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#furat speaking facts and facts only
cotccotc · 4 years
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you might be hyunjin biased, but chan is the ultimate, automatic bias for all. that's just how it is 😌
i wholeheartedly agree yes most definitely 100% mhm ahuh
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missinghan · 4 years
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give it a chance ⤖ lee minho
❖ genre : college au; roommates au; friends to lovers au
❖ word count : 9,6k.
❖ warning : explicit language, slightly suggestive & mentions of alcohol
❖ summary : you convinced yourself to attend a party in order to prevent Lee Minho from doing stupid things; however it’s not so stupid anymore when your roommate said he needed to tell you something important.
❖ a/n : the continuation of what if we is dedicated to @chaninfused, so *clears throat* this is where I hereby declare that she deserves more than what the entire universe can possibly give her; oh hi furat, this is why I’ve been so cryptic all this time. I know this isn’t much but I want to thank you for tolerating me and letting me be mean to you even though we only started talking for a few months; you’re an incredibly great friend and an amazing writer, don’t ever forget that 🖤
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one.
It’s been almost a week since Jisung last talked to Minho (albeit texts and FaceTime) and he wakes up to his best friend roaming around his crusty kitchen, struggling to find a bottle of honey. Seungmin’s mom has been constantly sending them thirty packets of rib soup per week. And Minho thinks the sight of Han Jisung slurping on nothing but distorted rice with pork ribs while stressing over his paper for seven days straight is more tragic than his non-existent love life.
“It’s like you’re trying to turn us into gym rats,” Hyunjin snickers lazily, flinging his bangs away from his face. “You even brought us Tupperwares, are you really expecting us not to order tacos impulsively on study nights?” He’s a little dubious about stuff like this because he can feel the actual horror of only eating chicken breast and string beans just by seeing Chan cooking them up. 
Seungmin chucks a piece of lettuce towards his direction, “Don’t you have anything else to do other than complaining?” He knows that when Jisung and Hyunjin decide to order food on study nights, they’re gonna do anything but study.
“Uhm, I actually do,” he replies nonchalantly. “I’m going through Minho’s phone.”
Jisung takes a seat next to him by the counter, propping his head onto his hands, “What’s the point? There’s nothing but cat photos and cat memes...and also Y/N as his background.”
“That angle is hideous, by the way,” Hyunjin comments like the true photography geek he is, which is completely ignored by Minho because he’s too cranky to start a fight at ten in the morning. “But it’s kinda cute for you to do that, so I’m gonna turn a blind eye.”
Jisung asks out of the blue, “Who’s going to BamBam’s party this Sunday? Well, besides the other two-thirds of 3RACHA.” 
“I have a midterm on Monday, dumbass,” Seungmin mumbles while washing his vegetables at the sink. 
“And I’m sleeping over at Lix’s for a project,” Hyunjin informs him lamely, having no intention to attend another single frat party. At least not BamBam’s frat parties—that guy has the weirdest friends; a chick was so drunk that she thought Hyunjin was her boyfriend and almost tried to make out with him on the dance floor. 
Jisung secretly hates going to parties without his friends- no, actually, he never goes to parties without people from his social circle because he dreads the whole introduction part that requires formalities and inevitable awkwardness. But it’s not like that with Minho, ten minutes into their very first conversation and he feels like he’s known him for years. 
In short, he will die if Minho doesn’t come to the party. Chan can only chat with him for so long until his DJ duty occurs and Changbin’s probably gonna be too busy doing keg stands to care about his antisocial friend. 
“Fine, I’ll go,” Minho gives in while chopping up the chicken breasts and this prompts Jisung to clap happily like a seal for the next twenty seconds as he skips over to the fridge to fetch a water bottle. “But we’re gonna need a ride, I’m not taking my motorbike for some crackhead to puke on it. Ask Chan later when you crash at his place.”
Jisung tosses his head back to take a peek at the clock hanging by the bookshelf, and it reads 10:07 AM. He really should be getting for his class at eleven because traffic sucks but he’s not feeling like sitting through two hours of Park ranting about marketing strategies. “Can’t Y/N just drive us? I don’t think she’d let anyone else take you home when you’re not sober,” he ponders, earning a nod of agreement from both of his roommates. 
Just when Minho opens his mouth to brush it off, he stops himself to process the information again and holds back a ‘you’re right’ because he hates letting people know that they’re not wrong. He wouldn’t let anyone drive you home when you’re drunk either. “Her car’s with her dad right now,” he tries to sound casual when three pairs of curious eyes are glued onto his back. “I, uh, sorta had it run into a tree last week.”
“You what? How are you still alive?” Hyunjin’s jaw is on the floor and Seungmin accidentally dumps too much vinegar into his salad while Jisung’s choking on the iced cold water, coughing furiously after into the sleeve of his hoodie. Guess Chan’s gonna have to drive them both. After all, he can never say ‘no’ to J.One. 
Minho murmurs, “A dude rear-ended me, fucking idiot.” He finishes marinating the chicken breasts and arranges them nicely onto a tray with aluminum foil on top, pushing it into the preheated oven. “And basically she’s never letting me touch her car again,” he sighs while staring into midair dreamily, flashbacking to last Friday when you immediately Ubered yourself all the way from campus to downtown after picking up his call. All he got was thirty seconds of affection; you made sure that he’s not hurt and the rest was just a monstrous tantrum. He ended up sleeping on the couch that night. 
“My my, you two are just like an old married couple,” Hyunjin chuckles lightheartedly and shakes his head, scrolling through the series of texts in amusement, “What even is this? I swear your conversation consists of 60% ‘when are you going home?’, 40% ‘your lunch is here’ and 20% terrible cat memes.”
“We’re roommates,” Minho drags the word through gritted teeth, holding back all the murderous thoughts inside his head because he feels like Hyunjin’s just asking for a death wish. It’s too early for this. 
Unexpectedly, Seungmin decides he’s in a pretty good mood today since he aced his OChem pop quiz yesterday; meaning, he’s gonna stick his nose into his friend’s business whenever there’s a chance. “Don’t you guys share a bed too?” he pretends to play dumb only to receive a kick in the shin from the older boy. 
“We’re also broke,” Minho cranes his neck tiredly, washing the dirty knife under the tap. “Besides, the heater in the living room sucks.”
“You both even smell the same, it’s getting kinda creepy. Please don’t tell me you guys also share showers to have a light water bill,” Jisung makes a gagging noise and Minho thinks he’s already said too much. His grip on the knife tightens for a split second before letting it drop into the sink. He doesn’t trust himself with anything sharp the moment Hyunjin started this unwanted conversation. He also regrets stealing Changbin’s meal prep recipes to feed his trash friends. 
Minho questions callously, “We just use the same shampoo and shower gel, what’s the big deal?” His hands go for the box of oatmeal that Felix left here last time in the cabinet full of random food. He doesn’t get why Seungmin would buy so much groceries like he’s in a pandemic knowing damn well that his idiotic roommates can’t cook for shit. 
Hyunjin purses his lips, trying to prove his point, “Don’t you think that it’s weird? You don’t do those things with us.”
“Because none of you would fucking house me when I was on the verge of being homeless!”
“And why is she yelling at you through texts anyway? Bro, there’s like ten missed calls here with at least a hundred ‘where are you?’. Why is she terrorizing you this early in the morning?” Minho immediately snaps out of his semi-angry trance, chest heaving up and down. 
“Oh shit,” he facepalms himself. “I promised to pick her up at ten from class, what time is it again?”
“You’re fifteen minutes late, my friend,” Jisung supplies unhelpfully. “It’ll take another ten to arrive at campus, without traffic that is. You’re so dead. D-E-A-D.” It feels weird to hear something correct coming out of Jisung’s mouth (twice in a row) and now Minho wishes he could just whack his friend unconscious on the floor with the new set of microphones that Chan gave him last year for Secret Santa. 
“Oh, I left your rice sitting at ‘warm’, by the way,” Minho makes a grab for his biker jacket and helmet on the counter before fleeing out of the apartment with his sneakers half-way tucked in. It’s not even been thirty minutes since they’ve seen each other for the past week and Jisung’s already choked on water, not once, but twice because of Lee Minho. Sometimes he wonders if the universe is telling him that he needs new friends. 
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two. 
“Your boyfriend is late.”
“He’s not my boyfriend,” you hiss at Yeji while staring at Minho’s contact on your phone anxiously. There’s no reason for you to be; worst-case scenario, you can just take the 0325 home and lock him outside for the night so that he’ll have no choice but to endure Chan’s embarrassing sleeping habits. He wouldn’t even notice either way because he’d be too busy swearing in his sleep to be annoyed. 
Yeji puts her hair up into a ponytail after stretching her limbs tiredly. She only has one class today and no choice but to stay on campus for her shift at the café before lunch break. Too bad Woojin can’t cover her today because of midterms. “I’m only speaking facts,” she tells you with a yawn and notices the slight pout on your face. “Hey, don’t be sad just because your stupid boyfriend can’t pick you up. I can call Chaeryeong if you need a ride here and there, she wouldn’t mind.”
“I’m not fucking sad!”
“Y/N, you look more depressed than Ryujin when she got a B+ in calc.” That’s irrelevant, Shin Ryujin already has a GPA booster after signing up for Kim’s stats class, one B+ won’t make it any less sparkly.
You only let out a prolonged sigh after checking your phone for the tenth time in the past half an hour. He isn’t picking up any of your calls, your messages probably can’t even reach him and now you’re sitting at M.I.A Cafe with a cup of plain water after standing outside at the front gate for so long like an idiot. An idiot, who’s hopelessly in love with her roommate- wait what? 
Listen, you already know that this is going to happen. It’s awfully inevitable and it’s getting harder and harder as the days pass by because summer is almost here. Meaning, Minho’s gonna move out soon, according to the contract. 
Are you sad about that? 
Yeah, kinda.
The more you think about it the more you regret your decision that day to let him stay with you. Because now you don’t think you’d be able to sleep without him next to you, hogging the blanket all to himself; you get angsty when he’s not home even if he’s just at dance practice; you’re definitely getting way too used to sharing an earphone with him while you both are dreading your assignments silently at the kitchen counter. And now you’re getting nervous just because he’s thirty minutes late. He’s never late, not even to your Monday Movie Night where you both can pig out and binge-watch the Avatar: The Last Airbender series until you’re sick of it. 
Maybe you’re relying on him too much. Hypothetically speaking, it’s not his fault for the damage of your car but you’re just making excuses to be with him. You even set him as your emergency contact. It’s kinda tedious to be your roommate, you realize. All of those things aren’t mandatory and he can simply mind his own business without having to feel obligated because of the ‘roommates’ label yet he’d still choose you, over everything else. Perhaps he’s dealing with his own first world problems and forgot to leave you a message this time. 
Yeji inquires breezily, wiping a cup dry with a towel, “Also, are you going to BamBam’s party this weekend?”
“For me to carry your ass home after getting shitfaced and sit through another two-hour lecture from Lia? I’ll pass thank you very much.”
She indicates with a quirk of her perfectly dark brow, “What if I tell you that Minho’s gonna be there?” Now she sounds like she’s the one who’s crushing on Lee Minho and not you. Never knew that your friends can be this creepy but the more you learn… “Jisung just told me he found a plus one aka Mister Celebrity to attend that frat party with, you wouldn’t have the heart to let me be the loner right?” she pouts with her nose scrunched and it reminds you too much of Light Fury so you look away, knowing that you wouldn’t stand a goddamn chance if she kept this up.
“How is that my problem?” you merely roll your eyes, slightly annoyed. “And also, isn’t Jisung supposed to have his marketing class now?”
Yeji doesn’t give a damn about what on Earth Han Jisung is doing with his life so she just brushes your question off. “Would you let Minho drink irresponsibly?”
You nod without hesitation, though it feels wrong coming out of your mouth, “He can do whatever he wants...as long as my carpet remains clean after his hangover.”
“Would you let me drink irresponsibly?”
“The same goes for you,” you tell her monotonously. “And I only picked you up because Lia sounded like she was hyperventilating when you attended that one law brat’s birthday party. Na Jaemin, wasn’t it? Hate that guy, by the way.”
Yeji thinks it’s time for you to open up even more and not despise people that much. Having Lee Minho as your roommate is already a huge step-up but it’s not like there have been any modifications to your routine except the fact that another human being is simply enduring your bitchy ass of a loner. She wants you to be really out there, just not messing with shit like doing keg stands because Seo Changbin is a terrible influence. Woojin once had to drop his shift at the sushi place to drive Jeongin home because Changbin left him hanging on the beanbag chair for a game of beer pong. Jeongin has never gone to another single party since. 
“You hate literally everyone!” Yeji’s getting impatient, you can feel it.
“Are you telling me it’s my fault that people are shitty?” you bark, massaging the sides of your temple tiredly. You wish you could just drop the entirety of your current presentation to Yeji because your brain cells are already evaporating one by one into thin air.
She barks back, merely sneering, “C’mon! Y/N, it’s not like you ever have plans for the weekend.”
“But I’m having midterms on Monday, I didn’t spend my time on those notes for nothing.”
She shakes her head at you almost in disapproval. Sure, you’re a coward for backing out on this because BamBam’s no stranger to you. That Thai kid has been hanging out with Chan since middle school and he always offers to buy you coffee whenever you happen to drop by as they’re working on a project together. He’s a nice guy, but you don’t know him that well. Something in your gut is telling you that he has weird friends (he totally does). And you’re not about to overdrink only to blurt out an awful confession to Minho while being surrounded by a bunch of crackheads that aren’t in your social sphere.
“I heard kids are vapi-” Yeji stops herself, thinking she should just give up, and get ready for the next batch of sleep-deprived customers coming in at lunch break before Jeongin chucks an avocado at her direction for chit-chatting too much about your gigantic crush on Minho. “Nevermind, it’s not like you’d care anyway, have fun with reviewing I guess.” And with that, she leaves you alone with the cup of plain water to dump the used coffee grounds in the trash.
It takes you at least ten seconds to comprehend what she just said. And you’ve come up with a new yet very last-minute decision: screw midterm because you’re making sure that Lee Minho’s going home in one piece. 
Very timely, your phone buzzes on the wooden counter.
[10:38 AM]
lino | hey you still on campus?
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three.
The blush scattered across your cheekbones just grows ten shades darker when you see Minho at the front gate leaning against his black Kawasaki; disheveled hair, hands stuffed inside his pockets, occasional puffs of smoke escaping his lips, and unbothered gaze. You’ve never told him this, you’re not telling him this now, and you’re never gonna tell him; but he looks stupidly good in that biker jacket. Again, you don’t get how someone can look this good early in the morning. 
“What are you doing here?” you murmur grimly, approaching him from behind. It feels like he’s doing this to your heart on purpose, without even trying. And those girls over there are making you very uncomfortable by eyeing your roommate up and down like he’s an expensive piece of steak with a gold leaf sticking to it.
Minho turns sideways and flashes you a smile; your little heart just did a perfect cartwheel because of that, it can only take so much. “Sorry, I kinda lost track of time, but I still promised to pick you up, didn’t I?” he says casually as your face morphs into a deep frown because you’re basically confused. The only problem is: you don’t even know why you’re confused. There’s this fluttering feeling at the pit of your stomach and now you feel as though someone just gives you a blow to the head when Minho looks straight into your eyes, brows slightly knitted together.
This is not healthy. 
“You didn’t answer my calls or my texts.”
Minho thinks you look cuter than usual when you’re silently fuming because you’re not the type to lash out on people. But it’s not so cute anymore when you threatened to flush his AirPods down the toilet that one time when he spilled ketchup on your carpet. He just hopes he doesn’t end up sleeping on the couch tonight like last time. 
“I put my phone on silent, as always,” he reminds you of how much of a pain in the ass it is to receive a call-back or a simple reply from him. 
You make a face, “Whatever, didn’t I tell you not to make a scene? Have you seen those chicks back there? They’re watching me as if I’m sabotaging their dreams of eating you alive.” Well, you can’t exactly blame your roommate for having girls gushing over him wherever he goes because...it’s his fault for looking like a snack all the time. 
Minho quickly detects how you’re not overly fond of his admirers and needless to say, he’s fairly amused. “Then let them,” he puts an arm over your shoulders and pulls you flushed against him, ruffling your hair. Moments later, you’re already hearing scandalous gasps along with hushed whispers going through your eardrums like a never-ending train. It’s really setting your nerves on fire. 
“Don’t you think that this is weird?”
“What?” Now it’s Minho who’s confused here. 
You slightly push him away and avert your gaze elsewhere to avoid eye contact. “We’re roommates, right?” you mumble, slightly unsure about...all of this. 
“Hmm, what about it?”
“Well, I don’t know…” you fiddle with the hem of your jacket and sigh. “What if people keep getting the wrong idea about us?” You sound somewhat regretful as if your decision of taking him in as your roommate was a mistake, as if you feel like it’s better off if he wasn’t in your life at all, as if the past month was completely meaningless. Since when did things become this complicated? It started with a harmless one-month contract and now Minho’s not sure of what he should do next. But that’s not it, is it? Maybe he’s just overthinking too much. 
He looks hesitant for a moment there, very not-Lee-Minho of him. “We’re still cool right?” Minho tilts his head to the side, the afternoon sunlight slips through fluffs of white clouds and brings the constellations in his warm brown eyes to life. Though he looks like a scolded child, you can’t help but want to put this moment into a frame and simply cherish it for the rest of your life. 
“Beats me,” you breathe out, silently hating yourself for not being able to get angry at him. It’s harder than you thought, really, and it doesn’t help when his eyes keep doing that thing to your poor little heart. “Make me pasta and we’re good,” you end up chuckling when Minho’s expression turns a solid three hundred and sixty at the offer.
“That’s not a very smart move for a business major, your loss,” he replies with a goofy smile, tossing the helmet that he got you yesterday in your direction. And if you pay attention enough, you can almost see Minho exhaling out of relief. But you’re too busy staring at the ground to douse yourself in your own giddiness to notice. “Oh crap, I think I left my wallet at Hyunjin’s,” he tells you after swinging a leg over on his shiny vehicle. 
You narrow your eyes at him, “You don’t need your wallet to make me pasta now do you?”
“By the way, are you going to BamBam’s party?”
“Only if you’re going,” you scratch the bridge of your nose with your ring finger, a little embarrassed to admit that he’s the only reason why you’re ditching midterms. 
Minho’s hearty laugh fills your eardrums, shit-eating grin and all. “If it makes you feel better, Chan’s driving us,” he voices without looking at you, but your chest still swells either way. 
You fucking hate how you have the softest spot for him. 
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four.
You’re already regretting this although you’ve only been sitting in Chan’s back seats for less than twenty minutes. Crankiness takes over your body as a result of reviewing for the whole afternoon, your eyelids are getting droopy, and your head seems to be all too big for your neck at this rate. More reasons for you to not drink tonight. 
“Ugh, why am I even here?” you groan, and Jisung scrunches his nose, slightly alarmed because you’re not usually this loud unless you’re high on caffeine. 
Minho tells you in the most lighthearted way possible, “Because you love me.” 
You wish you could just put his head through a wall because everything and anything coming out of his mouth are never healthy for your mind, or heart. “Uhm, no I don’t.”
“But you did confess your love to me,” he singsongs as if he just hit a jackpot with his lottery ticket, angling his head to toss you a wink. “I have receipts, ma’am. They’re right here, in my heart.” Minho’s never seen you so giddy before so he recorded everything, but he’s not planning on putting himself on a chopping block by telling you that. 
You shove his arm and purse your lips, flaming cheeks but the car’s too dark for him to see it. “I was sick, asshole, I talk shit more when I have a fever than when I’m drunk,” you defend yourself helplessly, not enjoying the fact that he had to bring it up when you’re in a confined space with Seo Changbin and Han Jisung. 
“Minho doesn’t like it when Y/N raises her voice.” Great, now he’s talking in third person. 
“What are you even? Four?”
He winks at you, “Baby me, baby.”
“Oh my god shut the fuck up and get away from me!”
“You’ll never get rid of me, baby.” Eventually, you give up because you’re too mentally exhausted and there’s still a long night ahead of you. You’re not wasting your energy in pointless arguments with him because you both yell at each other on a daily basis anyway. 
“Maybe he’ll zip it if you tell him that you love him,” Jisung suggests innocently with a not-so-innocent look on his face. He’s already acting dumb when he’s this fucking sober so you’re not looking forward to two hours later when vodka’s practically replaced his own blood. 
“I’d rather chew off my own foot.” Changbin snorts involuntarily at your stiff remark, Chan mutters a small ‘ouch’ while Jisung’s too busy laughing his ass off. And a demeaning silence descends after that. 
Minho’s right next to you, oddly unresponsive to the situation, his head leaning against your shoulder as he gazes dejectedly out the window. You don’t see how stormy his eyes are. He also misses his motorcycle tremendously because Chan’s the safest (slowest) driver to ever exist. No joke, if he keeps going at the pace of thirty miles per hour then you should just skip the party and watch a movie while getting drunk at his place altogether. 
“Can you go any fucking slower?”
“Excuse me?” Chan laughs in disbelief, he’s a little offended because he personally thinks he’s a good driver, maybe a little bit too obedient when it comes to the law. Hey, at least you know you’re in good hands. “I’m not trying to get us all killed before BamBam could poison one of you guys.” 
Jisung purses his lips as he’s reminded of the last party where he ran into that Thai dude. He gave him a plastic cup, telling him that it’s merely a harmless fruity vodka only for Jisung to get kicked out by an Uber driver after throwing up in the back seats. Turns out, the lemons and oranges in the cocktail were relatively spoilt. 
“I’m gonna die from boredom before we could even get into a car accident,” Minho informs him unconstructively, staring at some random notifications from Instagram of people commenting on his cats’ photos, text messages from his mom and swipes them all away. Mostly to chuckle to himself like a moron because of his lock screen. Yes, your stupid face is still on there after three weeks and you don’t know if you should be crying or laughing.
Chan narrows his eyes at the rear-view mirror, “It seems like you’re entertaining yourself just fine by looking at Y/N’s face.” 
“This photo does make me laugh because it’s priceless,” the younger boy states without turning his head to look at you. “But still, bored.” 
The car grows silent again soon after because Chan’s already been stressed out enough from traffic since clearly, people can’t drive to save their own lives. But it’s not like your friends can keep their mouths shut for the rest of the trip anyway. 
“Boreddd,” Minho voices randomly while a J.One’s song is blasting through the speaker. It’s a terribly soft song and it doesn’t help when Minho feels like he can downright sleep through an earthquake, potentially falling into an enormous crack on the Earth’s surface and still being able to nap like there’s no tomorrow. He’s just glad that Jisung grew out of ‘Wow’ and embraces his awkward self through his own music. It’s..sentimental but what’s a J.One song without that element?
Changbin looks up from his phone for half a second, wholly uninterested. “Then shut up and sleep,” he says expressionlessly. Very timely, his most recent track comes up next on the playlist and he starts rapping along with it. Minho thinks he can really use a good eye shut as SpearB is performing live right behind him because Changbin can only stay sober like this for so long until he gets his hands on one of BamBam’s sketchy-looking concoctions. 
You’re starting to get bored too at this rate because usually, during times like this when the car is filled with nothing but music and everyone (except for the driver) feels like they’re falling into a food coma, a certain idiot will—
“Y/N, don’t you have a midterm on Monday?” Ah, there it is. 
Jisung bends himself forward and drapes an arm over the leather seat, scrunching his nose at the sight of Minho sleeping soundly against your shoulder. He’s still bitter about the fact that Minho refuses to drive anyone other than you with his motorcycle for some reason. Exclusive things are always so annoying. 
You exhale deeply because Jisung reminds you of that one kid who always asks questions that stress the hell out of the teachers back in high school. Would it kill for him to just shut up once in a while? 
“I do, and I haven’t got a wink of sleep since yesterday afternoon,” you tell him rather lazily, shifting when Minho snuggles himself closer to you, his hair tickling your jawline. You pray he doesn’t know how fast your heart is beating. “A little alcohol might spare me a night of crying myself to sleep.” 
Jisung lets his bottom lip stuck out like he’s a fucking five-year-old not allowed to get his favorite ice-cream flavor. “Aww, you should have asked Minho for cuddles then, pretty sure he’d be more than happy to—,” he remarks sarcastically and you wish you could just throw him in the middle of an intersection. He’s lucky because Minho’s a heavy sleeper or he would have been knocked senseless or something. The last thing Chan needs is being forced to pull over for having wild animals wrestle the shit out of each other in his vehicle. 
“Hey, fuck off,” you snarl at him, knowing you should have chosen the passenger seat instead. That way, you wouldn’t be fuming inside because you can’t physically strangle Han Jisung to his imminent death. He has already tattooed that image into the back of your brain and you swear you’ve never heard a creepier chuckle from your friend. 
Jisung notices the coral tint on your cheeks and sneers, leaning back against his seat. “Yeah right, as if you’re actually gonna get drunk,” he says snarkily. “You’re just gonna be there to prevent Lee Minho from making bad decisions.” 
“I decided to come because Yeji wanted me-“
“Yeji who? In what world will you have time for her when you’re too busy staring at Minho like a total creep? Wanna bet ten bucks?” 
That’s bullshit because Lee Minho is already your entire world. 
Chan butts in, “Make that fifty.”
Changbin raises his hand, “I’d bet my Tesla.” Your friends really spelled out ‘a bunch of fucking clowns’ in bold, gigantic capital letters and you’re this close to facepalm yourself against Chan’s steering wheel. This is why you don’t go to parties with them that often because you’re stuck with cleanup duties with Seungmin until these crackheads grow out of their amateur drinking habits. 
“You’re just jealous because he would rather call you an Uber than give you a lift himself,” you say pointedly and Jisung lets out the loudest, most scandalous gasp. So dramatic. 
“You,” he jabs a finger at you, eyes wide in accusation. “Need a nap.”
You laugh dryly, ignoring the urge to snap a picture of his flabbergasted expression and turn it into a new meme for your group chat. “You don’t say, Han, you don’t say.”
And Changbin rolls his eyes over the moon, vividly picturing where this disastrous conversation is gonna go. Basically, he wants you to get shitfaced as soon as you step foot into BamBam’s house so he’ll have a sappy, drunk confession video to toss on Twitter tonight because Woojin just posted a picture of him with a drumstick dipped inside a glass of what looks like a watered-down Margarita. He’s highly concerned since there hasn’t been anything juicy on his feed other than his friends creeping people out with their questionable content. 
“If you two don’t end up getting drunk and kiss, I’m gonna be pissed,” Changbin says casually as if it’s just an afterthought. This prompts you to chuck your phone in his direction—you can care less about your screen protector at this point if it means stopping him from taunting you further. 
He asserts like a snake, “Hey, remember that time where you tripped over Kkami and totally crushed Minho under your weight?”
“I blame gravity for that.”
“But Albert Einstein said you can’t blame gravity for falling in love.”
“Who cares about Albert Einstein?!” you whisper-shout harshly, cautiously eyeing Minho’s sleeping figure. He scrunches his nose and murmurs something that you can’t quite hear before turning over to face you completely. His arms unexpectedly slip underneath yours like second nature. He furrows his eyebrows occasionally, other times he’d be grinning like an idiot and his lips are slightly agape, full eyelashes framing his eyes beautifully. Sometimes you wonder how weird his dreams are whenever you caught him talking (and cursing) in his slumber. 
Changbin wants to pry aloud when you start staring at Minho for too long; he might as well be tossed on the freeway at this point before exasperation squeezes the little amount of oxygen left out of his chest. This is worse than Hyunjin’s terrible rom coms. He props his head onto his hand in boredom as Chan pulls over and turns off the engine. “Hey we’re here, why not wake your prince up with a kiss—”
“I’m gonna kick your ass,” you threaten. 
Now there are two distasteful tattoos at the back of your head. And you will not hesitate for a heartbeat sacrificing the entirety of your bank account to get them removed. To get Lee Minho removed from your mind.
If only it were that easy.  
“Mhmm,” the figure beside you lets out a low grunt and hugs your arm closer instinctively. His warmth seeps through the fabric of your denim jacket and sets your heart on fire. You’re ready to flick his forehead any second now to interrupt his slumber but before you could even do anything, Seo Changbin aggressively opens the door and you widen your eyes in horror. Where the fuck did he get a megaphone? And what for?
“Bitch wake up! Those drinks aren’t gonna finish themselves!”
It’d be a miracle if you ended up finding him alive by dawn. 
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five.
“Y/N you ass, give it back!
“No, we’ve only been here for three hours and this is your fifth cup already,” you tell her in a mildly serious tone before dumping her cup of whatever the fuck of a yellow substance that Ryujin gave her ten minutes ago into the sink. 
Yeji plops herself onto the sofa in the living room after you drag her out of the kitchen where people are making out on the marble counter. Glad to see nothing’s changed...idiots. “God, you’re such a party pooper, I shouldn’t have told you to come,” she complains in between small hiccups, alcohol tinting her cheeks beet red. 
“I’m here to save your ass and this is how you’re repaying me?” Your question didn’t come out as coherent and threatening as you imagined and every single cell inside your body is shaking for no specific reason. 
Your friend narrows her eyes down into a mere glare like a detective in those crimes shows that you spend way too much time on and you’re debating whether you should be laughing or pissing yourself. She fucking knows that you’re lying. She fucking knows the sole reason for you to be here. “Give me a break, it’s not like you’re doing anything besides staring at your boyfriend from afar,” Yeji scoffs dejectedly. 
“God forbids ‘Lee Minho’ and ‘my boyfriend’ go in the same sentence,” you grit, subconsciously averting your gaze around the living room to spot your roommate. All he’s been doing is being held back by Chan when he tried to murder Changbin once, catching up with his old friends from high school and hanging out with some of his classmates, ranting about how much he dreads Kim’s eight AM, gushing with Hyunjin over some senior’s choreography set. By the looks of it, Jisung must have handed him at least seven of those red party cups from the bar—thanks to BamBam who keeps restocking them every hour. 
Yeji chuckles creepily when the alcohol finally hits her hard, you think you just got chills by the way that she’s leaning closer. “Of course not,” she hiccups into your ear, words slurred, “Lee Minho’s not my boyfriend, he’s your boyfriend.” You look at her in the eye, and mentally regret your life choices. How insufferable. 
“I mean, seriously,” she slams her body back onto the couch and groans; you can’t tell if it’s out of frustration or the cushion is too soft for her back. “It’s like you’re living the life of the main protagonist in a Harry Styles fanfiction! Do you know how many girls and boys would kill to live in the same apartment as that?” Her index finger is pointed directly at the person you’ve been watching and avoiding all night, across the room with a dart in his hand as he stands in front of the dartboard. 
“Were you aiming for the board or were you plotting to kill me? Because I can’t tell! I-can’t-fucking-tell!” Changbin shouts over the music and you momentarily cringe at the crack in his voice; it’s never a college party without one of your friends riling each other up over the dumbest things. And also, who thinks it’s a good idea to lend an unstable Lee Minho a sharp object of any kind?
You look away as heat flares through your nostrils when Minho accidentally glances at you after laughing at some corny joke that Chan made. He’s more than mildly hammered right now, you suppose, because, well, Chan can only make people laugh when they’re exceptionally drunk. 
A stupid question then slips out of your lips. “With what?” It sounds like you only have one brain cell and are perpetually dumb. It makes you feel even dumber when there’s nothing but a can of Coke inside your body. 
“A hottie who dances, cooks, has a good sense of humor, lowkey a genius, highkey a tsundere, shares a name with a famous actor. Far more handsome than the actor himself, if I dare.” Yeji has no hesitation whatsoever naming every reason as to why people on campus shamelessly throw themselves at your roommate on a daily basis. And now your head grows ten times fuzzier, floating mundanely in the clouds above. Basically, you feel like you’re drunk—except your confidence isn’t sky high enough to do something stupid—which makes no absolute sense. 
The silver-haired girl next to you puts an arm around your neck and giggles, you’re highly perturbed that her vocal cords are gonna give in tomorrow when she convinces you through FaceTime that you should be extra careful with your notes since she won’t be showing up to class. “Oh! And he has three cats, right? Cat people are said to be more intuitive and thoughtful, that’s a bonus,” Yeji asserts and your jaw is on the floor at this rate. She doesn’t even spare him a second glance during lunch break and she already knows this much?
No wonder Minho never talked about his cats with Felix and Seungmin again.
“I bet you read that off a Buzzfeed article.” 
“Doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong!”
You inhale and exhale deeply, linking your fingers together, “Yeah, but that’s all people will ever see.”
“Well, what else can they like about him?”
“I don’t know,” you say bluntly, but the rouge on your cheeks is anything but ‘blunt’. “They don’t see how stuck-up he is, how he loves hogging the blanket all to himself, how he secretly stocks up a stash of trashy snacks. They don’t see the way his eyes sparkle when he looks into their eyes during a conversation because he’s actually a very attentive listener.”
Yeji pats your back without turning her head, slightly amused, “I think you meant how he looks into your eyes during a conversation.”
Your eyes scan the room one more time to find Minho hugging his stomach from laughing too much, there are actual tears in his eyes because Changbin just lost a bet and apparently he has to belly flop himself into the pool as a punishment. You haven’t seen him this happy in a while, even when he’s potentially dying from a really bad stomachache but it still puts your heart at ease knowing he’s having fun tonight. 
Needless to say, he always knocks the breath right out of your lungs without much effort. Even when he’s ditched the leather jacket and ripped jeans, you still think no one looks better than him in a large t-shirt and sweatpants. 
“But I don’t get it,” Yeji looks over at you this time, real carefully because your tone just grows firmer and more serious. “How can he just stand there, laugh...and look so beautiful?”
“I told you—”
“Yeah that’s exactly what I need to hear right now, Yeji,” you facepalm almost immediately, highly disappointed in yourself. 
Jisung’s getting his ten dollars on Monday when you surprise him with two slices of cheesecake from his favorite dessert place. Changbin can keep his Tesla and Chan...Chan isn’t getting anything.
You push yourself off the blue velvet couch and groan, you’re getting sore quickly because the cushions are far too soft. “Let me get some fresh air, I feel like I’m gonna to lose my mind,” you tell your friend but you doubt that she caught it since the music is all too loud for students to communicate properly. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why fistfights during parties are a thing. 
“Uhm, wait,” Yeji tugs onto your sleeve and jerks her head towards the direction of Minho. “I’m sorry but what the hell does your boyfriend want now?”
“Huh where—“
Like..three feet away. Or a whole lot closer. 
“Why didn’t you answer my texts?” And you find Minho standing in front of you with his arms crossed stubbornly, eyebrows knitted together and tinted pink cheeks. He looks a little pissed off, and you don’t think you’re both on the same page here. 
When you give him a ‘what do you mean’ look, your roommate feels the need to unlock his phone and jab his index finger against his poor crusty screen as he shows you at least fifty messages that he’s been spamming in the last half an hour. This reminds you of the yellow Post-It note that Minho violently smacked onto your fridge the very night when he first moved in. 
‘I hereby fucking declare that if we did end up going to the same party (doubt btw), we would keep our phones with us 25/8 so one can save the other’s ass from stupid decisions— lee minho’ he wrote. Minho knows all too well the only ass that needs to be saved is his. And you’ve thought about taking the note down several times but you don’t think you’d have the heart to. 
“Oh,” your head draws a blank canvas and you look for your phone in your pocket. But then, “I left my phone in Chan’s car.”
Minho rolls his eyes at you and decides that he’s too impatient to wait for Chan to sober up and remember where he left his keys. “Whatever,” he manages to crack a small smile, one that shines through the dimmed LED light on the ceiling and makes your heart stuck in your throat. “Let’s get out of here, I have something to tell you.” 
“Hey hey hey,” Yeji tries to get up from the couch but her limbs are too wobbly. “You can’t just tap out all of a sudden and steal her from me like that. Don’t even think for a minute you second rate—”
“Yeah, no, she’s mine.”
You’re downright baffled. But you’re not sure if it’s because of what he said ten seconds ago and your heart is going haywire, your brain cells are giving in on you or it’s because he’s tugging you by the wrist and piloting you through the impending chaos of sloppy college students. 
You’re not sure if you want to know. You’re not sure if you’re ready. 
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six.
Fall arrives sooner than you thought and it almost makes you miss summer. Though you didn’t really have anything exciting besides an internship that refrained you from living on YouTube for too long. 
The evening is oddly cold, but you’ve never had a problem with the tips of your fingers growing chilly. It’s different tonight—it’s the kind of coldness that slips through your flesh and into your bones, coming in contact with the thumping force of your heart, causing it to shiver. There’s nothing to do but keep your gaze straight forward, your feet moving on their own with the one and only goal of heading home. Clouds with the murky color of wet ashes pass by, and the ground as its dank reflection—a reminder of how humanity is ruining the planet. 
The streets are so quiet and tranquil; you’re afraid that Minho might be able to hear your heartbeat. Now you’re pointing a finger at society in accusation because it’s the weekend yet no elder couples are taking their night strolls, no middle-aged ladies in fluffy jackets are walking their spoiled teacups dogs and no wasted college students are roaming the streets with ‘trouble’ spelled out on their forehead. Really, you’d rather stare at people in a creepy way and zone out than constantly thinking about Lee Minho when he’s right beside you. 
This is terribly suffocating and you don’t think if you can keep this up in the next thirty minutes until both of you get home and melt into the comfort of your bed. 
“Sober up, Mister Celebrity, that’s too much fun for tonight.” Minho winces slightly when you press a can of cold green tea against his cheeks as he’s about to doze off on the wooden bench next to the vending machine. While he’s taking a swig, you feel a silent obligation to take a seat but your eyes are determinedly fixed on the curb. 
The bench suddenly feels far too big and the night breeze is far too cold for Minho’s liking, so he shifts his body closer, fingers brushing over yours and sending electricity down your spine. “What do you mean?” he scoffs, finding it hard to not look at you so his gaze is temporarily glued onto the can of green tea in his palms. “Tonight was nothing compared to Jisung’s birthday.” He can still feel the remaining warmth from your hands, it makes him wonder how it’d feel to actually hold them. 
“Ugh, god,” you shake your head in disbelief, internally cringing. “Don’t even remind me.”
You still don’t know what Hyunjin fed him that day to the point he couldn’t remember what happened. All hell broke loose Felix posted a video of him pretending to be a stupid ostrich and trying to do a mating dance towards Jisung on Twitter. No one dares to talk about that scarred video since. Now that he’s reminded you of it, you wish you didn’t own brain cells in the first place. This is why the internet is scary. 
“What is it that you wanted to tell me anyway?” 
Minho stops for a second at your question and places his beverage down on the bench. He stares distantly at the space ahead as if he’s fighting with himself inside his own head, seriously contemplating something. It’s come to your attention that this isn’t very like his usual self. Minho never hesitates for a second when he has something in mind. Even when he knows that you might rip his head off.
He exhales deeply, turns his head, and makes direct eye contact with you for what seems like an eternity. His eyes are as wide open and honest as a child’s, they possess something so much more the longer you stare at them. A warmth, safety. Your heart is gonna combust if he doesn’t get this over with soon. 
Then, “I think I forgot to put yeast in the batter.” Wait what?
“Minho!” you punch his arm, earning a low grunt from the blond-haired boy. “Don’t fucking scare me like that!” He’s looking at you as though your eyes are turning red with rage and smoke is coming out of your ears, scared for his own life but truthfully, you’re just relieved. Surprisingly. 
“Wait, so you’re not mad?” he asks you with a wide-eyed expression, trying way too hard to keep a straight face. “Aren’t we supposed to bring homemade bread for the get together at the nursing home tomorrow?”
“Old people still enjoy Bingo for some reason, they can have that instead of bread.” His mouth forms a small ‘o’ as he scoots closer to you and you can tell that he reeks off alcohol, which is making you a little dizzy. When your gaze falls elsewhere but Lee Minho, you attempt to appear casual, “But if you wanna bake so badly, I can still pull an all-nighter and start over with you.” That was doable, but you could have done better—should have sounded like you didn’t really care. 
Minho flings his bangs away from his face and tosses his head back, chuckling breathlessly. “Don’t you have a midterm to stress over instead of me? I don’t want you to pick out every single strand of hair on your head after baking with me.” He finally said something nice once in a while, you sorta appreciate it. “It’d be embarrassing when my parents FaceTime me and see you as bald as my great grandfather.” Nevermind, he’s still the same old jerk. 
“You don’t have to be embarrassed, you’ll be moving out in two weeks, either way, right?” Your tone sounds sad and grim all of a sudden; it really dampens the atmosphere because Minho is now looking at you with concern laced in his brown eyes. “Look, I get that it’s bothersome to be my roommate so there’s no need to feel bad. I’ll be fine going back to my old life where my feet don’t get cold in the middle of the night because no one would be there to hog the blanket anymore.”
Minho feels the need to clear things up here. “I never said anything about moving out,” he grabs you by the shoulders and hopes you could just look at him when he’s being serious for once. “Y/N, who even said anything about moving out? Was it the landlord?”
“No,“ you say, still not willing to face him directly. You’re such a coward. 
“If so, why would I move out? Did I do something wrong? Did I piss you off or something?”
You’re trying so hard not to snap at this point. “No!”
“Then why can’t you just fucking look at me?!”
“You’re still drunk, let me buy you another—“
Minho shakes you forcefully, hoping to knock some common sense into that brain of yours. “For fuck’s sake, I’m not drunk!” he cries helplessly, not caring about the fact that he’s waking up every cat possible in the neighborhood. “Just- just look at me, will you?”
You stubbornly keep your eyes anywhere but him. “Why would I look at your stupid face?”
“Don’t bullshit me, Y/N. You’re not usually like this.”
Every single cell inside your body quivers simultaneously when he says so—good god, no, he’s testing you. Minho knows something’s off. Now to think about it again, you’d rather let him dirty your carpet than being put on trial like this.
“You wanna know why I’m acting like this? It’s because of you! You’re making me nervous! It’s your fault for making me feel this way!”
“What?” he blurts, eyes blinking numerous times in disbelief. “What did I ever do to you?”
“God, Minho, you can’t possibly be this dense. Tell me, that you’ve never, not even once, seen me turning beet red when you simply look at me in the eye. Or when you’re just sitting there, laughing your ass off about something stupid. It makes my heart flutter, okay? You make my heart flutter. Do you know how much of an effect you can have on me? You don’t go around juggling with others’ feelings like that,” your voice grows smaller and smaller towards the end until there’s nothing but an oddly comfortable silene floating midair. A sense of relief washes over you; you unknowingly exhale.
Minho stares at you in awe for a moment there, until he also speaks up for himself. “Maybe you should take your own advice,” he almost snickers, and this causes you to peel your gaze away from a random bush to gawk at his response. “You’re telling me to not go around juggling with others’ feelings? If anything, you’re the one who keeps messing with my heart. What am I supposed to do? Not get drunk so that I won’t be able to get away for doing dumb things?”
“What dumb things?”
“I don’t know, kiss you?”
“Fuck, you can’t get away with it this time now, can you?”
You’re already regretting this and there’s no turning back. Because when Minho subconsciously runs his tongue over his bottom lips, you’re already fighting the rouge spreading on your cheekbones. He shortens the distance between your heads until your lips are practically a breath away from his. Impatient, you grab a fistful of his shirt to smash your lips against his. Minho stays frozen for a nanosecond, taken aback by your boldness before pulling you closer by the waist. You’re hesitant at first, but he guides you through it, telling you that it’s okay by embracing you more tightly. Dear god, Minho’s kissing you and the world just falls away. It’s slow, comforting in ways that words can never be. He slackens his jaw to deepen the kiss, smiling into it when giddiness bubbles up inside his stomach. 
The world still feels like it’s spinning when he parts away, an alcoholic taste mixed with the green tea ghosts your lips, and your face grows ten times hotter. Even in this cracked darkness, Minho sees you blush hard and is fully aware that his cheeks are mirroring yours—he doesn’t even bother to convince himself that it’s from the alcohol, because it isn’t. 
“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Minho questions though his breath is still a bit shaky from the kiss. He really didn’t lie when he said that he could never stop bothering you. 
You can’t help but smile at him brightly; this causes his heartbeat to spike inside his chest. “Well, do I have to?” He shakes his head and stares down at your hands until he musters up every strand of courage left to finally intertwine them with his own. Fits like a glove. 
“Come on, let’s go home,” he tells you softly, eyes crinkling into a pretty crescent moon shape. But you stop him right there when he attempts to stand up and wordlessly lean your forehead against his. Minho understands that you simply need a moment so you both hover right there, simply melting into each other’s touch. But what you say next just makes the ignited passion inside his heart flare-up. He’s at a loss for words, utterly speechless. 
“I am home.”
“Welcome home then, Y/N,” Minho whispers.
Everything feels like a dream that you’d never want to wake up from. His hands are clasped on either side of your face, resting just below the lobes of your ears. His thumbs gently caress your cheeks so that you won’t drift away, your breaths mingling. Never before has your own name made your heart flutter. But you guess it’s only because Minho said it. You do know that it’s not an afterthought, nor out of impulse. It’s a promise, for whatever’s coming your way on this path, he’s never gonna leave you behind. And the moment he feels that thing beating inside his chest is in sync with yours, he slowly leans in again.
Albert Einstein once said you can’t blame gravity for falling in love. And you have every right to argue with him in the afterlife because you’ve confirmed that Minho is your gravity. Gravity keeps you grounded, always get a hold of you so that you won’t ever have to wander off too far away. It’s there for you but it doesn’t have to act like it cares. Minho’s kinda like that too—he picked you up every time you said you’re good walking home, he only stocked up the stash of candies to secretly feed your midnight cravings. They only differ so much where his heartbeat for you is loud, undaunted and he loves you fearlessly; nothing shall meddle with his feelings for you as long as the way your eyes light up when they meet his doesn’t change. 
Before you met Minho, you didn’t know that it was possible to just look at someone and smile for no reason. The way his lips curl up when he smiles, his sarcastic remarks, his kindhearted nature though he’s awfully good at hiding it. That’s what people do when they’re in love, they say—to fawn over the littlest things but they’re what makes you fall so hard for him. But as time passes by, you’ve learned that it’s actually quite nice to be in love with someone. Because then, you get to spend your time and effort on their happiness as well, not just your own. In exchange, that person is capable of bringing colors to your dull world, tearing down your walls, and showing you just how beautiful life can be. Surely, Minho might not stay by your side forever in this crazy game of Monopoly but you’d risk it all for him even if the sky comes crashing and the universe turns upside down. 
After all, you can’t love alone. 
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blossom-hwa · 4 years
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hello 🕴 please talk about bloom jisung promising no harm to mc if she steps into his ring bcs that scene still makes me ascend dfhsdjk
AHHH idk how I only just saw this but HHHHHHHHHH I COULD TALK ABOUT THIS SCENE ALL DAY
I answered a more general ask about Bloom here but YES. I LOVE THIS SCENE. I FUCKING LOVE THIS SCENE I WOULD TALK ABOUT IT FOR HOURS IF I COULD. everything’s going to be under the cut because SPOILERS but ENJOY
Okay so I briefly talked about this scene in that other ask I mentioned but as I said, I don’t remember exactly how the scene came to mind? Bloom takes place in sort of an imaginary countryside and it’s definitely inspired by the very limited knowledge I have of fae lore from Europe, so at some point I guess I thought of May Day celebrations! The village in Bloom doesn’t call it that, but the name is mentioned :) and I thought hey, mc wouldn’t participate in the spring festival celebrations if she was shunned by society all the time - so what if she spent that day with her fae instead?
Idk. I’m a sucker for describing dance scenes or almost dance scenes, in this case, because the buildup to that moment where mc agrees to enter the ring was more important than what would happen once they actually danced. At first, I thought of this scene as something that would be kind of a happier respite from the previous few scenes of angst, but as I was outlining what would happen, I realized it would take a huge amount of faith for mc to trust any promise that Jisung would make, and then this scene really started taking shape in my mind. 
Originally, I wanted the whole spring festival scene to be in mc’s POV. I thought it would be better to give insight into her apprehensions, to show her thoughts jumping between the desire to be happy for a day in her life and the wariness she (rightly) has of Jisung. However, I ended up splitting the spring festival into two POVs, first mc and then Jisung, because I thought that mc’s POV had already been shown a lot. The wariness is easy for readers to understand, especially given that fae are naturally trickster creatures and it’s been mentioned multiple times already that stepping into the ring means that fae has power over you. But to show that Jisung has no intentions of harm, to show that he really, truly, cares for mc and doesn’t want to hurt her, would be something different. This scene is one of Jisung’s chances throughout the story to prove himself. 
This isn’t to say we don’t get a glimpse into what mc’s thinking, based off of Jisung’s observation of her facial expressions, her clear apprehension, her movements. The fact that she ends up entering the ring, to me, speaks a lot more about her thoughts than what I could have done by showing her perspective throughout the entire scene. That one movement is very telling of her internal monologue - she has settled on trust. 
(Note that this trust is still very conditional. While I’m not saying that other instances of trust in Bloom aren’t conditional, for example mc only gives her name to Jisung because he gives her his, this one demonstrates that even though mc is giving some measure of her trust to Jisung, she still does not have full faith that he is genuine. In the name-giving scene, the power of a name is so great that to give - not to say ‘you can call me’ or ‘you may know me by’ but to give - one’s name must be matched by another in order to maintain the balance of power. The fact that both parties are willing to give their names to each other is extremely significant, and that’s why I do not factor mc’s suspicion into that exchange. There are other exchanges of trust, like when mc runs into the ring while being chased, trusting that Jisung will be there to help her, but if I kept talking about this we’d be here all day LMAO and this ask is long enough as it is)
Jisung makes his promise very carefully, wording it in a way that extends his protection to her for as long as she needs, but also in a way that mc, even as clever as she is, would probably not notice the nuance behind his words. At the time, I didn’t think of this, but maybe it was brewing in my subconscious - even though Jisung knows mc doesn’t completely trust him at the moment, he is laying the stones of the foundation of that trust so that perhaps later in their story, mc will realize that he is genuine, and that he has been genuine. 
I loved writing the lines where Jisung struggles with his promise. Here, he is quite sure he loves mc, though he doesn’t completely accept this until some unwritten moment after the dance (as explained in the last scene of the story). If he were still the reckless, drunk-on-power fae he used to be, he would have asked for mc’s love without a thought (though you have to wonder if he’d be capable of such love at that point in his life, given how little he understood it). But the monologue he goes through demonstrates how he has grown since then. Love is not something that can be taken away, something he learned from his experience with Hyunjin and his cloud nymph. It can’t be coerced or threatened - as he says, "A heart must be given, not taken.” That is why he asks for mc’s happiness, and not even happiness for the rest of her life, which he knows is almost impossible. He only asks for her to be happy, genuinely happy, for the rest of the day. And he is speaking the truth, the plain, blatant truth when he tells mc that her happiness will bring him his, because he has realized that’s essentially the definition of love, no? When one person’s happiness brings you your own. 
I just think it’s so emotional when Jisung finally feels the touch of a living creature that is not one of the tricksters of the fae realm. As part of his punishment, he’s gone centuries without the kind touch of another. I thought it was a perfect note to end on - any more and the scene would’ve been ruined, in my opinion. Jisung has laid out how he feels. Mc has decided to give Jisung a measure of her trust. And now, Jisung gets to feel the touch of someone who has finally decided to trust him after all these centuries of berating and doubting and reflecting on himself. Even though it isn’t full faith yet, Jisung and mc are on their way there, and I really think that’s beautiful :)
WOW there was a lot to unpack in that scene and honestly I applaud you if you got this far :) Thank you furat for sending this in I LOVE YOU. 
tl,dr: this scene is very important to me because it has the first significant moment where mc decides to trust Jisung (even though it isn’t full trust yet), we see Jisung’s internal monologue that demonstrate how far he’s come from his assholery with hyunjin, and Jisung begins to lay the foundations of the love that blooms throughout the rest of the story :)
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ralphmorgan-blog1 · 7 years
Text
Raqqa: Secret video shows ISIS losing chokehold on its ‘capital’
(CNN)At first, the video shows a seemingly normal urban life -- men and women shopping in the streets, with steady traffic passing by them.
For this is not any normal city -- this is Raqqa, the heart of ISIS's attempt to build its own state or caliphate. And it is crumbling.
Just the fact that activists filmed the secret footage now obtained exclusively by CNN is perhaps the most telling sign that the self-proclaimed capital of a reign of terror is coming to an end.
For years, anyone caught with such material would have been killed by ISIS. Phones and cameras were banned, confiscated and so-called perpetrators punished in barbaric ways.
Now it seems there is less fear, and the opponents are able to do what was once unthinkable -- to show us life in Raqqa as US-backed and other Syrian forces encircle the city in the long attempt to end ISIS.
And the many scenes that we see show a ruling group as they are -- often confused, sometimes vain. We also see civilians becoming more brave, even brazen as they challenge their oppressors. This is a city that can smell its liberation.
Why Raqqa matters
Scenes from the caliphate
One video features two Russian-speaking militants. It's hard, given heavy accents and poor audio, to know exactly what they're talking about, but it seems to revolve around lost radios and airstrikes.
Abu Huriri says to his friend: "We have a problem at the moment. I forgot even the radios. I said to Khalid, do we have them? I thought he returned them to the base. I said: let's go there.. [inaudible] .
"But apparently they've already attacked and the battle's been going for a day already."
The other man, with an accent that suggests he may be from Russia's North Caucasus region, adds: "The planes have been striking the whole day, chasing [them]."
Another scene shows Belgian fighter, Abu Aisha, choosing between camouflage and khaki slacks.
A third features Abu Lukhman, an Egyptian, and his colleagues from the military police, looking in vain for a Tunisian, Abu Mariam.
The snapshots are mundane, but fascinating: we are used to seeing ISIS as monsters, not as boring humans.
Commerce thrives, but what's next?
The clips show markets packed with goods and streets full of people.
The bright colors of fruits and vegetable stand out in the grainy video. For now, it seems families have been spared some of the horrors seen in other besieged ISIS-controlled cities like Mosul. One shop even seems to offer an exchange for US dollars.
Everywhere are piles of sandbags that can offer protection from airstrikes as well as restricting movements.
The civilians we see are sure to be trapped here, behind these enemy lines, perhaps held as human shields if street battles become part of the fight as they have in Mosul.
The signs of the approaching fight are clear.
The red and yellow tarps above the once open market hide what's going on from eyes in the skies.
Cement columns are packed with fuel that is then burned to create smoke screens over key positions. We see the smoke in the footage but it is unclear where it originates.
Elsewhere though, we see signs that residents are daring to dream of the end. They're spraying the word "Free" on walls and some children are adding it even on school blackboards.
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Resistance takes shape
The tyrannical grip of ISIS over Raqqa is slipping, observers say.
One activist, who was afraid for his safety and spoke anonymously, said ISIS opponents allied to his organization Ahrar al-Furat were now daring to threaten some of the most feared men in Raqqa.
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"The only way we can get to these guys (ISIS informants) is by sending threats to them on their door for example. We would write a threatening message that would say something like "we know who you are. The hour of judgment is near," he said from Istanbul, Turkey,
Raqqa's ISIS leadership has fled, according to activists, leaving behind a low-level command structure. These armed militiamen can be seen everywhere in the video, wandering the streets, chatting on street corners -- never far from the civilian population.
Cars filled with explosives are said to be parked on Raqqa's main streets, ready to be detonated when the battle comes.
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It's another threat to the innocents. Still these seemingly subservient residents are quietly defiant.
"The civilians began resisting ISIS in other ways like for example not paying their taxes, not using the currency of ISIS," the activist said. "Before residents were very scared when they interacted [with fighters.] But now they realize we have to be part of the effort to make them fail."
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