#idk. when i was little Like 10 or 11 i would 'make up' my own aliens and they were 9 times out of 10 just andalites with 1 or 2 features

[church-of-crayak]

What was an alien species mentioned in the Animorphs that you wanted to see explored more?

i honestly wanted to know more about the garatron, since basically all we get is "yeah they're like andalites but faster and pointier. and also the yeerks have one of them" like okay, man, whatever, what's their society like? how convergent with andalites is their evolution, yk? are they bugs? are they ungulates? are they herbivores, even? how do they eat? what do they eat??? whats the garatron-controller like when he's not infested? you can't just drop this description on my head and then NEVER MENTION THEM AGAIN

pulled taffy, dude? like, what's going on with their physiology? partially it has to do with rachel being the narrator, and she's one of the least objective writers of the main six, next to marco, who is responsible for calling andalites "horses with arms sticking out of their necks", where every other character describes them as centaurs.

i went through the weakness again to see if there was much else to work with, and no, all we get is "they're fast enough to run on water", "they're not as fast as a striking snake", and "the yeerks may or may not continue infesting them" GET real. i wanna know if they run on water regularly on their home planet. is their planet's surface made out of quicksand or goo or something that you can't stand still on for fear of becoming Eaten By It? get goofy! get weird! but no

i have other gripes with this book but i would have to actually do a reread to put them to words

[mariespen]

Breaking Trust. ˚➶ ｡˚

protective!Rafe Cameron x reader warnings: swearing, guns and firing into the air/ground, aggressive anger, anger issues, MDNI: fingering, p in v, praise summary: "You only noticed Rafe when he was storming down to the sandy bonfire, gun in hand." based on this request! thank you so much!

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

You were perched like a porcelain doll on Rafe’s lap as the two of you watched a new movie on the TV. His hands were massaging the back of your head softly as his eyes were glued between your thighs and the screen itself. You were squinting at the captions, trying to not ask too many questions. It was your fault, anyways. You let Rafe put on a boring war movie that was three hours long. That alone should show how much you love him.

After thirty minutes into the movie, your phone subtly pings on the spot it was laying on the coffee table. You peered down casually, not drawing Rafe’s attention. The message on the dim screen was from the pouge’s group chat that you had just recently been added to. Without Rafe’s knowledge, of course. Your boyfriend, king of the kooks, had it out for any pouge that came within a mile of his perfect girlfriend. If it was up to Rafe, you would be in your own museum and displayed in a pretty box, for him and only him. In his words, 

“I don’t want the dirt on my shoes touching my pretty girl.”

Of course, this phrase was only spurred on because you got shoulder checked by a guy from the cut. You barely blinked before Rafe made sure he couldn’t move to get in your way again. That being said, if your boyfriend found out you were in a group chat with pouges, he just might lose it.

“I gotta pee baby.” You said softly, faking a squirm as you got up quickly and grabbed your phone. You looked down, seeing Rafe’s small pout. You giggled, kissing his cheek, “I’ll be back, promise.” Rafe nodded and watched your ass sway as you walked into the bathroom, his eyes glued to something new now. You closed the door quickly, scrolling through the messages.

JJ: Beach?

JB: when

JJ: idk like 11

Kie!: kk

Pope: Sounds good.

You felt nervous and a little out of place, but you still wanted to go. Hanging out with the pouges gives you the sense of adrenaline that you’ve been craving for longer than you realized. Your thumbs were shaking and your body was quick with nerves as you typed out your third ever message in the chat.

Me: perf!

Maybe it was too girlie or too kook-y. Were they even talking to you? What if they forgot they added you? Before you could come up with another scenario in your head;

*JJ liked your message*

A sigh of relief left your body and a wave of excitement stuck to your chest. All that was left was figuring out a way to avoid Rafe and make sure he’s not suspicious of you leaving so suddenly.

“Baby, are you okay?” His voice gently yells across Tannyhill.

“Yeah!” You replied, trying to not sound as frantic as you felt.

With a forged sense of causality, you walked back into the living room. The sound of your feet against the hardwood spurred Rafe’s attention and he turned over his shoulder to see you.

“What took so long?” He asked, a slight concern in his tone. “My girlfriends texted, they want to hang out!” You said, coming up with the obvious lie on the spot.

“Which ones?” Rafe asked, cocking his head.

“You know.. Kenna and Eliza!” A smile plastered on your face. You’ve never been good at lying.

Something about Rafe felt different as he shrugged and told you to have fun. Thinking you made it out, you ran up to his room to re-apply some makeup and grab a change of clothes to wear at the beach. A bikini was in your sights and you grabbed it, along with a draped skirt and one of Rafe’s sweaters. Shoving everything into a beach bag, you headed back downstairs.

“Where ya goin?” Rafe asked, towering over you now.

“Beach!” You replied, looking up at him with wide eyes.

“It’s 10:30 at night baby, are you sure?” He gently pushed, his arms coming up to hold your shoulders with concern.

“Yeah, I promise!” You kissed his cheek and brushed past him, “I love you!”

“I love you too.” Rafe sighed, obviously stressed about the abrupt change in plans.

With a surprising lack of resistance from your boyfriend, you got into your car and began to drive down to the cut, meeting the pouges at their normal spot on the beach. You grinned as cheers were heard when you showed up, a bonfire already being started. Kiera met you in the sand, a beer in her hand as she slurred her laughter. 

“Hi Kie!” You giggled with her, beginning your walk down to the fire.

JJ and John B met you with a beer and marshmallows, encouraging you to make s’mores. The fire grew throughout the night and you drunkenly ran around with them. The sand kicked at your feet as you ran from JJ after stealing his knife and the water drenching you and Kie when she convinced you to run into the waves. Pope talked to you with the others, and you mindlessly listened to his rants as you traced drawings in the sand, John B’s towel wrapped around you. Your lack of observance was a weakness. Throughout the excitement and exhilaration, you failed to notice Rafe’s truck parked at an overlook, with your boyfriend inside. His eyes were on you as you drank and forgot about anything besides what was keeping your attention that second.

When you had left the house originally, Rafe was concerned. He had his original suspicions, so he reluctantly let you leave. Topper and Kelce had invited themselves into Tannyhill once they realized your car wasn’t there anymore, but they instead found Rafe watching your location intently. After some comically deep discussions, Topper had convinced Rafe to follow you. Admittedly, this was an easy thing to convince him of. Rafe’s keys were in his pocket the moment you left. He drove with urgency, seeking you out. Rafe told himself that he was just worried about your safety. At the beach this late, the sneaker waves could grab you in a second. Deep down, he knew that there was a lack of trust, and he needed to talk to you about it. You only noticed Rafe when he was storming down to the sandy bonfire, gun in hand.

“Get away from my fucking girl!” He yelled, firing a warning shot into the air.

Confrontation sparked instantly as you tried to beg Rafe to not do anything he would regret while the pouges taunted him like it was a game. Your heart broke on the betrayal from either side. Rafe’s constant threat through the bullets in his gun and the lack of protection or awareness from the others was giving you anxiety. Your boyfriend didn’t play pretend when it came to you.

“Rafe.. Rafe please! Put it down!” You begged, tugging on his bicep.

“You brought them this.” He responded, firing a shot into the sand.

“Fuck you Rafe!” JJ spat on the dent the bullet made.

Tears flooded your eyes as neither group let up. You felt utterly hopeless and all to blame. The only thing to divert the attention of everyone was the soft sound of sirens and the illumination of quick-approaching lights. Rafe pulled you along with him, forcing you into his passenger seat with a subtle undertone of gentleness, not wanting to hurt you badly. The tires dragged through the sand as your boyfriend sped away, driving back to Tannyhill.

The air in his truck was thick with anger and anxiety. Rafe’s lack of words were enough to speak for themselves. You stared out the window in disbelief, trying to push everything away.

The truck parked at Tannyhill and Rafe got out, slamming his door before coming to the other side, picking you up from the car and carrying you into the house with a sense of annoyance. Rafe took you up to his room with little protest and sat you down on the bed.

“What the fuck?” He asked, obviously hurt by your lies.

“Rafe m’so sorry baby I-“ You began the apology rant you prepared in the car, but he cut you off.

“I trusted you. Why the fuck did you lie?” He said, scoffing at your tears, “Don’t start with me. Tell me.” “You hate them!” The words flew from your mouth, “They are my friends and I still want to hang out with them but you hate pouges! For no reason!” Your voice was rising without you realizing.

Rafe groaned in anger, “That’s a good enough reason on its own!”

“Not to bring a gun!” You yelled, emotions running high.

In an instant, he shoved your makeup off the dresser and onto the floor, shattering the pretty pink Miss Dior bottle he bought for your anniversary.

“Stop!” You sobbed, crumpling into the bed.

“I’m fucking done! You can’t keep pulling this shit!” Rafe yelled back, storming out of the room.

The strong scent of the perfume gave you a pounding headache. You crawled off of the bed and staggered into the bathroom, laying in the empty bathtub to escape the scent. You fell asleep quickly, the emotional and physical exhaustion sweeping your feet. There was no signs of Rafe as your eyelids became heavy and protested the bright bathroom light. The curled position you had pulled yourself into was the same one you fell into a deep sleep in.

Soft mutters and shaking movements awakened you slightly, hours later. Rafe cradled you in his arms, kissing your forehead. The bedroom no longer smelled like the shattered bottle of perfume, implying that he had come back in and cleaned up the mess he had made.

The blankets were a glorious feeling as he helped you into bed, wrapping his arms around you.

“M’sorry.” Rafe whispered, falling asleep with you in his arms. You were quick to follow, escaping reality to sleep.

The sun shined through your window, just as bright as the moon was the night before. Your boyfriend laid next to you, kissing your arms softly. The gentle movements woke you up, and once he realized this, he began to apologize.

“Baby I’m so sorry.” He whispered, holding your chin to lock your gaze on him, “I overreacted.” “I’m sorry too.” You responded, tearing up and collapsing into his arms, “I broke your trust. I should’ve just talked to you.” “Shh.. s’okay.” Rafe reassured, his hands playing with your hair subconsciously, “I let my anger get the best of me. I shouldn’t have.”

 You laid in his arms, feeling more alive than you did with the pouges the night before. “Let me make it up to you?” Rafe whispered, pulling you up and kissing your neck gently. You giggled before gasping at his cautious hickeys.

His hand wandered to the hem of your panties, playing with them to tease you. Your anticipatory moans lead him forward, getting on top of your desperate body.

“Rafe.. please..” You mumbled, grabbing out for him.

“Be patient, love.” He whispered, kissing down your legs after stripping you of your panties and top.

Your lips met one last time before you felt his fingers softly rub circles into your clit. You moaned out for him, holding onto his bicep for any kind of stability. 

“R-rafe..” You whimpered.

“So wet f’me.. swear you get sexier every day. Just don’t wanna share my girl.” He mumbled, kissing your neck.

“Close..” Your eyes rolled back, dumb on his fingers alone.

“No baby..” Rafe chuckled as you whined at the loss of his hand, “You’re going to cum on me, yeah?” The moan you cried out was pornographic as he slowly dragged his hard cock through your walls.

“Always so fuckin’ tight.” He groaned, fucking you slowly and deep. Rafe felt your every clench and spasm, speeding his pace up with ease.

“Too- too much..!” You cried, drunk off of pleasure as he fucked you on his cock.

“No baby.. you got it. Be good.” He whispered, feeling you coming closer and closer to edge, “So perfect.. like you were fuckin’ made f’me.” 

“Close!” You cried out, the rest of your mind consumed with the pleasure he was fucking into you. Your body trembled as you came, shaking underneath him and clenching around his cock. He groaned, gripping your hair and burying his face into the crook of your neck as he came inside of you.

Rolling off of you, Rafe laid lazily beside you. He turned his head after a few minutes, kissing you on the cheek and getting up from the bed, despite your lazy protests.

“Gotta get you cleaned up..” He said, his tone soft and careful as he wiped you down with a warm cloth.

Rafe showered your spent body in kisses before pulling you up and carrying you downstairs to the couch, kicking the forgotten cap of your broken perfume bottle under the dresser.

“Gotta get you new perfume, hm?” He said, kissing your cheek and letting you snuggle into his lap on the couch.

Rafe turned on the TV, resuming the same movie from last night. You groaned, rolling your eyes and burying your face in his bare chest.

“You love me.” Rafe said with a chuckle, kissing the top of your head.

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

[gimmehyuck]

try again | j.jh

summary. jaehyun remembers the night he met you, and even after that one night he often thought of you and wished things would have been different, but by a weird twist of fate he gets to see you again, except this time... you're not alone.

or alternatively:

jaehyun gets to try again, for real this time.

pairing. idol!jaehyun x teacher!yn

words. 19.8k-ish

genre. somewhat of a second chance romance? lots of cute things going on, and it wouldn't be a gimmehyuck fic if i didn't have something angsty

warnings. there's not much to warn about tbh? jaehyun not believing in love at first sight but then essentially does, there's a one night stand (nothing explicit), and also a child (gasp i know), alcohol is mentioned as well as pineapple on pizza, a wild blue haired haechan makes an appearance, johnmark being the best, jaehyun is generally unhappy with being an idol at this stage of his life, idk but y'all can thank my friend ruby for this getting finished, she was on my ass about it... happy late birthday jaehyun lmao

.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

this was completely and utterly unlike himself, jaehyun thought over and over as he laid in your bed listening to you breathe. he wasn’t a one-night stand kind of man, he was too busy to let himself fall into these kind of temptations. he was a man, he told himself, and yeah, he liked sex, but the middle of tour? he shook his head at himself as he stared at the ceiling.

his mouth spoke on his own when he saw you, your beauty catching him entirely off guard. dinner at 6 with johnny was only supposed to be a quick get-out-of-the-hotel-for-a-bit thing, forty-five minutes tops. but the second you walked up and asked if you could start them off with any waters, or if they preferred beer, he was enamored. forty-five minutes turned into double that and johnny could only smile at himself at the very obvious flirtatious exchanges and when you wrote your number on the receipt you had placed on the table with a scribbled note that said ‘i get off at 11, call me if you want :)’, johnny was more than supportive.

“man, just live a little.” johnny had told him in the taxi to the hotel, and jaehyun was still on the fence about it but when it was 10:53 and he still couldn’t get your smiling face out of his head, his fingers moved entirely on their own. you responded to him at 11 exactly, and even though he had just ate and wasn’t hungry, he agreed when you asked if he’d be up to get something to eat with you. twenty minutes later he found himself in your presence again, baseball hat tugged as far down as it would go and a mask tugged slightly down to rest on his chin and he couldn’t help but listen to things about yourself and he realized he wanted to know more and more with each laugh you let out.

he wasn’t a love at first sight kind of man, but he could understand that thought behind it because, damn, you were funny and kind and absolutely beautiful.

“sorry, i’ve been going on too much about myself, haven’t i?” you asked, face turning a little sheepish when you realized he hadn’t said much of a word the last fifteen minutes but you noticed his smile never fell from his face. he shook his head in answer and picked up a fry from the shared pile on the table, “no, i’m enjoying hearing all about you.”

“well, let’s change it up some, tell me about yourself. you from around here?” you asked, copying his movements and munching on a fry yourself.

“mmm,” he thought for a moment. he didn’t want to be secretive, but he wasn’t comfortable turning the conversation into a long winded one about his group and his fame and although he was thankful for all of that, he noticed it had slowly started to wear him down. no, he genuinely was enjoying just being himself with you, not having to be anyone else. “i’m from seoul, and i work… in entertainment.” he finally decided on.

not a lie, not exactly.

“oh, that sounds really exciting! do you get to meet a lot of famous people doing that?” you asked tilting your head slightly as you did so, genuine curiosity on your face.

his smile grew, oh if only you knew. “i have here and there, they’re just people even if they’re famous.”

you nodded in response to that and your lips twisted slightly in a frown, “i always feel a little bad for celebrities in that sense. i can’t imagine worrying about how my next sentence will be dissected and twisted into something else.”

the more you spoke, the more you surprised him. no one really thought about them in that way, usually jumping directly to the misconstruing of his words or actions as something else entirely.

“yeah, i imagine that’s pretty difficult.” he agreed with you knowingly, then asked, “so do you enjoy being a waitress?”

your smile faltered a little, and you sighed, “i mean, yeah. i like meeting new people but i’m only doing it for another semester and then i’ve got my degree. it took me longer than i’d like to admit, since i’m almost twenty-four now but i had to work enough to make the money to pay for my tuition and well, yeah. so i’ll have my bachelors in a few months’ time and then i’ll be done with the restaurant.”

“oh?” jaehyun asked, reaching again for more fries. “what are you getting your degree in?”

“teaching!” you said with a brilliant smile on your face. “i want to teach, but lately i’ve been leaning towards teaching english overseas and i think you were my sign to do just that. i’ve been debating between korea and japan.”

jaehyun laughed a little at that, “well not to be biased but i can vouch for korea. it’s a really beautiful place.”

and the conversation continued like that, asking questions back and forth. you answering him honestly and jaehyun answering you as honestly as he could without turning the conversation into the direction he didn’t want it to go. the food was gone and the conversation was still going but you had invited him to your place which wasn’t that far away and jaehyun thought he’d hesitate to say yes but his answer was so immediate it startled him a bit. the constant back and forth went on even still at your apartment and he felt like he had known you for a long time, much longer than just a few hours at least, he felt at ease and comfortable and it was a feeling he didn’t realize he was missing. when you suddenly kissed him midsentence he froze, his entire face blank as his brain processed what had just happened, unsure how to exactly to proceed next and you blushed brightly at him, your confidence unwavering.

“sorry,” you giggled a little nervously at the way his face was in shock, “i don’t have any expectations of tonight, but i wanted to kiss you at least once. you’re so cute, especially your dimples. i’m sorry if i made you uncomf – mmph!” his lips effectively silencing you in the same manner yours had him.

except he didn’t pull away, and you wrapped your arms around him and the night carried on, each kiss leading into a touch, and then a gasp. you led him into your room and kicked the door shut with your foot, hands frantically removing clothing in a trail to the bed. small giggles were shared between gasping breaths within the breaks of kissing and the gasps slowly transformed into sounds of pleasure and while you fell asleep against him after, jaehyun couldn’t turn his racing mind off.

he didn’t regret anything, he didn’t regret his actions. he didn’t regret you.

he regretted that he couldn’t stay.

and so when he knew you were fully asleep, when your breathing was the deepest, he got up from your bed and slowly replaced his clothes one by one, dragging out the moments he had in your presence. his hat was the last thing he found on the floor and he tugged it on, sighing softly to himself, pulling out his phone to read that it was 5:20 am, and with one last glance over his shoulder he left you there in the bed sound asleep. a deep guilt he couldn’t shake making a home for itself in his chest.

.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

                              aug 9

9:33 am you: hey! everything ok?

9:35 am you: wanna go get breakfast? :)

12:42 pm dimples: i’m sorry, i just saw this. i had work things to take care of. how did you sleep?

3:30 pm you: that’s ok! i slept alright :)

3:31 pm you: are you busy tonight? wanna get food?

4:45 pm dimples: if i get off in time, sure. i’ll let you know.

7:02 pm you: you alright?

7:28 pm dimples: i’m sorry, again. work is kicking my ass, how did your day go?

7:32 pm you: it was fine! started working on an essay i had due, you know. the fun stuff, how about you? busy?

7:45 pm dimples: you have no idea haha

7:49 pm you: you can tell me about it if you want? believe it or not, i’m a great listener

                                       read 10:45 pm

                           aug 13

2:43 pm you: sent attachment

2:43 pm you: saw this and remembered how you

2:43 pm you: sorry, thumb hit send lol. you mentioned you liked this band, and i thought of you

2:44 pm you: hope you’re ok

                           read 12:01 am

                           aug 19

11:01 pm you: y’know, i’m not mad at you or anything i did say i had no expectations lol. just kinda hoped this would have been different, you know? it kinda felt different to me…

11:02 pm you: but that’s alright lol i hope you’re ok

                                     delivered

                          aug 31

7:49 am you: jaehyun

7:50 am you: look, i need you to respond

7:50 am you: please

7:51 am you: i’m freaking out

7:51 am you: idk what to do, and i’m scared

                                                 not delivered

7:53 am you: what the fuck??

                                               not delivered

7:55 am you: fuck. you. jaehyun.

                                               not delivered

.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

five years later.

although the years had passed for jaehyun, it was all so quick that the night with you still felt fresh to him. he often thought of you and how you were, often thought of if you graduated and were teaching. if you got to do everything you had confessed to him that night in the extended lengths of the conversations had.

he often thought if you were here in korea with him like you had planned and he just had no clue.

if you were, you hated him, he was sure.

his manager had caught him checking his phone that night with an unsaved number on it, had sneakily read your messages over his shoulder and absolutely lost it on him. he went on and on about his idol image, his career, his future and repeated ‘what if this got out? what if dispatch found it?’ and jaehyun couldn’t say anything back but ‘okay’. the feeling he had when talking to you, the small feeling of being himself again, smothered in an instant.

when you had sent him a picture of a vinyl record of one of his favorite bands, he wanted so badly to respond to you. he had even typed out a response when he finally was able to read it, but he knew it wouldn’t help anything at all if he did. he really did think it was better to let it lie, and so he turned off his read receipts.

the last message he saw from you, made him gnaw on his bottom lip, and the next day he left the country going back to korea and his number was changed.

he wanted to be different for you, he had barely met you but he knew you, it wasn’t a coincidence to him. but what kind of life would a long-distance relationship be with someone who would be so busy some days or even weeks that he couldn’t respond? he knew you’d always be worried, or hurt when communication was so small. he thought of it a lot. and he was thinking of all those things, when he was sure, he had ultimately decided, that you probably didn’t actually want to be with him.

he would have just… liked it if you had.

maybe if he weren’t famous he would have dated you.

maybe it would have been like one of the cheesy romance movies taeyong liked to watch, maybe he even would have fallen in love.

and maybe… maybe he would have even married you if his daydream let him get that far, if his life would have followed the cliché movie plot, but that was all a what if to him now. something he liked to sit and think about if only just to make sure the guilt never left him.

“jaehyun?” his name being called pulled him out of his memories and his head jerked up to look at who had called him. his manager was staring at him with drawn eyebrows, and at jaehyun’s confused expression he breathed deeply out of his nose.

“what do you think?” this time it was the PR manager asking, the person who had asked him, johnny, and mark to come to the conference room to go over their schedules for the next couple of days.

“about what? sorry, i was…” jaehyun trailed off.

“he thinks it’s a great idea.” mark answered for him, giving jaehyun a concerned look. “he loves kids.”

“okay, then it’s set. the kids are unaware they’re meeting you all, and they probably won’t really realize you’re famous but it will be filmed for content with permission from the schools principal already. It’ll be good for the groups image, everyone loved the last time you guys sat with kids.” and with that the meeting was done, it wasn’t really to ask them if they wanted to participate but to tell them what they would be doing. jaehyun didn’t mind this that much because it was true. he did love kids.

once the managers had left the room, johnny turned in his chair to give jaehyun a scrupulous look.

“dude, why were you spacing out so bad?” mark asked, slouching in his chair as his chin saw in his palm and his elbow rested on the table. to this date, johnny was the only other person who knew about you and his night he had spent with you. johnny nodded at the quick eye contact, understanding immediately.

“dunno, i think i’m just tired. i didn’t sleep much last night.” jaehyun brushed off mark’s question with a shrug and mark sighed at that.

“well, you better get some rest tonight. those kids aren’t going to chill out just because you’re tired.” mark said as he stood, his hands shoved into the pockets of his sweats, shooting one last look at jaehyun before leaving the room.

“you know, it’s been a few years but maybe she’s thinking of you too. why not try reaching out?” johnny whispered to him, and jaehyun gave johnny a not-quite-there smile that was really just a grimace.

“nah, it’s fine. she’s probably changed her number since then, and besides, even if she didn’t she definitely hates me now. i know i would.” johnny frowned then as his friend got up and left the room, the big glass door swinging closed softly behind him.

something had changed in jaehyun that night when he came back, it wasn’t a huge, drastic change but johnny noticed it nonetheless. he wasn’t always distracted by his guilty thoughts of you, but on several occasions jaehyun had gotten drunk with him and started talking about you and everything about you that he knew.

by this point johnny felt he knew you just as well as jaehyun had.

and about sixty percent of those occasions, johnny had to console him and reassure him that you probably didn’t hate him but would probably just be upset at him, and that he was sure you’d forgive jaehyun if he explained the situation.

johnny was never confident in that though. five years is a long time to go on thinking about someone you spent one night with.

and, johnny often thought, five years was a long time to dwell on all the anger left from waking up alone from someone you spent one night with.

and although if it was only supposed to be just one night… even johnny knew it was more than that.

.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

mark was bouncing on the balls of his feet, his hands contained in his pockets but jaehyun couldn’t help the smile that grew at the younger mans energy. there was always something about children that brought out the kid side of the younger members and that was always contagious and within minutes, jaehyun was smiling just as brightly as mark had been.

they were told to wait until given the signal to come out, as all the kids were now sitting in different circles in the room. the four-year-old class wasn’t very large, and they had come to the SM building to take a tour.

in recent years SM had opened its doors to field trips for younger kids, usually it was elementary ages but after some strings were pulled, they allowed the class going in to kindergarten to be included if they would allow them to be part of the youtube series SM had going on of ‘idols with kids’.

this wasn’t the group’s first event with kids, the group was large at this time and they had rotated out and didn’t have to do it often, but it was their turn and it was a nice break, jaehyun thought.

certainly better than another photoshoot.

johnny tapped jaehyun on the shoulder, the signal had been given and the three men entered the room full of energetic children. there were only about twelve of them total, and jaehyun noticed the teachers stood off to the side, two women leaning against the wall with their masks up and covering their face.

jaehyun paid them very little attention as he went to his assigned table to sit down with the kids. he took his place at the circle table and folded his legs underneath him, sitting as the kids were.

the kids grew quiet at the presence of the adult man at their table, and he noticed his table had two girls and two boys. the little girl that sat closest to him had big bright eyes and her little hands brushed her bangs away from her eyes.

he noticed her little pigtails had little fuzzy clips in them that matched her dress and his heart melted at how adorable she was. she seemed to be the boldest of the group as she was the only one to look him in the eyes.

“hi everyone, my name is jaehyun.” he said kindly, trying to make the kids feel at ease.

“hello, mister.” the cute girl with pigtails said and when she spoke, small dimples formed at the corners of her mouth and he was intrigued at how much they looked like his.

“hello, miss.” jaehyun nodded and replied easily and the little girls smile grew as did her dimples. and then a thought visibly appeared across her face and she turned to her other friends at the table.

“it’s rude to not say hi,” her lips were in a pouty frown as she looked at them. she was a bossy little thing, he noticed but her friends immediately chimed in with quiet hello’s. that seemed to make her happy and she nodded dramatically. jaehyun knew the only thing they had to do while they were here was color with them, and talk to them for the camera’s sake, and so he did just that.

the little girl next to him asked him which page he wanted to color first, and he reached forward to slide a piece of paper with the outline of a bunny holding a carrot and then she asked her friends which ones they wanted. he noticed she chose last and his heart melted even more at how utterly sweet the little exchange was.

“what are your names?” he asked the table as a whole, putting on his gentlest smile, which wasn’t hard for him to find. the little boy to his left spoke up this time, starting to get comfortable with jaehyun’s presence.

“my name in jiwon, and he’s seojun… she’s heeyoung, and,” he said pointing out each person one by one dramatically as he finally landed on the little girl who sat beside him. “her name is yeoruem.”

“oh you all have pretty names,” jaehyun commented and the boys seemed to swell with a sense of pride by being told they had nice names from a stranger. he noticed the kids start talking a little bit, but they mostly focused on their coloring. yeoreum sat beside him, a crayon gripped tightly in her hand and her tongue stuck between her lips and she concentrated on her page, she had chosen a big teddy bear and she was coloring it purple.

she was getting a little frustrated he could tell with how she kept huffing and puffing and finally she put her crayon down and put her cheek in her tiny hand dramatically, and the cute pout made jaehyun chuckle softly.

“what’s the matter, yeoreum?” he cooed at her gently.

“i like to stay in the lines and i messed up.”

“well let’s see if we can fix it, hmm?” and he picked up her crayon and offered it to her. she took it in her hand again and he proceeded to point at a small spot, his arms wrapping around her and helping her hand move just right and she took his direction with a grin. when she finally got it she pushed his hand away.

“thank you mister jaehyun, i want to try and do it now myself.” and jaehyun held up his hands in surrender.

“you’re a very independent little girl, yeoreum.” jaehyun commented to her as he went back to coloring on his bunny, picking up an orange crayon to fill in the carrot.

“thank you!” she beamed, not taking her eyes off of her teddy bear. “my mommy says the same thing.”

“your mommy is a very smart lady,” jaehyun replied and she looked up then. her face twisting in an scowl that was too cute to be remotely threatening considering she was four.

“no,” she argued, greatly offended. “my mommy is the smartest lady. and she’s one of my teachers too, she’s right over there.”

and it was in that moment that several things happened simultaneously.

yeoreum pointed at the wall to one of the women jaehyun had barely taken notice of when he walked in. his eyes looked up in the direction that her tiny hand pointed in and as he looked up, the woman turned her face away from him to say something to the other teacher so he couldn’t see her face but at the same time one of the kids from johnny’s table screamed dramatically.

“miss y/n!” the little boy wailed, and jaehyun felt his heart leap to his throat, and his stomach plummeted as if he were on a rollercoaster while he watched as the same lady who had turned away rush forward to see what the little boy needed, but jaehyun couldn’t even focus on that. he felt his world around him slow to a grinding halt, his eyes solely focused on you. on the small parts of your face he could visibly see due to the mask you wore.

but he was unsure how he had missed you when he walked in. yours was the face that he dreamt of, and he was sure his jaw was dropped. his eyes drifted slightly from your face to johnny whose expression probably matched his own, his eyes flickering between you and jaehyun.

jaehyun felt his mouth go dry in the next second as another realization hit him. he whipped his head to look down at the little girl next to him and she was intently focused on where her mom stood at the other table. jaehyun tried three times to swallow before he was successful.

“yeoreum?” he asked, voice shaking slightly.

she tore her eyes from you and looked up to make eye contact with jaehyun. “yes, mister jaehyun?”

“miss y/n is your mother?” he asked, face searching this little girls who, the more he looked, the more he found himself staring back.

“no, she’s my mommy.” she answered smartly.

“ah, yes. she’s your mommy…” he trailed off, eyes flickering back up to see you standing back with the other woman and you were pointedly avoiding eye contact with him, instead staring at yeoreum who was still looking at him.

“and yeoreum, how – when is your birthday?”

“may first,” she chirped and he dragged his eyes away from you to look down at the little girl and his face drained of all color entirely.

“um… mister jaehyun? you look like you don’t feel so good.” she said worriedly, and he gulped again, trying to calm his nerves. his mental math couldn’t be that wrong, could it? there’s no way, was there? no, those dimples were undeniable evidence.

someone somewhere had pity on him, because right when he felt that he may pass out or throw up or do a combination of both, their manager came out and called the session with the idols to an end, the cameras folding up then and were put away and the other teacher called everyone to come stand with you and her.

yeoreum stood up and patted her dress, and she reached down and pulled on jaehyun’s hand to have him stand up with her.

“c’mon mister jaehyun, i want you to meet my mommy so you can see that she’s the smartest lady in the whole world,” and as jaehyun slowly stood to his feet, yeoreum waved her hand to have him bend down to her level so she could whisper conspiratorially in his ear. “but don’t tell miss jisoo, she may get upset.”

jaehyun could only nod as she pulled him over to the other kids and you, and he braced himself for disaster.

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you had fought tooth and nail with the principal of your center about going to SM. you knew the chances of jaehyun being one of the idols to work with would be slim but you didn’t want to take that chance. however when she had asked you the reason why you were so adamant against going to the entertainment company’s headquarters, you couldn’t very well give her the reason that your child’s clueless father works there. it would open up more questions and you had done well the past five years keeping it under wraps that no one knew who yeoreum’s father was, not even your mother.

you had realized after he had blocked your number of who he was when you did a google search of ‘jaehyun korea entertainment’ to see page after page of his face, and you realized he was a common name in korea. it made a little more sense then as to why he suddenly started ignoring you.

you thought he may have been different based on the hours of conversations you both shared, but since he was a celebrity, you assumed you were just another person on his list of hookups throughout his tour stops.

and so when you saw him walk in with two of his other members, you felt your heart jump. and then when you saw he sat at your daughter’s table your heart immediately sank and you felt your body get hot, the same feeling you felt when you found out you were pregnant.

you stood at the back with your co-teacher, hiding in plain sight. you were thankful that you had made it to the end, the interaction between them going well even if he didn’t know.

he seemed to almost have an instant attachment to her and you couldn’t help the way your heart swooped when he bent around her to help her with her coloring. it was a few moments after that that she noticed yeoreum point her tiny finger in your direction and you almost cursed aloud.

you quickly turned your head to look at jisoo, trying to find any random question to ask her to start a conversation to avoid his eye contact but when you heard one of your students, a little boy named yunho, screaming for you across the room you only allowed yourself three seconds to panic before you crossed the room to see what was the matter.

you briefly made eye contact with the man, you had learned his name was johnny after researching jaehyun’s group, and he looked like a deer caught in the headlights. you ignored him after that, understanding that he must have known about you and that somehow both angered and embarrassed you.

“what’s wrong, yunho?” you asked as you crouched next to the crying boy.

“min-minhee,” he hiccupped, big alligator tears falling down his face. “minhee took my crayon and i was still using it!” and you patted the young boy’s head affectionately.

“minhee…” you started, voice slightly scolding and the other boy mentioned was purposefully looking away from you. “is that true?”

minhee turned his head further away from you and you couldn’t help but laugh slightly, “minhee, you know that isn’t nice.” after a few seconds, and another glance up at johnny who was now looking at the table behind you, eyes wide.

minhee finally turned around and gave yunho back his crayon and apologized after you prompted him to do so. crisis averted, you took a deep breath and stood up, purposefully avoiding the table your daughter sat at but when you reached the wall, you felt his eyes on you but instead you noticed how your daughter stared up at him, eyes already full of adoration.

the cameras were put away and jisoo called everyone’s attention. you were focused on the other children gathering up, doing headcounts one by one until you heard a soft, “mommy?” from behind you.

“what is it, baby?” you asked turning around, expecting to see your daughter but instead came face to face with jaehyun who your daughter had in tow.

“this is mister jaehyun, and i wanted him to meet you so i could show him how sma – show him my teacher.” she fumbled over her sentence and you furrowed your brows at her choice of words.

“hello miss y/n,” jaehyun choked out, and you noticed his face was very pale. you wanted to laugh and tell him that it served him right, but you wanted to pretend that you didn’t know him, even though you clearly did.

“hello,” you greeted, overly formal as if to create distance between you two.

“yeoreum… yeoreum tells me her birthday is in may. is that true?” were the first words to tumble out of his mouth. you noticed jisoo had rounded up the kids and started to lead them out of the room.

“yeoreum, sweetheart, go stand with miss jisoo, okay? i’ll be right there.” you said as you looked down, cupping your little girls cheek sweetly and she smiled up at you.

“okay mommy!” she said, running off to walk with the class who was leaving the room.

you felt the presence of two more people walking up and you glanced to see johnny and another man, mark you thought his name was, walk up to stand awkwardly a few feet away. johnny definitely seemed to know, but mark looked clueless as to why they were there.

“is that true?” jaehyun pressed again, and you turned your full attention to him now, ignoring the other two men in your vicinity.

“yes, her birthday is may first.” you replied, voice a little sharp and you saw jaehyun visibly wince at the tone.

jaehyun didn’t even care that mark was here now, listening in. his mind was racing with so many questions and he just wanted to know the answers to them regardless of who was around.

“that’s nine months…” he trailed off then.

“yes, it is.” the same tone didn’t falter.

“i… i… is she mine?” he finally asked then, heart bracing for the answer but then you laughed and it was a cold laugh, much different from the happy ones he recalled in his dreams, and he recoiled slightly.

“you’re not on the birth certificate,” your lips were flat, turning pale from the pressure of keeping your anger at bay.

“that’s not – no, please, y/n. is she mine?” he pressed, his hands ready to beg you for an answer.

“is she your daughter? yes.” you answered him in an angry whisper. “but she’s not yours, she’s mine.” and jaehyun flinched again at how harsh your words were.

jaehyun was silent for a long moment and you scoffed, turning away from him then to go meet up with your class.

“have you told anyone?” he asked, and he wasn’t sure why he even asked that question because he knew if you had, it would have made headlines. you froze then, and he could have sworn you were visibly shaking. you turned and glared at him, such an angry look he didn’t know it was possible to feel so small from just a single expression.

“no, jaehyun, i haven’t.” you spat, your anger making your skin flush in how hard you tried to control your voice and your temper. “so don’t worry, you can go back to living your golden life without any responsibilities. i won’t be asking you for money, i won’t be coming back here, and i won’t be going to the press. but not for your sake, oh no, i couldn’t give a fuck. only for hers.” you turned and walked away, your hand stilling on the doorknob when you heard him call to you.

“no, wait! y/n that’s – that’s not what i meant, please. can – can i meet her? spend time with her?” you didn’t turn around, your hand on the knob tightening its grip for a moment, you lifted your head to stare at the ceiling and you sighed, the anger draining from you and just leaving you exhausted.

“you just did, and i think that was enough, don’t you? i don’t want you to decide the next morning that she’s not worth your time.”

.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

the door closed behind you as you left and all three men were stunned into silence at what had transpired. jaehyun had known you’d hate him if you saw him again, he knew that, he really did. he would have never pushed you to spend time with him after the way everything went down but now it was different.

he was a father now, or well, he had been a father the past four years and had no clue but now he was aware and he couldn’t just not try and be one. this had changed his world, how could he go about pretending that this hadn’t happened?

“dude… i am so confused right now. what the actual hell just happened?” mark finally spoke up, eyes darting between the two men standing with him. johnny didn’t look away from jaehyun to answer his question, nothing but extreme concern for his friend who looked like he had his whole world shaken up.

well, johnny thought almost comically, he did.

“i, um…” jaehyun started, eyes still not drifting away from the door you had just left from. “when we were on tours four years ago, um… johnny and i went to dinner, i don’t know if you remember? we had asked you if you wanted to go too, but you were already going with haechan and taeil.” jaehyun finally broke his trance he had on the door and turned to make eye contact with mark, who still sported the look of someone utterly bewildered. mark answered with a nod, not daring to open his mouth so he could listen to the rest of what jaehyun had to say.

“well, we went. just us two. and she was our waitress and she was, she is, so beautiful and she was flirting with me and so when she put her number on our receipt, johnny told me to go for it and… and i did. we talked for hours, and – and one thing led to another, and fuck.” jaehyun breathed out and then let out a humorless laugh at his word choice. he ran his hand through his hair roughly, the newly dyed blonde locks, tugging on them as he did so. “i left. i mean, i couldn’t have actually stayed with her, we had a show in another city and we had to leave and so i left. i tried to keep talking to her but… i stopped.”

mark blew out a hard breath at jaehyun’s explanation. “well, did you let her know? that you had to leave and that’s why?”

jaehyun shook his head, and johnny spoke up for him then. “our manager saw and lost it, he couldn’t reply to her because he was scared since it had been so long and then we left and our manager had his number changed when we got back.”

“did you still have her number though?” mark questioned, eyebrows coming together. jaehyun nodded hesitantly.

“dude, that’s so fucked. you should have explained to her then, she would have understood.” jaehyun hung his head, he was used to johnny consoling him in the assumption that he’d never have to see you again. he wasn’t used to his mistakes being so openly berated.

“poor y/n,” mark said then, turning to look at the door you had left out of. “having to raise a baby on her own like that, i don’t blame her for being as angry as she was. and then for you to ask –.”

“god, mark, yes. i know. i know i fucked up. but i have a kid… i have a daughter. i don’t want to be one of those dads, i don’t…” he trailed off, the way he felt sick dissipating, slowly being replaced with the dread of having his daughter grow up and have to tell people her dad was just absent when he knew about her now.

“then don’t.” johnny’s reply was simple. both jaehyun and mark turned to look at him. johnny shrugged as if it were easy.

“but she doesn’t –.” jaehyun went to say but johnny shook his head, the look he gave him shutting him up instantly.

“then don’t, jaehyun. you’re an adult. you made a mistake but it’s not eighteen years too late to try and fix it, just five. if chen can do this and end up just fine, you have just the same amount of chance that he does. you don’t wanna be a deadbeat dad? then don’t. easy as that. y/n isn’t going to like it at first but, she’ll come around if. you. make. an. effort.” mark was smiling at johnny’s answer, nodding along as he spoke and jaehyun stared open mouthed at him.

“you think it’ll work?”

“it doesn’t hurt to try,” mark chimed in. “plus, i saw the way she was watching you earlier, i kinda thought for a second she was going to be one of those weird stalkers but this makes so much more sense now.”

“how can i do this though? i don’t have her number or anything,” jaehyun asked, and he wanted so badly to get to know yeoreum, and to get to know you again. he wanted to see if things were that different, or if it was the years of anger building up. he couldn’t blame you at all for the things you said and for the way you reacted. he can imagine he’d do the same.

“am i gonna have to do everything myself?” johnny joked and jaehyun gave him a confused look.

“she works at the school that was just here. we have the principals contact information. therefore, we have her information. and if nothing else, we know where she works. you show up, you make a genuine effort, and you keep making an effort until she knows you’re serious. and you keep trying because that’s your daughter. you literally can’t deny her, she looks exactly like you.” jaehyun nodded, absorbing all the information that johnny had readily available in his brain. he hoped it was because he was an outsider looking in in this situation and not that jaehyun was just that dumb. maybe it was a bit of both.

“guys? come on, we have another schedule to meet in forty-five minutes,” their manager called, his head momentarily visible from the doorway. the three men made their way to exit, jaehyun’s mind reeling with what he was going to do and how he was going to do.

he had a daughter.

he was a father.

that thought alone was enough to make a grin slowly grow on his face.

“also,” mark spoke up suddenly, turning around to look at his friends. “do i need to have a talk with everyone about the importance of condoms?”

johnny snorted out a laugh, and jaehyun groaned loudly.

“yeah… i think i’m gonna at least text the dreamies. maybe ‘wrap it before you tap it’ or something like that. god, can you imagine jisung with a child?” mark’s face looked horrified, but his joke effectively broke the tense feeling jaehyun had held for the past twenty minutes and johnny laughed, clapping mark on the shoulder as he and jaehyun exited the door.

“jisung is an adult, mark. he’s a grown ass man. they don’t need ‘the talk’.”

“yes they do, they can be forty and they’re still going to be children to me!” mark yelled as he followed them out.

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jaehyun couldn’t remember the last time he had butterflies this bad since maybe his debut. his heart hadn’t stopped racing since johnny handed him a slip of paper discreetly at practice later that night, and when jaehyun unfolded the paper he saw an address and a phone number scrawled in small letters.

“maybe go to her work, instead of calling first.” johnny had whispered to him rather conspicuously in the far corner of the room.

“wouldn’t it be better to give her a heads up though? i don’t want to ruin this before i even really get the chance to get to know yeoreum.” jaehyun said, the desperation for this to work out evident on his face. he wasn’t sure when he had ever wanted something so badly, but his thoughts had been consumed by this little girl that he had no idea existed until twelve hours ago.

“sure, it might seem a little creepy but this way she can physically see you’re serious and won’t block you immediately out of spite,” johnny shrugged at his friend. “i know i'd block you.”

jaehyun gave him a deadpan look, “that’s very comforting, thanks.”

a sudden pair of arms throwing themselves around jaehyun’s shoulders made his eyes grow wide but seeing johnny unconcerned made him relax a little.

“so who is blocking jaehyun hyung immediately?” haechan asked from over jaehyun’s shoulder.

jaehyun fished for a response, trying to think of an answer and johnny beat him to it with the most basic of answers.

“your mom.” johnny said, a wide grin growing on his face at the offended look on haechan’s face that jaehyun couldn’t see.

“you better not be texting my mom!” haechan argued, voice rising an octave directly in jaehyun’s ear making the man wince sharply. “she’s married and i don’t want a step-dad this late in my life.”

johnny pushed away from the wall and jaehyun was thankful for johnny’s distraction, because as he walked away haechan moved to follow him, arguing with the taller man even if it started out as a joke.

this gave jaehyun the time to stare down at the folded piece of paper that had been crumpled in his hand, he memorized the number on it like the paper would disintegrate if he didn’t and as he moved on to the address he attempted to formulate a plan.

the plan may have been half-assed in hindsight, jaehyun realized as he stood out in front of the pre-school you worked at, staying out of sight of any passerby who may recognize him. he was sure he wouldn’t be noticed that easily as his hood was up, mask secured over his nose but he was so nervous of someone saying something to ruin his one shot at getting you to listen to him.

he distracted himself with scrolling through his phone, flipping between different social medias while he waited, and his heart skipped a beat when he heard your voice calling a goodbye to your coworkers as you exited the building.

“mommy, can we go get some ice cream? i got a green smiley on my report today from miss jisoo, you know i was good today!” he heard yeoreum ask cutely, and you turned the corner to walk in his direction and he watched as you looked down at her. you held her hand and your smile was so gentle he couldn’t help but get lost in it for a moment.

you were going to respond but you noticed his presence at that moment, looking up and staring harshly at him, he could see you bristle. you didn’t immediately recognize him, jaehyun noticed with the way you tugged yeoreum to stand behind you and jaehyun raised his hands in surrender, tugging his mask down so you could see his face and you released a breath, relaxing instantly.

“mister jaehyun!” yeoreum cheered from behind you, bouncing forward with her hands holding on to the straps of her little yellow backpack. jaehyun crouched to be level with her, his elbows resting on his knees and his dimpled smile was an exact replica of hers.

“hi yeoreum, i heard you say you were good today in school. if your mommy is okay with it, do you think i get you that ice cream you wanted?” jaehyun asked the little girl, but his eyes were looking up at you and your mouth was pressed in a firm line. yeoreum whirled on the spot to look up at you.

“oh please, mommy? mister jaehyun will pay for it so it’s free!” yeoreum pleaded, adding information that wasn’t exactly given yet and jaehyun couldn’t help but laugh at that detail. you clearly debated on it for a moment, but the hopeful look on your daughters face was already giving you an answer.

“sure, sweetie.” you said softly, eyes cutting up to glance at jaehyun, trying to figure out what he was getting at. yeoreum pulled you by the hand, and then she boldly grabbed jaehyun’s hand as well, leading the way to the convenience store you often made stops to on the way home from school.

you didn’t say a word as you walked, jaehyun keeping a conversation going with yeoreum, asking her about the things in school she liked and it went on like that for a few minutes until you entered the store and you greeted the elderly woman who ran it politely. yeoreum darted to the ice cream section and you finally had a moment without her present.

“what are you trying to do here, jaehyun?” you asked coldly, and his smile never wavered, his mood too high to allow it to come down.

“i’m trying to get to know my daughter that i didn’t know existed until yesterday.” he answered you, his voice hushed as to keep the store owner from eavesdropping, but you didn’t detect any obvious lies in his statement.

“i told you –.” you started, and he cut you off.

“i know what you said, believe me. i heard you loud and clear, but please y/n,” and your eyes widened at the sincerity in his voice, he was seconds away from begging dramatically. “please just give me one chance. i want to be in her life, i want to be there for her.”

yeoreum skipped over, holding three ice cream bars in her arms.

“look mommy, i got your favorite. and mister jaehyun, i got you my favorite. you’ll like it because it’s the best!” she said with such confidence that jaehyun chuckled at her as she walked right up to the counter.

“well you’re in luck because that just so happens to be my favorite, too.” jaehyun offered and the girl beamed at him.

“mommy likes this flavor,” she pointed to the only one that was different as the elderly woman scanned the three items. she motioned for him to come to her level, and when he bent down she cupped her hands cutely to whisper in jaehyun’s ear. “and don’t tell her but it’s really yucky.”

the more time jaehyun spent around this little girl the more he felt himself getting wrapped around her finger. he brought a finger to his lips conspiratorially and he turned to make eye contact with you and your eyebrows raised.

“hey, what’s with the secrets?” you frowned in confusion, head tilting slightly and at the motion jaehyun felt his heart skip a beat. he recalled the same exact motion five years ago, and he had to swallow hard to pull himself out of the memory.

“oh, nothing. yeoreum just told me a funny joke.” he answered, giving yeoreum a wink and she giggled at the secret that they now had, her hand coming up to cover her mouth as she laughed.

“hmmm,” you responded, accepting the ice cream bars and thanking the woman as you exited. the park was only a short distance away and that’s where you headed, sitting down on a bench as you opened yeoreum’s ice cream and she dove in immediately.

you allowed them to talk easily, and you felt your resolve slowly chipping away with every smile they shared with each other. you recalled one of the many conversations you had had with friends, one most recently being your coworker and friend jisoo. she had suggested for the umpteenth time that you should reach out to the father and give him the option to be in yeoreum’s life.

“i don’t want him to get tired of her, it would be devastating for her, and me too.” you had argued then and jisoo’s look was unamused.

“you haven’t even given him the chance, you have no clue if he’d even do that. you can’t make that assumption, time changes people.”

you were realizing she was right as you watched her giggle over him dripping ice cream on his shoes, yeoreum commenting how it’s not that hard to not be messy and jaehyun laughed at her disappointed sigh.

you had made up your mind by then, the ice cream finished and you noticed the time was getting a little late, knowing you’d have to get her ready for bed.

“come on, ‘reum. we gotta get ready for bed soon.” you said softly, interrupting their conversation and yeoreum nodded, hopping off of the bench she sat on with jaehyun. she walked over to stand beside you but she turned to jaehyun.

“mister jaehyun, will i see you again?” she asked and her voice was so hopeful that jaehyun looked to you for an answer.

“one chance,” you mouthed to him seriously, holding up one finger to emphasize your point over yeoreum’s head and jaehyun’s eyes shone with relief as he made eye contact with yeoreum.

“i’d love to, i’ll come see you anytime.” jaehyun nodded and yeoreum clapped excitedly, turning to look at you as she did so and you couldn’t help the answering smile that crossed your face. you took her small hand in yours and you began to walk in the direction of your home and she paused, turning around and waving enthusiastically goodbye to jaehyun who was still seated on the wooden park bench.

“see you soon, mister jaehyun!” she called and then she was pulling you away; jaehyun watching you both leave and he felt at peace knowing this plan went so much better than he could have ever hoped it would.

.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

you had just put yeoruem to sleep in her little princess bed, she had talked nonstop the entire way home, all through dinner, and then during her bath until you finally got her to sleep, about mister jaehyun.

the idea of her getting to know him brought on two strong emotions and they teetered back and forth in your mind, an eerily well-balanced scale.

on one hand, you were excited for her to get to know her father, she deserved to have both parents who loved her.

on the other hand, you were terrified of how this would play out fully. would he leave once people found out? would he pretend she didn’t exist?

your thoughts ran in circles over and over, and you didn’t get anywhere productive. the only thing you had settled on was that until you knew for sure where this would go, you would make sure jaehyun wouldn’t mention a word of being her dad.

you didn’t want to have to pick up the pieces of her small heart if he shattered it.

your phone dinged and it pulled you out of your thoughts, you paused the show you had barely been paying attention to so you could focus.

9:31 pm unknown: hello… do you have plans tomorrow?

9:32 pm you: depends on who’s asking...?

9:33 pm unknown: oh, yeah my bad. this is jaehyun, johnny got me your number from your boss

9:34 pm you: ok… that’s not weird at all… but no. no plans besides work and yeoruem. why?

9:35 pm he who must not be named 💀:  how do you feel about coming over? i can cook for you both, or maybe order pizza. whatever yeoreum wants to eat haha

9:37 pm you: she’s not picky, but i guess i won’t mind. will your members mind?

9:38 pm he who must not be named 💀: ah, right. well, see i’m telling them tomorrow so they won’t really have a choice.

9:40 pm you: … don’t make this weird for us, jaehyun.

9:42 pm he who must not be named 💀: i’m not! i won’t, i’ll send someone for you tomorrow at 6?

9:47 pm you: we can get there, just give me the address and i’ll see you then

9:48 pm he who must not be named 💀: [current location]

you audibly sighed, staring at the phone showing the address, you clicked it to see that he didn’t live too far from you and you just shook your head, you were going to leave it at that, but your thought from earlier hit you again and you typed a response.

9:55 pm you: i have a request for you

10:01 pm he who must not be named 💀: ask

10:02 pm you: i’m not going to keep you from getting to know her, because it makes her happy and she deserves that. but i don’t want you to mention anything to her about you being her dad

10:05 pm he who must not be named 💀: and that’s because…?

10:06 pm you: i just wanna be sure. i’d rather you be some cool man she spent time with if you decide differently

10:07 pm he who must not be named 💀: okay and when you see that i’m not gonna ghost my own daughter, is there a statute of limitations on this or what?

10:08 pm you: i’ll let you know

.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

jaehyun paced back and forth in the living room, he hadn’t heard from you since you assured him you’d be coming by at 6 like agreed. he had went a little overboard on the pizza, considering there were now five different boxes on the counter and he may have went on a shopping spree at a small children’s toy store.

now all eight of his members sat in different spots in the too large living room as he walked back and forth, stopping to check on his phone and then once he saw there wasn’t a notification from you, he went back to his path he had made.

“you’re gonna wear a hole through the floor,” johnny deadpanned and jaehyun ignored him.

“hyung?” it was haechan this time trying to get jaehyun to stop moving and jaehyun did, looking up to see what the youngest wanted.

“this isn’t your first time meeting her, right?” haechan seemed genuinely confused.

“no, this is the second, technically third time now.” he answered, forgetting about his phone in his pocket for a moment.

“okay, then why are you freaking out?” haechan asked, resting his chin in his palm.

“well…” jaehyun was at a brief loss for words. “y/n is unsure about me being around her already, so i guess i’m worried she’s going to… stop.”

“stop what?” taeyong asked from the other side of the room and jaehyun turned on the spot to face him.

“stop letting me see her, stop responding to me, just, stop altogether.” jaehyun looked crestfallen as he waved his hands around but a snort from his left made him glare at yuta.

“what? like you did to her?” yuta smirked at the stressed man, and jaehyun threw his arms up, throwing his head back as he stared at the ceiling for a long moment.

he hadn’t expected this kind of reaction at all when he called a group meeting in the living room hours earlier; he had told mark and johnny he planned to tell everyone because he had wanted you and yeoreum to come to the house and they had only nodded and helped him gather everyone. mark and johnny purposely sat on the couch in the corner of the room so they could watch it all unfold.

jaehyun had started the whole thing by clearing his throat three times before he even opened his mouth.

“i-,” he began but yuta narrowed his eyes at him and twisted his lips for a second.

“you got some girl pregnant, didn’t you?” his question was so blunt it took everyone off guard, mark almost falling out of his seat on the couch entirely. haechan, who sat on the arm of yuta’s chair, shoved his shoulder roughly. jaehyun, however, was stunned into silence, mouth agape and yuta laughed at his reaction.

“jaehyun, he’s joking. now why did you call us all here?” taeyong said, shooting a stern look at yuta before turning his full attention to the man who stood in the center of the room. keeping the peace like he always did, but jaehyun was so much more nervous now after yuta’s comment, regardless of how correct it was.

“okay, so,” jaehyun began and went through the entire story again. something he had kept to himself all these years, and he was finally letting everyone in on his tiny, but impactful, moment of freedom he had with you.

“and so when we filmed our content for the youtube segment, the one with kids, you know?” and when everyone nodded, all but three mouths were hanging in stunned silence. “this little girl was at my table, and she was adorable and smart and highly independent but like, some kids are like that. until she pointed out her mother to me, and –.”

jungwoo gasped dramatically, leaning so far forward in his chair as he listened to jaehyun that he was practically on the floor. “no fucking way!”

“yes, way.” mark answered for him, and jaehyun continued.

“y/n, yeah. y/n was her mother, and yeoreum was born exactly nine months after, and yeah. i… i have a daughter that i had no clue existed but i want to be her dad, i haven’t wanted something this bad since we debuted, and… yeah.”

“okay… okay…” taeyong repeated, seemingly in shock as he processed everything that was just said.

“okay?” jaehyun asked, wanting someone to say something.

“okay.” taeyong replied, making eye contact with him. “well, we’re not going to let you be a shitty father.”

“anymore.” haechan said under his breath and yuta snickered with him.

“i had no clue!” jaehyun argued in defense of himself.

“how do you even know she’s actually yours?” taeil asked, his posture was relaxed in his chair, recovering from the shock of the news more quickly than the others had.

“she -.” he started but doyoung butted in then.

“how do you know she’s not using you as a way to get money? she could have slept with someone else.” doyoung seemed even less convinced than taeil was.

“oh no, wait til you see her,” mark said from his spot in the room. “he can’t deny her even if he tried.”

“what? i won’t believe it until i see the test results.” doyoung said, and taeil nodded.

“she hasn’t asked me for anything,” jaehyun argued, feeling a little defensive over you then.

“yet.” taeil murmured, and johnny chose then to speak up.

“you weren’t there in the room, neither of you. she didn’t want anything to do with jaehyun, and she very, very clearly stated that she didn’t even want him around her.”

“and she asked me to refrain from even mentioning that i was her dad.” jaehyun tacked on, and taeil didn’t seem convinced nor did doyoung. silence stretched on for a moment.

“so when do we get to meet yeoreum?” haechan asked then, and jaehyun checked his watch.

“in about three hours,” he replied and everyone jumped as if they had been startled.

“what?!” came at him from all directions of the room.

“nothing in here is childproof!” taeyong exclaimed, jumping to his feet.

“she’s five, not two, she’s not going to go stick her finger in light sockets,” mark chuckled and taeyong relaxed slightly.

“she’s four, but yeah, same thing applies,” johnny corrected him and then silence fell over the room again.

“i will say, i can’t blame y/n,” yuta spoke up then, his eyes trained on the floor for a long moment. “if i were her, i wouldn’t have even given you the option. she’s a lot more forgiving than i would be if you knocked me up, ghosted me and then suddenly by a coincidence showed up again.”

“well that’s because you’re a scorpio,” jungwoo said. “and it feels kinda like fate to me.”

“that’s exactly what i said!” mark laughed, pointing at jungwoo animatedly.

and the conversation carried on like that up until he started pacing, jaehyun had been grateful that they all, well almost all, took it in stride and were supportive. but the jabs from yuta were making him even more anxious, and no matter how many times taeyong glared at yuta and told him to shut up, he couldn’t relax.

and then his phone buzzed in his hand.

6:15 pm pizza hut: um, sorry we’re a bit late, the train was delayed but uh… security guy won’t let us in

“shit,” jaehyun whispered, and he was halfway towards the door when your next text came through.

6:16 pm pizza hut: and it’s raining, so we can go home it’s not a big deal

his panic he felt while pacing came back full force and taeyong called to him.

“what’s going on?”

“security guard won’t let her in,” jaehyun rambled quickly.

“that’s all?” he replied, and taeyong pulled out his phone, pressed a few buttons on the screen and had his phone to his ear in seconds.

“hi, mr. choi? yes, can you please escort our guests to the elevators. yes, we were expecting her. no, don’t leave them out in the rain any longer. yes… thank you. have a goodnight.”

taeyong hung up the phone, and gestured to the door, “she’s in the elevator on their way up.”

jaehyun exhaled deeply, for the first time since he woke up that morning. and while he could breathe easily, the entire room held their breath at the sound of a gentle knock against the door.

jaehyun all but lunged at the door and opened it wide. the other eight men in the living room didn’t move a muscle.

“mister jaehyun!” yeoreum squealed excitedly when she saw him filling the entrance and their smiles were exact replicas of each other and jaehyun gestured you both inside.

“yeoreum, shoes baby.” you said softly, and the members had yet to see any faces, but smiles broke out on their faces as they heard a quick, “right! sorry mommy!”

jaehyun led you both out of the foyer and into the living room and you froze when you saw eight men staring at you both when you entered the room. you had prepared for this, expecting it to be awkward but being this… intense wasn’t exactly how you pictured it.  

yeoreum stepped in between you and jaehyun and you looked down to see her bow to the room.

“hello, my name is yeoreum and i’m four years old.” and you peeked up to see the intense stares break out into wide grins.

yeoreum stood up straight and then tugged on your pants.

“mommy, you said it’s rude to not introduce yourself to people who you don’t know.” she said it so seriously, but you and several others in the room chuckled at her respect for manners. at least she paid attention to you when you spoke.

you didn’t bow as yeoreum had, simply dipping your head as you introduced yourself.

“happy?” you said to yeoreum, poking her in the nose and she giggled in response. you heard faint gasps from deeper in the room but you ignored it as your daughter stared into the room and the men must have realized that her comment applied to them as well.

the first one to cross the room was a face you faintly recognized. he knelt down to be on her level and his smile was gentle.

“hi yeoreum, i’m mister jaehyun’s friend. my name is taeil.” and yeoreum nodded, and she smiled at every one who introduced themselves to her and you. she recognized johnny and even gave mark a high five. the last one was haechan, and he was the most energetic of all to meet her.

“hi!” he chirped to her, and she parroted back to him the same exact way, and he continued, his voice filled with a joking kind of pride. “my name is haechan, and i’m the coolest one here.”

“is that why your hair is blue?” yeoreum asked, tilting her head to the side cutely.

“yep, only the coolest have blue hair.” he replied, shaking his head playfully and yeoreum’s laugh filled the room again.

“also, do you wanna see all the cool stuff mister jaehyun got you?” haechan asked, and finally gestured to the couch that held different plushies and toys that the older lady at the shop had suggested for kids her age. yeoreum stared at all the toys then turned around to stare up at jaehyun.

“all of that is mine?” and even you were in shock and the sheer amount of toys piled on the couch.

“yep, all yours.” jaehyun replied, crouching down to be on the same level as yeoreum and haechan.

“but that’s… so much.” she whispered loudly, peeking again at all the toys.

“if you don’t like them all that’s okay, i just wanted to get you something,” his smile was gentle and reassuring. she looked at you for permission and when you nodded at her, she went to the couch and looked at all the plushies. she looked at them, and then at everyone in the room, then back at the toys staring intently.

and one by one, she pulled a different stuffed animal from the pile and handed it to each man in the room. she started by giving haechan a blue teddy bear, and continued on until every grown man was holding a small soft plushie, and she beamed with happiness.

you knew they couldn’t say no and jaehyun could see their wariness melting with each toy she gave. and even though he knew he probably had no right to feel it, he felt a sense of pride in her generosity and he knew she could have only learned that from you. he was the last one to receive a toy and it was a fluffy orange cat.

“thank you, yeoreum. that’s very sweet of you.” he told her sincerely and she blinked at him as if it weren’t something out of the ordinary.

“there’s a lot to share,” she replied and then she remembered something and it lit up her entire face, her voice raising in her excitement. “mommy said you got pizza!”

“yep,” he answered her question that wasn’t a question. “i didn’t know which kind you liked so you have a lot of choices.”

yeoreum picked the same pizza to eat that jaehyun had, which didn’t go unnoticed by everyone in the room as he was the only one to actually like pineapple on pizza. she had made herself at home easily, not missing a beat to pull half of the men into the living room to play with her and the toys jaehyun had gotten for her.

you had been there for a total of thirty minutes before you had been made to feel somewhat welcome. you enjoyed watching the members spend time with yeoreum, as she didn’t have many men in her life to really associate with, and the boys in her class didn’t really count.

you had to bite back a smile at the conversation you had overhead moments before.

“yeoreum is a pretty name, it’s unique too.” mark said, sitting cross-legged where she had instructed him to sit.

“thank you, mommy said she did it so it would be easy because my english name is summer.” yeoreum replied somewhat distractedly in english, causing all eyes to blink slowly at the sudden change in language.

“but she was born in may?” jaehyun looked at you, and you shrugged.

“i was on drugs and in pain, i at least had the right idea.” which caused a few laughs to echo around the room.

after that, you seemed to be fairly content with just observing. you leaned against the kitchen counter, chewing slowly on a piece of pizza as you watched her try to win a tickle fight with mark and succeeding with the way his laughter didn’t come out as forced.

you didn’t speak much with the other members, mostly enjoying being a presence in the room, that is until you felt a body move close to your side and you turned to face the new person, remembering his name was doyoung. when he didn’t say anything to you, you turned away and went back to watching how the tickle fight was absolutely being lost by mark then.

“i have reservations about this,” doyoung said to you then, his voice hardly above a whisper.

you turned again to face him but he looked forward, eyes trained on the guys sitting around enjoying the little girls antics. realizing he wasn’t going to face you for this conversation you went back to your previous position, this time bringing the pizza to your mouth again.

“and?” you asked him, voice matching his tone and doyoung shifted forward to rest his forearms against the counter. he waited until your mouth was full of pizza before he spoke again.

“and jaehyun’s so excited about this, he went on and on about it and he doesn’t even know if she’s actually his.” doyoung’s blunt words made you defensive, even though you had expected something like this, it still made you react, but doyoung continued before you could swallow.

“i think he needs to get a dna test before he gets too attached.” doyoung said, finally turning to face you and you narrowed your eyes at him as he did so.

“what? you think i’m lying?” you said through gritted teeth, but doyoung’s stance didn’t change.

“i’m not going to judge you, i don’t know anything about you. i’m just trying to protect one of my best friends. especially if you decide to rip this whole ‘being a father’ thing out from under him.”

“exactly, you don’t know anything about me.” you said shortly, your temper’s fuse quickly reaching its end. you pushed yourself away from the counter then before you continued. “and there’s nothing to protect him from, i don’t want anything from him. he tracked me down after i told him to leave me alone. he asked to see her, not me. we will be just as we were before he made his grand appearance, should he decide the father life isn’t for him.”

doyoung searched your face while you spoke, but you abruptly changed the conversation when you asked him where the bathroom was. doyoung gestured down the hall and watched as you left, when the shadows in the hall swallowed you he turned his attention back to watch the scene unfold.

haechan and mark were getting to be children again as they played some sort of mock game of house with yeoreum, using the plushies she had gifted them.

jaehyun was sitting next to her, his back against the couch as she made him in charge of holding the rest of the plushies, doyoung heard her mention that he was the house and so he had to be really, really still.

“where’s your dad?” haechan asked, his voice exaggeratingly deep for his character his bear was playing.

“i don’t have one,” yeoreum said, and she moved her plushie away from haechan’s but every man in the room froze. doyoung’s eyes darted to jaehyun’s face to judge his face, but he couldn’t quite read it.

“wh-what do you mean, yeo?” mark asked using his little lion to carry on the game for her.

“mommy said daddy is a really busy man,” she said matter-of-factly, she didn’t notice how all the eyes in the room were trained on her, and how the air seemed to still in preparation for her answer. “she said he’s a busy business man who flies all over the world and she said that a lot of daddies and mommies do that and that it’s okay!”

she was still happy as she spoke, still involved in her game of house she had roped them into playing with her.

“it really is okay,” mark said softly, forgetting his role for a moment.

“yep! it’s super okay because my mommy is really strong and she got so strong so she could take care of me all by herself.” yeoreum’s tiny body puffed up in all the pride a four year old could muster.

“but don’t you miss your dad?” haechan’s bear asked yeoreum’s little white fluffy bear.

“well yeah, all the other kids dads come and pick them up from school but mommy says that just because my daddy has a lot of stuff he has to do first, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love me.” and then, for the first time, yeoreum’s voice became a bit quieter. “i don’t know my daddy, but i hope mommy’s right.”  

doyoung’s eyes had danced back and forth between her and jaehyun, noticing the more she spoke, the more jaehyun’s face seemed to fall and it wasn’t long before doyoung though he saw the man tearing up.

“of course your mommy’s right, ‘reum,” jaehyun said softly behind her. she twisted around in her spot on the floor, looking up at him and she tilted her head at him when she saw his tears spill over, confused on why he was so sad. she shuffled forward to get closer to him and she frowned, bringing her arms to wrap around his neck tightly and jaehyun felt the tears hit him harder and he didn’t even care that everyone else in the room was witnessing this. his arms wrapped tightly around her little body, and he used his palm to try and wipe away some of the tears from his cheek.

“mommy said it’s okay to cry, and that hugs are a good bandaid,” yeoreum said, voice taking a knowing tone.

jaehyun nodded against her head, his eyes drifting to the hallway where he could see you standing there. your expression was unreadable to him, but your lips were pursed tightly.

 “your mommy is right,” he repeated again, pulling her small hands away from his face then. “about the hugs and that your daddy was really busy but he definitely loves you.”

“do you know him?” she asked, pulling away from his neck to look at him earnestly, and jaehyun’s eyes crinkled at the edges, pulling away from your form in the hallway to look at his daughter again.

“i do, yeah,” jaheyun answered, “and he missed you so much.”

“can you tell him i miss him too? can you tell him that he can come pick me up from school?” she said excitedly and you chose that moment to interrupt. you couldn’t be sure where the rest of the conversation was going, you didn’t know if jaehyun would keep his word about not saying he was her dad and you could see her getting her hopes up too high, and you knew you had to be the bad guy.

“yeoruem, baby. it’s time we go home now, we have school in the morning.” you called softly, walking over to your little girl and she pouted up at you, but she didn’t argue, she just slowly got to her feet, hugging her teddy bear tightly to her chest.

“say thank you, they were very nice to play with you,” you nudged her softly and she did as she was told, genuinely happy to have been able to play with her new friends. you both started walking to the door and she turned suddenly, running to hug jaehyun once more before she left.

you saw she had whispered something to him as she pulled away and you saw jaehyun break out into a smile again.

“i will,” he said to her and with a happy nod yeoreum was back with you again.

with yeoreum’s shoes finally on, you both exited the door and were halfway to the elevator when you heard a door close and footsteps thumping towards you. you were both surprised and… not at all surprised to see jaehyun behind you, a new gleam in his eye as he tugged on his hood and put a mask into place over his nose.

“i would feel more comfortable if i took you home since it’s late.” he said nonchalantly. “i can drive us, if you want.”

“i don’t have a car seat for yeoreum,” you replied and jaehyun shrugged easily. “walking you home it is then.”

you were going to protest but yeoreum had already put her stuffed animal in your hand before grabbing your other one and one of jaehyun’s, tugging you both towards the elevator.

she had started chatting away about something you couldn’t even pay attention to, too entirely focused on the way jaehyun’s hand enveloped hers, your eyes trailing from his hand to his face and you weren’t sure what it was about it. maybe it was all the moments pulled together, primarily the past hour alone, but you felt an unmistakable skip of your heartbeat at the way he smiled down at your excited little girl.

you were too busy gazing up at jaehyun to even noticed the eight heads poking out of the doorway almost comically as they watched you three enter the elevator, being led by a headstrong four year old.

“they make a cute little family,” jungwoo mentioned, only pulling his head inside once he heard the elevator doors close; the members immediately talking animatedly about the new niece they seemed to automatically claim as their own.

no one noticed doyoung walking to his room, the tiny cup that yeoreum had used in his hand.

.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.°.

it took all of three minutes into the walk home for yeoreum to yawn loudly and rub her eyes sleepily.

“did you get tired from playing with everyone?” you asked her and she nodded, all the cheerful excitement ebbing away from her slowly. you went to pick her up to carry her the rest of the way but jaehyun stopped you, eyes asking permission before he made a move and after a brief hesitation, you nodded to him with a smile.

“i got you, ‘reum, come here,” he said soothingly, picking her up and holding her close. she instantly laid her head down on his shoulder and you snorted at how quickly she closed her eyes. you cooed at how sweet she was, and jaehyun visibly glowed at how she seemed to relax with him instantly.

“you know you don’t have to do all of this,” you said to him after a few moments of yeoreum’s slow breathing. and jaehyun sighed deeply.

“look i know you think i’m this really shitty person who just ditched you, and i know that that’s how you must have felt but it wasn’t my intention. my manager saw our messages, you know. and even though I was still an adult then, we didn’t have nearly as much freedom as we do now. he yelled at me for an hour about being reckless with my career and all that. even though it doesn’t change anything, i didn’t do any of it on purpose or maliciously. and i’m sorry you had to do this alone.” he said, looking down at you the entire time he had been talking, wanting to see your face through his shortened explanation.

“it was really hard, at first, and i’ve been angry for awhile.” you said, voice soft and vulnerable after you thought a moment before deciding to give him honesty. “i had no clue what to tell any of my friends, and when i googled you i almost threw up, but i think that was from the pregnancy and not the news of you being famous. it made sense then to me what all had happened, but i couldn’t tell my parents the truth and so i had to say i didn’t know who the dad was. mortifying, really. my parents still haven’t spoken to me since then. and i love yeoreum more than anything, but i really… i think i hated you this whole time.” you don’t make eye contact as you confess to him a snippet of what had happened, a glimpse into how you felt.

jaehyun was stunned at all he had learned about you, he knew you probably had hated him, and he was right on that. he was horrified to learn that you really, truly had been alone through all of this. he didn’t know why but he had assumed, since he had learned of this at least, you would have had your parents to help support you, and it made his stomach turn knowing it was the opposite.

“but i don’t hate you now,” you admitted softly, looking ahead at the crosswalk sign, waiting for it to give you the okay to cross.

“oh? one day was all it took?” jaehyun asked a bit hopefully with a playful smile, his heart leaping in his chest at the statement, and he couldn’t quite place his finger on why it made him so excited to hear those words. you didn’t respond right away only rolling your eyes, and pulling a set of keys from your pocket and jaehyun realized you must be close to your place.

“but don’t get too excited, the statute has only been bumped up, not removed entirely,” you teased, and you unlocked the door that sat in the wall surrounding your house, entering the front yard that came with your house. it was small, but jaehyun noticed it was just enough for the two of you to live in and it seemed cozy.

you closed the door behind you, it automatically locking and you led the way to the front door of the house, unlocking it and kicking off your shoes. jaehyun shuffled nervously a bit, not knowing what he needed to do but toed off his shoes anyway just to be courteous.

“would you like to tuck her in?” you asked him after switching on a light in the room, and jaehyun blinked as his eyes adjusted. “if you don’t want to, that’s okay, i can.” and you reached for yeoreum but jaehyun tightened his hold on the sleeping girl.

“i can do it,” he stressed and you grinned, holding up your hands in surrender.

“okay then, ‘mister jaehyun’,” you joked, motioning for him to follow you down the hall into the room he could only assume was yeoreum’s if the little moon nightlight glowing and the soft peach paint on the wall were anything to go by.

he noticed she didn’t have an overabundance of toys, maybe a handful of plushies on her bed but he realized it was because she had a little table in the corner stacked with coloring books, crayons and markers. he could see her wanting to be an artist when she grew up, she had told him that already. as he was taking in the room, you had already folded back her blankets and you were waiting for him expectantly.

he very gently tucked yeoreum in after taking off her shoes and gave her the plushie he had gifted her and she cuddled into it immediately. it caused his heart to ache looking at her, realizing he had missed so many things. jaehyun followed you out of her room and you closed her door until it was just a crack.

“um…” jaehyun went to ask, not knowing how to really phrase the question he wanted.

“are you thirsty?” you asked him instead as you headed into your kitchen and he hovered in the entrance.

“not really, thank you, but i was wondering, if you’d be okay with it…” he trailed off, and your eyes darted to see him looking somewhat nervous.

“with what?”

“do you… maybe have pictures you could show me? or videos? i just know i’ve missed a lot and if you were okay with it, i’d like to see the moments i wasn’t there for.” your heart softened, as did your smile.

“yeah, i think i can do that for you.”

so jaehyun stayed with you until late that night, sitting at the kitchen table as you showed him pictures and videos of yeoreum. moments like her first steps, and her first words, which you were pouting when you told him wasn’t “mama”, but instead was “no”. he got to experience your laughter as yeoreum had brought a frog inside the house, and her subsequent scream as it jumped out of her hand then chased her. he got to see pictures of her and he felt like he could have been there.

should have been there.

and as he flipped through picture after picture, he noticed that his heart picked up in speed each time he came across a picture of you in it. he watched as you spoke about each picture, the excitement in the nostalgia as you flipped through each one and you explained to him what was going on.

he felt like he was back in your apartment five years ago, he felt at peace with you here.

he missed all of this, and he was going to make sure he wouldn’t miss anything else.

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New Tweet notifications for NCT 127

NCT 127 @NCTsmtown_127 [idols with kids] episode 11 with JOHNNY, JAEHYUN, and MARK

🖍️😺🍑🦁🖍️

#NCT127 #NCT127_IDOLSWITHKIDS #IDOLSWITHKIDS

@lovej43 replied to NCTsmtown_127

i can’t with jaehyun smiling at that little girl like that :(

@127valentines replied to lovej43

right??? she looks a lot like him too, so cute

@markinmiami replied to NCTsmtown_127

mark accidentally breaking his crayon ㅠㅠ the kid gave him a mean look

@bananasoutforjohn replied to NCTsmtown_127

dude looked FLABBERGASTED when the kid started crying

@myloveforjae replied to @127valentines

no ur right tho, she resembles him a lot more than just the dimples 🤨

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you knew that sm would post the video to their youtube channel, but you didn’t realize how anxious reading the comments would make you.

you weren’t aware that the video had posted until jisoo showed you that yeoreum was trending on twitter because of her interactions with jaehyun, and then you went to youtube to read the comments there and every time you read one that mentioned their resemblance it made your stomach flip uncomfortably.

you had a little under a month to prepare for that moment and yet, it still surprised you. you were just pleased that the overall theme for reactions was how cute your daughter was and that made your heart rest just a bit easier.

while reading the comments on your phone, your eyes instantly darted to the text notification that popped up.

3:43 pm he who might be named 😶‍🌫️: did you see they posted the video? everyone is commenting about how cute ‘reum is

3:44 pm you: yeah, and they’re also saying how much you look alike…

3:46 pm he who might be named 😶‍🌫️: well, she’s my daughter so i’d hope so

3:47 pm you: i don’t think you get what i mean

3:48 pm he who might be named 😶‍🌫️: you mean that she also gets her looks from you? i agree

your eyebrows rose at that comment, he had been mildly flirtatious for the past week but now it was becoming blatantly obvious.

3:50 pm you: i mean yes, but that wasn’t what i meant

3:51 pm he who might be named 😶‍🌫️: if it’s not that, then enlighten me

3:52 pm you: aren’t you concerned people will figure it out?

3:54 pm he who might be named 😶‍🌫️: i don’t think they’ll be able to figure it out from just a twenty minute video on youtube

3:55 pm he who might be named 😶‍🌫️: besides, they’d probably doubt it considering how beautiful you are

you simultaneously blushed at his very obvious flirting and sighed at his nonchalance. you were growing accustomed to jaehyun’s presence in your life, and you were finding yourself looking forward to seeing him and spending time with him. it made you feel as if you three were a family but the overwhelming dark cloud of the public finding out loomed over you and shadowed the fluttery feeling you felt in your chest when you talked to him.

you didn’t want to let this get to you but it was turning into somewhat of a fear for you, and it wasn’t really that people would find out.

it was the aftermath; the most negative version being the source of your fear.

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jaehyun stared at his phone waiting for a response from you a bit longer than he should have, but when he felt a shadow hovering to his left he quickly locked his phone. his shoulders instantly relaxed when he saw it was doyoung, but the look on doyoung’s face made jaehyun instantly concerned.

doyoung refused eye contact with him, shifting uncomfortably as he leaned against the mirrored wall of the practice room. everyone else was sat in various spots on around the room and although jaehyun didn’t mind doyoung deciding to spend his break with him, his awkward behavior made jaehyun tense.

“i’ve been putting off talking to you for a week now.” doyoung said to the ground, his arms crossing over his chest.

“what about?”

“i…” doyoung started then stopped, he waited a few seconds then began again. “look, just remember i did it to protect you, you know, just in case.”

he was purposefully being vague and jaehyun pushed off the wall, turning his body to really face doyoung. “what did you do?”

“it’s – i – when y/n came over the first time, even though you were convinced, i wasn’t. so… i had a dna test done.” doyoung’s response made jaehyun’s skin grow hot, he wasn’t why sure anger was the first emotion that bubbled up first but it came on strong enough to surprise even him.

“why would you do that?” he said from between gritted teeth. the idea that yeoreum might not be his never crossed his mind, he had been so sure from the moment he saw you near her.

he just knew.

“you didn’t know, you were just going off of y/n’s word alone. i wanted to give you proof.”

“no, you wanted to rub it in my face that she had lied. you wanted to be right.” jaehyun couldn’t hear how his voice was raising, he could only hear the blood rushing in his ears.

“you would have went your whole life possibly raising someone else’s kid if i hadn’t had the test done!” doyoung was defensive now, and he couldn’t understand why jaehyun would have just blindly believed you like he did.

“i wouldn’t have cared either way!” jaehyun hadn’t realized he had gotten closer to doyoung until a hand came to push against his chest, pulling him back and away from him.

“keep it down unless you want the whole building to know your business,” johnny said lowly to jaehyun, eyes darting to the choreographer across the room, who seemed to be mostly unaware of the situation since he had headphones on.

“he went behind my back and had a dna test done, without asking me first!” jaehyun argued back, angry eyes not leaving the apologetic ones of doyoung.

“if it makes you feel better, she’s yours.” doyoung said, guilt apparent in his face even if he was trying to maintain his stance that he had done nothing wrong.

“i knew that already!” jaehyun actually yelled that time, and he went to take a step forward – to do what he wasn’t sure but johnny’s palm held him firmly in place.

his phone choosing that moment to vibrate, pulling him away from the moment; he had an incoming call from you. he took a moment to shoot doyoung a seething glare, then took a calming breath before turning away to answer.

“hi,” he breathed, his anger slowly dissipating.

“hello,” you replied, but your voice was a bit strained and he picked up on it right away.

“everything okay?” he questioned instantly.

“yeah,” you said and he heard you pull away to speak to someone else before coming back to the phone. “my friend and coworker, jisoo? she was there that day with me, she got injured at work and i’m the only one able to take her to the hospital. will you…” another quick word to someone else. “i need you to be there to pick up yeoreum from school, please.”

jaehyun’s mind was racing thinking of his schedule for the day, he had practice for another few hours, and he told you as such.

“i know you’re busy, but this is something that comes with being a parent. you make adjustments.” you said, and your voice was panicked as you heard someone call for you, and he heard you address the doctor.

“please jae, she has a key on her backpack. you get to pick her up from school and be her dad. this is what you asked for… and what she has always wanted.”

“i’ll be there.” he answered, his mind made up before you even had started to speak. “what time does she get out for school?”

“5, thank you so much, jae. i really appreciate it.” and when someone called your name again you sounded rushed once more. “coming! bye jae, i’ll see you later.”

you hung up the phone, and even though jaehyun was still feeling angry towards doyoung, he couldn’t help the smile that grew on his face at the opportunity you gave him.

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jaehyun was thankful that the lady at the front counter seemed to be too old to stay in tune with media as she didn’t even bat an eyelash when he gave his name to her and told her that he was there to pick up yeoreum. he refrained from saying the term ‘my daughter’ aloud but your rules couldn’t stop him from thinking it.

when the lady called over the system to tell the teacher that it was time for yeoreum to go home, jaehyun leaned casually against the wall while he waited.

he wasn’t thinking about how he had lied to get out of the last few hours of practice. he wasn’t thinking about the argument yet to be resolved with doyoung.

he wasn’t thinking about the other parents coming in and seeing him, recognizing him.

all he could think about how long the minutes seemed too stretch on for yeoreum to be released from her class… and he wouldn’t lie and say he wasn’t also thinking about you. specifically, the last time he saw you, which was three days before.

you had invited him over on sunday night, stating that yeoreum had asked about him and if she could one day make cookies for mister jaehyun. you had told him it was so out of the blue for her to ask that and when you had questioned her on it, her simple response was ‘if cookies makes santa come, maybe it will work for mister jaehyun too’.

you didn’t have the heart to tell her no, which led to the phone call. jaehyun was there in twenty minutes, knocking on the door to which you answered with flour splattered across your face, with a giggling four-year-old right behind you sporting flour in her hair. jaehyun’s grin was painful for his cheeks as he took in the scene, and he couldn’t help but laugh with you both before even saying hello.

“are you supposed to be wearing the ingredients?” jaehyun asked as he stepped inside your house, following you both as you made your way into the kitchen.

“mommy started it!” and you feigned a gasp, a floured hand on your chest.

“i did not!” and she giggled once more, waving her tiny hands for jaehyun to bend down so she could whisper in his ear. jaehyun’s dimples were deep as he listened to her and your thoughts straying to how handsome he was running through your mind before you even registered. jaehyun turned his head to nod excitedly with yeoreum and you narrowed your eyes at them both.

“you better have told him how you threw first,” you warned playfully.

“oh she did,” jaehyun agreed, moving slightly to the left and it didn’t click that he was suspiciously close to the bag of flour. “she also said we should be on a team.”

“wha – oh don’t you dare!” but it was too late, as jaehyun had already pinched some flour and flicked it at you, and as you stood there with a shocked look on your face and flour now decorating your hair, jaehyun and yeoreum shared a giggly high five. you crossed your arms childishly and stomped your foot, turning away from them both dramatically, taking a page directly out of your daughter’s book.

“oh no, ‘reum… we’ve made your mommy upset.” jaehyun theatrically whispered and you had to bite back a laugh.

“i know what will cheer her up!” yeoreum whispered back, and they were both suspiciously silent and then you heard feet shuffling behind you; yeoreum popping up in front of you suddenly, and then there were not one, but two sets of arms wrapping around you in a tight squeeze, yeoreum’s head resting on your stomach and you froze at the feeling of jaehyun’s cheek resting on top of your head.

you felt the heat rise up your neck and the butterflies were back; you couldn’t tell if this was part of the joke or if he meant the hug the way it felt to you but you quickly pushed that train of thought to the side, giving yourself two more seconds in the embrace of them both before you broke the moment by clearing your throat.

“so, did we still want to make mister jaehyun cookies?” yeoreum blinked up at you cutely and nodded her head, you ran your hand through her hair gently, still very aware of jaehyun at your back and you tried to ignore it but failed.

jaehyun noticed it took only five minutes of trying to cook for yeoreum to get bored and ask if she can go color instead, so it left only you and him in the kitchen, and the first few minutes were spent trying to fill the awkward silence with comments and small laughter.

you had just started to mix up the ingredients when you heard him move, his feet shuffling just a bit.

jaehyun leaned a little closer into your space, feeling his body heat on your back; his hand braced against the counter to the left of your hip and you weren’t sure if your heart raced or slowed, but all you knew was that you were hyper aware of his presence as you were minutes before when he had hugged you.

“do you need help with that?” he asked lowly, his voice near your ear and you could almost feel his breath on your cheek. you turned your head and he was as close to you as you had thought he was, and it made you take a slight step away. you knew he could see the rising blush on your cheeks and a smirk made its way to his lips.

“no, i got it,” you said, but then realized that his close proximity allowed you to get a little revenge. “i am capable, thank you very much.” it was your turn to flick flour at his face, and he only blinked at you in shock, his expression comical and you wished you could take a picture of it.

a small gasp at the entrance of the kitchen made you jump away from each other as if you had been caught doing something wrong, and you both had quickly fumbled with an excuse, neither of which had made any sense but you had seemingly gotten away with it.

the memory brought a smile to his face and that look was the first thing yeoreum saw as she walked through the door to see him waiting for her.

“mister jaehyun!” she exclaimed, running up to him and hugging him around his legs and god, he loved this little girl. when she let go, he bent down and went in for a proper hug, picking her up in the process and they left the building.

yeoreum spoke to him animatedly, telling him about her favorite part of her day and then she asked him about his favorite part, his answer being an immediate, “getting to see you, of course.” which only made her beam at him in a childlike sense of pride.

“what about mommy?” she asked innocently, and he blinked.

“well, of course you and her both are my favorite part.” yeoreum’s loud giggle made him smile but she shook her head.

“no, i mean where’s mommy?” and it dawned on him that he had told on himself to a very observant child.

“oh, she had to take her friend to the doctor. she isn’t your teacher, too?” jaehyun asked, playing it off in a way he thought was smooth enough. the question sparking another conversation about how she gets to change classrooms like she’s in real school but not a whole lot just sometimes and it’s definitely really fun, and jaehyun could only nod as she chattered away, finally arriving at the front gate to your home and yeoreum wiggled her way out of his arms so she could get her key.

“i wanna do it, mommy lets me!” and jaehyun nodded as he let her lead the way, really just letting himself enjoy being a parent solo, and after hours of dinner, bath, and then bed, he realized it was fairly exhausting and he told himself to remind you when you got home how impressive he thought you were.

jaehyun sat on the edge of her bed, she had requested him to tuck her in and he had but then she had started crying and he was on the verge of panicking.

“’reum, what’s the matter baby?” he said, taking a tip he got from you and running his hand through her hair to try and soothe her, she wasn’t hysterical but she clutched the plushie that he had gotten her tightly, big tears rolling down her cheeks as her bottom lip quivered.

“mommy always sings me a song and kisses me goodnight every night… when is she coming home?” she sniffed, and jaehyun’s eyebrows furrowed in concern. the last text update he had gotten was an hour ago when you had said that jisoo was going back for x-rays and that it shouldn’t be too much longer.

“she’ll be here soon but i can do that, too.” he offered her gently and her eyes looked a little less sad at his offer. “what song does she sing?”

“i don’t know the name,” her lip wobbled again and fresh tears sprung in her eyes.

“that’s okay,” he assured her soothingly, “can you hum it for me?”

yeoreum sniffed twice before humming the tune of a song jaehyun knew well, and it made a small smile tug at the corner of his mouth. as she hummed, he did the same right along with her until he started to sing softly to her, his hand continuing the motions from before, gently moving through her hair.

“so whenever you ask me again, how i feel… please remember…” and yeoreum wasn’t humming anymore, her small voice drifting away as she watched jaehyun, completely entranced by his voice, her young mind in awe at how he knew the song her mommy would sing to her.

“my answer if you,” jaehyun continued to sing, his finger tapping on her nose gently which finally earned him a small laugh. a sound he missed, and while he was glad to be present for even the times she was upset, he preferred her happy and smiling.

yeoreum didn’t say anything for a long second, and then in a small and unsure voice asked, “mister jaehyun?”

“yes, miss yeoreum?”

“if… if my daddy doesn’t ever come back from his business trips, if he’s still too busy for me…” jaehyun’s heart broke at the mention of that, his smile slowly disappearing from his face. “do you think you could be my daddy instead?”

“oh yeoreum…” he started and he saw a bit of panic welling up in her eyes, and she scrambled to sit up.

“i’m really good, i promise! mommy says so and santa does too, i get presents every year.” she pleaded, her eyebrows so furrowed they were nearly touching, and jaehyun’s eyes softened.

“yeoreum, sweetheart. i am y-.”

“”’reum, i’m home.” jaehyun nearly jumped at the sound of your voice, his head whipping around to find you staring at him in the doorway. he couldn’t quite place the emotion there; it wasn’t necessarily anger but you didn’t seem happy in the slightest.

“mommy!” yeoreum called, her tears forgotten at the sight of you in her room. you walked over to kneel at the edge of her bed, motioning for her to lay down again and pulling the blankets up to her chin.

“did you have fun with mister jaehyun?” you asked her, brushing her hair back away from her face. you heard everything said, and the feeling that you were letting her down sat heavy on your chest.

“i did, we had lots of fun,” she replied, finally letting out a long overdue yawn – the worry of you not being home the main thing that kept her awake.

“tell him goodnight, okay?”

“goodnight, mister jaehyun.” she murmured sleepily and you stood up then, motioning for jaehyun to follow you as you closed her door behind you. you moved away from the door, heading into the kitchen and jaehyun couldn’t help the feeling that he was in trouble somehow.

“i thought we had a deal,” you finally said, turning to face him as you leaned against the kitchen counter.

“what?” jaehyun was a little confused, he was trying to figure out where this conversation was going before it even started.

“the statute of limitations weren’t up yet, i still don’t want you to tell her you’re her father.” your voice was stiff, and you didn’t make eye contact with him as you spoke.

“i wasn’t going to…”

“i heard everything, jae. she already loves you so much, and if you decide to walk out it’s going to wreck her and i’ll be left to try and fix what you broke.”

jaehyun wasn’t sure why, but he felt the telltale sign of his anger rising. he felt it on the back of his neck, and the way his teeth ground together.

“i thought i made myself clear that i wasn’t going anywhere.” his voice wasn’t curt, but you still heard the tone.

“you did, but that’s when things are relatively easy. who’s to say-?” and he cut you off.

“say about what? what could anyone possibly say to make me leave?”

“me, when i say i think it’s best you kept your distance for a little while. you’ve made things complicated for me.” and to say jaehyun was shocked speechless would be an understatement.

“how?” was his only response, he was biting on the inside of his cheek to keep from getting really upset.

“we were fine,” you started, crossing your arms in front of your chest. “we were fine on our own, and then you waltzed in our lives and shook everything up and now i don’t know which way is up and which way is down. i think you’re confusing yeoreum… and me and… and i don’t know how to feel about any of this.”

“this was fate and you know it.” and your answering scoff only spurned him on. “i don’t believe in coincidences and neither did you last i checked. you moved here so she could learn about her heritage, and of the millions of people in korea you still manage to run into me, she still found me.”

“yes… well we had our life just fine on our own – just me and yeoreum. what right-.”

“i’m her father!” his voice raised just enough to make you finally look at him, to see the hurt in his eyes as he spoke. “that’s what right. you’ve given me this… this incredible gift, something i didn’t even know i needed until a month ago and i refuse to let you take it away from me. i thought you and i were getting closer, but if you want to continue to hate me that’s fine, but i want to be in my daughter’s life and you can’t keep me from doing that.”

his eyes were glassy, as if he was keeping himself from crying over the situation as a whole and his breathing was heavy. you broke the eye contact you held with him, instead focusing on the rise and fall of his chest.

his response was answer enough for you.

answer for this entire thing you had been fighting off for the past month while you got to know each other again, while you got to spend time together as a family. you saw yeoreum smiling and laughing, jaehyun usually the cause of it. their dimples coming out in the exact same manner, and it was like within the month you felt your heart warm up in a way it hadn’t in years at the idea of it, the idea of him.

you realized you were happier around him too, and although you really were trying to protect yeoreum, you realized in that moment that you were also trying to protect yourself.

and that wasn’t fair to yeoreum, jaehyun… or you.

“i don’t.” you said softly, finally giving him a response he found cryptic.

“what?”

“i don’t hate you.” you clarified for him and he inhaled deeply.

“then why are you acting as if i’m an asshole when i’ve done nothing but try and prove to you that i’m not… that i care about you both.” his hands were thrown out at his sides in exasperation, finally realizing that it wasn’t anger he was feeling but fear.

“because it won’t just be her heart you’ll break if you decide to leave.” you gnawed at your lip, unsure of how he was going to respond to this.

“what do you…” he asked and his voice was softer now, taking a small step towards you.

“you’ll be breaking mine, too.” you said, and you finally made eye contact with him again and he could see it there.

the fear.

of rejection, of being hurt, of being left alone after becoming so quickly used to having another person be there with you. he understood then.

he closed the gap in a few steps, and he stood in front of you, his hands hesitating before he allowed them to rest on your arms.

“i know… i know this hasn’t been easy for you. that you’ve had terrible things said to you because i wasn’t there, and i can’t guarantee that when people find out, more things won’t be said. but the difference is that i’m here now. i’m here and i’m not going anywhere, and…” he trailed off for a moment, eyes searching yours before he finally continued. “i know there were no expectations five years ago, but i have them now. i know you feel this too, i know you do. and if i have to convince you every day that i’m not going anywhere, then i will.”

you didn’t realize you had started to cry until your tears started to burn your eyes and you wiped them away with a watery laugh.

“oh come on, i can’t have both my girls crying in one night.” and jaehyun swore his heart stopped when you looked up at him like that.

“then don’t say sweet things to make me cry.” you said, tone a little pouty.

“well if that’s what it takes,” jaehyun shrugged easily.

“yeah but,” your sentence was then interrupted by jaehyun’s phone vibrating incessantly in his pocket. he dug it out, ready to ignore the phone call but the name that popped up made him hit accept instead. you didn’t hear any of the other side of the conversation, only jaehyun’s.

“oh, really?” followed by a, “yes, that’s true.” and then, “not to be disrespectful, but i don’t care.” his eyes then jumping back to yours when he said, “then we’ll figure it out, this is more important to me.” before saying, “okay, i’ll see you tomorrow.” and finally hung up.

“what was that about?” you asked tilting your head to the side, your curiosity getting the better of you.

“that… was everyone finding out.” he said easily and your eyebrows shot up over widened eyes, “and as you heard me say – i don’t care. we’ll figure it out one way or another, all i know is that you, yeoreum… this family is far more impor – mmph!” and you didn’t give him the chance to finish his sentence because you threw your arms around his neck and kissed him.

the action familiar to you, recalling the way jaehyun had done the same all those years ago. jaehyun wasn’t one to miss an opportunity and so he kissed you back, his arms wrapping around you tightly and pulling you closer to him. the moment was one he had been wanting for weeks now, ever since he sat with you at the table and you showed him all the pictures.

and he didn’t waste a second, kissing you until you were both breathless and you finally pulled away.

“i’m sorry, i just…” you trailed off, finally seeing that happiness in his eyes again.

“don’t be, because i’m about to do it again.” he said with a smirk before closing the distance once more, this kiss much sweeter than the first. his palm flat against the small of your back, his other hand resting on your hip and everything about that moment with him felt right.

his lips, his warmth, his smile that you felt against your lips that fully interrupted the kiss.

“what is it?” you huffed playfully, and his smile turned into a small laugh.

“i just remembered something.” he said, his dimples appearing then.

“and that is…?”

“try again, huh?” he joked before planting a quick kiss to your lips, muffling your groan.

“it was the only thing that would stop her from crying as a baby.” you defended weakly.

“that’s my girl.” he said, nothing but pride in his voice, and you smacked him gently on the chest.

“our girl.” you corrected him easily, and the smile that lit up his face was breathtaking.

“our girl.”

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[b side: epilogue]

a year or so later…

a family outing is what jaehyun had called it when he woke up one morning asking if you wanted to go to the gardens that had a christmas lights display and you didn’t even get the chance to decide because yeoreum overheard as she stood at your doorway and was immediately excited.

“that settles that then,” you teased.

“as if you ever had a choice,” he said to you with a wink, calling a good morning to the sleepy girl who jumped into bed and cuddled with you both.

your little family had a lazy day in bed before you all finally rolled out of it to get ready for the lights, making sure that yeoreum – who was adamant that she didn’t need help picking out clothes anymore – bundled herself up in her puffy jacket, you pocketing her gloves that she had forgotten. jaehyun purposefully matched jackets with her, and you sighed knowing you had to do the same.

“we look like a little marshmallow family,” you commented as you walked through the gardens, the lights reflecting off of your face.

“yes but a cute one,” jaehyun retorted, teasing being his way of flirting and something you noticed never slacked off even after you had officially started dating him.

you hadn’t realized you had walked ahead of them and then you noticed neither of them were right behind you, you turned around to see jaehyun smiling brightly as he kneeled to whisper suspiciously to yeoreum, something that had been their thing ever since the beginning.

“really?!” yeoreum gasped aloud, eyes pleading with him to not be joking. you narrowed your eyes at them, desperately hoping jaehyun wasn’t telling her they would get the hamster she had been begging for. when jaehyun nodded in answer to her question, her entire body radiated with excitement and then his eyes pointedly looked from her to you a few times and yeoreum giggled.

she turned on her heel and skipped over to you, motioning for you to bend down so she could whisper in your ear – letting you in on the secret. as she whispered, your eyes widened slightly, and they softened as they easily found his.

you could feel yours slowly starting to tear up and you held them at bay for as long as you could. instead of saying anything aloud, you kept with the spirit of their game, their thing they shared, you whispered to yeoreum. you figured she’d skip back over to jaehyun to give him your response but instead she jumped up and down, turning to face jaehyun.

“she said yes!” she exclaimed loudly with her hands cupping around her mouth, squealing with enthusiasm. looking at jaehyun’s soft smile, eyes full of love for you and for the little girl you shared, the answer was obvious.

as if you could have possibly said no.

[astro-eats]

Any reason why you ship Gangle x Zooble?

( i also ship them ) 🥺❤

TYSM FOR ASKING AHEM

1- They would just work together (I love the ship dynamic so much!!!)

2- They would comfort each other like when zooble hates themselves she would say cute stuff and tell them how amazing they are

3- Zooble would gladly kill Jax for her <3

4- they would stand up for her when she's too scared too

5- Both have fragile bodies so they could relate to eachother

6- I feel like zooble would have physical affection unless it was from her

7- They would hang out often and yap about their hatred for jax

8- yapper x listener?! <3

9- Cuties are my favorite characters <3 fav character x fav character hits different

10- They're so different from each other which is cuteee

11- I feel like Gangle would dream about them often :3

12- Its really funny imagining Gangle begging zooble to go on an adventure

13- Caine would pick up on their closeness and use it to his advantage (ex: Telling zooble if they went on the adventure they could pair with gangle)

14- Cute weeb probably obsessed with sanrio and cute things X punk baddie who never really thought about that stuff until they met her

15- Zooble would also probably think of her whenever they see any cute stuff

16- Gangle would help them find parts they like

17- zooble would help Gangle fix her mask often

18- date where they murder jax <3

19- Zooble would try their best to comfort Gangle

20- I feel like they would both have mood swings (Zooble wouldn't have them as bad as gangle tho duh)

21- Their ship name is literally abstragedy its meant to be

22- Zooble would try to protect her from jax

23- They're just drawn to each other cuz they're soulmates

24- I cant remember if this was a dream or not but gooseworx posted a photo of her liked posts and one of them was zooble and Gangle hugging?! (Don't take my word for it tho I have bad memory But im pretty sure it did happen)

25- "Gangles too shy to say anything about it.." HOW CAN YOU HEAR THAT AND NOT SEE THE LOVE IN THEIR DIFFERENTLY SIZED EYES?!

26- "What about zooble..?" Not her being the only one who cared? Not her loving them and wanting to marry them?

27- also her wanting to save them but kinger won lol imagine STOP ABSTRAGEDY COMMUNITY WOUKD BE GOING CRAZY IF GANGLE WON ROCK PAPER SCISSORS SOMEHOW AND SAVED THEM

28- The christmas promo where zooble gave her a new mask?!

29- Gangle probably is obsessed a little

30- Zooble makes her feel like shes cared about and that she matters <3

31- I want coleslaw

32- Zooble has a lot of knowledge about animes Gangle likes because she's a yapper like that probably

33- Uh not zooble putting their hands near their heart and looking more relaxed when they talk about her? The love is showing they can't even hide it

34- Gangles probably a scaredy cat so she would run to zooble when something scares her

35- Zooble would actually take time to get to know her which makes her feel loved

36- Zooble would be so confused and like idk about their own emotions because they've never felt this way for anyone else

37- Gangle would be very concerned about how they feel about stuff which no one has really cared about that before

38- They would hide their relationship from Jax to avoid getting teased and stuff

39- Gangle would be such an idiot around them when she first realized she liked them cuz she was nervous

40- zooble thought it was cute and silly when she did

41- Its true love you can't deny we all saw the look in their eyes when talking about Gangle and also the way they glanced at her while saying they aren't straight?! Why would they look at her while talking about their gayness IF THEY DIDNT LIKE HER?! @starspangledbatter Im pretty sure is the one who pointed that out <3

42- We might get more abstragedy crumbs as the show progresses hopefully

43- They've been in the same shot like 3 whole times :0

44- Ignore the fact they called her an idiot that's irrelevant

45- Wait imagine them calling her an idiot in an endearing way :0

46- I'm literally listening to an abstragedy playlist rn its just in my blood to love abstragedy (I do have to admit, in the first month I didn't ship abstragedy... I shipped ribbun..... BUT WE DONT TALK ABOUT THAT ANYMORE!!! IT WAS A PHASE!!)

47- I headcanon gangle going to zoobles room in the middle of the night when she can't sleep <3

48- Gangle would be a listener when she needs to be

49- Zooble would help her get out of bad situations

50- She would hug them like a snake

51- They would constantly glance at eachother then look away really fast before they started dating probably

Anywayssss this took way too long- But heres 50 abstragedy stuff!!!!

[wordy-little-witch]

I am now hip deep in the Edge of Midnight campaign from legends of avantris and lemme tell you some shit -

1) I would lay down my life for Jericho Sticks without any hesitation. Torbek and Jericho are my sons now, no takesies backsies.

2) Lethica and Marius are so perfectly aligned to be end game lovers but I personally adore the idea of them being queerplatonic if only bc it's funny to watch people be confused and I think Lethica would adore that.

3) you can pry the concept of Briggsy having a some kind of magical fantasy cellphone equivalent from my cold dead hands - sending stone or smth idfk - and he's been keeping his buddy/boyfriend Torbek updated on all this like "Becky you would not BELIEVE what happened today-" ((listen I know the flirting bit between them in the yuletide one-shot was a feycurse but leave me alone it's funny as fuck))

4) briggsy @ jericho in ep 24 appropos nothing: Jerry, maybe we have to kiss ((sad, silly twinks with Literal Darksides are his type /j))

5) I have a friend-crush on Nikkie and I will never recover

6) I have an unyielding NEED to have Jericho get a final hit on a boss and yell yeehaw

7) I know stylistically Jericho doesn't have "skin" but I personally hc that his clothes aren't effectively his skin, he has a burlap body - and he has "tattoos" in the form of embroidery. It started when he had to stitch up his own cuts and stuff and he just kept it up.

8) Only Yorgrim has any constant sense of cooking in an actual kitchen-like setting. Farryn, Marius, and Briggsy can do journey or on-the-road cooking, but it's never.... great. Lethica burns everything somehow or gets the bright idea to 'experiment', and it's never good - she's fine if she's got clear end goals. Jericho is understandably skittish around fire due to his body and straw, but he is the closest to being able to cook well and do so semi regularly.

9) Virgil is a weird mix of a hater and lowkey overprotective. He does hate being imprisoned, but also he's kinda bound here so he HAS to keep this disaster of a bard safe. He refuses to admit he might have a soft spot. He is Stressed.

10) Farryn doesn't get the appeal of Girls Nights, but Jericho does!!! They join Lethica for some fun relaxation. Briggsy once asked why Jericho was allowed since he's also a dude, and Lethica just responded "he's allowed to be there - on account of him being a scarecrow and not a literal man after all." It's an inside joke which later has to be explained - Jericho is nonbinary but doesn't rightly care about stuff like that.

11) Yorgrim is the group dad, no I will not explain.

12) sometimes after a battle, Lethica and Marius will help stitch up some of Jericho's tears. Farryn may also add in random flowers she finds around because it makes him happy.

13) Briggsy is small but mighty. The only person he has yet to pick up and carry is Yorgrim - he swears that one day that tombstone will be gone and he'll be able to do it. It's all the rock's fault, he's sure of it.

Spoilers under the cut (caught up to present)

OKAY so I am caught up completely and have decided that Canon is not important leave me alone

• Yorgrim did not die - he got wounded heavily but survived.

• Farryn almost got taken but they got to her in time. She is mute for a time due to injuries and trauma - idk if she ever talks again bc we could use more sign language in the world. Maybe it comes and goes, fuck if I know, idk and idc

ONWARDS TO SILLIES

• Lethica strong armed her way into giving Jericho The Talk after he revealed he had no idea what a penis was. Scarecrows cannot blush, but apparently his fiendish glow can ebb and flow and he glows much MUCH brighter when he's embarrassed - she tries so hard not to laugh.

• Adella and Jericho btw are simply besties. His "crush" on her is a friend crush and Phillip just finds it painfully cute. ((Also -> Jericho has mommy issues and Adella always wanted a son/nephew/little brother. Peaceful alignment))

• Dark Mode Marius is a colossal flirt but still a giant dweeb. He's cool and suave until someone flirts back - then he's a mess.

• Briggsy is very happy with his Kannon & makes "shooting my shot" jokes at every and any opportunity

• Yorgrim, with his reward, manages to finally lay many souls tonrest but he still carries the tombstone on journeys - just not constantly now. He still believes he must pay penance, but it's a little easier to share the burden.

• Farryn, with her own reward, has not chosen to activate it yet. Something tells her to wait, to bide her time and remain. She does, however, get a little more at ease with the others. She and Jericho have come to an understanding, too - that being they they are a package deal, no takesies backsies, and they refer to each other as twin, much to the confusion of many, many, many people. WLW and NBLM solidarity.

• Jericho is pining HARD for Marius, but he's absolutely terrified of damaging the friendship so everyone is watching two oblivious dummies look longingly into each other.

• POLYAMORY POLYAMORY POLYAMORY

• Marius grows rather fond of Virgil, and the sentiment is very much NOT reciprocated bc this angry knight vampire is not good enough for his vessel and he's mad about it.

• Yorgrim: I've only had my friends for a few days, but if anything happened to them, I'd kill everyone in Druskenvald and then myself.

• I fully expect for Jericho to somehow befriend an enemy in disguise, not realize, and accidentally fuck up the evil plan with the powers of puns, music and friendship (/j)

• the first time the party sees Jericho presenting more feminine, he's been lended one of Lethica's dresses after his own clothes got torn up and the rest are being washed. Marius has a nosebleed and faints. Briggsy is staring somewhat respectfully. Lethica is trying valiantly not to laugh. Farryn and Yorgrim regret not dying when they had the chance.

• Marius: i cannot have a relationship because I have sworn to follow the duchess of sin

Lillith: whoa hold up, Do Not use me as an excuse to avoid the cutie pie over there. Besides, he has a demon. I'm queen of hell. I can make a small exception.

Marius: shit

• Briggsy Bi Icon: OH if ONLY Jerry here had a DASHING KNIGHT to SAVE THEM from this PERILOUS INCIDENT

Jericho: captain, I'm just getting off of a horse??

Marius: no no Briggsy has a point, no maiden should be unaccompanied or unassisted. Allow me-

Lethica&Farryn: We Know What You Are

• Yorgrim is watching all this inter party flirting and is definitely wondering if he's gonna have to have an aside with everyone about flirting tactics and communication skills. Briggsy is making it worse by enabling everyone.

• Farryn gets some sweet, succulent healing, that is all.

[cowboylikeyouu]

i'm watching supernatural for the first time and i've been keeping track of every time i cried so far, so welcome to

✨amy's spn cry counter✨

for it to count at least one actual tear has to roll down my face bc i tear up WAY too often and this list would never end if that counted.

i'm currently on s4 e19, so here's the cries up to that point and now i'll just start reblogging this whenever i cry again 🥱

(there were a lot of moments where i wanted to cry sooo bad but they were kind of TOO devastating to cry like idk sometimes i just get choked up and feel like someone stabbed me but can't cry whelp)

#1: season 2 episode 4

it wasn't a specific moment, pretty much just the complete weight of everyone's devastation & worry crashing down on me at once <3 sam's puppy dog eyes whenever he looked at dean were the last straw

#2 season 2 episode 20

when dean saw his mom again in the alternate reality or whatever it was

#3 season 2 episode 21

this one's obvious isn't it, SAM DIED !!! and we got a hug between the two (...that one of them had to die for, but hey, a win is a win) and them hugging always makes me wanna sob

#4 season 2 episode 21 (again)

i can't remember the specific thing that happened at the end of that episode but whatever it was it made me cry

#5 season 3 episode 7

when dean started explaining what's wrong with the car and told sam to fix it jesus i LOST it.

#6 season 3 episode 8

little sammy in the flashback scene, spending christmas alone??? i was a mess. young sam always makes me wanna strangle myself, the actor did SUCH a good job

#7 season 3 episode 11

this one's by far my fav episode so far (it's the groundhog day one) but GOD when they revealed that sam spent SIX MONTHS on his own after dean died??? and it's just??? completely glossed over?? like sure, they basically went back in time so those months don't really matter, but he still experienced them???? HE SPENT LESS TIME ON HIS OWN WHILE DEAN WAS IN HELL LIKE ARE YOU KIDDING ME????? idk that one messed me up

#8 season 4 episode 11

actually cried at something that happened in episode 10 (dean talking about his time in hell) but it was during the recap of that episode lmao somehow it hit harder the second time around lol

#9 season 4 episode 13

during the flashback to their time in high school when the teacher asked sam if he even wanted to take over the family business and little baby sammy was like "nobody's ever asked me this :( actually no, i don't want to"

#10 season 4 episode 16

the whole cas/dean interaction before dean went in to torture alastair. like "for what it's worth, i would give anything not to have you do this" ARE YOU KIDDING ME ????

[its-been-rose]

So I spent like 2 hours on this

Anyways, let me explain:

Methodology: to make this map I watched an unedited playthrough of the game and marked down how long it took to get from one scripted event to the next. I then inserted in the known times/save points the game gives you at certain intervals. I then calculated at what time each event would take place given how long the game takes to actually play, and then put those numbers to correspond with the actual in- game clock. All times marked with a ~ are approximate.

What I found:

The game is actually pretty much in real time, with some exceptions. There are some timeskips. If you’re playing a speedrun, you’re gonna come in at like 3:30, and the game ends roughly at 4 am ish. This means that if you do everything super fast and don’t waste any time, the game timeskips about half an hour here and there. I tried to account for these timeskips where they occur in my map like adding two minutes when Roddy’s song is skipped. Some sections also take a bit longer than the in-game time. For example, the time from Maurice to Virginia to Eugene to Murphy is much longer irl than it is in-universe, meaning no matter who is doing what kill, they are BOOKING IT from victim to victim.

Who did what: so my choices of who did what kill rely on two things: one, proximity to the confirmed kills/scripted events, and two, my own personal headcanons for who did which. I will now put the game’s timeline in order as well as who did what. Please keep in mind anything happening within KFAM like ponty’s calls or the little Peggy q and an after Maurice or Forrest being the rizz king to Sandra are not included.

~11:40 pm: sheriff Matthews is killed (Marie) (I didn’t put an actual time on the map for this because i don’t know if it’s right or not but in my HEAD, Marie started her attack at George’s TOD)

~11:55 pm: whatever the opening cutscene is (Henry)

~12:04 am: Leslie is attacked (Marie)

-Marie recovers from being shot at by the Sherriff and tased by leslie

~12:25 am: Sandra is attacked (Marie) (Sandra’s excact location is unknown but I put her by what is presumably a parking lot by the football field near the river running route.) (Sandra is not seen getting into her car because Marie takes a longer time to actually get into the parking lot due to being injured)

~12:25 am: Henry slashes the fire engine tires and makes his way up to Maurice.

~12:47 am: Maurice reports a break in (Henry)

-Henry is locked in the archive for like 10 minutes

-Marie drops off the tape on her way to get Henry

-when she breaks him out, they hear Murphy acting a fool, but Marie tells henry to stick to his current target before going up to the maze.

~1:20 am: Marie calls Virginia because she has the phone and sends Henry on his way (Virginia’s location is also unknown so I just guessed)

~1:35 am: Henry goes to attack Virginia but is scared off by the frat. Immediately books it to Murphy.

~1:40 am: Eugene is attacked (Marie)

-marie, on her way to the graveyard, sees the teens going to the murder house and watches

~1:53 am: Murphy is attacked (Henry)

-Marie sees the prank unfolding and slips into the group

~2:15 am: the teens are attacked (Marie)

-Marie spends a few minutes at the graveyard visiting George and recovering from getting a bookshelf tipped over on top of her

~2:32 am: Forrest spots the whistling man outside KFAM when going to retrieve LRH (Henry)

~2:43 am: Marie and Henry meet outside the gas station to regroup (optional? Idk)

~2:45 am: the bomb is detonated (Marie)

-Henry goes back to KFAM to hang out outside as the last victims are personal to his mother.

~3:10 am: Ricky is attacked (Marie)

~3:18 am: Jason is stabbed in the woods (Marie)

~3:25 am: Casey calls KFAM now inside her house

-Marie kidnaps Teddy on her way to the school gym

~3:45 am: Henry enters KFAM and locks Forrest in the producer booth

~3:46 am: Interview with Teddy begins (Marie)

~3:58 am: Peggy confronts Marie

Thoughts? Do you agree or disagree? What would you change? Do you think this was a complete waste of my Sunday evening? I’d love to hear your thoughts!!

*edited to add: I changed Virginias location to make at least a little more sense lol

[soldrawss]

HIII. Wanted to come and say that I love your artsyle (it's so squishy!) and your AU's! I first saw your baby Hunter and papa Darius AU, and now I'm in love with It Keeps Us Dancing! YOUR MINDDDD

Anyways, I wanted to ask if you have thought about April in your AU? Like, how does 2012 Mikey meet her? What does he think about her? Does he compare her to his April?

Oh and also, will he accompany the boys when they start their hero-ing? I assume that he's invited to all the hangouts, but idk if he'd be a more "let them experience things on his own", "I'm just gonna keep an eye on them" or a "fuck it, we ball together" older sibling when it comes to vigilantism.

Have a nice day! 🫶🏻

All of my moots know I have a very particular Achilles heel in the shape of babies, so if I ever make an AU, 100% of the time there will probably be a little guy involved, but thank you for liking my work! April IS in the au, she shows up a little while later (She would be around 12, Raph 11, the twins 10, Mikey 9, and 2k12Mikey (who I will call Tee) who is around 24). Tee KNOWS about her the entire time (whether the boys tell him or not, he always knows when his little rascals are up to something), but since it's an APRIL, Tee knows he can trust her with his kiddos and let them have their own secret escapades and let them decide when to actually introduce them. I'm still working out the HOW aspect, but I know that Tee comes to adore her. It will always be a backburner kind of reaction to compare everyone he knows with their RISE variations, but after almost 10 years in this universe, he's getting so much better about not comparing his memories to the real life, in the flesh, people he comes across. In this au, Tee (and Splinter, with a gentle little ass-kicking) are much better about teaching the boys ninjutsu, but Mikey is completely on board with the notion of letting these little goofballs be kids for as long as possible. He fosters their creativity and endless energy into fun tools they can use to protect themselves as well, while also allowing them space to grow themselves in a safe environment. When the boys finally get to be the age where they want to start exploring and adventuring by themselves, Tee lets them, because he WANTS that freedom for them, but he lets them know that he's always here when they need it. If they're ever in trouble or need help, Tee will come RUNNING. And because Tee has always been caring and thoughtful and honest with them, they return the notion. There's not so much sneaking around or hiding things, they come to Tee first when they have a problem, because he will always be a safe space for them.

[heartsoji]

WHO WOULD CONFESS FIRST

pairings: bokuto x reader, kenma x reader, akaashi x reader, atsumu x reader, osamu x reader, iwaizumi x reader, suga x reader (separate)

overview: would you or the hq boy confess first?

warnings: a lot of abbreviations used, aged up in iwa's, mentions of drinking in iwa's, mild swearing

BOKUTO KOUTARO

bokuto!

pls there's no way he wouldnt

he'd literally probs cry and force u to take it back if u did

i think his confession would be very cute and heartwarming

he'd probs come with some classic red roses, a cute teddy bear, and just tell u straight up that he likes you

"hey, y/n. yk, i feel like we've known each other for a while now, and i think ur a rlly amazing person, yk? i just wanted to tell you that i like you now, and its totally up to you if you do too and wanna take this somewhere." or smth. it would have the same mood and tone as when he was talking with akaashi outside after his first nationals match about how he was reflecting on his last 3 years of hs vb if u remember that scene

he'd probs be a bit nervous and a little sheepish bc he's honestly rlly scared to lose you

it wouldn't be in public, but it wouldn't be in total private either. probably somewhere like a park or smth while ugs r out and about

he'd be the happiest guy in the world if u said yes (why wouldn't u)

he'd drop the roses and teddy and pull you into a rib-crushing bear hug and spin you around laughing

pls hes such a sweetie

KOZUME KENMA

either

mmm i could rlly see it going either way

bc on one hand, i don't rlly see kenma as the type to want to confess bc he'd probs feel uncomfy with it

but on the other hand, he's bsfs with kuroo soo

if you confessed he'd probably shyly accept it and try to bite back the stupidly wide grin trying to form on his face and he'd be very cute and flustered

now if he confessed

lets see

if kuroo let him do it his own way but still made him do it, kenma would def choose somewhere private

the most likely scenario is that he'd probs give u a short and sweet confession whilst ugs r playing a video game or watching smth

he probs wouldn't bring a gift, but there's a chance he'd bring chocolate!

it would be very subtle, sweet, and kenma-like

now

if kuroo played a good hand in this

it would probs get screwed up

bc kenma would think kuroos idea was stupid but kuroo went on with his own idea

what i think would probs happen is kuroo would like put letters and flowers in ur locker and pretend to be kenma or smth and then be like "come to the rooftop -ur secret admirer" but then he forgets to tell kenma to go to the rooftop and everything is screwed up

ORR he makes u and kenma go to like an amusement park or smth but then kenma hates it so ugs leave and he confesses to u on the walk home or smth

his confession wouldn't be very long. "i like you." "huh?" (no reply) "kenma, do you mean that?" "yeah."

LOLL

kuroo is a 0/10 wingman

AKAASHI KEIJI

akaashi!

he's a very traditional gentleman

he'd bring some sort of symbolic flower with nice meanings like pink camellias, red chrysanthemums, dahlias, gardenias, etc paired with white baby's breaths

i could also just see him going with roses bc they're classic

he'd take you somewhere nice

a nice restaurant or a hilltop picnic, maybe

it would honestly probs be on valentines day or some other date that he liked the sound of (like 1/11 or smth. he wanted it to be a pretty-sounding date)

he'd plan everything out very carefully and it would be so romantic

"y/n... ur the most beautiful girl i've ever met. you're sweet, kind, thoughtful, and you make me so happy. when i'm with you, i forget about all my worries and im able to just be myself, and for that, i truly thank you. y/n, you make me a better person. will you be my valentine?"

when you accepted, he'd let out a sigh of relief and gently hold your hand and whisper a soft "thank you" that gives u so many butterflies

very romantic and very well thought-out

MIYA ATSUMU

you!

this might be a tad bit controversial

idk i just feel like he's never confessed before and doesn't even know how

he'd be scared to lose u and scared that he'll be rejected and his pride will be wounded

the most likely scenario i can think of is this:

on valentines day, you, his bsf, put a love letter along with some candy on his desk

ofc he doesn't see it or read it bc he gets so many that he doesn't rlly read them if he doesn't recognize the name, and u didn't put ur name on the envelope

later that day, ugs r walking together and just chatting when the topic of love letters and valentines stuff comes up

and at some point, u casually mention that u gave someone a love letter to someone

bro literally chokes on his drink and his heart drops to someone

"WHO"

"hmm.. idk if i should tell u"

"TELL MEEEE IM UR BSFFF"

"idk.. should i rlly?"

"Y/NNNN"

"fine, u big baby. i'll give u a hint. they're on the volleyball team."

"HUH? WHO IS IT? IS IT KITA? ARAN? wait don't tell me its suna? OHMIGOSH IS IT SAMU? NO PLS DONT TELL ME ITS SAMU"

"its not."

"oh thank god. who is it?"

"you."

"HUH"

yeah

he tries to play it cool but hes literally so flustered and its so obvious

when he accepts he tries to keep up the cool act but at some he just abandons it and swoops u up into a rlly giddy happy hug

hes a big dorky baby rlly, but hes ur big dorky baby ig

MIYA OSAMU

osamu!

he'd confess with food bc duh

food is the way to the heart

im still deciding on whether he'd make chocolates or just like onigiris or smth but im kinda leaning towards onigiris bc it just seems more him

he'd make some rlly good chocolate tho

either way, it'd be pretty chill

"here." *hands onigiri to u*

"huh? what's this for?" *takes a bite* "thanks tho."

"y/n, i like you."

*almost chokes* "huh?"

"r u serious?"

"dead serious."

"like r u actually being fr?"

"so fr."

"r u sure ur not playing w/ me?"

"u never shut up, do ya?"

and then he kisses u on the lips to shut up, catching u off guard

"i'm a pretty damn good cook. that's fuckin amazing"

"TF"

IWAIZUMI HAJIME

you!

tbh at first i thought iwa but after giving it a little more thought, i don't think he would ( i can imagine a few scenarios in which he would, but i feel its a bit unlikely! )

he rlly treasures ur friendship, and losing it would be his literal worst nightmare

bro had no intention of ever revealing it tbh

if you confessed, he'd probs honestly just play it rlly cool bc hes genuinely so effortlessly like dominant its so ADJHHDAAH

HOWEVER i love the idea of iwa confessing ( i don't think he would but uh i want him to) so i thought up a lot of scenarios i could see happening, but the one i'm the most satisfied with is this:

him picking up his phone at 4am in the morning to here your drunk ass mumbling abt some shit he can't remember but his car is under repairs so he runs to pick you up

he arrives quickly and when you see him, you run and jump into his arms, giddily drunk

he carries you back on his back, and at some point, you drunkily mumble how you like him (ig even in this u ended up confessing first lol)

he mumbles how he does too, but decides to wait until you're sober to address it

when you're sober the next day, he confronts you

"hey, so uh, y/n?"

"yeah?"

"yesterday... when u were drunk, u... said some stuff."

"oh gosh. what embarrassing shit did i say this time?"

"you said that you liked me."

"oh."

then there's the awkward process of "did u mean it?" "yeah." "oh ok. i like u too"

then yay! couple!

sweet

SUGAWARA KOSHI

suga!

it'd be a very classic high school confession

he'd ask u to meet somewhere private, special, or sentimental/significant to ugs

rosy-eared, he'd ask u to be his gf nervously

super super happy when u say yes

this one's short bc i've alr talked abt it in a diff post. it's the falling in love w/ sugawara koshi one :) go check it out!

[positivelybeastly]

I'm new to comics and love beast. Is there any comics with beast that you'd recommend? There's so many xmen comics and idk where to start.

Hello there, friend! Getting into comic books is damned hard, but, thankfully, resources like Reddit, Tumblr, and Marvel Unlimited (or your pirating site of choice) all make it a lot easier to get into them these days without having to worry about being confused.

Well. You'll still be a little confused. Comic books are convoluted. But at least you'll be able to engage with them on your own terms. :) And, it's worth it. Mostly.

I'll tell you straight out that if you want some good entry points, like, this is my first X-Men comic, what do I read, I'd recommend the following:

X-Men: First Class (2006)

X-Men vol. 2 (1991)

New X-Men vol. 1 (2001)

Astonishing X-Men vol. 3 (2004)

X-Men vol. 6 (2024)

As for Beast specific recommendations? I have a ton!

For Beast as a character, being examined in his own right, I would recommend the following:

X-Men Origins: Beast - a retelling of his origin, updated with modern art and writing. Written by Mike Carey, whose work you should generally look into if you like X-Men - he focuses a lot on characters like Rogue and Xavier, but also on Beast, which is handy for our purposes!

X-Men: Unlimited vol. 1 #10 and vol. 2 #10 - so, this may be somewhat confusing to a new comic reader, but comics have volumes. This is when a comic of a certain title ends, and it's then relaunched with a new creative team, usually with a very different story.

So, X-Men: Unlimited is an anthology series that tells unconnected stories that fit in other places, between other comics, and there were two different volumes of it, one in the 90s, and one in the 00s. Both volumes have an issue #10 that focuses on Beast, and I'd recommend them both! Vol. 1 #10 especially would be, in my opinion, required reading if you really want to get into Beast.

Amazing Adventures vol. 2 #11 through #17 - the first stab at giving Hank his own solo series, from back in the 70s! Don't let the age get you down, I find this series to be actually fairly modern and easy to get into, and it's a nice sort of superhero/horror blend of tones that I find really effective.

X-Men: Endangered Species - this is a Beast solo story dealing with the aftermath of the Decimation, the event where Scarlet Witch removed the powers of 99% of the world's mutants. It's quite dark, but I think it's probably one of the best examinations of the character in the medium, and it works as an excellent sequel to Unlimited vol. 1 #10. Most of the context you need is given to you in the comic, which is handy. :)

X-Men: S.W.O.R.D vol. 1 - this is kind of a team-up comic, kind of not? The context for this is reliant on reading another run that I'll be recommending, but trust me, it's worth it. This is an outrageously funny book with a good emotional core, and it really captures Beast's essence, as a dual sided goofball jokester with a heart of gold and the intellectual moralistic do-gooder who can't leave well enough alone. One of my favourite comics of all time.

For Beast as part of a team, I would recommend the following:

X-Men: First Class - a prequel book set during the days of the Original X-Men, this series bounces between Cyclops, Angel, Iceman, Marvel Girl and Beast a fair bit, but even in issues that don't focus on Beast, he's still a part of the story and quite well written. Very slice-of-lifey, with a lot of charm to it.

X-Men: Season One - a retelling of certain stories from the original 60s run of X-Men, this is a pretty good one-and-done graphic novel that does change a few things, but keeps the spirit intact and tells you a lot about these characters and how they relate to one another. Just watch out for Iceman's Bieber hair.

Avengers vol. 1 #137-211 - this is a pretty long run of comics that features Hank's initial tenure on the Avengers, and will occasionally require a bit of reading around to make sure that you're reading the Annuals in the right place - usually, the comic will tell you to go read Annual #6 or whatever, but if you find a lot of stuff has happened and the story jumped ahead without you, chances are, it's in an Annual. Very variable in quality, but if you want to see classic Beast in all his glory, there's some really good stuff here, especially the foundation of his lifelong friendship with Wonder Man.

The Defenders/New Defenders vol. 1 #96-152 - probably one of my actual favourite run of comics ever. Beast joins the team a little later than #96, but if you jump in when Hank does, you'll be just a little confused, so it's best to start at #96 and go from there. Especially once Hank reforms the team to the New Defenders in #125, he basically becomes one of the very main characters and gets a lot of focus. Absolutely love this comic.

X-Factor vol. 1 #1-70 - the first six or seven issues of this are pretty bad, but it really comes into its own once it starts being written by Louise Simonson, who makes it much more soap opera, more character driven, gives all the characters a lot to do. There's a lot of crossover with other books, but usually it'll just tell you what to read if you want to know more about a part of a story in little editor's notes!

X-Men vol. 2 #1-95 - the classic 90s run; not my personal favourite, because it's pretty confusingly plotted, but if you want something that hews extremely close to the 90s cartoon, this is that to a tee, to the point where a lot of stories and characters were adapted to and from the comics directly!

New X-Men vol. 1 #114-156 - a landmark run on X-Men by Grant Morrison, this evolves Beast into a new form and changes up his character in a new, tragic manner that, personally, is my favourite iteration of the character. Very high concept sci-fi, occasionally quite confusing and problematic, but extremely good stuff, imo, and essential for getting into modern X-Men.

Astonishing X-Men vol. 3 #1-35 - a sort of sequel to New X-Men, this is again an extremely good entry point into modern X-Men, and it's very, very classic while still progressing the story. Just a note - when you read issue #24, do NOT go to issue #25, you need to go and read Giant Size Astonishing X-Men instead, THEN go to #25. I know, it's confusing, I'm so, so, so sorry, comics are just like this. This is the comic that leads straight into S.W.O.R.D pretty much.

Wolverine and the X-Men vol. 1 #1-42 - a more zany, school focused book, Hank is part of the wider cast here, but he does get some spotlight issues, and I do enjoy him here, especially his relationship with Broo. There are crossovers with Avengers vs. X-Men and other events in here, but those events are kinda sort skippable because they're bad. If you feel confused, you can read them, but I don't necessarily recommend them.

X-Men vol. 6 #1-ongoing - the current run of X-Men, written by Jed MacKay! To put it very bluntly, Beast went through about a decade of being quite badly written and slowly turned into a scummy villain through the recent Krakoa era, which I was not a fan of. There are individual issues between 2013 and 2024 that I can recommend, but if you like Beast, I would not recommend reading them, because I think that they are pretty bad and not fun to read. This is me being kind. But the new series picks up after that's all fixed, and Beast is getting a lot to do in this series, so I'd recommend it!

X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comics #15-18 - a supplementary comic that focuses on Beast, best read alongside the above X-Men run I recommended; it can give you all the context you need for where Beast is at, and why he's feeling the way that he is. A very, very good read, way exceeded my expectations, and I'm really pleased I can actually recommend modern comics for Beast again!

These are the main runs I would recommend! There's a lot more, if we want to get esoteric, and I'm sure I'm missing out on a lot of material - Beast has been around for 60 years, he's been in a LOT of stories - but if you want to get stuck into X-Men comics and really immerse yourself into the world and the stories, there's a lot of really good material here!

Welcome to the X-Men comics, friend! Hope you survive the experience!

[stripedwolf88]

The Eras Tour: Paris Night 1 (My Thoughts)

ALLLLLLLLRIGHT. So because @bettysgarden12 wanted to know my reactions and thoughts on everything that happened today, I thought I would share with the rest of yous. It's probably not going to be very in depth or analytical so fair warning on that hehe. Also this probably isn't in order of the show because my memory is trash haha.

1.First things first. The lover bodysuit. WHaT iN ThE FRiLly HeLl?!?!? I literally still don't know whether or not I dreamt of seeing that new bodysuit. Definitely, lesbian colors represented there and it was confirmed with the orange blazer she wore for The Man. It was not an accident I'm sure to have the inside be pink too.

(Side note: we all knew that The Archer was going to get cut. It actually makes a lot of sense too. I think we are past Taylor asking us to stay, not that she doesn't still hope us too. It's more like she is fine with blowing everything up now instead of focusing on the worry of messing everything up. At least I hope that is the case. We're here for ya Taylor. You got this.)

2. Second, the Fearless dress. I LOVE IT SO MUCH. I also saw that it looks really reminiscent of the original dress she wore for her Fearless tour. It's almost like she is going back to what once was.

3. Third, transitioning right into Red was something. The new Red shirt says "This is not Taylor's Version" when Red is in fact Taylor's again. Some of my moots pointed out that it could be referencing the whole Real Taylor vs Taylor The Brand theory that we as a community have been developing for quite some time. With this thinking, it would mean that the Taylor we are seeing is not someone Taylor claims as her own or something like that. It's not truly her which we all knew already.

4. Fourth, we saw a new intro for Speak Now (now officially just Enchanted since Long Live has been axed.) I don't have much to say on that other than I wasn't surprised that Long Live got cut. This cut also makes sense if we are thinking that Taylor is gonna burn it down. No more reminding about the good times or the "needing" fans to stand by her forever.

5. Fifth, combining folklore and evermore was unexpected but also not? Idk it made sense and to me it just seems like it was easier to combine them since room had to be made for TTPD.

6. Sixth, Rep was Rep. Nothing really changed from what I could tell or remember other than THE FREAKING GLASS CASES SHATTERING!!! YOU BREAK THAT GLASS CLOSET TAYLOR! WHOOP WHOOP!

7. Seventh, 1989 outfit was...something. It's just not my cup of tea visually. I DID NOT notice the lion or tiger(???) charm she had on until someone else pointed it out. Very interesting either way.

8. Eighth, putting TTPD before Midnights was an interesting choice. The whole theory that we still have to meet her at Midnight (credit to my moots for pointing this out again) is supported by this I think.

9. Ninth, the dress for TTPD is amazing!! And so are the other two outfits. The marching band uniform and it's possible reference back to ME! music video? It has me in shambles.

10. Tenth, the performance for Who Afraid of Little Old Me was visually amazing and she sang it beautifully (no surprise there) with such emotion that it was impossible for me to look away. Her levitating across the stage was also freaking awesome!

11. Next the empty cages imagery?? The nurses pulling her away from her lover??? The image of her crouching in the middle of this weird ass place??? That one really kind of freaked me out. It was eerie and heartbreaking in a way I'm not quite able to explain at this moment.

12. I was conflicted about I Can Do It With A Broken Heart both before, during, and after the performance. I had a feeling she was going to perform it and I kind of wanted her to just to hear her sing it live but then not because I knew how the fans were going to react. I really did face-palm when everyone yelled "More!" on the livestream but we all knew they were going to. The transition into ICDIWABH made me want to throw something at the TV but I also did snort on the petulance on Taylor's face for the little act. I really liked the old Hollywood theme for the visuals and the dance. It was pleasing to watch. BY THE WAY....HAVING THE OUTFIT FOR ICDIWABH ECHO HER OUTFITS ON REP IS REALLY SOMETHING. She bamboozled me again.

13. Midniiiiiiights. THE BODYSUIT IS MY FAVORITE ONE OUT OF THE ONES WE HAVE SEEN SO FAR. I'm glad that Mastermind was kept. I didn't think that she would have taken away anything from the Midnights era but if there was I had this weird concern that it would be Mastermind. Thank god my anxiety was unnecessary.

14. The surprise soooooongs~ Paris is a favorite of mine so I'm happy she played it but also of course she did. That was another predictable thing that happened. Her performance of loml was again heartfelt. She seems really happy to sing these new songs and it shows.

15. I am pretty freaking sure that the Bejeweled lights were a LOT more colorful and rainbowy than usual. Was that just me? Please tell me it wasn't just me!

Overall, it is safe to say that I was not prepared for the absolute chaos that today brought.

Taylor, it seems like you're really doing this (I reeeeeally hope that is the case) and I'm so happy for you if that is what is happening. You do you and you show us what's up. I'm looking forward to it. <3

[noonaishere]

Thoughts and Thanks

Written 7/5/2023 as I finished the first drafts (I think, I’m not 100% where this was in the timeline, I started the first drafts sometime in very early 2022)

I apologize if the y/n side of the fic was a bit more coherent than the t/n side was; it wasn’t intentional. I wrote the bulk of the y/n side before my life devolved into breakneck levels of working and emotion-ignoring, ending in me quitting my job and having burnout so bad that it kind of left me unable to do much of anything for the first three months of 2023. When I tell you that all I did was lay around and watch movies and play Animal Crossing like someone experiencing deep depression for those three months… I tell you that because that was all I COULD do. Please remember to take breaks if you can (and maybe don’t work in academia? idk). 

Addition, 1/5/2025: I know there’s like one or two moments where a character who knows info in one of the fics then appears in the other one, not knowing that info, but I feel like; for all my poor brain went through, only having one or two moments like that is probably better than I should have been able to do, lol.

Written 11/10/2023: I’m sitting here right now - after three weeks of disruption in which I had hayfever, got double vaccinated, and got addicted to a matching game (fortunately it’s like a jailbroken app that’s on a website so I can’t actually make the Bad Decision and spend money on it-- but I keep spending my time on it) - thinking about what I want to do going forward. It feels a little silly to put these thoughts here, since no one’s going to see them until 2025 (😫), but I want to, just the same. 

I’ve had four jobs so far, all bad in their own way, with the last two being uniquely horrible and I’ve sort of discovered that I hate working in a setting where you’re a cog in a machine that doesn’t even get to see the fruits of their labor. I just hate not working on something and being able to be like “I made this” at the end of all the work (or even being able to be like “we made this”). I also deeply hate being locked into a situation where I have to work a job that grinds my will and my creativity down into a paste until neither are usable (what the fuck is life even FOR, then?). I know that that’s how the capitalist machine works, by breaking people so they mindlessly do whatever their superiors say, but I was unfortunately born with the condition *stick-it-to-the-man-neosis*, which means I either do those jobs and want to off myself… or find something to do that I enjoy (my mom had a hard time with my condition when I was a child because I would just up and leave school. Like we’d be doing our early morning, “everyone sit in the lunchroom before school starts,” and I would be like, “whelp, that’s enough of this,” and just get up and walk out of the building. I don’t really remember it, but apparently I did it a LOT). 

The thing is, I really love writing, to the point that even the hard parts don’t feel so hard (which is sort of weird, because other writers I know complain about the process because, you know, the process is hard, but I find myself still liking the process even though it’s hard? I’m sure some of my grade school teachers would be very confused). I really like inventing characters and then bringing them to life on the page, so here’s the next thing I had to say:

[I rewrote this part after reading it now, since so much of it had changed since I first wrote it]

Since this is done, I’m going to be working on original stuff. I have been recently (since I’ve mostly recovered from burnout, my brain has been able to handle doing more) and have… two drafts that are mostly done, one that needs editing, and one that needs a vigorous rewrite. Genres include but are not limited to: fantasy, supernatural, scifi, romance, and smut. I feel like my last three fics (these two and the Jaehyun one) have been very “real world slice of life” where my original fiction tends to be more fantasy based (even my novella that’s very like “young person worried about their town and it’s ecology” still has supernatural shit in it).

At first I was thinking maybe Patreon, and I could post the chapter of a story every week, but serialized fiction writing and book writing are a little different (serialized fiction tends to have a lot of cliff hangers to keep people turning up every week, and I just don’t like writing that way), so I’ve decided instead to self-publish them. Very soon, I need to start a Newsletter (would you all want the link?) so I can keep you up-to-date with releases or just silly thoughts or whatever.  

Finally, my thanks:

Written 10/24/2023: Thank you to @leagreenly for taking time out of her busy schedule to make me the yt thumbnnails for the “NEROmusic” update tweets (she made the thumbnails and I made a frame from a tweet). Thank you so much for being a kind friend who uses their procrastination to make things for someone on the other side of the planet (“I sent so much because I have to go to sleep now” lol). I presume my messages about their look were coherent, since I woke up to exactly what I was thinking of the next day, lol.

Thank you to @metalheadatiny for being my constant twitter liaison, at any random moment of the day when I’m like, “Can you find this for me?” because I don’t have twitter and can’t see tweets anymore-- I am never downloading that hell-app (I will only use THIS hell-app. I can only stomach one! How much hell can one person take? Let me tell you… it’s not a lot lol). Thank you for sending me screenshots of exactly what I need, like a personal Private Eye who shows up in my house like, “I found the girl” and then throws a bunch of black and white pictures onto my desk. And then I’m like “What girl?-- who the fuck is this? I needed pictures of a tweet so I know how to format it-- WHY ARE YOU LEAVING??”

Written 1/5/2015: To the people who have been reading as it updated: I hope you enjoyed this silly thing (or rather, two silly things). There were a lot of comments I saw as people read it that had me laughing (my fav where the few were we were all screaming at the characters together lol), and I’m glad you all liked it. Thank you for reading it, and maybe take a moment to check out some of my older fics if you liked these ones. I can at least tell you that, if you like chaotic y/n’s, the y/n in Work of Art is almost like a proto-Online/Offline y/n (I actually have an AU in my brain where that y/n and Jaehyun are older and they’re this Yeosang’s parents… idk why, I just feel like he would be their kid lol). The fics before that are mostly smut, so read at your own risk.

To all the people who liked the masterlist or a random chapter with the intention of reading it after: I hope you enjoyed, possibly as you mainlined it, lol. (I read all of JJK in two days, so I understand that mood lol.)

I was intending some more epilogue stuff and/or prequel stuff, but I was so busy working for the last four months I didn’t get to finish them like I wanted, so they’re going to take a bit. I’d say… remember me in your hearts, but don’t get your hopes up too high, since I can’t give the faintest idea of a posting date for any of them.

[Edit: I just realized I didn't put the taglist, so all you tagged people can be sure to see my thanks! @luvvvx @iamthehotdemon @hrts4hanniehae @rachs-words @stayatinykatsy @dinossaurz @conwunder @tinyelfperson @anythingrelatingtojinyoung @jaytheatiny @staytinyluv @nevermoreraven1 Thank you all for reading 😊]

*squeaky toy noise*

[ONLINE/OFFLINE MASTERLIST]

[MUSIC OF THE HEART MASTERLIST]

🧋 🎵

Also: if you really liked either of them, please reblog the masterlist! we don't have an algorithm after all, so, O-reader-kenobi! I need your help! (please imagine Hwa in a star wars outfit)

[cressthebest]

Crimson Rivers thoughts pt. 46

chapter 70:

1. “And now the furniture is covered in dust, the books haven't been touched, the flowers are dead, the food has spoiled, and all the little pieces of himself from before feel foreign to him, like they're from a complete stranger.”

why did i blindly hope that crimson rivers couldn’t get more sad??

2. “Regulus couldn't have imagined it, then. Barty dying. Being dead. He was safe, aged out from reapings, and he would have made it if the war hadn't taken him.”

i want to gnaw on something. this is driving me crazy. i need to go eat dirt oh my god

3. every time i briefly forget about evan in this fic, his name is name dropped like a fucking bomb from the sky and i literally want to break a window

4. “And then there's Sirius, who barely knows what to do with his own pain, struggling to balance it, like he's not allowed to have it, feeling like an imposter for simply daring to grieve a man who wasn't his father as a father, as if that man didn't love him as a son.” the monty and sirius bond are still making me cry, actually

5. “I know I will be dead long before you read this,”

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

once again, had to voice memo my freind

6. welcome back to another round of lily vs the fridge

7. mary: you love dorcas

lily: NOOO!!! only you babes 😘

mary: fucking dumbass

8. idk how to explain it, but i’m glad that mary and lily (and dorcas and marlene) had such complex relationships. they weren’t just the badass lesbians who had it all together and had a perfect relationship that scoffed at the silly boys. they love just as hard and fumble just as hard. their relationships are far from perfect and are very messy. i love it

9. “His dad watched these flowers bloom.

His dad never saw them die.”

*eye twitch*

10. maybe i shouldn’t blame dorcas, but i’m kinda pissed at her for not showing up to marlene’s funeral

11. “Barty got a funeral, too. Regulus planned that one, and you could tell, because it was done so delicately.”

screaming crying throwing up

what if i never spoke again? as like some sort of stupid protest? as like a statement to show how upset i am over bartys death? huh?? what would you do then bizzarestars????? huh?????????

12. “Vanity got honored as a war hero in the Hallow, a statue raised in her honor on the castle grounds, replacing Riddle's legacy.” i’m actually losing my mind. i want to shovel grass in my mouth and chew stained glass. idk or drink a latte or something

13. bro i’m so mad that sirius was 100% right about how james wouldn’t grieve around him, always wanting to take care of sirius, which is why he has to leave. i’m so mad. i’m so mad. this is gonna hurt

14. “”Fucking hell, James, we're still in love, so calm down. It's—it's not an actual breakup, you know."” -sirius

😭😭😭 they’re such soulmates omg

15. oh god it hurt more than i thought. james thought sirius was about to break the news about remus leaving. not sirius leaving. james never once considered that sirius would leave

16. SNSKDNJSNSMSKSM THEYRE KISSING YAY OMG JEGULUS KISSS OMGGG AFTER LITERALLY TWO MONTHS THEYRE KISSING AGAIN

chapter 71:

1. “[Regulus] is such a sweet boy, and yes, yes, [Effie] has seen him murder, but that matters very little to her, overall” me talking about my favorite characters 🥰

2. wolfstar

currently wanting to gnaw through concrete and plywood over them

3. “Remus also calls Lily every day. They're more discreet about it, not practically confessing their love and trying to make out through the screen the way James and Sirius do”

remus: this is my boyfreind sirius, and that’s my boyfreind’s boyfreind, james ♥️

4. remus thinking of sirius as a helicopter parent towards regulus has me in fucking tears omg that’s so funny

5. “That's the first time they have sex after the war, when Remus tells Sirius how he made Riddle pay for all that he'd done.”

idk, but that’s not the sentence i was expecting

6. 😭😭😭 remus realizing that lyall never liked any of his ex boyfreinds, and the fact that he approves of sirius, the murderer, is laughable

7. jealous sirius kissing remus within an inch of his life 😭😭😭

8. “It's no secret that Sirius likes the hickies, but it's not just him; the truth is, the only thing Remus likes more than getting to put them there is getting to see them there.”

uhhh um uhhhhh hot

9. 👀 they getting nasty

10. james being a teacher >>>>>>>>>>>

11. what are sirius and regulus gonna get up to?

12. it’s heartbreaking that lily and mary have to raise bingley. on one hand, it’s domestic and it’s their little family. on the other hand, they never should have had to do this. lily cooks and tucks him into bed and raises him. but she’s not his mom. and mary raises bingley. but she’s not his mom. and it’s so scary to navigate this

13. THE BAGELS

14. james’ knife kink >>>>>>>>>

15. omg i’m a blubbering mess. they have a home together!!!

16. hello!???? they’re dancing together????? in their home?????? what if i burst into tears?????

17. AWWWWW JAMES PROPOSED AGAIN

18. please please please please tell me we get a marriage chapter

[licorice-tea]

Everything In Between

Pairing: Penguin x reader

Content: Strawhat!reader, mentions of alcohol, fluff, pining, secret crushes teehee, kissing🤭

Word Count: 1.7k

A/N: ah yes, my favorite barely mentioned or seen side character🩷 also i know he’s not a main character or anything but like pls give this fic a chance anyway🤞🏽idk guys he’s just so fine to me, something about characters with hidden faces or masks… anyway halfway through writing i realized this reminds me a lot of the song “In Between” by Gracie Abrams (which is unreleased i think?) and so that’s where the title is from😇 enjoy! <3

Edited 2/11/24

As a Straw Hat Pirate, you’re happy to enjoy the many blessings that come with having a lax and fun-loving captain. You and your crew often have parties often for no reason in particular, and when there is one; the celebrations are even grander. It definitely wasn’t part of your original “10 year plan”, but you couldn’t be happier that you wound up on the crew.

Beyond frequent opportunities for food, music, and dancing; getting to meet people from all around the world is a close second in terms of your favorite part of being a pirate. You’ve been to more islands than you could count at this point, and flirted with met people from all walks of life. Royalty, civilians, government officials, other pirates… God, did you love the pirates.

The Heart Pirates were probably your favorite of all- outside of your own crew. Even before Luffy created an alliance with them, and you met them in passing on Saobody, you thought they were just great. So organized in their matching jumpsuits and everything- how neat! And the captain, Law, is a good looking guy, but he’s not the one who made you so giddy over simple glances that you would giggle and kick your feet in your room after being with him. No, that only happened when you were formally introduced to one of his subordinates- Penguin. You didn’t even really know the guy, but you were bored at a party one night and looking to have some fun. You ended the night with more feeling than you’d bargained for though; all because he came up and asked if you knew the difference between a Straw Hat and a Heart as a joke.

You cross your arms and tilt your head, intrigued, “No, what?”

“One’s a hat, and the other is a vital organ.” he says with a grin, red solo cup in hand. You can’t even see his eyes as he leans in, waiting for your reaction.

After a brief silence (which comes from you thinking, “this guy is seriously corny. And hot,”) you give him one in full; laughing like it’s the funniest thing you’ve ever heard.

“Oh! You… You liked it!” he chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

Your laugh is bright and clear to him despite the loud party atmosphere which you’re standing just a few paces away from. He’s mesmerized; and it could just be the party-high talking, but Penguin thinks he’d do just about anything to make you laugh like that again. Because, little do you know, he’s always sort of admired you from afar.

As you come down from your fit of laughter, you ask if he has anymore jokes like that one. He shakes his head “no” with a bashful smile.

“Aww, that’s too bad.” You touch his arm as you continue, “What’s your name, funny guy?”

The simple touch causes his confidence to skyrocket, and he takes a small step toward you. “I’m Penguin,” he grins, “ and you’re y/n, right?”

You nod, “It’s nice to meet you, Penguin.”

“Soooo, you think I’m funny?”

“Mhm, your partner doesn’t tell you that?”

“Nope, no partners here. None at all, not with me.”

Another giggle slips past your lips, “Good, I’d hate to get you in trouble.”

His voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper, “Why would we get in trouble?”

“Well, we’re flirting, aren’t we? Or I’m trying to flirt with you, at least.”

Penguin feels faint. How lucky was he; not only to have a pretty person like you so blatantly flirting with him, but to have you flirting with him. The object of a long distance, mostly delusion fueled affection he’d harbored for… Well, however long it’s been since he first saw you in Sabaody. He doesn’t even want to finish off his drink- and it’s only his first of the night! But if he does, he might not remember this moment.

He’s so caught up in the thought of you that’s he’s simply nodding at your words, “Something something… dance… music…” Your lips are so pretty, and your voice might be the most melodic thing to ever grace his ears- besides your laugh, of course. And your hands are so damn soft- which is unexpected for a pirate, but most fitting for someone of your beauty.

Wait, since when had you taken his hand? And led him away from the railing? …What had he agreed to go again?

Well, who knows, and who cares! He’d gladly let you lead him to your cabin right now, if that’s what’s happening, and once the door was closed he’d be more than willing to-

“Penguin? You ok?”

His cheeks flush when you look back at him “Yeah! I’m good, great even-“

You turn fully so you’re walking backwards, and take his other hand so both are interlocked. “Not having second thoughts, are you?”

Penguin realizes you’re standing closer to the source of the music (the skeleton man… what was his name?) and at the center of the deck. “No, no of course not…”

“Mkay,” you smile, putting one of his hands onto your waist and resting your now free hand on his shoulder.

“Ohhh, right: dancing.”

Penguin tries his best, really, but you find that he’s a mediocre dance partner. He steps on your feet multiple times over the course of just 2 songs, probably because his eyes stay trained on you rather than observing and following your movements. You call it quits on the 3rd song and tell him you’re going to get a drink.

“So much for having fun with a cute guy tonight.” you mutter to yourself under your breath before taking a sip of your drink. He was so zoned out, it’s like he wasn’t even interested all of a sudden. Major turn off… Scratch that, a major disappointment, considering you were still very much on.

That’s when Penguin finds you at the drink table, and pours himself some sort of liquor before he steps closer to talk to you. “So much for not drinking tonight, but I’m gonna need it.” he thinks to himself. He steps closer and waves at you.

“Hey y/n, so I uh…. I kind of lied. I don’t really know how to dance- not like you do, at least.”

You smile and wave off his concerns, “It’s fine, I had fun anyway.”

“Ok, good, good…”

He’s biting his lip, and even though you can’t see his eyebrows, you imagine them pinched together nervously. “What’s wrong?”

Penguin sighs dramatically and sets down his cup, “I’m not a liar, usually, I swear. I just wanted to impress you, you know?” This makes you laugh, though you try to reel it in for his sake. But damnit, it’s more than enough to ease his nerves and loosen his tongue. “I have a crush on you! And I think you’re-“

“Penguin.”

“…Yes?”

“You don’t have to comfort me, it’s really fine. We just talked for a little bit, I’m not hurt or anything…” you laugh.

“No I-“ he exhales, “y/n, I’ve liked you since I met you.”

“…We’ve met before?”

“Yeah, on Sabaody Archipelago.”

“…”

He waves his hands in front of his face, as if to reassure you that you’re not forgetting some vital piece of information. “We didn’t introduce ourselves or anything, but… I saw you. Every time after that, I tried to talk to you, but it never worked out. I guess tonight I got lucky though, right?

“Uh huh…” You don’t even really know what to say to that. So he’d admired you al this time… and you didn’t even know.

“Sorry, was that too much? I don’t want to weird you o-“

And since you don’t have the words, you settle on actions instead. With swift movements, you grab the collar of his shirt and pull him in for a quick, but gentle kiss. You feel his hat being tipped back from the angle, so you hold the back of his head to prevent it from falling. This leads Penguin to deepen the kiss, his tongue darting out to lick at your bottom lip. With a gasp, your lips part, and it’s all he needs keep exploring your mouth and savoring the way it fits with his. You hum, at first because you’re enjoying it, then because you feel like you actually shouldn’t be doing this. Either way it creates a pleasant vibration against his lips, and he groans. Having only meant for it to be a small peck, and with the resurgence of the feeling that you’re doing something scandalous, you push him away.

Still breathing heavily, you apologize profusely. “I don’t even know why I did that, I’m sorry.”

Penguin is also panting after the heated kiss you share, but he stops you. “No, no don’t apologize!” He holds your face in both hands and kisses you again, though much more forcefully than you had.

When he pulls away to gauge your reaction, your expression turns from momentarily stunned to genuinely happy. You laugh. God, why do you have to always laugh and look so perfect around him? It’s killing him inside.

“Was that good orrr…?” This only makes your giggles louder, and you try to look away so you can quiet yourself, but he keeps your face turned towards his.

“M-mhm, I’m sorry, I’m not laughing at you-“

“Stop saying sorry!” Penguin sighs into your mouth as he kisses you once more, albeit softer this time and long enough for you to put your arms around his neck.

When you pull away, he grins while still mere inches away from your face. “So you liked it then?”

You shake your head with an equally bright smile. “I like you.”

[daisyvisions]

🍬

so idk if you remember this list but i wrote it somewhere in winter at 3am and i recently had another 3am urge to think about it again so here is an updated and totally non-biased ranking of “who in tbz do i think is the best kisser” + little scenarios of their favorite way of making out:

1. eric

laying in bed, he’s on top of you. hands all over you, but one stays near your neck and jaw to remind you who you belong to.

2. sangyeon

standing in the middle of the entryway of your shared apartment, he missed you a little too much. hands on your waist at all times, his brows furrowed because your lips are just THAT good.

3. sunwoo

cuddling in bed, the movie that’s on TV long forgotten. you were laying on his chest when he tilted your head up to get a taste of you. hands wrapped around you entirely, fingers gently caressing every inch of your skin.

4. juyeon

sitting on the couch, you on his lap while he is manspreading. his hands on your ass, his lips pulled to a permanent smug smile while he’s kissing you.

5. changmin

you sitting on the couch, him standing bent over you, his hands resting on the back of the couch behind you. him gently biting your lips from time to time.

6. hyunjae

you sitting on the kitchen counter with your legs wrapped around him, his hands gripping your thighs like they’re his lifeline. hungry kisses with lots of tongue alternating with gentle pecks to give you whiplash.

7. haknyeon

you sitting on his lap sideways, your arms wrapped around his neck like that would help you to hold onto your sanity. his arms are roaming around your waist and back, gradually going lower to stay on your ass instead.

8. kevin

him laying in bed with you on top of him, sitting on his abs. his hands on the back of your thighs, occasionally flexing his abs much to your delight.

9. chanhee

he trapped you against a wall, holding your face in his hands. yours roam his chest which triggers him to smile into the kiss and press you up against the wall more.

10. jacob

he was spooning you when he propped himself up and cought your lips in a passionate kiss. always so gentle, his hands remains under your chin while yours move up into his hair to deepen the kiss.

11. younghoon

mid pillow fight, he suddenly pulls the covers over both of you and kisses you. it’s messy, but only because both of you can’t stop giggling and tickling each other with featherlight touches.

slr!! I kinda remember what ask you might be referring to but I don't trust my own foggy ass brain akjsndkajsnd but omg!!! these scenarios are so spot on esp the hyunjae one (which I think about a lot ngl 🥴) in terms of ranking tho imma have to get back to you on that because I need to think deeply about my ranking for this hahaha

[marmolita]

Lita's Kinktober/Promptober 2024!!

Okay let's do this thing!! I haven't found any official kinktober prompts list so I'm making up my own. I will provide three choices of prompt for each day (2 kinks + 1 trope), and if you want me to write a ficlet for you, please send me an ask with the day, prompt, and ship that you'd like it for and I'll put it on the list!

At this time, I'm open to writing fic only for the fandoms/ships/characters listed below. If I change my mind and add more fandoms I'll update this post. If you think you know me well enough to convince me to write something else you're welcome to come talk to me about it!

Who can send requests?

Literally anyone, anon is turned on as well. I would ask that you only send 1-2 requests to start, then if I don't get very many I'll take additional requests!

What info goes in my request?

Please include the day you want, the kink or prompt you want from that day's options (there are three choices for each day), and the fandom/ship you want. It's fair game to say "any prompt for XYZ ship" or "any fandom for XYZ prompt" or the like, but please give me a little bit of direction instead of just "idk any day any prompt any fandom" because the whole reason I'm doing this is that I can't think of stuff on my own. 😅 If you would like the work to be gifted to you on AO3, please give me your username. I'll tag you on tumblr when I post it as well, unless you specifically tell me you don't want to be tagged.

How do I send a request?

Put it in my ask box please! If you don't have a tumblr account you can also find me on discord and DM me there (marmolita), or go old school and email me, marmolita42 at gmail.

What fandoms and ships can I request?

Note: in all of these, "Other" means an OC that I invent to match the type of person/thing of your choice (e.g. "hunter" or "diner patron" or "Galbadian army soldiers" or "mindflayer" or something like that). I will not write reader insert fic or fic for OCs of other people's creation.

For prompts that aren't sex-related (like "office AU" or whatever) you don't necessarily have to provide a ship, just some characters.

FFVIII: Seifer/Squall, Seifer/Squall/Rinoa, Squall solo, Laguna solo, Seifer solo, Seifer/Ultimecia (including Ultimecia possessing others), Seifer/Other, Squall/Other, Laguna/Other

FFXV: Noctis/Prompto, Noctis/Gladio, Noctis/Luna, Noctis solo, Noctis/Gladio/Ignis/Prompto, Noctis/Other. I may be open to other Noctis ships as well, except not Ignis, Ardyn, or any Kingsglaive characters.

FFVIII/FFXV Crossover: Any combination involving Squall, Seifer, Laguna, Noctis. I could be talked into other characters if you have a really good idea.

Dune (Villeneuve): Paul/Duncan, Paul solo, Paul/Bene Gesserit, and I could be talked into something involving Chani or Stilgar, possibly. Keep in mind I have not read the books.

Scholomance: Orion solo, Orion/El, Orion/mals

Supernatural: Dean/Castiel, Dean/Benny, Dean/Jack, Dean/Claire, Dean/Mary but only for "something made them do it" type prompts, Dean/Amara, Dean/Other, Dean solo

Marmalade Boy: Yuu/Satoshi, Yuu solo, Satoshi solo (yes I realize this is a very random fandom to include but hey if I'm willing to write it I thought I should put it in here lol)

Prompts

I'll cross these off as they get requested.

UPDATE: all have been claimed, thanks everyone!

1. Orgasm delay/edging, Fisting, Sex pollen

2. Electrostimulation, Vore, Omegaverse

3. Exhibitionism, Impact play, Arranged marriage

4. Voyeurism, Uniform kink, BDSM AU

5. Omorashi, Mind control, Enemies to lovers

6. Train molestation, Tentacles, Dubcon

7. Royalty/nobility kink, Intercrural, Magic made them do it

8. Sex work, Bondage, Bad guys made them do it

9. Bruises, Collaring, First time

10. Knifeplay, Sex toys, Oh no they're hot

11. Gunplay, Face sitting, Friends with benefits

12. S&M, Overstimulation, Unwilling attraction

13. Voice kink, Body worship, Truth serum

14. Competence kink, Incest, Guilty attraction

15. Leather/Latex, Breathplay/choking, Trapped together

16. Pegging, Free use, Captured by the enemy

17. Bukkake, Dirty talk, Sex as part of job duties

18. Rimming, Object insertion, Enemies with benefits

19. Frottage, Anonymous sex, Undercover as lovers

20. Waxplay, Begging, Fake Dating

21. Glory hole, Chastity, Amnesia

22. Fucking machine, Clothed sex, Tabloids/gossip

23. Praise kink, Mirror sex, Office AU

24. Humiliation, Sex tapes, Hate doing the thing but have to do it to save someone

25. Sensory deprivation, Manhandling/Rough sex, Child soldiers

26. Cloning/selfcest, Size kink, Power imbalance

27. Noncon, Dehumanization, Seduced by the villain

28. Double penetration, Slut praising, Horrifying revelation

29. Gags, Virginity kink, Under the influence

30. Threesome, Face fucking, Normally reserved character gets to be sexy/horny

31. Orgy, Public/semi-public sex, Fighting as foreplay

(if you want to steal my prompt list for your own October fest go for it!)