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creatingnikki · 4 years ago

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What 2020 has taught me

1. Those things that seem like content for sci fi or pure fiction are actually things that can happen. To the entire world. Like a pandemic. And to you. Like a seizure.

2. Everyone is sad. Everyone is struggling. In different ways and in different measures. Makes no one special. But you still get to feel sad for yourself and be compassionate towards others. But it's also okay to draw boundaries because you're everyone too. Remember, not special? You're sad and trying to deal with it too.

3. Every job you have will not add value to your life. It will not teach you new things or give you people you'll want to stay in touch with. Sometimes some jobs will only be a season of your life. Even if the season lasts for over a year. It's okay.

4. You know how you thought picking a college and picking a major and picking your first job and picking a specific industry were all the career decisions you had to make? Yeah, no. It's never a one time thing. You could have a job as a marketing strategist for two years and then want nothing to do with it. And then you'll have to make another decision and work towards it. So I'd like to call it moves. It's like chess. You always have to make a move. And it always has to be strategic, yes. But the truth is in your 20s it probably won't. Even if you try. And as long as you're trying, you'll be fine.

5. You may have different sorts of friends like the one you only talk to about kdrama with or the one you met when you went book shopping alone and the friendship is all about books really. That's normal. But irrespective of why and how you became friends with them, if you consider them a friend then there has to be this basic sense of care, respect and empathy for each other. I don't care what people want to say. If you're faced with the worst trauma of your life, the least your friends can do is check up on you regularly. On text. And if they don't even do that then guess what? They aren't friends. They are acquaintances. Social media and quick promises make everyone seem like your friend. But they are not. They are just nice people who will be nice to you for specific periods and then wander away like you are a speck of dust floating in their journey.

6. You speak a lot and write and you express yourself and you’re emotionally mature but oh my god. You still hold in so much. You’ve known that at a subconscious level and over the last year people - experts - have told you that. You have also realized that you make your pain and sadness about pettier things because dealing with them, admitting about them, sharing that with your friends, is easier. You do that so that you don’t have to deal with the real stuff. Because it’s so damn painful. And you don’t know how to do it. Yet. Acknowledging is the first step anyway right? I know you’re confused about how exactly to let go of all this pain and sadness and feel lighter, and you know that talking to people really isn’t the solution, but I also know you’re smart enough to figure it out.

7. Talking about being smart...you know you’re different than others. Better. Special. Smarter. None of these are the right words. And you never voiced this out until this year because you knew it would make you come across as narcissistic. Some would say it’s because you’re an INFJ. But my mother once said that this may be the first time we are consciously living life but our souls are old and so our instinct and the things we know but can’t explain are because this isn’t the first time for our souls. The connections we feel with certain people, the reason we are so different from our siblings who grew up in the exact same environment with the exact same opportunities, our sense of right and wrong...it’s all because our souls learn and grow with each time and that’s why we are who we are. I think that’s probably how I can explain what I have always felt. That I am living in a different universe than everybody but I have to pretend to be in this one and dumb my emotions and thoughts down. Maybe that’s because my soul has lived through thousands of years while most around me are living their 100th life. Or maybe I’m just narcissistic, who knows?

8. You shift between talking in first person and second person but that’s because that’s how you think in your head and talk to yourself and live your life. You ask yourself things and you accuse yourself of things and you apologize to yourself and you comfort yourself. I think that seeps into your writing and the changing of the voices.

9. You always genuinely thought that you’d not be afraid of dying. And then what happened this October proved you shockingly wrong. I know it’s not so much being afraid of dying but the unbearable pain of knowing what that would mean to your family. So you have to be more prudent and less reckless with your life and the choices you make.

10. Regret is not something that plagued you but this year the realisation and pain of giving away your favourite books from your own personal collection to people you care about as a show of affection and them turning out to be ass holes or losers has hit you so hard. So, yes. No more of that shit. I really fucking want my copy of The Perks Of Being A Wallflower back. UGH. With the childhood picture of me inside it!

11. Sleeping at 5 am in the morning stops being fun or romanticised when you realise just how much harm it does to your body and mind. Literally every single disease and disorder can be traced back to a shitty fucking sleep schedule. It’s not just the hours you sleep but also the quality of sleep and the time you sleep at. So yes sleeping for 8 hours is healthy but not if that 8 hours is from 5 am to 12 pm. ‘Not a morning person’ is just another construct of capitalism and you don’t realise how many industries profit from having you believe that and staying up late or all night. Entertainment. Food. Alcohol. Pharma. Biologically and naturally you are a bloody morning person. And you don’t need 3 cups of coffee to begin your day or your phone notifications to get you to open your eyes and brain to wake up.

12. Sometimes you really have to stop taking people so seriously. I know the idea of treating people as casual friends or entertainment makes you want to fight that concept but you know what? Some people like Pineapple are ever only going to be good for that. No matter how much they ‘grow and change’. So keep them in the background for whenever you want some entertainment or drama. But please don’t clear up your busy schedule to meet them or send them gifts on their birthday.

13. If you don’t have the fruit juice or green juice within half an hour of making it then you are losing out on its most optimum health benefits. Or when you remove the white stringy stuff from oranges. That’s where all the actual nutrients are.

14. I am privileged and so are most of the people I interact with. The global pandemic has been hell for a lot of people around the world. Health wise. Financially. Losing people they care about. But I was blessed enough to be safe at home and have a job that I could smoothly do from home and not have a pay cut or 4-hour long Zoom meetings. So honestly when my friends tell me 2020 has been bad I have to stop and ask them why? Yes, the crippling uncertainty and anxiety is not something that can be undermined. But most people I know had very great positive life-changing milestones this year like moving away to another country for college or taking their first solo trip or getting married. So I have to ask them. Because I am not going to agree that everybody’s 2020 and pandemic narrative is the same.

15. Money gets spent really quickly. When I left my job earlier this year because of personal issues, I thought I had enough savings to last me a year. Full disclosure - I mean to last my personal expenses because I live with my parents. But it didn’t even last me 3 months. And so to use money wisely and buy things that provide utility than instant gratification is something to follow. Also buying one pair of really expensive but quality shoes is better than buying 5 pairs of affordable but low quality shoes that will have a very short life and force you to buy more. I know that higher price doesn’t always mean better quality but sometimes it does. And as an adult now I want to do the whole quality > quantity thing even with things and not just people.

16. Everyone in their 20s went through a crisis of what they should do with their lives and their careers and it’s not unique to the 21st century and the challenges of today. Whether it was Vincent Van Gogh in the 19th century or Sylvia Plath in the 20th, every single person, as brilliant as them went through the torture of making these decisions and living with their consequences. You may think I picked wrong examples for they both killed themselves but you know what? They were the people who really want to live more than anyone. They knew what life meant. And maybe if mental health help was more accessible back then their lives would be longer and more peaceful.

17. Telling people everything is overrated. You don’t have to talk about every single thing that’s on your mind or that’s going on in your life. The good and the bad and the mediocre. You have to be mindful about how much of yourself you’re giving away.

18. Re-watch Suits when people at work feel intimidating because the confidence + negotiation tactics that they show can actually work irl cos at the end of the day no matter in what position you’re dealing with people who have emotions and fears and insecurities and desires. You understand how to leverage that nobody can get the better of you.

19. You belong to yourself. No matter how much you love someone or how much they have done for you or how much you owe them - you belong to yourself. You can’t live your life for someone else. Everyone belongs to themselves first. No relationship, no promise, no circumstance should make you feel like you have to give up your life and make it all about them. If and when the time comes to die for them, go ahead. Take a bullet. Donate that kidney. Write them in your will. But live your life for yourself. And let them live theirs.

20. Twenty three was a challenging year. When it started you claimed the age 23 sounds boring and insignificant. Guess it proved you wrong. It hurt so much now. But that only means you’ll look back on it later and see how it added so much wisdom and resilience to your being. It doesn’t mean that it makes all the bad things that happened to you okay. Or that you should be grateful to them. Fuck no. It means that you should be kinder to yourself because at the end of the day, your mind and body find it in themselves to deal with whatever is thrown their way. They have your back. It’s time you learn to sit straight.

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dannyboyzone · 4 years ago

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Writing rules 101 by Kin

Intro;

Everybody has their own writing style, and you absolutely don't have to listen to me. This is only posted for two reasons, one being that I might not have the mental strenght to post request for 2 or 3 days due to personal reasons, the other one being hey, someone might find this useful.

It's not to nag though, it's more for fun and I am open to respectful critism.

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The first one that's the most important one is - In my eyes at least - that you should absolutely never write the character doing absolutely nothing.

Start out sentences with someone being in the middle of something, either something big or something small.

Example;

Not that good; Daniel woke up to the sound at his alarm, at 7:30 am and went to brush his teeth.

Alright!; Daniel shifted his gaze from the window back inside his kitchen. It was raining today, he couldn't help but wonder if it was a bad omen, or if his mind is simply trying to mess with him.

He opened the door to reveal his kitchen shelves, putting away the mug he had gotten from Gun that morning.

ex end.

Not only will it give more depth and possibilities for your story, but it will also keep the reader more entertained and in picture with what's happening.

Also, you are less likely to get a writers block.

Please, if possible, do not write in a big text block.

By that, I mean not possible break in between lines at all.

Please try to make a format you are possible with, of what your gut feeling says feels right.

Example;

You could write like this.

I do not follow a possible format, but in my opinion the best format is one or two sentences starters. The next graph being three to five sentences.

It will not only make you more able to focus, and know where you left off but it is also helpful for the readers.

You can, of course add big paragraphs - if they are called that - but! People with certain disabilities, especially reading ones, will be able to pay attention more and not get overwhelmed if you follow the process of 'small text, big text, small text' or one similar to that made by your own. Also, were you aware that people who don't have English as their first language will be able to follow through more like that?!

Well, now you are!

ex end.

" It is not necessary for you to always add who is talking while two people are having a conversation. " said Mira,

" That's right, but that rule only applies if it's obvious who is talking! " Zoe added to the conversation, with a cheerful smile.

Zack leaned back in his chair, holding a hand in front of his mouth as he yawned,

" If you are going to tell them the obvious anyway, just tell them that a sentence which is followed up by a quote should never have a dot but rather a comma. "

" Zack, don't be silly! Everyone knows that! "

" Actually... Some people might not! Let's not be judgemental everyone. " said the brown haired one.

" Pft, that's for beginners tho! "

" Hey!!! Let's also tell them that they can use differences between the people talking instead of their name too! " said his desk mate, as he looked up from the notes on their desk.

Zack leaned his head on Daniel's shoulder, closing his eyes as he made himself comfortable for a nap,

" Yup, especially if there is a pronoun difference. "

Mira turned to Y/n, holding their shoulder,

" Don't feel stressed please! It's alright to make mistakes, and writing is pretty hard anyway! Just follow your own pace! "

Do not add anything that doesn't have a meaning.

Even if it's taking a sip of drink, it should have a meaning.

It's poisoned, dirty, the first step for someone to be healthy, the first drink someone has for survival, holds a significant meaning or It's to provoke someone.

It doesn't matter, as long as it adds something to the story.

If you do not make everything have a meaning that adds depth to the story or the personality of a character you are wasting the time of your reader and could possibly give them false hope.

Though, you don't immediately have to add the meaning of if in the same scene or even same chapter.

Some sentences have multiple meanings depending on which word is pressed down.

Take an example, the sentence

" I never said she stole my money "

has 7 different meanings depending on the word you press down. Just try it out.

So if you might write a sentence with multiple meanings please write the pressed down word in italics.

If you want to say the person didn't steal the money, but someone else did, you would have to write,

" I never said she stole my money "

I hope it's clear with only one example!

Your work is bad because you have read it at least a thousand times, but the people you will publish it to will read it for the first time and you will always have to remember that.

If you want to improve it though, write down everything in your notes, then fully delete it.

You can then open your post tab on your publishing site - like tumblr or something - and start rewriting it.

You will definitely only remember what's necessary in addition to your story.

I personally don't do this, but a lot of people might find it important.

Always do research please, even if things won't always be accurate.

If you do research, less people will be annoyed by the inaccuracy and you will be able to add a lot of things that you couldn't have without them.

Also, you can avoid appropriating cultures and offending different kind of communities that way.

Along side that, please always state if your work will out of character or inaccurate on purpose.

Plus! Checking your spelling errors with a trusted app of yours will never hurt anybody! ♡

If you have a writers block, please either

1. Change the weather; Opens up different kind of possibilities due to clothing, back ground, objects, air and reactions it brings out of others.

2. Add something dramatic; Only do this if it's absolutely necessary, because it could ruin your work. If everything goes right, add something that goes wrong and vice versa. This is only if you want to add angst in your fluff or wise versa.

3. Change the environments and/or the positions the characters are in; It gives a better perspective of the mood and general idea of the topic on hand that you are writing about.

4. Move on to the next scene; You can either leave the scene at that, or write the scene after that which can give you ideas for the one previous to that.

5. Make sure to clean the room you are in; Distractions and environment factors can change the way you feel about writing. Especially if not everything is clean, even if you don't like the mess. Also, drink water.

Never add the end being a dream in longer works.

I don't mean the middle, a twist or a necessity. I mean the absolute end.

It just disappoints people and wastes their time.

10.

If you are writing anything other than romance such as action, horror, thriller ect I would like to say that, romance is not a necessity.

I beg of you, please don't add it if your main focus isn't romance.

Sure, people can have relationships but unnecessary romance rather drives people away than bring in more readers.

If your main focus is romance, please don't immediately make the people fall for each other.

It doesn't necessary have to be enemies or something you don't enjoy, but please remember that no one loves at first sight, and even people with a lot of chemistry can be shy!

Even if you love someone the first day you meet them due to something, it will definitely take a few hours and naivety.

So unless the main point is love at first sight, it's better to build up a relationship bit by bit.

11.

Be diverse with tension levels in scenes!

If a whole work is simply tense, or simply has a normal tone that can be either overwhelming or underwhelming.

For example, if your work is shorter, you can add a tiny moment where someone pouts yet gets cheered up with kisses a bit after.

If it's longer, you can add for example a race scene, which after ending is followed up with a group of friends smiling and having fun at a dinner table. If would not only give more depth to your story, but it could make viewers think and make their own headcanons of your story.

So, in short, please balance your story out. Readers have an easier time to finish a work that's balanced in the course of the same day over works that are over or underwhelming! ♡

12.

Every writer has a word that they might repeat too often. Mine are pronouns, but for others it might be fangs, headband, no, lenght or even cat.

Please try to recognise yours!

If you feel like you are repeating your key word more often than 3 times please rewrite your sentence(s) in a way it's more pleasant.

You will have an easier time writing and your reader won't feel like you are repeating yourself.

Also, you can improve your speech pattern that way. ♡

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°

Outro;

Whew, that was a lot. Kinda gave me a headache.

Please remember that these are tips and not to put anyone down. I would have just liked to help and make up for the lack of post. - Ouch, parrot much. - I enjoyed writing these, but if anyone got offended I apologise. Hopefully, this won't get ignored since I put a lot of effort in it. 🥲

Thank you for your time! <3

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enviedear · 4 years ago

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the last great american dynasty → draco malfoy

DESCRIPTION ⌙ in which y/n l/n buys an old home and quickly becomes the talk of the town

PAIRING ⌙ draco x fem!reader

WORD COUNT ⌙ 2.7k

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

pls enjoy this fic as i write my other four... its proving most difficult to keep up with all of them but i’m trying. and of course this is based off the song the last great american dynasty by taylor :)))

also here is the house i’m going to be referencing :)

when you moved to england your first task was to do as your parents suggested, stay with your distant relative, aurora sinistra.

and you followed their advice. you tracked down her home. she just happened to be away. she had left a note saying something about how she couldn’t miss some sort of planetary alignment and would be in germany for the next week.

you had decided to explore the new territory and after an hour of walking around the town you met your soulmate, a home. and not just any home, a beautiful large piece of art made of stone.

the huge house enticed you to climb up the large hill it was sat on.

up closer you saw the vines and wisteria climbing up the exterior. then more details like the broad windows in need of cleaning, an old oak door, and doric columns that made you feel like you stumbled into a princess story.

you forgot your normal manners and had entered the home without a knock, pacing slowly through the entryway, studying the decor.

“excuse me?” a voiced called.

you had turned to find a tall brunette woman holding a toddler.

“i’m so sorry! i didn’t mean to just walk up into your home. its just, very beautiful, and i saw a for sale sign by the mailbox.” you had sputtered out.

the woman seemed even more surprised after you had spoken, “are you american?”

“yes?” you had replied, confused.

“it’s just, no one comes here and now i know why you did,” she laughs a little and adjusts the little boy on her hip. “this is a family home of a dark wizard, not many people want to visit a house that has such negative connotations. but i’d love to give you tour if you’re still interested in it?” she asks.

you smile, “i’d love to. i’m y/n by the way.”

andromeda tonks had quickly taken a liking to you and offered you the home. she explained that absolutely no one else would buy it given the fact it used to belong to her sister, who had fought alongside voldemort.

you didn’t mind the weird history that came along with the home, it was too beautiful to pass up. plus, it wasn’t unlike to you to cause a stir. you took pride in doing things out of the ordinary.

that’s how you came into the possession of the lestrange family home, or as you call it, wisteria house, after the flowers that inhabited the residence.

now, almost a year later, you’re the talk of the town. most of your pureblood neighbors found you too new. you were new money, you were apart of an american half-blood family, and you hosted parties they deemed too loud. however you knew they were tasteful.

you couldn’t care any less about what they thought of you. your home was your everything and you wouldn’t change yourself for some stuck up old families. you found it marvelous ruining everything they deemed sacred.

one of your neighbors in particular, a man named lucius malfoy, had annoyed you to no end. he hated everything about you. andromeda told you several times by now that he proclaimed you a mad woman to anyone who brought you or wisteria house up.

so today, on the fifth of june two thousand and three, you were determined to win this feud.

lucius’ home, malfoy manor was hosting a party tonight, and you were set on ruining everything.

as you entered the mansion, you absentmindedly smoothed out your tight fit gown. it hung off your shoulders and had a tasteful slit on the left side, exposing your leg.

“y/n, come sit with teddy and i!” andromeda calls from a nearby table.

you smile at the woman and take your seat beside her, giving teddy a kiss on the forehead. he in return, makes his hair your favorite color and smiles up at you.

“i didn’t think you’d actually come dear. i know how rude lucius has been to you, but i’m glad you’re being pleasant and showing off your best face.” andromeda says sarcastically, bringing her wine glass to her pointed lips.

you smirk, “lucius deserves to experience my full presence.”

the party kicks off and andromeda introduces you to many people, like harry potter, who you feel very awkward around. you can’t help it, you don’t know how to talk to someone who saved the world.

she also introduces you to lucius, who is carrying around a small poodle like it’s a handbag. he doesn’t say much to you and you don’t mind, his voice annoys you.

you decide to sneak away from andromeda’s conversation with lucius and make your way to a balcony. to the right, you spot your home. you smile to yourself and begin studying the malfoy garden.

after a little time passes you decide it best to find andromeda again, but before you can take a step lucius’ dog is licking your exposed leg.

“well how did you get here?” you jokingly ask the animal, crouching down to pet it.

the dog leans into your touch and that’s when you have an idea.

when you attended ilvermorny you learned a spell for dyeing flags so that the opposing houses couldn’t change it. it proved a big hit given the thunderbird house liked to turn flags into theirs as a joke during quadpot games.

you could dye the dogs fur so that lucius would have a conniption. the dye was completely safe as well, and you were sure the party guests would love to see lucius attempt to change to dogs fur back.

so you dyed the dog a key-lime green, and let it run back off to its owner.

“i suppose my father was right, you are mad.” a voice says from the hall.

you furrow your brows and step further into the hallway so you can get a look at who’s speaking.

leaning against the wall is a tall, pale, blonde boy. draco. andromeda told you about him. apparently he doesn’t like his father much and to spite him, takes teddy on walks in his garden every saturday and thursday morning.

“you know, people have been saying that my home is cursed to make any woman who lives in it insane. and i must admit after finding your aunt bellatrix’s journal i might have to believe them. her sanity did begin slipping after moving into that home.” you say, raising your eyebrows.

“bella was always mad. but if you keep tormenting my father i think it’ll be him to go insane. not that i don’t enjoy your little pranks on him.” he gushes, letting a small smile creep onto his face.

“i can’t just end your dad an i’s little feud here, draco. it would make me look cowardly,” you tease, biting your lip. “i really don’t even know why he invited me to this party. come to think of it, i don’t even know what we’re celebrating.”

“i invited you. it’s my birthday party.” he replies.

“why thank you for your invitation. may i ask how old you are?” you ask.

“twenty-three at 11:37,” he looks at his pocket watch, “ten more minutes.”

you study him before saying, “you know there’s a wall at my house that shows you the way the stars look. would you like to see how the universe aligns the stars for your birthday?”

draco runs a hand through his hair, “i’d love to. and i’ve been meaning to see what you’ve done with bella’s old house.”

the two of you quietly sneak out of malfoy manor and into wisteria house. you lead him upstairs and into the sky room. the room had an enormously tall glass ceiling, and was decorated with things aurora had given you.

on the wall furtherest from the door was a live depiction of the stars above. tonight the wall showed a vibrant blue galaxy spotted with deep orange and bright white stars.

“you’re lucky, this is one of the best ones i’ve seen this whole year. the stars must like you.” you sigh, happily.

draco laughs a bit and looks at you, “despite being the town nuisance, i find you rather enjoyable.”

“despite that compliment being backhanded, i find you rather enjoyable as well.” you tease.

draco laughs, “did you know that the sacred twenty eight pureblood families have a nickname for you?”

you shake your head asking him to explain.

“they call you the last great american dynasty because you bought this big house and have money they can’t trace.” he says.

“i cant deny, i kind of like it.” you giggle.

draco looks down to his watch, “one minute and then i’m officially twenty three,” he pauses to smirk a little, “you know this is the age my parents got married, and i suppose my mother will expect the same of me now.”

“i’ve always said the best age to get hitched is twenty three. the brain isn’t fully developed so you can still love like a teenager but have the responsibilities of an adult. i suppose by that logic, i too should be getting married this year.” you joke.

draco smiles before looking at you quizzically.

you furrow your eyebrows, “what is it?”

“i think i have the perfect way to win your little feud with my father.”

“and what is that?” you ask.

“let’s get engaged.” he says simply.

“draco, i’m honored but,” you pause, thinking.

what would be the harm in accepting. you could spend however long you wanted mulling over the actual wedding. lucius would have to respect you a little more. and draco seemed to be a nice person.

“you know what, this mad woman wouldn’t mind being engaged to you. so long as you don’t rush me to marry you, and we stay here, at wisteria.” you bargain.

“you’re sure? you haven’t been drinking have you? i’d hate to propose to a woman who won’t remember this in the morning.” he jokes.

“i haven’t had anything other than pumpkin juice tonight. although i can say this is extremely impulsive, i am almost certain i’d like to marry you. i mean i just saw the ways the stars looked on your birthday. that’s the most intimate thing i’ve ever done with someone.” you smile.

“that’s the most intimate-” you cut the boy off with a simple, “of course not, silly.”

the two of you talk through the rest of the night and into the early morning before draco escorts himself home.

the following months were bliss, aside from lucius’ annoyance about you and his sons engagement. draco took you all over britian. you bought some of the best ice cream you’ve ever had from a shop in diagon alley, you visited aurora at hogwarts and met the lovely headmistress named minerva who gleamed at draco every time he spoke, you took draco to meet your parents in november to celebrate thanksgiving, and the two of you did a lot of landscaping for wisteria house.

“guess what tomorrow is.” you instruct your fiancee who is tending to the small wiggentree.

draco wipes the dirt from his forehead and purses his lips in thought, “ah, it’s our engagement party.”

you wink at him and wrap your cloak around yourself more trying to get warm, “precisely. i was thinking we announce the wedding day.”

he chuckles, “why y/n, we won’t be getting married for a while. plus i’d hate to toy with mother by giving her a date she’ll have to wait anxiously for. you know that woman is practically dying to have a wedding. though, i would have thought potters’ would have quenched her thirst.”

you roll your eyes, “we’re announcing the day. march the fourth two thousand and five.”

draco’s eyes widen, “and you’re sure?”

you nod and draco barrels toward you with a hug. it knocks you back a bit but you smile and hold the boy tight against you.

it didn’t take you long to become enraptured in everything that was draco malfoy. he loved you with a firey passion you longed to never go out.

the wedding day came quickly, but not quick enough for you and your fiancee.

“you know, i must say, this crowd has to be bigger than harry’s on his wedding day.” you say to andromeda, narcissa, and your mom.

“it’s because half of these people are a little too invested in your life. i love you but having your wedding at a former deatheater’s home isn’t exactly normal. i mean i know it’s not bella’s house anymore but the history remains. i can’t say anyone likes a home of a deatheater. no offense sissy.” andromeda says, looking out the window at the large crowd in the garden.

narcissa rolls her eyes and continues weaving the wisteria into your h/c hair.

“i wish i was better at braiding honey, but narcissa is doing better than i ever could. you were right to have me just doing your makeup.” your mom says, eyeing your mother-in-laws’ handiwork.

“i just can’t believe the day is finally here. my little boy is getting married. i always knew he’d marry a woman who could keep up with him.” narcissa smiles.

after you and your bridesmaids (who consisted of your best friend, andromeda, and your cousin aurora) were ready, narcissa and your mother escort you all down to the venue.

the two mothers smile at you before taking their seats.

“next time we talk you’ll be a married woman.” your best friend says, nudging your shoulder.

“isn’t it crazy?” you laugh, clutching your flowers.

she gives you a confident look before walking onto the aisle.

soon enough its your turn to walk. the long train of your white dress trails gracefully behind you and your off the shoulder long sleeves keep your arms warm.

the grey eyes at the end of the aisle look at you with such adoration you can’t help but to let out a stray tear.

draco looks regal in his light grey tux. his blonde hair is styled just like it was in a picture you found of him from his sixth year at hogwarts, and his rosy cheeks allude to his nerves.

when you reach him he holds a hand out for you and wipes the tears from your eyes.

your father is officiating the wedding and gives you a smile that only a father can give before starting his speech.

soon enough it’s time for draco to say his vows.

your lover sniffles a bit before speaking, “y/n l/n, for years this house has sat quietly on this hill, free of women with madness and bad habits until two years ago when it was bought by you. y/n, the most brilliant woman i’ve ever met. you ruined all the negativities that came with this home. your nature is unlike anyone else. you always see the best in people and things. you make a friendly competition out of anything and it never fails to amaze me at the way you push yourself. before we met i was out walking with a few old friends from school and you were outside wisteria planting lilac. i remember one of my friends referred to you as loudest woman this town has ever seen. i have to agree, your aura is impossible to escape. but i would never want to escape your madness. everything you do fills me with light. who knows if you never showed up what could have been. i’ve had a marvelous time ruining everything this home used to stand for with you, and i’d be honored to continue doing just that for the rest of my life. i adore you, y/n.”

your heart begged to reach out and hug him.

“i love you draco malfoy.” you profess.

“i know pronounce you husband and wife, you may now kiss the bride.” your father beams.

draco leans into you and gives you a kiss full of love. all the best things in the universe couldn’t compare to this moment right now. in the end you had two soulmates, one, a home that you poured all your work into and two, a man who you poured your whole being into.

when the two of you break away you smile at your husband, knowing that this is everything you’ve ever wanted.

and the town whispered the same thing years into your marriage, “there goes the last great american dynasty.”

#—myfics !#draco x y/n #draco x you #draco malfoy fanfiction #draco malfoy #harry potter #draco x reader #draco x female reader #draco x american! reader #draco malfoy x y/n #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy one shot #draco malfoy fluff #the last great american dynasty #taylor swift #cottagecore #harry potter fanfiction

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doverly · 4 years ago

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Up the Road

A werewolf takes her newly turned almost girlfriend on a road trip to their new home. Unfortunately, the road is paved with old enemies.

~5.7k Words

Even my superhuman abilities couldn’t keep me awake forever. I had been driving for 18 hours straight and to be honest the lines on the road were starting to blur. Analise was asleep in the passenger seat beside me but even if she had been awake I wouldn’t have asked her to drive. She had been through a lot in a short amount of time, I didn’t want to give her any extra responsibilities.

A light flashed to life on the dashboard, we were almost out of gas. I blessed the truck’s terrible gas mileage as I pulled into the nearest exit. We were trying to get there as fast as possible so I was trying to avoid unnecessary stops. Getting gas would be a way to break up the interstate monopoly though, and I could get some coffee while I was there.

While I was carefully monitoring how much gas went into the hulking dull blue beast of a truck Analise started to wake up. She had been sleeping since we left Arkansas, twelve whole hours. I was worried that she wouldn’t wake up. Though I supposed that being in the truck had lulled her into a deeper sleep than usual. When I wasn’t driving I normally fell asleep on road trips as well.

“Sorry I slept for so long,” Analise yawned, “I was trying to decipher our future through my dreams. So we’re in Maryland?” she asked sleepily. Analise had grown up in the south, but being quite introverted she had never picked up too much of an accent. Still, her voice spoke of hurricanes and pecan pie. I could have listened to that voice for hours.

She was right, going through D.C. would have been faster but there were some people there that I needed to avoid. “Did your dreams tell you that?”

With a small smile she pointed at the 7-11 behind all of the gas pumps. On the windows ,along with deals on slushies, the Maryland Powerball was proudly advertised. I laughed and quickly pulled out the gas pump. Fifty dollars worth of fuel should have been enough for most of our trip, Analise had done something to the tank to make it use less fuel.

I quickly paid, in cash, for the gas and then started counting out the money I was willing to spend on coffee. Before we left I had managed to get a couple thousand dollars together, and we were only half a day away from our destination, but I still wanted to budget. I never knew when we would need money. As I counted out the money I watched as Analise completed her divination. She had taped a light pink crystal to the head rest, I supposed that had to do with the spell. Analise took the crystal off of the head rest and taped it onto her pencil, then she started writing. I supposed that she was writing down her dreams, or her interpretations of that they meant. Even though Analise undeniably had some sort of power I wasn’t that well versed with spells. If I kept staring I would just be in her way, I turned to go into the shop.

“Hey,” Analise asked shyly, looking up at me from her notebook with those deep brown eyes that I loved to get lost in, “If you’re going in can you get me some pizza, or a drink, or some candy or something?”

I nodded and counted out twenty more dollars, determined to get her everything that she had asked for. When she had moved just the year before she had taken a plane the few short hours to her new town, so I wasn’t sure that she was too used to long road trips.

It was amazing what stayed the same no matter where you were. A 7-11 is the same no matter if it's Arkansas, or Maryland, or even Maine. The smell of the place made me smile, it was so familiar, so comforting. Donuts and slushie syrup and cheap beer. As I made my way through the short aisles I could almost imagine my dad behind me, trying to hurry me because his girlfriend was waiting in the car. At the thought of a girlfriend I blushed in the candy aisle. Analise I hadn’t talked about our relationship much before we left, I wondered if she was still interested in me. After all I was pretty much responsible for ruining her life.

I chose a bag of Starbursts for the candy requirement of Analise’s request. She mentioned once in passing that she preferred candy you could chew, so the fruity candy seemed pretty safe. That plus my medium mocha, a large lemonade, and two slices of rubbery pizza costed fifteen dollars. Less than I thought, which was nice.

“Sorry I was gone so long,” I said when I slid back into the driver’s seat. In reality I had no idea whether or not I was gone for a long time. But not being around her felt wrong somehow.

She laughed and took her food from my hand, I wondered if I had gotten what she wanted, “It’s fine. Actually I could smell you all the way from here, it was pretty nice to know that you were still close by.”

If I had tried to open my mouth nothing would have come out, just incomprehensible sounds of happiness. So instead of talking I just started up the truck and drove back onto the highway.

A comfortable silence fell over the cab of the blue truck. Analise wasn’t too much of a talker even when she wasn’t eating, which I was just fine with me even if I loved hearing her voice. My coffee tasted exactly how I expected it to. With my heightened senses I could taste every over roasted coffee bean and low quality chocolate. They gave the entire cup an unmistakable burnt dark chocolate taste. I drank it all down greedily, we still had almost a day’s driving ahead after all.

Once Analise finished her pizza and stopped sipping on her still half full cup of lemonade I expected her to doze off again. A playlist of her favorite songs I had prepared drifted through the truck’s speaker system. I had to fight to keep the music from lulling me to sleep before the coffee kicked in, but it seemed like Analise was wide awake. Just staring out of the tinted window. Passing signs were unreadable going 70 miles per hour, but Analise’s eyes still lingered on every one of them. She was thinking, I wondered what her dreams had told her about the future.

“How much longer till we get there?” her voice sounded weary.

I had memorized our route and several possible routes so I had an answer for her instantly, “Still about 20 hours left.”

Analise didn’t answer, just nodded. I winced. It seemed like all up and down the eastern seaboard I had enemies, so we were having to take a detour across Pennsylvania to avoid the major cities. If I wasn’t so scared Analise could have just flown to Maine and she wouldn’t have been so tired, if I was smart I would have gotten a faster car, if I had never moved to town she wouldn’t have been in this mess in the first place. I took another sip of my coffee,the bitterness didn’t seem like a harsh enough punishment.

Another two hours on the road another state sign passed. We were in Pennsylvania, farther away from the big east coast pack but still within striking range. I tried to stop it but I instinctively relaxed. The smell of hostile wolves grew less prominent and I couldn’t help but sigh in relief. The most dangerous part of our journey was over, it all going up from there.

I got a surge of energy when we entered the Keystone State. Maybe it was the caffeine or maybe it was the relief. Either way I was confident that I would be able to get us to Maine without any more stops. With my renewed energy I tried to stop seeing the roads as the same. From Arkansas to where we were the scenery had changed greatly. Shallow forests had replaced empty scrubland, cars were now four wheel drive, and it seemed like we were only the truck on the road. We had really left the south behind, I wondered how the north would be. Dad and I had spent the first few years of my life in the pacific northwest, that was where he met Clair after all. But I had never had to survive this far up the east coast, I wondered if deer tasted different the farther up you went.

“It's getting late,” Analise said weakly. And she was right, the pink clouds of sunset were being replaced by the deep blue sky of night. Even though the stars weren’t out yet you could feel the time changing by the second. Maybe the coming darkness was responsible for some of my energy. Still I wondered why Analise said that, she was never one for pleasantries or small talk.

I wondered if any normal person could have heard her, she was almost whispering, “Can we stop for the night?”

Even though we were going at highway speeds I risked a glance at her. She could hardly keep her eyes open, yet she hadn’t slept a little. Her breathing was shallow, I wondered if she was sick. Gas station food didn’t have a stellar reputation after all. Yet she didn’t look green, just tired. I took a hand off of the leather covered steering wheel and reached it over to her, running it through her kinky black hair. Analise sighed, almost whimpered.

“Alright,” I said softly, “Don’t worry I’ll find us a motel.”

Once both my hands were back on the steering wheel I booked it to the next exit. Even if Analise’s senses and strength were heightened I shouldn’t have expected her to go almost two days without sleeping in a bed.

I tried not to spend too much time searching for somewhere to sleep, but in the end I was kind of choosy. If we stayed at a traditional motel then our scent would be open to the world. My enemies could gather in the parking lot and attack us at any time of the night. Instead of a drive-in motel I chose a small hotel for us to stay at. It would be more money, but it would protect us at least.

Once I was parked I went out to get our suitcases from the truck bed while Analise got herself out. Her suitcase was big and light green, by the weight of it I think she had packed her entire wardrobe and all of her favorite books and plushies. Me, I had packed pretty light, quickly having to move wasn’t a new thing for me so I knew the procedure.

I held onto the suitcases while Analise had her still half full cup of lemonode and the rest of her candy. The light of the hotel and the rest of the fast food places around the town drowned out the stars. Analise had once told me that she hated how the night sky looked in towns. She had grown up in the suburbs so she had never even seen how beautiful it could be at night until she went camping when she was ten years old. The simple dark blue and few bright stars didn’t do the night justice in her opinion, so when I told her that we were moving to the middle of nowhere Maine that was a positive in her opinion. Being able to see the true night sky was exciting, but for meI didn’t care as long as I could feel the moon on my skin.

“Can we have one room with two beds,” I asked the receptionist once we got into the carpeted lobby.

I wondered how we must have looked to him. Two black teenaged girls all alone with no supervision, I wonder if he could tell that we were hundreds of miles from home.

“Actually we have a deal tonight for a suite room with a king-sized bed for just twenty dollars extra if you are interested.” he said in a cheerful customer service tone.

Analise nodded her head behind me but I shook mine. We had only been on two awkward dates, I didn’t know if she would even want to sleep in the same bed with me for an entire night. I decided to save the twenty dollars and take the double twin bed room. The receptionist nodded and handed Analise our room key card since my hands were full with the suitcases.

It was on the third floor with windows facing the main parking lot. That would be good, I thought, we can have advanced warning if someone is coming. Then I laughed to myself. We were states away from their territory and I was still worried, they might have even forgotten about me. It had been more than a year after all. I just needed to relax and get some sleep, another day of driving was ahead of me after all.

“Do you mind if I take a shower first?” Analise asked me once we got settled in the room.

“Oh yeah don't worry. I’ll check for bedbugs in the meantime.”

The thought of bed bugs made Analise’s eyes widen but I waved off her fear. I was only being cautious, and there was only some much the bugs could do to us, after all.

Instead of lifting up the mattresses I got down on my knees and started sniffing the crisp white sheets. They were relatively clean, thankfully. No used condoms and only a few spare crumbs were stuck under folds in the sheets. That was good, I’m not sure I could have let Analise sleep on a dirty bed.

I brushed the crumbs off of her bed and straightened up the sheets. Her’s the one farthest away from the window, I’m sure she was tired of sleeping next to windows after a day in the car. Though giving myself the window bed also quieted my fears that we would get sneak attacked, even though I tried to stop myself from getting scared in the first place. I didn’t bother smelling my bed or brushing off crumbs, if I got sick then so be it.

Analise exited along with a cloud of steam from the bathroom, she was wrapped in a towel but I made sure to close my eyes.

“You can go in now,” she said while I heard her unzipping her suitcase and rooting around for some pajamas.

It was a short cold shower for me, though I made sure to shake myself dry afterwards. The feeling of cold water spraying out of my hair and skin was amazing. I had basically been turned my entire life, so some of my more wolfish traits had entered my everyday life. It was the little things, shaking, running, looking at the moon, that really made me feel alive.

I came out dry but naked, I hadn’t thought to grab a towel. The lamp beside Analise’s bed was off and she was curled up under the sheets, her breathing regular and deep. But her heart rate was still fast, she was trying to fall asleep not actually sleeping. Still I tried to be quiet as I could as I snuck over to my suitcase and put on my pajamas.

“No one’s going to hurt us, nothing’s going to happen.” I whispered to myself firmly as I padded softly to bed, “Just go to sleep.”

And I tried, I really did try my best. The bed was comfortable, the sheets were soft, and the window let in buckets full of soft moonlight. But I had just drinken a bunch of coffee and since I was a werewolf sleeping during the night had never come naturally to me. The moon enchanted me awake, its many craters and silvery glow so mysterious and beautiful. I tried to turn away from the window and close my eyes, but just knowing that the moon was up was enough to get my mind racing.

While I was trying to fall asleep my mind wandered. I wondered where Clair was, I hadn’t seen her in person in a year and hadn’t spoken to her in three months. She would know what to do in this situation, she wouldn’t just grasp at straws. Dad was so stupid to give her up. Tears welled up in my eyes as I thought of that fateful day when she left. Dad hadn’t just fucked his own life up, his actions had broken me for so long. And he wondered why I was avoiding him.

“Are you sleeping?” Analise whispered into the dark room.

I hadn’t been paying too much attention to her breathing or heart rate, I had thought she would be asleep.

Once I heard her I sat up in bed and looked over. She was still curled up under the sheets facing the door.

“Yeah I’m up, what do you need?” I asked quickly.

I heard a head shake, “Nevermind, I don’t want to bother you.”

At this point I got out of bed and walked over to her. I didn’t want her to think that she was bothering me, I didn’t even know how she could have bother me. It was my fault that she was there, I didn’t want her to hesitate to ask me anything.

“It's okay,” I whispered once I was closer to her.

She turned around and I could see that she had been crying. Analise sat up in bed and I kneeled down next to her. She sniffled, it sounded loud in the dark room.

“I had trouble sleeping when Mom and me first moved. Even though my bed frame had come in the moving truck too, everything was different. Whether it was the sounds or the smells, everything was weird. It took me like a month to get a full night’s sleep.”

I nodded, she had seemed tired when I first met her. It was the first time she have moved away from her hometown, it made sense.

“And it’s so cold here,” it seemed like her voice was getting smaller and smaller, “I didn’t know how cold it could be inside.”

She paused and I stroked her hair, she was so far from everything that she had ever known.

“Can you sleep with me?” I’m glad it was dark in the room and Analise hadn’t yet gotten her night vision yet. That phrase had so much meaning so I waited until she started speaking again, “Just for tonight, it's so cold and I don’t think I can sleep without warming up a bit. I’m sorry if it's weird or if you don’t like me anymore, but…”

I didn’t let her finish before I crawled into bed with her and started cuddling up to her. It was awkward for the first few seconds, but once I wrapped my arms around her waist and leaned my head into her shoulder she and I both relaxed.

“Wait…” I just registered what she had been saying, “What do you mean that I don’t like you anymore?”

Instead of answering she went quiet for a minute then told me a story. I was fine with that, maybe it was a sensitive question. And besides I always loved learning about what her life was like before we met, before everything went to hell.

“When I was in 7th grade I had a boyfriend and I think we were pretty serious, as far as middle school relationships go.” she said and I could tell, even in the dark with her facing away from me, I could tell that there was a sad smile on her face, “We had been in the same classes together since 6th grade, but we started dating in April of our 7th grade year. Summer came and we stayed together, my friends even commented on how great our relationship was when we all went to the beach together. When school started again we kept dating, but in November, right before thanksgiving, my grandma died. I was really sad about it about it and I didn’t talk for like a week straight. My friends supported me, even though they were bad at it, but he didn’t. He kept trying to keep going on dates and acted like nothing happened and when I couldn’t he broke up with me. He wrote me a letter saying that he had cut me out of his life for his mental health. Me being sad about my grandma was bringing him down.”

I was starting to understand but Analise kept going, “When everything happened and I yelled at you when we were in the movies I thought that we would be over. And I know that you’re just staying with me because of guilt or something…” Analise’s voice broke and she sobbed quietly.

This was too much, Analise might have been tired but I needed her to know what I knew. I turned on the lamp beside the bed and turned Analise’s shoulder so that she was facing me. Tears were streaming down her face and pooling on the tip of her nose, she must have been crying for longer than I thought.

“I’m not just here doing this because of guilt Analise,” And I wasn’t. I had been an irresponsible idiot for accidentally turning her, but I was doing more than taking responsibility, “I want to be here, I want you to live a happy life. Not just because I feel guilty. And I’ve been kind of distant because I thought that you were going through a lot, not because I don’t like you still.”

“Thanks,” her mouth barely moved, and she kept crying.

I brung her into a hug and brought us both down on the bed. Analise kept crying into my chest, I wondered if she believed anything that I said. I hugged her tighter, feeling her tears stain my gray pajama shirt. The lamp was still on, leaving us in the light while the rest of the room was cloaked in darkness. A sob ripped through the room, Analise’s tears ran harder. I just hugged her.

“Did you---?” Analise started, stuttering and sobbing, “Are you… I’m sorry, I just…”

I stroked her back, silently telling her that it was okay. And I was about to verbally tell her too, when I heard something. The doorknob was turning, slowly and quietly. Quieter than any human could have done. I resisted the urge to growl, whoever was at the door needed to think that we were both sleeping. Analise’s and I’s physical well being trumped emotional security as I hopped out of bed and lifted a finger to my lips. She hadn’t yet adjusted to her super senses so Analise didn’t hear the door opening, but she stopped crying all the same. I smiled at the trust she had in me and then turned all my attention to the door.

Luckily the walls of the hotel were pretty thick, so they could only vaguely hear our heart rates through the door. Though those thick walls were probably the reason I couldn’t smell our attackers before they were so close, that and the mellow scent of tears that had spread throughout the room. We had the upper hand, they didn’t know we were still awake. By we I mean I, I would never ask Analise to fight for me. Not making any sound I crept behind the door and motioned for Analise to turn off the lamp. In the darkness I waited.

Their smell assaulted me when the door finally creaked open. Dirty river water, purebred dogs, and brandy. It was them, the Maryland pack. Internally I cursed, how were they here? We were seventy miles away from their pack boundary? I allowed them to creep farther into the room while I thought quickly about how they must have done it. In a car with thick walls they must have followed us up the highway, staying downwind the entire time. For a second I thought them insane, Dad and I had crossed them a year and half ago and they were still this obsessed with me. Then I remembered our time with the pack. They looked after their dogs and they looked after their own, and we had damaged a lot of dogs. I still remembered the smell of labrador blood on dirty snow, those nightmares still haunted me.

A short barking laugh not too dismisimar to my dad’s, “Crying already, don’t worry we’re not going to hurt you much.”

I wished that Analise hadn’t cried, but her tears were hiding my scent at least. By their footsteps I counted two people, maybe I would be able to hold them off while Analise got to the truck. It didn’t matter what I could do though, it mattered what I needed to do. I lunged, extending my fingernails into sharp claws I lunged for the man’s throat.

If it had been a human I could have severed their artery right there, but werewolves can dodge even in human form. I caught his arm when he raised it to block my attack. By that I could tell that he was a low level enforcer, both of them were, probably recently turned. I had been turned when I was just 8 months old. Mastery of my wolf, my senses, and my abilities had come naturally. I tore my claws through his forearm, blood tinged the air as I ribbed through muscle. I could win.

The second enforcer, it was a lady, came behind me and reached for my throat. I could hear Analise’s panicked breathing in bed, short and fast, she probably couldn’t even tell what was happening in the dark. I could tell by the sound in the air that there were no claws coming at me, I laughed audibly into the gloom. They had probably only been werewolves for a few months, she couldn’t even summon claws on command. I didn’t let her hand reach me before ripping my claws out of the man’s arm and bringing my foot around and connecting a kick with her shoulder.

“Turn on the lights!” I yelled into the void, my kick had blown the lady away and I wanted to be able see everything that was happening.

A few seconds of Analise noisily grasping for the switch before everything was illuminated. I was able to see the woman charging at me with light blinded eyes and a snarl before rolling out of the way. Right into the legs of the man. Quicker than I would have thought he would have been able to, the man grabbed my throat and ripped me into the air. With me seemingly taken care of the woman stalked towards Analise, still cowering in fear on the bed. Her eyes were wide and she was frozen with fear, I’m sure she would have peed herself if she hadn’t already gone to the bathroom. I tried to crane my neck to see how fast the woman was going, if I had any time, but the man’s grip on my neck was strong. Too strong. He was using too much force, if I was a human he would have broken my neck twice over. Since I wasn’t, all he was doing was cracking the bones in his fingers.

There was no time to be careful, I could see the sharp teeth that he had gotten out. Glinting in the lamplight, white and long. I got out my own teeth, shorter perhaps, but I was holding the advantage in experience. He had brought me closer to his face, probably going to spew out some curse or insult. But that was his mistake. I stretched my neck further than humanly possible and took a bite out of his nose. By that point I had bitten into a lot of fur and wolf blood always tasted odd. More like pence than pennies. I ripped cartilage and muscle out of his face and in his agony he let go of me and dropped to his knees. There was no time for mercy, I brought my foot down on his still bleeding head and heard a crack.

With a growl I launched myself at the woman, who was towering over Analise in her bed. She was probably saying something but my rage was too loud to hear. If I had been able to calm myself down then everything would have been different. I saw it before I heard it, a gun. A single shot, an infuriating smile. I was on the floor, smelling my own blood leak out of the wound in my shoulder. Dimly, my mind wondered how no one had heard what was going on. The woman’s foot was on my back, pressing me against the carpet. Though I don’t think I would have been able to get up even if she hadn’t been on me. I had been in enough fights to know that whenever I lost enough blood I passed out, and even though I was trying, I wasn’t fighting the blackness hard enough.

“Don’t worry, puppy,” the woman said sickeningly sweet to Analise, who’s panicked breathing along with whimpering I could still hear, “We won’t hurt you, you’ll just be coming with us. If you do good you’ll get food, if you don’t…”

Her words had ignited something in me, I flexed muscles I didn’t know I had and growled deeper than I ever had. Before I even knew it I was a wolf and it wasn’t even the full moon. The last time I had measured my wolf was 7.5 feet long and my fur had darkened to a brown almost black with sunnier brown patches. When the moon was out I loved to run and swim and hunt and catch any fish I could find. But there was no time for play that night.

The woman wasn’t expecting a shifter, and to be honest neither was I, she lost balance and almost fell over before regaining her balance. I was slow because of the unexpected shifting, she got a shot in and it whizzed through my fur. The wound in my shoulder was still there, but as a wolf I was better able to accept pain. With an enraged growl I leaped at her, and she knocked over the lamp as she went down with all 160 pounds of me on top of her. Strange shadows were cast along the room and I could barely see Analise’s face.

“Plea-!” the woman started the shout, but I didn’t let her finish. I knew that she and the man were only following orders. As minor enforcers their position was always in flux. Enough mistakes and they were demoted lower than where they started at. Both of them were ambitious newbies, probably were this close to promotion. Really I didn’t have any malice toward the pair. But their situation didn’t let me excuse what they had done. They had scared Analise, they had harmed her. I had no mercy for them.

My teeth ravaged her collar, neck, and shoulders. Skin got stuck in my teeth but I kept biting and scraping and snarling. Eventually she stopped blinking and she stopped trying to scratch me through my fur. I stepped off of her awkwardly, suddenly aware that Analise was still in the room. I turned to face her, blood still soaking into and staining my fur. Her heart rate didn’t slow, I must have been terrifying to her. The first wolf she sees and I was covered in blood and had just maimed someone.

“Laurie?” she choked out.

I nodded my wolf head and sat down on my hind legs, trying to look cute and nonthreatening. Analise crawled out of bed slowly, her legs jelly as she approached me. I’m sure she couldn’t ignore the two bodies in the room like I could. When she managed to take the four steps toward me Analise fell to her knees and hugged me, actually hugged me. She buried her face in a part of my fur that wasn't bloody and let out all of the tears that she still had in her. As a wolf I couldn’t hug her back, tell her that everything would be okay, kiss her forehead. The heartbeats of the pair had slowed down to dangerous levels, they would either die soon or be unconscious for a while. There was no risk to detransforming. Yet I couldn’t do it. A process that was so easy when the sun was rising after a full moon was impossible that night. I tried to go to that place in my mind that I did when I normally detransformed, a place in my mind filled with everything that made me human, but it didn’t work.

Analise picked up on my distress, maybe she was finally learning to hear my heartbeat, “Can you transform back.”

She was looking at me in the eyes. They hadn’t changed, they were still a light brown, somehow looking at me finally calmed her down.

I shook my head and whined softly. Even though Analise hadn’t studied wolf language she understood what I meant.

“Don’t worry,” she whispered, “I’ll stay with you until morning.”

Again I whined, but this time in a more reassured way. Though I wasn’t exactly reassured. I had never transformed like this before, what if I couldn’t transform back? What if I had to stay a wolf until the next full moon?

“It’ll be okay, don’t worry too much.” This time I looked into her dark, dark brown eyes and actually started to relax, “It’ll be okay.”

For the entire night, while the bodies in the room grew colder and their heartbeats grew feeble Analise held me. Blood soaked in and crusted into my fur, a few tears fell from my wolf eyes but I found that I didn’t sink into despair. Just because Analise was there, I didn’t let myself worry.

Thanks for reading guys! I’m really bad at writing romance so I hope that the two girl’s feelings toward each other stood out clearly. If you have any tips leave a comment I guess. I hope you have an amazing weekend. :)

#amwriting #short story #short fiction #flash fiction #werewolf #original short story #flash fic #writing #writers #creative writing #My writing #Original Work #words #spilled words #fantasy #urban fantasy #road trip

24 notes · View notes

woodstockbtswriter · 4 years ago

Text

Indescribable

Genre: Fluff

Pairing: Jimin x Reader (Female)

Word Count: 1.72K

Summary: When BTS performs at your high school, you score front-row seats to the greatest experience of your life.

Author’s Note: This story is based on a dream I had and is my first ever request - ahhh! I planned to keep this around 0.5K words - 1K max - but I started writing and I just couldn’t stop. 😄 Hope you enjoy!

Requested by @giannaswan

Indescribable

“When are they going to let us in?!” Your best friend whined, bouncing up and down. You weren’t quite so obvious, but you were feeling just as eager.

You (along with the entire student body of your high school) had been queued outside the auditorium for what felt like hours, determined to be the first ones to go in. Normally, you wouldn’t have cared so much about attending an assembly, but this one was different. Your school had been selected out of thousands of hopefuls to host an exclusive, one-time-only performance by the international superstar group BTS, and today was the day of the show.

You and your bestie were the biggest ARMYs in your whole school, and you had just about lost it when you heard the news. You’d been anticipating this concert for weeks, and you could hardly believe you were only minutes away from seeing BTS live, in-person, and - if all went according to plan - up-close.

You were just about to reassure your friend that you’d be going in any second now, when the oversized double-doors in front of you swung wide open. Your heart jumped into your throat and, without hesitation, you grabbed your friend’s hand and charged toward the door.

The scene inside the auditorium was barely-contained chaos as hundreds of students began spilling in through the doorways, rushing to find seats. Everyone was excited, even people you would never expect to care about a boy band from Korea.

You and your friend headed straight for the front, but the popular crowd had already claimed the entire row. A little disappointed but not defeated, you changed directions, and chose the two end seats of the tenth row of the center section. They weren’t the best seats in the house, but you’d still have a good, relatively close view of the stage.

Exchanging an excited glance with your bestie, you checked the time on your phone. Only fifteen more minutes until the show would begin. You took a deep breath. All you could do now was wait.

Finally, after the longest fifteen minutes of your life, the lights dimmed. You squeezed your best friend’s hand as cheers and applause erupted throughout the auditorium. Multi-colored spotlights came on, shining on the stage curtains as they slowly slid open, and your heart pounded inside your ribs.

You craned your neck, expecting to spot the Bangtan boys emerging from the shadows, but you saw no one. The stage was empty, except for a set of metal risers, and you wondered if they were going to make a dramatic entrance.

“What’s going on? Where are they?” Your best friend asked, straining to see, too. “And why is there no music playing?”

You realized she was right. The first measures of a BTS song should be blasting through the speakers by now, followed immediately by the flawless voice of a member of the vocal line, but there was silence.

No, wait, there was a sound coming from the stage: the shuffling of dozens of feet as the members of your school’s glee club filed onto the stage.

Your jaw dropped, and your friend mirrored your expression.

No. Way.

The glee club was opening for BTS?!

You felt bad for thinking that; they did try hard, but they’d come in dead last at their most recent competition... So really, who thought this was a good idea?

The singers took their places on the risers despite several groans and “boo”s coming from the audience and you slumped down in your seat, sighing deeply as they began performing a pitchy cover of “Make It Right”.

Oh, well. So you’d have to endure a few less-than-impressive numbers from your classmates before the real show started. As long as you got to see the Bangtan boys, you could handle that.

At least, that’s what you kept telling yourself when the marching band took the stage immediately following the glee club.

Sighing again, you buried your face in your hands.

“Wake me up when it’s over.” You told your friend.

“No, wait, look!” She said, shaking your arm.

You lifted your head, looking where she was pointing, and saw several cheerleaders abandoning their seats in the front row as they left the auditorium in disgust.

“Now’s our chance!” Your friend hissed, and you didn’t have to be told twice.

You both jumped up and sprinted down the aisle, racing for the empty seats. To your relief, no one stopped you from claiming them and you settled in, feeling victorious, just as the marching band began exiting the stage.

When the stage was clear, the lights went out again, and you clutched your friend’s hand. You hoped it was finally time for BTS to come out, though you mentally prepared yourself for another underwhelming performance from your classmates.

But when music started playing, your pulse began pounding in time with the bass. The opening strains of “Boy With Luv” were reverberating throughout the auditorium.

“Kim Namjoon! Kim Seokjin!” The chant started, and you and your bestie automatically joined in, shouting, “Min Yoongi! Jung Hoseok! Park Jimin! Kim Taehyung! Jeon Jungkook! BTS!”

Then in a flash of light, there they stood: all seven members of Bangtan Sonyeondan, in the flesh, right before your very eyes, almost close enough to touch.

You and your friend were instantly on your feet, swaying and singing along to the music as you drank in the sight. Your gaze was immediately drawn to Jimin as he sang the first lines, dancing between Hoseok and Jungkook. He looked even more radiant in person, his skin glowing under the stage lights as his eyes flirted with the audience.

The song continued, and your best friend screamed beside you when Yoongi started rapping his verse. You tried your best to pay close attention and absorb everything, not wanting to miss a moment of what was easily the greatest experience of your life.

When they finished performing “Boy With Luv”, the boys smoothly transitioned to “Black Swan”, then “ON”, working their way through their latest album, and you and your friend had the time of your lives watching them, dancing and shouting together.

All too soon, the concert began drawing to a close, and the boys started making their ending comments. You and your bestie laughed as they teased and joked with each other, and “awww”ed when they expressed their gratitude. Then Namjoon informed everyone that the final song was going to be “We are Bulletproof: The Eternal”, and because it was a song they wrote for their fans, they wanted to bring an ARMY up on stage.

As soon as Namjoon said that, the house lights came up, illuminating the audience, and the boys began scanning the faces in the crowd. Again, your gaze was magnetically pulled to Jimin, and you froze when he locked eyes with you. He smiled brilliantly at you as he walked toward the edge of the stage, and you stopped breathing when he crouched down right in front of you. Then he lifted his glittering gold microphone to his beautiful lips, and you weren’t sure, but you think he asked you for your name, his face shimmering.

Your best friend nudged you and you remembered to breathe, exhaling your name in response to Jimin.

His smile brightened, and with an extra flirtatious glint in his eyes he said it was nice to meet you, asking, “Would you like to come up on stage with us, princess?”

Not having to give it any thought, you nodded fervently, and Jimin extended his hand to you with a satisfied grin. Without hesitation, you slipped your hand into his palm, and an icy surge of adrenaline shot through your veins as his fingers closed around yours.

With a gentle tug, Jimin pulled you up on the stage, and the other members encircled you, taking turns shaking your hand in greeting. You bowed to each of the boys, your heart threatening to beat out of your chest as the first notes of the song began floating from the speakers. Then Jungkook stepped toward you, raising his mic, and his soft voice filled the air.

You were mesmerized as the boys performed, each one singing directly to you, and your heart swelled with the music. It was all so indescribable, so unbelievable, like you were having an out-of-body experience.

As Jimin’s solo line approached, he grasped your hand, squeezing your fingers as he hit his high note, sounding like an angel. He then lowered his microphone, bringing your fingers to his lips and pressing a kiss to them as Jungkook continued the song. Transfixed, you gazed into Jimin’s sparkling eyes as he peered up at you, still holding your hand, and you thought you might just faint then and there...

…and that was when you woke up.

You laid unmoving in bed, your eyes closed as you tried to hold onto the last threads of your dream, but the finer details slipped away in an instant.

Rubbing your face and yawning, you stretched, reaching for your phone to see the time. It was late morning, and as your eyes adjusted, you noticed bright golden light filtering through your bedroom curtains.

“What time is it?” A tired voice came from beneath the covers, and you felt someone shift beside you.

“Almost 11:00.” You answered. “We overslept.”

At your response, the blankets slipped down, revealing your boyfriend’s adorable, sleepy face.

“Good morning, Jimin.” You smiled, leaning in to kiss his waiting mouth.

“Good morning, princess.” He mumbled against your lips, grinning as he kissed you back. “Did you have pleasant dreams?”

You chuckled.

“It’s funny you should ask, because it just so happens I did have a very pleasant dream.”

“Tell me about it, jagiya.” Jimin breathed, his fingers tangling into your hair. “I want to hear everything.”

“Okay...” You sighed contentedly. But it’s nothing compared to the real thing, you thought, gently touching Jimin’s cheek, savoring the feel of his smooth skin.

The smile on his face softened at your touch, and a feeling of comfortable bliss blossomed within you. His countenance shone as he looked into your eyes, and you felt such indescribable happiness knowing it was because his heart - like yours, for him - held more love for you than one could ever dream.

#bts #bts fanfiction #park jimin #request #bts one shot #bts jimin #bts imagines #bts fanfic #bts scenarios #bts fluff #bts fics #bts fic #jimin x reader

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kpop-zone · 5 years ago

Text

Knight in shining armor | Momo

Warnings: consumption of alcohol

Genre: (slight) angst, fluff

Wordcount: 3,257

Request: hi! i love your writing ♡ could you do a momoxfem!reader scenario best friends to lovers? angst with fluffy ending in which the reader is the one to confess but momo says she only sees her as a friend but when the reader puts some distance momo realizes that she misses her

A/N: I’ve tried something new in the beginning, but I don’t think I even like it myself lol? So if you don’t like the style, just skip to the paragraph “today”, I think the story should still make sense starting from there :D

Monday, 09/13/2004

You just had moved across country with your parents. You had to leave all your friends that you had known since kindergarden behind and start all over again. It was your first school day and you were nervous beyond belief. Would the other kids like you? Would they be mean to the new kid? You tried to show yourself from your best side and after what felt like 15 hours, you had survived your first day.

Alone.

No one would even spare a glance at you. Your mother could immediately spot the sadness in your eyes and gave you a dollar to buy yourself a scoop of ice cream at the ice cream truck right in front of the school. But some kid shoved you and your scoop fell to the ground, only leaving you with the cone. You were about to start crying, fed up from all the frustration that you had bottled up since you knew you had to leave your home, when you suddenly saw someone transferring a scoop from their cone to yours. You turned your head to see a little girl with a crooked smile on her lips looking at you.

“Hi! I’m Momo!”

You later learned that she was your new neighbor and from this day on, you never had to sit alone at lunch again.

Friday, 07/21/2006

“Momo to Y/N. Are you there? Over.”

Your nightly routine started. The two of you would lay inside your beds, using your walkie-talkies to talk until late at night.

“Copy. Did you hear your parents talk to mine on the phone? Over.”

“Copy. Yes, we’re going camping together! This is going to be the best summer ever! Over.”

And it was. You would run around in the woods all day, imagining a magic world where Momo was the princess and you were her knight in shining armor, having to safe her from the dragon. At night you would lay in your shared tent together, watching the stars.

“Y/N! A shooting star. Quick! Make a wish!”

And you did. You wished to never be without Momo ever again.

Thursday, 05/05/2011

The both of you had grown up. You weren’t kids anymore. With the years, you had developed different interests, but you had managed to hold on to your friendship. Momo had started dancing in the school team and found new friends, but although you didn’t spend every living second together anymore, you still told each other everything. One day, Momo even told you when a boy in school had kissed her on the lips after dance practice. You remembered how happy you were for her, but how your heart grew heavy. You couldn’t explain it back then, but you were hurt.

Saturday, 11/09/2013

It was Momo’s birthday today. The last one you would celebrate as High school students. You knew by now why you couldn’t stand seeing Momo around other people drooling over her. You fell in love with your best friend. Could you tell her? Maybe you had to. After all, you told each other everything. So you decided that today was the day. You would tell her right after her toast, before the courage would leave you again.

“I want to thank you all for celebrating my birthday together with me. Especially, I want to thank my best friend, Y/N, who organized all of this and has been with me since forever and will hopefully always be my friend!”

Friend. It hurt to hear those words out of Momo’s mouth, but you didn’t let it show. You also didn’t let it show how your heart started to flutter when Momo pulled you into a hug, kissing you on your cheek. Maybe someday you could finally tell her, but not today.

Sunday, 08/17/2014

Today was the day you had dreaded for weeks now. Momo and you would both leave for college, only that between your two colleges would be a further distance than just your backyards. You were hugging in front of your car, not wanting to let go. This was your last chance. You had to tell her. Now. So you pulled away from her, but when you were about to speak, Momo cut you short.

“Don’t say anything now, or I won’t let you leave.”

A loud sob left her throat and she buried her face into your neck. Your unspoken words were the only thing that stayed unchanged that day. Everything else changed in a rapid pace. The next years, you would only be able to see Momo on holidays, because she often decided to spend even her vacation with her new friends. You missed her like crazy.

Wednesday, 05/23/2018

Today was finally the day! It was Momo’s graduation and you would start grad school together afterwards. You would finally overcome the distance between the two of you and even start living together. You had already rented an apartment and made a thousand plans. There was a lot of time that you had to make up for. It felt like you had just skipped the past four years. Now you were able to go back to normal again. You couldn’t wait to have your best friend back.

Today

“Momo, I swear to God, if you leave your dirty bowl standing around in the sink for two weeks ever again, I will kick you out of the apartment!”

You yelled from the kitchen, so your best friend could hear you in her room.

“It has been standing there for a maximum of five days... or a little more.”

Momo tried to convince you while shuffling tiredly into the kitchen. She gave you an apologetic smile, knowing that you couldn’t stay mad at her anyways.

“And you wouldn’t kick me out of the apartment, because you love me.”

She said while wrapping her arms around your waist from behind and laying her head on your shoulder, while you washed her dishes. When you took a glance to the side, you saw her giving you puppy dog eyes and a pout. Your heartrate immediately picked up and you decided that you couldn’t lie anymore.

Living together with Momo had been getting harder every day, especially considering that she was quite a touchy person. When you were lounging on the couch, watching a movie, she would just randomly lay on top of you, refusing to get up. Or most nights, she would sneak into your room, coming home late from going dancing with her friends. You always pretended to sleep, but secretly you tensed up under her touch, not wanting to take advantage of your friendship.

“Momo I have to tell you something.”

Momo was slightly startled at your serious tone but looked expectantly at you to continue.

“I think we should sit down for this.”

You dried your hands on a towel and guided Momo to the couch. You shortly considered whether you would regret this later, but then decided that you would regret not telling her even more.

“Ok. I need your full attention now, Momo, because this is not easy for me to say.”

Although your best friend was normally not one to be serious for too long, you could always count on her in moments like this. Her demeanor instantly changed, giving you her full attention. You took one last deep breath to calm your nerves before starting.

“I’ve been trying to tell you this for a really long time now.”

You stopped again, searching for words, chuckling to yourself.

“After knowing it for such a long time, you should think, I would have the right words by now. But I don’t”

You felt like passing out. What if she hated you after you told her?

“Hey, Y/N. You’re beginning to freak me out. Just tell me. We’re going to get through it together.”

Momo had a soft, but also worried look on her face. She was reaching out for your hand now, stroking it with her thumb and giving you an encouraging smile.

“I’m in love with you.”

You just blurted out, not knowing any better way to confess your feelings. Momo looked at you with wide eyes and absolutely no motion in her body at all. Scared, you took the word again.

“I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to. It just happened.”

You were waiting for an answer. Or at least some kind of reaction, but there was none. You were about to speak again, suffocated by the silence, when Momo finally opened her mouth.

“Y/N...”

Her eyes were now nervously looking around in the room and you got the sign. She was uncomfortable. Because of you. Your heart shattered to a million pieces.

“It’s fine. I know that you don’t feel the same. Really, it’s fine. I’m fine.”

You rambled on, just wanting to get out of the apartment as quickly as possible, but Momo grabbed your hand tighter.

“No, stop it ,Y/N. Let me explain. I...I’m glad you told me. I really am. I want you to tell me everything important in your life, because you are my best friend. But... But that’s all I feel for you. I love you, as a friend...”

Momo dragged her words out, trying to convey her message as careful as possible. But there weren’t really any words she could have chosen that would have hurt less. Unless she would have confessed her feelings as well. But she didn’t. You felt tears welling up inside your eyes. But you didn’t want to cry. Not in front of her. So you forced a smile on your face, nodding your head in response.

“Ok.”

You almost whispered, loosening the grip of Momo’s hand with yours. Your ears began to ring, and you felt like you were drunk. Every sound around you felt like a million miles away and your surroundings flew past you like you were on tracks as your world shattered.

“Y/N!”

You could hear Momo’s voice somewhere in the distance. But you didn’t care. You just had to get out of there. So you grabbed your keys, running outside, hoping the cold air would give you a clear head again. You didn’t want to face Momo again today so you wandered around the city until you were sure that she would be sleeping. The next morning you left when it was still dark outside, because you knew that nothing could get your best friend out of bed before 10.

The hide and seek continued for weeks. You would spend more time in the library or take more shifts at your side job, only coming home when you knew that Momo was asleep or at practice. But you needed the time. The time to heal. And after a few weeks you truly did feel better. You actually felt relieved. You were finally able to breath again, after letting go of a breath, you hadn’t known you were holding.

You realized that there were other people in this world. And the sooner you would get over Momo, the sooner you could actually spend time with her again. So you went out with your friends more often. You started to work out and actually even started flirting when you went out at night. Three months had passed since you stormed out of your apartment and you felt ready to meet Momo again like normal friends would do.

“Good morning, sunshine!”

You exclaimed cheerily, when you saw your best friend leave her room with disheveled hair and her eyes half closed. Momo jumped at the sound of your voice, not used to you being home.

“Y/N?”

She asked surprised, not knowing why you were here. She wasn’t complaining though. The past three months had been pure torture for her. She had missed you so much that she actually cried herself to sleep most nights. Did she ruin things between the two of you? It hadn’t been her intention. But she couldn’t have lied to you. She simply didn’t feel the same way that you did. Right?

“I made breakfast.”

You smiled at her, putting down two plates on the table. Slowly Momo moved to the chair, looking at you like you were a ghost. While you were eating, she didn’t even touch her food, staring at you in disbelief.

“You know it’s going to get cold right?”

You laughed, pointing at the plate in front of her. How could you be so cheerful? You ignored her for three months straight and then you just came back like nothing happened?

“What are you doing, Y/N?”

Momo asked, combing her hand through her hair. Of course, you knew what she was talking about. But you still considered to act dumb. You didn’t want to talk with her about it. You knew how your last talk went. Not wanting to anger her though, you sighted in defeat,

“Look, Momo, I’m sorry that I ignored you the past three months, but I needed the time. To heal. To get on my feet again. But I’m good now. I’m ready to be friends again if you take me back. I think I’m finally over you.”

You smiled proudly at her, but Momo slightly flinched at your last words. Why did it hurt to hear you say those last words? Why was she secretly disappointed? She gave you the best smile that she could muster,

“Of course I’ll take you back. I’m glad that you’re feeling better”

She reached for your hand over the table, squeezing it lightly.

You were happy.

You finally had your best friend back. For real this time. Or so you thought. But the next few weeks taught you something different. They awfully looked a lot like the previous weeks, only that it wasn’t you who did the avoiding this time, but Momo. Whenever you would come home in the evening, she would hastily leave the apartment. When you wanted to go to the bar together, she wasn’t in the mood, although you could hear her stumble into the apartment early the next morning.

One night, it was especially bad. You were ripped out of your sleep by a loud bang. When you got up to see what was going on, you found Momo sitting on the floor, apparently after falling over while she was trying to get rid of her shoes.

“Momo?”

You carefully asked, coming over to her. She was giggling now, carelessly throwing her shoes to the side. At your sight, however, her look changed. She started to sniffle and when you tried to extend your hand to her, she swatted it away.

“Why did you give up on me? Why didn’t you fight for me? Where did my knight in shining armor go?”

Tears were streaming down her face now. But you didn’t understand. What did she mean?

“What are you talking about? I would never give up on you, Momo.”

You said silently, kneeling in front of her and stroking her hair out of her face. Her head rolled back slightly, and her eyes were almost closed now. Snaking your arm around her waist, you helped her up, supporting her on the way to her bedroom. You wear laying her down on her bed, changing her into her pajama and tugging her in. Her breathing was steady and she was already fast asleep.

“I’ll always be by your side.”

You whispered, giving her a kiss on the forehead.

It was already past noon, when Momo finally left her bedroom, looking as miserable as you expected her to look after the little incident last night.

“Good morning, sunshine.”

You greeted her with a teasing grin, but immediately pouring her a cup of coffee which she accepted gratefully. You sat in silence for a while until the color had retuned to her face again and you decided that it was time to talk about the words, she had said last night.

“So... About yesterday. You said something and I didn’t know what it meant.”

The color that had just returned to her face, immediately left again and she stared at you with wide eyes over the edge of her cup. But you decided to continue, nevertheless.

“You said something about giving up on you and where your knight in shining armor went. What did you mean by that?”

You furrowed your brow trying to remember the exact words and then waited for her answer. Momo looked torn. You could exactly see that her brain was working in full capacity, searching for the right words.

“Hey, you can tell me. We’ll work though it together.”

Oh this conversation was just too familiar, you thought to yourself. But this time it wasn’t you who fought back the tears. It was Momo, only with little success. The tears started to make their way down her cheek, making her burry her head into her hands in shame. Shocked by her reaction, you immediately made your way around the table, kneeling in front of her.

“Don’t cry, Momo. Whatever it is. It’s going to be fine.”

You wrapped your arms around her shaking body in attempt to calm her down.

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

Momo let out between sobs.

“It’s ok. There’s no need to be sorry.”

You tried to take her guilt away, not exactly sure what she was referring to.

“It’s not okay!”

She suddenly yelled, pulling back from you.

“I broke your heart.”

She said much quieter now in a regretful tone.

“But I love you. I truly do.��

You felt awful. She just looked so broken right now.

“I know that you love me, Momo. I never doubted that for a second.”

You wiped away the remaining tears running down her cheek, but Momo suddenly jumped off the chair, looking frustrated.

“No you don’t understand! After you left me that day, I began thinking about all the time we spent together. And I was so blind, Y/N.”

Her tears were falling at a rapid pace again and you would’ve done everything to make her feel better, so you just let her pour her heart out.

“Every time I was not around you, I was feeling so, so empty. And I tried to fill that void. Making new friends, throwing myself into dance practice, going out every night. But nothing helped. You were all I wanted and that feeling scared me. So much.”

Slowly you began picking up on what she was saying, suddenly feeling dizzy.

“But I love you, Y/N. More than anything in this world. And more than a friend.”

You felt like crying. After all this time. Wasn’t it too late now? You had just gotten over her.

“Please, Y/N. My heart can’t take it anymore. I need to know. Can we work this out together or should we go our own ways?”

Own ways? No. You couldn’t lose her.

You had enough of this game the two of you were playing.

With big steps you made your way over to Momo, crashing your body and lips into hers. Your body was on fire. This was all you had wanted for years. You took Momo’s face in your hands, giving everything you wanted to say into the kiss. You were both not holding back anymore. Hands tugging desperately at each other’s clothes to get the other as close as possible and teeth clashing together while your tongues battled for dominance. When you had to pull back in need for air, both your hair was messy and lips swollen. But Momo couldn’t look more beautiful to you right now. Because she was a princess and you were her knight in shining armor after all.

“So I’m guessing we’ll be working it out together?”

She asked nervously, searching for your eyes, with her head still turned to the floor.

“We always did, princess. Didn’t we?”

#twice scenario #twice #momo scenario #momo #girl group #girl group scenario #kpop scenario

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dana-sculy · 5 years ago

Text

Vive Ut Vivas - Chapter Two

→ Chapter One

It’s been 84 years since I wrote the first chapter of this story, I know, sorry it took me so long to continue to write it, hope you all enjoy! To read it in AO3 come here :)

tagging @today-in-fic

In this chapter, different from the first one, we'll see the story under Scully's perceptive. It's also a way to better explore her emotions and inner feelings of the situation. Plus, since in season 11 we came to learn more about Skinner's past and how he also had to deal with trauma, I decided to use that background in the conversations between him and Scully.

Prologue

I remember a time when I was only 5 years old. It was an ordinary day of summer, and mom had decided to take her children for a picnic in the park not far away from our house. She had little pots of everything with too much sugar and more packaging than the space-shuttle. Dad had been away on the sea for a long period of time, and even under the naïve perceptions of myself as a kid, it was possible to see how much she missed him. I don’t know if the picnic was an attempt of cheering the mood more for herself or for us. I should’ve been worried, but instead I just gave her my best smile and pulled out the fresh baked baguettes with brie and cranberry.

The air was warm that day, the beams of sunlight glowed on my skin. Melissa liked to sit close to the flowers and inspect them, under the freshly cut green grass. Charlie and Bill would start fighting with each other any time soon; it was sort of their motto. And that was my cue to go get and adventure by myself.

Looking back today, I wonder how could I and Melissa get along so well together. We were opposites in everything: she was the model, girly girl, who loved dresses, flowers, dolls and the piano lessons mom made sure we attended to. I was never that way. I loved dogs, sports and comfortable pants. I would only come inside home when mom called me with that tone of threat, which is the reason to my abundancy of freckles, due to hours and hours under the sun, climbing trees, running and playing around.

I was the tough child, I guess. Mel was the soft, popular one. That hasn’t changed much now that we’re adults. I still don’t go very well with softness; I keep it under tons of labored layers, deep inside.

This was mainly the reason I feared so badly to come here and stay with my sister. She has always had this thing of hers that somehow goes straight into your heart and sees everything. I’m a private, reserved person, and I like keeping my feelings only to myself. But that never really worked with Mel. Let’s say she would be very good at interrogations.

---

After what felt like an eternity, my tears, which eventually turned into little sobs, finally went away. At some point, Melissa’s tightened her hold on me; there wasn’t much else she could do about the whole situation for now. I ran my fingers through her knuckles, and she released me slowly.

“I guess I’ll be going, Mel.” – I feel terrible for leaving her after such an intimate moment, and especially because I know she’ll have a lot of other questions for me now.

“Work stuff you said, right?” – She sounds discouraged, but not mad, at the very least.

“Yes. Skinner had called me in the morning and he’s expecting me at the Bureau. So… I’d better be on my way.” – I rise from the couch and start to collect my things, stuffing them in my purse. It feels weird, not having my badge with me.

I say goodbye to my sister without turning to look back at her. If I did that, she would find her way into convincing me to stay. Even so, I can still feel her eyes burning on me, absorbing each detail, each movement I do. I close the door quietly and follow my way down the stairs of her building.

---

FBI headquarters - 3:00 p.m.

There is a feeling: it starts when you enter a place you’ve already been a thousand times before, and yet, when you look around, you feel like it’s not the same, even though nothing’s really changed. You try desperately to find out what is different, but the only thing you find is a bitter taste in the back of your mouth, a feeling of intrusion, as if you were the wrong peace of a puzzle, trying to fit in.

I enter through the front door, the big cement columns threatening to smash my tiny figure as I pass them to go through the metal detector machine.

As the elevator doors open, I feel a sense of relief as I notice it’s empty. I am aware that my abduction has made me quite a popular person in the bureau, as if being part of the X Files division hadn’t already granted me that. Mulder talked with me about how a few people, whose existence he’s never known before, had stopped him at the corridor to ask if Mrs. Spooky had been taken by his fellow aliens, or simply to know what really happened to me.

Being a woman in a field that is predominantly occupied by men has taught me that the standards are never equal when it comes to gender difference. I had to work harder than most of my male colleagues at Quantico to stand out, and now as an agent, I feel more than grateful to be Mulder’s partner, because, unlike the others, he treats me like an equal, recognizing my work as an agent without making me feel less capable due to being a woman, and protecting me when it’s needed without making me feel like I couldn’t handle myself.

The problem in that is that it often makes me forget how mean the rest of the bureau can be. I realize I wasn’t that lucky when the elevator doors open again, now in Skinner’s office floor, and I see a very crowded hall ready to swallow me up.

The loud noise of my high heels coming in contact with the floor fill my ears and I feel my body threatening to throw up all the remnants of the cheap lunch I had back at the hospital. I walk silently, looking straight away and trying my best to avoid the curious eyes that follow me. I hear whispers too, but my ears don’t register any words being said. My mind is way too busy fighting to keep me standing and moving forward. Thank God Skinner’s office is not so far from the elevator itself, and I get there quickly enough.

Arlene’s attention is instantly drawn to the creaking door as I open it, increasing considerably as she recognizes my singular figure entering the precinct. She tries her best to be discreet, though. She even gives me a little smile, embarrassed with the whole situation.

“Agent Scully, you can go inside. Mr. Skinner is already waiting for you.” – with that, she returns to typing in her computer.

Skinner is indeed expecting me as I walk to a chair in his conference table. Different from the others, he doesn’t show any sign of curiosity or pity. I feel immensely thankful for that, so I give him a smile. I’m well aware that the evaluation is merely standard procedure, not to mention that it’s just me and Skinner there, but, still, the knot in my stomach doesn’t subside a bit. I guess after all that’s happened, my mind had gotten a little susceptible to Mulder’s paranoia of breaking The X-Files division, and shutting our careers down along with that. Let’s not think about that right now, Dana. I turn the focus of my mind on taking long, deep breaths.

“Agent, Scully, it’s a relief to see you well.” – Skinner is sincere in his words, as he looks straight into my eyes to show me he means it. – “I hope you understand the need of this procedure. You were under a highly stressful situation and that requires a bureau evaluation, to make sure you’re ready to go back to field”.

“Thank you, Sir, I understand. I just want to go back to work as soon as I can.” – And forget this nightmare, I think to myself. For a moment, I wish Mulder could be here. His crack jokes and sassy faces would certainly help lighten the mood.

I remember Mulder with that thought, how he was worried with me coming back so soon, how he couldn’t help himself in hiding his desire to have my company back, despite that. My memory traces the lines of our office: the dusty shells of stuff Mulder makes sure to keep there, his table, his geek poster I came to like with time, the silly green alien key chain he bought me last summer, while lecturing me about how aliens are actually grey. It gives my heart some comfort to remember something so familiar to me.

“Good to hear that, agent. So, let’s begin, shall we?”

Thereby, Skinner starts to present me a series of routine questions, then about standard FBI procedure, and, finally, questions with, I suppose, a more psychological approach. Turns out it’s not that bad, after all. I feel relieved.

After I give my last answer, he pauses, closing his eyes for a bit. He uses the tips of his long fingers to massage his temples, and then takes a deep breath.

“If you allow me, Dana, I’d like to talk to you, off the record.”

I realize I won’t escape personal interrogations today, so I give him a week nod.

“Listen… Your test shows no reason to keep you away from work. That said, I’m letting you know you can return to work any time.”

“I see a ‘but’ coming” – I attempt to make a joke, but he doesn’t alter his serious face.

“Well, yes, indeed. As your boss, I’ll tag along with the evaluation, but as your friend, I’d like to advise you to go home, Dana. You’ll continue to be paid normally even if you take some more time off, and you really should do that. Go be with your family, go rest and give your body and soul time to heal. Trust me, I know the feeling. Your strength is increasing and your body seems better, so it feels like you’re ready to go back to action, but these wounds, Dana, they’re bigger than they look. They can threaten to unsettle your spirit in the most inconvenient of times, and I wouldn’t forgive myself if that caused another risk to your life, or to agent Mulder.”

He was probably right; I knew it in my heart. But how could I tell him that taking time was consuming me, that it was making me mourn over and over again all the things I lost during my abduction? I could no longer rest unless I was under the effect of my sleeping pills, or drowsy due to my strong medication, because when their effect passed away, all I could see in my mind was the same nightmare over and over again. I must've let out something, because when I turned my eyes back to Skinner’s, he had a bigger frown on his face.

“Don’t fight me on this, Dana. You’re the bravest agent I know, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need help.” – He waited for a response, so I opened my mouth in an attempt of an answer.

“Sir, I appreciate your concern, but I really need to work.” – I sigh – “I need something to focus my mind on. I’ll be careful, plus, Mulder will be there to help me.” – I try to give him my best sad-puppy face. It seems to work.

“That’s not the answer I hoped for.” – Now it’s his turn to sigh. – “But I know you well enough to understand that trying to convince you otherwise won’t make any difference.”

“Thank you for understanding that, Sir.” – As I rise from my seat, he speaks once again.

“Agent, as you’re released to come back to work, I want you to be aware that, due to the circumstances of your case, you’ll have to go through periodic psychological counseling. That is not negotiable, agent Scully, but don’t worry, everything you say during session will remain private, these routine sessions are just to make sure you recover from your experience.”

I nod to him and find my way to the door, but he calls my name when I’m about to leave the room.

“Just one more thing, Dana.” – I turn to him. – “As you return, if you feel like you can’t stand a situation, anytime, my offer stands. Promise me you’ll accept help from the ones closer to you.”

From all the times Mulder and I had to count on Skinner’s assistance, I’ve learned to trust him and to believe in the fact that he really cares for us both, but now, from the way he says this words and the look on his face, I feel like this is more than just concern for me. It feels personal, and I’m inclined to conclude that he’s had his amount of trauma too.

“I promise.” – I tell him and leave, there’s a basement I have to go to.

#the x files #txf #txf fanfic #msr #msr fanfic #my fanfics #foc #mine #dana scully #walter skinner #melissa scully

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nickgerlich · 4 years ago

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Data In, Data Out

I remember when I was in college. There was no internet as we know it. Cable TV was still in its infancy. Phones were attached to walls. And when I needed to write a paper about something, I had to spend hours at the library flipping through thousands and thousands of card catalog pages that I could only hope were schematically arranged in a way that I could find what I needed.

Yeah, life was pretty simple then. Except when I needed to write a paper.

That all changed in 1993 with the launch of Aliweb, considered to be the first search engine. Within a few years, the internet, which had been opened for general consumer use, was filled with competing search engines. But it was the September 1998 arrival of Google, whose original name was BackRub, that signaled the onset of the world as we know it today.

Google grew quickly because it provided the best results. It acquired one company after another to add to its suite of products, making it easier and easier for users to simply default to the company for many aspects of our lives. And, since every web-based company needs a revenue model, it started selling advertising on its sites, which, over time, became more and more narrowly delivered to users as the company began to learn more about who was using its sites.

Which is another way of saying they doubled down on data tracking.

Today, the prospect of data tracking has become moot across the internet, with companies large and small selling our data. It’s how you start getting sales messages from Amazon after you have been on other sites looking at products. Somewhere along the way a little web beacon tracked you, and your information was sold.

Concerns over privacy have grown considerably in the last few years, thanks to social media sites and companies like Google wheeling and dealing with our user data, and even more so in the last few months during these unsettled political times. Because of those growing concerns, upstart search engine DuckDuckGo has suddenly experienced a surge in popularity.

DuckDuckGo is built on the promise of never selling user data. Naturally, it has to have a revenue source, so it sells ads, but those ad sales are matched specifically to a search query and not a specific user. Google employs both methods.

The site witnessed a 62% growth in average daily searches, and claims nearly 24 billion queries last year. It just marked its biggest day ever on 11 January with a little more than 100 million queries. In contrast, Google has 5.6 billion queries per day.

I have compared the two in side-by-side tests on rather obscure word strings, and still prefer Google. If you are worried about privacy and are willing to accept less precision, then DuckDuckGo is your engine. If you want accuracy and don’t care about being tracked, then stay right there on Google.

Which gets me to my point: This is the price of free, but sometimes that “price” can differ across providers. At DuckDuckGo, users have to put up with ads that may or may not match the query, while at Google, you get ads that are truly tailored to an audience of one: You.

I have no problem with that. If you have nothing to hide, then why worry about data collection? Besides, Google is just one among many companies harvesting terabytes of data, and then selling them on the open market. But you know what happens as a result of this? You get ads that are likely to be extremely relevant to you, and I like that. I do not want to put up with ads distributed shotgun-style when a rifle could be used to sell me what I really want.

This explains why I continually see ads for bicycles, cameras, and outdoor gear that I normally purchase. I don’t want to see ads for much else, although I must confess I was really intrigued to see the Facebook ads a few months ago for Nordic Socks. I bought ten pairs and my feet are loving every minute of every day. So score one point for random advertising, but all others, save your money.

The beauty of targeted advertising is that it lessens the risk for the advertiser, who knows they are communicating with the people most likely to buy the item. Compare this to traditional broadcast marketing over television, radio, and newspapers, with little or no knowledge of who is actually consuming the media. It’s like scattering a bag of seeds over a variety of terrain, and hoping that something sprouts.

So I’m good with the data issue. I’ll stick with Google. I’ll stick with Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and all the others monitoring my every word and move. And I am really happy that when I am writing a paper, all I have to do is go to Scholar.Google.com and not some germ-infested card catalog. I’d much rather the fingerprints left behind these days be digital and not the kind left by our digits.

Dr “Search Me“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

#marketing #Google #DuckDuckGo #search #data #privacy

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mineofilms · 4 years ago

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2020… My Life… Everything Else Is Just Blurry…

Where to begin… I have been a type 2 diabetic since 2013. I got diabetes from excessive partying/drinking, originally. I continued to behave like this till June 2020. Granted, I wasn’t going as hard, in general, over the years, but each year and hardship I found myself going back to those old vices more frequently.

When the pandemic struck SWFL my drinking went up about 400%. No joke. I trained 4 days on and drank the other 3 days, hard. I did that from March to late June.

I caught Covid-19 around June 26th. By July 11th I needed to be hospitalized for Diabetic Ketoacidosis (where the body produces excess blood acids; ketones. This occurs when there isn't enough insulin in the body. It can be triggered by infection or other illness.) & Pancreatitis (inflammation of the pancreas. It happens when digestive enzymes start digesting the pancreas itself.) I was in ICU for 36 hours and in the hospital for 5 days. I lost 21 lbs over that time.

3 days after I got home from the hospital, Macular Edema (blood vessels in the retina burst and bleed into the eyes), set in. That took about a month to heal only for Diabetic Retinopathy (those same blood vessels that burst heal and are inflamed).

Usually requires anti-inflammatory shots into the eye ball and laser surgery to burn away some of the excess scar tissue. These cost thousands of dollars without insurance, which I do not have. I have read that they can heal on their own, but it takes about 8-12 months. I am in month 4.

However, I actually cannot confirm if that statement about them healing on their own is actually true or not. Some notes in journals say yes while other, more creditable sites, say no. One must get treatment.

Now let me be clear that Covid-19 did not cause my Diabetic Ketoacidosis & Pancreatitis. My lack of proper care for my diabetes caused these. I was already in the yellow and when I got Covid-19 it just put me in the RED. I now, at this point, required medical care or I would die. Those are the facts about me getting Covid-19, my Diabetic Ketoacidosis & Pancreatitis…

Flash-Forward to now… I got my blood sugars down to near normal (high) levels. This means my blood sugar is still high, but for me, I used to walk around at 400. 500-600 is diabetic coma. 80-120 is considered normal. I walk around between 130-230, currently, fasted.

I have not had a drink since June 26th. I will never drink again. I can’t.

1) Alcohol has thoroughly ruined my adult life in all sorts of areas besides this. It got me sick to begin with among, other, things.

2) If I drink I could be back in the hospital with Diabetic Ketoacidosis & Pancreatitis, again.

3) I made a deal with GOD. If I have to live through this (I prayed to die that night) that I would never drink again.

What kind of dick lies to GOD lol? A decade ago I would have… I hated everything about the concept of GOD. Now, I have come to terms that if there is or there isn’t; it doesn’t matter. I value me, my beliefs. Why not carry myself with that respect. I do not need to tell or share my beliefs with others. I care not for such things.

I am solely worried about my mental, physical, emotional, sexual and spiritual health.

I did not quit drinking because of addiction issues or any of that business. I made the choice because if I didn’t my pancreas would fail and I would be dead in a few months. That is how bad my pancreas was… I do not see myself as someone that is doing all this for attention. I have barely even made mention of this whole story on my social media. I have told people in direct messages, but I do not post everything that is happening in my life on social media.

Granted this Tumblr account is considered social media, but I do not use it for that purpose. It is strictly for my BLOG entries. I do not follow people on Tumblr. I post, get my URL and share it that way. Its not in your face on Facebook or anything, but one can click the link and go read about the crazy things in my head.

Taking care of my mental, physical, emotional, sexual and spiritual health is a full time job in and of itself. Now, currently I cannot work. I can only drive during the day. I cannot see well enough to drive at night.

I have other medical issues stemming from this and it is quite the laundry list. However, I think I gave you all enough to think about.

I am back in great shape now. Since I quit drinking and got back from the hospital I went from 119 to 163 lbs. I have not been this big since 2012. Right before I believe my Diabetic State started. My strength is coming back with a vengeance too. I am putting up more weight than I have in nearly a decade.

I have had to make serious and big changes to EVERYTHING in my life.

My computer is now changed from dual 22 inch monitors to one 46 inch monitor. I have to make changes like this just to see well enough to do some things on the computer.

I am still very blind. My vision has decent days and some days I cannot see much of anything. I cannot see my phone without a magnifying glass. I just got my eyes looked at several times cause my power keeps shifting and now my current glasses setup does not exactly help much. My computer glasses are ok for this, but my normal bifocals are pretty useless.

However; I do feel like I can write a little bit more now. I have a few blogs I want to write and then go right back into the novel. This might be the only realistic possibility of me being able to work to earn my keep. Normal 9-5, Monday-Friday are out of the question, indefinitely.

Not only am I not well enough for the grind, physically. My mental health is very questionable. I have had issues for years now. I have had about 20 jobs in 15 years. I have done a real number on my mental health over the years. Always trying to do more, work harder than the next person so I can make that “good money” that some always throw in my face. I did the work. I put in the time, but only to be messed with. Yes, I have that sort of mental issue.

One tries to mess with me. Mess with the positive shit I am doing. I lose my head pretty quick. I have repeatedly demonstrated over the course of my life that I have no restraint at all when it comes to that feeling of being seriously fucked with and have them look at you like; “What are you gonna do about it?”

Well that is it… I always do something about it. Even when I know I shouldn’t. It is my worst impulsive trait that I cannot get a handle on. Ever since I was a kid. I wanna say. It started when I was 11 or so.

I have made huge strides in changing my life, my thinking and how I fit into the scheme of things. I have become more an introvert than an extrovert. Even before the pandemic I was going out less and less. Doing things less and less. It got to a point to where I only went out when I could drink and/or the band was playing. I was already becoming less social. So this is nothing overly drastic about that UNLESS you count Facebook activity.

I have not advertised much on my Facebook and for good reasons… I posted about my 6 months of sobriety and the responses I got were all about, pressing on and “the struggle.”

I pulled it down. There was no struggle here. I am not a keep on keepin’ on mannnnnn… Type of Personality… No… I quit drinking so I can live another 10-15, hopefully more, years. I just went through a friend dying from literally drinking himself to death. I know what people go through with their addiction struggles. I have my own reservations about how I feel about said subject matter.

Needless to say I did not appreciate how people view me on Facebook. I no longer post blogs their either. I post here on tumblr and put a link on my Facebook if anyone wants to read. That is about it.

I know people do not read more than a handful of sentences that ends with a weird hashtag or snapchat handle. I get it. It is also my fault because I have not told the Facebook wall/timeline of my mental and medical conditions and struggles. I reserve those conversations to be personal.

So if you want to know stuff, then let us get personal. Pretty much that simple. I do not do FAKE FRIENDS…

I try to be transparent. In the past it was easy, but now everyone has an opinion that they call facts. I do not know how many people I blocked on Facebook for being so damn ignorant or attention seeking.

I know I do not do attention seeking things. When I write it is with intention to say something. I would say 1600+ words on these subjects merits a little more than “attention seeking” behavior…

Things are looking up. I have done soooooooooo much. With so very little and make it look like I have a lot and that everything is fine. No. God Damnit… Everything is not fine. I am kicking ass trying to make something fine but not everything. Everything will never be FINE… Not ever. However, I can strive for it. I can continue to put in that work and just ignore the dumb shit. Which I am becoming pretty good at. I am still me. I am still blunt. If I rough feathers that is just my way of getting those people away from me.

Goodbye 2020… You will never be forgotten and your mark has definitely been left…

2020… My Life… Everything Else Is Just Blurry… By David-Angelo Mineo Words 1,738 12/30/2020

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bdgthinks · 5 years ago

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The Two Sides of “The Two Sides of Singapore, As Seen By A Food Delivery Rider”, As Seen By A Food Delivery Rider

https://medium.com/@bdgthinksShort pre-amble: Just as how the original Rice article is just the opinion of one writer, what I’m writing below is likewise, just the opinion of mine alone. Also, my opinions are based on my experience working with Deliveroo while Yusuf worked for Grab Food so there may be some differences between the pay structure, zone distances and other company-specific policies.

I was clicking past Instagram stories yesterday afternoon, about to take a nap, when I saw a friend share this recently posted Rice Media article. Part photo journal, part commentary on the gig economy, Singapore’s class divide, and how income inequality is growing more apparent as we adapt to the ever-evolving Covid-19 situation? Sign me the hell up.

All images courtesy of Ricemedia.co, Yusuf Abdol Hamid, or myself

20 minutes, a few raised eyebrows, and many heated texts later – I reluctantly abandoned my plans to nap because I read some many things in this article (which I highly recommend you read first before reading on!) that I disagree with profoundly.

Before I start, I want to offer my appreciation to Yusuf (the narrator), Boon Ping (the editor/author), and Rice Media for publishing this piece that will help many understand the oft-overlooked issue of social/income inequality in an engaging and accessible manner. My misgivings towards some of Yusuf’s opinions notwithstanding, the general sentiment towards this article is extremely positive and has done what I believe every great article should do, provoke thought and inspire critical thinking towards the status quo!

A smattering of positive feedback to the original article

What I appreciated most about the article is encapsulated by joce_zhang’s comment, that it’s an important reminder to be kinder to people – regardless.

However, I couldn’t help but find it slightly troubling that Yusuf and Boon Ping (the editor) seemed to have oversimplified these issues and reduced the stakeholders to caricatures: the rich as the Monopoly Man; and the tireless ‘seen by many as a dead-end job’ delivery couriers as a Dickensian orphan, counting pennies and agonizing over whether they ‘deserve’ a Zinger.

I worry that one unintended consequence of this article is that some ways social inequality is highlighted may lead to reinforcement of the divide rather than dissolution.

During my Summer holidays in 2018, I became attracted to the idea of working part-time as a food courier cyclist as in my mind I saw it as being paid to just cycle and listen to podcasts. Since then, I’ve been an on-off Deliveroo cyclist during the shorter holidays or whenever I needed a little bit of extra pocket money.

In past the two years, I’ve earned exactly $4081.63 from making deliveries (inclusive of bonuses) and dividing it by a conservative $15/h rate, I’ve worked for around 272 hours or about 700 deliveries. split about 60/40 between private properties and HDB flats.

And I guess it’s also partly because of my different experience working in food couriering the past two years that made me feel so much discontent while reading Yusuf’s article. In these 400-odd deliveries to private residences (or heck, in any of my deliveries), I don’t recall having once been treated unnecessarily rudely, aggressively or dismissively by any of the stakeholders I interact with in the job – restaurant servers and managers, condo security management and customers alike.

What I have experienced actually are customers that have tipped me for my efforts - especially ones who live in fairly inaccessible areas, and (during this circuit breaker period) offered me a snack or a cold drink to drop off their deliveries; security guards who ask me how my day was and if I’ve had my lunch or dinner; and restaurant staff who invite me to have a seat in the restaurant while I wait for my order.

Some treats from kind customers

Even when I had made a mess of the customer’s order from their order roiling around during a bumpy 15-minute bike ride (entirely my fault of course!), I’ve never heard anything more than an entirely deserved ‘tsk’ at the disappointment of having half of their pho soup ending up in the plastic bag instead of the bowl – and even then these tsk’s are far and few between!

And it is (again, solely from my own personal experience) where I felt that Yusuf could have been cherry-picking the worst examples from his own experience to make a point. While service industry personnel are no doubt severely underappreciated and that should be improved as a whole, I feel that such blatant incidents are the exception rather than the rule.

My point is: the world isn’t binary. Heck, even up to a year ago I was still echoing Yusuf’s entire argument and ranting rather colorfully about the injustice and discrimination of it all. Who are YOU to tell me which lift I can and cannot use?

In the pursuit of delivering a commentary on some really important social issues, I feel that it fell short by over-emphasizing the ludicrousness of the elite and failing to consider the many other factors that contributes to this problem.

For one, I thought that the annoyance projected to security guards seeing themselves as ‘a barrier between the riff-raff and their diamond-encrusted residents’ was a bit uncalled for – painting a picture of the fearsome guard – in employ of the up-in-the-air bourgeois hiding in their ivory tower, assailing an innocent courier who had the audacity to think that he had the right to take the same elevator as the residents?

But then… when we consider that most lift lobbies are a good distance from the security guard posts where the guards are stationed, it doesn’t seem so unreasonable for a guard to have to raise his voice to get his point across, right?

Being fortunate enough to live in a condo myself, I’ve sometimes felt unease in the duality that security guards experience every single day: faithful bastions in keeping residents safe, spending their days patrolling the lush, landscaped gardens and expansive feature infinity pools, but never once stepping foot into the houses they loyally guard.

And at the end of the day, clocking out to return home to an environment I assume is much less luxurious.

So why then, do Yusuf and Boon Ping deign to foster an us vs them divide, arbitrarily placing one occupation on one side of the line and another on the opposite?

How about the incredulousness towards the guy who orders a stupid $11 Dal.komm latte every day, or the Grange Road resident who only orders a single scoop of Haagen-Dazs ice cream?

Like I said, caricatures that highlight and reinforce the rich-poor divide.

Cherry-picking prevents the reader from seeing the single cups of coffee that I’ve delivered from Common Man Coffee Roasters to Tenteram Peak, the eight egg tarts from Whampoa Hawker Center to Toa Payoh. Or my dad, who lives a one-minute walk from the hawker center but still chooses to order through Grabfood because he paid for a subscription service that offers 50 free deliveries for just $10?

All these customers lived in HDB units.

As a courier, there’s nothing I appreciate more than collecting an order to find out I’m being paid $5 to cycle one block away, or reaching the restaurant to find out that a customer only ordered an easy-to-transport wrap instead of say, twelve packets of chicken rice – I’m getting paid the same amount anyway.

So yes, they’re paying our salary, so thank you.

Juxtaposition is also good and all for making a point, but is it truly accurate and representative?

The word exclusive is used a lot by Yusuf - but are those who live in a smelly HDB with the pee smell in the corridor exclusively nice, and the expat who lives in the Ardmore Park condo with the super high ceiling exclusively mean? Is it wrong to live (or aspire to live) in an exclusive private property? These are questions to be stimulated, not answers to be given.

There’s so much to pick apart, but my goal isn’t to say: I’m Right, You’re Wrong, it’s just that say that There Are Two Sides to Everything.

A brief aside on ‘fulfillment’

While I love my part-time job – paying me upwards of $20 an hour to keep fit and listen to podcasts, I’m entirely cognizant that while I’m privileged that it’s a side-hustle, a side-gig, a part-time job to me; it’s also a livelihood to tens of thousands of hardworking people out there.

Where I could turn off the app and head home when I decided I’ve earned enough in the week to eat at a new restaurant I’ve been eyeing or if it was too hot in the afternoon, most other people working my job can’t – if not, the lights may not turn on the next day.

In a comment to an earlier draft of this piece, a friend shared that it’s a privilege to be able to separate your social identities. I think it’s also a privilege to have the choice of perspective. We exercise when we’re healthy, as a hobby, or a passion. Deliverymen don’t see it that way. There is no ‘good to do’, there is only ‘must do’.

At the end of the day when the world starts to recover from Covid-19, you’re going to start getting photo and videography gigs and transition back to the white-collar world.

As for the security guard and domestic helper at Ardmore Park, the server at the Grange Road Haagen-Dazs, and the tens of thousands of for-hire drivers and delivery couriers? There’s no ‘back to normal’ – this is their normal.

In a discussion post on Yusuf’s article, a redditor referenced Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

In the blue-collar normal, where every day is a struggle to meet the needs of financial safety and security, maybe fulfilment isn’t really an aspiration for most. In an article calling for empathy, I feel the quality slightly lacking in my reading.

A few months back I began my education into inequality in Singapore with Teo You Yenn’s seminal This Is What Inequality Looks Like. In it, the title of one of her essays especially stood out to me: Dignity Is Like Clean Air. She describes, like Yusuf does, that many blue-collar workers in the service industry always feel invisible, that people don’t respect them, that it makes them feel small. I’d like to add on to** Dignity Is Like Clean Air** with the caveat: Segregation Is Not Necessarily Dirty.

Going back to the ‘fucked up service lifts at the back for the smelly people, the non-residents and stuff’, how about we just call a spade a spade?

In restaurants, servers and chefs who have their meals there usually sit at tables near the kitchen (or even in the kitchen itself).

In airplanes, consumers have the choice to pay a much higher premium for more leg room and a more gourmet selection of food. In fancy hotels, bellboys and concierge staff have to wear stiff suits – there’s usually a dress code for guests to enter certain areas.

So, is it really that unfair, for someone who’s had the means to pay for the privilege of living in luxury, to not really want to share a lift with someone who might smell unpleasant from having spent hours cycling under the hot sun?

The service lift provides the same functionality – no one’s saying that couriers are ‘lesser people’, we’re not being asked to walk up the stairs while the ‘masters’ take the magic moving box. It wasn’t created to separate the ‘undesirables’ from the ‘desirables’ like a pre-Rosa Parks bus, and it’ll be unhealthy to think of it as such – even worse to let it fester.

To package my views into a neatly categorized box – When I’m Brandon the Deliveryman, it’s perfectly fine for a guard to request for me to take the service lift, but when I’m Brandon the Guest attending a dinner party at the same condo, no one is stopping me from taking the resident lift right?

Different day, Different fit, Same me

I still think that it’s incredibly fucked up that some employers make their helpers take a separate lift though.

But in delivering the core message – is it more helpful to frame your reflection as ‘why do some people treat their subordinates with such contempt and how can we as society hope to change it’, or to just resent the fact that ‘rich people like that la’ – and laugh and pretend we’re friends.

I guess what I’m most frustrated with about the article is that it had the potential to be so much more. It occasionally flirts with the possibility of going deeper into one issue or the other but ultimately ends up being a reflection of one privileged dude’s brief foray into an industry that many of us often take for granted.

And because there are so many issues at play, people often fall into the trap of distilling extremely complicated issues into dangerous sweeping statements, which eventually does very little for the problem in question.

Another frustration I often have towards the discourse towards social issues is that they often fail to carry a call-to-action. Okay, I’ve checked my privilege, I’ve understood that my successes in life is partly a byproduct of the wealthy family I was fortunate to being born into – now what?

A good rule of thumb that I’ve been trying to implement into my life recently is to think about the net positive or net negative an action has onto society. And hence:

To the fortunate: While it is important to understand your privilege and not take things for granted, you also don’t have to be ashamed of it. Every dollar you spend goes into the economy and is earned by someone else. So, what can you do to influence a net positive?

Be kind to everyone, be kind to everyone, be kind to everyone.

If you can, have the moral courage to call out undesirable behavior – especially if it’s someone close to you. But if you can’t – it’s okay too. Start with yourself. The world could do with less ‘you should do more’ and more ‘thank you for what you did’.

This is not exclusive to tipping service staff or offering couriers a cold drink (although it is always really welcome!). Offer a kind word to anyone you interact with. Ask the office or school janitor if they’ve had their meal yet, wish your security guard a good morning/good evening when you pass them by, clear your tray when you’re at a fast food restaurant and smile and thank the servers if you pass them by.

I promise you - these little acts of kindness will go a much longer way received than it takes you to give them.

To our everyday heroes: Your intrinsic self worth is by no means defined by how an asshole treats you. You are so, so, so much more important.

You are somebody, you are somebody, you are somebody.

In this essay, my intention is to extend the net positive that Yusuf and Rice has already generated while minimizing the net negatives it may unintentionally create by framing the issue as ‘us vs them’.

I hope that it will be seen as an addendum to Yusuf’s original piece instead of a correction. To build up on the important issues that **each and every one of us **should acknowledge and then go one step further to see how we can resolve them. I hope that reading this has provoked more questions than it gives answers. I hope that we don’t see the world as black-and-white but how things can move to a more palatable shade of grey.

Of course, my thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions here could be (and probably are) wildly ignorant and myopic, and I still have so much more to learn. So please confront me, dispute me and tell me where I’m wrong and what I don’t know.

If I have to leave you with just one takeaway, I hope everyone remembers to be kinder to people – regardless.

(You can also find me at https://medium.com/@bdgthinks!)

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homenum-revelio-hq · 4 years ago

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Welcome to the Order of the Phoenix, Maggie!

You have been accepted for the role of HESTIA JONES! We love how you explored Hestia’s “gray” aspects. How she’s torn between doing “the right thing” knowing it’s outside the confines of the law, which she also finds incredibly important. How she’s positive and optimistic, but how that can be hard to maintain during war. We also loved your discussion of how pretty and feminine don’t equal dim - but that she often gets overlooked for it in a sexist world. That’s exactly what we were going for when we wrote her bio! So excited to have you part of the roleplay!

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! Thank you for joining the fight against Voldemort!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME: Maggie

AGE: 23

TIMEZONE: CEST

ACTIVITY LEVEL: I’m a student, so I normally have a very flexible schedule with time to write. Sometimes things will be more hectic, in periods where I’m swarmed with essays or exams, but I always try to carve time out to get some replies done

ANYTHING ELSE: No triggers or anything. I have a few years of experience RPing on tumblr, and lately I’ve been in a similar role-play focusing on long-term character development and longer para-based writing.

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Hestia Jones

AGE: 18

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Cisfemale, she / her. When it comes to sexuality, Hestia is still in the discovery phase. Currently, she identifies as heterosexual, although she has sometimes questioned it. While Hestia is the kind to get surface-level crushes easily, deeper feelings comes a lot rarer and she thus doesn’t feel like she has enough experience with love / attraction to sort out what exactly she’s feeling. Sometimes she finds girls pretty too, giving her heart the same flutter as pretty boys, but she’s unsure if that means she likes-likes them. Hestia has shrugged it off at the moment and reckons she can figure it out as she goes along.

BLOOD STATUS: Half-blood

HOUSE ALUMNI: Ravenclaw

ANY CHANGES: None

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY:

At a first glance, it’s easy to overlook Hestia. But only for a moment - and only if her mouth is closed. While Hestia’s never been the kind to chatter mindlessly, she’s never been the kind to ponder in silence either. Her way of interacting with the world has always been to question it and she learned early on that asking out loud might give her an answer.

She was never the child that could sit quietly for hours and play. She’d race through the house, through the backyard (and the streets if her parents didn’t catch her), a hurricane of braids and skirts, a million question bubbling at all times. Her parents learned quickly that it was better to let her test her abilities -magical and normal- under supervision. She was always an outgoing child, happy to make friends with anyone from the kid next door to the mailman walking past, and thrived when she started Hogwarts. There was no question Ravenclaw was the house for her, filled with other likeminded kids to encourage and challenge her.

Hestia is outspoken, sometimes coming of as abrasive when she get heated up. While she tries to avoid staring arguments, Hestia’s never been one to shy away from one either and is more than willing to defend herself - or someone else. It is easy to believe that if someone is kind, they’re a pushover, and if someone dresses prettily, they’re vapid - two assumptions that Hestia has rebelled hard against her entire life. She hates being dismissed for not wanting to trample over others, hates the idea of having to act cynical to be taken seriously. Hestia has a thousand thoughts and ideas, topics and questions brewing at any given moment. That doesn’t stop her from being kind, or from making friends. Most importantly, being feminine doesn’t make her less capable. As a child, she’d scoffed at the notion of having to chose between brains and beauty. She had scoffed - only to find it a trope that haunted her. While it was no doubt where she belonged once she started Hogwarts, and Hestia loved being in a house filled with likeminded people, she sometimes felt like she was hand waved away for not dropping parts of herself. Hestia made it difficult for anyone who talked to her to ignore her, but it didn’t stop her from getting into rows. More than anything, Hestia dislikes being underestimated.

One of Hestia’s issues is that she easily gets tunnel vision when it comes to solving problems, often seeing things as very black or white. Growing up in sleepy Scarborough, with a small population and an even smaller magical one, she was kept quite sheltered in terms of the problems in the wizarding world. Her parents explained the basics of how the magical world worked but avoided the issues of it - both for her sake and for theirs. They were content keeping to their corner and not rocking the boat. Hestia, as it would turn out, was not. Starting at Hogwarts taught her a lot of new things, including many of the injustices of the world that had been kept hidden from her. At eleven, it was vague concepts but the more she grew, the more she questioned, the clearer it became. As things grew bleaker as the dark side grew stronger, Hestia’s drive to do something grew as well. While she is clever, Hestia often doesn’t know when to stop- when it’s smart to walk away from an argument, when to admit defeat. It drove her into magical law, and later into joining the Order.

Hestia wants to do good. It’s one of her driving forces - clambering to fix at least a little corner of the world. To make something better for someone. But it’s difficult to keep an upbeat attitude when it feels like the world is determined to get a little worse each day. Sometimes it feels like pushing a rock up a hill, when the news keep pouring in and her efforts keep pouring out. It’s enough to chip away at the confidence of even the most chipper, optimistic person. And while Hestia is optimistic, she’s not naive. Some days it feels difficult to keep hope up, but she keeps fighting in the belief that if you keep pushing, something has to give. Even if it’s just the tiniest pebble. So Hestia keeps going, even on the days when the world keeps kicking when you’re down. She has always been stubborn, and she has never backed away from a fight before - so why stop when it’s something that matters?

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY:

Hestia was the not quite planned, but more than welcome kid. Her father, Richard, was working as an editor for a publication focusing on magical authors and her mother, Delia, had just started working as an English teacher at the local muggle school. Hestia came with a bang; faster and with a bit more drama than either of them had expected, and it set the precedent. She was always a curious child, defying both muggle and magical child-proofings as she climbed across the house. Both her parents discovered quickly that the best way to keep her still was by distracting her through making her think. Delia would bring home puzzles, growing more complex as Hestia did, and Richard would fire off riddles and questions, pushing her to think outside the box and work her way through problems. As she grew older she would, in return, come up with her own riddles.

As a child, Hestia never ran out of questions. Her mom liked to joke that her first word was ‘why’, and that at the very least it was her favourite word. Hestia didn’t just want to know about why things happened - she wanted to know how they functioned as it did. How did the sky change colours? Why did birds fly certain places, how did their wings work, how did they know where to go? How did rain form, how did she grow?

If her parents ever grew tired of her constant stream of questions, they never showed it. They explained what they could when they had time, encouraging her to explore the reasoning of the world they lived in. If Hestia’s favourite phrase was ‘how does this work’, her father’s was ‘let’s find out’. When she grew older and her questions became more complex, he taught her how to navigate information and find answers. Every Saturday, he would take her to the library, where she’d spend hours browsing for books containing whatever topic that had caught her that week. They’d find enough books to tide her over until the next weekend. Hestia has many fond memories of sitting next to her mother while she graded papers and tests, reading her books and sharing the most interesting bits. While her parents might have been hesitant towards her experimenting with magic, trying to understand that part of herself, they never stopped her from learning.

While Hestia still loves her parents very much, her relationship with them started changing as she grew older. Her bubble expanded the day she went to Hogwarts, opening her view to the topics her parents had skirted away from. Her questions about the world became more difficult, and for the first time her parents didn’t have any way to help her find answers. Even worse, they didn’t want to. How come the wizarding world has such deep-rooted issues? Why did so many stay content knowing about the prejudice and injustice that ran rampant? It started as innocent questions once it became clear to 11 year old Hestia how important blood purity was to so many, and evolved as she grew older. Hestia did as her father had taught her -finding answers by looking for them- and that was how her interest for magical law started.

Her relationships to her parents kept changing as she grew, and it reached a new foothold when she graduated. They were delighted when she got an internship at the Department of Magical Law, happy that their daughter was reaching high and aligning herself with the Ministry. They are none the wiser about her involvement with the Order, and Hestia intends to keep it that way. She has distanced herself from them after joining; a part of her feels guilty keeping such a large secret from them, and even more so about putting them in potential danger through association with her. So it’s easier to not talk about it. She knows they would be horrified at her involvement - her parents that she loves so much, but that will always prefer to avoid the hard questions, to look away. It is a difficult process, growing up and realizing that your parents are just humans, with flaws and problems, and Hestia is still learning to navigate this new landscape.

OCCUPATION:

Hestia is currently an intern at the Department of Magical Law. She is just starting out and trying to find her footing, bouncing around doing the paperwork and research reading. While she hasn’t quite worked her way up to getting to handle any of the important cases -or a permanent position for that sake- Hestia loves her job and is determined to plant her roots in the department. She leaps at the chance to be given any kind of responsibility, taking on anything from coffee-runs to extra work. Hestia knows how it goes, and is determined to work her way upward through hard work - and she’ll do it all with a smile.

Her interest in law-work started around her fifth year, when it was time to start considering where she wanted her life to go post-Hogwarts. Hestia had always known that she wanted to have a job that challenged her, and she had always dreamt of having a job that mattered. Certain parts of the wizarding world had always bothered her and a childish part of her had always dreamed of helping to fix it. While researching careers and stumbling over the Department of Magical Law, Hestia started playing with the idea of making her childish dream a reality. It became clear what she wanted to do and she has geared towards it since. She thinks its perfect for her; not only does she get to be a part of something bigger, trying to make the world better through legal channels, but she also gets to spend her days pouring over texts, finding arguments and logic nestles within pages. While she is a long way from being able to lobby for dismantling the outdated laws, she’ll get there some day.

ROLE WITHIN THE ORDER/THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORDER:

Hestia is on the newer side of the Order, still on the low-level and trying to find how her talents are best put to use. She contributes where she can, coming up with ideas and suggestions, joining the missions she’s asked to. While Hestia does believe in the work they do, she still harbors some conflicted feelings. Her work is within the law -the law that she truly believes can be fixed if enough good minds keep working on it- and it feels hypocritical to be a part of a group that’s outside of it, even if she’s working towards the same goal with both the Order and her job. Then there’s the question of what would happen if she got caught; her Order involvement could jeopardize the good she can do from within the Ministry. When first asked to join, Hestia hesitated, considering the risk and gains. In the Department of Magical Law, she could create long-term groundwork to help future generations, which would stop if she got arrested. In the end, Hestia decided that while fixing magical laws to prevent future discriminations is important, it would take too long. People are being killed now, muggleborns are running for their lives now.

While she doesn’t regret her decision, that doesn’t mean her involvement has been smooth sailing either. First of all, there’s the issue of clashing with some of the other members. Hestia hates being dismissed and passed over for her appearance, hates having good ideas waved away or being bossed around. While Hestia likes to be friendly, it doesn’t mean that she’s going to let people step on her either. Then there’s the Order itself. Hestia has by all means lived a pretty sheltered life, and is fresh out of school with a good amount of youthful optimism. She still sees things as pretty black and white - even if she’s part of an illegal group, it’s the right thing to do in her eyes. She has strong ideals, that gets a bit more challenged each day. Hestia is slowly coming to terms with the world -and particularly the Order- being a lot more grey than she thought. That doesn’t mean that some of their work sit easy with her. Especially recent deaths make her uneasy, making her views of what is right more difficult. Hestia knew that the Order is desperate, weary, but how far are they willing to go to to make the overall situation better? Where do they draw the line? Where does she?

SURVIVAL:

Hestia’s work is her survival. It’s her distraction, her alibi, her sanity. While she has no doubt that joining the Order was the right move, it still makes her feel uneasy standing opposite the law - even when it’s the right thing to do. So she throws herself at her work, compensating her work outside the law by working hard within it. It gives her comfort when things look bleak within the Order, to know that she can help in another way. If the Order’s mission fail, Merlin forbid, then the law will still be there. Chipped and with its flaws, it’s still there. It can be worked on, it can be improved.

It also makes her look inconspicuous. Hestia’s hopes are that someone so dedicated to the laws and rules of the wizarding world won’t arise suspicion of being in the Order. If her presence is missed or she has to reject a social advance, she’ll cite mountains of paperwork as a reason for staying home, joking that interns are always given the worst tasks nobody else wants to take on. Still, she takes precautions to not be associated with the vigilante group. She likes to travel around when she’s not working, making it less suspicious to rarely be seen around her flat in Queensway. She avoids the topic of the Order when she can, content to shake her head in disapproval or tsk as she knows how oftentimes choosing words too carefully says more than you intend to.

RELATIONSHIPS:

Hestia is desperately trying to manage her relationships but it’s difficult. She navigates different spheres, there’s her normal friends, her work friends, the Order and her family - all of which are taking hits. Hestia has a lot on her plate. Time-wise, the Ministry takes a huge chunk of her days, and she is working hard to not neglect her Order position either. Then there is the Order itself. Outside it, Hestia is navigating how to keep it at a distance. It’s difficult to have deep, meaningful conversations when you’re afraid that you’ll slip up, say something wrong that raises suspicion, especially in this world where the wrong person learning the wrong thing can be disastrous. There’s the guilt of lying, of putting her loved ones in danger.

Then there’s the war, the weight of being involved with it. There’s this weight on her shoulders, that demands so much of her time and mentality, that she can’t talk to anyone about outside the Order. While she is making friends within it, she’s also arguing with others. Arguments she can’t vent about. The people she does like have enough on their plate and friendships are difficult when you’re worried about overloading them.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS: My main basis for ships / anti-ships is chemistry. I rarely go in with ideas of ships beforehand, preferring to see how relationships and chemistry evolves.

WHAT PRIVILEGES AND BIASES DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE?

Hestia always sort of fell in-between when it comes to this point, having the sort of privilege that you don’t necessarily recognize until you look back. Her family wasn’t swimming in money and prestige like some of the wizarding families, and neither did she have the pure blood that is lauded. But as a half-blood, she didn’t fall lowest on the pecking order, with enough magic in her veins to not have to worry about being targeted for her muggle part - at least not in the way muggleborns have to worry about. Neither did her family really struggle. While the Joneses didn’t have manors and summer homes, they had a steady house in a good neighborhood. Hestia never had to worry about things like food or new clothes, there were no difficulties when she needed school supplies.

When it comes to biases, Hestia, like everyone else, has a few built in. While she is eager to work for a more just society, it is a bit harder to shed the feelings that’s been instilled in her - some that she might not even recognize. She grew up with stories and warnings that integrated themselves as part of her worldview (stay in your bed during the full moon, lest werewolves eat you, careful in forests for giants have to qualms eating you) and it’s difficult to shed biases when you don’t necessarily recognize them as such.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO?

Is saying ‘absolutely everything’ a lazy answer? Because my answer is Absolutely Everything. First of all, I think this rp has such an interesting plot and I absolutely love the premise. I think it sounds so fun to write within this world, explore the shades of grey. Second, I really love the focus on deeper character explorations and the style of longer paras (once you’ve been in one lsrp, you can’t go back). Third, everyone seems so nice and good writing partners are worth their weight in gold.

PLOT DROP IDEAS (OPTIONAL): Not at the moment, sorry!

ANYTHING ELSE?: This got a bit longer than intended, but thanks for reading!

#homenumaccepted

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weeklyfangirl · 6 years ago

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Frat Boy Pt. 14

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7 (1), part 7 (2), part 8, part 9, part 10, part 11, part 12, part 13

here we go! some answers are revealed, but with more answers come more questions... obviously ;) please don’t hesitate to like/reblog if you enjoy it and share how you feel here. Lowkey but highkey the reason i post this story is to interact with you guys and hear your responses! lots of la-la-la-lovvvee xx

I didn’t need to see anything in the crowd. For up on the wall, between collectors’ paintings was a vacant space.

The family portrait was gone.

And in its place was a snake that matched the one I’d seen tattooed on skin, the same snake that had been wrapped around my neck...

The police urged Mrs. Styles to shut down the party, but no man in uniform was tougher than her will to put on a show. The crowd lingered, more intrigued than frightened by the drama, no doubt wanting to carry on what they’d witnessed first-hand to their social circles on the other side of the gate.

Harry requested a Lyft immediately after to take me home. I cancelled it, unwilling to leave and wanting to hear what the police could make of it. Mrs. Styles showed them less concern than she did the caterers, and entertained them ten minutes tops before shooing them out. She gave a statement and allowed them to interview some staff, but then they were gone. Everyone else had been at the auction.

Even Harry, apparently. I’m not sure why he lied, but there must have been a reason. The officers had looked at me to confirm, and I felt Harry’s eyes on me as I nodded. I lied, too.

I stayed long enough to see the auction resume. The foundation hadn’t suffered either, nearly raising a million by the end of the night. One of the prizes? A date with Mary’s sole prized son. His eyes remained locked on mine at the head of the podium as the eager socialites bid to set up their daughters or their neices. Maybe they were bidding for themselves to escape their husbands for the night. At the top of the podium, people threw money at him like a commodity. I knew it was for a larger cause, but the smile he threw on wasn’t the one I’d seen in the moments we were together. It was the one for show, the one that put people at ease and didn’t cause anymore probing questions. It came second-nature to him; it was a second skin, a mask like the one that covered his face, but stunning nevertheless.

He couldn’t meet my eyes when the final bid was placed. $4,500.

Viv won.

I let him call the Lyft for me after that.

Even back in my dorm with the company of Renny’s gentle snores, I didn’t sleep a wink. I also didn’t ask Harry about his lie, or the gun. I let its image sit there, in my mind, turning over and over. The cool silver glinted each time I closed my eyes, the branding of the snake tattoo appearing in the shadows of my room whenever I tried to open them. It even overpowered my jealousy of Viv.

I didn’t dream my nightmares that night. They were lucid.

Spindly creatures didn’t exist in this world, but I didn’t know which world was scarier anymore.

The attack on their home wasn’t something I could reconcile unless it was something personal. There were thousands of dollars worth of furniture, vases, and paintings - yet they stole a family portrait. Which, unless you were obsessed with stoic family poses, was neither a lucrative nor smart object to steal.

Was there a deeper connection?

A memory from that night crawled its way out of the crevices and smacked me in the face. I hadn’t realized I’d had it stored away, but suspicion had a funny way of bringing up memories.

That rainy night outside of Kean’s, I’d called for Harry when I’d walked out of the bathroom. Of course, it hadn’t been Harry.

But the stranger had said something that didn’t sit right.

Haven’t heard that name in a while.

Hadn’t heard that name in a while…

The sentence echoed over and over.

One way it could be explained - everyone had heard of the Styles. Maybe this was a threat, a warning that they’d hurt their family unless they coughed up some cash. Maybe there was no deeper connection. And if there was…

For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why the elite star boy of the beach community would be associated with rapist thugs.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said for the millionth time. “Stop asking me that.”

Harry’s eyes were red. He rubbed them, probably as sleep deprived as me.

I could tell he wanted to ask me again, but he took a sip of iced coffee instead. Maybe if he heard I’m okay again, this time he’d believe me.

I wouldn’t.

I watched his fingers toy with his lips while peers watched us sit outside Starbucks. They were probably concerned with midterms next week, unaware of the complete mess of thoughts churning my stomach and leaving my croissant half-eaten.

I pulled off a buttery flake. I missed the old me. The old me would’ve been the passing peer, and in any other alternate universe that was normal and made sense, I would be watching Harry sit with a sorority girl with perfectly curled hair as I stress ate 10 croissants and worried about how to cram-write a 15 page historical essay and study for a biology exam in 12 hours.

“You can come to mine tonight. It’s dead at the house until the weekend so it’ll be quiet to study.”

I nodded. The frat house... Maybe I could talk to him about it then. Here, in this coffee shop, he seemed like the frat star college student everyone knew him as. At night in his room, maybe I could reconcile this person with who I knew outside of campus, too. The boy who was soft, who hurt, who had an entire mystery of a life inside that mansion.

I’d accepted I was different than who I was before him. Was he different before me?

When he pulled at his lip again, he noticed me staring and a familiar gleam lit his eyes. He looked at me in a way that made my cheeks burn and my heart surge. Muscle memory was strong, and even though he was sitting across the table, I suddenly felt him pressed against me.

Maybe there was another reason he’d recommended the frat house.

My phone buzzed, giving me an excuse to look away. I checked the name, ignored it. He was looking at me again, observing, waiting for me to admit what was really going on in my mind when he must know what was bothering me… He just wasn’t brave enough to bring it up himself.

And I wasn’t ready to be the first.

“You know, I’m not always going to be so readily available for you. I’m a modelling girl now, my schedule’s filling up.” I threw a dramatic hand to my forehead and he fought a smile.

“S’that right?”

I nodded, and that’s when his brows pinched.

“Wait, are you really modelling?”

“Okay, gee, don’t look so surprised. A friend of mine needed a replacement model who had more ‘life.’ And I’m just full of that, so, it worked out.”

My phone vibrated again.

“Zayn?”

“No. It’s my mom...” Begging to get the details from that photo I’d sent her of Harry and I last night. I was too in awe of the decor, the gowns, and just being there to not share it with her. It’d actually been something I’d wanted to remember until it all went to shat.

“I meant your friend. Who’s the artist?”

“Oh, Zayn.”

“Oh.”

An awkward silence settle, and I picked at another buttery flake.

“I’m sure he’ll do an amazing job,” he said. But he looked away when he said it, and I heard the restraint in his tone.

“I don’t know why you don’t like him.”

“It’s not just me.” He leant back in his chair, stretching his arms back until the muscles flexed. “I never knew him until here, but because he’s from England s’just…” He shook his head. “Look, I don’t know how to explain it, I’m not trying to be a dick.”

Said every dick ever. But maybe I could overlook it.

“Tell me.”

“He just doesn’t give me good vibes.”

“How California of you.”

“I-” he stopped, sighed. He wrestled with the true answer he’d held all along, reluctantly giving it up. “He acts like he knows things about me. Like he knows who I am when I literally haven’t said a single word to him.”

“You don’t like how friendly he is?”

“It’s not a happy, familiar, I know you. S’like he looks at me and sees parts of me I don’t...”

“Show?”

The look in his eyes told me I was right, but he didn’t say it.

“Maybe he’s just intuitive,” I continued.

“Maybe he’s just fucking weird.”

“Harry…”

He shrugged, unapologetic, and drew a long sip from the black coffee. For the boy who had a beautifully deceitful exterior hiding a million layers he never let anyone see, it must have taken a lot for someone to get under his skin.

Was the thought of being seen that terrifying?

“Shit, I have practice.”

I nodded, not as disappointed as I thought I’d be. I had a lot on my plate today. Biology papers, work, stopping by the studio…

I stood up a little after him.

“Thanks for the croissant, and the tea.”

“Of course,” he said.

We walked out in silence, and I wonder if he was as lost in thought as I was. Before we parted, he turned to me.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

I popped a hip, putting on my best tough-girl act.

“I-” I stopped, sighed. The tough-girl acted lasted a whole whopping two seconds as I debated on telling him the truth I’d been hiding. I knew he was genuinely concerned, and I knew that if I didn’t fess up this was going to keep bothering him. Just like him, I caved. “Not really.”

“I knew it.” - he looked away, tugging at his hair before letting his hand fall - “I swear, you don’t have anything to worry about.”

But there was a slight desperation to his voice, and I wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince.

I nodded anyway. I didn’t realize I’d been looking at the ground until he leaned lower, trying to meet my eyes.

“I’ll see you later?”

“Later,” I affirmed.

He punched my shoulder lightly, and it took everything in me not to literally guffaw. Had he really just-? Again???

Lighter fluid of pure annoyance fueled an angry fire in my eyes. But he didn’t flinch; nothing about him seemed apologetic for the action.

Last night his hands touched me very differently.

Last night, he wasn’t a buddy who shoulder punched me.

Did something change again in the blink of an eye? Then again, his unpredictability was becoming predictable. And a lot could change overnight. I certainly hadn’t been filled with this sick foreign confusion yesterday.

And if this confusion was actually suspicion, I didn’t even know of what.

I didn’t hesitate to walk away, hoping that leaving so abruptly would be a GIANT NEON SIGN that he’d just done something wrong, knowing that even if it would, one of his thousand stubborn layers would never bring him to acknowledge it.

------

A waft of Chinese food overpowered the smell of humid sweat for a moment and it wasn’t as disgusting as I thought it’d be. In fact, my stomach growled in response.

I saw his glistening smile before the takeout bag. He came over to where I was sanitizing the examination table and sat down, wincing when he realized it was still wet. He held up the bag, and the smell of orange chicken was stronger.

“For you.”

He waggled his eyebrows.

And for the first time in what felt like a long time, I smiled.

“Shut. Up.”

Seconds later, Matt was laying on his back in the chair, and I’d set the Chinese aside for the foam roller. I leaned against it with all my weight as I rotated it upwards, soothing the tense muscles in his back.

“You really don’t have to do this everytime you come in, I’m starting to feel bad,” I said with a mouthful of chicken. Though really, it didn’t make me feel bad at all. Some of my distressing confusion actually lifted with his presence. Or maybe it was the thought of free food.

“You have to smell other people’s sweat and deal with bloody injuries at least once a week. I don’t think I’m the one you should be feeling bad for...”

He sucked in a breath through his teeth as I hit a particularly tender spot.

I bit my cheek, trying so very hard not to laugh at how brutally accurate it all was.

“Alright, if you’re gonna talk like that you can bring me a steak dinner next time.”

“I’m not so sure that’s a takeout thing.”

“Yeah, yeah, get out of it how you can.”

He struggled for the Chinese box and held up a spoonful of chowmein behind his back. I moved up just enough where I could clamp my mouth around it.

I placed extra pressure by his shoulder blade and he drew in a breath. “Sweet...torture…” he squeaked.

“You don’t have to put up with my torture anymore,” I said, rolling back down. I was sweating. Forget going to the gym, this was exercise enough.

“It’s not torture! It’s- you’re fine.” An awkward apology came stumbling out. “It just hurts in the moment, but it’s a good pain.”

“No, I mean…” For some reason, it felt weird admitting this to him. “I’m not going to be working here much longer. This week’s my last week here.”

His muscles tensed a little, and I slowed my roll. Literally.

“Oh, really? Why? Did you get fired?”

“Noo, nothing like that. I actually got an internship.”

There was silence as I worked his lower back. I focused harder on the way the foam roller pushed against the muscle, building and pinching, til it finally rolled over.

I knew I’d still see him around. Less, that’s for sure. But still… around. I stopped, grabbing some ice packs for his calf muscles, ignoring the fact that he still hadn’t said anything.

“Where’s it at?” he asked after a solid minute of silence.

“Coast Shores Medicine.”

“The one on TV?”

“That’s the one.” One Google search and the practice had popped up, along with its link to the reality show Housewives of OC. I remembered Ben telling me Mary Styles used to be a housewife and the notoriety that surrounded the Styles name surprised me less and less.

“That’s going to be different.”

I let out a short laugh. “Yeah, but it won’t be too bad.”

Matt, always a bundle of optimism didn’t hesitate to say, “It’ll look great on your resume.”

And there it was, the real reason behind this. The whole reason behind anything we did. Something else for the resume, something else for a piece of paper, something else to belong, something else to make another approve of my life’s existence. But-

“Yeah. It’ll be fun,” I said, strapping the ice packs down.

“Bet no one’s gonna bring you takeout though.”

I heard the smile in his voice, and when he looked over his shoulder, there it was. All gleaming white teeth and shining blue eyes.

And for a second, I wanted to take it all back. To say I was kidding. To stay here. To not change another part of my life that seemed to be turning into something I wasn’t quite sure I wanted it to be.

“You’re going to do great,” he said, somehow knowing what I needed to hear without me uttering a word.

Maybe if our families hadn’t been tied since birth, it would have been different for us. Maybe he would’ve been bringing me spring rolls to my dorm room and I would’ve been in Matt’s dad’s shop, helping where I could.

Maybe I should stop overthinking everything and just accept everything as it was and stop thinking of parallel universes.

Maybe, maybe, maybe...

I wanted to give him a definite response. I wanted to say, I would be okay because I know I would be okay.

But the largest part of me didn’t know what the future held, and somehow I still needed to be okay with that.

----------------

The frat house looked a lot different than the last time I’d been there. I could hardly believe that it was the same place.

The lawn wasn’t littered with people swaying, confessing embarrassing things to acquaintances they’d pretend not to know the next day in History class. The yard was vacant - except for two boys with hats hung low with trash collecting picks, looking like they’d just suffered from a major night out. They didn’t even look up when I passed.

Bits of the paint were chipping off the door, and my booties stuck to the pavement that’d accumulated a healthy layer of spilled beer.

I knocked, but nobody answered, so I walked in anyways. I was actually more nervous than if the living room had been full with bodies pressed together. I was alone, nobody to hide from, the impending conversation looming in my mind. The dance floor was back to looking like a living room. Two couches with suspicious stains were haphazardly placed to create space for a table - a bong as the centerpiece and ashes in place of a tablecloth.

It was so different from his sparkling mansion. The frat house was clearly lived in, but I wonder if he really felt at home here.

“Hello?” I creeped up the stairs, but nobody walked out. An open window carried in the sound of students walking to their next class. Had I gotten the time wrong?? It was too quiet. Without warning, my nightmares blended into the frat house. No one was here. My feet moved faster, faster, carrying me towards the room.

I gasped when I saw him standing outside his door. “Shit.”

His lips quirked into a half-smile. “You okay?”

I looked at him casually leaning against the door in his joggers, breathless. It was pointless acknowledging the question.

Compared to the rest of the house, Harry’s room looked pristine. Madame Bovary and his English notes were already sprawled across his creaseless bedspread, but he pulled at the corner of it anyways while I sat at his desk. I swiped my finger along the top, lips curling at the layer of dust on it.

“I go to the library.”

“Mhm.”

He tugged at his t-shirt collar, mildly clearing his throat. “Not sure where you want to start.”

I nodded.

“There’s a lot to cover.” He lowered his head, looking over the bridge of his nose, that silly masked smile toying on his lips - but just like a mask, it didn’t hide his eyes. They were redder than before, and I almost felt bad at how tired he must be.

It looked like I wasn’t the only one who didn’t get any sleep.

He toyed with the bedsheet again, and I realized I hadn’t said anything.

“There is a lot to cover.” My heart beat faster, and I had no idea how to bring up the gun. Would he be angry with me for snooping? Was it wrong of me to have done so? But then again, why the heck had he locked me in the room? “Where do you want to start?”

He paused, just like I had. A thousand possibilities rushing through my mind,

but he lifted up the book,

and I wilted.

You would think it’d be hard to study an entire half-semester’s worth of work for a class that met three times a week and a professor that filled up at least five pages of notes per session. But with enough willpower to avoid silence, Harry and I managed to study nearly all of it.

Which, to help clarify just how much of a task it was, the only study guide we’d been given were seven sample essay questions - three of which were to be written in class after the short answer portion.

We’d jotted notes down of themes, character developments (and lack thereof), and pretty much exhausted the entire book cover to cover. Which, was especially hard to do, being that close to a sex god and all. Even more especially, when that sex god had almost had his fingers inside of me less than a day ago.

If I was antsy to talk about the masquerade ball before, exhaustion made me question whether or not it was even worth it. The sun had long past set, and the soft glow from Harry’s lamp cast a dreamy hue to the room that made my eyes strain to make anything out. He was unreal as a human anyways, add exhaustion and mood lighting to the mix and it’s like the gods just cast him out of heaven.

Given my frazzled bun and hoodie with a hole near the armpit, one could say I found this to be completely unfair.

I set my pen down as soon as my stomach growled.

“Shit,” Harry suddenly leapt up, bounding out the door. He stopped just before he disappeared and craned his neck back. “I’ll just be a minute.”

“Uh, okay,” I let out a nervous laugh, but he’d already walked away. I leant back in the chair; it felt nice to be alone in his room. A little weird, but nice.

My fingers thrummed on the desk. They stopped when I saw what was on the top shelf. Did he take these from Mary?

I reached for them without thinking, turning them over in my hand. The little white tablets shook together as I tried to find a label for them.

Who needed this many?

I suddenly became aware of a frozen frame behind me.

He didn’t stop me from reading them, but I turned, embarrassed for snooping. He’d stepped closer, and I could feel the heat rolling off his body, the chiseled chest hidden behind a black sweater just a book’s width away. Any thoughts I had became mush. Too close, too-

my ankle hit the desk when I stepped back. “I’m sorry. I was just… I was just curious.” There was a sad acceptance in his eyes when he nodded. It was so soft, I wondered if I’d imagined it. “Do you struggle with sleeping?” I asked, tone void of teasing.

“Kind of.” Careful eyes searched mine for a reaction. Even with his desk lamp, his green eyes were dark, a thick forest that didn’t let in the light.

Xanax and Valium were serious sleeping pill. When my hippie aunt would come back from one of her many trips from Mexico, she’d bring Valium back by the bucketful (selling the pills as well as her psychic services). My dad bought from her, but even she cautioned him about the intensity of it. I didn’t recognize the other label, but I was assuming it was equally strong, if not more so.

I bit the inside of my cheek.

“I don’t really take them anymore,” he clarified.

“You used to?” Frick. A tad too much curiosity there. Could’ve come off as judgey.

Harry stared off into somewhere behind me, my question triggering memories I’m not sure I’d like to see. “A lot of people take them anyway,” he said, coming back to me.

“Really?” My back arched as I tried to create more space between us.

He leaned forward, placing his hands on the desk on either side of me. His body moved slowly, but deliberately. Each calculated movement seemed second-nature to him. He nodded. “Sure. Want to see Niall’s desk?”

The last time I was in Niall’s room… my cheeks flushed remembering our kiss. It was so long ago, such a stupid rash decision. But it was ages before Harry and I started… hanging out more frequently so I couldn’t blame myself for doing anything wrong. Still, if Renny ever found out I had “once upon a time” kissed her newfound obsession and that I never told her about it, I’d rather invest in a wig and move to Canada.

Renny once delivered a package of literal dog shit to a girl who slid into her “once upon a time” friends with benefits’ dms.

I shook my head quickly. “I mean I get nightmares all the time, I get why people take them.”

“You have nightmares?”

I bristled a bit. “Yeah, doesn’t everybody?”

“Not the kind that require sleeping pills.” His head tilted back, an elitist of pain.

“But a lot of people take them.” I spat his own words back to him, my biting tone not lost on Harry.

“Ah, ah,” he chided. He pulled in a cheek, accentuating angled cheekbones. “That’s not why everybody takes them.”

“Well if it helps nightmares-” I mockingly twisted the cap between us until it “popped” but he snatched it from me. His hand took the place of the bottle, shooting an electric bolt up my arm. Leaning back against the desk, my legs stood between his, unable to take me away from his stone-cold stare.

“You’re not getting them from me Y/N.”

“I was teasing,” I said, not moving my hand. “I wasn’t going to take any.”

His calculated eyes searched mine for any hint of pill-popping desire, but I couldn’t handle the intensity.

My eyes shot behind him. When I saw what was on the bed, I snorted. I couldn’t help it. In the grave intensity of the moment, I snorted. My hand flew to my nose. “Oh my gosh, are you serious?” I gestured to the plate atop his sheets.

He backed up, tugging me with him. My heart fluttered, but he let go and stood back, crossing his arms instead. From the corner of my eye, I saw his feet scuff the flooring, suddenly unsure of his gesture. “You said you were hungry.”

My side-smirk grew into a full beaming smile. I sat down on his bed, picking up the fork that was beside it. I debated about which spot would be the best to dive into. “Is this chocolate lava cake?”

He’d only brought one fork. So… maybe I didn’t have to be to be conservative with my bites... He watched me shovel almost half the cake into my mouth with one bite. I moaned, not even embarrassed as a dribble of chocolate escaped my mouth. I moaned AGAIN, completely shameless, and fell back on his bed. Somehow, the experience of chocolate in Harry’s bed made it taste all the more delicious. “Ughhh dishh ishh amashhinnn!!”

A breathy childish laugh escaped Harry, and it was so beautiful, I almost froze mid-swallow. He bit his lip, aware that the sound escaped him, but with no one else to observe it, he didn’t care.

“I don’t … want you missing out on things because of me.”

“What do you mean?” I took another bite of the lava cake, letting the moist chocolate fudge slowly cover my tastebuds.

“Exactly what I said.”

The image of me running away from my pricey dessert at The Hilltop Resort flashed in my mind. I’d ran away from Harry that night because I saw him as a pretentious douchebag who thought money could get him any girl he wanted. He looked the same, and still had more money than I could comprehend, but stood before me now was a completely different person than the one I thought I knew.

Harry could turn cold and distant in the blink of an eye, abandon me in photos and leave me feeling unwanted and embarrassed. But he could place an arm around my waist, remember the smallest details about me, and make a gesture that showed how thoughtful he could be. It was … infuriating. Unfair. Predictably unpredictable.

I don’t want you missing out on things because of me.

I hadn’t gotten to eat chocolate lava cake that night. Yet here it was, burning on the bed between us.

“I think I’m experiencing more things now that I know you actually,” I swallowed slowly, the thick chocolatey goodness not the only thing melting.

“I’m sure,” he said slyly. He reached down then, hand gently wiping a stray bit of chocolate on my chin.

“Oops,” I laughed, enjoying this rare moment of levity.

He licked his own finger clean, eyes fluttering dramatically. “S’damn good innit.” The bed dipped as he sat beside me, eyes never leaving my ridiculous smile. I had a feeling he was etching it to memory as he pulled my legs atop his lap like it was something we always did. Somehow, it kind of felt like it was.

“So…”

“Sho,” I mimicked, mouth still full of chocolate. My chewing suddenly seemed quite loud in the silence, and I cringed as I swallowed. There weren’t any napkins to be had… anywhere. With one bite left, I held it up to Harry to distract him from the chocolatey mess that was probably my face. He leant forward, eyes on mine as his full lips took the bite. I gulped again, but this time it had nothing to do with the fact that I had chocolate in my mouth.

His strong hands pulled my legs closer ‘til I was practically in his lap, and my heart beat wildly against my ribs like caged finches smelling smoke. Traces of him - spice, warmth, and an undertone of rich cologne overpowered the chocolate, overpowered everything.

“Pulling me in for a shoulder punch?”

He frowned, and I spotted a fleck of chocolate at the corner of his mouth. I swiped my finger along his pout, placing the stray chocolate in my mouth. Instead of mirroring my smile, his brows furrowed and he became a child as he leant his forehead against mine. “What are you doing to me.”

I stood still, scared that if I moved, whatever spell that’d been cast in his mind would break.

“Nothing you don’t do to me.”

There it was. An admittance. An offering. And like all the times before, I didn’t expect him to take it.

Foreheads still drawn together, his jaw jutted closer in temptation. He winced, pulled back.

It was the push before the give.

“We didn’t finish the last question on the study guide,” he murmured, but his hand spread to the small of my back. Heat swept through me, but I shivered at his touch.

“Oh yeah?”

“Mm,” he hummed. He leaned closer to peer at something over my shoulder and I swear my heart stopped as our chests touched. His hand stayed on my back, steadying me as he searched for whatever it was. I could feel his curls at the base of my jaw, and the warmth from his cheek so close to touching mine...

“What’s your favorite quote from the book?” He pulled back, looking at me as though the next words I’d say would be his favorite too.

But my brain was heavy, overworked. “I don’t know.” I rest my head on his shoulder for the briefest of moments before pulling myself up.

His hands squeezed my sides. “M’serious, you might have to write an essay on your favorite quote. S’question seven.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but shook my head instead. “I’m serious, I don’t have one memorized. Do you?”

A cocky little smirk appeared on his face. “Of course.”

“Of course,” I sighed. “Who’s tutoring who here?”

“What, you don’t want to hear it?”

“Oh no, I do, I’m desperate for it,” I leant forward teasingly, more pressure applied to my hips.

He drew in a breath, screwing his eyes shut tight for a second. When they opened, they were a raging emerald green. “Careful.” Then, with all the nonchalance in the world, he rumbled, “She thought love must come suddenly, with great outburst and lightnings – a hurricane of the skies, which falls upon life, revolutionizing it, roots up the will like a leaf, and sweeps the whole heart into the abyss.”

It took me a moment to realize that he was speaking from the book. He waited for a response, but any words I had flew out my mind somewhere between lightnings and abyss.

“Not bad is it?” he said.

This was his favorite quote? Coming from a boy who didn’t believe love could last?

“Harry…”

I didn’t know what I was going to say, but I didn’t need to figure it out. Voices rose from downstairs. I figured it was just the frat brothers, but Harry’s dreamy gaze cooled to calculation in an instant. My legs were moved to the comforter and he walked straight to the door, peering his head through the crack. He shut it gently, beckoned to me.

“The cops are here. They probably just want me to answer a few questions,” he said lowly.

“Really?!”

I tried opening the door, but he spun me around. He pressed me against the wall, and for a brief moment I felt all of him. His hand snaked around my waist, and his lips dipped down to my ear.

“I’ll be right back.”

His entire body alit mine,

And then he was gone.

I’d been poured in gasoline but he didn’t stop to light the match.

Too many times this week I’ve been left reeling, breathless, and a little too turned on in an empty room by one infuriating frat boy.

He was causing too much damage to be so small in the retrospect of the universe.

I opened the door, softly, slowly. Three cops and two college admins were searching the place. While two spoke with Harry, another strayed from the group. He strolled around the floor, assessing the damage of parties past.

I couldn’t make out everything, their voices too indistinct from a story away. Harry shook hands with the cops. One of them didn’t extend his, and Harry shoved it away in his back pocket.

That was rude of them.

Words were exchanged, but “charity” and “affiliation” were the only words I caught. The cops’ postures seemed relaxed enough, but their crossed arms and poker faces told me careful observations were in place. Was I going to be left here as they drove away for questioning? If this was about the charity ball, was Harry going to tell them any more of what happened? I’d seen that wild look in Gemma’s eyes, the way he’d leapt to his feet as soon as he saw it. He had to know more than what he’d shared.

They passed Harry a paper I couldn’t make out, and his back tensed. The cops were in front of him though, so I doubted they noticed, but Rogue Cop walked closer to the stairs. Harry mentioned “familiar” - or was it “not familiar?” I couldn’t hear. The paper was passed back. More arms were crossed. Rogue Cop kept floating around, looking for something. Or someone?

As if he knew, Rogue Cop’s eyes found the slit in the door, locking eyes with mine.

I jumped away, adrenaline pumping when there was no reason for me to be nervous. My inner me threw up her arms, waving the white flag - I DIDN’T KILL ANYBODY! I’M INNOCENT!

But a sinking feeling slammed her with a bus.

I wasn’t completely innocent.

I’d seen the snake tattoo before. I’d recognized it in the Styles’ home. I’d had it threaten my life, heard it recognize Harry.

I’d never reported it. What would they think if I mentioned it now? Would I mention it now?

And now did he think I was hiding?

I picked up the study guide to busy my hands.

A knock on the door.

“You can come in!”

He opened it, at first cautiously, but when he saw it was just a girl with some textbooks, his shoulders squared away.

“Do you live here, miss?”

“No-” I placed the study guide in my lap. “Is everything okay?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out. I’d just like to ask you a few questions if that’s alright with you.”

“Of course.”

The sound of rushed footsteps coming up the hall made me glance to the door. Moments later, the faculty woman and another cop filed in. They smiled at me, easing my nerves in the slightest.

“I’d like you to take a look at this. Have you seen this sign anywhere around campus?”

The mysterious paper was placed in my hands. The bold image of the snake, fangs bared to the world, hissed at me through the sheet. A somber confirmation settled in my skin, my bones suddenly heavier. The outside chaos was being brought into the safety of university. My world off campus and my world here were colliding, as were Harry’s, and with the collision I didn’t know if a universe was being created or destroyed.

“No. Not on campus.”

That wasn’t a lie, technically. But Rogue Cop picked up on my specificity.

“Have you seen this anywhere else?”

“Yeah, in town.”

“Where?”

I cleared my throat. “Outside of a coffee shop downtown. It’s a small place. Kean’s.”

The door creaked open wider, and Harry stood at the frame. His eyes met mine as soon as I said Keans.

“Was it tagged? On the walls, on a jacket?” Rogue Cop’s eyes narrowed as he watched me gulp. I shoved my hands in my pockets, but there was something in there. My fingers twiddled with a cap when I realized it was a pill bottle.

“No, I can’t, uh, I can’t remember. It was a long time ago.”

Rogue Cop followed my gaze to Harry leaning against the wall. He wrote down my name, phone number, and e-mail.

“We’ll be in touch.”

A card was slipped into my hand and they thanked us for our cooperation. The commotion I’d been foolish to forget about just because of a chocolate distraction had just slapped me in the face with a badge attached.

The presence the cops created left a vacuum of space Harry couldn’t fill. Alone again, he seemed smaller, like a child thrown in adult clothing. His hands covered his eyes at the foot of the bed as he sunk further into himself. This was a side of Harry I think I could have lived forever without seeing. This was a boy completely overwhelmed.

When he looked up, his strained eyes weren’t glossy. They were unnervingly vacant.

I pulled my sweatshirt sleeves over my hands. “Do you think I should tell them about Kean’s? Do you think it’d help?”

He shrugged. “That’s completely up to you. But if you do, don’t mention me.”

“You want me to lie?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you want them to know? Are you scared of them?”

“I’m not scared of them,” he scoffed. “They already know what gang they’re affiliated with.”

Gang...

“And what gang is that?”

Reluctance filled his eyes. “An ugly one. Unimpressive, but ugly.”

“What do you mean unimpressive?”

“They’re rash, messy. They’re like bullies on the playground. They always get caught by the supervisor.”

“Harry…”

His eyes shot to mine, brows stitched.

I took a breath. “Outside of Kean’s… the guys who- you know… they said something that made me think they knew you. Or, at least had heard about you.”

Nothing changed on his face. No flash of fear, sadness, embarrassment. Nothing.

“Are you safe?” I pressed. “Why are they targeting you? Or is it your parents?”

His gaze softened. “I don’t want you worrying about me.”

A short humorous laugh ripped itself from my throat. “Too late.” I reached in my pocket and held the anonymous pill bottle between us, our moment against the door cheapened. “And why’d you slip this in my pocket?”

He reached his hand out to take it, but I lifted my hand higher. I was getting no answers from this boy, the cops flippin took my information tonight and who knew when they’d be dropping in on me, and I was sick of it!!

He exhaled, only slightly amused. “Fine. It’s something new. Not on the market, officially.”

“...so it’s illegal.”

“Experimental,” he offered.

“But you didn’t want them seeing it.”

Any inklings of humor slipped from his eyes. “Clearly.”

“Fine.” I tossed him the bottle. Clearly, I’d hit a sore spot.

“Have you ever done hard drugs?”

I ignored the slow way he spoke, making each word sound like a sultry invitation. “No.”

“Would you ever try?”

I opened my mouth, not sure why I was suddenly so thrown off. It wasn’t the weirdest question to be asked on a college campus, but coming from Harry in his quiet bedroom it sounded like a loaded question. And a deflection.

“I don’t think so…”

“They’re not all bad. For shrooms you’d preferably be in a peaceful environment, and just with people you trust.” He threw his hands up. “S’only if ever wanted to try. I’m not saying you have to or anythin’, obviously.”

A prick of nausea filled my stomach. Somehow, without trying or saying anything directly, he managed to make me feel so grossly naive. “Yeah I’m good for now, thanks.” Miraculously, I managed to not roll my eyes.

He sensed the shift in mood, the air filling with an awkward tension. He bit his lip.

“Listen, I want you to feel like you can tell me anything.”

I nodded, but fought the feeling that he was only saying this because he didn’t want me confiding in the cops. A “you can’t tell them, but hey tell it all to me!” consolation.

Besides, did he really feel like he could tell me anything? I knew he didn’t let people beneath his shell, that he hid a heart with more guards and walls than fort knox, and I knew in my core that he’d let me in a little deeper than others. But I also knew that no matter how I deep I was now, I still wasn’t deep enough for him to trust me. I didn’t know if I could ever get there.

I gently kicked his shin with my sneaker. “Okay, well, for starters I’m going to have nightmares about being interrogated tonight.” It was a half-joke, because the only nightmares I had now involved me, trapped in an empty house, running towards something I couldn’t name with bodiless entities watching me and the flash of a knife.

You know, just girly things.

“Did you always have nightmares? Or-” his lips quirked, hand rubbing the back of his neck. Could he say the unmentionable? That I had nightmares because of him? “-is this a recent development?”

“I found a gun in your drawers Harry.”

He bit his tongue, jaw clicking with restraint. “Why were you-?”

“Because you locked me in your room! Why’d you do that, huh?!” My hands were trembling. The words had flown out before I could stop them, but there was no going back. “What normal person locks another person in their room?”

He flinched at normal. “I only did that because it was safer.”

I glared at him harder until he shifted his weight.

“I can see why you’d be upset,” he admitted.

“How would you know if it was safer? What aren’t you telling me, Harry, because I don’t know much of anything and it is driving me insane.”

I spared him details - that I looked over my shoulder every thirty seconds, that I stopped going to my tutoring sessions because they were held after dark across campus - but insane pretty much summed it up.

He saw the wild in my eyes, and his shoulders fell. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“I know. I-” he paused, hollowed eyes not meeting my own. “This is difficult for me, try to understand.” He stopped, then tried again. “I’m familiar with the guys who assaulted you outside of Kean’s okay? But they got violent, and I disassociated. They hold a grudge.”

“How did you know them?”

“I think it’s best if you don’t know.” Harry swallowed thickly, tilting his head back, eyes closed, probably wondering if he leant far enough if he’d disappear.

“Do you think they were the ones at your house?”

“I don’t know. It’s a possibility.”

“Does anybody else know about any of this?”

His phone buzzed and he reached for it, relief from this unexpected interrogation. He placed it down, but it buzzed again, then again. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“You can answer it.”

“Can you come here already?”

It was quiet, but I’d heard it. His lashes fluttered, and I stilled at how drained he looked. For a brief moment, I’d forgotten this was affecting Harry, too. The parts of his life I barely knew stressed me out enough to give me continuous nightmares, but how much more was he living?

I stepped between his legs, deciding to give him rest instead. It was a sad picture, he and I, how entirely spent we both were.

“I don’t know about you, boy...”

I tried to calm the pounding of my heart as he pulled me in close, arms wrapping around my waist, head pressing against my chest. “Me neither.”

I stilled, not quite knowing what to do or what to say, until I let my head rest atop perfectly mussed curls.

Gangs were dangerous.

Guns were dangerous.

Drugs were dangerous.

Frat boys were dangerous.

But this?

This feeling that bubbled up inside when his thumbs rubbed circles in the soft skin of my hip?

This was dangerous, too.

I didn’t know why we couldn’t be like this in public.

I didn’t know what Harry was burdened with or why it seemed to be so much.

His phone lit-up with 2 missed calls and 8 messages - Viv.

And I didn’t know who else had seen behind the mask.

part 15

#harry styles fanfiction #Harry styles fic #harry styles one shot #harry styles #harry styles fan fiction #one direction #frat boy #onedirection #1direction #1d #one direction fanfiction #one direction imagine #harry styles au #fratboy! harry #dark harry styles #harry styles imagine #one direction one shot #harry styles smut #angst

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kim-seungmine · 6 years ago

Text

a thousand chapters

title: a thousand chapters

characters: bang chan of stray kids

genres: romance (it’s cheesy sometimes so beware), angst, best friends to lovers au, idol au, idol!chan, so i attempted to write song lyrics (spoiler: maybe i suck)

warnings: language

word count: 7138 words

synopsis: bang chan writes only 3 love songs throughout his life, and all of them are for you.

a/n: this is a little bit non-linear so please pay attention whether it’s present or past! i used different types of dividers, i hope you guys understand. i have so much feelz for chan and im not sorry

Call it an exaggeration, but sitting on your couch while watching TV and munching snacks before 9PM was truly a miracle. Nothing could ever make you leave work at 5PM, but today was an exception. You made an exception. An annual prestigious music awards was held today, and while you never really paid attention to awards, you made sure you told your manager that you had to leave as soon as the sun went down.

Now the winner of the most anticipated award, Daesang, was about to be announced. Interestingly, the two groups that had the biggest potential to win—Stray Kids and ITZY—both belonged to JYP Entertainment.

“I’m sure everyone has been waiting for this category,” the male MC trailed off, causing you to bite your bottom lip in impatience. Just as the female MC opened the envelope, your door bell rang. You clicked your tongue, making time to raise the TV volume first before running to your door. A delivery man was standing there, holding a small clear case. A CD? Without at least a bubble wrap to protect it?

“Are you Y/N?” the man asked, and you nodded absent-mindedly as you took it and closed the door without saying thank you. It was rude, but you could care less since both MCs were now smiling at the camera to tease the audience.

You quickly went back to your favorite spot—on the right side of the couch—and flipped the case. A clumsily-written tracklist was taped on it, and you frowned when you noticed a short note at the bottom.

“Chan hyung will kill me for doing this but you need to know. It’s been long overdue. -Seo Changbin”

A little panicked, you opened the case to see if there was anything else, but that was it. You read the tracklist, and the title of the first song sounded painfully familiar.

“Congratulations to… Stray Kids!”

You looked up, a relieved smile plastered on your lips. The whole audience cheered and clapped as the said nine guys stood up from their seats, dumbstruck look on their faces. They walked up the stage, took the trophy, spent the first 3 minutes sobbing and hugging each other before actually delivering their speech.

Leader Bang Chan grabbed the mic, causing you to shift closer to the television. “I was just a boy who loved music. I still do, and words can’t explain how thankful I am for all of you,” he said, half-sobbing. “Winning a Daesang has always been our dream, and now that it came true, we promise we’ll become even better.”

He went on thanking a bunch of people, from his family and friends in Sydney to fellow celebrities. And then he paused, staring at the camera for a while before blinking his tears away. “And to everyone who’s supported us and made us stronger, I love you. I hope your heart is where I’ll always stay.”

You glanced down, trying to fight back your own tears.

◇─◇──◇────◇────◇────◇────◇────◇─────◇──◇─◇

(I Hope) Your Heart Is Where I Stay

“You really should go to sleep at normal hour, Chris,” you protested, sighing at the sight of Chan copying your Math homework in the speed of light. “And please do your homework before you start training.”

Chan dropped his pen as he wrote down the last number, pouting at you. “We finish school at 3. I go to the company right away. I have lessons until 10. I have dinner at 11. Then I practice until 5 in the morning. I shower, get ready, then meet you at the bus stop at 6. Tell me where I should squish in ‘working on homeworks.’ “

“Why do you go to school, then? You don’t even bother to make time to do school stuffs,” you fired back, not wanting to admit that Chan did have a packed schedule. Your best friend said nothing, only sliding your notebook back to you.

“I’m sorry,” you apologized. “I didn’t mean to say it like that.”

You poked at his dimples when he didn’t respond, scooting closer to examine his face. “You’re such a baby, Bang Chan,” you commented before walking back to your seat. Chan shifted his gaze to you before breaking into a satisfied smirk. “I am, yet you’re still here.”

You had to stop yourself from blushing, but he was right.

“Catch a movie with me?” Chan is standing in front of you, slinging his backpack over one shoulder while you were zipping yours. “Don’t you have to be at the company soon?” you questioned, eyeing him from head to toe. After your “fight” this morning, Chan was even more smiley and energetic than usual. And more touchy. He was touchy to begin with, but never this much. Whether you hated it or not, you actually weren’t sure.

“I can call in sick,” he sing-sang, waving at several of your classmates. “You live in the dorm, for Christ sake,” you pointed out, but he only raised his eyebrows at you. “I have my ways, don’t worry. Jisung will cover for me.”

You met Jisung once. And Changbin. The three of them trained together and planned to release mixtapes under the name of 3RACHA, like the sauce. You kept laughing at Chan after you first heard the name, but after listening to their songs you decided that it was a suitable name for them.

Chan took your hand in his and led you out, not bothering to wait for your answer. He didn’t let go even after you got to the bus stop; he smiled at you instead as he caressed your fingers with his thumb. You didn’t have the heart to pull your hand away, but you knew you were secretly enjoying this. To be honest, nothing stressed you out more than your “friendship” with Chan thesedays. All you needed was one chance to ask if he was doing this on purpose or you were the one reading it wrong.

But, should you even try? Chan had been training for years—this year would be his seventh year—and the company loved him. They would definitely debut him and soon he would forget you. He would find you holding him back, and you didn’t want that.

You wanted to be Chan’s sweetest high school memory. Just a memory was enough, as long as he would smile when he thought of you.

The bus had arrived, and you let Chan pulled you inside. He tapped his metro card twice before you could stop him, chuckling as you let out a surprised “Yah!”

“What do you want for dinner?” he asked the second you sat down.

“Chan, we haven’t even chosen the movie we’re gonna watch yet.”

“I know. I’m just excited.”

You wanted to ask why, but then Chan was laughing and it was one of the most contagious things in the whole world. His hold on your hand grew tighter, to the point that it was impossible to move your hand, but you felt content. Whenever Chan was around, you always felt content and loved (you would never tell him this part, but that was the fact.)

You wondered if he ever felt the same.

“Are you still crying?”

Chan wiped your tears with his hand as you pouted at the blank screen. Both of you chose to watch La La Land and while the movie was wonderful, it was also realistically painful that you were unable to stop your tears.

“I feel so betrayed,” you croaked, letting Chan pull you up. “But you love movies with realistic endings. You love to suffer,” he said.

You did. You would rather weep than watch the main characters be “forced” into a happy ending. This time, though, you actually rooted for the main characters; you felt their longing for each other, you felt their love and respect for each other, and you felt their connected dreams although those ended up being the reason why they didn’t work out.

“You’re adorable,” Chan commented, the words rolled out of his mouth so naturally as if he said that everyday. You rolled your eyes at him, pretending that it didn’t make you feel giddy inside. He kept humming to City of Stars on the way home, casually linking your pinkies together.

“Christopher Bang Chan.”

“What?”

“You just missed your bus stop.”

“I’m walking you home.”

“Why?”

“Are you really asking that question?”

“You skipped practice today. What’s wrong?”

Chan stopped on his tracks, sighing as you released your pinky from his. “I’ve been meaning to ask you the same thing,” he confessed. “You seem… distracted. And so distant from me. Did I do something wrong?”

Uh-oh. You definitely didn’t expect that.

“Nothing. It’s just—”

The two of you had been friends since Chan moved back to Seoul from Sydney a few years back. At first, it was purely because you spoke English well, but Chan never left your side even after he got used to living in Korea on his own.

Things were chill until recently, when you noticed that Chan started treating you differently. He would smile at every silly thing you said, held your hand in front of everybody, or called you at night only because he wanted you to keep him company.

“What are we, Chan? I can’t help but feeling confused because you’re being like… this.”

Chan furrowed his eyebrows, cupping your face so he could look into your eyes. “Like what?”

You eyed his hands that were on your cheeks before removing them. “Like this. I don’t want to misinterpret any signal, Chan,” you mumbled. “If there’s any signal at all.”

“My goodness,” he gasped, pulling you into a bear hug you always enjoyed. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You’re doing it now, Chris.”

He chuckled, squishing you into his chest. “I didn’t intend to send signals, but I guess I’ve been like this because I,” he takes a deep breath, “like you. Like, like you. As more than a friend.”

Chan tried to pull away to see your response, but you circled your arms around his torso instead, not wanting him to see your reddening cheeks. “You could’ve just said so, dummy. I thought you were just playing with me.”

“I know. I’m sorry,” he answered, placing his chin on top of your head. “I really didn’t know how to say it. I didn’t want you to feel awkward around me.”

“Too late for that. I don’t think I can ever look at you again now,” you groaned, your heart swelling with happiness when his laugh rumbled through his chest.

Chan gripped your arms, pulling away to grin at you and now you realized why you were being unusually sad over a movie’s ending.

Bang Chan was Mia, someone so endearing and inspiring and strong and talented and it was only a matter of time before the world knew what he was worth of. You, meanwhile, had a simple dream like Sebastian’s and just wanted to do your own thing, slowly realizing that you and Chan were living on a borrowed time.

But your best friend was looking at you like you were the only one who could make him happy and it was hard to resist. Chan could ask you to marry him right here, right now, and you would say yes. He might not be your first crush, but you were pretty sure that he was your first love. You wanted him—every inch of his heart—and he was offering exactly that to you.

“You’re not just gonna pretend that this never happens tomorrow, right?” you whispered as Chan cupped your face once again. He smiled when he felt that you were anticipating his next move, before brushing his lips against your temple. It was sweet and soft, but it ended too quickly and you wanted more.

You tried not to pout; the disappointment in your eyes was so obvious it made Chan chuckle. “You’re so whipped for me, how am I supposed to pretend that this never happens?” he teased, placing another kiss on your cheek.

“Wow I hate you.”

“Hate you more, babe.”

One of Chan’s trainee friends, Yang Jeongin, celebrated his birthday today. Jeongin had invited you over for dinner with the rest of the boys. You almost said no, but he sounded so convincing on the phone, saying that everyone was dying to meet you. Chan had also been begging you to finally come over and meet the other boys.

“I don’t know, Chan. I’m not even a trainee, and you’re not even supposed to be dating. How can I just show up?”

“Everybody dates, Y/N. Don’t be so naïve,” he replied, wrapping his arm around your shoulders as you were nearing the building. You sighed, glancing at Chan who was now humming a song you never heard before. When your eyes landed on his lips, you were forced to remember the fact that Chan hadn’t kissed you yet. Well, he kissed your cheeks, your nose, your temple, your forehead, your jaw… pretty much everywhere but your lips.

You felt ashamed at yourself for even thinking about wanting to be kissed. It was beyond stupid, and you knew you couldn’t possibly measure Chan’s love for you with something as insignificant as a kiss, but you were starting to question his sincerity. Was he really serious with you? Or were you just someone he kept because he was lonely or something?

“We’re here!” your boyfriend exclaimed, entering the password quickly. He pushed the door open, and soon eight pairs of eyes fixated their gazes on you. “Hi.” You waved at them, trying not to frown at the burning smell that greeted you the moment you stepped inside.

However, Chan beat you to it. “What did you guys burn?” he panicked, patting your head before running to the kitchen. The boys then proceeded to attack with you with questions (and thankfully, compliments), which you tried your best to answer.

You recognized Jeongin standing at the back, yelling at his hyungs to “stop harassing Y/N they’re my guest!”

Kim Woojin, whom Chan always ate fried chicken with every week, gave you an apologetic smile as the birthday boy walked past him. “Jeongin really wants to meet you,” he noted as Jeongin shook your hand with absolute excitement. “Christopher Bang is all giggles everytime he talks about you. Of course I have to meet you!”

“Is that a compliment?” you asked, liking him already. Changbin laughed, gesturing at you to sit on the couch while Chan was screaming in the background (“WHY DID YOU GUYS EVEN BOTHER MAKING BOILED EGGS IF YOU’RE JUST GONNA LEAVE THEM LIKE THIS!”).

Chan returned to the living room with a pot of burned boiled eggs and a pan of seemingly undercooked spaghetti. “Ah, sorry!” Seungmin yelled as soon as he spotted the eggs. “I was the one boiling them but then Y/N arrived and I got distracted.”

“Don’t use my Y/N as an excuse!” the older boy warned, causing everyone—including you—to cringe. Jisung passed you a plate for the spaghetti, which you politely declined. “Hyung, have you told them about our debut plans?”

You widened your eyes at Chan who looked as if he got caught red handed. It was such an incredible news, you didn’t understand why he was trying to hide it from you. Before anyone could throw in some awkward jokes to lessen the tension, Felix and Minho brought a huge cake into the living room, singing the Happy Birthday song. The others followed suit, showering Jeongin with bear hugs (Changbin tried to kiss him) tickles.

You watched the adorable chaos upon you, trying to memorize every little detail because everything would change soon. Chan seemed to notice the look in your eyes as he sprinted to you and dragged you out of the living room. He stopped in front of his room, placing his hands on your shoulders.

“Today is Jeongin’s birthday, but I also have something for you,” he whispered. He pushed you inside the room, trying to make you sit on his bed but you became too excited to listen to him.

“I think you need a new pop filter, Chan. I’m going to buy it for you,” you said, chuckling at his Dragon Ball figurines on the shelf. You noticed a jewelry box on his desk, a framed photo of you smiling at the camera was placed on top of it.

You opened it, and found all of the things you had given him inside. Most of them were things he needed at that time: a box of band aids, a phone strap, your Sharpie, and a pair of Snoopy earrings (which he had to wear for a week after losing a bet).

“Y/N, please sit down,” Chan whined, blushing when you poked his cheek. “You made a shrine for me, I don’t know whether I should feel honored or scared.”

“I also made a song for you.”

That got your attention, so you sat down on his bed, watching Chan browsing through his phone. He kneeled down, grabbing your hands as a soft instrumental started playing. “I wanted to tell you about our debut plan, but everything still seems too good to be real and I don’t want you to be disappointed if it… you know… doesn’t happen.”

You laced your fingers with his, bending down to kiss his nose. “I’ll always be proud of you, Chan. You’re talented and the company knows it, that’s a fact,” you assured him. You remembered the time when he told you that he was going to debut years ago. It never happened, and he had to watch his close friends debuted one by one. At this point—after 7 years of training, you knew Chan was scared to even voice out his excitement to himself.

“Another reason that I planned to wait before telling you is because… I don’t want you to break up with me.”

Chan lifted his hand to caress your cheekbone, a gesture that always made your heart flutter in a hundred different ways. “That’s absurd, Chan,” you told him.

“Even now I’ve canceled many of our dates because of lessons or late night recordings with Changbin and Jisung. You don’t get enough sleep because you’re always waiting for me to finish practicing. Sometimes we barely talk at school since I always fall asleep,” he recounted. “I’m not good for you, Y/N. And I’m afraid that you’ll eventually realize how lacking I am and how you deserve to be loved by a man who can love you properly.”

You shook your head, throwing your arms around his neck. “You’re the best boyfriend I’ve ever had, Bang Chan.”

“I think that’s because I’m the only boyfriend you’ve ever had.”

“Please don’t ruin the mood.”

“Sorry.”

“My point is, we’re both trying our best and I never feel that you’re lacking. You’ve been nothing but perfect.” You pulled away, threading your hand through his curly locks. “Now where’s that song you wrote for me?”

Chan took a deep breath, reaching for his phone to replay the instrumental. “I wanted to take you somewhere nice and sing to you there. But here you are, being your beautiful, loving, witty self and I just can’t wait anymore.”

“I don’t know how to write love songs

Or if I can even call this a love song

All I know is I’m writing this for you

Pouring out feelings that feel surreal.”

You giggled, pulling Chan up so that he was lying on top of you. You heard someone knocking on the door, but neither of you moved from your position.

“But I wake up everyday and you’re still here

Walking down this dark tunnel with me

Showering me with warmth and joy like no one else

And I wonder if you feel the same

So I hope

Your heart is where I’ll always stay.”

He stopped although the music was still playing, and you didn’t know if it was because he forgot his lyrics or because that was all he could manage to say. Chan pecked your forehead softly, keeping his hand on your cheek as he pulled away.

“God I love you so much,” he whispered, his lips quivering as you let his words sink in. “Can I kiss you?”

Chan’s lips touched yours and all you could see and feel was Bang Chan and his love for you. He parted your lips with his tongue, sighing in contentment when you tugged at his hair. You pulled him closer although he was practically lying on you, trailing his hand along your spine. “Chan,” you gasped, almost forgetting what you wanted to say when he continued tugging at your bottom lip with his teeth.

“Channie,” you tried again, and this time he pulled away, chuckling at your disoriented state.

“Yeah?”

“I love you too. A lot.”

“And Chan?”

He hummed, giving you pecks all over your face as you struggled to stop giggling. “Why did you only kiss me now?”

You expected Chan to smirk at you and tease you to no end, but he only stared at you before dropping another smooch on your lips. “I didn’t want you to think that I only wanted you that way. You’re so gorgeous and precious and you chose me, I don’t want to lose you.”

“Chan hyung!” Changbin banged on the door, causing Chan to grumble. “Is my phone inside?”

“Fuck off, Changbin!” Chan yelled.

“I will! But please don’t do anything weird in there! Y/N you’re still alive, right?”

“Safe and sound, Changbin!”

“Seo Changbin, I swear to God—”

You didn’t let Chan finish as you crashed your lips on his once again, and for now you didn’t want to think about how you were running out of time, how Chan would eventually slip away from you despite saying all of those sweet words that were already engraved in your heart.

He wanted to stay in your heart, so you let him.

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

If there was any other day you hated more than Monday, it would be Thursday. On Thursdays, it started to feel like the weekend, but then it wasn’t even Friday yet and everything just felt a bit more mundane and tiring. And empty.

At least on Friday you could meet up with your friends after work or drink with your co-workers. And then you could spend (at least) half of Saturday lazing around in bed before getting up to clean up your place and then binge-watch shows you missed until Sunday night.

But tonight was different.

You were lying in bed, looking at unread messages from an unknown number that you assumed to be Changbin’s. The boys had changed their phone numbers several times after debut due to some obsessive fans spamming them, but somehow all of them managed to keep yours. You always received birthday wishes from them, except for Chan who opted to send a box of dark chocolate (72% chocolate, your favorite) to your place every year. He never left any cards, and you could only guess who told him your address (if it wasn’t your brother, then you would be afraid), but you knew it was him.

Besides the annual birthday gift, you never had any contact with your ex-boyfriend for the past four years. You saw him a lot, of course. Stray Kids had their breakthrough year 1.5 years after their debut, and Chan became one of the most popular singer-songwriters in the country.

The songs in the CD, however, sounded like nothing he would ever write. You decided to take it slow, listening to one song each night.

◇─◇──◇────◇────◇────◇────◇────◇─────◇──◇─◇

The Candle I Blow Out

It was already past midnight when you opened the door for Chan, who looked like he ran the whole way to your house (he did). “You don’t have to do this,” you sighed, wiping his sweat with your hand. “We just finished filming. I’m sorry.”

“How’s Felix?” you asked, closing the door before leaning on it. It had been awhile since you last saw him and the boys; the company created a survival show for them, and you could see how it took a toll on everyone, mainly Chan. It felt weird seeing your boyfriend on television, and it felt even weirder to see people talking about him, admiring him, even hating on him. But you told yourself to get used to it, to accept the fact that nobody ever belonged to just one person. In this case, though, you had to share Chan with the whole world. Which definitely wasn’t easy at all.

“He’s doing pretty well. I think they’re considering to take both him and Minho back,” he said, and you immediately wrapped him in your arms. “I’m tired,” he added, burying his face on the crook of your neck. “I know,” you replied. “But it will end soon, and greater things are just about to start.”

Chan let out a frustrated sigh, mumbling things you were unable to hear. “Hmm?” you hummed, pulling away to see him tearing up. “Don’t cry on me, Bang Chan. You’re the leader of 8 boys and you’re doing great.”

He chuckled. “You pretending to be so tough on me. That’s hot.”

Deep down, you knew you weren’t just pretending to be tough on him. You were pretending to be tough on yourself too, trying to convince yourself that you wouldn’t be a burden for him and he would stay.

The melody of District 9 was still playing in your head although the boys had said goodbye and disappeared into the backstage. You stared at the empty stage in awe, reading the words “Stray Kids Unveil (Op. 01: I Am Not)” almost in disbelief. The fans around you were still busy gushing over the members, and it made you happy.

“Bang Chan is really crazy.”

“I know right? How does he do what he does?”

Hours of recording, barely sleeping, whining to you over the phone, and being so in love with what he’s doing.

“I don’t know about you guys, but he’s super hot.”

“He is! And did you pay attention to his body? It’s crazy.”

You knew you were probably supposed to leave, but you stayed, listening to them talking (sometimes screaming) about your boyfriend in a way that made you feel proud and weird. However, when they started talking about Cheongdam high school, the school you and Chan went to, you took it as a sign to leave.

“Do you have friends from Cheongdam High? Like the ones from his batch? I want to know how he was at school…”

channie: how is it that i arrived at your house before you did?

y/n: are you aware of how many fans you have and how hard was it to even get out of the venue

channie: oops. didnt think of that babe

y/n: you couldve asked me to drop by at your dorm, its fine

channie: you know i can’t risk that right :(

channie: pls come home soon

channie: i cant take another hour of your brother laughing at my makeup

y/n: lol deal with it

Laughters and giggles were heard as soon as you stepped inside your living room. Your parents and brother were chatting with Chan, who was still wearing his stage outfit. Now that you were looking at him up close, you realized how magical he was. “Hi,” he grinned, immediately lacing his fingers with yours.

“You should’ve seen how he tried to act cool on stage,” you told your brother as you put down a bucket of fried chicken on the table. “I heard you skipped the party with the boys?”

“Yeah, I did,” he answered distractedly, typing on his phone before dialing a number.

“Ah hyung,” he said. “Y/N just arrived and we—okay then.”

He ended the call, giving you a sad smile before standing up. “They want me back ASAP, I’m sorry. My manager is already outside.”

“It’s okay Channie, you must be tired too. Thank you for visiting us,” your mother assured him.

“Here, share with the boys. I’m sure you still have space for chicken,” you said. Chan took the bucket from you, making his way to the door.

“You did amazing today. I’m proud of you,” you whispered, ruffling his head as he chuckled. You could see fatigue and guilt in his eyes and you started to feel bad. “You’re not mad at me, are you?” he muttered.

“You just debuted. You’ve finally achieved your dream. Why would I be mad? I’m happy for you. My boyfriend is going to be a famous artist soon.”

Chan eventually left with a relieved smile on his face, but you figured it wouldn’t last long.

“You asked Soo to do what?”

You were walking down the street with a beanie covering half of your eyes. Chan had finished recording for a reality show, and he asked to meet you at the small coffee shop you used to go to during high school days (you were the only one who ordered though).

“I asked him to give him the spare key so I could close the shop for him.”

“Did he really agree to do this or did you—”

“He didn’t mind, Y/N. Why are you making this complicated?”

“I’m not. I just don’t want us to make other people uncomfortable.”

“We’ve known Soo since high school. He’s happy to help.”

He was right about that, so you told him you were arriving soon. You and Chan had had countless dates at Soo’s, even before you started dating officially. You made a mental note to pay visit later and thank him for trusting both of you this much. Meeting Chan had been a real challenge since the start of Stray Kids’ recent comeback. Their fandom continued to grow, and now some people started to follow the boys around during their schedule. It was only two or three people, but everyone was aware of it, especially Chan who became extremely careful (or paranoid, according to Minho).

You noticed how Chan had shut down the curtains when you got there. You slowly opened the door, and Chan’s eyes lit up when he saw you.

“Hi gorgeous.”

You scoffed at his cheesiness, but circled your arms around his neck as he pulled you close. “Dates at Soo’s, huh? Some things never change indeed.”

Chan giggled, peppering small kisses on your face. “Missed you, babe,” he sighed, tightening his hold on your waist.

“Don’t you wanna sit down?” you joked.

He shook his head. “No. I want to hold you,” he whined, pressing a more intense kiss on your lips.

“Is there any reason why you’re being this clingy?”

“Aren’t I clingy in general?”

“Chan.”

He rubbed circles on your waist. “We’ll be going on tour soon.”

You squealed and booped his nose. “That’s great! If the company gives you guys a tour then it means you’re doing well, right?”

“I guess so. The boys are excited about this, and we’ll be going to Australia soon. But Y/N—”

He paused, causing you to cup his face in worry. “What is it?”

“We’ll release the next album soon, practice for awards and year-end shows, and then practice for the tour while preparing the next album. It’ll be even harder for us to meet,” he lamented.

You tried to keep the smile on your face, but you knew he noticed the slight fear in your eyes. No matter how much you had prepared yourself for this, you weren’t ready.

But the last thing Chan needed was you being a nuisance, so you told him that it didn’t matter and spent the rest of the night catching up.

“Can I take you home?”

“You asked Soo to give you his key so we could have a private space and now you want to take me home.”

“Can I at least take you to the bus stop?”

Chan was begging with his eyes, and you instantly melted. “Okay,” you said, opening the door. He followed you, locking the door carefully before wrapping his arm around your shoulders. “Have you bought birthday presents for the babies?”

“You meant Jisung, Felix, and Seungmin?”

“Yeah, they’re—”

Both of you stopped walking as you heard the sound of shutter. Chan looked around, gripping your shoulder so tightly you nearly brushed him away. But before you could say anything, he had let you go and walked slightly in front of you.

channie: i think you have to go by yourself this time

channie: I’ll make it up to you i promise

You watched him making a turn at the corner of the street, his black hoodie becoming one with the dark sky as he quickened his pace. You glanced at your phone, hot tears falling onto the screen. What Chan did was understandable, it was a reflex. But it hurt, and you remembered the time when you thought that you and Chan were living on a borrowed time.

y/n: its okay. be safe.

Maybe your time together was up.

When Chan appeared at your doorstep with barely opened eyes, you just let him in without any protest. He only became more and more busy, and no matter how cheerful he appeared on cameras, days like this happened often.

“Is your brother home?” he asked, putting down a few shopping bags on your couch. You recently got a job in the central city, and you moved into your brother’s apartment so you could commute more comfortably.

“Bought him some fruits. And chocolate for you.”

You smiled, pulling out a box of dark chocolate from one of the bags. “You love me so much.”

He didn’t reply, causing you to dart your eyes to him. “What happened?”

Chan sat you down on the couch, biting his lips as you patted his biceps. “I think we should break up.”

It would be a lie if you didn’t see that coming. After both of you were supposedly photographed together two months ago, Chan changed. He was still the cheerful (but tired) and sweet Chan, but his eyes said otherwise and although he thought he hid it well from you, he didn’t.

“Alright,” was all you said.

“Babe, please don’t be like this—”

“It’s fine, Chan. I understand,” you cut him off. “I don’t want to hold you back. I don’t want to cause you more stress. If being together doesn’t make us happy anymore then there’s no point in forcing this.”

What you wanted to tell him was that you knew he was scared of losing his fans if he ever got caught dating you, but you couldn’t trust yourself to say that out loud without crying.

You loved Bang Chan, and this was the best thing you could do for him.

“You’re not holding me back. It’s just-”

“I get it. You’re too busy and everything is too risky.”

Your phone beeped, showing a message from your brother who was coming home soon. You stood up and walked to your door, Chan trailing behind you. “You should go. My brother is coming soon and God knows how many hours he’ll make you stay,” you attempted to joke. He smiled, taking your hand in his before placing a kiss on the back of your hand. He stared at you, long and intense, like he wanted to say something.

“I’m sorry.”

That was all he said.

♡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━♡

“Is my toothbrush there?” your brother asked over the phone. You peeked into the bathroom, spotting a toothbrush that he used.

“Yeah it’s here. Why?”

“I’m staying over at Jiyeon’s place.”

“I don’t want to sound like Mom but just… don’t get her pregnant.”

“We’re getting married, dumbass.”

“But still.”

Silence.

“I called Chan,” he confessed. “I know I probably shouldn’t have done that though. Sorry.”

You faked a laugh. “Just because we broke up doesn’t mean you two can’t talk.”

“But still.”

“It’s been four years,” you said. “It’s old story. And he won Daesang, of course you wanted to congratulate him.”

“I didn’t congratulate him,” he corrected, voice unusually calm. “I cursed him out for dating that person from Sparkle. Who was it? Kim Jiho?”

You sighed, spinning the CD in your hand. “Come on, we moved on. Plus that was like… 2 years ago?”

“Maybe he did, but you didn’t. I don’t care how many people you dated after Chan, Y/N. We know the truth.”

“Let’s talk tomorrow, I’m tired,” you sternly said, hitting the end button before your brother attacked you more.

You decided to finally open Changbin’s message, which said how sorry he was for intruding your and Chan’s privacy and for you to “please please please” let him explain. You wondered what the rest 2 songs be about for Changbin to have second thoughts.

“Fuck it,” you muttered, sliding the CD into your laptop.

The song gave off a different vibe from the first one. The first song was light and sweet, and this one felt like all of things at once, but mostly regret.

“The sun shines bright

The stars twinkle

The world welcomes me

But what am I supposed to do?

I feel colder than ever

The warm candle I lit

Is now just a memory

I wonder if it’s my fault.”

You reached for your phone on the side table, asking Changbin for Chan’s number.

“Harsh wind? Hurricane?

My warmth, my light, my hope

Is gone

You’re gone

You’re the candle I blow out

And it’s all my fault.”

The song slowly came to an end, but then you heard a familiar sobbing sound. It took you a good minute to realize that it was Chan’s. He kept crying and crying until someone rushed into the recording room.

“Hyung!” you heard Changbin’s voice before the audio was cut short.

You pressed stop, and for the first time since your breakup, you cried. For Chan, for yourself, for all the time you spent trying to convince yourself that you would be okay without him.

◇─◇──◇────◇────◇────◇────◇────◇─────◇──◇─◇

(Not an) Epilogue

“C-Chan?”

“Y/N?”

The moment he called your name, your defense crumbled. You started crying again, causing him to yell at the boys to shut up.

“Y/N? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“Yes,” you answered. “It hurts, Chan-ah.”

“Where are you? Are you home?”

You didn’t answer, but you could feel him nodding. “I’ll be there soon, okay? Have you called your brother?”

“Chan,” you sobbed. “Please.”

“I’m coming. Don’t hang up.”

So you didn’t. You heard him fumbling with his car keys before starting the engine. He didn’t ask anything throughout the journey, only occasionally telling you to wait for him. When he knocked on your door, you hesitated.

Would things really turn out the way you wanted it to be?

“What happened?” he asked as soon you opened your door. Chan ushered you inside, taking your face in his hands to press soft kisses on your eyes as if he never left. “Hey, why are you crying?”

You pointed at the CD case, which he took immediately. He read Changbin’s note before pulling you into his arms. He whispered strings of apology in your ear as you cried even harder. “I let you go, Chan. Why aren’t you happy?” you asked.

“I could ask you the same thing,” he replied. “I just didn’t want to ruin your life Y/N. I don’t want you to get hate, to have people talking shit about you. I thought it’d be better if you hated me instead of suffering because of me.”

You sighed, your tears started to subside. “I didn’t want you to lose everything you tried so hard to achieve because of me. I just want to be your sweetest memory, Chan. I—”

“I love you,” he said. “I thought I could forget you. People move on, right, so why can’t I?”

Chan rested his forehead on your shoulder, breathing you in as you put your arms around his waist. “But it’s been 4 years and at this point I can’t keep lying to you or myself.”

“If you still want me around, if you’re okay with what I’m doing, will you let me stay?” he asked, pulling away to see your reaction. You looked at him, and you saw the Bang Chan you knew. The one who loved to mess around with you but was also the one who would protect you. The one who wrote you songs he never revealed to anyone else. The one who broke your heart into pieces but willing to pierce the pieces back together.

“Why do you even bother asking?” you answered, saying every word slowly to tease him. “You never left, Chan. I guess you really stayed in my heart after all.”

He burst into a loud laugh, pressing his lips against yours. He took everything slow, like he wanted to remember how it felt when your lips molded together, how you pulled him closer when his tongue grazed your teeth, how the touch of his lips left wonderful burning sensation on your skin.

You pulled away when his phone rang, watching Chan glance at the caller before switching his phone off. “Okay. I have to be a responsible artist and a responsible, loving boyfriend. What should I do?”

You only wiggled your eyebrows at him, causing him to groan. He took a deep breath and gripped your shoulders. “If I go back to practice then return here at 3AM, will that count?” he suggested. “Oh no, I’ll be back at 6AM. You need sleep.”

“Now that’s responsible,” you agreed, pecking his lips. “And if you want to be a loving boyfriend as well, please bring me breakfast.”

Chan sighed in relief, eyes twinkling with excitement that you never wanted to trade with anything. “Does kaya toast sound good? Seungmin is into making toasts thesedays, I can steal some.”

“Also, have you listened to all the tracks yet?”

“I still have the last track to listen to.”

“Good. Don’t listen to that. I can make you thousands other songs but please, don’t listen to that one.”

Chan gave you one last look before reaching for the doorknob. “I’ll be back.”

And it was a promise he fulfilled.

“I only have one more chapter to write

I don’t want this story to be over

Holding your hand, listening to your silly jokes

Lulling you to sleep, waking up to you

I still want to do all of those.

Y/N we don’t have to end like Sebastian and Mia

Can I write one more chapter?

Can I write a thousand more?

Because Channie loves you so much”

This time you didn’t press stop. You repeated the song over and over again.

a/n: wow this turned out to be longer than i expected. if you get to this part, then thank you for reading! mayhaps the chan’s room series inspired this although there’s nothing about that in the story.

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