#i could say why didn’t young me have higher hopes and well girl u know why

[onlinelvrs]

i wish writing out my thoughts helped me be better but the fact i’m still on this site complaining about the same things for years now proves otherwise. something somehting kafka

[streetlight11]

Her Promise

Summary: It wasn’t a secret that you have disliked Sangyeon since you were in diapers. He was your mother’s best friend’s son. Though he was born just 27 days after you, it seems like he was a lot older than you in terms of his maturity. You don’t understand why the bad blood between you two. Until one day, you had been arranged for a marriage with him so suddenly.

Theme: arranged marriage au, enemies to lovers

Genre: angst, sad, fluff

Warnings: mentions of leukaemia, death, alcohol, swearing

WC: 10k

Pairing: Lee Sangyeon x Fem!Reader

a/n: Hello! This plot just randomly came to mind. It's kind of sad and a little angsty but you'll get through reading it. I promise! also, the words in italics is a flashback :)

Your family has been a close family friend to the Lee’s family and that was because your mother and Mrs Lee were best friends since high school. Also the reason why you were only 27 days older than Mr and Mrs Lee’s only son. However, not everyone has a happy friendship. In this case, it was you and the said son. His name was Lee Sangyeon and it was pretty obvious that you two could never get along since you were in diapers.

Despite your mothers being best friends and have been for the past 30 years, give or take. It’s no wonder that when they were pregnant with the both of you, they kept fighting with each other over small silly things when they barely got past even the slightest of arguments throughout their friendship.

And yet, it seems like luck was never on your side to begin with because throughout your whole education life up till today, he always ends up in your school or at least the school that you chose specifically hoping to be as far from him as possible.

It always baffles you how he would be the first person you spot amongst the crowd during the first day of school.

Did he do all these on purpose?

Why would he go to this extent just to annoy you if you both hated each other?

Maybe he didn’t in fact do this on purpose, but still, what are the odds that you end up in the same campus amongst the hundreds of schools available? That was a mystery you never plan on solving.

It was a bright Tuesday afternoon, students were scattered all over the large campus of Hangang University. You had just parked your car in a free space, exiting your vehicle before proceeding to lock it and walk towards the Computer Science building. You were halfway through the parking lot when someone suddenly swung an arm over your shoulder.

“Good morning my favourite person in the world!” Lisa giggled to your left as Rosie appeared on your right with her usual beaming smile that could melt hearts with just a glance.

“Hey girls, you’re early” You asked with a soft chuckle knowing Lisa was always late for class.

“Yeah, I wanted to leave my apartment now like I always do but Rosie begged me to drive her today because her baby is in the workshop.” Lisa huffs, only for the blonde girl on your right to defend herself.

“Hey, at least we got here on time. You’re welcome.”

With that, Lisa stuck out her tongue at Rosie, earning a laugh from you. The three of you continued to walk to the CS building, only to find Jennie and Jisoo chatting by the lockers while Jennie scavenged through her locker.

“Ew, is it just me or is the barbeque chicken a little dry today?” Jisoo scowls as she drops the chicken leg back onto her plate.

“No, I agree. It’s foul.” Lisa’s face contorts in disgust before you speak up.

“Do you guys want my salmon instead? I'm kind of full already.” You said, only to find them staring at you in concern. They began asking you if you were feeling okay and if you needed any medication of any sorts. To which you shook your head and just told them you were already full from the breakfast your mother made for you before she left for work with your dad.

Lisa and Jisoo ended up sharing your salmon piece, making you smile. At least your food wouldn’t be wasted, you thought.

A few hours later, your classes for the day were finally over. All you know is that your bed has been waiting for your arrival since the minute you left for school. You left class slightly later, telling the girls you had something to discuss with your lecturer regarding the assignment.

You told them to just head home first and not wait for you.

Almost 20 minutes later, you finally left the lecture room to head towards the parking lot where you had parked your car earlier. Your mind was clouded with the assignment requirements as you scrolled through the soft copy of the assignment through your email, too caught up in your thoughts to notice the group of boys walking down the hall.

That wasn’t until your shoulder roughly collided against someone’s back. It sent your whole body to stumble back from the impact. You were about to apologize when you heard a snicker coming from whoever it was.

So you glanced up and lord behold, it was just the person you were looking for…

Not really.

“Can you pay attention to where you walk? It’s not that hard to use your eyes.” Sangyeon’s voice was monotonous yet a pitch higher than others, just like his ego.

“That’s because you’re in my way, Lee.” You said sarcastically as you walked past him, not forgetting to purposely bump into his arm. He let out a scoff under his breath, fiery glare burning a prominent hole into the back of your head.

God, you can be such a pain in the ass sometimes. Him included.

A few days later, it was finally a Friday. You heard words going around campus saying that one of the seniors in the school’s football team was having a frat party at his place tonight. He invited everyone in the football team, and people that he knew. Turns out he also told his teammates to bring whoever they wanted whether he knows them or not.

Lucky for you (or maybe not), Rosie’s boyfriend happens to be one of the football players. If you remember correctly, his name is Yunhyeong.

And so you already know where this is going.

Hence, the reason why you were now standing right outside the house where the party was held.

No doubt the house was a beautiful landed property at the hills that overlooked the city, it still didn’t give you complete comfort knowing that you would be surrounded by drunk young adults who have no care in the world once the alcohol takes over their system.

Sure you sometimes go to these parties but you weren’t really that type of girl. It’s always an unpleasant surprise to others who aren't your girls, when you decline their offers of alcohol saying you don’t drink.

Though there were instances where you’d have some people still insisting on giving you a drink, you rejected them firmly whether they liked it or not.

And today was no different.

One moment, you were talking to your friends. Another moment, and you were suddenly left alone by the kitchen island. Isolating yourself from the countless intoxicated bodies, dancing freely without a single care in the world.

It suddenly dawned on you that you were indeed alone, with no other individual that you recognize in that huge house. Your friends were scattered around the main living area, each of them either with their significant other or just randomly hooking up with someone. Using alcohol as an excuse to be brave and approach someone at a party like this.

You sighed, reaching into your back pocket to fish for your phone. You were so close to texting them you wanted to head home first, when a deep voice broke your little bubble of thoughts.

“Hey… Y/N right?” The handsome boy asked as he smiled down at you softly.

He clearly didn’t seem too drunk, nor was he completely sober like you.

“Yeah… you are?” You asked, hoping you didn’t sound like a bitch.

“I’m Changkyun. I see your friends have left you so I thought maybe you’d want some company?”

Well, at least he’s being considerate enough.

“About that… I was actually about to-” As you were talking, your eyes were searching the room for at least one of the girls. But instead, your gaze was locked on a specific individual who was leaning against the staircase railings just staring at you with a subtle frown on his face, making your voice halt in your throat.

It was Sangyeon.

You should’ve known he would be there tonight. He’s the freaking midfielder in Hangang U’s soccer team for goodness sake!

For some reason, the moment you met his eyes, it was as though you got sucked into a black hole with no way to escape. That wasn’t until the warm touch on your arm made you jolt away and soon turned back to Changkyun who was now staring at you with worry.

“Hey? You okay? What’s wrong?” He asked, hoping he didn’t scare you away by that simple touch.

“Y-Yeah… Sorry Changkyun, but I think I’m gonna head home. See you around.” You gave him a sincere smile before turning to leave after he said his goodbye.

There is no way you’re gonna stay there any longer. It’s not like you were drunk or anything. Not like you’d expected him to show up in black leather pants, dark grey button down shirt tucked in, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his hair parted close to the middle to frame his face and show his forehead, attractively. And definitely not like you felt as though your stomach was doing a flip in your abdomen after seeing him there physically.

Right?

No. You still hate him. He’s just a walking nuisance in your life. You don’t feel anything for him. Maybe he needs to stop appearing in your line of vision every 5 minutes.

It’s been two weeks since that frat party in which you had texted your friends saying you were already at home. Of course you didn’t get a response immediately but they still replied to you the next morning, telling you they were safe and they were glad that you were too.

It was a rainy Wednesday afternoon where students were all stuck on campus with nowhere to go. You were just seated at a wooden table alone with your laptop and scattered notes on the surface when the ray of sunlight that was previously shining down on you, got blocked by a figure.

You glanced up and not surprisingly, it was Sangyeon. He was alone. For once. He was always with his friends, so you wondered why he chose to walk around alone today.

“What?” You asked nonchalantly before looking back down at your laptop.

You heard a scoff from him only for him to speak up, “Did your parents tell you?”

You got confused as you looked back up to him and blinked, incredulously at what he just asked you.

“Tell me what?” You asked. He wasn’t sure if he was faking it or not but he figured with how genuinely confused you look, it was quite clear you weren’t pretending to not know what he was referring to.

“My parents are coming over to your home this weekend to discuss ‘something serious’. I’m not going. I’m not about to sit there and listen to what the ‘something serious’ is, let alone sit there trapped and stare at you the whole night.” Sangyeon said blankly as he burned holes in your head.

“Good. I wouldn’t want you there anyway.” You scoffed, only for him to push himself off the table and smoothed down his shirt.

Sangyeon left without saying anything else, watching as he turned his head as though in search of his friends. However, the minute you looked back down at your laptop, it seems like you missed the way he glanced at you subtly before turning back in front.

That same day, you went home to find your parents in the living room. Your father was watching the news on the flat screen tv while your mother was just watering the potted plants on the shelves.

The minute you stepped into the living room, your father turned to you and smiled brightly, “Oh, sweetie you’re back. We wanted to tell you that Mr and Mrs-” but before he could finish, you did it for him, stunning them in the process.

“-Lee are coming over this weekend to discuss ‘something serious’... I know.”

With that, your mother and father glanced at each other before a smile appeared on their faces again. You already knew what they were about to ask so you beat them to it.

“Sangyeon told me… So what’s so serious that they wanna come over here and talk about it?” You asked, not knowing what to expect but all you got was silence.

“We have to wait till everyone’s there.”

“Not everyone’s gonna be there…” You said.

“What do you mean?” Your mother asked.

“Sangyeon said he’s not coming. He doesn't want to.”

“B-But, he has to be there. It’s important.”

“What’s so important that he has to be there for?” Your voice laced with annoyance at the thought of having to sit in a room with him for minutes too long. Your parents got quiet before your mother spoke up again but for some reason, her voice sounded weak.

“You’ll know on Saturday.” She gave you a weak smile. Too weak to the point that she almost looks… pale?

Why is she pale?

But your mind was too jumbled up with what the main topic for this said family dinner would revolve around. Hence, why you were now sprinting up the steps and to your room. You didn’t want to think about it anymore. You just hoped the weekend passes by before you know it.

Saturday came in a flash and to say you were ready for whatever family gathering this was, is definitely a lie. You were curious. You were desperate to know just what important business is there to discuss with you and Sangyeon. Despite knowing he won’t be there for whatever this meeting is about, it still rendered you curious on just how important this said matter is.

You were told to look presentable even though you’ll just be at home. So you pulled out the nicest outfit you could find and just opted for a simple blouse and your denim jeans.

Once you were done getting ready, you left your room only to hear your mother calling out to you from downstairs, “Y/N sweetie, the Lee’s are here!”

You made your way down the marbled steps, ready to greet the elder couple when your eyes fell on their son who clearly said he wasn’t going to be here. But of course, it looked like he had been forced against his own will to be here and you were right.

“Oh! My sweet Y/N! It’s been so long. How are you my dear?” Mrs Lee asked as you broke your gaze from Sangyeon only to smile happily when you looked at his parents.

“Hello Mr and Mrs Lee. I’m doing well despite my crazy uni life. I hope you’re both well and healthy!” You said as Mrs Lee hugged you warmly like how she had been doing since you were young.

After greeting them, the 6 of you began walking to your dining room. You then turned to Sangyeon who was walking beside you, only to ask out of curiosity, “Didn’t you say you weren’t gonna come?”

With that, he turns to you and shoots daggers at you through his glare but it does nothing to scare you away.

“Do I look like I wanna be here?”

“Clearly.” You said, just to get on his nerves and it did.

“Fuck you.”

“I’d gladly fuck myself too.”

Sangyeon frowns at your comment despite knowing it was sarcastic. But he still found it amusing that it came out from your mouth. Sure you’ve cursed him a lot of times when you fought with him, but this was a different thing.

All of you finally sat down in the dining room, you helped your mother set the table.

A few minutes went by and everyone was just chatting amongst one another. Well, more specifically the elders while you and Sangyeon simply sat there across each other in silence. You were absentmindedly picking on your food, suddenly losing appetite.

All you wanted was for them to start discussing the very important business. Which is why your patience has run thin, making you blurt out the question that has been floating in your head since Wednesday.

“What’s the important thing you called me and Sangyeon here for?”

The room fell silent as you kept your eyes on your plate of untouched food. Completely ignoring the way Sangyeon had his eyes trained on you. After what felt like hours, your mother finally announced it.

It made your heart stop for a moment.

“We have decided to marry you off with Sangyeon.”

That was the last thing you ever wanted to hear from them. Never did you expect it to be this. Why were they doing this to you? Of course you know you’re single and not dating anyone but still… How could they?

“What?!” Both you and Sangyeon said in unison.

Tension filled the air, thick in its wake. You couldn’t look elsewhere except for your mother who had announced the news.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…” You mumbled under your breath as Sangyeon got up, letting the chair drag painfully across the wooden floor. His mother grabbed his wrist to stop him but he roughly yanked his wrist from her and simply replied with his firm answer, “There’s no way I’m marrying her. I’m out.”

Sangyeon stormed out and you were so tempted to do the same but all you could do was glare at your parents in disbelief.

“Sweetie-” Your mom began but you were quick to interject.

“No! That’s not happening! Mom, you know we hate each other! How can you ask me to marry him when I don’t even love him?!” Your voice was raised as you stood up from your seat. Blood boils in your veins, heart pounding rapidly in your chest out of pure anger. You wanted nothing more but to scream.

You turned in your heels to leave but your mother caught your hands when you were about to reach the stairs. You pulled your hand from her grip, throwing your arm behind your back from the force.

“Sweetie please, listen to me-”

“No mom! I’m not marrying him and that’s final!” You yelled, too furious to even notice the way your mom had clutched her chest as her breathing started to become shallow.

Before you knew it, your mother collapsed to the ground but you were quick to catch her body right when she was about to crash onto the hard wooden floor.

“Mom!” You gasped as your dad and both of Sangyeon’s parents rushed over to where you were.

Mr Lee called the ambulance in which they came just 10 minutes later, carrying your mother’s unconscious body onto the stretcher and bringing her into the ambulance. Your father followed her in the vehicle while Mr Lee offered you a ride there.

Hours passed and you were waiting patiently outside the ER when a doctor came out. Your dad rushed over so you could only guess that she was the one who attended to your mom.

“Doctor, how’s my wife?”

“Your wife’s still under constant checks but so far, her heart is beating stably. However, it seems that her abnormal white blood cells have rapidly multiplied since her last check up.” The doctor said, making you frown.

“White blood cells? What’s going on? What’s wrong with my mother?” You asked desperately, still not sure of what’s going on.

“Your mother was diagnosed with Leukaemia stage 2 but from what I saw today, I believe it’s now up to stage 4.” The doctor announced, making you even more confused.

“What?” You whispered as you stared at your dad, hoping that it’s not true. But all you got was a disheartened smile that broke you into a million pieces.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” You whispered to him sadly, upset that they’ve been keeping this a secret from you.

“I’m sorry baby, but your mother told me not to. She… She didn’t want you to get worried.” He replied.

You don’t understand. You knowing about this was better than keeping it hidden from you. If you had known about this sooner, you wouldn’t have shouted at her. Instead, you would have taken extra care of her. You would have given her more love than what she gave you. And you wouldn’t have to stand here, right now, hoping for your mother’s safety and health.

You slumped onto one of the chairs, staring into space as your father rubbed soft circles into your back to calm you down.

Three days passed and you have been visiting your mother at the hospital diligently after your classes. You stayed till night time, allowing your dad to fetch you from the hospital after he also came by to visit your mom.

You were currently alone in the room with your mom as your dad went out to buy dinner for all three of you.

She was just lying there sleeping peacefully after having a deep conversation with her about some things, her eyes now closed, breathing consistent, chest heaving up and down according to her oxygen intake.

You were just about to doze off when the heart rate monitor suddenly began beeping rapidly. It caused you to panic as you ran out of the room to call for the nurses.

When you came back, your mother was shaking on the hospital bed. Tears started streaming down your face as you found yourself curled up in the corner just watching the hospital staff do whatever is necessary to help your mother.

You didn’t notice your dad who had just come back, only to rush to you after putting the food down on the desk. It was when he cupped your face, that you finally realized his presence.

He pulled you against him as you couldn’t tear your eyes off your mother’s figure, shaking violently on the bed.

It was as though someone had dropped a bomb just a few feet away, a deafening silence pierced your ear drums followed by the single beep sound that was continuous without a pause. The sound soon became a mere ring in your ears.

You slowly brought your line of sight towards the heart rate monitor beside your mother’s bed and that’s when you saw it. The painful straight line with no spikes going up or down.

That’s when you knew, she was gone.

No. This can’t be real. This is just a dream. Wake up Y/N. Pinch yourself. Slap yourself. Do whatever it is to wake yourself up from this nightmare!

And yet, you’re still there in your dad’s arms listening to the nurse who wrote down the words you never hoped to hear.

“Patient is Jeong Hyemin. Time of death, 2143hrs.”

All the more you cried harder against your father’s chest. You were broken. Completely and utterly broken. Your mother left you before you could even say goodbye. She left before you could even tell her that you love her unconditionally even though you told her that everyday.

As much as your heart hurts, you knew you had to accept it. You knew you had to be strong for your mother. And that was exactly what you did.

The next whole week, you didn’t come to school. You emailed your lecturers personally and told them about your loss. They all sent you their well wishes for you and your dad, to which they excused you from school to attend your mother’s funeral. It broke you but you couldn’t collapse just then.

Your mother would want you to be happy, to continue living a wonderful life, with or without her. And that’s exactly what you were gonna do.

The next two weeks came as a blur and you were dreading for the day to finally arrive. You couldn’t bring yourself to look in the mirror and see what you looked like. Because at that very moment, you were in an item of clothing where you never thought you would wear anytime soon.

It was a wedding dress. Your wedding dress. It has finally come to this.

Your makeup stylist did a few touch ups to your eyeshadow whilst another lady adjusted the bow on your waist that separates your laced top with your beautiful silk gown that drops to the floor elegantly behind you.

If you were being honest, you had hoped for this very day to come when you would walk down the aisle with your arm linked with your dad’s while your mother stood at the front row, watching you proudly. Witnessing you entering a new life with your chosen partner whom you’d love with all your heart.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the case for you and it hurts you. But you kept telling yourself the same thing over and over again.

“I have to stay strong.”

That was the last thing you mumbled to yourself as you left the bride’s room, only to head towards the outdoor wedding ceremony where your parents had already booked an incredibly beautiful mansion located at the highest hills of the city.

It was a small ceremony with only your family and his, and very close relatives of both sides but that was it. None of your friends were there but you already told them about today.

Little did you know, his friends knew about it too.

You were approaching the outdoor garden where everyone was waiting for you when all of a sudden, your emotions started swirling in you.

A tear rolled down your cheek the minute you saw your dad standing at the doorway which leads you directly down the aisle. Your dad gave you a soft smile before cupping your face and kissing your forehead. He wiped the tear away with his thumb as he whispered, “You look so beautiful, sweetheart. I’m sure your mother would be so happy to see you like this.”

With that, you had to force your tears back, swallowing them as you nodded before linking your arm with his.

The song started playing and soon, both of you began to walk down the aisle. The first thing you saw was Sangyeon standing at the foot of the platform. He was wearing a navy blue tuxedo, looking quite handsome if you were being completely honest.

But the frown on his face was evident enough for you to know that he didn’t like this as much as you didn’t like this either.

Once you were standing just two feet away, you turned to your dad who kissed you again on the forehead before putting your hand in Sangyeon’s outstretched ones. After your dad left your side, Sangyeon guided you up the steps carefully.

His touch was soft, almost as if he wasn’t touching you at all. Minutes went by and right after you’ve both said your vows, it was time for the exchange of rings and sealing the deal with a kiss but of course, neither of you agreed to it. So when you were officially announced as husband and wife, you both looked at each other with a familiarity in your eyes which screamed “I hate all of this”.

Sangyeon lets out a soft groan before planting a chaste kiss to your temple, pulling away as soon as he kisses.

Both of you walked back down the aisle and once you were in the mansion, it took you less than a second to walk away from him and make your way straight to the bride’s makeup room.

Sangyeon didn’t bother to call for you as he too made his way to the common room, wanting to be as far away from you as possible. He hated every single minute of this. He never wanted this. But he was being forced to. And he doesn’t even know why.

When he heard from his parents that you accepted the arranged marriage, it baffled him.

You were both so adamant on rejecting this whole fiasco during that night of the dinner so what changed your mind?

That was a question he could never solve.

Days became weeks and you had moved into the new home that his parents and yours bought for Sangyeon and you to live in. It was a beautiful one story home that had 3 bedrooms, one study room, one living room and a backyard complete with a swimming pool. You were thankful for the home but you didn’t think it was necessary considering the state that you and Sangyeon were being put in.

Nevertheless, you didn’t want to disappoint the elders. Hence the reason why you moved in with Sangyeon without a single argument with your dad and in-laws.

Unfortunately, the fact that you two were now living under the same roof, it was quite expected of you to end up fighting over the smallest little things. If being within radius of each other on campus brought unnecessary snickers and curses to one another, living under the same roof only heightened those said things by 80%.

There wasn’t a day where you could walk around the house peacefully unless the other wasn't home.

It has been 8 weeks since you lived there with him. Despite the constant fights and heated arguments that the two of you often get into, none of it leads to the other doing unfaithful things behind each other’s back.

Before the marriage, it was quite clear that you weren’t in any sort of relationship with anyone nor were you the kind to sleep around with strangers you just met at a club or parties. Whereas, Sangyeon on the other hand was completely that, except he too was single. He tends to sleep around with girls he met at a party or the clubs he went to.

But never did he actually pursue any of his one night stands because he simply didn’t feel that way for them.

However, when he got married to you despite being against it, he made a promise to himself that he should not do all those things to you even if he doesn’t love you. Because he knows that it’s wrong and that he despises people who cheat on their partners.

For that, he told himself not to be that monster.

And he didn’t. Thankfully.

But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t storm out of the house after an argument just to get fresh air and be away from you at that very moment.

This goes both ways as sometimes, you would do the same if you couldn’t stand being in radius of him.

But tonight was different.

You were just washing the dishes when the front door opened to reveal a very drained Sangyeon who had just gotten back from the gym.

He strolled through down the hallway with his duffle bag strap resting on his right shoulder, the wet patches on his grey tank top sticking to his torso, black track shorts resting on his hips. His hair was slicked back from being drenched in sweat.

You spared him a quick glance over your shoulder before you turned back to the dirty dishes. Unfortunately for you, he caught you glancing just in time.

He walked past you to go to the fridge after putting his bag down on the floor, opening it and immediately grabbing the bottle of iced water sitting there patiently for him to take it. He downed half the bottle in less than 5 seconds, only to hear him let out a satisfied sigh right after.

You remained quiet as he looked at you for a moment, a small part of him wanted to ask you if you’ve eaten but a bigger part of him, more so his ego, was telling him to walk away.

For some reason, he decided to go with the former. Something he hasn’t been doing all these years.

“Had your dinner yet?” He asked, making you turn off the tap after setting down the clean dish onto the rack above your head before turning to him with a slight confusion on your face.

“Mhm. You?”

“Not yet.” He said as he leaned his hip against the counter top.

“What do you feel like eating?” You asked, wiping your hands dry with the towel hanging off the hook on the wall.

“I kind of have the feel for kimchi fried rice… I’ll just make do with what is there in the fridge. No worries.” Sangyeon said with a soft smile on his face before he left to take a long shower. Something he always did when he had a lot going on in his mind.

The minute he left, you stared at his descending back for a minute before turning back with a confused frown on your face.

Sangyeon was in the shower for almost 20 minutes. Taking a warm bath to calm his tensed muscles due to the intense workout he did with Juyeon and Hyunjae earlier. After his stress relieving bath, Sangyeon changed into a pair of sweatpants and his oversized shirt he normally uses to sleep.

He towel dried his hair, leaving it in an utter mess on his head with no care whatsoever.

He simply brushed through his wet locks with his fingers haphazardly before leaving his bedroom toilet. Sangyeon and you weren’t sharing bedrooms. It was just a mutual agreement right from the first night together.

You took the master bedroom in this house while he took the second bedroom.

Sangyeon was just walking down the hall, scratching the back of his head randomly when he caught a strong whiff of something delicious filling his nostrils.

“What the?” He whispered to himself as he cautiously made his way closer to the end of the hall. The minute he made a right turn, that’s when he saw you scooping out the contents of the pan into a clean plate. To his surprise, it was the exact dish he told you he was planning to cook earlier.

He finally stepped out of the shadows, only to startle you.

You flinched but that was it.

“Hey… I figured you’d be too tired to cook so I made it for you. Just leave the plate in the sink after you’re done. I’ll wash it later.” You pressed your lips into a small little smile before placing the dish on the kitchen island together with a spoon.

Right when you were about to leave the kitchen, his voice stopped you from walking any further only to hear him whisper a soft “thank you” to you.

You gave him a nod and soon left.

Sangyeon stares at your descending back before you disappear from his trail of sight, only to then tilt his head in amusement at your sudden kind act. For some reason, he found himself smiling as he took a mouthful of your delicious fried rice.

Another 3 weeks went by and you had just gotten back from your night study session with Lisa and Jennie, only to find Sangyeon slumped on the couch. He had his face buried in his hands as he looked like he hadn’t slept for days.

You frowned as you locked the door and soon went over to stand behind the long couch, diagonally from the couch he was sitting at.

“Rough day?” You asked quietly, but all you got was silence so you tried again.

“Have you eaten?”

Silence.

“Do you want anything to eat?”

Silence.

“Sangyeon, even if you hate me, at least say yes or no so I can-” And that’s when he bursts.

“Shut the fuck up!” Sangyeon yelled as he glared at you. His nostrils flared upon every heavy breath he took. You were stunned by his harsh tone, clearly not wanting any argument when you first asked the question.

“Excuse me?” You asked with a tone that was pretty obvious to anyone that you were clearly offended by his words.

“Didn’t you hear me?! I said shut the fuck up!” Sangyeon stood tall, his face red as you could only imagine he was stressed about something. A scoff left your lips, feeling the anger seeping through your skin with every word he said to you.

“Why? Why do you want me to shut the fuck up so badly?!” You asked as you stared at him with mixed emotions.

“God, you’re so fucking annoying!” Sangyeon growled as he began to storm off but you stopped him by grabbing his wrist.

“Answer my fucking question, Lee Sangyeon! I was just being nice and caring about your well being and all I got was to shut up? You’re a fucking asshole you know that?” You said, your words filled with venom as he gritted his teeth, jaw clenching tight.

“Who taught you to be such a brat? Your mother?” Sangyeon accidentally blurted that out of sheer anger. Your grip around his wrist left and the next thing he knew, your eyes were glossy from the tears threatening to fall.

“Don’t bring my mother into this.” You warned but he was still fuming with anger.

“Why? Why can’t I?! She’s the only reason why we’re in this stupid marriage anyway!”

You didn’t know what ran through your mind but the minute those words left his mouth, you couldn’t help but swing your hand onto his cheek. This shocked him to a certain extent as he simply glared at you but never did anything to hurt you physically.

“Do you know why I accepted the marriage proposal? Do you wanna know why I decided to walk down that fucking aisle and have myself being called as your official wife?! Well here’s the reason why. I promised my mom I would.” You paused as he remained quiet. You could almost see the cogs turning in his brain as though trying to process your words.

“My mom died wanting me to marry you. She told me she wanted to see me walk down the aisle one day and into your arms. Until now, I don’t understand why she specifically wants it to be you, but that’s what she wanted. So I promised her that she would be there for when that day comes. But she left me before she could even witness that for herself. She left before I could even say goodbye. It broke me. It fucking broke me Sangyeon! That’s why I chose to accept the proposal even when…”

You stopped for a moment, not realizing that you had been crying until you tasted salty tears on your lips.

“...even when I didn’t love you. I did it because I made a promise to her. I don’t want to let her down, Sangyeon.... I never wanted any of this to happen. And I know you feel the same so I’m sorry.” Those were the last things you said to him before going to your bedroom and locking yourself in there.

Sangyeon was left standing there, feeling completely shitty with what he said to you earlier. He never meant to hurt your feelings. He should’ve known better not to mention your mom but he only said that out of pure anger.

He knows it’s his fault but his ego was too high for him to simply give in to his mistake.

He was about to just brush this off when he heard the door click and soon, you were seen leaving your bedroom with a cross body purse on you. You didn’t give him the chance to speak as you just left the house with a soft slam of your front door. He watched as you took your white mini cooper and drove out of the driveway.

“Sweetie, why don’t you want to accept the proposal?” Your mother asked weakly as you sat on the chair beside her hospital bed.

“Mom, you know I don’t love him. We’ve been fighting since we were kids. I don’t see why I should marry someone who I don’t love.”

“Oh sweetie, you can only learn to love by loving.”

“Mom, that’s just fairy tale talk.”

“Do you wanna know something?” She asked as you stared at her quietly while you caressed the back of her hand with your thumbs as he took this silence to continue.

“Your father and I weren’t on good terms too when we first met each other. We always fought in high school and it went on for quite a while until Mrs Lee set me up on this blind date and it was with your father. At first we found it ridiculous, but after that first date, I realized that maybe your father wasn’t as bad as I thought. And so, we started to slowly understand the process of loving someone and soon enough, we fell in love. Love doesn’t always come to you directly. Sometimes, you need to find it yourself.”

She paused, studying your facial expressions carefully to make sure you weren’t angry or about to burst at her for the next thing she was planning to say.

“Can you promise me something sweetie?”

“Anything… Anything at all mom.” You said with a glint of hope in your eyes.

“Can you promise me that you’ll marry Mrs Lee’s son? I don’t care when. Just… as long as it’s him. Even if I’m not around anymore...”

“Mom-”

“Please? For me?”

Your heart broke hearing her pleading voice. You don’t understand why she was so persistent in you marrying him but for now, you couldn’t bear to say no. You couldn’t bear to break her heart. So, with a heavy heart, you chose your mother’s happiness before yours.

“Okay mom… I promise. But you have to promise me too that you’ll be fine and that you’ll come back to me and dad, okay?”

“I promise, sweetheart. I love you so much.” She said.

“I love you too mom.”

That night when you came back to your old house, your dad greeted you at the door with a shocked look on his face. He asked you why you were there at such a late time so you explained to him that you got into a big fight with Sangyeon and that you wanted to stay there for the next few days. Of course your father was happy that he would finally have someone in the house with him, but he was also worried that Sangyeon would be concerned over you.

You told him not to tell Sangyeon anything and that you wanted time away from him for now, in which your dad just nodded understandingly. The next few days, you spent your days diligently avoiding Sangyeon as much as you can despite being in the same campus. Lucky for you, he had very different schedules than you.

Which means, better chance for you to avoid him and not accidentally bump into him on campus grounds. And so far, your plan is working.

It’s been at least 3 weeks since you last went home to your shared place with him and you were starting to run low on your clothing supply back at your old house. Which means, you probably had no choice but to go back there now.

In all honesty, you weren’t mad at him anymore.

You were just too stubborn to face him after that argument. But it looks like you have no other choice now.

Hence, the reason why you were currently standing outside your doorstep at 8pm, noticing the vehicles parked outside your gates. By the looks of it, those probably belonged to his friends. And you were right. Because the minute you unlocked the door, you were immediately greeted by the chattering and laughter coming from the living room.

You walked in further, carefully after taking off your shoes and placing them in the shoe rack. Right when you had just made it by the end of the hallway and the living room was in full view, that’s where you saw the 6 figures scattered around the room.

The TV was playing a movie while the coffee table was filled with boxes of pizzas and other snacks for them to munch on.

Before you could speak up, two of them noticed your presence, making the blonde haired one to say hi, “Oh, hi Y/N.”

With that, the rest of them finally turned around upon hearing their friend greet you. Sangyeon, who was standing right in front of the TV, checking the cables, whipped his head around only to lock eyes with you. He froze in his spot, unsure if this was real considering you’ve been avoiding him like a plague the past 3 weeks.

“Y/N…” Was the only thing he managed to whisper under his breath as you awkwardly chuckled, hoping you didn’t create an unsettling atmosphere for them.

“Hey…” You whispered as he carefully made his way to you. The moment he was standing right in front of you, neither of you spoke. Both of you are afraid of saying the wrong thing which could potentially lead to another argument. But Sangyeon was smart enough to know not to make unnecessary comments to you after what happened the last time. So instead, he opted for an apology.

“Listen, about that night… I- I’m really sorry… I didn’t... I didn’t know.”

You could only give him a small smile that he could clearly see was weak and almost drained as you spoke up, “It’s okay. Anyways… I think I’m gonna rest.”

He simply nodded, resisting the urge to pull you into a hug and tell you how sorry he was for treating you like crap all these while. These past 3 weeks have made him realise that he wasn’t the nicest of people to you, that he said a lot of things that had definitely hurt you in the past, that he has been nothing but mean to you.

Upon hearing your bedroom door close, Sangyeon lets out a defeated sigh before walking back to his friends who then asked him if everything was okay. After he told them that everything was indeed okay, he plopped back down on the couch but it seemed to worry his friends seeing how sad Sangyeon looked at the moment.

Whenever he was with them, he has always been the goofy, savage, often picking on the others to get a reaction out of them, kind of guy. They’ve never properly seen this softer side of him.

It’s been nearly an hour since you came home and yet, he hasn’t caught a single glimpse of you anywhere. He got worried for you, not knowing whether you’ve eaten or not. So he decided to check on you. He got up from the ground to excuse himself, telling them to just continue what they were doing.

When he arrived at your supposedly shared bedroom, he found you seated on the window couch just staring into the night sky. However, before he could even knock on the door and push it wider, he heard soft sobs from you that gradually grew louder. He stayed by the door and unintentionally listened to your whispers.

“I miss you mum… I’m sorry if I couldn’t live up to my promise just like you wanted me to. I know I’m not the best wife to him, but I’m trying… I’m trying… for you. I wish you were still here beside me. To guide me on how to be a good wife. To love someone without feeling trapped. To love someone the way you and dad loves me. I’m so sorry mum… I’m so truly sorry…”

Sangyeon’s heart shattered into a million pieces for you. That’s when he realized that his feelings for you had changed. That all he wanted to do right at this very moment was to protect you. You were broken, fragile and yet, he’s been treating you horribly all these while.

He couldn’t take it any longer. With that being said, he carefully and quietly made his way to you. Not making a sound as you had your head buried in your knees, cries getting louder the closer he came to you. However, when you felt his soft hands caress the sides of your arms, you looked up. Your eyes glistened under the moonlight, your cheeks soaked with your freshly falling tears.

At that moment, you looked so vulnerable.

So when he pulled you into his embrace, you easily let him. Burying your face into his chest as he gently rubs circles onto your back, caressing your head comfortingly.

After a few seconds of silence, you finally whispered against his chest. Just loud enough for him to hear, but soft enough that nobody standing outside the door could hear.

“I miss her Sangyeon…”

Sangyeon wasn’t sure how to respond to your confession but he tried as best as he could to make you feel better.

“And I know that she misses you too. But it’s okay, she will always be with you. You’ll be okay… I promise.” He whispered and almost immediately, you pulled back as he frowned in confusion.

“You shouldn’t promise me anything…” You said, your tears slowly getting lesser and lesser by the minute.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because the last time someone made me a promise, they promised me that they’ll be okay and that they’ll never leave me… And yet she did...” Your voice hushed. He could tell that that was your trauma. Making promises.

He felt a tear threatening to roll down his cheek but he managed to hold back. Sangyeon softly reached up to cup your face and caress your cheeks with both thumbs before he spoke up, “I’m sorry she did. I’m sorry that promise got broken. But it’s not her fault. You know it wasn’t. So let me make a promise to you now and this time, it won’t be broken.”

With that being said, you cried even harder as he just pulled you against his chest almost cradling you like a child. After almost 20 minutes in the room, he finally let go of your fragile figure and asked if you wanted to eat.

You told him you weren’t hungry and that you just wanted to rest. Sangyeon nodded, bringing you to the bed as he carefully tucked you in to make you cosy. He was about to leave you alone when you grabbed his wrists. Sangyeon turned around with such a soft gaze on you, it nearly melted you.

“Where are you going?” You asked with a soft voice, almost shy. Sangyeon found it so endearing that he couldn’t help but chuckle softly.

“I’m gonna go back to the boys and maybe call it a night early.” He smiled, to which you felt his other hand come to wrap its fingers around your extended wrist, gently pulling it away before caressing the back of your wrist with his thumb.

“Can you come back after… please?” You whispered as you saw him smile again before putting your hand down on the mattress softly.

“I will.”

Soon enough, Sangyeon left you in the room to rest for a bit while he went back to his friends and relayed the message to them. Thankfully, the boys were very understanding. They told Sangyeon to send their well wishes to you in which he definitely would. After they left, Sangyeon went ahead and cleared the leftover trash.

Silently thanking the boys for cleaning most of the mess up before he even came back into the living room. He was almost done cleaning, not forgetting to brush his teeth before going back to your room only to find you already asleep with your back facing the door.

Sangyeon couldn’t help but smile as he closed the door behind him and soon made his way quietly to the other side of the room.

He carefully pulled the duvet up, climbing into bed after putting the duvet back down.

He very gently lifted your head up to let his right arm slide under your neck as a pillow, proceeding to pull your body closer against his chest. Once you were both in a comfortable position, he gently wrapped his other hand around your waist. Caressing your side in a comforting manner.

“Goodnight Y/N.” He whispered as he soon drifted off into slumber.

Ever since then, both of you had stopped the constant arguments. You weren’t always annoyed by every little thing the other did. In school, when you’d accidentally bump into one another, either one would smile and acknowledge the other. Some people who witnessed this, found it strange but your close friends didn’t.

It’s been a good 4 months since you’d reconciled with Sangyeon. Though there were disagreements at times, those arguments would however, be resolved as quickly as it came.

But one thing’s for sure, is that during the past 4 months, you and Sangyeon had slowly found yourselves falling for each other. Neither of you said it out loud, but apparently those around you could visibly tell. Especially your friends.

It was a Thursday afternoon, you and the girls were just walking to the lunch hall when Lisa spotted Sangyeon and his friends just walking down the main building. It seems like they were heading towards the lunch hall as well. With that being said, Lisa called out to Sangyeon’s name, causing him and the rest to turn.

The minute Sangyeon’s eyes locked on Lisa’s and then on you, his gaze softened as you saw the corner of his lips curving upwards into a cute smirk.

They stopped walking to let you girls catch up and once you did, Lisa immediately went to Juyeon and began talking to him casually. The other girls went to walk with the rest while you came to a quick stop beside Sangyeon before you continued walking with the others ahead of you.

“How was class?” He asked, his arm accidentally brushing against yours as you walked further down the building.

“Horrible. Can you believe he wants us to submit 10 codes by the end of this week? I swear that man wants me dead.” You groaned in annoyance, only to hear him chuckle. But what he said next, caught you by surprise.

“But I don’t want you dead.”

With that, you turned to him as a small smile appeared on your face despite the frown you had. Both of you walked in silence, just basking in the conversations of your friends when you felt a soft tickling feeling on your fingers.

You glanced down to see that his hand was playfully brushing against your fingers, making you look up to catch him already staring at you.

Sangyeon smiled at you innocently, not sure if he wanted to say anything else until he felt you slide your hand into his, lacing your fingers with his easily. Now it was his turn to look down and then back up at you. All he did was chuckle, a sound you could definitely get used to.

A week passed and it was finally the weekend. You and Sangyeon didn’t have anything planned for the day.

Or at least you thought.

You were just lounging on the couch on a beautiful Saturday evening when Sangyeon came over to plop down beside you with a cheeky smile on his face.

“You’re oddly happy? What’s going on?” You asked with a raise of your eyebrow.

“I have a surprise for you but you have to go get ready okay?”

“Get ready? It’s already 7 o’clock. Where can we go?” You asked but all you got was a soft whine from him telling you to just do it. You opted to listen as he reminded you to wear prettily. You weren’t sure where you were going so you didn’t want to either overdress or underdress.

So you opted for simple denim skinny jeans, a baby blue sleeveless top, a white long knit cardigan and a pair of beige chunky heeled sandals.

When you left your shared bedroom to go to the living room, you were surprised to see him dressed handsomely in his black skinny jeans, a white button down shirt with the first few buttons undone, along with a navy blue bomber jacket. You saw him look at your outfit from head to toe, only for him to smirk playfully at you.

“Damn, who knew my wife could look this beautiful?” Sangyeon teased, making you giggle.

“Sangyeon, I literally wear jeans everyday.”

“Exactly.”

When you realized what he was trying to say, you soon found yourself blushing as you walked over to him and gently slapped his chest with your hand. Urging him to go before you slapped that cute smirk off his face.

Sangyeon couldn’t help but laugh but nonetheless left the house in his matte black Bentley. You watched as he drove down the street, bringing you to a part of the city where you don’t remember going to before in your life. The car ride was filled with jokes and laughter coming from both of you. He distracted you too much to the point where you didn’t even notice you were already at the location he wanted to bring you.

You looked out the window and that’s when you realize, “Is this an outdoor cinema?” You gasped when you saw the open field with a large screen at the centre, along with the endless rows of couples seated on their own blankets with snacks and drinks of their preferences.

“Sangyeon… This is…” You were speechless and he could see.

He chuckled as he just stared at you with such endearment in his eyes. Some people would just call it love.

“It’s wonderful.” You finally got to finish your sentence, turning to him with a smile.

“I’m glad you think so. Now let’s go! The movie’s about to start.”

Two hours had passed and you were now a few minutes in of the second movie. You noticed some couples were starting to get comfortable on their blankets. You were starting to get tired just sitting up straight and Sangyeon noticed your subtle shifts, desperate to find a comfortable sitting position.

“Hey, you okay?” He asked quietly.

“Yeah. I’m okay, just a little tired from sitting up.” You explained with a bashful little smile. Just then, Sangyeon thought of an idea that was completely beyond your imagination.

Hence, when he patted the space in between his legs, you glanced down and then back at him who was seen smiling softly to you. None of it was making you feel creeped out. In fact, you felt safe and that you could trust him. After all, he was your husband anyways. Of course you trust him.

“Come here.” He said as he stared at you calmly. He wasn’t sure if you were entirely up for this but before he could take his words back, that’s when he saw you carefully crawling towards the space he patted earlier.

Once you were seated in front of him, Sangyeon scooted forward a little before he slid his arms around your waist.

He soon pulled you against his chest, before he whispered in your ear, “Comfortable?”

You turned your head to look at him but instead got slightly flustered by the close proximity that led you to feeling his lips accidentally brush against your own. You got quiet for a moment, praying that he didn’t hear the way your heart was pounding against your chest.

You couldn’t trust your voice so you opted for a soft hum to answer his question. The next few minutes, you found yourself getting more and more comfortable in his arms, putting your hands on top of his forearms as you unconsciously caressed his skin in a calming manner. All the while, Sangyeon was behind you, completely distracted from the movie in front of him.

Instead, his mind was fuzzy with how close you were to him at that very moment. This was something he never thought would happen back when he was still young.

But now that he was here with you, just cuddling at an outdoor movie theatre, he couldn’t help but want more of this. Sangyeon found himself smiling as he couldn’t help but give your sides a gentle squeeze, telling you that he was there with you and that he would never leave you.

Thankfully, you got the silent message.

Because right after he did that, you turned your head to look at him. His eyes held the galaxy. You found yourself getting lost in his eyes.

Both of you were silent but it wasn’t awkward. You didn’t know what came over you but a sense of confidence washes over you. With that being said, you carefully leaned forward to close the gap and soon pressed your lips on his.

To say he was taken aback slightly, is definitely an understatement.

But it took him less than 3 seconds to finally move his lips against yours in a smooth rhythm. You brought your right hand up to gently cup his face as you kissed him.

Sangyeon tightens his hold on you, pulling away from the kiss only to look into your eyes with such adoration. He wasn’t sure if now was the right time to express his feelings for you, but he thought, what was there to lose. So with that thinking, Sangyeon took a small breath before he uttered the 3 words he never thought he’d say to you but he did. And every single word he said at that moment, was as sincere as ever.

“I love you.”

You couldn’t help but smile softly at him before you kissed him again in a longing kiss before pulling away and replying to him with the exact emotions you felt for him genuinely.

“I love you too, Sangyeon.”

~~~

[emsvegetables]

24th: kuroo will forever think that it’s always you.

- it’s a little thing that he just can’t seem to push out of his mind. he just can’t stop thinking about the fact that it’s always been you.

no. of words: 1.6k ++??

okay hi yes. this was ALSO pure word vomit. but this was my favourite to write so far! can u tell that i love him??????? yes okay thx bye <333 i hope u like this :)

maybe it’s always been hidden deep in the back of his mind, but kuroo only recently realised that all this time, it’s always been you.

it’s a random series of events that fall perfectly into place and compete the puzzle in kuroo’s brain, the little puzzle about the fact that it has always been you.

it doesn’t matter what else he tries to think, what else he tries to do, because you’re always going to show up in his brain no matter what, you’re always on his mind, and you’re always his top priority in everything.

-

one of the pieces takes place when you guys are young. “why is she always here?” he complains one day when he’s about to practice volleyball with kenma, and spots you skipping over to greet them. kenma simply pushes his hair behind his ear, and nods at you when you wave at him from afar.

“because she’s our neighbour. also, we’re friends with her, kuroo, you like her, and so do i. what’s wrong with her being here?” kenma asks, and kuroo blinks.

yeah. why did he suddenly complain about your presence? he liked you. you were fun. you were nice. you were helpful. what was wrong with him? why did he suddenly say that?

“no reason,” kuroo says, shrugging his shoulders, “i was just wondering.”

kenma nods, and turns to greet you as you near them.

“hey, kuroo!” you say after you greet kenma, and kuroo grins, before tossing the ball to you, “hey, (Y/N).”

-

another one of the pieces takes place in middle school, and one of kuroo’s friends tap him on the shoulder when he catches kuroo’s lingering gaze during lunch one day.

“what are you looking at, kuroo?” he demands, looking at where kuroo was looking to see what he was looking at, “you’re supposed to be focusing on our volleyball game!”

kuroo startles, and laughs apologetically, “my bad, my bad.”

his friend frowns slightly, dropping the ball to the floor and continuing his stare at where kuroo was looking at, “are you looking at (Y/N) again?”

“again?” kuroo raises an eyebrow, and picks up the volleyball to start spinning it in his hand, and his friend nods.

“yeah! you’re always looking at her—“ his friend trails off slightly, before grinning widely at kuroo, “no way, do you like her or something?”

kuroo blinks.

“of course i like her,” kuroo says firmly, “she’s my childhood best friend! why would i not like her? what do you mean?”

his friend sticks out his tongue, “whatever. you’ve just been staring at her a lot.”

kuroo laughs, and looks over at you again, watching you play tag with your group of girl friends, and twitches his leg slightly when he watches you trip over air, and sighs slightly when you catch yourself as quickly as you tripped.

“(Y/N)‘s clumsy and kind of reckless. i’m just looking at her to make sure she doesn’t injure herself.”

“oh.” his friend says, “okay. whatever! back to volleyball!”

kuroo nods, tossing the ball towards his friend again, but his attention doesn’t stray from you, in case you actually do trip and fall over.

-

another one of the many pieces now take place in high school. by some miraculous reason, you’ve somehow been convinced by kuroo to join the volleyball team as team manager. and because you have to suffer in this hell, you supported kuroo in convincing kenma to join the volleyball team to suffer in this hell with you.

yaku and kai are talking to kuroo one day about the team’s performance when you walk in, laden with waterbottles on one hand and carrying your clipboard on the other.

kuroo instantly walks away from the both of them mid-conversation, and strides towards you, and yaku raises his eyebrows in disbelief and prods kai, “did he just walk away from us? where’s he even walking to? we haven’t even finished our conversation?”

kai lets out a laugh, and points to you, and yaku’s raised eyebrows return back to their original position when he spots you.

“ah.” yaku merely says, and folds his arms and falls silent.

you smile when you hear kuroo call out your name and turn to greet him, and you scrunch your brows together when he reaches forward to carry off all the waterbottles from your arms.

“oi,” you frown, and glare up at him, “i can carry them by myself.”

“yes ma’am,” he shoots you a salute, “but im not going to let you.”

“i’m more than capable of carrying it myself, kuroo,” you say, and try to reach forward to take them back, but kuroo merely raises them beyond your reach, grinning at you when you fail to take them back, and you wrinkle your nose in distaste.

“i know, i know,” he grins, “i’m just helping you.”

“you always help me,” you huff, “but i’m the manager, i should be carrying this. it’s my job, kuroo.”

kuroo laughs, and reaches out a hand to ruffle your hair, “i know, (Y/N), just let me help out once in a while and just say thank you.”

you sigh, before smiling up at him, “yeah, okay, thanks, kuroo.”

he ignores the clenching he feels in his chest when he stares down at your smile, and grins back at you.

“he always helps her carry her things, poor (Y/N), kuroo’s always bothering her,” yaku notes, and kai laughs.

-

then comes the time the pieces finally fit.

kuroo’s out with a girl, and he’s nervous as hell. this was his first date in forever, and he didn’t want to mess up his chances in finally getting with someone.

the girl’s pretty. so very pretty.

he tries his best to hide it, but he’s fiddling with his fingers underneath his table while he engages in casual conversation with the girl.

the girl smiles, and kuroo blinks.

for some reason, when she smiled, all he could think of was how you smiled at him. your smile was very different from hers. in an instant, he feels bad, because how can he compare you against others? how can he compare people against others? but he can’t stop thinking about how the girl’s smile was poised and a little stiff, and he can’t stop thinking about your genuine and sincere one.

“kuroo?” the girl says, and kuroo blinks again, before laughing nervously, “right, sorry, i drifted away for a second.”

the girl laughs, “don’t worry about that.”

and again, kuroo can’t help but think about how different your laugh is compared to the girl. the girl’s laugh was sweet, sure, but for some reason, only your laugh makes his chest feel warm.

“okay,” kuroo smiles, “should we get to ordering?”

the girl nods, and kuroo frowns when he hears the girl tell the waiter her order.

“aren’t you ordering the vanilla crepe cake?” he asks when the waiter leaves and the girl shoots him a questioning look when she notices the frown on his face.

the girl shakes her head, and laughs, “why would i? i don’t like crepe cakes or vanilla at all.”

kuroo frowns.

why did he suddenly think of a vanilla crepe cake? then he remembers. you like vanilla crepe cake. why was he thinking of your order when the girl was ordering?

“hey, kuroo, who’s (Y/N)?” the girl asks while kuroo’s trying to drink his coffee. kuroo chokes slightly, and raises an eyebrow.

“what? why are you asking? (Y/N)’s one of my best friends,” he says, resuming his drink if his coffee.

“oh, you keep mention their name, i was just wondering because all of your stories always involve them,” the girl says, and kuroo raises an eyebrow.

“i did?” he asks, and the girl nods fervently.

“yeah! is he nice?”

“he?” kuroo laughs, “(Y/N)‘s a girl, what are you talking about?”

the girl merely opens her mouth and smiles again. kuroo pretends not to notice the way her smile has become colder considerably, and the way she looks away disinterestedly when kuroo tries to engage her in conversation again.

the date doesn’t go well after that.

when the girl gives him a frosty goodbye when they part at the train station, kuroo sighs. he managed to muck up the first date he had in ages, big surprise.

his phone buzzes in his pocket then, and he grins when he sees your name light up on the screen.

“hey,” he says, when he presses the phone against his ear.

“hey!” you say cheerfully, and for some reason, his heart starts to quicken again his chest, but kuroo ignores that and waits for you to continue your sentence, “how was your date?”

kuroo sighs, “it was shit.”

“oh,” you say, “do you want to come over? i have some ice cream and we can binge watch some movies if you want to.”

kuroo smiles, “yeah, of course.”

-

your laugh during the movie is what clues him in.

it hits him in his heart, and causes it to clench just slightly when he hears it.

when he turns to look at you, his heart clenches even further when he sees the smile on your face as you continue to watch the movie.

he always thought you were pretty.

you laugh again, and kuroo’s breath hitches slightly when it finally hits him.

when did he start to feel this way towards you? when did he start to like you? when has he ever not thought of you?

it’s always been like this, a soft voice in his brain tells him, you’ve always been in love with her.

“kuroo? what’s in your mind?” you ask, and kuroo blinks when he realised that he’s still staring at you, and you’re looking at him with concern present on your face.

kuroo sucks in a deep breath, and smiles.

“what’s on your mind?” you ask again, raising a brow, and kuroo laughs.

“you.”

“me?” you ask, and kuroo’s still smiling at you even when you raise your brows higher.

“yeah,” he says, the smile becoming just a little wider, “hey, if i say something, promise not to freak out, okay?”

you laugh, “of course.”

“i think i’m in love with you,” he finally admits after a short pause, and you don’t know it, but he’s fiddling with his hands behind the back, waiting nervously for your answer.

you blink, and kuroo stiffens slightly.

“ha!” and when you laugh, kuroo freezes up.

“ha? what’s that supposed to mean?” kuroo asks, and blinks when you let out another laugh.

“i meant ha as in ha! you finally realised,” you say, and kuroo blinks again.

“realised what?”

“kuroo, you’re really smart in class, but you’re super dumb right now,” you laugh, before smiling at him brightly, “i think i’m in love with you too.”

and when you lean forward to kiss him, kuroo smiles against the kiss as he kisses you back.

it’s always been you, the voice in his brain whispers when kuroo pulls you closer to wrap his arms around you.

back to my fluffvember masterlist!

general taglist :)

send an ask to be added in :D

@mrs-kuroojinguji @galacticstxrdust @h0rny-m3ss @strawberriimilkshake @lexysclubhouse @alluringeternity @newfriendjen @aam1na @simpinghrs @boosyboo9206 @earl-mint-tea @sachirou-senpai @kuboyasuuu @cotton-hashira @kellesvt @mochipk @ohbois-biggay-bnha @deadontheinsidebut @atsumubabe @wisepandaslimeland @doodleniella @tttournesolll @millie-mint @the-moons-raes @chaosamu @flairlust @l3v1achan @bellesowl @wheeshllumi @karasimpno @sodasketches @dai-tsukki-desu @isentsworld @lavearchives

fluffvember taglist:

send an ask if you only want to be added to this instead of the general taglist!

@omigogames @unicorngluttony @thesecondapplepienation @tsukisemi @tamaguchi @omibaby @psycopath-satan @shibayamasbae @churochuu @crazyrichashea @let-me-have-my-own-name @fo-love @heykoutarou @lovelyrynn @neomuxuxi @haikyuuhopes @bluntkingkuroo @abswrites @ne-kuroo @yadane-bakabaka @song-of-storms162 @lady-snavely @hawksnumberoneuwu @rkives-keiji @llamakenma

i’ll tag those that i couldn’t tag later! this is a scheduled post.

[scrawnytreedemon]

Shit I’ve Been Winding Up For A Long Time Now But Am Very Aware Will Probably Hold No Relevance Should I Actually Go Into This More--

This is about Bhunivelze.

I.

You know, when I was chilling out, on my bed, that evening on that half term in early June, deciding to check up on ClementJ64′s FF retrospective because-- Hey! It’s been awhile, I wonder if he’s got around to doing the final bit of the FFXIII saga --You know, I was there, chilling, just for a laff. Just a laff.

The rest of that week was spent spiralling into a hyperfixation I absolutely did not anticipate in any way, shape, or form, because the way they introduced that character was “wwhdhfjjhHJDFJKHKJHW H A T??”

That retrospective and a good amount of wiki-scrounging is all I have as a basis for this. This is not a coherent character analysis-- Though I might tag it as that for ease of access. This is not, by any means, the thoughts of someone deeply familiar with FFXIII on the whole beyond plot synopses and overarching themes.

I don’t think I’m brave enough for that.

Reading the vast yet surface-deep lore on those wiki pages on my birthday while in a delirious state of mind was enough to make me somewhat nauseous.

Do you think I’m going to go through all of that in real time?

(Someday, someday.)

Ugh, I don’t know how to begin, but let us, I guess. I’d recommend you read this church-mime-demiurge’s FF Wiki page if you want the same level of base-knowledge I had, and maybe the aformentioned retrospective if you want the experience, because I don’t think I have the wherewithal to get into all of that from the bottom-up.

I am also, so, so fucking sorry for any remaining FFXIII fans in advance. There is like, a good chance I may be butchering the characterisation completely, so bear with me here.

With that... we begin?

Where do we even start with this guy?

How on earth to you begin to explain the absolute monolith you’ve constructed from crumbs of a Guy, some material no doubt spliced in from the Pale King, Sephiroth, y o u r  o w n  G o d  O C and other characters, and the mountains of religious trauma you carry around at all times that is probably the only reason you’ve been able to latch on as hard as you did?

I’m going to try.

What gets me, in summary, about Bhunivelze is how he’s a prime example of how love and concern can become deadly forces if in the wrong hands. His first acquainting with human emotion was by deceiving and possessing Hope, reverting his body to a teenage state, and planning to live among humanity through him. He sees human sorrow and suffering, and decides that, to End This(because it must be ended, you see) he’s going to destroy all the souls of the deceased that make up the Chaos that’s been eating this world for the past five-hundred years so they all forget and Are Happy. :).

Capital G God here hasn’t been present for the vast part of human history because he’s hidden himself away from Everything due to paranoia from killing his own mother and throwing her body into the Cosmic Basement, THEN creating the beings that would come to create humanity and OTHER beings because he didn’t have the keys to the cosmic basement. And also he believes death is a thing because she’d’ve somehow cursed all things to pass(including him) out of Spite.

Which explains why he’s so fucking averse to it and anything to do with it.

Bhunivelze, to put it lightly, is Shit at stepping into others’ shoes and Getting their experiences-- All the FalCie in FFXIII are, but him especially. It’s clear(again, in the f u c k i n g JP--) that he makes attempts to sympathise with them and does what he can to help, but it’s with such a loftiness and a complete inability to Understand why anyone would want grief, The Worst Fucking Experience In Existence, and even less why they’d be willing to Go Up Against Him And HisThe New Perfect World just for it-- And what would it matter, anyway, forgetting their loved ones. It’s not like you can grieve lost memories, right?

Right.

It reminds me of when at the end of the story of Job in the Bible, where, after putting this man through hell on earth, God rewards Job by giving him ten new children to make up for the ones that he lost. I. And that’s fucked! Nothing can replace the sheer uniqueness of each individual person you loved so dearly! But if you were a nigh-omnipotent deity high and mighty, with a cursory, almost mechanical knowledge on the functionings of the human psyche, that would seem adequete; enough.

Bhunivelze is doing that on a cosmic level.

I now want to get onto the romance: that being, his affections for Lightning. I don’t know how much I’m going to say, but it’ll probably be alot. It’s something that hits very close to home.

There is this... thing, within certain branches of Christianity, perhaps even in those of various Abrahamic faiths, where God’s love is posited to be the love-- The ultimate, most-fulfilling, all-encompassing love you could ever imagine --Because, well, he is love, so the story goes, and so often the best way to convey that is through the imagery of...

Marriage.

Giving up yourself so completely, to serve, to be the Bride; to be bound by him for all eternity; and for there to be no higher bliss than this.

This angle is pushed on young girls and women the most; from the mere parallels to the woman’s role in marriage, all the way down to downright-horrifying ultra-Evangelical purity pacts. With men, God is your dad, your best bud and confidant, your boss, your king, your this, your that, and the ‘marriage‘ as it were is relegated to a sort of half-thought; a metaphor.

For me, God was an attempt at all that, and my arranged groom.

(It was almost incestuous; was incestuous, that my own Divine Father would reach for my hand in marriage.)

Bhunivelze experiences Emotions™ for the first time through Hope, experiences Hope’s sheer overwhelming admiration for Lighting(whether there were any baby-crush feelings mixed in, I can’t say), and promptly falls into a nigh-romantic obsession with Lightning, deciding that she will be Etro(his all-but daughter)’s replacement, will be his Goddess of Death to-be-- He even calls her as such, before the final boss-battle--

...In the JP.

What happened in localisation, probably due to a number of factors, all the way back in early 2014, was that everything emotionally challenging about Bhunivelze was scraped off, like it was extra fat, and tossed aside, leaving us with the bland, clichéd shell of a foe-god we’ve seen time and time again. And I mean everything. I mean his very love for humanity; the fact his ploy was, in his eyes, to save them. Because if they’d left that all on, then it would raise the question of even if there was such a seemingly pure, all-knowing, loving being hell-bent on setting things “straight,“ would they truly be unquestionable? Would we have the right to fight for our humanity in the face of the Creator of the Universe?

To reject a love so personal?

That’s what gets me about FFXIII’s tackling of God, no matter how hackneyed and poorly-executed. It’s personal.

It’s from a feminine experience.

I know that terming is... vague, and problematic, but the way Christianity and much of the video game industry handle femininity itself is weird and problematic, so as it stands, I’ll have to simplify it. Apologies.

What sets FFXIII’s Let’s Kill God™ plot aside from most JRPG Let’s Kill God™ plots is that with our protagonist being a woman, and one who is very in touch with her femininity alongside her sheer strength; often, in these stories, God is reduced to Yet Another Foe, expected or unexpected, and you are tasked with taking him down unquestioningly for the Good of Mankind-- You will fight God, because you are right to, and you will go man-to-man-to-however-many-men you decide to bring along for the bloodbath.

And that just, doesn’t speak to me.

Even as an Extian.

Especially as an Extian. And an AFAB one with a deeply complicated experience with my gender, at that.

Leaving Christianity was painful. Questioning God was painful. Coming to terms with the fact that I had been mentally, emotionally, and spiritually traumatised under the guise of All-Encompassing Love was so, so fucking painful. I had been taught since I was five years old to devote myself to him, spent my life desperate to feel something, anything, to stay connected because I just, I never could Feel It on a deeper level, never could Give Up Myself, all I was, couldn’t Die A Spiritual Death And Be Reborn As His Eager Vessel, thus deeming myself to be worthless and a broken vessel for years and years on end... And for all that to have been... Nothing.

Lightning is hollowed out, the shards of her dead sister ripped from her in-stasis, leaving her emotionally numb for the majority of the game, Bhunivelze sweeps it under the rug, pretends he’ll perform a miracle and return Serah to life in exchange for her compliance, then sends her on her way to do his work, all the while knowing he’s going to pull said-rug from under her and elevate her such dizzying heights in the aftermath--

That he’ll deny her humanity.

Sand down all the rough edges that make her her, and polish her up afterwards, gild her as he is gilded, make her a Goddess.

And he’ll do it all because he loves her.

You can’t fight God like you can everything else. To fight It is the fight Existence Itself; FFXIII even conveys that by making Bhunivelze’s model part of the arena; it’s baked into the fabric of the game, no matter how minute.

While Lightning Returns is far from perfect in its execution of this concept, and that in itself makes me wince, not even taking into account the horribly botched excuse for a localisation Bhunivelze endured, it speaks to me more than anything else I’ve seen so far.

And it’s helped uncover some things within me. Helped me untangle them, just a little more.

So, yeah. I have alot of Thoughts on Bhunivelze, I want to share them, and I’m kinda really sad I have no one but my currently-absent friend Vee to share them with. I could get into alot more, like his very Fucked relationship with familial bonds, and how Lightning’s role as saviour so deeply parallels the overwhelming panic and never-ending guilt of Evangelical proselytisation, but I think I’ll leave those for another time.

In short, Bhunivelze is the epitome of Divine Love gone deeply wrong; on all fronts.

And if all of that isn’t enough to intrigue you, then, in Vee’s words, Lightning and Velze are literally canon endgame Sefikura lmaOOOOOOOOOOOOOO--

[wienerbarnes]

Much Ado About Nothing (1/6)

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Word Count: 2,726

Warnings: enemies to lovers, talk of wedding and marriage stuff

A/N: enjoy the first part and let me know what u think!

MAIN MASTERLIST | MUCH ADO MASTERLIST

The ride back to New York feels a lot longer than the ride to Croatia, Bucky decides. HYDRA wasn’t kidding around when they said cut one head off and two take its place, whatever. No matter how hard Earth’s Mightiest Heroes try, there’s another facility that pops up at one point or another.

Bucky tries to think positively; they should be off HYDRA duty, if they keep up the consistent schedule of finding a new facility every three or so months, for a bit now.

“What’s the first thing you guys are gonna do when you get back? I’m gonna get some hot chocolate from the little cafeteria in the main building.” Sam hums from the seat directly behind Bucky.

Bucky’s in the passenger while Steve pilots and he gives his own answer at the same time as Steve,

“Shower.”

“Propose to Sharon.”

A small pause for the boys to ensure they heard that correctly.

“Wanna run that by us again, Cap?” Sam pipes up.

“When we land, I’m going to propose to Sharon.” Steve repeats nonchalantly.

“Since when?!” Bucky asks. He knows for a fact that Steve and Sharon adore each other, but Steve has never brought up marriage once in the time he’s dated Sharon, and clearly he hasn’t done so to Sam, either.

“Listen, I know we haven’t been dating long, but I know I love her and I know she loves me, so, what’s the point in waiting?” He explains.

“Is this about what happened earlier, Steve?” Bucky asks, knowing his best friend all too well.

A bomb was in the facility, of course, and Steve and Bucky tried to disarm it while Sam rallied the rest of prisoners out of the building.

Now, while Steve has obtained most of his training through his serum-fueled muscle memory and military experience over the last few decades, he is extremely lucky. Steve has successfully disarmed twenty-nine bombs throughout his Avengers career. Not a single failure. With no bomb training.

So when he cut one of the wires confidently and the timer started ticking faster, it made him nervous. And it made him even more nervous when he clipped a different wire and the time counter automatically set to zero. He froze in shock and was lucky Bucky was able to fling the two of them out a window and away from the direct blast.

“Okay, so, yeah, maybe I got a little scared. But, listen, it’s not a lie that we lead dangerous lives. Why should I hold back on the things I want if I know tomorrow isn’t promised?” Steve defends.

“Steve, you can’t marry a girl because you’re scared of dying!” Bucky exclaims.

“I’m not marrying her for that, Bucky, I love her!”

“I know you love her, but -”

“But?! -”

“Alright, alright, listen,” Sam interrupts their sibling bickering, “If this is what you want, I’m with you 100%, Cap.” Sam reassures.

Steve gives a thankful smile and looks back to Bucky, hoping for the same.

“You know I’m always on board with you, you punk.” Bucky slaps a hand on his shoulder.

“Thanks, guys.”

“Ah, big man’s gonna be engaged!” Sam throws his hands on Steve’s shoulders, jostling his body in the tiny pilot’s seat, and Bucky joins in on the teasing.

“I’m gonna tell everyone to meet in the hangar for when you ask her.” Sam says, pulling out his phone.

“You’re not gonna tell the Geek, are you?” Bucky groans.

“Of course, I’m gonna tell her. I don’t know why you don’t like her, man.”

Bucky rolls his eyes at the thought of the little lab rat. Sharon’s best friend. A young girl, born and raised in New York though thoroughly traveled through your work experience. Been to over fifty countries offering your expertise to combat cyberterrorism and have helped locate some of the hardest-to-find and worst people in the world.

You act like you’re all that just because you’re considered one of the youngest geniuses in the country and one of the greatest hackers in the world as well as the Avengers’ best tech expert of all time.

Whatever, big whoop, Bucky could care less.

As the jet lands, hugs and cheers are exchanged as the group of friends reacquaint themselves once again after a long mission. After greeting everyone, Bucky hangs on the outskirts of the group, waiting to see how Steve is going to pop his big question.

“C’mon, punk, don’t lose your courage.” Bucky talks to himself.

“I don’t know if you noticed, Bucky, but no one’s listening to you. You can stop talking.” Your voice pipes up next to him.

“Oh, hey, Little Miss Geeky, don’t you have some codes to hack, or something?” He bites at you.

“I told you not to call me that!”

“I told you not to call me that,” Bucky mocks you in a higher pitched voice.

“Geez, how does anyone stand you around here? I don’t get how all the female trainees are infatuated with you.”

“They definitely kiss my ass because I train them and I have the final say on whether or not they move on to second-class training, but even if I didn’t,” Bucky turns to face you now, “They’d still love me because every woman here loves me except for you, it seems.”

“Doesn’t matter anyway, I’m not interested in getting involved with anyone or anything right now, I don’t even know I’m capable of that, anymore.” Bucky finishes.

“Women everywhere are lucky, then. You’d make a horrible boyfriend. I’m glad I have no need for romance, either.”

“Hopefully you keep it that way, any guy that ends up with your catty ass will end up with his face scratched up.”

“Well, if his face looks anything like yours, a good scratching would only make it look better.”

“Alright, alright, enough, you two. Can’t even be civil around each other for five minutes.” Sam interrupts, slinging each of his arms around both you and Bucky’s shoulders, shoving himself in between the two of you.

“She started it.”

“No, he -”

“Stop! He’s about to do it.” Sam shushes you.

“He’s about to do what -”

“Guys, guys, I want everyone’s attention.” Steve’s voice calls out, and everyone quiets down immediately.

Steve turns to Sharon, “Sharon, you are the most beautiful, the strongest, the kindest, and most amazing woman I’ve ever laid my eyes on.” He begins.

“I’ve known for a while now, and I know you have, too, that I love you with every fiber of my being. You make me a better Captain, and a better man every day I’m with you. I truly and deeply believe that you’re my soulmate and I won’t ever find another girl like you in my life. You’re all I’ve ever wanted. So, I don’t want to waste anymore time,” Steve lowers down onto one knee and a few gasps echo from the group.

Bucky sees you slap a hand over your mouth in shock and Sam sniffles beside him. A small smile appears on Bucky’s face, too.

“Sharon, will you make me the happiest man alive, and marry me?”

“Yes, yes, yes! Steve, yes I’ll marry you!” Sharon cries out, jumping into Steve’s arms as he stands again, and the group claps and cheers for them.

They share sweet kiss after sweet kiss, relishing in the new step in their relationship.

Sharon’s voice catches everyone in their celebration, though, “Let’s get married now!”

Collective what’s come from the group of friends that surround them, “Like you said, babe, let’s not waste anymore time!”

“Sharon, if you think you’re not getting the most gorgeous and lovely wedding you deserve, you’re mistaken.” You tell her.

“For once, I agree with Techie, Shar. I mean you don’t have a dress, Steve doesn’t have a tux; hell, the two of you don’t even have rings!” Bucky says.

“I can make it happen in a week.” Tony’s voice booms from the group. Everyone looks to him.

“I can get you guys rings, I can get Sharon a dress, and Steve a suit, I can set up the smaller ballroom for a pre-wedding party for everyone tonight and get the bigger ballroom ready for a wedding by next Friday.” Tony offers.

“Consider it a wedding gift.” He smiles.

Sharon and Steve look to each other before looking back at Tony, “Next Friday it is, then.”

The group goes back to congratulating the newly engaged couple as well as conversing about the future wedding.

...

“Hey, did you guys hear about the rumored wedding?”

Bruce Banner pipes up in the empty lab after returning from downstairs. Well, not empty, of course, but empty of you, the intern’s tech leader in their internship.

“What idiot would want to get married, nowadays?” John pipes up.

The only reason he’s here is because his step-brother, Sam “The Falcon” Wilson insisted on getting him this internship gig. Everyone was always saying how he wasn’t going to live up to his big brother’s legacy, and he hated the fact that that was only ingrained into his existence further by the fact that Sam got him this position.

“Your brother’s best buddy.” Clint Barton enters and answers. Always roaming around the building, he is.

“What, that pretty boy, Steve?”

“That’s the one.” The archer confirms and plops himself down in a spinning chair.

“Huh. And I guess he’s marrying that pretty girlfriend of his? When did this happen?”

“That he is. It happened just downstairs now that they’ve returned from that mission. There’s a party tonight to celebrate.” Banner informs him, hoping the sound of a party will liven the kid’s spirits a bit.

Banner can see the kid’s frustration in living in his brother’s shadow - or feeling like so - and hopes that allowing him the opportunity to make some good memories will make his time here feel a little less miserable. Despite the connection to his brother, John’s incredibly smart for a nineteen-year-old, a teenager, and deserves to have a little play among all his work.

“Hmmm. I think I’ll go. Who doesn't love a good party, right?” John says, satisfying both Avengers in the lab with him.

Meanwhile, John’s fantasizing, he’s going to get into trouble around here.

…

Sharon, Tony, and you sit around a small table in the cafeteria while Sam waits for his hot chocolate across the room.

“If only I could find a guy in between Steve and Bucky. Steve’s too vanilla and Bucky’s too… Bucky.” You say.

“Keep thinking like that and you won’t find anyone.” Tony tells you.

“Well, good. I pray everyday that God doesn’t send me a husband. Ugh, and especially not a guy like Steve or Bucky; I can’t stand those beards.”

“Maybe you’ll find a husband that shaves.” Sharon offers.

“I know I’m not hearing my darling Geeky and husband as topics in the same conversation.” Sam finally joins with his cup of hot chocolate.

“You’re right, you’re not. I’ll start looking for a husband when they make men out of something other than trash. Speaking of which, I know Steve is America’s Golden Boy, or whatever, but you make sure he treats you right.” You say.

“I second that.” Sam agrees.

“I third it.” Tony follows.

Sharon laughs, “Guys, guys, I appreciate it, but I don’t need you guys to have that talk with me, Steve is amazing, and you all know it.”

“Yeah, yeah, anyway, I’m going to go shower for the party tonight, I’ve been holed up in the lab all morning.” You stand and go to exit the cafeteria.

Bucky’s way ahead of you in that aspect, following through with what he said on the jet and retreating up to his room to shower as soon as the congratulations were given to the happy couple.

Showering is a special ritual Bucky follows after a rough mission. Of course, everyone showers after a mission, but Bucky makes his post-mission showers extra special.

He double shampoos both his hair and his beard, lathering them up with a smooth conditioner after, while he washes all the dirt and gunk from his body with a lavender and grapeseed oil body soap.

He applies a face mask while he cleans up any wounds he might’ve sustained on the mission, as well as polishing and scrubbing his metal arm clean. Once he’s finished, he painfully reminds himself that he can’t just sleep for the next sixteen hours. He has to get ready to go to a party.

He sighs to himself, “Let’s get this over with.”

…

Everyone in the ballroom is dressed to the nines for the last-minute engagement party. There’s music, dancing, drinks, and just about everyone that works in the tower is in that room.

The group of friends all find each other eventually, and of course all of the attention is on the future bride and groom. Talk of colors and themes and cakes all overwhelm the couple - the question of whether or not Sharon will wear a garter makes Steve blush.

Quite honestly, they’re on the verge of just eloping downtown and saying to hell with all the parties and festivities.

“Okay, okay, can we talk about something else? I don’t want all this wedding stuff to be the only thing I hear about for the next seven days.” Sharon finally interrupts.

“Okay, what do you want to talk about, Miss Bride-to-be?” You ask.

“Well, how about when you’re going to find yourself a husband?” Sharon teases her friend, knowing how much she despises talking about her own love life, or lack thereof.

“Oh no, absolutely not, not this again. I’m going to get a drink.” You wave her off, stepping away from the group and making your way back towards the open bar.

“I hope I didn’t arrive just as we were talking about relationship stuff.” Bucky says as he arrives and finally finds his friends.

“I’m afraid you did.” Natasha confirms beside Sharon.

“In that case, I’m gonna follow Geeky’s lead and get a drink; I’ll certainly need one for that conversation.” Bucky excuses himself, the shadow of his dark blue suit follows the flow of your navy gown worn tonight; you surely matched by complete accident.

“Imagine if they were married.” Sharon thinks aloud to Natasha.

“Who? Barnes and Geek-a-Chic? Please, they’d kill each other within a week of being married.” Natasha argues.

“I hope y'all aren’t talking about our Barnes and Techie, because there’s no way in hell they’d be caught dead with each other like that.” Sam butts in, Steve by his side.

“C’mon guys, think about it. It’s like opposites attract and all that. Plus, I think they are the only people that are a match for their own wits.” Sharon explains.

“I don’t know, babe. They’re constantly at each other’s necks; I don’t even think they’ve had a normal conversation with each other without insults or bickering.” Steve says.

“I suggest we do the impossible.” Tony interrupts, clearly having had a few too many drinks.

“While we wait for the wedding to come, we are going to set those two up together.” He hiccups.

“Tony, you’re crazy.”

“That’ll never work.”

“I’m with it!” Sam shouts, excited to play along and work with Tony on his shenanigans.

“Atta boy, Sammy! C’mon, Sharon? Nat? Steve? Where’s Clint, I know he’ll be on board with this.” Tony whips his head around in all directions looking for the archer.

“C’mon, guys, it’ll be fun! The worst that can happen is that we fail.” Sam tries to convince.

“I think the worst that can happen is that we succeed! Imagine Barnes and her together!” Natasha exclaims.

“I just want her to be happy. She deserves a good boyfriend and husband.” Sharon says sweetly, Sam words slowly convincing her.

“I agree.” Steve chimes in, wanting the best for his own best friend as well.

The five of them turn towards the bar to see Bucky and their favorite tech nerd pushing and shoving at each other’s shoulders, clearly fighting about something once again.

“Alright, I’m on board. Let’s do it.” Natasha finally agrees.

John watches the happy friend group from a distance. He sees his brother smiling and laughing with his friends; his famous, talented, skilled friends, his friends who are soon going to be married and live happily ever after.

Not if he can help it, anyway.

[sugar-petals]

Can u introduce yuzuru to us the caro way?👀

so you want to know about the one and only. ♡😌

yuzuru hanyū (25) of sendai, japan: the most beautiful ice prince with a heart of gold.

….an artist clearly not of this world, he’s been sent to us from another realm. 19 world records, two olympics won, dubbed the greatest figure skater of all time. and the most precious bean on top of that.

but let’s start from the beginning, shall we ♥︎

so, want to spot yuzu on the ice? use this checklist. slender silhouette, an even slimmer waist, feather-like outfits (he sketches those himself; the fandom lovingly calls him swanyu), soft blushy face. he has great androgyny.

outside of performances, you see him either with a deer’s gaze or the brightest, biggest eye smile. also, he’s usually found sitting with his wife: 

which is the ice 😄 these two are together forever. you can discern yuzu from a mile away by how he treats his working ground. 

there is a purity to him. you’d not guess that this is one of the most ardent athletes if you didn’t see what’s around his neck after competitions. the guy’s cuteness is as compelling as his skating technique.

look for it: yuzu’s face is super suave and rosy up close, even after his most energetic performances. some men are handsome, others pretty, he is both. 

even acoustically, he’s hard to miss. applause is all around, and he’s highly expressive. if you see a crying young man getting the high score, that’s yuzuru hanyu. you’ve not seen more beautiful happy tears.

and score reactions, anyway:

so, aye loves, the rumors are true. a cutie-pie off the ice, animated, a real unabashed meme — yuzu is easy-going, talkative. cheery, cheeky, one of a kind. his facial expressions are a league of their own.

if you thought this is the sort of guy who watches cat videos, you are correct 😄

yuz-uwu hanyu, everybody:

his undoubtedly feline behaviour is often unexpected, it stands out with its adorableness, too. a sweetheart par excellence. 

and, how else could it be: vice versa, the big beast on the rink. he’s cutesy, dorky, very well-spoken in daily life, but when it comes to skating, his seriousness escalates. you blink once and suddenly hanyu is a bedazzling, strutting lion :’D his performances stun with confident elegance.

he becomes full of ardor, drama, and focus. you’d never suspect so much fire burns in him. a showman and ambition icon, hands down. 

his skating is dynamic, perfected, and emotional. if you want to see art and the extra mile, tune in when hanyu competes.

the downside is; more light, more shadow. it leaves him crawling on the ice afterwards. yuzu performs so hard, it’s worrying.

he delivers it all. you won’t believe it:

this guy is an asthmatic.

the symptoms aren’t as bad as they used to be, but there are still regular attacks. he said that he’ll never take it as an excuse and often recalls how he started skating because of it. he’s a badass, extremely inspiring. yuzuru defies all limits, including gravity. his jumps have legendary status. 

off the rink, you guessed it: he turns into a wholly different person. 

it all dissolves completely when he’s dorking around again. 

don’t let it deceive you, he’s the no other option than first place type. he could not be any more decorated with titles, he achieved the grand slam in all competitions as of 2020. and still, king of sportsmanship hanyu is respectful and smiley towards all colleagues and never lets anyone feel left out. especially when it comes to his juniors (e.g. yuma kagiyama, 16, below) which says a lot about him.

he bows in every direction before an audience, too. lower than a 90° angle, even. this is more polite than any existing formality in japan.

talk about audience: i introduced fellow japanese skater shoma uno last week, who’s more uncomfortable with social contact and aggression. yuzu, extrovert he is: the exact opposite. he withers away with no people and competition. he’s befriended rivals, had crises over not having someone who could challenge him. when a competitor retires, he’s the one crying in their arms (e.g. with team mate and bff javier fernandez from spain below).

beside his competitive spirit and princely wow factor, hanyu is popular for his winnie pooh tissue box that he caresses, squeezes, and carries everywhere. he loves good luck charms & rituals, pooh is the most important one.

fans throw pooh plushies on the ice after his performances because of it. since it’s gotten so intense, yuzu recently started cleaning them up himself on top of the flower girls for the upcoming skater who could get delayed otherwise. (more about what happens with the piles of plushies later.)

so, the burning question is. 

what made yuzuru hanyu emerge so outstanding an entertainer? how does someone causing so much uproar become like that? it’s not just what kind of appearance he was given, although he really looks his part to a T. you don’t have to be an insider to see it right away.

like literally to a fault. and you can tell the way his blades sound on the ice is different. it’s soft even if he does the most hardcore quadruple jumps. i think it’s because his drive to do this is a higher one, hanyu has an altered relationship with the ice. where his devotion comes from has a more severe reason so, massive trigger warning. 

this is no exaggeration: yuzuru is considered a hero to the japanese. a survivor of the earthquake 2011, he narrowly escaped the collapsing rink in his hometown on that very day. he’s often talked about how the ice shattered underneath his feet and it was the moment that defined his life forever. he could have been dead by the age of 16. his motivation has been set ever since. this man is compelled by something bigger, that’s why you hear it and you feel it. he wants to skate not just for himself but others and seize every day. 

much of his copious charity work — that’s where all the pooh plushies go — went to mend the consequences of the tsunami ever since, he’s looked upon as a great hope in japan. the minister gave him the people’s honor award in 2018. 

now you know why yuzuru has such a fanbase and treats the ice as sacred, you see it in every gesture. his manners are without a single flaw, he helps staff repair the ice after performances. 

you might think it’s odd, but he honors the ground. he’s invested in the integrity of it. that’s why he’s the best skater. it’s gratitude and the will to live fully.

he hates to fall on the ice, he hates to damage it. alongside his feathery weight, that’s why the sound he makes while gliding along is so tender. 

i think that’s also why hanyu’s signature element is the ina bauer. it doesn’t rely on brutal force, instead this element slides across the rink like a swan. yeah, oh my god.

it’s his most well-known dramatic move. the way he surrenders into it. 

hanyu’s back arch and perfect split allow him to do elements no other male skaters can. his biellmann spin, for instance. i know, it’s ridiculous.

and those are just two elements of dozens and dozens. hanyu is a kinetic wizard. i highly rec this record-breaking delivery of his olympic program. in front of his home crowd! he’s just… mind-boggling. i live for his smiles here.

exceptional skater, exceptional mentor: it’s time we look at another puzzle piece that made yuzu the way he is. the masterful brian orser is hanyu’s beloved coach. missing gold by just one mistake at the olympics 1988, brian is now committed to give others what he couldn’t have— successfully so.

orser took the ice prince to gold twice, this hasn’t happened in 66 years. brian is the nicest and most supportive pooh carrier and yuzu’s utmost rock. hanyu’s talent rests safely in these hands.

he gets strict about punctuality lmao! but other than that, his guidance is gentle. canadian he is, brian’s courteousness mixes well with yuzu’s politeness. their bond is strong. as. hell. 

brian picked up yuzu from rock bottom several times. most fateful being hanyu’s accident with a fellow skater during competition warm-ups nov 2014. they collided at a high speed, it was unspeakably nasty. yuzu got knocked out for half a minute and had grave breathing problems but still decided to skate on with what later turned out as an almost-concussion. brian was the most worried ice dad in the world that day.

yuzu cried and crouched and bled like mad and my heart has been broken ever since. i hope he never suffers like that again. promise me you don’t search up the video, it’s a harrowing watch like a stab to the chest. sadly enough, hanyu’s body has still been a notorious wreck, esp. ankle issues regularly give him a hard time 😔

it hurts like a bitch with every jump landing but he takes meds and still manages to win, god knows how. sometimes even with crutches on the podium. at his worst, he’s still the best, it’s a tragedy.

he’s been recovering, or always is, but he pushes himself through injuries. his ambition and perfectionism are boundless. the cause is more important to him than his well-being. this is not an easy guy to stan once you see how he sacrifices and self-destructs. so, it’s good someone protects him. 

mostly from himself because nobody has profoundly surpassed hanyu. he has let himself no choice than to contest himself. not even health, only age can stop yuzu. i think that brian understands this ‘curse of a genius’ effect. his mere presence can make hanyu say these rare words:

his two other coaches contribute to that. tracy wilson (left) has proven to understand his playful side the best while ghislain briand (right) helps yuzuru deal with his fears. so you got 3 people taking care of the golden boy. brian once said: “he is very sheltered” and you can see it’s true.

yuzu eased into learning english and communicates well with his coaches. like with everything, he studies hard and often forces himself to speak during interviews to practice. his skills are astounding. his speaking voice is also very soothing, very amicably low and high alike. yuzu is highly intelligent. he always says something eloquent and interesting.

now, privately, hanyu is very much like you’d expect someone so devoted to skating would be like. he doesn’t go out, has no social media, can’t eat nor sleep very well. no cameras allowed during practice. it figures he is attached to winnie pooh, think about it. in the cartoon, pooh is someone who sleeps, eats, and engages with friends plenty. 

these are the things hanyu can’t do, doesn’t have time/energy/incentive for. he is barred from balance in life but can at least admire this little carefree plushie for it. especially because pooh represents eating lots while yuzuru doesn’t have a good relationship with food (he says it doesn’t go well with jumps etc.), hanyu lives vicariously through him. 

what’s more, you have to see how he throws himself onto others and never wants to let go, yuzuru is extremely cuddly. 

to the degree that mere social customs can’t meet how much he really needs. so, what else can he resort to, he loves mascots and plushies. it’s how the tale goes in japan generally, tough work ethic, high responsibility, high pressure, so people turn to cute fluffy things.

he always fondles pooh’s head, even pretends he’s come to life so he has someone to snuggle with. i think that his isolated lifestyle doesn’t help. so, he gets his affection at least there, you can see how happy it makes him. and again: he does this all for charity.

that’s why fellow skaters are so important to hanyu. it really brings out his social spirit and comforts him best, it’s so wholesome. i’ve not seen someone react so relieved to being embraced, like he’s not been touched for months. skating this, skating that. at the end of the day, hanyu wants love.

as he once said, what motivates him is to express himself in the first place. hanyu is a romantic. it’s written all over him. it reflects in his music choices, his elegant motion, how he designs his outfits:

… and how thoughtfully he talks about marriage. he has big plans for starting a family and coaching after he retires. i won’t be the only one squeezing lucky charm pooh in my imagination so it turns out well for him. please make this heart of gold heal and see all his wishes come true ♡🐻

[voids-colourful-creations]

What It Means - Ace Attorney Fic

Rating: T Category: Gen Pairings: Nothing romantic, but focusing on the family relationship between Trucy and Phoenix Word Count: 2k Warnings: discussions of abandonment

Trucy explains to Apollo and Athena what it really means to her to have Phoenix as her daddy.

 She looked out the window, her eyes tracing the cars below, reflected in the glass. “Athena,” Trucy said, voice just slightly off, still refusing to look either of them in the eye. “Did Daddy ever tell you the story of how I got adopted?”

Read on Ao3

It was a quiet day at the Wright Anything Agency, most were, and Phoenix had stepped out to grab some case file or another. It was in that little time frame, a short break while he was gone, that Apollo got around to asking a question that had been on his mind for a while.

He sat on the couch that faced Phoenix’s desk, opposite Athena and Trucy on the other. Athena sat on the right, and while she insisted she was doing work, Apollo could clearly see her playing some idle game or another on her holographic screens. He wondered how she ever thought she was hiding it when the screens were translucent.

Trucy sat on the other side of the couch, legs dangling over the couch’s arms as she shuffled up a pack of playing cards she was rehearsing some new trick with. He wasn’t quite sure of the details, but as long as it didn’t risk him losing a limb, he figured it probably wasn’t important. Trucy would probably ask him to watch the trick’s successful execution within the next few days or so anyway.

“Hey Trucy…” Apollo said, voice cutting through the comfortable silence, disturbing the ease. “Sorry if this is a weird question, it’s probably coming out of nowhere, I’ve just been wondering for a while…”

He trailed off, but Trucy was already responding.

“Sure, Polly, go for it! But if it’s about any of my magic tricks, those are secrets! I can’t tell you any of those, you should know that by now!”

She laughed and shook a finger at him, as though he were a misbehaving kid. While she was clearly having fun, Athena appearing amused as well, Apollo kept a serious expression on his face.

“It’s just… this sounds weird, but I’ve always wondered why you call Mr. Wright ‘daddy’.”

He hated how awkward it sounded, but how on earth was he supposed to ask that naturally?

Trucy just laughed again.

“Well I’m not going to call him ‘Mr. Wright’ like you and Athena do! He’s your boss, not mine, Polly! Or did you forget?”

She laughed and winked, and Athena laughed along as well.

“Come on, Apollo,” Athena chimed in, “What kind of question is that supposed to be?”

Apollo frowned, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Oh, cut it out. That’s not what I meant. It’s just… Isn’t that a childish thing to call your dad? I mean, you’re sixteen, I thought you would’ve grown out of it by now or something.”

Athena shot Apollo a glare, sans malice, as she waved her screens away.

“Don’t listen to him, Trucy! You’re still young, call your dad whatever you want!”

Apollo would’ve stuck his tongue out at Athena but he refused to stoop to such childish things, so he settled for glaring at her instead.

“Geez, chill Athena! I’m just telling the truth, it’s not like it’s a bad thing. I’m just wondering. It is kinda childish, you have to admit.”

It was Trucy’s turn to cross her arms now, over her legs as pulled them down and tucked them close to her chest.

“It might be, I guess. Though, I don’t really care, that’s not why I call him that.”

Athena’s eyes widened and Widget lit up yellow.

“Wait, wait, wait. Trucy, you actually have a reason? Huh, and I thought Apollo was just going off on a conspiracy theory.”

“Hey! Give me a little more credit than that!”

Trucy laughed at their antics, but it didn’t go unnoticed by either of the others that it was missing the spark it had previously held.

Apollo started to feel a pang of regret.

“Well, kinda?” She said, holding a smile that was beginning to waver. “I mean I guess I have a reason, but I also sort of don’t? It’s… complicated, I guess.”

Trucy stood, walking past the table and over to the window next to her father’s desk. Apollo and Athena both watched her, unsure of what they should say, if anything.

She looked out the window, her eyes tracing the cars below, reflected in the glass.

“Athena,” Trucy said, voice just slightly off, still facing the window, still refusing to look either of them in the eye. “Did Daddy ever tell you the story of how I got adopted?”

Athena nodded, then remembered Trucy couldn’t see her.

“Yeah, well… a bit? Boss said I didn’t need to know all the details, but he said he adopted you right around the time he lost his badge. He was defending your father, I think, but then he disappeared. I don’t know much more than that.”

Trucy nodded, still looking out the window.

“Yeah… that’s pretty much it. I don’t have to explain to you guys what it feels like… knowing you don’t have parents. No one to look out for you. It was only two weeks, way shorter than what either of you have had to deal with, so I guess I shouldn’t complain, haha…”

Athena bit the edge of her lip, unsure of what to say, but Trucy continued.

“Zak Gramarye, Shadi Enigmar, whatever you want to call him.” She said, waving her hand nonchalantly, “He ran away. Disappeared, really. The only end appropriate for a magician. And it’s not like I even have the right to be upset over it, I helped him do it.”

She said those words as if she was horrified with herself, dropping her hand to grip the edge of the desk, then let out a breath, soft and shuddering slightly.

“He left… and he never came back. But before long… he, my new daddy that is, called me into his office.”

Trucy paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts.

“I remember the look on his face when he told me… ‘no living relatives’. And I remember even clearer… what he looked like when he said would take me in, instead.”

Trucy laughed a little, but it was hollow, empty.

“Did you know it was only supposed to be temporary? Just until ‘daddy came back’. Well… guess who never showed up?”

She raised a hand to her eyes, wiping away tears that neither Apollo or Athena could see.

“And the funny thing is… I should be upset. I am upset… but not in the way I’m supposed to be. Because every time I think about it… Every time I get scared… w-worry that I’ll be all alone… a-again… I remember what Daddy told me.”

She raised her head just a little higher as she spoke, eyes closed as she quoted her memory.

“‘You can call me ‘daddy’, if you’d like. It doesn’t have to be today, or anything.’... That…. is what he said. And I, a foolish child, accepted it the second he said it.”

Trucy lowered her head again.

“He was so willing to just… let me into his family. Just like that. Before he knew about the Gramarye gift, before I had done anything for him but caused him misery. A-and I was pushy and upfront, I wanted him to be my dad right away, and I’d just lost the first. Maybe that makes me a horrible daughter, willing to abandon someone that quick. Maybe I just really wanted him to like me. I leapt at the chance to be someone's daughter again like I was jumping to a life raft off a sinking ship. Maybe… I was scared that someone would leave me behind again. But the thing is… Daddy never did. It was supposed to be temporary, just until Zak Gramarye made his return. And when he never did, Daddy never said a word. He just kept on caring for me, kept on loving me.”

Trucy took a deep breath in, shuddering again, stronger this time. It was sounding more like a sob.

“It’s different for him, I’m sure. But the moment he told me I could call him my daddy is the moment he became mine, to me. The moment he told me he’d be there for me, like a daddy should be. And every moment after that… even if he was busy, even if things were desperate, no matter what.”

Her voice was choked now and Athena knew she was crying, the same tears she knew were stinging Trucy’s eyes beginning to sting her own. The sound of Trucy’s pain pierced her like a knife slashing through her heart.

“He always comes back.”

Trucy’s voice cracked on the final words, and by now Athena had already stood up, closely followed by Apollo.

“I should probably tell him all this someday… but for now it’s just my little secret. Can you promise me you’ll keep it?”

When Trucy finally turned to meet Apollo and Athena’s eyes, she found both of them looking at her with equally teary expressions as her own.

“Of course.”

“Absolutely.”

Trucy smiled, and it was real this time.

Athena opened her arms, and before she could blink, Trucy had hopped off the desk and into her arms, gripping her tight in a hug. Athena held Trucy close, feeling the slight shake of her body as she hugged her securely. It wasn’t long before another set of arms, Apollo’s to be sure, joined in the mix.

They stayed there for a moment, Apollo and Athena holding Trucy, protecting her from anything outside that might harm her, though of course, nothing was there.

And then, as soon as it had begun, Trucy let go, and the hold gently dissolved.

“I’m alright, I really am. I’m still scared, sometimes. But I know Daddy will be there for me. And you’ll be there for me too… I hope.”

“Of course we will!” Athena cried out, and it took her a moment to realize that Widget had called out the same thing.

“Athena’s right. Widget too. We’re here for you, Trucy,” Apollo added. His voice was more stable than either of the girls, but he couldn’t hide the slight tremor in it from Athena.

“Thank you. Both of you,” Trucy said.

And as she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand once more, Phoenix stepped back inside the office, files in tow.

“Hey gang, I’m back!” He called, smile dropping as his gaze landed on his daughter scrubbing the tear tracks off of her cheeks.

“Trucy! Are you alright? What’s wrong?”

He rushed forward, eyes scanning over Trucy’s body for any signs of physical injury.

“Nothing! Everything’s fine, Daddy!”

There were still tears at the corners of his daughter's eyes as she looked up to her father’s concerned face with a smile. He reached down, opening his arms to allow Trucy to hug him, which she gladly did.

“Are you sure?” Phoenix continued, shooting a worried glance at his employees over Trucy’s shoulder. “Apollo, Athena? Should I be worried?”

Athena shook her head.

“All good here, boss!”

Apollo twisted his bracelet around his wrist as he spoke.

“Nothing to be worried about.”

It was their words that allowed Phoenix to relax.

“Well if Apollo says it’s nothing to be worried over, then I’m sure it’s all fine,” He said, the teasing in his tone reassuring the others in turn.

He straightened as Trucy let go, smiling as he went.

“Alright then, is everyone good to get back to work?”

Athena pumped a fist, Trucy grinned, and Apollo crossed his arms over his chest with a smile.

That was answer enough for Phoenix.

“Great. Let’s get back to it!”

And back into the quiet sort of comfortable the office had previously been in they slipped.

As Trucy returned to practicing card tricks, Athena glanced at Phoenix, pretending to be tidying her desk as she did.

She couldn’t say for sure if Trucy was right about one thing… if Phoenix really did see his Trucy as a daughter later in their relationship rather than sooner. But as she watched him pull the locket out of his pocket to look at the picture inside, she was confident Trucy had been right about the other.

He would always come back for her.

[end]

[teeztheflag]

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Wolf!Ateez Reaction to another member hunting down their mate

trigger warning! ⚠️ strong language, suggestive, alcohol, violence, non con themes, non con marking, kidnapping, angst, mentions of rape, sexual harassment (don’t read if you’re uncomfortable with those topics)

a/n: please notice that this is not related to the other wolf!ateez reaction/s; I hope you like it anon 💋 although I changed this request a little bit like I always do 👀 and please, always keep my disclaimer in mind!

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k i m h o n g j o o n g

„alpha, I think they’re coming tonight...“ he concentrated on the papers in front of him and just let out a hm. he knew they would come... the only safe place for his mate was in his arms and the highest priority to keep you safe. as the luna of the pack everyone wanted to protect you.

the one desiring you a rebellious werewolf of a rival pack called choi jong ho. it wasn’t unusual some wolfs tried to steal away mates and especially lunas from other packs if they were said to be gorgeous and in good shape for giving strong pups.

unfortunately you were quite the catch and the still unmated wolf wanted to steal you away from hong joong. the fresher the bond was the higher the chance to complete a mating process with another wolf and hong joong feared for that so much ...

as the night came you were cuddled in hong joong‘s arms in your bed and slowly drifting off to sleep. hong joong tried to steady his breathing to not interrupt you but when howls could be heard he knew it was about to begin. you stirred in your sleep and the young alpha took you bridal style into a secret room under the house. you shot him a questioning look and he hushed you with a sweet kiss.

„stay here my love and don’t make a sound.“

with that he left the house and changed into his wolf to fight off the scum that wanted to take his precious mate. he arrived at the borders where werewolves already lunged at each other and started to fight the intruders. after a while they managed to overpower the rival pack but hong joong noticed something really bad... where was jong ho? pure horror filled his mind when he ran back to his mate as fast as he could but he already was too late...

the attack only intended to distract him so jong ho could get you... he had been so dumb! he plumped to the ground and cried into his hands... his beta put a hand on his shoulder and sighed.

„we will get her back... she’s our luna.“

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p a r k s e o n g h w a

seong hwa usually was a calm boy with good manners. he tried to avoid fights at all costs although he was well skilled but when you and the black wolf went to the annual mate festival of your region a mistake was made.

jung woo young decided to attend the festival, too. a young wolf that once trained with seong hwa back in an advanced camp for skilled fighters. seong hwa and woo young had quite the problematic relationship ship as the younger one loved to get on his nerves all the time. seong hwa didn’t really know why woo young hated him so much... but when he saw him being accompanied by some of his friends entering the area his grip around your waist automatically became stronger.

he tried to avoid the younger like a plague but eventually you had to go to the toilet some time and that’s when woo young took his chance. he ordered his friends to attack seong hwa and distract him so he could get you when you left the restrooms.

„what are you d-“ a cloth has been out over your nose and mouth and you fell unconscious at the scent that drifted off of it.

you awakened in a room handcuffed to a bed still dizzy and your wolf already scared and sick worried for your mate. „where’s seong hwa? where’s our mate, y/n?“

„so you’re awake, love“ a boy came through the door and emerged your form on the bed with confident steps.

„who are you?! and why am I here?“ you struggled and tried to shift but something stopped you from doing so.

„don’t even try. those are magical cuffs. I brought you here because I am going to make you mine.“ he smirked at you and crawled on top of you securing your hands above you with a tight grip. you tried to struggle out but he just laughed at you and neared your neck with his emerged fangs.

„this is going to hurt a little bit, well at least I‘ve heard that...“ you cried out loud when he left a deep dirty mark over your mate‘s one.

„s-seong hwa...”

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j e o n g y u n h o

jeong yun ho had everything... the looks, the popularity and the prettiest girl out of the pack. yeo sang could only scoff at the way he was holding hands with you at his birthday party and having this dumb grin on his face whenever you would say something or someone would compliment the two of you. he was sick of it.

how much he’d like to wipe that smirk off his face... if he just wouldn’t have you... maybe than he wouldn’t be so happy anymore.

„yeo sang? don’t you want your birthday present now?“ he flinched a little bit don’t realizing you were standing in front of him smiling so sweetly. oh how he loved you, you and him were the best friends until mr. lover came.

„do I?“ your eyebrows furrowed at his words not really getting his hostility.

„don’t be like this... come on! I want to show you something!“ you grabbed his hand and left the place with him to bring you two to your old favorite secret spot deep in the forest where a little pond was located. yeo sang couldn’t believe what he saw, you managed to put candles everywhere and prepared something like a picnic but with a bottle of tequila.

„why did you do that?“

„why not? it’s your birthday and I thought we could take a swim again; you know, like back when we were younger... and you looked pretty bored back at the party.“ you shyly fiddled with your fingers thinking it was a bad idea. yeo sang on the other hand found it really cute that you were thinking he didn’t appreciate your afford.

he smiled at you and started to get out of his shirt. you smirked at him and soon you were giggling and playing in the water. why couldn’t every day be like this again... or maybe it could be? after some time the playing turned into something more heated and you soon realized that your wolf wasn’t really into another man touching you at places he shouldn’t... you struggled out of his touch but yeo sang let his inner beast free and dragged you back to the land to crawl over you and leave marks all over your neck and breast while holding you still.

you being paralyzed tried to scream or cry but nothing came out, too shocked at yeo sang’s actions. suddenly yun ho ripped the boy off your body and back to the ground, growling so loud yeo sang changed into his wolf. yun ho felt that something was wrong and knowing where you wanted to bring yeo sang he decided to check and seeing the boy harassing you made his blood boil.

a fight began and yun ho definitely was a lot bigger than yeo sang and used this to win over the other wolf. finally yeo sang stopped and crawled back to a tree licking his wound.

„if you ever lay a finger on her again I won’t hesitate to snap you neck!“

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k a n g y e o s a n g

yeo sang usually has been a very cautious wolf and knew his mate was a beauty around the female wolves. you still being unmarked and not mated with yeo sang, yet, got flirting remarks here and there. his friends told him that there was a boy from the rival pack, where you originally belonged to, that was still after you. his name was jeong yun ho.

to his bad luck at a night out with your and his friends yun ho happened to be in the club, too. yeo sang didn’t know the guy that suddenly went to the dance floor wrapping his arm around your waist and whispering something into your ear. yeo sang trusted you and hoped you would get out of the situation on your own but when he saw you searching for him in the location his wolf told him he had to help you. he should mark his territory and only once not back up.

without realizing he stood up and emerged your forms on the dance floor. the atmosphere changed and people made space for you.

„haha, don’t tell me this is the fool you were leaving me for?“ yun ho placed his chin on the top of your shoulder and smirked provocatively at your mate.

„let go yun ho! he’s my mate!“

„yeah, but he didn’t even try to make this official... maybe he just doesn’t want you as much as me?“

„take your hands off her or I will make you.“

yeo sang’s friends and yun ho’s were gathering behind the boys ready to attack. although yeo sang was quite scared he felt the urge to be brave for you. yun ho let go of you and positioned you behind him.

„tell me, little boy... why didn’t you marked or mated with her yet? you aren’t man enough for her!“

„why do you think I have to rush those kind of things? not everyone’s a dick like you fucking around and thinking a bond can only be made by doing those things. what connects me and y/n is much deeper and I know you are someone who will never understand those kind of things...“

people whistled and howled at yeo sang’s words and girls swooned over the young wolf. yun ho‘s cocky attitude slipped. he wasn’t used to be put down like that only knowing one way to win a fight. before he could take a hold of himself the bodyguards of the club interrupted the scene and everyone went their own way again, you two deciding to leave.

yeo sang drove in silence and you took his one hand to put it into your lap.

„you know, I never knew you thought of our relationship like that... I really like it.“ yeo sang sensed you blushing beside him and his wolf felt proud at your words.

„it’s because I value you as the person I love and we are the only ones who make the rules for our relationship.“

you smiled at him, knowing you couldn’t get a better mate like kang yeo sang.

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c h o i s a n

hong joong knew he had to have you. a white wolf was considered to have best genes to bear strong pups. the first time he saw you he deeply fell in love... just when he planned to confess to you and make you his luna you found your mate, choi san. a dirty omega of your own pack. hong joong had been devastated... but he heard of a way to make you his and he decided he would do anything to get you.

„let go of me!“

„what’s wrong with her, why is she struggling so much? y/n? do you hear me? you’re safe now! kim hong joong kidnapped you but we managed to free you from his pack!“ jong ho didn’t know what was wrong with you but when he saw the look on san‘s face he knew his heart literally broke at the sight his mate acted like that.

„y/n, my love... don’t you recognize me? what did that bastard do to you?!“

„who - who the hell are you?!“

„me...? I am your mate, oh my god, what did they do...“ he stroked you face while they bondaged you to the wall in the dungeon not knowing how to cope with your fighting against them.

„you have to be delusional. I don’t know you and my mate is kim hong joong. now let me go!“

he stopped in his tracks and sadly watched you crying and being scared of his touch. san didn’t know what was going on... seong hwa entered the room overhearing the talking outside.

„I didn’t even know this was possible... but I think y/n’s under a spell. a strong spell to admit, possibly done by a witch.“

„what the fuck? how did they got a witch to do that?“

„I don’t know... but only a witch can heal her. we can rescue her but I won’t need to tell you that it’s going to be hell dangerous.“

„you know I would do anything for my mate!“ they both nodded at san and exchanged looks to leave him a little bit alone with you. you scoffed at the boy pretending to be your mate when he neared your form on the ground.

„don’t worry my love, I will find a way.“ his eyes watered at your bored stare...

hong joong was in his office looking over some notes when his beta opened the door.

„everything‘s going well. they have her but she doesn’t remember san.“ hong joong devilishly smirked at him and dismissed him with a swift wave of his hand.

soon you would be back in his bed and he could complete the marking and mating; a prestigious future awaitening the two of you.

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s o n g m i n g i

it wasn’t a secret the light and the shadow pack always had a big disput, maybe even linked to their contrary names... they always competed against each other; like the girls comparing who had the more prettier ones, the boys fighting against each other or alone the two alphas getting on each others’ nerves whenever there was a chance.

song min gi also participated in those horseplays and his favorite opponent from the rival pack was the beta park seong hwa. they always teased each other, hyping eachother up who could run faster, have more girls, win more fights, kill off more rogues and hunters... it all ended soon when min gi found his mate, y/l/n y/n. you found the antics your pack made silly and were quite shocked when you and min gi turned out to be mates, but he changed for you.

much to the displease of park seong hwa. he was literally bored, hearing from the omegas that min gi found his mate and didn’t want to compete with him anymore...

wolves were really prideful and always in for a strength measurement, it practically was anchored in their nature. as seong hwa was a boy who cared for nothing he decided he wanted his fun back, so he made a plan to kill you. having an angry min gi would mean he would feel the urge to fight against him again.

it was one night when you went for a run in the woods. you still were on your territory but far away from the zivilisation of your pack. seong hwa took his chance and attacked you. he managed to cut deep into your waist with his fangs and licked his blood smeared snout when you tried to limp into the direction of your home. you let out a loud howl in the hope someone heard you.

min gi instantly awakened knowing something was off. he changed into his wolf form and sped into the direction he could make out your scent. he mind-linked the guards who told him they were on their way.

„y/n? where are you?“

turning around another tree there were you. your fury neck between seong hwa‘s canines ready to break it.

„what are you doing you bastard!“ but it already was too late when he lunged forward and seong hwa bit hard into your flesh. you let out a howl, luckily the guards arrived and seong hwa knew he couldn’t win this fight. min gi was about to join the others in hunting the beta but his wolf held him back and urged him to get to you. he changed back into his human form tears already running down his face like a waterfall.

„oh no, my dear y/n...“ you were really lucky seong hwa wasn’t able to break your neck and your genes speeding up the healing process, but you had to be stationed into the pack hospital for over four weeks being put into a artificial coma.

„y/n, I am swearing this time was enough... the alpha said there‘s going to be a war. I promise you no one will ever hurt you again because I am going to kill park seong hwa.“ he took your hand into his kissing the top of it. every day he came to the hospital sitting by your side and speaking to you...

park seong hwa crossed a border and min gi would make sure he would pay for it.

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j u n g w o o y o u n g

although choi san has been from a pack his own wasn’t on good terms so much. the two had been the best friends since one could think of. that’s why woo young wouldn’t have ever thought san would make a move on his own mate...

it was typical night back at your and woo young‘s apartment only san being there this time as all your other friends either canceled or have been too engulfed into the heating session this spring. your waves came occasionally but as you mate took care of you yesterday you were certain this evening nothing would happen.

„oh shit, I forgot the salsa sauce!“ your’s and san‘s gaze drifted off the couch to where woo young was searching in the refrigerator.

„you know there‘s no chance we‘re eating tortillas without salsa.“

„yeah, just start the movie... I am driving to the store and get some. I won’t take too long!“

he took his keys and gave you a last quick peck on your lips to leave, not noticing san‘s eyes focused a little bit too much on the little gesture. after some minutes you playing with your phone and occasionally watching the movie you gasped when you suddenly felt san‘s hand at your slit. just when you wanted to shout at him, smack him or anything out of shock a deep wave of pleasure came over you.

it was risky. female wolves sending off vibes to the male ones in heat... not only the mate could smell the arousing scent but the others, too. that’s why mated pairs usually sticked to each other at those times. what san was doing at this moment was the shittiest thing someone could do, not only betraying his friend like this but taking advantage of your vulnerable state, too.

he smirked at your moaning form you not being able to do anything but melting into his touch... you hated it but your body betrayed you because of the stupid animal in you.

„s - san, please, stop...“

„you don’t mean that. you know, I think I could make you moan my name louder than woo‘s able to.“ your eyes widen at his statement

„w - what do you mean.“ he only increased his pressure on your sensitive spot and neared your ear to tickle it with his hot breath „I mean, the times I slept over... you don’t really think I didn’t hear you?“ you blushed at that. a tear escaped you and you just hoped he would end this nonsense...

„what the actual - “ woo young let the bag fall to the ground and you heard the glass splitter. he lunged forward and grabbed san by his hair to smash him into the wall, a picture crashing down in the process.

„you motherfucker! what do you think you’re doing with my mate?!“ his fist meets san‘s cheek and the boy grins while blood is tickling down his chin

„you’re my bestfriend! you damn know she’s in heat!“

„I am not your bestfriend! I just waited for the chance to destroy you! the alpha told me how your pack uses every chance to discriminate us! and I know to hurt you I have to take what you love the most...“ his gaze drifts to your still shaking form on the couch. woo young follows his gaze and feels his canines grow at the statement. he watches san and just feels anger and betrayal but instead of snapping his neck he let go of him.

„fuck off. if I every see you on our land again I will kill you. and don’t dare to look into her direction ever again!“ with that san leaves the place and you put your face into your hands too ashamed of what happened.

„y/n...“

„don’t! I am disgusting! I couldn’t hold myself back I really tried and fought but I wasn’t strong enough... I am so sorry woo young... I don’t deserve you.“ you hiccuped and cried but woo young managed to get your face into his own hands staring deeply into your eyes.

„it wasn’t your fault, he knew what time it is and took advantage of it... I would never doubt your love and loyalty to me.“ he took you into his arms and let you cry into him. what really hurt the most was the fact the his once best friend hated him from the beginning... he knew you could never hurt him like he did.

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c h o i j o n g h o

„choi jong ho! you didn’t really put a bet on me? I am definitely not going on a date with this guy!“

„of course you won’t go... min gi cheated I just have to prove this...“

„you know what? fuck off, if you’re handling me like I am a damn trophy or something like that I will go on that stupid date and we will see how you’re coping with that!“

„y/n, please wait!“ jong ho tried to stop you but you were already emerging min gi and his friends position right over the fighting field. you knew he came from a rival pack and since the fightings started he glanced over at you from time to time. your wolf tried to stop you and told you it was a dumb idea to anger your mate more than he already was but you knew jong ho lost and a debt had to be paid.

„stop!“

„don’t make a fool out of yourself, jong ho. I could smell y/n‘s arousal back over here when you told her the news!“ his friends snickered behind him and you were embarrassingly blushing at his statement although you were sure none other than your mate himself could make you feel this way.

an idea plopped into jong ho‘s mind. he knew min gi was too much into competitions. „how about a rematch? you can have her for one night but only if you’re able to catch her the first when she’s hiding in the forest.“

your eyes widened at your mate‘s statement. now he really lost all of his brain.

„choi jong h-“

„alright.“ huh? you really didn’t know who was dumber...

but you soon found yourself running into the forest and searching for a good hiding place. min gi and jong ho got themselves ready to hunt you. jong ho mentally smiled to himself, min gi was unmated and didn’t know what your mates scent smelled like... it was the most delicious thing a wolf‘s nose could ever encounter. he definitely would be able to get to you sooner than the dumb boy.

they started to rush through the woods and jong ho luckily already got a good track of your smell and followed the trail to you. and it came how it had to come. jong ho won the battle and min gi was so furious he crashed down a whole tree to get rid off his anger; his friends scolding him off being so dumb to join another competition and losing the date with you.

you were currently cuddled in jong ho‘s lap back in the pack house. he buried his nose into your neck and sighed.

„I am still mad, you know?“ you turned your head to look at him and saw him pouting at you knowing it was your sweet spot for him.

„I am going to be a good mate from now on.“

„no competitions?“

„no competitions anymore, promise.“

„hey, jong ho! the others want you to join us in arm-wrestling-“ jong ho just was about to push you out of his lap when you scoffed at him to which the stopped in his tracks.

„haha, right... no competitions anymore. but for how long?“ you rolled with your eyes laughing out... what a mate you got.

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↺ back to navi

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[antihero-writings]

The Boy with the Unspeakable Name (Ch2)

Fandom: Harry Potter (and the Chamber or Secrets)

Fic Summary: Tom Riddle may have won his battle with Harry in the Chamber of Secrets, but there were a few unforeseen consequences; loss of Tom's memory being the most obnoxious of them. Is it possible to stop Tom's past from becoming his future? Or is the young Tom Riddle doomed to repeat his mistakes?

Chapter 2: 

The boy blinked, his expression shifting, fire and fury leaving his gaze for confusion.

“Who’s…who’s Tom Riddle?” he echoed, his voice soft and incredulous.

Harry jerkily stood, switched the sword to his left hand, and pulled a stick out of his right pocket, pointing both at him. Tom knew he shouldn’t laugh, still, the fact that he thought that would be any threat when he had a sword was rather ridiculous.

“‘Who’s Tom Riddle?’!” the words were stiff.

“That is what I asked.” Tom replied in a bored way.

“Is this…is this some sort of joke? …No, no it can’t be a joke—” He took a step forward, poking the air with the stick. “—because you don’t have a sense of humor! You don’t have a sense of-of anything!” he advanced on him, pointing both his ‘weapons’ as he did, and Tom took a step back.

He didn’t know much about himself but he guessed he was right about the sense of humor.

“You tell me.”

“No.” Harry’s voice and hands were shaking with rage. “No, you tell me. You tell me exactly what’s going on here, Tom.” He spat the name as if it was the vilest insult he could muster, like the word was as repulsive to him as ‘Harry Potter’ was to him, like some primal part of him must hate it—

Ah, so it was his diary, his name. But why did hatred course through him at the sound of it too?

—“Before I blast you to smithereens!” He held the sword higher, and pointed the stick.

“I’d really like to. But, I’m going to have a bit of trouble doing that without memory, now aren’t I?”

“Very funny,” he spat like it was the least funny thing he’d heard all day. “Let’s just skip the pleasantries and get to the part where you try to kill me, alright?”

Tom raised an eyebrow. “And why would I do that?”

“Because you’re a vile, evil little cockroach”—spit was flying from his mouth now—“who doesn’t care about anyone but yourself, and kills innocent girls in your spare time—!” The words caught in his throat and his weapons lowered slightly, his eyes clouding.

Tom blinked, taking a step back, his eyes circling back to the girl, as if she had been placed into a different light.

So he had been the one to kill her. But…why? He wasn’t sure he wanted to admit it, but there was some pride in the back of his mind at the thought…but—(why was this the most unfamiliar sensation yet?)—his stomach twisted in knots too…and he just wanted it to stop.

Harry jabbed the stick at Tom’s chest “No. You don’t get to touch her, you don’t get to talk about her, you don’t get to …you don’t get to even so much as look at her!”

Tom raised his hands and his eyebrows. Someone had anger issues.

“You won.” He took a step forward, making Tom step back. “Why are you still here? Do you want to toy with me before you run me through? Fine, torture me. it’s not like you can do anything worse than you already have.”

He’d won? Killing someone, losing his memory, standing unarmed at the mercy of his enemy’s sword wasn’t the picture of victory to him. What sort of battle had they been waging? What game had they been playing?

“What do you want? If you’re going to kill me, just do it already.”

“I don’t know what the person I was before I woke up without a clue where I am, what happened, what I’m doing here, who you are, or who I am would have done.” His temper rose in his voice. “But right now I have no intentions to kill a young schoolboy I have no memory of.”

“You’re lying! You…you…you snake!” he lunged at Tom and pressed the stick hard into his ribs. “Age doesn’t matter to you—young, old, you’ll spill blood no matter where you go, or who stands against you! Don’t think for a second I believe your’re feeling merciful!”

Tom sighed. This was getting rather tedious.

“I told you” —He lifted his hand slowly to the stick— “no matter who I was, or what I would have done, before” —He wrapped his fingers around it— “I don’t remember enough to make any such decisions now.”

They grappled for the stick, it shaking between them with effort. Harry was stronger than he looked…or maybe Tom was just weaker. Harry bit his lip till it bled, apparently waging some great mental battle.

“Fine.” The word was solid as a rock dropping from a cliff. He managed to win the stick back, as he seemed to get an idea. “You don’t remember? Let’s go to Dumbledore.”

That name too shot burning, sourceless emotion though him. Pure, uncut animosity, though this time there was another emotion interwoven into it; a powerful, inexplicable, unavoidable, fear. It crawled all over his chest and dugs its nails into his heart

Why did he have such a thing against names?

“…I’d like to protest, but, as I have no idea who or what a ‘Dumbledore’ is, I don’t have much way of objecting, do I?”

He blinked, surprise finally tackling the anger in his eyes. “You—You really don’t remember, do you?” he said simply.

“As I’ve been trying to tell you this whole time.” Tom sighed.

His weapons lowered, his eyes widening.

“So… you’re not going to try to kill me?”

“As you happen to be the one with the sword, and a…whatever that is,” he gestured to the stick, knowing there was probably more to it than met the eye, “that would be highly unwise of me.”

Harry held up the stick, glancing from it to Tom. “‘You don’t know what this is?”

“Unless it’s a stick, then no.”

A smile crept onto his face. “You really don’t remember.”

Tom gritted his teeth. He hated how smug he sounded.

“Now that you’re aware I am, in fact, telling the truth, would you care to explain what’s going on?”

“No.” he said simply. He could tell he was trying to keep himself from grinning. “I wouldn’t care for that, Tom.”

Tom’s hands curled into fists at the sound of his own name. Why did all the names spoken so far, including his own send sparks through his veins?

“Dumbledore will explain whatever you need to know. Until then it would be unwise”—he could tell he was mocking him—“for me to reveal anything.”

“So, is there a reason we’re dawdling? Why don’t you take me to see this Dumbledore fellow now?”

Harry looked back at the girl, his eyes swimming, still that loyal dog, undesiring to leave his master.

“Yeah… I probably should.”

Instead of taking him for a nice stroll back out through the chamber he dug the tip of both the stick and the sword into his back, forcing him to walk forward.

“Couldn’t we be civil about this? There’s no reason for me to try to escape.”

“We’re fresh out of civility today, sorry!” He said like he had been handing out lemonade at the stand.

Whoever built this chamber was really into snakes. As they stepped over the lifeless coils of the huge, once-living snake Tom saw that even more stone snakes lined the walls than he previously understood. And as they continued making their way out, the giant, shed skin of the once-living snake came into view, lying on the grimy floor.

After walking some ways, the sound of shifting rocks reached their ears, and they came to a part of the chamber which had apparently caved in.

“If you say a single word,” Harry hissed into his ear, “I’ll hex you till you can’t even remember how to speak.” He took the sword and stick from his back and walked in front of him.

“Harry!” a voice spoke from behind the rocks. “You’re alive! Thank goodness! Lockhart’s in a bit of a bind. Spell backfired. He doesn’t remember anything!”

Did he say spell?

And what were the chances of two amnesiacs in the same place?

His head popped up from behind the rocks. The boy had red hair and freckles like the girl did, but he was tall taller and more gangly. When his eyes fell upon Tom he interrupted his train of thought to ask,

“Who’s the ruddy hell is this?”

Harry looked up at Tom, as if both daring him to speak, and wondering how he would explain it.

“He…he got trapped in the Chamber. I-I’ll explain later.” Harry’s words were constricted.

“And where’s Ginny? Is she okay?”

Ah, finally he got the name of the corpse. Not to mention finally there was a name that didn’t send hatred to him.

“U-Um—” Harry seemed about to say something, but at the question his words sputtered, stalled, and died, his eyes freezing wide.

Considering how similar they looked, Tom guessed she was probably this boy’s sister.

Well. That was unfortunate. No wonder Harry didn’t know what to say.

“Uhh…I…” he breathed, trying to restart the engine, but only making rasping sounds, “Sh-She’s…” he looked at Tom and that fire blazed once more.

The new boy’s face blanched. “Where’s…” he swallowed, “Where-Where is she?” The question became a pained and desperate plea.

He scrambled madly over the rocks, falling onto the ground as he came over them. He quickly recovered and rushed towards his friend, grabbing him by the shoulders.

“Harry?” His voice was trembling, a pot starting to boil, “Where is she?!”

Harry took a step back, his face distorting with pain, shooting his gaze towards the ground, something in his eyes dying. “She….” The word fell limp and lonely at his feet.

“Where is she?!” He shook his friend, “Goddamnit, Harry!” His voice sat on the border of hysteria, his cry now echoing throughout the chamber like a madman’s howl, “WHERE’S MY SISTER?”

But Harry didn’t have to say anything. The boy shoved him, his legs carrying him as fast as they could through the chamber, his footfalls the ticking of seconds he had left to believe she was alive. He screamed the corpse’s name as he ran, like it was his only hope of calling her back to this side of the veil.

Harry watched him go, his eyes slowly drifting to the ground, as if lost at sea, glazed and hollow.

It was a moment later when they heard the screaming; a deep, guttural, screaming. Wordless wails, threats, questions, and most of all her name. Just her name.

And it didn’t stop.

It was then that Harry looked over at Tom, and the force of the hate in his eyes made him physically step back. That emerald fire hotter than it was even before, the words You did this to her woven deep within his gaze, as searing as a brand upon him.

“Poor chap, do hope everything will be alright,” another voice cut in, a little too nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t truly understood the situation, or heard what they heard. They jerked their heads up to look at him.

A handsome blonde man had appeared on the other side of the rocks, smiling genially at them. He put his hands on his hips, peering out the chamber behind them. “Odd sort of place this, isn’t it?” He looked at the two boys. “Do you live here?”

This must be other who lost his memory—perhaps the boys were rather adept at stealing memories?

They climbed over the rocks, through the hole to the other side.

The orange bird fluttered in behind them, then circled, front of Harry, waving its long, golden tail feathers at him. Harry looked uncertainly at it, before turning to the man, then to Tom.

“I think he wants us to grab hold.”

“You’re kidding, right? What do you expect—?”

“What did I say about saying a word?” Harry snapped, and Tom quieted.

“Fawkes isn’t an ordinary bird,” Harry explained, petting his feathers before, turning to them.

“We’ve got to hold on to each other.”

He reached up to grasp its impressive tail feathers, then turned to them, looking Tom up and down as touching him was the worst punishment he could ever think of.

“Professor Lockhart—er, that’s you—” He pointed to the blonde man. “You hold on to my robes, Tom, grab his hand. Fawkes will carry us out.”

“I hate to criticize your methods,” Tom risked speaking up, “but I highly doubt that bird will be able to carry the three of us.”

“Er, yes, I have several concerns as well.” The Professor looked the bird, then Harry, up and down, as if questioning his sanity.

Harry glared at Tom.

“Just do it.”

Tom knew there was no point questioning him further. Harry tucked the sword and hat into his belt, and they did as they were told. The bird started flapping its wings, but instead of beating them madly with no results, as Tom expected, they were quickly lifted off into the air, a strange sort of lightness spreading through them as they flew through the pipe.

“Amazing! Amazing!” the Professor exclaimed as the wind rushed by them “This is just like magic!”

Tom had a thought that he was probably closer to the truth than he realized.

The chill air whipped about them as the bird flew them out of the chamber, and dropped them back on solid ground.

They were in a bathroom, to be exact. At least, it appeared to be. It was a rather large one made of stone, a large basin of sinks behind them. It was less dreary than the chamber, but the floor was covered in water, so it was in competition, at least as far as dampness went.

This was a very strange world he had awoken to indeed.

Yet again There was the sound of more crying. Tom was getting very sick of the noise.

“You’re alive.” A high pitched voice said.

“There’s no need to sound so disappointed.” Harry grunted, flicking slime off his glasses and hitting Tom in the face with it. Tom glared at him and flicked it back off.

“Oh, well, I’d just been thinking. If you had died, you’d have been welcome to share my toilet.”

Tom looked up and raised an eyebrow at these strange words.

A wispy, transparent girl with pigtails and glasses floated above them. Her sad face was familiar, yet, like with everything else, he couldn’t place her.

Was she a ghost? Was that what he had been before?

When she saw Tom she gasped, her face going whiter than it was before (if that was possible).

“Tom…?” she whispered.

Harry looked at him, his eyes widening.

She rushed towards him, “Is that really you Tom? No…it can’t be. Unless…” She examined him quizzically. “What are you doing here? How are you back? …Are you a ghost too?”

He stood up: he barely knew her and he already found her annoying.

“Tom?” Harry answered for him. “You must be mistaken. No, no, this isn’t a Tom, this is uhhhh…Marv. Yeah, Marv.”

Tom raised an eyebrow at Harry, and Harry gave him that not-a-word look.

“Oh…” she looked down, slightly disappointed.

The bird twirled above them, glowing slightly gold in the dark. Harry turned back to Tom, then without warning grabbed the hood on the back of his robes—(which was still damp from the chamber floor, mind you)—and pulled it too far over his face.

Tom pushed it back so he could see, glaring at Harry.

“Keep that up.” He pointed to it.

“…Why?”

“Because nobody wants to see your ugly face. Now let’s continue on.”

Tom obeyed—(though made sure to give him his sharpest glare yet)—guessing there was probably a more reasonable answer he simply wasn’t telling him.

“Now, that’s not very nice!” Professor Lockhart piped up. “I’d say this young man is rather handsome!”

“I’m gonna have to ask you to be quiet too, Professor.

“Come on.” Harry got up, beckoning them—(without offering his hand to Tom)—and they followed after the bird, out of the bathroom, and into a hall.

They appeared to be in a castle of sorts; the walls and floors were made of stone, rugs and tapestries organized upon them, suits of armor standing at regular intervals along the walls. Pictures littered the walls, and he swore he could see them moving, hear them…talking to each other?

They descended a staircase, which proceeded to move as they got on it. Harry wasn’t the least bit surprised about this fact.

“A very odd place indeed…” Lockhart muttered more to himself than anyone else, staring wildly around, his hand to his mouth.

Harry beckoned them to a door to the side, and opened it. For a moment they just stood on the threshold in silence, probably looking very strange, covered in the muck, slime, and blood from the chamber.

There was a woman with red hair—(like the corpse, and the boy’s)—sitting by the fire. Likely her mother. She turned to Harry, her eyes clouded by fear and question, like the other boy did, though she did not yet voice anything. An old woman in a green dress, with a harsh, wrinkled face, and a tight bun on her head sat in the corner, pushing her glasses up, looking at them expectantly. An old man with a more gently lined face, a long white hair and beard, sitting at the desk in the center with the tips of his fingers together looked down at them over his half-moon spectacles.

When his blue eyes fell upon the hooded Tom hate shot through him, more powerful than ever before, a living thing rearing its head, a snake within him that wanted nothing more than to bite at his throat again and again and again.

“I’d like to speak to Professor Dumbledore.” Harry’s voice cut through the silence. “Alone.” Then he added “Please.”

The women both looked uneasy—(the red-haired one much more so)—as they turned to the old man, who nodded and waved them off.

But before they could leave Harry interrupted.

“Professor Lockhart’s in a bad way—memory spell gone wrong. I can explain later—or, Ron can. Someone should probably take him to the hospital wing.”

The old woman looked at him quizzically, but took the man’s arm and said “Come now, Gilderoy.”

“Erm…” He looked around the room. “Well…alright.” Before they left, the door creaking shut, leaving a heavy silence.

Dumbledore’s piercing eyes flicked from Harry to the hidden Tom.

“Very well, Harry,” he said calmly, “what is it you wish to speak with me about?”

[bitch-i-migth-be]

Crash Course | Chapter 06: That one weird uncle-godfather-almost-parent-figure-thingy that refuses to go away because you're a walking disaster and they love you to pieces (sometimes literally)

Fandoms: Danny Phantom, Batman,  

Relationships: Danny Fenton & Jazz Fenton,  Danny Fenton & Jazz Fenton & Vlad Masters, 

Characters: Danny Fenton, Jazz Fenton, Random ghosties mentions *boo*, Vlad Fucking Masters Everyone, OC. 

Words: 5′195

Tags: Sibling bonding, Shenanigans, Swearing, Quasi Family dinners, cuddling, ghost core shenanigans, OC, Ghost King Danny, Vlad being vlad

Chapter Summary: Vlad.exe has started ‘the scheming’. These kids are tired. And another agent of Chaos is here.

A/N: I can’t believe I can get away with using that title.

Why is no one stopping me?

As the writer, I reserve the right to withhold information for now. Remember what I said about taking liberties?? Yeah, still doing that. Roll with me, pls-

Good news! This and another chapter more before Gotham! Fucking finally.

-.-.-.-

THIS IS ON AO3, IF ANYONE WOULD PREFER TO READ THERE. LOVE COMmENTs  so if u have anything to say IwillBeReallyHappyYesThankU

CHAPTERS: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7

-.-.-.-

Vlad considered himself a man of simple pleasures.

If something caught his attention and would make him happy then he went and got it. 

Not caring about what other people might think about his choices. If his happiness was on the line what other people had to say was irrelevant. Unless said people were influential enough to affect his future, in which case he had to tread carefully. But he never gave up on what he had put his sights on. 

This way of thinking had accompanied him since he was a young lad and It didn’t seem like it was going to change anytime soon. If his experience with Jack and Maddie hadn’t made the trick he didn’t know what possibly could. 

At the time, meeting Jack Fenton at the University of Wisconsin had opened the door to new possibilities. The man got so pumped up that he seemed to exude cheer all over the place, it was a sharp contrast to the dull family Vlad had left behind in his search for higher education, for something better than the leftovers they hoped would make him happy. 

What Jack brought to the table was new. A field of study no one had ever researched before, not like this, not with proper scientific evidence.

So he had let himself get dragged along. Just to see what it was like. A shot in the dark, so to speak. 

It was enough to intrigue him.

To the point that Vlad, who until that point was gunning for a major in business, had upgraded to a double major to include engineering, with a personal-extra-side of whatever the hell he needed to know to make sense of the things Jack kept spouting around like a complete madman.   

With the proper knowledge, and even more intrigued, Vlad had come to realize that while Jack seemed like a goofball at first sight, there was some backbone to his theories. That had just sealed the deal. 

And then Maddie came along. crashing into them with all the brilliance of a shooting star.

Madeline, who had been the cherry on top. Beautiful, passionate, and headstrong. Well on her way to becoming an amazing engineer with the meanest right hook Vlad had ever seen.

He had become infatuated. It was almost laughable how hard he had hit the ground running with that one. 

It went downhill from there with him none the wiser.

They had shared hopes and dreams with Vlad in a way not even his blood family had. Become his best and only friends. And he was sure that with time and careful planning Madeline could become more.

Could anyone blame him for thinking this could be what a true family was like? For thinking that this was it. 

They had been his everything, and as such he would have done anything within his power to lay the world before them. 

Which made their betrayal hurt deeper.

He had failed to see, as submerged as he was in his little happy bubble and the research, the growing distance between them and him, the sneaking around, the way they had started to look at each other. The distraction that had lead to mistakes 

Irreversible mistakes.

Ones they hadn’t stuck around for. 

He had been a complete mess after that. 

He had carried on. Once out of the hospital he has persevered and achieved everything that got on his way, and if he used a little bit of ghostly help that was no one’s business but his. And maybe he would have been happy with that, but there was always that little thorn that seemed to be stuck to his core. He had tried to play the fool. It hadn’t worked. And it wasn’t even his style, to begin with.

So when the opportunity presented itself to try and fix some of what he had lost in the past, he took it.  

He had planned to barge in guns blazing. And he did. But he hadn’t been expecting the pair of scrawny teens he had been presented with. Much less for one of them to have been subjected to the same affliction that haunted his days. Just that the brat had it worse because it had been his parents who had half-killed him and not his best friends.

Vlad would find out later about what exactly happened in the Fenton’s basement and laugh bitterly while sipping cognac because that made it even more ironic. 

He had thought about it long and hard. And decided to accept the child as his apprentice and honorary son. The kid was in urgent need of some proper training. A pair of meals for him and his sister wouldn’t hurt either — as blind as he had been back then, he was coherent enough to still recognize the mistake that was letting either of his ‘friends’ in the kitchen. — He was deliberately choosing to disregard their parent’s crime in order to help them. 

He was amicable like that. Kind, even.

If only the ungrateful little badger cooperated.

jasmine, who had eventually realized what exactly was going on — The man had seen it coming from miles away, the girl was smart and her disaster of a brother kept stumbling around town as if he didn’t have a care in the world. It was distressing to witness. — and not just the surface passive-aggressive way they sniped at each other in public, would help him realize that he had been going all wrong about approaching Daniel.

He had been treating him like he used to treat the boy’s parents

The older Fentons had never treated him seriously, so he always had to find dramatic ways to make them go along with what he wanted. Come to think of it, he had done that with a lot of people…

So, he had unconsciously regressed to his college years. Never a good stage to revive. It had obviously led straight to disaster, and he might or might not have neglected his business in the meantime. Thankfully, Jasmine had taken it upon herself to snap him out of it. Trying to run for mayor in a town in the middle of nowhere. Him. A goddamned Billionaire. What was he even thinking?

Obsessions were a dangerous thing. He would need to be more careful in the future. 

To summarize, Jasmine had been, as much as it pained him to accept it, most helpful in their little chats on how to deal with teenagers.

Now, he realized, the desire to keep striving for his beloved Madeline’s hand was putting a dent in his interactions with the little badger, and even his sister would show reluctance if he went a little too far. And if he wanted to educate this childr- child, educate this child properly,   that was not going to help him to accomplish his goals.

He was a businessman. He knew when risks were acceptable. Knew what investments would not be profitable.

There was a reason he had managed to convince the University of Wisconsin to finance their research when there wasn’t any concrete proof of ghosts, a reason he had managed to become a millionaire. Other than sleight of hand. That is. 

In the end, the final choice was pretty obvious. 

Having his obsession slowly shift targets after meeting the kids had been quite the experience. 

Especially because he, self-made billionaire, the man on top of everything, who had fingers in all of the biggest pies out there, The Vlad Masters Himself, had not seen it coming. 

-.-.-.-

Vlad would love to say he exhorted the best place to eat out of the boy. But really. Once Vlad said he was paying Daniel was more than happy to shoot for the tastiest and expensive things the siblings normally couldn’t afford. Jasmine was not openly contributing to her brother’s effort to suck him dry of money, but she was not stopping him either. 

He didn’t have any proof those two could communicate telepathically but by this point, he felt he didn’t need any. They probably had some sort of silent signals. The sneaky little shits. 

The man didn’t mind. Not really. He got the brats all for himself, after all. It was a win-win situation. 

“So,” he started with a hum “What happened with the box ghost?” Vlad inquired

The boy glared at him. Vlad smirked. Jasmine was making a great job at feigning deafness while looking completely done with them.

“I dealt with him accordingly.”Danny glowered, stabbing his burger with a fork. The billionaire wasn’t sure if that was meant to make a point or the teen went feral on automatic these days even with his food. “The fuck, Vlad. I thought we were in peace mode.”

“Excuse you, child. I didn’t have anything to do with that. It was just making a simple question.” Which was mostly true, Vlad wouldn’t lower himself to the point of using such an annoying ghost as a lackey. He just liked to poke fun at little badger  “And even if I had, that was before I called a truce. It would have been completely valid.”

Daniel just grumbled, conceding the point, and continued mangling the food on his plate. The little heathen. 

Having lost the attention of the boy, he took a sip of his drink and turned to look at the other sibling. 

“You convinced them to do your research in ghosts, hm?”   

“Not like it was hard.” she was eating at a more sedate pace than her brother, but still a little faster than would be considered appropriate in polite company.  “Thanks to a pair of someones.” she sniffed at them. Danny smiled at her but kept his mouth closed and otherwise occupied with food. Vlad just hummed in quiet approval. 

“Good job.” then he frowned. “But also, why?”

“Why what?”

“Not the best place you could have chosen to do that, is it now?”

“Maybe not the most agreeable, no.” She conceded, reaching over to take a napkin. “But it is the best place for my purposes.” 

“Why though?” He insisted, hoping for a proper explanation.  

“Why not?” she retorted, the picture of innocence taking another bite. Vlad sighed and rolled his eyes, he kept forgetting she could be as bad as her brother sometimes. 

“Does it matter, old man? We are going anyway.” Daniel finally joined the conversation again, waving one of his french fries in an extremely judgy manner in Vlad’s direction “I didn’t pull all those strings in the zone for you to come complaining and think we are backing down just because you don’t like it.“   

“Oh ho, strings, you say?” Vlad mocked, “Would that have anything to do with the reason why Skulker came to me seeking refuge with his tail between his legs?”

Daniel almost choked on his next bite. Enough that Jasmine started looking worried, most likely about whether or not she would have to use the Heimlich on him. She relaxed when her brother finally sucked some air into his lungs just to immediately start laughing. 

“It does have some relation, yes” Jasmine took over for her brother, seeing as he was too busy making an impression of the lion king’s hyenas. It was a good thing they were in the more private part of the restaurant. “We, um, had to get creative.”

Vlad just raised both his eyebrows at her, and with a background of her brother’s cackles, she finally acceded to give in some ground. 

“I have a theory, and frankly, it would be faster if I do this in Arkham. For a bunch of reasons I don’t feel comfortable discussing at the moment.” Jasmine offered, “Plus, seeing as Danny is insisting on tagging along and at the moment he can’t really afford to leave Amity for longer than necessary-” Hearing that made Daniel come back from his endless snickering.

“Hey! don’t try to pin this on me. This was all you-!” 

After that, a free for all started between the siblings and Vlad stopped listening, feeling honest to the ancients offended. Couldn’t afford to leave longer? Please, Vlad could fix that in a jiffy, they just needed to ask- but nooo, the brats always had to go to the extremes for everything.

Although Vlad had to admit that Jasmine most likely had good reasons — If Daniel had said it, he wouldn’t even contemplate the validity of such a loose statement — for saying it would be faster doing it in Gotham- ugh, he had to stop himself from sneering just at the mention of the place. 

He had decided to open a branch office for one of his companies in the damned city and it had been nothing more than a headache in the last years. He had opted to send people over from the other branches to take care of everything rather than hiring people from Gotham to fill the spots available. 

After a pair of months of operations, it had become obvious that the place wasn’t working as smoothly as any of his other offices all over the world. 

It seemed like his employees didn’t have the spine to deal with the city’s threats properly. And hiring more Gothamites, who were guaranteed to have a spine on behalf of being raised in the place, would just make the mess bigger without him there to supervise. 

Which he hadn’t had the time to do. 

Come to think of it, the only reason he hadn’t taken it into his own hands was because-

His train of thought stopped right in its tracks, eyes snapping open as he took a long look at the kids in front of him. 

They seemed to have stopped discussing at some point, but the teenaged halfa was currently trying to steal some food from the plate of the young lady at his side. His sister, on retaliation, was moving her fork in an exaggerated stab motion to discourage her thieving little brother. 

“Oh,” he uttered under his breath, as good as speechless and unable to take his eyes off them. 

I didn’t take matters of Gotham into my own hands because of them.

The thought, and the implications that came along with it, struck him so suddenly that they left him startled enough to start laughing without care for present company. 

Oh, this was too good!

Daniel was watching him warily. As if Vlad showing any kind of amusement was a sign of danger. Which, considering, was fair enough. 

Jasmine just took the opportunity the distraction lent her to keep eating peacefully before her brother got any other funny ideas about food-thievery.  

Vlad put his elbow on the table, interlacing his fingers so he could rest his chin on the joined hands, smirking and allowing himself to let out some random chuckles from time to time. Seeing the boy get all ruffled up was fun. Especially when he hadn’t done anything yet.

‘Yet’ being the keyword.

Oh, this was going to work perfectly after all. 

-.-.-.-

After eating their fill and doing some more quasi civilized talking they finally got some dessert and the siblings took the opportunity to order some take-out to have for breakfast. It was never a bad thing to secure food beforehand, and Vlad had seemed agreeable enough. 

Way too agreeable if you asked Danny. But food was food, and there wouldn’t be no looking at horses’ mouths in this household, no sir. 

Vlad said his goodbyes claiming to have urgent business to attend to, and vanished into the night like the dramatic pseudo-vampire-ghost he had always aspired to be.

Why the man had bothered to come all the way to Amity Park if he had work to do was beyond Danny, but good riddance. His random giggles were starting to creep him out. 

Once he was sure the fruit loop was not coming back and they were truly alone on the sidewalk, the teen turned around to his sister and found her stifling a yawn on her hand. A quick look at his phone confirmed that it was already pretty late, and having a full stomach always made Jazz get all lethargic on him. He would too, but that was why he consumed coffee religiously, unlike his sister who preferred the occasional vitamin drink. 

So he resigned himself to playing pack mule yet again and let her lean on him so they could start their trek back home. A trek that would be slow as fuck, because Jazz kept insisting on using him as a pillow while they walked rather than focusing on using her feet properly. 

She was lucky he loved her and had ghost cheat codes to support her weight, otherwise the night would have ended very differently. 

Danny huffed and let her snug closer to him.

Now they just needed to sneak into the house without alerting their parents. 

Yey.

-.-.-.-

Jazz had to give it to Danny, he was the best cuddle partner she could have asked for in a brother. 

Though she could admit that her brother’s temperature could fluctuate wildly sometimes while sleeping because of his ghost-core-thingy or other random ghost power, whichever it was at the time had made it a little awkward for them to share sleeping quarters when one of them needed the comfort.

Luckily, they had found ways to deal with the temperature clashes. In summer it was easier to deal with them because in that season her brother’s often chilly nature was a complete godsend. Winter was trickier but there was nothing a pair of isolation blankets couldn’t manage, and when Danny’s powers decided to be contrary and transform him into a living heater, Jazz was more than happy to take advantage of it.  

They had a few space blankets too, Jazz was pretty sure Vlad had gotten those just for Danny, but her brother had been rather tight-lipped about them, even if he clearly loved them.    

So here they were, sprawled on the bed with Jazz’s arms firmly around her brother’s waist and half her face buried against his upper chest, rejoicing in the coolness emanating from the spot.

She had been awake for a little while but couldn’t make herself let go of her little bro. After they had sneaked in — after Danny had half-dragged her in — they had ended up crashing in her room. This for two important reasons, first because Danny’s room was still a mess after their parents threw all the equipment they could their way, and second because she had refused to let go of her newly acquired pillow. So her bedroom it was. 

Ugh, she would get hungry eventually and would have to go downstairs for their breakfast effectively separating her from the cuddles. Jazz released a little grumble and buried herself deeper into the embrace. 

The only up-side was that she would only have to heat their food and not make it from scratch. As long as she managed to avoid their parents and make it back upstairs she could rejoin her brother without interruptions and-

“Good morning, Princess Jasmine! ”

Wha-?

Jazz lifted herself and turned her head towards the voice so fast she immediately regretted it. There went her neck. she winced and raised a hand to carefully massage her nape. It would never work the same way again. At least she could see the source of the unfamiliar voice now and it left her perplexed.   

There was a ghost on the window sill. 

Why was there a ghost on their windowsill?  

As a general rule, most ghosts tended to stay the fuck away from the Fenton house once they got out of the zone, so this development was very strange. Then again, Jazz had never seen this ghost before. 

It was a female ghost, that was clear, and her hair-

Jazz had to blink a few times, completely awestruck at the number of colors her brain was trying to process at the same time.

She really had rainbow hair. What the-?

The apparent twenty-somethings female ghost had her hair done on a perfect half-up ponytail and displaying all the colors in the visible spectrum, she was clad in a cute summer dress that seemed to be patched up with- were those postage stamps? and a pair of lace-up sandals. She sat with one leg crossed over the other, a giddy smile stamped on her face. She was glowing. literally. 

Meanwhile, Jazz had not bothered to change clothes before going to sleep or even tied her hair up into a bun, and now it looked like she had gotten trapped in one of her parent’s ghost traps. She managed to stifle the urgent need of running to the nearest mirror to tame down her hair as much as she could. She was feeling tacky all of a sudden.  

Ugh. She felt like a hobo just looking at her. she had patches on her dress and she was still pulling it off. Maybe that was the ghost’s thing? making other girls felt like vagabonds with just her presence. Jazz blinked a pair of times, brain finally processing the other girl’s words, and becoming even more baffled by the living — animated? embodiment? — rainbow’s presence. 

Had she just called her ‘princess’?

“Um, hi?” Jazz finally greeted her, she sent a look to her still slumbering brother and debated on whether or not she should wake him. On one hand, he had been running himself ragged the last weeks getting everything in order so she was reluctant to do it. On the other hand, there was a ghost on the window. A rather cute one, but still.

Choices. choices.

The redhead turned her whole attention towards the ghost again. Well, she looks calm enough, and has not set anything on fire or attempted any kidnapping yet, so- 

“Sorry, I’m still rebooting. Do I know you?” Jazz went on, trying to get some sort of grip on the situation. 

“Not really, but I have heard plenty about you.” the ghost beamed, just to falter suddenly and offer a chagrined smile “I must have seemed very rude.” 

“My name is Iris.” She finally presented herself and jabbered on while pointing at the little cloth string bag resting on her hip. “I’m the Infinity Realms’ Official Messenger. And I have a few packages for both of you, my lady.” 

“The Zone’s messenger?” Jazz parroted back. She had never heard about a messenger in the zone, but it was a rather big place and there were things even Danny hadn’t heard about, so it was a possibility.  “And just Jazz is fine, thank you.”

The skittle girl just smiled. “Yes, I made the rounds earlier and there were some packages for the crown prince,” she said, confirming the reason for her presence in the room. 

Ok. She could deal with ghosts addressing her brother with titles. And messengers? messengers were fine in her book. She could deal. She got this. Still-

“Danny was in the zone yesterday, though? Why would they wait until now and not just take advantage of his visit?”

“There are some fragile things in here, and your brother seemed to be getting- uh, quite busy yesterday,” she replied, clearly amused. “The senders didn’t want to risk it. So here I am!” 

With that declaration, she opened her little bag and started to unload a staggering amount of packages and even some mail into neat little piles. Great, more things to pack. How some of them could get into such a tiny bag was a mystery, but that was probably just ghost zone physics. Or magic. Maybe both.

“Oh, thank you.” Jazz just conceded. It was better to just go along. Iris hummed in acknowledgment, still organizing everything and explaining to Jazz where each pile had come from and some extra information that the messenger had found interesting on her rounds. 

She was quite lively for a ghost.

“Pandora in particular was rather twitchy yesterday about not catching your brother for a chat. Did you know she is having a gathering next month?” Iris gushed at her in low whispers, with all the air of a gossipy neighbor that couldn’t separate himself from their windows. “It’s a shame you will not be accompanying them for the festivities.”  

“But Isn’t that just for amazons..?” Jazz asked from her seat on the foot of the bed, where she had moved to have a better view of the things the other ghosts had sent to Danny and her. 

“Yes.”

“…I think I missed something.”

“Haven’t you heard?”Iris giggled. Getting a pen and notepad out of her bag and starting to write something down, she presumably used that to keep inventory. “You are both part of Pandora’s honorary amazons.”

The redhead’s eyes widened. “She can do that-?”

“I mean she is the Queen of the Amazons on this side of the pond, so-” the messenger replied, tapping her pen against her chin and looking up in thought. 

“Wait, does that mean Tucker and Sam are honorary amazons too?” Jazz startled at the sudden sound of her brother’s voice coming from behind her. He was practically on top of her now, still looking half asleep but definitely awake now. She hadn’t even felt him move. 

“Good morning, Lord Phantom!” Iris beamed at him from her spot on the ground among the still growing piles. “For what its worth, I think so, yes.”

Danny couldn’t help himself. He started cackling. 

“Seriously, Danny?” She pursed her lips at him in disapproval.

“You don’t understand. They are going to flip, Jazz. Pandora can count me in.” He gushed, finally getting a hold of himself. 

“She already did. Weren’t you listening to me, My Crown Prince?” Danny sighed.

“I did bubblegums. Sounds amazing.” her brother had already given her a nickname, or many for what she knew, so he probably had met the messenger before this. “So you were talking about some go-away gifts” Jazz sighed and rolled her eyes.

“They are called farewell gifts, Danny” jazz corrected. 

“Whatever. It’s almost the same.” he waved his hand dismissively and looked down at what Iris had just laid down. “You got way too many things there. You are almost done or..? “

“Yep! I was actually just making time until you woke up.” She admitted sheepishly, lifting the last package that had come out of the bag and had been all by its lonesome amid the others and passing it along to the halfa. “Your Order is ready, Majesty!”

Jazz watched her brother extend a hand to take the package but his face reflected puzzlement at her words rather than excitement at finally receiving something he ordered.

“Direct from the FarFrozen and the Acropolis, Sir Casper!” 

With those words, Danny seemed to snap wide awake, “already?” He didn’t waste any time in seating properly and opening the package. Jazz took the opportunity to peer into it. 

“Jewelry?”

Danny jus hummed back in response and started examining the little jewelry box inside

“you ordered jewelry?” Jazz asked again, a little confused because even if his brother didn’t mind using the occasional accessory it was not like him to own them. Her brother —as well as herself — was more of a borrowing person “Ghostzone’s jewelry?”  

“Yep.”

“why?”

“why not?” Jazz debated tackling him to the ground and tickling him until he talked, but considering they had company the redhead didn’t know very well yet and thus was not completely comfortable around, forcing Danny to spill the tea would have to wait. 

The little shit probably knew it too and was openly smirking at her. 

“hey, colorfalls?” Danny called to Iris

“Yes, winter pools?”

“Am I imagining things or this is way more than what I asked for?”

“The crafters outdid themselves, didn’t they? The Pan Queen said it happened because you ‘didn’t specify for shit so you better suck it up, brat.’ The Yeti-man said something too, but it was long and boring, so I forgot~” She ended sheepishly.

“Well, that’s helpful.”

“wouldn’t they have explained it in the letters?” Jazz offered, bringing his attention to the pair of envelopes under the probably-handcrafted box. 

Danny grabbed them and grumbled. “Probably. But, ugh, reading.”

Jazz tried to snatch the letters from his hand. Danny dodged her lunge and moved the letters out of her reach. 

“Thought you didn’t want to read them.” Jazz sassed.

“That I don’t want to do it, doesn’t mean I won’t do it. There is a difference, carrot cakes.”  

“Well, get on with it then, cakesicle.” 

They could have continued sniping at each other, as they were fully prepared to do so until Iris talked again.

“I better get going and leave you to it. Places to be, gossip to spread. You understand.” She declared with a playful smile and hopped up from the ground and attached her cloth bag to her hip again. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Jasmine.”

She made her way to the window waving her goodbyes as she went, the siblings waved back a little entranced by the sway of her hair. 

Danny looked thoughtful, he seemed unsure for a moment and ended up waiting until the last moment to call after her.

“Hey,” The girl turned around to raise an eyebrow at him in question. Danny smiled at her and pointed a finger towards her little cloth bag. 

"Do you think I could get one of those?”

-.-.-.-

“Jazz” 

“Yeah?”

“How long was she here for before I woke up?”

“She-” Jazz stopped herself and really thought about it. “I, I don’t actually now? I think she was already sitting on the window sill when I woke up”

Her brother had gone suddenly quiet, watching intently through the window Iris had just left. 

“She has a- quite bubbly personality. Good to know there is someone like her around.” She offered, trying to break the tense silence that had enveloped them. 

“I once saw her knock-out Walker from a single blow,” Danny replied, finally turning to look at his sister. Jazz’s eyes widened. 

“She what?”

“He threatened the network.” Danny deadpanned. “One does not simply threaten the network, Jazz” he stressed, seemingly trying to make the importance of a network she didn’t know anything about very clear to Jazz. 

“…That sounds really ominous.”

“She moves around human merchandise in the zone.” Danny explained, “She has- umm, I think you could say she has a thing for humans.”

“…”

“I’m not telling you this to make you wary of her.” Her brother said after the lack of a proper answer, carefully keeping eye contact with her. “Walker was being an ass, he deserved it. Jolly Beans is very helpful around the zone. Has even helped me with a pair of things. A real pal, she is. But-” Danny sighed and ran one of his hands through his hair in exasperation.

“Just- Just don’t mess with her gossip mags ” 

-.-.-.-

“Hey, Danny?” She probed, going through one of the ‘care packages’ that had been sent to them, “Do you think the ghosts know humans don’t wear these types of clothing anymore? They are cute, but-”

“I’m going to tell them.”

“Don’t you dare.”

-.-.-.-

ENDNOTES:

Say hello to Iris, everyone :)

She is one of my agents of chaos. She got the Job 5 minutes ago when she bitch slapped me with her bag and the pOssIbiLItieS.

(Not to be confused with intrepid reporter, Iris West, that might or might not appear here. )

-.-.-.-

Me, writing about sciency stuff, major and double majors like I know what I’m talking about: seems legit.

-.-.-.-

It’s fucking sad when the reasons you used to love someone end up becoming the same reasons you end up hating them.

-.-.-.-

I don’t remember if Vlad used Boxy as a lackey? If he did, let’s pretend he didn’t.

-.-.-.-

Vlad to Danny and Jazz through all this fucking fanfic:

-.-.-.-

The moment when your weird-murderous-uncle is actually more responsive to your ‘How-To-Parent’ talks than your actual parents.

Press F to pay respects.

-.-.-.-

I just want to let you know that one of the reasons Danny curses like a sailor is because he has a great respect for Pandora and that woman puts sailors to SHAME.

-.-.-.-

Did the show care about historical accuracy? no. Do I? That’s also a no.

-.-.-.-

The ghost jewelry will come back later to bite all of us. Be patient.

-.-.-.-

Danny is the Elsa to Jazz’s Anna.

-.-.-.-

UPdate on the JJ Ship!

I just imagined Bruce looking at this tiny (but feral) red-head psychologist interning in Arkham and seeing how good she is for Jason and just pulling a Mulan’s Grandma when Jason asks her to have dinner with them, like:

“WoulD YouU like TO sTAy FOREVEr?!?”

And Dick with, like, a banner and streamers behind him, fully supporting the notion.

And-aND! then on the eventual-some-years-in-the-future-engagement party:

Jazz: “Jay? Seems your family invited someone to help us celebrate the engagement.” Jason: “Really? Who?” Jazz *Opening the door that leads to the Mansion’s garden that is currently full to the freakin’ brim and deadpanning*: “Gotham.”

{(And all the fucking league. Let’s be real people-)}

Can u Imagine the wedding? The absolute chaos?? If you think the ghosts aren’t crashing the party or even demanding to hold a ceremony in the zone u are a FOOL.

bECAUSE If DanNo is theIr HighKING, Guess who is their MoTHErFUCkING PRINCESS.

It’s what she deserves.

My god, Jazz would look so pretty in a wedding dress.

I’m crying.

Danny would definitely sob.

Send tissues.

-.-.-.-

Great.

Now I want to write about the wedding and they haven’t even met in here yet.

*wishful sighing*

The struggles of a shipper-

-.-.-.-

These goddamned endnotes are getting bigger and bigger.

-.-.-.-

I’m still thinking over Danny’s SO. Guess who. Yes. You are right. It’s the Demon Spawn. You KNOW who I mean. I didn’t make them be a year apart in age just for the giggles. Like, I was aiming for Bros Wreaking Havoc when I started this but then The Shipper Feels struck me dead plus-if-Jazz-is-getting-a-wedding-out-of-this-then-why-the-fuck-not and here we are. What do u think?? Because it’s most likely happening. Though, this one is going to burn slowly, because these boys.

And, wtf. Why didn’t anyone tell me Bruce and Selina almost got married?? I don’t know what happened to prevent it but I cAlL foUl.

Who wants a wedding. I want a wedding.

-.-.-.-

Me: Writes like 40 pages of this fic Also me: They are random scenes in different chapters and I’m still struggling to wrangle everyone into some sense of order and coherency.

The first twenty-something chapters already have titles and brief summaries so that’s something?? I can’t see the light at the end of this tunnel.

If you have ideas about things you would like to read about? Between the Bats and the DP Characters? Interactions and blabla? You can write them in the comments and I will see if I can fit some in :D

I have more or less decided where this is going, but I still need to enrich the chaps, SO, this might take a while. The good thing is that they will probably be way better now that I have Some Plot and I’m not just running blind all over the google doc.

-.-.-.-

Really, tho, if you have some headcanons about the characters? Bless. I need help with Steph and slightly less with Cass.

I have some plans for Cass. Steph is the one worrying me.

-.-.-.-

Chapter 9 will be their arrival to Gotham! I. am. happy.

[lavenderwatercolor]

Black Snake Moan, Joker x Reader

Ask: Could u please write a NSFW smut where reader teases joker and flirts with like one of his henchmen just to make him mad and then joker puts reader in her place and makes her know who she belongs too?!?!! Just really bratty reader with a kinky dom clown daddy joker 😩💦. Thankyou I LOVE YOUR WRITING!!! 💖

Warnings: Cursing, smut

Pairing: Joker x Reader

A/N: Hope you like this! I loved writing it!

***

The week had been going by painfully slow. Excitement was at an all-time low, even law enforcement hadn’t been making much noise. There was almost nothing to do, nothing to discuss in Joker’s midweek meeting, and it was driving you insane.

Even Joker himself had been eerily quiet. Normally he was full of life, full of excitement, he could always make a boring day fun. But there he sat at his makeshift desk in the dingy warehouse building, looking down at a few papers, paying you no attention.

And of course he had insisted, with you being his right-hand woman, you were to be with him at all times. So you sat in front of the desk reading a book, legs draped over the uncomfortable wooden chair, trying to get into it. The book itself was interesting enough, but your sex drive had been unusually high the past week and since Joker was too occupied in his mind he hadn’t noticed. Maybe he had noticed, maybe he was just too in his head to do anything about it.

You sat the book in your lap and glared at him, pondering how to get a rise out of him.

Sighing loudly, you bookmarked your page and slid the book onto his desk. He didn’t look up, of course, his eyes were still locked on the papers in front of him. What the hell was he doing, anyway? You leaned forward and saw he was going through his inventory. Some of his workers, or as he teasingly called them, his ‘henchmen’, reported they needed more Remmington ammunition and gun oil. It was his duty to send out recruits to get the supplies they needed since he had to sign off on it all. 

Maybe when your little ‘business’ became larger, he would have someone else to do it.

Hell, you could do it now. But Joker insisted that you never get your hands dirty doing things such as that, so if they got busted, there would be no trace of you. It was kind, but very, very restricting. Why were you his right-hand woman anyways? In most ways, you were basically an assistant, a very limited assistant at that. 

“You wanna take a break, sweetie?” You asked as you raised your feet to his desk, hoping to catch his eye. Joker had a thing for your feet, but not in an overly sensual way. He liked when you got pedicures, he loved giving foot rubs, it was a kind of domestic thing to him. Seeing you all pampered and clean made him feel a little less stressed.

But he didn’t even glance up, only giving you a half-assed grunt. You took it as a no.

“Well, I’m a little bored.” You continued on, flexing your toes in a pathetic attempt to get his attention. “Give me something to do.”

In any other situation, he would have glanced up, given you a devious smirk and beckoned you to slide under his desk and help him relieve some tension. But still, nothing.

You were about to turn up the heat and demand attention but one of his favorite goons, a young man named Jesse who had just turned twenty-five, walked into the room. He finally looked up from his desk and you felt a twinge of anger that Jesse could so easily get his attention, but you, the so-called ‘love of his life’, couldn’t.

“Ah, Jesse.” Joker leaned back in his chair and wrung his fingers together. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Jesse, wanting to do nothing else but please his boss, walked forward until he stood next to you and beamed. “Well, uh, Sir. I’m happy to tell you that Jeremiah and I got our hands on some top-secret files from the Wayne household.” 

“The ones I wanted?” Joker was suddenly in a much better mood, his eyes wide, a huge smile on his face. You wished you could have made him smile like that.

“Yes, Sir.” Jesse mirrored his smile and took out the folded papers from the inside of his Carhartt coat, handing them over to his boss. 

“Good work Jesse!” You stood from your chair, slipping your feet back into your sandals. Joker paid no mind as he scanned over the inked letters, mouthing the words to himself as he read. “You’re my favorite for a reason!” 

His face lit up as you praised him, it wasn’t often that Joker’s girl gave out compliments. The fact that you were paying him such special praise sent him sky-high with pride. “Thank you so much, ma’am.” He smiled as you took his face in your hands, rubbing your thumbs over your cheek. 

“Oh, don’t call me that.” Your plan was working. Joker finally was paying you attention, he had looked up the moment you touched Jesse in such an intimate way. “I’m your age, silly.”

Jesse continued to smile and dare I say blush, not sure how to handle the attention from a superior such as yourself. Joker was quick to hand out compliments, praise, and affectionate touches such as a clap on the back or a squeeze of the shoulder. But you?

You rarely ever did such things.

Not that you thought of yourself as too good for that, not at all. You just had never been the kind of person to do such a thing. You were the type of person to give a proud smile or a nod across the room, but you had never, ever, given direct affirmation, and definitely had never touched one of his ‘henchmen’ in that manner.

“Give me some sugar, sweetheart.” You smiled up at him turned your face so he could kiss your cheek, which he did without hesitation. He knew that one who hesitates, disintegrates. Especially with the monarch of the business. 

After his lips left your cheek you giggled and gave him a pat on the face. “Such a good boy, and so handsome too. How did we find you?” You almost felt guilty when you saw how bright his smile was and how he leaned into your warm hand. “Alright, you’re dismissed, I’m sure you have very important things to do.” You made your voice as sweet as possible, knowing that behind you Joker was boiling in his own skin. 

“Thank you,” Jesse almost said the word ‘ma’am’ again but stopped himself short. “Thank you, if you need anything, I’ll, I’ll, uh, I’ll be downstairs.” He left a stuttering, blushing mess, almost tripping over his two feet on the way out. Once the door closed you sat back down in your seat and picked up your book like nothing had happened.

You didn’t have to look at Joker to know you had driven him crazy. 

At first, he tried to act like nothing was wrong. He tried to force himself to focus on the new information, but as hard as he tried, he couldn’t push the images of Jesse kissing your cheek out of his mind. The damn look on the kids face, the way his cheeks reddened, it was the way you had made him look the first time you met. 

Joker cringed at the thought and ran his hands through his hair, letting out a groan as he pushed himself back in his chair. This time though, it was your turn to ignore his obvious grasps for attention. 

You flipped a page in your book, your brain not taking in the words at all. Your heart was beating far too fast for you to even try to read. You were just pretending at that point. It was enough to convince Joker, thankfully, and it was enough to frustrate him further.

“What the hell was that?” He finally broke the silence, crossing his arms across his chest.

You looked up from your book with a look of innocence on your face. “What, sweetie?”

His jaw clenched, the strain in his muscles extremely visible. The sight of it sent chills down your spine, the fact that he was staring you down across the table intensified it all. “You’re playing coy, and I don’t like it.” 

“Playing coy about what?” Your sentence slowly faded as Joker stood up from his chair and rounded the desk, standing in front of you within a few quick seconds. 

He kneeled down in front of you, running his hands up your legs. Your breath caught in your throat but you fought to remain nonchalant about it all, looking down at him with an even stare. As if you weren’t phased by the way his hands slid up your skirt. “Is it because I’m not giving you enough attention?” He muttered, not breaking eye contact. He battled with you as he ran his fingers over the skin on your thighs, almost winning the staring contest when the tips of his fingers dipped between them and barely brushed against the fabric of your panties. 

But you continued to stare him down.

“I don’t know what you mean-”

He had enough at that point, his body slipping up against yours, his right knee planted between your thighs so it was resting on the wooden seat of your chair. You lost the contest and closed your eyes the moment his knee pressed against your pathetically wet center. 

His hand grabbed your throat when your eyes fluttered shut and he leaned against your ear, his breath hot and ragged. “You know exactly what I mean. And so do I. I know I’ve been busy, and I know you’re the kind of girl who needs attention round the clock. Or else she goes… crazy.”

He was exactly right, he knew you so well. You let out a breath and he left a kiss on the side of your jaw, right under your ear. “I haven’t been giving you enough attention, have I?”

“No, you haven’t.” Your voice was hoarse under the grasp of his hand, but it was understandable. 

Joker hummed and kissed right under your jaw. “I should apologize for that, but I think,” Another kiss, lower on your neck now. “I should show you who you belong to, first.”

God, yes. Finally. Your plan worked perfectly. You picked your feet up out of your sandals and raised them over his hips, pulling him higher against you. 

You wanted nothing more than for him to show you who you belonged to, and he was happy to oblige. 

He planted more kisses on your neck before dipping below the neck of your shirt, moving the fabric with his face so he could kiss the freshly exposed skin. 

Suddenly, by the grasp on your neck, he pulled you out of the chair and switched positions with you. You were too stunned to comprehend what happened, but when you came to your senses your eyes focused on his cock. He was sitting in the chair you were in only a few seconds ago, his right hand stroking his cock, slow and sweet. Your mouth watered.

You couldn’t hold back. You leaned up on your knees and took him into your mouth, almost gasping at the absolute size of him. No matter how many times you’d fuck him or suck him off, his girth continued to surprise you. You missed these intimate moments so much.

He had missed it too, obviously, because he tossed his head back and groaned. His hands found their way to your hair and helped you bob your head on his length. “Fuck.” Something about the way he cursed sent you into a spiral. Hearing him curse was nothing new to you, but when you first met Arthur he had rarely cursed in front of you. When he became Joker it was like an entirely new dictionary opened to him. 

You slipped your hand between your thighs, trying to be discreet. Apparently, it wasn’t too discreet, because he noticed almost immediately.

“Did I say you could touch yourself?” The low rumble of his feral voice startled you and you looked up at him, swirling your tongue around his head in an attempt to distract him from his earlier discovery. He moaned at the feeling, his eyes fluttering shut for a moment. You hoped your distraction would work but once he gained his bearings he looked back down to you. “No, not yet. Put your hands on my knees.”

You rolled your eyes but did as he said. He noticed that as well and his grip tightened in your hair. “Something wrong?” He growled, ignoring your muffled yelp. 

You slipped your mouth off of his cock with a lewd pop, shaking your head. “No, nothing’s wrong.” Maybe the sass was evident in your voice because he narrowed his eyes. He waited a beat, staring you down, before he finally broke and stood up. 

“Over the table.” It wasn’t a request or a demand, because as he spoke he moved your body for you, guiding you to his desk. Your panties were tugged down to your knees and then he was hunched over your body, his head right beside yours. 

“Oh, fuck.” You panted, his harsh and quick movements sending a new set of pleasurable waves through you. Something about him being rough with you… you couldn’t explain it. You closed your eyes when his cock rubbed against your folds, teasingly slow. A moan rumbled through your throat and you arched your back, hoping if he felt you moving against his cock he would finally fuck you and give you what you’d been craving all week. “Come on, fuck me. I need it. And I know you do too.”

Joker chuckled, low and gritty, before finally pushing himself into you. You both moaned at the same time, he tossed his head back, his hair falling back from his face. If you had seen his face at that moment you would have came. He looked so fucking beautiful, eyes closed in bliss, lips slightly parted. 

It wasn’t slow. As soon as he pushed his entire length into you, he began fucking you with reckless abandon. Slamming his hips into yours, if it wasn’t for the desk being as heavy as it was, it would have slid across the floor. 

“God, just like that.” You hissed through clenched teeth, your hands gripping the sides of the desk to stay upright. “Just like that.” He was fucking you exactly how you needed it. Hard and fast, without a pinch of mercy. 

His right hand slid up your back and he grabbed a handful of your hair, grabbing a generous fistful before he yanked. You gasped as your head was snapped upwards, and at the same time, he fucked you harder. You couldn’t breathe. Every thrust knocked another breath from your lungs, 

“Daddy’s gonna fill you up.” He leaned back down so he was level with your body, his teeth grazing the nape of your neck. You moaned in response and he pulled your hair, moving your neck to the side so he could get a better angle. He sank his teeth into the skin on the side of your neck, biting down so hard you could feel your muscles being pinched. You wanted to move away, the pain being almost too much, but his jaw was set and there was no moving away from him. Especially when he was about to come.

He didn’t say anything else as his hips snapped forward, his thrusts which were once in a steady rhythm quickly becoming the complete opposite. 

Joker moaned into your skin, his teeth still set around your neck. He moaned as he came inside you, his hands moving from your hair to your hips. He held you down firmly on the desk as he fucked his last bit of cum into you.

Your pussy clenched around him and you moved your hand between your legs to force your own orgasm, your fingers moving expertly against your clit. You finally came, just as he was pulling out, singing out a symphony of moans and cries. 

He released your neck and stood back, almost stumbling as he all but fell into your chair. You turned just in time to see him running a hand through his sweaty hair, right before he put his softening cock back into his pants. He gave you a lazy smirk, his eyes flickering from yours to your panties, which were still around your ankles. While he was looking at them, a slow trickle of his cum leaked down the inside of your thigh, and suddenly his soft cock wasn’t so soft anymore. He looked back up at your face, grinning when he saw how red and sweaty you were.

“How was that?” He asked, loosening the neck of his shirt.

“Perfect.” You hummed and kicked off your panties before walking over to him, sliding into his lap. You looked down at his face, noticing how the greasepaint had worn off near his forehead from his sweat. You were going to say something about him needing a touch-up, but when you moved your hips to get more comfortable on him, you felt how hard he had gotten. “Already?” You teased, locking eyes with him. You caught his mischievous glint and you laughed, tilting your head back as you did so.  

You rose from his lap and slipped your sandals on, making sure you maintained eye contact the whole time. When you were done you stood up, walking past him, and gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Well, you’ll just have to catch me, first.”

[sunwoork]

mila & sunwoo reporting for duty !! okay so true story i’m writing this as my acceptance is getting posted ... and you guys’ welcome messages are popping in like crazy ?? you guys are fast ... i’m shook ! anyways, it’s so nice to meet you all ! i am mila, and i was here for a v v short time before w another muse but it was so uneventful we’re gonna skip over it lmao ? anywho !

the star of the show is mr. kim sunwoo, our film student at k-arts who eats food and gets  scared in his free time ! if i’m being honest he .... doesn’t know what he’s doing at all, literally at all, but that’s what character development’s for !! i’m gonna put some info about him down below, and click for his profile, bio, socials, and the saddest plots page i have ever seen in life ( i had 5 minutes ok it’s a wip .... more is coming i promise >.< ) but anywho i’m excited to meet all of you and i will stop talking all of your ears off !! oh yeah ... and like this to plot with me !

i’m gonna quite literally skip over all his backstory because it sums it all up in the bio and if i start then i’ll never stop !! 

but as a VERY short summary, sunwoo’s mom gave him up almost immediately after he was born because she was young & didn’t think she could care for him, sunwoo bounced through the system before eventually being placed with his permanent home & now adoptive mother, kim hyejin !!

and him being left as a kid & getting bounced from foster home to foster home really left a toll on him, and now he really craves clear acceptance and affection ?

sidenote kim hyejin is actually quite older, in her mid-60′s, so she looks more like his grandma than mom ?? which is ... confusing to a lot of people a lot of the time, and he gets tired of the questions but loves her to death ! i’m also so making it canon she looks like moon sook the actress because .... a BEAUTY ?? we stan aging gracefully !!!

he’s also hesitant to call her mom bc he has this undying faith he’ll reunite w his mother, even now so you’ll see him bounce between calling her mom & ms. kim !!

but not to spoil anything sunwoo will discover later but uh ... his relationship w his mom won’t be restored, at least not in the way he wants :((

but onto general sunwoo things !!

( and as a general note, if i refer to his “mom”, i’m referring to his adoptive mom, hyejin kim, unless stated otherwise ! i don’t want to confuse you guys ! )

creator of the channel “scream cuisine”, where he eats food while telling scary stories / conspiracy theories, and gives commentary !! definitely a paranormal enthusiast, with the unbothered energy of shane from buzzfeed unsolved w the hyperactivity of ryan ?? starting his channel def got him into making videos & he’s loved it ever since !

but more than anything, his biggest love is writing ! has a little personal blog where he writes random things spanning from poems to kpop album reviews lmao !! he wanted to be a journalist, but got into k-arts on the biggest whim ever after they apparently liked his video submission ?? so was like ok ... for now we’ll go with that !!

so currently he’s attending k-arts, and honestly finds it quite weird because he doesn’t really fit in w the passion a lot of the other students have for film ?? some of them are like v intense about it while he just sort of does it bc it’s fun ??

inherited a variety of skills from his mom ! these include painting, gardening, cooking, and a love for music ! so he can dabble a bit in all of them ! he’s honestly an overgrown grandma if we’re being honest, it’s what he gets for being raised a generation behind everyone else his age

he actually does love to sing !! ballads more than anything in terms of things he sings himself, but loves jamming to upbeat pop songs more than most things in this world !! he has a softer / higher voice, and though he has a really nice tone he has no professional training so he’s sort of just ... out here doing him ??

and see !!! this is the problem ! if you couldn’t tell already sunwoo literally has a thousand interests, and small talents, but none that really are screaming out at him ?? so his lack of intense passion for something is really frustrating ! he hasn’t been able to find himself yet and is constantly upset at himself for it.

if he knows you, sunwoo KNOWS you - he’ll be super friendly, always talking, etc !! though surprisingly, if sunwoo doesn’t know you he can become super introverted ? not because he doesn’t want to talk, but he is just more conscious of how he presents himself to you !

sunwoo def has chaotic tik tok boy energy ... he has been left with his phone for too long and his brand deteriorated bc of it ... i apologize if he just starts doing tik tok dances or makes weird references in the middle of serious convos it’s his coping mechanism

he does have a rbf but it’s so misleading ?? like this man is SUCH  a soft boy and yet when he is zoning out he’s like  😡 but then u talk to him and he’s like  😊 

also romance wise, he loves tsundere boys and strong-minded girls that are older than him ?? do i know why ?? i do not !! it just happened this way

he’s honestly so supportive, will stan everyone ?? and when i mean everyone, i mean yes even your random muse who walks past him one time without saying anything ?? he just has developed a v empathetic and loving personality despite his circumstance, and honestly kinda because of it ??

he loves video games, but unfortunately, he’s literally terrible on them ?? tried being a twitch gaming streamer before being gifted $1 by someone, only to have them send a message being like “u suck” so he was like ok wrong choice !!!

if i had to say the chance of sunwoo realizing his potential to be an idol, i would say 3.21%!!!! lmAO listen as much as he likes singing, and he likes attention, he just ... hasn’t really connected the dots ? he’d be the type to audition for fun but like ? he also does a lot of other things for fun he’s really not considering it as a thing for real yet ??

but !! he is about to start taking dance classes because he’s trying to lose this college weight so if anyone wants to help him or join him on this journey be our guest !!

oh !!! right he has a pomeranian named banana, but he calls her nana, and when i tell you this dog is his pride and joy he will never be prouder of anything more than he will be the day he adopted her ??? she’s 2, a diva, and bites him at least a few times a day but if you ask him he’ll say that’s her love language !!!

speaking of love ... phew this man is a lovebug !! goes though crushes like the flu - it comes fast, it hits him hard, and then goes away just like that. chances are if you know him he’s had a crush on you at some point of time or still do ? don’t worry i promise he won’t make it awkward !

anyway i feel like this was an overload of very chaotic information but sunwoo’s an incredibly chaotic overload of energy so !! very in character of me if i do say so myself ... i’m gonna let sunwoo speak for himself and hopefully we can get something going !! i’ve been so excited to bring him here & have been doing a lot of work so i hope he’s taken to well here !! i can’t wait to meet your muses :’))

[lovelyirony]

roommates au for ironhawk (tony/clint) if u like them thank u

Clint Barton swore to himself. He didn’t actually think that they’d stick him with Stark as a roommate for the training course. 

It wasn’t that he disliked him. It’s just that…well. Tony Stark wasn’t really known for his skill. 

He was known for being a rule-breaker. A serial party guy. And someone who didn’t exactly fit SHIELD standards. 

There was the common theory that daddy bought him in. Wanted his son to have the distinctive bragging rights that SHIELD training gave. 

Higher-ups had already told Tony that he was not to receive special treatment. 

“If I wanted any I would’ve talked to the US military recruitment officers,” Tony snarks back.

Clint nods at that. At least he knows he won’t be getting any preferential treatment. 

But knowing and experiencing are two very different things. 

Clint also doesn’t want to get into trouble. He was already a bit of an oddball; they had brought him in from a failing circus where he was hailed as the best marksman in all of North America. (And if he really wanted to brag, probably in most of Europe as well.) 

Most everyone else has been in training since they were young. Or they know the right people. 

Both he and Stark are alienated a bit. 

Tony, quite frankly, doesn’t give a singular shit about how many people steal what meager dessert he gets from the cafeteria. 

“Yeah, yeah, go take my pudding cup and fuck right off,” Tony says to Rumlow. “I’m sure that your CO will simply love the extra sweets you’re gonna put into yourself right before we run.” 

Tony gets pudding thrown into his hair. A couple of flicks land on Clint’s shirt. 

“Barton, why hang out with the rich kid? Hoping he pays your way in?” Rumlow sneers. 

Clint would like people to pay for many things. But he doesn’t ask and he doesn’t hope because he likes earning his own shit, and most of all this position in SHIELD. 

He earns a trip to the office of Director Fury when he lands a clean upper-cut to Rumlow’s jaw. The guy cries. Clint scoffs. 

“He’ll pay for your funeral when we kill you at the obstacle course,” Clint says. “Tony, let’s get going.” 

Tony looks impressed to say the least. 

“Well damn, Barton. I didn’t even think you tolerated me.” 

“I’ve tolerated worse.” 

“I don’t know whether to like that or know that I could have the potential to be terrible.” 

“Let’s get going. I’ll hang back just in case I get called.” 

“You will. Might as well walk to Hill’s office now. I’ll steal you an extra dinner roll.” 

“Thanks, man.” 

Clint is early for one thing in his life, and it is this meeting with Fury. 

Fury looks at him over one eye, a black eye-patch on the other one. That is new. Very new. 

“What happened to your eye?” 

“I trusted somebody.” 

“Hill finally get you?” 

Fury doesn’t laugh. Clint does. It’s habitual, part of being nervous. 

“I understand that you punched Rumlow in the face?” 

“Yes sir. Couldn’t control my temper.” 

“Rumlow shouldn’t have been a little shit,” Fury says, snorting. “Don’t tell him that. He’s Pierce’s problem, thank god. Tell them I whooped your ass. Because I did. But I don’t give a shit what goes on so long as you get away with it.” 

Fury will come to regret these words in many instances, including one about four years later when Tony steals a coffee machine during a mission. But that’s ofur years from now. 

Clint gets back to training. Says he got roasted within an inch of his life. 

“You’re a shit liar,” Tony says. 

“Dude has an eye-patch now. Said it’s because he trusted somebody.” 

“Fury doesn’t even trust Girl Scout cookies, there’s no way he trusts an actual living human,” Tony says. “We have to find out.” 

Tony and Clint bond over two things: 

1.) They both feel terribly out of sync with everyone else because they are funny and also are not used to anything due to life experiences. 

2.) They are underestimated. 

Everyone thinks Clint has no fucking clue what’s going on. He’s spacey, most often forgets anything in the morning but coffee, and turned in one of their practice reports in green ink. Maria Hill nearly had an aneurysm. 

Tony is the rich kid who everyone thinks bought his way in and has only passed due to Benjamins or higher. 

Tony has not, because his dad actually hates that he’s in training and his mother thinks that he’s at an elite boarding school that Howard chose. They also happen to think that due to media presence, that is who he is. 

They can use their skills to advantage. Clint sees more than what people want and Tony knows more than what people want. 

They pair up for a mission. The objective is to rescue a hostage in under twenty minutes. 

The pairing before them has Rumlow, who is incredibly smug about how he incapacitated the attackers with brute force and rescued the hostage in ten minutes. 

“Beat that,” Rumlow says. 

“What’s the money?” Clint asks. 

“Two hundred bucks,” Rumlow says. “Lookin’ to take a girl out on a nice date.” 

“Hope you tell her you might have to cancel,” Tony says. 

-

They finish in four minutes. 

Tony disarms security in one minute, Clint paintballs the attack team in a matter of moments, and the hardest part is untying the agent acting as the hostage. 

Clint tosses the rope to Rumlow. 

“Tell your date you’ve gotten tied up at the moment and to take a rain check. You also owe us a hundred each. We’re nice like that.” 

- 

When it comes to partnering, Clint has to deny the opportunity to team up with Tony. 

“And why would that be? You both get along reasonably well,” Maria says. “Hell, you still beat records that were set decades back.” 

“Well usually SHIELD doesn’t like relationships to be part of partnership,” Clint says. “And to use the worst term possible, I’m banging Tony like a goddamn screendoor.” 

“I detest you every single day,” Maria says. “But noted. Tell Phil that I owe him fifty when you go out, okay?” 

Clint laughs. 

“Will do, Maria.” 

“Don’t call me that.” 

- 

Clint slinks back into their apartment, dropping keys in the bowl on the counter and leaning over the couch to give his boyfriend a kiss. 

“How much money did Phil owe?” 

“Fifty. We got him good. Also, Fury said no to the possibility of a cat scratch. I think there’s more to that, though.” 

“He’s lying,” Tony says. “I bet if we found an agent he worked with then we could probably figure out the truth.” 

“Phil and Maria both won’t tell us, we’re screwed,” Clint says with a sigh. 

“Then we’ll just have to try Danvers,” Tony says, teasing. 

He pulls his boyfriend over the couch. 

“Ugh, I was gonna get coffee.” 

“Not your fucking death wish type caffeinated shit,” Tony says. “You already had a morning cup. I refuse it. I’ll make you tea.” 

“Tea tastes disgusting.” 

“Hush, the only tea you ever had was when we stayed at that shitty motel.”

“Still. Don’t like it. It’s like they forgot to flavor hot water for a moment.” 

“I’m going to kick your ass and make you love herbal tea.” 

(Tony succeeds in this.) 

- 

No one actually knows of Tony’s history in SHIELD. Or that he’s dating Hawkeye. He usually works in the offices or on updating the computers, which SHIELD always needs. 

Natasha blinks after a mission that went on for a month. She sees the ever-elusive tech, who embraces Clint in a hug. Clint takes it one step farther and dips Tony into a kiss. 

“You’re so dramatic,” Tony grumbles. “By the way, your asshole dog misses you.” 

“Lucky?! Aw, I knew you kept him,” Clint teases. 

“He ate your pizza. I got him dog food and chipped. He’s as much a disaster as you are.” 

“I…did not see this coming,” Natasha says. 

“Heh, maybe I can surprise you,” Clint says, smiling. “Nat, this is Tony. My boyfriend. Also the best employee here.” 

“Even better than Phil?” 

“Who do you think enables his caffeine addiction?” Tony asks. “And who can get you good soup and catering?” 

“I will do literally whatever you want if you can get me good food,” Natasha says. “Or good coffee.” 

“I’ll set something up for next week,” Tony says. “For now, I’m dragging my man home and not letting him leave for the entire weekend.” 

“Now that I’m not opposed to,” Clint says, tugging on his shirt. “Bye Nat!” 

There’s a maniacal cackle as Clint tickles Tony, who responds in kind by signing “fuck you” at Clint. 

[pinkykitten]

can’t argue with that

Stranger Things

Jim Hopper x abilities! female reader

Warning: mentions of abuse and torture on you from experiments, curse words, did not re read

Specifics: angst, comedy, romance, one-shot, abilities reader, race neutral reader

People: jim hopper, your mother, mkultra 

Words: 1,808

Request: By anon Hi! Could you please write something about Hopper x reader ? They were best friends at school, and one day the reader was kidnapped because her mother was part of the MKUltra program (now she came back at Hawkins and has powers) with prompt #18: "did I ever tell you how beautiful your eyes are?" prompt #22: “I love you”, and prompt #33: “if you cared about me, you wouldn’t do this.” Thanks ! (The Hunger Games anon who loves your way of writing !)

Prompts:

18 - “did I ever tell you how beautiful your eyes are?”

22 - “I love you”

33 - “if you cared about me, you wouldn’t do this”

Authors Note: hey guys i did not re read this srry. i luv all ur guys requests and this is my first time writing hopper so i hope u guys like this. this is taken more in the first season cuz thats where we learn about the secret crap of hawkins. also i made the reader in here have shape shifting powers so like mistique powers. 

You colored in your notebook as you twitched around in your seat. Itching for the school bell to ring and for school to be over with. You smiled as you drew a heart next to the name Jim Hopper, your fellow classmate. There was nothing going on between you high school teens except that you two were best friends. You were always there for him and he was always there for you when your mother wasn’t. Your mother had a job that she seemed to care more about than you. You were always lonely and left behind but Jim made sure you were always with him and happy. 

And you were. 

Finally, as if the two minutes remaining were for centuries, the bell rang. You got up and started packing your book bag until you felt a tug from behind you and then you were lifted off the ground my two strong arms. You gave a shriek as Jim lifted you lightly off the ground and twirled you, chuckling into your ear. 

“Jim! What the heck?” You playfully smacked his arm. 

“Oh my god you should of seen your face!” He bent over laughing, clutching his stomach. 

“You’re the worst!”

Jim raised his eyebrow, creating a smirk on his face. “You know you love me though.”

You pouted, “I guess I can’t argue with that.”

“What are you drawing?” Jim asked as he inched closer to your notebook. He put his hands on the pages and tried to take a peak but you closed the book on his hands. “Whats in there?”

“Nothing,” you tried to pry it away from his hands but he would not let go. You pulled and pulled but realized how strong he was. “Jim I’m not playing. Give it back.”

“Why? Is this your diary? Oooh is it about Scott Clarke?”

You gagged, “In your dreams.”

“No y/n those aren’t dreams, those are nightmares.”

“Jim just give it back!”

“No not until you tell me whats inside you’re trying to hide.”

“Oh my god is that Joyce Byers?” You looked shocked pointing behind Jim. You knew Jim had a crush on Joyce and so he quickly turned around, granting you the pass to snatch your book back. 

“You liar.” Jim grumbled taking out a cigarette. 

You placed your notebook in your back pack and walked alongside Jim pulling the cigarette from his mouth. “Not in here mister.”

Jim everyday would walk you home from school. He felt it was not safe to have you walking around with no one to protect you. 

Those were the moments you treasured. He acted in a way as if he did truly love you but you felt afraid. Did he love you as a friend or something more? You two were the perfect combination. He was the laid back, big dude and you were the up tight, keeping things in order gal. It was the perfect. It was like a harmony. 

“Anyways I’ll catch up with you later,” Jim led you to your door step giving you a kiss on the cheek like all those other times. Every time he did it you wished it was on your lips. 

“Thanks Hop again for dropping me off.”

Jim placed his hand on your arm. His body towering over yours because of his height. “You know you don’t have to thank me everyday for this. I love to walk with you and drop you off even if you’re sometimes b*tchy.”

You gasped, “I think someone should look in the mirror.” You chuckled. 

Jim waved to you and left you with your heart thumping sporadically. You were in love. 

You walked into your empty, lonely house, your mother still at work. You were going to take a nap but you heard a knock on your door. 

“Oh my god Jim go away I do not have pizza in my fridge,” you grinned as you opened the door to reveal an unknown man at your door all in black. Before you could do anything he grabbed you and injected something in you that made you unconscious. 

You woke up being pulled by two men. You looked at your surroundings and it looked like jail or a lab. You wore a hospital gown. In the distance you could hear people screaming. Your heart was beating faster every minute as these men carried you. You were so weak. You tried fighting them but they were too powerful. Your mouth opened wide to produce screams. You shouted and turned trying to free yourself.

They threw you into a room and as they closed the door you saw your mother standing nearby crossing her arms. 

“Mom,” you ran to the door banging on it as it was locked. 

Who knew you were going to get kidnapped that day. And who knew it was by your mother.

Your body stung and ached all over. You tried running away. From them from the nightmares, the memories. You screamed as you shot up, sweat running down your face. “Mom!”

Somebody was there for you. Getting a hold of you. The couch dipped down as the person sat across from you, grabbing a hold of your arms. 

“Let me go! I’m not your experiment anymore! You can’t control me!” You tried to break away from the grasp as you had your eyes closed. 

“Its me! Its me! Y/n-”

Your e/c eyes opened wide to see a familiar face. Suddenly, all of the past came to you. “Jim?” You touched his face, feeling his facial hair and being overwhelmed with seeing him again. He looked so grown now. 

“Its me sweetheart.” He paused, “did I ever tell you how beautiful your eyes are?” Hopper smiled as he rubbed your hands that were on his. 

Tears swelled up in your eyes and your lips quivered. “I thought I would of never seen you again.” You embraced him. Tears hitting his jacket as you sobbed into his neck. 

Hopper pulled in closer to you and held your back. He held on tightly, afraid that if he let go you would be gone like that fateful day. “I got you. You’re okay.”

Wiping you tears you sat beside him with his arm still on your back, “how did you find me? I shape shift.”

“Took us a long time but we ended up tracking up down and connecting you with a recent case. We have this young girl with powers that we’re looking for and its all connected with you, everything.”

“They took me Jim! They took me. Those men and my mother. My mother was working for the bad guys. She made me do terrible things. I’m sorry. I’m sorry this happened to me.” You shook again, crying. 

Hopper knew you were damaged and you were hurt. You were stuck in that hell hole for who knows how many years. Never seeing the sun, never having friends, love, nothing. You never lived a life. “I know, I know. But its okay now cause you’re here with me.”

You shook your head, “you don’t understand Jim. They are always watching. They made me have these stupid powers so I could fight for them. I’ve killed so many people. I’m a monster.” You stood up and walked to Hopper’s door. 

“What the h*ll are you doing?”

“I can’t do this to you. What if they hurt you? What if I hurt you?”

 “Y/n you can’t think like that. Nothings gonna happen-” He motioned over to you kindly, soft, like if meeting a puppy. Someone fragile. 

“But what if something does happen. I could never live with myself. I rather be abused and tortured for all those years again than to have you hurt.”

“Nothings gonna happen to me okay, now will you just sit down and we can talk this through,” he pointed to his couch. His voice going higher with demand. He didn’t like talking to you this way but he had a temper and all he wanted was you safe. 

“I’m sorry Jim,” you opened the door about to leave. You shape shifted into another woman looking completely different than you.

“If you leave you’re going to prove to them that you are indeed really the monster that they created. You are choosing their side.”

“Its not that simple. These people are bad. I know this. I don’t want you hurt-”

“Then why’d you come back?” He rested his hands on his belt. 

“Why?”

“Yeah. Why’d you come back to Hawkins then? Its a simple question.”

“But its not a simple answer. I don’t know why I came back,” your eyes traveled down to the floor.

“You’re lying.”

“No I’m not,” you two bickered like when you were teens. 

“Yeah you are. I know you y/n so well. You came here for a reason.”

You walked up to Hopper, getting on your tippi toes like when you two were young. “Listen here none of this is your business.”

“Don’t talk to me when you look like that. Its not you.”

You pouted. 

“Change.” Hopper ordered. “I want to hear the real you say this.”

Finally you shifted back into your real form. How you really looked. “What do you want to hear Jim?”

“The reason.”

“Fine I came back for you! Okay, is that what you want to hear? I came back for you. I had to see you at least one last time. I had to.” 

The air was silent as Hopper clenched his fists. You felt you were done talking so you tried to leave again. 

“If you cared about me, you wouldn’t do this,” his voice was low, almost sad.

“Like I said its not that simple. Its easier if we go our own ways and maybe never see each-”

“Do you love me?” Hopper asked all of a sudden, biting his lip in anticipation. 

You almost chocked as you hear his question. Your eyes widened as you stuttered. “Jim, you know I care deeply for you and you know I would do anything for you-”

With a jump in his step Hopper came closer, “I’m not asking that. Its a yes or no. I’m asking you y/n, if you love me? Yes or no?” His hands flew to your cheeks and you looked deeply into his eyes. 

Taking a gulp you straightened your posture and put your hands on his hands. With a shaky breath you whispered to Hopper, “... I love you.”

“You know you love me,” he giggled as he leaned in closer to you. “Can I kiss you?”

A tear fell down your cheek and you realized you couldn’t live without Hopper. You needed to be with him. You needed him in your life, to protect you. To make up for lost time. 

You brought Hopper’s head closer, “I guess I can’t argue with that.”

Tag list: @harrington-lover, @angelgl16, @perfectlybeautifulsuit, @hyehoney, @haven-prelude (wont let me tag), @leasly, @totally-alexa21, @creamy-pasta-boi, @multireese, @fanfictionrecommendations-com, @prentisskelley, @malereaderforkpop (wont let me tag), @guardian-of-cookies, @justafangirl-97, @teenageshitposts (wont let me tag), @dippergravity (wont let me tag), @some-booty, @fromfoolishpeopletodeadpeople, @collectiveyou, @wtfisalltherandoms, @dirbel, @eastcoasthaven, @fangirl-4-life415 (wont let me tag), @idontknowwhattocallthisworld (wont let me tag), @malasxlenguas (wont let me tag)

wanna be tagged in my crap? comment!

[carlisle980]

👀

Manchester, 1972

It would rain on commencement day. She checks her hair in the mirror one last time. She’s fixed it twice since arriving. Thankfully they’ve moved the ceremony indoors. She smooths her collar, rolls her shoulders. Practises her smile as the words of her speech run through her head. She mouths them, pacing, the click-click-click of her high heels echoing off the walls, setting a cadence for her to follow.

She is nervous. It isn’t that she lacks confidence in her ability to deliver the speech, exactly, it’s …

Her musings are interrupted by a knock at the door. “There she is … the woman of the hour!”

She turns to see Reginald Crawley stood in the doorway in coat and tie.

“Reggie! Oh wow, hi! I hadn’t expected you to turn up today. I didn’t know as Daddy could spare you.”

“We only had two patients on for this afternoon and both of them rang to cancel. And even if they hadn’t, your mum would have persuaded him to close early. It’s not every day his only daughter delivers the Head Girl’s speech at Lady Barn House.”

“About that …” she mutters, studying the floorboards.

“What is it? Not nervous, are you? You’ve performed a thousand times.”

She responds with a withering look. Meets his eyes. Sees him grinning, and grins back. Shrugging her shoulders, she tells him, “Yes, but speaking is rather a different animal from playing piano. That, and I still feel like a bit of an interloper, I suppose.”

“Because you’re leaving a year early and these aren’t the lot you started with.”

She opens her mouth to reply, then closes it promptly. He’s done it again, she realises. He’s said precisely what she’s thinking. Again, because it’s been happening rather frequently of late. It’s true that they spend a lot of time with each other, she managing the clerical things at her father’s surgery and he assisting with as many procedures as his training permits. She works the maximum hours allotted a secondary student, determined to put by as much money as she can for her university tuition fees. But her brother works just as much as the both of them, and if he’s got any inkling as to her mental state he seems completely oblivious.

Of course, there could be an explanation for Ed’s aloof manner of late. He’s recently been spending the little free time he’s got in the company of a young lady called Alice Tamworth. Alley. She was two years ahead of Isobel at Lady Barn House. She’s taking a degree in literature at U of M. Isobel likes Alley. Rather a lot, in fact. But she’s turned Eddie’s brains to mush. Which is why Isobel has resolved that love is not for her. The path she’s chosen demands excellence, and the pressure on her will always be greater by virtue of her having been born female. She can’t afford to give her studies — or her work — less than her absolute best.

Why, then, is it suddenly so difficult to ignore the piercing blue of Reginald’s eyes? And why does it feel as though his ability to discern tiny details about her is rooted in something deeper than just friendship?

“Earth calling Isobel,” Reginald teases.

“Hmm? Oh, sorry. I was miles away.”

He grins. Was he always so handsome?

“Penny for them.” He pulls out a chair for her and indicates she should sit before taking a seat of his own.

She smiles softly, feeling her cheeks pink. “I doubt they’re worth that much.”

“Ha’penny, then.” He smiles again. Her heart pounds in her chest. He’s gorgeous. How had she missed it all this time?

“Have you noticed a change in Ed lately?” she manages. If he’s so skilled at reading her, she shouldn’t have to elaborate.

“You mean the way his brains leave the building whenever Alley’s around?” He shakes his head. “Wanker.”

“Exactly, and I hope you tell him that! Lad’s twenty; he can do what he wants, but—”

Reginald scowls. “No, he bloody well can’t! Not as much as your dad relies on him; never mind the fair fortune he and your mum are spending on his education. Oh I’m bally well brassed off with him; don’t you worry … missing clinic hours, failing to submit assessments. He’s had the world handed to him on a silver platter and he’s blowing it spectacularly. But haven’t you got bigger fish to fry?”

She grins. “Well then … tell us how you really feel!” He studies his shoes and she notices the way his ears redden. She likes that about him. Come to that she can’t think of anything she doesn’t like about him. Shaking off that realisation, she continues, “It’s everything you said … and I suppose it also makes me think that if love does that to a person, it’s an experience I’ll have to forgo.” He scoffs and she rebuffs him. “You can’t sit here and tell me I’m wrong, Reggie! Both you and my brother got onto the premed course by virtue of your marks alone. I, on the other hand, was made to provide twice the number of character references and go ten rounds with the department chair over whether my science A-levels will count seeing as I finished them a year ago. And all of that despite having higher UKCAT scores than the both of you!” She pauses for breath, her expression moving through agitation to resignation. Ruefully she adds, “It’s a risk I can’t afford.”

He rises from his chair and walks towards the door. It’s only moments until she’s due at the podium. “Look, I’ll go. I came to say good on you and break a leg and walk out there with your head held high because you’ve earned this …”

Getting to her feet, she moves to the doorway. “Reg, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so ratty. Thank you for coming to see me.” She squeezes his bicep, smiling softly.

“I’m not going to argue with you. We haven’t any of us chosen an easy path: you, me, or Ed. And there’s no doubt you’ve had a harder go than us. You’ll always have an uphill climb. I just think it’s a mistake to write off love because of it.” The earnestness in his eyes catches her on the back foot.

“That’s as may be,” she demurs, eyes cast towards the floor. “All the same I can’t see why you should trouble yourself with what I think. I mean I know I’m like a little sister to you, but—”

“No, Isobel. That’s not how I see you at all.” Their eyes meet. He takes a small step closer to her. The world stops turning as she watches his eyes flit from her own eyes to her lips. He touches her shoulder, his hand moving up to cradle her cheek.

Surely he isn’t … He can’t … He is! He’s going to kiss me! “Reggie,” she whispers, almost too faintly to hear, “I don’t know how … I’ve never—”

“I know,” he murmurs. “It’s alright.” He leans in. She can feel his breath on her face.

I should close my eyes, she thinks. Aren’t you supposed to close your eyes? He stops just short of her mouth. Giving her time to pull away. Oh! he’s warm. And he’s handsome. And I don’t want to close my eyes. I should touch him. Shouldn’t I touch him? She’s never been in such close proximity to a man before. To be sure, she’s danced with Daddy and Ed at weddings and hospital functions, but they don’t count. She reaches up with uncertainty and fumbles, her hands finding purchase in the lapels of his jacket.

In the next moment his lips touch hers and apprehension vanishes. He is so gentle, brushing the backs of his fingers across her face. She has no idea what she’s doing, how to make this enjoyable for him, but as the first kiss melds into the second she opens her mouth under his, and then so does he. She makes a sound that surprises her, moaning into his mouth when he deepens the kiss and she doesn’t want this shouldn’t want this oh sod it all this is incredible but what the hell does it mean? Oh shut up, for the love of God would you just shut up and enjoy something like a normal person for once you fool?

“Oh!” she gasps loudly when the tip of his tongue slips just past her teeth. Alright, I was wrong; this isn’t unpleasant at all and his mouth is so sweet and I don’t want to stop and—

He pulls back. She gasps again, missing the softness of his lips. “Are you alright?” he pants. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” She frowns, inching closer to him again, aiming to put her hands on his shoulders. He stops her, taking her hands in his own.

She has never thought of herself as small. In fact, she has scarcely ever given any thought whatsoever to her stature. Wit is the standard by which she has measured herself against others. Intellect. But now she notices two things: firstly, that her hands are tiny, held inside of Reginald’s. And secondly, she doesn’t want him to let go. Ever.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he whispers, looking down at their hands. Her left thumb has begun tracing tiny circles over the blue veins on the underside of his wrist. He should stop her. He doesn’t.

“Why not?” she counters. “It was … nice. Wonderful, actually. I suppose the first time was going to happen sooner or later, and there’s no one I’d—” She stops herself suddenly, realising what she’d been about to say. There’s no one I’d rather have done this with. She scolds herself. But you just finished saying that love is for fools, not for women fighting like hell against men for the right to practise medicine. Not for you. Her cheeks flush bright red and she presses a hand to her mouth.

Yet he still holds the other. He waits for her eyes to meet his.

“There’s a longer conversation to be had,” he says gently, astutely. “But now you’ve got to go. Look, it doesn’t have to mean anything, Isobel, if you don’t want it to—”

“Yeah, but you do! You never do anything unless you mean it.” She pauses briefly, pacing back and forth. “Right, I can’t talk now. But we need to do …”

“So ring me up when you’re ready. Best of luck out there, you’ll smash it. I’m going to go find your dad and mum.” He drops her hand and starts to walk away.

She catches his wrist. “Wait,” she implores him, sounding less steady than she means to do. “Reggie, I …” She leans in and presses her lips to his, deepening the kiss when a soundless ‘Oh!’ escapes his lips. “I don’t know, alright?” she whispers when they break apart. He nods. “But I’ll ring you.”

He lifts her hand to his lips and kisses the back of it. “You’ve done it, Izzy,” he says, giving her fingers a squeeze before leaving go of her hand. “Congratulations.” As he walks away she touches her lips. They still tingle from his kisses.

[ewankoseyo]

falling || mark imagine

A/N: This went a little off-topic from the request, but I hope you all enjoy! Hope y’all aren’t lactose intolerant because this one’s hella cheesy lol

“Hi hi! I am so in love with each and every one of your stories! They’re all so amazing! Can I request a kindergarten teacher Mark! Where the reader is an assistant teacher and she slowly starts to fall for him over time because she sees how great he is with the kids and how kind he is overall but little does she know he likes her too? And maybe some of the students try to set them up? Idk i think mark would be an amazing teacher especially since he’s so good with kids THANK U! 😘🥰”

——

They say nobody’s perfect, but Mark Tuan came pretty damn close.

“Good morning, Hyunwoo!”

“Hello Teacher!” Hyunwoo happily greeted, hopping to meet Mark’s raised hand in a high-five before going to his desk.

“Good morning, So Min! I like your shirt, do you like Wonder Woman?”

“Yes sir! She’s my favorite superhero.”

You watched from the back of the room as Mark ruffled the little girl’s hair before she ran off to join her friends and you couldn’t help but grin to yourself like an idiot. Mark always made it a point to greet the kids as they came into the room. How does one have so much energy in the morning?

“Okay everyone, gather on the carpet!” Mark stood at the front of the room and beckoned for everyone to join him. The children eagerly ran to their designated spots on the carpet. They mimicked Mark, placing their tiny hands on their stomach. “Good morning class!”

“Good morning Mr. Tuan!” They bowed in unison.

“Don’t forget to greet your neighbor!” The students turned to each other, greeting their friends good morning. “Now class, what did I say we would be learning today?” Mark took out a yard stick and pointed to the phrase on the board, reading slowly so the class could follow along. “Today we are learning about weather. Yes, Seokjin?”

The little boy put his hand down. “You mean like when it’s cloudy and raining outside?”

“That’s correct Seokjin! Rain is part of the weather. You get a gold star for your question.” Mark reached into his back pocket for a pack of stickers and placed a gold star under the boy’s name in the class star chart. Seokjin grinned proudly at Mark, he always wanted to contribute answers in class. “We will be learning about all types of weather and I have a song to help us! Can I get some assistance?”

You immediately shook yourself out of your daydream, only now realizing Mark was talking to you. He smiled brightly your way, and you could only nod as you joined him at the front of the classroom. You thought that the novelty of being the Mark Tuan’s teaching assistant would have worn off after the first week, but after a month with him, you weren’t sure if you were getting the proper teaching experience you needed.

Being well-versed in things like the way Mark’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree when a student got an answer correct? You were surely getting that experience.

“Ready to begin, Miss?” Mark turned to you, shooting another blinding smile your way. You nodded once again, afraid of looking him in the eyes as you pressed play on his stereo. You were hoping that the warmth you felt rising to your cheeks were just from the small bodies clustered together in the tiny classroom. Mark turned back to the class as the first few beats of his song began. “Follow us everybody! Let’s sing!”

——

“See you next week! Don’t forget to bring a picture of your family for show and tell!” Mark waved off to the students running out of his classroom.

As he tousled the hair of the last student leaving, you felt your heart swell. You attempted to focus on the water colors you were cleaning up, but your attention kept returning to the young teacher—how he didn’t take his eyes off the students until they were completely out of sight, how he sighed to himself with content at the end of another day with his favorite kids, how the sunlight beaming through the window seemed to give him an angelic glow, how his eyes crinkled up adorably as he turned to you and spoke—

Wait, he was speaking to you.

Don’t just stare at him, say something!

“Sorry, what was that?” You felt your cheeks growing warm again, and this time you couldn’t blame all the tiny bodies in the room. Exactly how long had you been staring? And did he happen to notice you staring? You looked away from him, silently cursing yourself and hastily cleaning up a table so you couldn’t see his reaction.

Mark chuckled, a sound you knew all too well. “I was just saying that you’ve become a natural. You even came up with new voices for story time.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out his stickers. “I think that gets you a gold star!”

Your breath hitched as he delicately placed the gold sticker on your collar. Gosh, was it possible for you to not freak out at every little thing he did? Granted, that was the closest his hand had ever been to your face. You could only imagine the feeling of Mark tucking away a stray hair behind your ear, hand caressing your cheek—

“It’s nothing,” you replied offhandedly, resuming your clean up. “I learn from the best.” About Mark? Yes. But about teaching? You weren’t so sure.

Mark helped you in cleaning up, picking up paint brushes from another table. “I’m serious! At the beginning of the month, you were really shy and careful with the students, but now I think you’ve really broken out of your shell.”

You smiled to yourself. Mark had a way with making people feel good about themselves, and you knew he meant every word of it. “Well thank you Mark, it really means a lot,” you told him as you wiped down the table. “I was always so used to working with students one-in-one, so overseeing a whole classroom has been a big change for me. I still have much to learn from you.”

You turned around to toss the dirty wipes in the trash, only to be met with Mark’s chest. You looked up, your face now closer to his than it’s ever been. Was it possible to see the entire galaxy in someone’s eyes? The warmth you felt in your cheeks traveled to your ears.

“Sorry I—”

“It was my fault, I was moving too fast,” Mark smiled apologetically, steadying you with a hand on your shoulder. “I just needed to wash these brush—”

“Mr. Tuan!” Startled, you stepped away from Mark. Seokjin stood there in the doorway, tears streaming down his face.

“What’s wrong, Seokjin?” Mark asked worriedly, putting his brushes down and making his way over to the boy.

“Me and Hyunwoo were walking home together and then he saw a tree and wanted to show me how he climbed trees,” Seokjin spoke through sobs. Mark bent down to the boy’s level and patted him on the back soothingly. “I told him to stop, but he went higher and he just—I couldn’t carry him—”

“Show me where he is,” Mark said gravely, ushering Seokjin outside before turning back to you. You had never seen him look so serious. “I’ll be back.”

You nodded. “I-I’ll finish cleaning up here.”

Half an hour and a couple of scrapes and bruises that needed cleaning later, Hyunwoo’s mom came to pick him and Seokjin up from Mark’s classroom.

“Thank you so much for helping us,” the woman bowed to Mark before looking at the injured boy in her arms. “What did I say about climbing trees?! Do you know how scared I was when Mr. Tuan called me?!”

“Sorry mom,” Hyunwoo mumbled regretfully into her shoulder.

“It’s no problem ma’am, I’m just doing my job,” Mark assured, looking at her sympathetically. “I’m just glad that Hyunwoo didn’t break anything. We’ll be missing him tomorrow, but he should definitely stay home and recuperate.”

After apologizing to and thanking Mark again profusely, the woman left to take the two boys home. Mark turned to you once the room was quiet again and let out a chuckle.

“Well that was probably the most eventful thing to happen since the beginning of school.”

You shook your head in disbelief as you gathered your belongings. “Mark, I don’t know how you do it.”

He looked at you with slight confusion. “What do you mean?”

“You reacted immediately yet calmly, and you knew exactly what to do, even though Hyunwoo didn’t explicitly say Seokjin fell out of the tree,” you explained in awe. “If it were me, I wouldn’t have been able to think clearly and I’d start freaking out. And you’d also run the risk of parents blaming you for their child getting hurt, even though it did happen after school, parents would still think you were responsible—”

“It’s just a matter of putting my students first,” Mark interrupts. “At that moment, my number one priority is making sure the kids are okay and I’d just deal with the consequences, like parents getting mad at me, later.”

“Oh, right.” You nodded slowly. Of course you should put students’ needs and safety first. You sighed to yourself, Mark probably thought you were some heartless idiot who took this teaching assistant job for the benefits. Not wanting to make more of a fool of yourself, you took that moment as your cue to leave. “Well this place is clean, I’ll see you tomorrow, Mark.”

You moved past him with your head down in embarrassment but he gently grabbed your arm, stopping you in your tracks. “Wait! You take the bus, right?”

You looked at his hand on your arm, then at him. “Correct,” you managed to choke out.

“I could drive you home, you know,” Mark suggested with a smile, putting his hand down. “You’re on the way.”

You stood there frozen, contemplating his offer. Maybe this was a sign that he had a thing for you too? And this was his way of getting closer to you? With that killer smile directed your way, what else could it mean, right?

Or maybe Mark was just being nice because he was always a nice guy. And giving someone a ride whose destination was already on your route was not an outlandish thing to offer. Also when did Mark not have a smile that was killer? You’d be a fool to think they were exclusively for you.

Why would Mark have a thing for you? You were just his teaching assistant. He was (almost) perfect.

You shook your head, lips pursed in a thin smile. “It’s okay, I don’t want to impose.”

Mark tilted his head in confusion. “You wouldn’t be imposing, like I said, you’re on the way—”

“And I told a friend I would meet up with her after work for...a thing.” You mentally kicked yourself for such a lame excuse. Now you really had to leave. “I’ll see you again tomorrow, Mark.” You left without another word or glance at the young teacher.

You knew Mark Tuan came pretty damn close to perfection, and he deserved nothing short of it.

——

Hyunwoo had never seen you look so furious.

“Ma’am,” you growled politely at the older woman in front of you, pulling Hyunwoo closer to your side. “Hyunwoo is very sorry for taking from your tree, right Hyunwoo?”

“I’m sorry ma’am, I didn’t know that was your apple tree,” Hyunwoo apologized again, bowing lowly. The older woman rolled her eyes.

“I don’t know what you’re teaching your kids at that school, but it sure isn’t manners!”

“But,” you interjected. “That does not give you the right to hit our students—”

“If you’re not going to teach your students right—”

“We teach our students well at our school, thank you very much,” you corrected angrily. “Like he said, he didn’t know it was your tree. Hyunwoo wouldn’t have done it had he known. We apologized and gave you your apples back. Why criticize our school when there was no big harm done?”

The older woman took a step closer to you. Hyunwoo cowered behind you, clinging to you tighter. “Teacher, you dare talk down to me?”

You didn’t flinch. “No I’m simply reasoning with you, as adults should. Now if you don’t have anything sensible to say, we’re going to be late for school.” You started walking off with Hyunwoo in tow.

“I’m going to report this to the principal. To the school board!”

You stopped in your tracks, looking at the woman slightly. “Need I remind you that Mark Tuan was the one who would drive your husband to and from the hospital when he was sick? Do you really want to tell the principal and get Mark in trouble over something so small?” Sensing the older woman backing off, you gave her a short nod and left.

“Thank you Miss,” Hyunwoo said quietly behind you once you were both out of the woman’s sight.

You sighed as you took his hand, attempting to quicken his pace. “Hyunwoo, what were you doing?”

“Sorry for taking apples from the scary ahjumma’s tree.”

You glanced sympathetically at the boy hanging his head down in shame and tousled his hair. “Thank you for saying that, but that’s not why I’m upset. Hyunwoo, you know you shouldn’t have been climbing that tree. You got us all scared the last time. What if you fell again?”

“I’m sorry Miss, I won’t do it again.” As he held his tiny pinky up to you, you knew you’d be a monster to turn down his promise.

As you entered the classroom, Hyunwoo immediately ran off to his friends to tell them about his morning. When Mark noticed you come in, he gave you a worried look. You were usually here with him an hour before school started, though you didn’t need to be, so it didn’t sit well with him when he didn’t see you bright and early that morning. Mark was about to come up to you and ask what happened, but you just shook your head.

“I know we’re late,” you said apologetically. “I’ll tell you about it later. I don’t want you hold back class any longer.” He wanted to press on, but eventually decided against it.

“Okay everyone, please join me at the carpet!”

The morning’s lesson went without a hitch as Mark taught the students about time with you by his side. He was still left wondering what happened when recess came around and you decided to supervise the schoolyard so Mark could prepare for the next lesson. When the bell rang, all the students ran out of the classroom to play except for Hyunwoo, who stayed at his desk and was quietly drawing.

“Hi Hyunwoo, what are you drawing there?” Mark took the empty seat next to the boy.

It took a moment for Hyunwoo to answer as he was concentrated on coloring. “I’m drawing a picture for Miss.”

Mark noticed Hyunwoo was drawing you. The sentiment warmed his heart. Hyunwoo was often misunderstood by other teachers and adults, but it made Mark happy that he had grown fond of you. “You’re giving it to her? I’m sure she’ll love it.”

Hyunwoo nodded. “Yeah! Today she saved me from the scary ahjumma by the school who hit me.”

Despite the boy’s excited attitude, Mark felt his blood begin to boil at the thought. “Hyunwoo...why did she hit you?”

“I climbed her tree to get apples,” Hyunwoo whispered as if afraid of getting in trouble. “But I didn’t know it was her tree! But then Miss saw me and saved me! The scary ahjumma got mad at her but then Miss said something back and the scary ahjumma got scared!”

Mark let out a sigh of relief when he realized it wasn’t anything too serious. “Why were you trying to get apples, Hyunwoo? You could have gotten really hurt.”

“That’s what Miss said too,” Hyunwoo mentioned. “I wanted to give something to her and I saw on tv teachers like apples, so I tried to pick apples for her. But then I couldn’t, so now I’m drawing a picture!”

“Why do you want to give her a present?”

“Because I like her, she’s my favorite,” Hyunwoo answered, not looking up from his work. Mark smiled fondly at the boy before getting up to prepare for the next lesson.

“That makes the two of us, Hyunwoo.”

——

“Before you leave, don’t forget to help clean up the room!” You announced to the class. “Then line up by the door so I can give you all a Valentine’s Day chocolate on your way out!” The children cheered at the implication of earning more sweets that day and raced to tidy up the room. You and Mark shared a glance from across the room and laughed at the kids’ eagerness.

After passing out your last chocolate, you could finally breath. The students had been looking forward to the Valentine’s Day celebration you were organizing all week and you were glad you were able to pull it off. It took you out of your comfort zone to plan, but kids really enjoyed the games and activities you put together.

You looked over at Mark, who was picking up some leftover wrappers on the floor, and made your way to him. “Chocolate?”

“Don’t mind if I do.” He gladly took the candy from your outstretched hand. “Good job today, I could tell the kids had a lot of fun, especially with the gift exchange. I think you’re pretty much ready to lead a class by yourself full-time.”

“You think too highly of me,” you joked, feeling the familiar warmth rising up your neck. “but thanks Mark. I always appreciate hearing your feedback.”

“Oh! I have something for you.” Mark dashed over to swipe something from his desk. He returned to you with a heart-shaped card similar to the ones the kids made during an activity. He had drawn a bee buzzing around the card.

“‘You are the bee’s knees. To the best teaching assistant a teacher could ask for,’” you read aloud with a giggle. “Aww thanks Mark! And here I thought that the only Valentine I would receive today was from Hyunwoo.”

“He gave you that drawing he’s been working on?”

“Along with a Fuji apple from the market. He’s the sweetest kid.” You two shared a laugh before falling into silence. You probably should have taken this as your cue to leave, seeing as Mark wasn’t going to say anything else. Maybe it was because it was Valentine’s Day or maybe it was because he had just praised you, but you didn’t want to leave Mark just yet. “So...you got any plans for Valentine’s Day?”

“What?”

You mentally cursed yourself for the awkward question. “I mean, I’m assuming you probably have plans with a special someone—not that it’s a good thing to assume things about people but you just seem like the type—”

“You accepted my card didn’t you?”

“What?” Now it was your turn to be confused. “Wait you mean—”

“That you’re my Valentine?” Mark finished, smirking at your realization. “Well that’s how you explained it to the kids today, so yes.”

“Are you serious?” You looked at Mark in disbelief as he nodded fervently in response. “But Mark—I...why me?”

He smiled bashfully, nervously scratching the back of his neck. “Why not? You’re kind of perfect.”

Mark let out a laugh as you scoffed at him. “Me?! I could say the same about you! You’re the young handsome kindergarten teacher who all the other female teachers fawn over. You’re so brilliant and passionate about child development, not only do the students have fun during your lessons but they learn so much and you’re just able to relate to them...and then I’m just me.”

“Well you, Miss,” Mark put a hand under his chin as he playfully pondered his next words. “You were the new beautiful and recently-graduated-with-top-honors assistant teacher who all the teachers were hoping to have in their class. Jackson was super bummed when he found out you weren’t interested in teaching middle school. You’ve been worried about how you were going to connect with these students, but you never gave up, always giving them your 100%. You know, after Hyunwoo told everyone the story of how you protected him, they kind of see you as a hero. You’re more assertive to adults than you think when it comes to the kids, more than I ever could be.”

“So you like me because I’m assertive?”

“I like you because you didn’t realize you were. And then some.” Mark grinned, looking at you hopefully. “So...please tell me that you’re free tonight for our first Valentine’s date, otherwise I just made a complete fool of myself by making you that card.”

“Our first date?” You asked slyly before letting out a whine. “Gosh Mark! You’re supposed to be the cool one. I’m supposed to be the shy one falling inexplicably and one-sidedly, not you!”

You both stood there with the cheesiest grins, neither one believing the other’s feelings. “Does that mean—”

“Yes Mark, yes I’m free for our first Valtentine’s date tonight.”

“Good, because I already kind of made reservations at this one place.” You gave Mark a playful shove before pulling him into a hug. Your body relaxed against his as he drew you closer into his chest. You would have stayed like that even longer, taking your time falling deeper and deeper, if it wasn’t for—

“Wow Mr. Tuan! Did you kiss her yet?!”

——