#how am i supposed to be normal after this???

[wovenst4rs]

Diary

Xia Yi Zhou/Caleb × reader

Wordcount: 1k

Caleb had never hidden much from you. Whatever you wanted to know, he would happily share with you, no matter how secretive he was supposed to be about it. All it always took was you looking up at him with that pleading expression that always made his blood rush and the words would come out of his mouth before he even remembered to keep it shut. Most of the time, you didn’t even need to ask; Caleb simply chose to just tell you by himself. Finding that getting to think of his words and calming down his racing heart before telling you on his own terms was easier than making a mess of himself in front of you. 

Which is probably why the first time you walked in his room -well  his new room since you stole his- and noticed him slamming a small notebook in his jacket’s pocket, smiling as he stood up from his chair desk, you couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. It didn’t help that when you asked him what was in that book? He simply shrugged the question off. Opting to cage you next to the door with his arms instead.

-”It’s just some personal project,” Caleb had explained, gently guiding you out of his room with a hand on the small on your back.

You pursed your lips; his answer leaving an uncomfortable taste in your mouth, even as he walked you down to the kitchen. Technically, you had no reason to believe he was lying. After all, he was still your Caleb. He may have changed slightly, but he wouldn’t lie to you. Not your honest Caleb…

It took you less than thirty minutes to decide to sneak into his room that night. You reasoned that if he could fake his death and make you grieve him for a year, then he technically asked for you to snoop into his thing. If he didn’t want you to, then he should’ve locked his door at night like every reasonable person- or not fake his death- but that was just unreasonable thinking it seemed.

So as you pushed the door of his room open, the knob cold against your hand, you left behind any lingering hesitation; the curiosity pulling you closer into the empty room. You let out a shaky breath, thankful that Caleb fell asleep on the couch as soon as the movie you convinced him to watch started. 

Things may have changed, but even after years, you two still couldn’t do movie night without him passing out halfway through the movie. You would often tease him about it as teens. Especially the way he would cling to you in his sleep; his body looking for yours even when unconscious. 

You let out a satisfied hum as you turned on the lights; the jacket he wore earlier sitting on the back of his chair, inviting you in. Taking a few quiet steps, you reached for the pockets of the jacket and bit your cheeks as you felt the leathery outside of the notebook under your fingers. The corners of the pages, yellowed from time, were practically asking you to open them and read through every line tattooed on them by Caleb’s favorite pen.

You leaned back against his bed, the wood cracking softly under your weight as you opened the book. The first page was mostly empty, only a few lines written at the top.

September 3rd 2040

-”Y/N hasn’t stopped coughing since this morning. Am worried about her. Gran keeps repeating that it’s normal and that antibiotics should start helping soon but don’t know what to think anymore. I bought her her favorite snacks and she immediately threw them up. I’ll update later.”

You paused as your eyes lingered on the date, realization flooding in. This was Caleb’s diary. You froze, questioning if you should even be reading this. It was Caleb’s diary, you couldn’t just read his most inner thoughts without him knowing.

But… The temptation to read about the last year was strong. Unbelievably so. To learn about what happened while you were missing from his life. Anything to explain his sudden demeanor change.

So you turned the pages. Skipping a chunk of them until you neared the end. Your stomach deeping as your eyes ran over the words you longed to discover. Page after page, warmth coiled around your spine. Your name appearing once, twice, then thrice, blood rushing down your body. 

That big sentimental idiot hadn’t let a single page remain empty without your name staining the page. It was almost sweet.

Almost,

because the rest of his words were anything but sweet. The thoughts he had always tried to hide about you laid bare on the paper. Each sheet describing a new way he wanted you undone in front of him. How he had fought his feelings for years, fearing you only saw him as a brother figure. How he had tried convincing himself that it was enough. That as long as you were near him and safe, that he could smother the flames spreading through his heart at the thought of you with anyone else.

But he couldn’t. And God knows he tried. But you had never made it easy for him. You always seemed to know which button to push to get his body to overheat. Your smiles made him ache for more. Your tears left his mind blank, except for the thought of kissing them off your cheek. The world forgotten as he swallowed your pain.

He wanted you so much that sometimes he wished he could resent you for it. Resent you for the way his body reacted every time your shirt rid up ever so slightly as you reached for a book in his bookshelf. His body and mind fighting each other at every echo of her voice; wanting nothing more than to hear you cry and choke his name.

Guilt had become an afterthought for him, even as he faked his sleep simply to have an excuse to pull you closer to his body during movie nights; your smell sticking to his clothes in a way that made his head spin. 

Your eyes widened as you read the last page again. If he faked being asleep then-

You gasp as you hear a sound at the door, wiping your head back to see Caleb silently observing you. His eyes bore into yours; the small sigh escaping his lips made you shiver unconsciously.

-”Took you long enough”.

This was supposed to be a drabble but this ended up being longer than expected 🫠

Tbh idk if I should continue this. Writer block has really been hitting hard but Thank God after months I think am finally getting motivation 🙌

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.✦ . ★⋆. ࿐✦. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

*English is not my first language so this work may contain a few mistakes*

[brainrotbee]

Paynleand Promptfest Day 5: Flowers

~

"Just once, I would like to have a case where no one is trying to harm us," Edwin huffed as he ran down the winding country road.

"Where's the fun in that?" Charles replied, equally out of breath. He glanced behind him and his eyes widened. "Duck!" He nearly pushed Edwin to the ground in order to protect him from the arrow that whizzed above his head a moment later.

"Nice reflexes," he panted, pushing himself off the gravel. "I knew Viking spirits are usually violent but this seems unnatural." He looked behind him at the small cottage they'd mirror traveled to only five minutes earlier. Blokes with long beards and different cool-looking but deadly weapons were clambering their way out of the windows and the front door. "There seems to be something else at play here."

"Are they corrupted?" Charles asked. He paused to elbow a man who had caught up to them in the face. His helmet clanged as he fell to the ground.

"No. Their forms look far too solid."

"Territorial then?"

"That is what confuses me," Edwin said. The Vikings gang was getting closer. A spear flew over the boys' heads and landed in a field to their left. Whoever threw it gave a roar of anger. "The cottage was empty until we arrived and then they all appeared out of nowhere." He frowned in thought, though his stride never broke. "This case is quite baffling."

"Right," Charles said over someone screaming in Norse. "Let's worry about that once we get to safety."

"That sounds like-"

Edwin was cut off by a flash of red hair and the biggest battle axe Charles had ever seen. Its wielder sliced in between the two boys, nearly taking off Charles's arm. His face was slack and his eyes were glowing blue. They would definitely have to figure that out once they were done running for their afterlives.

Charles ducked as the Viking swung at him again. It was terrifying to fight a ghost five times his size but he had no other choice; he needed to protect Edwin. After a few more ducks and dodges, Charles managed to land pretty good punch. Unfortunately, it didn't phase the Viking one bit. Just as Charles was getting ready to accept his fate, black cords began wrapping themselves around the Viking's body and he fell to the ground, red-faced and cursing.

"Thanks, mate," Charles said, catching his breath. "New spell?"

"It's a variation of my normal binding one," Edwin explained, stepping over the Viking. "But I do not want to see how long it lasts."

"I'm with you there."

They took off running once again. Ghosts didn't seem like they should get tired but that wasn't the case at all. Charles felt like his legs had turned to jelly by the time he finally spotted a decent hiding place. He grabbed Edwin's hand and the two of them dove into a ditch, near the end of the road.

Charles leaned back on the grass. They hadn't had a case go that badly since Port Townsend. He scanned their surroundings to make sure that they were hidden well enough for the Vikings to pass right by them. Luckily, the wildflowers and grass was tall enough to cover them, as long as you weren't looking too hard. Flowers?

Charles reached out and plucked a cornflower out of the ground. There was something he'd supposed to remember about flowers, and Friday. Wasn't Friday a special day? Flowers, special day, Edwin...

"Oh," he said aloud. He pulled out another cornflower and handed it to Edwin. "Happy Valentine's Day."

Edwin stared at him in disbelief before taking the them. He shook his head a soft laugh escaped his lips. "Thank you." He tucked one into his breast pocket. "I hope you'll forgive me for not having a gift for you. It seems I am a bit occupied at the moment."

Charles grinned and they stood together. "How about once we sort out this mess, you and me go on a proper date, yeah?"

"I would love nothing more."

They shared one last smile before standing up to face the Viking horde.

[locsandletters]

ᯓ first of many; j.musiala

──one shot

pairing ➜ jamal x fem!reader

word count ➜ 1.7k

warnings/notes ➜ none

summary ➜ after years of just being friends, you and jamal are finally spending your first valentine’s day as a couple. naturally, nothing goes as planned. dating your best friend 101.

it starts the night before.

like, technically, it’s not valentine’s day yet, but jamal’s been on one all day, walking around like a little kid with a secret, smirking to himself, pursing his lips together like he’s dying to spill but won’t. he’s been weird about his phone, too. tilting it away from you. ignoring messages. biting back a grin every time it lights up.

“who you texting?” you ask, sprawled across his bed, watching him from the pillow.

“don’t worry about it,” he says, tucking his phone under his arm and flopping down beside you. he kisses your cheek—one of those lazy, half-missed kisses that lands more on your jaw than anything—but you’re still side-eyeing him, suspicious.

“you’re acting real sneaky, jamal.”

“am i?” he asks, grinning into your skin.

yes. he is. but whatever. you let it go. you don’t even think about it again until the next morning, when you wake up to the sound of something loud and chaotic crashing in his kitchen. it’s early. too early. the kind of early that makes your brain slow, like it’s loading in real-time, like you need at least 15 minutes to process.

there’s another crash. a curse. a chair scraping.

then, suspiciously: silence.

“… jamal?” your voice is all groggy and muffled, and it takes an embarrassing amount of effort to pry your eyes open. you reach across the bed, patting the empty space where he should be. it’s cold.

more silence. then, like a jump scare, his voice: “don’t come out here!”

what.

you blink at the ceiling, confused as hell, still groggy, trying to decide if you just hallucinated that. but no, the sound of drawers opening—slamming shut—confirms it.

“why?” you call, throat scratchy.

pause. like he wasn’t expecting a follow-up question. then, weakly: “just don’t.”

now, see. if he had just acted normal, maybe you would’ve left it alone. but he’s being weird. so you drag yourself up, rub your eyes, stumble toward the door.

“babe,” he calls, panicked. “i mean it.”

but it’s too late. you’re already there, stepping into the kitchen, and—

oh.

oh, it’s bad.

it looks like a crime scene. a breakfast massacre. there’s flour everywhere, like he was just throwing handfuls of it for fun. a whisk on the floor. a bowl of what looks like pancake batter, except it’s an objectively illegal colour. burnt toast. eggs that never made it to the pan.

jamal is standing in the middle of it all, barefoot, covered in flour, holding a plate with what can only be described as the saddest excuse for a pancake you’ve ever seen. and he looks… guilty. like a dog who just got caught eating the couch cushions.

“what the hell,” you say, staring.

“breakfast in bed,” he mutters, looking down at the plate in his hands, like he’s just now realising how bad it looks.

a pause.

“babe,” you say, trying so hard not to laugh.

“yeah,” he sighs, nodding. “i know.”

he sounds so resigned. so disappointed in himself. it’s actually kind of cute.

“what was the plan here?” you ask, stepping over a suspiciously large flour pile to get closer.

he groans, shoving the plate toward you. “pancakes.”

you take it. and it’s so heavy. like, heavier than a pancake should be. you poke it with your fork, and it barely moves.

“is it… supposed to feel like this?” you ask, laughing.

“don’t make me talk about it.”

he’s surprisingly genuinely embarrassed. ducking his head, rubbing at his jaw. and when you take a bite—because obviously, you have to—he’s watching you so closely. so serious.

and it’s awful. so, so awful.

but when you look up, his face is hopeful, expectant, and—ugh. you can’t ruin this for him.

so you chew, swallow, try your best not to gag. “it’s… wow. so unique.”

his whole face brightens. “yeah?”

“so creative.”

“i knew you’d like it,” he says, smug, taking the plate back. he grabs his own fork, ready to dig in.

“wait—”

too late. he takes a bite. and immediately spits it out.

“… oh, that’s fucking disgusting.”

you can’t even help it. you laugh at him. hunched over, wheezing, tears in your eyes. and he’s looking at the pancake like it personally wronged him.

“i don’t get it,” he says, looking genuinely betrayed. “i followed the recipe and everything.”

“be honest,” you say, wiping at your eyes, still laughing. “did you really?”

he hesitates. then, sheepishly: “no.”

and that sends you right back into a fit of giggles.

—

the rest of the day is just as chaotic.

there are roses. but too many. like, you turn around for one second, and suddenly, the entire apartment looks like a flower shop. then, out of nowhere, he pulls out matching t-shirts that say i love my girlfriend and i love my boyfriend in obnoxious, bold letters. insists you take pictures in them, which he very proudly posts on his close friends—alphonso is not shy to let you both know that he thinks that shit is cringe.

you later end up at some overpriced, aggressively romantic restaurant in the city, where everything is quite literally heart-shaped. you hate that you love it. jamal even gets you one of those giant stuffed bears that takes up half the car, just to be extra.

“where the hell am i gonna put this?” you ask, squished into the passenger seat, trying to push the bear off of you.

“our bed,” he says, like it’s obvious.

he’s joking. he has to be.

except, when you get back to his place, he throws it straight onto the bed and pats its head like a pet.

“what’s his name?” he asks.

you blink. “why does he need a name?”

jamal gives you a look. “he’s part of the family now, babe.”

you stare at him. he stares back. dead serious.

“… barry.”

“barry?” he repeats, making a face. “nah. try again.”

you roll your eyes, climbing onto the bed, throwing yourself against the pillows. “okay, fine. what about… reginald?”

jamal hums, considering. “reginald. reggie.” he nods, satisfied. “yeah. that’s hard.”

it’s not. but that’s how the bear becomes reggie.

it’s been a dumb, ridiculous, unserious day. and that dumb, ridiculous, unserious day stretches into an equally unserious night, because jamal isn’t done yet. of course he isn’t.

there’s dinner next. not an actual dinner, because you’re both still full from the aggressively heart-shaped meal earlier, but a ‘snack dinner,’ as he calls it. which just means eating a bunch of random shit in bed like kids at a sleepover.

“okay,” he says, serious as hell, setting the bag between you. “don’t look. just pick.”

you squint. “… pick what?”

he just raises a brow. motions to the bag.

you sigh, reaching in, grabbing the first thing your fingers touch. when you pull it out, it’s—oh. it’s one of those valentine’s candy hearts, the kind that taste like chalk.

you make a face. “oh, hell no.”

“no take-back,” he says, snatching the bag away before you can try again.

you sigh dramatically, flipping the little heart over in your hand. it says kiss me in faded pink letters. you show him.

jamal grins. “well,” he says, leaning in, all smug, all close, all warm. “you heard the candy.”

he’s such a loser. but, ugh. he’s cute, too. so you let him kiss you. and then another. and then one more, because why not.

after that, it’s movie time. jamal insists on watching something “romantic for the holiday.”

which, for some reason, means shrek 2.

“this is not a romance movie,” you say, staring at the tv.

“are you kidding?” he says, looking at you like you just disrespected his whole family. “it’s literally a love story.”

“… how?”

“shrek and fiona,” he says, like it’s obvious. “real love. no conditions. no standards. no judgment.” he gestures to the screen, suddenly so deeply invested in this conversation. “you don’t get it. she could’ve stayed a human. she could’ve left him, married some pretty boy, had a normal life. but she didn’t. she wanted her man. ogre and all.”

he leans back, shaking his head. “real love.”

you snort. “are you about to cry?”

“fuck off,” he mutters, shoving popcorn into his mouth.

—

the movie finishes. you think maybe, finally, he’s done being ridiculous for the night. maybe now, you can just curl up, relax, do regular couple things.

but then, he rolls over. stretches. looks at you. “we should make a fort.”

you blink. “what?”

“a fort,” he repeats. “like we used to do as kids. with pillows and blankets and shit.”

“jamal.”

“c’mon,” he says, sitting up. “you can’t tell me that doesn’t sound fun.”

it does. it really does. but you have to act unbothered for the sake of your pride.

“hmm,” you say, pretending to think. “i dunno.”

he narrows his eyes. “you’re lying.”

you are.

so, yeah. now you’re building a fort. or, more accurately, jamal is building a fort while you watch, offering absolutely zero help.

“you’re actually useless,” he says, balancing two pillows against a chair.

you shrug, popping another chocolate in your mouth. he mutters something under his breath.

you raise a brow. “what was that?”

“nothing,” he says, then turns to the fort, hands on his hips, nodding, pleased with himself. “done.”

and honestly? it’s actually good. like, he really put his whole heart into it. it’s got layers. multiple blankets. strategically placed pillows. fairy lights draped across the top.

he crawls in first, patting the space beside him. “c’mon.”

you sigh, all dramatic, but crawl in anyway. and, ugh. okay. it’s actually kind of perfect. warm. cozy. kind of romantic, in a way that doesn’t try too hard.

“happy?” you ask.

he hums, tilting his head against the pillow, looking at you. “yeah.”

and then, finally, you’re just there. under the blankets, wrapped up in each other, warm and full and tired in the best way. jamal’s fingers trace lazy circles into your skin, and you just breathe.

you sigh, content. “this was nice.”

“yeah?” he asks, voice soft.

“yeah,” you admit.

he’s quiet for a second. then: “you’re stuck with me now, you know.”

you smile, half-asleep, pressing your face into his chest. “i know.”

and that’s your first valentine’s day together. stupid. unserious. but somehow, perfect. just right.

[msklassickilla]

Delirious | J. Uso|R. Reigns Ten

Summary: When Titania buys an old typewriter from a closing thrift store, she thinks it’s just a vintage gem—until the words she types start coming true. However, the typewriter doesn’t just bring fantasies to life—it twists them. Giving Titania way more than she bargained for.

Pairing: Titania Marshall (Black OC) x Jey Uso x Roman Reigns

Author’s Note: This story is another AU thing. So, it might align, or it might not. I will try my best to keep it current enough. Nonetheless, it’s mash up of a few things: That one episode of Goosebumps. That one episode of the Twilight Zone. And that movie by the same title, Delirious featuring John Candy. I’ma make it work. Plus, I like mystical spooky shit with a bit of Jerry Springer type mess.

Warning(s): SMUT incoming. Some minor harsh language. A smidge of toxic behavior.

Disclaimer: This work of art is fictional in nature including the original characters created by me. I do not own any of the existing characters or lyrics from songs referenced in this story (if any). All rights belong to their respective owners with the exception of my original characters. This work is purely for entertainment purposes and is not intended to cause harm.

Ten

Titania sat on the couch, staring at the muted television, barely registering the flickering images on the screen. The house was quiet now. Jey had left for the airport that morning, kissing her goodbye with his usual warmth, promising to call her later. It was supposed to be comforting, knowing she had a few days to herself, a chance to clear her mind. Instead, she felt untethered.

There were only two weeks left until the move. Two weeks until she packed up everything and left behind the life she had built before all of this. Before Jey. Before the typewriter. Before everything shifted. She should be excited. She had written this future. She had wanted it.

Then why did she feel like she was walking into something she couldn’t escape?

Titania leaned forward, rubbing her temples. She just needed to shake it off. Find a routine. Get back to the version of herself that existed before she started rewriting everything. Maybe she’d go out today. Get some fresh air. Do something normal.

Her phone buzzed on the coffee table. She glanced down, expecting Jey or Naomi, but the name on the screen made her stomach clench.

Tamya (FaceTime Call)

Titania exhaled sharply, guilt curling tight in her chest. She hadn’t spoken to her sister in weeks. The last time they talked was before she bought the typewriter, before her entire world rearranged itself into something unrecognizable. She had been avoiding her, just like she had been avoiding her parents.

But Tamya wasn’t like their mother and father. Their parents would be disappointed, but Tamya would be mad as this wasn’t like her at all. Titania forced herself to answer. The moment her sister’s face filled the screen, she knew she had been right.

"Girl," Tamya’s voice was sharp, her expression pinched with irritation. "Why am I hearing from Mia that you’re moving to Florida? Is this what we doing now? Keeping secrets?"

Titania’s stomach dropped.

She should have known Mia would say something. Her best friend had always been loose-lipped, but Titania had rewrote things, made her someone who believed in their relationship. It hadn’t occurred to her that Mia hadn’t been rewritten enough to keep secrets.

Titania scrambled for an excuse. "I—I wanted to tell you myself."

Tamya’s eyes narrowed. "And when exactly were you gonna do that? After you moved? What the hell is going on with you? This ain’t like you."

"It was supposed to be a surprise," Titania lied, though she could hear how weak it sounded.

"A surprise?" Tamya’s brows shot up. "Titania, this is your whole damn life! You don’t make decisions like this without telling your family especially me.”

Titania swallowed, feeling the heat of shame spread up her neck.

"You never kept secrets from me, T," Tamya continued, her voice softer now, but no less firm. "Not even from Mom and Dad, but especially not from me. You always told me everything."

Titania’s throat tightened. She knew Tamya was right. Before Jey, before the typewriter, before all of this, she had always confided in her big sister. Tamya was the person she trusted the most, the one who knew her better than anyone.

But what could she even say?

That she had written herself into a different life? That she was losing track of what was real and what wasn’t? That she was terrified of what was to come because things hadn’t really been working out in the way she wanted but she didn’t know how to fix it.

She couldn’t say any of that.

"I just didn’t want to deal with everyone freaking out," Titania said, grasping for anything that might calm her sister down.

Tamya’s expression remained unreadable for a moment before she sighed, shaking her head. "Mama and Daddy are gonna lose it when they find out. And I swear, T, if you think you’re gonna blindside them with this, you got another thing coming."

Titania’s pulse spiked. "You’re not gonna tell them, are you?"

Tamya folded her arms, studying her carefully. "With the way you been moving? I should."

"Tamya, please," Titania whispered. "I’ll tell them soon. Just… not yet. I still got things to get in order."

Her sister exhaled, tapping her nails against her arm before nodding. "Fine. For now. But you need to get your shit together." Her voice softened again, worry replacing the irritation. "This isn’t like you. Not calling, keeping secrets, making huge life changes out of nowhere. Something’s not right with you, T."

Titania’s chest tightened.

Tamya didn’t know how true that was.

"I’m fine," she lied.

Tamya didn’t believe her, but she didn’t press. She just sighed again. "Just… don’t forget who you are, okay?"

Titania forced a small smile. "I won’t."

Tamya gave her one last long look before hanging up. The screen went dark, leaving Titania staring at her own dim reflection. She set the phone down slowly, pressing her fingers against her temples.

Her sister was right.

She wasn’t herself anymore.

Before Jey, before the typewriter, she had been Titania Marshall. Daughter of Teedria and Gary Marshall. Little sister to Tamya and Kenneth Marshall.

So why did she feel like that person was slipping away?

Her gaze flickered toward the spare room, where the typewriter sat packed away in its box. The thought creeped in before she could stop it. Maybe she didn’t have to lose herself. Maybe she could just… adjust a few things.

Titania shoved the thought away, shaking her head. No. She wasn’t doing that again.

She just needed to figure out how to get back to being who she was without losing Jey in the process. Without letting Roman pull her into something she didn’t understand. Without making things worse.

----

Titania tried to fall back into her normal routine, but normal didn’t exist anymore. She went through the motions—waking up, making coffee, checking emails, answering a few messages—but nothing felt the same. Nothing felt like hers.

Her phone was constantly lighting up. Jey sending her videos from the gym, sweaty and grinning like he wasn’t thousands of miles away. Naomi checking in, reminding her how excited she was for Titania to move down. It was all sweet, thoughtful—everything she could’ve wanted.

But the more she saw those messages, the more she realized her old life was slipping away.

She wanted both.

Her old life. Her new life. The independence she had before. The love she had now. But could she even have both?

The thought made her chest feel tight, her stomach twisting with something restless. She needed to get out of her own head. Needed to do something.

Her phone buzzed beside her. A FaceTime call.

Jey.

Titania exhaled, grabbing her phone. She forced a smile as she answered, pushing everything else to the back of her mind.

Jey grinned at her, his background showing a hotel room. He looked relaxed, fresh from a shower, a towel draped around his shoulders. “Damn, you look good. You miss me yet?”

Titania let out a soft laugh, despite the knot in her stomach. “I don’t know. It’s been kinda nice having the house to myself.”

Jey scoffed, shaking his head. “Lies. You probably been walking around in my T-shirts all day, wishing I was there.”

Titania rolled her eyes, warmth blooming in her chest despite everything. This was her normal. Jey. The conversation drifted to his match, his workout, what he had for dinner. He always liked keeping her updated, knowing she was invested in the details of his life.

“How’s everything over there?” he asked, leaning back against the pillows.

Titania hesitated, fingers gripping the phone a little tighter. “Good. Just getting things together for the move. Nothing crazy.”

Jey’s expression softened. “Yeah? You excited?”

Titania nodded. “Yeah. I am.”

And she meant it. She just didn’t know which part of her was excited anymore.

They talked for another fifteen minutes before Jey started dozing off mid-conversation, his exhaustion catching up to him. Titania smiled as he mumbled a soft "Love you," before hanging up.

She set the phone down, staring at the dark screen. Jey was her future. She had written this life, created it. She wasn’t going to let it slip away. But as the quiet settled in around her, the unease crept back in.

She found herself grabbing her laptop, her fingers moving before she could talk herself out of it. Titania started searching for the old thrift store. The place where she had bought the typewriter. The place that no longer existed.

She scoured the internet, looking up the store’s name, the address—anything that might lead her to information about the old man who sold it to her. But there was nothing.

No business listings. No past reviews. No evidence that it had ever been there.

Titania’s fingers stilled over the keyboard, unease settling deep in her stomach. She leaned back against the couch, staring at the screen. Her heart pounded in her ears. This didn’t make sense. There was no way a store could just vanish without a trace.

She was about to close the tab when a search result caught her eye. It wasn’t about the thrift store. But the title made something in her chest tighten.

"Reality Shifting: The Science of Unseen Worlds."

She clicked without thinking.

The page loaded, revealing an old blog. The background was dark, tiny constellations scattered across the top like a map of forgotten stars. The entries spanned years, some dated as far back as a decade ago, the author only posting sporadically, as if they wrote only when they had something urgent to say.

Titania’s pulse quickened as she skimmed through the opening paragraphs. The blog wasn’t just about shifting realities. It was about rewriting them.

Her breath caught in her throat as she read further.

The author spoke of dimensions layered on top of each other, stacked like pages in a book. Most people only ever existed in one version of their story. But sometimes—rarely, dangerously—those pages could be rewritten.

The symptoms of a "rewritten reality" were listed out carefully, methodically, like someone had studied them for years.

Sudden changes in relationships, even with people you’ve known for years.

Objects appearing in your home that you don’t remember buying.

People knowing things about you that never actually happened.

A growing sense of unease, like you’re losing control of your own story.

Titania felt the blood drain from her face. This wasn’t paranoia. This wasn’t stress. This was real.

Her chest rose and fell in slow, measured breaths, her mind racing. She scrolled further, searching for anything that might help. A passage buried deep within an old post caught her attention.

"A rewritten reality cannot be erased. It can only be reshaped. One cannot go back—only forward. But to move forward, one must first decide: What is the true story?"

Titania’s breath shuddered. The true story. She stared at the words, rereading them over and over. If she couldn’t erase what had happened, maybe she could… blend it.

Maybe she could make both lives—the one she had and the one she had written—exist together.

Maybe she could have everything.

Titania snapped her laptop shut, a decision settling heavy in her chest. She stood, moving toward the spare room, her heartbeat loud in her ears. The typewriter sat on the desk, waiting. Her fingers trembled as she reached for it, hovering over the keys.

This time, she didn’t hesitate.

She started to type.

"Can you blend both of my realities?"

The moment she pressed the last key, the typewriter responded. Words appearing right after hers.

"Is that what you desire?"

Titania swallowed, her throat dry. She exhaled slowly, steadying herself before she typed again.

"Yes. I desire to blend both realities into one."

The machine was silent. Then words appeared in response.

"Good."

She let out a shaky breath, relief flooding her chest. But just as she was about to pull away, another message appeared.

"The past and future have been blended. Her story has changed."

Titania read the words carefully, slowly, letting them settle. The answer wasn’t ominous. It was good news. She had done the right thing.

She could have it all now. Then why did she still feel like something was still amiss?

----

For the first time in weeks, Titania felt normal. She wasn’t questioning what was real. She wasn’t obsessing over the typewriter. She wasn’t being consumed by thoughts she couldn’t control.

Everything felt… balanced. Jey was texting and calling as usual. Naomi was checking in, excited about them growing closer. She had managed to called her parents, her brother, even Mia. Everyone knew now. The haze she had been trapped in for weeks had lifted. She had both worlds now. And it was good.

Titania stood in the spare room, staring at the packed-up typewriter. She had done it. Her old life, her new life—merged. No more rewriting. No more questioning. She had gotten what she wanted. She was happy. Wasn’t she?

She inhaled deeply, pushing the thought away. She had a work meeting soon, and she wasn’t about to let her mind spiral when things were finally going right. This was what she had been fighting for. A life with Jey, a love she had dreamed of, without losing everything she had before.

Her laptop was already open on the desk when she sat down, logging into the virtual meeting. The familiar faces of her colleagues appeared one by one, grounding her in something solid. Despite everything that had changed, she still had this—her job, her career, her independence. She listened, took notes, nodded at the right moments, forcing herself to focus.

Then her phone vibrated.

She glanced at it quickly, expecting Jey or Naomi, but the name on the screen made her stomach clench. Roman.

Titania froze. She hadn’t given him her number. Had she? And she wasn’t supposed to have his. Her throat felt dry as she stared at the screen. The meeting continued, voices droning in the background, but she no longer heard them. The phone vibrated again. Another message. She forced herself to ignore it, her fingers curling into fists. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to entertain this. She had fixed things.

But as soon as the meeting ended, her resolve cracked.

Her hands moved before she could stop them, grabbing the phone, unlocking it. The first message was simple.

"Jey gave me your new number. Why did you change it? Anyway, did you get the bracelet? I thought you would at least tell me you got it."

A slow, creeping unease spread through her.

Jey gave him her number? That wasn’t right. Why would he? And the bracelet—Titania hadn’t even touched it since the day it arrived. It sat in its box, tucked away in her jewelry drawer. But Roman remembered sending it and was expecting confirmation.

Her fingers tightened around the phone. If she ignored this, it wouldn’t continue. If she ignored it, maybe whatever past Roman thought they had would be forgotten.

Another vibration. Incoming call—Roman.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Panic surged through her, and without thinking, she threw the phone across the room. It landed on the carpet with a soft thud, the ringing silenced. She pressed a hand to her chest, her heartbeat erratic. She shouldn’t have reacted like that. But why did it feel like she had been caught? Why did he feel like something she couldn’t outrun?

Minutes passed before she worked up the nerve to retrieve the phone. A voicemail icon waited for her. She should delete it. Pretend it never happened. Her thumb hovered over the screen, hesitating—then she tapped play.

Roman’s voice came through the speaker, deep and smooth, too familiar.

"We need to talk, sweetheart. Call me back."

Titania’s stomach tensed.

Not Titania. Not Tee. Sweetheart.

She swallowed, but it didn’t ease the tightness in her throat. He had said it like they had always been like this. Like this wasn’t new. Like she already agreed to whatever this was to him. A shiver crawled up her spine, but something else tangled with it, something she refused to name.

----

“Baby, what are you doing down there?”

She turned toward the doorway, still gripping her phone like a lifeline, as Jey dropped his bags and gave her an easy smile.

Her mouth opened, but no words came out.

She could still hear Roman’s voice in her head, smooth and steady through the voicemail. We need to talk, sweetheart. The heat of it was still clinging to her skin, the weight of something she didn’t want to acknowledge pressing down on her.

She fumbled for an excuse. “I—uh, I was just looking for something.”

Jey cocked his head slightly, his brows drawing together. “Everything okay?”

Titania forced herself to move, to push off the floor and cross the room toward him. She tucked her phone behind her back as she reached him, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her face into his chest.

Jey hesitated for a second before his arms circled her, his body warm and solid against hers. “Damn,” he murmured, his voice dropping slightly. “Missed me that much?”

Titania shut her eyes, inhaling the familiar scent of his cologne, grounding herself. This is what’s real. Not the message. Not the lingering temptation curling around her thoughts like an unwanted guest. Jey was here. Jey was hers.

“I just wasn’t expecting you this early,” she whispered, tightening her hold on him.

Jey smiled against her hair. “Caught an early flight.” His hands slid up and down her back, soothing, possessive. “Told you I’d be home before you knew it.”

Titania swallowed, nodding against his chest. She wouldn’t think about the message. She wouldn’t ask him about giving Roman her number. Not now.

Jey pulled back slightly, tilting her chin up. “Come on, let’s go out.”

Titania blinked. “Go out?”

“Yeah.” His lips quirked. “Movie night. You and me. Remember?”

Titania felt something loosen in her chest. A date night. A normal night. Exactly what she needed.

She nodded, managing a small smile. “Okay. Let me get ready. I had forgot all about our date.”

Jey kissed her forehead before stepping back, grabbing his bags. “I mean I can go to the movies by myself, girl,” he joked, heading toward the bedroom. “I’ll date me if you won’t.”

Titania let out a small laugh, shaking her head as she followed after him. She had to hold onto this.

----

The movie theater was perfect. Dim lighting, plush seats, a full menu that made it feel more like a private dining experience than a typical night at the movies. This was exactly what Titania had always wanted—date nights with Jey, little pockets of time where the outside world didn’t exist. And for the most part, it worked.

Jey was completely relaxed, stretched out beside her with one arm draped over the back of her seat, the other reaching for his food. He made her laugh between bites, whispering jokes and little comments about the film, his fingers tracing absentminded circles against her shoulder.

Titania wanted to get lost in it. She wanted to forget about everything else. But the peace shattered the moment she stepped into the bathroom.

She had only been in there for a minute, washing her hands, when her phone vibrated inside her purse. The sound barely registered at first—until she glanced down at the screen.

Roman.

A chill curled down her spine. Her first instinct was to ignore it. She had done it before. She could do it again. But the buzzing stopped. A message appeared.

Her stomach clenched. Slowly, Titania reached for her phone, swiping to open the text.

“You looked beautiful tonight. Shame you’re wasting it.”

The breath left her lungs. Her head snapped up, eyes darting around the bathroom as if he could be standing right there. But she was alone. He wasn’t here. He couldn’t be. Then she remembered. The Instagram story. It had been so small, so insignificant. Just a simple mirror selfie of her outfit before they left, posted without thinking. And then later, a quick boomerang of the drinks at the theater, Jey’s arm barely in frame. That was it. That was all.

She gripped the edge of the sink, her pulse hammering.

This was too much. He knew too much. How did he know her Instagram handle? She hadn’t even thought that was possible. But somehow, he had been watching.

Titania inhaled sharply, forcing herself to focus. She couldn’t let this get to her. She had made her choice. She was with Jey.

She needed to prove it.

Steadying herself, she turned off the faucet, squared her shoulders, and stepped out of the bathroom. Jey was waiting for her in the lobby, his back to her as he scrolled through his phone.

Titania forced a smile as she reached him, slipping her arms around his waist. Jey grinned, tucking his phone away and kissing the side of her head. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” she said, her voice even.

She wouldn’t think about the message. She wouldn’t think about Roman. The drive home was quiet at first, Jey humming along to the music while Titania stared out the halfway down window, trying to sort through the storm in her head. But the more she tried to push the thoughts away, the more restless she became.

She needed to replace them.

She needed to fill the space with Jey.

Titania shifted in her seat, rubbing her palms against her thighs, her heart pounding for an entirely different reason now. She turned toward Jey, her gaze flickering over him. He was focused on the road, his jaw sharp in the dim glow of the dashboard, his hands loose on the wheel.

She reached over, sliding a hand over his thigh.

Jey’s brows lifted slightly. “What you doin’ over there?”

Titania bit her lip. “Pull over.”

Jey glanced at her, amused. “What?”

“Just… pull over,” she repeated, nodding toward a small, wooded area off the side of the road.

Jey hesitated but eventually obliged, steering the car onto the dirt path and parking under the cover of the trees. The engine cut, leaving them in silence.

“Tee, what’s—”

Before he could finish, Titania was climbing over the console, her dress riding up as she settled herself in his lap. Jey’s eyes widened, his hands instinctively gripping her hips.

“Tee—”

She silenced him with a kiss, fierce and desperate. Her hands tangled in his hair, pulling him closer. She needed this. Needed him.

Jey groaned into her mouth, his hands sliding up her thighs, and she could feel the moment he stopped questioning her. He kissed her back with equal intensity, his grip tightening as she ground against him.

“Jey,” she whispered against his lips, her voice breathless. “I need you. I need it.”

He didn’t need to be told twice. His hands found the hem of her dress, pulling it up and over her head. She was left in nothing but her bra and panties, the cool night air brushing against her skin. Jey’s eyes darkened as he took her in, his hands roaming over her curves.

“Damn, Tee,” he muttered, his voice thick with desire. “What’s got into you?”

The words sent a wave of heat through her, and she reached for his belt, fumbling slightly in her haste. Jey chuckled, a low, rumbling sound that made her ache.

“Easy,” he said, but his own hands weren’t exactly steady as he helped her free him from his jeans.

When they were finally skin to skin, Titania let out a shaky breath. She could feel the hardness of him pressing against her, and it only fueled her desperation.

“Tell me what you want,” Jey murmured, his lips trailing down her neck.

“You,” she gasped, her hips rocking against him. “I just want you.”

Jey’s hands gripped her hips, guiding her as she sank down onto him. The stretch was exquisite, and she threw her head back with a moan. Jey’s groan matched hers, his forehead dropping to her shoulder as he adjusted to the feel of her.

They moved together; the rhythm slow at first but quickly building. Titania’s hands braced against his chest, her nails digging into his skin as she rode him. Jey’s hands were everywhere—on her hips, her ass, her waist—pulling her closer, deeper.

“Jey,” she whimpered, her voice breaking. “Don’t stop.”

“Never,” he growled, his grip tightening as he thrust up into her.

The sensation was overwhelming, and Titania felt herself spiraling closer to the edge. Her breath came in short, jagged gasps, her body trembling with the force of her pleasure.

“Fuck, Tee,” Jey groaned, his hands gripping her ass as he spanked her, the sharp sound echoing in the small space of the car.

The sting only heightened her arousal, and she cried out, her body clenching around him. Jey cursed, his hips stuttering as he followed her over the edge. They stayed like that for a moment, both of them breathless and shaking. Titania’s forehead rested against Jey’s, her heart still racing.

She should have felt satisfied. She should have felt grounded. But she didn’t. Jey’s arms tightened around her, his lips pressing against her forehead, completely lost in her.

“Tee,” he murmured, voice still wrecked, still clinging to the moment. “You ain’t never been like that before. I like that shit.”

Titania swallowed, pressing closer, burying her face in his neck.

Maybe I needed it.

Jey’s fingers skimmed her back, slow, lazy. “What’s mine is mine, right?”

Titania exhaled shakily, nodding. “Right.”

Jey hummed in satisfaction, his grip on her just a little tighter. She closed her eyes. She needed to hold onto this. She needed to believe it.

----

Titania was exhausted, but Jey wasn’t done with her yet.

They barely made it inside before he was pulling her back into his arms, his lips trailing over her skin, his hands gripping her like he was trying to burn himself into her. His passion had always been fierce, but tonight? Tonight, it was insatiable.

Titania let him take what he wanted, let herself give in, let him remind her that she belonged to him. Only him.

She needed this.

Needed to drown out the whisper of Roman’s voice. Needed to erase the way her body had tensed at his text, at the message she never sent.

Jey tangled his fingers in her hair, tilting her head back, murmuring against her lips. “Say it.”

Titania shivered, her breath hitching. “I’m yours.”

Jey groaned, satisfied. “Damn right you are.”

And he made sure she knew it.

----

The house was quiet.

Titania lay in Jey’s arms, his warmth pressed against her, his breathing deep and even. She should have been asleep. She should have felt safe, at peace.

But something wasn’t right.

She swore she had heard it—faint, just on the edge of her consciousness. A sound that didn’t belong.

Click. Click. Click.

Her body tensed. She held her breath, listening. The room was still, the faint hum of the AC the only thing breaking the silence. Jey didn’t stir. He was deep in sleep, completely unaware. But then she heard it again.

Click. Click. Click.

Titania’s stomach twisted. That wasn’t possible. She packed the typewriter away. Didn’t she?

Carefully, she slid out of Jey’s embrace, barely breathing as she pulled herself from the bed. The hardwood was cool against her bare feet as she crept toward the door, her pulse a steady, suffocating drum in her ears.

The hallway stretched before her, dark and unmoving. But the sound was coming from the spare room.

Titania hesitated.

She should turn around. Climb back into bed. Pretend she heard nothing. But her feet carried her forward anyway. The door to the spare room was cracked open. A sliver of light stretched across the floor. Titania pressed a shaking hand against the wood, pushing it open further, her breath lodged in her throat.

Her knees nearly gave out.

The typewriter sat on the desk. It wasn’t in the box. It was back in its place. Waiting.

And a new message had been typed. Titania’s chest rose and fell in sharp, uneven breaths as she stepped forward, her legs barely supporting her weight.

The words on the page made her skin crawl.

"Blending your worlds did not change the fate that awaits you."

Titania covered her mouth, a strangled sound escaping her throat.

No. This couldn’t be. She had fixed things. She had said what she wanted and didn’t want.

But the typewriter— the typewriter was always one step ahead.

----

The next morning, Jey kissed her lazily before heading to the gym, leaving Titania in bed with a lingering ache in her body and a storm in her mind.

She needed air.

She needed clarity.

But what she got instead was Roman.

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. FaceTime. Titania’s heart stopped. She knew who it was before she even looked.

Roman.

She shouldn’t answer. She should ignore him. But she didn’t. With trembling fingers, she slid her thumb over the screen.

Roman’s face filled the display, his expression easy, familiar, like nothing about this was strange.

“Good morning, sweetheart.”

Titania swallowed. “Roman…”

His eyes flickered over her face, reading her like an open book. “Been ignoring me.”

Titania forced a breath. “I’ve been busy.”

He hummed, unconvinced. “That right?”

Titania didn’t know how to respond. There was something too steady, too knowing in his expression, like he was waiting for her to slip.

She straightened. “Why did you send me that bracelet?”

Roman’s brows lifted slightly. “You don’t remember?”

Titania stiffened. He wasn’t playing with her. He wasn’t teasing. He was genuinely confused why she didn’t remember why.

Titania’s breath grew unsteady. “Roman… I don’t know what you think we had, but—”

Something shifted in his expression.

For the first time, he looked hurt.

“How could you forget?” His voice was quiet, edged with something Titania couldn’t name. “I don’t—I don’t understand. We were—” He stopped himself, exhaling sharply, shaking his head like he was trying to steady something inside himself.

Titania opened her mouth, ready to demand answers, ready to piece together what reality he thought they had.

But before she could speak, the front door opened.

Jey.

Titania’s body snapped to attention. Panic surged through her, her heart hammering as she quickly hung up.

The room felt too small, too charged.

Jey’s voice carried through the house. “Tee?”

Titania fumbled to put the phone down, trying to shake the weight of the conversation. “Yeah, I’m in here!”

Jey appeared in the doorway, his gym bag slung over his shoulder, his expression easy—until he really looked at her.

Something shifted.

His eyes flickered over her, reading the tension in her shoulders, the way she was holding herself too still.

His jaw tensed. “Who was that?”

Titania’s breath hitched.

Jey’s gaze dropped to the phone on the bed. He exhaled, running a hand down his face. “It was Hakeem, wasn’t it?”

Titania’s stomach dropped. She blinked. “What?”

Jey scoffed, shaking his head. “I fucking knew it. Knew I ain’t like that dude. And now you sneakin’ around—”

“Jey—”

“Don’t,” he snapped. His face darkened, something raw flashing behind his eyes. Something possessive. “Just tell me the truth. You fucking him, Titania?”

Titania stared at him, her pulse erratic. He didn’t suspect Roman. He had no idea. And somehow, that made this worse.

Before she could speak, her phone vibrated again. Jey glanced at it, his anger already simmering. Titania barely had time to react before he grabbed it off the bed and hurled it across the room. The sharp crack of it shattering against the wall made Titania flinch.

Her heart was pounding, her entire body locked in place. “Jey—”

“I’m out,” Jey muttered, shaking his head, his breathing ragged. “I’m done with this shit.”

Titania’s throat was dry. “It’s not what you think—”

Jey’s jaw clenched. “Don’t.”

He turned, storming out.

Titania barely registered the sound of the front door slamming shut.

Then—

The typewriter.

Titania heard it before she saw it. That familiar clacking of keys. Her stomach twisted violently.

She turned, her feet moving on their own, her breath shallow as she stepped into the spare room. The typewriter sat on the desk, waiting.

The paper was fresh.

A new message.

"He's always been this way. But for her, he'll only get worse."

Titania’s knees buckled and she crashed to the floor.

No.

No, this wasn’t what she asked for.

This wasn’t what she meant. But it was too late. The story was shaping into something she didn’t like. And she knew deep down she couldn’t stop it.

----

Read Chapter 11... (coming soon)

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[suzukiblu]

In "you're a real katch" I'm a bit stuck on how no one's noticed Superboy supposedly having visited Superman but having no memory of it and etc with Match impersonating him. I do feel like what's going down now should reveal that one cause this is a bit of a major thing to miss.

I'm overthinking this.

I am enjoying Match getting comfort and etc.

This clone needs therapy

This clone needs SO much therapy, hahaha.

I absolutely also overthink, lol, you are not alone, friend. So my thought process with Matching going repeatedly unclocked by Clark starts with Match only supposed to have done these visits/drop-ins a handful of times spread out OVER time, and is probably also counting times where he was passing for Kon long-term and no one found out 'til later, so it wouldn't typically be a super-regular thing with a ton of chances for Clark to notice anything weird.

Historically Match only HAS gotten clocked as "Not Actually Kon", like, MAYBE twice that I can recall--once by Tana, who got him pretty much cold, and once by Tim and Cissie when the Agenda had him start yelling about INCREDIBLY out of character for Kon shit on national television (after weeks if not MONTHS of NOT previously clocking him), and if it's happened any other times that weren't deliberate reveals I don't know about 'em. Even KON wasn't sure if Match wasn't an alternate version of him during the whole Suicide Squad thing! Hell, even MATCH wasn't, though like, obvi that was Amanda Waller's fault, but still canon! Still counts, haha!

In general Match is depicted as being REAL convincing at passing for Kon to the point that even deliberate acts of sabotage he commits in the process look like shit that people could genuinely believe Kon would do/"mistakes" that people could genuinely believe Kon would make. Plus there's also the fact that, well, you don't always talk about every time you've seen each other with someone, you know? And even when you do sometimes you just say "the last time I/you came over" or "when I saw you the other day" and "no I forget, what'd you say it was?" or "uhhhhh dude that was like a month ago, remind me?" or just things along those lines. So they weren't meant to be particularly memorable visits or anything, just like, "normal" interactions Clark would be used to having with Kon every now and then, and not necessarily involving any topics that would come across as suspicious for Kon to know/ask about.

And like, if nothing else, Clark has ALSO gotta be used to having a better memory than literally everyone he knows ( and the fact that just about everyone has a WAY worse and more easily-influenced memory than they think they do ), so I don't think he'd necessarily tweak to having to remind someone about something he might've just mentioned in passing as unusual in his life experience. Especially since all extremely dedicated human-passing efforts aside, Clark still probably doesn't have the most accurate grasp of how much a normal memory would hold onto, given how wildly those can vary from person to person and how much harder that is to objectively learn/observe than shit like, how to flinch and what struggling to lift something looks like and what temperatures should be uncomfortable/painful.

And like, final finishing move: no offense to Kon, but historically he does not have the BEST track record at always fully grasping/understanding what Clark has said to him and has misunderstood or misinterpreted him MORE than once, so if Kon ever got confused about something "they" already talked about, it would not REMOTELY be an outlier to either him or Clark, haha.

[indigo-creates-chaos]

And with that, the final fable smp season comes to an end. Goodnight. /ref

So. The finale. The last ever stream. It's been a long journey, multiple years in the making, and I've finally seen it.

Cutting this bc it's unnecessarily long-

The ending in general:

Shit. I'm watching Raes POV first, at regular speed for once. I haven't even gotten through the Raecap without tearing up, thisll be fun-

Ohhhh the battle music! They're almost at the portal lol thisll be fun- okay you know I thought getting through the portal would be more difficult tbh lol

Athena no! No!!

Okay good...

Fable, sir, do you really think they'd give you their power after everything you've done?

Dude this cutscene is so cool! Also hey Violet, thanks for helping ^^

Guys I love these monologues so much they're so fun and great and I love them ^^ also the acting of everyone during them is so good-

Yooo icarus good job! Me me when they finally see reason bc of what Fable said about Violet-

Yippee, our brothers, they're better now!

Hmmmm I wonder where the powers possibly could've gone!

Guys they're all happy and safe! I'm so glad that this went well.

Dude I love Addie so much-

This whole thing was such a good mix of funny and tense-

Well now I'm sobbing again. This is the end... it's been such a long time coming and I still wasn't ready. But you know, it's fitting that the finale is the stream that makes me cry. Time to watch all the different endings and cry about those too-

Raes endidng:

Oh no, our brothers, they're broken again (but on good terms this time)

Wolfs ending:

Guys he gets to be a dad and he has his mom back, Veah is so cute, they're all so happy! I'm so happy to see him be happy and safe and surrounded by the ones he loves. Also, Rae being the Vessel of Wonders makes so much sense, it's such a fitting title. And all the art is stunning! That whole sequence was just chefs kiss.

Awww those talks between him and Ven and between him and Violet were so sweet! I love them so much-

Jamies/Bruins ending:

Him being the God of Rebirth also fits well. And I'm glad that they managed to figure out the portal situation! I'm glad that he gets to be with his loved ones and grow old with them. Also, Malitae in the overworld! Yippee! They must've been soo excited. Also, all the art is gorgeous ^^ Guys I love them so much.

Caspians ending:

Guys he's happy! They're all happy! And he got to propose and marry his boyfriends and rebuild the records, I love that for him!! Also, he got to see momboo again ^^ and he learned to make paper which is so cool ^^

Dude those creature designs??? They're awesome! I love them ^^

Also, I didn't actually expect Momboo to be back so that was a nice surprise ^^ and the bit of Easton acquiring more and more degrees will never stop being funny to me. Also, good for Arisanna and Momboo ^^ I'm glad that they're all happy.

Athenas ending:

Guys they actually got crowned, I cant, that's so cool! And there's so many new gods now ^^ me when she finally met their mom, can finally be happy with his new family and doesn't have to worry about things going wrong. Also, that coronation fit is so pretty! I love them so much-

Ocies ending:

I'm so glad that she got to reunite with dead partners. I'm also glad that she gets to live with her family and talk to Momboo and build and just do stuff she enjoys. Guys I love them all so much, Calypso is adorable and Oscar is too.

Ulysses ending:

Yeah that fits. Him ending up as a story teller and growing out with a giant family by his side is the best outcome he could've possibly gotten. I'm glad that he got to be happy and be around so many people that love him so much. I'm glad that he got to travel the world, find other telchins and that he got to reunite with his partner in the end.

Vens ending:

How did they get into the worldport? Sorry lol I don't have a lot of thoughts about this one, mainly just confusion.

Arisannas ending:

She gets to not worry about losing the allays, this is a win ^^ also me me when she's a teacher and the one working on the records and when her and momboo exist-

And finally... Icarus whole POV:

Fable going "were just gonna get their powers, nobody needs to die (:" will never not be funny to me bc nobody believes him. Also, you really think they'd forgive you after everything you've done Fable?

Sorry you said "the people are assaulting the portal" and still expect us to take you seriously? Fable please lol

Okay rewatching the monologues section in Purgatory just highlights the incredible acting from everyone again. Its so cool to see so much emotion portrayed through the medium of minecraft roleplay.

Hmmm watching that whole group hug thing from icarus POV is so interesting bc they clearly aren't doing well but everyone else is just glad that they did it and they're all safe-

Everyone else: happy, bantering, thinking about the future

Icarus: lights go brrr, in pain, realising that they're running out of time

Oh no, our brothers, they're broken-

Noooo not icarus actually jumping??? Great I'm crying again lol I didn't expect to do that anymore today bc I've cried about this so much already-

Guys I love Midas they were just trying to protect Icarus

I didn't expect that ending. I mean I knew that they'd become quixis bc spoilers but I didn't know nearly enough about the quixis lore to predict that. I didn't expect to see the other versions without the bleeding eye. I didn't expect every world to get changed/fixed. Guys I'm sobbing...

So that's it huh? That's the end of Fable smp. It's over, just like that... I'm gonna miss it. I'll miss Raes obsession with coffee, Icarus birds, Fenris businesses, the whack changing random things, Malitae being Malitae... just everyones shenanigans. I didn't expect to cry about this as much as I have... I think I've seen every ending now but I'm not sure. I spent most of today just watching all the endings in regular speed, I'm not okay lol, my thoughts definitely aren't cohesive rn. I'm glad they're all happy though! I'm just sobbing bc it's over and they're happy and I'm happy that they're happy but I'm also sad bc this is the end.

I'll make another post tomorrow once my thoughts are more coherent. For now, thank you for reading this unnecessarily long and rambly post. I hope you're all doing well after this and a good [timezone] for all of you!

[corner-collects-rocks]

happy new year to neil josten who didnt sign it. he gave me a contract but i didnt sign it. he couldnt make me. this doesnt mean anything. im still a fox.

[lucabyte]

i feel like people are sleeping on the occam's razor situation of how buckwild it is to outright accuse a guy of being a clone of your friend even if you DO have a lot of circumstantial evidence. there's other options is what im saying. they could just be like. a guy. that's a sensible deduction. you should explore that deduction. ignore my shirt that reads I <3 RED HERRINGS.

i still think odile has the correct theory on lock but she's smart enough to know it needs like... a real smoking gun to be able to bring it up without sounding insane.

anyway. (mirabelle voice) i know its rude to speculate but has anyone else noticed the grieving? they seem to be grieving. does anyone have any thoughts on the grieving? i have some thoughts on the grieving.

[fullsunalicia]

gif made by @dojaejung ! all credits to @dojaejung !

roses (m.) | jeong jaehyun

“it’s killing me to know there’s someone else out there buying you / roses, roses” OR where jung jaehyun is pathetic enough to be yearning after his beautiful ex-girlfriend, whom he reconnects with after awkwardly crashing her date with a new potential lover.

jeong jaehyun x ex-girlfriend! reader

warnings: some allusions to stalking and online harassment, some make-outage, oral (fem. receiving), some exhibitionism ig?????, some cussing, jaehyun is EXTREMELY down bad (he who yearns is he who earns amirite yall), svt as side characters for my caratzen agenda, also i’m still an awkward writer (in my opinion) so that warrants its own warning

This is why Jaehyun despises leaving his apartment.

For the first time in weeks, Doyoung and Taeyong, in their combined nerdy best friends power, have managed to make him go outside again. Although it’s the middle of the winter, each day inching closer to Christmas day, the bustling city is filled with people enjoying themselves despite the sub-zero temperatures. It makes him sick, really. Not people in general, for sure, but the sight of couples swarming about, their happy faces making sure every single person’s envious gaze is following them until they disappear around the corner.

Winter is sickening. Winter makes people too cozy, too cuddly, too loving. When spring comes, that love melts away, fleeting as it was. It dims out like the warm fire you stoke in the evening as you gather with your loved ones, in the morning long gone and forgotten with the loss of the guests. Jaehyun hates it. His friends knows he hates it.

So did you.

As Doyoung and Taeyong keep him in their middle, holding on to his arm on each sides as if they were old aunts bickering away, he reminisces about your shared hatred of the cold. You had hated snow, most of all, he remembers as he watches the thick, cold flakes swirl around in the air. It leaves a mist on the people passing by him, painting them in the lovely shades of the cold. Rosy cheeks, white smiling teeth, blue fingertips. If he closes his eyes, he can almost imagine it’s you clinging to him again, complaining loudly about the weather, scared of falling to the ground. You had always been incredibly clumsy, and unashamedly loud. Every passerby could not help but smile at your antics, but none smiled wider than the man you had wrapped around your littlest finger; Jaehyun, who had always stared at you instead of ahead. Jaehyun, who in the end always made you guys fall because he wasn’t concentrating on walking, he was concentrating on you.

You, the single star in his solar system he was orbitting around. He had felt himself collapsing, folding around you, as if he could ingrain himself in your existence in the very same manner you had immortalized yourself in his soul. How pathetic you had left him.

“Hey, earth to Jae! You’re not seriously upset we made you leave the house, right?” Taeyong’s hand forces itself into Jaehyun’s periphery as he waves it infront of Jaehyun’s face, trying to gain the man’s attention. Every finger was perfectly manicured, the tell-tale rings that signified Taeyong snapping Jaehyun out of his daydreams. Mentioned friend looks worried, but not regretful. “We were beginning to think you had fallen asleep in there, like some bear. You shouldn’t hibernate.”

“But bears got it so right. It’s so much better to sleep the winter away.” Jaehyun sounds exhausted, almost childish. He knew he was a grown man, not a teenager mooning over his first love. But it certainly felt like he had become the former. That was your effect.

“Dude.” Doyoung grasps his shoulder then, boring his gaze into Jaehyun’s face. He had been dreading that, actually; it’s hard to act like a complaining child when Doyoung makes you face yourself just like that. Almost unconsciously, Jaehyun straightens up. It’s almost like facing your mother, and he’s trying to avoid Doyoung’s fussing. “It’s been almost a year. I hate to be the one to be saying this, but you have to let it go at some point, man.”

You have to let it go at some point. Doyoung’s right, of course, but Jaehyun hasn’t yet reached that point of being reasonable. It’s not like the five stages of grief. Jaehyun is in the awkward process of trying to understand what has actually happened to him; why your relationship came to an end, why you were so kind to him despite it all, how you had finally cut him off. No one really knows why you did it, least of all Jaehyun. As you had broke it off with him after dropping him off at the airport before he flew to the first stop of his current world tour, there wasn’t exactly time to ask questions.

You had given him a letter and apologized (seriously, so not cool to explain in a letter just so you didn’t need to face him), and just as soon as the flight touched down at his destination and his phone had regained connection to his cellular data, you had changed your number, deleted your socials and disappeared from his life.

(Not like he immediately found you again when you re-debuted on social media. Johnny, as a true best friend, has forced him to limit looking at your instagram account to once a week, but how will Johnny know if he does it more? No one needs to know. Jaehyun would lose face if even anyone knew how much he misses you.)

Jaehyun lowers his eyes then, unable to keep looking at Doyoung. “Let go. Yeah.”

Doyoung and Taeyong exchange a worried gaze at that, before nudging him to a new direction. Their footsteps leave soft white traces, disappearing as quickly as they are made as fresh snow falls. “I got just the thing to cheer you up,” Taeyong quips then, and when he smiles at Jaehyun in an attempt to comfort him, Jaehyun finds the strength to smile back. Those are his friends, after all. If he weren’t so detached from his emotions, he’d find himself moved by their sincerity; his silly friends that loved and cared for him despite his habits and his weird coping methods. They didn’t judge when he sent them new song lyrics he had written in the middle of the night because the memory of you is still haunting him, scaring him off sleep because the comfort he gains from dreaming of you is as addicting as chasing liquor. They had let him ruminate in his apartment for as long as possible. It was time to face the world properly now. “Hot cocoa and waffles?”

Jaehyun snorted. “Like children?”

“Like children,” Taeyoung announces, his voice too earnest for the statement. Doyoung laughs, and then it’s difficult to not join in. Taeyong grins, happy to have drawn that reaction out of them. For the moment, Jaehyun feels normal again, and he offers to buy the waffles as Doyoung and Taeyong line up to buy the hot cocoa.

That’s the same moment where Jaehyun immediately regrets having left the house.

The sight of you physically knocks the breath of his lungs. For just a second, just seeing your face erases the feeling of all the pain that had been wrenching at his heartstrings, your beauty so all-encompassing it stuns him into silence. The cold season has kissed your face in the most pretty way - as you throw your head back in laughter, your (incredibly tempting) lips curve into his favorite smile of yours, the smile that has to be stolen out of you, so surprised by something that you laugh involuntarily. Honest. And earnest.

And beautiful.

It’s almost beautiful enough to make him not acknowledge the other man that you are gifting it to.

Jaehyun forces himself not to look, the effort incredible. He does not want to see who you have replaced him with, he really doesn’t, truly not, but then the dizzy envy makes him look so that he can bombard the man with death threats in his mind. Not that it matters. He could have been anyone, anyone at all. What did it matter if that was someone he knew or someone unknown, when the most damning thing about the situation was that it wasn’t him?

When he looks back at you to keep analyzing whether you like this man a lot, Jaehyun has come to the startled realization that you have noticed him, aswell. Your face has dropped, the shock painted over your face like an ill-fitting mask. “Jaehyun?” you say, the sweet voice carried over to him in the wind, and his knees almost buckle. (Jesus Christ, he’s a grown man.) Your partner notices, looking up to see whom you’re addressing, and Jaehyun’s nonchalant reaction to the irrelevance of the man’s identity disappears instantaneously.

Fuck you, he thinks hard at the dude, as if the sheer mental strength of his thoughts could reach him, for actually looking gorgeous. Fucking hell.

“Jeong Jaehyun?” You call again, robbing him off the opportunity to maybe pretend he hadn’t heard you. He forces himself to move forward.

“You know each other?” the guy asks then, and Jaehyun thinks to himself, No, idiot, I am the stalker that’s been breaking into her apartment and leaving her letters. But then he remembers how Johnny has admonished him for doing the social media equivalent and how often he visits your socials just for a glance at you, and the thought almost immediately sobers him up. “Jeong Jaehyun,” he introduces himself then, reaching out his hand to shake the other man’s, even though he’d rather bite it off. “We were…”

“Acquaintances,” you interrupt him almost immediately. The smile you sport now is nervous, to the untrained eye flawless. But Jaehyun knows every inch of your soul, and the look in your eyes pleads him not to acknowledge it. “Jaehyun used to be really close to my brother. You’ve met my brother, right?”

“Oh, Seokmin, right?” The stranger’s eye glint in recognition. “That means you must be cool, man. Anyone who’s in Seokmin’s good cards is good in mine. My name’s Junseo.”

“Nice to meet you, Junseo,” he makes himself speak, although the words taste like coal in his mouth, turning ashy as he pronounces them. He’s never been a good liar, always careful about choosing his words, but then, he’s never been in the situation where had to meet the lover that was going to replace him in your heart. He turns to you, your lovely face ripping into him. You stare back as if you are aware of the effort it takes him to remain friendly. You don’t look like you enjoy inflicting this havoc upon him, but ever since that day, he doesn’t truly know what you are capable of. “It was nice to see you,” he tells you, turning away as soon as the words leave his lips.

He never hears your “Jae”, the sound ripped out of you like an old instinct.

jaehyun

could you maybe at least warn me that your sister is back in town

dk 😁

yo

i didnt even know she was

can you let her know to bring milk to mom’s house we ran out this morning

jaehyun

. . .

no dk i cannot i almost collapsed when i saw her

can you say hello to your mom tho

Jaehyun drops the phone on the couch, the interaction having soured his mood just as much as the meeting with you. Seokmin was cool, and a really good friend, although a bit clueless. He had been firm in his support for Jaehyun, not picking sides, but not abandoning their friendship either, and had been one of the friends who had dragged him out for dinner once a week ever since the break-up to make sure Jaehyun was actually eating. Jaehyun doesn’t even think this happened to your dismay. You were way too nice, and even your fucking break-up letter had been kind, even though it hadn’t been enough to wipe the blank look in his eyes as he had read it.

“Okay, so that may have went worse than we thought,” Taeyong proclaims, the hot cocoa still steaming in his hand. Even though they had technically paid for the cup as a loan, taking it back home felt like stealing. Jaehyun couldn’t find it in himself to care. He was staring at the ceiling, looking at no one. “But hey, at least we found out who the mystery guy on her instagram was!”

Johnny, who had let himself into the apartment while they were gone, perked up at that. Very aware of your instagram due to Jaehyun’s influence, he knew that there had been an odd silhouette in your instagram story the past few weeks, almost a soft-launch and almost not. There had been theories whether the mystery guy had been a new lover. Jaehyun had almost thrown up when Mark had suggested the idea. “You did? She was with a man?”

“Yeah, Junseo what’s-his-name. Didn’t give a last name, though.” Doyoung sounds concentrated, probably too focussed on not breaking Jaehyun’s new coffee machine. “Jaehyun, coffee?”

“No,” Jaehyun deadpans. “I want death.”

The entire room groans at that. “Fresh out of death, dude,” Johnny tells him, bowing over the couch to throw a blanket over where Jaehyun was laying and Mark had fallen asleep. Johnny was his best friend in the entire world, and very used to Jaehyun’s antics. Throughout it all(the acclimatization to the celebrity life, the growing into a fully formed and actualized person in the public eye, the stabbing ache of heartbreak), Johnny had become a brother to him. It was Johnny’s hand pulling him along through life, his ears that were entrusted with every joy and worry in Jaehyun’s mind, his kindness that kept Jaehyun standing sometimes. “It’s coffee or nothing,” he continues after ensuring both men on the couch were covered with the blanket. And then, as he turns back to Doyoung: “Make him some coffee. He hasn’t touched his cocoa.”

The quiet bickering of his friends fade away then, forcing him to come to terms with what has happened. Seeing your face again felt like being struck down by God, to put it in blasphemous terms. You had always been the most beautiful person to him, including both his preference that came from loving you and his attraction to people in general. Jaehyun hadn’t been the kind of man to have an exact type before meeting you, but now he looks for you in every smile, every fluttering lash, in every face he meets. Looking for the traces of where your ancestors had painted their magic, the overarching connection between several generations, the hand reaching across time. Whoever crafted you had taken his time to ensure every single detail, and the love that had flowed into the shaping of you glinted across every feature. Having been starved of seeing you, this interaction had thrown him into cold water face first. Even the memory stung.

You hadn’t looked bothered to see him. If anything, you had been as sweet as always, even though you hadn’t expected to see him. He had thought being gone from your side had hurt, but seeing that Junseo was making him sick to the stomach. It was his job to make you laugh like that. It was his duty to ensure your happiness. To think of that fool doing it in his stead made him spark up with a fury that he had long forgotten, the feeling so unfamiliar it made him reach inside those spaces inside himself that he had abandoned for so long. During the separation every emotion had come to him so dull and muted - happiness, sadness, surprise, anger. But as if they had never left him, Jaehyun recognized that he was jealous.

Awfully jealous.

So that was the next step of Jaehyun’s alternative five stages of grief process. Instead of coming to terms with the ephemeral nature of his relationship with you, he’s pining over the one woman he cannot have. He raises his hands to cover his face, his fingers shaking - it’s crazy, how you unravel him. It’s been eight months and Jaehyun is still willing to go on his knees to beg just to make sure you stop seeing anyone else.

(At that point, he was very unaware of how near in the future that was going to happen.)

“Hey, dude.” Jaehyun is snapped out of his thoughts by the raspy voice of one Mark Lee. He lowers his hands to see Mark peaking his head out of the blanket, hair completely ruined from tossing and turning in his sleep, looking just like the lion that his friends affectionately nickname him as. Their friends are still bickering in the kitchen, arguing about how to handle the coffee machine properly, with Doyoung’s voice cutting through the others. “You alright over there?”

Jaehyun clears his voice. He suddenly feels glad that Mark doesn’t know yet that he’s seen you, as he doesn’t want to burden Mark with his worries. He’s only a little younger, but he’s the closest thing to a younger sibling Jaehyun has, and he treasures him to the point where he often wants to shield him from the shit that Jaehyun has going on. “Yeah, all good. Why did you wake up? Not sleepy anymore?”

“Your phone has been going off like crazy.” Mark points at the aforementioned phone before yawning. As Jaehyun reaches for the device, he sits up and looks into the kitchen from the vantage point he has of the kitchen. The screen lights up after a few quick taps, and Mark asks: “Something important? Sounds like someone’s spamming you.”

dk 😁

not to be the bearer of bad news but mom wants to have you over for dinner on saturday

😭 maybe i shouldnt have delivered your greetings bro

i think my sister has a date on that evening tho so maybe nothing will happen?????

i mean you can say no but you know damn well my mom loves you (because you kiss up to her) so

yeah

i get if you dont want to

Jaehyun blinks. Several times. Then, he drops his face into his hands again, sighing so loudly that even Mark seems astonished.

It seems like you’re not gonna leave his mind anytime soon.

The first time Jaehyun had met you, you had still been a junior in college.

He’s always known you existed, of course - the pretty-faced little sister that was off-limits to anyone, who had the most embarrassing haircut when she was still in middle school, who liked to receive flowers for her birthday instead of gifts. Seokmin doesn’t talk about you often, but when he does, there’s a gentle smile etched on his face that seems like the most jarring contrast to the way he bickers and fights with you in person. Jaehyun couldn’t conjure an image of you, but when he thought of your name, it filled Jaehyun’s mind with a sweet dream. He had been missing you in his heart before he had even met you, the soft tug of a red string around his littlest finger.

The request had been hastily asked and innocent in nature. Pick up my sister, please? An unusual request, as Seokmin never introduced his sister to anyone for your own privacy, but it didn’t bother Jaehyun to do it, especially since DK was a very good friend. You had been incredibly drunk, and uncomfortable at a party, and called for the person you trust most in the world. DK on the other hand, drunk out of his own mind at an entirely different party in his own dorm shared with his bandmates, had called a friend he knew he could entrust with the safety of his littlest sister.

Completely hammered and wobbling on your entirely too high heels, you had gladly clung to Jaehyun’s arm after realizing he had been the savior your brother had sent you. Your introduction came out loud and clear, and you had enunciated every syllable to make sure he heard it. When he correctly repeated the name back to you to ensure he remembered it, a dazzling smile had split across your lips in the cutest way possible. It had made his heart jump in a deliciously agonizing way.

“Can you walk?” he had asked you then, pointing down at your monstrous heels. He had truth be told been incredibly impressed with the way you had managed to leave the front porch of the party house, even though every step enunciated that you were incredibly intoxicated. You had waved off his worry and beamed at him with the innocent happiness only a drunk person could exude, completely free from all wordly burdens. “Don’t worry!” you told him, your voice as melodious as it was pleasing. “I’ve walked in worse heels! And I’m not even that drunk!”

Jaehyun had no intention of questioning you, but the exclamation did make him laugh. He had been awkward about the interaction the entire time he had driven here. Would you be able to even feel comfortable with him? What if you guys didn’t speak about anything? But your behavior had loosened up the tension inside his chest, and he found himself relaxing under your hold, gently guiding you back to his car. Your grip was tight, but not painful, and you had hooked your arm around his to keep close to him in a way that wasn’t entirely unwelcome to him. He had not expected to warm up to you so quickly. “So you’re able to hold your liquor? You must not actually be related to DK then. The guy can’t hold his liquor for shit.”

The joke tugged a surprised laugh out of you. It was a nice sound, the genuineness of it making a smile form around Jaehyun’s lips. So open, so friendly, so extroverted - so incredibly different from him, and yet a simple laugh from you made Jaehyun entranced with the existence of you. He wanted to relish the sound, making him wrap his fingers around the keys in his pockets to ensure they wouldn’t rattle when he pulled them out. “I’m sure he’s got that from mom,” you had explained to him while snickering, momentarily letting go from him as he opened the door for you. After clambering in and pulling the door shut, he had walked around the car to climb in himself. The door clicked shut. “I’m my father’s daughter through and through. We used to place bets at New Year’s parties with the family how much time it would take for mom to crash out after a single bottle of champagne.”

“And?” he asks. The engine of the car sprung to life with a simple press of a button, idling quietly while Jaehyun had put on his seatbelt. “Did you win the bet?”

Your expression in the rearview mirror was smug when Jaehyun checked his surroundings in it, pulling out of the parking space he had found near the house the party was in. “I was fifty bucks richer about half an hour later.”

Jaehyun couldn’t help but laugh - at your behavior, your teasing little remarks, the way you hiccuped before laughing because you were a little liar that couldn’t hold their liquor. By the time he had reached DK’s apartment building, where you had requested to be dropped off because you wanted to sleep over at your brother’s, your drunkenness had made you drowsy. Without even thinking about it, you had climbed over the console to envelop Jaehyun in a hug, shocking him to the core. Your floral perfume had been dizzying, but the near proximity of you had almost made him drunk himself. Jaehyun was an idol under the strict gaze of both his employer and his supporters. His resulting touch-starvation had made him grasp your soft waist with both hands, and he closed his eyes to soak in the warmth of your touch. It was startingly intimate. “Thank you for bringing me home,” you had murmured against his shoulder, momentarily resting your head on it, as if it belonged there - as if you had been made to be held by him. You lined up perfectly, like puzzle pieces, and for a moment, Jaehyun had felt complete in a way that made him question himself was my heart always hollow of you?

When you pulled back with your bright smile and your hazy eyes, a pink blush had dusted across Jaehyun’s cheeks that he prayed you hadn’t noticed. “You’re super duper nice,” you proclaimed then, not fully retracting from where you were leaning on his body. Not pushing his hands away, either. “And it’s way more fun to ride in your car than in Jeonghan’s. You drive like a responsible adult.”

“Are you saying Jeonghan doesn’t drive like a responsible adult?”

“I’m not sure he knows what that is.” Giggling, you untangled yourself from him, startling Jaehyun with the immediate ache for you. Get a grip, he thought to himself. Acting like a teenage virgin. “And I should know!” you enunciated. “The idiot tried teaching me how to drive. If DK hadn’t put an end to that, I would have never gotten my driver’s license.”

Jaehyun, still reeling from the affection you had graced him with, smiled shyly at that. “Well, I’m glad to have brought you home safe, like the responsible adult I am. Can you make it up on your own?”

You “mhm”ed loudly, noisily maneuvring yourself out of the car. Jaehyun winced quietly when the heels of your shoes clacked against the pavement harshly, almost sure one had broken. But you had straightened up with a grin, waving stupidly, shouting loud “thank-you”s and “get home safe!”s as he watched you walk into the apartment complex, running into your drunk brother and almost-brothers (as his bandmates liked to title themselves as, loving you like you were one of their own).

He had sat and waited for a long time for his erratic heart to slow down again. You were a miracle he hadn’t been waiting for, like a sudden blessing after a fervent prayer. He went to sleep thinking of your name, finally being able to connect it with a face, the yearning following him into his dreams.

It was that same yearning that woke him up in the middle of the night now, reaching for the empty bedside, remembering where you were.

Remembering that you weren’t reaching for him anymore, no matter how much you had loved him.

Jaehyun cleans up nicely, when he wants to. When he checks his reflection in the camera app one last time before ringing the door, he almost doesn’t recognize himself. Johnny’s girlfriend had helped him put on a little bit of make-up to cover the black shadows under his eyes and wished him luck, although he wasn’t sure what he needed the luck for. To see you? Not to see you? The question had been eating away at him on the way here, making his hands sweat to the point that the driver’s wheel had looked kind of disgusting afterwards. He can’t shake the cold fear that accompanies the thought of you these days. The desire to be in your presence was a knife turning in his guts, so sharp that even the pain seemed more welcome than another day without you. As he closes his eyes, he imagines you opening the door, welcoming him home, kissing all the exhaustion away. But when the door opens up after knocking at it, the sweet face of your mother receives him.

Not that the sight isn’t welcome. Jaehyun sees his mother often enough to not have to miss her, but the need for a motherly presence never truly leaves you, no matter how old you are. There is a part of him that will always be a child, reaching for his parents’ hands, knowing he will be safe there. Your mother fills that space often when his own cannot. “Jaehyunnie! I’m glad you made it, sweetling,” your mother gushes, hurrying to clasp his hands. The sight of her red, marred hands makes his heart hurt - has she been overworking herself? - but the pain is soon replaced with a gentle warmth spreading inside his chest at her motherly clucking. “Hurry inside, we made your favorite! You still like spicy pork, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He removes his shoes before stepping inside, feeling nostalgic. The first time he had met your parents, the house had been newly bought and hardly acquired, with your parents having haggled for an appropriate price for months. Over the years, the building had been renovated, filled with furniture, and changed as more and more memories had been made in this place. To see it now standing proudly and lived in made him happy, but also sad, as he wasn’t fully part of that experience anymore.

“Don’t be silly, boy! You know you call me mom here!”

“Yes, mom.”

“Mom,” rings out the complaining voice of Seokmin then. He’s standing at the foot of the stairs. His voice had been petulant, but there’s a very big grin on his face as Jaehyun approaches him in greeting, and they hug each other without hesitation. DK had seen him go through enough shit to not have to shy back from physical affection. “Don’t nag with Jaehyun before he’s properly inside. How’s it going, J? I heard your new album, it was awesome!”

Your mother nods enthusiastically. “You are hard-working as always, Jaehyunnie! The songs sound beautiful!”

Jaehyun laughs, bashful. He feels awkward and happy at once, to be complimented upon for his talents while simultaneously knowing that most of those songs had been written with you in mind. “Thank you for saying that,” he answers.

“It’s only right,” your mother tuts then. As she turns to walk back in the kitchen, she opens her mouth to say something again, but there’s another knock at the door, startling them all. The three exchange glances, both Seokmin and your mother seeming surprised by the noise. “Are you expecting someone, Seokminnie?” When DK shakes his head no in answer, she walks back to the door, humming to herself in confusion. “Maybe your father? But he’s not supposed to get off work until 8.”

Before your mother even opens the door, the dread of who could possibly be standing in front of that door tells Jaehyun what to expect. And as he turns over that assumption in that mind, the door opens to reveal you, clad in a red dress that hugs your curves and exposes your mid-thigh. “Oh, sweetie!” your mother exclaims. “But what are you doing here? Aren’t you going to dinner with that Junseo-ssi?”

You don’t answer, your eyes locked onto him. He recognizes the sight of slight panic and confusion in your eyes - apparently, DK hadn’t told you that you were visiting in the hopes that you wouldn’t see each other anyways. Although barely a second passes, it feels like eternity as you take each other in.

Fuck, you’re as beautiful as the day he lost you. He doesn’t even register that your mother is still chattering away as he drinks in the sight of you, the sinful silhouette and the angel eyes that have been accentuated by a skilled hand and your favorite eyeliner pen. The blood rushes in his veins, filling his ears with the sound of waves crashing, his desire lapping higher and higher until it makes his chest hurt. “Mom,” you manage to say. “He was called into work at the last minute. It’s pretty awkward to be the only one all dolled up here, so may I go up and change please? And not have to make awkward small talk in the salon?”

“Of course, sweetling, just go up! Seokmin will help me with the last preparations for dinner.” Your mother leaves at that, and the three adults remaining are crushed by the awkward tension in the room. Even more awkward for the third wheel in the room is that neither of both you and Jaehyun have looked away from each other ever since you walked in, and DK takes the chance to quietly slip out of the room to join his mother in the kitchen, leaving Jaehyun to his doom.

(Traitor.)

Jaehyun breathes out, struggling to fill his lungs with the air he needs. “You look stunning,” he says, his voice straining to pronounce the words. It’s pathetic how much he wants to press you against that wall and devour you. Even though his inner adult yells at him that he isn’t yours anymore, the thoughts do not stop coming. Truthfully, there can’t be any scientific explanation for how fast his heart races because of you, but it keeps on beating, jumping out of his chest. Falling to your feet.

You finally step out of the doorframe, into the house itself. The door quietly falls into the lock. You reach down to unclasp your high heels, the movement mechanic. You seem as dazed as he is. He entertains the possibility whether he has the same effect on you as you do on him, but he casts the thought aside immediately. You had left him, after all. “Thank you,” you answer, your voice meek. As if you were to strangers. “Are you … doing well?”

I hope that despite the way I’m ending things, you will be well. I pray that you are healthy, that you are eating enough, that you flourish in your career as you deserve to be. You are outstanding, Jeong Jaehyun, a flaming star lighting up the sky. I pray that you find it in yourself to forgive me.

“Well?” he echoes, as if that word was a joke. And then, almost in disbelief, he asks back, “Are you?”

You lower your gaze then. “I finish my master’s degree this year, so I’m a little stressed. But aside from that, I am fine, thank you for asking.” You straighten up, intending to walk past him. But Jaehyun, as if possessed, grabs your wrist; the touch makes both of you shudder, and you look up to see the absolute yearning in his eyes staring back at you. He doesn’t really know what made him do it, and he seems as shocked as you are; he had been thinking more quickly than he had been moving, and his muscles spasmed from the lack of communication between his nerves and his brain.

It’s written across his face, it must be. The intense wish to bow his head and lean against you, cage you against the railing of the stairs. To make you reach inside his soul and connect the broken pieces there that were the remaining shards of his heart. Jaehyun doesn’t want anyone else in the world to see inside him like that. He wants you, he wants to be your boyfriend. Despite it all. The good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. Are you well? Jaehyun’s hand slips lower, interlocking your fingers, the physical connection there setting fire to the skin. I pray that you are. “Take care of yourself,” he tells you instead of all the words that have been left unsaid ever since you abandoned him, all the tears that he has shed. He wants to tell you how his pride for your success makes him fly higher than any of his own achievements ever would, how soft his heart feels at the fact that you are so close to reaching your goals. How much he wishes to be a part of supporting you towards that. But he doesn’t.

You don’t break free of his hold, but it seems clear that you do not reciprocate the hurricane of emotions he is feeling right now. “You shouldn’t say that,” you tell him, tone polite, but your voice sounds hesitant. He wants to kiss the hesitation out of you, eat your laughter as he tugs at your lower lip. The proximity is driving him crazy. “I mean, I don’t wanna be rude. But I am seeing Junseo. You don’t have to worry about me, Jae. Jaehyun.” You cough awkwardly, as if that can erase the affectionate nickname, as if there isn’t something inside you still calling for him. You step backwards. If hitting the railing is embarrassing to you, you don’t let it show.

He lets go of you and steps back, then silently watches you go up the stairs. Your soft shuffling as you walk back to your room. The decisive shutting of a door.

Silently dreaming of what would happen if you graced him with your attention again.

The dinner itself is uneventful. You make polite conversation, thankfully sitting diagonally away from him, wedged in between your mother and your brother, whom Jaehyun sits across. But he sees the blush never truly leaving your face, and the way you throw glances at him when you think he isn’t paying attention. It makes him delusional enough to imagine that maybe, he wasn’t the only one still thinking about their ex.

Jaehyun glances down at his cleared plate, a half smile curling at his lips. Not truly a real smile. But not truly a lie, either.

@leey/n has started following you on Instagram!

@leey/n has liked a post!

The third time your paths cross, you truly think you are about to go crazy.

This is an art gallery, for crying out loud. You don’t think you’ve ever seen Jaehyun in a museum. Not that he’s uneducated or disinterested, mind you, but Jaehyun was the kind of guy to take you to places where you could etch your own memories across the place. The arcade in Busan where you won your first ever plushie and promptly gifted it to him, for one; the trip to Jeju where you had almost fainted and scared the shit out of Jaehyun; the high-end restaurant in Gangnam where you both can never let your face be seen again after having been thrown out for laughing too loud. You had spoken about the particular art gallery here once, debating about attending an event that was held in that month, but ultimately had the decision taken out of your hands after you unexpectedly had to go the hospital due to your appendix bursting. But here he was, looking like the most ravishing man alive in that stupid suit.

It should be forbidden to look that good. Genuinely. You think your heart stops momentarily when you see him, and then again when your gaze involuntarily drops to the exposed skin of his chest, displaying the vulnerable area due to the v-cut of his suit jacket. Hell. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he was doing this on purpose.

You gather up the train of your dress and hurry over before anyone can recognize either him or you. He looks startled, and then that weird flash of desperation flits across his eyes before he hastily makes himself appear composed. You don’t for the life of you know why exactly his reaction to you is like that, but you suppose the time for complaining was over, since, you know, you broke up with him. You knew it had been a bitch move to write a letter, but you couldn’t exactly tell him the true reason to his face. Hey, I know this sounds stupid, but I’m afraid of ruining your career because netizens keep shit talking our relationship and tainting your reputation, have a nice day though!

No, he’d never understand. This was for the best. He’d been so close to completing his album, so proud of what he had achieved, and the grief of almost taking that away from him made you want to throw up. So you had decided to sacrifice yourself, in an as cowardly manner as possible.

No one would ever know that Jeong Jaehyun made your soul sing in the most exquisite way possible, and that your heart had been filled with so much joy that it almost burst. No one needed to know.

“What are you doing here?” You hiss at him. You turn your head to ensure that no one is actually looking, before tugging him to the side. Almost unconsciously, you take his hand and guide him to a different spot, a quiet corner where only strangers were staring at the art being displayed. Even the music was muted.

“Is this not a public event?” he hisses back, confused by your behavior. But he lets you do as you please, even lowering his head to yours to make sure no one hears. His fingers gently tangle with yours, swiping across your knuckles as he always does - did. It’s like your love runs deeper than human behavior, deeply embedded in your body’s instincts. You see it in the way the caution you display reflects back in his eyes, as if your secrets are still holier to him than his own. Even though he has no idea why you’re being so ominous. It’s one of the qualities you love most about Jaehyun; he never once tries to tell you what to do, always acquiescing your needs, letting you take the lead when necessary. It makes a traitorous happiness bloom inside your chest that he is still the kind of person who would always have your back. “Why exactly wouldn’t I be here? If it’s because you didn’t want to see my face, don’t tell me that. I don’t think I could handle it.”

“Jeong Jaehyun,” you groan, exasperated as you are. You hastily scan the area, always dreading that Junseo is about to turn the corner to catch you both. It had already been a surprise that evening had been made possible, since Junseo was a workaholic. Your friends joked around that he loves his residency at Seoul General Hospital first, and you second. You did not want to squander this opportunity of growing closer to him, a whim based on the fact that he was a pretty face and you desperately needed to move on. You weren’t serious, and you could count the amount of dates you had been on on one hand, but it worked its magic enough. Jaehyun only needed to believe that you were moving on. And Junseo only needed to believe Jaehyun was unimportant. Not like it’s forbidden to speak with an “acquaintance”, even if he did see you both here - but Jeong Jaehyun wasn’t an acquaintance, he was your ex-boyfriend for crying out loud, and if it weren’t for the necessary masquerade to appear as if you were moving on, you wouldn’t even be entertaining Junseo’s presence, no matter how charming he was. It was a stupid plan, concocted by an even more stupid Jeonghan. “Who would’t want to see your face? That’s not what I mean.”

The compliment slips out before you can hold it back. It’s so easy, so habitual to make it, to admire Jeong Jaehyun’s existence. You had never even met a man like him. He was sin made flesh, with his well-formed, strong body, the gorgeous face, the sun-kissed hair that switched colors from comeback to comeback. Jaehyun looks surprised to hear it. The dimples in his cheeks signal the smile that stretches across his lips, sweet and genuine and startled. It makes you sad, that he doesn’t expect those compliments; he is the kindest, sincerest, most attentive man you know.

(And if you were still in a relationship, you would have torn the clothes off of him and jumped him for looking that good in a suit. Not want to see his face my ass - you could stare at Jeong Jaehyun all day.)

“I thought we weren’t supposed to say stuff like that,” he says back, his voice low. It sounds deliciously rough, the way it sometimes sounded when you woke him from his sleep to kiss him, the sleepy yawns turning into soft moans when you rode him, his hands mapping out the space of your skin. You shake your head, as if you can shake off the memory. Your adoration for him went bone-deep. “Whatever,” you say hastily, as if that can erase the obvious pining you are displaying. “I mean, I don’t want Junseo to see us. I know you don’t like to lie, and I’m sorry for introducing you as an acquaintance, but I’d like it to remain that way. For him to believe there was nothing between us, I mean.”

“And is there?” Jaehyun’s voice sounds steady. It kills you to see the hope in his eyes, even now, even after you’ve hurt him after flaunting a new relationship. You remember his beautiful face on that day at the Christmas market, where the agony in his eyes had almost made you weep. You never ever wanted to be responsible for Jaehyun’s grief, not even now. “Nothing between us?”

You falter then, forgetting what you want to say. You can’t tell him the truth, you cannot - the truth being that when you look into Jaehyun’s eyes, your knees go weak and your hands yearn to claw at him and your kisses want to devour him whole, bones and all. You want to crawl inside him and live there forever, like the insane lover you are. You want to kiss him until you forget your own name, until the mornings become routine where you wake up next to him, where the sight of his beautiful face becomes the first thing you see after waking up for the rest of your life. The wish is so fervent it catches you off-guard, and it weakens your resolve. “There’s nothing, Jaehyun,” you say. Even you can hear the uncertainty. The atmosphere is so tense that you didn’t even notice the room has cleared out; the area is curtained off, a special exhibition inside the actual exhibition, for a yet-to-be-discovered artist who gained the space to present their art through chance. The few people who had mingled here had quietly left, identifying the situation as a lover’s spat. Anyone could walk in. Anyone. The realization makes your heart skip a beat. “You understand that, don’t you?”

Your words make sense, yet your actions don’t. You unconsciously inch closer to him. You shouldn’t, you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t. “You’re confusing me,” Jaehyun responds, sounding frustrated, but when his hands find your waist, his touch is careful. Gentle. Like a collector in awe of the precious rare item he has found. “I thought you hated my guts. You know, that’s the kind of interpretation a break-up letter entails.”

“Jaehyun,” you whisper. You want to rip his hands off, leave him here to come to terms with the realization that this relationship is over. It had been such a difficult situation, and so painful; to rip the band-aid off in the manner that you did. You hadn’t even told Jeonghan about the reason you broke it off, so afraid of the consequences, yet more afraid of the repercussions of your relationship to Jaehyun’s career. You needed to tell him off now, before you do something you would regret. You do none of these things, however. You let Jeong Jaehyun cradle your face in the middle of the gallery as if nothing has changed and the two of you are eternal and you have never been apart. Something inside of you reaches for his soul, across the gaping abyss that forced mythological Orpheus and Eurydice apart. You let him bring your face close enough that he can press his cheek against yours, mimicking Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss hanging in the hall outside. A sweet irony. It had always been your favorite painting, and you know there was a copy of it hanging in Jaehyun’s living room, bought by you for an anniversary long past. His lips trace the lines of your cheekbones, feeding the selfish ache inside you that is always desperate for Jaehyun. “It doesn’t matter. I’m with a different man.”

The answer makes Jaehyun draw in a sharp breath, but his ministrations continue on; as if his love for you was an instinct he was chasing after unconsciously. His lips trail a burning path across your face, his fingers curling at your nape. Lulling you in. Entrancing you. “At the risk of sounding like an asshole - I don’t care,” he murmurs against your skin, the words reverberating in your blood. “I would give anything for being able to touch you like this. Even if this is the last time.”

You screw your eyes shut. Even if this is the last time. Almost mechanically, you raise your arms to draw him against you, your bodies lining up perfectly; you had always secretly enjoyed how well you guys fit together. A perfect match. When you had dropped him off at that airport, you had been robbed of truly saying goodbye to him. Coming home late, almost oversleeping and missing his flight, riding in separate cars because the staff had piled into the seats of which at least one should have been reserved for you. You couldn’t even kiss him goodbye - you had let go of Jaehyun with a heavy heart, a mind full of anxieties turning over all the threats you had received not only digitally, but now even physically, and with a mouth full of lies. This is the last time. You look up at the same time as Jaehyun decides to throw all caution against the wind, bowing his head to inch closer. “Let me kiss you, please,” he whispers, the desperation in his voice so heady it makes you feel drunk. “May I kiss you?”

You draw in a sharp, shuddering breath, and murmur your assent. As if this had been a decision and not a stabbing, sharp need below your chest. “Yes. Yes, Jaehyun.”

Your lips meet his halfway, although meet is the wrong words. It’s a crash and burn, two stars folding around one another and exploding in a supernova; there is nothing human about the way Jaehyun hungrily devours the surprised gasp you let out. His kiss is all fire and blood and teeth, the messy clacking of two people who had been made to love each other once and then cut apart by fate. Your hastily sucked in breaths keep getting interrupted every time Jaehyun kisses you again, and again, and again. It’s a sweet torture, and a productive one. By the time he has dragged you against a wall you are lightheaded and out of it, your skin prickling with the feeling of Jaehyun mapping out his way. “Oh sweetheart,” he sighs out against your collarbone, his teeth painting markings across your chest. You barely even register him falling to his knees. “I could die tomorrow and be a happy man.”

“What are you doing?” You ask him, dazed. Your hands find his shoulders (has he become even broader? You seriously need to have a talk with Johnny and the gym routine he forces Jaehyun through). Despite your confusion, your body remembers Jaehyun. You barely even think about following his guidance, complying almost immediately when he taps against your waist so that you raise your leg and angle it over his shoulder. The belated realization makes you blush heavily; your addled mind cannot keep up with your body’s compliance. “Jeong Jaehyun! Are you insane?”

You intended to sound fierce and reprimanding, but when you finally look down to meet his gaze, your knees almost buckle. Jaehyun looks like a man starved, his eyes heavy-lidded with desire, the irises blown wide to ensure every detail of you is burned into his recollection. He looks like a worshipper, and his hands move across the supple flesh of your thighs as if in prayer. Blasphemous and heavenly. And incredibly dangerous. You can still hear the loud chatter of the other guests behind the curtain, just across the room. The nervousness makes your veins thrum. “Baby,” he says, sounding genuinely disbelieving. “Do you honestly think I won’t use this chance to taste you one last time? I don’t know what made you tolerate me suddenly, but I am not going to be the idiot that ruins the opportunity. You’ll let me go down on you, won’t you, sweetheart?”

The term of endearment makes you all fuzzy-minded and giddy. “I … yes … But anyone could walk in…” you nervously start, and yet you angle your hips forward so that Jaehyun can tug down your black lace panties, barely noticing that he tucks them inside his suit pockets. “And we’re not supposed to … I mean, I shouldn’t …. Jesus, Jae!”

In the middle of your feeble attempt of climbing back to the moral highground, Jaehyun had positioned himself right at your core; your hands fumble to hold on to his shoulders before he kisses your vulva way too innocently for a man who’s currently going down on you in the middle of a public art gallery. You barely remember to lean back against the wall for support before Jaehyun dives in like you are the last meal he is ever permitted to have on this earth, and he is determined to make it last.

You bite back a cry when Jaehyun finally laps at you, the torturous kitten lick lighting your entire body aflame with want. Although Jaehyun immediately follows it up by generously sucking at the sensitive bundle of nerves, you cast aside all pretense of decorum due to your greed and dig your fingers in his hair to direct him closer, much closer, and Jaehyun moans. The sound is so delicious it makes your veins burn with desire, the physical pain of craving him running almost hotter than your need to be pleasured. Keyword almost. You wanted to come all over his mouth just for that delicious fucking noise, but your stomach was tensing up, the quick arousal accomplished by the serious lack of sex and masturbation that the past few months had been for you. Jaehyun’s hands claw at your knees, climbing to your thighs, forcing your legs wide open to welcome his fingers where he drags them across your all-too-welcoming entrance. “So wet,” he groans against your core, and you whimper at the vibration, bucking against his lips. Even though he loves to run his mouth during sex, he gets it to work anyways. Jaehyun laps up your sweetness as it drips down, his thumb flicking at your sensitive spots until he has you keening and tearing at his hair. “God, sweetheart, look at what a mess you’re making. You’re fucking gorgeous.”

“Jaehyun,” you gasp when he finally dives his tongue into you, the muscle pumping in mock-fashion of what he would love to do to you. The compliments are doing insane things to you and your heart, your poor heart that is going to cling to this moment forever. While Jaehyun’s fingers work their magic, your own begin to spasm, pulling and tearing at him. Submitting to you and your feral hunger he finally adds a finger, his right hand busy with fingering you while his left hands continues to trace circles over your clitoris. The sudden penetration has you remembering that his own digits are way longer than yours, the memory accompanying the sensation of him reaching further and further until he finds the right spot that has you bowing over him with a loud moan. This is what you missed, what you were imagining when you were daydreaming about sex, daydreaming about the godly way Jaehyun pounded you into the mattress. He knows he’s got you now, speeding up his ministrations at every noise you make. You screw your eyes shut with a bone-deep shudder, the sweet tension inside your abdomen pulling tighter and tighter in a familiar tell-tale sign. “Jaehyun, slow down, fuck!”

He’s curling his fingers, eager for your approval, hungry for more noises - through your blurry eyes, you realize he’s watching you through it all, the gaze of a predator. Not once does he look away, continuing his sweet song of praise. “So beautiful,” he coos against your pussy, pressing close so he can speak the words into your skin, your soul. In your state, it almost sounds like Jaehyun is the only thing in your world, and hasn’t it always been? The miracle in your life that you surrendered all your worship to? You lurch forward when he sucks your clit into his mouth, seeing white for a second, the stimulation becoming too much. “Keep looking at me, please. Wanna watch you when you come.”

“I…. can’t!” you manage to babble, realizing you are edging closer to your climax. You’ve never once been this quick, not with anyone but with Jaehyun; the only man in your life that knew every inch of you, the very shape of your soul. Your body is as familiar to him as the back of your hand; more familiar to him than his own self. Jaehyun is too impatient to deal with your arguments, though. “You can,” he hisses against you, dragging his fingers more fervently. Your warm walls tighten around them, hungrily trying to keep them in, to keep going. The sudden clenching around his fingers makes it difficult. “Look at me and cum or you won’t get to cum at all, I swear it.”

That’s all it takes for you to finally let go, almost weeping with the overwhelming pleasure. Your orgasm washes over you almost too violently, forced on by Jaehyun’s overstimulation as he keeps going and going and going, and by the time you push him off your sensitive pussy there are tears falling from your eyes. But you drag him close and kiss him, kiss him so hard you think he’s going to bruise, and Jaehyun lets you; it is much sweeter and patient than the beginning of the altercation, so sweet on your tongue it has you melting against Jaehyun. This is it, that adrenaline you kept chasing; true, painful, but worth it love. You feel too sensitive and too aware and too alight, but you wrap your arms around him all the same, as if you can keep him forever. Your kisses reach inside of him, desperate for connection, heavy with the longing that had accompanied you everywhere ever since you left him. You think you were born to love Jeong Jaehyun, and you kiss him as if you are Eve reaching for the forbidden apple - knowing it’s wrong, wanting it anyway. You want and you want and you want. Your hands are on his soft cheeks, dragging against his shoulders, careless, loving. You love Jeong Jaehyun, love him so much that your very existence is exploding from the inherent triumph that accompanied witnessing him.

You think you would gladly go to hell for tasting divinity on Jaehyun’s lips. You’d rather be a sinner than apart from him for being a saint.

When you finally tear away from him, Jaehyun’s lips are swollen(your heart almost fails at the sheer pleasure that sight gives you). He lets you drag your thumb across the kiss-stained lip, wiping away the lipstick, tracing his jawline. “Such a beautiful face,” you tell him, watching as he preens from the affection. Your heart to yearns to give him more, but you finally force yourself to step away before you die from the overdosis that is Jaehyun. He watches you, completely out of it. “This is the last time,” you remind him. The lie comes so easily now, even though you are trying to memorize his gorgeous face, tattooing it across your mind palace. You will never forget this, no matter what illness or loss comes for you. Not Jeong Jaehyun. “The last time, okay, Jae?”

You place your hand over his heart, and he places his own above it. For a moment, the situation feels eternal. You were in love and you were both idiots, but it was okay because you were handling it together. Because you would face all the challenges together. Because you would work towards a future together. But the spell is broken soon, and you make the first step back, biting your lip at the sadness resurfacing in his eyes. Jaehyun, you think. The only man you’ve ever entrusted your heart with like this.

“Okay,” he finally answers, helpless. He holds on to your hand, though, making the last few steps to follow you before he is forced to let you go. You turn back at the last second before you enter the main hall, just to see if he is looking away, but there he stands, watching you.

His face is forlorn, softened by his quiet sadness, and your heart breaks again. You leave him there before you can do something else you regret.

When Jaehyun had fallen in love you, he knew he was in for some deep shit.

Picking you up had become a natural habit now. You had long since stopped calling your brother and instead resorted to texting Jaehyun first. It felt like an honor, to be entrusted with your care. That you’ve started to know him in a way that makes you rely on him. Picking you up had led to late-night-drives to sober you up, late-night-drives had turned into a shared breakfast the next morning when Jaehyun was worried about you having hangovers, and fussing over you had turn into regular meet-ups because Jaehyun could no longer deny that what he craved was not reassurance of your well-being, but you in person.

He remembered one morning where he had slept over after a particularly nasty crash-out. You had been laughing and weeping incoherently, your friend Karina aiding him with the information that you had failed your exam and drowned yourself in booze. He had texted DK a “FYI, your sister’s puking her guts out in my apartment” after deciding his home was closer than yours and you wouldn’t last long enough to throw up in your own toilet, before he had sat there with you and braided your hair back while you emptied out your entire stomach. The next morning, when he had woken up to you cuddled up to him still on the bathroom floor, he had carried you to his bed, tucked you in and walked into the kitchen to cook hangover soup, something he had mastered by this point due to the amount of times Mark had familiarized himself with that toilet just like you did last night. Having checked his phone, he read your brother’s only response: “LOL. didn’t even realize she left party”

You had wandered in shortly after, sleepy and pale like a ghost. The sound of your footsteps had startled Jaehyun, but his surprise had turned into a sudden happiness at the sight of your eyes lighting up when you saw him. The realization that his presence made you as happy as yours made him was invaluable. He loved the kind of person he was when you guys were together; existing felt like floating, a light cloud of pure contentment.

Even though there hadn’t been a lot of talking, you had both been deeply comfortable. That was the very first time he had kissed you; when you couldn’t stop singing his praises after claiming his soup was too tasty, he had simply leant over and shut you up himself. It was almost funny at how quickly you had dropped that spoon, tugging at his pyjama shirt to pull him closer, damn right pulling him over the counter. Not that he was complaining. He loved the way you made him feel, the way your touch made it feel like there were stars blooming below his skin. It made him feel like the brightest sun in the sky. “Why did you do that?” you had immediately asked when he finally pulled back. Jaehyun had cradled your face, realizing he was holding his entire world in the palm of his hand. “I just suddenly understood that I want to hold your hair back for you for the rest of my life,” he had admitted then, earning himself a slap to the shoulder. But you had laughed, that pure boisterous laugh that sparked with joy, and his heart had pounded in his chest: unable to handle the luck he was experiencing.

The mornings had blurred into days, the days into weeks, finally bleeding into the most happiest months of Jaehyun’s life. He’d never been cautious, but you had certainly made him braver. Sudden shenanigans in public, joking around entirely too loud during important events, having fun everywhere you guys were together. You had made him believe there were no honeymoon phases. Jaehyun woke and rose in the morning, and went to sleep in the dawn obsessed with you. There were rough patches, stressful and grieving periods when your private lives had been rocked particularly hard with a certain event, but he never once stopped adoring you. You were in every waking breath, every racing heartbeat.

Even now, as he wakes the day after your goodbye in the art gallery, he wakes up with the taste of hope in his mouth, of the shape of your heart on the tip of his tongue. He wakes still dreaming, always dreaming of you.

“So what you’re saying,” states Johnny, twirling a biscuit around in his coffee, “is that you had sex with your ex-girlfriend in a public museum, fully knowing she’s dating someone else.”

“Johnny,” comes the muffled response from where Jaehyun hides his face in his hands. It’s too beautiful of a day. It should be raining, to reflect Jaehyun’s mood, to encompass this entirely too awkward feeling of knowing Jaehyun was still in love with his ex. He had spent the entire morning racking his brain for ideas to get rid of the other man, feeling like Lana del Rey in her worst situationships. Jaehyun has reached a very new low, the kind of pathetic that makes him not care that he’s embarrassing himself by still being at your beck-and-call. “It wasn’t sex.”

Johnny waves the retort away. “Oral sex, then. Still sex.” The comment is too loud and earns Johnny some weirded-out looks, but the man looks completely unbothered. He had once watched Johnny talk about different sex positions completely seriously while standing in line for gelato in Little Italy, back when they had visited New York together. Johnny Suh did not know what shame was. “I never even knew you were freaky like that. Little exhibitionist freak. Maybe I underestimated you.”

“Johnny,” Jaehyun deadpanned. “Is this the time to be making jokes? Can we get to the point?”

“What point, dude? You basically went on your knees and asked her to take you back, and she didn’t. I didn’t realize you wanted me to throw salt into the wound.”

Jaehyun lowers his head to the tabletop, resting his too warm face against the metal surface. He doesn’t dare close his eyes, because the image of you is burned into his eyelids. He feels like an addict itching for a quick fix. It had been like this the entire week now. It was one thing to be ghosted by you and forced to move on by the lack of interaction, and another to be making out with you and getting his hopes up despite the fact you told him this was the last time. All it did was make him delusional enough to think he could convince you for it not to be. “She didn’t say no,” he tells Johnny, sounding pitiable even to him. “She just told me this had to be the last time.”

A few seconds pass before Jaehyun finally raises his head due to the lack of answer from his best friend. The look Johnny gives him tells him is answer enough, and Jaehyun pulls a grimace. He hadn’t expected of Johnny to be feeding into his delusions, but there had been some hope. Hope for you to call. Hope for you to come back. Hope for you to still want him.

You hadn’t unfollowed him yet; you hadn’t posted in days; and your brother has kindly snitched to him that you’ve even been blowing off Junseo. He knows you have finals coming up soon, but thinking rationally was something Jaehyun severely lacked at the moment. He had been entertaining the idea that the … meeting, for a lack of better words, in the museum had shaken you up as much as it did him. He kept replaying the memory in his head, the way your plush thighs had trapped him there on his knees, your pretty lips jutted in a pout, the tears falling from your eyes from the way he was making you feel so good … he almost felt himself get hard again, but quickly killed the boner by thinking of something else. “I just wish she’d be more clear,” he sighs out. At the sight of Johnny raising his eyebrows, he clarifies: “I mean that she’s playing hot and cold with me. I’m not stupid enough to not realize she does want to put an end to this. And yet she’s the one that followed me on Instagram, and kissed me, and made me fall all over again for her. I wasn’t doing well before I saw her again, but I was going somewhere.”

“Somewhere,” Johnny repeats, his tone mocking, but then he sets down the biscuit that had come with his coffee. This is what Jaehyun liked about him the most. He considered everything and thought about everything carefully before giving his honest opinion, and even though he sure as hell wasn’t unbiased, he still tried his best to be. “I guess,” Johnny concurs then. “I guess that’s true. I just think there must be a reason to this. I haven’t known her half as long as you do, but we were friends once, and she never once acted as irrationally as she did this past year.”

Jaehyun perked up at that. It was true, at least. In the weeks leading up to your break-up, as well as the months afterwards, you had been acting incredibly off, to the point that even your close ones had been questioning your case. He hadn’t realized how keen Johnny’s observations could be. “So you think she’s going through something that she couldn’t tell me?” he asks, his voice tentative.

Johnny shrugs. “That sounds like the most logical explanation to me. So you either hook up with her again and question her while you’re at it, or you start looking up ways to get rid of Junseo, I guess.” The suggestion makes Johnny’s face light up with excitement. “Dude, I actually always wanted to hire an assassin on the dark web. Do you think we can do that?”

“No, you idiot,” Jaehyun hisses back. But the gears in his head are already turning, chipping away at the past year, at your secret glances and your guilty letter and the sadness in your eyes when you had let him go. He had always thought that even though you had been decisive, you had at least been sad for not being able to love him in the way he deserved to be loved anymore. now he wonders how selfish he has been, and whether he should have been texting his ex all along instead of grieving what was.

Well. Jaehyun thought it couldn’t hurt to try.

Jeonghan sees him before you do.

It’s the way your best friend immediately starts cackling and turns back around to walk back into the library. You halt in your movements, looking at him imploringly. “Your ex, dude,” he tells you, visibly enjoying the way you immediately enter full-panic-mode. “You’re on your own.”

Your panicked “Hannie!” is drowned out by his snickers, and Jeonghan leaves you to your distress to pretend going to the bathroom. You met Jeonghan years ago, and even though he was older than you, you had become such fast friends that DK threatened to beat you guys up for laughing too loud whenever you were over at their dorms. He was your stupid older unnecessary brother that loved you more than anything, but he is also the most brutally honest one out of all of your friends. You do not go to Jeonghan for advice if you aren’t able to handle the truth. He cuts to the chase real quick and will call you out on your bullshit.

It’s also why he immediately told you that your plan wasn’t going to work out. “Let’s not pretend this is the most lovey-dovey you’ve ever been in your life,” Jeonghan had told you with a straight face. You wince at the memory; Jeonghan’s words are able to tear down buildings. “You love-love that man. You’re in deep, deep shit. Whatever it is you don’t want to tell me about, the thing that made you think up this idiotic plan in the first place, it won’t be able to amount to the feelings you have for him.”

Yes, you love-love him; you know just as much, and your heart sings with that knowledge. It pinches and tingles beneath your ribs, calling out a certain name. It rejoices at the sight of Jaehyun out there, in the rain, wearing not even a jacket but instead jeans and a hoodie that looks large even on him, and a bouquet in his hands. But you love him enough not to want to be selfish enough to endanger him.

The messages had blown up your instant message box for weeks then, each threat becoming more explicit. At first, you had resorted to deleting them. They were all the same at their core, anyways, the same hatred being spewed with different names. But then one persistent account had started attaching pictures to their messages, waking you up from the rose-tinted dream that was being in love with Jaehyun. Pictures of him at private events, including the other band members as well, even the youngest ones who were innocent. You hadn’t responded, but the fear had you making hasty plans; setting up everything carefully, writing the letter, while you prepared to leave Jaehyun in the most respectful way you could imagine because that is what you owed him. But then pictures of his own rented studio inside SM building had started popping up, a room you knew no one but Jaehyun and his aides should have access to, one single message with one ominous threat: Leave him or I’ll ruin the both of you. His life’s work being killed will be your fault.

Your lack of answer surely had made them furious.

You didn’t know whether to approach the managers, or even the police. Stalkers weren’t unheard of in the industry, one being caught and sued almost weekly by now, and Jaehyun had cycled through his fair share of them. No one had ever went for you in that way, though. You were certain that this wasn’t a singular threat, certain that this was someone who would pull out all stops to get rid of you. SM Entertainment was more tightly under lock and key than a literal jail. This person knew what they were doing. And so you did what you thought was right, at the cost of your own wellbeing. How much you had sacrificed and cried after distancing yourself from the man you considered your heart.

And yet here he was.

You shake the umbrella open before stepping out of the library, into the rain. In three quick strides, you’ve reached him. You try to convince yourself you’re just eager to be rid of him, but the corners of your lips quirk up way too happily for your brain to believe that. “Is this your equivalent of a boombox outside my window?” you question.

Jaehyun smiles, and it untangles the heavy knot of dread inside of you. The weather is awful, but you feel warm, spreading inside your chest like the soothing effects of medicine. “It kind of is,” he answers. He sounds like he is carefully weighing his words, but his voice is gentle. “I didn’t know which one your window was. And entering the building to go visit you in your apartment seemed creepy to even me.”

You tentatively reach out, brushing your fingers over the roses. They’re a deep red, plush and freshly bloomed. Expensive. Junseo has never even got you a three-dollar-bundle of flowers from the grocery store. “You know, I already have someone who’s giving me flowers,” you tell him, but the threat is empty. Every inch of you is bursting with happiness. Jaehyun is here, even though it’s the middle of the night and the weather is completely awful, just to give you roses.

(You never even make the connection someone must have told him you’re here. (DK was shitting himself for days in fear of you finding out he was the tattletale.)

Jaehyun hands you the bouquet, his hands covering your own as you grasp it. You watch him as he takes the opportunity to step closer to you, never once reprimanding him. His face is open and trusting, and the force of his loving gaze hits you right in the chest. “I know,” he retorts. “And the thought is killing me. It should be me. And so I will. I will keep buying you roses until you ask me to stop, sweetheart, because I don’t mind if you forget about me, but I was made to adore you. I can’t ignore my instincts.”

The confession does funny things to your heart, in a way that makes you beam at him for the first time in months. You haven’t smiled like this in so long, and your cheeks hurt from the lack of practise. Jaehyun, the damn fool; Jaehyun, the hopeless romantic; Jaehyun, the love of your life. “Killing you,” you muse, entertaining him. You are playing with fire, you realize, but you are coming to the understanding that even though you had made a decision for him in a completely unfair manner, because you felt threatened to do so, Jaehyun still chooses you. And he continues to choose you. He has respected your wishes, has kept his distance despite the grief you have caused him, and has only re-entered your life because you allowed him to do so. It was your own self-doubt about being the one for him that had forced your hand and made you not ask him for help about the threats; and despite the fact Jaehyun never understood why, he had still reassured you.

“Do you honestly mean that?” you ask him, even though you know what his answer will be. Even though your heart has always chosen him, this sweet boy who knew just what to say to cheer you up. Who listened when you talked. Who bought you gifts just because you mentioned liking some trinket in passing. Who remembers to kiss you every morning before you leave the house, even if it means dragging himself out of bed at 5am in the morning just to see you off because he knows he won’t see you the entire day. Who leaves little notes around the house for you to find when he is too busy to be with you. Jaehyun, your Jaehyun.

“I will always, always mean it,” he answers in the most earnest way possible. “I’ve been thinking about you all this time. I know how pathetic this sounds, but all this time, I kept envisioning you, and the thought of you kept me going even though I knew you weren’t a part of my life anymore. I like the person you made me become, sweetheart, and the way you have helped me shape my life into something I can be proud of. I just wish I had realized sooner that there was something bothering you - because there is, right?” His fingers gently squeeze yours in encouragement, and your little nod makes him press on. “I’m sorry,” he says, and surprises you. “I’m sorry for being so in love with your good and pure heart and failing to realize that it burdened you, despite how good and pure it was. You were going through something that you couldn’t handle, and I couldn’t see it, and I’m sorry.”

You tug at Jaehyun’s hands. His instantaneous, responding smile makes your heart skip a beat, and he lets you pull him down until you can press your lips to his soft, dimpled cheek. “You’re such a sore loser, Jeong Jaehyun,” you whisper then, but you loosen a hand from the bouquet and place it against his cheek to keep him there. To treasure him. “And such a sweet little idiot. You don’t have to apologize about a single thing to me.” He smells like home, like the only home you’ve ever known. Jaehyun hums, and nods in assent to the insults, and the agreement makes you laugh. You kiss his cheek again, and again, and again, until Jaehyun’s impatience makes him turn his head and kiss you so urgently that your head feels like it’s spinning. “Jaehyun,” you sigh into the kiss, feeling his teeth nip at your lower lip, feeling his hands close around your heart.

You have never felt so safe.

Jaehyun rests his forehead against yours, the pouring rain cascading around you both. “Does that mean I can kill your little boy toy now?” he asks, but you only smack him and smile shyly, your face radiant with adoration for him. “I am going to resolve some things first,” you tell him. “Until then, no murder.”

“And after that?”

“After that,” you say, “I am going to prove that my heart has always belonged to you, Jeong Jaehyun. Even when I made you doubt that.”

(For your information, Jeonghan has recorded that entire interaction and forwarded it to Johnny without context. Johnny had texted him back almost seconds later, asking, Who’s this and how’d you get my number? Hannie’s response, as you discover after he had confessed his betrayal, was I have my ways.)

Jaehyun,

I realize me writing another letter is cruel and ironic, but hear me out, please.

When I wrote my first letter, it was with the selfish intention of at least something of mine remaining with you. By the time you read this, I’ll hopefully have gathered enough evidence to explain my case to you and maybe have the guts to ask you to accompany me to the police, but what I first want to reiterate is: I love you. I love you the point of self-sacrifice. I love you enough that I turned my back on being selfless anyways and selfishly chose you, because you are the most important person in my heart. You will always come first.

When I wrote that letter to break up with you, I imagined a piece of myself embedding itself in the ink so that at least something could remain forever. In my mind, you were never ephemeral: no matter how many times I changed my paths and adjusted my future, it has always included you. I never once imagined building a life for myself that didn’t have you as its brilliant, shining center piece, the light of my life, my Jaehyun. I’ve always been afraid of falling in love head-first, always afraid of loving more than the other, but you have proven me wrong. And I love being proven wrong by you. I love the fact that you fiercely, sincerely, and lovingly pull me back to reality every time. Reality with you is more perfect than anything I could have ever dreamed of.

Since my first letter was supposed to be a goodbye, I want this letter to be proof that I choose to greet the future with you. I want this letter to be proof that I will never need a letter again. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you and telling you about it, and I will reassure you of that always, in the same manner as you have always me reassured me. You told me that my heart was good and pure, but I genuinely believe that I am constantly reflecting back what you give me: your kindness, Jae, your sincerity, your unbelievable humanity.

You are the only man I ever want roses in my life from, and that will never change. :) So if you finish reading this, stop creeping on my Instagram waiting for me to drop the other man and come bring me another bouquet so I can prove to you there has never been another. You are the only one in my heart.

With love,

your sweetheart

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

A new challenger approaches (slowly)

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[piles-of-peaches]

I love the outfit designs on this episode it was so gorgeous I’m completely obsessed

[inigosayshi]

Ahsoka spoilers

"Vader theme"

WTF DO YOU MEAN BY THAT DAVE.

DAVE.

DAVE WHAT DO YOU MEANNNN BY THAT OHHHHHH

[valtsv]

love how every phone call with my dad is like negotiating a peace treaty between two warring nations

[the---hermit]

31|10|2024

No coherent thoughts just vengence saga brainrot. The struggle to focus on anything else today was so real. I still managed to get some studying done, beleve it or not.

productivity list:

reread and highlighted the notes I took during the Sabaudian states history lectures I attended

read and annotate the first set of notes uploaded online by the professor

started working on the first draft of the epic songs translations i make for my family

duolingo

📖: Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

[skitskatdacat63]

AND I'M SUPPOSED TO BE NORMAL ABOUT THIS??????

I am staring intently

[boobearymuch]

fruits basket is truly the roman empire of roman empires