#golf irons play

[thatsnotbuddies]

sandbagger 19 but just the jack and hanny bits

[spinostarz]

i need a t-shirt that just says "i know what im doing im just not doing it"

[navree]

my parents are very good parents and i love them very much but i think i will die before i lose the chip on my shoulder that i have about the fact that they had me prioritize tennis (a sport i am not good, hated doing, started late at, and immediately stopped the second i was told that i could) over other extracurriculars i was into, to the point of interfering with the latters in service to the former

[peachetteprice]

Accountant!Price, with whom you share a bullpen, enjoys his coffee black, sugarless, and early in the morning, nigh before the sun has yet to rise. Since half-seven, every half-seven there is of each day of the week, he sits in his cubicle, retrieves his papers from his cabinet from the previous week, wets his fingertip, and gets to work.

At eight, he attends the day's debrief, natters briefly with the man in charge in the breakroom (with whom he plays golf on the weekends), exchanges a 'morning' and a head-nod toward you, who sits across from him, returns to his cubicle, buries his head in his paperwork like a mole and doesn't re-emerge from his hidey-hole until twelve.

For lunch, he has a tuna sandwich, not because he particularly likes tuna sandwiches, but because it's only ever the last option left inside the trolley cart on the train before he arrives at his station during his commute to work.

At two, he convenes around the water cooler, talking chum-to-chum with the boys in the office; he doesn't mind that they're decades younger than himself, just that they drone on about their sex lives in a way that has him convinced that none of them have ever truly made love to a woman.

Occasionally, at four, there's a birthday party for a colleague, though only on days when it's someone's birthday, naturally, otherwise there isn't a birthday party to be had, and it's therefore business as usual.

At four-thirty, he has his wee break.

Then, at five, the day is far too gone for a third cup of coffee (he had one after lunch to wash down his tuna sandwich), so he resorts to a mug of water that he chugs down, has his... fifth wee break of the day and packs up to leave.

And at six, when all of your remaining colleagues have departed to see their partners and/or cats - both, if they're so financially stable - he pounds into you over his desk, temple pressed to his keyboard, arse to the breeze, cock thrusting back and forth between your folds at such a pace that the building next-but-one might even hear your whimpers, grunting and panting and cooing at how pretty she is, your fluttering cunt, until he cums inside her, licks you clean, gives your arsecheeks a smack, your blouse a deft ironing with his palms, your lipstick smudge a kiss, rides the lift down with you to the ground floor, truly means his goodbyes, and begins the process of getting ready for the next working day when he checks the same boxes all over again.

(And on Fridays, you get to sit in his lap)

| Masterlist |

[xneens]

golf lesson

you distract rafe during a golf lesson.

"How important is winning this bet with your brother for you?" Rafe asked, watching as you hit the ball right into the lake, the ball nearly hitting a duck.

You glance at him, biting your lip. "Am I that bad?"

He turned to look back at the holes on the grass where you had hit your club, the iron kicking up the freshly mown grass rather than the ball on the tee. The blond bites back his smile, turning back at you, shrugging. "No, you're doing great, baby."

Groaning, you lean against your golf club, annoyed and frustrated. "Ugh, how am I so bad at a game old men play? This is humiliating."

Rafe had spent the whole afternoon trying to teach you how to golf after making a bet with your brother you could win a round with him. The prize: a few weeks in Greece that your parents would fully fund. And you wanted to play your Mamma Mia fantasies this summer, even if you had to listen to your boyfriend teach you all the mechanics of the most boring sport ever.

However, it did have some pros, one of them watching how Rafe's arms flexed when he swung the club, the way his white polo shirt fit him, the way he drove the golf club. It was a wonder how you were able to focus on his presence so close to you.

Rafe chuckles, wrapping his arms around your waist. He presses a kiss on your shoulder, his chin resting on it. "It's a stupid sport, don't get discouraged. And with me as a coach, you'll be the best."

You turn to glare at him, annoyed at how he babied you, knowing full well there was little to no hope with your golf skills. "You're mocking me."

"No, no, I would never." he smiles softly, a smile tugging at his lips. "We just need to practice a little more. You're good at everything, I'm sure you'll be good at this, too."

Rolling your eyes, you huff, thinking about all the balls you had lost in the past hour alone. Rafe had to go back to the country club multiple times to grab another pack of golf balls, a smirk slapped on his face every time he came back with a new pack.

"This is hopeless." you groaned dramatically, throwing Rafe another glare as he laughed.

He wraps his arms around you, setting you up for another swing. "Here, let me teach you the proper technique and posture so you hit the ball where you want it to go, yeah?"

"Fine," you grumbled, biting back a smirk as Rafe's hands traveled down your body, hands gripping your waist.

"Make sure your body is turned to face the ball." Rafe murmurs in your ear, positioning your hips. His fingers trail softly up your body, your tennis dress riding up slightly at the movement. "Yeah, just like that."

You giggle softly as arch your back, shifting your legs slightly to grind your ass up against Rafe's crotch, smug at how quickly he froze. "Am I doing it right, Rafey?"

Despite how you hated the stupid nickname, you'd use it whenever you wanted something from him, something he couldn't help give you every time you asked. You'd also use it when you teased him with it, almost like a secret word to hint you wanted him without others knowing.

"Yeah, yeah. Doing great, baby. Grip the club here and here." Rafe cleared his throat. He positions your hands on the club, fingers brushing briefly against the Darry ring he had gotten you for your first week anniversary.

"Hmm, this feels right." you grin smugly, feeling his cock hardening against your ass. Gripping the club, you do a little swing, twisting your hips. "Does that look good?"

"Fuck." Rafe groans, hands tightening against your hips, pulling you up against him, his cock pressed up against your cock. His fingers play with the hem of your dress, his chin resting on your shoulder. "You always look so goddamn good."

You giggle, eyes drifting towards the group of old men a hole away from you, near enough for them to see you and Rafe, but far enough to not see how you were grinding against him. "Help me hit the ball?"

"Of course," replied Rafe, hands engulfing your own. He leads you through the motion of a swing before guiding you to hit the golf ball. With a straight swing, the club hit the ball, flying in the air for a few seconds before rolling towards the flagged hole. "Good job, baby."

With a victorious smile, you turn to look at him, dropping the club on the ground. You wrap your arms around his neck, giving him a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you so much, Rafey. You're such a good coach."

"If I was a good coach, I wouldn't have spent half an hour searching the lake for the balls you hit in there." he teased, an arm encircling your waist. He tucks a stray piece of hair behind your ear. "But I'll take the compliment."

You give him a pout, puckering up your glossed lips. "You're so mean to me, always teasing me."

"I'm sorry, baby." Rafe smirks, not sorry at all. Blue yes filled with mirth, he tilts your chin up with a finger. "Let me make up for it."

He brings his lips to yours, tongue-seeking entrance as you kiss him back. Teasingly, you bit his bottom lip gently, drawing out a soft gasp from the blond. Smiling against his lips, your hand drifts down his chest, down towards his hardening cock.

"Someone's excited." you kiss along his jaw, drawing out another small gasp from your boyfriend. Despite dating for a year, he still had the same reaction to your kisses, almost as if he was surprised you wanted to kiss him.

You squeeze his cock through his shorts, pressing your body against his, hiding the action from every golfer near you. Fingers trailing up and down the length of his cock, in a stroking motion, you bring your lips back to his, allowing Rafe's hand to grab your ass.

Rafe's hands wandered up beneath your dress and you pulled away, laughing as he dramatically groaned. You give him a quick kiss on the cheek. "No more kisses for you. I know you bet against me, fucker."

[caitified]

professional

caitlin clark x golf caddy reader ⛳️

warnings: i’m happy to make a part two showing more of their relationship, but people might hate this so lmk!! i have started part 2 so let me know if that’s something you’d like me to finish. not proof read

when the owner of the golf club you worked at told you that caitlin would be playing there in preparation for her golf tournament, you were shocked to say the least. he told you that it would be your job to caddy for her over the summer which you excitedly excepted, but in all honesty you were slightly intimidated by her stardom and attitude on the court.

the sun was just starting to rise and you were ready for your first shift. you stood by the cart, waiting for your newest client, still in disbelief at the name on your booking sheet. caitlin clark.

it’s not like you were a diehard basketball fan or anything, but it was impossible to not follow caitlin in some way. living in indiana, you couldn’t have escaped her if you tried, and if you were honest with yourself, you had grown a small crush on the guard.

you had no idea what to expect. you had seen videos of caitlin getting into it with other people and showing off her competitive spirit but you didn’t know how this would translate to golf.

as you glanced towards the club house, you spotted her walking up. tall, confident and even hotter in real life (but we won’t talk about that..🥲)

“hey! you must be my caddy. i’m caitlin,” she greeted you with a wide grin and extended her hand. she was dressed in a casual polo and golf skirt, looking every bit the part.

you shook her hand. “yeah, i’m [Y/N]. ready to hit the green?”

caitlin grabbed a club from her bag, eyeing the course ahead of you.

when she started playing, you had a bit of difficultly staying professional. every time you tried to start a conversation with caitlin, your eyes and mind started wander. she had always looked good, but in person in front of you was a whole different story.

what you didn’t know is that caitlin was having similar feelings. from the moment she saw you she felt attracted to you, but she was here to practice for her tournament and couldn’t get distracted. that didn’t mean you didn’t make her nervous though.

as a result, the first couple of holes were a mix of impressive shots and misses. caitlin, ever the competitor, got a little frustrated after her third shot went wide, landing in the rough. she turned to you with a playful groan.

laughing, you handed her an iron. “if you focus on your swing like you focus on your free throws, you’ll get it in no time”

she raised an eyebrow, clearly enjoying your commentary. “big basketball fan?”

“a little,” you admitted. “hard not to when you’re on ESPN every other night.”

caitlin laughed, a laugh that felt warm and genuine. “okay, fair enough. but today, it’s all about golf.” she reset her stance, adjusting slightly based on the critiques you gave her earlier ( which she would never admit ). with a smooth swing, she sent the ball soaring through the air, landing it just off the green.

by the time you reached the ninth hole, you could tell caitlin was getting more comfortable, not just with the course, but with you. she leaned against the cart as you handed her a drink from the cooler. “you’re not so bad to hang out with,” she said, her grin widening.

“not until today,” you replied, taking a sip of your own drink. “but you’re not too bad either”

caitlin chuckled softly. “you’re pretty good company, i have to say. plus, i could go pro with the coaching i got from you”

“i think it’s your natural talent shining through,” you teased.

bthe time you finished the round, caitlin had managed to shave a few strokes off her usual score, thanks in part to your company . as you both headed back to the clubhouse, she threw an arm around your shoulders in a friendly side-hug. “so what do you say we make this a regular thing?”

you nodded, trying to keep your cool despite the touch of her arm. “only if you promise to keep improving. i have a reputation to uphold, you know.”

“deal,” caitlin said with a wink.

as you walk away from caitlin, you tried to push down the feelings you had for her and told yourself that it was just a crush. she wasn’t worth risking your job for..right?

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

the days after that first round with caitlin passed like a blur. every morning, you’d find yourself back at the golf course, waiting for her. and every day, without fail, she’d show up with her perfect smile, ready to take on the course, but more than that—ready to spend time with you.

what had started as a professional relationship quickly shifted. there was something easy about being around caitlin. she was open, real, and every round of golf felt less about the game and more about the moments in between. the laughter. the subtle glances that lingered a little too long. and as much as you tried to keep things strictly professional, it became impossible to ignore the growing connection between you.

today, though, felt different.

the late afternoon sun hung low in the sky, casting a hue over the course as caitlin stood beside you on the tee. she twirled her club absentmindedly, eyes focused on the green, but you could sense something more behind her usual relaxed demeanor.

“long day?” you asked, breaking the comfortable silence.

she turned to you with a soft smile. “just thinking.”

“about?” you prompted, trying to sound casual but feeling a subtle tension in the air.

caitlin lowered her club and leaned on it, her eyes now fully on you. “this offseason… i thought it would be about relaxing, taking a break from everything. but i didn’t expect it to be spending all my time thinking about you.”

your breath hitched slightly. there it was—the thing that had been simmering under the surface these past few weeks. the teasing glances, the touches that lasted a beat too long, the way her gaze would drift toward you in those quiet moments on the course.

“caitlin,” you started, but she stepped closer, her expression more serious than you’d ever seen.

“you’ve become the best part of my day,” she said softly. “it’s not just the golf, it’s…everything. you make me feel like I don’t always have to be ‘Caitlin Clark’ when I’m with you, i’m just caitlin. and i don’t know… i don’t want this to end when the season starts again.”

the vulnerability in her voice made your heart race. you’d felt the same way, but hearing her say it—left you momentarily speechless. she looked at you with those eyes, her usual confidence softened by the this moment.

you took a step toward her, closing the small distance between you. “it doesn’t have to end,” you said quietly, your voice carrying the weight of everything between you. “i’ve felt it too, caitlin. this… whatever this is between us. i thought it was just me.”

her lips curved into a small smile, the relief evident in her expression. “you have no idea how much I’ve wanted to hear you say that.”

caitlin’s hand found yours, her fingers warm and strong, just like you’d imagined. the connection between you felt electric, and in that moment, everything else faded into the background.

“i guess i should ask,” she murmured, a teasing glint back in her eyes, “what kind of caddy crosses the line with their client?”

you grinned, stepping even closer, feeling her presence like a magnet pulling you in. “the kind that’s maybe a little too good at their job?”

she laughed softly, the sound warm and familiar. then, without another word, caitlin leaned in, her lips brushing against yours in a kiss that was soft, tentative at first. but as soon as you kissed her back, it deepened, filled with everything you’d both been holding back.

“i’m glad I booked you as my caddy,” caitlin whispered, her voice laced with affection. “but I think i’d like to keep you around for more than just golf.”

you smiled, your heart pounding in your chest. “i think i’d like that too.”

thanks for reading. i kind of hate this but let me know what you think, and if you’d like a part 2! i could also do 18+ headcannons for this.. do you guys like the reader POV or would you prefer something else? love you!

@connormccafferyhater @equalhealerr

[merakidoll]

nanami the hard working ceo who spent his off days at the county club playing golf with the ironed khaki’s, polo shirt, and glasses. a cigar in his unoccupied hand, and a nice glass of dark liquor waiting for him in his cart. he was the wealthiest man at the country club and always got the best perks due to it, but there was only one actual perk he wanted.

“such a pretty doll” his thumb held your mouth open watching as you went wild on his cock. you breast were naked, bouncing when you slammed down on him hard screaming out into the vacant golf course atmosphere. your cart with drinks, snack, and ice was parked next to him, the large tip nanami had given you just before you got so lost from his cock plugging into your wet hole, making cream fall down to his ball and to the khaki shorts, was in the see through pink fannypack watching everything that took place.

“cum doll. show daddy how grateful you are for the good. fucking. tip” if you weren’t being fucked so dumb you would have laughed at the joke but all you could do was bite down on his thumb, the cool wind blowing against your brown nipples and squirt dripping down to his carts floor.

you. your were the whole reason nanami always found himself at the country club

[rrxnjun]

potential • z. chenle

pairing. zhong chenle x fem! reader genre. rich kids au, childhood friends au, friends with benefits au. angst, fluff, suggestive. word count. 20k (20.079) warnings. alcohol consumption, swearing, mentions of sexual activity, sexual innuendos, a heavy make out session or two, use of lyrics from ariana grande and sarah close and masking them as my own words a/n. why do we call it a rich kid chenle au when he's a rich kid irl. anyways for the fact that this was one of the most spontaneous fics ive ever written it sure did take a lot of time to execute. took a lot of inspo for the lifestyle from the sky castle kdrama so if its not accurate dont @ me bc ive never been rich LMAO

playlist. in my head – ariana grande ; successful – ariana grande ; nonsense – sabrina carpenter ; supermodel – måneskin ; that's what i like – bruno mars

You saw his potential without seeing credentials. And maybe that's the issue.

August 28, 2020 – somewhere in the Bali sea, 1:27 AM

The music is loud. The weather is humid.

Wrapping up the summer before your senior year, dancing around in the bar of the cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, one last stop before your 28-day cruise around Southeast Asia is over, the loud music from the bar rings in your ears as you dance around, a glass of expensive Mendis coconut Brandy swirling in your hold. The taste of the alcohol on your tongue burns, not quite used to the burning sensation in your mouth– this is one of the first times you’re drinking, since your parents were always big on prestige and acting classy. Your parents went to sleep, though– excited to explore Benoa tomorrow, to immerse themselves in nature and explore Bali’s temples and heritage. You, on the other hand, took this as an opportunity to party– accompanied by none other than your parents’ friend’s son, who grew into the position of your childhood best friend solely because his and your family have always been close, choosing to spend vacations together; a relationship that was mostly fueled by the immediate closeness of you two during the summer breaks and ski trips to Swiss Alps every January.

And while you’re no stranger to pearls, charity events in your parents’ mansion in Hong Kong, golf courses in Miami and fashion shows in Milan, growing up in the world of designer bags and prestigious titles, you feel quite stranded in the middle of the sweaty teenagers, all of them with the same social status as you, drinking expensive alcohol and swinging your hips to the EDM music playing through the speakers. It almost feels like this is the first time you’re able to enjoy yourself without anyone’s supervision, screaming at the top of your lungs into Zhong Chenle’s face as he laughs at you on the dance floor, and truth be told, you could care less about the pictures you’re going to take for your Instagram tomorrow, showing everyone just how good you’re doing and how much fun you’re having on your lengthy cruises around the continent, because somehow, even though the bar is clothed in gold and you feel a bit like in The great Gatsby, this feels like the least pressuring part of the whole trip.

“We should go to parties more often!” you scream into Chenle’s ear, taking a sip of your Brandy as you twirl yourself around him, the straps of your sparkly spaghetti-strap tiny top falling off your shoulders in a moment of carelessness, your thoughts somewhere completely else. You may be 19 years old and insanely wealthy, but that still doesn’t mean you are experienced in the art of partying– quite the opposite, actually, having to always seem cultivated and presenting yourself in a way that would suggest that your family is high on prestige and recognition– so to finally be surrounded by people your age, dancing along to the music and jumping up as you all chant the lyrics to Barbie girl by Aqua (how ironic) feels quite ecstatic.

“Like our parents would let us,” Chenle rolls his eyes, lips almost pressed against the shell of your ear as he makes sure to get close enough for you to hear him.

Sighing at his argument– knowing he’s absolutely right, but also hating the fact that he had to ruin your mood by stating it out loud– you shake your head as you down the last bits of your drink, putting the heavy glass onto the tray of a waiter that’s passing by to gather the rest of the empty ones scattered across the shiny tables in the corner of the room. Your brain is starting to get a little fuzzy and you can’t help the giggling escaping out of your throat whenever your eyes meet Chenle’s, the flush on the boy’s cheeks hinting at the fact that he’s not any better at handling his alcohol than you, having just as much experience in heavy drinking and partying as you do. 

You’re only 19 years old and you don’t know a lot about the world. After all, you were brought up in a family that always did everything for you– you never had to move a single finger. You never even had to clean your room, because your parents had people that would come by every morning while you were in school, just so you could arrive home to a tidy place when you were done with your lectures. You went to a private school, so you were always surrounded by people with a status similar to yours. You spoke about your tutoring classes that cost more than groceries for a middle-class family a week, you talked about your trips abroad, and if you had time, you even went shopping with your classmates after school before your driver picked you up and drove you back into the suburbs; your neighborhood guarded by a gate, the asphalt behind it so much smoother than it is in the rest of the town.

You never got to experience partying like this– only gaping with an open mouth when you saw those scenes in the movies you watched on Netflix in your own private movie room. And if you’re being totally honest, you never imagined enjoying such a thing. You never had the experience, so you didn’t really yearn for it, but now that you’re here, surrounded by loud music, experiencing the weird emotional feeling that comes with being in a crowd screaming in joy at the same time first-hand on your own skin, you don’t think you’ll be able to go back to how you were before.

This is not how rich kids party. At least not when their parents are around.

“You’re gonna be hungover tomorrow morning,” Chenle mutters into your ear when your eyes light up at the sight of more alcohol, contemplating on getting another drink, just because. 

“And you’re not?” you tease him, pointing to his glossy eyes and lazy walk, his legs tangling with each other every few seconds from the haze he’s been put in just by having a few drinks. The sight is quite funny– the ever-so composed millionaire son is now a troubled mess in your eyes; one wrong step and he could ruin the image his family has spent years to build up, but it doesn’t seem like either of you care, tripping over your feet and lounging at each other in the middle of the dance floor. 

Feeling like you’re playing a dangerous game, hanging off his neck and swaying your hips to the rhythmic beat, you gape into his blown-out eyes and desperately try to get your brain straight. The more you drank and the more you spent time in Chenle’s close proximity, the less you were able to control your emotions and the weird thoughts in your brain that have been slowly eating up all your notions for quite some time now. Gaping at his plump lips and feeling his palms burning at your hips, his fingers ever-so-slightly hovering above the curve of your ass, you’re finding it hard to concentrate on the music or on the words spilling off his tongue, his voice never shutting up even in the loud bar. You always told him he talks too much, but he doesn’t seem to mind– he seems to actually take much pride in his annoying tendencies, talking your ear off on multiple occasions even when you tell him he should probably stay quiet for at least a minute, so your brain could recharge.

Truth be told, you listen to him most of the time anyway. He always talks and you always listen, rolling your eyes at the snarky parts and giggling at the jokes; so the fact that you suddenly can’t focus and just desperately want him to shut the fuck up must be the effect of all the alcohol you’ve been drinking tonight. 

And your next step might as well be the main consequence of the coconut Brandy as well– because even though you’ve been dreaming of his plump lips on yours for quite some time now, you’ve never actually dared to act up on the desire. But your intention to make him go quiet seems to be working when the train of words stammering out of his mouth is cut off, a surprised noise trailing out of his throat when you kiss him on the dance floor; and to your surprise, he doesn’t seem to mind your weird sign of protest to his endless talking– quite the opposite, really, as he lets you take the lead and taste the mix of alcohol in the Long Island cocktails he’s been drinking the whole night off his tongue, your hands mindlessly trailing up to thread themselves into his hair. 

This is not your first time kissing a boy– you once pecked Song Eunseok on the lips when the two of you sneaked out of class one day in 9th grade– but you never once kissed anyone with such passion and desire before. You’re not sure where you got all the courage from and you’re also not sure where you learned all of this– but it must be working, with how heavily Chenle’s breathing when you finally let go of his lips and he rests his forehead against yours. In no time, he’s chasing you down again, drunk not only on the alcohol now as he tilts his head to get closer, one hand resting on the side of your neck, just a few inches below your jaw, keeping you in place. 

“You should learn how to shut up,” you mumble against his lips, breathing heavy as you break away from him again and open your eyes to meet your gaze with his. The music is still loud in your ears, but you swear you hear a static noise somewhere in your brain, a tingle in your fingertips making you feel like you’re about to have an out-of-body experience. Your drunken brain is not allowing you to ponder about your actions that much, not letting you think and contemplate the fact that you just made out with your childhood best friend on one of the most expensive cruise ships, drinking alcohol you weren’t supposed to spend so much money on, and maybe that’s a good thing– because there’s nothing stopping you in having the time of your life, no overthinking making you doubt your next steps and no feeling of shame or regret making the whole experience bitter as you dance pressed against your companion, letting him press short, yet daring kisses to your lips as time passes.

“I think I’m good,” he snickers, when the music suddenly cuts out, an announcer telling you that the bar closes at 2 AM and that this song is the last for the night.

Sighing in disappointment– because who even knows when the next time you’ll have this opportunity will come– you let Chenle lead you out of the bar, his hand glued around your exposed waist. Your walk is a little loop-sided and you two almost smash into the glass door (doesn’t matter that it’s automatic and it quite literally opened in front of your figures). Soon enough, you’re met with the golden interior of the cruise walls again, the design a little vintage, yet still luxurious, reminding you of the movie Titanic. Tripping over the doorsteps, hands getting caught on the red, velvety curtains hung around, you giggle at every word that comes out of Chenle’s mouth, bodies slowly, but surely getting closer and closer to your suite bedrooms. You’re quite sure your parents could hear you talking outside in the hall, but you choose to not ponder on what they would think of you if they saw you in this state too much, instead making yourself believe that they’re long asleep and won’t be woken up by your voices resonating through the quiet space. 

“So I guess this is where we say goodnight?” you mumble, hanging off Chenle’s neck. His breath smells of the vodka-tequila mix when he hovers over you, bodies off-balance pressed against the cold wall just outside of your bedroom. Flashing you a grin, face looking close to a cheshire cat, he nudges your nose with his, a quiet hum landing to your ear, not heard by anyone.

“Or we could stay up a little longer.”

Squirming under his touch, his lips softly, yet still a little uncoordinatedly landing on yours, you waste no time in unlocking the door to your room– even though you have a bit of trouble with finding the key in your small purse, even surprised you haven’t lost the bag somewhere in the middle of the night– letting your childhood friend in to your space at the suggestion, your clothed bodies falling to the soft cushions of the water bed. 

You’re only 19 and don’t know much about the world when you messily undress yourself under your friend’s eyes, blinded by the glints in his deep chocolate orbs when he looks at you from above and attacks your neck with kisses. And you usually don’t regret much, considering yourself a responsible individual, always rethinking everything and making sure it’s the right choice, but when you look back at this day now, you don’t really know if sleeping with Zhong Chenle on a cruise around Southeast Asia was the brightest idea of yours, considering the mental turmoil it’s gonna cause you on the way.

Well, at least you can say you lost your virginity somewhere in the middle of the Bali sea, and at least that’s something to boost your ego with, am I right…? 

July 12, 2007 – Tokyo DisneySea, 2:21 PM

If anyone asked you for your favorite childhood memory, you wouldn’t have a hard time picking one. Sure, one would think you have too many pleasant memories to choose from, so realistically, you should take more time to pick and weigh the value of each one, contemplating if the trip to Rome was a happier memory than the summer you spent in Los Angeles when you were 10, but you are 100%, completely in tune with the fact that if anyone ever asked you this very question, the words falling off their tongue with interest and enthusiasm, no judgment and no hidden intentions behind their question, you’d have an answer ready with a smile on your face.

You don’t hold much emotion to your past memories. You’ve been on more vacations than you can both count and remember growing up, and so even though you do think the pictures you took in Italy came out good and your skin glistens prettily in the warm sun, even though you do think you experienced a lot of fun while going to the Target for the first time with your nanny– the woman your mum hired just because your parents were too busy with their business meetings the whole time you walked the streets of Los Angeles with the new woman you were supposed to trust with your life at the ripe age of 10– you wouldn’t say any of those memories are as close to your heart as the trip you took to Japan with the Zhong family when you were 6, the summer before attending first grade.

This was the year you and Chenle watched the Pirates of the Caribbean together for the first time, and even though it wasn’t in the initial plan, you two spent hours and hours and hours  of the flight persuading your parents to take you to Tokyo Disneyland, because you heard from his cousin Yizhuo that you could meet Jack Sparrow if you went. While your plan didn’t exactly work and the two of you didn’t get to go to the large theme park– because your parents were busy, mostly traveling because of business and so they didn’t have the time to arrange it, the amount of sulking you two did when you arrived to the rented house in the expensive part of Tokyo to the teenager that was supposed to watch you two for the time being was enough for him to take you two on a short train ride to the twin of the famous theme park– the Tokyo DisneySea. 

The 15-minute train ride you three took to the theme park was your first, and also last time you ever rode such a mean of transport. All you were used to were expensive sports cars and limousines– you never imagined that people took such transport even every single day, at times. You and Chenle were so immersed in the journey that it was hard for your babysitter to get you out of the train, your small, excited bodies almost tripping over your own little feet as the raven-haired boy dragged you through the streets of Maihama station. 

You could see the towers of the park and you could smell the salt from the sea even from a distance. The whole atmosphere felt magical, giggles often erupting out of your throat as Yuta– the boy your parents hired to watch over you for the day– bought a bubble blower from one of the stands and blew out bubbles you two chased around and tried to pop before they got to the ground. There were no expensive cars in sight, no people dressed in suits and designer shoes– well, except from the two of you, but you couldn’t quite grasp the idea of how much your attire cost at that age yet– and you felt truly, insanely happy. The adults that always watched you when your parents went to business meetings were stern and serious, never letting you have much fun, but today was different, and you find yourself wondering why your parents even let you be babysat by a reckless teenager in the first place. He was 16 at the time– 10 years older than the both of you– and when you look back at the day now, you think it was the time pressure that brought your parents into hiring him. You bet they paid him a lot of money, hell, you bet they even lended him a credit card he could use to entertain you two for the whole afternoon, and even though you found him using it a few times, you didn’t think he spent just as much as all your previous babysitters did. 

Not that you knew the value of money back then, after all. Maybe the fact that you couldn’t tell how much money everything was worth back then is what truly made the whole day so carefree and happy for you.

You were children of wealthy Chinese business owners. You always had everything they saw in your eyes– you didn’t even have to say it out loud and it was held up to you on a silver platter. This day, though, you didn’t even have to use that much money– if you truly compare it to other vacations your families have been to– and you can’t help but think it’s ironic how despite this fact, this day is still your favorite childhood memory. 

The Tokyo DisneySea was catered to a more mature audience– even serving alcohol in the premises, a thing no other Disneyland does– but even though you were just 6 and couldn’t drink and there was no Jack Sparrow waiting for you in the streets of the theme park, you and Chenle had a blast. Maybe it was a good decision on Yuta’s part to take you to the DisneySea instead; it catered to your Pirates of the Caribbean needs perfectly despite it not being the initial theme. The ships and wooden coasts and harbors were enough for your imagination to create stories about pirates in your head, the three of you attending various rides and screaming at the top of your lungs together over the course of the afternoon.

“Wanna go to the Tower of Terror?” Yuta asked you, his toothy grin on full display as he dragged you two to the scary ride when you finally got to the American Waterfront. 

The teenager was wearing a black muscle top with L’arc en ciel written on it– you found out only a few years later that it was a japanese rock band– and with his long, black hair falling to his forehead, he looked just like the person that would enjoy scary rides and horror movies. You, however– you weren’t prepared to get scared by green ghosts and eerie music. Not at 6 years old anyways, although you doubt you’d do better on this day.

If there’s one thing you need to know about Zhong Chenle, it’s the fact that he’s a lover of horror. And Korean dramas. But mostly horror– a few years later, when you were both the age Nakamoto Yuta was when he brought you to the Tokyo DisneySea, your friend came to a Halloween party dressed like the clown from IT and managed to jump-scare you every moment he physically got. There was no surprise in the small boy liking the idea of attending the scary ride, and no matter how hard you tried and protested, there was no use in you saying no. Because the two of them wanted to go, and you, quoting Yuta, ‘couldn’t just stay alone outside’, so you were pretty much forced into the darkness of the Tower of Terror, your small body pressed against Chenle and Yuta’s– you refused to sit anywhere but sandwiched between the two in the middle of the cart– shutting your eyes close when the scary music started playing and you could feel the anxiety forming in the pit of your stomach.

You trembled the whole time, panic resting in your beating heart, and somewhere along the way, you found yourself clinging to Chenle’s small hand, squishing it so hard he screamed at you in the dim lightning of the ride. You didn’t let go, though– that’s what he gets for dragging you along– fracturing his bones wasn’t in your concerns, if it made you feel more secure and safe.

The fond memory of the day ends with the moment the scary ride is over and you finally get out of the darkness– with Yuta having to carry your out of terror half-paralyzed body from the cart. To this day, you still don’t have a clear outlook on why this day is your favorite childhood memory, but you think it might be the mix of Chenle’s excited laughter as he scared you every two seconds after the ride, the apologetic hug he enveloped you in after you almost burst to tears the third time, the taste of the sausage Yuta bought you two for dinner, the taxi ride to the rented house you had to take in a rush before your parents got back from their business meeting, and the melodic voice of your best friend when he sang you the opening theme to the Pirates of the Caribbean before you two fell asleep on the same bed in your hotel room.

Either way, despite the terror, you don’t think you’ve ever had this much fun ever again. 

When you peed the bed that night, your parents decided to never hire a teenager to look after the two of you again. From that moment alone, there was less horror, but also less fun.

May 5, 2019 – tennis courts in Jinqiao, Shanghai, 4:17 PM

One would think that growing up with Zhong Chenle would put him into a position of your almost-brother. And while you did agree with the statement on most days– like when he laughed so hard that snot came out of his nose and almost fell into your lunch plate when you were 15, or when he shot you with his paintball gun so hard you had a bruise on your knee for three weeks when you were 17– you think you’re starting to slowly outgrow this phase. 

Zhong Chenle is no longer a brotherly figure to you when you two pick up tennis at the ripe age of 18. 

It wasn’t either of your ideas, of course. Tennis is not a sport a teenager just suddenly picks up one day because they’re interested– at least not when you’re incredibly wealthy and can pretty much afford any other hobby in the entire world. No, it was the idea of Chenle’s mother– because, quoting, ‘the kids barely go out these days, they might as well pick up a sport!’ – and with the copycat tendencies of your dear mum, you were dragged along into it as well. And so now, during the finals season, on top of that, you two have to go play tennis on one of the private tennis courts your families rent for three hours a day every Friday afternoon instead of studying or focusing on getting your stress out of your body doing other, much more enjoyable things.

“You know, you look a little too excited for someone who hates playing tennis,” Renjun– the neighborhood kid (your parents being business partners for quite some time now made you and the short boy become friends somewhere along the way)– states, snickering as he lays on one of the benches on the side, his own tennis racket thrown carelessly on the ground as he watches the two of you running around the court, playing.

“I only do it because I’m bored,” Chenle mutters under his nose, sending the little yellow ball over the net with much force, making you run to the other side of the court. 

“And I only do it because I need to prove to him that he’s not the best at everything he tries,” you add, sending the ball back to your friend. 

“Just say you want to impress him and go,” Yizhuo– Chenle’s cousin from his mother’s side– teases you from the bench, sitting next to Renjun. Her remark doesn’t go unnoticed by you as you send the yellow ball her way after her cousin passes it towards your side of the court again, aiming precisely for her forehead but missing, earning yourself a terrified yelp out of the girl when she scootches closer to the boy next to her.

“That’s totally not what’s going on, but sure,” you roll your eyes at her when she throws the ball back, but you don’t feel interested in continuing the game anymore. Tiredly walking closer to the two sitting at the little shaded bench, wiping the sweat off your forehead, you try hard to not think of the snarky remark that was sent your way. 

Is it really that obvious? Because sure, you’ve always found Zhong Chenle to be your brother figure over the years of growing up– but there’s something about the humid air of the tennis court and his competitiveness that have you eyeing him when he takes a sip from his water bottle or when he adjusts the hairband sitting on his damp forehead. He wears shorts that reveal his calves very nicely, and when you play 2 on 2, you find yourself focusing less and less on the game– earning yourself a frustrated yell from Ning Yizhuo herself as she plays along your side– and more and more on the Gucci tennis shoes adorning his feet as you scan the boy up and down, his figure growing taller and taller each passing day captivating you in a sense you’ve never quite experienced before.

“I can’t believe my mum dragged you all into this shit,” Chenle giggles when he sits next to Renjun on the bench, following you to the shade. There’s only 20 minutes left in the time your parents rented the court for and you figure that you can spend that time recharging your energy instead of playing the boring game. 

“Not me,” Yizhuo says, “she made my mother feel bad about not signing me up for any sports. You know, your mum’s pretty persuasive, especially when it comes to looking good in front of everyone. If it wasn’t for my mum, I wouldn’t be doing this shit,” she complains, shrugging as she adjusts her ponytail that’s always sitting neatly on the crown of her head.

“I love the fact that Renjun here is the least athletic out of all of us, but he is the only one here willingly,” you snicker, earning yourself a chant of amused laughs at the spoken truth. Now, nobody forced Huang Renjun to come play tennis with you every Friday– but the fact that he doesn’t have many friends in the neighborhood was what made him come along, too bored on his own and with nothing to put his attention to. He doesn’t like playing much, but everything’s better than sitting alone at home, am I right?

The three of you gossip about everything and nothing– the new family in the neighborhood, especially, because Renjun saw their son last Sunday and found his outfit absolutely atrocious (“You’d think people with money would at least know how to dress well, but no. That’s not the case with that Wen Junhui guy.”). The time passes by quickly, and when the timer on Chenle’s phone goes off, signaling that the three mandatory hours at the tennis court are finally over, you all stand up and walk over to the gate, shoes dragging along the sandy surface of the ground with much tiredness. At least you’re getting some cardio in…

“Is your driver coming to pick you up?” Chenle asks as you pay goodbye to your friends, both of them getting into expensive cars waiting for them at the parking lot. Turning to him, you hum in agreement, suddenly shy under his gaze. It’s not even summer yet, but the May sun is already harsh on the skin, getting redness to spread along his cheeks, only further sculpting his handsome bone structure you’ve grown so familiar with over the years. 

“What about you?” 

“Told my mum I’ll walk home instead. It’s not like it’s only a 20 minute walk anyway,” he mutters, rolling his eyes at the irony of you having to drive home despite living only a few meters away from him, in the same wealthy neighborhood. You grew up together, in the same mowed lawns, in the same green labyrinths of your families’ villas, in the same high ceilings and golden accents on the interior of your houses. After watching him from the corner of your eye, you start to wonder about what changed between the two of you that made you so weak to him now, that you’re both 18. Did he change? Was it the fact that you were now both adults? You don’t think that’s the case– because even though you were 18, there were no more responsibilities waiting for you than they were the years before. 

“My driver can take you,” you say, kicking the rocks below your feet, “well, unless you want to walk home alone instead,” you add, noting his previous sentence.

You see him take a sip out of his water bottle, shrugging at your suggestion. Chenle’s not a fan of inefficiency, no matter the fact that you can afford anything you could ever want. It’s a quality of him you find quite strange some days, but you don’t ponder on it too much. 

You’ve known each other since you were in diapers. And after replaying all the memories you have with the boy in your head, you think that your 18 year old self isn’t so stupid for falling for him. See– you’ve got to know a lot of men over the course of your life. Many tried to get with you barely before you even grew into an adult, seeing the vision of money and the social status you could give them. Some, on the other hand, never gave you back the attention you were giving them. All relationships you had in your life were blinded by the imaginary price tag you always carried around with yourself, and so everything always stayed surface-level and plain. No wonder you fell for Chenle– no matter how long it took you to get to this part of your friendship– he’s the only one that ever showed you his true self, he’s the only one that ever trusted you enough to go deeper in conversations with you and treated you like a real human being. You know him well and he knows you well; he’s like a book you always find yourself rereading, excited to find that your favorite characters always stayed the same. At the end of the day, you think you were always meant to fall for Chenle.

Standing under the blazing sun, you wait for your driver to get to the tennis courts. You wait for 10 minutes, then 15– and when you get a little too overheated, Chenle offers you his water bottle and mumbles something about being on time. When the time passes 45 minutes after your driver’s supposed arrival, your friend turns to you with a glint in his eye, a grin sitting on his annoyingly handsome face.

“Wanna walk home with me instead?”

And the truth is, you don’t find yourself disagreeing. And you also don’t find yourself hating the walk up the hills of the neighborhood– no matter how tiring it was to your already exhausted limbs– and you don’t find yourself complaining about the lack of AC or the vehicle driving your ass home to your, admittedly, too big of a house. Chenle entertains you with his talks– because he always talks too much for his own good– and when you stop paying attention to him and lose track of where you’re going, he drags you back to the sidewalk by your hand and your fingers stay interlocked when he teases you about the fact that you almost got ran over by a white Cadillac. 

“Listen, there’s this song I think you’ll like,” he hums when you’re 5 minutes away from your house, pulling out his phone out of his back pocket and opening up the Spotify app. He plays you a song by Ariana Grande, singing along to the lyrics of the chorus. His voice goes thin when he tries to mimic the singer’s voice, dragging along the english sentences of ‘it feels so good to be this young and have this fun and be successful, i’m so successful!’, irony seeping from his tone. Your hands are still intertwined as he swings them back and forth and you don’t even really care about the subtle implication of the lyrics he’s singing– because it’s Chenle, and despite being just as wealthy as you, he’s no stranger to calling you a snob. 

When you’re 18 and walking back from your weekly tennis endeavors, you can’t help but feel the fluttering in your heart when your friend twirls you around in your driveway, your white tennis skirt childishly fulfilling your unsaid dreams of becoming a ballerina, before he walks to his house standing on the opposite side of the road. 

You don’t even care that your poor driver got fired by your mother right after she realized he forgot to pick you up from the tennis court as much.

October 17, 2020 – a charity evening, Shanghai, 9:11 PM

Your whole life so far has been guided in the aura of money. When you were little, you didn’t realize it as much– your young, undeveloped brain couldn’t phantom the fact that your annual trips to Italy and summer vacations at yachts and in the Paris DisneyLand weren’t a normal occurrence to everyone. You couldn’t understand the value of money, and you think that maybe, you never truly will. Because you were born fortunate, never having to worry about a single thing, always living in wealth and with gold around your neck. 

The closest you are to understanding just how much money your family truly has is at the charity evenings you are forced to attend. Walking around, mostly bored– because truly, you didn’t have much of an idea just how much money you’re sending to the unfortunate parts of Africa and what the whole thing even has to do with you, when the money wasn’t really yours in the first place– you try to at least look through the flier your family made for the event, reading through the carefully crafted sentences, feeling at least a little sorry for everyone that doesn’t get to live the way you do.

“Isn’t it funny how this is the only way our families can present themselves in a good light?” Chenle mumbles when he reads over your shoulder, a dry chuckle leaving his lips.

Turning around to look at your companion, you furrow your brows at his snarky comment. “What do you mean?”

“Well, we give to charity so people don’t hate us as much,” Chenle shrugs, taking a sip from the champagne poured in a tall glass you’re pretty sure your mother spent hours and hours picking out when renting this place, just so everything could be perfect. 

“It’s just jealousy,” you say as you walk side-by-side with the boy, the expensive fabric of his white button-down hugging his body in all the right places, leaving you light-headed when you let yourself indulge in your thoughts for too long and stare at the curves of his forearms. It’s been a few months since you slept with your childhood friend– and while you must admit that you regretted it a little when you woke up in the morning, with a hangover and sore limbs, you also didn’t regret it as much as to turn the offer down when it was next brought to you. And the next time, and the next… 

“You think?” Chenle asks, and his interest in your answer seems genuine.

“Yeah,” you nod, shrugging to yourself, “we have more money than any of them ever will, so it’s only natural for people to feel jealous and talk spiteful things about us.”

Chenle hums at your answer, licking his lips before he looks you dead in the eye, the smallest glint of irony shining from behind the dark orbs, making you shrink under his gaze. “It’s not like it’s hard work anyway,” Chenle mutters, “if it wasn’t all stolen money, at least the charity work wouldn’t feel as fake.”

You stop in your tracks at the comment, furrowing your brows. “Stolen money?”

The boy next to you snickers at your clueless eyes. It’s no wonder you never really cared about the source of your family’s wealth– you were born to it, so you never had a reason to doubt it. And truth be told, you never really complained either. You don’t think anyone in your place would, really. You just accepted it the way it is, and you never asked any questions. For all you know, your parents are hard working business owners– you bet their money is well deserved for the amount of effort they put in– so to hear that it’s stolen money, from someone who is in a similar position as you, on top of that, you can’t believe your ears.

“I mean, they’re business owners. Let’s not act like both yours and my parents don’t meddle with the taxes at least a bit, sweetheart,” he chuckles, shaking his head in disbelief, “if I were all those people outside of it, I’d hate myself too.”

His words do little to comfort you. They do quite the opposite, really, and even though Zhong Chenle has no proof to show you of the fact that your parents might have at least a bit of dirty money on their hands, you can’t say you don’t trust a word that comes out of his mouth. You start to wonder if you’re that gullible– and who is the one lying straight to your eyes now, if it’s your friend or your parents– and you start to believe that you’d trust everything Chenle tells you, because that’s just the relationship you have with him. He could do anything and you’d follow him to the end of the world. It takes years to build that bond, and so even know, although you have the urge to scream at him for talking such things about the ones that brought you to this world– this perfect, shiny world– you find yourself holding back, the bubble around you bursting in a second, although you spent 19 years of your life living in the fake glory and bejeweled experience. Opening your mouth to ask him more about the matter– to get yourself out of the confusion you’ve been put in with just a few sentences uttered out of his always too-honest mouth, you turn to the boy when a man with a camera approaches the two of you, asking to take a picture of you.

And you comply, because what else are you supposed to do? This is how you’ve been raised. You smile for the pictures, you grin when you find yourself in the magazines, you nod when people recognise your name, you greet people with a polite nod, because you never know when someone wants to make business with your parents and you wouldn’t want to ruin good opportunities for them, would you?

With Chenle’s arm around your waist, your body instinctively leaning into his touch, you smile for yet another picture for the portfolio. Sometimes you feel like a princess– with everything it takes; both the royal responsibilities and the special treatment. More often than not, you find yourself enjoying the spotlight.

“Now they have proof that we were here,” Chenle mumbles into your ear, his lips gently brushing the smooth skin, “wanna get out of here? This party doesn’t look as enjoyable as the last one we went to,” the boy references the time you spent together at the cruise ship, with both the screaming on the dancefloor, and also the aftermath in your room, making heat puddle in your cheeks as you swat his hand away before it gets too low on your back in front of everyone in the room.

“I have to give a speech, but… maybe later?” you look at him, innocently batting your eyelashes at him, when the boy shrugs and takes a step back, downing the last drops of champagne from the expensive looking glass.

“I’ll be waiting back home,” Chenle says, “I bet our parents will stay until this all ends, so we have plenty of time for ourselves when you decide you’re tired of the gala.”

He disappears out of your sight the moment after, putting the empty glass onto a tray of one of the waiters carefully walking across the room, his back escaping out the front door. If you squint hard enough through the glass, you could see him getting into one of the sports cars he got from his parents for his 18th birthday– the vehicle driving off in the hands of his driver for the night, since he just had a glass of alcohol– and leaving you alone in the world of faux and feathers, fulfilling the responsibilities given to you by your mother. And for the first time– not only because you hate giving public speeches– you so desperately want to follow him, getting out before midnight like Cinderella, never attending another one of these evenings ever again. 

You don’t, though. You’re an obedient daughter.

And when you call him up from the entryway a few minutes after midnight, his rough hands welcoming you to his bedroom by undressing the thousand-dollar Tiffany dress you wore to the event– being the aftermath of his previous words or not, you start to think how ironic it is that your attire for the evening cost more than than the monthly rent of the people you were giving to in your speech. 

After a while, your words turn bitter.

March 23, 2020 – South Cape Owners Club, Namhae-gun, Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea, 1:17 PM

“Did you really have to choose the most boring thing to do for your birthday?” Chenle mutters under his nose when all of your parents stride forward to get another hole in one, beads of sweat appearing on your foreheads as you stand directly under the midday sun. 

“This wasn’t my idea, okay?” Renjun huffs, carrying his golf equipment with him, the silly-looking golf gloves tugged right off his hands when his parents are no longer in sight. “All I wanted was to visit my grandma, but they decided we needed to do something special for my birthday, and when I couldn’t tell them anything I’d like to do, they dragged everyone to play golf.”

“I was thinking more like… clubbing and then crashing at your grandma’s place overnight, but okay…” Yizhuo snickers, watching as all of your parents joyfully talk between themselves, their conversation rarely leaving business matters as they play golf with as much enthusiasm as one can have while focusing on this boring sport. You don’t really know who made this game and why they made it– you can imagine seventy thousand different ways you’d love to spend your afternoon doing instead, more than a half of them supposedly more mundane than the sport itself; but you still know you’d enjoy even sitting down and getting ice cream better than having to pretend you’re interested in, what Chenle called, rich-people-only sport. 

“Maybe I can sneak a bottle up into my room later, but I’m not promising anything,” Renjun shrugs, sighing to himself as he takes out his phone from his back pocket and shakes his head at the sight of the time appearing on his screen. You’ve been at the golf course since 10 AM, and with how interested in the game your parents seem to be, you’re not leaving any time soon either.

Not really engaged in the conversation– because Chenle once told you you complain too much (you truly thought he was the one doing so, but you believe pretty much everything that comes out of the man’s mouth, because he’s mostly right about things) and you think you’ve done your fair share of complaining on your way to the golf course in the first place– you look around, trying to find a thing that could occupy your attention instead. Finding anything fun to do while playing golf may just be the hardest thing to do, but when you notice your companion Chenle missing and his figure appears striding towards your small group in a golf cart, the vehicle going full speed (even the barely 40 km/h looks like it could kill when he seems to not give a single damn about running you over), and suddenly, your mind is occupied enough.

Screeching when the golf cart barely misses your figure, you jump to the side and watch Chenle laugh from the driver’s seat. His malicious instincts barely ever leave his body and the operation of a golf cart is seemingly bringing out the worst in him– thank god he barely drives anymore– and you can’t help but laugh at his little stunt when the cart comes to a sharp halt and he waves you three over with a motion of his hand.

“Hop on, motherfuckers, we have places to be!” he says, all of you following his footsteps and jumping into the small vehicle– you in the passenger seat, next to Chenle, and Renjun and Yizhuo taking the two seats on the back. Once you’re all in, the engine grunts with the speed Chenle’s intending to get to in the weak thing, the atmosphere shifts into one with much more fun and adrenaline– because you know you’re not supposed to ride the carts (not this fast anyway) and when your parents find out, you’re gonna get in a lot of trouble. No, you’re not going to get grounded– you’re not a kid anymore– but the silent treatment and nagging from them about being well-raised and respectable members of society is enough to leave you scared of their anger for the rest of your lives.

“Slow down, I’m gonna fall out!” you scream when Chenle takes a sharp turn, the golf cart almost toppling over on the green grass. 

“I got you, don’t worry,” he notes, one of his hands loosely falling to your thigh to keep you in place, your skin heating up even more from his touch now, enjoying the hold but also fearing the eyes of your friends from the backseat. Your earlier terror is quickly erased with another sharp turn the driver takes– having much more things to worry about now, surviving being one of them– and when he zooms past the group of middle-aged people standing a few meters ahead of you, you already know you’re in big trouble.

Now you’re gonna get scolded for abducting a golf cart. When it wasn’t even your idea in the first place.

Well, that’s something to worry about later.

Chenle drives with the cart all over the golf course, the vehicle providing you enough entertainment for the next few minutes until you get tired of the ride. Looking over at him on your side, gaping a little at the view of your childhood friend driving the cart with only one hand, the other one still securely glazing your thigh, you almost choke out with how attractive the strange sight is to your eyes. Forcing yourself to focus on the road– and thank god, because if you didn’t hold to the side of the cart now, you’d surely fall out despite Chenle’s reassuring words and his hold on your leg– when the man cuts through a small hill in the golf course, the vehicle jumping up and falling back down making you scream in terror mixed with just a bit of excitement.

“Fucking hell, at least warn us before!” Renjun screams from the back, followed by Yizhuo’s amused laughter. You can only imagine Renjun’s almost fallen out, and even though the mental image looks hilarious, you really don’t need him to get hurt today, because he wouldn’t shut up about it for the next 8 working days. And it’s his birthday, after all– you wouldn’t wanna ruin it by having too much fun.

And so, with a last giggle escaping the boy’s throat, Chenle brings the golf cart to a halt, the vehicle stopping far enough from your parents to not get scolded immediately for making so much ruckus at the golf cart, the four of you enjoying the silence, still recovering from the wild ride. Smiling fondly to yourself and gaping at the boy next to you again, you suddenly grow appreciative of him. If it wasn’t for his wild nature, you would still be sulking somewhere on the golf course, pretending to enjoy living your snobby life alongside your parents. You bet even Renjun himself will find this moment captured in his brain as a core birthday memory, and the more you stare at Chenle’s side profile, the more you want to hold his face in your hands and thank him.

“Ew,” you hear Yizhuo’s voice from behind you, bringing you out of your thoughts. Looking back to see what she’s referring to, you watch her gaze landing on Chenle’s hand playing with the flesh on your thigh, heat suddenly rising to your cheeks in being caught in the exact position you feared a little while ago. 

“What–” Chenle snaps his head back at his cousin, while you quickly shrug his palm off your skin, but it’s too late now– you’ve been caught in the act and now you can’t do anything to erase Ning Yizhuo’s memory.

“You know, I thought you two were cousins at first. Like, from your dad’s side, I mean,” Yizhuo sighs, shaking her head in disbelief at the two of you, her comment not doing much to ease the situation either. Chenle seems to be confused at her words, his face scrunching up as he glares at the girl.

“We’re not,” you note, clearing your throat and looking at her with a glare, mentally praying for her to drop the topic.

“Yeah, thank god,” Chenle adds, and you should’ve expected him to make the situation even worse– it’s Zhong Chenle, after all– but his next words shock you and leave you gasping, mentally killing him right here and in this moment, “that would make a lot of things weird.”

“Ew,” Yizhuo repeats, and suddenly, that perks up Renjun’s attention– the boy previously facing the other side of the golf course and not paying you three much care– as he looks around and watches you with confusion in his features.

“What are you talking about?”

“That they are–” the girl takes it upon herself to explain her findings, but she’s quickly cut off by a sound of a middle-aged woman screaming through the place, her small figure striding towards the golf cart.

“Zhong Chenle, what do you think you’re doing?!”

And with that scolding tone, the previous topic is dropped. Thank god.

June 12, 2020 – Zhong Chenle’s room, Shanghai, 11:21 PM

A hand stroking through his hair, smoothing back the bangs and revealing his forehead in the dim blue of the neon light in his room, you lay on your side next to your friend Chenle, a blanket carelessly thrown over your half-naked middles to shield you from the breeze. You hum a song under your breath as you play with his locks, the black disappearing between your fingers like sand, eyes carefully watching his tired expression. 

If you thought hard enough, you could see the little boy you first met at your parent’s conference room when you were 3 materialize in front of your eyes. His cheeks were chubby and he was short, waddling behind you almost a head less than your size, and his voice was thin as he asked you for your name. From that moment on, you knew you were supposed to stick together– and while your parents were the first relative to bring you two together, you didn’t mind always being glued to each other’s hips. 

When you look closer at him now, it’s hard to see that boy in him. Harder than you expected, if you’re being totally honest. Don’t get me wrong, you can still see in his features– even though his cheekbones are more prominent now and his jaw is more chiseled, lips plumper and his figure built more firmly than when he was a little boy– but there’s something about his demeanor that completely changed over time. He seems less enthusiastic, and while one would think that it’s just him growing into being a more laid-back and relaxed person– he’s not a kid anymore, after all– you think there’s something more to it, you just can’t quite put your finger to it. 

Seeing him close his eyes every once in a while, lids falling under the weight of his tiredness and the comfort your gentle strokes through his scalp give him, you feel your heart clench with all the care you’re currently putting into the boy, and all that you’ve been putting into him throughout your growing up. After so many years– after getting so close and intimate with him– you don’t think you’d be able to let the boy go, and just the sheer image of ever losing him or leaving him behind leaves you trembling with anxiety. 

And so, despite being afraid of ruining the calm atmosphere that comes after making love to him, you speak up with a weak voice, contrasting to what you’re logically supposed to feel after getting to know the news this morning– just because you have to know. 

“Lele?” you mumble, hearing him let out a hum, his voice sounding as if he’s half-asleep, but you know he’s listening to you. “What are your plans… after you graduate?” you ask. The day of graduation is coming faster and faster towards you, the years you’ve spent at high school finally fulfilled after all the effort you put in on your finals.

“Dunno,” he replies, eyes barely opened as his arm that’s been previously laid on the mattress in between your two bodies moves to your hip, fingers drumming over the soft skin, “why?”

“Just wondering…” you speak, voice barely louder than a whisper. The boy stays silent– his eyes once again closing on themselves as you continue to play with his hair. One would think he’s fallen asleep, not awake enough to have this conversation, and you would even believe the fact and let the conversation go, thinking you’d find another time to dwell on this topic, but then, as a surprise, his voice startles you from your deep thoughts when he curiously inquires you, the hand on your hip steadying.

“What about you?”

Taking a deep breath in and out, a smile battling to take over your lips, you lick your lips in the heartbeat that comes before your answer. Swallowing your nerves– because even though you should’ve told him the moment you got the news this morning, you’re somehow stressed out about the action of doing so– you open your mouth and finally break the rules to him. 

“I… I got to Yale,” you say, on your toes. The joy and relief you felt this morning when you saw the email appear on your phone screen is daring to creep into the way you speak to Chenle right now, but you’re keeping it in. Not letting yourself scream and shout the accomplishment from the rooftops, you look at the boy, not a change appearing on his face at hearing your announcement. “I got into their business program,” you add anxiously, waiting for him to say something– anything– to your news.

As your friend, he’s supposed to be happy for you, isn’t he? He’s supposed to hug you now and squeeze you and tell you how you’ve done a good job and that he’s proud of you and that he’s cheering you on in your dream. None of it comes, though, as he only hums and nods at your sentences, not even bothering to open his eyes to look at you when you oh so excitedly talk to him about your life goals. 

Something inside of you breaks just the tiniest bit, your mood falling as you anxiously chew on the inside of your cheek.

“Are you not gonna say anything?” you demand, halting your movements through his raven locks, averting your touch and looking at him curiously.

You watch him as he finally opens his eyes and looks at you with an empty look, licking his lips before humming again and asking you in a tone of voice that barely meets interest or excitement. “So you’re gonna be a businesswomen like your mum when you get your degree?” he asks, nodding to himself.

“Yeah,” you answer, clearing your throat. You’re a little confused at his weird stance towards the topic, but you battle out a tight-lipped smile. “I’m hoping for it.”

He hums again, the noise seemingly enough for him to consider it a valid conversation holder, a deadpan: “Good,” leaving his lips after a second, making you furrow your brows in confusion and utter disappointment. This is not the way you imagined the conversation to go– this is not how you wanted it to go at all.

Heaving out a sigh, you tug your arm to yourself, contemplating on speaking up– knowing you’re just gonna make everything worse if you do– but doing so anyway. “That’s all you’re gonna say?”

“I mean, what else is there to say?” 

Looking at him in disbelief, your face scrunching up in various different emotions, all mixing into one– disappointment being the dominant feel, you think, you scoff at him. This is not Zhong Chenle as you know him, and sure, he hasn’t been the most overly-excited, cheerful individual these past few months, but you still think you deserve at least a bit of praise for the achievement of getting into one of the hardest universities to get to in the world, no?

“I don’t know, you could… congratulate me, I guess…? Tell me I did a good job, I dunno… would be nice,” you mutter, snickering once more to prove your irritation with the man.

“Oh,” he says, looking genuinely surprised, taken-aback, even, “well, congrats on the legacy admission, I guess,” he says, nonchalant, as if his words aren’t a dagger to your heart each second that passes, your blood pressure rising as the reality downs on you that he’s being serious and that this is not a sick joke.

“The legacy admission?” you repeat, eyes big and shocked, your whole body moving an inch away from him on the bed without you realizing.

“Yeah,” he shrugs, not a bit caring about breaking you from the inside, the humiliation slowly creeping from the tips of your fingertips to the depths of your soul.

“So you’re saying I went through the whole admission process and put in so much effort only for you to say that I got in because of stupid legacy?” you chirp, gazing at him with sharp eyes, blood boiling from the impact of his words. “What legacy are you even talking about?”

“Don’t act like you’re not a nepo baby,” he snickers, rolling his eyes.

Gasping at his words, baffled at the unexpected reaction, you stand up on the bed and stare at him with sharp eyes. At a loss for words, you stutter a little when you speak up again and utter out the next words, hoping to hit him where it hurts. “Like you’re not?”

“Never said I’m not,” he shrugs, “don’t have a problem with admitting I am.”

“So you’re saying I only got to university because of my parents,” you get out, glossy eyes scanning his peaceful figure, “so you’re saying I’m not smart enough to get into Yale?” 

“That’s not what I said–”

“But you implied.”

“You only hear what you want to hear,” Chenle sighs, as if he was tired of your antics, which only makes you more furious at the whole interaction.

“No, Chenle–” you stutter, his name rolling off your tongue as if it was meant to stop him with hurting you even more for discrediting your efforts, yet, you can’t find any more words to say to him as you stare at this limb body laying on the soft mattress of his king sized bed, shaking your head in disbelief.

Standing up from the bed and scattering around the room for your clothes, ignoring the way putting them on in front of him makes you feel like you’ve been stripped away from all your dignity, you hurriedly come to the door of his bedroom, almost forgetting your phone that you gather on your way out from the messy desk in the right corner of the room. 

“Where are you going?” he asks monotonously, watching you move through the place.

“Home,” you bark out, running your hand through your hair as you walk back to the door, ignoring the hot tears pricking your eyes at the feeling of your whole entire world collapsing in on you when he mourns from the bed.

“Don’t be mad, it’s not like I said anything bad…”

“Goodnight,” you snap, not bothering to look back at him as you escape his house in the middle of the night, running through the street to your house much earlier than you anticipated, wiping at your cheeks with angry palms. 

This is the first time he disappointed you, and you can’t tell if that felt worse, or if it was the excitement slowly and painfully stripping off your bones, making you feel like you’re running around without your flesh, completely see-through for everyone around.

June 27, 2020 – IFC Mall, Shanghai, 4:33 PM

“Do you think this makes my ass look extra hot?” Yizhuo asks, gaze shifting from you to Chenle to Renjun, the four of you currently in one of the designer shops at the mall. Leaning on the wall, arms crossed on your chest and chewing on the inside of your cheek, you shrug, not a word escaping your mouth.

“I’m your cousin, I’m not looking at your ass like that,” Chenle mutters under his nose, sighing as he takes a seat on one of the expensive looking sofas situated in the changing room, resting his head against the neck rest and closing his eyes in what seems to be tiredness or annoyance– either of, or both mixed in, equal parts.

“Oh come on, I need to know!”

“It does look super hot, Yizhuo, now can you–”

“So you are staring at my butt!” Yizhuo excitedly yelps, pointing a sharp finger towards Renjun, a bright grin settling onto her lips when the accused boy stutters, cheeks reddening at her comment.

“You literally asked us to, for fuck’s sake!”

“You could’ve refused, just like Chenle did,” she shrugs, smiling to herself in victory. If anyone was listening to your conversation right now, they would surely have a lot of questions you wouldn’t be able to respond to. Hell, even you’re confused half of the time you hang out with Ning Yizhuo– what the hell is going on in her head?

“He’s your family, of course he refused,” Renjun mutters, shaking his head as he drags a hand through his hair in despair.

“Whatever you say, Renjunie,” she chirps, closing the curtain behind her and changing back into the pants she wore when she got to the store in one swift motion, leaving the boy puzzled with her next words as she walks up to the counter, “I’m only buying those because you think I look super hot in them, just so you know.”

Paying for her things and escaping the store, the rest of you tagging along, you notice the boy aimlessly trying to forget about the whole situation, and his prayers were listened to, after all, since Yizhuo seems to drop the topic after teasing him so much, turning to you instead. Walking alongside with you, leaving the two boys a few steps ahead, she nudges you with her elbow, raising up her brow in question.

“What’s up with you? You haven’t even tried anything on,” she notes, “and we both know you’ve been eyeing that new LV collection, so there must be something bothering you.”

Sighing, hating that the girl knows you so well– that, or you’re being awfully obvious– you roll your eyes in annoyance and try to shrug the topic off. “It’s nothing, I’m fine.”

“Well, that’s obviously a lie. Is it something with Chenle? You two are usually all over each other, so–”

“It’s not about Chenle,” you snap, cutting the poor girl off, “so drop it.”

“Did he say something stupid? I know my cousin, come on. I can slap some sense into him, sweetheart, just let me know–”

“Please let it be,” you insist, tone of voice almost a little too sharp for your own liking, but it seemingly does its job as your friend only shrugs and takes a sip out of the coffee you all bought when getting to the mall, catching up to the men a few steps in front of you, talking about basketball.

“Well, if you need to talk to anyone about it, you know where to find me,” she says, and joins the discourse with her cousin and the boy she’s been teasing for whatever reason for the last few weeks instead, leaving you to trail behind them like a lost puppy, deep in your thoughts.

It’s been a few weeks since you last talked to Chenle. He tried reaching out to you a few times, sending you texts to ask what you’re doing that day to see if you wanna hang out. It seemed that at first, he didn’t really understand that he upset you. After you continued to ignore him even on graduation day, only greeting him and sparing him a few words, he seemed to get the memo as he let you deal with your emotions by yourself instead. You were never given an apology– and truthfully, knowing Chenle, you didn’t even expect to get one in the first place. But still, it’s been bugging you and you couldn’t get his words out of your brain, because you know you can’t do anything about them– if this is the image he has of you, the opinion he created, you don’t think you can talk it out with him in the first place.

“Everything okay back there?” Chenle asks, looking behind at you. His eyes are big and honest, and you find yourself nodding to his caring question. Sparing him a word seems like too much effort right now, and so when he offers you a tight-lipped smile, you don’t have enough energy to reciprocate it.

“Princess Yizhuo here has sore feet, so we are calling it a day. You wanted anything from the mall? I can stay behind with you and go get it,” he continues, his words jabbing into you only reminding you more of the days you spent ignoring him. Realistically, he should be mad at you for it– maybe you even wanted that to happen so he would ignore you instead, giving you the silent treatment, but this is your childhood friend Zhong Chenle we’re talking about. He talks too much in situations where he should shut up instead, and that’s exactly what’s happening in this very moment as well.

“I’m good,” you note, shrugging as you throw the empty coffee cup into one of the bins on your way, your small group now escaping the mall and getting to the parking lot.

Walking towards Chenle’s Zenvo TS1 parked in the corner of the parking lot, you hear the chatter of the group resonating in your ears, not really engaging in the conversation yourself, but choosing to listen to feel included anyway. It’s not their fault that you’re not in the mood, and frankly, you’re glad they even invited you to the outing in the first place. Everything’s better than being left out in your books, even if it means forcing yourself into social interaction. 

“My driver should be here any minute,” Yizhuo smiles, waving at Renjun currently getting into his Porsche Cayenne that he got after you all arrived from his birthday trip to Korea. Watching the boy drive off– while listening to Chenle bitching about his driving (he does have a point though, the poor boy almost crashed into a pole on his way out) – you feel a nudge to your elbow, making you turn to your friend.

“Wanna get back with me, neighbor?” he asks, eyebrows raised in question. 

In any other circumstance, you wouldn’t miss a heartbeat before answering. But now, you ponder on the question for a bit– you got to the mall with Yizhuo, having hanged out with her at her place before– but now that she’s getting a drive home, there was no use in you tagging along with her, since you live quite far from her house. Getting a drive home from Chenle is the most logical solution, after all, and that’s why you find yourself nodding.

Jumping to the passenger’s seat, waving at Yizhuo still waiting for her driver to get there– it should take only about 5 more minutes, with the speed her driver can get to when called– you silently gaze out of the window on your way back, not sparing the boy next to you a glance. He seems to not mind, carefully taking turns and waiting at the stop signs and red lights on his way to your neighborhood, humming along under his breath to the songs on the radio instead to fill the silence. You spend the ride chewing on your cheek, nerves eating you up from inside just at the sheer fact of being in his close proximity again, yet still being so painfully hurt at the feelings he expressed the last time you hung out one-on-one.

His car smoothly gets to the parts of the town that feel more rich– houses growing bigger in size, the gates taller in the sky and the lawns mowed more carefully, with more fancy bushes in the yards and pure-blood dogs running around in front of the gates. After a few minutes, your neighborhood appears in front of your eyes, his car driving past your house and into the Zhong property instead, making you furrow your brows in confusion and annoyance.

“You could’ve just stopped in front of my house so I could get out, you know,” you hum, sighing when he turns the engine off. 

“I was thinking we could hang out over at ours for a sec,” he shrugs, turning his face to you with a hopeful glint in his eye, which you dismiss with an annoyed huff and a roll of your eyes, reaching towards the door handle to get out and walk over to your house instead. 

“Come on, Y/N,” he calls for you, “are you still mad?”

“No,” you snicker, shrugging as you move towards the front gates, his figure quickly catching up to you as he grabs your wrist, halting you in your movements.

“I’m sorry. Let me make it out to you?” he mumbles, looking at you with eyes big and deep like honey, and suddenly, you’re a putty under his touch– just like always, you cave in– as you sigh, following him inside. You don’t miss the victorious pep in his step as he leads you inside, his hand still in contact with your arm, only letting go when you get to his room and he leads you to sit on his bed.

“Wanna play something?” he asks, thrusting a PS5 controller into your hands, not really leaving you much room for disapproval. Grunting and rolling your eyes at him, you watch as he opens up It takes two, your characters running around the split screen trying to figure out the way around.

The silence between the two of you is cruciating, suffocating, even, as neither of you have enough courage to open up the topic again. Tugging at your bottom lip, biting off the dry skin up to the point it bleeds, you sigh and turn to the boy again, putting the controller down. “Is this your way of making it up to me?” you ask.

Cocking his head to you, he shrugs. “I mean, I had a different idea, but that’s up for a discussion…” he mutters, the suggestion of his words making you roll your eyes at him, in disbelief of the fact that he still has the audacity to tease when he knows you’re clearly upset with him.

“Okay, I’m… really sorry, okay?” he says when he registers your mood, sighing to himself and running a hand through his hair. “I kinda fucked up, and I realise that. I didn’t mean to imply that you’re stupid, or anything– come on, I always cheated off you on exams, after all– so, I just- it came off wrong, is what I’m tryna say,” he concludes, looking at you hopefully, his face seemingly in tune with the words coming out of his mouth.

Humming, you shrug, not really knowing what to say. The apology settles a little in you, noting that at least he acknowledged that he fucked up, and so you pick up the controller again and avert your gaze from him. Seeing as his character refuses to move, you look at him from the corner of your eye, raising your brows in question.

“So you forgive me?” he asks, licking his lips in nerves– the action making your eyes travel down to the plump rosiness, involuntarily following his action. His glistening mouth has your gaze wandering around his body, eyes focusing on things you’ve been purposefully ignoring the whole day– the way his forearms show off in his short-sleeved shirt, the way his hair is parted in a way that shows his forehead in the most strangely attractive ways, and also the ever-so casual demeanor of the male. Chuckling to yourself, you shrug, taunting him.

“I dunno,” you mumble, “how can you make it up to me?”

And again, Chenle gets the hint– he’s not stupid, after all. 

Slowly lounging himself towards you, making you drop the controller to his sheets, you close your eyes in expectancy of his touch, already so used to the rhythm of his lips against yours. His hand holds your jaw in place, firm kisses pressed to your yearning mouth, you try to remember the way his touch feels– just in case you have to give it up soon again– a selfish action of your body as you thread your fingers through his hair. 

Lips ghosting over yours, he snickers against them as he speaks. “You taste of blood,” he notes.

“Shut up,” you mutter, taking matters into your own hands as you lock yourself to him again, pressing shaky, hurried kisses to his lips. 

He finds a better place to attach them to, though, as he gently pushes you towards his mattress into a lying position, traveling towards your jaw and your neck. His touch never stays long enough to leave a mark– at least not in places visible for everyone to see, saving you a lot of explaining to your parents and your friends– but the kisses still leave you breathless and yearning for more, hands traveling down his back and humming in pleasure.

“Missed this,” he speaks against your skin, breathless, “so much.”

“Missed my body or me?” you ask, a hint of bitterness on your tongue.

“A bit of both,” he smirks, gently sucking on the skin of your collarbone, leaving you to squirm under the feathery touch. Hands traveling up under your shirt, his fingers trailing across your belly and the curve of your hip, you’re left shivering under the contrast of the heated atmosphere and his stone-cold hands, giggling when he presses an unusually sweet kiss to your cheek in between the more risky ones.

“And which one did you miss more?” you tease, locking eyes with him as he hovers over your body, plopped up by an arm on either side of your head.

His eyes glimmer as he stares you down, cocking his head to the side. “I miss when you didn’t talk,” he says, leaning down again and taking your breath away with a kiss, a displeased grunt meeting his lips as you disapprove of his snarky comment.

In the sheer second where you two break away for air, his hands undress your top, leaving you under him just in your underwear, a position you two have found yourselves in a number of times before. Still, it leaves you shy away under his hungry eyes, only relaxing again when his raven locks tickle the underside of your jaw, lips attaching to every inch of your now exposed body, not afraid of bruising the skin you always keep covered, out of everyone’s eyes. Sometimes, you yearn for him to plant a lovebite to your jaw, to the juncture of your shoulder and your neck, wanting to show them off to everyone and claim the boy as yours– you know you don’t have that power, though, when Zhong Chenle will never be yours and the bruises of desire are always hidden away from everyone, like a dirty little secret; much like what you two have going on in the first place anyway.

“You know,” he mutters against your skin, in between the kisses that have now grown lazier, “I was starting to get a little crazy when you ignored me. That was a first,” he says.

Snickering, hands once again finding their place in his locks, you shrug. “Was the first time you deserved it.”

“Does my opinion really matter to you that much?” he asks, chuckling as he presses another kiss to your skin, to a place a few inches below your collarbone.

“We’ve been friends forever,” you say, “‘course it does.”

“Well, then you should’ve known that as your friend,” he huffs, lips pressed against your skin, “‘m not looking down on you.”

Humming, you let him work his magic as his lazy kisses inch closer to the fabric of your bra, his other hand playing with the fabric of it, twirling the little bow in between your breasts in his fingers as he leans on one of his plopped-up hands, looking at you from the side. 

“Guess I was just more curious about what you wanted to do after school, y’know,” you say, the conversation flowing despite his hands all over you, “before you called me a nepo baby, of course.”

He chuckles at your remark, rolling his eyes at you as his finger trails up your side, your skin growing goosebumps under his touch. “Dunno yet. Why do you care?”

“Wanted to see how far we’re gonna be,” you say, the moment suddenly growing more intimate. The relationship you two have was never inclusive– you two had sex sometimes, sure, but you never once told each other this was more than that. You two were just mere fuck buddies, childhood friends that found sexual attraction in each other somewhere along the way, and while that was enough for you for a while, you found yourself growing anxious of the fact that he was never going to be fully yours. And with the growing anxiety– the smallest remainder of your worries that overtake you in the middle of the night sometimes– your throat closes up on itself when you choke out the next words. “Wanted to see how much time we have left together.”

His hand settles on your hip, his eyes bearing into yours with a newly found heaviness in them. Furrowing his brows, he licks his lips in nerves before speaking up. “Well, I’ll always be your neighbor, so you can find me when you come back. Unless we move, y’know…” he jokes, an airy laugh coming out his lungs that doesn’t meet the expected intention of easing the situation.

You chuckle– but there’s not a hint of lightheartedness in the gesture, quite the opposite, really– as you avert your gaze from him, your head lollying to the side when you try to hide your slowly, but surely growing red eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”

The hand on your hip squeezes the skin under it, his figure now fully hovering over you again, eyes desperately wanting to meet yours. A finger gently pressed to your chin makes you turn your head back forward, his worried gaze bearing into you, and for a moment, you two only stare into each other’s eyes, frozen in time. 

And again, Zhong Chenle isn’t stupid. 

But for a second, he acts like he is. 

“What are you talking about?” he chuckles. “You’re scaring me.”

And when you don’t give him an answer, but instead chew on the inside of your cheek– another place to bleed after you bite down too hard from the nerves crushing you from the inside– he seems to finally get the hint, an airy laugh full of disbelief meeting your ears. Having figured it out, still, he speaks it into existence– as if he needed a confirmation; 8 words tormentingly escaping from between his swollen lips.

“You don’t have feelings for me, do you?”

Sniffling, you shut your eyes close at the question, your silence a clear answer to your childhood friend as he peels himself off you, the feeling of cold air on your exposed skin like a painful slap to reality. You stay like that for some time, mentally counting seconds, each hammer of your heart in your chest like a threat to your existence. Finally, the silence is broken by a determined, yet a little weak sentence coming out of Chenle’s mouth.

“I think you have to leave.” 

Numb, you follow the orders.

July 25, 2020 – Ning Yizhuo’s room, Shanghai, 6:11 PM

“So I was right all along?” Yizhuo snickers, eating from the bowl of almonds she has settled in the free space between her lap and her crossed legs, staring at you with the hydrating sheet mask on her face. You heave out a sigh at her comment, rolling your eyes as you fall back into her soft mattress, shaking your head in disbelief.

“That’s all you got from this conversation?” 

“Almost,” she mumbles, but nudges you with her foot right after, “I’m joking. I was listening, I’m just… shocked that I was actually right and that you were fucking my cousin all along.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not happening anymore, so you don’t have to be disturbed,” you grunt, wondering why you actually told the girl in the first place, regretting the decision perhaps the most right now. Yes, she did bug you for the last few weeks about the reasoning behind your attitude, and the fact that you refused all the invitations to hang out with your friends in fear of seeing Chenle were starting to get a bit suspicious, so you figured you can’t hide it anymore and that Yizhuo was bound to find out either way sooner or later. And still, you think you needed a bit of girl advice too.

“‘m not disturbed,” she mumbles, voice suddenly considerate, “I just- the whole situation is all kinds of weird and fucked up right now.”

“Tell me about it,” you chuckle, the bitter taste on your tongue never leaving despite trying to drown your sorrow down in sweets. “I fucked it up, Yizhuo.”

“Now, that’s just not true,” she sighs, putting the bowl of almonds to her coffee table and laying next to you, reaching for your hand and swinging it around in failed acts of encouragement and affection. “It’s not your fault he freaked out and made it weird.”

“I made it weird!” you mourn, breaking away from her grasp and dragging your hands through your hair in frustration, the feelings bundling in your stomach making you feel like acid is just bound to shoot out of the crevices of your insides, throwing up from the stress and despair. “I’m moving across the world the next month and I won’t see any of you for a long time, since Jun is moving to Korea and you’re gonna work in your parent’s company as well as going to uni here, and instead of spending the last moments of summer break together, I fucked it up and made everything weird and awkward just because I had to fall in love with my childhood best friend. While we’d been fucking. Isn’t that fucking great?” you huff, closing your eyes shut with the tears threatening to fall down your cheeks at your own words falling from between your lips.

“We are spending time together right now, though,” Yizhuo tries to cheer you up, her pout heard in her tone.

“There are millions of different ways you’d love to spend your time with me instead of moping because of your cousin,” you note, sighing, “and I don’t even fucking know what he’s gonna do after summer break, and now, I won’t get to know.”

Yizhuo grows quiet next to you, suggesting the thickening atmosphere. Turning on your side to see your friend with her eyes glued to your figure, you chew on the inside of your cheek. She sighs, preparing herself for the mental tangent she’s gonna bring you on, and reaches over to smooth down your messy hair. 

“You know, Chenle never really liked… this life,” she says, shrugging, “he hates shopping, he hates hearing about investing, he hated traveling so much when you and your family didn’t tag along… At every family reunion, he just hid away in his room and never got out, because he found the whole situation snobby and fake and all those adjectives I’ve never really thought about calling my own relatives. He… he…” she licks her lips, trying to come up with the right words to say, “he sees the world around us with different eyes, and I don’t think he’s happy with it. So don’t- don’t be mad at him for not really… going anywhere with it, okay?” 

Furrowing your brows at her, you shake your head in confusion. This is perhaps the first time you really realized Chenle’s view on things– it’s not like you haven’t heard his annoyed rants about all the prestige and over-the-top lifestyle you all have, but that’s all you thought it was. Annoyance– because at the end of the day, your life is comfortable. You wouldn’t want it any other way. If money moves the world around, you were the one walking through every hallway, all opportunities opened up in front of your eyes; and you don’t think you’d enjoy your life more if you had a bit less money. Chenle, on the other hand, seems to be quite the opposite. His joy is not determined by money, and for the first time in your life, it seems like you’re getting what he’s been talking about your whole life, the words you heard but never truly listened to. It was right in front of you the whole time, but you never saw it, and now that your eyes have been opened, you find it hard to deal with the revelation.

“But what is he going to do?” you gurgle out, confused. 

“I don’t think he knows either,” Yizhuo shrugs, “he’s… figuring out things, I suppose.”

Chuckling, you shut your eyes in despair, thinking for a bit, but still failing to grasp the situation. “I don’t get it. He- he could have everything, but he’s just… throwing everything away? He could move across the world, he could start his own company, he could buy a house or work or study, but he just won’t,” you ramble, “I don’t get it.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Yizhuo shrugs, “but he sees it a different way.”

Laying flat on your back, eyes glued to the ceiling, your friend clears her throat and awkwardly shuffles around her sheets. “And at the end of the day, even though you’ve been friends for forever, I think you’re just in love with the version of him that you’ve created in your head. The version that you’re trying, but cannot fix,” she notes, pausing for a moment before proceeding,  “the only person you can fix is yourself.”

And maybe, Yizhuo’s right. Maybe you fell in love with the Chenle in his sports car, Chenle in the golf cart with his designer clothes on, Chenle on the cruise ship sipping on expensive alcohol. Maybe you fell in love with the version that has the whole world in the palm of his hand, the version of him that goes to Yale with you and rents out a luxurious apartment in the middle of the city, kissing you behind the tall windows, watching over the busy streets– the version in your dreams, the version you wanted to achieve.

But what about the version of him that walked you to your house after tennis class? What about the version of him that cuddled you in his sheets, the version of him that fell asleep soundly when you played with his hair, cradled your fingers through his scalp? What about the version of him that scared you in the dark, because he knew you get creeped out too easily, the version of him that ate cheap sausage with you in Japan, the version of him that studied with you and brought you to your bed when you fell asleep at the table? What about the version of him that cried to Disney movies with you, the version of him that danced with you to the tunes of One Direction in your room when you were sixteen, the version of him that threw rocks on your window in the moonlight the night you turned seventeen, wanting to be the first one to wish you happy birthday before slipping inside of your room in the middle of the night, only to fall asleep seconds later, huddling your sheets?

Did you make that up? Was that not him in the first place?

And maybe, there is a discrepancy between the dream you’ve made up in your head with him, the idea of you two staying together, trying to fix the view he has on the world you two live in, but at the end of the day, none of it was a lie. 

And maybe, Yizhuo’s right; you should change the way you view things to match Chenle’s better, because at the end of the day, maybe you’re the one too blinded by the gold and silver around your neck to see the real issue here.

August 2, 2020 – Lehai Villas, Baicheng, China, 10:15 PM

When you finally see Zhong Chenle after the night he kicked you out of his bedroom, both of you are a mess. 

You’re a mess in the more subtle sense. Your dress is neat, the jewelry on your neck was carefully picked out days before, the heels enveloping your feet are one of the most comfortable ones for you to walk in, since you prepared yourself for being on your feet the whole evening. Your makeup is fixed on your face, earrings dangling off your ears and your purse matches the outfit perfectly; your hair in a fancy updo that you even drove to a hairdresser for, all so that you could look flawless for another one of your parent’s gatherings. Their business partner’s son is turning 21, and while it doesn’t look like that big of a deal, they are celebrating the fact that Mark Lee is now one of the shareholders of their company– and in your world, this is the most moving moment of the child’s life.

You’re a mess in the more subtle sense– you keep looking around, restless, not really paying attention to anything anyone is saying. Aimlessly humming and picking at the skin of your cuticles, you try hard to both catch a glance of your friend, and to also avoid him at all costs. The reality that Zhong Chenle is a mess too hits you only when you finally see him– his tie loose on his neck, a grunt escaping his throat that you can hear from all the way to where you are, his walking a little wobbly and his hair messy as he runs his hand through the sprayed-down locks, his composure disheveled and so obviously out of the place.

And you want to stay away, you really do– to let him deal with his own things by himself, to pretend you weren’t cautiously looking for him all evening– but when he picks up another glass of alcohol from one of the tables and downs it in one go, cheeks getting rosier by the minute, you wonder how far you can let him go until he gets into trouble with his parents; and suddenly, you’re on your feet, just like you expected, dragging your figure closer to the one you’ve been trying to avoid.

“Don’t you think you’ve drunk enough?” you mumble when you appear behind him, his shoulders slouching at the tone of your voice. When he looks around and catches your eyes, he snickers to himself, shrugging, before he makes a face full of disgust at your remark.

“We’re celebrating, aren’t we?” he says, “Mark Lee’s a big man now, taking all the responsibility for a company that’s so great, and he loves the job so much,” he continues, over-exaggerating every word, “and we’re here to celebrate his birthday! Have you… seen the motherfucker anywhere, by the way? Would wanna congratulate him on… the thing…” he trails off, dramatically scratching his head as he speaks the last words.

“Chenle–”

“Right! We are celebrating a guy we don’t even know, or seen the whole evening, but that’s so great, because at least we have all this alcohol–”

“Okay, you’re getting out of here,” you snap, shaking your head at his antics and digging your nails into his forearm, dragging the boy out of the crowded place before he throws a tantrum. With how his voice was getting louder and louder, a few figures turned to watch your exchange, and you can’t imagine the turmoil this will take on him once his parents find out– it’s better to get him out of there before he messes up even more badly.

His feet stumbling on the stairs outside, he mutters something under his breath as you drag his half-limp, half-stubborn body through the enormous land. The gardens are full of fairy lights and adults talking to each other in hushed whispers, laughter erupting out of their put-together figures every now and then, and you take some time before you finally manage to find a silent corner in one of the carefully mowed gardens, Chenle’s complains silencing after a while, admitting his fate.

Carelessly throwing his body towards one of the benches, the lighting dim in the corner, you watch as he takes a seat and looks at you with defeated eyes, the emptiness behind his gaze breaking you on so many levels you didn’t even think you could master; Zhong Chenle is a mess– has been a mess for a while now, and you didn’t notice– you didn’t do anything about it until now.

“What happened to you?!” you yelp out, voice betraying you somewhere towards the end of the sentence, sounding more desperate than you intended. Eyes scanning over his slouching body, you notice him playing with his fingers in his lap, an action of calming himself down that he’s picked up after you slapped his hands every time he tried to bite on his nails growing up, and you take a few steps around the place, running your fingers through your carefully styled hair. 

“Don’t scold me like my mother,” Chenle grunts, rolling his eyes at your composure.

“No, Chenle, because I don’t get it,” you shake your head, looking him dead in the sparkless eyes, “I do not get it.”

When he offers you no explanation, rather just gazing your whole body up and down, eyes half-lidded, you presume he’s a bit out of it– the alcohol truly hitting his system now, making you result in a little tangent of yourself, because you presume everything’s better than his parent’s scolding, and maybe he just needs someone to wake him back to reality. “What happened, Chenle? What the actual fuck is going on lately? You don’t speak to anyone about it, you don’t tell me, out of all people–” a snicker leaves his lips to this, making you huff in frustration, “you don’t tell anyone how you’re feeling, and it’s eating you up from the inside, and believe me when I say, Chenle, it’s pretty damn heartbreaking to watch.”

Looking at him, you’re offered nothing but silence. His cheeks are rosy and puffed up from the alcohol, his frame is small– opposed to the power stance he usually takes– and you don’t think you’re getting a conversation from him any time soon. Ready to give up, you shake your head at him and scoff. “Okay, fine. You don’t have to talk to me, since you have an issue with the fact that I care about you more than I should,” you snap, agreeing to be petty with him, if this was how he was gonna play.

“I don’t talk to any of you, because you wouldn’t understand,” he says, voice almost a bit annoyed, tongue dipped in bitterness. 

“We grew up together, Chenle. Our lives are pretty much the same, why the fuck would you think that I, out of all people, wouldn’t understand?” 

“See, that’s the thing,” Chenle catches you off guard, charming in with an argument barely before you are able to finish the sentence, “our lives are pretty much the same, yet you love it. You fucking love it, all of you do– you love waking up in your little fancy bedrooms, doing great at school because if you don’t, your parents are going to threaten you with disowning you– and what else do you have if not your parents wealth that you coincidentally, also despise at the same time? You go shopping to your favorite mall with your equally wealthy friends, because you’re not allowed to befriend people that are lower class– that would just look fucking embarrassing in front of your parents’ contacts, wouldn’t it? You go to charity events and birthday celebrations of a guy you’ve never seen in your whole life before, just because someone told you to– and don’t you dare tell them you won’t go, because how the fuck are they gonna look all pretty in front of their business partners if their only son doesn’t attend a celebration of someone inheriting a share from their parents’ company– a thing you’re supposed to do as soon as you turn 20, if you don’t attend university they picked out for you instead. You go on fancy holidays and take pictures in front of all the attractions, and it doesn’t even feel special anymore, because you do this every month– and the only time you ever felt alive was when you were drunk and making out with someone that you shouldn’t even think about in that way in the first place, because it’s your parents’ friends’ daughter, and at the end of the day, they would just love the fact that we were together, because that could strengthen the business bond they have– the only reason why they’re friends in the first place, and I’m so fed up, I hate it, I despise it–” he stops to take a breath, his eyes getting glossy,

and suddenly, you’re helpless, you’re falling apart– because the issue is so much bigger than you anticipated and you don’t know how to do anything about it.

“And I don’t fucking feel real, Y/N, I don’t, and I don’t think I ever have, because I just wake up in the mornings and then somewhere along the way, I realise I’m alive and I laugh, because how could all of this be real? How could the money be real? How could anything be real, and– and it’s so confusing, because I should be grateful, but I’m not, because I can’t even fully grasp it,” he breathes, tears now streaking down his cheeks.

It feels like the whole world stopped for a moment; it feels like you are in a movie and someone pressed pause. You stare at him, you blink, and you pray for something to send you strength to deal with this, to tell you what to do or how to comfort him– because this must have felt so alone, and you can’t stand the image of Chenle ever being lonely.

Opening your mouth and closing it, you gasp for air. No words feel suitable for this kind of conversation, and so you just chime towards him– despite all your best assumptions– and hold him. Because at the end of the day, what helps more to ground someone back to earth than human touch?

Pads of your thumbs wipe at the teardrops strolling down his cheeks, every contact with the salty liquid hurting you, cutting through your skin like razor blades– because Chenle never cries, he never feels like something is worth indulging in enough to bring him to tears– and when he catches his trembling bottom lip in his teeth, you break; pulling him towards you and threading your fingers through his hair, the action once lullying him to sleep now used like a broken mantra– please be okay, please relax, please let me hold you until you’re glued back together again.

“I dunno what to do,” he shrugs, his head resting on your stomach, voice burrowing itself into the fabric of your expensive dress, “dunno where to go. ‘Cause Jun’s leaving, and Yizhuo’s gonna be busy with everything, and– and you’re moving across the fucking ocean, and I’m just– I turned everything down, because–” he says, voice breaking, and you shush him with a pat on his back, touch growing more affectionate.

“It’s okay,” you hum, “I got you,” you say; words he once told you at the golf cart, looking after you, or in the hotel room back in Japan when you were 6 and falling asleep, still scared of ghosts appearing in your bedroom– and you believed them, you always did, because Chenle was always there when you needed him– so you only pray he finds comfort in the sincere phrases, because what more is there to offer him?

His breathing grows steadier as you continue to play with his messy hair, his hands gently allowing themselves to wrap around your thighs, your standing figure shelved between his legs, and he laughs to himself, the whole situation kind of ironic to him now. “I don’t even know why I’m crying. ‘m kinda numb, you know, so it doesn’t even really hurt in the first place,” he says, and you wish you found the same humor in it than he did– or at least the bitter sense of soothing yourself with irony– but you can’t. Looking down at his body, latched to you like a lifeline, you wonder how you could ever leave him there alone, to deal with the burden by himself. How could you ever move so far away from him?

“My parents wanted me to go with you,” he starts, the sentence sparking up something inside of you, but he doesn’t pull away and meet your eyes when he continues, foreshadowing a sad ending to your hope, “they said I should study business at Yale as well, that it’s a great opportunity.”

You don’t reply to him, choosing not to push him. After a sigh, he continues. “And I didn’t get in, because, naturally, I was too stupid for it in the first place– no, I was–” he says when you gently slap the back of his head at the comment, “but then they paid the dean and suddenly I was allowed to go. Can you believe that?” he snickers bitterly, shaking his head in disbelief. “Bad mouthed you for a thing I despised in myself, when you were the one that got in fair and square in the first place.”

“‘s okay,” you mumble, compassion dripping off your words.

“And I turned it down, ‘cause I hated the fact that they did that. I was okay with studying the fucking business program, even though I despised it, I was okay with moving across the world, because at least you’d be there, y’know, but I couldn’t bear the fact that they did that to get me in. I think I was too ashamed, too embarrassed, because they had to pay for me to get there, but– I don’t know…” he trails off, and you sigh, shaking your head in disbelief.

“It’s okay to take opportunities that are presented to you, Lele,” you mumble, “I know you hate it, but you can’t change who you’re born to. The best you could do is to not waste all of this,” you say, trying to find a source of light in the deep abyss of his thoughts.

You try hard to solve the problem– to offer him a solution that could work, that could let him forget about the pain for at least a second– to wake him up from whatever deep thinking that got him into this mess. You try hard to solve the problem– but you don’t know how to deal with it. All you know is that you’re trying to pick up the patterns; you’d fit in his skin if you could, you’d crawl in and fix everything– but at the end of the day, as Yizhuo said, the only person you can fix is yourself.

“Bought,” he says, fixing your mistake, “opportunities that were bought for me. I couldn’t do it,” he says.

Huffing, indulging in a spare second of your own pain– a spare second of the despair eating you up from the insides, the helplessness you’ve been feeling ever since you were forcefully kicked out of Zhong Chenle’s life– and you didn’t even tell him you loved him in the first place before he got stuck in the fire of the woods; before you two started acting like it didn’t matter and always ended up in feuds– you mumble a comment, voice barely louder than a whisper, but he can hear it because of the closeness of your bodies in the few stray raindrops that come over you two once the clock strikes midnight.

“We could’ve lived together, you and me,” you say, “us against the whole world,” you comment– a childlike yearning spilling out of your lips, “we could’ve gone to Yale together and you’d figure something out along the way. Maybe– maybe you’d find a purpose if you moved, we could–”

“Y/N,” he shushes you, uttering out your name, finally breaking away from you as he looks up and gazes into the swimming pools of your eyes, shaking his head with a faint smile, “‘s okay. It wouldn’t have fixed anything anyway, it– it wouldn’t have helped.”

“But–”

“You can move, Y/N, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter, ‘cause you’re taking yourself with you.”

August 20, 2020 – the backyard of your childhood house, Shanghai, 11:11 PM

You were never really that good at science– sure, your parents demanded you get good grades in every subject and your private school put quite the pressure on your education, but even though you always managed to pull satisfactory marks in exams, your understanding of the logistics sometimes lacked; you were much better at humanities or business-related courses, hearing enough at family dinners to find out your way through the lectures and apply the facts into examples from real life.

So, if anyone asked you how many stars there were in the universe, you wouldn’t be too confident in your answer. You wouldn’t know how to apply the Milky Way as your model– since it was said that it has around 100 billion stars alone– and multiply the part by the amount of galaxies in the universe– approximately 2 trillion– to get a number somewhere close to 200 billion trillion, also called 200 sextillion. 

You wouldn’t know how to do any of that, or how to even count this amount without a calculator, so you’d take a more liberal arts approach– literary, even– and say, that on August 20, 2020, at 11:11 sharp in your backyard, gazing on to the deep, dark sky and wishing for a star to fall so you could propose a selfish wish that could change everything, there’s still not more stars there than in Zhong Chenle’s eyes when your gazes meet after your friends leave for the evening, leaving you with your neighbor completely alone.

And it’s strange, seeing him like this– maybe because you didn’t even realize how used to the dull and emotionless Chenle you’ve been all this time– but it warms something inside of your heart as you take a hesitant step towards him, the first one out of the whole evening, and take a seat next to him in the corner of your terrace, sighing to yourself.

“You actually came,” you note, seeing as he turns to you and furrows his eyebrows at you in confusion.

“Should I not have? I mean, by the text you sent me, it seemed like you wanted me here, but if I misread the situation, I can go…” he snickers, teasing you just the slightest as he nudges you to your side.

You hum, shaking your head in disapproval. “No,” you say, “I just… I dunno.”

“Expected me to ignore you?” 

“Kinda,” you admit, snickering.

“Damn,” he giggles, “that’s fair, though. Considering the previous events, and all.”

Rolling your eyes at his composure, finally getting used to the old Chenle– the one that teases you over the smallest things, the one who doesn’t let his emotions show in his face– you watch him as he takes a seat on one of the rattan sofas and you follow him, body slouching next to his, feeling his head gently rest on your shoulder in the mere moment of silence between your two figures.

“Wouldn’t let you leave without seeing you for the last time,” he says, voice quiet and vulnerable, “god knows when I’ll see you again.”

“Chenle–”

“Just because you don’t want to talk about it doesn’t mean it’s not real,” he snickers, already knowing where your words are going– you’re going to try to stop him, tell him you don’t want to think about it right now, on the last evening at your house for the near future. 

“I’d rather not think about that, y’know,” you huff, frustrated. The anxieties of leaving everything behind are clenching on your insides right now, holding you back from moving freely and with enthusiasm, and you wonder– if you knew how this would feel all those months ago– if you knew how terrifying and painful the whole process could be, would you still apply to Yale? Would you still want to go?

“Okay,” he dotes, tone of voice casual, like it’s not a big deal. 

“Okay? Just like that?” you snicker, surprised at how easily he gave the topic up.

“Yeah. Don’t wanna make you sadder.”

Sitting in silence, you realize there’s so many words you’d like to say to him. You’d like to tell him just how much you’re gonna miss him and how you regret ruining the last few months you two had together, and how you’re sorry your feelings scared him to the point where he felt like he had no one to confide in. You’d like to tell him how you built a future with him in your brain, carefully placed him into your reality, only for him to break away from your grasp and go his own way, and how much it hurts, but how you’re always going to support him in whatever he chooses, because you care for him more than your little heart could take. You’d like to tell him how you’re gonna call him every day to check up on him, how you’re gonna send letters and press a secret kiss to each sheet of expensive paper you’ll get downtown, wishing he could feel the essence with the growing distance between you two. You’d like to ask him to visit you often– he’s gonna have more time on his hands, and god knows money’s not the issue. You’d like to selfishly tell him you find it hard to deal with the distance, and how you wish he wouldn’t find somebody else while you’re gone, and how you so dearly hope that somewhere in there, your feelings are silently reciprocated, but hidden away in fear of everything falling apart once again.

But instead, you don’t say anything. You tend to wait for him to speak up first– he’s always had a problem with talking too much in the first place, after all.

And he does– you can still predict his next moves. You know him that well.

“I’m gonna miss you, though,” he sighs, catching you off guard by saying something from the list of your silenced words, “don’t think that I won’t. Or that the way I’ll miss you is different than the way you’re gonna miss me,” he speaks, tone of voice laced in honesty and sincerity, his words heavy with the essence of what he’s never going to say out loud– or so you think.

“In what way?”

“I’m not gonna miss you like a friend misses a friend,” he says, “and I don’t mean the sex,” he snickers, brightening the mood with his comment.

Rolling his eyes at him, you feel him lift his head up from your shoulder, forcing you to look at him and meet his starry eyes again– the damn starry eyes that always make you spill the truth, because god knows you cannot lie to him– and you find yourself scanning his features, the structure of his bones you fear you’re gonna forget when you’re away, so desperately wanting to lock your lips with his for one last time, because when you come back one day, you may not have the right or chance to do so anymore. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks, not a hint of teasing in his voice.

“You know why, Chenle.”

“Can you say it out loud?” he demands, and you shake your head– maybe it's best if the words are left unsaid. Doesn’t matter if they’re hanging in the air, for everyone to read.

“Why?”

“You know how I feel about you,” you snicker, “don’t make me say it out loud.”

Because even if you told him you loved him, it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t make it all better, it wouldn’t make it all good– no matter how hard you wish that it would. 

“Okay,” he nods, agreeing too fast again– and with that, he smiles, the gesture so soft and sudden, and there you are– you’ve got a caving heart in your open arms, and Chenle takes it, carelessly choking out the hushed confession, “I’m in love with you. If you don’t say it, I’m gonna, because… you deserve to know.”

Heart sinking into your stomach, you watch him, frozen in your place, for a while. Your eyes carefully scan every curve of his face– the curve of his lips, the curve of his cheeks, the hood of his eyes, his brows, the thousand stolen galaxies in his orbs and mouth glistening like honey, inviting you in. Snickering under your breath, you choose to not give in to the temptation.

“You’re only saying that because I’m leaving tomorrow,” you say, shaking your head. 

“Maybe,” he agrees.

And you know that– you know that if you weren’t leaving, he wouldn’t tell you that he loves you. He wouldn’t allow himself to be this vulnerable, he wouldn’t tell you how he feels about you, because he had all this time– all those months and weeks spent with you in his bed, and you know his touches weren’t just shallow desire– and he never once said anything. He didn’t do anything about it, and now that there is nothing more to do about it, nothing that could change the trajectory of either of your lives, he chooses to speak it to the universe; because it doesn’t change anything, it can’t possibly do so– and so he doesn’t have to fear the consequences, he doesn’t have to fear the attachment that comes with such confession.

And for a minute, you think it’s selfish. You think it’s laughable, ironic, even, but you accept it. 

His hand reaches for yours, interlocking your fingers with his when he launches you forward into him, arms gently enveloping your body when your head settles itself to the curve of his shoulder. You stay like this for a while, in his hold again, breathing in his scent and trying to remember it for weeks and months before you’re able to smell it again, letting out a nosy question out of your lips– and truly, you don’t know why you do so, when you know the answer to it already anyway. Maybe you just want to hear it again.

“So… you do have feelings for me too, after all?”

He stays quiet for a while, before he softly laughs into your hair. “Yeah,” he nods, “but it doesn’t matter, ‘cause you’re leaving for Yale tomorrow, aren’t you?”

And he’s right– you are. Thinking for a while, feeling him place a shy peck to the crown of your head– the only kiss you two allow yourselves at this point of time– you come to the conclusion that  even though you love him, care for him like you’ve never cared for another before, you wouldn’t change a thing about your plan– wouldn’t change the trajectory of your whole life, wouldn't stay in Shanghai, wouldn’t drop out of university, wouldn’t stop everything because of him, because in a way, you strangely have it all figured out. 

And he doesn’t.

And you pray that one day, he’ll find the purpose in all the potential he holds in his hands.

[cattordi]

2. the new neighbor 🥥

a/n 𓇼 hello again! enjoy and i hope yall get the oth reference at the end

summary 𓇼 after returning to the obx, you rent the cameron’s guest house; forcing you into close proximity with your ex boyfriend— rafe.

pairings 𓇼 pogue!reader x exbf!rafecameron

warnings 𓇼 not proofread, alcohol, angst, suggestive thoughts, “drunk” driving

˚⋆𓇼˚⊹ 𖦹 ⁺｡° ˚⋆𓇼˚⊹ 𖦹 ⁺｡° ˚⋆𓇼˚⊹ 𖦹

“maybe you still love her” topper says as he grabs his 9-iron. after your small argument, you went on your run and rafe was destined to distract himself.

now it’s 12, rafe is on his 6th beer and drunkenly playing golf with his best friend, topper.

“i definitely don’t love her anymore. that ship sailed the second she fucking left me.” rafe groans, sitting on the golf cart, “i don’t think i could ever love her again. let alone any woman.”

“that’s what i said about sarah,” topper begins before swinging, “now im with ruthie and im happy.”

rafe rolls his eyes, “you’re happy. not happier.”

“and you’re just sad.” topper shrugs, walks over, and drives the golf cart to find his ball, “you need to find someone or something that makes you happy because you’ve been in this slump for too long. it’s getting hard to watch.”

rafe rolls his eyes again, and takes a sip of his beer; but his mind keeps wandering back to you. he missed you. he could deny it to everyone else but deep down he knew.

he’d found out about your arrival when rose told your dad you’d settled in nicely. rafe stormed out of the house the moment he heard, mainly disappointed his family didn’t mention your coming to stay with them.

after that, he planned to stay as far away from you as he could, avoiding you at all cost, even if that meant moving out, but that quickly went out the window.

when he heard you getting water, he originally thought it was wheezie and he was coming downstairs to tell her to quiet it down. he hadn’t expected it to be you.

the way your hair went down your back, the way all his shirts fit you, the way your ass fit in every pair of pants, the way you smelled.

he’d missed you and never thought he’d be able to experience those things again, but the anger he felt when he saw you.. it was unimaginable.

he wanted you out of his life just as much as he wanted you in it.

𓇼

“jj put me down!” you scream as jj runs at you, picks you up, and jumps off the deck into the lake. quickly, you both resurface, and he’s laughing.

“sorry y/n. i’ve just missed you.”

after your run, you and sarah drove over to “the cut”, the south side of kildare island; where you’re from.

your parents were never the richest, but they always made it work. you adored that about them. no matter what the circumstances were, they made it happen.

“i’ve missed you too j” you admit, moving your hair out of your face.

you’d met “the core four” or jj, kie, john b, and pope in middle school. you’d had ever class with pope, and eventually you joined their clique. they quickly became your best friends.

“how was new york? plan on going back?”

“trying to get rid of her already j?” kie begins as she walks towards the dock, “she just got back.”

“never baby.” jj mumbles as he swims over towards the dock, pulling himself up. seeing them together makes you smile, considering jj has always liked kie.

“i got drinks!” a voice yells from the chateau, john b’s house.

the three of you look up to see john b with two brown unlabeled bags, sarah following closely beside him, and pope and cleo walking hand in hand towards the dock.

kie and jj run over excitedly as you get out of the water. the sight of the three couples makes your heart heavy.

your feelings for rafe were still so strong, but the breakup was for the best, and you strongly believed so.

𓇼

around 10pm, you and sarah head back to tanneyhill, both of you slightly drunk but sober enough to drive.

once you make it back, sarah quickly goes up to her room, telling you goodnight.

you smile as she leaves, and walks towards the guest house.

“y/n!” a deep voice says from behind you and you automatically know it’s rafe.

you turn around, sternly. “hm?”

he’s wearing a dark blue polo shirt and khaki shorts. his longer hair he had when you two dated was now replaced by a buzz cut and you couldn’t lie: he looked good.

“where ‘ave you been?” he ask, stumbling over his words.

“i was with sarah down in figure 8.” you start, stepping towards him slightly amused, “are you drunk rafe?”

“i had like 1,” he begins counting on his fingers, “2,3,4,4…9 drinks maybe.”

“hm” you grab his hand, “cmon”

you drag him into his house, immediately heading upstairs to his room. upon entering, you immediately notice how dark it is. not because of the lights being off but because of his blue walls.

“your walls…” you stutter and turn the lights on.

“yup.” rafe says and he sounds as sober as ever.

“why’d you paint them?”

“got ‘ired of the white.” he groans as he flops down onto his bed; quickly drifting off.

you rummage through his drawers, grabbing a tshirt and shorts, and slowly changed his clothes. after you do your best to tuck him into bed, trying not to wake up.

once done you turn off his lights and walk towards the door. just as you open it rafe says, “y/n?”

“yeah?”

“i hate you.” he says coldly, and turns over, his back facing you.

[wileys-russo]

blurb with Leah trying to teach reader how to play golf? Maybe it’s their second or third date but they aren’t official yet? Which is really just an excuse for her to get all handsy with you and try to flex and show off with her golf skills to impress you. All fluffy and soft for our LW6 :)

top golfer II l.williamson

"leah...why are we at a golf course?" your eyebrows scrunched into a frown as the blonde parked up, shooting you a grin and cutting the engine of her car.

"well where else does one play golf?" leah asked sarcastically, and though you did admit when the girl had asked you to play golf for your third consecutive date, you naively assumed she meant of the miniature kind.

"i thought you meant mini golf! i don't know the first thing about real golf leah." you laughed with a shake of your head. "well then you're in luck my girl because i happen to be a wonderful teacher." leah grinned with a wink, reaching into the back of her car and placing a grey golfers hat on her head.

"oh surely you're not wearing that." you scoffed in disbelief, leah feigning offence and clutching at her chest. "i most certainly am, i'm one of the pros!" the english captain winked, slipping out of the car and hurrying around to open the door for you.

"so chivalrous." you smiled as she bowed mockingly before slinging an arm over your shoulder, locking her car and walking the two of you over to the clubhouse. "so, up for 18 holes then?" leah asked casually and your eyes widened in shock as you arrived to reception.

"18?!"

"two passes for the driving range please, two hour session." leah smiled politely, sliding her membership card over the counter to the young woman who nodded, clicking away at her computer as you sighed in relief and pinched at her arm unappreciative of her teasing.

the receptionist explaining where everything was as well as pointing out the rules and behavioral expectations whilst at the range leah nodded, only half listening before she thanked the young woman and pulled you away.

"i don't know how you've convinced me into this, i happen to hate golf." you admitted honestly as the two of you arrived in your area, setting your things down on the small lounge as leah eyed up the clubs.

"you know its a crime to say those disgustingly hateful words here yeah?" leah hummed as she ran her fingers over a nine iron, pulling it out with a satisfied nod. "its a boring sport for boring rich old men with nothing better to do." you shrugged, taking a seat on the lounge as leah shot you a look.

"well boring old rich men and ego driven footballers who can't just be good at one sport and be satisfied with that." you teased as leah tee'd up a ball. "you better watch your mouth or i'll have you thrown out." leah warned, a smile tugging at her lips as she readied herself to swing.

"don't miss!" you teased right as she swung, throwing the defender off a little as what was supposed to be a perfect drive was mis-hit and merely rolled a few feet forward propelled by a rush of air, leah missing the ball entirely.

leaning on the club leah turned her body to face you as she stared you down in annoyance, you merely dropped your sunglasses down onto your nose and crossing your legs, settling back into the lounge and soaking up the rare bit of sun of a surprisingly warm day.

"i'm beginning to think three might be a cursed number, and this is the date where i realize you're just an insufferable brat." leah shook her head, you hardly able to take the girl seriously in her ridiculous baggy hat.

"gotta try before you buy right?" you grinned cheekily, leah humming and wagging a finger at you, re-teeing up her ball and shuffling back into position, ignoring your mocking words and connecting with a fierce back swing, smiling happily as the ball rocketed right to the back of the range.

"see? you're in the presence of a professional here." leah smiled smugly and you clapped, mockingly congratulating her. "alright then, your turn." leah offered you the club, teeing up the ball for you as you sighed, the two of you swapping positions as she now sat back into the lounge.

"go on babe, impress me." leah challenged, arms resting along the back of the lounge as she waved for you to hurry up. with a roll of your eyes you tried to copy the position she had just taken, leah holding back a laugh as you swung and completely missed.

you reset yourself and once again missed, huffing in frustration and setting yourself up one more time, another miss.

though as the club this time almost flew out of your hands leah decided to take pity on you, standing to her feet. "come on then tiger woods, i'll show you how to actually do it." the blonde chuckled, placing herself behind you, her front pressed into your back.

"hands like this." slender fingers intertwined with yours as she adjusted where your hands rested on the club. "feet apart more." her own gently kicked yours into a wider stance.

"stand up straight." the defender rasped, her breath warm on your neck as she pressed herself even more into you, hands coming to rest on top of your own. "now pull back until your hands are aligned with your shoulder." leah helped you lift the club, stopping at the right position.

"and...swing!" you did as she asked, her hands still atop yours, and your face lit up watching as you connected with the ball and it soared away from you. "much better." leah congratulated, leaning forward and pressing a kiss to your cheek before pushing herself back, your hands tingling from her touch.

"what was that?" leah asked as she tee'd you up another ball. "i didn't say anything?" you frowned in confusion. "yeah exactly, i was after a thank you leah." leah sarcastically held a hand to her ear, waving for you to speak.

"sit down leah." you smirked, pushing her away from you with the end of the club as the girl pushed it away, muttering about your lack of manners and taking a seat again. "well go on then!" leah waved, crossing her arms over her chest and waiting expectantly.

"watch the back of the net for this one." you boasted confidently, trying your best to copy the position the older girl just had you in, and swinging hard and...missing.

"oh ladies and gentlemen she's hit it out of the park! look out down below lads cause its raining golf balls!" leah stood to her feet, clapping and cheering for you loudly as you grumbled, kicking the ball instead as it bounced pathetically a few feet away from you.

"just for that i think next time i'll teach you how to kick a football ." leah whistled at the woeful attempt, shaking her head. "oh god please no more sports related dates leah!" you groaned in response.

"nope! we're not stopping until you can do this properly by yourself." leah tutted as you tried to hand her the club. "why do i need to know how to play golf? i can just sit in the golf cart and cheer you on when you play." you bargained with a grin, hugging the taller girl whose arms wrapped around your back.

"mmm my own personal cheerleader, the boys would be so jealous." leah hummed, dipping her head to press a sweet kiss against your lips, pulling away far too soon for your liking. "you can be a supportive girlfriend from the sidelines for football, you're learning how to play golf!" leah decided, turning you around and slotting herself in behind you again, not even registering what she'd just said.

"supportive girlfriend hm?" you asked with a small smile, feeling leahs body freeze up behind you, the blonde quickly stepping back and rambling out a hasty apology. "hey hey leah, i didn't say i minded." you cupped her face and smiled reassuringly, stroking her strongly defined jaw with the pads of your thumb.

nodding hastily and clearing her throat leah shooed you back to the driving mound, settling behind you again and reminding you of how to stand.

wanting to wind her up as she did, you pressed your lower half more into her as she spoke, feigning as if you were working on your foot position as you wiggled back and forth, hearing leah cough a few times behind you, hands moving off the club to sit on your waist, holding you still as you swung, squealing happily as this time you connected and the ball went sailing away into the distance.

"you're a natural." leah complimented with a wink, the rosy pink blush which once coated her cheeks having disappeared as she appeared back to her confident bubbly self.

"did you invite me on a golfing date just so you could show off your skills and get all handsy with me williamson?" you turned around with a teasing smirk, the blonde shrugging innocently.

"maybe, you'll never know kid. now go again! your back swing still needs some serious work."

[three-headed-monster]

to recap:

the 10-1 game to edmonton near the end of the season was heartbreaking to thom

only bested by the "traumatising" tampa bay 8-0 game early in the season, after which he got sent down a little while after

"shout out pat brisson" and he did. twice!

thom spoke about knowing connor bedard through their mutual friend kent johnson and some nhlpa events at hte beginning of the year, there's a whole little section with them talking about the heartbreaker celly that bedard has done

the michigan student section (children of yost) is certified Crazy by bords, and he thinks its insane that people can find other teams' ex girlfriends or tinder profiles, etc to chirp them for it

he went golfing in south carolina early in the off-season, and when the host said "that's such a white thing to do", his response was "oh, i know"

praised boko imama, said he's a different beast

talked about how he loved to chirp at michigan, but doesn't do as much now, in the professional leagues

he's never technically been in a nhl or ahl fight, but does provide some insight into how he chooses a guy to grab onto during scrums (doesn't pick the shortest guy all the time, but also says 'oh shit' if he grabs a big guy)

there's something about the squid game tv show and biscuits? they're making a joke but they're laughing over it, so it's unclear to me what they were trying to convey. maybe that thom is soft like dalgona candy 💀

said that the title of his book would be "bwater" which is a play on his last name (de l'eau in french is "of water" so bordeleau is similar). this is also when he raises his glass all fancy

hates tom holland's spiderman because he's a big iron man fan and he feels like people are connecting the two characters too much now

legitimately goes on a rant about how iron man is one of the best mcu characters, with power to rival all the reality-breaking characters, and also says it's not tony's fault for creating ultron

would want gabriel macht from suits to play him in a movie (although he refers to macht as "the guy who played harvey spector")

[alienpossession]

Body a Day 24: Sports

Human have tendency to hurt their body in order for them to grow. That's what they called as workout, training, or sometimes, sports. But there's an element that edged sports from the other two. Right now, I'm working out, I constantly put my muscle under stress in order for it to grow bigger. Well, as you can see, it's certainly growing bigger and denser, right?

But okay, about sports. So I don't find workout to be that enjoyable. I just do it because this human mind told me that it's necessary for it to keep up its appearance and health. In his spare time, he enjoyed watching sports, because sports has this competitive edge that make human excited. It rooted back to the classic idea of tribalism, where human finds camaraderie and belonging to certain tribe and view the others as competitor or merely the others. Can workout be sports? I guess. I heard about these people comparing the weight they lifted and I spotted them watching this weightlifting competition once, so I guess I need more observation on this, but I believe sports is like a gamified workout.

My favorite sports at the moment? Wrestling. Well, it's his favorite sports, but I can see the attraction. It's purely tactical and strength, no weapons or any kind of other distraction or instrument like balls, nets, hoops, etc. and with my vessels interest in men, no wonder he likes to watch and even do the sports. It's practically foreplay for him.

I personally enjoyed rugby and football because it's quite similar to the kind of game I played back in my planet. The only difference is the fact that our ball is very slimy and involved a more strategic play as the ball can change itself to become heavy like an iron or float like a balloon in between gameplay. Very tricky, I think I'll explain in other times

But other than the two, I recently get dragged to play this sports called golf. For me, it's rather boring and if it's not because I tried to suck on my vessel's boss by accompanying his son, I'll skip the opportunity to play the snoozefest

So, what else do I need to know about sports or workouts?

[wintfleur]

Do you have any more fun facts about Stella?

ꔫ more fun facts about Stella!

˖ ་ 💭 roro’s notes ( thank you so much for requesting!

°. — ( feel free to send any requests of things you would like to see in this series, or if you just want to share some thoughts! I would absolutely love that! Please comment if you would like to be added to the tag list! )

au masterlist — you can find asks under #💌stellahughes!

°. — asks about stella and rut are under #⋆ ˚｡⋆୨🩷୧˚ stella & rut!

Stella has a public tiktok account where she likes posting, random videos/short vlogs, sometimes dance covers, and just trending challenges/pranks.

Stella loves, and I mean loves redbull! If she could she would live off it.

Stella has a driving license, but doesn’t like driving

Stella absolutely loves animals! She really wants a dog!

Her favorite superhero is Batman!

She was a twilight girl, is known for forcing her brothers and friends and boyfriend into watching the movies with her!

Besides hockey and figure skating, her favorite sport is F1

She’s a mclaren girle

She’s always making playlists, and she shares them the most with Trevor and Cole!

Stella loves going to concerts

went to the eras roro with Trevor and Jamie! And then went again with cole

Loves playing golf with her friends, usually playing with Trevor and cole during the summer, and she’s not that bad

Her specialty is putting and driving the golf cart 

Forgets the rules of golf every time

She can fall asleep anywhere

Always falling asleep in the car, shoulders are her best friend

She’s a window sitter, she gets really nauseous

Her brothers always joke about her being obsessed with a clean room, she’s very organized and hates when people move around her things, especially at her desk. She likes to know where everything is.

SHE LOVES STUFFED ANIMALS

She loves going on bike rides

She loves hot showers, and hates taking ice baths

Jokingly calls people pookie

Cole gifted her a heated blanket and she cried, she loves it so much

She loves eating, but looses her appetite a lot

Not a fan of syrup 

Refuses to answer waffles or pancakes’ she loves them both to much

Has a habit of forgetting to take her iron pills

Will get random texts throughout the day from Jack asking if she took her iron

Hates going to the doctors alone, and now that Luke left Rutger goes with her whenever he can

She’s always liking nhl memes on twitter

She’s always vibing and singing along to the music playing at games

Has a lot of cute ear muffs, that she wears to the games because sometimes the loud noise gets to her, especially when she doesn’t feel to good

she loves hot tubs

She loves watching edits, she has many folders

She gets extremely thirsty out of nowhere

She has no problem sleeping with it without socks, she doesn’t care, most of the time she wakes up with her socks mysteriously off her feet.

The Canucks and devils social media admins love Stella so much

Stella cried when Jamie got Injured and she is always texting and calling him to make sure he’s okay

The same with Trevor!

She’s Quinn’s biggest fan

Not the biggest NFL fan but she loves watching the games with her brothers and rut

She’s so good at pool

Her brothers love spoiling her

She gets baby fever way to much

She will cry when things are to cute

Stella’s kinda a cry baby but it’s okay

Breakfast club and mama mia are her favorite movies

Always brings her earphones or headphones with her

SHE LOVES LONG DRIVES

As long as she doesn’t get car sick

Refuses to talk about or remember her embarrassing moments, to her they don’t exist

She finds hockey fights absolutely hilarious

hates getting hiccups, hers are so painful

Has to sleep holding somthing!

She likes, saves, and sometimes comments on all the edits of Rutger! He has his own special folder

She will be in her bed, Rutger by her side and she will be giggling and kicking her feet as she watches edits of him

Rutger will be like “you know I’m right here right?” 🤨

It’s crazy how he gets jealous about edits MADE OF HIM

˖ ་ 💭 roro’s notes ( i love Stella so much, she’s so cute. PLEASE DONT BE A SILENT READER 🫶🏻)

°. — taglist ( @privatemythss @bradenschneider )

°. — ( feel free to send any requests of things you would like to see in this series, or if you just want to share some thoughts! I would absolutely love that! Please comment if you would like to be added to the taglist! )

[serial-unaliver]

I started working at a country club (snack bar for golfers) and I can’t stop thinking of you every time I see one of these 20 year olds in ironed shorts. They get drunk at 10am and order a 8 dollar hot dog to their dads membership tab and play golf until dinner at 6pm and say things like “ummmm do you have any cold water”

alright new career idea for me: work at a country club

[dogwittaablog]

NOLPATS BURNER ACCOUNT

SO HERE IS THE TEA AND BREAKDOWN ON NOLANS ALLEGED TWITTER BURNER (I also want to apologise for the initial hostile reply to the anon that sent it in I was just taken back cause there weren't upfront receipts).

If you’re wondering how this alleged account was figured out, an anon said someone tweeted about it and decided to look into it... and then now we are here...

SO HERE WE GO!

His FIRST account that went under @ gollpatter the account got suspended (He tweets about it on his second account, but you’re still able to see everything).

So now the account he is using the new one is @ shottergallas.

(So just remember there are two accounts. I know some can get confused lol).

WARNING: I know people are going to be running up the accounts anyways but will say just a heads up you will be finding shit that you don’t like mentioning SA and misogynistic comments, some of the comments are towards the incident of WJC 2018. (If I’m right it’s brought up on @ gollpatter)

Now we may all be here like okay… how do we know or assume it's actually him??? Here is my personal observation

If you look at the following on the first account @ GOLLPATTER. You can see that there are about 4+ people on there that he follows that are obviously his friends and has Steinbach Manitoba in the bio. Some of the content and influencers he follows or interacts with on there also align with his recent or past followings/likes/engagements on Instagram from celebs, influencers, sport hosts and even onlyfangirls (I’ll even get specific if I have to) . His interests are evidently displayed throughout his account... things like MMA, golf, hockey, Joe Rogan, Theo Von and other typical guy shit, but as I said if you followed up on him or paid attention to his Instagram activity it adds up. 

(Screenshot of his followings the only thing is they don't follow back)

An Anon that initially sent me the sub on why she thought or had her own conclusions to why she thought it was him which I’ll be copying and pasting the sub down below and adding the links to the info she provided! To make everyone’s lives easier.

here’s the account introducing himself as goll patt: (X)

here’s the account calling jets/ava pond hockey last night: (X)

here’s that account excited about nolan’s friends ‘coggie’ return to the ‘national’ 6 days ago: (X)

and the related headline where Dylan Coghlan, Nolan’s former teammate returned to the NHL from the AHL:  (X)

here’s that account being called pat by its friends in the reply of previous tweet: (X)

account being call pats/patty by friends:  (X)

same account agreeing with hate on the vegas golden knights as a franchise, praising nic hauge and his wife:  (X)

The hockey talk on the account that pop up usually I noticed has pertained to Vegas and the Flyers (some slight shady tweets mostly but nothing over the top) Maybe just some coincidence but I mean hey… we all know what teams he’s played for. Plus there are some Travis Konency mentions on there as well…

So “his” account interacts with the same 2-4 twitter accounts and these accounts tend to tag him in post about Nolpats which I found a bit ironic…

So the last to this which I thought was another eyebrow raiser, was another burner account that has some mutuals but isn't entirely active. Also tagged his account in a post regarding a Tik Tok. The context of the Tiktok was how most likely pro athletes do see the things you post online about them.

So would like to end this off with reminding you that this ALLEGED and there’s no real confirmation it’s him. You’re able to form your own opinion and perspective if you decide to look through and analyse the accounts yourself. I could go on more on some other details, but decided to just touch up on the things that stood out to me. I also was limited to adding content like photos and videos.

[lumosandnoxwriting]

you saw the truth in me || George Weasley

Title: you saw the truth in me Pairing: George x Reader Warnings: Mentions of fighting/violence, mentions of blood.  Summary: George never thought he’d be back here again, heartbroken over the only girl he’s ever loved. But once again, he only has himself and his stupidity to blame. Hockey has always been his safe place, but even that isn’t enough to heal his broken heart. A man once at the height of his life, is now on the cusp of losing it all. It’s time for the lies and fakeness to end, and George can only hope it isn’t too late. A/N: here it is, the final part of hockey!george! Thank you so much to everyone who has supported this series and left lovely comments/sent messages - it truly means so much to me that you all love hockey!George as much as I do! As always, comments/feedback are always welcome and appreciated <3 Tags: @rk-ceres

-

George is purely operating on auto-pilot at this point. When Y/N walked out of his life she took all of his motivation and will to do anything with her. If hockey wasn’t all he had left George surely would have been happy rotting away in bed for the foreseeable future. But without Y/N around he has to focus on something, so hockey it is. 

He only gets out of bed because he has practice and training and film sessions to attend. He only gets in the shower so that he doesn’t scare away the few people he hasn’t managed to run off. Eating is purely for fuel, and something he only remembers to do when his body is on the verge of collapsing. 

Before she came back into his life George thought hockey was the only love he’d ever have. Hell, he even went back home and convinced his ex-girlfriend to pretend to be engaged to him so that he could further his career. But having Y/N in his home and in his heart taught him many things, one of them being that there is more in life than just hockey. It really made George reevaluate his outlook, made him think about what happens when he retires and what he wants his life to look like. 

Before Y/N he had convinced himself that he’d spend the rest of his days alone, spending time with his family and doting on his nieces and nephews between lavish vacations and golf trips. Maybe he’d coach a peewee league or two. Whatever he would do George had it in his head that he would be doing it alone. 

But once Y/N reappeared in his life all of those future plans changed. He saw a house in a quiet suburb with a golden retriever in the yard. He saw Y/N in the kitchen, humming to herself as she made dinner. There were kids too, at least three, a perfect combination of the two of them that would fill their house with love and laughter. 

It was a future that George didn’t just imagine - he yearned for it. And with one mistake it’s gone. 

Now he’s not really sure what the point of it all is. What’s the point of being at the height of his career when there’s no one in the stands cheering him on? What’s the point of making all of this money when he has no college funds or family vacations to spend it on? 

He knows everyone is worried about him, but he’s gone into pure survival mode. Ignoring everyone and everything that might make him feel something. Just like he did the last time he fucked up and lost Y/N.

-

George grunts as Ross slams him into the boards, his shoulder seizing up as his head bounces off the glass. He doesn’t even have the energy to hit back, he just lets him skate off with the puck. 

He’s been playing like absolute shit ever since he came back from spring break, but George can’t find it in himself to care. There’s a Y/N shaped hole in his heart, and there isn’t room in his mind for anything except the pain he feels without her. Sure he’s the one who broke them up, but he was doing what he thought was best for her - not for him. 

Even knowing that the Rebels will be drafting him next week isn’t enough to make him feel anything other than pain, which is ironic considering the fact that he told Y/N some bullshit about needing to focus on hockey was the reason why he was ending things. At this point George doesn’t even care if he makes it to the NHL, hell Coach could cut him tomorrow and he’d walk away from hockey forever. 

Without Y/N nothing really makes sense anymore. 

George is so out of it that he doesn’t even realize the game is still going on around him until Coach blows his whistle. 

“All right, that's enough for today, hit the locker room boys. Weasley - my office, now!”

He takes his time leaving the ice, not wanting to face the worried looks his teammates have been sending his way for days. George is almost thankful that Coach is about to tear him a new asshole, since the locker room will probably be empty by the time he gets back there and he doesn’t have to ignore all the questions the boys are sure to have. 

“What the fuck has gotten into you, Weasley?” Coach asks before George’s ass is even in the seat across from his desk. 

“Just got a lot on my mind,” George mumbles, shrugging his shoulders. 

Coach huffs, clearly torn between berating the boy in front of him or offering him a sympathetic shoulder. “Look, I can’t imagine the shit you’re going through, kid. But you gotta leave it in the locker room. Out on that ice the only thing that should be in your head is the game, you understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I mean it, George. Fucking up out there isn’t just going to fuck things up for the team but for you as well. The Rebel’s are only offering you a provisional contract, there’s no guarantee they’ll actually call you up once you graduate. Then you’ll be stuck entering the draft as a free agent, and with the way you’ve been playing you’ll be lucky to make it onto a farm team. This is everything you’ve been working towards, Weasley and you are so fucking close, kid. Don’t let all that hard work go to waste. Hockey is the only thing you’ve got room for in your life, understand?”

George nods, and after a few moments of silence Coach dismisses him and he doesn’t hesitate to get the fuck out of there. 

But Coach is right. If he can’t have Y/N at least he still has hockey, and that will have to be enough.

-

Which is why he’s ignored every single one of Fred’s phone calls, and has made up an excuse every time Adam or Thomas invites him out to do something. He told them Y/N had to go back home for some kind of family emergency to explain his shitty mood, and George knows the second they get him alone they’ll be able to tell something bigger is going on; and that is not a conversation George is ready to have. 

They’ve got one more preseason game before Morris announces him as Captain, and George is just holding on until then. Once the announcement is made he’ll be able to get his shit back together and be the man everyone seems to think he is. 

At least that’s what he keeps telling himself.

-

“Hey, you okay?”

Y/N flinches at the sound of Fred’s voice, and she slowly spins around to face him. He’s standing just where George did all of those weeks ago when he came to ask for her help and it makes the hole in her chest throb. Because even though George hurt her again, Y/N wishes it was him standing there checking on her, not his twin. 

“Just peachy,” she lies, giving Fred her best fake grin. 

Fred snorts in laughter. “I think you’ve always been so focused on George that you forget I’ve known you just as long as he has, Y/N. So cut the crap, we both know you’re not okay.”

Y/N sighs, letting her shoulders slump. Because Fred is right. She’s so far from being okay that word has lost all meaning. It’s been three days since she left Chicago, and even though she’d been desperate to get away Y/N finds herself wishing she was there, back at home with George. 

She’s not really sure when Chicago became home, but the second she touched down in Washington she knew this wasn’t where she was supposed to be. Everything just feels wrong. 

Her old apartment that she thought was so cozy feels like a prison cell, skating at the community center doesn’t bring her the same joy it used to - not when she knows what it’s like to skate at the arena with George by her side. Even seeing her friends leaves her with a longing to hang out with Olivia and Jenny. 

It’s like George finally showed her what it really means to live her life, and now she’s just floating along with no idea how to function anymore. So she plasters on her best fake smile and does what she does best: pretend.

“Look,” Fred starts, taking a few steps forward so he’s closer. “I have no idea what happened between you and George while you guys were in Chicago and I’m not going to pretend that I fully understand the relationship you two have. But there are a few things I do know for sure. For starters I know my brother is hurting, he’s refusing my calls and if the texts I’ve gotten from his teammates are true he’s shutting himself out from the world. And the only other time he did that was after he broke up with you and he was heartbroken.”

Y/N looks away from Fred, not wanting him to see how upset it makes her knowing George is hurting too. Even though she knows he brought that upon himself, she knows she played a role in that pain too. Instead of sticking around to hear what George had to say, she shut down and ran away, just like she did all those years ago. Just like she regrets doing all those years ago. 

Instead of staying and working things out together, she ran, and all that has accomplished is making them both feel like shit. 

“I also know that whatever the hell happened between you two was far from fake. Because you’re both hurt for real, and some stupid lie or argument between two people pretending to be in love wouldn’t cause this kind of heartbreak,” he continues when she doesn’t say anything. “Finally, I know whatever the hell happened was just a roadblock in your story, not the end. You still love George, and you’re holding out hope that he still loves you too.”

His voice is so strong and sure, and those feelings are reflected in Fred’s gaze once Y/N gets the courage to look at him. It almost takes her breath away, how confident Fred is that her and George will work things out. 

“How do you know?” she asks, unable to keep the question in. “How can you be so sure that everything is going to work out?”

The smile on Fred’s face could light the world as he gestures towards her left hand. “Because you’re still wearing the ring my brother gave you. If everything that happened was really fake, and you’re really done with him, why are you still wearing it?”

Y/N is at a loss for words, and with a final wink Fred turns on his heel and walks away. Once he’s disappeared she can’t help but look at the diamond sparkling on her finger, and even just the thought of taking it off makes her chest ache. Despite it being a painful reminder of what could have been, every time she’s tried to take it off Y/N was never quite able to go through with it. It’s the last claim George has over her, and taking it off means that they really are over. 

And if George is feeling just as heartbroken as she is, maybe there still is hope for a happily ever after. 

-

“Wow, Fred wasn’t lying. You really do look like shit.”

Y/N rolls her eyes at Angelina’s bluntness, but there’s a genuine smile on her face for the first time in days. 

“Please, come in and continue to insult me when I already feel like dog shit,” Y/N responds, opening her front door wider so she can come in. 

It’s been a few days since Fred confronted her at the rink, and Y/N isn’t totally surprised that Angelina is here to check up on her. She’d kind of been hoping that she would show up eventually, because Y/N has been dying to get a female perspective on the situation. If anyone is going to tell it to her straight with no regard for her feelings it’s going to be Angelina Johnson. 

Perhaps the best thing to come out of her relationship with George, besides all the love and whatever, is her relationship with Angelina. Dating one half of Fred and George is taxing, to say the least, and the two girls developed a kind of kinship over complaining about all the shit their boyfriends got into. 

Luckily Y/N got to keep Angelina in the breakup, because getting fake engaged to your ex boyfriend and then falling in love with him again is something only a girl who is dating a Weasley twin can understand. 

“You know I already nursed you through one George Weasley breakup,” Angelina teases as she plops down onto the couch. “I’m not really sure I have it in me to do it again.”

“You came over here on your own, you realize that, right?” Y/N sits down next to her, halfheartedly hitting the other girl with a throw pillow. “You’re the one who volunteered yourself for this position.”

“Semantics,” Angelina scoffs playfully. She bites her lip, suddenly feeling a bit nervous as she clutches the pillow Y/N hit her with to her chest. “I mean it kind of is my fault that you’re in this situation, so it only makes sense that I help you come up with a plan to get out of it.”

Y/N rolls her eyes. “Just because Fred got this hairbrained idea for George and I to get fake engaged because you read a bunch of romance novels does not make any of this your fault. I’m the one who went and fucked up the plan by actually getting real feelings. And you certainly didn’t make George lie to me. I’m the one who got myself into this mess.”

“Still, I feel bad and Fred has been fucking moping around the apartment since George refuses to pick up his calls and I needed a good reason to get the hell out of there.”

“So you’re here for purely selfish reasons,” Y/N laughs. “I see how it is.”

“So you really fell in love with George again, huh?” Angelina questions, nudging Y/N’s knee with her own. 

“Yeah, like a fucking idiot.”

Angelina huffs a laugh. “I don’t know how those boys ended up managing to get two of the hottest girls we went to school with. I swear it must be witchcraft.” That pulls another smile from Y/N, and she considers her next words carefully. “And you’re not an idiot, Y/N. If you fell back in love with George it’s because of who George is and the way he treated you. It’s not like you hated him and then woke up on a random morning madly in love again.”

Y/N shrugs, keeping her eyes focused on the rug to keep from looking at the other girl. “I don’t think I ever really hated George,” she admits quietly. “Was I pissed at him for breaking up with me? Of course, but I never hated him. I think deep down I’ve always loved him, but I refused to acknowledge those feelings to keep myself from getting hurt. That’s the only reason I agreed to this stupid thing in the first place, I told myself either this was George and I’s second chance at a future or it was the wake up call I needed to finally put that chapter of my life to rest and move on.”

“And which one was it?”

“Wake up call,” Y/N responds, her tone saying ‘duh, isn’t it obvious?’

Angelina gives her a grin that Y/N swears she’s seen on Fred’s face before. I guess it’s true that people in long term relationships start to mimic each other’s mannerisms.

“Then why haven’t you taken off the ring?”

Y/N groans, flopping back against the pillows. “You’re such a shithead, you know that? Fred asked me the same question at the rink the other day.”

“He did?” Angelina asks, even though the glint in her eyes tells Y/N that she already knew that. “You know I deserve an award for all the work I’ve put into that boy. He’s a different man than he was when we met, and it’s all thanks to me.”

“If anyone has changed during the course of your relationship it’s you,” Y/N teases. “You used to actually be tolerable and now you’re both insufferable idiots.”

Now Angelina is the one smacking Y/N with a pillow, hitting her softly a few times before they’re both dissolving into a fit of giggles. 

“So answer the question,” Angelina urges once they’ve calmed down. “If you and George really are over for good why are you still wearing your engagement ring?”

Y/N sighs, holding out her left hand to examine the piece of jewelry George slid onto her fourth finger. It’s everything she’s always wanted her engagement ring to be, a true reminder of how well George knows her and his dedication to do everything he can to make her happy. It’s a reminder of all the plans they’d made as teenagers, and even though it was supposed to be fake, she’d viewed it as a promise that George would make all of those other dreams come true too. 

“I guess because I don’t really want it to be over. Of course I’m pissed at George and I’m upset that he lied to me, but I want that second chance. Or maybe it’s our third chance, who the hell knows anymore. I just know that I’m not ready to say goodbye to George Weasley for good. I think he fell back in love with me too, I just don’t know how to fix this mess we’ve gotten ourselves in.”

That stupid Fred grin is back on Angelina’s face and Y/N already regrets the words that have just come out of her mouth. Fred really has rubbed off on Angelina too much, and while she doesn’t know what the plan is, the look on Angelina’s face tells Y/N that she already has one.

And she’s not really sure if that’s a good thing or not.

-

George had planned on ignoring it. 

The knocking started over twenty minutes ago, and he figured whichever of his teammates decided to try and talk some sense into him would eventually get tired and give up. But now it’s gone from simple knocking to pounding, and as much as George doesn’t want to see anyone he does have neighbors and the last thing he needs is a noise complaint to make him feel shittier than he already does. 

So he stomps to the front door, fully intent on opening it just long enough to tell whoever it is to fuck right off so he can go back to wallowing in peace. But all of that fades away, since the second he yanks the door open Olivia and Jenny are pushing their way through, forcing George to the side as they storm into his apartment. 

Adam and Thomas follow their girlfriends, but they at least have the decency to look a little ashamed of their ambush. Forcing himself to get his shit together, George takes a few deep breaths before he shuts the door and follows everyone into the living room. 

Olivia and Jenny have matching stern expressions on their faces, hands on their hips as they glare at George. 

“Sit,” Olivia commands, gesturing towards the couch. 

 It’s then that George notices no one else is sitting down, in fact the four of them have formed a half circle facing the couch where Olivia just demanded he sit. 

“What the fuck is this?” George questions as he does as he was told. “An intervention?”

“So you admit that you did something that requires intervention?”

George frowns and Jenny’s question, silently kicking himself for playing into their hand. He was ready to just spout out some bullshit to get them out of his apartment, but clearly they know something is going on and they don’t plan on leaving until they get it out of him. 

“Maybe,” he admits, the same feelings of shame and guilt creeping in when he thinks of Y/N and what happened between them. He knows he royally fucked everything up, but he’s at a loss for what to do to try and fix things between them. Y/N was clear that she regretted not fighting for their relationship last time, and George isn’t going to let himself make the same mistake. He just doesn’t know where to go from here.

All he knows is that his plan to keep his head down and focus on hockey has been a complete and utter failure. His skating has been sloppy, his puck control has gone out the window and every time he steps on the ice he’s counting down the minutes until he can go home and crawl into his sheets that still smell like Y/N. 

“Spill, now,” Olivia demands. 

And so he does. Because these people are his family, and he knows they’ve come to care about Y/N too, and if he has any shred of hope for getting Y/N back he’ll take all the help he can get. Even if it means letting everyone know what an utter idiot he’s been over the last few months. 

He starts all the way at the beginning, back when he let his insecurities get the better of him and he broke things off with Y/N. George tells them about the pain, and how he buried himself into hockey to ignore all of it, and his promise to never love another woman again. When he gets to the conversation he had Morris had in the off season and the scheme he cooked up with Fred George’s eyes drop to the floor, not wanting to see the things the others are feeling. 

George tells them about how somewhere along the way he fell in love with Y/N for real, and his sole focus became making sure she felt the same way too. He made sure to emphasize how little he cared about being named Captain, that he would have happily been benched for the rest of his career if it meant he had the girl of his dreams by his side. 

Leading them all the way up to now, how he had lied to Y/N about being named Captain so he had enough time to really be sure she’d want to make their arrangement something real. And how on the very day he planned on coming clean, his brother had accidentally spilled the beans and she discovered his lie and betrayal. He tells them all about how hurt Y/N looked that day, and how he just let her walk away. 

He keeps his eyes downcast as he finishes his story, and they all just stand there in silence. 

Until Adam laughing breaks through. 

“You’re something else, Weasel, holy shit.”

The grunt he makes when Jenny slaps his stomach makes George finally look up, and he’s surprised and relieved to see that no one looks mad at him. 

“You guys aren’t mad?”

“Oh I’m pissed that you lied to us,” Olivia starts, but there isn’t any malice in her voice. “And I’m pissed that you screwed things up with Y/N. But clearly you regret your actions and you’re hurting, so I can be pissed at you after.”

“After?”

“After we help you fix things with Y/N,” Jenny responds as if the answer is obvious. “Making you get on your knees and beg for our forgiveness is only satisfying if you don’t look like an abused puppy while you do it.”

“Gee thanks,” George huffs, rolling his eyes. But for the first time since Y/N walked out on him George feels something other than despair. 

He feels hope.

-

The first step of her new plan involves watching the final Rebel’s preseason game, even though Y/N isn’t totally sure she’s ready to see George again. Even if it is through the TV. 

But if what Fred said is true and George has isolated himself from the people around him she needs to make sure that he’s okay. That his heart is still beating and he’s still breathing. Confirmation of life, if you will. 

Again, she’s got to quit watching so much Criminal Minds. 

From the moment George steps out onto the ice it’s clear he isn’t himself. The one place George has always been sure of himself is the rink, but the man wearing his jersey is far from the confident man Y/N expected to see. As she watches him warm up it’s clear there’s no passion behind his movements, like he’s out there playing because he has to be and not because he wants to be. 

It’s the last preseason game and they’re on their own turf, George should be flying high. But from the looks of it he’d rather be anywhere but the stadium. It makes her sick, knowing that even the sport he loves isn’t enough to bring him comfort, and Y/N wishes she could make all that pain go away. 

She’s tempted to turn the TV off, she got a glimpse of him to confirm he is still in fact alive, and now can go about her evening doing just about anything else. But she can’t find it in herself to grab the remote and change the station. Despite his clear lack of enthusiasm George looks beautiful out on the ice, and she can’t look away. Y/N decides to at least watch the first period, figuring George will shake off his funk and show up for his teammates. 

Unfortunately Y/N has never been more wrong in her life. 

George misses passes that he should be able to capture in his sleep, and the few attempts he makes on goal are sloppy and miss the mark by a mile. Clearly his mind is elsewhere, and Y/N feels consumed with guilt, knowing that she’s the reason why George is acting this way. This was supposed to be their season, but how are the Rebel’s supposed to take it all the way with a Captain who’s barely holding it together. 

Luckily the Rebels manage to keep it held together until they’re halfway through the second period. Despite George’s shitty playing they’ve scored two goals, keeping them tied with New York. And as Geore skates out for his next shift he almost looks like his old self. Each of his movements are sharp and sure, and even though the camera isn’t zoomed in on his face Y/N can tell there’s a look of determination painted on it. 

She’s actually feeling hopeful that he’s managed to pull it together as George faces off against the opposing center for the puck drop. From the angle of the camera it’s apparent that New York’s center is chirping at George for the hundredth time tonight, though Y/N can’t really tell what’s being said. Luckily George is used to it, and he’s always good about ignoring the bullshit and letting their defensemen take care of it. 

Except George clearly isn’t himself, because the second the Ref blows the whistle George is dropping his gloves and taking a swing at the player across from him. Y/N gasps as blood sprays from the other player’s nose, a weird mixture of shock and arousal thrumming through her veins. 

New York’s center drops his own gloves then, and their fight is in full swing. George grabs onto his opponent’s jersey, yanking him closer so he can land another hit to his face. The Ref’s let them exchange some blows, but as their teammates start to get involved whistles start to blow, and Y/N is on the edge of her seat as George disappears under a pile of fighting hockey players. 

It takes several moments for the Refs to pull everyone apart, but since George and New York’s center were the catalysts they are the only two who receive a penalty. He only receives five minutes, and her stomach turns as a Ref leads George to the sin bin. There’s blood dripping down the corner of his mouth, and she can’t help but notice how swollen and bloody his knuckles are as he wipes it away. 

Even once his penalty is up, George doesn’t get back on the ice until the game is almost over. Luckily he’s kept his hands to himself, and that same determined glare still graces his features as he nabs the puck at the face off. The game is tied up still, and Y/N doesn’t even breathe as the Rebel’s take the puck down the ice towards New York’s goal. The clock is swiftly ticking down, and they have the opportunity to go into the regular season undefeated. 

There were about a dozen different times that Y/N considered switching the game off as she watched, too nervous to keep watching the absolute shit show going on but still feeling the need to support George, even if it’s from her couch and not the stands. But as the clock ticks down and George slaps the puck into the back of the net, scoring both his first point and the game winning point, her heart swells and she’s thankful that she stuck it out.

Because instead of joining his team in celebrating, George raises his stick towards the camera pointed at him, mouthing the words she’s gotten used to seeing again. 

“That was for you.”

Y/N doesn’t even realize she’s crying until the tears drip off of her chin and land on her lap. Despite having no idea that she’s watching, and playing the worst game of his career, George dedicated his goal to her. 

If that wasn’t enough to prove to her that what she and George had was anything but fake, the post game interview he gives leaves no room for doubt.

“You certainly weren’t playing like yourself out there, George, care to comment on what was going on tonight?”

George grunts, and Y/N can tell that the question pisses him off. “My head just wasn’t in it, but I think New York’s center knocked it back into place,” he jokes, trying to make light of the situation.

“Does it have anything to do with the mystery woman you’ve been spotted with recently? Who is this woman who managed to capture your heart and has you dedicating all of your goals to her?” Another reporter asks once called on. 

Y/N figured George is going to deflect the question just like he always does, so she’s surprised when a genuine smile takes over his scowl. 

“That mystery woman would be, Y/N. She’s the woman who always pushes me to be the best version of myself, the only voice I hear in my head when I’m out on the ice. The woman that I love.” 

Y/N’s breath catches in her throat at his honest answer, and her heart feels like it might beat out of her chest as George looks dead into the camera and continues. 

“Baby if you’re watching, and God I really hope you are or I’m about to make a fool of myself on national television, I’m so sorry. I messed up, and I plan on spending every day of the rest of my life making it up to me if you’ll let me. I love you, please come home.”

Suddenly there isn’t a doubt in her mind: George Weasley is completely and irrevocably in love with her and Y/N isn’t going to stop until he knows that she feels the same. 

-

George feels like he might pass out. 

It’s been a little over a week since he confessed his love for Y/N on national television and he hasn’t heard a peep from her. He figures it’s because she wasn’t watching the game, because he can’t bear to think that her silence is because she doesn’t feel the same. That’s a depressive spiral he doesn’t have the time or the energy to deal with. 

Instead he’s focused on the plan he, Olivia and Jenny came up with. He plans on saying the exact same thing during his post game interview tonight, win or lose, and if that doesn’t work he’ll be on a flight to Washington next week in between games to make his love declaration in person. 

George may have joked last week that fighting with New York’s Center knocked his head back on right, but there was some actual truth to that statement. Because he had been playing like shit, and after the fight the only thing he could think of is how upset Y/N would be if she were watching the game. Not only was he playing like shit, but he was acting like an asshole and letting his whole team down, and that version of George he wants her to see. Olivia and Jenny had helped him get his priorities straight and figure out how he needed to start mending things with Y/N, but it was up to him to actually put that plan into place. And playing like shit and getting into fights was not the way to do that.

Y/N truly is constantly pushing George to be the best version of himself, because he wants to be the guy who deserves to be loved by someone as amazing as her. And it really is her voice in his head out there on the ice, because succeeding in his career is going to allow him to give Y/N the life she deserves. And he really does love her, more than he’s ever loved anything. 

He’s done feeling sorry for himself, he knows what he wants and he’s not going to stop until he gets it. 

The first part of that involved a huge apology to his team, and a promise that he’s done being a fuckhead and he’ll be on the top of his game when they skate out onto that ice tonight. It’s the first game of the season and it’s at home: a lethal combination and anything other than a crushing defeat of the other team is not an option. 

Especially when Coach comes into the locker room before warmups, getting ready to make the big announcement that they’ve all been waiting for. 

“Alright, settle down, settle down.” Morris’ voice booms out, causing everyone to instantly quiet. “Now after Crawford retired I know there’s been lots of whispers about who would take his place as Captain. And a lot of time and effort has gone into this decision, it’s not something anyone has taken lightly, especially the man who we’ve chosen for the job. I’ve watched this man work endlessly to be the best player out on the ice for years, and recently I’ve seen him work just as hard to be the best man off of the ice too. Which is why I’m honored to announce the next Captain of the Rebels, number thirteen, George Weasley.”

The team whoops and cheers as George makes his way over to where Morris is standing, a brand new jersey with a capital C in his hands. The guys slap his back and ruffle his hair as he goes, and he feels overwhelmed with how much the team cares and supports him. He shakes Morris’ hand before taking the jersey from him, holding it up for all of the guys to see. 

“Speech! Speech! Speech!” Thomas starts chanting, with Adam joining in. Pretty soon half the team is shouting, and George waves his hand to quiet them down. 

“Jesus, fuck you guys are annoying,” he teases as they start to settle down. “I just wanna start by thanking Coach and everyone who made this decision, it honestly was an honor just to even be considered. This team is my family, and I’m ready to fight alongside all of you this season to bring that Cup home. So let’s get out there on that ice and show them what it means to be a Rebel!”

The team gets rowdy again as George takes off his old jersey, slipping the new one over his gear. It’s gametime then, and as they all line up to exit the tunnel George feels more ready than he ever has. This is going to be their season, and he’ll have Y/N fighting right alongside him if he has anything to say about it. 

The announcer’s booming voice echoes through the tunnel as he announces Texas’ team, and the boys start to bounce around as it gets closer and closer to being their turn out onto the ice. One by one as their names are called the guys flood out onto the ice, ramped up by the loud cheers radiating throughout the stadium. 

Like usual George is last in line, and as he gets closer and closer to stepping out onto the ice he takes a deep breath, silently praying that Y/N is watching. 

“And you’re starting Center and new team Captain number thirteen George Weasley!”

The screams are deafening as George steps out onto the ice, joining the team in their starting lap around the ice. He lets his eyes scan out over the crowd, just taking a moment to let everything sink in. Everything he’s worked for has been leading up to this, and he wants to commit it all to memory. The only thing that would make this night better is knowing that Y/N is there in the crowd to cheer him on too. 

Which is why he has to do a double take as they make their way past home bench, because even though he’s sure about what he saw it may have just been a trick of the lights he needs to be sure. And sure enough when he looks again, three rows back sandwiched between Olivia and Jenny is Y/N, a huge grin on her face as their eyes lock. 

George stops in his tracks at the sight of her, barely able to comprehend how she’s here. 

“Hey Captain!” Y/N shouts, though George reads it from her lips. His mouth drops open as Y/N stands up and turns around, showing off the jersey she has on. Because embroidered above the large number thirteen on the center of her back are the words, Mrs. Weasley. 

He can barely believe his eyes, and just as he’s about to throw himself over the boards to get to her Thomas is grabbing the back of his jersey, pulling him towards center ice so they can line up for the national anthem. 

“Chill your shit, lover boy! You can make up with your woman later, we’ve got a game to win!”

George spares Y/N one last look before he follows behind Thomas, slipping into a state of complete and utter focus. Because with his girl in the stands, wearing their last name, winning is the only option. 

-

George has never hated all the bullshit that comes with being a professional athlete more than he does right now. Usually he doesn’t mind all the media and the post game discussions, but knowing that Y/N is somewhere in this arena waiting for him makes George want to crawl out of his skin to get to her. 

Luckily, after what feels like an eternity he’s storming out of the locker room, his dress shirt barely buttoned up and soaking wet from his hair that he didn’t take the time to dry. He doesn’t care that he probably looks like a crazed animal, all he cares about is getting to her. Which is why he doesn’t realize how familiar the voice that’s calling his name is, and he doesn’t notice the person running full speed at him is Y/N until she’s practically right there in front of him.

He barely has time to drop the hockey bag slung over his shoulder and open his arms before Y/N is barrelling into him so hard it takes all of his strength and balance to keep them upright. Her face presses into the juncture of his neck while her arms twine around it, and George immediately wraps his own around her middle. He grips her tightly as Y/N hooks her legs around his hips, letting her warmth seep into his chest. 

“Baby,” he murmurs, nose pressed to her hair as he takes a deep breath in. His knees start to quiver from how good she smells, and George squeezes her even tighter. “You’re here, I can’t believe it.”

Y/N pulls away so she can look at George, the huge smile on her face reflected back at her on his. “How could I not be? Not after you asked me to come back home on national television.”

George chuckles, his cheeks flushing. “So you did see that, huh? When I didn’t hear from you afterwards I thought maybe you missed it. Or you saw it and it didn’t change anything for you.”

“I did see it, and it didn’t change anything for me.” The look that takes over George’s face makes her stomach sink, and Y/N twists her fingers in the damp hair at the back of his head. “Because I was already planning on coming back home to you, George. George Weasley I have loved you since I was six years old and you let me drag you down to the ice every time I stumbled and fell down. Even the time we spent apart did nothing to squash how much I love you. The whole reason I agreed to be your fake fiancé is because I hoped this could be our second chance at a future together. And the second I walked out of that door I wanted to turn around and run right back to you. I let you get away from me once and I’ll be damned if I make the same mistake twice.”

“Baby,” George breathes, tipping his head down so their foreheads are pressed together. “I am “so fucking sorry. I shouldn’t have lied to you that night about what Coach and I talked about. I was scared that I was running out of time, and you’d be back on a plane to Washington before I could tell you the truth. I love you, Y/N, and I plan on loving you for the rest of my life.”

“I love you too.”

She squeals as George suddenly spins them in a circle, not stopping until her back is pressed against the wall and she’s pinned beneath him. George leans in, just barely letting their lips touch. 

“Say it again.”

Y/N grins. “I love you, George.”

Finally George leans in and kisses her, their mouths fitting together so perfectly it’s as if they were made to match. Some of his teammates have started to filter out, but neither of them cares about the whoops and hollers that start to surround them. George’s kiss is possessive and claiming, and Y/N finds herself whining as he breaks them apart. 

“We better head down to the courthouse tomorrow,” George murmurs, earning him a shocked giggle. 

“And why is that?”

“Well according to that jersey you’re wearing, you’re Mrs. Weasley,” George teases, nudging their noses together. “And I’m done with all of the faking and the lies, aren’t you?”

Y/N nods, sighing in relief when George kisses her again. “Yeah, I am.”