#how am I ready to delete all my dating apps and shit and we haven’t even kissed the sapphic yearning has overtaken me yall

[romantically-yours]

I just wanna go on dates with her

[retrievablememories]

matched | ten (m)

title: matched pairing: alien!ten x black!reader genre: sci-fi, angst, fluff, romance, smut summary: the quest for love leads you to a new dating app with a slight twist—and straight into the inbox of someone who’s light-years out of your usual dating pool. word count: 9.7k warnings: familial conflict, strained parental relationship, mentions of cheating, prejudice/discrimination based on species, body modifications/alien biology, unprotected sex, oral (female receiving), dom!ten, photography during sex, cumshot, squirting, some spanking a/n: as always, i lose all impulse control whenever i get a ten request so i have finished this sooner than i expected

i decided to lean more into the romance plotline than stress too much over the realism of the science-fiction elements with this fic, so there are some inaccuracies/impossibilities...but that’s fiction for you 🙃

AM 2074 (After Migration)

You are lonely.

Your last breakup did not end well, to say the least, and you haven’t dated for a while since then. It seemed like a smart move—a safe one—to shun all romantic relationships until you felt ready again. At the beginning, you were glad to be alone for a while, to regroup and rediscover yourself worrying about another person’s opinions on everything you did. To not have to deal with someone else’s drama.

The toll of not having companionship is gradually getting to you, though. Even if your last relationship was a mess more often than it wasn’t, you still long for those good moments, like going on night dates on the weekends and sharing pillowtalk into long hours of the early morning. You hadn’t realized how much you’d missed those things until all the emotions of it crashed down on you at once.

Your friend Malika claims to have a solution for your loneliness. Now, sitting at this outdoor cafe, you’re simultaneously eager and hesitant to hear what she has to propose, knowing her track record for silly plots.

With twinkling eyes, she looks at you and says, “You should try a dating app.” She clasps her hands together and puts them on the table like she’s made a grand announcement. You absorb her words for a few moments, looking out at the street across from you and watching cars—some hovering above the asphalt, some driven autonomously, and many still with human drivers—pass by.

You eventually sigh, your shoulders slumping. “That’s the big solution you called me out here for? People have been using dating apps for decades, that’s nothing new.”

“Exactly! The fact that they’re still popular even in 2074 is proof that they work, Y/N. You can put yourself out there and talk to dozens of guys without even meeting them in person. If one connection doesn’t work out, you don’t have anything to lose, and you don’t have to see the guy ever again.”

“Maybe I’ll lose my sweet time and patience during the process, though.”

Malika shakes her head and types something into her hologram pad, then holds it up for you to see. The hologram displays a dating app called matched—it reminds you of what Tinder was supposedly like before it became eclipsed by more advanced platforms, though that happened years before you were even born. “This one is kinda new, but it’s gotten popular fast and has good success rates. I’ve tried it before and met some nice guys. Give it at least one chance before you hate on it.”

“Ugh, I don’t know...there are always so many weirdos hanging out on those apps. What if I meet someone who keeps a collection of severed alien tentacles in an icebox in their house? Like that one guy who showed up on the news?”

“...Really?” Malika rolls her eyes. “You’re so dramatic. Stop getting in your own way and just take a risk for once.”

You shake your head at her optimism. “I’ll do it because I know you won’t leave me alone about it, but don’t expect me to find some great love story on this app.”

--

Once you download the app and start making an account, it becomes pretty obvious that this isn’t just a regular dating platform.

Choosing your gender and age preferences is normal enough, and you pass through those screens quickly until you get to one that gives you two new options.

➤ Species Preference ❐ Human ❐ Extraterrestrial

Whoa. Aliens? An alien-friendly dating app?

You weren’t overly familiar with the mechanics of dating apps, and you certainly didn’t consider that ones allowing aliens might’ve existed until now. It had been 15 years since the first contact with aliens was established, and a little less than a decade had passed since aliens began migrating to Earth and taking up permanent residence—and vice versa.

Humans had little problem with accepting aliens’ technological adaptations and claiming them as their own, though they were far less welcoming of the aliens themselves. That resulted in strained interactions between the two species, with aliens trying their best to assimilate and humans questioning their every motive. As far as personal relationships went, interspecies mingling between humans and extraterrestrials was still fairly uncommon—something that only people who were considered to be on the fringes of society participated in. There were “normal citizens of society” who built relationships with aliens, but many of them also kept it solely as a kink or fetish to be done only in the dark.

You decide to check both options. It feels a little scary, like diving headfirst into the unknown, but you are open to it either way. You’ve interacted with aliens before, both as kind acquaintances and near strangers, and they’ve always been relatively normal in the grand scheme of things—beings trying to survive and make a life for themselves like anyone else. Certainly not plotting how to take over Earth as many people have speculated. If they really wanted to, they possess the technology to have done that ten times over already.

You take a while trying to come up with a clever bio and spend an even longer time mulling over which pictures of yourself to choose, but you eventually complete your profile.

The first few matches you make are not very successful.

Whether it’s human guys feeding you terrible pickup lines or alien guys who can’t make it past the language barrier—or who ask you to move back with them to their home planet after two days of talking—you don’t see any potential love interests during your first two weeks of using the app. 

You’re not sure what kind of skills Malika used to make multiple good matches, but maybe you need to interrogate her so you can sharpen your own. So you decide to do exactly that.

“Don’t give up on it just yet. Just be yourself—which also means not being afraid to cuss someone out if they come at you crazy. Some of these dudes lowkey like the mean girl shit, though, which is kinda weird.” Malika speaks from the shimmering translucent mirage of your hologram pad as you walk through the park one afternoon. She couldn’t make it out to meet you today, but you managed to snatch a moment to talk to her even if it couldn’t be face-to-face. “You probably shouldn’t expect to find a boyfriend in the first few days—”

“Girl, I don't think anyone was expecting that. Duh.”

“I’m saying, just give it time!”

“Okay, but listen. You didn’t tell me it’s also for aliens. Have you dated one before? You never told me!” You lower your voice then, not wanting anyone nearby to eavesdrop on your conversation and hear that part. You feel kinda bad for even thinking that way, but it’s hard to shake the stigma associated with interacting with aliens.

“Yes, and it was the best sex I ever had, but maybe I’ll tell you about that later.”

“Sis. Don’t withhold tea from me!”

“Someday when you’re not literally standing in the middle of the park, okay?” Malika shakes her head, smiling.

“Don’t forget about it, either.”

“I won’t. And you know what to do if you find a guy. I want to be the first to know!”

“Sure, sure. I wouldn’t hold my breath on it, though.”

You decide to spend some more time on the app after that conversation instead of just deleting it like you’d planned to initially. And one day, you get another new match that catches your eye out of the many others.

“Ten? Like the number…?” Besides the interesting name, you immediately see that he’s an extraterrestrial. From the Sommu race, as it says in his bio.

You click on his profile.

You’re a little surprised by how pretty he is, which isn’t to say the other aliens you matched with were all hideous. But he doesn’t have tentacles coming out of his face or two sets of eyes, either. The most noticeable thing about his alienness is his blue skin.

“Likes...dancing, art, music, okay so we have an artist type here...dislikes...fruit. Huh. That’s...interesting.”

The pictures of him on his profile are all deliberately artistic, as in they aren’t just some half-baked selfies he took with a hologram pad. You grow increasingly curious. It’s safe to say he’s either super into himself or just appreciates the art of good photography, and you figure there’s only one way to find out. You decide to take the first step and message him.

➤ Nice pictures :) 

You don’t know when or if you’ll get a message back, since he’s not online when you send it, so you try not to get your hopes up too much. Maybe you should’ve tried to come up with something more cool and funny—nice pictures?—but you try to remember Malika’s advice and roll your eyes to yourself. There’s no point in getting stressed over a dude you don’t even know yet.

You eventually get a reply back from Ten.

➤ thank you 🙏 are you into photography too? you have talent for taking beautiful photos 

You giggle quietly to yourself; another line, but it’s definitely one of the tamer ones you’ve received. Why not see where this one goes?

The first conversation you have consists mostly of the regular getting-to-know-you talk, such as your personal interests and favorite things. You get him to talk more about his photography hobby, which he’s eager to tell you all about—as well as his penchant for art.

To your optimism, you and Ten quickly get comfortable with each other. You soon forget about all the other potential matches you have, but those don't matter much to you anymore. So far, you’ve connected the most successfully with Ten, which means you’re more than glad to stop spending your time reading boring messages from guys who’ve only pretended to have things in common with you.

Things go so well, in fact, that he asks you to meet in person not long after you begin talking to each other.

For your first meetup, you decide to meet at a park nearby—the same one you’d been walking through the day you were talking to Malika about that very dating app. You and Ten have talked through the hologram pad on multiple occasions, so you’re more reassured that you’re not starting from scratch with some faceless being. Still, the thrill of seeing each other in person for the first time is undeniable.

“Y/N?” You turn your head at the sound of your name, and you see Ten walking towards you.

“Ten!” You give him a smile, waving at him. You feel a little more nervous than you usually would on a date, though you can’t tell if it’s the good kind of nervousness. You mostly chalk it up to not having been out with anyone in a while.

Ten’s just as pretty up close as he was in the photos and on camera, if not even more attractive; he’s breathtaking in the light of the sun. His hair is styled nicely, meticulously-place strands curling over his forehead, and his clothes perfectly outline his slim body. He looks pleased to see you, his lips curving into a coy smile.

“You could’ve given me a warning,” he says as he outstretches his arms to you. You hug him, but not without a questioning glance on your face. He is warm and smells good, like juniper, which almost makes you forget about your question.

“Warned you about what?”

“How you’re even more beautiful in person.” He says this at your ear before pulling away, and it makes the back of your neck bloom with heat.

“Oh, you’re laying it on thick.” You giggle nervously, shifting on your feet.

“Are you ready to go?” he asks.

“Yes, let’s go!”

You leave the park to go to an aquarium nearby, which is the biggest one in the city. You find out quickly that Ten is easily fascinated by the wide range of creatures there. Despite living on Earth for a few years now, he hasn’t seen a lot of them until now.

You walk through the blue-lit hallways together, surrounded by water everywhere you turn. You observe the different animals up close and from far away, reading information about them from the signs beside their tanks.

“What the hell is that?” Ten says through laughter, looking at the squished-up mouth of a stingray as it floats in front of the glass, baring its pale underside to you both.

“It’s a stingray!”

He scrunches his nose up. “It’s ugly. But kinda cute, too…”

You both end up staying at the aquarium longer than you expected, with Ten wanting to see practically every animal they had on display; plus, you got to see some you weren’t familiar with before either.

After visiting the aquarium, you go downtown—which is otherwise known as food truck central, where you can get pretty much anything you’re craving. This area is always quite busy this time of evening, especially on the weekends. Food in hand, you and Ten end up walking through a few of the quieter back streets where there’s not as many people—streets where the closely-packed buildings give way to the grassy yards and paved roads of nearby neighborhoods.

“Should we talk about our families now, or is it too soon?” you say jokingly. “You know, that seems to be the only thing we haven’t mentioned after talking about everything else under the sun.” You’re not entirely sure why you bring this up while knowing your own relationship with your parents isn’t great, but you are curious to hear about Ten’s family.

“I don’t really know mine,” he replies.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” You feel a little bad about it, thinking there was definitely a reason why he never mentioned the topic.

Ten looks confused for a moment before shaking his head. “No, it’s not like that. Sommu never form close bonds with their parents or siblings.”

You give him a curious look. “Why not?”

“Well, we aren’t born or raised the human way,” he explains. “Our parents have a bunch of us at once, raise us for the first couple of years, and then go off to reproduce again and continue the population.”

You’re startled at that. “Just for a few years? How do you survive?”

“We age faster...both physically and mentally. We become independent around 4 or 5 years old, and we can live without our parents.”

“That’s...definitely very different.” You try to wrap your mind around that information, though it’s difficult. Even with your not-so-healthy relationship with your parents, you couldn’t imagine having no family whatsoever at such a young age. You also can’t even begin to comprehend what it’d look like to be taking care of yourself at only 5 years old, fast aging or not. “But, you said a bunch at once...how is that possible?”

“We are formed inside things like eggs. It’s not like your form of childbirth. See?” And you become flustered when he lifts his shirt up to show his lack of a belly button, right there in the middle of the street.

“Uh, wow.”

“The human concepts of ‘family’ and ‘relationships’ are...very new to me.” He seems a little embarrassed to admit this. “That’s why I, um, joined a dating app, for more experience...I was told I need to learn to be more…” He searches for the word. “Im...pertinent?”

“...Empathetic?”

“Yeah, that.”

“So, did that come from a previous partner, or…?”

“Yeah, I’ve had two relationships since I’ve been here.” He seems wistful now, maybe a little sad. “They didn’t work out well. Maybe we were too different.” Before the mood can shift too far into negativity, Ten turns to you with a soft smile. “But maybe that’s not the kind of thing you want to hear while we’re on a date.”

You shake your head and smile. “I don’t mind, it’s interesting to know about.” More than interesting. You want to ask him a hundred more things about what his life was like when he first got to Earth. “Anyway, you can never have too many new starts in life. Let’s enjoy this one.”

--

At the end of your date, Ten walks with you back to your place. It’s almost midnight at this point, with you both walking all the way back from downtown. You’d drawn more than a few skeptical stares over the course of the day, but you both did your best to ignore those and just focus on each other.

“I’m really glad we got to go out today, it was fun,” you say, hugging your arms to yourself to shield against the cool spring breeze.

“I think I haven’t had that much fun in a while,” he agrees. Ten smiles wide then, the tip of his tongue sticking out from between his teeth, and you have to do a double take. 

“What—”

“Oh, that. Sometimes I forget everyone doesn’t have this...” And when he sticks his tongue out, you see clearly now that it’s split halfway down the middle. Sort of like how a snake’s would be. “D’you like it?” His expression is wicked when he asks this, and a strange heat sweeps through your body.

“Wow.” You cringe at your lackluster answer, but that’s the only thing you can muster up at the moment, too busy internally questioning yourself. You’ve seen body modders with split tongues in documentaries and on the internet, but it’s never appealed to you like this before, and you don’t know what to do with that new realization.

“It’s okay, it takes some getting used to.” He gives you a smile that might be called innocent by anyone else, but to your eyes it’s quite obvious he’s proud about making you flustered.

“Getting used to...yeah, I’m sure.” There are about 15 different questions you want to ask him about that, too, but you aren’t going there on the first date.

“So...can I expect to see you again?”

“Of course.” You smile again at the hopeful note in his tone. “Just let me know whenever you want to go out again.”

Before Ten leaves, he places a hand on your shoulder and kisses you on the cheek. It’s a simple and short kiss, but it still makes you blush beneath your brown skin.

You wave goodbye to him from your doorstep as he goes, feeling like you’ve finally done something right for the first time in a long time.

You’d taken a chance with dating an extraterrestrial, someone so different from yourself and your species, and you figured it would be a new experience. Obviously. What you did not bet on, however, was the idea that you’d fall for Ten so fast.

After three months of dating exclusively, you feel like you could say you love him, which is frighteningly quick for you; though you don’t tell him this yet.

You’ve decided to bring him to meet your family. The idea frightens you, because your parents have never been very receptive to the aliens’ migration. But you are still holding out some hope that maybe they’ll realize all their assumptions were wrong, and that you’ve found a nice man who you love and who you’re sure loves you just as much. Whether he’s human or not shouldn’t matter.

You manage to set a date when all your schedules match up so you can bring Ten over to your parent’s house. Ten is nervous—more nervous than he was when you went on your first date—which you find a little surprising. You’ve gotten used to him being the one who you can lean on, who always seems to know the right answer.

“Do you think it will go well?” he asks, his tone implying he’s not confident of the answer.

“I hope so.” You give him a smile that you hope is reassuring and squeeze his hand.

When your parents open the door, there’s visible surprise on their faces. You’d already told them your boyfriend was not human, which drew doubtful responses when you first said it, but they’re acting as if they never knew that information—as if this is the first time they’re seeing an alien, period.

“Um…hi, mom, dad.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Ten says, though his own tone is overly formal, like he doesn’t know how he should speak. “I’m Ten.”

Your parents pause for a few moments longer. Finally, the awkward quiet is broken. “We thought you were just messing,” your dad says, though he steps out of the way to let you both come in, if a bit reluctantly.

“I—no.” You’re uncertain how to respond to that, though you don’t feel optimistic about what it entails. Your mother doesn’t say anything at all, just stares at you and Ten like you’re both strangers who’ve just waltzed in uninvited. She goes back in the kitchen to finish dinner once the door is closed, not saying anything to either one of you, and you already feel a cold pit settling in the bottom of your stomach.

Your dad sits in the living room with you and Ten, and another awkward silence ensues as your dad gives a stiff smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He clasps his fingers together and pulls them apart repeatedly, like they’ll give him the answers for what’s going on.

“This is just a fling, right? Of course you won’t be staying with this ma—” Your dad almost says man but then stutters, thinking maybe the term isn’t appropriate since Ten isn’t human. He makes a vague gesture to fill in the space of the missing word.

“It’s not a fling,” you say, feeling like you’ve had cold water poured down your back. You’re sitting straight and still on the couch, and it’s not comfortable, but you’re too tense to move. Ten is almost equally stiff beside you.

“Y/N, we just want you to make good decisions for yourself.” That’s what your dad says out loud, though the look in his eyes finishes the rest of that sentence: And I don’t think this is a good decision.

“I am,” you insist. “I don’t need to be told that over and over again.”

“Me and Y/N are happy together,” Ten explains, and your dad seems a little shocked that he’s decided to speak.

“Do you truly think you’re what she needs?” your dad asks. You’re not sure what makes you more angry; the question itself, or the fact that he keeps his tone non-accusatory and light, as if he’s only asking something like where do you work? Like the answer doesn’t matter because he’s already made up his mind.

“As long as Y/N wants to keep seeing me, there’s no reason to stop our relationship.”

A sound of displeasure comes from your mother in the kitchen, and your skin prickles. Your dad nods to Ten’s answer, but he does so in a way that conveys he just wants this conversation to be over rather than consider anything that was said.

You deeply regret not leaving straight after that failed discussion, but you soon find out just how bad it can get once you all make it to the dinner table. Your mother is chillingly silent for the first half of the dinner, acting like neither you nor Ten exist, while your dad attempts to make awkward small talk about how things are going.

There comes a point where you can no longer handle the cold sweat and the nerves, and you put your utensils down. Not that you had much of an appetite anyway.

“Why won’t you even talk to me?”

Your mother glares. “You can’t guess? What kind of question is that to ask?”

You falter. You don’t know why she always does this to you. Ask ridiculous rhetorical questions that you both already know the answer to. Now you must sit here and explain why you asked like it isn’t already obvious.

“I’m visiting after I haven’t been here in a while. With my boyfriend. I thought...I don’t know. The least you could do—” Your mother shakes her head at the word “boyfriend,” and you already know everything else you said went in one ear and out the other.

“I still don’t know why you didn’t just stay with Christian?” she interrupts. “He had a decent job, came to see us often, and was NOT an alien.”

“But he cheated on me,” you say, a sickness rising in you.

“That’s what men do sometimes, Y/N. You deal with it and move on. You’re supposed to be strong—fix whatever is making him do it.”

You and Ten exchange a tense look, and there is clear confusion whirling in his eyes, but you don’t say anything to each other. “That relationship is over. I’m trying to do something for myself for once, not whatever you think I should do.” Even saying those words makes you internally recoil, unsure of what the reaction will be, but you don’t take them back.

“You may be an adult but we’re still your parents. Frankly, you need to be with a man of your own race and species—not this blue Martian here. How would you even have kids?”

Ten gives a humorless laugh, like he wants to respond but doesn’t want to make the situation worse or offend you. “You know what, I should just leave,” he says abruptly, rising from his seat.

You get up quickly after he does, but your mom slams her hand on the table. “Y/N, you better not walk out of here.”

You feel defeated and exhausted, like you always do when dealing with your parents and their objections to every single thing you do, but you decide not to give in this time. “Stop treating me like I’m still a child, ma.”

“What does being an adult matter when you still act childish? Don’t come back here crying when this doesn’t work out. I’ve already warned you more than enough.”

“That isn’t going to happen.” 

“So now you think you know better than me, when you couldn’t even keep a man the first time around.”

“This is hopeless,” you sigh, feeling wounded and angry at all these cheap shots.

“Y/N, please just listen to your mother for once…” your dad interjects, but you try your best to ignore their protests as you grab your things and follow Ten to the door. You can still hear your mother’s angry complaints as you close the front door behind you, though you’re surprised—but grateful—that neither of them attempt to follow you outside.

The ride back home is uncomfortable and mostly quiet.

“I’m sorry, Ten,” you say, feeling like you’ve been frozen from the inside out despite it being nearly summer. You’re near tears when you speak. Ten shakes his head, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.

“It’s not your fault…” he replies weakly, though his words aren’t very persuasive to either of you.

He still walks you up to your door when you arrive back at your place, trailing slightly behind you. The night air is distractingly humid, wrapping around the both of you like a physical thing. Neither of you know what to say to each other.

When you get to your front door, you turn to look at him. “I shouldn’t have made you come. I should’ve known...” 

“I wanted to come,” he points out. “You didn’t make me do anything.” Ten’s tone isn’t outright harsh, but the words are noticeably sharp. Maybe he realizes it, because his face softens as if he’s said something wrong.

You nod. It’s as if there’s a mountainous gap between you two that you just can’t cross right now. “I get it.” You say this almost mindlessly, because you’re not sure what you’re getting, exactly. Your hand rests on the doorknob. You don’t want to end the night on this awkward and painful note, but neither of you are making any progress with this lack of a real conversation. Maybe now isn’t the right time to try to talk about it.

“I think...I’ll just go home tonight.” You expected he’d say that, but the words still make your heart hurt, even if you don’t want them to. He looks like he might say something else, but he just gives you a small nod before starting off.

“Ten…” You don’t know what you want to ask of him or tell him, if anything, but his name slips from your lips like it’s something you can’t keep inside.

Ten stops for a moment and turns back to you. He steps closer again, leaning forward to give you a soft kiss on the lips. When he pulls back, his eyes hold you in place.

He mumbles, “I’m not mad at you,” before leaving.

More than anything, you want to know how Ten is doing, but you’re too ashamed to contact him for the first couple days after that mess of a night. Maybe he thinks you’re just like your parents and doesn’t want anything to do with you anymore. His reassurance at the door wasn’t enough to soothe your worries, and you end up tearing yourself up internally over it—repeatedly recalling the warmth of his lips and wondering if that’s maybe the last time you’ll ever feel it.

Similarly, nothing but radio silence comes from his end. He doesn’t respond even after you finally muster up the nerve to send him a text—a short text, but still a message all the same—and you fear he must really be done with you.

On Ten’s part, he does have one justification for it; he’s preoccupied with dealing with the avalanche of unpleasant memories and emotions that incident resurfaced. Everything about what your parents said and how they looked at him reminds him of his past and ongoing struggles with trying to assimilate on Earth.

Even though he’s often very sure of himself and what he wants, he begins wondering if he’s “enough” for you. Maybe you’ve just been humoring him this whole time, or you’ve decided your parents are right and you’d be better off with another human. 

Those thoughts keep him up into the early morning hours, and he soon realizes he doesn’t want to let you go. In fact, he’s not sure what he’d do with himself if you decided to walk out of his life right now, and the idea of it makes him ill. Which makes him feel even more foolish for tuning you out.

Ten’s anxiety over losing you culminates in him standing on your doorstep again after almost a week of emptiness and not knowing how you were thinking or feeling—which has been killing him in its own way.

You’re not quite sure how to feel when you open the door and see him on the other side, but relief shoulders its way to the forefront.

“Y/N, I’m sorry—”

“Can you please—”

You both speak at the same time, your words breaking afterwards. 

“You can talk first,” Ten says.

“Come in.” You let him in the door, and the words start spilling before you know how to stop them. “Ten, I-I’m...really sorry. I should’ve known better than to put you in that situation, but I thought…” Your words trail off. You don’t want to let him know just how desperate you still are for your parents’ approval sometimes. Even though it’s a fruitless case. “I just wanted it to go well. I want things to work now, for us. I really, really want things to work for us.”

Ten surprises himself with how quickly he moves to take you in his arms before the last words have even finished settling in his mind. He hugs you tightly. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t want me anymore,” he whispers, like he’s telling you something forbidden.

“That couldn’t happen.” You’re saddened he’d come to that conclusion. “But...it’s not fair for you to leave me in the dark, either. I want to help you...so would you please let me?”

Ten squeezes you a bit tighter, as if you might disappear from his arms. “I’m sorry I ghosted you...it brought back bad memories of how things were when I first got here. When people were more open about treating me like some kind of enemy. I didn’t know how to deal with it.” You tuck your chin into his shoulder and listen to his breathing, his heartbeat, the sound of his words. “Y/N, I’m not sure if I’m very good at love, or if I even know enough about it. Maybe the others were right and I’m kidding myself with something I’ll never properly learn. But, I…” His voice cracks. “I-I think I love you. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Entirely overwhelmed, you answer his admission with a long kiss, cupping his face in your hands. His response to your kiss is automatic, the knots of tension unraveling in your embrace.

“I love you, Ten,” you whisper against his lips after you separate. Here and now, it doesn’t feel too soon at all; there couldn’t be a better time to say it. His expression is a lot of things at once. Relief, happiness, contentment...he’s blushing, but it shows up as a darker blue on his already blue skin. When he smiles, it turns his whole face into a picture of joy.

--

“I want to go away.” Quietly, you tell him this as you rest your head in his lap.

You’re both lying on your couch, the room dim and the sound of rain occupying the silence. A downpour started coming down soon after Ten got to your place. You’ve sat there just like that and listened to the rain on the windows for the past couple hours, not wanting to do anything else or separate from each other. You knew he wouldn’t want to go home, and you didn’t even have to ask him to stay.

Ten’s been petting your hair the whole time. The motion of his fingers in your kinky strands makes you sleepy, but now the movements pause at your words.

“Go where?” he asks.

“Away from all this. My parents hate me, and they won’t let me have any peace as long as I’m with you. I just want to go away for a while.” Despite you overflowing with love after finally getting your feelings out in the open, the thought of your parents’ disapproval has lingered steadily in the recesses of your mind. You close your eyes against the tears that begin to well up. Ten’s quiet for a few more moments, and then begins stroking your head again.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

A few tears fall despite you trying to keep them in, and your eyelids flutter when you feel Ten’s fingers on your face, wiping them away. “Then we’ll go away.”

Ten’s homeland is a planet where the sun—or rather, a star called Proxima Centauri that’s much like the sun—is always out, no matter what time of day it is. There are days where it rains or gets cloudy, but night never falls and the star never dips any lower in the sky, always staying pinned in that same spot like a tack on a corkboard. That everlasting light throws your body clock off, and combined with this weird new form of jet lag associated with space travel, you are a mess for the first week or so after your arrival.

Ten makes a few jokes about fragile human bodies, but for the most part he tends to you as best as he knows how and tells you stories about how he grew up to get your mind off the discomfort. He feeds you these neon green drinks that don’t look like anything on Earth you’ve had before, and although they do make you feel better, you begin to think maybe you should’ve had a wellness plan before running off-planet.

You aren’t the only human who’s ever visited or even lived there, though, which gives you reassurance about adjusting to everything. By now, there’s a small population of human beings living here due to the interplanetary exchange initiated by Earth.

Before you left, Ten told you he had a small home in his homeland. You didn’t quite expect to hear this, since he’d been on Earth for a while now and had no family to return to. Though he’d migrated, he still expected to come back to his planet every so often, if only to visit. Now was as good a time as any.

Although many differences exist, the scenery is much like Earth’s; there are ecosystems with plants and animals and other living beings—like the Sommu themselves. Ten’s homeland is not filled with wall-to-wall technology like you’d expect an alien city to be, based on the small examples you’ve seen on Earth. You might compare it to the tropics back on Earth, with the Sommu yielding to nature’s rightful place in their ecosystem instead of clearing out whole forests or continually mining for resources. Ten is amused by your struggle to comprehend the newness and unfamiliarity of it all.

When you feel good enough to explore, he starts taking you to the beach often. It looks mostly like any other beach, but there are large coral forms that grow out of the ocean, reaching up towards the impossibly blue and constantly illuminated sky. Because there is no moon to guide the tides, the water is eerily still, the surface mirror-like—like a huge lake or pond that extends in almost every direction for miles. You’d almost believe it was a mirror if you hadn’t seen a bird-like creature skimming across the surface as it flew by, creating fleeting ripples.

You swim around a little in the still waters after Ten convinces you that you aren’t going to turn into a fish or something equally scary. He has to hold both your hands the entire time to get you to step in, and he doesn’t let go until you’re confident enough to explore the water on your own.

“Just focus on me, okay?” His smile is bright and shining against his blue skin, and he looks you directly in the eyes as he backs into the water, breaking the surreal stillness of it with his movements. “It’s just like the water on Earth.”

“Okay, okay,” you say uncertainly, gripping his hands and stepping in tentatively. The water does feel like any other water you’ve touched throughout your life, which helps you calm down slightly. His hands stay tight around yours as you get waist-deep into the water.

When you’re finally able to let go of him, he claps his hands more enthusiastically than the situation probably calls for. “Yay, you’re a big girl now!”

You roll your eyes at him. “You’re not funny, Ten.”

--

On a bright afternoon, Ten lets you into a room of his house you haven’t entered before. You’ve passed by this shining white door several times, but it’s always remained firmly shut until now.

“What’s in here?” you ask as you hold his hand.

“That’s what I’m going to show you.” He laughs and pushes the door open.

You think it’s a darkroom at first, seeing nothing but dim light and the shiny surfaces of what looks like photographs as your eyes adjust. But when he touches his hand to a panel on the wall and the lights come on, you realize it’s not a darkroom. More like a small gallery for all his pictures.

The “pictures” are physical, but they aren’t like the old Polaroids or film photos that have begun fading out of existence on Earth. They’re small crystalline squares that play eternally-moving videos on their glossy surfaces—a bit different from the translucent holograms Earth adopted. You step further into the room to look at them. It’d probably take days to explore them all, there are so many. Different scenes play out as soundless movies, and when you look for long enough, you realize they’re split into different categories. Numerous events within a life.

Many are of the beach, other scenic places around his homeland, oddly-shaped buildings, and plants in colors that there are no names on Earth for. You step closer to one of the walls to look at the collection of images more closely. You actually do “recognize” a select few, linking them together with old memories Ten had shared with you only weeks ago. There’s so much happening in these small snippets of time, so many stories you haven’t yet heard, that you feel like you could look at them forever and not get enough.

“This is...something else.” Your words seem inadequate, but you don’t quite know how to express your sheer wonder.

“I could take some of you,” Ten suggests, from somewhere behind you. “I want to.”

You glance back at him. “Hm, yeah.”

“I’m serious.” Ten comes up behind you to clasp his arms around your waist. He tucks his chin into your shoulder. His lips are close at your neck, and you let them linger there. One of your hands goes to his own hand that’s over your waist, and you run your fingertips over his knuckles as you gaze at the photo wall before you. “I think you’d be the perfect muse.”

“You could do that.” You’re still entranced with it all, and you already know you’ve made up your mind to let him take as many photos of you as he wants.

--

The next time you go to the beach, Ten takes some photos of you standing near the huge coral forms—or at least as close as you are willing to get—and he laughs at your lingering hesitation.

Still, the crystalline photos he takes of you are the embodiment of perfection. When you look over them later, watching yourself twirl around and strike silly poses in the water, you can almost hear the sound of your laughter twining together and feel the warmth of a star that’s not the sun on your skin.

“What if we stayed here?”

You ask Ten this while you’re lying in his bed, watching a kaleidoscope of shapes on the ceiling. The bedroom window is open to allow the breeze to come in. The ceiling of the bedroom—and every other room in the house—is more like an ever-changing reflection of shapes and colors than an actual ceiling. You might compare it to a mirror, like the surface of the ocean, but you think it’s much more complex than that. Sometimes you can see the distorted outline of yourself in it, like a funhouse mirror. Other times, you see the sky above.

Ten lies beside you with one hand behind his head and the other resting on his stomach, and he turns his head to look at you.

“Stayed?”

“If we just decided not to...go back to Earth.”

He pauses for a few moments. “Is that a good idea? You have a whole life there...and your friends…” Ten doesn’t mention your family, which you are grateful for.

You sigh. Nothing like a quick injection of reality after letting your imagination get ahead of you. “We’d have to go back. I’d have to tell them goodbye. And sort some other things out. Maybe it wouldn’t happen right now. But, after I do everything I need to do on Earth...maybe I could migrate here.”

“That’s a big decision to make...and it should be yours to decide.” Ten pauses again, like he’s weighing his words. “You know I don’t have many connections on Earth…” In other words, leaving Earth and returning home for good might not be as big of a deal for him as it would be for you.

You sit up and look out the window, seeing how the warm wind stirs the trees outside. “I want to.” You say it almost inaudibly, your words nearly carried off by the breeze. You turn back to him only to find him already there, sitting across from you and looking at you closely. Your faces are only inches from each other’s as he searches your eyes. “What do you want to do?”

“I’ll do anything you want to.” Ten’s voice is earnest, like he’d follow you to Hell and back if you asked, and you believe him.

Resting your hand on his cheek, you kiss him.

This kiss is a little different from the ones you’ve shared before—more yearning. More desperate. You kiss like there won’t be enough time to do all the things you want to do with each other—to each other. His split tongue bumps against yours, caresses it, and it causes a shiver to go down your spine, like it always does.

You end up lying back on the bed again with Ten’s body crowding yours in, legs tangling together and hips pressing against one another’s. Neither of you have made a move to take the other’s clothes off yet, but then he separates from your lips for a long moment and studies your features, from your eyebrows down to your mouth.

“Touch yourself for me.”

Your mouth drops open slightly.

“I want to see it.” He takes one of your hands and guides it up under your skirt and between your legs, pressing your fingers against your sex through your underwear, and you look at him with wide eyes, taking a deep breath. He lets go of your hand, and you keep yours right where it is. You’re slightly nervous about his black gaze trained on you, unrelenting and prying, but you begin to move your hand anyway. 

Over your underwear, you press your finger between your lower lips, sliding between them and over your clit, and a little tremor goes through your body. You find yourself getting wet more quickly than you normally would with Ten watching you as you tease your entrance. You breathe a little heavier but make no sound yet. One of Ten’s hands reaches out for your ankle, though he doesn’t do anything other than keep his fingers there, a light touch that keeps passing back and forth over your ankle bone.

You circle your fingers across your clit more insistently, your legs tensing as the pleasure mounts higher. Ten’s lips part as he watches you, a heavy breath escaping from his chest. The hand on your ankle slides higher up your leg, just below your thigh, like he wants to slide his fingers into the mix and take over, but he doesn’t make a move to do so just yet.

Finally, Ten reaches under your skirt to pull your sticky panties off, sliding them slowly down your legs and leaving them somewhere on the floor. You want him to touch you again, the brush of his hands against your hips not enough, but he doesn’t grant your desire. “Keep going,” he says, leaning back on his hands, and you can see he’s growing hard.

You bring your hand back to its original place between your thighs, sliding through the wetness more easily and shuddering when your fingertips graze over your clit. You slide a finger into yourself then. A small moan slips out, and you close your eyes, but Ten’s fingers pinch your chin—not enough to hurt, but the sudden touch makes you look at him. “Keep your eyes open.” His thumb presses into your lower lip, and he stares at your mouth for a moment like he’s imagining sliding something hard and hot between your lips.

Ten kisses you on the lips again, and this time he trails the kisses down your body until he’s gripping your thighs on either side of his face. You pause in your movements when he reaches the junction of your thighs, and you watch as he grabs your hand and slips your finger out of yourself. He sucks the slick digit into his mouth, and you cannot tear your eyes away from him.

He lets your hand go and pulls you a few inches closer to his face, dragging you across the bed, and you can barely get your bearings back to sit up again when he slips his tongue through your lower lips. You moan, and he responds to that by repeating it again, catching your clit between the split in his tongue, and wiggling both sides.

“Oh Jesus...oh fuck.” Your hands go to Ten’s hair, pulling on it as you push your hips closer to his mouth, your back curving up. He is alluring tucked between your thighs like this, teasing and sucking your clit with his split tongue and prodding his fingers at your hole until he chooses to slide two of them inside.

His free hand keeps you close against his face as he eats you out, that wondrous tongue sliding against the most sensitive part of your body and making you gasp with boundless pleasure. Little droplets of moisture bead at the corners of your eyes from how good it feels, your stomach tensing and releasing as you try your best to keep still.

He has to keep his grip on your body tight when you come, as you try to squirm away from his tongue because of how stimulated you are. He only lets you go after he’s satisfied himself with licking up all the wet that’s spilled from you.

Then he strips your skirt off for you, because he knows you’re not quite in a state to do it for yourself right now. He peels the rest of your clothes off similarly, which doesn’t take much time or effort to do; you’ve dressed lightly for the weather.

Ten looks at you lying beneath him on the bed, his gaze stuck somewhere between awe and lust. 

He slips out of his own clothes with a certain practiced ease. Yes, he’s really blue everywhere. He looks mostly human-like everywhere, too, except for the lack of a belly button. 

Ten kisses you deeply as he slips into you, and you clutch at his sides. He tries to keep his pace slow at first, maybe for your sake or to just savor how it feels, but he gives into the feeling of you squeezing around him and starts thrusting into you faster. There is already sweat sliding down to his jaw, though you think it might be because of the heat, too.

“Fuck, you feel so good,” comes out of you in a voice you hardly recognize as your own.

His pelvis sliding against your clit from the proximity of your bodies makes you curl your fingers into the strands of his hair, wanting to touch every part of him you can. His lips go to the sweat-slicked skin of your shoulder, leaving little wet kisses behind as he wraps an arm around your waist and simply fucks into you, his shaft dragging against your walls.

He eventually separates himself from your neck, though it comes with some effort, to gaze at your face again. However, he finds that your eyes have drifted shut.

“Do you wanna come?” Ten asks, softly, gently, like you might break apart if he speaks too loud.

You’re a little winded from how he’s thrusting into you and can’t yet see the motive behind this question—because of course you do—but you answer with a shaky “I-I want to.”

“Then don’t look away from me.” His voice becomes harsher on these words.

“I…” Your lips move without any real words behind them as he thrusts into you harder, sinking all the way into you before pulling out to the tip. You want do what he’s just told you, but you find it difficult with the way he’s intent on burying himself into you, his eyes piercing into your own. “Mmm, I-I…”

You don’t know if you can, but the way he’s kindling your rising heat with each thrust makes you want to try very, very hard. Ten keep his hands on the sides of your face so you cannot look anywhere but at him.

The pleasure bears down on you more with each second, and you try to keep your breathing steady as another climax approaches.

“You’re almost there, come on baby,” he coaxes you, sloppily kissing the corner of your mouth before slipping his tongue in again. The way you gasp against his lips and tighten around him signals him to your orgasm, and he sits back to watch it play across your face, smirking at how you moan his name desperately.

Ten’s continued thrusts make you shiver from the flood of sensations overcoming your body, and you whimper at his movements until he pulls out and comes on your abdomen.

Ten gives you time to recover after you come down from your second orgasm, though he makes sure to lay a few more enamored kisses on your weakened body. He gets off the bed and exits the room after that. You don’t bother to ask where he’s going, because you know he’ll be back anyway.

When Ten comes back, he has his camera with him. The teasing tilt of his lips never leaves his face as he points it towards you. He takes a photo of you lying on his bed nude, with the breeze coming in and rustling the tree leaves and your hair, your skin shining bronze under the light of the eternal star. Then he comes closer, making the bed sink under his weight, and nudges your legs apart. He takes more photos of your lower stomach glistening with sweat and his cum—and photos of him sliding his slender fingers between your thighs and bringing you careening into another bout of euphoria.

The camera is soon forgotten after you come again. Ten climbs fully back onto the bed now and pulls you into his lap. His dick is hard again, and the length of it nudges against your lower lips, making you whimper from how sensitive you still are. He shushes you with a kiss and lifts your hips so he can slide into you, his shaft nudging that soft spot inside you and making you grip onto his arms.

You’re too mushy and dazed to do anything but let him push his hips up into you while you cling to him, your head lolling back. Ten’s mouth goes to the open expanse of your neck, and he wets your skin with his tongue.

The kaleidoscope of shapes above you on the ceiling morphs into one glistening reflection, throwing the blurred shapes of your bodies back to you. It’s like looking through a dense fog. You’re a little caught off guard by it, and you stare up at your nude forms. Ten looks up as well to see the cloudy figure of you cradled in his lap, and he only grins and thrusts up into you harder and smacks your ass in reply.

He grinds into you while he has you sitting full on his dick, and you think he must have set off your internal “reset” button somewhere between landing slaps on your ass and repeatedly hitting your g-spot. Your mind is blissfully, amazingly blank. The only clear thing you can distinguish is how he feels in and around you.

When you come this time, it comes with a gush of wetness that makes Ten whisper several smug praises into your ear for being such a good girl and making a mess on him.

As you quickly find out, Ten’s refractory period seems to be nonexistent, while his stamina is overflowing.

Ten knows how to mix the pain with pleasure in a way that enhances both feelings, and you don’t know if you’ve ever experienced anything more perfect. One moment, he’ll say something romantic and fairytale-like to you before shoving your head into the pillow and taking you from behind in the next moment, pulling one of your arms behind you for leverage as he thrusts into you hard. You want him to do whatever he desires to you, and so you let him hammer into you until you think your hips and ass will be bruised by the next morning.

You’ve never knew that sex could be so carnal and so loving at the same time, but this is all of those things, and it makes you feel so full that you could split at the seams. You scream, cry, and moan more times than you can count, so enveloped by pleasure that it seems like the atoms of your body will simply dissolve from the intensity.

When you both finally become too exhausted to continue, it’s still daytime. Of course. But Ten draws the blackout shade forward and seals all the light out, and so you know it must be time to sleep. Time blends together here. Even if it’s not yet the midnight hour, it will be as long as you deem it so.

“Come here,” he says, and rolls you over on the bed so you don’t have to sleep in the wet spot. You grin in sleepy amusement against his neck as he hugs you to his body. “Let’s stay right here.”

You know he’s talking about sleeping for the next few hours, but you can also imagine he’s referring to your new life—one you’ll create together.

[liberolove]

Testing the Waters (pt. 2)

Summary: youve finally graduated high school and now youre moving on to college. youve decided to go to sendai university. its summer and youve become curious about checking out the dating pool in miyagi, so you download a dating app. you figure you might as well have fun before delving too deep into your studies

Part: [part two] out of ???

Pairings: nishinoya x reader / kuroo x reader / oikawa x reader / kiyoko x reader

A/N: theres tons of ships here, just me living out my hoe phase lmao please dont judge me. let me know what yall think

Genre: fluff, smut, crack

Warnings: flirting, college shinanigans

It’s been three days since the last time you saw Yuu. Gosh, even saying his name to yourself gave you goosebumps. You two have been texting non stop and honestly, it felt so refreshing. You were a pretty bad texter but he knew how to keep the conversation going. 

One of his favorite things to do was play 21 questions with you. He wasn’t like those fuckboys who would use this opportunity to ask you if you were a virgin or what your favorite position was. Yuu was different. He came up with the craziest scenarios and judged you on the way you answered. One time he asked you how you would escape a 300 lb lion that just broke out of the zoo you were visiting. You honestly had no idea how to respond but eventually you replied, 

“I’d make sure to run with a crowd and ‘accidentally’ trip a slow runner so that the lion could get distracted and probably (most likely) attack them. This would buy me some time to get the hell out there.”

This response caught Noya off guard but he loved the way you thought. You continued to come up with barbaric schemes to survive all the scenarios he would throw at you. He kept you guessing and that was what you liked so much about him. He was wild and so were you.

You were getting a little impatient over your next date so you took a deep breath and eventually asked him.

Y/N: Heeey, Yuu. I was wondering when you’d like to go out again. I’d really like to go out with you again.

Nishinoya Yuu: hey cutie! I’ve been wanting to see you again but I haven’t had any days off from work lately.. (; ･`д･´) IM DYING!! I just wanna see yoouuuuu

Y: Aw man.. :( That sucks. When do you think you’ll get your next day off?

N: idk tbh but hopefully it’s soon!!

Y: no worries, just let me know.

N: will do!!

Well, that was that. Now you wondered what you should do to pass the time. You were bored again and needed something to do. “Oh wait. I should check the app. I haven’t checked since I messaged Yuu on there. Maybe I have more matches.”

You opened up the app and you had 10 notifications. You had gotten some likes on the selfie you posted and several people viewed your profile. You checked who looked at your profile, and it was mostly ugly, older, men. “Gross,” you thought to yourself. Besides this, you noticed some new messages. 

You opened up the first message. 

“Hey sexy! Wanna come see me play? Click my link https://…..”

“Damn bots. So annoying.” You deleted the message. Next message:

“DTF?”

“I mean like yeah, but you could’ve been less forward in your message. What a turn off..” You had one last notification left. Maybe it wouldn’t be a let down.

“Are you made of Fluorine, Iodine, and Neon? 'Cause you are F-I-Ne.”

To be honest, this pick up line did make you giggle a little. You checked out the profile of the mysterious stranger who sent it and you were surprised that it was a bulked up biker. And damn, was he hot as hell. 

His hair stood up in an organized, weird bed head kind of way. It made him look like a rooster. Rather than smile in his photos, he smirked. And his eyes looked like he could undress you solely with his gaze. He looked like your typical bad boy, but that didn’t make sense. Why would he use a chemistry pick up line?

This made you become even more interested, so you replied back with another cheesy pick up line.

Y/N: I wish I were adenine because then I could get paired with U.

Kuroo Tetsuro: Hey, kitten. I thought you’d never reply. You had me waiting.

Y: umm??? calling me kitten already?

K: What’s wrong? Are you flustered already? We haven’t even met up yet.

Y: woah there cowboy! hold your horses

K: I’m not a cowboy, but I’ll gladly have you ride me instead.

Y: skskskks i cant even-

K: Sorry. Too much?

Y: YES TOO MUCH

K: Alright. Let me start over. Ahh, a fellow chemist, I presume?

Y: yeaaah, kind of. I have a love/hate relationship with chemistry.

K: Is that so? Maybe I can help with that.

Y: oh really? how so?

K: I am a chemistry major after all. I go to Sendai. Do you go to school?

Y: uhhh i’m going to start there in the fall. I still haven’t decided what to major in, just yet.

K: Maybe you’ll end up being a chemistry major like me and I can give you private one on one lessons? 

Y: I highly doubt that, but nice try. 

K: Have you gotten a tour of the campus yet? Or are you waiting for freshman orientation?

Y: nah, I haven’t seen all of it yet. 

K: Would you like to?

Y: um sure! When are you free for my private tour? (:

K: How about tomorrow in the morning? Maybe around 9am? I can pick you up too if you’d like.

Y: Sounds good and no thanks. I’m not riding on that motorcycle! Looks scary :(

K: Don’t worry, kitten. I’ll drive safely and make sure nothing happens to you.

Y: there you go again.

K: Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. No, but really. I don’t mind picking you up. Have you ever been on a motorcycle before?

Y: nope

K: Then, let’s change that. Send me your address tomorrow morning. And get some rest.

Y: alrighty it’s a plan then!

K: No. It’s a date.

Y: sksksk omg

After that conversation, all you could think about was how the hell did you get into this mess? Motorcycles are dangerous, yet this rooster convinced you so easily to take a ride with him.. 

It was an understatement to say that you were nervous for tomorrow.

You set an alarm for 7 am the next day and went to bed.

Your alarm woke you up and you immediately remembered why you were awake so early. You rushed into the shower and once you were out, you spent 30 minutes deciding on what to wear. You opted for some black, ripped skinny jeans and a white v-neck t-shirt. 

At 8am on the dot, your phone’s notification bell went off. It was Kuroo.

“What’s your address, baby?”

You sent him the details and continued getting ready. You put on some light makeup and brushed your hair. You checked the time, and it was already 8:55 am. Then, your phone went off again.

“I’m outside.”

Your heart almost beat out of your chest. You grabbed your purse and put on some chapstick. You know, just in case..

You locked up your apartment and walked down the stairs. You were greeted by the biggest shit eating grin on the sexiest man you’d ever seen. You never went for the bad boys but college is a time for experimenting. 

“Hey, Y/N. You ready to ride? I brought an extra helmet for you.”

“Hi, Kuroo. And yeah, I guess,” your voice shook as you replied. You were really nervous but you tried to hide it.

“Don’t worry, baby. There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’ll keep you safe.”

His words made you melt and you had just met him. The way he cooed at you and looked your way made you blush. You felt your cheeks get hotter by the second.

“Alright. Hop on and hold on to my waist. Hold on tight or else you’re gonna fly away when I take off. Okay?”

“..okay..” you managed to mutter. You were shaking but you put on the helmet he gave you and lifted up your leg to sit on the metal machine. You slowly hugged Kuroo from behind and held on as tight as you could. Your head was smashed right up against his large, broad back.

“Ready?” he asked.

“..yeah,” you squeaked.

Before you finished saying this, he had taken off like the devil was chasing him. If this was his meaning of safe driving, you didn’t want to find out his meaning of reckless driving.

The ride to Sendai University only took about 5 minutes, when realistically it would take 20 minutes by bus. You arrived and Kuroo teased, “are you going to let go, kitty?”

You hadn’t realized you were still gripping onto him for dear life. You released him from your hold and your hands still tingled from the amount of force you applied to his shirt. “Sorry!”

“No worries. Hey, look! I brought you here alive. Aren’t you glad?” he cackled. 

His laugh sounded like a dying hyena but it did sound a little cute at the same time. “Yeah. Thank goodness. Your driving is insane, dude.”

He showed you all over campus, from the administrative buildings to the gymnasium, to the fields. Sendai was a pretty big campus, and it made you glad that you had a personal guide to show you all the different buildings. 

After your little tour was over, he asked, “wanna grab a bite to eat? I’ll be a gentleman and pay for you too.”

Of course, you couldn’t say no to food. Much less, FREE FOOD! You nodded and got ready to ride the devil’s machinery again.

He took you to a nearby sushi bar. “Order whatever you’d like, princess. Today, I want to spoil you rotten.”

You melted at his words and also at the variety of rolls on the menu. You didn’t ask him if he really meant that you could order anything. You just kind of went for it. You ordered everything from shrimp tempura, to octopus, to eel. Sushi was your favorite and being told that you could order everything was a dream come true.

“Damn, girl! I had no idea you had such a huge appetite!  I didn’t know you’d take me seriously on my offer. You’re gonna run my pockets dry.”

You blushed and looked away. “Sorry, Kuroo. I really couldn’t help myself. I love sushi so much.”

“I’m just teasing you, baby. You deserve to be treated like this everyday.”

You had no idea how to respond so you just kept stuffing your face with sushi.

After you finally had your fill, it was time to go home. It was getting late. Kuroo took you home and you were definitely more relaxed this time on the bike. 

“I hope you had a great time today, kitty. And I hope I met your standards.”

“Yes, I did! Thank you so much, Kuroo! This was honestly so much fun. Thanks for everything.”

“Of course. Nothing but the best for you. I just need one little favor from you, baby.”

“Oh? What is it?”

“Can I get a kiss from your soft lips? I know you want to. I saw the way you kept staring at me, today.”

“Oh.. uhh.. Y-yea-yeah. Sure, of course.. Yeah,” you stammered. 

You looked at him with soft, shy eyes and before you knew it, he leaned in quickly and kissed you on the lips. Your eyes were wide open in surprise but as he deepened the kiss, your eyes slowly shut.

The kiss felt like electricity coursing through your body. You didn’t know what it was, but this man definitely already had you wrapped around his long, slender finger. 

As soon as you realized his hold on you, he backed off, and left you wanting more. He was such a tease.

“I can’t just let you have everything today, kitten. I need you wanting more.”

You didn’t know what to respond so you looked down at the ground shyly. 

“I’ll message you later, y/n. Don’t make me wait too long, again.”

You waved and muttered, “Thank you, Kuroo.”

He revved up his bike and was gone in seconds.

You remained in a daze as you walked back up to your apartment. Once you got inside, you plopped down on your couch and released a long sigh. “Who knew that college was going to be so exciting..”

[link to kuroo pic i found]

[sunshinexlollipops]

Honestly I recommend maybe just mentioning the situation to your manager. That way if he even gets hired maybe they can just keep an eye on it. I had a similar situation where a coworker kept making suggestive comments to me. I didn’t really think twice about it but some of my female coworkers freaked when i told them and they made me tell the manager who kept an eye on it and dealt with things when it eventually escalated from there.

Okay anon so this is a bit of a longer, more in-depth response to what happened and giving more context about my former coworker’s creepy behavior this week and what my manager did in response to it!

I put a read more to help avoid making this post a massive pain to scroll past, haha.

But at a glance, I can say that I was disturbed this week with some of what he was doing and tbh I’m trying to minimize things so that hopefully a situation isn’t created and I cannot actively become a target if this guy hates rejection in any form and me trying to get distance will piss him off.

It’s... a lot. But for right now my bases are as covered as far as they can be!

edit: oh my god this thing got so messed up and deleted part of this WTF.

Basically he’s a young kid and he’s unofficially on the spectrum. He wasn’t well liked at first because he did a lot of stupid stuff when he first got hired (like chasing after a customer and accusing them of theft when they DIDN’T steal anything and then arguing with customers to the point they wanted to kick his ass-- not even joking, they were ready to fight him). I tried to be kind to him but had to correct things so at first he liked that I wasn’t as harsh as other people but I guess that developed into feelings over time.

He has a GF and while he likes her, it’s like they are easily one thing away from breaking up. I’m sure she is the only reason he hasn’t said anything, and if they do break up, BOOM open season begins. His GF mentioned she doesn’t like him being around me and he told me this and I said: “Tell her not to worry, I’m gay / don’t date anyone / am never interested in anyone / or we are JUST FRIENDS.”

This never stalled him. And despite us never directly talking about feelings and him never admitting he had a crush, it was obvious. He was always wanting to talk to me, attached to my hip. But it was weird because for a minute, he was starting to become a bit distant right up until I mentioned I was leaving, and then he just did all this stuff in a week’s span.

I didn’t exactly get too in depth on my initial posts, but he really creeped me out this week.

My 2nd to last day at my old job, I went through what I call “the phone fiasco.”

I was cashier, and I was at the register ringing up customers at a near constant. Because of this, my coworker couldn’t come up to talk to me and he had to stay in his department across the store. Well, a lady is about to swipe her card, and the guy behind her sees her puppy and says he’d love a picture of it for his wife it that was okay. The lady consents and the guy takes his phone out.

We have radios to communicate with one another and over the radio my coworker yells: IS THAT GUY TAKING PHOTOS OF YOU?

I seriously didn’t understand what was happening at first, but after he repeated himself I’m like... “Uh no dude, he’s taking pics of a dog?”

My manager on duty was really confused for a sec and I had to explain that no one was taking pictures of me. As I did this, I looked over to my coworker’s department and I couldn’t see anyone. Meaning: I couldn’t see where he was watching me from. Knowing he had been doing so before this, as he noticed this guy take his phone out for pictures, this disturbed me because it had me wondering how long this kid was watching me for, on top of not knowing/seeing where he was doing this.

My last day at work he got me a card. He basically said he’d miss me and he gave me a few dollars with it. I was half expecting him to say something about his feelings because he was so nervous about this card. But I thanked him politely and he told me he would “see me soon” at my new job (which he learned of from coworkers) and wished me luck. 

Well I didn’t know that mean he was going to come in THE NEXT DAY. As I mentioned, my last two days of work lined up consecutively with my first 5 at my new job, so I legit worked 7 days straight this past week. So I legit finished my old job with him the day prior, and now here he is the following morning at my new work.

I seriously got no heads up or had any idea he was coming in until he already left and he didn’t see me. I was in the back doing my computer training when he texted me about it and said he was coming in again after a few days.

He did as promised and showed up and made sure to come in when I was working. Due to COVID hours and scheduling, I would’ve been there one hour after opening and would leave one hour before close, so there wasn’t a good window to avoid him during that time.

He made sure to sneak up on me and surprise me and after he did that he began talking to me. He told me about how work was going to shit (not a lie tbh) and he was wanting to jump ship and he asked me if my new work was hiring. I told him to jump, genuinely, because that place is hell, but I suggested to try other places in the area as I didn’t think any positions were really open. He took this as “yes there’s something” and “ah what a great suggestion about positions here” because he said he would talk to my manager and see if he could get hired on “soon.”

Like visiting me, he went in to talk to my manager the FOLLOWING day. He went in store and asked about applying and my manager talked to him a bit. I haven’t mentioned him to my manager whatsoever and I’ve only mentioned one former coworker that I was hoping could transition over which was NOT him. My manager thought it was him but in general told him about a full-time position that was open. He immediately tried to bank on this.

He texted me after this happened telling me I was “a saint.” Idk why because I:

1) never recommended him to apply in the first place.

It was his idea and I advocated against it. I was never encouraging him to apply to my work, but actively at other places.

2) didn’t tell him about the position he applied for.

I didn’t know what was available. I told him as much. And even when he texted me about it, he said my store manager informed him of this full time position.

Which leads me onto what happened YESTERDAY. He texts me trying to ask for my associate ID for his application. I did this myself, and I put that my sis/coworker recommended I apply. When you do this, it asks for their ID on the app. Like most people, I noped and just said I found out by an employment site.

No. This boy wants to give me credit for something I didn’t do. Legit I didn’t even know that position was available and ofc I couldn’t recommend something I didn’t know existed. He was still insistent so I lied and said I couldn’t remember my number, lmao.

Now for the biggest bit: I had talked to my manager the day before this whole “let me give you credit” text.

My manager wanted my opinion on him anyways, but I contacted her out of the blue asking to talk to him. I told her about all of this listed above and how I was getting majorly creeped out and uncomfortable, and she completely understood. The phone fiasco bothered her and she didn’t like how I told her about “he’s come to see me twice and is trying to become my coworker again in 6 days of me being here.”

She doesn’t seem keen on hiring him but will most likely have to go through the interview for the sake of things but there were other issues like his availability and in general, he’s been refused at my work once before (reason why he ended up applying and getting hired at my old work). So hopefully it will look like a more natural rejection with valid reasons instead of it just being how he is with me because I do not want to escalate him, if possible.

I’m trying to make it appear like distance is withering things too, unless he really amps up and does creepier things because I only want to outright tell him to fuck off with more fire behind those words and when it truly becomes a bigger issue than a week’s worth of weird shit.

Management already knows, so if it gets worse, I will be able to address it and I’ve been starting to keep note of things happening in case it does escalate and it becomes an issue that affects my security and well-being.

Oof. Gotta love guys, right? ;--;

[geekygoddesss]

“You’re so silly, I love you”

Requested by @teenageguitarist  

Based on one of my favorite scenes from my favorite show, Friends.

Everyone knew that Mondays were boring as fuck, it was no secret, they came after everyone’s praised weekend and somehow this day always seemed like the longest day ever. But not today. It was indeed Monday, but not only that, it was the day my boyfriend and his band were releasing their last album and that deserved a celebration.

It obviously had to happen at Ashton’s place, with happened to be right beside ours and it was a little bigger than our place, plus, out of everyone in the band, he was the one that was more excited for this new record, he poured his heart out on this, throwing out a party almost felt like a necessity.

It was fun. We drank, we danced, we laughed. Just like a good party should be, so naturally, after a good few hours of a full house of people drinking and messing around, people started leaving, it was the start of the week and a lot of them have things to do the next day, it’s totally fine, we only got left with the same old group of friends, the ones that would be around no matter what and the ones we could always count on for a good laugh. It felt like home to have them here.

We were currently sitting on Ashton’s living room, I was comfortably leaning on Calum’s embrace, while everyone else was sitting around in a circle, the lights were low around us and there was music in the background playing so softly. I was holding back a laugh from seeing our friend Mitchy prank calling some guy who worked with him, telling him something about winning a new X box or something like that. Lame joke, but I found it really funny.

He ended up hanging up the call after five minutes of keeping it up, we moved on our little truth or dare game, something kind of childish to do, but always really fun.

“Okay, so (Y/n), truth or dare?” Mitchy points at me since it was his turn to pick someone.

“Truth” I answer lazily, I was starting to grow a little tired, since it was already almost 3 in the morning and I barely slept before. I was not totally in the mood for dares.

“Boring” someone calls out to me, I don’t even see who it was.

“Hey” Calum says frowning a little and rubbing on my arm.

Mitchy seems to really think about it, there are not many things that you can ask in truth or dare, let’s be real, in this dumb games if you weren’t creative enough you would end up asking the same old questions everyone always asked. That is exactly what he didn’t do “Tell us about something you did years ago and you haven’t told anyone about” he says in a daring tone. I was really not expecting that.

“Woah, that’s very specific” I hear Michael say from the other side of the room.

“Yeah, where’s that coming from?” I ask him with a frown, it was such a weird question.

“She chose truth, I literally can’t think of anything else to ask” he excused himself.

“You don’t have to answer”  Calum whispers in my ear before kissing my head.

I think about it for a second, yes I technically don’t have to answer such a thing if I don’t want to and take a dare instead, but there’s something I need to say, maybe this is the time now that he brought this up. Nothing too harmful I guess, it’s just something that happened, I’ve been keeping this for myself for a while, we were all friends here, there’s no harm in saying it now.

“No, it’s fine” I smile up to Calum and move a little, sitting straight by his side “Well, Okay” I sigh, really thinking on what I was about to say, but there was no turning back now “Do you remember that time when we were in Australia and I was just starting to work with you?” I ask him.

“Yeah?” He nods with a confused look “Before we were dating?” He asks me.

“Yes”  I nod. My hands were shaking a little.

I give a deep sigh and close my eyes. I start talking.

I remember that day clearly because it was fucking scary. I was 18, maybe 19 at that time, the truth is I don’t remember but I was young.

I was just starting my job as a general assistant for the band’s team, I would help anyone with what they needed, no matter what it was. It was my second, maybe third week working on this and to be honest, I was having such a blast, I loved my job.

I remember to be helping the merch guy to load up the little stores around the venues. There tons of boxes around and we needed to put every single one of them in place before show time, I was not the only helping on this. My boss, Mark came up to me that day, catching me just walking through the doors that lead backstage and just getting to the store closer to the stage.

“(Y/n), are you busy right now?” He asked me with a friendly smile when he saw me.

“Em, no, not really” I lie, putting the box down on the store counter, If I could do something better than carrying boxes I would take that chance, I wasn’t in total shape and I hated carrying heavy things “I was just helping Gary with all these” I say pointing at the heavy box beside me.

“Okay cool” he nods and gives a step closer “I need you to do something for me” he says and pulls a phone from his pocket  “See this?”   “Yep” I nod.

“It’s Ella’s phone” he explained, I knew Ella, she was the one that always helped with all the photography stuff, she’s nice “She has some footage in there, recordings, everything, even those edited tour diary videos” he explains “Just put it all of it on your laptop, save it, and send it to me” he Instructs me, handing me the phone quickly and stepping back to do whatever he had to do “Uh, also make sure to find the clue images to post on twitter and program it to be posted in an hour or so” he adds up, walking away.

“You got it” I say loud enough so he could hear me.

“Thanks, Kiddo” “Anytime!” I call back, walking to a whole different way than I was before.

I remember how quickly I got to the green room, which was the room right beside the catering. I grabbed my laptop and turn it on, taking my USB cable to plug the phone into the computer. It was such a weird moment, there was exactly what Mark said there was, footage, videos of the guys, pictures, but right beside one of the clues pictures I had to post on twitter, there’s was a really low-quality video showing on screen, it looked like a screen recording from the camera of another phone or this phone.

Out of pure curiosity, I click on the video, it’s my computer, after all, no one would find out. It started as a weird video (indeed a screen recording) of a boy that not only didn’t showed his face but showing off his body from the neck down. It was such a short video, around 10 seconds, but it was clear, the boy in the video took the hem of his pants and pulled it down, showing off his boner in a very clear picture before the image went back to an app main menu.

“Oh, what the hell?” I sighed with a big frown. what the actual hell?. I play the video one more time, trying to take a guess on who was the person in it, but it doesn’t take me long to find out, because I recognized that big tattoo on his arm, that big bird in black ink was really ringing a bell, that boy was Calum “Oh my god” I almost wanted to exclaim my cheeks getting redder and redder “Bitch” I groan, playing the video one more time, there was a laugh at the end. Ella’s laugh, what a fucking bitch. She recorded Calum’s dick. Bitch.

I try to take my mind off what I just saw as I do the exact thing that my boss told me to do, I sent him the videos, post things he told me to, but somehow I found myself looking at that video again, who the hell would do something like this and save it up along with videos of the band that was to be public, Obviously someone who’s brain was as big as a peanut or smaller than ant. I don’t know what I should but I was definitely going to delete that video.

I click on the video image on the screen and click again, showing all of the options that I could do to this footage, I was just about to delete it, but I hear my name being called once and then again, I look up and click the option without looking to then immediately shut my computer down.

“(Y/n)?” I hear a voice call me again and enter the room. Speaking of the devil. “Yeah?” I say with a very fake smile “Oh hi, Calum” I say putting my computer aside. He smiles back to me “Hey, I thought I heard you here” he says walking into the room towards the mini bar “What are you up to?” I hesitate a little to answer “I’m just here” I shrug “hanging out” “Oh” he nods talking out a water bottle and opening it up  “Listen, I still have like an hour or two before I have to go on stage, I was wondering if you wanted to, you know, join me and go for coffee or something?” he says smiling and taking a sip of his water, he already looked ready to go for stage and he was now asking me out.

Isn’t he dating, Ella? “What?” I say for myself, but I snap out of my temporary trance before he thought I was crazy or something  “I mean, Yeah, I would love to” I smile at him, my blushed, that’s embarrassing. “Nice” he says with a very wide smile “should we go then?” he says pointing to the door. “Yeah, yeah, I Just- I need a second, I’m finishing something, I’ll be done in a minute” I say, almost sounding rushed and I was not lying, I still had to send Mark a couple of videos. “Okay”  he nods “I’ll wait for you outside then” “Okay” I nod back, to then wait for him to leave the room.

I wait to open my laptop until I hear the door shutting, I am very quick, I open my computer and go to my previous job, sending in what needed to be sent in, but I notice something weird, the moment I go to my twitter profile sitting right beside my mail is literally blowing up, not in a bad way, I guess, I have like a thousand followers, I was not popular. I scroll down and see what’s happening.

I hit send, not delete. Fuck.  I’m stupid. “Shit, shit, shit” I curse under my breath, my hands are shaking so bad that I barely knew what I was doing  “No, don’t do this to me” I say going to my profile and immediately deleting that video. about 20 people have already liked this. then realisation came “I’m gonna lose my job” “(Y/n)?” I hear calum call me out and I just close my laptop.

“Coming”  I call out and get up my sit, taking the phone with me and leaving my computer away “I’m ready, let’s go”

So, that was the day he first asked me out, along with the day I almost ruin his career. This is fucked up.

“You posted my nudes?” He said in a not very happy tone. I don’t blame him if it was me I would be mad too. “It was you?” I hear Luke ask in surprise. “I’m so sorry, okay?” I panic, getting up my seat “I didn’t mean to do that before I could delete it some people already had the video” I explain, but I could tell this was not getting any better “it was an accident” “People kept making fun of me for months” Calum says getting up his seat too and almost trying to control himself from yelling “The management team went hammed on me because of it, you know that, I was so dead nervous thinking you would think badly of me for that shit” He groaning “And I didn’t” I exclaim, almost like if that was the good side of the story “listen, Calum I’m so sorry” “Why didn’t you tell me this?” He shakes his head, he’s disappointed at me. I shrugged and look down “Because of I kind of ignored it” I mumble “I didn’t want you to freak out” “Well, I am freaking out now!” he exclaims at me and I flinch, I wasn’t scared, just surprised that he suddenly raised his voice, I didn’t like when he did that “I am so sorry baby” I say looking up at him and trying to hug him but he walks back, getting away from my hold. “Well a ‘sorry’ doesn’t cut it, I can’t believe you did that” he says shaking his head even more “Fuck this, I’m sorry, I’m gonna go” He says and with that, he just turns around to leave. “Calum” I walk towards me but he almost marches straight to the door. “Don’t follow me”  he groans, to then walk out of his best friend’s house. I stand on my feet, not giving a single step towards him, he’s really mad at me and that was never good. So I decide to not push it for a little while and wait for him to cool down a least a little. I just hope he doesn’t break up with me over this. I really hope he didn’t. “Shit, (Y/n) I feel so bad, I’m sorry” Mitch’s says, clearly apologizing for doing that question in first place. “It’s okay” I say giving him a sad smile “I guess this had to be told someday, anyways” I shrug “I think I should go now” I say walking starting to walk out but before I could give a full step, Crystal, Michael’s girlfriend, grab my arm. “Do you want me to keep you company for a while?” She kindly offers. “No, thanks, Crys” I say with a shrug “I guess I’ll try to talk to him” I say and she nods at my answer “thanks for having us, Ashton” I wave my hand at me. “Anytime, good luck” he says with a kind smile. Good luck. That’s the best thing someone could tell me right now, cause I was fucking nervous.   Walking home isn’t really a long way and I can tell Calum literally ran home because I don’t run into him on my way back. I left just a minute before he did, I should have at least see him enter the house, which I didn’t, however, the lights were on, he was clearly in there. I unlock the door with my keys and close the door behind me, I don’t even have to take a guess of where he Is because he always goes to the same place when he’s upset. The music studio. I walk to the door of his studio upstairs. It’s quiet inside, so I guess he’s just digesting what just happened, makes sense. I know twice and I hear his groan at the other side of the door. “Open up” I say softly. “Go away” “Calum, really, open up” I say grabbing the door knocker but the door is completely locked “I’m sorry okay?  That happened years ago, let it go” I say as if that was going to make him be less mad at me. “How can I just let it go?” He exclaims and I flinch, he’s raising his voice again “You could have ruined my reputation” “I know,I’m sorry” I mumble and knock again “Just open up, talk to me” I beg but he ignores me. I ran out of words to say and I feel like I have no other way to Ale him happy again. But oh wait, there is one way, one really stupid and strange way of making him happy again. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I clear my voice for a second and prepare my voice for what I’m going to do. “(Y/n) says she’s sorry and she shouldn’t have done that”  I say I’m a very high and awkward voice I only did when I was joking around with him “it was a big mistake and she won’t ever ever do that again” I hear him groan and little and walk to the door, opening it up and looking awkwardly at me “What are you doing?”  He asks “She feels really bad for not telling you” I keep talking in that voice, I could see somehow it was making all of this a bit better. “Are you really imitating Tommy pickles to make me feel better?” He asks crossing his arms over his chest. “Well” I shrug, keeping my voice high pitched “a baby’s gotta do what a baby’s gotta do” He tries to keep his face still but I can see his smile starting to crack and breaking up into a full-on laugh, it felt like music to my ears, just beautiful. “Did I do it?” I say in my normal voice with a big smile on my face. “Oh my god” he says in between laughs, looking at me like I was the greatest thing that ever made him laugh “you’re so silly, I love you” he says and I (literally) freeze. “What?” I ask, my face can’t help but smile. That was the best thing he has ever said. In all of these years we’ve been dating he’s never told me such a thing, it had nothing to do with me, it was just him, he wanted to be sure that he would say those three words to the right person and believed that saying it marked a very important phase in the relationship. I respected that, and hearing him say it to me felt special. “Nothing” he says, starting to freak out “I said you’re silly and then I just stopped talking” My hands are covering my face and then my mouth, I point at his chest and make him give a step back, his eyes were wide in surprise, he was totally weird out by this “You said you love me, I can’t believe this” “No, I didn’t” he denies “Yes, you did” “No, I didn’t” “You love me!” I exclaim in emotion, while he keeps freaking out. “No, I don’t” he freaks out  “Stop it, Stop it, Stop it” he says running his hand through his hair and giving a step back. “You Stop it!” I laugh, my eyes were filling up with tears. “Oh my god, you love me” “Okay well, yeah! I do” he says in realizations to then look at me “Are you crying?” He says softly, walking to me. “I’m so happy” I cry, feeling him pull me into a hug “you finally said it” “I did” he said running my back softly “I’m sorry I freaked out” he apologizes “I’m sorry about the video” I said back, looking up at him. “It’s fine I guess” he shrugs  “it happened a long time ago” “But I’m truly sorry about it” I apologize once again, crying into his chest. “I know” he says softly to then caress my hair “stop crying” he chuckles, caressing my head really softly. “I can’t” I laugh a little, I really couldn’t stop crying  “Calum?” “Yeah” he mumbles in response. “I love you, too” I say and look up at him with my already red eyes. “I know” he says, kissing my forehead “I know” We stay quiet for a good while, embracing each other and feeling the warmth of the moment, it was definitely a weird night, but thankfully, it turned out better than what it could have been. All I needed to know here was that we now know how much we love each other, and that was more than enough. Well, that’s really all I need.

[cutenessinanutshell]

So one of the girls had recommended this site for my therapy which I use and today she was going off about how I should keep the journal active and how she doesn’t think the therapist can see what’s in your journal, because there’s a section where you can write. She says I should write every morning three things I’m grateful for. How can you be grateful for three different things every single day. I am not. I’m just tired. Being at the studio felt stupid and I didn’t want to be there. I cancelled my evening classes because I don’t want to exert myself and my wrist has been hurting today.

My parents asked me if I wanted to move to Halifax and get away from all of this. They told me to sell my shares of the studio and go start a life there. They told me they’d help set me up with a condo and a job. That I could open a studio with my best friend over there. I told them I was finally starting to build close real friends here. Real friends I could trust. I haven’t even told my best friend about the whole thing. I don’t want to. She always told me I deserved someone who would shower me with love and the things I need. She hated tj for so long. I wonder if she ever got used to him or if she just at some point accepted that I wasn’t leaving anytime soon. I don’t think she’d feel happy if I told her. I think she’d know how much it kills me inside. I think maybe she knew that I would’ve done anything for him and that if it was the last thing I would’ve done it would’ve been being by his side. I think she knew how soft he made me.

Now I can hear my footsteps louder, it’s interesting. I can hear my stomach beg for food but I don’t want to get off the bed. I want to stay immobile. Tomorrow and Thursday I’m going to lay in bed all day. I don’t want to be at work. I really just wanna cancel all my classes for this week. I’m not okay. I don’t have it in me to pretend to be okay. I don’t want to. I don’t want to fucking pretend to be happy to see any of the girls and I don’t want to pretend to sound happy while teaching classes. I definitely don’t want to pretend to be sexy.

You know he was messaging girls from his past? Another thing we agreed not to do. I made sure I didn’t. I knew of a guy I had a romantic thing with in grade ten that wanted to take me out for drinks. I never went nor did I ever even reach out. Anyway I don’t plan on dating or sleeping with anyone soon. Tj was saying something about “you’re gonna get horny at some point” on the phone the other day. Yeah and you fucking deal with it. Just because you’re horny doesn’t mean you go out and you sleep with whatever talks to you. There are so many single people in this world that face this problem, it is not fucking hard to refrain from that shit. Just because I’m used to getting laid at least every two weeks with him doesn’t mean it’s a fucking habit. Control yourself. He didn’t so I don’t expect that to change. Honestly I don’t really expect anything from him. I can’t. He’s not my boyfriend anymore. I wish I could expect and I wish he were. But he’s not. I deleted any and all dating apps. I don’t want to meet anyone. I was supposed to get better with TJ for cuffing season. We were supposed to grow and be better together and that’s all over. But he’s a pig. I never did anything as extensive as him. I did some shit things too but not this shitty. What kind of person would I be if I stayed? He’d do it again. He would say he’s sorry, I would be insecure and irritable like I was in 2017, and he’d continue hiding things. He’d fall back into the same exact cycle. I wouldn’t win. I’d be waiting years for him to be ready to fucking marry me because and even then I think we’d end up in divorce. That’s something I thought about a lot which is why I never pushed him to propose. My brain KNEW. I used to think about “okay he says he’s not ready to get married. That means that he’s not ready to get married to me. After this long, he still doesn’t think I’m the one.” I used to think “okay I’m not gonna push him because I feel like I don’t want to be divorced one day and then everyone told me so.” A part of me always knew that was a possibility because I knew I was unhappy but I couldn’t figure out why. I knew there were things I wish he did for me, and I knew there were things I wish I could have more of, but I couldn’t put my finger on why there were times where I felt like something was missing. But I knew something was missing. I told him in August when I started to realize it, “babe, I need more...” I couldn’t articulate the specifics and maybe I should’ve. But I think maybe I just figured “this is who he is.” ThAts his personality, you can’t change that. He wasn’t romantic and I am a hopeless romantic. I remember the first fight we had when I came to visit in first year, I bought him roses to say I was sorry, and then I took them home to Halifax. I preserved them because I thought it was special but it wasn’t because I literally just bought flowers for myself. I literally fooled myself into believing there was any kind of sentiment when it was ME who was the sentiment. I was sentimental for myself. Weird.

My parents asked me what happened. I didn’t want to tell them the full story so I said “therapy worked. You keep talking out loud and talking about why you’re unhappy and one day you wake up and you realize you deserve better and you believe it.” And my dad just looked at me and said “whos decision was that” and I said “it was mine.” And he said “you know Natasha, I don’t know TJ. I don’t know what he’s like or how he was to you, only you know what’s best for you. If you made that decision on your own then you should trust your gut.” But dad, I didn’t make this decision on my own. I made it when one girl and her friends called me and talked to me for twenty minutes telling me about their night with my boyfriend and how he never mentioned he was in a relationship to any of them except one. I should’ve stopped there. But I woke up and I needed more proof. I needed to know everything because I knew he was never going to tell me. I didn’t message Eva originally. She was one of the last people I talked to but she was one of the most helpful. She was the breaking point. She was the thing that put so much hate and hurt and hopelessness into my heart. But I really do believe that that piece of the puzzle was the most important. There are still pieces I’m missing. I know that. But I’m not gonna bother these girls anymore because I’m already embarassed enough. I am this poor fucking girlfriend begging the world for answers. And how do you do that? How do you live like that when the whole world is laughing at you? When everyone. EVERYONE in your life told you to run as fast as you could and you told them you’d never leave him. That they didn’t understand our relationship. No one knows my relationship better than me. They don’t live the quiet moments with my hands in his hair or my hands on his face playing with his scruffy chin. They don’t live inside my head where I see my whole life in him. I told myself that every time someone asked me “why are you still with him?” They all knew something I didn’t. Everyone knew something I didn’t. So I had to learn. And the roses had to die of thirst. I had to put my head under water to know what drowning felt like. And now that I know I can’t get back up. My whole world has been a lie. How do you recover from that?

It’s not true. Tell me I’ve been lied to.

What the hell did I do?

Say you were trying to make me laugh, that nothing has to change today.

I love you. And I don’t want to. But I love you.

[hi-whatsup-blog]

Love

Pretty much everyone sometime

This is the story of my first heartbreak that isn’t leaving my head even after nearly a year later and led me to depression.

I was 16. I was 15 when I met this boy on an app called Kiwi. It was designed to ask questions and get answers and stuff like that and I was famous on it. I had a lot of followers and me and the other famous people were close internet friends. I met this boy. JWonderstellar. It was his @. His real name is different. I would love to expose this asshole to the world, but I’m not like that. Those who know him know that that is his gamertag. I won’t expose his real name but I already did expose his @, soooooo… If you’ll play against a JWonderstellar one day, please kill him as often as possible. And if you’re on a chat with him, say hello from Luxembourg, and tell him it comes from you know who.

Now here’s the story.

We chatted for a while on Kiwi. I’m a pretty nice person with a good humour and we were having fun just talking. He then asked me for his number and we were talking on WhatsApp. Now, sounds okay. Problem? Boy is from Switzerland and I am from Luxembourg. 400 km. Not a chance we would see each other in the close future. Still, on the 11th of March 2016 he asked me to be his girlfriend. Over text of course, cause I was in school and we couldn’t call each other. I said yes because I didn’t see the problem. We were calling each other nearly every evening until one of us fell asleep. We skyped as often as we could. We talked about everything. I fell hard. We had a lot of arguments but we always got back on track.

Now here’s the thing. I was overweight. Not too much, but you could definetely see it. BMI of 27. He knew this. We talked a lot about me. He wrote me texts that must’ve taken him hours because they were so long. He built me up. I had walls up that he destroyed. I had my heart protected but he stole it. I sent him my favourite sweater for him to know how I smell because we had to wait until Christmas to see each other because our holidays were different. And there was literally no chance for us to see each other and kiss and stuff in person. Yes sex too. Not a thing. I was a virgin. SUPRISE I still am. He built a fundament of trust in me that made it possible for me to let him in and love him even though I only knew him from chat and skype.

I still fell in love. I fell in love with the boy that made me happy. We had a future. But then he said a stupid, stupid thing. He said “You know, I don’t like your body the way I always told you.”

Crash. Burning world. Sirens and stuff.

I was like “what”.

He immediately apologized. But I wanted to know what he meant with this. He then kind of confirmed his statement and when I pointed it out he was like “Oh shit, I’m sorry” and he did this 5 or 6 times. I thought about what to do for 2 days.

The problem with this statement is, that it ruined the fundament my love and my trust towards him was built on. With the fundament blowing up, everything was kind of hanging loose, not belonging anywhere. The love was still there, because as I said we had a future and he was serious husband material until the 24th of November 2016. I could have loved him until I died but I had to let go. My heart was broken and shattered in a million of peaces. The trust was gone. I asked him to delete every bodypicture he got from me. With or without clothes. I broke up with him per voice memo on the 26th of November 2016. I was trying to call him but he knew what was coming and was crying really hard so he ignored it. I tried to make it as personal as possible so I made a voice memo. I didn’t eat after that. I didn’t talk much. We still called each other 2 times after that. I then cried very much. I cried for 2 or 3 weeks straight every evening. We stopped talking after a while. Then, for Christmas, he wrote me “I would be there with you now.”. I hadn’t blocked him because we didn’t wrote each other anymore, why would I block him if I could just put the chat in the archive and wouldn’t have to see it again. I responded with “Shit happens.” I was over the sadness. What comes after the sadness is the anger.

I was angry at him for having done this to me. Telling me he loved my body only to announce that it was a lie for 8. straight. months. Someday in February I was over him. Little did I know it didn’t end there. Everytime something happened that remind me of him, reading the world Switzerland, or his name or hearing the names of the games he liked to play (Battlefield, Call of Duty and Black Ops 3, you know what to do;)) or seeing someone that looked like him, my mood dropped. Not because I was missing him. Hell nah. Uh uh. Because it reminded me of my still broken trust.

I haven’t been able do repare my heart or my trust to 60 %. He was the first one I committed to, so I was broken pretty badly. Still am. I had a date in January sometime. I friendzoned the guy. I wasn’t ready. In february, an old friend of mine and I were talking when he asked me to come visit him because he just left the hospital and was at home. We then kinda talked each other into feelings and stuff, 2 days after my visit at his home, we decided to call it quits because we just won’t be working. To this day, my trust had been repared a little bit. It broke apart after this mutual decision. I kinda clinged on the thought to having found someone that could love me even though I put on 20 additional kg because of the heartbreak. Well, shit happens.

Then a few moths later, I got to talk to a guy called Tom. He was really nice and I enjoyed talking to him. We met up and were going for a walk, only talking, no touching, no kissing. We then continued talking and stuff and I had hopes that this could be it. It was all so good and it was really nice and stuff and we were talking everyday. Until one day, JUST LIKE THAT, he wrote “I’m sorry, I won’t come to our date tomorrow. I’m not ready for a relationship.” It was a punch in the face. I didn’t know what I had done. I replied with “Who said I am ready. But it doesn’t matter, this is your decision and I respect that. It was nice meeting you :)” He responded with “Nice meeting you too :)”. That’s the story of Tom. The 2nd person I kinda ruined things without knowing how.

Probably because I liked the thought of having someone that I made everything move pretty quickly. I don’t know.

After Tom I pulled out of the dating world. I didn’t go out, I was at home watching series. I then met Timo, on the same app I met Tom. I’m still talking to Timo now after a month and we met up and cuddled and it was really cute.

Now here’s the thing. I have no idea how to tell Timo that I am depressed. That I sometimes hurt myself to cope with my life. That I tried to kill myself once. All of this since Dezember 2016 until now.

I like him, he deserves the truth. He hasn’t seen the wound on my wrist yet (Story in the post about Auschwitz) and if he does, I won’t tell him what is going on. I’ll tell him when I’m sure he won’t leave me. I can’t cope with another person that leaves. I need him. No, wrong. I need someone to love. That loves me back. (Update: He left me too) Until then I’ll be here in my dark whole in a bad mood every evening and depressing thoughts every day.

In the post about Auschwitz, I wrote that the third night was hard for me because I cried, but not because of Auschwitz. I realized that there was a boy with us that looked just like JWonderstellar. Once again, I have been reminded of the situation he put me in. My mood sunk, and because I already had this depression thingy, I started crying. I never talked to this boy and avoided him pretty much all the time, but it led to the point where I had to tell someone what was going on. Now, all of my friends knew what was going on between JWonderstellar and me, but only my closest friends knew what was going on later on. Yet nobody knew about the wounds and the depression and the suicide attempt. I had to tell somebody cause I was going crazy. I told Hugo and it was all okay for 2 seconds.

After that I still cried but at least I could tell him and when he could he would come and hug me. I could cry in his arms and wet his sweatshirt and it was all okay. For 2 seconds.

And that’s how a single person that I committed everything to ruined my life.

- L

[inchings]

i caught a glimpse of her instantly and i’m not sure if it’s because i’m always scanning or i’m just that drawn to her and maybe i was anticipating her this whole time and subconsciously searching. but i see her and i just feel my stomach fall through from under me, i want to disappear but continue watching her, i think of that time i met w that woman at the bar and how when i saw her talking to the bouncer and she smiled, her face split open and so too my body. i remember how i remember that vividly.

and then i just was suspended in time and space and hyperaware that no one around me understands the state i was suspended to and why was i frozen like that from seeing a person i met once two years ago. 

when i met i two years ago at this same event, we met on the day before my last day. we went dancing and i think we danced with each other, i think there may have been an arm around my waist or maybe just body facing body and the freedom of heat. and then you had to leave and there were plans to have dinner the next day but i had to catch a bus and i later heard you arrived minutes after i left. you were from arlington, virginia and there was something so familiar about that name. i was overcome with a memory. of you, or me, in tall leather brown boots crunching fall leaves and around the corner the school bus. i feel like this happened to you and i was there. or we were there together when we were young. i’m not sure.

i visited arlington, virginia this time around and i hated how much i loved it. there was something so safe and secure about it, so many men in flip flops next to their big dogs hosing their garden, so much open space, so many patios with lawn chairs just sitting there unoccupied, even leisure has leisure. it feels like the next stage of a college town, like everyone from college graduated and got a job with the government and didn’t have to grow up, could continue walking around town in their gym clothes and iced coffee and their whiteness, they just also have a 401k now. and their whiteness. do you feel safe because you haven’t seen a single black person around? or because you haven’t seen uniformed cops? they’re still there you know, just in hiding.

and you see her and wonder if she had messaged you asking if you would be here as you had connected a few weeks ago planning to meet up the last day of the event. she was here a day early and maybe she had sent you a message and you hadn’t seen it because you don’t use facebook messenger on your phone. but eventually she sees you and you were ready to meet her gaze and there is a moment of restrained jubilation? the forced kind at reunion even though you don’t know the person that well that you could possibly miss them or know what this reunion is a rejoicing of. and yet i did miss you. i’m so terrified my relationship with women is always just going to be missing and wanting them. that makes my insides crawl. it makes me feel like a man, dirty with desire. i start to question all the relationships i’ve ever had and whether i was only able to have them because they were with men and men are easy and not a good measure of whether i’m actually loveable. and we sit together to watch the event- which is a bunch of my favorite poets reading pieces and then belting out a karaoke song, it’s magical and i can’t keep my eyes off the stage except for looking over at the way your hair falls in wispy strands over your green-grey eyes. your hair- so straw thin, your whiteness apparent in it and then someone starts singing yue liang dai biao wo de xing and you start singing along and it’s like you want me to know that the whiteness in you does not cancel out your asianness, but of course i know that. i just want to sing with you. and then the event ends and you leave and everyone leaves. just disperses after so much joy. and i don’t know what to do with myself. i want to go out, to do what we did two years ago where we go out dancing, so i can be close to you. but i don’t know how to corral a group and my friends are too busy securing their tinder dates for the night and i’m there with so much want, and not knowing what to do with it, ashamed with it.

i go my own way as i do, thinking about my next plan. move? i decide to download the facebook messenger app, which i’ve never done before and always put off because i hate apps. deep down i am convinced you have sent a message and i’m anticipating the little “1″ indicating the new message. i think i will respond and say, “i’m so sorry i missed this! i don’t use facebook much. where did you head off to? let’s meet up!” and i sit down near an outlet so i have enough battery to download the app, the little circle loads and loads, and finally it’s downloaded. i enter my login information. i press skip add contacts, skip push notifications. and there are my messages, with the little “1.” but it’s not from you. it’s from another guy who was at the event, saying it was great to see you and was i going to the event tonight. and i scroll down to see your name, just to be sure there are no new messages, and it was confirmed our last exchange weeks ago. 

i have no idea what to do. i feel devastated and then stupid in my devastation. of course she didn’t message you. she is perfect and perfectly gay with her short wispy hair and her sleeveless black shirt and black denim shorts and you are so Woman today with your long black dress and gold hoops and new yorker bag, your untatted arms, unpierced face, long hair, how could any queer love someone who looks so cis and normative. this is all because you can’t stand to disappoint your parents, too scared still to get the two tattoos that you’ve thought about over and over again for years, grew your hair back out two years ago, took out your noise piercing all to be “closer” to your mother, failing to interrogate that the closeness is more like safety, like the safety of arlington, just everyone agreeing to be happy in their safety without talking about what’s really going on, the closeness that is only possible through silence. 

your friend texts you, saying she is next door, so you go there. it’s her and her other friend, two straight women, you walk into a rant about their work and know this is not the space that can hold you right now. but still, you sit, having nowhere else to go. you sit there, wracking your brain. should you message her anyway? back in ny, e kept telling you to shoot your shot. you can’t even think straight right now, you are in the state of mind that no one will love you ever for your whole life and so what can you possibly lose just message her and then as soon as you press send, you stare at the message in its stupidness, in all its want. its so...desperate and you feel like a man in all their ugliness. “hey! it was so good seeing you. are you around? it would be super cool to maybe possibly catch up but i’m sure you’re busy and tired so no worries if not!” why couldn’t you just keep your cool. send a “what are you up to tonight?” that is equally interested and nonchalant. but it’s sent and you watch the minutes next to the number increase, how long the message has been sent just staring you in the face. 4m, 5m. then your friends are perked out and you notice them again. “what?” “are they looking for you?” “who? what?” and then the craziest words that convince me everything that is touched by queerness is supernatural and that, too, is why i’m afraid of it. fucking astrological wizardry.

they say, your friend was just there, they point to the doorway. “who is my friend?” the one you were talking to when we left. heart sinks. i’m thinking about you, but i’m always thinking about you, of course i’m thinking about you. and if i’m wrong and they’re not talking about you, i will just be so bare in my want again. but i venture the ask anyway, “the one with the black shirt?” “yeah” in unison. “no way...cut sleeves?” “yeah” i think they’re fucking with me and yet i want to run after you. 

i cannot win over the want, it is childish in nature, i’m already walking up the steps. i walk slowly around the curved banister like a fucking princess and there are you sitting on the bench. i’m telling you- queerness is some supernatural magical shit. i need to be careful when fucking with it. “hey” “oh hey!” “hey i actually just messaged you.” “oh?” but you are in the middle of something, talking to someone around the corner who i cannot see. they shriek a girlish shriek and you are smiling. you run around the corner and are already leaving, “i’ll message you!” “okay” 

you turn the bend. and everyone from the event is actually still there. your other friend you were trying to get a hold of to ask their plans is right where you left them and you realize you were the one who walked off. so ashamed in your want. you ran off and came up with the narrative of devastation, of evacuation, of the joy that must come to an end, that the world is ending and no one wants to stay for the afterparty. you almost laugh. you check your messages almost every 15 minutes for about two hours. she never messages you. you take the train home, delete the messenger app, and fall asleep. 

there is something about women and trans/gnc folk that feels scarce. because they are. cis men are in excess, an abundance of mediocrity. you can have them all. and you want none of them badly. but when you meet a woman/trans/gnc person you are intrigued by, you know they must be so spectacular, because they has survived being in that body, being queer, they have carved out their own space from the way they wear their cut sleeve shirt or roll the cuffs of the sleeves. and so how could you not want deeply

[jimin-jungshook-over-literalbae]

Gone (BTS Jimin) (Angst/Fluff)

Hey guys! So, I know that I haven’t really uploaded this week. I’m sorry about that. There are three reasons for that: 1. Finals Week starts next Friday for me so I have a shit ton of homework and presentations. 2. I have a concert this weekend so I have had rehearsal every night this week. I’m excited because I’m performing a Taeyang song, but I’m also in charge of the playlist and in five songs in all. 3. I’ve been working on something new. I’ve never written a fanfiction on here so I’m interested to see how this goes. It will be in three parts. I hope you enjoy and please let me know what you think! 

So, in this fanfiction you have been dating Jimin for a while. Because of that, the members that will be seen the most in the story are Jimin, Jungkook, and V. Jungkook is a very integral part of this story so please, understand that. The other members will be in it, or course, but the main focus are Jimin and Jungkook because they play major roles in the story. Technically, this story is Angst, I guess but not super angsty. This first part is based around you attending one of their concerts to surprise Jimin. You’ve been snuck in by V and Jungkook. I don’t want to ruin the surprise as to why it’s angst so let’s just get into this shall we?

This story was based on a dream I had and encouraged into a story with the help of: @mintyoongiisjungshook and @winteryethereal. Thanks guys!

      With the help of Jungkook and Taehyung, I was able to acquire a Section One ticket and a backstage pass to one of their concerts. After two years of dating, I wanted to surprise Jimin. My work is so demanding that I rarely get time off, which makes dating an idol a little easier.

     I left my hotel early this morning, sending my luggage to the address and room that Taehyung sent me. Because of this, I’m relatively close to the front of the line. At the moment, my headphones are firmly in my ears and I am blasting music. Loud cheering interrupts my thoughts. Jungkook, Taehyung, and Jimin, being the troublemakers that they are, are casually strolling passed the waiting people with their escorts. My text message ringtone startles me. 

     Flash your flashlight a few times so we can see where you are the message from Taehyung reads. I roll my eyes but comply, opening my flashlight app and hitting the button a few times. Tae seems to be distracted, but Jungkook notices me and meets my eyes. 

     He pulls down his face mask and makes a derpy face at me, causing me to laugh. He winks at me before pulling his mask back into place and continuing on his way. Jimin, engrossed in whatever conversation he’s having with Tae, absentmindedly throws his arm around Jungkook as they walk away. Jungkook glances back and me as they walk inside.

     I can’t help but admire Jimin. They have been on tour for a long time now, so I know Jimin has been begun to miss me a bit. He was struggling more with each Skype call. That’s why I’m doing this. I wanted to lighten Jimin’s load, if only for a little while.

     He was happy when he was with his members, but that bright smile faded after the concert ends. The members have expressed worry about him overworking himself. I’m hoping to get him to relax for a day or two. It physically pains me to see how exhausted his face is getting. It’s hard to comfort someone through a computer screen.

     After a while, the line moves and we’re let inside the concert hall. As I move to find my section, someone bumps into me. It’s a tall guy with dark brown hair. 

     “I’m sorry, but would you happen to know where this is?” He asks quietly, showing me the section listed on his ticket. I point him in the right direction before heading to my own section. Not long after I get into my section, the concert starts. The boys are energetic and the performance is amazing. 

     At some point, Taehyung manages to spot me in the crowd. He nudges Jungkook and gestures at me, both of them sharing an excited look. Taehyung had been expressing a lot of concern for Jimin lately, so he had practically begged me to come today.

     One thing they didn’t count on was Jimin noticing me in the crowd. At the very end of the concert, during the last few songs, Jimin crouches at the edge of the stage near where I was standing. As he looked out at all of the faces in the audience, I could almost feel the moment his eyes landed on me.

     His eyes widen and his jaw goes slack. I can tell that he wants to come closer, to really see my face, but Taehyung notices and discreetly pulls him away. Jungkook makes a weird hand gesture, it takes me a moment to realize that he wants me to head backstage. I manage, barely, to make my way to the backstage area before the last song ends. I wait impatiently patiently for them to get off the stage.

     The moment they step off of the stage, the room is thrown into chaos. The guys are being unmiced, and I can tell that they are exhausted. Jimin hasn’t noticed me yet, but almost every other member has. Rapmon and Jin look relieved at my presence, which surprises me a little. I guess they were more worried than I had previously thought. Jimin and I were going to have to have a talk if they’re all this worried about him. Taehyung rushes over to me as soon as he’s free, hugging me tightly.

     “I’m so glad you came! He’s gonna be over the moon when he sees you,” Tae says excitedly, his voice loud,” Jiminie, come here!”

     Jimin blots his face with a towel, running his hand through hsi hair. Taehyung practically throws me at him, giggling profusely. Jimin barely catches me, stumbling backward. When I look up, his smile is blinding.

     “You’re here! How did you get here? I knew that was you!” I can’t help but laugh at his babbling sentences.

     “I may have had some help,” I say, nodding my head toward the excited Taehyung and Jungkook behind him. Jimin turns to them, taking my hand tightly in his, and looks at his happy Dongsangs. 

     “Thank you,” Jimin says honestly before turning back to me,” How long can you say?”

     “I’m here until you leave for your next concert,” I brush some of the hair out of his sweaty face. 

     “I need to take a shower. Will you wait in the dressing room for me?” Jimin asks hopefully, almost like he’s afraid I’ll disappear. He runs his fingers through his hair again.

     “Of course. I’m pretty sure that those two assumed that I was staying with you anyway,” I nudge him away gently. He presses a quick kiss to my forehead before taking off.

     I sit on the couch in the corner of the dressing room, scrolling through the pictures and videos I had taken tonight. Of course, I had a lot of pictures of Jimin, but there were pictures of the other members too. As I looked through the pictures and deleted the blurry ones, I felt the couch next to me sink.

     “That’s a good picture of Hyung,” Jungkook motions toward the picture of Suga on my screen.

     “Thanks. I got a few good ones of you if you want to see,” I say, scrolling through my albums to find the folder of Jungkook’s pictures.

     A little while later, Jimin is done with his shower and we’re all loaded into a car heading toward the hotel. Jimin is constantly touching me, his fingers intertwined with mine. I couldn’t help but smile at his animated conversations with Hoseok, Taehyung, and Jungkook. I press a soft kiss to his knuckles. 

     At the hotel, Jimin, Taehyung, Jungkook, and I pile into one of the three rooms. It turns out that Tae had this all planned out. I was prepared to sleep on the floor, but Te volunteered to sleep with Jungkook, relinquishing his normal spot next to Jimin. We stay awake for a while, but Taehyung falls asleep and Jimin isn’t far behind him.

      “I’m not tired yet. I think I’m going to go to the hotel gym for a bit,” Jungkook whispers, trying not to disturb the passed out Taehyung.

     “Take a room key,” Jimin murmurs sleepily, curling up in our bed.

     “Okay, Hyung,” Jungkook grabs a keycard off of the dresser and soundlessly leaves. 

     I curl up with Jimin, savoring a night in his arms after so long apart. A small part of me wants to stay awake for a while longer to enjoy his presence, but his body heat and steady breathing are lulling me to sleep. In minutes, I am asleep.

     I’m awoken to early morning sunlight by Taehyung frantically shaking my shoulder. I look up at him groggily to see an expression of panic consuming his features. When he realizes that I am awake, he stops shaking me. Jimin is no longer in bed with me. 

     “Where’s Jungkook?” Taehyung’s eyes plead with mine, begging me to have the answer.

     “He wasn’t tired, so he went to the gym,” I sit up and rub the sleep from my eyes as I answer.

     “He didn’t come back last night. Jimin went to see if he’s in one of the other rooms,” I’ve never seen Tae look so worried. My worry kicks into high gear as I grab my phone. They’ve probably already tried calling him but it doesn’t hurt to try again. It rings a few times before going to his voicemail.

     “Jungkook, where are you? Tae is worried about you. Call me when you get this message,” After I hang up, the guys begin to pile into the room, most of them still in their pajamas. Jungkook isn’t among them.

     “I tried calling him but he didn’t answer. I’ll get dressed and go talk to the management to see if they’ve seen him. You might want to call your manager,” I grab my bag and change quickly, heading downstairs with Hoseok.

     After an hour, it’s become glaringly obvious that no one has seen Jungkook. Their manager starts rounding up the rest of the boys, getting ready to take them to the police station. Jimin’s sad expression breaks my heart. His touch is soft as his fingers brush my cheek.

     “Stay here, please,” Jimin says softly,” Try to get some more sleep. I’ll call you if we hear anything.”

     I want to argue with but something about his expression stops me. I don’t want to cause him anymore stress. I don’t want to cause him more stress. I lace my fingers with just and squeeze his hand gently.

      “Okay. Please, just keep me updated,” I watch them leave before heading back upstairs to the room. I collapse on a bed, staring at the ceiling. There’s no way I can sleep when my friend is missing. 

     “My phone goes off, startling me. I sit up quickly, searching for my phone. I grab it from the table that I left it on. The incoming call is a Facetime call from Jungkook. I hastily answer. The screen is black.

     “Kookie? Where are you? Everyone’s worried sick,” I lean over the screen, searching for Jungkook. Slowly, light begins to filter in on screen. My blood runs cold when I see an unconscious Jungkook,” Jungkook?” 

     “I have your little friend,” A voice speaks, sneering the word,” I will send you a location. If you meet me there, I will let him go. If you call the police, he dies.”

     The call ends abruptly, his words still ringing in my ears. A few moments later, my phone buzzes with the address. I know that I should call the police or Jimin, but I don’t want to jeopardize Jungkook’s life. Against my better judgement, I leave a note for Jimin, telling him where I’ve gone. He’s not going to be happy with me and I know it, but Jungkook’s safety is more important. I grab my phone and a keycard, leaving the room.

     The cab ride feels solemn, but I’m not sure why. My hands won’t stop shaking. The address he sent me leads to a mostly empty parking lot. There are only two cars in the large lot. Once I leave the cab,  I can feel my resolve shaking. Maybe I should call Jimin. I open my phone, scrolling through my contacts to find Jimin’s. Before I can hit call, something strikes the back of my head. I crumble.

I hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think!

[seriousshit88]

This has been in my drafts for god knows how long. It was supposed to be a fic, but I don’t think I ever wrote it. So, uh, please enjoy this McHaleinski notfic and a glimpse at what might have been.

There’s a werewolf dating app, and Stiles thinks it’s hilarious to very sneakily download it onto Scott’s phone. Scott notices the icon one day and is like, “Dude, wtf is this?” And Stiles is laughing his ass off, because he filled out Scott’s profile and everything. His main profile pic is him in his scrubs and holding a kitten while a puppy’s curled up in his lap. Basically, the most irresistible pic of Scott Stiles could find (Stiles thinks about that picture a lot). Scott is both impressed and a bit frightened by how accurate his profile info is. There’s nothing on it he would change–apart from the fact it exists in the first place.

Unsurprisingly, Scott’s got tons of messages and thumbs up all over everything, and he’s bewildered and a little annoyed with Stiles. But Stiles is enjoying every horrible attempt at communication from other wolves who basically only want to bone a True Alpha™ (it’s in his profile, dammit Stiles). To make it worse, most of these people are only at most 7% matches with Scott. For some reason, Stiles is REALLY loving this prank. Scott, on the other hand, is getting ready to delete his profile…

But then he sees someone who’s a 99% match. Scott taps on the person’s picture, and he and Stiles both mutter “Oh, my god” at the same time. “Is that-” and “No way” immediately follow. Smiling back at them through Scott’s phone is none other than Derek S. Hale. It’s just a lowkey selfie with no filter on it, and neither of them knows what to say. Scott taps on Derek’s profile. “It says he’s been on here for over a year,” Scott says in disbelief. Stiles chuckles weakly. “Haha, okay, you can delete your profile now. We have plenty of blackmail material.” But Scott ignores him and starts reading Derek’s little blurb. “Aww, it says he’s only here for friends. But he already has friends…?” And, okay that does sound a little depressing. That doesn’t stop Stiles from rolling his eyes, though. 99% match with Scott? How? There’s only one person on the planet who's Scott’s 99%, and it certainly isn’t Derek (right?)

Scott’s going through Derek’s pictures (there are only 3), and they’re boring selfies. Except for the last one. “Where’s his shirt?” Stiles asks. He squints at the pic, and okay. He’s seen Derek shirtless before; this shouldn’t be a big deal. But in this one, Derek looks to be stretched out on a large rock out in the middle of nowhere, sunning himself or whatever it is ridiculously good looking people do on rocks while topless. Stiles swallows thickly. Scott just nods in agreement. “Me, too. Let’s call him. But we aren’t going to mention this. Ever.” Stiles knows he’ll probably spill the beans to Derek if he spoke to him at all, so he decides to let Scott do all the talking. It’s safer that way. (is stiles even capable of this?)

So, after Scott deletes his profile, he calls Derek *just to check in.* Stiles wants to say something snide, but he can’t. He’s trying to be good for once. Scott and Derek talk for almost an hour about nothing in particular. Derek’s on speaker, so Stiles hears everything. He especially hears the fact that Scott keeps skirting around why he suddenly decided to call. Stiles’s thoughts are mired in a swirling miasma of “He has no right to be that hot!” and “99% match with Scott! Why does this make me angry??? Who am I angry with??????” He feels a warm hand on his shoulder, and calms down just in time to hear Scott say something completely ridiculous.

"Stiles and I are going to the movies on Friday. Wanna come?” Scott shoots Stiles a look that pretty much begs him to say something, so Stiles does. “Did you know you’re a 99% match with Scott on Weredate?” There’s silence on the other end of the phone, and Scott might be gripping Stiles’s shoulder with waaay too much force, now. “Stiles made a profile for me without my knowledge or permission. By the way, he thinks you’re hot,” Scott shoots back, and apparently the conversation is deteriorating, because Stiles says, “Scott thinks you’re hot, too, which is bullshit because I was his 99% before you.” There’s an awkward silence after that. Scott loosens his grip on Stiles. “Really?” he asks. “You’re jealous?” Stiles feels his face heating up, and he wants to leave. But Scott won’t let go. He’s…blushing, too?

“99%, huh?” Derek says, amusement evident in his voice. “Okay, first of all, I haven’t looked at that profile in like 6 months. Second, I only made it because I wanted some new friends. Third, yes, I’ll go to the movies with you two. The only people who ever messaged me on there were spam bots and one elderly alpha who swapped tea recipes with me. It really doesn’t get better than 99%.”

Stiles resists the urge to flip the bird at Scott’s phone. Derek hashes out the details of their outing with them (Scott calls it a date and just grins at Stiles after he says it), and when they hang up, Stiles lets out a huge breath. “What the hell just happened?” he asks. Scott shrugs. “You admitted you think Derek’s hot, and that you’re probably in love with me. I think.” Okay, Stiles is pretty sure one of those did NOT happen, but Scott isn’t wrong. He’s also not going to weasel out of what’s coming next. Stiles thumps Scott on the arm. “You blushed, you sneaky little shit. Anything you’d like to add while we’re making heartfelt confessions?” Scott responds by blushing again. This is too much for Stiles, and since they’ve already crossed way too many boundaries already today, there’s really nothing else left to do. Well, there is one thing.

Stiles leans in and kisses Scott slow and deep. His suspicions are definitely confirmed when Scott immediately responds. He opens up and lets Stiles explore him to his heart’s content, drawing an almost startled moan out of Stiles when he nibbles on his bottom lip before breaking away.

“Um,” Stiles says. Scott snorts.

The date goes amazingly well, and they all live happily ever after. The end.

[oldladydatin]

My Besties Brother

When my ex husband and I’s relationship was falling apart, I kept that shit to myself. This is who I am in a relationship, loyal to fault. I’ll defend your honor in public even when I know you’re wrong. People didn’t know. Until the last few years everyone thought we were the perfect couple, people would comment how adorable we were constantly. The last few years I told people, things got so bad I finally felt like I needed a support system and the girls I went to school with saw me break into tears randomly and eventually I told them why. I told a few guys when we decided it was over. But generally people back home, people who were close to us didn’t know until the end. When I put that on facebook I didn’t make a big deal about it. I talked about moving and just didn’t mention him. Our family knew and they were upset. The weirdest part, his family was upset with him for losing me, my family was upset with me for leaving him. When I changed my status on facebook things got weird. Men I’d grown up with, ex boyfriends, men who added me but I wasn’t sure how I knew them, men I worked with, started messaging me. I’ve had a few men say they were in love with me, others say that had crushes on me but were afraid to tell me. Men who just messaged me to tell me my ex husband was stupid for letting me get away because they could only dream of having a good woman like me in their lives, and some of those comments were by his friends. Recently though was the absolute weirdest. My best friends brother has told me he has had a thing for me forever? I did NOT see this coming at all! 

My best friend is a lot older than me. I met her when we were both working at Walmart and I was just engaged. At some point she invited me to a party and it was just like the parties I grew up going to and her family was super laid back and we just clicked. She’s somewhere between my parents and I’s age. When I met her brother he was married and I was married, and when I was married I was committed, I didn’t see other men, like honestly barely even checked out other men, I was all in and that’s how I am when I’m in a committed relationship. I loved his wife, she was hilarious and we all hung out all the time. His wife decided to have weight loss surgery because they were having trouble getting pregnant due to her weight. I remember feeling guilty around her because I also had trouble getting pregnant. I went on this rather extreme PCOS diet, I chose that rather than going to the doctor for fertility treatments or any of that crap. It was expensive but on my 24th birthday I was pregnant and I was so happy because I knew I wanted to be a young mom. About the time I found out I was pregnant, they also found out they were pregnant but it only went on a few months and then she miscarried. So I felt guilt. Eventually though she had weight loss surgery and they had 2 little girls and shortly after his wife had a complete personality change. I always wondered if that was due to post partum depression or the weight loss surgery but she developed a pretty serious drug and sex addiction and left him and her two girls. I couldn’t ever wrap my head around this. He was such a nice guy honestly, like when she was extremely large I’d watched him put her shoes on for her. He worked, he cared for the girls, he catered to her and she still left. Towards the end he claimed to be injured on his job and fought for disability and eventually won. I never got that because he still played softball, my daughter, my bestie and I went to his games every week. He fixed cars in his driveway, plowed snow, hunted, fished, everything with his injuries. I didn’t ever say anything and I didn’t get involved. I feel like I’m in charge of my karma and he’s in charge of his and that’s how I approach these things. He’s gone through 2 more wife's. Maybe developed his own drug habit, had his own personality change. My bestie and I kind of make fun of him behind his back because now he has 2 more kids and more ex wife's. He always chooses horrible women. 

One day about a month ago he messages me and asks when I’m coming home. I think this is odd too because him and I don’t talk? Like he’s not my friend his sister is. I tell him I don’t know it’s hard to get time off. I start asking him if everything is okay because he never messages me and eventually this leads into a I’ve always been interested in you, I wish you would move home, you guys can live with me. I think he’s lost his mind, maybe he’s lonely. He starts telling me his new girlfriend is cheating on him with her ex husband and we talk about that. I think okay I’m right he’s just lonely. It’s something I’ve learned to look for the past 2 years, and sadly my mistakes have helped me spot it. Some men message me because they’re lonely or feel alone in general, they don’t feel complete and they want a woman to fix that, they are unhappy and want someone to fix that, they’re a mess in general and just want someone who is going to fix that. I’ve learned to spot this and I’m glad because I don’t want to complete someone and I don’t want someone to complete me, I was to find someone who is already complete on their own, I want to find someone who will only add to my life, not take from it. I also don’t want to feel dependent on a man to be a whole person, I am a whole person. So when he says him and his girl are having issues I completely disregard his statements about wanting to be with me and just assume he’s lonely and maybe he needs someone to talk to and we talk. Well this happens again the next day and he wants to talk about the possibility of me moving home. It happens the next day and the day after that, I hear from him in the morning when he’s getting ready for his day and at night when he’s heading to bed. I start to wonder if maybe he’s not lying? If maybe out of nowhere he decided to tell me he’s had feelings for me? I considered telling my best friend but then I think she’d be excited by that and she’d encourage it because she also wants me to move home and I don’t want to get her hopes up because I don’t think that’s my home anymore and I don’t see myself with this guy. 

Then friday comes and nothing, saturday nothing, sunday nothing, and then I hear from him monday morning. He tells me he went on a youth hunt with his daughter and yes he did. Here’s the unfortunate truth about my life. I’ve never had a man that really loved me, I never had a man who had my back, I just haven’t had that. Even my ex husband who didn’t lie or cheat on me gave me conditional love and if I didn’t meet his conditions I was on my own. Eric was in it for himself much like the men I was with before my marriage and so my experiences don’t stem from healthy relationships. Then men in my life have taught me to look for lies, inconsistencies, and games. Eric used to quit texting me on friday, saturday and sunday. At first I made excuses for him, like well he’s a single Dad and he’s out with his kids and they’re more important, until he showed me he was a bad guy. Soon I realized no he was out with someone else, whenever he went long stretches without text me it was because he was with someone else and he pretended to not understand why it upset me so much but it was because he made me feel cripplingly insecure because I knew he didn’t love me, he never had my back, and he had no idea what loyalty was and I don’t think he cared the only thing he cared about in life was himself. I look for that now, I have men who message me on dating apps and want to talk and talk until friday, saturday and sunday come along, and that’s the point where I back away. I don’t need someone who is only interested in me monday thru thursday. So this whole thing immediately made me back off and I wasn’t as quick to reply and I wasn’t as emotionally open. I figured his girlfriend and him made up and she’s free on the weekends and not free come monday and he’s bored and looking for attention and I’m good, I’ve been that girl enough times to know it doesn’t make me happy. 

So the messages drop off but he starts wanting to have more sexual conversation which is just weird because it’s my best friends little brother. Soon he wants me to send him sexy pictures. I’m at the point emotionally where I am beyond tired of men acting like I exist for their entertainment. I refused to send him pictures, I hadn’t deleted my bdsm page yet and I directed him there and told him there were sexy pics on that page. He makes 100 excuses as to why he can’t log on that page and see them and is like just send me some. I refused, if you’re too lazy to get on a website and look then you must not be that interested. This whole scenario is quickly annoying to me because he’s just like every other pos guy who messages me and being as I’ve known him for a long time and this idea of him as a good guy, it makes me disappointed in him.

 I message him eventually to tell him that I was planning on coming home for Christmas and he doesn’t act happy or excited or anything? So I was like you don’t seem excited about that and he doesn’t respond. At this point I’m over this situation anyways so I just quit texting and he quits texting, I think he could tell I was annoyed. Today he messaged me “so are you gonna fuck me when you come home.” I was instantly pissed, I said no. He said why not, I said I’m not some whore you can order up, you have a girlfriend, and you weren’t even excited I was coming home.” He claims he was really excited I was coming home, and then like slows his role. Let’s just say there’s a list of people I would love to see when I go home and one of them is a man, and it’s not this man. I have no more time for men like this in my life, I’d rather be alone. Just yesterday I blocked 2 men for unsolicited dick pics and surprised the hell out of a friend when he asked when the last time I masturbated was and I said at least a month. I’m just not in the mood. Eric took so much from me, and every guy after has taken just a little bit more and I feel broken and I feel like this isn’t what I need in my life a this time. I’m taking a year off from dating, which means my blog is about to become boring. Of course I’m now working two full time jobs and studying for a national nursing certification, who has time for dumb boys. I don’t.

[chasingadulation]

Back...not that anyone will notice...and online dating SUCKS

Well, it’s been awhile since I have blogged anything. For some really old stuff check this out: https://alivenotliving.wordpress.com/.

The search for love continues. Slowly. Because you know what? Dating is tough. And sometimes dating really sucks.

This week I had the delightful experience of being ghosted. No, not the paranormal, pee your pants at a scary ghost kind, the think you hit it off with someone, make tentative plans to meet and they disappear kind. The new fun dating kind where people just disappear with no explanation and people give it a funny name and treat it like it’s normal and just fine and people do it all the time and it doesn’t break your heart when it happens to you.

It started with a confrontation actually. He called me out on a discrepancy in my profile, something that I hadn’t noticed because truthfully my heart wasn’t in it and I just didn’t want to try. But then I get this message that says hey (using much snark and sarcasm) what’s the deal here? And it started. I told him why the discrepancy was there and the history behind that particular answer. We started messaging frequently through that day and the next. We shared that we are both introverts, that meeting new people is scary but we connected through words. He sent me a few songs to listen to that were apt to our discussions or potential for an infant friendship that could be more. He wanted to meet for drinks but it was late and rainy and all the way across town so we made plans for the next day and continued to talk. The next day we said good morning, chatted throughout the day and then exchanged numbers that afternoon. We decided to wait one more day to meet up so that it was Friday and I wouldn’t have to worry about work the next day and he wouldn’t have to worry about leaving his dog for the hours we expected to spend just chatting and getting to know each other. So then we were texting and sharing favorite foods and restaurants, genres and decades of music, favorite wines, and then nothing. So the next morning I sent a Happy Friday text. Nothing. And then halfway through the day I asked when and where he wanted to meet up and nothing. And then I checked the messenger in the app and our thread was gone and his profile was gone and nothing. It was a shitty end to my work day and this didn’t help so I just went home to my introverted nest and felt sorry for myself and tried not to cry. I kept waiting and hoping for a “sorry my day got really busy” text but nothing. And I prepared myself for a “sorry I am not down with your platonic love for the piano man or Elton John or 70s music that brings back bad memories” or “sorry but I am not down with people who have same sex relationship history” or something. But nothing. And still nothing. So here I am feeling all the feels of being ghosted.

But you know what? Fuck you dude. Fuck you for getting me all excited about potentially meeting someone new, whether it went anywhere or not. Fuck you for not having the stones to tell me you lost interest, or freaked out or whatever happened. We shared a lot in that little bit of time so FUCK YOU for not just being honest. Fuck you for being that guy and being a chicken shit. And just FUCK YOU.

I know what you are going to say, you are going to tell me to get right back on that horse! That this was only one setback and that now I know I am ready to try and to meet new people and to date. But let me guess, you’re married or in a long term relationship. You haven’t dated in years. You think online dating is a GREAT idea and how cool it must be to find out things about each other before you even meet! Because you met your partner at church or the grocery store or through friends. Well it’s not cool. Internet dating sucks. Do have any idea how easy it is to judge people just based on their photos or answers? Do you know that the vast majority of the people who actually send a message say lame things like “you’re hot” or “great smile” but they don’t say anything real. They don’t ask real questions or give real answers. They aren’t real. They aren’t honest about themselves or what they want. In short: IT SUCKS.

So I deleted some apps and hid my profile in others. And yeah I shouldn’t let this one guy get me down but he did and I just don’t want to do it right now. So there.

[casual-confessionsxwhynot]

SO! I have a confession. I've been a serial monogamist most of my dating life. Since my first real boyfriend in high school i think i've had over 30 boyfriends. Whether they were long term or short term I was bouncing from "relationship" to relationship for almost half of my life. Since it was high school and i have a healthy amount of shame i didn't sleep around with all of the people i dated, only a relatively small fraction. Still it seems weird that I spent so much time getting tangled up in someone else's mind.

Fast forward to now; I'm single and actually kinda happy! But the biggest downer i encounter is when i realize how alone i feel (and actually am).

You see, i have a lot of siblings. Like 10, no joke. But i am the second youngest, and my mom had me when she was 40 years old. My next oldest sister was 12 at the time i was born. That also means in her late 50s she was trying to deal with two teenaged girls. And while i have my reasons that i don't speak with my mother anymore, that whole situation still sounds like a certain kind of hell to me.

The point i'm getting at is that my single working mother was perpetually exhausted. Also neglectful and manipulative and emotionally abusive and a whole slew of things I will likely delve into later on my psychological deep dive. Anyway! I never felt like i was given enough attention from....anyone. I had no dad in the picture, a mom who was too exhausted, and a ton of siblings growing into adulthood and balancing their own lives. I have one younger sister, but as we are only a year apart in age growing up we didn't really like each other.

Despite what my dating history might suggest i was quiet and shy. Definitely have always been an introvert. Dating was a way i found myself finding a type of attention and a way to fill a void in my life. I think the void was someone to know and to know me intimately. And not intimate in a sexual sense, but someone to talk to, some one to know how i think and feel and process the world around me. And vice versa of course. I didnt get that from my family, my mom talked a lot but never a lot of details about her life. And my younger sister kept to herself too (may have also been a serial monagamist? But i don't wanna speculate on her psych too, love you!) I would always be jealous of my childhood friends, who were sisters. They knew each other so well it seemed. They would argue sure, but always came together in the end and be there for eachother. If my sister and i fought it would never get resolved it seemed. We would just carry that anger, go our separate ways and just remember we didnt like each other (things are different now)

It had me feeling like i was different, i honestly wondered if i either fell on the autism spectrum or if i was a socio or psychopath because there was something wrong with ME. Because i didnt have these relationships with my mom and my sister. I see now my situation didnt foster the healthy kind communication and attention that comes with those relationships.

Fast forward again to now. I am single as of early May 2019 and it is now September 2019 . Only last week did i delete my tinder app. I started swiping just before i broke up with my ex, (together on and off for ~ year and a half/emotionally abusive narcissistic selfish asshole) i wanted to rebound and find someone better to prove to myself that i deserve and can find better! But it was hard! Online dating sucks ass. Pardon my phrasing. But for real my dudes. I dated around a little but i realized that i dont really know what i want or what i like.

Here we are

Ladies and gentlemen, after this long unorganized rant i've finally arrived to the point of this blog.

I'm documenting, in blog form, my journey to discovering my true likes and dislikes. Being tethered for a good chunk of my life didn't really allow me to know what I like. And yeah i mean i know some stuff, like i really hate bowling, and mini golf. But i mean, i've been tangled up trying to attend to my significant others emotional, mental, physical needs. WHAT ABOUT ME? I haven't made myself a priority. So this is it. My selfish time.

So yes, i deleted tinder and have stopped looking for someone to date but that doesn't mean i'm closed off to finding someone. It just means i'm making my self my number one priority and if in my quest to push myself to do things i didnt think i could do by myself and i happen to meet a really nice guy (OR GIRL!??!) Then dooooope.

I have done 3 things so far that i feel were me making myself try new things.

1) Yoga

2) walking at a park

3) pierced my nose! (Most exciting)

The yoga thing isnt all that exciting honestly. I didnt want to go to the gym one day and pulled up youtube and did a 20 min beginners yoga thing. I actually didn't really like it. I had never done yoga before and its difficult to watch a video and have them tell you to close your eys and then move thos foot forward this back and this is a warrior pose etc. And pull your navel to your spine but also deep breathe in and out! It was too much. If i want to continue with yoga i need to try a class with an instructor and a more hands on experience/guidance. (Minds out of the gutter please).

Walking outside at a park! This one isnt really a big deal to most people. But being the serial monogamist that i am i'm uncomfortable being alone and i have told myself that it is UNSAFE to walk at a park alone. That and all of the true crime/murder podcasts i listen to dont help. But i did it. One friday night i told myself i should go on a walk at a park i had been to with friends before. So the next saturday morning, ya girl did it! I walked back and forth on a lake front for like an hour. And i could have done it almost all day because it felt peaceful....but i had other shit to do lol.

THEN on a whim i decided i wanted my nose pierced. But not really on a whim, i've wanted to do this for like a year but never had the courage. Also my emotionally abusive ex was abusive to the environment around him and didnt really care about not hurting me by "accident" so i never felt safe having a fresh hole in my face that could be damaged by mistake around him.... ANYWAY this whole week. Starting monday i told myself that i was gonna go get my nose pierced on friday. By wednesday i was too excited and i went to a tattoo shop 11 min from work and got it done. I had seen the videos and read the after care instructions and done my research. I was ready. It was done and now i have to care for it everyday and let it heal for 4-6 months. HELL YES QUEEN! I really want to get a hoop but for initial healing the stud is best. Also, not many people at work have noticed ( i work at a job where piercings and tattoos are ok). Which might have upset me about a year ago. But i truly did this for me. And not anyone else, so i feel that's why i wasn't disappointed that some people didn't notice. I'm feeling good! I feel this is a positive change for me. I'm excited to meet myself.

Next:

I think i want to get another cat?

New work out routine?

Plan a solo vacation?

Actually go to the library?

Dye my hair?

Go for a drink at a bar by myself?

Paint the trim in my house?!?!? (lol not adventurous, just something i need to do.)

Challenge yourself! Take a chance and do all tje things!

[kakahut]

2018, a very long update

Shanghai life is incredibly intense and stressful as I didn’t even have the desire to write about anything. The only new year resolutions I have is to lose a bit weight, so I am on a interesting diet now, so far, I feel pretty accomplished.

A lot happened since I updated last time. I  reconnected with Will, went to India for Medha’s wedding, had a blast experience of traveling and looking around the world. I felt so grateful that I made the decision of leaving the US, so I could have had  the chance to have everything I have right now. Best friend (Catiah), interesting new people ( all types of humans I met) and great adventures. Although I felt a bit depressed as my job is not going as well as I thought it could be, I am still able to make a living and feel peaceful most of time.

I am loved, by many people. Artie’s visit last week is very refreshing. I met him when selling my humidifier a week before I left Cambridge. We instantly liked each other and decided to keep the friendship. I was so happy he actually decided to come to visit me in China just 1 month after I left. Some people just do what following his heart. 

I introduced him to my besties and my dear family in Shanghai, Catiah and Tony. We had a great house party together with Strikingly’s co-founder Teng. We talked a lot about politics, life and philosophy. etc. And played with Catiah’s new game. Artie’s life in developing countries and his education received in Harvard amazed both my friends and myself. What a brilliant young man of my age! I feel refreshed, as I felt the zombie like Shanghai life is eating my body, and I need someone who comes afar to give me something new.

Gay bar experience with Artie was also amazing. There were a bear bar upstairs doing opening just when we arrived. I never knew that there could be that many gay guys in China, and a lot bears aka pandas. Except almost poisoned by fake tequila, I had a blast. I definitely remembered time I spent in Philly in gay bars with Min and a lot good gin and tonics.

Dating is still kind of tough, I was on and off Tinder, connected with some people online while met one or two, but I was not really that into the hook up madness here. Just like Will said, Shanghai is way international than other cities in the US, you basically can find anything you want. But I really don’t know what I am looking for, as there is a huge gap between expact communities and local ones, for someone who is in between, I am even more confused.

I constantly met new guy friends, but still have not found anyone interesting enough to pursue or they are just not single lol. I met Dan, who also graduated from Upenn and lived there as long as I did, was “ fresh off the boat” to China, and still amazed with the culture shock and everything. I helped him to pick up Christmas gifts for his family and we probably gonna be pretty close friends. Alvin is someone I met in the alumni events back in September, he is an entrepreneur who has an education start up. I was trying to make him partner with my company, but was informed he is really good friend of our competitors. I really liked him as a person, Catiah said he might be a good fit. I tried to message him privately after our group events, but didn’t get really immediate response. Don’t have time to chase a guy wants to play hard to get, I read it as “ I am not interested in you”. I met JT 2 years ago in a party with Catiah, and he became pretty good friends with her so I had a chance to meet him couple of times last month. JT is a really talented independent artist and made some hit video projects online and he is “kind of a celebrity” if I use his words. As most artists and well achieved young man, his ego is so high sometimes it is kind of amusing. I just found out he has the same birthday with me and lived 2 blocks away from my place so I actually hate him less for that reason. Hmm, maybe Aries all thinks alike. Yefei is the CEO of an education company who I interviewed with to be his assistant. He sent his guy to pick me up with his Tesla when I arrived in Shanghai and I was flattered by his Chinese manner. He is 1 year younger than me but have been doing business for years in China. Although I didn’t end up working for him, I like to keep in touch with him. He is very different person from people in my circle and gave me perspectives of modern Chinese mentality as I have left for quiet a while.

Still, it is hard to make friends with girls for me. I only have Catiah, although Dil Dar is in town, she is always busy with her family and she just bought a new place. I also hang out with Yaxin, my old classmate back in Upenn, but no one is as close as Catiah. Maybe we are all competitors, as we are all single.  I don’t really quiet understand how women bounding with each other, and it is hard to find people who are as “ rude” as me I guess. I am glad that Felix and I made great balance and didn’t turn out to be another chaotic experience like Will and I. I think maybe cuz I am growing. 

Artie’s arrival encounter with Dan definitely brought back some memories in graduate school and some sense of American mentality. Artie is Asian Australian so the way he views Americans could be quiet different from an actual American like Dan. I like keeping a distance of my old life there while still not completely away from it. Compared to Will, I am not ready to give up everything I have learnt and experienced in the US.

I finally hooked up with someone this week. “ Finally” sounds a bit desperate but it is my journal so I don’t give a shit. We met on Tinder before Christmas, we were supposed to meet up that week but I had a long dinner with Catiah and Alvin so I didn’t make it. I deleted him ( or maybe he deleted me?) on Tinder and Wechat but I kept his Whats app. I was a bit surprised he actually texted me when he was about to come back to the city. As I was a bit frustrated by how unpromising people are on Tinder,  I am pretty open about any encounters. Yeah, call me desperate. Unlike most guys I met online, I like the way he flirted with me, a good balance between dirty and decent.  So I was pretty looking forward meeting him. As any first meeting offline, I was nervous that my expectation could be too high and the reality could be very the opposite.  I don’t know how guys feel but as a single woman who has stayed single for a very very very long time, I really don’t want to have another shitty dating experience.

I made a dress for this date when going to the market with Artie and tried to throw myself into a more classy manner to fit the Shanghai dating scene, looking hot and presentable. Single girls like me will not give up any chances to look stunning on a date because I do the typical casual American style during my work days. I put on my red dress,  my new golden earrings and my silver high heels,  and met him at one of my favorite cocktail bars in town. I felt great already even before I met him and I realized how efforts can help with the presentation of a new meeting. He is shorter as I expected, since I am not a girl who is really picky about height, it didn’t bother me that much. He is clean and well dressed, like most finance guys in town. I really like his shirt and I am still thinking about it. I also like the way he talks in English, he seems has the same accent like Chao, the typical European Chinese accent. 

I didn’t quite remember our conversations, I definitely talked too much. I can feel the chemistry during the meeting, so when he asked if I want to go to his place, I hesitated ( I am not sure if I am ready for it), but I agreed. We walked all the way back, in the beginning I was definitely uncomfortable in a new place looked just like a hotel and I was 95% sober. I showed him my art work and explained to him about my inspiration ( my crush on Eric) and he was just sitting there, enjoying my speech ( maybe a bit bored) and started to pull the knot on my dress. So I sat next to him, we kissed. 

Sex was passionate. He is a good lover. Not the best I had but definitely what I need. I was surprised I was not as excited as I used to be if I haven’t had sex for a while. The awkwardness after sex was obvious but not as obvious as it was with some past experience. His bed is huge and I realized he was not a cuddler. Although as a woman, I wish it could be more intimate but it is not something I could get disappointed. I don’t like to hug to sleep. He kissed me on my lips and on my forehead when he was about to sleep. I think that was sweet. 

It was hard not comparing any sexual experience with the one I had with Min, partially because it was the length and quality of our sex, and also a bit surprised he is a bit different with him. I am telling myself to be accepting something new. I couldn’t sleep well as usual, all kind of thoughts coming in and out, and for certain degree, it doesn’t feel real. 

I was pretty ready to leave fearing the fact I would be kicked out of the place ( well, he is a polite man who won’t do it directly), we made out again and couldn’t even stop making out. Somehow I wish, we could stay intimate for a while.

He didn’t text me the entire day. So am I having another fling? Maybe it is a kind of relationship only goes on the surface, and maybe because I am not ready. ( Probably I didn’t send people the right signal, therefore, not the right person.) 

Now I am thinking, one comment he made about me not taking other people to my place, “ why not?”. I couldn’t give him a legit answer. Why not? Because my ex boyfriend and I had an affair, because my ex ex boyfriend has a better solo place than my crowded room? Maybe, I don’t have a place. Just like he doesn’t have a place in SH. 

I couldn’t focus on work today just thinking about everything happened last night. It was too fast and too unreal, I started realizing I couldn’t remember most conversations we had better than the sex we had. 

When Catiah said I should start looking for guys I can potentially build a future together, I realized I didn’t actually think that much of it. Why things couldn’t just be as simple as I like you and you like me?

Now if I go back to that conversation I had with Min about choosing girlfriends and partners, I won’t be offended if he told me all these analysis.

I am a free spirit, maybe I am using up my youth. 

Did I have a good time? I did. Just go with the flow I guess. I was hurt by all the expectations people had on me and I had on them.

The entire day, only one song was stuck in my head, let it go. 

[seriouslysoulsearching-blog]

Started my job today!

Today was the first day marking the start of my nursing career. There was orientation all about the hospital and it’s values, policies, etc so it was a bit boring sitting in a conference room all day in stiff business clothes and I have three more training days before I’m even on the floor. 

What I’m most proud of myself today was that I wasn’t a nervous wreck! I hate having to travel/navigate somewhere new, meet new people, etc. Normally I feel uncomfortable. But not today! I was cool, calm, collected, and CONFIDENT. 

As I sat at the table, learning about the institution I’m working for and looking out the window at the bridge and skyline, I felt like I am in the right place at the right time in my life. I finally feel like I’m supposed to be a nurse. Like I deserve to be there. Which may sound silly, but honestly, I’ve doubted myself every step of the way during nursing school. I would get positive feedback from my nursing teachers, clinical instructors, and even just nurses on the floor who made me feel like “this is what I’m meant to do” but I never fully believed myself. But honestly, I’m sick and tired of living in doubt and shying away from my true potential.

My therapist and I talked last week about getting ready for my new job. I could feel the self-doubt thoughts creeping in already and asked how I could deal with this before I was consumed by it. And my therapist’s advice was extremely helpful. Each day, I’m going to reflect on the positive of the day--what I learned, what I knew, what I did good with. And each day, each week, each month, I can look back and reflect on my progress! This is such a healthy habit instead of what I normally would do--which is to fixate  on what I didn’t know, what I didn’t do correctly, etc. My therapist also made a good point: they hired me KNOWING I’m BRAND NEW. They’re not gonna be surprised, they’re going to expect to teach me everything. Which is honestly reassuring. It’s not realistic to think I’m going to be a “great nurse” when I literally have zero experience, I am a clean slate. I don’t want to come off as nervous/self-conscious so we also discussed how I can present myself which will be more like “I’m really excited to be here and I’m eager to learn as much as I can because I’m brand new” I think this will help keep my rocky confidence stable and build it up from here with these new habits.

ON A DIFFERENT NOTE... I went on a date(ish) this past Saturday. LOL at myself after swearing off dating and then going out again. This guy, Adam, was someone who I connected with on Bumble before turning my profile off and deleting the app from my phone (for my mental well-being) Adam actually asked me out after the first guy fiasco, and I was upfront about not being ready because I got out of a relationship relatively recently. He said he understood as he too got out of a 3 year relationship in August. A few days went by, I sent him a snapchat video of my cat, and I ended up just texting him. We texted for almost a week straight and discovered how much we have in common. He’s also really funny and my kind of weird. We decided to hang out and watch “It’s Always Sunny” together Saturday night at his apartment (since I haven’t seen it all and it’s leaving Netflix at the end of the year) 

Honestly, we had a good time! I was so nervous I hardly remember what we were talking about but he was showing me shows on Netflix and teaching me how to use chop sticks before the sushi got delivered. We also snuck downstairs to the unit below him since no one is living there yet. It was spooky but fun. He was taller than me (praise jesus) and CUTE. Not necessarily my exact type but still cute and his personality was very attractive. When we met outside his apartment door he hugged me and invited me. He’s just a friendly, goofy guy who made me smell for what the sour food was in his fridge. After we came back upstairs from sneaking around, I went to my purse to get a mint because I didn’t want sushi but struggled to open my gum package open.  I think he might of thought that was a single I wanted to kiss because when I turned around (not successful opening it anyway) he kissed me in the middle of the kitchen. All through out the night I was welcomed to the idea to him kissing me, and while he did, I still welcomed it, HOWEVER, the kissing was a FLOP. We just did not mesh. I couldn’t tell whether he was kissing me on the lips or had his tongue in my mouth so I’d pull away and it felt like we weren’t just kissing on the lips but I didn’t feel his tongue??? Like when I make out, I like serious tongue action. Not like the porn kissing where it looks fucking nasty but more like when your tongues are intertwined passionately. I remember my old high school describing that he wanted to almost play tonsil hockey. Which is hilarious and I appreciate him describing it like that because it turns out I really like it like that. And that is something Adam and I could not agree on. So I pulled away in the kitchen, then we started again in his living room, then moved to his couch where he invited me to sit on him (I like) but the kissing did not improve. Was it because we were both pretty tipsy? We sat on the couch for a couple of minutes talking, and it felt a tad awkward probably because we both didn’t enjoy the kissing. I felt like I was maybe getting the vibe he was “tired”/didn’t want me there, so I said I was gonna get going. He walked me to his front door and hugged me goodbye. 

When I was walking away, I was sure we’d probably never hang out again. Which was sort of a bummer because he has a great personality. So when I got home, I texted him and thanked him again for the dinner, told him I had a really good time, and said I wasn’t sure how he felt about it but if he wanted to hang out again, to let me know. Well....he didn’t text back Sunday afternoon but what he said was actually kind of hopeful. I had to consult Kelly and Kira about his text because I couldn’t get a sense on whether he sounded sincere. He said something along the lines of “i had a lot of fun, you’re really cool. i’ll be on a business trip for 12 days (which is true--we talked about it) but maybe when I get back we can hang out” the maybe is what stumped me.

I got some polar advice on how to text back. Kira recommended saying something like “I’d like that! Let me know when you’re back in town” and just saying that. Kelly, however, said I shouldn’t respond at all. She went on to tell me that I should enter the my career feeling focused and not dragged down my uncertainty and negative shit that comes along with dealing with boys (OH, THE BRAIN THING! I don’t think I mentioned it on here--Brian told me the night before thanksgiving that we was really into me, then then GHOSTS ME--like literally removed me on snapchat, blocked my number. i messaged him on instagram and called him a pussy, no lie. It was funny and absurd to figure out I was getting ghosted like honestly it’s such a pussy move I can’t even deal with that like BYEeeee boy!!!!)

Anyway, back to what Kelly was advising me, she said that what I went through with this break up was really intense and that I’m still fragile even though I’m beginning to feel good. I need to focus on ME. I almost want to screenshot what she said because it’s true. 

But what did I end up doing? I double texted Adam. I said what Kira told me to say and then an hour later wished him a good business trip with a lil joke attached to it. He replied and then wished me good luck on my orientation. I’ve snapchatted him twice today but haven’t texted him.

I KNOW what Kelly said is so fucking true. I don’t need anything else on my mind except for my career. And hanging out with positive people. I remember coming home after hanging out with Adam, convinced we wouldn’t hang out again, and telling myself I should start seeing someone when I feel more self-assure, more self-confident. Someone who has hobbies who just hasn’t sat around for the past few months moping on the fucking couch. BUt also, part of me wants someone to hang out with. I don’t see myself dating soon but just someone of the opposite sex to get a drink with at the bar, watch a movie with, do something in the city with, whatever. I see myself being able to just do that without getting to emotionally involved or am I just blinded my naivety? Is that even a word?

Part of me wants to check the bumble app just to see if he’s actually in FL on his business. He said he was like 80% sure he was gonna get sent out. Part of me thinks that maybe he’d just say we’d be in touch after his trip as an excuse to let things fizzle out. My dilemma here is, should I let it fizzle out? What I DO know is that I need to give this dude space. Especially because I wasn’t totally over the moon by him, but he was certainly someone I wanted to hang out with more. Which btw, he was very respective about the recent break up and we didn’t even call it a date (even though sushi, netflix, and smooches totally is) I redownloaded the app but I’m to fight off my urge to log on to see his location (it’s kind of creepy isn’t it? me and the fact that bumble shows the town/city the person is currently in)--I don’t want to be crushed/disappointed but I also feel like I’d get an answer. 

I GOTTA CALM DOWN. If it fizzles, it fizzles. I don’t want to disappoint Kelly because I really do take what she says to heart because she and I think so much a like but she’s had so many emotional experiences and has been in my position after a horrible break up. She’s providing me guidance. I should follow her advice because I know it comes from a place of concern and caring. 

I don’t know we’ll see how this goes. I’m just gonna NOT contact him. It’s gonna be hard but I gotta slow my role. If he’s interested he’ll show it. I’m an attractive, funny, cool, smart chick. If the kissing was enough to turn him off, so be it! But if he actually does want to hang out, I’m just gonna play it real chill and not get into anything serious too soon. I just want to have fun and he’s someone I see have interesting times with.

We’ll see...

Update: I finished this post, checked my snapchat, and he showed me a video of his hotel room and how it’s much better than last time. WHAT AM I DOING