#i wrote a lot today and edited out about half of it immediately after writing because it was nonsense xD

[builtyouahousefromabrokenhome]

Harry whimpered when Louis rubbed lightly over some of his nipples.

This sounds absurd and I will edit it, but when he has four of them ...

[mieldreams]

Payal

Summary: Anakin Skywalker is the roommate of your best friend's crush. That's all. Well, he's also a pain in the ass. But could one dance and a lucky pair of payal change things?

pairing: Anakin Skywalker x desi!reader (or just reader who's familiar/involved with that culture, no physical descriptions involved)

Warnings: None, except for 'i haven't proofread a single fucking thing' :) sorry for the mistakes in advance.

A/n: wrote something on a whim again (this is the first ever time I've written a proper fanfic tho *_*). Happy navratri y'all

Edit: Here's some payal playbacks aka any moodboard/refs if you want to know (songs, outfits, word meanings etc.)

It was Navratri, the festival in honour of the Goddess Durga. Nine nights of colours, prayers, and a whole lot of dancing. Oh, and the sweets! You couldn't wait to just rot your teeth on those festive delicacies.

It was the 5th night of festivities and today's celebrations were mainly the daily prayer and the dandiya dance. The special event for today however, was the ladies' dance competition. Your best friend had practically dragged your ass to get your name registered along with hers and your other friend Pari's, a half-assed promise of treating you to your favourite food at that fancy restaurant on the other side of the city to bribe you into the elaborate bollywood-esque romance scheme to seduce her crush. "There's no seducing!" she whisper-shouted, standing at the booth where you had to give your name, her cheeks immediately heating up at your insinuation. "I just want him to... see me, you know?" and you couldn't help but mentally scoff at that, why was she so blind? "Plus the price is money," she added, smirking as she picked up the pen to write down the names.

"Well shit, you should've said that first girl, I'm always looking to make me some moolah" your smirk matching hers even though your brain was already exhausted just *thinking* about the hours of practice she was gonna make you do to make sure everything was perfect to the T. That was over a week back, and after hours of choreographing and practising and picking out the costumes, the day was here, and despite all the whining you had done during practice, you couldn't deny that you actually hoped that her plan worked. Was it because you were tired of your oblivious best friend and her equally oblivious man playing dog and the bone with their feelings? Nooo, you could never be tired of your darling best friend's endless rants about how 'handsome he looked at the cafeteria today, in his lucky white cashmere sweater his ex-grandma gifted him in 2019' (how did she know that?) or how 'it's so sad his little sister's goldfish died because it jumped into the pot of boiling water for tea, and they've invited us to its funeral' (what?). And it most definitely wasn't because you were starting to get sick of having to watch them make those nauseating googly eyes at each other every time you hung out, for the past year. (though you wondered if it would only get worse when they finally got together.)

That's right, when, because if those two failed to get their ship sailing after tonight, you were 100% planning on just walking up to each of them, asking them what time they're free for dinner and setting them up on a date yourself. Your mental planning however, was disrupted by the creaking of the metal gate to the lawn space that had been rented for the festival. You turned around, a smile immediately pulling on your lips at the sight of the said man you were downright ready to shake like a maraca till your best friend got her deserved confession (though you expected the same on her end as well, of course). But the smile immediately fell at the sight of another man walking in right behind him. Anakin. What the hell was he doing here? And truly, the scowl that pulled on your face was hardly your fault when his eyes met yours and his lips immediately turned up into that infuriating smirk as the two of them headed towards you. But before you could march up to him and demand why he was here, your best friend ran up to you, gripping your arm to stop herself from crashing into you (you supposed the accidental intervention was for the better, since asking him such a thing might only give him more reason to mock you, it was obvious he was here with Krish, your best friend's crush who was also very unfortunately college roommates with Anakin, seriously how did someone as sweet as that guy get stuck with a moron like him?).

"C'mon it's time for the competition to start, ours is literally the second performance!" She started to drag you by the arm only to stop immediately at the sight of Krish causing you to crash into her. "Are we sure you can dance in the competition when you can hardly manage to walk without stumbling?" his voice immediately caused you to raise your head, glaring daggers as you squared up to throw your own taunt about how he just had to be oh so special and wear black even though tonight's theme was white. Unfortunately, you were beaten by Krish as he elbowed Anakin harshly in the rib, making you snicker at his grunt of pain, before walking even closer towards your best friend. "Aamani... hi," Krish breathed out, shifting his weight from one foot to another. And though you wanted to roll your eyes at how his eyes seemed to literally twinkle as he looked at your best friend, or how he always took time to call her by her full name despite all her friends calling her Manu, like he just had to say it every time to even begin to appreciate her entire being that he was so clearly besotted with, you couldn't help the small smirk that tugged on your lips as you gently pried your arm out of her death grip. (when the hell did she get so strong?) ‘Let's leave them to it, then.’ You thought to yourself.

And with that you walked away towards the small stage, knowing they'd most likely not see or hear anything besides the other person for at least the next half hour. "They're not gonna leave each other's side for the rest of the night, are they?" Ugh, Anakin. How had you forgotten? and now he was following you. Great. "Well, they wouldn't normally, but we do have to perform our dance and we're up second, which means the lovebirds will have to sacrifice at least half an hour for final practice and the performance." Hold on, why were you entertaining him? You stopped suddenly and turned to him with a scowl, "and I'll have you know I can dance very well and I-" "Is that why you're wearing red? for the dance? I thought the theme was white today," the audacity this man had to interrupt you. "Oh did you? Is that why you instead wore black?" you popped a hip with a closed fist resting on your hipbone, raising a jeering eyebrow at him, his eyes immediately drawn to the movement and indirectly your exposed midriff and then the shiny white stud in your belly button. He gulped before quickly averting his eyes to the stage behind you. "I think they announced that they're gonna be starting the competition soon," he replied instead.

Oh shit.

"Good luck" was all he said before walking away towards the audience gathering up for the performances. Oh shit, you really had to find your best friend fast.

Half an hour later with your costumes readjusted and makeup re-touched you were ready to get on stage. You weren't worried about messing up as much as you were about not keeping the same amount of energy for the next half an hour. That's right, your original plans of going mostly unnoticed as your best friend's supporting dancer for a mere 4-5 minutes went down the drain the minute she blabbered about you being a dancer as a kid to the aunty from down the block who was arranging her own group dance performance and immediately downright ordered you to join her group as well. At the time you didn't mind much but now, now you were wondering if you could pretend to sprain your ankle after your first performance to avoid the other one. I mean a whole half an hour of continuous dancing? and worse, the traitor that was your best friend wasn't in the second one and so you'd been entirely alone with a bunch of strangers during the first few practice sessions. (you knew it wasn't her fault the lady didn't ask her to join but you were sure she might have accommodated another person considering it was a big dance number) So here you were now, about 30 seconds away from getting on stage, sending a quick prayer that you don't throw up at any point considering they were pretty much back-to-back dances. As soon as you heard your group being announced the three of you walked onto the stage to get in your positions. You used the brief gap before the music started to scan the huge crowd, immediately spotting Krish almost at the very front of the audience, closest to where Manu was standing, but Anakin wasn't beside him like you expected. Your eyes continuing their scan to find him in the crowd before you even realised what you were doing. Wait, why the hell are you looking for him? You need to focus on the count before the music starts.

And as soon as the music started your body naturally moved to the rhythm and beat, a light laughter bubbling in your chest as you felt the stress melt away with each step. You had forgotten just how fun being on stage actually was, and with the atmosphere of such joy and celebration it was that much livelier. Before you know it, the performance was over, Krish walking quickly to the side of the stage as you got off, still high on the adrenaline and euphoria of performing after so long, and everything had gone smoothly too. It was hard to keep the smile off your face, even more so when you saw Manu and Krish talk animatedly at the bottom of the stairs to the stage, her head thrown back, laughing at something he said and then nodding enthusiastically with a toothy grin. Her expression changing to that of shock for a brief second as Krish immediately picks her up to twirl her around, her laughter dancing in the cold night air once again. It was only your obnoxiously loud teasing whistle that broke their bubble, though only temporarily. You had to go back on stage in five minutes and you wanted to make sure that Manu had company since you wouldn't be by her side for at least the next half an hour. Though realistically you knew it was her who wouldn't be by your side for the rest of the night. Ah, young love... or whatever.

"So now that the two of you have finally been cured of your obliviosis, have fun kiddos," you smirked, "and make sure to be safe." You winked at the pair, earning you a half-hearted angry call of your name from Manu as Krish let out an awkward nervous chuckle, burying his face into her shoulder. Aww, you had embarrassed them. "What? I'm just saying, have her back by 11." you gave a pointed look at him to which he immediately straightened up, enthusiastically nodding to your words while Manu continued to glare at you. "Back by 11? What am I in middle school?" "If you were in middle school I'd want you home by 9 miss, just what the hell sorta parents did you have?" You looked down at your watch realising your 5-minute break was nearing its end. "Okay lovebirds, I gotta go, but seriously have her home safe if you guys decide to leave the ground," you said pointing a finger at Krish, "and you," your finger pointing at Manu now, "don't forget to text me when you're leaving and when you get back home, alright?" She left his arms to quickly walk up the stairs to the top where you stood, pulling you into a bear hug as she rocked you side to side without even giving you a chance to hug her back as she held your arms at your sides, "I'll text you." She freed you from the hug to squeeze your palms in hers, "I had a lot of fun with the dance, thank you. And good luck with your next dance, sorry I won't be there to watch it, I mean we could stay till it gets over. we'll have the rest of the night anyway. Hey Krish, maybe we should stay for–"

But you immediately cut her off, "absolutely not, you've been looking forward to this day for almost a whole month now." You shook your head as you saw her open her mouth to argue, "plus I know you have that scarf you knitted for him in your bag." you smirked as her eyes went wide with surprise, not having expected you to know that. "Pulling that lovely 'oh it's a cold night, isn't it? Here, I just so happen to have this beautiful scarf that I definitely didn't knit just for you, here, let me wrap it around your beautiful neck. Oh no, you don't have to give it back to me at the end of the night, I have a matching one at home that I totally didn't plan as a couple’s thing, no seriously you can keep it' on him? There couldn't be a better opportunity." You laughed as her ears became bright red, "I hate you and your Nancy Drew observation skills." she mumbled out of puffed cheeks before immediately pulling you into another hug. "I love you. Good luck." "Thanks, I love you." In the end, you were about 2 minutes late to your dance and the aunty's scary face as she hurriedly signalled you to get into your position made you cringe on the inside, but oh well whatever, there were so many people you doubted that anyone had noticed there was supposed to be another dancer. You were here now anyway. You were halfway through the dance, your back turned to the audience when you felt a sharp gaze on you. Weird, there were about 100 people watching you, why did you feel this one particular stare stand out? It was only when you completed the circle to turn to face the audience again that you immediately connect gazes with the sharp eyes you had felt on you. Anakin. He was standing at the very back, close to the water coolers and refreshment tables, leaning on one of the empty tables with his arms crossed. His gaze never leaving yours. For a second your thoughts drifted and you were annoyed at how good he looked in the black shimmery kurta, though the top 3 buttons being left unbuttoned was so unnecessarily extra. The sleeves folded over his forearms that stretched the fabric, his collarbones standing out from the open collar. Such a slut. But damn did he look fine. Wait, what the hell? Focus, focus, focus. You couldn't lose count mid-step. And tripping right now would mess up everyone's steps since it was a circular movement. Why the hell would you trip over him anyway? Ugh. And so you focused back on your steps, continuing to feel that strange unwavering gaze on you for the rest of your dance.

Half an hour later, you were entirely done with the dance competition. Your feet hurt, your stomach was grumbling every few seconds and you were sure you'd be getting a headache from being so close to the speakers for so long. Thankfully, the emcee had announced a short break for refreshments and such, before the rest of the dances and then the final event to end the night — the dandiya dance. Were you positively exhausted and maybe even getting real tired of all the dancing and loud music? Most definitely. But Manu had texted you saying they'd be back for the final dandiya dance and you were really hoping to get to dance at least once with her, you know, outside the competition, just for funsies sort of stuff. So your irritation? Nothing some tasty snacks and maybe a cold drink couldn't solve. That was until an unfortunately familiar face came into your view as he plopped into the seat right next to yours at the circular table. Not the two other tables that were entirely empty (wasn't he supposed to be some emo loner who preferred to sulk in a corner?) or even the chair on the other side of the table (though you wondered if having him directly in your line of sight would make it worse). But no, he just had to sit right next to you with his stupid pretty eyes purposefully not meeting yours and his annoying plump lips innocently wrapping around the spoon with a piece of gulab jamun on it. He didn't even like sweets.

"Um— what the hell?" "What?" he looked at you with doe eyes rounded in innocence, and your eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Nothing, never mind," you were too tired and too hungry to start anything right now and what would you even ask, 'Why the hell are you sitting next to me?' 'didn't know there was some rule telling me where I can sit' is what he'd say, maybe roll his eyes at you, the usual stuff. So you continued eating your puff pastry in silence. Until you just had to ask, "I thought you didn't like sweets?" You tried to make your voice sound as non-judgemental as possible, you were only curious after all. "And who told you that?" he raised an eyebrow at you. Truthfully, nobody. But you had noticed the way he always avoided the dessert table at parties and functions, the way he only drank his coffee black; not even your best friend's infamous black forest cake that she had made for Krish's birthday a few months back had tempted him to even grab a Yolanda-approved bite. Yolanda would certainly be proud. Obviously, this had nothing to do with you observing him particularly, you just observed a lot of things around you, and he just very unfortunately happened to be around you a lot, being Krish's roommate and 'brotha from anotha motha' or whatever they said. And yet, here he was eating a freaking gulab jamun that was absolutely dripping with the sugary-est syrup. Did he hit his head on the way or something?

"Did you hit—" "I ran into Krish and Aamani, she told me to give this to you," he interrupted you yet again, turning to face you and pulling out a long silver chain-like thing, which upon a closer look you realised with an elated gasp, was the missing half of your lucky pair of payal, the one you'd been looking for everywhere earlier that evening. "I thought these came in pairs," it was a question from the tone with which he said it, but his eyes remained fixated on the jewellery in his hands, thumb running over the delicate silver with a gentleness you didn't know he possessed. You lifted the hem of your skirt a little, head tilting down to point at your left ankle, "they do. I just couldn't find the other one." You shook your head, going back to taking a sip of your drink, "I like the sound they make when you dance, it's fun, so I thought ek hai toh ek hi sahi," catching his questioning gaze you translated, "if there's only one then so be it, I hardly ever get to wear these anyway." You shrugged, "Manu must've found it later and forgotten to give it to me earlier. I think their dating honeymoon phase is gonna be worse than their not-dating honeymoon phase" You rolled your eyes affectionately, expecting him to make a teasing remark too or at least give you that amused smirk. Instead you saw him give an almost imperceptible yet decisive nod, quickly sliding off his chair to kneel in front of you. "What are you-" He gently lifted your right foot onto his folded knee, his nimble fingers making quick work of the clasp on your anklet. Your stomach fluttered as you felt the warmth of his hands on your cold bare ankle, and you were sure if you still had that sip of cold drink in your mouth, your lungs would be burning from snorting it down the wrong pipe, and definitely not because he might've stolen your breath. His fingers skimmed in a barely there touch down your foot. Till now, his gaze had been entirely focused on clasping the jewellery but now that he was done he lifted his head, looking directly into your eyes from his still kneeling position, your faces a few inches apart. This time you could feel your heart burn. Dang, maybe you should cut down on the greasy food and drinks. His gaze briefly shifted to your lips, but then he quickly got up, dusting off his pants, picking up his empty gulab jamun cup, throwing a quick, "I'mgonnagothrowthis" over his shoulder and then he was gone. He quickly disappeared into the crowds while you still sat there, entirely motionless. Your mind blank except for the phantom feeling from his feather touch on your skin.

It was finally time for the last round of dancing. You had run into Manu and Krish while carrying your trash to the bin, the emptiness of your thoughts completely overthrown by the excited shout of your name. You were surprised they had spotted you first, considering all the doped-up lovey smiles and heart-eyes you noticed when they walked to you. The brief hand squeeze and wide-eyed glance from her let you know you were in for an entire night of dramatic recalling of every detail of their evening and you could only shake your head with a fond smirk. As you all walked back towards the dance area, Manu spoke up, "Oh, did you get the payal I'd given Anakin to give to you?" she looked down at your feet though they were covered with your skirt. You supposed she heard them jingle, the sound louder and more noticeable now that you were wearing both of them. But her question brought back that unwanted memory from earlier in the evening instead, and you fought real hard to keep your face from heating up, inhaling a deep breath as inconspicuously as possible, "uh– yeah, he um.. he did." you nodded your head a little too aggressively, "I mean I got it, yeah." Lightly lifting your skirt to show your pair of anklets safely secured, by the most gentle hands you'd ever felt. This time you felt your ears undeniably heat up. 'What the hell? Why were you so fixated on that one thing? It was nothing. It's not like he was sliding a wedding ring on you or something.' Though for some reason, that thought only made your breath stutter as you felt the lava-like blood now rushing to your cheeks. Ugh, get a grip, get. a. grip. And since you were too busy trying to appear totally normal and shoot the butterflies in your stomach dead, you missed the mischievous look that Manu shot Krish as she gave a quick squeeze to his hand in hers. "Should we really have been spying on them like that? And worse, taking photos of them without them knowing?" and though his question was whispered through a sigh he squeezed her hand right back.

"Oh, hush. 10 years from now when they have cute little munchkins running around, I'll have proof to show that I was the one that set their ship sailing." she answered with a smirk. "You've thought about their kids? 10 years from now??" he raised his brows with an incredulous laugh. "Of course. I think about everything." Even the things that you were too practical to consider. Your words, not hers. 'Blind' is what she would call it. You may have the observation skills rivalling that of the most infamous detectives, but she had The Vision. And she knew in her guts that you two were just meant to end up together. "Oh yeah? Then what have you thought about our 10 years? We got 'cute little munchkins' in our cards too?" he tossed an arm around her shoulders, snuggling her close to him to teasingly tickle at her exposed waist. "Mmm, for now our cards hold a very very important mission." She answered and he sighed again, knowing exactly where this was heading. "Let me guess, mission 'get your best friend and my best friend together for the last dance to recreate another Bollywood-style romantic scene?" he raised a brow, coming to a stop as they reached the edge of the canopy of lights and fabrics. "It's only been a few hours and you've already gained the boyfriend-telepathy skills. Impressive." She wiggled her brows at him while turning around in his arms, "I need you to find Anakin and somehow get him to agree to dance." Sensing his hesitation she quickly continued, "I know it won't be easy, but you'll manage. Once we get them both here we need to make sure they're on opposite sides of the circle so that when the final song comes they'll be paired together" she finished. "You really have thought this through, huh? I can't guarantee that he'll agree to dance, I mean it's Anakin we're talking about," noticing her pleading pout he rolled his eyes in fond exasperation, "but I'll try."

With that, he left and she walked to where you were standing, finishing up talking to some old lady, no doubt held hostage to some good ol’ ‘I knew you since you were thisss little’ talk for the past few minutes that the two had spent whispering their plan, but she quickly patted your cheek and left. "So, tonight's the exclusive dandiya night," she wiggled her brows like it was supposed to mean something, it was. You laughed, not understanding her implication. "What about it?" She rolled her eyes good-naturedly, "it's dandiya dumbass. As in, you know, pairs dancing," she continued when she realised your light bulb was still dim. "Oh," you hadn't thought about that, too caught up in the dance competition to care about the other stuff. "Yeah, ‘oh.’ So, who you gonna choose?" "Um...you?" though it came out unsure. "I appreciate the sentiment babe, I really do. I would choose you too–" You raised a brow at that, "but?" "But'" she made a show of dragging out the word then throwing her arms out to her sides, "look at the crowd around you, there's so many kids our age, there's quite a few guys our age too." And finally you caught onto her line of thoughts, narrowing your eyes you shook your head. "Absolutely not. We are not doing this tonight, well I mean you're settled, so I'm not doing this tonight." But the fates seemed to be on her side that night, as she noticed Krish and Anakin talking a few paces away towards the outskirts of the canopy while you both stood at the centre, you hadn't noticed them yet but she could see Anakin shaking his head in a firm no as well. Gosh why were the both of you so difficult? But she also noticed another opportunity walk towards you, and a hopeful scenario played out in her head, courtesy of The Vision. And so she immediately got to work.

"Hey AJ!" she called out to the guy just about to walk by you a few steps away, "didn't you mention that you don't have a partner for tonight's dandiya?" Your eyes widened and you subtly tried to pinch her to stop her from saying the next words but it was too late, "My best friend here also doesn't have a partner, would you mind pairing up with her if you haven't already found someone else?" In speaking to the guy, both of you had turned to fully face him, so she couldn't see Anakin’s reaction anymore. She hoped he had heard what she had just asked this guy. He had. While the two had been devising their plan off to the side, you had been standing at the centre of the canopy taking time to clear your mind and cool yourself. Your gaze was immediately drawn to the gorgeous lights and colourful fabrics that hung above you, mesmerised by how pretty they looked standing out against the dark nighht sky beyond. And though you may never know, Anakin had spotted you right then, standing there in your pretty red ghagra, face tilted to look above you, and it had looked like one of the most gorgeous things he had ever seen, you had looked so pretty with all the lights gleaming in your eyes. And though he was too far to see it, he knew your gaze held that golden twinkle that shone every time you were genuinely happy, though he had hardly been on the receiving end of it. So he had always observed from afar, just as he was doing tonight. His thoughts had been interrupted by the movement of someone approaching him in his periphery. It turned out to be Krish, who clapped him on the back as a greeting and then asked him if he had eaten anything to which Anakin's mind flashed to the almost nauseating sweetness of the tooth-rotting dessert he'd had, immediately followed by the image of the delicate jewellery around your ankle and he quickly shut the door on that thought, instead answering with a single nod.

"Good, good 'cause you're gonna need some energy for a while." Anakin only raised an inquisitive eyebrow in response, while Krish thought of the best, most convincing way to... well, to convince him. "Y/N needs a partner..." "Okay…?" "For the dance, I mean. She needs a partner for the dandiya, she doesn't have one..." he trailed off again, should he just be straightforward with it? "It's you." "What?" Anakin's head snapped to look at him like he was insane. "It's you. You're going to dance with her." "What the fuck? No, I'm not?" it came out as a question because he was baffled as to how his own best friend could say something as dumb as that. Dancing? him? That's fucking funny. "Yes, you are. She needs a partner. You need a partner. The solution is obvious." "Like hell it is. I don't need a partner, 'cause I'm not fucking dancing." He shook his head decisively. "You want to though. You know you want to dance with her." Krish said with a pointed look. "And just what the hell made you think that?" "I'm your best friend, Ani. Do you think I'm blind or—" "Hey AJ!" Aamani's voice had carried over to the two of them, halting their conversation as their attention was now on the two of you, though your backs were turned to them. Aamani's voice was somehow loud enough that they got the gist of it, she had asked this AJ to be your partner, and from the way he walked over to the two of you, your best friend introducing you to each other, him shaking your hand and the dazzling smile you gave him in return, Anakin felt an irrational sorts of a burning pit in his stomach. "Well, looks like the deal's done. She's got her fucking partner." He pushed off the pillar he’d been leaning on, walking away. "Wait! Dude! Where you go—" "Out." and with that he quickly walked towards the back exit of the ground, walking through the gates and out into the cold night. But he had been wrong. AJ hadn't yet agreed to dance with you, or rather Aamani hadn't given him the chance to, stalling him by telling you that he was studying the same thing as you, though he went to a different university. She had been buying time, hoping that any second now, Anakin and his impulsiveness would come barging and say that you've already got a partner. But time was running short as the conversation between the two of you came back to the topic of tonight's dance. "So, you don't have a partner for the dandiya either?" she heard him ask. Where the hell was Anakin? But her movie-like vision for his entrance onto the scene immediately shattered when she turned to see what was holding him, only to see Anakin nowhere in sight and her boyfriend standing alone with a small frown on his face. Catching his eyes she sent him a questioning look, to which he only shook his head dejectedly. And she knew her plan had failed. For her, at least. Because when she turned back around, she saw you agreeing with AJ to meet up under the canopy before the start of the dance before he excused himself, mentioning something about helping move the chairs or whatever. You too said something about meeting up with one of your older hometown friends you'd run into right before the dance competition. You'd promised to come find her when you were free to catch up on things. And so you left as well.

But at that point, Manu could only think about how wrong this was. She knew it was her who had asked AJ to dance with her best friend, so she couldn't blame him. But Anakin – Anakin she could blame. And she could also just about drag his ass back here to ask him what the hell was he doing? With the way the whole payal scene had gone, and knowing Anakin's possessive nature, she was almost 100% sure he'd metaphorically sweep you off your feet (before literally sweeping you off your feet during the dance). So why the hell was her best friend going to be dancing with a guy she was (frustratingly) getting along with instead?

Krish had walked his way back to stand behind her, but not even his warmth and the comforting palm he ran up and down her bare arm could stop the disappointed frown pulling on her lips. She turned to her boyfriend with a concerned expression, "Did I just accidentally push my best friend towards the wrong guy, with the right guy storming off to who knows where?"

Part 2: Jhumka

a/n: so.... there's 4 more nights left... do you think they'll ever get their dance? 👀

A/n: Thank you all so much if you spent your time on this trash wreckage fuelled by finals stress and unfulfilled dreams </3

Would love to hear feedback on this one! Don't hesitate to send me any ques or just anything that comes to mind relating to our dearest love-haters and the overzealous matchmakers ;)

[breathplayed]

17, 29, 48, & 55 😁🫖

oh u GOT me got me lets go

(17) what is your favorite line you’ve ever written? babe plz this one is too hard..... there's too many...... I HAVE 920K WORDS ON AO3 AND ~50K INCOMING I DONT EVEN REMEMBER THEM ALL......... uuhhhhhhhh ok ok ill try to narrow a few down. it's all gonna be recent tho bc that's what i remember most + i have rly been indulging myself stylistically as of late lmao

for just ~pretty language~ my favorites rn are

"Jimin is almost too pretty to mar with mortal hands, but Jungkook finds desecration is half the fun when his hands slip lower" (folie à trois)

"Some floodgate inside him has broken, the last bastion of resistance crumbled, and now he’s a drowning man in the dead waters" (folie à trois)

“I love you,” he whimpers into Taehyung’s kiss like a prayer. Too devout; Taehyung’s hands and lips pause. Jimin’s own lip is already trembling, caught, so he lets the confessional spill like it’s the last Sunday he’ll ever see." (the losing game ch17)

"[Taehyung] used to dream, sometimes, after Jimin was gone, that he was holding him again, that he could crack open Jimin's ribcage and crawl inside to make a home beside his heart before they burned together." (the losing game ch5)

"Sometimes—in his darkest moments, on his worst nights—Jimin dreams about Taehyung carving over each and every one of his scars. Creating clean new edges to each of them, prying fingers in the wound to be as close as possible, rewriting their memories and meanings with a jagged, almost unbearable intimacy." (the losing game ch17)

"The graves we dig ourselves are often the deepest." (the graves we dig..... now thats a real throwback huh)

there's too much i could say for dialogue but.... i'm super fond of the hurtful conversations present!vmin have in tlg (especially ch14, i reread that a lot), ignite the stars ch5 (also reread that a lot), and also i love pretty much everything that comes out of taehyung's mouth in folie à trois lol

(29) give us a spoiler for one of your stories. answered here, but since this one could be answered multiple times i'll bite......... my queue tag ("i'm glad it was queue") is a play on one of my favorite lines in all of tlg that i have been excited about getting to for yeaaaarrrssss. no one but me knows the line yet (or how hurtful its context is) bc it's in one of the final chapters hehehe but it's "i'm glad it was you" ..... :')

(48) do you reread your own stories? the answer to this used to be a strong NO!!!! but that has actually changed in the last two years! i don't rly reread anything older (my writing style has changed so much + there's things i'd change about older fics esp <2020 so it's not an enjoyable experience to me, i'd just fret over editing it) but there's some newer fics i reread bc they are So written to my own taste. i think i really improved a lot getting to write a bunch in lockdown lol + started caring less about whether ppl liked the fic and just wrote for ✨Me✨ so several of those recent fics i'm happy with and do reread sometimes like a stupid idiot narcissus

The ones i've reread the most are "sit, stay" + "sea legs" + favorite parts of "ignite the stars" and my favorite parts of "the losing game". the other scattered pwp's since 2020 have gotten reread about twice each. and i recently reread WBIO for the first time since writing it in early 2020!!! mixed feelings on that one bc i felt like i would change some parts of it if i wrote it today but that's a sign ur growing and improving i suppose

(55) do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them? oh i have so fucking many 'WIPs' it's not even funny. there's probably like ~12 completely bullet point outlined medium length / longfics in my docs down to exact dialogue i'd write, and dozens more fic attempts that have a whole plot and ending. bc as soon as i come up with an idea i already immediately know how i want it to end. which gives me way too many Plot Bunnies that are viable to be turned into fics!!!!! two years ago i made a list of every idea i thought should at least see the light of day in threadfic form if not an actual fic and it came out to 30 fics lol (and that was cutting it down to the essentials)

the thing is, very few of my WIPs are ever 'abandoned' in my mind, it's more like... i put them in my mental freezer. on hold / on ice. and some of them are closer to the front and get taken out and rotated around and worked on more often, while others are shoved to the far back of the freezer as i say "i'll make that someday" and forget it exists til the next time im reminded of it. there's only a few that i'd actually toss in the trash (aka truly abandon and never work on again).

the ones that are definitely abandoned in that i know i dont Want to write them are all on the more domestic romcom side (think like 'meaner than mean' or 'i like us like this') i know people like those but they're the hardest thing for me to write, those were the most annoyed i've ever felt while writing, i would literally groan out loud working on them, i am rly only happy writing conflict/angst or pwp lol

tbh, if i were to be realistic with myself, i'd say most of these wip's are 'abandoned' in that i probably will never get around to finishing them. but i dont want to call them abandoned because i do like the plots, and think ppl would like them, and want to share them!!! i just think they would suck / not be fun to write. Maybe Someday i will do an archival effort and work on translating as many of them as i can into threadfic form so they see the light of day in some format and are no longer abandoned to rot in my docs... bc there's no way that most of them are ever going to be written the way i wish i could do them justice :') and then i can abandon them knowing that ppl at least got to read a vague outline of what could have been

fun fact: i opened the aforementioned list of all these ideas to count and on one of them, a fic i've been poking at since 2018, i have the note "finish this or die" next to it. guess i know which one i've picked atp 🪦

[springalwayscomes]

Not even a gift

Plot: Since the moment Jungkook saw your ass he swore he never saw something that beautiful. But then you turned around, and well, that was a total different thing. The poor man couldn’t even stand beside you without embarassing himself or embarassing you, and evey time seems to get worse and worse and...worse. 

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Genre: Dancer AU, Fluff, Humor, Smut, One Shot

Wordcount: 30k

Content Warning: Jungkook can’t stop embarassing himself, swearing, sexual innuendo, sexual tension, awkard situations, masturbation, sexual fantasies, a lot - a lot - of fluff, Reader with stress issues, overwhelming parents, trust issues

A/N: I wrote this when I was just joining the fandom, last year for Kookie’s birthday. I remember wanting to pst this so badly but it stayed in my drafts because I wasn’t sure it was good enough and I was a little insecure about the ending. I told to myself that someday I’d rewrite a new ending and post this, but knowing myself and how I work with my writing, I know that that day will never come because even if did so, I’ll probably end up with not liking my style of writing anymore and editit all out, leave it like this or delate it. So I told myself that I’d rather prefer to publish it. cause at the end this story was incredibly funny to write - sometimes I would laugh all alone like an idiot while writing it - and to be honest I think it’s pretty good. It’s the very first fanfiction I wrote about BTS so it’s also very meaningful for me. For reasons as the ones I already mentioned I decided to not edit this, so you might find some grammatical errors, please understand that this was the first time I wrote something from scratch in english. If you’d like to read it in episodes I’m going to publish it on youtube as a series too, where you’ll be able to live the full experience of the story since there you can visualize it too, as for the story it’s exactly the same as here. Enjoy reading this one, I know you’ll have fun!

Watch the first episode on Youtube

Since the moment Jungkook saw your ass he swore he never saw something that beautiful. It wasn’t just fit and solid, it was the way you were moving it on the beat, making it look like something he’d die to touch, squeeze, hold.

That was the very first thing he noticed about you.

He couldn’t help but fantasize how you’re face would look, watching your back from the doorframe of the ballroom. He imagined you sweat, little drops forming on your forehead caused by the the movements. He tried to focus his attention on the other dancers, fixating his gaze on the girl beside you making the exact same moves as you, but something about your presence kept on calling him like you were a mermaid and he was a poor sailor.

His dark doe-eyes ended again on your body, being in the last row it was hard for him to find your reflection in the mirror, other bodies moving endlessly making him grimace. He was running out of time, the poor man got stuck in traffic on his way here, already twenty minutes late, and god knows why he stopped looking at you dancing.

He shook his head when even after the music stopped your back was still facing him, not that he minded, but he was really dying to know how your face would look like.

Someone must have been both incredibly hungry and in love with him, cause a second later, you were bending over, resting your elbows on your thighs and giving him an even more beautiful view of your ass while trying to catch your breath. 

Breath stuck in his lungs, Jungkook gulped hard, making his adam’s apple jump up and down.

The girl next to you said something that made you laugh, back invaded by the spasms of your laughter, something he couldn’t hear because of all the talking that was going on in the room. He wished he could. He imagined your voice, soft and sweet, and soon enough is mind was already wondering about your features.

Snorting and getting out of his trance, he remembered himself he had to practice. Ready to take the first step away from the ballroom which he didn’t belong to, he shook his head a second time and turned, ready to leave his thoughts about you in that room and never meet them again.

But a second song started. And this time, he recognized the beat. Holding his breath again, he faced the entrance with a speed that got him shocked by himself.

Your hips were moving again, slowly and sensually, hands drawing abstract shapes in the air, hair attached to your skin. Your sweat shorts were doing nothing to hide your skin from his dark eyes, all he could think about was the way it seemed to shine under the lights of the room and the way your sweat would make it look even more glowing.

He hissed through his teeth, trying to push away the though of his hands against your skin, the way he’d like to trace your thighs with his fingers, leave pecks against your body and mark your hips with his lips. He brought his gaze back on your ass, sinful eyes burning against your skin and jaw clenching, Jungkook licked his lips and watched you arch your back before bringing your left leg to your head, holding it with your hands as you tiptoed your right foot.

«How long have you been here?»

He literally jumped, locking his gaze with whoever gave him a heart attack. Standing beside him, looking at him with his eyebrows furrowed and his eyes wide were Yoongi.

«I-»

«You know this is the wrong room, right?» he looked at him with a blank expression, trying to understand what Jungkook was actually doing standing at the doorframe of a different studio, without even caring about the fact he should be practicing with him and the others.

«I know, I was just... looking around.» he managed to let out, before taking a deep breath and stepping towards Yoongi.

The moment he realized he was rocking a half-hard just by his previous sight, he clenched his jaw and gulped again. If Yoongi had already noticed his situation then he wouldn’t know cause his face was no longer on him, neck turned to peek into the room that stole the maknae’s attention before. The youngest one used that moment to bring his bag in front of him, and then headed to their dance class trying not to draw too much attention.

That was the first time he saw you.

Jungkook dropped his bag to the ground as soon as he entered his bedroom, removing his sneakers and his socks he headed to his bathroom in a matter of seconds, begging to feel the cold drops of water wash away all the sweat on his skin and the heat of his body, even though the last one wasn’t because of the workout.

His cock was aching, so damn hard and throbbing against his sweat pants.

He wished they finished their practice just a few seconds sooner. Dancing was a pain in the ass today, all he wanted to do was head back to your doorframe and peek at you, loose his gaze on your body, trying to steal a glance of your face.

But still, it didn’t happen. He couldn’t help but think about how’d you look during the three hours of rehearsals, he thought about it so much that now he had a clear image of you in his mind. And it was pretty platonic, almost inaccessible.

He removed his shirt and his pants, letting them fall on the ground, and then turned on the water, already hooking his fingers under the elastic band of his boxers. He was so hard that it ached.

Jungkook took a deep breath and palmed himself through the material, immediately hissing at the touch. Deciding it was not enough he let the cloth slowly fall to the ground, creating a wall around his ankles that he surpassed in a second getting in the shower.

He didn’t waste time on lathering, he just shut the glass door and closed his eyes while bringing his hand to his shaft. The fingertip of his thumb collected the precum leaking out of his slit, moving over his head and making him clench his jaw shut, breath already uneven.

He though about the way you moved your hips, he’d like to hold them tight and down on the bed while fucking into you. He’d take such a good care of you. He’d fuck you so good, making you whimper and moan every time he’d hit your g-spot, he’d squeeze your ass in his big hands, leaving marks as a reminder of his touch. He’d kiss your skin, he’d kiss your neck and he wouldn’t even mind tasting the sweat caused by your rehearsals today, but in his mind, that’d be caused by what you two are doing.

Jungkook groaned and stroked himself, bringing his hand now to his base and tightening his grip around his girth. Throbbing, pulsating cock begging to release all his seed.

His movements were firm and clear, his fist moving so fast that his wrist was hurting, head falling back, mouth agape and eyebrows knitted together. The sound of his movements blended with the clatter of the water, his shoulders raising from time to time because of the heavy breathing, hips bucking against his hand. He wished it was you, the only part he’d seen of you, he desperately wished he was fucking your ass, so, so hard he’d make you whine and cry in pleasure. He imagined the sounds you’d made, and even though he didn’t even know how your voice sounded or how you looked, he already knew that it’d be his new favorite sound.

«Fuck» he groaned, fucking his cock in his hand even harder, moving his hips and meeting his hand halfway. He bit his lower lip, flesh aching and almost bleeding under his teeth, bringing his free hand to his heavy balls and massaging them. His pace fastened even more if it’s possible, his hips were snapping so hard into his hand picturing your ass in its place, he was so close he could taste it. He pictured your body bent over his bed, taking him so nicely, moaning out loud and clenching around his greedy cock, so needy and so damn wet for him.

«God, fuck» he growled, shoving fast into his hand. He wished he knew your face, he’d like to picture you taking his big cock in your lips. He already know they’d look so damn beautiful around his girth, gagging and drooling for him, he’d hold your head still and fuck himself into your pretty lips so good, letting you eat all of his seed.

That, that was what brung him to his apex. Abs contracting and rough breath, muscles tightening and eyes squinting, lips open letting out low groans.

«Fucking hell»

Hot white spatters stained his hand and chest as he rode his orgasm, keep shoving himself into his hand. The water washed away his seed, it disappeared so fast he didn’t even see it, and when he opened his eyes he took some time to catch his breath leaning against the wall behind him.

His mind went blank, for just a little. He couldn’t think of anything else than the idyllic orgasm he just had, just the thought of it made his cheeks flash red.

Then, the thoughts hit him. He didn’t even know your name, and here he was, masturbating over you. He was going to change that.

The second time Jungkook saw you he did  not rush out of his house thirty minutes earlier than he was supposed to. He couldn’t help but ask to himself what was going on with him, he certainly knew he never felt the need to see someone he didn’t even know. God, you didn’t even noticed him. Standing at the doorframe of your rehearsals room, looking at you move your body in such a charming way he swore he never see someone dance like that. Why were you in the last row? You deserved to be in the first one, that wasn’t fair. But, in that way he couldn’t see you, so he stored the information at the back of his mind. When you stopped your movements and you suddenly disappeared into the crowd, he again remembered to himself that he didn’t even know what he was doing.

Come on, was he really going to stand there for about other ten minutes and watch  you dance without doing nothing? He desperately wanted to know how your face looked, by now he could say he had a perfect picture of you in his head. And if he was right, you were probably the best thing he ever seen. 

Just the thought made him lick his lips, taking a deep nervous breath. He needed to talk to you. But what would he say? “Hi, I’ve been watching you dance”? Ew, definitely no. He tried to come up with other possibilities but his mind was totally blank, panic making his way through his thoughts and taking every part of him, leaving him only with sweaty hands and an adam’s apple gulping in his throat.

«Jungkook»

A voice made him turn, his gaze suddenly traveled to his right side.

«Oh, hey» he blurted out, Taehyung was staring at him with an arched eyebrow and inquisitive eyes.

«What were you doing?» the oldest one got closer, his hands in his pockets and a slight smile forming on his lips. Jungkook shook his head.

«Mh- I- waiting» he stuttered. His friend knitted his eyebrows looking at him for just a few seconds, then his gaze met the ballroom in front of them, where Jungkook’s was again scanning bodies, trying to find yours.

«Are you looking for someone?» Teahyung asked, receiving just a shake with his head from the youngest. But he knew better than that, he knew Jungkook well, maybe too much, he couldn’t even try to hide something from him.

When his eyes finally found you again, Teahyung knew it was you, he could just tell by the way he opened his lips, forming a little “oh”, his eyes never leaving your body.

«So you were waiting, uh?» he scoffed.

«Yes?» the maknae wanted to punch himself in the face, that was not supposed to come out as a question.

«Do you know her name?» Taehyung asked. He turned away in the blink of an eye, staring at him with wide eyes. It took him a few seconds to understand he’s been caught, but eventually he decided to just sigh and shake his head again. «Well, I know it» he shrugged like he had just said nothing. Jungkook looked at him with an unreadable expression, trying to understand if what he just heard was real or if he just imagined it. He studied Taehyung’s face like he was some kind of poem, carefully and thoughtfully, wisely looking for a hint to tell him he was just playing with him, but he really seemed serious.

«I can introduce her to you?» he turned to look at him, the youngest was playing with his fingers, eyes staring at the floor, all of his confidence seemed to fade away.

«Why?» he asked.

«What do you mean why?» Taehyung almost laughed at the maknae’s words, and he almost felt guilty. Almost.

«I- I don’t know...» he sighed. Why was he even acting like this? He wanted to talk to you, desperately wanted to know how your face looked like, his imagination was sending him crazy. How did he even ended up like this? He just saw you dance and his mind wasn’t his anymore, constantly wondering about your face. There was just something about you that was making him insanely curious.

«Oh, come on!» unexpectedly, the hyung grabbed him by his arm, making him almost loose his balance while dragging him into the room, taking big steps towards you. No one seemed to notice what was happening externally or inside of Jungkook, heart beating a mad pace, slippy hands like he just dipped them in the water, mind shocked and freaking out attempting to find anything, literally anything that could’ve helped him. Anything would’ve been good, anything for saving him from who knows what his mind was thinking, neither he could understand himself. He never felt more afraid to speak to someone in his life, he swore. Why was he even freaking out? He couldn’t find an answer in those few seconds that divided you from him, and he ended up behind you sooner than he realized. His body instantly tensed.

Teahyung, like the amazing friend he was, tapped your right shoulder, making sure to keep his grip tight on Jungkook’s arm, afraid he would’ve run away at the first opportunity. And he would’ve.

«Yes?» turning, you met the hyung gaze, two deep dark eyes staring at you, breath held in his throat. Damn, you were beautiful.

Oh, God.

That was the first thought that passed Jungkook’s mind when he finally saw your face, all of his fantasies immediately falling to the ground, breaking into a million pieces. He didn’t even know someone that beautiful could exist. His eyes staring at your face like some kind of piece of art. He definitely did not expect you to look like this, he did not see it coming. He thought you were beautiful, but God, not like this.

«Bye» that was the first and last word Taehyung blurted out, finally releasing Jungkook’s arm. Then, he simply walked away, like he did not just leave you two alone, like nothing. You raised your eyebrows, stunned by what just happened looking at the man head to the door and then simply disappear in the hallway. When you realized you were left with someone you couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable, shifting your gaze from the corridor to the man in front of you.

In that moment, Jungkook’s heart started beating even faster, if that was possible. His dark doe-eyes stared into yours for a few moments, not even blinking, mouth agape and breath caught in his throat. He looked like he just saw something... something really-

«Am I that ugly?» you blurted out.

When he realized you were actually talking to him, he felt the need to hide, run away, he wanted the earth to open under his feet and engulf him in. His cheeks flashed red, eyes finally starting to blink.

«No I-» his throat was dry, so he swallowed hard and tried to get a little bit of his nerve back.

«I-I just didn’t expect you to be like t-this»

What? Now he really wanted to hide, what the hell was he thinking? Nothing, his mind was totally blank. He didn’t even remember how to create an actually real sentence.

«Sorry?» you asked. Only then, he realized how your voice sounded, definitely lower than he thought. And he loved it.

«Uh- Oh God. I’m sorry»

And that was it, the end of your first conversation. Jungkook looked at your face for just a second more, than his legs did the job for him, he wasn’t even thinking straight, mind totally blown away and panic invading every rational part of him. He simply turned and started running away, disappearing in the hallway just like his friend did a matter of seconds before.

You grimaced, left standing in the rehearsals room, eyes following his tall and muscled figure until you were left with nothing but confusion.

What had just happened?

That was the second time Jungkook saw you.

He was drawing again, eyes fixated on the sheet in front of him, colors over colors over colors, sketches and shapes that apparently didn’t have any meaning. It was just a mess, overlapped lines with circles and circles with blurred shapes that he didn’t even know could exist.

He was desperately trying to take his mind off of what he had done, but it didn’t seem to work.

Probably, he was just taking everything too much to heart, and he knew that. He knew he was making a big deal of something stupid but he couldn’t help the way he was feeling.

Why did he have to act like that? Why did he walk away in that way? You possibly thought he was just some jerk playing around, and only that thought made him clench his jaw. But that was his last problem. Not only he did made you think he was an idiot, but he made you feel uncomfortable without even trying. The words you said and the sound of your voice kept on echoing in his mind like one of those stupid songs you can’t seem to send away.

Were you joking? Probably? Did he really made you think he was looking at you in that way cause you were ugly? God, you were way too far from that for him.

And above all of that, why did he even say something like that?

“I didn’t expect you to be like this”, God, what was he thinking about? And what did you think of that stupid sentence? Jungkook let out a low groan, the thoughts invading his head were making it impossible to focus on the drawing.

What the hell did Taehyung do? He said he was going introduce you to him, why did he left like that?

When Jungkook entered their rehearsal room the hyung simply smiled at him and winked in his way, like he had just made some kind of magic happen between you too. Well, it didn’t happen. Everything was just a fucking mess, and the biggest thing heaving on Jungkook’s shoulders was that that was the first time you ever saw him, the first impression you had about him. Now it was gonna be three times harder for him to even talk to you, let alone make a move on you. Jungkook didn’t even answer Tae’s wink, only wanting to end the rehearsals already and go straight home to drown into sleep. But it was late, and he certainly wasn’t sleeping.

Jungkook huffed letting his pencil hit the wooden table.

Was he going to try to change what happened or was he going to leave everything like that? Sure as hell, he wanted to know you. But he just couldn’t help himself, he never felt more frightened in his life to talk to a girl as now, and that feeling made him feel helplessly under pressure. What was he even going to say if every time he opened his mouth, all that was coming out were awkward words? Your face added to the sound of your voice made him look like a poor moron, and he knew deep inside of him that that was your effect on him. It was going to happen again, he knew it. He needed to find a way to not ridicule himself and not make you uncomfortable every time he opened his mouth.

«What?» Yoongi’s eyes have never been wider than now looking at Jungkook. Now, the maknae was desperately looking for advices, and he knew that Jimin and Yoongi were the right persons for this kind of situation.

«You really did that?» Jimin let his mouth hang open, eyebrows raised.

«Yes» Jungkook sighed «I don’t know what’s wrong with me, God.» Yoongi and Jimin looked at each other, both of their expressions stuttered by what the youngest had just told them. «How can I fix this? I mean I-»

«First, stop dwelling.» Yoongi interrupted his endless rambling, firm tone and eyes pointing directly in his. Jimin nodded. «You’re thinking too much. I mean, do you even think she noticed all of this? Are there any chances she probably already forgot your face?» his words made the maknae feel better for just a bunch of seconds. Maybe you already forgot him. It was a good thing, right?

«You think so?» why did he sound disappointed? Yoongi raised his eyebrows and nodded.

«And if she remembers you, all you need to do is go and talk to her, you can fix this Kookie» Jimin smiled at his friend.

«And say what?» his voice came out louder than he thought, almost breaking in the middle. He was just not that positive. He messed up, and there was something inside him telling him that that was not goin to be the last time.

«Anything?» Jimin made it seem so simple «I mean, anything is better than what you said» he added. Jungkook shook his head. «Sitting here is not gonna fix this» he said again, then taking a sip from his hot coffee.

«I can’t-» his voice suddenly stopped working, his throat holding the words in. His eyes shifted from the wall he was staring to to you, walking into the cafe on your high heels, jeans sticking to your legs like they were handmade just for you, a little bit of messy hair because of the wind running through the streets of the city, hanging from your shoulders. Eyes moving into the cafe like you were desperately looking for something, maybe someone.

«What? It’s her?» Jimin whispered, slightly stretching on the table to get the maknae’s attention. Yoongi simply avoided asking, he knew he wasn’t going to get any answer. So he just turned around looking for your figure in the crowded little shop. When he finally found you, he knew it was you. He had already saw you the other day, and he saw Jungkook’s pants too, but he kept it to himself.

Smirking, he stood up, eventually bringing back Jungkook from his own world. He watched his friend take long steps and cross the room, and his hands started to sweat again, even more than the day before. Yoongi surpassed you just a step before you were in line for the bar, almost making you step on him.

Rude.

Jungkook could already feel himself going crazy, him and Jimin staring at the scene in silence dying to know what Yoongi had in mind. He saw you stretch over his shoulder trying to take a look at the pastry, in the meantime Yoongi stepped towards when another client left the line. Time seemed to slow down for how much it was taking for every single client to order, Jungkook’s agitation growing bigger every second.

When Yoongi’s turn arrived he still couldn’t understand what was going to happen, watching him through the crowd and shifting his gaze from him to you from time to time was definitely not working. He caught Yoongi talking to the employee and a second later he was paying and turning around with who the hell knows what in his big paper cup. Keeping his eyes on the floor and faking distraction, he stepped on your foot and when he raised his head all he did was giving you a shocked look.

Then he did it, making the maknae line wide their eyes like they were four lighthouses, Jungkook literally hold his breath for what it seemed to be like years. His drink was on your clothes, soaking you, your drenched black shirt dripping on the floor. Your face shattered when you realized you were actually soggy, Yoongi gave you an apologetic smile and then he walked out of the cafe as if nothing had just happened. He really hoped Jungkook would understand it was his turn. Well, again, he didn’t. He just stared at you, your face still in shock and your moth forming the shape of an “o”, people surpassing you on the line without even glancing at you. Jimin shook him awake from his trance making him grimace and pushing him from his chair.

«Go, go, go!» he silently screamed moving his hands in the air. “Oh, lord” was all he could think while looking at you standing still and a scared Jungkook walking uncertain.

You stepped to the side when you noticed people kept on surpassing you giving you upset looks since you wouldn’t move from the line, it only took you a few steps to the side to rush into someone. Your shoulder hit his chest and you couldn’t help but roll your eyes. It was just not your day.

«I- I’m sorry?» the voice came from beside you, the man standing still against your right shoulder without even moving. What was supposed to be a statement came out as a question and Jungkook wanted to punch himself again. You had to back away to create a little bit of distance before lifting your gaze to him.

When you saw him, it took you nothing to remember him.

«You? Again?» you couldn’t help but roll your eyes. You were not this rude usually, you just weren’t that type. But today definitely wasn’t your day. First, someone surpassed you, you just said nothing because you weren’t the type to argue for something so stupid, you even justified him thinking maybe he didn’t notice you. Then he spilled his tea on you, and without even helping you he just ran off as if nothing had happened. Now, him. Was this some kind of joke?

Jungkook couldn’t help but frown at your words, silently and slowly making their way through his body until they reached his intestine and tangled every part of his guts together.

«I- I’m sorry?» he said again. What? You locked eyes with him, cocking a brow at him.

«What are you even sorry for?» you sighed, bending over the table in front of you and grabbing a tissue from the plastic container. He brought his gaze to his friend, eyes still wide and throat completely dried. Jimin showed him a thumb up and suddenly shifted his gaze, in a second he turned around with his cheeks now red. When Jungkook turned again he hissed through his teeth, you did not just caught them and you weren’t staring at him with an even more confused look.

«I- I can buy you some coffee?» he blurted out, his voice cracking in the middle of the question making it almost seem like a prayer. Your lips formed an “o” again, suddenly looking down at your clothes and rushing to clean them with that little tissue. You were just thankful it wasn’t hot, whatever thing it was. Jungkook stood there still like a rock, scared of moving and making everything even worse.

«No, but thank you.» you sighed at the sight of your drenched black shirt, drops on your jeans. What were you going to do now? You had to go to work in thirty minutes, you didn’t have time to go back home and change into something else, your boss was already going crazy with all the work he had to, his reaction at your delay wasn’t something you wanted to experience.

«Please?» Jungkook’s voice seemed to light something in you, lifting your eyes and locking them again with his. That was the moment you really noticed his beauty. And he was just that beautiful. In the meantime, he was really trying not to break out and scream, his tongue was just moving by itself. His mind was totally blank and his hands were so sweaty that they would probably as wet as the shirt you were wearing.

«I don’t have time for coffee now, but thank you.» you declined again, trying to bring a smile on your lips but failing. You sighed and turned, making your way out of the cafe in a matter of seconds. Jungkook stood there with his eyes still wide, watching you walk away and trying to catch just that little bit of air enough to make him survive. It was only when Jimin’s face appeared in front of him that he seemed to realize you weren’t there anymore, and in a second his legs made the work for him again, running out of the cafe like a mad man. What was he even doing? What the hell?

Jimin followed him rolling his eyes, all his hopes that his friend had made it hitting the ground. He had never seen Jungkook like that, not even when he dated that girl he had a crush on for a year. Jungkook had always been charming, he never had that much problems with a girl, there had been times he was more shy, but he had always found a way of breaking his barriers.

This time there was just something different.

When he saw you on the sidewalk his legs fastened even more and he only stopped when he was behind you, quickly grabbing at your wrist and turning you around in an abrupt yank that got Jimin to stuck on place and grimace. He even heard you squint from where he was, and he certainly didn’t miss the smack of your hand on his face once you turned and faced him.

Jungkook’s face heated up, suddenly loosening his grip on your skin and blinking a few times, staring into your eyes, his features unreadable. Silence suddenly seemed to fill the crowded street while you two looked at each other, your face looking regretful the second you realized it was him and not someone who was trying to steal your purse or rape you during full day.

Jungkook was at a loss of words, and when he realized now he had to say something, he panicked again.

«I’m sorry?» that was not happening again, he wanted to scream.

«You’re sorry?» you erupted like a volcano, your arm still in the air even thought his grip was no longer on it. Jungkook’s head slowly shook up and down, gulping harshly.

«What are you sorry for?» your question made him knit his eyebrows. Was it really so hard for him to form a real sentence? The answer was yes. His brain just didn’t seem to work.

«About the coffe?» now, he really wanted to scream and tear his hair out.

He had just scared you and hurt you and all he managed to say was “about the coffee”? What was that even supposed to mean?

«The coffee?» you narrowed your eyes at him, he brung his hand to the back of his neck scratching it.

«The drink?» he said again. For god sake.

«Uh?» you just couldn’t understand. What was he even trying to do? He was sorry? Everything was just so confusing, and if last night you thought just a little bit about what happened yesterday with him, you were sure this was going to be in your head for the rest of the day.

«The drink Yoongi spilled on you?» why was every single one of his sentences a question?

«Who is Yoongi?» you whined without even thinking, but then you grasped it. The rude man was someone he knew. Was something wrong with his friends? First that one yesterday, now this Yoongi.

«Yoongi is-» Jungkook seemed to realize what he had just done and he stopped talking, letting out a tremulous breath. He just told you he knew the man who basically ruined your day. Great job.

«So, are your friends all like this?» you didn’t even know what you were doing, but the stress was just too much to handle at that moment. The man stared at you again, eyes shifting to every feature of your face.

«Uh? Wha- what?» he babbled. Jungkook was loosing it. And Jimin could see it from a block away. He wished he could do something to help him, anything to save the situation, but he just couldn’t. What would he even say, anyway? “Sorry, he just likes you so much that he doesn’t even remember how a normal human acts”? That wasn’t going to work.

«Are you friend with this Yoongi?» you asked. Jungkook nodded slowly, almost uncertain of what he was doing.

«And the one from yesterday was also your friend?» you asked again. This time he frowned, making you narrow your eyes.

«Taehyung?» he wondered, confusion blinking in his eyes.

«I don’t know, maybe? Was it his name? The one that poked me and ran away?» you sighed.

«But he- Oh. I can’t-» Reality hit him, and he had to take a deep breath to stop his dwelling.

«What?»

«I’m- I’m sorry?» there he was again. Was he kidding you? Just when he seemed to know other words, they were there again.

«You already said it, even though it doesn’t seem like you are.» you were really going crazy. Late for work, drenched, without your breakfast and with a charming guy talking nonsense in front of you.

«I am» his voice came out louder than expected, making you unconsciously squint and ward off a little bit.

«Well, thank you, I guess?» you glanced at the sidewalk, then again bringing your gaze to his face. The way the light of the sun hit his eyes made yours stare deep into them, the black pupils and irises almost fading with each other, the little sparkles of the light reflecting in them made them seem like one of the darkest nights, but with the brightest stars you’ve ever seen.

Your mouth ran dry when your gaze met his lips, a soft glow making them look even more captivating, you wondered if he was wearing a lip balm, a part of your mind wondering how it’d taste.

«I’m gonna be late for work» you mumbled. Jungkook shook his head.

«Okay» What? Are you serious, Jungkook? Okay? He visually grimaced at his own words, and for god knows why the corners of your lips raised up just the slightest at his awkwardness.

«I should go now» you gave him a little gentle smile and then turned, finally heading to your car. You had just taken a few steps on the sidewalk across the street when you turned away and realized he was standing still, eyes still fixated on you, but he wasn’t alone anymore. Maybe a friend of his? You hoped he wouldn’t hit you in the head, given the others. You crossed the street again, walking back towards the man and glancing at the ground feeling your cheeks reddening under his sight. 

You stopped a few steps away from him, raising your head and finally facing him. «I’m sorry too» you said, slightly smiling. «You know, for the slap» his lips formed an “o” but he quickly managed to smile, for the first time. And lord, what a smile he had. You swore you never saw something that beautiful. Your breath got stuck in your throat, heart madly beating in your chest, threatening to come out. And you didn’t even noticed, but your smile became a real one, wide and shining with its own light and reaching your eyes. Jungkook’s heart skipped a few beats just at the sight, his legs shaking under his body and a sudden feeling of warmth invading his chest, it was like his guts were back in place.

A drop of rain hit your forehead and in that moment you realized you really had to go, rain wasn’t something you could deal with now, not with your already soaked shirt and your delay. So you just turned again and walked away.

That was the first time you and Jungkook actually spoke to each other, kind of, I guess you could say.

«Didn’t you two talk?» Yoongi asked running a hand in his blonde locks. There they were again, but this time, thankfully Jungkook would say, they were in his house. He really didn’t know how to handle another one of his friends’ mishaps in your presence, not that he would’ve met you anyway, but here he felt more comfortable. It was normal for them to meet at someone’s place on a Friday night, it’s something they’ve always been doing for a long time that now it was like a tradition. Every Friday they would met and talk, even though they’ve been seeing each other almost every day. And now, it was no difference. Or maybe just one. You. Jungkook wasn’t talking about how much he was excited to perform or how much he loved the new choreography, he was talking about how embarrassing that moment was. Wait, those moments. Thanks to Taehyung, Yoongi and himself, now he had collected a few moments that really made everything seem awkward.

«We did but...» he groaned «Why did you have to spill your drink on her?»

«For you to go help her?» Yoongi made it seem so simple.

«How could I have helped her with her soaked shirt? She had to go to work and you ruined her morning. And if it wasn’t enough now she knows I know you! And you!» Jungkook’s voice cracked in the middle while pointing his accusing index finger towards Yoongi and Taehyung.

«What? How?» Yoongi couldn’t believe his ears. He gave him a chance and he let it slip through his hands like it was a cool chunk of ice.

«He told her» Jimin got in the conversation briefly glancing at his youngest friend. Jungkook was really going crazy.

«And? What’s the end? Tell me you got her number?» Jin rested his forearms on his knees, waiting for an answer that just wasn’t meant to come out.

«You don’t even know her name, do you?» the maknae brung is gaze to Taehyung, his dark eyes almost seemed to surrender in front of all the mess of the situation. The friend sighed, guilt already invading his throat. When he pushed Jungkook in that situation, he thought he was gonna handle it, to him he just needed a little bit of motivation. He didn’t think it would’ve ended like this. He shook his head.

«Great.» Jungkook stood up, unreadable features and body tense.

«But at the end it was good, she smiled at you» Jimin helplessly tried to bring back a little bit of positivity.

«Yes, after I made everything uncomfortable and awkward. How am I even supposed to make a move after what happened? First Teahyung, then Yoongi. Then me!» he bursted out. «The first time was already hideous, but this? I hurt her, let her know that basically all my friends are weird and when she said “I’m gonna be late for work” my answer was “okay”. Who am I even kidding? I-»

«Oh, come on!» Joonie decided to open his mouth, his loud tone made Jungkook shut up, everyone now looking at him. «This is all in your head, Kookie. Stop it. You need to take a deep breath and face this in a different way. Clearly, shutting your mind off and letting your body do the work it’s not what you need.» he raised his eyebrows at him. Jungkook had started pacing, he really wanted to fix things, but every time it seemed to get worse and worse and worse and... worse.

«It’s so frustrating, I swear! It never happened to me, never. I can’t control it, my brain just doesn’t work when I’m with her» he groaned locking his dark locks in his fist and pulling a little.

«Oh, cheesy» Hobi wrinkled his nose receiving in exchange a death stare from Jungkook.

«So you don’t even know her name?» Jin seemed to realize his words only now, eyes wide and moth hanging open. Jungkook clenched his jaw before letting his body falling to the couch. Not even the soft material of the cushions seemed to make him feel better, not even the slightest.

«I don’t know her name» he answered, saying those words more to himself than to his hyung. All of this seemed so stupid.

«Then start from it. Give to this beautiful woman a beautiful name, you can’t keep rambling about someone for about an hour without even knowing their name.» Namjoon’s tone was firm, making its way through the maknae’s ears, his words seemed like playing with him. He was right, he didn’t even knew your name, how the hell was that possible? He had the biggest crush and didn’t know the basics.

What Jungkook didn’t know and never could imagine was that you were thinking about him in the same moment as he was talking about you to his friends. What happened that morning was still replaying in your mind like a short film, from the moment that Yoongi spilled what you figured out was tea on your clothes to the moment you headed to your car. There was something about that awkward meeting that you just couldn’t seem to shake off. That man was so awkward and charming at the same time that the match sounded both weird and interesting.

Still, you couldn’t hide your annoyance towards him that morning. You couldn’t quite discern if he was just playing with you or if there was a meaning behind his actions and words, I mean, he apologized for his friend so much but he didn’t really act different than him, he yanked you. And apparently without any meaning. He already apologized for Yoongi before, so why follow someone you don’t even know to do it again?

Remembering your slap against his cheek you unconsciously squint your eyes, drowning in the dark. You really wouldn’t have punched him if you knew it was him, but the moment you felt someone’s touch against your skin you panicked. Not that he didn’t deserve it, well, actually he didn’t, but you don’t usually punch people like that, you really thought someone wanted to steal your purse or rape you, You puffed.

You just wished to not bump into him or his friends again, or at least to not be the main character of their misfortunes again.

Summer was finally coming to an end, and with the end of a season comes the beginning of a new wardrobe, at least for you. You already had clothes for the imminent autumn but with all the money you had saved you could squander a little bit and reward yourself, you worked hard and didn’t even leave for the holidays this year, sad but true. So now you were lowly humming in the street without even realizing it, the music invading all of your senses, the melody taking control of your body like it was made of a thin sheet of glass that could be broken anytime with the slightest pressure.

You entered the shop and removed an earphone, slowly making your way through the crowd and getting ready to buy something as a reward for all of your sacrifices. The sight of the soft fabric of a white dress made your eyes sparkle and your feet started moving towards the mannequin like they were apart from your body, bringing your hand to the cloth you touched the smooth material.

There was no way you were not buying it.

The shape seemed perfect for your body, you could already see yourself wearing it so you were quick to cross the room, ready to grab your hanger. Apparently, not quick enough, but you didn’t notice right away.

Looking through the dresses for your size made you frown, everyone of them either too big or too small. You were almost giving up when your gaze met the tag you were looking for, eyes widening and happiness already creeping up in your body.

Then, a hand came in the way. You watched it grab the crutch, dark ink marking the light golden skin, long fingers closing around the hook. Your breath got stuck in your throat and you really felt all your hopes falling to the ground now. Sure you were not gonna argue with whoever just took away your dream dress, you didn’t even have the right to do it, you should have been quicker before rather than staring at it with dreamy eyes. You were already starting to turn and look for something else with a knot in your throat but you couldn’t help your eyes and followed the arm of the stranger, the skin almost glowing under the light of the shop. You met two broad shoulders, the cleavage of the light shirt he was wearing showing his collar bones and making your fingers tingle at the sight, but if you knew who was waiting for you at the end of that neck you would have already ran away.

The previous night after his friends left Jungkook had spent at least three hours trying to find a way to make a third impression on you, if that was possible, this time preferably good, and he figured out nothing. Eventually he felt asleep all tensed and annoyed, remembering the next morning he had to buy something for Namjoon’s birthday coming in exactly two weeks.

When he woke up today and headed to the shop three blocks away from his house he did not expect to find you there. From the moment he saw you at least a hundred of different emotions had run through his body, starting from worship and ending up with panic, but this time his mind didn’t switch off, or maybe not at all. Listlessly choosing something for Namjoon, Jungkook came up with a plan, and it was apparently clear: buy you a dress and give it to you as both a present and an apology for everything that happened the day before, from Yoongi’s drink on you to the way he kept on making things awkward, and maybe finally ask you out.

So when he saw you staring at that dress with dreamy eyes he instantly walked towards its reproductions, sure as hell that now he had something to work with in his hands. But it was only when you approached the same counter as him that he realized he didn’t have any clue about your clothing size. I mean, he could have guessed it, but it wouldn’t have been the same. He was supposed to ask you and tell you something like “let me offer this to you for making up for yesterday’s mess” and “would you like to hang out sometimes?” but when he tried to speak his voice got stuck in his throat, his hands badly sweating. So he tried to understand what you were looking for, careful not to get caught, and possibly keeping it in mind for buying you something else, and it all worked until he saw your eyes full of that joyful light again. In that moment, his heart skipped a beat as he understood you had found what you wanted.

As I said, this time his brain didn’t stop working, he knew he couldn’t grab the dress practically from your hands, that would’ve been the worst third impression of all times. He just needed to remember the measures printed on that little tag and look for something else. He knew but his hands moved by themselves and Jungkook felt himself stiffening again.

When you locked eyes with him you couldn’t help but snort. What was going on with the universe? You were sure you didn’t do anything that bad to deserve this. And why was he involved in all of your misadventures? Him, him, him, him and him again, couldn’t at least the gods send someone else once in a while to punish you? The fact that it was him made the knot in your throat grow even bigger and you instantly felt a flame of anger burning in your chest. If he was someone else you would’ve probably let go, but not with him and not when he was holding the dress you wanted to buy after long days and late nights of work, stress and a little bit of panic too.

So you did the first thing that came to your mind, you grabbed at the hanger he was holding in his other hand and immediately walked away leaving him with his mouth agape and his gaze digging holes in your body.

You turned the corner and went straight to the changing room, desperately trying to keep yourself from bursting out in the middle of the shop. You closed the curtain behind you and finally took a look at what you were holding. A men’s hoodie. You were going to buy it, wether you liked it or not. Not a big deal, you already had men’s clothes in your wardrobe, right?

Taking a deep breath you sat on the little couch in the fitting room, you were really starting to think he was playing with you. That had to be it. He was just enjoying himself, having fun with making you feel like an idiot. Unintentionally, some tears streamed down you cheeks, all the accumulated stress from work and from the rehearsals you were having almost every day, all the sleepless nights you had in the last three months trying to save money, some days even working your ass off until the first lights of the morning would appear, all the times you felt like you didn’t belong; everything was coming out in the shape of little drops. You hadn’t been crying for a long time and stopping now seemed like light years away, so you got up and went out of the dressing room heading to the checkout without even glancing around.

Jungkook was still in the same place you had left him, and when he saw your cheeks sparkling just in time before you could wipe the tears away he knew it wasn’t because of the sweat this time. His heart broke, features screaming nothing but regret. If only you had turned around you would have seen it even from there.

But instead, you paid your new hoodie and went out, ready to burst out once again you’d be surrounded by the safe walls of your apartment.

«God, I can’t believe it» Jungkook groaned again for about the tenth time since the beginning of the phone call.

Jimin and Namjoon had been meticulously chosen for today’s vent, and this time he was sure he had something real to ramble on about, it wasn’t all in his head anymore. He had made you cry.

«It was the worst third impression of all times! My plan was good, damn, why do I have to be like this around her? Every single time, it happens every damn time» he hissed through his teeth. On the other line, Jimin was staring at his white ceiling with his eyebrows furrowed and his lips pursed, trying to help his friend as best as he could, but he knew there was nothing he could do. Jungkook had to fix this, again. And Namjoon felt the same way as he took a sip of his coffee, his hair still messy from the long sleep he had just awakened from.

«I know you don’t need to hear it, but you’re the worst suitor on earth» he blurted out rubbing his face with his hands. «How can you expect to be more to her than an awkward weirdo if you can’t even talk or act normally in her presence? At least did you get her name?» Namjoon knew his words were doing nothing but emphasizing the horrible situation but he just couldn’t contain himself anymore. Jungkook didn’t need to be pitied, it would have led him nowhere. The maknae grunted in frustration. That was the only answer Joonie needed.

«Stop everything you’re doing» his words made Jungkook frown.

«What?»

«I said stop everything you’re doing» he repeated again, then taking another sip from his coffee. The youngest stared at the screen in disbelief.

«I am doing nothing!» his high-pitched tone made Jimin squint his eyes.

«Okay, then come to my place for lunch and bring that freaking dress with you» he ordered, now getting up and putting his mug in the sink.

«Can I-»

«Yes, Jimin, no need to ask» the hyung interrupted his friend already expecting his question.

«I’m gonna shower, but please be careful with that dress Kook» Namjoon’s tone softened and his words almost sounded like a prayer, Jungkook couldn’t help but glance at the piece of cloth laying on his couch with a worried face. That was not the right place for it.

«Okay, I got it, I got it» he said more to himself than to his friend.

«See you later» Namjoon got off the phone in a second, already on his way to the bathroom.

«Kookie, I know you can do it, okay? We can’t do more than what we are already doing, we can’t fix this for you, you have to fix it. But we’re here to support you.» Jimin’s words gave birth to a bittersweet smile on Jungkook’s face and he internally thanked God for his friends.

«Thank you Chimin»

They talked for another ten minutes before finally getting off the phone, Kookie’s eyes shifting again to what was supposed to be your dress now and shutting down.

He needed to fix this, again.

«So?» Jimin patted his fingers on the wooden table moving his gaze between his three friends. Unexpectedly Taehyung had knocked on Namjoon’s door just before they were about to sit down and have lunch with an expression that promised nothing but bad news.

«I wanted to buy you something for making up for what happened yesterday and the day before, but apparently I screwed up again. This is for you.» Jungkook repeated for the fourth time, then reached his hand out on the table, his chopsticks holding an amount of chicken noodles not even possible to put in his mouth. Namjoon opened his all of a sudden and gobbled them in just one gulp, making Jungkook frown.

«You just ate her dress!» Jimin bursted out laughing at the scene in front of his eyes, the corners wrinkling, his melodious laugh even took over Taehyng’s brooding face, the hyung smiled like a baby.

«I’m hungry and it was the third time he was doing that! He practically saw it coming!» he claimed, already taking with his chopsticks another amount of inhumanly impossible food to eat.

«You have yours!» the maknae tried to sound as serious as he could but his smile fooled him.

«Don’t bother me, I’m feeding you and giving you advices, this is the least you could do in return.» he mocked him with a new beaming smile on his face, Kook shook his head and took a bite of his meal.

«I think it could work?» Jimin brung the conversation back to where it was supposed to be, glancing at Tae and Joonie.

«Just try to stick to that» Taehyung said nodding «and don’t forget to breathe. And please, don’t panic again.» he added. Kookie nodded, this time had to be good. «You think you can do that?»

«I have to» he sighed, already feeling under pressure. Jimin and Namjoon smiled at him, trying to reassure him.

«Alright, now Taehyung could you tell us what’s wrong?» the hyung suddenly shifted his gaze to the other maknae seated next to Kook, who raised his eyebrows and shook his head faking a smile. «Come on, we can see it. Tell your favorite therapists what’s wrong and let us help you.» Jimin nodded at his words.

«Alright, I...» Taehyung took a deep breath, his long slender fingers ran through his hair and fisted a dark strand, slightly tugging it.

«Oh my God, this is so hard to say out loud» he groaned. Now, if there was a tiny possibility that they’re friends weren’t worried about him, his words certainly did their job.

«TaeTae, come on» Jimin widened his eyes.

«Alright. Do you all remember Gillyflower?» his words only brung more confusion to their faces. «The girl with pink hair?» he tried again, and this time a bunch of “ooh” and “yes” made him nod. He took another deep breath. 

«Well, I asked her out and she was about to answer when Tannie suddenly started barking and puling at the leash. I tried to mke him stop but he kept getting worse to the point he yanked me. I- I stumbled and trying to grab onto something I...» he harshly gulped, silence invaded the room.

«What did you do? It can’t be worse than what I did, right?» Jungkook’s doe-eyes were staring at his friend’s face trying to catch a hint of his actions.

«I don’t know, it’s the first time something like this awkward happens between of us, but it’s just...» he puffed letting his shoulders fall and then again shaking his head.

«What?» Namjoon were desperate to know now.

«I groped her breasts. But I was just trying to hold onto something and- Oh my God this is the worst thing I could have ever done» he groaned and hid his face behind his hands trying to cover his cheeks flashing red. Jungkook’s eyes considerably widened, Jimin’s lips formed the perfect shape of an “o” and Joonie shut his eyes , almost forgetting how to swallow. Almost.

«What did you do after that? Tell me you apologized, tell me you did it?» Chimin’s gaze was basically begging him.

«Of course I did, but I was still shocked and... I may have left my hands on her for too much time» his voice was muffled by his hands, still covering his reddish face.

«Oh, God» Jimin let out, tilting his head back. «What the hell is happening to us?» he whined, earning a death stare from Namjoon.

«You mean what the hell is happening to you? This things don’t happen to me, luckily.» he stated.

«Oh, please Joon, your face is dirty for all the eggs you have on it. You know you have your bag stuffed with blunders» Jimin whined again and Namjoon pointed his index towards him.

«That wasn’t supposed to come out!» he argued.

«It didn’t! But I’ll blurt out all of your secrets if you don’t admit you can be a weirdo too!» the hyung puffed.

«Please, everyone knows I’m an oddball, there’s no need to argue on that. But my blunders are far beneath theirs!» he pointed at Jungkook and Teahyung the youngest was now trying not burst out laughing for his high-pitched tone. Jimin groaned.

«What was her answer?» Jungkook asked, carefully looking at TaeTae. He gulped.

«She started laughing and I apologized myself again before entering home. I thought she was making fun of me but I realized it was an uncomfortable laugh just after I shut the door. Now every time I see her in the hallway I hide behind the corners and avoid her. She must think I’m an idiot.» Teahyung’s words made Jungkook feel slightly better, maybe it was selfish but he felt less lonely.

«You need to talk to her» Namjoon mumbled with his mouth stuffed of noodles.

«We’ll make up a speech for you too after lunch, alright?» Tae shook his head.

«No need for it, I can handle it. I think» he sighed for the hundredth time.

The Sunday that followed got Jungkook incredibly frustrated. In two days it was gonna be his birthday and he and his friends had all agreed to take a day off from the devastating rehearsals to celebrate it together, so now there he was,  meticulously watching his figure dancing in the mirror. He hadn’t slept well and his eyes were praying for just a bunch of minutes of rest, body already tired only after an hour of movement. When the music stopped he thanked Jin with a grateful smile before approaching the bench on the side of the room to grab his towel and gather his sweat.

«I think this-»

«Kookie!» Jimin shouted with his eyes wide, his voice echoed in every single corner of the room and in a second Jungkook realized why. He didn’t really do it, please.He let his hand fall at his side, and yes, there it was. Your dress in his hand, now moist and clammy.

His voice burst in the loudest tone he’ve ever used: «Who the hell pulled it out of my bag?!»

The group immediately got closer to take a look at what he was talking about, Namjoon and Taehyung held their breath when the maknae opened the folded cloth revealing the white peace of dressing he had carefully putted in his bag just in case he’d met you here, even though it was quite impossible being Sunday.

«Oh my God, I thought it was a towel and-» Jin started explain himself but got interrupted again by Jungkook’s low groan.

«I am screwed, I give up.» his chest swelled like a balloon and his shoulder raised almost to his ears just to heavily fall a second later. «If this isn’t fate then I don’t know what it is» he complained letting his body go limp after he seated on the bench. And as if what had just happened wasn’t enough his eyes caught your figure in the hallway, your body managing to move graciously on your high heels even though at a speed that seemed almost impossible for you not to fall, your hair swinging with every step.

«Bad luck?» Hobi kneeled in front of him and Jungkook scoffed, shifting his gaze on his muscled legs once you disappeared behind the corner, his dark locks creating a curtain to hide him from the rest of the world while he rested his elbows on his knees.

«Bad luck? This is a tragedy. And not just because of the dress. Everything I did until now is a tragedy. This is just the cherry on top of it all. Maybe this is just not meant to happen and that’s why I keep messing things up.» he grumbled with raspy voice. And he really believed that for a moment, maybe he was right. Everything, every single thing he had done so far had just messed things up more, even though he was desperately trying to do the opposite. He still didn’t know your name but had however already managed to made you feel uncomfortable, hurt you and made you cry. What a charming suitor he was. At this point he could’ve-

«If thinking about it like this makes you feel better.» Namjoon spoke with his gaze on the maknae. He licked his lips and waited for Kookie to raise his head, but it didn’t happen. «You don’t have the dress, who cares? It’s a peace of cloth, Kook. Your apologies are more important and you still have your speech. You can do it.» he kneeled in front of him beside Hobi, finally catching his gaze. What he didn’t expect was to actually find his eyes shining because of the stressed tears he was desperate to hold.

«He’s right, Kookie. Come on, you’re the golden maknae. And if it goes wrong we’ll have finally found something you’re not good at» Jin smiled at his youngest friend, his words made him lightly giggle, Yoongi nudged him.

«Just try again, okay?» Hobi smiled at him and Jungkook had to take a few moments for himself to finally answer.

Probably, no, wait, sure as hell the easiest thing was to give up. You already had a clear picture of him by now, there was no way you were changing your mind with just an apology. He had already apologized for at least five times the other day, and he had made you cry the day right after. So the possible answers now were two: yes or no. Such a big difference between them but such a thin line for him, especially now that he had lost the only thing that maybe would’ve helped him. He didn’t want lie to himself, he knew it was easier to give up and go back to being a normal acting human, not embarrassing himself anymore and feeling like an idiot all the time. But it was too easy like that, and just the thought made him frown. He couldn’t explain what it was to himself, but there was something about you that made him fatally, hopelessly curious. Since the very first moment he saw you, something turned on inside him, and I’m not just talking about his cock.

«Okay» he whispered to himself, the air of his breath fanning the golden skin of his hands. He took a deep breath and stood up.

«What?» Yoongi asked looking at him. Jungkook nodded.

«Okay, but you promise me you won’t do anything?» he pointed his finger against Yoongi’s face and then moved it back and forth pointing at everyone of them. When they all nodded Jungkook knew it was the moment to leave the room. 

Jimin pursued his lips when he saw him walking towards the door and quickly sided him. «Wait, you’re doing it now? Is she here? It’s Sunday!» he spoke so fast and his tone changed so many times that Kook turned to face him with an amused smile, almost forgetting about what he was about to do. «Do you remember the speech?» he asked again. When Kookie nodded and finally left the room Chimin stayed still with his gaze on him, acting like a mummy leaving her little child for the first time to the kindergarten.

«He can do it» Yoongi patted his shoulder.

You weren’t supposed to be there, not on a Sunday morning when all you wanted to do was drown in your bed and never let go of your sheets without the clock pointing at least at eleven. But you didn’t have any choice when you realized what day it was. It wasn’t just an usual Sunday, your family was coming at your place for lunch in about two hours from now, and you had promised them to cook something special, or at least to try your best. You were already feeling under pressure and your parents weren’t exactly the definition of easy-going people, always ready to judge everything you would do and every step you’d take. No wonder why you’ve grown to be their total opposite, never daring to judge anyone, and you knew they hated it. But you didn’t care and kept doing your thing, without worrying too much. Luckily, distance had made everything so much easier, until this kind of moments. The stress was running through your blood like it was part of your body, you were practically on the edge. You really didn’t want to hear them complaining about your stupid passion and how you should stop chasing your dreams just to find an even more steady job than the one you already had, so you had quickly decided to bring your gym bag here. You had grabbed everything you could find in your house that could have led their thoughts to your athletic side and just stuffed all in the bag now hanging from your shoulder, from your pointe shoes to your sweat shorts.

The lockers were safe and you knew it because you had already done this at least five or six times, so you simply opened the steel door and placed your bag in it with loose motions before shutting it and locking it with you keys. You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding. The stress of your job, the rehearsals, all the money you wanted to save to buy your house and what happened in the last days were hovering on your mind so much that you knew you would have bursted out if you had to worry about your parents too. So this was the easiest way.

Heading to the door you fastened you pace until you got out, the sun made your skin burn and you harshly puffed, already wishing the winter to come.

At the same time, Jungkook was looking for you in the whole building, he even took the stairs and went to second floor once he figured out you weren’t in your usual rehearsal room. He thought you’d be in the changing rooms but he couldn’t afford himself to the risk of finding you half naked, even though the picture of you he had in mind was making his mouth drier every second more while taking the stairs again. It was when he distractedly looked out of the window that he saw you crossing the street. His feet never ran faster than that moment, praying for you to stay on the main street so that he’d found you more easily. He crossed the hallway and made his friend’s heads turn when he rushed in front of their door, that stupid speech replaying in his head over and over again like a prayer.

«Oh man» Namjoon covered his eyes with his right hand at the sight.

Once the maknae was out of the building he welcomed the light of the sun by squinting his eyes, his already sweating body heated up even more while desperately trying to get to you. The street was not that crowded at this time of the morning with the sun almost at his highest spot and the hot breeze threatening whoever was out, so he thought he could make it. Then, he saw you stopping on the sidewalk. Maybe you noticed him? Impossible.

A second later you were opening the door of a taxi and he didn’t know if rather laugh about his bad luck or cry. He could’ve just let go and talk to you the next day, you were definitely going to rehearsal on Monday, or maybe even on Tuesday. But it’s Jungkook we’re talking about, and by now we all know a part of his brain seemed to switch off when it comes to you. Or maybe this time, it turned on. The stress he felt those days had built up so much that he just wanted to burst out once and for all. He was tired of dwelling about his clumsiness and weirdness when he was beside you and didn’t want to feel guilty for making you feel uncomfortable anymore. So he sped up, his legs almost gave in for the big gap he wanted to close in a matter of seconds. 

But he made it. He knocked at your window with his fist, hands sweating and chest raising desperately gasping for air. When you turned and squinted your eyes because of the light of the sun he again swore he had never seen something, someone that beautiful in his life, the rays of sunshine painting little sparkling stars in your pupils and your skin gleaming.

You knitted your eyebrows at the sight, the charming but odd man staring at you as if he had just seen who knows what. What did he want now? You didn’t have time for his teasing, not with all of the things you had to do before the hurricane that your parents were would show up and take over you for the next hours.

«Please» he managed to say, or at least he mouthed it, and a part of him thanked your shut window for not giving him away, but just a little part. If hearing the lack of his voice would’ve made you listen then he would’ve talked with his hands.

With everything he did he was not really expecting you to listen to him, not when he was making things awkward once again, not in this situation. He was hoping it with all of his heart, but he knew it was not going to happen. Indeed, it didn’t happen.

The taxi started and you fixated your gaze on the street without a second thought, already brushing away the weird feeling that his gaze made you feel. You checked your phone screen: 11.34. Great. You were praying every god in heaven to save you from your parents’ likely early arrive when a thump made you both frown and hit the backrest with your head harshly enough to wince. You realized your taxi just hit the one in front of him in a second. Someone was definitely mad at you.

That was Jungkook’s moment. He widened his eyes at the sight and rushed on the sidewalk before he quickly approached your cab. His heart was beating so fast that for a moment he feared for his life. He opened your door without a second thought, you were hissing through your breath, eyes shut and pursued lips. While he took in the sight you felt a gentle hot breeze on your skin. Opening your eyes you gasped when you saw him standing there. Definitely really, really mad.

«I can’t do this» you bursted out loud, more to yourself than to the men that now were both staring at you.

«It’ll only take ten minutes» the cab driver gently smiled at you. The poor man then brung his gaze to the other standing at your door, holding it so tight with his hand that his knuckles were white. You tried to fake a smile as best as you could.

«I’m sorry but I’m running out of time, I’m gonna make it on foot.» you claimed. Before waiting for any answer you shifted your gaze back to the man who was blocking you into the car, his body stiff and not giving you hits of movement. You waited for something, anything, but he just kept staring at you making you feel like a fish out of water and you didn’t have time to deal with his awkward behavior now, you were really late. So you stood up anyway, almost stepping on his toes, and you held your breath while making your way through his body and the car. The way he kept his dark doe-eyes into yours without any sign of backing off made you shiver.

Jungkook harshly gulped when your body slightly touched his, his skin tickled at the feeling, the lightest of touches creating the strongest of the addictions. «I- I can give you a- a ride?» he stuttered, finally removing his hands from the door of the car. You started walking without even turning at his words, too much overwhelmed by the awful morning you were having. Kook was staring at you still in the same place as before, mouth agape and eyes sparkling at the way you were moving your hips, but when he realized you were already on the sidewalk he forced himself to follow you.

«I’ll give you a ride?» why did he keep doing that? That was supposed to sound more sure, more like a statement maybe? You snorted.

«Please, stop it» his presence beside made you even more nervous, what did he want? Why was he doing that again?

«I- I can drive, I can ride you-» what the hell was that? God, he kept making things worse without even trying. Your face immediately shot up, eyebrows knitted together and blood boiling in your veins.

«What I meant is-» he stopped talking again, his feet did the same and for a moment he considered letting you walk away and just give up. With how fast you were walking you were already disappearing into the crowd. But he sided you again.

«Look, I don’t have time for your teasing now, you can do it tomorrow.» you didn’t need to shift your gaze from the sidewalk to know that he was again there.

«What? I- No, I want to do it now!»

Did he really said that? Turn on your damn brain, Jungkook.

You rolled your eyes. «I can’t belie-»

«Can I just give you a ride?» he suddenly blocked your way with his body, arms outstretched and dark eyes praying yours. «Not in that way» he added, desperately trying to fix his stupid mistakes.

You couldn’t understand what the hell he was doing, standing there in front of you, in the middle of the crowd, praying to give you a ride after everything that he had done in just... three times you met? 

«No.» you shook your head and quickly got over him. «In both ways» you added, slightly smirking at yourself for your words. Jungkook sneered too, following you again like a puppy.

«You’d get there faster, please. Just- just a ride?» his continue pleads made you whine and stopping your steps you turned to face him, realizing just now how much he was taller than you.

«I don’t even know your name» you stated, ready to claim your victory. Jungkook let his mouth fall agape while looking at you standing so close to him, not that it was that close, but the rays of the sun were making everything too much to handle for him.

«Jeon Jun- Jungkook?» he managed to say, to ask, voice cracking in the middle.

«You don’t sound so sure of that» strangely, you smirked. Jungkook’s heart almost stopped right there and then.

«I’m Jungkook» he repeated trying as best as he could to smile without showing his nerves on the edge. You took in the sight squinting your eyes at him.

«Okay, Jungkook. I still don’t know you, so the answer is still no» you smiled at him and were about to start walking again but he got in the way a second time. His brain panicked again when he realized he had to say something now, eyes widened and throat dry. Mind blank, totally blank.

«I wanted to buy you something for making up for what happened yesterday and the day before- oh, shit not yesterday. I mean, yesterday and the day before but the day before that too.» he lowly groaned and shut his eyes, already feeling his face heating up. He watched your features change from annoyance to curiosity and then slightly smirking, but he couldn’t quite define if you were just having fun seeing him struggle or if you were actually smiling for his words.

You can do this, Jungkook. You can do this. Just go on.

«Apparently I screwed up again. This is for you.» the only sentence he wasn’t supposed to say came out like it had its own life and the maknae’s eyes widened even more while staring at your unreadable expression.

«So?» you asked folding your arms.

«I- i can’t- oh God» Jungkook wanted the earth to swallow him in. The embarrassment was eating him alive. «I can’t give it to you» he blurted out without even trying anymore to contain his voice.

«Jungkook, I really, really, don’t have the time to deal with this now. My parents are coming over for lunch and I still have to cook, they’re gonna start a-» you started blabbering but stopped when you figured out you were saying too much. «I don’t have time.»

«I can cook.» he claimed «I can cook, I’m- I’m good at it and I’m fast» His face has never been more red than in that moment, not even when he asked her first crush ever out. Never than when he was with you.

«What are you trying to say?» you sighed, again checking your phone, the bold characters of the time made you whine.

«I can- help you with the lunch?» he tried again.«You can trust me. I swear- my friend is a chef. He-»

«Are you serious?» you interrupted his endless speech with a hint in your voice that neither the both of you quite get. Your question didn’t sound like an annoyed one, it sounded more like... Surprised? Kinda. Desperate? Oh, hell yes.

Jungkook nodded, and in a second your wheels brain worked like crazy. It was almost 12.00 and you knew that your parents wouldn’t arrive at the established time, they were probably already in the car looking forward to the moment you were going to open the door and ready to start complaining about how late you were for everything, how your life wasn’t good for you, how you should’ve been more like them. No, you weren’t playing they’re game, not today.

Going to your apartment now would’ve meant arrive in twenty minutes, then you had to make sure everything was in place and absolutely remember to lock your bedroom, your mother had this weird habit to always pry and snoop in your drawers as if you were still a teenager, you hated it. You had to cook and set the table too.

Oh, lord. You couldn’t believe you were really thinking about this.

«I’m Y/N» you sighed, locking eyes with Jungkook. The information you had just given him seemed to make his features even more shocked. 

Y/N, he repeated to himself, finally having a name for your breathtaking face. You had really told him? After all he had done so far?

«Are you really serious? Cause please, I don’t really have time for your teasing.» now it was you the one almost begging.

Jungkook’s eyes widened so much that they almost fell out as he forced himself to nod. «Yes, I- I’m serious. I can help you?» his voice was shaking.

«If you promise your friend won’t set fire to my kitchen?»

Jungkook’s features lost all their hope in a blink hearing your words. He really thought you were letting him in your place to help you considering all the awkwardness between you two? Well, he hoped it. It would’ve been a good way to prove you he wasn’t a jerk and maybe get to know you a little better. It wasn’t fair to be that much head over heels for someone you don’t even know. But that thought vanished in an instant. It took him a few seconds to understand he had to call Jin.

Please, please. He hoped the rehearsals were over and that he had already taken a shower.

«I promise, I swear he won’t do it» Jungkook’s sweaty hands went in his pockets and grabbed the phone. «I- I’ll call him»

You let yourself sigh when he brung the phone to his ear. This was all too overwhelming, the nervousness was eating you alive and the fact that now you had to worry about his friend too made you hold another sigh. Please, tell me he’s not teasing me again. This was your prayer, the words echoing through your mind like a mantra while the man talked to his phone taking a few steps to distance himself from you.

«Jin, please. You own me this for the dress. And I promise I- I will do whatever you want me to do. Just, please do this for me» he prayed lowering his voice and staring at you.

«You’re lucky I just changed. Alright.» Jin nodded on the other side of the line, everyone was staring at him waiting to know what happened.

«Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you» 

«I know, how can’t someone love me?» he scoffed «Where are you?»

«A few block away from the studio, in front of the crossroad, but please hurry up. Really, she’s running out of time»

«Alright, alright. I’m on my way. Don’t say or do awkward things.» that was the last sentence he left him with.

Jungkook stared at you for a little bit before putting his phone back in his pockets, studying the way you were biting your lips and snorting from time to time, fingers playing with each other in nervous movements. He couldn’t help but ask himself why you were so nervous. Your parents were coming over, shouldn’t you be happy to spend some time with your family?

You were desperate, totally overwhelmed from your parents’s judgement, still thinking about their faces when they would see you hired a chief just for a stupid lunch. “Couldn’t you do this on your own?”, “This is ridiculous.”, their voices were already playing in your mind.

You turned to look at Jungkook, his gaze immediately leaving your face and his cheeks flashing red. You approached him in a second.

«He’s coming» he let out a deep breath, and so did you. You didn’t have to worry about lunch anymore, thanks God. «I- why... Can I ask you why are you so nerv- nervous?» his question made your mouth fall agape. Was it that obvious? 

«I’m not»

«Oh» he puffed «O-okay. I’m sorry» you frowned.

«Why do you keep saying that?» Jungkook gulped harshly.

«I- I shouldn’t have asked.» and now he was looking like a puppy for the first time in front of your eyes. For a moment he didn’t seem the charming awkward man that had made you feel uncomfortable anymore. The silence filled the air even though the streets were chaotic. 

Seeing him like that made you speak: «You won’t tease?»

«Wha-What? Why?» Kook thought the conversation was already over, so when you asked him he really didn’t had his brain working. «I mean, why should I t-tease you?» doe-eyes staring directly into yours.

«You always do it» you shrugged. In that moment, Jungkook really felt awful. You really thought all he had done was because he was teasing you?

«I don’t»

«Yes, you do»

«No, I don’t» his voice sounded firm for the first time. Your eyes left his.

«Then this is you? You usually act like... you acted yesterday? And the day before? And the-»

«No, I- I don’t» he sighed «but I’m not teasing you. I never wanted to?»

«Why are you asking me?»

«I’m not! It’s just-» he let the sentence disappear like a speck of dust blown off by the window. «I won’t tease» his voice made you look back into his eyes and the silence filled the space between you two again, your face lost his brightness.

«My parents are not easy-going people. It’s just that.» Jungkook raised his eyebrows.

«Yes, but a chief?» he let out without even thinking, the second he saw your features changing he wanted to slap himself.

«I know, it’s desperate» he held his breath, the guilt already sneaking in his body for letting you think he thought that.

«No!» his voice came out louder than expected «I-It’s not. I was just curious. Maybe I should hire Seokjin too when my parents come to my place. He cooks better than me» you scoffed and his heart sped up like crazy. Finally, he thought. He was dying to hear that sound escape your lips, and now that he was the cause of it he wanted to hear it more.

«Jungkook!» Jin’s voice remembered him what you were really doing and he couldn’t help but feel disappointed when he turned to watch him get closer with each step. Your mouth hanging open at the sight. Tall, broad shoulders and a charming face. Was it a thing running in his group?

«I’m Kim Seokjin, but call me Jin. I’m your chief for today.» he introduced himself once he stood in front of you.

«I’m Y/N. Thank you for doing this, I’m aware I didn’t give you time to-»

«Don’t worry, really. It’s not a problem.» he smiled. You nodded and gulped nervously before glancing at Jungkook, who was standing there shifting his gaze between you and his friend, praying everything would work out fine.

«Let’s go, you can tell me about what you’d like to eat while we get to your place»

And with that, you nodded at him and gave a smile to the maknae. Jungkook’s heart skipped a few beats.

«I swear, she has the worst parents ever.» Jin claimed, eyes wide and shocked features. «They really aren’t easy-going people.»

«Did they complain about the food?» Namjoon asked, the hyung raised his eyebrows.

«They didn’t dare, luckily for them,» he scoffed. «but from what I heard from the kitchen that woman really has the strongest self-control ever»

«What happened?» Hobi sat beside him on the couch.

«You mean what didn’t happen. First, when they came in they didn’t even greet her, they just gave her their coats and ran past her like nothing.» he raised his index finger while shaking his head. Jungkook’s eyes widened.

«Then they started complaining about her apartment. “I don’t really know how you like this place so much”, “it’s so small”, “do you even have a second bathroom in here?”, “you should move”. I mean, let her breathe!» he imitated your parents’s voices, an high-pitched tone for your mother and a weird twang for you father. His middle finger went up.

«After that, her mother tried to break into her room as if she’s a fifteen years old teenager. What the hell was that? She even locked it before they came in, I saw her.» and now his ring finger too.

«What?» Yoongi couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and neither the others. Everyone’s expression was only screaming shock, staring at their friend like he was telling them a crime novel. Jungkook had his eyebrows knitted together, mouth agape and an emotion neither he could quite get running through his blood.

«I swear I’m not making this up! They’re the worst!» Jin shook his head. «When they saw me serving the plates her mother raised her eyebrows and waited for me to go into the kitchen before she started spitting out all her venom. “Couldn’t you do this on your own? Of course not. You’re still trying to dance, right? That’s why you don’t even have time to learn how to cook”, “your mother is right, you should start to act like an adult, Y/N. I think it’s time for you to stop with that”. It was like being in hell, and I was in my heaven, you know I love standing in front of the stove. I honestly don’t know how she managed to stay calm.»

«Oh, God. She must feel so much pressure» Hobi muttered, Yoongi and Taehyung nodded.

«I know. I could see it in her eyes when I left, she was acting like nothing happened but she really seemed wrecked. She insisted to pay me but I refused her money, I told her she’s fine since is your “friend”» Jin looked at Jungkook, who weakly smiled as a thank you for his actions. He already knew that your parents were not that easy from your words and the way you acted that morning, but God, he never though they’d be like this. How did you even manage to not burst out at them?

Your pillow was doing nothing to muffle your sobs, they could be heard even with the sound of the TV on and the sheets hiding you from the light light of the screen. Useless to say, you were feeling like shit. You always tried your best but always fail with them. You were used to it, so why were you crying? Again? You wished your parents were different, more amenable, you even wished you were different, the daughter they expected you to be. But you weren’t, and all you were left with was hope, every time. Maybe the next time will be better, that was what you usually told to yourself, and that was probably why you ended up crying this time too. You needed to stop it and face the fact that it was not going to be better. You weren’t the problem, and deep inside you you knew it.

You simply needed to face it.

Finally, here comes today. It’s weird for you to think this, but you actually want to meet Jungkook, to thank him. The awful night you had made you think of how hard you try with your parents even though you keep telling yourself it’s not true. After having a chief cooking for you, the only thing you can do is cope with it. You can’t deny you were being anxious for the whole time, still skeptical about the situation, afraid that Jungkook was maybe teasing you again and his friend was no one but a someone looking for fun him too. But he wasn’t, he’s been nice for the entire time, always smiling and trying to make you feel comfortable, he sure knows how to marvel a new client. You saw him blinking a few times because of your parents’s words, but you’re grateful he didn’t tell you anything. He was professional and friendly, and you feel so sorry about not paying him and making him deal with the awkward lunch of you and your parents.

Thus, you are now walking in the studio hoping to find Jungkook or maybe one of his friends, not sure of what exactly are his schedules. You look for him until you realize you’re already five minutes late for your rehearsals so you decide to rush back in your room. What you didn’t expect is to find him at your doorframe, eyes shifting from person to person. His figure makes you hold your breath, his features taken by whoever his looking for, lips pursued, tall and muscled body wrapped in a pair of black jeans and a gray shirt.

«Jungkook?» you call. Jungkook’s heart drops when he realizes it’s your voice, then in a second the embarrassment is there again, making his ears and cheeks flashing red.

«H-hi?» he slowly moves his stare until it’s on your face.

«Were you looking for me?» his eyes wide, he weakly raises his eyebrows and now his lips are slightly parted in a pout.

«N-no? Yes, I mean no, I- fuck» he mutters, shutting his eyes at the end of the uncommon answer and hissing under his breath. You knit your eyebrows. Once he opens his eyes again you can’t help but smirk, just a little bit. With the half-gone sensation of him teasing at you it’s more easy to do it.

«I- what was the question?» he really doesn’t know how to answer you. You scoff and shake your head.

«Never mind, I was looking for you but now I really can’t talk. Do you have some time later?» your uncertain tone makes you cringe, again feeling weird in front of him. You can’t help it, it’s just something that happens every time in his presence.

His brain stops working again. «Oh, yes? Y-yeah»

«What- what time do you get off?»

«I- well, I- uhm... Yoongi!» he suddenly screams, panicking and widening his eyes when he shifts them from you to his friend, his tone radiates nothing but frustration.

Thanks God, he thinks, but a second later he’s already regretting it. You quickly turn to see his friend approaching you in heavy footsteps, and when you link his face to his name another wave of uncomfortableness sneaks in your body.

Yoongi looks at you only when he sides his friend, gulping harshly and trying to fake a smile as best as he can. «Hi, I’m Yoongi?»Why do they all speak like this? 

He shifts his eyes from you to Jungkook and viceversa, hoping someone to talk and tell him what the hell is he doing there with you two. When Jungkook finally speaks his voice his shaking. «What dime do- do we get o-off?» his eyes are basically praying Yoongi to answer.

«I think at seven?»

«Oh» he lets out, lowering his gaze on you again. You try to shrug off the mix of emotions his dark eyes give you.

«Okay, I... I’ll wait for you? I guess, if you tell me-»

«13» Yoongi interrupts your blabbering seeing that the maknae’s face is as blank as a white sheet paper, still in shock from what’s happening, he probably wouldn’t have known how to answer you.

«Thank you. See you later then» you try to smile without letting your uneasiness creep in and quickly enter the rehearsal room, letting out a deep breath.

«You know you’ll have to talk to her later, right? And what was she talking about?» Yoongi asks as soon as you can’t hear him. Jungkook shrugs.

«She- she wants to talk? I’m gonna die in the awkwardness, I know it. I’m gonna embarrass myself so much I won’t even be able to breathe, fuck.»

«Y/N?» Jungkook stares at your reflection in the mirror, his movements suddenly stop nd Hobi frowns at him.

«Jungkook, what are you doing?» he screams over the music. The maknae blinks a few times before he understands you’re looking at him and he’ll make everything more awkward if he keeps standing still like this with his eyes on you. Thus, he takes a deep - deep - breath and  counts the time again before catching up with the moves.

His body makes you hold your breath, his movements are clean and outright, his style is impactful, even the small details incredibly focused and accurate. His muscles twitch under the clothes, and you can outline the muscles of his legs even without even trying. Only the sight makes you shudder. His body is something you really didn’t dwell on, too much taken aback from the way he usually acts around you, but having a show like this in front of your eyes is something you can’t really turn away to. The way he moves his hips in a particular move has you clenching around nothing, and you suddenly blush at the thought of how he’d move them in a different situation, your heart beats faster.

Jungkook tries to not let your presence influence his rehearsals but he can’t help to steal a few glances at you while he moves on the rhythm. When he sees you blushing and glancing down his body he can’t help but smirk a little bit, even though his heart beats louder with every second. He glances away again when you eventually raise your eyes to his face, body stiffening in an second.

When the music finally stops and you seem to wake up from your trance you find yourself looking at the others, realizing only now that you probably should have asked before coming in the room like this, so you stand up and go out in a second.

Yoongi suddenly runs behind you.

«Y/N? Right?» you have no chance but to turn and nod.

«I’m sorry, I sho-»

«You can stay.» he smiles at you «And I’m sorry for the tea, the other day»

«Are you sure?»

«About the tea? I’m really sorry» he bits the inside of his cheek.

«No, I mean are you sure I-»

«Oh, yes. Jungkook would like it if you stayed» he suddenly points his thumb to Jungkook, who’s staring at the two of you with his lips parted and apparently in trance like you were just a few seconds ago. When your eyes lock with his you shrug to hide the weird shiver sneaking into your back.

«Okay, then» you smile at Yoongi and head back to the bench at the side of the room. 

You spend at least twenty five minutes staring at Jungkook, your eyes rarely meet the figures of his friends, completely taken by the way he moves and the emotions he makes you feel with every song. At the beginning the maknae feels his cheeks heating up and his body as stiff as a trunk, but with the time passing by and the seconds becoming minutes he slowly gains a little bit of confidence, and when you see him even more free and secure you can’t help but take in the sight releasing a deep breath you didn’t know you were holding. He’s like a magnet, some weird kind of energy attracts you to him, maybe it’s the way he speaks with his face or the way his eyes seem even darker and deeper when he sometimes glances at you and immediately glances back. Time seems to run and before you know it the music stops again and the group is lets out uneven breaths, heading to the bench you’re sitting on to grab their towels.

You feel your cheeks heat up when you notice almost every one of them glance at you with a look you can’t really read. Jungkook is still in front of the mirror, eyes completely focused on the way his body moves and repeating movements like a mantra. When he finally stops and turns around his gaze locks with yours, his heart pounds in his chest, palms sweaty all of a sudden.

«Kook, here!» one of his friends throws him a bottle of water and the man quickly catches it bringing it to his lips and taking a few sips. You watch the way his adam’s apple moves from your seat. He closes the bottle and finally heads to the bench, he feels so nervous he’d do something awkward and make you both feel uncomfortable that he almost thinks of running away. The others seem to quickly disappear to go to change and when he finally stands beside you you don’t really know how to act. The silence fills the room and makes you wince, your tongue comes out to wet the petals of your lips, Jungkook holds his breath.

«I like your style of dancing, the way you move» you blurt out. The maknae seems almost shocked at your words.

«I- I like it too» and here we go again. «I mean, I like yours too?»

«You watched me dancing?»

Jungkook groans. «I- oh, ye- yes?» he quickly gives up on lying «I watched you»

«Oh, I didn’t notice» you nervously smile. «Thank you, then»

Jungkook brings his white towel to his neck, wiping the sweat from his skin. That stupid action hits you like a wrecking ball.

«I’m- I’m sorry for everything that happened,» he speaks without thinking «I- I never wanted to tease you. I’m really sorry it- it came out like that. Really sorry.» his tone is shaky and he still can’t believe he managed to let out a full sentence without embarrassing himself or you. For some kind of reason his words make your gaze deepen in his, the weight of your irises almost crashing down Jungkook’s mind.

 You shake your head. «You apologize every time» a smile breaks through your mask.

«I don’t want to... make you feel uncomfortable? It’s just... I’m really so- sorry if it came out in the wrong way. I always end up embarrassing myself but I wanted to make a good impression, it’s just-» he suddenly stops talking, feeling all of a sudden even more nervous to say the words he was almost spilling out, he scraps at the back of his neck.

«You make me nervous» he really said it. 

His words hit you like a train, fast enough to make you doubt you really heard them and hard enough to stun you. «I make you nervous? Oh, I’m sorry I-»

«No, no, no, no» he quickly complaints «In a good way, I- I guess?» 

«What do you mean?»

Jungkook opens his mouth to speak a few times but always fails and closes it, before putting the towel on the bench and harshly gulping. «I- Can we talk about something else? Please?» he almost whines, making a weird smile form on your lips.

«Do you want to go to the cafe?»

He nods at your proposal, lifting his index finger. «Just give me a minute to change and-» he lowers to grab at all his stuff on the bench but unintentionally hits the bottle of water which falls to the ground. He lets out a deep shaky breath, the words I’m so bad at this echoing in his mind. You manage to bend over and grab it but at the same time he takes a step towards it to do the same, stopping when he sees your hands holding the bottle. When you raise back, the view you meet with makes you hold your breath and your cheeks red like peppers, Jungkook is not quick enough to rush back, and you can’t help but feel uncomfortable again, but this time there’s a different emotion too that you’re not quick enough to grasp.

It happens in a matter of seconds, but it seems like minutes when you glance at him, standing tall and looking at you bewitched by the sight of you like this. And he needs to remember himself you’re actually here to hold back the dirty thoughts that are already filling his head. You gulp hard, your eyes scanning his beautiful features and saving the breathtaking sight, his crotch almost touching your cheek because of the lack of distance. And you can’t deny, your thoughts take you to a different dimension that makes you fucking throb.

«Just- give me- give me a minute?» Jungkook stutters with a deep low voice, heavy breath and cheeks heating up.

«This are the kind of things that makes me think of you teasing me» you don’t even know where your words came out from, how’d you manage to make a full sentence still watching him from the same position.

«I swear, I didn’t want to-»

«It’s okay» you unintentionally lick your lips and he finds it even harder to keep a clear head, his cock already hardening. «Go?»

He slowly nods waking up from his trance, and manages to rush back into the fitting room with fast steps and heavy breathing, hoping that the others are not there. Not now that with every steps he takes he feels harder with the image of your eyes looking at him from down.

«Fuck» he hisses letting his bag fall to the bench. Luckily, no one’s here anymore and he’s only left with his boner. What is he supposed to do now? He can’t just change and go out, you’d see it, definitely.

Fuck.

Jungkook quickly heads to the door of the bathroom and takes a deep breath before locking it, lowering his sweat pants and his boxers on his thighs. The second the material doesn’t hug him anymore his cock jumps to his stomach, tip already red and dripping with precum. How do you manage to get him this hard without even trying?

His hand immediately wraps around his shaft, squeezing himself a little bit, just enough to make his head fall back and his lips part letting out a strangled whine. 

«Fuck» he hisses before he starts moving his hand, his mind going back at you and how damn good you looked before at the height of his cock. The first time he masturbated thinking about you sucking him dry he didn’t really think he would ever have a picture of you to accompany his actions to. And now that he has it, he can’t seem to get enough of it. You’d look so fucking good giving him the blowjob of his life, hollowing your cheeks and wrapping him in your mouth, he’d fuck it so good you’d be drooling and gagging for him. His thumb slowly caresses his frenulum and he twitches under his hand, stroking himself faster and harder. He doesn’t even realize it but the image of you he has in mind is making him louder than he usually is, panting and hissing, begging to explode.

«Oh my god, fuck.» he groans.

You can’t hear him from where you are, but your tights are tightening anyway. What happened just a few moments ago is replaying in your mind over and over again. The view he gave you of him staring directly into your eyes while you were basically facing his cock it’s making you go out of your mind. You can’t deny he’s charming, with features that make you feel dizzy, but this was too much to handle even for you. Your mind can’t help but fantasize how he’d fist your hair while you’d lick him, and just the thought makes you clench around nothing, the wetness between your folds already soaking your knickers. You try to push the image away, but the way you’re desperately squeezing your thighs for some kind of friction tells a total different story.

Jungkook bites his lips, his abdomen twitching and his shoulders heavily raising.

«Y/N» he whines, picturing you on your knees for him. In his mind, your hands are one on his inner thigh and the other playing with his nipple, twirling it between your index and thumb and making him even more sensible.

«Shit, so good» his voice is husky, sure as hell it would make you shudder and fall on your knees if you’d only hear it. His movements become more sloppy, the knot in his stomach almost about to burst. He groans and speeds up even more, hips practically hitting his hand with every stroke. He imagines your thighs tightened, the wetness in your folds, the way you’d taste, and he feels even closer.

«So fucking good»

Jungkook spits in his hand. His breath stutters more, and he suddenly doesn’t remember how to breathe anymore as he strokes himself harder, the lewd sound of him shoving in his fist becomes louder, the only sound feeling the bathroom and the fitting room.

The thought of you cupping his balls and massaging it makes him do the same thing, he pictures your tongue licking and swirling around the head of his cock. That is the last chunk he needs to come undone in his palm, spatters of white hitting his chest as he fucks himself through his orgasm until he’s too sensitive to even make one more stroke, letting his head resting on the door behind him. Eyes closed, heavy breath and mouth completely dry, Jungkook takes some time to recover from the heavenly climax he just reached.

God, what he’d give to know that he had the exact effect you had on him, but you’re just too shy to do something about it here. If you were home, well that would be a different thing. You’d help yourself with your vibrator, fucking it into you like it was him. But now, now you’re just trying to contain your thoughts, waiting for him to come out and go to the cafe.

When you realize it’s been a while since he disappeared you decide it’s better to go and see if everything’s okay. Standing up you unsurely walk to the door of the fitting room, the structure of the building being always the same makes finding the way easier. You knock at the door.

«Jungkook? Are you okay?»

«I- uhm, I’m coming, give me a second!» he answers back with a high-pitched tone, so you nod and go back to your bench, waiting for him. It takes him another three minutes to finally come out, his hair are a little bit messy and you think he must’ve ran his hands through them a few times.

«Are we- are we still going?» he asks. With your worries at the door of the fitting room he thought you might have heard him before, but when you nod and smile he lets his previous thoughts fade.

You head out of the studio and to the cafe, trying to ignore the way your panties practically slips against your folds. Jungkook tries to think about what to say and how to begin a safe conversation for the both of you without feeling uncomfortable or awkward but he just can’t seem to find nothing else than the question he asks.

«You wanted to talk?» lowering his gaze to his side he looks at you walking in silence. You quickly nod.

«I wanted to thank you, actually» you turn to smile at him, the butterflies in in stomach invading every part of his body.,«You know, for Jin.»

«Oh, no- no problem» he smiles back, his eyes sparkling and you can’t deny the sudden warmth you feel in your chest. «It’s the least I could do, for what happened?» his sentence sounds again like a question, but by now you’re kinda used to it. You scoff.

«Let’s say I forgive you for the dress and the awkward meeting» you tease. His eyes squint and he wrinkles his nose.

«That wasn’t my fault» he murmurs.

«Your friend?»

He nods. «Teahyung»

«Well, then I forgive Teahyung and you for the dress» you smile again, his heart is beating like crazy.

«How much do I have to embarrass my-myself for the drink Yoongi spilled on you?» he’d like to giggle but he feels so freaking nervous that all he can do is let out a puff.

«I don’t know, you’re pretty good at that. I’d end up enjoying the show eventually and it wouldn’t be fair, I’d let you go on» you tease again. Jungkook’s cheeks heat up. His brain trying to understand if you’d say something like this because you like the way he acts around you or just for the fun of teasing him. The truth is, neither you know it now.

«It’s the thing I seem to be better at» your giggle makes him feel lighter.

«I was kidding» you stop your steps and he realizes you’re already in front of the cafe.

«You’re forgiven, more than forgiven. I actually feel like I owe you something now» you explain looking directly in his dark eyes, and damn, he’s really beautiful.

«Oh- no, no! Don’t, please» he shakes his head. «I- I wanted to make it up to you, you don’t owe me anything»

«Well, let me get you a coffee or something you’d like at least?» you point at the shop behind you. Jungkook licks his lips and takes another deep breath before nodding, following you in and trying to look elsewhere but the way you swing your hips with every step. You’re gonna be the death of him, and he’s slowly falling even more with every word you say.

Thanks to the time the cafe is almost empty, only two or three clients are sit on the chairs at the counter. Nevertheless, you sit at your favorite table, the one in the corner always forgotten by practically everyone. There’s something about this table that makes you feel safe, maybe it’s because no one seems to look at it, sometimes even the waitress forgets it.

«I’ll get a tea» you announce without even glancing at the menu, Jungkook tilts his head to the side and hides his head behind it. You wait for him to choose what he wants and when he’s done you raise your hand to the waitress behind the counter. The woman quickly walks to you, giving you a gentle smile.

«What can I serve you?»

«A tea for me»

«I’ll have a Red Velvet latte» Jungkook says, leaving you amused by his choice. The waitress quickly nods and leaves you with another smile.

«Red Velvet?» you ask «I’ve always wanted to try it but I always end up with tea or coffe» you reveal, Kook raises his eyebrows.

«I like- I like it. Maybe you want a sip?»

«Don’t worry, I’ll get it the next time»

«We can switch drinks if you want» he says as the same time as you.

«Really, Jungkook, don’t worry» you smile at him.

«Anyway, I really am thankful for Jin yesterday. He helped me a lot, without him I’d probably end up having a breakdown» you scoff at the end of your sentence even though it’s true. Jungkook watches you as you speak, completely taken by your words and the way you move your lips, your voice seems to be the only thing catching his ears now, not even one of his favorite songs playing in the background gets him.

«Thank you for being so nice and help me, Jungkook. It was Sunday and-»

«Hey, no problem» he cuts off your rumbling with his hand on yours, and the second he realizes what he has just done he takes it away with wide eyes. The only trace he leaves on your skin is the dampness of his sweaty palms.

«I’m- I’m sorry»

«Stop it, please» you almost whine and his features instantly sadden, afraid he just made another mistake. He tries to hide his expression but fails, and the guilt sneaks into you making you shake your head.

«I mean, stop being so stiff. Tell me, what is it?» you ask.

«What?»

«What do I do to make you this nervous?» you ask again. «I can try and-»

«It’s not you.» he cuts you off again. «I- I mean it is you, but it’s me. I-» he stutters.

«I can try to hide my face if you want» youironically propose as you grab the menu and cover your face with it. Jungkook frowns but immediately smiles at your silliness. «Does it work?»

«It- It’s not making any difference» he holds back a laugh.

«Are you sure?» you giggle. He shakes his head.

«I am, just- please, look at me» his words play a strange trick on your mind, making you harshly gulp as your heart skips a few beats. It’s noy like he had just said something that important, but your mind goes blank for a second.

«Y/N?» he calls, eyes fixated on the menu you’re holding. He stretches his arm out and grabs at the paper, slowly lowering it from your face. Your eyes, your nose, your lips. Jungkook stares at every feature of your face taking in the sight in front of him, the power you have on him is fucking scary, and he’s realizing it for the first time now looking in your eyes.

«What happened?» he lets out in a whisper, not really certain of his voice at the moment. You gulp and shake your head. You don’t even know what happened, how are you supposed to explain him?

«There you go, your tea and your Red Velvet» the waitress comes in the way, and you thank her in your mind for saving you from the awkward situation you just putted yourself into. However, the interruption is fast and she leaves in a matter of seconds leaving you with your drinks.

You can’t help but glance at his glass, the crimson color of the drink intrigues you and the chocolate chips on top are the perfect frame. Jungkook lifts it from the table and stretches his arm again towards you, putting the drink basically under your nose.

«Try it» he manages to say holding his breath. He doesn’t even know where he gained all of this boldness, he just did it without thinking. And now that you stare at him he’s beginning to think he’s making things awkward again.

Your hands cover his, giving birth to another session of butterflies in his stomach and a shudder running down your spine. Jungkook understands he has to remove his hand from the glass to make you drink and he slips away like he just got burn by a blazing fire.

Taking a sip you let yourself taste the sweetness of the latte and the chocolate chips before giving him his drink again, deciding this will definitely be your next order at this place.

«It’s so good» you whine, Jungkook smiles.

«It’s one of my favorite drinks, Jin- he always tries new things and likes to feed us like babies. He introduced me to this»

«I really like it» you bring your cup of tea to your lips, taking a sip. «My tea is so boring now» his smile widens.

«We can really switch drinks if you-»

«No, don’t worry, really»

He nods, taking the first sip of his Red Velvet.

«So Jin is kinda like the mama of the group?» Jungkook smiles at your comment.

«He is the oldest» he nods. «He likes to take care of us and we like to eat» you giggle at his words.

«His cooking is really good, I haven’t eaten that good in months. I should have insisted more on paying him» you take another sip from your tea.

«Trust me, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it» Jungkook smiles at you, and it’s a matter of seconds before he finally noticed he’s not stuttering anymore. In fact, he feels more comfortable. «He was happy to help»

«Oh, trust me, he helped me a lot»

You try to think what would’ve happen yesterday if it wasn’t for him, the result would have been even worse than it already is. Jungkook’s heart warms up knowing he was really able to help you, he made something right. The smile you have on your face makes him want to work even more to create a brand new one.

«What about Yoongi? Does he spill his drinks on everyone?»

«No, he doesn’t» Jungkook scoffs and avoids telling you the reason why he actually spilled it. «He’s the second hyung. Actually, he’s usually very quiet. His stage name is Suga»

«I heard about him» you raise your eyebrows. «Someone told me he injured his shoulder fighting over a first prize but I didn’t think it was him they were talking about, and honestly I didn’t know if it was true» 

The maknae shakes his head. «It’s not true. He actually got injured while working, he had to find a job to pay for his dance lessons and eventually he started a delivering job. He got hit by a car.» Jungkook stares at the wooden table «People often say that or that he tried to beat one of the judges and got kicked in his ass. I don’t get why they like to make up something so stupid» an heavy sigh leaves his lips.

«Last year I broke my uncle because I was pushing myself too hard for a contest and eventually I didn’t perform. I heard people say I couldn’t ‘cause I was pregnant» you tell him, the memory still makes you wrinkle your nose. Jungkook’s eyes widens before he opens his mouth.

«I hate rumors» he mumbles. «Who- who do you want to know about now?» he stutters a little bit, deciding to bring back the conversation to a positive vibe.

«Taehyung? Was it his name?» you squint your eyes.

«Yes» he nods. «Taehyung is the second maknae and a fashion icon in the group, we always try to look as cool as him but he just has that something that makes you give up and stay in your sweat pants.» you giggle at his comment and he can’t help but smile at your sparkling eyes.

«He doesn’t usually act like the first time we met, he’s pretty confidential.» Jungkook takes the last sip of his Red Velvet and you do the same with your now almost cold tea while you take in all the informations.

«Namjoon is the dad of the group, he’s always willing to give you advices but at the same time able to give you a good shake. He and Jimin are my go to when I need to talk to someone, but the others are pretty good at listening too. Jimin is the third maknae»

«Who’s the first?»

Jungkook puckers his lips. «Me» 

«How old are you?»

«I’m twenty two» he answers, remembering this is the last day he gets to say it. For a little moment he thinks of you at his birthday, but he forces himself to push the picture away, it would be weird to invite you when you’re talking fr the first time.

«I’m older than you!» you can’t help but exclaim, Jungkook licks his lips.

«Really?»

You nod.«I’m twenty four»

«How- how should I call you then?» he bits his lips, a little bit of nervousness sneaks again into him, worried you don’t like the way he has been talking to you.

«Oh, please don’t call me noona!» you shake your head and smile at him.

«Are you sure?»

«Yes, Jungkook. Don’t change the way you were talking to me, I liked it. It was natural» you smile at him, your heart beats faster when a smile shines on his face and lights up his features. Jungkook is trying to be as natural as he can, trying to speak without blubbering still stunned by your presence in front of him, and hearing those words make him less tense.

«Hoseok is the only one left. He’s a ray of sunshine, always able to make you smile and laugh. His stage name is J-Hope. He’s a spring, his movements are as fluid as water. Oh, and he can’t hide his expressions whenever he’s angry, even though it’s difficult to annoy him. His face goes like this» Jungkook’s try to emulate his friend is quickly cut off by your bursting laugh because of his expression, and he can’t hold back his giggles at the sound of your happiness.

«Sounds like a beautiful group» you say when you finally stop laughing, your cheeks are hurting while you take a look inside your mug, realizing only now it’s empty.

«It is, they’re my family» the tone he uses makes a knot built up in your throat, smiling melancholic. And who the hell knows why, Jungkook notices it. 

«Is- is something wrong? Did I say-»

«No, no, no. It’s fine, I’m fine» you quickly say smiling again. He would like to ask you what’s wrong again until you’d probably end up answering him but he thinks he’d invade your personal space and annoying you.

«Are you sure? I- I know I ask this a lot but-»

«I’m sure, thank you for asking» you interrupt him with another gentle smile. Jungkook knows it’s not true, but he nods anyway, bringing his gaze to his empty glass. His action makes you bring yours to your phone, unlocking the screen and realizing only now it’s almost eight and a half.

«I should go now»

He raises his glance, the feeling in his chest it’s telling him to not let you go but he can’t do that.

«I’ll see you tomorrow at the studio?» you ask him while getting up from your chair, rummaging through your purse looking for the wallet. Jungkook is about to say yes when he remembers tomorrow it’s their free day.

«No, not tomorrow» he smiles at you getting up and producing a shrill sound with his chair against the floor, his cheeks heat up for the fiftieth time only in an hour.

«Oh, I guess I’ll see you on Wednesday then? Or whenever we-»

«Could you give me your number?»

If he thought his heart already risked a heart attack many times with you, then now he should be dead from the way it’s beating. Blood running through his body so fast that he can hear it his in his ears, the tip of them and his cheeks flashing red, palms sweating more than before. Maybe he shouldn’t have asked you.

You stare at him for a few seconds, completely stuttered by his question as you gulp harshly and blink a few times.

«You- you promise you won’t send me nudes?» you joke, and this time you are the one who’s left with her mouth agape, wondering where the hell that just came out from. «Oh my-»

«If you don’t ask for them I won’t» Jungkook scoffs, the fact you just said something like that is making him feel lighter. You raise your eyebrows at him.

«I won’t, I surely won’t» you quickly rebut but you’re afraid he might be offended so you keep adding words making everything worse. «I mean- not that I wouldn’t like them, it’s just-»

«Y/N» he interrupts your dwelling. «I- I won’t send or ask for nudes» he laughs at his own words at the end of the sentence, making you grimace.

«I’m- I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that»

«It’s okay» he smiles at you and you let out a shaky breath before putting ten bucks on the table and heading to the door with him.

Jungkook dials your number on his phone and quickly sends you a message to let you save his, still freaking out in his mind for what happened in just an hour of being with you.

The afraid of being awkward he felt at the beginning is still there, but he feels more comfortable now that he knows a little bit about you. He’s still nervous, palms still sweaty and heart still beating like crazy, gaze still trying to lock with yours just to shudder and blush under it. He likes the way his nervousness shaded with the comfortableness you made him feel talking to you, his chest both threatening to explode because of the tension but still tasting the sweetness of the naturalness and ease, the combo is one of the weirdest to ever exist, but it’s true.

«Goodbye, Jungkook» you smile at him after putting your phone back in your purse. You think about your actions for a moment before quickly tiptoeing and leaving a soft peck on his cheek that makes him almost feel dizzy. The way your soft lips touched his skin will haunt him even in his dreams tonight. He’s not rapid enough to smile at you while you turn and walk away, too shocked by your actions, but he smiles anyway.

This is the first time Jungkook realizes he just had a bite of the cake, and now he wants to eat it all.

«Are you kidding?» Taehyung’s deep voice resonates through the stairwell and Jungkook can hear it even by pulling his phone away from his ear.

«I’m not, Tae» he rushes to the door and hangs up before opening it sure that his friend is already there. In fact, he is. Standing still in front of him in his Gucci palazzo trousers looking like a model.

«Happy birthday, Kookie» he smiles at him and hugs him tight making Jungkook chuckle.

«You just said it on the phone»

«I know» he pats his shoulder. «Where are the others?»

«They’re coming» Jungkook takes a look to his lounge, the table is already set and the food is almost ready, Jin will be proud of him.

«Is she coming too?» Taehyung asks, Jungkook turns like top.

«What? No»

«Why not?»

«I don’t know... we don’t have that much of intimacy. And with you?» he knits his eyebrows thinking of the possible ending of doing something like that. «She’d probably feel like a fish out of water and you’re gonna embarrass me if I’m not the one doing it» he shakes his head.

The bell rings and Kook rushes to the door to welcome his friends, Hobi and Jin are standing there with the biggest smiles on their faces and hands full of envelopes, smiles as bright as the sun.

«There will be a day when you’ll be old and people will make fun of you, and it’s coming! Happy birthday!» Jin hugs the maknae laughing for his own words and Jungkook does the same. Hobi joins the hug, making Tae grimace and run to them.

«I feel alone» he mumbles before wrapping his arms around the three of them, Jungkook in the middle is almost dying, being the burger in the middle of the bread.

«Happy birthday!» Hobi screams, his voice echoing in the hallways remembers Jungkook the door is still open.

«Okay, now set me free» he laughs. «Where are the others?» their grip on him loosen and he finally closes the door.

«They went to buy you a cake, Seokjin made you one but Joon ate it last night without knowing it was yours» Hobi burst out laughing.

«It was obvious! He should’ve known it!» Jin screams frustrated with his eyes wide.

«Look at that!» Jimin points at the cake through the glass, his eyes sparkling at the sight and his mouth begging to taste the sweetness of the sponge cake. He looks like a baby.

«Ugh, Chimin! It’s for Jungkook, not you!» Namjoon scolds him making the corners of his mouth drop.

«I know what he likes!» he says back. Yoongi shuts his eyes, they’ve been in here for almost ten minutes now, fighting over which cake they could buy and not really getting anything.

«Do you-»

«He’ll like that» Yoongi cuts off Joonie’s words and point at the cake nodding to the pastry chef behind the counter who quickly smiles at him.

«Could you write “Jungkook” on top of it?» Jimin asks with a kind smile, the baker nods and he raises his eyebrows at Namjoon.

«See? It’s gonna be perfect, you need to listen to me!»

Namjoon sighs and shakes his head, taking a glance out of the shop to see his girlfriend still in the car waiting for them, eyes fixated on her phone.

Your parents had decided to ring your doorbell without telling you they were coming over. Luckily - or unfortunately - it’s Tuesday, and on Tuesday you’re usually home for lunch, but when the doorbell squeaked you didn’t really think it was them. Maybe the postman or a neighbor, but not your parents.

«Surprise!» they both screamed. It was the worst surprise ever. You didn’t know they were coming so you didn’t make lunch for them, didn’t tidy up properly, didn’t hide your things and didn’t lock your door. Plus, you weren’t prepared for another mental breakdown, not so soon after they gave you one just two days ago. And you still aren’t now, listening to them talking while you eat your salad.

«Your mother decided to come visit Ailiseu for a few days and September is already here so we decided not to wait until next month, it’ll be too cold» your father explains, his smile going from ear to ear. You instantly pray for the mental health of your cousin knowing how your parents can be, she’s gonna go out of her mind.

«Exactly! And we’re staying at her place, since she has a big house. Sorry honey, we would’ve asked you but we thought we’d be too much in here.»

«No problem» you try to sound as kind as possible. This is the good side of having a small house, at least.

«How long will you stay?»

«Three days» your father says «but we’re going to Ailiseu for dinner, we’d like to spend today with you»

«Take a day off of work.» your mother points her index finger at you. «We’ll have fun! We could go to the mall and buy some clothes, I really don’t like the shirt you’re wearing»

You stop eating fixing your gaze on your meal and trying to stay calm. This is a nightmare. How are you supposed to not go to work when they saw you were fine this morning? And notify them in half an hour? Your boss is going to go out of his mind and kill you. You won’t even be able to rehearsal today, obviously.

«Mom, I-»

«Please?» your father cuts you off.

You give up. It’s scientifically proven that you can’t beat them at this game without bursting out, that would definitely lead to an argument and you really are not in the mood for it. So you nod and finish your lunch listening to all their stories, your mother complaining about everything: the broken electric hand dryer at the gas station they stopped in, the way your father drives, your shirt - again -, your salad, your house and again your job. All of her words only make you wish to end this day as soon as possible but against your desire, time only seems to slow down while you wait for your her to come out of the bathroom.

You’re ready to go to the mall, you already called your boss and told him you had a setback and couldn’t go back to work this afternoon, and like you predicted before he didn’t sound happy at all, groaning things you couldn’t understand and quickly hanging up. Your mother is been in the bathroom for twenty minutes now making you frown and sink in your couch. When she finally comes out you head to the door in a second.

«Let’s go shopping!»

Your feet are hurting, if they could talk their exact words would be “fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck” at every step you take. You’ve been in here for almost six hours now, dragged from a shop to another, from a salon to a shoe store and you’re pretty sure that by now you entered all the shops in the mall.

«What’s the time?» your mother finally stops walking at your father’s question, taking a glance at her golden watch.

«It’s almost eight,» she answers raising her eyes to you «we should probably go. Do you mind giving us a ride to Ailiseu’s place?»

You try to fake a small and force yourself to nod despite your tiredness, all you’d like to do now is lay down and sleep. Your brain health is being put to serious danger today, with all your parents endless rumblings and complaints, your mother even tried to buy you a shirt just for you to go change the one you have on in the public restrooms.

You head to your car with big strides and yawning, your parents’ words behind you about how beautiful your cousin’s house is  and how much their parents must be proud of her are making your chest heavy and your head pound.

You hope not to stay stuck in traffic once you get in your car and get out of the parking lot. You only make it to a few blocks before your wishes and hopes totally fade away, the cars blocking the street and the sounds of the honking filling your ears.

«We’re gonna be late, Ailiseu is waiting for us» your father sighs.

«Can’t you take a different road?»

«How am I supposed to take a different road now? There are cars behind me» you huff at your mother’s words.

«Then honk!»

«It’s not gonna change a thing, everyone is doing that!» you claim. Your dad shakes his head.

You wait at least five minutes before you move again, the silence only filled with your mother’s huffs and annoyed muttering. When you think you finally made it and you’re gonna be home soon, a loud thud makes you shudder and not even a second later you’re being pushed against the wheel because of the swing of your car, hitting your forehead against the glass of the windshield.

It takes you a few moments to realize you just got hit and before you know it you’re already putting on your hazards and heading out of your car. How is it even possible to witness to accidents in just a few days? 

You take a look to your parents while they do the same as you and when you see they’re fine you let out a sigh of relief that lasts as quickly as it came out. Your car is devastated at the back and there is no way you can walk home without shedding parts along your way, you only feel grateful that you and your parents are not hurt.

The man in the car behind you approaches you with fast steps and a worried face, tired eyes and shaky voice.

«I’m so sorry, I should’ve been more careful»

You don’t even understand how he managed to make such a mess to your car with the traffic on the streets now, he probably came out from one of the small roads where there weren’t cars and you were the lucky one to welcome him in the jam.

The man leaves you his number telling you to call him once you know how much this is going to cost you and quickly leaves, you end up calling a taxi for your parents and a tow truck for your car, trying to stay as awake as possible. After forty five minutes of waiting you’re so tired that you could lay down and sleep in the middle of the road if it wasn’t for the cars threatening your life, but apparently someone is hearing your prayers and the tow truck comes to rescue you. Your car is brought to the mechanic and you say goodbye to another one hundred bucks for the tow truck. You’re left alone in the middle of the jam, so you move to the sidewalk ready to call a cab. You had the worst day and you’re already thinking of how much you’ll have to work to get all the money you just lost back.

«Y/N?»

You’re being caught off guard when someone calls you while you’re bringing the phone to your ear. When you turn and find Jin smiling at you you quickly hang up.

«Jin, hi»

«What are you doing here?» he looks down at you as if he’s the Eiffel Tower and you’re the grass.

«Uhm, my car broke, I was going to call a taxi»

«If you want I can give you a ride? Can you wait a little bit? Just the time to sing happy birthday to Jungkook and give him the gifts, we’re looking forward to embarrass him» he laughs.

«Oh, it’s Jungkook’s birthday?» Jin nods realizing only now that Kook probably didn’t tell you. «I don’t know... I don’t want to bother, I wasn’t invited and I don’t have a gift and-»

«I think you’re thinking too much» he quickly cuts you off. «I don’t think it will be a problem for Jungkook or the others, he’ll be happy to see you»

You sigh. You could call a taxi and wait for it, spend another fifty bucks and head home. Or you could wait a little bit and spend the time you’d spend waiting on the street with them and maybe have a little bit of fun after this awful day, maybe. If things won’t get awkward again. It’d save you money you could use for the groceries, after all.

«Lead the way» you end up saying thanking him with a warm smile. He nods and soon you’re in the elevator waiting for the doors to open, hoping not to look as awful as you feel right now. You still feel sorry to break into his birthday party without an invitation, a gift or even a little bit of more intimacy between you two, so when the doors open and you hear the laughters coming from one of the apartments you think of getting back outside and call a cab. But it’s too late, one of his friends already holds the door open for Jin, glancing over his shoulder with curious eyes and widening them at you.

«Jimin, this is Y/N» Jin introduces you to his friend gesturing with his hands an impossible language for you to understand, not that it does have meaning, he’s just trying to tell him to contain his expressions.

«Y/N, hi!» his voice is soft and it makes you smile without an apparent reason. You link him to Jungkook’s words yesterday, the third maknae and apparently, the friend he often chooses to ramble on to.

«Jungkook!» he screams over the laughters coming from the other room, eyes still fixated on you.

«Teahyung won’t let me come!» At the sound of how happy is voice sounds, laughing and cracking in the middle you can’t avoid the warmth in your chest.

«Come in» Jimin steps aside and lets you and Jin in the house. «You can give your coat to me»

You thank him and give him your coat before you’re following Jin in the other room where the others are. Their laughters stop in a second when they glance at you, now filling the place just with silence. Jungkook’s heart stops beating for a moment, totally shocked and overwhelmed by your presence, mouth agape and eyes widened. He wasn’t prepared to see you, he totally wasn’t. He stares at blankly as if he just saw a ghost and not even when Taehyung finally sets him free from his hold he’s able to say something. Your cheeks are burning like fire under all their gazes.

«I’m Taehyung» the guy who was holding him smiles at you and takes a few steps before reaching out his hand. «I’m sorry about the awkward meeting»

«Oh, don’t worry» you shrug at the memory.

«Jungkook?» a deep voice seems to wake him up from his trance, Namjoon is telling him to do something with his eyes.

«I’m Namjoon»

Soon enough all of them gather around you and shake your hand welcoming you into the house with bright smiles and kind words. The only girl in the group tells you to call her Kitty and tells you she’s the Namjoon’s girlfriend, she seems pretty nice and you end up talking for at least twenty minutes, all of your tiredness seems to disappear. The only one you still didn’t talk to is Jungkook, and you’re afraid he’s annoyed by your presence. The thought makes your head throb, but you wouldn’t blame him after all. It’s his birthday and sure he’d like to spend it with the people he loves, not with you that he doesn’t know much and weren’t even invited.

«You should go talk to her» Namjoon whispers in Kookie’s ear.

As if he hasn’t thought about it already. Jungkook knows he should talk to you, but as I said before, he really isn’t prepared for this. And seeing you talking with his friends and smiling makes the feeling in his chest even more uncontainable. You’re smiling and you seem at ease with them, sipping from your glass from time to time and laughing at Jin’s jokes. He likes this picture, you in his house, all bright and happy. He could get used to it. And all of this, only makes his anxiety grow until it’s skyrocketing.

«I’m gonna say or act awkward and ruin things again, I’m not-»

«And do you think that staying here won’t? She’s in your house, it’s your birthday and you didn’t even greet her. It surely...» he trails off when you take a few steps towards them. Jungkook bits the petal of his lower lip feeling the usual but still new mixture of emotions rushing through his blood until it reaches his chest and totally takes over him. Namjoon pats at his shoulder and glance at you with a kind smile before standing up from the couch with Hobi and heading to the kitchen. Jungkook stares at you for the millionth time, wishing to say something, anything, but the words are caught in his throat.

«Happy birthday» you stop in front of him, glancing down at the pillows beside him. «Can I?»

 He raises his eyebrows and opens his mouth even more before nervously nodding.

«I’m sorry,» you say softly after sitting on the couch «I didn’t want to break in and annoy you, my car broke and Jin offered me a ride home and-»

«You didn’t annoy me, you don’t annoy me. Never- you never annoy me» he blurts out. «You- you can stay as much as you want» his cheeks are heating up, and you don’t even know why but you suddenly smile like a baby, his words make you feel more at ease.

«I don’t have a gift»

«It doesn’t matter» he smiles at you, your heart both stuttering when you lock eyes.

«If I’m being honest, I-» he stops talking, eyes shifting from yours to meet the ground.

«What?»

Jungkook stays silent for a moment, thinking about what he wants to say over and over again, trying not to make it sound as cheesy as it sounds in his head, but the truth is that there aren’t other words to express it.

«I like you here»

«What?»

«I-» he gulps «I like you here, with us?» he wants to slap himself. Why did he even think about telling you something like this?

«You seem happy?»

You squint your eyes at him, something about this conversation is making you more nervous than usual.

«I think I am?» why are you asking him?

Jungkook scoffs at your tone, it comes out so naturally that it makes your heart flutter. «You don’t sound so sure about that» he quotes your words, a bright smile creeping upon your face.

«Everyone is so nice and easy-going, and they made me feel comfortable even though I wasn’t meant to be here» you shrug. «You weren’t joking when you talked about them»

«Actually...» he clears his throat «I though of invating you yesterday but I- I didn’t cause I though it would be weird? I mean-»

«Jungkook, you don’t need to explain me why you didn’t invite me. Don’t justify yourself»

«I’m not» he replies fast enough to make you knit your eyebrows.

«But I’m happy you’re here now» the sound of those words are like sugar to your hypoglycemic heart, hearing them makes you feel something you never experienced, something that you missed since you were a little girl. The simple act of being happy to have someone near you and not expect anything from them is something you never witnessed, neither from your parents, even though they love you under those cold masks they wear. People always seemed to expect something from you, always. Jungkook is not telling those words without meaning them, he’s not expecting a thing from you. Not even a gift.

«Jungkook!» Hobi screams from the kitchen, tone breaking into a laughter and soon joined by others too. Jungkook shuts his eyes for a moment and then smiles before standing up from the couch. With boldness he didn’t think he has, he stretches his hand out for you to grab it, waiting with held breath and unsure dark doe-eyes staring directly into yours.

It’s a matter of seconds before you loose up and reach out to his hand, fingers intertwining with each other’s and a shudder running down your spine.

Jungkook stands still for a moment, his hand is limp against yours, he didn’t really think you’d grab his hand, not in this way. You’re not holding it to help you stand up, you’re intertwining your fingers with him. It’s different. The heat rising in your cheeks makes you feel like a teenager with her first crush and only now you realize that that’s why your heart is pounding and your brain is overthinking more than usual. You’re about to split away since he doesn’t tightens his grip on you, mentally slapping yourself for doing something like this. You’re fingers leave his and Jungkook’s chest feels suddenly more heavy. Reaching out again, he grabs your hand, fingers intertwine with yours and this time in a tight and sicure grip. His hands are a little bit sweaty for the nervousness, but so are yours. Your heart stutters, breath held as if you were free diving.

Both of you stand still for a moment before turning to look at each other, not even the time to say something that Hoseok is calling again from the kitchen.

«Jungkookie!»

«Happy birthday!» the screams fill the apartment, Jungkook’s features are priceless with his eyes squinted and his cheeks flashing red, trying as best as he can not to die under everyone’s affections.

«Blow out the candles!» Jimin shouts «I’m the one who choose the cake!»

The happiness and the intimacy in the room is so overwhelming that you feel out of place for a moment, but Taehyung grabs you by your arm and brings you closer to the group.

«Come here, embarrass him with us» he winks making you laugh. Jungkook shakes his head, he’s still at ease for the happy birthday song but he can’t fight the big bunny smile taking over his face. And when he sees you laughing with Teahyung, it takes him just a second to let go of the uncomfortable feeling in his chest only to be left with the desire of the sweet taste of the cake, and not the one on the wooden table.

Taking a deep breath he blows out the candles, eyes fixated over you making your heart skip a few beats. He doesn’t even think of a wish, all he wants it’s here tonight; the warmth of his friends, the love they feel for each other, maybe the new beginning of something, anything.

The candles die out, leaving the room in the dark for a few seconds before someone finally turns the lights on.

«Time for the presents!» Namjoon screams.

«Oh, please!» Jungkook whines and the laughters of his friends grow even more. Yoongi disappears to bring all the bags with the presents in and everyone except from Jungkook and Hoseok seats on the carpet in front of the couch even though it’s empty, you guess it’s one of their habits.

«I’m gonna cut the cake» Hobi announces turning around to face the table and start his task while Jungkook makes his way through the bodies of his friends, apparently towards you. He stops in front of you, still standing still a little bit out of place.

«You wanna sit on the couch?» he points at the sofa and you end up asking yourself why you didn’t do it sooner. You sit on the cushions, eyes fixated in front of you even when he follows you and sits beside you under everyone’s gaze, his friends staring at him before gazing away.

«Here comes the cake!» Hobi is a ray of sunshine with his bright smile while he distributes the dishes to everyone and soon enough you’re closing your eyes and letting out a whine at the taste of the sponge cake.

«It’s so good» you let out with your mouth full, words almost puzzling. Jungkook bursts out laughing and you need to gulp trying not to choke.

«Ah! See?» Jimin points at Namjoon «I choose it!» he turns to you with bright eyes and a big smile reaching his eyes.

«My taste buds are thanking you» 

Yoongi enters the room with his hands full of bags and places them beside Jungkook.

«Alright, let’s begin» he sits in front of the couch. Jungkook takes a deep breath and turns to grab the first bag.

«This is from?»

«Ugh, I forgot to write it again» Hobi murmurs making everyone laugh. Jungkook opens all the gifts, every single one of them makes you know him a little more, a little better, a little deeper. From the sweater of Hoseok to the set of products for his skincare by Jimin, they all tell you something about him. It’s Jin’s turn when he suddenly gets up from the carpet and shakes his head in the jumpiest of ways.

«Wait, wait, wait!» he almost screams. When he realizes what he’s doing he try to fake a smile. «I need to talk to you»

«What?»

«I need to talk to you» he repeats.

«Now?»

«Jungkook ya! Yes, now!» Jin looks at him with eyes widened almost as if he’s trying to communicate with him but Jungkook can’t really understand what is happening, so he just wakes up and follows Jin in another room, not a second later the hyung comes back just to bring his presence for Kookie with him.

«Alright, I’m gonna take another piece of cake» Namjoon says, her girlfriend gets up from the carpet with him to do the same. Taehyung smiles at you from the ground and quickly gets up, sitting next to you. You end up talking for at least ten minutes, conversation as fluid as the water and a comfortable feeling of naturalness you haven’t been feeling for a long time. You think you’d like to hang out with them more, they make you feel good with their positivity.

Jungkook finally comes back in the room after fifteen minutes, gaze and smile that now you can identify as nervous. He sits on the couch beside you grabbing Jin’s present again, digging in the bag until he finds it. Ripping the paper off, the new set of kitchen tools lights up his eyes. Now that the presents are all discarded, Jin looks at you.

«Do you want to go home now?»

Would that be wrong or weird if your answer was no? You glance at Jungkook, his eyes already on you.

«Wait, wait!» he bursts out, now standing up and heading out of the room. Your expression is blank until he comes back, wondering what just happened. Jin seems to smile when he see his friend rushing back with a bag in his left hand.

«Come ou- out, please?» Jungkook asks. You nod still uncertain and you follow him to the balcony, he makes sure to close the door behind you so that nobody can hear you.

Silence fills the air just for a little bit, the only sound that can be heard is the night, so peaceful and quiet, the light whistle of the wind. Jungkook is again repeating to himself that he can talk without embarrassing himself or making you feel awkward, he did it until now, kinda. He clears his throat and raises his gaze, hand scratching his neck. This can’t go worst than the first times you met, after all. It’s a simple action.

«I-» he stops without even starting.

«Am I making you nervous again?»

His expression changes, eyes widening and mouth hanging agape as he starts to shake his head.

«No, I- I mean...» he trails off and you don’t know why, but you feel the need to reassure him. So you smile at him, one of those warm smiles that makes his heart stutter and wonder if he’ll ever get to see another one, if this one doesn’t kill him. He gathers all his strength to talk through the smile that wants to take over his features.

«I’ve got your dress» he lifts his hand.

«What?»

«I’ve- I’ve got your dress. This is your dress, the dress you wanted» his cheeks are burning.

«It-it’s not my dress, it’s yours»

«I-» his eyes widen at the thought of the explanation he has to give you, so many words he wants to groan.

«I saw you liked the dress and-»

«You saw I liked the dress?»

«Yes, I mean- I was in the shop when you came in.» he claims. «I saw you looking at the dress and I thought you’d like it as an apology gift? So I- I was trying to understand the size you were looking for and praying that there was on- only one or that you’d let me buy it for you.» he quickly blurts out.

«There was, but you had already found it and I- I should’ve just walk away but I didn’t and-» he stops again.

«You know the end»

He had already told you what happened but you really didn’t think it was this, with the little details it sounds totally different. The silence makes his way again and Jungkook feels like he’s about to explode for the way his cheeks are heating up, so he’s quick to place the bag in your hands.

«I- I wanted to give it to you and I took it at the rehearsals. Jin- he mistook it for a towel and- this- this is a new one don’t worry. I tried to search for it online but apparently they only sell it in his store and Jin found it today and-»

«Thank you» you cut him off, your warm smile reaching your eyes and now setting on fire his. He’s sure he’s gonna burn by the end of this.

Opening the bag and raising your hands to look at the cloth you realize that you couldn’t care less now. It’s beautiful, but it’s just a piece of cloth. It’s the action behind it that you find more beautiful, even though you would’ve never think about it this way just a few days ago. Jungkook searched for it online, and he grabbed it from you because he wanted to buy it for you. Well, maybe he should learn how to contain himself, but it doesn’t matter. He never wanted to tease you or make you feel uncomfortable, it’s just a consequence of him being around you. And that’s exactly why he acted like that.

«I’m sorry»

«We need to stop to say that» you scoff. «I don’t care anymore, not now that I know what happened»

«So- you- you’re not mad at me?» 

«Why should I be?» you frown at him «Jungkook, I’m not. Honestly, I-» you stop talking to glance at him. And the only thing you can feel is your heartbeat raising until it’s skyrocketing, you can feel it in your ears. An insolite warmth, a weird sense of happiness you never got to really feel. And something inside you is telling you to fucking let go of your armor, break it apart and take a risk for once, just one and just now. Damn, how much you would like to know what’s the taste of his lips, of him. If only you were more bold.

«Trust me, I’m not mad at you» you almost whisper, so low you’re not even sure he heard it.

Jungkook shifts his gaze from you to the dress in your hands, and before he can stop himself the words are already leaving his mouth. 

«Do- do you want to wear it?» he wants to slap his face again.

«Now?»

«You’re right, do- don’t. I mean, if you want to wear it I-»

«Jungkook, stop talking»

You look into his dark doe-eyes fighting the urge to drown in them, but it’s just a matter of understanding it, you already are breathless and desperately swimming to get to the surface.

«I don’t think it’s the right dress code for tonight and Jin is probably waiting for me»

«I- I can give you a ride if you want? I mean, you can stay more, you know that?»

«I wouldn’t like to both-»

«You don’t.» he states, eyes never leaving yours.

«Please, stay? Just a little more. Or let me take you home?» he’s almost imploring for a little bit more of your presence, but he doesn’t care anymore, not now. There’s something inside him that doesn’t want to do anything else than let you know the effect you have on him, what a strong power.

«Alright» you breath out. «I’ll stay, but tomorrow I have to wake up at six, I’ll probably have to go in a little bit»

Jungkook nods and feels the guilt sneaking in at the same time.

«Oh, I didn’t know it. You- you can go»

«Jungkook, I’ll stay for a little bit more. Don’t worry.» you lightly scoff, his worrying for you causes a weird feeling in your chest. «I’d be happy to eat another piece of cake.» you smile.

«Plus, I like being with you» 

Jungkook feels his chest warming, the thought of him making you feel good almost sends him dizzy. He knows that he can’t answer you now, he’d just say or blubber something without any sense, so he just smiles. One of those smiles that you really don’t know what they do to you, but you can feel it.

You end up talking for another five minutes before he goes in to bring a piece of cake to share and to tell Jin he doesn’t have to leave now to take you home, you didn’t tell him if he can give you a ride, but Jin usually leaves pretty late, so it’s not a problem for him.

When he comes back again he’s sure he has never seen someone as beautiful as you. The way the light of the moon lights up your features and the shadows of the night make them look even more charming, the way the light breeze makes you hair swing.

Jungkook sits beside the table and you do the same, body facing the city lights that make you feel a little more small.

«Here» he gives you a spoon. You eat the cake, air filled with light laughters from time to time and light conversation. His presence really seems to make you feel good, lightweight. Like you haven’t felt in months. The end of the time you gave yourself quickly arrives and you end up standing up and ask him for the bathroom before you go home.

The tiredness is taking over you again, but you’re not regretting staying more, not even a little bit. Placing your phone and your purse on the washbasin you start to think of how fast things can change in just the slightest amount of time. Just a couple of days ago you thought he was trying to make fun of you with his friends, and now you’re enjoying their presence and wishing the night would last just a couple of house more, so that you could go to sleep later. But it’s not possible, so you quickly grab your purse and rush back where Jin is waiting for you. You told him before you would be leaving with him, even thought the thought of Jungkook giving you a ride home was screaming to come out, you don’t want to ruin the party by bringing away the birthday boy. Saying goodbye to everyone is like a promise of seeing each other again and you end up sharing your numbers with Namjoon’s girlfriend and with Teahyung, telling each other you’d like to hang out together.

When it’s Jungkook’s turn he hands you your bag with your dress in it knowing you left it on the balcony to go to the bathroom.

«I’ll see you tomorrow?» he asks with a low tone as if it’s a secret.

Thinking about what happened today with your car, you’re not quite sure if you’ll make it to the rehearsals tomorrow, you have to work until midday and if your boss lets you, you’d like to work overtime to save more money, you already spent a bunch of them for the tow truck and you still have to fix your car. You’re just glad your mechanic is a friend of yours and will probably give you a discount.

«I’m not sure I’ll make it, I’ll probably work overtime» you grimace. Jungkook‘s features fall a little bit but he’s quick not to show you and nods. You’re about to tiptoe and leave two pecks on his cheeks like you did with everyone when his hand reaches yours and your heart do cartwheels. Your fingers intertwine for the second time tonight and you can feel your cheeks heating up with his.

Jungkook keeps telling himself to not make you feel uncomfortable, this is a bad idea, but he really doesn’t understand you feel everything but uncomfortable right now. The warmth of his body is so close to yours that you’d like to crush in his arms without any hesitation. Looking up at him, he stares at your face, marveled by the way you make him feel before quickly tilting his head. The action is so fast you don’t have time to understand what’s happening, and in a second his lips are pressed against your forehead, gente and dangerously soft that you’d die to feel them on yours.

Without even realizing it your arm wraps around his back and he feels himself stiffening at the contact, he wasn’t expecting it, and neither his cock, now throbbing in his jeans and remembering him that its better if he lets you go. So he does so, trying to smile as best as he can and ignore the reddish of his cheeks. Thanks to God no one is watching you, or he’d be dead by now.

«Good night, Jungkook. And happy birthday.»

And so you smile at him and turn around to head to the door with Jin.

What a birthday.

It’s only the next day you realize you don’t have your phone. You want to yell at yourself for adding another piece to the puzzle of your stress. You did nothing but run like crazy for the whole morning at work and you thought that at least you could relax during your lunch break but apparently, it’s not possible. You have two free hours and you don’t have any idea about what you’re going to eat for lunch, but you repeat to yourself it doesn’t matter. You’re just praying you told the right address to the cab driver and hoping that he is home. You’re going to Jungkook’s, and the thought alone makes a fluttering sensation rush through your chest, and now you’re even more nervous. You usually wouldn’t break in people’s house like this but it’s the only way, you really need your phone today considering your car is at the mechanic’s and your parents are in the same city as you. You can’t wait until tomorrow and hope he’ll bring it to the studio, this is the only way.

When you find yourself opening the car door and taking a glance to the building in front of you it’s safe to say you feel relieved. At least the address is the right one. Your steps are smooth and you make it to the entrance door without any problem, but when you search for his name on the intercoms you suddenly feel stuck in place, your heart beating faster than usual. Repeating to yourself you need your phone, you press the button and wait for him to answer. A few seconds pass by and you’re already losing hope when finally a bzz signals that the entrance door is just being open. You expected him to ask you who you were but he simply quitted so you stare at the name on the button wondering if you should press it again. Your fingers move faster than your thoughts and a second later you’re waiting for him to answer to tell it’s you, but Jungkook seems to have a different idea and again, he just re opens the entrance door. Sighing gently and giving up, you enter the apartments and get in the elevator.

The thought of being here again is making your chest warm, so warm it feels like a summer day. Last night since the moment your head touched your pillow you thought about him shamelessly, trying to understand the way he made you feel and to categorize it in some kind of way. You found no answer, you don’t even understand yourself when you’re with him. Yesterday has been one of the worst days ever but it took him nothing to make it better for you, even with his stuttering and nervousness, he was able to make you feel... mattered? Since the moment you met him for the first time Jungkook screwed up almost every time you talked, but he always found a way of making it up, maybe with a little bit of unease and already on his way to screw up one more time, but he did. And just the simple fact he cares enough to try even though he knows you so little makes you smile and worry at the same time. You’re not used to all this attention, you’re usually the one who’s always trying to hard, at his place.

The doors open and and you have to go out to let the person in front of you get in the elevator, so you end up staring at his door.

«I’m going now!» a yell comes from inside, you don’t have time to understand whose voice it is or what it’s happening that Jimin is already standing in front of you with his eyebrow raised and a smile forming on his lips.

«Hi, Y/N»

«Jimin, stop teasing me!» Jungkook screams from inside. Jimin widens his eyes and then his lips in a shocked expression as you smile at him.

«Hi, Jimin»

Just the sound of your voice and the maknae is losing it all, rushing to the door to see if his mind played a trick on him. Apparently it didn’t, since you’re staring at him with your mouth open and your breath stuck in your throat, and Jimin has pretty much the same expression.

Why are you... Oh-

«Fuck, I’m sorry» his cheeks heat up and Jimin shuts his eyes as Jungkook realizes he’s not wearing his shirt, fast enough to run to his bedroom that he could challenge the wind. His friend shakes his head.

«I should go, see you» he holds the door open for you to enter and then goes out with a warm smile. The second he shuts it you’re left in a house that now seems ten times bigger than yesterday night, maybe for the lack of people, maybe for the silence. Or maybe because you feel so little in this moment you wouldn’t be surprised if someone stepped on you.

«I’m sorry to break in your apartment like this» you speak out loud, not sure if he hears you. Jungkook bites his lips.

«I forgot my phone and-»

«Here» he shows up from the corner of the short hallway, your phone in his hand.

«Thank you» you grab it and put it in your purse.

«I charged it for you yesterday night»

«Oh, really?» he nods. You smile as another thank you and Jungkook opens his mouth to speak when a low grr fills the air and this time it’s you the one with your cheeks reddening.

«Are- are you hungry?» What a stupid question, of course you are. «I made some pasta if you want it»

«I should be back to work in an hour and a half and I’m not sure I have the time to eat, I have to wait for a cab too»

«I- I can take you? If you want?» he licks his lips. «It’d save you time and the pasta is ready»

He’s right, and your stomach is dying to be filled.

«Alright» you nod and he smiles triumphant, the way his eyes seem to smile at your words makes you wonder.

«Why are you so kind to me?»

Jungkook’s smile turns into a slight pout that makes you want to peck his lips as he raises his eyebrows.

«What do you mean?»

You struggle to find the right words. «I- You... you always try to help me or worry about me, even for little things like when we went to the cafe and you kept on asking me if I wanted to switch drinks. When things become awkward it’s because you try to make a good impression and fail, but you’re always trying.» the tone you’re using makes Jungkook grimace. He can tell you’re not used to this from the way you’re shifting your weight from foot to foot as you speak.

How can he explain it to you? How can he tell you he’s so head over heels for you he can’t even think of stop trying? Jungkook bites the petal of his lips furiously as his mind tries to find the right answer, but there is not and he lets out a strangled groan as he realizes it.

« I... I- I really like you» 

Your expression is blank, totally. His words almost seem not to touch you as he studies every part of your face for a reaction.

«You’re not used to this, ri- right?» he scratches the back of his neck.

«I’m really not» you breath out. Jungkook knits his brows together.

«Do you- you want me stop it?»

«I-» you shake your head «I don’t think so? I’m really not used to it, Jungkook. It may sound incredibly stupid but I never had someone who asked me if I wanted to switch drinks just because he wanted me to taste the best one and not to actually steal it from me.»

«Well, now you have me» his words are firm, so incredibly firm it makes you clench your jaw, and his eyes are the same.

«I- I charged your phone because I was worried you would need it today and couldn’t use it. I’m offering you a ride because I like spending time with you, I don’t want something in return other than you, your time.» his voice his calm and his shoulders seem to loose with every word he says as if he’s letting go of a heavy weight.

It’s all striking you in a second, and the hit is so hard you end up holding your breath. It’s not really the fact he likes you that makes you this stunned, it’s the fact he actually cares. Your parents never showed their affection to you without expecting you to give them something back, wether it was a high grade or a good impression on your neighbors, and when you stopped trying to always give back something their affections towards you had simply stopped, replaced by fake “honey” and other nice words just to cover the fact they didn’t really believe in you enough to show it. And with your friends and coworkers is pretty much the same, always waiting for something in return.

The sudden realization makes your eyes tingle and you vision blurry.

«I’m sorry»

Jungkoook shakes his head and gets closer, the thought that no one ever cared enough to show you how much you matter or acted just for the simple intent of doing something for you and not actually for them wrecks him apart. His mind flies back to when Seokjin told him about your parents and how they acted or spoke to you, he can clearly see the weight of every single word of them in your shiny eyes now, hurting you and making you question his good actions just because you’re used to the most selfish ones. It makes him want to bury you with attention, show you that people can do something for others too and not just to feed their egoistic side.

«Come here» it’s as low as a whisper, but you don’t hesitate a second to let his arms wrap around you, hiding your face on his shirt and soaking it with the tears that are now streaming down your face. His grip is tight and you can hear the stuttering of his heart against your ear, one of his hands gets to your hair and starts to softly, sweetly stroking at them to make you calm down just a little bit, head tilted over yours. His heart is aching seeing you like this.

«I’m sorry»

«Shh, stop saying that. We apologize too much» he holds you even tighter as you fist his shirt in your hands. Jungkook leaves a soft kiss in your hair and your heart skips a beat at the intimacy of the action. It’s only then that you realize you’re really letting someone see this side of you, the one you always try to hide because it’s to fragile to break, the one you hide even from yourself.

Slightly tilting your head upwards to lock eyes with him, Jungkook tries as best as he can to smile at you, even though his chest is has heavy as yours. His hands cup your cheeks, his thumbs caress your skin and wipe your tears away.

«Jungkook»

«Yes?»

«Please, kiss me»

His lips crush onto yours, Jungkook groans at the feeling and you instantly bring one of your hand in his locks as he tastes the salty taste left by the tears. As you lightly bite the petal of his lower lips Jungkook feels like he’s dreaming, and he prays not to wake up. His tongue slides in your mouth, wet and warm against yours, tracing and exploring each other and making you slightly tug at his locks, he moans in your mouth and brings one of his hands to your waist, bringing you closer to his body. The kiss is passionate, so damn needy, but not only in a sexual way. You need love, affection. Jungkook is more than welcome to help you with that, letting you waste all of your insecurities and frustrations on him until you feel completely dried, left with nothing but the realization of his taste on your lips, his hands against your skin, his embrace around you, him. And you need to push away to take it in, letting his forehead hover over yours and his heavy breath crush down on your face. His eyes are looking into yours and they make you feel things you now are able to categorize as humanly impossible, so dark and deep but so bright at the same time, lips still brushing against yours as you both take deep breaths. The frustration in your body is gone, your tears are dried, the only thing left is the need you feel to have him again on you, the desperate desire to taste him again. His mind prepares to the thought of a possible rejection, the idea you begged for him to kiss you just to drift your thoughts away storms his mind but he repeats to himself that whatever thing will come, this was definitely worth it. He’ll just have to face the fact that he just got only one bite of the cake. How can he even believe in it? Your lips are addicting, and he’s already craving for more.

«I could get used to this» you whisper. Jungkook never felt so relieved in all his life than now, letting out a shaky breath heavier than the others.

«Please, do it» he whines making you giggle and bring your lips on his again. This kiss is different from the other, more slow, more sweet, more intimate in a different way cause it’s just about you two. There aren’t emotions to run away from and to waste on the other, the only emotions are the ones you feel for each other. His lips move cautiously on yours as if he wants to taste every single part of you and imprint in his mind, your hand leaves his hair just to reach his neck and then his cheek, resting on his jaw. When you move away he rests his forehead again on yours and tilts down just to leave a few more sweet pecks on your lips, totally addicted to your taste. As you look at him you think this man we’ll send you out of your mind, if he didn’t already.

«Could you get used to me caring about you too?» he breathes. Your smile is bittersweet.

«It might take me a little bit» you answer. Jungkook strokes your cheek with his thumb, showing his bunny smile and making your chest a warmer and happier place.

«Then we’ll practice together, uh?»

«I’d like that»

[kabillieu]

The essay I wrote about the birth and death of my baby was just picked up by a really great journal (Fourth Genre). I wrote it a little over a year ago in a creative nonfiction class and immediately started submitting it. After a couple months, I edited it waaaaay down, like cut it in half, and continued to submit it. It got high-tiered rejections from Granta, The Rumpus, and The Georgia Review. It was rejected 11 times before it was accepted today.

It took 14 months to find a good home, and who knows how long it will take to actually be published. It will be only the second essay I’ve ever published. For me, writing essays is a very different process than writing poems. I need lots of uninterrupted time to do it. I really, really wish I could just bang out prose, but I can’t. I’m a slow writer, and I don’t have the kind of time prose-writing takes. There are other essays I’d like to write and maybe one day I’ll figure out how to get them down on paper.

But until then, I had this essay, this one essay, and I’m so grateful it got picked up by a good journal. The subject matter is so intensely personal (obviously) and painful that I couldn’t figure out whether it was actually any good, so I simply treated it as if it were and sent it to the very best journals I could think of.

I got my MA in creative nonfiction writing, but because I haven’t written or published much in this genre I’ve been insecure about whether I can. I’m just so grateful that I was able to write this essay, that I revised it so dramatically, and that I’m publishing it in a journal that anyone writing in this genre would be proud to have a piece appear in.

I wanted to take this terrible thing that happened to me and salvage something from it. I’m so grateful I could. This is the best publication news I’ve had, I think, ever—other than my book. I wish it weren’t so hard-won, but I’m thankful that writing is a tool I’ve had to help process this loss. And I’m so glad I was able to write something of interest to others in the process.

[hyungieyoongi]

Found: “Run Away to You” Part 1

Let me go.

He was, without a doubt, your hardest goodbye.

Pairing: Min Yoongi x Former Actress!Reader 

Word Count: 1.6K

Genre: Fluff + Angst 

Series Masterlist: Run Away to You 

Premise: You ran away from your acting career one year ago, disappearing from the spotlight without a trace. No one from your past life knew where to find you. On the anniversary of your disappearance, your carefully constructed reality is shattered.

// Part 2

---

Looking at the calendar on your wall, the date glared back at you, red marker encircling the number as if you could forget it.

One year. It had been one whole year since you ran away from your old life.

Happy anniversary to me, you thought bitterly.

It hadn’t been easy–no, it had been tactful, strategic. Your best friend-turned-publicist, Marianne, had programmed your social media accounts to simultaneously deactivate. The phone you used for “celebrity” contacts and business-related matters was permanently turned off, stashed away in the back of a drawer. You had already moved all your belongings to a new apartment on the other side of the city, address undisclosed to everyone except Marianne and your parents on the other side of the world. Everything had been in place for you to completely disappear.

You were instructed to lay low for at least one entire month, groceries delivered to your door under a fake name with Marianne’s credit card. You had cut your hair, once long and flowing, to your collarbone. It was often hidden under a baseball hat when you went to your favorite café for a coffee or took your elderly neighbor’s dog for walks around the park. You were completely off the radar, just as intended.

That didn’t stop the world from trying to track you down for a while. Fan blogs speculated where you could have gone, and tabloids splashed old pictures of you on their covers with speculative headlines. Your parents even had to install a state-of-the-art security system in your hometown in the States after a magazine found out where you grew up and tried to break into their backyard. But you weren’t naïve enough to go back home; that was the first place people would expect you to go. Instead, you were hidden in plain sight in Seoul, just sans the flashes of the cameras following you. Without the designer clothes or big sunglasses hiding your features, you looked just like anyone else. Undetectable.  

You had grown up in America, studying acting and Korean during your time at university with Marianne. Upon graduation, you landed a major role in a K-drama, uprooting your entire life to move to Seoul. For five years, you lived in the spotlight under the industry’s microscope. People said you were living the dream, but it started to feel more like a nightmare. It became overwhelming, suffocating.

When the show wrapped after three seasons, you knew it was time. You decided to run. You just wish you didn’t have to hurt anyone else in the process. Especially him.

You had instructed Marianne to give him a letter explaining why you had to go away, but she never heard back from him.

Let me go, Yoongi. Don’t look for me. This is for the best. I will always care about you. – Y/N

The words were emblazoned in your memory, your eyes tearing up at the thought of him reading the words you wrote to him.

Let me go.

He was, without a doubt, your hardest goodbye.  

Your cell phone rang, distracting you from the memories that plagued your thoughts today.

“Good afternoon, dearie!” Marianne chirped on the other end of the phone. “It’s a big day for you. The first half of your manuscript came back from the publisher, so get excited to do some editing!” Hiding away from the world for a year gave you a lot of time to think. For you, that meant time to write. Marianne seamlessly transitioned from being your publicist for your acting career to managing your budding career as an author, even helping you pick out a pseudonym.  

“That’s great news,” you mumbled in reply, taking a long sip of your coffee, the bitterness blooming on your tongue.

“Are you alright? You sound, I don’t know, a little off,” Marianne questioned, concern lacing her normally peppy tone.

“It’s been one year, Marianne,” you replied, knowing she’d understand.

“Oh my,” Marianne said after a beat of silence. “It completely slipped my mind. How are you holding up?”

“I’m alright just a little…weird, I guess? I’m so relieved to have my own life again. But I’m also just kind of mourning my old life today.”

“Oh babe, I’m so sorry you’re going through this. Do you want me to come over after work–we can order takeout and watch a movie? Take your mind off things?” Marianne offered.

“No, that’s okay. I think I’m just going to spend the day doing some self-care. We’re meeting tomorrow to discuss the manuscript timeline, right?”

“Yes, of course! I’ll be at the café at 11:00 a.m. Are you sure you’ll be okay today?” Marianne asked, clearly not convinced that you were telling the truth about being alright.

“I’ll call you if I need you, I promise,” you reassured her.

“Night or day, Y/N, you know I’m here.”

After you both said your goodbyes and ended the call, you started to feel restless, needing something to take your mind off the date and the competing emotions swirling in your brain. You decided fresh air and comfort food were the solution.  

Grabbing your keys off the table by the front door, you slipped on your shoes, heading for the local corner store in your neighborhood, mindlessly forgetting your hat on the hook on the wall.

---

Mask pulled over the lower half of his face to conceal his appearance, Yoongi slipped into a nearby corner store, saving himself from the prying eyes that seemed to be examining him a little too closely from across the street.

He had snuck out of the studio without security, wanting to just take a moment to breathe all to himself. He had driven around Seoul with no destination in mind, eventually stopping in a neighborhood he found with a quiet park for a walk. His thoughts betrayed him as they kept going back to you and the letter he received one year ago, now crumpled in the top righthand drawer of his desk. He didn’t need to pull it out today to remember exactly what it said.

Let me go.

Once he read those words, he had stopped reading, smashing the paper together between his fists in frustration, shoving it in the drawer. It had stayed unopened since last year.

Yoongi aimlessly wandered through the aisles of the store, his mind continuously returning to that drawer. He had worked so hard to stop thinking about it–about you–over the past year. Today was a harsh reminder that you were still on his mind. He had stopped calling a long time ago, knowing that you wouldn’t pick up or return his calls. Sometimes though, if he had a little too much to drink with the boys, he’d call your number just to hear your voice on the voicemail recording. He didn’t tell anyone about those late-night calls.

Rounding the aisle corner, he collided with someone, knocking the snacks they had bundled in their arms to the ground. They immediately knelt down, trying to collect them.

“Shit, I’m sorry. Here, let me help you,” Yoongi offered, starting to lean over.

“Oh, no that’s okay I’ve got it.” Yoongi froze, his body going rigid. That voice. Your voice. He hadn’t heard it in-person in over a year. The sweetness of it rang through his ears, reminiscent of the voicemail he knew by heart.

It was you. After all this time.

---

Standing up with your snacks back safely in your grasp, you looked at the man in front of you who seemed to be barely breathing.

You were about to ask if he was alright, but then you recognized it. The black hat–the one with two rings on the edge that he would often wear when he went out. His mask had slipped below his nose, his pale cheeks slightly squished under the pressure of the fabric. Black hair poked out from underneath the hat, falling onto his forehead and into his dark brown eyes. They were wide with shock.  

You felt the color rush from your face, hands beginning to shake because this wasn’t supposed to happen.

You were safe. Safe in your self-made bubble away from the world.

Until he found you. And it burst.

You contemplated turning around, pretending you hadn’t recognized him. Leave him again. But you knew that wasn’t an option now. You had to face the thing you were most scared of–him.

“Yoongi, I-” your voice cracked, barely above a whisper.

“Your hair,” Yoongi remarked, cutting you off, tone flat and quiet. “You cut your hair.” His eyes narrowed at you.

You swallowed the lump that had lodged itself in your throat. “Just...wanted a change, I guess.”

Hide. You wanted to hide.

“You seem to have gone through a lot of changes,” Yoongi said, bitterness seeping into his voice.

You winced at the implication of his words. You took a deep breath to try and collect yourself before replying.

“Can we...can we not do this here?”

“Fine.”

“I live around the corner. Maybe we could just...talk?” you asked, averting your eyes to the ground. When you didn’t hear a reply, you looked back up to Yoongi, who nodded at you once in agreement.

Abandoning your would-be purchases, you walked out the front door of the store, Yoongi silently following behind you. You felt his eyes burning into your back.

Just put one foot in front of the other, you thought to yourself.

As you and Yoongi silently walked to your apartment, neither of you noticed the camera pointed at the two of you, snapping the photo that would change everything.

// Part 2

---

Taglist: @loveyoongles​ @agustd-2020​ @delacyrose224​ @crispychanniee​ @sunshinejunghoseokie @jinsearthh

Want to be added to the tag list? Let me know!

Check out my other work! ❤️ 

[autobot-scout-riella]

1, 2, 7, 9 and 15 for Shatterpoint? uwu

ask me about my fics | accepting

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

It's been a WIP for eight years, so there was a lot of inspiration along the way. The core ideas - someone getting trapped in her own head in the process of protecting herself, needing someone else's help to undo it even after she was physically safe, and not being able to get someone else out with her - came out of the two years I spent at a residential boarding school (no, mine wasn't on the level of the kinds of places that make the news, but I still can't recommend the experience).

Everything else was built out of things I was interested in exploring - telepathy without the required secondary powers to make it useful, the kinds of things that might have happened during the war before Cybertron died, elements of Bayverse that I liked in theory but not in execution. Also, girl robots. Basically Shatterpoint is the super-long plotty fic that I really wanted to read and couldn't find.

As for why I went with the "write the whole damn thing and then post it one chapter at a time" approach, I wanted it to be done because I have a bad habit of not finishing WIPs if I post too early, but I also wanted the fun of watching people yell about my carefully chosen cliffhangers.

2: What scene did you first put down?

The very first scene I ever wrote for it was a very early version of the Ion Storm fight that ended up in Chapter 14. It was a lot more of a fight at the time; the posted version is pretty one-sided, because all the characters involved went through drastic changes in the edits. Riella is the only character who stayed involved all the way through the edits - I don't think the Decepticon antagonist originally had a name at all, and Red Alert's role rotated through half a dozen people.

7: Where did the title come from?

The title just popped into my head back when I was working on the cortical psychic patch scene for the first time - at the time, I didn't know where it came from, but it was so perfect for both that scene and the broader fic themes that I didn't question it. It's been Shatterpoint basically since I started working on it.

I later realized I'd stolen it from a 2003 Star Wars Expanded Universe novel. Thankfully it's pretty good, so I don't have to feel weird about the association.

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

It went through a lot of alternate versions over the years! Originally it was just three scenes in my head (the Ion Storm fight, the cortical psychic patch, and the one I just posted today). Basically everything not in those scenes has changed at least twice.

-Riella wasn't originally an Autobot spy. That got adjusted for "it's too convoluted" reasons. The specific Autobots that rescued her also changed up a few times - I went through and cut out a bunch of characters at one point because there were "too many", only to add back an equal number in the final draft.

-Project Trypticon went through a bunch of different types of mad science, with the antagonist in the chapter 28 scene not always being related to it. Shockwave really was trying to make his own custom outliers at one point, like First Aid speculates in the early chapters. I think I also bounced around Predacons and combiners, though neither of those made it out of the plot notes stage.

-The character death in the Ion Storm fight was a relatively late addition. The plot was in desperate need of some actual stakes, First Aid wasn't doing what I needed him to do, and near-death injuries weren't cutting it.

-Soundwave showed up at one point. I cut him out almost immediately, because he made the Decepticon side of the plot impossible unless I made every single character deeply unintelligent and also a terrible person. Relatedly, Prowl was originally a lot less likable (not that he really is now, but he was a real piece of work in the early drafts). Had that characterization stayed, Riella would have punched him at one point.

-That Thing That Just Happened In Chapter 28 was always planned to happen, but after I started posting the fic and saw which characters people responded to, I started bouncing around an AU in my head where it didn't happen. It was never an option for the actual fic, but somewhere there's a parallel universe where the war ended super early in a few spectacular explosions.

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

On a purely technical level, I learned a lot about writing and editing and what worked and what didn't through the process of writing it. I didn't have a beta reader (aside from a friend who very kindly read over the early Electron sections to make sure I wasn't doing anything weird), but I went to college and got an English degree right in the middle of working on it; I went through my drafts pretty regularly to apply the stuff I was learning in class and could literally watch the fic get better right in front of me. It's one reason I'm glad I was determined to finish it before posting, because it is so much better now than it was eight years ago. (Not perfect! There's a couple chapters I still want to edit chapter 20-21, looking at you. But a whole lot better.) I also figured out about halfway through the writing process that some of the themes were IMAX-level projection, which both gave me some things to chat about in therapy and some places where I needed to adjust the writing to be less me and more character.

On a less-serious note, I learned that fight scenes work a lot better if I stand up and wave a sword around for a while to get a feel for what motions the characters are making, that I ship Lancer/Greenlight/Arcee, and that no matter how hard I try to finish the fic in advance, I will be editing right up until the second I hit post.

[avengeclintasha]

Age of Ultron AU

This has been in my work in progress folder for SOOOOO long. I have about two and a half chapters written for this one, and I was just struggling to make it my own without having to stick to the plot and dialogue in the movie. I really liked the premise of this though, and I used to have a really hard time coming up with plot (I still do lol), but I didn’t want it to be like so similar to age of Ultron that you could have just watched the movie. 

Basically, the premise is just age of Ultron with Peggy in it. She goes to the future by like choosing to get frozen because I needed a way for her to still found SHIELD and get to the future, and I wasn’t very creative when I started writing this. There’s a lot of little moments between Peggy and Steve that I wrote that are super cheesy and sweet, but here’s the opening scene that I had drawn up. It’s meant to be after the opening battle scene, the day of the party at the Avengers tower. I’ll leave it under the cut for anyone who’s interested in reading it. It’s not edited or anything but it’s cute and soft, and what more could you really want?

Thanks for sending me an ask, it made my day :)

Peggy was sleeping on the couch. That's the third time this week, Steve thought. He sighed and looked at her. She was in her pajamas and her hair was down around her face. Her laptop was sitting on the table and there was a notebook lying open on her stomach. She'd fallen asleep again doing work. He was about to wake her when her phone started to play an old jazzy swing song. She immediately woke up to her alarm and looked all around for her phone. She eventually found it in the couch and shut it off. She didn't even notice Steve until he came to sit on the couch next to her.

"Peggy, that's the third time this week you've fallen asleep doing work on the couch."

"I just had to send another email to Hill and finish looking over some reports."

"I'm starting to think you like sleeping on the couch and working yourself to death."

"You're being over dramatic," she scoffed.

"I know you didn't go to sleep until after one last night, and it's five thirty right now. This isn't healthy, Peggy. You need to actually get sleep."

"I'm fine, Steve."

"You're gonna make yourself sick," he said getting up off the couch. "I'm hurt, Peggy. I feel like you don't like sleeping in our bed."

"How about I make it up to you? Take you to dinner, we can go dancing."

"I can't be bought that easily, but... I'll think about it." He smirked at her and turned into the kitchen. "We can't go tonight. We have Tony's party."

"We could always skip the party," she said getting up to follow him into the kitchen. He turned on the coffee maker and opened up some cabinets. He knew Peggy would need coffee to get through today.

"We could, but I already promised Tony we'd be there." He opened another cupboard and pulled out some plates. "How about you go get ready and I'll make breakfast?"

"I'm supposed to be making it up to you," she said coming over to where he was. He wrapped his arms around Peggy's waist and kissed her forehead.

"Now you just have a little more to make up for. Also, do you remember the last time you tried to cook me breakfast?"

"You blow up one microwave and you're branded for life," she said laughing. Steve chuckled. "You know, Natasha showed me how to use it. You don't have to worry."

"Go get ready."

"Alright, but I'm making dinner tomorrow." She grabbed a mug and poured coffee into it. "Pepper showed me this great recipe. It will blow you away."

"As long as it doesn't blow anything up," he smirked at her. He felt a kitchen towel hit his neck and heard her walking towards their room. "Love you too, Pegs."

[rosesvioletshardy]

period pains - b.h.

hi so this imagine is finally here after someone had requested it about a month ago so i’m sorry it took a while i bad writer’s block for the longest time 

i still another ben imagine to finish writing and so many other WIPs to finish but i will finish them

masterlist

warnings: talk about periods, none

# of words: 1,400

(not edited)

---

Getting the monthly visit from mother nature visit wasn’t exactly Y/N’s favorite. Cravings and emotions were all over the place and this time, they were even worse. Yeah there were some bad days and some good days, but the good days weren’t happening this time. This month her body felt like it was finally betraying her. 

Hopping out of her and Ben's bed, she went into the bathroom to try and take a shower and hopefully the hot water will ease some of the cramps she was enduring before taking some medication and resting for the rest of the day. Ben wasn’t home at the moment and was out with friends and won’t be back until later in the afternoon. When she was done with her shower, she stole one of Ben’s shirts and his sweats seeing that since they were big on her, she can enjoy the first day without wanting to have something too tight around her midsection and feel like she was suffocating. There wasn’t exactly much to do around the apartment seeing that it was already cleaned from the day before, and cramps were limiting everything she could do. 

Turning on the TV after grabbing some breakfast and taking the ibuprofen Ben had left on the kitchen counter for her as well as a glass of water.  She waited until it kicked in before she messaged Ben telling her about what was going on so he knew that she wasn’t going to be ignoring him on purpose. Not paying attention to the show that was one which was just a rerun of a terrible, cheesy, reality show on. Ben and her didn’t understand why they loved watching them so much, but it was entertaining for them and whenever Ben was home they got to make fun of everyone together rather than facetiming and doing it over the phone. 

After some time, she ended up falling asleep on the couch as ben entered their apartment with a bag full of essentials that Y/N would need for the week. He saw how badly periods could affect her, especially how she sleeps and takes naps when they happen. As he closed the door, she woke up while hearing the rustling of the bag which must’ve meant that Ben was back home. He walked over to her and began to caress her hair causing her to slowly flutter her eyes open and sees him squatting in front of her, giving a small smile

“Hey, how are you feeling?” he asked softly

“In a pissy mood. I don’t want to talk about it” Y/N groaned back as ben chuckled softly

“Well, I brought some food if you’re hungry, same with some more products. If you’re up for it, we can cuddle afterwards?” 

“I’m not really in the mood, I just want to take a nap and be alone. ” 

“Babe, you don’t mean it. You usually want to-” “Just please leave me the fuck alone!” she yelled irritated getting up and going to their room

Ben didn’t know what to do and just sat there in silence, shocked and wondered as to why she was being like that. He knew it was wrong to blame it on her hormones but usually when she was in the same situation she would want to cuddle with him and just have him wrapped around  her. As Y/N laid down on their bed and went back to the position she was sleeping in before. Ben sat on the floor a little longer before he got up and went to the kitchen and began to unpack everything that he had bought for her to make her period a little less shitty. 

Moments had passed and Ben was laying on the couch scrolling through his phone seeing that the tv couldn’t distract him any longer. He still couldn’t help but think about what Y/N told him and it’s been running through his mind for the past hour. He understood she was in a lot of pain but all he wanted to do was help and to soothe some of it away. Usually, if he were home and not filming he would be her personal heater but apparently it seems like this time she didn’t want it. She was still asleep in their room, but she wasn’t really asleep. She hasn’t been asleep for the past half hour. When it hit her as to what she said to she immediately felt guilty. He was always the best to her no matter how she felt and she felt bad that he had to deal with her yelling and getting annoyed at him for something that she could control. She didn’t know if he had left their apartment or if he had stayed but, why would he stay, she asked herself. She was being a bitch to him and she most likely hurt him in the process. Y/N really loved him and he didn’t deserve to be treated like the way she treated him a while ago.

 She got out of bed and hesitantly walked down to the living room to find him lying on his back on the couch with his eyes closed, not knowing if he was asleep or not. She took a moment to study his features. The faint freckles on his face, the curls that were starting to form as his hair grew longer, the bump along his nose, how whenever he was sleeping on his back, he always had one arm behind his head and the other on top of his stomach. Y/N stared at him for a few more moments before walking into the kitchen and finding the takeout with a bouquet of flowers next to. She picked up the flowers to smell them and noticed that there was a card in them. Y/N immediately recognized Ben’s handwriting on the car and tears began to enter her eye as to what he wrote:

“Dear Y/N,

I know this week is going to be a tough week, especially because today is one of your worst days. I’m not sure if I’m going to be home since I know you’re going to be sleeping to try and take away the cramps, so I’m writing this just in case. You complete my life and I don’t know what it’ll be without you in it. This week will pass quickly soon! I love you.”

Ben had woken up after getting the feeling of someone staring at him and hearing footsteps shuffle. He rubbed his eyes before sitting up and stretching his neck and walked into the kitchen to find Y/N’s back faced to him as she read the note he wrote to her earlier. He stood there against the wall with his arms crossed waiting for her to finish. When she finished, she turned back to the flowers to put them in a vase. Filling the vase with water, Y/N nearly dropped it when she saw Ben standing there.

“I’m sorry. For both waking you and for what happened earlier.” y/n started putting the flowers in the vase before walking over to him

“I would say it’s because of my period and how everything was hurting but that is a shitty excuse and you deserve so much better than that” she tried to finish as ben tried to interrupt her

“Y/N” ben tried to say 

“I should’ve stayed and let you cuddle me and stay with me like you always do. I was being such a bitch too and I've been like that to you. You deserved so much better and you must be mad-”

“Y/N! I still love you and it’s okay. You don’t have to feel bad.  Yes, I was a little sad when you  said that but I completely understand, you’re in pain. I’m not mad at you and i’ll never be.” he told her grabbing her hands before pulling her in

“And plus, we have some takeout that’s cold and i know you’re hungry seeing that the sink is empty so it means you haven’t eaten much. C’mon” he finished taking her to the table and taking out the food

“I love you so much.”

“I love you so much too. Now let’s get some food into you and then we can go cuddle and tell me about anything you want.”

[nerdygirl8203]

Old Money, New Feelings- Chapter 8

Warnings: angst, this is set a few months after chapter 7, drinking, sleeping around, mentions of smut

This chapter includes One More Drink by Gjan

Summary: the reader (y/n) finds out what this has been and why Ransom was being so nice to you.

Pairing: Ransom x fem!reader

(Sorry, I couldn’t add a continue reading since I’m writing this on my phone)

For months Ransom has been so sweet and kind. It’s like he looked in the mirror and saw his flaws. He is caring and shows his emotions more. Everything is great. Well, everything was great. Past tense.

I ran upstairs knowing his office is upstairs and I thought he would be excited to see me. I come into his office where I knew he would be since he’s always there when he and I aren’t together. I hear moaning. Female moaning.

“What about that girl? The one you’re always with.” The girls voice says. It’s muffled due to the door between us.

“She’s just some nice arm candy and a decent hole to fill.” Ransom’s voice rings clear even through the door. I back up stumbling a little. I hope he doesn’t hear me as I run down the stairs failing to hold in tears. I run to my car and that’s when I realized he did hear me.

I get in my car and I shut and lock my doors quickly. I try to stop crying before I drive. I don’t want to be in danger of crashing my car or hurting anyone. I see him run out in just some sweatpants. I turn on my car as he runs to my car door and starts screaming “Y/N open your door!” I look at him and I scream back “Back up. I don’t want to run you over while trying to get away but I will!” I need to get out and far away. God it hurts. I was an idiot for falling for this dick.

He doesn’t back up but I scare him by doing something he didn’t think I would. I start backing up my car and he moves away quickly. I drive off no longer caring.

I can’t go back to the stupid apartment that douche got me. I call my best friend over the car phone. I told her about this from the beginning and she even thought he changed from the playboy he was. I sob as I ask if I can stay with her till I find a new place that won’t have traces of him everywhere. She would never say no and she tells me that.

I’m at her place less than 30 minutes later. She holds me while I sob out and tell her what happened. After a week of blocking his calls and making sure my find my friend is off so he can’t find me. After one particular night of drinking my pain away she and I come up with an amazing idea to make him jealous.

In the last few months I wrote and released a song that blew up on Tiktok. I’ve written and sang a lot of songs now and Ransom hated it. He always did. My followers have skyrocketed on everything which would mean that Ransom would be watching anything I post like a hawk. He can’t have me saying anything wrong or even remotely bad about him.

We decide to have me sing One More Drink. As I sang to the music I feel the pain of everything wash over me. I end the song with me burning a cute letter he wrote to me. It’s just bullshit anyways. It all is. Every stupid word he uttered.

“I found out today that he’s a liar. Room full of him the smell of sorrow!” I still remember what it was like when he held me. I felt safe. “I don’t want to know if she’s like me. Or how much she loves the way you speak!” He had texted me trying to explain. “I found out today that you’re a liar, ah.” It brings me back to that day. “And I say I got stuck into you and I can’t believe it, oh, I’m on fire.” I’m an idiot. “Friends told me what to do. But I don’t believe it, oh, I’m on fire.”

I get into it feeling the pain and anger come over me “Ah, ah, one more drink tonight!” I repeat that with emotion three more times then follow it with a tonight. “Both said we’ll build our own empire, ah.” Lies. He lied about what he wanted. “How dare you say you didn’t try? Oh.” I keep singing

“It wasn’t like that. It just happened!” I could hear him saying it.

“I woke up at 4 stuck in a loop. I gotta confess it’s not my room.” I knew that would kill him. I hope it does. I hope he feels half of my pain. “You once said we’ll build our own empire. Ah.” I then keep singing and I end up finishing the song. I burn the letter hoping it would help me feel better.

We stop filming and I fall to the ground sobbing. My best friend edits it and post it for me. I can’t. I can’t keep thinking about him.

It’s another week till I even go out of my friends house. I just need to see life again. See things other than my pain and ransom. I go to the coffee shop but I quickly leave after seeing the cute couples who seem to be rubbing their happiness in my face.

I go to the bookstore I love. The place that makes me feel content and at peace. I stay in the back reading a horror story. I can’t help but understand why the girlfriend killed her cheating boyfriend. Though, I guess he wasn’t my boyfriend. I’m such and idiot.

I don’t even notice how late it’s gotten until one of the employees comes over to me to tell me they are closing. “I’m sorry ma’am but we are closing.” I look up at her. “Thank you. I’m so sorry for staying so late!” I get up quickly and since I already bought the book I leave immediately. I keep walking until I see a familiar car.

‘No. It can’t be him. It wouldn’t be him. Why would he even come this way. This is a crappy area in his words.’ I keep walking at my normal pace after haven slowed for a moment. I keep walking just wanting to lay down in a bed and sleep away that pain I feel deep in my chest.

“Y/N.” I hear a familiar voice say. It can’t be him. I’m going crazy. I keep my walking feeling my heart pounding. Part of me wants it to be him but it won’t be. It can’t be.

I believe that until I feel what is undeniably Ransom’s hand grabbing my wrist. I whip around and I glare at him “Hello Hugh.” I say coldly.

“Dont do that sweet heart. Please don’t do that. I understand you hating me or being pissed but don’t do that.” His face is softer than expected and his voice is sweet and calm.

“Don’t do what? I just said hello Hugh. I thought I was being polite. Isn’t Hugh your name?” I glare pissed. “I get why you’re mad but please listen to me. I just... I need to talk to you.” His eyes are red.

Maybe that’s why I said we could talk. Maybe it was his puffy eyes or how you could see how pained he is in his face. I hate what he did but I still don’t hate him. I can’t hate him no matter how much I’ve tried. “Come with me, we can go somewhere more private.” He says softly. I let him show me the way to a small cafe with no one in it, he undoubtedly rented it so no one would be here. I can’t help but hate that it makes me feel special, I want it to make my blood boil. I don’t want to feel especially loved when he does this. I want to be mad at how cocky he was to just assume I’d come with him. I walk in and he holds the door for me, I have to stop myself from saying thank you to him. I don’t want to be nice to him at all. I want him to be mad. I walk to the booth that is in the corner and I sit down. I sigh softly and when he tries to hold my hand I move it away even though I long to hold his hand.

“Listen, I didn’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you.” He says then I scoff “Bull shit! You fucked a girl when you were pretending to care about me. I should have known better. I should have known you were just messing with me to get what you wanted.” I huff. “She was just some girl from a bar I went to when you said you couldn’t come over.” “I had work! You know, the thing people do when they need money! Oh wait, no you don’t know that, everything you’ve ever wanted was handed to you on a silver platter.” I spit word venom at him angrily. “That’s not true! I worked to keep you didn’t I?” My jaw actually drops. How in gods name could he do that to me and then say he worked for it! “Bull shit! I’m just a hole that you used to wet your cock. “You know what, just fuck off. You and I would never work anyways. Maybe when you grow up like a big boy and get a real job I’ll reconsider your bull!” I scream at him and I get up off the seat quickly. I leave the cafe not looking back no matter how desperate he sounded.

[snowdice]

Big Bang (Sort of) Editing Story [Day 54]

I started writing this fic while editing my Big Bang story, but am going to continue doing it for other things now that Kill Dear is out. I will write and publish 100 words of the story every time I finish doing whatever task I’m doing. If you’d like to block these proceedings, please feel free to block the tag proofread stories. I will reblog this post with the parts of the story I do today. Edited chapters are linked; everything else I’ve done so far is under the cut.

My Master Post Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22

It’s a cleaning day and then maybe an editing day later for what I wrote last night, so we might be doing this for a while (assuming nothing gets in my way.)

Chapter 23

Logan was unsurprised that after showing Virgil the large courtyard, Patton almost immediately decided to instigate a game of tag. They were, after all, here with the goal of getting Virgil a bit active after having had him only in Logan’s room for weeks.

He was also unsurprised that Virgil seemed confused about the concept of tag, and Patton had to explain the game in detail to him.

It made him wince, but he still was unsurprised when Virgil went about inquiring after the consequences of losing the game.

He was, however, very surprised when, after getting all of the facts about tag settle, Patton was chasing after Virgil trying to tag him and suddenly the boy disappeared.

 Patton almost ran into a wall in his confusion. He stared at his hands stretched out and just a couple of inches from touching the wall for a moment, before slowly looking up.

“Virgil!” Patton exclaimed. “What?”

“What?” he asked.

“…What are you even hanging onto?”

“The wall,” Virgil replied.

Logan walked closer to the two of them and tilted his head up to look at him. Virgil had jumped up and somehow managed to find hand and foot holes on the seemingly smooth wall. He climbed about 5 meters above their heads and was peering down at them curiously.

 “Okay,” Logan said. “New rule. Virgil is not allowed to scale walls during tag.”

Virgil frowned down at him. “Why only me?”

“Because Patton and I cannot do that anyway,” Logan said. “We would not be able to actually play if you remain up there.”

Patton glanced over at him and reached over to touch Logan’s shoulder. “No tag backs,” he said. Logan glared at him. “Why don’t you come down sweetie?”

“But Logan will tag me,” he said.

“Well, honey, that’s part of the fun,” Patton reasoned. “Don’t you want to try being it?”

Virgil seemed to consider this for a long moment. “Okay,” he agreed.

 To Logan’s terror, he simply let go of the wall, falling straight down and landing crouched. He blinked at Logan. Right. With a start, Patton took off, so he’d have a head start. “No tag backs means a 10 second head start for me,” Logan reminded. Virgil nodded, and Logan reached out to poke him in the arm before immediately running off in the opposite direction as Patton.

Logan’s strategy worked out since, knowing he couldn’t go after Logan for a few seconds more, he chose to turn and go after Patton. After finding one of the statues to hide behind on the edge of the courtyard, Logan risked glancing back.

 Virgil was faster than Logan (and likely Patton) had accounted for. Patton had gotten a good head start on him, but Virgil closed it quickly. Patton shrieked as Virgil barreled into him, bringing them both to the ground.

“Virgil!” Logan heard Patton giggle. Logan figured he was more than okay despite the tackle. “This isn’t how you play tag!”

“I combined tag and tackle hugs,” Virgil declared, making Patton giggle more.

“That’s very innovative, honey,” Patton said. “Now are you going to let me up?...Virgil… I’m counting down your 10 second head start in my head, and if you don’t let me up I’m going to tag you again.”

 This did not seem to have the intended effect as Virgil did not remove himself from Patton’s person. Patton laugh when it became clear he was not going to move and began counting down “7, 6, 5, 4, you’d better let me go sweetie, or you’re going to get tagged again.” Virgil did not seem to care. “3, 2, 1.” Patton reached up and bopped him on the nose. “Tag!” he declared.

Logan was surprised when Virgil instantly jumped off Patton at that. He whipped around.

‘Oh,’ Logan thought as the boy’s eyes narrowed in on Logan immediately, ‘I see.’

 “Virgil was already halfway across the courtyard towards him before Logan could even think about running away. There was no way that he was fast enough to outrun him. Perhaps he could outthink him, he thought. His eyes scanned his environment in the seconds he had left and landed on a large square piece of stone that held flowers in the spring. It was just full of dirt now, but it was still about waist high. Perhaps if he kept that between them, he could outmaneuver him. He sprinted towards it and scrambled to the opposite side from where Virgil was heading.

 He really should not have been as surprised as he was that Virgil did not even slightly slow as he approached the planter box, instead grabbing ahold of the side of it and vaulting over it. Logan stumbled back, bracing for impact, but instead he just got a quick tap on the shoulder.

Logan blinked at him.

“I don’t know if you would be okay with tackle hugs,” he explained.

Logan considered him. “I would be okay with a nontackle hug.”

Virgil happily jumped forward to hug Logan, pressing his nose into Logan’s shoulder. Logan chuckled and patted the top of his head. “Six,” he said, “5, 4, 3…”

 Virgil bolted away suddenly, actually making Logan stumble a bit. He paused just out of reach of Logan, looking at him with anticipation. “2,1,” Logan finished with a raised eyebrow. He already knew he was being played with, but he indulged him by starting towards him. Virgil danced out of the way, eyes alight. Logan sighed. “Is this truly how it’s going to be?” he asked.

Virgil didn’t answer, but to watch him with wide, excited eyes.

“Fine,” Logan said. He dashed towards him again, only to have him continue to maneuver just out of Logan’s reach each time Logan went forward. He’d call it taunting if there was any sign of malice in it.

 They ran around the courtyard in spirts of Logan charging at him and Virgil expertly dodging. Eventually Patton came closer to them. Logan could tell that Virgil was aware of his presence, by how he glanced back at him briefly, but considering he was not ‘it,’ it seemed he chose to disregard him. However, he was not aware of the way Patton winked at Logan as he walked up behind Virgil.

Logan, on the other hand, knew exactly what was happening. He went to spring for Virgil again, and Virgil again moved to dodge, but this time Patton grabbed him around the waist, allowing Logan to actually tag him.

 He turned slowly to face Patton who started to giggle immediately at the perplexed look on his face. It cleared into something else as soon as he heard Patton laugh. “Traitor!” he claimed. “We were on the same team and you betrayed me.”

“I just thought we should probably have mercy on poor Logan,” Patton replied.

“Hmm,” Virgil said, eyes again full of that playful mischief Logan had not seen until today. “Plea for mercy not accepted.”

Patton once again half-shrieked half-laughed as he was pounced on. The two of them went rolling across the grass, Virgil clearly keeping the rolling going longer than it should have as they made it a good few meters.

 Virgil sprung off of him a few moments later.

“Oh, is it my turn?” Patton inquired with a huge smile. He slowly got to his feet. “Hmm, I’m probably at about 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!” He took off after Virgil, but Patton had a bit more endurance than Logan, so instead of doing quickly calculated lunges at Virgil as Logan had done, he just ran at him full tilt without stopping.

Virgil ran from him, though Logan was pretty sure he was intentionally slowing himself down a bit so Patton had some amount of a chance. He kept turning to check behind him and make sure Patton was still somewhat close as he ran.

Which is why he didn’t see the imminent disaster in time.

  Chapter 24

Thomas should have been paying more attention, but his mind had been on the meeting he’d just had with the castle guards about increased security in the wake of the possible threat from Mocnejsi. He’d decided to take a brief walk around the courtyard to clear his head but was still distracted with mulling over the options that had just been presented to him. He stepped into the castle courtyard and did not have time to step out of the way of the much smaller body rocketing towards him. Virgil slammed into his front, but not before Thomas got a good look at his face.

 Virgil’s expression changed dramatically in the few seconds between him registering Thomas was there and running into him. For the briefest moment, Thomas could see that he must have been having a lot of fun. He’d caught the wide smile and sparkling eyes as Virgil turned his head back from looking at Patton who was chasing him across the greenery. He’d looked very happy which made it all the more painful to see that happiness die in and a few instants. When his head had turned back towards Thomas, there was a flicker of confusion at something being in his path.

 Then, clearly everything about the situation registered, because his eyes blew wide in horror as he tried to stop himself, but there was no way he’d be able to in time. Thomas saw that fact register on his face the moment before he hit. Gone was any trace of happiness or joy in that split second. All that was left was dread that had no place anywhere near a children’s game of tag. It was the expression Thomas would expect from someone who felt ice give way under their feet in the middle of a lake they had thought was frozen solid.

 He hit hard, but he wasn’t nearly big enough to actually harm Thomas. Thomas was thrown slightly off balance but managed to stay on his feet. He reached out a hand to his shoulder automatically to steady the child. There was a moment of pseudo calm where they both absorbed the impact and stilled.

Then, the boy’s shoulder slipped out of Thomas’s grip as he went crashing to the ground in a move that made Thomas wince for the state of his knees. Thomas couldn’t quite grasp what was happening for a moment as Virgil face planted onto the ground in front of him, but when he did, Thomas couldn’t help but flinch and take a step back from him.

 Thomas had been bowed to before, of course, seeing as he was a king, but this was not out of respect or courtesy or even just tradition. This was out of terror. He was begging for mercy and it made Thomas feel sick.

“I’m sorry,” he said, meek and shaky into the ground, and there was almost something worse about the fact that he did not beg for forgiveness with his words, but only his posture. The way his breathes came far too quick and shallow said he was likely on the verge of a panic attack, but he was not blubbering through apologies or even not speaking at all. He gave a clear, if shaky, apology, and waited for whatever he thought Thomas planned to do to him. There was no way that was not learned.

 “You don’t…” Thomas stuttered. “You don’t have to do that. It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again, but he reacted in no other way. He did not even react when Patton made it to his side and knelt down next to him. Patton’s hand hovered over his back, clearly wanting to touch down, but he pulled back on that instinct.

“Virgil, honey,” he said softly. “It’s okay. No one is mad. It was an accident.”

Virgil did not react to this at all.

Thomas caught Logan’s eye as he hurried over to them himself. “Sorry,” Thomas mouthed. Logan just nodded and turned his attention to his friend.

 “There is no reason for any of that,” Logan said, his voice firm, almost clipped. “You are not in trouble. Now sit up.”

Virgil did respond to that, slowly shifting back on his knees. He kept his head down looking at the ground. “Sorry,” he said again.

“I…” Thomas said, surveying the three kids on the ground in front of him. Thomas slowly sunk to the ground to be at their level. Virgil was tracking his movements out of the corner of his eyes, his head still bowed and his shoulders tensed. “Hey,” Thomas said softly. “Were you three playing tag?”

 Virgil hesitated, eyes flickering as he debated whether he should respond or not.

“Yeah, we were,” Patton answered for him after a moment of stressful silence.

“Well that’s fun,” Thomas said. “I’m sorry for interrupting the three of you. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

Virgil glanced up at him for just a moment before looking away again. Patton apparently felt it was safe enough to touch Virgil, because he settled a hand on the boys shoulder.

“Yeah, we’ve just been having a fun day,” Patton said, carefully matching Thomas’s light tone. “We went to the garden and did some reading. Then, Mr. Deknis gave us some apples.”

 “That’s nice,” Thomas replied. “He’s been talking about the new apples he’s been growing. He’s been working on them for years and they’re just beginning to bare fruit this year. I haven’t gotten a chance to try any yet. Are they any good?”

“They’re very good,” Patton told him. His hand rubbed slowly on Virgil’s back. “Isn’t that right, Virge?”

Virgil nodded a bit, a little less tense now, but still nowhere near calm.

“Well, I’ll have to try them soon,” Thomas said with a smile. “Thank you for the information. Now, I’ve got to get back to what I’m doing, but I hope you three have a good day.”

 “I’ll see you later, Dad,” Logan said.

Thomas nodded and pushed himself to his feet. “Goodbye you three,” he said before turning away towards the door back into the castle. He paused to take a breath when the door closed behind him, cutting off the courtyard. There were a lot of thoughts to shirt through in regards to that conversation. He hated that Virgil was so obviously terrified of him. Both of their two interactions had ended with the poor thing panicking on the ground. He wished he had some idea of how to help him or at least someone to talk to about it.

Maybe he’d go visit Mr. Deknis himself and not just for the apples.

  Chapter 25

“Alright,” Patton said, pressing a kiss to Virgil’s forehead. “I’ve got to go back to my room for the night. Will you two be okay?”

“We’ll be fine,” Logan said. “It won’t be particularly different than the last two weeks.”

Patton nodded and leaned to the side to squeeze Virgil in another hug. He’d been clingy since the incident in the courtyard, and Virgil had been appreciative considering he was still pretty shaky from it. He was still surprised he’d touched the king of Prijaznia (let alone ran into him) and lived to tell the tale.

“Goodnight, Pat,” Virgil said because he was pretty sure he wouldn’t leave if Virgil didn’t.

 “Night Virge,” Patton said with a smile before standing up from where they’d been sitting on the ground. He reached over to hug Logan who was sitting on a chair. “Night Lo! Put the book down and go to bed.”

Logan looked up from his book with a frown.

“It’s almost midnight,” Patton scolded.

Logan sighed and set his book down. “Very well,” he agreed. “We will get ready for bed.”

“You better! I’m going to come and wake you up early in the morning.”

“Early in the morning for you is 9am,” Logan scoffed.

Patton stuck his tongue out at him as he walked backwards out of the door.

 Logan gave his book a mournful look once the door closed and Virgil almost giggled. “I won’t tell on you,” he said.

Logan thought about it for a few moments. “No,” he finally said. “We should probably get some sleep.”

Virgil nodded and pushed himself to his feet.

“We should probably both take a bath after sitting in the dirt today,” Logan said. “Do you want to go first or should I?”

“Don’t care,” Virgil answered.

“You can go first,” Logan offered.

Virgil felt himself smile. “You just want to finish the chapter in that book,” he accused.

“Perhaps,” Logan conceded.

 Virgil just grinned and walked over to his closet to grab one of the outfits he’d been given for pajamas. He chose a pair of baggy shorts that went past his knees and the huge soft black sweater Logan had found in the back of his closet. He headed into the bathroom, noting Logan had already picked up his book again.

Logan may have declared the both of them dirty enough for bathing a few minutes before, but Virgil was cleaner than he thought he’d ever been before coming to the castle. Logan had taught him how to use the tub and what soaps to use for what a couple of days after he’d arrived and had suggested he clean himself regularly.

 Virgil didn’t mind. The tub was enchanted to warm the water inside of it and Virgil loved it. Though, that had the negative affect of making it very difficult to leave.

He cleaned himself up quickly, so he’d have a few minutes to just sit in the water before he felt like he needed to get out and let Logan have a turn. He changed into his pajamas, pulling the crescent shaped protection charm out of his day clothes pocket and storing the warm to the touch stone in the short pocket. He used the clip Patton had made it to pin it to the cloth to make sure he wouldn’t lose it.

 Logan was engrossed in his reading by the time that Virgil exited the bathroom. He did not look up as Virgil approached.

“Your turn,” Virgil said to him.

Logan clearly just barely managed to tear his eyes away from the book. “Right,” he said. “Yes.”

“The book will be there in the morning,” Virgil reminded.

“I know,” said Logan sadly as he set the book aside.

Logan never took much time in the bath, so Virgil quickly went about getting ready for bed the rest of the way. He put his day clothes in the basket Logan had for that purpose and started to straighten out the blankets and pillows in the closet.

 He heard Logan come back into the room a few minutes later.

“Virgil,” Logan said. “What are you doing?”

Virgil looked over at him. “Getting ready for bed,” he answered, confused.

Logan frowned at him. “You don’t sleep in the closet anymore,” Logan said. “That’s only for when we were worried you might escape.”

“Oh,” Virgil said blinking over at him. “Right.” He felt a slight pulling at his chest. He liked the closet. It was warm and soft. Patton had taken a lot of care with how he’d arranged all of the pillows and blankets. It was the best place he could ever remember having to sleep in his life. Yet, he did not argue. He knew getting to sleep out in the open was supposed to be a reward and he wasn’t about to reject it.

 Virgil stood and closed the closet. He tugged on the bottom of his sweater, stretching the fabric between his hands as he watched Logan pull down the covers of his bed and settle down onto it. Cautiously he walked over towards the bed. He wasn’t sure where he should lay down exactly. He dithered for a moment before bending down to sit on the floor near the right side of Logan’s bed and then laying down.

There was shuffling on the bed above him and then Logan’s head popped over the side to squint down at him. “On the bed Virgil,” he said.

 Virgil looked up at him in shock. “But it… I’m…” He trailed off and there were a few seconds of silence.

“It is just a bed Virgil,” Logan said.

But it wasn’t ‘just’ anything. Virgil was pretty sure touching the bed of a royal family member without permission would be considered a capital offence. At least, it would in Mocnejsi. Yet, Logan was expecting him to just… crawl into it?

“Please just get up here,” Logan said. Virgil’s caution at touching something he was definitely sure he should not be allowed to be touching wared with his resolve to repay his literal life debt to Logan by doing whatever he wanted.

 Feeling honestly a bit sick to his stomach, Virgil slowly pushed himself back to his feet. Logan scooted back over to the left side of the bed, and Virgil cautiously sat down on the empty side of the bed. After a second of hesitation he slowly laid down, his head hitting a soft fluffy pillow. He jumped when Logan flopped the covers on top of both of them.

Virgil took a long moment to absorb the situation while Logan took off his glasses and reached over to turn off the light next to him. He’d never slept in a bed before, or if he had he’d been too young to remember. In the orphanage there was a lack of actual beds due to overcrowding and there had always been someone bigger and stronger that Virgil didn’t dare fight for the use of them. During training, none of the kids had a bed. Only a few of the higher ups had ones at the more permanent training sites. There were very few situations where any of the assassins, at least a Virgil’s level, would be allowed to touch a real bed.

 The light switched off, plunging them into darkness.

“Is this…?” Virgil said, eyes still pointed towards the ceiling even though his eyes had not adjusted to the darkness enough to be able to see it. “Do you want… things?”

“Things?” Logan asked.

Virgil did not move his head, but he did reach over and put his hand slightly above Logan’s knee. Logan didn’t move, so Virgil slid his hand up.

Virgil’s wrist was grabbed immediately and pulled firmly away from Logan’s inner thigh. He did not let go afterwards, his fingers squeezing hard, but not quite painfully. “Never,” Logan said, his voice harsher than it had ever been even on the day when Virgil was nothing more than an intruder with deadly intent. “Never offer anything like that to anyone ever again.”

 “I was just…”

“I know what you were doing,” Logan said, voice icy, “and it inadmissible. Never offer that again for anything. Do you understand me?”

“I... yes.”

“Promise me.”

Virgil took a short moment to think. “I promise,” he agreed.

“Good,” Logan said, releasing his hand. His voice got softer too. “Good.”

They were silent for a long time after that, though Virgil had no delusions that Logan had fallen asleep. He could almost feel the tension.

“Sorry,” Virgil finally said softly.

“It’s not something you should be apologizing for,” Logan replied. The bed moved as Logan shifted and a hand lightly touched the top of his head. “Just… never.”

 “Okay,” Virgil said. He shifted slightly after a moment until his head was in the crook of Logan’s arm. Logan brushed the hair out of his face with the hand that had been on his head.

“Goodnight Virgil,” Logan said.

“Goodnight,” Virgil responded. They were quiet after that, though Virgil was still awake for a while yet and Logan’s hand slowly stroked through his hair for a while. Eventually though, Virgil relaxed into mattress. He stuck his hand into his pocket and curled it around the charm in his pocket. The bed was nice, he thought. It was soft and warm… and safe. He finally fell asleep.

  Chapter 26

Patton did their new special knock on the door so Logan and Virgil would know it was just him and they didn’t need to hide the fact that Virgil was sleeping in the prince’s room. He didn’t wait for a response, however, and just shoved open the door. He was surprised to see that Logan was not already out of bed and wondered for a moment if he had broken his promise stayed up way too late reading like he was sometimes known to do. Yet, then, Logan spoke from the bed. “I’m awake,” he called.

Confused, Patton stepped into the room. Logan wasn’t one for lazing around in bed; usually he was out of bed the moment he woke.

 He stepped over to the bed and had to stifle a smile when he recognized the problem. Logan was awake, but Virgil was still sleeping, and he was half on top of Logan, his arms wrapped around him.

“Why don’t you just squirm out of his arms like you do me?” Patton asked, keeping his voice low.

“He isn’t like you,” Logan said. He did not bother to quiet himself at all.

“What do you mean?” Patton asked amused.

In answer, Logan started to move as though to squirm out of Virgil’s death grip on him. In response, Virgil made a pitiful mewling sound in his sleep that landed like a piercing blow straight to the heart. Logan stopped moving immediately and Virgil shifted to grip Logan tighter.

 “Aw!” Patton said.

“It’s not cute,” Logan insisted. “I’ve been stuck for hours and I have to pee.”

Patton chuckled. “Alright, alright, I’ll save you.” He rounded the bed to Virgil’s side and crawled up on it. “Virgil, honey,” he entreated softly. “I think it’s time for me to get cuddles so Lo can get up.” Patton softly touched Virgil’s shoulder and pulled at him gently. He reached forward to carefully pry Virgil’s arms off of Logan.

Virgil made a more confused than heartbreaking sound this time, turning towards Patton so Patton could wrap his arms around him. Logan managed to scoot towards the edge of the bed.

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Logan made it off the bed and dashed towards the bathroom as Virgil’s arms came around Patton and squeezed. Patton laughed and pressed a soft kiss to his forehead. After a few moments, Virgil’s eyes started to flicker a bit.

“Good morning, honey,” Patton said softly. “Did you sleep good?”

He hummed sleepily. “Beds are nice,” he said. Patton felt a slight pang at that because it implied he didn’t get to sleep in beds very much, but he chose to shove that aside.

“They are,” Patton agreed. Virgil’s eyes started to close again. “Honey,” Patton laughed. “I think it’s time to wake up now.”

 Virgil made a sleepy whining sound, squeezing Patton tighter. “Don’t you want breakfast?” Patton asked. That question managed to make Virgil open his eyes again. “I was thinking we could go down to the kitchen to eat that way it’s nice and fresh and I can introduce you to Mama real quick.” He neglected to mention the fact that they really did not have a choice. Mr. Deknis had blabbed to Mama about Virgil, and worse, had apparently mentioned that Virgil was skinny. As soon as he’d gotten home yesterday, he’d been met with an already worked up Mama firmly insisting that she meet Virgil sometime today.

 He wasn’t going to tell Virgil that though, because he thought it might scare him away from both Mama and Mr. Deknis.

Virgil thought about the prospect of breakfast for a long moment. “Fine,” he agreed. “I’ll be awake.”

“Good,” Patton said. He reached up to bop him on the nose. Virgil narrowed his eyes and then bopped him back making Patton giggle. He sat up then, and Virgil let him. “Let’s get you something to wear and do your hair,” Patton suggested. Virgil nodded and reluctantly got out of bed, just as Logan returned to the room. “We’re going to go downstairs for breakfast,” Patton told Logan. “That way Virgil can meet my mom.” He gave Logan a significant look and Logan nodded once in understanding that this was not a choice.

 Logan and Virgil got dressed, and Patton did Virgil’s hair up nice, before Patton led them out of the royal wing. They went down the main staircase instead of the spiral staircase that went right to the kitchen, mostly because it would be very busy, and Patton thought they should probably eat in the main dining room anyway. He could feel Virgil getting more anxious as they entered the busier part of the castle, and he stuck close to either Patton or Logan from the time they hit the top of the steps all the way to the main dining room.

 There were a few people in the dining room already eating breakfast when they arrived. Virgil’s curiosity seemed to temporarily overwhelm his anxiety as he looked around the large hall and at all of the people there. Patton looked around trying to see it through his eyes. He’d been running around this place since he was little, so he never really thought about how big the room was or how grandly it was decorated, but Virgil was just seeing it for the first time. Patton smiled at him as he guided him to one of the seats. There was already muffins on the table so Patton grabbed one and plopped it in front of Virgil.

 Virgil frowned down at the muffin dubiously. “You just… keep food out in the open?” he asked.

Right.

“It’s fine, Virgil,” Patton promised. “No one here would have put anything in it.”

Virgil narrowed his eyes and looked around at the other occupants of the room suspiciously.

“Honestly,” Logan said. “No one even knew we would be down here for breakfast. Nobody would just put something in random people’s food for no reason.”

Virgil gave him a look like he’d just told him people could in fact breathe under water. Virgil was really from a… whole different world, wasn’t he?

 “It’s really fine,” Patton said. “Logan and I have eaten things on the table like this a lot.”

“I’m surprised your not dead yet,” Virgil said.

Logan rolled his eyes and reached for a muffin. Virgil slapped it out of his hand and onto the floor. “Really?” Logan asked.

Virgil narrowed his eyes at him. “No eating unsecured food!”

“Virgil,” Logan groaned.

“I bet you don’t even know what common poisons taste like.”

“No,” Logan said. “I don’t because I don’t worry about being poisoned on a daily basis!”

“You should!”

People were starting to look over at them. Patton shot an awkward smile at the woman a few chairs down.

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“Just don’t eat the muffins Logan,” Patton said under his breath.

“I do not understand why-”

“Because it’s stupid as he-”

“Shush,” Patton commanded out of the corner of his mouth, “people are watching, and Virgil is just a normal castle resident.”

That shut the both of them up at least.

“No muffins for now,” Patton said. “I assume it’s okay to eat the things they bring straight from the kitchen.”

Virgil looked a bit leery of this still, but he nodded.

“Good,” Patton said, “then we’ll just wait for that to get here and then everyone will be happy, right?”

Logan opened his mouth and Patton turned to glare at him.

“Right?”

 Logan closed his mouth, though clearly, he did not want to give in so easily. They’d be doubtlessly rehashing this conversation once they were alone again.

Patton caught sight of one of the kitchen workers he knew fairly well come out of the kitchen and deliver food to a group of people who were there before them. She caught sight of them and walked over likely to ask them what they wanted for breakfast. Patton watched out of the corner of his eye as Virgil tensed, eyeing her approach suspiciously and she slowed under his glare.

This was going to be a long breakfast.

  Chapter 27

After an, honestly quite aggravating, breakfast full of Virgil’s cognitive distortions about the likelihood of being poisoned, Logan was relieved to finally be able to leave the dining area. In consideration to those serving breakfast, Patton did not lead them through the door in the back of the dining room that went directly to the kitchen, and instead took them out of the room and down the hall to a different entrance. This one had a guard stationed across from it as, despite what Virgil may believe, the castle workers did consider the possibility that someone would want to sneak into the kitchen for nefarious purposes.

 Said guard, of course, saw nothing wrong with the prince and the head chef’s son entering the side door even with the bonus stranger. In fact, he may even have known Virgil could be coming through this door if Ms. Heart had mentioned him.

Though Virgil hadn’t managed to catch it, Logan knew enough about Patton’s mother that he’d surmised that she had insisted Patton bring the boy to meet her. It was bound to happen at some point anyway, Logan knew, and he wasn’t particularly worried. After all, this was Patton’s mother. Virgil himself didn’t even seem particularly concerned.

 Logan had seen him panic and, while he tugged a bit at the sweater he was wearing, the motion was not particularly fervent, so he was likely just slightly nervous.

Of course, that may be because he did not know Patton’s mother specifically wanted to meet him and just assumed that they were starting the necessary process of introducing him to castle residents with a low risk person.

When they entered the hallway, Logan could already hear the usual noises of the kitchen: the clattering of plates, the bubble of conversation, and the sound of Ms. Heart’s voice calling out instructions.

��He did see Virgil hesitate, but Logan couldn’t sus out why and Patton was already ahead of them and opening the door into the kitchen. It was fairly calm for the kitchen considering it was meal hours. Logan imagined that Patton had chosen the time between when the day guards ate breakfast before their shifts and the night guards after their shifts on purpose. There was still a bit of chaos as dishwashers attempted to catch up during the lull and a few orders were still being made, but overall the mood seemed, to Logan at least, to be light as Ms. Heart ordered her kitchen around.

 Yet, Virgil clearly did not see the situation the same way that Logan did. He froze when the kitchen door swung open and some of the workers turned to look at them. He took a step back, bumped into Logan, startled violently, realized it was Logan, and then side stepped to hide behind him. Logan looked back at him in confusion, but Virgil said nothing, proceeding to mutely peer over Logan’s shoulder.

Patton had moved over to greet his mother as she wiped her hands off on a rag. She glanced over at Virgil and Logan and Logan saw Virgil shrink back a bit.

 Logan could see Ms. Heart’s eyes soften as she tracked his movement. She turned to the woman next to her and said something before moving to remove her apron and hang it up in its designated area. Virgil’s hands clenched in the fabric of Logan’s shirt when she turned back to him.

“It’s fine, Virgil,” Logan told him, but Virgil didn’t seem to believe him. Luckily, Patton had turned back and seemed to realize something was amiss.

He stepped back over to them. “Hey, honey,” he said. A plate clattered in the kitchen and Virgil just about ripped Logan’s shirt.

 Patton frowned sympathetically. “Too loud?”

“Virgil,” Logan said. “You are digging your fingernails into my skin.” Patton shot Logan a glare. “What?”

“How about,” Patton’s mom suggested. Virgil’s fingernails dug more into Logan’s skin. “We go to my office.”

“I think that’s a good idea, Mama,” Patton said. “Come here, Virgil.” He reached over to touch one of Virgil’s hands and had to pull a bit to get him to release Logan. “It’s back that way, away from the kitchen,” he said when he managed to twine their fingers. He stepped around Logan, probably so there was still a buffer between Virgil and the kitchen and tugged him in the correct direction.

 Ms. Heart shot a glance at Logan and Logan felt irrationally like she was trying to read his thoughts. Logan smoothed his features out and turned to follow Patton and Virgil towards her office.

As head chef, Ms. Heart had a small office where she could plan menus without the hustle and bustle of the kitchen and have meeting with people who needed to discuss dietary needs and restrictions. It was very well organized, but still looked fairly messy because of the numbers of decorations she had in it. She had a tendency to keep everything that Patton made her, thus she had his childhood drawings on the wall and little projects stacked on her desk and on the shelves. A lumpy cat statue acted as a paperweight on a stack of papers on her desk and there was a vase of fake flowers (as it could not actually hold water) sat near the window.

 By the time Logan entered the room, Patton was trying to coax Virgil into sitting down on one of the two mismatched chairs, but Virgil was having none of it. He had turned to face the door and was yanking at his sweater in nervousness.

Logan noticed that Ms. Heart did not come far into the room, instead pausing near the door. She did, however close the door to give them privacy, and that seemed to distress Virgil more.

She seemed to contemplate him for a moment. “Hello,” she said, her voice softer than Logan was used to hearing. “You must be Virgil.”

 It seemed as though he were willing himself to magically shrink, but he still replied. “Yes, ma’am,” he said quietly.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “I’m Patton’s mom.”

“I know, ma’am.”

“There’s no need to be formal, Virgil.”

He hesitated. “Okay,” he said somehow quieter.

Her eyebrows drew together in concern, and it seemed that she decided to result to her default way of making people more comfortable. “Would you kids like some candy?”

Logan saw Patton’s hand squeeze Virgil’s lightly. “That would be great, Mama.”

She nodded and walked forward towards her desk. Virgil turned so his back was never to her. If she noticed, she didn’t react. She just grabbed a small tin off one of her shelves and took the top off. “How about a peppermint candy?” she asked.

 She offered the tin out to them. Virgil stared at it like it was a venomous snake. Logan decided to act, stepping forward and taking three of the pieces of peppermint candy from the dish. He stepped over to Virgil and Patton and held out his hand, offering Virgil first choice out of all three.

He hesitated before glancing between Patton and his mother. He must have decided that Patton’s mom wouldn’t risk poisoning Patton and took one of the pieces. Patton took another one of them and popped it into his mouth. Logan ate the last piece.

“Thanks,” Virgil said to Ms. Heart before placing his piece in his mouth.

 Logan watched Virgil’s eyes light up a bit when the flavor registered. His posture didn’t completely relax, but he seemed at least a bit less like he was contemplating jumping through the window. His trust was almost worryingly easy to buy sometimes. All it took was a not poisoned peppermint.

Ms. Heart seemed pleased by his reaction. “I’m actually going to be making some new ones soon and I’m trying to get rid of these. Would you like to take another one for later?” she asked, holding out the tin.

He looked at it warily again, but he still stepped closer slowly and took another piece. “Thank you.”

 “Anytime,” Ms. Heart said, eyes looking over him intensely. “You look like you could do to with a few more sweets every so often.”

Virgil tilted his head in that way he did when he was particularly perplexed.

Patton giggled a bit. “She means your skinny.”

“Oh,” Virgil said. “Logan already gave me a malnutrition potion for that.”

“Did he now?” she asked, her eyes flickering to Logan. Logan winced. He was definitely in trouble for not bringing him directly to her. He was sure he’d hear all about it as soon as she caught him without Virgil in the room.

 She turned back to Virgil with a smile, and Logan imagined Virgil had no idea how dead Logan was. “Well, that’s a very good start, but if there was need for a nutrition potion, we should be careful to make sure you get enough calories and nutrients every day going forward.” She sat down at her desk. “Why don’t you and I talk for a bit about making sure you get some good food.”

He still looked cautious but was predictably enticed by the promise of food. He did not sit still, but he did put his hands on the back of one of the chairs and slightly lean on it. “Yes, ma’am,” he agreed.

“Okay,” she said. “Well, I’m going to have a few more specific questions, but let’s just start with what are your favorite foods?”

“I’ll eat anything,” Virgil replied immediately.

“He really likes chicken alfredo,” Patton contributed.

Virgil perked up at the name of the food. “I did like that,” he agreed.

“Alright,” Ms. Heart replied. That’s a start.

  Chapter 28

Thomas did not have to be told that something had gotten Helen Heart in a tizzy. He could tell just by the amount of food she had sent up on his dinner tray. She always made and pushed more food when she was stressed, and he couldn’t help but chuckle when he found both a hearty serving of roast beef and a mini chicken pot pie on his plate along with three vegetable side dishes and a side of macaroni and cheese.

He could also guess what had happened to illicit such a response. Thomas had caught up to Jeffers Deknis in his garden and they’d spoken at length about Logan and Patton’s new friend.

There was no way that after said discussion, Jeff had not mentioned Virgil (and more importantly his friendship with Patton) to Helen during their daily gossip sessions. There was also no way that Helen had heard the words “child” and “too small” in a sentence and hadn’t flipped. From there the inevitable sequence of events was clear: Patton went home, Helen talked his ear off until he agreed to bring Virgil to meet her, Helen met him and immediately committed herself to making sure he ate three square meals a day as well as multiple snacks.

Thomas had sussed all of that out before the kitchen worker bringing him his dinner had mentioned what had happened that day.

 That in mind, he decided to wait until after dinner should have been cleaned up before walking his own dinner leftovers down to the kitchens.

Thomas was unsurprised to see Jeff already in the kitchen. He was sat at a small table off to the side where kitchen workers usually took their breaks. The only person other than Jeff and Helen left in the kitchen was a dishwasher who was finishing up. Helen usually spent a couple of hours after dinner in her kitchen or her office organizing for the next day and in case anyone needed food on an off hour, and then there was a night cook who would take over so she could go back to her set of rooms.

 Helen took the tray of leftovers from Thomas herself and shooed the dishwasher out of the way. “I’ll handle the rest myself,” she told the girl. “You can leave.”

She nodded and started to take her apron off. Helen dumped the tray on the counter without care and turned back around to usher Thomas into one of the kitchen chairs. Thomas went willingly and she turned to fill the tea kettle with water and set it on the stove.

“It take it she met Virgil,” Thomas said to Jeff.

“She’s adopted Virgil,” Jeff replied, taking a bite out of a cookie.

 “And what of it?” she asked. “Someone obviously needs to feed the boy. Speaking of, you’re grounding your son by the way.”

Thomas took one of the cookies for himself. “Why am I grounding Logan?” he asked.

“He was worried enough about his health to make him a nutrition potion, but still did not bring him to me,” she harrumphed.

“I see,” Thomas replied.

“In Logan’s defense,” Jeff interrupted. “the boy seems rather timid. He may have worried about you scaring him off.”

Helen slapped him with a dishtowel.

“Actually,” Jeff continued. “From what I’ve gathered he didn’t have contact with anyone since the time I saw him a couple of weeks ago until now.”

 “Any adults,” Thomas corrected with a frown. “I’m pretty sure he, Patton, and Logan must have been around each other considering how close they already seem to be.” He paused, “Logan implied he wasn’t particularly… comfortable around adults.”

“I did get that impression, yes,” Helen said, pouring the hot water from the kettle into a tea pot and carrying it and some cups over to the table.

“He was incredibly jumpy,” Jeff confirmed. “I imagine he does not have good experiences with many people, but he seems to have grown attached to Logan and Patton. He defers to them in most things and seemed a bit protective.

 “Where did he come from?” Thomas asked.

“I’m not sure,” Jeff said. “I found him hiding in the garden shed a couple of weeks ago.”

“Did he sneak in?” Thomas asked.

“That’s what I would have thought,” Jeff replied, “but when I asked, he said he wasn’t trying to steal anything and that he was supposed to be in the castle. So, I’d assumed that meant he was the child of someone living in the caste.”

“But neither of us could find anyone who knew him,” Helen said. “Of course, we didn’t even know his name until now.” She seemed to decide the tea leaves had sat long enough because she started to pour them each a cup of tea.

Thomas took a sip. “Earl Grey,” he commented. “I guess I’m not sleeping much tonight.” It was her ‘planning tea.’

 “We need a plan,” she said, “but we’re going to have to be gentle.”

“At least with Virgil,” Jeff said.

Thomas laughed lightly, “and what do you plan to do with the other two?”

“I have my ways.”

Helen rolled her eyes. “You say that,” she said, “but you’re too soft. The two of them learned to run circles around you and your powers years ago.”

“We should talk to them though,” Thomas said. “Separately from Virgil.”

“We should,” Helen agreed. “I already spoke to Patton a bit yesterday, but I will again. We should see if we can ask around and find out why he’s in the castle. We don’t even know how long he’s lived here. Or who brought him here.” The look on her face told Thomas she wanted to have a talk with his guardians whoever and wherever they were.

 Helen took a drink of tea, it seemed to calm herself. “We need to make sure whatever has been happening to him is not happening in these walls,” she said.

Thomas had honestly… not thought about that. He’d assumed whatever made Virgil so skittish was in the past, but it was possible that it was ongoing. The thought made him sick.

“Perhaps you should try to talk to him, Thomas,” Helen suggested.

Thomas winced. “I am not sure that is a good idea...”

“Why not?”

“We don’t have the best track record… I don’t think me being around him would be a good idea.”

 “Oh, please, Thomas,” Helen said disbelievingly.

“No, you don’t understand,” Thomas said. “He seems disproportionately afraid of me. I think it’s a mix of me being king and how we met.”

“How did you meet?” Helen asked.

“I… gave him a bit of a fright,” Thomas admitted. “Logan and Patton weren’t in the room and I didn’t know who he was. He… ended up under the bed. Then… the second time I saw him he accidently ran into me. He freaked out again.” The memory still made Thomas feel gross. It also made him think there was a lot more to his backstory than the three of them understood.

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“Perhaps Jeff can try to talk to him then,” Helen said. “It sounds like he was calmest around you. I’ll push Patton towards taking him to the garden more often. I bet fresh air would do him some good anyway.”

Jeff nodded. “I will try to talk to him a bit more.”

“Great,” Helen said, but Thomas already knew the conversation wasn’t over. “Now we need to talk about strategic events to throw over the next few months that Patton and Logan to invite Virgil to. We’ll start slow, but we need to make sure he feels welcome in the castle.”

Thomas met Jeff’s eyes. Yeah, it was going to be a long night.

  Chapter 29

Virgil finished eating the breakfast Patton’s mom had sent for him. It had been going on a week since she’d made the menu for him. She sent up little cards with each meal and he was supposed to rate each thing she sent on a scale from 1-5. Logan would read it to him before he ate, and Virgil mark the little box on the card. Usually, he would put a 4 for everything (he had tried to do 5, but Logan had told him 5 was reserved for things like chicken alfredo). Three was for things that he was neutral on, 2 was for things he didn’t like but could tolerate, and 1 was for things he didn’t like. So far, the only 3 was the unseasoned porridge she’d sent one day.

 “Finished?” Logan asked.

“Yeah,” Virgil said.

“What would you like to do today?” Logan asked. “Patton is busy until after lunch, and then we thought you might like to go back to the garden again. It’s supposed to drop in temperature over the next few days, so it will be the last good day for it.”

“Sounds good,” Virgil said. “I don’t care what we do today though.”

“Well, there are a few options,” Logan said.

“What do you want to do?” Virgil asked.

Logan made an expression, and Virgil titled his head. “I’m don’t have anything in particular I want to do,” he said.

“You’re lying,” Virgil said immediately.

 “You would not be interested in the activity I wish to partake in,” Logan said.

Virgil squinted at him. “I’d be interested in laying on the ground and staring at the ceiling.”

Logan chuckled. “No, truly. The activity I would do if you were not present would involve reading.”

“You can read to me,” Virgil suggested.

“…In Sanskrit.”

Virgil frowned at him. “Isn’t that, like, some sort of dead language?”

“It is,” Logan said. “I taught myself to read it to read a specific book called the Pragilium Text. It’s an encoded book that leads to a magical location that I have been trying to decode for years.”

 “That’s fine,” Virgil said. “You can do that.”

“It would be in the library,” Logan said.

“Okay.”

“But…” Logan said. “It would in no way be interesting to you.”

Virgil shrugged. “Like I said. I’m content to lie on the floor for a few hours.”

Logan frowned. “I can’t make you do that.”

“You wouldn’t be making me,” Virgil said. “I want to go. Maybe you can find me an easy book I could try to read?”

“Are you certain?” he asked.

Virgil nodded, decisively.

“Very well, get dressed and I will show you the library.”

Virgil stood to do so and a few minutes later, Logan was leading him out of the royal wing.

 Both of the guards greeted him kindly, and Virgil hunched his shoulders in a bit, but said a soft “hi.”

The library didn’t end up being too far away. It was through the small dining hall and to the left where the staircase to the kitchen was to the right.

“This is not the main library,” Logan said. “It is just a smaller one. The royal librarian comes here only about once a week to organize. Some other castle residents might come in too, but it is usually mostly empty.” Virgil could tell just by listening for a few seconds that the place was likely empty (unless someone was lying in wait).

 “I’ll look and see if there is something simple for you in case you’d like to read. You can explore a bit if you’d like,” Logan said.

Virgil nodded and stalked off into the shelves to secure the area. There were many books, not that he could quite read any of the spines. The bookcases were mostly cramped into the space. There was the open area where they’d come in with a few comfy chairs and Virgil found a desk near one of the windows. It had stacks of books including one pretty large and old one. He looked at it curiously.

 Virgil heard Logan’s footsteps approach from down an aisle. “That’s the Pragilium text,” he said.

“It’s pretty,” Virgil said, looking at the design etched into the cover.

“Yes,” Logan agreed. He reached forward to touch it and opened it carefully. The print was small and didn’t look like the letters Logan had taught him so far. There was a small map on the side that Virgil could at least guess at the meaning of.

“You can read that?” Virgil asked.

“I can,” Logan said. “Very few people can though.”

“Wow, you’re really smart.”

“Thank you,” Logan said with a smile.

 “Now,” Logan continued. “I found you a book. I apologize as its subject matter is for younger children, but it has many pictures that can help give you context when you don’t know something. You don’t have to read it if you do not wish to, especially as we haven’t gotten very far in our lessons, but I thought you might like the challenge.

He handed him the book and Virgil took it with a smile. “I’ll try to read it,” he said.

“Well, you have free reign of the library. Feel free to continue to explore and to interrupt me if you need to.”

 Virgil nodded and took the book before deciding to finish his sweep of the library. It turned out that appearances were not deceiving, and the library truly was empty. Once he was certain about that, he looked around for a comfortable place to settle down and try to read the book Logan had handed him. He found a sturdy looking bookshelf near where Logan was reading at his desk. He scaled it quickly. It was a little bit dusty at the top, but it wasn’t a bad place. It was close to the ceiling and kept him hidden pretty well, but still gave him enough room to pop up onto his elbows. If he looked left, he could see Logan down bellow with his head in the book, but if he looked right, he could see the entrance to the library.

 He pulled the book in front of him and looked at the cover. It was covered in drawings of different colored flowers. One simple white flower was in the center and there were three words on the cover. He squinted at it and silently tried to sound it out based on what Logan had taught him so far. He could guess that the larger word was ‘flowers’ based on context. So, he was pretty sure it read How Flowers Grow.

He flipped open the book. Logan was right, there were many hand drawn beautiful pictures. He could pretty much understand what was happening just from them even if he couldn’t read all of the words.

 It was an interesting book even if he couldn’t read it and it was obviously made for small children. Judging by the pictures it seemed to be detailing how plants, or at least, flowers grew through some kid planting and caring for a flower over the course of some amount of time.

Virgil had, of course, known flowers grew from seeds, but it was interesting to see things about how the stem would pop out of the seed in the ground and things about the roots growing.

He more looked through the pictures than read it the first time but had flipped back to the front to try to read the words when he heard the library door open.

 Virgil perked up in awareness, but then settled when he recognized Patton’s footsteps. Virgil tilted his head to watch as he walk directly to Logan’s hideaway.

“Hi,” he said, gaining Logan’s attention.

“Hello, Patton,” Logan replied. He glanced at the window and must have seen that time had passed because he closed his book and shuffled his papers.

“The guards said you came here,” Patton said, glancing around. “Where’s Virgil?”

Instead of letting Logan answer that question, Virgil pulled himself forward, with the book in one hand and slid off the bookshelf to land lightly on his feet next to Patton.

Patton screamed before slapping a hand over his mouth.

 Logan had placed his hand over his heart. “Where on Earth did you come from?” he asked.

Virgil blinked at him and then pointed to the bookshelf he’d been on top of.

“How long were you up there?” Logan asked.

“Pretty much the whole time,” Virgil answered.

“I…” Logan said. “I didn’t even know.”

Virgil squinted at him. “You need to learn to look up.”

Patton giggled.

Virgil turned on him. “You need to learn to case the area.”

“Oh honey, your shirt is all covered in dust,” Patton said instead of responding to his very valid criticism. Virgil frowned. “Let’s get you changed and then go grab some lunch.”

“Lunch?” Virgil asked.

Patton chuckled and grabbed his hand. “Yes, sweetie, lunch. Then garden.”

“Fine,” Virgil said. “But you do need to learn to be more observant.

“Yes, yes, whatever you say,” Patton said.

Logan just rolled his eyes.

  Chapter 30

After lunch, Patton and Logan took Virgil out into the garden to walk around. They let Virgil lead them around wherever he wanted to in the garden. A bunch more flowers had died since the last time they’d been out here, and Patton felt sad despite having never felt very sad about that sort of thing before. But, Virgil seemed to really like the flower he’d found last time, so Patton thought he was probably sad on the boy’s behalf.

Of course, Patton thought, perking up, eventually it would be spring, and Virgil could get to not only see flowers but see all of the flowers grow. Patton couldn’t wait to see him amongst the garden then.

 Virgil took them wandering through the orchard for a while, but most of the trees had been stripped of their fruits. They ended up in the food garden after a bit, and Virgil finally seemed to decide on the direction instead of just ambling about.

A few seconds after Patton noticed Virgil seemingly decide on a destination, Patton noticed Mr. Deknis kneeling on the ground a few feet away. Had… had Virgil been looking for him? Patton wondered. That was adorable.

Mr. Deknis looked up as they approached and smiled at them.

“Hello, Mr. Deknis,” Patton said as they came closer.

 “Hello you three,” Mr. Deknis said. “Getting into trouble?”

“No,” Virgil said, shaking his head.

Mr. Deknis gave him a flash of a smile. “I know, I’m joking,” he said. “Especially since there isn’t much left in my gardens for certain princes to destroy with experiments.”

“Oh, okay,” Virgil said. He tilted his head. “What are you doing?”

“I’m getting the last of the acorn squash out,” Mr. Deknis replied. “It’s the last crop to get finished. Good thing too, it’s supposed to start snowing soon.”

Virgil looked down curiously at the dark green squash.

“Would you like to help me pick a couple?” Mr. Deknis asked.

 “Sure,” Virgil said, sounding interested. Mr. Deknis patted the ground beside him and Virgil knelt down to watch him.

“They’re not too difficult to harvest,” he said. “You just cut the fruit off the stem. You want to leave about a hand’s width of the stem left over which will help preserve moisture. The earlier harvests, I left in the field to cure in the sun for a couple weeks, but the frost’ll ruin them so we’ll take them inside the green house and let them sit in the sun for a bit there. We also want to keep the leaves. You’ll probably be eating those for dinner tonight since they have to be cooked up within about 24 hours after they’re picked. Patton’s mom makes a good side dish with them and she’ll be making some curry tomorrow, probably. Maybe some stew if there are some leftover.”

 “Put the squash in this wheelbarrow and the leaves into this pile, okay?” Virgil nodded and Mr. Deknis handed him the extra pair of gloves and shears he carried with him in case one set broke. “These might be a bit big on your, but they should work for now.”

Mr. Deknis looked up at Patton and Logan. “Would the two of you like to help?” he asked. “I can get some more equipment.”

“I can help out if you want, but you don’t need to stop and get more equipment just for me,” Patton said.

“The same for me,” Logan said.

“Well, if you’d like to help still, you can sort the leave. Give your mother a head start.”

 “Sure,” Patton said. He and Logan went to do that while Mr. Deknis and Virgil worked on cutting the squashes from the vine.

“What do you do during the winter?” Virgil asked curiously. “If this is your last crop.”

“Well, at the beginning, I mostly will be working on making sure things are stored correctly along with some of the kitchen staff. There’s some drying to do and some canning. After that’s done, I’ll spend some time organizing and planning. Then, before the spring comes, I’ll start preparing seedlings in the green house.”

“Seedlings?” he asked.

“I let seeds start to grow in the greenhouse that I replant once it gets warm enough.”

 “Why don’t you just plant them where they’re going?”

“I do for some,” he said, “but giving some a head start is good for them.”

Patton watched as Virgil continued to ask questions about gardening while working on harvesting the squash. Mr. Deknis continued to answer them in a calm, soft tone that Patton didn’t think he’d ever heard from the often gruff man before.

Patton wasn’t surprised when, after finishing getting most of the squash off of the vine, Mr. Deknis asked if Virgil wanted to help him with canning some pears in a couple of days. Virgil immediately looked over at Logan and Patton as though asking permission.

“Say yes if you want to Virgil,” Logan said.

 “Yes,” Virgil said as soon as he was given permission. Mr. Deknis smiled at him softly and started loading the last of the squash into the wheelbarrow. Patton offered to run the squash leaves to the kitchen while Logan and Virgil helped Mr. Deknis take the actual squash to the green house.

He dropped the leaves off to a kitchen worker since Mama was busy and headed back out to the garden. By the time he returned, Logan was already back from the green house and sitting by one of the more decorative trees near the castle.

“He’s exploring,” Logan said, nodding at the large patch of bushes.

 Patton chuckled. “I see.” He sat next to Logan. Every so often he’d hear the bushes rustle, but he couldn’t tell if it was actually Virgil or an animal.

“He’s adorable,” Patton commented, keeping an ear out.

Logan hummed.

“I’m glad we kept him.”

“He isn’t a pet, Patton.”

Patton rolled his eyes. “I know, but I’m still glad. I’m glad he’s making friends with Mr. Deknis. Once he knows how to read better, we should get him a book about gardening. He seems interested.”

Logan nodded. “Having a hobby would be good for him. Clearly he has a fascination with the garden.” He nodded to the blur of dark hair that could be seen through the bushes. It seemed Virgil had stopped his exploration and was now laying down in the bushes a few feet away.

 “I’m going to go see what he’s doing,” Patton said. “I’ll be right back.”

Logan nodded and Patton got to his feet. The bushes were part of a small maze that was filled with flowers during the spring and summer months but were mostly just green and brown bushes for now. Despite the fact that Patton had been able to see him only a few feet away, it took him a while to wind through the path to where he was. When he finally turned the last corner and he came into view, Patton gasped softly.

“Ghost kitty!” he said, making sure to make his voice as quiet as possible.

 Despite how soft he made his voice, two pairs of eyes shot over to him. The completely black kitten was perched on Virgil’s lap like she belonged there. Ghost Kitty hissed slightly, but Virgil reached forward to pet her head gently.

“This is Ghost Kitty?” Virgil asked. “I thought you said she was hard to pet.”

“She is,” Patton said. He lowered himself onto the ground from a few feet away from them. “How did you get her to come to you?”

Virgil glanced down at the cat and shrugged, scratching one of her ears. “She just came over to me and let me pet her.”

 “Wow,” Patton said softly. He looked at the cat. “Could I pet you sweetie?” he asked, holding out a hand in her direction. She hissed again.

Virgil frowned down at her. “It’s Patton,” he said as though he expected to understand his words and the exasperation in the tone he said them in.

He pet the cat’s head to soothe her and then reached over to grab Patton’s hand. He pulled and Patton carefully leaned a bit closer until his hand was within sniffing distance. Ghost Kitty sniffed his fingers contemplatively and then bumped her head against it. He barely restrained a squeal, knowing that probably wouldn’t be taken well.

 He carefully turned his hand over so he could stroke the top of her head. He gently scratched her ear, not daring to go for under her chin yet since she didn’t know him well. “Hi,” he said softly. After a moment, she started to purr softly. Virgil reached over and scratched under her chin and she purred louder. “Oh, you’re a good girl,” Patton breathed, letting a hand trail gently down her back once and then again. Patton settled himself carefully into a seating position continuing to pet her. After a few more moments of soft petting, she hesitantly stepped her front paws onto Patton’s thigh so she was sitting in both of their laps. Patton laughed softly. “Hi sweetie.” He glanced over at Virgil who had a wide smile on his face as he pet the cat. This. This was adorable. They continued to pet the cat for a very long time.

[meltingheartsandcores]

Yoooo your new fic is so cool!! How will lwj react to finding out about his daughter?

So, when I wrote the story, I had no idea, hence why I ended it there. But I was thinking on how to answer this last night, and ended up writing an entire second chapter at like one am. And then editted it through my Bio lecture (which was not my best idea but it’s just a kahoot quiz rn so not that bad of idea) but also means it’s lightly editted at best, sorry.

Oh and for Daiyu’s characters, I’ve lost the file that initially had them, but I’m like 80% sure they were 黛玉 which should be Dark Jade if I’m not wrong.

Anyways, hope you enjoy the story, I’ve put this under a read more because it’s long, lol.

Lan Wangji was not happy when Lan Xichen revealed that they did not know where Wei Wuxian was. Nie Mingjue was not happy with Lan Wangji pouting, so Lan Xichen had to stop several attempts of just telling Lan Wangji the school they had picked the kids up at yesterday and the park.

Just because they found out about Daiyu that way, does not mean Wangji has to. In Lan Xichen’s opinion at least. Truly it was up to Wei Wuxian.

So, while Nie Mingjue was cooking breakfast, Lan Xichen texts Wei Wuxian a very simple;

Wangji is here. Would you like to see him?

The question feels a little ridiculous to ask, after all they had just cleared up a major misunderstanding, the only reason Lan Xichen was aware of that they broke up, why wouldn’t Wei Wuxian want to see Lan Wangji? Then again, it has been five years. While Wei Wuxian asked after Lan Wangji’s relationship status, he gave nothing of his own. Aside from the fact that he was living with Wen Qing.

Who, to Lan Xichen’s knowledge, Wei Wuxian hadn’t been all that close to before they had broken up. And considering he was told the Wens moved away from the city barely a week after Wei Wuxian left the Jiangs, there wasn’t much time for him to get so attached to move across the country with them.

So, while waiting for Wei Wuxian to text back, Lan Xichen did his best to distract Lan Wangji. Except, Lan Wangji was not having it.

“Xiongzhang,” Oh that tone was not good. “If Wei Ying does not wish to see me, just tell me.” Lan Wangji asks, sounding serious but looking, to Lan Xichen at least, like if he did as asked he would be breaking Lan Wangji’s heart.

“I’m sure Wei Wuxian wishes to see you. The problem is, is that this is now rather fresh for him. And there are some things he’s told me that make me concerned to just, point you in his vague direction.” Lan Xichen explains since, yes, it was odd for him to be restraining Lan Wangji. In their teenage years Lan Xichen all but pushed Lan Wangji to hang out with Wei Wuxian. And sometimes he did, actually physically push Lan Wangji to hang out with Wei Wuxian.

“He disappeared five years ago without a word.” Lan Wangji states, reminding himself of that oddity before asking, “What happened?”

And the conversation Lan Xichen did not want to have. “After he left the Jiang family, he came to the house to spend the night as he hadn’t expected to be kicked out so soon. You were out with me,” Lan Wangji nods, remembering the night he very much did not want to spend out of the house, “so Uncle answered the door. He told Wei Wuxian you wanted nothing to do with him, and to never contact the Lan family again.” Lan Xichen admits, wincing when Lan Wangji’s eyes go coldly furious. “Of course, this is only what Wei Wuxian has told me, I have not had the chance to hear what Uncle has to say on this.” Lan Xichen reminds, but it didn’t matter. Lan Wangji cared about what Wei Wuxian heard, not what their Uncle meant all those years ago. It does, at this point, seem more important. Even if Uncle hadn’t said so in so many words, it did result in Wei Wuxian disappearing for five years with Lan Wangji’s daughter.

“You should speak to him.” Lan Wangji states coldly, clearing meaning for Lan Xichen to get an explanation that does not result in Lan Wangji dropping contact with all of them and moving in with Wei Wuxian.

Lan Xichen’s not entirely sure that’s not going to happen anyways, considering Daiyu.

Thankfully, Lan Xichen’s phone goes off with an alert, and he’s relieved to see Wei Wuxian texted him back, and the message also relieves, a little.

What the fuck. How the fuck did he get here. I’m not kidding, the trains don’t run overnight here, it’s literally impossible for him to be here. What the fuck. Oh, but, send him to the Starbucks. There’s literally only one in the town so. I’ll meet him there at 10

The idea of going to Starbucks makes Lan Xichen want to send Wangji to the park, but he ignores it and instead repeats the place and time, and Lan Wangji immediately gets on his phone to get a cab to the city. Lan Xichen could offer to drive Lan Wangji himself, or even their car, but he wants some time with Nie Mingjue. And he wants their car at their place tomorrow morning, which if all goes well, Lan Wangji will not be returning to the cabin.

So he lets Lan Wangji leave in a cab.

--

Lan Wangji will admit his actions the previous night were illogical. And rude. First he hung up on his brother, then he ran out on his Uncle without a word (although considering what Lan Xichen told him, he doesn’t feel bad about it anymore) and paid a lot of money to be taken to the rather remote town Wei Wuxian had decided to live in. But now that he knows where Wei Wuxian was, how close he was, he was more than eager. He had been looking for Wei Wuxian for the past five years, never with any success. He had never been sure what had caused Wei Wuxian to leave without a word before, always thought to the weeks previous for anything he’d done. Now that he knows the truth...

He wishes he never agreed to go out with Lan Xichen that night.

But he cannot change the past. All he can do is cherish and love Wei Wuxian now.

Even if that means going to Starbucks.

Lan Wangji pays the cab and walks up to the Starbucks. He can’t help the face he makes, the places are always too loud for him, and it’s a show of excess that makes him twitch. Wei Wuxian always liked them, so he always made an effort to at least tolerate the places, but he couldn’t help the cringe.

Of course, the cringe drops from his face as he hears a familiar bark of laughter, snapping his head to the side to see Wei Wuxian. Looking the same as ever. No. Not the same. Older. More lines, more age, but no less beautiful. With a bling bright smile, “What’s with Lans and Starbucks?” Wei Wuxian asks laughing.

“Wei Ying.” Lan Wangji whispers, before processing the question and answering, “You know our principles, do you not think it’s the opposite of everything we value?”

Wei Wuxian shrugs, tilting his head to the side, “I guess. Counterpoint, their Frappuccino’s are delicious.”

“Excessive amounts of sugar.” Lan Wangji counters, feeling sixteen again and like lecturing Wei Wuxian on what those drinks will do to his health.

“Hey, some sugar is good. Besides, I don’t think I ever got you to try their Matcha Frapp.” Wei Wuxian says, grabbing Lan Wangji’s arm and dragging him into the Starbucks.

“Why.”

“Why not?” There was the smile again, bright and beautiful.

And Lan Wangji couldn’t argue. This Starbucks was quieter, than the ones Wei Wuxian would drag him to years ago, Wei Wuxian orders quickly for them both, and Lan Wangji did nothing but stare.

“Aiyah, Lan Zhan, what’s with the staring?” Wei Wuxian asks after noticing while waiting for their drinks, an amused smile gracing his lips.

Lan Wangji debates his answer, he could say many things, most would probably make Wei Wuxian blush, but in the end he decides on, “Worried Wei Ying will disappear again.”

Wei Wuxian huffs a laugh, “Lan Zhan.” Wei Ying shakes his head, and then his smile drops, which makes Lan Wangji furrow his brow, “So, how much did Lan Xichen tell you?”

“He told me you were here. And what Uncle said. Which was untrue.” Lan Wangji states, not sure what else there was to say. Perhaps how Wei Wuxian chose this place?

Wei Wuxian chuckles, “Yeah, Lan Xichen made that clear yesterday.” Wei Wuxian scratches his nose three times, clearly thinking about something, considering his next actions. Normally it would predate a prank, but Lan Wangji has the distinct feeling Wei Wuxian is not going to be pulling pranks right now. “So, he just said that?” Lan Wangji nods, becoming confused. “Let’s wait for our drinks.” Wei Wuxian decides, confusing Lan Wangji further, but all he does is nod. For now, he’s fine with Wei Wuxian setting the pace.

When they get their drinks and sit down, Lan Wangji eyes his green frapp with contention, only taking a sip when prompted by Wei Wuxian. It wasn’t, terrible. He still didn’t like it. But it was better than the other frapps Wei Wuxian has had him try over the years.

He still didn’t drink more beyond that sip.

Wei Wuxian sighs and sips at his drink a little, before setting it aside, “Well, I suppose I can’t do this the same way I did it with Lan Xichen and Dage.” Lan Wangji furrows his brow slightly, becoming confused once more. “Not unless you’re willing to wait five hours.” Lan Wangji shakes his head, he was not in the mood to be waiting today. Not for long. He’s finally seeing Wei Wuxian again. Wei Wuxian nods, “Didn’t think so. Uh, so. How to say this...”

“You say what you are thinking.” Lan Wangji states, almost on reflex, having said it to Wei Wuxian so many times when they were together, when Wei Wuxian was having trouble putting words to his thoughts.

“I’m thinking how to tell you I was pregnant without breaking your brain.” Wei Wuxian retorts, clearly on reflex, as he always would when Lan Wangji would make that remark. Normally it allowed for Lan Wangji to assist in phrasing, as while Wei Wuxian was better at conversational talking than Lan Wangji, he also typically just trailed off and made half sentences he expected the people around him to understand. While Lan Wangji would consider his words until he knew exactly what he was going to say. Making it easier sometimes, for Lan Wangji to assist.

This time however.

Lan Wangji blinks.

Once.

Pregnant.

Twice.

Pregnant

Thrice.

‘Wei Ying was pregnant when he left.’

Four times.

“And I broke you, shit.” Lan Wangji was not truly paying attention to Wei Wuxian, he should be. Now more than ever. But he can’t.

‘Wei Ying and I had a child.’

‘Wei Ying and I have a child’

No. Maybe not. Wei Wuxian could've- “Did you keep it?” Legally, Wei Wuxian wouldn't have been able to abort without Lan Wangji's permission. But then, legality has never been a concern to Wei Wuxian for all Lan Wangji has known him.

Wei Wuxian blinks, clearly caught off guard by the question. “Uh, yeah. Her name is Daiyu, she’s four. Turning five. In a couple of months actually.”

“Daiyu.” Lan Wangji repeats, nodding, it’s a nice name. She’s four. “May I meet her?” Did Wei Wuxian want him in her life? Did he want Lan Wangji in his? Maybe he met someone else? Maybe what Uncle said stuck with him hard enough that he doesn’t want anything to do with Lan Wangji anymore.

“Well. She’s at school. Well, not school. Qing-jie said she could start next year if she really wants to, but four is too young.” Wei Wuxian shrugs, “I didn’t start school til I was nine so, I don’t really have an opinion. Or, I don’t get one.” That felt wrong. But Lan Wangji has not being helping Wei Wuxian, so, he also does not get an opinion. He thinks. “But there are these activities that go on at the school. From eight to eleven, and then from twelve to three. Technically she’s too young for those too, but the organizer is scared of Qing-jie, so, she’s allowed.” Wei Wuxian nods, “Our daughter is terrifyingly smart Lan Zhan. She might take over the world.”

“She will deserve it.”

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian exclaims, “You cannot endorse your daughter taking over the world.”

“If she can do it, why shouldn’t she?”

Wei Wuxian’s mouth moves, clearly intent on saying something but nothing comes out but a bark of laughter, “Holy shit. Wen Qing is never going to believe me being the sane parent. What the fuck.”

Ah, too much? He does have four years to make up for. Besides, why shouldn’t he support their daughters business ventures? Or would this be politics? Ah, it would be politics. In that case, “Not until she is at least fourteen.”

“...You’re so going to be the soft parent.” Was Wei Wuxian’s only comment. Then he checks his phone and stands up, “We should start walking over to the school. You can meet Daiyu, and we’ll see if she took our conversation last night to heart.”

Lan Wangji furrows his brow slightly at that, standing as well. Did, Did Daiyu not have a high opinion of him? No, of course she wouldn’t. No matter what Wei Wuxian said, he has been absent. Wei Wuxian chucks both their drinks, which seems like a horrible waste but Lan Wangji was not about to suggest he actually finish that drink, so he follows Wei Wuxian out without comment.

“Does she not like me?” Lan Wangji asks as Wei Wuxian leads them to the school.

Wei Wuxian hums, “It’s not that. It’s just, ok, for the past five years, it’s been the general belief that you essentially had your Uncle break up with me for you in like, the shittiest way. So, in general the Wens aren’t the Lans biggest fans. After Lan Xichen explained what actually happened, the adults are all coming around. Daiyu seemed to be also, but it might still take a while. I mean, yesterday she thought you wanted nothing to do with her.”

“Incorrect.” Lan Wangji would never not want anything to do with his child. He only wishes he had known about her sooner.

Wei Wuxian snorts, “Yeah, explained it to her last night. We shall see if she remains unconvinced.”

He hopes not. He would like to meet her. He would like to help raise her. He should move out here. “If Daiyu is amicable, how do you feel about me moving out here?” He should ask. It might be overstepping. They did break up five years ago, technically.

Wei Wuxian blinks, clearly surprised, “Ah, to spend time with Daiyu? I don’t know how your uncle would feel if you moved out here, maybe you could use the Nie’s cabin every few weeks, for visitation? That way you could still work, and meet people.”

Why would Lan Wangji want to meet people? He hates people. Wait. Lan Wangji considers the words, coming to the conclusion that it was a euphemism. But for- Oh. Ew. “No people. Only Wei Ying.”

Now Wei Wuxian was surprised and confused, and he chuckles awkwardly, “Lan Zhan, it’s been five years.”

“It’s only ever been Wei Ying.” Lan Wangji affirms, then, softer, “If Wei Ying no longer wishes for a relationship...” it would hurt, but he would get over it.

(He would not. He would spend his decades with the bunnies Wei Wuxian got him writing sappy love songs. As he’s been doing for five years. Although, in those decades, he might actually relent to Nie Huaisang’s plans of recording and selling those songs.)

Thankfully Wei Ying shakes his head, “Ah no! That’s not-” Wei Ying nods, and steals Lan Wangji’s wording, “Only Lan Zhan.”

It makes Lan Zhan smile softly, entirely entranced by Wei Wuxian, entirely in love with the man in front of him.

When they arrive at the school, there are children running about the front area on the grass. “Oh, they must’ve let out early. We still have ten minutes.” Wei Wuxian comments idly. Lan Wangji was curious as to what he planned for them to do for ten minutes, but that was moot now. Instead, Wei Wuxian was scanning the yard, presumably for Wei Daiyu. Eventually he seems to find her since he makes several ‘come over’ motions.

Soon enough a small child barrels into Wei Wuxian’s legs. “Oof. Nice to see you again too.” Wei Wuxian jokes, smiling down at their daughter.

Daiyu doesn’t look at Wei Wuxian, instead, still clinging to Wei Wuxian’s leg, she turns her head slightly to look at Lan Wangji. Lan Wangji’s breath catches in his throat, she had Wei Wuxian’s nose and chin. He crouches down to be on her level. “I am Lan Wangji, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Wei Daiyu.”

Wei Wuxian snorts, “You don’t need to be formal with your own daughter Lan Zhan. A-Yu,” Wei Wuxian puts a hand on Daiyu’s back, making the young girl look up at him, “this is your A-Die.”

Daiyu returns her gaze to Lan Wangji, “Why are you here now?”

“I was told where you were.” Lan Wangji states truthfully.

“How come you didn’t look for us?” Daiyu demands.

“I did.” Lan Wangji admits, making Wei Wuxian stop, blinking in shock, “But your A-Niang is very good at disappearing.”

Daiyu seemed to consider before nodding, accepting that answer, “Are you staying?”

“If you’ll let me. If you want me here, I will be here for you, for the rest of my life.” Lan Wangji promises.

Lan Wangji worries, for a moment, that they were the wrong words as tears well up in Daiyu’s eyes, but then she was in his arms, burying her face in his shirt, soaking it with tears and snot- not that Lan Wangji minded- telling him he was never allowed to leave. Lan Wangji wraps his arms around his daughter, holding her close with a soft smile on his face.

So, they were the right words.

Lan Wangji smiles up at Wei Wuxian, who seemed utterly relieved and happy, just smiling softly at the pair, Lan Wangji knows he still irrevocably in love with Wei Wuxian, and seeing him like this makes him confident that Wei Wuxian still loves him. With that, Lan Wangji knows with absolution, that he's moving out here.

Whether he tells anyone is still up for debate.

[mira--mira]

Question from an aspiring writer:

How do you stay motivated on one project for such a long time?

I personally have the attention span of a goldfish, and whenever I have an idea I either have to write down everything my brain can spew immediately or have it be lost in the void for eternity.

Never mind going back and turning my outline into a fic or gasp editing.

Do you have any tips and/or tricks you use?

Ok, I got completely carried away with this just fyi, but hopefully I ended up answering your actual question 😂 tl;dr at the bottom.

To be honest, staying motivated is a tricky thing, one that I feel I'm still learning how to do even now and varies a bit between shortfics/oneshots and multi-chaptered fics/longfics. For a bit of background, I've been writing fanfic for about a year and a half, but I've been writing original fiction since I was seven, over a decade and a half, and I still wrestle with it. It's definitely a learning process.

One thing I wish someone would have told me when I was starting out was the power of ~scenes~ in either multi-chapters or one-shots. All writing is ultimately made up of scenes, but if you're struggling to put things together, focusing on an individual scene, or multiple short scenes, might help you focus on getting something completed, and it's something that eventually can be applied to longer works as well. Writing has been a snowball process for me and once I started getting anything completed, I felt more secure in knowing what I could write comfortably and what was out of my comfort zone, eventually getting to the point where I felt comfortable tackling bigger and longer projects and knowing I could stay with them.

OoT's interlude chapters and the snippet series are both good examples of scenes because I wrote them with that intention...even if most of them are actually two or three scenes combined. "Gai meets Hashirama and Madara", "Hashirama gets revenge on Kakashi", "Tatsuki and Hashirama pick flowers for Madara, then give them to him" etc. were all my starting points.

If you're first starting out and feel comfortable with outlines of some sort before you start writing I would encourage you to try and write down a bullet point list of your scene(s) and what you know you want to happen in it.

"Gai meets Hashirama and Madara"

* Hashirama meets Gai first, mistakes him for Lee.

* Madara is shopping for a gift for Hashirama

* Madara finds Gai and Hashirama, they spar, Gai kicks his ass, both of them love him.

This is how my initial outline looked for the first interlude chapter, technically each one of these "points" are their own scenes stuck together. Outlining is different for everyone, some people like super specific points, others even less detail than this. For me this is a nice middle that gives me a roadmap for the chapter, but allows plenty of room to naturally diverge and add detail. Play around with outlines and see what you're comfortable with/what gives you the best results.

I'm not sure of your individual situation, but if you're struggling to put together fics in general something like this might help. Doing this process again and again personally helps me stay on track and gives me a sense of progress.

This sense of progress is ultimately key and why I think motivation differs slightly between one-shots/short fics and longfics. If you confine the individual scene to a one-shot, that might give you the motivation to complete it. Even if you start writing and you get interrupted/can't finish having in one setting, bullet points sometimes help inspire me to finish because I'm not starting from scratch when I return to writing. The whole "eat an elephant one piece at a time" thing was difficult for me to learn, but ultimately proved true. Learning to chip away at something bit by bit is going to be the only (healthy) way to write longer projects you can't complete in one sitting.

For longer projects, it's a similar beast just on bigger levels and with an added dimension. I would actually suggest something similar to OoT for a starting project because it is ultimately broken up into arcs that you know and can reference, instead of making a lot of og content for a fan setting. Maybe not go into it thinking, 'I'll do a complete rewrite' but once you feel like you're ready for a longer project 30K+ or so, the rough outline method and the ability to follow arcs was what got me started when I eventually decided to make the fic multi-chaptered. Try writing one arc and keep yourself contained in that. Now the added dimension aspect in general for longfics is that you eventually want to plot individual chapters in a multi-chaptered longfic and individual arcs (character, plot, etc). This comes with practice. I honestly don't think there's a way to get around that. It's something that I'm still trying to work on and I can look back at my early work and see how I've improved, how I can recognize where things didn't go well in certain places, and how I would change them if I was writing today. That's a good thing to be able to do, it means you've grown! The other thing I find that helps with staying motivated week after week for longer projects is to roughly know where you're going and to try to be excited about a plot point/scene/chapter/etc that you're going to write. Really try to hype yourself up. For me, it's a moment that comes at the very end of the chunin arc and I start grinning even thinking about it because I know it's going to be awesome. It's always what gets me through the rough days, imagining the moment I'll get to actually write that scene in its entirety (it's definitely already outlined and I mentally play it out at least twice a week lol) and is a big motivating drive.

So far I think this is pretty standard stuff if you're an outliner and you've been writing for a few years, but the other thing motivational-wise for me is having a schedule. From reading this message alone, I would not suggest it for you right away. Get comfortable finishing small things and feeling confident that if you let an idea sit for a week or two, you can pick it back up and continue. But if you eventually dip your toes into longfics (and don't plan to pre-write everything before you publish) that routine and rhythm really helps keep me going. I've made a commitment, I've posted it online, I'm going to stick to it. No one is going to jump down my throat if I fail to keep it (this is still a hobby and having fun is the most important thing) but in my mind I should commit to it unless something irl prevents me from doing so. Don't put a tight deadline on yourself, I'd start with once a month or if you write shorter chapters every three weeks. This also would help you build up and get a readership, interaction being another big motivational key.

Also, it's important to accept that sometimes you bite off more than you can chew, and when you feel completely demotivated from a fanfic project...it's okay to drop it. It's okay to take a step back and work on something else. Maybe you'll come back to it, maybe you won't. If you can, try to pinpoint what it was about that project that made you demotivated, were you pushing yourself too much and you got burnt out, was it an ongoing series and your interest for canon lagged and so did the fic, was it just too stressful to keep juggling plotpoints, etc. and keep that in mind moving forward. Every experience can be a learning one and eventually make you a better writer that can eventually tackle those bigger projects. Don't be afraid to take on big aspirational projects, but don't walk into them blind either. Above all, and this is repeated a lot because it's true, enjoy what you write. Some days you might not. That's true with anything, but any project you take on the good should outweigh the bad.

This is my wrap up of the motivational section but I also wanted to throw my two-cents in about editing because "oh no editing" is a perspective I've seen from a lot of writers, and used to have myself, but I think is going to stifle your progress in the long run.

Here's the thing: you need to look forward to editing.

You don't have to be jumping for joy, but editing, imo, should be a positive thing. You have all these great ideas, you made it into a fic, something you wrote, and now you get to go back and make it even better! This is a tough attitude to adopt. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. It took me a long time to unlearn the negative attitude and even then sometimes I still wish the editing was already done once I type in the last period. But I've learned to at least appreciate what editing does and I try to think to myself as I'm going through and making changes things like "wow, this suddenly became so much better. X plot point that I thought of ten pages from now is suddenly being hinted at and doesn't come out of left field. The transition points are a lot cleaner, it's not so jarring anymore. I bet the readers are going to love this little detail. Here's some foreshadowing that I hope someone picks up bc it's going to come back in like 5 chapters from now" it's hard, especially when you start, but this is something you made, and now are actively making better and that's something to celebrate.

I hope this helps anon! I know it's a lot and I'm by no means an expert but I've been doing this for more than a decade because I love it and I want to help others get into writing to! I have no problem answering any writing questions you may have if you find this helpful!

tl;dr

-motivation is slightly different between short/long fics.

-starting out, learn to outline by scenes and focus on finishing small projects and getting to a point where you feel like you can put something down and come back and pick it up again in a week. Completion is key and will help you feel satisfied/know your limits.

-long projects also can work on the scene-to-scene outline but now with individual chapters and individual arcs. It's tough to balance both but comes with practice. Bit-by-bit is key, as is having 'one moment you can't wait to write', possibly a schedule if it works for you, and reader feedback are all huge long-term motivational points.

-editing is tough but learn to look forward to it instead of dreading it.

edited: added a bit more/few typos fixed

[yuusa]

𝐌𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝟒

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 𝟐𝟖𝟕𝟐

𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐥

𝐌𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝟒:

Yuki tapped on the chalkboard as most of the classroom swooned over his appearance. You stood by his side since you were the vice representative of the class, only a few points behind Yuki. You wanted to yawn as he asked the classroom for suggestions. Tohru waved at you from across the classroom when you both made eye contact, you gave her a small smile to acknowledge her wave.

The other girls in the class were insistent on creating some sort of maid-butler service cafe, to which Yuki had to write down on the board despite his protests. Tohru raised her hand to suggest selling onigiris, causing some of the girls to openly mock her. Your eyebrow twitched and before Yuki could say anything, you crossed your arms across your chest.

“Quit your god damn yapping.” You snarled at them, causing all of them to flinch at your cold voice, “unless you have something other than a Sohma advertisement, you’re better off keeping your mouth shut.”

“S-She has spoken!” While Yuki has his fair of fangirls in the school, you were yet again a close second with the boys. You sighed as Yuki only sweatdropped at the number of boys commenting about you. You almost forgot you even had any sort of followers considering how unlikable you thought you were.

Although you were unsure of how you felt about the behavior of them, you found that they were much more tolerable than the other girls who swooned over Yuki. If you asked the boys what they liked about you, they might just rant about your academic achievements and appearance. But, admiration stops here. Many of them choose to respect your own privacy and dare not to overstep their boundaries, it was a simple crush and nothing more. However, you had to say that you were glad that the boys had more dignity than the fan girls. 

“Selling onigiris would be good, it’s easy to make a variety and eat.” You turned to Yuki, slightly motioning to confirm Tohru’s ideas.

“An Onigiri Battle Royale!” Kyo shouted. “Winner will get the onigiri after a bloody battle.”

“No one will be conducting violence here.” You easily shut him down, causing him to sulk in his chair.

One of your female classmates stood up from her chair, “since we are going with the onigiri idea,” You could even hear the girl’s distaste in her voice, “we’re going to need an advertisement obviously!”

“An advertisement. . . ?” You mumbled, you assumed she is going to beg Yuki into doing something uncomfortable. You wanted to openly frown at her next suggestion but you remained straight-faced. 

“We want Yuki to dress up with this dress we recently bought!”

I knew it! You thought, sweating bullets as you turned to Yuki who was already growing pale. You started to feel extremely bad having the boy next you being forced into gender-opposite clothes. 

“Then, (L/n)-san should wear an apron too!”

“No! She should wear a princely outfit! Look at her cold stare within those (e/c) eyes! So fitting!” Someone argued.

“What if she is also a princess?! Two princesses!” 

“Since they’re both representing our class, they should wear something matching!” The blond-haired student called out. You believe her name was Uotani, she seemed to be quite close to Tohru as they hung out together a lot during school.

“Yuki-kun is already going to wear our dress! We aren’t buying (L/n)-san her own!”

“We’ll pay for it!” The boys whipped out their own wallets and presented it into the air. 

“Everyone vote for (L/n)-san’s outfit then!” Uotani announced. 

Your eyebrows twitched again in annoyance but you sighed. This was possibly the best way to get the most people at your classroom for the festival. You turned to Yuki who was still pale from thinking about the horror which will arrive. 

You mouthed to him if he was okay, to which he responded with a nod and a smile to you. You both would have to suffer for the success of the festival then. You wanted to groan as your classmates bickered.

In the end, it seems as if the boys in the class voted for a princely outfit for you. You covered your face with your hands as you tried to catch your breath at this strange class. You wouldn’t even be able to know what outfit you would be wearing until the day of the festival. How embarrassing. 

“Can we set some guidelines first of all?” You asked, many of the boys nodding as you took the chalk from Yuki’s hands with your bandaged fingers.

“Please nothing revealing and it has to follow the school dress code still. Keep the capes at a decent length, it would be a hazard having other students and myself trip over it.” You quickly wrote on the board your specifications, “I will also specify that I do not like the color red.”

“Furthermore,” you continued to write, “for Sohma-san’s sake, ask permission to take photos of him. Do not harass him during his breaks or force him into certain actions.”

“Question!” A male student raised his hand high into the air, “if the students pay for five onigiris, can we make special requests for photos?!”

They were asking for a lot this year, you sweatdropped, “as long as it’s nothing inappropriate I guess that should be fine. . .” You turned to Yuki for his approval, while he isn’t keen on being used for advertisement, he was still on the same boat as you: you both wanted your classroom festival to succeed.

“Then, five onigiris for a special request picture.” He smiled while the girls continued to squeal in joy.

You sighed before taking out your journal to document this classroom conversation.

“Oh! (L/n)-san, can you get this table’s orders?” Your coworker called out, holding out a tray and a notebook. “It’s a table for two!” 

You scanned the notebook, seeing that they wanted a variety of drinks and food. One of which was a couples parfait. 

“Yes, right away.” You began to sift through the matcha powder into the warm water and continued to stir with your wooden whisk. 

You begin to notice the ever-growing presence of Yuki in your life, even remembering the way you made tea for him that day. You wondered how easy it was for him to simply slip his way into your life. It must have been a very fateful day. You thought back to your first encounter with him, was it really fate which brought you two together? It seemed so unlikely that the Gods would ever want anything to be within your favor.

As you decorated the parfait with various toppings your coworker, whom you often referred to as Shimada-san, came over to say that she needed you to serve table number 4. You nodded before placing all the cups and food onto the tray before making your way to the table.

You approached the table and gave them a closed smile, “thank you for waiting, here is your order.”

“Oh? So the class rep works here? Cute apron you’re wearing.” You flinched as you snapped your eyes open.

Uotani stared at you with her still wearing the school uniform with Hanajima at the other side of the table. Crap! When did they get here?! You could feel yourself getting nervous as you tried to keep a smile on your face.

“U-Uotani-san, Hanajima-san, it’s nice to see you outside of school.” You nervously responded. “What brings you out here?”

“We heard there was a special edition couples parfait that we had to try.” Hanajima immediately dug into the ice cream with her spoon and started to eat away at it. “It’s very delicious, it has the perfect amount of chocolate to strawberry ratio, and it’s even better with the number of toppings.”

“I’m surprised you even work class rep, most of the students who work usually don’t have a lot of duties for school.” Uotani leaned her head against her propped up hand.

“Is that so? I live alone so I have to work to pay off the rent.” You noticed the way Uotani’s eyes seemingly softened at your reason. You wondered if she too understood the struggle of housing.

“Oh, I see. I also work at a convenience store pretty close by here. Why don’t you sit here and talk with us?”

“A-Ah,” You checked behind the counter to see if Shimada-san was okay with it and it doesn’t seem like there were a lot of customers, “I guess I can stay for a little.”

Hanajima pulled up another chair and you thanked her before sitting down. You neatly folded your skirt to keep a modest appearance. From the corner of your eye, you can see her grin widen even more.

“How long have you been working here for, class rep?” Uotani began to eat the parfait, noting that the strawberries were especially sweet today. “Did you burn yourself or something while working the other day?” She pointed at your hands. 

“A-Ah, yes I did.” You gave her a half-lie, “you can just call me (L/n)-san. I’ve been working here since the start of high school. You’re friends of Tohru-kun aren’t you?”

“Yup,” Uotani reached out to Hanajima to bring her into a side hug, “Tohru is always our best friend.”

“Speaking of Tohru, she told us you also went over to her house. Are you also her friend as well?” Hanajima asked.

“Oh, yes, I guess so. She invited me to dinner a couple of days ago. Tohru-kun is very kind and generous.”

“Right?! She always seems so cheerful and happy it brightens everyone’s moods.” Uotani poked at the ice cream.

“She always had that effect on people,” Hanajima added, “(L/n)-san, we never see you outside of classes even during lunch breaks, do you simply eat alone?” 

Your ears perked up at the sound of your name, “O-Ah. . . Yes. Tohru-kun did ask me to sit with her during lunch but I was afraid I might be intruding.”

Uotani slapped your shoulder playfully while laughing, “you should come! We don’t bite after all. You can always hang out with us and Tohru.”

“I see, I’ll take up that offer next time then.” You responded.

“Did you make these yourself (L/n)-san?” Hanajima pointed at the neatly decorated latte that had a foam cat sitting in the middle.

“Yes, is it to your liking?” You scratched your cheek awkwardly.

“It’s very cute, we always thought you had the best grade in home economics since you often made really nice dishes.” Hanajima complimented, almost finishing the rest of the parfait and beginning to eat at the fluffy pancakes on the side.

You cracked a small smile, “They aren’t that great, thank you for your compliments Hanajima-san.”

“You’re always trying to be so humble and polite (L/n)-san, we’re not even at school.” Uotani started to cut into the pancakes, “you should try to loosen up, here.”

She brought over a cut piece of the fluffy dish up to your face, motioning for you to eat some.

“Is it okay? It’s your food Uotani-san.”

She waved the food around in front of your face, “cmon it’s totally fine! We’re sharing with you anyway!”

Your eyes widened for a bit before you decided to tuck a few strands behind your ear, “then, if you don’t mind.” You leaned forward and carefully took the piece of food without sullying the fork with your germs.

“Oh? You eat pretty politely too.” Hanajima said.

You slowly chewed on the food while nodding in response. “Sorry, was that okay?”

“Maaan~ You class representatives always have pretty faces y'know? Look at Yuki Sohma, the girls go nuts over him.” Uotani dug into another piece of the pancake and continued to chew, “do you both have a secret beauty routine you’re not telling anyone?”

You stifle a chuckle, “not really, I don’t think there's much of a secret to Sohma-san’s beauty, but I do wash my face every hour.”

“Woow, does washing your face make that much of a difference?” Uotani asked.

“Hmm. . . It does keep my face from being constantly oily so maybe.”

“I should try that too then. . .” She mumbled.

Hanajima turned towards you, “are you and Yuki Sohma-san close?”

“N-Not really. We’re just friends.” You tried to brush off the fact that he visited your house yesterday and made an effort to keep a straight face.

Hanajima only nodded in response, “it seems like you guys were close. He stares at you in class a lot.”

E-Eh?! He was staring?! While you kept a straight face in front of Uotani and Hanajima, you were blowing up with steam on the inside. Did I do something embarrassing in class?! Your brain halted to a screeching stop.

“Oh. I see.” You deadpanned. “That is nice.”

“Is that your only reaction. . . ?” Uotani sweatdropped.

“I almost forgot, (L/n)-san, does the rest of the class know you work here?” Hanajima asked.

“N-No,” you diverted your eyes somewhere else, “it would be embarrassing to have them see me in my work uniform.”

“Why not? You’ll get a lot more customers.”

“T-That’s true but. . . I just don’t want my personal life being mixed in with school.” You fidgeted with the hem of your skirt, “the only other people who know are Tohru-kun and some of the Sohmas.”

“Hmm. . . I guess so. You’re already dressing up for the festival, it must be hard having a fan club.” She added.

“They’re all nice people, I’m just a bit glad that mine aren’t as vocal as Sohma-san’s.”

You wanted to sigh at this very moment. It was very tough handling even one person from his fan club, you couldn’t even imagine having most of the school head over heels over you. With that much admiration and idolization, you wondered if Yuki ever felt as if he had to keep up his own public image.

He must have felt lonely.

He always had this distant look in his eyes that were shrouded in what seems to be a facade of a prince. Even when talking to other people, it feels as if he too was forcing himself to make a conversation. He would tightly grasp onto the sleeve of his arm whenever he felt stressed, similarly to your own coping habits. 

“I find that. . .” Uotani and Hanajima’s ears perked up at the sound of your voice, “Sohma-san feels outcasted in a way. . .”

“He doesn’t want to show people the real him.” You mumbled, almost inaudible to the other two.

You stood up from your seat and patted down your skirt. “It seems as if my break is over. It was nice meeting you both.” You bowed down to them before repositioning your seat back to the other table.

Uotani only stared at you with a blank stare before giving you a smile, “alright you busy bee, go back to working~”

Hanajima waved you goodbye as they both continued their own conversations with each other. You looked over your shoulder to see them starting to laugh and joke around while you opened the door to the employee’s room. You sat onto the bench and pulled your knees to your chest, resting your head against them.

“We’re similar, Sohma-san.”

You tightened your fists as your nails dug into your bandaged fingers.

You felt so lonely.

Being surrounded by so many people and yet not a single one of them understood anything about yourself. It was so. . . Difficult. It was difficult communicating your inner frustrations and desires, it was difficult even trying to hold conversations with people like Uotani and Hanajima.

You can’t understand how hard it is to simply talk. To just talk to other people and say the things you truly mean. You don’t understand it at all.

“Why do you keep looking at me? Go away.” She tightened her hands together as she prayed in front of the altar.

“You hate me, don’t you? I can see in your eyes. You want me to suffer. . .” She mumbled. “You’re simply a figment of my precious daughter. . .”

She continued to kneel over the altar, your figure hiding within the dark corner as you watched her offer God another worthless gift. You stared at her with wide eyes, your irises never leaving her figure as you watched her every single movement. She fumbled around with the incense and tried to light the tip up with a small portable lighter. She continued to flick at the object, trying to create a small spark of flame.

“It’s all your fault that God isn’t here.” She said, standing up from her position and walking towards the door, shutting it and locking it from the outside. “You worthless spirit.”

You just wanted to cry.

You gripped onto your clothes as you shut your eyes, feeling the cold, wet sensation dripping down your cheeks as you stifled your whimpers.

[emachinescat]

Febuwhump day 25 / alt. 8 - allergies

Once again, I tried to write a story today, and because I’m sick with Covid, didn’t have the energy to finish the whole thing.  I do plan on finishing this up and posting the full thing once I’m recovered enough to do so.  Until then, I want to post what I have so that I can still claim victory for Febuwhump! :)  Please be aware that I wrote this while having a low-grade fever and that it’s not been edited, so if it is clunky or has issues, that’s why.  I’ll fine-tune everything when I finish writing it.  In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the rough product I have for you so far!  TW: PTSD

Mac + Allergies + The Goodest Boy

Angus MacGyver hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in over four weeks.  He’d tell you otherwise if you asked, of course, but the evidence was overwhelming.  Every day, Mac's face grew paler, the darkness under his eyes deepened, and the look in his eyes became more distant.  Jack had seen this happen to many soldiers – hell, it had happened to him.  This tour hadn’t been as bad as some of the previous ones Jack had experienced, but in the past … 

Well, suffice it to say that Jack Dalton knew a thing or two about PTSD.

And as ugly of a look as it had been on him, as it was on anyone else, nothing had prepared him for how much it would hurt to see it on his little burger buddy.  Shoot, when Jack had signed up for another tour to keep an eye on the kid, it was to keep him safe in the Sandbox, but now that he was home, Jack felt like Mac was in just as much danger of losing himself here as he had been losing his life in Afghanistan.  That was part of the reason Jack had found a place in L.A. instead of going straight back home to Texas.  That, and a potential job for the two of them he was investigating at the DXS, but ultimately, it wouldn’t have mattered where the jobs were.  Jack had already decided to locate himself wherever Mac was.

Jack had tried to help the best that he could.  He’d been on call all hours of the night, had had Mac over at his place when the nightmares got too bad, had crashed at Mac’s place whenever his roommate was out of town and Mac couldn’t be alone.  He’d tried to get Mac to talk many times, but one thing he’d learned about the kid was that although he could go on and on for hours about geek squad science stuff, he was a master at talking a lot without actually saying anything important.  And he didn’t talk about himself at all.

Jack knew there was a lot to unpack.  Hell, Mac’s C.O. had been killed in front of him.  The kid had screamed awake from many a nightmare about that one.  He’d nearly been killed multiple times, been under fire, disarmed over a hundred IEDs in a single day, had been through hell right alongside Jack in the Sandbox, and Jack sometimes had to remind himself that the kid was still, well, a kid.  Fresh out of school, hadn’t even finished college before joining the army.  He’d seen more violence and bloodshed than most people twice his age.  His skill set put him right there in the middle of the death and danger, a twenty-year-old bomb nerd with a glowing neon target on his back.  

And now he was back home, and everything was different.  Jack knew this because he had been here too, once, not because Mac talked about it.  He understood exactly what his friend was going through – he was home, but home wasn’t the same.  He smiled when he spoke to his friends, his roommate, even Jack, sometimes, but the smile was hollow and so were his eyes.  The nightmares followed him wherever he went and he couldn’t adjust, and he kept all the turmoil to himself, not wanting to be a bother, not thinking he deserved sympathy or whatever help his friends wanted to give him.

Finally, Jack reached the point where he had no idea what to do.  What had ultimately pulled him out of his own personal hell after the worst tour of his career had been a very good friend, but no one, not Jack, not Bozer, not Mac’s childhood friend Penny, seemed able to penetrate the layers of protection that Mac had built up around himself.

Maybe, he thought, as he stared pensively at the computer screen, Mac needed a friend who didn’t try to get him to talk at all, one who would just be there for him and listen and drool all over his hand and tak dumps in his backyard.  Maybe, Jack ventured, the light bulb going off in his brain at the ad for the Battle Buddy Foundation and their service dogs for vets, Mac needed a dog.

.

Bozer was out of town at some movie convention the next weekend, so Jack put his plan into motion.  He hadn’t had a chance to run it by Mac’s oldest friend yet, but he knew that if a dog would help Mac, then Bozer wouldn’t mind a new addition to the household.  Bozer would just be in for a surprise when he got home.

It had taken a lot of trips to animal shelters to find just the right fit for his partner, but Jack had been determined.  He’d tried the Battle Buddy Foundation, but since he wasn’t looking for a service dog for himself, that had been a no-go.  Plus, there were just so many hoops to jump through and qualifications to meet and interviews to be had, and Mac needed help now.  So he had scoured shelters and rescues, looking for a dog of just the right size and temperament for his buddy.  The next two weeks were going to be a trial basis, and if Mac and the pup clicked, Jack would seal the deal.  If not, then there was already another interested party lined up for the adoption.

The dog’s name was Cheese, and he was a four-year-old golden retriever mix who loved cuddles, thrived on attention and exercise, and even looked a little like Mac with his long, flowing blonde locks.  Also, Jack couldn’t get past how perfectly the names synced up – how could he pass up the possibility of Mac and Cheese?

.

As Jack had predicted, Mac fell in love with Cheese the moment he laid eyes on him.

“Jack!” Mac grinned, falling to one knee right in the middle of the sidewalk.  “Who’s this?”  Jack let Cheese wag his little tail happily over to Mac and watched with rising excitement as the pooch immediately began nuzzling and licking a laughing Mac all over.  He watched as Mac scratched Cheese’s furry head, found the sweet spot behind the ears, and buried his hands in the fur around the dog’s neck.  

“This,” Jack said, “is your new best friend.”

Mac looked up from having his face licked off and narrowed his eyes.  “What did you do to Bozer?”

Jack tried to act like he wasn’t offended that Bozer had been Mac’s go-to on the “best friend” front.  “Nothing.”

“Then are you leaving me?”  Despite the joke, a bit of uncertainty had wormed its way into Mac’s voice, and Jack could have kicked himself.

“No, man, I don’t mean it like that!  Cheese ain’t replacing anybody, he’s just the newest member of the family!”

A hesitant half-smile pulled at Mac’s lips.  “You got me a dog?”  He cocked his head.  Cheese mimicked him, ears flopping as his head tilted adorably to one side.  “I’m sorry – did you say his name is Cheese?”

Jack nodded proudly.  

Mac kept scratching Cheese behind the ears, but he stared at Jack suspiciously.  “Did you name him that?”

Jack’s nod turned into a vigorous shake.  “No, that’s what he was called at the shelter, man.  It helped me pick him out for ya.  It was like fate.”

“Fate?”  Mac looked like he really didn’t want to know.

“Mac and Cheese, hoss.”

“No,” Mac said shortly.  “Just… no.”

.

Mac ended up keeping the name.

It wasn’t that he liked the lame pun or anything, but Cheese had apparently been called Cheese for a long time and refused to respond to anything else.  Mac wanted to call him Fibonacci, but one look into those big brown eyes that lit up when Mac said Cheese, and one glimpse of the way his tail flopped around excitedly at the sound of his name, made Mac change his mind.  Cheese obviously liked being Cheese, and who was Mac to try to change him?  

“Besides,” Jack pointed out no less than five times on the day he introduced them, “Mac and Cheese belong together, man.  Cheese without Mac is pretty good, I’ll admit, but Mac without Cheese is just a noodle.”  He shook his head sadly, and Mac couldn’t help but grin.  “Just a limp noodle.”

.

Cheese slept in the bed with Mac that night, curled up close beside him, warm and big and furry.  Mac didn’t have nightmares, mostly because he didn’t sleep.  He couldn’t sleep.  He could feel a cold coming on, and the persistent scratch in his throat kept him firmly tethered in that awful middle ground between waking and sleeping, where sleep is the most appealing thing you can imagine, but it is also the most unattainable.  It would have been a thoroughly miserable night, except Cheese was wonderful company, and his soft snores, twitchy feet, and dog dreams were a balm to Mac’s sleepless jitters.

Despite how much Mac loved Cheese already, he spent a large portion of the night thinking of reasons why it wasn’t practical for him to have a dog.  Bozer didn’t know about Cheese, for one.  Jack claimed that everything was fine, that Boze would be completely on board once he got home.  But Mac didn’t just want to spring a pet on his roommate.  Having a dog was a huge responsibility, one that wouldn’t affect just Mac, but anyone he lived with as well.  Of course, there was the fact that Mac himself wasn’t prepared to take care of a dog at all, either, even if Jack had taken it upon himself to buy half of Pet Smart on his way back from the shelter.  Mac felt like he could barely take care of himself half the time; what made him think that he could keep another creature alive and healthy?  

Peña had died on his watch, after all.  How long until his dog got hurt because of him?  

It was at that thought that Mac realized he was spiraling into very dangerous thought patterns, and he only managed to drag himself away from them by distracting himself with the snuffling noises Cheese made while he slept and by feeling the soft warmth of his fur.

Maybe Jack was right – maybe a dog would do Mac some good.

Of course, there was the one problem that Mac found himself avoiding more earnestly the more attached he found himself growing to Cheese.  It was perhaps the most glaring reason for not having a dog, but it was also he one Mac avoided acknowledging at all costs, and yet he knew full well that he was not getting a cold as he had told himself when the symptoms first started.  He recognized that tell-tale itch at the back of the throat and the heaviness of the head all too well, though he’d held out hope he’d grow out of it someday.  The truth was in the sneezes, though, which started after midnight and only got more numerous and violent as the night progressed.

No, there had been a reason that Archimedes had been an outside dog.  There was a reason Mac felt like he had a head cold coming on.  And there was a reason that he should have told Jack no the second his friend had made it clear that Cheese was to be his dog.

Angus MacGyver was allergic to dogs.

[decembermoonskz]

the choreo in scars mv is soooo beautiful huhu and their outfits my gosh, majority of the vid is just them wearing crop tops 😭 aNd chan wore a waist chain again??? i have to rewatch the mv and find it later 😩

AND SEUNGMINS FLOOR PART (??) fLoOr dANCE (??) uGh i cant even put it into words 😩 jisung with a bucket hat and wearing a crop top jacket pLUSSS THAT CHOREO is just 😌 👌 biaz wreker tingz ✨

THE PHOTOSHOOT. THEIR PHOTOSHOOT 😭 they look so perfect , i cant-

if you want a group who can sing dance rap host model -> ✨ skz ✨ multitalented af 😤🤩

its been abt 3 hrs but i still cant get over scars :”> the premiere had been sitting on my laptop for more than 12 hrs before it was released just bc i cant wait huhu i mean even the photoshoot wtf i cant get it out of my head HAHDHAHDAUXHWJSHQHSHA 😭

OTHER THAN SKZ RELATED FANGIRLING 💀 did anything interesting happen to you? how was your day?? its half to 12 am here and ive been studying since 6 am 😭 i did have short breaks but i usually take a 4-5 hour nap in between those hours after school but i wasnt able to since i ve been in group project calls immediately after class huhu

6-1:30 iz le school

1:45-5:30 iz grp proj for our health subj

7-10:30 math grp call 💀 but seeing the photoshoot and mv recharged me hEhez

i hope you had a nice day! or yesterday? depends what time it is there lmao anyways feel free to share the things you did :3 i already started daffodil and i like it so far ! i think i stopped at ch 5 since i. need. sleep. badly. XD minho does deserve better lmao obviously chan is endgame but is he really 🤔 if he really is, then minho does 100000% deserve better huhu, cant wait to continue reading it tomorrow night!

- 🤡

Yeah I love everything about scars! I love how with all in its was more of a bop and a groove song to dance to. This is more emotional and I can still groove to it 😂😂 but in all seriousness I have nothing but good things to say abt it it’s great! and yeah I didn’t see it the first time either but waist chain made another comeback ✋🏼😔 it’s around Jisung’s part after Seungmin if you slow it down LOL (Jisung is really out here owning scars era 😔👌🏼)

Oof that photo shoot is officially one of my favorites 😩😩 I’m still not over the elle shoot with Chan, Hyunjin, Jisung and Felix, and Chan’s shots for men’s folio 😭

OMG SO MUCH SCHOOL! you did well!! *hugs and pats your shoulder* 👀👀 that’s a a lot I hope you can take your nap next time 🥺

thanks for asking! nothing out of the ordinary but I spent the day html editing for my blogs and posting the new story today. it was fun tho I learned some stuff and got stuff organized. Similar to Chan I like organizing and things need to be in place so getting this done with good 😂😂😂

Also you started reading daffodil omg!!! Yeah Minho’s role is a very vital part I enjoyed writing him in that story. I also wrote a bonus thing for him as well as seungmin you can check out after daffodil too just FYI ( ・∇・)

Have a good day/night bub!!