that, and in a moment of weakness fucked into your mouth a fraction more, the sensation overwhelming him and causing his head to tip back as the vibrations from the moan you released in his hold washed over his senses.

But then you pulled back, tongue flat against the slit as you sucked at the same time as you twisted your fist at the base of him, the side of your palm brushing against surprisingly soft stubble that let you know that he wasn't, in fact, naturally hairless.

He whined at the feeling of it; thick, hot pleasure coiled throughout him, building at the base of his spine. Stopping himself from pushing you any further proved to be a herculean effort, though Spike had never been very good at holding himself back.

You ground your sensitive clit against the leather of his boot rhythmically, sloppier now as you got closer to finishing. Spike was making the most delicious half-rocking aborted motions like he wanted nothing more than to let go but was doing his absolute best to restrain himself for you.

Moments later, he felt your mouth slip off of him, replaced by the mind-numbingly languid strokes of both your hands against him and when he opened his mouth to ask if you needed to stop, his thoughts scattered, words dissipating into nothingness at the feeling of your warm breath against him as you spoke.

“Spike, you don't have to hold back with me.”

He exhaled sharply. Blinking as he fought to form a coherent sentence, Spike's normally quick wit had turned into a blank nothingness for him to draw from.

Finally, he settled on “Are you sure?”

“I've always wanted to try it.” You ran a thumb over the very tip of him, causing him to shudder and blink rapidly as he tried to keep his composure.

“You've never done it, but you…” Spike groaned, grabbing your chin and swiping his own thumb over your slick lips, “Fuck me, pet. It's really what you want.”

“Please, Spike? Use me.”

“How can I deny such pretty words?”

At that, he grasped each side of your head, hair bunching around his fingers as you guided his dick back into your mouth excitedly.

How were you so good at this? You had to have been designed in a lab. You were turning him on so effortlessly. Not the weirdest way he's gotten a lay.

He cursed, abdominal muscles tightening in anticipation as you took him deeper now. Your hands removed from his shaft to hold his hips again for stability.

Slowly, he tested your limits, pushing himself further into you, stalling when you released a happy moan from your full mouth.

“You're really letting me do this?” He asked once more.

You hummed agreeably along Spike’s cock, himself moaning because of it.

Without meaning to, you had stalled your motions, reminded when your neglected clit once again made contact with the material of his shoe, and you whined, bearing down to grind against it and build yourself back up again, nearing your peak much quicker this time.

As though you had switched roles, words came much easier to Spike now.

“Fuck, look at you like that, pet. So eager.”

Your rocking against him, desperate to hit the perfect spot over and over and over again, only served to turn him on more. Your search for friction proved that you were getting turned on by servicing him.

When he rolled his hips forward again, less experimentally than the last time, Spike could feel your throat relaxing. Inviting him in deeper.

A low, enraptured groan escaped Spike as he relinquished control over his other senses, allowing the feeling of you together engulf him.

Your nails dug into the bare flesh of his hips, letting him know he could sink into you further, encouraging him to do so.

Spike hissed in pleasure as he rutted into your mouth.

“You're good like this. Not giving me attitude.”

You glanced up at him as though to say that it was rude to talk with your mouth full, but the effect was lost when he took in the thin mist of sweat settling on your skin and the glassy quality taking over your eyes.

Instead, you suck harshly in retaliation, tightening your throat suddenly to overwhelm him before relaxing again to allow him to continue to fuck into your waiting mouth.

The groan torn out of him borders on feral, hands moving to better push you down onto his cock. Your eyes water, your nose almost brushing the stubble you felt earlier, and Spike holds you there. Holds you so far onto himself you worry you're going to gag any moment as he pants above you. So far that you don't even realise that you’re still grinding slowly against him.

After what feels like forever, he releases you and allows you a moment to breathe before rhythmically pulling you down onto him again.

“‘M close, precious. You?”

You blink, teary-eyed and hum an affirmative.

“So pretty.” He murmurs, and you aren’t entirely certain that it was meant to be out loud.

You hum again, almost non-committally, as you feel the ache in your jaw.

Spike’s thrusting grew sloppy, “Where, love?”

You tapped his thigh with your right hand before gesturing to your mouth.

“Inside?”

“Mhmm.”

He pumped once, twice, three more times, a groaned warning leaving his mouth moments before you felt him spilling into you.

His hips had stalled, so you pulled back, holding only the tip between closed lips and clumsily stroked his cock to prolong his orgasm.

Spike was breathing heavily above you, removing himself from your mouth at the same time as hauling you up.

“Did you…?” His voice peters off as he focuses on fixing his clothes, glancing up in time to catch you shaking your head and massaging your jaw.

“Let’s rectify that immediately.”

He lifts you so suddenly that you don’t have time to disguise your squeak, placing you on the counter. Despite your most recent activities, you feel your face heat in embarrassment at his crooked smirk in response to your surprise.

As Spike begins to kneel, you stop him, opening your mouth to protest.

“Oh, Spike, it’s fine. Let’s just get out of here.”

“Part of the fun is the thrill, love. I want to.”

“Are you sure? I’ve never… There’s never been someone who wanted to do this for me.”

Spike scoffs, “Then you’ve been with losers.”

“Oh, and you know better, hm?”

“About this and many other things.” He says, voice low. “I want to give you pleasure.”

Your mouth goes dry, “Ok.”

“Since apparently, you’ve only ever been with idiots…” Spike mutters, definitely intending to keep the thought to himself.

“Ok.” You say louder this time, and he looks at you cheekily.

He pulls you to the edge of the counter first, slotting himself between your legs at the same time as he puts his hands on either side of you on the counter so that he can lean in, kissing you excruciatingly softly. You can’t believe it.

When he pulls back to leave hot, biting kisses at your throat, you can’t help but stare at him wide-eyed, feeling like your brain is leaking out of your ears.

You’re so preoccupied with your thoughts that you don’t even register that he’s stopped kissing marks around your collar and has begun removing your clothes.

Spike leaves your top half and shoes on, opting instead to only remove the clothing barriers necessary. He finally kneels, running his fingers over the line of your cunt through your underwear to feel the wetness.

Though you had agreed for him to pleasure you, you squirm under his touch, fidgeting to stop yourself from closing your thighs. As though sensing this, he uses one hand to push your left leg away, effectively allowing him to pull your underwear to the side and repeat the motion he had earlier.

“Oh fuck.” You gasp, arching into him and then lifting your hips slightly to help him in his quest to free you. You place your clothes beneath you so that your bare skin doesn’t have to come in contact with the freezing countertop.

Spike’s touches grow bolder, fingers moving purposefully against your swollen entrance.

As you watch him, you notice that while his breathing has calmed down, he now looks as though he’s just shy of hyperventilating in excitement. Ever the loverboy.

“Is this from riding my shoe?”

“And you face-fucking me.”

“Ah, yes. We mustn’t forget that…” Spike’s voice made you aware that he probably never would forget it, or at least not for a very long, long time.

Your clit is aching so hard you feel as though your entire body is pulsing in time with it. Honestly, when you had left tonight, you had expected to maybe pick up a guy and kiss for a while to sate the bone-deep desire to be touched before retiring to the safety of your abode, where you could rub yourself to completion while imagining the scenario in front of you.

This was much better.

Spike, oblivious to your musing, has spent this time mapping your body with his hands, with the hand bracing your leg open, his thumb runs distracted, almost soothing circles as he kisses the other thigh. His free hand has made its home underneath what little clothing you still have on, finding your nipple with practised ease as he teases the sensitive skin there.

You shiver under all the attention, spreading your legs wider in encouragement, earlier embarrassment totally forgotten with the notion of Spike touching you properly.

The feeling of his warm breath against your mound is all the warning you get before he finally licks into you, top to bottom, so eagerly that the immediate relief you feel against your neglected flesh is palpable.

Wheezing, you tip your head back much the same as he had earlier, bumping your head on the tiles of the bathroom wall.

“Relax, love. Don’t want to damage that pretty head of yours.”

You whine at the removal of his mouth, wriggling slightly to tell him to get a move on, and he can’t help but huff a laugh.

This isn’t your first time being eaten out, almost surprisingly from the horror stories you’d heard. But this is different. This is Spike; he had maybe a century under his belt at this point, and the experience showed. Where other partners had offered in the past, once they actually got down to it, it was obviously because they felt some sense of duty, as though your pleasure was nothing more than an obligation when it came to having you fulfil their own desires in turn. Their focus shifted as soon as they thought they’d done a sufficient job to whatever they deemed the next step was.

In comparison, Spike seemed to relish at the opportunity, borderline worshipful in his actions. It’s nearly mind-blowing.

As your body goes lax against the countertop, Spike positions your legs up over his shoulders now that you’re making a concentrated effort to remain available to him. No longer holding your thighs agape, his thumb instead refocuses that circular motion against your clit so that while he explores other aspects of your mound, your hips don’t jump, and your aching flesh doesn’t feel neglected.

You try not to thrash under the attention, the action of holding you down alone has your heart squeezing tight in your chest.

Spike continues to lave his tongue against you, tasting. His movements— the softness of his tongue against you— create such delicious friction that you can see your chest moving as you pant, feeling as though your head is spinning.

“Fuck.” You gasp when Spike drags the muscle over your sensitive clit, hips jerking despite your best efforts. “Fuck, please. Please, Spike.”

Spike somehow pays close attention to each of your body’s cues. Every breath, whimper, and sharp intake of air. His movements reveal his desire to find what makes you react the most as he tries to match the motions to your sounds.

Your knees, still over his shoulders, tilt outwards. Conscious to not dig the heel of your shoes into his back, your toes clench uselessly within their confines.

Your breath stutters when he bears down more intensely, seemingly finding a pattern that draws the most satisfactory rhythm out of you, though you’re certainly not complaining.

“I’m close.” You moan, arm thrown over your face to muffle your noises. Even though the Bronze plays it’s music unbearably loud at times, you couldn’t risk people loitering outside the bathroom hearing you, much to Spike’s chagrin.

He sucks your clit into his mouth harshly, and you shudder against his face, vision blanking as you feel your orgasm finally, finally, wash over you. You can’t hold back your whines as the hot static pleasure radiates from the apex of your thighs out through what feels like the fibre of your being, writhing as Spike draws every last drop of pleasure that he can from you until you’re shivering with oversensitive aftershocks.

You have every intention of speaking, but after that, you can barely get words out, let alone calm your racing heart.

“Better?” Spike asks.

“Much,” You manage to respond, voice wavering, and you begin to redress.

As though sent from the Hellmouth herself, three knocks ring from the door, swiftly followed by Willow’s anxious calling of your name. Feeling like you’ve been plunged into cold water, you freeze, wide eyes staring at Spike with urgency as though he could magically grant you the ability to speak.

“Spike? Are you guys still in there?”

Spike groans, hanging his head. Thankfully, you find your voice again in time to interrupt whatever the vamp may have said.

“Yeah, Will, we’re still in here.”

“Oh good, ‘cause you know, Buffy and I were thinking of getting out of here, but we didn’t want to ditch you. Are you feeling better?”

From this side of the door, you could just make out Buffy’s snort and casual “I bet they do.”

“I am, thanks. Um, just give me a second, ok. I’m… I got more upset than I thought I would at that guy. Spike’s been…” You scramble to find an excuse. “Spike’s been telling me embarrassing stories.”

“I have not!” He responds indignantly, then shrinking back under your glare. “They’re not embarrassing anyway.”

“We’ll be out in a second.” You finish.

“Ok. We’ll be at the car.” Buffy says.

You finish redressing and, with Spike’s outstretched hand as guidance, gracefully find your footing on solid ground once more. Assessment of your reflection leaves you reluctantly optimistic that you don’t look like you just experienced a defining sexual encounter for this lifetime, though your lips were swollen and you’d have to cover your neck somehow. You glanced wordlessly at Spike, who was already watching you with an unexpected fondness in his eye.

“Can I wear your duster?”

“What?” Obviously, this was not the question he had expected.

You tilted your neck to more effectively point out the purple lovebites forming, “You freaking lay into me like some sort of— well.” You gesture at him, causing Spike to roll his eyes as he mentally finishes the sentence.

“Fine.” He hands the large leather coat over to you, pulling it back slightly before you grab it to ask, “And how will I be getting this back?”

“You’re coming home with me?”

“Oh, am I now?” He passed the duster to you, watching as you put it on and manoeuvred the collar to better hide the marks on your neck. His already poorly disguised amusement was not helped by the smug grin he wore.

“Obviously.” You paused, walking to the bathroom’s wretched door, “Unless you’re not game.”

“No, I’m game—”

“Good, for a second there, I thought your refractory period might take forever, considering your age.”

Spike guffawed at you. “Yeah, right. I’ll have you know my ‘refractory period’ is perfectly fine, thank you. Perfect even.”

“I’m holding you to that.”

Spike’s arm went beside your head as he opened the door for you, allowing you to keep your entirely too pleased smile to yourself as you excited and made your way out of the Bronze, feeling his presence close behind you the entire time.

As promised, Buffy and Willow stood steadfast around the car. Willow was already in her seat picking at something near the window, and Buffy outside of the driver’s side door, scanning the surroundings. Her expression was only slightly too stern, almost reminiscent of a bouncer or security guard off duty, ever the slayer.

You rubbed your eyes and yawned as you got closer, a perfect facsimile of exhaustion.

Which… Though you were tired, your body thrummed with the knowledge that your night was only just beginning.

“Hey guys.” Buffy smiled when she noticed your arrival, opening the door to let herself in.

“Hey Buff.”

Willow looked up from her seat in the Jeep, and you watched in real time as you noticed what you were wearing and tilted her head in silent question.

To answer, you hooked your hands under the flaps of the duster slightly, twirling as you walked so that the leather flared out around you.

“Pretty cool, right? I can see why he wears it. I feel like Dracula.” You paused, “Or maybe a leather princess.”

Buffy snorted, no doubt seeing the exasperated face Spike was making in reaction to your words.

“Hey, speaking of Dracula,” You leant against the open window into the car, “could we drop Spike off? I don’t wanna forget to give him the coat back and have to walk into the crypt at night.”

“Sure, that’s fine.” Buffy said, Willow nodding beside her, quiet now as the night caught up.

You whirled around to face Spike, recovering quickly as you startled at how close he was and gave him an exaggerated thumbs up before making your way to ‘your’ seat.

“Where to, Spike?” Buffy was watching him carefully through the rearview mirror. For his part, Spike was already looking out the window, watching the gradually moving night scenery through windows that weren’t blacked out for once.

“Oh, just their place is fine. I can walk back after there.”

Amusement coloured Buffy’s voice, “If you say so.”

[lani-heart]

|| series masterlist || next // previously

parings -> sim jaeyun x reader genre -> non-idol au, school au, hyrbid au warnings -> neglected, running away, arrange marriage word count -> 1.4k

abstract -> everything was a lie... well... not everything

y/n’s perspective 

“Asahi, please… you must’ve seen her!” Hyunsuk whined through the phone while Asahi glared at me. “Yah! How many times have I told you?! I have an internship, and I've been helping Junghwan pack. She’ll show up eventually, Hyunsuk” he said, already annoyed by our quarrel. 

“I know… I'm just worried. I’m even thinking of going there myself soon… I just need to wrap a few things up so when I get there how about we hang out? After I found my sister… “ he said and I sighed. 

“You’re screwed,” Jaehyuk said and I agreed. It doesn’t help that I've been getting constant messages on my phone and calls worrying about me…

“Bye,” he said as he hung up and glared silently. I smiled through the awkward silence. “Explain right now why I can tell him you're here? I understand you said you had a big fight with your parents but… you never offered an explanation?!” he said frustrated and I sighed. 

“Do you know that rich family my parents wanted to connect me and Hyunsuk with? Well, they have a son and daughter. Their daughter is my age… so they wanted her to be engaged with Hyunsuk. So when he started rebelling that was his last straw. Now they're trying to set me up with their son… especially now that hybrid-human relationships were starting to become common in our socialite life” I said and he sighed. 

“Why haven’t you told him then? Hyunsuk could help–" "Cause I'm still planning on going back… I just don’t want to be given an arranged marriage” I said and he nodded. 

“Didn’t Niki’s owner get into an arranged marriage?” Jaehyuk asked and I nodded. “Yeah… I think that's where they got the idea from” I muttered and he sighed. 

“It's only a matter of time before he finds you here,” he said and I nodded. 

“I think I'm going out for some air?” I said and I noticed Jaehyhuk go by the door. “No… Asahi, you can't make him come with me every time I go out. I need… alone time” I said and he scoffed. 

“Look… if this was Seoul, you could but this isn’t. If you weren’t walking around in Prada shoes and Chanel jewelry then maybe I wouldn't worry” he said and I smiled. 

“And thank you for worrying… but trust me a little?”

I decided I wanted to go outside of this little town. 

“Hello, I'm here to see So Junghwan?” I said and the receptionist nodded before telling me… “It seems he isn’t here, we were told he was going on a trip?” she said and I sighed. 

He must’ve already checked out… I thanked her for leaving when I bumped into someone familiar. “Oh? Jake?” I said, now confused. His messy blonde hair was the only thing I recognized… he was dressed in all black with expensive clothes… “y/n!” he said with a happy grin. “Looks like you recuperated,” I said and he chuckled. “Oh… yeah, it was just a little misunderstanding,” he said and I nodded. “What… happened? If I may ask?” I said and he looked hesitant. “Ah! Sorry if I'm being rude–" "No… don't worry about it. Uhmm… I’m actually from Australia and… I lost my luggage and wallet, even my phone!” he said. 

“Oh… that sucks. Have you filled in a lost report?” I asked and he nodded. “Yeah, but I luckily recuperated my wallet and luggage… well some at least. I don’t have my ID yet, nor a phone” he said and I nodded. 

“I’m glad you’ve managed–” “Can I repay you?” he asked while cutting me off. I would say no… but I didn’t want to go back. 

“Sure!” 

jake’s perspective

I know I shouldn’t be using someone else’s money to repay her but… she was so kind to me and seemed a little down. 

“So what made you decide to come here to Korea?” she asked me and I had to come out with believable lies. “Oh… well, I wanted a break. Everything right now was overwhelming back where I'm from” which wasn’t necessarily a lie. 

“Oh, I see… I'm sorry. I hope everything gets better. I’m actually in the same boat…” she said with a sad smile. I didn’t like seeing that… for her. 

“I’m actually from Seoul,” she said and I wasn’t surprised by that… “I’m actually a student–” I was surprised she was a student at where I took these etiquette classes. “I’ve been enrolled online for this semester though,” she said and I nodded. “It must be stressful… that's a pretty good school I've heard?” I said and she nodded. 

“Yeah… but it's stressful because of… well my parents' ' she confessed and I listened to her say how pressured she felt and how her older brother was the rebelled child making her their second chance at a good kid. 

“I’m sorry to hear that… It does sound stressful. Do you have good friends?” I asked and she smiled. “I do… Me and my brother actually grew up in the same friend group, weird enough. Of course, I've met other people too, but sometimes I need a break from everything” she said and I agreed. 

“That hybrid… you said he was your friend right?” I asked and she nodded… it didn’t seem like he told her I was one. “Jaehyuk… he’s a lion hybrid. Have you ever had one?” she asked me and I chuckled. “No, and you?” I asked and she shook her head which surprised me. 

“I always wanted one though… my parents thought it would be a distraction though,” she said and I wanted so badly to try to charm her but… she’d probably report me for theft. 

“If you could have a hybrid… which would you choose?” I asked only to set myself up more. She smiled though… “I always wanted a dog hybrid… they seem so cuddly and sweet you know?” she said and I felt my heart ache. 

“I get what you mean,” I said and she chuckled. “How about you?” she asked and I found this all too ironic. “I’d choose the same,” I said and she smiled. “You know… you look like you’d be a dog hybrid” she said and I froze. “You have puppy features… it's cute” she said and I felt my face heat up. 

She seemed to giggle at my reaction before I could recover from that. “You really are cute!” she said and I felt my face heat up, even my tag twitch in “my” coat.

“Hey, Jake?” she said and I hummed waiting for whatever she’d say next. 

“Let’s do something fun!” 

“What do you mean you’ve never done this before!” she said as she held that dog plush she won. “I… haven’t actually ever been to an arcade before” I confessed and she grinned. “Then here! Yours, a physical reminder of this day!” she said as she held out the dog plush and I grabbed it. 

My first… gift. 

“We have to try some more! Ooh, they have figurines–” She was filled with life and I never would’ve expected it. I was jealous but she was contagious and I was actually enjoying myself for once. She was fun to be around… but I couldn’t keep the desires at bay, to tell her the truth and beg her to adopt me. 

To have what Niki had… who knew I'd find the perfect stranger at the worst time?

While I was playing human… stole from someone who had a lot of money and well ran away illegally. 

“A famous person is outside” I suddenly heard… famous? “Jake? What’s wrong?” she asked and I shook my head. “Nothing apparently someone famous is–” “Hide!” she said as she grabbed my wrist and hid us behind the arcade games away from the windows. 

“That’s Choi Hyusuk!” I heard and she looked nervous. “Are you okay?” I asked and she smiled nervously. “Of course!” she said but I couldn’t believe her terrible lie. “Did he do something to you? I can–” “No… he’s a friend I guess' ' she said but it only left me more confused. 

“Hyunsuk, she’s not going to be here” I heard and saw the lion hybrid by the side of someone else. “Fuck… Jake, we have to run” she whispered and I nodded worried for her. “Ready?” she asked and before we could run. “You really wanna run towards paparazzi? Stupid little sister” I heard… sister?

“Hyunsuk!” she suddenly said in a fake cheery tone while turning around to her supposed brother. “It’s great to see–” “How dare you ignore all of my messages?! I called like what!? 100… no 200 times?! I even filled up your voicemail!” he scolded. 

“Still pretending?” I heard and I looked at the hybrid… I needed to leave. 

“You interrupted me… uhmm” she wondered… “Who is this guy? Did he threaten–” he suddenly grabbed my collar. Who was he?! “–you? Do I need to kill him?!” he said and I shook my head silently begging for my life “Let him go! He knows nothing about this…” she said and the guy let me go. “Ah, sorry about that. I’m Hyunsuk!” he said as he held out his hand for me to shake. “Jake,” I said and he nodded and went back to scolding her. 

He was… scary.

“Where’d you even get that…” the lion hybrid muttered. I felt my eyes widen. “That smells familiar,” he said and I chuckled. “y/n, it was an honor everything really but I need to go!” I said and she was going to protest before being scolded by her brother. 

I ran… I soon saw paparazzi suddenly swarm outside taking photos from inside. 

“Hello! Do you miss y/n’s lover?” “Are you the reason she ran away?” “Who are you?”

y/n’s perspective

After getting away from the paparazzi and back to Asahi’s apartment. 

“You lied to me,” he pouted to him. “She asked me to keep it a secret” he defended and my brother glared at me. “Why didn’t you answer?” he asked genuinely worried and I was guilty that I worried him.

“I’m sorry…” I said and he patted my head. “Just tell me the truth,” he begged and nodded. 

“Mom and Dad want me to marry Junghwan…” I said and his eyes widened. “Junghwan?! He would never agree–""His parents agree to it… he’s currently in Japan hiding away” I said and he sighed frustrated. 

“They can’t force you… they couldn’t with me” he said and I smiled. “You’re a boy,” I said and he sighed. “I know… maybe this will convince them. They called worried for you, but they haven’t mentioned at all about canceling any marriage plans. No wonder mom was looking at a wedding dress catalog” he said and I whined frustrated at this. 

“This is unfair! Why am I even in school then learning business for Dad?!” I asked frustrated and he sighed. “They want to have you marry someone competent I guess?” he asked and I sighed. 

“Uhm… y/n who was the guy you were with?” Asahi asked and I was confused as to why that was important. “Yeah! Did you get a boyfriend?! Is that–” ”NO!” I yelled. 

“He’s a runaway hybrid from the Seoul Hybrid Adoption Center they’ve been looking for,” he said and I was confused. He was a human I was… I was sure of it until I saw Asahi show me articles and posts on Twitter comparing Jake to the missing hybrid from Seoul. 

And how apparently I kidnapped him…

taglist -> @ilovecheese09 @gudkc @nikisvanillaccola @blossominghunnie @mheretoreadff @k1ttylvr @starzniiky @kibs-and-bits @b3tt7boop @in-somnias-world @lol6sposts @xiaoderrrr @jihyosgfremade @b-a-nshee-blog @mimisamisasa @katsukis1wife @eggomi @thunderous-wolf @tinyteezer @lilactangerine @starfallia @sousydive

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[heygerald]

Falling Without A Harness - Chapter 4

AU where Tom Ryder is still an asshole, just not a psychotic one. When he starts being less of an asshole, and more of a person, Parker finds that he isn't so bad. Not that she would tell him that, though.

read the story here: prev / next

Parker doesn't get much sleep. Not necessarily because she's so busy that she doesn't have time, and not definitively because of the sleep disorder she has self-diagnosed off of a sketchy website she found while browsing her symptoms one day.

In truth it's because she thinks too much.

She overthinks what her to-do list for the following week should be; overthinks the plot of her favorite tv series and whether or not they are going to kill off her favorite character in the mid-season finale; overthinks whether she should spend more one-on-one time with her brother while they're both in the same city, able bodied (with his career, there was no guarantee), and with the time to waste on stupid memories. On the really bad nights, Parker overthinks whether or not she made a mistake in purchasing an old, dilapidated bookstore that has drained her bank account over the last couple of years. She worries that her life is going nowhere, that she'll soon have failed at her dream venture, and that when she dies, she'll have no accomplishments to her name.

On those nights, she ends up washing down a handful of melatonin gummies with two boiling cups of sleepy time tea.

It helps, but it also leaves her floating in a state between unconsciousness and squirrely dreams that is hard to shake off in the morning.

Harder still to shake off when her phone lights up the room in the middle of the night, the shrill song of her ringtone bleating through the pitch black of her bedroom shocking her awake in delirious fright.

You gotta get up, gotta get out, gotta get home before the...

Parker swings her hand towards the nightstand in such a rush that she ends up knocking her cellphone onto the ground. It bounces on the hardwood floor—she doesn't even care if it breaks, the damn thing—before skidding underneath her bed. The light from it casts shadows in all directions.

What if I'm late? Gotta big date, gotta get home...

It takes her half crawling out of bed, sheets tangled around her bare legs, elbow braced on the cold floor as she blindly grapples for the device to find it. Colt always made fun of her ringtone—if you're going to pick a song, at least pick a good one, he would taunt while listening to Taylor Swift on replay—and while Parker had adamantly told him where to stick his opinion, at the moment, the song blaring in the middle of the night has her half-prepared to scratch out of her own eardrums in frustration.

The stanza continues: before the morning comes...

She grabs the phone and wrenches it—and herself—back onto the bed. The number isn't saved in her phone, and panic wells in her chest. She's gasping as blood rushes back down to her toes. "Hello?"

"Jesus, finally. I thought you weren't going to fucking answer."

Whether it's the tea, the overdose of melatonin, or the fact that she had just been woken up in the middle of the night, Parker can't seem to make sense of much. The only thing she can think about is how she has a brother who does stupid stuff for money, and has called her from the back of ambulance three times and counting.

Once on her birthday.

"Oh my god," she mutters, a hand already clutching to her chest as she can feel the cavity caving in. Clarity has no place in her spiraling panic. "Oh my god, he's finally dead, isn't he? Oh my god, Colt is dead!"

"What the fuck are you on about?" the voice interrupts her panic with a modicum of disbelief. It sounds familiar, but Parker is far more focused on regulating her breathing before she throws up than placing a voice through her half-broken speaker. The room, pitch black and without anything to see, is spinning. "I'm not even with Colt."

"Fuck," she curses, before recklessly scrabbling with her nightstand. It's a total fucking mess, and in her haste, she knocks a lamp and stack of books onto the ground. The least of her problems if her idiot of a brother is already fucking dead. "Fuck! Where are you? I didn't even know he was on a job right now. Um, what hospital is he at? Wait—shit—I need to find a pen and paper..."

"Parker, Jesus, Colt's fine. Stop spinning out for two seconds. Are you on drugs?"

She blinks, unsure if she just heard what she heard, and slowly withdrawals her hand as she tries to compute what is being said.

"He's... not dead?" she croaks hesitantly.

"He's fine. I mean, well, as far as I know," the voice drones on; it's clearly annoyed now. A scoff. "Why in the hell would you assume that he's dead?"

"Because—it's—" she wipes a hand over her face tiredly, sweeping tufts of hair off her forehead to peer at the clock in the corner. Large, red numbers blink at her showing that she had only been asleep for two and a half hours. Worse still when she makes sense of what she's seeing. "It's two thirty in the morning! Why the fuck would an unknown number be calling me in the middle of the night if it wasn't for Colt?"

"Are you—wait—are seriously his emergency contact?" the voice goads, teasing and judging all in one tone. She hates it. "That's a little pathetic, honestly."

Her left eye twitches. "Who the fuck is this?"

"It's Tom."

Parker doesn't know a Tom, she's never known a Tom in the entirety of her life, and as she struggles to clear her thoughts, the idea that some asshole with a stupid name like Tom would call her out of the blue at this time of night starts to really piss her off.

"Tom who? I don't know a fucking Tom!" she shouts into the receiver.

There's a thump against the wall, a muffled call of "shut the fuck up!" rings out from her roommate's room. Too many things are happening though, and Parker clutches her head between her hands while trying to stay on topic.

"Fucking Tom Ryder, smartass," the voice chides. "Who else?"

And—

Fuck.

Yeah, alright, maybe she did know a Tom, and, yeah, now that she thought about it, he was a raging, grade-A asshole that would call someone up in the middle of the night for no reason other than to ruin the first good sleep she had in a week. All while getting upset at her for her negative response to the impromptu gab-sesh.

You know, in the way that all assholes did.

"Why—?" she starts, before realizing that she is shouting. Parker clears her throat with a glance towards the wall and tries a second time in an angry hiss. "Why the fuck are you calling me at two in the morning, Ryder?"

"I finished the book and I want to talk about it."

The words don't compute for half a second, but when they do, Parker can feel a migraine spiraling behind her eyes. She sort of feels like she's having a seizure before realizing that it's just pure anger spiking in the bottom of her chest.

She's pretty sure this is how someone feels right before committing a violent crime.

"Are you—? I was fucking sleeping!" she hisses. "Good—fucking—bye!"

Hanging up the phone certainly isn't as satisfying as it used to be when flip phones were in fashion, and you could slam the top down to end a conversation. But pressing the big red END button on Tom Ryder does grant her a small moment of satisfaction. Even more so when she imagines the shocked furrow of his eyebrows or the crease of his mouth as he frowns.

Good, she thinks sourly while flopping back onto her pillows with a sharp huff, maybe Tom Ryder could use a few wrinkles in his life.

Her peace lasts all of twenty seconds.

You gotta get up, gotta get out, gotta get home before the morning...

Parker grabs a pillow and smushes it against her face hoping that it will drown out the noise. When it doesn't, she hopes that maybe suffocation will knock her out for a couple hours of sleep. But then there's another thump against the wall and she realizes that if she dies right here and now, the last person she would have ever talked to would be Tom fucking Ryder, and she's not so sure she's okay with that.

So, she removes the pillow to take a deep breath. Then she answers the phone.

"Did you just hang up on me?" he asks incredulously.

"It is two-thirty in the morning, and you want to talk about a book?"

A huff. "Yes. Why else would I ever call you?"

If she was more awake, Parker might have taken offense at the insult. She's much too groggy to do that, though. Besides, almost everything out of his mouth was some sort of judgement. At this point, she didn't think he would be able to speak without being rude.

"Couldn't you have called me during a normal hour?"

"My audition is on Friday," he said, as if that was any sort of excuse for his behavior. "I still have to read the other two books by then."

"Wait, I'm sorry," Parker interjects with a mean laugh, pausing to pinch the bridge of her nose. "Have you been up all-night reading?"

"You could sound a little less judgmental about it," he snarks. "I do read, you know. Bad scripts and the like."

She huffs. Not quite a laugh, but not just an expression either. It's a little hard to take anything serious when she's sleep-deprived and delirious. And, certainly, he can't be serious. That's her justification for giving up, anyway. "Okay, alright, fine. Which book did you finish?"

"Contact."

"That's a good one to start with," Parker murmurs, shifting on her mattress so she can cradle her PillowPet.

It has lost of all of its stuffing, an eye, and any joy it once had, but the penguin was a gift from Colt that she can't convince herself to trash. It mirrors her frown.

"No, not a good one. I didn't understand it at all."

"What didn't you understand?"

"Any of it, all of it. Why the hell did you tell me that Dune was too complicated and then hand me this shit?" he complains. There's something odd in his tone though. Something she can hear creeping through the syllables somewhere between annoyed and confused that reminds her of their conversation weeks prior at Gail's—you don't even sound like yourself, she had said. It's only now that she realizes he hadn't sounded like himself because he was doubting himself, which was the most un-like Tom Ryder thing anyone could ever do. She frowns at the thought as he continues. "It's all about math and pi and something called a transcendental number. I should have just watched Altered Carbon."

Parker sighs. "You're getting yourself all worked up over things that don't matter."

"Don't matter? It's all the book fucking talks about!"

"That's sci-fi," she says. And while it's a piss poor excuse, it's the truth. A moment later and Parker realizes that if he really had never read anything sci-fi before, he likely wouldn't realize the rules of reading it. Sighing, she takes some pity on him to explain, "okay, look. You know when you watch an action film and there's some ridiculous sequence that makes no sense; like when the ground is crumbling beneath their feet and the character jumps at the last second and is totally okay?"

"Like in the Fast and the Furious."

"Literally every single scene in those movies."

"Okay...?"

"Right, well, you watch those scenes and tell yourself not to take them seriously. They exist because it's an action movie, right? It doesn't have to be realistic."

"Sure," he agreed, but she could tell he still wasn't getting the point.

"It's the same thing when you're reading sci-fi. Okay? All the math and theoretical physics and calculations they do—whatever it is—they throw that stuff in there to build up a universe that feels real. The audience doesn't have to understand quantum mechanics to know that Chris Pine can fly a really big spaceship in Star Trek."

"You really have a hard-on for Chris Pine, huh?"

Parker ignored his comment entirely, barreling on. "The point of the book is not that the audience is stupid and needs to take some math classes even if that's how it feels sometimes. The point is that Ellie is a genius that no one else understands or believes in. When she talks about transcendental numbers and you have no idea what she means, that's exactly how the other characters in the book feel. They don't believe her because they don't understand her."

"So, it's... like an attempt to make the audience sympathize with her but also so the author can explain how everything happens."

Parker smiles. "Right."

"That's stupid," he says, and her smile immediately disappears behind a groan. "I just don' think the author needed to spend so much time trying to sound smart."

"It's a book about interstellar travel and the existence of intelligent life," she deadpans. "It's supposed to sound smart."

Tom mulls that over, and while he does so, Parker shifts once more in bed. The red numbers blink at her are only going up, but now that her heart rate has returned to a normal level, she finds it's far from the worst conversation she's had with Tom. Especially since she gets to talk about one of her favorite books.

Even if he is an ass.

"This would have been better as a movie," he finally settles on. It's not a sophisticated opinion by any means, but it certainly is him.

"Actually, it was originally written to be a screenplay. The movie got cancelled, and Sagan adapted it into a book."

"Seriously?"

"Sure," she shrugs. She spares a glance towards her nightstand where a copy of the book lays in tatters from how often she has read it. "Ironic considering the book became so popular that it got a second movie deal a few years later."

"...you're telling me that I could have watched this instead of reading it after all?" he barks. But, well, his tone isn't so annoyed as it sounds impressed. Parker hears the taping of buttons on a remote, before he's yelling. "Jodie Foster! Seriously?"

She can't help it. Parker laughs. "It's not a bad movie, but the book is way better."

"I have to watch this now."

"I have a copy you can borrow if you don't want to rent it."

"It's three dollars. How poor are you, exactly?"

She scoffs, an eye roll that has become habit when talking to the prick even though he can't see it. Snootily, she tells him, "I just rolled my eyes at you, asshole. In case you were wondering."

A harrumph. "I do think I caught something from your bookstore. I've been sick all day. It's disgusting—it's making my mouth all dry and it practically ruined my breakfast. I couldn't even eat my avocado."

"First the cappuccino, and now the avocado. Is there anything you don't blame me for?"

The teasing got the exact reaction she wanted, and as Tom starts complaining on the other end of the line, Parker smothers a laugh into her penguin. "It was a flat white! And—"

"I'm going to hang up on you now," she sing-songed. "And fair warning: if you call me again before eight am, I'm going to post your phone number on Reddit. Gail can eat shit with her lawsuit."

"Don't you fucking—"

Parker finds a lot more satisfaction in hanging up on Tom Ryder the second time, and when the phone screen stays dark, she plops it down onto her nightstand with an amused hum. It's past three am now, something she will be regretting come morning.

Then again, it seemed that Tom Ryder was all about regrets.

Right?

----

"Do you think I'm cool?" Parker ponders two days later, a glance tossed to her brother as she idly tries on a pair of sunglasses that are in the shape of trout. They're overpriced, but she's also incredibly bored, and about five minutes away from throwing a toddler-style meltdown in the middle of the bait and tackle shop.

"Of course you're cool," he says as he models a rash guard that he's been trying on for the last half hour. He twists in the mirror, left and right, before giving himself two thumbs up. There's something dangerous about the way he grins at her. "You have me for a brother, after all. Coolest kid on the block. Always have been, always will be."

"Right. Didn't they call you Shitpants in high school?"

A passing employee coughs into their hand to hide their laugh, and Colt turns a bright red.

"She's totally joking. They didn't call me that, my nickname was something totally different," he calls after the retreating sales associate, always attempting to save face but never quite succeeding. A moment later and he's glaring at his sister. "That was one time, and it was an accident. The potato salad was—"

"Bad," Parker finishes for him with an eyeroll. "Yeah, I know. I've heard the story."

"Then why do you insist on bringing it back up all the time?" he hissed.

There isn't much activity in the oceanfront store beside the pair wandering from aisle to aisle. It's a small shack that they've frequented for years. Colt pretends to be good friends with the owner, and Parker never minds because there's a great lemonade stand right down the block. It's usually the first stop of the day when they decide to hang out on the beach. Just a place to buy ice and snacks before moving on to better things.

Which is good considering there being little to no airflow when sitting inside, and the radio seems to be on a constant loop of Justin Bieber in his pre-puberty phase. It's not so good, however, when they spend more than five minutes inside.

Today, it seems to be the first and final stop given how long they've been there. She feels her bones getting weary from all the pandering her brother has done, and she's starting to suspect that his reasons for picking her up that morning weren't as innocent as he initially claimed.

Deprived of breathable air and sleep, Parker isn't all too enthused when she props the kiosk sunglasses onto her head with a pleading look towards her brother. "Because I'm bored!" she whined, in a way that was far too little-sisterly like for someone her age. Decidedly though she doesn't care when he makes no move to leave. "I thought we were just going to buy some sunscreen before heading towards the point. That's what you said, anyway."

"We are!" he says, arms thrown wide in exasperation. Parker doesn't buy that for a second, however, and her brother folds under her stare. "Just... in a minute. I need a new rash guard. Maybe some new board shorts."

"You don't even surf."

"I... do," he argues, his head bobbing up and down as if trying to convince himself of such a bold statement. "It's just been a couple of—"

"Decades?"

"Years," he corrects her with a glare. "It's like riding a bike. You know. Probably."

"Just with water and waves and the possibility of drowning or death by shark."

"You're not helping."

She shrugs. "I never said I was here to help."

Colt's response is a melodramatic pout, pausing in his nervous shifting to wave a hand in her general direction. "Well, this would be a lot quicker if you just helped."

He punctuates the statement by performing a full spin for her, hands stuck out before realizing that's awkward. To fix that, he props them even more awkwardly on his hips, but it only makes him look like he's a Ken doll pretending to be a real person.

Parker elects to keep that to herself sensing his anxiety was getting dangerously close to his own toddler-style meltdown.

"What do you think of this? Cool? Not cool?" he continues on muttering, head bobbing in every direction as he smooths the material down over his puffed-up chest. It deflates just as quickly as he turns back to her to ask, "pink's cool, right? I'm going for a laidback look, you know. But not too laidback. Somewhere right in the middle."

Parker returns the sunglasses to the rotating stand before plopping onto a stack of buckets. He seems awfully concerned with this particular task all of the sudden, despite spending the last three years avoiding the idea altogether. Every time he was offered a chance to get back out on the water by one of his stunt buddies, he miraculously came up with an excuse not to.

It all feels weird. And when her brother got weird, there was usually a girl involved.

Ah.

"You told Jody you still surf, huh?" she puts two and two together.

His peacocking in the mirror stopped entirely. A wince. Then a smile. Then a wince again in a ball of pent-up nerves. "That's... maybe one of the—she doesn't—you don't have to hang around here while I try these on. Don't you have something better to be doing?"

"If I had literally anything better to be doing, I would be doing it."

"Okay, ouch."

Parker rolled her eyes at her brother's whining. But really, she didn't have anything better to be doing at the moment than hanging around while her brother tried to impress a girl.

Not to mention she liked this girl.

Sighing, she decided to throw him a bone. Because, what else would she be doing? Parker peered at the rack behind him for a moment before pointing to the top. "Try the blue one instead."

Colt glanced down at his chest with a frown. "But... Jody likes pink."

"Yes, but blue will match your eyes better. Make you look tanner."

"And make me harder to see if I start drowning," he huffed. But, after a moment of consideration, stripped off the pink rash guard to pull on the blue one. Always a fucking argument with him, she thought with a bemused eyeroll. Especially when a moment later, "oh, this one does look better..."

She laughed as he spun in the mirror, attempting to get a three-sixty perspective of the potential garment. Only for the moment to be interrupted by a buzzing in her back pocket.

You gotta get up, gotta get out, gotta get gone before...

Her phone's ringtone broke through her relative boredom, and as Colt ran a hand through his hair and squared his shoulders in the mirror, she plucked the device out of her back pocket.

"You really got to change that ringtone," he said half-heartedly.

Parker stuck her tongue out at him and swiveled on her bucket, so she now had a view of the empty beach outside. It wasn't even that early—nine in the morning—but this particular spot was far enough removed from LA that people didn't tend to populate it unless it was a holiday weekend.

Phone pressed to her ear, she answered with a casual, "hello?"

"Was it not possible for you to give me a book from this century to read?"

A smile teased her face, and Parker returned her attention to the sunglass rack at her side just for something to do. Testing on an oversized pair of cat-eye sunglasses, she asked, "who is this?"

"Jesus, just save my fucking contact in your phone, already."

"Why would I do that when you could just stop calling me to talk about books?" she mused, stifling a laugh when there was a load of huffing and cursing from the other end of the line. He deserved it, though. Especially after ruining her sleep the other night and practically giving her a heart attack. "There are reddit forums for that exact purpose, you know. Maybe you could ask the nerds what they think. Go right to the source."

"You're such an asshole."

"Mhm. Takes one to know one, right?"

"Earthlight isn't a movie, is it?" he barreled on. She could tell from his tone that he was annoyed, and selfishly, Parker hoped that she was ruining his morning coffee and avocado toast. "It'd be a short movie."

"No, not a movie. Could be, I guess. You feel like self-funding?"

"You're hilarious," he deadpanned, and through the phone line she could hear the distant whir of a coffee grinder working. Knowing Tom, the thing probably cost more than her car. "Maybe you should quit your little bookstore and go into stand-up comedy. Probably make more money doing that. Granted, you'd have to sacrifice your dignity, but you don't have much to start with, do you?"

Parker tutted, but the overwhelming failure of her bookstore came back to mind full force at the comment, and so rather than keep up the joke, she moved the conversation on. "So, you liked it?"

"Well don't go sounding too smug about it," he chastised. "I liked it better, but still not much. They're both so outdated."

"Too much science for you?"

"This author really fucking loves the technical bullshit just as much as the last one. Pricks, all of them."

"Arthur C. Clarke is a prick?" she snorted. That was definitely a viewpoint she had never heard before. Leave it to Tom to dislike one of the best sci-fi writes in history because he spent too much time writing, well, sci-fi. "That's a hot take. He cowrote 2001 you know."

"A Space Odyssey?" She hummed. There was rattling and banging noises—the image of a hungover Tom stumbling around his kitchen came to mind—before the sound of a milk frother cut across the line. She jerked her phone away from her ear with a wince. Muffled, his voice returned. "Alright, that's not a bad movie. I'll give him that."

"It's only one of the highest-rated films of the genre," she retorted dryly.

More banging continued on the phone and as Parker tried not to let him blow out her eardrum, a hissing sound of its own came from her end of the line. She glanced up at the airshaft above her warily, but, if the sweat pooling on her back was anything to go by, it wasn't working. She glanced around in search of the noise before a rubber pool toy bounced off of the back of her head.

"Hey," the hiss returned. Pool toy in hand, she turned to find her brother waving a hand at her. The blue rash guard had been replaced with a yellow one. Worse still, he was now wearing a matching bucket hat. He gestured to himself as if he hadn't just assaulted her with a whale shaped toy. "What about this?"

She covered the phone speaker with her hand. "What happened to the blue?"

"This one is on sale!"

"Jesus, Colt. No girl has ever been impressed by that logic."

"I—" he started, then paused, and frowned at his sister like she had just burst his bubble. She might have felt bad if she hadn't been brushing off his puppy-dog eyes for the entirety of her life. The lip wobble was a new touch, though. "...is that a no to the bucket hat too?"

Parker responded by chucking the toy back at him. It bounced off his chest with a squeak.

"Yeah, alright..." he muttered, shoulders drooping, as he snatched the hat off of his head. It left his hair sticking up in tufts.

She kept that to herself.

"—are you even listening to me right now?" Tom's voice crackled back to life. If the incredulous lilt of his voice was anything to go by, he was not used to being sidelined for other people nor did he like it. "Who the hell are you talking to?"

"There was a bucket hat situation I had to deal with."

"...are you with Colt right now?"

She laughed. First, at the fact that Tom Ryder equated a bucket hat with her brother. Second because he sounded so disgusted by the fact that she would willingly spend her Sunday morning's helping her brother shop for bucket hats.

"You mean my brother?" she corrected.

"Did you tell him that I'm auditioning for a sci-fi roll? What does he think about it?"

"Why the hell would I tell him I'm talking to you?" she asked, echoing his sentiments from their last phone call. Parker was only teasing though, while she was pretty sure Tom had meant to be mean. Regardless, she moved on as she stood from the bucket to stretch out the kinks in her legs. "A bucket hat is a bad idea, right?"

"Is this seriously more important than what I want to talk about?"

"This may come as a surprise to you, but my world doesn't revolve around things that you want to talk about," she explained exasperatedly. Not necessarily because of what he said, but because she was fairly confident that he actually believed those sentiments. Worse still, she bet no one had ever told him that before. "Particularly not at two in the morning—thanks for that by the way. My roommate is pissed at me for waking her up."

A pause. Then, "you still have a roommate? How old are you?"

"I was serious about posting your phone number online you know," she threatened idly.

Colt disappeared into the changing booth, and Parker slowly started perusing the now abandoned hat rack. Despite her disapproval, she was bored. Plus, it actually had a fairly impressive selection.

Plopping an oversized sunhat atop her head, she ignored his insult to press on more important matters. "But seriously. Bucket hats. They're out of style, right?"

"Bucket hats have never been in style."

"Fashion is all made up anyway."

"That's just what poor people say who can't afford actual fashion."

She tutted, scrunching her nose up. Derisively, she asked, "did Gail tell you that?"

"Alright, that's it. I'm hanging up."

"It was a joke—!"

Joke or not, the dial tone was the only response that she got from Tom. She stared at the phone in her hand for a moment before huffing.

So that's what that feels like, she thought.

Something bright and ugly popped into her line of vision, and Parker glanced in the mirror to find her brother sporting a cheetah print body suit paired with a trucker hat that said Wine Made Me Do It in big, cursive lettering.

"Now, not to step on any middle-aged ladies' toes, but this is fashion," he clapped his hands with a goofy grin on his face. He gestured to the hat with a crooked thumb. "Get it? Two dollars!"

Parker laughed; couldn't not even if she wanted to.

Her brother was so innocent and idiotic and awful that while she once used to be embarrassed in public by him, now she just appreciated the fact that he was, always, unashamedly himself.

"Here, wait," she poked her tongue out of the side of her mouth while angling her camera at him. "Say cheese."

"Asiago," he cooed, making a Blue Steel type face that looked ridiculous when paired with his clothes.

The picture was even better, and Parker felt tears gathering in her eyes as they giggled. The employee from earlier shot them an annoyed look, but he was promptly ignored. If she didn't care about Tom Ryder's opinion, she certainly didn't care about his.

"That was good, right?"

"Oh, definitely. Jody won't know what hit her," she teased. Colt nodded, looking all too smug with himself, despite the fact that she was joking.

This smug version of himself reminded her of someone else that he looked a whole lot like.

An idea struck Parker, and as Colt started putting back the clothes where he found them, she quickly saved Tom's number in her phone before attaching the picture to the contact. Parker hesitated when she saw his name typed out.

Asshole, she typed in big letters. It was funny for half a second, though, before she realized it didn't quite feel right.

She deleted his name. Thought about it. Then replaced it with nothing more than a simple puking face emoji.

"Are you getting that?" Colt asked, drawing her from her reverie, and when she glanced up, she remembered that she was still wearing the ridiculous sunhat. "Because, you know... I'm not so sure that's something a cool person would wear."

Parker shoved her brother towards the cash register with a laugh.

They left the store with a blue rash guard, a pair of sunglasses, and matching bucket hats.

Twenty minutes later they realized they had forgotten to get sunscreen.

---

Paker had heard a lot of stupid and surprising things in her life; things that were so shockingly idiotic that she often wondered if they had been spoken as a joke. Most of the things on that list were quoted from her brother; a man she loved, but that didn't entirely think before he spoke.

When they were kids, he had argued that fish didn't need oxygen to survive. That's why they live under water, dummy, he had said with far too much confidence that she, younger and far less educated, could only blink at him. Then there was the time in his twenties that Colt had brought up the topic of furries at the dinner table in front of their grandparents. They're not, like, really having sex... are they? he had asked while trying to figure out what costume part would go where if they did do the dirty. And of course, there was the infamous baking soda as a cure all for wounds debate, but she tried to block out the sound of his skin literally sizzling as he screamed.

Tom, in the short time that she had known him, had also said some pretty shocking things that wound up on the list. He was, after all, an unapologetic asshole/idiot that didn't care if the world was flat or round so long as it revolved around him.

But out of shocking thing she had ever heard, it was fifteen-year-old California born and bred girl that topped the list.

"I want a job," Melissa proclaimed.

Parker's pen scratched an ugly line across her poor excuse of an accounting notebook as she glanced up wildly, big eyes blinking slow and dumb, as static hummed in between her ears.

"...what?"

"I want to apply for a job," she reiterated.

The bookstore was empty save for a pair of retirees that were slowly perusing her small selection of bird watching books. An oversized fly buzzed overhead, whizzing an uneven path between the two, as an irritable car stuck in traffic laid on the horn outside.

"Like—like here?" Parker asked. There was nothing fun or young or hip about her store. Just dusty bookshelves, a musty smell she could not get rid of no matter how many Bath and Body Works' scent infusers she plugged into the corner, and a ratty reading chair that had a Melissa-sized depression in the middle. She arched a brow. "You want to work... here. In my bookstore."

Melissa rolled her eyes, shrugging. Duh, the gesture said.

"Yeah, sure, obviously," Parker hummed, despite the fact that there was nothing yeah, sure, or obvious about the current conversation. Specifically given that Melissa, on more than occasion, had complained that her store was boring. "Just... why?"

"I need money."

"Suuuuure," she drew out the syllable, wooden stool creaking as she shifted in her seat behind the register. "But wouldn't you prefer to work somewhere a little more, er, fun?"

"This place is plenty fun."

The fly from earlier buzzed between them before smacking into the windowpane. It spiraled to the floor with a depressing zzzz.

Parker raised a second brow.

Melissa, in response, threw her hands up with a huff. "Okay, so, maybe I've been rejected from Jamba Juice and Target already. Which is so, totally crazy."

"That is crazy because I thought Jamba Juice went out of business—"

"And I can get my driver's permit in three months, and I want to get my license as soon as possible. But there's no way that I'm going to have Mom drive me everywhere, so I need to get a car. And to get a car I need to be able to afford a car—which, like, the economy is awful right now if you didn't know—so I need a job. Mom and Dad said they'll match whatever money I can put towards it. And as of today, that is a fat zero."

Woes of teenage girls, Parker thought.

"That's nice of them," she said instead. Not that she envied a teenager in the twenty-first century, but for her sixteenth birthday she had been given a bike. Not even a new one. It had been Colt's old one that he outgrew, and it still had flame stickers and duck tape wrapped all around it. "But, seriously, there has to be at least one other place a kid your age would want to work."

Melissa, having been slowly circling around the center of the room, paused in her ambling to cast Parker a suspicious look. "Do you not want me to work here or something?"

"No, of course I would want you to work here—"

"Great!"

"—but I have no money. Why do you think I'm the only employee here?"

Melissa considered that. "I just always assumed you were a little uptight and didn't like other people messing with your shelves."

"Uptight?" she cried. "Why does everyone keep calling me that?"

But Melissa didn't seem to notice that she had just quoted her celebrity crush, and so she instead turned her attention to the bookstore. She cast a critical eye over everything; though there was no smoke, Parker could smell the wheels turning between her ears, and slumped further onto the counter in preparation for what was to come.

"Don't get me wrong, Park, I love your store," she started. "But it could definitely use some updating."

"Updating?" she deadpanned.

"Some new paint for starters. I think it would be so cute if you painted it, um, maybe a soft blue. Then you could paint the bookshelves in different colors—pastels, definitely—and even some flowers here and there wouldn't hurt."

Parker made a face. Pastels weren't really her thing. "You want to paint the shelves?"

"It's just so brown."

"The natural color of wood, yes."

Melissa rolled her eyes, and with a waft of Vanilla perfume, trotted behind the front desk to examine the string of posters tacked onto the wall. Most of them were salvages from the dollar store, and while Parker thought they gave the store some character, Melissa clearly didn't agree. "These totally need to go too."

"Excuse me—"

"You could still keep them," she huffed half-heartedly. Clearly, she wasn't sold on the idea, but Parker would be damned if she pitched her Jane Austen posters based on the opinion of a teenager. "Just cut them down to a smaller size, put them in some picture frames—you can get them super cheap at the thrift store—and they'll make it look less packrat-like and more eclectic."

Parker glared, an argument on the tip of her tongue.

But, well, when she thought about it, it wasn't such a bad idea. And, well, maybe giving the store a new coat of paint wasn't either. It still looked like it had when she bought it from Larry. She had spent so much money on the loan payment, that she never considered really updating the place—mostly because, duh, she had no money—but paint and some dollar store frames weren't so expensive.

"How do you know all of this?" she asked with a quizzical look.

Melissa smiled, phone waved in hand as she tossed a plait of perfectly curled hair over her shoulder. "I spend a lot of time on Pinterest. What this place needs is a total cottage-core makeover."

"That sounds so made-up."

The girl frowned. "Well, duh. Everything is made up."

Parker opened her mouth, thought it through, and then promptly snapped her mouth shut. When did kids become so philosophical?

"So," said kid leaned onto the front counter with a conniving smile. She was a pretty girl with a clear complexion, bright white teeth beneath blue braces, and a deep closest of cute, but age-appropriate clothing. When she wiggled her eyebrows, Parker couldn't help but notice how well shaped they were. "Can I have a job?"

It was a tempting offer...

She glanced at the balancing worksheet she was doing, scores of numbers and ugly handwriting sprawled across her notebook, before taking a proper look at her empty storefront.

"I'll... have to think about it," she finally hedged.

Melissa's shoulders sank in disappointment.

"I don't have a ton of money right now," she explained, not at all liking how sad she looked. Colt's puppy dog expression had done nothing to prepare her for Melissa Abernathy's professional one. "So, I'll need to look things over first."

"But...?"

A sigh. "Are you free on Sundays?"

"I thought you were closed on Sundays?"

"I am," Parker nodded. "Which means it's about the only day of the week that I could try to paint this place. If you're serious about wanting a job and wanting to help, I'll consider bringing you in on the weekends to start helping me renovate."

A grin broke out on the girl's face, and she started bouncing on her toes. "Really?"

"Just temporarily," Parker threatened with her index finger. She wasn't sure how much was being heard and how much was going over the girl's head, however, and suddenly this was all feeling like a bad idea. "You can help me paint and decorate, and then I'll look at my finances."

"And you'll hire me?"

"If I can afford it, then... yes, we could work something out."

"Yes!"

"Just a few shifts a week!"

"That's perfect."

"And I'm not paying more than minimum wage."

"Totally fair. This rocks!"

"I said if—"

Melissa was already on her phone, texting and typing away as she bounced around. Parker felt a migraine start whirring between her temples, but—well—the kid was so excited that she couldn't feel too miserable about her decision. Tourist traffic was dying down as the season's changed, and she really needed to do something if she still wanted to be in business come the new year.

There was the sound of a camera clicking, and Melissa grinned from her corner of the room. "Oh my god, Park, you're so not going to regret this. We could totally do a beachy palette—blues and greens and, oh, orange—throw some rugs down, add some little details to the bottom of the shelves that you have to look for to see. Like easter egg, stuff. Oh, this is so exciting! I'm going to get Miranda and Abby to come, they have a great eye for detail."

She watched Melissa disappear down the MYSTERY aisle, all the while chatting to whoever she had already gotten on the phone.

Parker steepled her head between her hands with a sigh.

But, well, the enthusiasm was contagious, and after a moment she was laughing to herself. Maybe a fresh coat of paint would cheer her up.

Speaking of, how much did paint cost?

She was in the middle of a google search when her phone started to ring. The caller ID only showed an emoji and a picture of her brother modeling a ridiculous outfit, and she let out a childish snort in response.

A small smile in place, she answered. "Three books in a week. I have to say that I am a little impressed."

"Hm. I'm impressed you finally saved my contact. I was starting to think that basic technology was beyond your skill set."

"Hardy, har, har," she deadpanned, rolling her eyes. Melissa was somewhere in the back of store now, likely scaring off her only customers, and she decided to give up on her accounting for the day. Twisting in her seat so she was watching the street outside, she propped her elbow on her knee. "What did you think of Nemesis?"

He seemed hesitant to answer. "I... liked it."

Parker grinned. "Oh, you did, did you?"

A sound halfway between a groan and a whine. "You're fucking infuriating, you know that?"

"For recommending you good books?"

"You don't have to be so smug about it."

"I'm not smug," she said smugly.

He scoffed, and Parker couldn't help but grin even further. The idea that Tom Ryder, pain in her ass, was admitting that he liked her recommendation was the metaphorical cherry on the top of her cake. Even better, she got to be smug to him about something.

Parker continued on to say, "I guess I'm just happy that I recommended something you like. Especially since I didn't think you liked anything other than looking in a mirror, hair gel, and hot lattes."

"For fuck's sake, it was a flat white, and it was one time."

"Was it?" she teased, enjoying the conversation far more than she should be. This was the asshole that drove her brother insane every day at work, after all. But then again, what Colt didn't know, wouldn't hurt him. "You're just so memorable, I guess. Can't stop thinking about it."

"I would hope I'm memorable," he shot back, a whole lot of huffing and puffing from his side of the line that didn't fit the whole "perfect human being" sort of vibe he tried so desperately hard to give off. A dog barked in the distance. A second, more put-off and annoyed huff argued back. "Putain, calme-toi, Jean Claude."

Parker curled an eyebrow, impressed. "Was that French?"

"Impressed?" he said, taking a page out of her book to sound unnecessarily smug.

Catching a glimpse of her reflection in the window—a stupid smile in place, lip pulled between two teeth, eyes twinkling in a way that didn't suit the sleep-deprived bags beneath them—Parker straightened in her seat. "Hardly. It's an ugly language," she said, overcorrecting just a little by insulting what some considered to be the language of love. Not her best move. "Moreso wondering why you're imposing a foreign language on your dog. Seems cruel."

"He's French," Tom said, certainly rolling his eyes.

"Ooh, a French bulldog? I love those."

Something about the insinuation that Tom Ryder would own a bulldog managed to insult him, and she heard the scorn in his voice when he responded with a scathing, "I would never own a fucking bulldog. They can't breathe and can't run thanks to decades of improper inbreeding. What use are they?"

"...they're cute?"

She heard him mutter something in French, before another bark—as if his dog, the French bastard, was agreeing with whatever complaint he made against her—and Parker was so elegantly reminded of what a pain in the ass he could be.

Chin in hand, she rolled her eyes. "You want to tell me about the book or not?"

There was noise from his side of the line; music in the background kicked up, the sound of dog food being slung into a metal bowl, a faucet running, before things quieted down a bit. "I thought the idea of moon colonization is a little overplayed, plus there's the whole bit about the telepathic organism that is so fucking stupid," he said.

Despite his tone though, somehow Parker just knew that he was only complaining so he had something to complain about. She didn't wonder how she knew that.

"The book is from the eighties. I don't think moon colonization was overplayed when he wrote it," she protested anyway, sipping on her watered-down cold brew as she did so. "And the bit about the organism is fascinating to me. Everyone always writes about ET-style aliens, but I thought it was brilliant of Asimov to create something new."

"Brilliant is what I do. Not writing a short story about a family being separated in space," he grumbled. A moment later, "you're awfully hot on these writers. You've never called me brilliant before." Sore about it, obviously.

"That's not true. I think you're brilliantly self-centered and egotistical."

"Elle pense qu’elle est une comédienne, celle-ci," he muttered, much to her English-speaking chagrin. He switched back to say, "I'm the reason your brother has a career, you know. You could give me a little credit."

"Are you?" she mused, knowing it was a load of horseshit. Self-centered and egotistical horseshit that only further proved her point. "Interesting. I thought he introduced you to Gail."

A moment of silence. "He told you that?"

"We tell each other everything," she said. Though, that wasn't exactly true, was it? "Well, mostly everything, anyway."

"Hm. I could argue that's breaking our nondisclosure agreement. I could probably fire him for it, you know," he threatened, idly, though, and without any real heat to his words. There was the sound of water running in the background, and Parker really hoped that he was spontaneously washing some dishes and not talking to her while in the shower.

"Please. We both know that Colt is the best stunt-man out there. And you only work with the best, right?"

His lack of response proved that she was right; Colt was the best at his job, and he just so happened to look a whole lot like Tom Ryder. Not to mention that Tom's entire career was built around bragging how good he was, how talented the people he worked with were, how he didn't settle for anything but excellence. In fact, Parker was half-sure she could break Ryder's nose and the only backlash Colt would get would be a whole lot of bitching.

Granted, she might get arrested, but at least her brother would be relatively fine.

"When's the audition, anyway?" she asked just to be nosy.

"Tomorrow morning."

Parker raised a brow, idly watching as some idiot failed to parallel park out front. "Cutting it a little close, huh?"

"I'm Tom Ryder," he said, in his typical sense of self-importance that she loathed. Though, this time, Parker didn't loathe it as much as she found it amusing. "I know what I'm doing and don't need your fucking opinion about it."

"Do you have that written on a motivational poster somewhere?"

"No," he said immediately. A little too quickly, in her opinion, and Parker narrowed her eyes with a sneaking suspicion that his house was just plastered with photos of himself. "Whatever. I have to go. Unlike you I don't just have all day to talk."

She scoffed incredulously, reminding him that, "you called me!"

Unsurprisingly, however, he didn't care. "I need to practice some more before the audition. Unless you want me to fail."

"I didn't think Tom Ryder could fail."

"Yeah, well," he hesitated for a moment, all that bravado he'd been displaying moments earlier gone in a flash. Parker wondered if he ever talked to anyone without it, and if he didn't, then what sort of friends he had in his life. He cleared his throat. "It's a big deal. Not just for me, but Colt too. This would be our biggest movie yet. Some extra practice doesn't hurt anyone."

Pride swelled in her chest; her brother had always impressed her with how he built his own career, moving to LA without knowing anyone and not leaving until he accomplished what he wanted. And while she was his biggest fan—number one, as she liked to joke—his success was his alone, not Tom's.

Still, without Tom it may have been less consistent, and without Colt, Tom may have been stuck doing rom coms. Parker kept that to herself.

Instead, she said, almost sensing that he needed to hear it, "yeah, well, I know you don't need it or anything, but—you know—good luck on the audition. I think you'd be really good in a sci-fi film. Despite what Gail seems to think, I might actually want to, er, see that movie. Pirated, of course. I don't go to the theaters for just any asshole."

The sound of water cut off, and for a long moment it was silent. Then, a scoff. "You're right," he said. "I don't need it."

Parker hummed, rolling her eyes, and biting back a smile at his blatant audacity. Gail was right about one thing; there was no one in this world quite like him. Maybe that was a good thing, too.

"Sure. You being Tom Ryder, and all. Guess you're a shoo-in, huh?"

"Well," he cleared his throat, "I do have the blonde hair and blue eyes."

A laugh bubbled up her throat, and she only managed to keep it to herself when the door jingled with the sound of new customers. A pair of teen girls strode inside with sweet, but nonplussed looks on their faces, and mindlessly Parker waved them towards the back where Melissa had disappeared to.

Watching them amble with her phone tucked against her shoulder, she asked, "did you just make a joke? Forget sci-fi, someone should call SNL right now and get you an audition with them."

"You're just as bad as Colt. You know that?"

"And now you're just handing out compliments," she teased. He laughed in response, wasn't quite quick enough to disguise it as a huff or a cough, and Parker bit her lip to keep from smugly grinning like a total idiot. "Just don't forget to send me that agent's fee when you get the part. I accept checks and DutchBros gift cards."

"Jesus Christ, you're pathetic."

"Am I? Because I just so happen to be popular enough to have the one and only Tom Ryder calling me three times in one week."

"Good-fucking-bye, smartass."

The sound of a dial tone came a second later, and when Parker glanced at her screen she was greeted with her own reflection. She didn't mind that he hung up on her. If anything, she almost wished that he had more time to talk. If only because he seemed to be in a rare, friendly mood.

Not because she almost actually liked talking to him. Asshole-ish tendencies notwithstanding.

"What are you smiling about?"

Parker turned to find Melissa and her two friends staring warily at her across the counter. Clearing her throat, she set her phone aside with pink cheeks.

"Er, nothing."

She harrumphed. Teenagers had never seemed so intimidating before, and with a self-conscious smile, Parker smoothed her hair down as subtly as she could.

"Need something?"

"Do you have any John Green books?" one of the girls asked.

Parker nodded, shaking off the conversation to switch into work mode, and smiled a little more genuinely at them all as she stood. "Sure, loads. Come on, I'll show you," she waved them after her, and as they browsed, they filled her in on what paint colors they thought would look best.

Melissa, she mused two hours later with disheveled hair, sweat-tacked curls on her neck, a stack of notes in one hand, and a long email chain of Pinterest posts on her phone, could rule the world one day.

She just needed a car first.

[lime-bloods]

Homestuck's Gnosticism: The World / The Wheel

Everyone knows Homestuck is "a Gnostic story".

Wait, why does it feel like we've had this exact conversation before...?

AH. SO NICE OF YOU TO JOIN ME.

If you followed along with the first post in this series, you'll be familiar already with the Gnostic nature of Homestuck's central conflict between the spirit world and the flesh. And even if I say so myself, I think that post is pretty definitive; if you're ever unsure what a particular character's motivations or end goal are, the Conflict will tell you. But what's conspicuously absent from the post is any explanation of what actually happens in Homestuck. We've covered the why, but very little of the how.

I left us off on the "synonymous goals" that spring naturally from this conflict between flesh and spirit; attaining ultimate knowledge, and escaping the confines of Homestuck itself. Eagle-eyed readers probably spotted what was lying between the lines, there: the comic is called Homestuck because it's about being stuck in a house, so the ending is about escaping the house. But what does that really look like? And how did they get in that house in the first place?

Let's return very briefly to a quote I used in the previous post. "[Y]our ultimate self [...] unlike god tiers or bubble ghosts or whatever, it really IS immortal". Two assumptions naturally grow out of this fact. First, and probably most obvious: when John dies, he's not really gone. The idea of him still exists out there, somewhere, and in our minds, so he still exists. Second, though: if the idea of him is eternal, John obviously didn't start existing when he was born. So again we ask, where did he come from?

How did John get here? Where does he go? The answers to these questions are like the four sides of one hypercoin, in that Homestuck is a time loop... of a sort.

To begin to understand this, we need to reiterate what was basically "the point" of the first post: Homestuck operates on two distinct levels, a spiritual plane consisting purely of ideas, and a "literal" physical dimension. What happens on these two planes often mirrors each other, and because Homestuck itself is a work of fiction which operates in the realm of ideas, they can even intersect. But ultimately, what "literally" happens to the characters in Homestuck is not the same as the ideas the comic is expressing in its spiritual metanarrative.

The fact that a physical time loop is impossible is something Homestuck inherits from real-life physics: to put it simply, John being born can't be the physical John from the end of his timeline, because that John would be way too old to be a baby! But ideological time loops are not only something sanctioned by Paradox Space, but essential to its very being; they are where it gets its name, after all! To repeat another lynchpin quote from the comic: there is essentially nothing new in paradox space. Any idea that seems new necessarily must have just come from somewhere else.

"SbaHJ has the distinction of being the symbolic language of [Dave's] subconscious." (Homestuck: Book 3: Act 4, p. 282)

Frequently we see this expressed in the rooms representing characters' dreams, which, as discussed, sort of transcend the character's physical form and represent the broad ideas that characters are made of. Dave's dreams (pictured above) are covered with drawings of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, characters he seemingly invented as a child after being inspired by a drawing Terezi sent to him. But Terezi's drawing was based on Dave's own illustrations she saw later on in his timeline; so which of them truly "invented" Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff? Neither of them did; SBaHJ exists as pure subconscious ideological matter floating through Paradox Space, only sometimes being picked up by a character's conscious mind. Similarly, Gamzee tries to manipulate this subconscious realm when he uses his psychic powers to place a terrifying effigy of Jack Noir in John's dreams, as punishment for the destruction of the trolls' session. But as we know, Jack Noir only took that form because of the nightmares this doll caused! So again; neither John or Gamzee thought up the demonic clown "first". It existed in the realm of ideas before either of them ever had the chance to invent it.

These kinds of ideological loops are the bread-and-butter of jujus. We're told their origins are untraceable and that they can't be destroyed, but neither of these things is really true; these superstitions exist only to obfuscate the true rule that jujus "emerge spontaneoUsly from the void." Rather than be erased from existence, a juju can only be banished to that same void of nonexistence where disembodied ideas live, and then pulled back into the world of dreams by a prospective psychic.

With these rules established, now we can really delve into with appreciation the ideological time loop that underpins all of Homestuck. And like all good time loops, the best place to start is at the end.

ACT 7 (Are you tired of seeing it yet?)

Let's not insult anyone's intelligences here: you know and I know that Caliborn's little house juju looks like the Homestuck logo because it is Homestuck; when he wins it from Yaldabaoth, he takes control of it, and when he sucks the heroes inside, he's trapping them in the confines of his material world.

What's essential to keep in mind here, though, is that the power of a juju is the power of the idea itself. It's easiest for us to think of the word juju in Homestuck as a concrete noun, referring simply to a magical object. But the word's real-life origins, referring more abstractly to magic or enchantment, are still relevant in this fictional framework. Lil Cal isn't just "a juju", but is "FILLED WITH BAD JUJU." Magic in Homestuck has always really been about the idea that believing in something can make it real, and the purpose of all Homestuck's dealings with chucklevoodoos and jujus is to evoke the anthropological concept of the "fetish"; an item whose power comes from human beings ascribing supernatural qualities to it. Jujus are all part of the "game" the cherubs play, with all its rules and quirks; breaking an enchantment is like breaking a rule, in that it changes nothing about the real world: you've just infringed upon an idea. The juju isn't the object; the juju is the power, good or bad, ascribed to the object.

All of this is really just to say one thing: Caliborn's home juju can't trap the flesh versions of John and his friends; as we established, you can't send old John back in time to become young John. But what a juju can trap is something far more important; the ideas of John and his friends. This is why it doesn't matter if the heroes who travel back to the beginning of everything to beat Lord English while he's still a kid are the "main" timeline versions of those heroes from some point in the future, or if the Epilogues' version of events is truth and they're some "irrelevant" offshoots: because all of those characters are represented by the same idea, and that's what Caliborn puts in the box. No matter what timeline John is from, he's from Homestuck, to Homestuck he must return, and as such Homestuck is what he must be forced to escape. Refer again back to the previous post: Caliborn can't create or destroy, only take pure ideas and alchemise them down into a form he can control.

And that's why Act 7 so enigmatically features two different white home-doors (above), seemingly so interconnected yet effectually unrelated. Because Act 7 takes up the hefty role of concluding two storylines simultaneously: allowing the "real", flesh-world versions of John and his friends to escape Lord English's reality through one door, while also concluding Homestuck's metanarrative by setting the ideas of John and his friends free of their prison through another door.

So far, most of this is probably stuff you'd have either figured out on your own or at least heard from someone else already. And if we set aside such distractions as run-ins with radioactive imps and omnipotent dog-gods, the "whats" and "hows" of the heroes' story are probably the easier parts of Homestuck to figure out. What's more difficult to fully comprehend on a first pass is how Lord English himself fits into all of this.

If you've been following me for any stretch of time, you'll notice in my analysis of Homestuck I've returned to the topic of black holes frequently. I've lost track of how many versions I've published of what I call "Black Hole Theory". And I won't link to any of them here, because ultimately Black Hole Theory was a corkboard to which I could pin the evidence that would eventually, piece by piece, lead us to where we are right now:

If the home juju is a white "hole" leading out of the confines of Homestuck as a story, then black holes are the doors that lead back in. An early clue to this comes in the form of Calliope's stage in the heart of a spiral: these spirals are Calliope's visions of black holes, which she uses as "dark pocket[s]" from which "no information can escape" - a literal description of a black hole - and that stage is the very same one Caliborn stages his story on when he takes full control of Homestuck's narrative. The meaning here should be clear: Calliope creates black holes, and it's the center of these black holes where stories can take place.

But for all the evidence we need to suggest that Lord English's fall into a black hole leads to something more complex than just his destruction, we need not look further than conventional science:

In the quantum world [...] information cannot be created nor destroyed.

Lisa Zyga, on the conservation of quantum information.

This rule that "ideas" are truly immortal, and that any time an idea seems to be destroyed it must have merely been transported somewhere else, holds true even in the scientific world of black hole physics. This has been played with in MS Paint Adventures before; theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking's take on black holes was that some stuff could in fact escape a black hole, contrary to Calliope's assertions, in the form of Hawking radiation. But Hussie's own version of the story was always a lot more to the point: something gets sucked into the center of a black hole, it gets shot out somewhere else. In hypothetical physics this is called a white hole - no doubt you can see where this is going.

So Lord English's final moments in Homestuck see him not destroyed, or killed, or defeated in combat in any traditional way, but sucked right back into Homestuck. What exactly does that mean?

Homestuck, p. 8105

As long as we're talking the power of ideas and symbols, possibly the most blatant a symbol can get is in the form of a gesture; and the thumbs-down is possibly one of the most ancient gestures there is. Dave gets one, Tavros gets one, and, so they say, even the Roman gladiators got them. This precedent makes the meaning of the gesture clear: "you're going down." And it makes sense, too, that Hussie, the "good author", would signal the "evil author's" demise in such a way. But some might question the effectiveness of the power of gesture at such a pivotal point in the comic. Are we really to believe that English's defeat was, even in part, the result of another author merely willing him away like a tyrant doing away with an entertainer who has fallen out of favour? Or did the Hussie-character actually have some kind of plan to deal with his Hulk-like alter ego?

Of course he did.

...now Caliborn has hijacked the property of his experiential continuum which he has reason to believe is called "the narrative". Little does he know you recently made the shrewd decision to purchase(?) the ACT 6 ACT 6 SUPERCARTRIDGE EXPANSION PACK! Just plug it into any in-universe console port to unlock a variety of exciting new gameplay features and proceed through remaining canon unfettered, while Caliborn muddles through six new sub-sub-acts of infantile "subversive parody" targeting the very tale he inhabits, none the wiser!

To allow our heroes the chance escape their narrative prison, English isn't just to be trapped in their old cell; it's to be trapped within an infinitely-recursing cell, not just reliving one story over and over again but forced to live out infinitely many different stories. Not just a narrative loop; a narrative spiral. That's what being sucked into the black hole means for Lord English.

When Roxy - the Hero of Void whose very symbol is that of the black hole - banishes Caliborn-as-Cal into the void, he becomes one of the very wandering ideas with which English plays like dolls. "Instances of [Doc Scratch] have spawned in countless universes", and they have "never once failed to complete [their] objective": whether he wants to or not, Lord English will always be born again. In a new universe, perhaps, maybe even in a different shape, but his role always the same. Caliborn thinks that by filling the supercartridge with special stardust and corrupting the story, he's won, but looking at the bigger picture the truth is clear: he's only playing by somebody else's rules.

Just as Skaia uses lotus "seeds" to store items away for later use, and employs meteors as "Seeds" to send important elements back in time to set up the beginnings of new stories, so too are English's cue ball "seeds" only a means of transporting his essence from one place to the other; the black hole and the Rapture are, after all, only Skaia and the Reckoning sized up to a truly macrocosmic scale. The cue ball is able to be a font of endless knowledge because it is the "white hole" at the other end of the black hole! No information can escape a black hole, and therefore there is no information that escapes Scratch's attention -- he is limited only by his "pockets of void", which exist only to, in time, be filled, as more and more falls into these black holes like a multiversal game of billiards. Not only is this a transparent allusion to one of the most fundamental representations of the paradoxical time loop as a concept, but it is also the ultimate insult to injury: despite having lived an infinite number of lives, and being cursed to live out an infinite number more, Lord English cannot know what his fate will be until he literally falls into it. This is what forces him to lose, over and over again for eternity, while our heroes triumphantly escape Homestuck onto greener pastures.

[semthescientist]

so this is a part two to my lil entry and here i merely wanna talk about what actually clicked for me and how everything has changed since then. part one is right here (:

as i said before, it was until september of 2023 when i was on around the fifth or fourth day of my cruise did things begin to dawn on me. if you're familiar with 4d-barbie, (i believe her name is Ada), she has a google drive filled with book resources and some of them are already annotated (which came in clutch). well, actually before the cruise i had began reading the book One Truth, One Law: I Am, I Create by Erin Werley and i resonated with things so heavily. i kept reading bits and pieces of the book but also was determined to be present and just enjoy my cruise. as i read, i became so interested in the way Erin would have full blown conversations with I AM. especially the part where Erin told her husband and then was afraid if he'd judge her but I AM simply told her to relax and let it do the talking--and that's what happened!

so i'm sitting there and i'm like "yo! how cool is this!" and of course, it's explained how to do this yourself--how to really tune in and trust your own wonderful intuition. i wanted to do it because i didn't want to reread Erin's(I AM) answers to questions to form my own answers. i had my own specific questions and no one else could answer them for me besides me. so i put the book down and i asked my own question and trusted that the answer would come to me whenever; even if he didn't come now, it was bound to.

and i had fear...i feared if it would actually happen or not. sometimes i'd be tempted to look things up or keep rereading every answer given by I AM in Erin's book. i would kind of just do self-talk when that happened, i don't know how i got through that to be honest. i can't seem to remember. but what i do remember is the little deposits that would drop into my head randomly. i was lathering up in the shower and was like, "why would i hate my persona?" [persona, ego, Vanessa--all the same, i just like the word persona better!] and i kept going with that line of thinking, asking myself a series of questions like: wait...why do i think there's something wrong with her?

isn't the persona how i'd experience a multitude of things? things that don't necessarily exist to I AM?

and i realized i was onto something because i felt so expanded. like my heart began filling up...my chest began fluttering. i know you've felt that feeling before and that feeling always comes when you're listening to yourSelf. there wasn't much else i did after i realized this because a new way of thinking just took over me. i had so much love for everything...i mean literally everything. i started to question everything i read from others.

again, something a lot of realized masters would say is "you suffer because you think you are this body" and while that's true...it just didn't feel right in my soul. none of it felt right--at least not something to remember all of the time. i didn't feel like it had any sort of longevity and the only reason i felt that way was because it didn't feel loving enough. i really wanted to know what was so bad about taking this persona into consideration...what was so wrong about loving her and holding her hand? why did i have to become aware of what she was thinking/feeling and suddenly say "oh but that isn't Me! let her cry and whine, she isn't Me."

i go into depth about this here. it's just a diary entry so the beginning i had a different outlook on my persona than i do now, hence the different header titles.

the bottom line is i had no reason nor right to hate my persona. after all, she found Me again--she found her True Self so that has to count for something. i simply started to look at the world differently and realized that it was never about fighting anything. we all know there is no "out there" and all there is is consciousness but how many have you actually put that to the test? have you stopped fighting shadows? fighting the seeming opposite circumstances? if you know there's only the will of God (which is you), why do you keep fighting everything else? have you stopped fighting your persona's fear, Vanessa's doubts--belittling her because she can't believe in herself...not yet at least?

i quickly gathered that if i love Myself, then i would have to trust Myself. i know someone probably has the fear of going "out there" and falling asleep again--losing faith or going back to believing in the world. but that could never happen. why? because of trust. You have to trust yourSelf enough to know only your will is imposed. and what builds trust? action.

personally speaking, there was a circumstance that i'd been ignoring for the longest in the name of manifestation. but lately, i've realized that whatever can happen "out there" and not only do i not have to form an opinion on it but i can watch how it crumbles when i stand ten toes down in trusting myself. i can trust Myself so much to stand tall in what i prefer and watch as Self carries me up and over the seemingly opposed...and then i glance back and they were nothing but cardboard cutouts. like that scene in coraline where she walked away and the world started crumbling--'twas only because it never existed too.

i don't fight anymore because i know My will is only ever imposed. i know that when something dares to throw a punch, it won't connect because it has already disintegrated. and most of all, i know that i can care about whatever the hell i want. hey, if you don't care about being a realized master than cool--find something that makes your heart sing and you can't help but burst from the seams when you think of it. for me, it was shifting. (do not come for me about the terminology, human mode rn so i gotta put a label). i found that shit to be so cool and to be honest, it's helped me discover my sexuality too which is a bonus. but none of this could've ever happened if i didn't start operating out of love for my persona.

just think of it, everything you desperately want you'd need a persona to experience anyway. you can take this and make some shit shake, and really define what you want or no labels at all. you can fully be I AM and have zero needs or you can be I AM with a persona, or you can just be a persona! there's people who look to an outside god but their god is rooted in so much love!

like you know a lot more than you're giving yourself credit for and only if you'd be so determined to listen to yourSelf the way you've listened to others, then shit would really start clicking. everything is perfect in its likeness and it is because I AM is all-encompassing that everything is possible--even the things we think are "bad". i promise, every question you'd ever have there's an answer for it and it's within you. you can find what matters most to you--you'll know. it's a feeling of pure confidence that cannot be described, you'll move without thinking and take chances and do whatever else and it'll feel like you're under a trance. That is You. there is no other...fall in love with Yourself and your human form too because it's nothing but a vehicle to bring you back to Self. your persona's fears and doubts are nothing but an opportunity to rely on Yourself...to trust Yourself and i speak of the infinite You.

lol i'm sorry if this seems all over the place, i was just saying what was heavy on my heart. i've been feeling a lot of love for everything lately and i want somebody else to feel that too. i know this will reach the person who's looking for it. so because of that: hi hi! you've done well, my love.

also, one last thing. there were a couple of people who helped me come to this realization and i wanted to say thank you! heavenlythea here on tumblr, iam_love.co on instagram, and Betinho Massaro for his book Super Accelerated Living (dude's mad funny, like i legit would smile reading it) oh and Ada! she came in clutch with the resources and annotating! and really everyone else for simply existing. know that you are perfect because you exist and the only reason you can't shake Self is because You (the real you) knows you'll be just fine.

love you all!

[selarina]

Out of Style

-> Suna Rintaro x Fem!Reader

Chapter 1: The Night of the Party

Summary: At a band's afterparty, the protagonist's protective instincts kick in when their younger sister encounters Suna Rintaro, the band's guitarist.

Content Warnings: celebrity au, rockstar!suna rintaro, actress!reader, reader has a sister, afterparty scene, alcohol, implied/referenced drug use, fluff, tension, eventual smut

Word Count: 2.9k words

Author's Note: Yes, the title is from Taylor Swift's 1989. Anyway, @renardiererin asked and I had to deliver <3

Series Masterlist | Read on AO3 | Moodboard

Your eyes take in the scene, a bunch of people sprawled on the couch, empty bottles of alcohol lined up on a pool table, and said pool table is adjoined to a torn net. You see a couple on the verge of getting to places you didn’t necessarily want to witness alongside your sister so you decide that going upstairs might be more than ideal, especially for your sister. You might even meet a bunch of people on the balcony above where you can find sober people to talk to.

Your sister is due to go college in a few months and this scene isn't exactly one she is familiar with. You decide that this scene is alarmingly akin to a college party, except you’re all wearing fancier branded clothing this time.

You look up towards the stairs leading into a calmer environment and upon getting a closer look, you smile. You can't help but notice the high chandelier that looks rather misplaced in the center of this scene, but again so does most of the modern decor clashing oddly against the inherent gothic features of the house.

The two of you find yourselves a drink first. You settle for orange juice, since you’re tired enough today as is. Plus, you’re with your sister this time. She doesn’t usually accompany you to these parties, and honestly, you don’t either, not if you don’t already know a person or two who are sure to be attending. That way you can piggyback off them, using them as a social lubricant.

“I’ll be back,” you tell your sister since you want to pee, and you swivel through the crowd. A few of them recognize you, and you have to stop to greet them. You keep it briefly because you still really want to pee.

While you're washing your hands, you hear a distant sound of commotion. You can't tell what’s happening, but you decide it's better to hurry up than leave your sister to witness whatever may be taking place, all alone.

You're not usually this on edge or this protective, even if your sister suggests otherwise. But, you only brought her here to attend some band's album launch afterparty because she begged and begged and begged, and so you relented like you always do. And it's her birthday, you think. Who would you be if you didn't make your sister happy on her birthday?

You sigh, discarding the tissue as you walk outside.

The people have gotten relatively quieter since the two of you walked in. The crowd seems to be more populated towards the secluded area from earlier that seemed to have a bunch of trophies of some sort on a shelf.

You cinch your brows, not wanting to stay down any longer as you start searching for your sister.

"I'm so sorry!" You hear, and you immediately swivel your head towards your sister's voice, heavily concerned about it coming from the center of the crowd.

It takes you all of 5 seconds to move through the bodies before you take in the scene.

She's holding her cup, and a man, who upon a second look seems to be the guitarist from the band, staring down at his shirt. His wet shirt.

You hold your breath, and you talk yourself up in all of the two seconds you have — that you will defend her, that you will fight off the urge to quiver before this man, whoever and however powerful of a connection he might be, that you can go home and have your sister's cake and sleep in your comfy bed if you feel like crying. It's okay.

But all of it crumbles to the ground, the moment he looks up, and he smiles like he's forcing himself to, a clear distaste for the way the wet t-shirt sits on him is visible on his face, the way it frowns ever so slightly. The way his eyes blink a bit too quickly for it to be natural.

"It's alright, don't worry about it," he says, saving his hand off as a gesture for everyone to leave.

"It's not okay, that costs a lot." A lady who was standing right behind him walks in between your sister and him.

It urges you to stand by your sister's side, who upon your arrival, immediately reaches for your hand, almost out of instinct she squeezes.

She's scared, so you're not, you decide.

"We'll pay you back," you speak up, firm but neutral. You won't back down and defend her but there's no need for you to be hostile yet.

"You won't be able to afford this sweetie," she turns her attention to you, her eyes moving up and down your body, in a way that's supposed to demean you but you feel anything but demeaned. Just a bit amused, really.

"Oh! Then I'm sure you guys can manage to pay for this yourself. Apologies for having the drink on you in the first place but we'll be leaving now," you say, and you can admit that the smile on your face is meant to be anything but sweet, cordial at best.

"And if you change your mind, feel free to let my manager know," you say.

Your assistant, you were not aware she was in this crowd really, but she immediately finds herself beside you.

"Of course, here's my card," she reaches her hand out to the lady, who snivels it away from her hand. You look at your assistant and can't help but be caught off-guard by how unlike herself she looks, her hair is down and strewn about, and her clothes are different, more colorful. You smile, you suppose she's more her now than she will ever be around you.

You can understand her frustration really, you would be a bit put off if the clothes you are wearing were something you had to pay for. You only mean that you would never actively wear what you are wearing today, but in all honesty, anyone here can pay for that t-shirt without even breaking a single sweat.

"Oh, you will be hearing from m—" the lady starts, but is stopped when the man puts his hand on her shoulder and puts himself in front of her.

"There's no need. This is my house, I can literally change upstairs." He says he's not smiling but you feel a sense of kindness from him, even if he's modeled to look like the antithesis of it. Or perhaps, you’re just judgemental. "Guys, go back to drinking, or… fucking apparently," he eyes the couple who's part of the crowd, seemingly to view what's happening, but also entirely too invested in each other mouths for that to be true.

And at that, the crowd dissipates. You're about to leave too, before you feel the urge to thank him.

You turn to him, "Thanks," you muster up.

"Thank you so much, and once again, I'm so sorry. I didn't know it was expensive," your sister says, sincerely.

"Don't worry about it. Was my fault anyway," he says as he quirks his lips up in what could only classify as a half-smile but you feel that it, whatever it is, is genuine before your eyes flit up to his face. in all fairness, he — he's really beautiful.

He's got good bone structure, you conclude.

You smile, and he looks at you this time.

"Hi, I'm Suna Rintaro,” he says. “I like your movies," he says, and you smile a bit too visibly harder at that. He almost sounds a bit too much like a sincere fan, but all people in this industry are actors, off and on screen, so you gauge this out as you usually do.

"What's your favorite one?" you say, and he frowns. You knew it. A cocksure smile can’t help but sit on your face.

"The one where you kill a group of men," he says.

Your eyes widen, "Hm, that doesn't narrow things down." You laugh, "But wow, you sound like a decent fan. Want my autograph?"

"Maybe just your phone number for today?" He's quick, and you realize it's only been a short exchange but he's standing really, really close to you. His eyes are narrowed down at you, so intently, and it makes you want to look away, but you peer back at him, focusing on the yellow in his eyes as you talk yourself into not looking away. There’s a soft tinge of gray in his eyes, and you think you can only see that because you’re so close to him. You can’t help but think he resembles a predator, strikingly similar to a cat. A pretty one, regardless.

"Maybe… I'll give you my Instagram for today," you say.

"I could live with that.” A compromise and a soft smirk on his face.

"Also…" your sister's voice comes from behind you, and it comes off soft and meek. You feel embarrassed, you forgot she was there for a moment. You look at her and she looks back at you, as though she's asking for something. Your eyes widen, and it strikes you.

"Oh! Yes. Um — In the interest of being transparent, I'm here for her really," you pull her from behind you so she's standing right next to you.

"And I think she'd really appreciate a picture with you. Only if that’s okay with you?" You don't want to push it, even as much as you love your sister. There are days when taking a picture with a fan makes you want to pull your hair out and run naked across the city's most paparazzi-invested zones.

"I don't mind. If you wait for a few minutes, I can get the rest of the band actually," your eyes flit to your sister's face, and it's gleaming so bright, you’re afraid they’re going to pop right out of her head.

You smile. "That would be great," you say before he takes off, his hands fiddling with his top.

You bring your hand in front of your sister's face, giggling, "Hello, I'd like my sister back. Could you please un-possess her for a quick minute?"

"This… is going to be the best birthday ever," she says. "I can't wait to tell Allie about this," she quickly pulls out her phone.

"Am I the best sister in the world or what?" you sigh, feigning tiredness, feeling anything but when your sister’s this excited.

"Yeah," she says, a hint of realness, although you presume she's more preoccupied with processing what just happened. "Thank you for today," she says, her hands coming to engulf you in a tight hug.

You pat her head, "Aw, you love me so much," and at that she backs away, scowling.

"Ruined the moment," she deadpans, sticking her tongue out, and right before you know it she's standing with the band.

Suna's wearing a different top this time and Atsumu brings his hand up, to hold her shoulder, and you think your sister looks constipated almost. So still.

You take a few pictures for her before you pocket your phone, walking over. "Thank you for this," you say. "I forgot to introduce myself, I'm—"

"The very pretty actress who kills men," Atsumu Miya swoops himself in front of you, and his hand is already taking yours to leave a kiss on it. Odd, you think. You didn't realise that was your reputation, despite all the recent influx of love interest roles.

"Charmed," he says, making sure to embellish it with a cocksure smirk.

You smile, a bit less genuinely than you have all evening. "Nice to meet you, Atsumu."

"Ouch, sweetheart," Suna walks towards the two of you, his hand coming up to his chest to feign hurt. "You know his name and not mine?"

"Well, h-he's more — reputed? I've heard about you before is all."

You look towards Atsumu. The onslaught of people in his dating history, the drug cases (even if it's just weed), and the obnoxious energy he radiates are enough for him to make some headlines that even you could catch.

"Only good things I hope," he says with a smile.

Definitely not, you want to respond but instead, you just smile back at him.

"We should get going," you say and that's all it takes for the band to disperse, you're sure they were told to form connections today as much as they could, even if they are a pretty popular band. Events like this are meant for that.

"Of course, I'll drop you out," Suna adds.

—

"It was nice having you," he says. His eyes leave your face to see your sister, "And you especially, ma'am."

Your sister smiles, a bit shy this time, "Thank you," she says.

His eyes find yours, and you look away. "Nice interior," you say, not knowing what else to say. You turn back to him again.

His eyes narrow and his head tilts in confusion, “Oh, most of the stuff in there is not really mine. Just recently bought the house," he says. "With the decor and stuff," he adds like he's aware that your odd comment was a consequence of odd interior choices.

"That explains a lot," you say. You feel odd, you didn't really know him before today either but you thought your observations could fill in the gaps to make up a person, but maybe not all the time.

The three of you wait in silence, a soft wind blows and it's enough to send a chill up your spine.

"Cold?" he asks, and you think he's talking to you. You’re ready to answer no because you know how this goes, he asks for the hoodie, you meet him again and really, you didn’t want to fall for the oldest trick in the book. But when you turn to look at him, you see that he's asking your sister. And at that, you smile.

She loops her hand through his jacket, her hands engulfed by his long sleeves. She thanks him, and he merely brushes it off, his eyes focused on the waterfall adjacent to where you stand.

His eyes looking at yours after a few moments, "I can get another jacket from upstairs if you can wait," he says.

"Nah, the car should be here soon. I'll manage," you say, and talk of the devil, and the devil arrives. Your car swoops through in front of the three of you, and before your driver could even rush out to open the door, Suna steps in. He opens the door, and your sister ducks into the car almost immediately. Maybe she felt colder than you thought.

"Thank you again," you say. "And congratulations on the album."

As the car door closes, Suna gives you a nod and a small smile.

He closes the door, but you press down to open the window. "It was nice meeting you both. Have a safe ride home," he says.

Your car revved before it takes off.

"He's not my favourite from the band, but he's so cool! I want his eyes," she gushes, almost morbidly. Your eyes widen before you break into laughter as you send her the pictures you took of them together.

"I can't wait to post this on my Instagram! You should have taken one too.” She frowns.

Back at home, you take a hot shower, carding through your hair, as you gently massage your scalp. The sole of your feet hurt as you stand, and you think maybe you would have chosen a different pair of heels for tonight. Not that you really had that much of a choice.

You walk to the kitchen, turning the dim yellow light on. You preferred having dimmer lights on in the evening or night, everything else was too bright, and it leaves you unmoving on the couch, as you fall into slumber.

You pull out two plates and two spoons.

Walking over to the fridge, you bring out the small pink box that sits on the top shelf, carefully pulling out the box so that the accompanying items don't fall out of the shelf.

You place it on the kitchen counter before you go to your sister's room.

Your sister's face front on her pillow, and she seems asleep.

You call out to her.

Nothing.

You turn the lights off after tucking her in.

Walking to the kitchen, you put on some cake, and walk to the living room.

Your hands, almost of their own volition, pull out Suna Rintaro's Instagram. It seems to be handled by him rather than his management by the looks of it. It's not as curated as yours.

Just as you're going through his photos, one that's entirely curated to be enticing, his hands on an untagged woman as your eyes flicker down to the caption.

Promotional photos for a music video.

Something urges you to watch the music video, it's a fairly common music video but leaning more on the provocative side, everyone's half-naked, and comfortable in their own skin.

But your eyes draw towards Suna and the untagged woman from earlier, as she tugs at the chain around his neck as he's looking up at her with something so fabricated, yet so primal and fascinating, to say the very least. Something in you twinges just a bit.

It's been less than a second since you're reeling but you hear the Ping!

suna_rintaro: it was veil of vendetta btw suna_rintaro: the movie of yours i liked suna_rintaro: rewatched it last night