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[signanothername]

it might be an awkward question but-

HOW DO YOU MANAGE TO DRAW SO MUCH?? how do you get so many beautiful ideas? how do you keep yourself motivated? tell me your secret I will sell you my soul

🩵 🫴 take it.

Why thank you 🫳🩵

Ah the question ever

Truthful and simple answer is that there’s no secret

This might seem contradictory considering how much I post, but I genuinely am not as motivated or as inspired as I seem to be

I struggle a lot with ideas and motivation and that is a problem I have on a daily basis that’s been happening for years (I have SO many wips that I never shared)

It’s not about the struggle, it’s about how I curated my art to that struggle

I’m at a constant threat to experience burnout (certified chronic pain and chronic fatigue haver), so to combat that, I take measures to make sure I don’t burn myself out and actually reserve the very little energy I have to continue doing artworks/comics

To give you a specific example, if you notice with my comics, they’re always sketchy and are never colored, that’s not because I don’t want to make colored comics, but because of knowledge from previous experiences that if I actually forced myself to make colored comics, I’d immediately plunge to burnout and would probably not be able to draw for a few weeks after because of it (in fact the last time I made a colored comic was here, which is a rare occasion even then btw, and that comic caused me to experience a near burnout)

Which was extremely frustrating to me at some point might I add, because before 2021, I had no problem making so many colored comics and artworks at a short span of time, I actually had motivation before (something that is lost to me now), so you can imagine how genuinely frustrating it is, it even made me feel like I’m not a “real” artist

(The concept of what is considered a “real artist” is bullshit btw, someone who draws stickmen everyday is as much of a real artist as someone who makes diverse fully colored artworks with backgrounds and everything, as long as you use your creativity and turn it to something meaningful, you’re already a real artist, regardless of skill or the extent of which you are able to conceive with your art)

That being said, it’s all about finding your own footing and workflow, what works best for you? What doesn’t?

Some things that you’d love for them to work (in my case making colored comics) might not work in reality, life is disappointing like that, so it’s also about acceptance

Acceptance of yourself as you are, maybe it’s not what you truly strive for, maybe you wish you could do more, but sometimes taking a step back and looking into yourself to see if you can actually achieve what you want with the resources you have could be life saving

So when it comes to motivation? Find your workflow, what are the things that you know could make you lose your motivation? On the other hand, what are the things that preserve your motivation?

Not only that, but time management is also a contributing factor

Of course, my own way to preserve my motivation/energy is as follows:

1- never force myself to finish artworks/comics if I feel like I can’t (even if I really really want to), I save them up for later when my motivation for them kicks back in

2-let perfectionism go, if I keep fretting over whether every line in an artwork looks good I’ll never accomplish anything but destroy my mental health (certified perfectionist speaking btw)

3-comics stay as sketches, as much as I want to make beautifully colored comics, I know this will only contribute to my burnout, so keeping it real with myself and what I can accomplish with my own resources (energy, time, health, etc) is important

4-making multiple sketches in a day then choosing what fancies my brain that day, or getting back to older sketches I already made before (sometimes months before) to see if my brain has the itch to work on any of them, by doing that, then I’m giving myself actual diversity in choices to choose from, which helps me feel like I don’t have to be forced to work on anything new, or something that I don’t wanna work on

For clarification, I’m talking actual sketches, not cleaned up ones, if you make clean sketches you won’t be able to make multiple ones in the same day

Here’s an example of what I mean by sketches

5-stop beating myself up over things I can’t control, if I keep being harsh on myself over the fact I couldn’t finish an artwork or the fact I’m not satisfied with it, it’ll only contribute to make me feel bad about myself and that would only contribute to me losing even more motivation which contributes to beating myself up and so the self torture cycle goes on, myself deserves to be pat on the back gently and be told “it’s ok, you’ll get there in time”

6-teach myself that it’s ok to lose motivation, there are times in which I do not open my art app for weeks, instead of hating myself for it, I tell myself “you need time, you’re tired and you need the break”, and it’s true, if you lost motivation, it’s most likely due to something else contributing to it

So i just ask myself what’s up, sometimes, I’m overworked in other life aspects, other times I’m in too much pain, so instead of forcing myself through my demotivation, I take care of these factors demotivating me so I’d feel comfortable enough to be able to work on artworks again

If I couldn’t identify a factor contributing to my loss of motivation, then I take it as my own brain telling me that it needs the break, it needs the dopamine if doing something different and I do that, whether by watching my favorite shows, playing my favorite games, trying a different hobby like writing or reading, etc

7- work on my own time, sometimes I do finish artworks quickly, and I do have the capacity to do so, but I’ve noticed that my loss of motivation became less of an issue when I gave myself the actual time to work on artworks, sometimes, a simple artwork that I could finish in 20 minutes takes me weeks to finish, not because I can’t finish it earlier, but because I intentionally worked slowly on it as I’m working on other artworks just as slow, that way, I don’t overwhelm myself and I’m making progress on multiple artworks/comics at the same time, and seeing such progress gives me even more motivation

Cough, anyway, got lost in talking about motivation ghcchch

As for your other question about how I get my ideas, it’s usually something I saw that inspired me, whether an artwork, something irl, etc

Or even sometimes, my own artworks inspire ideas for comics, so I’d draw something, then ask myself (asking yourself questions is such a great helper when it comes to coming up with ideas) why is the character doing this? How did they get there? Etc

That helps me come up with answers which are then answered via comics or multiple different artworks

For example, this comic, what inspired it was me asking myself one simple question, “what would happen if Murder actually asked Nightmare for a visit home for once, instead of running away like he always does?”, and that immediately got me to work on the comic

Of course, it doesn’t mean I always am on the ready for an idea, in fact, a lot of the time my mind is blank, nothing up there to help me, which is why I turn to mindlessly sketching sometimes

I just open a canvas and start sketching, what? I don’t know, I’m just gonna sketch something, could be a character, environment, scribbles, meaningless lines etc, it’s my iwn version of a warm up, and it helps a lot with making my brain get into the zone

That’s all I can think of off the top of my head

Enjoy a look into my brain chhcchch

[megs-1800]

Amnesia

Note: This is my longest fic, I have had it in my draft for ages and just kept adding bits. I wasn't sure where I wanted it to go. Feedback is always appreciated as I not sure about the ending. Requests are open. Used the song Amnesia by 5 Seconds of Summer for ideas.

Summary: You broke up with Mason after he cheated on you and broke your heart. What happens when Mason has a car accident and gets amnesia and he doesn't remember the breakup. Is he going to be able to win you back? Is he going to get his memory back?

Pairing: Mason Mount x Reader

Word Count: 11.9K

Warnings: Fluff, Angst, Swearing, mentions in injury and SMUT!!

Mason's POV

As I lay on my bed I still remember every moment of that day, I still cannot bring myself to sleep on your side of the bed. Its been 2 weeks since we broke up and I am still a wreck. The memories still haunting me,  the way your eyes were so puffy from crying, the way my heart broke in that moment, memories of that day come flooding back.

That’s the problem as soon as I let my mind stop for a moment I am forced to have memories of you. I know it was my fault I cheated, but I never wanted to loose you. I made a mistake and I am now definitely paying for it. You are the love of my life, I cannot cope without you.

I remember the day you told me you were leaving as I open the door from training I saw all the bags packed in the entrance hall. I can see you standing on the staircase shaking, I could tell you were nervous. You found out I cheated a couple of days prior and you said you needed space which I gave you. I knew from the look on your face what you decided.

I remember the makeup running down your face your mascara all smudged and your eyes all puffy I can tell you have been crying for a while, I run straight over to you and wrap you up in my arms. You quickly push me away, I knew that would happen, I just had to try. “Please baby no don’t leave me please y/n”. You look at me with sad eyes, I can see your heart is breaking just as much as mine “don’t make this any harder then it is Mase. I will get someone else to come and collect the rest of my stuff”.

And the dreams you left behind you didn’t need them, like every single wish we ever made I watched as you walked away. I watched how you left everything behind, how you left us behind. All those dreams we spoke about over the past 3 years of being together, getting married, having children, growing old together. That’s all gone now, its nothing more than words now how am I going to cope?

I wish that I could wake up with amnesia and forget about the stupid little things like the way it felt to fall asleep next to you as I lay in bed all I want is to forget all these memories together, looking over to your side of the bed knowing I will never fall asleep next to you again, I love you more than anything but the thought of you is hurting me more than I can imagine. You are always there, every moment of every day I think about you. How you smell, the sparkle in your eye, the way you smile, the small little laugh that is contagious to me. My heart is breaking over the thought of you.

And the memories I never can escape. Cause I’m not fine at all I am really not fine at all I do not know how I am going to cope without you. I have tried to message and call you everyday since the breakup but you keep ignoring my calls/messages. This house is tainted now as everywhere I look is memories of you. How am I going to forget you, am I am going to live with the memories of you.

6 months later

My phone bings and I can see that message from my driver that he is outside. I am just finishing getting ready. I give myself a quick look in the mirror before I make my way downstairs. It’s a dinner with all the United boys to celebrate the new season I was really looking forward to it.

The weather was awful the rain was torrential, I am sitting there chatting away with the driver when everything goes black.

-

As I open my eyes I can hear beeping from a machine, the light is so bright it takes me a couple of minutes to adjust to the lighting. I then realise I am in in hospital. I look down at my body, I look physically fine I am just hooked up to loads of machines and my head is pounding.

I see my mum quickly stand up from her sitting position from across the room, “mase, oh my god I am so glad you are awake how are you feeling?” I can hear the worry in her voice. I look around the room, I can see mum and dad, Lewis, Jaz and some girl I do not know how she is.

“I am okay mum, my head is pounding. What happened? How did I get here?” Mum looks relieved that I said I am okay. “You were in a car accident, you were on the way to dinner with the united boys. The weather was bad and your car skidded and crashed. The driver was fine but you have been in a coma for a week. Oh my boy”. She starts crying into me which I try and console her but my body hurts so much.

“Oh baby, we have been worried sick. I am so glad you are okay” the girl I do not know says as she reaches and places her hand in mine. I look at confused as I have no idea who she is and I have no idea why she is calling me baby. That’s when I realised you are not here. Why are you not here, where you in the accident.

“Y/n.. where is y/n. Is she okay? She wasn’t in the car was she?” I am now panicking. I can see everyone look around as if I am stupid. They all give eachother a confused look which is worrying me more.

“Darling, you and y/n have been broken up for 6 months. You haven’t spoken to eachother since then as far as we know. You are dating Brittany for the past couple of months”. I can see the pity on my mums face as she gestures towards the women I do not know, I guess she is Brittany. What do they mean me and you broke up? There is no way! You are the love of my life.

“What do you mean we broke up! No way we cannot be broken up. I am sorry Brittany I am sure you are a lovely women but mum me and y/n cannot done can we?” I can now feel myself getting emotional, I can see Brittany roll her eyes which makes me slightly angry.

At this the doctor walks in, “how are feeling today. Good to see you awake and I am sure your family have caught you up with everything. Physically you are all okay and we couldn’t see anything on your CT scans so I just need to see how you are doing?”

I go to speak but my mum buts in which does me favour as I am still in shock “his memory is gone. He thinks he and his girlfriend are still together but they broke up 6 months ago. What happened doc will he be okay?” I can hear the panic in my mums voice, and I can see it in everyones eyes, well apart from that Brittany. I hate that I have worried them this much.

The doc nods showing he is understanding “by the sound of it he has temporary amnesia, it is common in cases like this. Usually the memories will all come straight back at a trigger of something, but there is no guarantee. What is the last thing you remember?” He turns to me.

I think really hard, I cannot really remember “I think my last memory was Christmas. You know we took the girls to see Santa and we all had Christmas Day at yours. I think that’s generally the last thing I can remember.” I can see them all nod probably reliving the memory like I am.

“That was 7 months ago” I hear my mum say. The Doctor looks over to them “7 months is not too bad, we have people who loose years. It might come back, but for now Mason its good to be around things and people you know. Go back to that routine 7 months ago and hope that something might trigger your memories for the past 7 months”. The doctor finish doing his checks and left.

We are all looking over at eachother, “the doctor said I need things that are familiar. Can someone please get y/n down here please. I need to see here”. I see they all look between them what could of happened? But then I see my mum nod and walk out the room. I assume she is making the call.

Your POV

I was a mess after me and Mason broke up, I knew I was the one who left but I had to. Mason cheated and broke my heart. I could never look at him the same again. I wish I could just go back in time and never argue that night, maybe he never would of gone out and slept with her. I miss him more than words can say.

I have been strong since the breakup, every call and message Mason sent I made sure to ignore it. I couldn’t let myself reply otherwise I would fall for him all over again, I couldn’t let myself do this as losing him was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

I had a long week at work, especially with my boss calling in sick me and my colleague have basically had to run the service. I am so glad its Friday and I have today off so looking forward to my well-deserved long weekend. I have had a lazy morning, made breakfast in bed and just got out the shower when I see my phone ring.

Hoping that its not work related I am shocked to see Debbie’s name show up on my phone, Debbie and I spoke briefly since the breakup, mainly just saying how Mason was a mess and kept asking me what happened. I kept explaining that it wasn’t my place to say and she needs to ask Mason. I know Debbie loved me, but I know when it comes down to it she will always pick Mason’s side. I quickly answer the call apprehensively “hey Debbie everything okay?”

“Hiya lovely, um no not really. Mason was in an accident” I can feel my heart dropped, eventhough Mason broke my heart I never wanted him to be hurt. I can feel my heart beating erratically and I can feel tears in my eyes. “He is physically okay, a bit bruised but he should be okay.” I let a breath out that I didn’t even realise that I was holding, I am so relieved he is okay. “The problem is he has amnesia the last thing he remembers is Christmas Day, he cannot remember the break up. He thinks you are still together. The doctor recommended that he stays with what is familiar and that might help bring back his memories. He said you are what is familiar to him, he really wants to see you. I get what happened between you is hard, but please I just want him better”. I can hear her voice break at the end of the sentence. I really want to help but I do not know if I can see him.

“I understand that Debbie, but I do not think I can let myself see him again. I let that part of my life go now Debbie I have moved on. I cannot let myself just go backwards”. I feel so harsh because all I want is to Mason but I buried those memories deep and I really do not want to open those feeling again.

“I know darling, Mason eventually told us what happened between you two. We were furious with him believe me. The biggest mistake he ever made was letting you go. Y/n look I am not asking for you to forgive him, I am not even asking for you to take him back. All I am asking for is for you to come down here and see him y/n please that’s all I am asking”.

I really don’t want to do it, but there is a small part of me that needs to check Mason is okay, and it would be nice to see them all okay. I take a deep breath “okay I will be there in a couple of hours. Please text me the address” Debbie thanked me and a couple of minutes later I received a message from her with the hospital address.

I quickly got ready and packed some spare clothes just in case I stay down in Manchester and I quickly made a move.

Mason’s POV

Mum said you were on your way, I was counting down the minutes to see you. No one has still told me why we are not together. I cannot believe we would of broken up, you are the love of my life well I suppose I should say you were the love of my life now. I hate referring to you in past tense. I can feel my heart breaking.

All of my family start to leave so I can get ready before y/n arrives , you are due anytime now but the women I do not know still remains. Its awkward I feel bad that I have no idea who she is. Once everyone leaves she walks over to me and sits down, she puts my hand into hers. “Masey how are you feeling?” I wince at her use of my nickname “my head is really hurting but I think I am going to be okay. I am really sorry I cannot remember you. I am really am”. I feel awful that I am dating someone I cannot even remember. “That’s okay Mase I will get you to remember” before I know it she is kissing me, I am not kissing back. In my head me and y/n are still together I couldn’t of done that to her.

As this Brittany pulls away I see the longing in her eyes, I can tell she is really into me. I am about to say something when I see y/n walking into the room. “uh sorry I will give you guys a minute” you go to walk back out the room. I am quick to respond “please y/n don’t go!” I didn’t realise I was shouting but it came out louder then I wanted but I just didn’t want you to leave. I can see you nod and you sheepishly come over to me. I can see you are not making eye contact with me or Brittany.

“Thank you coming its really good to see you. Sorry I know it’s a long drive you must be exhausted” I say

“I did it for your mum, not for you but its okay the drive wasn’t too bad. Did you want me to come back at a better time?”

You are so beautiful, you are only in a tracksuit and your hair in a bun as I know you love being comfortable when travelling but you look like the most beautiful girl in the world. We both stayed silent just looking at eachother when Brittany replies to you in a bitchy tone “yeah if you could come back a bit later. It’s the first time since Masey’s woken up that we actually got 2 minutes to ourselves”. I look at Brittany with a shocked look, how rude of her to say that and I can see you are taken back by that. You nod and go to walk out of the hospital which I grab your hand to stop you “please y/n don’t leave” I can see you look at Brittany and you are now hesitating with what to do. I turn to Brittany “I asked y/n to come, she has come a long way please don’t speak to her like that and make her leave. We have a lot to catch up on”. I can see you blush a little as you look down, Brittany looks pissed and rolls her eyes “for fuck sake Mason you are choosing to be with her then me. You are with me now Mason. You know whatever”. At that she throws her body around and storms out of the hospital room.

I see you giggle “You always loved someone with a bit of drama. You are going to pay for that later you know”. I smile back knowing that I probably will with the way Brittany just throw herself out of the room. You sit down next to me, I can tell you are nervous. “How have you been? You look beautiful” You give me a small smile, I can tell you are thinking about what to say next.

“I’m doing good Mase, how are feeling? Are you in a lot of pain?” I see that you passed over the comment with me calling you beautiful. “I am okay, I am a bit stiff but physically I am fine. I am guessing mum told you about the memory stuff” You nodded in agreement. “What happened to us y/n? They are saying we broke up but no one will tell me why? We couldn’t of broken up we were going to get married, have kids. We were going to live happily ever after what happened?”

“You happened Mase.”

“No way.. I would of never broke up with you”

“Well technically I broke up with you but you are the one who cheated.” I am in disbelief, I couldn’t of cheated on you. I cannot believe I would of done this to us. I broke us.

“No way, I wouldn’t of done that to you. I love you so much y/n”

“Well you did. You slept with someone else. I loved you too Mase but you broke us” hearing you saying ‘loved’ in past tense makes my heart break.

“What happened why did I cheat? Who did I cheat with” I am still in disbelief.

“We had a huge fight, it was just one of those things that built up. You were stressed with injuries and the press and I was stressed with work and being away from my family we just kind of took it out on eachother. We both said a lot of things we shouldn’t of said and you decided to go out with the boys which made the argument worse. I said ‘if you go out don’t bother coming back’, I guess you took that literally. You went out had too many drinks and got a hotel with her. I don’t really know what happened but that’s what you said. You slept with Brittany actually”. I can see that hurt you reliving that.

“Brittany?! So I cheated on you with her? And then what started dating her again?” I am such a horrible person for that, I must of broken you.

“Yeah not right away though. You cheated a couple of weeks after Christmas which your mum said is your last memory, I found out a couple of weeks later. You only got with Britanny a couple of months ago. She literally put it all over social media on your first date so I found out pretty quick”.

“Shit I am sorry that must have been horrible for you. I just cannot believe I would of done that to you.. to us. I was going to propose to you. You know that trip I arranged in Paris for Valentines day, I had it all planned. I had the ring.. then what I throw it all away just like that over one stupid fight.” I am beating myself up about it, I cannot believe I would of broke your heart like that. I must have been a mess when we broke up, I can feel my heart breaking now and tears forming in my eye.

“Yeah I know, your family told me once they found out we broke up. I didn’t even have a clue that you were going to propose in Paris. But what was done was done. You cancelled the trip I think or you went on it with someone I am not too sure.”

“Surely I couldn’t of gone with someone else. That trip was ours.”

“Honestly Mason I had no idea what you did when we broke up. You tried to ring and text me but I just couldn’t bring myself to reply. Then I saw on the news that you were spotted on a date with Brittany, I was so upset because I couldn’t even think of getting with anyone else and then suddenly you are back with the girl who ruined our relationship but I guess I just loved you more then you loved me.” I can see the tears starting to form in your eyes as you start to look up to prevent the tears from rolling down.

“No y/n please, I loved you more then you will ever know. You were the love of my life. I made a mistake I-I-I cannot b-b-believe I would of done that to y-y-you.” I am struggling to get my words out as my tears are rolling down my face. I can see your face start to soften and I can see your tears starting to roll down your cheek too. You are rubbing the back of my hand with you thumb. This is something that you used to do all the time to try and reassure me when I was upset.

We stay there in silence for what seems like forever, I just continue to look into your eyes. Those eyes that were once filled with so much light and love now seem broken, however I can still see that sparkle that you always had. We were snatched from our moment as my mum walked in. “Sorry to interrupt but visiting hours are almost over so I am not sure if either of you want anything to eat before we have to leave?” I can feel the sadness of the thought of you leaving me, I really don’t want you to leave.

“No its okay thanks though Debbie, I should be heading back to my hotel room anyway. I will probably just order room service, I have had a long day travelling but thank you”. I deny food from mum as well, right now I cannot think about eating as my heart is breaking knowing that I lost y/n and I was the reason. Food is the last thing on my mind. Mum nods and walks away, as she does this that Brittany walks in again.

She gives y/n daggers as she sees that me and you are holding hands, y/n shoots the look straight back though that’s my girl! “I best get going, I will leave you both to say goodbye” as you let go of my hand and look between me and Brittany. Right now I couldn’t give a fuck about that Brittany being in the room. “please don’t leave y/n/n, you can stay here for the night. Please I cannot let you go again” I see the pity on your face which makes me hate myself right now and Brittany looks pissed. Maybe I shouldn’t of said that.

“What the fuck Mason! You are injured and you what that to stay with you rather than me. What is going on Mason. I know you got this bloody memory thing and you don’t remember me but fucking look at me, and you telling me you would rather want that then me, come on Mase stop having me on” I was taken aback by Brittany, the way she looked you up and down everytime she said ‘that’ I was so angry, you are 10000% better then that Brittany. I know you would never agree as you are so much more natural, but in my eyes you are the most beautiful women to ever walk the planet.

I go to defend you but you beat me to it “no she is right Mase. I don’t know why you would choose me when you got someone like her. But anyway I am not like her I do not get into bed with other peoples boyfriends so I will just leave”  I cannot believe you would doubt yourself like that, I would always choose you over Brittany, but I guess I didn’t when I choose to cheat with Brittany fuck I hate myself.

I loved your little petty comment at the end, I go to laugh with make Brittany more angry “who the fuck are you talking to like that.” I can see its started to get a little heated, you step away as I know you do not like confrontation. “Hey.. come on lets all calm down” I say defusing the situation.

“I am going to go. I will come down tomorrow though okay Mase. Sleep well” I nod, I go to say ‘I love you’ but quickly stop myself. I watch as you walk out the room and I can feel the tears forming in my eyes again. I turn my attention back to Brittany “that was rude for you to speak to her like that” I start. Brittany rolls her eyes “oh Mase you know I am a thousand times better than her, you are lucky to have me. I get you got a past with her but me and you got together and you choose to be with me. So why are you now defending her?”

I just look at her with disgust, she is the reason me and you are not together right now. I know I am too blame too but it took 2 to ruin the relationship. “Please just go” I beg.

She rolls her eyes again I hate when she does that. “Whatever Mase, give me a ring when you come to your senses”. At that she turns on her heals and walks out the hospital room. At this time I am grateful for the silence, but then suddenly I feel a longing for you. All I want is you.

Your POV

It was so hard seeing Mason today, suddenly all these feelings come flooding back. All I want is to drive back to that hospital and kiss him but I have to stay strong. Seeing Brittany broke me too, knowing that the other women was there made me feel sick but I think I handled it well.

I checked into my hotel room and flopped straight onto the bed, I am so mentally drained after the long drive and seeing Mason all I want is to go to sleep. I quickly check my phone as I realised I hadn’t checked it since I got to Manchester. I got a couple of messages but one stood out the most, only sent 20 mins ago, from Mason. “Safe journey to the hotel, let me know once you are there. Thank you for making the trip down to see me, especially after all I have done. You have no idea how much I appreciate it x” I keep looking over the text as I am really not sure to reply, he does deserve to know I got here okay though, because chances are if I do not reply soon he will be ringing me to make sure I am safe. I quickly send a quick reply “I am at the hotel now x” I kept it basic I cannot let myself get sucked in again.

I go straight for a shower and I loved the feeling of the hot water on my shoulders, I hear my phone bing again which chances are it was Mason replying. I took my time in the shower, once I am out I wrap the hotel robe around me and collapse on the bed. I let my feelings out and I can feel the tears rolling down my face, all those emotions I kept in seeing Mason today. I can feel myself start to drift off to sleep when there is a knock at the door. I quickly open it and I can see room service “I am sorry I didn’t order this” the man looks confused and double checks the receipt “yeah room 107, it was a prepaid order over the phone for a ummmm Mr Mount” I nod and let the man bring the trolley of food in. Once he leaves I look over the trolley there is so much food.

I quickly message Mason “You didn’t need to do that x” I message he is quick to read the message and reply “I didn’t know what you fancied so I just ordered one of everything xx” I shake my head at his reply but I know he was just doing it to be nice and to be honest I am ready grateful as I head my stomach rumbling. “I am going to get fat with eating all this food x”  he replies straight away “And you will still be the most incredibly sexiest girl in my eyes xxx” I smile at his reply, he is giving me butterflies all over again. He has always been smooth at compliments and eventhough I am insecure about how I look he has always made me feel like I am beautiful.

We continue the rest of the night chatting away over text it felt natural to speak to him, just living in the moment then it suddenly hit me with what happened and I quickly made an excuse that I needed to sleep which he agreed with. As I shut my eyes all the feelings with him came flooding back all over again, I spend another night crying myself to sleep.

When I wake up I feel this sudden urge of dread, I know Mason doesn’t remember but I do, I remember all the hurt he caused. I cannot see him again, I cannot let myself feel like that again. I see Mason’s text saying how he was excited to see me again today. I feel bad but I have got to lie I cannot see him again, not right now. I am still not over him, I am nowhere near over him. “Hey Mase, I am so sorry work called and they need me back like now. I am leaving to go home now. I am so sorry look after yourself and if you need anything let me know. I hope you get your memory back, but maybe at the same time I don’t so at least that way you don’t need to hurt the way that I do. I will always love you Mase xx” and with that I put my phone on silent ready for the drive home.

Mason’s POV

When I saw that text I felt my heart drop, I cannot believe she is already going. Maybe I came on too strong ordering her room service but I knew she wouldn’t eat otherwise and I was just trying to look out for her. It was such a lame excuse to use work as I know that’s not the reason. I read you like a book I know there is no work issue and that you were only saying that to get out of seeing me. I must of hurt you so bad.

I quickly respond back to you, I do not want to cause anymore conflict between us so I type “Okay I am gutted I am not seeing you. Can you do me a favour please don’t feel pressured and you do not need to make a decision now just promise me you will think about it. You are the only bit of normal I have at the moment, can you please just come down and let me take you out for dinner please that all I am asking. I just want to talk, I just want to fill in the gaps. Please y/n”.

I watch as you are typing, you are typing for ages which is making me anxious. Then you just reply in one word… “Okay”.

I try and message you to let you know I have been released from hospital and update you which you just read and do not reply. It made me feel awful that I know you are reading my messages but not responding. I wish I could just make everything okay, at the same time I wish I could have my memory back so I can feel the way you are hurting, so I can understand why I did what I did.

Readers POV

A couple of weeks passed since your saw Mason, he tried to message you a couple of times to let you know he has been released from hospital. I couldn’t bring myself to answer, seeing him that day made all of these feelings come back. I am not sure if I can let him in again. Out of the blue I saw a text from Declan, I hadn’t heard from him since the breakup. Lauren messaged me every now and again as we were close when me and Mason were dating , but when I moved back home it was hard to stay in touch. The messaged said “Come on y/n please answer Mason. All I have heard since he has been released from hospital is about you. I get what happened between you was shit and Mason is an arsehole for cheating on you. We were all on your side, but he is my mate y/n/n and he is struggling with the memory thing at the moment and all he knows at the moment is you. So please y/n/n I like to think we were good friends before that all happened, so if you do not want to do it for him, do it for me :) x” I smiled at the text and had a little giggle at the end. “Okay Dec, but I am doing it for you not him. I promise the next message he sends me I will reply”. And with that Mason’s name suddenly appears on my phone, him and Mason must have been together. “Declan said you would reply to my message. I know I fucked up y/n I know, I cannot remember why I did what I did but all I can do is apologise. All I have is happy memories with you at the moment, I need someone to help me get my memories back. The doctor said to keep doing things which feel ‘normal’ to me, and well you are the most ‘normal’ I can get. One date please that’s all I ask please and then I promise I will leave you alone xx” . I am debating my answer but I know Mason won’t quit until he gets what he wants that’s how he got me to go on a first date with him, and to be fair he did say he would leave me alone if I agreed. I sent him a quick text back “Okay Mount but you better make it worth my while x”. He reads it straight away and I can see he is typing, that’s when his message pops up in the chat “Have I ever let you down”;) xx”

The next couple of days Mason keeps the messages to a minimum which I am grateful for, this week has been busy with work so I am actually looking forward to taking a break and going out. Mason didn’t tell me much about the date, all he said was to dress nice and for me to be with him early afternoon. I thought this was really weird as if it was an afternoon date then why am I dressing up? The day before our date he told me I also need to bring my passport and an overnight bag, I am now seriously confused surely we cannot be going out the county? I frantically spent that evening looking for my passport and trying to decide what to wear. I opted in for a short black dress that hugs my figure perfectly and I knew Mason would love it, it used to be one of his favourites.

The next morning I can hear the dreaded sound of my alarm, I have had to get up at the crack of dawn to get up and ready and make the drive to Manchester. I thought I could pair my dress with a long overcoat to make it look slightly more casual and a nice pair of boots. I quickly post a picture to my private Instagram storey and then make a move:

The drive to Manchester was painless the traffic was on my side for a change. I arrived in Manchester around 2pm, I walked up the front steps to Mason’s and I suddenly start to feel sick this was the house we used to live at together. I start to shake but before I can turn around Mason opens the door, he obviously saw me on the ring doorbell.

“Wow look at you” Mason looks me up and down and now suddenly I feel really self-conscious. He was dressed in black skinny jeans with a white button shirt. He looked fit I cannot deny but I cannot let myself have feelings for him like that. “So give it up Mount where are we going. Dress nice. Get here for lunchtime. Passport and overnight bag. What is happening?” I know he could hear the anxiety in my voice and I watch him give me a little giggle and holds my hand in his. “Please stop worrying I promise you are going to love it. Just trust me okay” my heart drops at that last comment. “Well Mase the last time I trusted you I got cheated on” I can see that comment pissed him off. “Enough of the past that I cannot remember. Lets just live in the present, just for tonight please.” I nod giving in as there is no point keep bringing up the past that he doesn’t remember. “Okay Mase deal. Wherever we are going better be good as I am starving.”

Mason drove us to Manchester airport and we checked in through a private entrance and we were taken to a private lounge, it had some other couples there but I am guessing they all have some kind of status. I keep playing with coat as Mason knows I feel comfortable in situations like this, I hate being in places with people who have status it just makes me feel uncomfortable as I feel like a fraud as I am anything but people like this. Brittany would be the ideal girl to be taking to places like this then suddenly put the thought to the back of my mind as its making me feel worse. Mason kept rubbing the small of back to reassure me as I know he could tell I felt out of place, I wanted to push him away but I know it was only doing it because he cared. He disappeared for a couple of mins then reappeared with 2 mimosas in his hand passing me one “its never too early to drink on a date night” I giggle and take the drink from him quickly having a sip realising how strong it is “I definitely agree! Are you going to tell me where we are going yet?” He shakes his head and shoots me a wink “patience is key my beautiful girl”. He gives me butterflies in my stomach, I am now all of sudden feel nervous around him.

About an hour later and many drinks down a man comes over to where me and Mason are sitting, I can feel the alcohol has definitely gone straight to my head, maybe I should of eaten a little something before I came. “Mr Mount your plane is ready whenever you are” Mason nods and thanks him. I quickly shoot him a look “Did he just say plane? Mason you have not hired a whole bloody plane?!”

“Well you said to make sure its worth your while so I am pulling out all the stops. Now come on” he grabs both his and my weekend bags and I follow him to the terminal. I can see a small private plane on the run way and I am assuming this is for us. Mason did this for us on about our 5th date and I was completely gobsmacked, he always ensures he treats me, that was one of the things I loved most about Mason. I am easily pleased but he always made sure to treat me like a princess.

We chat the whole plane ride there, I am now starting to relax, I think the alcohol is helping the situation but I am starting to ease back into Mason it feels like old times. I am now just telling myself to enjoy tonight as we do not know what tomorrow holds so there is no point in arguing with Mason, I might as well enjoy the night.

We are now preparing for landing, we were only in the air for just over 2 hours but it felt like minutes as me and Mason non stopped chatted and laughed the whole time. “Are you going to let me know where we are now?” Mason finally gives in “Okay well you know when we first started talking and I asked you where you wanted to go for our first date and you said Pasta and Tiramisu from Italy.”

“I said that as a joke Mason” I quickly butted in.

“I know you were only joking but I was gutted I couldn’t actually do that for our first date due to footy commitments so… well… I thought it is the best setting for our kind of 1st date again”. My heart warms I cannot believe he has gone through this much effort. “I cannot believe you done this Mason like wow you didn’t need to.” Before I knew it I jumped across the seats and placed my hands either side of Mason’s face, I just stare into his eyes and then look down at his lips. I then give him a passionate kiss, he is returning the kiss straight away holding my hips, I do not know what came over me, I think it’s a mixture between my heart and some alcohol. I quickly pull away and go back to seat to prepare for landing. I can see the small cocky smirk that Mason is showing, is this his plan all along?

When we land Mason gets us a taxi to our hotel, the outside of the hotel is insane, its massive and so bright and colourful. As we walk inside the lobby is probably the size of my whole flat block, with massive colour chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. I am speechless just taking it all in, me and Mason have been to some nice places before but this has had to be the nicest. “Pass me your bag, stay here. I want you to see the room for the first time after dinner. Please.. unless you need to freshen up or anything?” I can tell he really wants to wow me but is still thinking about me the whole time. I give me a small smile “I am okay I freshened up on the plane before we landed thank you though” .

Mason gives me the biggest smile like he is so proud of himself, I cannot wait to see what this room looks like. It must be amazing with the way Mason is acting. I quickly sat down on the sofa and took a video of the lobby and send it to my friend. She is an architect so she would be in love with this. I see Mason come jogging through the lobby approaching me so I stand to greet him. “Right shall we go our reservation is at 7pm so right on time” I nod and link arms with Mason and let him lead me outside to another taxi to take us to the restaurant.

The taxi pulls outside a small Italian Trevena Mason comes round to my side of the car and helps me out, I am trying to steady my feet as maybes boots were a bad idea as I am started to feel a little drunk and I am struggling to keep my balance. Mason puts his hand on my back and guides me into the restaurant, he steps in front of me at the desk. “Good evening I have a reservation for Mason Mount for 2.” The man behind the counter looks on the system and confirms “Yes I can see it here Mr Mount we have arrange a table near the back for you as requested so you both can have your privacy. Right this way I will seat you at your table”  we follow him to our table and Mason brings out my chair.

He is really getting me in my feels, we are sat at the back of the restaurant out the way with a little fireplace next to us. “This restaurant is amazing Mase how did you even find it?” I say in awe of how beautiful the scenery is. “well believe it or not its actually from Lewis. He came here a couple of months ago and said its incredible.”

“Well Lewis always did have an amazing taste in restaurants so I am sure this is going to be amazing” I smile, me and Mason just sit across from each other admiring each other. We are interrupted by the waiter taking our order. Once they walk away Mason places his hand in mine, “it was shit coming home and you weren’t there. It feels so empty without you” I quickly pull away as I can feel a lump in my throat “please Mase don’t start. Lets just enjoy tonight. No talking about this please”. Mason nods agreeing with me.

“That food was incredible” I saw leaning backwards trying to extend my stomach where I am so full, “having traditional pasta and tiramisu from Italy, no food is ever going to prepare!” Mason takes the last bite of his dessert “I am glad you enjoyed it. I cannot believe we have done 2 bottles of wine” I look over at the 2 empty bottles in disbelief “no way have we? Well our heads are probably going to pay for that in the morning. Its been an amazing night tonight Mason thank you. Its been just like old time I have really enjoyed it”.

Mason went to say something but we were interrupted by the waiter with the bill placing it on our table and explaining he will be back. “How much is it?” I ask concerned about the cost as I know I will never be able to afford a place like this on my office job wage. Mason shakes his head “don’t worry about it.” I feel a sense of guilt “mason you have paid for the plane and the hotel, this dinner is probably going to be expensive its not right if you have to pay for that too”

“You can get the next one” mason replies straight away. I feel a sense of relief knowing I haven’t got to pay as it would probably cost about a months rent but at the same time feel bad. As Mason pays the bill I explain that I am going to go the toilet. As I walk to the bathroom I can feel the alcohol hitting me. I look at myself in the mirror and all these feelings for Mason come flooding back, all of sudden all I can think about is him, I need him.. I need him now.

Mason is standing at the table as I return and he guides me out of the restaurant as we say thank you to the staff, we can see some paparazzi outside as we are leaving “shit sorry I picked this place as I thought it would be out the way. Fuck sake” I feel bad for Mason I know he hates all of this. I hold his hand in assurance he looks at me confused. “are you sure? They are going to make up stories” I look Mason in the eyes and place a small kiss to his lips “I am living for today Mase, I am enjoying tonight lets not worry about tomorrow”. Mason nods at me and I think I see a small smile on his face. He takes of his coat and places it over me to block my face from the cameras. This was a usual occurrence for me and Mason, he always made sure I was protected from them.

We quickly walk to the car ignoring the flashes and once we are in the car I do not know what came over me. I am not sure if its how protective Mason is of me or the alcohol or maybe a little bit of both but I forget that we are and I pounce on Mason.

I place one hand on his thigh and the other onto his cheek as I place a kiss, I pull away waiting for his reaction but he grabs me closer and deepens the kiss. It’s a urgent kiss as we are both fighting for air. I can feel his hand on my thigh which is urging me on more. We both explore each other bodies, and the memories of him flood me again.

We break apart to get out the taxi and through the hotel, as soon as we are in the lift Mason swipes a card and picks the top floor. As soon as the door closes we are attached again, Mason pushes me up against the wall and places his hands on my bum whilst we deepen the kiss, our tongues exploring eachothers months. I pull my fingers through his hair and hear the sound moans coming out of his mouth.

The lift dings notifying us that we are at our floor, Mason backs away and leads me out of the lift. I stood still in my tracks as I realise the lift opens straight into the room. It’s a penthouse suite, the room is bigger then my whole flat. Its got a queen size poster bed on one side of the room where on the other there is a whole living room set up. That’s when I see there is a bath in the middle of the room that looks out over the city. “Wow this room is amazing, its so beautiful Mason I am speechless I do not know what to say. Just thank you” Mason places another kiss to my lips before he replies “believe me nothing beats the way you look tonight” . Mason was never short of compliments and he always makes me feel amazing even when I do not feel it.

I do not even know what to reply, but before I know it out lips are together again. He is quick to take his shirt and jeans off just leaving him in his boxers. I just stand there for a minute admiring him “you should take a photo it will last longer” Mason says when he catches me staring, I giggle back “I used to have those photos, believe me you are like the sexiest man I have ever met”. I see Mason blush and his hands are back on me. He starts grabbing my ass with one hand whilst the other is in my hair gripping it. I can feel he slowly unzipping my dress, I can feel him struggling “do you want me to turn around?” I saw giggling, Mason rolls his eyes “Yes please”  he says with the hump.

I quickly turn around and place my hair to one side, he leaves a trail of kisses along my shoulder as he unzips my dress. I am glad I opted into not wearing a bra, so he just leaves me in my small black thong. I turn around so I face Mason, I can see his eyes looking over my body, and now I suddenly feel vert self conscious. I try to hide myself a little, Mason grabs my hands “don’t do that. You have the most incredible body”. I can feel myself blushing. He kisses me again as he plays with my nipple between his fingers, I cannot stop the moaning that is coming out of my mouth which is urging Mason on more.

He quickly picks me up by the ass and places me on the bed. He quickly climbs on top of me resting his hands either side of my head ensuring he doesn’t put too much weight on me. Mason looks me over and I can see the bulge in his boxers urging to get out “Fuck me, you are the most incredible women in the world baby girl” I move my hand to his boxers and slide my hand underneath to get to where Mason needs me most. Mason moans at the sudden touch, I start to make movement “uh y/n that feels so fucking good to have your hand wrapped around my cock” Mason quickly removes his boxers to give me more access to his dick so I can make longer strokes. As I play with his dick Mason is on my nipples, teasing and sucking them and then moving onto the next one to do the same “Mason your mouth is incredible”. He gives me a cocky smile “you wanna see what this mouth can actually do?”

Mason doesn’t even wait for my reply before he is kissing all the way over my body, I cannot control my whimpers and I can feel myself getting wet at the anticipation about what is going to happen next. He positions himself inbetween my thighs and begins to lower my thong with his teeth. He looks at my pussy and straight back up at me and he can tell I am dripping, he was always so cocky when we have sex, he loves what he can do to me. Mason without warning makes one long stride with his tongue against my pussy, my hands go straight to his hair “fuck Mason” I can feel him smiling against me as he continues his licks and sucks, he then puts his focus on my clit and I do not know how much longer I can hold it. I can feel my stomach clenching. Mason then inserts 2 fingers into me whilst his tongue works on my clit. “fuck Mason I don’t think I can hold it” I can hear him hum into me “don’t hold it babygirl I want you to cum all over my tongue” he continues that pace which has me cumming in a couple of minutes as I unfold screaming his name as I have one hand in his hair tucking away and the other holding onto the bedframe.

“I love when you scream my name” Mason says as he crawls up, he continues to kiss me which I can taste my cum on his tongue. “I think its your turn superstar” Mason still continues to kiss me but I pull away to start kissing his neck, I can feel myself getting too excited and probably leaving a hickey but Mason is continuing to moan into my neck  which is encouraging me more. As I pull away I look into Mason’s eyes “I need that cock in my mouth” I slide my hand down Mason’s body and grab his cock again and start pumping.

“Y/n/n you have no idea what you are doing to me! I would love that but I just need to be inside you right now” I let go of his dick so he can give himself a quick couple of pumps and lines himself up with you. “For me this feels like yesterday but for you this must feel like its been forever.” I can feel my heart break at that comment but right now I am too turned on to let it affect me. Mason pushes himself inside me and gives me a couple of mins to adjust to his size. “You can move Mase, please I need you to ruin me”.

He hoovers over me “you don’t have to tell me twice baby” he grabs my hips as he starts to pick up a rhythm “have I ever told you.. your pussy is out of this world” mason says panting, “You have told me on many occasions yes but its always good to hear because believe me your dick is incredible” this seems to give Mason more fuel as the pace starts to get harder and quicker. We both moaning eachothers names and how good we making eachother. I can feel his hands all over my body as mine is doing the same to him. He thrusts are starting to get sloppy and I can feel he is nearing his orgasm. “I want to feel you cum all over my dick, be a good girl for me and cum all over me” with his words I can feel myself needing to cum as well. Mason reaches down and uses his thumb to make circles on my clit which is driving me insane, I cannot hold of moans in which I am worried other people can hear. Mason always loved when I am loud. “uh Mason like that I am g-g-onna” and with that I unravel onto his dick and the feel of me cumming Mason uses this to reach his high as well, he quickly pulls out and cums all over my stomach. He flops next to me as we both lay there staring at the ceiling catching our breathes.

“T-T-hat was a-amazing, y-y are i-Incredible“ I say panting, Mason flops over so he is on his stomach and draws lines in my arm. “I am only incredible because you make me incredible” I giggle at him as I can feel the butterflies in my stomach. We haven’t been this intimate in a long time, but the problem is he cannot remember the distance.

“Did you want to have a bath overlooking the city to clean up?” I agree and Mason runs us a bath and opens the French doors to the balcony so there is a small breeze which we both sit in the round bath probably big enough to fit 6 people whilst we overlook the lights of the city.

We lay in the bath looking out over the city, I have never seen anything more perfect. Mason turns me around so I am facing him. “Can I ask you something.. you don’t have to answer just something that’s been on my mind. You know since we broke up have you seen anymore? Have you.. you know.. slept with anyone else?” I can tell he is nervous to ask this of course if he remembers I would say the same thing, I know about Brittany but was there any other girls? I grab Mason’s face between my hands and place a long passionate kiss onto his lips. “No.. no other guys. You are my entire world Mason, I couldn’t even think about dating another guy let alone sleeping with anyone else. Even though you moved on I couldn’t think of another man I would of felt like I was cheating on you”.

Mason’s face is still between my hands and he pulls me closer to return the kiss, as he pulls away I see him smile “you are incredible you know that why did I ever fuck it up”.

I stretch my body out realising Mason is not next to me, as I slowly open my eyes I let it adjust to the bright light that it radiating the room from the outside world. My body aches as I relive round 2 and 3 that occurred last night, I quickly look over and see Mason sitting on the chair at the table in the corner of the room. His head is down like he is stressed. “What time is it?” I asked I feel like I have slept for hours and with the amount of light coming into the room it must be later then I think. “Its 11 we gotta get up and go soon” his voice is low and raspy and I am confused at his bluntness. “Whats up?” I go wrap the hotel robe over my body and go and join in at the table.

Mason looks at me, I can see his eyes are red and puffy he looks stressed and upset. I am really worried. “I-I-I remember” I look at him confused “You remember what?” he looks down trying not to make eye contact with me. “I remember everything.. I woke up this morning and it all came back. E-E-Everything. Y/n/n I am so sorry” he then breaks and starts to cry. I want to console him but then I need to stop myself, we are back to reality again, we are back to the guy that cheated on me. “There was a news article released this morning, it showed pictures of us last night of when we left the restaurant. Brittany has already been on the phone screwing at me, my family are all asking me why me and you are in Italy and then everything just came flooding back. Back to reality all over again”. All I want is to jump across the table and wrap Mason in my arms but I need to be strong, he isn’t the guy from last night he is now the one who broke my heart, the one who cheated and tore our relationship.

“We best start getting ready” is all I can say quickly getting into the shower and packing up my things. The whole journey home me and Mason sat in silence it was the longest trip of my life. As soon as we pulled back into the driveway, my car now coming into view. I quickly grab my bag out the back and make my way to my car. “Y/n wait!” Mason stops me “Last night was amazing, I know you went with the guy who didn’t remember but please it must of meant something. You are the love of my life y/n. I cannot let you go again.” I start to reply but I can only let a breath out. “I-I cannot do this right now Mase” I quickly get in the car and start driving away. I can see him in the review mirror disappearing as I am make the journey home.

Its been a couple of weeks since our Italy date, Mason hasn’t attempted to message or call which has been nice that he has given me my space but I would be lying if I didn’t say I missed him. I tried to get on with my life but all I can think about was our date I know deep down no one will ever compare to Mason. Part of me wishes I never went on that date but it was so incredible I will hold that memory forever, it helped Mason get his memory back but right now I am not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

I am sat at work when my phone rings I am shocked to see Lewis ringing my phone, out of everyone I expected to see on my phone he definitely wasn’t one of them. I quickly excuse myself and answer the phone “Hey y/n, long time no speak how are you?” I am really not sure how to answer.

“Yeah I am good Lew how are you? Is everything okay? Just you are the last person I expected to see on my phone we haven’t spoken since and Mason broke up”.

“Yeah I know I am sorry about that. I know he was the one that fucked up but still hard to see my baby bro so broken you know. Honestly though y/n I was gutted about the breakup out of all the girls you have always been my favourite. I know people struggled as you were not famous and about your intentions at all but honestly I could see how much you loved him, and you made him so happy”.

It was hard for me to hear all of this, but I always got on well with Lewis. “thanks Lew that means a lot. Is everything okay though?”

“Yeah everything is okay, I just wanted to say thank you. After everything Mason put you through you still dropped everything to come and see in hospital and agreed to go on that date which brought his memory back so our family just wanted to thank you.”

“Its fine honestly I care for Mason a lot, I would of hated myself if I didn’t go. Plus that restaurant you recommended was 10/10”.

“Yeah I did say to Mason I thought you would love it. Look I know you have probably heard this speech before but-“

“Look Lew let me stop you right there because I know what you are going to say-“

“Please y/n just let me finish. Okay Mase is a mess without you. He broke up with that Brittany bitch which I was so relieved for, we could tell she was only using him for the fame. I understand he fucked up and I am not asking for you to get back with him but could you just try and be friends? He said he didn’t message you since you guys got back as everytime he messaged you, you ignore him and it breaks him all over again. I am his big brother so I gotta ask, its just he was always stronger when he was with you”.

“I don’t k-k-know, I love him so much I just cannot let myself get hurt again but because its you I promise I will think about our conversation okay”

“That’s all I ask thank you y/n. Mason was so stupid letting you go. Take care”

I reply a “You too” and then I cut the call. Now my mind is all over the place. I have no idea what to do. I quickly ring my boss and explain that I have a family emergency and explain that I got to go. Before I know it I am on my way to Manchester.

As I approach Mason’s door I go to knock then turn around, I then bring myself to knock again but stop before I do the action. What am I doing here? I turn around to walk back to the car when the door opens. “Y/n?” He must of saw me on the ring door bell.

“Sorry I don’t actually know why I am here.” I stand there staring at him. My mind is going 100 miles per hour I cannot think straight.

“Did you want to come in?” Mason moves to the side offering me inside.

“I don’t know” I continue to stand still just staring at Mason. Mason giggles.

“Well okay, I will leave the door open if you want to come in you are more then welcome.” Mason walks away and I can see him making his way into the living room. I shortly follow him in and shut the door. I slowly walk into the living room and sit down on the sofa opposite him.

“You decided to come inside, good choice” I can tell his he being cocky, I am not sure if this is to cover up his anxiousness though.

“Your brother called me-“ I start but Mason quickly replies.

“I know sorry I didn’t know he was going to do that. I promise I didn’t ask him to. I just confided in him last night. Told him how much I fucked up, and that the date the other week was the first time I have felt myself since the break up. I am sorry he shouldn’t of rung you”.

“Its okay I am glad he did, I still care about you Mason. I am sorry you are struggling”.

“Its okay it was my own fault. I really cannot hate myself anymore then I do right now. I broke up with Brittany by the way”.

“Yeah I know Lewis said, but please stop beating yourself up about what happened.  Its in the past there is no point you focusing your whole life on it.”

“You are my whole life y/n and I let you go over one stupid fight. I fucked my entire life, my entire future over one fucking silly night”.

“Mason stop come on” At this point I have now moved closer and let him cry into me. “Please stop crying.”

“Sorry I don’t want you to think I am manipulating you or anything I am just a mess”

“I am came here mase, you didn’t force me here so you are not manipulating me. I am surprised you even know what manipulating means.” And I can see both of us giggle

“You are not funny” Mason said wiping his eyes

“I am a little” Me and Mason just sit there in silence staring at eachother. Its weird to think that only a couple of weeks ago we were sat having dinner with not a care on the world and now it feels like we got the weight of it all on our shoulders.

“Y/n why did you come?”

“Honestly I don’t know. Your brother said a lot of stuff that made me realise how good we were together but I just cannot forget that night. You shattered me, I am still picking up the pieces”.

“I know baby I know, honestly if you give me a chance we can go back to the good and I promise I will spend every day making it up to you. I will never let you feel that way ever again”.

“I am just so conflicted Mase because my heart is screaming to take you back but my head is telling me to remember how you hurt me.”

“I know I hurt you y/n I know but please I will spend everyday showing you that I am worthy of your love”.

I do not reply to Mason as I have no words I learn across the sofa and place my lips onto his, he continues to kiss me back. “Does that mean you take me back?”

“This means we will see how things go. We start from the beginning again. No pressure, no expectation we just see how it goes. You were the best thing that ever happened to me I guess I should allow myself to give it  a chance.”

Mason gives me the biggest smile and continues to hug me. “Who would of known that Amnesia would of brought us together”.

I smirked at him “Well at this rate we could think that you faked the Amnesia to win me back”. I wink at him.

“Believe me baby girl if I faked it, I would of faked it a long time ago to get you back. Now come on I got a lot of making up to do” Mason said carrying me bridal style to the bedroom for a night of Mason winning me back.

[cryptidafter]

Late to the party but I wanted to share my

Top 5 GLs of 2024! (only counting shows that I watched in 2024 and that finished airing in 2024)

Affair The Series

Nobody is doing obsession like Wan and Pleng! It’s about the drama, the chemistry, the possessiveness. This show gave me everything I’ve been craving for a GL to deliver on and then some. It’s wild to me that this is the first series Lookmhee and Sonya have done together because they’re both phenomenal. These two have had me in a chokehold ever since and I am desperately begging for a new LMSY show as soon as possible!

2. The Loyal Pin

I could go on and on about how much I adored this show. It was a sleeper hit for me and I’m glad I ended up continuing it. The beginning is a bit slow but once things pick up, it’s a great story. Freen and Becky are fantastic together, they really play off of each other well. Becky had some standout moments (that fabric monologue was !!!!). The costuming and detailed set design choices really bring this show to life and I’m not even a huge fan of period dramas. Despite a few questionable story choices, I think TLP delivered on what was promised. Also shoutout to @hallowpen for their write-ups each episode. I definitely learned a lot about Thai culture and customs thanks to them which helped enhance my viewing experience.

3. The Secret Of Us

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention TSOU. This was the first GL series I watched and I haven’t looked back since. It’s cute and a bit melodramatic but in the best way. I wrote two whole fics for this show while it was airing which is proof enough of how invested I was lol. Nothing will ever be quite as unhinged as Earn eating a banana to trigger an allergic reaction just so she can get admitted to the hospital her ex-girlfriend works at. Girl was DEDICATED and I love her for that lol.

4. Blank The Series

Nobody let me know that there was an age gap GL floating around (and that the age gap was the least wild part about the dynamics in this show lol) but better late than never! I’m shocked by how fast I powered through this show but I was hooked. This is another series that fully delivered on the drama with a healthy dose of heat which I appreciated. A fun and wild ride from start to finish!

5. Reverse 4 You

I will always be a sucker for time shenanigans so I was very excited for this one. I do wish it could’ve gotten a few extra episodes to really flesh out the plot towards the end but I appreciate the show for what it is. I enjoyed the relationship between Jattawa and her little sister and that it was equally as, if not more, important than the romance. A few scenes did genuinely shock me in a good way (this was before I discovered that the “someone gets hit by a car” trope was a staple of GLs lol). We have yet to get an actual butch character in a GL but I’m happy we at least got a bit of futch action going with Four (everyone say thank you Christine Gulasatree lol)

[mimir97477906]

my lazy ass is not finishing this❤️

[missmungoe]

i genuinely foam at the mouth with every fic that you do but there has not been a single day since i found it that i havent thought about salt vows 🥹 genuinely 🥹 i reread it every other day and i cannot wait for all of the pieces to fall together! i ESPECIALLY cannot wait to see how crocodile interacts with makino 🤩 do you allow for your fics to be book bound? no pressure i was just asking bc i really want to book bind it one its done. its totally fine if you are not comfortable with it ���

HI, this was such a boost!! My main objective this summer was to finish Tideswept, and now that I have I'm considering which update to tackle next (it's between On the Water, Salt Vows, Bind Me to the Tide and Heart and Anchor), and because I am shamelessly susceptible to encouragement (rereading it every other day!!), this made me really excited to work on Salt Vows! I'm so happy you're enjoying it so far, and I hope you'll like where I take it<3

And as long as you're not doing it to make money, I am totally okay with people binding my fics! I consider that to be an incredible honour, and the fact that someone would want something I wrote bound on their shelf like a proper book is one of the greatest compliments I can imagine. The only thing I would ask is to see a picture when you're done!

[skitskatdacat63]

Re: Chair Lore: Where is the Chair From?

I was joking about the seat looking like a sim chair, but after doing some research, I'm almost 100% sure they just took seats from a 2012 Ferrari 458 and put them on plexiglass platforms 😭

I couldn't find any pics that look *exactly* like the chair itself, but I think these are pretty similar, no?

It's going to bug me so much that I can't find the exact chair UGH, like with the white stripe in the middle, you know? But yes anyways, this is my theory.

*fyi, I'm planning a drawing with this chair and my thought process with finding reference is always "this has to be exactly perfect and 100% accurate" so thats why I'm being incredibly specific and over-detailed about this 😭 please don't think I'm weird

[truethes]

spent last night / a lot of today reading a few hs.r theories and tbh there's like two that has an effect on my characters / their portrayal that i wanna mention below incase it adds more to any future / existing dynamics !

a.) the ten stonehearts sapphire is, infact, guinaifens brother. my personal hc is that she has no clue but he values order above all else following what happened to their planet. still, he does keep an eye on her streams and competitions! ( has definitely been late to a meeting or two because of them too ... )

b.) luoch.a is an enamator of the abundance, but a pathstrider of the hunt. i will expand on this further but it probs means he holds the blessing of a long life species, even though he isn't particularly interested as such.

[kuromi-hoemie]

kinda wanna try hunting down all the lynels in totk. ever since i killed that silver one in the depths I'm just like wait omg i wanna go back and find those mfs who were giving me a hard time 😤🤺 ← she wants 2 dance !!!

[eyepatchdate]

i only have the dlc left on arkham origins now yay :)  spent today finishing up quests and collectables.  LOVED that the last quest was gordon calling us because barbara told us he should.  prime.

also did all the anarky tags and the plinkley stuff...the latter of which was sort of weird ngl.  but i love my boy amadeus getting mentioned.  thats my bestie.

i guess the concept art gallery is connected to challenges/the special other level stuff (gotham protector etc) which is a shame. theres so much stuff i dont have.  i didnt realize those couldn’t be done in challenge modes so i fucked myself on the stealth tree and cant finish it without ng+.  ng+ is hard so like.  i probably won’t even do it? sort of a pain you cant reset the story on normal difficulty. i just cant do it lol.  i also didnt want to do the final gotham protector thing because i read theres glitches in getting a crime in progress to spawn on the bridge so thats a issue for ng+ too.  if i ever do it.

[immortalsins]

one more unit of my whole-year maths for eng module and then its nothing but revision from here on out ... cannot wait to finish it & would love to do that today but unfortuantely it is statistics II

[starryjake]

thinking about toxic situationship!heeseung :(

you’re by far his favorite out of all the girls he fucks but he’s too cocky to let you know that. in the back of your mind, though, you know. you can’t imagine that he takes his other girls out for late night ramen or lets them sit on his lap and watch him play video games.

you can’t imagine he’s as gentle and sweet during aftercare with anyone else. in fact, you really hope he isn’t. you hope he kicks out all the other girls he sleeps with as soon as he’s done with them. you hope that he doesn’t let them spend the night like he does with you, even going as far as to make you breakfast or take you out the next day.

every time he’s with another girl, he can’t stop thinking about fucking annoying they are and can’t help himself from comparing them to you. he knows you would be so much better: better at sucking his dick, better at riding him, just your pussy in general was better.

he’d text you when he was hanging out with other girls, not even waiting for them to leave the room but doing it right next to them. he didn’t care if they could see, even when he was texting you about how bad they were and how he wished he were with you instead.

heeseung: this blows

y/n: whys that?

heeseung: bc she isn’t you baby

y/n: you could always leave and come over :)

heeseung: aww my girl wants me to ditch this chick and come fuck her instead? is that what you want, little princess?

y/n: fuck hee…please :(

he could not say no to you. 10 minutes later and he’s ditched the random girl he was with and was instead pounding you into your mattress, grunting loudly as you clenched around him.

“fuck yeah, baby,” he moaned, hips drilling into you. “you’re such a good girl. so much fucking better than anyone else.”

and you took it so well, eating up every last word.

he also loved that you didn’t talk to any other guys. you just wanted him and only him so, so badly, and maybe if he did relationships, he would choose you to be his girlfriend. but, he didn’t date and he made sure you were aware of that from the start your situationship. but the point was, he loved that you were still loyal to him, not even wanting to talk to another guy because they just weren’t heeseung. no one did it like him.

no one ate you out until you were squirting everywhere and shaking like he did. no one fucked you until your eyes were rolling into the back of your head and drooling onto his sheets like he did. no one made you feel like passing out from intense pleasure like heeseung.

you liked him. you were probably in love with him. you hated knowing he saw other girls and he loved knowing it made you upset. he loved knowing that you liked him enough to get so jealous of other girls.

again, he would never tell you that he couldn’t give less of a shit about the other girls. in fact, he would purposely use them just to make you jealous, fucking them for the sole reason of knowing you would hate it. your jealousy was what got him off because it showed that you cared about him, that you wanted him all to yourself.

he thought about you every time he thrusted his cock inside another girl’s pussy. he thought about how much tighter you were than them. how much warmer, wetter, and more delicious you were.

heeseung liked you a lot too. he was also probably in love with you and he realized that when he was finishing on the tits of someone else and moaned out your name instead of theirs.

-

like sorry i just needed to get this off my chest bc heeseung is FUCKING WITH ME TODAY!!

anyway how are y’all? :3

[asahicore]

fast forward - pjs

pairing. jay x fem!reader

synopsis. After yet another romantic disappointment in the form of one Jake Sim, you go to the well you’ve always believed to grant wishes and ask for your one and true love to appear. That night, you go to sleep in your bed but wake up in a strange house. When you head downstairs, you find a man washing the dishes and telling you your favorite meal is waiting on the table for you. You’ve spent hours glaring at the back of that head, you could recognize it anywhere—it belongs to none other than Park Jongseong, your high school sworn enemy... and future husband, or so it seems.

genre+warnings. high school au, the type of e2l where they never really hated each other to begin with, they act like they're academic rivals even though they're not particularly academically gifted, jay has a thing about german the language, sunoo and kazuha besties, heeseung is a loser, jake and sunghoon are assholes sorry, ive liz is german, 02z get into a white-boy locker-room fight, attempts at banter etc, they're a little bit silly

word count. 26.6k

a/n. had the idea for this listening to fast forward by somi LAST SUMMER... and only wrote it this summer and only posting it now <3 i hope u guys enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it !!!!! jay is an absolute cutie here pls love him as much as i do.... as always let me know what u think and remember to vote for @zreamy president in the upcoming elections, shes the only one i trust to beta-read and hence to run a country <3 no it doesnt matter that shes scottish put this woman in the white house

There is only one thorn on the otherwise immaculate rose that is your life.

Every morning, you wake up feeling refreshed from eight hours of restful sleep. You go downstairs to the kitchen, a boiling cup of milky Earl Grey tea already waiting for you, and eat breakfast with your brother Jinwoo and father. Your mom dashes in, placing a kiss on your and Jinwoo’s foreheads, and on your dad’s lips, saying she’s late for work but will see you in the evening. “Have fun at school,” she bids every morning without fail. Your dad teaches Korean Literature at your school, so the three of you drive there together. He watches amusedly as you and Jinwoo bicker light-heartedly on the way there—even in the pits of his puberty, you and your brother get along like two peas in a pod. He still tells you about everything he learns at school and fills you in on the drama in his class, up-to-date with everything even though he pretends not to be interested.

You’re always one of the first to arrive at school, so you scroll through your feed or finish up some homework as you wait for your classmates to file in. Your friends circle your table and you chat about the last episode of the show you’ve been watching until the bell rings and they leave you for their assigned seat.

Class starts with your teacher handing out the math tests you took last week. “Jay and Y/N, great job, keep it up,” he says as he walks past you and the boy in front of you, and hands you your paper. Relief floods your body as you take in the bright red 82 in the top right-hand corner—not the best of the class, but enough for you to be satisfied. 

Good friends, good grades—nothing extraordinary, but it’s a life you dare say any high school senior would want.

There’s just that one thing. The thorn in your side that won’t stop poking.

You glare at it as it whips around in its seat and takes a peek at the grade on your paper before you get to snatch it away from view. It only gives you three seconds to rejoice over your grade. 

“Aw, Y/N. Good effort! Maybe you’ll do better next time!” Jongseong coos, holding up his test for you to see and glare even harder at. 85. Not that big of a difference, but it makes you want to punch the faux sympathetic pout off of his face. 

You’re about to spit something just as petty back at him, but someone whispers your name, and you turn your head in their direction. Beside you, Jake is smiling at you as he asks what grade you got. Your attention is swiftly taken off of Jongseong, whom you don’t even notice dramatically rolling his eyes, huffing in annoyance, and turning around. 

“82,” you whisper back, holding up your paper for Jake to see. His friendly, absurdly handsome smile makes your ears burn. “You?”

The corners of his lips fall down into a sad pout—the kind that makes your heart melt rather than gets on your nerves like someone else. “68,” he says. Leans in over the gap between your tables. Your heart jumps uncontrollably around your rib cage. “Do you wanna go over it together during the break? I think I need some help.”

One-on-one time with Jake Sim? You don’t need to be asked twice. You nod silently, almost mesmerized by Jake as his grin widens. He leans back in his chair. “Perfect. I’ll see you in the library, then.”

“Library, yeah,” you echo dumbly, but thankfully, your teacher tells you to all quiet down and starts the lesson. 

You’re antsy all throughout the rest of your morning classes and lunch break, so nervous that you barely manage to finish your yogurt. Of course, your friends, Sunoo and Kazuha, have a field day with this, and even you can’t help but laugh along as they jump between reassuring you that it’ll be fine, slapping your shoulders with excitement and making fun of your uncharacteristic quietness.

Jake arrives at the library five minutes after you, looking around the room before he finds you at the big round table in the back of the library. Your brain is too riddled with anxiety for you to make more small talk than “Hey,” “Hey,” “How was your lunch?” “Good, yours?” “Good.” And so you just jump straight into it.

You’ve only had a couple minutes of quiet explanation on your part and heavy nodding on Jake’s when Jay appears at the entrance of the library. He spots you and Jake immediately, and without any hesitation whatsoever heads towards you and sits down at your table, right across from the two of you.

“Hey, Jay,” Jake greets in a friendly manner, but Jay only responds with a nod of his head.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” he says when he notices you glaring. “I won’t bother you.”

As if he could be anything other than a bother, you think, but courteously keep to yourself. The childish rivalry you and Jongseong have got going on has no business spoiling a rare hour of alone time you get with Jake. As you go over the exercises he had the most trouble with on the test with you, your eyes often drift over to Jongseong as if to check on him—you’re cautious like he’s a spider in the corner of the room that might spring on you at any moment.

And indeed, the moment your gaze leaves him for more than a minute as you explain an intricate theorem to Jake, he’s out of sight, and panic shoots through you. Where the hell has he suddenly gone off to? you wonder, but not for long.

“There’s a much easier way to do this, really,” says a voice from behind you, and of course, it’s none other than Jongseong himself, quite literally butting his way into your tutoring session. Right between you and Jake, he bends over and rests his elbows on the table, taking Jake’s pencil from him and describing the theorem in a way that isn’t that much simpler. Your eyes shoot bullets into the side of his face while he, unbothered, explains this and that to Jake, who glances at you a couple of times but otherwise does not seem so perturbed by the sudden change of tutor. Either Jongseong doesn’t notice your glare or doesn’t care, because he doesn’t budge.

Just when they’re done with the exercise and you think you’ll get Jake to yourself again, another voice appears from behind, a much higher, girlier one. You notice the hand on Jake’s shoulder first, until slowly, your eyes drift to the face—you recognize Yunjin, head of the cheerleading squad, and she’s smiling at you, a smile that at once tries to cover and betrays her surprise at seeing you and Jake together. She doesn’t acknowledge you any more than that, gaze going back to “Jakey,” asking him if he wants to head to class together. You check the time—five minutes before the first bell rings. What do they need so much time getting to class for? It’s not like any room in this school is more than a three-minute walk away.

But Jake doesn’t even look back at you, just says “Sure!” with far too much enthusiasm for your taste as he packs his stuff. “Thanks, you two,” he says, looking at Jay first, then at you. You think his eyes linger on you for a second, but just like that, he’s gone, him and Yunjin walking side-by-side.

You watch them leave—they look good together, the cheerleading captain and the soccer team’s star. The white Vans she’s wearing have a bunch of red love hearts on them that look drawn on, and you think, Of course, Jake is the type to date someone cute, someone fun, someone who would draw on their shoes. Not someone like you, whose idea of a good Friday night is lighting up a scented candle and reading your favorite novel for the nth time. When they’ve left the library, you slump in your seat, crumpling the sheet of paper you had drawn a bunch of graphs and formulae on to make things clearer for Jake. Jay awkwardly clears his throat and finally returns to his seat, looking at you with his lips pressed in a tight line.

“Y/N?” he asks tentatively, and the sound is too much to bear, so you pack your things and head to your next class early, too. Your mind is racing with a million thoughts a minute—who is that girl to Jake, how come you’ve never seen them together before, how come he was so eager to leave with her, what was that smile she gave you about? In the fifty-five minutes of your biology class, which you uncharacteristically don’t pay any attention to, you’ve convinced yourself that they are crazy in love and that none of Jake’s actions or words towards you had ever meant anything, that you’d liked him so much you’d dreamt up the possibility of his liking you back, too.

Your next lesson starts—the smile Jake gives you as he walks into History is so bright, it dissipates any clouds hanging over your head. You do believe in male-female friendships, but despite yourself, you can’t help but think that anyone in a relationship wouldn’t give someone else such a perfect, warm smile. It just wouldn’t be right. And so, you reason with yourself that simply walking to a class together didn’t mean two people were a couple.

For an hour, you stare at the back of Jake’s head, and although you do eventually come to the more sensible conclusion that a smile may just be a smile, you also think it's unlikely that he and Yunjin would be a thing. If they were, why would they hide it? Jake is so nice, you wouldn’t be surprised if he’d exaggerated his enthusiasm upon seeing her. You’re sure you still have your chances. He even says see you tomorrow when class is over and slips out of the room to go to soccer practice. 

You feel like you’re walking on cloud 9 as you head from History to your next class—but when you remember that the next class is German, your mood drops significantly. Because the universe has it out for you, you and Jay are two of just ten students in your year taking German as your second foreign language option, everyone else having gone for either French, Japanese or Spanish. Your reasoning for it is that your dad has had an obsession with Germany since his year abroad in Bavaria, and twelve-year-old you had wanted to make him happy. Eighteen-year-old you regrets it slightly, but at least now your dad is ecstatic every time you tell him in German that the dinner he made was really tasty. Why Jongseong decided to take it beats you—he’s probably just insane.

But because you don’t really know anyone else in the class, and because it’s your last period of the day, you have no friends to run off with once the lesson is over, and he gets to bother you all the way from the classroom door to the staff parking lot. 

You’ve barely finished bidding Auf Wiedersehen to your teacher and Jongseong is already harassing you. “So, I didn’t take you as the type to be into guys like Jake Sim.” He says Jake’s name with such disdain, like he thinks he’s so much better than him, or like he hates him. It confuses you just as much as it annoys you; Jongseong didn’t seem to have a problem with Jake earlier at the library.

“And that’s your business, because…?”

You don’t look at Jongseong, who’s quickened his pace to keep up with yours, but you can feel the smirk on his face. It’s insufferable. “Oh, it’s none of my business. I’m just surprised, is all. You guys are so… I don’t know, different.”

You scoff. “If you think I’m not good enough for someone like Jake, I’d rather you tell me straight up, Jongseong. Or actually,” you say, looking up at him with a dry smile. “Keep it to yourself and leave me alone.”

He looks offended by your words, and it only adds to your already immense annoyance—he’s the one who just insulted you, so why is he looking at you with those stupid furrowed eyebrows?

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t need to.”

“No, Y/N.” He grabs your wrist and makes you face him, your stomach flipping in surprise that you quickly cover up. When he releases you, you cross your arms over your chest and wait for him to speak, keeping your eyes trained on a spot behind him. “I don’t think he’s too good for you.” 

This makes you look at him. You have to admit, your curiosity is piqued. Not like Jongseong to say anything even vaguely in your favor. “He’s just…” He sighs, searches for the right word. “Well, he’s just a bit of a dick, isn’t he?”

You freeze for a second. You’re so taken aback, your scoff comes out more as a laugh—Park Jongseong, king supreme of all dicks at this school, just called Jake Sim a dick?

“I’m sorry?”

He sighs again, as though you’re the unreasonable one. “He’s so… smug. A wannabe class clown and thinks he’s the shit because he’s on the soccer team. Have you seen the way he swaggers around school?”

You look at him with fake sympathy. “Jong, are you jealous?”

“Pfft. No way. I just think it’s a shame you keep going after these dudes who are not even worth your time, or whatever, so yeah…” he says, voice trailing off and looking down at his feet as he speaks. Hands in pockets and blank expression on his face, you can tell he’s trying to look cool, but the way he’s avoiding your gaze is a dead give-away. Even his ears have turned red. Jongseong is having one of those shy moments he has when he’s trying to be nice to you. Clearly, a simple act of kindness towards you is so hard for him that it radically changes the way he behaves. 

Like when you were fifteen and you just couldn’t get this stupid art project right, so he stayed behind for three hours after school with you, helping you draw and paint and cut and glue. 

Like when you were sixteen and your grandma just passed away, making you miss a week of school, and without a word, barely looking at you, he gave you a stack of handwritten notes of all the lessons you missed. To this day, you’re not sure how he did it—you weren’t in the same class that year.

Like when you were seventeen and Park Sunghoon rejected you in the middle of a crowded hallway. You’d run off to the girls’ bathroom to cry it out, but Jongseong quickly found you and spent the entire period cursing Sunghoon out instead of being in English, like you were both meant to be. He was uncharacteristically nice to you for a few days after that, never starting an argument for no reason or interrupting you when you spoke. When you snapped at him, telling him it only made you feel worse that he treated you differently, he smiled and told you how stupid you looked when you cried. It made you laugh more than it should’ve.

Like now, when he suddenly decides that Jake Sim is also a wrong choice for you. “Him and Sunghoon are good friends, you know that?” he says. “Birds of a feather, and all…”

So you know that Jongseong is not all bad. He has his redeeming qualities. He can even be nice sometimes, when he so wishes. But those moments are so few and far between that when he returns to his usual insufferable self, you wonder if you’d dreamt it all up. Which is why you can’t quite take him seriously right now. You roll your eyes and resume walking towards the parking lot, but of course, he continues to follow you. “Why do you even care who I go after?”

“I don’t-”

“You clearly do, otherwise you wouldn’t be bothering me like this.”

“Well, if all your attention is taken up by that douche, who am I going to go up against?”

“That’s what you’re worried about? That I stop arguing with you?” you say, disbelief clear in your voice.

“I’m offended, Y/N,” he starts, his sarcastic tone making you roll your eyes again. “That our little rivalry matters so little to you.”

“We’re not even the top students of our class, for God’s sake, we’re not fighting over anything.”

“I’ve actually got the best grades in German, thanks very much.”

“Whatever. I wouldn’t call it a rivalry so much as a mutual dislike of each other, because one of us woke up one day and decided to start going against everything the other said.”

“At least you’re self-aware.”

The exit to the parking lot now appears to you like the gates of heaven. You don’t even bother replying to him, thinking that he’ll just leave you alone now that you’re here. But as you step outside, he places himself in front of you and blocks your path, arms splayed out, eyes wide like he’s just seen a ghost.

“What are you-”

“Have you done the German homework for tomorrow?”

The sudden change of subject gives you whiplash. “What? No, Miss Schumacher assigned it just now-”

“Well, given your tendency for getting the word order all wrong, I can already tell you you’re not gonna have fun with it-”

You pinch the nose of your bridge, trying to calm yourself down before you lose what’s remaining of your mind. “Jongseong, were you actually dropped on the head as a baby? Go away. My dad’s gonna be here any second.” You try to walk around him, but he steps in front of you again. You peer up at him, undisguised annoyance in your eyes. Where are your dad and brother when you need them?

“I’m just saying, you’ll probably need help with it-”

“I won’t. And if I do, I’ll just use Google. Now get out of my way,” you say, and manage to duck under one of his arms.

Then you see it.

Well, actually, it takes you a second to understand what it is you’re seeing. At first, you think it’s one of those horny couples thinking they’re being really discreet by going to the staff parking lot to make out, when in reality they could be caught by any one at any time. They’re just far enough that when you do a double take, you realize that you do know the back of that head; that fluffy mop of brown hair. You sit behind it every History period, next to it every Maths and English period.

The girl is up against the wall, and you can’t really see her, what with her and Jake’s tongues being down each other’s throat and his body blocking her from your view, his hands on her hips, her arms around his shoulders. All the works. She’s wearing a cheerleader uniform, so she could be any of twenty girls—but you’re pretty sure only one of them wears a pair of white Vans with red love hearts on them.

Your heart sinks to your stomach.

You’re frozen in place when a whistle rings in the distance, and Jake and Yunjin separate, giggling to each other as they jog to wherever the sound came from. The sports field, probably. It’s Monday; the cheerleaders and the soccer team share the field for their practice. 

Jake spots you and Jongseong staring at them. He waves quickly, awkwardly at you, still smiling even when surprise coats his features. Yunjin tugs on his hand and just like that, they’re gone. 

“Y/N-” 

Jay’s voice fades in the background. You want to get away from this situation as quickly as possible—it’s embarrassing enough seeing the guy you like and thought you had a chance with kissing a girl that is arguably much more on his level than you are, but having Jongseong of all people not only witness it, but try to protect you from it, God knows why, makes it impossibly mortifying. You speed-walk to your dad’s car, huffing as you plop in your seat and slamming the door behind you. Your brother is already sitting in the passenger seat, and you don’t even argue with him about it. When you only give single-word replies to his questions, he shrugs and returns to playing Clash of Clans on his phone. 

The moment you get home, you fish a five cent coin from your purse, change into mud boots and grab your dog’s leash. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

After half-an-hour of trudging through leaves and soft ground, muddy from many a rainy November night, you and Pablo, your massive, fluffy airhead of a German Shepherd, find yourselves at the well in the middle of the forest. Ever since you were little, you have attributed magic powers to the well—not that anyone told you any sort of myth about it, but you remember reading a story about a magic well and decided that your well would be magical, too. You’ve never wanted to abuse its powers, so you’ve used your wishes conscientiously: things like getting a certain present at Christmas (when you were nine and the most important thing ever was getting the Monster High doll you wanted) or not stuttering during your presentation in class (when you really didn’t want to embarrass yourself in front of Park Sunghoon and his cool friends). Every wish you’ve made has come true. Whenever a faint voice of reason tells you that it’s because you always ask for very realistic things, you squash it and continue to believe in the well.

Because today, you’re not asking for something realistic. 

Today, you’re asking the well to show you the way to love.

You’ve grown up watching The Notebook and Pride & Prejudice. Your parents are high school sweethearts who are still, twenty-five years later, happily married. You devour romance novels and binge-watch Asian dramas, the more unrealistic and romantic, the better. You are convinced that soulmates exist, that love always finds a way, that it is there for anyone to see. That it can take form in a childhood friend, an archnemesis, a total stranger.  

But for some reason, it hasn’t shown itself to you yet, no matter how valiantly you’ve looked. 

You’re absolutely sick and tired of it. It is Jake kissing another girl, it’s Sunghoon leading you on for months and then rejecting you in front of everyone, it’s your ex-boyfriend-who-shall-not-be-named, your first love and first heartbreak, dumping you after a year and getting with the girl he had told you not to worry about a week later. At a party a few months later, he’d said, word for word, “At least I didn’t cheat on you.”

Coin lodged between your hands, you interlace your fingers and press your palms closely together, eyes screwed shut in desperation. “Hey,” you start simply, because you and the well are good friends. “It’s been a while since I’ve asked for anything, so I hope you can indulge me… This is gonna sound so cliché, but I’m really tired of getting fucked over by boys — excuse my French — and I just wanna meet the person who’s right for me, you know? Mom’s always reminding me that I’m only eighteen, and that I’ve got plenty of time to meet someone, but I just feel like if I don’t find someone now, I never will. And if I get fucked over again — sorry — I’ll just lose hope and write off men for the rest of my life. So help a girl out, will you? I’ll leave it to you how you wanna go about it, but… just show me that there’s someone out there. Please.”

When you open your eyes, you need a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. You toss the coin in the well. It doesn’t make a sound as it hits the bottom, as if it has been absorbed within the old brick walls. You know better than to question it—the well works in mysterious ways.

You’re quiet that entire evening, making up an excuse of a tiring day at school when your parents ask. Really, you’re just thinking about your wish, whether it’ll work, what might happen. You half-ass your homework—Jay was right, the German exercises throw you into a bout of despair, so you quickly close your textbook and bury yourself in your sheets, falling asleep hours earlier than you usually would.

--

For some reason, the first thing you notice when you wake up is that it’s still dark outside. It must be the middle of the night, you think. It takes you a few seconds to realize that you’re in a completely strange room.

Instead of your floral-patterned sheets, you find yourself covered by delicate silk sheets that your parents would never agree to buy you, no matter how adamantly you argued for the benefits of silk for your skin. If skincare experts online had convinced you of one thing, it was that silk would do wonders for your obstinate acne. You slide out of bed and find a pair of slippers on the floor, as if waiting for you. Even the pajamas you’re wearing are fancier, more grown up than the ones you have at home, a set composed of a pinstriped button-up and shorts. You look around, for some reason more surprised and curious than panicked. You could’ve been kidnapped, for all you know, but all you care about right now is this room. Rather than the pink and white walls that have surrounded you since childhood, covered with pictures of you and your friends, postcards of artwork bought at museums, and posters of your favorite movies, the walls here are beige and mostly bare, except for a painting of Japanese cherry blossoms above the bed and a family portrait on the opposite wall, above a wooden chest of drawers. 

The family portrait. A woman, a man, and what you can only assume are their children. They look like twins—two girls. Can’t be older than three years old. Out of the four faces, you recognize two of them. You recognize them far too well. One of them is yours, of course. You look slightly older, by a decade, maybe? You’re glad to know that you won’t fall off after twenty-five, like much of social media has led you to believe. 

The other face you recognize immediately, too, but it takes you a few seconds to truly believe it.

It belongs to none other than Park Jongseong.

A dry chuckle falls from your throat, as if someone has just made a very insulting joke at your expense and you have to pretend you find it funny. The well has a very odd sense of humor, you think. It’s probably just a prank, a magic-induced nightmare before the real thing. Except this already feels real, disorientingly so. The fabric on your skin, the picture, the room. It all feels too real, more tangible than any dream you’ve ever had.

You take a step closer towards the picture, as if looking at it harder will make Jongseong’s face fade into that of another man, the real man that will become your husband and father of your children. But alas, his features remain the same, frozen in time by the photographer’s camera. He, too, looks older—and not only does he not fall off after twenty-five, he becomes all the more handsome for it.

Is this how you find out that Jongseong was handsome all along? You stare at it until the familiar face becomes practically unrecognizable, like repeating a word so much it stops feeling like one. The straight nose, the almond-shaped eyes that seem to have softened overtime, whereas his jaw has remained as sharp as ever. Have his eyebrows always framed his face so perfectly? Has that dimple always been there? 

You look around again, and the bright numbers on the bedside alarm clock catches your attention. They read 9:57 p.m., but it’s the date that makes your stomach sink—today is still the 18th of November, but ten years later. You stare at the clock, at the unfamiliar number, a date so far into the future you can’t wrap your head around it. You could barely envision life after high school.

Downstairs, the sudden clang of pots and the sound of a tap running manage to rip your gaze away from the alarm clock. An overwhelming curiosity tells you to follow the noise. This is all a dream, so there are no consequences if you explore a bit more, right? 

You’ve never been in this house before, and you have no idea where your feet are taking you until you find yourself in the kitchen. It’s the only lit room in the house, and you’re creepily standing in the dark under a wide archway that connects the kitchen to what looks like the dining room. A man has his back to you, washing dishes and putting them out to dry on a rack next to the sink. He’s wearing a white cotton sweater, one that you feel you recognise without ever having seen before, and a brown apron is tied around his neck and waist. 

The first thing you think to yourself is Oh, his haircut hasn’t changed. In almost every class you share with him, Jongseong has made it a point to sit either next to you or right in front of you, so you’ve spent a lot of time glaring at the back of his head. You wouldn’t be surprised if he started developing two eye-shaped bald spots there. His hair is still short and spiky at the back and on the sides, longer on the top. When he lets it grow too long, it sometimes covers his eyes, and he obnoxiously keeps having to push it back like a heartthrob in an 80s movie. 

Something like a memory flashes through your mind, blurry like those images you aren’t sure came from a dream or from real life. Your surroundings are unclear, but Jay’s face is nestled against your neck, your hand in his hair. You can feel the softness of the close shave against your palm as clearly as if you were touching it right now. You ask him why he’s always kept it that way, and he replies that it’s simple to maintain. Then in classic Jay fashion, he adds, “And it makes me look awesome.”

Another memory, a clearer one, this time—this definitely happened. It’s halfway through sophomore year, a random Tuesday, and Jay walks in, holding his head high and looking smugly around himself. The bastard got a new haircut. Long gone, his messy, unorganized flop of black hair that looked like it didn’t know what it was doing; hello, sleek undercut. It accentuates all of his best features, which is terrible news for you. You had never even thought of Jongseong as someone having “best” features, but now they’re being thrown in your face. His nose. His jawline. His smile.

It ruins your day, and a few after that. You can’t quite put it into words when your friends ask what’s wrong at lunch—or rather, you don’t wanna face the humiliation of uttering something along the lines of “Park Jongseong looks good with his new haircut, and it’s bothering me.”

Here, it’s a familiar sight in an unfamiliar environment, the back of his head. Without really thinking, you take a step forward. Jongseong starts at the sound of your slippers against the marble floor tiles, but his face relaxes into a smile when he sees you.

“Oh, it’s just you, honey. I thought you were sleeping.”

Just you. As if the two of you being in the same kitchen is normal. You guess it must be, to this version of Jongseong. To him, you’re not the annoying girl he strives to best in every class—you’re honey. 

“I was,” you say, walking around the kitchen island to join him by the sink. Something in you needs to look at him, really look at him, maybe pinch yourself or pinch him to be sure you’re not going crazy. Maybe you caught wafts of some ancient algae that lives in the well and made you hallucinate?

“I left a plate out for you in case you woke up. Made your favorite. The girls weren’t so happy, seeing as it’s the third time this month,” he says with the special kind of smile reserved for parents talking about their children. The girls. A mention so casual, so obvious, your heart hurts. “But I think I got it really right this time,” he continues. “Honestly, it might even be better than the original.”

He goes back to washing the dishes and you watch the sponge in his hands as it scrubs away tomato sauce, the soap as it runs from the plates into the sink. A knot forms in your stomach, something like a deep sadness that overwhelms you all of a sudden, and tears form in your eyes, threatening to fall any second.

When you haven’t budged in almost a minute, Jongseong starts to say, in an intimate, almost worried voice, “Aren’t you going to eat, honey?” but when he sees your wet eyes, the tremble in your lower lip, he shuts the water immediately and dries his hands. With his thumbs, he wipes away the tears that have started falling from your eyes. “What’s wrong?” he whispers.

You can’t reconcile the man in front of you with the image you have of the boy that torments you in every class you share. You can’t reconcile the genuine concern in his voice with the snarky tone you’re met with every day. And yet, they respond to the same name, their features are identical, if not for the years that separate them, the stress of adulthood on one and the carefreeness of youth on the other. 

Your body reacts automatically to the soft touch—never in a million years would you let the Jongseong you know come near you like this, but here, nothing feels more natural than his hands on your face, your shoulders, your hair, as though they’re just as much his as they are yours. You realize the emotion in your stomach is not sadness—tears fall, but you’re not sad. You’ve never felt as home as you do now, and if one thing romantic novels have taught you, is that this must be love.

You look up at the man in front of you, eyebrows furrowed as you search his face for confirmation or some sort of an answer. There’s a tremble in your voice when you speak next. “I just… I think I love you, Jongseong.”

He chuckles. “Well, we established that a while ago, didn’t we? What with getting married and having kids. But I’m glad you still feel that way.”

The mention of marriage and children doesn’t faze you nearly as much as it should. You’ve only got one thing on your mind. “Do you love me too?”

You expect him to laugh—not out of cruelty, but because the answer is so obvious, it almost doesn’t deserve to be answered seriously. Like when your brother asks if he can have one more of your cookies and you tell him you’ll cut his hand off. Sometimes you think it’s easier to be sarcastic than be unabashedly nice to someone. Especially with Jongseong, whom you don’t expect kindness or patience from, you wait for him to stay something like, “No, that’s why I’ve stayed with you these eight years.” 

So when instead, he says, “More than anything on this Earth,” voice low and vulnerable, tears flow even harder. 

“Sorry, it’s probably just my period,” you say through sobs, although you have no idea where in her menstrual cycle this version of you is.

Jongseong chuckles again, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “You do get emotional around this time.” And you cry more, because you can’t believe someone other than your mother knows you so well that they know what your period symptoms are.

Rubbing soothing circles against your back and whispering soft words in your ear, he holds you for as long as you need to calm down. When you finally do, he tells you to go sit on the couch, that he’ll finish up the dishes then heat and bring your food for you. You think you’ve got your emotions under control, but the moment you bite the pasta, cooked to perfection with the most succulent tomato sauce you’ve ever had, sweet with a little kick of spice and a generous amount of parmesan cheese, tears start to fall again as if you had an endless stock of water behind your eyes.

“This is so good,” you mumble.

Jongseong smiles, his gaze full of affection miraculously directed at you as he tucks away strands of your hair so they don’t get in your eyes or in your food. “I’m glad, baby.”

You react to the nickname viscerally, words tumbling out of your mouth before you can even understand them. “You haven’t called me that in ages.” You widen your eyes at yourself, wondering how this was something you even knew. But when you look at Jongseong, all he does is smile more.

“You’re right, I haven’t. I guess I was reminded of college. You cried all the time back then. As much as it pained me, I can’t say I wasn’t happy to be the one you always came to for comfort.”

You haven’t been through college yet, so you should be unable to tell whether this truly happened or not—and yet, the memories of the body you’re in all confirm what Jongseong just said. But it feels impossible—going to university with him, letting yourself be vulnerable enough with him to not only cry in front of him but let him comfort you. Whatever could have happened in the years between the present you know and your time at university for things to change so drastically?

But before you can make sense of any of it, Jongseong speaks again. “Why? Do you like it when I call you baby?”

Your stomach flips. Heat rises to your face at his words, the tone with which he said them, the things he was alluding to—you know that having children means you’d popped your cherry at some point, that you’d had sex with Jongseong specifically, but to be confronted with the fact was something else. 

“Maybe,” you mumble, and proceed to stuff your mouth with pasta so that you can’t incriminate yourself further.

He puts on a recent movie, something you should arguably be paying attention to, since you’re literally getting a glimpse into the future of cinema—you could steal the idea, go back to your present and sell it for an outrageous price.

But Jongseong’s presence next to you makes it impossible to concentrate on anything but him. The warmth emanating from him, the scent of his perfume envelop you, give you a sense of just how real this all is—despite how comfortable being with him like this feels, you’re still not convinced you’re not just in an unsettlingly vivid dream. You take one of his hands in yours, examining each finger, turning his hand over, tracing the lines of his palm, smoothing your thumb over his nails—it’s an undeniably human hand. Warm against yours, slightly rough. He’s started using hand cream, you think, all these winters when his dry hands would crack because of the cold coming up to your mind, teenage Jongseong’s hard refusal to wear any sort of cream to protect himself. Memories bob up to the surface: fixing his cracked hands up with a plaster, your tear falling on his hand, the both of you in your school uniforms in what looks like the school infirmary; awkwardly gifting him some hand cream the Christmas of that year, not looking at him as you hand him the small package. Saying, “It’s a waste of plasters for something that could be fixed so easily.” Him treating you to warm, spicy tteokbokki because he felt bad for not having gotten you anything, even though this was the first time either of you had ever given the other one a present.

As your fingers trail up from his hand to his forearm, his shoulder, his jawline, more memories flood your mind. Clumsy first kisses; squabbles of the kind you were already used to; lazy mornings in bed; hours spent in your kitchen or his, before you shared one, cooking dinner together; the way you felt when he proposed, a feeling so intense remembering it is almost unbearable now. Your eyes and fingers examine his face in detail—even though you’ve seen him almost every day since the start of high school, this feels like the first time you really perceive him. The delicate bow of his lips, the strong nose, the softness in his eyes when he looks at you. Your heart beats uncontrollably as you hold each other’s gazes, but you feel inexplicably relaxed at the same time, two nearly opposing realities fighting each other inside of you—one in which you and Jongseong regarding each other with such affection is unthinkable, the other in which it is daily routine.

“Movie not to your taste?” he asks, voice gentle, breaking you out of your stupor.

“Hm?”

He nods towards the TV screen. “I see you’re not paying much attention.”

“No. I have… things on my mind.”

He raises an eyebrow, a smirk slowly growing on his lips. “Yeah?” You think your heart might actually flatline when he brings you in closer to his chest, and, face buried in your hair, says, “You know, I’ve been thinking that the twins might want a younger sibling to play with soon enough…”

You’re not sure whether he actually wants a third child or if this is weird dirty talk that apparently turns parents on—all you know is that this is something future you will deal with, not high school senior you. 

You whip up your head at him, eyes wide in panic that he mirrors immediately. “Or—or not. Later. Later?” You nod fervently, and the worry dissipates from his handsome features. “Okay, later,” he whispers, kissing the top of your head before returning his attention to the movie. 

A couple hours later, you’re laying in bed in the dark together—you can tell Jongseong is falling asleep by the regularity of his breathing and his stillness, but you’re wide awake. You don’t know how you’ve managed to spend all this time with him, acting like the wife he knows and loves, without imploding. But suddenly, the idea of waking up in your childhood bed, surrounded by your pink-and-white walls, going downstairs to be greeted by your brother and parents, sends a wave of panic through you. You haven’t felt this comfortable in a long time—Jongseong’s arm draped over your waist, the fact that you could reach over and feel his skin against your palm if you wanted. You don’t want to go back to a time where you hate him. In fact, you don’t know if you could hate him after this.

“Jongseong?” you say softly, the syllables unfamiliar on your tongue, even though the name rings brusquely through your head for the best part of every day.

It takes a few seconds, but he reacts eventually. “Hm? Did you just call me Jongseong?” he murmurs sleepily, as if you’d just called him Robert or Christopher and not the name his own parents gave him.

“Yeah.”

He chuckles. “Now that’s something you haven’t called me in ages. Makes me feel like you’re mad at me,” he says, turning over and burying his face in the crook of your neck. His hair tickles your skin, and one of your hands comes up reflexively to feel the softness of his close shave.

“...Jong?” you try.

“That’s a step up, but not quite what I want,” he mumbles.

You’re silent for a few moments. “Honey,” you say tentatively, voice a mere whisper.

“That’s better.” You can hear the smile in his voice.

“Will you be here in the morning?”

“Mh-hm. It’s Saturday tomorrow.”

“No,” you say, feeling out of breath. “I mean, will you be here?”

You’re aware you’re not making much sense—and yet, Jongseong needs no further explanation. “Of course, baby,” he starts, voice soothing. “I’ll be here tomorrow, and the day after that, and every day afterwards. ‘Til death do us part, remember?”

You let out a shaky breath. “Okay.”

“I love you, Y/N.”

“I love you, too,” you find yourself saying, and, more importantly, meaning. It’s the last thing either of you says before falling asleep.

--

Tears are streaming down your face when you wake up the next day. When you open your eyes, pink and white obnoxiously stare back at you. The clock reads 7:12, just three minutes before your alarm goes off, and unfortunately for high school you, the night hasn’t given in to Saturday morning—it’s Tuesday, and you have to go to school and act as if you hadn’t just had the weirdest, most realistic dream of your life. You don’t even get a weekend to shake this weird feeling in your stomach off, you’re going to have to face Park Jongseong full force. At least, this will become your friends’ favorite bit for the foreseeable future.

They’re already sitting in the classroom when you get there, animatedly chatting to each other. You plop down in your seat in front of them, and when they see the sullen look on your face, ask you what’s wrong.

“Did you wake up during the night to play Hay Day again?” Kazuha asks, eyebrows knotted with genuine worry.

“I’m not that person anymore,” you reply. “No, I just had a really weird dream. More like a nightmare, really. It feels like I didn’t get any sleep.”

“What was it about?” Sunoo asks.

Your eyes dart back-and-forth between the two of them as you brace yourself for their reactions. Not wanting anyone else to overhear, you lean in conspiratorially. They mirror you. “I was married to Park Jongseong,” you whisper. As expected, they burst into laughter immediately, and you lean back in your seat, crossing your arms in annoyance. “It’s not funny.”

“It’s very funny,” Kazuha retorts. “It’s ironic, even, considering how much you hate the guy.”

“Exactly!”

“But I guess even you know how ridiculous it is that you hate him, if your brain is able to imagine yourself being married to him,” Sunoo adds, shrugging. “It’s a good reminder that you’re literally the only person in this school with a vendetta against him.”

Kazuha nods energetically. “He picked up a pen for me, once. He’s a nice guy.”

You look around the room in panic. “Keep it down, will you?” you hush, despite the fact that no one is paying any attention to the three of you. You sigh, resolving yourself to telling them the entire truth. “But guys, I’m scared. I think this might be a sign.”

Their eyebrows perk up. “A sign that your hatred of him has actually been disguising a crush this entire time?” Sunoo asks, feigning innocence.

“No—what? Where did you get that idea?”

“Nowhere. Go on.”

“Whatever. Come here,” you say, gesturing for them to huddle again. “It’s the well.”

“Oh my God, Y/N, you’ve actually lost it,” Kazuha says, fascinated by your stupidity.

“I’m not going to tolerate any well slander, this is serious. I just wanted it to reassure me that there was someone out there for me. And then I had that stupid dream.”

Kazuha and Sunoo exchange a look like they’re parents trying to announce to their daughter that she’s adopted. “Y/N…” Sunoo starts.

“This is crazy. Like, love philters and writing Park Sunghoon’s name a hundred times are one thing, this is…”

“Crazy,” Sunoo said, nodding along. “This is crazy. There’s no other word for it. Your eighteen years of boyfriendlessness have finally caught up to you.”

“You guys don’t get it. What about that time I asked it to give me a good grade on our Literature exam and I literally came first out of our class? Or when I told it I missed Jung Hae-in and his military discharge announcement came the next day?” you say, aware that the look in your eyes is only confirming their suspicions—but you need someone to believe you, or at the very least understand you.

“One, you’re a good student. Two, that was pure coincidence,” Sunoo explains.

“But girl, if you want to marry Jay, that’s fine. You’ve got our blessing,” Kazuha says, shrugging.

“Yeah. He picked up her pen, once,” Sunoo adds.

“And you know, you guys clearly have some sort of chemistry.”

You scoff. “If you think that him refuting my every word and finding every opportunity to make fun of me, then yeah, I guess you could say we have chemistry.”

“You guys have banter,” Kazuha says as if it’s obvious.

“Oh, please. Banter is cute. I want to kill him every time he opens his mouth.”

Your friends both roll their eyes. “While I understand that most men are better off staying quiet—no offense, Sunoo—”

“None taken.”

“You have to admit Jay is not nearly as insufferable as you make him out to be,” Kazuha says.

“Are you kidding me? He’s always acting like a child. Rubbing it in my face when he gets a better grade, trying to start arguments for no reason, sucking up to teachers, stealing my erasers, for God’s sake, you’d think he’s twelve. I know that I’m not on the majority's side, but I seriously cannot understand how other people tolerate him at all.”

Sunoo sighs. “Because he’s nice to everyone. He never hesitates to help people, he’s even funny, sometimes, and—well, look at him.” He nods his head towards the door, and when you turn around, Jongseong is indeed walking in the classroom. “He’s not a bad-looking boy.”

“Gosh, Sunoo, maybe you should marry him,” Kazuha says, but since you laid your eyes on Jongseong, you’ve stopped listening.

You feel weird. You look at him, and you feel weird. It’s the same feeling you had during your sleep last night, a feeling that paralyzes you from head to toe, that starts in your stomach and spreads to your entire body, weighs you down in your chair. 

“Hey, guys,” he greets simply, and his voice wraps itself around your heart and squeezes. You can’t do anything but watch him as he takes his seat next to you, plopping his bag on the table and taking his notebook out. He looks at you, watches you watching him, then swivels around in his chair.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asks your friends.

“She had a dream that she m—”

“Do not finish that sentence, Zuha, if you want to live to see another day.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she replies, a satisfied little smile on her lips.

Despite yourself, you’re still staring at Jongseong, trying to figure out what the hell these emotions are that are raging up a storm inside of you. Instead of ignoring you, he turns to face you, resting his elbow on the table and his chin in his palm as he stares back at you, smirking. “What’s up, Y/N? Has it finally dawned on you how devastatingly handsome I am?” he asks, and you frown, because he’s not so far off from the truth.

“Please, kids, it’s 9 a.m., don’t flirt right in front of us,” Sunoo says, despair in his voice.

“She’s the one who started it,” Jongseong replies, still looking at you, his smirk growing.

For some reason, this startles you out of your trance, and you look away from him like you’ve been burned, preoccupying yourself instead with your notes for this class. “In your dreams, Jongseong,” you mumble.

“More like in yours,” Kazuha says, her and Sunoo giggling.

“Zuha!” you exclaim. Jongseong looks at you with raised eyebrows, and with his infuriating capacity to put two and two together, you’re scared he’s figured out what she meant, but you’re literally saved by your teacher who walks in at that moment and starts the class. 

The second the bell rings to signify the end of the class, you hurriedly pack your things and mutter an excuse about needing the bathroom, trying to get as far away as possible from the boy whose all-too familiar scent had messed with your thoughts all class, whose every brush of his arm against yours had made your heart race uncontrollably.

--

It hadn’t just been a dream. It couldn’t have been.

Just like there was no doubt the 28-year-old Jongseong from last night had once been the annoying boy you knew, the 18-year-old Jongseong was sure to one day become the husband of your dreams. A devoted partner and father, his presence comforting, his good looks indeed devastating, unwavering.

There was no mistake to be made. The well had worked its magic.

Whether you liked it or not, you would end up marrying Park Jongseong. You, of all people; him, of all people.

Was there already something of your future husband in the boy that snickered when you mixed up your genders in German class, or would he one day spring out of nowhere? Apparently, you’d be around to find out.

But for now, how to act around him? It felt unfair that you were privy to this knowledge of your shared future while he was ignorant of it. Blissfully, perhaps. You couldn’t imagine that he would rejoice much at this news.

Your mind is somewhere else the entire day. At lunch, your other friends try to get the thing that’s obviously bothering you out of you, but Kazuha and Sunoo are there to tell them not to bother. You’d needed to tell someone about it, but you don’t want the entire school to know about your marital premonitions. The two knuckleheads you call your best friends are already doing a good enough job teasing you about it—”There’s your husband, Y/N,” when Jongseong walks past; “So have you thought of baby names? Kayleigh and Mackayleigh, perhaps?” unsolicited, during Physics. You turn around to check on the culprit — because yes, Jongseong is the culprit here, you, a mere a victim — and when he notices you staring, nods at you as if to say, What’s your problem?, trying to look threatening in his white lab coat that’s three sizes too big and protective goggles.

It doesn’t help that Jongseong has a way of hovering around you. Even in classes in which your teachers assigned the seats for you, he’s never far from your seat. The two of you sit next to each other in German, your last class every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. But today, the seat next to you is empty—what would’ve been a cause for celebration just yesterday is now a source of worry. You’d seen him just two hours ago in your previous class together, so where the hell was he now? He’s lucky that your teacher is an old German lady who always spends the first ten minutes of the lesson rambling about something in dialectal German no one understands but nods along to anyway. When he walks into the room, five minutes late, she just says, “Hallo, Jay,” and continues with her story. It’s about her first school trip to Berlin when she was fifteen and the country was still divided. You think.

He winks at you when he takes his seat and you roll your eyes. You pretend to listen to your teacher for thirty seconds, then hit him gently with your elbow. “Where were you?” you ask without looking at him.

He doesn’t answer immediately, probably surprised you initiated a non-hostile conversation with him for once. “I was just hanging out with my friends, something you clearly wouldn’t understand.”

And your friends wondered why you hated him?

“Still having imaginary friends at eighteen is really concerning, Jongseong. You should see someone about it.”

When you glance at him, he’s already looking right at you, smiling. You’ve never felt so conscious of your side profile. 

“Why? Were you worried?” he whispers, kicking your foot with his.

You look at him, horrified—where the hell had he gotten that idea? How was he so spot-on? You scoff, trying to diffuse the tension inside yourself. “No.”

He kicks your foot again. “I was five minutes late and you started to worry?”

“No. Stop.”

“I didn’t know you cared about me so much, Y/N.”

This time, you give him a harsh look, one that lets him know you really mean your words—“Stop it.” Finally, he relents, getting the assigned homework out now that the teacher has actually started the lesson. Your face softens—he looks hurt. Guilt tugs at your heartstrings.

Despite what you might say, you like the way things are with Jongseong. If some people always need to be crushing on someone, you always need to have someone you perceive as an enemy—it was Na Jaemin in elementary school, because he’d once made fun of your incapability to climb the monkey bars; Shin Ryujin, in middle school, for kissing your crush during a game of spin-the-bottle at your own birthday party; Park Jongseong, since freshman year, for simply existing. Your reasons for disliking him are trivial, you’ll admit. You weren’t sure you could even place a finger on what had first triggered your disdain towards him—one too many awful jokes, one too many times raising his hand in class and rattling off a perfect answer, then looking around himself proudly, one too many roars of laughter heard throughout the entire cafeteria. The fact that no one else seemed to be bothered by him only added to your aggravation. He just got on your nerves, and it seemed that you openly showing your dislike of him — him, who was so used to being loved by everyone around him, pampered by his family, praised by his teachers, popular among his peers — was enough to make him dislike you, too. So, after a few failed attempts at trying to be your friend, because Jongseong was unable to not be friends with everyone he met, he didn’t simply give up. 

If he couldn’t be your friend, then fine, he’d be your enemy.

At least, that’s how it appears to you, still now. It’s never gone dangerously far, but if there’s an opening to tease you or get on your nerves, he’ll do it. Not passing you the ball during soccer, or conversely, only aiming for you during dodgeball, not sharing his textbook with you when you forgot it unless you beg, loudly clearing his throat when you speak in class. And, lately, pouring salt on your wounds in the form of reminding you how impossible you and Jake Sim are. His motto must be if there’s a will, there’s a way. And when it comes to making your life hell, his will is infinite.

Everything is upside-down now. The question of how your relationship can possibly go from this to that obsesses you. It feels like you’re more capable of sharing a funeral, dying at each others’ hands, than a wedding. 

“Jong, your textbook.”

He squints at you. “Funny how I’m Jongseong when you hate me, Jong when you need a textbook,” he says, sliding his book closer to himself.

“It’s not my fault your name is a mouthful,” you retort, trying to pull it back to the middle of the table, but he’s quicker than you.

“Then maybe you should call me Jay, like everyone else on Earth.”

“Where’s the fun in that? Now give it here. Please?” you ask, mustering your best smile. Any other teacher would’ve scolded the two of you by now, but Ms. Schumacher is peacefully going on about the importance of word order and punctuation in the German sentence, oblivious to her two students bickering in the back row. Jongseong usually never sits at the back of the classroom—only here.

He gives in, smiling back, but there’s something behind it, something that tells you nothing good is brewing in his brain. “Only because you’re so pretty.”

Normally, this kind of remark would’ve warranted a slap on the arm or an array of insults, but if today is anything, it is not normal. You look at him like you’ve been stung, visions of your not-dream coming to you in flashes like you’re the titular character on That’s So Raven—the affection in your husband’s eyes, the kindness in his words, the sincerity in his smile. Again, you’re left to wonder if this man is already taking root inside of the boy next to you, if Jongseong’s future capacity to love you presently exists in his heart.

Does your future capacity to love him already exist in your heart?

You watch as his smirk softens into a grin, your flusteredness and lack of a response clearly amusing him, then as he circles the exercises Ms. Schumacher is assigning for the lesson. She seems to have forgotten there was homework due—Jongseong will be sure to remind her of it quickly.

He kicks your foot again, tells you to focus. His ears have turned red.

You wonder if those capacities haven’t existed from the start.

--

As much as you love a good friends-to-lovers story, characters hiding their feelings out of fear of ruining the friendship have never failed to frustrate you — just tell her, you dummy, it’s obvious she likes you too — and yet, you’ve never related more than now.

Whatever it is that you and Jongseong have, you don’t want to lose it. It adds entertainment to your otherwise average life. 

“Good thing she didn’t pick on you while we went over the homework, ‘cause you clearly put zero effort in. And I wouldn’t have helped you, even if you’d asked, by the way.”

You hum absent-mindedly as you put your notebook and pencil holder in your bag. Are you sure that these are even your feelings in the first place? Just because the well put a silly idea in your head doesn’t mean you have to believe it like it’s scripture. If what you saw is real, then it will happen in its own time. Things don’t have to start changing right this instant.

“Gosh, Y/N, what’s up with you today? You’re so boring,” Jongseong continues, following you out of the classroom. 

“Just tired,” you reply. Wouldn’t it be unnatural if you were to radically alter the way you behave with Jongseong? Love should come about organically. Sure, his presence has always provoked some kind of reaction within you, but that’s usually been annoyance. Whether he’s stealing the fifth eraser you’ve bought that month or running on the soccer field, beads of sweat running down his temples, hair sticking out everywhere, victoriously smiling when his team scores—you’re annoyed. Whether he’s sticking up his hand higher than yours or going to the school dance with Ahn Yujin—you’re annoyed. When you learned that she’d been his neighbor since infancy and that she had a boyfriend, who went to another school and only trusted Jongseong to take her to the dance, you were still annoyed—this time at yourself for feeling even the tiniest bit relieved that nothing was going on between them.

And this — his quick steps trying to keep up with yours, his dumb story about yogurt coming out of Heeseung’s nose today at lunch when they were laughing too hard — yes, you’re still annoyed. But you realize you’re not annoyed at him.

You’re annoyed at how he makes you feel.

“Y/N?” he says, but you’re too deep in your thoughts, only vaguely registering the sound until he repeats it, louder this time, and grabs your hand, making you abruptly stop walking. “Are you sure everything’s okay?” he asks with genuine concern in his voice. “You’re barely listening to me. I mean, it’s not like you usually really do, but you’d have told me to get lost, like, five minutes ago now…”

He chuckles self-deprecatingly, but despite his words, you’re focusing on something else yet again. His hand on yours, his loose hold on your fingers. Your brain is yelling at you—hold his hand, hug him. It’s like there are still traces of the 28-year-old version of you you visited yesterday, urging you to behave like her and not 18-year-old you. 

So, the well had let you know that you need not look much further to find what you wanted. Here it is, in the form of a boy you have convinced yourself you hated, and hated you, and yet, he’s holding your hand, asking you if you’re okay, worry knotting his eyebrows together. 

Hold his hand. Hug him. Instead, you retract your hand, let it fall limply by your side. Jongseong’s eyebrows shoot up.

He’s so close, the supposed love of your life. You don’t know how to reach out to him.

For now, you smile. “Get lost, Jong.”

--

you guys how the hell do i act around jongseong now that i know our fates are romantically intertwined

kazuha i think not treating him like the number one public enemy would be a good start

you so what… be nice to him? how do i do that

sunoo oh my god y/n when she has to treat another person like a regular human being

you he’s not just another person!

sunoo okayyyyy i see you little miss repressed feelings

you i hate u

kazuha just don’t roll your eyes at everything he says anymore and don’t start arguments for no reason

you he’s the one who starts them… but okay i’ll try

--

“Let’s pair up for the reading analysis today. You can stay with your deskmate or pick a partner, I don’t mind as long as you get the work done. I’m talking about you, Chaewon and Yuri. This is English class, not a gossip session.”

The second your English teacher has finished speaking, Jongseong swivels in his chair. “Let’s partner up, Y/N?”

“What about me?” Jake asks, eyes darting back-and-forth between the two of you.

“You can partner up with Minju,” Jongseong replies, pointing to the girl he’s usually seated next to. “Look. You guys will be great together. Say hi, Minju.” Minju waves shyly at Jake, braces on display as she smiles ecstatically. It’s not everyday that she gets to talk to one of the most popular guys in school.

Jake reluctantly switches seats with him, glancing back at you and Jongseong who just grins at him, fake friendliness plastered on his lips, until he turns around again. Your new partner’s smile softens and reaches his eyes when he looks at you. “Hi.”

You have to look away—you feel your face burn under his gaze. “Hi, Jong.”

He tilts his head. “What? Do you hate me so much that you can’t even look at me now?” he asks, and you can’t tell whether he’s joking or genuine.

You frown. “I don’t hate you.”

“Oh? That’s a recent development.”

“I guess,” you mumble after a few seconds. Is it really? You suddenly can’t remember if you ever really hated him, or if you’d exaggerated your own feelings.

His smile widens. “Well, good. I mean, you were going to have to realize at some point that I really am funny, smart, endearing, handsome-”

“Back to hating.”

“Let’s start the assignment.”

You agree on reading the passage first, but you realize halfway through that not a single word has been absorbed. “Hey. Why did you switch seats with him?” you ask, whispering so as not to be overheard.

Jongseong shrugs. “I thought you wouldn’t want to work with him, considering…”

“Right.” You’re silent again, but only for a bit. “What’s it to you?” you mumble. 

He scoffs. “Sorry for trying to be considerate.”

“That’s not—”

“Let’s just focus on this.”

His sudden coldness vexes you. You know you should let it go — don’t start arguments for no reason, and all that — and you know it’s childish, but you can’t help yourself. You have certain reflexes you’re not particularly proud of when it comes to one Park Jongseong. “Let’s just focus on this,” you repeat, mocking his grumbling tone of voice and shaking your head like a puppet.

He glares at you. “Can you not act like a toddler for once?”

“Can you not be a dick for once?” you bite back.

“Y/N, Jongseong, I’m sure you’re having a fascinating conversation on the use of chiaroscuro in the text?” your teacher asks, a look of warning on his face.

“Yes, sir,” you reply, embarrassed.

“Yes, so much chiaroscuro,” Jongseong mumbles, resting his cheek on his knuckles. When the teacher has turned away, he kicks your foot. “See, you’re getting us in trouble.”

“Do you even know what chiaroscuro is?” 

He hesitates. “That’s not the problem here. You are.”

“Well, maybe if you didn’t-”

“Y/N, Jay, final warning.”

“Sorry,” you both say at the same time. With one last glare at each other, you finally get to work.

So your plan to start getting along with Jongseong isn’t in full-force yet. On the drive back home that afternoon, you reassure yourself that these things take time. When the moment is right, the two of you will grow closer.

--

But increasingly, it feels as though the right moment will never come.

Two months have passed since your visit to the well, and things between you and Jongseong have not changed. Not really, at least.

You still bicker like cat and dog — it goes without saying that you’re the cute puppy and he’s the heartless cat — and he gets as much on your nerves as ever, especially now that you know that the potential to be nice to you, to love you, even, exists somewhere inside him. Somewhere deeply hidden perhaps, but somewhere nonetheless. Of course, after telling yourself that what must come will come of its own accord, you haven’t done much to change the dynamic between the two of you. But if you used to see your retaliations against him as necessary to your survival, you now find some sort of enjoyment in them—some might call it Stockholm Syndrome, you perceive it as a step in the right direction. You’ve followed one of Kazuha’s pieces of advice: you don’t roll your eyes at him anymore, simply because you don’t feel the need to. You argue with him with a smile on your face, his attempts at insulting or annoying you have started to make you laugh.

He doesn’t say anything but seems to gladly welcome this change. If you get a lower grade than him on a test, he doesn’t try to stick the knife in further, but genuinely offers to go over it with you later. If you give in after two hours of tearing your hair out over a German exercise and text him for help, he doesn’t make fun of you. If he says something particularly arrogant or makes a really bad joke, all you need to do is give him a look, and he’ll mumble an apology. 

Could it have been like this the entire time? you wonder, watching him across the schoolyard as he and Heeseung hunt for Pokémon. Just a couple months ago, you would’ve scrunched your nose at the sight, making fun of him for his childish interests. Now, you notice the way he laughs, audible all the way to where you sit with Kazuha and Sunoo, the way he jumps excitedly and points at things only he and his friend see, and all you feel is endearment.

“Look at you, look at that,” Sunoo says as he hits you on the forehead with his metal spoon, startling you. He tuts. “You’ve got love dripping from your eyes, sweetie.”

“Sunoo, that’s disgusting.”

“Love? I know.”

“No, your spoon. Your saliva’s all over that,” you say, and all he does is eat another mouthful of his yogurt while staring wide-eyed right at you. When you look back at Jongseong, he’s high-fiving Heeseung. You wonder which creature he’s caught now. In the library yesterday, he spent thirty minutes showing you every single one he had captured so far instead of revising for the upcoming Physics test.

“Yeah, we know you’d like someone else’s saliva more,” Kazuha chimes in, and the two of them snort.

“It’s not like that,” you say, biting into an apple slice.

“Oh yeah? What’s it like, then?” Kazuha asks.

“We’re… becoming friends,” you say, but you’re not sure who you’re trying to convince more.

“Y/N, I’ve had to watch the two of you giggling to yourselves in the library one too many times to believe you’re friends. I know your homework’s not that funny,” Sunoo argues.

“Friends can giggle with each other!” you exclaim, but your friends are inflexible.

“I would tell you to get yourself together if you giggled at me like that,” he says.

“I saw you twirl your hair the other day,” Kazuha adds.

“I never—When?!”

She shrugs. “The other day.”

You deflate, crushed under your friends’ accusations. “I wouldn’t twirl my hair…” you mumble. You decide to busy yourself with your apple slices, not even bothering to find out what Kazuha and Sunoo start snickering and elbowing each other about.

“Hey,” a familiar voice greets, making you look up. Jongseong smiles at you and steals an apple slice from your tupperware as he sits down next to you, Heeseung across from him.

“Hi, Jong,” you say, sitting up straighter. You offer a piece of fruit to Heeseung but he declines, saying he doesn’t like apples without peanut butter.

In front of you, your friends exchange a look, and you’re immediately terrified of what they’ll do next. Leaning in, they place their elbows on the table, and Kazuha starts them off. “Jay, you and Y/N know each other pretty well, right?”

Jongseong glances at you, eyes wide. “Uh, sure.”

“Have you ever noticed her, say, twirling her hair?” Sunoo asks, tilting his head innocently at the poor boy by your side.

You’ve never seen him look so confused. “Um, yeah, she does that when she’s concentrating on something, sometimes…”

They lean back. “Huh,” Kazuha says, studying Jongseong’s face.

“Interesting. Very interesting,” Sunoo says, slowly nodding.

You glare at your friends. “See, that’s different,” you tell them. “I was concentrating on something, not doing… whatever you guys had in mind.”

Jongseong looks at you. “What did they have in mind?”

You answer before either of them can dig your grave any deeper. “Nothing. It’s nothing. We were just having a stupid conversation.” You muster your most convincing smile, and the subject is finally dropped.

No one says anything for a few moments, until Heeseung decides to speak up: “You should’ve seen Jay earlier, Y/N. He caught this super rare version of Pikachu earlier, it was awesome.”

“Dude…” Jongseong murmurs.

“What?” Heeseung asks, his enthusiasm quickly dissolving into confusion. Jongseong just shakes his head. Thankfully for all of you, the bell rings then, and you head to class. The three of them walk in front of you while you and Jongseong fall back a step.

“Why were you guys sitting outside? It’s freezing today,” he asks you. Walking side-by-side like this, you can’t help but notice the inches he has over you, the broadness of his shoulders in comparison to yours.

“They turned the heat way too high in the cafeteria, so we came outside for some fresh air,” you explain. He’s right, the air is chilly today—it’s a few days into December, and the temperatures have been accordingly low.

“Aren’t you cold?”

Your heart skips a beat. One of the side effects of not being at each other’s throat anymore was that you got more and more often to be privy to this side of Jongseong—attentive, considerate, kind. What you once thought were his moral attempts at not being so mean to you all the time, you found out was actually his real nature. He wasn’t a prick who was sometimes nice, he was a nice person who turned into a prick with you. Whether the fault lay on him or you was another debate.

“No, I’m alright,” you say, but your body decides to betray you and makes you sneeze three times in a row.

“Bless you,” Jongseong says, laughing. “Here.” You try to stop him, pushing his hands away, but he takes his gloves off and forces them in your palms.

“I’m going to be inside for the next four hours, Jong, I’ll be fine. Keep them.”

“No, it’s okay. Just so you can warm up quicker.”

You eventually give in, putting the gloves over your hands, laughing at the extra fabric that hangs off the tip of your fingers. But when you look at Jongseong’s now-bare hands, something catches your attention. Stopping in the hallway, you grab one of them, examining the cuts on his knuckles. “You need to wear hand cream, Jong, your hands are too chapped.”

He lets you turn his hand over, smooth over his skin, do the same thing with his other hand. “Men don’t wear hand cream,” he says, a grin on his lips.

You burst out laughing. “I think that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Seriously, though, I don’t like the way it feels. Too sticky.”

“You just need to get a quick-absorption one.” Then, you make the terrible mistake of looking up from his hand and meeting his eyes—you gasp silently, his gaze and soft smile transporting you right back to that night, the images of 28-year-old and 18-year-old Jongseong mixing into each other, becoming indistinct from each other. Your gaze drifts down to his lips — chapped, too, when they’re usually plumper, rosier — and his hand, still in yours, balls into a fist. The second bell rings and you both take a step back, eyes meeting again for a brief moment before looking down at the floor. With uncharacteristically shy, embarrassed words of parting, you make your separate ways to your next classes.

“That was beautiful, Y/N,” Sunoo says, waiting for you by the door, and you walk past him without so much as a glance.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

--

sunoo jay and y/n almost kissed earlier

kazuha WHAAAAT

you KIM SUNOO.

kazuha WHEN?????

sunoo right before class after the lunch break y/n was sooo embarrassed afterwards lol

you we did NOT almost kiss you’re talking out of your ass

kazuha i can’t believe i missed this fml

you YOU DIDNT MISS ANYTHING NOTHING HAPPENED

sunoo be serious u guys we’re standing inches apart

you were* and no we weren’t

sunoo oh stfu it was autocorrect i saw it w my own eyes y/n… you WERE literally holding his hand and staring into those beautiful eyes of his

kazuha sunoo…?

sunoo what can’t a man acknowledge another man’s objective attractiveness if i was y/n i would’ve folded the moment i saw him

you literally one of the first times he talked to me was to make fun of my handwriting

sunoo yeah he’s on his tsundere shit i fw it

you …

sunoo anyways zuha you shouldve seen it when the bell rang they practically leaped away from each other and u didnt know what to do w yourselves afterwards likeeee it was so obvi what you both were thinking of

kazuha cuuuute

you i resent these accusations.

sunoo istg if u dont kiss him next time i will

kazuha ???

you SUNOO?

sunoo WHAT

--

Something happens a few days before the start of winter break.

Ms. Schumacher is absent, gone off to Germany to visit her family there—she has enough seniority in the school that they let her abandon her responsibilities as a teacher once in a while. A week is too short a period of time for them to bother finding a substitute. It’s usually your last class of the day, but you have to wait around for your dad to be done working, so while most of your classmates have gone home early, you sit with about six other people in the unsupervised study room, absent-mindedly jotting down tid-bits of dialogue for your new story idea, too preoccupied with Jongseong’s absence to really pay attention to anything else. It’s fifteen minutes after the hour, but he’s nowhere to be found, although you know for a fact that he takes those weird Molecular Gastronomy cooking classes your Chemistry teacher offers for extra credit every Thursday after school, so he should be here. And anyways, if he’d gone home, he would’ve texted you something like, Have fun sitting around for an hour, I’m gonna go do awesome stuff with Heeseung, even if awesome stuff meant playing Mario Kart or drinking Sprite and holding a two-person burping contest.

You’re so engrossed in your own thoughts that you pay no mind to the sudden ding of a phone in the room, followed by some gasps and heated whispers. The exchanged words go through one ear and out the other—There was a fight? In the locker rooms? It must be bad if they were sent to the nurse before the principal… Huh? Over who? So he took both of them on? Damn, I didn’t know Jay got like that. He seems so well-behaved.

Your head whips up at the mention of your friend’s name. “Jay? Did something happen to him?” you ask out loud, the whispers dying down immediately as everybody stares at you. 

Gaeul, who was in your class last year, is the only one who answers you. Holding up and waving her phone, she says, “They say he got into a fight.”

Jongseong? A fight? It sounds like a practical joke. He admitted to you he once started crying watching Heeseung playing Call of Duty, it was so violent. You shake your head. “He-he did? With who?”

Gaeul and the girl next to her exchange a concerned, almost guilty look. “Jake and Sunghoon.” The crease between your eyebrows deepened. You don’t need to ask anything else before she adds, “They’re at the nurse’s station. It sounds pretty bad…”

That’s enough for you to leap out of your chair and run to the nurse’s station. It seems the news has spread impossibly quickly among your year group—even Kazuha and Sunoo are already blowing your phone, asking you if you’ve heard, if you know how Jay is. You ignore them, reminding yourself to text them back later, until one message from Sunoo in particular catches your attention: It apparently started because Sunghoon said something about you, Y/N. They’re saying Jay got angry.

The nurse is busy on the phone when you get there, her back to the entrance, so you’re able to slip in unnoticed. You head to the adjoining room where the beds are, all three of them taken—you walk by Sunghoon first, his arms crossed over his chest and pointedly not looking at you, then by Jake, who calls out your name. You glare at him and pull on the white plastic curtain that separates his bed from Jongseong’s. They’re already going to hear you, you don’t need them seeing you on top of that. 

Jongseong sits up with a grunt when you appear at the end of his bed. The sight of him makes your stomach flip, and not in a good way, for once—his left eye is swollen and circled by a deep purple bruise, shiny with ointment, there’s a cut on his cheek, his lower lip is busted, his right hand is wrapped in bandages. “Oh my God,” you whisper as you help him up, voice breaking. He stares at his hands, jaw locking when you gently place one palm on his good hand, the other on the side of his face, moving it this way and that so you can take a better look at his injuries. He winces, and you let go, resting your hand on his shoulder instead. “What the hell got into you?” you whisper vehemently, unable to decide if you’re worried or angry or both as tears form in your eyes.

He tries to shrug, but even that seems to hurt. “Don’t shrug, Jongseong, tell me what happened.”

“I’m Jongseong again now?” he says, attempting a smile, but only one corner of his lips rises.

You sigh. Even in this state, he has to be a smart-ass. “You’re Jong when I need a textbook, Jongseong when you get into stupid fights,” you reply, and he smiles wider but immediately winces, hand coming up to the cut on his lip. You notice that his hand is still riddled with cracks, and whether they’re due to their dryness or to this fight doesn’t matter—”Wait here,” you say, and go rummage through some drawers for plasters. “She forgot some spots.” You feel Jongseong’s eyes on your face as you patch him up to the best of your abilities.

“I don’t want to tell you what happened. I’ll do the job of hating these idiots for the both of us, so don’t concern yourself with them,” he says, apparently not caring that the idiots in question can hear his every word.

He keeps his promise—you never hear another word from him about the cause of the fight. 

Later, you find out through other means, namely Sunoo’s questionably remarkable ability to unearth any and all gossip, that in the locker rooms after Phys Ed, someone had started Jake on the topic of Yunjin, who had been recently revealed as his girlfriend. They’d apparently kept it secret because it was just fooling around at first, and only later had gotten serious enough for them to parade around the school as the couple. 

It had been an unremarkable conversation until Jake said, “You guys know Y/N from our class? She saw us in the staff parking lot once, and I was sure we’d be busted then. But she didn’t tell anyone.” And just like that, the conversation turned to you, someone who was usually never a topic among these boys, jocks, soccer players, “the kind of people who peak in high school and still have a superiority complex at forty,” as Sunoo describes them. 

He has a harder time explaining what happened next, can’t quite look you in the eye as he recounts what was said. “So, this is what they say, apparently someone said that you used to be obsessed with Sunghoon, then with Jake, and Sunghoon said you… Well, he said you were pathetic, that asshole, and that you had been so easy to lead on, then Jake joined in, saying the same things, basically, how funny it was seeing you so obviously in love with him when he would never give you a chance…” He looks at you worriedly, but you tell him to go on. “And so that’s when Jay got up and just straight-up punched Jake in the face. And while Jake was trying to figure out what happened, Jay punched Sunghoon, and then they both got on him, pushing him, but when he wouldn’t stop throwing punches, they started fighting, too. I think they all got some good ones in before the other boys were able to break them apart and the P.E. teacher arrived…”

But that would be later. Now, sitting with Jongseong in the nurse’s station, tears falling onto the plasters you place on his hand, nothing matters but him. You don’t need the details—he’s hurt, he got hurt over you, you feel as though every cut on his body may well have been done by your own hand. You’ve never felt so guilty for something you didn’t do. Your voice trembles when you speak; you’re unable to look at him, at his busted eye. “I just don’t want you to get hurt for me.”

Without missing a beat, he says, “What else would I get hurt for?”

You can only meet his eyes for a split second. Even like this, he manages to look at you with the same softness that has haunted you since the night you met 28-year-old Jongseong, that has rendered all thoughts of anything other than him meaningless since the day your gaze drifted down to his lips just weeks ago. “Jong…” is all you can mutter as you look down at your hands holding each others’, your lips trembling.

He raises his bandaged hand, still not used to his dominant side being ineffective for now, then lowers it when he realizes. Clumsily, he pats your hair with his left hand. “Don’t cry, please…”

Jake’s head pops out from behind the curtain. “Y/N, I’m really sorry—”

“Not right now, man,” Jay quickly interrupts. Jake pathetically disappears behind the curtain again.

“Just promise me you won’t do this again.”

“Y/N…”

“Promise me,” you say, more demanding this time, sticking out your pinky finger. Jay, hesitant, looks between your outstretched finger and your face a few times, but eventually gives in.

The nurse, upon coming to check on the boys, catches you with Jongseong and chases you out immediately. You sulk back to study hall, where everyone’s head perks up the moment you walk in. “They’re okay,” you reassure vaguely, and unenthusiastically answer their many questions. It’s only a few minutes until the bell rings, and you’re free to go then.

--

jong so… guess who got a five-day suspension

you you idiot what did your parents say?

jong they’re not happy i have to do all the household chores for a month

you boo-hoo

jong not sure why i came here thinking i’d get some comfort…

you … are you feeling better?

jong a little bit the nurse gave us some really strong painkillers but i’m okay because there’s a pretty girl that’s going to drop off the homework for me after school every day :)

you oh did you ask chaewon to do that?

jong um no i was talking about you ..if that’s okay

you haha i know i just wanted you to say it straight up

jong ykw maybe i should just ask chaewon

you i’ll see you tomorrow jong!!

jong :) see you tomorrow pretty 

 --

The months that separate your return to school and graduation come and go in the blink of an eye. Jongseong can’t come to school the last day before the holidays or the first four days after, and he’s grounded in-between. Things change bit by bit with every day you visit him—To give him the homework, you tell his parents, although there isn’t much to do when the semester isn’t in full swing, and you could’ve easily sent him pictures. The first time, you spend more time scouring the pictures and trinkets in his room than actually talking to him, and awkwardly give him a half-hug when he tells you he won’t be able to hang out at all during the break before practically running out of his house, your heart beating a thousand miles a minute from the innocent contact. By the fourth time, you lie together on his bed and talk about your plans for college, your hands sitting centimeters apart on the navy sheets. You haven’t dared touch his hand since that day in the nurse’s station.

You’re window-shopping with Kazuha when you spot the hand cream you had seen yourself gifting Jongseong in your well-given vision. Buying it is one thing, actually giving it to him is another, an awkward, stuttery situation in which the wrapping done by the store employee suddenly seems over-the-top and out-of-place. But Jongseong seems to like it—it’s the last day of his suspension, his black eye is now a yellow-ish color, he can smile without risking splitting his lip in two. He applies it immediately, tells you he’ll make sure to wear it every day until the end of winter. You find yourself wishing there was something you could give him for every season so he wouldn’t go a day without thinking of you. When you leave, he bashfully thanks you for making sure he doesn’t fall behind and says he’s excited to see you at school the next day. You hardly know what to do with yourself, so you squeak out a “me too” and slip out the door.

His first day back is a Friday. It starts with Mathematics, a class in which you sit by each other. You remember the first week of classes when Kazuha and Sunoo had ran to sit with each other, expressly because they knew that if he saw you were sitting alone, he’d take the seat next to you, just to better torment you all year. You’d resented it then; it couldn’t make you happier now. Your body is humming with nervous energy, your foot tapping relentlessly against the tiled floor. When he appears in the doorframe, you wave at him as if he’d forgotten his seat in three weeks of absence. His elbow brushes against yours as he sits down.

Between the two of you, friendship blossoms over these months. To the detriment of everyone around you, you continue to bicker as you always have, but it’s now clearly done out of habit, out of affection, even, than out of actual dislike of each other. He and Heeseung slowly integrate your small group of three, and before you know it, it feels as though there have always been five of you. Together, you welcome spring.

In January, to thank you for helping him to pick out his mom’s birthday present, Jongseong treats you to some tteokbokki, which you said you’d been craving all week. He orders the spiciest one, then has to take a sip of water between every bite. You laugh at his teary eyes and red face while you devour the bright red rice cakes easily. 

In February, he makes a show of giving you and Kazuha and Heeseung and Sunoo some homemade chocolates, saying it’s a friend thing. You find out that evening that the others each have five in their box—there are twenty in yours. It’s one of the things that makes you second guess what sort of feelings he has for you. For years, you’ve been convinced he harbored strong feelings of disdain for you; now, he seems to enjoy your friendship. You’re scared to read too much into anything, because if Jongseong is well-liked throughout school, it’s for a reason: he’s nice. To everyone. Even to you, too, nowadays. But if nice is giving five chocolates, what is giving twenty?

A sudden realization hits you in March—Jongseong appears at your door, drenched from the rain, a bag of your favorite snacks in hand. “You weren’t at school today. I had to find out you were sick from Kazuha,” he says as if she was a random classmate of yours and not your best friend, as if he should be the first to know about these kinds of things. Your mom rushes him in, finds him so charming in the five minutes they converse that she decides he should stay over for dinner, and as you watch him laughing with her, you think, I haven’t thought of 28-year-old Jongseong in ages. I’ve only thought of you. And although you can trace the start of your feelings to that dream-like experience you had, you can now say with confidence that it’s not the only reason for them.

College application results come out in April, right on his birthday. The five of you celebrate together at an American-style diner, gorging yourselves on crispy bacon and chocolate chip pancakes. Kazuha is going back to Japan, almost a decade after moving to South Korea—”I’m gonna miss you guys, but I miss takoyaki and my grandma more right now.” Heeseung has been accepted into the Engineering department at the country’s top university. You, Sunoo and Jongseong are all heading to the same place: you for Screenwriting, which you’ve known since you were one of the winners of the scholarship contest last October, Sunoo for Communications, whatever that is, and Jongseong for European History and Literature with a minor in German, that freak. It’s a good university, and it’s not far from home. The way Jongseong tells you about his acceptance sticks with you: he doesn’t say, They accepted me, too, or, I’m going to the same university as you. He says, We’ll be together.

May is filled with afternoons at the park when you should all be studying for exams. Your mom keeps asking when she’s going to see “that wonderful boy” again. Your friendship with Jongseong has given him new ways of teasing you—after four years of near-kleptomaniac tendencies, he’s finally stopped stealing your erasers and has instead started to let his gaze linger on your face, to call you pretty when you least expect it, to tuck your hair behind your ear. You hate it most when he asks you whether there’s something from your romance novels or movies that you want him to recreate. “Is there a field big enough nearby that I can walk through at the break of dawn, Mister Darcy-style?” he’ll say, or “I’ve always wanted to try that upside-down kiss from Spider-Man. It’s a classic, really.” 

Summer comes early in June. You need to bring a two-liter water bottle and a hand fan to your exams, and you’ve never felt such relief as when it was all over. After endless pictures with your parents and siblings, just your parents, just your siblings, then Kazuha and Sunoo, together, then separately, then with Heeseung and Jongseong as well, Kazuha forces you and Jongseong together, watching with a smile as he shyly wraps an arm around your waist and you awkwardly throw up a peace sign. It’s your first picture of just the two of you.

In July, you and Jongseong unlock a new first: saying goodbye. He’s leaving to stay with his American family as he does every summer. You show up at his house the day before at four p.m. “to help him pack,” you say, but it’s Jongseong, and he finished packing two days ago. So instead, you sit on his desk chair, he on his bed, and you fight back tears. “You’re coming back, right?” you ask, like he’s leaving to go to war and not Seattle. Amusement and affection flicker in his eyes. “Of course I am. I wouldn’t throw four more years of being a pain in your ass away, would I?” he says, and you smile, because you know it’s going to be much more than four years.

But he doesn’t just leave you with a few nice words. Avoiding your gaze, he hands you an envelope. Inside is a single ticket, a two-month membership for your city’s arthouse cinema that you can only go to when they have student deals or when your parents have had enough of your begging. You can’t even begin to imagine how much this must’ve cost. “Jong…” you murmur, in awe at the thin slip of paper between your hands. “This is incredible. Thank you so much.”

Jongseong looks down at his feet, fighting a smile as he kicks the invisible rocks that obviously litter the floor of his bedroom. “I thought you’d get bored without me around, so, that way you can entertain yourself, I guess… And if you run into any film bros next year, you’ll have seen as many pretentious movies as them.”

You burst into laughter then, and, without thinking, wrap your arms around his neck, thanking him over and over again. It takes him a second, but he wraps his arms around your waist and says it’s no big deal.

As you walk down the path from your house, he calls out your name. “Don’t be a stranger,” he says.

You smile. “Never.”

So, he’s not here for summer. Kazuha is working in her parents’ ramen restaurant to make some money before leaving, even Heeseung leaves two weeks into July for Seoul to visit some relatives there and get accustomed to life in the big city. You only get to laze around with Sunoo, but even he eventually leaves for his grandparents’ house by the sea, making you promise you’ll come visit him at some point, otherwise he’ll “die of boredom.” 

It’s August now, and your brain and body alike buzz with restlessness. You go to the cinema almost every day, making the best of your subscription. If you’re not going around your house looking for spider webs with your vacuum cleaner, you’re riding random bus lines and discovering parts of your town you’ve never set foot in before. If you’re not making your way through your never-ending pile of unread books, you’re creating your own stories, finally taking the time to properly outline and draft the one-line ideas you’ve had sitting in your Notes app, preparing yourself for the start of your degree. Your mind is taken up with love stories. From Romeo & Juliet to Dirty Dancing to Book Lovers, you can’t get enough of the genre. You become particularly obsessed with stories involving time travel, rewatching After Time and Lovely Runner like they contain some precious knowledge. By the end of the month, you’ve turned your life into an eight-episode TV series—a desperate girl makes a wish on a star only to discover she is fated to marry the one boy she hates most. You know you’d watch that. You send Sunoo and Kazuha the pilot, and after calling you insane numerous times but also heaping on praises, Sunoo says this: lol your going through jay withdrawals.

It shakes you so much you’re not even compelled to message back you’re*.

But he’s not wrong. The more you let yourself admit it, the more you realize how true it is: you miss Jongseong. You text once in a while, you’ve even stayed up late talking on the phone a couple of times, but you miss him, his corporeal form, having his gaze on you, having the possibility but never the courage to touch him. Every day, there’s something you want to tell him about. The cats huddling around a young neighborhood kid as he pours milk into a bowl, the clearance sale at your local library, most books for one buck only, the actor from an 90s Hong Kong film you swear has the exact same smile as him. You don’t want to bother him, so you write letters instead. Some you send, some you don’t—the ones you keep hidden in your drawer usually hint too obviously at your feelings for him. Some of them don’t just hint and contain lines of your declarations: I miss you, everything I see reminds me of you, I want to check that your bruises have healed completely even though the last trace of them faded months ago. You keep these letters a secret, even from Sunoo and Kazuha, who would never let you live down such woebegone, down bad behavior.

You do it because it feels good, getting all of your feelings out on paper. You’re a romantic at heart, so you’re prone to over-exaggeration when it comes to things like these—but everything that you write remains based in truth. You’d started with a postcard of your hometown, jokingly writing, Don’t forget where you came from. How is it over there? and he’d actually replied with a postcard of his own, filling it from top to bottom. You easily went from these small postcards to multiple pages of stream-of-consciousness-like writing. You think it’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done—although you’re not sure he feels the same way, considering he still writes to the German pen pal Ms. Schumacher had assigned him in your first year of high school. No one else’s correspondence had lasted more than four months because she’d immediately forgotten to make sure you kept in touch regularly.

I ran into Jake Sim at the city library, you write one day. You’ve replied to everything in his latest letter, so you’re now catching him up on your recent adventures. He was checking out some books about Linguistics, of all things—he bought me bubble tea afterwards and told me that the injury he got last April was actually a relief. Did you know his father was a big name in soccer here? Apparently, he never wanted to be a soccer player that badly, and he wants to do Linguistics and Social Anthropology, who would’ve guessed it. He’s like Troy Bolton if High School Musical was about Humanities and not singing. Anyways, you probably don’t want me to go on and on about him, so I won’t, but we did talk about that fight you guys had back in December. He apologized for it, to you and me both, although he didn’t go into much detail — Sunoo is still the only one who’s had the balls to tell me exactly what happened, and he wasn’t even there! — and I was reticent at first, but he seemed genuine. He said he didn’t even hang out with Sunghoon or Yunjin or any of those people anymore, that it was only out of convenience really, and that he hopes starting university will be like turning over a new leaf. Well, he could be full of shit, who knows. As I sat there listening to him I wondered what it was I used to see in him. He’s nice enough, but we only spoke about him for the entire hour. He asked me no questions that weren’t “and you?” so it was a bit exhausting. 

But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you.

You look at your words, smiling to yourself—this is one of the times where you find yourself erring from the topic at hand, instead indulging in sappiness and nostalgia. You write about how your opinion of Jongseong has changed over these months, how it wasn’t seeing him as your husband in all those years that had really shaken things up, but rather that day in the nurse’s station, the frightening colors around his eye, his attitude like it was natural that he would get hurt like this for you. You write, Have I been wrong about you this whole time? I thought you harbored the same negative feelings towards me as I had you since the moment you’d laid eyes on me, but all of a sudden, here you were, bloody, bandaged hand holding mine. Even with your busted eye, you looked like an angel next to all that white in the nurse’s station. I’ll never forget your words that day. Would you really not get hurt for anything else, Jong?

“I’m going to the Post Office for a package soon, Y/N. Are you done with your letter?” your mom calls from the staircase landing.

“Give me five minutes!” you call back.

You forage through your drawer for a new sheet of paper and re-write your letter, making sure to leave any compromising parts out and fold both letters into neat squares—one that will cross the seas and reach Jongseong, one that will live out its days in the darkness of your crowded drawer. You’ve run out of envelopes, so you go look for one in your parents’ office. Your mom calls out your name again, impatient to leave — if she sends her package off before twelve p.m., it will get to the receiver tomorrow, and she’s hell-bent on getting perfect five-star Vinted reviews — so you hurriedly put your letter in the envelope, close it, stamp it, and write Jongseong’s name and address on the back. The other letter you absent-mindedly throw in your drawer with the dozens of other letters in which you’d crossed the line.

--

A few weeks later, like an apparition, Jongseong stands before you again.

He’s tanner from months under the Washington sun, from afternoons spent at his family’s lake house, on their boat. His hair is slightly shorter and suits him even better; you don’t recognize any of the clothes he wears. He grumbles as his mother goes back-and-forth between hugging him, staring at him worriedly and reminding him to call at least twice a week while his father unpacks the trunk. “I’ll only be a thirty-minute train ride away, Mom,” he says. 

He’s still Jong.

You moved in yesterday, and you’re now waiting for your new roommate, who, after five minutes of deliberating whether she should bring a jacket or not and finally decided against it, changed her mind the minute she stepped outside. 

It’s been two months since you last saw him. Shortly after sending your letter, you’d gone to stay with Sunoo’s grandparents for a week, just a day before he was set to come back from Seattle. Amid packing and other preparations, you haven’t had time to see each other. Is it okay if I respond to your letter in person? I think I’ll be too busy these two coming weeks, he texted you. You replied that it wasn’t a problem, you told him which dorm you’d been assigned and found out his was the one next door.

When he notices you staring, he does a double-take. You wave at him, and even from this distance, you see the blush that creeps up his neck and takes over his face as he shyly waves back. You’ve never seen him like this—he’s always been either arrogant or friendly, never… flustered. He makes a motion as if to say, I’ll text you, and heads inside the building with his parents and all of his luggage.  

Indeed, he texts you some hours later while you’re sharing a piece of strawberry and matcha cake with your roommate Liz, whom you find out is half-German—Jongseong and your dad would probably love her for that simple fact. Some of the first things she’d asked you were what your astrological signs were and whether you wanted her to pull tarot cards for you when she was all done setting up her side of the room. Between that and her dyed blonde hair, you’d felt comfortable telling her all about Jongseong, the well and your dream. Unlike your skeptical and sarcastic friends, she’d nodded along to your every word, a serious expression on her face. “A sign from the universe,” she’d called it, and she gasped in excitement when his name appeared on your screen.

He sends you a link to a freshers’ week event, some potted plant sale happening on the main campus square, and asks if you’re free to go with him tomorrow. I need something to liven up that depressing room, he writes.

So that’s how you find yourselves among green plants of all shapes and sizes, searching for one that’s both low-maintenance and appealing to the eye. You’re glad that you have something to actually do—if you were just sitting at a café and having a conversation, you’re not sure you’d be able to stand the awkwardness. You’d chalked up his behavior on the day of his move-in to nerves, or to surprise upon seeing you so unexpectedly. But apparently, it wasn’t a one-time thing. He keeps clearing his throat as if he were sick with some cold, won’t look into your eyes for more than split seconds at a time, and in complete opposition to his usual confident, deliberate speech, talks in a quick and disorderly manner. And he’s either really caught a cold, or his ears have just permanently turned red. You ask him if something’s wrong a couple times, but he violently shakes his head, says, “No, what could be wrong?” then looks at you as if you might tell him what’s wrong.

When you’re alone again, you wonder what on earth could have happened over the summer that could make him change his behavior with you so radically. Did something happen in Seattle? Maybe he met someone there and doesn’t know how to tell you. Maybe you went overboard with your letters, he doesn’t want to be friends anymore, he wants to let you down easy but doesn’t know how to tell you. Or maybe—maybe you got impossibly pretty during those two months, and absence does make the heart grow fonder, as they say, and every thought you have about him, he has about you, but he doesn’t know how to tell you.

In any case, he’s hiding something.

The theory that he might want to stop being friends soon falls flat—the invitations to other freshers’ events keep coming, be it free wine & pizza taster sessions from the Wine Society, karaoke nights with the Taylor Swift Society or a shark movie marathon with the Bad Film Society, and he never turns you down when you tell him there’s something you want to visit in this new city of yours, even when the thing you want to visit in question is a bakery you have to queue in front of at seven a.m. if you want to get a pain au chocolat. In your defense, they turn out to be the best ones you and Jongseong have ever tried—although, to be fair, neither of you has been to France.

Things progressively return to normal. He’s able to make eye contact for more than three seconds again, he listens carefully and laughs along when you tell him about your week by the sea with Sunoo, he fills you in on what Heeseung’s been up to. One thing remains different, however—when you throw quips at him, he usually would’ve delighted in coming up with a better, wittier response, but now, he’ll roll his eyes at best, look at you amusedly and stay silent at worst. “Won’t you even entertain me?” you ask him once, to which he replies that you’re doing a good job entertaining yourself as is. 

Instead, he becomes more earnest. As per usual you badger him with questions like Aren’t I so pretty right now? or Isn’t my outfit so cute today? to get a reaction out of him, and if during your high school days he’d either fake a puking sound or look you up and down and grumble I guess, he now smiles and simply says Yes, you are, Yes, it is. It seems impossible to keep track of his attitude: one day, he’s one thing, the next, he’s another person entirely. 

It annoys you. You take his changing demeanor to mean that now that he’s a college student, he won’t indulge in your childish squabbles anymore, as though he was above all of that now, when just three months ago he was stalking your parents’ Facebooks to find unfavorable photos of you from when you were thirteen and using them as reaction pictures in your friends’ group chat. You think of your graduation day, of the box he’d given you, all done up in wrapper paper and a bow—he had filled it with every eraser he’d stolen from you over the years, he’d even gone so far as to date every single one of them, from the second of October freshman year to the twenty-eighth of November of your senior year. You didn’t count them, but there had to be at least a hundred. At the time, you’d just thought it was funny—but what if the gesture had meant something deeper than you’d realized? What if he was marking the end of something with that box? No more playing around, we’re adults now. But classes have barely started, you don’t know your way to the off-campus library, you aren’t a different person to who you were just weeks or even months earlier. Why is he acting like he is? You look at him, and you see the boy whose fault it was you had to buy a new eraser every week—who knows how many books you could’ve bought with that money. But when he turns to look at you, too, and your eyes meet, you’re suddenly assailed with the memories of that night, the kind eyes, the soft smile. 

Does his future capacity to love me already exist in his heart?

Your heartbeat speeds up and you have to look away.

--

From your letters, it seems to be much hotter back home than in Seattle—you talk of sunburns, of afternoons spent inside with the fan on maximum speed, of ice melting instantly and watering down your Coke Zeros, whereas Jay can walk around the city pleasantly and needs to bring a jacket if he’ll be out until late after sundown. And yet, as he reads your latest letter, his skin prickles feverishly, from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. He’d excitedly torn the envelope open the second it arrived in the mail, heart thumping as he counted the pages, at least three more than usual — he was always happy that you wanted to talk to him at all, so the fact that you had this much to tell him sent him over the moon — but he would have never expected what was awaiting him inside.

With a smile on his face, he read your replies to the questions he’d asked you last time, your reactions to everything he told you about, the live Mariners game, the lake house, the rides on the boat. He imagined you as you sat at your desk in your room he’d only seen once, when you’d held a small party for your birthday and he, having arrived first, was honored with a tour of your house. He imagined your smile, the way you played with your hair when you focused on something, wondered whether you pondered every word before you wrote it down as he did or whether you poured your thoughts out onto the page without hesitation. His smile faltered when Jake Sim’s name appeared in your neat handwriting, but he was relieved to find out your description of him now was miles away from the one at the start of the school year. 

Then you start writing about him. Him, Park Jongseong, and your words startle him so much, it’s like he’d forgotten he was the recipient of this letter in the first place.

But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you. 

He’s been lying comfortably in his bed, but he sits up the moment his eyes take in these words. If there is one topic the two of you have practically never broached, it’s this exactly: your relationship, the changes it’s gone through this past year. Except for a few mentions made in jest here and there, you’ve always conveniently ignored the fact that not so long ago, you were at each other’s throats. At least, you were at his throat, and Jay let you be, let you think the hatred went both ways, when in reality all he wanted was to keep you close one way or another. To him, anything was better than indifference.

But here you are, writing about how you feel about him, not in hints, not in jokes, but actually telling him black and white what goes through your head when you think of him—in other words, everything he’s been dying to know ever since he met you and especially ever since you started warming up to him a few months ago.

I have never told you about that night because I know it’ll just be more fodder for you to endlessly tease me, and I haven’t even mentioned it in these letters that I write and don’t send. Sometimes I debate the ethics of it—if I know something about our futures, isn’t it right that you know, too? But then again, I still hesitate whether what happened was real or not. As with anything, the more time passes, the more I forget about it. What kind of cheese you’d put on the pasta, the movie that played in the background, whether the stairs were carpeted or wooded—these details have evaded me by now. All I clearly remember is your face and how I felt, seeing it then, seeing it the next day at school, ten years younger, the same exact person in what felt like a different universe. As much as I tried to deny it, I know now that it was no coincidence—I was talking about it with Sunoo and he said that sometimes, we want something so badly, we conjure it up for ourselves. He’s not always a dimwit. And he’s right, the kind of love I felt from you in that dream — or not-dream — I’ve yearned for it ever since I first watched Pride & Prejudice, the 2005 film to be precise, when I was ten. But with you? That was what I couldn’t believe at first. I don’t think I need to explain why—you were there, I think you knew how I felt about you for over three years, it’s not like I tried to hide it.

Then you turned up and the sight of you was enough to bring back all the feelings from that dream. You must’ve wondered why my behavior with you switched so suddenly—well, a glimpse into marital bliss is sometimes enough for a girl to make some changes in her life. Yet I valiantly tried to convince myself that any flutter of my heart around you was due to this stupid dream, to a version of you my brain had conjured up because it was starved for affection, and you happened to be at the forefront of my mind, even if not for the right reasons. But it was no use. I had entertained the possibility that this future was really mine, and I couldn’t go back to seeing you as the boy who annoyed the living daylights out of me.

But Jong, if you weren’t you, I would’ve been confused for a week and then I would’ve gotten over it. I stayed confused for a while, and everything you did only served to confuse me further. I started to notice you more, to see you for who you were and not for the idea I had constructed of you in my head, I stopped taking note of only the things that reinforced this idea. And that changed everything.

Let’s get it out of the way: as much as I hate to admit it because it proves you right, I saw that you are indeed devastatingly handsome. It devastates me every time I have to look at that stupid, wonderful face of yours. And if aging is something you’re worried about, don’t be. I’ve seen you at 28, and let’s just say that your jaw somehow only gets more chiseled. I’ve realized that you don’t just participate in class to be a prick — except for when you contradict me in Literature, I know you only do that to piss me off, and yes, it works — but that you actually care about what we learn and that you don’t want the teacher to feel like they’re talking to a classroom full of students made out of bricks. I’ve also realized that you didn’t specifically pick German to be the one subject where you must beat me at all costs, you just actually really like German, even if I’m still undetermined as to why. And I can finally admit to myself—you are funny. Sometimes. There were so many times I had to stop myself from laughing at one of your idiotic puns because I could not bear to give you the satisfaction. That feeling when the worst person you know makes a funny joke, and all that. And as much as I’ve mocked you for it, I do actually like your laugh. I like that you’re only loud when you laugh, or sneeze, or get excited over something. You don’t scream, you don’t get angry, and I think that’s a lot for a boy fresh out of puberty. Or for any boy, really. 

But above all, you’re kind, Jong. I think it’s the best thing about you. I think it’s the best thing anyone can be. I see it in your patience with Heeseung when he starts one of his rants better reserved for Reddit than real life, I see it in the way you took Sunoo and Kazuha in stride, even though they’re a bit rough around the edges sometimes, I see it in the way you guide the freshmen at the start of every year, when all anyone does is complain about them, I see it in the gentleness with which you let down the girls who confess to you, even the more persistent ones. I used to think they were crazy, but I understand them more than ever now. I also used to think that all those kindnesses meant that the ones you occasionally showed me meant nothing more than that—occasional kindnesses. You were just a nice guy, occasionally so to me. But you sort of ratted yourself out when you gave me those twenty chocolates for Valentine’s.

Or, really, what made things clearer was that fight in December. I guess I was wrong—you do get angry. I remember a thought I had at the time: just when I think I know you, you do something to shake it all up. You punched two of the star soccer players of our school in the face because they said some mean, unimportant things about me. Thinking about it now, I still don’t understand it. Was it another one of your acts of kindness? 

And then I thought of those other times you helped me out. Do you remember them—the art project, the handwritten notes after my grandma passed away, you tearing Park Sunghoon a new one in the girls’ bathroom. I’m sure there are many more that I’ve dismissed simply because I did not want to see you in any other light than the one I’d decided to shine on you. 

Maybe I’m rewriting the past here, but I’ve been thinking about something lately. The theme today seems to be honesty, so I’ll lay myself bare and tell you something I haven’t told anyone yet, not even myself. The more I write, the more I become aware of its truth. I like you, Jong. I think I have for a long time, longer than either of us thinks. Maybe that’s why I kept buying erasers.

I don’t have the best memory — I suspect iron deficiency, it runs in my mom’s side of the family — but I do remember this. The first time I saw you. I haven’t noticed your face changing in real time, but I’m sure I’d laugh at how much of a baby you looked back then. Although I didn’t fare much better, I’m sure. Well, you’re the one that has all these embarrassing pictures of me, you freak, so I’m sure you could tell me. Moving on… 

I found you really cute. You were chatting to the person next to you, maybe it was Heeseung, I didn’t look properly—I only looked at you. Don’t laugh at me. It was the first day of high school, there was a nervous energy in the air, but you seemed happy to be there. You know I don’t have hordes of friends like you do, I don’t walk through life with people naturally gravitating towards me. I’m okay with it now, but it was something I struggled with back then. Kazuha, Sunoo and I have had each other since our elementary days, and I never needed more than that—but fifteen is the prime age for comparison, and as the weeks passed and we got used to being high schoolers, I listened to everyone sing your praises, I watched as you talked with all of our classmates, even our teachers, like you were old friends. But we sat next to each other in a couple of classes, and you wouldn't talk to me outside of partnered work. I, who wanted to be easily charmed by you like everyone else was, who thought maybe you’d help me come out of my shell. But it felt like sitting next to me was torture to you, like the boy whom I watched speak with ease to everyone else disappeared when I was around. And so — and I’m not proud of this — every smart remark in class, every joke that had the entire class roaring, every high five you gave out in the hallway, I started to despise them. And by association, I started to despise you. After that, it was easy to find fault in everything you did, my contempt was only enhanced by everyone’s admiration. But I’m not alone here. It went both ways, didn’t it? I don’t think you liked that I didn’t like you and openly showed it, so used to being everyone’s favorite person you were. I remember how you showily tried to be nice to me after that, maybe you just wanted another friend, but I didn’t let you. I don’t blame us for how we acted, only for taking so long to get our heads out of our asses.

(I have to say, I also have a thing for hating people. Remind me to tell you about Na Jaemin and Shin Ryujin one of these days.)

Anyways, I think it’s because I had liked you so much at first that I could then seemingly hate you so much. But I never hated you, Jong, not really. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. Can I take it all back now? 

Now that we’re entering university soon, I can’t help but look back on high school. This is what I want to know, but I’m not sure I’ll ever have the courage to ask you, because if your answer is the one I suspect, I don’t know how I’ll handle all the regret in my heart.

Have I been wrong about you this whole time? I thought you harbored the same negative feelings towards me as I had you since the moment you’d laid eyes on me, but all of a sudden, here you were, bloody, bandaged hand holding mine. Even with your busted eye, you looked like an angel next to all that white in the nurse’s station. I’ll never forget your words that day. Would you really not get hurt for anything else, Jong?

Your letter abruptly ends here, no concluding remarks, no wishing him a fun time in Seattle and looking forward to his next letter, no sign-off. It was as if someone cut you off before you could say everything you wanted, but then why send him this seemingly unfinished letter? It is all the more bizarre since your letters are usually meticulous: you write on every other line, it looks like you take your time with every single letter, the only disturbance in your otherwise perfect handwriting is your going back-and-forth between cursive and script s’s. But this particular letter looks rushed, your lines are sloppy, some words need to be read a few times over to be understood. What kind of state had you been in, writing these words? Jay’s heart swells, thinking that you were as moved writing as he was reading. He even looks through your letter again, wishing to find a tear stain somewhere, but there are none. Maybe he’s been watching too many of these romantic period dramas you always go on about.

He has to pace his room when he’s done reading your letter, but he feels trapped inside these four walls, so he dashes outside, saying that he’s getting some air when his relatives ask him where he’s off to in such a rush, and walks around the block five times. When he’s back in his room, he rereads your letter, eyes taking in each and every word slowly and carefully, making sure he doesn’t misread anything.

You like him. You, Y/N, like him, Jongseong, it’s a fact, it’s real, you said so yourself, you went into quite some detail about it, he can’t believe it, but it’s real, it’s written right there on the page, if anyone dares tell him he’s fooling himself, he can prove them wrong, you’re the one who said it.

The smile doesn’t leave his lips for the rest of the day, he can barely eat, he’s already full of happiness. He reads your words over and over before falling asleep, committing them to memory, dreaming about them, about you.

You. How should he respond to this? Are you even expecting a response? You seem to know he’s not impartial to you, either, although that’s an understatement. 

In the following days, the thought that you hadn’t meant to send him this letter nags at him. The abrupt ending, the absence of your usual Love, Y/N. The fact that this had come out of left field—none of your previous letters had even a romantic undertone, no matter how he tried in his own to hint at his missing you, the most reference to seeing each other again you would give him was It’ll be better to show you this in real life. The act of sending letters itself didn’t feel very platonic, but you never went there, so he didn’t, either. He had secretly yearned to have you this close all these years, he would never forgive himself if he ended up chasing you away now with his over-eagerness.

You had landed on something very real in your letter: I don’t think you liked that I didn’t like you and openly showed it, so used to being everyone’s favorite person you were. I remember how you showily tried to be nice to me after that, maybe you just wanted another friend, but I didn’t let you. He cursed his fifteen-year-old self, that idiot who couldn’t even speak to a girl no matter how much he wanted to, just because she was so pretty, he was afraid of saying something stupid and messing it up before it even had a chance to start.

On days when you’d had particularly nasty or petty arguments — it could get pretty bad, at the start, before you both started maturing and realized how ridiculous you were, especially with your classmates telling you to keep it classy — he’d stay up all night, wondering why you hated him so much in the first place, what on Earth he could’ve done to warrant such vitriol. Now, finally, he knew, and he could only resent the fact that no one had invented time machines yet, so he could nip his useless ego in the bud; so he could tell younger Jay not to take it personally, that you had your reasons for disliking him, that even if you hadn’t, the world won’t end if someone doesn’t like him like everyone usually does. 

Because, he hates to admit, that was what had done it for Jay. He couldn’t stand that someone — not just someone, but one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen, a girl he’d been hyping himself up to talk to every day, but never found the courage to — didn’t immediately fall for his charms. And not just that, but even showed just how much she disliked him. You looked him up-and-down with disdain, made disgusted faces at his jokes, rolled your eyes when he spoke up in class. It made him burn with anger, but he also weirdly enjoyed it—at least, you were paying attention to him. So, he amped it up. Talked louder, laughed louder, hovered around you. He even stole your erasers, wrote the date on which he’d taken them, kept them in a box on his desk that he looked at every time he studied at home. He aimed to beat you in every class you shared, even though neither of you cared that much about grades—the annoyed look on your face when he boasted about the two points he’d gotten over you was enough satisfaction.

All in all, he behaved like a child, and you reciprocated in like.

Until you didn’t.

It was a random Tuesday when something in your attitude towards him shifted. It wasn’t a complete 180, but he noticed everything about you, so even a slight change of your tone was obvious to him. You started using your nickname for him more often than his full name—he never told you, but of course he loved that you didn’t call him Jay like everyone else, that you had your own way of addressing him. It was a sign to him that the two of you had something special, even if it was on the opposite end of the spectrum of what he wanted with you.

He again spent sleepless nights wondering what had caused this change: was it something he had done, or something within you? It was a welcome change, that much was sure, but he was initially too confused to take it in stride. He’d long made peace with the fact that he’d never have you the way he really wanted, so he was fine with whatever this was—but now, you were changing, your interactions were tinged with something like shyness, the distance between you felt greater than ever. He tried to keep up his smart-ass appearances around you, but you only indulged in your old habits once in a while, as though you had grown tired of arguing with him, even of giving him the time of day.

So he resolved himself to adapting his behavior to yours. If you stared at him intently like his face was a puzzle you were trying to solve, he let you, rested his head on his palm and smiled as he stared back at you. Finally, he had an excuse to look at you without you threatening to punch him or saying a picture would last longer. He knew they did, he’d had to resort to scrolling through Sunoo’s and Kazuha’s Instagrams to find any photos of you. Yours was private and at the time, you would’ve probably cursed him out if he’d sent a follow request. If you seemed too annoyed or upset over something, he’d leave you alone, he’d do something nice to let you know you didn’t need to have your guards up at all times around him. If you seemed to silently call for a truce of hostilities, he easily complied.

Then, after a few weeks, your petty arguments resumed, but those too were different—if before they felt filled with real disdain and irritation, they now seemed to be a comfortable habit to fall back on, almost like a fun hobby. Those, too, Jay readily welcomed.

And so things changed in a direction Jay had never thought would one day be possible. You gave him no explanations, nor did he ask for any, and soon he stopped losing sleep over the why’s and the how’s and simply let himself enjoy the fact that you now had the semblance of a friendship, that he could compliment you and pass it off as amical teasing, that he could learn things about you like what you spent your weekends doing, what your relationship with your family was like, whether you were a dog or cat person, whether you wanted to visit his farm in Stardew Valley. 

Unsurprisingly, this only enhanced his already pathetically strong feelings for you. He worried over how to make sure this wasn’t some sort of 30-day friendship trial you had wanted to test out. He reveled in the fact that his top university of choice was the one you had already been accepted to. He now knew what it felt like to have you smile at him, smile because of him, and he never wanted again to live in a world where this was not a daily occurrence. 

He now sort of has an answer—your letter doesn’t make it very clear, it makes him think again that you really had not meant to send it, but you seem to have had a dream. A dream of him, 28-year-old him, to be precise, of your life together—he’s not sure. At this point in time, he doesn’t care much, either. Whether it was a dream or a real vision of the future that you had, all that matters is that it allowed you to see him in a new light, a light which he had hoped for years would one day appear to you, and it had changed things. And now, you liked him.

You said so yourself.

He’s at a loss for words. He can’t concentrate for long enough to put all his thoughts in order, he can’t make himself calm down and write his feelings down. He has to pack to go home, once he’s home, he’ll have to pack for university. But it’s only two weeks from now to the day you meet again, and it’ll be better to say what he wants to say in person, anyway.

Is it okay if I respond to your letter in person? I think I’ll be too busy these two coming weeks, he texts you.

And then those two weeks pass like two seconds and you’re there, a few meters away from him. All the speeches he’d prepared in his head, from grand declarations of love to laid-back admittances of Yeah, I like you too, you’re cool, I guess, they all vanish from his head. For fourteen days he’s been going through scenarios upon scenarios of your reunion, what you’d look like, what he’d say, how you’d react. But now that he can actually see you, now that he would just have to walk a few steps if he wanted to touch you, hug you, kiss you — hoping that was something you wanted to do — he freezes. He forgets how his body works, the part in his brain that’s meant to manage language ability fails him. HIs mom calls him over, urging him into his new dorm building, and all he can do is wave back at you like an idiot.

When finally he musters the courage to text you, what he hopes will be the day that starts your romantic relationship turns into the day Park Jongseong realizes how much of a loser he is. For the first hour, he can’t look at you, he can’t get through a sentence without stuttering out half of his words, he runs out of things to say in record time. All he can think of is how easy it’d be to grab one of your hands, hold it in his and walk around this stupid potted plant sale as if the two of you were two halves of a whole. He doesn’t even want a potted plant, his roommate already has five, he just wanted an excuse to see you. He steals glances at you when you’re looking elsewhere, and he notices everything about you tenfold now that he can, now that caring about you doesn’t need to be in vain any longer. He tells himself that he just needs to calm down a bit, even when you have the confirmation that the person you’re about to confess to already likes you, revealing your feelings to someone is always nerve-wracking, the two of you haven’t seen in each other in a while, he’ll talk to you once his heart gets out of his throat.

But you’re acting normal. Suspiciously so. You’re acting like you never told him you liked him, like nothing has changed between you. He rereads your letter the second he gets back to his dorm. He’s not crazy, it’s written right there, I like you, Jong. I think I have for a long time, longer than either of us thinks. He knows the words by heart now, but he checks them anyway. So why are you acting like you never said anything? Had you really not meant to send that letter? Did Jay actually intrude on your private thoughts by reading words that had never meant to be seen by another soul?

You continue to behave as you usually would around him, but if he couldn’t go back to vicious bickering when things changed the first time, he can’t go back to friendly bickering now that things — for him — have changed a second time. He doesn’t even want friendly to be in your shared vocabulary anymore. 

So he stops giving in. If you make fun of him, he just stands there with an unimpressed if amused look on his face. If you pedantically correct him on something, he just nods his head and accepts it. He can tell you’re bothered by it, but he needs to show you that he doesn’t want to go on being just friends with you—he wants to compliment you without having to pass it off as teasing, he wants to stare at you with hearts in his eyes without having to look away when you catch him, he wants to spend every waking second of every day with you, he wants to hold your hand, hold you. 

He could wait for things to change slowly again, but why wait when he could help things along?

--

It’s nine p.m. on a Saturday and you’re sneaking Jongseong into your dorm. Liz is away for the weekend, gone back home to celebrate her aunt’s birthday, so you have the room to yourselves. It took some convincing to get him to come — What if we get caught coming in, What if your T.A. sees us, What if I get reported to campus police — and so when your verbal reassurances failed to work, you resorted to blinking up at him through your lashes and that did the trick.

Jongseong was in many ways unlike any other man you’d ever met; in some other ways, he was the exact same.

Plastic bag of the tteokbokki you’d asked for in hand, he looks around the deserted hallways like someone might jump out of nowhere and beat him to a pulp at any given moment. At this time of the week, everyone’s out partying or holed up in their dorms, presumably either to rest or because of a lack of friends so early on in the semester. You grab his free hand and hurry him along to the elevator—once inside, it takes you a few seconds before you realize you’re still holding it, and you retract your hand quickly while he just smiles. 

You settle yourselves on the floor—comfort is not worth getting gochujang sauce on your white sheets. You sit criss-cross in front of each other, the food between the two of you, and catch up on your first week of class in-between bites of spicy, gooey rice cakes and fish cakes. You wonder, if one day you and Jongseong are no longer friends, how long you will keep associating tteokbokki with him.

When you tell him that you and Jake share a class, Introduction to Film Studies, he gives you a look. “What’s that face for?” you ask.

“Did you guys sit next to each other?”

You chuckle. “Of course. We only knew each other in that room, it would’ve been weird not to.”

He continues to stare at you. After a while, he muses, “You’re not…?”

You halt in your tracks, rice cake at the end of your plastic fork hanging in the air, halfway between the container and your mouth. “Whatever you’re thinking, the answer is no.” Still in love with him, interested in him again, you don’t know the exact details of Jongseong’s thought process, all you know is he has nothing to worry about—if it’s something he worries about.

When a smile slowly grows on his lips and he nods, saying, “Okay, good,” you let yourself think it might be.

Later, you’re ten minutes into a senseless blockbuster movie when he suddenly pauses it. It snaps you out of a trance—his hand was awfully close to yours, so is his shoulder, his thigh, his knee, everything, really, and you haven’t been able to concentrate on anything but the warmth radiating off his skin and the intensity with which you crave to feel it intentionally rather than accidentally. When he speaks, there’s something serious in his tone that makes you nervous. “Y/N,” he says as he turns to you, and now his face is awfully close, too. There’s still many centimeters separating you, but in this tiny, barely lit-up room, he feels closer than ever before. “Do you remember when I said I’d reply to your letter in real life?”

You tilt your head. “Yeah, that was ages ago.”

“Well, I thought I’d do it now.”

“Now?”

He takes a deep, shaky breath. “Now.”

And then those safe centimeters suddenly disappear, and Jongseong’s lips are on yours. It’s a brief, chaste kiss, so quick you wonder if it even happened when he leans back again.

“I like you, too,” he says, and your heart stops.

“W-what?” is all you can say back, eyes wide like he’s just admitted to killing someone rather than reciprocating your feelings.

His confident facade quickly crumbles. “God, this was so much cooler in my head, I-I’m sorry.” He pulls something out of his sweatpants pocket, pages folded over and over into a tiny square. As he unfolds them, you recognize your paper, your handwriting—but what do your letters have anything to do with him kissing you, of all things? “I don’t think you meant to send this. But I’m glad you did.”

He hands you the pages and your eyes skim over the words, not detecting anything out of the ordinary, until—But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you. You remember this line, because you had made sure to strike it and everything that came afterward out when you rewrote the letter that you would actually send Jongseong. So how was he giving you this? 

“I-How do you have this?” you ask, voice trembling. You feel as though your heart overflows with all kinds of emotions, and so your eyes follow, tears staining your lower lashes. 

But Jongseong is not one to let you hide things from him. “Hey, no, it’s okay,” he says, warm hands coming to cup your face. “Look at me.” You have no choice but to oblige—his gaze is somehow both soft and stern, a mix of concern and determination. “Did you mean what you wrote in here?” You nod. “Then everything’s okay. You don’t know how happy I was reading this.”

The tension in your body slowly starts to fade. “Really?”

“Really. I cherish every single word in there.”

“Really?” you repeat, and he chuckles.

“Really.”

Your heartbeat speeds up as you gaze into his eyes, as you let yourself bask in the affection and endearment you find there. You can’t quite comprehend what’s happening. The letter, the kiss, his confession, your inadvertent confession, it’s all a mess in your head; so sudden, but such a long time coming at the same time. You never imagined that things would change so quickly—less than a year ago, you thought Jongseong was the most irritating person on this planet. After meeting his 28-year-old self, you thought it’d take ages for the two of you to be on such good terms. But now, just a week into your first semester of university, belly full of tteokbokki and Sprite, you like each other enough not only to be in the same room without hurling insults at each other but to actually be smiling at each other, willingly at that.

Your eyes drift down to his lips, just like in the hallway all those months ago, and the words slip out before you can stop them. They’re a mere whisper—”Kiss me again.”

Jongseong doesn’t need to be told twice. Still cupping your face, he bridges the gap between the two of you again, and this time, when your lips meet, they don’t come apart so quickly. It’s your first kiss, and it’s nothing short of magical, better than any romance novel could’ve prepared you for. His lips are warm and soft against yours, moving slowly, gingerly; as if he’s scared to take any wrong step, he lets you control the pace, follows every tilt of your head this way and that. It’s a relief that he seems to know as little about this as you do—his hands haven’t moved from your face, yours are on his knees, all you can do is focus on the movement of your lips, to think of anything else at the same time would be overwhelming. 

“I’ve liked you from the start,” he suddenly says, face still so close you can feel his breath on your lips as he speaks. 

“Hm?” you hum, body reeling from the kiss.

“I’ve liked you from the start,” he repeats, grinning—he looks relieved, like he’s been waiting to say these words for a long time. “I can’t believe this is happening after all these years. Or at all, really.”

“I think I did, too.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that in your letter.”

Your eyes widen and you bury your face in your hands as Jongseong laughs. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” you mumble.

He smooths over your hair with one hand, brings your face back up with the other. “Don’t worry. I won’t ever make you regret this.”

Your brain and heart are too all over the place for you to come up with a coherent answer, so you lean in and reconnect your lips to his. It’s already becoming your favorite sensation, feeling him smile into the kiss, threading your fingers in his soft hair.

Time passes delicately like this, the two of you on your single bed, in the sheets that you bought three weeks ago. A lot of it is spent kissing and learning how to fall into each other’s rhythm, but you also spend hours talking, comparing situations and how you’d experienced them. You thought his occasional acts of kindness were done out of guilt, evidence that he did have some morals; he was trying to show he cared about you. He thought you’d despised him from the moment you saw him; you reiterate in more detail than your letter what really happened, you say you wish you knew then what you know now. 

“But I never hated you, Jong. I think I wanted to believe that I did, but I never actually did.”

“You glared at me everytime I walked past like I killed a member of your family.”

You groan, ashamed of yourself. “I did, didn’t I?”

“You did,” he says, chuckling, placing a kiss on your forehead. His arms are around you, your head rests atop his heart—you’ve never felt more comfortable in your life. “But it’s okay. We’re here now, and I don’t want us to have any regrets about high school. We had a good time, didn’t we?”

You tilt your head up to look at him. “I’m sure you did, stealing all my erasers.”

He lets out a hearty laugh. Clearly, he’s very proud of his feat. “Hey, I gave all of them back.”

“And what am I going to do with a hundred erasers, Jong?” you ask, laughing too, pecking his cheek aggressively—your way of punishing him for a grave deed.

“Keep them as a token of my love for you,” he says, and your breath falters at the mention of that word. “In fifty years, it’ll be a sign that I’ve liked you since the beginning, I just had a funny way of showing it.”

“Fifty years, huh?”

He grins. “Fifty, a hundred, whatever. You’re not getting rid of me.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

You’re both smiling so wide, you can barely manage a kiss. He trails kisses from your lips to your ear. Holding you close, he whispers, “It’s always been you, Y/N. Always and only you.”

There may be thorns on the otherwise immaculate rose that is your life, but Park Jongseong was never one of them—all along, he was a bud waiting to bloom.

--

The more time passes, the more you wonder whether that night you had seen in your vision will ever come. There’s been evenings similar to it—crashing the minute you came home from a long day on set, telling yourself you’d take a fifteen-minute power nap only to wake up three hours later and coming downstairs to find your husband cooking dinner, cleaning the kitchen, taking care of your son or simply watching TV, but waiting for you, always waiting for you. He seems as happy now watching you come down the stairs as he was then finding your face among all the students flocking out of lecture halls. 

The details are blurry now, but many small things seem to be different from what you’d seen. He still tries to recreate your favorite meal, but it’s not pasta all'arrabbiata, it’s laksa, because your first date as an official couple was to a Malaysian restaurant, not an Italian one. He’s still the best father you know, but you have one son, not twin girls—although that offer to “give him a younger sibling to play with” is always on the table. Even the house you live in is different from the one in your dream, which has now become nothing more than a funny anecdote you share with people when they ask you the story of how you and Jongseong met.

You think of Sunoo’s words from all those years ago: Sometimes, we want something so badly, we conjure it up for ourselves. Had 18-year-old you been in such denial over her feelings for Jongseong that she’d had to convince herself a magical well had bestowed a crazy dream upon her to admit that, yes, there was something there, something other than childish hatred?

It doesn’t matter anymore. Months pass without you thinking about that well, anyway. 

Tonight, you come home late from work after having had to do last-minute changes to the script for your current project, a movie that starts shooting in a few days. Jongseong texted you that he was going to bed an hour or so again, so you’re greeted by a plate of japchae covered in film paper. The post-it note stuck to it reads, I’m afraid of the repercussions of too much curry consumption on our son, so no laksa tonight my love. Hope you like it. Come to bed quick. You were starving a second ago, but you decide food can wait—other things can’t.

You tiptoe up the stairs and into your son’s room, breathing in the scent of his hair and placing a kiss there. His hair is still worryingly sparse, but if he’s anything like his dad, it’ll come in a bit later than the other kids. You always thought babies with a full head of hair were freaky, anyway. He doesn’t budge a bit, sleeping like a log—his dad is another story, shuffling in bed the moment you step into your shared bedroom. He opens his arms wide, a silent invitation.

“You’re home,” he says as you attach yourself to his body, your leg hiked up over his, your face buried in the crook of his neck, your thumb caressing the start of stubble on his cheeks.

You smile. “I am.”

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[moonstruckme]

Hey angel!! hope ur doing well!!

i was wondering if I could request roommate!marauders where they have crushes on reader buttt she already has a bf but he's just a total jerk.... and u sorta get the idea?? (if u haven't done one like this already)

much love!!! <3333

Thank you for requesting lovely <3

cw: douchebag boyfriend, marauders fancy reader but don't genuinely want her to cheat or end her relationship for them

(poly)roommate!marauders x fem!reader ♡ 1.1k words

It’s heartbreaking how lovely you look first thing in the morning. Sweet, rumpled pajamas, plodding gait, sunlight stretching over features still soft with sleep. You raise your hand to cover a yawn as you enter the kitchen, eyelashes still drooping like they’ve weights sewn into them. 

“Morning,” you say on the tail end. 

“Morning.” James opens one arm to you. You step into the hug automatically, and he drops a kiss to your head, his own private indulgence. You’re eyeing the omelet he’s frying up with his other hand. “Want one?” 

“Mm, wish I could,” your voice is a somnolent mumble, “but Dale’s taking me to breakfast in a bit.” 

James tries not to react, but his hold on you stiffens some. From the living room, he hears Sirius scoff. “Oh.” 

“I’m sure your omelet would be better.” You pat his side, moving out from under his arm to go to the coffee pot. “We’re going to this cafe he likes, and they never have anything I want. Still, I can hardly show up full.” 

James feels himself frown. Typical of your boyfriend to take you somewhere you don’t even like. Perhaps he’s a tad biased, but James thinks you should eat one of his omelets and show up full just to teach him a lesson. 

He plates up the one he’s just finished. You tail him into the living room as he delivers it to Sirius, curling your feet up underneath you on the couch. Remus is sitting in the armchair reading the paper. He and James have already had their breakfasts, but you and Sirius are always the last up on weekends.

“Are you finished with the funnies?” you ask Remus. 

He looks up at you with a tenderness James doesn’t know how you can’t see. “Yeah,” he says, shaking out a page. “Here.” 

Sirius snickers at your choice of reading material as you reach across him for it. You nudge his thigh with your knee. “Bite me.” 

“Anywhere you’d like me to, babe.” He winks. 

You roll your eyes and fold the page to read, well used to Sirius’ flirting. Similarly to how he’d done with Remus, Sirius’ ill-advised tactic for winning you over involves alternating between taunting you relentlessly and acting like his affection for you is all one big joke. It only barely worked on Remus—James’ interference had been required there, and that was before he’d admitted to himself his own feelings for either of the two boys—so James doesn’t understand why Sirius would give it another go with you. 

“Oh.” Remus closes his paper, seeming to remember something. “I was wondering if you might have time to go with me to the farmer’s market this morning. We’re out of eggs, but I can’t haggle with the woman like you do.” 

You give him a sorry sort of smile. “I would, but Dale’s meant to pick me up at ten.”

“Oh, well.” Sirius rolls his eyes, chewing malignantly on a bite of omelet. “If Dale said he’ll be here at ten, then surely that’s what’s happening.” 

You bump his thigh again good naturedly. “Be nice.” 

James bites his tongue, and even Remus reopens his newspaper with a tad more vigor than necessary. Sirius is by far the most vocal with you about your boyfriend’s flaws, but your roommates all hate him. The guy’s a prick. James would never in a million years try to convince you to leave your partner for them—and despite Sirius’ joking, he knows neither of the other boys would want that either—but if you broke up with Dale, he would be very tempted to throw a party. 

James really doesn’t understand how someone like you could end up with someone so holistically unpleasant as your boyfriend. He’s rude, inconsiderate, he doesn’t express any gratitude for the sweet things you do for him, and he is never where he says he’s going to be when he says he’s going to be there. He shows so little regard for anyone but himself. If he told you he was going to pick you up at ten in the morning, he’s just as likely to arrive at three in the afternoon. Even for your half-hearted defense of him, it’s nearly ten and you’ve made no move to change out of your pajamas or get ready, because you know he won’t be here on time. It irks your roommates to no end to see you tolerate such poor treatment. 

“Maybe you can go with Remus to the farmer’s market,” you tell Sirius. “You seem like you could negotiate.” 

“Sirius doesn’t know how much eggs are supposed to cost,” Remus says idly. 

“Oi!” Sirius objects through a mouthful of omelet. “I do so.” 

James smiles at him. “Really. How much do you think eggs cost, love?” 

Sirius manages to take another bite while James is asking, so his mouth is conveniently too full to answer. 

“I can manage it on my own,” Remus says with indulgent fondness. “Dove, do me one favor, though?” 

You lift your coffee. “Sure.” 

“Don’t let him summon you outside with his horn again.” 

There’s a brief but thick silence while you finish swallowing your coffee and all three boys try not to look too obviously judgmental (Sirius trying the least, naturally). The purse of your lips reveals some embarrassment. 

Still, your voice comes out unconcerned. “It’s not a big deal to me. It’s not like we’re in school and I need him to come to the door and meet my parents. It’s a time saver.” 

“It’s rude,” says Remus gently. “You deserve someone who will come to the door for you.” 

James’ thoughts exactly. 

“Sure you don’t want some toast or something while you wait?” James asks, partly to dispel the tension and partly because he really does think you should eat something if Dale isn’t likely to be here until the afternoon. “You could call it an appetizer.” 

You stand with your emptied coffee mug, passing an affectionate hand over James’ hair as you move between his legs and the coffee table. “Thanks,” you say genuinely, “but I’m alright. I’m going to go get ready.” 

However eager James is to avoid the tension that comes from insulting (or, really, just speaking frankly about) your boyfriend, Sirius has no such concerns. “While we’re telling Dale things,” he says after you, “be sure to remind him that our flat has a three-strike roommate tears policy. Next time you come home crying, Jamie and I get to make a house call.” 

Your laughter echoes down the hallway. “Sure, I’ll let him know.” 

Sirius looks at James, perplexed. “Did I sound like I was joking? I was not using my joking voice.” 

James pats his leg consolingly.

[choerrypuffs]

red velvet hearts.

pairing: bad boy!donghyuck x baker!reader

genre: fluff, slight angst

word count: 7.7k

synopsis: you patch up a boy with a bloody nose and bruised knuckles, only to find out that he has quite the sweet tooth.

author’s note: why do i keep injuring hyuck in all my fics lmao??? anyways i tried to write his character a bit differently than i usually do to challenge myself so please let me know how you guys like it! also remember, ladies: this is fiction. you cannot fix him <3

warning(s): brief description of injuries, mentions of violence, maximum amounts of cringe and melodrama

playlist: all my ghosts by lizzy mcalpine ― heart eyes by coin ― close to you by gracie abrams ― sidelines by phoebe bridgers ― the alchemy by taylor swift

RECIPE 1. TIRAMISU

“This is not what I meant when I said you need your back blown out.” 

“Not funny. I almost died,” you grumble as you wrap the back brace around your torso. You hate the immediate relief you feel from the support it provides, no longer able to tell yourself that it’s really not as bad as it seems―which only makes you angrier. 

“Throwing your back out while lifting a giant bag of flour and nearly getting crushed to death by said flour is genuinely the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever heard,” Yeri, your best friend (derogatory), snorts as she shakes her head. “I wish you had cameras in the storage room because I want to see that shit so bad.”

“Thank you for the brace. You can get the hell out now.” You roll your eyes. 

“So, what are you going to do now? Aren’t you swamped with orders?” Yeri asks, ignoring you completely. 

You have no clue what you’re going to do now. It isn’t just orders you have to worry about fulfilling; it’s also the freshly baked pastries that you have to sell every morning. After a year of blood, sweat, and tears, the bakery that you built from the ground up is finally starting to gain some stable business. So, of course, you chose now of all times to try to lift a bag of flour over your shoulder like you were Dwayne The Rock Johnson. 

“I think I’ll have to hire some temporary help,” you answer begrudgingly. 

“You could sound less like someone is holding you at gunpoint,” Yeri snorts, “Come on. It had to happen sooner or later anyway.” 

“I was handling things just fine on my own.”

“Were you, though?” Yeri raises an eyebrow, gesturing to your current state. 

You fear you walked right into that one. “Shut up and help me make some posters.” 

The two of you eventually manage to whip up some haphazard “Help Wanted” posters, the letters written in glitter pen and Yeri’s clumsy bubble text. You tried your best to fill in the empty gaps on the construction paper by placing Pompompurin stickers that you normally give to customers’ kids all over it. The posters look like a nine-year-old girl’s school project gone wrong, but you hope it’s charming enough to catch some attention. 

By the time you and Yeri finish hanging up all the posters, the sun is already starting to set, and all you want to do is go home and put a heating pad on your back. After saying bye to Yeri, you start making your way back to the bakery to lock up. Once you arrive, you notice a figure dressed in black slumped over in front of the door. You can see their shoulders rise up and down as they take in labored breaths, leaning against the glass door for support. 

Every rational fiber in your being screams at you to not approach the stranger alone, but it’s not like you can just leave this person at the front of your place of business. Cautiously taking a step forward, you squat down to eye level with the stranger, wincing slightly from back pain. Through the sweaty and matted mess of his brown fringe, you can see that the stranger is a young man around your age. However, his face is absolutely battered: bloody (and almost certainly broken) nose, split lip, black eye swollen shut, and a jagged cut on his cheek. If he notices your presence, he doesn’t show it, keeping his head hung down.

Gingerly placing a hand on his arm, you give him a small shake. “Excuse me? Are you okay? Do you need me to call an ambulance?” 

His brows furrow, and he opens an eye (the only one he’s probably able to open) with a wince before lifting a finger and putting it against his lips. You notice that his knuckles are completely scraped raw. 

“Not so loud. I’m okay,” he answers. 

“You don’t look―” 

As if on cue, his stomach rumbles with a guttural growl that slowly drawls into a sputtering gurgle before dying out all together―leaving a long silence to hang between the two of you.

After another beat, he gives you a sheepish smile. “You got anything to eat?” 

You stare at him for a moment; his face is flushed, pink all the way down to his neck. 

And like a stupid horror movie character who opens the door to a room that clearly screams danger, you nod. 

.

.

.

Fortunately, he―Donghyuck, as he introduced himself―ends up not being a crazy ax murderer. 

Unfortunately, you find yourself awkwardly sitting in your closed bakery with a virtual stranger, fiddling with a first aid kit while watching him absolutely devour a piece of leftover tiramisu that you had in your fridge. If the situation wasn’t so insane, you might actually think it was pretty funny. For someone who looks the way he does, this current picture of Donghyuck absolutely doesn’t suit him―bruised chipmunk cheeks stuffed with ladyfingers and cocoa powder stuck on his split lip. 

When he’s finished, Donghyuck looks over at you with a mesmerized expression on his face, as if you just fed him ambrosia. There’s a softness to his face that you didn’t think could exist underneath all that grime and dried blood. 

“That was…delicious,” he breathes. 

“Thanks,” you snort, pushing a glass of water towards him. Unsurprisingly, he chugs it in the blink of an eye. “I still think you should get those injuries checked out, though.” 

“Nah, I’ll rub a little spit in them and it’ll be fine,” he shrugs. 

“Don’t be gross,” you sigh, scooting your chair closer to him as you set the first aid kit on the table. “Now, come here.” 

Donghyuck reluctantly dips his head, and you carefully cup his jaw for support, disinfecting and applying ointment on the cuts and scrapes on his face. You also clean up the dried blood near his nostrils and on his bottom lip, and he doesn’t flinch even when you accidentally brush tender areas like his broken nose or the gash on his mouth. Instead, he stays perfectly still, leaned back in the chair with his forearms resting on his thighs and fingers nonchalantly laced together. 

He keeps his gaze trained on something past your shoulder, and you also try your best to focus, but it’s hard to keep yourself from staring―especially when his demeanor has changed so much. He’s so calm and quiet in such a cold, ruthless manner, as if he’s physically steeling himself from pain―like he’s done this a million times before. Occasionally, you feel his eyes swipe across your face when he thinks you’re not paying attention, and it occurs to you how close the two of you are. Suddenly, you’re acutely aware of the heat of his skin against your palm and fingertips, and you rip your hand away from his jaw. 

Clearing your throat, you move onto his hands, dabbing his raw knuckles with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol before placing large band-aids on them. Despite your best efforts, it’s hard not to notice how slim his long fingers are or how surprisingly clean his nail beds are for someone who’s covered in blood. You keep your head completely bent, fighting the urge of looking up and possibly meeting his eyes. 

“There, all done,” you announce a little too loudly. 

“Thank you,” he says softly, “for the cake and for this. For helping me.” 

“Don’t worry about it. I didn’t do much,” you blurt, still avoiding eye contact as you clean up the table. However, you notice in your peripheral that his gaze follows your movements, almost hesitantly, before he asks: 

“So, you’re hiring?” 

You click the first-aid kit shut, blinking a few times before turning back to him. He looks at you with a raised eyebrow, waiting for an answer.

“I―yeah. How did you know that?” you ask, puzzled by such a random question. 

Donghyuck points at a poster that you didn’t even know you left here, sitting on the table right behind you. You realize that he was probably looking at it while you were patching him up. 

“That poster that says ‘help wanted.’ With the Pompompurin stickers. I’m actually in between jobs right now, so if you would have me―”

“You know Pompompurin?” you interrupt him. It’s not that important and should not stand out to you as much as it does. Yet, you can’t help but grin at the fact that someone like him knows about a tubby Golden Retriever character with a name that sounds like a mashup of the English language’s most adorable onomatopeias. 

Donghyuck trails off, stiffening as if you just found out his deepest, darkest secret. He opens his mouth slightly, trying to speak but unable to formulate a response―an excuse, rather. Instead, he just lets out an airy cough, putting a hand over his mouth and turning away from you in an attempt to obscure his face. Despite his best efforts, he can’t hide his glowing red ears and the way his earlier coldness melts away.

“I―yeah,” he responds, words slightly muffled by his hand. 

You struggle to maintain your composure as you gnaw on your bottom lip to keep from laughing. Fighting a smile in your voice, you finally say: 

“The pay won’t be that much, but you’ll get a bunch of free desserts at the end of the day. Are you okay with that?” 

It takes him a moment to process that you’re offering him the job, and you watch his eyes light up and a warm smile overtake his face. There’s still a light shade of pink dusting his cheeks, clashing with the purple bruising and swelling of his injuries. 

“I’d love nothing more.”

Suddenly, it occurs to you that Donghyuck somewhat reminds you of a tiramisu. 

He may look a bit rugged and grimey, bitter like coffee, but in actuality, underneath it all, he’s soft and fluffy (but not too sweet) like a mascarpone filling. 

RECIPE 2. BLUEBERRY PIE

“Are you out of your mind?”

You cringe away from your phone, hurriedly turning the volume down. “Damn, you don’t have to scream like that.” 

“You should be the one screaming,” Yeri hollers. “I better not come over one day and find your body stuffed in the freezer or something.”

“I thought you wanted me to hire someone!” 

“Not some random dude off the side of the street who was covered in injuries and doesn’t even have any baking experience,” Yeri hisses. 

“I don’t need him to bake. I just have him working the front counter and doing all the heavy lifting when I get my ingredient shipments,” you protest. “Did you think I would really just hand over all my orders to some random dude and go party it up in Cancún or something?” 

Yeri is silent for several seconds before asking, “He’s hot, isn’t he?”

“What?”

“So you did know what I meant when I said you needed your back blown out.” You can hear the smugness in her voice. 

“Yeri,” you say tiredly, “please be serious.”

“I am serious. You’re the one being unserious,” she retorts. “Yesterday, you acted like you would rather sacrifice your firstborn child before hiring a part-timer, and now look at you. Dickmatized.” 

“Okay, I’m hanging up now.”

“So, when do I get to meet him―”

You quickly hit the button to end the call and shove your phone into your pocket, letting out an exasperated sigh. You definitely won’t be hearing the end of that for a while. Your face feels warm for some reason, and you decide that you need a coffee break. After you finish making it, you pour yourself and Donghyuck a cup. 

You peek your head out from the curtain that separates the kitchen and the front counter to see if Donghyuck is busy. He’s politely chatting with an elderly woman, and your eyes nearly pop out of your head when he takes out the entire tray of egg tarts in the glass display and wraps it up for her. The woman happily hands him a wad of bills and waves him goodbye. After putting the cash in the register, Donghyuck turns around and catches you in the middle of gawking. 

“Oh, Y/N. I was actually just about to head back there. We’re out of egg tarts for the display,” he says nonchalantly. 

“Uh, yeah, I can see that,” you whisper loudly, “Was that Mrs. Kim? Why the hell did she order a dozen egg tarts? That woman can barely finish a single cookie.” 

Donghyuck blinks, clearly confused, whispering back, “She asked for my recommendation, so I said egg tarts since no one had bought any yet, and she said she would take all of them.” 

You pause, things finally clicking. Grinning knowingly, you say, “You know, having you work the front is doing wonders for sales.” 

“I don’t understand.” He furrows his brows. 

You laugh, handing him his cup of coffee. “I’m talking about your face card, Donghyuck. You’re too handsome, so you’re flustering the customers.” 

“Are we not whispering anymore?” he asks awkwardly. “Besides, that’s not true. Look at the state of my face right now.” 

His injuries have faded significantly, but the bruising and cuts are still there. You want to tell him that superficial wounds can’t mask the warmth in his caramel-brown eyes, the fullness of his cheeks and the sharp jawline, and the air of mystery that enshrouds him and draws people in. 

But you don’t. 

“Well, for someone who’s only been working here for two weeks, you’re doing superb. Injuries or not.” 

And it’s true. You’ve always preferred to work alone because you’re the only one who understands how you want things done. You naturally assumed it would be a hassle and a waste of time to try to explain to someone else when you could just do it yourself, but Donghyuck never seems to need an explanation. In fact, he knows before even you. 

He gets to the bakery three hours before you, cleans and preps all the equipment you need for the day, unloads the ingredient shipments, and is already manning the front counter by the time you arrive like it was no big deal at all. He also seems to have a sixth sense of knowing when you’re about to do something you shouldn’t be, even though you downplayed your back injury. He’s somehow always there―moving all the stuff you keep on the top shelf to somewhere within your reach even though you insisted that the rickety wooden step stool you use is perfectly safe, cleaning up a glass beaker that you accidentally shattered, taking out the trash during his breaks, checking in on you when you skip lunch. He even turned down his first paycheck, saying it’s repayment for patching him up and feeding him. 

Donghyuck is so perfect that sometimes you wonder if you’re being set up, like maybe he’s secretly embezzling money from the cash register―which would be a more viable theory if he didn’t drive an Audi to work everyday. 

“Thanks for the compliment. And the coffee,” Donghyuck says, snapping you out of your thoughts. He gingerly takes a sip and makes a strangled noise, a mixture being choking and retching, before slapping a hand over his mouth. 

“Are you okay? Was it too hot?” you ask worriedly. 

“No, it’s just…really bitter,” he mumbles, words muffled in his hand. 

“Oh,” you blink, “Sorry. I drink black coffee, so I forgot to ask if you wanted creamer and sugar. Come on, there’s some in the back.” 

The two of you head to the kitchen, and you watch him dump an exorbitant amount of creamer and sugar in his coffee, the dark roast swirling into something more akin to milk tea.

“You know, there might be some chocolate milk in the fridge if you’d rather that,” you tease. 

His head shoots up, those doe eyes lighting up. “Really?” 

“No,” you trail off awkwardly, “Sorry, I'm just messing with you.” 

It’s a bit adorable that you can visibly see him being disappointed in there not being chocolate milk before growing embarrassed, looking down at his cup. He turns away from you, but you can see the flush on the back of his neck. 

“You really have a sweet tooth, huh?” you laugh. 

“Pretty lame, right?” 

“Why would that be lame? You’re talking to someone who owns a bakery, in case you forgot.” 

Donghyuck smiles at you, and it’s sugary sweet like buttercream frosting. He looks at you like you just said the most wonderful thing in the world; in fact, he always makes you feel like that, no matter what you say or do. “I guess you’re right.” 

“What’s your favorite dessert?” you blurt, needing a distraction urgently. 

He pauses briefly. “I don’t think I have one.”

That actually surprises you. “You don’t? Even though you love sweets so much?” 

He laughs, the sound harsh and rough, and it almost makes you flinch. “I’ve never really had an opportunity to have many until now.” 

There’s clearly weight behind his words, but you know you’re not in a position to ask any further. A selfish part of you wants to be important enough to him that you are in a position to know more, but you’re all too aware about him very purposefully keeping you at arm’s length. 

“Well, you have plenty of time to find out,” you quickly continue, pretending not to notice. “Actually, I’m going to a blueberry farm tomorrow because I’m thinking about adding blueberry pie to the menu. When I get back, I’ll bake one for you, and you can be the first to taste test it!” 

“You’re going by yourself?” Donghyuck raises an eyebrow. 

“Of course. Who else would I go with?” 

“Me. I’ll go with you,” he replies immediately. 

“But it’s, like, a forty-five-minute bus ride to the farm. Plus, coming with me to get ingredients isn’t part of your job description anyway,” you explain. 

“I can’t come with you on my own free time?” he asks, tilting his head. “Besides, I’m worried about you overexerting yourself with that back injury. A bumpy bus ride definitely isn’t going to help, so I’ll drive us there.” 

“You’re going to drive that fancy ass car to a farm? You do realize it’s going to be dirt roads, right?” You cross your arms. 

“I think I’ll live. Besides, what makes you think this is the only fancy ass car I own?” He gives you an amused smile. 

“You’re joking, right?” You stare at him. 

He hesitates for a moment. “Yes.” 

“That doesn’t sound―”

“What time are we leaving tomorrow morning?” 

“...Seven.”

.

.

.

Unsurprisingly, Donghyuck picks you up right on time, not a minute too early or late. As the universe would have it, it rained the night prior―meaning all the dirt roads are now rivers of mud. You wince every time you heard a splat of mud hit Donghyuck’s pristine white car, but he seems to pay no mind to it. The two of you arrive at the farm within twenty minutes (he found a shortcut), and because you came so early, you get the entire farm to yourselves. The staff arms both of you with a large wicker basket each before setting you loose onto the massive property. 

“Okay, make sure to pick the fat ones. The small ones are super tart, so avoid those,” you instruct Donghyuck. “We’re going to fill these baskets to the brim and get our money’s worth.” 

“You got it, Captain.” He salutes. 

You give him a determined nod and a thumbs up before turning to your respective side and beginning to pick the blueberries. The two of you work without much fanfare or conversation, and it’s a silence that lingers between you comfortably. It reassures you to hear the sound of the bushes rustling from Donghyuck working; his companionship alone relaxes you. 

Eventually, when the sun starts peeking through and the weather grows warmer, both of you decide to take a break. You find a spot in the shade before sitting down, pulling out snacks and bottles of water from a backpack Donghyuck brought along. 

“I have a surprise for you,” you tell him, trying to hide a smile. “Close your eyes.” 

He eyes you suspiciously but does so anyway. You fish out a handful of unripe blueberries wrapped in a handkerchief from your pocket and feed some to him. His reaction is nearly instant the moment he starts chewing them; you watch as his face puckers up from how sour they are and his entire body shrivels into itself, a shudder running through him. He’s polite enough to not spit them out, but you’re not polite enough to resist pointing and laughing at him. Throwing your head back, you laugh so hard that your stomach starts to hurt. 

“Oh my God, your face!” 

“Ugh,” Donghyuck groans, taking a big gulp of his water. “I should’ve known you had sinister intentions from the start.” 

“I didn’t think you’d react like that,” you finally manage to say after catching your breath. “You really can’t handle anything except for sweet stuff.” 

“Are you having fun bullying me?” He rolls his eyes. 

“So much fun,” you say in a sing-song voice. 

Donghyuck tries to continue feigning annoyance, but he can’t help the low chuckle that rumbles in his chest. His eyes always soften when he looks at you, and his gaze is intimate like a lover’s―gentle, tender, unwavering, and vulnerable. But his warmth is always fleeting, and he only allows you glimpses of it through the unmoving walls that he’s erected around himself. 

You wish he wouldn’t indulge you so, terrified you’ll try to cross the line he’s drawn between the two of you. 

“What are you thinking about?” Donghyuck asks, trying to read your expression

“About the delicious pie I’m about to make when we get back,” you smile. 

“I see,” he responds, though it’s clear he isn’t convinced. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“You better be. This is how I’m paying you back for driving me here,” you nod. 

“Instead of that, pay me back by telling me what your favorite dessert is,” he suddenly says. “I do still want the pie, though.” 

“That was random,” you snort. “Why do you want to know my favorite dessert?”

“Because you asked me, but you never told me yours.” 

You suppose he has a point, but you find it ironic that he wants to know more about you when he refuses to offer you even a modicum of information about himself. Despite this, you tell him anyway because you are obviously the fool here. 

“If you must know, it’s red velvet cake,” you sigh. 

“Why?” 

You don’t answer at first, carefully thinking about if you’re ready to be vulnerable in front of him―still a virtual stranger. A virtual stranger who loves sweets. A virtual stranger who is a bit of a messy eater. A virtual stranger who knows Pompompurin. A virtual stranger who worries about you even when he’s not on the clock. A virtual stranger who gently tells you to be careful whenever you try to do something dangerous, whispering, “I’ll do it instead.” A virtual stranger who allows his luxury car to be caked in mud for you. 

“Because it’s the dessert that made me realize I want to do this for the rest of my life,” you finally say. “I baked it for my mom’s birthday, and I think I ended up being more excited than her.” 

Donghyuck stays quiet, gauging your reaction. 

“I was in college, studying to be a doctor like everyone else in my family. So, like a dumb young person who thought that dreams were more important than money, I dropped out of college and went to culinary school. My parents told me I was ruining mine and their lives, disowned me, yada-yada―a bunch of depressing stuff, you know. Eventually, I graduated, took out a huge loan, and opened up my own bakery. Worked a bunch of part-time jobs until my business could stand on its own. Now here I am. Still in debt, though,” you laugh awkwardly. “But I’m not doing too shabby. I was able to hire you, so at least I have a little cash to spare.” 

He still doesn’t say anything, so you find yourself starting to ramble. You’re really not sure what possessed you to trauma dump on him like that. 

“You know, a lot of people talk shit about red velvet cake because they say the only thing that makes it special is the red food coloring,” you hurriedly explain, “but that’s not true. The cream cheese frosting is super important too. Also, I always say love is the most important ingredient of all. As a baker, you’re kind of baring your heart to the customer, and isn’t it kind of cute that red velvet cake is red like a heart? Okay, please say something now or else I think I’m going to projectile vomit.” 

Donghyuck reaches over and brushes a sweaty lock of hair out of your face. His fingers brush over your temple, which makes you sharply suck in a breath. You almost lean into his touch, but you catch yourself. His hand slightly lingers on the side of your neck, like he wants to bring your face closer, but he eventually pulls away. 

He searches your face, and you’re not sure what he’s looking for―if anything. Rather, perhaps he’s not searching. Perhaps he’s committing your features to his memory, as if the way you look right now is something he wants to remember forever. 

“You’ve worked hard, Y/N,” he says softly, voice slightly hoarse. “This is long overdue, but congratulations. You achieved your dream, and don’t let anyone ever discount that. Not even yourself.” 

You wonder how long you’ve waited to hear that. You’re not even sure you knew you needed to hear that. But when Donghyuck says it, it hits you just how long and hard you’ve worked all on your own without a single break. Throughout the years, you’ve really only ever heard, “I’m sorry that happened.” When was the last time someone congratulated you? When was the last time you congratulated yourself? 

You surge forward, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and burying your face in his shoulder. Donghyuck cradles you against him, one hand wound tightly around your waist while the other is tangled in your hair. You can feel his chest rise up and down as he holds you. He smells like lavender soap and a bit earthy from being outside, and the warmth of his skin against your cheek makes you want to close your eyes and fall asleep in his arms. 

“Thank you,” you whisper. 

“No, thank you,” he murmurs into your hair. 

You’re not sure why he’s thanking you instead, but what you are sure of is that you’re crossing the line, taking a step towards him and wondering if he’ll meet you halfway. 

.

.

.

“Tada!” you announce cheerfully, setting down the freshly baked blueberry pie onto the table. 

Donghyuck claps excitedly. “Holy shit, it looks amazing.” 

“I’m still trying to figure out the right portions for the filling, so let me know if you think there’s too much or little,” you tell him as you hand him a slice. 

Without even answering you, he stabs his fork into the pie and almost eats the entire slice in one bite, seemingly unbothered by the steam still rising from it. 

“Be careful. You’re going to burn your tastebuds off. I’m not letting you eat it for shits and giggles, you know. This is for research purposes.” You cross your arms. 

“It’s perfect, Y/N. I’m serious,” Donghyuck says after swallowing. “The filling isn’t too sweet, and the crust is airy and light.” 

“Well, alright, Gordon Ramsay. I think we’re going to be adding a new menu item then,” you smile. “Think you can get Mrs. Kim to buy a dozen of these?”

“I don’t think she’ll need much convincing with how good these taste.” 

“You’re so easy,” you tease. “All I need to do is feed you. Anyways, I’m going to clean up here, but you should head home. It’s getting late, and you wake up way earlier than me.” 

“I’ll help,” he insists. 

“Go,” you order, pointing at the door. “I can handle it.” 

He looks conflicted but eventually relents when you threaten to physically kick him out. Before he leaves, he turns back to you and says, “Thank you, Y/N.”

“Why do you keep thanking me?” you laugh. 

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had this.”

“What? A blueberry pie?”

Donghyuck pauses, a slight wonder in his expression, as if he’s realizing his answer for the first time as well.

“Peace.” 

And you think maybe this is a step forward for him too. 

RECIPE 3. CREAM PUFF

It’s quite surreal how easily and naturally you and Donghyuck fall into a routine together. Somehow, in the blink of an eye, two weeks becomes two months. You’ve learned the little things about him, like how he always swipes some icing before you can fill up the piping bag or that he’s not a coffee drinker at all (more of a hot cocoa person) or that he purses his lips when a dessert he’s testing tastes off (no matter how hard he tries to hide it) or that he involuntarily sticks his arm out in front of you when he wants to stop you from doing something you shouldn’t. 

You also notice that he sometimes comes into work with injuries. They’re not nearly as bad as the first time you met him, but it’s hard to ignore a bruised cheek or bloodied knuckles. He always has a reason for them, whether it’s tripping down the stairs or accidentally falling down and scraping his hands on the concrete. You can tell by the way he laughs it off that he doesn’t plan on telling you the truth, so you laugh with him. The two of you, having taken only a step towards one another, find yourselves completely immobile now. 

He always does this: envelops you like a cloud but disappears the moment you reach out for him. 

You’re honestly not sure why he’s still here. Your injury has long healed, and he clearly doesn’t need the abysmal pay you’re giving him. He feels like he’ll slip away at any moment, fleeting like a warm spring breeze, and you suppose time flies by when you know it’s limited. Despite knowing that, you can’t help but desperately want him to stay. 

“I think it’s cute how hard he’s working,” Yeri randomly says one day as she eyes Donghyuck prepare orders in the front. He’s in the middle of a lunchtime rush, so he doesn’t even notice the two of you watching him like weirdos.

“Well, that’s what I’m paying him to do,” you reply, rolling his eyes. 

“Oh, I think the money is the least of his worries here,” she hums, taking a sip of her coffee. 

She has a point, but you’re pretty sure she’s implying something else as well. Just as you go to ask her what exactly she means, you hear a loud clatter. Flinching, you turn your attention back to Donghyuck and realize that he’s dropped a tray on the floor. However, the tray is the last thing on your mind when you see the expression on his face. It’s a mixture of horror, anger, and almost sadness―like he’s finally come face-to-face with whatever he’s been running from. It makes your blood run cold. 

Donghyuck is looking at a boy around his age; the boy has dark hair, a mole under his eye, and a grim expression. More importantly, he’s covered in injuries too. 

“Who is that?” Yeri whispers. “Why does Donghyuck look like he’s seen a ghost?” 

Maybe because he has, you want to tell her. 

Donghyuck grabs the boy's arm, squeezing so tightly that his knuckles turn white, and mumbles something to him. When he turns around and meets your eyes, he looks pained and fearful as if you witnessed something you shouldn’t have.

“Is it okay if I take my break early today?” he asks calmly, though the tremor in his voice gives him away. 

You nod hesitantly, unable to force yourself to speak. You watch him as he drags the boy out; when he passes you, you can tell how tightly his body is wound right now. His jaw is clenched, a muscle spasming as he tries to control himself, and every step he takes seems labored. He’s running on pure adrenaline right now, like he’s physically steeling himself. 

However, you don’t think he’s ever appeared so incredibly alone before. As you watch his back disappear further and further from your view, you’re unsure if he’ll ever return, and you never imagined how terrifying that would be. 

.

.

.

The cream puffs aren’t rising.

You’re crouched in front of the oven, watching the dough remain flat and lifeless. You should’ve known better than to attempt to make cream puffs on such a shitty day, especially when pastries like these are so sensitive to the environment and atmosphere. Even though you know you should probably just scrap them and try again, you wait for just a little longer, hoping that maybe if you wish hard enough that they’ll magically start to rise. 

But then again you suppose that no matter how hard you try, no matter how careful you are, no matter how perfect the batter is, no matter how much time you spend time piping them, no matter how much you want them to rise, they won’t. 

You decide that Donghyuck isn’t like a tiramisu at all; he’s sensitive and delicate and elusive and frustrating like a cream puff. 

“Y/N, they’re burning.” 

Losing your balance and nearly falling over, you gasp loudly. You were so lost in your thoughts that you didn’t even hear Donghyuck walk into the kitchen, nor did you smell the undeniable scent of something being burnt to a crisp. 

“Oh, fu―!” you curse, hurriedly opening the oven and casually suffocating both you and Donghyuck with a hot plume of air. Sputtering, you look around and grab a random rag from the sink before reaching for the cream puffs. 

“Wait, stop!” Donghyuck stops you with an outstretched arm, his hand pressed to your side. “Let me do it.” 

He gently takes the rag from your hand and removes the tray of charred cream puffs from the oven, dumping them into the trash before putting the tray in the sink and running some water on it―just how you like it. 

Letting out a relieved sigh, he turns back to you and asks, “Are you okay? It’s not like you to make a mistake like that. You didn’t get burned anywhere, did you?” 

When you don’t answer immediately, Donghyuck rushes forward and grabs your hands, carefully examining your fingers and arms. “Wait, are you hurt? Where? Tell me where you got burned. We have to cool it down with some lukewarm water. And don’t just say you’re fine. Burns are not a joke, Y/N―why are you looking at me like that?” 

His hands are calloused and rough, and you can still see scabs from where he tore his knuckles, yet he touches you like you’re the delicate one. He’s covered in fresh and old wounds, yet he looks so panicked at the thought of you having a scratch. 

“Shut up,” you whisper furiously, ripping your hands away from him. “From now on, don’t ask me another question. It’s my turn to ask you questions.” 

He blinks, a bit stunned by your reaction, but it’s clear he knows what you’re about to say. He goes to reach for you again but decides against it. “Okay.” 

“Who was that guy?” you demand. “Why are you always covered in injuries? Why did you lie to me? Who are you?” 

“He’s an old friend,” Donghyuck starts quietly. 

“Do you treat all your friends like that?” 

“When I don’t want to see them.” 

You wait for him to continue.

“Before I met you, he and I and a few of our other friends worked…odd jobs for cash,” he explains, and he looks like he’s choking on every word. “The jobs usually entailed us hurting people and also getting hurt. I did a lot of shit I wasn’t proud of. At the time, I didn’t really care. It was just nice to feel something, whether it was the adrenaline rush from doing the punching or the pain from being punched. I got a bunch of money, bought a bunch of expensive stuff, but none of it mattered. Eventually, I just felt nothing again. I didn’t even have the energy to loathe myself anymore. So, I took one last job, got the shit kicked out of me, and then I left. That’s when you found me―”

He inhales, and his eyes flicker towards you. He gazes at you so longingly, as if you were impossibly out of his reach, that you can’t help but involuntarily take a step towards him. 

But he steps back. 

“I thought that working here would make me feel like a human being again, but I didn’t realize how much I would―” He pauses again. “I thought working here would be a nice reset for me, but I naively thought that I could completely leave my past behind. My friends eventually found me, and I guess I care about those reckless assholes more than I thought because they managed to convince me to take on a few more jobs with them. That’s why I’ve been coming to work with injuries. But I’m done. I cut them off for good when they walked into this bakery. I don’t want…I don’t want our past to tarnish this place. I want to keep this place a beautiful, warm, and pure safe haven that you worked so hard for it to be. That’s why I lied to you, Y/N. I’m a coward to the bone, and I was envious of you. I was ashamed to admit it to you. You, who had the courage to chase after your dream. You, who had the kindness to help a good-for-nothing asshole like me. I only want you to have happy memories from now on, and I am not one of them.” 

“Are you going to leave?” you ask softly. 

“I probably should,” he answers shakily. 

“What’s stopping you?” 

“Just…one reason.” 

“When you say it like that, it makes it sound like the reason is me.” 

Donghyuck laughs bitterly, and his eyes drag across your face like every movement hurts him.

“You know it’s you. It’s always been you.” 

When you reach for his hand, he turns away like just the warmth from your body heat burns him. So instead, you take a step back. 

“I won’t ask you to stay, Donghyuck, I won’t chase you. I’m going to wait right here, and it’s up to you if you're going to meet me halfway.” 

RECIPE 4. RED VELVET CAKE

When your alarm clock goes off the next morning, you seriously consider just not showing up to work. It’s not like you can be fired for being a no-show when you’re your own boss, after all. 

And it’s not like you have any employees who will be expecting you. 

You’ll just apologize to Mrs. Kim and your other regulars later. You’re allowed to have a day where you just rot in bed and feel sorry for yourself. 

However, no matter how much you tell yourself that, you find yourself crawling out of bed and getting ready anyway. You can’t seem to brutally crush that small glimmer of hope that Donghyuck might still be there, no matter how hard you try. When you see yourself in the mirror, you recoil in horror. Your eyes are almost swollen shut from the amount of crying you did last night, and your face is sallow and lifeless. 

So much for putting on a brave face, you think wryly to yourself. You tried so hard to look tough, when in reality, you bawled your eyes out and even considered praying to God for Donghyuck to stay. It’s a humiliating and humbling reality check. 

“Stand up right now,” you sharply tell yourself in the mirror. “He’s just some guy. Get it together.” 

You do your best to clean up your appearance and make the trek over to the bakery. It takes another internal pep talk before you can make your way to the door. After you finally walk up, you see that the lights inside are off. Your stomach sinks, and your eyes start to burn. Even though you’re holding the handle, you can’t bring yourself to open the door. It’s an outcome that you expected, yet you wonder why it hurts so badly. 

“You liar,” you mumble to yourself, “You said you only wanted me to have happy memories.” 

Once you make your way inside, you numbly head towards the kitchen, trying to remember what exactly you have to do today. Oh right, now that he’s not here, you also have to make sure all the ingredients are prepped first. 

When you walk into the kitchen, you do a double-take. 

The whole place looks like it’s been completely ransacked: used pans and utensils piled up in the sink, two opened boxes of cake mix, containers of ingredients without lids on on the tables, random lumps of flour and egg shells strewn about― 

And right in front of the oven is Donghyuck, flour in his hair and frosting on his nose. He’s holding a cake stand with…you think it’s supposed to be a cake on it? The shape is mangled and haphazardly cut, but it has echoes of a heart. The frosting is a hot mess, as if a bird with diarrhea shat all over the cake. The batter is clearly underbaked and makes the cake look gooey in a bad way. 

“Um, I promise I’ll clean all of this up in a second, but I wanted to surprise you,” Donghyuck starts awkwardly. “It’s not perfect, but I tried making a red velvet cake for you.” 

You stare at him, still not sure how to react. 

“You once said that baking is like baring your heart to the customer and that love is the most important ingredient of all,” he laughs softly to himself. “I think love is the only ingredient I managed to get right, but I’m baring my heart to you now, Y/N. I’m sorry I hid everything and lied to you, but I’m in love with you. Hopelessly so. All my life, I’ve chased a feeling, not knowing what it was. But now I do. I don’t think I knew how to feel until I met you. I never once thought I would ever have a purpose in my life, but you make me want to be a normal, proper member of society. Your dream is my dream. I want to wake up at 5AM and sell egg tarts with you for the rest of my life, if you’ll have me.” 

Donghyuck sets the cake down on a table in front of you, and you notice that his fingers are dyed red from the food coloring. It almost reminds you of when you first met him, except his injuries have been replaced with red food coloring, flour, and cream cheese frosting. 

“This cake is terrible,” you smile, “how did you butcher it that badly when you used cake mix?” 

You watch him blush all the way down to his neck, as he sheepishly looks away. “Don’t make fun of me. I really tried my best. I stayed up watching tutorials―” 

Leaning across the table, you cup his face with both hands and kiss him, brushing your thumbs across his cheekbones. He tastes like frosting, hot cocoa, and your prayers being answered. The way he kisses you back is bruising, dizzying and knocking any coherent thought out of your head, his hands finding your hips and anchoring you to him. He kisses you like you’re the sweetest and most wonderful thing he’s ever tasted.

When you finally pull away, it takes you a moment to regain feeling in your legs. Donghyuck presses his forehead against yours, lips brushing against yours once again as the two of you try to catch your breath. 

“I think I’m going to have to fire you, though,” you whisper. “You know, with me being your boss and all. The power dynamic is too weird.” 

He hums, pausing for thought. “Then how about I become your business partner?” 

“What?”

Donghyuck reaches into his pocket and fishes out his wallet, pulling out a shiny and fancy-looking credit card. He hands it to you without much fanfare. 

“I have a lot of money, you know. So I’m going to invest in your business. Use it as you’d like,” he casually announces.

You stare at him, your jaw hanging wide open. He never tried to hide from you that he was rich, but he never told you that he was rich rich. 

“Well, damn! Why didn’t you show me this earlier? I would have forgiven you a lot sooner,” you tease, slapping him on the arm. “Are you sure you want to give this to me? I’m quite the gold-digger, you know.”

“When I told you to use it as you’d like, I meant me as well,” Donghyuck replies, shrugging.

“You’re insane.” You hope he can’t tell how much your face is burning up. 

“I guess I am,” he laughs, and you don’t think he’s ever looked so free. You want to tell him that you hope he only has happy memories from now on too. You want to tell him that you’ll rewrite all of his scars with sugary and fluffy desserts so that they won’t ever hurt again. 

And for the first time in your life, you feel it too.

Peace. 

EXTRA

“So, have you figured out what your favorite dessert is?” 

Donghyuck stirs slightly, groaning, as he wraps an arm around your waist and pulls you closer. He slips his hand under your shirt (well, technically it’s his shirt) and rests it on your bare hip bone. 

“Why aren’t you asleep?” 

“Because I’m curious.” 

“If I answer, will you let me rest?”

“Depends on how good your answer is.” 

“Blueberry pie. That’s my answer.” 

You smile against the crook of his neck. 

“Why?” 

“Because it’s the dessert that made me realize I want to do this for the rest of my life.” 

[plutotheplum]

Take a Chance with Me

zayne x fem!reader

summary: zayne gets called into work, so you bring him dinner.

cw: nsfw (18+) - mdni!!, established relationship, smut, fluff, handjob, oral sex, p in v, office sex

wc: 4.4k

a/n: based on one of zayne's text messages! he's so domestic boyfriend core. this is basically just some soft, fluffy smut before i write a dawnbreaker angst fic :3

also on ao3!

Akso Hospital is quieter at night than it is in the day.

You’d been expecting the bustle of nurses and doctors when Zayne had texted you saying he’d been called in on short notice, preparing yourself for some sort of emergency. Thankfully, it didn’t seem that was the case, most likely a pressing surgery that had come up for Zayne.

Sometimes, you wished he’d take more days off. It was a little selfish to want to be wrapped up in Zayne’s arms all the time, but you couldn’t help yourself, the comfort and warmth his body provided was like no other. It was what you had been doing earlier that night, cozied up next to him on the couch, with a fluffy blanket pulled up over you both as he’d spoken to you about one of his past surgeries.

Zayne’s voice had a certain lull to it, the low murmur of his voice making your eyes droop until you’d curled up into his chest, face pressed into his neck and fallen asleep before the takeout you had ordered even arrived. 

Jenna’s missions had kept you on your toes for the entire week, your body exhausted and dazed under the constant stress of fighting Wanderers. Zayne gave you the solace of being able to unwind, although your boyfriend was as stern as ever, he was everything you needed. 

That was until you’d woken up and realized he was gone. Zayne had made sure you were tucked in, a pillow placed under your head comfortably, and your hair brushed away from your face. You’d been disappointed, but the moment you were awake, you couldn’t find it in yourself to go back to sleep, no matter how hard you tried.

It’s why you’re here now, the takeout bag clutched in hand with a couple of paper plates and forks stuffed inside, as you wait patiently for the elevator to drop you off at Zayne’s floor of the hospital.

And of course, I can’t wait to see the person delivering it.

Zayne’s text flashes through your mind, and your grip on the bag of takeout tightens. It wasn’t fair how a simple line of text could make your heart race and your mind swirl with emotion, a sense of yearning taking root within you. 

You spy Yvonne sitting at the front desk and you give her a small wave before approaching her.

“Hi,” Yvonne greets, smiling up at you, “here to see Doctor Zayne?”

You nod in response, holding up the bag of takeout. “He got called in before we could have dinner, so I figured I’d just bring it to him.”

“That’s nice,” Yvonne says, her fingers tapping against the keyboard, “Doctor Zayne finished up his surgery about an hour ago. He’s probably resting in his office.”

“Thank you, Yvonne,” you chirp, giving her smile and another wave before making your way towards Zayne’s office.

It’s tucked away into the corner, his name engraved on the plaque that sits adhered to the surface of the door. The door’s unlocked, but you’re not surprised, he probably left it open for you. Turning the handle, you poke your head in to find Zayne’s head resting on his outstretched arm against his desk.

His eyes are closed, so you step in quietly, trying not to rustle the bag of takeout too much and let the door lock behind you with a quiet click. Zayne remains motionless and you tiptoe towards him, setting the bag down beside his desk. He looks peaceful like this, his lashes kissing his cheeks, face relaxed as his chest rises and falls with every breath.

You’re not quite sure what you did to deserve someone like him. Zayne is sickeningly gentle and even more sickeningly patient with you. He treats you like you’re precious because to him, you are. You’re more precious to him than any award he could be given, more precious to him than the highest praise he could receive from any senior doctor in Linkon and beyond. You’re the only thing that truly matters to him.

Zayne’s devotion runs deep. It soothes your frayed nerves, and has lodged itself inside of you deep within your viscera. Sometimes, you think about clawing out the protocore-embedded heart in your chest and handing it to him. Zayne would take care of it, you’re sure, as he does now. 

He stirs for a moment and you still, slowing your breathing so as to not wake him. Your hand reaches out, brushing his hair out of his eyes, fingers tracing the curve of his cheek. Zayne’s nightmares had gotten less frequent recently and you were thankful for it. He needed the rest. You lean in a little closer, unable to help yourself, letting your lips brush across his cheek in a fleeting kiss.

The hand on your wrist startles you for a moment before you realize Zayne is awake, his head lifting lazily and his eyes blinking open blearily.

“You came,” he murmurs, voice laced with sleep.

“I said I would,” you say softly, cupping his cheek and smoothing your thumb over it. Zayne leans into your touch, letting out a heavy sigh as though some impossible burden were lifted off of his shoulders. You watch as his eyes flutter shut and let him nuzzle into your palm, his lips kissing the inside of your wrist.

Breaking through the relaxed atmosphere, your stomach growls and you flush, cheeks heating up. Zayne lets out a low laugh, his arms wrapping around your waist to pull you onto his lap.

“You should’ve eaten,” Zayne says, brushing his hand over your hair.

“I wanted to eat with you,” you mumble, pouting petulantly.

He hums, reaching for the bag of takeout, taking out the plates and forks along with the food. It’s impossible to stop yourself from nosing into his cheek, lips pressing soft kisses along his jaw and across the expanse of his cheek.

“I missed you.”

“It’s only been a few hours since I last saw you,” he muses, tilting his head up to meet your eyes.

“So? I still missed you,” you reply, arms tightening around his neck.

A smile tugs at his lips, a knowing look in his eyes. He presses the fork of food up to your lips and you open your mouth obediently, letting him feed you. Zayne rubs his hand up and down your back from time to time, his lips pressing against your cheek with every bite he feeds you.

You curl into him when he finishes feeding you, letting your face find its way back home into the crook of his neck, carved out just for you. Zayne tightens his arm around your waist, thumb stroking over the curve of your hip every now and then as he eats.

“I love you,” Zayne says quietly, the fork settling against the plastic takeout container.

“I love you too,” you say, trying to press yourself closer into the heat of his body.

It frustrates you, not being able to be as close to him as you want. The sense of it not being enough, despite being flush against him, gnaws at you. Zayne knows this of course, can see the little downward pull of your lips whenever you get like this and try to meld your body against his as though you’re trying to burrow through his clothes and into him. He’d let you, if it was possible, keep you safe behind the curve of his ribs and close to his heart.

He slides his hand into your hair, cupping the back of your head to tilt it upwards. You smile up at him fondly, eyes fluttering shut when he brushes the tip of his nose against yours.

“I love you,” Zayne repeats, kissing the corner of your mouth.

“I love you t-”

Your voice is muffled when he slots his lips over yours, drawing you into a slow kiss. It’s sweet, the way he presses his lips to yours in a tentative question as though asking for permission even though he knows you’ll give it to him. Your head tilts, your hand sliding into the softness of his hair, nails scraping against his scalp gently. Zayne shivers and leans into you further, his hand squeezing at your waist.

Longing unfurls in your gut, the slow, syrupy sweetness of his kiss sinking through your flesh and encasing your soul in a warm embrace. You’re shifting on his lap, moving your body so that you straddle him, knees bracketing his hips. Zayne chases after you when you break away, not letting you leave him for long, guiding you into another kiss.

His hands have begun to drift, smoothing up over the skin of your thighs, squeezing at the flesh before sliding under to grab at your ass. You smile against his lips, fingers splaying across his throat before dragging down to hook into the knot of his tie. You tug downwards, loosening his tie from around his neck. 

“We can’t,” he whispers, glancing towards the door.

“I locked it,” you murmur, kissing him softly, “please, Zayne?” Your fingers go further, beginning to unbutton his shirt all the way. “I need you.”

Zayne stares up at you and sees the neediness in your expression, the haze that comes over your face whenever you ask him for his cock. He finds that he can never deny you.

“Okay,” Zayne says quietly, squeezing your arm, “okay, sweetheart.”

You palm him through his trousers, feel him beginning to grow in the confines of his pants. Zayne tries to bite back the noises you elicit from him, but it’s impossible when you look at him like that, your eyes all starry and cheeks flushed. 

“You’re always taking care of me,” you whisper, palming his bulge a little more firmly, “let me take care of you now, Zayne.”

Zayne lets out a shaky breath and you smile, pecking his lips gently. Pulling his belt buckle free, you undo the button to his trousers, dragging the zip down to see his boxers. There’s a dark spot on the fabric and the sight has you licking your lips, grasping his half-hard cock through his boxers.

He lets out a strangled groan, his head falling back against his chair, hips bucking up to chase more of your touch.

“You’re teasing me,” Zayne grits out, his knuckles white with how tightly he’s gripping the armrests of his chair.

“‘m making you feel good,” you correct. 

Your hand pulls his boxers down, and his cock slaps against his abdomen, thick and tip flushed prettily. Zayne’s fully hardened now, the tips of his ears reddening as you wrap your hand around his cock.

“Fuck-” he pants, running his hand through his hair, “d-don’t stop.”

“Not going to,” you whisper, hand tightening around his cock.

Zayne groans again, his thighs falling open a little more. Your other hand cups his heavy balls, massaging them gently, lips finding his again as his pre-cum wets your hand. He kisses you desperately, hips bucking up into your hand. Zayne pushes at the straps of your dress impatiently, pulling it down along with your bra to find your breasts.

“So pretty,” Zayne murmurs, hand splaying across your back to make you arch into him.

He mouths across your collarbone, all the way to your sternum before drifting down to try and stuff the entirety of your breast into his mouth. A breathless laugh leaves you, thumb swiping over the sensitive tip of his cock. Zayne’s thighs jump, his grip on you tightening, tongue alternating between flicking over your nipple and swiping over the whole of your areola.

Spit drips from his mouth, a thin strand connecting his glistening lips to your hardened nipple. You catch it with your thumb, feeding it to him, letting him suck your thumb into his mouth. He moans around it and you whine, cunt clenching at the feeling of his warm mouth over your skin. It has you feeling debauched, your own mouth opening to let a glob of spit drip down and onto his cock. Zayne’s cock twitches and he presses himself against you, his face tucking into the crook of your neck as he pants.

“Sweetheart,” he grunts, his cock fucking into your hand, “you feel so good.”

You mewl in agreement, hand slipping into his hair again. Zayne lets out a low whine, his eyes fluttering shut as he curls his own hand around yours, tightening your grip. You move your hand faster, swipe your thumb over his fat, leaking tip more frequently and tug at his hair to tilt his head and kiss him.

“You’re throbbing,” you whisper, lips brushing over his with every word.

“You tend to have that effect on me,” he replies hoarsely.

His cock throbs almost on cue, another glob of pre-cum spilling down the side of his length. You squeeze your hand tighter, dragging it upwards to see more pre-cum spilling out of him the tighter you squeeze. Zayne sounds utterly gone, mouthing at your chest to distract himself, lips wrapping around your other breast this time. 

He stares up at you, amber-green eyes shining in the light as his mouth stays enveloped around the fat of your breast. You bite your lip, giving him a dazed smile and lowering your head to nudge your nose against his. Zayne forgets about your breast, tilts his head up to meet your lips in a sloppy kiss.

“Cum for me, Zayne,” you whisper sweetly, kissing the tip of his nose, “wanna see you cum.”

Zayne moans unabashedly, his heart fluttering at your words. His hips buck up one last time before he cums, squeezing at your sides roughly as his forehead falls against your shoulder. Hot, thick cum smears across your hands and you hum happily, giving his cock one last teasing pump. Zayne shudders at the sensation, grunting softly as he catches your wrist to stop you from playing with his sensitive cock.

“You made a mess, Doctor Zayne.”

He huffs out a laugh, leaning back in his chair. You stay perched on his lap, watching as his cock softens. Zayne takes your hand before you can lick his cum off of your palm, his handkerchief swiping over your sullied palm and fingers, cleaning your skin.

Zayne kisses you again, squishes your cheeks to make your lips pucker out for a moment and smiles at the sight. You frown when he moves you off of him only to realize that he’s standing up as well, pushing your shoulders gently to make you sit down on his chair.

He sinks to his knees and you bite your lip, body taut with anticipation. Zayne pulls your socks off, his thumbs pressing into the arch of your right foot. You sigh at the sensation, eyes slipping shut.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers, placing a reverent kiss to your ankle.

Your heart lurches, lips trembling as he caresses your calf. Zayne kisses up the length of your leg, up your shin and past your knee, his fingers squeezing at your flesh. He drags his lips across your inner thigh, landing soft kisses to your skin. His scarred hands graze over your panties, knuckles pressing against your swollen clit for a moment before he kisses your panty-clad pussy. 

Zayne repeats the same sequence of actions for your other leg as though he were worshiping you. A part of you wants to cry at his display of affection. There’s a lump in your throat with how nicely he’s treating you, but you swallow it down, losing yourself in the fond gaze he gives you.

“You’re too good to me,” you whisper, fingers running through his hair.

“I’m not,” he replies, kissing your pussy again, “I just love you.”

You swallow harshly and Zayne smiles, his fingers pulling down your panties. He thumbs apart your folds and lets out a shuddering breath when he realizes how wet you are. 

“All for me,” he murmurs, watching the clench of your pussy around nothing, “you’re all mine.”

You whine in agreement, back arching as he licks over your cunt. Zayne kisses your clit and buries his face into your pussy, licking and sucking without abandon. You can barely stay on the chair with how much you’re squirming and writhing under his mouth. Zayne winds his arms around your thighs and holds you in place, his mouth making lewd noises as he makes out with your pussy until your cries grow louder.

You hope his office is soundproof, but when Zayne sucks your sensitive clit into his mouth, you lose any sense of where you are, letting out pitchy, shuddering gasps as your feet press up onto your toes, digging into his back. 

“Zayne!” you cry, tugging at his hair roughly. He groans into your pussy, enjoying the sting of pain across his scalp. He buries his face deeper, kissing and licking until your pussy is puffy and slick is pouring out of you uncontrollably. “N-nghhh- no, Zayne. You- you have to fuck me!”

“Okay,” he rasps, pulling back when you tug at his hair, “up, my love, get up.” He taps your thighs and you stand up on shaky legs, pulling him closer by his tie to kiss him.

Zayne kisses you as you paw at his broad shoulders, pushing his shirt off to grasp at his muscled arms and back. He squeezes your waist, kneads the fat at your hips before he’s spinning you and bending you over his desk.

Your dress is flipped up, a squeak escaping your lips when he brings his hand down, slapping your ass. A giggle makes its way out of you and you rise up on the tips of your toes, wiggling your hips and ass for him playfully.

Zayne groans at the sight and slaps your ass again. His fingers spread apart your asscheeks, his eyes feasting on the sight of your glistening, puffy pussy again. You cry out when you feel him shove his face back into your pussy, licking over you messily and without abandon until you reach back and push at his head weakly.

You let your hips sway back and Zayne grasps his cock, pressing it against your greedy cunt. He curses as your pussy sucks him in, his hand balling up the fabric of your dress into one hand, keeping you spread as he watches you take his cock, inch after inch.

You let out a strangled gasp, the air being punched out of your lungs as he fills you up. Zayne is big and thick, his cock splitting you open, forcing your pussy to take him, carving the shape of his length inside of you. Your nails dig into his desk and neither of you seem to care as a few patient files slip off of the edge of the desk, the paper fluttering to the ground.

“Always so tight,” he hisses out, his hand curling over your hip, “such a good girl for me, sweetheart.”

Your head falls against the wood of his desk, teeth sinking into your knuckles as you try to muffle your noises. Zayne notices and lets out a tsk, his arm reaching for yours and bringing it behind your back.

“None of that,” Zayne chastises, “I want to hear you, my love.”

He does hear you when he presses your lower back down, his hips thrusting forward. You cry out, moaning and mewling as his cock sinks into you repeatedly. Zayne drapes himself over your back, kissing up your spine and landing a soft kiss to your shoulder, hips humping into your ass. The squelch of your cunt should be embarrassing, but it happens whenever Zayne fucks you now, you get so horribly wet whenever you see his cock and he touches you.

You turn your head back to kiss him and Zayne groans into your mouth, licking into your mouth before he’s moving back to fuck you properly. Your knees would buckle if you weren’t bent over the desk. His name plate inches closer to the edge of the desk with every thrust Zayne delivers to your pussy.

Zayne pants and grunts; you look back to find his face flushed, his eyes closed and brows drawn together tightly. He looks handsome, face twisted with pleasure and want; unadulterated passion.

“Zayne- o-oh yes-” you whimper when he pins you down, his hands grasping your hips roughly.

He ups his pace, the desk rattling, his belongings hitting the floor. Each snap of his hips leaves you reeling and you’re sure you’re seeing stars in the darkness of your closed eyes. 

“Good girl,” he groans, unable to stop himself from landing another slap to your ass, “my good girl- fuck- I love you so, so much, sweetheart.”

You’re practically sobbing, walls clenching around his cock so tightly that he’s cupping your jaw and drawing you up so that your back is flush against his chest. Zayne bends his knees and fucks up into you. Your nails scrape against his arm, head falling against his shoulder as his hand slips down to rub your clit.

“Take it,” Zayne whispers, nipping your earlobe, “take it, baby.”

His calloused fingers on your clit too much and your body is seizing up, the coil of pleasure inside of you snapping until you moan loudly, his hand slapping over your mouth when the beginnings of a squeal make its way out of you with how oversensitive you are. 

Your body shudders as you cum, and you try to push his hand away from his clit but he sinks his teeth into your shoulder in warning, rubbing tight circles until he cums, his low grunts filling your ear as his hips slow into a stuttering mess. Zayne bends you over the desk again, shuffles forward until his hips are flush against your ass, balls pressed against your clit, his cock stuffed inside your pussy snugly.

“I love you,” you whine, feeling his hot cum fill you up.

“I- I shit-” Zayne gasps, thrusting his hips forward a few more times as he feels your walls clenching around him tightly, milking every drop of thick cum from him, “Hah- I l-love you too,” he stammers, slumping over you.

You mewl under his weight, his softening cock slipping out of you. Zayne’s cum mixed with your arousal drips down your thighs, smearing against your skin. He lifts himself up after a few moments of panting, using his desk for support. You turn around, rising up on shaky legs and even shakier toes to cup his cheeks and kiss him.

Zayne wraps his arm around your waist, pulling your body flush against his. He deepens the kiss, lowers his head for you so that you can sink down flat onto your feet again. Your tongue tangles with his, hands stroking over his hair soothingly as you give yourself to him, body and soul.

You can feel his smile against your lips, the drag of his lips across your cheek and the side of your head to press several kisses to your forehead.

“I hope your office is soundproof, Doctor Zayne,” you whisper, wrapping your arms around his middle and letting your chin rest on his chest.

“I hope so too,” Zayne says, flushing lightly.

You laugh, kissing the underside of his jaw. You help him pull his shirt on again, buttoning up the front of it and tighten his tie again. Zayne wipes the insides of your thighs with a few tissues, discarding them in the bin beside his desk, helping pull up your panties over your hips.

He fixes the straps of your dress, fingers brushing over your shoulders gently and the place where his teeth had sunk into you.

“Take the day off tomorrow,” you say to him as you help gather the patient files that had fallen off of his desk.

“You know I can’t,” he sighs, shaking his head.

You pout, widening your eyes and batting your eyelashes up at him in an attempt to give him the most pleading look you can muster.

“Please?” you say, sidling up to him again, “you’re overworked, Zayne. Take the day off, hm? We can relax together.”

Zayne stares down at you, his lips pursing for a moment. It never takes much convincing. As soon as the words are out of your mouth, he feels compelled to listen.

“You’re a terrible influence, sweetheart.”

You smile up at him giddily, wrapping your arms around his neck. “‘m just taking care of my lovely, handsome, perfect boyfriend.”

“Fattening up my ego, huh?” Zayne asks, dipping his head to steal a kiss from you.

“No,” you say, shaking your head. Your voice softens slightly. “I- I do mean those things, Zayne.”

Zayne falters at the hint of vulnerability in your voice. He can see that you’re shy about it with the way your eyes dart away from his, you always have been whenever confessing your more heart-felt feelings. 

“If you insist,” he says quietly, trapping your chin between his fingers to bring your eyes to meet his again. “But I think you’re the perfect one.”

You flush at his compliment, swatting his chest. He laughs, grabbing your fist to press a firm kiss to your knuckles. Zayne’s laugh fades when he stares at your hand, his brows furrowing for a moment.

“What’s wrong?” you ask, your own brows furrowing as you stare at your bare hand. There’s nothing on it, nothing of concern anyways.

“Ah,” Zayne clears his throat, giving you a smile, “it’s nothing.”

It’s strange. He can’t help but think your left hand looks oddly bereft in the light. 

Zayne thinks a ring would fix the problem. 

He dips his head, pressing another chaste kiss to your lips as he takes your hand, leading you out of his office, letting Yvonne know that he wouldn’t be available tomorrow.

Zayne drives you home, despite your insistence that you could drive instead, his head shaking sternly as he’d ushered you into the passenger’s side. You’re curled up in bed with him, blankets pulled up over both you, the heat cocooning you in. 

“Despite your Evol, you’re so warm,” you mumble drowsily, face pressed into his chest.

“That may be because of the blankets,” Zayne says, amused.

You scoff, but you don’t have it in you to come up with some witty remark, instead letting him play with your hair.

“I’ll make you breakfast tomorrow,” you slur, body relaxing further when he scratches your scalp gently.

“I want to spend the morning in bed with you,” he whispers, watching as your eyelids slip shut.

It’s only half the truth. Zayne does want to spend the morning in bed with you, but he also wants something… more.

“I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

You’re asleep when he whispers the words, his lips brushing your forehead.

It doesn’t matter. 

You’ll hear them properly when he gets down on one knee.

[insertdisc5]

TIMELOOP GAMES REAL!??!??!!

hi i made a timeloop game called In Stars and Time and this is a whole post about other timeloop games you can also play.

some i liked. some i loved. some i didnt like. all are worth playing and like also listen the second friends and family heard i was making a timeloop game, i got bombarded with timeloop media recs. so here is a sampler in no particular order! NOTE: knowing some of those games are timeloop games is a spoiler. but. you are here. for timeloop games. so timeloop games you shall have

Outer Wilds

If you need to play one timeloop game, it's this one. Please play it blind. I swear to god you won't regret it. it's timeloops in space!!! it makes you think!!! there are so many "HOLY SHIT WAIT I GET IT NOW" moments!!! please just go play it please please please. some of the best environmental storytelling in a game. so many hints in plain sight. JUST PLAY IT

[way more timeloop games under the cut]

Oxenfree

I didn't actually like Oxenfree very much. But also it stayed in my mind for weeks after I finished playing it. that's how you know it's a good game. I really enjoyed the dialogue system in this, and how much the loop affected the characters. and it got so spooky!!!

Hikeback

i'm in the credits for this one because i was one of the inspirations heehee <3 i loved playing it… short little game about trust, self-sabotage, and never-ending cycles. highly recommend it

The Stanley Parable

Listen babes it absolutely counts. I replayed it a bunch while making ISAT, and I got immensely inspired by the dialogue, and how it catches you off guard sometimes? You get SO SO used to the narrator's "All of his coworkers were gone. What could it mean?" at the start of every game, and then for no reason instead it says "A soft wind blew outside and perhaps rain started, and if it did it stopped shortly after. Stanley hoped that he would one day see weather." like WHAT THE FUUUUCK IM GETTING CHILLS JUST THINKING ABOUT IT

12 minutes

ok i know we all made fun of this game when it came out because the story is batshit insane HOWEVER!!!!!!!! i REALLY REALLY LOVED how doing the same actions multiple times would have slightly different outcomes. If you battle someone, the first time you get knocked out in one hit and the loop restarts. the second time you try, you evade the first hit, but get knocked out. the third time, you last a little bit longer, and a little bit longer, until you can pretty much hold your own against your enemy. And it applies to so many things in this. Retrying different things to see how they would change was a delight.

this game is also so bad its almost good, and if you're interested you HAVE to play it with friends so you can yell about how bad it is together.

Zero Escape

it's just a good series ok. escape rooms, and also time loops! the 3rd game in particular goes deep into The Math of how timeloops would work, which i think is interesting. sometimes timeloop games just go "yeah you can timeloop dont worry about it" and others go "OK HERE'S THE HOW AND WHY IT WORKS" and both are interesting!

START AGAIN: a prologue

this game has almost everything i could wish for in a timeloop game. depression. lines repeating. dying brings you back. you get new levels and skills because you're aware of the loops but your party members don't. so you get overpowered next to them and they Notice. just. party members who dont know about the loops still noticing something is wrong. you are acting differently than yesterday. you look sad. you are acting weird. you know too much. how did you know where the keys were? how did you know this would happen? what's wrong? talk to us. and oh my god this game has a sequel? which will probably have Actually Everything i could wish for in a timeloop game? i can't wait. who made this? (its me i made this)

Ghost Trick

ok its not really time loops and more time travel and only for 4 minutes HOWEVER!!!! you should play it. you know you should play it because everyone says so. so go play it

Elsinore

im sure its a great game but ive never seen/read hamlet. so thats a failing on my part. because. you absolutely need to know hamlet to understand this game lol i did like the whole "make sure to find out which events are Important and which ones aren't so you can have The Perfect Loop"! very fun. or it would be. if i. knew. hamlet

The Forgotten City

a friend kept recommending it to me and i didn't like it. its good! just not for me. but if you like to think a lot you should play it. another "make sure to find out which events are Important and which ones aren't so you can have The Perfect Loop" game

Gnosia

Gonna be real. I didn't like the story very much, in part because the game lets you choose your gender but still acts like youre a straight dude. HOWEVER the gameplay was very inspiring to me. Every loop is pretty much just an among us meeting, and you have to find out who the imposters are or everyone dies and you loop again. and sometimes you ARE the imposter, so you need to make sure no one finds out. or you loop again. rules get added as time goes on too. i REALLY loved how quickly the loops stacked up. seeing "loop 100" was such a nice moment. ive been here so long! i tried to recreate that somewhat for my own game…

Loop Hero

Technically not a timeloop game, but a loop game. It still absolutely counts because it's about loops and memories, and what are loops and memories together if not a timeloop. You have your little guy going through a closed loop, battling enemies, getting cards, and making the world whole again by using those cards to make forests, towns, lakes come to life. I am famously a Story First Gameplay Second kinda player, but I did play this 45h for the gameplay alone. I learned a lot about battle balancing and randomness by playing this!

You and Me and Her: A Love Story

you know doki doki litterature club? this came before. and one might say. it's. better. in some parts (and i say that as someone who LOVED ddlc!) i won't say much except it's a dating sim but with timeloops. with a lot of what it implies. why are you dating this girl a second time? a third time? a fourth time? choose another one already! it was such a fascinating game to play, and is incredibly meta in the way it talks about dating sims and visual novels. had a lot of very impactful moments however, i played the hentai version. some of the worst, most cringy sex ive ever read and heard. however, one might say the sex is an integral part of the game and its deconstruction of hentai/dating sims…? no. just play the steam version which doesnt have the horrible sex scenes and you will have a great time i think (or play the hentai version. if you like. to watch. horrible sex scenes???)

Higurashi

knowing this is a timeloop game is a massive spoiler. however, this game is more than a decade old, so,,, honestly if you havent played higurashi what are you doing. i know i just spoiled you on it but i was also spoiled on it and i can GUARANTEE YOU that you will still have an amazing time. one more thing. you gotta play with the original sprites or you're a fake fan

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist

starts as a visual novel/management sim/dating sim kinda thing, until you realize that every replay is a new timeline. so the main character can save people, because they remembered about them dying in a previous one. i wish the timeloop would affect the game/story more (let me find a certain character quicker once ive found them in a previous playthrough!!!), but timeloop aside, it's a very fun game to play!!!

that's it! hope you will find a nice timeloop game you like