#i'm totally normal and will never forget it thanks

[lingeringscars]

thinking forever about bellamy saying his sister is his weakness

[gyuswhore]

Statistically Speaking...

part of the svt TA collab

kim mingyu x reader

word count: 21k

contains: TA! mingyu, fluff, smut [minors DNI], angst, statistics, ur honour they're stupid for one another, descriptions of stress exhaustion and burnout, academic burden, disagreements, mingyu is smart as hell, shitting on bad professors, smut but its a surprise [gyu gets his soul sucked while he's reciting statistical models I mean what]

words of conviction from @highvern: Kim Mingyu, total asshole , 1-800-HOT N DUMB , THEYRE IN LOVE MINGYU SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU LOSER , sick fucking freak , i know when you wrote this you put your head in your hands , OHHHM YW GOD

synopsis: In all your years of academic endurance, you’ve never failed. A 100% success rate, despite you cutting it close at times. However, the line graph that is your life starts tanking somewhere around the time you began taking this hellsent Statistics in Psychological Research class. With a professor that wouldn’t know his ass from his head, and an overworked, overenthusiastic, and overcaptivating TA, it couldn't possibly get any worse than this. However, statistically speaking,…it could.

[a/n]: this fic is set in the same universe as @highvern's wonu fic endpoint [read here!!!], some insight for wonu's pov is included here as is some of Mingyu's pov in cam's fic if you'd like to see more about what happens in the gaps!!

I want to start by thanking everyone who chose to be part of this collab fic and for being the reason cam and I were able to open up @camandemstudios in the first place. everyone's been so kind and cooperative and I still cant believe we managed to convince such amazing writers to join us on this collab journey 🥹 I love u guys

Thanking my wife camothy @highvern for brainstorming with me since day one and for betaing for me. @seokgyuu and @miabebe for also looking over the doc and reassuring me. I'm for sure forgetting someone and I'm really sorry about that, know that I appreciate you just as much 🤍

on that note, I hope you guys enjoy this fic, im HELLA nervous for some reason so plsplspls remember to reblog and send me feedback on how you liked it, I will love you forever <333

masterlist

Monday

A normal person would’ve cried. Perhaps even sued the entire institution for all it was worth. Burn down the world, if it came to it. 

But as you stare at the tiny 37/100 on your screen, you feel…nothing. 

You could’ve said you saw it coming, which you did, but something about blaming someone else for an exam you took was beginning to feel a little manipulative. 

Clicking off the student portal, you huff loudly, five in the morning too early for you to begin breaking down over a grade that was completely unreflective of what you were taught. 

Or maybe it was, because as you count one, two, three hours till your dreaded Statistics in Psychological Research class, you can only hope you’ll hold back from spitting in your professor’s coffee. But alas, you can only shut your laptop harder than necessary for what it costs and push the grade out of your mind.

You were tired enough to sleep for a couple more hours, and you take it as an opportunity to spite the entire course by giving just as many fucks as your professor did.  

Which was little to none. 

That was a lie—on your part anyway. Because you continue to show up, and probably will until you can put this course and all of its trauma behind you. Even now as you feel the inclining beat of your pulse sitting in the white lecture hall, you know this is all but you versus the universe. 

Dr. Cho might as well have wheeled himself into the room on a skateboard with the way he struts into the room. 

He’s wearing a denim jacket with the sleeves cut off and jeans of a matching finish that do not fit him properly. There’s pins in every last colour on this earth, littering the front of his jacket with sayings that toe the silver controversial lining. There was one that said Vote for John F. Kennedy, another plain black one with I Eat Kids, and of course, the blaring Cunt written in cursive, pink sparkly letters. 

This man that’s pushing into his 60s stands before his slightly wilted class in his crocs, hands on his hips as he heaves a long breath. 

���I have to say, not the turn out I was expecting on that last report.”

He’s talking about the report you coincidentally failed, the same one you were pushed into with little to no direction and a deadline tighter than any you’ve had to bully yourself through. 

“All I can say is to read through the feedback I’ve given and try a little harder next time.” His voice is somewhere bordering comical exasperation. Feedback that consisted of sparing ‘?’’s and ‘no’’s with zero further explanation. He could say more, but you’ve learned that he simply chooses to not. 

Besides the man that drones in the front of the room, there’s another person in the other corner of the lecture hall. He’s hunched over a giant pile of papers, sifting through each and every one with a pen in his other hand. 

The TA doing a mundane task is somehow more interesting than whatever seminars of disappointment your professor was giving. He’s crossing something out on every single leaf of paper that he flicks through, and you vaguely wonder if those were today’s worksheets. 

“...and post hoc tests last week, we can start on Bayesian today. Mingyu will be handing out the tutorial papers.”

The poor TA looks like he thought he’d have more time, snapping his head up to look at the professor with an expression of pure incredulousness. He staggers for a moment before he’s flicking past the pages even faster somehow, striking out what seems like the same instruction in the giant pile of papers meant for an entire lecture hall. There’s a rustle as about a hundred laptops are being pulled out and booted up, waiting for the worksheets to land on the desks. 

You hear the familiar warble of papers being passed out and you watch as the TA pulls chunks of sheets out of the giant stack in his arms to slam down onto the front tables. 

“Pass it down, please… pass it down, please…”

There’s a voice that calls from one of the front seats, “What formula is the sheet talking about?”

Mingyu looks startled as he snaps back to look at the blaring empty whiteboard. In the midst of passing papers, you watch him sprint to the rolling whiteboards, pulling one of the giant flats of white over to the other side, the mechanism slamming into place with a louder than comfortable slam. It reveals another whiteboard underneath with the detestably long formula already written (and the one you’d have to figure out yourself).

 The professor remains with his chin in his hands behind his laptop, unphased. 

By the time you’ve registered the foreign symbols on the board, one of the tutorial papers has made it into your hands.

Sure enough, there’s a quick line across one of the steps with a thick black marker. 

Blinking hard, you attempt to pull yourself into the zone, staring at the white sheet with words that are barely stringing themselves together. Nothing out of the ordinary, especially as you lift your head to find hunched shoulders and furrowed brows all around. 

There’s one person that’s zipping back and forth, just like there always is. 

You watch as Mingyu hunches over certain laptops and whispers in rapid explanation before moving on to the next, a looming sense of dizziness that trails behind him as he shoots up the stairs to the back rows to help someone else. 

There’s a brief consideration to raise your own hand to ask for help, but one look at his disoriented gaze and the amount of hands that shoot up by the second, you guess it wasn’t going to help.

Back you go, hunched over the same wretched paper as everyone else, and praying for some divine revelation. 

Tuesday

Divine revelation did not come to you, but the good sense to make use of office hours did. 

So here you are, a printed copy of your supposedly horrid assignment and a pack of multicolour pens in your tote, and determination in your stride, you make your way to the department building. 

You’ve double, triple, quadruple checked the times to ensure you don’t dip in at the wrong moment, swiping open your phone to re-check the room number yet again. 

Standing outside the door, you knock with mustered confidence, waiting for something akin to an affirmative from the other side of the door. 

Nothing. 

You knock again.

Silence. 

You glance around the empty hall before grasping onto the cool brass handle of the door, wrenching it open just a peep. Poking your head in, you find the room…empty.

The chairs and tables that usually buzz with discussing students lay barren as you step into the room. Moving to look at the front of the room, you inhale sharply as you realise the professor’s desk has been occupied this entire time. 

Except he’s asleep.

No, that’s not the professor. 

Moving closer, you watch the way his back rises and falls ever so slowly, head resting on his arm as his hand hangs limp off the table. Whipping your head around with more attention this time, you attempt to find an explanation written on the walls. But there’s none, even in the papers that litter the table he rests his head on.

You don’t need to see his face to know it’s the TA. But as you stand in the empty room, clutching the straps of your tote, you aren’t quite sure what to do. 

Another glance around the table and you realise his laptop remains on, the screen yet to sleep. Before the obvious issue of a blatant invasion of privacy can befall you, you take a step forward to take a peek. 

It’s his schedule, a million colours blaring on the screen in a colour coded regard with barely any white spaces. It doesn’t take long to find his time slot for right now, red with importance. 

Glancing down, the man remains fast asleep, pen still in hand as it inks a faint line on the page. You look around the room for the nth time, taking constant glances back at his laptop that tells you he’s actively missing something right now. Clearing your throat, you hunch over a tad bit. 

“Um, excuse me.” He hardly moves. So you try a little louder, hunching over his sleeping form even further. “Excuse me.”

You could’ve sworn you heard a snore. 

Out of instinct, you bring a hand forward to his shoulder, shaking ever so slightly as you call for him again. “Excuse me!”

There’s a sharp inhale and he shoots up quicker than you can back away, ensuring you get an entire back’s worth of force as he bumps into you, hard.

“Wh–ow!” The noise is collective, yelps and thuds as you both back away from each other. 

“W–what’re you doing here?” he asks, hair still ruffled and eyes barely open as he stands at the table. There’s a bright yellow sticky note on his right cheek, ink scribbled on in something you can’t decipher.

“Um, it’s office—”

His eyes land on the same screen you were peering into just before and it looks like his life flashes before his eyes, widening at the sight as he slams around the table looking for something. 

“I have to go,” he announces, gripping onto an unstrapped watch as he registers the time, his other hand shoving his laptop and a few papers into a dark messenger bag. 

“Wait, isn’t it still office hours?” you call out as he whizzes past you. 

He’s swinging his bag over his shoulder and half tripping to the door as he calls out, “Wednesdays and Thursdays.”

“But—”

“It’s on the portal.”

“No it’s not.”

“Yes it—” he pauses as he exhales loudly, closing his eyes and bringing a hand to rub across his tired face. “I’ll double check. But it’s Wednesdays and Thursdays from now on. You can wait till I get back if you really want help.”

“How—”

A loud slam! of the door. 

“—long…” 

You’re left draped in silence yet again, the echoes of the slammed door ringing in your startled ears. It all happened too fast for you to process, blinking rapidly as you registered that you were now alone in the room. 

He said he’d be back, but left you with no indication as to when. By the looks of his god awful schedule, it looked like he had something else to attend to right after whatever it was he buggered off to right now. 

Fingers clenched into a fist, you consider your options. You could wait, sit on one of the desks and try to get some work done until he gets back. 

The universe gives you your answer as the door opens with a loud creak in the empty lecture hall. It’s another professor who looks quite startled to find an overenthusiastic student already present for class. 

She stares before craning to look at the room number outside the door, “Am I in the right room?”

“Uh, yes! I was just leaving,” you buffer out, moving to shuffle out immediately. 

You’re halfway out the door when you hear another call of an “Excuse me!”

“Are these your papers?” The professor’s full arms are up as she gestures to the still littered table. 

The No is ready on your lips. Until it isn’t. 

Later on, you’d consider how you left that room with an armful of papers that did not belong to you. How you’d ducked under the table to ensure you’d gotten everything, down to the leather strap watch with the cracked clock face. 

But as you stare at the stack of files and sheets that lay on your desk at home, you only know of the decent act that you’d committed.

And nothing of the hourglass you’d just turned over. 

Wednesday

In your Sent box are three emails sent on three separate days, all asking the same recurring question, all responding with the same recurring reply.

I wanted to confirm the days and times for office hours. I’m aware it’s on the portal but I’d like to reconfirm. 

Regards, YN

Dear YN,

Wednesdays and Thursdays. 4 to 6 PM.

Kim Mingyu, T.A. 

So there you were on a Wednesday afternoon, 3:59 PM sharp, outside the lecture hall where office hours have always been. With the same tote hung on your shoulders, with the same printed assignment and pack of multicolour pens, and a separated stack of files and folders, you wrench the door open with bated breath. 

The blended murmur of the usual hustle and bustle of the appointment reassures you first, the sight of scattered students of familiar faces reassures you second. And most of all, a conscious TA that sits at the professor’s desk, speaking to another student over a laptop screen. 

The man does nothing to acknowledge your arrival, continuing above the babble of students that occupy the chairs and the discussion. It isn’t too full, but considerably busy nonetheless despite how early you’ve swooped in. 

There’s a brief consideration whether this was in the TA’s job description at all, craning your neck to take a full sweep of the room to find a sparing glimpse of the man who should be here. The professor and his loud fashion choices are nowhere to be found. 

The sigh you let out is heavy and full of an emotion you cannot possibly begin to unpack, taking a seat on one of the unoccupied chairs to slump against. Shoulders sagging, you feel every fibre of your being screaming against your better judgement to pull out some work and to be productive while you wait. Reading over your failed assignment for the nth time, the same one that seemed to be some sick form of rage bait. 

You pull a couple things out so as to not look awkward sitting and staring into nothing on an empty desk, uncapping your pen and pulling up your sleeves like there was business to be done. Which there was, but none of which you wished to entertain. 

People watching, you realise, is a lot easier when most of the room is preoccupied with whatever it is they’re doing, too busy to notice your blank stares. 

The faces are familiar, none of which are people you’ve interacted with before but classmates nonetheless. The room is full of shaking legs, spinning pens and hunched backs, not an un-scrunched brow in sight. There’s a particular gaggle of girls somewhere around the front, their tables suggesting a work environment but between the whispers, giggles and glances to the front of the room, you assume there’s one thing in common the both of you weren’t doing. 

Speaking of the front of the room, your matched glance finds you face to face with the student at the main table in the middle of pushing himself off his seat. Your reaction is immediate, hand coming over to slam against the flat of your bag to find the lost straps, moving out of your seat as you keep your eyes on the front of the room. 

Bad luck must be a lover, because you realise quickly that somebody’s already beat you to it. Before you even noticed the first’s intentions to. The student stands beside the chair ready to keep it warm as the previous occupant leaves. 

Slamming back down on your own seat, you realise very quickly that trying to get an audience with this TA was going to be harder than you anticipated. There’s multiple other sounds of frustration around the room, and you doubt the slowly increasing pool of students was going to help anyone’s time management. 

Realising you needed to be a little more tactical if you didn’t want to sit here for the next month and half, you find an empty spot near the gaggle of girls you’d noticed before. It was right up front, just enough for you to hear when the conversation would begin to conclude at the main table. 

Once again, the TA doesn’t seem to notice any of the hustle and bustle of the room as his mouth continues to move rapidly, eyes on the question as he invests himself in his explanation. 

It was unfortunate that the only remaining seat was right next to the louder than necessary group, but you take it as a blessing anyway. It’s then that the one right next to you turns to stage-whisper to you. 

“Are you here to see him?”

You don’t expect a conversation, ears straining to eavesdrop on the other conversation in front of you to find your cue. You snap to look at her in surprise. “Pardon?” 

“Are you here to see him? Mingyu?”

“Uh—” Wasn’t everybody? “Yeah, I had a couple things I wanted to clear out.”

The revelation makes her shoulders drop as she lets out a loud sigh, “God, I can never get anything this professor says. I've been here nearly every week trying to figure it all out.”

“Yeah he’s a bit…unorthodox.”

“He’s unorthodox too.” She looks over to the main table towards the TA, chin in her hands as she gazes. “A face like that is rare.”

It wasn’t that she was wrong, it didn’t take more than a glance to convince yourself that Mingyu was possibly one of the more attractive people you’d meet in your lifetime. But the appeal lasted for all of five minutes for you, flitting away when you noticed that he dragged along a very…overwrought… suggestion wherever he went. 

It was clear he was stressed seemingly all year round, nearly just as relaxed as your professor seemed to be. 

But Mingyu was attractive. And you realise how much of a fool you’d sound if you admitted to anything other than such. 

“It is. His willpower’s somehow even rarer,” you add. “Don’t know how he does it.”

“God, tell me about it. Forget getting his number, trying to have more than a three sentence exchange with him without some statistical nonsense involved is near impossible.” Her face has fallen, a tight little frown on her face as she irritates herself with some other memory. 

Taking a glance down at her notes, you find the printed sheet littered with glitter gel pen ink lining the edges, doodles of stars and hearts and small anime characters next to p values and z scores. 

There’s a distinct sound of a chair screeching, and it’s like a large GAME OVER sign is hanging above your head. 

You jerk in your seat, like you could jump over the table and land in the emptying seat with some god-given stroke of luck, like the person already standing next to the chair wouldn’t hold a lifelong grudge against the insane girl with an unnatural acclimation to statistics. 

Although, nothing was more unnatural than the way this TA seemed to know more than the professor. Or you were just really behind. 

Alas, you don’t tumble over the table or kick back your chair, merely making a forceful motion in your seat, palms itching terribly as you watch the girl with her open laptop balanced in her arms move to take a seat. 

You were preoccupied, hence you do not notice that the TA has also noticed you. 

Suddenly, the girl looks startled as she’s told to wait. 

“She’s been waiting nearly a week, I really hope you don’t mind,” you hear him say, voice strained as you turn to look at him. His hands are outstretched to motion towards you a few feet across from him. 

For whatever reason, you had no thought that he might’ve remembered you. Something about his half asleep state when he’d spoken to you, perhaps he might’ve thought he dreamt it. Or he’d just forgotten it altogether. 

The girl glances at you, and her shoulders sag a little as she nods in formality. 

“Thank you.”

It comes out of both of you, snapping to look at each other hardly a moment as you go back to smiling at the retreating student. 

“You can come right after her,” he reassures, his own upturned mouth tired and fading. 

Never have you felt more awkward trying to come around the elongated student tables. 

You pause at first, staring at the table in front of you like it was worth trying to climb over or even crawl under it to get to the desk. Another moment of eye contact as he stares at your unmoving form with a blank look, and the heat pools your skin. 

Staggering for a moment, you end up moving past your chair and walking the way round anyway, the screeching of the chairs only nurturing the existing budding humiliation for no apparent reason. 

It only gets worse when you sit across from him finally, backside barely touching the plastic before realising you’d forgotten your bag in your seat. 

Mid smile in a timid greeting when you make a sound resembling something of an “Oh!” as you spring back up immediately. It’s easier to reach for your bag over the table you were sitting on, reaching across to grab it off your vacated seat. 

The girl you were sitting next to just before makes a motion like she’s trying to help and you have to remind yourself to smile at her as you retreat. 

Mingyu has the very beginnings of an amused expression on his face once you’ve finally made yourself comfortable across from him, clearing your throat just for something to do. 

“Right. How can I help you?”

Pulling out your printed assignment, you bring out the sheets of stapled paper to the centre of the table, writing facing him. 

One look at the sparse format of the cover page, he blows a full mouth of air at the sight of recognition. Without you having to say a thing, he flicks to the very last page, finding the rubric printed on a separate page. 

“It’s a 37,” you inform him like he couldn’t see the bold 37/100 in the bottom Total cell. 

“Do you think you deserved a better grade?” he asks. It would have sounded direct, an accusation even. But he asks with an intonation of genuinity, like he actually wanted to know. 

It stumps you regardless.

“Well…I know I can do better, at least,” you decide to answer. 

“You’re here, which means you’re at least willing to try. That’s a start,” he murmurs. His eyes are laser focused on the sheet beneath him, holding it open as his eyes move faster across the page than you can keep up with. Somehow talking to you while taking in the words on the paper.

“I remember marking this,” he says, looking up to address you. “Your concepts are nearly there, but your structure and presentation was off.”

“You marked them?”

He raises his brow, “I hope that wasn’t an accusation. I need to stick to the rubric.”

“I thought the professor marked the lab reports.”

“He’s…supposed to.” There’s a forced reservedness in his voice. “I mark them and he puts in his comments if he has any. But I’m not sure you’d fare any better than this if it was him behind that pen either.”

Every question that floated in memorisation, from the form and structure, to the nitty gritties of the data presentation, all evaporate as you realise you’re at a loss for words. 

Even more embarrassingly, you feel tears prick the back of your eyes. You don’t have an explanation, but it’s somehow easier to feel helpless in front of the man that’s meant to help you. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

“That’s alright,” he says as reassurance, though it sounds awfully rehearsed. Like he has to say it everyday. “We’ll work through it.”

He lets out a big sigh, adjusting in his chair and running a hand through his hair. The motion has you noticing the dishevelled nature of the mop on his head, un-uniformed and sticking out at certain places, yet still somehow cohesive with his look. His shoulders are straight and taut, fingers working as they fiddle and flick the pen in his hand. 

Despite it all, his shirt is ruffled and creased, unbuttoned at the first couple steps. The buttons are misaligned, one side of his collar higher on his neck than the other. It takes an effort to not reach over and fix it for him.

“Lab reports can be quite tricky if you aren’t sure what you’re doing. Did you refer to the tutorial?”

You mean the one that did nothing to help? “Yes.”

“You got those bits right, format and whatnot. But—”

“It was a lump of writing about subheadings and word counts,” you say plainly.

Mingyu lips are in a tight line. “Well, yes, but it helps—”

“I know the results are supposed to go in the results section. I don’t need a PDF to tell me that,” you cut him off. Your voice is reserved, and you hope it comes off as a point across and not a complaint. Although it was a complaint. “I want to know why the entire section was ruled off as incorrect when we were never properly taught how to write it in the first place.”

“Dr. Cho—”

“Is no help.”

“I understand—”

“He can’t even mark his own papers. I’m quite sure that’s not in your job description. It’s supposed to be him here. Not you.”

It’s silent. There was nothing in your voice that suggested you wished to pick a fight, on the contrary, quite calm and matter of fact. Mingyu’s fingernails are going white as his grip on his pen and paper grow stronger. 

“And yet, we continue to show up. Because we do what we must.” He raises his head in control, a small smile on his face, eyebrows unnaturally raised. “And, better that I’m here rather than no one at all. I can help you too.”

Help, he did. 

Mingyu had made it quite clear his time with you was limited, but by the end of the near 25 minute session, nearly every inch of your printed assignment was covered in a rainbow of notes and corrections, additional papers and post-it notes pasted on the back as you remain careful to not lose them as you slip the stack in your bag. 

You only remember when you spot the segregated file of papers in your bag.

“I almost forgot,” you say, slipping the files and tidbits out and in front of him. 

“Where did you find this?” he asks sharply, eyes widening as sees the familiar blue. 

“You left them at the desk of the lecture hall last week,” you say, before quickly adding, “There was a class right after you left. I took them off the professor’s hands before they got lost. Thought it might be important.”

“I’ve been looking all over for these,” he says as he goes through the pages and files. Random sticky tabs and highlighted regions across the pages. The leather strap watch with the broken clock face remains on top, and he picks it up. He looks up to you with wide, sparkling eyes and a smile that feels genuine. “Thank you.”

You flush for some reason, “O–of course, couldn’t just leave them there.”

Pausing, you wonder if you should make the next comment, the words tumbling out before you can make a decision. “Maybe don’t run out of rooms still half asleep.”

By the grace of God, he laughs, “No, you’re right. I should be careful.”

It isn’t till you’re pushing yourself out of your chair that he continues. “You can come in at 3:30 tomorrow.”

“Pardon?”

He’s stood up as well. “I have a free thirty minutes before office hours formally start. I can help you out a little more without the crowd.” 

Feet planted on the ground, there’s not much you can do but stare. “Um, sure. I can come in a little early.”

He nods casually, “Thanks again for the papers. And the watch.”

You smile, “No problem.”

Thursday

True to your punctual nature, you make yourself known at exactly 3:29 PM.

Mingyu is at the desk, conscious and on the phone, eyes closed as he rests his face on his fist.

“I don’t know if I can make time for that—no, I understand, sir,”

Another pause as the noise from his speakers fill his ears, his rubbing over his face a little harsher than you doubt he’s entirely comfortable with. 

“I’ll see what I can do.”

His phone hits the table with a heartbreaking thud, both hands covering his face as he presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. 

“Light on your feet or something? I can never tell when you come in,” he startles when he notices you. 

Sheepish smile on your face, you move to sit down. “Sorry.”

You know it’s invasive, and you also know you might be asking him to break some unknown university code of conduct, but curiosity takes charge as you ask a casual question. “Important call?”

“Uh, yeah, um, just work stuff,” he states, shaking his head swiftly like he’s trying to shake the thought out of his mind. 

There’s a pause while you're slipping your papers and laptop out of your bag, during which he seems to have decided to divulge a little more. 

“It was Dr. Cho. More stuff for me to do,” he says. “As always.” 

“Does he do anything other than show up to class?” you ask through a snort. 

“Of course he does. He cusses out every article he doesn’t agree with, is anything but objective and…the occasional relay of blatant misinformation.” 

For the record, you’d never really heard Mingyu speak at all for the months he’d been TA-ing for the semester. It was small whispers of choice words in a vague voice, the distant murmur as he exchanged with the professor too far for you to hear. 

The voice of the seemingly quiet and diligent TA was never known to you, not until yesterday as he explained statistical models and the flaws of your data presentation. 

Passionately too. Incredulous for a discipline so dry and unapproachable. 

That being said, something about the grit in his voice as he positively sneered through his teeth, badmouthing his professor—it was something you couldn’t quite believe he was capable of. 

“I’m sorry you have to put up with him.”

Once again, by whatever stone of tolerance the universe bestowed in his heart, you watch him sigh and smile, “Anything for that recommendation. And the pay too, I suppose. Besides, he’s done a lot for the area, can’t discredit him entirely.”

With your eyebrows raised, he seems to catch your expression. He pants out a laugh, and your stomach lurches as you watch it reach his eyes, teeth on display, a lurch in his chest; a true laugh. 

Raising his hands in surrender, he responds, “I’m stuck.”

There’s nothing you can do to stop the smile that reaches your own face, turning your laptop screen towards him with the JASP software display. “I am too. Help.”

Help, he does.

Monday

Mingyu ended up giving you an entire hour on that Thursday. 

The thirty minutes before office hours began soared by like they were nothing, and you were ready to take your leave the minute students began to scatter in as the clock hit a swift four. Except he kept going, another 30 minutes in deep concentration as he retaught you nearly everything from scratch. 

Perhaps his proven determination to ensure you don’t tragically fail is what prompted you to do this, standing at the till of your regular coffee shop as you ask, “Make that two, please.”

It might also be important to mention the 7:30 AM on the dial on a bright Monday morning as you walked into your slightly less dreaded Statistics in Psychological Research class, knowing there would only be one other person insane enough to get to the lecture hall this early. 

Something isn’t right. 

Mingyu is in a position all too familiar to you and everyone else who shares this class, hunched over something or the other in deep focus. The sun pours in through the lifted blinds, the lights of the class turned off as natural light does more than enough of the job. 

It also shows you a blaring hot pink post-it note on his face, all too familiar to a previous interaction you’ve had with him. 

He notices you before you need to announce yourself, brows separating as he recognises you in the doorway. “‘Morning!” 

“...Morning.”

“You’re early,” he comments, straightening his back with a hand behind him for support as you approach. 

“Figured we both needed this,” you hand him a tray with his cup of coffee, eyes still trained on his lower cheek with the paper stuck to it. “It’s a latte with no sugar, but I added a couple packets on the side anyway. Just in case.”

“O–oh, thank you. And you’re right I did need this.”

Now that you’re closer, the scrawled writing on the post-it note is clearer. 

To Do:

Call mom

Shoot myself

“You, um—” It’s alarmingly difficult for you to say it, despite the words being so simple. Hey! You got a lil’ something on your face.

But all you do is dumbly point to your own cheek, eyes trained on the loud piece of paper that tells more than he might like the world to know. 

There’s a loud slap of his hand on his own cheek as he crumples the paper in his hands, bringing it forward to see. “For fuck’s sake.”

“It’s okay! I wanna…shoot myself too sometimes.” 

What the fuck?

“I mean!” you correct louder than you anticipated, before covering with a laugh. “It’s okay, it happens. Good thing I caught it before someone else did.”

It’s all the more petrifying when your voice echoes across the blatantly empty lecture hall, reverberating like it was a punishment for you and your horrid lack of volume control. Meeting his eyes feels like a sin right now, so you keep them downcast and pray he doesn’t try to sabotage your education. 

“Good thing it was just you. Yeah.”

Just you.

“Anyways, I think I’m done with prepping for class. Do you wanna squeeze in twenty minutes of ANOVA?” 

“Have you seen the time?” 

“Not a morning person?”

“Nope!”

“And yet it’s 7:40 on a Monday morning and you’re absurdly early.” His brows are raised as he pulls around the professor's chair to bring it to you. 

“Do you want the coffee or not?” you ask, watching as he drags another chair for himself. 

The both of you sit away from the professors table, coffees in hand as you watch Mingyu run a hand through his hair. 

He gives you a crooked grin,“I apologise.”

“To be fair,” he continues. “I’m not much of a morning person either.”

You narrow your eyes the slightest bit as Mingyu takes a sip of his unsweetened coffee, “I’m starting to think no money’s worth this job.”

Mingyu snorts, coffee suspended in his full cheeks. He swallows with much difficulty before answering, “You’re right. Not sure why I’m still here either. I could get an offer from another professor.”

“And that isn’t happening because…?”

Elbows on his knees, Mingyu swirls his capless coffee cup, the beige liquid moving in a growing tornado. “I like Dr. Cho.”

“You—”

“I know,” he laughs loud, a deep, echoing sound that shakes in your ears. “I know. I sound like a lunatic.”

“I don’t know about lunacy, but insanity can have its reasons.”

“Another would argue that insanity was the very absence of reason.” 

“Don’t get smart with me.”

“Excuse me for doing my job.”

He takes another sip of his coffee, and you ask again, “No, but really. I can’t imagine this man having too many redeeming qualities as an educator.”

Mingyu lifts his chin as he presses his lips together. “When I was in my first year, there was this other class I had where we had to write a lab report for the first time.”

“PSYCH101?”

“That’s the one. I’d never written one before, but I liked statistics enough to do a little more digging than what the assignment called for. I ended up finding one of Dr. Cho’s studies, read the entire thing, word for word. I was up all night reading nearly everything he’d published, some of ‘em before any of us were even born.” 

“Oh. So you’re a fan.”

“Everyone tells you to never meet your idols,” he snickers. “He’s done amazing things, but I guess he pays for it with his flawed personality.”

“I’m sorry it had to be you,” you half joke. 

Mingyu looks at you sheepishly, “That might also be my own fault.” 

“Don’t tell me you offered.”

“I might as well have. All my assignments referenced his work the most. I was always talking to him about upcoming research after class, and it was like he was a different person. Forget differing opinions, some of what he was saying was just…plain incorrect. He welcomed the argument though, and I couldn’t—can’t—stand listening to someone spew nonsense when I know it’s not true. He was always emailing me extra resources which…I’m pretty sure he isn’t supposed to do. Only reason I did so well in his class was because I taught myself.” 

He sighs a loud sigh, straightening his back, “I guess he liked me more than I thought, because next thing I know I’m getting a call over the summer telling me I have a job.”

“Did he…have a TA when you were in his class?” 

“Four.”

“Four?!”

“Two at a time. All of ‘em quit at some point. Said they didn’t want the recommendation or the pay.”

“Would he…not give you a recommendation anyway? You said he liked you.”

Mingyu shakes his head solemnly, “He’s a tough cookie, everyone in the field knows that. If you’ve impressed him, you’ve impressed everyone.”

You take a moment to really absorb everything you’ve just learned. “That’s a sucky position you’re in.”

“Tell me about it. But it’s okay. Three—three and a half more months to go? This isn’t even the worst of it, I’m just dreading study week when I’m gonna have to handle all the crying.”

You wince as he mentions something even remotely close to exam season, still barely at a stage where you can accept you’d be alright with this class. 

“I know you’re not nearly as qualified or experienced as him, but I think you could take over his class.”

“Ever heard of barriers to entry? I’d be ruined if I wanted a career in this.”

You roll your eyes playfully, “All I’m saying is I’ve learned more from you in barely a couple hours combined than the last two months I’ve spent cursing this very lecture hall.”

If you weren’t lying to yourself, you could’ve sworn you saw a blush creep up his face, and paired with his shy laugh and hand at the back of his neck, you can’t help but bite back your own smile. 

“If I can help you then it’s worth losing myself.”

Your heart is in your fucking throat.

“I’m glad when students tell me that,” he continues, utterly oblivious to the landslide happening in your digestive tract. “Makes me feel like I’m doing something right.”

“You’re—” you swallow thickly because you sound like a toad. “You’re doing more than just something right. You’re saving us therapy and an extra semester.”

He laughs at that, and you wish he’d let you breathe. 

“Feels like I’m doing something wrong sometimes,” he huffs. “My friend’s a TA too and he’s got himself a girlfriend on top of everything else he’s got going on.” 

He goes on, “Do you know how many times I need to ask people to quit twirling their hair? To look at the page and not my face? Asking for my number, I have an email for a reason, for fuck’s sake—”

Mingyu is cut off because you’re laughing, hand to mouth as your shoulders shake through your sniggering. “W–what?”

“I’m sorry,” you hiccup. “It’s just…It sounds like you don’t know what you look like.”

“What’s wrong with how I look?” he frowns.

“Nothing!” you exclaim. “But that’s the problem isn’t it.”

Mingyu doesn’t seem to buy it, even through your coaxing as you attempt to explain to him that he is, in fact, desirable.

“Can’t possibly be enough to distract people,” he huffs in earnest, still hung up on the students he can’t get through to. 

“Majority of the class would beg to differ.”

There’s a pause as he registers what you imply. 

After a few moments, he drops his head, opening his mouth, “Would… you also—”

There’s a loud creak of the door as you hear the immediate noises of shuffling feet and chattering mouths, as low and tired as they sounded. Turning back to look at Mingyu, he’s already jumped out of his seat, wrist to face as he checks the time on the same leather strap watch you returned. 

“That’s our cue,” you breathe, pushing your chair back behind the professor’s desk as you manoeuvre around Mingyu who’s suddenly frantic. 

Of course you realise there’s people other than just the two of you in the room, heightened in seats that are designed to ensure they can absorb every detail that goes on right where you stand in the front of the room.

But you feel the soft of Mingyu’s shirt over his wrist as you give him a gentle squeeze despite it all, barely enough pressure. Half your index finger brushes the skin of his hand, just enough to register how cold your fingertips are and how warm his body is. 

“Relax,” you whisper. “You’ll be better off without all the panic.”

You don’t see his face as you brush past him and up to your seat, looking up to see him disappear somewhere in the corner hunched over another stack of papers. The next time you see Mingyu’s face is when the professor arrives and has begun his regularly scheduled tomfoolery, and realise all the age that can accumulate in the span of five minutes. 

Thursday

Midterm season is nothing you’ve ever really had to worry about. 

Something about the halfway point did make it obvious that the clock was ticking, but danger was far enough away to prevent the ultimate breakdowns reserved for the peak seasons. 

Except this class isn’t ordinary, and it’s all you’re able to worry about all semester. And as Dr. Cho in his Thrasher vest announces the date for the in class midterm, the glass once half empty, suddenly looks very half full. 

“I’m not ready.”

“You’re more ready than anyone else in class.”

“How do you know that?”

Mingyu stares at you blankly, “If I don’t know that, then who else does?”

You have tears in your eyes, which is embarrassing enough since this is the second time you’ve teared up in front of him, but also because you’re in a library following Mingyu around like a lost duck because he insists on putting the books he borrowed back onto the shelves himself after registering the return. 

“But I don’t feel like I’m ready,” you whine, turning the corner as he searches for the last spot to place his final book. 

“You’ll realise just how ready you are when all those hieroglyphs on the page start to make sense to you,” he grunts the last bit out as he reaches on his tippy toes to shove the book back up. 

Dusting his hands off, he adjusts his shirt before turning to you, “You only feel that way because I’ve been giving you harder problems to work on. You’re past the level you need to be at right now. Trust me, you’re more than prepared.”

“But—”

“Listen,” he waves to the librarian as you both leave the library, your eyes still glistening as you fiddle with your sleeves. “It’s only the midterm—”

“Only the—”

“If this goes wrong, I’m just gonna have to work you harder for the real thing. Even though I know it won’t go wrong because I said so.”

You fall into silence as he walks you towards the coffee shop across the courtyard. 

“I’m assuming…” you start. 

“Hm?” he looks over to you.

“I’m assuming you can’t hint at what’s on the paper.”

Mingyu barks out a laugh of disbelief, “You assume correct. I’m not going through hell with this job just to lose it because of a paper leak.”

“But it’s just the midterm,” you mumble, not even close to remotely audible. 

“What did you say?” Mingyu smirks. 

“Nothing,” you huff.

“You know, I’m a little offended you don’t trust me.”

“Who said I didn’t.”

“Well then, stop being such a worrywart.”

There must be something written on your face, because as you pass Mingyu standing at the door he keeps open for you, entering into the coffee shop with fallen shoulders, he seems to change his mind. 

He brings you a coffee, sits you down, and gives you something else you need. “I made the paper. Every question. And I taught you. Every concept. So I definitely know you’re gonna be fine.”

In that moment, with the large glass walls of the warm coffee shop, the afternoon sun comfortably resting on every last object of the room, you don’t see it illuminate anything other than the man before you. 

Perhaps you're being dramatic at the revelation, but you don’t take anything into account as you note Mingyu’s eyes and how they sparkle like they were gifted from the centre of a flaming volcano, brown and polished more than any jewel or stone you’d ever seen. Reaching out to touch him, you know you’d feel nothing but smooth stone, the indentations only possible by a being beyond what you could comprehend. 

He’d given you more than just reassurance, and at times, his timing makes it feel like he was sent from the heavens itself, just for you. 

You sniffle. 

His hands brush over yours as he hands you a napkin, and even more so, cover your own as he takes your freezing fingertips into his own palm, the contact burning you like hot coal. 

You know he’s real. And you don’t know why quite just yet, but that reassurance is enough to give you calm.

Monday

You were alright, but it seems that Mingyu seemed to disintegrate right after he was done reassuring you to the moon and Saturn and Jupiter and back.

It’s midterm day, and as always on every Monday morning, you enter the empty lecture hall with two warm coffees in your hand, ready for whatever shitshow you’d have to perform for today.

It seems Mingyu must defect from at least one regular string of behaviour to remain as Mingyu, who on this occasion, stands before you in a baby blue polo sweater. 

Except you only know that because you can see the unique collar, but it might also be important that his back is turned towards you. 

“Morning, champ,” he gruffs, nothing encouraging about his voice in the slightest. 

Your breath hitches when you finally see his face, eyes sunken in and face pale. His lips are chapped and peeling, eyes half closed. 

“Why’re you looking at me like that, why has everyone been looking at me like that?” he huffs in one long, rapid question. 

“Um, I mean,” you stare at his shirt that’s backwards. And inside out. “I can’t tell if that’s a choice or a mistake.”

Looking down at his front, he looks back up, “What?”

“Your collar is…not at your collar, Mingyu. And your shirt’s inside out.”

Hand at his nape, he reaches his fingers down and finds the unmistakable starched planes of his collar, eyes closing at the realisation. He’s immediately pulling his arms out of the shirt with his eyes still closed like it’d all disappear if he keeps them like that. 

“Wait!” you exclaim before he strips entirely, scrambling to put your coffees down to push him out of the room towards the restrooms. “Do you wanna strip for the CCTVs?”

You only hear him sigh as he moves out and into the hall, doors closed behind him. 

You’ve nearly forgotten about the midterm at this point, your concern now growing in a completely different direction. By the time Mingyu returns, he’s blabbing about wondering why everyone he ran into since he left home was giving him the strangest looks, and then something about you always swooping in to save him before the real bout of disaster strikes. 

It’s hard for you to listen to him when you’re more worried about him passing out, his face doing him no favours to reassure you that he wasn’t a breathing corpse. 

“Mingyu…did you sleep at all?”

“Hm?” His eyes are glazed over and unfocused. 

“Sleep? Rest?”

“Oh,” he frowns. “Not really. I had emails coming in all night.”

“And you were replying?”

“It's the midterm today,” he responds flatly, like it should’ve been enough explanation. 

You almost don’t believe him. “Doesn’t mean you stay up to answer something that should’ve been cleared out beforehand!”

“Couldn’t just leave them to fend for themselves,” he dramatises. 

“Yes, you could!” Your voice comes out louder than you expected, eyes wide as you realise what he’s doing to himself. “You barely look human and it’s only the midterm.”

“What’re you trying to say?”

“I don’t know if this job is really worth as much as you think it is.”

Mingyu’s jaw is clenched, fists tight as he releases them to grip paper weight on the desk, knuckles white. “I can’t get anywhere if I don’t—”

“Mingyu, please. This isn’t good for you.”

He says your name. Declarative, almost like a warning. “If you think this job isn’t worth it then you just don’t know.”

“Mingyu—”

“No, you don’t, because I’ve seen how good of a job I’ve been doing.”

“You have, you’ve been amazing but—”

Mingyu’s own voice is raised, a hard impenetrable floor to the words he spills. “Then what’s the problem?”

“Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? You look like a corpse!”

And then he’s getting out of his chair with so much force it almost knocks it backwards, “Why on earth do you care so much? So what if I look like a corpse, if I‘m doing my job?” 

It might’ve been better if he knocked the chair right into you, your breath dissipating in your chest like it never existed. His face is morphed in an expression of exasperation your anxieties fear the most, every line on his face committed to irritation and anger. 

Why on earth do you care so much?

Right. Why do you? 

“Are you asking me that?”

“What?”

“Are you asking me why I care?” 

Mingyu only sighs, shoulders dropping and eyes closed. Like so many times before, you watch run a hand through his hair, except this time he yanks on the strands harder than ever before. 

His eyes are bloodshot. 

“I have to get the exam pack.”

Marching out the door in front of your own eyes, you’re left with a feeling that’s right in the back of your throat, curling and whirling into something you wish you could hack and gag out. Gripping the corner of the professor’s desk, you feel the peeling wood cut into your skin. 

There’s a draft, the delayed slam of the door has only hit its wind now, a delayed reaction. It’s like it registers in your mind as you feel strands of your hair shift, the clarity that comes with it.

Delusive. Chimeric. Cruel.

Everything you’d subjected upon yourself. A whimsical fantasy between pages of logic and numbers, a story that simply didn’t fit where the laws wouldn’t allow it. 

The null hypothesis of your most elaborate nightmares.

Monday

Your favourite commonplace box, where your mother once placed all her most prized jewels, had a finicky latch. 

It wasn’t broken, simply worn in from years of opening and closing. It took a few tries to get it shut. Simply pressing down with pressure didn’t work; you had to open it again, press down on the individual elements of the latch and then try again. 

You were never satisfied until you heard the distinct click of the latch fixing itself, the box closed and ready for you to hook your lock through.

Earlier on in your undergraduate career, you remember a professor talking about the effects of external factors on the mind, how they can sometimes cause it to ‘shut down’ when overwhelmed or stressed. 

It’s happened to you on many a occasion; like when you stayed up too late on a school night to watch a documentary about the Stanford prison experiment, or when you’d neglect food or water on busier days, or when you’d stop paying attention in class because you were too preoccupied thinking about Taco Tuesday. 

Regardless, you’d found a way to recognise when your brain would fall into some strange kahoots with daydreams, or whatever was bothering you, and learned ways to give yourself a reset. 

Pressuring and forcing the attention wouldn’t work, just like how the latch wouldn’t fit when you’d do the same with your beloved old box. So you’d take a walk, drink something cold, spray yourself with a garden hose, or even take a nap altogether. Opening yourself up, so the latch can finally click. 

On the morning of your midterm, when you’d ensured your brain was in optimal condition for the exam you knew would be one of the worse ones you’ll have to take, you were sure the only external force that could ruin your vibe was from God himself. 

Having been so preoccupied with your mind and its functions, you’d seemed to have forgotten where your heart had wandered off to. 

Somebody else might consider it a minor disagreement; an anxious squabble if you will. But your breakfast in your throat was enough reason to deem what happened that morning much more than that. At least for you. 

“Pass it on, please…pass it on, please.”

The sound of his voice is tectonic. Rattling in your head like a superior force had slammed into your skull like a padded hammer to a gong. 

You hated it. You hated everything. You hated yourself. And as the midterm paper reaches you with your pen in your clawed fingers, the first three questions already making perfect sense, you realise you hated Kim Mingyu the most. 

That was a lie. You were lying to yourself, yet again. 

Because it was quite the opposite. You couldn’t hate him. 

As you drift past every question of conditional experiments and screenshots of data and tables on a software, you hardly remember what you circle and what you don’t. Hardly remember what words you picked for the short answers and labels. You hardly remember taking the steps down from your seat to the front of the room, where the professor sat scrolling through his Skateboarders [!MEN ONLY!] facebook group, placing your paper down and leaving the classroom. 

Throughout your years of living, you’d learned what you needed to get your brain out of its clouded muffle, to refocus when you needed it. 

Everything. You tried everything. 

But on that day, when it mattered most, your latch never clicked.

It’s Wednesday. 

You order lunch from the Italian place a few streets down. Ravioli; it’s safe and you know you’ll like it. 

Savouring it is easy in front of another true crime show. You pull a lone soft drink from your fridge, one that your friend left weeks ago. It tastes just as bad as the last time you tasted it from someone else’s cup, but you drink it anyway, the empty can now in your trash. 

It’s 3:30 PM, and you sit at your desk. It’s strange. It feels like you’re missing something, which in ways, you are. But as you pull your laptop from your nightstand instead of out of your bag, you slow your movements. 

The papers are the same. But you read them anyway. 

Parameter estimation: Make inferences on characteristics of the population, including distributions of the variables and the effect of one variable over another. 

It’s accursed the way the universe won’t let you live. 

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue, estimation cannot be perfect. 

Estimation cannot be perfect. 

[_]

It’s Thursday

Class. Eat. Drink. Work.

Hypothesis testing: Determine whether null hypothesis is rejected or not after data observation. 

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue, no null hypothesis in bayesian approach!!

[_]

It’s Friday

Eat. Drink. Work.

Latent means to have meaning but is yet to be manifested. The greek letters are placeholder values for values yet unknown. 

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue; values that you will find out

[_]

It’s Saturday

Eat. Drink. Work.

P(A|B) = [P(B|A)P(A)

              ——————

                     P(B)

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue;

 it gets less complicated

 promise :/ 

[_]

It’s Sunday.

Eat. Drink. Work.

The page is blurry. Your eyes hurt. 

There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue;

you’ve got this!!! < 3

You give up.

It’s Monday.

8:14 AM. 

You barely glance at the front of the room; swift turn to the left and right up the steps. Dr. Cho’s outfit almost goes unnoticed by you, tamer than most. Bright Barbie pink with large polka dots, untucked into too tight white jeans. His crocs are sparkly, at least that’s what the twinkle from up here looks like. 

He’s insulting another author, the man’s ProQuest journal article open for the world to see like a mediaeval scandal. 

There’s another person next to the whiteboards, back to the wall, hands clasped in front of him. His hair is messy, shooting lasers into the carpet as he rocks the slightest bit, listening to the professor rip this author to shreds. 

An hour later, you’re staring into the JASP software like it was written in a different language. 

Glancing next to you, the boy in the spongebob hoodie is playing sharkboy and lavagirl by himself. On your other side, the girl has the same thing as you open on her laptop, her pen occupied with drawing about a hundred tiny gojos on a bright pink sticky note. 

Bright pink sticky note. 

You snap your gaze back to your screen quickly after that. 

9:58 AM. You start packing up, shoving everything into your bag. 

Dr. Cho doesn’t even notice you slip out of the room, hardly a minute to the end of the lecture.

In the hallway, you take your first real breath in two hours. 

It’s Tuesday.

You’ve come down with something, head heavy as you feel yourself burn up. Skipping class is easy when you sleep through your alarm and every phone call from a friend asking where you are. 

They drop by, armed with medicine and soup. You almost feel better. 

It’s silent after they leave, and you realise in that moment how much you hate it. 

Opening your laptop for the first time in over 24 hours, you turn on a random podcast to play in the background, needing something to fill the air before you lose it entirely. 

The screen lands right where you left on the incredulous data presentation, unsolved tutorial paper crumpled between the screen and keyboard like a wilted leaf. 

Hot, scalding tears sting your eyeballs when you realise there was nowhere to turn to.

It’s Wednesday.

After a long day of doing nothing, still sick from whatever plagued your body, you go to bed earlier than usual.

It’s Thursday. 

Walking out of class, your mind is empty. You’re still sniffling, still achey, but better than you were. The shawl wrapped around you is warm, and your hood covers the cold tips of your ears. 

This other class makes you feel better about yourself, especially when the content is digestible and so is the professor. The TA feels like a mere accessory in the room, something you’ve learned to appreciate. 

With your gaze lowered, you only see midriffs as you walk out the classroom into the busy hallway. 

It happens in an instant, the flash of a clenched hand as the owner walks by in quick stride. An unmistakable leather strap watch with a broken clock face on the wrist.

You freeze like you’ve been caught. 

The hard bump of someone coming out the room behind you is welcomed, the annoyed “Hey!” knocking you back to earth before you could even exit the dimension. 

You’re off centre. But it’s fine. 

It’s Monday.

“Midterm results are out Tuesday morning. If you have any questions I’ll be sitting at office hours on Wednesday and Thursday, four to six in the evening. Or you could send me an email, either’s fine.”

Dr. Cho isn’t here. Something you only found out when the pitt sank in your stomach as Mingyu cleared his throat at the full hour. 

You want to leave, not caring about how strange it’d look if you did. Not caring about how he would definitely notice if you did. You want him to shut up, to stop talking, for anything to halt the way his voice infiltrates your entire being, talking about things you don’t understand but more familiar than anything else. 

Mingyu’s voice is hoarse, and you loathe the way you can tell the difference. 

It’s Tuesday.

Midterm Results for Statistics in Psychological Research.

—  92/100

It’s Wednesday. 

4:10 PM. It’s almost too much for you. Almost. 

The screech of the door is loud, the slam of the handle’s rebound even more so. The room doesn’t so much as glance at you at the door, the half full seats preoccupied with more important things. 

The front desk perks up immediately, eyes shooting towards the door for the nth time that day, like he was expecting someone that never seemed to show up. 

It’s ironic, you think, how Mingyu never seemed to notice you walk into the room for the many months you’ve walked in just for him. And now, as you walk in fists clenched and jaw set, eyes wild and burning, he’s breaking away from a student to look at the door before you even come into view. 

“Did you feel bad?” you spit.

“What?” he whispers. He seems to come around, glancing back before continuing, “Can we talk? Please.”

“Answer the question, Mingyu,” you snap. You don’t care there’s a confused student sitting right across from the both of you, his slot interrupted by your barge. “Did you feel so bad you had to give me something I didn’t earn?”

He’s stood up now, half confused. “Is this about the midterm—”

“I did not get a ninety two, I know I didn’t,” you grit. “Whatever happened before that stupid paper made sure I wouldn’t.”

Mingyu says your name and the sound makes you want to vomit. “What makes you think I’d do something like that?”

“I don’t know, maybe because I fucked up because of you?” you announce, louder than before. 

The world disappeared, your tunnel vision pointed at Mingyu’s face that wears an expression you cannot even begin to read. The unbecoming tears in your eyes are of a type of unadulterated rage you’ve felt only a few times before. Your heart is going about a million miles a breath, everything else only triggering an added bout of infuriated tremble in the forefront of your emotions. Nothing makes sense. 

Mingyu pushes back his chair in silence, stalking over to a large cupboard in the corner of the room. He shuffles around for a minute before returning. 

There’s a packet being thrust into your fists when he reaches you. He does not meet your eyes. 

A bright red 92/100 marks the front page.

“Here. It was all you, if you can’t believe me.”

It’s a careful mark, unmistakable lines and curves of the nine and the two. 

Reality is slow to sink in, but for some reason it’s only making you angrier. The paper curls under the pressure of your fingertips. You don’t open the packet. You refuse to flick through the pages. 

Because you know you’ve lost.

It’s Thursday. And it’s full of regret. 

There’s a sickness in you, from that dreaded day, something beyond what affects your body temperature and your energy. It’s in your mind, flooding the nerves that swim through every crevice and cave of your brain, a physical venom that does the opposite of kill but also the opposite of letting you live. 

There’s a feeling in you, that even if you were to open your mouth, unhinge your jaw, try to scream as loud as your throat would allow, there would be no sound. Something like a horrible dream, that you need to screw your eyes tight shut to fall out of. Except you aren’t waking up from this one. 

In a coffee shop, where Mingyu held your hand in a reassurance you now bleed for, you were sure he was real. Real like some deiform image; too good to be true. 

In your bed, dry tears on your face, midterm packet sifted through that showed you absolutely everything that you did right, thanks to him. He feels too real. Real like a cloud of obsidian that follows you everywhere, like the sad that’s been sleeping with you every night. 

If there was a way to hate someone more than a human limit, you’ve crossed it with the resentment you’ve now fostered for yourself. 

Barging into office hours like that, accusing him on a basis of nothing but your own dangerously stewed thoughts. If there was a hope of salvaged parts, you took a hammer to it in disregard; tearing it to ribbons that lay at your feet. 

It’s Friday.

At least it was. It bled into Saturday before you realised the 3:23 AM on the dial. 

Two weeks of no help and you already feel lightyears behind. The hour is getting to you, and you feel the frustration pool into tears, that turn into full fledged sobs. You’re crying over Bayesian inference and it’s somehow more pressing than any other emotion you’ve ever felt. 

Impossible numbers on your data sheets taunt you, not a single reference to if it was a button you clicked wrong or if you were playing a fool’s game altogether. 

Ding! You pick up your phone, the weight of it is enough gravity to pull you back to earth. 

[Mingyu]: switch to bF10 

[Mingyu]: you’ve been pulling numbers from bF01

It’s immediate the way your eyes dart towards your lit screen, clicking off tables to get to the drop down menu you need. And there on the left, two tiny buttons, one clicked on bF01. 

With shaking fingers, you move your cursor to hover over the tiny bF10, anticipating. You click. It takes a moment for the numbers to change, but they do. The nominal values turn into something you can actually work with. 

Something akin to a tut leaves you, hidden in the breath of another sob. It’s stupid, unreasonable, absurd. Your fingers hover over your phone, shaking as tears drop onto the screen, faster than before. 

Do you not miss me?

Do you not want me around?

Talk to me

I miss you

Please talk to me

“I couldn’t—can’t—stand listening to someone spew nonsense when I know it’s not true.”

Mingyu is a product of his personality. You can only imagine he’s helped because he saw you struggling in class, heard from someone else, or perhaps, he just knew the very thing you’d make blunders out of. 

The reasons come to you, that Mingyu is a product of his personality. Then why does it hurt? Why does it feel like the knife’s twisted a full 360, that despite the way you accused him of the thing that would strip him of everything he’s bruised himself for, he helps you. The very thing that caused this rift in the first place. 

There’s a reason for that, and it is again, that Mingyu is a product of his personality. 

It’s Saturday. 

Perhaps you relied on your olfactory senses to remain calm, because you always knew you could count on a coffee shop to forever and always smell the same. 

The universe seems to want to ruin that for you too. 

“Latte, please,” you voice. “Iced.”

“We have a one plus one for the week! Would you like to receive another latte?” The lady taking your order looks no older than 17, a pep in her voice. 

“Um, no thank you. Just one, please.”

She looks taken aback, a reasonable reaction to anyone turning down a free drink. But you couldn’t bring yourself to walk home with two cups in hand. 

You’re plucking a napkin from the pickup counter when you hear his name. 

“...that he manipulated her grade because they were hooking up.” 

“He has time to hook up?”

“I remember hearing about that! She barged in during office hours and asked why he fixed her grade or something.” 

“A ninety two? In that class? Oh, they were definitely fooling around with each other.”

“Whatever, at least we know he’ll entertain you if he likes you enough. I’m just glad those two are over so I can swoop in.”

There’s an eruption of giggles. You press your head down further. 

“Unless he flirts in variables.”

“All is forgiven when you’re born with a face like that.” 

Another explosion of giddy laughter, through which your drink is slid across the counter towards you, like it was waiting for you to hear the damning evidence before you could leave. You grab it anyway, grip tighter than usual. 

Turning around, your eyes search, finding a group of people that sit in smiles and in various states of trust-falls. 

There she is, the girl you sat with on the first day you attended office hours, the one with the glitter gel pen doodles on her notes and her blatant fawns over the TA you slipped under just as easily. 

She locks eyes with you and her face falls, eyes widening the slightest bit in recognition. 

Pressing your lips into a smile, you hope it doesn’t look as menacing as you feel. You don’t wait for a response before you walk out the large glass doors.

It’s Sunday.

It seems every sip of water you’ve taken during the week has been used up in all the tears you’ve seemed to be shedding. By the bucketload.

Alas, even blurry and puffy eyed, you pour over statistical formulas anyway, running on no energy and all antagonism. It’s another tutorial sheet left incomplete, a single question taking a pour that lasts in at least an hour of struggle. 

Reading the same question for the nth time, your palms press into your temples as you stare lasers into the paper, like the revelation would come to you if you stared it down hard enough. It doesn’t make sense, the commands you’ve toggled on and off identical to the instructions on the page. 

Hence the question begs why the data was coming out like someone pressed the ultimate on a number generator. 

With a heat of unreasonable embarrassment, you find yourself checking your selection in one of the drop down menus, switching to bF01 and back just to see the difference. It does nothing to help, and you can’t help but feel a little relieved it wasn’t that particular snag. 

The library is as silent as it could possibly be on a Sunday morning, near empty as you occupy the mostly vacant seats. The librarian is having her own day off, as you could swear she’s playing computer games behind the counter instead of actual work. 

The only noise in the room is your own breathing, and that seems to be enough to mess with your concentration. You’re going cross eyed staring at the page for so long, the words doubling and  disappearing before going back to normal. 

Bayesian inference…z scores…null hypothesis…

Wait. 

It’s like you can see it in front of your eyes right now, the scribble of someone else’s dark blue on your notes.

no null hypothesis in bayesian approach

Bayesian approaches don’t use null hypotheses. And z scores are in…

“Oh my god, this is a t test,” you whisper to yourself in disbelief. Immediately, you’re scrambling to shake your laptop out of its sleep, switching over to a t test to redo everything, following the instructions on the same data set. 

And there it was…a clear 0.067 under the p value. 

In a moment of questioning, you laugh out a breathy sound, the absurdity of it all becoming too real. T tests were the first thing you learned, the foundation to all your statistical knowledge. Coming so far, and it took you days to realise the instructions under a Bayesian approach were for a different realm entirely. 

It was stupid of you. But in this difficult aftermath you can’t help but feel victorious. Laughing to yourself quietly in this empty library. 

When the initial adrenaline fades and you’ve double, triple checked to ensure you were right, you can only stare at the tiny mail button in your shortcuts on the screen. It was clearly an error, one that was given out to nearly a hundred students. 

The first step was clicking, your inbox coming to life as you drift towards the big blue button with the readily available NEW MAIL. So you click. 

There’s an attached file in the email you draft. 

The tutorial paper has titled t test instructions as a Bayesian approach. Just wanted to point it out and ask if I could receive a corrected version. 

Regards, YN

It’s almost like you’re trying to remember how it feels like when you type an experimental m in the To bar. His name pops up immediately, email address typed out in full, full name clear on top as a regular contact. 

You don’t need a suggestion to remember, his email came easier to you than your own. 

But you don’t email him, backspacing till it’s empty once again. 

Dr. Cho’s email sits in that place instead, a first for you. 

SEND.

You don’t expect him to reply on a Sunday, in fact, you aren’t sure if he’s going to respond at all. You’ve already shut your laptop, half out of your seat in an attempt to pack up. You’re forced to consider. 

Would it be terrible to go back and cc him as well? 

A spiteful part of you might find joy in correcting him for a change. The rational part of you wants to actually finish the tutorial before tomorrow’s class when you’d have to tackle another beast for the rest of the week. 

Sitting back down, you move without thinking. Your mind is still cooking up possibilities as you swing your screen open once again, still weighing as you click back into your inbox. 

There’s a new email in your sent box after you’re done, a copy of the one you sent your professor, the same attachment and the same question; word for word. The only difference, a more familiar name in the address bar. 

Before you can chicken out, you slam your laptop shut for the actual last time, shoving everything into your bag before the speeding thoughts can infiltrate your mind's barrier. You’re out the door before you know it, ready to be done with this. 

You’re afraid if you put a hand to your stomach it’d be met with kicks and punches, especially with the way you feel the aggressive cartwheels slashing away at your insides. The butterflies are making it to the end of your food pipe, and you briefly wonder if you need to break into a sprint to make it to a safe throwing up zone. Your entire being jolts as you feel a buzz in your hands, a loud click that signifies a new email in your inbox. 

Right there, in the middle of the sidewalk, you stop. 

The grip you have on your phone is unyielding, your fingers beginning to hurt from the pressure. There’s no way to tell if you’re shaking or not, but you bring your phone to your face anyway. The screen flips on, a lone notification on the screen. 

RE: Tutorial Error from Kim Mingyu

It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes since you sent that email, the library still in sight from where you stand. At the same time, it’s almost funny you expected any different from him. 

The kicks and punches in your stomach halt, the cartwheels have calmed, the butterflies have fallen asleep. The grip on your phone has loosened, and it’s like every nerve in your body went from on fire to serenity in a whiplash inducing shift. 

Clicking on the notification, the email opens. 

Noted. I have another tutorial sheet for you if you want it. I’ll be in the room where office hours are held for the rest of the morning.

Kim Mingyu, T.A.

There was no way he didn’t have a softcopy he could send you in less than a minute, and you’re sure he knew you’d realise that too. You should scoff, be upset, roll your eyes. 

But instead, you find your feet making a 180, turning around to go right back to where you came from. You walk, eyes still half trained on the email, reading and rereading as you walk back onto campus, towards the building you’d once considered a second home. 

You walk, and walk and walk, in through the doors, up the stairs and then another set of them, you take a left and look up. The hallway is empty, the door on the right coming into view as you slow your steps significantly. 

Closer and closer, you realise the light surrounding it is brighter than usual. The door is open, and you can see the empty rows of tables and chairs, set neatly against one another. It’s strange, you’ve never seen it wide open before. 

Walking even closer, you can see the beginnings of the professor’s desk come into view, and it only takes you one more step forward. 

Standing in the doorway now, you find yourself in the direct path of the sun that pours in through the open windows. It’s warm, but just enough to combat the cooling weather. 

The desk up front is occupied, as it always is. 

Mingyu is only in a t-shirt and trousers, glasses perched on his nose as he scrawls away on the paper in front of him. His laptop is turned on, screen facing the door where you stand, his inbox open and available even on the weekend. 

It wasn’t that you were waiting for him to notice, but you found yourself inadvertently taking your time looking at him. Every other situation, you’d done your absolute best to avoid your eyes grazing over him at all costs, hardly drifting over his form before flitting away. You never did it on purpose, but it was more like you were unconsciously protecting yourself.

 Like looking at him would only make the ache in your heart worse.

If that was the case, you would’ve been right. There’s a tug in your chest, and in that moment, it all comes flooding in like a gate destroyed. 

Mingyu looks up and sees you in the doorway, standing immobile. He sets his pen down, taking his glasses off. There’s the smallest hint of a smile on his face as he greets you, “‘Morning.”

You take it as your cue to move forward, stepping foot into the patch of sun slowly. “‘Morning.”

You reach the desk, standing in front of him, the only thing blocking you being the littered table with files, papers and stationary; the trench between you both. 

It’s so silent it tears at your insides, gripping the strap of your bag to have something to do. 

“I, uh, double checked when I saw the email. You were right, nobody noticed in class either.” There’s an airiness in his voice, like he might be struggling just as much as you are right now. 

He clears his throat when you don’t respond, looking back down at his workspace like he was looking for something. He finds a paper from some stack, handing it over to you. 

“Thanks,” you hoarse. It’s the same tutorial you had, except the instructions had been crossed out, replaced by a list of handwritten instructions instead, detailed in their annotation. You recognise it, because of course you’d recognise his handwriting. 

“I didn’t have time to print one out right now. I’ll probably send a corrected copy to everyone tonight,” he explains. 

“That’s alright.” You look up, lips pressed together, eyebrows forced into a regular position on your face. Nodding, you thank him once again. “Thanks again. I’ll…get going.” 

Every fibre in your body screams at you to turn back around, hollering profanities at your inability to deal with this. You’re already halfway to the door though, and your pride’s already deemed it too late. 

Please stop me, please stop me, please stop me, please just say something and stop me—

There it is. Your name, from his mouth, in his beautiful voice. 

Turning back around is the easiest thing you’ve ever done. 

Mingyu has stood up from his seat, out from behind the desk. He looks like he wasn’t expecting you to turn back. “Can we talk?” 

And then he’s pulling out the chair he was sitting on, presenting it like a piece offering. If you heard correctly, you could’ve sworn you heard his voice break the slightest bit when he pressed, “Please?”

So there you were, in a position all too familiar as you sit across from the man that’s haunted you for the past weeks, trying to keep your chest from falling in. 

“I guess I should start with an apology,” he’s fidgeting with his own fingers. “I don’t need to give you excuses about stress or exhaustion because…”

He closes his eyes, trying to find the words. “I didn’t mean to lash out at you. You were only trying to help and I was too preoccupied with myself to notice. I’m sorry I spoke to you like that when you didn’t deserve it.” 

For about the millionth time, you realise you’re tearing up again. He continues. “And then…right before the midterm too. You were right, I did feel horrible. But I swear that grade was all you, I didn’t touch those numbers.”

He really didn’t, because the papers he had thrust into your hands on that fateful day in this very room proved that you earned that mark. You wince regardless.

“I thought I could apologise before the exam started but I couldn’t find you, and then you were gone right after. I didn’t text or call because I was sure I’d fucked it all up.” 

“I’m sorry too. For barging in in front of everyone and basically accusing you. I wasn’t thinking straight.” You look up from your lap, wet lashes and all. “I really hope you didn’t get into any trouble.” 

“I–no, I didn’t.”

“Are you sure? Because—”

“I promise I didn’t.” He locked eyes with you when he said that, hoping you’d believe him. You nod slowly. 

“It wasn’t even that bad, what you said,” you sniffled. 

He scoffs at that, “I’d beg to differ.”

“I would’ve gotten over it,” you continue, bracing yourself to admit to something you’ve had trouble admitting to yourself. “I should’ve gotten over it. I don’t know why it hurt so much, why watching you walk out felt so horrible. But I haven’t been acting like normal ever since, and I’m sorry for stretching this whole fiasco out into something that didn’t need to turn into…this!”

“You were hurt because I hurt you.”

“People have said worse things to me. And you were practically a zombie, I should’ve just left it for another time. It was a little bit my fault too. But…yeah.”

There’s a silence as you try to remind yourself to breathe. You speak up again. “I just want us to go back to normal. I’ve missed you. Alot.”

“Me too. The go back to normal bit. And the…missed you bit.”

Mingyu’s half smiling when you look up, biting your lip hard as you try to keep a smile of your own at bay. “I’d thought if I gave up and admitted I was struggling that day, that’d be admitting defeat. That you’d think I…couldn’t do it.” 

Why on earth do you care so much? It rings in your ears. 

You sound light when you say it though, knowing now it wasn’t what he meant.“Since when are we on caring terms?” 

Mingyu cringes. "We are. I am, at least, if you aren't anymore, which is fine. I care about you. A lot."

It’s hard to not let out a laugh. He looks half constipated as he tries to navigate his words. 

“Oh well I’d hope you’d care, since you’re my TA and all.”

“Not in a TA way.”

“Tutor way.”

“Um.”

“Friend way? A human way?” 

“No.”

You both know you’re being obtuse on purpose, and you aren’t sure why. Maybe you just like to watch him squirm. 

“You know what?” he rasps. 

“What?”

Your answer comes in the form of Mingyu lurching to grab the legs of your chair, pulling the wheels to crash into him where he sits. You’re not expecting it, the clashing legs causing you to swerve forward, hands on Mingyu’s lap. 

And then his hand is on the back of your neck, and his lips placed on your own. 

You’re stiff as a board, brain computing the fact that Mingyu is kissing you in a classroom. 

It’s short, hardly a few moments before he pulls away. “Does that clear things up?”

There’s nothing you can do but blink at him, the reality of it all settles in. “Hm.”

He laughs at your half dazed state. It’s a purely instinctual part of you that speaks after this. “Maybe one more time. To make sure.”

Mingyu doesn’t even wait to laugh again as he wastes no time, putting his mouth on yours properly this time. There’s more of a drive in you this time, moving your mouth against his and he keeps your head close. 

The ecstasy is slow but sure to build in your stomach. Mingyu is kissing you. Mingyu is sitting with you and kissing you so good you’re already half faint. 

His mouth tastes like coffee and remnants of berry, a combination you can’t believe you could enjoy this much. Licking into his mouth, you let your tongue drag over his, like the tactile would convince you this wasn’t some too vivid fever dream. 

He pulls away for a moment, but hardly so as his lips remain pressed onto yours. 

“For the record,” he pants. “I love that you care. And I hope you’ll keep caring. Because I don’t think I can handle it if you walk away after this.”

Mouth back on his own, you decide there’s only one way to convince him you weren’t going anywhere without dragging him with you. 

MINGYU'S APARTMENT IS CLEANER than you expected. You aren’t sure what you were expecting, perhaps more mad scientist than anything else. But the most you find is a mug and plate in the sink, and a moderately crowded study desk, which is to be expected. 

Mingyu decided to abandon his work for the day to spend it with you, to which you contest that it was Sunday anyway. His response is making you change into something comfortable of his so you could laze on his couch. 

Like you would run away if he didn’t, Mingyu keeps his arms around you in a tight hold, fingers curling around your shoulders as you lay on top of him. Your head rests directly over his heart, his cheek and lips taking turns to occupy the top of your head.  

You fill him in on everything, and realise the most eventful weeks you’ve spent were actually quite uneventful in hindsight. He feels up your cheek and forehead when you tell him you got sick at one point, to which you have to reassure him it was either something going around or stress that you subjected on yourself. 

“I went to a frat party,” Mingyu mumbles into your forehead. “For Halloween.”

The information has you shifting to look up at him in bewilderment, “You went to a frat party?”

He snorts, “Dressed up for it too.”

“Oh my god,” you voice in mild horror. “Do I wanna know?” 

“Wonwoo and I matched,” he hums as he pulls out his phone, scrolling his gallery to look for pictures. “I was Mario, he was Luigi.”

“How adorable.”

He only gives you a look and shoves the phone in your face. By some grace of god they aren’t wearing moustaches, but the distinct red and green outfits are enough to give you enough recognition. 

“Thing 1 and Thing 2 were also possible contenders,” he informs. 

“That might’ve been a little better.”

“What’s wrong with Mario?” he asks sharply.

“Nothing. But I do hope you weren’t sporting an Italian accent throughout that.” 

“I was,” he pushes. “A horrible one too.”

You give him the satisfaction of an eye roll. 

“You could’ve gone as Peach. We could’ve matched.” 

“I don’t know if I’d wanna wear any available Peach costumes during Halloween time.” You crinkle your nose as you think of all the racy costumes that unearth every October. 

“Maybe in private,” he says with an insufferable smile on his face. 

Placing your hands flat on his chest, you rest your chin and look up at him. “I’m not sure I want to interrupt whatever you two have going on.” 

“Who?”

“You and Wonwoo, you’re practically married.”

Mingyu laughs out loud, and you can feel the rumble in his chest against your hands, his body moving against your own that’s stuck to him. “Not with whatever he has going on with his girl.”

“Oh right,” you frown in remembrance. “What happened to not understanding how he does it?” 

“Hm?”

“He’s a TA too. Probably just as busy as you. You said you didn’t know how he could juggle a relationship and his job at the same time.”

His eyes spark in remembrance, pausing for a moment. “I may owe him an apology.”

“Do you?”

Mingyu frowns, “Actually no I don’t. I don’t think he and his lady are doing too well right now. He’s been insufferable lately.”

“Is it because of the TA-ing?”

“I never know with those two,” he sighs.

There’s silence once again, in the midst of which Mingyu leans over to kiss you a few times, soft and lingering. Like he’s trying to familiarise himself with the shape of your mouth, the tactile feeling of kissing you. 

“Do you…know about us?” There’s hesitancy in the way you ask. But you can’t help but ask anyway.

Mingyu thinks for a moment, and it has your heart beating out of your chest. “I know that I want us to be concrete. That I wanna work around whatever life throws at us. You can decide what to call it, but I know I’m in it for the long run.”

“I’m glad you’re smarter than your husband,” you smile.

He only rolls his eyes, “He’s only good at one kind of chemistry.” 

“D’you think they’ll be okay?”

“Oh yeah,” he assures. “They’re just going through a…rough patch.”

“Like we did?”

“If you’re asking me, I’d say they’re being a little more stupid about it.”

The snort that leaves you is unanimous with his own. He continues, “They’ll be okay though.”

“I hope so. I’d like to go on double dates with my boyfriend’s husband’s girlfriend.” You start giggling in the middle of your sentence, too ridiculous even for you to voice. 

“This is getting weird,” Mingyu breathes. 

You only hum against his mouth, “Do I have to take your husband's blessing before we can move forward?”

“For fuck’s sake.” 

You’re both laughing again, a sound that comes from your stomachs, true and uncontrollable. For a moment, you can’t help but be conscious of how light you feel, how happy you feel with his scent infiltrating your nostrils, his presence known where his fingertips touch you. 

“I did the sticky note thing again too,” Mingyu says into the silence, and there’s nothing you can do to stop the fit of giggles that erupt all over again. 

“Said something worse this time,” he continues as you laugh into his chest. “Accept that you’ll die alone or some other shit like that.” 

There’s comfort in this moment. In your giggles and in your tears, in his voice and in his affection. His lips are another sanctuary you’ve found, and perhaps even another way to make your dreaded latch click. 

Nose nuzzled in his cheek, the feeling of his skin so soft against yours, fingers at his chin where a slight stubble grows, you relax in ways you cannot comprehend. 

MINGYU'S LIPS BECOME A feeling you’ve grown dangerously accustomed to. 

It isn’t that he has them on you too much, regardless of what an outsider might suggest; to you they simply aren’t on you enough. 

The following Monday went as usual, for you anyway. You weren’t avoiding Mingyu this time, and you were grateful for it. It was two hours of following him with your eyes as he darted around the room. You could hardly constitute it as not paying attention when Dr. Cho was preoccupied with explaining every reason he hates JASP over SPSS, but also ultimately, hates them both. 

You don’t even notice his loud outfit (overalls and a neon green sweater underneath), happy to watch Mingyu flit about and whisper incoherent explanations to students. 

The tutorial paper is barely looked at by you, because you know your boyfriend will be happy to help you out later at his place. 

You’re barely through the door that night when he gets a hold of you, tight grip across your waist as you’re catapulted into his arms, door slammed shut behind you. 

Bag still on your shoulders and your shoes still on, Mingyu’s slammed his mouth onto yours before you can take a proper breath. You stumble, squealing through the kiss as you realise you aren’t escaping the iron grip he’s got on your face. 

Somehow between it all, you manage to slip your bag off to let it drop to the floor of his doorway, shoes kicked off one after the other as he leads you inside, littering the way. 

“You aren’t actually paying attention in class anyway,” he breathes against your mouth before kissing you again. “So why don’t you sit in the back where you don’t distract me.”

“Who says I’m not paying attention.” You open your as your back lands on the couch, looking at him as he looms overhead. 

“You’re paying attention to me.”

“It was in my job description when I signed up for the girlfriend position.”

He’s all over you now, hands at your sides, mouth underneath your earlobes as he husks, “Was letting me take you in front of the entire class also a clause? Because if this goes on I might have to take up on that.”

If you didn’t know any better you would’ve assumed he’d been possessed, everything about his behaviour screaming the opposite of the well behaved, restrained man you’ve been accustomed to. The fact that he’s whispering directly into your ears isn’t helping either, a conspicuous shiver dragging across your spine. 

It lands with precision, right at your core. You’re too hot to tell, but there isn’t a doubt you’ve begun to pool. 

There’s a ding in the background. 

He’s suckling underneath your ear, his hands roaming in ways that would smear your reputation altogether. 

Another ding. 

He’s reached your mouth once again, groping your right breast lightly. Like he’s testing the waters.

Ding. 

Mingyu makes a noise of annoyance, the other hand trailing underneath your shirt. 

His ringtone blares throughout the room, whoever the caller was having reached wit’s end. 

“Gyu…” you whisper. 

“Ignore it,” he growls. The ringing has stopped. 

He ducks underneath to kiss at your stomach, lifting your shirt oh so slowly. He goes higher, and higher and higher, leaving a trail of kisses at the skin, taking deep breaths as he drags his mouth over your torso. 

His phone begins to ring again. 

Your head is spinning, your senses overcome. If you weren’t sure before, the air of wetness between your legs is definitely obvious now. 

He brings a hand to your centre, pushing inwards at your jean clad core. You exhale sharply yet shakily. 

The ringing stops. 

Mingyu makes a gumbled sound that you can’t quite make out, too preoccupied with the way your shirt is now up past your bra, at which Mingyu has taken to leaving open mouthed kisses to your cleavage. 

There’s a ding. 

“Mingyu, I really think—”

His phone begins to ring again. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he curses, rearing his head like an interrupted animal, wet mouthed and bleary eyed. He looks at his buzzing phone on the floor in an accusatory glare, like he wants to chuck it out the window and go right back to burrowing into your chest. 

“You should answer.” 

He looks irritated as he takes his phone in his hands, and you find a flash of Dr. Cho’s name on the screen. “It’s eleven O’clock.” 

“It might be important.”

“The last time he did this he asked where his peacock feather pen was,” he grunts as he silences his phone. 

You laugh, running a soothing hand through Mingyu’s hair, a tiny attempt to calm him down. Pulling your shirt down, you attempt to sit up. 

Mingyu makes a noise of denial, attempting to stick his face into your now clothed chest, knocking you back down, “Nooooo, I’m gonna ignore him.”

“He’s not going to leave you alone,” you sing quietly, running your nails across his scalp lightly, holding his head to your chest. You place your cheek on his head, playing with his ear. 

As if to prove your point, Mingyu’s phone begins to ring again, and he groans at the prospect. 

“Go on.”

He swipes to answer it. A loud sigh and then a tired, “Hello?”

His volume is bumped up enough for you to make out what’s being said on the other line. “Where have you been?”

“It’s nearly eleven, sir. I was in bed.”

“My flash drive won’t open up on my computer.”

You have to stifle a snort. 

“Is it…plugged in?”

“Of course it is, I’m not an idiot.”

“Is it showing up on your files?”

“Disk…is not…formatted.”

“Erm, it might be corrupted.”

“How did that happen?”

“Did you download something off the internet onto it?”

“Hardly matters, I need the attendance sheet on it!”

Your fingers are massaging Mingyu’s temples as you feel him tense on top of you. 

“Your attendance sheet is on the teacher’s portal,” Mingyu grits before adding, “sir.”

“...I have other things on there too.”

Mingyu exhales ever so quietly and you tighten your hold on him a smidge. “This sounds like something tech support could help with.”

“Why can’t you help?” he asks sharply. 

“I…I don’t know how, sir.”

There’s a noise of indignation from the other end, and you can’t help but keep from laughing. 

Mingyu sighs into the phone, this time doing nothing to hide it. “I’ll take it to tech support for you tomorrow. And I’ll send you a direct link for the attendance sheet for Monday and Tuesday’s classes.”

The line beeps shut. Mingyu brings the phone for you both to see the professor’s hung up as soon as the words left Mingyu’s mouth. 

“Wow,” you whisper into the silence, the weight of Mingyu’s head heavier on your chest. “Not even a thank you.”

“Absent father behaviour,” Mingyu grumbles as he moves his face to burrow into your shirt. 

It’s a bad joke, but you laugh anyway. 

“Will I be an asshole if I say I’m not in the mood anymore?” he murmurs. 

“Absolutely not. Everything sucked right back in the minute I heard his voice on the line.”

“Gross,” he comments, but he’s laughing too. 

“Should we call it a night?” he asks, rearing his head. 

Nodding, you rise with him. By the time you’ve reached the bedroom, you’ve already begun taking off your accessories, fiddling with your bracelet as you voice. 

“I need a shower.”

Mingyu throws you a towel and a t-shirt, which you catch and move towards the bathroom. Halfway through the door, you sneak a look at him fiddling with his belt. 

“Do you wanna come in too?” 

Mingyu looks at you peering through the door frame. You’ve never seen anyone leap across the room as quickly as in that moment. 

THE FOLLOWING DAYS WERE just as eventful as that phone call, Mingyu running around as the midterm low passed and the line creeped up towards finals season. 

Perhaps it was better that you stopped attending office hours, because the room seems to become increasingly packed as the days progressed. 

You only ever saw Mingyu in the wee hours of the night at his place, where he begged you to camp out till the end of the semester so he “doesn’t move to insanity”. It might even be better for you, going about your day as usual, without the usual added distraction of a partner.

Coming home to him was easier, where he could clear up your doubts while in ratty pyjamas and starfished across the bed, where you could find solace in Mingyu’s chest without prying eyes when the information became like filling an already stuffed junk drawer. 

It was a Friday night, you’re alone at Mingyu’s place sitting cross legged on the floor. The table in front of you is pouring over the final question of this week’s tutorial paper, everything seemingly whizzing right past the top of your head. 

Despite that, as Mingyu stumbles inside past eleven, you know you shouldn’t ask him for a thing. 

Tired was a look on Mingyu you’d gotten quite used to, so you’ve learned to not comment and simply let him fall into the couch cushions with all his weight. 

His face is parallel to yours as he closes his eyes with a light groan in greeting. Moving forward, you kiss the flutter of his eyelids softly, down to the apple of his cheeks, the tip of his nose, the corner of his mouth. 

Your fingers run through his tangled and distressed hair as he mumbles against your mouth. “Did you finish the tutorial paper?”

You huff in mild annoyance, that despite his state he still thinks about work. “Not yet. One last question and I’m done.”

He hums and waits a moment before reopening his eyes. With a loud groan he’s pushing himself off the couch, sliding off of it to sit with you on the uncomfortable floor. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”

“I can figure it out myself, Gyu.”

“You would’ve been done by now if you could,” he answers. It’s annoying that he says it but he’s also right. 

Mingyu holds the paper a mere inch from his eyes, the sight almost comical if he also didn’t look an inch from passing out. 

He mumbles the question as he reads, “It’s nothing, just worded weird. Toggle this off and move this to mixed factors and you’re done.”

The toggles are done for you, and Mingyu takes the liberty crossing he question off with a pen he finds on the table. 

“Did you get everything else?” he asks in earnest. 

“Hm? I think so.” 

“Good.” And then he’s throwing his head back to rest it on the couch cushions behind him, breathing slowly. 

He’s in a navy sweater, collar of his undershirt peeking through the top. Your gaze leads up further, to the exposed area of his throat—clean, tan and naked. You realise this might not be a good time, but it’s only natural your mind cooks up other ways to translate your helplessness as you watch your boyfriend push himself to the brink. Release is never a bad idea. 

Besides, it’s a Friday night. No reason to not. 

“Gyu,” you shuffle closer. 

Lolling his head to look over at you, he answers in a small voice, “Yeah?” 

You put on the guiltiest face you can muster, complete with darting eyes and fidgeting fingers. “D’you think…d’you think you can go over post hoc tests again?”

“Post hoc?” He furrowed his eyebrows. You bite the inside of your cheek, having blurted the first plausible model you could think of to ask him. It’s an older bit of the syllabus, something you should already be well versed in. 

Not that you care what he thinks right now, he’d figure out why you were asking anyway. 

“Post hoc, um,” he rubs a hand over his face as if to jog his memory. 

Shifting forward, you plaster you front onto his side. He thinks nothing of it. 

“Analysis tool after you’ve already run the data,” he begins. 

Placing your chin on his shoulder, you let your nose nuzzle against his cheek. Trailing up, your lips find the shell of his ear. 

“Results have to be…they have to be…” He falters when your hand reaches his front, running across the expanse of his clothes stomach, nails digging ever so slightly as you reach his abdomen. You continue to place open mouthed kisses at the space of neck you can reach. 

“Hm? Has to be what?”

“Statistically significant,” he breathes when your palms reach the tops of his thighs. “To run a post hoc test.”

His trousers are less barrier inducing than regular jeans, something you’re both grateful for as you begin to palm his clothed bulge. “Results of what, baby?”

“For the love of—”

“Go on,” you whisper in his ear. “Please.”

One flick and his trousers are unbutton, pulling them aside as the zipper pulls open. You're pushing down his boxers when he answers you. “ANOVA.” 

“What’s that again?”

“You little shit.”

You move your mouth forward to kiss him.

“Analysis of variance.” 

You hum against the column of his throat at that, his half hard member in your hands. Light touches, that’s all they are, running the pads of your fingers across the pulsing length, coaxing him into full length. 

“What’s it for though? We already got our results.” Bending forward, you stick your tongue to kitten lick at his tip. Mingyu hisses, hips shifting. Your tongue swirls around the tip, pushing into the skin on the head where he’s most sensitive. 

“Ugh, fuck, for um,” he falters as you begin to suck at his head, tongue running over each hollow of your cheeks. 

“For…for…” His chest is moving up and down in quick breathes, every sound from his mouth coming from a deep rumble in his stomach. 

Letting go of his cock, you continue to pump him with your hand as you gaze up at him from your position. “For? Keep talking, baby.”

“For…To identify groups,” he grunts out. He lets out a louder moan when you place your mouth back on him, going past his tip and taking as much as you can of him into your mouth. “Identify…the differences, shit, hmph.”

He takes a loud breath before speeding through it again, “Identify which groups actually differ, oh my god.”

The bit of him that you can’t fit on your mouth is being pumped by your hands, fingers pushing into him like you were trying to indent them on the base of his cock. A glance upwards and you find his head thrown back, hands coming to tangle in your hair. His thumb caresses the side of your cheek.

“How many groups?” you ask, before diving back in. 

“Three,” he chokes out. “Three or more, oh I’m gonna cum, fuck don’t stop, holy shit.”

Both of his hands are at your head, guiding you as you suck him harder, faster, more tongue digging into his slit. You hum against his dick on purpose, making sure it’s coarse enough to get the reaction you want. 

You succeed, because immediately after you hear Mingyu rip out the loudest moan you’ve ever heard, his grip on your strands harder than ever. He cums into your mouth, hips stuttering as you place your entire weight on him to keep him in place. 

You let some of it dribble out your mouth and back over his softening dick like a hot coating, sucking him through shooting spurts of cum that land on your tongue. 

When you emerge from underneath, Mingyu looks like he got the soul sucked out of him; eyes closed, stuttered breaths raking through his entire body, a light sheen of the beginnings of sweat that glisten in the low light of the room. 

Reaching for the tissue box and water bottle on the table, you soak the napkins and bring them to clean him up. He whines when the cold tissues touch him where he’s most sensitive right now, you want to kiss him but account for the cum that is actively stuck to the walls of your mouth. 

You leave for a few minutes, much to Mingyu’s hoarse protests. He’s almost on all fours, hands on the floors as you promise to be back. By the time you’ve hauled his tired ass into bed, you’re just as ready to knock out as the half asleep man beside you. 

Mingyu’s face is plastered into your neck, arms and legs thrown over your form as he hugs you close to him. 

“I might love you,” he says into the darkness. A secret, just for you and the walls to hear. 

You hide the way your heart absolutely leaps, conceal the way your hands tighten around his form into an affectionate caress, hold your breath to prevent the inevitable hitch. 

I might love you too. 

You hide that as well. For now. 

Smiling into the skin of his temples, you sigh.

“Feel free.”

[Mingyu]: class ended early 

[Mingyu]: be there in 5 

[You]: ???

[You]: wdym ended early

[You]: kim did u end class early to come home

Your response comes in the form of the front door lock jiggling loudly. You’d stayed the night at his place, knowing you didn’t have anything to do but study by yourself. Sickly as you were, you doubt you could sit through two hours of even more statistics. 

He’d left you in bed with a kiss, needing to be extra early since Dr. Cho decided to dump the last crucial few weeks leading up to finals season entirely on his TA. As much as there was on Mingyu’s already overflowing plate now, you couldn’t deny the elated feeling of your attendance being taken care of regardless of whether you show up to class or not. 

A very real violation, but no one truly notes one skipped student in the midst of hundreds. Besides, the bag under Mingyu’s pretty eyes might be enough for anyone to have mercy and let the supposed mistake slide.

As Mingyu walks into the room, shoes flying and back dumped on the floor, he finds you still half clothed with leftover sleep in your eyes, standing in the middle of the living space like you were lost. 

He drops his things to come and drown you in his arms, loud kisses all over your face as you talk. “You’re getting too comfortable with this job.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t possibly expect me to teach a bunch of half asleep idiots when my woman is all alone at home, sickly and cold without me.”

You grumble wordlessly as you feel him check your temperature with the back of his hand. “How’s the congestion?”

“Bad,” you respond nasally. “I can’t find my Afrin.”

“It’s on the bedside table, baby.”

“No, it’s not.”

Still wrapped in his hold, Mingyu begins to take steps forward that lead towards the bed, pushing you to walk backwards.

“I’m not awake enough to navigate,” you sniff.

“I’ve got you,” he lowtones, pushing backwards slowly. 

The back of your knees hit the bed and you let yourself fall back into the unmade sheets. You crawl back under the covers as Mingyu navigates between used tissues, water bottles and pills on the bedside table. But no sign of your nasal spray. 

You have to breathe through your mouth and you hate it, but you send a remark his way anyway. “Told you.”

Mingyu bends down and emerges with a familiar red capped bottle. He stares at you while you stare at it, choosing to simply snatch it from his presenting hands and be done with it. 

“Good thing I came back early, hm?” 

“Shut up.”

He leaps over your form to claim the spot in bed right next to you, still fully clothed as he burrows under the covers next to you.

There’s nothing flattering about the way you stick the nozzle up your nostrils and sniff hard, but the gleam in your boyfriend’s eyes might as well suggest you were trying to get him to look at you like that. 

“Are you gonna keep doing this till finals?” you ask throatily, shifting under the covers. 

“Teaching during class time is just extended office hours, I’m gonna go insane if I keep going like this. Probably just today. Or…once more if I feel it.”

“Didn’t you say you were gonna extend office hours to Fridays too?” 

Mingyu moulded himself against you, giving warmth to your shivering body even under thick blankets. 

It seems throughout the course of your relationship, your time with Mingyu is either spent laying down or in the process of doing so. Not that you mind, you’ve found that remaining horizontal was what worked best for someone like Mingyu who seemed to want to fuse with your very being whenever you were together.

“Ugh, not this week. Do not have the patience.”

“I’m proud of you,” you say, eyes closed, already on the highway to dreamland. 

“Thank you, I do think I’ve been very brave.” Even while slipping into dreamland, you find the good sense to find his nipple through his sweater and give it a hard pinch. He jerks away in a yelp, clutching his chest. 

“What’s that for?!”

You ignore him and simply run your hand over the area you just attacked. “You’ve gotten better at knowing when to slow down. I’m proud of you.”

You’re too far gone to make out what he answers you with, but with the hot breath against your already warm forehead, you decide it's more than enough for you. 

MINGYU DOES IT FOR the fourth time, but this time round he’s smart enough to not tell you. 

It’s the Friday before finals week officially begins, and you remain in your own place for once to crack down on the last bits of syllabus you want to go over, away from your extremely distracting boyfriend. 

There’s a text when you check your phone after a couple hours of hyperfocus, and you narrow your eyes at the notification. 

It’s Wonwoo’s (actual) girlfriend, and she’s sent you nothing but a picture of both of your men on Wonwoo’s living room floor, thoroughly occupied with the floored expanse of sheets, pillows and cushions. 

It’s a pillow fort.

Your boyfriend is building a pillow fort in his not-husband’s living room mere days before the final exam for the most dreaded course of the semester. All while he’s actively meant to be available for office hours.

You want to laugh. The man that stayed up multiple nights to answer stupid questions in emails, is now less than concerned about the pandemonium that is probably ensuing in the department building. It isn’t that you’re upset, because this was what you wanted from him. To learn to take a break when it was needed. But you would also prefer he’d time them a little better. 

Inevitably, you text him, but not before sending an encouraging text to your girlfriend-in-law for putting up with the both of them all by herself. 

[You]: where are you

[Mingyu]: where im meant to be?

[You]: office hours?

[Mingyu]: mhm

[You]: are u and ur husband conducting them under a pillow fort in his house

You imagine him sending Wonwoo’s girlfriend a betrayed look. Perhaps even throw a frilled throw pillow in her unassuming direction. 

[Mingyu]: DONT KILL ME

You let him suffer in your silence, clicking your phone off and leaving it somewhere you won’t be tempted to look. 

Besides, it wasn’t long before there was an incessant banging at your door that you ended up needing to get up to open. He looks so timid, the face of an innocent perpetrator that waltzes into your space. 

“I’m sorry,” he begins, following you to your desk like a lost duckling. 

“Whatever for?”

“For lying.” 

You snort as you sift through tutorial sheets, “Might wanna take that up to the poor hopeless student that thought you were their last hope.”

Mingyu’s head sinks to your shoulder where you sit at your desk. “God.”

“Him too.”

In another few moments, his arms have come around to cage you into your desk where you’re sat, hands placed on the table as he towers over the top of your head, mouth to crown. 

“Rumour has it,” he starts. 

You make a face. “Now you’ve joined in on gossip? Maybe I have steered you wrong.”

He ignores you valiantly as his mouth drops lower, down to the beginnings of the tips of your ears. You can smell him. He smells good. 

“That a textbook recitation is all it takes to get you all bothered down there.”

Lifting your head from its craned position over your papers, you stare straight ahead. Blank and unassuming. 

“Take a hike, Kim.”

“...Sorry.”

NO MATTER HOW FAKE annoyed you were at your boyfriend, you cannot possibly credit anyone else for how smooth your finals had gone. 

Not a single tear, hack or whine. Your meals were on time, your sleep schedule the healthiest it’s been for months. You even managed a movie night break in the midst of it all. A record for you. 

The very first thing you do after walking out of the exam hall, stretching and sighing, you find Mingyu waiting with nervous eyes. 

“Well?” he asks, eyes wide and lips pulled into his teeth. 

You merely grab for his hand and pull him out of the crowded hall and past a few familiar turns. 

“For the record I didn’t want some of the questions on there,” he yaps as he follows behind your stalks. “Hard ones weren’t mine. I promise I’m not a sadist.”

Then, in an un-CCTV’d corner, marked by the broken, empty vending machine, you round up on him. In seconds you’ve pulled him down to meet your lips in an eager, full kiss. 

In the moments your lips remain intact, you can feel all the horrid statistical knowledge you’d gathered over the months slip out the cracks and crevices, relieving you. 

Mingyu is careful to let you pull away first, eyes sticky to open when you do. There’s a smile on your face. “It went great.”

A strong tug against your waist and you’re suddenly pressed into Mingyu’s all too familiar hold, so everloving tight you can hardly breathe. His lips are smacking and pressing into your skin, all over your face, neck and hands. Anywhere he could possibly reach. 

There wasn’t much he could do standing in a huddled corner at nine in the morning on a Tuesday, where anyone could pass by and question what in the high school was going on. But there was more than enough Mingyu could do behind closed doors. 

In true Mingyu fashion, he’s begun to grope in every way you love the minute the lock clicks shut of his apartment, every fibre of both of your beings giddy and jumpy, giggles erupting from your tired mouths. You haven’t been touched in ages, always too tired to do anything even when you would find the time. 

It isn’t remotely strange that you're wet from only a few kisses and hot breaths against your neck. Although Mingyu’s hands haven’t been modest either, already reaching your clothed cunt as you fall into bed. 

He says it was your reward, for doing so good, his illustrious mouth suctioned onto your naked core, moving and grinding in ways you can more than just appreciate.

His tongue is nothing below made for you, like he knows exactly when to flick his tongue, graze his teeth and all but suck the daylights out of you. It’s marvellous, even more so as you realise he won’t stop. One, two, three mind blowing orgasms later, your legs still shake around his head as you cry out for him to stop. 

Not that he was going to listen, as he did not the last fifteen times you tried, simply pushing a finger into your abused hole to chuck you into yet another climax. You’re sobbing, trembling, sweating; but also half hearted in your attempts to stop him. 

By the time he’s relented, you’re sure you won’t feel a thing down there for at least a week. If Mingyu will even let you go untouched for that long. 

But as you’re finally able to catch your long lost breath in bed, and Mingyu has curled up right beside you, like he always does, you let the finality of it all sink in. You were done. And so was he. And you could now begin to experience a Mingyu that wasn’t exhausted, stressed or tired. Even now, the long indented layers of fatigue begin to melt away, revealing a less strained man. 

Mingyu was beautiful either way. 

“Are you okay?” he asks you, his fingers tracing your features. 

The pads of his fingers glide across your eyelids, down the slope of your nose, tracing the outline of your lips. You kiss his fingers as they reach you there, hand coming up to hold his wrists. You kiss the tips of his fingers, down to the palm of his hand. Eyes closed, you keep your lips there. 

“More than okay,” you mumble. 

“Good. Thought I lost you there.”

Stretching unceremoniously, you drape yourself over his naked form, head on his shoulder. “You’re not losing me. Not after being the sole reason I pass this devil’s module.”

“Is that all it takes? Make sure you don’t fail?”

“And give head like that.” It’s a half joke. “But also be Kim Mingyu comma TA.”

He mimics you between a breathy laugh, “Comma TA. Not anymore, I guess.”

“How happy are you?”

“Still have to grade the last set of papers. But I got what I wanted.”

“The recommendation? You deserve it.”

“That, and not having to be in Dr. Cho’s presence every other day. And you.”

You kiss his shoulder. “Look at you. All grown up with your big boy grad school on the horizon.”

“Not just yet.”

“You’ll get there too. If you can power through this hellsent semester, you can power through anything grad school applications throw.”

Mingyu shifts where he lays, taking a turn to lie on his side to face you. The afternoon sun peeks from behind his form, his outline made of pure gold. His breath is in your face as he talks, and there’s comfort in the air it penetrates.

“I only powered through this because of you. I hope you know that.” He’s smiling. 

“Girlfriend duties,” you quote solemnly. 

“I mean it. I knew I was walking into disaster with how this stupid job was going, all that work was just a distraction. I didn’t wanna believe this was a bad idea. And then you walked in.”

You cup his face and pout, “Oh, my damsel in distress.”

“Hm, my knight in shining armour,” he giggles. “Galloped in and saved me from myself.”

“You saved me too. From the world and its horrible creations.” 

“I’ll start talking in formulas if this keeps up.” 

You can only grumble in mild annoyance. 

“I’m glad I asked you to come in early that day,” he says.

“I’m glad I was a good samaritan and gathered all your stuff that day.” You grin.

Mingyu leans in and kisses you. It’s soft, slow, and drips of the romance he’s trying to bring into the conversation. His lips are bliss, the feeling of him is bliss. 

It’s almost scary how easily you’ve been able to give yourself to him. How quickly he’s placed himself in every nook and cranny of your heart. With his tired eyes and stronger than himself smile, the hand he extended in ways beyond you could ever explain to him. It’s terrifying when you realise what remains on the tip of your tongue, ready and bursting. 

But it’s true, and you can only pray it remains that way. Because in that moment, naked and tangled between Mingyu’s limbs, his heart in your ears, your hands on his being, you just know. 

“I think I might love you too.” 

[evilminji]

Okay but? We of the DPxDC? Are COMPLETELY Sleeping on DPXBNHA?

And not even for the Main Plot Shenanigans!

Just?? It has ALL of DC's super powers? But MORE OF THEM. And like 80% of the population has um! Danny can?? Finally achieve his DREAM of being???

JUST SOME DUDE™!

Yeah, he's in Japan. That's a bit of a learning curve. And YEAH, there was a cataclysmic war like a few centuries back that sorta... fucked everybody up. No one wants to talk about it. There may be mass graves and Never Forget memorials. But?

On the SURFACE!

This place seems utopian!

No ghost hunters! Advanced technology! Robust social services*!

Wait... what was that asterisk? What do you mean "corrupt shadowy government organizations"? What do you MEAN "Immortal Supervillians"? NO SPACE PROGRAM!?!? AaaaaAAAAAAAAAAH?!?!? I'M IN HELL!!! This is ACTUALLY THE BAD PLACE, THIS IS HELL, OH GOD NOOOOOOO-!!!!!!

Cause see?

There are SO MANY REASONS he'd end up there?

Think about it! Wish that he lived somewhere his weird biology wouldn't exclude him from becoming an astronaut? In Quirks having Bnha Japan EVERYBODY has weird biology! Y'ain't special! You could TOTALLY be an astronaut!..... if we HAD those! We do not. Shut down that program during the Quirk Wars and never really started it again. (And somewhere, Desiree LAUGHS)

Or MAYBE? Things are getting a little hot on the ground? Bit TOO spicy. The Family Fenton and Friends have fallen back, behind the barely holding shields. Not even the Mansons considerable political maneuvering could stop the inevitably of human fear and blind unthinking hatred. Money can't buy everything, in the end. There is only ONE(1) way out.

Through the Zone.

Plan: Strangers In A Strange World is a go.

They're all Limnal enough to fake it. Sam with her plants. Tucker with his technology and persuasion. Jazz with her limited empathy. Their parents with their... well, weirdness. And with a touch of ghostly assisted meddling? Well, they've always BEEN there! Haven't they?

And that's not to MENTION the random 4 year olds with no control! JUST coming into their powers! With all those big emotions in tiny bodies? Startling events and tantrums? Villian attacks? What could THEY possibly hope to do to control or guide that fresh new power? It does what it does and the rest of us are just along for the ride!

If Danny happens to be minding his business and gets accidentally kidnapped by a VERY distraught 4 year old? Well, that's hardly the KIDS fault, now is it? They're FOUR! That is basically a toddler! Tiny child! They are upset, confused, and didn't mean to do ANYTHING. He's a hero. And Heros don't blame little kids from accidents, no matter HOW stressed it makes them.

No, the curse like a sailor INSIDE their head. Like an ADULT.

Just? Imagine~☆

The slow transition from *starry eyed shoujo sparkles* "This is SO COOL~!" to "huh, that's... kinda weird. And Sus. Weird Sus. Maybe nothing... oh! A distraction!" To "okay, this KEEPS happening, that was shady. You all saw that right? You realize that's not NORMAL, right? That that's fucked up? Not cool?" To "oh god, oh God, OH GOD! I'm in HELL! This is actually HELL! I'm trapped in HELL!!! WHAT THE FUC-"

Like? This kid LOVES space. LOVES the stars. And this is one of the few Superhero Cannon that SPECIFICALLY MENTIONS that IN CANNON? Thanks to Quirks? As in Superpowers? That VERY THING got fuckin SCRAPPED. Gutted. Consigned to be a relic of the past so they could all focus on punching each other Real Good.

He would weep BLOOD. Chew the WALLS. The LEVEL of unhinged this child would unleash? Not as Danny Phantom... but as DANNY J. FENTON? Beautiful. Vaguely psychotic. Definitely doing the Fenton Name proud. God, the NOISE HE WOULD MAKE would be inhuman and yet somehow? Come entirely from his human half.

They👏 Would👏 Hear👏 BOSS👏 MUSIC👏

I don't even know if he'd CARE about the main characters. They'd be tangential at best. The man would be in a one man war with I-Island over their lack of space program and hoarding of scientific progress. Probably living out of an abandoned building or forgotten subway station. Just? The MOST bedraggled, feral genius to ever haunt Japan.

As opposed to the REFINED feral genius. Who is Nedzu.

I bet Danny stands outside his school at one AM waving his scientific papers at a camera and YELLS. Like a deranged lunatic. Mismatched slippers and a "haven't slept in a week" crazed glint in his eyes.

He's Nedzu's new best friend. They GET each other.

And, yes, Nedzu COULD let him in... but it's faster to just let him yell and read the papers through the camera. Who CARES if they both seem insane! Let's shout about advanced physics and engineering at 1 am! Over the speakers!!! Oh? You need to physically SHOW me the notes? Well I COULD unlock the gates... OR just wait for you to finish scrambling up the walls like a feral Racoon, to then throw yourself OVER them.

Either, Or.

I'm just SAYING! We are SLEEPING on this! There is so, SO much fun to be had! Danny breaks rules and minds! His outrage over injustice and the complete lack of SPACE! His protection instincts going BUCK FUCKIN WILD. The INDESCRIBABLE hate boner he would have for Mr. "Lemme just rip parts of your soul out so I can collect your powers like pokemon cards" AfO.

There? Is SO MUCH, guys. SO MUCH!

@hdgnj @the-witchhunter @babbling-babull @hypewinter @nerdpoe @lolottes @dcxdpdabbles @mutable-manifestation

[tragedy-of-commons]

"Do you ever think about that drunken kiss we shared?" + Dan Heng

"Do you ever think about that drunken kiss we shared?"

Dan Heng thinks you're trying to kill him.

Yes, that must be it, he lets the swarm of butterflies flapping around in his gut reason for a little too long. Surely, you're an assassin sent to kill him, cunningly playing the long game - only to one day give him a heart attack so he'll croak and you can collect your money.

(Honestly, he'd rather you don't drag the process out. But Dan Heng has never taken you for merciful, and your entirely evil expression only serves to confirm that hunch.)

The tips of his ears burn red. "Why do you insist on bringing that up?"

"Come on," you huff, elbowing him in the side with no real force, "you gotta answer the question, love. And keeping record of the past is always a good thing, right? You're always wading knee-deep in the archives, so I'm sure you'd understand."

There you are with your strange comparisons and too-close-but-not-too-close-since-you're-dating pet names. Even so, how in the world is he supposed to respond? Honesty cannot be the best policy, not when his answer will be something along the lines of 'Yes, I do think about that kiss often. Almost everyday, in fact, considering it's the best thing that's ever happened to me.'

But Dan Heng doesn't say any of that (of course he doesn't). Instead, his gaze drops back down to the table where you're both currently sitting - where he'd been mindlessly scrolling through his messages moments before you decided to throw him off kilter. It's way too early for this.

You continue to babble on, taking his silence as the admission of guilt that it is. "We were running around the Luofu, those Knight people hot on our tails, but after my work on your genius disguise, I finally convinced you to lighten up and have some fun. I dragged you to that stall, remember?"

How could he forget? Even when his past was nipping at his heels and ready to take a wolfish bite out of him, you'd found a way to insist on all play and no work. Even more debasing, he went along with it.

"I remember. You... the shopkeeper sold us that bottle, and since it was broad daylight in a nice area, we assumed it was nonalcoholic and just... drank it, right there in the central square," Dan Heng recalls.

You laugh, loud and bright. He feels like vomiting from the mortification he's constantly subjected to in your presence.

"Yeah! It didn't even taste alcoholic. Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't notice anything sooner - you're normally pretty sharp. We started getting suspicious after all those nasty looks, though..."

He remembers that too, but what you neglect to mention, thank the stars and everything that hasn't screwed him over, is that he was completely and utterly distracted. Dan Heng isn't one for such flowery language, but from his only somewhat muddled recollection, he was totally entranced.

It was probably his overlooked inebriation, but he found himself fixated on the plush of your lips. As you rambled on about how pretty the scenery was, he could only think about how pretty you were. As much as you'd disagree with him, he isn't as oblivious as to have ignored all the signs of his growing fondness for you.

The mystery alcohol gave him the push he needed then. For just a moment, Dan Heng wishes he had some liquid courage right now to get through this hellish conversation. "Yes. Everything was warm, and I kissed you."

You gasp, scandalized. The table wobbles as you kick your feet up to rest on the polished wood, somehow lax. "Hey, give yourself some credit! Even when you were practically wasted, you still did that cheesy romance movie thing and asked for permission."

His eye jumps. Aeons above. "I wasn't aware asking for consent was a 'cheesy romance movie thing'."

"I'm not talking about that," you snort, getting that look on your face when you're about to lay down a trump card of some kind, destroying the many layers of defenses he's spent the entirety of this life painstakingly building up. "I'm talking about when you tilted my chin up and looked into my eyes! You've never been that romantic since! Oh, Dan Heng, what a heartthrob you were, a real dreamboat--"

He whispers your name, voice brittle like glass.

"Sorry," you say, the apology quite genuine by your standards. The teasing grin you sported moments earlier has all but disappeared, replaced by a soft smile that makes all of the theatrics worth it. "But I can't help but reminisce. I cherish the memory dearly, you know."

Dan Heng swallows. "I know. I do too."

He does. Hopefully, one day, he'll be able to surprise you like that again. As you take his hand in yours, both of you falling back into comfortable silence, electricity crackles inside the confines of his chest.

Yes, you're surely going to be the death of him.

(Like he'd have it any other way.)

🏷️: @akutasoda, @aviiarie, @lowkeyren, @https-sourlimes

a/n: anon, i fear you've killed everything i know and love... i adored this prompt and writing it! dan heng is a special kind of soggy and i hope i did him justice.

event post here

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

When you point out how neurodiversity affects whole areas of the brain, not just what we see as the presentation symptoms, it seems so obvious. I've known that many neurodivergent conditions have high rate of co-morbidities, but haven't thought about what that would mean. I really liked your explanation of what else dyslexia affects, it made me recategorise some of my sister's mom behaviours. I see time blindness, some executive dysfunction, organisation difficulties and go, yup, I've got that too, it's normal, and forget that most people don't struggle with that (I've suspected I have undiagnosed ADHD for years, but never got checked for it, since I suggested it my dad freaked out, insisting there was nothing wrong with me. I really should though)

May I ask how your synaesthesia manifests for you? I'm always curious about how neurodiversity manifests in people and how it affects them, because there are so many minor and major things not talked about. I apologise if that question makes you uncomfortable, you don't have yo answer it.

Anyway, thank you for your explanation! It made a lot of things click all at once for me.

If you want lots of examples of how my synaesthesia works, I have a tag you could trawl here. But, I have a few different types; the common numbers-have-colours one, but I also get textures and sensations and feelings, and about... literally everything. Numbers, words, people's voices, names, personalities, the plots of media, images, everything.

Soooo, yeah. Sensory overload is the big impact; trial and error over the years has shown me it's primarily auditory, so if I can wear earplugs I can cope for longer in 'busy' environments. The other thing is that it really does a number on my mathematical ability, though, because, I shit you not, the colours get in the way. When I was a small child I was shown that 3 + 5 = 8, and my brain went "Yes, orange + pink = brown, got it" and ever since then if I see a 3 and a 5 together in a sum it DOES NOT MATTER what the operator is, I immediately assume the answer is 8. 3 plus 5? 8. 3 minus 5? Also 8. 3 times 5? Buddy you'll never guess. But it's 8.

It takes conscious effort not to do this T_T

The other thing is that I really, REALLY suffer from this thing where someone goes "Hey, we should watch Program X" but the problem is, you see, the problem is, I cannot stand the sensation I get from the name Program X, and therefore I will not watch it out of disgust that is totally unrelated to the actual show. This applies to all media, places, human beings, etc. (It is obviously a thing I have to be careful of when it's human beings.)

I think everything else I have is ADHD-related though, so that's probably everything I can put down to the synaesthesia.

[rxmqnova]

Hi. So this is based on something similar that happened on a family holiday once.

WandaNat mums and kid reader.

R is half asleep when we arrive at the airport. Mums are busy with Yelena and the twins so we get quickly sat on the suitcases and wheeled inside.

Everyone enjoys the first day on holiday, until it comes to bedtime. R can't find her baby blanket anywhere. The whole family look and nothing. Until Natasha thinks back and realises it's still in the car.

Knowing we can't sleep without our blankie Natasha calls in a favour and makes the 8 hour round flight to pick the comfort item up.

The next morning (where we're super grumpy and demand that mummy Wanda carries us around) we shuffle into the living room to find both mama nat and blankie curled up on the sofa.

Totally exhausted we curl up with mama and sleep almost straight away.

We never realise what mama had just done for us. But Mummy does. And she falls more in love with her for it.

Please and thank you 😊

The pink bear blankie

Y/N: 3 years old Billy and Tommy: 10 years old Wanda: Mommy Natasha: Mama ——————————————————

NO ONE'S POV "Sleepy, mama" Y/N whines, burying her head into Natasha's neck as the redhead only just took her out of the car, one of Y/N's small hands playing with Natasha's ear piercings while the other one is wrapped around her mama's neck tightly.

"I know you are, sweetheart. You can sleep on the plane, yeah?" Natasha smiles, pressing a kiss to her baby's cheek while rubbing her back.

"Boys, you got everything?" Wanda asks her two sons, raising an eyebrow as they've been arguing about something.

"Yes, mom" Both answer.

"Yelena, do you have everything?" Natasha asks her sister, knowing she's the one who's most likely to forget something.

"Yes, yes, Natasha. I have everything" Yelena rolls her eyes, taking her suitcase and walking inside just behind the boys and Wanda.

"And now you, детка" Natasha sits the tiny girl that's been in her arms on her suitcase, getting a tired smile in response. "Is that fun, Y/N/N?" She asks with a chuckle, looking at her daughter who's tiredly smiling and looking around. (baby)

———

The flight was fine. Y/N fell asleep as soon as Natasha sat down with her on her lap, the boys were busy with watching a movie, Yelena was listening to some music and Wanda with Natasha had finally some time to talk and just enjoy each other's presence.

As soon as the family arrived to the holiday house they're staying at and unpacked some of their things, they went on the beach.

Everyone had a great time, especially Y/N as she got to build a sandcastle with both her mommies while Yelena was doing silly things with the twins.

"It's bedtime for Y/N, baby. Come on" Wanda smiles, lifting her daughter up with a playful groan. "Say night night"

"Ni-night" Y/N says, resting her head on Wanda's shoulder and giving everyone in the room a wave.

The tiny girl would normally complain about going to bed, but today has really worned her out. Natasha smiles, pressing a kiss to her baby's forehead and telling her goodnight along with the others.

Wanda carries Y/N into the bedroom, placing her down on bed, but the tiny girl sits up immediately.

"Where's my blankie, mommy?" Y/N questions, not seeing her little pink bear blankie anywhere in bed.

"I'm sure it's somewhere around, baby" Wanda assures, looking for the item.

She's one hundred percent sure Y/N had her blankie when they left their house, so it must be somewhere around, right?

After minutes of looking around, Wanda just sits her daughter on her hip and carries her back to the living room where is the rest of the family playing uno.

"Everything okay?" Natasha asks, noticing her wife and daughter's presence in the living room.

"Have you seen Y/N's blankie? " Wanda asks, getting a no from everybody. "Can you help us find it?"

"Alright, let's go, boys" Natasha smiles, standing up.

Every single person starts looking for Y/N's blankie. They search through every single corner of the house, but the baby blanket is just nowhere.

Natasha goes through her mind, trying to picture the whole day and then it clicks. Y/N last had her blankie in the car, so they must had left it there.

"You can stop looking, I think I know where it is" Natasha sighs, walking over to Wanda who looks at her with hope the blankie is found. "I think it stayed in the car"

"Oh no, what do we do now? Y/N won't sleep without it" Wanda sighs.

"Mommy" Y/N whines, making her way over to her mothers. It's already way past her bedtime and she's extremely tired, but without her blankie she just won't sleep.

"I know, honey" Wanda sighs once again, lifting Y/N up and sitting her on her hip. "How about you try to sleep without your blankie tonight, hm?"

Those words are enough to make Y/N cry and Natasha volunteers to try to put Y/N down as it's time for the boys to go to sleep too by now.

So while Wanda's tucking in the twins, Yelena's occupying the TV and Natasha's walking around the whole place, rocking her crying daughter back and forth while humming her a lullaby.

But after two hours of not making any progress, she gives up. If they want to get some sleep during the vacation there's only one thing to do.

"Nat, are you sure? It's so late and the flight is so long" Wanda sighs.

"I am. Y/N obviously won't go to sleep without it. I'll just grab it and be back by morning" Natasha smiles and pecks Wanda's lips before placing a kiss to Y/N's head who is now in Wanda's arms. "I love you"

"I love you too" Wanda smiles back, stealing one more kiss from her wife and then watching her leave.

———

Y/N slept for like 3 hours in total during the night. Both, her and Wanda, are absolutely exhausted, but if there's no blankie, there's just no sleep.

"Noo, mommy, no" Y/N whines, lifting her tiny legs up, so Wanda wouldn't be able to stand her on the ground.

Wanda doesn't have the energy to deal with another tantrum, so she just goes with it and somehow manages to make a quick breakfast for her and Y/N with her grumpy daughter attached to her hip.

Y/N eventually decides to watch a cartoon in the living room after breakfast. And because she refuses to walk once again, Wanda carries her there.

"Mama" Y/N whispers to herself, a grin appearing on her face when she spots her mama curled up with her blankie on the couch and sleeping. "Mommy, down!" She immediately orders, trying to wiggle out of Wanda's strong hold.

And as soon as Wanda manages to stand her daughter on the ground, Y/N runs to the couch, climbing it and cuddling up to Natasha and the blankie.

Wanda can't help but smile on the sight. She still can't believe Natasha just flew all the way to New York and back just to pick up Y/N's blankie.

Her smile widens when she realizes Y/N's already fast asleep, curled up into her mama's side with her blankie secured in her arms.

Y/N is still just a little girl and surely won't realize what Natasha did for her, but Wanda knows. And this is exactly why she fell in love with the redhead in the first place.

Natasha would do anything for their children and that's what Wanda adores the most. And every single moment like this just makes her fall more and more in love with her wife.

----------------------

WandaNat masterlist

Masterlist

[justgrey]

I have something worse up my sleeve on Vander that idk if im gonna post that includes the shimmered up version of him we see for 10 seconds before he dies and some bussy gobbling if yk what i mean 😈🥱🔥

Vander x Reader - General Relationship HC's

Warnings: Swearing cuz we fukin' balling

Beefy

b e e f y

He gives really great hugs, obviously. He's got so much meat on him that he feels like a really large pillow, and I'm here for it. And if you're reading this, I guess you're for it too 🤷‍♂️

Crazy protective, too. Man doesn't love easily after what happened with Silco, but when he does, mwah, you are not leaving his sight for longer than an hour before someone on his side is just "keeping an eye on you"

Vander loves jokes. Especially dad jokes. Because he's a dad. Please joke with him. Please, his kids always respond with "ughghh" and all he wants is an adoring audience. Please be that for him.

"What's the time?"

"It's... time to get a watch!" *big goofy grin*

"Hah- hahahahhahahahhaahhaahhaha please, Vander."

"Right, sorry. It's a quarter past seven, love."

👉👈

Anyway, Vander loves nicknames. Like, a lot a lot. He loves nicknames. What one's? Great question. Take a guess. He loves playing games with you and this is one of those games

Guess.

If you said anything along the lines of sweetheart, love, sweetie, or honey. You'd be right. He loves using generic nicknames with you because he wants to be as domestic as possible.

He likes to feel like his life is as normal as can be despite it being absolutely the opposite of that. He loves his children, and he loves you, so why not make the most of it? At least, that's what he figures.

The wackiest shit happens sometimes. There's a real mix of interactions in his little family and we living for all of them.

"Can you pass the sa-?"

*glitter bomb explosion from Powder's bunk*

"Oh, for the love of- POWDER, ARE YOU OKAY?!?"

His kids are all extraordinary. Mylo is very charismatic and is able to talk his way out of a lot of trouble, Claggor is great at lifting heavy shit, Vi can punch the daylights out of everyone, and Powder has the potential to be a great inventor someday. His goal is to inspire them all to be the best versions of themselves and to always be kind when they're able to despite living in the meanest area around.

You are also very intertwined with his children's lives to the point where they're basically your kids as well. If you didn't want that, break up with him. He's a package deal. All or nothing.

"Hey... what's that you're tinkering with, Pow Pow?"

"It's a bomb."

"It's a what."

"She means- uhm- it's full of confetti...? For... For Mylo's birthday! Y'know, that's totally coming up soon."

"Wait, my birthday isn't-"

"Yeah, yeah... for Mylo's birthday!" *innocent smile*

"For some reason... i d o n ' t b e l i e v e t h a t . . . Just... just stay out of trouble. As much as possible."

The kids treat you like a member of the family as well if you couldn't tell. They latch onto you, some take longer than others but they all eventually view you as their other parent.

First it was Powder, then it was Claggor, followed by Vi and then Mylo a little later on.

Vander actually wants to make it official with you someday and make you stay with him and his family forever by proposing to you, but with the current state of the Undercity, he may never get to. He's a busy, busy man, trying to hold the Lanes together. Sometimes, he gets too focused on that and forgets to share his attention around when crime is really bad.

But even just being around helps him out 🫡

Thanks gang 👍

[wandixx]

one-shot snippet

Duke was running out of fumes to run on. The last few days would be exhausting if it was just vigilante or just civilian stuff but no, he had to have it both. Because of Arkham break out, he had been called in three nights in a row, not for a whole patrol but he couldn't exactly sleep it off during the day like others did, especially not in a week when every teacher decided they needed to have test or quiz or what not. Naps meant he wasn't as sleep-deprived as he could be but he needed far more. But he couldn't because crime in Gotham never sleeps so he had normal patrol to finish and there were about two hours left.

Would something bad happen if he just stopped for a moment and laid on a roof? Ten up to fifteen minutes. It was a slow day too…

Yeah, no, he deserved a moment to rest and if something disastrous was to happen in the meantime he would shame other Bats for not giving him enough time to sleep.

It certainly said something that he found gravel covering this roof to be quite comfortable. He set a timer for ten minutes and let himself close his eyes.

When the loud screech of the timer jolted him awake, he was suddenly fully aware that he wasn't alone anymore. He sat up a little too quickly.

"Oh, you're awake" white white-haired girl around Damian's age chimed, sitting cross-legged just a few feet away from him. She wore something that could only be described as a lab safety hazmat suit, white and black with popping green accents. When had Gotham gotten a new vigilante/villain/whoever the girl was? "Good, I just returned from a snack hunt," she added, gesturing at a big textile bag lying next to her. Duke didn't have enough brainpower to do anything more than ask.

"What?"

The girl shrugged, take-out from BatBurger in her hand.

"You look like you have a bad day if not a few days, so I've got you my cousin's bad day combo or at least the closest thing I could. BatBurger burger isn't as good as NastyBurger but you certainly have better fries" As she spoke, a second take-out bag, 1 liter bottle of energy drink, juice bottle of the same size, and pack of convenience store brownies joined greasy paper bag sealed with a sticker.

"Is your cousin a speedster?" Excuse Duke, it was a totally valid question, he saw with his bare eyes both Wally West and Bart Allen when they visited Manor. No one else would be able to stomach the amount of food they inhaled during their stays.

"Nah, we're not that fast or that hungry. Though I think I may get closer to the speed of sound." So, clearly, a meta if white hair and weir aura that let his eyes rest weren't enough indication "My cousin when he has a bad few days often forgets to eat so this combo has to help with there too. But I'll steal your fries of course."

Duke was not going to look a gift horse in the teeth, so he grabbed one bag and tore it open. There was a classic combo with bigger fries and NightWings inside.

"Thank you…" he trailed off, hoping that the girl would take a clue and introduce herself but she didn't. She just drowned her fries in ketchup and started munching. She had her own juice.

"My cousin always said that each part of this combo has a different purpose." she explained instead, slightly muffled because of the fries in her mouth "This" she gestured towards the fast food meal "is to soothe your stomach. This "she tapped energy drink "is to soothe your brain and kick it back online. This "she raised a bottle of juice "is to soothe your taste buds because energy drinks are war crime against them and this "she nudged brownies "is to soothe your heart because Ancients damn it, this day is awful and you deserve it. At least that's what he told me when I had day bad enough to deserve that" she shrugged, licking ketchup of her finger. Suddenly she froze "You aren't allergic, are you?

"No, I'm not" he confessed bewildered.

"Good"

For a long moment, they sat in silence, devouring food the little girl brought. Duke distantly wondered if this was how the night shift spent their snack breaks. It felt nice.

He was finishing his part of the brownies when the girl spoke up again.

"Do you feel better now?"

"Yeah," he was a little surprised to realize that t it was true. He'll have to note down what she put in this 'bad day combo'. "Thank you"

"Don't mention it." she shrugged with a general gesture of dismissal "You're one of my cousin's favorite heroes because you're vaguely his age and handle Gotham alone during the day and I quote "She did honest or God air quotes at that" 'As only hero in Amity-' which is a lie by the way, Val is doing great and even if he suddenly got problem with how she feels about his alter ego, he still has Sam and Tuck even if they're usually more of moral support. And I helped when I visited, so no, he isn't the only one. Anyway as he said 'As the only hero in Amity, my heart goes out for anyone who deals with this type of bullshit so Dani if you absolutely have to prank heroes, leave them out of it, especially Signal, he can't be older than Jazz, he doesn't need any more mess to handle.' All aliens and lanterns are also off-limits because he is a space nerd. But you aren't space-related so I'm like 80% percent sure he has a celebrity crush on you" She slurped more juice, unbothered.

Duke was thankful he wasn't swallowing anything because for sure she would choke. He took a split second to consider addressing… this whole situation and choose against it. He was not ready to be anyone's celebrity crush.

"Your name is Danny?" he asked instead.

"Dani" she corrected" with an I"

"Ok. It's nice to meet you Dani-with-an-I" She giggled, nodding her head slightly.

"It's nice to meet you too Signal"

Duke stood up, stretching a little. Dani joined him after hastily putting all the trash in her bag. She was a little higher than expected.

"I have to get back to my patrol"

"Cool," she drifted back a bit, making him realize that she was floating a few inches above the ground. She fixed her bag on her arm.

"Hey, can I hang out a little bit more? My cousin will go green out of jealousy when I tell him" she added with a mischievous smirk but Duke could tell there was more to it. He took a moment to consider it, which apparently made the girl nervous "I can be invisible the whole time, like before." she offered, disappearing in the meantime. He could still tell where she was, because of her heat signature, and aura but for regular people, she would be no different than the surrounding air.

"Yeah, you can hang around and you don't have to be invisible. Just don't get in my way when I have to actually do some fighting."

She popped back to the visible spectrum and pouted like Damian whenever he got benched.

" I can fight, y'know? I stopped mugging on a snack run."

It was ten goddamn minutes, how could she get so much food and stop a mugging in such a short time?!

Oh, right, superspeed. Still, impressive.

"I haven't seen it" he started, channeling all Dick-trying-to-wrangle-Damian-into-socially-acceptable-activity' energy he could muster "So I don't know how you fight or even what powers you have. If we tried to fight together we would trip over each other" It was a bare-faced lie, Bat Training made sure of that but he knew for a fact that if he said anything else, the girl would be mad and probably did her own thing.

Was that what Bruce thought about all of them?

Oh no.

Dani still looked displeased but after a moment of consideration, she nodded with a defeated sigh.

Suddenly she straightened like she got struck by lightning and whipped around.

"Wha-"

She just shushed raising her finger to her mouth. Duke did indeed quieten.

"I have enhanced hearing" she whispered "There is a mugging somewhere this way."

"Let's go then" he shot his grapple, waving his other hand at Dani to come with him before he jumped off the roof. He heard the girl giggle as she flew right after him.

" After this, you'll show me the coolest gargoyles, okay? Sam asked for photos"

"Okay"

It seemed that the end of this patrol wouldn't be as bad as the start was. Hopefully.

And afterward, he was going to lock himself in his room until the sky fell or he was well rested.

Yeah, that was a good plan.

*******

how do you like it?

[koolades-world]

Happy Birthday Mc!

today is my birthday so I decided to make a special post in celebration! this usually won't happen but I figured I'd put in a little extra effort for the occasion!!!

Lucifer

"It's your birthday? Have my best wishes. Meet me in the garden behind the house after dinner. I have a surprise for you. See you then."

treats you to anything you said you wanted over the past year

expect flowers, a giant cake, and dinner at the fanciest place he could find

he feels like he doesn't appreciate you enough, so he practically treats you like royalty

lets you cuddle him to your hearts content <3

Mammon

"Happy birthday, human! What, did ya think I forgot? Of course I didn't. Here, I got this for ya. Get ready for a day of fun with your best man!"

so excited that it's your birthday and goes all out

he's never spent so much money on someone that wasn't himself before, but he couldn't thank you more for everything

makes sure you don't have to lift a single finger, even if you fight him on it

gives you a cute little birthday crown that he made himself, and of course, you wear it with glee

Levi

"Happy birthday! Gah, I hope that didn't sound stupid. I spent forever practicing... You're still listening!? Forget you heard that! This is for you. I hope you like it. It took me a month to decide."

he's so so nervous about giving you your gift, but he makes himself give it to you

he gives you merch for your favorite game that you never thought you'd see in person

also gifts you in game currency for your favorite gacha game since he understands the grind

at the end of the day, he gives you a tight hug before running off, embarrassed

Satan

"Good morning, love. Happy birthday. If you're ready, shall we go out for breakfast? You are? Perfect. I have the day planned just to your liking."

he's got the entire day planned, including all your favorite things and romantic moments

each gift he gives is given at a specific time with a specific meaning

even organizes a trip to the human world so you can visit your family and friends

your day ends in his arms as he reads you a book

Asmo

"Happy birthday gorgeous! You look just amazing. Now, before you say anything, open this. Do you like it? Turn around so I can put it on you!"

totally takes you shopping! even goes as far as to rent out the entire store for you

photo shoot with all the fun new outfits you make

fancy dinner and a large party where you're the center of attention

of course, he pampers you at the end of the day with a nice bath and a massage

Beel

"Happy birthday, Mc. I wasn't really sure what to get you, so I hope you like it. There's a cake for you in the kitchen, but don't wait too long to eat it. I'm hungry."

thought very hard about what to get you, and ask around to get ideas

eventually, he decided to give you something small and offer to take you on a hike somewhere remote and beautiful

treats the day pretty much normal, until he reveals the cake that he made for you

it wasn't perfect, but it meant the world to you that he made it and didn't eat it

Belphie

"Ahh, happy birthday. Your first gift is in my room. What's with the surprise? Just because I sleep so much doesn't mean I'm forgetful."

secretly the best gift giver

he makes it so there's a surprise around each corner for you throughout your day

also gives you a beautiful handwritten letter

one of the few days he's actively awake the entire time

Diavolo

"Happy birthday, sunshine!! I know how much birthdays means to humans, so I went all out. Follow me to the first surprise!"

goes all out and makes the entire Devildom celebrate!

makes it a holiday and gives everyone the day off, so he has more time with you

except the biggest celebration you've ever had

researches into human birthday traditions and plans a cute party including a pinata

Barbatos

"Mc, happy birthday. May your day be filled with many joys. The cake I made for you should be just to your liking. I hope you'll enjoy it."

gives you a beautiful hand made card with his gorgeous calligraphy

treats you to a fancy tea party! super fancy with all your favorite sweets

cooks you your favorite food <3

also says the cutest things to you that makes you feel like you're the only person in the world

Simeon

"Hello! Happy birthday! Lucifer told me you were having a party at the House of Lamentation later. Expect to see me there, but I hope you don't mind if I steal you for now?"

most of his gifts are handmade!

expect a cake he made and help with all your daily tasks so you can get to fun sooner

wants to make sure your day is perfect and extra special

prepares you a cup of hot chocolate at the end of the day for enjoying with your favorite movie

Solomon

"Happy birthday, my apprentice. Now, I know this is a little late, but what do you want for your birthday besides my company? Any potion you want made or wish you want granted? Oh, I can do that. Consider it done, beautiful."

pretends like he forgot your birthday at first, but does a 180 and showers you with all sorts of things

gets you a brand new coat that looks suspiciously like his and when you call him out, he acts like he has no clue what you're talking about

takes you to dinner somewhere casual, but treats you like royalty

he pampers you that night and feeds you dessert <3

Luke

"Happy birthday Mc! Will you open my gift right now? I'm so excited! Do you like it? I blessed it myself so those yucky demons won't be able to steal it. Really? Yay!"

so excited to celebrate with you!

he makes all your favorite desserts, and gives you a lot of little things he gather over the year for you

practically attaches himself to your side all day

talks your ear off!! and wishes you happy birthday at least five times and reminds everyone else to as well

[sweetfictionalworld]

Home Is Where The Heart Is (Orm Marius x Fem!Reader)

Summary: A one-night stand leads to something more.

Warnings: 18+, Smut, Oral Sex, Unprotected Sex.

Author's notes: This is a request from an anon. I changed the setting, I hope you don't mind. Maybe it's a bit of cliché, but I just found this easier to write. Takes place before the first movie and after the second.

"C'mon, y/n. Cheer up a little, we're gonna have fun!"

That what's your best friend Maria had said earlier that evening and she always managed to convince you somehow. And she was having fun alright. You sat at the bar and glared over at her dancing with the guy she had been flirting with for the past hour, totally forgetting about you.

You sighed and returned to staring into the empty glass in your hand. It was never you finding someone to flirt with. Maria was the beautiful and confident one. All the guys were always looking at her.

*

Orm lifted his chin and wrinkled his nose as he entered the establishment the surface dwellers called a club. Ugh, this place reeked with sweat and alcohol. It was worse than the Sunken Citadel. He watched the drunk surface dwellers on the floor, grinding their bodies against each other. Was this what they called dancing on the surface? Orm scoffed. So unsophisticated. Orm sighed over the fact that he needed to be here. But, it was important to study all of the surface dwellers behavior, to form the best strategy against them. Sure, he could have sent someone else to reconnaissance, but he only trust his own judgment. And from what he'd seen so far, it would be easy to defeat them. They were so arrogant about their own supremacy in the universe.

Orm scanned the area and located what must be the place where he could buy something to drink. He definitely needed it after spending time on this ugly surface. Thanks to his human associate David Kane, he had obtained currency so he could spend a few days on the surface.

"A glass of your finest red wine," Orm ordered the man behind the desk. The man obliged and placed the glass in front of him. Orm paid what he owed and took a sip.

"Yuk," Orm grimaced at the sour taste. This was the best they had to offer? A giggle next to him made him look to the side. There, he met a pair of sparkling, beautiful e/c eyes looking back at him.

"I know the feeling. I ordered the same," you said with a smile and raised your empty glass.

The blond man quirked an eyebrow and eyed you up and down long enough for you to feel self-conscious. You wouldn't normally call a man pretty, but this man was just that with his stunning eyes blue as the ocean. His physique was slim yet muscular in the black trousers and white shirt he was wearing. You smiled awkwardly and fluttered down your gaze. Okay, didn't this guy know when it was time to stop staring?

Orm had seen many surface woman during the past days he'd spent here, but none of them measured up to your beauty.

"Uhm...so, I haven't seen you here before. Are you knew in town?" you asked to break the awkward silence, cringed at your lame pick-up line.

"Yes. I'm just visiting for a few days. Business," the man replied and finally looked away from you. Not that you really mind him looking at you.

"I see. Welcome to town, I guess. I'm y/n," you smiled and reached out your hand.

The man looked down at your hand like he wondered what he was going to do with it, then he took it in his and you shook his hand.

"Orm. My name is Orm."

"Nice to meet you, Orm."

The man finally smiled and you were lost. "Nice to meet you too, y/n."

*

You didn't know how you ended up at his hotel room. Maybe it was the bad wine clouding your judgment about whether a one-night stand was a good idea or not? Or maybe it was the fact that Orm was so damn charming? A bit arrogant yes, but definitely charming.

Clothes were quickly discarded, both of you eager to feel the warmness of each other's bodies. Orm smirked up at you as he pushed your legs apart, his curls tickling your inner thighs as he opened you up, licking along your inner lips. That first touch of his tongue sent sparks throughout your body and you moaned, your body jerking at the contact. You were already swollen, warm, and open for him. Orm explored your pussy, running his tongue up and down, slowly and deliberately, leaving out the most sensitive parts.

Arousal kept building up in your core, your pussy clenching with need to be filled and satisfied.

Orm sucked your inner folds between his lips, tugging at them, then repeated this on the other side, working his way towards your clit. You grabbed his head, burying your fingers in his curls as your eyes flew open, your body ready for the oncoming pleasure. But just when he was almost at your clit, he worked his way back again and you let out a desperate whine

"Orm, please...," you mewled, bucking your hips against him as his tongue swirled around the entrance of your pussy.

"You want to come?" he asked in a teasing tone.

Glaring down, you met his amused gaze and bit your lip as you nodded, your pussy clenching as he smiled up at you. Orm smirked and lowered his head, sucking your clit into his mouth and massaging it with his lips, rolling it gently, teasingly.

"Oh, yes!" you gasped and bucked your hips against him. Orm grabbed your hips and held you tighter as your squirming became more urgent.

He circled the entrance in small, swirling motions, licking the juices leaking from it. Then, without warning, he pushed his tongue in as deeply as possible. You moaned, a combination of relief and anticipation of the coming pleasure. The low moans escaping from your throat spurred him on. He stopped tongue fucking you and licked his way up to your clit, closing his lips over it. You could feel his tongue swirl around in slow circles, with an occasional flick against it as it protruded from behind its hood.

"Fuck, I'm so close...," you bit your lip and cupped your breasts, squeezing your nipples hard. Orm's only response was to begin sucking on your clit to push you over the edge. Your body tensed and your moans became louder, pleasure washing over you as you came against his mouth. Your orgasm was slowly subsiding when you felt Orm spreading you open and pushing two fingers inside you. You were so wet with arousal and saliva that he easily slipped inside.

Orm looked up at you and met your lustful gaze as he turned his fingers upward, the thick pads toward your belly. Soon he found your g-spot and started to put pressure against it in circular motions, a smirk spreading on his lips as that spongy flesh began to swell.

"Oh, fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!!!" you cried out as you came again, your body convulsing as his fingers buried deep inside your pussy gave you the most intense orgasm of your life. Your convulsions began to subside, and at that moment, Orm pushed inside you, all of his thick, hard cock filling you up completely.

"Oh, fuck!" you gasped and grabbed his arms as his cock made your body quiver.

Orm groaned and pushed your legs up to your chest, his eyes feral as he started pounding into you at a ruthless pace that took you to your third orgasm within seconds. Orm continued to fuck you through your climax, his grunts filling the air, growing more erratic with each thrust.

"Fuck, I love how tight you feel around me," Orm mumbled and clenched his jaw as he came, his gaze never leaving yours as he filled your womb with his seed. Leaning down, he caught your lips with his, kissing you softly as his cock continued to twitch inside you. You sighed contently against his lips and slid your hands up his broad frame, neither of you contemplating the risks of what you just did.

~ Some years later ~

The next day, Orm was gone and you couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed about it.

"What are we doing here?" Orm asked after Arthur knocked on the door to the house they were standing at.

Arthur looked at his brother with a big smile. "We're at an old friend of mine. She always said that if I ever needed it, she would have a spare bed for me. So I thought, what better place for you to lay low than here?"

Orm raised an eyebrow. "She?"

Arthur rolled his eyes. "It was never like that. She's just a friend."

Orm gave his brother a meaningful glance just as the door opened. He turned his head around, his eyes widening when he saw the woman standing there.

You were surprised to see Arthur outside your door.

"Arthur?" you said and smiled at your old friend. "What are you-" You stopped mid-sentence when your gaze landed on the man standing beside him. Your eyes widened when you looked into the familiar, blue eyes and a pang of heat rushed through your belly.

"Orm?"

Arthur looked between the two of you in confusion. "Wait a second, you two know each other?"

Both you and Orm looked away flustered and Arthur immediately understood the situation. He chuckled delightfully. "Really? You two? When?"

"A couple of years back," Orm answered and rubbed his neck, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. "I was on the surface, doing reconnaissance."

"On the surface?" You frowned as you looked at Orm, your eyes widening when you realized what he was saying. "Wait a minute...are you like Arthur?"

"I'm his brothe-"

"Mommy, mommy!"

Orm stared at the little boy running up to you and taking your hand, a pair of bright, blue eyes staring back at him with wonder. It felt as if all air had left his lungs as he slowly processed what was happening.

Arthur stared at the blue-eyed boy with golden curls then at his brother, then back at the boy again, not being able to find his words for the first time in his life.

"I-I...I didn't want you to find out like this. I searched for you for a long time, but it was like you never existed. Now I understand why," you said with a bitter smile and looked down at your son. "And now I understand where Ozia's strength comes from."

"I...I have a son?" Orm asked in stunned shock as he looked up at you then back at the little boy.

"Yes, Orm." You smiled and picked up your son in your arms. "Orm, this is Ozia. Ozia, this man here is your father, and this is your uncle."

Ozia stared at Orm with big eyes and Orm gave him a nervous smile.

"Nice to meet you, Ozia."

The boy didn't reply, only hid his face against your chest.

"He's a little shy with strangers," you said and smiled. "But hopefully you won't be a stranger for long. If that's what you want? To be in his life?"

Orm looked at you and the boy in your arms, and a sensation he'd never felt before spread in his chest. Was it...true love?

"There's nothing I want more," Orm replied and smiled. For the first time in a long time, he felt warm and safe, like he found the place where he belonged.

Thank you for taking your time to read ♡

Tagging: @alishaslibrary

[cozage]

Could you write headcanons where luffy, sanji, law, and zoro react to their s/o shouting i hate you in a heated argument out of anger and it’s angst to comfort because she didn’t really mean it? thank you <3

A/N: Wow! Talk about complete opposites here with Sanji & Luffy vs Law & Zoro. This was a fun angst request! Thanks!

Characters: female reader x luffy, sanji, law, zoro

Cw: angst (but all happy endings!)

Total word count: 1k

Hate is Such a Strong Word

Luffy

You can see the shock in his eyes, the pain in his face. It’s so clear that he’s taken aback by your words and for the first time in your recent memory, Luffy is silent for a long time. He just stares at you, trying to decipher your words.

You instantly regret saying it. He’s like a little puppy who’s been scolded and didn’t even realize what he did wrong. Except he does realize what he did, he just didn’t realize it was such a big deal until this moment. 

His voice trembles when he speaks. “You don’t mean that, do you? You don’t really hate me, right?”

He wraps you in a hug, not giving you a chance to respond. He holds you so tight there's no chance for escape. “Take it back,” he begs. “I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me.”

You sigh, wrapping your arms around him too. “No, Luffy, I don’t hate you. I'm sorry I said that.”

He gives you an extra tight squeeze and then releases you. He’s not one to hold a grudge, so he apologizes again for upsetting you and promises to do better in the future, already forgetting your misspoken words. 

Sanji

As soon as the words came out of your mouth, Sanji knew his worst nightmare had come true. You were finally done with him.

He spent a moment deciding if he should beg for forgiveness or if he should accept your hatred, but you stormed out of the room before he could make a decision. 

He prepares the finest snacks for you and the girls to share. He silently sets them down while you all are chatting, even though you’re still giving him the cold shoulder. He lets you vent and get everything off your chest with them, even if it makes him look like the bad guy. 

He spends all afternoon preparing your favorite dessert, and when he sees that you’re finally done talking with the girls, he calls you over and apologizes for his wrongdoing that made you so upset. You accept both his verbal apology and his dessert one. 

But things are different between you two. He’s more distant, more nervous around you than before. Finally you confront him about it, and he admits your words have been weighing on his mind. 

It’s then that you realize how important words are to Sanji. You apologize with words and kisses and anything else you can think of to make it up to him. You remind yourself to give him more words of affirmation to help show your love, and you swear that those words will never come out of your mouth again. 

Law

His eye twitches when you scream it out to him, and his face turns to steel. “If you hate me so much, then leave.”

He storms out of the room without letting you respond. He wants the satisfaction of having the last word in this argument. You’re too angry to care.

He locks himself in his office for the most part. When he comes out of his room, he rampages through the ship. He’s slamming doors and cabinets shut, throwing things down harder than normal, everything he does is just super aggressive. 

“Why don't you just apologize?” Penguin finally asks. “Because I didn’t do anything wrong!” Law yells back, his words echoing through the whole ship. 

This man is too prideful to apologize first. It’s a waiting game between the two of you. You don’t sleep together, he stops eating meals with the crew.

You finally cave, and knock softly on his office door. He doesn’t answer.

“I’m sorry I said I hated you,” you say through the door. “I didn’t mean it. I don’t know why I said that. It was a really stupid thing to say”

The door finally opens, and you can see dark circles under his eyes. He pulls you in for a hug, kissing the top of your head. “And I’m sorry for what I did. I’ll do better in the future.” 

The whole crew breathes a sigh of relief, knowing you two are okay again.

Zoro

At first the words didn't faze him. You continued screaming at each other, voices rising louder to outdo one another. 

And then the words came again. “I hate you Roronoa Zoro. I’ll never forgive you for this!” you screamed, and you stormed out the door, slamming it behind you. 

It was in the silence after that he realized the impact of your words. And he realizes that he’s scared. 

He tries to push down his anxiety by hiding in the crow’s nest and working out relentlessly. He’s avoiding everyone, but mostly you and your wrath.

He prays that you’ll come apologize to him, but after two days you still haven’t appeared in the crows nest. He’s constantly glancing out the deck, trying to find a glimpse of you whenever he can without getting caught. 

On the afternoon of the third day, he realizes he’ll have to spend another night without you if he doesn’t apologize soon, and he finally gives in. He climbs down the ladder and walks over to where you and Nami are sunning in some lounge chairs and stands over top of you, clearing his throat. “Can I talk to you alone?” his voice comes out irritated unintentionally.

“Not with that tone,” you shoot back, still mad at him. He grits his teeth, and you see a blush start to appear over his cheeks. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, and you can hear that he’s being genuine. “I didn’t mean to make you so upset.”

You sigh and get up from the chair, leading him away to talk in private. He continues to apologize, asking you how he can do better in the future. 

You’re pleased with this development, and you give him a quick peck on the lips to show all is well again. “I’m sorry too,” you say. “I said a lot of things I didn’t mean.”

“So, we’re okay?” he asks, looking at you inquisitively. “We’re okay,” you assure him.

[alatusperegrinus]

In which Sethos overhears something he shouldn't have

[Ch 1 of 2]

Sethos/Reader/Cyno

Sethos totally didn't expect to be here, with you and Cyno in one room.

No, Sethos hadn't fantasize this exact scene at all.

Not until he accidentally overheard moans and groans coming out of your apartment when he visited unannounced. He was just supposed to invite you for a drink at Lambad's Tavern as it was you and Sethos' usual hangout activity.

One noise was enough for Sethos to figure out what he was hearing that time. His mind went blank, body stuck in its place, as he kept hearing your quiet pants and low moans, and a man's groan and heavy breathing. Wait, that guy sounded awfully familiar.

"Taking me so well—hah, Cyno..." You spoke amidst the slapping sounds of thrusts. Sethos' eyes widened in realization that the man was actually Cyno, and Sethos' mouth hung open when he realized that you may actually be pegging Cyno?

Sethos' felt his throat dry, making him swallow his saliva. His body suddenly felt warm and tingly, he felt anxious and slightly humiliated about eavesdropping on you, his friend, on an intimate activity. He should leave now, he thought, maybe he'll forget about this incident in time.

But he wouldn't budge.

The sounds he was hearing filled his ears and mind. It was the only thing he could focus on.

The wet slapping sounds got quicker and harder along with Cyno voicing out curse words and groans. Sethos' heard you giggle and moan. "Too much, General?" With a low voice, sultry voice, you teased.

Sethos cock twitched, and then he began to get hard.

'Fuck, I can't believe I'm getting turned on by this.' He thought. And it was about time Sethos decided to move his feet, to go home and take care of his new problem.

The next time he saw you was when the two of you finally got the time to get drinks at the Tavern. Of course, Sethos acted normal despite remembering (almost every second) the naughty sounds he heard on your door.

The both of you never usually go harder on drinks, but that night, Sethos noticed how pumped up you were into drinking more with him, to the point that your personality had totally changed throughout the night.

"Sethos..." you trailed along with little giggles. Sethos looked at you intently, waiting for your words. "Say, would you like to spend a night with me and Cyno?" You whispered, as if you were sharing a secret. Sethos' eyes widened as he blinked multiple times. His mouth opening and closing— what the hell was he supposed to say right now?

You giggled again, slightly louder this time. "Why you acting shy Sethos? I knew you heard us the previous night."

Sethos visibly flushed, "I—I," he sputtered as he couldn't form a coherent word. Yet, his body buzzed with excitement. His mind only yelled at him to accept your invitation.

You just tilted your head and smiled at him, waiting patiently for his response.

Sethos recovered after a short while, "Heh... it'll be such a shame to deny an exciting invitation from you, my lady..."

And that's how he found himself in your room, with you and Cyno.

"Please, make yourself at home." Your voice cuts off the electrifying silence that surrounded you three.

"Will do... thank you." Sethos weakly mumbled, as he watched you shoved off most of your outer clothing, and Cyno made himself comfortable on some chair of your room.

"Since it's your first time with me tonight... I decided to just have Cyno watch us, is that okay with you, Sethos?"

Sethos' eyes widened for a fraction of second, but the fire igniting inside him spread warmth all throughout his body. His excitement in spending a night with you and Cyno overpowered his shyness. He nervously giggled, "N-nuh— not a problem at all, (name)..."

[eu0n1a]

Pls I need more of yandere Izuku!!! I BEG OF YOU!!!! I 100% believe he is stalker material and would have that wall of pictures of you.

yandere prohero izuku breaking into your home (+more Stalking details)

your relationship seemed normal to you, he's your childhood best friend. after graduating UA and quickly rising to the top. you never escaped his mind. he misses you SO MUCH!

i mean you two have spent practically your whole lives together, and now what? nothing? he's so busy now, beating villains bloody, attending national TV interviews. if it's not the work then it's the media not giving him space to breathe. and you barely have time with all the pile of work your professors give you.

he would try his best to maintain contact with you. but everytime the messages would be hours apart. he felt you fading away and it upset him. he hasn't seen you in so long.

so he decides to visit you. issue is during his visit ...

he knows it's late at night. but something caught his eye. around the small space between the curtains and he saw YOU!

"gosh you're so cute," he thinks with heart eyes.

deciding to let himself in.

"best friends let themselves into eachother's houses, right?"

"i just want to turn off the TV, i'm doing her a favor."

taking advantage of the fact it's 3AM. passing through the white picket fence. in your backyard he opened the back door you forget to lock. Japan is one of the safest countries in the world. why lock it?

because of him. you'll learn soon.

exploring your house first, particularly your bedroom. rationalizing it by saying, "their birthday is coming up. maybe i'll find out what she likes."

of course he rationalizes every odd thing he does.

sniffing the pillows, a soft smile, whispering to himself, "mm strawberry shampoo" total lovesick idiot.

by the time, he finished learning things about you, he got to the living room. The TV radiating light on your face, everything else dark.

today was his first picture, his heart beating rapidly as he took it. gosh, how much he wanted to kiss you, hold you. you always lingered on his mind and he hates himself. hates himself for not confessing his love to you back in UA.

you could have been his. his honey, his lover. someone to dote on, someone to love, he hated how he wasn't able to caress your cheek.

but for now he had to return back home.

creating fake social media accounts. thank goodness you didn't have a private account. saving all your pictures, visiting your page whenever he could.

screenshotting pictures, making deep dives on the surroundings. who's that? he's searching up everything about the people around you in those pictures.

but he wouldn't talk to you, no. he needs to make sure he has all his facts straight about you. needs to make your reunion perfect.

instead he took pictures, videos. his phone had a whole folder dedicated to them. it was private, labeled as 'documents'. even bought a usb to upload it to his personal laptop.

pictures of you out on a walk, at a club, at home. he would dedicate his time simply staring, excusing it as "she's changed so much, i need to learn more about her".

it turned into something he couldn't help. secretly following her because 'a quirkless person must be protected. nothing will happen to them on my watch.'

familiarizing himself with you again as he opens one of his drawers. notebooks upon notebooks, all about you, from elementary to his UA years. reading through them either to give himself a good laugh or reminisce the past.

opening up a new notebook for a new era. once the pen hits the paper, he writes quickly, whispering gibberish at a rapid pace only he could understand.

(thx 4 the ask, I've literally never had one before💗)

[sweetenerobert]

𝐏𝐈𝐄𝐂𝐄𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐀 𝐏𝐔𝐙𝐙𝐋𝐄

DAY THREE OF HAUNTED HOEDOWN

dean winchester x vampire!male reader

genre: vampire au, explicit, minors dni

prompt: vampire au + "i can see how badly you want this, so i'm going to make sure you get it."

summary: trying to remember the last five hours of what happened after your transformation, you suddenly remember having sex with a stranger and you try to retrace your steps

warning: strong language, mention of blood, mention of dying. unprotected P in A, dirty talk, oral (m giving/m receiving), pet names, spanking, choking, creampies

word count: 2.3k

a/n: TWO POSTS IN ONE DAY?? yep! if this seems rushed my apologies.

The night sky cascaded down on you as you were shivering. The night was beautiful, but it was cold as each step you took made everything feel like you were walking closer to death.

Your blue work shirt is coated in your blood — near where your collarbone and shoulder blade rested. Your black and white canvas shoes have drops of blood on them. Tears running down your face had dried up. You hated this feeling — you felt the after-effects of coming back alive after getting your throat ripped out. This process was painstakingly slow. And you were scared — scared that you may never be the same again, scared that you might do something to hurt someone. You needed guidance from someone — anyone could help you forget about the stressful night you had.

You hear a car engine behind you, and you want to hide from the person driving behind you, but you are too weak to even jump into the bushes next to you, so you keep slowly walking. Your emotions wanted to come out; you wanted to cry a river right now. And you didn't understand everything currently, and it freaked you out how bad you wanted to cry.

The car’s engine was slowly creeping behind you, and you snapped your eyes shut, hoping that it would pass you; you didn’t want to be around anyone at this moment. You just wanted to walk — you had no idea where you were going, and you didn’t care as long you were away from everyone.

You slowly opened your eyes and saw the car driving past you, and you exhaled a breath you were holding. But then you felt the wind get knocked out of you as you saw the car approaching you in reverse. Feeling a mix of confusion, sadness, and rage all at once, you wanted to throw up, but you managed to keep yourself calm as the car slowly drove next to you and the passenger window was down.

“Are you okay?”

You glance to your left and see a dirty-blonde-haired man sitting in the driver's seat and glancing at you. You had to admit he was attractive, but you could be near. Your emotions were all over the place, and you didn't want some totally stranger being in the middle of that.

“Um—” You almost jump about how normal your voice sounds. It doesn't sound raspy or gruff, just your normal voice.

“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” You dismissed.

“Are you sure? I mean, I could take you back to my room and make sure you are safe— It’s no —”

“I’m okay, sir. Just a little out of it.” As persistent as this guy was, you didn't want him to be in the middle of this experience; you needed to be alone, not held up in some guy's room.

You suddenly hear his car screech as he stops and gets out, jogging towards you. He steps in front of you, and you halt your walking.

“Let me help — you need it. Whatever you are going through, you shouldn't go through it alone.”

You couldn't tell if the man’s tone was genuine or commanding, but you wanted to cry either way. You nodded your head. “Okay, I’ll go with you.”

The man guides you to his car and opens the passenger door for you. As you slip into the passenger seat, he closes the door. He was walking around the car and returning to his previous position — closing his door and looking at you. You reluctantly smile at him.

“Is that blood on your shirt?”

You glance at your shirt and look back at the man. “It’s mine?” You shrug.

You were in a motel bathroom shower, letting the water hit the top of your head as it dribbled down your body. The sadness you felt eventually disappeared as the drive here calmed you down. You found out what the name was — it was Dean. And that he was looking at his brother — younger brother, and has a love for rock music.

You weren't feeling the sadness, but you were feeling another feeling, and you couldn’t figure out what it was, and it was bugging you a bit.

The hot water weaved around your body almost like a dress made of water, and it was the heat you needed. You were sick and tired of being cold; you miss feeling warm. The soap leaving your body made a creek of bubbles and water. It almost looked majestic in your eyes, and you appreciated how it looked for a second that you were fine, but how you felt wasn't okay.

Turning the faucet off and letting the rest of the water go down the drain, your feet hitting the porcelain tile ceramic flooring as you walk towards the mirror — grabbing a towel and wrapping it around your waist. Bringing your hands towards the mirror, wiping the condensation, and seeing yourself in the mirror, hands on the porcelain sink.

You start to sniffle because of the steam messing with your nose, but you catch the scent of something you’ve never smelled before. You look around the bathroom as you try to find the source of the smell, and you can't seem to see it, but the smell intensifies as you look at the door. Whatever the smell was coming from behind the door.

You open the bathroom door, and the steam above you rises and travels along the ceiling. You see Dean looking at something in his duffle bag. You notice he’s not in the same jacket as before. He’s now wearing a flannel shirt. But with each step toward Dean, the smell becomes more intense and almost deafening in a sense.

Dean hears the floorboards creak behind him, turns around, and sees you in nothing but a towel. “Oh, hey. How was the shower?”

“It was good,” You nod.

“That’s good. I can see you're doing a lot better,” Dean nods.

“Do you smell that?”

“Smell what?”

“I don't know. But It’s almost intoxicating.”

“Huh, I wouldn't know what you're smelling. That’s how I am with pie though,” Dean chuckles.

You crack a smile and walk around Dean, and that's when the smell draws behind you. You turn your head as Dean walks towards the small table in the room.

“It’s you,” You mutter.

“What?” Dean questions.

“The smell — It’s you.”

“I stink?”

“Well, no, You smell intoxicating, and a sense a strong desire from you and — It’s lust.”

“What’s lust?” Dean asks, confused.

“What I’ve been feeling and this stupid smell and — are you horny, Dean?” You ask.

It was like a teenager who hit puberty. Dean looked defensive and scared at the same time. He didn’t know how to answer your question, so he looked at you.

You walked towards him, wanting to hear his answer, but you couldn't ask him again. You needed him to tell you. “Sorry If I overstepped my boundaries, Dean. But I would like to know.”

Dean scoffed, crossing his arms. “So what? I’ve been horny for the past couple of days. My hand isn’t helpin’ as much as I think it is.”

“You need help?”

“From who? I’ve been so busy. I can barely find the time for anyone.”

You unwrap your towel, and your cock sprung out hard as a rock, walking toward Dean, who can't seem to stop glancing at your cock. “From me, you could use me any way you want.” Days ago, you would’ve never had the confidence to tell anyone this, but this feeling sent you into overdrive, and you needed to get rid of it one way you could only think of.

Your hand finds Dean’s denim-covered cock already hard. As you rub your hand against the material, Dean inhales a breath and exhales a shaky breath. You unbutton Dean’s jeans and slide them down to his ankles. His cock leaps from the constriction his pants were torturing with. You were on your knees, and you took the tip of Dean’s cock in your mouth.

Dean slowly made his head go back as he enjoyed your warm mouth on his throbbing cock. He forgot how this felt; he hadn’t felt this relaxed in so long, and you provided him with a number one muscle relaxer.

His hips slowly start going back and forth into your mouth. You lightly gag on the tip as his thrusts hit the back of your throat. You notice Dean breathing through his plump lips; your cock throbs seeing him like this.

“Damn, baby. I’ve missed this so much,” Dean groaned.

You slip his cock out of your mouth, lick the slit of his dick, and he moans. You could taste the light pre-cum forming from it.

“Such a fuckin’ tease. I should fuck you just for that,” Dean seethed.

“I did say you could use me, so why not?” You shrug. You attempt to slide Dean’s cock inside your parted lips. He lifts you from your armpits and makes you stand up. Dean glances down at your cock and sees pre-cum leaking from your cock.

“I can see how badly you want this, so I'm going to make sure you get it." Dean kisses you passionately as his height makes you feel safe and protected, feelings you never thought you would feel again.

Your calves hit the back of the bed frame. You sit down on the edge of the bed — breaking the kiss. “Head on the pillows, now!” Dean commanded.

You comply with his command, and on your hands and knees, you crawl towards the pillow on Dean’s bed — Dean smacking your ass as you crawl to the pillow.

Dean takes his jeans off around his ankles, boots, and flannel. As he sees you lying on your back in the middle of his bed, his cock twitches, seeing the beautiful sight before him. He crawls after you and kisses you passionately, your cocks rubbing together, making this moment more intense than it already is.

Dean’s kisses trail down from your lips to your jaw and neck. Dean starts to nibble on your neck, and you whimper in retaliation — gripping the sheets, you feel your teeth getting outstretched — making you scared a little bit. Releasing your grip makes your teeth go back into their original shape.

Dean’s lips travel to your nipples as he sucks on them and pinches your nipples as he sucks the other one.

His kisses trail lower as his mouth makes contact with your hole. His tongue becomes an explorer, and he wants to explore you more. Your moans sound like music to Dean’s ear as he grips your thighs. “You taste like fuckin’ heaven, baby boy.”

You could cum hearing Dean call you a baby boy again.

Dean crawls up back to your face and adjusts his cock. You exclaim in pleasure as Dean slides his cock deep inside you. With each inch pushing deeper inside you, your moans became the sweet song Dean yearned for. You could feel your walls getting looser and looser; your hole was aching in pleasure.

“You’re so fuckin’ perfect, baby boy. Just what I needed,” Dean grunted. Dean was clenching his teeth. It was a sight that made your cock happy. Dean’s thrust became faster and more intoxicating with each passing moment.

“Fuck, Dean. You’re hitting so deep.” Your pre cum was rubbing against your naval. “Your pussy wraps around my cock so well, baby. I can't get enough of it,” Dean breathed. Dean leans his head closer to yours and kisses your lips more rough than gentle like last time.

Dean slides his cock out of you and flips you to lay on your stomach. You grip the pillows as he slides his cock in you — slowly.

“Such a fuckin’ tease,” You moaned.

“Only the best for my baby boy.”

Dean’s thrust becomes more intoxicating as you feel his balls clap against your ass. Dean makes a handprint on your ass — you yelp in response. You bring your head up, Dean wraps his arm around your neck, and you both share a passionate make-out between thrusts. You moan into each other’s mouths as you feel Dean’s cock twitch inside you.

“Baby, I’m going to overflow your ass with my cum,” Dean growls. Dean lets your neck go but pushes your head onto the pillow. You roll your head to the side to avoid suffocating. Your body starts to slide down, and you stop at an absolute point. The tip of your cock starts rubbing against the sheets, and you feel the lust almost shoot out of you.

“Dean, my cock — you're making my cock rub against the sheets,” You whimpered.

“Good, we get to cum together then, baby,” Dean growled.

You feel Dean’s cock get bigger inside you, and the throbbing intensifies. Dean’s thrust becomes more demon-like, and you're enjoying every thrust. You didn't want it to end this soon. Your teeth were feeling outstretched again, but you ignored it. You left your teeth stretched, and you bit down on the pillow.

“Fuck, baby boy. I’m cumming. I’m cummin’, baby boy!” You could feel his cum shoot inside you as you shoot strings of cum on the sheets under you. Dean clashes his hard chest on your back. “Thanks for that, baby boy.”

“Who said it has to end there? I told you that you could use me. I didn't specify for how long.” You turn your head to see a smirking Dean. “Well, then, you better get that pretty ass up. I’m going to fuck you against the wall.”

“That’s what happened hours ago?”

“Yeah?” Theo, your vampire “trainer” friend.

“Wow, does that happen to a lot of new vampires?” You ask.

Theo nods. “But, you should’ve seen me when I first turned.”

“Is that a story for another day?” You question.

“Hell yes.” Theo laughs.

“I would love to hear it then.” You smile.

[thisgirlnamedblusy]

Hey! So, I was totally stalking your account the other day (please don’t ask why, lmao), and I came across that one-shot you wrote for your last fandom. It got me thinking—could you write something like that, but with Donna?

I changed it a bit, but it’s still kinda the same. It’s about the reader having an identical twin who’s basically better than her at everything and way more popular. Like, people in the village are obsessed with her.

Somehow, Donna meets the reader, and they start getting closer, which is a big deal because, for the first time, the reader feels special—Donna, the powerful lord, likes **her** and not her sister!

Then, there’s this moment where Donna finally tries to ask the reader out, but she’s SO stressed that she doesn't even notice she’s talking to reader's twin instead! The reader overhears the whole thing, and when Donna realizes what’s happened, she goes into full-on damage control mode.

If this isn’t your thing or you think it sounds boring, PLEASE , just ignore this!

LOVE U xx

Yessss!!!! Thank you for... Stalking my account? I'm joking, thanks for your support, and for your request!!!! I hope you like it and sorry about the language mistakes!!!! :))))

Identical, but different

Pairing: Donna Beneviento x Fem! Reader

Warnings: Fluff, Donna being Donna

Word count: 7,925

Summary: You want to be more than just "her sister"

N/A: Sorry about the language mistakes!!! Requests are open!!! I'm waiting yours!!! I love you all!!!

You never liked going out on errands, and you knew exactly why.

“Hey, Ivana! Ivana!” a voice called out a name that wasn’t yours, but you knew the words were directed at you.

Rolling your eyes, you turned around, seeing a young villager running up to you.

“Ivana, listen, I want to…” the boy said hurriedly, placing an unpleasant hand on your shoulder.

You pushed it away, growling in annoyance.

“I’m not Ivana,” you said, repeating the phrase that, every time you left your house, you were forced to repeat over and over again. “I’m (Y/N)”

“Oh, wow. Sorry,” the boy said, scratching the back of his neck nervously and embarrassedly. “Um, hey, could you give this to your sister?” he asked, handing you a piece of paper with horrible handwriting on it.

 A love letter, again?

“Why don't you give it to her?” you asked, taking the envelope in an unpleasant manner and putting it together with the ones that you had obtained on your walk through the village.

“Well... You are her sister...” he stammered, to which you made a face of displeasure and shook your head.

“Yes, I’m her sister, not her errand girl,” you said with a hiss, walking away from the boy.

“Don't forget to tell her that it’s form Marco!” he yelled, making you shrug and hiss a few curses.

Every day was another occasion for contempt to appear in front of you.

Being born in that dark village, under the tutelage of the Black Gods, Mother Miranda, the Lords... None of that could compare to the bad luck you had in your life. Bad luck with your family? Not exactly.

Your parents were hard workers, humble but normal parents after all. That wasn't the problem, just like living in that place wasn't the problem either. The problem was the whim of fate that hung over you at birth.

You could have been an only child, but you weren't. You had a sister, but not just any sister, completely different from you, no. Ivana was your twin sister. Physically you were identical.

But physical resemblance had nothing to do with personality. All the charisma, the ease of talking to people, of attracting attention, seemed to have been sucked out of your body and belonged only to Ivana.

She was popular, everyone in the village knew her, almost adored her (not like Mother Miranda, of course). There was no young villager who didn't notice her stupid smile, one that belonged to you, but that didn't have the same effect.

Always Ivana, always your sister was who stole all the limelight from you. You simply existed, but nothing else. You existed because you were her sister. People talked to you because they mistook you with her. It might seem like a desperate situation, and it was, but you had already gotten used to it.

Well, you weren't really excited about talking to people either. It didn't matter that your silence, your shyness and isolation were caused by a genetic error that made your sister steal all those abilities from you. You never really liked talking to people. You had other hobbies that were more peaceful than making a name for yourself in that sinister place.

Still, every day you left your house was a new torment, a new parade of refusals and corrections. Maybe one day you would play pretend to be Ivana, maybe that way you could get revenge on her. You just rambled. She stole even your courage.

“Hi,” you whispered when you got home, moving towards the kitchen where your mother was waiting for the shopping like every day. “Here you go, mother.”

“Thank you, (Y/N),” the woman said, giving you a tip much smaller than the one they gave your sister.

You didn't want to think about that. You still had hope that your own parents loved you equally.

“Hey, (Y/N),” your sister said, making you close your eyes slowly to give yourself patience. You didn't know exactly why she was that popular. You loved her, but you couldn't help but think that your sister was a bit… Unbearable. “How were the errands?”

“Very well, I love going out to freeze while you sit there,” you said ironically, passing by her. “Oh, now that I remember… Here, this is for you.”

With a sigh you took all the notes out of the pocket of your dress and threw them at her in an unpleasant way.

“Have you met Marco?” your sister asked, reading each of the letters with amusement.

“Yes, and he mistook me for you, just like all those idiots,” you commented, letting yourself fall into an armchair, taking your knife to continue with your greatest hobby, carving wooden figurines, something your grandfather taught you and that, along with reading, helped you to spend the time.

“Don't be jealous,” Ivana mocked, sitting on one arm of the sofa, getting on your nerves. “Look, he says I'm the prettiest girl in the village…”

“That's great. How many girls are there in the village?” you said with irony.

“Mm, it smells like envy,” she murmured, crumpling the letter and throwing it into the fireplace.

“Envy? Please, we are identical,” you said, shaking your head and looking at the fireplace. “Hey, why did you do that?”

“I'm not interested in that boy,” Ivana commented. “Are you with your figurines again?”

“You're not interested? Wasn't he your boyfriend?” you asked, preventing the girl from reaching your wooden work. “Leave me alone.”

“You said it... He was... I think I need to start aiming for a higher level,” she murmured, looking at her nails in a smug manner. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“When are you going to leave your stupid wooden figurines and look for a handsome boy to hook up with?” Ivana asked, making you roll your eyes and snort tiredly.

“I'm not interested,” you whispered, polishing that wooden cat.

“You're weird, huh?” the twin mocked, getting up, making you stare at her.

“Am I weird for not wanting to break the hearts of half the village?” you asked, leaving the cat on a table and getting up in a bad mood.

“That's because you can't, you don't have my charms,” she said with a haughty tone, pointing at herself.

Your patience was at its limit.

“Whatever you say,” you murmured tiredly, glancing sideways at your mother, who seemed attentive to the conversation. “Should I help you, mother?”

“No, honey,” the woman said kindly.

“Are you running away from the conversation? That's because you know I'm right,” Ivana said, crossing her arms in satisfaction.

You had lost your patience at that point. After a whole morning of being mistaken, your mood was rather delicate. With a groan, you got up from the couch and walked towards the door.

“Hey, loser, where are you going?”

“Where you don’t care,” you said abruptly, bumping her with your shoulder as you passed and walking out the door. “Stupid…”

Going out for a walk around the area could be comforting, you always did it. Relaxing with your sister always present, walking through the village was impossible but… If you went further away, where there was no one, at least you could be calm.

Walking through the trees you cursed and mumbled about the bad luck you had to be born with someone, running your hand over the rocks, looking at the sky, where the cawing of the crows also seemed to want to make fun of you.

“Ivana is perfect, isn't she? To hell with her…” you whispered, shaking your head, walking aimlessly without paying attention. “Oh, Ivana, it's nice to see you, Ivana, I'll give you a discount for being you, Ivana… I can't believe it.”

When you got tired of walking in circles, you stopped in a small clearing that wasn’t familiar to you, siting at an old tree’s feet, along with some of those branches that fell due to the passage of time.

 “Ivana is the best, the prettiest, the smartest,” you mocked with an amused expression, picking up a piece of branch and taking out your knife.

“Look at me: I'm stupid Ivana, the one who can't keep a boyfriend for more than one night, the best in the whole world… Damn it.”

Between grunts you began to carve a small wooden figure hoping that time would pass faster. After all, you would have to go home sooner or later.

“Are you Ivana? You're so pretty Ivana…” you continued to murmur, shaping that little figure that looked more and more like a deer. “I'm sick. Oh, Ivana, it's you, isn't it? Of course it's you, you're so beautiful… Oh, it's (Y/N), wow, what a disappointment… Always the same, damn it… I hate you … I'm not damn Ivana… Do I have to cut my hair so you can stop confusing each other? Stupid…”

“Oh, you're Ivana, aren't you?” a different voice said, one you hadn't noticed. It was a mocking voice that you identified with a treacherous subconscious, or a stupid villager.

Either option was irritating enough to make you get up from the tree and turn around furiously.

“Do I have to put a sign on my forehead? I'm not Ivana!” you shrieked with your eyes closed, squeezing the figurine in your hands.

“Wow, what a bad mood you have…” the same voice said.

You opened your eyes sighing, ready to tell another villager to go to hell, but when you did, your face paled.

It wasn't a villager. It wasn't even a human being. A sinister doll stood in front of you, laughing amusedly. You didn't need to think about who it could be, you knew perfectly well: the Angie doll, inseparable companion of one of the four Lords, Donna Beneviento.

The lady in black stood behind the doll with a cold and stoic pose while the puppet laughed amused by your carelessness.

You immediately lowered your head at the sight of the dark lady, your body shaking in terror.

“Lady Beneviento,” you murmured in fear, knowing you were completely defenseless. “I’m sorry, I…”

“What are you doing here?” the doll asked, causing you to look away from the lady and stare frightened at the puppet. “You’re in our territory, stupid.”

“R-Really? Oh, I…,” you said in fear, looking around.

You were definitely angry that day. You hadn’t even realized where your irrational anger had taken you.

“Don’t you know you can’t come here?” the doll insisted, pointing at you with her finger in amusement. “Ivana?”

 “I-I'm not Ivana,” you said, ignoring the anger that came over you when she said that name. “I'm (Y/N), her sister…”

“Oh, her sister, I didn't know she had a sister,” Angie said with her hands on her hips. “Well, I actually knew, but I'd never seen you. Ha, I thought I was seeing double...”

“W-We're twins,” you said, still scared, looking up to see the lady, who seemed to be watching you in silence.

“Twins, how cool,” the doll said, getting a little closer to you, fixing her porcelain gaze on the small wooden deer. “What's this?” she asked, snatching the half-made figurine from you.

You made a timid gesture to take it back, but when you felt the lady's gaze on yours, you stopped.

“It's…. It's…” you stammered, controlling the incipient trembling of your legs. “It's a wooden deer.”

“Oh, a deer… Did you make it?” the curious puppet asked, pretending to play with the figurine.

You nodded nervously, clasping your hands in front of your body.

“I, I like to make wooden figurines, I, I carve them myself,” you explained in a small voice.

Angie looked at you and turned around, approaching her owner.

“Look, Donna, look, look,” she said excitedly, handing the lady the deer.

 She picked it up slowly, making you notice her hands, which immediately caught your attention. After all, that black veil didn't allow you to see anything.

“Mm,” you thought you heard a murmur coming from the black fabric, but you were so scared that you didn't even pay attention while the doll maker calmly observed the figurine.

She was dangerous, very dangerous. She was a disturbed woman who had no mercy on anyone who came snooping around, someone like you.

“Hey, silly, are you looking for a job?” the doll asked, observing your work of art alongside the lady.

You froze when the lady in black extended her hand to kindly return the figurine to you. You had no answer to that question.

“Um…” you stammered, avoiding making contact with that hand that seemed so soft. “Job?”

“Uh-huh, my Donna is quite the doll artist,” Angie said, pointing at the lady in black, who moved her hand, returning it to the side of her waist. “Maybe your skills as a wood artist could be useful.”

“My skills?” you asked curiously, pointing at yourself. “Uh, actually this, this is a hobby. I'm not a carpenter or something like that.”

“That doesn't matter to us, you have talent, girl,” Angie said, walking around you like a carrion bird. “I assure you that my Donna values ​​talent very much…”

“Oh, I…” you stammered again, scratching the back of your neck. “I-I don't know what to say…”

“Well, don't say anything, silly,” Angie laughed, being picked up from the ground by her owner, who began to walk away from you, passing by your side like a ghost, one that smelled of lavender… “Anyway, think about it, come to our mansion tomorrow so we can get to know each other better, okay?”

“I-I… W-Well, okay,” you said confused, nodding, while the lady turned her head to look at you for the last time, continuing her way towards the wooden bridge.

That encounter with a Lord was strange, but the strangest thing of all was being able to get out of that place alive. You had heard so many rumors about the lady in black that you didn't know if you could believe them.

You survived, and on top of that... You had a unique job opportunity. You, the scorned sister, had been chosen by Donna Beneviento herself.

You should feel special, but what you had was fear, fear of what could happen to you. The job offer was, however, tempting and on the way home, you could not stop thinking about it.

It wasn’t something you could keep quiet and, during the meal, you told your family what had happened.

“What do you mean?” your father asked after a few seconds of deathly silence. “You say that Beneviento wants you to work for her?”

“Yes, father,” you said, lowering your head, drinking a glass of water. “It seems that she needs help with her dolls.”

“Wait, are you telling me that a Lord has taken an interest in you?” your sister asked, her eyes wide. The trouble of going into the forest was worth just to see her face.

“Yes, it seems that my figurines are not a waste of time,” you said with a haughty tone, making your sister frown.

“(Y/N)…” your father sighed. “I hope you're not thinking of accepting that offer.”

You shrugged.

“I don't know, it could be a good job,” you whispered indecisively, picking up a piece of bread.

“A good job? That woman is insane, do you hear me? I won't let my daughter risk her life like that,” the man said, pointing at you sternly. “No.”

“But, father…” you protested with a sad look. “She didn't seem so… Insane to me…”

“Seriously, why you?” your sister added, envy oozing from every pore.

“No… No wa…” your father repeated, interrupted by your mother's hand.

“Vlad… Wait a moment,” the woman said in a cautious tone. “Maybe it's a good opportunity. That horrible woman is a Lord. She’s rich…”

“My daughter isn't worth all the money in the world, Ingrid,” your father said, crossing his arms.

You couldn't help but smile. At least for your family you were something else than Ivana's sister.

“Think about it Vlad, if (Y/N) works for Beneviento, we'll be protected in some way, besides, we have a lot of debts… It could be the miracle we're waiting for,” your mother commented, making the whole family look at you.

“Well… What do you say, (Y/N)?” the man asked, pointing at you with his fork. “Do you want to work for that crazy woman?”

Again, you shrugged, nodding slowly.

“I don’t think it’s a bad idea,” you whispered, eating calmly.

Your sister snorted, crossing her arms.

“I can’t believe it, you?” she protested with a nasty look.

“What’s wrong, Ivana?” you said with an evil smile. “Are you jealous?”

The next day, after enjoying your sister’s protests, you decided to accept, walking, this time with a sure course towards the lady’s mansion. Internally you meditated on your options.

Well, your parents needed money and… Your sister was jealous. There was no harm in trying your luck with that woman. Maybe she wasn't as horrible as everyone thought. You certainly didn't think so.

“Okay…” you muttered, entering through a red door that led to an elevator. Just getting there made you feel lucky. You wondered if you could go back.

When you finally reached the the mansion, your eyes widened in awe at the sight. A splendid waterfall rose to the side of the old house, one you had only seen in photographs.

“It's great,” you said with a smile, pleased by the beauty of the place, by feeling that, somehow, you weren't in danger.

But your face changed when you saw a figure walking towards the house, one that looked suspiciously like you.

“It can't be…” you muttered, walking faster and shaking your head. “Hey, you! What the hell are you doing here?” you asked annoyed, pulling your twin sister's arm.

 She smiled at you arrogantly.

“I see that punctuality is not your strong point, huh?” she mocked, breaking away from your grip and walking towards the entrance of the mansion. “I'm here looking for work, (Y/N)”

“What? You have to be kidding,” you said indignantly, pulling her arm again. “Go away, Ivana, this job is mine.”

“Oh, please…” the girl sighed, rolling her eyes. “Don't be naive, you're good for nothing.”

“Well, it turns out that Lady Beneviento needs my talent for wood carving, one you don't have,” you said mockingly, climbing the stairs with your twin, who laughed ironically.

“Don't talk nonsense, you're useless, (Y/N), I can do many more things,” she said satisfied, putting on her dress before knocking on the door, something you prevented by grabbing her wrist.

“What things? Are you planning to seduce this woman too?” you asked unpleasantly.

“Please, I'm not into women, that would be you,” Ivana said sarcastically, releasing herself from your hand and bringing her fist closer to the door again.

“You're unbearable,” you growled, kicking the ground, furious. “This job is mine, Beneviento wanted me, not you. Can't you let me be the protagonist for once?”

“You? Protagonist? Don't make me laugh,” your sister mocked, crossing her arms.

“I really want to pull your hair...” you threatened, approaching her with a dark look.

“You are so vulgar, and you want to work for a Lord?”

“I'm going to…” you growled, reaching out your arms towards your sister, who struggled with you until, with an ominous creak, the door opened.

“Well, well, well…” Angie the doll hummed, in the arms of the lady in black.

Comically, the two sisters separated, adopting a formal and respectful pose.

“Look Donna, has anyone ordered a two for one?” the doll mocked, laughing amusedly while pointing at you effusively.

“Lady Beneviento,” you and Ivana said at the same time, with a frown.

“Am I seeing double?” the puppet mocked again, shaking her head.

“Lady Beneviento,” your sister said, taking a step forward and extending her hand towards the lady, who lowered her gaze but didn’t return the greeting. “Um, I have come looking for work.”

“You?” the doll asked, with a suspicious tone. “(Y/N)?”

“No, no, (Y/N) is this one,” Ivana said mockingly, pointing at you while you kept your head down. “I’m her sister and it is wrong for me to say it, but… I’m better than her for this job.”

“Shut up,” you hissed in an angry whisper, glancing sideways at the lady in black. Unfortunately, you couldn't know where that mysterious woman was looking.

“Oh…” the doll murmured. “Do you also carve wood?”

“No, my lady, but I… Well, I have other talents,” your unbearable sister said.

The lady sighed loudly, but made a gesture for both of you to enter the house.

As expected, your sister's charisma made her not want to keep quiet, making kind comments about everything in the mansion, she even had the audacity to comment on the beauty of the portrait hanging on the wall of the stairs, one that you also noticed, but you didn't say anything.

The two of you sat on a sofa following the vague and silent instructions of the lady in black, who did the same on an armchair located in front of you.

“I think that color suits the house well, and it has a beautiful floor and…” Ivana said tirelessly while you simply lowered your head, occasionally looking at the stoic lady, who, you couldn't be sure, but you thought was looking at you.

“Hey, shut up,” Angie protested, making your sister close her mouth immediately with a cocky smile. “Let's see… You are Ivana, right?”

“Yes, my lady,” your sister said, blinking petulantly.

“And you (Y/N),” Angie repeated, pointing at you.

Your response was an elegant nod.

“Well, I already know what (Y/N) knows how to do, but you… I've heard a lot of things about you in the village,” Angie said, speaking in a slightly strange way, as if she wasn't really the doll.

 The woman didn't speak, she just looked at you.

“It's an honor, my lady,” Ivana said, bowing ridiculously. “Yes, I'm quite well-known in the village.”

“Uh-huh, okay, why do you want to work for us?” the puppet asked.

“It would be an honor for me to serve you, my lady,” Ivana said, making you look at her with a disgusted face.

“What can you do?” Angie asked again, without looking at you, the complete opposite of her owner, or so you thought.

“Well, among my many talents… I know how to cook…” the girl began petulantly, placing herself in an informal posture.

You didn't move, you simply maintained that mysterious look.

“My Donna also cooks, what else?” Angie said, her tone seeming impatient. “We don't need cooks.”

“I'm very good at washing clothes,” your twin continued.

“That's good, hey, haven't you heard of washing machines? You should try them,” Angie mocked, making you unable to contain a smile.

“I-I can also… I can…” your sister stammered, revealing with her voice that she was starting to get nervous. “I'm very good at conversation.”

“Oh, did you hear that, Donna? She likes to talk,” Angie said, looking at the lady who did the same with a serene pose. “What do you say, Donna? Oh, of course, you don't like to talk…”

“Um, um… I can, I can be your maid, my lady, I'll do anything you ask me to,”

Was that a desperate request? Your discreet smile widened.

“We don't need a maid, silly, why don't you try the castle? Surely there you are useful,” the doll said.

You suppressed an amused laugh, glancing sideways at your trembling sister.

“Get out of my house,” a hoarse, unknown voice said, one that came out from the black veil, which had a soft and melodic accent. It was Donna, you were sure.

You, thinking she was talking to you, lowered your head with sadness in your gaze, getting up from the sofa.

“Yes, get out, you're bothering me,” your sister emphasized with a satisfied smile.

“No, not you, (Y/N),” the hoarse voice spoke again.

You stopped with a cautious look.

“You stupid fool!” Angie shrieked, pointing at your sister. “Didn't you hear my Donna? We don't need a fool like you, you're useless.”

“What?” Ivana asked with a frown.

“Go away, go away, come on, out, out,” the doll insisted, gesturing with her hands while your sister, scared, looking at you with fiery eyes, ran towards the exit.

“Sit down,” the dark voice spoke again and the hand of the lady in black moved towards the sofa.

You, amused watching your sister leave the mansion, obeyed, calmer. A moment of silence tensed the atmosphere. There was no one else the lady could be looking at, there was only you.

“Your sister can't be quiet, right?” the lady asked, with that very special voice, with an almost inaudible whisper.

You smiled kindly, shaking your head.

“Yes, she's an idi... I mean, she's, she's... Like that,” you said, swallowing the insult. She was a Lord, after all.

“She's an idiot, you can say it,” Angie said, amused, getting off her owner's lap and sitting on the couch next to you. “We don't like idiots...” she whispered in your ear.

You smiled again, lowering your head when you felt those invisible eyes looking at you again.

“Do I scare you, (Y/N)?” the lady asked, making you briefly look up and shake your head, lying shamelessly.

“No,” you said with a sleepy, broken voice, playing with your hands and wishing to carve wood to release the stress. The Lord tilted her head slowly, searching for the truth with that simple gesture. “Well, a, a bit... I've never been that close to... One of you.”

“So, what do you think? Is it as horrible as you expected?” Beneviento asked again, running a hand over her knee, as if she were nervous too, which was impossible, of course.

“Not really,” you said in a sincere tone, smiling at the ridiculousness of your perfect sister. “You’re the… First one who doesn’t… Who doesn’t think my sister is… Well, great.”

“She’s not great,” she said in a sharp voice. “You have a talent I need. She’s just a stupida…”

“Oh, well, I…” you said, scratching your head, blushing at the compliment, which was unusual if it wasn’t accompanied by: Oh, you’re Ivana, aren’t you? “It’s, it’s a hobby.”

“A hobby that I find very useful,” she murmured, gesturing to Angie and getting up from the sofa with a tired sigh. “Come.”

You stood nervously on the couch, your legs deciding they didn't want to move. You were terribly nervous. No one had ever paid you so much attention, much less... Someone like her.

“Didn't you hear me, girl?” Donna asked impatiently, turning around to look at you, making her veil dance hypnotically. “Come here.”

“Y-Yes, sorry,” you said hastily, getting up and walking next to her, again, in silence, a terrifying one.

After going down an elevator, you walked through a dark basement that gave you chills, until you reached what looked like an old workshop, surely the place where those porcelain dolls were created.

All the children in the village had one, and you were no exception, although your sister's was much more detailed, as always.

“I suppose you're wondering what I want you to do for me,” the lady in black murmured, walking towards a table, where there was an old sewing machine. You nodded with a formal pose.

“Yes, my lady,” you said in a dry, respectful tone, as much as you could.

“Do you see these dolls?” she asked, pointing at the objects, impatiently indicating for you to come a little closer. “Don't just stand there, come closer, girl.”

You walked slowly, taking the porcelain doll the lady offered you and examining it carefully.

“I've known how to make these dolls since I was much younger than you,” the lady began explaining while you played with the doll's clothes. “It's easy for me.”

“I-I see, my lady, it's a magnificent job,” you said with your best smile, giving the doll back to her.

“Save the compliments. If I wanted someone to flatter me, I would call your sister,” she said in a cold tone, leaving the doll in its place.

You swallowed and nodded, regretting your words.

“The thing is simple, (Y/N)… Wood was never my strong point,” the lady whispered, gesturing towards the restless Angie, who climbed into her arms, as if she had hypnotized the doll. “Look at those joints, the details of the fingers…”

You obeyed, craning your head to look at those hands… And also at the wooden fingers.

“It's very well done,” you said, touching the puppet unsteadily, moving its fingers.

“Don't touch it too much, or she will bite you,” the lady said in a dark tone, which made you move your hand away immediately, making something like a nervous laugh come out from behind the veil. “Sorry, it's a joke. Angie won't do anything to you.”

“Oh, okay…” you sighed, playing with your hands.

“Angie was created by my father, and he was good at wood, a talent that, unfortunately, I didn't inherit,” the lady continued, giving life to Angie again and lowering her to the ground. “I would like to recover that part I lost, to make these moving dolls again, and for that, I need you.”

“I understand,” you said pleasantly, nodding.

“Will you be able to help me, or am I wasting my time, (Y/N)?” she asked, crossing her arms in a challenging pose.

“I will do what I can, my lady,” you said elegantly, smiling, knowing that you had gotten the job, one that your sister was not able to achieve, one in which, at last, you would surpass her.

“My lady…” she whispered, with a nervous laugh, indicating for you to sit on a nearby chair. “Don't call me that, you remind me of your sister…”

“Oh, okay,” you said laughing shyly, taking a piece of wood that she handed you. “Lady Beneviento?”

“Donna, it's much shorter,” she said, sighing and sitting next to you. You nodded nervously. “Well, it's not that I doubt you, girl, but I'd like to see what you're capable of. I want a right arm, more or less like Angie's, can you do it?”

And so, by a terrible coincidence, a new part of your life began. A much better one, one in which, finally, you didn't feel inhibited by your sister's abilities.

You had a job. You worked for a Lord, an achievement only reserved for the privileged or well, for any young girl who dared to approach the castle, and who didn't plan on getting married.

The days passed quickly in the old mansion. Silence always accompanied you as you manipulated that wood, always next to the lady in black.

Yes, she could be many things, she could be a sick and dangerous woman, but she didn't show it with you. She wasn't very talkative, quite the opposite of her doll, but she was kind in her own way, grateful for your formality, for every thing you did well, and understanding if you made a mistake.

You certainly felt better than ever. Finally there was someone who preferred you over your sister, something you never thought could happen. The days, weeks, months passed and those little conversations with the doll maker increased little by little, as did your smiles.

Donna was a fascinating, mysterious woman, but completely different from the other Lords. Surely that was what caught your attention, yes, yes, it wasn't at all her sweetness, her melodic and seductive accent, or the beauty of her hands…

Maybe you were a bit confused, maybe that attraction (yes, attraction) you were starting to feel for the lady in black was simply a thank you from your heart for feeling important, for feeling that, for once, your sister wasn’t the protagonist.

“Good job, (Y/N),” Donna whispered, running her slender fingers through the wooden ones you had just polished while you looked at her satisfied. “I can give this little hand a manicure, don't you think?”

“Yes, thank you, Donna,” you said with a smile, sighing at the work that wooden arm took you.

She nodded, making you understand she had heard you and, surprisingly, she brought her hand to the black veil that covered her face, removing it elegantly.

You looked away at first, but you couldn't help but glance at her face out of the corner of your eye, getting very nervous. Donna was, just as you feared, a beautiful woman. You didn't even pay much attention to the scar, which was probably the reason for wanting to hide her face.

Your mouth opened slightly and your gaze became bolder, going straight to the lady, who was searching through an old glass for a suitable brush to paint your creation.

“Che stai guardando?” she asked without looking at you, knowing that you had become petrified, and why.

“Oh, no-nothing,” you said nervously, returning to the table to play with the leftover pieces of wood.

The lady frowned, glancing at you out of the corner of her eye, putting the brush back in its place.

“Did you understand me?” she asked curiously, turning to look at you, to confirm the beauty you had noticed. “Do you know Italian?”

“Um, yes, no, um, I don't know,” you stammered, turning abruptly to look at the table again. “It's just that... I, I've read a lot of books...”

“Do you like to read?” she asked, taking the brush and smearing it with paint.

“Um, yeah,” you said quietly, playing with a piece of wood, carving it to calm your nerves.

“Mm,” she murmured, concentrating on the arm, not caring too much about you had seen her face. She didn’t really have to. One bad word and you would end up at the bottom of the waterfall. “Your sister likes to read too?”

“My sister?” you asked with a mocking smile. “I doubt she even knows what a book is,” you said, forgetting about the beauty next to you.

Donna laughed softly, but kept her face serious.

“Excuse me for asking, but… Why do you hate your sister?” she asked in a soft voice, curious but distracted at the same time.

“I don't hate her,” you said sighing, shaking your head. “She's my sister and I love her, but it's just that… Ugh, she was always the most… Popular… Everyone approaches her, sucks up to her, wants to flirt with her… It seems like I’m nothing but her shadow.”

“There's no one who doesn't know her,” the lady commented, painting in a disinterested way. “But I don't understand why. She's stupid.”

“Yeah, well…” you said amused, rolling your eyes. “But even if she's stupid, I don't know how she does it, but she has a natural talent for people, she has a lot of charisma, and joy and... Well, everything I lack... She's like a double... Or rather, I'm her sinister double...”

“Mm, so you think that being popular makes you a better person,” she commented distractedly, making you reflect.

“Yes, no, I don't know,” you said, nodding and suddenly shaking your head, not sure of your answer.

“Do you think she's better because people want to flirt with her?” Donna asked again, making you blush.

“W-Well, that doesn't matter too much to me, we don't have the same interests,” you said with a shy voice, not wanting to reveal an important fact about yourself, one that you didn't know how Lady Beneviento would take it.

“Mm, that's obvious,” she murmured without looking at you, making you startle.

“Why do you say so?”

“You're not scared of my face,” she said in a darker voice, controlling an incipient tremor in her hands.

“The-there's nothing to be scared of,” you said, nervous, uncomfortable.

The lady stopped painting, smiling strangely.

“Surely your sister would run away terrified,” she murmured, sighing sadly, something that caught your attention.

“No way,” you said amused with a gesture of your hand. “No matter what she thought, she would surely try to seduce you to take some of your fortune. She always does the same with everyone.”

“Seduce me?” the lady asked amused, letting the wooden arm go and turning to look at you.

“Yes, I think so,” you said, looking away. “She would do anything to gain fame...”

“Even seduce a monster like me,” she said in a different tone, pressing her lips together.

A bad choice of words.

“I didn't mean that,” you said regretfully. “I, I just, I mean that, seducing you is not what... Well, I think that... Well, anyone with eyes in their face could see how beautiful you are and... Well, I... Well... I-I better shut up...” you said nervously, red as blood, looking at the old clock, wishing it was time to leave.

“Do you want to seduce me, (Y/N)?” she asked, in a whispery tone, looking at you with a frown.

Your heart couldn't take it anymore.

“Oh, I... I'm not like my sister,” you said avoiding that poisoned dart, avoiding saying what you really thought.

“That's why I like you,” the lady whispered, bringing a soft hand surprisingly to your face, caressing it gently, almost automatically.

Your breathing quickened and your eyes danced nervously, locked on hers, on that bright and beautiful eye as her skin made contact with yours, a sensation you didn't know felt so good (although you shamefully fantasized about it)

“Y-You-You like me…” you stammered, bringing your hand to hers, leaning in the same way as her until the lady, clearing her throat, withdrew, surely embarrassed.

“Yes, um, um… I think, I think you've done enough for today. You can leave,” Donna said, shaking her head and frowning more intensely, gesturing with her hand.

“Okay,” you sighed with an exaggeratedly sad tone.

Nothing was the same after that strange conversation.

You finally admitted that you feel something for the lady in black, that it wasn't the simple illusion of being valued more than your sister. It was something different, a kind of tension, of tense and uncomfortable moments that became routine.

The smiles, the casual contact of your hands with hers became something more and more frequent. You couldn't be more in love, but neither of you ever mentioned it.

There was never any talk of those subtle caresses or those glances. You didn't dare to say what you thought, and neither did she. It was better this way after all, you could be misinterpreting things.

“That's it... Slowly...” the lady said, on one of those days when you weren't working with wood, but you were learning to sew instead, thanks to her advice. The smile was always in the lady's eye, and on your cheeks, the red color settled as definitive.

“Like this?” you asked, showing her the piece of fabric. She nodded amused, without stopping to look at you. “Good, now I know how to sew.”

“Yes,” she said, with a wider smile. “It's not complicated, (Y/N), it's a matter of practice.”

“I see…” you sighed, going over those clumsy seams.

Silence returned to the old workshop.

“(Y/N)… I, I've been thinking,” Donna murmured, moving away from that comfortable proximity, playing with her hands while you continued sewing. “Maybe it seems hasty but… I have, I have to tell you something.”

You looked at her with wide eyes as she grabbed one of your hands. She was sweating, shaking visibly. She seemed terribly nervous.

“Okay…” you sighed, dazzled by her soft caresses.

“I…”

“Hey, you two!” Angie's shrieks interrupted that tense moment, that moment you had been waiting for so long.

“Angie, this is not a right time,” the lady growled, having seen her attempt frustrated.

“What were you doing?” the doll asked in a mocking tone, dragging out her words. “Well, whatever, there's a knock at the door, Donna.”

“I'm not expecting anyone,” she said, frowning again. “Who is it?”

“What do I know?” the doll answered, shrugging.

“Cazzo… Dov’è il mio velo…?” the lady murmured nervously, searching for something on the table.

You put a hand on her shoulder and stood up with a smile.

“I'm coming, don't worry,” you said in a kind voice, making her nod with a weak smile.

“Thank you”

When you got to the door, your smile instantly vanished.

“What are you doing here?” you asked, crossing your arms when you saw your clone, your sister, dressed the same way as you with an almost furious look.

“It turns out that thanks to you I have become the new errand girl,” Ivana said with a cocky tone.

You raised your eyebrows, with a triumphant smile.

“It's a pain, huh?” you mocked. “I've been like that for years.”

“Yes, whatever you say…” your sister said, making an unpleasant gesture with her hand. “Mother gave me this for you.”

“Oh, cookies…” you said with a tender smile.

“Yes, she says she wants Lady Beneviento to try them,” Ivana commented, looking at her nails with disinterest.

“Okay, thanks,” you said, entering the house and closing the door, something you couldn't do, since your sister prevented it.

“Hey, you ungrateful witch, don't you know how much it cost me to get here?” she rebuked you, with a finger on your chest.

“What do I care?”

“You could give me a glass of water, at least,” Ivana protested, lowering her gaze.

“Ugh, fine,” you said sighing and shaking your head. “Stay there and, don't, touch, anything.”

“Whatever you say,” the young woman said, crossing her arms as you went up the stairs.

Grumbling and mumbling you went up to the bathroom on the top floor. You would go down to the kitchen for no reason. Your sister would do nothing but snoop around.

“Oh, there you are,” a familiar voice caught your attention, along with the unmistakable sound of heels.

You leaned over the railing, watching as the lady in black dangerously approached your sister, her face covered.

“Mm?” your twin murmured, blinking in disbelief when the brunette uncovered her face again. She seemed very, very nervous.

You wanted to intervene, but you didn't, you stayed glued to the railing with the glass in your hand, shaking more and more.

“Who was it?” Donna asked, getting a little closer to Ivana. “W-Well, it, it doesn't matter…”

“Um, I…” your twin stammered, surely surprised to see her face.

“W-Wait, let, let me tell you something…” the lady interrupted, moving her hand to reach your sister's, joining it with hers, interlacing their fingers. Ivana didn't move; she remained open-mouthed.

“Um, um…”

“I know it's crazy and I know your answer will probably break my heart, but I can't keep quiet about what I feel, (Y/N),” Donna whispered, making a great effort to speak.

You fidgeted nervously on the railing, a smile appearing on your face, a smile that hid the evidence of what was happening downstairs.

“I… I've, I've been alone all my life until… Until you showed up and… With you I feel, I feel like I wouldn't want to be alone again…” the lady continued, squeezing your sister's hand tighter. “I-I'm, I'm in love with you.”

Your jaw dropped at the same time as your sister's. You couldn't believe it, it was the happiest day of your life, was it?

“Y-You don't have to answer me now, but, but I would like, I would like...” the lady said, still nervous at the lack of response from the stunned Ivana. “I would like you to help me discover what love is... Together, next to you... What...? What do you say?” she whispered, caressing your sister's hair, her face pale from those words.

She gently pulled her, lightly placing her lips on your twin's, kissing her slowly.

That was too much for you.

Your hand became weak, dropping the glass on the floor, breaking it into a thousand pieces with an unpleasant sound that attracted the attention of the two women.

“Donna!” you shouted, rushing down the stairs. “Donna, wait, that's not...”

“W-W-What?” the lady stammered, blinking in confusion and letting your sister's waist go.

“Hey, I'm not (Y/N)…” Ivana said amused. “But if you share you money with me I'll be whoever you want…”

“What? You? You?” Donna said nervously, running a hand through her hair and breathing heavily, pointing at one of you each time. “You, you're not… You…”

“Donna, she's my sister,” you said, arriving at the hall in a hurry and pushing your twin away. “Are you an idiot? What are you up to?”

“Hey, hey, I didn't do anything,” Ivana protested amused and nervous. “It was her… Boy, (Y/N) you were so quiet about that.”

You growled, looking at the lady in black, who had a lost look on her face while her body suffered nervous spasms.

“You're…. You're… (Y/N)…” Donna stammered, unable to control her anxiety. “You… You're, you're…”

“Did I miss something?” your sister asked, frowning.

“Oh, you stupid moron…” you muttered, putting your hands on the brunette's shoulders.

Donna was unable to look at you.

“No… No!” she shrieked furiously, pushing you away as she ran off, kicking all the furniture in her path.

“Hey, wait!” you shrieked, chasing her.

“Sis, you're such a flirter,” Ivana mocked, laughing amused. “Who would have thought that a Lord was so stupid as to be interested in you?”

“Shut up,” you hissed as you held the brunette, who struggled against your grip, sobbing. “Donna…”

The lady apparently calmed down, looking at your sister with a furious eye and pushing you away again, walking hurriedly towards her.

“Hey, hey, hey, I didn't mean…” your sister said, running away from the doll maker, who was chasing her furiously. “Hey, I'm sorry…”

A dull thud silenced your twin's complaints. Angie, who had slipped among you, hit your sister with a piece of wood, leaving her unconscious.

“Right in the head,” the doll said, laughing sinisterly.

“Stronza…” Donna growled, approaching you twin’s unconscious body. “How dare you to fool me!?”

“Hey, Donna, wait, wait, leave her alone,” you said, grabbing her shoulders again. “It's not her fault, wait, please…”

“(Y/N)…” the lady sighed, changing from anger to sadness. “What have I done?”

“Eh, eh, it's okay…” you said, glancing at your sister. Of course, she was still alive. “You got confused, it's normal.”

“I, I made a fool of myself… (Y/N)…” she sobbed, throwing herself into the shelter of your arms as she lowered herself to the floor, burying her head in your chest. “I'm sorry!”

“Shhh, Donna…” you said in a comforting whisper, caressing her hair, kneeling. “I've heard everything…”

“I'm sorry…” she sobbed again, clinging to your dress. “You don't know how much I…”

Her apologies were silenced by a kiss, one from your lips, a bold, brave one, the first of your life, but not the last. It was a sudden and disastrous kiss, but it served to silence the sobs of the lady in black, who slowly pushed you away, calmer.

“Those things you said...” you murmured smiling, wiping away the tears of the brunette. “Do you really have feelings for me?”

“Yes,” she sighed. “Yes, (Y/N), I... I, I love you...”

“You know what? I've been wanting to hear you say it for so long, that I don't care that you said it to my sister,” you joked softly, cradling the sobbing lady in your arms.

“Cazzo...” she lamented again, burying her head further into her chest.

“I'm going to take my sister home and... When, when I get back I want us to... Well, talk about this... Maybe over dinner?”

[holdmytesseract]

Thank you for a lovely campfire hangout.

I have a request for a drabble/blurb inspired by this line from The National & Phoebe Bridgers - Your mind is not your friend:

"Don't you understand? Your mind is not your friend again

It takes you by the hand and leaves you nowhere"

What about Loki daydreaming about Frigga, just to remember she is dead? It's gonna be angsty, because the song is sad but oh so beautiful.

Labyrinth of Thoughts

Warnings: sad Loki, mentions of death, fluff

Word Count: blurb

a/n: Poor babey... I was so sad, writing this. 🥺 Thank you for the bittersweet request! 🤗

You could tell that he was totally lost in his thoughts. His gaze aimlessly staring at the gardens ahead; hand gently cupping one of the dozens of lilac lillies, which had just started to bloom.

You stepped beside him cautiously; studying him. The beautiful flower looked so tiny in his big palm, but his touch was so loving and gentle...

He must think of something wonderful.

"Loki?" You addressed him; voice merely above a whisper. You didn't want to scare him.

No response. Your voice hadn't reached him.

You lifted a hand and slowly laid your palm on his forehead. The raven haired god flinched, before his eyes snapped up to meet yours. "Y-Y/N..."

"Apologies, my love. I didn’t mean to scare you..." Your expression shifted to worry. "What is wrong, my prince?"

Loki swallowed hard; his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. "I-I... I saw these lillies and thought of my mother... How... How beautiful she'd find them and how proud she'd be of them." A tear rolled down his cheek. "I got lost in thoughts. My mind, once again led me to place full of wonderful imagination - and left me stranded..." He sighed; his head hanging low. "She's dead, Y/N. And that won't change."

You felt your heart aching at Loki's painful confession. You felt so sorry for him. It truly wasn't fair.

"Loki..." You lifted your free hand and cupped his cheek; slightly grazing your thumb over his soft skin. "I'm so sorry your mind plays this cruel game with you. It's hard when our own thoughts turn against us and suddenly aren't a friend anymore, but rather an enemy." He nodded, "It truly is... Normally, I can handle my grief well, but..." and sighed deeply. "It's just... I don't know... Seeing these flowers bloom for the first time since she died just did something to me. There are so many things I wanted to tell her, but couldn't... I miss her so much, Y/N."

His teary blue eyes met yours again; causing you to break as well. "I-I know, my love, I know... Come here." You enveloped him in a tight hug; giving him all the love and comfort he needed right now.

"I know this is anything but easy for you. It always isn't, but... Never forget, my love... Frigga is always with you. She continues to live in your heart - and some day, you'll see her again."

Tags: @fictive-sl0th @gruftiela @anukulee @theaudacitytowrite @alexakeyloveloki @muddyorbsblr @mypainischronicbutmyassisiconic @chennqingg @skittslackoffilter @mandywholock1980 @mochie85 @glitchquake @hisredheadedgoddess28 @chantsdemarins @dryyoursaltyoceantears @loz-3 @eleniblue @goblingirlsarah @crimson25 @icytrickster17 @lokidbadguy @hunny-beann @stupidthoughtsinwriting @kimanne723 @midgetdemon17 @asgards-princess-of-mischief @lokidokieokie @lokisgoodgirl @valencia-rou @kikster606 @huntedmusicgardenn @frzntrx @linaax @km-ffluv @sheris532 @jiyascepter @salvinaa @lcolumbia1988 @blackholeofcreativity @soulpiercing @lou12346789 @loonalockley @liliac-dreamer @brokenpoetliz @jaidenhawke (Continuing in the tags)