#i forgot I had a tumblr for the longest while

[nerdieforpedro]

WIP Wednesday

The last one I did may have been in September. 👀 Been a long time. Haven’t really been writing much fanfic. Stuck on different papers for school. I was tagged by @evolnoomym and she shared ideas so I will too! ❤️ @pr3ttynpiink also tagged me and looks to be cooking up some fun new fics. 🥰

I want to write something for Modern Din and Christmas to go in my series: This is the Neighborhood Din, but it will likely need a chapter between that to make sense. (Every so often I care about making sense). Also more Luke doing Jedi yoga on his lawn and Poe & Finn being boyfriends because I want it all!

I need to write a new chapter of Weddings 101 with Dieter. Kinda left on a cliffhanger and a lot happened in my mind that should be posted 🤣

There’s a little over a month until the DMAMC 2025 challenge is due, haven’t written anything. Actually forgot about it, but fear not! I’ll think of something. 👀 My character is Pero Tovar (I doomed myself by picking him 😭 like the level of difficulty). But maybe I’ll revisit a pairing I’ve done.

Random but working on a Baldur’s Gate 3 fic and bugging @perotovar (Erin beta read for me what I have so far), @megamindsecretlair reads the snippets I send her and @soft-persephone looks at the pics I send her and is honest 🤣🤣🤣). Everyone’s favorite moody (for many a legit reason) and murderous pale elf who’s a vampire Astarion and an OFC. Things that happened between these two: a lot of staring, mocking Gale (everyone’s favorite past time- he makes it easy but also the wizard is really nice insane like everyone else but nice), drying some hair, hugs and some tears. Lots of angst, fluff and comfort. Haven’t decided on smut yet, is likely but I’ll see how it reads.

Didn’t realize that A Safe Place for Us was up to chapter 7 on AO3 and only 5 on Tumblr 👀 My bad. I should be able to post one chapter on here before November ends. The formatting and graphics take me the longest. 🤓

I also have a secret Santa fic things I’m supposed to be working on for a discord group but I also have not started. 👀 Unsure of which direction it should go in. I’ll figure it out, eventually I think.

The first paragraph of chapter five of “A Safe Place for Us”:

Waking up to Dieter takes getting used to for Aisha. It’s not unwelcome, she’s just not used to someone clinging to her like he does. Every morning he stays at her apartment is one where he has his arm and head somewhere on her. Chest, stomach, thigh, back, ass one time because he enjoys scissoring her entrance wider and scooping his spend that drips out of her back in before pumping his fingers to stir his cum within her.

Yeah…chapter five is…a ride so to speak. 👀 Forgot we had a strong start.

I found a WIP that contains Marcus Pike angst:

His romantic relationships and come and gone just like yours but you always had each other. Though, you treated yours as ways to work off the need you felt for your friend. To distract yourself, even when you were with your other partners, you’d think of him during the throws of passion, even when having simple meals and they may chew too loudly. You loathed your behavior toward your partners and your friend, biting your lips to not utter his name while under someone else.

“Marcus…”

Is the only name you want to say but can’t.

Hmm….might be a good holiday one or something. 🤔

That’s the ideas for now. Always a lot and never finished. ✅ Would it be Nerdie if they were? 😎

Have a happy Thanksgiving, holiday, days off of work and stay safe!

NPT: @chaithetics @schnarfer @inept-the-magnificent @yopossum @djarinmuse @604to647 @secretelephanttattoo @magpiepills @maggiemayhemnj @murder-wife @sin-djarin @syd-djarin @morallyinept @westside-rot @tinytinymenace @sunshinehaze1 @soft-girl-musings @goodwithcheese @jolapeno @bluestar22x @clawdee @romanarose @beefrobeefcal @bitchesuntitled @bitchwitch1981

[monsterr4t]

You know what? i still love tumblr’s format, I adore how hashtags are actually insanely useful in here

[hwaflms]

HAPPY NOW? ★ [ j.jh ]

your family has been pressuring you for months to bring your boyfriend, jaehyun, over for dinner, and you think it’s really sweet that they like him so much. the only problem is that your “boyfriend” jaehyun, hates you.

———————————————————————

[☆] PAIRING. ex!jaehyun x f!reader

[☆] GENRE. angst, smut, fluff | fake dating?, exes to ??? au

[☆] WC. 19.9k (i don’t even know)

[☆] WARNINGS. angst, reader has anxiety, mentions of anxiety attacks, fighting, reader be lying a lot, reader has a little sister, crying, reader is kind of a dumbass, explicit content (piv smut), unprotected sex (don’t do this gang!), fingering, sex in public kinda, pls lmk if i forgot anything!!

[☆] NOTES. i’m so fucking annoyed with tumblr it’s not letting me insert images properly UGH this took me over 2 hours to upload man 🗣️ im pretty proud of this one ‼️ idek how it got this long but it’s my longest fic yet and it’s been sitting in my drafts for ages until i finally got the inspo to write it :p i want jaehyun so bad it’s not even funny tbh but anyway PLS GIVE ME FEEDBACK/A REBLOG LITERALLY ANYTHING IS APPRECIATED <33

———————————————————————

six months.

you haven't seen this door in six months.

it's funny because, this was a door you used to push open and walk through every other day, yet now you stand on the opposite side of it, unsure as to whether you should even be thinking of knocking.

your hand is raised to the door, shaped like a fist but you make no move to actually knock. you were aware that you still had time to bail out of this, that you could turn on your heel and make your merry way back to your sad little house and go back to pretending you're happy with the choice you made six months ago.

or you could just do what you came all the way here to do.

the weather seems to be in your favour, at least. the sun shines radiantly, making the temperature warm, but not too warm, and a cool breeze travels through the air in short intervals. the summer had begun early, birds chirping in their habitual singsong way and wild bougainvillea already flowering in various shades of pink and lilac. usually when the day starts off with good weather, the rest of it follows suit, and thus your day is made better. hopefully, this is the case for you today.

pausing for a short, morale-boosting intake of air, you tighten your fist and knock, knock, knock on the mahogany door, immediately regretting your decision as you feel your stomach churn and plummet. a good ten seconds pass, and you hear no reply nor movement from the inside of the house, and part of you is relieved because that means he may not be home.

more than happy to do a 180° and skip along joyously back to the metro that would take you home, your feet begin to make for that trip but your mind decides against it. you know that you are being overly dramatic, but even with being aware of this, your heart rate does not slow down one bit. you also know that what you've come here to do is more than just selfish, its pathetic and rather embarrassing. it's also a hugely unsavoury request, and if your roles were reversed, you'd most definitely laugh in his face and shut the door.

finally somewhat making up your mind with a quiet groan, you raise your clenched fist and rap against his front door again in a set of three. you nervously shift your weight from your right to your left foot, then back to your right and then once again to your left, the anxiety and anticipation not allowing you to stand still and relax, thinking that if he doesn't answer this time, you really will just return home.

"hold on, i'm coming!", a hurried, muffled voice calls from inside the house and you don't think your heart has ever beaten this fast in your life. not even during the one time you ran a marathon to prove a point to your friend chenle, and while you did show him that you didn't only run to get away from spiders, your body took its own sweet time to recover from that.

now you hear footsteps approaching the door from the opposite side of it, and you don't think you can handle anymore of this tortuous, build up of a wait because you are quite literally one step away from calling it a day and just sprinting your way out of there, just like you did on the last few metres of the aforementioned marathon, and you know he's nearing the door because the footsteps are getting clearer and clearer, and soon he's going to open the door, take one look at you and just slam the door right in your face, but not before spewing verbal explosives at you, which would be totally deserved since he has every right to just spit on you and tell you how you're a terrible, downright horrible human being completely unworthy of forgiveness and-

"sorry for making you wait so long, i was-"

if your heart rate was at its maximum speed before, now it just stopped.

standing in front of you, in the flesh, was the man who's heart you broke six months ago.

jaehyun had just about opened his door in a way that his body was sticking halfway out of it, but he was now frozen in that position, neither in nor out, just stuck there looking like he was contemplating his next move. he adorned a loose, white shirt that clung to his defined shoulders and chest, paired with a pair of red plaid pants with a patch of some different material stitched just above where his knee was. you'd recognise those pants just about anywhere, having worn them a number of times and being the cause of that strange patch with mismatched material (you'd tried to balance a pot of steaming hot ramen on your knee in order to move something, resulting in it causing a burn in the pant).

his attire tells you that he was either just about to eat breakfast, in the process of eating breakfast, or about to finish breakfast; jaehyun was not an early riser and he liked to take his time getting ready for the day.

apart from his slightly changed hair, jaehyun looks the same as he did before, if not better. his once shorter, straight, brown hair, was now a darker kind of black and longer in a silky, mullet-y, layered sort of way, the mullet part stopping just above where his shirt met his neck and the front bits falling on to his face in thin, soft wisps.

everything about the man was captivating and entrancing, but if you had to pick a specific feature that really takes the cake, it would have to be his eyes. his eyes, deep-set and fierce, always gave the impression that he was cold or unapproachable, whereas in reality, he was the opposite. as striking as they may be, they always carried a certain warmth to them.

while they still held the same intensity to them, the warmth was missing as he looked straight at you now. after the brief moment of confusion when he first opened the door dissipated, the familiarity had sunk in, and his expression now was more or less unreadable, but you still tried to make out what he was thinking and feeling- was it shock? anger? maybe even disgust?

"okay, are you going to just stand there or are you going to say something?"

you think it was largely a combination of the last two. in all your fidgeting and gawking, you'd forgotten to actually speak to the man who's door you'd just knocked on, leaving him standing there wordless and confused, an eyebrow raised as he waited for you to open your mouth.

you try to do so, so many words wanting to tumble out your mouth but an invisible gate seems to block it, so now you're just stood still with your mouth opening and closing soundlessly, looking like an idiot.

c'mon y/n, fucking say something, anything-

"how have you been?", is what you decide to go with to break the silence in the end, an awkward smile plastered on to your face. you realise before the sentence is even fully out of your mouth that that would be a really weird thing to start off with, seeing as you and jaehyun have had absolutely zero contact for six months, and are obviously not on the most wonderful terms.

jaehyun's eyebrows furrow, a look of clear disbelief on his face as he clutches his door handle a little tighter. he looks away with a sarcastic smile, shaking his head before turning back to look you dead in the eye. oh, he's going to slam the door on you, you just know it-

"really? 'how have you been'?", he questions incredulously, licking his bottom lip while an exasperated smile plays at them. funnily enough, his response is somewhat relieving to your pitiful self, because you weren't even expecting to hear a reply to what you said, you figured he'd just walk away. you would've. "we haven't seen each for six months since we broke up and 'how have you been' is the best you've got?"

you wince apologetically and bite your lip, playing with your fingers nervously as he quite literally stares you down, irritation written all over his face.

he waits a couple more beats for you to break the tense silence and speak but you are inwardly (and outwardly) struggling to word your thoughts, so he simply scoffs and backs away to return inside.

"okay wait, i didn't tell my family that we broke up and they keep pressuring me to bring you home for the holidays, so i would really like if you'd pretend you don't hate me and come with me."

you don't even want to open your eyes to witness his reaction to your blurted little confession, so you merely stand, frozen in place with your eyes squeezed shut tightly. a couple seconds pass yet you don't hear a door slam, a good sign, so you take that as an affirmative to open your eyes.

he doesn't say anything, or do anything either really, he just leans against his doorframe with another indecipherable expression. this irks you even though you know you have no right to feel irked, but the fact that you once had the ability to know what he was thinking and now don't bothers you to the core. plus, it leaves you feeling unsure as to whether to continue. he might just start laughing at you manically or angrily tell you to get off his property like some bitter, 60-year-old man, and either of these scenarios would be completely fair of him to do.

the heavy realisation that your request sounded absolutely delusional and conceited dawns upon you, and something about his irksome expression makes you feel like you should keep talking. "you have literally every right to just tell me to fuck off, and i don't even expect an answer, i don't really know why i even came here, oh my god- this is so fucking stupid, i'm so fucking stupid and honestly i don't know why you're still standing here listening to me ramble-"

"i need to get ready then. give me ten minutes."

✧ ──────── ✧ ──────── ✧

the front door you're stood at now holds a very different ambience to the previous one. while jaehyun's was quiet and peaceful, the front door to your parents house reveals that the inside is just bustling with activity. the chorus of kate bush's 'running up that hill' plays faintly from behind the door, so you figured that your dad must have brought out his old record player from the dusty attic.

jaehyun stands beside you, hands shoved into the pockets of his light grey hoodie that you feel he must be boiling in, because you're wearing a black tank top with some loose cargoes that you think you might have drenched with sweat.

the sweat would be from the burning heat, but also from the agitation you're really starting to feel. there are so many different ways this dinner could go. what if jaehyun suddenly tells them the truth? then everyone in the room would hate you, and rightly so. you don't want to have to explain to your parents why you broke up with him; it's a stupid fucking reason, if you can even call it that, and it made you completely miserable. how were you supposed explain to your little sister that you and jaehyun aren't together anymore? you suppose relationships are a totally foreign concept to her young mind, but you were sure that she knew you and jaehyun loved each other very much. and you knew she loved jaehyun very much.

he does not look at you, instead choosing to really focus on the christmas themed welcome mat that your parents put out during the winter of '09 and never bothered to change. how he even agreed to come here with you, you don't know, but to say you're grateful would be an understatement.

"you still have time to back out, you know.", you mumble softly, trying to give him one more chance to escape, but he doesn't even spare you a glance, shaking his head and squinting at the door.

"let's just get this over with."

with a small sigh, your raise your hand to press your parents doorbell, the embarrassingly loud 'ding dong' ringing out from behind the door. "oh, that must be her!", you hear the muffled voice of your father speak from the inside, making a slight smile form on your lips.

within a couple seconds, you hear the sound of the muted metal bolt as your dad struggles to open the door to let you in. a grunt of "this damn door..." makes both you and jaehyun release short giggles, and you peek over at jaehyun to see his lips curl upwards into a smile, a small one but it's still breathtakingly pretty . he clears his throat and it's gone in a flash, but the image doesn't leave your mind, and you're still seeing it when your dad finally manages to open the door. "i really need to start using the new lock", he mutters, shifting his eyes to you with a big grin, leaving against the doorframe with his arms folded. "hello, sweetheart."

you chuckle and throw your arms around him, squeezing him a little as he laughs and pats your back in return. releasing you, he turns to jaehyun with a smile, who promptly sticks his hand out politely. "hello, mr. l/n, long time no see."

your dad ignores his hand, throwing his head back with a gruff laugh. "what's with all the formalities, come here, son.", and with that he gives jaehyun a hug as well, a slightly shorter one albeit, but a hug nonetheless. the word 'son' repeats in your mind like an echo, sounding more and more distorted the longer you focus on it. you can't even begin to think of what was going through jaehyun's mind. this was not your brightest idea.

you notice your mom waiting by the door with her hands behind her back, eyes bright and shiny. "hi, mom.", you beam, and she laughs cheerily, opening her arms for you to run into, which you do. she presses numerous kisses to the crown of your head, making you groan lightheartedly and try to escape her hold, but it only tightens. "oh, how i've missed you."

"i missed you too, mom.", you say but she's already let you go and is making a bee line for jaehyun with her arms open, who falls into the hug so readily and comfortably. "i may have missed you, y/n, but i missed jaehyun ten times more.", she jokes, pinching jaehyun's cheeks affectionately.

jaehyun is turning bright red, but he has a toothy grin on his face, a real one, you can tell. his eyes travel the front room where all of you are stood with a nostalgic smile, having not seen it or your parents in over six months. you watch as they look from the various photo frames hung up on the wall alongside the staircase, to the curtains that they recently changed, finally landing on the record player thay was sitting on the table. "wow, mr. l/n, where did you get this?", jaehyun asks, and you wonder whether he's trying to make conversation or if he's genuinely curious. you think it may be the second one.

while him and your dad engage in small talk about his record player, you turn to your mom to ask of the whereabouts of your little sister, and as if on cue, you hear an excited squeal from the top of the stairs. all four heads turn to see your sister bounding down the stairs hurriedly, paying no mind to your mom's strained shout of "careful!".

"y/n!", she piped, finally reaching the bottom of the stairs and running straight to you, wrapping her arms around your legs. she barely reaches your hip so her hug is really just her face pressed into your thigh with her arms squeezing your legs together, while you pat the top of her head.

somehow managing to pry her off of your legs, you kneel and give her a proper hug in return, now happy that you made the decision to come home for a bit of your holiday. she lets go and reaches into her pocket, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper and jutting her hand out to you, urging you to take it.

you smile and furrow your eyebrows with confusion but you take the paper anyway, opening it as carefully as you could so as to not tear it anywhere. smoothing it out flat on your knee, you're greeted with a drawing; two people stand holding hands under a deep blue sky, a large yellow sun shining in one corner along with some "birds" that are really just little 'v's scribbled in black. they're stood on a beach, at least you think they are because there are two shades of blue on the paper, one of them probably being the blue hue of the ocean.

you assume the two people are you and your sister, since one of them has shorter, shoulder length hair and is miniscule compared to the other person, who's hair length and height are similar to yours.

you hold the picture to your chest and pull your sister in for another heartfelt hug, kissing her temple. "is this us?", you ask her, pointing at the two people in the drawing. she gives you a proud nod in return, taking the picture from your hands and holding it in front of her face. "yup! the big girl is you and the small girl is me! we're gonna go swimming.", she informs you, flashing you the toothiest of smiles. "thank you, it's perfect.", you tell her, ruffling her hair a little as she hands you the drawing back.

she clearly doesn't appreciate that, because she whines and swats your hands away, but soon her eyes focus on something behind you and they enlarge, the second excited squeal of the day emerging from her lips. "jae!", she just about screams, completely abandoning you in favour of running off to jaehyun, who has a wide smile on his face and looks equally as happy as her. he scoops her up in his arms and lifts her in front of his face, doing a little spin as peals of laughter escape her.

he finally puts her down but she holds on to his hand, looking at the male with absolute adoration. "hi, cutie.", he boops her nose affectionately to which she giggles, turning to look at you. "you didn't tell me jaehyun was coming!"

"i wasn't sure if he could make it", you reply to her honestly, looking at jaehyun as you speak because only the two of you know what you really mean by that. he holds your eye contact for perhaps a millisecond longer than he did before, but again, it was gone in a flash. he clears his throat a little and straightens up, rocking back on his heels.

sensing a shift in the air but mistaking it for some form of awkwardness, your mother shoos the rest of your family away in the direction of the kitchen. "they probably want to freshen up together, let's let them do that."

once they're gone, it feels like you can finally release your breath, truly seeing this situation going wrong in so many ways. they don't suspect anything yet, but how much longer until they eventually connect the dots? or what if they don't even need to do that, because jaehyun only agreed so he could embarrass you by telling them the whole story? you don't acknowledge the tense silence until jaehyun speaks up. "can i use the guest bathroom? still the second door on the right, yeah?"

you don't respond immediately because you're processing the fact that he still remembers these minute details. you also realise he's only asking because he doesn't want to share your bathroom with you, and that clears your thoughts up a little. you nod in affirmation and he begins climbing up the stairs, and you wait until you hear he's reached the upstairs landing before you move.

it's so tense. the last time you were in this house with jaehyun, you had taken a short road trip to get there. you say road trip, but it was just a couple hours long, but the playlist you and jaehyun had curated said otherwise. you arrived at the house and everyone was all smiles, your parents just happy to have you home and happy to see him as well. you think that part's just as hard as thinking about the two of you together. the fact that your slightly judgemental parents adored him, your little sister looked at him with stars in her eyes– you had lucked out in every department, and you were always aware of it, the joint guilt you felt from breaking it off and lying to your parents really getting to you now.

you swore that after this was over, you would apologise to jaehyun and finally break the truth to your parents.

finishing off in the bathroom, you step out into the hall, only to bump straight into jaehyun. backing up awkwardly, you both try to get past each but keep going in the same direction, resulting in a bunch of 'sorry–'s and 'wait– just–'s being blurted out by the two of you. finally getting past you, he doesn't look back at you again, just walking down the stairs mumbling something about "they're waiting...".

wincing, you make your way down the stairs as well, arriving at the living room to see your mom standing beside your dad with an excited expression on her face. you approach with caution, noting that your dad has his hands behind his back. "so...", your mother starts, raising her shoulders a little out of anticipation. "since we haven't seen the two of you in a while...we got you some presents! nothing too grand but..."

"mom, it's not even christmas", you whine, ready to argue with them because you feel bad that whatever they got was still overpriced, but your mother shakes her head, urging your dad to reveal the presents. "just take a look first..."

in one hand he holds a small, white box, no bigger than his palm, and your mom picks it up, holding it out to you. the print on the box is small and typewriter-like, the material it's made out of just screaming fancy. you narrow your eyes at your parents but take the box in your hand anyway, pushing it open. inside, it reveals maybe the prettiest necklace you've seen; dainty and silver, the chain is simple but it's the pendant that's the real charm– it's an uncut stone of some kind, a pale, translucent white crystal that's pretty much shapeless but it's wrapped in this thin silver wire that forms little loops and hearts over the stone and it makes it so alluring.

"it's a seaglass necklace", your mom speaks, taking the necklace out of its box for you and inclining her head for you to turn around. you're now facing jaehyun, who looks curiously at the new piece of jewellery with the faintest of smiles on his face. pushing your hair to the side, your mother places the necklace around your neck and clasps it (though it takes her a while, squinting and looking at the necklace hook from every angle because she forgot to wear her reading glasses). she leads you to the mirror by the entrance of the hall so you could get a better look at the necklace hanging on top of your collarbones, reaching up to touch it. "you remember? from that lady who owned the fancy place by the beach last summer?"

you do remember. that was the first trip jaehyun had joined you and your family for, under the suggestion of your little sister. when you brought up the fact that jaehyun was going back home to see his parents a little later than he had anticipated, your sister immediately asked if he would want to come with all of you, who were heading to the beach in a day or two for a little family getaway. and much to your surprise, your parents were very warm to the idea of jaehyun accompanying the lot of you. he must have severely impressed them the first time he met them, bringing a bouquet of flowers for your mother and a hearty bottle of whiskey for your dad– it's like he had won their hearts before he had even stepped inside the house.

of course, he had met them a couple more times again after that, but your parents had never raised any issues about your then boyfriend. your dad had claimed that he wanted jaehyun to come along so he could "keep an eye on him" and "see how he treats you in front of us", but you knew all too well he just wanted someone to talk to about his interest in sound systems. the trip had gone so smoothly, so perfectly and you think that it had planted the seeds of doubt in your mind about your relationship.

the position of the window and sun allowed for the light to bleed on to half of your face, the necklace glinting under the rays as you stood in front of the mirror and surveyed it. the last couple drops of the golden hour sun slipped through the windowpane and painted your skin like it was a canvass and the necklace was the cherry on top. you were radiant, and the look in jaehyun's eyes told you that he knew it too. when your eyes meet in the mirror, it's like he tears his eyes away from you, forcing himself to look at his shoes.

snapping out of your soon-to-be miserable thoughts, you fix a smile on to your face so as to not seem ungrateful, turning to hug your mother. "i love it", and you really do, knowing that you wouldn't be wearing a single other piece of jewellery for the next couple months.

jaehyun stands in the doorway soundlessly, just taking in the scene. he had always told you that he wished his family was as close and tight-knit as yours, but due to his dad always being away on some business trip or another and his mother having her own job to attend to, it resulted in a lot of time spent by himself.

you think that might be way he slotted right in with the rest of you, from the very first meet, because his desire to belong worked very well with your family's lively, chaotic home, which welcomed him right away. this was the main reason why couldn’t bring yourself to tell your family that you had broken up him mercilessly. they wouldn’t blame you of course, but you know everyone would be immensely disappointed when they realised that he hadn’t even done anything wrong in the first place; he was so good to you, and they just wanted to see you happy.

while your mom cooed at how pretty the necklace looked on you, your dad faces jaehyun with a wide grin on his face. "you didn't think we'd forget about you, did you?"

he probably wasn't expecting anything for himself, because you weren't either, so you and jaehyun simultaneously furrow your eyebrows. "oh, mr. l/n, you didn't have to–", he starts but your father is quick to cut him off, waving his hands. "what nonsense. of course we had to get you something, it's no big deal", he tries to appear nonchalant but the smile that creeps on to his face is a telltale sign that it is, in fact, a big deal. "besides, if you're family to y/n, you're family to us."

it's as if someone just stuck a large knife into you, the pang you just felt in your stomach. you can't even begin to think about what must be going through jaehyun's head, because even he can't hide the way his eyes soften at your dad's words. watching your sister spring up from the couch, she runs behind your father and plucks whatever he was holding out of his hands, now revealed to be a medium-sized bag. "i wanna give it to jaehyun!", with that, she's running over to him with the toothiest smile plastered on her cheeks, holding the bag out to jaehyun with stretched arms.

he ruffles her hair just like you did, but she makes absolutely zero complaints as he does it– if anything she's revelling in it. this makes you want to scoff, but you smile instead without thinking about it, taking a couple steps away from the mirror and towards them. "are you gonna open it or should i take it back to the store?", your dad jokes and jaehyun chuckles quietly while you don't even bother forcing a laugh, and he takes the bag from your sister's hands, mumbling a soft 'thank you'.

from where you're standing, you can't see what's inside the bag, but you can see jaehyun's eyes widen when he looks inside and back up at everyone. "me and mrs. l/n, i can't take this."

"of course you can", your mother tuts in response, dismissing him with her hand. "if i recall correctly, you had said something about your airpods not working properly?"

realisation dawns on your face when jaehyun pulls the shiny headphones from the bag, turning them over in his hand. "i think i did mention it, yeah...", he nods, eyes scanning over the clear box he holds. you remember that only one of his airpods would function properly, the other deciding whenever it wanted to do its job. you didn't realise your parents remembered, as well. "but these are so expensive, i can't–"

"do you like them or not?", your dad asks, shrugging his shoulders. jaehyun's quick to nod, "yes, i love them but–"

"then end of story." your father's not hearing anyone out, even going so far as to cover his ears jokingly when jaehyun opens his mouth again. after your sister tugs on his pant leg and urges him to try them out, jaehyun slips them over his ears, whipping his phone to connect them to it. he thought it was too expensive to try fixing his airpods so he resorted to listening with just the one ear in, or using your headphones till you broke up.

by the look on his face, they work just fine, and he couldn't be happier. a wide smile is pressed on his face, a real one that doesn't even drop when he makes eye contact with you. you smile back at him slowly, but he doesn't look away immediately, slowly turning to look at your parents. "i don't know what to say. thank you."

you'd had a couple boyfriends before, not none as close to your family as jaehyun had been. none of your previous relationships had lasted very long and you could never pinpoint the exact reason why, you just knew at some point that you had to break it off. your mother always thought that this was a result of your first ever relationship, the first and last man that ever dumped you. it crushed you at the time, though you were able to power through, but since then, relationships were never your strong suit. change seemed promising when you met jaehyun through a mutual friend, however. he was kind, he was smart and he was genuine, three traits that you didn't typically see in guys you dated, but you didn't see any reason to dwell on your biggest fumble yet.

the rest of time until dinner continues in a steadfast manner with all of you sitting in the living room. the scene looked like something out of a corny movie montage, but the beautiful part of it was that it was reality, all the laughs, the eye-smiles, the stupid jokes and conversations, all of it. your parents had recently returned from a holiday together that they took to celebrate their wedding anniversary, which meant that you two deserved to look through all eight hundred and sixty two of the photos they took. super proud of the new projector he had ordered off amazon, your dad had connected his phone to it and was going through his gallery slideshow-style, with your mom making offhand comments about every other photo.

"that's from when we went on a date to this fancy restaurant, that's from the shoe store your dad wanted to go to...oh! that's when your dad just learnt how to take 0.5x pictures on his new phone!"

your mom speaks animatedly while each photo is being shown, pointing out various different things without any prompting. there were badly taken selfies of your parents that made both you and jaehyun laugh, pictures of the different kinds of food they ate, the said 0.5's of your mother taken from the top of her forehead– your dad was slapping his knee even though your mom wasn't too impressed.

after what seemed like years, they ran out of vacation pictures and moved on to pictures and videos taken during your little sister's talent show. this was especially endearing, because your normally high-energy sister was suddenly all shy and avoidant of eye contact in the presence of jaehyun, particularly displeased with a video of her singing on stage.

jaehyun wipes the pout right off her face however, poking her cheek with a smile. "you sound amazing, s/n", he pipes genuinely, and she's back to smiling again, even offering to sing the song for everyone towards the end. no one has the heart to turn down so innocent a request, so for the next couple minutes you are subjected to a very slightly off-key rendition of some song from the movie 'frozen'. everyone cheers when she is done, jaehyun even throwing in a little "whoo!" for good measure, and your sister performs a small curtsey before seating herself between you and jaehyun's legs.

you're situated on the same couch, but only so that things don't look weird. you invited him here to pose as your boyfriend, and he agreed, so you have to play the part too. that part wasn't as hard as you expected, the acting like a couple, no, it was the avoiding questions that was really getting to you. at some point in the conversation, your dad had congenially asked jaehyun when the next time he'd be coming home was. normally, he would congenially reply with something like "as soon as possible", but this time, he just froze. he appeared to attempt a reply, but was cut short at "uh–", the rest of the sentence never following through.

hoping to repair the awkward moment, you start to construct a fib. "jaehyun's been uh– you know, working at one of those um, nursing homes–", this is too out-of-the-box a reply even for jaehyun who turns to you, trying and failing to the hide incredulous look on his face.

"a nursing home? oh, i didn't know you were training to be a nurse!", your mother is surprised but definitely not disappointed, placing her hand on her chest with a sympathetic look on her face as she looks at jaehyun. he looks as if he's trying to speak to you using only his eyes, widening and squinting them at a rapid pace, tilting his head towards you so your parents don't see his expression. there are clear signs of confusion and you're aware he's questioning your decisions, but that's as far as you get with his eye signals and you let him know by shrugging and wincing, so he closes them while sighing inwardly and turns to face your parents, a fake smile stuck on his lips.

"yes! haha, funny story, this one...", he grits his teeth but furthers your stupid concoction of a story, snapping his fingers while trying to think. "i'm not really training to be a nurse, i just volunteer there sometimes. love being around old people, you know, makes me feel full of life–"

you cut him off before he can make this even worse for the both of you, taking in your mother's furrowed eyebrows and your dad's slightly opened mouth. "yes, well, it's hard for him to catch a break, you know, with all the...", you slap your hand over his knee and give it a little squeeze, turning to him with a grin while he smiles tightly back at you, eyes focusing on the hand on his thigh without changing his expression. "...hard work he does."

jaehyun's eyes don't leave your hand, seeing as this is the first act of skinship in six months, albeit casual. your hand feels so hot that you think you might be burning a hole through the material of jaehyun's jeans, finally ripping your hand off of him.

"of course...", your father trails off in confusion, and no one can seem to make head or tails of the situation. in a moment, your mother pauses before clapping her hands, seemingly already forgotten about the strange situation as she chimes "dinner in five!~". your sister scampers off with claims of helping your mother out in the kitchen (and probably to try and secure a spot close to you and jaehyun), and jaehyun stands up and heads to the cupboard containing all your placemats without out even being asked. you offer to help but he shakes his head, and you opt to go sit back down on one of the arm chairs facing the kitchen area, just observing.

this was one of jaehyun's qualities that made you fall in love with him, but also pissed you off to no end. first of all, didn't he ever get tired of just being so good all the time? second of all, why couldn't his own parents see what everyone else saw in him? and thirdly, why did you choose to ruin your life six months ago? as for the last one, you knew why, but the extent of your stupidity was real apparent to you now.

you look away when he meets your eyes and catches you, your heart beating fast when you see out of the corner of your eye that his gaze lingers for a moment or two. underneath all that hatred, was there still a small part of him that cared about you? after you broke up with him, over call that too, he attempted to call you back two or three times, but you couldn't bring yourself to pick up. out of fear or maybe even shame, you never answered his calls and since then, you'd had no contact.

it was impossible. with a break-up like that and six month's worth of time to sit and think about it, you imagine that one could hold a surprising amount of hatred for someone–especially after a relationship as real as yours. if you switched the roles, you think you wouldn't feel much different.

at your mom's signal, you heave yourself off the couch and to the dining table, seating yourself next to jaehyun (everyone expected you to sit with him, they left the chair empty on purpose). your sister has already claimed the spot opposite jaehyun and was patiently awaiting the vegetables that she knew your mother was going to pile on her plate, a little pout forming on her lips at the sight of broccoli. "you can't make that face every time, like i'm feeding you dog food", your mother scolds her with a smile, giving her a generous helping of veggies. the pout deepens and she folds her arms with a cross look on her face. "you guys don't have to eat the broccoli. why do i?"

she's got a point, you think, but before you can tell her to just eat them, jaehyun speaks. "that's exactly what my little cousin sungchan said...", jaehyun tells her, looking around the table with a dramatic sigh. "and we all know what happened to him..."

little cousin sungchan? as far as you know, there is no little cousin sungchan, and you know a lot about jaehyun's family, so you put your fork down in favour of listening to his story at the same time your sister curiously asks, "what happened?".

"well, like you, sungchan didn't like eating his veggies", starting off the story with a shrug under your mother's listening ears, he talks in a low voice. "he'd always argue with my aunt till one day, he refused to eat them.

your sister is knocking food around her plate while she listened to jaehyun, and she's not impressed with the story so far. "see! why can't i do that?", she asks indignantly, and your mother shoots jaehyun a look to which he winced and continues. "nothing happened for a while, so sungchan thought he had proved his point. but he hadn't heard of the veggie monster."

the story is heading in such a stupid direction that you almost laugh out loud, but you catch yourself when you notice your sister's expression, guarded and wary. "...the veggie monster? ...that's not real...", she speaks like she's not fully sure of her words herself, pausing her attack on her food.

"sungchan thought that too", jaehyun agrees, lowering his voice like one would when telling a scary story, looking around him like it could be listening before continuing, for the story's sake. "but he didn't know that without veggies, a child's body is weak. their bones don't grow strong, they stay small and their minds aren't sharp at all. that's how the veggie monster chooses his targets."

you hold back a snort at your sister's wide-eyed expression and how serious jaehyun looks, he's even got your dad attempting to look nonchalant as he followed the story. "the less veggies a kid eats, the weaker they get, and that's easy pickings for the veggie monster. he comes late at night, and there's no point in hiding because he knows. he can smell when a kid doesn't have enough vitamins and it makes him hungry."

with your sister, your parents and even you hanging on to every word, jaehyun lowers his voice to almost a whisper, and all of you lean in closer to listen. "legend has it that he looks so scary that you lose the ability to move or speak, so he just takes you. sungchan was never seen again. the police said he was missing but i knew what happened to him."

you have to admit, jaehyun can tell a story. the atmosphere felt more eerie as he concluded the story cryptically, but your sister looks positively gutted. "did he take him?", she questions, face white and voice small. he nods slowly, like he didn't want to be talking about this, and all you can think about is how this man deserved an award after the show he put on. "i had my suspicions. no one believed me, but i'm ninety-nine percent sure that at dinner, i saw a pair of dark, red eyes staring straight into the kitchen from the window."

as if nature was a paid fucking actor, a slight crash sounds from outside the window on cue, like if a cat knocked over a plastic bin, but you're pretty sure your sister shit her pants. you've never seen her shovel vegetables into her mouth at that kind of record speed before, even your parents are looking at her astounded. with her food in her mouth, she pleads with glazed eyes, "please– i'm sorry, i'll have my veggies, don't let him take me!"

it takes all of you a little while to convince your sister that she'd be completely fine if she ate all the veggies given to her and that the veggie monster wouldn't even think of her, but it's safe to say that she'd never leave a bit of stray carrot on her plate ever again. your mom comically mouths 'thank you' to jaehyun which makes you laugh, and you turn to smile at him, and he gives you a nod in return. small steps, you think, because a nod is a whole lot better than a glare.

the rest of the dinner continues as if nothing changed. sure, you and jaehyun knew things were different, but it didn't fully feel like it at the moment. your mom had prepared a lot of nice food for the occasion, and your dad even helped, particularly proud of the way his stir fry turned out. jaehyun made sure to compliment both your parents on their cooking, and they all but melted– he still knew exactly how to talk to them. conversation was easy; you talked about work, you talked about how university was going, you talked about the school play your sister was going to take part in, about jaehyun's parents, nothing was forced.

you'd fall into comfortable silences at times in favour of sitting back and observing, listening, just being a part of the moment. for someone who was so reluctant to be here, jaehyun seems comfortable, the familiarity of the situation helping ease the tension between the two of you. expecting some bumps along the way, you were rather pleased with how things were turning out, but you were also anticipating the end of the lovely evening– where you and jaehyun would eventually go your separate ways. you don't want to think about it just yet, not when everything was going so smoothly, and your opportunity to snap out of your thoughts is presented to you, just not in the way you would have liked.

your mother's question seems to have thrown jaehyun for a loop as well, because his eyebrows are furrowed and he looks blatantly confused. at some point during a lull in the conversation, your mother had politely asked jaehyun how his christmas in japan had gone; the only problem with this question was that he never had a christmas in japan, not to his knowledge anyway. this, was yet another lie you had told your parents, when they had asked why jaehyun hadn't accompanied you home to celebrate christmas, like he had originally planned to. unbeknownst to them, you had already broken up with him prior to the christmas holidays, so jaehyun wasn't exactly going to come along anyway. so, you told them that he had to spend christmas with an aunt in japan, for familial reasons.

you didn't exactly have time to prep jaehyun and give him a run down of every single lie he had to play along with, so he turns to you with a look of uncertainty and desperation in his eyes. "my, uh- christmas? in japan?", he puts emphasis on the two keywords, not blinking when he speaks directly to you in hopes that you would take the hint and help him out.

"yeah, your christmas. in japan. with your aunt", you reply to him with the same tone and expression as he does, trying your best to sound subtle so your parents don't catch on.

"yes, with your aunt! we were so sad to hear that you couldn't make it for christmas", your mother is unknowingly helping jaehyun catch up with the fake story, and he releases a short "ahh" during his moment of 'recollection'. "right, my real aunt who definitely lives in japan."

he grits his teeth when he talks, making you grimace and the fact that your parents look completely puzzled doesn't help. you need to save your dignity anyway, so you try to cut jaehyun off before he can make things worse. "haha, jaehyun of course she's your real aunt, silly", you awkwardly chuckle, feigning nonchalance when you bump his shoulder with your fist, wishing you could telepathically communicate with him right now, but you'd probably only be saying "please, please, please" on repeat.

he sighs but speaks up again, much to your relief. "it was slightly boring, my aunt doesn't do much", he laughs softly, fully back in character. "but you know, it's still nice to spend time with your family."

if your parents are suspicious, they don't say anything, seemingly satisfied with jaehyun's answer. dinner continues with few hitches until jaehyun insists that he washes the dishes. "it's the least i can do, after you both made such delicious food."

your mother at least tries to argue with him for a bit, but your dad is quite happy to not have to wash dishes, patting jaehyun on the back before standing up. what surprises you however, is jaehyun turning to you with the sweetest, most fake smile you've seen in a minute plastered on his face. "you mind helping, y/n?"

smiling tightly, you nod and begin clearing the table. this is done in silence, neither of you even looking at each other as you pick up dishes and carry them to the kitchen. your sister has run off to the living room to watch some t.v with your dad, and it feels like you're finally allowed to breathe when your mother exits the room as you’re picking up the last dirty dish. walking into the kitchen, jaehyun's back is facing you while he washes dishes, the environment and the little tune he's humming making everything seem so domestic in your eyes. this is how dinner used to always go when he came over, with you and him washing the dishes together in the end, taking breaks to splash each other with the soapy water or making out secretly by the counter.

but the air is foreign now, none of the former warmth or softness remaining. he turns to you with a frown when you place the final dish on the side of the sink, and he really doesn't look too happy. "visiting an aunt in japan? really?", he scoffs, looking incredulous while you look sheepish, avoiding his eye contact entirely.

you were expecting something like this but you hated being put on the spot. "i don't know, okay, what else was i supposed to say?", the exasperation in your voice is evident but it only fuels jaehyun, and rightfully so.

"i got an idea, how about 'oh, he can't come because i dumped his ass over call for no reason, sorry'?", he digs snidely, voice laden with scorn. there it is. "or is that too close to the truth for you?"

he doesn’t even let you open your mouth, chucking the cloth he was using to dry the dishes on the counter somewhere, folding his arms while he looks at you in a hostile way. “you wanna know how i really spent my christmas, y/n?”, he sneers sardonically, a sarcastic smile etched on to his lips. “alone in my house. miserable. i wish i had an aunt in fucking japan that i could’ve spent it with.”

you hate to admit it, but his words sting and you are well aware that you deserve it. just asking him to join you for this dinner was a huge reach, a request you really didn't expect him to accept. you don't fully understand why he did, though. he clearly despised you, so many be it was out of love for your family? you know jaehyun cared for them, but doing all this was uncharacteristic even for him. when you don't say anything but wear an agonised expression on your face, jaehyun further questions you.

"do you not have anything to say for yourself?", he tries again, his voice a little softer and more hopeful than before but you look like you're fighting some internal battle that doesn't involve him. he exhales deeply, clearly disappointed in your lack of an explanation and just walks past you and out of the kitchen.

you remain in the kitchen for a couple beats more, trying your level best to collect yourself. you can feel tears pricking the corners of your eyes and your breathing is quicker, but this is the absolute worst time to have a little panic attack in the kitchen. how you wished the two of you could just forget about everything for a minute so you could wrap your arms around his figure and fall into his embrace, feeling like that would solve all your problems. it's selfish and wrong, but you know that you're not getting over jaehyun anytime soon.

you'd come to that conclusion a couple months back. the first month after you broke things off with him was possibly the worst time of your life, struggling to eat, sleep or even get out of bed. your friends urged you to reach out to him like they knew you wanted to, but you remained stubborn, convinced at the time that you had made the right decision that would hurt the least for the both of you. you were wrong, you could see that now, but you knew it was much too late. you'd already gone through all the stages of grief, but seeing jaehyun again in this environment had really gone and thrown a spanner in the works for you, all because of your terrible decision-making skills.

any hopes you had of the two of you at least being on semi-friendly terms had just flown out the window as well, and you suddenly think that this might've been the reason why jaehyun even agreed to come. an explanation. a well-deserved one at that. you don't know why you find it so hard to give him one, but you suspect it's because you're not ready to face all that yourself.

upon hearing your mother faintly call out your name, you realise how long you've been standing in the kitchen, taking a couple more deep breaths before you join the rest of them. it's clear that everyone's winding down, your sister curled up on your dad's lap, trying to blink away her sleepiness, while everyone else mutedly watched the television. "didn't mean to keep you all up past your bedtime", you try to joke lightheartedly because your parents look like they're about to hit the hay themselves, but it's really so that no one suspects you were having a little breakdown in the kitchen; especially jaehyun.

"you're not wrong", your dad agrees gruffly, stretching a little before tapping on your sister's cheek to wake her, much to her displeasure. "it's technically your mama's turn to put you to bed, isn't it?", he attempts, but is quickly shot down by your mother, pinching his arm after claiming it was certainly not her turn. after their grand performance, both of them comically turn to look at you with a suspiciously bright look in their eyes. you don't even have time to argue, because the second the hint of a sigh leaves your mouth, they're saying "thank you" and "how nice of you to offer", urging your sister to wake up to let her know that you'll be tucking her in tonight.

she perks up a little at this, nodding with a little glint in her eyes. hopping off your dad's lap, she sleepily totters over to you. "can jae come too?", her voice is hopeful and small, and she yawns in the middle of her sentence but she just has this certain charm that makes everyone unable to say 'no' to her. this includes jaehyun, because one look from her with her arms raised and he's picking her up, pretending to complain about it. you can't help but smile at the whole interaction.

"oh quick! before i forget...", your mom gasps in remembrance, picking her phone up from the coffee table with a tired smile. "don't know when i'll get to see the two of you again so, pictures!"

this may be the only part you were slightly prepared for. your mother had a special affinity for taking photos; not that she was any good at it, she just enjoyed capturing these little moments and treating her gallery like a scrapbook. she had more or less documented the entirety of you and jaehyun's relationship, from the first few months where all the photos were cheesy smiles and awkward poses, to when you had grown more comfortable around each other. in fact, a photo she had taken of jaehyun was your wallpaper for quite some time (it took a lot of effort and explaining to help your mom airdrop you the picture)– it was a shot of jaehyun and your sister grinning from ear to ear, both adorning aprons that were covered in flour after a failed attempt at baking cookies.

the point being, you're pretty sure jaehyun was also expecting the pictures, so it didn't really surprise you when he plastered a smile on his face and came to stand beside you. his hand finds the small of your back soon enough and it makes your body stiffen while simultaneously sending a jolt through it, and jaehyun feels it. mistaking the action for uneasiness, he immediately lifts his warm hand off you so that it's now hovering awkwardly over your body, though no one can see that from the front. while you are disappointed, you lean into him anyway, clasping your hands together behind your back as you both give the camera wide smiles. you're so close you can smell his cologne and it's making you dizzy, not because the scent is overpowering but because it's just so familiar and you can't get enough of it.

the moment is gone in a flash because your mother takes three to four photos while cooing at the two of you before she decides to call it a night, and then jaehyun is ripping himself from you. you don't think anyone else recognises it, the way he seems to want to be as far from you as possible because he's so good at masking these things, but you can feel it. you can feel this heat radiating off of his body whenever he's near you and it's not the warm, fuzzy kind of heat. the spot on your back where his hand rested still burns a little.

your parents are exhausted and look more than happy to be able to jump straight into bed, but not before thanking you and jaehyun. you hug and kiss them goodnight, promising that your next visit will be sooner than this one before they exchange pleasantries with jaehyun, making him promise the same. you know this has to be hard on him, making a mental note to apologise profusely before you part ways. with a reminder that the door now locks from the inside, they bid you goodnight and goodbye, trudging off to their room while your sister scampers up the stairs to hers, suddenly full of life.

you understand why your parents were more than happy to hand over bedtime duties to you and your "boyfriend", because putting your little sister to bed turned out to be a piece of work. she started off by blatantly refusing to brush her teeth, but jaehyun had that one sorted when he reminded her that the veggie monster had a lot of friends, so that was done. she changed into her pyjamas all on her own which was a relief, but you were at a loss over how to actually get her into bed.

you both humoured her for a bit, understanding that she was just happy to have her big sister and her big sister's nice boyfriend home again, so a little excitement was expected. jaehyun played along with her, which was a sight to see, following along with the characters she assigned him in her imaginary games. but when bouncing on her bed turned into running around the room like a crazed bunny, it was a little harder to convince her that she needed to sleep now. "look at me, i'm wide awake", she insists, widening her eyes with her fingers to show you both just how awake she was. jaehyun tried a couple times to catch her, but you're both taken by surprise at her remarkable speed and agility. in the end, you had to resort to just sitting down and hoping that she'll tire herself out, which eventually does happen.

she climbs into bed of her own accord, rubbing at her eyes while you pull the duvet over her body, up to her shoulders. "when are you coming next?", she mumbles curiously while you sit on the edge of her bed, jaehyun standing close by. "soon", you reply honestly, knowing that you'll always have a safe place to come to whenever you need. "maybe i'll even stay for a whole weekend next time."

she likes the sound of this, smiling tiredly with her hands peeking over the edge of her cover, holding it closer to her. "will you come too?", this question is directed towards jaehyun, who looks defeated when he opens his mouth to answer. it's not fair, expecting him to lie to your family like this, but you know you've gotta come clean soon. you'd made up your mind at this point and come up with a plan; you'd explain yourself to jaehyun and apologise after which you'll go your separate ways, then you'll tell your family the truth after tonight, or at least make up a more recent break up, and that's that.

when jaehyun looks to you for help, you play with your hands a little, not fully knowing what to say. "if the old ladies at the nursing home let him go, maybe...", is what you decide is the safest option to go with, and your sister seems satisfied enough, giggling drowsily. you know she's close to falling asleep, and you're about to inwardly celebrate a job well done when she pops her next, unexpected question. "will you both be together forever?"

oh. there's a hint of teasing behind her voice, but everything else about the question is innocent and genuine, blinking her eyes open so she can look at the both of you when you answer. though you're not touching him, you can feel jaehyun stiffen next to you, his voice sounding more than a little awkward when he lets out an involuntary "uhh".

"what do you mean, cutie?"

you don't know why he asks that, because it's a pretty straightforward question; will the two of you be together forever? you want to laugh at the irony because you know that if she had asked the same question last time jaehyun came home, you both would have exchanged knowing smiles, giggling shyly while you tried to answer. the answer would've been 'yes', and you know deep down that it still should be.

she clicks her tongue like it's the most obvious and easy question in the world, shrugging her shoulders when she speaks. "you know, that's what people do when they're in love,", she answers with no hesitation, and you want to roll your eyes because who kidnapped your little sister and replaced her with dhar mann? "just like mommy and daddy!"

"daddy and mommy are married, sweetie, it's a little different–"

"i know that", she cuts off your little improvised answer in a deadpan voice that almost makes you feel stupid, but all her questions have your heart thudding against your rib cage, and you're praying to god that jaehyun can't hear it too. "but still, they love each other, and that's why they're together forever. don't you love each other?"

you're pretty sure the world stopped spinning and your heart stopped beating simultaneously, most definitely not expecting these kinds of questions from your sister. how do you even prepare an answer for this kind of situation? you know for a fact that your cheeks are coated in a dark sheen of red, and out of the corner of your eye (because you refuse to look at him), you’re pretty sure you can see the distinct pink colour paint the tips of jaehyun's ears, like they always do when he's shy or embarrassed. you can't not give her an answer, because that looks weird and she's clearly waiting for one, but answering meant that you either tell her the truth, that no, you will not be together forever because your dumbass went and ruined everything for the both of you six months ago, or you can lie and say that she's right, which would be admitting a lot of things that you didn't want to admit–

"nothing's for sure, but you're right, if two people really do love each other...", jaehyun's deep voice brings all your spiralling thoughts to a halt, and you look at him for the first time in a bit, only to find that he's already looking at you, gaze raw and piercing. you hold your breath when he speaks, because you don't trust yourself at the moment. "...they'll end up together forever."

you hear your sister make some kind of a reply, but the heartbeat in your ears is so loud that you don't quite catch it, the eye contact you're holding with jaehyun so intense that it feels wrong to look away. what could he have possibly meant by that? or was it just some half-assed answer to get your sister to go to sleep? you realise that staring at him while trying to use your sixth sense to nonverbally convey these questions to him isn't going to work, but you can feel the lump forming in your throat, needing to get out of this situation quickly.

it takes everything in you to break the eye contact in favour of pressing a quick peck to your sister's temple, and she looks about ten seconds away from just crashing. "night y/n, night jae...", and with that she's out like a light, and you two wait wordlessly until her breathing evens out before silently exiting the room.

once her bedroom door is shut, you make a beeline for the front door, way too scared and vulnerable right now to look at jaehyun. he doesn't say anything, so neither do you, making sure the door is actually locked before taking your phone out of your pocket. the time on your phone screen reads '11:43', and you know it's too late to try and catch the metro or a bus, but you're too stubborn and embarrassed to ask jaehyun to drop you.

the air is cold outside, much colder than it was inside your warm house. at the current moment, there is no breeze either, the trees are still and there are only a few lights on around the street, and it just makes everything seem so still and loud. you look out at the road, eyes zeroing in on this one lamp post where you shared one of your first few kisses with the man standing beside you. it's crazy how time can change things, you think, because never would you have believed in the moment that jaehyun called you "the most beautiful girl in the world" before leaning in to sweetly connect your lips that he could ever be something so close to a stranger within months.

ultimately opting to look at him, you're once again unable to read the expression on his face as you try your best to speak your mind to him. "um, i'm gonna book a cab, so you're officially free to go. thanks again for tonight, you really didn't have to come with me, so i owe you one. or i don't have to owe you one, because we're not going to see each other again- anything's good with me, just uh...thanks."

he waits patiently for you to finish, and aside from the slightest hint of amusement in his eyes, you're at a loss over what he's really thinking, but his face is so stupidly handsome that you're feeling angry and a little awkward, choosing to look around, and at the floor, playing with your fingers as you spoke.

"you're so dramatic y/n, i can drop you home, it's no big deal", he's already walking towards the road and biting his lip, and you can't tell whether it's out of habit or if he's trying to hide a smile, yet something tells you that it might be the latter.

"so you just let me say all that even though you were gonna offer to drop me? dude..."

the initial ten minutes of the drive are uncommunicative, both of you choosing to look at the dark road instead of acknowledging the awkward silence that was swallowing the car up whole. you don’t talk about your argument in the kitchen, you don’t make small talk about dinner, you don’t talk. you'd normally play some music in the background and you know that your phone is definitely still connected to his car's bluetooth, but somehow it just doesn't feel right– punishing yourself by sitting in this impenetrable silence should do you better.

the roads are more or less empty, save for the lone car or bike that speeds past you. jaehyun knows the way to your house from your parent's because of the amount of times you've driven back and forth, so you don't feel the need to tell him to turn right or to keep going down a certain road, making for even more silence.

part of you is still a little thankful that it isn't the most short drive, even though you aren't even speaking to each other. all it takes is picturing your empty house, devoid of the homely domestic feeling it used to carry when jaehyun was a frequent visitor. what would you even do when you got home? wallow in self-pity over your life choices? play 'sweet' by cigarettes after sex because it reminds you of him, then put on his hoodie that doesn't even smell like him anymore, just so you can curl up in bed and have a good cry while you reminisce? you're starting to think that maybe attempting to talk to him isn't the worst idea, at least it'll give you something to cry about later.

you're going crazy wracking your brain, trying to think of something to say that wouldn't make the atmosphere even more uneasy, but all you got was "hey, thanks again for coming" and "hey, sorry for breaking up with you, what's good though?". you can't even help the wince creeping on your face, finally choosing to go with the former before you have a heart attack and die in jaehyun's front seat.

"thanks again for agreeing to come", you start, absolutely hating the break in your voice from not talking for some time. "you really didn't have to do that. and for dropping me."

he offers you a quick nod in your general direction and fixes his eyes on the road ahead like he was zipping through a crowded highway, though you're sure there isn't a car in sight. "like i said, it's cool", is all you get in return, and you have to remind yourself that he has every right to be short with you.

but still, you try again. "and you don't have to worry about my parents", chewing on your bottom lip, you actually look at him this time, hoping it'll prompt him to do the same, but it doesn't. "i'm gonna tell them the truth."

he releases a short breath from his nose like he finds your statement funny, but continues to not really say anything, just nodding to indicate that he heard you. you subconsciously clench and unclench your jaw at that, because god, he's so fucking annoying, but you swear you don't mean to release the slightly irritated sigh that you do. if you hadn't seen his knuckles turning white from how hard he's gripping the steering wheel, you might not have known that your little sigh pissed him off, because you can't tell it from his face, save from the barely-there eyebrow twitch.

you don't know what it is about car rides with only one other person that make you feel so vulnerable, but you think paired with this kind of silence, you could potentially confess to murder in this setting. it's infuriating, how unresponsive he is, and part of you thinks you're jealous of the control he's exerting, because you're dead sure that if you were in his position, you'd have a fair amount to say. it must be satisfying for him in a way, watching you squirm like this out of guilt and discomfort, but you know in your heart that jaehyun simply isn't like that.

"look, jaehyun", your mouth is working faster than your brain, the silence proving to be too much for you to handle. "i know i fucked things up a bit. with how i ended it and everything..."

perhaps you should've taken a little more time to properly articulate your thoughts, because even jaehyun can't control the astounded scoff that slips out of his mouth. you yourself can't believe that you chose to deliver your words like that and it makes you sound so self-righteous, but they're out, and now you're bracing yourself to finally hear what jaehyun really has to say.

"fucked things up a bit? are you serious?", you can hear it in his voice that he's holding back, but he chooses to laugh in disbelief instead, which you think is actually worse than him straight up screaming at you. "y/n, you didn't even bother telling me in person. you dumped me over the fucking phone, saying it wasn't working."

you now kind of wish that you had just kept quiet and sat in his awkward car, and exchanged awkward niceties when you reach home, never to see him again. but this is your final chance at some form of redemption, and now that jaehyun was actually speaking his mind instead of giving you tight nods, you tried to explain yourself.

"jaehyun, i know, i just–"

"i called you a bunch of times. i tried to come see you and everything, but you went and changed your lock and all your friends were saying you didn't want to see me?"

there goes trying to explain yourself. so you sat and listened instead, and it was the least you could do. jaehyun's voice became more and more strained as he talked, the emotions he was feeling now a lot more evident. he was angry, but more importantly, he was confused, and sad.

"i just- i didn't know what went wrong, you know? we were completely fine as far as i knew", he continues on in a laboured way and he's not looking for you speak right now, so you don't. "fuck i- i thought we were in love."

the little laugh he lets out in between his words more or less breaks your heart, the whole scenario sounding all too familiar. those exact words were the last thing you'd heard from jaehyun before you fully and cruelly broke things off, letting him know the decision was final before cutting the call. you remember that day so clearly. you had meant to go see him and explain all this in person, that’s the whole reason you were in the car, but for some reason, you just couldn’t do it. you remember how much your hands were shaking as you waited for him to pick up the call, sitting in the car by yourself in the middle of your driveway. how long you sat and cried after you ended the call, tears falling until there weren't any left. how it began raining the very second you stepped out of your car to go back inside.

the weather was a funny thing, choosing to mirror your mood only when it saw fit. it was warm and sunny on the day you broke up with him, gentle breeze and wispy clouds all around. it was warm and sunny this morning, the weather ever so pleasant as you plucked up the courage to walk to his door. it was still unusually warm and sunny for the couple months following your break up, feeling sour as ever that the weather was so lovely and all you could do was sit in your room and feel sorry.

you took note of all these occasions because it always used to piss you off. though you shiver now in the car, you think it's kind of satisfying in a way, because the only two times your mood and the weather lined up was right after the break up, and the second you stepped outside your house with jaehyun; it feels like a premonition, or a revelation of sorts. the grey of the stormy sky matched the absolute devastation you felt after breaking up with him, rain pouring from the heavy clouds like they were crying for you. now, the cold, still air feels like baited breath, awaiting your next move.

"and nothing, i hear nothing from you for six fucking months until you're suddenly on my doorstep, asking me to pretend to be your boyfriend for a night. that's fucking insane!", he sounds a little wild now, very exasperated, but you figure it's probably better to just let him get it all out of his system, and you'd do good to listen to him as well. everything he's saying makes complete sense, all the emotions he dealt with akin to what you would've gone through had it been you in his place. "and you know what's more insane? i agreed. after all that, i agreed."

that’s the part you don’t understand. your heart is racing listening to him and you have so many thoughts swimming around in your head, it's difficult to filter them. you feel similar to how you felt back in the kitchen, although this time you can't take a minute by yourself to get over it. you absolutely refuse to cry in this moment, not wanting to seem like you're trying to victimise yourself when you are aware you're the problem. but you can feel your heart breaking all over again.

"why did you agree?", you physically can't raise your voice to louder than a whisper, the tension too thick to try and overpower it.

"why did you dump me?", he counters like a child, and while you were expecting the question, it still makes you freeze up a little. he huffs in annoyance when you don't say anything, inclining his head while he waits expectantly for you to answer. "you wanted to talk? let's talk, y/n. you don't get to just waltz back into my life like it's nothing. it's not fair,"  it's so cold, the way he says your name, but you try your best not to let it further shake you, mustering up the courage to finally speak. "it's so stupid, jaehyun."

he looks like he's about two seconds away from just combusting, the only sound piercing the cold air being the gentle hum of the engine. "don't you think i deserve to know?", he urges, voice edged with hurt and frustration. "i spent the whole day with you and your family, pretending like everything was happy and normal when it's not."

"i know, jaehyun-"

"then, tell me."

you shift uncomfortably in your seat, teeth toying with your bottom lip as you avoid looking at him. "i don't know," you murmur, your voice barely audible to yourself over the pounding of your heart.

"you don't know?", he repeats incredulously, his tone tinged with disbelief. "after everything, you don't know? don't lie to me, y/n."

your throat tightens as guilt washes over you, but you try to stand your ground. "i just... i couldn't do it anymore," you confess, voice trembling with emotion.

"couldn't do what?", he presses, his frustration mounting with each passing moment. you know he doesn't believe you, dead set on getting the answers he deserves. he's driving slowly now, allowing him to turn his head in your direction more often.

"this!", you exclaim but immediately recoil when you see the look of hurt flash in his eyes. "no! not this, i mean- me! it's my fault, you did nothing wrong." you're saying all the wrong things, but you're too overcome with emotion to attempt to form a coherent sentence. still, you know it's time that the truth came out, so you continue to explain with a heavy heart.

"i didn't mean to hurt you," you choke out, and your voice is so thick you have to swallow before you carry on. he looks indignant and rightfully so, but you go on before he can interrupt you again. "but i was so scared, jaehyun."

his expression softens at your state, replaced with a mixture of sadness and resignation. "scared of what?", he asks quietly, his words hanging heavy in the air. you feel the need to pause for a moment, hands balled into tight fists as you try to regulate your breathing. you really didn't take into account how debilitating the night would be on yourself. sure, you knew it was going to be tough seeing jaehyun again, especially if he agreed to pretend to be together, but you weren't really expecting to hash it out like this, the weight of your decision pressing down on your like a leaden blanket.

the car moves so slow it may as well be still but  when you turn to him, you can feel the burn of jaehyun's gaze, his eyes searching for some semblance of understanding. "i loved you", he whispers, voice cracking with the intensity of his words. "i would've done anything for you."

you're still, you're so so still. tears threaten to spill from your eyes as you struggle to find the right words to say, but he's completely thrown you off. the car has slowed to a stop, engine idling before he eventually turns it off in favour of turning to you.

"that's exactly why," you reply weakly, your voice a fraction of the volume it normally is. he surveys you intently, his expression a mix of confusion and hurt, eyes reflecting the very same sadness you feel.

"what do you mean?"

"i was scared of hurting you," your confession does nothing to ease his confusion, but you can see he looks more shocked than anything now. "scared of hurting me?," he echoes, his uncertainty and disbelief palpable. "this is so ironic, it's almost funny..."

you think hearing any more of what he has to say is actually going to kill you internally, so you know you have to rush to explain before he starts giving you a piece of his mind again. "i know, it's so fucking stupid, jaehyun", your voice is trembling from the sheer guilt you feel, bottom lip quivering so much you have to bite it to get it to stop. "everything was going so perfectly, you were so perfect, and it scared me so much."

he falls silent, much to your relief, his expression even softening minutely as he processes your words and this gives you the encouragement to continue. "remember that night on the beach? on the trip last year?", you speak tentatively, wanting him to understand your thought process and the tangled mess of emotions swirling inside you at the time, though it's not much of a defense. the memory floods into your mind so vividly, and you can see it all; the salt in the air, the gentle breeze, the feeling of the sand, your intertwined hands swinging. it was so serene and you'd give anything to be there in that moment again, though it's nothing but a distant dream now.

he nods slowly without speaking, and you release a wet sort of laugh, feeling like you'd choke on the lump in your throat. "we talked about everything that night, our families, our childhoods, our futures...and then you brought up what would happen after we graduated college."

you know he remembers because his eyes light up with recognition and he looks like he's replaying that exact moment in his head, and you hope he remembers it with the same soft, gushy feeling you do. "you said you wanted to move in together, and don't get me wrong, i was thrilled, but it made me realise how...serious everything was, you know?", your voice catches in your throat and you're talking to yourself as much as you're talking to him and he seems to understand that, because he makes no attempt to stop you.

it's silent again for a bit as you two reminisce, but you break it again. "i just knew i was going to fuck up, jaehyun. maybe not right away, but eventually, and the thought terrified me," you sniffle a little, not being able to bring yourself to look up from your hands to meet his gaze. "that feeling never really went away, and it was eating me up from the inside. it got so bad that i had convinced myself that you were going to leave me, so i had to do it first, before i fucked up."

your sorrowful confession hangs in the air like an echo and you finally give in to the urge to look at him, and you're shocked– he looks at you so carefully, his expression soft, much, much softer than before. you couldn't stop the tears from finally falling if you tried , the soft glow of the dashboard illuminating the contours of your now wet face. your shared eye contact makes you feel nervous, but not in the way you were expecting– it's too gentle, too raw and it makes you feel a certain way.

"i know it's not an excuse," you're blubbering so much that your cheeks feel hot, you're practically falling apart in the passenger seat of jaehyun's car while he watches and lets you pour all your miseries out onto him. "you don't know how much i regretted it...but i thought i did the right thing. for the both of us. even though i just ended up doing what i was trying to avoid by hurting you."

it's too much now, jaehyun's too silent, and too not-angry for your liking; why is he looking at you in a way that makes you feel like he doesn't think you're the worst person in the world? you can't hold back the sob that's building in your chest, doubling over in favour of pressing your hands against your face and bawling into them. you're not too loud a cryer, but the tremors of emotion you feel are making your shoulders shake, so you're crying silently into your hands while trembling. however guarded he tries to be, the gentleness of his voice overpowers it as he speaks. "i know, shh...," he murmurs and you can't believe your ears, that the man you thought hated you is actually attempting to comfort you after everything. "breathe, y/n."

like it's second nature to him, his hand travels to your back as the sobs wrack through your body, immediately drawing soothing circles on to your covered skin with his thumb. you don't know how but this almost makes you feel worse, the fact that he's still so caring towards you. you pluck up the strength to lift your face from your moist hands, and you're sure it's not a pretty sight that greets him. your nose feels unbelievably stuffy, and your face is on fire when you meet his sympathetic eyes, the warmth from his gaze and hand spreading throughout you, even though he's now removed it. "i'm sorry," you manage through sniffles, but you think you almost flatline when he reaches his hand towards your face, ever so gently caressing it. his thumb juts out and sweeps across the skin under your eye, wiping away at the wetness. "i know."

"shh, it's okay. you're okay", he coos gently and slowly takes his hand back in favour of imitating slow breaths for you, helping you relax a little as you copy him. "why would you think i'd leave you?", he asks carefully once you've calmed down a bit and wiped your tear-streaked face, simply surveying you now. all you can offer him is a defeated shrug, attempting to collect your thoughts. "remember i told you about my ex? the very first one?"

he nods.

"i moved on obviously, like ages ago, but since then i think i've always had this idea that getting dumped is inevitable", you try to explain, voice small as he listens patiently. "it was either leave them or get left, and i was so scared that it would happen with you, that i'd fuck up so bad that you would leave. i couldn't do it."

he frowns and calls out your name in a way that sounds like he's about to lecture you, but you know he can't tell you anything that you haven't already told yourself. "i know, jae, it was so stupid, i know. i don't regret anything more", you sigh, giving him a tight, small smile when you lock eyes. "i'm sorry."

you notice his eyes soften at the nickname, releasing a quiet huff before he runs a hand through his hair. his body language doesn't carry the same anger it did before when he was ranting, now looking subdued and reflective. "i understand why you did what you did. it was stupid, but i understand", he murmurs, his voice impossibly soft when meeting your gaze, the eye contact so intense that you have to physically remind yourself not to cry again by digging your fingernails into your palms. "i would've never left you."

you nod slowly at his admission, his words hanging in the air. "i should've just talked to you...", you concluded in a sullen way and he doesn't reply in full, just mumbling a soft "yeah" under his breath. you don't mind the silence that fills the car this time, the underlying tension more or less dissipated, but you do notice the time, realising that jaehyun still needs to go back home after dropping you.

"should we, uh...", you gesture towards the road and he jumps up in his seat, as though he forgot that he was driving you somewhere in the first place, muttering "sorry" before twisting the key to start the car. this makes you let out an involuntary giggle and jaehyun shoots you a quick glare which immediately shuts you up, a certain warmth blooming in your chest when you see a small smile creep on to his face out of the corner of your eye.

it's quiet for a bit, jaehyun focusing on the road while you gaze out the window. much to your dismay, both the road and the various buildings and shops start to look a lot more familiar, indicating that you are nearing your home. you shouldn't be dismayed really, because this wasn't the most congenial of car rides, but it means that your time with jaehyun is coming to an end. you don't know what the conversation that took place means for you and him however, because unless you're alarmingly stupid, you feel that he may not hate you as much as he once did. does this mean you might even be able to see him again sometime? in a setting where you're not sweating and shaking at just the thought of seeing him?

you think it might be a bit audacious of you to ask that, so you don't. instead, you turn to him with a light grin, playing with the necklace clasped around your neck. "hey, at least you got some new headphones out of all of this", you joke lightheartedly, eyeing the package sitting on the backseat. he lets out a heartwarming chuckle at your comment, glancing at the bag through his rear view mirror. "i can't believe your parents bought that for me. you think they'll make me return it when they find out we aren't together?", he remarks, and you do your best to ignore the little pang you feel at the reminder of your situation. his comment does make you snort though, and you nod along with him. "nah, you need it more than anyone. your airpods have seen better days."

he laughs again, and you wouldn't believe that you two were arguing back and forth like madmen some twenty minutes back. this feels familiar and comfortable, and you cross your fingers in case you jinx it. "do you remember that time when we planned a picnic..." jaehyun begins, a sense of nostalgia shining through his cheeks. "and you forgot to bring the speakers? and we tried blasting music through my one airpod?"

you can't stop the peals of laughter that escape from your mouth as you nod, covering your mouth when your snort makes him laugh as well. "remind me why we didn't just play the music straight from your phone?", you question, replaying the memory in your mind like it was recent. he pauses to think for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck while he hums. "yeah, what the fuck? why didn't we just do that?"

you're laughing in unison as you take this trip down memory lane together, the next few minutes of the car ride consisting of exclamations of "oh! remember when..." and "that time when...", both of you adding on to the memories with your own perspectives and insights. the fact that the conclusion of your little dispute remains ambiguous doesn't bother you too much at the moment, happy to just enjoy the warm atmosphere while you can.

jaehyun's animatedly recounting a story about your sister downloading a game on his phone when you face him, and the last thing you remember paying attention to was that she had somehow managed to spend a large amount of his actual money on it. your eyes are focused on him now, just studying him, and he seems to realise that you aren't listening to his story when he glances at you.

"what?", he questions, the corner of his eyes crinkling when he narrows them at you in an playful manner, taking one hand off the steering wheel to drum absentmindedly on his thigh. "nothing, i just...", you trail off, scanning his features. "you changed your hair. it's...nice. i wanted to tell you that earlier."

he clearly wasn't expecting the compliment, mouth opening and then closing as he tries to think of an admissible reply. "you like it?", he then asks, a shy smile tugging at his lips when he consciously cards his fingers through the longer bit at the back. at your reaffirming nod and heavy gaze, the expected pink sheen dusts his cheeks and though you can't see them, you know the tips of his ears are pink too. he mumbles something of a timid "thank you", both of you smiling like idiots while he trains his eyes on the road.

not too soon after, his car is pulling into your dark driveway. you can't help the sinking feeling in your chest, lips curved slightly downwards. none of the lights are on, save for the streetlight, illuminating the street in a ghostly, dim way. your house looks just like it had for the past many months, gloomy and lonely, and you're absolutely dreading the idea of moping around once again. if this day spent with jaehyun has showed you anything, it's that you're a 100% sure you've not moved on, and that you won't for a long, long time. simply put, you're still in love with him, and you'll have to carry the cross of your mistake for some time to come.

he switches the ignition off but neither of you move. you're sat in your dull driveway on an otherwise empty street, all the other lights of your neighbouring houses off. neither of you say anything, mostly because you're not sure what one is supposed to say in this situation, so everything is still.

"so–"

"well–"

you let out a nervous chuckle while he smiles a bit, both of you mumbling apologies for interrupting each other. "you go first", jaehyun compels you, but now you don't know what to say because you were just going to make it up as you speak. your mouth has a way of working faster than your brain sometimes, but neither seem to be too functional at the present moment. "no, you go", is all you got, and jaehyun has the nerve to roll his eyes, twisting in his seat a little so he's facing you.

"i was just going to say that we uh, reached your place", he claims in a deadpanned manner, but your car door is still locked and your seatbelt is still locked in. you think you must have lost your mind, hoping that he'd tell you to stay with him forever and never leave (which you would have agreed to in a heartbeat). "i guess we have...", you nod, looking out the window and observing your home. maybe it was the dread of going back to your old routine that gave you the sudden boost of confidence, but you realise he never answered your question from before.

"jaehyun...", you begin but falter when you think you might be overstepping, ultimately deciding to just ask anyway when he looks at you expectantly. "why did you agree to come today? we both know you didn't have to."

he looks like he was dreading the very question you asked for some time, shutting his eyes when he leans his head back against the headrest and sighs. "i don't know", is the answer he gives you, voice muffled through the palms of his hands that are rubbing his face tiredly. biting your lip, you have to hold back a similar sigh because you should've known he's not going to just tell you like that. you have no right to press, but yet you do, one more time. "jaehyun, please?"

maybe it's because you sound so meek, but he drops his hands in favour of looking at you, really looking at you, like he's searching your eyes. "why do you think?", he turns it back on you, but you know this is just his way of avoiding the question. "if i knew, i wouldn't be asking. i know you don't have to tell me, you don't owe me a single thing, i just–", you speak desperately with all of the confidence you can muster, worried that your bottom lip would start trembling again. "please, i need to know."

you're looking each other dead in the eye, and while your voice isn't strong, it's honest and raw, and jaehyun can sense that. you can see that there's a million thoughts running in his mind just by the pained look in his eye and your own heartbeat has picked up, the sound deafening in your ears.

"if you haven't figured it out by now, i don't know what to tell you."

thud. thud. thud. you wonder if he can hear your heartbeat over the sound of his, but the blood pumping through your veins is making your ears ring, because what did he mean by that? you hope it means what you want it to mean, but you can't just assume you know everything because you're delusional at this point. "jaehyun, what are you sayi–"

"i agreed because i'm still in love with you."

there it is. the silence after his confession is positively deafening, your mouth agape as your try to register what you just heard. your eyes flicker between his, searching for any signs that he's just messing you and that it's some cruel joke, though it would be completely in his right to fuck with you if he wanted. he's never looked more vulnerable, eyes trained on you in an almost frantic way, like he himself can't believe what he just said. the way he just blurted it out makes you think that he didn't fully mean to admit that, but it's out, nothing he could do to take it back.

"what?", your own voice sounds like an echo and you wish you had something else to say because you heard him loud and clear, but there's a burning ache in your chest that claws all the way up to your throat. the shock is evident in your voice, not knowing what to do with yourself as you visibly process his words. "tell me you're joking", you plead in a pained way, words barely above a whisper. he doesn't say anything, looking lost in his own thoughts as his eyes scan your face. "you don't hate me?"

"hate you?", he scoffs disconsolately, shaking his head slowly. "i couldn't hate you if i tried. and believe me, i tried."

you can hardly believe your ears. you know your heart shouldn't be pounding the way it is, it feels wrong almost for you to be feeling as relieved as you are. "after everything?", you insist dumbfoundedly, but the longing in your voice is palpable, even if you're trying to give him a way out. "i was so horrible to you, jaehyun." you hate the way your voice cracks, but jaehyun just sighs and offers you a sad smile.

"there's nothing you could do to make me hate you."

it's heartbreaking, how defeated he sounds, but he's also looking at you like you could do no wrong in his eyes. "i never moved on", you whisper, hesitance clear as you tell him the truth. "i couldn't delete any of our pictures, i still have all your clothes, sometimes i accidentally set the table for two when it's just me..."

he's blinking quickly, and if you didn't know any better, you'd say he was trying to hold back tears. your break-up did nothing but cause immense amounts of pain for the both of you, and you'd give anything in the world to make up the time lost. his wide-eyed and nearly motionless expression urges you to continue, ready to pour out your heart to the man you loved.

"i still have your number memorised", your face mirrors his, voice growing stronger by the minute. "all the gifts and letters you've ever given me, they're all still there in that shoebox in my cupboard."

"i thought about you everyday", his whisper is raspy, speaking right after you do. "every party i went to, i looked for you even though i knew you wouldn't be there. you know johnny tried setting me up with people?"

you try to suppress the little sting, but you feel it deep inside you. "he did?", you have to clear your throat, and you almost don't want to ask but you do anyway. he releases a sad little chuckle and nods, toying with his fingers. "yeah. i knew i was doomed when the whole date, i wished she was you."

the smile finds its way on to your face against your will, feeling that familiar lump make its way to your throat. "she could've made you happy, jae", you argue anyway because at the end of the day, you want the best for him, and you know you're far from the best.

"no one could make me feel the way you do, y/n", he replied honestly, and there's a sense of finality to his words, like he'd had this same argument with himself time and time again, only to come to this conclusion. “the thought of anyone else touching you made me sick”, he croaked, not missing the way his eyes ghost over your frame.

his words bring about a noticeable shift in the air, followed by silence. he watches you, and you watch him, breathing slow as your eyes dart across his face.”i don’t want anyone but you”, you confess slowly, and a few beats pass before you find it in you to speak again. "i love you, jaehyun."

silence.

you expected disapproval, maybe even a malicious scoff, but you certainly weren't expecting to feel a soft pair of lips against yours as he suddenly lurches forward.

you're stunned, so stunned that you don't even reciprocate the kiss, lips unmoving against his. it's only when he takes this as a sign of discomfort and breaks the kiss that you find yourself reacting, hands immediately making their way to caress his cheeks, leaning forward to chase his lips and close the distance between you. he lets out a sound of surprise against your lips but kisses you back right away, a hand wrapping around your neck from the back, tangling itself in your hair. the kiss is heated and so long overdue, tangible through the way his lips meld furiously together with yours, teeth clashing every now and then.

your hands make their way to his broad shoulders, one wrapping around them while the other comes to rest on his chest, gripping the material of his hoodie. you have the urge to be impossibly close to him, trying to lean forward to kiss him more fully but you're restricted by your seatbelt. it's almost as if he can read your mind, because the hand placed against your face now moves to press on the buckle to release you without breaking the kiss. "fucking seatbelt...", he mumbles disgruntedly against your lips, fiddling with the button until you hear it click, finally separating yourself from him to slip it over you. "there we go."

you don't stay separated for long because jaehyun uses the hand behind your head to pull you towards him again, capturing your lips in a way that makes all the air leave your lungs. "come here", he grunts, using his long arms to pull you clumsily over the gearshift and straight on to his lap. you settle yourself in to the somewhat awkward position in the enclosed space, but that's the last thing on your mind when all your thoughts consist of jaehyun, jaehyun, jaehyun. his lips are back on yours in a instance, tongue sweeping across your bottom lip messily and you gladly allow it to explore your mouth.

the air is impossibly thick, heavily contrasting to the cold weather outside the car, even his lips and hands feel warm against your hot body. you feel his hands grip your waist easily in this position, lips leaving your own to drag across the expanse of your jaw. you whine quietly at the feeling of his mouth sucking a particular spot on your neck, tilting your head back as you wrap your arms around his neck. "missed this", he muses, tongue peeking out to kitten lick at your neck, breath hot against your sensitive skin. "missed you."

the feeling in your chest when his hands find their way under your shirt and on to your bare skin is inexplicable, unable to stop the soft moan from tumbling from your lips when his big hands glide over your stomach, back and finally your breasts. everything about the way he's touching you and kissing you is greedy and urgent, like he's afraid you'll disappear from his arms if he loosens his grip even by a little bit. you'd be a fool to not match this energy, pressing into him while you squeeze your hands over his. "need you so bad, jae."

you're subconsciously grinding down against him needily, hips stuttering against his lap like you've never been touched before. "fuck", your eyes widen at the groan that leaves his throat, sounding absolutely guttural as he grips the skin of your hip harshly.

he's barely done anything and you're coming undone right in front of his watchful eyes, your panties dampening at the look on his face. "jae..", you whine when his fingers dip past the waistband of your pants, gently cupping your clothed core as you rut against it. "shit, baby", he marvels at the stickiness of your panties, feeling your wetness on his fingers just through the material. "you really missed me, huh?"

you don't even have the time to respond to his cocky remark before his fingers are slipping beneath the band of your panties to circle your clit, spreading the wetness around your folds. a breathy sigh escapes your lips, throwing your head back as he experimentally prods at your entrance and eventually slips a finger inside. "still so tight for me", he all but groans, pumping his finger in and out of you languidly, drinking in the sounds of your pleasure. he feels so blissfully familiar, and though you haven't been touched by him, or anyone for that matter for months, the stretch of his second finger feels the same kind of intimate as it did before, if not more.

you lean forward and press your lips against his once again, kissing him like you might never get the chance to again, all while you're grinding back down on his hand that's fingering you steadily with a thumb circling your clit at the same time. his free hand moves to bunch your top up above your breasts, peppering kisses over the tops of them. he wastes no time in pulling your breasts free from from their cups, attaching his lips to one nipple and swirling his tongue around it in a way that makes you cry out. "my pretty girl", he mumbles almost to himself while cupping your other breast, making a show out of it as his tongue flicks over your hardened bud over and over until your arching your back and pressing it further into his face. “thought about this all the time.”

keeping in mind that you're still technically in a public place, you bite your lip to contain the sounds of your pleasure, though jaehyun doesn't make it easy when he notices this and increases the pace of his fingers. the hand fondling your breast leaves it unattended for a moment to release your bottom lip from your teeth, smoothing his thumb over the swollen skin. "i've waited months to hear these sounds. let me hear you, baby", he all but purrs and that's all it takes for a moan to tumble out of your mouth, pressing your forehead against the side of his face while you screw your eyes shut out of pleasure.

with his attack on your sensitive buds and his fingers pistoning inside of you, you know you aren't going to last long. "already?", jaehyun chides with a small smirk, and it's embarrassing how well he knows your body, grazing his teeth against your nipple in a way that feels painful and heavenly at the same time. you can feel his rock hard bulge against you, and with the untimely grinding of your hips against him, you're sure this is torturous for him. "don't wanna come like this", you whine against his cheek, your entire body feeling sticky from the heat inside the closed vehicle. your puckered lips leave wet kisses all over the expanse of his cheek, and the boyish giggle that leaves his mouth makes your heart flutter. "wanna feel you, jae."

his head is thrown back against the headrest and his eyes are shut tightly, jaw clenched as he slowly slips his fingers out of you. though you whine at the loss of contact and you're almost grinding against the air, you want nothing more than to make him feel good as well. "want you to fill me up", you coo at him, softly linking your hands behind his neck as you test the waters with your words. it's clear they have an effect on him, both hands placed on your hips as he helps you lazily grind against his erection. "don't– have a condom", he grits out, hips bucking up to meet yours. "don't need one", you murmured immediately, knowing he wants this as bad as you do.

his eyes flicker open at that, one hand leaving your hip to brush some stray hairs away from your face, gently tucking some behind your ear. you could melt at the way he's looking at you, so tender and loving, a warmth spreading all over you until you feel like you have to look away. he doesn't let you however, hand quickly coming you to cup your cheek before leaning in place a small peck against your lips. "are you sure?", he sounds breathless, but still firm as his eyes glance between yours like he's reading them.

if he can read them, he'll know that you can't nod fast enough, dragging your hips across his needily to show him. "i'm sure. i want you, jae.", you're so needy that you don't even bother to take your pants or panties off fully, fingers fumbling with the waistband as you shimmy them down a little, leaving your underwear on. you swear your mouth waters when he unbuttons his pants and lets his cock spring out against his stomach, lustful eyes taking in the way he keeps his shirt up with his teeth. if this weren't such an awkward position, you'd have taken him in your mouth in an instant, knowing exactly what to do to hear the man in front of you whimper.

nudging your panties to the side, he focuses on collecting your wetness all over the tip of his dick, hissing at the contact. "please", you whine, not wanting to waste another moment, finally sighing in relief when he begins to press his cock inside you. he swears under his breath at the feeling, and you're feeling so stretched out just from him slipping it in even though you're still so wet that you just go lax in his arms until he bottoms out. "that's it", he grunts like he's holding back. "taking me so well, angel."

you preen at his praise, finally beginning to move your hips a little at his coaxing. sighing against the shell of his ear, he picks up the pace for you, not warning you before thrusting upwards to meet your movements with a groan. you can feel your mind going blank at the sensation, your moans sounding more like cries whenever he snaps his hips into yours, the obscene sounds filling the car. you're just so full, his hands gliding up and down your sides as he fucks deep inside you, making up for all the lost time. "you feel so good, baby", he barely gets his words out, but it gives you the encouragement to bounce up and down on his thick cock a little faster than before, his eyes widening at the feeling. "just like that."

he's kissing and sucking all over your neck again, lips ghosting over whatever skin he can reach and it's all so much, feeling a single tear stream down your face. he almost slows down for a second when he feels the tear drop on to his own face, eyebrows raised in surprise because he thinks he's hurting you, but he's even more shocked when you let out the high-pitched whine. "what's wrong, angel?", he mumbles into your neck, peering up at you carefully. you shake your head profusely, continuing to grind down on his cock. "i just- just love you so much, jae", you blabber incoherently, so wet that you're practically gushing around his dick.

"aw, baby", he shushes you sweetly, pressing his forehead against yours as his thrusts become more and more erratic. "i'm here. not going anywhere." the coil in your stomach is tightening and you can feel every inch of him inside you, more tears threatening to spill from your eyes before he's kissing them away. "i'm here."

he's hitting all the right spots inside you in this position, and he's basically doing all the work because you're like putty in his strong arms, all you can do is moan and cry out against him weakly. "i'm close", you warn him, but you know he already knows that, and you know he is too, slipping your hand down to where his rests on your hip and interlacing your fingers. "me too, pretty", he sputters through his teeth, giving your hand a tight squeeze as you start to come undone. “want you to cum. can you do that for me?”

"oh my god", you're crying out as you cum around his cock, body and mind going numb and ears ringing as the coil finally snaps. "cum inside me, jae, please", his eyes go wide at the way you're begging him, and he doesn't look like he can hold back much longer. "fuck angel, you- you sure–"

"yes, please, need you to fill me up", you cut him off, too sensitive from the way he's helping you ride out your high to move anymore. with a few more sloppy thrusts, his cock is twitching inside you before you lets out a guttural groan, his warm cum filling you up. you go limp against him, face nuzzled into the crook of his neck as the both of you try to regulate your heartbeats.

the sounds of your heavy breathing fills up the car along with jaehyun's soft murmurs of "so perfect" and "did so well for me". any doubts you had in your mind of this being a mistake in jaehyun's eyes are wiped away when he begins petting your head, gently smoothing your messy hair as he presses firm kisses to your head. his cock softens inside of you but he makes no move to pull out, wrapping his arms around your waist while you do the same around his neck, simply sitting in each other's presence silently.

you struggle but finally pick yourself up, gazing at his moonlit face from your place on his lap. “you okay? was that okay?”, he murmurs softly, his voice thick and eyes hazy as he traces little shapes on your back. “more than okay”, you reply tiredly, pressing your lips against his once again because you feel you’re in a dream-like state right now. you're sure he's the most beautiful man you're ever had the privilege of looking at, feeling incredibly vulnerable when you speak again even though he's looking at you with nothing but love in his eyes. "now what?", you question, suddenly feeling like you've jumped the gun when he opens his mouth to say something but stays silent. "never mind, don't answer that, we'll talk about it later", you shake your head, laughing a little breathlessly when he grins at you, pecking his forehead sweetly.

you look away from him and at your lifeless house, mouth working faster than your brain once again. "would you...want to come in?", you wince, feeling kind of stupid for asking but meaning it anyway. you're both comforted and thrilled when a large grin is plastered on to his face, feeling like maybe your home won't be as lifeless anymore.

"i think i'd love to come in."

[ajellybee]

Chat, the freak nasty demons are speaking to me again. NOT proof read. i literarlly slipped out the shower and the laptop fell in my hands and accidentally opened tumblr..

JJk AU, college probably, honestly. Freak frat boy Sukuna is LIVING in my brain rn. I want that. desire that. dream of that.

NSFW, MDNI go to bed,

whore sukuna(obvi), fem virgin!reader, first time, pussy got him whipped

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Finished the fic based of this HC: Tamed

Hope you like!!!

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⟢best friend!sukuna who's a FREAK, i mean like, new girl every week. he's always telling you the nitty gritty details too "Oh she was nasty nasty. she passed out, woke up and still asked for more of this dick"

⟢best friend! sukuna who is KNOWN for how good his dick is. It's big and he knows how to use it, and his hands, and his mouth. The whole campus hears his past girls talk as if he's a sex god fr. Girls are always asking you about him. "Oh my god! you know him right? you guys are close, yeah? could you put in a good word for me?"

⟢best friend! sukuna who always teased you for being a virgin, but never made any moves on you.

⟢virgin! reader who always came off as someone who didn't care about being a virgin. "You fuck enough for the both of us, Kuna...and like five other people too.." and at first you didn't care, but the closer you got to sukuna, the more curious you got.

⟢best friend! sukuna who could not believe his ears when you asked him to be your first. "well, I know you know what you are doing...and I trust you Kuna. but! don't feel pressured its no biggy.."

⟢best friend! sukuna who almost died and thanked every god out there. he's had the FATTEST crush of you for the longest time. Sure he wanted to take you on a date first, you are NOT just a quickie like the others, but who's he to turn down a good fuck? specially from you. "yeah I'll fuck you baby"

⟢best friend! sukuna who does not do his normal "bam bam thank you ma'am routine", but takes his time with you, peppering every inch of you in soft kisses, preparing your virgin cunt and taking pleasure in the way you taste and stretch around his fingers. He swears he saw the pearly gates when he finally sunk into you, and at that moment made a mental note to get rid of his booty call list

⟢virgin!reader who's pussy turned sukuna into a babbling mess over you. Sucking him in so well while you let out low moans so prettily in his ear. and when you whispered "ryo" so desperatly... "mmm pussy so good, augh fuck...fuck squeeze me like that and i'll- !!"

⟢best friend! sukuna who sets a new record with how fast he cums in you. it catches him more off guard than you. and oh when you squeeze down on his cock when you cum he nearly releases a second time. "fuck you should have let me hit sooner, baby"

⟢best friend? sukuna who is now thinking of all the ways he can court you now. whoring days behind! all it took was some good puss to domesticate him. "Let's take a shower and go out for dinner, yeah?" (he wasn't asking) yes he did hit again in the shower, you gave him a taste and now he's addicted.

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oh my god. i want him so bad its shameful. the ovulation is starting to get to me i am NOT your strongest soldier. I wanna make a full fic of this. Yes i forgot about the nanami one, its on the back burner now !!! i NEEED this sukuna one rn

im very open to feedback and ideas!! <333

[aromantic-diaries]

In honor of the first ever aromantic visibility day I dedided to share my own story

A lot of the time I talk about how I should have known earlier but I guess we can say no one really told me anything. For as long as I can remember I never understood the way people fell in love. As a small kid I thought marriage was just a milestone that everyone had to reach in order to start a family and everyone just picked out a person they liked. A lot of the boys in kindergarten had crushes on me for whatever reason but I didn't really care, none of them ever caught my eye. I was focused on my best friend

The overwhelming presence of romance in the media never failed to annoy me. Why are all the songs about love? I complained about this and my friends shut me down. Why is everyone so obsessed with shipping? I guess I don't get it. Romance is everywhere and I was sick of it

When I was about 10 I randomly decided it was time to develop a crush. So I looked around and picked out a random boy that I previously had no interest in and decided I liked him. It was nothing more than a few daydreams and sometimes we spoke to eachother but I never pursued him. One time we talked about dreams and he told me about how cool it was whenever he'd have dreams about stealing cars and influenced by him I had a dream where I stole a car. I forgot about this brief crush and later I looked back and realised I never really liked him

Me and my best friend stayed in touch for a long time. Throughout our friendship she had a lot of crushes which she would get really invested in. I never did. I listened to her go on and on about whatever boy she liked while thinking about how I've never been in love. I didn't want to fall in love but some part of me wondered what it was like. I assumed that I'd grow into it one day and someone special would come into my life and I'd finally fall in love. The years went by and anytime I had any potential crush I hated the idea of it and ignored it until I forgot.

I was about 12 when I first started questioning my sexuality. For the longest time I believed I was straight but then the thought of liking girls came up. I was scared of this idea but I couldn't help but wonder if I was a lesbian, no matter how hard I tried to convince myself I liked boys. But I didn't really like girls besides thinking they were pretty. Then I learned about bisexuality. It made sense to me and I was relieved that I didn't have to choose after all. What followed was a long internal struggle of self acceptance, then I came out to a few of my friends and the idea of bisexuality became central to my identity, regardless of the fact that I had never actually been attracted to a boy or a girl in my life.

I was 13 going on 14 when I thought it finally happened and that I had fallen in love. With whom? My best friend that I had known for my whole life. It just made sense because she had always been there for me, she had been my closest friend for ten years. At first I was infatuated with this idea but later on it became a burden and I just wanted to get over it. Eventually I told her and as I should have expected, she didn't feel the same way. I didn't try to push her to like me. The rejection hurt and for a long time I couldn't get over it but I let the idea go. But was I really in love with her or was she just the most important person in my life? I never wanted more than what we already had. Regardless, this was the closest I ever got to being in love

By this time I was already on tumblr and making friends online. A little while after my heartbreak I made friends with three people who shared my interests. To cut a long story short, two of the people in the group both admitted to shipping me and the other person, which struck me pretty suddenly but we both played along with it. I started wondering if I actually liked them and after a short while they confessed and I said I liked them too, so we started dating. It was actually a really pleasant relationship but throughout it I couldn't help but feel like I was leading him on or lying. Usually I'd either act way too flirty with him as if I was exaggerating, or I just spoke to them like they were my best friend rather than my romantic partner. I liked him a lot but not romantically.

I eventually learned the term 'aromantic'. I didn't really think it could ever be me. Surely I wasn't. Even though I related to an awful lot of what aros on tumblr talked about, I remained in denial. Over and over I told myself I'm not aromantic, I've always wanted romance, right?

As I got older the idea of romance became less and less appealing. I used to like it but eventually I started to feel put off by the very idea of it. I thought a lot about things I had learned in the aromantic community and began to realise that I didn't quite understand the difference between romantic and platonic love. Was romance really that great? Was I just afraid of being vulnerable? Or did I just convince myself that I even felt romantic attraction because I was afraid that if I didn't, I would be left out or incomplete. I remembered just how disinterested I was when I was younger. That surely would have meant I was aromantic, right? I reminded myself of all the "crushes" I had and that I was in a romantic relationship, and still it didn't feel right. But I didn't want to admit it. It came up again and again over the years but despite that I never wanted to think about it.

Cut to one night before my 17th birthday. I'm still scrolling mindlessly, even though my brain is barely awake. I should go to sleep. Then out of nowhere it comes up again, I'm too tired to filter my thoughts. What if I am aromantic after all? I can't be. I'm just about to jump to my alibis when another thought crosses my mind. What if I tried to think it over without trying to disprove it? I give it a shot and the more I think about it the more it makes sense. Oh god. I jump onto discord and start rambling about it in the vent channel of a server I'm in. It all makes so much sense. I go to bed

The next day. I am now 17 and since I don't have plans I go out to buy myself a birthday present with the money I received. I have a lot of time to myself and I think about last night, now awake. It all makes sense. Everything that felt odd before now adds up perfectly. Then the guilt kicks in. I have to tell my partner. I feel awful, but I decide that I would rather be honest and potentially hurt them than keep up a lie and feel even more guilty. I finally spill it and though surprised, they're accepthing. Suddenly everything feels amazing and I'm so overjoyed I almost forget it's my birthday. I come out on tumblr and I make an aro bracelet that I start wearing every day.

And so life goes on. It took me a while to fully accept myself but I got to learn a lot about myself and eventually I was no longer mourning the fact that I don't feel romantic attraction. Some people are very understanding and supportive, others don't quite get it, but I'm happy. One day I decided to start a sideblog for sharing my thoughts and feelings about aromanticism, and that's how we got aromantic-diaries. At first it didn't get much attention but it's gathered a following in the past months which never fails to make me happy because it's absolutely amazing to see that I can be a source of comfort for people like me

So there's my story! If you read it all the way through, hi! I hope you're having a great day today!

[justanothermutantkid]

Hermitcraft Fic Recs

Ok, I’m still trying to figure out how to Tumblr, but here’s my attempt for today: I’ve compiled a short list of some of my favorite Ao3 Hermit fics. Some of these are fairly well known, while some are not, however they’re all linked together by the fact that I think they’re awesome. Generally speaking they range from ~2000 words to I believe around ~16000 for the longest one, and I think they’re also all platonic hurt/comfort and/or worldbuilding fics, so if that interests you then you’re exactly the type of person I made this list for. Also I forgot to put trigger warnings with the fic descriptions, so if there’s anything you need to watch out for please check the tags/descriptions of the fics themselves.

“Anthophobia” by residentevilxisuma. This is an Evil X centered hanahaki fic. I have to admit, over the past couple of years I haven’t particularly enjoyed hanahaki very much. Sure, there’s a lot of well-written stuff about it, but it’s never personally resonated with me. At least, not until I read “Anthophobia” and had the entire trope reframed in my mind. This is one of the more popular fics on this list, however I’m putting it in here anyways because of how absolutely well-executed I find it.

“De Roeping // The Calling” by @astronautbeans. Out of all the fics I hold in high regard, this one makes the list for the top 10 most underrated works. It’s got an apocalyptic setting with a Hypno POV. Even if you’re a person who doesn’t watch/read/write Hypno, I still recommend this. I’ve pretty much never interacted with any content about him before, however I still very much enjoyed this work.

“genesis in exception” by indecisivebastard. This one is another fic that I find criminally underrated. It’s Mumbo-centric, and centers around him being inhuman while exploring what exactly he is. There’s a lot of cool worldbuilding surrounding that, and the way the author writes that worldbuilding into the text is inspiring and leaves me in awe of the author’s talent. 

“good! some fight!” By @sourorchard. This is a Welsknight-centric fic that I highly recommend to anyone who likes A) Welsknight and Helsknight fics and B) emotional hurt/comfort. I’m not going to say much about it considering it’s fairly short and I don’t want to spoil anything, however I very much recommend it.

“Homesick” by @writingwithaglassquill. This fic particularly is a really good characterisation of Evil Xisuma (who is also the MC and POV of this fic), and the character arc that he goes through is seamlessly written; it doesn’t feel rushed at any point, nor does it feel unrealistic. There’s also a plot twist that’s a lot of fun to think about once it’s revealed.

(PS: if you're an author whose work is listed here and you don't want it to be, please let me know and I'll figure out how to remove it)

[beaumars]

ain't no sunshine - j.seresin

Hi Everyone! Lori here! As I stated in this post, I once attempted to write an OC insert for TGM but I never got around to posting it because life got in the way -- and also because i deleted the tumblr app because i had gotten bored with it. i've had other accounts since then dedicated to other fandoms and when I got bored i would delete the app, a truly vicious never ending cycle. however, my tiny little lizard brain always came back to the Top Gun: Maverick fandom and so I once again redownloaded the app to check out the new content. Over the course of my tumblr career i have used a plethora of emails, i couldnt remember the last one I used for my last account so i tried the ol' reliable that I always used (i use another email now for work and professional purposes) and alas! i find my way back to beaumars, an account i forgot i had.

Back to the post I had linked above, though. When i opened my drafts i saw this fic, my proto-fic if you will, just sitting there and i realized i had no fucking idea where this was going, so for the past couple of days i fiddled with my brain and used a good section of a journal to plot out and world build the new and revamped version of this fic. So without further ado, i present Aint No Sunshine.

Special thanks to @credince--writes for assuring me that an OCs backstory can never be too tragic, @j-hauke for solidifying that dr. pepper is a funny call sign, and @thespillingvoid for encouraging me to post this two year old fic as I work on the newer version.

A multiple-part fic with an OC.

What would have been a multiple part fic with an OC.

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SOMEWHERE, STATESIDE

"Sanchez! Seresin! Stop flirtin' up there, goddammit!"

Major General Thomas Avery wasn't usually known for sugarcoating shit. His tone of voice and way of flight was powerful and commanding, earning him the call sign 'Zeus', it left no space to play games, especially in the skies he seemed to reign on. Avery may be a patient and understanding man on the ground, but when it came to his domain, no one could escape his wrath. Not even the two aviators currently in the air. Without context, one would think the two were trading coy remarks with one another. They're far from right.

"Seresin, you smug ass! Cover me!"

Their objective: drop the dud on target while avoiding the 'enemy'. For every ten minutes they failed to get tone on one of their fellow aviators, another came into the sky to play. The final boss would be Major General Avery, who preferred hands-on methods when it came to flying with the aviators that passed through his base. So far, no one had even come close to even getting their sights on the older man before being 'shot' down. Seresin and Sanchez were the last pair.

Ego's, bragging rights, and a pink slip to the Major General's 1960 El Camino were on the line.

"You got it twisted if you think you're getting that damn car, Sanchez."

Christina Sanchez would roll her eyes if she wasn't focused on trying to complete their exercise, "I could give two shits about the car, Jake. I'm trying to do my job!"

"Keyword. Trying. You're not doing a very good job at it, Chris." He sassed.

"Keep up the chatter and I'll come up earlier than you want me to," Avery threatened. Promised. Stated. It didn't matter, they were screwed either way.

The sun had begun to set ten minutes ago after the longest-running pair had put up a good fight. Some Air Force pilot whose last name was Torres, and her very own wingman: Olen Reeves, callsign 'Icarus'. Jake and Christina were relentless in the heavens, taking their 'shot' no more than ten seconds after Falcon and Icarus entered their air space. In theory and on paper, Sanchez and Seresin are a great team, but their manners towards each other at the current moment were proving otherwise.

On the ground, he could only pray she didn't physically tear Seresin a new one when they landed.

"C'mon, Chris. Get him out of your head," he whispered.

The last rays of light were escaping the flying duo, both of them cursing their terrible luck, knowing what was to come.

Jake got tone on their last aviator, "Jesus, Chris, we would've been done by now if you'd stop leaning on me."

"You keep leaving me out to dry, shithead!" She retorted, "Maybe if you actually stuck closer and acted like a wingman, we wouldn't be in this situation."

"You need to stop relying on others, sweetheart. What are you gonna do when you're all alone up here with no one to watch your back? What're you gonna do then?"

"Shut up," she chastised.

"Suddenly, I spit some truth and you want me to be quiet?-" Jake was in disbelief, he knew the girl was prideful, but he didn't think he went that far in his critique.

"I said shut up, moron," she said, her breathing getting heavier.

"The hypocrisy is deadly, San-"

"Jake! Shut up!" She panicked, "it's gone quiet."

"Fuck."

"Strike three," was the only warning Zeus gave.

Both let out a string of curses as they barreled to avoid being targeted.

Using the last gleam of light in the evergrowing dark sky, Chris commanded, "Alright, Jake, take a hard left when I say," but as she turned her head to get a look at him, she saw that he had left her side in pursuit of Zeus, "you little shit, did you just leave me hanging!?"

"The only one hanging on is you, Sanchez. Get with the program or get shot."

Thomas Avery hated to admit it, but the Seresin kid was putting up a hell of a fight, and Sanchez was nowhere to be found. Unfortunately, it would be his downfall, as the sky went dark, Zeus taunted Jake, "Mistake number one: you left your wingman hanging, Seresin."

"My wingman is currently on the ground. Ain't that right, Falcon?"

On base, Falcon laughed, out of concern and amusement, "Zeus is gonna hand him his ass on a silver platter."

A chorus of 'mhm' and 'damn straight' could be heard in the vicinity.

Nearby, Olen Reeves could only look out the window and try and make out where the three of them were, once again praying, this time for her safety and that of her impromptu wingman.

Seresin was wearing a shit-eating grin until the next words fell from the Major General's mouth, "Mistake number two: you're up here with me now."

Jake went silent, he knew he fucked up, and now he was hoping Chris would come out of radio silence and tell him that she was on her way.

Nothing.

She wasn't even showing up on his radar.

"Why the sudden silence, kid?" Zeus was just playing with Jake's mind at this point, with the younger aviator already in his sights, ready to take the shot.

"Sanchez, I could really use your help right about now!"

Once again, nothing.

"Sanchez! Don't leave me hanging!" Jake could only maneuver so much in a dark sky he wasn't used to. He could hear beeping, letting him know that the experienced man was closing in on his plane. Jake mentally prepared for the call, but it never came.

"Sometimes a chef's gotta try what he's cooking, Seresin," Chris came out into the radar at the last minute and used her flares to temporarily blind Zeus and distract him, giving Jake an escape.

She barrelled and went right under her commanding officer's plane, hiding for a good second before hitting the brakes, using the hard stop; Zeus flew right past her. She sped back up and tailgated the man, being careful as to not end up in his jet wash, it only lasted so long before she and Zeus were engaged in a minor dogfight.

"Seresin, where are you?"

"Trying out the daily special, send my compliments to the chef," he said as he pursued Zeus on his own.

"Damnit, Seresin! Can you be a team player for once?" it seemed that in his presence all she could do was complain and vice versa. So bad together, yet so good, if only they could throw their egos out of the cockpit.

"You're hanging on well, Seresin. Unfortunately, it won't be enough," the beeping was loud, it was a lock, "that's a shot."

"Fucking shit!-"

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" Zeus toyed, "Fly back to base, kid. It was a good run."

Was.

It was a word that would haunt him for years to come.

"Now, Sanchez. Where could you be hiding?" Thomas asked himself out loud.

It was silent for a good thirty seconds when he felt a force push him towards the right, "There you are."

Zeus went to follow the plane when suddenly, the force came from the right this time, rattling his plane and giving him difficulty locking on her. He didn't know how she was doing that or how fast she was coming at him or even where she was coming at him, but it was starting to unsettle him, dare he say, she was scaring him.

The older man leveled his breathing, taking a minute to recompose himself. Mistake number one.

The beeping came too fast, followed by the lock, and three words, "That's a shot."

Down below, everyone, from crew to pilots alike had their mouths hanging open.

"Holy shit, she did it," Olen breathed.

Another pilot by the name of Carol then shouted, "She got the fucking car!"

The silence then turned into groans of defeat.

Jake sat in his cockpit, having landed minutes beforehand, ripping his helmet off in anger as he heard Chris' announcement.

"Get back to base, kid. That was one hell of a fight you put on."

"Thank you, sir," she acknowledged breathlessly. Chris was riding a high as she landed, the first person to greet her on the tarmac was none other than Olen.

He crushed her in an embrace for a few seconds before pulling back and reprimanding her, "what the hell were you thinking?"

"I- well- I wasn't exactly-"

"Thinking." Finished the Major General, he came up from behind the embracing pilots, "she was doing. Those are the makings of a great pilot, ladies, and gentlemen. You all could learn a little something from that."

Sanchez turned to see that all the other pilots and WSOs had congregated, Jake hanging in the back.

"Seresin," Zeus called out to the man, "You had me on the ropes there for a bit too, young man."

"Let me guess, gotta stop leaving my wingman hanging?" his tone with little to no emotion.

It was late, and Zeus just wanted to go home, so he just stayed silent for a moment before reaching into his flight suit pocket and pulling out a piece of paper, "As promised... Nyx."

Confused, Chris asked, "Sir?"

Zeus just smiled and walked away, "I want everyone back on this tarmac by o six hundred hours, not a minute later," he called over his shoulder.

[goshdangronpa]

One hazard of Tumblr fandoms is that they make everything queer, which means you can't always tell if a work actually is queer. Like, textually spraking - you can and should feel free to headcanon as you please, but it's weird to enter something with expectations and only get hints, if anything.

I say this because I recently watched House MD for the first time and while I see the way House talks to that one doctor guy, it's not as prominent as Tumblr had me thinking. I forgot this show was from the 2000s lmao

As someone who is easily persuaded to watch something if it features same-sex relationships and trans characters and the like, I know that I'd appreciate, like, a guide. Something like that "Does the Dog Die" website, but for queerness in media.

Is Danganronpa queer? Way more than you'd expect!

Is Steven Universe queer? Baby it's super queer!

Is Thor: Love and Thunder queer? (Longest, loudest, most irritating raspberry noise)

[steamberrystudio]

19/05/2024 Devlog

Hallo everyone! I'm actually updating tumblr in a fortnightly fashion! Yay for actually having the time to pre-write the post!

Writing:

As I mentioned last time, I am now embroiled in an epic battle with Chapter 10! 

I mean...I'm revising chapter 10. 

As I mentioned, this is a really big chapter and I expect it to get bigger as I flesh out some of the character interactions. The first love scene of each route (...ish) is in this scene too so obviously I need to check those out and make sure they're appropriately fleshed out.

I think last time I said the ending sequences in Chapter 10 were functional but needed to be fleshed out? I have no idea wtf I was talking about. One of them was literally a list of bullet points. 🤣🤣

In fairness, I think I recall that when I was editing Asher's path, I had an alternate ending idea for that section and just kind of roughly outlined it but left it for Future!Esh to work out because I wanted to finish up with Asher's edit. I just forgot that ending existed. The ending scenes all occur at roughly the same spot and the entire section was around 1500 words long. It's now about 7200 words long so...there's that.)

But with the endings out of the way, I'm now working on editing all the character-specific content. Which...is *most* of the chapter.

The chapter is currently 73,000 words and I do expect it to be over 80k by the end, taking the lead in terms of being the longest chapter.

I imagine the next two weeks will be me working on Chapter 10 but hopefully...*hopefully* I'll be done by then. And on to the final stretch of writing. 

Art:

Received a new BG since last time. Huzzah. Still slowly but surely getting those rolled in. 

I have also been keeping notes of additional variations for the sprites I want (or need) to add. Mostly just hair and outfit variations I want to add in to match the text. That isn't really art but it's art related anyway.

Other Stuff:

I have been working in some slightly different sprite choreography (?) than what I usually do because it's something I have been wanting to do for a while but have kind of been putting off. But I played a game recently that really inspired me to stop putting it off and try to code some of it into the game so I can see how it looks.

And so far I'm really liking it.

I've also been working on a few other minor changes/fixes for the game here and there.

Upcoming Weeks:

So far the editing process is going pretty smoothly. And I can only hope that continues. 

As I mentioned, I do still think this chapter is going to take me another couple of weeks. Because...by itself it's the length of novel. 

Once it's done, I feel like I'll kind of be in the home stretch. So yeah.

See you then!

[pancho-pinto]

Messages In Paper Boats

Fic based on this MASTERPIECE by @150en wrote this like a month ago and forgot to put it on tumblr. i think the tumblr people will like it too

Fandom: 3rd Life Words: 2,362 Rating: General Warnings: No Warnings Relationships: Etho/Joel, Grian & Joel Additional Tags: Modern Setting, Mentions of Everyone/Joel, Mentions of drinking, Slice of Life Summary: It's another week, another meet-up. It goes the same way it always does, of course. But the special drama of today is Grian being nosy in Joel's business. Hey, are those wedding bells? Joel says no, but no one can be sure.

Fic under cut

It's a random Tuesday when everyone gathers. The only day their schedules aligned, only for a couple hours though because Pearl has her part-time security job at seven while Gem and Bdubs have some botany-related assignment to finish—they rest, luckily, couple spare the couple hours of freedom. Between jobs and college work, Tuesday has to do, even if it means no drinking and absolutely no chance to do anything stupid.

As they talk loudly over greasy pizza and fizzing drinks, it's hard to ignore how much they've all changed. They are older now, whining and scoffing about college work, about part-times jobs and taxes, about annoying coworkers and pesky roommates (even if said roommate is sitting just two seats away), and more importantly, this is a chance for them to let out steam.

Free to complain and whine, for a couple hours. Which, all things considered, is a little fun and relieving as they group up and shit-talk everything.

The day reaches a point where they move on, having let out enough steam for at least another week before their meet-up again. It's a slippery slope, really, because Jimmy is the first to bring an anecdote about their past, then Grian is teasingly bringing another embarrassing anecdote of Jimmy's, and then it unravels from there.

The same dance and song. Their highschool days, their primary and kindergarten days. Old crushes, old relationships. Their time back at home, when the worst thing that could happen to them was having their phones taken at home. Between laughs, they bring up their sneak-outs late at night, hanging about at the park until early morning before sneaking back in with the tips of their noses and ears frozen.

Joel laughs, a little meanly, at the time Grian and got caught making out with Mumbo under the bleaches, and Grian glares at him, flustered.

"Oh, yeah, you of all people laugh."

Joel offers a smirk as the group falls silent, like scavengers watching a fight, ready to have their fill of drama. He kicks his legs on the edge of the table, ignoring the side-eyes and gasps despite the pizzas being devoured a while ago.

"Of course I laugh, it's hilarious." He taunts, and Grian's eyes darken. As he waits for Grian's response, he wipes his hands on a tissue, crumpling it then tossing it to Grian's head, whooping when it hits him dead-center in the forehead.

Impulse puts a hand on Grian's chest to keep him from jumping up, and Joel almost looks disappointed at that. After a breath, though, Grian finally replies.

"Let's talk about your relationships, why don't we?" Grian smiles, faux friendliness in this lips. Joel knows what Grian is about to bring up—despite not wanting to talk about it, he let's it happen because he kinda deserves it. He will retaliate later anyways, one way or another. They know where the other lives after all.

"Which one?" Cleo tacks in, laughing into the edge of her paper cup.

"Good question," Grian nods, pressing his index to his chin in thought. He makes a show to look around the group, everyone seemingly interested. It's nearly the end of their time together, with the trio who needs to leave first glance at the time on their phones. Grian spares a glance at the clock on the wall too, but continues regardless. "What about Lizzie? Longest, healthiest relationship you've had yet didn't work out. How about Jimmy? Your 'best bud', no homo there. Your drunk hook-ups with Impulse, Skizz and Scar? Those seven minutes in heaven with Martyn? I'm surprised nothing's happened with BigB and Scott yet—"

"Oh, it has," Scott chips in, devilish yet innocent smile on his lips.

Grian looks surprised for a moment, eyes wide as everyone else, looking between Scott and BigB for answers. Scott only smiles, and BigB sheepishly ignores everyone's eyes with his phone.

"Alright, there's that. We can find out next week." Grian states, cutting the curiosity short. He claps his hands, pointing at Joel as he squints. "Or that time you were supposed to help Gem get ready for her date and ended up taking her to dinner yourself?"

"Not my fault that loser couldn't measure up," Joel shoots back.

"Those two months were you and Cleo pretended to date?"

"Okay, but that was fun. I still remember your horrified face."

"And Pearl."

"What about Pearl?"

"You know what about Pearl."

Pearl huffs, rolling his eyes as Joel does. Like Vegas, no one talks about that. In fact, Joel rarely talks about any of this. Despite still being close friends with all of them, despite knowing they sometimes bring it up, he doesn't. Not because of shame, or some other feelings. He just doesn't, for whatever reason.

Grian brings no more details, squinting a little more. Joel can tell he's getting frustrated, because this is a topic that won't get under his skin. He knows, too, that Grian is running out of time. It just isn't the same once Pearl, Gem and Bdubs leave, even if they will find out by text later.

Just two more people to bring up.

"Okay, what about me."

Joel raises his brow, tilting his head slightly.

Grian grimaces, and visibly looks like he regrets even thinking about it. His eyes flicker beyond Joel, everyone knows.

"Okay then, why don't we talk about your situationship with Etho then."

Joel knows exactly which moment Grian is leading to. Everyone knows, too. It's something he's talked about a couple beers over his limit, red face and slurring slightly, stupid grin on his face and leaning against the closest person around.

It's a dumb memory, one he talks about fondly when tipsy and outright boasts about when drunk.

Summer camp, when they were kids. They had been assigned camp-mates, and their first activity was to create their own emblem. They had assigned themselves as Boat Boys, because Joel had snatched a tent with a ship print on the bottom. Joel had poked himself with the needle a couple times, Etho had twice as much, but they hadn't been the last to finish to that was good enough. A long hexagon with a green border, the letter B messily threaded, their little emblem then sown into their sleeves. Joel had poked Etho when he sew it in, Etho had tried to not poke him but threatened to, because they had been dumb enough to not take their shirts off.

For Joel, that was a sign. A good one. They were both idiots.

So they spent time together, wearing the same clothes as all the other kids, with only their emblems to show that they were paired up. At first, with their bickering and hard to agree decisions, they spent little time with each other. But they had drifted back every night, sharing one tent, unable to sleep and ultimately talking under they were both too tired and passed out.

Aside from that, their day activities involved them being by each other. Always in pairs, during hikes and afternoon walks. Paired up during kayaking and always sticking with each other when they had to split into bigger groups. They would sit together during breakfast, and lunch, and dinner, stealing bits from each other's tray just to annoy themselves and the other. But Etho would take the carrots from Joel's plate, and Joel would take the mushy peas. They would trade half-drank milk cartoons just so they could make sure to try all flavors. Etho would get them extra servings of food because he 'looked skinny' and Joel would get them bigger pieces of dessert because he was a sweetheart to the staff.

So it made sense that they became friends.

They got closer, in all senses of the word. They stuck with each other, getting into petty fights like stealing Bdubs' horse plush (even if Etho and Bdubs got along), throwing buckets of water on Martyn and Jimmy (mostly avoiding their partners because they couldn't find the right moment), ravaging through Grian and Scar's tent for a block of chocolate they divided among the other kids (when Etho also had one, sharing it only with Joel between giggles), and many other activities that could technically be excused under guise of playing around.

The others knew they were being malicious. Joel thought he was having the time of his life. Etho looked satisfied, too—at some point, he'd even stopped deflecting and accepted the blame proudly, which seemed to make the others madder, Joel just smiled wider each time.

"So?" Grian asks, sending everyone to look at Joel.

Joel thinks about it a little longer, humming briefly.

He remembered the camp counselor's cabins, the places they weren't allowed to be at. Joel knew they had booze, but he didn't really care for any of that. They already had trouble sleeping, and he doubted drinking would help. But he would drag Etho along sometimes, just to hide from everyone for a bit, doing nothing. They couldn't be loud because they would get caught—in fact, they could nothing but sit and chill out, which was fine. Etho never complained, so Joel assumed it was fine.

They had, however, stolen some markers from inside the cabins just for the hell of it. And they had drawn on the walls. Lines of green mixing into blue, blue mixing into green, some orange to represent their artistic rendition of the campfire they had both got burnt in. The mark on his right hand was present, on the outer-most right side, two inches below his wrist. Nothing big, and it didn't hurt after a couple days, but when he wrote 'Joel was here', his eyes drifted to the burnt mark.

He added a smiley face, because he was grinning despite having being hurt.

Near the bottom, Etho sit down to write something too. Joel threw himself on Etho's back, arms around his neck and chin on his shoulder, and Etho had stopped writing, almost having expected Joel's surprise clinginess. Etho finished writing after a couple seconds, neither talking.

'Boat boys 4 eva'

Joel thought the '4 eva' was lame, but he smiled at the overall message, giving a nod of approval. They were the Boat Boys, menaces of camp, and they would always be as promised under the stars, even when camp was over.

On their last afternoon, they had met up beside the counselor's cabin again. Etho had been the one to invite him this time. They sat a while, talking about the activities they did, their pranks, their friends and temporary enemies. They talked about going back to school, about extracurriculars and classes, about things they missed back at home and their beds. Etho talked a lot about his bed, Joel noticed and teased appropriately.

When the sky got darker and the chill snuck under Joel's shirt, he rapidly rummaged through his pocket, pulling out a paper boat. It had a small heart sticker on the hull, which Joel also stole from the cabin. He gave Etho a sheet of stickers too, grinning proudly when Etho's eyes lit up at the shimmering stars.

Etho rolled his eyes a second after, because he also pulled a sticker sheet and gave it to Joel. It was gold stars, compared to Etho's silver ones.

Joel gloated about the paper boat though, because Etho didn't have something like that. Etho only sighed, but he smiled under his mask, because Joel was happy.

"What about it?" Joel says eventually. He blinks back slowly to current life, the too bright summer afternoon sun, everyone stuck inside Cleo and Scott's flat. Different, because everyone was there, not like in that little camp hide-out.

"Oh, don't play coy. We all know what was inside that boat."

Joel stretches his arms over his head, arching his back as he bumped shoulders with Jimmy and Mumbo. He smiled, "Oh, don't you know, it's all make believe." He closes his eyes for a moment, the tension easing from his arms once he brings them down, sighing as he rolls his head. He has homework too, he remembers idly, wondering if he can put it off until the weekend. "We were just kids playing pretend. You know a playground proposal isn't real."

Grian looks at him with a glare disguised as a squint, meanwhile the others dance between hesitation and belief.

Until footsteps cut the momentary silence, stopping right behind Joel. A hand snakes around his neck under his chin, firmly yet gently guiding his head back, and he closes his eyes as lips crash into his. He opens his eyes when the other pulls back, catching Etho pulling his mask back on. He doesn't miss the dumb smirk on his lips though, but he does miss the hand touching him when Etho walks back to his spot on the couch.

"You liar!"

Grian screeches, Impulse too slow to stop him from jumping to his feet. But an alarm go off, and there is a collective sadness. It's quick goodbyes and threats to meet up again, then the trio is dashing out first, the rest following a short while after. Scott complains about the mess while Cleo accepts defeat, everyone hurrying a little faster to spill out.

"I know where you live," Grian says as they walk out.

"I know where you live too," Joel retorts.

But Jimmy is pushing Grian to his car quickly, giving waves and smiles, Tango and Gem trailing behind. He waves at them shortly before being pulled in the opposite direction. The walk is short, the unspoken agreement that he is not going back to his own place for a bit. Can't risk Grian walking from his room to Joel's to strangle him after all.

"Is your room locked?" Etho asks.

"Of course it is," Joel replies.

"Just checking."

Etho's arm lets go of Joel's side, pulling to the side where he finds Joel's hand. And Joel is more than happy to hold hands, despite how sweaty their hands will get.

Quietly, as they discuss dinner with the sound of their footsteps, a metallic clink goes ignored as their hands find each other.

Etho + Joel | Sick fic

"You're sick."

Etho states, rather firmly. Joel only looks at him, eyes slightly squinted, trying to focus the three Ethos into one—and absolutely failing—still, he points at one.

"You are sick," he retorts with a more accusatory tone in his voice.

Etho lifts his head with a probable eye-roll, though Joel is too busy fixating on his neck. Etho's Adam's apple, the line of his jaw pointing to his chin, the muscle that cuts diagonal. He squints a little more, grounding himself on pale skin as he feels himself wanting to throw up or pass out.

Etho moves closer, and Joel now has a face full of Etho's chest, not having realized they had been standing so close to begin with. Where are they, anyways?

He pushes back to look around, very slowly, and sees… walls. He nods like he understands, like everything makes sense, because of course, he is—

Well, could be anywhere, he is not sure.

"Did you kidnap me?" He accuses when he looks back at Etho, looking up at him—more so the line between his face and mask, such a sharp contrast that is. He raises a hand to touch, like Etho is a statue or some sort of unmoving thing for his enjoyment. Cool skin and soft fabric graze his fingertips, then he pokes him back slightly. "Where am I, Eefo? You're so obse—"

Joel headbutts Etho's chest as he feels another wave of nausea, the impact enough to keep everything down at the expense of a throbbing head. He whines or groans or makes some sort of noise, a pathetic one because it makes Etho snake an arm to hold him up, a hand on his back rubbing soothing strokes.

"There, there," Etho almost mocks, and Joel is sure the little tug of neck muscle is him rolling his eyes again. "And please don't throw up on me."

Joel thinks Etho deserves it.

"'m not sick," he says instead.

Etho hums, placating him.

In the meantime, Joel closes his eyes, breathing out hard as a wave of heat washed down his body like a chill. Awful because he can feel the sweat on his skin, the slightly dampness of his clothes that are not already sticking to his body. And Etho's hand on his back is nice, very, but it is also creating heat.

He chuckles, "You're hot. Stupid, silly Canadian man."

Etho hums again.

If Etho thinks not replying is going to get him to settle down and even rest, then—

He is right.

At some point, between breaths and mental nags, Joel slugs against Etho, held up by him. He breaths slow and shallowly, and Etho waits another second before checking to make sure, tilting his head to the side to look down at a peaceful face.

Despite the sweat, the hairs sticking to his forehead, flushed cheeks on too pale skin, and dark bags under his eyes, Etho thinks Joel looks peaceful. Or at peace, at least.

Carefully, he maneuvers and picks him up, taking the two steps to the bed Joel had rolled off once already. This time, however, as he wraps and tucks him into bed, he slides beside him, holding him against his chest to make sure he does not make friends with the floors again.

Fleetingly, as he drifts off himself, he thinks about his plans for the day—thoughts rapidly overtaken by the memory of Joel practically crashing through his door and passing out at his feet. He huffs, smiling under his mask as Joel sighs under him.

At least Joel went looking for help and did not push through his current state alone.

[art-that-fucks-you-up-tournament]

who’s excited for stats so far?? i bet none of you are but i’m inflicting them anyway! ...under a cut.

so far, though, we have 198 separate submissions across 166 works!

so far the longest submission piece is 551 words long! wow! there are also another 3 submissions that are over 300 words long, and one piece has 797 words across 7 submissions! the shortest submission, to contrast, is 5 words long! that’s also great!

there are currently 4 artists that have had 3 pieces of art each submitted, and 8 artists that have had 2 pieces. that means there’s currently 137 other artists! oh sorry, while i was drafting this post we got a fourth submission for one of the four.

how about things anyone can go look at? there are currently 7 pieces of public art that have been submitted! four of them are from canada (and 3 are from the calgary specifically), one is in the netherlands, one is in spain, and one is in new york. the fourth canadian one also has copies in spain, japan, and arkansas. there are also 3 submitted buildings! two are in spain, and one is in thailand!

gender! we’ve got 122 pieces from male artists, and 32 pieces by female artists! yes that doesn’t add up to 166, the other 12 are either multiple artists, unknown artists, or i felt like a creeper trying to trawl through their tumblr/website and it wasn’t in their bio. sadly, we don’t have any openly trans, nb, or otherwise genderqueer artists submitted (where openly is “i could find it in the same 5 second google search to determine nationalities”)

even more niche stats! the largest submission (that isn’t a building, a cave, or public art) is 2.15 m (7 ft 1 in) x 34.14 m (112.0 ft) and weighs 4 tons! close behind it is another that's approximately 3.7m x 25.2m (12ft x 72.9ft) but weighs significantly less! i did not feel like mathing which had more square footage. the smallest submission (that is, a physical piece in real life, digital art can be insanely small) is 5.9 x 6 cm (2 5/16 x 2 3/8 in.)!

how about locations? excluding the multiple copies ones, there are 32 pieces located in the united states, 9 in spain, 8 in france, 6 in canada, 5 in england, 4 in italy, 3 each in russia, australia and mexico, 2 each in the netherlands, wales, scotland, and ireland, and 1 each in israel, finland, germany, portugal, poland, japan, austria, ecuador, thailand, latvia, singapore, belgium, and argentina! i know that doesn’t add up but there’s a lot of pieces in private collections, owned by the artist, or we just couldn’t find their location, sadly.

artist nationalities get a lot more variable! i did my best to look up every artist i could and include their birth country and the country they did their works in! except john singer sargent because he just didn’t want to settle down and i didn’t want to give him like six different countries. 

starting off, we have 43 submissions by american artists! 18 by french artists, 17 by english, 8 each by canadians and italians, 6 each by russians and spaniards, 5 each by chinese, irish, and germans, 4 each by dutch, mexican and belgians, 3 by latvians, 2 each by finnish, polish, scottish, malay, serbian, and armenians, and 1 each by portuguese, japanese, austrian, ecuadorian, thai, swiss, argentine, cuban, kazhak, colombian, danish, and iranian! 

i do not currently have stats for jewish artists for you, because i forgot to write it down my first time through wiki, and now i have to go through all ~140 articles and websites again. relatedly: there are 8 works by known-to-be-gay artists, but i’m already running into wikipedia going “well he sure did a lot of male nudes but he also might have had relationships with women” and i am feeling uncomfortable poking through people’s private lives so... i hope you don’t mind it i stop... counting..... i mean if they’re open about it i’ll write it down still.

how about the ages of works? there are 4 things from before the 1400s, 3 from the 1400s, 6 from the 1500s, 3 from the 1600s, and 2 from the 1700s! 5 from 1800-1850, 4 from 1850-1880, 10 from the 1880s, and 9 from the 1890s! 9 from the 1900s (that is, 1900-1909), 5 from the 1910s, 5 from the 1920s, 4 from the 1930s, 4 from the 1940s, and 6 from the 1950s! 3 from the 60s, 4 from the 70s, 7 from the 80s, 15 from the 90s, 12 from the new oughts, 17 from the 2010s, and 13 from the 2020s! and three ongoing projects!

and to wrap things up: there are 101 paintings, 12 sculptures, 17 what i’m calling installations (they’re often mixed media or unusual media, i would give examples but i feel like i would bias submissions), 6 photographs, 2 pieces of textile art, and 21 digital arts, drawings, or comics!

[daughter-of-sapph0]

quick question, what's an era 2 tumblr user? we have eras??

it's sorta something I made up myself. tumblr has gone through various shifts in presentation and tone that dramatically affected how people use the website. honestly idk if anyone besides me actually uses this system, but I'm gonna use it anyway because it's funny

so Era 1 is from the start of tumblr until dashcon. this is where the dashboard had those weird lines on the side of reblogs, was the hight of superwholock, allows editing other people's posts, and was filled the overwhelming prevalence of fandom. back then, tumblr wasn't very mainstream and most people who used it were big nerds (affectionate). so there was a strong sense of community between people who had shared interests.

Era 2 starts after dashcon in summer of 2014. this was a disaster of an event that sorta boosted tumblr's popularity for better or for worse. this is also when I first joined in late 2015 as an undertale blogger originally (my first blog has since been deleted though). this is what I'd call the meme era of tumblr. it's when most of the most popular jokes are from. it's when massive inside jokes and tumblr references started. and it's the time where the most people were active. and it lasted until about late 2018 with the porn ban

Era 3 was kicked off with many users deciding to leave tumblr near the end of 2018 beginning of 2019. tumblr's policy on porn up until then had been "go nuts. show nuts" until it was bought by virison who tried their best to make it "family friendly". the whole thing was handled very poorly ("female presenting nipples") and didn't even get rid of all porn, just porn from sex workers and artists who sold nsfw content to make a living. most of those people left for sites like twitter, and many other sfw artists (and also people who just used tumblr for free porn) left with them. for a while, tumblr was pretty empty. but not entirely. there were still very close knit communities, arguably even closer than Era 1 even. and honestly, this is when tumblr was at its most usable. it was quiet. the only thing that you had to worry about was the occasional porn bot (and staff's growing authoritarianism, but we'll get to that). it's hard to argue when exactly Era 3 ends. I like to say it's when elon musk bought twitter, but I also think it might have started a bit before then. it's more of a slow transition that happened sometime between early and late 2022

Era 4 is the return era. when everyone who went to twitter came crawling back. this was sorta kicked off with staff starting to be more lax with their porn restrictions. but don't think that staff was having a change of heart and suddenly nice. for the longest time, they had been overstepping boundaries and abusing their authority, such as banning mainly Black and leftist users calling them "Russian psyops". it was also around this time that people discovered that there were several terfs on the development team, and that was likely the reason they didn't ban nazis and terfs despite both being in clear violation of the tos. tumblr staff tried to distract from this controversy by adding a bunch of gimmicks. the crabs for April fools, blazing posts, checkmarks, tumblr live. this for some reason actually worked, and a lot of people just forgot or didn't care about staff any more, and it actually brought in a lot of new users. I have no idea how long Era 4 will last. all the Eras have been kicked off with a massive change in how social media operates that becomes more dramic and impactful each time. so short of the us government completely banning tiktok for good, I doubt Era 4 will end any time soon.

sorry this turned mostly into a rant against staff near the end. as you can obviously tell, I'm sorta biased towards Era 2 and 3, as that's when I had the best experiences with tumblr. and a lot of the problems I have with the site today can be traced back to staffs stupid decisions and abuse of power and authority.

but yeah. I hope that makes sense.

[malachiwardyt]

Howdy, podcast side of Tumblr.

I forgot to share this here, but on the 30th (yes, I cut the deadline that close) I uploaded an explanation of the Extinction from hit horror anthology podcast The Magnus Archives as part of my ongoing series analysing the Entities one at a time. For this, the penultimate episode, I wound up going way further into detail than I expected, resulting in the video analysing the least significant Entity being the longest in the series. Whoops.

As always, here's a breakdown of the art, for the curious. Although he isn't an avatar of the Extinction (in fact, he seems to be actively fighting against it in most of his appearances), it felt wrong not to do Adelard Dekker for this piece. I really wanted to play around with colour and contrast in this one, and I think it turned out pretty nice.

I dressed Dekker himself in a grey suit with silver accents, because I wanted him to feel very ordinary. Dekker is one of the most human characters in TMA, never seeming to fall to any Entity despite interacting with them very frequently. More than that, he's about as close as TMA gets to a true hero, being at least a comparatively strong force for good. Silver, then, I chose both because it compliments his suit very nicely and because it has mythological and traditional precedent, especially in European folklore, as a deterrent for evil or the supernatural. One of Dekker's most interesting traits is his persistent faith, which I knew I had to include somehow, so I gave him a silver necklace with a cross on the end. It's simple, but it works. The only pop of colour in his otherwise monochrome dress is the tie around his neck, which I've coloured green to show his connection to the Extinction. I know I needed at least a bit of colour, and a neon, toxic green is the colour I associate with the Extinction, so I used a darkened, desaturated form of it for his necktie. I always pictured Dekker as a slender, angular man, which I've conveyed in his face and body. I wanted to give him hair that stood up a lot into short points, and while I considered making them a bit rounder, in the end, the pointed tips just stuck. Finally, there's the glowing green in his eyes, which is, of course, another allusion to the Extinction. Not to imply that he's being guided or influenced by it, simply that he sees it. He was the first to catalogue it, and, admittedly, they do stand out quite nicely against the shadows over him.

In the background, I knew I wanted a skyline with a mushroom cloud behind it, but, as I was working, I decided to make the buildings different references to Extinction episodes. Before I get to that, though, I have to talk about the colour scheme, which is mostly pale green. This was both, again, because the Extinction's colour, in my mind, is green, and because it contrasted nicely against the reds and oranges of the blast. Starting at the leftmost building, it references MAG 144: Decrypted, with numbers running down the side and an antenna on top to send out its encoded message. The next one over is a reference to MAG 175: Epoch, being a massive, Empire State-esque building with abandoned boxes and detritus scattered on its landings, alongside a few more... "living" manifestations. There are only five statements which are the MOST likely Extinction appearances, so, for symmetry, I had to pick an extra statement to throw in. This wound up being MAG 65: Binary, since it's a fan favourite and plenty of people theorise that it actually was related to the Extinction. To get the idea across, I put a few distorted faces on large screens, though I do regret not lightening the entire building up a bit. Across the empty space, we find a reference to MAG 156: Reflection, designed to mimic a large carnival sign and featuring tall windows with thin creatures in them. The windows could have been a bit smaller, but I worried that they would seem too similar to the next building. Speak of which, that brings us to the MAG 134: Time of Revelation reference, being an apartment building in a French architectural style (I don't recall which one at the moment, but I know it was a specific one) filled with figures in the windows, some of whom are half melted into walls or floors. Finally, the last building is a reference to MAG 149: Concrete Jungle, with a rounded roof to mimic the circular shabonos of the Yanomami people and a large, concrete serpent for... obvious reasons.

I think that about covers it. If you've read this far, I hope you enjoyed, and get yourselves ready for the final episode of Entities Explained dropping later this month. With that, all I have left to say is good night, Tumblr people!

[needtoloveoutloud]

Hi hi Hellooo it's the Anon with the cute emoticons, at your service (⌒‿⌒)

I found another list on tumblr of questions i thought would be fun for u to answer if u want but u dont have to if u dont want to!!

⋆˚✿˖°

What is your nickname?

When is your birthday?

What was your longest relationship?

What is your favorite book?

What is something you're insecure about?

5 Male celebrity crushes

5 Female celebrity crushes

What is your dream job?

What do you consider your biggest accomplishment?

What is a fact about you that nobody would believe?

What were your highs and lows for this last month?

Where is somewhere you'd like to visit?

How do you de-stress?

What are your favorite apps besides tumblr?

Describe yourself in one sentence.

What do you think makes you attractive?

What is something you're really good at?

What is something you're really bad at?

A time that you told a lie.

What's a totally random and useless fact that you know?

Who knows you the best?

What is your most prized possession?

What is your longest friendship?

When did you first feel like an adult?

Do you/ Have you played any sports?

How are you feeling right now?

Are you an early bird or a night owl?

Do you believe in love at first sight?

Favorite song lyrics right now?

What does self care look like for you?

Describe yourself with 3 singers.

What makes you nervous?

What’s a pet peeve you have?

What will always make you cry?

What kind of first impression do you think you make on people?

This is a question from me: What is ur favourite chapter of the shadows series?

⋆˚✿˖°

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ�� All the love for you!

Oh hi, welcome back, Anon with the questions and the cute emoticon thingies (I forgot their actual name, sorry!) :)

Sorry for the late reply, was stuck working and then had a doctor's appointment. I hope I can answer your questions in one post this time :D

What is your nickname? Becks (surprisingly)

When is your birthday? 5th of June

What was your longest relationship? I've only ever been in one and married the guy so, in November it will be nine years (jfc time flies holy shit)

What is your favorite book? Oh a lot, but it's been a while since I've read actual books (besides scientific books about skincare and stuff), and not fanfiction, but I remember reading one years ago (I think it's for teenagers or something). When I first read it, I really liked it (though I'm not sure my brain — now a few years older — would still agree). It's called “Theo's Odyssey”. It's about a boy who learns about different religions and asks a lot of skeptical questions. It's aimed at teens, I think, but since I had a literal crisis of faith back when I read it, I enjoyed it. At least that's the first book that comes to mind right now, for some reason.

What is something you're insecure about? My skills and intelligence — practically regarding everything those two are needed for. Also, the future. Not just mine, but the world's in general.

5 Male celebrity crushes Oh my… real men? Okay, well... Jensen Ackles (with a beard and rugged looking lmao), Lee Pace (though I haven't seen a lot of movies/shows with him), Nathan Mitchell, And man: Raymond Ablack (he has the prettiest hair and such a glorious beard in Ginny & Georgia) Oscar Isaac, Andy Samberg (listen, that guy seems like someone you could trust and leave your drink with at a party, and he'd keep it safe. Also, he's funny). I know, it's six people and I probably forgot a few but still

5 Female celebrity crushes THIS ONE IS EASIER THAN THE MALE CRUSHES okay so Megan Thee Stallion (I only listen to a few of her songs but she seems like such a cool person plus... I have eyes thank you), Florence Pugh, Ana de Armas (!), Kristen Stewart (she and Keira Knightley were my bi awakening, I think), Zendaya, Elizabeth Olsen, Miley Cyrus, Cara Delevigne, Cate Blanchett, Lady Gaga (that woman's talent is... I feel like she can do anything. Her Joanne album is so fucking good) Taylor Momsen, Natalie Dormer, Rihanna, Margot Robbie, ... lmao you asked for six but you got so much more. There are also a lot more but yeah... I'm not sorry, though. :D

What is your dream job? I don't dream of doing labor but generally speaking, I love my current job — mostly because of my colleagues and because I have a really good employer/boss. I'm in digital marketing, building websites, etc.

What do you consider your biggest accomplishment? Probably surviving past my teenage years

What is a fact about you that nobody would believe? I still sleep with my loose braces at night. I had braces when I was younger, and I'm afraid my teeth will reposition themselves. Also, it prevents migraines for me, for some reason. So, when I take my contacts out, wear my glasses (I'm blind af) and wear my braces at night, I'm again that Thirteen-year-old girl who feels dorky as hell lmao

What were your highs and lows for this last month? Well uhm I guess my lowest low was when I (TW: miscarriage) lost my baby last month. Which, is quite the damn low, I guess. My highlights were all the lovely feedback/comments/interactions regarding my story and the lovely fanart people make. It really brightened everything up a ton

Where is somewhere you'd like to visit? Japan and Sweden

How do you de-stress? Sleeping, writing, watching anime and cuddling with my cat and husband. Also: silence.

What are your favorite apps besides tumblr? TikTok and “internet” for AO3 lmao

Describe yourself in one sentence. It all depends on the people I'm around and the places I am.

What do you think makes you attractive? I hope my smile and personality (humor, too, hopefully)

What is something you're really good at? sleeping :D No shit, I lie down and I intantly fall asleep. Also, I feel like I can remember all my dreams (probably not) — for better or worse

What is something you're really bad at? taking care of myself, according to my husband. Personally, I'd say letting your body rot for a few days is also a form of self care. Also, I overthink to the point of not-functioning a lot, not buying new plants and making even more by taking off cuttings from them ( I have a LOT of various plants at home)

A time that you told a lie. "Sure, of course, I already started working on that project!"

What's a totally random and useless fact that you know? Orcas are natural predators of moose

Who knows you the best? My husband

What is your most prized possession? my memory box (a box I store items in that make me think back (fondly, mostly) to some experiences I had

What is your longest friendship? My best friend, we met as babies

When did you first feel like an adult? When I had to manage my own money and only had available what I worked for and couldn't go out with friends and the like. I think I was 14 or something

Do you/ Have you played any sports? Wheel gymnastics, for years, started when I was a kid. It's not very well known, so here's a pic (that's not me in the pic)

How are you feeling right now? (sorry the numbers started anew after the image) Have a headache and stressed, because I was stuck in a meeting and now I'm too late for my ob/gyn appointment. Which means that now I've got to wait forever because I'm too late. Other than that, I shaved my legs today so I feel like a dolphin

Are you an early bird or a night owl? I function at neither time tbh it always depends but I guess more a night owl

Do you believe in love at first sight? I believe in connection at first sight

Favorite song lyrics right now? "Forgive me, Peter, my lost fearless leader. In closets like cedar, preserved from when we were kids. Is it something I did? The goddess of timing once found us beguiling. She said she was trying. Peter, was she lying? My ribs get the feeling she did." I have a lot, but this one's on right now and I can connect to it a lot.

What does self care look like for you? Sleeping in, having time to process stuff, and no technology

Describe yourself with 3 singers. Mitski, Taylor Swift, Marianas Trench (last one's a band but still)

What makes you nervous? Right now? My ob/gyn appointment. In general: the future.

What’s a pet peeve you have? Something I share with my version of Shota Aizawa: being interrupted. Absolutely hate it. And: people not PROPERLY washing their hands after using the bathroom. With soap, between their fingers, and all. Take the time to not spread your germs, it's not that hard. Unwashed hands in general.

What will always make you cry? reading the news. music and stories (written, read, or watched in the form of movies/tv shows)

What kind of first impression do you think you make on people? no idea, but probably that I'm an introvert (not sure if this is true, a lot of new people at once just overwhelm me a lot)

This is a question from me: What is ur favourite chapter of the shadows series? Oh, I recently re-read chapters 25 and 26 (they're not published yet) and I'm really happy with those. The readers will hate them because of the angst/hurt but will also love them because of comfort and... certain crumbs that are finally evolving into a full meal. Or at least, a starter. I also put a LOT of thoughtful metaphors and symbolism with references (some to the prequel) in there, which I hope will be caught by the readers (they're super smart, so I'm sure they will). I have some plot points, though, that I know will fucking slap, too hahah (once I've written them, that is)

I have a feeling that I'm not an interesting person, so I hope the answers satisfy you at least a bit, Anon :D 🤍

[hopeless-studious]

Meet the Hopeless Studious!

Hello! I've been here for a while and I've met some awesome people, been inspired a bunch, and honestly had such a good time that...

I forgot that I haven't even introduced myself!

So here I am, to say hello and nice to meet you~

✧ What's this blog?

This is my studyblr, study blog, uniblr and occasionally lifeblr. Hopeless-Studious. I chose this name because 1) I am a hopeless romantic. 2) I'd say I'm quite studious. 3) I romanticize studying. So like, the name makes sense! right?

✧ Who are you?

My name is N**. I'm 21 (at the time of writing this) and I will soon be starting the fourth and final year of my undergraduate degree in architecture. I've been a huge fan of studying communities since forever. I actually spend most of my time on one in discord but studyblrs are my favorite things to look at.

✧ Why did you make this blog?

I really really want (and need) something to motivate me like this. Also this community it GREAT! It's pretty, and warm and welcoming and honestly once I finally made my blog and posted in it, I DID NOT REGRET IT.

✧ What are your hobbies?

I'm an enjoyer of many creative outlets but I almost never get enough time. When I can, I draw and sketch, write and read, and a bunch of other stuff like knitting and singing and things like that >:D But realistically most of my time ends up spent on Discord and Tumblr or are often spent playing games and watching shows.

✧ Footnote: I honestly didn't know what to put here for the longest time and had this in my drafts since forever. Also I'm too shy to actually tag others here T-T but I admire a lot of people here be it for their aesthetics or how hardworking they are. Please ask any questions about things I may have missed or things you'd like to know. Thank you for reading and nice to meet you!

[conjunction-of-crows]

Hi KR!! I know things have been busy, but I thought I would check and see if a OPSS got through tumblr's system? If not I can resend it

Oh my god I'm so sorry, I was going through it (due to the election) when I received your original ask and forgot to respond, though I think I received it on my main blog? I can definitely respond now!

HEY miss giftee this is your one piece secret santa <3 i think i have decided what to do but i also want to personalize this to you taste as much as i can so humor me for this!

if you have any, i would love to know your favorite type of environment setting (mountain, sea, desert, etc), and any countries as well as time periods you prefer, if you do at all!

I don't really have a favorite environment I guess? I mean, I definitely have preferences for where I live (I hate humidity) but for time periods, I do think Regency era is an interesting one (I am a lover of Pride and Prejudice), and I really love Edwardian-era fashion.

also, i have the list of your top five, but if you want to, please tell me ten (or more!) other characters you really like.

Aside from my top five characters, I love the rest of the Straw Hat crew of course, and I also really love Ace and Sabo, and Luffy's bonds with them. I think Smoker and Tashigi are also cool characters, and I think Kid and Bonney are fun characters as well. Oh! I love the samurai and Hiyori as well, I have a figurine of Hiyori on my desk :D

and finally, apart from what you put on your list, if you have any platonic relationships you love with any number of characters, throw those at me as well.

I adore ASL's brotherly bonds. I also wish Tashigi and Zoro had a bit more of a rivalry that was on equal footing (and just more respect for Tashigi in general tbh), I feel they had potential for a really interesting dynamic that just isn't followed through very well. I also am really interested in Roger and Rayleigh's friendship, and also Roger's relationship with Rouge.

if you want to say anything extra (why you love someone or a relationship, for ex) then please go ahead!! the longer you make this, the easier it will be for me to construct you the perfect gift :3c

I love Luffy, he's my favorite character, no other shonen protag is doing it like him, what an icon. I met one of my closest friends through One Piece and for that I'm forever grateful for the effect this silly man has had on my life.

Also for the longest time I had no real interest in shipping Luffy, and that's still mostly true, but while I've always adored his bond with Zoro I've come to like it in a romantic lense as well as platonic. It's the loyalty, the dedication, Zoro met this rubber freak for like 5 minutes and was like "fuck it I'm with this guy now I guess" and then like days later he's like "I'm ride or die for this man now". And I am obsessed with them in the live action especially, oh my god. They make me sick (positive). Also Nami/Vivi. God. I love women. What else is there to say.

Again, so sorry for not responding to your ask sooner! Figured it would be easier to include the response for that with this one, so here we go!