#is a catch all term for annoying dumb ignorant young people

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Had to break it to my sister (twelve years older than me) that she herself is an early millennial/late Gen X, that our brother is a Millennial as well, and that those "twenty-something interns" she sees at work are not Millennials (derogatory).

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

bullseye, m | jjk

pairing(s): jungkook x reader

summary: Are you the insufferable, cocky, absolutely-no-good-for-anyone female equivalent of a fuckboy? Maybe. Okay, yeah. But guess who decided to come along and interrupt your conquests? Jeon Jungkook. What now? Complain to your best friend Kim Taehyung all day or fucking do something about it?

warnings: rated M (18+) for language; alcohol consumption; Taehyung getting shitfaced lol; you're a cocky asshole and so is Jungkook, welp; schemes; smut (fem reader, making out / dry humping in public, cowgirl, m-masturbation, edging / orgasm denial, penetrative sex, so much kissing); non-idol!BTS; (secretly pining) fuckboy!Jungkook x bisexual, fuckgirl!reader; ft artist, best friend!Taehyung; mostly reader's POV with a short JK's POV

yes, it's purple-haired Butter JK

--

now playing – 마.피.아. in the morning by itzy

“Are you kidding me? Fucking Jeon Jungkook, again?”

“You need to calm down,” Kim Taehyung said, patting your shoulder and handing you a mojito.

“What I need is a fucking bow and arrow to shoot down this fucking pest!”

“I know you were the archery champion in high school, but that’s still a weird thing to think,” replied that baritone voice, pushing you into a chair so he could sit down as well, observing you violently chugging down the entire mojito in your rage. He seemed highly amused, looking a bit like a young French socialite in a black beret, loose tan dress shirt, and black slacks with black loafers. Gold accents because Kim Taehyung was that bitch. “Never ceases to impress me that you can do that.”

You pulled the glass from your lips, ice and mint clinking. “This is the third girl I’ve been dating that he’s just–” You flapped a hand in the general direction of the crowd at the bar, completely ignoring Taehyung’s comment about your record-breaking skills of draining cocktails. “–unashamedly making out with when clearly I’m right here.”

Taehyung rolled his eyes, far too crass for how drop-dead handsome he was, but it seemed that he didn’t care. “I doubt he knows you’re here or that you’re dating them. And to make it fair on him, you were casually dating them all at once, so technically, no one is at fault here,” he added.

You narrowed your eyes. “I wasn’t–”

Taehyung gave you this look.

The look of ‘shut-up-you-know-I’m-right’.

Being your best friend, he had a right to do that.

“Shouldn’t you be mad at the girl anyway? Being faithful and all that, which, by the way, you are not.”

“Dating is not the same as being in a relationship,” you argued.

“Mmm, so fucking them is not indicative enough that you should be less of a fuckboy.”

“I’m not a fuckboy,” you muttered. “I’m a woman.”

Taehyung raised an eyebrow. “The general term still stands because you’re a class-A asshole.”

You closed your eyes and sucked in a deep breath, trying not to bolt home and buy a bow and arrow online to shoot, not Jeon Jungkook, but Kim Taehyung, because he was testing your last nerve with the truth.

“Again, why are you not mad at them?” Taehyung reoriented the conversation with a sweep of his arm when you opened your eyes, prompting your gaze to shift and witness Jeon Jungkook with his tongue down a pretty girl’s throat. This cheeky bastard was even wearing a leather jacket and white shirt, just like you. The only difference was that you wore a leather miniskirt and he wore black jeans with rips in the thighs, but both of you were wearing heeled black moto-style boots.

“Because he’s the denominator in this equation,” you snapped, smacking your glass on the table.

“Please do not make math references. My brain is not made for that.”

“Fractions? Tae, seriously, are you defective or–”

“Maybe he’s doing it to piss you off.”

“Well, I am pissed off!”

The bar was very loud with music and noise. Your shout was still clearly heard. Neither you or Taehyung seemed to care that people turned to look at you two and shake their heads.

Taehyung shrugged. “Then he succeeded.”

You clicked your tongue. “Why, though? I didn’t do anything to him. He just started popping up stealing my girls. What if I switch back to chasing dick and he takes them too?”

Taehyung snorted. “I doubt it. You’re just continuing on this train because you’re stubborn.”

As usual, he saw right through you.

He raised an elegant hand and tapped his lips. “Maybe he likes you.”

You gave Taehyung the most disbelieving, fiery, indignant look that you had ever produced in your life.

“Or, he doesn’t,” he hastily corrected. “Let’s face it, sometimes I don’t even like you and I would murder for your dumb ass.”

You tapped the melting glass of icy mint onto the tabletop.

Menacingly.

“If you think about it,” Taehyung began tentatively, scooting his chair slightly away from you with your flaming eyes boring holes in the back of Jeon Jungkook’s head. His hair was dark violet now so you could spot him easily, pinning your (not yours, but you know, that was your prey at one point) girl against the back wall of the bar. “He always goes after your target. He wants you to notice something.”

You watched a YouTube video once about making your own bow and arrow. It didn’t seem that difficult, all things considered. Sharpening a long stick with a knife and–

“Stop thinking about murder.”

You jerked your head back to Taehyung and his honey-brown curls framing his amused expression. You glared in response.

“I’ve never interacted with him a day in my life,” you frowned, abandoning your homicidal tendencies for the moment. “What does he want me to notice?”

Taehyung gave you a pained look. You returned with a black stare. Then he sighed and shook his head.

“He’s a fuckboy. You’re the female equivalent of a fuckboy. What do you think he wants?”

“My body count?”

Taehyung slapped his own face, muttering under his breath. “… be part of your body count.”

“Sorry, what?” You raised your voice over the bass. “Can’t hear you over the music.”

He raised his head. “I don’t know. Fight him. See what happens.”

“I’m not gonna win a fistfight.”

Taehyung looked ready to fistfight you.

You stood up, dragging him by the arm. “Come on, wingman. I need another drink. I’ll buy, since you got me the last one.”

Taehyung laughed, loud and full, yanking his arm out of your grip and clapping a hand around your shoulders, pulling you to him so your body knocked into him. You grimaced, now forced to walk side by side with him, not seeing the looks shared between the patrons witnessing you two together.

“Now we’re talking. I wanna get trashed.”

“Cure for a broken heart, am I right?”

“Mine’s shattered,” Taehyung chuckled, rubbing the left side of his chest playfully, but you couldn’t help but notice the hurt in his eyes. It was his idea to go out tonight and assist you with getting laid but, one, you didn’t need assistance and, two, he had recently broken up. It was pretty obvious he just wanted you to buy him drinks and have an excuse to do something.

Which was fine with you, until Jeon Jungkook showed up holding your previous eye candy.

Hmph.

Whatever, you had a Taehyung to nurse back to health with an obscene amount of alcohol.

-

Two hours later, you were standing in the men’s bathroom, holding Taehyung’s beret with one hand and his hair in the other as he vomited loudly into the toilet.

“Sup.”

The guy looked in the stall and then looked at you.

“You’re not supposed to be here…”

You raised an eyebrow. “You wanna hold his hair?”

The guy slunk away at your dismissive tone.

Taehyung tapped your thigh and you patted him on the head soothingly. He flushed and coughed.

"S... sorry," he croaked wetly.

You chuckled. "Wash your mouth, ya nasty."

He got up and you straightened his clothes in an almost maternal fashion.

"Need water, I think..." he winced, stumbling past you to the counter. You followed him to make sure he didn't hurl in the fucking sink.

"I'll be right back. Don't do anything crazy."

"Heh, that’s you," he slurred as he put his hands under the tap to wash up.

You plopped his beret on your head and sauntered out of the men's bathroom, unbothered by the stares and the people trying to catch your eye. It took you no time at all to waltz to the counter and obtain the water, striding back to the men's bathroom with the tall glass.

Only to run into you-know-who.

The girl sputtered your name in surprise as if she hadn't met you in this very bar a couple of weeks ago.

You completely ignored her existence, narrowing your eyes at the smirking face of Jeon Jungkook.

There was no denying his attractiveness. His purple hair was a little messy now, curling around his high cheekbones and large brown eyes. The dim light of the bar cast strange shadows over his chiseled jaw and shapely lips, curved into a devilish grin. He had a mole and red lipstick residue underneath his lower lip.

You had a strong urge to douse him and his leather jacket with your giant glass of water.

Taehyung was the one who found out Jungkook's name for you. You sent him on the mission after the first time this little shit started meddling in your business.

At this moment, you remembered that.

You pointedly looked away, walking past Jungkook, knocking into his arm forcefully and on purpose, annoyed that he seemed pretty strong under that jacket, muscular and lean. Whatever. You had a large bear cub named Kim Taehyung to take care of. You didn't have time to waste on Jeon Jungkook.

"Hey."

You stiffened at the deep, silvery voice. Of course. He had to have a sexy voice too. Bitch.

"You should apologize."

Your eyes flickered to the glass of water. It was pretty cold in your hand. You raised your chin back up, facing towards the bathrooms.

The choice was easy.

You continued waking and raised your free hand to flip Jeon Jungkook the bird, off to deliver the water to your best friend.

Some guy at the urinal screamed as you entered the men's bathroom but you completely ignored him, only focusing on Taehyung, who was gripping the corner of the sink, turning not to pass out, pallid face dripping and looking green.

"Drink this and I'll take you home."

-

"Ugh, thanks for the other day... sorry I wasn't the best wingman... I ended up making you exorcize my demons instead..."

You laughed, jabbing a toothpick in the steaming fried chicken. You and Kim Taehyung again, hanging out in the afternoon at the local chicken spot.

"It's cool. I know you needed it."

Taehyung frowned. "If you knew, why did you play along?"

You shrugged. "You would've done the same for me."

He smiled and popped a piece of crispy chicken in his mouth. "Yeah, if you ever had a serious relationship for once."

You glared. "This is a non-judgment zone. Shut up."

He chuckled. Then he leaned in and you grimaced, catching a whiff of his chicken breath. He was wearing a pinstriped shirt and neglected to button the first two because he was too hot to bother with some stupid buttons. You weren't going to say you could relate, but you were wearing a loose black sweater dress that was bordering on flashing your panties, so, maybe.

"I heard from a little birdie that you had a run-in with the bane of your existence."

You raised an eyebrow. "The tax man?"

Taehyung rolled his eyes. "No, the other one."

Now it was your turn to roll yours. "Oh, right. The Dark Lord."

Taehyung gave you a weird look. "Is that a movie reference or..."

"Harry Potter, ever heard of it?"

"You're such a nerd."

"That's not... anyway, so what?"

He wiggled his eyebrows. "He spoke to you."

You narrowed your eyes. "Where do you get your information?"

He fidgeted. "Uh... a reliable source that chooses to remain anonymous."

Your eyes became slits. "Who."

Taehyung stick his tongue out at you. "The whole point of anonymous is you not knowing!"

"Who are you, fucking Rita Skeeter–"

"Stop with the weird references!"

"For fuck's sake," you hissed, causing a mother sitting at a table near yours to chastise you, covering their kid’s ears. You frowned, lowering your voice. "Alright so what? He opened his mouth; nothing original came out." You jabbed another piece of chicken.

"Well? Feel any tension? Sweet romance? Unbridled fury?" Taehyung piped, greatly interested in your two-second interaction with Jeon Jungkook.

You chewed, huffing. "I had a big kid to take care of. I didn't give a shit."

"Hey, I'm not a kid!" he shot back.

"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, you’re more important to me than poking his pretty eyeballs out of his head, so I didn't even reply."

Taehyung paused, mid-chew. "Really?"

"Yes, I didn't say–"

"No, that I'm important to you."

Taehyung was doing that thing where his big brown eyes went all sparkly and sentimental. It was making you uncomfortable. Bad with feelings and all that. The only reason you tolerated it was because Taehyung had been like this ever since he was that dorky weird kid you defended from bullies in elementary school. A folding chair was involved and you might have watched too many WWE TLC (tables, ladders, chairs) matches as a kid, but hey, those bullies didn’t bother Taehyung ever again, did they?

You got sent to detention for the rest of the year and anger management counseling appointments, but Taehyung remained your friend throughout the whole ordeal and for years to come, tolerating your poor life choices so… worth?

You reached over and shut his open mouth. "Of course, you are, that's why I'm not calling you a disgusting pig for chewing with your mouth open."

"Oi, that's bullying!"

"You bully me all the time," you snorted and the same mom made a noise of distaste that you pretended not to hear. "Like now you keep bringing up the spawn of Satan."

"You're also the spawn of Satan, by the way."

"Yeah, and you're my guardian angel and he ain't got shit, so I’ve already won this war."

Taehyung laughed nervously.

"Er, yes... totally..."

-

Another day, another conquest.

Well, you had to find the prey first, but that wasn’t going to be hard.

“You’re a chronic asshole.”

“Thanks, Tae. You sure you don’t wanna come?”

He rolled his eyes at you as you shrugged on one of his black dress shirts. You checked the tag. Silk. Damn. Kim Taehyung was a fancy bitch. He leaned against the closet doorframe as you fitted your black leather corset-style belt at your waist to cinch it in. You often raided Taehyung’s closet and paired it with your accessories. Did he enjoy your fucking in his clothes? Probably not, but you always returned them cleaned in the proper way, so he couldn’t complain.

He did anyway.

“No, I don’t. Let me sulk.”

“Ah, yes, moody starving artist, I’ll let you be,” you snickered, slinging the waist bag over your shoulder, wearing it across your chest instead of your hips. You lightly punched him in the arm and he pretended to topple over exaggeratedly. “You going to paint today?”

He shrugged. “I think. Dunno what media I want to use.”

“Just use a bunch of different ones. Your mixed media stuff is amazing,” you replied, waltzing out of his bedroom, past his messy studio with a blank canvas balanced on a wooden easel in the center of absolute chaos of paints. You helped him organize them once, but Taehyung often was too in the zone to pay attention to neatness.

“When’s the exhibit? I want to drop by,” you commented, seeing the line of his works safely wrapped up, leaning against the wall.

“Um… next week, Thursday through Sunday,” Taehyung replied sheepishly, cheeks flaring red at the mention of his own art exhibit. He was humble even though he was talented. “I’ll text you the address. Don’t show up looking like a high-paid escort.”

You tucked your feet into your heels and raised an eyebrow.

Silk black men’s shirt worn as a dress, belted at the waist to show off your curves, bare legs out, toned calves standing out due to your sleek black high heels.

“Who, me? Never.”

Taehyung shook his head. “Text me if you need a ride.”

“You got it.”

-

“You have got to be kidding me.”

You tapped your nails on the bar, having already finished your peach mojito.

“Fucking Jeon Jungkook, again?”

You needed to invest in a bow and arrow, like, yesterday.

Shoot right between his pretty eyeballs. Dude even pulled back his long, deep purple hair into a smooth ponytail with wispy strands framing his sculpted face. Was that damn eyeliner and mascara making his eyes look sharper, sexier? Fuck, he even knew how to make himself look even hotter.

Not as hot as you, of course.

“How does he always know where I’m at?” you muttered under your breath, turning away to look at the bartender and order another mojito. Watermelon. It seemed interesting. Fuck it, you were going to focus on drinking rather than the thorn in your side, Jeon Jungkook and his black dress shirt halfway buttoned and his tight-fitting black slacks with sleek oxfords. The bartender slid your glass in front of you, a gradient of pink to transparent with a little sprig of mint on top. It was a pretty drink.

You reached into your waist bag to pay, but the bartender stopped you.

“The gentleman over there paid for you. A gift.”

Oh? Maybe a potential for the night. You shifted your gaze to–

Oh.

“Tell him to fu–”

But the bartender was already off servicing other customers on this busy night.

Shit.

You know what? Fine. He put himself up as the target. He wanted to play this game.

And you never missed a bullseye.

You tilted your head to survey Jeon Jungkook out of the corner of your eye, making his way over to you, bringing your drink close to your lips. He stopped right next to you. The colorful lights of the club made rainbows dance across his lightly tanned skin and his dark lips, curled into a smug smirk.

“Hey.”

You cocked an eyebrow.

Drank.

Mmm, fuck, that was some deliciously smooth rum. The watermelon was a refreshing addition to the mint too. You probably weren’t meant to drink it all at once, but you were glaring at Jungkook who was pointedly watching your throat swallow and it was aggravating you more and more, the entire drink disappearing in record time, leaving nothing but ice and mint.

You smacked the glass down on this table with a hiss.

Jungkook purred your name with that deep, silvery voice of his. His eyes flickered down to your exposed collarbones and then back up to your face.

You clicked your tongue.

Then you turned away from him dismissively, walking past him, knocking into his arm forcefully and on purpose.

But instead of letting it happen, Jungkook shifted his weight and slid to block your path. You stopped, eyes darting up to narrow at that conceited little brat’s face. Now you could smell his cologne, fresh, sensual, a mix of pungent dragon fruit and black coffee.

Hold on.

You inhaled. Yup, no mistaking it.

That was your perfume.

Jungkook grinned as the realization hit you. How did he know what perfume you used?

“The fuck you want?” you growled.

He licked his lips slowly. He ticked his chin, taunting you.

“Finally got you to talk to me,” he purred, chuckling.

Alright, you were past causing actual bodily harm these days – jail being your primary reason – but that didn’t stop you from staring down Jeon Jungkook and his self-satisfied smirk with your signature tapering of your sharp stare.

You just stood there.

Menacingly.

He bit his lower lip, exposing that tiny mole underneath, shivering under your gaze. “Are you mad at me?” he asked, almost innocently, but there was no chance in hell that he was.

You quirked your head, lifting your chin defiantly. “Absolutely fuming,” you replied acidly.

He took a step towards you, closing the distance, so close you could feel his warmth, your breasts brushing against his chest. Now people were whispering around you two, sensing the tension between you and Jungkook. The similar outfits, the same violent energy, the same predatory aura.

As if the fox had confronted the wolf.

“What’s there to be mad about when we play the same game?” Jungkook drawled.

Cocky. The fox was so damn cocky.

“You’re just nibbling on my leftovers,” you countered, stepping forward so you pressed against him, burning body heat to burning body heat. “Which makes you the scavenger.”

Jungkook leaned down, dark brown eyes glittering with amusement.

“Then why so angry?”

His lips ghosted over yours, breathing in your exhale.

“I’m just a pest, right? A mere annoyance in your eventual victory.”

His lashes lowered, arrogant smirk reaching his dark eyes.

“Play your ace. Let’s see if it works,” he purred in the deep, sexy octave of his.

Shut up.

A low snarl rumbled in your chest.

“Shut up, Jeon Jungkook.”

You gripped his belt and yanked him to your body, rolling your crotch into his, your lips colliding with that maddening smirk, alcohol, dragon fruit, black coffee, flint igniting the dry wood, devouring his lips hungrily, his hands sliding up your sides, and his smile.

Triumph.

-

Shit.

-

You couldn’t give two fucks about Jeon Jungkook and he was into it.

Like the impossible enigma, he couldn’t figure you out but he was drawn to you anyway. The whole world was your plaything, and you treated it as such. There was something exciting about you, the thrill too irresistible to avoid when you made your presence known. Always you and that teasing smile, never getting serious, making everyone hesitate to take it farther with you. Who could blame them with your borderline brash attitude and ease of moving from one to the next?

That and your friendship with Kim Taehyung, who was a whole damn tiger next to your wolfish nature.

At first, Jungkook was intrigued.

As time went on, he became frustrated and annoyed.

What gave you the right to ignore him?

You picked up guys far less attractive than he was, not that he was that vain but, seriously, he was right here! Waiting to be caught. He didn’t try to interfere at first. In fact, Jungkook wasn’t even the sleep-around-and-mess-with-feelings kind of guy. But the more he watched you, the more impressed he was, seeing the way you charmed your way into everyone’s hearts, the way you focused on them for that moment, making them feel like they were the most perfect creature on Earth before slinking to the next, leaving them with a pining heart and lost in fantasies of what-ifs.

And, yeah, you were hot.

What was Jungkook going to do?

He could do nothing.

Or he could befriend Kim Taehyung, get under your skin, and make you notice him.

Not a scheme, per se.

Kind of a scheme.

Alright, definitely a scheme.

In Jungkook’s defense, your best friend Taehyung was all for it. Taehyung was the one who came up with all the ideas, informed him of your location, and the names of the girls you were after.

“Give her a taste of her own medicine. She needs a reality check.”

The problem was, Jungkook didn’t really want to let you go now that you were in his arms.

-

“Silly pretty boy.”

You had his chin in your palm, pressing your thumb against Jungkook’s lower lip, opening his hungry mouth to tease him with your tongue, tracing his soft lips and thrusting in, his low moan filling your lungs. His hands on your waist tightened, pulling you closer even through you were already in his lap, murmurs and eyes on you, but neither your nor Jungkook cared, used to this by now.

You were, after all, making out in the club.

The chair scraped against the ground as Jungkook firmly placed your thighs on either side of his, thrusting upwards into your core, letting your feel his rapidly growing hardness with every one of your kisses. Your hair feathered his cheeks and shoulders as your free hand toyed with his ponytail, twirling it in your fingers, smirking into his lips with his gasp from you grinding back down on his crotch, rolling your hips into him.

“Thought I was the bane of your existence?” Jungkook taunted under you, squeezing your ass through the silk and meeting your movements, staring into your eyes with his. So dark, so smokey, so fucking sexy, almost like looking into a mirror, because you too wore similar makeup, maybe a little darker and a little more of a flick to your eyeliner. “Just going to kiss me to shut me up?”

You wouldn’t be surprised if the other clubgoers were eagerly watching now, waiting to see what was going to happen between you and him.

“I don’t need to be on your mouth to shut you up,” you mused, tugging his ponytail back and kissing down his neck, tongue tracing the contours of his muscles, feeling him shudder under your lips and teeth, lightly nipping at his skin. Tracing circles, gentle kisses, relishing in his gasps and his tightened grip on you, letting your breath linger for that extra second, that extra what-if, kissing back up his neck and onto his jawline, murmuring his name sweetly, tip of your tongue curling around his earrings and bouncing them, sighing softly in his ear.

“Can’t claim my leftovers when my leftovers are you, now can you, naughty boy?” you chuckled darkly, pressing your breasts on his hot chest and your clothed pussy on the tip of his stiff length, rutting against it, making him hiss your name.

“I have no intention of being leftovers,” he growled into your ear.

Your eyes flew open as his lips transfixed to the space under your ear, sucking hard, forcing you to squeeze your thighs at the attack on your erogenous zone, sparks of arousal flinching through you, soaking your panties. You gasped, hips bucking into his needily, barely processing his words, his tongue flicking against your throbbing skin, lips and teeth, and then his mouth was moving, traveling up your earlobe, nipping at the curve, your eyelids fluttering, clutching his purple ponytail tightly.

How did he know? Did he ask your previous conquests to spill the information? There was no time to think, his hands traveling up your back, clenching fistfuls of your shirt and digging his nails into your back, your body responding and squirming against him, the quiet whine of his name escaping your lips and drifting right into his ear.

“J… Jungkook…”

He groaned, turning your head forcefully, him kissing you this time, just as ravenous, just as powerful, basically simulating sex in the middle of the fucking club with the way your hips were twisting into his and he was thrusting back against you, breathless, whispering in your mouth so only you could hear his words resonate in your chest.

“Fuck, you’re so hot, you turn me on so fucking easily, I just have to have you,” he murmured, his forehead pressed against yours, capturing your lips again and again. “There’s no way you’re any good for me, but I don’t care, fuck.”

You snickered, eye to eye, trapped in those expanding pupils and his heavy pants. “They say the same about you, Jeon Jungkook.”

You felt him smirk. “Nah, not me. No one calls me the spawn of Satan.”

You raised an eyebrow. “You sure? Because I do.”

Jungkook’s tongue licked your lips, making your shiver in delight. “That was special treatment. Just for you.”

Hold on a second.

Through your hazy buzzed brain, you began to piece the puzzle together. With each part falling into place, the amusement in Jungkook’s eyes grew and grew, seeing you fill in the missing blanks. Your eyes widened and you curled a finger around his ponytail, yanking roughly to pull his grinning face away from yours. You jerked back, but his strong hands held you in place.

Wispy strands of violet framing that devious expression.

“Taehyung,” you breathed, venomous.

Jungkook had the audacity to cock an eyebrow.

“Yep.”

You were going to kill Taehyung. That little shit! Taehyung was no idiot, so he must have planned this somehow. He always telling you to get serious and stop messing around. That’s why Jungkook always knew who you were dating, where you were, and what you were wearing! Did Taehyung recruit Jeon Jungkook to trick you? Fuck! He was dead meat, scheming against you like this!

Jungkook brought you out of your homicidal tendencies with a soft drawl of your name.

“For the record, he was helping me out,” he murmured, pulling you to him, pressing your chest to his. You narrowed your eyes, his hard cock still throbbing against your panties. “I want you.”

He lowered his face, breathing hard.

“Not just like this.”

Your eyes widened.

“I said I’m not going to be leftovers.” Looking deep into your eyes, holding you tightly. “I’m not going to let you throw me away like the rest.” Every inhale making your body rise into his touch, his deep, silvery voice saturated with lust and determination. “I’m going to make you fall in love with me as much as I am in love with you.”

You opened your mouth to retort, but…

Jungkook gave you this look.

The look of ‘you-know-you’ve-already-lost’.

You could sit here and pretend, but you were also grinding back onto his dick right out here in the open, clutching his purple hair and his pretty face. His hard body was tucked snugly in your thighs. That smug little smirk. Shit, shit, shit.

Jeon Jungkook got you and he got you good.

He knew it too, his hands sliding down and grabbing your ass again, rolling his hips into yours.

“Come on. Let’s fuck.”

-

“Oh, fuck, yes, yes, yes!”

Jungkook threw his head back onto his pillows, exposing his straining throat, veins popping out, clutching your hips strongly to rut back against you as you smacked your crotch down onto him, riding him hard and fast, your hands next to his head, his long purple hair a mess even if it was still in the ponytail, sweat glistening on his forehead, moaning loudly with your walls closing in on his hardness. You were too busy fucking the daylights out of him to say anything, but Jungkook had plenty to say, hazy eyes opening and gasping as he viewed your body hovering over him, naked with his hickeys on your neck and breasts, strong thighs flexed on either side of him, his rock-hard cock repeatedly disappearing into your tight, wet hole.

“Fuck, I knew it, I knew you would be so fucking good and so fucking sexy,” he whined, nails digging into your hips and adding more force to your thrusts.

Your clothes and his clothes were all over his bedroom floor.

Your phone was on his nightstand.

Tonight, you sent one text to Kim Taehyung.

I’m gonna buy a bow and arrow and shoot you in the ass.

You screen flashed, indicating Taehyung had replied. One quick flick of your eyes and you smirked.

Oh shit.

Jungkook squeezed your ass, making your return your attention to him.

“Focus on me,” he begged, blown-out pupils. “Only me, please.”

“So needy,” you teased, licking your lips slowly. He groaned under you, mouth opening, his pretty pink tongue lolling out, desperate to be sucked. “If you think you can keep me, you’ll have to last longer than this, Jungkook.”

He swallowed hard at the way you said his name, a mixture of warning and desire.

“P-Please… it’s too good, I-I can’t…”

You redoubled your efforts, roughly slapping your hips into his, enjoying the loud sound and the way your core tightened, constricting him inside you, telling him he couldn’t cum until you did and deliberately holding yourself back, shifting your attention when you felt it rise, denying him over and over, until he was like this, whole body shaking, grasping your ass, sweat on his chest. His right arm, covered in tattoos, looking extra delicious in the moonlight, so fucking perfect with his forearms flexed with tension. You purposefully stared into his brown eyes overtaken with lust, his lips trembling from denying himself his own orgasm.

Jungkook whimpered your name.

On the verge of breaking, helpless at your command.

A sharp throb inside you, wildly turned on by his duality.

You smirked.

“Jungkook.”

You inhaled deeply, sighing in satisfaction with the wave of pleasure, intense shivering pulses running up and down his length, sinking down so he could feel it all, the tight and rough massage of your orgasm taking over, low moan of his name emitting from your throat, and Jungkook followed suit, louder and lewder, eyes rolling back as he shot into the condom with jerking hips, burying the twitching head deep inside you, swelling the latex with thick cum, rocking you back and forth on his length, your juices dripping down and coating the inside of your joined thighs.

“Oh, fuuuuuuuck, so good, s-so fucking good…”

You know what, he was right.

It was so fucking good.

You savored it, the ecstasy that seemed endless and overwhelming, squeezing Jungkook between your thighs and moaning, just something about it, so satisfying and gratifying listening to his wheezing gasps and content whimpers, lowering yourself to his face, and he raised his, your hands sliding under his head, giving him what he wanted, light, maddening, carnal kisses, his cheeks, his chin, his quivering lips, whining your name, pleading with you to play with him more, more, tugging on his ponytail and his hands stroking your breasts, rolling your hard nipples between his index and thumb fingers, shaking at your hissing inhale.

“Hey,” you murmured, clenching him between your legs to get his attention.

Jungkook blinked at you, brown eyes unfocused, panting hard. “Y-Yeah?”

“You should apologize.”

The side of his swollen lips quirked upwards despite his fucked-out state. His deep voice was slightly hoarse. “What for? Tell me and I will.”

You raised an eyebrow. “For your scheming and using my own best friend against me.”

Jungkook smirked slyly.

“I’m sorry.”

He lifted you and made sure he had the condom before he pulled out, still semi-hard. You narrowed your eyes. He sure as hell didn’t sound sorry. Didn’t look sorry either, peeling the condom off and crawling over the bed to toss it in the trash before straightening.

“Sounding insincere there,” you remarked coolly, balancing your chin on the back of your knuckles, elbow on the bed, tapping the air impatiently.

“I mean it,” he purred, reaching for the towel beside the bed and knocking the condoms from his nightstand to the sheets. His right hand wrapped around his glistening length, still covered in lube and his cum, toned hips thrusting into his closed fist, grinning with his lower lip between his teeth as you watched him.

“I’m so, so sorry.”

Slowly jacking himself off as his eyes roamed over your curves, moaning lustfully, lingering on your legs, clutching the towel in his left hand so hard his knuckles were pale, forearms flexed, the slick head of his cock turning purple-red, emerging from between his closed fingers, throbbing as it was choked by his harsh grip.

“Let me make it up to you,” Jungkook shuddered, stroking faster, making wet squelching sounds, his muscular thighs bulging with effort.

Fuck, he was so damn attractive.

You kept an indifferent look on your face, raising your leg, your free hand sliding down, tracing the outside of your already wet opening. Those hungry dark brown orbs immediately fixated on it, moaning imploringly as you dipped your fingers in it, soft squishing noises as you spread open your soaked pussy, slipping a finger in your heat, gently thrusting.

He gasped your name, begging you.

It made you wetter, seeing his want. He knew it too, brutally fisting his cock, hips quivering.

“Stop.”

Jungkook whined despairingly, pulling his hand away, his stiff cock bouncing from the swiftness of the movement, cutting off his own orgasm. He sucked in a shivering breath, tipping his hips up to you so his glossy, hard length twitched.

You shifted, laying back against his pillows, opening your legs.

Smirk on your lips.

“Mmm, fuck, yes, fuck me with that.”

Jungkook smirked back.

It took him no time at all to wipe his hand and crotch off, ripping open another condom and moaning as he rolled it down, the mere contact of the thin encasement stimulating his sensitive skin. He slid up to you, gripping your knees and spreading you even wider, pressing the tip against your drenched heat.

He whispered your name, like sweet smoke.

“Hm?”

Jungkook leaned down, kissing you deeply as he sank into you, drinking in your gasp at the fullness.

“I’m going to make you feel so, so good,” he mumbled into your lips, pecking you softly.

He was about to retreat but your hands snapped up, tangling into his messy violet waves, clutching his ponytail. Jungkook blinked at you, questioning.

“Not too far away,” you said with a playful smile. “I wanna see that handsome face of yours.”

He bit his lower lip, tiny mole and wicked grin revealing themselves.

“Okay.”

He lifted his hips and plunged fully into you, the connection of your hips making a loud, wet smack.

“Fuck, Jungkook…!”

And you could tell from his elated expression and his furious pace that he was ecstatic at your response, chasing it, chasing you, moaning as you caught him between your thighs and wrapped your legs around his waist, gaining some leverage and meeting his thrusts, fingers tightening in his soft hair, fuck, so beautiful, the way the pleasure overtook his handsome features, his hazy dark brown orbs shrouded in lust, his pink lip trembling in his teeth, sharp jaw set, but still maintaining a little bit of that cunning exterior that ensnared you in the first place, unknowingly at the time, the side of his lips ticking up, this cheeky bastard.

Jungkook saw the way you looked at him.

He adjusted the position, hitting deeper, swelling inside you, and, fuck, you couldn’t help it, you smirked too because he was so, so full of himself and so were you, insufferable, troublesome, competitive even now, the obscene smack of his crotch hitting your hips, wet and noisy, the squish of your juices smearing against his inner thighs as you wildly matched his rapid, bruising rhythm, your moans blending together, sweet hot harmony, his bedframe ramming against the wall, and, as usual, neither of you caring, far to occupied with yourselves, pleasure snaking between you, up your spine and into your head, mixing with the light buzz of alcohol, a different kind of euphoria from every other one-night stand, because this was Jeon Jungkook and he wasn’t going to be a one-night stand.

His lower lip popped out of his teeth and he gasped your name.

Longingly, breathlessly.

Was he thinking the same thing?

You lifted yourself a little, your hands molded to his head, whispering intensely against his shaking lips.

“Don’t worry, Jungkook. We have all night and the morning.”

Fuck, he had a brilliant smile.

It was actually doomed for you, but you weren’t mad about it.

Eye contact, and he didn’t waver, thrusting deep into you, low moan pulled from his chest, jolting shudders sliding down his shoulders and then in between you and him, his cock twitching and spilling into the condom again, roughly clamped by your tightness, and you were already there, falling over the edge with a soft cry, straining your neck and pushing his head down to you to collide your lips with his, greedy for his kiss, his taste, his whimpers at your forcefulness.

“Jungkook, ah…”

He said your name in the same tone, delicate and possessive, a bullseye right to the heart.

-

“On one hand, I’m glad you’re finally serious about someone.”

You paid absolutely no attention to the annoyed baritone voice of your best friend.

“On the other hand,” Kim Taehyung gritted out, smacking you in the shoulder blades as you crawled into Jeon Jungkook’s lap, kisses intensifying, a needy whine in his chest, his hands wrapping around your waist. “Really feeling like a third wheel, you two! Stop making out for one goddamn second!”

He threw up his hands as both of you pretended to be deaf.

-

interlude respect drabble — "how much did you see?" popcorn drabble — "who are they?"

part ii threesome, ft kth — got it bad

--

masterpost

[gyusbambi]

humph; han seojun (pt 2)

 click here for humph masterlist!

part 1, part 3

story: frenemies to enemies to lovers, high school au

synopsis: seojun and you have known each other since kindergarten. you’re neighbors and even attended the same singing and piano classes. despite knowing each other for such a long time, you don’t enjoy spending time with seojun. even though you are aware of his unfairness, you keep spending time with him. when will you finally leave your childhood frenemy?

note: juyeong is reader’s brother and is not related to the lims, jugyeong doesn’t exist in this story. humph! is a story inspired by pentagon's "humph! / 접근금지". originally, this is a seungyeon fanfiction, which i posted on my wattpad. words: 4k

after the encounter, you try your best to avoid han seojun. everytime you spot him walking in the hallways, your feet start moving faster. every so often you won’t allow yourself to put all of your books into your locker and end up carrying the heavy things during the whole day. why does his locker have to be next to yours anyway?

seojun might be academically not the best, but he sure isn’t dumb.

clearly, he notices how you turn around and walk into a complete different classroom whenever he makes an appearance in the same hallway. he also notices how you always walk around with piles of books, never taking the chance to place them into your locker, since his own happens to be next to yours.

one day he spots lee suho helping you with carrying your books. smiling, you thank your friend and hand him over some of them. while heading towards the classroom together, you talk about the upcoming school trip. unfortunately, you’re not quite able to see what’s in front of you since the pile of books cover your sight slightly. yet, as seojun walks past suho, his shoulder hits suho’s which makes the books fall out of his hands with a loud thud. 

quickly, you help suho collect the books on the floor and don’t fail to notice him muttering,

“what’s his problem?” 

_

it’s an entertaining thursday evening as you spend time in the karaoke bar with your classmates. kang soojin, who happens to be suho’s childhood friend, asked you and suho to tag along with them. first, lee suho declined the kind offer but you luckily managed to convince him. 

the noraebang is filled with laughter when taehoon, sua’s boyfriend, sings his lungs out to his favorite song. after your eyes wander from the couple too soojin and then too suho, a smile forms on your face. taehoon’s arm is around suho’s shoulder as they both sing a ballad. you’re happy that suho opens up to others more and you enjoy being able to spend time with these four, feeling like you’re making new friends.

however, it feels a little strange that seojun and chorong aren’t around. you remember how you would go to the karaoke bar every saturday, sometimes it was only seojun and you. secretly, you adored listening to his voice.

suddenly, the notification sound of your phone wakes you up from your short trance. 

juyeong: why is seojun hyung’s bike in front of our house?

it’s a message from your younger brother. why hasn’t seojun picked up his bike yet?

while the others continue singing, you excuse yourself and walk outside in order to call your younger brother. patiently, you walk back and forth, waiting for him to answer the call. you sigh when he doesn’t pick up and are about to dial his number again.

before you can do so, you jump and let out a yelp at a familiar voice,

“y/n?”

it’s han seojun.

frightened you turn around, palm pressed to your heart.

“you scared me!” closing your eyes, you let out a relieved breath.

“you’re here too?” seojun ignores your shocked reaction.

“yes.”

“with whom?”

taken aback, you stay silent for a short moment, not knowing how to respond. clearly, you’re aware that seojun, for some reason, isn’t on good terms with suho. therefore, you wouldn’t want him to start a conflict with the innocent boy right here, at the karaoke bar.

“uh, i’m here with soojin a-”

abruptly you trail off when you spot lee suho himself at the entrance, searching for you while his glance shifts through the place. luckily, seojun’s back is facing the entrance. the boy in front of you waits for you to continue but is caught off guard when you pull him around the corner, before suho can find you.

“what are you doing?” seojun questions with lines forming between his brows.

nervously, you try to come up with an excuse while avoiding his gaze, checking behind his back if suho saw you, 

“your motorcycle-”

“look who we have over here! seojunnie!”

at the sound of lee sungyong and his gang you stop talking and observe an annoyed expression appear on seojun’s face.

when you turn around to face them, they let out surprised laughs,

“y/n, long time no see!”

“why do you have to here.” seojun groan.

soon, you sense that something bad could happen any moment which makes you dart your glance around the area nervously, looking for a possible way out. timidly, you draw your mouth into a straight line before your fingers firmly grip around seojun’s, pulling him away from the others without thinking twice. the young boy seems shocked by your actions as his legs adjust to your pace.

in no time, you find yourself running away from lee sungyong and his gang, your hand still clutched on seojun’s wrist. adrenaline courses through your veins as you pass several stores, pushing people out of your way. to the sound of lee sungyong shouting your names, you keep your breath steady, push harder and run even faster. 

seojun himself forces his legs to push harder, his lungs straining. his breath thickening, he steals a quick glance at you. the wind whips your hair away from your face as you face forwards with an uneasy look. his mind is frantic with thoughts: how is it possible to move this fast?

yet, at this great speed, you can barely see a few feet ahead of you. your feet nearly slip from beneath you when your shoes pound heavily across the ground and mud splashes up your leg. 

noticing this, seojun rapidly takes your hand into his own without slowing down and takes the lead. since the boy is familiar with this dark area, he sprints around the next corner. the shoutings behind you don’t stop, demanding you to stop running. after sprinting for solid minutes, you finally hide behind a wall when seojun finds a way to trick the gangsters.

heart pounding faster than ever, you’re still concerned that they will find you. seojun squats down next to you, his legs tired from all the running. when your surroundings are safe, you swiftly stand up while your breath comes in short gasps. 

claiming you’re tired would be an understatement. you are exhausted. still you feel relieved that you could escape the group of boys.

moments later seojun sighs with annoyance behind you. 

“why did you have to drag me away?” the boy complains before you turn around to face him with a frown on your face.

it’s dark and quiet outside, indicating that it’s probably really late. the air is cold which makes you shiver for a moment. when you wait for him to continue instead of answering, seojun groans, not believing that you seriously don’t understand what he’s trying to point out.

“they’ll think it’s weird of us to run away like cowards. ah, you’re really dumb.”

“i’m dumb?”, you raise your voice with squinted eyes before he can leave,

“you’re the one who believes fish are wet.”

“fish are wet.” the boy slowly turns around to face you again.

“they’re not because they’re surrounded by water. once they get out of-”

“it’s water, y/n!”

it’s not worth arguing with someone as dumb as him.

with a mirthless smile you shake your head,

“you’re the dumb one.”

after that you leave to make your way home, completely forgetting to ask seojun about his motorcycle. the boy himself watches you walk away with a little worry. shouldn’t he walk you home at this time? ah, never mind. 

and so he walks home by himself, not used to the fact that his motorcycle is away from him.

_

the next day in school seems like a regular one. fortunately, you were able to get enough sleep this time. thankfully, seojun’s motorcycle was no longer parked in front of your house this morning. not expecting anything spectacular to happen, you enter the classroom with several books in your arms, like always. however, as soon as some of your classmates notice you, they walk to your seat with widen eyes.

“y/n! where were you last night?”, soojin asks you with a calm tone.

sua hits your shoulder playfully and whines, “do you know how worried we were?!”

oh, no. you completely forgot to contact them after your small adventure with han seojun.

“poor suho looked everywhere for you.”, taehoon pouts, his glance darting to suho, who was sitting on his seat peacefully.

after hearing taehoon’s words, you turn your head to the innocent boy with regret written on your face,

“i’m so sorry.”

“don’t worry, y/n. we’re glad you’re okay.” suho smiles at you as the others agree.

the day passes normally, like you predicted, until lunch break. 

considering kim chorong is nowhere to be seen, and you’re trying to stay away from han seojun, you sit next to you other friends during lunch. the same people from the karaoke bar talk about their plans after school, when suddenly everyone looks up to the sight of han seojun’s. his loud steps and irritated expression catches all the attention in the canteen.

however, you feel concerned when you’re approached by him, your heart beating a little faster.

“yah, y/l/n y/n.” 

you gulp when he carefully talks in a controlled voice, glaring at you through his cat like eyes,

“come out.”

the whole lunch room gasps with surprise at his statement, anticipating on what will happen next. just when he grabs your arm to drag you out of the room, lee suho steps between you both, slapping seojun’s grip away from your arm,

“what do you think you’re doing?”, he speaks with a low voice.

“you better stay out of this.”

han seojun hisses and holds on your uniform this time, pulling you away from the others.

your head is filled with endless questions when you’re forced to follow him out. what have you done wrong? the corridor is empty and silent as the boy in front of you pounds his hand on the wall behind you, leaving only a small gap between your faces. your back is pressed against the cold wall. 

blown away by the sudden closeness you swallow dryly, unable to wet your parched throat. his sudden change in mood slightly intimates you.

“you think you can piss me off easily?”

you’re taken aback when he snaps.

“wh-what are you talking about?” nervously, you stammer while excessively blinking.

after that, seojun laughs with edge, eyes leaving yours for a moment to remain his calm. why are you pretending to not know? seconds later he bends down to your height, now even closer than before. eyes looking deeply into yours, he tries to read you. yet, the only thing he’s able to see is your confusion.

“do you believe giving my keys to that bastard is funny?”

“i have no clue what you’re talking about.” 

luckily, the worry in you melts down a little but you’re still confused.

“you’re really starting to get on my nerves now. this morning lee sungyong came to me with these, and my damaged bike.”

frustrated, seojun takes his keys out of his jacket-pocket and holds them up for you too see. a line forms between your brows when you stare at the keys, waiting for him to continue,

“and what do i have to do with that?”

“are you kidding me?! you’re the person who had my keys the whole time!” seojun hisses, his voice raising which causes you to flinch lightly,

“my bike was parked in front of your house, remember? you gave my keys to that bastard!”

“i didn’t have your keys!” finally you defend yourself, slowly getting annoyed by his behavior.

“you did, i gave them to you last week!”

seojun’s face is still insanely close to yours.

“you did, but i gave them back to you.” you look into his eyes with confusion.

“what?” seojun’s expression reflects your own.

“i-i put them into your pocket. didn’t you notice?”

oh no. he absolutely didn’t.

“when did you do that?”

“the day after you gave them to me. i thought you would notice.” you mumble the last part quietly, suddenly feeling like it’s your fault.

precisely, you remember how you put seojun’s keys back in his jacket, which was hanging on his seat when he wasn’t around. taking the opportunity, you decided to quickly put them in there without having to face seojun for it, since you weren’t on good terms. 

all this time you wondered why the boy wouldn’t pick up his bike. it was standing there whole time, which made you believe that maybe he truly wanted to quit riding his motorcycle.

however, it turns out that he never noticed. how did the others find his keys, though? was it your fault? perhaps you should have simply handed them to him personally instead of being stubborn.

seojun sighs with frustration and runs his hand through his hair,

“how did they get them then?”

suddenly it all clicks. everything makes sense when you remember every detail from last night. with unease your eyes widen,

“the jacket you wore last night... it was the navy one, right?”

he thinks for a moment before nodding, waiting for you to continue.

“i put the keys in that one. maybe it slipped out while we were running?”

you glance around, not focusing on anything as you try to avoid his eyes. this doesn’t feel good at all.

a momentary look of discomfort crosses seojun’s face. he realizes that you’re possibly right and that he shouldn’t have accused you to do something like that. the fact that he already messed up by telling suho to stay away from you makes everything even worse. he feels guilty when he catches you looking around nervously. it’s not your fault.

right when he’s about to form words, two students run past him which causes him to stumble over his feet in shock. on the spur of the moment, his body is pressed on yours. at the sudden contact, you let out a small gasp when you notice that you’re stuck between him and the wall. one of his palms is still pressed against the wall behind you, while the other one holds on your shoulder to steady himself.

both of you look up at the same time, embarrassed by his sudden actions. when your eyes meet, your heart pounds against your ribs as if trying to reach thousand beats. it’s so intense that you internally pray for him not to hear it. his face is only a few centimetres away from yours which makes you freeze on spot. somehow you feel his breath on your cheek and you think you’re about to lose it. 

why are you so nervous suddenly?

why does his gaze make your heart beat so fast?

carefully, you study seojun’s face. his dark hair partly falls over his forehead, his eyes now relaxed, cheeks tinted a bright shade of pink.

in fact, seojun is blushing profusely. just like you, he’s taken aback by the closeness and can’t help but gaze into your eyes deeply. he too, feels strangely nervous, a little too nervous if truth be told.

after what seems like seconds, you can’t stand it anymore and forcefully hit his forehead with your head, which makes him stumble backwards.

probing the pained area, seojun winces, “what the hell?!”

“i-i told you i didn’t give them your keys!”, you decide to come up with that instead of showing how the boy effected you so easily,

“you always put the blame on me.” after mumbling that you rush back to the canteen in super speed, hoping for your poor heart to calm down.

seojun only watches you sprint away, unaware of how he made you feel. rubbing his forehead painfully, he shakes his head in order to get rid of his thoughts.

there’s no way. i should probably just see a doctor.

_

time passes quickly and finally the important day has come: the school trip. everyone from your grade was talking about the upcoming event the whole time, planing several games and activities. for you it seems nice too but since you’re avoiding seojun, which also automatically makes it harder to see chorong, you worry how you’re going to spend the whole time on your own. it’s a bummer that lee suho refused to join the trip. certainly, you attempted to convince your friend but unsuccessful. 

as soon as you arrive at the school gates, where everyone is already waiting with their suitcases, you feel uneasy. nearing the others, you concern about the fact that you’ll probably have to sit alone in the bus. yet, when you finally approach the others you spot suho standing next to soojin, sua and taehoon. instantly, a smile appears on your face and you greet them, adding that you’re happy for suho to join them. glancing around, it doesn’t take you long to see han seojun next to kim chorong. without looking at them for too long, you focus back on your other friend group with little uncertainty. 

one by one, students enter the bus after putting their suitcases into the bus trunk. for some reason you happen to be the last person to enter the bus. after putting your luggage into the trunk, you’re ready to go inside. yet, out of nowhere chorong appears in front of you with puppy eyes, begging for you to pack his snacks into your backpack, since his own is already full. not thinking about it too much, you agree and start placing them into your bag. chorong smiles with satisfaction and thanks you before his eyes check behind him. he winks at sua and gives her a sign after making sure you’re not paying attention to him.

sua then pushes her boyfriend and soojin inside when nobody is left, leaving chorong and you alone. eventually you manage to push in all the snacks into your bag. you’re surprised when you see that everyone is already in the bus and follow chorong inside as well. 

as soon as you enter, suho finds your eyes and waves at you, indicating that he saved you a seat next to him. happily, you nod and wait for the others in front of you to take their seats. 

you fail to notice chorong’s eyes widen when he stops in front of you, not allowing you to sit next to lee suho. sua understands the situation and slightly pushes kang soojin towards the empty seat next to suho. 

oh, well.

both of your friends exchange surprised looks. however, seconds later soojin smiles at the boy next to him, starting a conversation.

as a matter of fact, you feel upset. disappointed, you move on, eyes not leaving chorong’s back. who are you going to sit next to now? 

when the boy in front eventually arrives at the very back, you’re concerned. surprisingly, kim chorong takes the seat behind han seojun, leaving the last seat, which was next to seojun, for you.

han seojun doesn’t bother looking up, as he’s focused on his phone. clearing your throat, you request,

“chorong-ah, change seats with me.” 

“nah, i like this seat.” stubbornly, he crosses his arms across his chest, head leaning against the window with closed eyes.

the short conversation catches seojun’s attention and he looks up with curiosity. after taking a look at the filled seats his eyes land and you. he’s surprised when he notices that you have to take seat next to him.

letting out a quiet sigh, you give chorong one last glare before sitting next to seojun. this is either going to be really awkward or provoking.

of course, once again you don’t notice chorong peeking at the both of you before giving sua and taehoon a thumbs up, content that their plan worked successfully.

“are you sure this is a good idea?” taehoon whispers to his girlfriend,

“they look like they’ll throw hands at each other any moment.”

“ ah, don’t worry. they’ll make up sooner than you think.” sua takes a quick glimpse of you plugging in your earpods without exchanging any words with the boy next to you.

but sua was wrong.

half an hour already passes and you still haven’t spoken any word. although, there‘s a small desire of talking to you in seojun, he can‘t make himself form the right words. 

right when chorong is about to lose hope and fall asleep, something finally happens.

feeling tired from all the packing last night, you sense your eyelids getting heavier and you’re struggling to keep them open. nonetheless, you’re no longer able to do so and you fall asleep instantly.

out of the blue seojun feels your head resting on his shoulder. the boy is dumbstruck when his eyes widen, holding in his breath for a moment. his body shuts down and he doesn’t know how to react when his posture stiffens. besides that, he feels the skin on his shoulder tingle. 

seojun almost curses under his breath when his heart races once again. this time, there’s a fluttering in his stomach as well, causing him to go speechless. from the corner of his eye, he observes your expression. a slight frown forms on your face, hair covering parts of it, lips in a small pout. 

no matter what you do, you look so effortlessly... good. it doesn’t make a difference to him if you’re annoyed, confused, happy or simply tired. he always notices himself looking at you the same way, with adoring eyes. attempting to ignore it, he chose to tease you, not daring to ever show you. 

he knew he went to far and feels stupid for his actions. yet, why doesn’t he just apologize? perhaps he doesn’t want to accept the fact that you mean much more to him. perhaps he’s afraid he’ll never mean more to you.

still asleep, you unknowingly move your head closer to seojun’s chest, feeling more comfortable this way. after that, he feels your arm wrap around his torso, almost snuggling him.

the boy’s heart melts at the sight of you. although his heart feels like exploding, he doesn’t want to admit that he kinda enjoys the skin-ship with his you. right when he’s about to run his hand through your hair, the sound of a camera catches his attention.

he looks up to find sua taking a polaroid picture, chorong awing at the sight of his two friends sharing a moment.

“aw, you guys are so cute!” sua jumps up and down, while handing seojun the polaroid picture.

suddenly seojun gets aware of his surroundings and the situation he finds himself in. he blinks a few times before moving his shoulder purposely while coughing, making your head fall down in a swift move.

before it hits his lap, you open your eyes and rub them with a displeased expression,

“what happened?”, you ask with a low voice, completely clueless. 

“why- why do you fall asleep on my shoulder? that’s so uncomfortable. get a pillow or something!”

seojun stammers in the beginning, eyes not able to meet your tired ones. your friends sigh with annoyance and return to their seats, disappointed by seojun’s change in mood.

“sorry.” after rubbing your eyes, you steal a short glance at seojun. you’re slightly embarrassed and fix your hair while sitting up properly.

the boy only shrugs, quickly hiding the polaroid in the pocket inside of his jacket before you can see it.

seemingly, this trip is not going to be easy for han seojun.

little does he know, this was only the beginning of cupid chorong’s plan.

_

to be continued...

[kozutenshi]

INK—KATSUKI BAKUGO

prompt: every lie you tell appears on your soulmate’s skin.

what: 1.6k of soulmate fluff in an established relationship.

warnings: none!

He didn't want to meet you.

He didn't want to see the other end of his ink, where the dark lines and curves of his lies find itself before it fades. He didn't want to meet someone who will actually accept him: his "greatness", temper, doubts, and all his flaws.

He didn't want to touch you, so he settled on doubting the concept of soulmates, ignoring the facts that surround him every single day. After all, contradicting what he was scared of is one of the things he had learned to do to cope with the sudden changes in his life.

Yet, he often found himself staring on his skin, waiting for your next lie. He found himself having the urge to know your voice even though he doubts he'll find it unattractive.

In short, he was hooked as expected.

So here he was, by the beach. The evening is near as the air further ruffled his hair, his outfit proving to be useful. The red maroon long-sleeved turtleneck he wore helped in regulating his temperature, even if the winter had little to no effect on him as he stood nervously numb. His dark baggy pants that are hiding a knife somewhere in its pockets contrasted how body hugging his top was. Sighing, his fingers reached for the silver chain necklace around his neck.

He wondered if he overdressed for the occasion.

The sunset was calming to see, the total opposite of his jumble of nerves, his red eyes glowing even if they were cast downwards. He could feel the exhaustion in his bones after going through back to back missions to free up his schedule. The mask and the glasses had tried to hide his identity but failed as people still swarmed around him when they saw his red eyes through the lightly tinted lens.

Not like he was complaining.

Free from the disguise, he stood in front of the bay his old friend had cleaned up for his training, waiting for your arrival.

"Katsuki!" The few people around close enough to hear you looked at him as you waved towards his direction. His hand found its way on his forehead, a tired look on his face as people started to swarm around him again. You acted quickly and grabbed his hand that had started sweating and bolted away, to the street where the two of you were supposed to go eat. Your hand felt warm in his as you dragged him away, laughing at the commotion.

With Bakugo, the press tracking his every move was not new, especially with him being an influencer, a hero at such a young age. You've come to terms with it after loving him for years, recalling the photos they had taken of the two of you on a date or a simple walk. Annoying, but, unexpectedly, tolerable.

"Sorry to keep you waiting. Were you alone for a long time?" He was glad you didn't address the public's attention to him and settled on focusing your eyes on him. He didn't want to upset you but he knew you'd still see through it: first because the blank ink will always find its way on your skin every time he tells a lie, and second, because you know him that well after years of putting up with his nature.

"Yeah, but I didn't mind." The two of you had slowed down, your hand now out of his grasp as you tried to catch your breath. "The sunset was nice anyway."

In the span of five years since he met you, the two of you found yourselves in your own careers, often assigned to separate missions, far even, pursuing your own dreams. The two of you rarely met up now, and the only way to communicate was through calls and texts every night or at every free time you two share. And every time he sees you, the feeling always felt like the first time he sees you in the same high school you attended as him, watching his lies line up in your skin just to check if his eyes were betraying him or not.

"That's great. I was getting worried you'll leave me since you didn't even want to know me at first." He grumbled as you chuckled, lightly tapping his arm as a sign that you were just kidding.

"Well, you couldn't blame me. Soulmates sounded really dumb." The red of the lanterns blended with the hues of his eyes as he looked at your figure, excitedly pointing at every food stall. The month of February was coming to an end so the cold didn't affect him much anymore, but he found himself craving your warmth in many ways than one.

"Everything was dumb for you if it wasn't part of your goal," you jokingly retorted which he snorted at. He couldn't exactly deny that. "What are you spacing out for anyway? You looked, and still do by the way, like a lost Pomeranian." His face scrunched and was about to start yelling at you which you were prepared to laugh at when loud cheerful yells can be heard from the distance. He was clearly unfocused, but is unwilling to tell you about it. A small subtle blush crept up his face with the thought of finally being alone with you after so many months, which he then quickly hid behind the crepes you handed him.

The food park started getting busier, and you thought back to how silent and peaceful the beach was. The bench the two of you sat on proved to be not as secluded as the two of you thought, people looking sideways with giddy smiles and recognition.

"Do you want to go back to the beach?" He looked around subtly, noticing the growing crowd and nodded.

Hand in hand, the two of you walked in comfortable silence sipping on your drinks, only because both of you didn't want people to overhear you. The walk was peaceful, his warm hand anchoring you to safety. That even with the danger of the night, or the two of you probably making the headlines if people recognized you by tomorrow, you felt safe and surrounded only by his familiar caramel scent mixed with the distant salt of the beach. The lanterns slowly disappeared from your peripheral visions, going back to a normally lit street.

Loving Bakugo wasn't a small feat. You remember when the two of you shared the same lies, repeating it as if the two of you wanted to love each other that every lie would turn to a truth.

Maybe that was why the two of you had avoided looking on each other's skin for months, getting to know and bonding over nothing without the influence of the dark ink.

Maybe that was why the two of you refused to exchange i love you's later, opting to show each other's affection in other ways then seeing the remnants of the three words like a faded tattoo with a dejected look on both your faces.

This time, the evening has fallen over the beach, the dark veil of stars reflected over the waves instead of the pink and orange hues when he was waiting. The stars shone brightly, the moon unseen, blended into the night. He gazed at your figure as he wordlessly stopped, letting you walk in front of him, and gave into his urge, wrapping his arms around you from behind and burying himself in your scent, in your familiar warmth.

"I missed you."

You stood there in petrified silence before melting in his arms, understanding, contentment, love and warmth flooding your senses.

"I missed you too."

His eyes willed you to drown in his scarlet petals as the two of you wordlessly swayed to his rough hums, his rough tune blending with your own notes. Strangely, it was a pleasant melody; not the best, yet, the softness behind them seemed fitting for the night's ambience.

The stars gazed at the two of you as if you were the only people in the world, but he could care less about the stars.

You were the only light in his eyes.

He didn't want to meet you, to damage such a dream for him, but right now, he knew he didn't want to lose you, spilling pure moonlight instead of the night dark ink of both your lies.

citizens(taglist): @celestialarchiveshq @rendezvoi

footer: reblogs are appreciated!

[mushroom-cartel--writing]

begrudging (love-)blindness

Summary: You are, to him, unquestionably, terrifyingly lovely.

Relationship(s): Gojo Satoru & Reader, Gojo Satoru/Reader

Note(s):

Here’s the link to read this on AO3! (You know the drill, extra tags, different notes, the format I intended, etc.)

Personally, I think this is hot garbage in terms of structure and pacing (it’s loosely all strung together is what I’m saying, but I just needed to get it off my chest before I wrote anything else. Yet... I guess I had fun? Yeah. I did!

There's spoilers from the manga mixed with headcanon.

I still hate spacing and formatting on Tumblr, it sucks. Please, please, please, this is for your own good, click the AO3 link, this fic is such an eyesore on this platform.

|||

There’s a tug at your chest, sending you hurtling backwards and into something hard. A wall. Tiles. Smooth.

The heavens and the earth view one another through a layer of haze of light at night.

There are thousands of people gathering, their footsteps thundering echoes in your ears. Their chatter is a constant hum in the air. It stinks of sweat.

(“The train will be arriving soon. Please stand behind the yellow line—”)

You sigh.

“Dammit, Satoru! A little warning would be nice,” you hiss to the man. You hear him whisper something back but his voice is swallowed up by the crowds and then he, too, is consumed.

You feel him wander farther away from you; not left with much choice, you follow him. And down, down, down you go.

You pause when there’s an invisible wall blocking your path of his own making. “Hey!!” you shout, starting to scream expletives at him from the top of his lungs and he doesn’t look back.

A few seconds pass. The people, these poor, clueless civilians who just want to go home for the night are like sardines in a can, their bodies pushing and shoving. For space. For air. Requiring neither, you phase through the wall and the remaining levels to catch up to him, the thoughts going through your head solely focused on figuring out why he has let you out. He wouldn’t do something like this without warning you beforehand.

Why now? What now?

You pull out from the shadowed cracks of the feeble curtain set up along the fifth floor underground, suddenly feeling a heaviness you hardly ever experience. You run a cursory swipe over his teeth; the blood in the air is fresh, there are more civilians down here than up above, more sardine-ing (their presence is fading away, the above platforms’ panicked din becomes extinguished, it’s ghastly quiet, a moment frozen in time), but no Satoru. Not physically.

He loves you, you know. (You don’t understand though… Why?)

It’s a burden, draining you of what vigour is left in your soul, barely just clinging on to this plane itself.

His love is a curse in itself, really.

"I don't want you to see me hurt," he had said often, back when you were children, oblivious to the power of those words until you got older.

What they meant.

What they did—to him and you.

Still as the wind, you stand together, hands brushing up against each other's, your fingers infected with poison where his is not; the calloused skin and scars shared between you weaving a tale for the ages that will never be told.

You’re both nineteen at heart but certainly not in spirit.

You lean against him, completely unseen, waiting for him to flick his finger back.

Waiting for him to obliterate the first person he thought he could trust outside.

He doesn’t. You disappear for another time, expectant.

His love is a burden and you're not sure where you would be without it.

If he hadn't looked your way, would you be the same person you are today?

It's frightening, these thoughts of yours, but he usually chases them off when he senses them bubbling to the surface. (You want him to be annoyed.) A casual grin and stance, a flick of his wrist, a rush of wind by your side, then the phantom pressure is gone, yes, gone, however—it's never banished completely. It never can be.

You don't remember the colour of his eyes but there's a memory of you claiming they looked like marbles, buried somewhere (somehow), in the back of your mind. Like the marbles you'd smash glass bottles to obtain, their fizzy contents only drained seconds beforehand; stubby, sticky, small fingers sorting through the shards, squashing ants in the process.

Those very same fingers, now, haven't changed a bit, save for the chipped nails and whatnot duress they’ve sustained throughout his life.

You use them to push the blindfold up to his forehead, taking in the surrounding sights.

Why now? The fact that you can feel them, his fingers and everything else—that’s a bad sign. A very bad sign.

You breathe, inflating the faux lungs.

Finally, you see it. The reason why you’re walking and talking and fully corporeal.

You gulp at the living corpse, its stitches wonky and fresh. Cerebrospinal fluid spills from its face in fat droplets and lands upon the clothes of a dead man. Disgusting.

“So I was right in the end,” you say, more for yourself than anyone else. “You’re not Suguru.”

(Satoru owes you a thousand yen. You told him to burn the body immediately. Or, you know, the usual. But what’d he do instead? He went and passed it off to a third party! Man, why’d that old hag have to kick the bucket so soon… If she was still around she’d probably kick Satoru’s dumb ass for trying to be decent.)

“How are you free?” Not-Suguru asks.

The real Suguru wouldn’t ask about your appearance. He would make a comment about how the temperature has dropped and burrow into his collar. He wouldn’t question things.

The real Suguru never acknowledged you, but he knew there was something in the corner of his eye that took the image of his friend and laughed alongside them when they pulled their antics during missions.

The real Suguru is gone.

Who the hell knows where Shouko is.

Yeah. A little warning would have been nice. Real fucking nice.

There’s a cube with a dozen eyes between the two of you, the crater on the ground betrays its unassuming weight. Satoru’s muted presence, a shrunken pearl of light, emanates from the cube.

Not-Suguru follows your line of sight to it.

Giving him an answer would be a waste of your time.

You can’t, they say.

Young master, please, don’t go there, implores the servants and guards.

The elders, his grandmother especially, tell him not to enter the storehouse tucked away in the garden behind an avenue of camellia trees because that’s something they’ll discuss when he’s older.

He doesn’t listen to them, the curiosity of a three-year-old child cannot be satisfied by mere words. (“Let this be known,” the gardener says in his defense, one cold summer’s day. It is raining outside. His grandmother shoots the only person in the compound that doesn’t treat him like a blind fool with a withering glare. He does not see them again until—)

What’s in the storehouse?

A library of cursed objects? Spiritual remnants, artefacts, texts, poisons, weapons?

Maybe the mummified corpse of an ancestor whom they keep around to ward off evil?

Perhaps a curse, frozen in time forevermore?

Maybe it’s nothing and the adults are all in on some kind of elaborate hoax, he figures. Mm, yeah. Sounds about right. No one else knows about the storehouse.

It’s old and earthen. Wild plants curl the walls to one side and splotches of moss grow on the tiled roof. Where the sun hits least is pristine. Clean. He wonders if that’s where the wards are placed, out of sight, out of mind.

Oh.

Standing in the entrance of the open door with bare feet, at the threshold of the aged structure, fulfilling his desire, he learns why they wanted him to remain ignorant.

It’s a child. (A human…? This whole situation is off.) A kid his age. He can’t tell whether or not they’re older or younger. They might be a bit taller, though.

No, he wants to shout, this can’t be it! He stomps his foot. That’s cliché! Boring, boring, boring! Again, he strikes the ground. Ugh, whatever—

A sigh escapes the emaciated figure sitting in the darkness, hunched over themself against the wall of the bare storehouse.

“Ah, my f̶̥̍r̵̝͐̏i̷̳end,” they start, softly. “M̶̹̦͒y̸͍̮̋̚ f̸͉̓̋r̴͇̦̕ǐ̴̦͇e̵̫͠n̷̢͉̅̓ḍ̸̅, my very dear, old friend. You have returned.

“My e̷̳̭̿y̶͈͂e̷͔̭̎͘s̴̭̄̊, have you come to give them back? Ask for several others?

“I have waited for you, as promised. Come. Closer. Please. I do not know how long has passed since I last gazed upon your visage. Do not be afraid.

“I no longer lust for flesh as fervently as before, I will not ask of y̸͖͔̒o̵̳̍u̵͍̘̓ ą̴͕̈́n̵̫̓d̸̛̳͛ y̵̻͑̎o̵̖̥͒͌ų̴͋̐r̵̦̩̓s a sacrifice to please me.”

Their voice is garbled, the resemblance to a broken radio off-pitch jarring his reaction time, a music box opened underwater gurgling, ghosts beat to the rhythm of the blood in his ears and titter buried mysteries.

In the corner of his eyes distant stars burn, galaxies explode to life and die repeatedly, the vast cosmos is shredded apart. Universes are swallowed whole. The plane he stands upon bends to the will of the one whose gifts he uses carelessly to play the role of a deity and dictate the balance of the world.

People have said [they] reflect the very heavens.

His faith wanes.

.

a trio of ragtag orphans,

escapees, survivors and starved,

on the verge of being

no better than beasts,

happen upon a traveller taking respite from the winding roads.

a foreigner no doubt

they guess from the strange hued garb;

rest, everyone around these parts,

they know comes not

easy to scum, scoundrels, sinners and

deceivers alike.

.

.

.

mad ones, rushing to death

—without protection i must add—

oh my darling children, you are!

consume my flesh,

defend those unseeing,

purge the blight

and you shall witness

my return before long, indeed?!

.

They do not move and neither does he.

What he assumes to be their head tilts ever so to the side, gauging him, this fool of a boy trespassing on their domain. This part of the garden, the little boy realises too late, is theirs.

This, the storehouse and now him.

(—the gardener finds him sprawled out on his back come dusk. They help him to his feet and dust him off, the sparkle in his eyes an unusual occurrence; they ask their precious young master what happened and he points them in the direction of the doors sealed shut.

“I took a peek inside,” he lies. Children are supposed to do that, right?

“And what did you find?”

“Nothing.” The gardener knows he’s a bad liar.

“Good. Now come.” They lead him away from the path of the camellias. “Lady Mitsue has been beside herself over you, mister.”

His grandmother hasn’t. She probably knows what he has done and will instruct him to feed the council what they want to hear. My son was too soft, she asserts before and after every meeting with those windbags.

You have to do better.

And his father is dead, so only time will tell who’s right.)

He starts having weird dreams (memories?) several days later.

Trying to ignore them doesn’t work.

Every waking moment is subject to gore.

He has to resist the urge to scratch his own eyes out while he trains.

In the world beneath his eyelids, there are shadowy figures claiming it best he is blinded and locked away and fed what no other soul could hope to consume without issue. And just as they force open his jaw—every night, every time—he wakes up.

Satoru doesn’t know what to make of it. Doesn’t know what to make of you.

One day, he dreams of years of living without sunlight causing you to screw your not-eyes shut and look away upon the opening of a door into your domain. When you recover, you turn to the door, the emotion of curiosity tugging for your attention out of the myriad of beings you’ve eaten.

Standing at the threshold, ethereal, desperate and short of breath, is a young man. In his arms is a woman, his wife, you presume. They’re stark shades of white, binary stars of a celestial system long dead.

You smile, recognising them in an instant. “Ah, my old friends, children of my children’s children a dozen times over, tell me, what is it you wish for?”

“My wife and our child,” says the man, “please, I beg of you, save them!”

Oh? A healing? It’s been quite some time since that was last requested of you.

You skitter to the pair’s side and shut the door gently behind them, ushering them further in.

You click your not-tongue at the woman’s state, wondering why no one thought to come to you earlier. If they did, the price they’d have to pay would be much less than what you’re about to tell the man. Humans are such prideful creatures, Satoru knows this, but he can’t help but feel tense as you instruct the man to lay the woman down and state your cost.

First, he opens his mouth. Then it shuts. Opens. Shuts. The man regards his dear wife with something Satoru has never seen before in the eyes of those around him.

His reply?

“I accept—”

A harsh smack to the head disrupts the memory; he looks up, unsurprised to meet his grandmother’s gaze, wrinkled eyes so very much like his own piercing his soul.

“Being distracted in the middle of a fight is unbecoming of you, boy,” she says. “What seems to be the matter?”

He can’t tell her.

He stays silent.

“Satoru.” She raises her hand, fingers crossed, indicating the void’s opening. “We Gojou pride ourselves on our ability to adapt. That is why, in fact, I say my son was too soft. He could not accept that he would lose my daughter-in-law and the child she carried in her womb to common illness. He could not accept that it was impossible to cheat death. He could not accept the position he was placed in. And for that, he died and of the aforementioned two, only you lived. Do you understand?”

No. He doesn’t want to understand.

What is adaptation if they’ve yet to rid themselves of and bow down to your constant presence? Is that not their most fatal flaw?

You eat them.

One life in exchange for another; you told his father it was the only way.

You were given the corpse of his mother a hundred days after his birth by the elders.

Every Gojou after death, you grind their bones between your teeth and their flesh rots at the bottom of your belly. Their soulful essence fights for dominance against the forces of the innumerable curses the clans feeds you—the hate, the sentiment, the sheer bursts of techniques and mighty powers clashing, click, click, click—you embody and absorb the aftermath of each childish scuffle, playing the bored jailer adjudicator. Corpses, tools, objects, energy and flesh. It’s how you’ve lived for so long without light or human thought to taint you: the jujutsu world’s dirty little secret, waste disposal.

You are, to him, unquestionably, terrifyingly lovely.

He loves you for that one reason.

A means to an end, forever.

(The boy, a few days shy of his fourth birthday and inauguration, does not know what love is. He thinks he does, having read the definition in a dictionary in order to familiarise you with modern speech, but love is not a word to be thrown around lightly the way he does.)

“I do,” he lies again, this time, to himself. “I understand everything.”

His sight is black.

He pushes back against the current, against instinct telling him to relinquish control and reaches forward for the dream that he was ripped from.

Your true form towers over his mother’s prone form, dripping ichor and the fluid of loose entrails all over. His father stays seated even when you lift an arm to draw blood, the man facing you without a trace of fear.

“I accept—but on the condition that my child receives your protection.”

“My p̶̹̽r̴̽ͅo̵̠͐ť̷̬e̶̺̊c̶̻̒t̷̙͑i̵̮̓o̶̱n̷̖͂?” Do they not teach the younger generations what that entails?

“Yes. My ancestors wrote that you were a benevolent being in a past life. That you were a kind-hearted human who accidentally drank poison before being found and buried alive, condemned and reviled, forcing you to become what you are now. Does that still not hold true?” His father’s face is hopeful.

It doesn’t. But who are you to tell him that? That ‘benevolent being’ never existed in the first place. You’ve always been this.

The vivisepulture part was true, but the beginning? Debatable. Your memories of ‘being human’ are foggy; you’re not sure if they’re real or someone else’s. Satoru’s is the clearest thus far because you abide within him. And he’s young, there’s little to garner.

What other nonsense has been made truth in the time you have withdrawn from the world?

He wants to go down that rabbit hole.

You grab the cube and run, warping reality in your wake.

You are many things.

Alive, you are first; secondly a parent, a teacher and a friend; cursed thrice times over; quarter something-something or rather by this point; and last, your hollowness complements the damned hallowed.

You are Gojou Satoru but not.

His skin peels off in delicate scales from the speed you’re going.

The first and last time you puppeteer his body, Satoru invokes his father’s contract with you for the second time in his life.

Like the first occurrence, it happens by accident.

(The first occurrence is a stain on your memory.

Mitsue looked her grandson in the eye and tasked him with a futile quest, one that would decide the future headship of their clan. You personally thought such practices outdated but you held his tongue and grit his teeth, faking laughter for the audience they had.

She reminded you too much of your youngest, both in the way she cobbled herself together and how she suspended time long enough to catch a glimpse of you hunched beside him, flickering in and out of her void domain with the ease of a toddler climbing free of their crib.

Beautiful and deadly.

He nearly died.)

He is unaware of the finer details, but where his consciousness ends at getting a scalpel to head, it rouses again with him standing before the man who has the blood of Satoru’s friends on his hands and left him to bleed out undecapitated.

On a high from escaping Izanami’s clutches, he sprouts math and whatever nonsense off the top of his head and ragdolls up, down, across and through the air.

He feels like a being higher than the gods. Doesn’t mean he is, though.

He’s barely in control.

Violent swashes of red and blue fill the sky. He sees beyond his opponent rising from the earth the heavens condemning his breaching unto their space.

“Hey, stranger, did you know purple was her favourite colour?”

“Whose?”

|

“Satoru.”

“Hm?”

“You are Satoru, right?”

“Yessssss?”

“You… you’ve got a bit of…” Suguru gestures vaguely around the lower half of his face.

“Oh.” You rub the corner of his mouth with the pad of his thumb and see it come back tinged pink. The drying drool on his sleeves is used to rub the rest of the blood away. “Thanks.”

“Have you found her?”

“Amanai? Her body?” Suguru flinches. Your gaze is drawn to the cultists clapping. “Yeah, I did. Sorry.”

“What are you apologising for?”

“I don’t know,” Satoru says. “I feel like killing these people. Should we?”

“Why?”

“I’m still h̸͓̟͐u̴̦͗n̴͇͈̅͛g̵͔̒̕ŗ̴͕͂͘y̸͚͍͘͘.” Two wasn’t even a snack.

“I’m angry that we failed too. But we can’t do anything now, it’s out of our hands.”

|

Several days later finds him back at the entrance of the storehouse, none the worse for wear.

In the shadow of the building grows a lone weed.

“It’s changed.”

“Of course it has.”

“Will I end up like them?”

“Yes.”

[fallen029]

Who wants a middle of the chapter spoiler for Operation Bosco? 

“Hey.”

He whispered this when the hour was even later and they’d washed off again, this time together, in a hurried way. Now, in bed for the final time, Haven draped herself over his lap as Locke sat up, glancing around the room and sighing, frequently, though the noises hardly even got the smallest of peeking from his girlfriend. She laid there, eyes shut, just breathing, in and out, steady. She was topless, fully unconcerned with this fact, and seemed content to drift off this way, for as long as he would allow her.

Locke found it difficult to move her.

Though he needed to stretch out himself, get full usage of the fact they were in an inn, with a nice, cozy bed and, well, maybe questionable sheets, but way better than their sleeping bags, the man found it difficult to make the motions. He knew Haven would give easily, as she no doubt wanted to get some usage out of a fluffy pillow, more than his bony, crossed legs, anyways, but he just couldn’t bring himself to take the action.

Sometimes he forgot. About how beautiful his girlfriend was.

She was the daughter of Mirajane Strauss, a name he’d grown with and mostly ignored, hearing it exchanged with everything ranging from the guild’s barmaid to, maybe, one of it’s greatest mages.

But once, he heard her name used in a different way. Mentioned in passing. About magazine spreads and modeling and...she’d just always been Haven and Marin’s mom. The Master’s wife. He thought she was pretty, maybe, when he was a little boy, but once he stopped being a little boy and heard of this past, it was difficult not to spend a night up in his parent’s attic when they were gone on a job, digging through old boxes to find the old stack of Sorcerer mags that he knew his mom had, because she never threw out any written work, and it…

Made him feel gross.

The next time he saw Mirajane.

And Haven called him out on it, the way he blushed when her mom served them juices, back then, as he was still a year or so away from openly getting away with slinging beers at the hall, the blonde even longer. She couldn’t understand (and he’d have never even ventured to explain) to her what he thought of for a good month, every tie he saw her mother.

That’s what Haven could be.

Now.

In current day.

Or could have been, maybe, as she’d aged past Mira’s prime modeling days.

Still, she’d always more or less rejected this legacy in favor for the one her father had carved. The one her mother, actually, had rejected for herself.

Haven had grown into being a woman the same way she went about being a child or teen; by putting all her focus into how talented of a mage she could become. Not how to properly dress to accentuate her body or accurately match shades to her complexion.

Sometimes, when Marin became only slightly interested in the most basic of beauty concepts (and Laxus relinquished some of his leash on his youngest) and Mirajane would ecstatically give her tips or even try out different makeup with her, there was a vague offer to Haven. To join them. Or even just her mother.

But that idea felt gross and wearing dresses or even a nice top felt restrictive and it was hard enough for her to even pull on something other than a sports bra and Mirajane gave up, eventually, while her Aunt Evergreen would only sigh sometimes, at her teenage nice, chiding her in snide ways over how very little interest she’d garner this way, from boys her age.

She wasn’t interested in boys though, then. Or after, Locke thought sometimes. Even now. Or maybe he just worried.

Her feelings towards other people, or at least the other relationships she let him know about, all seemed based purely on physical power. The men were stronger than her, better connected, and this bothered her in a way that she couldn’t quite explain that eventually bled into what Haven derived as sexual attraction.

Or at least that’s how Locke viewed it, when he broke it down, and it made sense, maybe.

Maybe.

This left a rather big hole though. A him sized hole. Because he knew Haven had long surpassed him in the offensive magic field and he had no hope of catching her. He had no interest in it. He might physically be able to overpower her, but her magic was the greatest equalizer. He had no match for it. Only cures.

So what did she want with him? Anyways?

She’d call him whiny if he questioned it.

Actually, she had, any time he tried to explain it to her, growing annoyed or thinking he was passing some sort of judgment over her, over her interests and though he saw where she was coming from, was able to recognize both their person insecurities were butting up against one another, he would have liked an answer.

Why him? Or them?

She said frequently that she could feel it, when she was with him, just this absolute need to be together, and Locke guessed he felt it too, maybe, but the way Haven talked about it…

He had to address internally, at times, just why he wanted to he with her too. It was, after all, part of the equation. Sometimes he felt unsure.

When he was a teen, it kind of felt like the natural turn in their relationship. He dated most all of the girls he knew, seriously and in that stupid teenager way, where it felt serious for all of a week and then unimportant the next.

Haven was his best friend and though he was young and dumb, he wasn’t young and dumb enough to not realize that if that next week turned and it all turned out for not, then he’d be losing that. But it felt worth the risk. She was a girl, who was interested in him, and pretty.

Those were most of his only qualifications.

But Haven came with the bonus of having known one another their entire lives, so there wasn’t as much guessing over the little things. They could go on jobs together, blow their jewels together, and while she was his first, in the important way, he’d gotten all the unimportant things out of the way before while she hadn’t, which finally gave him something of an upper hand over her.

He got to play the older, cooler boyfriend for awhile, instead of the friend she tried to instigate physical fights out of at every turn.

Thing about it any deeper back then would have been dumb.

At the first chance of things possibly getting more serious, Haven ran.

He liked to think that he had no part in this, but maybe…

Had they never dated, were they not together when her father finally excommunicated her (because Locke imagined this coming to pass eventually either way), he always kinda thought that, maybe, she’d have asked him to come with her.

Like you would a best friend.

But asking him to run away away with her, taking him with her, would have implied something much deeper. Something Haven couldn’t face then.

So she ran away.

He didn’t blame her for that anymore.

He scared her, maybe, in he bedroom that day, when he offered to move in together, that they could live together, really together, and they’d figure it out.

Together.

Together took a lot longer for Haven to come to terms with.

He convinced himself sometimes, that year and some odd months, when she wouldn't talk to him, before they just happened to cross paths in Crocus, that he never really liked her. That they never really fit.

How could they?

Locke liked nice girls.

Nice people, really.

All of his friends were good guys or women who didn’t spend the free days seemingly plotting how to annoy him once he arrived home. The people he dated, the women he was serious about, even after Crocus, were all smart and sweet and they’d never purposely say something to him, to hurt his feelings, to win, in a singular moment, at all costs.

Being interested in Haven was childish.

Their relationship was rooted in how they felt, as children, when she decided she had to be the best, at everything, a goal he stood in the way of, while he attempted to do as he’d been told, ordered almost, from a young age, too early to remember, to look out for her. Haven. Make sure she was okay and watch over her, because she’d get herself in trouble, Locke, if you don’t keep her from it.

The fighting and clawing they did some times, the yelling and screaming, the way she pushed him away first, always, before accepting his affection was part of childhood quirks that they couldn’t outgrow together, that they brought out in each other, that she didn’t have.

He imagined.

When she was with other people.

That he didn’t have.

He knew.

When he was with other people.

He could be with most any woman. Or at least he liked to think. He was reasonably attractive, fit, and was the newest S-Class wizard in Fairy Tail. If his intent was to find a woman who drove him mad, he could find one that would allow him to do it from the comfort of his own home, waiting around for him after S-Class jobs, where she’d take half his money and they could hate each other too. They could hate each other just as much as Haven hated him, any time he told her off or attempted to keep her from getting herself killed, and fuck just as passionately, maybe, driven by that hatred and sick attraction, but without the constant headaches and mental turmoil that came about from loving the only woman in the world that seemed equally as pleased with your pain as she did your pleasure.

Haven’s body was scarred. And broken, in some places, reminders of hard fought battles that he hadn’t been there to heal. She seemed to fluctuate between under fed and toned depending on her current financial status and, given that they were coming off living in Magnolia to now scarping by between jobs in Bosco, she was losing definition again. Her eyes were striking, but there was something in them that wasn’t present in her mother’s. Something almost sinister.

She wasn’t perfect.

For him, he knew that, but she also just wasn’t perfect, in general, and it was easy to think of her, at times, in the way she presented herself, unstyled and almost boyish, in certain ways.

Masculine, but only parts that were toxic and cruel.

These weren’t traits that he naturally found himself attracted to, but they worked on his girlfriend and it was just easy to forget.

Not that night though, as her breasts rose and fell as she was nearly asleep, before his words, only peeking an eye open then to stare up at him, a solid, “No,” ready on his lips, no doubt expecting him to be interested in something more that night.

But he wasn’t.

Not even as he raised a hand to gently trace over her breast, where her guild marking lied now. He knew the pattern well, the emblem ingrained in his brain, but it still tripped him up at times. Seeing it there. Instead of adoring her back, not exactly centered, but slightly lower, and he used to laugh when he was a kid.

Because it reminded him of the Exceeds.

The memory was overrode now, with distant memories of making out in his bed at his parents house, cuddling or just spending time together, in his room, when his finger would stroke at her back, tracing the fairy that laid there as Haven seemed to struggle between how she felt about this.

The color had changed. Somewhere along the way. It was red now, Locke knew, instead of black like it had been when she was trying to imitate her father, maybe, as a child. It meant more now, different things at least, and he liked to think about how well it matched his eyes, even though he knew this would never be Haven’s true reasoning.

Red was for Ravan, who’d sacrificed his own in losing her.

She never told him this, out loud, but Locke was very good, he knew she had to know, at figuring most things out.

“Mmm?” Haven moaned then, softly, her eyes only blinking open from his word, no matter how soft it was.

“I just…”

And he hadn’t wanted to. The whole point was that he didn’t want to. Move. Shift. Stop whatever moment they were having, or he was having, then, because she looked too beautiful there, with the moon just peaking around the curtain of a room they’d never seen again, in a place he hoped to avoid from here on out, and he didn’t think he just should just bring it to a close.

Just like that.

“You’re my best friend.” He was moving as he spoke, shifting, so he laid long ways on the bed as well, nuzzling heaving into Haven, beneath her previously outstretched arm, into her armpit, hiding maybe, from himself and the fact he’d let it pass, forced it to fade, caused the closure of the moment. “That’s all.”

“I’m your best friend,” she muttered tiredly, “and that’s all I am?”

“No.”

He took in a slow breath and she smelled so good then, so did he, they smelled good together, and he wanted to get her under the covers, where they could snuggle and drift off.

Together.

“Then,” Haven whispered and she shifted away at first, as always, only giving in when he moved with her, “that’s all you wanted to tell me? And we can finally really go to bed?”

“No.”

It wasn’t.

All he wanted to tell her.

It’s all he could get out, because the rest would sound bad, he thought, to speak aloud, even to the only person he could speak aloud anything.

She didn’t want to fight about Porter again, and he was fine with that, he understood why she felt that way.

But the thoughts that were bothering him now went a lot deeper than that.

To explain them though, to mention her family, her mother, their upbringing, what it all meant, why she loved him or even liked him and what she thought about herself, the way she was and looked and acted, as well as what he thought about it too, as well as himself and what she thought about him and it would only end in an argument.

That night.

Because he could never get it out to her in a way that wouldn’t sound like an attack or just an attempt to bring up old wounds for the sack of rubbing it in her face that he was there, the whole time, waiting for her to come to her senses, to come back to him, and she’d been the one in the wrong, who’d gone off and ran around with the wrong people and had gotten hurt, been killed, all because she wouldn't just listen to him.

All because she couldn't be together when him, when she’d only been a week away from seventeen.

“Then what?” Haven asked, a frown present in her voice as she insisted, “What other option is there?”

“Too many.”

“Locke-”

“You’re so beautiful, Haven,” he insisted then, as she sat up some, just to frown down at him, and the man only stared back up at her, into her so deep blue eyes, the exact opposite of his flat reds, with every ounce of honesty he had to him. “You always are. And I don’t tell you that enough. I love so much about you and I think sometimes I just get so caught up in all the madness that’s constantly in front of us that I forget-”

“Shut up!” And she was moving then, to the head of the bed, shoving at him in the process, even grabbing a pillow in the end, to hit him with. “You big idiot.”

Locke only moved to lay properly in the bed as well, insisting, “It’s true. You’re the most beautiful woman I know.”

“I’m still not going to blow you.” She snatched her pillow back one she’d kicked down the covers some, only to snuggle back under them. And, after a moment’s thought, she offered him simply, “Tonight.”

He allowed himself to smile, as he tugged the blankets up around himself as well, hiding out from the moonlight with her beneath them as he whispered, “I don’t wanna fight with you. Have. I never do.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not.”

“Are too. Fighting’s part of it.”

“Part of what?”

“You know.” But she didn’t seem to, as she couldn’t quite explain it. “Locke.”

Falling onto his back, he shut his eyes and she stilled out, back to him, but beside him, close. So close.

“When it’s all over,” he muttered to the once more close to sleep woman, “and we can go back home, I’ll buy us a nice house. With my first few S-Class jobs. Bet. With a pool and one of those kitchens you can invite all your friends over to hang out in, you know? With, like, stools and space and… And an actual dining room. For when we want to have real, adult dinner parties. A pool. Room for our...our kids. Yeah?”

She was either asleep or good at faking it, either was likely. But both were enough for the man as he let out one last long, heavy sigh before deciding to join her.

[diyunho]

The Joker x Reader - “ What Death Tastes Like” Part 5

Scarecrow’s daughter might be only 22, yet the terminal lung cancer she was diagnosed with six months ago didn’t discriminate against her age; the young woman didn’t show worrisome symptoms until it was too late. Y/N always had a fascination for the much older King of Gotham and despite the consequences, maybe it’s finally time to do something about it.

Part 1    Part 2   Part 3     Part 4

The Joker feels his face covered in soft kisses and although generally speaking he loves being pampered, this particular instance awakens his self-defense mechanism.

“What time is it?” J mutters.

“Let me see,” you stretch for your phone. “12:03 am.”

“I should go,” he lifts his head up from the pillow and you pull him back in your arms, yawning.

“Stay for a little bit longer, ok?”

“Why?”

“I wish to hold on to my birthday present for a few more minutes,” Y/N pleads with the man she senses doesn’t want to be there anymore. “Don’t worry, I’m aware it was a casual affair,” your sad smile prompts a completely out of context answer:

“If you noticed I fell asleep, you should have woken me up!” The King of Gotham complains.

“I fell asleep also,” you snuggle to him and since J is suddenly quiet you whisper. “It was amazing.”

He keeps staring which makes you wonder what the hell is going on in his mind right now.

“At least for me,” you underline after you grasp he won’t comment on the subject; you didn’t have a clue he’ll convert the night you spent together into awkwardness for no reason. “Get out of my tent!” you snap at his behavior, irritated. “Get out!” you shove him and The Clown Prince of Crime doesn’t budge.

“Why are you mad?” he finally addresses the annoyed Y/N.

“Because you’re a jerk!”

“Come again?!” The Joker frowns and Scarecrow’s daughter has a clever response; she doesn’t share his genes for nothing.

“I would but I guess you’re not a big fan of us having sex a second time!!!”

“Wow!” J bitterly scoffs. “You sure can twist a guy’s words, huh? If you really must pry into my personal life, I’ll have you know that I’m not used with small talk afterwards, understand?”

While you wonder if he’s bluffing, you can’t help offer the benefit of doubt served with a side of insolence.

“Well, maybe if you would give it a try with someone that actually cares, you’d have stuff to discuss.”

“Miss Crane, what makes you think Mara doesn’t like me?”

The Joker expects a feisty reply to his audacious remark yet he receives a piece of sturdy logic instead:

“If she was crazy in love, she wouldn’t agree and with this on and off relationship you two have.”

J is obviously displeased at your statement thus Y/N has to unleash her creativity in order to push him comprehend what she’s aiming at.

“The problem is you don’t approach anything important, you only shut down everyone. Even Emma believes she’s not yours.”

The King of Gotham was preparing to lash out but your latest sentence totally catches him off guard.

“What do you mean?!”

“You never talk about her mother granted she keeps asking so Emma presumes you probably stole her from an individual you consider your enemy and raised her as revenge.”

“Huh?!” The Joker gets on his elbow, appalled. “She is my daughter!”

“I say that to her when she panics, unfortunately random people do look similar…,” you twirl a strand of his green hair around your fingers. “Steering clear from issues we’re uncomfortable with doesn’t necessarily result in a positive outcome,” Y/N concludes and her partner is not excited at all.

“Are you psychoanalyzing me?!”

“I’m a Crane,” you peck his lips. “It’s in our blood.”

A lot of thoughts rushing behind those blue eyes and you’re confident his patience is running low; add a short fuse to the combo and according to your flawless instinct J will bite soon.

“Take me for example,” you attempt to cram in the main point of your dialogue before it happens. “I don’t care you’re older, I fancy your company nevertheless: you’re super handsome plus emotionally unattractive…”

“I’m what?!” The Joker interrupts.

“Umm… emotionally unattractive?” you hesitantly repeat while watching him jump off the pillows and start to collect his clothes in the semi darkness.

“Serves me right for sleeping with somebody half my age!” he growls at the young woman realizing she upset him with her rant.

“So you’re 46?” you struggle to joke at his affirmation.

“Listen here, Miss Crane!” J dresses in a hurry, angry at your stunt. “If you imagine you figured me out, you didn’t!! Nobody fucks with me!” he violently kicks the mattress and you can’t avoid it:

“I think I just did. Literally.”

The hate in his demeanor makes you regret opening up; your goal was to imply you like him no matter what yet the aftermath is way off what you intended.

“I apologize, OK?” you sigh and reach your hand for his.

“I hope you perish!” he strikes your fingers with such brutality it stings. “You’re dying anyway but hopefully the Cromyxillium kills you faster!” The Joker unzips the tent and leaves a shocked Y/N breathless at his hurtful tirade.

“That’s all you got? Stupid old man…” you whimper and cuddle under the thin blanket with his cushion.

Grief is not the correct term to describe what you experience for the moment: a perfect birthday turned into exactly the opposite in a blink of an eye simply because The Joker proved once more he has no concept on how to handle dynamite; fire suits him better.

***************

Next morning, 10:14am

“Are you hot or cold?” your father inquires since your intravenous therapy commenced 10 minutes ago.

“No,” you gaze at the IV bag and Jonathan lingers by your bed, reminding his offspring about their plan.

“We’ll do 3 hours on, 3 hours off; I’ll monitor your vitals and if you feel strange alert me immediately, deal?”

You nod a yes and his perseverance in aiding you with your terminal cancer evokes a sincere confession:

“Daddy…Thank you for trying to save me…I’m sorry I’m a burden…”

“A burden?!” Scarecrow mumbles.

There are a million facts you should evoke, yet the predominant one keeps hunting you.

“You buried yourself in the lab because of me…and Evelyn left…”

“Evelyn and I broke up for various motives,” your parent grumbles. “Saying I immersed myself into working because of you hints that I was forced into it against my will which is not true. I did everything out of love… I can’t bear the idea of losing you,” he kisses your temple; you wrap your free arm around his neck, squeezing him tight.

“You’re the best dad; I’m lucky you’re my father. If I die… you think mom is waiting for me?...”

Jonathan Crane has the weird sensation he’s choking; his wife died after you were born due to leukemia, now their daughter is fighting for survival: she’s plainly the last fortress separating him from utter madness.

“I couldn’t save your mother, but I’ll be damned if I let you die kid,” he caresses your cheek. “She can wait; I bet she’s not eager to take you with her,” Scarecrow reassures his daughter. “Rest honey.”

“I will…” you consent and Emma barging in the bedroom with her duffle bag switches your attention.

“I’m here, I’m here!” she exclaims. “Traffic was horrible, bad accident on the freeway!”

**************

11 am

“Are you comfortable?” Emma checks with her friend, not entirely certain how to bring up a very delicate topic clouding her usually bubbly disposition.

“Of course,” you smile and she wiggles in her recliner. “Are you?” you wink at her visible restlessness as you attempt to lighten the atmosphere.

“Y/N…,” she taps the fluffy carpet with her feet. “Mmmm… last night after we returned from the river I dropped by to see how you’re doing and… I came to your tent…,” Emma pauses seeing the stupefied expression on your face. “I…I found my father sleeping in there with you…”

You lick your lips and strain to keep your calm even if your heart is pounding out of your chest.

“Did my dad take advantage of you?” she lowers her voice and you can tell she’s torn apart by the horrible notion.

“He didn’t,” you shake your head.

“Dumb girl…” Emma admonishes without any trace of resentment; what else can she articulate in these circumstances regardless?  

“I can’t believe I’m inquiring… Did you use protection?”

“No…It just happened…”

“Oh my God!” the concerned judgement pressures you to continue:

“It didn’t end well so it’s fair to assume we’re not in any danger of me becoming your stepmom,” your tone diminishes and she leans over to scold when The Joker passes by the opened door without bothering to peek inside your bedroom; you didn’t spot him but Emma did.

“I’ll be back!” she hisses and you’re confused at her desire to leave you.

“Hey, where are you going?”

She ignores your question and races after The King of Gotham, catching up with him at the end of the long corridor.

“Dad!” Emma shouts and he turns around.

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing?!” she interrogates the clueless Joker.

“I’m meeting Crane. Is he downstairs?”

“In his lab compounding the next batch of Cromyxillium for Y/N,” she fumes at J’s impertinence. “Didn’t you forget something?”

He seems puzzled and Emma is not tricked by his deceiving performance.

“My best friend is in her quarters, uncertain if she’ll survive the cancer treatment. Are you pretending she doesn’t exist?”

“Meaning?” The Joker sneers.

“I know you slept with her!” the accusation follows instantly. “Don’t deny it! How could you take advantage of her?!”

The Clown Prince of Crime straightens his shoulders, aware he can’t negotiate his innocence out of this complicated riddle.

“I did not take advantage of her! How dare you accuse me of such low move?”

“You didn’t?” Emma closes the gap between them. “You know she has a crush on you and she’s vulnerable; what type of man would prey on that?!”

J is not thrilled with the innuendos and cuts her off:

“She basically begged for some and I obliged out of pity!”

Emma slaps him and The Joker gasps, enraged she had the audacity:

“Do that again and I’ll neglect you’re my daughter!” he growls and the serious threat doesn’t faze her.

“Hurt her more and I’ll forget you’re my father! If you are indeed my father,” she emphasizes while stomping away towards the kitchen.

“I am your father!” J simmers at her impeccable strategy: Emma is retreating to a different corner of the house giving him the opportunity to choose.

Who the heck knows if she’s actually his?

One thing is undeniable though: they share the same despicable temper.

****************

You discern The Joker in the doorway and your body stiffens; you stare at the TV screen wishing he’ll disappear.

“Where’s Crane?” J analyzes Y/N’s IV pole.

You don’t engage so his crankiness emerges.

“I suppose you didn’t flatlined yet!”

“Nope,” you grunt at the provocative declaration that served its goal: you did reply to The Clown’s rubbish.

“Where’s Crane?”

“I heard you the first time and I’m not sure why you focus your energy on a useless interrogation. You know where my father is!”

“Where?” The Joker’s vile attitude can’t compromise for less than instigating his fling.

“Please take your stuff that’s firm now but will get saggy in maximum 20 years and vanish!” the poisonous remark makes him groan.

“What stuff?!”

You check him out glaring at his mid-section before dismissing his presence.

“That’s the rudest fucking criticism ever!” The Joker barks and Y/N crabbily indicates:

“It’s not criticism, it’s reality! Gravity’s a bitch! Mara won’t mind, won’t she? After all, you two share a very special bond: on today, off tomorrow, hookup next week, take a break next month. Such dreamy relationship!”

“Do you have more derogatory references to my private life?!” J grinds his teeth ready to unleash several atrocities your way.

“No, too busy dying…” you show him the needle in your arm. “I don’t feel the pain from the medication burning my veins; I’m used with my sickness, with the ups and downs. What I do feel is the pain of being taken for granted.”

The Joker is not a fan of the insinuated context.  

“You said no strings attached!” he stresses the lack of commitment consented the previous evening.

“You’re the one that came to me; I thought it meant you were accepting to be the center of my universe.”

J ogles the ceiling of Y/N’s bedroom and assembles a couple of harsh disclosures in his brain when her entitled smirk halts the project.

“You’re buying it, aren’t you?” you chuckle at his astonishment. “I’m just messing with you Mister Joker; who in their right mind would make you the center of their universe?! You have 10 seconds to leave, otherwise I’ll scream and security will come!” you shelter your head with the quilt so you don’t have to see his mug anymore.

No outpour of vexation from his part which is cool: means he bailed.

The blanket is slowly pulled until your eyes emerge; J hovers your face, pissed at the unwelcomed clash.

“I’m checking if you kicked the bucket; corpses are usually covered thus my dilemma.”

“Go away!” you advise. “Or I’ll scream!”

You inhale preparing to yell: The Joker didn’t predict you’d defy him and he swiftly kisses you in order to stop the sounds.

The door is cracked and Emma witnesses the scene, reckoning bizarre elements:

Her father holds grudges and was mad at Y/N earlier due to whatever happened yesterday; nevertheless he still kissed her.

On the other hand, you were definitely miserable after your escapade, yet you didn’t reject him.

Emma may not be informed about the entire story, but one detail is crystal clear: the future is far from being simple.

 Also read: MASTERLIST

[lucycaitlin13]

Manipulation and Gaslighting

Do you ever just hear a song and instantly feel sad? That song tonight was Can’t Help Falling in Love by Elvis Presley. I’m going to take a break from my journals this evening. I’d like to talk about unhealthy relationships I think. 

Most days I am happy or at least content with my life, but other days I hit some lows. They never last too long, but these are the days that I reflect on my past “relationships” and current lack thereof. 

I used quotes around relationships because 99% of them weren’t more than a man disappointing me and the other 1% was a mentally abusive relationship. I mean I’ve had one serious relationship in my entire life and it was fucking terrible. I have never been treated like a lady worth someone’s time and that really gets to me sometimes. 

Do you wanna know what I get to reflect on when I look at the men I’ve “talked to”? I get to think about scumbags from high school who were just looking to get their dick wet. Every single guy I did something with in high school took advantage of me because they knew I wanted a relationship.

See, I am someone who wants to actually find someone to spend my life with. I enjoy simple things like cooking dinner together and watching a movie. I want to go to a museum and look at art. I want to go to a bookstore and find a book and read together. I want easy and romantic. 

I gave my heart away too easily thinking, “Maybe this one will be good. Maybe they actually like me this time.” So I allow someone to smooth talk their way into my DM’s and I meet up and go on a “date” if that’s what you want to call it. 

Let me tell you about some of the “dates” I’ve been on because I clearly didn’t value my self worth. The Walmart parking lot, nature trail behind the school, driving around in a truck and ending up in the back, dugouts at football games, Lake Junaluska, Blue Ridge Parkway, and many other similar situations. 

Now, obviously I take some responsibility for allowing things to escalate. However, I was a teenage girl who just was hoping to find that “high school sweetheart” that every girl wants. So of course I let my hopes and feelings take charge because surely one of these boys would be “the one’. WRONG.

Not one boy in high school was anything more than a hookup. Some not even that. As far as I’m concerned, every boy lied to me to get what they wanted and then exited stage left. Poof. Never had a boyfriend in high school. Just a bunch of mistakes. You could say that I was easily manipulated because I was blinded by the lies I was being told. 

(By the way, I’m using the term hookup loosely. It doesn’t necessarily mean I slept with them. Could’ve just been a make-out session. But I digress.)

So I graduate high school and go to college. I have a fresh start where not everyone knows me. Surely someone will want to take me out! Nope. Nothing changed during that first semester. 

I moved home and sure enough, I started dating someone who I had known for a while previously. This person was much older than me (BIG mistake at age 18). Sure I was mature for my age, which a lot of people say that, but I wasn’t the normal 18 year old. I was just ready to settle. I’m an old soul and like I said, I like simple and easy.

This was my first and only real relationship and at first it was okay. I didn’t really have anything to base it off of as I mentioned previously that all the guys in my past were scumbags. So, to me, this is surely how relationships should be! 

But lets just look at some red flags that I should have noticed and probably did, but I ignored because I “fell” for this person. First off, when you catch someone in a lie, you should probably take it more seriously than how I did. I just blew it off because they were “sorry” and promised it wouldn’t happen again. 

I was kicked out in the middle of the night because another woman had called.. I’m sorry, what? Yeah, you heard that right. So I stormed out of the house and went home. But did I forgive him when he apologized a week later. YUP! This was a month into seeing this person and looking back, this was the point I should have ran! But I didn’t. 

I ended up moving in with this person; moving several times during our relationship. In the beginning I knew there was baggage and I thought I was okay with it. I clearly wasn’t.

Was I a perfect girlfriend? NOPE. I’m sure I wasn’t. I went through his phone and didn’t trust him. How could I fully trust someone who I repeatedly caught talking to other people etc? Guess I shouldn’t have been in a relationship if that was how I felt, but I was young and dumb. 

Over the 3 years, maybe a little less, that we were together, there were WAY more lows than there were highs. I was told yelled at that I was a “horrible, rotten cunt” while they were driving. He yelled so loud I thought the windows in the car would shatter. I was terrified, yet I apologized. Sex was rare. A month or so would go by without anything. Any time I tried to initiate anything, I was yelled at for bothering him. So, it was always on his terms. Yet I apologized for being a nuisance. 

I probably was annoying at times. I mean, I’m not perfect as I mentioned before. But things just got worse and worse. He would go out with his friends and drink, but I wasn’t old enough, so I stayed home. This was fine until I found out from people that he was flirting at the bars. Of course there was more fighting when this was brought up. And denial. So I apologized and dropped it. 

An old fling had Facebook messaged me one time just asking how I had been. I told him I was happy and about my boyfriend. I left this open on the desktop and was screamed at when he picked me up from class that night. I was forced to message him and tell him that I wasn’t allowed to talk to him anymore and to block him. I was then thrown on the floor. Yet I kept apologizing repeatedly for how sorry I was.

So many little things happened in between all of this. From his junkie friend moving in with us because he was “helping her get back on her feet” and trying to help her stay clean. This wasn’t a choice I had any say in. I was told it was happening. To him calling one of my best friends a bitch and tried to fight with her. But every time we fought, I apologized because it was my fault, right?

Then the beginning of the end.. I started finding things in our home that didn’t belong there. Items that belonged to a mutual friend. I questioned this and of course here came a bunch of lies. “She came over with her kid and we went running.” “She came by with her kid to have dinner with us.” Etc etc. I started bagging all the shit I found and threw it in the fucking trash. 

I of course was going through his phone, tablet, and anything else I could at this point. How could I not? I don’t have any regrets in doing this because fuck him! And guess what I found? NOTHING. But how could I find nothing if I knew they texted? Why was he deleting an entire thread if there was nothing to hide? But I had no concrete proof of anything.

UNTIL one night when I decided to go through everything again only to come up with nada. So I rolled back over and tried to go back to sleep, but something was telling me to look again. So I checked his email.. Email that I was given access to to begin with to help print documents and such. Surely he wasn’t that dumb right? Sooo wrong! He was that dumb. I found pictures and videos of this bitch who was supposed to be a mutual friend! 

And so we broke up. I moved out. And for the next 9 months I TRIED TO FIX THIS ABUSIVE AS FUCK RELATIONSHIP. What the actual fuck! I was fed lie after lie. I was told this was all my fault. It was my fault he cheated. It was my fault that he kept seeing her again and again when I was being told he wanted to work on things. 

I was accused of sleeping with one of my good friends over and over again. I had my phone thrown out of a moving car. I was never allowed to hang out with friends. I was made to get out of the car on the interstate. I was brought into the middle of nowhere and literally texted a friend to call 911 because I was fearing for my life. 

So when I say I don’t trust men easily, I have my fucking reasons. That relationship was over 4 years ago at this point and I have been single since. And guess what? Every guy since that relationship has also been a waste of my time because not one of them gave a fuck about me. Just sex. 

So I have to wonder? What is wrong with me? Am I not pretty enough? Am I not skinny enough? Not funny enough? Or do they just realize there’s something better around the corner?

I’ve never really had someone actually love me or even like me for that matter. That relationship was not love and never was. I know now what I didn’t at the time. I was taken advantage of as I always have been. I was manipulated and gaslighted. I was embarrassed and made fun of by my own boyfriend and apologized for everything. 

So yeah, this post all started out with a song making you feel sad. But what that song made me feel was actually longing. Longing for someone to love me the way I know I deserve. Longing for someone to spend my life with that actually enjoys being with me. That’s really all I want, but all I can get is a DM from fuckboys for a one night stand. So I just don’t reply to anyone ever because what’s the point? 

I just want all of you to know that it was okay to leave someone before they leave you. It is okay to throw in the towel because they are mentally or physically abusing you. Sometimes you feel like you have to make it work because you’ve spent X amount of years in your relationship and you don’t want to have wasted all that time. IT’S OKAY! 

If there is one piece of advice I could give my younger self, it would be to listen to your friends! Listen to them when they tell you what is happening is wrong. Many of my close friends told me time and time again and I never listened to a word because I was so blinded by the bullshit.

I am much happier now and obviously haven’t let many people in since because I have some HIGH fucking standards now. And that is okay too! Sure I get sad sometimes, but I’m still much happier than I was.  

To all the boys who fucked me over and made me feel used - *middle finger emoji*. 

I’m ending this here because I don’t know what else to say. 

Xoxo

[ograndebatata]

Victor Delgado headcanons - Part One

Well... this is another first for me. 

It’s not the first headcanons post for villains I make, but it’s certainly the longest one. 

The best I can say is that it really got away from me, and I’m not even all that sure why. Victor Delgado was never one of the characters that struck me the hardest while watching the series, at least until ‘Snow Place Like Home’... but the more I got to dwell on where he might come from, the more I found myself invested in it, even as I envisioned him coming from a much more rotten place than I thought at first.

I hope you also enjoy reading these, even as I apologize for what a rotten hand I ended up dealing him. 

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Note: This post tackles the subject of abusive parents very heavily, with things like emotional and physical abuse and corporal punishment. It also shows more than one scumbag being scummy (redundant, I know) and getting away with it, at least to some degree. If those things upset you, you might not one to read this. 

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Note #2: Thanks a lot to @lostbutterflyutau for helping me with these, in terms of suggestions, feedback, and permission to use a plot-point of magical journals similar to the ones she came up with for her fics. Credit to that last point in particular goes to her. 

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Note#3: I mention part one for one simple reason - my headcanons on Victor got so vast that I had to stop at the point Shuriki banishes him and his family from Avalor before they got so long they were unreadable. There will be a part two soon (I hope). 

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So... to anyone who’s interested and not thrown off by the warnings, please click below the cut for my headcanons about what Victor’s family was like, his friendship with Esteban, the beginnings of his relationship with Mrs. Delgado, and how he got allied with Shuriki.

Victor Delgado - Part One - Birth to banishment

A mother’s choice

His name evoked victory, and he would call himself ‘El Primero’ in his teenage years, but privately, he would often think to himself he screwed up a lot.

Even before his birth, at the kingdom of Bansagubat, people already made gloomy predictions about his future, thanks to his unusual origins. His father, Kemen Delgado, was an accountant who had been a knight from the kingdom of Ullibarri, before being stripped of his titles and banished alongside his sister after a conflict with a higher ranking nobleman. His mother, Tala Delgado (née Tala Anak ni Bagwis), was a native Bansagubatan from a nation of fishermen who disliked foreigners.

All the same, they grew to like each other, got married, and were happy together, choosing to ignore naysayers and focusing instead on what they had.

What they had ended less than a year after they got married.

It was meant to be a happy day, the day they would welcome their first child into the world. Instead, it became a sad one, when complications ensued, and despite the midwife’s best efforts, Tala didn’t make it through labor.

Kemen was broken-hearted.

Her son had lived, but that only made Kemen angry in addition to sad. As far as he was concerned, the boy had somehow screwed up if he couldn’t even be born without killing his mother.

But having screwed up or not, he was around, and as resentful as Kemen got, he did what he could to provide for the boy, who he named Victor (as that was the boy name he and his wife had agreed upon). And at first, he did so well enough that young Victor never had to go without basic needs.

It would become one of the few nice things Victor could say about his father.

Off to foreign lands

Since he was old enough to have memories, Victor would have very few about his father (as the new job he’d gotten as treasurer to a local merchant kept him busy) and none of them was good per se. When Victor was a baby he spent most of his time with his wet nurse, and most of the remainder with his father’s sister, Bidane. Later, after they stopped needing  the nurse’s servants, his aunt Bidane was pushed into full caretaker role.

Victor seldom saw his father, and most of the little he did was only because he stayed up to greet him whenever he could. Often his father came home tired and unwilling to do anything but have dinner and rest. Sometimes he would half-heartedly pat Victor’s head, other times he would grumble and tell the boy to get away from him, and on a few times, when he came home smelling like the alcohol aunt Bidane used for cleaning, he would even cuff Victor and yell at him to leave him alone, often calling him ‘idiot’ as he did so.

His aunt Bidane wasn’t much better. While she did make sure he ate his greens and went to bed and didn’t touch what he shouldn’t, she also was annoyed by him most of the time.

The only genuine comfort Victor got was from his mother’s friends, who sometimes showed up to help around the house, and told him things like how it was not easy for his father to provide for the family alone, or how it wasn’t easy for his aunt to stay cooped up in the house all day, or how his father still missed his mommy… but they failed to sound fully sincere.

But he loved it when they came around, especially those who had children, as he loved playing with them. But his favorite thing from their visits was the mothers’ hugs. They were much nicer than his aunt’s, on the rare times he got them (his father had never hugged him,  so Victor didn’t know how nice that would be).

And it started looking less and less likely that he would know, because the older Victor got, the more often his father came home grumpy and smelling like alcohol, the more likely he was to cuff Victor, the more his aunt and father argued, and the dirtier their house got.

Until one day, when Victor was five, and his father came home with a black eye, scared to death, and saying that they needed to run. His aunt scowled at the remark, but for once, they did not argue, and quickly packed a few bags and left the house with Victor tucked under one of his father’s arms.

They spent the next few weeks hiding in a cave in the jungle, with only Kemen going out every few days. Victor tried to ask what had happened, but the only answer he got was a slap to the mouth and an order not to ask dumb questions.

Eventually, in a dark night, they crept out of the cave and went through the jungle, with Victor whimpering at the scary noises he heard - at least until his father and aunt told him those noises were ghosts, and the ghosts would take him away if he didn’t shut up. Victor immediately fell silent even as he wanted nothing but to burst into sobs.

But he couldn’t help a shout of pain when he tripped and sprained his ankle. His father shouted at him to get up, but his leg hurt too much. Growling in annoyance, his father grabbed a stick and heaved him to his feet while making sure he leaned on the stick, before telling him he’d better limp quickly because they wouldn’t slow down, and if he stayed behind the ghosts would catch him and take him away. Scared to death, Victor moved as fast as he could, somehow managing to keep up with his father even as he wanted to scream in pain.

After an eternity, Victor sighed in relief as they got out of the forest, and then got scared again as he saw they had arrived at a beach where three big and scary-looking pirates were waiting for them by a boat.  

Before boarding the boat, Victor got an explanation - the pirates were taking them away to Corinthia in exchange for some knowledge Victor’s father had on valuable objects there. Victor protested, saying he didn’t want to leave, but his father slapped him and told him not to bother him. Victor turned to his aunt, but all she told him was that people couldn’t always get what they wanted, and he’d better shut up or she would slap him too. Victor made a sound of protest - and she slapped him (on the same cheek his father had) saying ‘I warned you.’

Victor kept quiet during their walk to the rowboat and then during their row to the ship. He only made any noise was when one of the pirates asked if ‘the lad’ was alright, and Kemen said he was just a bit sad to leave so suddenly, before he turned to Victor and said ‘Isn’t that so?’. Victor understood what kind of answer his father wanted, so he nodded. But after they got to the ship and Victor was given a blanket to cover himself with and told to find a spot to settle into, he could only curl himself into a corner and cry himself to sleep, the pain in his leg still bothering him.

The next day, he almost died of fright when he woke up with two pirates peering down at him. There were screams from the three of them, but then the pirates apologized, saying they had been thinking how they should wake him up and hadn’t decided how before he woke up himself.

Victor was touched. Other than his mother’s friends, no one had ever apologized to him for anything before or not blamed him for whatever went wrong, and he thought his mother’s friends were like that only because they were his mother’s friends. He was even more touched when the pirates noticed the pain in his leg and said that they’d ask the captain to use a ‘magical stone’ to heal it. Victor thought he was dreaming when the captain agreed, but nothing he did to wake up worked.  

After that, he spent most of his time with the pirates, and loved it. Whether he was seeing them swabbing the deck, watching them sharpening swords, learning how to tie simple knots, or looking at the sea or the seagulls, he loved being on the ship. It only made him said that when he tried to go to his father or aunt, the former told him to leave him alone and the latter (who had been seasick since they got on the ship) glared at him like she hated him simply for not having the same problem.

But that only made him spend more time with the pirates, who were pretty nice despite how scary they looked. They told him lots of stories about all the places and things they had seen, and taught him fun tricks like taking his scarf without him noticing or picking things from his pocket. They even taught him the alphabet.

Victor never understood what their games were for, but he liked playing with him.  He only didn’t like how once a pirate (who seemed dumber than the others) tried to give him a mug of some liquid that smelled like his father did sometimes. Whatever it was, Victor couldn’t even get it close to his face, much less drink it.

It might have been for the best, as the captain, upon finding out what that pirate did (after throwing the mug away), cuffed the pirate over the head much harder than Victor’s father had ever done and had the man swabbing the whole deck alone every day for a week - and according to the captain, he only stopped there because the pirate had apologized and said he “... really didn’t know there was any harm in giving the lad some rum!”.

Other than the fright, it was the only bad part of a great trip. And once they arrived to Corinthia, Victor had a great time again as some of the pirates showed him around the place, even as he thought they were hiding somethings and got confused by what they meant on ‘having gotten permission from the captain to spend some booty on the boy’, as he never was given any boots, only carriage rides and meals at restaurants.  

They stayed in port for only a few days, and had to leave in a hurry when Victor’s father, the pirate captain, and two others ran to the boat with a huge bag.

Victor had no idea what it was about, but he didn’t care. He was happy about sailing again, and wanted to see Quercussuberus, the next kingdom they would visit.

He got quite a disappointment when they arrived.

Living the criminal life

Once they arrived to Quercussuberus, his father and aunt packed up their things and left the pirate ship, dragging Victor with them. Victor’s first reflex was to whine that he didn’t want to go, but upon seeing his father’s and aunt’s raised hands, he fell silent and followed them along, waving goodbye to the pirates. A few waved back at him, and even the captain gave him a nod.

At first, Victor was happy enough at Quercussuberus, especially because at first, his father and aunt spend much more time with him, and they even practiced games that looked like those the pirates taught him, although Victor knew from their surprised looks when he mentioned it that it was a coincidence. Coincidence or not, his father and aunt’s games were much more complicated. He had to get things from places that were much more difficult to access, and sometimes use other tricks, like pretending he had gotten hurt or lost while his father and aunt collected the stuff. Perhaps things would get better after all.

But the happiness soon faded, once they started,like his father said, ‘playing for real’. The games now involved his father and aunt making puppet shows or standing still like statues or playing instruments while Victor went through the crowd and got things out of pockets. Other times, Victor would cry for various fake reasons and draw attention as adults gathered around him and his father and aunt stole. Those games were much scarier, given what could happen if they were caught (which his father and aunt had told him, putting particular emphasis on how Victor would end up in an orphanage if they got arrested, without family because no one would want him, and doomed to playing those games or going to jail).

Whatever game they picked, the day always ended with his father and aunt arguing over who got to keep how much money, while Victor was told to go to his room and learn the alphabet and study maths and be quiet. At first, he did that, but by the time he turned seven, he started to wonder why he never kept anything they stole, as he stole most of it. And on a day he felt brave, he asked his father that and said he wanted his share.

His father replied ‘Here’s your share.’ and punched him in the eye.

Victor protested that it was not fair… and his father got angry and started beating him while saying he had no right to complain it wasn’t fair. He had killed his mother, he had stayed behind to burden him with an extra mouth to feed, he was a clingy emotional idiot, the least he could do was earn his keep. In the end, his father beat him so badly that he had to be taken to a physician. The injuries turned out to be severe enough that a healer was required… and when asked about how Victor got such injuries, his father replied that the boy had gotten involved in some roughhousing and could never learn who he shouldn’t pick fights with. And his aunt backed him up.

Neither the healer nor the physician insisted.

From that day on, Victor never tried to keep any of the money he stole again. Nor did he ever try to earn his father’s or his aunt’s love.

Instead, he decided then and there that he would get away from them on the first chance he had.

Unfortunately (or maybe not), even at seven, he already knew those could take a while to come.

But he had learned to be patient. And cunning.

When his chance came, he’d grab it.

Remarriage and a new departure

The life of ‘stealing games’, went on, with Victor, Kemen, and Bidane travelling around the kingdom, always with Victor doing most of the stealing, and always with him getting only food, sleep, and clothes as payment. The best thing he could say is that he was never beaten so badly again that he had to go to a physician, although his father wasn’t shy about hitting him if he felt he was being rude or doing badly in the schoolwork he took at night. Victor did his best to avoid giving his father reasons to hit him, hoping things would change.

They did when Victor was eight, and his father brought a noblewoman named Juana home with him. Victor had no idea what was going on at first, but after he saw them together more than once, and she brought her children to meet him and his aunt, Victor realized that they were courting.

At first, Victor didn’t know what to think. He learned after he realized his hopes of things changing were for naught. Juana already had her opinions on him set thanks to his father, and both Feliu (Juana’s son, who was five) and Goizeder (Juana’s daughter, who was four), were brats that reminded Victor of the rich kids who mock him and threw him in the mud if they found him on the street. All he earned was more people to push him around, as well as a threat from his father that, if he told Juana’s children anything about their past, he was out on the streets.

Victor could only nod.

Things did somewhat change for the better after about a year and a half, when his father and Juana got married, and his father legally adopted Feliu and Goizeder. Kemen and Bidane now were in a better mood, perhaps because they went to royal balls quite often. Also, they had stopped stealing after the wedding, so at least Victor had less concerns there now. The main thing bothering him was having to take care of his younger step-siblings, with the clear warning that they’d better not get hurt on his watch or he’d pay for it. Thankfully, he had learned some lessons helpful in taking care of children, and by and large did a good job, except on the days Feliu and Goizeder behaved badly on purpose just to see him in trouble.

Things again changed one day, when Victor was ten, and again, his father and aunt came rushing home, this time followed by his stepmother, again packing things in a hurry and claiming they had to leave. Again, Victor asked what had happened. This time,  he got a punch to the mouth from his father as answer. Thus, he kept quiet as they ran away from home a second time.

This time, they boarded a ship on that very night, and even got cabins, so at least there was that. And during the trip, by listening behind closed doors when everyone thought he was sleeping, he got a general idea of what had happened.

Apparently, his father, aunt, and stepmom had been involved in a plot to steal something from the royal treasury, were discovered, and barely got away from Quercussuberus without being caught.

And soon Victor figured out where they were going when they had a family meeting and the children were told that they were going to visit an old friend of Juana - Queen Lucia of Avalor. They left out everything about the stealing, claiming instead that there weren’t many boats to Avalor and they didn’t want to miss that one.

Though they were upset at what they learned would be a permanent departure, both Feliu and Goizeder believed them. Victor tried to act like he also did, but something about his acting must have seemed suspicious. Or the adults were just paranoid. Or maybe they decided he was too old or knew them too well to fall for it. Either way, later his father, aunt and stepmother talked to him only and made it clear that, if he had any ideas when it came to telling anything to his step-siblings or the rulers of Avalor, he’d get such a thrashing that no physician or healer could heal him.

Victor said he understood - adding in thoughts that he wouldn’t need to speak.

Son of the royal treasurer

When Victor arrived to Avalor, he knew he would have his chance. It wouldn’t be easy - from what he saw when greetings were exchanged, Queen Lucia and King Raul believed his stepmother’s story. Apparently she and Queen Lucia had been good friends when they were younger, and were still on writing terms, and Queen Lucia believed Juana’s story that she just wanted to make a fresh start after her second marriage. She and her husband even gave them a house in the city, and gave Kemen the post of royal treasurer (though only after making sure that he met the qualifications and only because the old royal treasurer was already inclined to retire anyway). But Victor already had an idea to mess things up.

For a whole week, he worked on a letter that would look like it came from the King of Quercussuberus, even creating Quercussuberus’ royal stamp on it with wax he stole, and planning to get it delivered to Avalor’s rulers and ensure his father, stepmother, and aunt would get arrested so he could be free from them. After it was finished, he waited yet another week to make his father think he wouldn’t try anything after all.

But when he tried to get it delivered with the royal correspondence, he was intercepted by his father, aunt, and stepmom, who had not only been counting on him to do something, but had also been counting on him waiting before doing it at a time when he thought they thought he wouldn’t do what he had done.

They burned the letter before Victor’s eyes, and then, to make sure he would learn not to mess with them anymore, all three of them hit him with a thick leather belt Victor had felt a few times before, though only from his father, and never so hard. The best thing he would be able to say is that, even if only out of concern for themselves, they were careful enough not to cause him permanent damage.

But he had a nice surprise when, while he was in bed, King Raul and Queen Lucia showed up to visit him, with a box of Avaloran chocolates for him, and actually spent time with him. Victor knew he couldn’t tell them anything - his father’s message had sunk in - but by this point, that didn’t matter. A king and a queen had cared enough to visit him and wish him a nice recovery. That had to be the best thing that had ever happened to him. And more, when they left, they told him that when he got better he could come to the palace whenever he wanted.

Victor did so on his first chance, and next thing he knew, he had become friends with the King and Queen’s nephew, Esteban. It would not be all fun and games, especially after the rulers learned that Victor wasn’t in school and had him taught alongside Esteban by palace tutors, at least when it came to things that weren’t exclusively royal. But they still did fun things together, like playing tag around the palace or teaching each other what they knew. Victor learned fencing from Esteban, and in turn taught him pick-pocketing, which they soon started using on just about everyone. While they never got to keep anything they stole, no one ever thought what they did was more than innocent fun, and thus they never got into big trouble. That said, King Raul and Queen Lucia wondered where the boy had learned such things, and Kemen had to explain it away by saying ‘the boy emulated too many characters from the wrong stories’. That night, he looked like he wanted to lay into Victor again… but for whatever reason (perhaps because he was too afraid he would be looked at more closely) he held himself back, only telling Victor he’d better not pull  any more stunts like that if he knew what was good for him.

All in all, it was the best time Victor had ever had.

But it seemed no one in his family could bear to see him happy, for whenever they saw him in a good mood, they would quickly say or do something to ruin it. Victor tried to get back at them by trying to the best of his ability to convey to Raul and Lucia how mean his family was to him and how he wanted them to just somehow take him away, though without actually daring to tell them; the risk of them not believing it and what they were bound to do afterwards was too high. They were smart anyway, surely they would figure it out, he thought.

Was he wrong. Despite the hints he tried to spell out, neither King Raul nor Queen Lucia ever suspected how much Victor hated his family, and thus never did anything about his situation.

A situation that soon changed again, when Juana got pregnant, and the whole family besides him got ready for the birth of the child (who turned out to be a daughter, who was named Arcelia) and later into looking after the child. For the first time, at the age of thirteen, Victor was largely ignored. He knew that should make him happy, given how his family treated him… but it didn’t. The mean comments and occasional beatings and the odd pranks from his step-siblings had been the only forms of attention he got from them. Now, they acted like he was invisible - except on the odd moments when they remembered he existed and were just as mean to him as before.

Something inside him shifted after that. He threw himself into his games with Esteban in an entirely different way, started to take his victories much more seriously, and derided Esteban as ‘El Segundo’ upon defeating him in whatever they played, which started to happen more and more frequently, and more than a few times because Victor got more ruthless. They did not become enemies per se… but Esteban would look hurt more and more often, and for all the guilt he felt, Victor could not bring himself to apologize. However much Esteban complained about his family, Victor knew the royal family loved him. Surely they’d comfort him when he was down. Victor couldn’t say the same about his own family.

Victor paid the price when Esteban enrolled at Avalor’s naval academy at fourteen, something which Victor himself could not do without his father’s permission (which he didn’t even ask because he knew what the answer would be). He tried to ask Esteban for help there, but Esteban replied, “And have you call me El Segundo all-day-long for days on end without being able to get away? No thank you.”

Victor begged and pleaded. It was in vain. Esteban stood firm. And in less than two years, he went off travelling to all sorts of places, both in the vicinity and far away. And because he no longer had Esteban as a royal colleague, he wasn’t allowed to continue his studies at the palace on his own.

And Victor again ended up alone, sulking at the hand fate had dealt him, even as a tiny part of him told himself that he had been the one shuffling the deck.

But he did not sulk at another hand fate dealt him.

Flowers and sorceresses

A highlight of the year to most people in Avalor was the Sunflower Festival, and despite his mixed feelings on it, Victor was no exception. Sure, none of the two he had attended worked out like he wanted. Few of the girls he asked to dance ever accepted, and out of those that did, none looked like she would do it again without a hefty reward or a threat to her life. Victor didn’t blame them that much, as he wasn’t the best dancer, but he tried to make up for it with his other charms. Surely there had to be some. Yet however he tried, it just seemed he couldn’t find the right strategy.

Or so he told himself at the third Sunflower Festival he attended, at the age of seventeen, as he yet again got ready to ask a girl to dance - a beautiful purple-eyed girl who was surveying the dancing as if she was trying to decide who she should dance with, or even if she should dance at all. At first, Victor was too afraid to approach - she seemed the sort who’d tell him no before he even asked - but eventually, he decided he had to try. So he approached, acted charming and smooth, and asked her for a dance.

It didn’t go well (to say the least, she wasn’t impressed by his attempts at smooth charm)  but she did humor him somewhat by exchanging a few witty words with him. Victor did his best to reply in kind… and they kept it up until Victor’s father approached, made his usual scornful comments on him, and advised the girl that she didn’t want to be seen with such an idiot. Victor felt like he could die… but to his surprise, the girl said, “Actually, I was just about to accept his invitation for a dance.”.

For the first time in his life, Victor saw his father utterly speechless.

And Victor himself wasn’t much more talkative as the girl dragged him off to the dance floor and put his hands to her shoulder and waist and told him to dance. They stumbled a bit at first, as Victor wasn’t the best dancer, but the girl thankfully knew what to do and started guiding him… and as Victor fell into her guidance, he ended up liking the dance far more than he had thought possible.

And it was as if some spell had been struck. Victor spent the rest of the day with the girl, and between dancing, eating, and watching the royal family do the special dance and sing the special song they always sang on that day, he opened up to her far more than he had to anyone, Esteban included. He did not tell her everything per se, but he told her more than enough for her to look like she wanted to lay into his father.

The biggest surprise, however, was how she reciprocated. He’d stopped acting ‘smoothly charming’ the moment she dragged him off to the dance floor, but somehow, the girl actually liked his real self. And she saw something in him, something more than the living burden or the idiot or the treasurer’s son or the young duke’s friend. As the day went on, she started looking at him with genuine fondness, and told him things about herself also, such as the fact she was a sorceress and her parents were malvagos (although both were perfectly loving and mostly kind people, she assured him when he asked), and thus society dictated she shouldn’t even be at the festival. One thing she didn’t tell him was her real name (she said it was for both her own her parents’ safety), but she told him that he could nickname her and she would see if she liked it. He chose ‘Pluma’ (after the feather decorations on her hair) and she agreed he could call her that.

When the festival ended, he asked if he would see her again… and she said “I would be glad if that happened.” Victor could only say “Me too.”

That was one of his most recurring thoughts for next year, although marred by the fact his family had gone back to hurling spiteful comments at him, as if the fact Pluma felt anything other than revulsion toward him meant that they had to stomp any bit of joy out of him. Victor tried to brush it off… but he was afraid they were right. After all, he’d been so glad about the pirates when he was a kid and yet they hadn’t been that sad about him going. There was no actual reason other than a gut feeling of his to believe it would be different with Pluma.

And one day, when his doubts were particularly strong, he ended up running into another woman, as they sat down on the same bench at a garden. At first Victor was surprised she sat with him… and then he was more surprised as he realized who she was. She was the woman he had glimpsed at the palace once when she came for an audience with King Raul. Shuriki, if he remembered it right. But he did not know what she could want with him.

At first, she seemed to want nothing… but as they started having repeat meetings which he only later realized probably weren’t so coincidental, it didn’t take long for Victor to start getting more of an inkling of what she wanted. She wanted Avalor’s throne, which she said rightfully belonged to her.

But by that time, he was on her side. Like Pluma, Shuriki was nice to him. In a different way from Pluma for sure. If Pluma was a potential girlfriend, Shuriki was more like the mother he’d never had - and he liked it. And he could relate to most of the things she told him, like not having something that was rightfully hers of being scorned when you were only trying to be yourself.

They met more times afterwards, always at odd intervals, and going on more deeply into conversations about injustices and Shuriki’s right to the throne. Victor started to get somewhat uneasy, and worried about what could happen to the king and the queen (who ultimately had been nothing but kind to him) when she achieved her goal. However, when Shuriki promised him a place by her side when she ruled Avalor, Victor couldn’t help but feel hopeful for the future. One thing he had worried about when it came to Pluma was how he ultimately would have nothing to give her other than himself. If Shuriki did give him what she was promising, he could give Pluma much more.

But he did not tell Shuriki that. He did not even speak of Pluma to her. And by extend, he also did not ask for her help with looking good for Pluma when the next Sunflower Festival came about. Instead, he broke into the Royal Treasury, stole a sufficiently valuable jewel, sold it in the black market, and used some of the profits to get a nice suit and nice aftershave and to get a proper haircut and his beard nicely done by a barber.

Of course, such efforts met his family’s scorn, but Victor did not care. If he looked good for Pluma, it would all be worth it. And at least, they were too busy being scornful him to pay too much attention to where he might have gotten the money.

The Sunflower Festival came about, and Victor looked for Pluma… and when he found her, he couldn’t believe what he saw.

Pluma had looked beautiful the year before, but now she looked beyond words. In her dress and hairstyle and hints of makeup, she clearly had put an effort with her appearance. And from the way she looked at him, Victor realized she had been hoping for their encounter just as much as himself.

Victor tried to come up with some compliment, but he could only say ‘Wow’. A word she returned, as Victor, after snapping out of his trance, heard her compliments on his suit, haircut, and aftershave, which as far as he was concerned meant he had made the right decision by stealing the jewel, even as part of him was afraid Pluma would disapprove if she found out.

After their dance, Victor took her out to dinner in the town’s best restaurant, and they talked well into the night. Pluma told him how she had been feeling a bit adrift (apparently career options for children of dark wizards were limited unless they wanted to wreak havoc), and Victor, while he didn’t tell her much about his plot with Shuriki, told her in vague terms he was on a better path now, and if things worked out and she wanted to stay with him, she could.

Of course, the night did have a rough spot, when they were taking a walk under the stars and his father literally made it a point to show up to heap scorn on him. But for once, it ended up biting him on the rear end, as Pluma not only hurled a very ugly insult at him, but when he tried to retaliate by hitting her she drew her tamborita and smacked him around like a toy. Kemen at first tried to protest that he would tell the king, but Victor pointed out that the royal wizard would have ways to determine who was telling  the truth, and there was no way to know just what kind of secrets would be pulled out if that happened. Too stunned to do anything, Kemen could do nothing but huff and storm off in anger.

It was the perfect ending for the night as far as Victor was concerned, even if it only made  him realize how dumb he had been not to have gone to the royal wizard years ago. But at the same time, that would likely have meant he wouldn’t have met Plumba.

It also meant that the night had to come to an end. But Pluma told him she didn’t want to wait for the next Sunflower Festival to meet him, and if he was interested, she could create a way for them to be in touch, if he gave her a drop of his blood. Victor had no idea why she needed it, but he gave it to her, and they agreed to meet the next day. When they did, she gave him a special journal and a special quill, which she said her mother had helped her make. Apparently the journals were meant to exchange a sort of ‘instant letters’, and could only be written on with their respective quills, and the drop of blood was meant to ensure that only he could write in his journal just like only she could write in hers.

Victor was stunned she would go to such lengths to be in touch with him… and was even more stunned that her father hadn’t yet demanded to meet him. He knew fathers tended to be protective of their daughters (his father certainly did with Arcelia, and even with Goizeder) and a malvago supposedly would be even more so. Pluma replied that he had already demanded to meet him more than once, but she and her mother were managing to hold that off for the time being.

Victor was relieved. Perhaps they would hold him off until he was ruling Avalor beside Shuriki and could look more impressive in their eyes. Surely malvagos, even such kind-hearted ones as her parents seemed to be, would approve of takeovers.

One unfortunate side effect of his plot was that he couldn’t write to Pluma as much as he wanted to, but he did it as often as possible.

Meanwhile, the time for Shuriki’s plot to happen approached.  

But only a month before the set date, Shuriki called an unexpected meeting with him. Victor went… and to his utter shock, Esteban was also there. Apparently, he had also been meeting with Shuriki, for about as long as Victor had, and also because she had promised him that he would rule Avalor beside her.

There was some tension, but Shuriki assured them both that Avalor was big enough for all of them. Over the next days, they met more and more often to work out the plot, which took longer due to Victor’s and Esteban’s recurring disagreements and differences in ideas. More than once, Shuriki had to step in and make a decision herself. But one thing both Esteban and Victor agreed on was they wanted the least painful takeover possible, and didn’t want anyone of their families to get hurt, not even Kemen. For some reason, Shuriki sulked at that point, but she made them both that promise.

Victor was pleased his time had arrived, and in a way, was even glad that this looked like it meant his friendship with Esteban would be patched up. But then he had a huge shock when, one day, Pluma wrote to him telling him that her mother had been killed and she had run away from home to hunt down her murderers due to her father not agreeing with her ideas of revenge. She apologized she hadn’t come to tell him goodbye, but she had to pick up the trail before it got cold.

Victor immediately vowed that his first deed when he started ruling Avalor would be to help Pluma catch her mother’s murderers, and while he avoided specific details, he did tell her that he soon would have the means to help her.

When the day arrived, Victor wrote to Pluma telling her how the time had arrived.

And hours later, he realized what a nightmare he had gotten himself into, as Shuriki vaporized the king, queen with a spell (with the carriage and every other human and horse in it as collateral damage), before moving on to the older princess, and only not claiming the rest of the royal family thanks to the royal wizard. Over the next days, Shuriki and her followers, both magical and non-magical, rounded up wizards like cattle and got them banished or slaughtered if they did more than protesting. He realized in horror that Pluma could be part of the list, and wrote her a warning, wishing he knew who her father was so he could warn the man as well, and hoping he had been one of those that only got banished.

He gained no such knowledge before Shuriki dropped another piece of bad news on him - she was banishing him and his family as well. They were just too loyal to the old king and queen (a shocker for Victor if there was one) even though Shuriki was the ‘rightful ruler’, and as for Victor himself… she had realized Avalor was not that big after all. As Esteban had been the first one she talked to, he would be the only one getting to rule.

Victor tried to turn to Esteban for help… but Esteban failed to do so (not that he seemed to be putting much of an effort into trying at that point, as permanently stunned as he had seemed over the last days). So, out with his family Victor went.

And afterwards, he was kicked out of the family entirely, when they learned he had been in on Shuriki’s plot and refused to have anything to do with him ever again.

By then, however, Victor was largely past being hurt. He had known how to survive on his own for years, even if he never put those skills to use. And he had managed to keep some things, most notably the journal and quill that Pluma had given him. That was all that he mattered.

He might be a nobody now, but some day, that would change.

[timeisacephalopod]

Falling Into Place

This is a random AU with aromantic Tony because why the shit not lol. This has some minor Sam/Bucky in it and also a little bit of aro (and ace) phobia, but nothing too rough. More like utter ignorance towards the subject.

Tony is spread across the couch, feet caging Rhodey in on the other end. He has his laptop balanced on Tony’s calves and occasionally to be an asshole he’ll move his legs around just to watch Rhodey scramble to not let his computer drop. Its funnier considering Tony would obviously fix his computer if he broke it. Across the room Bucky sits with Sam, one foot almost in his face while Sam unsuccessfully waves it off. They have a weird, somewhat antagonistic relationship but they’re sweet together.

“So what exactly is that?” Tony asks, referring to Bucky’s talk of whatever the hell an ‘asexual’ is. He’s familiar with the outdated scientific term but something tells him Bucky is not referring to reproduction.

“No sexual attraction,” Bucky says simply.

Tony frowns, considers that for a moment because he didn’t even know that could be a thing people feel. Or don’t feel he guesses. “Nice. I don’t really get it in a practical sense but ok- I’ll look it up later.”

“How do you have a relationship if you don’t feel sexual attraction?” Rhodey asks. Tony, Bucky, and Sam frown in sync but only Bucky looks slightly offended. Tony supposes he had guessed right when it occurred to him that that was kind of rude.

“Relationships aren’t built on sexual attraction,” Bucky says slowly, like he’s not entirely sure how to explain his relationship with Sam. Tony isn’t entirely sure he should need to if it works for him and Sam. Though he wonders how the sex thing works not that he’s going to ask. That seems kind of rude too, and he’s been reliably informed that if he wouldn’t ask a majority group the question he shouldn’t ask the minority group. And he definitely wouldn’t ask Pepper to explain how her sex life with Natasha worked on account of him being fond of his life. And also on account of that being fucking weird.

Rhodey frowns though, “I mean... they kind of are. No offense,” he adds and Tony squints.

“Isn’t a relationship built of sexual attraction just a one night stand? No hate to that obviously, its my preferred kind of relationship, but like... actual relationships have all that time, and commitment, and marriage, and all that shit. Hey Barnes, got a word for someone who doesn’t want any of all that?” he asks in a facetious tone, grinning.

“Aromantic,” he says and Tony laughs.

“Huh, that was pretty quick, color me impressed. How’d you make that up so fast?” he asks.

Bucky frowns, “I didn’t, that’s a real thing.”

Tony looks over at Rhodey, his usual guide into ‘is this person shitting me or is this a real thing’ when it comes to various minority issues. Not like he’d know about most of them first hand though it does occur to him that maybe Rhodey isn’t a good authority right now. “He’s obviously fucking with you, Tony,” he says and Bucky lets out an annoyed noise.

“I am not, fucking Google it,” he says, irritation leaking into his tone. Sam reaches out and settles a hand on his knee, finally succeeding in removing Bucky’s foot from his face. Rhodey immediately looks it up and Tony frowns, eyebrows drawn together because he actually wants that to be a thing. It would explain a lot about his life if it were a thing but if Bucky is just being an ass he doesn’t want his bubble burst.

“Oh, that is a thing I guess,” Rhodey says. “That doesn’t even make sense,” he mumbles under his breath.

“Maybe not to you but that makes perfect sense to me,” Tony says, pulling out his phone to look the term up himself. The definition, he discovers, is a lack of experiencing romantic attraction. When he follows a few links though the somewhat vague definition makes more sense. He’s always been fond of touch- he’s a touchy guy- but people always took it as a romantic or sexual thing so he sort of went with it even though he never really wanted the relationship part. And has spent his whole life being accused of being afraid of commitment or just using people for sex.

“Actually I sort of figured you were aromantic a long time ago,” Bucky says. “Back when you and Pepper broke up and she told you that you needed to work out your commitment issues and you told her you never even wanted a relationship to begin with. Kind of an asshole way to put it, but that’s pretty much how all your relationships end if they turn romantic,” Bucky points out. Tony winces because yeah, Pepper had been pretty hurt by that, probably still is and for good reason, but Tony hadn’t known how to word his disinterest in the relationship part of their relationship. 

Guess it was the ‘romantic’ part that threw him given that they’re fine as friends, always were, but then he was dumb and slept with her, which she took as interest in something beyond the platonic and can you platonically sleep with people? Because mostly he just likes the intimacy. And you know, orgasms are also pretty cool. He’ll look that up later too.

“Seriously?” Rhodey asks him, raising an eyebrow.

“What? Like it doesn’t explain literally every relationship I’ve ever had minus friendships? Don’t be an asshole Rhodes, you damn well know this explains all my behavior,” he says. At least he has an actual explanation for Pepper now and maybe his comment won’t sting as much. She’s earned an actual reason for that statement because it had been true, but far too harshly put.

“Excuses it, maybe,” Rhodey says and Tony pulls his feet back, watching in a somewhat mean kind of glee as his computer falls and he doesn’t catch it in time. “That was uncalled for!” Rhodey tells him, picking the machine up off the ground. 

Tony flips him off, “you earned it. Its not like I’ve ever intentionally been an asshole to people I’ve dated, I’ve just never wanted a relationship.” Not knowing how to explain that is what resulted in harsh statements Tony has, until now, refused to apologize for because they were true and he’s always been under the impression that you apologize when you mean it. And issuing an apology because someone got hurt and not because he actually felt bad for reasons outside of that has always felt cheap to him. People deserve better than guilty ‘I’m sorrys’ or maybe that’s because he’s gotten too many of those from Howard.

“That why don’t you ever tell people that?” Rhodey asks.

“He does literally all the time in every interview I’ve ever seen and consistently states that he’s not a relationship kind of person to everyone he’s ever met. I knew that five minutes after knowing him,” Sam says, surprising Tony with his defense. He’s sort of always suspected that Sam didn’t like him much though he has no idea why.

“He’s not wrong,” Tony says, remembering perhaps belatedly that Sam’s words are true and he’s always insisted that he’s not interested in relationships. Which is why he always ends up confused to find himself in them. And it occurs to him that he’s literally never initiated a relationship on his own before. Never even considered it, actually.

Bucky smiles from across the room. “And now your entire life starts to make sense because oh, the only reason you ever had an interest in romance if because people had an interest in romancing you,” he says and Tony lets out a soft laugh.

“Yeah actually. Yeah, that’s it exactly. How’d you know that?”

Bucky grins wider, “when I accidentally stumbled across the term ‘asexual’ it occurred to me that the only interest I had in anything sexual in nature was always directly related to my partner’s interest, never mine. I’ve never initiated sex of any kind. Not to be an asshole but its kind of funny to watch the same with with you and romance from the outside. You always look so confused when you end up dating someone. Its not so fun when things end though,” he says, wincing.

Yeah, no fucking shit. “Maybe next time tell me these things sooner Barnes, what the hell?” He could have used this months ago, no, years ago. A memory floats back to him, one from his early childhood, and he frowns as it comes back. He’d been a kid in college- obviously everyone was interested in things he wasn’t. Sort of. He’d been young, but young enough to have begun taking an interest in sex. Relationships were lost on him though. He did a good job keeping up appearances with people around him but there was one time when someone mentioned marriage- or ‘settling down’ like being out of a relationship was wild somehow- and Tony had shaken his head and asked why anyone even wanted that. He said he’d prefer to to live with friends over marriage but that had gotten laughs. He had to grow up sometime, they’d said.

Only it occurs to him now that he never grew out of that line of thinking, he just hid it better because he’s always hated being viewed as immature. Remnants of growing up a child genius. “I think maybe I should go apologize to Pepper,” he says softly.

***

“Yeah um, so that’s what I meant. I didn’t... I wasn’t trying to be an asshole, I just didn’t know how to explain how I felt and it came out wrong,” Tony tells Pepper. She looks over the information he’d compiled for her and he waits nervously for a reaction.

Eventually she smiles a little, “actually this explains... a lot. Like how you always seem confused to be in relationships. I always thought it was because you never really saw yourself as a relationship kind of person but I guess it went deeper than just personal feelings or problems. I appreciate the apology, though,” she says.

Tony sighs, sitting down beside her on the couch. “Figured you earned it, I was kind of an ass about our breakup.” 

Pepper shakes her head, “I wasn’t mad because of what you said, I was mad because you didn’t seem to understand why that was so hurtful to me. Guess we both didn’t understand anything the other was saying. So I’m sorry too, for not thinking to ask questions or something.”

He snorts, as if that should have been Pepper’s problem to begin with. “Don’t be, this isn’t your fault at all. Blame Barnes, his asshole asexual ass knew about this the whole fucking time and thought my confusion was amusing and neglected to tell me what the hell was going on.” He’s so getting Barnes back for this starting with a hostile takeover of Bucky’s left arm.

“Well, I think we can all agree that this was for the best. Natasha is a much better partner than you ever were. No offense,” she says.

Tony laughs, “your fucking cactus is a better dating partner than me, Pep. I’m just happy I didn’t screw up your relationships forever with my dumbassery.”

Pepper rolls her eyes, “I love you Tony, but our breakup was not that important in the grand scheme of things. I am happy you figured yourself out though, god knows what kind of disaster relationship you would have accidentally found yourself in next.”

He thinks about his date or two with T’Challa and winces, “yeah, probably for the best.” And he should probably fill T’Challa in in the meantime. He could probably help with the hostile takeover of Bucky’s arm.

(AN: Rhodey does eventually grow out of being an ass and apologizes when he realizes that oh, that is a real thing. Mostly because Pepper tells him he’s being a prick and should listen to Tony, who never figures out any of his emotions so they should encourage it when he finally does figure one out).

[artificialqueens]

Cupid’s Blind Arrow (Group fic) Chapter 1 - Ginger Nut

AN: I hope yous enjoy first official chapter, and I’d like to welcome Mistress as the beta for this fic. Already she’s helped so much to improve the writing, thank you!

As the class started to file in for English they noticed all of their chairs were assembled differently. On either side of the room the chairs were set up facing each other. “Are we in a fucking courtroom or something?” asked Adore. “That’s not what a courtroom looks like dumbass, I’m surprised you haven’t seen one before,” Bianca came up behind the girl and settled a hand on her shoulder. “This looks more like…” she searched for the name. “The house of commons in London, where they debate about laws and stuff.” “Party” signed off Adore Bianca watched her eyes; she was sure they had a twinkle she’d never ever seen before. Bianca shook her head. What the hell am I thinking? Since when do I care about a twinkle in some slacker’s eye? “B, you ok?” Adore noticed Bianca almost having a conversation with herself. She worried for a minute that Bianca had actually been talking to her, and that Adore had been ignoring her. Bianca blinked a couple times and forced a half smile to her face, nodding.

“Take your seats, quit acting like you’ve never seen a debate room before. Actually, no don’t take your seats I need to tell you what seat to take” Miss Raja appeared from the corridor, shooing all remaining students into the classroom. “Ok uh, actually just take any seat right now I can’t think with you all standing there.” The students obeyed and slumped in the closest empty seat. “So today we are going to be doing something a little different. Everyone who has read Romeo and Juliet believe that the plot was one of the two following-” A knock on the door came, interrupting Miss Raja, who stomped to the locked door to let in an almost lifeless Pearl.She had a bag slumped over one shoulder and their eyes were more closed than open, so nothing was new. “Sorry I’m late” came out of her with minimal effort and volume. Raja sighed as she went to change the register to inform the office of Pearl’s now late attendance. “It’s fine just take any seat Pearl.” Pearl scanned the room for a second, surveying her options. There was a spare seat next to Laganja, yeah no. Nothing against the girl but Pearl had no energy to keep up with her; there was also one next to Max, could she really be bothered being told to sit with her legs crossed so she doesn’t “sit like a man”? fuck that. Ultimately, she left one option and took a spare seat between Violet and Vivienne. Vivienne hardly ever spoke, and Pearl had never really spoken to Violet, whatever she thought. “Stoner pit stop before class?” mumbled Violet, loud enough for only Pearl to hear. Pearl scoffed and looked up to find Violets eyes on her. The girl’s gaze had a weird effect on Pearl; It was like she could see into her soul. “No” Pearl replied, dragging out the syllable longer than she probably should have been. “I missed the bus and had to get my mom to drive me.” Violet returned a smirk, accepting Pearl’s answer, then refocused her attention to Miss Raja, about to start over. “Back to the play; people either think it is about the stupidity of youth and their lust, or they think it’s a beautiful tragedy about how love can conquer hate. One of the requirements for the honours course is that students must participate in a discussion, ensuring that they become informed of both opinions and can make their own decision. So, without any talking, if you believe that Romeo and Juliet is a play that demonstrates how children can be naïve and mistake love for obsession, sit on the left side and if you think it’s a tragic tale of two star crossed lovers sit on the right.” A second passed before Raja had to exclaim “Move!” accompanied by a hand gesture to get the teenagers to reluctantly get up. “Where are you going then?” Pearl asked Violet, who was still a bit offended by the previous stoner nickname she’d been given. Violet remained silent but stood up to cross over sides. “Love is love, you don’t have to be thirty to realise that.” With that she flipped her jet-black hair to one side and took the seat directly across from Pearl.

Katya moved up from her seat, shimmying past Ivy and Jinkx, and made her way over to the left side of the room. she liked Romeo and Juliet but she couldn’t get past the time span of the play – seriously you don’t marry a guy you met less than 4 days ago. She sat in an empty seat next to Pearl. Katya never had the chance to get to know Pearl, but she felt bad for her. The poor girl had moved from New York, and that’s like forever away, as far as Katya was concerned. Katya had known everyone else in the class since at least middle school. Pearl was cute though - not Katya’s type - but cute. She spied the others that had come to the dark side. Del Rio; that was no surprise, Phi Phi; Katya was starting to think Phi Phi had maybe given up on love considering she caught her ex cheating on her a couple of weeks back. There was also Gia, Max, Alyssa and- what? Alaska? Alaska Thunderfuck? The girl was all cheerleader and sing-songy, why was she on this side, did she get confused? She sure as hell didn’t look confused; she sat with her arms crossed, bottom eyeliner smudged and an emotionless bitch face as Alyssa talked nonsense to her. Wow. Shocker of the week. On the other side sat Alaska’s friend Trixie, a blonde bombshell by Katya’s standards. This was Katya’s first class with the girl but the minute she’d walked in on the first day, Katya hadn’t been able to tear her eyes away. She’d seen Trixie before in the corridors and at football games, but for some reason when Trixie stood in the doorway Katya’s whole world stopped, my god she’s beautiful. Suddenly her attention was averted to the girl behind Trixie; Sharon Needles. “Well I never” breathed Katya without thinking. “Hm?” Pearl looked up. Katya mouthed Sharon and motioned over to the other side. Pearl made a face giving herself an extra two chins, “Sharon? Young Love? Nah I don’t see it.” Katya narrowed her eyes to focus, her mind drew a blank. “Looks like she might not just be Sharon Needles but Sharon the love” Katya toppled over in wheezing laughter at the mediocre pun she’d just made. Pearl face palmed and settled back into her seat.

“Okay class- wait Willam you need to choose a side.” Willam folded her arms across her chest. “What if I think the play is both?” Miss Raja put a hand to her head. “Willam I don’t have time-“ Willam spread her hands and shrugged. “Listen, the play is stupid. No one would ever marry someone they just met, but teenagers also aren’t as dumb as you baby boomers think.” Raja was offended at the age comment but didn’t hold Willam to it. Instead she ushered a challenge. “Willam, you’ve just proven your strength in ability for discussions. How about you choose one side right now, but you can change your mind later. This is something you can really excel in, do lots of research …” Willam rolled her eyes and strolled over to the side with the rest of the anti-love crowd, tuning the teacher out as soon as she’d said the word ‘research’. “Willam?” prodded Miss Raja. Willam raised her head, realizing she’d been asked a question. “What? I stopped listening.” Raja sighed. “I said when was the last time you found something you could really sink your teeth into?” “Courtney Act” Willam responded. Adore sniggered from her seat – she was the only other person who really knew about Willam and Courtney. Beyond the rumor mill, Adore had caught them together on a break day last term. After promising not to tell, Adore had given Willam a high five and picked another place to smoke. around ten minutes later Willam came over and sat down next to Adore at one of the back walls of the school. Adore could only remember Willam gushing over the blonde, how she made Willam look forward to learning just to see Courtney. Willam’s lovesick smile was so infectious it could’ve made the blind man smile thought Adore. When the Aussie returned home, Adore had offered her company to Willam. Willam had tried to blow it off, “not like it was a break up or anything, a fling. That’s all it was.” The bohemian rocker saw straight through her, Willam missed her. Hearing Willam talk about Courtney – even in a comedic way – sparked a warmth in Adore, knowing Willam still thought about her. Miss Raja clapped her hands, a sound so loud the class fell immediately silent. “Okay, we’re gonna start. The way we’re going to do this is I’ll pull someone’s name from this jar and they’re gonna share their views on the play, why they think that and anyone from the opposing side can challenge that view, OK?” everyone nodded in agreement and raja went to pull out the first name. “Phi Phi” The whole class sighed in anticipation as Phi Phi prepared herself, now that Alaska looked at her, she didn’t feel that bad. Not compared to Phi Phi’s stained races of mascara, raccoon nest hair and glassy eyes. The girl used to be so sharp, everyone thought she was perfect. Alaska actually felt bad for Phi Phi, that’s saying something. Anything to distract attention from Alaska right now. “Well… I don’t really believe in love. Like it’s silly.” The teacher nodded for her to go on, “People can’t fully love someone, like that’s just not how life happens. I feel like the play represented an infatuation, which is completely different from love. When you love someone, it’s what’s on the inside. Infatuation is mainly on the outside. But like I said, love is silly. It just… never works out” The last part subsided to a mumble as Phi Phi hung her head. Everyone had heard about her breakup and she hadn’t come to school for 4 days after it happened. It didn’t matter how annoying Phi Phi was, no one wanted to catch their partner cheating. Discussions started to break out to fill the awkward silence Phi Phi had left. No one really listened to each other until Needles broke out: “Love is real.” At that everyone turned their head and found an emotional Sharon, not crying but emotional. Sharon was being stared at like a statue. What the fuck is she doing? Alaska screamed in her mind. Sharon went on, “The first time you look at someone you can tell if there’s something there, I don’t believe in love at first sight, but I believe in that connection. I can’t explain it, but I can feel it. You look at someone and you mind starts to run laps of a track but you don’t get tired, you feel… rejuvenated.” “Wow Sharon,” commented Willam. “Rejuvenated. That’s a big word for you.” Max gave Willam a discreet but firm kick in the shin to get her to shut up. Willam let out a screech “Get your sasquatch feet away from my Loub’s.” “Love is a precious feeling, anyone who’s lucky enough to feel it knows that, and they can clearly see that Romeo and Juliet loved each other. So much so that they went to extremes for one another.” The class was silent, no one could really comprehend what just happened. Sharon Needles, a person who never showed any emotion, a person who never talked about emotion, for the first time opened up her heart to reveal a warm affectionate soul. Who knew? Silence filled the room for a minute, each person taking in Sharon’s heart-felt speech. Until Alaska, who had been sitting quietly spoke up through a groggy voice and a guarded façade. “Love? You really believe that Romeo loved Juliet? He didn’t care enough to wait with her! She wasn’t dead, she was asleep, but he didn’t wait around long enough to realise that, did he?” The girls on her side of the class all tried not to notice Alaska’s hands balled into fists. “Romeo was stupid, Juliet was left with no choice, she loved him so much, I’ll say that. She was willing to leave everything for Romeo, her name, her family, but the minute Romeo saw that Juliet wasn’t awake he went down to the Apothecary to get drugs. Those drugs didn’t help with anything and Romeo died, their love along with it.” Sharon and Alaska’s eyes were locked on each other. It was like no one else was in the room. Sharon took a shallow breath through her teeth, her eyes squeezing shut. “Did you ever consider that Romeo didn’t get the drugs because of Juliet? God, not everything is about effin Juliet, Juliet likes to play the victim. Like none of this is her fault and she’s some precious gift to the world. Fuck Juliet- sorry miss- fuck her. Romeo had a life, y’know, at the start of the play he was very obviously depressed, Juliet wasn’t there for him, was she?” Violet and Pearl caught each other’s eye and Violet mouthed burn to Pearl mimicking dubbing a fire on her finger. Pearl gave a shy laugh, she kinda liked Violet. Sharon was panting. “Maybe, just maybe Alaska, Romeo wanted to die. And Juliet set him over the edge. Juliet doesn’t rule his life, and she shouldn’t dictate what he can do and when. Romeo did love Juliet but he really shouldn’t’ve. It messed up his life more than you can imagine.” Everyone flipped their eyes back to a boiling Alaska from Sharon who was sitting on the edge of her seat, face red with passion. “What the literal fuck is going on?” muttered Violet, Adore met her comment with a wide-eyed glance implying she was just as lost as Violet. “Their relationship was toxic and you know it,” Alaska stumbled, not losing eye contact with Sharon as tears began to clog her vision. Alaska don’t break she told herself, not here not now. “It was destined for failure the minute Romeo snuck into the ball. He still wasn’t over Rosaline and he threw himself at the first girl he saw. That, to me. Is. Not. Love.” “I agree with Alaska.”. Sharon rolled her eyes. “Oh, you would Phi Phi” Suddenly, the ball was back in Sharon’s court and she was frozen for a second, her usual laid-back slouch in a chair had been replaced by a vulnerable huddle at the edge. Her lip quivered for a millisecond, something no one but Alaska would be able to notice. “Did Juliet even want a relationship?” asked Sharon, a hint of hurt in her voice. “Seriously what the fuck is this? Jerry Springer?” Trixie elbowed the girl. “Violet shut up. I want all the details,” Sharon swallowed before continuing. “Like, her mother had even asked her about marrying Paris, and she told her she hadn’t thought of being in a relationship. Was her plan to just lead Romeo on, drive him crazy?!” the word “crazy” had been delivered through gritted teeth. Throughout all of this Miss Raja had bought a ticket to attend the tennis match and she let out the occasional gasp and she was given disapproving glare by Willam. “Face it Sharon, Romeo was stupid. If he really loved Juliet he wouldn’t have ran away. Who really was the one afraid of commitment.” “Bull- “ At that the bell rang for the next class but no one moved. Even Raja stood still for a moment, before realising the situation and opening the door to allow students out. Sharon darted out of the door. “Go ahead, run away from the problem like you always do!” Alaska yelled out after her. The blonde composed herself, attempting to fix the smudged eyeliner and hair that had been messed with for the whole period. Willam came up behind her and showed what little compassion Courtney had taught her “Hey, let’s not break down at school and be known as the girl who cried and had to be taken out of class - stop, let me do it, we can make it smoked instead of smudged.” Pearl sensed someone standing in front of her as she packed up her things, God I wish Miss Raja would’ve told us we didn’t need our folders and- “Hey Pearl” It was Violet, closer than she probably should’ve been. “You busy on Friday night?” Pearl, somewhat perplexed, managed to give a shake of her head. “Uh, no.” “Why don’t you come to my party? Everyone’s gonna be there, it’ll give you a chance to get to know people better.” Just when pearl didn’t think she could get any more confused, did Violet Chachki just wink at me? “uh yeah, sure sounds great?” “Cool, just ask Adore for the details and stuff but there’s one rule.” Violet paused for dramatic effect. “It’s a costume party, be creative like I know you are.” an awkward silence filled the gap between them as Violet realized what she just said. “Sorry that sounded weird I know. Uh, I meant that you’re like artsy, y’know with your sketch pad and hipster clothes.” Pearl quirked an eyebrow. “Hipster?! Seriously?” Both girls broke out into laughter at Violet’s word choice. “See ya, pearl” Pearl watched Violet go, she glided in her heel, her hair not moving an inch. Pearl smiled to herself, feeling happy for once.

[gyusbambi]

humph; han seojun (pt 4)

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 5

click here for humph masterlist!

story: frenemies to enemies to lovers, high school au

synopsis: seojun and you have known each other since kindergarten. you’re neighbors and even attended the same singing and piano classes. despite knowing each other for such a long time, you don’t enjoy spending time with seojun. even though you are aware of his unfairness, you keep spending time with him. when will you finally leave your childhood frenemy?

note: humph! is a story inspired by pentagon’s “humph! / 접근금지”. originally, this is a seungyeon fanfiction, which i posted on my wattpad. words: 3.8k

to claim that the cupid-team is surprised to witness han seojun getting along with his long term frenemy would be an absolute understatement. in fact, they seem completely and utterly dumbfounded as they watch you both laugh at a joke seojun pulled in the middle of the bus ride back home. needless to say, the childhood friends tease each other now and then like they’re used to it, this time without hurting any feelings. all of these observations, including the fact that you decided to sit next to each other in the bus, lead to several assumptions and without you knowing, rumors start to develop. 

for whatever reason, neither you nor seojun are aware of the gossip regarding both of you. perhaps it’s thanks to kim chorong, who’s apparently really skilled at being inconspicuous. 

_

it’s been one day since you arrived home and you find yourself sleeping in till two pm on a saturday. 

seriously, you should fix your chaotic sleeping schedule.

when you finally leave your room to get some food into your stomach, dressed in your favorite hoodie and sweatpants, your mum and juyeong are already eating lunch. like expected, they give you a quick judging look without interrupting their conversation. while you’re putting some rice in a bowl they talk about juyeong’s crush on some girl. soon their conversation moves to something related to seojun, and that's when you suddenly pay attention instead of playing with the cold food on your plate.

"y/n, is seojun’s mother in a better condition now?"

instantly you look up to react to your mum’s question. instead of looking at you, she puts more vegetables on juyeong’s table,

"it's been a few days since i last visited her, maybe i should do it again soon. i really hope she gets better."

"what are you talking about?"

"seojun hyung's mum is in hospital." juyeong answers, his mouth stuffed with food while pushing the vegetables away with a scrunched face.

"what?"

"hasn't he told you about his mum? i thought you guys would tell each other everything." my mum questioned with a small pout forming on her lips, finally meeting your worried eyes.

"they broke up.", your annoying brother fails the attempt to whisper.

"we're not together!"

displeased, you hiss at your brother, voice getting higher.

"you guys act like a married couple sometimes. it's annoying."

"shut up!"

"both of you stop now." your mother sighs while her hands move in the air in attempt to stop you from attacking your own brother.

"seojun’s mum is seriously sick and i'm going to visit her tomorrow morning. y/n, maybe you should do too? or talk to him a little since he's probably not doing so well."

"i will."

feeling upset that you’re just finding out about seojun’s mother’s condition, you can’t stop thinking about it for the whole day. besides that, you are worried and consider visiting them the next day.

even though their house is quite near to yours, you have to go through the dangerous part of your quarter. as you make your way to the han’s, your hand moves to your right pocket to grab the pocketknife, which seojun gifted you in your freshman year of high school. for defense reasons, he said.

"you need to be careful when you're walking down this street. here, have this."

however, instead of seeing a group of dangerous men, you spot han seojun himself, walking towards your direction with hands in his pocket. thinking of a casual way of greeting him, you clear your throat before taking a few steps forwards in order to greet him,

"hey!”

"hey, what are you doing here?"

surprised to see you in this area, seojun raises his eyebrows.

"well, i actually wanted to visit- what the hell happened to your face?"

rapidly, you interrupt yourself when the boy is finally close enough for you to spot the multiple bruises on his pale skin. this causes you take a few steps forward and reach for his cheek instantly, worry written all over your face.

he looks horrible. bruises all over his face, lip bleeding, knuckles visibly red.

seojun catches glimpse of your worried eyes and feels embarrassed for you to find him at this state. instead of making the attempt to explain the situation, he grabs your hand which rests on his cheek. the touch of your warm and soft hand causes a pressure building in this chest. seojun doesn’t dare to take his eyes off of yours.

suddenly your cheeks feel like they’re turning into the shade of a tomato. besides that, your heart starts acting all weird when you catch glimpse of his intense eyes.

"what happened?" you question once again, this time with even more concern.

"it's not important-"

"did you get into a fight?"

"that bastard lee seungyong was getting on my nerves again, it's not important." he sighs after running his hand through his hair.

"alright. come on, we need to clean those bruises before they get worse." you mutter after grabbing his right arm and pulling him towards your house.

_

seojun hisses with a painful expression as you attempt to clean the awful wounds on his cheeks. with a concentrated look crossing over your face, you focus on the terrible cut. however, you impatiently drop your hand on your lap when seojun can’t seem to stop moving, an annoyed sigh followed after. 

“could you stop moving the whole time? i’m trying to do something here.”,

positioning yourself closer to the boy sitting on the edge of your bed, you’re ready to treat his wounds for the third time. seojun only grins playfully despite the painful bruises,

“look at you acting like a doctor.”

ignoring his comment, you raise your hand once again to reach for his chin. fingers brushing on his skin, you are able to focus. this time seojun doesn’t flinch. quite the contrary, he’s like frozen on spot. the only thing he seems to be able to focus on are your features. 

nothing but silence dominates your room as you decide to clean the cut on his bottom lip. you fingers brushing over his soft lip, eyes completely focused on them, the poor boy’s heart is about to explode in front of you. he internally thanks to god that you don’t notice his chest rising up and down or his ears turning into a darker shade of red. breath taken away, his eyes linger on your lips, blinking frequently.

yet, his relief only lasts for a couple seconds when the silence eventually makes you look up to seojun, only to find him already staring at you, eyes gazing at your lips.

not aware of your slightly surprised eyes, he continues staring. clearly, your bodies are almost attached to each other. not to mention, you leaned in a little earlier, grip on his shoulder to prevent him from moving. the young boy practically prays that you won’t hear his heart racing in his chest.

aren’t you even a little nervous? it almost makes him annoyed how the closeness doesn’t seem to bother you at all.

little does he know that you feel the exact same way. in fact, you’re so bothered by the butterflies in your stomach that you suddenly wish that he would just continue making dumb jokes or rude comments.

pulling your hand away from his shoulder in a swift move, you blink. still, you’re not able to look away which seems so stupid and unbelievably odd. 

seconds after you catch glimpse of his hand getting closer to yours but that isn’t enough for you to look away.

why would someone look attractive with a beaten face? that doesn't make any sense.

seeing him in this state, bruises, messy hair, intense gaze, flushed face, makes you want to hug him, ask him what was wrong, tell him you were here for him.

however, right when you think he is going to say something or reach for your hand and hold it...

"guess who just ate two big delicious menus-"

juyeong.

the second your brother lays eyes on seojun sitting super close to you, his eyes widen in horror.

"o-oh adult business, i get it. i'll leave now. bye, hyung!"

yet, of course, before leaving your room he doesn’t miss the chance to make gagging noises.

"and y/n, sadly, there wasn't enough food for you."

his fake pout makes you want to throw your slipper at him but you just close your eyes for a second and exhale, trying to remain calm.

seojun only chuckles with amusement.

"mum! y/n and seojun hyung are a couple again. can she move out now?"

juyeong’s annoying voice can be heard all the way too my room. embarrassed, you glance at seojun, who is obviously trying to hold in his laugh.

"i'm sorry for my brother."

"you don't need to be."

"a-anyways, are you better now? i mean your bruises?" you stammer while pointing at his face, wanting to ignore what just happened.

"yeah, a lot better. thank you."

he trails off, eyes darting through the room,

"i-i should probably leave now."

right, your stupid self forgot to ask him about his mum.

"i heard about your mum. i hope she's doing better?"

“thankfully, she is. it's a little difficult for us but we’re going through this."

“hopefully she’ll feel better soon. i’m sure you’re taking good care of her,”

you’re always like that. caring about others more than yourself.

“if you need anything, i’m here.”

he smiles genuinely, “thank you.“

and that's when he leaves.

_

the sun shines outside the next day. but instead of going out and enjoying the nice weather like other normal people, you lay on your bed while thinking about the previous day. strangely, you couldn’t stop thinking about the way seojun made you feel. 

why did your heart race? why were you left speechless?

in the corner of your mind, there’s been an explanation for your weird feelings for your childhood friend. although, you’ve always tried to ignore it and distract yourself.

but now, thinking about all the times seojun made your heart flutter, it just made sense.

you like him.

“no!”

with widen eyes you swiftly stand up, not believing yourself.

it couldn’t be, right? everyone feels this way to their friend at some point of their friendship, no?

but the thing is: you’ve been feeling like this the whole time. 

letting yourself fall on your bed, you scream into your pillow.

you like han seojun.

and there’s no way your former frenemy likes you back.

_

it’s another school morning as you walk into your class. this time however, you’re nervous to enter the room. after all, you’ll have to be around the one person you now feel nervous talking to. what if he notices your odd behavior. praying that he won’t approach you in a way that made your heart flutter, you eventually enter the classroom.

however, it seems like the universe is making fun of you when you’re met with something hundred times worse the moment you step into the room. instantly, all eyes land on you and all you hear are cheers and screams from your classmates,

“congratulations on dating, y/n and seojun!”

“you’re so cute together!”

“y/n and seojun sitting on a tree!”

at the sight of chorong and his group wearing t-shirts with your shipname printed on them, your eyes widen in horror. they think you’re dating han seojun?!

“why didn’t you tell me anything? i’m your close friend after all!”

sua pouts, hitting your arm playfully while your eyes are still glued on the ridiculous t-shirts.

“is it true, y/n?”,

from the corner of your eye you see soojin giving you a teasing smile.

“listen, guys. there has been a huge misunderstanding.”,

when you can finally focus on your friends, who surround you with curious looks, han seojun enters the classroom, completely unaware of what’s happening right now.

the young boy frowns at chorong after setting his bag on his table. yet soon his confused face changes to a shocked one, as he eventually notices the t-shirts, everyone congratulating him with cheerful laughter.

turning his head to you, he notices your helpless look while you tilt your head to the side. totally surprised by everything, seojun has no clue how to act at the beginning. 

finally, both of you manage to stand in front of the class, facing your classmates as they continue asking several questions,

“since when have you been dating?”

“no way! did anything happen during the school trip?”

“tell us the truth!”

frustrated, you move your hands in the air, trying to speak with a loud tone so that everyone can understand you,

“i don’t know how you came up with this rumor but seojun and me are only friends, okay?”

hearing your statement, everyone groans at the same time, not believing you at all,

“it’s so obvious! just tell us the truth.”

letting out a sigh, you turn your head to face seojun with an annoyed look,

“could you at least say something?”

however, seojun only raises his eyebrows before taking his hands out of his pockets,

“would you hate it that much?”

his sentence makes you frown and multiple questions appear in your head. not quite understanding his point, you continue staring at him with furrowed eyebrows before he finally slams his hand on the desk in front of him, catching everyone’s attention,

“you guys better stop spreading all those rumors around. she’s only my friend...,”

disappointed, many students groan before going back to their seats while others still don’t seem to believe seojun and shake their heads in denial.

seojun bends down to your height so that his face is only a few inches apart from yours before whispering with one eyebrow raised,

“...right?”

nervously you blink, sadness starting to grow inside you after hearing his words. of course, he only considers you as his friend. there’s no way he would see you as something more.

_

friday nights are always the same for you: watching your current favorite tv show while snacking on whatever you have at home. whereas other people from your grade probably club somewhere.

that night your phone rings and an unknown number appears on the screen. thinking it’s a stupid prank, you pick it up with an annoyed sigh.

"hello?"

"hello. is this y/n?"

"yes. who am i talking to?"

there is a short silence before the unknown person starts talking again,

"look, i work at this club near your neighborhood and this dude randomly passed out here. i found your number on his phone so i thought of calling you. can you maybe come and get him? he's seriously wasted a– dude, what the hell, stop spilling all the drinks!"

"i'm sorry but who are you talking about?"

you heard the unknown man mumble before answering, "seojung? seung- seojun?"

"han seojun?"

"yes! that's his name."

a short silence takes over when you sit up in shock.

"so, are you coming?"

you sigh before replying, "i need the adress.”

_

the moment you enter that club, you want to return to your house. many people dance on the dance floor, totally wasted. everyone is pressing their bodies against each other's. the loud music makes you feel even more uncomfortable. you look around and let out a relieved sigh when you find a bartender with a phone on his hand.

"hello, i'm here for seojun. the guy who–"

"hey, finally! he's right here."

you follow the man to the other side of the club, where people are sitting on the couches and drinks were sold every minute. it doesn’t take you long to spot seojun sitting on the couch. his eyes are closed but his head is swinging from left to right. you can’t believe your eyes. you’re pretty sure you haven’t seen him in a state like this ever before.

"don't worry. your boyfriend didn't hook up with anyone." the bartender next to you said.

"he's not my boyfriend."

"what are you then?"

"i'm his..." you trail off before answering,

"neighbor! i’m his neighbor!"

seojun shouldn't know that you came to pick him up at this time.

without waiting any longer, you help seojun getting up and wrap his arm around your shoulder. before leaving the club, the bartender reaches you seojun’s phone and makes sure to call a taxi. after thanking him you leave with seojun’s heavy body.

while waiting for the taxi to arrive, seojun keeps rambling stupid things you can’t understand. it’s getting harder for you to stand with him by yourself every minute, so you decide to sit on the bench with him, which is a couple steps away from the bus station.

you let out an exhausted sigh after sitting down and then turn your head towards him. suddenly you grab his face and make him look at you. he smiles like an idiot after you brush his bangs away from his forehead. his cheeks are extremely red, his lips pouting slightly and his eyes struggling not to close. your cold hands hold his warm, soft cheeks while you analyze his expressions. you have to admit: seojun looks cute.

after a few seconds he suddenly frowns. he narrows his eyes and tilts his head to the side slightly, looks you up and down considerately before asking,

"who are you?"

“you don't know who i am?"

"hmmm..." he rubs his chin carefully, acting like he’s solving a mystery,

"no."

"good."

"you're telling me that that's fine?" seojun giggles and covers his mouth.

"yes, absolutely."

"alright! i'm han seojun. who are you?" he stretches his hand out for you to shake.

"does that matter?”

“of course! who are you, young lady?”

"that's not important right now. what matters is that you're extremely drunk. what were you doing here?"

"you're rude!" he pouts and crosses his arms,

"you won't even tell me your name."

"why are you acting so childish?"

"i-i don't know."

"never mind. that's fine."

"really?!"

"yeah, you're good."

you notice how his lips form a small smile,

"you're nice and then rude and then nice and then- you remind me of someone you know?"

yes, that's you.

"my friend y/n."

"oh, really?" you sarcastically laugh.

"yeah! she's like you. but prettier. like so much prettier. she’s pretty."

"that doesn't even make sense."

"huh?" seojun asks confused.

oh no, why do you have to be so cute.

"actually, it’s hard for me to be her friend." suddenly he’s all sad,

"sometimes i cross the line and don’t know my limits. but she's so dumb and stubborn!"

"and why is that?” frowning, you cross your arms in front of your chest, waiting for his response. 

he only sighs with tiredness, "never mind–"

and then he falls asleep on your shoulder.

_

finally you arrive at seojun’s house and fortunately all the lights are out. with his heavy body pressing to your small one, you struggle to carry him up the stairs. quietly, the door is opened by you before seojun falls into his bed. your head starts hurting, which makes you sit down next to him and massage your temples. however, you help seojun standing up and carry him to the bathroom carefully, in order to wash his face. he lets you take off his jacket and his shoes. finally he lays down on his back, with his face facing the ceiling.

"don't lie on your back." you demand.

"hm?" seojun’s eyes are firmly closed when he mutters with tiredness.

"lie on your side." you pull his body to the side, so that he could face you.

definitely, his facials expressions change. his lips are no longer pouted, his eyes extremely tired, his cheeks pale. from analyzing his face once again, you fail to notice him staring at you with his eyebrows drawn together. soon his confused expression changes to a sad one when you cover his body with his bed sheets.

"i'm sorry." seojun mutters suddenly. you expect him to continue, as he grabs both of your hands and slightly pulls you closer to him. a shiver goes down your spine.

"y/n, you deserve better."

he knows it’s you? 

"i know i treated badly but i need you."

his eyes are barely opened, his words barely understandable. your hands start shivering as his grip tightens.

"i-i should go."

"no! please stay here." he rambles drunkly.

you decide to stay a little longer, just until he would fall asleep and hopefully forget everything that has happened this night.

“i mi..."

you aren’t able to understand his quiet mumbling, so you lean in a little,

“what did you say?"

“i miss y/n."

silence takes over the room before you finally reply,

“i missed you too, seojun-ah.”

your words make him open his eyes immediately. with a surprised face he tilts his head slightly and narrows his eyes,

"y/n?"

instead of saying anything, you hold his hand while he’s still questioning your identity. all of the sudden his hands leave yours to grab your face. without waiting too long he pulls your face closer to his. instantly, your eyes widen when you notice the small gap between your noses. intensively, he looks into your eyes. so many emotions can be read from his look, yet you can’t figure out what he‘s feeling exactly. they have the most beautiful brown color you have ever seen. so deep, that you could get lost in them. only seconds pass, but it still feels like you were staring at each other for an eternity. you can even feel his soft breath on your face, which causes your ears to turn a dark shade of crimson.

seojun then glances at your lips before looking back into your eyes again. without waiting any longer he presses your lips together, one hand holding your cheek while the other grabs your waist. you let out a small gasp, your eyes remain closed, your whole body frozen. is this really happening?

when you’re finally able to kiss him back and hold firmly into his shoulders, he tilts your head, deepening the kiss. you feel your heart beating thousand times faster, almost exploding in your chest, as his soft lips press against yours. your face is glowing when you eventually wrap your arms around his neck to pull him closer, unable to resist the warm feeling. without doubt, you are sure that you've never felt something like this before.

seojun slowly pulls back when he feels your fingers softly tugging at his hair, leaving a small gap between your lips. you feel his breath on your face when he hums something before his lips meet yours for the second time, not giving you enough time to open your eyes,

“hmm, strawberries.”

feeling his lips forming a small smile, your heart is about to explode in your chest. seojun was insanly drunk but clearly enjoys the taste of strawberry lip balm, brushing his thumb over your cheek softly.

soon you break the kiss only to find seojun falling asleep on his bed seconds later. not believing what just happened you stare at him, admiring his features before panic takes over you and you rush out of his house.

would he remember any of this tomorrow?

_

to be continued...

(p.s: sorry for making you wait for so long🥺)