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binmeister · 3 days ago

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Toxic

Sometimes people just aren’t meant to be together

Saja boys x Reader (Separate)

:) hi.

CW: Angst, toxic relationships / situationships, breaking up and no making up here (maybe), body dysmorphia heavily insinuated in Abs’ prompt and mentions of ED

Jinu

Sometimes self-doubt and anxiety is just too much.. too destructive to handle.

“Why are you so adamant that I don’t mean it when I say I love you?” Your voice was hoarse, fatigue kicking in after the screaming match the two of you just had. Hours of arguing finally ended after Jinu blew up saying that ‘You’re just lying to me! No one could love me, no one could love a monster like me.’ and you just felt lost.

How many times do you need to tell him you loved him? Did he not understand your actions and words were true? You tried to be understanding, tried your best to be patient during the months of dating him. You were understanding when he finally opened up about what he is, what he did in the past. All of it. You accepted him completely and that still wasn’t enough somehow. There’d be days where he accepted your affection and then there were days where he pushed you away, guilt on his face as if he didn’t deserve to be held with such care.

“It’s just.. I..” He trailed off, his voice equally as hoarse as he couldn’t meet your gaze. Couldn’t bare to look at your eyes glossed over with tears ready to fall at any given moment. “Because you can’t. You don’t have to keep lying to me about it.”

A beat of silence fell over you two as the tears finally fell, you were hysteric as you wheezed oxygen in and he couldn’t bring himself to touch you, to comfort you. Didn’t feel he deserved to be the one to pick up the pieces he broke off of you even with the tears brimming at the corner of his eyes. It felt like minutes went by before he finally raised up a hand, about to grab hold of you and pull you to his chest so he could apologise and you guys could make up and everything would be okay again but then you spoke up and his world felt like it fell apart.

“I can’t do this anymore. I just can’t.” You had managed to speak through your sobs, aggressive hiccups as you gasped for air to try and steady yourself. “I feel like nothing I do will get through to you, I’m sorry.”

After your distressed apology you left him, barely able to walk straight and he didn’t stop you. Frozen in place as he heard the sound of his apartment door slam closed after you left. He deserved this. The heartbreak. But it hurt so bad as he realised he’d succeeded in sabotaging something that made him happy, made him feel human.

He deserved to be alone.

Abs / Abby

He just struggled to understand your body image issues.

He didn’t understand why you were so uncomfortable in your own skin, you looked fine to him. He liked the way your belly squished when he held you and he loved knowing he could show his strength by picking you up. He was strong, he didn’t care what size or shape you were because he just liked you. But sometimes this lead to arguments.

On days you couldn’t bring yourself to even look yourself in a mirror when you brushed your teeth because you hated what you saw, wanting to tear your skin and body apart so you could rearrange it and put it back together into something that could be worthy of love. Of attention. He’d reassure you that he loves you, loves how you look and then he lets it slip that he doesn’t really understand why you hate your body so much and then you get fed up. At the positivity he’s always sharing.

It’s hard to digest when he’s being genuine because it feels fake, like he’s just being nice so he can keep you wrapped around his finger. Because he doesn’t notice when you stop eating or making drastic changes to your diet. Believes the little lies you feed him when you say you ‘just didn’t feel hungry’ or that you ‘ate earlier, go ahead!’ as he digs into the meal in front of him without questioning you. When you’re tired from the lack of nutrients he doesn’t ask if you ate, just asks if you got enough sleep as he tries to cradle you into his chest when you’re barely functioning.

He just doesn’t understand. He’s lived long enough as a demon that can change form that he forgets humans can’t do that easily, and when he was human he lived in a time period where food was scarce so only the insanely wealthy could eat themselves into their graves. So when you’re eating like a bird and looking miserable he gets small flashbacks of family and friends during his time as a human, when they struggled to eat but they were so happy to have the small available portion that he thinks you’re okay. Maybe it’s a fad.

When you break up with him, he’s confused. It felt like it was out of no where to him, threw him off guard completely. But you go on about how you need to fix yourself before you two can try again, how you couldn’t love your body and felt envious that he could do whatever he wants with his and still look amazing. He tried to explain to you the difference between yourself and him but stopped himself when he finally took in how sad you looked, the eye bags under your eyes from the restless sleep you’ve had on empty stomachs, how weak you seem like if he blew air onto you it might just make you wither away.

He doesn’t understand, so he lets you walk away from him.

Mystery

It feels like you’re only ever talking out loud to yourself.

At first his silence was comforting, the honeymoon period and rose tinted glasses made it seem like he was just a quiet and doting boyfriend. The type of partner that didn’t need to express his thoughts and feelings with words and actions were enough. But then it felt like you were never having a conversation as a pair.

You’d started to feel self conscious through your relationship, wondering if maybe you talked too much and he was just too polite to not shut you up. Maybe he tuned out your ramblings as background noise because he never gave you anything except a calm smile and a nod to acknowledge that he heard you. At first it was enough to reassure you he was aware and happy but then it made communicating hard. He wouldn’t have any opinions or say anything when it came to arranging date night, he didn’t have thoughts about what you wore, no comments about anything because he didn’t talk to you.

The only time you’ve heard his voice at this rate is when he’s barking at the other guys or when he’s forced to speak for some commercial or promotion the group had to do. And that was it. You didn’t get to hear him whisper that he loved you, he didn’t even say that he loved you with his voice. Your ‘I love you’s were always met with silence and a peck to the cheek, maybe a different form of physical affection but never in words. Not even in text or on a piece of paper.

You’d asked him a few times if he could respond to you, verbally, and he nodded but then nothing changed. He’d fall into the same routine of only nodding, shaking his head, shrugging his shoulders. Everything except respond to you with his voice that at this point you were desperate to listen to. Your only comfort was looping the groups’ songs on repeat and trying to remember his singing voice, or trying to find the small clips online where he spoke. It just wasn’t enough, couldn’t give you the comfort you wanted from him. The physical affection he showed started to mean less and less when it was just filled with silence, the only sounds were the sound of either of your breaths or the occasional squeak from you when he squeezed you too hard in a hug.

You let it go on for a few more weeks, praying that maybe you were just a little too in your head but when it continued on that he didn’t speak to you - you finally met your breaking point. You didn’t tell him to his face that you were breaking up with him, feeling like it wasn’t worth the effort because he wouldn’t respond to you anyway. You texted it to him, saying that you were done and hope he continues to thrive in his career and maybe the next person he meets will be the one he’ll have enough interest in speaking to.

You were left on read.

Romance

You don’t feel secure when the words he promised were for you were used as a template on everyone else too.

You guys were supposed to be on a date, just the two of you. But a group of fans recognised him and came screaming, begging for photos, squealing when he gently held any of their hands and how lovely he was. They completely ignored you, he completely ignored you, until the interaction was done and over with. He waved at them as the group walked away, winking and blowing a kiss to add that extra zest that he knew would make them freak out and post about online.

Yet you stood there next to him, an emptiness in your chest as he continued to keep his attention on the group before half heartedly throwing an arm around your shoulder and ushering you away. His touch should’ve felt warm and comforting but it just made your blood run colder, made you uncomfortable but you didn’t want it to show so you swallowed your pride and tried to smile at him - listening to him as he talked about whatever it was the group did today in their schedule.

Then it happened again the next time you were due to go out together, his attention was solely on the fans and normally you understand. Normally it was fine, you get it, it’s his job. But you felt a crack in your mentality as he started spouting words that he usually kept sacred for you. He directed it at a female fan, complimenting her and word for word reciting things he’s said to you. Words he promised were only for you. So why were you witnessing him casually recite it to a complete stranger? He didn’t even notice the shift in your mood as you excused yourself to go home early after that, didn’t pay attention to how upset you looked because before he could bid you a sweet good night another fan had taken up his attention and he was off in his own world again.

You tried to approach him about it one day when he was hanging out in your room, but he didn’t really reassure you in a way that made you feel like he actually cared. It felt like he was reciting some script he found online about how to deal with an insecure partner - he didn’t even look at you as he said it. He was staring at his nails, words filled with honey but he couldn’t even give you the decency to look at you while he said it. Like you were just some groupie that he had to deal with until his next break.

You told him to get out after that, he wasn’t offended in the slightest and shrugged you off as he left. A simple ‘call me when you miss me’ as he left, attempted to wink at you but was thrown off when you didn’t look at him as you slammed the door shut after he stepped out of your apartment. Whatever, he was sure you’d get over it and come crawling back to him when you felt lonely.

But you didn’t contact him after that. A week had gone by and not a single text from you, he huffed a little annoyed - you always wanted to hear from him, wanted him to say sweet things to you, that’s what you wanted. So he started to initiate. A message here, an attempt at call. Tried to seek you out at places he knew you liked to visit and casually bump into you at one of them but it was like you were purposely avoiding him. Another week goes by and he tries again to call you, but he didn’t expect to hear the dial tone end and the automated voice bank be the only thing to answer him.

“Your call could not be connected.”

Did you block him?

Baby

The crumbs of attention stopped being enough.

Most of the time spent with Baby was side by side as he busied himself with snacks or whatever his phone entertained him with at the time, if it wasn’t his phone then it was a gaming console, if it wasn’t some kind of console then it’d be him making fun of the guys. Quality time didn’t really exist for you two and you didn’t mind it at first because it was just nice to be around him, close enough that he doesn’t feel like pushing you away in disgust and you thought it went well.

Then you realised he didn’t really give you much attention when you weren’t physically around him. His replies were sporadic, half hour to multiple hours between each one and he never continued the conversation no matter how hard you prompted him to. Simple responses and then nothing much to add to it, a little dismissive even.

It gave you whiplash because when you were around him, at first he’d be a little sweeter to you - a peck on the cheek or a hand on yours or your leg to show that he acknowledged you were there. But the touches stayed fleeting. Like he didn’t want to be caught being affectionate to you at all. It continued on like that for a while, fleeting touches and when you tried to engage in more he’d instinctively back away - not wanting the guys to see you being cutesy with him and it stung. Was he embarrassed being with you?

When the two of you were alone he was more loving, even offered up a few sweeter words to you, but those instances were extremely rare given how much he preferred the company of his fellow demons and the chaotic entertainment provided to him for free. You’ve played games with him online here and there, both in your respective rooms for this but it didn’t really feel like he was playing the game with you. Off-handed comments about how bad your teammates were and then insulting them even though you made the same mistakes, he brushed you off telling you that you’re not the problem it was the others but it just kept festering the insecurity in you.

Sometimes you’d be on a call with each other, at first you’d often fall asleep on the phone and you’d laugh about it in the morning but now it felt like he was simply waiting for you to fall asleep first so he could mute and do whatever it is he wanted to do - which was usually hop on some other game or go harass the guys now that he knew you were sleeping soundly.

There was a day you tried to talk to him about it, try to tell him that you didn’t feel like he loved you and he brushed you off. That hurt. You tried again another day and it was the same thing, he brushed you off because he didn’t understand why you needed so much attention. It made you feel greedy and it made you feel even worse about yourself, hating that you latched onto every word he said to you or how excited you got when he finally responded to your message an hour after you sent yours, how small it made you feel. Like without him you didn’t exist.

So you ended it, you pulled him aside when he invited you over to hang out with the guys and you ended it then and there. He didn’t say anything, just blankly stared at you as you complained and explained why you couldn’t do this anymore. He didn’t do anything when you bowed in apology, tears trailing down your cheeks as you excused yourself and left shortly after. He didn’t acknowledge Jinu or Romance when the two older men had approached him to ask if everything was okay, because you’d just ran out crying before anyone could say hi.

He just accepted it, humans were confusing and he couldn’t be bothered to figure out what just happened.

#saja boys x reader #kpop demon hunters x reader #saja boys #jinu x reader #abs saja x reader #mystery x reader #baby saja x reader #romance x reader #kpdh x reader

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frostyresolve · 2 days ago

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33,550,336 ꒰ ᝬ phainon

heaven feels out of reach from the depths of hell, and the devil can only long to feel the sunshine. spoilers for 3.3 trailblaze mission: the fall at dawn’s rise. 1k words. angst. promises.

︶꒦︶꒷︶︶꒷꒦︶︶︶꒷꒦‧

the view of heaven has always been beautiful, especially when his feet stand firmly planted in the lines of black code that’s hell. the moon mourns the warmth only the sun has and the light it brings.

he always looks pained, something that weighs down on his conscience. a kind of guilt that lingers deep below, one that’s taken root in the crevices of his chest and expanded, grown outwards like a weed. PHAINON never speaks up, tells you the true reason why his expression contorts so, or why his hands shake whenever he touches you. or why he whispers your name like a praise or a secret only he’s allowed to know.

when you tilt your head and a pout forms on your lips at his deflection of a proper answer, he can’t resist the urge to lean forward and kiss it away. almost.

he resigns himself to rubbing your thumb absentmindedly against your hand. the weight of his burdens feels heavier than ever under the scrutiny of your curious gaze. three times has he felt like caving in to you, and two times he has decided to tell you the truth, one was when your gold had stained his skin inside out and he couldn’t scrub the image of you out of his eyeballs.

“i love you 33,550,335.” he whispers, his voice low and shaky. the same number of cycles he’s met, loved, and lost you. but you don’t notice the tremor, how the tone of his voice is an octave lower. the tears that spill evaporate almost instantaneously into steam. he can’t even be vulnerable with you, he realises, what a cruel twist of fate.

“such a specific number. you can just say, i love you more. unless…the deliverer is afraid of a little competition, that is.”

he lets out a small huff of laughter, unable to help himself. your question, delivered with your cheek brushing against his shoulder, brings a faint smile to his lips. it’s so simple, yet so you. he turns his head to look at you, taking in the sight of you near him. the warmth in your touch, the quiet comfort of your presence—it takes all his willpower to maintain the facade.

"you loving me the most?" PHAINON echoes, voice tinged with a trace of playfulness. "bold claim."

“then… what about 33,550,336. will you still love me then? and the one after that?”

his expression softens as he understands the challenge in your gestures. he knows exactly what you were doing. you were testing him, teasing him. and like the hopeless fool he was, he’d fall back into your traps if it meant that he’d be able to soak up every moment he could with you.

a small scoff leaves his lips, more fond than annoyed. so he raises an eyebrow, feigning an air of nonchalance.

"is that a trick question?" he scoffs, the corners of his mouth twitching into a smile that could chase storm clouds away. "of course i will. and the one after that, and after that, and after that—“

you’re yanked closer, his arms wrapping around your waist as if trying to keep you firmly in his grasp. with each repetition of his words, he peppers your face with gentle kisses, like whispers of reassurance. his lips brush against your skin like butterfly wings, trails of warmth everywhere they touched.

"you do realize, of course, that you're making me promise... well, a lot of love, right?" his words were punctuated by more soft kisses, a low murmur that escaped his lips.

a simple grin and a giggle is all that you need to get him down on his knees. “you’re made out of love practically.”

his breath hitches as you pull him off-balance, and PHAINON finds himself sprawled half on top of you, his legs tangled with yours, his palm coming up to cup the back of your head to soften the blow of falling to the ground. the sudden proximity is dizzying, your chests pressed together and noses touching. it’s a sensation that he’s felt more than 33 million times, one he’s craved for so long, yet it never fails to make his chest flutter.

he can't help but let out a half-chuckle, half-gasp at your comment, "made out of love, huh?"

the irony wasn't lost on him. if only you knew how far from the truth you were, how many times he’s held you lifeless in his arms, or the destruction that trails in his wake.

and so he drinks you in like he’s never seen the light of day itself. lips crushed against yours desperately like he’s inhaling oxygen, a mess of breaths and emotions he can’t quite decipher. him, made of love that’ll destroy you. hands brushing every inch of you as if trying to map you. he’s memorised you long ago, the sounds you’d make, the feeling of your skin against his more than 30 million cycles ago.

when the sky turns red and the black tide swallows all, he knows he’s failed to herald a new dawn, your dreams along with those of so many other lost voices weighing on his shoulders. what keeps him going is you. your smile that’s clawed into his eyes, your voice in his ribs, the heart that he rips out of his chest every transformation that beats only for you.

but he can’t help but feel that this is the last time he’ll see you, but won’t say goodbye for now. he’ll kiss you until you’re out of breath, hold you even when his arms ache, and talk until his voice is hoarse.

the sun will shine down on the two of you again someday, and the miracle of amphoreus shall herald a new dawn, one with you by his side. he’ll be able to promise his tomorrows, his forever to you then. but for now, PHAINON will try again, no matter how long it takes.

thirty-three million, five hundred and fifty thousand, three hundred and thirty-six times.

#honkai star rail x reader #hsr x reader #honkai star rail x you #hsr x you #hsr phainon #phainon x reader #phainon x you #hsr angst #hsr imagines #𖦆 📼 frostyresolve ⩇ ʿ ୭

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obsessedhoneycomb · 1 day ago

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hey mon!! i don’t know if you’re doing requests or anything but if you are could you possibly do oscar endo reader? your endo stories have brought me comfort on those flare days. hope you’re doing well❤️

thanks for this lovely request, I can’t say no to this 🥹 it makes my little soul warm knowing my endo stories brings you comfort, may your cramps go away with a swish of a magic wand ❣️I poured my experience to this, and I need to say that every body is different in this matter, but we’re in this together 🥰 enjoy this

-> endo stories - George one & two, Max

I love every part of you

Oscar Piastri x fem!reader

Summary: You’re about to enjoy Oscars home race with his family. Your body have a different plans, so momma Piastri is the hero of the day.

Warnings: endometriosis, period, period blood, discomfort, pain, painkillers, surgery and post surgery, also love and support from Oscar and Piastri girls

Word count: 1.9k

Walking through the paddock you felt like a queen. Hot weather in Australia made your skin glow with sweat but you didn’t care. It was homerace of your boyfriend, Oscar Piastri.

He was already invested in the preparations for qualifying, when you arrived at the booth where his mom Nicole and his sisters were, greeting you happily. You were very close as a family.

While you were talking with Nicole, you felt slight cramping at your lower abdomen, thinking nothing of it. Your period was a constant struggle, sometimes it came early, sometimes none at all. From time to time you were struggling with cramps that led you to bedridden state but you had now four months of absolute bliss of having slight cramps.

Oscar was in Q3, when sharp pain shot through your belly like a knife, leaving you paralysed against the wall, breathing in and out desperately, praying for it to go away, sweat washing over you even more that it was. Nicole took you aside from the sight of the prying eyes of the press, looking at you with worry. “What’s the matter, darling?”

You held your tears back, your hand placed over your abdomen. “I-I don’t know. Just sharp pain.”

Nicole led you to the restrooms in the back, closing the door behind you, noticing the red stain on your white skirt. She took in a sharp breath, mortified about how to tell you and not fill you with panic.

“Darling… just lean over the sink here and breathe through it. I-“ she tried to talk you through it, her eyes sliding down your figure to your skirt, her brows furrowed in worry. You caught that expression, turning around slightly. “What is it?”

She glanced up at you with sympathy only woman can provide. “I'm sorry, sweetie, but… I think your period just came.”

Looking into the mirror with horror written over your face, you couldn’t believe it. Out of all days it just came this weekend in Australia.

“Oh god… I…”

Nicole quickly rummaged through her purse, finding a small tampon. “That should be enough until I take you home.”

“But Osc-“

“This is an emergency. He’ll understand.”

And that was how you ended up in the car with her, driving to Oscar's childhood home while his sisters stayed back at the track to keep him informed about you after he was done with qualifying.

You only remember how you ended up in Nicole’s huge bed in her spacious bedroom, falling asleep after she managed to get some painkillers into you, placing a cold towel on your sweaty forehead with a heating pad at your lower belly.

She was at your side to the moment Oscar stormed through the house calling your name, only to find you laying under the covers, sleeping soundly with his mother beside you holding your hand.

“Mom…” he wasn’t the one to show vulnerability, but for you he would bleed out to death.

Nicole smiled softly. “It's okay, baby. She’s okay. Let's talk a little.” She got up from the bed, guiding Oscar out, him stealing the last glance at your sleeping form.

When they got to the kitchen, she poured them some iced juice. He sat on the bar chair, looking into the glass, watching the orange liquid. “I should’ve been there for her. I should’ve jump out of the car and-“

“Osc, stop it. We handled it together greatly. The press didn’t even notice her being gone. She was so embarrassed, poor thing… but what makes me worried is her cramps. She fainted nearly three times before we got here. That’s not healthy.” Nicole had frown on her face, glancing at Oscar as if she wanted some answers.

He sighed, running a hand over his face. “She’s- I don’t want to talk about it without her consent.”

That piqued her interest. “What do you mean?”

Frustrated, Oscar was blushing. “Mom. It’s a girl's intimate thing.”

“Well, I’m a woman, baby. I gave birth to you and your sisters. What’s new about women's intimity?”

Taking a sip of juice he decided to speak. “Well… she’s cramping a lot. Not only on her period but sometimes through her cycle. And yeah, I know a lot about her cycle because I’m a grown and interested man in the woman I love so… also her periods are not regular, she is really feeling low most of the time. She was on so many examinations, I was with her for each of them, believe me, watching her in tears after she was prodded through and through with some instruments was not on my bingo card. But… she has endometriosis.”

Nicole felt the air leaving her lungs, looking at him perplexed. She knew, reading about it many times, she wanted to be educated for her girls just in case. “Oh my god, darling… that’s horrible.”

Oscar ruffled his messy hair with a grunt, he shifted a little. “For the past couple months it was good, her periods were light and she was getting better. I guess you never know in this matter of illness.”

“What’s the prognosis?” Nicole asked with concern.

“The doctor said that it would be wise to get into surgery and cut those lesions out, but she was scared. Needed the time to think about it. So, it’s up to her. Everywhere we were, the clinic, her gynaecologist, they recommended that she should get pregnant soon, to avoid problems in the future. But that made me so fucking upset. Like, she’s a mess without a baby, how’d she possibly function with it? Yeah, we want to have a family in the future, but right now this is not on the top of the list. I will pay every penny for her to get pregnant later through every possible method if we’re not able to do so naturally. I just want her to feel good in her own body for a while, if it’s possible.” Oscar was on the verge of tears.

Nicole took a step closer to him, placing a hand over his shoulder. “Talk to her. It would be good for her to undergo that surgery. Even though she’d be better for some months, it’s still worth it.”

You woke up sweaty, groaning. Feeling something wet between your legs, you ran to the bathroom next to the bedroom to change your tampon and pad which was soaked through. Letting out a painful sigh, you just sat there, pitying yourself. Until you heard a knock. “Baby? Can I come in?” Oscar. He saw you in a way worse so you just whispered yes. Walking inside, he took in how you sat on the toilet, the mess of your period on your legs and the pad laying beside you on the ground. He took it and started to clean it off.

“Oscar. Don’t do that. It’s disgusting.” You tried to stop him, but your pain, even though it was a little dulled by the painkillers, shot you back.

“No, it’s from you. This was part of you a while ago. And I love you completely. I love every part of you, so, let me be here for you in this. I’m not weak. And I’m certainly not disgusted.” He looked at you sharply but then he softened a little. You nodded, grateful for him being like that.

After he cleaned it up, he looked for the fresh pad in the bathroom, handing it to you, while he sat on the ground beside the toilet.

“I talked with my mom. She said you fainted in the car from the pain.”

You looked at him, her eyes welling with tears of embarrassment. “I did…”

He cupped your cheeks softly. “Hey, hey, love… don’t cry. It’s okay. She’s worried about you and- I explained why you’re like this. She understands.”

“Really? She doesn’t see me as some kind of failure?”

“No, honey. I told her that you can undergo a surgery and-“

“I thought about it.”

He raised his brows in surprise. “You did?” His hands now ended behind you on your back, rubbing the skin there, bringing your some kind of comfort.

“Yeah. I want this pain to end. Even though it’s not a hundred percent sure that I’ll be clean of it in the future, I still want to try it. Because I can’t live like this.”

“Well. I’ll be your biggest supporter through that. We can do it soon. I’ll manage a reserve driver for my-“

“Osc, stop. No. If I’m to get that surgery, it will be when you’re free from schedule. You need to fight for your title this year. I’ll wait for a few months.”

“Are you sure? I'd do everything for you. I don’t care.”

“It's flattering, but no. Let's do it over summer break.”

“Okay. Whatever you want.”

Slowly you woke up to the sharp light in the room, a shush of machines whispering in the background. You felt cold, but somehow good, your eyes tried to adjust to the warmth of the light.

Suddenly your hand squeezed gently another, you turned your head to that someone sitting beside you. “Oscar…” your raspy voice echoed through the hospital room.

He nearly choked on his tears, he didn’t want to scare you how much he was worried about you earlier but he couldn’t help it anymore. “Yes, I’m here, love… you made it.”

You smiled weakly, now slightly feeling the ache in your body, but it wasn’t that bad as you imagined. “How long was I out?”

“Two hours. It was quick.” He kissed your hand, as if you were about to sublime, you chuckled at that.

“That’s good, I guess…” you whispered.

“Try to sleep some more. I’ll be here.”

And then you were out again.

Few hours later, you woke up more refreshed, the anesthesia completely out of your system, you were able to talk more and even sit up a little. The doctor and nurses came to check on you, giving you smiles and warm words about your recovery.

Oscar sat at your side while you were slowly sipping on the black tea which felt like heaven right now. He took the cup from you gently, placing it on the bedside table.

You felt curious. “I want to look at those scars.”

He nodded, helping you lift the duvet for you to look at your naked stomach. There were four tiny scars with blisters over them.

You raised your brows in surprise. “Oh. Four of them. I expected only three.”

“It's like a new procedure or something like that. I googled it.” Oscar was proud of having that information.

“That means you looked at my naked body while I slept.” You gave him a feigning gasp of shock.

“Sorry, I was curious and I couldn’t help it.” He felt a little bad.

You chuckled softly. “It’s okay. I’m just kidding.”

Oscar huffed a little but then he smiled lovingly. His hand brushed through your messy hair, kissing your forehead. You relished in that moment, taking in the warmth of his lips on your skin, his scent filling your mind with calm energy.

“You’re the bravest person I know.” He said, smiling, caressing your cheek with his finger.

“I’d be lost without you. You’re my whole world, Osc.” You whispered, staring into his eyes.

Your little moment of love was interrupted by the Piastri girly gang walking through the door inside the hospital room. Oscar grunted softly, but his sisters and his mother were already at your side, hugging you gently, giving you the awwws and ahhhs. You just laughed a little, what your body allowed you.

He watched that family scene in front of his eyes and he just couldn’t help the idea running through his brain.

When this year's season is over, he’s gonna marry you.

Please don’t use my writings without permission! Pictures found on Pinterest.

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saintshadow · 3 days ago

Text

Your overthinking :: Your reality

pile i

The tower knight of swords high priestess 6 of wands

The way other people perceive you is not that serious, idm it disrespectfully. Imagine if the most evil person you know hated you. Now imagine caring? Don’t give merit to the opinions of people who aren’t even good to you or others. Currently, the people who take up a problem with you are the actual problem. You’re well liked and people like hearing from you for the most part. You are more popular than you think. Give yourself more credit. You do a lot for the people you love & they really appreciate you. Learn to take life less seriously. Constantly berating yourself and being harsh is unhelpful. It doesn’t allow you room to grow or improve. It keeps you trapped in a cycle. Avoiding mistakes at all costs means you are afraid of truth and growth. We all make mistakes, we all do things wrong, maybe some of the skills you lack cause you to feel useless. Thats okay, one day things will be different. With effort and persistence it will change, stop worrying so much and be patient with yourself and your growth. You’re not behind, you’ve just developed in other ways ahead of others and now you’re learning a new set of skills that people generally have. Relax. Seriously. You don’t have to be perfect all the time. I sense for some of you continuing to lead life in this way could lead to eventual health problems of the heart and gut/liver. I also feel that someone needs to drink less alcohol. Don’t let it become a worse habit than it is. Take it from someone who used to drink like a fish, it is not worth it. I have seen what alcoholism does to people. It isn’t funny or cute or quirky, addiction is a serious problem. You’re in a threshold where it would be easier to quit now than it would later. There’s a paternal wound here. This part of the message probably won’t resonate with everyone.

pile ii

8 of wands 6 of cups 8 of cups temperance

You’re terrified of sudden abandonment. You’re very manipulative in relationships honestly because you’re scared of being left. You overdo it for everyone around you and inevitably burn yourself out and exhaust yourself quickly as a result. You’re also impulsive and your impulsioms can lead to illogical actions and tjought patterns. It’s like you’d expect someone to scream at you and cut you off forever and ever if you accidentally broke a glass. Constantly trying to avoid abandonment is more likely to cause it. You can get very secretive and weird when you feel like people are going to leave you. It’s like you don’t realize how you come off, you’re very tired of being hurt. It seems like you’re convinced you’re unloveable if you aren’t constantly doing something for others. Thats super delusional. No shade no tea. Sometimes relationships feel “stagnant” or “slow” it doesn’t mean people are going away or that they’re not in alignment. Sometimes you just have to brace yourself through the discomfort & trust theres a light at the end of the tunnel. You frequently delude yourself and fear monger yourself. Some of you should consider therapy. It could help a lot.

pile iii

this pile will have 2 subsections because there is a split in the collective lol

🌸 + 🍒

Knight of cups 9 of cups reversed seven of pentacles reversed seven of wands

🍒 Lol y’all are overthinking a manifestation, but it’s like ok… yes you are a very powerful manifestor & a lot of you put in great effort. Some of you are very self pitying though & fail to understand that you don’t position yourself to receive. Being open to receive is not the same as taking actual actions that put you in the position to receive btw. Ie: “I’m manifesting starting a business” are you learning the skills & information necessary to go after this goal. It’s like you have so much energy but you don’t realize that you can take action. Don’t rot away in the recesses of your subconscious mind stuck in an endless loop of trying to figure out why you can’t manifest and listening to subliminals & shit. At some point you have to recognize that you need to take action. You are very emotional, sensitive, dreamy, idealistic, & innocent. You are powerful, you are capable of manifesting your desires, they are getting close, but now is the time for tapping into your masculine energy. Be more confident, eat healthily, take care of your body & mind as you prime yourself to receive this manifestation. You have to plant your seeds before you can harvest them silly.

🌸 the great effort you’ve put into your manifestation is soon to pay off. You’ve got to maintain the work & the effort, you’re stepping into something you thought wouldn’t be reaccessible. I heard ice spice “you thought I was a one hit wonder?”. Come back era. Keep pushing. You could have some messages in pile 1!

#tarot community #pick a card #tarot online #pick a pile #tarot reading #tarotblr #pac tarot #pick a picture

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xxeatualivexx · 2 days ago

Text

BUCKY BARNES FIC RECS PART 1

First time doing something like this for Bucky! This is part 1 but it is still being edited (I can't find some of the fics I like)

Remember to read the warnings and tags before writing!

NAVIGATION

SERIES

TRILOGY

Five Seconds, Five Years Apart, II, III

Angst - Bucky Barnes proposed just days before the world ended — afraid he might never get another chance. Then he vanished in Wakanda. Five years later, he’s at your door — unchanged, while your whole life has moved on. Some love survives time. But what happens when life doesn’t wait?

DUOLOGY

Praise (1.7k), Cloud Nine (4.7k)

Fluff, Smut - Bucky realises he has a praise kink after getting a tattoo. | Bucky is dating a modern woman. He didn’t expect you to get him high, though.

Traces of a Lonely World (3.2k), Final (7.3k)

Angst, Suggestive - bucky's job takes him away from you more that he cares to admit. most of the times you can understand, but there are some nights it tears you apart.

Before I Could Say It (5.9k), After I Was Too Late (10.1k)

Angst, Fluff - The three times Bucky almost confessed his love to you, and the one time he finally does. | The three times Bucky saved your life, and the one time you save each other.

Lovefool (18k), Juno (14.8k)

Fluff, Smut - James Barnes is a terrible congressman, hence Sam sending you to be his assistant. You keep him on a tight leash, and you both do a horrible job at hiding your feelings for one another. Add jealousy and alcohol to the mix? what could possibly change? | In the early stages of your relationship with Congressman Barnes, you swore he was kidding anytime he mentioned the idea of being his wife, however, it is apparent that he wasn't kidding. It's also obvious that there's nothing more that you want in the world.

ONE-SHOT

Exactly Like You Said (0.5k)

Smut - You and Bucky Barnes have always had that thing—the kind of sexual tension everyone sees coming from a mile away. Every sparring match somehow ends the same way: your thighs locked tight around his head, pretending it’s just part of the fight. But today, Bucky decides he’s tired of pretending. One snarky comment turns into a moment you can’t take back—and don’t want to. He pins you to the mat, hooks your legs over his shoulders, and shows you exactly how long he’s been thinking about this.

The Same Thing (1.4k)

Angst - during a mission, you put yourself in harm's way to protect bucky. back at the avengers compound, he wants to know why.

In the Mood (1.5k)

Angst, Fluff - He tells himself it’s fine.

Gotta keep moving—bigger things to do, too many items on his list. His libido doesn’t even crack the top ten.

Until he met… you.

Never Been Kissed (1.5k)

Fluff - You've never been one to kiss and tell.

Take Me Home (1.7k)

Angst, Fluff - the team discovers bucky's relationship with you when bucky searches for you in the hospital after hydra attacks new york

The Cost of Sides - (2.0k)

Angst - You and Bucky seem to be on opposite sides.

Cry For Me, Sweetheart (2.1k)

Smut - You always cry when he bites you. It’s not pain, not really. It’s too much your system overloads and Bucky can’t help himself.

Even If You Forget (2.1k)

Angst - After a mission gone wrong, Bucky loses all memory of his relationship with you. Though heartbroken, you patiently stay by his side, offering gentle support and quiet company. Despite the emotional distance, you hold onto the hope that someday he’ll find his way back.

Kneel (2.1k)

Angst - The three times Bucky kneeled for you, the heartbreak the ensued.

Smitten (2.3k)

Fluff - Sam finally meets Bucky’s girlfriend, though you’re not who he thinks you are.

The Stupid One (2.3k)

Angst, Suggestive - your breakup with bucky had all been his fault. he got scared and called it quits. and he regretted more than you knew. but he’d never admit that to you. at least, not while sober.

Birds of a Feather (2.5k)

Fluff - You have to attend a close relative's wedding and there's no one better to bring than your best friend, Bucky.

Love Me or Leave Me (2.6k)

Angst - You loved him deeply. But loving him started to hurt. And Bucky? He saw it coming—he just couldn’t stop it.

Out of Time, Into Our Lives (2.7k)

Fluff - A teen girl suddenly appears at the Avengers compound claiming to be from the future. While she tries to avoid revealing too much, she accidentally and subtly drops hints about her life, her siblings, and the deep bond she shares with you and Bucky Barnes both.

Oh, My Love, Side to Side (3k)

Angst, Fluff - After a successful yet traumatizing mission, you dream of losing Bucky for the first time in years. In a fit of panic, you call him. He answers. Not the phone, but the call your heart makes to his.

What You Don't Know (3.2k)

Angst, Fluff - You and Bucky are sent to find Joaquin, causing you to finally get to know each other in the process.

Put My Mind at Ease - (3.5k)

Angst - You return home from a successful mission with plans to have a pizza night with Bucky- but things go awry when an injury rears it’s head.

Open Wounds (3.9k)

Angst, Fluff - Due to an open wound, Bucky seems to hate you. And no matter what Sam does, nothing seems to change. Until you and Bucky have a heated exchange that ends in a way neither of you had been expecting.

He Still Smelled Like Home (4.1k)

Angst, Smut - A missed anniversary. A quiet goodbye. And then a metal arm shielding you from death. You were always his. Even when you weren’t.

Pink in the Night (4.5k)

Smut - Some interesting rumours have been circling around about Bucky. Little do you know, it's kinda your fault.

Hotel Mishap (5.1k)

Angst - you and bucky can't go five minutes without wanting to slam each other into a wall, so when you're forced into a hotel room with only one bed, years of unresolved tension and bruised pride boil to a breaking point.

Man in the Woods (5.1k)

Angst - Bucky pulled the trigger to save a mission—and lost the only person who made him feel human. Years later, Sam finds him deep in the woods, still living like she’s beside him.

What We Never Said (5.3k)

Angst, Fluff - You weren’t lovers. Not really friends either. Just two people who found something sacred in the silence between them—until he left.

Get Around (6.1k)

Fluff - After going on a date with Bucky, Sarah realises they're better off as friends. So she does the next best thing: sets him up with you, the Wilsons’ childhood best friend.

How You Get The Girl (7.7k)

Angst, Fluff - you thought you’d ruined everything by loving him. but that was the moment everything finally made sense.

Nine Lives (9.4k)

Smut - Bucky Barnes drives you insane—in every possible way. The bickering, the reckless plans, the way he smirks like he knows exactly what he’s doing to you. But when a mission goes sideways, leaving you both bloodied and too close for comfort, the tension between you ignites into something impossible to ignore.

You can keep pretending. Keep fighting him. But Bucky isn’t one to back down—especially when he knows you don’t really want him to.

When It All Falls Apart (8.1k)

Angst - The fate of the universe was in your hands. Bucky and you had been sent to retrieve the soul stone, a seemingly simple task. Unbeknownst to you, there was a hefty price to pay for such an exchange. You’re able to return to Earth, but it’s soon apparent part of you was left in Vormir.

Mercy Kill (10.6k)

Angst - After Bucky gets hurt on a mission, you’re forbidden from visiting him in the medbay. When you finally get to speak to him, things go differently than you expected.

(i only came to this) party 4 u (11.4k)

Angst, Fluff - For the first few months you worked with the avengers, they barely knew you. Beyond what you were like during a mission, you were a mystery to them. It was truly marvelous how well you worked with the team and yet there was so little they knew about you.

You barely went to team bonding and you NEVER went to Tony Stark's parties. Well, not until last night. And you’re never going again.

Because of James Bucky Barnes.

Lost in the Wild (12.9k)

Angst, Fluff, Smut - It was supposed to be an easy mission. In and out. But then communication went out. The intel became useless. The weather turned horrific. Bucky lost his gun. And then, you.

Come Find Me (13.4k)

Angst - Bucky cant wait for you to return from your mission. But when your partner comes back without you, it’s up to Bucky to bring you home safe.

In the Woods (13.5k)

Angst, Smut - He left you behind to keep you safe, but safety never stopped the heartbreak. Now, a year of grief, silence, and sleepless nights unravel the moment he shows up at your door with his new team—bruised, breathless, begging. You’re angry and he’s sorry, but the love is still there. It always has been.

Meet Me Halfway (15k)

Angst, Fluff - Bucky has to recruit the love of his life to save New York from the void. He doesn't know if she wants to ever see him again, though.

A Thousand Times Before (16.5k)

Angst, Fluff - Bucky travels to an alternate universe for the sake of a mission. But he doesn’t expect to come face to face with a version of you that loves him, completely and openly. Back in his own world, he is left with a truth he can’t keep to himself anymore.

SHORT FICTIONS (drabbles, prompts, requests, blurbs, etc.)

Bucky’s cock being so fucking big he teases you about it (0.1k)

Smut

Bucky giving you backshots (0.1k)

Smut

Bucky Barnes taking you from behind and talking you through it, kissing your neck (0.2k)

Smut

Thick Arms, Slow Grind (0.8k)

Smut

Shut Up (0.9k)

Smut

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky imagine #bucky barnes imagines #bucky imagines #bucky barnes x you #bucky x you #bucky barnes angst #bucky angst #bucky barnes smut #bucky smut #bucky barnes fluff #bucky fluff #bucky barnes fic recs #fic recs #fic recommendations

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strrykais · 3 days ago

Text

── 🫧 now playing: mars by jesse barrera

𝐈 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐯𝐚𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐈 𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐚 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞

𝑓𝑜𝑙𝑑𝑒𝑟 ¹ ・・・ with chans busy schedule and interrupted vacations you decide to surprise him this time with a private villa on the beach, keeping him away from unwanted and unnecessary attention.

꒰ 𝓢ubject ꒱ ──── 𝐁oyfriend!𝐂han x 𝐅em!𝐑eader ༘ ⋆ ‎ g. fluff cw. swimsuits, kissing, petnames wc. 882 ┈┈┈ Ӄfiles ₊꒷꒦˚ ᴛᴀɢʟɪsᴛ ғᴏʀᴍ

Ӄai’s ¿? this is the first part of the ‘ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴇ ɪɴ ʟᴏᴠᴇ’ series! gonna be honest jesse barrera’s new album helped write this series.. so they are gonna be named after his songs :)

Chan reached out towards your side of the bed, feeling the soft sheets underneath his finger tips. Groaning out and stretching his tired limbs, Chan fully sits up taking in the view of the beach, the curtains slightly open, but not enough for the sunlight to wake him up. It's only been three days since you and chan arrived at this private villa you surprised him with.

You remember him talking about wanting to go to the beach but with his jammed packed schedule and the constant unwanted attention. You took it upon yourself to look at private villas, though yes it cost more but you knew chan needed and deserved it. Especially with how well he treats you, it was only right for you to treat him.

Chan walked down the hall out into the connecting kitchen and living room to see you nowhere to be seen. “Baby?” Chan calls out only to be responded with silence. He tries not to panic looking throughout the house trying to find some sort of trace of you.

Chan reaches for the patio door when it slides open to reveal your tanned skin and bright smile.

“Morning sleepy head.” you say before he engulfs you in a big hug.

“Oh my god don’t scare me like that. I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

“I didn’t want to wake you, it was the first time I saw you sleep past 9, so I went outside.” you place a kiss on his chest and walk inside. “I forgot my water bottle, so I came back in to grab it.”

Chan watches as you fill up the bottle with ice and water. “I made breakfast, though it's probably cold now, you slept rather late today honey.” You giggle out seeing the way Chan was watching your every move, his hair longer now but a mess on his head. The way his eyes are still hazy. “You're so cute.”

You walk up to him, placing a kiss on his cheek. “Wake up first and meet me outside,” you poke at his shirtless chest. “It’s pretty outside, and there is only an old couple. Wimberly and Pam, they were walking the beach when they saw me and started talking to me. They are here for their 10th anniversary, I told them we were here for our first. I probably shouldn’t have because now they think we are newlyweds-”

Chan cuts you off by placing a kiss on your lips. Tilting his head, he deepens the kiss. Tongue softly licking at your lips asking for you to grant him access. You comply easily as your hands wrap around his neck. One hand one your cheek while the other rests on the small of your back.

Before it can get any further you pull back gasping for air, while your mind is all foggy chan takes the opportunity to place a sweet kiss on your cheek. “You look pretty in your swimsuit and your little hat.”

You push him away, rolling your eyes. “I know you are making fun of me and my hat but it's protecting me from the sun. Hurry up and change and come outside.”

After Chan went to get ready and eat the meal you prepared, he was outside lathering up on sunblock watching you as you carried a bucket of sea water. A huge smile on his lips as he sees you struggle and getting upset that most of it is slashing out the bucket from your swaying so hard.

Chan sat on a chair, eyes never leaving you. He never thought that someone like you would be so caring for him and his friends, so patient with his line of work, someone so understanding with him. You never faulted him for the missed dates or the forgotten promises, you never made him feel worse than he already did. You were someone chan felt so relaxed with, that he never bothered to check the time, because every second with you counted and he didn't want to waste time checking.

Chan comes back to, seeing you running towards him, waving something in your hand.

“Chan, Channie look, look.”

You rush up to his sitting frame, hands cupping out holding out a sand dollar. Chan places his bigger hands underneath your smaller ones letting the sand dollar fall onto his palms.

“Ive never seen a full one at the beach before. It's always broken.” you lean over his hand slightly bumping your head into his. You rub out the spot, and with a smile never leaving your face. “It's gonna look so cool on the sand palace I'm building.”

“Sand palace?” Chan says putting the dollar back into your hands.

“Well yeah, only the best for my king.”

Chan audibly laughs, standing up grabbing your cheeks and placing a quick kiss on your lips. “That was so lame.”

“It was, wasn't it. Come on, we have a palace to build.” you quickly rush out his hands. Though it was hot outside, Chan missed the warmth of your cheeks on his palms. Seeing you trip over the sand, quickly catching yourself rushing back to your task.

Chan knew right then and there that he wouldn’t mind building many sand palaces with you, as long as you never leave his side.

ᴘᴇʀᴍᴀɴᴇɴᴛ ᴛᴀɢʟɪsᴛ : @mhluvie @sxungchqn @chenlezip @cowboy-jester @peskybirdysya @jisungs-iced-americano @skysole @champagneconfetti @suckerforv @auroratiseee @dollxkill @bookishcaptain @goldenmellow @darlingsoulbeautifulthoughts @amaranthlvr @kj-kts @fackeraccount @imagine-all-the-imagines @sellomaybe @va1entinaaa @vangoghsear0 @insbread @jaeminlights @sonicsoloss @d3kstar @balladeerssong @my-neurodivergent-world @eli-rey @emmy-vanderlinde @sirroma @atinyrosedoor @shotovhs @becca_0919 @skzescapes @perisoreuscorvid @corgilover20 @changbinsdwaekkiball @thisrandombitch @mooseung @alnex_05 @jeonginsbaee @torkorpse @grassbutneo @peskybirdysya @weirdowithaphone @unfxrgetwble @bangchanwifey @avilio-is-dead @geni-627 @stylishcaprisuns @iarainha @ssunglvr @beomgyusluver @fairyssongs @lezleeferguson-120 @wookiebearz

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lunareclipse-writes · 1 day ago

Note

It may seem like a stupid question, but what would be headcanons or not (go with your taste) of what it would be like to have a yautja courting you (I don't know how this will sound because English is not my language) and if you can, A little bit of tension

Like I know he's going to bring you an animal, but that's it???

I apologize again for any mistakes or if this text may have something uncomfortable or that you did not understand (I may have used some slang from where I live)

Not a stupid question at all! ❤

So you'll get different answers from each creator you ask because headcanons are what we think it would be like

Meaning you'll agree with some but not all based on your preferences because everyone is different in how they think

Some might headcanon they just bring you an animal, but I headcanon that even the animal they gift you is special - they make sure it reminds them of you, it has meaning

(Hope that helps, I'm not great at explaining things)

---

Yautja (Predator) courtship is a fascinating topic, especially if you like your romance primal, intense, and a little terrifying in the best way.

---

Yautja Courting Headcanons (with a romantic, protective twist)

---

1. The Trophy Offering – More Than Just a Kill

• Yes, they will bring you an animal... but not just any animal. It'll be:

• A creature they hunted specifically with you in mind—one they think suits your strength, cunning, or beauty.

• The more dangerous the prey, the more seriously they're taking you.

• Sometimes they’ll bring parts (like bones or teeth) and expect you to wear them—like a token of protection or status.

• If you accept the trophy and keep it displayed or worn, it's basically saying “I accept you.”

---

2. Blood-Marking Rituals

• He might press his blood-covered hand to your chest, forehead, or even your mouth after a hunt.

• To them, this is an incredibly intimate act—a claim, but also a sign of deep respect. They rarely touch anyone like this.

---

3. Silent Guarding

• He won’t always be visible, but he’s there—especially during your most vulnerable moments: sleeping, bathing, eating.

• You may notice tiny indicators of his presence: a fresh kill nearby, the subtle hum of cloaking tech failing, the way predators avoid you now.

• If another Yautja approaches, he’ll come out of hiding real fast—aggressive body language, challenging growls. You're his.

---

4. Showing You How to Kill

• Yautja don’t just love hunters—they respect those who can survive.

• He may teach you how to wield a blade or set traps, showing patience and pride when you succeed.

• If you manage to wound or kill something dangerous, he’ll be visibly aroused/impressed, even if he doesn’t say it.

---

5. Crafting Personal Gifts

• When not killing things, he might work on making something from his own materials—armor pieces, a necklace, a tool with clan markings and yours mixed in.

• He’s not verbal, so he uses craftsmanship to show he thinks about you.

---

6. Physical Intimacy as a Trust Test

• Yautja aren’t touchy-feely, but if he starts allowing physical closeness—like brushing your hair, touching your face, or standing close without armor—it’s HUGE.

• He may press his forehead to yours (Yautja equivalent of a kiss).

• If you initiate touch and he doesn’t pull away—or better yet, leans into it—he’s absolutely smitten.

---

7. Mimicry – Echoing Your Voice

• If he’s learned your language, he may repeat certain words or phrases you say to mimic your voice.

• It’s eerie but weirdly endearing—it’s his way of trying to “speak your soul.”

• If he ever mimics something soft like “mine” or your name, it means everything to him.

---

8. Jealousy & Challenge

• If another human flirts with you? Expect a tense, low growl and intimidating posture.

• He may subtly challenge them or scare them off—not to hurt, just to warn.

• This possessiveness is protective more than controlling—but it is intense.

---

9. Wound-Tending

• If you’re injured, he will lose his shit.

• He may carry you to safety, clean the wound with alien tech, and stay glued to your side while you recover—even growling at others who try to help.

• Afterward, he may mark the spot with blood or a carved rune, symbolizing your survival together.

---

10. Presenting You to the Clan

• The ultimate proof of his devotion: he brings you to meet his people.

• This is a ceremony, and you will be expected to act with confidence (or at least bravery).

• If they accept you, you’ll be given a protective sigil—either worn, tattooed, or marked in blood—and you’re considered part of his future.

---

Masterlist

#yautja #predator #headcanon #yautja x reader #predator x reader #predator x human #predator x you #yautja x human #yautja x you #headcanons #male reader #trans reader #female reader #nonbinary reader #gender neutral reader

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mission2mordor · 23 hours ago

Text

Hmmmmm, I’m having thoughts.

Give me 1987 Eddie Munson, who almost makes it big. His band plays all the time, they have demos in the works, and he has a gorgeous boyfriend who is so understanding and patient, and he almost has everything he wants and could have ever dreamed of.

Then, the night of Corroded Coffin’s biggest show yet, where they were going to be scouted, Al Munson rears his ugly mug. Eddie sees him in the crowd and trips over an amp cord. He goes crashing to the ground, smacking his head on a table and the stage on the way down. He hears Gareth go crashing over his drum kit, Jeff and Aaron throwing their instruments and Steve crashing into everything as they move to get to Eddie.

Eddie wakes up in a hospital bed three days later with no sign of his band. Steve sits next to him in a chair, clearly not having gone home.

The nurses check him over when they come in, careful not to wake Steve. Eddie lets him doze a little longer as he looks at his leg. Broken in three places. His hand. Two dislocated fingers from trying to catch himself and failing. Thirteen stitches in his hairline from the stage.

They missed their break. Everything in their lives had gone right, the stars all aligned for one night, and Eddie gets scared and makes them all miss their big break.

The boys creep into the hospital room around 4:40. They tell him about what happened after. How the scout never showed. Gareth’s broken arm from swinging on Eddie’s dad. They don’t mention his broken bones or his stitches. They just keep him company and talk about D&D until the nighttime nurses force them to go home. She moves to wake Steve and Eddie catches her wrist, shaking his head at her.

Steve wakes up a couple hours later and fawns over Eddie for all of seventy minutes before he asks him what made him so freaked out. Eddie explains himself as best he can and shrugs.

“I dunno what to do Stevie. It’ll take forever to build back up to that. To being scouted. And Corroded Coffin is pretty much over. That crashed and burned with the bass drum. I’m tired, Steve. I don’t understand how he can just ruin everything in five minutes like that.” Eddie says solemnly. He’s right and they both know it. Nobody will take the band on if that’s the kind of things happening at their shows before they’ve even been signed. They’re not Mötley Crüe. They can’t get away with bar fights. They’re not in L.A.

This is podunk, Indiana.

Steve gives him a smile and makes up a metaphor.

“You guys are butterflies. Your wings are just spreading and filling out. I’m sure you’ll find something out of all this. A way to clean up all the blood and keep going. A way to try again.” Steve murmurs, kissing Eddie on the forehead before climbing into the hospital bed to cuddle up with him.

“That would be a killer album name. ‘Butterfly’s Blood.’ You know it?” Eddie jokes but Steve echoes the idea and a seed is planted inside Eddies mind.

Two and a half years later,a band named CARNAGE rises to the top. Butterfly’s Blood is no. 1 on the rock/metal billboard charts. The first music video from the album includes footage from the hideout the night Eddie fell off the stage. When he hits the ground, the screen goes black. A bass line begins and then the song bursts through the speakers.

‘Hope for the Worst’ breaks records with the amount of calls to MTV about playing the video.

#eddie munson #steddie #steve harrington #stranger things #yaiaglf universe

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tinybeetiny · 1 day ago

Note

can u please make more ateez angst when you have time and feel like writing something that hurts. it doesn’t have to have a happy ending as long as y/n isn’t a totally pushover, it also doesn’t matter for which member or whether it’s something in the format as the “they call you clingy” fic or a traditional fic! thanks in advance and regardless of whether you take this request keep up the good work girly!

When they yell at you: OT8

Aaah now that i got all my "I Love You" fluffs done I figured i could give yall some angsty angst!!! I hope this was ever thing you wanted anon! I appreciate your kind words and i do like the whole Yn not being a total push over!!!

->Starring: OT8xReader ->Genre: Angst ->Cw: Yelling, gaslighting? maybe?, hurt no comfort, there will be NO part 2, no second chances, mean everyone except Yn... because as you should, stand for yourself pookie

Masterlist | Ateez Masterlist

Seonghwa:

It started with silence, Seonghwa’s favorite kind of armor.

He stood in the kitchen, back turned, cleaning the same glass for the third time. You leaned against the doorframe, watching him, your own chest tightening from the weight in the air.

“Are you really not going to talk to me?” you finally asked, voice barely above a whisper.

His hand froze mid-wipe. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“There’s everything to talk about, Seonghwa,” you said, stepping in. “You shut down whenever something gets too close. You’ve been distant for weeks, and I’m here trying to hold us together with what? Prayers and duct tape?”

He set the glass down with a loud clink and turned. His jaw was tight, eyes rimmed with exhaustion. “You think this is easy for me? That I’m just choosing to shut down?”

“No. I think you’re scared of confronting things that hurt. And instead of dealing with them, you pretend nothing’s wrong until we break apart in silence.”

His jaw clenched, and suddenly he slammed his fist on the counter, knocking the glass over.

“Enough,” he growled, voice low and rough. “You think your constant worrying, your endless questions, is going to ‘fix’ things… you make everything worse!”

The words crashed over you, sharper and colder than you expected.

Your breath caught. Your eyes went wide, the sting of his cruelty like a slap you hadn’t seen coming.

Seonghwa’s face instantly paled, his eyes widening as if the words echoed back at him with new, terrifying weight.

He blinked, swallowing hard.

You froze.

Your throat burned. “Say that again.”

He didn’t.

“I dare you to look me in the eye and say I made things worse by caring. By trying.”

Seonghwa dropped his gaze. The crack in his facade was starting to show, but it was too late.

“I’ve bent myself backwards for you,” you continued, voice trembling but firm. “Tried to read between the lines of your silence. Tried to understand your moods like they were a second language. But this? This is where I draw the line.”

“Y/n—”

“No,” you snapped. “You don’t get to make me the villain in your story because you’re afraid of being vulnerable. I’m not your enemy, Seonghwa. But if this is how you talk to someone who loves you, then maybe you don’t understand what love really is.”

He opened his mouth to argue but nothing came out.

You took a slow breath, grounding yourself in your own strength. “You want peace? Start by not wounding the people who are on your side.”

He reached for your hand. “Please don’t go.”

“I’m not going far,” you whispered. “But I’m not staying here just to be hurt, either. Figure out if you're going to keep pushing me away every time you're scared. Because I can’t love someone who punishes me for caring.”

You slipped your hand out of his and turned, tears pooling, but not falling, until you stepped outside and let the door close behind you.

Inside, Seonghwa stood completely still, hand outstretched, realizing far too late that he just broke the one person who never asked for anything but honesty.

Hongjoong:

The apartment was dim when you walked in, the only light coming from the cold glow of Hongjoong’s laptop screen. You kicked off your shoes quietly, careful not to disturb the fragile calm. The takeout container felt heavy in your hands, but you hoped a simple meal might bring a moment of peace.

He hadn’t noticed you yet, hunched over his desk, eyes bloodshot, the soft buzz of the headphones muffling his low muttering. The weight of exhaustion clung to him like a second skin.

You placed the food on the table gently, trying to keep your voice calm.

“Hey, I got your favorite—”

He slammed the laptop shut with a sharp clack that echoed through the small room. His gaze snapped toward you, eyes blazing with a frustration you hadn’t seen before.

“You seriously thought now was a good time to come home with takeout?” he snapped, voice sharper than ever.

You blinked, the surprise pinching your chest. “I just thought you might be hungry. You haven’t eaten all day.”

His breath hitched, but his anger poured out like a flood. “I don’t have time to eat!” he shouted, standing abruptly, the tension radiating off him like heat. “Do you even understand the pressure I’m under? No. You don't because I’m doing everything alone!”

Silence. Not the comfortable kind. The kind that burns your lungs when you try to breathe.

Your heart thudded fiercely against your ribs. “Excuse me?”

He ran a hand over his face, already pacing, voice rising with every word. “I have to produce, mix, write lyrics, manage schedules, all while you just… float around here like everything’s normal.”

You swallowed the lump tightening in your throat, trying to steady your voice. “You’re exhausted. I get that. But you don’t get to talk to me like that because you’re spiraling.”

He stopped, staring through you as if you were a ghost, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

You stepped forward, voice steady but thick with emotion. “I’ve stayed up with you on the nights you were too anxious to sleep. I’ve sat in silence with you when words failed you. I’ve tried everything to make your world a little softer when it got too loud and now I’m just… what? In your way?”

No answer. Just the frantic rhythm of his breathing.

Your voice cracked, not from weakness but the strength it took to stand tall amid the storm. “Don’t mistake my quiet support for invisibility. I see you, Hongjoong. But I will not let you erase me just to feel like you’re in control.”

The room was heavy with silence again, thick and suffocating.

You bent down to grab your keys, every movement deliberate to calm your shaking hands.

Hongjoong finally moved toward you, eyes wide with desperation. “Wait! Don’t go. I didn’t mean—”

You turned, meeting his gaze with unwavering resolve. “You did. And maybe that’s the problem.”

The door clicked softly behind you, sealing the night shut.

Hongjoong was left alone, the echo of your words hanging in the stale air, and the untouched dinner, still warm and forgotten on the table.

Yunho:

Dinner was quiet, eerily so.

You sat across from him, your plate untouched. The only sound came from Yunho’s occasional laughter as he scrolled through his phone, completely absorbed. You watched him, your chest tightening with every second that passed without a glance in your direction.

You didn’t want to ruin the night. But you also couldn’t take it anymore.

“How was your day?”

“Good” he muttered, eyes still on his screen.

“Anything new?” you asked, hoping he'd look up

"Not really?"

"Do you even want to do this?"

He sighed like it was a burden. “Y/n, don’t start right now. I’m tired.”

“I’ve been quiet for weeks, Yunho. How much longer was I supposed to keep swallowing how empty this feels?”

He finally looked up, just in time for the irritation to flash in his eyes.

And then, he snapped.

“Can you just shut up for once?”

Everything inside you went silent.

You stared at him, stunned, but only for a breath. Your heart thudded, but you didn’t flinch. Instead, you pushed back your chair and stood slowly.

Your voice came out low, deadly calm.

“What the fuck did you just say to me?”

His face shifted, regret flickering behind the anger, but it was far too late.

“I—I didn’t mean it like—”

“No. You said it. Loud and clear,” you cut him off, voice shaking with fury. “You think I’ve been nagging? You think this is me being dramatic? Try being in a relationship where your boyfriend would rather talk to his phone than look at you.”

He stepped forward. “Y/n, I didn’t mean it—”

“But you did,” you snapped, backing away. “Don’t try to twist it now. You told me to shut up for finally asking why I’m hurting. And you think you’re the one who’s tired?”

Tears welled in your eyes, but you refused to let them fall in front of him. “I have begged for your attention in silence for weeks. I’ve sat across this table, hoping, praying, you’d notice I was breaking. But now I know why you didn’t.”

You grabbed your bag, every movement filled with controlled fire.

“You stopped caring a long time ago and maybe I should stop wasting my voice on someone who only notices when I'm about to leave.”

You turned toward the door, but paused just long enough to look back.

“I don’t care how tired you are, Yunho. You don’t get to make me small just because you can’t handle the sound of my pain.”

Then you walked out, slamming the door behind you, leaving him alone with his phone, the cold food, and the sinking weight of his own cruelty.

Yeosang:

The studio buzzed with the rhythmic sounds of footsteps and heavy breathing as the members drilled the new choreography. You stood near the edge of the room, watching Yeosang as he moved with sharp precision, but his face betrayed something deeper, frustration and exhaustion etched into every line.

He stumbled on a difficult step, swearing under his breath. The frustration bubbled over quickly.

When the group took a short break, you stepped forward, hoping to offer some comfort.

“Yeosang, you’re really killing it out there. This routine’s tough, but I believe in you.”

Your words were soft, genuine, meant to soothe the tension hanging in the air.

Instead, Yeosang’s face twisted into a scowl. He spun around, eyes flashing with something fierce and raw.

“Do you even realize what I’m dealing with?” he snapped, voice rising louder than you expected making your eyes widen. “You think your little pep talk is helping? It’s not! You have no idea what I’m going through!”

The room fell still. Your heart clenched at the sharpness in his voice, but you refused to back down.

“I’m just trying to support you,” you said calmly, meeting his glare. “I’m here because I care.”

Yeosang’s jaw tightened, fingers curling into fists at his sides. “Care? That’s easy to say when you don’t have the weight of every expectation crushing down on you. The pressure to be perfect, the constant eyes watching, the fear of messing up, I live with that every second.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat, feeling the weight of his pain but also the sting of his words.

Hongjoong stepped forward cautiously. “Yeosang, it’s okay to be frustrated. We all are. But don’t take it out on—”

“Don’t,” Yeosang cut him off sharply, eyes wild. “You don’t get to tell me to calm down. Nobody understands this like I do.”

You saw the others exchange uneasy glances, unsure how to intervene without making things worse.

“I may not be on stage,” you said quietly but firmly, “but I see you. I see the pressure. And I also see how you’re pushing away the people who want to support you.”

His breathing was heavy now, chest rising and falling quickly.

“Maybe my words don’t fix anything,” you continued, voice steady despite the ache in your chest. “But lashing out doesn’t make it better either.”

Yeosang shook his head, frustration and something softer flickering behind his eyes.

“I’m trying to hold everything together. Sometimes, it feels like it’s too much.”

You took a step closer, unwavering. “And you’re not alone. But if you keep shutting people out, you’ll be fighting that battle alone.”

He looked at you then, vulnerability breaking through the anger for just a moment.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice cracking.

You shook your head gently. “Sorry isn’t enough when it’s this constant. I’m here because I want to be by your side, not because I’m willing to be treated like a problem.”

The room was silent except for the distant hum of the air conditioner and your steady breaths.

“I need space,” you said finally, voice firm. “If this is how it’s going to be, I need to step away.”

Without waiting for a response, you turned and walked toward the exit, your footsteps echoing in the quiet studio.

Behind you, Yeosang stood frozen, surrounded by his brothers, the weight of his frustration now heavier with the absence of the one person who believed in him most.

San:

The rain tapped steadily against the windows, the sound echoing through your apartment.

You stood by the kitchen counter, arms crossed, watching San pace like he was walking circles around an answer he couldn’t find. His jaw was clenched, eyes dark and distant.

You had been arguing for twenty minutes, but somewhere around minute twelve, it had stopped being about the dishes, or the missed calls, or the weekend he forgot to come home.

Now, it was something else. Something ugly. Something buried too long.

“You think everything has to be about you!” he suddenly exploded, voice cutting through the silence like glass. “God, it’s exhausting!”

Your spine straightened. “Excuse me?”

“You never shut up about how you feel, how you’re hurting, how you need more time, more answers, more, whatever the hell you think I owe you.”

You blinked. Once. Twice. “You do owe me something, San. Respect. Consistency. The bare minimum of communication.” Your voice stayed level, but your heart was thudding so loud it made your ears ring. “I haven’t been asking for miracles. I’ve been asking you to show up.”

He laughed bitterly. “Show up? You mean like how you always keep score? Like every time I’m late, it’s another point on your perfect little tally board?”

“Late?” you scoffed. “Try disappearing, San. Try not answering texts for days and pretending like you’re not the one pulling away. I’ve been right here, the whole damn time, waiting for you to be honest with me.”

He shook his head like he couldn’t bear to hear it.

You stepped forward. “Say something. Say anything real for once.”

And then he did.

Something in his expression snapped. His shoulders stiffened, and when he spoke, his voice came out like venom.

“Maybe I don’t want to be here anymore.”

You froze.

The words didn’t land immediately. They echoed instead, bouncing off the walls and repeating in your mind until they sank in. Your mouth went dry.

Your voice cracked, but not with weakness, only disbelief. “You’re really going to say that to me? After everything we’ve been through?”

He looked away. Said nothing.

So you filled the silence. “You want out? Fine. But don’t you dare act like I’m the problem just because you don’t have the guts to admit you’ve already checked out.”

His eyes flashed. “You act like you're some saint for putting up with me, but you’re controlling. You act like you're always right. Like you know me better than I know myself.”

“I do know you!” you shouted. “And I know you’re scared. I know you’re pushing me away so you don’t have to feel guilty when you finally walk. But I won’t be here when you do. I won’t let you hurt me twice.”

He looked stunned for half a second. Then he masked it again.

You grabbed your keys from the table, fingers trembling, but your spine was steel.

“I loved you, San,” you said, voice trembling but firm. “And I thought you loved me too. But if this is what your love looks like, if it's yelling and silence and emotional whiplash, then I don’t want it.”

You moved to the door.

“Wait—” he started, but the word died in his throat.

You turned back one last time, your eyes shining but your chin lifted.

“I fought for us. I did. But I’m done fighting alone.”

The door clicked shut behind you before he could say another word.

And in the quiet that followed, he realized the worst thing of all

You weren’t bluffing.

You weren’t coming back.

Mingi:

The room was filled with a tension no music could drown out.

You sat on the edge of the couch, your knee bouncing anxiously while Mingi stood near the window, arms crossed, back rigid. The playlist he’d put on earlier still played in the background, some lo-fi beat that now felt too soft for the sharp air between you.

You hadn’t meant to fight tonight.

It had started with something small, an offhand comment, a flicker of disappointment you voiced gently. But with Mingi lately, even small things had begun to feel impossible. Like walking across cracked ice, hoping it didn’t break beneath you.

“I don’t get why you always shut down when I bring up something that’s bothering me,” you said, your voice soft but tired. “I’m not attacking you, Mingi. I’m not trying to corner you. I just want us to talk, like adults.”

He scoffed under his breath, his jaw clenching as he looked out the window. “It’s always something with you. Every little thing becomes a whole speech. A crisis.”

The words hit harder than he probably meant them to. You flinched, your eyes narrowing slightly.

“Is that really what you think I’m doing?” you asked quietly.

He ran a hand through his hair and began pacing, his frustration unraveling by the second. “I just… I don’t know how to do all this deep, emotional, whatever. Sometimes it feels like we’re on completely different pages. Like I’m trying to breathe and you’re handing me a rulebook.”

Your heart thudded painfully in your chest. You stood up slowly, leveling your gaze at him.

“I’m not trying to suffocate you, Mingi. I’m trying to love you. Loving someone requires talking. Feeling. Trying. It requires presence, not just being in the room but actually showing up when it counts.”

He turned on you then, eyes flashing. Voice raising “Then maybe you should find someone who actually understands you.”

The silence that followed wasn’t just quiet, it was brutal.

Your breath caught. You stared at him, frozen in place as the words settled deep into your skin like bruises blooming all at once.

He froze too, his face falling almost instantly, regret chasing the fire from his features. “Y/n, I didn’t mean that—”

You took a single step back. That was all. But it felt like an earthquake.

“No, Mingi,” you said, voice low, trembling but controlled. “You did mean it. You wanted to hurt me. And congratulations. You did.”

He stepped forward, panicked now. “No, I didn’t. I swear. I just, I didn’t know what to say. I said the wrong thing.”

You held up a hand. “Don’t insult me by pretending it just slipped out. You said the exact thing that would make me shut down. The thing you knew would hit the deepest place. And now that I’m quiet, you want to backpedal?”

His mouth opened, but nothing came out.

You weren’t done.

“You act like me needing communication makes me needy. Like I’m too sensitive. Too much. But let me ask you something, Mingi. How long did you expect me to keep giving and giving while you locked yourself behind walls and told me I was lucky just to be let in once a week?”

He blinked rapidly, his throat bobbing as he swallowed back whatever emotion was rising.

“I never asked you to give so much-” he tried.

“But you let me,” you cut in, voice sharp now. “You let me pour everything I had into us while you stayed silent and now you want to play the overwhelmed victim because I asked you to show up? I don’t need perfect, Mingi. I just needed effort.”

He stepped closer, tears in his eyes now. “I didn’t know how to handle any of it. I was scared. Of failing. Of disappointing you.”

You smiled bitterly, eyes glassy. “And instead, you chose to push me away before I could be the one to leave.”

You moved to pick up your bag. The quiet shuffle of fabric sounded deafening against the stillness of the room.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Please… just give me a second chance.”

You looked over your shoulder, voice breaking as you spoke. “I gave you so many second chances, Mingi and you spent them all convincing me my emotions were too loud.”

He reached for your hand, but you pulled away.

“I loved you. Truly. Fully. With everything I had. You’ll remember that when you're lying awake at night wishing you hadn’t made me feel like I was a burden to be tolerated instead of a person to be loved.”

You didn’t slam the door. You didn’t scream. You just walked away, quiet and resolute, leaving Mingi in the hollow silence that remained, alone with the echo of his own words and the weight of the love he’d just lost.

Wooyoung:

It started with a simple question.

“Who was that texting you at 2 a.m.?” you asked gently, sitting on the edge of the bed, fingers loosely laced in your lap, voice careful—too careful, like you already sensed the storm building beneath the surface.

Wooyoung froze mid-step, towel draped around his neck from a late-night dance session. He turned halfway toward you, tension immediately tightening his frame.

“What?”

“I just… noticed your phone going off last night,” you continued. “A few times, actually. Then you locked it and turned it face down. I’m not accusing you of anything, Wooyoung. I’m just asking.”

He scoffed, tossing the towel carelessly onto the dresser like it suddenly weighed too much.

“Unbelievable.”

Your brow furrowed. “What is?”

“You,” he snapped, his tone already too sharp. “Always doing this. You say you’re not accusing me, but your tone says otherwise. Like you’re just waiting for me to slip up.”

You stood slowly, not out of anger, but because the air between you suddenly felt brittle, like it might shatter if you stayed still. “I’m not doing anything, Wooyoung. I asked a question because I care. Because lately, it feels like you’ve been somewhere else entirely.”

He laughed bitterly, cold, joyless. “God, you don’t trust me, do you?”

Your heart stuttered.

“What?” you whispered.

He stepped back, eyes wild. “Why are we even doing this if you don’t believe in me?”

You blinked, stunned.

“Wooyoung—”

“No,” he cut you off, louder now, words like thrown knives. “You don’t trust me, so why the hell are we even doing this?”

And just like that, something inside you cracked.

Not from the words themselves, but from the way he said them. From the fact that he knew where to strike and didn’t hesitate.

You stared at him, the silence around you thick with disbelief. “Are you serious right now?”

He opened his mouth to respond, but you beat him to it, your voice no longer calm, no longer soft.

“No,” you said, firm and rising. “You do not get to spin this on me.”

Wooyoung’s expression flickered, regret starting to creep in, but it was too late.

“I asked you a question. A basic, honest question. And instead of answering, you turned it into an attack. You flipped it on me so you wouldn’t have to be accountable.”

He faltered. “I just. I'm tired of being interrogated—”

“And I’m tired of being gaslit every time I bring up something real!” you shouted, chest heaving. “I am not the villain in this story, Wooyoung. I’ve shown up for you. Every single time. Even when you were distant. Even when you wouldn’t talk. I’ve sat in silence, waited for you to open up, given you every chance because I trusted you.”

He stood there, blinking rapidly, lips parting as if to speak—then closing again.

“You think trust means never questioning anything?” you pressed, voice cracking slightly. “Trust means honesty. It means facing hard things together. But every time I try to do that, you shut down or turn it into an argument.”

You looked at him, really looked. The way his shoulders were tense, hands fidgeting at his sides. Like he wanted to reach for you, but didn’t know if he was allowed to.

“You’ve made me feel like my concern is a problem. Like I’m too much for needing clarity. For wanting to feel secure. You dodge with sarcasm, or you guilt-trip me until I’m the one apologizing.”

“I didn’t mean to—” he tried.

“You never mean to,” you interrupted, quieter now. But no less fierce. “But that doesn’t make it hurt less. That doesn’t fix the way I go to sleep every night wondering if I said something wrong just because you won’t communicate.”

He stepped toward you, voice trembling now. “Y/n, I didn’t know what to say, I panicked, I wasn’t thinking.”

“No,” you whispered, stepping back. “You were thinking. You thought saying something cruel would shut me up faster than the truth ever could.”

His face crumpled, the beginnings of tears in his eyes.

“I’m not asking you to be perfect,” you said. “I’m asking you to be real with me. I’m asking you to meet me halfway instead of making me feel crazy for feeling anything at all.”

He looked at you like he was seeing you clearly for the first time—and maybe he was.

“I have never demanded anything from you that you didn’t already promise me. Honesty. Effort. Respect.” You moved to the dresser, picking up your bag with shaking hands. “If those things feel like mistrust to you, maybe you’re not ready for real love.”

The words echoed in the space between you, and neither of you moved.

He reached out, voice barely audible. “Please… don’t leave. We can fix this.”

You paused by the door. And when you turned to face him, your eyes weren’t cold, but they were done pleading.

“You want my trust?” you said softly. “Then stop treating my heart like a threat. You want my love? Then stop using my questions as an excuse to hide.”

And then you left, quiet, firm, and entirely in control of your own worth.

Behind you, Wooyoung sank to the bed like the wind had been knocked from him, the weight of your absence louder than anything he’d said all night.

And for the first time, he realized your silence wasn’t the problem.

It was his.

Jongho:

The room felt like it was closing in.

The air was thick with tension, charged with everything neither of you had said for days. The TV still played in the background, long forgotten. A half-eaten dinner sat on the table, untouched and cold. You stood near the door, your back against it as if anchoring yourself in place.

Jongho paced like a caged animal, his fists clenched at his sides, jaw tight, shoulders trembling from holding back what was clearly boiling just beneath the surface.

“You don’t get it!” he exploded, his voice cracking on the edge of something sharp and dangerous. “You think you always know what’s best for me, like I’m some damn kid who needs saving. Like you’re the only one who cares enough to make decisions.”

You flinched at the volume, but you didn’t back down. You’d been walking on eggshells too long already.

“I’m not trying to control you,” you said, voice firm but gentle. “I’m trying to protect us. But it’s like every time I reach for you, you push me further away.”

He scoffed bitterly, throwing his hands in the air. “Protect us? No. You’re protecting yourself, from me. Every time I feel something, you want to dissect it, fix it, control it.”

Your brows drew together, hurt flashing in your eyes. “That’s not fair.”

“No,” he snapped, stepping forward. “What’s not fair is being treated like I’m some fragile project. I’m not. I’m a person. A person who doesn’t need you constantly reminding me of what I should be doing or feeling.”

“I never said you were fragile,” you whispered, but the sting in your chest begged to differ.

Jongho’s voice rose again, laced with frustration. “You don’t say it, you show it. Every time I mess up, every time I get quiet, you act like it’s your job to fix me. Maybe I’m just tired. Maybe I don’t want to be held under a microscope every time I shut down.”

“Maybe you’re scared,” you said quietly, stepping closer, refusing to be bulldozed. “Scared of being vulnerable. But pushing me away doesn’t make that fear disappear. It just makes you cruel.”

He slammed his palm against the edge of the kitchen counter, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the room. “You don’t get to tell me how to be scared! I’m trying, God, I am trying, but you don’t listen. You just push. Always pushing.”

The tears burned at your eyes, but you held your ground. “Because I’m fighting for us, Jongho. Because every time you shut down, I stay. I sit with you in the silence, I reach through your walls. But I can’t keep reaching if you keep backing up like I’m the one hurting you.”

He turned to face you fully, chest heaving. “You are hurting me.”

That cut deeper than anything else he’d said.

“I’m hurting you?” you echoed, voice barely a whisper. “By loving you? By trying to understand you?”

He didn’t answer. And that silence? That told you everything.

“I’m not trying to fix you,” you said, voice shaking but strong. “I’m trying to love you. Honestly. Patiently. But if every time I open up, you meet me with anger, then what the hell are we even doing?”

He stepped closer again, face twisted in conflict, voice lowering into something raw. “Maybe I don’t want to be loved that way. Maybe I’m tired of feeling like I’m never enough for you.”

You stared at him, stunned. Then the words came, thick with heartbreak. “You are more than enough. But I’m not enough for you. Not if I have to shrink myself just to keep you from shutting down.”

His breath caught. “Don’t say that—”

“I have to,” you interrupted, voice cracking. “Because I keep begging for the bare minimum and calling it love. And I’m done.”

Jongho’s face crumpled. “Y/n, please… don’t walk away. Not like this.”

You stared at him for a long moment. The way his chest was rising and falling, the unshed tears in his eyes, the tremble in his hands. It was everything you’d wanted to see, emotion, vulnerability, presence, but it was too late.

“I can’t keep being the only one who’s trying,” you whispered, tears finally falling. “The only one scared of losing us. If you can’t fight for me, then I have to fight for myself.”

He reached for you, his voice a desperate plea. “Don’t go.”

You stepped back, your voice steady despite everything inside you breaking. “I love you, Jongho. But I won’t lose myself just to be loved by someone who only notices me when I’m about to leave.”

You turned, grabbed your coat with trembling hands, and walked toward the door.

And this time, he didn’t stop you.

The door clicked shut behind you with quiet finality, and the echo of it hollowed out the entire room. Jongho stood there, unmoving, arms limp at his sides as the silence collapsed around him.

Only now did he understand the damage he’d done, not in the heat of yelling, but in every moment he made you feel like you weren’t enough.

And now, for the first time, you weren’t there to reassure him that he was.

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st4rlvr · 2 days ago

Note

hihi :D can you do a headcanon of bangchan getting high too? i’d appreciate it 😭

(the grin that spread across my face reading this YES YES!!!)

chan getting high headcanons

⸻

-You knew he’d be a giggling mess. But you were not prepared for how cute he’d be with glassy eyes, red-rimmed lashes, and the softest flush painting his cheeks. His curls are a little messy from flopping back into your lap, and he keeps blinking slow like he’s just now discovering what it means to blink.

-The moment it hits, he’s smothering you—literally full-body on top of you, limbs all tangled. You try to shift so you can breathe and he just grips tighter.

“No. If I let go I’ll float away,” he mutters into your neck like he’s solving the world’s problems.

-“I need a kiss or else I’ll flatline,” he mumbles dramatically. His voice trembles with devastation.

-He keeps asking for kisses but in the neediest little pouty tone. “Just one. No—actually two. Wait. Five. I need five. I’m emotionally malnourished.”

-He tastes the smoke in his mouth again and scrunches his face like a puppy who ate a lemon. “I really didn’t expect it to taste like that… kinda like… sexy?”

“What?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”

-Then the rambling starts. You were warned he talks a lot when he’s sober—nothing compares to high Chan.

“Y/N… you’re so beautiful and I’m so high and I really love you and I don’t understand how water even works and like, I was looking at your nose and wondering how you were born with the perfect nose and I’m scared I’m gonna die from being too in love with you and I just wanna live inside your hoodie or maybe your pocket—”

-He goes silent when the doorbell rings. You both freeze. “What if it’s the police.”

“It’s Jisung, he’s bringing food—”

“WHAT IF JISUNG IS THE POLICE NOW.”

-When Jisung walks in, Chan bolts upright on the couch, sits way too straight, and tries to speak like he’s narrating a public safety announcement. “Good evening, Han Jisung. Thank you for the food.”

-Jisung immediately bursts out laughing. “Bro. You’re so cooked it’s painful.”

“I knew you’d know!!” Chan says, eyes wide like a kid who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Is it my aura??”

“It’s the fact that you’re crying into a spring roll.”

-That’s right. He’s sobbing as he eats. You ask what’s wrong and all he can say is:

“It’s just… this… food? Is the best thing I’ve ever had. I’m crying because I didn’t know I needed it like this.”

“Do you even know what you’re eating?”

“Nope. Could be chalk for all I know. But I love it. I love you. I love Jisung. I love life.”

-He ends up curled around you like a koala, mumbling nonsense while rubbing his face against your shoulder like a cat.

-He watches you with those red, sleepy, totally wrecked eyes—lashes fluttering, lips parted, every little movement you make having him starstruck. You’re not even doing anything. Just existing.

-You end the night with his head in your lap, his fingers curled into your hoodie strings, mumbling:

“I need you every second of my life… I’m gonna marry you so hard…”

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kawasiki-jo · 2 days ago

Text

What Would Kim Do?

Okay okay—so I want Kim’s POV of Kenta being taken captive. Yes, he knows the kind of person Kenta is. He knows Kenta was raised alone, taught to deal with his problems alone. He knows Kenta’s default setting is self-sacrifice, that he was never taught how to lean on people. And the few times he has tried? They’ve thoroughly, absolutely ruined him. Kim knows this is all new territory for Kenta. He knows Pete has been the only constant in Kenta’s life—romantic feelings or not, Pete is still the only common denominator he has. He trusts him.

He also knows Kenta is dead-set on destroying Tony, on helping them rid the world of that monster. Kenta’s priorities are locked in—laser-focused on the bigger picture, the greater good. But no matter how much Kim rationalizes Kenta’s silence, it doesn’t make the ache in his heart hurt any less.

The thing is, it’s not about trust. Kim trusts Kenta. He trusts him to do what needs to be done and to do it with every ounce of ability he has. The pain comes from when it’s happening—after the kiss. After the conversation where Kim told him to stop running. To stop running to Pete. To think about his feelings, their feelings. Kim told him—in every way he knew how—that Kenta would always have him. No matter what. No matter when. Kenta would always have Kim to lean on.

If this had all happened before Kim had said anything—before he’d laid his heart out like a damn offering—maybe he could dull the sting. Maybe he could tell himself it didn’t mean anything. But now? Now Kenta knows. And he still chooses to communicate with Pete, and Pete alone.

Kim isn’t blaming anyone. He’s not pointing fingers, not trying to be angry at the choices people make to survive. It’s just—by now, he had hoped Kenta would’ve seen his affections for what they were.

And then there’s the whole thing with Kenta specifically telling Pete not to send backup. Not to involve anyone else. Kim gets it, he really does. He understands the sentiment. He knows Kenta has never been the kind to ask for help—not openly. Not ever. So Kim isn’t angry. But every single time he asks Pete, “Are you sure?”

“Are you sure Kenta’s okay?”

“Are you sure he doesn’t need help?”

Every time Pete says something like, “Kenta said he didn’t need it,” or, “Kenta told us not to”—it’s like a knife. A knife being driven into the same spot, over and over again.

And don’t get me wrong—I’m not trying to minimize Kim’s feelings, reduce him to bare strings waiting to snap the moment there’s distance or rejection. I’m just saying—I’m hurt for him. Because he’s so eager to love Kenta. And it’s understandable that Kenta moves slow. That he’s hesitant, cautious, bruised by history. But a text? An “I’m okay”? A fucking emoji? A missed call? A goddamn typing bubble—anything. You just know Kim has his phone open on Kenta’s chat 24/7, just in case something—anything—comes through for him.

And I know for a fact Kim stays up every night, waiting. Because even if Kenta tells him to trust him, there’s no way he’s not falling apart with worry. But he lets Kenta make the choices he needs to make.

Sorry, I got a bit carried away—but my point is: I want a reality where Kim starts second-guessing whether Kenta actually cares for him. Because when Kenta asked, “Are you coming with me or not?” Kim thought that was a step forward. He believed it meant something. And now? Now he’s faced with this wall of silence. Of absence. Of cold distance.

There’s no way my baby wouldn’t be disheartened. Maybe Kim starts settling into the idea that Kenta’s just not interested. That this—whatever it was—was never going to be anything more. Maybe it is rejection. Subtle, quiet, unbearable.

And again—he’s not mad. He’s not mad at Kenta. He’s not mad at Pete. He’s not even mad at the rejection. He’s just furious at the hope. The kindling in his heart that keeps sparking—only to get snuffed out by reality.

Maybe Kim finally realizes the truth: that Kenta doesn’t want him. That—just like Pete—Kenta never felt anything real for him.

I’m not saying that’s going to change how Kim feels. But maybe it changes how much he shows. Maybe he starts to close off, just a little. Maybe, piece by piece, he retreats into himself. Because the longer Kenta is away, the more he questions if Kenta will ever come back.

He doesn’t have the answer.

Or maybe he does.

But either way, it’s all coming crashing down.

Am I selfish for also wanting Pete to be the one who tells Kim to go rescue Kenta—after realizing the new truth that’s settled over Kim’s heart? Like, “He trusts you the most,” and Kim just thinks, No, he doesn’t. But he says okay anyway, because he hasn’t quite reached the point where he’s hardened his heart completely. Not yet. Even if every passing day feels like Kenta choosing to speak only to Pete and no one else. And Kim still just wants to see him safe. To see Kenta. Out of there. Alive. So he agrees.

And when he does find Kenta—roped up, or chained, or something brutal like that—Kim drops to his knees and undoes the knot without thinking. Just asks, quietly, “Are you okay?” And Kenta says, “I’m fine,” but Kim can see the gashes, the bruises, torn clean through the rips in his shirt. And he adds it—silently, tiredly—to the growing list of reasons why he needs to start locking his feelings up tighter: Kenta still doesn’t trust him enough to tell the truth.

And then, just as Kim is reeling from that, Kenta says, “Where’s Kim? The others? Are they still here?” And there it goes—Kim’s last stupid sliver of hope that maybe Kenta would say he missed him. Or that he’s glad Kim came. Or even apologize for the silence. But no. Kenta just wants intel. Wants reassurance that everyone else is safe.

Kim takes a breath. He knows Kenta doesn’t mean it like that. It’s not personal. He tells himself that. He tells Kenta what he wants to know—“Pete and Chris are in the lab. The others are on the fourth floor.” Something like that. And Kenta’s only response is, “We should go help them. They probably need it.”

And Kim’s hands would probably shake. Because Kenta will give help to everyone, but never let himself receive it. Never let himself need.

So Kim nods. Even though it’s against Pete’s plan of “get Kenta out of there.” Because logically, Kenta’s right—they probably do need help. So Kim hands over his extra gun. Hands Kenta his blade. Doesn’t look at his face—can’t look. Can’t risk seeing worry etched there for everyone else but him.

They run. Up the stairs, around the corner. Kim keeps his ears sharp, tracking Kenta’s footsteps behind him, listening for anything off in his breathing, anything that might mean pain. Because Kenta would never admit it, not even now. Kim leads the way, relying on the map etched into his memory.

He’s so focused on Kenta��on his pace, his breath, his silence—that he misses the sound of gunfire. Until Kenta yanks him back just seconds before a bullet could’ve taken him out. And Kenta’s hand is wrapped around his wrist. Tight. And Kim’s heart has the audacity to flinch, to leap, to hope.

But he shuts it down. Because he’s seen this film before, and he didn’t like the ending. Back then, hope was fair game. Now? Now it’s just reckless.

So he steadies himself. Slowly, gently, he pulls away. Takes Kenta’s hand off him without a word.

Don’t get me wrong—I want them to kiss. I want them to kiss and end this whole emotionally devastating circus just as much as—if not more than—anyone else. I want them to have their soft moment, to finally collapse into each other’s arms, safe and warm and wanted. I want the warmth, the resolution, the overdue comfort. I wouldn’t change a single thing about the series—not one damn moment—but my brain has been fermenting, and you know it’s never once let a heartbroken character just... breathe. Not once. So here I am, spiralling. That said, I really want to know what you all think—honestly. Do you think Kim would pull away, even just a little? Quietly protect himself before he breaks? Or do you think he’d double down, push harder, desperate to prove that love means staying, even now?

#rant #kenta #kim minsu #kim #kentakim #kimkenta #kim x kenta #pit babe the series #pit babe 2 #thoughts?#angst

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mirainwonderland · 2 days ago

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When you care too much…

Tags: fluff, comfort, mentally heavy and sensitive reader, mental stuff because i understand his brain too well 😭 have a cookie 🍪 while you read and enjoy ☺️

Word Count: 1k

──────────────────────

Bones aching, muscles sore, and a really soft couch at the end of a long day. Leon Kennedy was a simple man really. He didn’t need much, just a little bit of peace every once in a while. No distractions, nobody shooting at him or ringing his phone off the hook. He was a popular guy. And even though to a degree it made him feel good to be so needed, eventually government requests turned into demands. And before he knew it, his life was more often dictated by federal dirty work than not.

He downs a few swallows of the cold beer he’d pulled out of the fridge. It’s later in the evening, and he’d been out nearly all day. You were asleep, napping in the bedroom and he didn’t want to come in and disturb you. The quiet monologue of the TV in the background keeps him company as his aching shoulders sink back against the couch cushions.

This is the kind of quiet he craves more than anything.

The door to the bedroom swings open soundlessly and a pair of bare feet shuffle across the carpet. Leon looks up as you rub your eyes, sleepy and a little puffy. You keep your chin down as you pad across the carpet to him, his t-shirt hanging loose on your shoulders.

“Hey baby.” His voice is low and gravelly as he moves the throw pillow beside him out of the way for you to come sit next to him. You curl up in the spot, without a word, laying down and curling up with your head on his abdomen. You lay perpendicular to his body, and his fingers come up to card through slightly knotty hair.

“Y’ okay?” He murmurs for a nod from you, oddly quiet and still against him. But you’re probably half asleep so how can he blame you?

He takes a deep breath and releases it slowly, turning his attention back to the TV and taking another sip from his beer. The slow rise and fall of his torso beneath you is soothing. It’s times like these where he really has to try not to think about the what ifs.

The subtle twitch of your shoulder doesn’t alert him the first time. But by the fourth time they begin to vibrate, and his attention draws back to you.

Shit, something’s wrong.

“Hey…” He sits up, leaning over you, trying to see your face while he sets the nearly empty beer can on the coffee table.

“Baby…” Hands gentle but firm, he pulls you back by your shoulder to roll you onto your back so he can see your face. His stomach drops at the tears he uncovers.

“Hey, hey… what’s wrong? Why are you crying?” Callouses thumb away your tears, but more just replace them. He takes the side of his palm and swipes it over your whole cheek, letting a fingertip round the edge of your jaw, chin-ward.

“‘m not crying.” You whimper, swiping the back of your hand over your drippy nose.

“No? Your eyes just sweating?” The subtle tease isn’t delivered with any hint of mirth, just a focused optic sweep of your face.

“Yeah.” You snivel.

He sits there studying you for a moment, just letting his hand soothe over your cheeks as his other smoothes your hair. Soft. Slow. In no hurry to get you to stop crying. Just silent patience and presence.

“You wanna talk to me?” He offers after a minute. “I’m here.”

You sniffle, the tears having slowed a little. “Too many feelings.”

The corner of his lip quirks up, but only a hair. He knows how that is. He knows better than you think he does.

“Poor girl. You just feel too much, don’t you.”

His words stab you in the very center of your heart. You feel seen and understood and you nod your head.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” his hand continues to pet your hair. “I know that’s hard.”

Fuck, he’d probably be a completely different person if he didn’t feel and care as much as he does. But just for a moment, it lifts a burden off of him to understand for someone else. To be the one who’s seen it all and be able to tell you that it’s okay.

It’s a relief. Because then maybe all that suffering wasn’t completely senseless.

He continues to caress your face and hair, watching as you quiet under his touch. Your lashes are lowered as you stare at the arm of the couch. He can feel the way your mind churns with thoughts he can’t fight for you, as he smoothes over your forehead.

“You know…” He rumbles quietly after giving you a moment. “The world is full of people who don’t care.”

You lift your eyes to look at his face.

“Someone’s gotta care too much or there’ll be nobody to care at all.” His eyes trail down over your soft, tear-reddened features.

“Really?”

He can ignore and deny and turn his back on the fact all he wants, but that the guiding principle locks around his heart like a gold chain. He’ll always care, no matter how many times he tries to tell himself he doesn’t. No matter how many times it cuts him, beats him, leaves him to bleed out on the floor, he will always fucking care.

And it’s not fair. The rookie cop inside him might be bound and gagged, but he’s not dead.

“Yeah.”

You grow quiet for a long moment, turning his words over in your head. He knows he’s being a cynic and a little hypocritical, but he hopes for your sake, that you believe him. You’re not as cold and corrupted as he is. There’s still hope for you.

“C’mere.” He reaches out for you, and you sit up reaching for his neck. His arms lock around your back as yours wrap around his neck, and the way he squeezes you clicks something back into place a little bit more than before. One press of a button, and the TV goes dark.

“Thank you,” you mumble, soft voice falling over his shoulder as he stands with you in his arms.

“Don’t mention it.” It’s a low rumble against your body as he carries you back to bed.

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khuzena · 22 hours ago

Text

The Perfect Notation

𐙚 PAIRING: Phainon/gn!Reader

𐙚 SUMMARY: In a modern AU, a reserved, math-obsessed student (you) prepares for the prestigious Nationals math competition, slowly forming a quiet, unexpected bond with the ever-cheerful yet enigmatic Phainon. And while your world revolves around formulas and precision, Phainon watches you from the sidelines—curious, drawn in, and gradually learning to understand you through the language of numbers. As the competition nears, tension builds. You begin to ease your strict routines, letting Phainon into your life, unaware of how much he’s learning—not just math, but you.

𐙚 C.W: Depression, Academic pressure, Kinda happy ending, Angst

𐙚 A/N: Hi!! I'm so fucked. I crammed this so bad................. I onl wrote this as an offering for Phainon. Idk man. Goodluck to me. WE WILL ALL GET PHAINON AD HIS LC!!!!!!!!!! MANIFEST MANIFEST!!!

𐙚 W.C: 8.5k

Anaxa didn’t even glance up from the monitor when he announced it.

“Top rank. Regional champion. You,” he said, sharp and almost lazy. “Congratulations. Nationals is in two weeks. Don’t embarrass us.”

There was a scattered beat of applause from the others—half-hearted, short-lived. Not because they didn’t respect you. They did. But you’d won too many times already. You didn’t smile. You never did. Just gave a small nod and turned your eyes back to the problem set you’d brought with you, already thinking ahead. Everyone else looked relieved that it wasn’t them expected to carry the weight of Nationals.

Phainon clapped a little longer than everyone else, even if he did it mostly out of instinct. Maybe also to see if you’d look up. You didn’t. You just adjusted the mechanical pencil between your fingers and started writing. No celebration. No smugness. Just a clean transition from victory to preparation, like your mind had already sprinted two weeks ahead without you.

He waited until the others filtered out of the room before sliding into the seat next to yours. Your notes were out, as usual—lined graph paper, faint sketches of triangle spirals in the corners, a few barely readable side equations that looked like your personal shorthand. You were midway through a set of recursive relations, flipping your pencil over and shading tiny regions of an imaginary shape you hadn’t finished sketching.

"You’re incredible, you know that?" he said, keeping his voice soft. Friendly. That usual tone that never quite gave away how hard his heart hit the inside of his ribs when you were this close.

You didn’t glance over. Just mumbled, “There’s still nationals.”

“That’s not a denial.”

You pressed the side of your pencil against your temple. “I didn’t study to impress people.”

“Good,” he said. “Because then I’d be very, very out of my league.”

That got him a brief exhale—almost a laugh, maybe. He smiled quietly to himself. It was always like this with you. No dramatic sparks, no confessions in the hallway, no big rom com moments. Just subtle shifts. Only barely there smiles. There's this slight change in your voice when you explained something and thought he was actually paying attention

He was. He really was.

"You’re still doing number theory this week?" he asked, nodding to your notes.

“Number theory, and complex optimization. The nationals committee has a history of using constraint based problems in the first round. And… including linear programming with edge cases. I’m trying to account for unusual variables.”

“You make that sound fun.”

“It is.”

There was something gentle in the way you said it, even if your tone didn’t change much. He liked hearing you talk about math more than he liked math itself—maybe that was the problem. You were fluent in this language. You thought in it, breathed it. And he didn’t. He was still stuck in the shallow end, watching you swim through vectors and primes like it was nothing. In his eyes, you were something else entirely.

But he was trying. You didn’t know that. Maybe it was better that way.

Later that night, in his room, he stared at the scanned copy of one of your old solution sets. You’d let it slip into his notes by accident. Maybe on purpose. He didn’t know. The paper had your name scribbled in the corner in small block letters, and the answer space had margins filled with diagrams no professor would ever require: loops within loops, a staircase of ratios descending inwards. Not just working out the solution—mapping it emotionally, too.

There was something about the way you thought that felt like art. You once solved an entire probability challenge backward just to demonstrate a flaw in its framing. He didn’t even understand the flaw. But he remembered how calm your voice was as you explained it to the class, as if you weren’t constantly carrying the pressure of being everyone’s expectation.

He wasn’t sure when it happened. When the fascination turned into something heavier. When your quiet concentration became something he’d seek out in every room. When your silence started feeling warmer than most people’s words.

Phainon didn’t tell Mydei about it. Not really. But Mydei knew something, of course—he always did. Once, when they were walking back from the library together, Phainon had grumbled something about being “math fucked” and “losing brain cells over logic gates.” Mydei had just looked at him, unreadable, then muttered, “You don’t like math. You like them.”

Phainon hadn’t denied it. Just kicked a pebble on the sidewalk and said, “What’s the difference if I’m learning for the right reason?”

Right now, the right reason was sprawled in the library’s farthest corner, buried under mock test printouts and three different pens. You were tracing something across the page—he couldn’t tell what from this angle. He hesitated by the doorway before walking over.

“Hey,” he said, keeping his voice light.

You didn’t startle. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Says who?”

“You’re not even in the nationals roster.”

“I’m studying vicariously,” he offered, flashing a grin.

You gave a small sigh, but didn’t ask him to leave.

He sat across from you, watching as you marked a value in red. Constraint minimization, he realized—probably some kind of modified simplex method. You liked visual cues, always highlighted in different shades. Red was for discardable outcomes. Blue for fixed values. Green for hypotheses. He’d memorized the palette without trying.

“You know you don’t have to do this,” you murmured, still focused on your work.

“Do what?”

“Follow me around. Pretend this is your thing.”

He hesitated. The grin faded a little.

“I’m not pretending,” he said finally.

You stopped writing. Not looked at him yet, but still.

“I don’t care about the numbers the way you do,” he admitted. “But I care about why they matter to you. And... that’s worth trying to understand.”

That got your attention. You looked up slowly, not angry, not even surprised. Just quiet. Tired, maybe. Tired of people trying to get something from you. Tired of always being the brain, the standard, the benchmark to beat.

He wished he could explain it better. That he wasn’t trying to win anything. He wasn’t chasing your answers. He just wanted to be near the questions that made you come alive.

“...I used to think people only noticed me when I solved things fast,” you said, almost too low to hear. “Like I didn’t matter outside of that.”

“You do.”

You blinked at him.

“I notice you even when you’re not solving anything,” he added, a little softer.

For a moment, neither of you said anything. You just stared at him, pen still between your fingers, like you weren’t sure how to factor this variable in. Like you hadn’t expected honesty to be part of the equation.

You didn’t say thank you. You didn’t have to. You just turned back to your notes and pushed a blank page toward him. Handed him a pen.

“Try this one,” you said. “I’ll walk you through it.”

And you did. Quietly. Carefully. Like you actually wanted him to stay.

He didn’t solve it perfectly. Not even close. But you didn’t correct him harshly. You just crossed out one step, rewrote it, and said, “Closer.”

Closer. He could live with that

Twelve days before the competition, you stopped staying for lunch.

Phainon noticed it gradually—first the empty seat, then the unfinished water bottle left behind, then the absence of your voice during roll call. You were always quiet, but you were never gone. Now, you disappeared between periods, emerging only for tests and drills, vanishing again like a scheduled ghost.

He caught sight of you once in the third-floor study room. You were sitting with your hoodie drawn halfway over your head, glasses fogged slightly, hair pushed back in a way that looked unintentional. There were seven books stacked beside you, two calculators, three different notebooks open to wildly different problems. Your eyes didn’t even blink between lines. You were writing in loops, as if time itself bent into circles around your wrist.

He stood by the door for maybe thirty seconds before turning away. He hadn’t meant to interrupt. Hadn’t meant to hover. But you were so deep into it—into your world of vectors and bounds and proofs with ugly constants—that he didn’t dare step inside.

That evening, Mydei said, “They’re going to burn out.”

Phainon looked up from the practice sheet he’d half-filled with mistakes. He hadn’t realized Mydei was paying attention. Then again, Mydei always paid attention to things no one else bothered to watch.

“I know,” Phainon muttered. “I just don’t know if I’m supposed to say anything.”

“You’re not,” Mydei said, and went back to his own book.

Still, he couldn’t shake the image of you hunched over the desk, barely moving except to flip pages or change pens. It was the kind of focus that was a little frightening. Not because it was obsessive, but because it was clearly the only thing keeping you anchored. You didn’t trust the world, not entirely. But you trusted a good equation.

The next day, he brought a small coffee to the study room and left it by the door. Nothing fancy. Just the kind you always ordered—plain, warm, no sugar. He didn’t write his name on it. You probably knew it was from him, but if you didn’t, that was okay too. He left it anyway.

You didn’t acknowledge it when you passed him in the hallway two hours later, but you also didn’t throw it away.

That counted.

By the tenth day, you looked like you were made out of pencil lead and fraying patience. Your eyes were slightly red from staying up too long. You had a cough. Your posture had changed—slouched inward, like your spine had curled into itself to conserve energy. When you walked past the windows, you didn’t even glance up at the light. Your hands were always busy, twitching slightly when you solved problems mid-step, mouthing integers like incantations.

Phainon watched you from across the room during study hall. He wasn’t subtle, but you weren’t paying attention. He always saw when you were working through something—something with matrices, maybe, or Lagrangian optimization. You crossed out two full lines, rewrote them, circled a variable twice, then pressed the heel of your palm into your eyes like the numbers were starting to hum behind them.

It was as if he wanted to say something. Not something dramatic. Not some big motivational monologue. Just—you can breathe, you know. You don’t have to prove it all the time. But even that felt like too much.

Instead, he passed by your table on his way out and dropped a small eraser beside your book. You always borrowed one. Always forgot it. This one had a tiny sun drawn on it with a blue pen. You didn’t say anything, but you moved it closer to your notes and kept using it.

The next few days, he kept studying on his own. He didn’t bother pretending he liked it anymore—he’d moved past that phase. He liked understanding parts of it. Not the math itself, maybe, but the logic. The way you treated problems like puzzles, always finding the most efficient path from question to solution. He kept a folder now, filled with problems you’d solved in front of him. Sometimes he redid them with your steps beside his, trying to see where his mind wandered and yours didn’t.

He also started noticing your habits. You tapped your pencil three times before starting a proof. You wrote every square root without simplifying, unless explicitly told. You skipped the final boxed answer until you double-checked the sign of every constant. When you got stuck, you tilted your head to the left—not right, never right—and frowned as if disappointment were just part of the process.

He wondered if you even knew how many systems you carried in your head at once. How many variables you managed, even outside math. You rarely spoke unless asked. You never sought help. You moved through school like someone who knew how fragile time was and didn’t want to waste a second pretending to be someone else.

Eight days left. Phainon joined your review session by accident—or maybe it wasn’t an accident, but he pretended it was. Anaxa raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, which was either mercy or mild curiosity. You were already there, surrounded by open binders and highlighted theorems.

He asked one question. You corrected him quietly, barely glancing up. But then you passed him a page with an easier version of the same problem. No comment. Just... passed it to him like it wasn’t a big deal.

He kept that page.

Six days before the nationals, it rained. He found you sitting near the vending machine, hair damp, hoodie too thin for the wind. You had a small bag of crackers beside you and your notebook flipped open to a new page. This time, no spirals. Just equations. Dense ones. Partial differentials and strange notation. The kind that hurt his head if he looked too long.

“You’re going to get sick,” he said, handing you a dry napkin.

You took it. “Didn’t bring an umbrella.”

“You okay?”

“I have to finish the integration methods tonight. That’s the only thing I keep slipping on.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

You didn’t answer, but your jaw tightened slightly. The crackers stayed untouched. Your hand shook a little when you wrote something—he couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or from exhaustion.

“Can I sit?”

You shrugged.

He didn’t say anything after that. Just sat with you while the rain hit the windows and the world outside got blurred into noise. You solved two problems. He solved one and a half, badly. But you didn’t mock him. You just corrected a sign with your red pen, circled a line, and nodded.

“Closer,” you said.

He felt warmer after that.

Not because of the math. Not because of the rain.

You sneezed. Quiet, quivk, like you were trying not to draw attention to it. Your pencil paused mid equation, fingers curling tighter around it. Then another sneeze followed, this time a little sharper, less contained. You didn’t say anything, but your shoulders tensed slightly, and your hand brushed under your nose before you kept writing like nothing happened.

Phainon watched you from the corner of his eye. You didn’t look sick, not exactly, but you were definitely running warm. Your hoodie was bunched at the sleeves, collar loose, and there was a slight pink flush at the tips of your ears that hadn’t been there yesterday. It wasn’t dramatic—just off. And that was enough.

“You okay?” he asked quietly, voice light.

“I’m fine,” you said, and that would’ve been the end of it, if you hadn’t swayed a little when you leaned back to check your notes. Just a blink’s worth of hesitation. Your hand moved to steady your balance, fingers briefly flattening against the desk before you continued writing like nothing had happened.

“You’ve sneezed three times,” he added. “Statistically, that’s a pattern.”

You rolled your eyes, but didn’t argue. Another sniffle. You finally lowered your pencil and pinched the bridge of your nose like it was starting to hurt.

“I don’t have time to get sick,” you mumbled.

Phainon leaned his chin into his hand. “Pretty sure your immune system doesn’t care about your schedule.”

He saw it—the falter. The hesitation in your lips before you pressed them together. You were tired. Bone-deep tired. The kind of tired that caffeine doesn’t touch and focus can’t compensate for. Your notebook was filled with clean solutions, but the eraser marks had gotten more chaotic lately. Your last proof had a correction line that ran through four variables like a frustrated scrawl.

You looked like you were trying to hold the world together by sheer force of will. Phainon had no idea how you hadn’t collapsed already.

“Let’s go out,” he said suddenly.

You blinked at him. “What?”

“Come on. Just for a bit. Stretch your legs, walk, grab a snack. There’s a convenience store two blocks down.”

“I have to review,” you said automatically, already glancing back at your notes.

“You’ve been reviewing for seven straight hours.”

“Exactly.”

Phainon tilted his head. “You’re burning out. Your handwriting looks drunk. You just sneezed into your own shoulder. I am—scientifically—concerned.”

You stared at him. Not offended, not irritated—just confused, like you didn’t understand what he was trying to get out of this. And maybe you didn’t. Most people left you alone. Phainon hadn’t.

You rubbed your eye with the heel of your palm. “I’m not in the mood to hang out.”

“It’s not hanging out. It’s tactical energy recovery.”

You raised a brow.

“I’ll buy you a snack,” he offered. “Any one.”

That made you pause. Not because of the snack, probably. Maybe because it sounded easy. Normal. Like something someone who wasn’t constantly calculating would say.

“I’m not changing out of this,” you said, gesturing to your hoodie.

“Didn’t ask you to.”

You stared at him another few seconds. Then, finally, with a long, quiet sigh, you capped your pen and closed the notebook. You stood without a word. Phainon followed.

The wind had gotten colder since earlier. You pulled your sleeves down and kept your hands in your pocket, head ducked slightly. Your steps weren’t fast, but they were steady. Still, your shoulders moved a bit more than usual, like you were trying not to shiver.

“Your nose is pink,” he said gently.

“So is yours,” you shot back.

That made him laugh, surprised. “Wow. You do have a bite.”

You sniffled again. Didn’t reply. But you didn’t walk away either.

The convenience store’s lights buzzed softly when you stepped in. It smelled like microwaved curry and floor wax, comfortingly familiar. You wandered first, gravitating toward the drinks aisle with a slow shuffle, while Phainon trailed behind, hands in his coat pockets.

“You like those jelly cups, right?” he asked, nodding toward the bottom shelf.

You didn’t answer right away, just crouched slightly and picked one up. Held it in your hand like you were deciding whether it was worth it.

“Get two,” he said. “You can pretend I earned it.”

You looked at him then. Really looked at him. Your eyes were dull from the fatigue, but there was something flickering just under the surface—confusion, maybe, or something softer. He wasn’t sure.

“I feel kind of hot,” you muttered, half to yourself.

“You’ve probably got a mild fever,” he said. “Here.”

He stepped closer. Not too close, just enough to reach out, hand slow and open. You flinched, barely, but didn’t move away. His palm touched your forehead, fingers brushing against your temple. He expected to feel awkward. He didn’t. Just warm. Human.

You were, indeed, running warm.

He let the contact linger for a second longer, then lowered his hand.

You looked off to the side. “I should be reviewing.”

“You can review tomorrow.”

You shook your head, but it was weak. Your fingers squeezed the jelly cup just slightly.

He walked toward the checkout. You didn’t stop him.

He paid for both snacks, plus a bottle of ion water, and handed them to you outside. You took them, slowly. The sky had gone from pale blue to soft orange—late afternoon bleeding into early dusk. Your breath fogged a little when you exhaled.

“Just one night,” he said. “Don’t solve anything tonight. Don’t even open a notebook. Just... recharge.”

You looked down at the bottle in your hand. Read the label. Then, with no ceremony, you opened it and took a long drink.

“You act like you’re not smart,” you said.

He blinked. “Sorry?”

“You figure me out fast,” you added, quieter. “That’s not easy.”

He smiled. Not widely. Just enough. “I study you more than math.”

You exhaled through your nose, a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh. But the tension in your shoulders loosened slightly. You walked beside him all the way back without pulling away, even when your sleeve brushed against his.

He didn’t say anything else. Didn’t ruin it.

You didn’t either.

That night, when you got back to the study room, you didn’t open your notebook. You just sat there, hood over your head, sipping your drink slowly. Phainon leaned back in his chair and let the quiet settle.

One night off.

The table’s surface was warm from the overhead light. Your arm pressed against it as you leaned forward, eyes locked on the scratchpad. The problem had three variables and an error margin no greater than ±0.05. So this was the kind of equation meant to eat hours: a balance model with variable-bound inequalities.

(your messy notes)

x₁ + 0.6x₂ + 1.4x₃ = 42, where 8 ≤ x₁ ≤ 14, x₂ ≤ 2x₁, x₃ ≥ x₂ – 3.

You’d written that down ten minutes ago and hadn’t spoken since.

Phainon shifted beside you, eyeing the margin of your notebook. There were no doodles this time. No arrows or metaphors or messy little tangents. Just the problem. Just you.

You’d stopped talking much three days ago. You still showed up, still reviewed, still scribbled on his printouts without asking. But your answers came slower. Less confident. Less sharp.

He didn't say anything about it. Not yet.

You pressed your palm to your forehead and muttered something under your breath. The pencil in your right hand twitched.

“You want to test boundary values?” he asked.

You didn’t look up. “What’s the point? It’s unstable no matter where x₁ lands.”

“It stabilizes at x₁ = 10,” he said. “If x₂ = 18 and x₃ = 15, the equation balances at—”

You were already writing it.

10 + 0.6(18) + 1.4(15) = 10 + 10.8 + 21.0 = 41.8

He saw your jaw twitch.

“Too low,” you muttered. “It needs 42 exactly.”

“Try rounding x₂ up to 20.”

You scribbled again.

x₁ = 10, x₂ = 20, x₃ = 17 → 10 + 12 + 23.8 = 45.8

“Too high.”

You exhaled sharply and sat back. The chair creaked beneath you.

Phainon didn’t speak for a moment. He watched you crack your knuckles, flex your neck to the side. You were tired again—he could tell. Not the kind of tired that could be fixed with a snack or a nap. The kind that settled under the skin. The kind that had you burning out in silence.

He looked back at the numbers. “Hm… Try interpolating? Let’s find x₂ that fits given x₁ fixed at 11, I think.”

You hesitated.

He nudged the pencil toward you. You didn’t take it.

“What’s the point if I’m just guessing?” you muttered.

He sat straighter.

“Hey,” he said, more level now. “You don’t guess. That’s not what you do.”

“I used to not guess,” you said. “Now I’m just throwing numbers until it fits. That’s not solving, that’s flailing.”

You didn’t raise your voice, but it was the most emotion you’d shown all week. And it settled between you like heat.

Phainon tilted his head, frowning faintly. “You’re still solving. You just don’t trust yourself when it’s slower.”

“I don’t have time to be slow.”

That silence again. The kind that dared someone to argue.

He didn’t. Not directly.

Instead, he pulled the notebook toward himself and began testing values. Small, controlled substitutions. Not to prove you wrong—but to try what you wouldn’t let yourself do. Try without crumbling.

x₁ = 11 x₂ = 17 x₃ = 14 11 + 0.6(17) + 1.4(14) = 11 + 10.2 + 19.6 = 40.8

Closer.

“Try x₂ = 18,” you muttered suddenly.

He adjusted.

x₂ = 18 → 0.6(18) = 10.8 x₃ = 15 → 1.4(15) = 21.0 Sum = 11 + 10.8 + 21.0 = 42.8

“Over,” you said. “Lower x₃ to 14.5.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re allowing floats now?”

“It never said integers only.”

Phainon adjusted again, writing as you dictated.

x₃ = 14.5 → 1.4(14.5) = 20.3 11 + 10.8 + 20.3 = 42.1

“Almost.”

You took the pencil from him. This time, your hand didn’t shake.

x₃ = 14.2 → 1.4(14.2) = 19.88 Sum = 11 + 10.8 + 19.88 = 41.68

“No,” you whispered. “Too low again.”

He watched the way your brows furrowed. Not in frustration—but focus. Like the real you was re-emerging, inch by inch, from a long, silent retreat.

You scribbled one more:

x₃ = 14.4 → 1.4(14.4) = 20.16 Total = 11 + 10.8 + 20.16 = 41.96

Phainon leaned closer. “That’s within the error margin.”

“±0.05,” you echoed, eyes narrowing. “That’s close enough.”

The tension in your jaw didn’t release. Not right away. You just kept staring at the page, calculating again. Double-checking. Reducing. Making sure you weren’t wrong.

“Hey,” he said quietly. “That was a good solve.”

You exhaled, still not smiling. But your grip on the pencil eased.

Phainon didn’t push the moment further. He didn’t say anything reassuring. He just leaned back in his chair and looked at you—not expectantly, not with pity. Just... looked.

He’d watched you shift like this for days. From sharp precision to burning out. From holding yourself too tightly to finally slipping. Not in a way that made you fragile—just quieter. And he hadn’t realized, until now, how carefully he’d started tracking it. The rise and fall of your moods. The way your sleeves drooped past your wrists when you hadn’t slept. The way your eyes moved faster when your confidence returned.

He hadn’t meant to notice so much.

But he had.

And now, with the answer in front of you and your hands stilled, he didn’t know how to look away.

You finally broke the silence. “I haven’t studied properly in days.”

He nodded once. “I know.”

You stared at the solution again.

“You going to tell me I’m screwing up?” you asked.

He thought about it. Then: “No. You already know when you are.”

You looked at him. And for once, didn’t look away.

The silence wasn’t awkward. It wasn’t kind, either. It just was.

Eventually, you stood. Packed your things slowly. Left the notebook open on the table. Phainon didn’t move, didn’t speak. He waited.

As you reached the door, you paused.

Then you left.

And he watched the half-solved page for a long time after, hand twitching once over the final line of the equation you’d both earned.

The day before nationals, you were staring at problem seventeen.

The question wasn't hard. Just dense. It was a nested inequality, no diagrams, three lines of conditions, and you’d already seen the structure before—maybe two sets ago, maybe last year’s regional finals. But your hands weren’t moving.

Your eyes dragged across the page. Back. Then again.

Nothing stuck.

Not the phrasing, not the shape of the functions, not even the constants. Every time you tried to scan it, it broke apart into noise—like reading with cotton in your ears. Like thinking through static.

The solution was probably two steps. Three, at most.

You couldn’t even start.

Someone knocked.

You didn’t look.

The knock came again—softer this time, a kind of hesitation behind it. Then the door clicked, and you heard it open anyway.

You didn’t have to turn around.

“Don’t,” you said, not even loud.

There was a pause.

“I’m just—”

“I said don’t.”

A beat.

Then footsteps.

Not retreating.

He stepped into the room anyway. Phainon, silent. Probably still in that same hoodie he wore when he didn’t want to draw attention. You didn’t turn your head. You just stared harder at the paper, as if concentration could be forced by spite.

“What do you want?” you asked flatly.

He didn’t answer.

The silence stretched too long. You hated it.

“You think showing up is helpful right now?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Your pencil scratched a line across the page, but it was aimless. More like a heartbeat line than math. You flipped to the next page.

Blank. Just grid lines.

You tapped the pencil three times, then pressed it to the paper again. No questions. No prompt. You just drew a symbol. Something meaningless. A circle with a line through it.

Your jaw locked.

“Go home, Phainon.”

Still nothing.

“You think being here does something? That it makes me feel less like I'm falling apart?” You laughed, hollow. “If you’re waiting for some last-minute wisdom to come out of this, don’t bother.”

“I’m not.”

“Then what?”

Nothing.

He just stood there, behind your shoulder.

You grabbed your binder and closed it, too fast. The snap echoed.

“Look, I don’t want to talk. I don’t want eye contact. I don’t want you sitting there acting like your presence is comforting. It isn’t.”

“I know.”

Your throat tightened.

“You think I didn’t notice?” you said, still not looking. “How everything slowed down the past two weeks? How I stopped keeping up with my logs, stopped doing three sets a day, stopped treating this like it mattered?”

“That wasn’t—”

“I let myself breathe, and now I can’t focus. I’m sitting here and I can’t even move past a two-line problem. Nationals is in the morning, and all I want is silence.”

Your voice was low. Sharper than you intended. But honest.

And you meant it.

Phainon shifted. A quiet inhale. Then nothing.

For a second, you thought he might say something. Some vague, clipped version of comfort dressed up as logic. Something he could pass off as neutral.

But he didn’t.

Because you’d made it clear you wouldn’t hear it.

You stood, moved to the far side of the room, pulled open your bag with fingers that wouldn’t stop twitching. You took out another mock set. Unopened. Pages pristine.

You didn’t sit. Just held it like it would matter.

Phainon hadn’t left yet.

You said, with your back turned, “I’ll delete your messages if you send any tonight.”

Silence.

And finally—finally—you heard him step back.

Then the door clicked shut behind him.

No goodbyes. No dramatics.

Just quiet.

Too quiet.

You didn’t cry. Didn’t scream. There wasn’t time for that. You sat down and opened the mock test like nothing happened. Like you weren’t seconds from snapping. Like tomorrow wasn’t the only thing waiting for you, bare-fanged and watching.

The first question blurred. You blinked. Read it again.

Then started solving.

Because that’s all you had left.

The bus ride was too quiet.

You’d brought your binder. Everyone did. Open sets, annotated diagrams, clipped formula guides taped to the back of laminated ID cards. You used to do the same. You used to flip pages just to feel sharp, to stay in rhythm. But today you just held it in your lap. Your thumb brushed the edge of the cover, but you didn’t open it.

Someone laughed two rows down. Probably a teammate. The coach said something about breathing and pacing yourself and trusting what you already know.

You didn’t hear most of it. Your ears buzzed. Your head was full, but not of numbers.

You blinked and the venue arrived. High ceiling, clean rows of chairs, dry ass ac that immediately made your eyes sting red. In the room, they had labeled placards on the desks and printed IDs with barcodes. Everything looked exactly like it had last year.

You were in the front row this time.

Not that it mattered much.

You sat, hands on your lap, knees stiff. Your legs wouldn’t stop bouncing. Your pen was already uncapped. You kept uncapping it, then recapping it again. Five times. Six. You didn’t notice until someone tapped your desk to hand you the test envelope.

You said “thank you” without making eye contact.

Then it started.

Booklet flipped. Timer started. You read question one.

And felt nothing.

It was combinatorics—one of your favorite categories. The kind of problem you used to eat for warm-up. The first half was trivial: inclusion-exclusion, pigeonhole principle, standard case count. But your brain tripped on the wording.

You read the same paragraph twice.

Then a third time.

The logic was familiar. The numbers weren’t. You tried sketching something, but your pencil felt heavy. The lead snapped halfway through your first diagram. You paused to sharpen it, fingers tight, breathing shallow.

You looked at the clock.

You’d spent nine minutes on the first item.

You flipped to number two. Then three.

Then back again.

The room was silent—pages turning, pens scribbling, the occasional cough.

Your pen hovered above the paper. You wrote half a line of working for problem one. Then scratched it out.

It wasn’t even wrong.

You just couldn’t focus.

Your stomach churned.

By the time you finished the first page, it had been twenty minutes. Your hand hurt. You weren’t writing fluidly anymore. You weren’t even calculating. Just stumbling between guesses and second-guessing every instinct you used to trust.

Problem four was geometry.

It was clean. Symmetrical. The kind of shape you’d usually smirk at.

Now it made your head throb.

Midway through the proof construction, you forgot why you were solving it. You blinked and realized you'd written a congruence that didn’t apply. Your triangle labeling was inconsistent. You had to rewrite half the setup.

Thirty-five minutes gone.

Only two questions answered—poorly.

You wiped your palms against your pants. They were damp. You hadn’t noticed.

You looked around.

Everyone else was working. Focused. Calm.

You stared back down at your paper and told yourself to just breathe.

One step.

You just had to think.

Just had to trust your training.

Just had to—

Your vision blurred for half a second. Not from tears. From sheer cognitive fatigue.

You closed your eyes.

This isn’t me.

That voice sounded distant. Like it belonged to a version of you that hadn’t already spiraled.

You used to feel alive during competitions. You used to get high off the logic. Used to finish before the timer. You’d lean back and double-check the whole thing just for fun. You used to walk out of the room with a grin.

Now you couldn’t even lift your head.

You wanted to quit.

Not the competition—just the moment. Just stop existing here. Just vanish from the desk and leave the half-scratched paper behind. You wanted to crawl out of your own body and sleep for a week.

You looked back at the clock.

Fifty-eight minutes left.

You hadn't solved more than two problems.

Your hands shook.

You flipped to the next page anyway. You didn’t want to—your body just moved on instinct. A functional equation. Weird domain restriction. You could see what it wanted you to do. Transform. Isolate. But the working wouldn’t come.

You wrote a line. Crossed it out.

Wrote a second. Scratched over it.

You felt your chest tighten.

This is a joke.

You stared at the ceiling, not blinking, not breathing. Then you looked down and forced yourself to pick up the pen again.

It didn’t matter how slow.

You weren’t going to leave it blank.

Even if everything felt like it was slipping sideways, even if you knew—knew—you’d fumble this set, you couldn’t walk out knowing you hadn’t tried.

So you solved.

Not well.

Not fast.

And then, the announcement came four hours later.

They posted the results on the auditorium wall, in clean rows under the school banners. It took less than a minute for the cluster of students to gather. Someone whooped when they saw their name. Another dropped to the floor in disbelief, grinning at their teammates

You didn’t move.

You stood farther off, half in the shadow of the hallway, arms crossed too tightly across your chest.

You already knew.

The one with the modular constraint and inverse evaluation. The one that was practically made for you. You'd caught the structure immediately—cyclic groups, reduced residues, classic residue pairing. It was clean. Direct. Elegant.

You’d known before they even collected your paper.

You knew the second you circled back to problem nine.

But you hadn’t notated your base step.

You skipped it.

You proved the process but didn’t state the root value.

No mark.

You lost five points for that.

Five points.

You walked up to the sheet anyway. Just to see it.

The margin between first and second place?

Five.

Your name was there. Clear as day.

National rank: 2nd Place Total: 91 / 100

People were already murmuring. A few were surprised. A few weren’t. Some were still talking about how you "looked out of it" during the morning set, how you’d "sat still for too long" during the first page.

First place had 96.

Third had 89.

You didn’t respond.

You’d never placed second before.

You read the number again.

Ninety-one.

Not once.

Not since the beginning.

You weren’t angry. You weren’t even crying.

You just stood there, tired. Your legs ached. Your hands felt like they weren’t fully yours.

You heard someone approach behind you. The footsteps were familiar. Lighter than Mydei’s. Too careful to be Anaxa. You didn’t turn.

Phainon stopped beside you.

He didn’t say anything.

You didn’t either.

For a moment, the results just... existed between you.

It should’ve been perfect.

That one line.

That one symbol.

That one stupid omission.

The logic was right. The reasoning was solid. It was the kind of solution they’d print in post-competition reviews. But it was incomplete. Technically correct, formally flawed. The judges hadn’t been harsh. Just consistent.

You exhaled, slow.

“You already knew?” Phainon asked, voice low.

You nodded.

“I left it blank.”

“You didn’t leave it blank.”

“I left it unanchored.”

Silence.

You didn’t want consolation. Not even from him.

Because this wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t a failure.

It was worse.

It was that knife’s edge between greatness and flaw. The kind of mistake you can’t even be mad at. Just live with. Just swallow. Just remember when you look at your own name in second place next year and wonder how much tighter your grip has to be.

Someone asked to take a photo with the medalists.

You didn’t move.

Your hand twitched slightly when your name was called, but you stayed behind until the crowd thinned.

Phainon stayed with you.

Still silent.

It wasn’t a terrible ending.

You still placed.

You still qualified.

But when you finally walked outside—medal in your pocket, sweat dried cold on your back—the world felt too loud. The cars too sharp. The sunlight too white.

You’d done almost everything right.

Except the part that counted.

You didn’t wait for the team photo.

You stepped down from the auditorium steps, medal still boxed in your pocket, shoes hitting the concrete too hard. The sun was brutal. The wind made the sweat on your neck feel sticky. You crossed the street with no destination—just motion. Just away.

Someone called your name. You didn’t turn.

You heard the footsteps speeding up behind you. Rubber soles scraping pavement.

“Wait—” Phainon’s voice, breath catching.

You didn’t.

You kept walking until your throat started burning from how tight it was clenched. Until your fists were hot from how hard you were holding onto nothing.

He caught up anyway.

Of course he did.

“Can you—can you just stop for a second?”

You did.

But not for him.

You stopped because your legs were shaking.

You spun around.

“What.”

His mouth opened. Then closed.

You didn’t wait.

“No, really. What do you want, Phainon?” you snapped. “To say it’s okay? That I still did great? That I should be proud of second place?”

His expression shifted. “I wasn’t going to—”

“Because I don’t want to hear it.”

You stepped closer.

“I don’t want your version of understanding. I don’t want your... your weird quiet ‘I’m here’ look like that does anything for me. You know what I want?”

He didn’t move. Just stared.

“I want to go back two hours and slap myself for being so goddamn stupid.”

Your hands were shaking. “I missed one notation. One. You know how easy that base statement is? It’s mechanical. It’s an instinct. And I missed it because I was so fucking fogged I forgot how to write.”

Phainon said nothing.

You hated that.

You hated that he still wouldn’t argue.

“You knew,” you accused, voice low. “You saw me falling apart this week and you said nothing.”

“I tried—”

“You watched me. You followed me. You sat in that room and you knew I wasn’t in the right state, and you still didn’t stop me from spiraling.”

“I wasn’t going to control you.”

“Maybe you should have!”

It echoed off the buildings.

You took a shaky breath, but your lungs wouldn’t fill right. You swore your heart was in your throat.

“I don’t lose,” you whispered. “I don’t.”

Phainon’s brows knit. “It’s one mistake.”

“To you.”

“Not just to me.”

“Well, I’m not you!” you snapped, voice cracking.

Pedestrians crossed the street behind you. None of them looked your way.

“Do you know what they’ll say?” you asked bitterly. “That I choked. That I got distracted. That I got lazy. That the math kid finally cracked because they stopped grinding and started... I don’t know. Socializing.”

Phainon flinched. Barely.

Your breath caught.

And then, softer: “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

You stepped back, blinking hard, jaw locked.

“I was supposed to win. Cleanly. Not because I’m gifted, not because I’m smart—because I fucking worked for it.”

Phainon’s voice came quiet.

“You still did.”

“Don’t,” you warned.

You weren’t ready to hear anything from him. Not validation. Not warmth. Not that irritating, careful silence he kept bringing like it was supposed to help.

You didn’t want him to understand.

You wanted him gone.

So you said the one thing you knew would stick:

“I can’t stand being around you right now.”

He froze.

You didn’t take it back.

You turned.

You walked.

And this time, he didn’t follow.

It had been a week. Maybe longer.

You didn’t care. You didn’t count anymore. The calendar with Nationals circled in red was still on the wall, but you hadn’t looked at it since the results. You kept the lights dim. Didn’t open the window. Didn’t answer your messages. You couldn’t. Every ping made your skin crawl. The medal was still in its case, unopened. Your fingers had touched it once, briefly, by accident when reaching for a pen, and your body recoiled like it was hot iron.

You didn’t deserve to hold it.

You sat hunched over your desk again, notebook open to the same damned problem—the same sequence from that day. That warm-up with Phainon. The one you couldn’t solve cleanly. The one you laughed about, once.

You hated that memory now.

You ran through it again.

You hated how close you’d been.

You hated that it showed up again. You hated that you froze. You hated that you had been the one to say “it needs 42 exactly” out loud—and still blanked.

x₁ = 11, x₂ = 18, x₃ = 14.4 11 + 10.8 + 20.16 = 41.96

Almost.

You wanted to punch something.

But you didn’t. You just kept tapping the lead of your pencil to the desk. Over and over. Like that would make the numbers change. Like if you rewrote them enough, your score would shift backwards in time and undo the second place.

Your door creaked.

You didn’t look.

You already knew who it was. He kept doing this now—once a day, maybe twice. Quiet steps, paper bag rustling, some drink left on the corner of your desk. He didn’t say anything. You liked that. No words meant you didn’t have to scream.

But this time was different.

Phainon didn’t leave.

He sat beside you.

Not at a distance. Not lingering behind you. He sat—right there—on the edge of the desk like he belonged, like you weren’t halfway to a breakdown, like he wasn’t the last person you wanted to see right now.

You didn’t tell him to go.

You just snapped.

“I fucking had it.”

Your voice cracked on the first word. You didn’t care.

“I solved this. Two weeks ago. I said the answer out loud. I knew the spread. I knew the constraint.”

He didn’t speak.

“I said 42. I said it needs 42 exactly. I even adjusted the values with you. We got 41.96 and laughed because we were close, remember?”

You stared at the paper.

“You know what I got in Nationals?” You didn’t wait. “A time warning. I blanked. I hyperfocused. I optimized the wrong case, and then—then I panicked, Phainon. I panicked.”

Your throat clenched.

“I missed five points. Five points I could’ve solved in my sleep.”

The pencil snapped in your hand.

You stared at the broken lead, then the paper, then your own shaky fingers.

“I don’t get second place. I don’t choke. I don’t choke. I was the kind of person who didn’t choke. Who wrote the neatest notation. Who finished with five minutes to spare. Who got asked to coach others, because I was always sharp, always clean.”

You bit your lip.

“And I blew it. Over one question I’d already seen.”

The silence pressed against your ears.

“I ruined it.”

Still no reply. Just breathing. Just presence.

Your fingers curled, trying to keep steady.

“I hate this. I hate being this person. The person who peaked early. The person who was promising and then lost.”

Your voice dropped.

“I hate that it’s me.”

You felt your chest cave in a little—like air was too much to take in.

“And I can’t stop going over it. I can’t stop. My brain won’t shut up. I wake up thinking of equations. I stare at the ceiling and count backwards. I solve this problem again and again and it never changes.”

You let the pencil fall.

“I lost. I lost. And I can’t even scream because I don’t want anyone to hear how broken I sound.”

The tears came hot. You didn’t wipe them.

You closed your eyes. “I don’t know who I am if I’m not winning anymore.”

Then—

Warmth.

Not words. Not footsteps. Just arms around your shoulders, sudden and too human, too solid.

Phainon pulled you in.

No announcement. No breathy confession. No stupid I’m here for you monologue.

Just a silent, firm hug like the air had decided you’d had enough and finally let you collapse.

Your fists clenched weakly against his sleeves.

You wanted to scream again.

You didn’t.

You just stayed there, held in a silence you didn’t know how to break, shoulders trembling, breath stuttering, eyes blurry, voice too small when it came again:

“…I’m still solving it.”

And he said nothing.

Just held you tighter.

You stared at it for so long you forgot to breathe.

You’d seen the variables before. The shape of the function, the weighted coefficients, the margins for error. You’d memorized every possible spread that week before Nationals. Burned it into your skull, dreamed of the numbers like they were prophecy. You knew the bounds. You knew the behavior. You knew what was optimal.

And yet you’d missed it.

Your finger hovered over the line again:

x₁ = 10.3, x₂ = 18.6, x₃ = 14.7 10.3 + 11.16 + 20.58 = 42.04

Exactly what you needed. Balanced. Minimal error. Clean notation.

You swallowed.

This was what it looked like when someone else solved your problem.

Not the kind of problem written in a book.

The kind of problem that defined your life.

You didn’t say anything at first. What was there to say?

That he used your notation?

That he probably went through your old scratch paper?

That he even wrote like you now—left margin wide, decimals aligned, iterations clearly marked?

That the one thing you hadn’t gotten right, the one thing that shattered your momentum and your pride and everything you thought made you worth something—he solved it in your language?

You pressed your palm to your face.

The tears didn’t come this time. Just heat. The kind that made your eyes sting and your ears burn.

You weren’t angry at him.

You were angry that it still mattered this much.

He said nothing.

You finally spoke.

“…You used my margin system.”

A pause.

Then, low and hoarse: “It made the most sense.”

Your hand trembled as it dropped to the desk.

“I gave up on this.” You stared at the page like it was some kind of curse. “And you didn’t.”

“I didn’t have to perform in front of a panel,” he said.

You bit your lip.

“I still blanked. Even though I knew the spread. Even though I had this. I still choked.”

Silence.

“I don’t choke,” you muttered again, voice smaller.

Phainon didn’t argue. He just sat beside you, fingers loosely laced in his lap, expression unreadable.

You hated how quiet he was being.

You hated that he wasn't trying to fix you.

You hated how real it made everything feel.

“I thought I could… I don’t know. Rebuild it,” you muttered, eyes flicking across the page again. “Like if I solved this, just this one… if I got it cleanly, then maybe I could forgive myself.”

He glanced down.

“I didn’t solve it for that,” he said quietly. “I just… kept seeing you staring at it.”

You laughed under your breath. Not amused. Not even bitter. Just tired.

“It’s so stupid.”

“It’s not.”

Your voice cracked. “It is. It’s one number. A decimal shift. And it’s been clawing at me like—like the loss means I’m less. Like if I didn’t get it, I don’t deserve anything I had before.”

The words slipped out before you could stop them.

“Everyone says I’m gifted. That I was made for this. That I was ‘born for precision.’ But what kind of genius blanks on a number they said out loud two weeks before the exam?”

He turned his head, just slightly.

“You.”

You froze.

Phainon’s voice didn’t waver. “You did. You blanked. You panicked. You lost.”

You didn’t move.

He continued, gently:

“And you’re still you.”

That pierced deeper than any sympathy would’ve.

Because it wasn’t comfort.

It was truth.

You looked at him for the first time.

He didn’t look triumphant.

He looked exhausted.

Like he’d carried the weight of that number for days—not because it was hard, but because you were.

Because watching you disappear into yourself was worse than not knowing the answer.

You didn’t realize how tight your grip had gotten until the edge of the paper started to crumple in your hand.

You set it down.

“I still lost,” you whispered.

“I know.”

“I hate it.”

“I know.”

The tears stung again.

“I hate that I care so much.”

He didn’t respond this time. Just leaned back slightly, letting the air between you return. Not out of cruelty. Just space. Like he knew you needed it.

You glanced down at the scratch again.

There it was. Your ghost of a victory. Written in handwriting that wasn’t yours. Solved by someone who wasn’t onstage. Who wasn’t panicking. Who hadn’t been trained for this the way you had.

“I was supposed to be better,” you muttered. “Than them. Than this.”

Phainon tilted his head. “Than me?”

You looked away.

“No,” you admitted. “Than myself.”

The words fell flat, bare, real.

You stared at the final boxed answer. The clean, round 42.04.

“That’s the score I needed.”

“It is,” he said softly.

You ran a hand through your hair, trying to gather something like breath.

Your chest still felt tight.

But not crushed.

You weren’t okay. Not even close. But your hands had stopped shaking.

And for the first time in over a week, you weren’t reciting the question in your head. You weren’t counting factors on your fingers. You weren’t spiraling through iterations.

You were just sitting. Still. Quiet.

Beside someone who had gotten there, when you couldn’t.

Beside someone who didn’t offer forgiveness, because they knew you weren’t asking for it.

Phainon shifted, about to speak—

—but didn’t.

You reached forward.

Picked up the paper.

Folded it once.

Then tucked it into the corner of your notebook like a scar.

A reminder.

A truth.

The perfect notation you forgot, and someone else remembered.

a/N: BEFORE YALL COME AT ME YES THIS IS LINEAR WEIGHTED OPTIMIZATION. THE IDEA AROSE WHEN I REMEMBEERED THE GUY I LIKED AND I WANTED TO LEARN MATH BS HE MADE IT SOUND FUN:((. This ENTIRE formula was something I did wayyy back. Idek remember the process but when I dug my old notes, I saw my tiny comments step by step. If the math is wrong.......... feel free to tell me. pls bro I based this off an old scratch paper GIVE ME A BREAK. WE ARE ALL GETTTING PHAINON. I'm so sorry if this was rushed dawgggggggggggggg

Written by @khuzena. Likes, reblogs and comments are always appreciated. ♡

#honkai star rail x reader #hsr x reader #honkai star rail #hsr fluff #honkai star rail angst #honkai star rail x you #hsr angst #hsr phainon #phainon x reader #phainon fluff #phainon #hsr headcanons #honkai star rail phainon #hsr

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