#i actually really like it for the characterization

[starlightkyeom]

all the petty scenes & all the pretty things | hjs

(where your best friend organizes a weekend away for all your single friends on valentine's and you have to deal with his very annoying roommate)

pairing: joshua hong x f!reader genre: (one-sided) enemies to lovers, strangers to lovers (kinda) | smut & fluff rating: explicit, minors DNI word count: 20.5k warnings: mentions of food and alcohol, drinking games, this is vaguely a long valentine's weekend (the holiday is barely mentioned), best friend jeonghan (yes, that's a warning), joshua is a menace, but reader is a bit of an unreliable narrator, so much kissing, multiple sex scenes, multiple positions, multiple orgasms, unprotected sex (they talk about it but don't do this), oral sex (f. receiving), some scratching, teasing, briefest edging?, aftercare, nipple/breast play, briefest mention of thigh riding, come eating, idk joshua is just pussy whipped and down horrendous

a/n: another one for the Lonely Hearts Collab organized by the incredibly talented @camandemstudios. please make sure you check out the other amazing fics (like i will be now that i've gotten through both). i'm not really sure what to say about this. something happens when i write joshua and it just...gets away from me. thank you to @tomodachiii, @highvern, and @lovetaroandtaemin for sprinting with me at the end to keep me motivated. and thank you to @100vern for supporting whatever characterization of joshua i wanted.

tag list at the end (join here)

When your best friend, Jeonghan, suggests going away as a group of friends for a Valentine’s trip, you don’t really ask any questions. He says that he wants the trip to be more about friendships than romantic relationships and that sounds great since you’re single at the moment. You don’t hate the holiday or anything. It’s just nice to know that you’ll have something to do that doesn’t revolve around whether or not you’re dating someone. And he says that it’s all going to be planned and all you have to do is show up. Sounds pretty good to you. You give him your budget so that he can find something that works for everyone and pretend you actually had the option on whether you agreed. You don’t have the option, you know, because Jeonghan wasn’t asking. Besides, Jeonghan has been your best friend for years, so you know that it’ll be fun.

It occurs to you when the trip gets closer that Jeonghan is your best friend and you really should know to ask for more details. You know better. Part of that includes just which friends that he’s invited to this trip or if there are any that you’re not also friends with. Generally speaking, Jeonghan has excellent taste in friends. He’s intentional with his time, always has been. It also usually takes him time to get comfortable with newer people. So, when he counts someone as a close friend, you typically know it’s someone that you’re also going to like. It’s why you have nearly identical friend circles. The one exception? His new roommate that you actually cannot stand. 

A few months ago, someone new moved into Jeonghan’s apartment after his old roommate and a close friend of both of yours, Wonwoo, moved out to live with his girlfriend. Enter Joshua. At first appearance, he’s kind, patient, artistic, and funny. Nothing that raises any sort of red flags. All your friends seem to like him immediately and none of them can seem to understand your beef with him. Especially since he never has anything negative to say about you. It makes you feel a little crazy. But, you know that you’re not. You know that this man may be just as petty as you and you know that sometimes he fucks with you just because he can. Never anything malicious. He’s not actually a terrible person. He just seems to delight in the fact that you don’t like him and that your friends give you a hard time over it. Can’t understand your issue when so many of them also love to fuck with you. 

You consider backing out when Jeonghan conveniently lets you know exactly who’s coming a few days before leaving. Up until that point, he was relatively vague. Just the standard group of friends you hang out with. Nobody that creates any sort of problems. He reminds you, when you want to back out, that the deposit is already down on the rental house and the activities are already set. You’re locked into time off from work regardless of going or not. Plus, all the rest of your favorite people (the single ones, at least) will be there so why not just go on the trip anyway? What’s the worst that can happen?

You think you’re going to be revisiting that conversation a lot over the course of the trip.

By the time the trip actually comes around, you’re looking forward to it. So what if Joshua is going to be there? It’s a decent sized group going and the listing for the house you’re staying in is beautiful. There are plenty of places for you to hang out without being on top of someone you don’t like that much. Plus, the shortened week leading up to the trip has crawled by. You need this break. Haven’t really had one since the new year started. Thankfully, you’re able to get done with your work on time and are out the door without giving anyone the chance to add more work onto your plate. 

When you get into your car a few minutes later, after changing into something more comfortable for the ride, you take a deep breath. Half an hour later, you have another of your closest friends, Jennie, in the front seat and the pair of you are off to your getaway. You’re happy that it’s just you and her because at least she hears you out on not liking Joshua. Doesn’t really have any suggestions, but she’s a good ear and an even better partner in crime for the drive up. She has playlists ready, snacks packed, and even a little cooler of drinks. All of that means that you only have to stop once for a bathroom break, to get a little more gas, and to see if you can get something more resembling actual food. The car ride itself is uneventful. 

Once you get to the house? Not so much. Based on the cars already there, you think that you and Jennie might be the last ones to show up. That only feels confirmed when you get into the house and everyone is already spread out and making themselves at home. Jeonghan is quick to come over, a little bit of alcohol on his breath, and welcome you. He lets you know that rooms aren’t decided yet and they wanted to make sure you were there before assigning anything. 

And of course, in typical Jeonghan fashion, he has to make it a game for you to figure out where you’re all going to be sleeping. Everyone gets a quick chance to look through the rooms and see which they might want. Of course, you instantly fall in love with the feel of one room. It shouldn’t matter but the colors feel relaxing, the artwork on the walls is your style, and the beds feel comfy. You give Jennie a look that clearly says you should try to share it. Which shouldn’t be an issue because it’s not even the fanciest room. Once you all look at the rooms, you draw for numbers and Jeonghan explains that you’ll go in order and stand in the room you want. If more people want a room than it fits, then they’ll have to come up with a way to decide who gets it. It’s kind of silly, but everyone seems into it and you just go along. Find yourself getting a little excited when you get to go second, too. 

When it’s your turn, you head straight for the room you want and let out a sigh of relief seeing it’s empty. Jennie has a higher number, so you’ll have to wait to see what happens. It seems like everything is going to go well until Joshua walks into the room with that obnoxious smile on his face. You figure he’ll turn around when he sees you. Instead, he smiles more and plops himself down on the free bed. You are determined not to say anything to him and just wait for Jennie to come along. Only…she never does. Jeonghan calls through the house to say that everyone has picked their rooms and to figure it out if there are too many people in the room.

“You look confused,” he observes and the furrow in your brow deepens. 

“I was expecting…” you start and shake your head.

“Jennie?” he asks and you frown. “I mentioned that I also really wanted this room and she said she would try for a different room since I was before her.”

“Traitor,” you say under your breath. 

“What’s that?” he asks, clearly amused.

“Nothing,” you say. “You could have picked another room, too, you know.” 

“All we have to do here is sleep. The beds in this room are the most comfortable and they’re facing the right way. The decorations are relaxing enough that it'll be easy to fall asleep. I want this room,” he says. 

“But, I’m here,” you say kind of lamely. 

“Not the same problem it is for me that it is for you. You’re welcome to switch with someone else, though,” he says.

“Not a…you hate me,” you say incredulously. 

“No, I don’t. Why would you think that?” Joshua asks and you just blink at him. 

“Because you’re always fucking with me,” you say stupidly. 

Joshua tsks with that infuriating smile still firmly in place. “I promise, sweetheart, I don’t hate you and I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“But…” you start as he gets to his feet. 

“I’m going to get my bags. Do you want me to grab yours as well?” he asks. You try to splutter out a response which only makes him smile more knowingly. 

Once you gather your thoughts, you also get up to get your own bags. He may have thrown you off for a second, but you’re stubborn and you’re not letting him win at this. You’re not really sure what game he’s playing or why he’s messing with you this way. You’re also not sure why Jennie let you fall into this situation without so much as a fight. That’s a conversation for later when you know that you won’t be overheard. For now, you’re going to get settled in the house and have a very large drink. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, after all, and you’re going to need all of your strength. 

Your first night goes much easier than you expect. There are enough people that you don’t have to directly interact with your new roommate for the trip. Then, you’re asleep before Joshua comes to bed. Somehow, he’s already out of bed before you get up. A sure sign that you managed to get peaceful sleep. Another sign that you made the right call with the bedroom. It just feels really relaxing. That peace lasts as long as it takes you to get dressed and head out into the kitchen area for coffee. Joshua looks like he’s holding court as he uses the unnecessarily elaborate coffee machine to fill everyone’s orders. And like every other time, they all look completely happy to have him around. You cannot understand it. This is the man that’s been terrorizing you since moving in with Jeonghan and acting like he’s an innocent little angel. Constantly telling you that he would never be chaotic or a menace. It makes you insane. 

(Terrorizing is an incredibly strong word and the rational part of you knows that. Knows that he’s not some evil demon sent from Hell to fight with you, specifically. Knows he doesn’t fuck with you anymore than someone like Jeonghan does. The irrational part of you has decided that fighting with him is the hill you’re willing to die on. That irrational part doesn’t even consider there could be a reason for him acting the way he does with you.)

“Oh this is so cute!” Jennie says as he hands over her mug with perfect latte art. You didn’t realize this was some fancy coffee house set up. 

Joshua smiles soft, the kind that he never shows you, and pushes his glasses back up his nose. Nobody should be allowed to look that good while wearing pajama pants and a sweatshirt. But, he’s got that just rolled out of bed look that would work if you didn’t hate everything about him. His eyes land on you and his smile changes entirely. You think it looks like he’s up to something. Jennie turns around and catches sight of you.

“Babe! You have to let Shua make you coffee. Look how cute this is!” she squeals and shows off her cup as you walk over to her. 

“Shua?” you ask with a raised eyebrow. 

“Don’t worry, you can still just call me Joshua,” he says like he’s doing you a favor.  

“How about Satan?” you ask under your breath. 

His face lights up with that all-too-common look of mischief and you know he heard you. “You know, I prefer Lucifer, actually.” 

“Why is that?” you ask. “They were the same.” 

“In theory, maybe. But, we talk more about Lucifer being a fallen angel than Satan. Plus, it just sounds better, especially when you add Morningstar onto the end. Just a fallen star,” he says and you roll your eyes. He turns back to the coffee machine. “Coffee?”

“Are you asking me?” you say and look around. Everyone else seems to have coffee already. 

“Who else?” he answers with a question of his own. A challenge implicit in the words

“I can make my own, thanks,” you say. “You might put salt into it instead of sugar.” 

He turns around, a lock of faux outrage on his face. “Wow.”

“Come on. Don’t you think that’s a little harsh?” Jennie asks. It’s just the three of you at the kitchen island. 

“Oh, coming from the traitor,” you say without any real heat to it. 

Jennie shrugs, entirely unashamed. “I’m sharing with Seungcheol. He doesn’t snore and he might’ve had to share the bed with Mingyu otherwise. When Joshua said he wanted your same room, I didn’t feel like fighting when I still might lose.”

You sigh at her and Joshua just watches the exchange with more interest than you expect. “So, where are we on letting me make your coffee?”

“Fine,” you say with another sigh. 

Jennie only chuckles under her breath as she gets up off the stool, coffee in hand. “Enjoy.”

Joshua looks at you with the same annoying smile and asks how you like your coffee. You answer him while saying as little as possible and he’s off to work. It’s a nice break once he turns around. He can’t give you shit while he’s focusing so hard on the drink. For a second, you even forget to watch the ingredients he uses. He’s so peaceful. Thankfully (for you, at least), you shake yourself out of it before he turns back around with your mug. 

“Here,” he says and hands it over with the sly smile he saves for you. “Happy Valentine’s Day.” 

It’s casual, the way he says it. Like the way you would say it to an acquaintance or even a newer friend. Certainly not the way you expect him to say it to you. Actually, you don’t expect to hear him say it at all. You roll your eyes for the hundredth time. “Thanks, you too.”

His eyes are still on you and it’s unnerving. “Aren’t you going to try it?”

The alarm bells go off in your head. It’s so easy to imagine him fucking with you. It’s not like you could see through his body to know what he was doing while making the coffee. If you say anything now, though, and it’s a normal cup, then you’ll be the one who seems crazy. All that’s left to do is (begrudgingly) take a sip. Which you do. It takes everything in you not to give away that it’s the best cup of coffee in your life. How does he manage to make it taste so good? How does he get perfect portions of everything? 

You must not totally control your face because he smiles again like he can read your mind. Then he prompts the answer he must already know. “So?”

“It’s not bad,” you say noncommittally.

“Not bad?” Seungcheol asks. It’s beyond you how that man manages to sneak up on you. Makes you start a little. He only chuckles at that and puts a hand on your arm to steady you. “Sorry, I thought you heard me.”

“It’s fine,” you say with a smile. After all, you don’t have beef with him. Jeonghan, maybe, and Joshua, definitely, but not Seungcheol. You can’t blame Jennie for saving him from sharing a bed with Mingyu when Mingyu sleeps like a starfish.

“This is the best coffee I’ve ever had. I want to pay him to just make me a cup whenever I need it,” he jokes. 

Joshua shrugs, feigning a humility that you know he doesn’t feel. It’s the version of him that everyone else but you seems to get. It just feels so fake. Doesn’t occur to you that maybe it’s all the real him. That he could be both a chaos demon and a genuinely nice person all at once. Or maybe you’re getting the fake version of him. 

“It’s nothing,” Joshua says, like the compliment makes him shy. “I worked as a barista while I was in school. Got pretty good at it because it meant better tips.” 

“You know, maybe we should talk about you opening a coffee shop. I know some people who might want to invest and you’re wasting away in an office job. You’re much better around people,” Seungcheol says. 

You snort and quickly cover it. Although Seungcheol seems to second guess what he heard, one look at Joshua tells you he knows. His face is even again by the time the other man looks back. Leave it to Seungcheol and his giant heart to want to help someone who may not even deserve it. Before you can say anything else, you excuse yourself from the conversation with a final forced thank you. You don’t want to spend the whole weekend feeling crazy any time someone sees you bickering with Joshua.  With a whole weekend like this, he’s bound to show his true colors. And you’ll be waiting for that moment. No, you don’t think that’s crazy at all. It’s just how it has to be.

The rest of the morning and afternoon pass in kind of a blur. You and Jennie offer to do the big grocery shopping trip to get everything on the communal list. There had been a little bit of food, some drinks, and plenty of coffee. But, you need food for the rest of the weekend, especially with tonight being a meal in the house to avoid the insanity of Valentine’s Day crowds. Shopping the night before just hadn’t been on the agenda either. So, you and Jennie head out to brave any last minute shoppers with a (slightly longer than expected) list of what you think you’ll need the rest of the weekend.

Once you get back, Jeonghan is quick to take over while ushering you off to hang out in the living room. You’re not sure if he unpacks the groceries, or, more realistically, gets someone else to handle it. That’s definitely something nice about having a house full of people. There’s no shortage of helping hands. It’s just nice to get to sit for a minute. The grocery store had been busier than expected. You don’t mind crowds, neither does Jennie. There’s just something about holidays that seems to bring out the worst in those that are out last minute. 

It seems like people have scattered while you were at the store. The weather doesn’t quite feel warm enough to be outside. It is sunny, though, and that seems like enough to pull some of your friends outside to kick a ball around. Definitely not something that appeals to you. Instead, you drift over to join Jun and Jeonghan playing a boardgame. Most of your friends have a rule against playing games with Jeonghan because he’s not above cheating for fun. Or just to win since he can be competitive. That’s never been a rule you bothered with. It’s just as fun for you to see his reactions when you don’t react to his cheating. That can be more fun than the game itself. Besides, you’re pretty good at a lot of the games he plays. It’s a safe option while Joshua is outside. 

Eventually, Jun has to excuse himself from your games. Not really a big loss to Jeonghan since Jun really only joined for the vibes and because running around outside felt like too much work. As the afternoon slips away, he leaves to join Mingyu in the kitchen. The two of them are tackling dinner for the entire group. A fact you’re all happy with since they’re both incredible cooks. You, personally, are less excited when Joshua plops into Jun’s vacated seat, freshly showered after being outside. His hair is still wet as he shakes it out a little and runs a hand through it to get it out of his face. 

“What’s with the glasses today?” Jeonghan asks and Joshua rolls his eyes. 

“I wear glasses a lot. Are you saying that you’re not just always staring at my face?” Joshua retorts. Jeonghan is the only other person Joshua ever messes around with. But, it’s very different than with you. Those two banter. Sass each other back and forth. Joshua genuinely fucks with you. At least, that’s how it feels to you.

Jeonghan narrows his eyes at his roommate and glances over at you for some reason. Even as long as you’ve been friends, you still can’t read the look on your best friend’s face. It looks like he’s putting something together and you have no idea what. Aren’t sure you want to know, honestly. He and Joshua may not have been roommates long, but Jeonghan considers them two peas in a pod. Yet, somehow everyone knows Jeonghan is a demon with a kind heart, while nobody thinks Joshua is anything but sweet. 

“Please tell me you didn’t wear glasses so…” your best friend starts, only to be quickly cut off. 

“I thought we were playing games over here,” Joshua interrupts. Although Jeonghan narrows his eyes, he doesn’t comment further. Weird. 

“I’ll leave the roommates to it,” you say flatly and start to stand up. Jeonghan grabs your arm gently, so you could pull away if you wanted. It’s just to get your attention.

“Come on, you can’t abandon us. The games are more fun with more than two people,” he says. Gives you that angelic smile you still haven’t figured out how to ignore after years of friendship.

“I was going to…” you start and trail off when a good excuse eludes you.

“What?” Jeonghan challenges with that sparkle in his eye. “Help in the kitchen? Watch whatever Jennie is trying to teach Cheol? Let Soonyoung corner you the way he probably cornered Jihoon and Sana to talk about his idea to adopt a tiger?” 

“He’s a menace,” you protest weakly, glancing briefly at Joshua. He’s been watching the exchange with clear interest and this makes him laugh.

“Jeonghan is your best friend!” he says while holding back a laugh. 

“Yeah, but everyone knows he’s a menace,” you start.

“Hey!”

“Oh you are, Hannie, don’t deny it.” 

“Still.” He pouts at you and you know it means he’s not actually upset. He is a menace and the most loyal person you know. It’s fine. 

“You, on the other hand,” you say, turning to Joshua. He gives you a look of polite interest. “You’re a menace and everyone thinks you’re an angel.”

“I am an angel,” he says with a shrug.

“Every day the universe tests my patience,” you say under your breath. 

“Just play with us,” Jeonghan says and you sigh.

“Fine.”

In some ways, it is actually funnier than playing with Jun. Joshua tries to be stealthy as he cheats, but you’re best friends with Jeonghan and you’ve absolutely seen it all. The normal rules go out the window and you all try to see who can be the sneakiest in cheating for an advantage. Your best friend receives a shock with how well you keep pace. Not that it should be surprising. You pick things up with Jeonghan in your life. Despite how much fun you’re having, you stop just short of admitting that. Can’t let Joshua have the satisfaction. 

Eventually, it’s time for everyone to head back to their rooms to get ready for dinner. Even though you’re staying in, everyone wants to get dressed up. Pretend you’re all fancy for no real reason. You let Joshua go back to the room first. He and Sana are relieving Mingyu and Jun so that they can also get ready for dinner. At least you have the confidence neither of them will burn anything. He’s changed by the time you return to the room and sit down on your bed to do your makeup. 

“Trying to impress someone?” he asks, voice low in a way that’s unfamiliar to you. 

It makes you glance up at him sharply, searching to understand the tone. He doesn’t have his standard sly grin on his face and it’s a little disarming. Instead, he’s studying your face. “Sometimes I just like to look nice.” 

Joshua turns to grab his watch and says something under his breath. Something so quiet that you can’t hear it even looking right at him. Can’t read his lips either since you’re looking at his profile. He seems so concentrated and, for once, unguarded. It gives you a moment to take him in when you usually try not to linger on him for more than a moment. He’s wearing a crisp dress shirt with the top few buttons undone. Just the right amount of casual and dressy. Your eyes linger on his necklace that should look a little too fine or thin, yet somehow works on him. It’s an interesting combination. Something you might expect to see on Jeonghan with all his delicate features. Lost in your consideration of the piece of jewelry, you miss the moment Joshua finishes fastening this watch and looks back up.

“Were you staring at me?” he asks and you’re not surprised to hear his usual tone back. Maybe a little cockiness thrown in for good measure.

“Your necklace, actually,” you answer. It comes out much more smooth than you feel after being caught staring at your enemy. 

He chuckles and touches a hand to it. Runs a careful finger along the chain. Then, he smirks at you and you know there’s no good that can come from that. “Maybe if you’re good, I’ll let you borrow it.” 

A million things run through your head at that statement. None of them can come out of your mouth, though. “Aren’t you supposed to be helping Sana in the kitchen so our lovely chefs can get ready?”

“Sure,” he agrees easily and you like that tone even less. It’s like he knows some kind of secret that you’re not in on. It’s unnerving. He turns to the door before giving you a chance to say anything else. “See you at dinner.” 

What the hell was that?

You finish getting ready and head out into the dining area to find Jennie and Soonyoung setting the table. As seems to be usual, he has entirely too much energy for such a simple task. It’s kind of endearing, really. Everything with him around the group feels exciting, even the boring things. Jeonghan is just behind them with little name cards to assign you where to sit. You would roll your eyes if it weren’t so completely him. Though, he seems to have taken at least a partial night off from causing problems on purpose. Your seat is between Jennie and Jihoon, which seems harmless enough. Knowing Ji, he may not even have much to say. 

As something to do, you help bring food to the table. Everything looks amazing. Not that it’s a surprise. If Seungcheol wants to pay Joshua to make him coffee every day, you wish you could pay Mingyu to cook all your meals. Even as the one who went grocery shopping, you aren’t expecting this. There’s an assortment of dishes, both hot and cold, with something seemingly from every food group. And it smells even better than it looks. Everyone loads up their plates and takes their assigned seats. Naturally, Jeonghan sits at the head. And, of course, Joshua is sitting across from you. Not directly across from you, no. Jeonghan has him sitting across from Jennie. It seems deliberate since you’re far more likely to turn to chat with Jennie than Jihoon. But, nothing should ruin your mood or this dinner. Instead, you heap your praise on Mingyu and Jun before digging in. Just kind of follow the conversation as it goes. 

Dinner is just as amazing as you imagined it would be. Even cleaning up after dinner goes quickly. And then it’s to the part of the night Jeonghan seems most excited about: drinking and playing games. Multiple people veto Soonyoung’s request to play strip poker, causing him to pout. So, Seungcheol jumps in with another card game where you can all drink and keep your clothes on. Someone seems to mutter that everyone keeping their clothes on is boring, earning a chuckle. Still, you all settle around a large coffee table and start drinking. Jihoon joins once he gets a playlist going for background music. 

The game lasts longer than you expect before Soonyoung starts to lose interest again. And he doesn’t seem to be alone. He’s giggling along with Jun and Sana, the lightest of the lightweights in the group when it comes to drinking. None of them are really paying attention to their turns, but how can you be mad? They’re all so cute. So happy.

“Oh I know!” Soonyoung says, volume several settings too loud.

“Inside voice, Soonie,” Sana giggles.

“We should play truth or dare,” he says. It’s still a bit too loud, but at least your ears don’t hurt.

“Soonyoung, we’re adults,” Jihoon says, only a slight flush to his cheeks showing he’s been drinking.

“Which makes it even more fun,” Jun chimes in. 

Jihoon looks around for support. Looks for someone else to object. Most people only shrug. You all know that Soonyoung is going to get what he wants. He’s got a cute pout and he never asks for anything that would actually make someone uncomfortable. Why not play a silly game while drinking with friends on a getaway to forget none of you are in relationships at the moment? What could possibly go wrong?

The first few rounds, as always, are pretty mild. Nobody wants to be the first one to cross the line into something a little raunchier. Then the drinks keep flowing and people seem to get a little looser. Soonyoung gives Sana a lap dance that has the entire group on the edge of their seats. Jihoon has to admit that he wrote half a dozen songs about a crush on Sana when he first got started (which earns him a kiss on the cheek from the woman in question). Mingyu has to share a sexual fantasy. Sana has to suck on someone’s fingers (and picks Jihoon, which makes his cheeks flush). Around and around it goes with the only constant being that neither option is safer. It all depends on who’s asking and who they’re asking. The majority of what comes out is known to at least part of the group since most of you have been friends for years. It’s also all in good fun while the drinks flow. 

“Joshua, truth or dare?” Jeonghan says and his roommate seems delighted.

“Dare, obviously,” he says without a second thought.

You roll your eyes and take a drink while you watch Jeonghan pretend to consider. It’s an act, one you know well. He knows what he’s going to say and it comes out a second later. “I dare you to whisper in someone’s ear til they blush.”

“Something dirty?” Joshua asks. 

Jeonghan just shrugs. “Up to you about whatever you think will work best.”

Joshua casts his eyes around the group like he’s actually considering. You figure he’ll probably pick someone whose cheeks are already a bit flushed from drinking. Make it easier on himself. That’s what Jeonghan would do, at least. It’s only when you realize that he’s moving towards you that you get a little nervous. Jennie offers you a smile before getting up so that he can sit next to you. You really need to get better friends. It should be fine, though, because you don’t blush that easily. Definitely not because of someone you don’t even like. 

Your other friends seem to move a little further away, too. Maybe so they can see better or maybe so they don’t hear what he says. This is a test of wills and it’s one you intend to win as you give him the most neutral look. Unfortunately, he surprises you right from the start by gently taking hold of your chin and turning your face away from him. His fingers are just as gentle when they push your hair away from your ear. It’s the way you treat someone you actually like, not someone you constantly terrorize. The warmth from his breath tickles you as he leans into your ear. 

“You think you have me fooled. Want me to think that you can’t stand me,” he begins and you’re already fighting off a shiver. His voice is low, as smooth as honey and just as sweet. He keeps a hand around the back of your head and one in front of his own face to create the illusion of privacy. Even though nobody else could hear him with his voice so low. 

“I know, though. I know there’s a very fine line between hate and…desire. I saw the way you looked at my necklace earlier. Tracked the way you watched my fingers slide along the smooth chain. Were you imagining what else my fingers could do? Maybe you want to imagine them sliding across your lips. I’d do it if all our friends weren’t watching. Or maybe you were thinking about having my fingers ghost over your neck. Applying feather light pressure.” 

It’s getting harder for you to keep your cool. There’s a slideshow of the least sexy images that you can conjure playing in your mind. You cannot lose this to Joshua, of all people. Anyone else, fine. Just not him.

“Hmm. Or maybe it’s my mouth that gets you going. That mouth that’s always terrorizing you. Always seems to have something to say. Do you want to know what it feels like pressed into your skin? Do you want to imagine me dipping my head down from your ear? Can you imagine me sucking a mark into the soft skin of your neck and then soothing you by running my tongue over the spot? I will keep kissing down your skin. Finding every spot that makes you moan. I bet you make the sweetest sounds…”

“BESTIE!” Jeonghan says, nearly shrieking with delight. “Oh my god, I cannot believe he got you!”

Joshua pulls away with the worst grin you’ve ever seen and you just huff out in annoyance. Cross your arms and firmly look anywhere but Joshua. It’s all you can do to try and calm down the rapid beating of your heart. You shake your head and then glare at your best friend.

“What was he saying?” Mingyu asks, feeding too much into bullshit. 

“That’s between us,” Joshua says as he gets up to return to his original seat. 

“Cannot believe he managed to make our strongest soldier blush like that,” Sana says through a giggle. 

“Is she?” Joshua asks Sana, seeming genuinely intrigued. Sana raises her eyebrows in question. “Our strongest soldier?”

“Yeah, nothing gets her, usually,” Mingyu says and you cast a look at him for betraying you.

“It was like he was reading some smutty book to me. I wasn’t even thinking about it being him,” you say with a pout.

“Sure, sure,” Jeonghan says dismissively and turns to his roommate. “Your turn.” 

Part of you expects him to turn it right back on you given the look on his face. He surprises you, though, and turns over to Sana. You space out on whatever the truth or dare is. Kind of can’t think about anything other than the things Joshua whispered into your ear. You know he didn’t mean any of it. There’s no world where Joshua wants to do any of those things with you. And no world where you want him too, either, you remind yourself. It just kills you that he won this round. You refocus just in time to hear Sana direct the next question to you.

“Truth or dare?” she asks 

Sana is trustworthy. Not someone out to get you, so it’s easy to answer. “Dare.”

“Kiss the most attractive person…” she starts, only to get an elbow to the side from Soonyoung. “Sorry, I want you to kiss the most attractive guy on the lips for at least 5 seconds. Jennie and I are off the table.” 

“What would it take to get you on the table?” Seungcheol jokes and somehow keeps it from sounding sleazy. 

You roll your eyes and look around the group. All of your friends are pretty, which makes something like this hard. Easy to overthink, too. That’s when it hits you. Quickly rising, you make it seem like you’re heading towards Joshua. His face shows surprise for the briefest moment. At the last second, you curve towards Mingyu. 

“Can I kiss you?” 

He chuckles, catching onto your game immediately. “Not like it’s the first time.” 

You lean in and press a kiss to his lips. It’s nothing that deep, but you do make sure it lasts longer than five seconds. When you pull away, Joshua seems to be watching intently. Even follows you back to your seat. 

“Hey, now why does Mingyu get to be the most attractive?” Soonyoung protests with a pout.

“Maybe because he’s a literal model?” Jennie says with a laugh. 

“Details,” Soonyoung says dismissively. 

During the exchange you look back at Joshua and tune out the bickering. You find his eyes already on you, an unreadable look on his face. “Truth or dare?”

Joshua’s eyes widen. “Me?” 

“Mhm,” you hum in agreement.

His eyes narrow, just for a second. “Truth.” 

“What’s your most embarrassing sex story?” 

The question seems to catch him further off guard and you’re not sure what he expected you to ask. Maybe he thought you would ask about why he’s always terrorizing you. This is infinitely better, though. The way he answers will tell you a lot about him. 

He actually launches into a legitimate story. Apparently, he had been dating someone and wanted to spice things up a little in the relationship. So, he let himself into her apartment to set up a little dinner for them and then stripped down to a sexy waiter outfit. Just cuffs, a collar, and the tiniest underwear known to man. The only problem was that she didn’t know that he was setting up the surprise and showed up back at her place with her parents, who he had not even met yet. He was never able to recover from it and they broke up. It’s not technically a sex story, but you let him have it because it’s definitely embarrassing. 

The game carries on once again. The truths and dares get bolder until someone reels it back in with something a little tamer and the cycle resets. You think you might be in the clear, even though your mind still lingers in places you wish it wouldn’t. If your friends can tell you’re zoning out, they don’t call you on it. You’re actually surprised the game has gone on this long with everyone drinking and being silly. It’s kind of nice too, though, to get to take a break from real world responsibilities. There’s a lightness to the whole night that makes you warm. At least, that’s what you’re deciding has you feeling the way you are.

“Okay, last one and then we’re moving onto a drinking game,” Seungcheol says. 

“Bossy,” Jennie comments and earns a smattering of chuckles. 

“You up for it?” Seungcheol asks Joshua.

“Sure, dare,” he says without missing a beat. 

“No more of this whispering in her ear to make her blush, I want to see an actual kiss,” Seungcheol says and looks right at you.

“Excuse me?” you ask. He’s the last person you imagine engaging in whatever this is that the rest of your friends are up to.

“I could cut the tension with a knife and I just wanna see if it’s one sided,” he says, unapologetic. 

“Didn’t take you as the type who liked to watch,” Jeonghan says, shit-eating grin taking over his face.

“Oh, I’m into all sorts of things, but we can talk about that later,” Seungcheol says with a wink at Jeonghan. You forget, sometimes, that he can be just as insufferable as your best friend. He turns back to you. “You can back out, though.”

Joshua is watching you for your reaction and his face is unreadable. It’s impossible to tell if he actually wants to do this or if he’s just going along with the game. You know that he won’t follow through if you say no, though. Maybe it’s the drinks coursing through you, but it doesn’t feel like the worst thing in the world. The buzz in your veins is pleasant and you know you’re still totally in control. 

“Well?” Joshua presses when you don’t say anything.

You try to seem unaffected again by rolling your eyes. Can tell by the looks you get that it doesn’t really work. So, you huff out a short reply. “Fine.” 

For the second time tonight, Joshua rises from his seat and crosses to you. Jennie doesn’t even get a chance to move this time because he reaches a hand to you and pulls you to your feet. It’s gentle again, just like he was when he whispered filth into your ear. Almost cautiously, he puts one hand on your waist, sliding it along so it’s on your back as he pulls you into him. His other hand rests on your cheek and then he kisses you. Not just a peck like you’re expecting. His lips are impossibly soft and it takes everything in you not to sink further into it. To fight the way your body wants to respond to his touch. The next second, he pulls back. When you meet his eyes, it’s the first time you can remember seeing him look like that. Soft, unguarded, curious. The mask slips back into place when he steps away.

“Satisfied?” Joshua asks Seungcheol.

“Oh, definitely.” 

Nobody says anything about the kiss as you move into whatever drinking game Seungcheol picks to play next. There are plenty of looks that both you and Joshua miss, though. It’s almost like seeing the version of Joshua that all your friends talk about. The one who could be kind and thoughtful. Funny and supportive. All the sides you’re very convinced are reserved for anyone but you. It makes your head spin in a way that has nothing to do with the alcohol in your system. It fills you with questions, too. Why did he kiss you like that? It’s the kind of first kiss everyone wants. One that’s full of promises and meaning. One that sets the tone for everything going forward. 

It’s going to spiral you back into annoyance again if you’re not careful. It’s all just a game to him, right? Just another way to mess with you and get you to think about wanting him. Another way to show that he’s somehow in control of this whole dynamic. That’s a win you can’t give him. So, you dial yourself back into the present and into the game. Make sure to act like everything is fine. And it is. You’re definitely not thinking about the things Joshua whispered in your ear now that you know exactly what his lips feel like on yours. 

The next morning comes brighter than you’re expecting. Then, you realize it’s not that early after all. A side effect of staying up into the early hours of the morning having the best night with your friends. Your head feels a little fuzzy from drinking. Could be a lot worse. Thankfully, you drank a ton of water and took a couple painkillers to hedge your bets, so you wake up without a hangover. Sometimes, past-you really does look out for future-you.

In the other bed, Joshua shifts. You freeze, not entirely ready to deal with him before even wiping the sleep from your eyes. Instead, he just rolls over and his breathing stays even. It’s that steady rhythm of someone sleeping soundly. He looks younger, somehow, while he’s sleeping. Or maybe it’s just that he’s completely relaxed. No time for scheming or terrorizing you. There’s an innocence that almost makes you forget the war between you and him. Almost. 

After you brush your teeth and wash your face, you decide to see if anyone else in the house is awake. The whole house is quiet, though. Not surprising. You always seem to be the first one awake after a night drinking and this is supposed to be a vacation. There’s no point in waking anyone up when you don’t have plans until later. So, you decide to grab your book, an oversized hoodie that you stole from one of your friends, and one of the blankets from the living room before heading outside. There’s a chill in the air, though not it’s not as bad as the previous day. There’s also heating units on the patio that you can turn on before settling down. 

It’s the perfect cozy morning. The heaters and the blanket keep you just warm enough without it being uncomfortable. The world around you is calm, peaceful in a way it never could be in a city. A breeze gently rustles through the trees. Birds call out to each other. There aren’t any of those sounds that people contribute. You get lost in the fictional world and the vivid imagery, completely unaware of anything going on around you. 

At least until a voice interrupts your thoughts. A voice that’s quickly becoming too recognizable. 

“I brought you coffee,” he says and holds out a steaming mug. 

Without consciously making the decision, you move your legs on the couch, allowing him to sit down on the other end. He has his own mug that he blows gently across before taking a sip. Your eyes study his profile for a moment before taking a sip of your own.

“Thank you,” you say without the normal bite. 

“I made it the same as yesterday, hope that’s okay,” he says. He’s still facing forward and you can’t really place why. Or why it bothers you that he’s not looking over at you when you’re not even friends. 

You sigh. “You make incredible coffee. You don’t need me to tell you that.”

The side of his mouth that you can see quirks into a smile. Probably a smug one, knowing him. Then he does actually turn to face you and, of course, his eyes sparkle. “Still nice to hear.” 

“Yes, Joshua, you are the coffee god,” you say with heavy sarcasm.

You set the coffee down on the table long enough so that you can mark the place in your book with the receipt you’re using as a bookmark and set it aside. Somehow, this seems to interest him, even though it seems like the most mundane thing. Instead of trying to figure out what’s going on in his head, you just pick your coffee back up and resume drinking in peace. A peace that only lasts a moment.

“You can tell a lot about someone by how they handle their books,” he says. 

That gets your attention even though you know it’s meant to bait you into a conversation. “Is that so?” 

“Probably not,” he says with a light laugh. “But, I like that you don’t dog-ear your pages…”

“A crime.” 

“And I use receipts as bookmarks, too. Sometimes, from when I buy the books if they don’t just email it to me or otherwise, just one I have lying around. I can’t ever seem to remember an actual bookmark, but who doesn’t have receipts lying around?”

“That’s true,” you concede. Joshua takes another sip of his coffee and shivers a little, even though he’s also got a sweatshirt one. One of Jeonghan’s, you think, because you know you’ve seen him in it. “Here.” 

“What?” he asks and turns to you. You’re pushing the edge of the blanket towards him with your foot. It’s plenty big enough to share.

“You brought me coffee. I’m not going to let you shiver,” you say and he smiles at you. One of the real ones that you’re not used to. 

“Thanks,” he says and pulls it toward his lap. 

“I’m surprised you’re not inside making everyone else coffee, too.” 

“Nobody else is awake yet. Or, I didn’t see anyone. I thought I heard voices, could’ve been a TV in one of the rooms. But it seemed so peaceful out here and I figured…”

“You’d come bug me?” 

The look he gives you is a little exasperated. Something new on his face. Joshua reaches into the pouch of his sweatshirt and pulls out a book. It’s a title and an author you don’t recognize. You wonder what you might be able to learn from his reading habits. 

“I thought I might read, too,” he says instead and glances at your book. “You know, not what I pictured you reading.” 

Several responses war in your head, all wanting to come out. You look over at the book to buy yourself a minute to see which answer wins out. “I like fantasy. It’s nice to escape into a world that isn’t real.” 

“That doesn’t surprise me,” he says, seemingly pleased that you’re not being snarky. 

“So, why not this, then?” you ask. It hits you that maybe he pays more attention to you than you realize. Maybe that’s why he’s so good at getting under your skin. A thought occurs to you. “If you say you think I’d prefer sparkly vampires, I will end you.”

That makes him laugh, loud and clear. Like he’s not concerned about coming off a certain way. It’s a nice sound, you think. “No, that’s not what I was thinking. I was thinking more fantasy mixed with some kind of dystopia. Not something set in the Middle East.” 

“I do like that, too,” you admit grudgingly. “Have you read this one? It was out on a fantasy table at the bookstore and it just sounded interesting.”

“Not yet, maybe you’ll let me borrow it,” he says with that smirk that reminds you just what a pain he can be.

“We’re definitely not at book sharing,” you deadpan, falling right into the trap without realizing.

“So we can swap spit but you won’t share a book with me?” 

“Ew.” 

“I know the kiss wasn’t so bad that you’re saying ew about it.” 

You pull your legs closer into yourself and wrap your hands more tightly around the mug for both warmth and comfort. Regard him for a moment and decide how you want to go forward. There’s something about the setting that makes it feel like the two of you are in your own little bubble. Like you can say things you wouldn’t with your other friends around. Even though you know that you can see the patio from inside, it feels more private. Less on display than you and Joshua were the night before during the game. Somewhere along the chat, Joshua has also turned to face you and crossed his legs in front of him.

“I don’t understand you,” you admit after a moment. 

“I didn’t think I was complicated,” he says. 

“You hate me…”

“I’ve already told you I don’t.” 

“But you picked me to make blush even though there were better options and then kissed me without hesitation.” Joshua opens his mouth, a smart retort on his lips, you’re sure. So you’re quick to cut him off. “And don’t say it was just a dare. I didn’t kiss Mingyu that way and I got to pick whoever I wanted.” 

That makes him snap his mouth shut briefly. He takes a slow sip of coffee, seemingly to buy himself a moment to reconsider what to say. It’s hell on you, though, because seeing his lips on the mug reminds you of the way his lips felt against yours last night. 

“I don’t hate you,” he repeats to start. “I was maybe a little envious, at the beginning, of your relationship with Jeonghan and the rest of that friend group. I’ve always made friends easily, but this felt different. I know we all joke about it, but Jeonghan and I must have been friends in another life. And I saw how everyone also loved you and joked around with you, but you weren’t like that with me. So it felt a little like I was still on the outside of this group I loved.” 

“Who all love you, too, for the record,” you say with a sigh.

“You don’t, though,” he presses.

“Because you terrorize me!” you say without any real heat. 

“So does Jeonghan,” he points out. 

“He gets best friend privileges,” you say. “And he doesn’t fuck with me like you do.” 

“I watched him eat your ice cream out of the freezer and try to convince you that it wasn’t ever yours. And that he had no idea what happened to yours,” he deadpans and you immediately close your mouth, forgetting what you wanted to say.

“I…okay, yeah, he does fuck with me,” you concede.

“I figured if you already didn’t like me, I might as well have a little fun,” he says with a shrug. You can see the smile tugging at the corner of his lips, though. 

“And irritating me, then pretending you haven’t done anything is fun to you?” 

“Yeah, actually.”

You huff out in annoyance. “At least you admit that I’m not crazy.” 

“Now, that’s not all my doing.” 

You’re about to snap back at him when you catch sight of the look on his face. He’s just needling you again. Like he has been since moving in with your best friend. So, you switch tactics, hoping to catch him off guard. “Still doesn’t explain the dares last night.”

Joshua gives you a look that’s almost a little sympathetic. Like there’s something right in front of you that you can’t really figure out. It instantly makes you want to wipe it off him. “Like I said, I like to annoy you. You’re even hotter when you’re annoyed.”

“Excuse…” you start.

The door opens behind you and Jennie pokes her head out. “Brunch is ready, lovebirds.”

“We’re not…” you try to start again.

Joshua is too quick, though. Giving you that obnoxious smirk and slowly moving the blanket off his lap. “Thanks for sharing your blanket with me, sweetheart.”

With that, he’s up and heading inside before your brain can even catch up. God, he’s so fucking infuriating that it’s going to make you crazy. But, as you’re gathering your things to head inside for brunch, and ignoring Jennie’s pointed look, you consider that maybe you did just get to know a lot more about Joshua than you realized. 

After brunch, everyone gets ready to head out to the action park. This had been a Soonyoung and Jun suggestion, but everyone seems pretty interested. Since they’re the only ones who have been to one before, you’re not entirely sure what to expect just from the website. In person, it’s actually really cool. They have go karts, bumper cars, indoor mini golf, rock climbing and ropes courses, small ziplines, laser tag, and even more things that you can’t really put a name to. There’s definitely something for everyone and it lets you split off to go do whatever seems the most interesting. 

You’re barely in the door before Soonyoung and Jun are running off giggling. Jeonghan peels off to go karts. He’s not a great driver, but he’s as competitive as they come and it’s definitely something he can try to win at. A little surprising, especially with mini golf being right there, but whatever floats his boat. You try to drag Mingyu along with you to the zip line, figuring it’s not that high and maybe it’ll help him work on his fear of heights. You’re a little surprised that you get him to agree eventually. More surprised still that he actually seems to enjoy it. From the top of the zipline, you see that Jun and Soonyoung are playing some teenagers in laser tag, giggling in a way that has you concerned for the teenagers. Those two are devious with games like that. 

It’s the perfect kind of relaxing afternoon that’s also engaging. You try out as many things as you can and just get lost in the fun of it all. Don’t really think about Joshua or your earlier conversation. Definitely don’t feel any kind of way when the person securing his harness lingers a little longer than necessary, seemingly flirting with him. It’s too far away to tell if he’s flirting back. Not that you should care, either way. The distraction lets Jeonghan ram into the side of your bumper car and forces you back into your mission of chasing after your best friend. 

Several hours later, your whole group is ready to leave. It’s been a lot of fun, but nobody wants to get completely worn out. Especially when you have dinner reservations at a nice restaurant and then plans for an escape room after that. So, you pile back into your cars and head back to the house to get ready again. Joshua lets you have the bathroom to get ready because you want to take a quick shower without washing your hair. He’s not going out of his way to fuck with you and it’s a bit disarming. Still, it’s better than before, right? 

Dinner is even better than expected, but you’re careful not to praise it too much. Can’t have Mingyu pouting over thinking the professional chef does a better job than him (even though it is literally the chef’s job). Nobody drinks too much, either. Except it’s not because you drank the night before. No. Jeonghan, like the true chaos demon that he is, tells you at dinner that it’s actually two escape rooms because it’s too easy with 10 people and you’ll be splitting into two groups. So, it’s kind of like a competition to see who finishes first. That sharpens everyone’s attention. Well, after Soonyoung makes a joke about finishing first, of course. You can tell that people are looking around and wondering who the best teammates are going to be or how you’re going to split up.

Somehow, your friends let you and Jeonghan be on the same team, which feels like an unfair advantage when the two of you do these a lot. It’s been a tradition of yours for years, even now when they’re not as popular anymore. It’s a little surprising that Joshua doesn’t press about also being paired up with you. It seems like the perfect chance to give you a hard time and you know he wants to win. He just heads to the other group without a word, though. It hits you while you’re getting ready to start your room that he also left you alone during the entirety of dinner. Weird. But, then the timer starts and nothing else matters. 

Soonyoung whines the whole way back to the house about how unfair it was to have to go against you and Jeonghan. It’s good natured, though. He admits that he still had fun even if his team only made it out with a few minutes to spare. Your team had over 10 minutes to spare, by comparison, so it hadn’t exactly been a close fight. The bickering picks back up again when you get out of your cars and Soonyoung can argue with Jeonghan again. It’s incredibly endearing to watch them that way. Fills your heart with warmth. This really is the perfect weekend away with friends. 

“Oh, I brought my karaoke machine!” Soonyoung says as everyone is dispersing into the house.

“Soonyoung…” you start, exasperated.

“I’m in!” Jun squeals and Soonyoung is off to retrieve it without another comment.

“I’ll start mixing up some drinks,” Sana says with an affectionate sigh. 

“I’ll help,” Jennie agrees. 

Even though nobody else shows any enthusiasm, you all get sucked into the mess with the promise of drinks. Soonyoung actually doesn’t have a bad voice at all when he’s not trying to be as ridiculous as possible. It’s nice, though, because this isn’t the kind of thing you can’t do at home when you share walls with other people. Or not the kind of thing you should do. Soonyoung, in particular, does not need any more noise complaints. 

Jeonghan takes the seat next to you and it’s comforting to have him there, even if it’s not exactly a quiet moment. The two of you go over some of the more difficult clues from the escape room and wonder if you could have gotten through the other room just as fast. Figure you probably could because the difficulty levels were the same. The two of you are nothing if not confident in your abilities. Somewhere during the conversation, Joshua plops down on Jeonghan’s other side and shares what it had been like in their room. More chaotic than yours, by the sounds of it. 

“Hey, I didn’t ask,” Jeonghan says suddenly, turning to Joshua. “I saw you were getting some extra attention from that worker putting your harness on for the rock climbing wall.”

“Ah, it was nothing,” Joshua says dismissively. 

“It didn’t seem like nothing,” Jeonghan presses, ever the pest.

Joshua gives him a look that seems to convey a silent conversation. It’s strange to see when you’re so used to doing that with Jeonghan yourself. “She was just asking about our plans and if we needed any suggestions or wanted a guide to anything.”

“So, she was hitting on you,” Jeonghan concludes, smug for a reason you don’t understand.

“Maybe,” Joshua says with a shrug. “I told her it was a friends trip and that we were set.”

“Not interested?” Jeonghan presses.

“No,” Joshua says without explaining. 

“Can’t imagine why,” Jeonghan says like he knows a secret. You recognize the tone well. What you don’t recognize is what the secret is. 

“I’m gonna go get a refill,” Joshua says and stands up abruptly.

“What was that?” you ask, watching Joshua as he retreats into the kitchen.

Jeonghan only shrugs like he doesn’t know what’s going on. You might believe it on anyone else, but you know better with him. “I think I’m going to go see if Soonyoung wants to do a duet.”

With that nonanswer, Jeonghan also stands and heads over to see what Soonyoung has for song options in the app he’s using to connect to the machine. Something about the whole interaction feels off. And though you still don’t know if you even like Joshua, you get up to follow him into the empty kitchen. At least, you’re going to continue telling yourself you’re not sure if you like him. 

“Are you okay?” you ask and he turns at your voice.

“Fine, why?” he asks. It’s not how he normally interacts with you.

“I don’t know, you just seem off,” you say. “Jeonghan can be a shit sometimes, but…”

“But, you’ll give him a pass and not me,” Joshua finishes and it pulls you up short. “Sorry, I…”

“No, you’re right,” you agree and that does surprise him. 

“Are you okay?” he asks and starts to slip back into his more normal self. “Admitting, I’m right? I should check your temperature. Or should I call my family? Is the world ending?”

“You’re impossible,” you grumble. You turn away from him to refill your own drink.

You can feel his presence rather than hear it over the sounds from the living room. Know he moves to stand right behind you. “And you missed me messing with you today, admit it.”

His voice is low again and entirely too close to your ear. You hate the way you have to fight your reaction to him. Hate the way he flips a switch and sends you spiraling like this. You can’t admit that it felt weird to not have him messing with you. Won’t admit that you fell right into his trap with him being short. It even occurs to you that Jeonghan might have helped set the whole thing up. After all, who knows you better than your best friend?

“I wouldn’t go that far,” you say. 

“If you ask me to stop messing with you, then I will,” he says, still standing just behind you with his mouth near your ear. “If you tell me that you genuinely can’t stand it after last night and after we talked this morning, then I promise I’ll leave you alone.”  

“And if I don’t ask you to stop?” you ask, so quietly that you’re not sure he’ll hear you over the din. He does, though. His soft chuckle is confirmation of that before he steps away.

“Then, I’ll be very happy to keep seeing more sides of you,” he says.

By the time you actually turn around, he’s retreating back into the living room. You almost could convince yourself that you imagined the whole thing. Then, he looks over his shoulder and winks at you. It’s infuriating. He’s infuriating. He’s also confusing. This weird dynamic between you has definitely shifted and you realize it’s up to you to set the new boundaries. But, if it’s up to you to set the boundaries, then why does it feel like he’s still pulling all the strings?

You’re kind of in a daze while you try to process what’s actually going on. Outwardly, you keep sipping on your drinks and laugh along when Soonyoung does something particularly ridiculous in the name of karaoke. It seems, to most of your friends, at least, that you’re fully present. You refuse Jeonghan’s request to sing with him, like you always do. It’s just for fun, but he’s actually got an angelic singing voice when he wants to put effort in and you’re more of a sing in the shower type. It’s just friends, sure. You’re still not going to sing.

Inwardly, you’re in a constant battle. Going over all your interactions with Joshua and trying to figure out exactly what’s going on. It seems insane that he could flirt with you when he’s such a menace. Yet, your brain can’t really consider it anything else. Maybe you can write off last night as part of the game. Today, though, seeing more honesty out of him hadn’t been part of a game. And in the kitchen definitely wasn’t part of a game. You can also understand what he meant this morning. The rational part of your brain knows that it’s entirely fair to think he could mess around with you like the rest of your friends do. It’s even easy to see slipping into that despite not being close yet because he felt so immediately close to everyone else in the friend group. If you cut him some slack with that, then you can even start to see why your friends all like him as much as they do. He’s easygoing and also mischievous. Just the right combination for the friend group. 

And, okay, maybe it’s the alcohol talking, but you can also admit that he’s insanely attractive. The sharpness of his jaw contrasts the soft way his hair frames his face. He laughs along with something Seungcheol says and it’s an oddly comforting sound. Makes his whole face light up. You catch yourself glancing over at him entirely too much only to find him looking back at you most times. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem that many of your other friends notice. Really, just Jeonghan, if the look he gives you means anything. 

There’s a thin between hate and love. At least that’s what you hear. Maybe you never actually hated Joshua and you certainly don’t love him now. But, you have to admit, if only to yourself, that you’re curious about him. More curious than you want to be. And it’s driving you more than a little crazy. The worst part is that he doesn’t even seem affected. Sure, he throws a lot of glances in your direction and teases you along with your friends. But, it’s just…normal behavior. Nothing that suggests that he’s having an internal argument the way you are. 

Eventually, when it’s into the early hours of the morning again, the group starts to wind down. Soonyoung has long since abandoned his singing career in favor of queueing endless videos on YouTube on the TV. Jun is playfully arguing with Jennie about something nobody else seems to understand. Sana is drifting off where she sits, prompting Mingyu to gently wake her up and help her off to her bedroom. It’s the perfect chance for you to announce to the room at-large that you’re going to bed. You miss the look that passes between Jeonghan and Joshua at your announcement. 

You get as far as a quick facial cleanse to remove any makeup before you hear the door to the bedroom open and close. It makes you poke your head through the door, though you know it could only be one person. 

“You dipped pretty quickly without actually saying goodnight,” he says and you pull your head back into the bathroom so that you can dry it off.

“And that’s an issue?” you ask when you step out into the bedroom. 

“An observation,” he corrects. 

“It seemed like the night was winding down, so I figured that I might as well turn in,” you say.

“Is that all?” he asks and takes a few steps towards you. 

“What else would it be?” you ask, drifting a little closer yourself without even realizing.

“I don’t know,” he says, but the look he gives you says otherwise. It feels like he pierces right through you with it. 

“Venture a guess,” you suggest, narrowing your eyes at him. 

“You might have been signalling me to follow you,” he suggests and you hate the way your stomach does a little flip. 

You hide it behind a scoff and turn your head. “We’re sharing a room, Joshua. It’s not like you wouldn’t end up here eventually.” 

“Have you thought about what I said in the kitchen?” he asks, changing his approach.

You lick your lips to buy yourself a minute. Don’t miss the way his eyes flick down to watch the movement of your tongue. There are a million different thoughts fighting to the front of your brain. There’s only one way to really know, though. You close the space between you and he doesn’t make a move.

“I need to see something,” you say quietly into the space between you. 

“Okay,” he agrees without even knowing what you’re asking. 

There’s no time to second guess yourself or you might lose your nerve. With your hands on his face, you pull him down to your lips and kiss him. For real, this time. Without an audience or a game or anything else. His body is tense for a second before he winds his own arms around your lower back to pull you against him. He’s confident and calm, letting you find the answer to whatever question you’re asking. You’re not even sure who deepens the kiss as your tongue tangles with his. You arch your back, pressing tighter against his chest and he lets his body follow yours. Let your hands slide from his face so your arms are around his neck. His hands slide down to land on your ass. The lightest squeeze makes you moan softly into his mouth. 

It’s him that breaks the kiss, pressing his forehead against yours as he catches his breath. Doesn’t move his hands from your body, though. The chemistry with him is electric, like nothing you can remember experiencing before. With a kiss like that, it’s going to be very hard to act like your body doesn’t want him. 

“How much have you had to drink tonight?” he asks, still breathing a little harder than normal. 

Of course he’s concerned about that because he really is just as nice as all of your friends say. “Enough that my guard is down. Not so much that it stops me from knowing what I want.” 

“And what do you want,” he asks. The low tone of his voice is going to drive you insane, actually.

“You,” you say simply.

“Don’t toy with me,” he warns you. 

That makes you pull away so that you can look at him. “I’m not. I don’t have any answers for you, I just know I can’t ignore whatever this is that’s drawing me to you.” 

“Then don’t,” he says and pulls you back into him. 

The kiss is demanding. The kind of kiss that sets your entire body on fire. Even more consuming than the first kiss where you just wanted to see what would happen. You have no idea what any of this is going to mean and you’re not even sure you care. It’s a problem for later when your head isn’t clouded with nothing but thoughts of his man that drives you insane. A conversation to have in the light of day, maybe. 

His hands are everywhere on you and you’re not sure how you haven’t appreciated them more before this moment. They squeeze at your ass in a way that makes you press into him. They run up your sides and make you shudder. Tease across your breasts even though you’re fully clothed. It shouldn’t turn you on so easily. Shouldn’t have you making so many soft moans that he catches. It’s better than you could have imagined from the way he whispered in your ear the night before. And he hasn’t even moved on to kissing down your body. Not yet, at least. Without warning, he breaks the kiss again and you’re a little embarrassed at the way you follow his lips. Joshua doesn’t say a word as he disappears into the bathroom and returns with a couple of towels. Rolls them up and presses them against the crack in the door. Thankfully, your room is separate from the others. Still, you don’t want any of your friends hearing whatever is about to happen. At least this should muffle it a bit. 

“Are you still sure?” he asks when he finishes with the towels.

“Yes,” you say.

“Because if we keep going, I don’t think I can stop. Not now that I’m getting a taste of you,” he says and you shudder. 

“I don’t want you to stop,” you say. 

Any hesitation disappears when you utter that simple sentence. He turns you around so that your back is to his chest and brushes your hair to the side. This time, he’s not just whispering in your ear. He's running his tongue along the shell of it. Kissing behind your ear while his hands grip your hips. You wiggle your ass against him experimentally and appreciate the way he moans into the kiss. He continues on to the pulse point of your neck, sucking in just enough so that it won’t leave a mark. The way he takes his time is going to be your undoing. When he starts pressing you forward to one of the beds, you don’t even fight him. 

Before you can collapse onto the bed, he turns you around again and kisses you hard on the lips. Lets himself get lost in you again. Uses one of his hands to hook your leg up around his hip and deepens the kiss even further. You cling to him for balance and trust that he won’t let anything happen to you. It’s insane the way everything can change in a moment. The way your entire view of him changes when you stop fighting over nothing. Then he grinds into you and your thoughts go blank. He’s not even hard yet and you can only imagine what he’s going to feel like when he is. It’s too much. Enough to make you pull away so that you can start stripping out of your clothing. Joshua watches you for a moment, pupils totally blown, before doing the same. 

Your breath catches at the sight of him. You already know he’s beautiful, but this is something else. He’s all lean lines without it being too much muscle. Deceptively in shape for someone that never shows off his body. You would have had no idea, especially with the way your other friends show off their own bodies. It makes you self conscious for a second until you see the look in his eyes. The way he drinks in every inch of you like he can’t believe this is happening. Like he’s the lucky one in this situation. And he’s the one to close the space between you. To reach out and put his hands on your bare skin, resting them on your waist to pull you closer. When he kisses you again, it’s strangely soft, at complete odds with being naked against him. When his kisses trail down your neck, you have to try to stifle a moan. Remind yourself that you’re still in a house full of your friends. 

Joshua backs you up against one of the beds as he kisses down your body. He stops every time he finds a spot on your body that’s a little more sensitive. Gives you a little more attention there. You swear it feels like he’s smiling against your skin when he pulls noises out of you. That smile that’s so familiar to you that you don’t seem to mind so much anymore. Not now when his lips feel so good on you. Gently, he presses you back so that you collapse onto the bed. You’re about to move back when he catches you. Leans over you to kiss you breathless again. But, he’s pulling away too soon and crouching down so he’s between your legs. It pulls you up short because surely he’s not…

“Can I taste you?” he asks, low and a little desperate. He pushes your knees open gently, experimentally. 

“You don’t have…” you start and he chuckles. It’s insane that he can pin you in place with a look.

“I know that I don’t have to, but I really fucking want to,” he says. 

“Okay, but this angle…” you start again, feeling a little too exposed. 

“Is perfect,” he finishes without hesitation. “You’re stunning and all I need for you to do is say yes. Let me show you just how well my mouth works.” 

“Fuck,” you whisper out, losing any remaining nerves or self consciousness. “Yes.”

“Thank god,” he whispers like a prayer. 

You expect him to dive right between your legs. Of course he doesn’t, though. He kisses up the inside of one thigh. Lets his breath ghost across your wet core as he moves to kiss down the inside of your other thigh. You cannot let this man get you begging. Not so soon. Not like this. But, you don’t have to. The look he gives you before putting his mouth where you need it the most is sinful. Full of lust and desire and designed to ruin you. Not that he needs to know that. Gently, he places a kiss against your center. Looks up at you from under his lashes and you’re struggling. Thankfully, he doesn’t keep you waiting. He licks a stripe up your center. Must feel how wet he’s already gotten you. It seems to be driving him crazy, too. He licks deep into you, eating your pussy like a man starved. A loud moan escapes you before you clamp a hand over your mouth and knit your other hand in the sheets. Joshua adjusts so that your legs are over his shoulders and he can tilt you back. His tongue hits you at a new angle and you think you might lose it. He pulls back just for a moment to flick his tongue across your clit and suck it into his mouth. The look he gives you says he knows exactly what he’s doing. Knows that he’s going to push you over the edge entirely too soon. 

It’s the best you can ever remember feeling with a man between your legs like this. He definitely knows what he’s doing. And you’re in such a haze that you can’t hold back. Can’t stop the praise that falls quietly from your lips. Can’t stop yourself from telling him just how pretty he looks. How much you love the sight of him there. How good his mouth feels. All of it seems to spur him on more. When his mouth returns to your pussy, you really do think you’re going to be done for. You can’t believe that it feels this good without him even using his fingers. But, that coil forms low in  your tummy and you know it’s only going to be a minute. 

And then he does the worst thing imaginable. Pulls his mouth from you just as you’re about to cum. The look you give him is pure betrayal. For a horrible moment, you wonder if this has all been some kind of trap. Until he smirks at you and rises to lean over you again. Joshua puts one large hand behind your head and kisses you hard. Desperate. You can taste yourself on his lips and his tongue. Can feel how turned on he is by the way his dick hits your skin and he groans into your mouth. It’s kind of satisfying to know that you have him this worked up just from eating you out. 

“I want you to fuck me,” you whisper against his lips between kisses. 

He groans. “I don’t think I have a condom.” 

You pull back and look at him. “I’m covered and I’m clean. So as long as you are, too…” 

It’s kind of cute to watch the way he blinks, clearly trying to make sure he heard you right. “I’m not sure…”

“You don’t want to?” you ask and he must see something in your expression because he softens. 

“Believe me when I say I want you more than fucking anything in the world,” he says. It doesn’t escape you that he says he wants you. Not that he wants to like you said. 

“It’s okay. If you say that I can trust you, then I will,” you assure him. He’s so unguarded that it actually makes your heart skip a beat. 

“You can trust me,” he says softly. 

There’s entirely too much emotion for you to process behind those four words. So, you pull him back into you to kiss him. Hope he feels what you’re not going to say. Not now. He seems to understand, though, because he kisses you back just as fiercely. Using his free hand, he lines himself up at your entrance. His tip teases your folds and you moan. It would be entirely too loud if Joshua hadn’t caught it in the kiss. Maybe he does know what he’s doing. He’s definitely the one protecting both of you from being overheard by your friends. Friends that you’re not even sure had gone to their rooms before this all started. You quickly cast that thought from your head.

Joshua presses in and out of you slowly. Takes his time because he doesn’t have a condom (or any lube) to make the slide easier. The pace drives you crazy, though; You hook your legs around his hips and he braces himself with one hand on the bed. The other grips your hip to anchor you. You run your hands all over him as he continues to gently ease into you. Note the way he gasps into your mouth when you tangle a hand in his hair. Smile against his lips at the way he reacts to your nails on his scalp. Think it may be the death of you when you run your nails down his back and his hips stutter. You do it again and he nearly growls. Actually breaks the kiss to look at you. 

You’re just about to ask if it’s too much when you register the look on his face. His voice is low, warning. “You’re going to be the death of me if you keep that up and I’m not even inside you.”

“Then maybe you should hurry up,” you say back, almost challenging. 

This is a game you can’t win. Not when he looks like that. Joshua moves his hand from the bed to your hip so he’s only gripping you. You get one look at his face and know you’re fucked before he snaps his hips, bottoming out in you. Lets you moan for a split second before he catches your lips again. 

“What was that?” he asks against your lips. 

You’re totally fucked. Absolutely done. The way he fills you feels perfect. It’s just the right stretch and you know he’s going to hit exactly where you need him to. Your brain goes totally blank. You forget that this is the same man who’s been a demon. Forget that you’re not going to beg him for anything. It all goes out the window.

“Please, I need you to move,” you say and try to wriggle against him. 

He chuckles a little. Presses feather light kisses to each side of your mouth and then along your jaw without moving inside you. Moves one of his hands from your hip to gently brush hair off your face. Then, he’s smiling that confident smile. “Well, since you said please…”

With his hand on the bed next to you again, he starts actually thrusting into you. You tighten your legs around him so they’re not dangling off the bed. You let your hands roam his body, exploring every inch of him. Try to map what he reacts the most to through the haze of the tension that’s building up within you again. Joshua alternates between kissing you and whispering praise into your skin. He’s so free with it. There’s nothing cocky about it, either. Not now, at least. His pace is steady, alternating between shallow thrusts and deep ones that make you shudder. He makes a small adjustment to the angle and it takes everything in you not to scream out. You clap one hand over your mouth with the loss of his lips on yours. Your other hand knots in the sheets and you throw your head back. Joshua picks up his pace. Can tell that you’re close. He must be too because he presses a thumb into your clit. Rubs quick circles over it and that’s too much for you. The coil snaps and you’re coming hard around his dick. He keeps fucking you through it and releases just after you, somehow managing to keep his thrusts relatively even through his own orgasm. 

He leans over you and kisses you again, messy and needy. You respond even though you can’t catch your breath. Drunk on the thought of him, but feeling entirely sober now despite drinking earlier in the night. Your chest rises and falls in time with his when he pulls back and just gazes at you. He’s still inside you and you’re sure it’s not comfortable to be arched over you next to the bed. But, he doesn’t seem to care. The gaze is so soft and you have to turn your head, just for a second. Joshua, instead, gently turns you back to him and brushes some of the sweaty hairs away from your forehead. Runs his hand down your body and gently helps you disentangle your legs around him. They feel a little stiff from how tightly you held on. Then, he slowly pulls himself out. Watches where you’re sure a little cum leaks free. It makes you wonder if he’s thinking he wants more like you do. Except, you know that you can’t really risk it again tonight. 

“Let me go grab a towel,” he says and presses a kiss to your forehead. 

All you can do is nod and flop back against the bed. Your whole body feels relaxed. Satisfied in a way that you haven’t been in a while. Unconsciously, you trail your fingers over your lips and along the parts of your body where you can still feel his touch. His presence lingers on you like a blanket. Comforting and warm. You don’t even realize you’re smiling. 

“If you keep doing that with a smile, I’m not going to be able to stop myself from diving between your legs again,” he says.

You roll your head to the side to look at him. Push yourself into a sitting position so that you can watch him walk back over to you. He really is one of the most beautiful people you’ve ever seen in your life. “I think we’ve probably pushed it enough for tonight.”

That makes both of you chuckle. “Probably. Though, I might not care if it meant you kept making those noises.” 

Without your permission, your cheeks flush and you look away from him. This time, he lets you have the moment. Instead, he goes to work wiping the sweat clear from your body. There’s shouldn’t be that much care in the gesture, but there is. Joshua Hong is good at a lot of things, apparently, including aftercare. You watch fondly as he gently wipes between your legs to make sure nothing dries there. 

“I know there’s…a lot to talk about you,” you start as Joshua steps away. He turns back to you, looking a little guarded again for the first time. It hurts your heart. “Joshua, I promise I’m not saying we’re not going to talk. I just wanted to know if we could get ready for bed and talk in the morning?” 

“Oh,” he says, relaxing again. Smiles at you in a way that you’re not sure you can handle. It makes you want to tell him to be gentle with you. “Yeah, of course. It’s been a long day.” 

“Thank you,” you say.

In a second, he’s back over in front of you to help you up. You roll your eyes and swat at him for a second, but do let him help you. You stretch your body out, arms over your head,  and miss the way Joshua stops to watch you as you roll your neck. Then, you do catch him looking at you and he plays it off by offering you one of his baggy shirts to sleep in. Considering it for half a second, you accept and grab a pair of the boy shorts you like to sleep in. The ones you haven’t worn yet because you weren’t expecting to be sharing with him. The two of you stand together and do your nighttime skincare routines. He stands behind you, wrapping an arm gently around your stomach as he brushes his teeth. It doesn’t feel clingy like it would in another situation. Just very soft, which is going to be an issue for tomorrow-you to handle. Your heart seems to be rushing way ahead of your head.

Joshua disappears for just a moment, after checking the door, to grab waters for both of them. He returns without any issue. Neither of you says anything about it when you both get into the same bed together. It just goes unsaid as you let him pull you against him. Both of you relishing in the comfort of the other as you fall into an easy, dreamless sleep. Nope. definitely not going to be any issues here. 

It takes a moment for your brain to clear the next morning. Not because you don’t remember the night before. Your brain is just in that hazy half-asleep, half-awake state when you register the arm around you. As you’re waking up, you glance over at Joshua’s face. Peaceful, again, like you noticed yesterday morning. Completely unguarded while he sleeps. 

Except, he also looks entirely different to you now. Sometimes things look different in the light of day. Sometimes, a new day dawns and you wonder just why you made a decision. That’s not the case for you. Not this time. Your body warms at the thought of him. It doesn’t make you want to pull away like other times, either. Even though you know that the path forward might be complicated at first. Or it might involve a lot of teasing. None of that seems to turn you away from this man that has so many more layers than you realized. 

As you’re looking over at him without really seeing him (because you’re zoning out in your thoughts), you realize his breathing changes. He’s awake now, but still looking very groggy. He pulls you into him, letting your legs tangle together, and kisses you gently. You can’t even fight the way you melt into him. The kiss is slow, languid. Not desperate like the night before. In any other situation, you hate kissing first thing in the morning. You’re not going to stop to think what that means this time. 

Joshua pulls away and smiles at you. “If I keep kissing you, I’m never going to be able to get up and our friends will definitely know something’s up.” 

“Fine,” you sigh. 

“Guess you don’t hate me anymore,” he teases, running a finger along your arm and watching the goosebumps spring up. 

“I don’t think I ever hated you,” you say and earn a look from him.

“You don’t think?” he questions and you break first, smiling. 

“You can never be totally sure,” you say. 

“Maybe we’ll have to test it again,” he says to play along.

“Guess so,” you agree easily. 

“So,” he starts and moves to sit up. You mirror him and cross your legs. “You mentioned needing to talk…”

“Yeah,” you agree and take a deep breath. “I’m not really sure what’s happening here or if it was just, like, a one-time thing to get some tension out…”

“It wasn’t for me,” he says, interrupting you. Takes a steadying breath like he needs to prepare for the next bit. “Was it for you?” 

It’s vulnerable, honest. You can’t ignore that he’s being brave. That he’s putting himself out there without knowing where you stand. This is the thoughtful Joshua you’ve heard so much about. The one that makes friends as easily as breathing. Just as he looks away, you gently reach out to take his hand. “No, it wasn’t for me, either.” 

“Don’t do that to me,” he breathes out as the tension disappears from his shoulders. 

“I’m sorry,” you say with a smile and can tell he forgives you immediately. “This has caught me a little off-guard.”

“Me too,” he agrees and the considers. “Not in the same way, though, I don’t think.”

“I’m confused,” you admit. 

He takes a breath like he’s bracing himself again. You’re not sure for what, though. You’ve already been honest. “I already knew I had a crush on you.”

“Oh,” you say softly.

“I’ve had a crush on you basically since moving in with Jeonghan and I’d basically given up before this trip. I didn’t think you’d ever consider me. Now it seems like maybe it wasn’t just one sided,” he says. 

“Maybe not,” you concede. 

“I think Jeonghan might have known. He definitely teased me about it even though I never told him. He’s too observant,” Joshua says with an eye roll. 

“It’s just…” you start and frown. “I want to figure things out with you and there’s a lot of questions to answer, so I’m not sure that I’m ready to…”

“Let our friends in on it?” he asks with a soft chuckle. You nod, thankful he doesn’t seem mad about that. 

“Yeah,” you agree, unsure of what else to say. 

“I can agree to that,” he says with a mischievous smile. “When we’re out there with our friends, I’ll keep teasing you like I always do.” 

“Great,” you interrupt with an eye roll. 

“But, when we’re in here,” he continues, the heat from the night before returning to his gaze, “I’m not going to act like I don’t know what you taste like. Or what you sound like when I fuck you.”

“You can’t say shit like that,” you squeak out and cover your face.

Joshua gently pulls your hands from your face. He kisses you softly. “Sorry, it’s out of my system. For now.” 

You swat at him and he quickly jumps off the bed. Maybe it’s not him you need to worry about giving you away. He’s got the easier job, after all. Normal for Joshua and you, in the eyes of your friends, just means he’s teasing you. Feeding into your distaste for him. But, how do you act annoyed by him after last night? 

Pretending everything is normal proves to be just as difficult as you expect. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like anyone heard you the night before. The house is big and several of your friends need to sleep with some kind of background noise on. Plus, everyone had been drinking, even if nobody (other than Soonyoung or possibly Jun) had been drunk. That’s at least one hurdle that makes your day easier. Joshua carries on acting like he always has with you and you try to give your normal responses. Try not to let on that anything has shifted between the two of you. Rationally, you know that whatever is forming between the two of you is a good thing. Know that your friends would be happy for you (after teasing you relentlessly). That’s not what holds you back. It’s that you and Joshua need the chance to figure out whatever it is by yourselves. Without having to answer questions from your friends that you can’t answer yet. 

The schedule during the day is relatively busy. There’s a scenic train ride that includes an amazing brunch buffet. Some of the sights through the windows take your breath away. Everything seems quiet, untouched. You and Jennie sit together and just watch the world go by, commenting on the beauty or else catching up on life. Everything about it is relaxing and just what the group needs. Even the train ride itself is smooth, a feat you’re not sure how they accomplish. It’s easy to see why it’s such a highly rated thing to do in the area. And, since Joshua isn’t sitting right next to you, it’s not so hard to pretend like everything is normal. Well, except for one comment that he makes that causes you to blush a little and earns you a skeptical look from Jennie. She’s not as observant as Jeonghan, though, so you think you manage it fine. 

After the train ride, you all walk around in town to explore the little shops. Soonyoung and Jun take off giggling and chasing each other, for no apparent reason. Just for the vibes, probably. You mostly focus on window shopping unless something catches your eye. It’s just nice to be out in the fresh air. There’s also something about the shops that make you feel like you stepped back in time, a little. It’s not a bad feeling. It just adds to the sense of calm you feel. 

One shop draws you in because it’s local, handmade jewelry. That’s definitely a favorite for you because it feels unique. Special. Some of the pieces you get from big chains can feel impersonal. The handmade pieces feel like they tell a story. They feel more perfect for any of their imperfects. Sana, Jeonghan, and Joshua follow you into the store, dispersing to look at different pieces. 

“What do you think of these?” a soft voice asks from your side, making you jump a little. 

“Why do you keep doing that?” you ask, heart racing, as you turn to Joshua. 

“It’s fun to see you jump,” he says with a shrug. That glint is back in his eyes. 

“I’m not sure that’s your color,” Jeonghan chimes in, nodding at the necklace. Where did he come from? 

“Maybe it’s not for me,” he says with an easy shrug, looking at the necklace again. 

“Ooooh,” Jeonghan teases. He turns to you. “Lucky person, don’t you think?” 

You level Jeonghan with a glare, surprising yourself how easy it is, at least for that moment, to pretend. “I’m not sure about lucky since it’s Joshua. He does have good taste, though.” 

“That’s probably as close to a compliment as you’ll get from her,” Jeonghan says and elbows his roommate. 

“Nobody can resist me forever,” he says and throws you a wink that has Jeonghan laughing as they head in another direction.

Once again, you really want to ask him to be gentle with you. How are you meant to act like everything is fine? How come he’s trying to make this even harder on you? Then, you remember him asking your opinion on the necklace and realize he’s struggling, too. It makes you feel lighter knowing that he wants to buy you something from this store that drew you in all while you haven’t even figured out what’s happening. He did say that you could trust him. And you want to. A scary thought, to be sure.

The next stop on the agenda is a late afternoon murder mystery show. There’s audience participation and it’s something several of your friends have been talking about all weekend. The audience participation part may not be the most appealing to you, but it does sound interesting. At least, until Joshua makes sure to sit right next to you during the show. And lets the actors comment on what a cute couple you make without correcting them. He actively encourages them, instead, and it makes your friends howl with laughter. It’s painfully on brand for how he interacts with you, but it makes your brain short circuit a bit. Makes you stumble over a response before you gather your composure again. It’s par for the course for Joshua, but definitely not for you. You carefully avoid the questioning look from Jeonghan. You don’t trust yourself in the moment. If anyone could read you and figure it all out, it’s definitely Jeonghan. When things settle down, you do glare over at Joshua, though.

By the time you make it back to the house, having decided to get a bunch of take out and make your own feast, you’re just happy the day is over. Spending time with your friends is great. Pretending you didn’t fuck Joshua the night before, not so much. Despite agreeing not to tell your friends yet, he’s making it as hard as possible. Each time he needles you a little, it’s like he’s trying to figure out more about you. Trying to figure out your reactions to file them away for some later use. At this rate, Jeonghan, as your best friend and Joshua’s roommate, is going to figure it out. Especially if he’s already figured out Joshua had a crush. Yet, Joshua doesn’t seem concerned. Well, two can play at that game. 

Mingyu and Jun head into the kitchen to set up the spread of food, even though there’s no cooking involved. You, along with several other friends, excuse yourself to change into more comfortable clothes to hang out in. When you return in yoga pants and a slightly cropped sweatshirt, you revel in the way Joshua does a double take. Feel immense satisfaction at the way he drinks you in before looking away. He disappears, probably to change and buy himself a minute, and you smile to yourself. By the time he returns, you already have a plate and he doesn’t take the open seat next to you. His eyes bore into you, though, and you know that he knows it’s your way to push back at him a little. 

After you all finish eating, you notice Joshua in the kitchen and get up under the pretense of needing something to drink. He hears you coming and looks around to see that all the rest of your friends are still in the living room area and talking.

“What happened to pretending nothing happened?” he asks softly.  “I could ask you the same.” 

“I’m only teasing you like normal.”

“And I’m only putting on comfortable clothing, same as anyone else.” 

The look he gives you says he doesn’t believe a word of that. “You’re gonna give me a semi in that outfit with the way you keep moving around. God, I sound so pathetic.”

“No, you don’t,” you say, but your eyes sparkle. “Guess I shouldn’t say that I’m not wearing a bra or any underwear.”

“You…what?” Joshua gapes at you.

Instead of answering, you just grab your drink and head back to join your friends. You don’t have to turn around to know that his eyes are on you. The point definitely goes to you for this round. And maybe it sends at least a little message because Joshua tones it down a little the rest of the night. 

Compared to the other nights, this one is pretty tame. You all know that you have to head back home the next day, even if you don’t have to get an early start. Some people have a drink or two, but it’s just casual. You agree on something to watch and all settle in. Soonyoung struggles with sitting still for that long, and Mingyu pouts that nobody will cuddle with him in the oversized chair. He can’t understand why you don’t give in when he can convince you any other time. But, otherwise it’s just nice. Easy. The perfect kind of ending to a wonderful weekend away with friends. 

Slowly, people start excusing themselves to go to their rooms and nerves hit you again. You’re going to be alone with Joshua and you’re not really sure what to expect. Don’t even want to make eye contact with him because you don’t trust yourself to keep it together. So, you just stretch your arms out and say goodnight to the room. Figure you can leave it to Joshua to decide when he follows you to the room. 

It takes longer than you expect. Longer than it did the night before, by far. You turn some music on, just loud enough that it may cover anything that happens. But, it’s at least twenty minutes before the door opens. Long enough that you consider just going to sleep. Long enough to think that maybe the moment in the kitchen had been a step too far. 

You rise off your bed when he closes the door behind him and take a few steps over to him, preparing to say something. He doesn’t give you the chance. He closes the space between you and catches your lips in the most bruising kiss yet. Groans when you gasp into his mouth. He backs you into the wall and presses himself hard against you. There’s no space for you to move. He presses your legs apart so that he can slide one of his own legs between them. One hand rests behind your head, cradling it so you don’t hit the wall. The other hand runs up your side and under your sweatshirt. Rough and a little possessive. A very different side to him and it’s turning you on more than it should be. 

Joshua pulls away from you just enough so he can run his hand across your breast, confirming what you said about not having a bra on. He groans again, jerks his hips against yours almost involuntarily. He breaks the kiss and you gasp for air.

“I can’t believe you really came out without a bra just to tease me,” he whines out. A little desperation slipping into his voice. 

“I can’t believe you waited so long to come to our room that I considering going to sleep,” you retort, a little bratty now that you realize he’s not mad.

“I couldn’t come right away because it would have been obvious,” he explains. “Then, I started to think about you not wearing a bra or underwear. And the way I would have you clenching that pretty pussy around my dick again and it took a second to calm down.” 

“Who says I’m gonna let you fuck me again?” you challenge. 

“Don’t play with me,” he whines, some of the confidence disappearing. 

“I won’t,” you say, suddenly serious. 

You kiss him again to say the things you’re not sure how to. He gets the message, though. Your lips chase his when he pulls away entirely too quickly. But, he ducks his head and pushes your sweatshirt up without taking it off completely. Runs his tongue over your nipple and drags it between his teeth. It makes you arch into his mouth. It’s kind of hot, actually, the way he can’t wait to have his mouth on you. He switches to your other breast and is sure to give your body all of his attention. In response, you drag your core along his thigh that’s between your leg. Searching for any kind of friction. 

In any other situation, you might be embarrassed by how quickly your body reacts. Joshua erases that, though. You’re not even sure how. Despite all the time you’ve both spent terrorizing the other, it’s insanely easy to trust him. Easy to feel confident when he reacts to you just as strongly. Easy to just let things happen when he’s so willing to be desperate for you. No games, no bullshit, just making sure you’re both feeling good. 

The friction just isn’t enough anymore and you need more. Don’t want to keep riding his thigh while he laves over your breasts. You pull his face up to kiss him again and let your sweatshirt fall. His pupils are blown and somehow the confused look he gives you is cute. You’re not sure how he does it. A thought for another time, anyway. You pull him over to that reading nook you were so excited about and haven’t used. Push your yoga pants down your legs and kick them aside. Bend over and look over your shoulder at him. The lust is clear on his face.

“I just need you inside me,” you say and watch his eyes get wider with surprise. “Please.”

“God, I love hearing that from you,” he admits. “Think I’d agree to anything if you asked me like that.” 

“Simp,” you tease.

“Absolutely,” he agrees without any teasing. 

You don’t have a chance to react to the honesty in the statement before he’s pushing his own sweatpants down and kicking them aside. Casts his shirt aside even though he doesn’t need to. He presses your lower back so you’re bent at the right angle and you arch your back. Impatiently, he pushes your legs a little farther apart. The next second, he’s gathering your wetness and pressing a single finger into your pussy. Trying to at least prepare you a little. In no time at all, he inserts a second finger and pumps quickly into you. You reach for one of the pillows to bury your face into it so that you can moan little more freely. Joshua bends over your back and presses kisses into your skin. 

“Please,” you say again, pulling your face from the pillow. “I don’t wanna cum on your fingers.”

“Fuck,” he mutters and pulls his fingers out. 

It’s a moment before you feel him again. You bury your head back into the pillow when he presses his head against your entrance. You wiggle and encourage him to press harder. Any self control he might have disappears and he snaps hard. Soon, the sounds of skin on skin mingles with the music and your muffled moans. Joshua moves your leg so one knee is on the bench and he can get a better angle to fuck you. His hands wander your body. Digging into your hips hard enough that you imagine you’ll have fingerprints there. Flicking a thumb across your nipple. Finally working down to your clit and rubbing in time with his thrusts.

Entirely too quickly, your body shudders as the orgasm rips through you right as Joshua finds his own release. Your legs feel like jelly and you’re not sure if you can keep standing, even as you’re trying to come down. But Joshua, surprising you again, carefully pulls out and drags you over to one of the beds with him. You collapse, sliding further up to make room for him and pulling the sweatshirt off, finally. Except he doesn’t settle next to you. No, he settles between your legs, pressing them open. 

“Joshua, what…” you start to ask, breathless still. 

What becomes obvious immediately. He licks into your cunt, gathering your cum that mixes with his own. If you thought he was a man starved the night before, it’s nothing compared to tonight. He’s not taking his time with you, either. Not giving you a chance to recover. You’re so sensitive, but the way his tongue laps at you feels amazing. You knot a hand in his hair and he groans, sending a vibration through your pussy. This time, when he moves his mouth to your clit, he slides a finger inside you. Quickly adds another. You can’t believe the way your body responds to him. Can’t believe how good it feels even though you’re so incredibly sensitive. You bite down on your own fist to stop yourself from screaming out the way you want to. The end of this trip can’t come soon enough. You absolutely cannot wait to have him in your own space where you don’t have to worry about friends overhearing. 

The second orgasm hits you so hard it whites out your vision. Has you coating Joshua’s fingers and mouth. He guides you through your high as all the tension leaves your body. You feel like you’re nothing more than a puddle on the bed when you feel him settle next to you. After giving you a minute to catch your breath, he pushes himself up to hover over you. Gives you what should be a gentle kiss until you wrap your arms around him and pull him down on top of you. Even though he offsets some of his weight, there’s still a pleasant heaviness having him on top of you. It’s so comfortable that you could kiss him for hours without getting sick of it.. 

After a long moment, he pulls back to look at you. That tender look back on his face. “I hope that was okay.”

“You know I’m not complaining,” you say earnestly.

“I was wondering if I could make you squirt,” he teases and he’s all confidence again. You swat at his arm and pretend you’re going to wriggle away.

“I take it back,” you joke.

“No, you don’t,” he says, confident without being cocky.

And then he’s kissing you again. You’re back to tangling yourself up with him. Just letting things happen without overthinking anything. There’s something wonderful about this side of Joshua that just makes your mind go blank. Not even in a fucked stupid kind of way. It’s more like it just feels right. You feel safe and cared for in those moments. You also both feel a little insatiable. Simultaneously wanting to kiss for hours and unable to stop yourself from it turning heavier. 

Joshua pulls back from the kiss and flops dramatically onto the bed next to you. You roll over and pro yourself up on an elbow to look at him. His eyes find yours, affectionate and also very clearly turned on. “If you don’t stop this, I’m going to want to be inside you again.” 

“Me?” you ask, pretending to be shocked. 

“Yes, you,” he says and leans forward to kiss your nose. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” you say and flutter your eyelashes.

“I bet you don’t,” he says quietly, unable to stop the light laugh. Then, takes a breath and sits up. Swings his legs out of the bed and reaches back to you. “Come on. Let’s clean up and go to sleep. We’re heading home tomorrow and it’ll be a lot easier to figure this out without so many nosy friends.”

You pout but accept his help, anyway. He’s right. Even if you can’t really get enough of him, you’re already going to be a little sore from this and you have an endless amount of time to figure things out. As you fall asleep that night, tangled up in him, you feel confident. This isn’t something confined to the little bubble of a vacation. He’ll tell you exactly how he feels and what he wants once you’re back home. Help you be brave enough to be just as honest. It’s definitely going to be enough.

The next morning is a flurry of activity. Everyone seems to have left packing for the morning, even though there shouldn’t be much to do since it’s only been a few days. People mumble greetings to each other around bites of breakfast as you all clean up. Somehow, things seem to have spread out much more than expected and you want to make sure everything is in good shape before leaving. Not that you let it get genuinely messy. It’s just that there’s 10 of you and you don’t want any sort of extra cleaning fee slapped onto Mingyu’s credit card. You’re still thankful he volunteered to take the charge (though, obviously, you all split the cost). 

It also becomes clear that even though the check out time isn’t early, you should have set an alarm. Add in the fact that you’re very much sore thanks to Joshua, and it’s an interesting morning. Neither of you is trying to keep up any sort of facade around the other because the focus is making sure you’re ready to leave. It keeps you from even worrying if anyone notices something different. Then again, if things go the way you expect, all your friends will find out that something is going on soon enough. It’s just a matter of timing. A thought that puts you in an incredibly good mood. You don’t even notice that you’re humming while cleaning until Soonyoung starts singing along to the tune. 

Worrying about anyone finding out becomes a moot point when you’re all getting ready to leave. At least, in part. Really, you should know better than to try to get anything by Jeonghan. After years of friendship, he easily knows you at least as well as you know yourself, probably better. And he knows something is up. You’re not sure if he knows the specifics. Don’t really want to think about if he somehow heard you and Joshua the night before. 

Jennie seems to know something is up, too. You’re not sure whether she figured it out or if Jeonghan told her. Probably the latter, if you’re honest. She’s generally a little easier to fool that Jeonghan. As he’s prone to telling you, you can’t bullshit a bullshitter, and nobody does bullshit better than him. He loves sniffing out a scheme almost as much as he loves coming up withit himself. It confirms your suspicions when you see him and Jennie whispering together then looking over at you. He doesn’t leave you waiting for his response either.

“Jennie’s coming back with me,” Jeonghan announces. “She offered to drive my car, and how can I say no?” 

“And I’m supposed to head home alone?” you ask skeptically. 

“Of course not!” Jeonghan says, pretending to be offended. 

“We just thought you and Joshua could use the drive to work out whatever your issues are,” she chimes in, sharing a look. 

“It’s like you don’t want them to make it back in one piece,” Mingyu jokes, but doesn’t otherwise comment. You can’t tell if he knows anything.

“Even I’m not going to leave you stranded in your time of need,” Joshua says, immediately falling into the plan. You can’t read the look on his face and you wonder if he already knew, too. Probably, knowing Jeonghan. He’s a demon, but he’s not cruel. He’s not going to put you in a situation you genuinely don’t want to be in without checking. 

The rest of your friends laugh and continue to load up the car. You just shake your head at your best friend as he approaches you. He turns over his shoulder to call to Jennie. “I’ll be there in a sec!”

“What are you up to?” you ask in nearly a whisper.

“The better question, bestie, is what you’re up to,” he says, eyes sparkling. You open your mouth to protest and he holds up his hand. “You’re not as slick as you think you are. Did you forget we’ve been friends for a decade?”

“No, you’d never let me forget,” you joke and Jeonghan rolls his eyes. 

“I told him that I didn’t expect him back tonight. But, please know, if I’m right, then I will be teasing you both without mercy,” he says and it’s your turn to laugh.

“There’s my best friend,” you say with a smile still in your eyes. 

He’s serious for a moment. This is the side of Jeonghan that he reserves for only those closest to him. You wait patiently because you know whatever he has to say is important. “You seem happier than I’ve seen you in a long time. Don’t be afraid of that. You deserve it.”

“Thanks, Hannie,” you say softly. 

“Even if you did totally ignore the point of a single friends Valentine’s getaway,” he says, returning to his normal self as Joshua approaches. 

“Goodbye,” you say and push him away. 

His eyes fall on Joshua. “Take good care of her. You’re a great friend already, but she’s family.” 

“I will,” Joshua promises and plucks the car keys out of your hand. 

“Hey!” you protest and hear Jeonghan laughing as he walks away. “That’s my car.”

“And I’m an excellent driver,” he says before dropping his voice lower. “Come on and be my passenger princess.”

He really is going to have to stop making your brain short circuit like that. It’s diabolical. But, then again, that’s exactly who he is. Not like you expect him to change now. With one last look at the beautiful house, you get into the passenger door that Joshua holds open for you. You’re very thankful that you gave the weekend a chance. Even more thankful that you gave the man next to you in the driver’s seat a chance. He reaches a hand over to squeeze your thigh and you know it’s going to work out just fine. 

if you made it through that insanity, thank you and tell me what you thought 💕

tag list: @tinyelfperson, @dokyeomkyeom, @amoryeonjun, @miriamxsworld, @hongrizon, @klecksstorys, @sunflowergyeomie, @gyuminusone, @aaniag, @naajaeminsgf, @straykidswhoo789, @kimseokgen, @haolistic, @vanishingboots, @babybae-shisui, @harry-the-pottypus, @honglynights, @pyeonghongrie, @nuttywastelandmentality, @writingbarnes, @gyuhao365, @jjin-kun, @divinityyyy, @dibidibidismynameisleeknow, @tinkerbell460, @aidanjoon, @cookiearmy, @kaepjjangiya, @lostmembrane, @thestraybunny

[the-suggested-names-suck]

@fictionadventurer I'll have you know that now I, too, have rewatched this as a Fully Grown Adult, and I actually really appreciate how they characterized those two.

Like, the fact that neither is The Bad Guy. The fact that they put their responsibilities above their feelings for each other, but neither turned bitter about it. The way they didn't yell at the girls about breaking the rule, but rather explained it gently. The way Milori didn't deny that the rule was "his" (which I interpret as him taking the burden of anyone's annoyance about the rule, because he doesn't want Clarion to be thought of as The Strict One.) The way he gave her his cloak and asked her to take shelter.

Just.

Good adult characters. A good example of a man and a woman who love each other and listen to and value each other properly.

rewatched secret of the wings while waiting for my copy of wings of starlight to come in, so have some milarion art

[plaidos]

RE: The post from the confused transmasc I'm pretty aware that transmascs are not bouncers for transfems, or have some innate protector role. That feels a bit like characterizing trans women as powerless lambs, and I didn't intend for my words to come off that way.

I suppose I don't really feel like I am responsible for protecting so much as I am responsible for removing. I don't feel like I need to shelter my friends, I more feel like I need to encourage and allow them to remove me and other transmascs from their lives when they're ready to do so, as we offer no benefit socially. I can try to protect them from harm all I want, just as a natural symptom of being their friend, but that didn't feel quite as important as facilitating the process of safe removal.

Given your response, I'm going to try and tackle this thought process as much as I can. At the end of the day, I want to do what's right for the tgirls in my life, and if being there with them can still be beneficial, than I want to try my best. Thanks so much for your response, I really do appreciate it, and I hope safe days and grace comes your way.

it really does sound like you're getting mired up in self-loathing and locating that as politics. some transfems definitely want to live their lives without men, or in spaces without men, but saying "there is no benefit socially" isnt like feminist dude.... you sound like those straight folks who are like "can men and women really be friends?". like i said, we have more in common than are different between us. fundamentally, that is at the core of transfeminism, that humans are all pretty similar actually they're just affected differently by their positionality in relationship to power structures. the "value of you" is you being a friend & an example of a transmasc who doesn't treat transfems poorly. that is in and of itself a valuable thing to be, because it helps highlight how otherwise entrenched these systems are. nobody seriously enaging with transfeminism is looking for transfem separatism, and the repeated insistence that we are is transmisogynistic.

[prettyboykatsuki]

caleb is quite literally not mcs brother and it's not in any way reductive to his character to say so. they use brotherly terms bc it's just common in some cultures to do that— including chinese, japanese and korean, where those words that might be literally translated as "brother" are just as commonly, if not more, used as regular terms of endearment that don't exist in english. mcs weird feelings about it also makes sense if she just SEES him as a really close figure, stop tryna twist ur weird ass incest agenda as if you understand the source material better when ur literally just a slow ass westerner who doesn't understand the cultures ur tryna write within 💀 you guys just need to be euthanised i think

okay so. when the game, in canon text, has caleb's companion viper in all three languages except english localization, call him a siscon what do you think that means? what kind of relationship does someone having a sister complex indicate to you?

on another note and i do mean this genuinely: you don't have to interpret the story as incest if you don't want to. just like you don't need to read my fic or be annoying in my inbox about it 💀 telling me you think i need to be euthanized because you're uncomfortable with a very overt narrative theme that i expand on is insane bc you're doing that over pixels but well.

i didn't feel like this was worth answering but you 1. accusing me of being a westerner like im not literally asian disapora is insulting to me and 2. caleb and mc quite literally are adopted by the same person, and are canonically raised under the same roof. they refer to the same woman as grandma. if this does not read to you like a familial relationship ... 💀💀. all of my characterization is based on cn since its the original language the game is written in.

i don't think there is like. any reason to argue over the logistic use of honorifics. i come from a culture that uses honorfics. i know the way older brother can be used affectionately between people. but this is still SO questionable given the actual specifics of how caleb calls mc

it is additionally questionable because caleb also uses 家人 "jia ren" during bigger scenes which explicitly means family member (thank you mao for the translations). this kind of explicitly familial dialogue is also found again the original cn version of chapter 9. the localization butchers the original meaning and completely gets rid of the tragedy aspect. caleb essentially implies in that dialogue that their entire family was a lie, that the memories they had as a family were a farce and caleb did not feel the bond at all. this is the source of her devastation. go watch the cn translation done by a native speaker if u dont want to believe me 💀💀💀

your main argument seems to be that there is some great distinctive line between older brother figure and straight up older brother. and potentially if caleb was a neighbor or someone from a different family with a different guardian then this maybe would hold water.

but they are canonically raised in the same house, by the same person, adopted together. so either - you don't view adoptive siblings as a legitimate form of incest because it's not blood-related incest and you think that's somehow less taboo.

or you're genuinely implying that a person that you view as a sibling, who is raised with you, is on paper canonically adopted together with you from the same orphanage to the same person is, who you call your older brother and all of your friends view your sibling as affirmed in several cards in the original cn... is not actually your sibling but your childhood friend?

incest between people who are step-siblings or adoptive siblings is still incest. its taboo because the nature of the relationship is familial. the story literally uses forbidden fruit? do you think someone whose merely a vaguely older brother like figure warrants that level of intensity? like im crying.

no offense but i do understand the source material better than you also. like. sdkjfjfsdkldmfnksdfksjan

[furiousflowerdestiny]

that is not what i am talking about in the slightest.

what i am speaking to is the people that refuse to read the comics, that participate in comics fandom, and insist that their headcanons are FACTS to the comics when they are not.

i will be the first person to admit i have not read a ton of comics, i have only ready maybe 500 maybe more, but even after reading only that many you start to see that there really is a canon and some things in fandom are just wrong.

like the whole 'superman abandoned kon' trope that is literally everywhere. yes this is fine for fanfic, but there are A LOT of people who insist this actually happened in the comics when it didn't. you cannot argue against this and cherry pick until you find one panel that disproves it because that man did not abandon kon or reject him. it just did not happen.

even with characterizations it becomes obvious about what is consistent and what might be out of character just by reading the comics. for example with bart allen in his own solo he had 0 interest in flirting with girls or being gross with them, this was for over 80 issues of consistent writing and then in teen titans he is written as a creepy pervert with beast boy. you can genuinely call this as out of character writing, but it still happened, so that can be something people can debate about but if you read his series it really does come off as awkward.

tim's relationship with his parents is also one of those details that the comics are very clear about that fandom goes the opposite direction for to what was their relationship. they loved each other, tim's parent might not have been the most present, but they didn't lock him in a basement and mock him or beat him nightly. they were pretty average parents for the time.

so yeah some parts of comics can be debated but there are a lot of details that are very clear, the clear details are what i am speaking to, not people interpreting things a different way or making fanfiction. i am speaking directly to people who are lying liars.

sure you can do whatever you want forever, like flat earthers have the right to believe the earth is flat, they can do that, it's not illegal, but they are still wrong and people can tell them they are wrong and should tell them they are wrong and no one should encourage them.

like people in the comics fandom that refuse to read comics and insist bruce would adopt kon, or that cass is silent and never talks, or steph is a goofy waffle girl, or tim is the most well behaved never does anything remotely sketchy, or clark abandoned kon, or cassie is the mom of the core four, or bart is just hyper and random all the time like

let's face it at some point you just have to admit what you are saying is wrong and it hurts new fans, like me, who legitimately thought bruce adopted dozens of children when the truth was while he did good things he was much more complicated of a character.

anyway you can be a flat earther, you can believe oregano oil cures everything, and you can believe tim is a sickly meek boy who is afraid of his parents all you want but you will always be wrong

[arceespinkgun]

Is it strange that I kind of want to see G1 Prowl be plopped into IDW to contrast how different he is to his counterpart and how others react to it?? The whole thing with G1 Prowl and IDW Prowl is fascinating

I think you can basically just look at the IDW comics themselves to have this experience! I think Shane McCarthy's Prowl is basically G1 Prowl:

He's 1) trying to be logical, 2) stressed out and saying rude things but with good intentions, and 3) the rude statements are hilarious. I love that he's literally like, we're the transformers, by definition we change LMAO I also love that he's clearly trying to explain to Ironhide that they shouldn't be jumping to conclusions about who betrayed the Autobots (Ironhide here is convinced it's Mirage, who is innocent) but Prowl does this in such an ill-conceived way by pointing out it could've been Ironhide himself XD

When not angry, we could see this version of Prowl trying to be kind and supportive... awkwardly:

Looking at All Hail Megatron is a really effective way to see the difference between the Prowl characterizations because in the story written by Nick Roche and James Roberts, we see the start of the IDW Phase 2 characterization. So like, the moment I put above in which Prowl is trying to make this a smooth transition reads very very differently once JRo and Roche establish that actually, before this, Prowl had Kup mentally violated and turned into a mouthpiece to use. In fact, the cy-gars he smokes were intended to keep him dependent on the substance to keep him mentally stable enough for Prowl to use when he wanted to:

I think the readers are supposed to believe that were we to have seen Prowl's inner monologue in other issues, he would've been as clearly manipulative the whole time, but I just don't buy it. Later, in Sins of the Wreckers, Roche would try to paper over how drastically different the different characterizations of Prowl were by having Tarantulas say Prowl goes through phases in which he tries to be more morally scrupulous and then fails again:

I know a lot of fans love this, but as an IDW Prowl hater who thinks he is a terribly written character, my personal perspective on this is that it's an embarrassingly transparent ploy on the part of the writer to be like, "No, trust me guys, actually my vision made total sense the whole time."

[getthembees]

Ok, follow up to my ‘who of the batkids have died’ question. Because the answers to that combined with a Death List Masterpost made by @avayarising have made me ponder another question: what needs to be included in a death to make it significant enough to carry through canon, or what makes it significant enough for you to count it as a death.

Because as I’ve noticed in the Masterpost, a lot of characters have died many times—but a lot of those deaths consist of the character dying very briefly and being resuscitated mere minutes later. And there are other deaths that people in the comments, who otherwise gave me niche examples, ignored or didn’t recall, which leads me to believe they are narratively insignificant.

Comics in general have a habit of killing off their characters as a way to raise stakes and then quickly reviving them, it can often read as cheap drama but it is just as likely to be genuine character work.

My personal opinion is that what a death needs for me to actually internalize it as canon is:

1. character impact (either the impact on other’s development or the character who’s died development)

2. narrative significance

3. continual reference.

It doesn’t have to contain all three but I feel like at least two is pretty vital.

For example: Jason’s first death impacted Bruce’s characterization for decades afterward. He haunted the narrative for years, was referenced in numerous runs, and now that he has been revived his death and revival are core parts of his character. It is impossible to separate Jason from this death. However, I have since learned he has died short deaths after this, which were so insignificant i had never even heard of them. So I wouldn’t really internalize them as canon because they had such little impact

Cass’s death against Shiva was the conclusion of one of her main internal character struggles (her death wish) and spanned nearly half her first solo, it resulted in significant character development for her, and has also since been referenced in other runs (batgirl 2024). Her death against Mad Dog was also imo great character work (she dies but she still doesn’t ‘lose’ because she gets Alpha to understand the heart of her no killing philosophy). It also forces Shiva to revive her which I find notable enough for their relationship and subsequent dynamic. Iirc it also gets referenced in Spirit World.

Steph’s death in War Games was a part of a major story arc, and is incredibly narratively significant to that entire storyline. I have not yet read all of War Games (mostly because i know it’s Bad) so I can’t get into the gnitty gritty about its effect on character development but it’s a major part of the latter half of Batgirl 2000. On the other hand, I don’t find her death in Batgirls 2021 to be at all narratively significant so i hesitate to canonize it in my brain.

Tim is an interesting one because ive never seen anyone talking about his !three! deaths. even in my initial post people were saying he had only been presumed dead! and, according to the death master list, even Robin War Tim says he’s never died. All of the deaths in the master list seem like very quick deaths, so i think that combined with them being non consequential makes people forget them. I’ve never read a Tim comic though, so i’m interested to see what people who are fans of him think.

On that note, i don’t know enough about the batboys specifically to actually give an opinion on their multitudes of deaths and whether they’re considered ‘canon’ (or, more accurately, important enough to retain canonical status). So any tim/dick/jason/damian fans who are crazy and insane about them the way i am for the girls please chime in! I want to know everyone’s thoughts on this.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

if youre still doing classpect discussion im curious as to what you think a Rogue of Rage would do { i have some ideas already but wanna hear from more people }

class = character arc and starting circumstances, aspect = base personality traits and what's considered heroic/unheroic for this character

Rogues are rebels - they feel injustice deep in their bones, and start the game with a sense of discomfort towards the status quo, an innate understanding of the flaws in the system. Nepeta is the only troll to outright say that blood color shouldn't matter, and Roxy is the most vengeful towards the batterwitch, and characterized by going out of her way to support her community of oppressed carapacians. Rufioh, too, was motivated to defect from society entirely, taking up with the Lost Weeaboos out in the woods.

However, this rebelliousness is unfocused. The Rogue knows that something must be changed, but not specifically what; they know they must rebel, but not specifically how. This is reflected in their abilities: while Rogues do have generic abilities from their aspect, like Nepeta's ability to sniff out motivations and romantic feelings amongst her team, or Roxy's ability to turn invisible and wink out of existence, they have difficulty understanding how to tap into even that much, not to mention the greater abilities of their classpect. Rogues often suffer from failure to start, as Nepeta never really got to learn about Heart, Rufioh never really seemed to figure out Breath, and Roxy's arc featured a very long struggle to make Void usable.

Worse than that, however, is that Rogues often become rebels without a cause - they'll break taboos and stick it to "the man" in ways that become actively detrimental to themselves and the team, purely because their sheer rebellious energy must find some sort of outlet. Rufioh cheated on his girlfriend for an extended period of time, Nepeta refusing to listen to Equius's orders to stay hidden and safe leads directly to her death, and Roxy nearly blows Jane up with a fake copy of SBURB in an attempt to make her not play the game, and stick it to the Condy.

However, if their team is able to provide them with direction and clarity, Rogues become a powerful tool in their arsenal. The passive counterpart to Thieves, they excel at allowing others to utilize their aspect, and the specific way they interact with their aspect is to "steal" it. Where a Thief's theft leaves its target debuffed in that aspect - Vriska stealing luck from an underling makes it fall off a cliff to its presumable death - a Rogue's theft actually leaves its target buffed - Roxy stealing the nonexistence from things allows them to spontaneously come into existence.

This powerset is complicated and subversive, just like the Rogue's natural tendency toward rebellion, and requires a helpful party to guide the Rogue's intentions. If they're able to master their abilities, and gain clarity on how to change the systems they know are injust, they become incomparably flexible - possessing an infinite toolbox at their disposal, capable of cracking any lock, solving any puzzle, fixing any problem.

Rage, meanwhile, is perhaps the most enigmatic ability, with secrets and riddles literally being a part of its domain. Void is something of a red herring, in that regard; though the comic often calls it difficult to understand, we see it in use quite often, and can pretty easily derive the shared traits among its players. Void's domain, then, is actually simplicity, pleasure, vice, and sexuality - it deals with many taboos and unspoken things, like substance use and abuse, fetishes, so on and so on - but not really with secrets.

No, secrets are the domain of Rage, as they're practically Kurloz's whole schtick. Moreover, Rage is the opposite of Hope, something a little more well-explored, and between the heroes of all three, and Hussie's words from the book commentary, an understanding of Rage can emerge from the ether.

Something interesting to note about aspect is that the character being at a low point in their character arc practically always concides with them exhibiting inverted aspect character traits. Rose at her lowest is a dumb, sloppy drunk - with intellect being associated with Light, and vice being associated with Void. It isn't that their aspect flips, but that the aspects are set up to be yin and yang, equals and opposites along the same axis, and the dereliction of one comes to resemble the other at its worst. Thus, you can derive some understanding of Rage by knowing that its opposite is Hope, and also, by knowing that Hope players at their worst will often resemble Rage players and its worst traits.

Hope players are, as a rule, shameless. Eridan literally seems incapable of noticing how stupid and embarrassing he comes across as, and phrases his requests as demands, including, at times, to date him. Eridan's our most Hope-y Hope player, being a Prince, and therefore running at an overabundance of his aspect. Cronus is more lowkey, but he's shameless too, hitting on Mituna and Meenah without an iota of self-respect. Jake is a Page, and therefore running at a deficit of some of his aspect's better traits (he's wishy-washy, compared to Hope's usual focus on conviction and faith), but one of its worse traits that he has in excess is shamelessness - shamelessly ghosting Dirk, asking Erisolsprite for advice, whining at Jane over and over, on her damn birthday.

This naked and shameless sincerity - often to the point of embarrassment, and paired with unwavering faith and conviction - suits Hope very well, as Hope is described by Hussie in the book commentary as "a force that defines reality, used to snatch personal meaning from the jaws of a cynical reality". Hope, he explains, literally makes fake things real; Eridan's "white science" is literally just magic given a name he's more comfortable with, and his belief in it turns it into something very real, and very deadly, and Jake makes Brain Ghost Dirk real, which baffles Aranea - a Light player. According to Hussie, it's also "framed as the most fundamentally powerful aspect", and it's consistently seen in the comic as being able to completely no-sell any greater forces of reality - Eridan overcoming Sollux's eye beams, which even the Ahab's Crosshairs, described as the strongest weapon his specibus will allow, couldn't do, or Jake's turbohealed Hope field completely no-selling Jade's Green Sun powers and later, really fucking up a god tiered Caliborn.

Thus, it stands to reason that Rage players are secretive and self-conscious, and this holds true for both of them. Kurloz is noted multiple times to have a deep fondness for riddles and secrets, and Gamzee, too, has a penchant for being sneaky. Gamzee has always been more lucid than he lets on, his internal narration during his introduction showcasing an awareness that his friends don't really like him much, and he lies twice about being "scared" of someone in order to suit his own purposes - one time to keep Eridan from providing Karkat with emotional support after Sollux dies, because it's implied that Gamzee has a palecrush on Karkat, and one time to keep Vriska out of his horn pile, because he doesn't like her.

Shame, in fact, seems to be a defining attribute of Rage - the main thing we get to hear about Kurloz before his Prince meltdown - so, presumably, while he's at an overabundance of Rage - is being so ashamed of deafening Meulin that he takes the drastic action of sewing his own mouth shut and taking a vow of silence. Moreover, Gamzee's crisis of faith is ultimately shadowed by the emotion of shame, as Hussie explains in the book commentary that the reason he reacted so poorly to the ICP Miracles video was that it confronted him with the realization that his entire existence and religion were basically one big joke, an embarrassing parody, and he couldn't deal with the shame. Ultimately, his way of taking revenge is also via totems of fear and shame, with the jester plush in John's dreams causing him to scribble self-loathing, self-shaming comments across his walls. Thus we can derive that Rage encompasses not just shame, but that which is shameful - fear, loathing, embarrassment, and, of course, rage itself. If Void is the domain of that which can't be seen, of taboos and nonexistence, then Rage is the aspect governing that which we don't want others to know about - our fears, our insecurities, our anxieties, our embarrassment.

Both Kurloz and Gamzee later come to be defined by their religious faith and conviction, with Karkat claiming their breakup was due to how unbelievably pious Gamzee became, and Kurloz's faith being paired with shamelessly mind-controlling his girlfriend (and it's implied he's doing the same to Mituna). As characters at their lowest come to resemble the opposite aspect, we can assume that this is a reflection of how they've Raged so hard that they've wrapped around.

In fact, Hussie describes Gamzee's ability to always show up at the right (wrong) time to do the right (wrong) thing in the plot and enforce the worst outcome, "bespoiling" every part of the narrative he touches, as a dark mastery over Rage, the same way that Eridan's fall into hopelessness and his white science is a dark mastery of Hope. He describes Gamzee after his crisis of faith as "taking revenge against the narrative itself". Therefore, we can assume that Rage is an aspect that similarly works directly on the narrative, a force that shapes reality.

Therefore, let me posit that Hope is a transformative ability - it pens in something new, it makes fake things real, it imposes an impossible new status quo over the old. Rage, then, is an interpretive ability - it acts on existing reality, picking out what to emphasize and what to deemphasize, what to bring to the forefront, and what options to close out forever.

These kinds of far-reaching abilities imposed directly on reality itself are not unheard of. The ultimate expression of John's Breath abilities - Breath being the aspect governing freedom and indepenence - is his retcon powers, allowing him to unstick from the control of the alpha timeline, and grant that boon to others. Mages, as a class, act directly on causality itself, predetermining which futures will definitely come to pass.

Rage is a force that defines reality by defining which parts of it we keep, by deciding which parts are "true," by deciding what the past means to us. Both Cronus and Gamzee are bards, meaning they have arcs of religious belief and crises of faiths (with Cronus's Harry Potter prophecy being framed as a religious belief while Meenah and Aranea discuss it). Cronus's faith is some bogus story about an evil wizard he's destined to defeat. Knowing what we do about Hope, it stands to reason that his arc, had he properly completed it, would've ultimately been about using Hope to make the bogus prophecy true.

Gamzee's religious belief, meanwhile, is incredibly open to interpretation - and this is by design. Hussie outright says that who the mirthful messiahs are, and what Gamzee's beliefs correspond to, change over the course of the story, to reflect whatever's convenient for both him and Gamzee. Its initial description in Gamzee's introduction makes it sound like a factual description of SBURB: a band of rowdy minstrels (the players) will usher in an apocalyptic vast honk (the reckoning meteor shower), but will then give rise to a paradise planet that doesn't yet exist (the Ultimate Reward). When Gamzee raps about it to Tavros, which is the first chronological time he ever talks about it, there's an aspect to it that's quite hopeful, specifically that he believes it will equalize the blood castes, as he says "I peeped six trillion hemos, bleeding as equals".

However, after his turn, he describes the mirthful messiahs as "me" and "me," and fully embraces his heritage as a casteist highblood, spewing slurs and casteism as he commands Equius to kneel and calls Karkat a "punchline blooded motherfucker". Later on, it seems the mirthful messiahs become Caliborn and Calliope.

This is, I believe, a reflection of how Rage is interpretive. If Hope can be described as the power of fanfiction - of imposing something fake and new onto reality - then Rage is the power of literary criticism - choosing which version of existing reality you want to be real, and closing out other options.

Thus, to pull it all together, Rage governs shame and shameful things: anger, embarrassment, loathing, hatred, and fear. Its players tend to be secretive and self-conscious, prone to feeling ashamed and embarrassed of themselves, hiding who they really are. They possess an innate, instinctive understanding of how to bend reality to their whims, and their powers work by closing off possibilities, bringing forth a single "true" version of existence. This sounds volatile and dangerous, and it is - Rage players are prone to hopelessness, cynicism, and an overpowering belief that everything must burn. We see this in both Gamzee and Kurloz, who begin to campaign for oblivion, destruction, and death. This utter despair can come with it a faith-like zen, a Hope-esque religious conviction - Rage at its nadir.

It stands to reason, then, that our Hope players at their worst are similarly displaying Rage-esque traits. Jake, I think, makes his the most obvious - after having his self-esteem shattered by Dirk's Prince tirade, Jake takes a very firm stance of "I don't want to do that". He becomes so ashamed of himself and his actions that he can't even bring himself to talk to Jane or Dirk, and his following conversations with Jane and Aranea basically consist of him saying he doesn't WANT to do any of the things they're trying to make him do. Rage and shame, closing possibilities.

Eridan, meanwhile, becomes an angry, vengeful, destructive force of hopelessness, killing Feferi and destroying the matriorb - Rage, hatred, and closing possibilities. Cronus becomes self-conscious, seeking some personal to fill the void left behind by the "massive disappointing fraud" that magic turned out to be - Rage, shame, self-consciousness.

But we must also remember that these emotions are vital sources of energy, wellsprings of power from which revolutions are born. When Princes have their meltdowns, they take their aspect down with them, rendering it inaccessible for the rest of the team; Kurloz nuking rage from his team is likely why they've stagnated, become fixed in place, unable to access hatred (notice how they have no blackroms?), or even be shamed out of bad behavior.

Thus, Rage at its best is revolution. If Rage can pick out a shitty version of reality to endorse, it can pick out a beautiful and kind one. If it can decide that misery, pain, and suffering are deserved and all we're allowed to have, it can also decide that they're injust, and we must fight for a world where they no longer exist. If Rage can perpetuate harm, then it can also safeguard kindness.

And so, a Rogue of Rage takes shape. Between the Rogue's rebelliousness and Rage's dynamic upturning of reality, this is going to be an incredibly volatile individual. This character is likely going to be A Problem for their team. Rogues start out unfocused, and Rage players inflict massive, far-reaching consequences when they act; a Rogue of Rage is going to lash out at the oppressive forces they see - whether those forces deserve it or not - and give them all a Very Bad Time.

However, the balance for this is the Rage player's natural tendency for self-consciousness. While this does get overridden to some extent by the Rogue's rebellious energy, they'll likely be very aware that they don't have all the answers, and don't know what to do, who to fight, how to go about their revolution. What happens from here will depend greatly on if the team is able to offer proper advice.

A Rogue of Rage who receives no guidance will never unlock the greater abilities of their Rogue powerset, and eventually, their natural penchant for rebellion will leave a trail of destruction and closed possibilities in their wake. Again, this character has a high chance of being A Problem for their team.

However, if the Rogue of Rage IS able to get their shit together, then they're going to be one of the greatest classpect combinations at putting a finger on the scales of causality. Possessing Rage abilities by default, they'll be able to steal Rage from others in a manner that buffs them - for example, removing fear, shame, or hesitation from a teammate that needs a forward push, or removing a narrative blockage of some sort. The soft magic system of Homestuck, and especially the way Hope/Rage work directly on the narrative, makes specific expressions of these abilities difficult to describe, but that should give you an idea of what a Rogue of Rage can do.

[wanderingmind867]

(Batman Adventures #19): This might be the first time in 19-20 issues that i've actually felt any kind of sympathy for Batman. That says something, doesn't it? About the quality of modern day batman characterization, and about the old 90s animated series. Namely, I still don't think Batman: The Animated Series was very good. The Batman (2004) or Batman: The Brave and The Bold were both way better. This show had like four or five good episodes, and that's it.

Here's how I know that: I remember like 15 different episodes from both of those other shows. Yet I only vividly recall four episodes of Batman: The Animated Series: Heart of Ice, Two-Face Part. 1, Mad as a Hatter and Christmas with The Joker. That's it. Those are the only four episodes I remember really liking. There are a few others I vaguely recall, but none of them stuck with me in anywhere near the same way. So I stand by what I said. The later Batman shows are like 20 times better. This comic is still okay, though.

[it-happened-one-fic]

Knew Exactly What He Was Doing - Silver

Author Notes: So, fun fact time. I actually wrote this the same day I wrote the "Sparring Sessions" Silver fic, with this one getting written first. So the sparring sessions mentioned in this fic relate to the contents of that. I didn't really listen to anything specific while writing this, it was really more that I just thought it would be fun to characterize Silver with just a dash of the meaness our faerie boys have since was raised by Lilia and Malleus. As per usual, reader is gender-neutral. I hope you enjoy!

Type: Gender-neutral reader/ fluff/ platonic or romantic

Word count: 1534

I stood next to Silver, watching from a safe distance as yet another fight was resolved in the courtyard. 

Ever since that one day when I’d nearly been hit by a badly missed punch courtesy of a Savanaclaw junior who’d been dodged by a Pomefiore sophomore, it had become customary for Silver to shadow me. Though I didn’t know if it was by his choice or if he was a Hornton-appointed guardian for me.

I glanced up at the young knight, just about to comment on how the teachers had made it here faster than usual when I heard it.

“SILVER!” Sebek’s voice came like a sonic blast from across the courtyard, making me jump about a foot in the air as my head snapped to the side to look at the half-faerie man. 

Silver, at odds with my skittish reaction, merely turned his head with his usual calmness. By now he was probably used to Sebek’s loud nature, but I didn’t know if I would ever truly get used to my classmate’s yelling.

I watched as Sebek glared, holding eye contact with Silver as he gestured at me vehemently and then mimed widening the space between me and Silver. 

I sighed softly at his theatrics because, at this point, it was nothing new.

Sebek, though a sweet boy who was always looking out for me, was quite prudish. After all, he was the one who had a long and detailed plan for wooing someone that involved penning several missives and, after a whole thirty-five moons, finally sitting with a person’s width between him and the object of his affections.

The fact that Silver was standing right next to me was probably quite scandalizing to him considering he had, at some point, decided that Silver was interested in me. Or at least something along those lines. 

Lilia may or may not have had something to do with that assumption of his, but that was neither here nor there at the moment.

 Ever since Sebek had reached his decision, he had been belligerently attempting to keep Silver at what he deemed a respectable distance from my person. However far that distance may be.

I smiled reassuringly towards Sebek and waved, mouthing that all was well in a feeble attempt to calm the excitable young man, but I was far too late. Because when it came right down to it, despite Silver’s angelic looks, the young man had a mean streak all his own. 

I’d found this out the hard way shortly after I’d started really getting to know him. 

Though perhaps a mean streak wasn’t the right way to put it. After all, Silver would never do anything outright mean. Because while he did like to pick on people, Silver was also genuinely nice. He was just a horrible tease with an impressive poker face. 

I could only assume Silver had learned to be such a fart from either his father or Malleus. Both of whom were just as much, if not more, of a mess than Silver.

What was important to remember, though, was that the supposedly well-behaved knight probably reached his worst when he was messing with Sebek. 

I was fairly certain he simply enjoyed riling Sebek up and watching the younger man’s reaction. And, to be fair, Sebek did have some glorious reactions. 

The only problem was that I was often the best, handiest, and most efficient way to rile Sebek up. Simply because Silver could attack Sebek’s prudish nature via me.

What was worse was that Silver hadn’t minded messing with me ever since I’d started learning swordsmanship from him. May those many, many sparring sessions never go forgotten. 

I watched as Sebek stiffened and knew that Silver was up to something immediately. And sure enough, I felt a hand on my waist that tugged me closer till I was fairly well plastered to Silver’s side. 

There definitely wasn’t a person’s width between us now.

 I looked up only to find that Silver’s expression was his usual, innocently stoic one that he so often used as his poker face. As if on cue, I immediately heard Sebek, “YOU-!” 

The freshman sputtered out what sounded like the beginning of several different complaints before releasing something akin to a frustrated growl.

Oh, this was gonna be a doozy. Sebek couldn’t even talk right. 

Silver was not done, though. Ever innocent-looking, he leaned down to speak to me, “Where’s your next class?” 

Silver's voice was soft as he whispered in my ear, his breath tickling the outer shell of my ear and causing me to shudder at the sensation. In the distance, I could hear Sebek release some form of outraged screech while I fought to not react to Silver’s proximity.

 It simply wasn’t fair. I couldn’t deny that this was definitely an easy way to mess with Sebek, but it definitely wasn’t easy on me considering Silver was confoundingly good-looking but seemingly unaware of his effect on anyone who had eyes and weren’t a member of his little family group.

After stuttering out several more rather incoherent words, Sebek at last bellowed a very loud, “DEBAUCHERY!!” His voice alone had students scattering and poor Trein looking up in alarm and confusion.

Off to the side, I could see Ace and Epel all but choking with laughter while Deuce and Jack shook their heads. But I couldn’t entirely blame Ace and Epel for laughing. 

They were simply watching and didn’t know that this was, in fact, a very pointed attack on Sebek by Silver. So all they saw was me fighting embarrassment, an outraged Sebek, and a completely calm Silver, who they probably assumed was too dumb to figure out what was going on.

And to be fair, I still wasn’t entirely clear on if Silver knew that he was also messing with me when he messed with Sebek. After all, it was almost impossible to tell with that poker face of his.

Which was why I simply fought my embarrassment without retaliating, even though I was already growing fidgety due to the raw amount of attention we were garnering. And that wasn’t even factoring Silver himself into the equation.

But I wasn’t about to react. Not when I was doing my very best to avoid ever entering the range of Silver or his father’s hit list for harassment and teasing.

So I merely inhaled, a little too sharply to be honest, and answered, “Potionology.… Do we have this one together?”

Silver let out a hum before straightening and nodding, affirming my thoughts and giving me room to breathe a little more calmly at the same time, “Sebek will be there too….” He trailed off and glanced over to see Sebek marching towards us, ready to scold Silver as soon as he reached us.

Unfortunately for him, Silver apparently had no interest in being scolded since he calmly started forward. Tugging me along with him easily as he kept me close to him. 

At this point, it was quite possible that he simply didn’t want to lose me in the crowd. But in reality I wasn’t convinced that keeping me tucked up against his side didn’t also serve to only further incense Sebek.

I stumbled slightly and shot a look up at Silver, catching the subtle amusement in his eyes as he glanced down at me, but adjusted his pace accordingly. 

He easily navigated the crowd, though, putting as many people between us and our very loud friend as possible in minimal time.

I fought against the urge to say something as a childish attempt to get back at him but couldn’t quite stop myself from retaliating, “Don’t fall asleep this time. Remember what happened last time?”

He nodded slightly, his face a perfect mask of calmness that meant he probably didn’t recognize my retaliation for what it was, “Of course, Sebek will hardly let me forget.”

He tilted his head in a thoughtful manner, those strange eyes of his flicking towards where a clock hung on a wall before meeting my eyes again, a slight smile slipping onto his face, “If we make it in time, we should be able to work together.” 

I smiled slightly at his words because at least with this, I could trust Silver to just be helpful. He took his lessons seriously, even if he did have a nasty habit of falling asleep. But, if paired with me, he could trust me to keep him awake, and I could trust him to help with necessary magic spells. 

But then he continued, “Since Sebek and Fa⏤ Lilia will be in this class too. I’ll have to do my best not to disappoint.”

Oh…. It was always worse if Lilia was around. He was an enabler of all chaos and was especially proud when his ‘air-headed’ son was ‘innocently’ at fault. 

I almost frowned at the man next to me as we started off towards our class.

Air-headed my butt. Little rat knew exactly what he was doing. 

Or at least he did when it came to Sebek. I could only pray he didn’t when it came to me, because then who knew what I’d have to do to survive.

[signanothername]

Hi! For the ask game, can you please do Epic with numbers 4, 5, 12, and 21/22? (Or if you don't write, for art, how you characterize Epic if/when drawing him and how you think of his character?)

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

Jojo’s Bizarre adventure

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

Marsha, Thankk You for the Dialectics, but I Need You to Leave - Will Wood

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

That he acts dumb in front of many people that people genuinely believe he’s dumb, then someone who actually knows Epic on a more personal level will come and adress him as “doctor” and the people who genuinely believe he’s dumb have their whole world fucking shattered

21. If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like?

I haven’t written fics for Epic specifically, but when I try to write him for comics, I usually try to balance the humor of his character with his more serious side, I haven’t done many comics for him yet, so I can’t say I have my thoughts ordered yet, but I would really love to explore his relationship with Epic!Gaster and his brother, as well as his whole AU too, and how that plays out into how he deals with people in general

As well as explore how his artificial eye and nightmares affected him mentally and emotionally, I’d even absolutely love to have him interact with Nightmare on that front

I love to think of Epic as the type of guy who acts dumb, acts like an imbecile, and legit makes people think he’s an oblivious idiot, who wouldn’t know how to hurt a fly, when in reality he’s far more intelligent and far more powerful than people really realize or give him credit for, which is something that Epic himself wishes for, especially on the front of “never hurt a fly”, because Epic struggles mentally when it comes to his power vs his morality, and he wants the idea of never being able to hurt a fly to be true for himself, even when his power negates that

It’s the imbalance between mental and emotional needs and the physical reality Epic is stuck in if that makes sense

I also really love to think he isn’t one for fights, he usually prefers talking a situation down and solving things peacefully, in part because he’s aware of how powerful his magic is and is scared he’ll hurt someone he didn’t intend to hurt, and in part because he generally hates fighting when Epic!Gaster forced him to in his experiments

Epic generally loves people and loves to be social, he’s extroverted, and finds his joy in making friendships, he’s really chill to be around and he’s genuinely kind and helpful, but he’s also not to be messed with, if Epic truly couldn’t solve a situation peacefully, he will absolutely use force (which then plays into his morality struggles), but at the heat of the moment, he forgets his morals, especially when someone messes with his friends or family, you fuck around, you find out

22. If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to ths character? Something you don't like?

I honestly haven’t read many fics that have Epic in them aside some chromatic crew ones, and I just generally really love when he’s shown to be a reliable friend <33333

As for what I don’t like, I can’t really think of any (could be cause I haven’t read many fics surrounding him zhhxgxhz)

———

Character ask game

[vigilskeep]

how would you describe the relationship between sol and viago (at length?) a lot of people in the fandom often characterize viago as very paternal and I wanted yr thoughts

oh mannn

if u have to characterise it in terms of family, i would describe them more as siblings with a large age gap. i usually put them at like an 8-10 year age gap and they met when viago was still a teenager. sol would laugh in ur face if u called viago their dad. they definitely have some sibling behaviours and i do talk abt them in those terms. they are close enough in age to have the trauma bond of growing up in the same bad place rather than sol growing up there while viago was a grown-up agent of that place, if that makes sense, which is quite a key difference to some dynamics i see

but it’s more complicated than just being found family or whatever. sol views the relationship in quite transactional terms because they were a very traumatised kid who would not have been able to rely on anything less solid under their feet. from the start they presented themself as someone little but resourceful who could help him and also be an investment for later. sol worked really really hard all their childhood to be strong enough to “pay him back” for the little he was able to protect them as a kid, and to prove to him that they could be of further use, because they were convinced that one day he would be talon and if they were his then they would finally be safe. ironically it’s viago—who is less openly affectionate—who has always been more aware that he is in this because he cares about them. because, you know, sol was not actually that much help when they first met, because they were busy being, like, seven. it was only later when they kept trying so hard and beating impossible odds that he established sol in his head as always thinking of something and always winning in the end. back then they were just the only little source of warmth in the world

sol can joke around with and get physically close to viago in a way almost nobody else ever is allowed, just bc they always took those liberties and he never stopped them. he thinks they’re rash and impulsive because he has always let them get away with too much, but he also trusts them with his life when danger comes: they often take a bodyguard role, and also if, say, something went wrong with his poisons and he needed help, sol would be the one he would trust to be around him and take care of him when he was vulnerable. (they used to be the only one. other people like teia now being able to fill this role was another factor in sol becoming unnecessary in the few years before veilguard and it destabilising the relationship.) that’s also kind of why they have no fear of him in the way any other crow would fear their talon. he would not get rid of someone whose loyalty is a proven absolute. even when they don’t believe in him caring, they always confidently count on him just being smarter than that

while the love is there, as i like to say, viago’s still a talon of the crows and sol’s his subordinate. a lot of the affection is not being expressed and sol does not expect it, and sol is all smiles with everyone so even their side doesn’t necessarily come through either. viago has ordered them to do some fucked up things, both crow work—sol helped maintain house loyalty and discipline with everything that entails—and undergoing the extremely dangerous rituals that gave them some of their quasi-magical abilities.

at the start of the game, sol is prepared to get themself killed on this mad quest rather than face either going back to the crows, or leaving and losing viago, unsure whether they dreaded more him hunting them down or simply letting them go. (he’s all they have, and they also have like... a sunk fallacy situation where having sacrificed everything else to their loyalty to viago, they physically cannot give him up now. the solas mythal parallels go crazy. minrathous burns because it was not the city viago was in.) by the end of the game, sol has come to the conclusion that he loves them. but they are also now able to ask questions like: if he really loves them, why’d he never try to get them out? if he really loves them, if he regrets anything they’ve gone through, how can he still be a talon of the crows? how can there still be fledgelings in those grim training houses where they grew up, if he loves them?

it’s complicateddd and it always will be. are they the closest thing each other has to family? yes. was the best year in sol’s life the one where they were away from him with varric? yes. is being a crow fundamentally soul-destroying to them and are the best endings for them also probably the ones where they never see him again as long as they live? Well Yes But It Makes Me Sad.

[altraviolet]

Just reread the echo garden again and I must say that Soundwave’s character development throughout the story has been both beautiful and extraordinary! (Even I was proud of him)

There is something that I’ve been curious about tho. What if Soundwave somehow got the chance to reunite with his universes Megatron at some point after the events of TEG? What might a reunion between them look like?

Thanks for the reread! =D

This is a popular question! I've been asked several times: it's something people are definitely curious about.

I never had an answer because I always knew we wouldn't be going back to SW's dimension in the fic. And even if we did, his Megatron would be dead or altered beyond recognition, due to the internal logic of the universe. I never needed an answer. And it felt like it would be very complicated and Too Much Work to figure out.

Unsatisfying but true, lol.

But, okay, let's do a little mind experiment. Off the cuff. No prior planning. Let's say that, somehow, SW's Megatron is preserved and in a recognizable state, and that the last we saw of him in TFP is also true in universe. And for some reason, SW wants to go back. And for some reason, they've run into each other.

The last we saw of Megatron in TFP, iirc, he'd just been freed from subjugation under Galvatron, and he stated that he never wanted to feel like that again, and he would not do it to anyone else ever again.

So disregarding RiD2015 as any possible source of further characterization...

...I feel like this Megatron would avoid Soundwave and the other Decepticons for a long time. He really sounded like he wanted a Very Long Time Out. His character change was stark, in those last few on screen moments, and there isn't much to go off of, regarding what New Directions he would head down.

He had a very calm air about him when he said it... but he's not an innately calm character. He's been driven by anger for a long time. He had expectations of being fully obeyed for a long time. He has just been handed the reveal of his life: that everything he did was extremely awful and he's only learned that because it happened to him.

So we have a character in an unknown state. How much growth will there actually be? Or will there be a backlash, a backslide into something similar to what he was before? There are no real answers (as far as I know of, in canon), so this becomes the domain of the fic writer.

And that's what I mean when I say this sounds like Too Much Work xD How do I proceed with an arc that feels Megatron-y, doesn't copy any other arcs we've seen, feels authentic to the character and world... what happens when you push a character to the destruction of their core values? How do they build themselves up again?

I don't know :D I'd have to rewatch TFP and then sit and think about it for a long time, and I'm not interested in doing that. I see several courses his arc could take, but I'm not sure which one is the most 'authentic.'

But, okay, people keep asking me.

Let's say TFP Megatron has been scrounging around, somewhat pathetically, on Cybertron (I honestly don't remember what state Cybertron was left in, at the end of TFP, but we're far into the future so uhhhhhh idk it's rebuilding), and our main characters meet because SW has returned to his home dimension for supplies. I assume SW would be accompanied by a few friends, probably including Rodimus.

There'd be some kind of first contact scene, but the thing the readers most want to see is SW and Megatron alone, so we'd have to plot for Rodimus & friends to go somewhere else (be amenable to giving them alone time, or get distracted by something, etc). So now we have SW and Megatron. And they're staring at each other.

SW is looking at the mech who destroyed him, rebuilt him, and then used him for millions of years.

Megatron is looking at the ultimate example of his tyrannic rule: a mech he shaped into a perfect servant.

SW sees Megatron as a pitiful thing, obviously living off scraps [since in this character arc branch we won't let him backslide into dark energon use or his tyrannical tendencies], obviously alone and doing terribly.

Megatron sees SW as a faded and scratched up, but obviously healthy mech, who initially arrived with allies. Allies who wear the Autobrand.

What next?

Well... I don't know. I'm going to give you some possible reactions Megatron has to this:

-immediately starts calculating how he can use Soundwave to his advantage. this Megatron IS clever enough, in my opinion, to possibly recognize that SW's associates are not Of This Universe. perhaps, he thinks, he can appeal to SW's loyal nature

-truly feels sorry for what he did to SW: either does or does not know how to apologize for it

-"Even you, Soundwave?" though Megatron has sworn off his old ways, he's still disappointed that his most loyal soldier has switched sides. it's a reminder of his own weakness and failure. he couldn't even keep Soundwave loyal

Some possible reactions SW has to seeing Megatron:

-!!!

-correctly recognizing him as the pitiful figure he is, and perhaps even going so far as to identify with the long process Megatron has ahead of him for healing, should Megatron even be able to find people to help him through it

-anger. despite the pitiful appearance, Megatron still did bad things, and unlike 0001 Megatron, never apologized or made any amends

-perhaps the most biting response: SW could look at Megatron for a moment and then just walk away. maybe Megatron calls out to him, but he keeps going. he lets Megatron see that he's healthy and thriving, and that he doesn't need Megatron, and that he doesn't care about him. he doesn't even need or want an apology, or any kind of response. he assesses and moves on, like Megatron is just another piece of scrap

or, of course

-some kind of hilariously inappropriate troll response, lol.

so yeah. as you can see, anon, there are quite a few ways things could go. there's an infinite number of ways things could go!

the way you choose which thing to do would depend on what you want the story to say. is there some kind of message about forgiveness? or is the message that there are some things you just can't forgive, and so you must move on for your own sense of self and preservation? cut ties, and so forth

and so that's the answer: there are too many answers and I'm not particularly interested, at this time, in figuring out which one is the best. I always say, hey, you never know: if I ever do feel like writing out this scene, I will

hope you enjoyed ✨

[docholligay]

Okay, so, as someone who has never seen FMA but also lives in the "I only care about spoilers if you tell me who the whodunnit murderer is and in fact sometimes I prefer spoilers" camp, I'm going to ask: do we actually know if the Philosopher's Stone does/can exist in this world? Or is Ed just kinda hoping based on this thing he heard once from a drunk guy lurking in the corner of a bar with a bunch of hobbits and a gay elf? Because nothing on fucking earth frustrates me more than 9447364858 episodes only to be told the real MacGuffin was the friends we made along the way.

NO ONE ANSWER THIS NO ONE ANSWER THIS actually pb I'd prefer you don't reblog this because your crowd is bad about this.

Your guess is as good as mine! I actually take the opposite position: I'd prefer Ed was chasing the dot of a laser pointer his whole life. I'd prefer him to have a moment of, "i have been this my whole life. Who am I now?"

I think failure is often more interesting than success. I think we learn so much about characters when they hit a point break. And for Ed, I think that'd be a major point break.

Now, if he gets to the end and there's no stone and he goes "aw shucks. Well, the journey was the real treasure." I'll be disappointed. But the characterization of Ed so far isn't, "gracefully accepts defeat and sees the silver lining" so I'd be shocked if they went that way.

So, in answering your actual question, I don't know! Previous to last episode i would have said it will prove to be real because I didn't trust the show to REALLY pull the rug up from under Ed like that. Now, they might!

DO NOT ANSWER ME DO NOT SPOIL ME

[oh-no-its-bird]

your uchiha houhua au is living in my brain rent free....im sleep deprived today bc i was reading/thinking about it late last night lol, its so good!!

after the massacre he would essentially be sasuke's guardian, right? maybe not officially but still, he'd be in charge of sasuke as the only older family around? idk if he'd be a GOOD guardian but i can see his paranoid ass just always handing sasuke more weapons and money, just in case

i need to know more about sasuke finding out about houhua and itachi's thing for each other!! and does sasuke still end up going to orochimaru in this au?

YEAHHH IM SO GLAD YOU LIKE IT !!! Uchiha Houhua remains one of The Favorites(tm) I really need to finish writing chapter 1, I'm like. So so close. So close.

I also need to update my tumblr vault fic with all the more recent Houhua au posts, since theres been a good amount of new content, but I'm putting it off till I'm done writing chapter 1 for the actual fic

No but I'm honored it could take up space in ur brain !!

YES! After the massacre, Houhua basically becomes Sasuke's officially unofficial guardian. There's no real paperwork for it done, but like, they really only have eachother

Sasuke flocks to him as the only other Uchiha, and Houhua takes him in both out of pity + not wanting him to be alone, and also partially because he knows Sasuke is a main character and his survival heavily depends on sticking close to main characters in the hopes that it'll help bump his character importance points

Houhua and Sasuke are stupidly rich now just because all of the Uchiha belongings and funds are theirs now.

There's a bit of trickiness bc technically, most of it should go specifically to Sasuke (as he's now default clan heir, though that isn't exactly worth much now) but Houhua is older than him

Houhua will probably end up splitting things between them, and Sasuke will trust him enough to do it (+ be too young to really realize that's something as important as it really is)

I think in canon, and lot of Uchiha shit got stolen or went ""missing"" in their death, mostly bc Sasuke... wouldn't know what to watch out for / prevent people from trying to take. But with Houhua here, it's going to be way hard for anyone to do any sort of grave robbing

Houhua is absoloutley gonna be taking inventory and his past life's experience means he knows to be on guard for people looting the compound when he's not looking !! There might even be some fun drama w that in the future ,,,

Houhua is stuffing weapons and money into Sasuke's pockets, very much fussing over him every chance he gets.

(Because Sasuke is his meal ticket!! He insists to himself, going out of his way to demolish anyone who looks at Sasuke even a little bit funny)

I honestly think Houhua would make for a good guardian for Sasuke overall, tho he'd for sure have his faults. The key word here is 'guardian', not anything like a father— Sasuke is gonna end up seeing Houhua as his (new, better, real) big brother over shitty Itachi over there

Houhua, as Shang Qinghua, lived to be very old (for a human, not for a cultivator) and had a hand in raising and training many disciples.

I like to reference Pride Is Not The Word I'm Looking For (aka the single best Shang Qinghua fic of all time) for my characterization for him, so he's like. Genuinley a good teacher and uncle, when he tries to be. He is just also burdened with crippling self doubt and likes to insist that every nice thing he does is canceled out by his own selfish reasoning behind doing those nice things

In Naruto world especially, filled with shitty murderous parents and a government that churns out murder babies, I think Houhua will be winning awards in his own parenting skills

Then there's also the fact that Houhua did know and interact with Sasuke before the massacre, just not too often. He was Itachi's weird cry baby friend, he'd hang out with him sometime

They just were never really close, and never really got to interact 1 on 1 for long— till, ofc, the massacre happens, and now Sasuke is latching on to Houhua and hyperventalating if anyone so much as looks like they're going to try and separate them

Houhua's existence as a whole allows Sasuke to be a lot more vulnerable, both because he is not "the last Uchiha" and also because Houhua will no doubt try to piggy back off of his revenge quest or even try to steal it entirely (to try and become a more important character, he insists to himself)

So Sasuke is just. Nowhere near as alone as before. And Houhua's own relationship with Itachi helps Sasuke believe Houhua might get it... more than other people, at least.

Ofc, there's also conflict in Sasuke maybe not thinking Houhua gets it "enough", or like Sasuke himself does, because Sasuke was, ofc, Itachi's little brother.

^ I think that would inevitably come in to play later, when Sasuke realizes Itachi and Houhua might have feelings for eachother. Sasuke would be so fucking hurt and feel so fucking betrayed, believing that maybe Houhua never "got it" to begin with

Things get even more complicated depending on when Sasuke learns this tho, because eventually Houhua is going to share his suspicions about the massacre being not as simple as it looked. So Sasuke's own feelings on Itachi are gonna go on a roller coaster of their own, trying to figure out if he himself can or should forgive his brother or no

Its all just a mess tbh, I love to see it

I HONESTLY DUNNO IF SASUKE WILL GO WITH OROCHIMARU OR NOT !! On one hand, mmmayybe ,,,, if he does, Houhua will go with him, full stop.

But there's also a chance that Houhua might try to take his place too! And he and Orochimaru are inevitably going to interact eventually, bc I have plans ,,,

(I mentioned it in another post, but if Houhua ever shares about the system and his past life with literally anyone, I would choose Orochimaru to find out. I think I could get the most milage out of him, and Orochimaru would absoloutley try to hack into the system for immortality and power or some shit)

I think whatever route I go with w Orochimaru will just depend on what I'm feeling when I get to that point in writing the fic. We will have to see where the story naturally leads me, you know? All of the options are so good, so it's hard to choose

ANYWAYS THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASK !!! I love Houhua au so much, I think its so much fun. Ur ask actually reminded me I really have to keep writing chapter 1, so this has kind of spurred me on to go do that

Hopefully I finish and post it soon!

[call-me-rucy]

Cetanganda ch. 10: The kitten tree

Vorreedi is actually doing stuff! And appearing! I mean by this point they all must know something is up. He was invited to the Star Creche!

"Tell them he's the man who taught you all you know about the Barrayaran Art of Love." "He's not my type," said Ivan through his teeth.

...which could mean nothing but bisexual Ivan is very welcome.

"So use your initiative!" "I don't have initiative. I follow orders, thank you. It's much safer." "Fine. I order you to use your initiative."

This sums up pretty much their attitudes in life and I love them xD

Ivan telling tales of how Miles got them in trouble when they were kids is great, I could read a book of just the childhood exploits of the Vorkosigang.

Fish resembling cetagandan make-up make me remember I haven't yet figured who the other guy in the cover is. Benin, maybe? Or the murderer satrap governor.

(Then again, I did never really figure out who the other guy in TWA's cover was supposed to be. Is it Baz? Is it Ivan? Is it Mayhew?)

Ah! Here comes the famous kitten tree, I think...

...

...

(Image source)

ALL THIS TIME I THOUGHT THE KITTEN TREE WOULD BE SOMETHING CUTE. I FEEL SO BETRAYED. it's got kitten in the name it should be cute...

MY POOR IVAAAAN TT__TT

(So this is what it feels to be recomended FMA:B and reach episode 4, huh)

Not Yenaro here too!

Voreedi is away taking care of some B?-plot! Ivan's "friends" are here! Go now Miles, that's your chance.

AHAHAHAH NO HE'S VOR TOO SO THEY ASUME SAME ETIQUETTE AHHAHAHAHAHAH

Yenaro has appeared. Is it now the time for an allergic reaction to perfume?

Not an allergy, huh. What is it then? Asterzine, which google says it doesn't actually exist so I'll have to wait for Miles to explain.

Miles gently set the pitcher down, stood, jerked up his chin, and addressed Yenaro in a low-pitched growl.

This is Miles being Miles but also being Aral's son and I love the characterization.

A bomb. Okay. Okay. Thanks for Miles' nose. A bomb.

They live to see one day more, even if they're going against the worng satrap governot.

NOT MILES BEING SUSPECTED OF HIRING A CETAGANDAN ASSASSIN ON YENARO

Ohhh, so no Rian at this time huh. Shame. I love to read about competent woman almost as much as Miles likes them.