#he was probably eight when he broke a chair in school hoping they come and punish him or yell at him

[made-my-peace-with-all-the-bad]

Thinking about how Bob craves his parent’s anger and disappointment because having their negative attention is better than having nothing at all.

[raplinesmoon]

Taking Chances (KSJ X F!Reader)

pairing: lawyer!Seokjin x journalist!reader

genres/aus/rating: exes to roommates to lovers, fluff, angst, pg

summary: Eight years apart and now you and Seokjin are in the same city again. When a beautiful apartment presents too good of an opportunity to pass up for both of you, you decide to take the plunge, and embark on a new relationship - this time as roommates.

warnings: talks of breakups, regret, pining, sassy bro!Namjoon, reader gets sick and Seokjin takes care of her, bed sharing (not like that!), kissing, alcohol mentions, swearing, a cute mischevious cat, angsty with a happy ending!

word count: 5.8k

a/n: This gift was created through @bangtansecretsanta and is for @jinsquishes​. Surprise! I’m your Bangtan Secret Santa! Nixie, I’m so sorry for being such a snowflake (get it?) and sending this too you so late djkskskdks. I know you like roommate fics, so I put a little twist on it! It was lovely chatting with you and I hope you like it and feel all the warm fuzzies! This was inspired by a book I recently read called House Rules by Ruby Lang and the premise was too cute to pass up! Also, the dress OC wears is inspired by this one, which is currently hanging in my closet and I’m looking for a holiday party to wear it to lmao

Seokjin had finally had enough. His ears felt like they were about to bust open any second now, not that it meant anything to his abhorrent neighbours. The drilling noises continued, the young, newlywed couple completely oblivious to the fact that it was nearing 12am and now might not have been the best time to put together their new Ikea furniture.

He could maybe have forgiven them if it was their first week in the next-door apartment, the two of them lost in scramble of moving boxes and building a desk, chair, or whatever they decided they were missing. But it’d been like this for six months. Six months that had shattered his peace in the apartment that Jin had previously lived in for eight years, both with you, and by himself. In all that time, he’d never considered leaving. Until now.

It’d been a stupid decision, one made on a whim when he decided to go tour the old, weathered brownstone that had just popped up on the market in his neighbourhood. He’d been sick of the noise, and the idea of a bright, new apartment seemed like a dream, one where hopefully there weren’t any annoying neighbours. The walls were full of exposed brick, the sunlight filtered in even on a bright, snowy day, and it was big. Bigger than he needed as a single, unmarried, thirty something to be honest, but more space never hurt. 

But then he heard the broker, Jimin, usher someone new in to the viewing, and just as quickly as his dream sprung up, it was shattered. Because he’d only caught the faintest glimpse of the threadbare brown coat you’d loved so much, and the tell-tale fringe of your scarf that he’d gifted you for your very first anniversary, but Jin knew it was you.

His ex-fiancée. Or was that even the right term when it’d been eight years since you broke up? When Seokjin had spent almost nearly as much time apart from you as he had with you? 

He ducks into one of the bedrooms, out of Jimin’s sight, and sucks in a sharp breath, blinking and shaking his head. Who was he kidding? That coat could belong to anyone, anyone could own that scarf. Not just the former love of his life who as far as he knew, had faded into obscurity after dropping out of law school. Who probably moved halfway across the world just to avoid the sight of him. The person who he’d once shared an entire life with, and now they had nothing left in common.

Seokjin shivers as he stares outside the window, watching the snow fall down, a colourless shroud, and he grits his teeth. The journey home would not be fun.

Hearing shuffling behind him, he turns, thinking it’s Jimin coming to ask him what he thinks, but he’s met with a small gasp.

“Jin,” you whisper softly. “I knew it was you.”

And before Seokjin can react, you’re pulling him into you, tucking your head into his shoulder, and he’s breathing in your faint soapy smell, reminded of the shampoo you used to love so much. The wool of your scarf doesn’t feel as scratchy as he remembers, and he’s comforted by its familiar presence, by your familiar presence in his arms. It’s been too long.

“You moved back,” he mutters into your hair, and immediately you freeze, pulling back, eyes on the floor.

“I found a new job,” you tell him, and as much as Seokjin wants to press, he doesn’t. He doesn’t feel like he has a right to ask, to know about your life not that you’re not together anymore. So instead, he remains silent, taking you in. 

You hadn’t changed much. You looked older, maybe a few more lines on your face, but your eyes were still the same. That smile was still the same, and he knew he had to be careful around it.

“How are we doing in here, oh—”

Jimin takes that moment to walk in, his eyes glinting with questions as he takes in the two of you, so close yet standing apart, and he raises an eyebrow.

“We knew each other,” Seokjin steps in, immediately wanting to diffuse the awkward tension. “She’s my ex-w–”

You look at him, eyes glassy and in shock. He’d been about to say wife. Because you had been, almost. There had only been a few months to the wedding when you’d decided to go, sending Seokjin off over a cup of coffee on a chilly autumn day in the park.

“Well, it sounds like you have a lot to think about,” Jimin chuckles before retreating, and Seokjin knows he’s not just talking about the apartment.

It’s only natural for him to chase you down after you’ve both left, following you into a nearby cafe.

Turning on your heel, you look at the sight of your ex, still as handsome as ever with his wool coat and snow in his hair, and you let out a big sigh. You weren’t going to hate him. You didn’t hate him.

“What do you want?” you blurt out, and Seokjin recoils briefly, in shock at your question before straightening.

“An espresso,” he responds, and you grin.

“You used to be more of a latte man, what happened?” you ask.

“I don’t know, I guess I just got a lot more bitter,” he grunts, and you let out another heavy sigh.

“I know you have questions Jin, and I want to answer them, I really do, but can we just sit here for a bit? And drink our coffee first?”

And so you do, the two of you sipping on the hot drinks, taking each other in for the first time in many years. You know Seokjin isn’t actually upset with you, that it was more the shock speaking for him. He’d barely raised his voice at you when you left, nodding along quietly and watching you go without a word. You made no promises to him, and he didn’t make any to you.

You tried your hardest to keep up with him back then, but law school had sucked the life out of you. While Seokjin had been everyone’s favourite, the star pupil and class president, you were just… there, right next to him. It had been your own guilt and unhappiness that had driven you away, never anything to do with him. But Seokjin was stubborn, persistent that you could stay, that things would work out on their own. 

“There was no other option,” you tell him quietly, and he nods over the cup of coffee, looking out the window, and you so desperately want him to look at you instead. 

“Don’t you get it?” you want to scream at him, but keep your voice level. “I had to drop out, I had to go find my own way, to travel, to figure out what really made me happy?”

“And are you?” Seokjin interrupts. “Happy, I mean?”

You pause, not knowing how to answer him.

“What about you?” you fire back. “You’ve lived in the apartment for years, even before me. What makes you want to move now?”

“I’ve stayed there for too long. It used to feel like home… now it just feels like a rut. One that I can’t get out of, no matter how hard I try. But you wouldn’t understand, would you? You never wanted to stay.”

You square your shoulders, sitting up straight. You couldn’t keep up this conversation. You hadn’t been able to have it eight years ago, and it was far too late for it now. Instead, you needed a place to live, to turn over a new leaf, and it seemed like Seokjin did too. Which brought you to why the two of you were even here together in the first place.

“I want that apartment, Seokjin. I know you want it too, I saw it in your eyes. We both need this. But I can’t afford it. Not on my own.”

“What are you asking?” Seokjin says, his eyes turning dark.

“Kim Seokjin, I’m asking you to be my roommate.”

This was insane, Seokjin thinks as he packs up the last of his kitchen supplies, surrounded by boxes. This has to be the most insane thing he’d ever done.

He’d called Namjoon over a dozen times the past week since he’d met you in the coffee shop, ranting to his brother about the odd proposal you’d given him.

“Is she still the same?” Namjoon echoed over the phone, disdain lacing his voice. He hadn’t been the biggest fan of you leaving his older brother broken hearted. 

“That doesn’t matter, what matters is what I’m supposed to do about this!” Seokjin spits into the line, feeling his face grow hot.

“Easy, just say no,” Namjoon responds. “Exes are bad news, hyung. It’s not worth getting caught up with any of them, no matter how good the relationship used to be.”

Seokjin pauses for a second. Namjoon had made it sound so easy. Just saying no. But what complicated things was the fact that it was you he was saying no to. 

Seokjin knew you left on your own accord. He knew you needed to find a sense of purpose, one that didn’t revolve around just him and law school, and getting married. But that didn’t mean it still didn’t hurt. 

When he’d seen you again, he’d imagined, for a brief moment, the years that had been lost between you. The ones you could have spent living together, waking up to each other every day. Burning toast on Sunday morning, putting up Christmas trees every winter, dancing as the snow fell outside. And here you were, offering him a chance to maybe, just maybe get those lost years back. Or whatever shreds of them he could recover.

“You can’t say no, can you?” Namjoon says over the phone, defeat in his voice, and Seokjin realizes he’s been silent for too long. 

“I didn’t fight for her when I should have, Namjoon-ah, I can’t miss that opportunity again.”

The words come back to him as he sits in the kitchen alone. Looking around, he realizes how few boxes he actually had. He thought most of his life had been in this apartment, but the more he thought about it, he realized he was never really attached to the things here. It was more the memories, or lack of them that he had, living here by himself, trying too hard to get over you.

He’d never brought a date home here. Namjoon refused to visit, and Seokjin had just stopped asking, fitting seamlessly into the fabric of the lives of those around him, while never pausing to think about his own. 

A knock at the door breaks him out of his thoughts, and he opens it to find the movers. As he watches them lift up the things, he’s surprised by how light he feels. Maybe letting go wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“You have a big, strong, handsome ex fiancé moving in with you, and you still choose to bring up your own things why?” Nixie, your best friend, groans as she carries up another box, plopping it into your room. 

You’d chosen the smaller of the two, while Seokjin got the bigger one, knowing he put more money towards the rent from his job. 

“Because he’s not my anything, he’s my roommate, and we don’t owe each other anything,” you tell her. 

“Not to burst your bubble ___, but most people don’t exactly end up shacking up with their former fiancé and expect to be just roommates.”

“Well we are,” you brush her off, and she turns to start unloading stuff into the closet. “We have completely different lifestyles. He works at an office, I work from cafes and libraries or at home. He works during the day, I’m most productive at night. We’ll barely run into each other.”

And you hadn’t, so far. Seokjin had moved in quietly when you weren’t there, his stuff magically appearing in the living room one day. You hadn’t seen him around since, but you figured he was probably living with his brother until your contract officially started.

The two of you had decided to give it six weeks, right until the New Year. Six weeks of living together, seeing if you could tolerate each other. If it didn’t work out, Seokjin had graciously agreed to move out, and help you find a new roommate. 

It sounded so foolproof when you thought of it in your head. 

“Okay, I trust that you know what you’re doing,” Nixie says. “After all, we’re not the same as we were eight years ago.”

The two of you chat for a little longer before she has to leave to her own place, and you’re left on your own. A few hours pass, and you’re finally done unpacking most of your room when you hear the jangling of keys, and the door creak open. 

The sound of boots echoes in the hallway, and you know it’s Seokjin. You hide underneath the covers on your mattress, not wanting him to know you’re awake. 

He shuffles around in the kitchen for a little bit, and then it falls silent. Thinking the coast is clear, you tiptoe outside your room, searching for a drink of water, when you see him slumped on the living room floor, his head in his hands.

Your face softens at his serious figure, and you walk over to him, plopping down next to him. He shifts slightly, his eyes widening in surprise at your presence, and you look down to see that you’d never changed out of your bunny printed pyjama shorts.

Clearing your throat, you speak softly, afraid to put him even more on edge.

“I realize that this was maybe unfair of me to ask you for, but you were the only person I could think of that wouldn’t try to accidentally hit on me and then poach the lease right out of my hands.”

Seokjin chuckles at that, turning to look at you.

“You don’t have to worry about me hitting on you, I’m too old for that.”

“We’re the same age.”

“Is this really a good idea, ___? Us?” He asks softly.

You freeze. There was no “us” between the two of you. There hadn’t been for a long time. But maybe there could be. A new version of normal, one where you and Seokjin lived happily together yet apart, content with your lives.

“I don’t know,” you tell him. “All I know is that being here, in this space, I feel happy for the first time in a long time. Like my life is finally falling into place. And I don’t want that feeling to stop, even after the six weeks are over.”

Seokjin freezes next to you, and he knows you’re not talking about him, but he imagines you could be. 

“It’s going to take some time for me to adjust to this,” he says.

“Me too. We’ll try our best. That’s all we can do, right?”

I tried my best, the words ring in Seokjin’s ears. The same ones you told him when you said you were leaving. 

“Right.”

As December settles in, Seokjin thinks he could get used to the idea of living here. The home is so inviting, the crown bricks covered in snow making him think of Santa’s house in all those Christmas movies he’d watched as a kid. Every evening when he’d get inside after work, he would smell coffee, knowing you’d probably just left to the library to continue your work. 

It was quiet, and he was content. Until you stopped him one day in the kitchen, up before he was, shoving a plate full of cheese and crackers towards him.

“I want to get a cat.”

“You don’t have to ask me to get a cat,” he grumbled. “We’re adults.”

“I know, but you’re my roommate and it’s common courtesy. I saw one I’d like to adopt near the end of this week. He’s older, and they said he was super quiet. I’ll keep the litter box in my room.”

And that was how Seokjin also became roommates with Cheese. As much as he tried to ignore the little rascal, Cheese would always curl up next to him at the most random times, purring when Seokjin gave him scratches on the head. 

He adjusted to you and Cheese better than he thought. The two of you were friendly, pausing to chat briefly at random points when you’d bump into each other during the day, oftentimes when one of you was leaving and the other was returning.

Seokjin even shared his wine collection with you, telling you that you could help yourself to any of the expensive bottles. Maybe it was the giving holiday spirit. Maybe it was just you making him soft. 

You’d started waking up earlier, leaving him a little pile of cut up fruit on the counter every morning, the oranges peeled just the way he liked them, which only you’d ever been able to do. 

But it never went beyond that. Seokjin still didn’t know who you were, what you did. And you kept your distance. Sometimes when he’d see you coming back from a trip outside, he resisted the urge to smooth down your frazzled hair after you’d taken your hat and scarf off, but he stopped himself.  He also stopped himself from staring for too long when you’d wear those forsaken bunny printed pyjama shorts, trying not to focus on how good your butt looked. 

It was a silly little crush on his roommate, he brushed it off in his mind. He’d get over it.

It was the week before Christmas, and you were in hustle mode. Your editor wanted you to get the latest piece to him in time for Christmas Day, so you’d been holed up in the library, writing away on your laptop and downing copious amounts of cofffee. 

You’d managed to get through about four pages of writing before the pain in your stomach set in. Grimacing, you brace an arm around your middle, hobbling to the bathroom before the cramps take over, and you stumble, crashing to the floor. You dial Nixie, but it’s late and she doesn’t pick up. Scrolling through your phone, you resign yourself to putting in Seokjin’s number, relieved when he picks up on the first ring even though he should be at work.

“Can you come and get me please?”

Seokjin’s face was as pale as a ghost when he found you lying on the library bathroom’s floor, passed out. You stir as reaches around you, supporting you with one arm as the two of you rise.

“I’m so sorry,” you croak out. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

“Please stop apologizing,” he says softly. “It’s not your fault.”

You don’t know if he’s talking about you getting sick or something else. His warm arms come around you as he walks the two of you to his car, placing you gently in the passenger seat and turning on the heating so you wouldn’t freeze. The entire ride, his hand remains on your thigh, the burn of his hand on the fabric of your jeans almost as prominent as the nauseating sensations you were experiencing in your stomach. He doesn’t ask, just glances over occasionally when the car stops to see your eyes flutter shut, and the rest of the ride is quiet.

You wake up enough for him to drag you up the stairs, before turning and closing yourself into the bathroom, sobbing under the heat of the shower. Everything ached. From the cramps to your own heart, it all hurt. And the only thing that made it better was Seokjin. But you’d lost him, and now you couldn’t go back to the way things were before. You begin to question why you’d even wanted him to live with you in the first place, knowing that you’d inevitably desire his comforting touch again. He made you feel safe. He made you feel loved, and despite being happy, you hadn’t felt that way in so long. 

When you slip out of the shower in fresh pyjamas, he’s there, sitting on your bed. You don’t get angry with him for letting himself into your room, instead sitting next to him on the bed. He doesn’t ask questions, just drawing your hand into his own.

“You know if you ever need anything, I’m here,” he says into the darkness.

“Can you stay with me?” you ask, pulling him into you until his chest is resting against your back, feeling the rough scratch of his crisp white dress shirt, and in seconds, you’re asleep.

You sleep better than you’ve slept the entire time you’ve been in the apartment. But it makes no difference when you wake up alone, Cheese eyeing you curiously. Seokjin was gone.

“I can’t do this,” Seokjin rubs in between his eyebrows, staring at Namjoon with bloodshot eyes over his brunch. He’d left early, before you could even wake up, his heart turning over and over in his chest at the sight of you seeming so small, so vulnerable, doubled over in pain. He knew it was probably nothing to be worried about, but when it came to you, Seokjin couldn’t help but worry. 

“You still love her,” Namjoon says, and he doesn’t sound disappointed. His voice is even, flat with acceptance.

“Is it crazy of me to think that it just wasn’t the right time? That we both needed to grow up and figure out our lives? I mean, we were barely about to graduate. Of course we didn’t know what the fuck we were doing. No one does at that age.”

“But she left,” Namjoon interjects, his eyes full of concern. “She left, and maybe she did change, hyung. Maybe she’s better for it. But you, you just let her hurt you. You stayed the same, for so many years, going to work every day, making money, never letting anyone else in. And now, all of a sudden, she’s back, and you’re acting all different, being friends with her. My question is why.”

Seokjin wonders the same thing, why he’s able to be so attached to you after so many years apart.. You needed time, you needed space, you needed to feel like your own person. And Seokjin could accept all that. But he always thought he’d done something to drive you away. And then he remembers it’s because never once, in the four hour long conversation where the two of you had said goodbye, had you said it was because you didn’t love him. In fact, you’d said it three times exactly - once at the very beginning, one time in the middle, and right at the end.

He straightens up, and a warm, fizzy feeling runs through his veins. The last thing you had said was “I love you.” And now here you were, eight years later, by his side again. Was it crazy to think it was because you still loved him too?

The dress was green, with glittering sequins in the shape of stars. It was breathtaking. And now it was lying on your bed. 

“Come with me to my work holiday party?” Seokjin had asked earlier in the week, and you don’t know what had possessed you to say yes. You’d softened towards him considerably ever since he’d taken care of you while you were sick, not saying anything when he slipped into your bed in the middle of the night, but not pushing him away either.

You still were afraid to talk about it. Afraid that he wouldn’t forgive you for running away, for putting yourself over the relationship. Even though you knew you weren’t selfish, the mere though of Seokjin ever seeing you as such pained you.

And now here you were, his date to a swanky holiday party. When you’d asked why, he’d laughed it off, saying last minute dates were a hot commodity, and he didn’t want to have to resort to Tinder. A pang of jealousy bubbled up in your chest at the thought of Seokjin with a younger, prettier girl on his arm, and you’d sulkily made up your mind that going with him was best. However, putting on the stunning dress and having the experience of Seokjin nearly stumbling while lacing his dress shoes made you feel a tiny bit better.

You watch the people around you swarm and flock to each other, exchanging hugs and holiday wishes, and painfully miss Seokjin’s presence next to yours, keeping your beating heart calm. As if he sensed your discomfort, he’s there in the next minute, holding out a drink for you. You accept, hoping the alcohol will calm your nerves.

You feel out of place here. This was Seokjin’s wheelhouse, Seokjin’s territory. He’d always been the people pleaser, while you preferred to hang back. 

An older couple comes up to you, and Seokjin straightens up, putting his drink down and greeting the man with a handshake.

“This is my boss, Mr. Nam,” he says, faltering when he turns to introduce you. “And this is ___, she’s my, uh—, we’re, she’s my—”

“Roommate,” you interject quickly.

“Ahhhh so you’re together then?” The woman you assume is Mrs. Nam claps her hands together in delight. 

“No no no!” Seokjin tries to manage the messy misunderstanding. “We live together. As in just one together. Together-ish.”

A smile slips onto your lips when you see his ears redden in frustration, and you give his hand a squeeze. Mr. and Mrs. Nam catch sight of your clasped hands and smilen again, before saying how wonderful it was to meet you and excusing themselves to get some food.

“No need to be nervous,” you tell Seokjin after they’ve left. “It’s just me.”

“Yeah, it’s just you,” Seokjin echoes, and there’s a far away look in his eyes, one you can’t place. “Should we go out to the balcony?”

He leads you along, his hand tucked into the curve of your waist, and you bump into more people, Seokjin recovering and introducing you without the roommate title. It all feels surreal, like a dream you never dared yourself to have, and you reflect on how this could have been the life you had together, if things hadn’t come apart.

When you’re outside, you begin to shiver, and Seokjin eases his coat off, and you dodge it, telling him you’re fine, the two of you dancing awkwardly around each other. After a few moments, you begrudgingly accept the coat, sinking into its warmth and breathing in Seokjin’s clean smell.

“You’ve changed a lot, ___,” he says. “You seem calmer. Happier. You really like writing, don’t you?”

You want to act shocked that he finally figured out what your mystery job was, but you knew he would. Seokjin knew you too well, and there was a point where he’d known you better than you’d know yourself.

“What about you?” you respond. “Big hotshot lawyer, finally fulfilling all those ambitions you had for yourself–”

“For us,” he cuts you off. “I had them for us.”

“And I ruined them, right? By leaving,” you voice shrinks, and you feel tears perk up at the back of your throat. 

“Maybe it was good for me,” he says, looking out onto the city. “Maybe I had to learn how to be myself without you too.”

“Not everything has to be a lesson, Jin,” you tell him. “Not everything has to mean something grand and philosophical. You’re allowed to miss it. To miss us. I miss it too. Sometimes I wake up in my bed, with Cheese, and it doesn’t even feel real that you’re here with me again, right down the hall. How we’re both the same, yet different in so many ways. And it scares me because even though living with you again is like nothing I could have expected, I still love you. More than I should.”

You pause on the last words, your breath coming out in frozen puffs, and watch Seokjin’s eyes flicker with longing. He pauses, before drawing you into him, his finger tips entwining with yours. 

“It’s not like it was before because it’s better,” he whispers against your lips, before he closes the distance in between you two.

Sparks explode across your skin when he kisses you, your hands swinging around his neck, and you feel like a teenager in love again, discovering how good it felt to be held for the first time. You sway from the wash of emotions that come over you, and Seokjin’s hands are there, steadying you as you break apart, rubbing his cheek against yours and pressing tiny kisses all the way from your temple to your hair.

“___, there’s something I have to tell you,” he whispers into your hair, when suddenly, your quiet moment of peace is interrupted by a loud yell. The two of you break apart, cheeks flaming with heat, and you look away, not wanting to seem suspicious after basically lying to everyone the whole evening.

“Seokjin!! Congratulations on the promotion,” one of his coworkers you’d met earlier, Hoseok, runs up to him. “Singapore won’t be ready for you after the New Year hits!”

More and more people join the swarm, clapping Seokjin on the back, and his eyes look to you in panic. 

“This wasn’t how I wanted you to find out,” he mouths to you, but you barely acknowledge it, your eyes filling up with tears.

He never had any plans to stay on as your roommate. He’d wanted to leave the entire time. 

You rush away from the crowd, Seokjin’s coat still wrapped around you as you cry quietly. Just when you thought that things could finally be okay, that you two could move on from the past together, it had to rear its ugly head once more, reminding you that you didn’t belong together for a reason.

A week passed, and Christmas with it. Seokjin had left quietly to spend the holiday with his own family, and your heart ached with hurt because he hadn’t spoken to you since the night of the party. Or more like you hadn’t spoken to him, holing yourself up in your room and cuddling with Cheese underneath the blankets.

Across from you, the present he’d left outside your door lay unwrapped, and you had half a mind to just throw it out the window and be done with him, once and for all.

Sighing, you open up your laptop, deciding that you should put in an application for a new roommate. You type out a general profile of what you’re looking for, before shutting the computer with a sigh and deciding you weren’t mentally ready to handle the thought of moving on yet. Maybe it’d be easier once Seokjin finally left. 

Rising from your bed, you make your way to the kitchen, opening to fridge to find Cheese’s cat food. Grabbing a spoon to scoop it out, you pause when you realize the bowl is full, and that Cheese hadn’t touched anything yet. Come to think of it, you hadn’t seen Cheese all day, sleeping for the better part of the day. 

The door was locked, so he had to be here somewhere. You walk around everywhere, even peeking into Seokjin’s room and calling his name, but to no avail. Standing in the hallway, you feel a cold breeze and gasp. The window had been open. What if Cheese had escaped?

Panicking, you throw on your coat, tears burning in your eyes as you slip on your scarf and shoes. You’d already lost Seokjin, you couldn’t lose the one other person who was holding you together right now. 

You stumble out into the night, shivering when you realiize that there’s a thick blanket of snow outside, deep enough to cover a tiny cat. You slip and slide down the steps, calling out Cheese’s name and running up and down the city streets, the snow coming down heavier.

After half an hour, you decide to give up, voice hoarse from screaming. You make up your mind to put up a missing pet flyer for Cheese immediately. Now that was a task you could focus on.

Trudging up back your street, you come to a pause outside your building, gasping in shock when you see that the front steps’ light is on, and Seokjin is sitting there, a shivering Cheese in his hands.

You immediately run up to him, grabbing Cheese and clutching him to your chest while tears run down your face.

“I found him wandering outside,” Seokjin says, reminding you that he’s still there, and you take a step back from him.

“Thanks for finding him,” you tell him. “I mean it.”

And you turn, cuddling Cheese in your arms, ready to escape to your bedroom once more, when Seokjin’s arm shoots out, grabbing onto yours and spinning you around.

“Please can we talk?” his eyes are desparate as they bore into yours.

“We have nothing to talk about,” you tell him coolly. “I’ve already made arrangements to find another roommate.”

“I rejected the promotion,” he says hastily, and you freeze. “It shouldn’t have taken me this long. I accepted it before we moved in together, and I just thought I could put it off until…”

“Until what? You broke my heart just as bad as I broke yours?” you hiss, feeling guilty at the way his face falls.

“Until I realized how much I don’t want to move out.”

He reaches out, scratching Cheese in between his ears, and the image is so domestic it makes your heart hurt.

“What if we aren’t meant to be together?” you tell him meekly. “What if there was a reason we didn’t work out the first time? What makes now any different?”

“It’s different because even after all this time, I still want to stay here,” Seokjin says, cupping your cold cheeks in his palms. “I still want to be here with you, even after all this time.”

“Are you saying this as my roomate?” you try to lighten the mood, but your heart is doing backflips in your chest.

“I’m saying this as someone who loves you, and who hopes that you believe in taking chances,” he ghosts his thumb over your cheek.

“I took a chance on you, right?” you whisper back, smiling at his gentle touch. “And look where that ended up.”

“Where did it end up?” he teases you in his low voice, and you shiver.

“With you kissing me on New Year’s Eve,” you tell him, and Seokjin pulls you towards him, his fingers running through your hair and tugging at your scarf before he’s kissing you again. 

You remain like that for an infinite number of moments, savoring each other, accepting each other after so long, that you don’t hear the fireworks go off, Cheese shifting uncomfortably in your arms.

“Let’s head inside,” Seokjin presses a kiss to your cheek. “The little guy must be getting cold.”

You step aside, beckoning Seokjin in before you, and he grabs your arm with a grin.

“Lead the way, roomie.”

A/N pt. 2: I hope you enjoyed! As always, any feedback or comments are much appreciated, but I appreciate you all anyway. Lots of love, Isi 💜

[realcube]

how haikyuu!! characters confess to you on valentine’s day💘

characters: kyōtani, tsukishima, sugawara & akaashi 

tw// none 

kentarō kyōtani

♡ writes you letter and puts you it in your locker 🥺

♡ but you catch him in the act FDGHJGFD

♡ he memorised that you usually arrive at school at around half passed eight so he made it a point to get to school extra early so nobody would see him

♡ but little did he know, you had the exact same plan in mind 🤦‍♂️

♡ so when you walked into school and noticed kyōtani aggressively pounding on your locked bc his chucky letter wouldn’t fit through the slot, you both froze in your tracks

♡ he realised how shady it looked that he was trying to get into your locker — plus, he was aware that he already had the appearance and the reputation of a delinquent, so he immediately thought that you would assume he was trying to rob your locker

♡ but in reality, not even for a second did you think that he was trying to steal anything

♡ but either way, mans took off 🏃‍♂️

♡ cut to you chasing him through the hallways, yelling for him to come back so you could confess to him

♡ but he thought you were chasing him bc you were angry 

♡ eventually he reached a dead-end so he had no choice but to face your wrath

♡ so imagine his surprise when - instead of screaming at him - you handed him a box of chocolates in a heart-shaped box, with a little sticky note on top with ‘be my valentine?’ written on it

♡ he was speechless so he just kinda looked up and stared at you with a blank expression

♡ ‘i know it’s cheesy but it was the best i could come up with.’ you stuttered, desperately trying to break the awkward silence kyōtani had left you in

♡ he was finally able to process what you had just given him and subtly shoved his love letter into his pocket now that you had confessed to him, ‘uh, thanks, i guess.’ 

♡ your lips instinctively fell into a frown, assuming that was a ‘no’. but to hide your disappointment, you forced a smile back on before turning your heels and hastily rushing away - planning to go cry in the bathroom now ✌ ‘okay, erm, bye, kyōtnani!’

♡ kyōtani’s eyes widened at how shaky your voice was all of a sudden and why you seemed to desperate to get away from him. had he said something to upset you?

♡ ‘uh, bye. meet me by the gates after school today.’

♡ you paused in your tracks, almost tripping over by doing so, ‘why?’ you choked, peering over you shoulder to look at him with hopeful, wide-eyes which caught him off-guard

♡ like jesus christ you looked cute-

♡ he felt his cheeks heat up at the sight so he quickly turned his head to the side and barked, ‘don’t be an idiot! obviously i’m gonna take you to the shop and buy you some chocolates - it’s only fair.’

♡ ‘like..a date?!’ you squealed, twirling around and clasping your hands together in delight 

♡ ‘no.’

♡‘oh-’

♡ ‘i’ll take you on a date in the park afterwards.’  

♡ you bounced excitedly, unable to resist the urge to throw yourself into his arms and hold him in a tight embrace, ‘i can’t wait!’ 

♡ kyōtani let out a light sigh of relief as he felt your chest press tightly against his own, ‘yeah, same’

♡ although he didn’t sound too enthusiastic, he showed that he was looking forward to the date by skipping practise so you didn’t have to wait for him :))

kei tsukishima 

♡ he does not ask you to be his valentine’s at the start of the day

♡ he just waits - not so patiently - for you to ask him 

♡ but you didn’t >:(

♡ he was livid

♡ oh and during lunch you got him so hopeful bc you were like ‘oh, tsukki! i almost forgot. i’ve got something for you!’

♡ and he was like 90% sure it was a box of chocolates to accompany your confession but it was hIS FKN CHARGER THAT HE ACCIDENTALLY LEFT AT YOUR HOUSE A FEW DAYS AGO AAAAAA

♡ grrr so since the whole day passed and you didn’t confess to him, he figured that he had to do everything himself 🙄

♡ last period, he texted you, asking for you to meet him at his house after your club

♡ (he wanted to confess in a location where there was no one around to make fun of him if he got rejected and if he was accepted, then he could take you on a date to the café near his house) 

♡ so begrudgingly, you did - but after your club 

♡ and you were under the impression that he went to volleyball club that day so he wouldn’t have to wait by his house for too long but rather, he skipped that day so he could first pop to the shops to buy a bouquet 

♡ when you arrived at his house, you were greeted by him holding at bouquet of flowers and forcefully shaking them, indicating that he wanted you to take them

♡ ‘what are these for, tsukki?’ you hummed, grasping the stems of the flowers and slowly pulling them towards you, taking a long whiff of their sweet scent

♡ tsukishima looked away shyly, unable to make eye-contact with you without blushing. damn, this was harder than he thought. 

♡ ‘for valentine’s day, duh.’ 

♡ you smirked, hugging the bouquet to your chest as you gazed up at him longingly, ‘so are you asking me to be your valentine or are these sympathy flowers?’ 

♡ tsukishima rolled his eyes, ‘asking you to be my valentine. but you’re so oblivious, i’m starting to regret it now.’

♡ that was a lie

♡ tsukishima mentally scolded himself; he was literally trying to get you to go out with him? why was he insulting you?

♡ ‘well, i’d love to be your valentine, kei.’ you cooed, your arms full with the flowers so instead of hugging him, you pressed your face in his chest and steadily, his large hand found it‘s way to your back, rubbing up and down your spine

♡ although on the outside he acted all nonchalant about it, on the inside he was setting off fireworks and celebrating 

♡ there was a long while of silence between the two of you, until he broke it by inquiring, ‘wanna go get something to eat?’ 

♡ ‘yessss!’

kōshi sugawara

♡ probably planned for weeks beforehand

♡ makin sure he was extra fanon suga around you 

♡ so when valentine’s day rolls around, he gives you a box of homemade cookies with barely any explanation 

♡ then you noticed a lil’ sticky note on it, telling you to meet him at his house at 7PM 

♡ you acted accordingly and once you arrived at his house, you were greeted by more homemade cookies and sugawara in a tuxedo 

♡ ofc he led you to his back garden, gesturing for you to take a seat at the table he had set out under his small gazebo 

♡ the table was all set for a hot date; which you could tell by the pale tablecloth, expensive-looking ivory plates, sparkling clean cutlery and the cherry on top was the candle he had lit which sat in the middle of the table 

♡ then he came out with cloche, rushing up to you before lifting the lid - and once the clouds of steam subsided, you realised it was your favourite food- 

♡ ‘you’re so extra, kōshi.’ you whined, hiding your blushing face with your hands 

♡ he chuckled at your flustered reaction, taking a seat on the chair across from you only to lean across the table slightly to get a better view of you, ‘i just wanted this to be perfect for you, (y/n).’ he shrugged, not sure whether to take your statement as a compliment or insult

♡ ‘it is. thank you!’ you finally removed your hands from your face for him to see your grateful expression

♡ UHGFFKUJ HIS HEART 🥺

♡ anyway, he probably makes a big deal out of feeding you the first few bites of your food bc he thought it’d be romantic but he accidently dropped some on your school bottoms smh 

♡ also, at some point in the night, he makes sure to do that thing where he leans across the table and eyes your lips while wiping some food off the corner of them 

♡ oh and knuckle kisses 🥰

♡ he genuinely didn’t want the night to end so his heart sunk when he had to escort you back to your house

♡ but at least he got to hold your hand :))

♡ you were both staring up at the gorgeous night sky that was decorated by stars in comfortable silence, until sugawara realised something, ‘oh, i didn’t even ask you to be my valentine- my bad!’

♡ before you could coo an ‘it’s okay’, suga had already skipped in front of you and fell to one knee, taking you hand in his own and bringing it to his lips

♡ ‘kōshi’ you squealed, trying to cover your face with your spare hand - your heart skipped a beat at how similar sugawara’s actions were to a proposal 

♡ suga thought you were so cute when you were shy aaaa (❤´艸｀❤)

♡ ‘(y/n), will you do me the honour of being my valentine?’

♡ ‘you’re such a prince!’ you gasped upon making a connection between sugawara’s signature beam and that of a charming prince from movies

♡ suga faltered at how off-topic your comment was, ‘thank you- but is that a no?’

♡ your eyes widened, rapidly shaking your head and dropping to your knees to place a lil’ peck on his forehead, ‘nonono! it’s a yes!’

♡ suga couldn’t help but snort at your adorable actions, mimicking them and pecking the tip of your nose

keiji akaashi 

♡ definitely a secret admirer thing leading up to valentine’s day

♡ he’s been leaving notes in your locker for months tho

♡ he just loved seeing the wide grin spread across your face while you read the letter he wrote  

♡ then he realised that valentine’s day was approaching so that gave him an excuse to confess 

♡ one day he somehow mustered up the courage to write ‘meet me by the forest at 5′ on it and as soon as he slipped it into your locker, he was panicking

♡ like he was so anxious; the biggest fear on his mind being that, what if you didn’t like him?

♡ he was even considering not showing up bc he was too nervous

♡ but the last thing he wanted to do was ghost you and potentially hurt your feelings so he turned up 

♡ when you saw him, he was acting so odd - hardly even acknowledging your presence -  that you weren’t sure if he was the one writing the letters or if it’s just a coincidence 

♡ ‘hi..’ he finally murmured, gently tapping your shoulder to grab your attention

♡ you smiled, clutching the letter to your chest as you twitched with excitement, ‘hi! are you, erm..the person who’s been writing these letters?’

♡ akaashi nodded, keeping his gaze glued to the ground while awkwardly fidgeting with his fingers

♡ ‘oh- well, they’re so beautiful! you have such a way with words and you make my day ten times brighter. thank you so much, akaashi.’

♡ he perked up upon hearing you say his name, he didn’t think you knew it-

♡ i mean, yeah, you were in the same biology and maths class but in the past, you’ve never even spared him a glance

♡ ‘it’s no problem. and seeing you smile makes my day brighter so..’ akaashi instantly cringed at how stalkerish and pathetic that must’ve sounded 

♡ so needless to say, he was pleasantly surprised when you simply giggled in response, ‘you’re sweet- anyway, i was wondering you’d like to come with me to get tea or someth--’

♡‘sure.’ he was sold at ‘tea’. 

@the-astrumnauta @scftfairyking​ 

[givemethatgold]

Fix’er Upper - Part 13

Pairing: Frankie Morales x Fem! Reader Warnings: Talk of parent death Length: 2.1k words Notes: Okay bitches here we go. I’ve got 3 kids doing online schooling, a desk chair that just broke while I was halfway through typing this out, a raging headache, and couldn’t be fucked to edit. I love you al, thank you for sticking with me and this little brain baby of mine. My guidance counselor from high school can suck my dick, “You’re not a creative writer, Cher, you should considering taking Home Ec as an elective instead” I digress....

Series Masterlist

"No." You glared at him and squeezed his hand harder, "You're doing that thing again.

Frankie's head whipped over to stare at you, shocked by your assertive tone.

"You're pulling away. You're stressed, out of your depth, don't know how to deal with it and so you're pulling away again-"

"You don't understand," Frankie interrupted you, shaking his head and trying to pull his hands out of your grasp. This only served to strengthen your resolve, and your grip on him.

"No." You declare again, trying to stay calm and have a mature conversation despite the tension and running emotions. "You told me to give you time to get your thoughts straight and vocalized. I can't do that if I'm not here to hear them. I can't understand your predicament if I leave. So," You moved so you're sitting cross-legged in front of him, making eye contact in an effort to show him he had your full attention. "Why don't you tell me what that phone call was about so we can start figuring it out, together."

The situation was more complex than you ever could have imagined. Frankie's ex-wife, Karla, had died. Her car had been hit by a drunk driver. Annie, thank the gods, hadn't been in the car at the time. Before she'd died at the hospital, Karla had managed to say a few words to the paramedics. At the time they didn't make sense, however, the paramedic had taken the time to write the words down and included the scrap of paper with the patient's chart. This evidence, as it turned out, had been monumental during the resulting legal battle for Annie, all of which took place without Frankie even being notified.

Child services, lawyers, extended family, and even doctors had been involved in the court proceedings. All arguing over the future of the six-year-old girl. All believing that they knew what was best for her, most believing that she should live with them, some having the gall to pretend that they weren't aware of the sizable life insurance payout she was about to receive.

Eight words. Eight simple, beautiful words whispered through the broken, bloody lips of a woman who knew she was about to die. A young girl's future was being held in suspense, and as fate would have it, a wise and sentimental judge was overseeing her case. Eight words were all it took to convince him that Annie's mother knew what was best for her own child.

"Francisco Morales. Trust with her, he's ready now."

From the time Frankie had received the phone call from Karla's family lawyer, the two of you had two days to prepare for Annie's arrival. Frankie worked his magic and erected a wall across the bedroom portion of his loft, allowing for the little girl to have some privacy but not feel like she was being closed in. 

He had fretted for a least twenty five minutes over colour swatches at Hank’s Hardware before coming to the conclusion that he should leave it white and have Annie chose her room colours once she had settled in. He bought himself a new couch, as well, that would convert into a bed and serve as his bedroom for the time being.

The conversation you never had a chance to have with him was still in the back of your mind, but you understood that moving in together as a couple was hard enough. Moving in together with a kid neither of you knew, whose life had just been turned upside down against her will, would be catastrophic. Instead, you focused on being as much of a rock for Frankie as you could.

You made a trip to the city and bought girls bedding, some stuffed animals, and a few little decorations to help Annie feel like the new space was special for her. You also thought to pick up comfort food that a kid might crave, knowing that when you were six the best way to your heart was chocolate. Just before you left the city, a sign caught your attention and had you swerving to change lanes, normally you'd feel slightly bad about your obnoxious driving but today you just waved your middle finger at the rear window in a mock salute.

The flower shop had so many bouquets and you had no idea what kind of flowers the little girl might like. You also had the morbid realization that bouquets might remind her of all the flowers she surely saw at Karla's funeral. Just as you began to second guess yourself, a stand near the back caught your eye and made you smile.

The day of her arrival came quicker than you felt prepared for, never mind how Frankie must be feeling. He hadn't had too much time to worry about how having his daughter would change his life, but once the two of you were standing in his driveway doing nothing but waiting, the nerves had finally settled in. You could see deep, calming breaths he was taking as they condensed into little clouds in the freezing air.

Grabbing his clenched fist, you felt his fingers relax enough to allow your gloved ones to slide through them.

"It's going to be weird for everyone, she's probably nervous too." You weren't sure if the words were reassuring or not but nervous talking seemed to be your forte so you ran with it. "I mean, she's probably sad that she's leaving everything and everyone she's always known, excited about moving to a new place, then feeling bad that she's feeling another emotion besides grief. It can be hard to juggle loss and hope. Just show her how much you love her and be honest about why you couldn't be with her before. Kids are smart and are aware of way more than adults give them credit for."

A few moments later a black sedan slowly crept up the driveway. You wanted to stay, to meet the little girl but had the feeling that Annie and Frankie were going to need time to figure out their relationship without another person in the mix. Suddenly having a new parent was going to be hard enough on the little girl, you were afraid that she might see you as trying to replace her mom and push you away.

Rubbing Frankie's back for one last show of reassurance, you kissed his shoulder then took a few steps back. You figured this was the best way to be there to support him but also staying in the background for the time being. Before the car could fully come to a stop, the rear door was flying open and, in a blur of movement, a little body was flying out of it towards Frankie. You know how people will say that there are times in their lives where important moments fly by so fast they barely have time to enjoy them? Well, this wasn't one of them.

As Annie barreled her way towards Frankie, you saw in slow motion how his handsome face went from being creased with worry, to eyebrow raised shock, to breaking out in a teary smile. He had just begun to crouch down and open his arms in anticipation of holding his little girl when instead she ran right past him and locked herself in one of the sheds.

Time continued to move in slow motion, making it all the more heartbreaking watching your boyfriend's face crumple, the tears of joy turn to tears of pain as he recovered from his initial excitement and realized that his child didn't want to see him.

Tiny, muffled sobs broke the moment and brought time, and the horrible situation, back into focus. The Child Protective Services worker who had accompanied Annie from California was calling apologies to Frankie while running after the little girl, trying not to slip in the snow in her hurry.

You wanted to go to him, to lend him some form of comfort, but you were also aware that some types of grief don't appreciate witnesses. Deciding to stick around and be helpful in the background, you made your way into the loft and started making coffee and sandwiches, foreseeing a longer stay for the caseworker than initially thought.

Nearly forty minutes had passed before you emerged again with food and drinks on a tray and the two adults were still talking to Annie through the cracks in the door. She had stubbornly refused to come out, demanding that she be returned to her home at once and that she hated snow.

Once you had set down the tray and cleared the snow off a picnic table, Frankie thanked you with a kiss to your temple and introduced you to Sharon after he convinced her to take a break from the negotiations. Sharon, who had been with Annie since the day of the accident, began filling Frankie in on what had happened to his daughter in the past month between sips of coffee. He was given a folder with notes from child psychologists, doctors, a letter from her maternal grandparents, and a journal Sharon had kept that described the ways Annie had been processing her grief.

While they talked, you decided to walk over and sit next to the door of the shed, laying a wool blanket down to protect your butt from the cold. You had no idea what to say to the girl but you figured she might like to be reassured she wasn't alone. Settling down, you dug into your own sandwich and hummed quietly to yourself.

You nearly choked on your next bite when you heard a soft voice singing along with the tune you'd chosen.

"Lavender blue, dilly dilly. Rosemary Green, if you are king dilly dilly, I'll be your queen."

After you'd repeated the song twice more, you stopped the tune and said softly,

"I've never heard those lyrics before, they're different from how I learned them."

A long pause followed, making you worry that you'd offended the child back into silence.

"How do you sing it?" Came the sweetest little voice, made all the more adorable with the barest hint of a lisp.

"We always sang, 'Lavender green', for one. Which never made any sense to me so I really like how you did it-"

"Yeah, cause lavender is another name for purple," she interrupted you with a matter-of-fact tone, "saying it's green is just weird!"

"Hmmm, it might be different," you conceded, seeing the opportunity for a lesson. "But either way you sing it, it's still a really pretty song, isn't it? Things can be different but it doesn't mean one is only good and one is only bad. Each version just had different good things."

Annie went silent again but this time you didn't worry about it, you knew she was thinking about what you said and needed time to apply it to what was happening right now. You eventually heard the shifting of metal and the creak of wood and had to will yourself to sit still and calm. The way you had let her approach you had worked so far, jumping up out of excitement could possibly erase all the progress you'd made so far.

Your patience was rewarded when Annie stepped out of the shed and lowered herself so that she was sitting on the blanket right next to you. Turning your head just enough to see her in your peripheral, you noticed how dull her eyes looked. Her hair was a mess and her skin looked pale for a kid who had been living under California's sun.

"My mommy is dead."

The way it was stated as a fact, with very little emotion, broke your heart. She was so little, so young, and so unable to fully grasp what kind of future had been ripped away from her.

"I know, I'm sorry that that happened to your mom."

"That man is my daddy." She was pointing at Frankie now, who was still engrossed in his conversation with Sharon.

"He's a pretty lucky guy to have you."

"That's the lady who has been taking care of me, she's been nice."

You were a bit out of your comfort zone with the conversation but there was no way in hell you were going drop it so you cautiously trudged on. Maybe verbalizing relationships and titles was helping her process?

"I'm very happy to hear that you've been staying with someone nice. Your dad is a really nice person, too, ya know? You should see the nice bedroom he's set up for you! I even helped him bake you an apple pie. Do you like apples? Or pie?" Her eyes went wide and a spark of happiness suddenly lit her face, making her appear more childlike than before.

"Is this an apple farm?" She practically squealed. “Like in My Little Pony?!”

Her outburst had finally drawn the attention of the other two adults, who were now only realizing that Annie had exited the shed. Frankie's heart skipped a beat at the sight of his two girls, beaming at each other. The twinge of jealousy from knowing that it had been you to draw her out was quickly squashed by how proud of you he was. He had been a little worried, although he hadn't voiced it, that his kid wouldn't take kindly to having a woman around but those fears were obviously for naught.

Part Fourteen 

[headheartbellarke]

I Wish You Would | CHARLIE GILLESPIE

Requested by anon: “hello🌼 could u please write a charlie x reader imagine when he posts a picture on his instagram story with a girl to makes his crush jealous, but she end up distancing herself from him bc she's hurt and respect what she thinks is his relationship” PAIRING(s): Charlie Gillespie x fem!reader WORDS: 2,445 WARNING(s): angst w a happy ending, some language SUMMARY: “I wish you knew that I'd never forget you as long as I'd live."

A/N: hi, everyone!! really, really sorry that this took so long. haven’t had the best march tbh, and writer’s block is a bitch. && this isn’t very good, either, but i had to get something done. love u <3

TEN HOURS EARLIER

“And… post!” Charlie taps his phone, grinning brightly.

Owen cheers from behind him, his voice meshing into the humdrum of the bar they’re currently at. “I’m so proud of you!”

His friend laughs, spinning around in the bar stool to face him. “She’ll finally understand what it feels like!”

Owen nods frantically, taking another sip of the drink in his hand.

Charlie copies his movement – a part of him knows that he is absolutely hammered, but the bigger part of him doesn’t care. He’s had a long day, and he deserves this.

Besides, how else would he and his best friend have thought of this wonderful plan if they didn’t have a billion drinks in their system?

PRESENT

A knock on the door pulls Y/N from her thoughts. “Come in!” She yells, but her voice comes out feeble and hoarse, probably from all the crying she’s been doing for the past hour.

As the door swings open, her best friend, Savannah, pokes her head in. “Hey, babe. You all right?”

Y/N sniffs. “M’fine.”

Savannah enters the room, closing the door softly behind her. She walks to the window, opening the curtains, and Y/N groans when light floods into the previously dark room.

She sits on the bed beside Y/N, and Y/N rests her head on her shoulder as she pulls the covers up to cover their bodies.

“I’m sure that they’re not dating.” Savannah says, wrapping an arm around her best friend.

Y/N chuckles sadly. “You don’t have to lie to make me feel better, Sav. I mean, in the photo, he was kissing her cheek. Literally. And he put a heart between them.”

Savannah sighs. “That’s so not Charlie, you know… kissing random girls in bars and posting pictures with them.”

“Yeah, that’s so not Charlie, because she’s not a random girl. Her name’s Francesca and she went to high school with him, so, technically, she’s known him longer, and probably better than me.”

“I – I had no idea.”

“Yeah.”

“Y/N, babe, just tell him about how you feel. I’m sure that he likes you too.”

“If he liked me, then he wouldn’t be kissing Francesca!”

Y/N exhales, as Savannah gulps, not knowing what to respond. “Y/N, I – I swear, he’s crazy about you. I don’t know what happened between last Friday and today, but I swear – the Charlie that I know – has eyes for no one but you.”

Y/N rolls her eyes, feeling a pang in her heart at Savannah’s words. “Savannah, we kissed and then he ghosted me for a day and now he’s posting pictures of him kissing another girl! I think he has eyes for everyone!”

Savannah bites her lower lip, not knowing what to respond, again. Her best friend feels tears prick at the back of her eyes when she says, “Maybe I’m a bad kisser.”

Savannah’s eyes widen, and she sits up, straight. “No. No. Babe, no. Don’t say that, ever. You’re a great kisser, okay! You’re an amazing kisser. Your lips are fine as hell, believe me. He’s the one with crusty ass lips. They’re not even lips, they look like… like… peanuts.”

Y/N stares at her best friend for a moment, before saying, “Peanuts, Sav? Really?”

“It’s the first thing that came into my mind!” She says defensively, before the girls break into a fit of laughter.

“I’m never talking to him again, ever.” Y/N says after they’ve calmed down. “I’m never even gonna look in his direction. Fucking asshole.”

*

Charlie sighs, taking another sip of his coffee. It’s eight in the morning, and he’s normally a morning person – he loves the mornings, the peace, the quiet, and the feeling that comes along with it more than anything, but right now, he just feels… sad.

On regular days, he would be talking to his best friend, Y/N, about everything that’s on his mind. But today’s different.

Last Friday, Y/N kissed him, and long story sort, it was the best thing that’s ever happened to him. After work that day, they went to get some food at a drive through, like they usually do. All throughout the ride, they made plans to go hiking once the production for season two finishes. She drove the car to a lookout, and oh, god, it was so pretty. The midnight sky was littered with stars, and since they were at the edge of town, there was less pollution, and they could see bits of the galaxy, too.

But, for some reason, the girl next to him seemed more beautiful than anything he’s ever seen, and after they finished eating, he just sat and stared at her talk about the last book that she’d read, for a while. He knows that it was terrible that he wasn’t listening – but how could he pay attention to anything when she looked like that, especially with passion illuminating her face like times square on New Year’s Eve?

She had looked at him as if he’d just grown a third head. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Li – like what?” He’d asked, embarrassed to be blatantly caught.

“Like that…” She’d said and kissed him, and it felt like he was seeing colour for the first time. Although, the next day, everything turned to shit.

Now, it’s Monday, and she’s nowhere to be seen. He desperately wants to know if his and Owen’s plan actually worked (no reason that it wouldn’t), and he feels so impatient right now, and he misses her. Also, his massive hangover isn’t helping, either.

He hears his name being called, and sees Kenny smiling at him.

“Hey, so we’re gonna do a different scene today, since Y/N and Savannah are out, is that okay with you?”

His heart races. “What happened to them?”

“Y/N’s sick, and Savannah’s taking care of her.”

“Oh. Yeah, it’s okay with me.” He says, feeling his heart sink to the bottom of his stomach.

*

“This is the last time I’m asking you this…” Y/N sings, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her sweater.

“Put my name at the top of your list!” Savannah sings, using Y/N’s straightener as a mic.

“This is the last time I’m asking you why!” Madison joins.

“You break my heart in the blink of an eye, eye, eye!” Jadah sings, jumping on the bed.

As the second verse comes on, the girls sit on Y/N’s bed, huddled close to each other.

“You know, I’m feeling better now than I did when I woke up.” Y/N says, resting her chin on her knees.

“Taylor Swift can fix anything.” Madison says, leaning her head on Y/N’s shoulder.

She nods. “And y’all. Thanks for being here.”

Jadah grins, wrapping an arm around her. “We couldn’t let you have a pity party all alone!”

Savannah laughs. “I’m gonna kill him, I swear.”

“As relieving as that would be, don’t. I’ve decided what I should do.”

Madison quirks a brow. “You’re gonna kill him yourself?”

“Madi! No. I’m gonna distance myself.”

Savannah tilts her head. “I think that maybe you two should talk it out.”

“I don’t think so. I need space, time to figure it out. My head feels like a mess. And I respect him and Francesca, and I’m not gonna dip my toes between them.”

The other girls solemnly nod their head.

“You do realize that that’s not actually the saying?” Jadah says, after a while.

“Don’t embarrass me, kid.”

*

Charlie exhales, watching his breath crystallize to tiny ice particles in front of him. Even though, he’s a Canadian, he still feels cold. Although maybe it’s not due to the weather, but due to the coldness in Y/N’s eyes.

He watches her chat with Jeremy a few feet away, both of them discussing something that is out of bounds to him. He knows that it’s probably decisions regarding their characters, considering Y/N’s character is Jeremy’s character, Reggie’s love interest, but a part of him feels like it’s shit about him.

He has no reason to feel that way, of course. He hasn’t spoken to Y/N in four days, and this morning, when he saw her after for what feels to be eternity, he was blatantly ignored. He had only watched helplessly as Y/N exited the room the moment he entered and had sunk into his chair feeling like absolute shit, especially with everyone’s pitiful stares.

Charlie’s mind keeps replaying each moment, torturing over every tiny detail, wondering what he did wrong.

And that’s when it hits him: she really doesn’t want him anymore.

Last Saturday, he had hopelessly watched her with her long-term boyfriend of god-knows-how-long – he had come to surprise her on set, and it was Charlie that was more surprised. Because he thought that they were over, for good. And it wasn’t like they seemed like they weren’t dating. They were acting just like they used to when they were dating, and he was too close to her for his comfort. They still laughed the same, joked around the same, and were just as inseparable as they used to be.

A question kept rising in Charlie’s mind, like an icicle to his heart: why would she kiss him when she already had someone else? Why would she give him hope, and then take it all away? Why would she dangle his hurt in front of him?

So, he decided to give her a taste of her own medicine, and posted a picture with Francesca, his high school friend, who he had run into that night.

Owen sinks into the chair beside Charlie. “You okay?”

“I’m starting to believe that our plan didn’t work.”

*

“Hey, uh, Y/N?”

The girl in question hears Charlie’s voice, and turns around, avoiding looking into his eyes.

“Can we talk?” He says, and for a moment, her defences are down again. He looks so… tired, almost like he’s going through the same things that she is. Almost like there’s an explanation as to why he broke her heart, why he ruined something that had the potential to be extraordinary, why he made her feel so bad about herself.

And she almost believes it, too. Like the fool she is.

She presses her lips into a thin line, and says, “Nothing to talk about.”

As Charlie opens his mouth to protest, she smiles and walks away.

*

“Okay, Charlie, you two need to talk it out. This is too much. Both of you are obviously hurting, and there’s obviously some serious miscommunication here.”

Charlie shakes his head at Savannah’s words. “She hates me.”

“No. She could never hate you.” She says, thrusting her phone in Charlie’s face. His eyes squint to read the text on the screen – from Y/N.

Sorry – forgot to leave a note. Drove down to Dad’s, gonna stay here for a while. It’s too painful – honestly, you know what? I’m still very, very, very mad at him. But I’m also missing him very, very, very much. So, I need to flush it out. Flush him out. He might be a jerk, but he’s still one of the best people that I’ve ever met. Love you, okay? Will return when the time is right.

Charlie’s eyes widen, and he stares at Savannah’s face for a while. “There – there is still hope!”

She nods frantically. “You should call her –”

“I’m gonna drive down to her dad’s house, too!”

“That works, too.”

*

A frantic knock on the front door pulls Y/N from her thoughts. She stops typing on her keyboard, and flips the lid shut, keeping it on the dining table in front of her.

She runs to her dad’s door, knowing that it’s him, back from his shopping. She opens the door, saying, “Let me take those for – Charlie?!”

Y/N’s heart swells at his sight as he grins sheepishly.

“So, there’s been some misunderstandings… can I come in?” He asks, and Y/N pauses, considering.

He sighs, and adds, “Please?”

She stares at him.

He juts his bottom lip out. “Pretty please?”

“Fine, come in.”

He closes the door behind him, wordlessly following Y/N, who feels like she might hurl right now. They sit on the couch, and it’s really, really awkward for a few seconds.

Y/N sighs. “You said you –”

“Yes. Yes, yeah. OK, so – I, uh, I –”

She couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Why would you do that to me? Do I really mean that little to you?”

“I could say the same about you!”

“Really?”

“Yes! I saw you with Shahid that day, I know that you two are back together –”

“Shahid?!”

“Yes!”

She stares at him, baffled.

“So…so… Francesca….”

“I only posted the picture to make you jealous! She asked me if I wanted to go out with her and the rest of my high school friends, and of course I went, and she saw that I was being a little… unsocial. So, I told her about how the girl that I’m completely crazy about has a boyfriend! And a long term one at that, too! And then Owen came up with a brilliant plan, and I guess you know what it was. Now, I’m realizing that it might not have worked.”

She stares at him for a moment, before she bursts out laughing. Charlie throws her a confused look.

“You – you thought that Shahid – Shahid, my best friend since we were in nappies, Shahid who is married to this amazing man, and at whose wedding I was the maid of honour – you thought that I was dating him?”

“He’s gay?!”

“Bisexual. Oh my god, I have to tell him. This is hilarious.”

Charlie bites the corner of his lower lip, feeling his cheeks heat up. “This is really embarrassing. But you two act like you’re dating!”

“No, we don’t. You’re just being insecure and jealous. I’ve known him forever, and yes, I am the most comfortable around him. Because he’s my family. He’s my brother. Oh, god, I can’t believe that you were jealous of him – wait, have you thought that we were dating this whole time?”

“Kind of. I thought you guys broke up when he didn’t visit you on set during the first two months of production.”

“He was helping feed kids in Somali.”

“Oh. Oh. God, I feel so –”

“Dumb? That’s because you are.”

He grins sheepishly, his cheeks crimson.

Y/N smiles. “But I forgive you. And I wouldn’t mind if you took me on a proper date this time.”

“Deal. Also, promise that we’ll always talk it out before… you know… doing anything?”

She laughs, and nods. He wraps his pinkie finger around hers.

“Well, Owen’s plan did kind of work, though.”

[theewritingroomm]

Happy’s Girl

Summary: Happy finally get the courage to ask out Y/N Telford, who happens to be the daughter of none other than Chibs Telford. But neither Happy or Y/N stopped to think about how Chibs would react.  Pairing: Happy Lowman x Reader  Word Count: 2,583 Warnings: Out of character Happy, kinda. swearing.  A/N: Happy is probably written out of character but I just love the ‘he’s a bad guy to everyone but her’ trope. Also, for those that wanted a continuation of THIS Happy imagine, this is the whole one shot. Tell me what you think!! Text divider by: @firefly-graphics​ 

Y/N was walking out of the garage office and making her way to her car when she heard someone calling her name. She figured it was one of the guys coming to ask her about something related to the garage or to ask her if she had seen Gemma. Which she had not. But what she was not expecting was to turn around and see Happy standing there, and not meeting her eye. It confused her, she was used to seeing the killer hold a stare with anyone and not back down.

“What can I do for you Happy?” she asked, “Need something from the office?” 

“No, I actually just need to ask you something,” Happy paused, taking a second to look around for others. Y/N waited, hoping he would continue. 

“I was just wondering if you’d let me take you out?” 

As soon as the words left his mouth Y/N’s stomach erupted in butterflies. She had never expected one of the guys, let alone Happy to be asking her out. Especially considering her father had a seat at the same table and the repercussions for dating his daughter were always great. But Y/N could handle her father and his temper, and neither were going to stand in the way of going out with the guy she had been ogling at for as long as she could remember. 

With a smile on her face Y/N replied, “Of course Hap, I’d love to.” 

A wide smile broke across his face at her words. “Tonight? I can pick you up around 8.” 

“That sounds great, I’ll see you then.” Y/N replied, the smile never leaving her face as she got into her car. 

Y/N was putting her earrings in when her doorbell rang. She let out an excited gasp as she run out of her bedroom and towards her front door. Sliding to a stop in front of it she took a moment to gather to breath before opening the door. 

“Hey,” she said breathless as the door opened to reveal Happy on the other side. 

“Hi,” he replied, nearly as breathless as Y/N had been. “You look amazing.” 

“Thank you,” Y/N mumbled as she felt the heat rise to her cheeks as she stepped out of her doorway. 

Happy took a step back to let Y/N lock her front door. He took a moment to admire her figure in the jeans that she had chosen to wear, thinking to himself that she was the most beautiful women he’d ever seen, with the best ass he’d ever laid eyes on. But that was something he would tell her later.

“You ready to go?” Y/N’s voice broke Happy out of his thoughts. 

Happy smiled and held his hand out for her to take. Y/N happily took it, letting him lead her to the motorcycle that sat next to her car. Happy handed her the helmet that was hung over the handlebars before mounting his bike. Y/N followed him shortly after, buckling the helmet as she slung her leg over the bike. 

“Hold on tight,” Happy said over his shoulder, a mischievous twinkle in his eye as he revved the engine of the motorcycle. 

Nearly thirty minutes later Happy was pulling his bike into the empty parking lot of what looked like a bowling alley outside of Charming. As the two dismounted from the bike Y/N sent Happy a questioning look, as if to ask why the parking lot was empty. 

Happy seemed to catch on because he began to speak, “Buddy owns the place and owed me a favor. Figured we’d get a better chance to be more open if no one else was here.” 

Y/N simply nodded, knowing better than to question him as to why he was owed a favor. But she also couldn’t fault his thinking, which is why she did not argue with him when he grabbed her hand and led them to the front door. 

The door opened easily, indeed opening to an empty bowling alley. However, all of the lights were on and there was even a table set up at the start of one of the lanes piled with different types of food and drink. It shocked Y/N, as she had just been expecting a simple dinner or movie. She never expected Happy to put in so much effort to impress her. 

“Happy, this is...” she began, but was quickly interrupted by Happy. 

“It’s nothin’.” 

Y/N shook her head with a smile on her face, knowing that this man wasn’t going to accept any compliment or praise from her. And she didn’t get the chance to argue with him as he led her to the table. Once there Happy took a moment to set up the scoreboard for their game while Y/N poured them both a small glass of beer from the pitcher on the table.

“And we’re all set.” Happy spoke as he turned around to face Y/N who was unable to wipe the smile off of her face.

Nearly four hours later the two of them were walking up Y/N’s driveway and to her front door. Y/N was still unable to rid her face of the smile that she had been sporting all night. From the surprise that was the bowling alley to the good food and great company she could not have asked for a better date.

“I had a great time tonight,” Y/N said as Happy walked her to her door after what she would consider a pretty good date. 

She turned to face him when they reached the door, smiling up at him. He gave her a small smile in return, the emotion actually reaching his eyes. 

“I did too,” Happy replied, taking a step closer to her so she was less than an arm’s length away from him. He reached up to brush a piece of hair out of her face, watching her e/c eyes flash to his lips. 

Happy took that as all the invitation he needed to lean down and brush their lips together; not kissing her yet giving her the chance to pull away is she wished. But Y/N didn’t pull away, instead she placed on of her hands on the side of his face, casting one final glace into his deep brown eyes before pulling him the rest of the way to her, slotting their lips together. 

It was a soft, deep kiss. One that knocked the breath out of Y/N’s lungs and had her craving for more. Despite the feeling deep within her she pulled away, smiling as she could still feel the kiss on her lips. 

“Wow,” she breathed out against his lips, touching her forehead to his. 

Happy chuckled, pulled back a little more to look her in the eye, “You wanna do this again sometime?” 

Y/N nodded, “Pick me up next Friday at eight.” 

As the weeks went on everyone could see the change in Happy’s demeanor, but no one was complaining. They all just wanted to know what girl had Happy so whipped. So, while sitting at the clubhouse bar a few weeks later Tig decided to ask. 

“Hey Hap,” Tig started, waving the larger man over, “I’ve got to ask man, whose got you so pussy whipped?” 

The handful of men around them laughed, including Jax and Chibs. Happy looked from Tig to Chibs, trying to come up with something to say that wasn’t going to anger the Scotsman. But he soon realized that that was going to be next to impossible as the woman he’s been seeing is none other than his daughter. 

So Happy decided to bite the bullet and come clean. He’d rather Chibs knock him to the ground now rather than later, or in front of Y/N. 

“Y/N,” he mumbled, knowing that they all heard him. That much was evident by the sound of a chair scraping against the floor. 

“My fuckin’ daughter,” Chibs seethed as he got nose to nose with Happy. Happy nodded as the club house went silent. “Ya’ bangin’ my fuckin’ kid!” 

“Dating,” Happy replied, not backing down now. “We’re dating.” 

Chibs shook his head, anger pouring off the man in waves. “No, end it now. She’s not dating a Son, she deserves more than this life.” 

“I couldn’t agree more,” Happy began, “She deserves so much more than I can give her, and I’ve tried to tell her than. But she’s chosen to stay.” 

Happy took a deep breath, shocked with himself for feeling so many things about this situation and his girl, he wasn’t used to it. “I think I may love her,” he continued.

The clubhouse went deadly silent. No one dared make a sound as the anger rose in Chibs, rather many of them took a step back just as Chibs brought his arm back and slugged Happy across the face, sending the larger man stumbling back a step or two. Gasps and exclamations broke out of the men surrounding Happy and Chibs, waiting to see what would happen next. Many of them expected Happy to come back and lay Chibs out, none of them would blame him if he did. But Happy didn’t do anything but wipe what little blood escaped the cut on his lip.

“I’m not gonna fight you brother,” Happy said, putting his hands up near his chest. “It would kill her to know we went at it. But I’m not gonna lie to you brother, I think I love her.”

Chibs was seething, he didn’t want to hear anything Happy had to say especially when it came to his daughter. His daughter who he loved with everything in his heart, who he so desperately wanted away from the club life, his little girl. He wanted to hit Happy again but knew that he was right it would tear Y/N up. So instead Chibs turned around in a huff and walked away from the group of men, storming in the direction of the office near the garage.

Y/N was sitting in the office with Gemma working on paperwork for the garage when the door opened. Both women looked up from their desks to look at the person who had opened the door, seeing Chibs standing in the doorway.

“Gem, can you give Y/N and I a minute?” he asked with very little emotion in his voice.

The older woman got up from her desk without a word, shooting Y/N a smirk and knowing look over her shoulder. Once the door closed behind her Chibs took a step forward towards his daughter.

“Y/N Telford, how could you not tell me?” her father growled out trying to keep himself from yelling.

Y/N was stunned for a moment. Her father had not talked to her like that since he caught her sneaking out of the house in high school. But she also had no idea what he was talking about, there was a lot that she didn’t let her father know simply because it would give him a heart attack if she did. And she let him know that.

“Dad, I don’t know what you’re talking about,”

“Don’t play fuckin’ dumb wit’ me. I know,” Chibs let out a long, angry breath. “I know your screwin’ Hap.”

Y/N looked at him stunned, “And? We’re dating, what’s the big deal?”

Chibs stood there with his mouth open, stunned himself. He wanted to yell at her but refrained, knowing there was probably already a crowd of bikers standing outside the door.

“He’s a goddamned Son, Y/N! He’s done things that most can’t come back from. He’s just no good for you.”

Y/N shook her head as she stood up from her desk chair. She wanted to meet her dads eye, show him that she’s still the spitfire that he had raised her to be.

“None of that fucking matters Dad. You’re a Son, you’ve done the same things and I never look at you any different.” She took a step closer, “So why the fuck does it matter that its Happy? He’s more than proven that he will be able to take care of me, to keep me safe. And he makes me so happy Dad, isn’t that all you’ve ever wanted for me to be happy?”

Y/N let out a shaky breath, trying to keep the tears from forming or falling. She didn’t want to argue with her dad especially not over something like this.

“Of course, I want you to be happy,” he nearly shouted, “But not with a Son, not with someone who could be putting you in danger.”

“This fuckin’ club is my family because of you and that’s why there’s always a chance that I’m in danger. So why shouldn’t I find a guy who can make me happy and protect me against the people that are after me because of you?” Y/N sighed as she looked at her father. He stood in the same spot with the same amount of rage behind his eyes. “Forget it, I’m not going to keep arguing with you.”

Y/N pushed her way past her father, catching his shoulder on her way to the door. She ripped the door open and watched a dozen men outside attempt to look busy as she stomped through the parking lot. No one attempted to stop her instead letting her storm to her car and peel out of the parking lot. Everyone cut their eyes to Chibs who still seemed to be fuming as the roar of a motorcycle’s engine roared through the air. Signaling Happy had decided to follow Y/N out of the parking lot.  

Y/N slammed her front door as she walked into her house her anger at her father coming to the surface. She was livid with her father; he had no right to be that angry at her for dating someone. She wasn’t sixteen anymore, she was an adult who was completely capable of thinking for herself and making her own decisions. She didn’t need her father to tell her want to do anymore, so why he thought he was still able to was astonishing.

“Babe?” Happy’s voice sounded through the house, reaching Y/N in the kitchen and breaking her from her thoughts. However, she did not respond to him scared that if she did she would end up crying or screaming.

“Baby,” he tried one more time as he stepped foot into the kitchen. Once in the kitchen he saw Y/N leaning against her countertop with her eyes closed, practically shaking. As he moved into the kitchen Y/N didn’t react to her boyfriend, not until he was directly in front of her and pulling her into his arms.

“Why does he have to be such an ass?” Y/N mumbled into Happy’s chest as she wrapped her own arms around Happy’s torso.

“Because he wants what is best for his baby girl.” Happy rubbed his hand up and down Y/N’s back as she tightened her arms around him. “And I’m not that.”

Y/N looked up at Happy with wet eyes, the fear of him breaking up with her running through her mind, “But you are Hap, you’re the best guy I could ever ask for even if you are a little rough around the edges.”

Happy cracked a small smile before leaning down and pressing a kiss to her forehead. As he did he thought to himself that they were going to be okay, the two of them would get through this and Chibs would pull his head out of his ass eventually.

[honeyxmonkey]

Douxie grunted when the man smacked him, taking in a heavy breath as he played up the pain. He'd taken worse hits, but right now he just needed this to look believable.

"This is not how I wanted this evening to go." The old man said, pacing in front of the younger man, glancing down at him with what Douxie could only peg as smugness.

"I know how you wanted this evening to go." Douxie retorted, tasting blood in his mouth from all the punches to the face he'd taken earlier. "Trust me, this is better."

The man chuckled, shaking his head with an amused smile. "Who are you working for?" He asked, a more serious tone taking to his voice. "Doerr, yes?"

One of the man's lackeys stepped forward, grabbing onto the chair he was tied to and tipping it back, threatening a nasty fall onto the ground many stories below.

"Does he think," the man said, stalking around in front of the boy, hands held behind his back with an air of regal arrogance Douxie didn't see in most men. "We have to go through him to move our cargo?"

Douxie feigned incompetence, looking surprised at him. "I thought the General is in charge of export business?" He asked innocently, confusedly, playing them like the cheap dollar store kazoos they were.

The man laughed, as if he found the boy's stupidity amusing. He probably did. "The General? He's nothing but a bagman, a front if you will." He stopped in front of him, chuckling. "The famous Shepherd of Fire." He said, leaning in front of the boy for a moment, looking amused. "So disappointing that you're just another pretty face."

Douxie couldn't help a sarcastic smirk. "You think I'm pretty?"

The man rolled his eyes, but the amused smile remained. "Tell Doerr," He said as he walked away again, slowly making his way to a table full of tools, the nameless lackeys grabbing Douxie by the face and holding him still. "That we don't need him to the move the tanks. Tell him he's out. Well..." He looked at the boy with a wicked grin, holding what looked to be the object he intended to torture the young man with. "You may have to write it down."

The intensity of the moment was broken when one of the mens' phones began to ring. They looked at eachother in confusion.

The man picked up the phone, brows furrowing together at whoever was on the other side of the line. He looked at his boss quizzically. "Its for the boy."

The elder dropped what he was holding, snatching the phone. "I don't know who you think you're dealing with-"

"You're at 1-14 Silenzky Plaza, 3rd floor."

Douxie watched curiously as the man listened to whoever was on the line.

"We have an F-22 exactly eight miles out. Put the kid on the phone or I will blow up the block before you can make the lobby."

With terrified apprehension, the man slowly approached Douxie and handed him the phone. Douxie held it to his ear with his shoulder.

"We need you to come in."

Ah, Jim.

"Are you kidding? I'm working." Douxie hissed into the speaker.

"This is important."

"Im in the middle of an interrogation." Douxie said, glancing around the room, a little smug to see that they were all confused at his nonchalantness. "This bloody moron is giving me everything."

"I dont... give everything." The old man said, looking at his lackeys with confusion.

Douxie gave him a look before turning his attention back to the phone. "Look, you can't pull me out of this right now-"

"Douxie." Jim sounded... tired? Scared even? "Claire's been compromised."

At that Douxie stopped arguing, feeling absolute rage rising in him. "Let me put you on hold."

He glanced up at the old man, waiting for him to take the phone before he kicked him right in the balls, sending him to the floor. He broke out of his bonds, using the chair to smack the other men in the faces.

It didn't take him long, just a few more punches and a kick or two to the gronknuts and the rest of the lackeys were unconscious on the floor.

The leader got up after a moment but was quickly unconscious too when Douxie hit him over the head with a broken chair leg.

"That was a disappointing fight." Douxie huffed, picking the phone up again along with his staff which had been confiscated when the man had grabbed him, although they hadn't known what it was or what it was for, which had been the plan. "So what's happened?" He asked, casually walking away from the unconscious bodies.

"I'll explain when you get here, just make it back as soon as you can." Was all Jim had the time to say before the phone line went dead.

"I leave for one year and they get themselves into trouble." Douxie muttered under his breath, chucking the phone behind him.

He had hoped that they'd be able to get along without him for a little longer this time, atleast hoping there'd be no world ending catastrophe. After all, they were all young adults now, they didn't need him babysitting 24/7. After the titans and the Arcane Order, they'd all agreed to stay in Arcadia, the kids finishing up school and Douxie sticking around for a bit longer while they figured out the team dynamic. The Guardians of Arcadia, that's what Toby started calling them officially, were now an actual team with a headquarters and everything, keeping magical and human evils alike from doing anymore harm to the world.

Jim had naturally taken up a leadership role for the team and for the last few years everything had been running smoothly. So smoothly in fact that Douxie felt confident they could fair without him for a while.

He had gone to weed out some corrupt wizards from a few larger mafias around the world, but he got caught in between a human run mob war, which had led to that predicament. But he'd been having fun with it, fooling them and taking them out from the inside.

But now... he was worried about what had happened to his sister. After all, a year is a long time to be apart from friends you used to see everyday. He didn't know how much had changed, or what he was diving headfirst into. Not that he cared. That was his team, he'd do anything for them.

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

Outlanders: How Jinjer survived a revolution and built their own world

Jinjer’s resilient spirit was forged in the civil war that erupted their native Ukraine in 2014. As the groove metal quartet prepare to unleash their fourth and most complex album to date, singer Tatiana Shmayluk relives the turmoil that shaped them. Cue: one of modern music’s most remarkable tales of survival, resistance and sheer determination…

It was when the first fighter jet flew overhead that Tatiana Shmayluk realised she had to run.

For the past few months, the mood in Ukraine had been growing increasingly tense. As a former USSR state, in spring 2014 the country had only had independence from Russia since 1991. Many citizens had wanted then-President Viktor Yanukovych to sign an agreement aligning the country closer with the European Union in November 2013. Plenty of others wanted to stay close to Russia. Protests began across the country. Then violence. Then Yanukovych was ousted from office in February 2014. Then more violence.

“There was a revolution,” says Tatiana. ​“There were huge riots in the main square of Kiev. In the end, our president, his ass was kicked out and he left the country. That was crazy. And then everything turned into chaos. And that’s when people really started hating each other.”

That April, following a highly suspect vote on whether to stay or go which resulted in a widely disputed declaration of autonomy for the region around Tatiana’s home-city of Donetsk in the east of the country, on the border with Russia, armed conflict commenced, involving Russian troops, tanks and air power. So began what Tatiana calls ​“a civil war – Ukrainians attacking Ukrainians”, with those loyal to their former Soviet masters on one side, and those wanting to break free, and have independence and closer ties with the EU on the other.

You may remember news footage of protesters banging dustbin lids at lines of soldiers and riot police. The politics of the situation are obviously layered and complex, but the simple version is: imagine a turbo version of Brexit that actually tore the country in two and resulted in one region declaring an independence that’s somewhat disputed by most of the world that isn’t Russia. And with a lot more violence. And a conflict that’s still piling up bodies now.

Tatiana was having a barbecue when she realised what was about to happen. ​“We were at a picnic, not far away from my building where I lived,” she says today from her flat in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. ​“We were just chilling on the grass, eating food and stuff. And we heard this loud sound in the sky – we looked up and saw a jet. And that was that. We just grabbed our stuff and ran home, and we started figuring out how to leave before it was too late.”

Had Tatiana and her friends – including other members of her band, Jinjer – waited much longer than they did, their passage to Lviv some 1,300 kilometres to the west, where bassist Eugene Abdukhanov and his wife were already living, might have been much more hazardous. Even as they ​“packed all our shit into a van” and made a break for it, the country was starting to change shape around them.

“Already there were borders built being built around our region,” she says. ​“And I remember when we were crossing it, we were met by a guy, a soldier with a weapon. And then we heard [machine gun fire] somewhere very close to us.”

As she describes this, Tatiana makes an almost amusing machine gun noise, but she is painfully aware that even seven years on, the situation remains a serious one. ​“There’s no way out for this problem,” she says, ​“No solution. And that’s really, really sad.” If one needed an example of the lasting effects here, her parents have remained behind in what she calls, with almost mundane succinctness, ​“the war zone”.

“There’s an actual border between Ukraine and the former parts of the country, and it’s all blocked. And due to the pandemic, they have no chance to cross borders,” she explains. ​“They cannot receive money from the government, their pensions. I always tell my mom, ​‘Hey, mom, just try once to do this, make really big effort and cross this border, even [if you have to go] through Russia. Just come here and stay here. I can help you in any way possible.’ But she is old school. And when you have been living on this earth for over 60 years, it’s really hard to change your way of living.”

But that’s what Tatiana and Jinjer have had to do. And growing from such trying circumstances has only made them more rigid in their resolve. Because literally having to run for your life will have an effect on a person. ​“Growing balls, maintaining your balls,” is how she puts it.

“Of course, it makes you stronger,” she says. ​“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

Today, Tatiana has lived in Kiev for more than five years. As Jinjer’s singer, she is one of the rising stars of European metal, and made her living visiting countries as far-flung as Argentina, Australia and Japan to play her band’s music. Next week, the band release their fourth album, Wallflowers, a furious, razor-sharp work of metal that will delight fans of Cradle Of Filth and Conjurer alike, and will add nicely to streams that, in total, already sit at over 100 million.

Though she says that she’s only been recognised around town a handful of times, and that she probably gets noticed more for the tattoos that cover her arms and neck (“Old women who were born in the Soviet Union really reject people with tattoos,” she says. ​“They look at you like you’re a prisoner, or a prostitute…”) than for her music, at 34 life for Tatiana is very different to what she knew growing up. As a kid in the early ​’90s, after the collapse of the USSR, her family were, she says, ​“average”, but there were clues that the Shmayluk family were not one of society’s ​‘haves’.

“I remember that we couldn’t afford meat,” she recalls. ​“After the Cold War ended we got a lot of American food, like veggie burgers. It looked like oatmeal with brown [fake] chicken that you make into patties, and then you fry them. You eat them as kind of meat, but it’s not. It’s just some shit, like some very plastic stuff. I realised how poor we were. And I was crying, ​‘Mom, I just want some meat. I don’t want to eat this.’”

Elsewhere, though, Tatiana remembers her childhood as being ​“great”, a time she looks back on with fondness. ​“We didn’t have internet and stuff, so we just played outside all day long. And school was awesome.” The food imports post-Cold War might not have been the most brilliant thing she had ever seen, but the new order also brought with it more western culture. MTV introduced six-year-old Tatiana to hip-hop (“I’d practice dancing like MC Hammer”), but via going through her brother’s room and raiding his tape collection – often bootlegs – she also got turned on to Nirvana, Metallica and The Offspring.

“We had this family tradition that every evening we had supper together around the same table,” she remembers. ​“When I discovered The Offspring, I put Smash on my huge headphones. I was sitting in a chair, eating, and I wasn’t talking to anyone from my family, just listening to music. And then when I finished, I just sat back and just enjoyed the music, doing nothing.”

Her ability to both lose and find herself in music turned into doing something more significant at high school when, after years spent doodling herself playing guitar in a band with other girls in a sketchbook, Tatiana performed her first gig as part of a talent contest, doing covers of songs by Limp Bizkit and German metallers Guano Apes (“No-one voted for us,” she laughs). Her first gig as an audience member, meanwhile, came a few years later, when Soulfly played in Kiev. Despite the fact she didn’t actually get to see Max Cavalera and his band onstage, it was an experience in itself.

“I traveled from Donetsk to Kiev, like, 700 – 800 kilometres,” she says. ​“My parents were very protective, they didn’t want me going anywhere on road trips or anything, and they didn’t give me any money to spend. I only got to watch maybe 30 minutes of the show, because my boyfriend got drunk and started a fight with someone. Security grabbed him and threw him out of the club. It was quite a shitty day!”

In 2010, aged 23, having completed language studies at university, and working briefly at a dating agency, Tatiana joined Jinjer. Two years later, they self-released their debut EP, Inhale, Don’t Breathe. A year after that, they played outside Ukraine for the first time, in neighbouring Romania. ​“That gave us a push to move forward, because we really liked it,” she says. ​“And although we didn’t bring any money back – we didn’t earn anything – we realised that we want to do this, and we’re going to overcome any obstacle that is waiting for us.”

Eight months later, this would be put to the test by fleeing the war. Having moved to Lviv, Jinjer – Tatiana, Eugene, guitarist Roman Ibramkhalilov and then-drummer Yevhen Mantulin – then all moved into what the singer describes as ​“a summer house” just outside the city. Soon, the band became a full-time concern. They still had nothing, but it was a more fun nothing.

“We were all just hoping for the best, touring just with money that we had, earning nothing, like one euro,” she says. ​“Sometimes we didn’t have anything to eat, basically, because we were broke, because everyone had just quit their jobs. We just had some coins to buy a beer. That was intense. But I remember those years only with a warm heart. That was fun. That was a really huge challenge for just people who had never done that before, but we happened to overcome all this shit because we stayed together.”

But as touring became a more regular thing and things for Jinjer seemed to be on the up and up, the band once again found themselves faced with bad luck that most will, mercifully, never know. On tour in 2014, they had a long drive to Russia for the next run of shows. Stopping at a friend’s house in Kiev for the night, Tatiana took a taxi back to her own place, leaving everyone else to continue partying and drinking. At 4am, she got a phone call about Yevhen.

“They said, ​‘You have to come here because he’s broken his spine,’” she recalls. ​“He fell out of the window. Everyone [had gone] to sleep, and he stayed there in the kitchen, sitting on the window frame, smoking. And then he fell asleep, and fell from the third floor. They heard someone screaming in the middle of the night, but they didn’t realise – they thought that it was maybe a dog or something. And then someone checked the kitchen and he was not there. Then they looked down and saw him just lying there.”

By some miracle, he survived, though he no longer has use of his legs. Tatiana says she and his bandmates were ​“in shock for many years”, and that, ​“I remember we were all around him, toured with him, just hanging out, and then he’s just like… bam.” But even this incident, which left him in a wheelchair and unable to return to the band, is talked about in the same spirited, fighty way that Tatiana talks about every challenge.

“He seems very positive,” she says. ​“He’s doing music and he tours around Russia with a band. It’s kind of a hip-hop band, and he plays guitar. He’s still doing tours, so that’s awesome.”

Should you ask Tatiana to describe to you the Ukrainian national character, she’ll tell you that they are “stubborn”, and that as a whole they feel “we have nothing to lose”. She’ll also tell you that, “Ukrainians are very passionate people. Not like Italians [are passionate], for example, or Spanish people. We are passionate with a straight face, you know, not smiling – more like Russians.” When it comes to danger, meanwhile, she says that “we take risks easily”.

Surprisingly, despite the above description matching the impression you get of Tatiana from her story, she doesn’t think of herself as ​“a typical Ukrainian”. She does, though, nod in confirmation when asked if she sees playing music as a form of resistance. Before any of the bigger events and challenges, this spirited defiance started with becoming a musician at all, at home.

“The first time I resisted something that really prevented me from doing what I love was my parents,” she says. ​“Mostly my mom, who didn’t want to see me as a musician. In Ukraine, it’s kind of a big thing. If you’re a musician, it’s not respected. From 17 to 23, I was protesting [her], silently. I didn’t, like, yell at her; I didn’t fight with her. I just said, ​‘Yeah, yeah,’ and I did my own thing. That’s when it started, and it’s still going this way.”

An example: on Wallflowers, there’s a song, Disclosure, in which Tatiana vents about treatment at the hands of certain media outlets in her homeland. Even being used to internet haters, giving the band shit for everything from daring to escape a warzone, to daring to have a female member, to daring to become successful, the experience left her boiling.

“Earlier this year, in March, me and Eugene went to some studio to do an interview with a Ukrainian guy who is a YouTuber, and he used to work on Ukrainian TV channels,” she says. ​“So there was a tense atmosphere, and very angry vibrations between us. And he was so manipulative. We had differences in our political views and stuff, and he didn’t want to accept that. So he really wanted to show us in a very bad, bad way. I was pissed off for three days after that, and wrote the song about it.”

As people with a profile, do you think you’re a target for that sort of thing?

“We absolutely are targets for those people, for haters,” Tatiana says. ​“They hate us for different reasons: for me being a woman, you know. And people think that we pay for [success], like with our money – some of them think that we are hugely rich. My mom is a bookkeeper! My dad worked in coal mining, he was a worker, just working class. But no-one cares. They always find something to blame us for. But at least they don’t do us any harm. Only with words and comments. It’s distant. They’re poison, but it goes nowhere.”

Tatiana Shmayluk is a self-evidently tough woman. She’s also extremely nice. Equally, she’s extremely modest. When she talks about her life’s trials and triumphs, survival and successes, she does so in a manner that almost shrugs these things off, that possibly anyone could do them. Possibly, if pushed by the sight of a war literally kicking off while you have a barbecue, we could. But it’s still surprising that, for someone with more real things to get angry about than most, she describes what she’s putting into Wallflower as simply ​“my whining and insecurities”.

“Every album, I find something to be angry about,” she says. ​“It’s pessimistic, but it’s nothing to do with the pandemic. The pandemic gave me some time to just sit and think about, different stuff that I’ve been going through. And we have to agree that the whole world isn’t getting any better – I put myself into this kind of state of mind that, ​‘Okay, it’s almost the end of the world.’ Maybe the next album will be more optimistic and more positive. Maybe…”

Pessimism or not, none of it makes her story of prevailing against the things she has any less stirring. Never mind the fact that the band she fronts come from a country most tours don’t even stop at. She’s – rightfully – proud of Jinjer’s success, and the work ethic it’s taken to get them where they are, but she’s almost at pains to share the glory with her bandmates. And in part, it’s this that’s carried Jinjer through all this the most. It’s this, she says, that’s helped her both survive, and to thrive.

“I would never do this myself. I wouldn’t be able to work on so many obstacles just by myself,” Tatiana admits. ​“And if I had some type of my own personal career, just a single singer, I wouldn’t even start doing that. I really need those guys. And the guys, I hope they need me. That’s just how it works: all together. Even having nothing in our pockets and empty stomachs, we could work.

“It just depends on how big your dream is.”

[winterscaptain]

in line.

Aaron Hotchner x Male Reader

request from anon: Thank you for sharing your writing on here! A blurb idea, because I hardly see any male readers, is that maybe Hotch has figured out he’s attracted to men too and has a boyfriend? Someone Hotch can go home to and be taken care of by them, someone Jack trusts? Because hotch spends all his time caring for the team, his s/o really spoils him with affection and TLC. I’m really soft for that idea, and the team being real pleased he’s found someone who appreciates him again. Hope you’re doing well! a/n: i wanted to give this a little more attention than a blurb, so it turned into a Whole Thing™ words: 2790 warnings: swearing, some drinking, derek being charming, and emily prentiss: patron saint of The Gays™

i don't have a specific male!reader taglist yet, so i added all yall on my gn!reader list, so nobody would miss this! lemme know if you wanna stay on the male!reader list or not - you’ll never hurt my feelings :)

masterlist | requests closed!

Aaron came home to all the lights off save one, illuminating a little scene before him - dinner (still hot) on the coffee table, a glass of wine, and you, holding the remote ready to start a movie. 

He smiled, set his briefcase down, and slipped his shoes off. 

“Jack’s at Jess’s,” you said, before he could ask. “I thought it would be a nice surprise to spend the evening, just you and me.” 

He crossed to the couch and sat down, pressing a sweet kiss to your lips. “It’s a great surprise, thank you.” You grabbed his tie and tried to pull him down on the couch, but he pried your fingers off and laughed. “Let me change and I’ll come sit with you, alright?”

You picked up your glass of wine and tipped it his direction. “I’ll be here.”

It was true. When he returned and dropped down next to you, you were waiting for him. When he was firmly settled with dinner, you started the movie. 

After a while, you asked, “Did the case go okay?”

He nodded. “We got ‘im. I had to stay and make sure the DA had a strong enough case, otherwise I would have been home yesterday.” 

You leaned into him, and he wrapped an arm around you. “I don’t mind. Jack and I went out for a bike ride yesterday and didn’t miss you at all, not even a little.” 

Aaron laughed. “Good.” 

+++

“Damn it.” 

Aaron forgot his lunch. He could see it in his mind’s eye, sitting there next to his travel mug of coffee on the kitchen island. Pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, he had just resigned himself to a takeout lunch when his phone rang. 

“Hotchner.” 

“Babe, you left your lunch here,” the light amusement in your tone dissolved his sour mood, and he smiled despite himself. 

“I noticed.” 

He could hear you shuffling around in the background as you spoke. “I’ll swing by and leave it downstairs after I drop Jack at school. No more than an hour, okay?”

Aaron smiled and sat in his chair, leaning back. “What did I do to deserve you?”

You laughed. “Absolutely nothing. I’m just a sucker for charity cases.” There was a shuffle, and you heard Jack laugh. You were probably at the table, poking the kid in the ribs until he almost got sick with laughter. Before Aaron could respond again, you said, “Alright, love you, bye!” and hung up.

Aaron rolled his eyes and got to work. 

True to your word, no more than an hour later found you at the front of the Quantico Federal Building, Aaron’s lunch and coffee in your hand. You’d never seen the inside, but you knew you were on the visitors list. 

Fuck it.

You checked in, got your visitor’s badge, and made your way to the sixth floor with only a little bit of spatial confusion. You knew which bullpen was theirs immediately - you had yet to meet the team, but you’d seen pictures and heard enough stories to keep track of names and faces.

You quickly stepped through the glass doors, doing everything in your power to avoid directing too much attention to yourself. But alas, Aaron worked with profilers, and they all noticed you despite your best efforts. 

JJ’s head shot up. “Is that -”

“Hotch’s travel mug? Yeah.” Derek squinted at you as you took the stairs two at a time up to your boyfriend’s door. 

You knocked, and a crisp “Come in” sounded from inside. 

Aaron couldn’t hide his surprise when you poked your head through the door, stepping in and closing it behind you. He stood, circling the desk and leaning against it. 

Boundaries were important to him at work, you knew, so you refrained from untoward affection, stepping back to a respectable distance after you set his things next to the file on his desk. 

“How’d you get past security?” He asked, and you knew it was a joke. 

“I guess they’re letting just about anyone in, these days.” 

Aaron nodded, in facetious consternation. “Looks like it.” He broke after a moment, offering you a small smile. “Thank you. You didn’t have to come all the way out here.” 

You shrugged. “Wasn’t too hard.” 

He glanced out the blinds. The entire team averted their eyes, bumping into each other in their haste to look busy. 

You followed his gaze. “It’s okay, Aaron. Don’t feel pressured to introduce me to any of them - I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.” There was a little swoop in your stomach. 

Did I overstep?  

He sighed. “I know. You didn’t. It feels a little...ridiculous to be hiding anything from them after all this time.” He reached out, and you took his hand, still a couple of steps away. His eyes stayed on your linked hands as they swung a little between you. “I don’t mean to hide you from them.” 

You squeezed his hand with a warm, small smile. “I know.” And you did. It was big for him - explicitly and obviously coming out to his team was bound to be terrifying, and to add a new person on top of that? 

I don’t envy him. 

Meanwhile, down in the bullpen, everyone was taking turns reporting back on what was going on behind the blinds. 

“They’re holding hands, and not in a handshake way,” Emily said, covering her face with a folder as she looked up. 

JJ chanced a look. “He’s been a lot less uptight recently.”

“He’s also not coming in as early. His arrival time is, on average, about thirty-seven minutes later than five months ago.” 

Emily looked at Spencer like he’d grown another head. “You keep track of when we come in?” 

Spencer didn’t look up from his book. “Of course.” 

“I’m glad he has someone,” JJ noted lightly. “It’s good for him.”

Back up in the office, you took a step toward Aaron. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with, my love.” 

He huffed a laugh and ran his thumbs over your knuckles. “Come to Dave’s the next time we all get together.” 

“Really?” Your eyebrows felt like they were going to meet your hairline they shot up so fast. 

“Yeah. They’d love to meet you.” 

Your brow furrowed, confused. “How do you know?”

He shrugged. “They’re very predictable.” 

+++

Needless to say, Aaron was right. They politely, pointedly, and casually posed questions about Hotch’s lunchtime visitor until he wasn’t able to avoid them anymore. Thus, he invited you to Dave’s the next time the team had a night off.

You were excited, but admittedly a little nervous. You were all headed to the car, Jack (very carefully) carrying the brownies you’d made that afternoon. 

He was chatting away, telling you stories you’d already heard, about JJ and Emily and Derek and Spencer and Dave and Henry and etc. etc. etc. 

You loved that kid. 

When Aaron pulled up to the house, Jack jumped out of the car and walked through the front door like he owned the place. It made you laugh. 

Aaron looked over, a fond smile on his face. “What?”

“Jack. He just -” you made a vague gesture with your hand - he just goes and goes, and Aaron laughed. 

After a moment, you two sobered. He reached for your hand, and you laced your fingers with his. 

“They’re going to love you. You know that.” 

You snorted. “I certainly don’t.”

Aaron kissed the back of your hand and covered it, so two of his hands were holding one of yours. “Are you ready?”

“Are you?”

He patted your hand twice by way of an answer, releasing you and opening his door. You followed suit, waiting for him on the sidewalk. 

When you actually looked, you realized how truly massive Dave’s house was. Aaron had told you he was well-off, with his book royalties and other savings, but the beautiful and tasteful mansion before you spoke to a bank account that had eight figures, rather than six. 

Aaron stepped forward and offered you his hand. You took it. He led you up the flagstone path and through the front door, opening it without preamble. 

The foyer was beautiful, opening to a staircase, the living room, and some kind of den or parlor off to the side. Aaron led you to the kitchen, where a statuesque woman with dark brown hair was mixing a drink. Emily. 

She turned when she heard you enter, and a wide smile broke out across her face. “Hi!” 

You dropped Aaron’s hand and offered it to her. She shook it readily, and you found yourself mirroring her smile. “Hi. Emily, right?”

She nodded, and spared a glance at Hotch. “Hotch, you know it’s polite to introduce guests.” 

He huffed in good humor and gestured pedantically as he spoke. “Emily, this is my boyfriend, Y/N. Y/N, Agent Emily Prentiss.” 

You were very impressed by his lack of hesitation over the word boyfriend, as it had been a topic of discussion in the past. 

“It’s so juvenile. I feel like I’m in high school.” Aaron chuckled, staring up at the ceiling with his hands laced behind his head. 

You rolled over onto his chest. “I can’t be your partner - you’ve already been a lawyer and I would hate to confuse people. You’re the one with a juris doctorate, not me.” You rested your chin on his pec, giving just a little more weight than was necessary. 

He dropped one of his arms, and you scooted up to fit nearly under it. “Is it at all weird to have a boyfriend in one’s forties?”

You shrugged. “I think it’s whimsical.” 

“Oh yeah, that’s me.” He laughed. “Whimsical in the extreme.” 

Emily’s voice was warm and genuine when she told you, “It’s a pleasure to meet the person who keeps him,” she jabbed her index finger at Hotch, “in line.”

You laughed, the anxiety melting little by little. “Bold of you to assume anyone can keep him in line.” 

She snorted. “Don’t I know it.”

Hotch crossed his arms over his chest. “Guys, I’m right here.” 

“And?” You and Emily answered simultaneously.

He shook his head with a smile. “C’mon. If you want to continue making fun of me, there’s plenty of ammunition out back.” 

You offered your arm to Emily, and she took it daintily. “Such a gentleman.” She looked over her shoulder as she started walking you to the back patio. “How’d you snag this one?”

“Apparently, he has a thing for charity cases,” Aaron deadpanned. 

A few pairs of eyes flickered to you when you stepped out, and Emily’s hand squeezed you reassuringly. You already loved her. 

Hotch came up to your side and grabbed your hand as Emily stepped away, stopped by two men who had to be Derek and Spencer (who needed a mediator for some inane, hair-splitting dispute they were having). 

A couple who you assumed were JJ and Will smiled at you as you approached. 

“JJ, Will, this is Y/N.” Hotch said, a little more confidence in his voice than before. 

“I’m the boyfriend,” you supplied, and JJ laughed. 

“I’m so glad you could make it!” She leaned close to you, and you dipped your head to listen. “We’ve been asking about you since you stopped by a couple of weeks ago.” 

You raised your chin in a knowing fashion as you leaned back, once again including Hotch and Will in the conversation. “Ah, I see. So there’s lore?”

“Definitely.” She pursed her lips in mock solemnity. 

You matched her facetious tone. “Don’t believe everything you hear.” 

JJ broke then, smiling at you once more. “I never make that mistake.” Just then, a little blond boy ran up to her, attaching himself to her leg. She automatically put a hand on his head and gestured to you. “Henry, can you say hello to Mr. Y/N? He’s a really special friend of Hotch’s - like Miss Savannah is to Derek.” 

“Hi.” 

You crouched to Henry’s level, offering your fist. A look of satisfaction crossed his face as you bumped fists, your hands exploding out of it (with sound effects). “It’s so nice to meet you, man. Were you playing soccer over there?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Jack’s really good but he lets me get goals.” 

“Wow.” You raised your eyebrows. “That’s really nice of him, and I bet you learn a lot, too.” 

Jack called Henry from across the yard, and he offered you one last adorable grin before sprinting off. You rose, checking in with Hotch as you did so. JJ and Will were distracted watching Henry for the moment, so they missed the awe that crossed Aaron’s face for just a moment. 

Your eyebrows pulled. What?

He shook his head. Nothing. But there was something there. Something fond and altogether content. 

You heard Emily come up behind you before you saw her, so you turned as she approached with Derek, Dave, and Spencer. 

You offered your hand first to Derek, and shot a smile to Spencer. Hotch had warned you before you left the house that Spencer didn’t shake hands. 

“Nice to meet you, man. Derek Morgan.” Morgan’s grip was firm and warm. “Emily was just telling me I owe you a thanks for reminding Hotch he has a sense of humor.” Derek’s smile ate up his whole face as he beamed at you. It very nearly stole your breath - he was stunning, and smart. The way he phrased his introduction made it unnecessary to re-introduce yourself, and you were sure that soothed whatever remained of Hotch’s anxiety. 

Hotch’s deadpan was decidedly dry. “Funny.”

That’s a good sign. 

Spencer was quiet, but there was a little smile playing at his lips. He looked just over your shoulder, and seemed to communicate with someone behind you for a moment. It was only the barest changes in expression, but you’d been around Aaron long enough to know a silent conversation when you saw one, no matter how subtle. The outcome of the conversation looked good, as Spencer stifled another smile and looked over at Hotch.

You then offered your hand to Dave, who took it in both of his. “It is so good to finally meet you.” He shot a sly smile at Hotch. “I was beginning to wonder if you were a figment of my imagination a couple weeks ago.” 

“I promise I am very real,” you said with a laugh. “It’s so great to meet all of you. I’ve heard so much about you.”

“All bad I hope,” JJ chirped from over your shoulder as she approached. 

You nodded. “The worst.” 

Aaron kissed your temple as the rest laughed, and you could feel the small smile resting on his lips. He sure was smiling a lot tonight, and you couldn’t help but feel a little proud that you had a lot to do with it. 

A woman you could only assume was Penelope bounced up and swooped under Derek’s arm. “What did I miss?”

Hotch laughed (he laughed!) and introduced you. “Y/N, this is our tech analyst Penelope Garcia. Garcia, this is Y/N.”

Instead of a handshake, she just got out from under Derek’s arm and gave you a hug. You relaxed right into her. 

She let you go after a second, but kept her hands on your upper arms. “I am so glad you’re here. I’ve been hoping someone would come along and snag our fearless leader before too long.” She winked, and it warmed you. 

The rest of the evening flowed smoothly, eventually moving to the living room, and then to goodnights. Everyone wished you a warm goodbye, and Dave kissed you on both cheeks before letting you go. Jack was apparently spending the night at the Jareau-LaMontagne household, so you and Aaron were alone on the drive back. 

You relaxed into the seat as he sped along the highway, his hand locked in yours across the center console. “That was really fun.” You looked over at him, finding less tension in him than you’d ever seen before. “Your team is incredible.” 

“I know it. They’re the best at what they do.”

You kissed the back of Aaron’s hand. “I’ve heard it helps to have a great boss, or so Penelope tells me.”

He huffed a little laugh through his nose. “She is the authority on such things, as I understand it.” 

The car was quiet for a few minutes. 

“I - “ Hotch cleared his throat, but his gaze never wavered from the road. “I can’t tell you how much tonight meant to me.”

You squeezed his hand. “It was nothing.” You were lying, and he knew it, but at the end of the day, you’d do anything for him.  

He smiled, broad and genuine, and you decided then that Aaron’s joy was your favorite sight in the whole world. 

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[collecting-stories]

Cowboy Blues - pt. 01 - Rafe Cameron

Summary: You swipe right on Tinder with some interesting results. 

One Thing Right Masterlist | Outer Banks Masterlist

△ ▽ △ ▽

You weren’t traditional by any sense of the word. You’d given up all those crazy ideals that had been ingrained in your personality when you realized that you weren’t going to find a high school sweetheart to settled down with. Or a college one for that matter. You settled for nice dates with average guys and tried to remind yourself daily that you needed no one to complete your life. It was fine on its own.  

“I think the literal class of guy has gone down,” your best friend Nina mentioned as she scrolled through your phone. You loved Nina but she was tone-deaf to most of your single life complaints. She was already married, to the same guy she had been dating since middle school. After HSM came out she had been madly in love with Zac Efron and had managed to find the one guy in your school that looked almost just like him and they’d stayed together.  

“You’re on tinder right now, just to put that commentary into perspective for you.” You pointed out, annoyed mostly. Nina had invited herself to come have lunch with you while you worked on finalizing your classroom for the coming school year. While you tried to get actual work done, Nina just scrolled through the guys on your tinder and bitched about their profiles, as if she expected to find some great life partner for you.  

It was probably cynical of you to say but, if you never dated again, never settled down with anyone, it probably wouldn’t matter. Wedding fever sprung up whenever someone else was tying the knot or having a kid but when that passed you weren’t particularly eager to look for someone. People had been, for the majority, disappointing since you had turned 18 and, for the past eight years you hadn’t been proven right.  

Someone to cohabitate with might be nice. You certainly thought about it on nights when you were feeling particularly isolated from the rest of the world, but all that disappeared when you considered how used to being alone you actually were and what cohabitating would actually mean. Someone who would leave dirty dishes in the sink, leave water on the bathroom floor and track it through the house, who would chew too loud or hate the food you liked or snore too obscenely or drink too much. There were a million flaws with your imaginary future suitor and you listed them all anytime you got the bug to start dating again. But twenty-six was old, according to Nina, and you needed to get married.  

“What about him, he’s cute?” She held the phone out to you, the guy in the picture was smiling, sitting in front of a table with food. You looked up briefly from the lesson plan you were writing out, nearly losing your mouthful of coffee.  

You swallowed and took the phone, staring at the picture, maybe a little too long.  

“He’s cute babe, but he’s not like People Magazine’s hottest man alive.” Nina said in response to your out burst.  

“No, no, I know him.” You explained, eyes still on the picture. God, you couldn’t help thinking that he looked good. Did you look that good? He was the spitting image of what he’d been in the stairwell at Duke. Attractive, self-assured, a little cocky. “We went to the same college. I hooked up with him one time at a party before spring break…I uh, he told me to call him and I lost his number.”  

“On purpose?” She asked, plucking the phone out of your hands. She lingered on his picture, waiting for your either glowing recommendation or scathing review before she swiped. He was cute, she’d give you that. He was tan, tall, even in the picture it was obvious, and just nice to look at.  

“No,” You admitted. “I was gonna call him and then I got back together with Ian.” Your ex-boyfriend be damned, you left out the part where you thought about your random hook way more often than a sane person should. After spring break it hadn’t been hard to dodge him, Duke had a massive campus and you didn’t have any of the same classes but every time you and Ian had it out you couldn’t help wondering what it would’ve been like if you’d called him back. Even after you graduated and moved back home to Boston, you still couldn’t quite shake the memory of him.  

“Well Ian’s getting married and you’re not...so,” she swiped and then closed the app, sliding off your desk to take a slow appraisal of your classroom while she dug the knife in deeper, “are you going to Ian’s wedding?”  

Nina kept asking, as if you had much say in the matter, and you kept answering, deflating your ego every time you had to say yes. “I have to…it’s my grade partner. She even made me a bridesmaid.” Admittedly, you and Anya had been much closer before your boyfriend of three years dumped you and immediately started dating her. Now it felt hard to be around her for too long, like going home for the holidays and trying to keep quiet when your drunk uncle brought up the political climate in the country. Anya told you she had held off the wedding because she wanted to ‘wait until the dust settled’. As if it hurt less now. For different reasons, sure, but not less.  

In a month’s time you’d be sitting through a bridal shower that her sister kept texting you to help coordinate and plan. She’d tried to be nice, giving you a plus one to the wedding because you didn’t know any of her friends or family. The only other person you knew was Ian, ex-boyfriend and groom, not exactly who you wanted to be hanging out with. Of course, you knew his family and that just made the whole ordeal so much more awkward.

The plus-one was an empty gesture though. Just a reminder that there was no one for you to invite. But you kept hoping, maybe you’d meet someone. Maybe you could transport yourself into a Hallmark movie and rent a date or something. Fall madly in love in a week and move to their small town and never look back. Then, at least, you could miss the wedding altogether.  

“She’s a fucking back stabbing bitch.” Nina commented, as if this was some new piece of information that she was finding out about now.

“Anya is super sweet.” You defended, only because it was true. Anya might’ve been marrying your douche of an ex-boyfriend but she was categorically the nicest person that you had ever met. “It wasn’t like he cheated on me, we broke up.” You didn’t want to have this conversation anymore. Not two weeks before the beginning of school. Two weeks before you had to look at her face every day until the honeymoon.  

“They got together pretty quick.” Nina pointed out, not that she ever needed to. “Well, whatever, so what was this guy like, what was his name?”  

“Did you swipe right on him and not even look at his name?” You asked, reaching for your phone to check.  

“Yeah, so? She asked, “You said you knew him.”  

“I said I slept with him.” You corrected.  

“Same thing.” She shrugged, “name?”

“Rafe. Cameron.”  

She ‘ohhhh-ed’ appreciatively, “What was he like?” She asked. “He sounds rich.”  

“Hot,” you shrugged, “I don’t know he was probably a total fuck boy. He asked me to call him the next morning after breakfast and I said sure and then when I got back to my dorm Ian was there.” You provided the short story of events, omitting any major details about that night. You told Nina everything but you had never told her about Rafe, always a little wistful about the encounter. As if it was some personal memory that would lose its importance should anyone else know about it.  

“He made you breakfast?”  

“Yeah, so?”  

“That’s like jackpot. God you could be like, married right now, popping babies out for some Swedish Au pair to run around after.” Nina replied raising her eyebrows suggestively.  

“I’m glad you’ve created this weird ‘rich kid’ narrative but I have no idea. It’s not like I was checking the guy’s financials while I was sucking his dick.” You lowered your voice at the end of the sentence, just in case the pushing 80 secretary walked past and heard you.  

“Please, have you seen him? That is a baby-faced, rich boy living on his daddy’s money. And you could be too.”  

“Okay, look, I was 20, I wasn’t trying to settle down and get married. At least not to some random guy I only hooked up with because my boyfriend was a douche.” You replied. Not to mention that breakfast had essentially consisted of one bite of toast before he was eating you out on the counter of his off-campus apartment. Not exactly the romantic beginning to a relationship. “Wait, did you swipe right?” You asked, almost immediately horrified at the thought.  

“Maybe.”  

“No,” you groaned, “fuck, he’s gonna think I’m so weird!”

“He will not. Besides, if he’s as much of a fuck boy as you say then guarantee he doesn’t even remember you.” She replied. “Besides, if he answers, it’ll be kinda nice ya know? Go out, have a nice dinner, get fucked, all your problems melt away.”  

“He better not remember me.” You grumbled. You were not prepared for the absolute humiliation that would come from him seeing you on Tinder and remembering you.  

“Did you really sleep with so few guys in college that you remember him?”  

“You’ve slept with one person in the last decade…” you pointed out.  

“And?” She slipped her sweatshirt back on and grabbed her bag, “whatever, I’m heading out. I have work in 30.”  

With Nina gone, you slumped back in your chair and grabbed your phone. You had a tendency to never get rid of anything; it was the great downfall of your life. Someday you would accumulate so much stuff you would become a hoarder and then no one would love you but the cats that used your belongings as a litter box. It was a terrible habit but it lent to usefulness sometimes, especially in moments like this, as you scrolled through your phone, finding Rafe’s contact. You had told Nina that you’d lost Rafe’s number but in actuality you had kept it stored in your phone even though you’d never used it.  

Now, this wedding fever was doing nothing but confirm your fear that you were one step closer to an unfulfilling life alone. Even Lorelai Gilmore didn’t stay single forever.  

You stared at his name in your contact list, a little fire emoji next to it and you could remember laughing at him when he typed it in. It was more a playful jab at the way your Boston accent had pronounced the word fire than anything to do with him though you thought it was an accurate description.  

You wondered if he had the same number. If you’d called him that night, would it have been another failed relationship to catalog away for when you were feeling especially shitty. Or would he have left you for the bubbly grade partner that you wanted to hate so much but couldn’t. Nina had swiped right on him but you didn’t even know where he lived these days. You were living in Boston again. You’d moved home for your masters and stayed when the teaching internship turned into an actual job.

North Carolina had been fun for school, being 12 hours away from home had given you the most incredible sense of freedom but nowhere was New England and you’d been itching to go home again just as soon as you’d arrived down there. Though coming back to Boston, you had found it different than you’d left it. Even with Nina here, she was married, she had her own life away from you. As much as you tried to settle in and pretend that everything was fine, you couldn’t help but admit that Nina was right, you did need someone.

Single life felt a lot more routine than you imagined it would. A call from your mother, complaining that your sister was acting out and being generally awful, a call from your sister, accusing your mother of being overbearing, and hours of alone time filled mostly by reading, walking your dog, and binging TV shows.  “At least you got a dog and not a cat.” Nina had said when you brought Fivel home. He was pre-named and you were always partial to An American Tail.  

“Only so I would exercise.” You had replied, knowing you had to walk the dog, a black lab mix that was a puppy when you got him. “You hear that Five, I’m using you for my own gain.”  He had gotten big since then, fully grown now with a personality that included forgetting his size and spreading out on top of you when you laid on the couch.  

Your apartment was small, an old converted brownstone with three apartments, yours on the top floor above a middle-aged couple with a very spoiled seven-year-old. They were nice when they weren’t blaring Disney movies and you resented that even in your house you couldn’t escape children but you couldn’t be too upset. The place was nicer than you could’ve hoped, truthfully. Especially living alone.  

Even with a nice place to live though, it was always the same. Walking Fivel, making whatever dinner that came in the Sunbasket boxes at the beginning of the week, and watching Top Chef.  

You closed out of your contacts, going back to Tinder as if Rafe would’ve already messaged you. All Nina had written was ‘hey’, as if that was supposed to entice someone into replying. You doubted the stupid picture of you from last year at the beach really did anything special. You weren’t surprised to find that there was no reply yet. You read his profile over again, unsure what else to say. The night the two of you hooked up you had both been at a party though these days your partying had been replaced with drinking alone.  

Whoever said don’t waste your twenties would’ve recoiled in horror at the way you were living.  

-  

“Leaving so soon?”  

You turned away from the double doors leading out onto campus, the click of the bar as it released echoing in your ear for a second, drowned out mostly by the music that was coming from the various dorms that had their doors open. It was a floor party; one you’d come to with some friends in high hopes of forgetting your current ex-boyfriend Ian once and for all. Three months of condescending comments and gaslighting finally pushing you over the edge.  

“I was just...getting some fresh air.” You replied, shrugging. Trying to look calm, unaffected by this stranger’s sudden entrance into your life. He was cute, far more so than Ian. Taller too. You thought you recognized him from the lacrosse team your roommate was so obsessed with. “Lacrosse players are never unattractive.” She had argued once when she dragged you to a game.  

He definitely fit the bill for her ideal of the lacrosse playing frat boy. Hot, tall, tan, his cap was on backwards and he looked so relaxed but also so sure of himself. Like whatever was going to happen in this hallway was going to go exactly how he wanted.  

“Want some company?” He asked, taking a sip from the cup in his hand but not taking his eyes off you.  

You felt like your heart was hammering in your chest, head swimming and you’d not even had anything to drink that night. “I uh…” worse case scenarios increased by tenfold in your head given the context of the situation. You were alone in a hallway, potentially about to go outside, while everyone else was partying, where they couldn’t hear you, with some guy you didn’t know at all. A guy who gave off some pretty strong ‘get-whatever-I-want’ vibes and he’d said no more than two sentences to you. “I uh, kinda wanted to be alone.”  

“Cool, cool.” He shrugged, “no problem.”  

For whatever reason that possessed you to think it was a genuinely okay idea, so you walked out, the door clicking open as you stepped onto the pavement. You kicked the stopper so it wouldn’t shut all the way because you’d rather be able to get back in than somehow have both of you trapped out here if he did decide to follow you. No alcohol, your brain was just malfunctioning or maybe your roommate was right and your usual suspicion of everyone had turned a nice moment into an awful one.  

It was significantly colder outside than it had been in the dorms, even in the hallway, and you breathed out a sigh of relief. You wanted to scream at Ian for not even letting you have a good time when you were out with friends because you kept thinking of him. He was off somewhere, already on spring break, no doubt hooking up with girls you’d never know about because you had told him it was over. And it was, you were just so completely unsure-  

You’re silent berating ended mid-sentence when you turned around to see your lacrosse playing stranger sitting on the steps just inside the door. He smiled at you and waved and you almost laughed at the oddity of the moment as you came back inside.  

“What are you doing?” You asked, holding the door open and letting some of the cold air deep in.  

“You said you wanted to be alone. Figured I’d wait.”  

“For?”  

He shrugged, standing up and leaning against the bottom of the railing, “you, to not want to be alone.”  

“Well,” you were momentarily caught off guard, a nervous laugh escaping. Truthfully, you had never had someone flirt with you like this before, so directly obvious about liking you. Not necessarily one with quick-witted comebacks, you were still fairly good at deflecting when you needed too but somehow, he had rendered you speechless.  

He nodded his head toward the steps, “we can just sit? Door’s right there,” he offered, referring to the dorm room less than six feet away. The door was open and you could hear a mix of chatter and music.  

“Okay.” You agreed, letting the door close on the stopper, the slightest wave of cool air seeping in while you walked over and took a seat beside him. You introduced yourself, unsure what else to do, and probably sounded like every middle-aged family member he had when you asked him what his major was.  

“Rafe Cameron,” he replied, “economics.”  

“Oh god,” you said before you could stop yourself. He was the full package clearly, though of what you weren’t sure. He sounded rich, by the name alone, econ major, lacrosse player, potentially, and absolutely fuckable. There was no other coherent way to describe it. “I took an econ course as an elective freshman year, it really fucked me up.”  

“Not a math person?” He asked, another sip of his drink and you really wished you had one. Anything to occupy a little corner of your brain so everything wasn’t so solely focused on him.  

“No, no, not at all.” You shook your head. “So…do you live in this dorm?”  

“Nah, my roommate’s dating some girl in one of these,” he replied, the same head nodded toward the rooms as before, “I’m just here for the booze, and the company.”  

That wasn’t even that smooth of a line and you were melting at it. You weren’t sure if you were just dying for some positive attention or going through the motions of a breakup but either way you were seriously considering your roommate’s earlier encouragement of ‘letting yourself go’. Have fun, she had said, be bold.  

“You play lacrosse, right?” You asked, because you were 95% sure you’d seen him and it was eating at you a little bit.  You felt like you were grasping at straws trying to think of what to say. You were fairly positive that he was only talking to you because he wanted to have sex with you but honestly, you really wanted to have sex with him too.  

“I do,” he grinned and you knew you’d basically given him the upper hand. “You’ve been to a game?”  

“I’ve been to all of them.” You said before you could stop yourself. “I mean, my roommate’s a big fan of lacrosse or lacrosse players, not sure, so we always go.”  

“Not a fan yourself?”  

“No, I mean, I like it, you guys have a good team.” You shrugged. This was going terribly, or you would think it was if he wasn’t looking at you like that.  

“Yeah?” He grinned, sliding a little closer to you on the stairs.  

“I should close that door, it’s getting cold in here.” You mentioned, standing up suddenly.  

Rafe couldn’t help his smile as you walked down the steps to the door. He had come out into the hallway because the party was boring, the music was subpar, and Topper was starting to annoy him. He had considered going back to the apartment altogether but he’d just sat on the stairs instead, as if he was waiting for something. And then you’d come along. “We could head back to my place? It’s warm.” He offered. A stupid line, sure, but the last one had played well for him so he tried this one.  

You almost laughed at the cheesiness of his comment. The way he said it, even with how you’d felt when you first realized he was there, was easy, letting you know that the decision was yours entirely. Maybe it was a decision you shouldn’t have been making right this moment but he was gorgeous and anything that had you not thinking about your ex was good enough for you. “Yeah, but I’ll be cold on the way there.”  

His lower lip jutted out, pouting at you playfully, “We’ll drive, you can stay warm in the car, promise.”

-  

Sans Nina stopping by, the next day played out the same as the day before. You managed to hold off checking your Tinder until halfway through lunch. It wasn’t like you’d stopped thinking about it or forgot the whole exchange with Nina the day before. You’d locked the whole thing away to reminisce about at some later date when you were no doubt alone once again. Alone and-  

And he had sent you a message. It just said hey back, and a subtle compliment about your profile picture, telling you that he would kill for beach weather right now and that ‘blue is his favorite color’, you clicking back a second later and realizing that the bathing suit you had on in your profile picture was, in fact, blue. You half wondered if he remembered you and that’s why it was so casual. But he was arguably that casual the night you met too. If you’d been in a less hyper aware state of mind you would’ve never realized he was flirting with you.  

You stared at the message for half of your lunch hour wondering what to say in return. Something witty maybe, though you were feeling as tongue tied as you had that night six years ago. Not at all the confident person you always envisioned yourself being at this point in your life but the nervous one who said dumb stuff that you didn’t mean to.  

-I went last weekend with a friend and it was literally too cold to take my sweatshirt off...fall’s a bitch-  

You replied, attaching a frowning emoji to the end of your sentence. You hated your inability to be cool online. What else could you say though? You couldn’t ask if he remembered you. Say that if he did remember you than you were sorry for never calling and you know how much of an ass matching with him on Tinder probably seems. Or that pathetically enough for you that night and following morning are arguably the best sex you’ve ever had. Or even that his profile picture made him look better than you remembered, god why did you get back together with Ian.  

-  

Rafe had seen the match almost immediately. Working from home that afternoon, he’d only been half paying attention to the zoom meeting that he was on, scrolling through his phone when the notification popped up. He had clicked into Tinder, staring at your name and profile picture off and on for a good hour while he tried to think of something to say to you.  

Something clever.  

He wasn’t exactly the most sentimental person anyone had ever met and he’d slept with plenty of people in college but he knew you the minute he saw your picture. You looked exactly the same as you had that night, though the picture you used for your profile didn’t quite do justice to the way your eyes lit up when you smiled or how ridiculously easy it had been for him to be completely infatuated with you that night.  

You had never called him and he couldn’t fault you for that, it wasn’t exactly like he was screaming boyfriend material back then. He barely was now. Whenever he thought about you, and he was sure it was more frequently than it should be for a one night stand from college, he assumed you’d probably met someone, settled down...all that ridiculous stuff his sister was into.  

He said he liked the blue of your bathing suit in the picture of you and that he wished it was beach weather because seeing you honestly had him missing the Outer Banks more than he expected to. He sent the text and spent the rest of the night feeling like a dumbass. There he was, blowing his chances all over again. But then, halfway through the next day, you texted back.  

-You Bostonians need to work on your weather. -

He responded, as soon as he got the message, and then,  

-I’ll get right on it...any specific requests?-  

Your reply came back a few minutes later, after he checked his phone three more times.

-Warm enough to take you to the beach.-  

Rafe responded a little faster than he probably should have. Maybe a little more desperate than he should have too but he couldn’t be bothered about that.  

-Sans the sweatshirt? -  

-Exactly.-  

He followed the text up immediately with a,  

-but since I can’t take you to the beach, are you free for dinner this Friday?-

-I am, yeah. Where did you have in mind?-  

-Have you been to Menton? -  

-

It was warm in the apartment, even for mid-March with the windows opened. The kind of weather that made you want to stretch out in bed and do nothing all day. Except this wasn’t your bed or your room and the noise coming from the kitchen was definitely not going to help lull you back to sleep. Opening your eyes to the sun streaming through the window, you climbed out of bed, grabbing the t-shirt from the carpeted floor and pulling it over your head.  

You hadn’t intended to stay the night at Rafe’s but really, once you were there you hadn’t wanted to leave. Even now, all you really wanted was to find him and take him back to bed. Maybe not to sleep but definitely to sleep with.  

“Oh my god, you’re so loud,” you teased, walking into the small kitchen to find Rafe standing over the stove, back to you. He turned at the sound of your voice and you had to appreciate the lack of clothing he had decided to wear to attempt breakfast, just a pair of navy-blue briefs.  

“Watch it, you won’t get any of these world class scrambled eggs.” He replied, pointing his spatula back to the frying pan on the stove.  

You walked closer to him, letting him wrap his arm around you and pull you into his side. “Those do look like some quality eggs,” you observed, putting your arm around his waist.  

This felt so easy you were dreading going back to your dorm eventually. Ian hadn’t even made a guest appearance in your brain and he’d been pretty much the star since the two of you broke up. But right now, all you wanted to focus on was Rafe and getting to spend as much time with him as possible.  

Rafe moved the skillet off the stove and laid the spatula down, using his free hand to grab your waist as he maneuvered you around in front of him. You yelped in surprise when his hands fell to your thighs and he hoisted you up onto the counter.  

“Careful! You almost burned me!” You laughed, swatting his hands away.  

“You’re not even near the burner.” he laughed, pushing your legs apart so he could stand in between them.  

“I thought we were having breakfast?”

“We are.” He reasoned, the innuendo evident as he leaned down and kissed just above your bare knees. “When do you have to be back?”

“Whenever.” You shrugged, more than happy to have this moment play out, uninterrupted.  

-

Menton was the kind of place that other people went to. Not first grade teachers on first grade teacher salaries. Even when you were younger, growing up in the more affluent part of western Massachusetts, you had never really been part of a ‘fancy restaurants’ family. Menton was just some place Nina mentioned when she talked about restaurants too expensive for normal people.  

“What if he remembers me?” You had asked, a few hours earlier, when Nina showed up at your apartment with shoes for your outfit.  

“Did he say he did?” Honestly curious about this guy you had never mentioned to her before.  

“No. But what if he does?” You couldn’t help being paranoid about the whole date. You could still remember the feeling of being around him, of being with him. Rafe hadn’t mentioned to you that he remembered you, and thank god too because how awkward would that conversation had been? Just a ‘hey, aren’t you that girl I hooked up with six years ago in college?’. Why did Nina have to swipe right. Why couldn’t she have minded her own business and believed you when you said that you were over Ian and not at all concerned about the wedding.  

You were freaking yourself out for nothing. Or because you were dressed nicer than you had been in two years and standing outside Menton.  

“Hey.”  

You turned toward the sound of someone calling your name, seeing Rafe walking across the street. You felt very much like you were twenty again, finding him watching you from the stairwell, butterflies in your stomach.  You teetered for a moment on the sidewalk, unsure if you should wait for him to make it all the way to you or just walk up and hug him. That seemed a little extreme, honestly,  

You could still remember the feeling of his arms around you but if he didn’t remember you, and you were banking on him not remembering, it would be odd to just grab him in the street. He eased the tension for you though, reaching an arm out for a side hug once he was close enough. Casual but still not too personal.  

“Hey,” he repeated, stepping away from you for a brief appraisal. “You look beautiful.”  

“Ah, thank you...this place looked so fancy online, I wasn’t sure what to wear.” You admitted.  

“You googled it?” He sounded amused, even as he stepped in front of you to hold the door open and you could just imagine the smirk on his face. The same one he’d worn when you told him that you had seen all of his lacrosse games. (You had seen all the ones after that night too but you always made sure to sit high up in the bleachers and you never stuck around after a game.)

“Well, yeah...I wanted to read the menu.” You replied, pausing briefly as Rafe gave his name to the hostess and she grabbed two menus, walking you through the restaurant to a nice table in the back. Quiet but not too quiet.  

“Hopefully it’s lived up to its reputation so far?” He asked, biting his tongue to stop himself from saying that he remembered how bizarrely neurotic you could be, even in the few hours that he had spent with you.  

“I mean I haven’t eaten the food.” You stressed, looking at him over your shoulder as he pulled your chair out for you. “Thank you.”

He grimaced, as if the possibility of you rating this place, or the date, badly, was still an option then. “The oysters are really good...or the cappotelli.” He suggested, moving around to his side of the table, “do you have a wine preference?”

“Red, otherwise...not really.” You replied, letting him order a bottle for the table. This was somehow exactly the person you’d hooked-up with in college and not that person at all. As if you could see little cracks in the facade of his put-together appearance. “So, are you from Boston?”

“No,” he shook his head. He looked up at you for a moment, breaking his concentration with the menu before he laid the paper off to the side, “I’m from North Carolina, the Outer Banks, I actually ended up moving up here for work.”

“I know this sounds crazy-”

He hummed and you scrunched your nose at him.

“-I’m always like, surprised when people are like, from the beach.” You explained, “like I only think of the beach as vacation place not like a, live there all the time place.”

“That’s cause it gets ridiculously cold up here.” He replied, “No one wants to live on a beach where it snows.”

“The beach is nice off season!” You insisted. “It’s not crowded and you can just like, walk around-”

“If I have to wear a coat to go to the beach, it is not nice.”

“Okay,” you sassed, sticking your tongue out and making him laugh. “So what do you do then? Why’d you move to Boston?”

“That’s a loaded question,” Rafe noted, “I work for an economics firm here. Mostly I moved for the job opportunity but the distance from my family was an added benefit.”

“Well, I say this from a place of extreme bias, Boston is the best city.”  

“It has it’s perks.” He could’ve been talking about a good parking deal but the way he smiled at you when he said it made you feel like he was talking specifically about you.  

-

The date ended with Rafe walking you to the train, his coat over your shoulders because the light jacket that you’d worn had proven not warm enough for the early autumn chill that settled in. You talked about your first-grade class and being nervous for the impending year and he listened, saying that sometimes he felt like he was working with six year olds.  

“At least I can curse in front of my co-workers though.” He lamented.  

You laughed, “I’ve definitely let my fair share of curse words go...and heard quite a few from kids in my classes.”  

“Oh man, I’d fucking lose it if some kid started cursing at me.” Rafe replied.  

At the train station you argued for a few minutes over his coat, him insisting that you just hold on to it (“trust me, if I go 24 hours without seeing you again, I’ll be shocked.”), but you told him you had a severe inability to remember to give anything back and likely he’d never see it again, something he doubted, the implication that this would progress far enough that he would be in your apartment eventually there beneath the surface of his words.  

When the train pulled in, the coat left in your possession, Rafe pulling it tighter around your shoulders and promising that he would get it back eventually. “I’ll text you.” He said, as the doors closed. And, by the time you got home, there was a text from Rafe waiting for you.  

-

taglist: @maplelattes22 @poguesrforlife  @freckled-and-daydreaming  @chasefreakinstokes @millie-753 @fangirlwithme @alex12948 @katherine097 @tangledinsparkles @carbonated-beverage @mariofgreengables @damonsalvawhore27 @dopedoodes @dolanfivsosxox @belledutchess @poguelifeeee @faded-blue @parkerpetertingle @thebookwormlife @summer-clouds-and-long-days @jellyfishbeansontoast @minigranger @hoewkeye @love-someone-special @tiredfeels @strangerthanfanfiction713 @the-only-nana @tomzfrog @mozz-are-lla @vindictive-hearts @wldflwrskyee   @ssprayberrythings @jenahbell @beautyandthebleh @gothackedalready @teenwaywardasgardian @sarahcxmeron @haha-fuck-you-thot @stillbelieve398-5 @rewindlr @queenniccimicci @kissessforharryyy @thedarkqueenofavalon @alytavzla @bqmblebee @linniep @nerdypartytrashpsychic @xxchxrryxx @spencer-reid-is-a-cutie @mirjanak @danielladreaming @obx-saltlife @youngestxhearts @spnobsessedmemes @wowitswondergurl @celestialmaybank @aoba-josigh @pineappleandcherries @mysterious-adventurer @justawilddreamerchild @rhyetaylor62 @calm-rejects @balletandyuzu @oh-annaa @aiifandomsunite @x-lulu @ceruleanjj @wicked-laugh @obxwriterfan @allie-mcginn @pcterparxer @literarycharleton @khiaraaa-in-spacee @crushe-s @teamnick @daydreamlilys @collectiveuniverses @activist-af @mdgrdians @buckys-sunflower @vindictive-hearts @copper-boom @talksoprettyjjx @5am-cigarette @smiithys @dontjinx-it @outerbanksbro @mysticsthinking @heavenlymama @louisolos  @rudy-pankow-needs-an-oscar @babymatilda @raekenliar @lemur46 @under-a-canyon-moon @calums-betch @dpaccione 

[yuta1forme]

like magnets | ten

summary: in which you and ten are up and coming choreographers who are forever at each other’s throats. but maybe fighting is just an excuse to get close.

pairing: ten x reader

genre: angsty fluff

warnings: some swearing, alcohol mention, loads of bickering

length: 4.3k

tag list: @sly-merlin​ @animegirl366​ @yonoohcore​

He’s confident to the point of arrogance. He knows exactly how to get under your skin. When the pair of you start fighting, all the other dancers make their way out of the studio, not wanting to get involved in another explosive Y/N-Ten showdown. He counters your every suggestion. He always has more critique for your performances than praise. 

And yet, he is the best dance partner you could ever ask for. He matches your poise with his passion. In dance, you both have found a middle ground. 

When Ten first joined the studio you really wanted to like him. He was a young, up and coming dancer from Thailand. What you had not seen coming was that besides being the same age, you and Ten had precious little in common. The day you first met Ten, you had decided in less than ten seconds that you two would never, to put this lightly, become the “best of friends”. 

You had entered the break room of the studio that day, late and soaking wet because of the heavy downpour that had begun the night before. Hungry and disgruntled, all you had wanted to do was to grab a steaming cup of green tea and the last of your favorite jelly doughnuts. Only the thought of those jelly doughnuts had you hanging on during your hour and forty-five-minute long journey to work this morning. They were your emotional support food, your one and only indulgence. After almost three years at the studio, all the other dancers knew not to touch your jelly doughnuts. All except for the bucket-hat wearing Thai newbie who clearly hadn’t gotten the memo. 

“Those were my doughnuts”, you had barely managed to huff out, focusing your mind on not raising your voice or worse, bursting into tears.

Now, if he had just apologized for eating them without asking you first, you both might not have started off on the wrong foot. No, the fucker just shrugged and said, “Didn’t see your name on them”. No shame in his eyes, not an ounce of regret in his voice. The powdered sugar from your doughnuts still around his mouth and dusted over his all-black ensemble. That fucker.

“So people just waltz into a room and eat someone else’s snacks where you’re from?”, you asked, your pitch becoming shriller with annoyance. 

“No of course not. Because where I’m from, people don’t leave their snacks where everyone can see them, without putting their name on it first”, he replied, cool as a cucumber. 

Taeyong had entered the break room at this point. He took one look at the powdered sugar on Ten’s face and the eyes-gonna-pop-out expression on yours and connected the dots. As one of the senior choreographers in the studio, Taeyong had developed a sixth sense for sniffing out conflicts before they broke out. 

“Y/N! I see you’ve already met Ten! He’s the new dancer from Thailand. Ten this is Y/N”, Taeyong had prompted by way of introductions, grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge and inching closer to the door he had entered from. 

“Oh, you’re Y/N. The one who choreographed the last Pink Cashmere comeback, right?”, Ten had asked, suddenly sitting up straight. Seeing that your conversation was turning civil, Taeyong had left the room just as quietly as he had entered it.

“Yes, that would be me”, you had responded. That was your first time working with an idol group and was a milestone in your career. You had spent weeks running on pure adrenaline and Americanos (and the occasional jelly doughnut), spending day and night listening to the new comeback track, reviewing concept photos and looking up old performances to get their style down just right. When you watched the girls perform the choreography for the first time, you were so immensely proud of yourself, you hadn’t stopped beaming for days. 

“I should’ve known it was you, it had your signature footwork style all over it”, Ten had said, nodding his head slightly. You had felt flattered at that, surprised that anyone had even picked up that you had a certain trademark in your choreography.

“But, I thought it was too showy if you know what I mean”, Ten had continued, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair, a slight frown on his face. 

You were almost embarrassed at how much his words affected you. While you were used to internet trolls taking jabs at your work, it was something entirely different to hear full-blown criticism from your peers. As the youngest choreographer in the studio, you rarely got challenged when it came to choreography, with most of your colleagues wholeheartedly encouraging you to spread your wings and grow no matter the outcome. It probably was not intentional on their part but it had become a fear of yours - what if nobody would outwardly challenge your decisions because they thought you were too weak to handle the truth?

Still, you felt a need to defend your creative decision. You needed to stand up for yourself. “The girls are great dancers and I thought a more challenging choreography would push them out of their comfort zone. Sooji and Maya were actually part of a hip-hop dance crew pre-debut. They were itching to try out a new concept”. 

“But why not use more formations in the dance? It’s an eight-member group. You could’ve used that to your advantage”, Ten had countered. He made a good point. But you didn’t want to concede to him. Who did this man think he was? Walking in here and questioning your vision as a choreographer?, you though to yourself.

“Most of the other girl groups that came back around that time had similar songs but only Pink Cashmere had a distinct choreography. I wanted to make their choreography memorable”, you had said. 

Ten had remained quiet for a while. “I didn’t think of it that way”, he had replied, a thoughtful look on his face. “In that case, I think you succeeded at whatever you set out to do with that choreography.  It was definitely memorable, Y/N.”

He turned his gaze up towards your face and flashed you a sweet smile. He looked like a whole different person, almost innocently brushing powdered sugar off his cheeks like a mischievous cat who had just been caught doing something he shouldn’t have done. 

Your whole first interaction with Ten had confused you. First he walked in acting like he owned the place, critiquing your choreography as if he was a veteran dancer. But then he had just as easily praised your abilities. But at the back of your mind you had this nagging feeling that whatever Ten had said to you was not in an effort to undermine you, unlike some of the backhanded compliments delivered by your peers. He had criticized you because he thought you could take it, because he thought of you as an equal. And you kind of enjoyed that.

Arguing with Ten became a part of your everyday routine thereafter. So did labelling your snacks with your names and leaving passive-aggressive messages on post-it notes.

At nineteen, you gave up a full-ride scholarship to a prestigious law school in your country and moved to Seoul with a single suitcase and your old school backpack in hand. Your family had threatened to cut off contact with you if you left the country, but you left anyway; Your passion for dance was stronger than your fear of losing them. Dance was your first love. You lived and breathed it. Like hell were you giving up on your first love that easy. 

You worked odd jobs during the day and filmed original choreographies for your YouTube channel during the night. After struggling for over a year, your hope slowly dwindling, you got a notification that changed your life. Kim Jongin, one of South Korea’s ballet prodigies had shared one of your videos on Twitter. Your subscriber count had quadrupled overnight, with hundreds of thousands of commenters dubbing you a “prodigy”. Fate brought you to Jongin, who then introduced you to Taeyong, who brought you to SM studios. 

It was a dream come true - for years you had only struggled, floating in dark and murky water, swimming forward towards a hazy future. Now, you had thousands of fans, dozens of supportive friends, and a solid foundation from where you could dream. Your friend Hendery liked to joke that you would need more than twenty-four hours a day if you wanted to do everything in your planner. And truth be told, he was right. You had given up a lot to pursue your dreams. Given up on your family, most of your friends, your home country. You wanted to make sure it was all worthwhile. So you wanted to spend every day making the most of the opportunities that you now had. You went to bed each night with a head full of ideas and woke up every morning with the fire to bring them to life. 

Of course, dedicating your life to your craft came at a cost. The rest of the world had not stopped moving just because you decided to make dance your life. This dawned on you one rosy Valentine’s Day evening, when you, date-less for the fifth year running, quite naively decided to scroll through Instagram. Amongst the sea of pink, flowers and picture-perfect happy couples were two faces that made your stomach instantly drop - your ex and a stunning woman posing for the camera with their fingers intertwined. On her ring finger, a diamond the size of a blueberry. 

You remember the day you broke things off with your ex like it was yesterday. You were at the airport, waiting to get on your flight to Seoul, positively buzzing with nerves. You had waited until you were seated on the plane to send your ex a rather heartless text message saying you were breaking up with him to find yourself and that it was best if he forgot you. Very dramatic, even for you. But you were nineteen and had just watched ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’. In return he had left you an equally dramatic voicemail, pleading with you to not end the relationship and proclaiming that he would never stop loving you. You had all but laughed at his message then.

You weren’t laughing anymore though. He was happily engaged, while you were lonely, lying in bed on Valentine’s day in a pizza grease-stained sweatshirt. You had spent the last few years working relentlessly which had given you a career that you could be proud of, friends you could rely on. But besides the occasional fling here and there, you didn’t have much in terms of a romantic life. You guessed you deserved this, that karma had finally caught up to you.  Didn’t stop you from feeling like shit though.

So you did what you always did when you felt particularly shitty. You went down to the studio, turned the music on full blast and dove right into a new choreography. You were freestyling, too lost in the moment to hear the door creak open.

“I gotta hand it to you, Y/N, that was pretty impressive!”, a male voice exclaimed. You had spun around expecting to see Sicheng or Hendery at the door. Instead, you were met with a tired but rather amused looking Ten.

He was dressed in a white silk shirt and a pair of black slacks. You noticed the roses in his hands, slightly wilted but still beautiful nonetheless. He was clearly dressed up for a date. He looked striking as always but you didn’t linger too long on that, thinking that it was your romance deprived mind projecting thoughts onto the first attractive male it saw. 

“What are you doing here? It’s Valentine’s day, don’t you have a crowd of screaming fans to attend to?”, you asked sarcastically.

“One date. And they stood me up, actually”, he replied with a bitter smile. He must have been quite upset if he didn’t have a snarky response for you.

You were truly taken aback. Ten? Getting stood up by someone? Ten, who could charm the socks off of anyone he set his eyes on, getting stood up on Valentine’s day? 

“But how?”, you blurted out, instantly regretting it when you saw the quizzical look on Ten’s face. Yet you foolishly continued mumbling, or rather digging yourself deeper into a hole.

“I mean, you’re just...so...you”, you said vaguely gesturing at his whole form. From his boyish good looks to his ability to sweet-talk, Ten’s charms were undeniable. Ever since he joined the studio, the number of signups for the afternoon classes had doubled. Dozens of people would come to the studio every day, just to catch a glimpse of him. And he indulged them all too, flashing them his signature grin or paying them a cheeky compliment. If only you weren’t all too familiar with the way he could run his mouth during an argument, you too might have fallen for his charms. 

“Sorry to disappoint you, Y/N, but I’m not quite the Casanova you expected me to be. But I will take that as a compliment”, he said with a wink that had you resisting the urge to roll your eyes.

“Still doesn’t explain what you’re doing here though”, you mumbled out.  

“I like to choreograph at night. I think I’m my most creative after midnight. Besides I just got my heart broken and I should channel that emotional energy somewhere right?”, Ten said feigning nonchalance. You could tell he was genuinely upset from how his night had played out and couldn’t help but sympathize with him.

“Well, I’m here for reasons along similar lines. You could join me? Help me choreograph this new freestyle piece I’m working on?”, you had asked. 

Ten cocked his eyebrow at you, clearly not expecting you to extend an olive branch to him in this manner given how you were still being snarky with him five minutes ago. But he accepted your offer nonetheless.

You both entered your element pretty quickly, letting the music move your body freely. You worked out a simple choreography, cheering for each other when you came up with a particularly impressive move. You were having fun, even though you wouldn’t admit it to yourself. At least you hadn’t thought of your ex in the last couple of hours, mind completely occupied with the thought that you and Ten surprisingly made good dance partners. Perhaps the friction between the two of you translated to great chemistry when you were dancing. Taeyong would be pleased to know that.

“I’m beat”, you exclaimed, slumping down on the floor after the final round of practice. Ten sat down next to you, resting his back against the mirrored wall. The pair of you sat wordlessly for a few minutes, letting your heartbeats slow back down. You lay flat on the floor, too physically exhausted to move. As soon as you closed your eyes, your traitorous mind brought back the images of your ex’s engagement and you groaned loudly.

“Long day?”, Ten asked, giving you a slightly concerned look. You just chuckled bitterly in response.

“Want to talk about it?”, Ten pried in an almost uncharacteristically gentle voice. You wondered if he had ever spoken to you in that tone before. 

“I don’t know if we’re close enough to have little heart-to-hearts yet Ten”, you replied. There was an invisible wall between you and Ten that you were just not ready to tear down. The thought of sharing embarrassing details about your love life with someone you could consider a frenemy at best, too jarring. You didn’t miss the way Ten’s shoulders slightly slumped at that. You hadn’t meant to sound harsh, yet you felt somewhat guilty.

“But…maybe we are close enough to have a drink together?”, you asked, suddenly emboldened by a rush of confidence that confused even you. You took his cheeky smile as a yes.

You spent the rest of the night drunk and giggling with Ten. The thoughts of your ex were long forgotten. Perhaps you could learn to do more than merely tolerating Ten’s presence. Perhaps you could learn to enjoy his presence too.

Soon it became a ritual - if you and Ten were the last ones left in the studio, you would grab some beers and head to the roof. It was such strange departure from your usual selves that you often wondered why it was so easy for you to enjoy his company sitting under the stars like this when you would be at each other’s throats the rest of the time. 

Over time your conversations had gone from discussions about art, to plans of travelling the world, what you were currently binge-watching on Netflix, and everything in between. Still, there were some topics that you both steered clear of - talk of family and love lives was seemingly off the table.

Until one night after a couple of drinks, when Ten pulled his phone out to show you a picture of two women, one older and one younger. The striking resemblance between the faces in the photo and Ten confirmed that they were indeed his mother and sister. His sister was clad in a dark blue graduation gown and his mother was holding a beautiful bouquet of light pink roses. 

“She graduated last week, my baby sister”, Ten said practically glowing. The proud look on his face was a testament to the close relationship he had with his sibling. 

“You must miss her a lot”, you said, voice barely a whisper.

“All the time. My family are my biggest supporters. I don’t think I would have had the courage to move out here on my own if it weren't for their encouragement”, Ten answered. 

You hadn’t spoken to your family ever since you came to Seoul. In the past, the longing left a pressure in your chest that sometimes made it feel like your throat would close, choking you on your guilt. Now, it just left you numb. 

“What about you?”, Ten asked, cautiously prying into your personal life.

“What about me?”, you countered, diverting your gaze away from the man sitting next to you, instantly wary of how much you wanted to share about your past. 

“What about your family? Your old home?”, Ten asked. 

It couldn’t hurt sharing with Ten, right? It’s not like what he thought of you really mattered to you. Right?

“I actually don’t keep in touch with my family any more. They weren’t too keen on me becoming a dancer. It’s been, what, three? Three and a half years since I last saw them. When I first left home for Seoul”, you said, trying your hardest to suppress any trace of emotion in your voice. You kept your gaze focused on the city skyline ahead of you, too afraid to turn and see the expression on Ten’s face. You wondered what he thought of you, whether he thought you were stubborn. Worse yet, whether he pitied you.

After a few moments, Ten broke the silence. “I guess sometimes, not having a family is better than having one that doesn’t love you for who you are. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t possibly know how you must have felt, all these years. But I want you to know that the people who love you now, love you without any agenda. Not because they are related to you by blood, not because they are obligated to love you. But because they just love you”, Ten said, eyes shining with an emotion you didn’t know how to react to. 

“And they could be your family too”, he finished in a voice that was so warm, so gentle, you wondered if this really was the Ten who stole your jelly doughnuts when you first met.

You were speechless, processing his words for what felt like hours but was probably just a few seconds. Then you did the only thing your impulsive mind could think to do - you leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. In response, he wrapped you up in his embrace. You stayed still, focusing on the faint scent of his cologne on the sleeves of his hoodie. You breathed out a thank you, soft as a whisper. Whether or not Ten heard you, he moved his left arm slightly, gently stroking your hair and continued to chatter on about some entirely different topic. 

You knew that once the sun came back up and both of you returned to your lives inside the studio, this little moment would not be brought up in front of anyone else. That moment was just for the two of you to share and bury deep within your hearts.

You knew you were in too deep one day when Ten gave you a friendly smile in passing while making his way to the break room, and you felt your cheeks and neck heat up. You had finally let the Thai dancer charm his way into your heart. 

Typical Y/N, you thought to yourself, Falling in love with any cute boy who gives you attention. But he wasn’t just any cute boy. It was Ten. Ten, your frenemy turned close confidant. Ten, who would send you pictures of cute animals he saw on the street just because you once told him you wanted to adopt a cat. Ten, who took you dancing to a club in Hongdae when you were feeling low and all but carried your drunk ass back to your home. Ten, who over the last couple of months had heard every single one of your deepest insecurities and had still chosen to stick by you. Ten who had just left a box of jelly doughnuts in the break room, next to a post-it note with your name on it. To make matters worse, you were supposed to start working on a new collaboration together this week, a contemporary piece set to an R&B slow jam. How were you meant to work with him all week when you could barely make eye contact with him? You had to physically restrain yourself from facepalming.

You spent the week, evading conversation with him beyond work and some small talk to fill the silence. But none of your usual banter. You had even turned down his suggestion to grab dinner together several times that week, to the point that even typically non-confrontational Sicheng had picked up that something was off.

“Why have you been avoiding Ten all week? I thought you guys had given up fighting?”, Sicheng asked after he cornered you one day.

“Avoiding him? Now, why would I do that when we’ve been working together all week?”, you had chuckled nervously, desperately looking for an out from this conversation.

“He’s been sulking around since Tuesday, Y/N. He said he doesn’t know what he did to upset you”, Sicheng had asked you sharply. 

The guilt in your eyes must have been apparent because Sicheng dropped his voice into a gentle whisper for what he said next. 

“I know the two of you are as good at dancing around your feelings as you are at dancing on stage. But maybe try talking to him, Y/N? I think right now, you two might have more in common than you think”, Sicheng told you as he gave you a knowing look. 

The day of the performance shoot came and there was a noticeable awkwardness between you and Ten. You decided to cut the tension by apologizing to him, citing the nerves for the performance as the reason you had been on edge the whole week. Whether or not Ten believed you, he accepted your apology and wrapped you up in his arms. You wished you had psychic abilities so you could read his mind. Did he have the same butterflies in his stomach right now?

As soon as the music started any nervousness you felt around Ten melted away. Dancing with him was like second nature to you by now. The song started with you on stage alone, dancing under the single spotlight illuminating the stage. You could see him out of the corner of your eyes, following your every move and observing you with nothing short of adoration. You left the stage for Ten’s solo and you could feel the goosebumps on your skin from watching him perform. He was absolutely stunning, moving fluidly through the movements as though he was painting with his body on the canvas of the stage. You joined him on stage for the chorus, dancing apart but facing one another as though mirroring the other’s movements. Through the bridge you inched closer and closer to one another. You felt your heartbeat beginning to rise from the proximity. 

Both of you could communicate with each other with your eyes alone. You danced perfectly in sync with one another, pulling apart only to fall right back into each other, just like magnets. So different yet inseparable. You could see it in his eyes, when he looked at you, that the emotion in his mirrored yours. You knew you weren’t imagining it when he audibly gasped as you melted into his embrace for the final move. His heartbeat was racing a hundred miles an hour, just like yours. The pair of you stood there, lips just a few millimeters apart, breathing deeply as the studio erupted into thunderous applause. You were no longer afraid to admit to yourself and to the world, that you had it bad for Ten Lee. 

And when he kissed you on the rooftop that night, you knew that he had it bad for you too. 

[woozisnoots]

modest jeon wonwoo

° pairing: wonwoo x reader ° genre: university!au, host club!au, fluff ° word count: ~1.7k ° warnings: none! ° a/n: this had no business being this long and idek if i like it lol but I want to specifically dedicate this piece to @wonwoosimp​​ bc she’s literally the sweetest, best bean in the world [insert uwu meme here] thank you for gifting me my very first photocard, I literally cried opening it! I love you so much, I hope you enjoy!

welcome to the svt host club!

masterlist!

you entered university with a certain goal, a purpose. eventually, you were going to be the pediatric surgeon that the 13 year old you ushered you to be.

…let's just hope the knowledge of your brain was enough to get you through the first four years of pre-med. with your 3.7 high school GPA, you were lucky to get into your first choice college, let alone your current major

from the start of the semester, you dedicated yourself to studying the anatomy and physiology of the body until you knew every nook and cranny there was to know. and the library was the perfect sanctuary to get your shit together

as much as you loved your roommates, their constant fights over closet space and boy toys gave you no peace of mind what-so-ever

bless the library for being opened 24/7. If your roommates found you sleeping on their only working desk, you would find yourself waking up to the sound of tripping freshmen trying to get to their first 8am class right in the middle of the hallway

but the lone table in the corner of the library just on the third floor did you good at staying focused. even provided some good naps in between every now and then

the day before your first anatomy test, you LOCKED yourself in the library. no one was going in OR OUT of the premise just to sit across from you on YOUR table until you fully memorized the different layers of epithelial tissue >:(

gosh, you even scattered all your notes across the table just so people got the memo that this seat was: [OFF LIMITS]

yes, off limits to everyone except a certain jeon wonwoo.

the way you met was abrupt to say the least

besides your table, you had a pretty good view of the entire campus — from the main health science building all the way to the student parking lot

and just below you, an astonishing sight of a mob of screaming girls chasing after a mouse guy in glasses. not to be inconsiderate and heartless, but unless you heard someone scream bloody murder, diving back into your flashcard you go

tissue after tissue, you start to get delusional because at this point, everything is starting to look the same

slumping down into your chair, you take a second to mentally recharge, drinking the water you’ve neglected for the past three hours

you time yourself for a five minute break, going through the notifications on your phone

before you could read your roommate’s ongoing ramble on the latest update of the “crazy good looking, god-like, elite host club that the university has to offer”

a ‘club’ that you didn’t even know anything about nor cared for

you hear a loud ‘thud’ coming from the bookcase in front of you

from the side the tall, lean guy with glasses that you saw earlier emerged with his hands gripping his tricep

you try not to draw too much attention to him. half the reason being you didn’t want to embarrass him by laughing at the fact he ran into a 10 feet tall bookcase

and you did not need this man distracting you. it’s your eight week streak being this productive, a new record for anything you’ve done in your entire life and your pride wouldn’t let you have it if you lost it just because you saw an attractive man on sight

you scribble down a decent guess to the tissue identification question that you’ve been stuck on for the past few minutes, not bothering to look up

“that’s actually dense connective tissue, not smooth”

jolting up from your seat, you look up realizing the guy 5 feet away is now right in front of your face looking down at all your papers

“you can tell because they’re striated”

you stare at him in disbelief wondering how he could have gotten so fast with just looking at it for a few seconds. eyeing him up and down, he definitely looked around the same age as you but he wasn’t someone you’ve seen around the science buildings. and you would know since you took the liberty of familiarizing almost everyone within the department

“do you mind if i sit here?” his hands already on the edge of the chair ready to pull it out from underneath him

“...yeah sure”

“oh i’m wonwoo by the way,” he says as you both exchange awkward stares and knowledgeable nods

okay well since he’s proven that he might be of help to you, you might as let him stay. from what you’ve gathered, he didn’t have any stuff on him aside from his phone that you watch him get out of his front pocket, getting ready to play pacman

forget how attractive he is, this guy has some brains.

for the rest of the day, as you guys sat across from each other, wonwoo would occasionally bounce back and forth between giving you study tips and playing whatever game he decides to play at that moment in time

he was surprisingly really good at this? he knew more things about the subject than your professors did, and that’s saying a lot. like you’ve been looking at cells for WEEKS and you were lucky to get at least half of them. which begs the question:

“how do you magically know all this?”

the blank expression on his face tells you he wasn’t expecting that question but he quickly shrugs it off. “i just know a few things from my parents that’s all”

you would have questioned him further but the time on your phone read “22:57” and you already broke your number rule about sleeping early before a big test

as you pack up all your stuff, wonwoo pushes his chair in, bidding you farewell

“good luck on your test tomorrow!”

you appreciate the gesture, mentally thanking him for his help and proceed to go back to your dorms, preparing yourself to tell your roommate all about the exciting? day you had

“YOU MORON. JEON WONWOO?”

laying flat on your back on your bed, you cover the bottom half of your face, quivering under your sheets as you stare at your roommate’s outrageous outburst

you explain what happened and who you met today at the library. when your roommate asked to describe him in more detail, all you said was that he was pretty smart for someone who wasn’t particularly in your major

your roommate lets out a loud scream into their pillow, gripping the bed sheets before giving you the earful of the century

“he’s just being modest. he’s a korean lit major but he’s one of the uni’s top students since both his parents are the head of the science department.

…AND he’s one of the most requested host club members. so you caught yourself one big fish today bud.”

top student? science department? HOST CLUB? none of that was processing in your brain. the one club that you wanted nothing to do with and you just happened to meet their top money maker

grand.

the thought didn’t keep you up at night only because you thought that today’s encounter was just coincidence and you probably would never have to see him again.

(sad though, your roommate was right. he is rather good looking.)

the time that it took for you to take your test the next day flew by so fast that you questioned if it even happened. the first step you took out the classroom, you start to second guess all your answers, regretting that you didn’t check a third or even fourth time before submitting

your train of thought halts when you see jeon wonwoo standing in the empty hallway

“i’m sure you aced it”

and just like in a netflix original romance movie, he reveals a bouquet of pink begonias from behind his back while shyly adjusting his glasses

“these are for you. to congratulate you”

weird way to phrase it but you were still gonna take the flowers. “host club tendencies?”

“so you found out?”

from a distance, you can hear the rushing footsteps from downstairs followed by a sense of purpose. “i think i was bound to” :/

you didn’t know how you felt about the current situation. you had no idea what host club was until you got here and you still don’t know what they even do. for all you knew, this could just be a gesture to get them more clients

but if his actions were genuine… you wouldn’t mind seeing him again

“i have to start learning muscles for our next exam. heard it was one of the hardest ones. i’m not sure if you have more studying tricks up your sleeve?”

“i might.” a cocking little grin now appearing on his face

“good. same place at the library tomorrow then. and this time? try not to bring your dedicated fans wherever you go”

so these study sessions continued. you guys occasionally had to change spots - from cafe to an empty bio lab - if the mob ever saw a single hair follicle that might be his

but each time, wonwoo brought something more just himself. one day it would be coffee, others days it would be food. things to keep you motivated.

for a korean lit major, he was taking a lot of time out of his day to help you, being attentive to all the strategies that help you study and such

possibly making your assumption from months back, true.

by the time finals rolled around, aside from the spursts of review here and there, study sessions became more casual. you didn’t feel the need to overwork our brain since you already knew all the information (something you actually learned from wonwoo himself)

possibly the last meeting you’d have with him was similar to your first: just you two together but him playing on his phone. and yet before the night ended

“i have a proposal.”

“i’m not giving you money for your dumb club.” bold of him to assume you would-

“no but i really appreciate the thought :)

why don’t we turn these study sessions into… study dates instead?”

:0

your assumption after 6 months later: finally confirmed

“but that’s only IF you ace your finals.”

well let’s just say at the very end, you had a successful first semester and are now one step closer towards being the surgeon of your dreams.

plus, you even landed yourself a pretty cool boyfriend in the process

let’s hope his parents put in a good word for you when you apply to med school!

[dinosaurtsukki]

❀ nostalgia | “i haven’t seen you since the day we...broke up” feat. kuroo tetsurou

⇢ day 3 of angstcember

⇢ synopsis: airports aren’t really a place where people linger around but you find yourself unable to leave quite yet and face a new chapter in your life. even more so when you run into kuroo, your ex-boyfriend, whose flight has been delayed

⇢ a/n: this is probably my fave so far because i love flashbacks and nostalgia-themed fics. also partially inspired by this movie i watched about two strangers who got stuck in an airport and grew closer. hope you guys like this!

⇢ pairing: kuroo tetsurou x f!reader

⇢ word count: 2.6k words

ANGSTCEMBER MASTERLIST (feat. haikyuu!! and bungou stray dogs)

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kuroo tetsurou wasn’t a fan of being stuck in airports. actually, he wasn’t a fan of being stuck anywhere and having to be idly wait for something. kenma liked to say that it was karma because he kept using that ‘we are the blood that keeps the ball in motion blah blah’ back in high school. he kind of wish he could be like his best friend who was content with waiting for long stretches of time as long as he had his phone or game console.

kuroo sighed as he sat down in the waiting area, pulling his suitcase next to his feet. he already had his lunch and walked around the airport twice, browsing the shops selling overpriced local goods and a few amenities like massage chairs and spas. kuroo pulled out his phone to scroll through social media for a bit only to get bored of that too and glance at his watch repeatedly. there were eight more hours left until his flight. kuroo wished he didn’t have to travel to whole other country for the first time one his own.

little did he know, he was about to get company soon.

...

your flight had arrived at the airport early, way too early for your liking. after piling your luggage on one of the carts in the airport, you idled at the baggage reclaiming area, unable to walk to where departures was. ‘what are you so afraid of? you’ve been waiting to come home for so long,’ you scolded yourself.

a few minutes into your waiting time, you received a call from your mother asking about your flight. you bit your thumbnail anxiously as you talked to her and you don’t know what came over you, but you ended up saying: “sorry, my flight hasn’t left yet.” 

“it’s delayed?” 

“yeah, sorry. i probably won’t be at the airport until night there.” 

“alright. maybe you can find something to do. give us a call when you’re at the airport already.” 

“sure, mom. goodbye,” you said before hanging up. now, with some fresh time to kill, you pushed your luggage around the airport. it had been years since you were last in japan. in fact, this was the very airport you left for the US from. while walking around, you tried to remember if the same shops and stalls were still there. ‘nothing much has changed,’ you thought with a smile, wheeling your luggage cart into what appeared to be a waiting area that had a television and some armchairs. 

you were making your way to one of the chairs when you realized that there was something strangely familiar about the man sitting in that area. he was wearing a gray, business suit and sitting on the chair with a foot propped up on his knee. what struck you most was his hair, black and sticking out it in different directions, when you realized who it belonged to.

“kuroo... tetsurou?” you said aloud. and, at the sound of your voice, he turned to see you.

...

“y/n?”

kuroo couldn’t believe his eyes. here you were, in the airport of all places, with an expression on your face that matched his. you had changed quite a bit since he last saw you but, your eyes, your lips, your face, kuroo couldn’t possibly forget any of those. 

“it’s really you,” he chuckled, standing up and going over to you. 

“yeah, likewise,” you smiled, eyeing him up and down. you’ve never seen kuroo in a business suit and quite frankly, he looked really good. 

“i haven’t seen you since the day we... broke up,” kuroo said, eyes softening as he remembered the painful memory.

“that’s because i hopped onto a plane the day after,” you shrugged a shoulder. 

“ah, right.”

“well, how have you been?” you asked, to ease the awkwardness. “never thought i’d see you in a suit.”

“right? it was weird at first but now it feels like a second skin,” kuroo chuckled. “i work for the japan volleyball association.” 

“no kidding? that’s amazing!” you grinned. “i always knew you couldn’t get away from volleyball.”

“i may not be in a team but it still is fun. and how about you? you’re the one who moved all the way to new york!” kuroo asked.

“well, it wasn’t easy,” you shook your head. “it’s a pretty long story actually.”

unlike kuroo, you were more familiar with airports and traveling from country to country. you didn’t mind lingering in airports, in fact, you enjoyed them quite a bit. you found out that airports were quite similar to each other, no matter what country they were in. furthermore, time always seemed to vary among different people who were either rushing to their next flight or waiting to get to their next destination, wherever it was. 

it felt like some strange form of fate that you would meet kuroo, of all people, in the airport, of all places.

“funny thing is, my flight has been delayed,” kuroo chuckled. “so, i have eight hours to kill.”

“is that so?” you cocked your head and smiled, “i happen to have time to kill too.”

...

“a little bit to the left.” 

“y/n, you just told me to move to the right.” 

“but you moved too much to the right!” you pouted, putting your hands on your hips. kuroo was helpless to that pout so he moved half an inch to the right. you grinned, and crouched down to peer through your video camera.

“alright, perfect! now, just say your lines.” 

as tired as kuroo was, he’d do anything for you and that meant being cast in more than a few of your short films. particularly now that you were trying to put together a portfolio to attend film school abroad. 

“everything alright?” kuroo asked, creeping into your room with a mug of your favorite tea. your hair was a mess and the sweatshirt you were wearing -- kuroo’s sweatshirt -- looked like it hadn’t been washed in days. 

“have i told you how much i hate editing?” you murmured, eyes still focused on the screen.

“once or twice,” kuroo placed the mug on your desk and ran a hand through your hair. you sighed at the touch, leaning back against the chair. 

“i just wish it would magically become like what’s in my head, you know?” you sighed. 

“well, maybe whoever’s looking through your portfolio will just be impressed by my amazing acting,” kuroo joked.

“you’re acting is just alright!” you laughed, looking up and pulling kuroo closer to press his forehead against yours. “i really hope i get in.”

“you’ll do amazing, love,” kuroo murmured, pressing kisses on your forehead. “i just know it.

...

“so, that’s how i ended up with the job!” you exclaimed. you and kuroo had migrated from the waiting area to a small cafe that served really good coffee and cakes.

“amazing! who would have thought a lot more emailing was going to do the trick?” kuroo clapped his hands.

“well, you were the one who taught me how to be persistent in the first place,” you smiled at him before sipping your tea. blackberry tea, still evidently your favorite. kuroo smiled wistfully as he remembered the mugs of tea he’d make and bring to your room whenever he knew you were stressed. he even kept a metal can of blackberry tea in his apartment and when you left, he didn’t know what to do with it. in fact, kuroo had stashed it in the very back of the kitchen cabinet because seeing it reminded him too much of you.

“i’m glad that still stuck with you,” kuroo smiled up at you. 

“how about you? you didn’t completely forget about me, did you?” you joked.

“you? never.” 

you bit your lip at the soft way kuroo said that. of course, kuroo wasn’t the type who easily forgot people. despite how good he was at provoking and annoying people, you knew kuroo was just one of the kindest, most loyal people you would ever meet. 

“in fact,” kuroo leaned back in his chair. “i still do my laundry the way you taught me how.” 

“really? with putting your socks in a laundry net so it wouldn’t get lost?” you laughed. kuroo, raised his pant leg, showing off his socks.

“i’ve had these since university days,” he boasted.

“oh, i think i remember those even!” you played along. kuroo laughed, the sound bringing you back to so many nights spent watching movies and eating cereal at three in the morning. after the break-up, remembering all of those only made you want to burst into tears so you spent a long time trying to bury them in your memory. but after a while, when you thrusted yourself into your new life in a different country pursuing your dreams, thinking back to the good times with kuroo didn’t hurt so much. it was bittersweet, actually.

...

“but... i thought--” 

“i know, kuroo, i know,” you sighed, blinking hard and looking up at the ceiling. this was a conversation you’ve been wanting to avoid for weeks. after receiving your application letter and the celebration, you were hit with the realization that maybe your relationship with kuroo couldn’t continue. and what’s more, kuroo kept on talking about how you guys were going to work with the long-distance. you had to break it to him.

“just think about it, okay?” you pleaded. “i’m going to be gone for a long time. even when i do have breaks in between semesters, i’ll probably have to work jobs in between to help pay for living expenses. if we did do the long-distance thing, we wouldn’t even have the time or effort to put into our relationship anymore.”

“i’m willing to!” kuroo exclaimed, his eyes wide and desperate. “i don’t mind waiting for weeks in between calls. i don’t mind that i won’t see you in person for years. i’m willing to work with this because i know you’ll be out there chasing after your dream!”

“kuroo...” you choked back a sob. how could you think of breaking up with him after hearing all that? you were never going to find another man like him. 

but, you wanted other things too.

“i’m sorry, kuroo,” you shook your head. “but, i don’t think i’d be willing to continue with that.”

“y/n, you promised,” kuroo said softly. “you said--” 

“kuroo, it’s easy to promise things when you don’t how it will all turn out in the end.” 

“so that’s it then?” his voice turned cold. 

“we can still be friends--”

“i don’t think so,” kuroo cut you off. “you probably wouldn’t want to put effort in that either.” 

...

“so, are we... going to talk about it?”

“i think the day was pretty much heading to that,” you admitted. after spending a good part of the day talking and walking around the airport, you and kuroo were leaning against a railing, looking down below at the people hurrying to buy their tickets or meeting their loved ones. in a way, you and kuroo felt distant; alienated from the rushing crowd

“i... what i did and said was completely unfair,” kuroo apologized. “at that time, i was upset because all i was thinking about was what i wanted and when that didn’t align with yours, i just told myself that you were the selfish one. and, for that, i’m sorry.”

“it’s alright,” you smiled, looking at the genuine expression on kuroo’s face. 

“i really convinced myself that we were going to last but i guess i was being naive about it,” he chuckled.

“you’re not the only one. i also thought that too for a time but,” you shrugged and looked down at the sea of people below. “life happens.” 

“life happens.” 

“hey, isn’t it almost your flight already?” you asked, looking up at kuroo who checked his watch again. 

“yeah, half an hour actually,” kuroo said regretfully. “what about yours?”

“i... don’t have one,” you finally confessed. “i got off my flight earlier today and i was supposed to be picked up but, i kind of chickened out with leaving the airport and then i ran into you.”

“how come? are you running away from something?” kuroo asked, leaning against the railing next to you.

“well, more like avoiding something. when i step out of this airport, i’ll be heading into a completely new chapter of my life,” you said, staring into the distance before turning to glance at kuroo. then, you held out your hand to him.

kuroo finally noticed what had been pretty much in front of him all along: the ring on your finger. ‘oh,’ he realized, being unable to tear his gaze away from it. 

“i... didn’t notice.”

“i kind of didn’t want you to,” you admitted, taking your hand back. “i feel like you wouldn’t have hung out with me for this long if you knew. so, i guess we’re even when it comes to being selfish.”

“i would have been taken aback a bit,” kuroo agreed. “but, i don’t think i’d really miss out on an opportunity to talk to you.”

“really? i’m glad,” you said earnestly, feeling your chest swell again. “in all honesty, i don’t think i’d feel this okay right now if i hadn’t run into you.”

“likewise. i’m glad to see you again, y/n,” kuroo said, glancing one last time at the ring on your finger. “so, who’s the lucky guy?” he grinned.

“i met him at work,” you felt yourself flush. “it’s funny, actually. we didn’t get along at all at first but, one thing led to another and we ended up together. he’s really sweet, a bit of a nerd to be honest, and,” you shrugged, “he makes me feel loved.” you paused and reached over to squeeze kuroo’s hand.

“if i hadn’t met you, i wouldn’t have known that i deserved to be loved this much.” 

...

your fiancee texted you a few minutes later and kuroo absolutely insisted, despite your protests, to walk you to the exit. there was a strange feeling in his chest, a feeling of tightness that was slowly dissipating, and kuroo could only chalk that up to the revelation that you were engaged.

once again, he had hoped that day that meeting you here at the airport was some kind of special, destined event that was hopefully going to reignite what was lost in the past. in the end, it was a special, destined event, just not the kind kuroo had hoped for.

it hurt, almost as much as your break-up, but kuroo knew he would be able to manage it.

“well, this is me,” you smiled, turning back to him. “it was so good to see you, kuroo. really.” 

“you too,” he nodded, pausing awkwardly, before deciding to spread his arms as an invitation for you to hug him. you laughed and leaned forward, allowing yourself to be engulfed by his arms. for a minute, you remembered standing in the middle of his apartment, wearing kuroo’s sweatshirt again. 

“i’m happy for you, y/n. i truly am,” kuroo whispered.

“me too,” you leaned back. “we got everything we wanted.” just, not each other, kuroo added as an afterthought.

“take care!” you waved, pushing your luggage cart to where your fiancee was parked. kuroo watched from a distance as your fiancee stepped out of his car and greeted you with a hug and a kiss, before helping place your luggage in the trunk. for a moment, kuroo had a vision of him being the one greeting you at the airport, saying something like ‘welcome home, y/n,’ but it disappeared as quickly as it came.

this encounter with you in the airport had already become a part of his past.

kuroo picked up his luggage again, dragging it behind him as he walked back into the airport. it was late and he still had a flight to catch. 

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event taglist: @himikadafangirl @swoona-rintarou @l-dokisaki-l @laure-chan @aonenthusiast @ah-kaashi @just-a-gay-bean @linyu-sees-you @alto-march-of-death @newfriendjen @shrimpypenis​ @tenyafacesquish​ @mkkhaikyuu​ 

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[sasa-gay-yo]

Just Us (Chapter Fourteen: Forget)

← Chapter Thirteen

His homecoming wasn’t eventful, nor was it welcomed by the others of Trost. They came back in the night, a tenth of what they left with, and yet people were still up to throw things out the windows at the Scouts as they proceeded to their base. I wasn’t awake for that part, and Jonas thought it was best to not wake me. He told me the next morning that he’d locked eyes with Levi and he almost shrunk away from the window. Jonas thought the rage he saw was directed at his presence, and he was probably half right, but the other was just towards the world in general. 

He didn’t come into the cafe the next morning like he usually did. No. I was sure the Scouts would stay out of Trost for a while and their own safety. It never made sense to me though. The people of Trost would rejoice that the famine was over but in the same breath blame all hundred-some Scouts for not being able to protect millions of people. I held my tongue, giving the everlasting fake smile. There was no reason to fight anymore. They were home and most were safe. Levi was safe and in one piece and I would probably see him tonight. 

Five months after they left. 

Flowers were already growing out of the ground, and there was no need to wear a jacket anymore. Sometimes, I would go out and sit in the meadow facing the Scouts HQ, just like Levi and I had before. I would allow myself to sit and think clearly. Sometimes, I would sneak to the Scout HQ and feed the horses that were left behind for various injuries, evading the one Scout they left for the same reason. I’m sure the young boy knew I was there, but he seemed to not mind. I took feeding the horses off his daily to-do list. I wasn’t happy by any means, but after getting Jonas back, it made it easier to be alone with my thoughts. 

“You don’t need to stay tonight, Jonas,” I told him, putting the chairs up so he could sweep the floor. He gave me an annoyed look, but nodded, understanding why. 

“Just don’t forget about me even if he’s back,” it was a low whisper so he could try to hide the begging nature of it. I knew better than to let Jonas go this time. 

“Don’t worry. How could I forget about your ugly face?" His mouth went wide and I laughed. Before I could dodge, a wet rag flew at my head, narrowly missing me. 

That night, I sat on my couch reading some random book, waiting for a knock at the door. My heart was beating the whole time, and I couldn’t focus on the words I was trying to read. It had been so long since I’ve seen his face. Since I felt his touch. I wish I had some drawing to be able to look at his face instead of imagining him through his cursive or button-ups. Maybe I’d ask him to get one. There were random men who sat in the Trost city square and drew people for money. Maybe I would get him one of myself too, knowing that the small stitches on his cape wouldn’t last long. My mind was swirling with ideas, trying to keep it occupied. When the clock on the wall hit three in the morning, I was losing hope. In my hands now was the journal I’d faithfully written in for five months. It was the first thing I’d give to him, showing that I was still devoted despite the distance. Even if it was hard for him to read it, he told me to do it, and I did. Every single night I did. I wondered if he’d done something similar, but he probably wouldn’t want to share with me, nor recall the days he had outside of the walls. 

At eight in the morning, Jonas had let himself in after yelling up from the very full cafe. He saw me sleeping on the couch, the journal still in my arms, no indication that Levi had been there. When he woke me up, I could tell there was pity in his eyes. I shied away from it, going to get dressed to work. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. He’d just gotten back and it was hard to get into Trost without ridicule. He’d come eventually. I already felt more at ease knowing that he was alive anyway. 

The next night, he didn’t come either. Then the next. Then the next. It turned into a week. Then another week. Every day, I would wake up and give him excuses. I would smile at Jonas and ask him how he slept. I would stare at his table in the cafe, now occupied by a different customer. Once the time kept ticking on, I knew that there wasn’t anything holding him back from coming. There wasn’t anything holding back from sending some letter or note with Erwin’s private service either. The only thing holding him back was himself, but I didn't want to come to that reality. How could someone who'd left me the way he did, lingering touches on my doorstep, not want to come back?

That’s how I ended up at the Scout HQ stables again. Their numbers had dwindled again, and by Levi’s past letters I knew when mandatory lunch service was. Again, I felt alone as the wind blew through my hair, yet this time I was staring Levi’s horse in the eyes. The horse that almost bit my head off. I could see she was injured, and I reached out to pet her nose, giving an apple I’d brought from the cafe. She seemed to be thankful for the offering and let me into her stable without a problem. I slipped the journal into a cubby with some riding supplies, hoping he’d see it sometime. Before leaving on Jonas’s horse, I glanced up at the windows of the abandoned castle, the sun reflecting in them enough to blind my eyes.

“Ma’am, what are you doing near the horses?” I looked down at the cadet who was left behind. He knew my face by now, but he seemed not afraid to confront me anymore. I raised one hand to him, the wind picking up around me, blowing my skirt up. 

“I’m just leaving. Don’t mind me.” He held his hand up, beaconing me not to leave before I could answer whatever questions he had. I didn’t hear what he was yelling at me as I rode back towards Trost. Hopefully, he would report that someone was near the stables and Levi would find my notebook. If anything, I wanted him to read that. If he saw how sad I was without him there, then maybe he would come back quicker. 

“It’s been how long?” Jonas asked as I returned his horse later that night. He taught me how to ride it a month ago, seeing how I could only use public transportation to get to Mitras, which took money and hours. While I was still unsettled getting on anyone’s horse, Jonas’s was nice to me and I fed it extra apples for good measure. I was doing that right now as he brushed her out. 

“Almost three weeks since they’ve come back.” He nodded and continued to brush, not pushing the obvious response. Jonas had gotten much better at that. He’d let me think when I needed to, and then only when I was getting beside myself he would jump in. There wasn’t any need to do that right now, and my mood had gotten more control over the past few weeks that he didn't need to do any intervention work recently. 

“It’s almost May Day. There are enough supplies to celebrate this year, so Trost is having a little festival to make up for Spring.” I pet the horse on her nose before hopping up on the stable’s door to sit. 

“Are you asking me to go drink with your friends since no one did it for the Equinox and now there’s an excuse?” He huffed once in laugher, trying to feign his innocence. 

“No, I was just going to ask you if you were free next week for no reason. Drinking? How dare we? We’re getting too old for that sort of stuff.” I smiled lightly down at him as he put away the horse’s brush to turn to face me. 

“Sure, I’ll go. It’s been a long time since I’ve been out.” A big smile broke out on his face when I agreed, and it seemed to carry all the way into next week. He would never stop reminding me that on Saturday, we would go to the festival to grab drinks and take them outside to the meadow near the walls. At one point, I had to bar him from talking for a few hours so I could get work done. When the day finally came and I closed the shop, he was bouncing off the walls watching all the people walk to the town square. 

“You know, usually we’re taking Elias and June to these types of things,” I reminded him and he just shrugged. June was probably working and Elias would be with his school friends running around. We’d probably see him on our way out of town. 

“When they turn eighteen, I’ll gladly take them for their first drunk meadow excursion. It’s a right of passage.” You rolled your eyes at him, remembering his first time puking at the base of a tree in the meadow. A right of passage, sure. 

Jonas’s friends were a rowdy bunch. They were that way in high school as well and never changed how many years out we were now. While you weren’t very much involved with them unless forced by Jonas, you knew the four of them well enough to be comfortable to drink with them. Two of them, Jonas’s roommates, brought girlfriends or girls they were trying to entertain with. Again, I didn’t know them all that well, but I’d be sure to ask Jonas as we walked behind the rest. 

It was refreshing to be out like this, as we walked past the Garrison to be let into Wall Rose. The atmosphere was up, some of the boys having already downed a few drinks, and everyone seemed happier than before. The news of millions of refugees dying didn’t affect them, so why did they have to feel sad about it? In moments like this, it made me think of my own existence and how selfish it was to do these sorts of things. We were exploiting the safety of Wall Rose to go and drink, not thinking at all about titans or a food shortage anymore. I wanted to apologize to the refugees whom I served previously, but they were undoubtedly all gone. 

“Hey,” Jonas nudged me, probably seeing my glazed-over expression, “Live in the moment?” He suggested as the wind picked up around us. The grass blew in the breeze, and we turned to walk against the wall. The meadow near the wall was only a few minutes walk, and near a village of farmers. One time, during a game of truth or dare, Jonas was dared to go pick a farmer's pumpkin, which ended up with him being chased a good half-mile from where we were original. The only person who waited for him to get back that night was me and we both got scolded for how late we had returned. Ben was also very suspicious of how dirty Jonas's pants had become and later he guilted me into telling him everything that happened, minus the underage drinking.

“I’ll try,” I told him, pushing away the thoughts I had before. Selfish. The refugees weren't able to separate their life from the certain death they were facing by the titans. They weren't able to go off and celebrate like we were. Imagine if Eren Jaeger could see me now. I could see the anger lighting up in his eyes knowing what we were doing. I looked out into the wild expanse of grass, knowing right where the Scout HQ would lie over the hills. What would Levi be doing right now? It was around dinner time for them if the breakdown of his schedule was still accurate. Would he approve of the activities I was about to indulge in? Probably not. 

“Eva,” Jonas said again, snapping me out of my thoughts once more. His expression was now concerned, but there were shouts as we reached the destination, those already buzzed excited to get even drunker. Laughter rippled through the air and the wind carried it further along the wall, echoing. It was a weird sound for me to hear, and I realized then how long it had been since I’d even left my sphere of influence. I’d been to the capital a few times for supplies, and I’d visited the Scout HQ twice, but those were all by myself. I haven’t done anything with other people for a long, long time. I used that fact to try to convince myself that I deserved this break as I took a sip of the cheap wine that was brought. 

They all talked and talked about their lives, whatever drama was going on around in their shared friend groups, and how many people were getting “panicked married” as Hulia, one of the potential girlfriends put it. I agreed with them, nodding my head and inputting some opinions here and there, but I was never engaged in the conversation enough to start my own. I would just sip and sip, not minding how much Raphel was filling my cup with. 

The more I drank, the more it made me think about Levi. Why hadn’t he come and visited me yet? Did he not like me anymore? Had I done something wrong? Had something happened on the expedition? Did he find someone else? All of these were running through my head at hundreds of miles per hour, that when Jonas nudged me to answer a question Hulia asked, I had to make her repeat it. 

“When do you think you’ll get married, Eva?” She asked with no ill-intent, and there was a dreamy look of romance in her eyes with this question. I wasn’t the first one to answer the question, but I was also the only girl here that wasn’t with her boyfriend or whatever they were to each other. I wondered what the other two had said. Probably something cute and romantic. They’d get married in Trost, maybe move to Wall Sina, and start a happy little family away from the titans and away from conflict. There had to be something in there about flowers and picking out a dress too. Maybe I wished I listened to them so I could fake an answer and model it after theirs. If I was thinking realistically, my chances of getting married now were slim to none. At least, that was what I had gotten from Levi. Actually, we never talked about those things, and it became clearer and clearer why. First, he didn’t think he was going to come back from this expedition. Secondly, how were you supposed to dream about marriage when you don’t know what the next day is going to bring? 

So I lied to them and Jonas knew. The look in his eyes told me he knew what I was truly thinking.

“Sometime later in life. Not right now, but when I can settle down and hand to the cafe over to someone for a bit. I have no dress or inheritance from my mother, so that part will be quite difficult.” Hulia was digging me further into a grave, not feeling my discontent or seeing Jonas's stare.

“Oh, Eva!” She clasped her hands together, “I think you’d look beautiful in a white dress! You can have Ben walk you down too and you can have those blue flowers that you always love to have in your cafe. It will be one of those small intimate marriage ceremonies, you know? When I get married, I have so much family I don’t know where I could fit them all!” I gave her a look, but she was too drunk to realize the weight of her words. Was she bragging about how big her family was to me? I had half a mind to tell her off, and of course, the wine was fueling me. How many glasses did I down while looking into the fading horizon?

The others were now running around in the field, playing some sort of game like the kids their wine-filled brains told them they were. I used to be like that when I was drunk. I’d play tag or truth or date or some type of game that children play in school. Arguably, that was before I swore off drinking after getting so drunk I couldn't stop throwing up the next day. Now here I was, thinking randomly about the end of the world while staring off into the setting sun. Jonas wasn’t with them either, and I knew my attitude made him barely drink. He just sat next to me, leaning back on his hands, trying to find the words to say. 

“Do you think the world will end because of the titans or because of the humans?” He sighed and let out a ‘what the fuck’, before entertaining me. He knew I was drunk.

“Humans.” I shook my head, disagreeing with him. 

“I think it’ll be because of titans. Want to know why?” He picked at the grass but indulged me. 

“Why?”

“Because they’re already trying to ruin my life.” That made him pause, take the wine glass out of my hands, and down the rest of it for himself in one gulp. He was right, I didn’t need any more of that, or my true feelings were really going to come out. He probably still wasn't emotionally ready to hear me drunkenly babble about Levi when he could barely stand it sober. 

“What do you want to do about it?” I knew he was asking about the titan problem, but I remembered a conversation we had earlier. It had now been another month. Six. The same amount of time I’d waited for him last time, but the thing was last time he came to me right away. He loved me then, holding me at night on the couch. What was so different now? 

“I don’t want to do anything because I want him to come to me on his own, but I’m afraid if I don’t do anything, he won’t come.” He moved to sit up completely, trying to see the expression on my face. 

“And if he doesn’t come?” I could hear the faintest hint of hope in his voice, and it made me laugh sadistically. 

“I don’t know. I’ll spiral into madness again. Something like that.” He groaned and leaned back fully on the grass, hands behind his head. That was what I meant by not being able to handle it. 

“Do you want to know my opinion now that you’re drunk?” I scoffed. 

“I’m not drunk, but sure. I haven’t got much left to be sad about, give me more.” I went to take another sip, but the glass was emptied and so were the rest of the bottles we’d brought. This just left me to stare at whatever game the couples were playing. 

“I think he’s an asshole and doesn’t deserve the patience and kindness you’re giving him.” It sounded a lot calmer than I thought it would come out. I knew that already, though. I knew what Jonas thought of Levi, and that sentence was an extremely abridged version. I would always hear him mumble profanities and insults here and there about him whenever he was brought up, and I heard some of his famous opinions from Ben too. However, some of his opinions did get to me, mostly about the wait. Why was I waiting for so long? I thought about that too, late at night. What motivated me to stay with Levi even though he’s been away from me for at least a year in total. The time we’ve been together has been so small, and by now, I’m usually making breakfast every morning for the man I’m seeing. That’s what had happened before.

“You thought that about Kristian, too, and he was your friend.” Jonas froze next to me, having not heard that name exit my mouth in years. He thought it was an unspoken rule I’d given him to never mention Kristian. It was probably because I was drunk that I brought his name up, and this situation felt eerily similar to our past best friend.

“Well, Kristian wasn’t in the Scouts when you were with him. Same complaint, different circumstance.” The sun finally made its descent below the horizon, and the purples that spread throughout the sky masked the tears falling from my eyes. I hadn’t thought about Kristian for a while either, but something about this moment reminded me of him. One because, again, I'd picked someone over Jonas who didn't agree, and, two, because of what Jonas had said back then that he'd said before. He just thought that, now, it was taboo to bring in Kristian. 

“When you asked me if the pain was really worth the love, it made me think about Kristian.”

“Oh,” Jonas nodded, easily remembering how Kristian and I had left things, and how his death made it impossible to make things any better. Regardless of his death, Kristian wouldn't have been forgiven.

“With him, it wasn’t. I was always in pain near the end. He was too domineering, too chaotic; he was everything I was running away from. He was the temptation to turn back into what I once was, and it always excited me to teeter on that line with him. Thrilling maybe, but toxic. He crossed that line, and I stayed where I was. The pain back then wasn’t worth the two or three laughs Kristian would give me throughout the day.” There was a silence, both of us not knowing what to say to that. Kristian was gone, and he had been gone for years now. It felt wrong to speak on his name like that, but he deserved every bad thing that came to him. We both knew that too. 

“Kri-”

“I don’t feel that with Levi, Jonas. Right now, most of the time, I don’t feel the regret I felt back then when I was stuck with Kristian. But then I think, maybe I don’t feel it now, but down the road, I’ll feel it again. That scares me, because I really, really like being with Levi. When I’m with him I’m happy, but when I’m without him I can barely function. It’s codependency in a way. I was codependent on Kristian, and look where that got me. I don't want to be codependent on Levi, and I don't think I am right now, but it could be that way. I also just think I feel so awful now because, for five months, Levi was out fighting titans with no way of me knowing if he was dead or alive. It's not codependency but worries. Logical.” 

“So, you’re saying that you don’t feel like Levi is like Kristian, but you’re afraid that it might turn into that if things keep going the way they are?” I picked at the grass, not caring that tears were slowly falling down my face, making permanent trails. Actually, it had been a few good weeks since I'd cried about something. It felt like a good release now, and because I was far gone on wine, I didn't feel the depth of my tears. It was like I was just crying to cry, and not because all of the feelings I had when I was with Kristian were coming back. Not because I was scared it would turn out that way. 

“They were both Scouts.” He hummed, putting one of his hands on top of mine to stop my nervous picking of the grass. He was concerned, and you were glad the coming darkness hid your tears. If he saw them, he would take you back immediately. He would pull you up, makeup up some lie to the others, and sit me down on the couch after we got back, not holding me anymore, but just sitting to my right, a hand over mine. 

“This is very not me to say, but have you told Levi about this?” 

“What do you mean? About what?” He bit his lip, decided whether to say something or not to me. He always bit his lip when he was holding back something for my mental benefit, but I wanted him to say it. I needed him to say it. Something to snap me back to reality. 

“Does he know that your greatest fear is abandonment?” I pulled my knees to my chest, not liking out that sentence made me feel emotional. I’d like to say it was the wine that made me start crying even more, but I knew that wasn’t true. Jonas had broken some flood gate inside of me, finding the root of the problem was having. I was afraid of being abandoned. That was the real reason I’d work at the cafe hours and hours on end. If Mr. Flynn saw how I was a good worker, he would forget about my previous bad behavior or bad grade and he wouldn’t throw me out on the street again. If I just gave into Kristian’s physical wants and did what he said, then he wouldn’t leave me like before. He’d stay then. But now, I couldn’t think of something that I did or was doing to Levi. Was I making him face his feelings too early? Did the fact that I was weak and not a Scout deter him from coming to see me? I would do anything to fix it. To make him come back. Jonas just sat there with one hand on my back for what felt like forever. The laughter in the background took on a new cynical tone as I sat there in juxtaposition to their fun. I was thankful, too, that the sun was finally down, so in their drunken haze, they had no idea what was going on to the right of them.

The next day, I rode back to the Scout HQ, and seeing that the notebook I’d left two weeks ago was still there, I took it back with me. I had no idea why I felt like this, but I just needed to take it. It was like I had given him a three-week opening to my heart, and since he didn't take it, I'd take it back. If he wasn't moved to come back after reading it, if he even read it, then he didn't get to anymore. I really didn’t know what to do when I slammed it on my desk, along with the letters he wrote me previously scattered on the surface. I’d read them over and over again, trying to rationalize why he wouldn’t come back even when he wrote words as sweet as those. It had to have been the refugee expedition. Something had to have happened then for him to not want to see me, perhaps even ever again.

For the first time, I was angry at him.

He couldn’t even bless me with two minutes or a piece of paper to display his feelings towards me. He was hiding again, but this time there was no injury to hold him away from me. Jonas said he looked fine, and in one piece, and for the longest time I was glad. That was enough for me to get by; waiting for him. Waiting. Waiting. Why was I always waiting for him? In a burst of anger, I picked up the book and threw it across the room, hitting the blackboard with battle formations on it. The blackboard that Levi used when he was here. Everything that he left was still there, but now I knew the papers must not have been important if he didn’t come back for them. I shoved them back in the drawer, one by one, not caring if I bent them. What use would they have anyway? Next were the letters. I was going to keep them, I wasn’t that mad to ruin something this important to me, but I didn’t want to see them anymore. They would go in the drawer along with his papers. Lastly, I picked up the notebook that I threw on the floor. Five months of pain, and he didn’t have the decency to read it? This one, I let my fingers run along the cover, remembering how I wrote in this night after night. I could feel the pain come from the leather it was bound in. I remembered the moments I would just hold it, reading over my won words, and crying again. I flipped open the pages, skimming the words I wrote again for one last paintime. 

The last page didn’t have my handwriting on it. The very last page of the journal, the only one left blank, was now covered in that familiar cursive scrawl. I lifted a hand to cover my mouth, not knowing what feeling I had inside. He had read it… but even so, he didn’t come back. How long had it been since he’d picked up this notebook till now? 

 Evlynn M Flynn, 

I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to you. For the ways I’ve made you feel inside. Reading this journal made me realize how much I hurt you. I’m sorry for everything. For giving you false hope and hypnotizing feelings. It was never my intention to make you feel like this adding my presence in your life. Find someone who gives you true happiness, because it will never be me. 

Levi 

 What was this? He'd read it. Yet, I wasn't happy. I was the opposite of happy. I stared down at it, reading it over and over. The tears started to make the ink run on the page and I reached down to rip it out, crumbling it in my hands. Is this what I wanted? Some note? Some proof that he cared? And wasn’t I thinking the same things? His lack of presence caused me pain. His not being there hurt me emotionally and physically. I had written that in the notebook. We had read the same notebook, the same journal entries, so why did he interpret it so differently? Him leaving was going to be the best solution? Did he not see how I was lost without him there? 

I was angry. 

So much so that in the dead of the night, right after dinner and right after I'd gained the courage, I hitched up Jonas’s horse without him knowing. When the Garrison members stopped to ask where I was going, I just glared down at them and rode past the gates into Wall Rose. I knew that there would be cadets everywhere on the ground until my past visits. They would see me riding up, some might even stop and question me, but I had one motive. I was done waiting. What person tries to leave someone by leaving a short note? Is this how cowardly Humanity’s Strongest was? 

I rode on the HQ grounds, not breaking the horse's stride. The cadets turned to look, not ever seeing my face before. They probably turned to each other, asking about my presence, but I was past them too fast to notice any conversation. When I jumped off the horse, leaving someone else to take care of it, the same cadet I’d encountered before called out to me. He had to be a groundskeeper or something to always be chasing me off. Either way, I started up the stairs that I’d only walked up once, him behind me yelling. He never caught up, and when I turned the corner to the officer’s wing, he sounded even more frantic. If it was after dinner, the officers were sure to be in some form of meeting, and I wasn’t going to let them continue. Whatever it was, they had weeks to talk about it. This was a more pressing matter. 

“Please! Ma’am! The officers are-!” I shoved open Erwin’s door with ease, hearing it slam against the interior wall. They all turned their heads to look at me, all sitting around a table, a map in the middle displaying figures of titans and horses. Some I recognized and others I had no clue who they were, but I wasn’t looking at them. I stared down Levi whose eyes were as wide as he would let them. Had he forgotten he’d told me his schedule or was he surprised that the sad, depressed me had displayed this much effort to see him?

“Commander! I’m so sorry I let her get in here! I can take her away if-” Erwin held his hand up and was inspecting the look on my face. He knew there was no stopping me at this point, my breathing growing heavy as I looked back up at him, waiting for whatever orders he’d give me. Did he know why I was here? 

“Squad Leader Hange, can you take Miss. Flynn to your office, please? The meeting won’t go on for more than ten minutes.” Hange stood, pushing her glasses up to their original place, before walking over to me with a smile. She put one hand on my shoulder before speaking to me.

“Come on,” she said in a hushed tone, pulling me down the hallway silently after dismissing the cadet. There was tension there, but I couldn’t tell why. Did she know why you’d suddenly appeared? 

Hange’s office was different from Levi and Erwin's. Glassware, chemicals, and books were thrown everywhere with no organization. There were drawings of titan structures hanging all over the walls too, barely leaving the white brick exposed. The biggest difference was the fact that there were candles and oil lamps everywhere, illuminating her workspace and the room. It felt warm but did nothing to calm my anger.

“You know, I told him not to do it.” It didn’t make me feel any better, even if that was her intention. It made me think of how many other people he’d talked to about this besides myself. She walked out after that, closing the door behind her and leaving me to stand in the middle of her office, looking at the books sprawled out on the center table. None of them really made any sense to me, filled with anatomy or certain titan sciences, but it still was a welcomed distraction from the conversation to be had five minutes in the future. I flipped through her hypothesis about titans and sunlight, a few things about their internal body, and other more complicated diagrams. I never knew Hange was this scientifically inclined, all I knew was that she was the designated doctor for the Scouts since the government thought it trivial to send them a real one. Come to think of it, there was nothing in this office that even hinted at medical care, meaning Hange probably just picked it up for necessity. 

Levi never told me much about the people in the Scout Regimen, probably for isolation purposes. I’ve only talked to Hange three times, and Erwin only once when he personally came to visit the café. It was interesting to see them in their natural habitat here, and I had to agree that the look Erwin first gave me when I stormed into their meeting was scary. He was the Commander though, it was his job to demand and control. Levi had called Hange a Squad Leader once, and I wasn’t able to ask him what that meant, but it was probably close to his rank as she was also in the officer’s meeting and had an office like this. Notably smaller than Levi’s it was still an office. Standing here now, I wished I’d known more about the place I stood and maybe about titans. 

“What are you doing here at this hour?” It was harsh and I was paying too much attention to Hange’s books to notice the door had opened and Levi came in. Still, I didn’t react to his words and just kept staring down at the book. Truthfully, I didn’t think I’d get to this point, and everything that I had rehearsed on the way here had left my head and had been replaced with slight happiness at finally seeing him again. It had been so long. There he was, standing unscathed, his eyes looking down at me. How badly did I want to run over there and throw my arms around him like the hug we shared when he left?

“Are you not going to talk to me? Isn’t that why you interrupted our meeting?” I wondered if he was happy to see me at all, but it didn’t seem like it. His voice was hallow and distant. There was no emotion in his eyes at all as I looked over my shoulder at him. He just leaned against the wall, arms crossed, looking right at me. When I, again, didn’t answer, he sighed and closed his eyes, eyebrows knitting together like he was the one allowed to be frustrated. 

“If you’re not going to say anything, I’ll just leave. I have a personal meeting with Erwin.” He turned to open the door and that’s when my whole body turned to face him. It was a tactic, after all, just to get me to finally respond. He probably didn’t have anything to do other than paperwork, Erwin knowingly dismissing him. I held out the crumpled piece of paper out in front of my body and he took one look down at it, knowing exactly what it was. I had no idea how he thought he wouldn’t have to confront me about this personally, but he did seem a bit… annoyed? 

“I’m glad you read the journal, but I was not happy to find this in the back.” He sighed, turning away from the door and back to me.

“You need to forget. Forget about the Scouts. About the HQ. Everything. Forget about me.” The paper dropped from my hands, and I lost the composure I was holding in before. 

“You read through that whole journal and that’s what your solution was? To leave?!” His eyes shifted to the door, knowing someone outside was probably listening, so he kept his voice down. 

“Being with me hurts you, and it will continue to hurt you the more I have to be gone. You told me once that you’d be fine if I died, but after reading your words, I know that won’t be the case. You need to forget me now so I can’t hurt you more in the future.” I gripped my hands into fists, not believing what I was hearing. I could take it in written form, but I had thought up until now it was a mistake. 

“You know I don’t care about that!”

“But I do.” His voice was calm this whole time, showing no emotion. It was like he’d reverted before me. All the work and effort I’d put in to make him comfortable to share his feelings around me was crumbling. I couldn’t tell what he was feeling when he was saying these hollow words to me. 

“What happened? What happened between when you left for this expedition till now for you to think like that?” 

“Watching millions of people die in front of you makes you think about who you can and can’t protect. If I can’t protect them when they’re right in front of me, how am I supposed to be able to protect you?” I huffed in anger, looking at the ceiling as tears were threatening to fall. I was not about to cry in front of him. Not when he was giving me no emotion. He didn’t deserve mine. There was no regret or remorse in his voice either when speaking about the refugees. This was not the same man who had confided in me on the couch about how opposed he was to this mission. 

“You don’t need to protect me. I’m in Trost, I’m surrounded by other people, and you’ve taught me how to defend myself. Most of the time I’m with Jonas anyways. There’s nothing to be-” Levi seemed to catch something in my sentence and ride with it. The worst thing possible. 

“Go be with him.” That made me pause and blink. This couldn’t be real. There was no way he would have said that before. 

“Who are you?!” I yelled, feeling the frustration build and build. 

“I read the journal. Over and over. And every time I got to the point Jonas came back, you were happier. Over and over, I read about another man making you happy.” My mouth was wide open when he said that. Still, it was emotionless. What did he really want? It couldn’t have been that. It would have never been that. He'd vocalized his distaste for Jonas over and over again and now he was just yielding to him? This was not Levi.

“Jonas is my friend. You know that. You make me happy, Levi! So why are you taking that away from me?!” He shook his head, pushing himself off the wall. 

“He can give you what I can’t. You want a family, kids, whatever, I can never give you that. How can I think of my future when I know I’m not going to have one?” I put one hand on my head, finally getting a headache from everything he was saying. He wanted to let me go because he didn’t want to hurt me? Because he couldn’t give me what I wanted? Yet, I’ve told him so many times that all I want is him. He's agreed, too. He's told me what he feels for me. How deep he feels for me. And now he was going to throw that all away so easily? Levi was never someone to do something like this. He would never let me go this easily. 

“You’re not my Levi. Whoever is talking right now, you aren’t him. Levi would never say something like that!” 

“You’ve only known me for a total of four months, how do you know who Levi is?” I looked up at him fiercely, feeling that as an insult towards me. How did I not know who he was? 

“You’re not the Levi who fell asleep in my arms? The one who confided in me about his fears? About his past in the Underground? The one who kissed me every night with unyielding passion? That wasn’t you? Was I housing a stranger?” He scoffed this once. Just once, he gave me what he was feeling. He scoffed at me. He insulted me. And now, after I told him that, he couldn’t even look at me to deliver the final, heartbreaking line. The line that made me stop speaking and stare at the ground. The line that haunted me as I laid in bed that night, not being able to sleep. 

“The emotional codependency you have for me is stifling, Evlynn.”

That made me shake in anger, in sadness, I had no clue. It was the fact that he’d echoed my biggest insecurity out loud. Was I codependent on Levi for my happiness? I’d thought about it over and over, trying to get myself out of the five-month slump, but now, he just confirmed it. He confirmed that he hated it. I was stifling him. Everything he said before felt fake. It was an excuse to make me feel better about him leaving me, like it was even about me this whole time. He had written that note to hide his true feelings apparently, but how true were they? How could he go from holding me, loving me, to just... not feeling anything?

“T-then why are you… wh-why are you with me?” He still couldn’t look at my hunched over figure. 

“I only realized when I read your journal how dependent you are on me. It’s stifling. I don’t like it. I can’t deal with it when I have more important things to do.” It was like every word he said was a hammer, hitting me down lower and lower to the ground. I had to grip Hange’s table to stand, and even then it sent books flying to the floor. My heart was burning and so were my eyes. How could he be so cruel and brutal with me now? Was this the Captain Levi that everyone had talked about? The man you were convinced to be needy and kind was just now showing his true form.

“I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t love me.” I could see the way he froze. The way he still couldn’t look at me even when I was ready to lock eyes with him for the last time. I was staring right at him, the tears still yet to fall. I couldn’t show him emotion, it would be burdensome, wouldn’t it? Still, he didn’t look at me. It was stomach-wrenching the silence in the room as he thought over his answer.

“I've never told you I loved you.”

No, that was the line that haunted me. That was the one that I’d think about forever. Yet, that was the one that forced me out of the room. I just stood up, balancing myself before I walked right out the door. Right past his body, the one who still couldn’t look at me and show me his true emotions. I would never get to see it again. I stopped, right before closing the door, and looking right at Hange who was standing against the back wall, probably in wait. Had she known? That’s why she told me that when I’d entered her office. He had told her everything. He’d told her that he didn’t love me and I was too burdensome for him. How many people had he told before telling me? Coward. This realization gave me a false calm as I was falling apart inside. I needed to be strong in front of him. I couldn't show him how much he'd just hurt me.

“I love you, Levi. And if you deem that as codependency, then I don’t think you’ll ever know what love is.” Hange didn’t look at me after that, she looked right at Levi. I saw the look in her eyes too. Anger. At least I had one person here who seemed to support me. I walked past her, down the stairs, and out the door quickly, grabbing the horse that someone had hitched up for me. The cadets had all gone to their rooms, and the field was empty. This allowed me to walk out of the Scout HQ grounds, knowing that he would be looking at me from a window. I didn’t turn around though. I didn’t look back to see if he was there. I just rode back to Trost, holding in the tears I had till I was sitting in Jonas’s stable, feeding his horse an apple for everything she’d seen while I took her from her sleep. I just cried and cried, hiding my sobs in the back of my hand. Trost wouldn't get to hear my wailing for him. For that asshole. For that spineless, cowardly, annoying, handsome, kind - no. The only person who got to heard my sob was me and Jonas's horse. 

“What did he do?” It was an angry voice behind me, but I didn’t look back at him. I didn’t want Jonas to see me crying over Levi again and again like he had warned me about. I didn’t want Jonas to know he was right. So, I just stood there and cried, and only allowed Jonas to see my face when he came to hug me to his chest in comfort. We stood there for what seemed like forever, and he didn't speak for the longest time. I wanted him too. I wanted him to confirm how awful Levi was so it was easy for me to start to forget. But who was I kidding, how was I going to forget him? In an out of my life like a flash, but one so bright that I'd still see him when I closed my eyes every night to sleep. I would never forget Levi. 

“Shh, I’m here, Eva. I won’t leave you.”

xx oopsiesssss 

Chapter Fifteen →

Chapter Masterlist

[marshmallow-phd]

Nine Little Letters

Genre: College AU, Fake Dating AU, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before AU

Inspired By: This graphic made by @rcse-tvler​

Pairing: EXO x Reader

Summary: Just when you thought life was done shoving you down, it got much, much worse. After finding out that your latest crush was already in a relationship, you did what you always did when emotions ran high: you wrote a letter. Signed and sealed, you put it away with the eight other letters you’d written to past one-sided loves, never to be seen again. That is, until a mix up accidentally sends those letters out to their respective recipients and you find yourself in the middle of one confusing web of love. With fake relationships, insecurities, and revelations swirling around, things are bound to get a little messy.

Part: 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I 11

**

You were walking on eggshells. Every time you turned around, you were sure you would be confronted by another past crush. The muscles in your neck were aching from constantly looking over your shoulder. The corner of your eye was haunted by cute boys ready to confront you on your deepest thoughts. For a whole day, you were able to avoid any of them. It was a nice Thursday. Then Friday came. 

If you were to list the boys in an order of most to least wanting to evade, Junmyeon would be at the very top. Hence, you avoided the math building. Easy enough, you thought, since you only had one class there about twice a week. You made sure to get to Thursday’s class with only a minute or two to spare so you would have the excuse that you needed to hurry, then you hightailed it out of there to your next class. But your focus had been a little too honed in. While you were taking extra precautions to avoid your former tutor, you forgot to make good escape plans for the others. 

“Hey, (y/n).”

You squeezed your eyes tight as you heard the seat across from you at the library table scrape across the thin, frayed carpet. 

“I guess you know why I’m here then,” Jongdae said empathetically. 

Slowly, you opened your eyes. Jongdae’s hands were folded on the table’s surface and the slightest crooked smile sat in the corner of his mouth. His hair was wet, either from a recent swim or a shower. The black strands were curled against his forehead. Smiling, he ran a hand through his hair, tiny little droplets splattering against the blonde wooden table top. 

“I’m really sorry,” you mumbled, unable to hold eye contact for long. 

Jongdae laughed. But it wasn’t an “at-you” kind of laugh. That was nice, at least. “I don’t know why you would be sorry. It was flattering. It's nice to be looked at as a hero, even though I didn’t really do anything.”

“High school brain tends to over exaggerate things.”

“I get that. I actually just wanted to say thank you and that it was sweet.”

“You weren’t supposed to see that.” Your go-to response these days. Like when the doctor hit your knee, it was reflex. “I left a pile of private letters out and my mom mailed them on accident. It’s like having your diary read into a microphone in front of an audience.”

Jongdae nodded. “I had a feeling. After the first few sentences, I figured I shouldn’t have gotten it, but I couldn’t stop reading. It’s been a while since someone confessed to me. Few years, actually.”

Your jaw dropped. “What? No. I can’t believe that.”

“It’s true, unfortunately.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll get another confession in the future.”

“Hopefully.” He looked around aimlessly before coming back to you. “Well, I’ll see you around. It was good to see you. Again.”

“You, too.”

You breathed deeply as soon as he was gone. Okay. That one went well. Three out of four were good odds. You were hoping to get out of this with at least a “B”. If Yixing ever wrote back you could simply… not open the letter. And if you avoided the others, you’d be in the clear. Yeah, this wasn’t so bad. You were still alive, at least, and with your true identity intact. 

You felt a little lighter as you went home. Funny how it could feel like the world was falling apart but the sun still shined and the breeze still blew. As you dropped your bag on your bed, you got a text. 

Get online. 

Oh crap. You’d forgotten about Sehun. He knew you didn’t like talking on the phone, but you could talk to him over the headset. Don’t ask what the difference was, not even your irrational mind could come up with a reason. Sitting down in your chair, you turned on your console and connected to the internet. 

“There you are.”

“I’m not in the mood to play today.”

“That's fine. You don’t have to play.” He killed your character as it stood around aimlessly as if to make a point.

You rolled your eyes even though he couldn’t see it. “You are such a jerk.”

“That’s not what you said in the letter.” 

“And there it is!” You couldn’t hold back the whimper echoing through the headset microphone. “I should have never done that. Writing love letters like I’m an Edwardian heroine… Because I’m not, obviously. But I don’t even know what I am instead.” 

“Sad, lonely, pathetic?” There was a pause. “Yes, I said that out loud.” 

You sat there, completely abashed. “Okay, I take back everything I said in that letter. You are such a jerk. I must have been hallucinating back then.”  

“Don’t get so touchy,” Sehun said. “I thought about it once, too. That’s why I’d let you win every once in a while.” 

“Really?” Well, that was a first. None of the others had mentioned possibly liking you back. 

“Yeah, but then I thought about it some more. I like being your friend and didn’t want to experiment with that.” 

And then you deflated like a bouncy castle. “I don’t know whether to feel flattered or insulted.” 

“How about neither and I just send you the letter back?” 

Okay. A compromise you could live with. And having that letter back would give you a small piece of mind. “I think I like that better.” The doorbell rang like a savior. “I got to go. But thanks for not making this a big deal.”

“Not a problem.”

You logged off and headed downstairs. Your mother, who you hadn’t realized was home, answered the door. You stayed on the staircase, out of sight but within earshot. 

“Um, hi. Is (y/n) home?”

Your eyes widened and you nearly choked on the air in your throat. Chanyeol?

“I think so. (y/n)!”

Nope, nope, nope. You ran. Quietly. Like a mouse scurrying away before it could be seen by the resident cat. You went through the kitchen to the sliding glass door, opening it slowly so it didn’t make too much noise. Once through, you closed it behind you, barely hearing your mother call out for you again. 

“Funny. I thought I heard her come home.”

Now what?

Your brain looked to the fence that separated your yard from your neighbor’s. That was your option. Keeping an eye on the back door, you climbed over the wooden fence, dropping down on the grass. You sat there figuring five minutes or so would be enough time for him to leave. Eyes closed, you leaned your head back against the wooden barrier. Apparently, you weren’t as brave as you thought you were. Even with the easy confrontations, you still ran like a coward the first chance you got. 

“What are you doing?”

Your eyes snapped open. Crap. You’d momentarily forgotten who your neighbor was. “Sorry!”

Kyungsoo huffed from the porch. He leaned on the railing, forearms exposed from his rolled up sleeves. He was frowning at you again, but this time it didn’t seem to be from a place of annoyance as much as confusion. “You say that a lot.”

“I know,” you agreed. “I’m sorry.” You flinched. Nice one. 

A few seconds went by before he came down the porch steps. He crouched down in front of you. “If this is about the letter….”

“It's not! Well, not about your letter.”

“You sent out more than one?” You nodded. He smirked. “Well, that makes me feel a little better.”

It made him feel better? Like your letter had made him… upset? He didn’t seem to be worried about you at all when he gave it back. “I’m just waiting for him to leave,” you explained. “I’ll get out of your hair soon.”

The expected response was that he would simply shrug and leave you alone. But instead he sat down across you, knees up with his elbows resting on them. It was odd. Even before he and Yeonhee broke up, he didn’t have one on one conversations with you like this. “Why did you write the letter?”

You blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Why did you bother writing it if I was dating Yeonhee?”

“I….” You threw your hands up as if you could suddenly catch the answer. “It’s how I work out my feelings. When I found out the two of you were dating, I was… confused, scrambled. Some people journal to figure things out, I… write a letter. A letter that was never meant to go out in the first place. All it was supposed to do was help me work through my thoughts, help me understand my feelings when they’re too strong for me to grasp.”

“If you felt that way about me, why didn't you say anything before Yeonhee?”

“I think it goes without saying that I'm not good at verbally expressing my feelings,” you stated flatly. “Besides, I thought I had time. You know, to figure out what it was I was actually feeling. I didn’t realize why I enjoyed seeing you until it was too late. I never suspected that the two of you liked each other.”

“Really?”

“I'm kind of oblivious to things like that.”

A short laugh. “That’s true.”

You heard a car door shut and then an engine roar to life before fading away. Part of you didn’t want to leave, but being here, alone with Kyungsoo and talking to him like this, was dangerous. “I think the coast is clear.” You stood up and Kyungsoo followed through. “Thanks for, um, letting me hide out here.”

“Sure.”

You turned to the fence, examining how you could get back over.

“(y/n)?”

"Yeah?”

“You could just go this way." Kyungsoo opened the gate that led to the front yard.

“Right. Probably the better idea.” Once out of the backyard, you looked at Kyungsoo. Your heart was beating hard in your chest. “Have a goodnight.”

“You, too.”

Back inside, you didn’t bother to be quiet or sneaky. Your mother was sitting at the table, papers spread out all over the surface in an order that only she could understand. 

“Hi, sweetie!” she greeted. “A classmate stopped by for you. Chanyeol, I think?”

“Oh, okay. I’ll give him a call.” An absolute lie, but… whatever. You headed up the stairs and grabbed your bag. You needed to get away for a few hours.

**

The ice rink was your mindful place. Well, your second mindful place, that is. The first was the library. Whenever you needed to not think for a while, you went there to find a new book to lose yourself in. Whenever you did need to work through your less extreme thoughts, you came here, to the rink. The cold made you hyper aware of your surrenders and of yourself. Your feet did all the work while your mind was free to problem solve. Given the time of day, there weren’t too many people here. Good. That meant the ice wouldn’t be too crowded. Only a few divots and scratches decorated the white surface. You zipped up your jacket and started lacing up your boot. 

“I wouldn’t really have suspected you to come to a place like this.”

Your head snapped up. 

Leaning up against the railing that separated the bleachers from the walkway around the rink, Kim Minseok smiled up at you.

Captain of the soccer team, he was a bit of a hero around the university. A handful of last-minute wins were taken because of him. How many championships had he led the team to? You wouldn’t necessarily say that people at school fawned over him as he walked the halls. It was too large a campus for that. Not to mention, he wasn’t extremely tall and there were certainly others that could be considered more handsome. There were, however, several large posters around the stadium and halls that featured the team, Minseok front and center. An image that didn’t fit what you saw. He mostly wore clothes that said he could have just left the gym or be on his way there. His laid back attitude on his elevated status was part of what led him to being letter number seven. 

The thing about that letter was the fact that there was no one incident that led to your need to write it. He was always simply… nice to you. He knew your name from a shared history class your first year of college. In passing, if he saw you, he’d wave before going back to whatever conversation he’d been having before. You weren’t quite invisible to him, but you certainly rotated on the very outskirts of his vision. 

“Why do you say that?” you asked as you straightened up. 

He shrugged, hands still hanging lazily over the rail. “You never seemed like the athletic type.”

“I didn’t realize that people had to look a certain type to ice skate.”

“Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it.” Climbing over the rail with a smoothness that was inhuman, he ran up the steps and took a seat next to you. You stared at him with confusion. “Don’t be like that. We both know why I’m here.”

“How did you even know I was here?”

“Your mom told me.”

Traitor. “I’m getting real sick and tired of being confronted by this. I never should have left those stupid letters out.” You never should have written them in the first place. You wished you could go back to your younger self and warn her. Hopefully, she would take your advice. 

“I’m not surprised that I’m not the only one who came to talk to you. Although, I’ll admit, when your mom mentioned the fact that I was the second guy to show up at your house today, my ego took a little hit.”

You gave him an unimpressed side-eye. “I think you’ll survive.”

“So, which one do you actually like?” he asked suddenly. 

You blinked at him. “What?” 

“Jongdae explained everything to me. He said you mentioned a pile of letters so I figured it was more than just me and him.”

“Jongdae told you everything?” Why would he do that?

“Yeah. He’s my best friend so we don’t really keep secrets. Although, I didn’t tell him that I was a little jealous that he got a letter for pulling you out of a pool. Much more romantic than mine was.”

Groaning in frustration, you dropped your face into your hands in a pathetic attempt to hide. It was either that or wack this boy who was showing a new side of himself to you with the rubber cover of your skate. You figured the latter option would be a bad example for the small kids running around. 

Minseok patted your back. “Hey, it's okay. Don’t be so embarrassed. I am still curious, though. Of all the people you sent letters out to, who do you actually like?” 

“No one.” You weren’t going to spill your guts to Kim Minseok. You had Baekhyun for that. Soccer star had no business knowing your heartache over your neighbor. 

“No one? Interesting.” 

You lifted your head to look at him with narrowed eyes. “What do you mean interesting?”

“Well, that was kind of the answer I was hoping for. Sort of.”

This was not how you pictured this conversation going. You figured it would be like the rest. A simple “thank you but no thank you” had been the typical response. None of the others cared if you liked the other recipients. “Why is that?” 

“I have a proposal.”

“Oh-kay….”

Minseok turned towards you. “Hear me out. So, I was seeing this girl, Libby. But we broke up. Well, I broke up with her.. And now she’s seeing someone else.”

“So, you suddenly want her again?” Typical. Why did couples always try to make the other one jealous? It sounded like a teen drama you wanted to steer clear from. 

“No. The opposite. She’s only dating this guy to try and make me jealous. She’s always flaunting him in front of me, as if that would actually work.”

Okay…. Now you were even more confused. “I don’t see how I come into play.”

Minseok cringed. “Don’t freak out, okay?”

Oh, no. “I make no promises.”

“She knows that you had a crush on me.”

“WHAT!” Oh, you were dead. So dead. Cause: humiliation. Perhaps you could walk around the campus with a disguise on? Surely the security guards wouldn’t mind. There was always the witness protection option. Now it seemed even more appropriate. “She knows about the letters?”

“No, not about the letters,” he reassured you with a hand on your thigh. You quickly shoved it away. “Sorry. No, she just overheard Jongdae and I talking about the liking me part. Still made her mad because she thought I might like you back. So I started thinking, if she thinks that I’ve moved on, eventually she’ll leave me alone.” He looked at you like all of that should have made sense.

“I still don’t get it.”

He sighed. “I’m asking you to be my fake girlfriend.”

The snort could not be contained. “What are we? In high school? Tell her to back off! Or avoid her. You don’t have to make up a relationship to be a grownup about this.”

“I have. It hasn’t worked. Please? It would only be for a short time.”

You mulled the offer over in your head. It didn’t sound too bad. On paper, that is. Putting on a show that you were someone’s girlfriend shouldn’t be hard. And, maybe it would help you forget about your troubles. But… you didn’t want your first relationship to be fake. 

“No,” you answered. “I’m not interested. Sorry.”

That was not the answer he was expecting. “Come on. If word gets out that we’re dating, then the other guys you wrote letters to might back off.”

“I’ve already talked to most of them,” you said. “It’s not that big of a deal.” Lie. But he didn’t need to know that. “Good luck with your ex.” 

You went to stand on your skates, reaching out in front to hold on to the railing. Your mind, however, was in a hundred different places, which set your balance off. You wobbled and nearly fell back onto the bench. Minseok caught you before that could happen, saving your butt a world of hurt. He chuckled as he helped you regain your balance. 

“If you change your mind, you know where to find me.” He sent you a wink and left you leaning against the railing. You scoffed to yourself as you watched him walk towards the exit. 

Staying where you were, you tried to wrap your head around Minseok’s proposal. How he could have even come to that kind of solution to his own problem was beyond you. What sense did that make? You shook your head and carefully stepped onto the floor. You needed this time now more than ever. Men were so confusing.

[biletdoux]

x marks the spot | x.dj

Member | xiaojun (nct) + gender neutral!reader Rating | g Genre + Tropes | childhood friends to lovers!au, idol!xiaojun, romance (fluff) Warning(s) | none, unless you consider badly written fluff something to be wary of lol Length | 5.1k+ Prompts | “Make my wish come true, all I want for Christmas is you.” - Mariah Carey (All I Want for Christmas is You) + “I should be playin’ in the winter snow, I’ma be here under the mistletoe.” - Justin Bieber (Mistletoe) Playlist | All I Want for Christmas is You - Mariah Carey // Mistletoe - Justin Bieber  // My Everything - NCT U

Summary | You were five years old when you met your best friend.

(Or; the cycle of waiting and wanting between you and Xiaojun throughout the years.)

Note: For the Walking in a Winter Wonderland Collab hosted by @suh-insane​ and @neocitybynight​! Merry Christmas and have a happy holiday season, everyone <333 let me know what you think!

yo,,, fluff is so hard to write, so mad respect to all the fluff writers out there. 

“Hey—”

You were five years old and had a knack for stating the obvious.

“You’re not Chengxiao!” Your voice was loud and annoying, the shrill ring of it reverberated throughout the open roof. Your index finger, straight and stern, was aimed right at his face in accusation, as if it was a sin to not adhere to your expectations. “Chengxiao was supposed to be here, not you!”

The boy who was indeed not Chengxiao, as you so clearly pointed out, sniffled even louder as he clutched at his toy buccaneer sword. All around you, drying linens and laundry swayed gently in the summer breeze to the sound of his soft sniveling, before he broke out into an all out sob.

You were five years old and also insensitive in the way that five year olds were. 

“Uhm,” you faltered, your pointer finger recoiled back just ever so slightly as his cries continued. 

This was not supposed to happen. You were supposed to be playing hide-and-seek with your building friends and maybe grab a popsicle down the street later once you all tired out. You lost the rock-paper-scissors between everyone and had to be the first seeker. You counted all the way to 100 without even peeking once, even though you were tempted many times when you heard the occasional giggle and scattered footsteps.

Chunyang was always the easiest to find between the three of you. He was also five like you and he always hid on the sixth floor of your shared building, usually behind the large potted plants near the stairway. You actually found him behind the leaky plumbing pipes at the end of the hall, but he was still on the sixth floor nonetheless. 

Chengxiao was different. She was seven years old, two whole years older than you and Chunyang, and she was also much smarter than the two of you. It was always difficult to find Chengxiao because she was more tricky and clever than your one-track minded five year old brain. 

When you found Chunyang, the two of you agreed to split up and search for Chengxiao separately, the first one to find her gets the ultimate bragging rights for the rest of their life. When you shook on the deal, Chunyang immediately took off for the stairs, clumsily bounding down the steps with as much grace as a five year old could muster, which left you with only one option remaining; climbing the flight of stairs to the roof. 

The roof was large and vast, filled with a sea of linen and mismatched laundry drying in the wind. The sun was at its peak in the sky as you started your searching, scouring near and wide for Chengxiao. When you nearly lost hope, you noticed a pair of white sneakers belonging to a person hidden behind a billowing bed sheet. You rushed toward it with all your might, already tasting how a sweet a lifetime of bragging to Chunyang would taste on your lips, but as soon as you yanked back the cloth, your mouth immediately turned sour at the sight of a boy with brown hair and teary eyes. 

Your tone was harsher than you intended, so here you were stuck with a blubbering boy and your lifetime bragging rights out the window. 

“Hey,” you tried again. You were five years old and not very good at comforting people. “My mom says children who cry won’t get any candy until they stop.” 

Unsurprisingly, his cries did not cease and you were scandalized by it. The possibility of no candy left you in shock and awe, so why wasn’t he feeling the same as you?

“Who, hic, cares about candy, hic,” he started, every few words out of his mouth was staccatoed by an uncontrollable hiccup.  “If I can’t see, hic, my friends!” 

“Huh?” you tilted your head to the side. “Why can’t you see your friends anymore?” 

It took a few seconds of blubbered hiccups before the boy answered, “cause we moved far away from them!”

You absorbed his words in quiet consideration. How would candy taste if you had to move away from Chengxiao and Chunyang? Not very good, but… 

“Why don’t you make new friends?” 

“I don’t want new friends! I want, hic, to go back to my old home!” Indignant, he lashed back. “I want to go back, hic, and play pirates with my old friends.” 

“I’ll play pirates with you,” you offered. You didn’t think much about the rest of the words that escaped your mouth either. “I’ll be your friend. I want to be your friend.”

The boy was significantly calmer after shouting out his frustrations. He wiped at his tears and for the first time you had a good look at his brown eyes. You didn’t know it at the time, but the boy, like you, was also five years old, and five year olds calmed down as easily as they lost their temper.

“Do you mean that?” he asked, tone soft and quiet. “Would you really, hic, be my friend?” 

Your smile was brighter than the summer sun that day. “Yeah, of course!”

“Okay,” he agreed.

“Yeah, and I can also show you my friends right now too. We’re playing hide-and-seek.” You grabbed his free hand, the one not holding the toy sword, as you tugged him to get off the roof. He followed obediently without a word. 

“What’s your name, by the way?” You asked over your shoulders, your voice ringing through the roof.

“My name is Xiao Dejun.”

You were five years old when you met your best friend. 

--

The air was crisp with the sharp, but refreshing sting of sea salt as the waves crashed onto the side of your ship. You climbed out onto the main deck to check on the progress of the voyage. The waters were steady and your trusty sea vessel rocked to the rhythm of the ocean. There were no clouds in the sky this far out into the sea and the sunlight blinded your eyes, but you didn’t need to see it to know that the treasure was straight ahead. You took another deep breath to savor the thought of future riches before you turned around to go look for your first mate. 

You traveled the expanse of the main deck before reaching the weathered ratlines. The rope felt coarse to the touch as you climbed all the way up to the crow’s nest. Once you made it, there he was, standing and staring out to the wide ocean, probably lost in thought about gold and jewels. 

“First mate Xiaojun.” you called. 

He turned his head and smiled. “Hey, I was waiting for you.”

You fully climb into the crow’s nest and settle beside him. “We’re about to find the secret buried treasure.” 

“Yes, captain,” he nodded his head in agreement.

“What do you want to do with you half?”

“Hm…” Xiaojun was contemplative. “I’ll need to buy another sword. Mine is getting rusty. What about you?”

“I would like to—”

“Class! Recess is over.” Your teacher, Mrs. Huang, interrupted you before you could finish. “It’s time to head back now.” 

And suddenly your trusty sea vessel was no longer a ship, but actually a small corner of the large school playground. The tethered and hardened ratlines melted away to reveal the metal ladders of the play area and the crow’s nest was the slide tower. The sun, however, remained as bright as ever.

Your first mate looked at you and a mischievous glint crossed his eyes. “I’ll race you to the classroom!” He hollered as he threw himself down the slide and took off running as soon as his feet hit the ground. You were not far behind him as you shrieked for him to slow down. 

You were eight years old and you kept your promise to him about playing pirates. 

The two of you became the best of friends shortly after your encounter on the roof. You grew close to him exceptionally fast when you learned he and his family had moved to the same floor as you and your family. Chengxiao and Chunyang liked him well enough and your tight trio grew to accept a fourth corner. 

When school rolled around, you were delighted to find out he was also enrolled in the same school as you and even was in the same class. Since then, the two of you had been inseparable. 

He beat you to the classroom by a few steps and his smile was dazzling as he gloated to your face. You sneered back at him as you watched his fringe stick to his forehead from sweat. 

“I only lost cause you cheated.” 

“Yeah, yeah whatever.” 

You both sat down in your assigned classroom seating, with him exactly one seat behind you. Mrs. Huang announced it was independent study time, so everyone quietly pulled out their books.

When you pulled out yours, you realized you had broken your pencil and had nothing to write with. You pushed your chair back and leaned over on his desk. 

“Hey Xiaojun, can I borrow a pencil?”

He was still Dejun then, but he was always Xiaojun to you.

He looked annoyed, but went to rummage for his pencil pouch in his backpack anyway. “Don’t call me that unless we’re playing. How many times have I told you to call me Dejun? That’s my name so use it.” 

“But I don’t want to,” you huffed.

“And why is that?” Xiaojun found a suitable pencil and handed it over to you. 

“Because,” you took the writing utensil from his outstretched hand. “You’ll always be my first mate Xiaojun no matter what.” 

You returned back to your desk before you could notice the blush that colored his cheeks and you didn’t turn back to him again for the remainder of the independent study time. You didn’t realize it at the time, but Xiaojun never bothered to correct his name ever since. 

You were eight years old when you became someone special to Xiaojun. 

--

You felt hot and sticky.

Summers in Guangdong were hot and humid in ways that left you gasping for air as if you had been trudging through a thick wall of sludge. The heat was heavy and thick, reminiscent of an unpleasant weighted blanket that wrapped around you at all the wrong times and places. During the summer, the Guangdong sun was angry, and you felt as though its wrath was personal from how intensely the rays would beat down on your back as you hopped from one stall to another. Nonetheless, you were not deterred because you came here on a mission.

You were thirteen years old and wanted to do whatever it took to find your best friend the perfect birthday present. 

You prepared for August 9th tirelessly with impressive care and consideration. You had been casually asking questions and fishing for hints months before the fated date to figure out the most perfect and surefire gift for Xiaojun. When you realized he wanted a new controller for his PlayStation because the ‘X’ on his current one wasn’t working half the times, you knew you had to get him a new one. And so, you started to plan.

Step one was complete. You figured out what Xiaojun wanted, but now step two was in the way. How were you going to get it for him? You were thirteen years old and you had no money. You couldn’t ask your parents for money because then that would mean your parents actually got Xiaojun the present and not you, even though it was your idea. After thinking long and hard, you decided to carefully siphon a small portion of your lunch money each day until you had enough to purchase the controller. Even though the lunch money was from your parents, the money was given to you, so now it’s your money and not your parents’ anymore and you had to work hard to save it, so using this money to buy Xiaojun the gift will be really meaningful.

You were thirteen years old and your logic was a bit off, but your heart was in the right place. 

After months of saving, you finally had enough and couldn’t be happier. You had everything set and just needed to find the time to go out to the electronics store. You were so giddy that you nearly let the big surprise slip one day when you were over at his house. 

It was two days before his birthday and Xiaojun was just at your house yesterday, which meant that today, the two of you would go back to his. Xiaojun’s mother was already used to this and prepared pre-cut slices of fruit for the two of you before the front door even opened. The two of you bowed in thanks before greedily grabbing the plate of fruit before barreling to his room with a large slam of his bedroom door. 

You were laying on his bed munching on an apple slice in your hands and Xiaojun was at his desk on his rolling computer chair with an orange slice in his. Outside of his window, the hustle and bustle of a Guangdong afternoon can be heard, but the noise was far away for you and Xiaojun were in your own quiet little bubble. 

When he finished his orange slice, Xiaojun suddenly perked up. “Hey, you want to see something?” 

“Yeah, sure.” 

He stood up and walked over to his closet to grab a box. Inside, he pulled out two new PlayStation controllers, still in the factory wrapping and all, and your heart dropped. 

“My parents got this for my birthday. They gave it to me early cause I did really well on my exams and they knew my current controller sucks,” he explained. “Want to play that new game? It’ll be so nice to finally have a working ‘X’ button.” 

You felt nauseated and suddenly had to go. You were thirteen years old and you were a little dramatic. 

You never gave Xiaojun a proper explanation for leaving so suddenly that day, but you had bigger problems to deal with. What were you going to do now? Step one was now out the window, but at least you still had the money you saved up, so maybe you can still make this work. It would still be okay because you had one full day tomorrow to go out and shop for his gift. Except that when you returned home, your mom informed you that your extra tutoring classes would be doubled tomorrow because your teacher will be out of town and can’t teach for the next few days. Great.

So that’s how you found yourself here, at the local street market standing under the blazing sun in your tutoring school uniform. It was summer break and your parents signed you up for additional morning classes. By the time you were let off, you’d only have an hour to shop for a gift, until it was time to go to Xiaojun’s party. 

Originally, you thought one hour should be more than enough, but as you drifted from one stall to another, you realized no one had anything just right for Xiaojun and you already promised yourself you were going to get something perfect for him, and you didn't break your promises. By the time you found something perfect for him, you didn’t realize 55 minutes had passed. When you checked the time, your eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. You were definitely going to be late. You paid the stall lady and barely waited for change as you made a mad dash toward Xiaojun’s apartment.

When you arrived, Xiaojun’s mother greeted you warmly and let you in. “He was waiting for you. He refused to start without you.”

Xiaojun had a small party with only close friends and you were the last to arrive. You felt embarrassed initially, but that was soon forgotten when the party started. 

When it was time to open the presents, Xiaojun saved yours for last, in fact, he didn’t open it until all the guests left and it was only the two of you with his parents cleaning the aftermath of the party in the background. 

He carefully pulled apart the hastily wrapped box and you held your breath in anticipation. He held up the keychain in the air to show the leather strap next to a metal charm in the shape of a ship’s helm. Xiaojun said nothing for a whole minute and suddenly you started to doubt yourself. 

“Thank you,” he breathed. “I love it.” 

His smile made your breath hitch.

You were thirteen years old when your heart started to feel lopsided in ways it had never had before.

--

The paper sitting in front of you was due soon and yet it was still there on your desk, unfinished, as if it were mocking you. You felt annoyed, but you knew at the end of the day this was your fault and only you could fix this, but no matter how hard you grasped your pen, you could not urge words of ink to spill out and fill the page. You were not sure how long you stared at the page, but you knew you had to do something about it. 

You were seventeen years old and you were lost.

With an indignant huff, you grabbed the sheet of paper and marched all the way to Xiaojun’s apartment. Xiaojun’s parents were out, so it was Xiaojun himself who let you in. He was surprised to see you, but welcomed you warmly, glad to see you face.

“Hey,” he already started to make his way back to his room after shutting the front door, not even bothering to look back to see if you were going to follow because he knew you were. “What’s up?” 

Immediately after entering Xiaojun’s room, you plopped yourself face down onto his pillow while holding up the white sheet of paper in the air. “This is killing me,” you groaned.

Xiaojun chuckled before taking hold of the paper. His eyes widened when he read its content. “You haven’t filled it out yet?” 

This sheet of paper was going to determine your whole future. This sheet was going to be your priority list of which colleges you wanted to apply for and which major you were going to study, so your teacher could help narrow it down for you and give you some career counseling. 

“I don’t know what to put,” you whined. “Help me, Xiaojun.”

“Okay, okay, do you know what school or major you’re interested in?” 

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be here.” 

“Fair point. Uhm. What’s the best school you think you can get in?” 

“I don’t know, maybe some local university?” 

“Okay… and major?” 

“I don’t know, whatever department is easiest to get into I guess.” 

Xiaojun gave you a pointed look. “Come on, take this seriously.” 

You were seventeen years old and you were frustrated. 

“I don’t know, Xiaojun! I really don’t have any clue whatsoever and everyone around me is so disappointed because I have no direction, but trust me, I can guarantee you that I’m much more disappointed than everyone around me.” 

Xiaojun’s eyes softened and he moved to sit on his bed near your defeated figure. He rubbed your back gently and his tone was sincere. “I’m not disappointed in you. I could never be disappointed in you.”

You looked up at him before opening your arms wide open for a hug, which Xiaojun granted easily. The two of you laid there in easy comfort despite the impending unknown future that loomed overhead, casting a shadow of doubt in its wake. When you were with Xiaojun, none of that mattered. 

After a while, your head perked up from its place on top of Xiaojun’s arms as you looked at him. “Wait, what about you? Did you fill it out? What do you want to be?” 

Xiaojun laughed, “yeah, I did.” 

You waited expectantly, but he said nothing. You grew annoyed. “Well? What’d you put?”

Xiaojun looked at you. His eyes were soft and warm, but you could see some faint traces of hesitation, like a surface of still water had been disturbed. The pit of your stomach dropped and you felt your throat go dry with nervous tension.

“I want to be a singer.” 

You punched him lightly. “You scared me, cause you got all serious for a second.” You laughed out loud, as if a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. “You’re for sure going to be the best singer in all of China, no, the whole world! And I’m going to be there every step of the way to support you, Xiaojun.” 

“Okay,” he smiled softly, but his tone was almost bittersweet as though he was trying to pull back. “That’s good to hear.” 

“Why are you acting so weird? This is not like you at all.” 

He said nothing at first, but then his words hit you. All the weight off your shoulder earlier returned tenfold. “I was casted. I’m flying to South Korea next week.”

Your heart was pounding as you tried to make sense of the words that left his mouth. You remembered the first time he confided you in absolute confidence about his dreams and aspirations. You remembered countless hours he put into singing and you remembered how often he would stream videos of singers he admired. You remembered all of it.

“I’m,” you started. “I’m so happy for you, Xiaojun. This is it, this is the start of your dream. I couldn’t be more proud of you, Xiaojun, I mean it.” 

The sincerity in your tone had Xiaojun choking on his words and he didn’t know what to say. All that left his mouth was, “what do you want to be?” 

“Me?” Your chest felt heavy. “I think I just want to be happy.”

“Yeah,” he hummed. “I want you to be happy too.” 

A week later, you saw Xiaojun off at the airport. He exchanged tearful goodbyes with his parents and suddenly he was standing in front of you. His eyes looked at you expectantly, as if waiting for something that you were not sure you were able to procure for him. You gave him the biggest hug you were able to muster and hoped all the unsaid things could be transferred through touch. The two of you stayed in each other’s arms until his flight was called. With a final wave, he was off, and when he turned around to walk toward his terminal, you saw a keychain with a metal charm and an old worn down leather strap hanging from one of the zippers of his carry-ons.

You were seventeen years old when you felt your heart swell with undeniable pride, yet break simultaneously. 

--

You missed Xiaojun.

You were twenty-one years old when you came to terms with your feelings for your best friend. It was not an earth-shattering, cosmic-altering, reality-bending epiphany, but rather a quiet revelation followed by unspoken acceptance.

You were currently sitting in economy class on a flight en route to Seoul, South Korea. You had still kept in contact with him throughout the years he was out there pursuing his dreams. You decided to enroll in the local university and you picked a major on a whim. Despite the circumstances, you had really come to terms with it and grew to like it. You were now working hard at developing a solid career from it and you felt proud of yourself. 

When text messages and video calls became few and far between for you and Xiaojun due to busy schedules and time zone differences, you knew he was something more than just a friend. Your heart fluttered whenever you heard his specially assigned notification tone. You felt giddy each time before you opened his message and you read each text at least three times before sending a reply. When you don’t hear from him on days on end due to his busy schedule, time passed by at an unbearable pace. 

Xiaojun made his debut and you were one of the first to pre-order his albums. You constantly gushed and raved about his singing and his dancing. You stayed up countless nights to let Xiaojun vent and de-stress over video call despite having to sacrifice precious hours of sleep. True to your word, you were there with Xiaojun every step of the way while he achieved his dreams, but he was also there for you when you figured out your path. He was there to listen and offer advice as you considered one career path over the other and which internship to take. The two of you were there for each other. 

Due to the very nature of growing up and what that entailed, both of you were very busy and the timing was always slightly off. When you were free, he had to go on tour, but when he was free, you had to go out of town for your internship. As such, you were twenty-one years old and had not had a chance to see your best friend in person for nearly four years since he left for South Korea.

But this year, for the winter holidays, it was going to be different. You were going to make time to go see him no matter what. You were firm on the requested days off and you booked the flight weeks in advance. Xiaojun was kept in the loop of your meticulous holiday planning at all times to ensure that he could free up his schedules at just the right time to see you. 

The two of you never actually expressed your changing feelings for one another, but perhaps you didn’t need to. You had known each other practically your whole lives and what is a relationship if not the constant changing and finetuning of the little details? 

You weren’t blind to the consistent ‘good morning’ and ‘good night’ texts you received from Xiaojun each day without fail, nor was he blind to your constant fretting if he had eaten yet and how he should always be taking care of himself. It was the little things that sung of true love. 

When the two of you had the chance to video call, his eyes would light up with a smile to match and you feel your soul ache in the most tender of ways. The two you lingered longer than necessary when it came to ‘goodbyes,’ but it was to be expected. 

You smiled to yourself thinking about him as you looked outside the plane window. Your flight was landing soon and you felt your anxiety gnaw at your joints while your hesitancy took a bite of your lungs. When you landed, you felt as though the ligaments in your body rusted over and each breath of air you took never seemed like enough to flow through your system. You took a few more deep breaths to center yourself before getting up to leave the plane. 

You managed to calm yourself down a substantial amount, but you felt it lurk back behind you as a sudden chill traveled up your spine during the taxi ride to Xiaojun’s dorm. It threatened to seize you by the throat, but then you realized, this was Xiaojun you were coming to see. 

The same Xiaojun who cried easily and had a pirate phase through most of his childhood. The same Xiaojun who took long bites in between food and would lose in arm wrestling matches. The same whose voice could reach unknown heights with a dedication and devotion to match. The same Xiaojun who was your best friend since childhood. The same Xiaojun whom you loved.

And with that, whatever haunted you dissipated and you found yourself at the steps of his dorm. You watched as your breath came out in chilly wisps as you knocked on the door. The sound of padded footsteps ambling along hardwood floors were heard and suddenly you were face to Xiaojun after a whole four years without him. 

The two of you took each other in. Video calling did not do Xiaojun justice. He really matured into his features over the years and you couldn’t help, but stare. 

Xiaojun broke the silence first. “Hey, you.” 

“Hey, you yourself,” you breathed.

“Come on, don’t just stand there,” Xiaojun ushered as he helped you grab your luggage. “It’s cold outside.” 

You followed him as he led you to his room. You looked around with curiosity as you passed by. The WayV dorm was cozy, but surprisingly empty, not that you minded. When you got to his door, Xiaojun saw the look on your face and knew exactly what you were thinking.

“Everyone’s out right now,” he explained. “I can formally introduce you to them when they get back.”

You nodded and watched as Xiaojun placed his hand on the door knob, before stopping in hesitation. He looked at you in earnest. “Promise me you won’t laugh, okay?” 

“Nothing can phase me, Xiaojun. I practically lived at your house and vice versa, or did a few years abroad make you forget that already?” You teased.

He gave you a look, but opened the door for you nonetheless. You expected a messy room with random socks strewn on the floor and the desk chair stacked high with a pile of clothes, but what greeted you nearly took your breath away.

The floor was spotless and fairy lights lined the walls and occasionally looped around the floor. There was a small Christmas tree in the corner dimpled with various ornaments of various sheen and sparkles. Xiaojun led you to the center of the room where the various colored fairy lights crossed one another’s path. A mistletoe tied on the fanlight hung overhead. 

“It’s beautiful,” you whispered.

Xiaojun smiled as he drew you in closer. “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. I really wanted it to be something special. Merry Christmas.” 

You started to tear up as you moved to meet Xiaojun in the middle, “I love you, Xiaojun.” 

You were twenty-one years old when you kissed your best friend. His lips were soft and his tongue sweet. He tasted vaguely of vanilla lip balm and peppermint bark, he tasted like the love of your life. 

When you pull back from the kiss, the adoration in his eyes made you greedy for another, so you dove back in, but not before Xiaojun can let out a quick laugh and a reaffirmation. 

“I love you, too.” 

The two of you kissed and kissed again, under the mistletoe. 

You were twenty-one years old and you were happy.

masterlist.