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pnutbutter-n-j-elyy · 3 months ago

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⋆˙⟡♡ Redamancy ⋆˙⟡♡ Pt3 - Tia

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Jisung x Fem!Reader

Anon Request: I hope you enjoy, sunshine <3.

Warnings: Slight Suggestion

Word Count: 4k

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Stemmed from the New Latin word "redamantia" which is derived from the Classic Latin word "redamō" which translates to "I requite love"; Redamancy is used as a term translated to "a love returned in full, loving the one that loves you". Or in the simplest form - the opposite of unrequited love.

Redamancy: a love returned in full, loving the one that loves you.

⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙

Tia : suffix. this isn't entirely a suffix, but some people like to classify it as one; especially considering many latin words end with "tia" -which can turn normal nouns into abstract nouns. specifically used with things that are concepts, such as time, space, and love.

♡ Tia: suffix. stage three. what this means♡

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The morning light filtered softly through the curtains, casting a warm glow over the room. You groaned as you slowly opened your eyes, a dull throb in your head reminding you of the previous night's alcohol. As your vision adjusted, you noticed a figure curled up on the floor beside your couch.

It was Jisung, sleeping peacefully, his face relaxed in a way that made your heart ache with adoration.

He looked vulnerable, younger than he was, his guard completely down; his thick lips parted slightly as he slept. His arm was thrown over his head wildly, and his legs spread apart like some sort of flexible starfish. A part of you wanted to reach out and brush away the strands of hair that fell across his forehead; product of the unruly curls he was growing out much to your liking, but you held back. The memory of last night was fuzzy, but certain moments stood out—moments that made you hesitate.

Careful not to wake him, you slowly pushed yourself up. But the rustling of the blankets laid on you must have been enough because Jisung stirred, blinking groggily before his gaze met yours. The room filled with a thick silence, heavy with unspoken words.

You didn't say anything, stuck on how cute sleep looked snuggled into the contours of his face.

"Y/N..." His voice was raspy and much deeper than usual, and sent a shiver down your spine. "Are you feeling okay? There's some advil next to you."

You swallowed, trying to ignore the flutter in your chest at his concern. "I’m okay, just a little hungover." You said, clearing your throat.

He nodded, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

Dammit, he's cute.

"Do you… remember anything from last night?"

The question made you freeze. You remembered - you remembered the way you had confronted him, the hurt in his eyes when you accused him of distancing himself, him holding your hand out of what must have been pity, and the mess of feelings that had spilled out in the heat of the moment. But you weren’t ready to face that. Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

"No," you lied, your voice steady. "I think I blacked out."

Jisung’s face was a mix of relief and something else, something that looked like disappointment? "Ah, I see… You were pretty...upset."

"I guess I was having one of those days," you said, trying to brush it off.

He nodded again, and the conversation fell into an awkward silence. You hated this tension between you. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. You were supposed to be comfortable with each other, he was your best friend; but now, it felt like there was a wall between you.

After a moment, you broke the silence. "Do you want some coffee? I could use some..."

Jisung smiled, a small, almost shy curve of his lips. "Yeah, that sounds good."

You got up and headed to the kitchen, trying to steady your racing heart, as you adjusted the dress you had wore last night.

As you brewed the coffee, you couldn’t shake the feeling of his eyes on you.

I probably look a mess, don't I? Smell like alcohol too...

You tried to discreetly sniff your shoulder and made eye contact with Jisung.

His eyes were on you. But there was something different in the way he was looking at you - something that made your pulse quicken.

When you handed him a cup, your fingers brushed against his, and that small touch sent sparks through you. You both stood there, the silence stretching out as the weight of the unspoken words hung between you. Jisung held his mouth open for a few seconds then spoke.

“I’m sorry, Y/N,” Jisung's voice was soft.

You looked up, surprised by the apology. “For what?”

“For pulling away,” he said quietly. “I thought I was doing the right thing by giving you space, but in reality, it was for purely selfish reasons." He admitted in a timid tone.

“We're adults Ji...we need to talk about things that are causing in our relationship- friendship” you said, the hurt you had been trying to suppress rising to the surface.

Jisung’s grip tightened on his cup, too focused in his own thoughts to “I saw how close you were with Minho, and I thought…I thought you liked him. I didn’t want to get in the way. I didn't think it had hurt you that badly..."

Your eyes widened in surprise. “Minho? Jisung, I’ve never liked him like that. I won't say he's my friend or brother because I feel neither of those fit correctly. But like my platonic soulmate. Just like you and him. Never anything more."

Jisung looked at you, his expression a mix of surprise and confusion. “But… you spent so much time with him. I thought-”

You stepped closer to him, your heart pounding in your chest. “Jisung, I spend time with him because he’s my friend, just like you are. But you're...different.”

The words caught in your throat, and you couldn’t bring yourself to say more.

Jisung’s expression softened as he was working the gears in his brain, but you realized where his thoughts were headed and you didn't feel like heading there with him, so you quickly changed the subject.

"How 'bout you go shower in the guest bathroom? I feel bad that you had to stay and watch over me instead of being able to head home and clean up."

Jisung sighed and nodded, making his way towards the guest bathroom, his coffee barely touched. You made your way to go take a shower of your own, letting the water wash over you as your thoughts ran in a loop.

Should I tell him that I do remember? But what if he says something that changes everything. I might die from embarrassment if he rejects me; so maybe it's best I don't mention it.

You stepped out and got dressed into comfortable clothes quickly, silently grateful you weren't working for the next few days.

You stood in front of your dresser while you dried your hair and Jisung walked in with a towel wrapped around his waist. You couldn't help it when your eyes trailed down to where the water droplets disappeared into the fluffy towel, or when they trailed up back to the definition of his abs, or the sheer perfectness of his tiny waist.

His hair was wet too, and it made him look boyish in an endearing way.

"Y/N can I borrow some of the shorts I gave you? And a hoodie, possibly?" You nodded as your eyes trailed to his chin and upper lip where a slight stubble was growing.

Before you knew it he was in front of you; so close you could smell your bodywash on his skin, and your green apple shampoo in his hair.

"Ji-?" You asked bewildered.

Why is he so close?

You looked up, expectantly. Just for him to look at you plainly.

"The drawer..." He said.

"O-oh." You said, and you attempted to move away but instead Jisung moved swiftly, trapping you.

His towel slid slightly and you let out a breath.

"Your towel." You groaned shyly, squeezing your eyes and squirming uncomfortably.

"Don't worry I'm wearing boxers, I just didn't feel appropriate walking around in them. I'm a gentleman sweetheart." The last words he said were in a teasing manner and you opened up your eyes to see his brown ones looking at you softly.

"Jagi..." He said quietly. "Do you really not remember last night?"

You took a breath and fought for an excuse. Do you just say no and continue avoiding or say yes and-

But before either of you could say anything more, your phone buzzed on your bed. You quickly made you way out of Jisung's makeshift cage and ran to see who it was.

Saved by the bell. You thought to yourself as you picked up your phone.

It was Felix, asking if you wanted to come by the studio once you woke up. You glanced at Jisung who was pulling out a pair of black athletic shorts and turned back to your phone.

"Felix is at the studio," you said, your voice a little shaky. "He’s asking if I want to come by." Dammit Y/N stop being nervous.

You heard Jisung shiffling into his pants. "Are you going?"

You turned as your best friend was putting a hoodie over his head. When his head emerged, his eyes flickered with something you couldn’t quite place.

You nodded, trying to sound casual. "Yeah, I think I will. I bet everyone was probably worried last night, so I think I'll stop by and say hi. You guys are taking a break now anyways right?"

He hesitated, but then he nodded. "Somewhat. We're offered time off but you know how we all are. Chan-hyung, Changbin-hyung and I are still producing as always, and I'm sure the others are working on some choreography or vocal covers. Never stops..."

You nodded. "Then let's go. I can keep Lixxie some company."

The studio was buzzing with energy when you arrived, the usual hum of creativity filling the air. You wished the guys would take time off, especially now that they had it, but you knew making music was everyone's joy in the room.

Felix was in a great mood, as usual, bouncing around the room as he talked about a new track he was working on with Chan. You tried to focus on the conversation, but your thoughts kept drifting to Jisung, who was sitting across the room, quietly tuning his guitar.

You couldn’t shake the tension between you, and it was driving you crazy. Every time you looked at him, you were reminded of the morning, of the words you were too afraid to say.

Maybe I'm overthinking. Maybe he isn't going to react to last night. Or maybe he wasn't caring for me for pity but for something else...

You sighed outwardly as you watched him. Wanting to know, but too afraid to ask.

At one point, Felix suggested grabbing some snacks from the vending machine, and you quickly volunteered, desperate for a break from the one sided tension. You were heading down the hall when you heard footsteps behind you.

“Y/N, wait.”

You turned to see Jisung hurrying to catch up with you. There was a determined look in his eyes that made your heart skip a beat. His forehead a little more exposed as he ran, his hair flapping behind him.

“Can we talk?” he asked, his voice a little breathless.

You nodded, your throat suddenly dry and unable to speak.

No getting away now, Y/N.

He led you to one of the smaller, soundproof rooms used for vocals. As soon as the door closed behind you, the tension in the air seemed to thicken. You both stood there for a moment, neither of you knowing where to start.

Jisung was the first to break the silence. “Y/N, I need to know… do you really not remember anything from last night?” You looked away and he spoke again. "

You hesitated, the lie you told earlier sitting heavy on your conscience. You could see the worry in his eyes, the way his hands fidgeted at his sides, and it made you want to tell him the truth. But you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. Not yet.

“I really don’t,” you lied softly. “I must have been more drunk than I thought. Sorry.”

Jisung’s shoulders sagged slightly, and he looked away, his jaw tight. “I see.” There was a slight hint of something in there. Anger? Disappointment?

The silence that followed was almost unbearable. You could feel the weight of everything left unsaid pressing down on you, and it made your chest ache.

“I’m sorry if I said anything to upset you,” you added, hoping to ease some of the tension. “I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s not that,” Jisung said, his voice low. “I just… I hate that I’ve made you feel like this. Like you can’t talk to me.”

Your heart ached at the sadness in his voice. You stepped closer, your fingers brushing his arm in a comforting gesture. “Jisung, it’s not your fault. I just… I don’t know how to say what I’m feeling sometimes.”

He looked down at you, his eyes filled with a mix of emotions you couldn’t quite decipher. “You don’t have to say anything, Y/N. Just… don’t push me away.”

"I’m not," you whispered, your voice trembling. “I just… I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t,” Jisung said, his voice firm. “I promise you, you won’t.” His eyes bore into yours. "No matter what you say you're not going to lose me Y/N. The opposite."

For a moment, neither of you moved, the air between you charged with something electric. You were so close now that you could feel the warmth radiating from his body, the scent of his cologne filling your senses. Your heart was pounding in your chest, and you could feel the pull between you, stronger than ever before.

Before you knew what was happening, your faces were inches apart, your breaths mingling in the small space between you. Your eyes locked, and in that moment, everything else seemed to fade away.

Jisung’s hand moved to your waist, his touch light but grounding. His other hand brushed a strand of hair away from your face, his fingers lingering on your skin. The tension was thick, every breath you took filled with unspoken words and unexpressed feelings.

"Y/N..." he murmured, his voice low and husky. "I can't keep pretending. Please...tell me you remember something."

"I lied." you whispered back, your heart hammering in your chest. Your eyes trailed downwards. "I lied. I remember, Jisung. Everything. What I said...how I felt..." You swallowed and looked up at him.

His eyes searched yours, looking for something—permission, perhaps, now that he knew. You could see the battle in his mind, the hesitation, the fear of crossing a line that could change everything. You could see him weighing the risks. But you could also see the love, the affection that had always been there, just beneath the surface. And the moment he figured out that there were no risks to taking this step with you; not when you both wanted it so badly.

Slowly, almost hesitantly, Jisung leaned in closer, his lips brushing against yours in the softest of touches. It was tentative, almost as if he was giving you the chance to pull away. But you didn’t. Of course you didn't. He knew neither of you would pull away. So he welcomed it happily when you leaned into him, closing any remaining distance between you.

The kiss deepened, and all the tension, the confusion, the fear melted away. All that was left was you and Jisung, finally letting go of everything that had been holding you back.

Kissing him was something else. Something that you couldn't put into words. It was everything you ever wanted in life, and you knew if you were to die at that moment, you'd die happy knowing what his lips tasted like. Vanilla chapstick and mint. And how when he kissed, he wasn't necessarily a pouty kisser, seeming to favor resting his top lip between yours rather than his bottom.

When you finally pulled away, breathless and a little dazed, Jisung kept his forehead pressed against yours, his eyes closed as if he was savoring the moment. And he laughed softly in pure joy, kissing your eyelids twice.

"I've wanted to do that for so long," he whispered, his voice filled with relief and something deeper.

"Me too," you admitted, your heart swelling with the love you had been holding back for so long.

You both stayed like that for a moment, letting the reality of what just happened sink in. But before you could say anything more, the sound of someone calling your name jolted you back to reality. It was Felix, probably wondering what was taking you so long.

Jisung chuckled softly, his eyes still filled with that warm affection that made your heart flutter. "You should probably get those snacks before Felix starts tearing the place apart."

You smiled, a little breathless and completely overwhelmed by the intensity of the moment. “Yeah, probably. Where are you supposed to be mister?"

"Ah, I was supposed to be taking a bathroom break...in all honesty I saw you walking out and wanted to talk about last night. Which...we still need to talk about. Just because you're my girlfriend now doesn't mean I don't want you to explain the pining you've been doing." He said pinching your cheeks.

"Girlfriend?"

He looked at you. "Did you want me to officially ask you?"

You shook your head. "No, no, it's not that. It's just...I like the way that sounds."

Jisung kissed your nose. "Good, because I love that I can call you that now.

The rest of the day at the studio passed in a blur. Though you and Jisung tried to act normal, there was an undeniable shift in the air between you. Every time your eyes met, it was like a silent acknowledgment of what had happened in that small, soundproof room. The boys, oblivious to the tension and the secret you both now shared, continued to chatter with you, filling the room the room with their infectious energy.

But even with the distractions, you couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss. The way Jisung’s lips had felt against yours, the way his hand had gently held your waist—it was all you could think about. And every time you caught Jisung glancing at you, your heart would skip a beat, a blush creeping up your neck and his as well.

Eventually, the day wound down, and Changbin suggested heading out for dinner. You all agreed, and before long, you were walking down the street, the city lights glowing softly in the evening air. Changbin and Felix talked animatedly about some new show they were watching together while Minho, Chan and Seungmin discussed something else, while you and Jisung lingered behind with Jeongin as he told you guys about an encounter he had at a coffee shop. t

As you walked, Jisung’s hand brushed against yours, sending a jolt of electricity up your arm. You hesitated for a moment before intertwining your fingers with his for only a second. It was a simple gesture, but it meant everything. Jisung looked at you and smiled, a soft, contented smile that made your heart swell. He blinked once cutely almost as if saying he would let everyone know whenever you were comfortable.

And you blinked back as well. But to say something so much more.

When you sat down at the restaurant you made sure to sit next your boyfriend. His hand secretly intertwined with yours under the table.

As you guys ate, Chan spoke up.

"Jisung what was that love song idea you told me about a little while back? Something about love being abstract or something? It was a good idea."

"Yeah, yeah I remember. What about it."

His thumb brushed circles around your hand gently.

"Well, we should write it. I think releasing a single in a few weeks would be good. So, if you're feeling inspired, I say let's go for it."

You felt Jisung squeeze your hand softly.

"I'm inspired, hyung." He said confidently, no one picking up on the change of air between you and him. As the waitress came out and set everyone's plates down you heard him whisper.

"And very much in love."

⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙

♡ Tia: suffix. stage three. the beginning of you and him♡

⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙

@abovenyx @wolfs-archive @oddracha

@iyeeeverydee @parisanmorovati @seungmincenteric

@panbish-1209 @fxiry-vtt @sseawavee

@shuporanporang @amarecerasus @softkisshyunjin

@whoa-jo @meanergreener @rikibun

@ayyonoona @shinywombatcrusade @y4yayael

@skzstan12345 @mariteez @allys-reads

@jazziwritesthings @skzstannie @yongbokkiesworld

@kkkeopi @neverendingstay @moony-9

@minsungsthirdwheel @everlastingspring143 @joyofbebbanburg @axel-skz

⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙⟡♡⋆˙

#han jisung skz #skz imagines #skz stay #skz x reader #skz fluff #stray kids reactions #skz jisung #skz han #stray kids #han jisung #han jisung fluff

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19thperson · 5 months ago

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19th Steam Next Fest Impressions - Day 5

Day 0/Day 1/Day 2/Day 3/Day 4

Hollowbody

youtube

Silent Hill 2 but sci-fi. Not to beconfused with the other Silent Hill 2 but sci-fi.

It's a flying car future and your flying car crashes you into a long abandoned town covered with a Mystery Grey Substance and a lot of dead people, some of them not all the way dead.

The game then tells you to go into a decrepit apartment complex. Just like Silent Hill 2.

The game has both tank controls and contextual direction control. I have unfortunately betrayed the church of tank controls. It felt more intuitive, and the game didn't consistently use hyperspecific camera angles enough to bother.

Has a legitimately creepy atmosphere, and the combat controls run the line between intentionally awkward without being infuriating. Which makes one last decision baffling.

If there's enemies nearby, you can't enter doors or use key items. So it feels like the game's structure is encouraging combat that its mechanics are discouraging.

Hoping that this is either a specific quirk to that one encounter/demo, or I was just somehow missing the prompt.

Arranger

youtube

Puzzle adventure game. The protagonist, Jemma, instead of moving normally, moves the entire row/column of tiles, and whatever else is on it, with her. She can also wrap around the edges of a path. Easier to explain in images than words...

the puzzles that come from this are pretty good so far. Arrange a sword to push into a monster's face, or placing weights on buttons and then trying to find a way to move that doesn't dislodge the button weight you just placed. Trying to maneuver around the few objects that can't be moved by you. And the trailer suggests they have a lot more to add to these building blocks.

I really like the presentation, especially the trick of having comic panels floating in the background to show details/movement that can't be shown with the sprite art.

I Was Lost

youtube

It's almost unfair that I played this right after the incredibly well done Arranger.

A simple maze game where you can re-arrange certain parts of the maze, with the gimmick being that the levels form poetry.

Alone as a puzzle it's... fine. Had a couple head scratchers.

Problem is that the poem it forms is specific to the demo. Whose meaning is "this is just a demonstration of something." So the poetry is the means for this game to generate pathos and they've already undercut it.

Hopefully the final game will have something to actually say, and do something interesting with the game mechanic. Because the demo doesn't.

Anyways, wishlist Arranger. And play Void Stranger.

Nekokami - The Human Restoration Project

A Dorfromantik-like, where you play as far future space cats, using their advanced technology and the borrowed power of nature spirits to try and resurrect their long extinct servants: Humanity.

Dorfromantik was fun but also kinda lost its novelty after a while. And a lot of successors look like they fall in the same pitfall. This game does some stuff to offset that.

The plot is mostly fluff and has some awkward "this was definitely translated" wording, but it's still nice to feel like something is progressing. Each level also has different win conditions, like having multiple fully leveled up flower fields.

I also like the kami-storm system. Midway through a level, a powerful kami will appear and change the rules somehow. The family kami will drop her kittens off for you to babysit and the little fuckers will laze around making certain edges unusable. the rain kami causes water tiles to appear more often as well as setting up little "rain bombs" that'll fill areas with water unless defused by placing a tile over. Stuff like that.

Lastly, it introduces two conflicting scoring systems: population and kami approval. Anything that ups the human population will displace nature and leave less room for kami, and you need to balance those at the same time.

Its interesting. Not mind-blowing but interesting.

#19th's steam next fest impressions #Youtube

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tveckling · 8 years ago

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Loke - Aldrig Mera Rädd Swedish and english translated lyrics after cut

Jag flydde som en fågel över gatorna en natt med käften full av blod och av saliv. Jag flydde som jag brukar som en råtta från en katt förödmjukad, förnedrad, för mitt liv. Natten fylldes utav våld och vansinniga skrik från de som jagade mig med stora tunga steg. ”Bättre fly än illa fäkta” skrek min tanke i panik medans mitt hjärta repeterade ordet feg.

Och med min harhjärtade fart så kom de efter ganska snart men genom skräcken skrek mitt hjärta som besatt: Att ”om du flyr på detta sätt så är det inte mer än rätt att det är dem som sätter villkoren inatt”

Och jag vet inte vad som hände vad som styrde mitt beslut för allt jag såg var vrede, våld och blod. Men i samma stund jag skulle lyckas undfly dem till slut så stanna jag i steget där jag stod.

På en sekund var de ikapp mig när jag långsamt vände om. De kom emot mig som en störtvåg som en storm. Och fastän natthimlen blev vit av deras vrede när de kom bar de alla sotsvart blick och uniform.

Och allt blev stilla en sekund och jag darra´ som en hund hjärtat sprängdes i mitt bröst vid varje slag. De kom emot mig i en ring och jag fatta´ ingenting men i den stund som mina ben gav vika hörde jag mig stå och skrika:

Jag- Jag är inte rädd. Jag är inte rädd. Nej, jag är inte rädd. För hur hårt ni än kan slå ska jag vara hårdare ändå och av det hat som kommer ifrån er får ni tillbaks fem gånger mer. Men jag- Jag är inte rädd. Jag är inte rädd. Nej, jag är inte rädd. För var och en av oss som dödas ska tusen nya födas för att stå här blodig bränd och svedd, tillintetgjord men aldrig mera rädd.

Jag ska vara allt ni hatar. Allt ni fruktar allra mest. Allt ni finner obehagligt, onormalt. Jag ska sprida mig i landet som en farsot som en pest och infektera erat samhälle totalt. Ja, för er ska jag va blatte, jugge, kosovoalban. För er är jag från Uzbekistan. Med hiphop-stylad burka med kroksabel, turban. Er ryska maffia och eran taliban.

Jag ska se det som en seger om ni ser mig som en neger. Hiv-bärande, Kat-tuggande svart. Jag snor cyklar, jobb och brudar. Jag är juden ibland judar. Jag är ZOG och jag finns överallt men ni vet inte vart.

Ni gissa rätt att jo, javisst. Visst fan är jag er kommunist. StaliLeniTrotskiMaoAnarkist. Perverterad satanist. Beväpnad djurrättsaktivist och mycket riktigt ska jag vara er kastreringsfeminist.

Jag är er samhällsparasit. Handikappad transvestit. Jag är hemlös och packad och hög. Rastafari och vegan könsopererad lesbian. Herregud jag ska så hjärtans gärna vara eran bög.

Ja, det är mig ni ska hata. Denna natt på denna gata. Bara kom! Jag är fienden av varje typ och slag. För om vanlig innebär att vara nåt av det ni är och dela era ideal då ska jag aldrig nånsin bli normal.

Men jag- Jag är inte rädd. Jag är inte rädd. Nej, jag är inte rädd. För hur hårt ni än kan slå ska jag vara hårdare ändå och av det hat som kommer ifrån er får ni tillbaks fem gånger mer. Men jag- Jag är inte rädd. Jag är inte rädd. Nej, jag är inte rädd. För var och en av oss som dödas ska tusen nya födas för att stå här blodig bränd och svedd, tillintetgjord men aldrig mera rädd.

Ni kan nog gissa hur det slutade, jag hade ingen chans det blev emo-ärr och tjugofyra stygn. Och en sirenskrikande färd i en hysterisk ambulans och en Salhgrenskavisit på fyra dygn.

Men jag minns knappt vad som hände, jag minns knappt att de slog eller att de stampa på det lilla som blev kvar. Jag minns bara jag låg blödande och värkande och log som en sol och som den segrare jag var.

Och med gatan mot mitt öra tyckte jag mig kunna höra själva stadens puls och djupa andetag. Sedan hörde jag en sång från varje port och trappuppgång. Ja, det var så marken börja gunga och jag hörde staden sjunga...

I flew like a bird over the streets one night with my mouth full of blood and of saliva. I fled like I usually do like a rat from a cat humiliated, disgraced, for my life. The night filled with violence and furious screams from those who hunted me with big heavy steps. “Better to flee than to fence poorly” my mind screamed in panic while my heart repeated the word coward.

And they soon fell behind, with my chicken-hearted speed but through the fear my heart screamed like possessed: That “if you flee in this way then it’s not more than fair that they are the ones dictating the terms tonight”

And I don’t know what happened, what controlled my decision because all I saw was rage, violence, and blood. But at the moment I would escape them at least I stopped in the middle of a step.

They reached me in a second while I slowly turned around. They came towards me like a floodgate, like a storm. And though the night sky became white by their rage when they arrived they were all dressed in soot-black looks and uniforms.

And everything froze for a moment and I shivered like a dog my heart exploded in my chest at every beat. They surrounded me in a ring and I didn’t understand anything but at the moment that my legs gave out I could hear myself stand and scream:

I- I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid. No, I’m not afraid. Because no matter how hard you hit I’m going to be tougher and from the hate you sow you’ll receive five times more. But I- I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid. No, I’m not afraid. For each and every one of us that is killed a thousand more will be born to stand here bloody, burned and scorched, destroyed, but never again scared.

I will be all you hate, everything you fear the most. Everything you find uncomfortable, unnatural. I will spread in the country like a plague, like a pestilence and completely infect your society. Yes, for you I’ll be a (derogatory terms for non-white, person from Yugoslavia, Kosovo-Albanian) For you I am from Uzbekistan. With hiphop-styled burqa, with scimitar, turban. Your Russian mob and your Taliban.

I will see it as a victory if you see me as a negro. HIV-carrying, KAT-chewing black. I steal bicycles, work, and chicks. I am the jew among jews. I am ZOG and I am everywhere but you don’t know where.

You guessed right that yeah, of course, I am your fucking communist. StaliLeniTrotskiMaoAnarchist. Perverted Satanist, armed animal rights activist and as you thought I will be your castration feminist.

I am your society parasite. Handicapped transvestite. I am homeless and drunk and high. Rastafarian and vegan genitalia operated lesbian. Oh my god I will so happily be your fag.

Yes, it is me you will hate. This night on this street. Just come! I am the enemy of any and every type. Because if normal means to be anything like what you are and share your ideals then I will never be normal

But I- I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid. No, I’m not afraid. Because no matter how hard you hit I’m going to be tougher and from the hate you sow you’ll receive five times more. But I- I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid. No, I’m not afraid. For each and every one of us that is killed a thousand more will be born to stand here bloody, burned and scorched, destroyed, but never again scared.

You can probably guess how it ended, I didn’t have a chance it was emo-scars and twenty-four stitches. And a siren screaming trip in a hysteric ambulance And a Sahlgrenska visit of four days.

But I barely remember what happened, I barely remember that they hit or that they stomped on what little remained. I just remember that I laid bleeding and aching and smiling like a sun and like the victor I was.

And with the street to my ear I thought I could hear The pulse and breathing of the city itself. Then I heard a song from every door and staircase. Yes, it was so that the ground started swinging and I could hear the city sing…

#me #translation #lyrics #loke nyberg #leah #it felt awkward translating certain specific parts #and then i admit i didn't try very hard to find the english words for the derogatory terms so i just wrote what they are

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pagesfromthevoid · 3 years ago

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I have an idea that could work - Andrew's Spiderman and the reader as black cat. His sarcasm and her flirtatious nature would bounce off of each other really well.

Let’s Do the Time Warp | p.p.

Andrew!Peter Parker x superpowered!fem!reader

Word Count: 989

Author’s Note: Soo I loved this (and you’re my first requester!!) but I don’t actually know a lot about Black Cat or what she does. So I changed the reader to having different abilities but the same flirty banter…I hope you don’t mind!!

Series Masterlist | Request here

———

There was something about wearing a mask that gave Peter far more confidence than he actually had. Something about no one knowing he was this awkward, occasionally manic guy who took pictures for a living just…made him cocky. It was a great feeling, no one knowing who he was. Hearing people on the streets, or at work, or just in general speculate how hot Spider-Man probably was. It was probably the only good thing about having an anonymous superhero life, honestly.

That confidence translated well into his fights too. Most of his bad guys found his quips annoying, which he absolutely used to his advantage. Bantering back and forth distracted the criminals, confused them, and left them vulnerable to whatever Peter had planned for them. It was the non-superpowered criminals that it really worked on though. Especially when they pulled knives on him; that was always his favorite line (“Oh shit, it’s my kryptonite —a small knife!” Then boom, webbing them).

There was one person, however, that the banter didn’t bother. One person that the banter didn’t confuse, or throw off. At first, it had bothered him; after all, it was his favorite part of the fight. But as time went on, he started to appreciate the comebacks and responses he got from her.

He didn’t know her real name; as hard as Peter tried, he couldn’t find out her identity. It was a disturbingly well kept secret, though he figured she was probably trying to figure his out as well. All he knew was what the public had named her: Time Warp.

The issue he had with Time Warp was that she wasn’t necessarily a villain, but definitely wasn’t a hero. She was just chaos, wrapped in a hooded cape and a dark purple and black catsuit. She wore a mask, a simple black one that obscured just enough that he couldn’t pick out specific details. And her eyes were an unnatural color every time they met, which he was certain they were contacts that she switched out constantly.

And she could stop time.

That’s what Peter disliked the most about her. He’d figured out that she couldn’t stop time very long; fifteen seconds at the most. But fifteen seconds was enough time to cause damage; to escape every time. His senses picked up when she was about to pause the world around them, but then he’d freeze. And by the time everything started again, she was gone.

It drove him insane.

Tonight was no different. A jewelry heist, a masked woman with a cape and purple eyes. Impossibly fast, and on the run. But there were no causalities; no one hurt seriously. Peter supposed he should be thankful that she wasn’t that kind of criminal.

Swinging across the city, Peter had to rely heavily on his senses to pick up on her powers. The closer he got, the stronger his senses became, until he finally dropped down onto a rooftop. Time Warp was stuffing a bag with jewelry, analyzing specific pieces. She didn’t even look up though.

“I need to start playing hard to get; you’re getting faster,” she teased, pushing her hood back to look at him fully.

Mask or no mask, Peter could assume she was beautiful and it annoyed him that he felt that way.

“Or you’re just getting slower,” he countered, shooting a web to snag the bag from her.

She didn’t seem phased. “Maybe I wanted to be caught. Maybe I want to be reformed.”

He looked down at the bag, then back at her, eyes narrowing behind his mask. “I don’t know if anti-hero is really your thing, Warp. You’re not a very good criminal, I can’t imagine you’d make a good hero either.”

Time Warp rolled her eyes, standing up straight now as she set her hands on her hips. The cape fell back off her shoulders. “I think you just don’t want me to distract you while you’re playing. I see how you look at me, Spidey.”

Peter scoffed. “You can’t see anything, I don’t even blink.”

It was certainly a plus from his costume; his goggles didn’t give away every emotion he portrayed. His alternate version’s were way too expressive, in his opinion. There wasn’t a need for all his enemies to see how he felt behind the mask. Especially when he was definitely checking them out.

His senses panicked suddenly, and just as he raised his hand to web her, time stopped. When he returned to his senses, she was closer, standing chest to chest with him. Even with her heeled boots, she was several inches shorter. “Am I not pretty, Spider-Man?” She pouted, reaching up to run her nails against his mask. “I bet you’re very pretty under that mask.”

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he offered sarcastically, snatching her wrist.

“Hmm, tempting, but I don’t think it’s your face I really wanna see.” She glanced down then back up, winking playfully. Under his mask, Peter blushed furiously then he pulled away from her and dropped her wrist. She pouted again, crossing her arms over her chest. “I bet your girlfriend is just dying for you to be home every night. Or maybe your boyfriend? You look like a guy who swings in everyway possible.”

“I think you’re projecting —“

“We could make it a three way —“

“Anddd I’m taking you to jail now,” he finally said, shooting a web to yank her back to him, holding her wrists now.

She gasped, caught off guard, but a wicked grin soon replaced her surprise. “Ooh, Spidey, I didn’t know you liked to tie’em up. I’m into it —do you use the webbing in the bedroom?”

“That’s not really your business, is it?” He argued, looking down at her before he turned her around, holding her hands behind her back now to prevent her from escaping.

She pressed her body into his, looking up at him from behind. “I’d love to make it my business. What do you say?”

“I’d rather eat glass, honestly.”

“The quarters in your pocket say otherwise.”

Peter panicked slightly, pushing her away instinctively. By the time he realized she was just teasing, time had stopped once more. And when it restarted, she (and the jewelry) were gone.

God, he hated her.

———

Requests are OPEN | Let’s Do the Time Warp (Again)

———

Taglist: @blankspaceblankday

#andrew!peter x reader #andrew garfield x reader #andrew garfield #tasm!peter x reader

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desbianherstory · 2 years ago

Text

...I’ve had people engage with my race while dating. Not in a positive way, but in a way that fetishises me. There was a woman, (yes, you guessed right, she’s white), who I went on a couple of dates with and my friends and I still speak about her actions to this day. I came across her on Twitter and we started talking over DMs. She showed mild interest, but not as much as I did: remember, I was eager to prove my bisexuality with women and non-binary people, so would find myself engaging excessively on social media platforms. We eventually exchanged numbers and went out on a date. On the lead up to the date, I would receive a flurry of messages, showing interest but also a very specific interest. She talked a lot about Bollywood and well … Indian things. At one point, assuming she knows more than me, would tell me things about the Bollywood stars I grew up with. I assumed she was just dense, but my horniness took over and I went on the date. It was awkward: she controlled a significant part of the conversation and as it was my first proper date with a woman, I was nervous. The date ended and I felt strange. A few days later we were still talking over text, and she kept talking about India and I found myself sighing every time her name popped up on my phone.

I was on the bus, coming back from a meeting when I looked at my phone and saw a message saying:

‘I’m obsessed with Indians now. Watching these movies like “CAN I HAVE ONE?”’

I stopped moving. In fact, it felt like the bus had stopped in shock too. It felt like everyone on the bus took a sharp intake of breath and were staring at my phone.

‘CAN I HAVE ONE?’

Can I have one? My mind goes to takeaways, because I always give people the benefit of the doubt. She’s hungry for a takeaway? No, she wasn’t. She was hungry for an Indian person. The cannibal nature of her fetishisation is not an exaggeration – there’s a need to devour the culture, the people, the art. They consume it.

‘Indian people fucking love me. I will be in an item song. I WILL BE.’

Do Indian people fucking love you? Really? Because this Indian person is really regretting that date. For those who don’t know: an item song is a number in a Bollywood film, performed by a dancer/actor who isn’t cast as a main character but is just introduced for this song – and it is usually very seductive. Like a sexy cameo that no one needed. I guess that sums her up as well.

‘I FANCY ALL INDIANS. Hahahahahahaha!’

The laugh was deafening.

She talked about adopting an Indian accent, about learning how to speak and write in Hindi and then perform her stand up (yup, she’s a comedian). She talked about wearing Indian dresses like they were costumes and has since modelled for Pakistani TV. She would send me scribblings of her learning Hindi and ask me to translate certain words.

I’m Punjabi. I know Hindi from Bollywood. Also, I can barely write in English, I can’t decipher what you’re writing, woman. Eventually, I stopped replying more and more. It took longer than it should have because my heart was broken over the idea that my first proper date with a woman went down like this. What were the chances. I was so adamant that men were the worst and then I was reminded that white women are not far behind them. She was not at all interested in me, my personality, my work, my looks, my desires … she was interested in the fact that I’m Indian. She didn’t care that I had a magazine that works with creative and young people. She didn’t care that I wanted to talk about systematic oppression. She definitely didn’t care about any of my stories. She didn’t even really want to be with me in any sense of the word.

She wanted to use me to learn how to be more Indian. This white woman. Turns out she was known in the comedy circuit for being problematic and my friends who were actual good comedians filled me in. I’ve been fetishised by men before, but that’s kind of expected. I have very little expectation from them, so I wouldn’t be surprised. But when it came from the first woman I went on a proper date with, it sent me down a hole of uncertainty. I wasn’t sure whether I was able to survive the dating world as a bisexual person, because men suck and now, I had this awful experience. So, what now?

Through time and speaking to others, I developed confidence back in myself, but it has still stuck with me. Now when someone says ‘I’d like to watch a Bollywood film with you’, after I’ve told them I’ve spent the whole day dancing to Bollywood songs, instead of saying ‘sure!’, my mind thinks ‘okay but why though’. And I scrutinise actions. I rarely give the benefit of the doubt. I often overanalyse.

Sharan Dhaliwal, Burning my Roti: Breaking Barriers as a Queer Indian Woman

#Sharan Dhaliwal #writing #indian bisexual women

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shotorozu · 4 years ago

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Hello! May I request for Todoroki, Shinsou, and Tamaki who stalk their female crush, in which she likes them back? How would they stalk her and would their crush figure it out eventually or would it be a forever mystery/ secret she wouldn’t have known? And how would she or the stalkers ask each other out? Thank you!

stalk

character(s) : todoroki shouto, shinsou hitoshi, amajiki tamaki (bnha)

legend : [Y/N = your name] female! reader at the request of anon, quirk’s not specific

headcanon type : fluff, if you squint— crack

note(s) : this isn’t really a yandere type of ‘stalker’ but rather accidental stalking i guess? so yeah— it depends if you find it ‘creepy’ but it’s rather unintentional

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

todoroki shouto

man, i think he already has a habit of accidentally following/eavesdropping on people 💀

but i’d supposed it’s because he’s unaware of how much he does it— and how blantly obvious it is. so, it’s not really a shocker that he starts following around his crush.

he doesn’t really have a specific routine, because again— he’s not really aware that he’s actually stalking someone

you guys started off as good friends (like any other pre-existing relationship) and you’ve hung out with him plenty of times

so it would be normal for him to want to be around you more, right?

he’ll start off by coincidentally being at the same places you’re at, he’ll pretend he’s doing his own thing— and oh! he’ll just bump into you

shouto doesn’t realize how WEIRD it is to follow around people— let alone a woman, just for the sake of it. he’ll say it’s because he wants to ensure your safety but really? it’s more than that.

he’ll eventually get caught, but it’s not in the most embarrassing way. so, you’re talking to him like normal (ignoring the raging butterflies in your stomach)

“you’re always at the same places at the same time as me, i might just believe that you’re following me!”

because every single time you felt like someone was following you, it would always be shouto— the person that made you feel safe at all times.

and surprisingly, he’ll be quick to admit. “i.. maybe.” and you’re appalled because wow my crush has been following me

it would’ve been weird for sure, if it weren’t for the fact that shouto said it with the purest of intentions, a faint blush dusting against his cheeks

“it’s because,, i’d like to be with you more.” and from that point, the rest is history!

he’ll mention this experience to midoriya at some point, and midoriya will just 👁👄👁 ➖👄➖ “todoroki, do you know what stalking is?”

shinsou hitoshi

i think he also has a weird habit of eavesdropping, or following people. but it’s a lot less than shouto—

because people were already quite wary of him (even since his middle school days) so, he’s learned how to tone it down

but wow, does he love being around you more. sure, he has his fair share of aqquaintances and friendly individuals, but the vibe is totally different around you

in a different, and positive way.

a part of me thinks he’d take a part of cyber stalking. like,, hitoshi will take a look at your social medias for a certain amount of time

hitoshi will look at every single recent picture, he’ll observe the background, the place, and he’ll probably think of the context

he’ll also take the chance to look at old pictures, birthday photos, etc. but lowkey, i feel like everyone has done this once

oh, but he’ll never do that thing where he accidentally likes a post from 3 years back— nope. he’s careful and cautious.

and speaking of careful and cautious, you’ll never catch him actually ‘stalking’ you. like,, he’ll actually call out to you first in person, if he thinks he’s close enough

but everytime you turn around, you wouldn’t be able to find anyone you know— and even in a crowded area (which is,, hm.)

so that’s when shinsou finally decides to confess— instead of beating around the bush and stalking you like a weirdo, and when you accept, he’s over the moon

because it would’ve been hella awkward if he was stalking you online, and you just.. rejected him. which is fine, he could take the hint

people will have their suspicions though, even when you guys are together already. the fact that your account is always in his search history, and also the fact that he remembers oddly specific places (that he hasn’t been to in a while.)

you won’t talk about it though, but there are things you do say— that makes him think that you knew of his weird habits.

amajiki tamaki

poor, poor tamaki.

he probably has an idea that what he’s doing is creepy in itself. he’ll scold himself— what are you doing?! you’re apart of the big three, and you’re doing this to your crush!

but he’s not doing anything creepy, like stealing your clothes and valuable items. no— he wouldn’t actually go there, he’d never live, knowing he did something like that!

tamaki’s case is quite similar to todoroki’s case. he’ll follow you in an attempt to try to talk to you, and so he knows that you’re safe and in the best condition

but, it never really works out?? he’ll be a few feet away, sending glances towards your way, just to see if you’ll move closer (or farther, really.)

but ugh‼️ he hates that he’s like this, and he’d probably be teased to death if mirio or nejire found out.

it first starts out as subtle following, he’ll keep himself at as safe distance, knowing you won’t find him from that distance.

then, he’ll subconsciously get closer and closer— and he’s rather silent during the entire thing, admiring you from such distance

he’ll feel horrible every single time. he’d cry if he could, but he knows that he shouldn’t pity himself like that :,)

somehow— mirio and nejire catch on, and they tease him here and there, saying how cute he is. “tamaki, i don’t know why you’re worrying so much! she like you as much as you like her! so, just go for it!”

luckily, that’s the final push for tamaki, and he goes out to confess everything. first, the fact that he’s been following you, and then his feelings

tamaki’s apologizing profusely, and he’s sure that you don’t want to be around him, because of his odd habit— but you immediately offer him reassurance, wrapping your arms around him.

“it’s okay, tamaki! you don’t need to be sorry. you didn’t mean any harm, and besides! it’s kind of cute.” in reality, you found out because he wasn’t being all slick about it—

is this the afterlife? you don’t,, actually hate him? thank goodness

he’ll hug you, muttering a small apology once more— as he relishes in the feeling of you being his, finally.

don’t tease him about this, please. he’ll whine in embarrassment, hiding his red cheeks away from your eyes— begging for you to switch the conversation

. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ⊹ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .

likes and reblogs are appreciated, thanks for reading!

i do not own bnha/mha and it’s characters. boku no hero academia/my hero academia belongs to horikoshi kohei, i only own the writing and i do not profit off of my hobby

do not plagiarize, reupload, translate, or use my works in audio readings without my permission :))

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pradaksj · 4 years ago

Text

Safety Net || part two (final). (m.)

↳do not repost, translate, or claim as your own.

❧ summary ⟶ on new year’s eve, you and jungkook reflect on each other’s entire year together.

❧ pairing⟶ jungkook/reader

❧ genre⟶ enemies to friends, friends to lovers, fluff, angst, pining, smut, boxer!jungkook. two-part series.

❧ word count ⟶ 16,000+

❧ warnings ⟶ descriptions of an anxiety/panic attack, character death (non-major), smut which includes ... passionate to rough sex, oral (female receiving), penetration, fingering, unprotected sex (please have sex responsibly lol).

❧ music⟶ safety net, selfish, stuck on you, exile, +more

❧ a/n ⟶ I am still fairly new to writing smut so sorry if it doesn’t meet your expectations 😭 also to all my people who don’t like smut “*” signals where you can stop reading as the smut is really just a bonus scene at the end. and remember dark purple = entering/still in the past, light purple = present

01 | 02 (final)

“God were we dramatic,” you laugh, glad that the recollection of your big fight with Jungkook was something that could by now be laughed at rather than seen as something you’d dearly regret, “Don’t you think?” you ask Jungkook, concern immediately washing over you once you see the sad look on his face, “Jungkook?”

Jungkook stares blankly at the lake in front of him, surprised at the resurgence of the same heavy feeling in chest he had felt several months before, “Did I—Did I say something wrong?” you worry that you’ve hurt his feelings, that being one of, if not the, last thing you wanted to do tonight.

Quietly he nods his head no, “I just—” he struggles to voice his thoughts, “I was—” he shakes his head and you grab his hand in comfort, giving him a small smile.

“Hey,” you giggle, “what happened is in the past,” you reassure.

“I know but—” he sighs, pushing his hair back with his other hand, “I just still feel bad, you know? I mean we went a whole month without talking…. practically hating one another…”

August 2019.

It had been about a month since your explosive argument with Jungkook, and despite living together... the two of you had never been so far apart. Not only were you not on speaking terms, but it was as if neither of you existed in each other's proper world, completely avoiding each other at all costs.

One would think that because you two lived with one another, you’d be bound to have some kind of awkward bump ins from time to time, but somehow the two of you managed to steer clear of each other. From eating breakfast and dinner at separate times, to talking to Hobi at your own respective times, and of course the first thing Jungkook did the next day after your fight was move his things out of your restroom and into Hobi’s. You weren’t going to lie, it did sting just a little , but you were quick to get over it. The part that made Hobi roll his eyes even further back than they already did, was how quickly you two scrambled around each other whenever you did happen to coincidentally be in the same place such as the kitchen.

Originally Hobi tried any and every method possible to get you two to make up, knocking on doors and trying to trick you two into talking, faking handwriting, stealing personal belongings, and of course begging. Hell, he even tried confronting you two in one of the rare times you guys were in the kitchen at the same time, but all you two did was remain silent and go back into your respective rooms. Not bothering to even spare a glance at one another.

He had given up about two weeks in of trying, deciding that it was up to you two to figure out how you guys would make up. But it wasn’t until this Friday morning when he saw a certain letter stick out of the mail that he found himself loudly sighing.

“Oh Jungkook…” he whispers to himself, shaking his head as he read the letter in front of him. What was he going to do now?

It didn’t take long for Jungkook to get used to being the lone wolf in the apartment again, in fact it was easy for him to completely ignore your existence. It was easy to watch you struggle opening a jar full of kimchi. It was easy to catch a glimpse of you and Hobi watching One Piece on the couch whenever he was making his way out of the apartment to go and party. It was easy to hear you sing along to some new girl group song and not join along whenever he passed by your room. And it was very easy to hate you. Very easy indeed.

Gosh, who was he kidding? It was the hardest freaking thing in the world to do. Especially because he didn’t hate you at all. Pretending to? Yes. Actually? Fuck no.

If he was being honest, any hatred he had felt in the moment of the big argument had been rapidly washed away the moment he slammed his door shut. Instead it had been quickly replaced by the feeling of hurt and sadness. He even found himself sneaking into the kitchen that night to grab an extra pint of ice cream from the freezer and watch some stupid K-drama from his laptop back in his room. Even shedding a small tear when the male and female lead had to break up due to unforeseen circumstances. But of course if you asked him if it was true, he’d deny it in a heartbeat.

He’d often find himself zoning out and replaying the fight in his head. God, was he an idiot. What was he thinking destroying your painting like that? Did he really think you weren’t going to react the way you did? Sadly, the answer was a mixture of both yes and no. Yes, he wanted you to feel as hurt as he did, but he didn’t expect you to go fully ballistic on him. Did he blame you for it? No, of course not. You had every right to be mad at him as he had acted out in completely blind rage. Not bothering to stop for one moment and ask himself, am I okay with the possible outcome of what I’m about to do? Had he known it was going to be this, and well … he would’ve never done it.

It just happened so quick. One moment he was staring at the floor covered with broken pieces of glass and the next he had his fist going through the canvas of your painting, destroying the very thing he convinced you to work on. No wonder you hated him…

You hated him and you had every right to. He just wasn’t sure how long he was going to be able to take it anymore. Having to only catch glimpses of you from time to time and not being able to say anything because he was too ashamed to even look at you was truly killing him. And he could only imagine how you felt having to see him every day and night. Knowing the person you hated most was living under the same roof as you. Hell, if the roles were reversed he probably wouldn’t want you around at all.

Which is why as Jungkook currently stares aimlessly at the ceiling of his room, he knows he’s made the right decision.

The night of the fight between you and Jungkook, you had felt a range of emotions that honestly were quite overwhelming. Whenever you’d stare off into space you’d find yourself feeling very sad and reflective, but whenever you even caught a glimpse of your then destroyed painting on the floor you’d feel the rush of anger return all at once. It was like that the whole night, not even an episode of One Piece could cheer you up. If anything it made you feel even more confused because you were on the episode where (spoiler alert) *** dies, and well not only were you mad at how it happened, but sad because it was happening. Hell, that was probably the best way to describe how you felt about the whole argument.

The first couple of days had been hard to say the least, the dynamic between all three of you drastically changing in the matter of a couple days. No longer were there grocery shopping trips together, nor were there laundry days where you and Jungkook would compete to see who could fold the fastest, and of course there were no longer Netflix movie nights where Hobi would complain because you and Jungkook kept cracking too many jokes during the most intense scenes. Your laughs always echoing across the living room walls thus ruining the buildup of the scene.

You were good at pretending you didn’t care, in fact you were great at it. Maybe because a part of you actually didn’t care. You had long been fed up with Jungkook’s moody antics, and him destroying that painting was the final straw. Yeah, maybe you shouldn’t have gone into his room after he specifically told you not to, but you only did because you were worried about him and actually cared about him. Couldn’t he have seen that before he went full on rampage mode and destroyed your painting? He was wrong for what he did, and at the end of the day he had no right to hate you. Right?

These days you found yourself doubting it. It wasn’t like you were in the entire right, you mean you had invaded his privacy … you shake your head, begrudgingly getting out of bed before dwelling on your thoughts for any longer. The re-do of your painting, which currently sat on its easel, serving as reminder that you weren’t planning on talking to him anytime soon.

“Good Morning to you,” Hobi greets, watching you stomp your way into the kitchen, clearly running on an empty stomach. Jungkook was currently out, either working out or …. Hobi sighs recalling what he saw in the letter this morning.

“Good morning,” you mumble, the grouchy mood that Hobi found himself a little too used to making its morning return. In all the years he’s known you, to see you always this …. down …. was very unlike of you to say the least.

Whether you liked it or not, your fight with Jungkook had definitely changed some aspects of your personality, even if you didn’t want to admit it to yourself yet. Because no matter how good you were good at faking it, and trust him you were good (a professional indeed), behind that tough wall you had put up in the last month was a person who was hurt. A person who had their heart crushed right in front of them.

Grabbing two slices of bread, you place them in the toaster, preparing to make yourself some avocado toast. You sigh when you hear Hobi’s footsteps getting closer, not wanting to hear the whole “You need to talk to Jungkook” speech this early on a Saturday morning.

Turning around to face him, you’re prepared to protest against his usual lecture, “Hobi I don’t—” the sound of an envelope hitting the counter catching you off guard, stopping you from continuing any further. Furrowing your brows, your eyes glint with confusion. Hobi stares at you with a stoic expression, waiting for you to grab the letter from the island’s counter.

Slowly you grab the white envelope, extremely confused as to what this had to do with. The name on the recipient line reads, “Jeon Jungkook” and for a small second you feel your heart stop, but you’re quick to shake it off.

“This isn’t mine, if you can’t tell,” you scoff, preparing to hand the envelope back to Hobi.

Pushing your hand away, he says, “Read it,” his tone telling you that it wasn’t exactly an option.

Rolling your eyes, you pull out the single piece of paper that’s inside, unfolding the tri-folded letter. Your eyes quickly gaze over the subject line which reads, “Application Approval,” catching your attention. From there you continue to read…

Dear Jeon Jungkook,

We are pleased to notify you that we have received and accepted your application for the lease property of **** Jangsin-Ro, Apartment 32. Your lease will begin on September 28, 2019 and your rent amount is ₩**** for every 1st of the month. Any cancellations will result in a ₩*** fee. I want to thank you for your application and anticipate that you will have an enjoyable living experience in your new home.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

Bang Si-Hyuk.

Wait what? Your eyes reread the letter that’s in front of you because clearly you were reading something wrong. Your eyes must’ve been deceiving you because there was just no way…. Looking up at Hobi, you hope this was another of his attempts to get you to talk to Jungkook, but there he stood, straight faced as ever.

“He’s—” your voice whimpers like a little kid, “He’s moving out?”

“Ow!” Jungkook squirms, the feeling of your fingers pinching his arm hurting him, “What was that for?!” he yelps.

“For trying to move out without telling us! And don’t you dare ever pull something like that again,” you scold him, tempted to pinch him again.

Garnering a laugh out of him, you cross your arms like a kid and huff a loud breath of air, “Ah I won’t, I won’t,” he giggles, “Maybe…” he mumbles, but he’s quick to raise his arms in defense once he sees you ready to pinch him once again, “I’m just kidding,” he sings and you roll your eyes.

“Serves you right,” you mutter, letting out the hurt you felt that day to him because honestly, you had never gotten the opportunity to do so…

September 2019.

“Jungkook is moving out. Jungkook is moving out. Jungkook is moving out,” you think to yourself, having to come to terms with the fact that in exactly 48 hours from now Jungkook was officially going to be out of your life … for good.

You were shocked to say the least, when you saw the application letter, not exactly sure about what you felt. You mean, yeah you were definitely mad at Jungkook, but enough to the point where you wanted him officially out of your life? Hell no.

So then where the hell did he even get the idea to move out? It wasn’t like you two were being mean to each other, nor was there blatant hatred being shown on your part. All you two were doing were ignoring each other like two little kids. That should not be cause for someone to move out. Not at all!

A knock on the door catches your attention, “You ready?” Hobi asks, dressed in business like attire. His all black suit made him seem almost intimidating, that was until your eyes landed on his newly dyed cherry-red hair only causing you to stifle a small laugh.

Nodding your head, you look at yourself in the mirror one last time. Tonight was the night of the art exhibition, and you were very very nervous. You had turned in your piece a couple of days prior, but to have to later unveil it in front of everyone along with giving a small speech was nerve wracking. Especially considering you hadn’t involved yourself in the world of the arts for several years now, if anything you were used to constantly talking about accounting numbers and different business statistics.

“It’s either now or never,” you whisper to yourself, not knowing what awaited you.

“I just don’t get it Hobi,” you rant in the car, on your way to the galleria’s location, “he didn’t see me trying to move out when he was being nothing but a complete dick to me those first couple of months!” you pout, still not having accepted that Jungkook was moving out, despite constantly reminding yourself that he was.

Hobi sighs, feeling as if he’s heard you rant about this since you’ve found out … oh wait … you have! “Y/N—” he begins.

“No listen to me Hobi!” you interrupt, “Can he really not stand the sight of me that he feels the need to move out?? Was me going into his room really that big of an issue,” your voice wavers a bit, but you continue nonetheless, “And the fact that he hasn’t even bothered to tell you! So what? He was just planning on disappearing this coming Monday! Thinking no questions were going to be raised? I mean imagine you hadn’t seen that letter, he would’ve left thinking I hate him!” And to that Hobi lets out a scoff.

“What do you mean?” he scrunches his face, “He still is!” Hobi raises his finger before you could talk, “My turn,” he firmly states, only causing you to drop your defensive shoulders and roll your eyes.

“You two have not talked at all since your stupid little argument where clearly both of you were in the wrong!” he rants, repeating what he’s been saying for the last two months, the topic becoming tiresome, “And now one of you is leaving because neither of you can get over yourselves and just initiate some kind of freaking conversation! Just one conversation and I am one hundred percent sure everything will get cleared up and we can all go back to our daily lives, but nooooo both of you think we’re in some freaking K-drama, actually no, even K-dramas make up faster than the two of you!” he ends his rant on an insult, and you’re left there momentarily speechless.

“You are so—”

“I’m what?” Hobi glares at you, and you only narrow your eyes at him in return.

“You are so wrong,” you state, refusing to now look at him, instead looking out the window.

“I’m right and you know it,” you mumble something under your breath in response, “You invaded his privacy after he repeatedly told you not to, but for some reason you just felt the impulsive need to go into his room and find out what he was hiding. You know, I’m sorry Y/N but if Jungkook’s the biggest dickhead in existence then you my friend are the pushiest one,” he complains, finding his grip on the steering wheel becoming tighter. God, did the two of you get his blood pressure boiling up.

“You don’t get it, I had to go into his room,” you mutter, not exactly happy with the fact that Hobi is reading you for filth.

“No you didn't,” the two of you begin to go back and forth, voice raising with every sentence.

“Yes, I did.”

“No you did not.”

“Um yes—”

“Um n—”

“Yes, how else was I going to be able to find out what was hurting him?” you interrupt, turning to face Hobi, feeling the migraine in your head about to pop.

“And why would you need to know that?”

“Because I lo—” you quickly catch yourself before you could complete the sentence, crossing your arms and pouting. Like hell you’d confess in front of Hobi.

Hobi looks at you knowingly, “Because you what,” he taunts, knowing exactly what you were going to say,

“Just drive,” you mumble, your attention back to the window beside you, focusing on the view of the city streets.

“Ah Y/N, there you are!” Jimin greets you and Hobi, having barely walked in from your argumentative car ride, “You’re on in like ten minutes,” he nervously chuckles, worrying only minutes ago that you were going to be a no-show.

“That quick?” you ask in complete shock, barely having taken off your dress-coat. The churns in your stomach begin to make you feel physically sick and there’s now a certain dryness to your throat that you could only accredit to the tension you were now feeling. Your palms were even beginning to get a little sweaty. Why were you doing this again? Oh yeah … Jungkook.

“Come on let’s go and get you set up,” Jimin tugs at your hand, pulling you to follow him. With your other hand, you attempt to look for your flash cards, wanting to remind yourself of the specific points you needed to cover.

“What the—” your heart drops, unable to feel the flimsy piece of paper anywhere near the coat that hung against your arm, “Oh no,” you murmur to yourself, not wanting to panic Jimin, “No, no, no,” you repeat to yourself.

“Okay here we are,” he stops you two in front of your draped-covered painting, pulling out a lapel mic from his pocket, clipping it onto the collar of your outfit. Now that you weren’t moving, you were now barely taking note of just how many people filled the galleria, and it was a lot. There had to be at least 200 people, minimum. Each and every one of them slowly looking around at the already unveiled art pieces, their eyes doing the judging for them.

“Jimin I don’t know—”

“Hey, you’re gonna do just fine, it’s just a bit of stage fright I’m sure,” he reassures, and though you appreciate the gesture, coming from him it just didn’t mean much. You see, Jimin has always been what's called an optimistic person, similar to you in a way. Always trying to find the good in the bad. But in order for his words to really have some effect, it would’ve been better if he was a pessimist, someone who always saw the negative in everything because then to hear that you would do just fine would come more as a shock rather than as something expected, someone like—

You shake your head,“I’m just,” your outfit suddenly begins to feel as if it's squeezing the life out of you, “I’m really nervous,” you whisper to him out of breath, watching as people begin to crowd around your area. Were the walls closing in or was it just you?

He begins to test the mic, “Jimin—” you repeat his name, a cry for help, “I can’t—” but it’s too late.

“Hello everyone,” he speaks into his own microphone, and you scan the audience to see if you can spot Hobi. When you do, you notice the look of panic he has on his own face, probably aware of your distressed state, knowing that there was nothing he could do about it, “This artist I’m introducing to you, has been a personal friend of mine for years. I’ve known her since my first year in college, and I can vouch for just how talented she is,” Jimin glances at you, unaware of just how truly panicked you were, “So without further ado, y/n take it away,” he steps away, leaving you under the sole spotlight.

Remaining silent for a moment, you stare at the several pairs of eyes that had their gaze solely focused on you. “H-Hello,” you stutter into the mic, glad that it wasn’t a handheld one as you were sure that you would’ve been a jittering mess, “Um my name is y/n l/n,” you nervously smile, trying to find something to focus your attention on. Originally you planned on staring at Hobi the whole time, only to find out it made you even more of a stuttering mess. God, was it getting hot in here.

“So um I think we should um reveal the painting first,” you sputter out, signalling to Jimin that it was time. Slowly he removes the drape, the sound of clapping providing you a bit of a soothing effect. People liked it. People freaking liked it. It felt as if a brick or two had been dropped from your shoulders.

You gulp continuing with your speech, “So I um—” breathe y/n, “I call this piece safety net,” you turn sideways towards the painting, ready to explain, “I call it that because as y-you can see in the painting,” you mindlessly point to it as if the audience couldn’t see it themselves, “There’s the um the figure falling into what I call a safety net of flowers and—” you stare at the painting along with them, finding yourself getting lost in your own work, “well I painted this after—” you pause, the room completely silent, “after finding myself wanting to be someone’s safety net,” you mumble to yourself, a certain person coming to mind.

There’s an awkwardness to the room, the kind of stiffness you only find in tense moments. You weren’t sure if it was because the audience was trying to be respectful or you were just making a complete mess out of yourself, but either way Jimin awkwardly coughs, “So um we will now take questions from the audience,” Jimin hesitantly says, by now noticing the extremely panicked state you were in, but unsure of what to do.

A woman raises her hand, a volunteer for the galleria handing her a mic, “Hello,” she politely greets, giving you a warm smile, “So I was curious as to why you chose two colors that don’t conventionally go well together, I was wondering if you did that on purpose or…” and though you know her question means no harm, the voice in your head was convincing you that this was some kind of an attack.

“I um—” your breathing becomes heavier, “I—” Just speak, you keep telling yourself. Tell her that you chose two colors because they represented two different personalities. Say something you freaking idiot. “I um c-chose—” you begin to hear the sound of people murmuring all around you, their voices echoing loudly through your head. What were they saying? Did they hate your painting? Did they think it made absolutely no sense? Was it really that bad? What were you thinking when agreeing to do all this? How could you have been convinced to do this? You didn’t paint anymore for this exact reason.

With every thought that races through your mind, the sudden sense of impending doom only becomes stronger and your rapid breathing becomes louder. You had to be sweating because God did it feel like a fucking sauna in here. The tightness in your throat wasn’t helping at all as well only making the feeling of nausea further overwhelming. You needed to get out of here. Now.

And so without thinking… you run.

You yank out the mic and begin to run to God knows where, ignoring the shouts of your name along with the small number of gasps that could be heard.You needed to breathe again, and you desperately needed this feeling of danger to be gone.

Trying not to bump into too many people walking the dark city streets of Seoul, focusing on the sound of your heels clicking against the pavement, tuning out everything around you. “Just run,” you tell yourself, “Run until no one can find you.”

Soon the sound of your heels clacking against the pavement becoming the sound of your heels crunching against leaves. The pitch blackness of your surroundings causes tears to begin to well up, the trembling of your fingers along with the chills running down your spine making you feel as if you were running in an endless loop. Stop. Stop. Stop.

You come to sudden halt, pushing your arm against a nearby tree, desperately trying to catch your breath. You were alone now, isn’t this what you wanted? So then why did you still feel as if the world was crashing down on you. Why couldn’t you breathe? Why were hot tears spilling from your eyes? What the hell was wrong with you?

By now your sobs are in full force, your heaving chest only adding to its force. Because of your crying, you fail to hear a voice, “There you are!” Jungkook catches his breath, surprised at how fast you could run in heels. For a small second he thought he had lost you in the chase, with the way you maneuvered around everyone, he was thankful he hadn’t.

“Y/N,” he calls out, expecting you to turn, but he’s met with silence. You were having a panic attack, a bad one at that. Making his way closer to you, he’s careful in how he approaches you, grabbing your hand before you could run any further, “Y/N,” he repeats, this time turning you to face him, but you continue to cry in hysteria, your vision blurred by just how fast tears were falling from your eyes.

“Hey, hey, hey, look at me y/n,” he cups your face with his hands, a worrisome but firm look on his face, “I need you to breathe with me, okay?” your chest continues to heave, the rapid breaths of air coming from your mouth at an alarming rate, “Y/N!” he shouts, causing you to go silent, “Y/N…” he softly repeats, knowing he’s gotten your attention. You stare at him in silence, “One,” he inhales a big breath of air, “Two,” he exhales out, “Inhale,” he repeats his actions again, “Exhale,” he breathes out.

Slowly you begin to follow. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

In no time, your heartbeat begins to slow down, your mind focused enough on the task at hand that you begin to forget why you were ever panicked to begin with. “Hey,” Jungkook whispers, caressing your cheek with his hand, “You’re doing great,” he reassures you, providing you the words of comfort you so desperately needed to hear right now.

It had been so long since you’d gone through having a panic attack, almost forgetting just how bad they could sometimes get. But for now staring into Jungkook’s eyes and practicing some breathing exercises was enough to remember that no matter how bad they got, you’d get through them.

His fingers gently graze your cheeks, continuing to mumble small phrases of reassurance while you were getting control of yourself. “Has anyone ever told you,” you place a finger to the corner of his eye, quietly breathing your words out, “you have very round eyes,” you say and Jungkook lets a huffed laugh out in response.

He scrunches his nose and smiles, “Yeah, a lot of people have actually,” he laughs, a toothy grin spreading across his face while he uncups your cheeks, feeling a sense of tranquility wash over him as he knew you were going to be just fine, “I’ve been told they look like a doe’s eyes,” you quietly nod your head yes, agreeing with his statement, a warm smile on your face.

“Come on,” he intertwines your fingers, gently pulling you to follow him and leading you to a park bench that was near. But the thing was, it wasn’t just any park bench, it was the park bench from the night Jungkook was drunk and the two of you had gotten into the fight with that drunk man. What were the odds? You hadn’t even noticed that you ran this far till now...

He exhales a large breath of air once you two sit, allowing a neither comfortable nor awkward silence fill the air. Despite the heartwarming moment that happened only minutes ago, there were still things that needed to be talked about. Things that simply couldn’t be forgotten. It was the sole reason he had gone to the art exhibition because he wanted, no, he needed to talk to you.

He just hadn’t expected to see you running out in complete panic right as he walked in. The tears that were slowly rolling down from your eyes, causing him to feel a sudden sense of heartbreak. For the only reason you’d ever cry would be if your hard work were to be destroyed, whether physically or emotionally. It was the same despaired look you had given him that fateful day he decided to throw everything good that was becoming of his life out the window.

And so to see the scene in front of him play out had definitely caused both a mix of anger and sadness to boil within him. His urge to defend and protect you, almost overcoming his need to go out and make sure you were okay. That was until he found himself running out the door, signalling to Hobi that he’d handle it.

And so now here the two of you were, quietly sitting on a park bench with your hands being the only things physically touching, a comfort of its own for the both of you. It didn’t feel weird nor did it feel wrong because if anything it just felt right.

A part of you thinks and hopes it could remain like this forever, scared that if it didn't, you’d have to return back to the world where you and Jungkook were nothing more than strangers who were once friends. The world where acting as if one or the other didn’t exist was completely normal. The one where you’d find your heart selfishly longing for him despite stubbornly not wanting to. And so whether it be for a small second, a minute, or an hour, for now at least you just wanted to savor the moment because who knew what would possibly happen if he decided to leave and never come back.

“Y/N…” he begins.

“Shh,” you whisper, your puffy eyes softly gazing at the view of the trees in front of you, the silhouettes of trees as well sound of the wind softly pushing against the branches, a view you were once so scared of, not so scary anymore, “Just one more second,” you close your eyes, taking in one final breath of air. Jungkook feels his heart swell at the sight, remembering the scene from only months ago where it had been you doing all the staring. You pull his hand when you’re ready, your soft gaze now directed towards him.

“I just—” he begins to stutter, “I wanted to—” he feels his eyes get watery, the rush of emotion he was beginning to feel almost overwhelming him, “I wanted to say I’m sorry,” his voice slightly cracks, “for everything,” he whispers, allowing a tear to fall from his eye, feeling the weight he had been holding onto his shoulders now falling. The small leaks of vulnerability that you had occasionally seen now completely flooding through his walls of defense, that single tear becoming several, until soon you hear a sob emit from his mouth, but by then you have him wrapped in a hug, the sound of his sobs being muffled by your shoulder. Slowly you caress his hair, gently stroking and twirling the locks of his wavy hair in between your fingers, deciding that this time around silence was the best way to go.

“I’m so sorry,” he hysterically cries, holding onto you tighter, as if you’d go anywhere. He begins to shake his head, struggling to find the words that’d best describe how he felt at this current moment, “I’m—”

“Hey, hey, hey,” it’s your turn to say the words, gently pushing him off you so he could meet your gaze, “I know,” you reassure, “and I forgive you. The same way I’m sure you’ve forgiven me for snooping around your room like that,” you jokingly assume, and he smiles despite having red bloodshot eyes, “We were angry, and we said and did things that we shouldn't had but that doesn’t mean we have to hold them over our own heads for the rest of our lives,” you grip his hand tighter, “you made a mistake, and I made one as well. And rather than explode on one another and ignore each other, we should’ve talked about where we went wrong, and yeah,” you repeat your words from months ago, “maybe we didn’t get to do this as early as we hoped, in fact we’re quite late,” you giggle, “but we’re here nonetheless. And so let’s talk,” you say, ready to listen to the boy you had fallen in love with.

Jungkook stares at you in silence, a million thoughts racing through his mind, wondering how you always knew exactly what to say at the exact moment, “I,” he hesitates before continuing, “I need to start from the beginning,” he says, wiping any residue from the tears in his eyes, ready to open up the book he had kept closed for so long.

You nod to him, signalling that you were listening, “When I was a kid, I um,” he gulps, “I guess you could say I had a knack for boxing. Originally, my dad had taught me as a way to protect myself if I ever came across a situation that’d require me to defend myself,” his fingers begin to fidget within yours, a sign that he was nervous. Quick to soothe him, you rub small circles on the palms of his hands, his gaze occasionally avoiding eye contact.

“But I also think it was because my dad, who once wanted to be a boxer himself, saw me a way to vicariously live out his dream. Because soon he noticed that the knack I had for it was more of a talent,” a small smile appears on his lips, “and well by then he had begun to seriously train me… I remember always coming back after school and dulging right into practice, waking up on weekends and running laps at the park with my dad in order to gain stamina, and just,” he exhales a breath, “and just thinking to myself how proud I wanted to make him,” uncontrollably a tear falls from his face once again, and he tries to gain his composure before continuing, not wanting to begin the sob fest too early, “Once he thought I was ready, my dad had begun to sign me up for amatuer competitions, and well I did amazing,” Jungkook laughs.

“And soon boxing would become the sport I’d find myself building my life upon, but one day—“ he sighs, knowing the conclusion to his own story and well this was only the beginning, “one day during high school we had this um career day I guess you could call it, and well long story short after going around and listening to how passionate some of spokespersons were of their careers, I remember thinking, is boxing something I was doing for myself or for my father?”

A sad smile appears on his face, “I think the most confusing part for me was that I wasn't exactly passionate about anything else but I also just knew deep down in my heart that boxing wasn’t for me, you know? To this day I don’t know what exactly it is I'm passionate for,” he laughs, “and I certainly don’t see myself making coffee and flipping pancakes for the rest of my life,” he jokes around, an attempt the make the atmosphere a little lighter, “but I think with the help of someone I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s okay to be a bit of a late bloomer,” he winks at you, “one day I’ll wake up and just know…”

You give him a small reassuring smile, happy to know that he’s learned his own lessons along the way, even if it required a bit of pushing.

”But back to my story,” he awkwardly laughs, the small feign of happiness gone, “Though I had realized it already… maybe it was because I was scared, or maybe it was just—” he shakes his head, unable to find the words, “I just,” he sighs, “I just couldn’t tell my dad because for me telling my dad would feel as if I was telling him that all the years of hard work were going down the drain. That the endless nights of working out and exhausting ourselves to sleep were all for nothing. And so when my dad told me that managed to get me a spot at some training camp in the states, I took it. I mean it wasn’t like I had anything going for me here in Korea, and well I needed to guarantee my own future,” he shifts uncomfortably, remembering everything a little too vividly.

“I did pretty well for a couple years, slowly began climbing the ranks, and the natural talent I had for the sport was beginning to really shape itself, even catching the attention of prominent sport reporters. Long story short, I’d find myself surrounded with nothing but yes men and leeches who wanted nothing more than a piece of my so called success,” he gazes off to the distance, ashamed of the ego that had been built as a result of such people, “and well when you get told that you’re the best, that no one can stop you, that you’re untouchable, you truly begin to believe it,” he lets out a chuckle, “so when Brandon Star, a man who was nearly out of my weight class, began to provoke me for a fight on television after winning some match and I kept hearing from my so called friends that it’d be an easy match or that it was a guaranteed win, how could I say no? Of course at the time I didn’t know that they would be betting against me… so I said yes.”

A momentary silence fills the air as Jungkook had never told this whole story to anyone, the revealing of everything somewhat freeing for him, “A part of me knew I was way in over my head, it was like a gut feeling, you know? But I needed someone, anyone, to tell me the truth and to confirm what I was thinking. I needed someone who was going to criticize me instead of nodding their head yes and pretending that everything was going to be just fine. I think that’s why when I first met you, you reminded me so much of the people who were around me in the states, faking a smile in order to spare my feelings.” Sadness clouds his features, ashamed of how he took everything out on you when all you were doing was simply being the person you always were... kind. For that, he was truly sorry.

“Anyways,” he continues, “that night of the fight, the feeling I had in my stomach was overwhelming. I told my dad, who was helping prep me backstage like he always did, that I felt nervous. That I was scared,” his voice cracks and he closes his eyes, remembering the scene as if it was yesterday, “and my dad well...he’s always struggled with separating being a father and being a trainer,” Jungkook tries to contain the sob that’s begging to come out, “but at that moment I just needed my dad. I needed him to tell me that win or lose everything was going to be fine. That he’d be proud of me no matter what,” he finally cries, and as you’re about to pull him into another hug, he vigorously shakes his head, stopping you from doing so.

“No, I need to finish thi—”

“Jungkook,” you softly interrupt because it wasn’t that you didn’t want to hear anymore, you just weren’t sure if you could hear anymore without at some point sobbing yourself, “you don’t need to, especially if you’re not ready,” you stare at him with a sad look on your face.

“No, you deserve to know,” he firmly states, “you deserve to know,” he quietly repeats to himself. You nod your head in understanding, waiting for him to continue as he wipes away his tears with the sleeve of his shirt, composing himself.

“He told me that I’d do just fine, that the son he’s trained so long for wouldn’t fail him now,” he mumbles, the words of his father still echoing in his mind, “When you go and box, you’re supposed to enter that ring with no concerns of the real world, you’re supposed to put any negative or anxious thoughts you had outside the ring to rest. Because the moment you let just one of those thoughts seep through, you might as well hang up your gloves right then and there,” his expression hardens, “I went into that ring knowing I was going to lose…”

“From there I don’t remember too much,” he bitterly lets out a laugh, “I just remember being on a gurney and feeling the heaviness of Star’s punches beginning to weigh down on my chest, clearly having done some damage to my ribs,” he sighs, “but the moment I remember so clearly is my parents trying to make their way to me, doing their best to push their way in an effort to see me. I don’t know if it was because I was just so mad at myself,” his voice shakes, “or because I confused the look of sadness on my dad’s face with disappointment, but at the time—“ his voice falters again, “At the time I thought how ashamed he must’ve been of me,” he fights through his tears, trudging through the story, “And so as I was being lifted into the truck, I kept yelling how this was his fault, that it weren’t for him I wouldn’t be in this position,” Jungkook lifts his head up, combing a hand through his hair.

“When I got to the hospital, I refused to let my parents see me, I was just too—“ God, did he sometimes wish he could go back in time and change everything, “I was too stubborn, too ashamed with myself to even look at them. So I ran,” he says, catching you by surprise, “I needed time alone so I ran,” he repeats, “I ran before they could find me, I just got up and ran,” there’s a haunting emptiness that lingers in his voice, one that brings chills down your spine.

“I called Hobi, and I told him that I needed to redeem a favor,” your mind flashes back to the night Hobi told you what he knew, “And I thought this is what I needed. That I’d be okay with starting anew, and that if I could firmly plant my feet in Seoul then I could visit my parents in Busan, and tell them how sorry I was without them having to worry too much about what the future would hold for me… and explain to them what happened, what I felt, and why I ran. That was my plan,” his voice cracks, “I was reaching a point in my life where I felt so content, so happy. I’d wake up to see you and Hobi making breakfast while imitating some random girl group dance and think to myself how things had managed to turn out so well for me despite my failure in the states. Or when we binged on One Piece episodes that whole night while stuffing our faces in tubed ice cream and I just felt like a little kid again without a worry in the world. But then …”

Jungkook feels the heavy feeling in his chest grow, “He passed away,” and just like that Jungkook feels as if the air has come out of his lungs, the same way it did the night he found out.

You feel your heart break at his words, recognition dawning over your face as everything was beginning to make sense. “My mom had managed to find my number in order to tell me there’d been an accident, and I just couldn’t believe it at first,” he attempts to hide his grief by stifling a sob, “I didn’t want to get up from bed at first because getting up would mean facing reality, it’d mean accepting that it wasn’t some kind of twisted fucked up nightmare but that it was real. That the last sight my dad saw of me was on some gurney,” his face twists, “that the last words I ever said to him were so—“ he breaks down, sobbing once again and this time you feel your own hot salty tears fall from your eyes, wrapping in such a tight hug that you weren’t sure if it was for his or your own sake.

He cries a sound so raw that it was almost as if the wound was still freshly cut, his hand clasping tightly onto your clothing for support. Any last defensive wall he had up was washed away by his salty tears, finally facing the final waves of grief, loss, and devastation in the arms of the person he had taken everything out on. The person he didn’t deserve at all, but had stayed nonetheless. You whisper sweet comforting words to his ear, wanting more than his grief to subside so that you could see the smile you loved so much appear on his face again.

“I just wish there was something I could’ve done differently,” he shakes his head, “so that he could know just how much his son loved and appreciated him,” he lifts his head up from your shoulder, wiping his tears away, and practicing his breathing as his chest had been heaving so bad because of his sobs, “And so that was why I completely changed that June and became cold. That was why I got so mad when I saw you in my room with the broken trophy I had gotten when I was a kid because I was just so reminded of everything,” he frowns, “and it had hit me like a freaking truck. To see my current world and the past one collide was just—“ he pauses, “overwhelming to say the least,” he concludes everything and you’re left there completely speechless.

You could’ve never in your wildest dreams even guessed that this was why Jungkook had come back to Seoul and why he had acted so cold for so long. His grievances had happened in such a short period of time, that all it took was one wrong move to set him completely off. No wonder he had kept himself so isolated … he knew he was ticking time bomb waiting to finally explode at any given moment.

The two of you stare at each other in silence, his words processing in both of your minds. You want to say the words that are currently repeating themselves in your mind, I love you. Three simple words that could make him forget his past, even if it was for a small moment in time. “Jungkook—” he looks up at you, “I—” you stutter, the words clinging onto the tip of your tongue, “I um,” you feel your chest become heavy as he stares at you in curiosity, “I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” you force out instead. He furrows his eyebrows, ready to protest against your apology, but you’re quick to interrupt before he gets the chance to.

“Since you’re being so honest with me, I feel like it’s only right I’m honest with you,” you bite your lip, disappointed with your cowardice, “So that like that we get a better understanding of one another,” you feign a smile.

“There’s a reason why I got so um…” you pause, “anxious before and during the galleria,” you narrow your eyes, it was now your turn to open a book that’d long been left incomplete. “I told you right? That I was an art student at Busan’s Art college but that I ended up transferring after an incident occurred…” He quietly nods, allowing you to continue, “and well I think I’m ready to talk about it,” you let out a breathy chuckle.

He stares at you in silence, ready to listen as well. “Growing up, I really liked painting,” you laugh, recalling the memory of you painting on the walls as a kid, “for some reason it was something I found myself falling further in love with every calendar year, but my parents, well they were on the more skeptical side of making a career out of it. I mean I don’t really blame them,” you sound unsure, “I mean I know that it’s hard these days to find success in the world of arts, or at least the level of success most people want to obtain but originally for me it didn’t matter,” you chuckle, remembering how naive you had been.

“Before entering college, I’d sell my little paintings and merchandise on those small-business centric websites like Etsy and stuff,” you say for example, “and you’re right, when you get told that you’re good at something, you really begin to believe it…”

Jungkook wants to interrupt and tell you that whatever your situation was, was much more different than his. That you were actually good at what you did, no, you were amazing at it. He wasn’t sure if he could listen to you talk down on yourself, but nonetheless he continues to listen.

“My first year of college I met people like Jimin who were so passionate about what they do that it really cemented the idea I had in wanting to turn my water painting into a career,” you sigh, “but in the back of my mind I always did have tiny doubts that lingered, and I always made sure not to feed them too much, but when you’re surrounded by people who are just as talented or even better than you, it gets hard not to.”

Jungkook completely understands where you’re coming from, having been in a similar position himself before. “And it didn’t help that my parents were constantly breathing down my neck about finding a different career to focus on,” you shrug “anyways,” you continue, shaking your head, “In Busan’s Art College, like many other colleges there are departments, like STEM and Business for example, but in this case things are separated by like dance, art, film, et cetera. And well if you can’t tell I’m a bit of a … pushy … person,” you laugh and Jungkook softly smiles, neither agreeing or disagreeing, “I think it’s due to me always feeling a need to overcompensate my insecurities, I guess. Like when you first moved in, in order to reassure myself that you didn’t hate me, the pushy side of me came out,” you explain, and the same way you began to understand Jungkook as he was explaining his story, Jungkook was beginning to understand you as a person.

“Well back to the focal point, I was a part of a committee club for painters within the art department, thinking that if I took charge of something, it’d increase my chances in succeeding in my career once I graduated. But the thing is, is when you join those committees I guess you could say there’s like a hierarchy of some sort, a cliché come to life,” you try your best to keep the conversation as lighthearted as you can, wanting the energy in the air to become one that was positive, a reflection of just how much you two had grown, “and well during my second year we were all assigned a project for some city poster in which we’d present to the committee’s leader, Nari, and where she and a couple of others would then choose which one was going to be used. And let me tell you, this was a career making project. The people who were going to be at the unveiling were names like Ji Hye Yeom, Haegue Yang, and more,” you sigh knowing you were coming to the rough part of the story.

“Nari had specifically told us that we were to only use materials she had chosen for us, and limited us to certain color schemes that in my opinion were the ugliest schemes I’d ever seen,” you scoff, “So me being the pushy person I am, I went ahead and continued with my original plan, which was making a watercolor painting because at the end of the day if my painting did happen to get chosen, I wanted it to be a genuine work of mine, not something that was limited by someone who was no more superior than me all because of some flimsy title,” you softly shake your head, “And so I poured my heart into it, working on it every chance I got during that school year in order to make sure that the committee would be so amazed , they’d have no choice but to choose it even if it didn’t exactly follow Nari’s regulations.”

A feigned smile graces onto your lips, refusing to cry at a situation from years ago, “I was so nervous that day to present it, but I was also so excited. Excited because I knew I created a piece that was so beautiful I—,” for a quick second your voice falters, but you’re quick to catch yourself, “I was just so sure they’d choose it,” you whisper, voice sounding frail and defeated.

“That day I presented it, I thought the silence that filled the room was because they were amazed,” you close your eyes for a moment, trying your best to push back any tears that wanted to make their way out, “God I still remember the extra specks of white and gold I added to it the night before, thinking those extra touches were really going to tip the scale in my favor,” you mumble, the embarrassment you felt that day coming back.

Jungkook feels his jaw harden, at this point an automatic response to the thought of your feelings being hurt. He didn’t know why, but to see someone as kind as you act out of character whether it be because you were mad or sad, always caused a heavy feeling in his chest. The only thing you deserved to feel was happiness and comfort, and though he wasn’t sure it was something, he, himself, could guarantee you … he’d be damned if he didn’t at least try.

“After what felt like 20 minutes, of complete silence she slowly got up in front of everyone,” you blankly stare at the trees in front of you, “I remember my heart beating out of my freaking chest for some reason, and the sweat beginning to form at my palms. And the moment she started speaking, I just went blank—” you turn to face Jungkook, who had a worrisome look on his face, “She started to berate me in front of everyone, insulting my hard work and telling me that even despite me breaking her guidelines, the painting still wasn’t any good,” you gulp, “But in fact, her words didn’t bother me at all,” you pause, “it was the comments from my supposed peers that really twisted the knife for me,” you scoff, “and then she did the unthinkable...”

Jungkook feels the heavy weight in his chest drop because he knows what you’re about to say. He knows what that woman did. And he knows why you were so hurt when he destroyed your painting, “She grabbed the canvas from the display board, and she ripped it,” you say, managing to muster up the smallest of smiles, but Jungkook knows that it's nothing more than a facade. An illusion so that he could think that you were no longer hurt by the actions of that woman.

“Once she did that, it just triggered everything else that followed after,” you furrow your brows, refusing to look at Jungkook, “I was being laughed at while having a panic attack,” you scoff, “I felt like I was in a scene from a high school movie,” you attempt to mask your hurt by making a joke.

“I ended up running out of the building, feeling as if my heart was going to explode from how fast it was pounding, and the compression in my throat was almost unbearable,” your voice cracks, “in just 20 minutes she took away any confidence I had in my artistic abilities, In just 20 minutes she made me question everything I knew about myself,” a tear finally falls from your eye, speaking the words you’d never said out loud before into the world.

“I attempted to stay at the school for a couple more weeks after that, but every time I picked up a paint brush, I just kept hearing her words along with the rest of my peers’ as well, second guessing every stroke I made on canvas. I had lost my spark,” you stifle a sob, “After that, I decided to transfer out and follow the plans’ my parents had always set out for me… and well, you know the rest,” you laugh in between your tears, wondering just how pitiful you must’ve looked. But soon enough you feel Jungkook's arms wrapped around your shoulders, pulling you into a hug so tight, you never wanted him to let go.

“Don’t leave,” you mumble into his chest.

Jungkook reassures you by cooing a small, “I won’t”, but gently you pull away once he does, holding onto his hand instead. A look of confusion washes over his face.

“No—” you shake your head, realizing he’s misunderstood, “I mean don’t leave our apartment,” you sniffle, giving him a small warm smile, leftover tears still brimming the corners of your eyes. His mouth gapes slightly open, taken back by your statement. He had completely forgotten that he was supposed to be moving out by Monday.

“We—” you shake your head, deciding that “we” wasn’t the right word in this case, “I need you,” you state, nothing but sincerity behind your words. Jungkook feels his heart skip a beat, the close-eyed soft smile that covers your face only making him smile in return.

He doesn’t need to say anything because you know … you know that he needs you just as much as you need him. You know that he’ll never leave your side from this day on because tonight was the start of a new chapter in your lives, one that included each other. Gently he pulls you into another hug, the warm fuzzy feeling in his chest being a feeling he could get used to.

“How did you even know where the venue was, or what the time the whole thing was?” you ask Jungkook, questions that hadn’t crossed your mind that day now forming.

“Hobi sent me a text that same night, very um … straightforward?” Jungkook chuckles, “It read, Art Exhibition. **** Namgang-Ro. 7:30 PM. Formal attire. You either go or you don’t. Up to you. Just don’t go crying later on that you regret not going. And well I had debated for several hours, originally chickening out and deciding to use me not having any formal suits as an excuse. That was until I walked into my room to find that Hobi had ironed one of his own for me to use,” Jungkook explains, “And well luckily I grew some balls and went and well now we’re here,” he smiles at you.

“Hey, hey, hey, don’t cut off too much of the story. We still have to remember all the good that came afterward,” you giggle, and he only flashes you an even bigger smile.

“Ah you’re right, you’re right. How could I forget?”

October 2019.

“Happy Halloween!” you and Jungkook wave to the kid dressed as Iron Man, glancing at the clock which currently read 10:00PM. Mm you’d give it one more hour before permanently closing your doors and calling it a day even if Jungkook protested for more time.

You see, tonight was Halloween, and for the first time since you and Hobi moved to your guys’ apartment, you were giving out candy to the little kids of your apartment complex who usually went floor to floor trick or treating and it was all thanks to Jungkook. You were surprised really, you would’ve never taken Jungkook as being someone who was such a kid at heart.

After weeks of begging, he’d finally managed to convince you and Hobi to not only dress, but distribute candy. Usually you and Hobi would turn off all the lights and ignore the knocks you’d receive on the door, choosing to have a movie night than to participate in Halloween festivities.

Realistically speaking, you sorta expected Jungkook to go out and party tonight which is why when he notified you weeks prior that all of you were going to be participating in giving out candy, you couldn’t find it in you to say no. Hobi on the other hand required a lot of convincing and though he wasn’t exactly helping with the distribution of candy, watching him dressed as Batman while lazily sitting on the couch with a glass of wine in his hand was a gift in its own.

Jungkook, who desperately wanted to be a male version of Harley Quinn, had made you help him with cinching his crop top, exposing his toned lower abdomen every time he even stretched the slightest bit. It was…. quite a site … even causing several moms with their kids to “accidentally” stumble on your apartment floor again after only being there 10 minutes prior, your own little green monster finally making its appearance ….

But besides that, your favorite part of his whole costume was definitely the face/eye makeup he had done. The smoky blue and red along with the fake tatted heart under his left eye truly acting as the selling point of his costume. It just made him look very hot, more than usual. Hobi had even caught you staring at the boy on several occasions, teasingly nudging you whenever he did.

With Hobi dressed as Batman and Jungkook dressed as Harley Quinn, that of course only left you, who was currently dressed as none other than a female version of the Joker from Suicide Squad because despite how shitty the movie was, the style in which they made the Joker was still indeed very cool. Jungkook had even lent you his own natural artistic abilities to draw the tattoos where your dominant hand couldn’t firmly paint, laughing at the “twinsies” jokes you made in reference to his own tattoos. It had even given you the opportunity to ask him what each one of his own real tattoos meant to him.

Most of his tattoos, he explained, were done out of impulse. A majority of them being done in the states on a complete whim, but a couple of them held significant meaning to him. For example, his tattoo of a bandaged hand clearly represented his history with boxing. He explained that rather than get the overused boxing gloves as a tattoo, he’d get a simple bandaged hand done, deciding that it looked cooler and that you agreed with. Another example was the tattoo that translated to “Life Goes On” which was pretty self-explanatory, but meaningful nonetheless. Jungkook explained that it was one his favorite mottos growing up, and well recently it seemed to weave perfectly into his life.

But your favorite tattoo? The small One Piece manga strip he had across his left forearm. The story behind it almost caused you to shed a tear, had it not been for your white powdered makeup, you probably would've cried. You see, when Jungkook was a young boy he’d always watch One Piece as a distraction from boxing, falling in love with the story and its characters.

His dad, who’d always scold him whenever he caught him late at night watching the anime, never understood why Jungkook liked the show so much. It wasn’t until one night he somehow managed to convince his dad to watch the episode he was on, and despite not knowing anything about what was going on nor the characters’ names, his dad ended up loving the show just as much as him. The show had acted as a new bond between the two, from buying the latest manga volumes to staying up late at night to watch the newest episode. And well the strip on Jungkook’s arm was from the exact episode he had managed to convince his dad to watch with him that night. The tattoo serves as a representation of a memory he holds dearest to him, a memory of his dad.

“Ah I think that’s the last of it,” Jungkook looks into the last bag of candy he had bought, absolutely nothing left inside, “Wasn’t this fu—”

“Let’s go get a tattoo,” you interrupt, the idea coming to you out of nowhere. Jungkook tilts his head in confusion, eyebrows furrowing. A tattoo? You? Ms. I do not even have a dot of ink on my skin?

“A tattoo!?” Hobi turns from the TV, now having got his attention.

Both men stare at you in silence, thinking this was all some big joke until you begin to nod, reaffirming your choice, “Yes! All three of us! Matching roommate tattoos,” you smile, not exactly sure what had gotten into you, but surprisingly... completely okay with it.

Jungkook, noticing just how serious you were about this, begins to feel a smile form on his face. It wasn’t like he minded, he just wanted to make sure you weren’t going to regret it the next morning, “Y/N, you sure you one? I mean … you’re not someone I picture getting a tattoo, I mean think of your job,” he chuckles.

“Yeah, think of your job!” Hobi butts in, clearly not in favor of getting a tattoo.

Vigorously, you nod your head, “I’m one hundred percent sure,” you laugh, “I promise you, I won’t regret it,” you stick out your pinky finger, and Jungkook is quick to hug it with his own.

“W-What the?” Hobi stutters, unsure if it was the alcohol or shock in his system causing it. Probably both.

You turn to Hobi, “If you really don’t want it, then you don’t have to get it,” you shrug, “But at least come with us,” you smile, hoping that once you were there at the parlor shop you’d be able to convince him.

Sitting on the leather stool with your forearm displayed, the tattooist begins to prep your skin placing rubbing alcohol on the area in which you had chosen to get your tattoo. Now that you are here, you couldn’t lie, you were a bit nervous. But mostly because you were skeptical of the pain the needle would give you.

Jungkook had described it as “a cat repeatedly scratching a sunburn”... as if you were supposed to know what that means. He also said that depending on your pain tolerance you’d either like the feeling, get used to it, or absolutely hate it. It just varied from person to person as well as the placement where you were choosing to get it.

Supposedly the inner wrist didn’t hurt, but with the sudden stinging sensation you were feeling, you were a bit unsure of that now.

“So is that your boyfriend out there?” the woman tattooing you suddenly asks, catching you completely by surprise. If she didn’t have a pricking needle against your skin , you probably would’ve jumped at the accusation.

Trying your best to keep your cool, you respond, “Oh um—” you shake your head, “No,” you awkwardly laugh, “I wish”, you think to yourself.

“Hmm,” she hums, the same smirk Jimin once gave you appearing on her face, “Sorta seemed like it out there, I mean I’m sure if he had the option he would’ve chosen to sit here right next to you and hold your hand,” she teases, and a blush appears on your cheeks.

“Oh that’s just how he is with everyone,” you reason, not wanting to feed into the delusions that Jungkook could possibly return any feelings for you, “He’s a very protective person, sometimes a little too much, but it has its benefits,” you joke around.

She shrugs, continuing to work on the small tattoo, “”Mm I don’t know, I mean the way with the way he looks at youuuu,” she sings, “because you clearly like him,” she laughs.

“No I don’t!” you pout, “We’re just close friends, that’s all….”

“Close friends don’t look at each other like that, and they’re certainly not as touchy as you two are,” she says, only causing you to scoff.

“You don’t know what you’re ta—”

“All done!” she smiles, wiping over the fresh new ink on your skin one last time, “Look how easy it was for me to get you to stop wincing so much,” she winks at you, and suddenly everything begins to make sense. She was trying to get you to relax. Was the topic she chose really the best one? No. But it worked didn’t it?

She places the plastic wrap over it, “So what do you think?” you stare at the new permanent piece of work on your skin, a small smile gracing your lips.

“Ah I—”

“Love it so much!” you flash Jungkook the two-month old ink on your skin, the digital numbers “00:00” acting as a permanent reminder of the day all three of you officially became roommates. It was small, yes, but to you it meant so much.

Jungkook pulls his own sleeve, showing you his own matching ink, “Zero o’ clock,” he hums, recalling a song he heard not too long ago on the radio.

“Ah too bad we couldn’t convince Hobi to get one,” you sigh, remembering how firm he was that night, “but we’ll get him next time,” you laugh.

Jungkook quirks his brow, “Next time?”

You nod your head, “I can see why people get addicted to these things,” you joke, “they’re like their own pieces of art,” you smile.

“Design mine next time,” he suddenly says, his statement coming off more as a command than a question. Turning to face him, you look for any small sign that he was joking.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope,” he pops the ‘p’, “I think a watercolor style painting would look amazing rightttt,” he points to the side of his ribcage, “here.”

Eyes widening in shock, you’re in complete disbelief, “You—you’re crazy!” you laugh, refusing to take him seriously.

“Ah I’m being serious Y/N,” he pouts, “Come on you know you want toooo,” he sings, softly nudging you.

You stare at him for a moment, “Are you sure?” you ask, skeptical about his seriousness.

He nods, “As sure as you were about getting that tattoo that night,” he teases, and you only roll your eyes in return.

“Mmm,” you hum, “I’ll think about it.”

“Think?! I’m your roommate!” he dramatically complains, throwing his head against your shoulder, suddenly in a clingy mood. Maybe the tattooist was right… maybe you two were a little too touchy….

You mean, just last month during friendsgiving, Hobi just had to complain in front of everyone claiming, “If you two don’t get your own room—”

“Then I think at some point this turkey is going to come back alive just to tell you two himself,” he slurs his words, wine glass in hand.

Drunk Yoongi tags in, “How do you know it’s a he?” he squints his eyes, gearing up for a debate.

Hobi rolls his eyes and makes a dismissive motion with his hand, “Not now Yoongi,” he says, causing everyone sitting at the table to laugh, and he turns his attention back to you and Jungkook, currently sitting next to each other, “Are you two going to continue playing footsies or are you finally going to—”

Seokjin interrupts by awkwardly coughing and tapping his champagne glass with his fork, getting up from his seat in the process, “I think it’s the perfect time to do our annual “What am I thankful for” toast, so I’ll begin,” he laughs, all eyes on him, “So um this year I am thankful for all of my friends who continuously stick by side throughout the years, and for the wonderful woman I’ve grown to love more and more every day,” he warmly smiles at his girlfriend, the two already seeming like a married couple despite having only met this year. Seokjin turns his attention to Yoongi, signalling that it was his turn.

He groans before getting up, peeved as to why Seokjin always insisted on doing these things, “Okay okay—”

“This is gonna take a while,” you whisper to Jungkook, Yoongi’s speech now fading into the background.

Jungkook quietly chuckles in response, “You think? How long do you think it’ll take before he starts with his “back in my day” speech?” he jokes around.

Suddenly Yoongi’s voice becomes more audible, “Back in my day we didn’t use—”

You and Jungkook snortle a laugh, “Not long,” you respond, the two of you trying your best to keep your snickering at a low.

“So … got anything prepared?” he asks, this being his first year and all doing this kind of thing, he was a bit nervous as to what to say.

You shake your head, “Mm no, you just sorta say what’s on your mind? I guess?” you awkwardly laugh, “Trust me, as long as they have their bottles of soju next to them, whatever you say will go in one ear and out the other,” you reassure, remembering the first year you did this and gave a heartwarming speech, just for it to be ignored because Namjoon could’ve sworn he’d seen the “turkey move”. From there it led to an hour debate on whether a dead freaking turkey could still possibly be alive after having it in the oven for several hours.

He nods his head, noting what you’ve said.

After going around it was now the last toast of the night,“Ah and lastly onto our newest member in this friend group,” Namjoon, who had just finished his own speech, turns to Jungkook and pats his shoulder, “take it away,” he gives him a dimpled smile before sitting back in his seat.

Jungkook awkwardly blinks at him for a moment, not getting up until you nudge him to do so. “Oh yeah…” he forces a laugh, “Um so where do I begin,” you almost feel second hand embarrassment, if you thought you weren’t any good under pressure, Jungkook might take the crown.

“So… The first thing I want to say I’m thankful for are the new friends I’ve made since coming to Seoul,” he spares a glance to the boys, “um..” he bites his lip, “The second thing or person may I say, that I want to thank is Hobi…” he smiles at the drunk man, “well for giving me a second chance per say,” he chuckles, “I know I don’t say it often, but I’m truly grateful for you picking up my call that night,” Hobi gives a small warm smile, “And well the last person I want really want to mention that I’m thankful for is … you,” Jungkook suddenly turns his attention down to you, catching you by surprise.

Raising your eyebrows, you wonder where this is coming from, “I um—” he feighs a small laugh, “I know I wasn’t exactly the nicest person when I first moved in, but—” he exhales a breath, “But you gave continuously gave me a chance to prove otherwise every single time until I finally got it right,” he smiles, “and well last year I had a pretty rough year,” he jokes around, “and honestly I thought coming in 2019 it’d be just bad, but you single handedly proved me wrong and made sure this was going to be a year for me to remember and well for that I’m forever grateful,” you silently blink away any tears, not wanting to get teased at for crying after this his speech was done. He breaks away the gaze he held on you in order to finish his speech off, “So with that I say … cheers everyone!”

Everyone raises their glasses of whatever it was they chose to drink, clinking it all in the middle and repeating “Cheers!” before gulping down whatever was left of their drinks. The rest of the night is filled with nothing but laughs and joy, as well as the remainder of the month, every single day creating a new memory for the three of you, until you were left with nothing but...

“The present day,” you whisper to yourself, unable to believe that the year had gone by so fast.

“What a year it’s been huh…” Jungkook softly smiles, glancing at the time on his phone which reads 11:50. 10 more minutes until the new year. 10 more minutes until zero’o clock.

“Yeah…” a comfortable silence fills the air around you, how had the hour gone by in the blink of an eye? You wonder if it’s the effect Jungkook just naturally has on people because never did you find time going by so fast unless you were with him.

“I—”

“So—”

Your cheeks become a tinge of pink , “Oh you go first—” he shakes his head.

“No, no, go ahead,” he laughs, insisting that you go instead.

This was the perfect chance, the chance to tell him about the feelings you’d grown to have for him in the past year. You just needed to grow the courage to say those three letter words that were itching to be said. It was either now or never.

“I um, I just wanted to say thank you,” you chicken out once again, “I didn’t get the chance to say it on friendsgiving, but,” you gulp, “your speech it um meant a lot to me, and well I’m just as grateful for you,” you chuckle, “I think maybe even more.”

Had you noticed, you would’ve seen the slightly disappointed look on Jungkook’s face, “Oh..” he says, a small pout appearing on his face.

“What were you going to say?” you ask, faking the pep in your voice, ready to eternally scold yourself for being a chicken once you got back to the cabin.

He sighs, “It’s nothing really,” he shrugs, but you nudge his shoulder before he could divert the conversation elsewhere.

“Come on, just say it,” you tease, “because you either speak now or forever hold your piece,” you look at the time, “5 minutes till midnight.”

He stays silent for a moment, contemplating whether or not he should say what had been on his mind for quite some time, “I um—” fuck it, it was either now or never, “You know how I told you that I couldn’t sleep right? That it’s why I came out here…” you innocently nod your head as he continues, “well it’s cause I had already sorta been thinking about everything that’s happened this year…” he lets out a small chuckle.

“I mean isn’t it crazy?” he pushes his hair back with his hand, “Someone who was nothing more than a stranger before the clock hit twelve that night is now someone I can’t picture not being in my life,” you feel your heart flutter at his words, “And I mean to think we didn’t get along at first,” he lets out a breath of disbelief, “All because I was a person who was—” he pauses, unsure of how to describe himself from that time, “angry,” he decides to say, “I was an angry person who mad at the world,” he bites his lip in retribution for his attitude back then.

“No,” you laugh, shaking your head, “you were just someone who was… hurt. That’s all it was,” you say.

“You think?” you nod your head yes, “I never really thought about it like that,” he mumbles, “Would you do it all over again?” he suddenly asks, and you find yourself quirking your brow at his question, “Like if you had the chance would you do it all over again…” he further explains.

Without a second thought you say, “Yeah I would,” you giggle, “And you?”

He remains silent for a moment, pondering on his own question before nodding his head as well, “I wouldn’t mind doing it all over again because then I’d get to relive the process of falling in love with you all over again,” he finally says, “I’d get to pinpoint the exact moment this year that I fell in love with you.”

“In ten, nine, eight…” the families around you begin to shout the countdown, and all you can do is stare at Jungkook in disbelief of what you just heard come out of his mouth.

“Y-You love me?” you manage to stutter out, a smile now forming on your lips.

“Seven, six, five…..”

Silently, he nods his head, a loving smile on his face as he leans towards you, the flutter in your stomach only intensifying.

“Four, three, two, one….”

And as if time had stopped, his lips finally meet yours and the only thing you could feel were the placement of warm lips against yours, giving you a New Year’s kiss that would be remembered for years to come.

“Happy New Year!” the sound of fireworks popping are echoed in the background because the only thing you could focus on were the soft lips that were moving with yours. His fingers curl around yours, creating such an intimacy that you were sure you had to be dreaming. It wasn’t until you found yourself kissing him back that the reality of everything finally set in. Jungkook loved you.

Slowly he pulls away, savoring the kiss till its very last moment, “Happy New Years Y/N,” he whispers, a grin plastered on his face.

Laughing in return, you smile, “Happy New Years Jungkook.”

Once you and Jungkook returned to the cabin, you were met with several complaints from Hobi, “Finally! We’ve been freezing all night!” Hobi exclaimed the moment you two walked in, harshly grabbing the firewood from Jungkook’s hands. It wasn’t until he peeped your linked arms that everything began to make sense, “Ahhh,” he gives you two a toothy grin, “You guys, look who’ve finally confessed to one another,” he yells, catching the attention of everyone in the living room.

Suddenly the room is filled with several “finally’s” causing both of your mouths to slightly agape open. “What do you mean “finally” ?” you furrow your eyebrows, looking at Hobi for an explanation.

He scoffs, “Don’t act dense you two!” he laughs, “It was so obvious you two liked one another, you two were just too blind to see it yourselves,” he scolds both you and Jungkook by flicking your foreheads, “You just didn’t have to go confessing while all of us were freezing in here!”

Both you and Jungkook awkwardly laugh, a guilty look on one another’s face. “Well choo you two before I make you two clean everything up and babysit our friends!” Hobi makes a motion with his hands, and the two of you are quick to make your way upstairs into Jungkook’s room. Thankful that he didn’t punish the two of you.

Jungkook is quick to take off his puffy jacket, plopping himself onto the bed like a little kid, a loud breathy sigh following after. You stare at him for a moment, unsure of what to do, that is until you see him open his arms wide with a pout appearing on his face, “Come onnn,” he sings, “Let’s cuddle,” he shoots you a smile.

Playfully you roll your eyes before taking off your own jacket, plopping onto the spot next to him. Small feverish giggles escape your lips once he begins to give you tiny kisses all over, enveloping you in a hug so tight, it would’ve been impossible to ever doubt his feelings for you.

“Jungkook stop,” you laugh, the tickles he was now giving you making the sides of your stomach hurt, “Jung—” you attempt to push his hand away, face becoming red at just how much you were laughing, his own high-pitched laugh echoing across the walls of the room with you. From there he does a mixture of both tickling and kissing you, the two of you truly in your own world.

Soon though, your little game of tickles becomes a full on makeout session, not that you were complaining. Currently you lay under him with Jungkook leaning against you, using his arm that rested on the bed as support.

Slowly he slips his tongue into your mouth, gentle but demanding, nothing less than pure love behind the kiss. “Jungkooook,” you quietly whine once he begins to move onto your neck, every suckle lasting a little longer than the last. His hand interlocks with yours as he continues, you’re hand subconsciously playing with his hair from behind, making small twirls with the brown wavy locks of hair.

“I love youuu,” he cooes, a certain gleam to his eyes. Soon enough, his fingers were teasingly playing with the waistband of your leggings. And God, were you dripping. “Can I?” he innocently looks at you, licking his lips in the process. You’d be crazy to say no.

Nodding your head yes, he nudges your legs apart and begins to pull off the cotton fabric from your legs. You help him along the way, desperate to receive your own pleasure.

Teasingly, he swipes his index finger over the fabric of your underwear, continuing to pepper you with warm kisses on the underside of your jaw. The grip you had on his hair became tighter with every swipe, “Aren’t you wet?” he slyly chuckles, rubbing small circles with his placed finger.

“Stop teasing,” you whine, only causing him to muffle a laugh against your shoulder.

“I just wanna take my timeeeee,” he hums, placing a kiss to your cheek, “Can I take my time?” he pouts, only causing you to roll your eyes, agreeing nonetheless, “That’s my girl,” he whispers, pecking you on the lips before continuing, cupping your cheek with his … unoccupied … hand.

“God you’re beautiful,” he says staring at your pleasured expression, a result of the friction between his finger and your underwear becoming more intense.

“Jungkook,” your voice shakes, wanting needing him to do something before the muscles in your leg spasm any more.

“Shh shh not too loud,” he softly mumbles, because considering how drunk the boys’ were, any loud noise and you’d have someone idiotically stumbling into the room in order to find out whatever the noise was. Not wanting you to complain any more, he slips his finger under your underwear, pressing both his middle and index finger to the centerfold of your sex, “Look how wet you are,” he smirks, coaxing another moan from your lips.

Jungkook couldn’t lie, he’d envisioned this moment a couple of times before, but to have it becoming a reality was completely different than what he imagined. It was indeed better.

“I bet you’d love for me to take these off,” he teasingly pretends to pull down your panties, knowing exactly what he was doing.

“Please Jungkook,” you cry, how was it possible to already be on the verge of releasing when he hadn’t even done anything explicit yet? He begins to move his fingers up and down your clit, coating his fingers with your wetness, preparing to insert his fingers in your aching hole, “Please—” you attempt to whimper his name again, but his lips passionately kiss you before you get the chance to. It’s once he does that, that the energy in the room shifts, becoming one of playful teasingness to one of passion and love. It’s while he kisses you that he finally sinks his single finger into your pussy, your wetness helping him in gradually picking up the pace until soon enough he’s able to slip in another. Your moan being suppressed by the pressing of his lips against yours, softly nibbling on your lower lip.

“So fucking tight,” he mutters, the squelching sounds coming from your pussy bringing him a sense of pleasure, “Can’t wait to make love to you,” he whispers watching as your eyes lazily roll back, the sight being one he’d remember for a very long time.

“J—Just like that Jungkook,” you manage to stutter out, your arousal dripping in and out of your pussy as he continues with his motions. By now you feel his hardened member kneading against panties, his self-restraint holding on by a string. God, did he wanna fuck your brains out already. Had you been some kind of one night stand and he probably would already be doing so, but you, well you were different. You were his. And he was going to make sure you knew it to.

With his other hand he begins to slide his way under your shirt, caressing your breasts while fingering you, “Take off the shirt,” he mumbles while planting kisses on your neck, and you’re quick to obey, pulling the shirt over your head and uncaringly throwing it onto the floor.

By now you were dressed in only your underwear and bra, which to you seemed a bit unfair and so purposely you begin to play with the hem of his shirt, in hopes that he’d get the message. When he doesn’t, you momentarily stop him from kissing you any further, mumbling a tiny, “Mm take off your shirt,” causing him to let out a breathy laugh. He does as told, exposing the toned torso you’d find yourself frequently gawking over for in the past year. Because truly, his body proportions were insane.

Gently pulling him from his hair, you deepen the kiss by running your other hand across his bare back, the warm skin to skin touch providing another level of intimacy. “Let me eat you out,” he murmurs against your lips, waiting for a simple three letter word so that he can finally pull off your panties.

Instead you give him a small “MmHm,” with a small nod which in this case would suffice as he was sure you were too lost in your own world of pleasure to properly respond. Delicately he removes your underwear, parting your legs in between before lowering his head.

Without saying a word, he runs his finger against your slit, licking and sucking on the fluid that dripped from his finger. What. A. Fucking. Tease. “Jungkooook,” you whine like a brat, the heat you felt below almost unbearable at this point.

“What a pretty pussy,” he rasps, gives your clit a gentle kiss before suckling against it, his saliva mixing with your fluids. Immediately you feel a wave of pure bliss, your fingers slightly trembling at just how good the sudden sensation felt.

“Oh God Jungkook,” you needily whisper once he slips his finger back inside, pushing it deep into your core all while eating you out. Your breathy moans along with the sound of your wet pussy being toyed around with, fill the room. With your eyes half-open, you manage to look down at the sight of Jungkook licking through your folds, his messy hair covering most of his face until you use your hand to push it back, wanting to savor the view in front of you.

“Just look at you,” he groans, admiring the view of your back arched along with your thighs which slightly quivered at the flicks of his tongue, “All fucking mine, you got that?” he asks.

When you don’t respond, he inserts a second finger, catching your attention.

“Yes!” you cry at the sudden jolt of pleasure, his fingers scissoring inside of you, “I’m all yours,” you answer and to that he smirks, curling his fingers inside you. His ego at a level unthinkable. From there he continues to suck and slurp any remnants of your wetness, ignoring your warnings that you were about to orgasm.

It isn’t until he feels a quick rougher than usual tug to the hair followed with a gentle release that he knows you’ve came. Only then does he stop, quickly making his way to sweetly kiss you as you ride through your orgasm. You barely manage to kiss him back, too overwhelmed by orgasm he just brought down on you.

He cups your face once again, making out with you once again even if you were lazily kissing him back, “Jungkook,” you croak out, “Make love to me,” you dazedly whisper, recalling his words from earlier, and without a single word he begins to kiss you again, this time even more passionately (if that was possible) your words triggering a certain fire within him. And despite being in a post-orgasm state, you kiss him with just as much passion as he is doing to you.

By now the two of your hands’ were entangled with each others’ hair, Jungkook roughly pressing his clothed erection against the barity of your pussy. Releasing one of his hands from his hair, he smoothly travels down your back, removing the clasp of your bra with his hand. Deciding not to question his skills, you help further remove it until you’re only left completely nude. Your tits now on full display for him.

He soon begins to tenderly suck on your hardened nipples, one hand caressing the opposing tit whenever he was sucking on one, providing equal attention to both. You begin to play with the button of his black pants, desperately ready to have Jungkook completely inside you. Jungkook notices your lack of patience, deciding that just this time he’d give you what you want.

Pushing himself off you, he begins to unbutton his pants, your heart now beating out of excitement once you see the band of his black boxers. This was really happening. And though you’d seen Jungkook’s cock before, specifically with a woman having it wrapped inside her mouth, to see it this time around was definitely much more shocking than the first…. Was he always this big? The veins that run along his fair-colored cock only add to it’s intimidating appearance.

Pushing himself back on you, he sloppily kisses you all over, from your mouth to the side of your neck, slowly making his way downard. His cock teases the slit of your entrance, coaxing along the delicate folds of your pussy. Intertwining his hand with yours, he looks at you one last time, “You ready?” he breathes out.

Biting your lip, you slowly nod your head yes, his head then slowly pushing into your tight entrance, a groan coming from both of your lips, “God I fucking love you,” he breathily moans beside your ear.

“I love you too,” you whisper in return, his gaze never leaving yours as his cock tortuously enters you inch by inch, the grip you have on his hand tightening with every passing second, “Oh my god,” you whimper, his pre-cum along with your prior wetness making the push inside more bearable.

It isn’t until you’re completely filled up by his cock that he slowly begins to move. Each and every deep thrust garnerning both whines and mewls from you, “Fuck,” he moans, his voice raspy from pleasurable sensation he was feeling. Somehow he manages to continue to plaster kisses all over you, his hands tightly wrapped around your waist as he continues to grind his hips against yours, making nothing but love to you.

Your hot walls now take him with ease, the small pressure you had originally felt having slowly faded away. He keeps his thrusts at a moderate pace, wanting to savor the moment.

“J—Jungkook,” you cry out, feeling your second orgasm coming as you wrap your legs around his waist. He begins to pick up his pace, “Faster,” you moan, remembering that he was definitely okay with having rough sex, considering how many times you’d have to hear other woman moan just how harder they wanted back in the beginning of last year. Who said he couldn’t do the same for you?

“Faster?” he questions, a certain spark now in his eye, “You sure?” eagerly you nod your head yes, too lost in the idea of your possible orgasm to think of the repercussions of your answer. Because soon you find yourself getting completely fucked out, the pace of his thrust becoming almost uncomparable to the pace he was going before, this time not caring at all for rhythm. By now you're sure that your different number of cries and moans could be heard from downstairs, but honestly you could give less of a fuck.

The sound of your skin slapping with his echo against the wooden walls, your eyes screwing shut as you felt your high come. His rapid thrust continuing as he fucks you into oblivion, “Just look at you, creaming on my fucking cock,” he groans, by now sweat was forming on the creases of his forehead, “and to think I get to have you like this all to myself, every single day,” he chuckles, the tight feeling in his abdomen signalling to him that his own release was coming.

“Cum in me Jungkook,” you whine, and with that he does, his white milky cum coating your walls from the inside and out. He admires the view in front of him, the sight of you completely fucked out with his cum dripping from the entrance of your pussy, wondering how he got so lucky.

Out of breath, the two of you cuddle with one another, your eyes half closed, ready to knock out at any moment. But before you do, Jungkook peppers one last kiss onto your cheek, mumbling a final “I love you,” ready for the new memories this year would bring for the two of you.

a/n : ahhhhhh! finally finished with my finals so i was able to finally get this done! for some reason i sorta got attached to this couple, i think it’s because we got to see literally every month of their forming relationship so i just ended up really loving the dynamic between the two lmao. butttt all stories must come to an end :( and i’m very happy with how this story came out, but who knows maybe we’ll this couple again in the future. anywayssss like, reblog, comment, message me an anon or even directly! anything is appreciated (I swear im not a mean person) and ill see yall next time! 💞

mini taglist: @ggukkieland @unicornbabylover

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phantompearlsalt · 4 years ago

Text

Sour Cherry, Chapter 15

We’re taking a break from the smut this week, folks! This update I bring you more soft Kuvira, specifically moments where our favorite girl needs some extra loving. We don’t see Kuvira as feeling much of anything in the show but I think we can all imagine she feels deeply and intensely so...that’s what this is kind of. She just has someone to love on her and reassure her ❤️ As always, I love to read your comments so feel free to drop some on AO3 or leave me some messages in my inbox! LOVE Y’ALL!

Ba Sing Se

It’s not unlike Kuvira to fall asleep at her desk these days.

You’ve been in the Earth Kingdom capital for some time now, and although the worst of the violence has since subsided, the imminent work of bureaucratization poses an overwhelming task.

There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that Kuvira will fully restore Ba Sing Se to its former glory — even improve it. Given Suyin’s decision to remain complacent in the face of such chaos, Kuvira symbolized the steady hand that would guide a city in disarray into an era of peace and unity.

From the moment she took it upon herself to oversee this venture, she proved time and time again that few people—if any—could assume such an undertaking and carry it to completion. She managed to instill a persistent flame of hope in everyone, even beyond her army. There was a reason her popularity grew so rapidly among the local residents.

She was the beacon of light no one had expected to find but now relied on as a means of getting through this period of such great distress.

But at the end of the day, Kuvira is still human.

Despite having initiated a new kind of relationship with her, you’re ashamed to say that sometimes even you forget this simple fact. Kuvira is many things: above all else, she is a strategist. Of course, this mentality shapes every move and decision she makes in Ba Sing Se and this extends far beyond politics.

She’s methodical in her approach to life, modulating her demeanor in a way that allows her to easily adapt to constantly shifting environments, people, and interactions. In doing so, she often becomes a force of pure energy, steady and obstinate. After all, one doesn’t become the Great Uniter by projecting any degree of weakness. The Earth Kingdom needed somebody who embodied strength, fearlessness, and hope. They needed to reclaim that sense of certainty that had been shattered the moment all structure—however precarious it was—vanished upon the Earth Queen’s death.

So when you walk into your makeshift quarters, lit up only by the dwindling flame of her desk lantern, it’s a sharp reminder that even Kuvira reaches her limits.

You walk over to her slowly, paying extra attention to the weight of your feet against the floor. When you reach her, you kneel down and carefully drift your fingers towards her arm. She has them folded beneath her cheek, her lips parted just enough for a faint whistle to travel between her teeth. You touch Kuvira’s shoulder and stay still, not wanting to rouse her from slumber too brusquely.

She sniffles once and the sound makes something in your chest twinge so you press your fingertips into her uniform just enough for Kuvira to feel the pressure of your hand more surely. “Kuvira,” you whisper. “It’s me.”

Upon hearing your voice, her eyelids snap open and even through the dusty orange glow of the room you can see just how bleary-eyed she looks. You wonder if anyone has ever seen her like this, walls down and vulnerable, but the answer comes to you before you dwell on it too long.

“I’m sorry,” she says, flattening out her back so she’s leaning into her chair. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me…”

“I think I do,” you respond, inching forward until your lips softly press against her cheekbone. “Come on, let’s get you out of this stuff.”

Never having been the recipient of such doting, it takes Kuvira a few moments to respond but she eventually stands and walks over to your shared bed. You pull away the sheets of metal along her shoulders and forearms, carefully setting them aside while Kuvira pushes the breastplate off her torso and lets it clatter to the ground.

Once she’s cloaked only in her dark green uniform, she collapses onto the bed and looks just about ready to pass out. There’s one more thing left for you to do though.

You quickly kiss the crown of her head before crawling onto the mattress and finding a position along her back, your knees positioned around her hips. Kuvira’s braid is barely a braid anymore, mostly a disheveled rope of hair with some vague semblance of pleated folds.

You make quick work of it, dragging your fingers through the thick strands and undoing the knots you encounter. Once it feels loose and heavy, you reach for the brush on your nightstand and start guiding it from the roots to the tips along her back.

It’s a choreography you unknowingly crafted at some point when you could finally call Kuvira your lover but it’s one that you fall into so easily it’s as though you learned it another lifetime. Your fingers know exactly how to glide through the silk-like texture of her hair, how to hold the contours of the brush so your movements stay slow and gentle. Kuvira lets herself fall against your palm and you imagine this might be how a moonflower preens beneath the glow of a stainless night sky.

You aren’t sure how long you brush her hair but eventually her breathing evens out again and can’t tell if she’s fallen asleep. She starts inching forward and it’s sufficient indication that you’ve done your part.

With a loving smile, you set the brush aside and guide her onto the pillow. Leaning down, you let your lips hover over her temple before finally pressing them against the soft skin. Though you attribute it to a trick of the light, you fall asleep to the image of Kuvira’s cheek twitching against your touch.

---

Republic City

In the context of all that was to come, three years seemed like such an insignificant period of time. There was so much left to do to consummate the burgeoning Empire. The vast majority of the former Earth Kingdom now fell under Kuvira’s rule but there was still the matter of Zaofu. The United Republic of Nations.

Although Kuvira had successfully wrested the authority to rule from the young prince, the Earth Empire army knew it was only the beginning of a much larger mission. The past three years hadn’t been easy by any means but there was something unusually intimidating about annexing Zaofu and the United Republic.

Perhaps because it felt much more personal. Of course, you felt the connection of a common background with all Earth Kingdom inhabitants but Zaofu was your home. You grew up there...Spirits, you probably still had loved ones there.

And Republic City? Maybe it was the way people and communities hailed from all nations and found ways to live in relative peace after the horrific events led by Amon and then Unalaq. But even then, all of it seemed precarious when compared to the vision Kuvira was putting forth.

As you drive away from the Four Elements hotel, Kuvira’s hand wrapped tightly around yours, you think back to Zaofu once more but this time you aren’t met with images of your old library or the bright green fields that lay beyond the metal walls.

No, you think of Suyin. She was the last person Kuvira spoke to before you left Republic City. You had waited in the shadows of the hotel patio after the failed coronation, hoping it would shroud you enough to avoid being seen by any of the world leaders.

Just when you were about to make your way upstairs Kuvira stepped out of the elevator, flanked by her guards. “Everything has been packed,” she said coldly. “We’re leaving. Immediately.”

She didn’t wait for you to respond, instead charging forward without a second glance at her surroundings. The interaction left you stunned before you finally came to your senses and scurried close behind her.

The first few seconds in the Satomobile were almost tangibly uncomfortable. You wanted to ask how she was doing, to soothe whatever venom Suyin had undoubtedly said. There was a dark shadow cast over Kuvira’s face, one that you hadn’t seen since you first left Zaofu all those years ago.

Instead you stayed quiet, folding your hands over your lap and looking at the cityscape zooming by. Eventually, Kuvira’s gloved hand slid over yours, twisting between your fingers until your palms met in that familiar embrace you could distinguish even without first knowing it was her.

As the train comes back into view, you squeeze Kuvira’s hand, hoping the sentiment translates all the same despite your inability to verbalize them. The tension in her body doesn’t loosen up but she closes her eyes momentarily and lets out a slow, even breath through her nose.

For now, it’s all you can ask for.

---

The State of Yi

The meeting with Yi’s governor ended poorly. Even without Kuvira’s report, the smattering of ink dripping from the metal table was indication enough.

After exchanging a few curt words with the young airbending boy, she makes her way back into the train and calls an impromptu Inner Circle meeting. Bolin reluctantly leaves Opal’s side while Baatar joins without hesitation.

The conversation is awkward at best, deeply uncomfortable above all else. Kuvira keeps it together quite well for someone who had been shunned away mere moments ago but you’re certain no one else can see the fire of indignation in her eyes.

“There has to be another way to help them, right?” Bolin insists. “Can’t we just stay another day? If we bring Opal and Kai on board, I bet we could come up with another plan to help these people.”

“You more than anyone should know we cannot afford to waste our time on fruitless negotiations,” Kuvira snaps. “I will not sacrifice the wellbeing of our fellow citizens who are willing to accept our aid for a single governor who refuses to acknowledge the suffering of his people.”

Varrick, Bolin, and Baatar end up falling into a chaotic exchange of potential solutions that very quickly wears Kuvira’s patience thin.

“Enough!” she commands. You watch in silence as everyone freezes and slowly submits to her exasperation. “I have made myself clear. We will wait one day — not an hour earlier or later. If the Governor would rather see his people perish, I will not be held responsible. This meeting is adjourned and I expect no one to leave this train unless expressly informed to do so.”

Everyone nods and promptly makes their way out of the room. You make a move to join them but wait for everyone to get ahead first before sliding the door closed and pivoting back towards Kuvira.

She’s silently fuming — a vein sticks out from over her collar and her hands are woven tightly together behind her back. You imagine she might look composed to others who don’t notice those details but you’ve learned to see past the iron facade she forges around herself.

You fold your hands over Kuvira’s and feel the tension her fists carry, the way it courses all along her arms and bleeds into the rest of her body. Kuvira isn’t known for being a very relaxed person — she’s all hard lines and perfect posture, angled features and unyielding brow.

But this rigidity is different because it’s fueled by ire. Kuvira doesn’t take refusal well and with most of the Empire united, the Governor’s reluctance proves especially inconvenient.

However, she softens into your touch and you start to see her for what she really is, for what she only allows you to see. A woman on the brink of burnout. A leader nonetheless, so close to securing all she has worked towards, but which she has sacrificed too much to achieve.

She unfolds her hands and weaves her fingers into yours, letting her shoulders drop just enough for you to know this is helping to some extent.

And even though it lasts no more than a minute, because suddenly you’re interrupted by the voices of her guards requesting her immediate presence, when she looks at you there’s a softness along the corners of her eyes that hadn’t been there before.

---

Zaofu

The army is stationed immediately outside the Zaofu metal domes. Kuvira had left with Bolin and Baatar moments ago to meet with Suyin and hopefully come to an agreement that would eliminate the need for outright combat.

You insisted on joining her, afraid of what she might be subjected to and unable to accept that potential reality. You never knew the Beifong matriarch to resort to violent tactics but her response to Kuvira’s actions led you to believe anything was possible at this point.

Nevertheless, Kuvira had none of it. “I’ll be with Bolin and Baatar — I’ll be safe. I know Suyin. She knows better than to try anything of that nature with our army posted just outside her gates. I promise you I’ll return, unharmed,” she reassured, kissing you once before making her way outside.

You pressed your hands against the window, watching as the three of them grew into small green dots that eventually disappeared past the metal lotus structures. Kuvira was smart, you didn’t doubt that. She could absolutely hold her own. Yet despite her attempts to sway you otherwise, you still found it difficult to accept that Suyin wouldn’t try anything.

So you paced back and forth, sitting and standing, fiddling with your hands and carelessly flipping through papers on your desk until you heard guards murmuring and saw Kuvira’s silhouette making its way toward the tent.

She returns with Bolin and Baatar at her side again and you notice the former appears rather grim. Nevertheless, you’re instantly hit with the searing desire to throw yourself around her, to feel the heat of her blood beneath her skin and the bends of muscle and bone pressing against yours.

She’s here. Obviously she’s okay. But you can’t shake the need to confirm it by feeling her and knowing she’s uninjured.

Bolin starts talking, a nervous edge in every word, asking too many questions that ultimately set Kuvira off. She towers over Bolin, questioning his loyalty to the Empire, to her, and you stand in your corner silently. Baatar watches with an almost smug look on his face and it makes you scowl.

“Both of you are dismissed,” Kuvira says when she steps back. Still thoroughly shaken by the encounter, Bolin stays frozen for a moment before Baatar coughs and they step out of the tent in tense silence.

Kuvira sits down and leans forward so her fingers press against her temples. She sighs frustratedly and tightens her jaw. Even with all that transpired in the past ten minutes, that instinct to hold her close and just feel her doesn’t waver but you know better than to cave into it right now.

She does look up at you and her face has grown haggard with frustration in the span of seconds. It startles you how easily she conceals this side of herself, doing so in a manner that seems so effortless that she has everyone convinced that she really is impenetrable.

Right now, she lets the veneer crumble until all that’s left is an expression so openly cumbered with fatigue it seems to draw you in with arms of its own, tugging you forward until you’re at Kuvira’s side and she’s still looking up at you.

Every possible gesture seems inappropriate. What could you tell her that would offer that reassurance she needs? How can you be sure that’s what she needs at all? She’s being faced with the increasingly likely reality of using brute force to take that which once served as her home.

You don’t know when Kuvira’s cheek presses into your belly but when it does, your arms wrap around her head of their own accord.

Kuvira’s body speaks to yours in a language of gentle touches and unspoken pleas. Naturally, you have come to understand the meaning of each movement and your body responds as such. You hold her close to your body, feeling her head dip into the soft flesh, and smooth her hair over her scalp.

You aren’t sure what’s going to happen next. The Avatar is still gone. Despite Kuvira’s threat, you know Suyin will not acquiesce and there is still the possibility that she will try something horrible to stop Kuvira. And even if you manage to successfully take Zaofu for the Empire, that leaves Republic City.

But with Kuvira’s head cradled in your arms, her cheek dipping into your torso, all of that stops meaning something if only for a moment. Right now you have each other. Most importantly, Kuvira has you. And you’ll figure everything out as you go.

#sour cherry #kuvira/reader #kuvira x reader #kuvira legend of korra #kuvira lok #avatar lok #x reader #reader insert #soft #fluff #soft kuvira #anywayssssss I just wanna love n comfort her ugh

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asian-hero · 4 years ago

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i was wondering if i could do a mina x fem!reader where the reader is pretty butch and is friends with mainly the guys; however all of them still think that she likes guys, so they are all trying to set up todoroki (who has no clue on what the guys are doing) with her, until one day they see them talking in a cafe and they think that they’re actually together, until one of them sees/hears her gushing over mina with big brother todoroki paying for her coffee because f endeavor’s credit card ❤️❤️

A/N: I’m glad that the entire fandom collectively agrees that Todoroki would absolutely steal his father’s credit card to buy the dumbest things

Maybe I’ll write a part two where the reader tells Mina how she feels

Summary: The guys of 1-A, while they absolutely owned your heart and you’d do anything for them, all collectively shared a total of three brain cells, and most of the time it was either Bakugou or Iida who held them. So, while you thought it was clear that there was a certain pink haired girl you were crushing on, it somehow got lost in translation, and instead you were set up with a red and white haired boy instead.

They were so close.

Words: 1,970

Ever since you were little, you always found yourself gravitating towards your male classmates versus your female ones. It wasn’t as if you had anything against the girls in your classes, no, it was quite the opposite, in fact. You were just so enamored by them that it often rendered you speechless, so instead of trying to overcome your slight fear of a woman’s rejection, you instead sought comfort with the male students, and then it just became natural for you to gravitate towards them instead.

By the time you had enrolled in U.A. practically nothing had changed, you were the same girl-avoiding woman you had been growing up, but at least now you knew why you were so infatuated, yet so afraid. On your first day in class 1-A, you immediately found yourself drawn to a nerdy green-haired boy and the seemingly strict glasses wearing kid. It only took a few minutes for you to become fast friends with the two of them, as you and Midoriya found yourself geeking over pro heroes and reading his journal with all of their stats. Iida, while not quite sure how to react to having two extreme pro hero fans, merely watched as you and Midoriya talked a mile a minute about every hero on the scene currently, who your favorites were, and who’s quirk you’d like to switch with for a day. It also didn’t take long for you to be introduced to Uraraka Ochako, though it took much longer for the two of you to become friends. Not because she was hard to get along with, but because she was just so cute that you were having a hard time forming any coherent sentences. You did get past it, eventually, but the two of you knew that you weren’t as close as you and the other two boys.

As you had progressed in your class, gaining more control over your quirk, you also had progressed in terms of how many friends you had gained as well. Shortly after the first week of class, you had somehow managed to be caught in Kaminari, Sero, and Kirishima’s little group, though you mostly acted as their mom and made sure that the three of them didn’t end up of the receiving end of a certain blonde-haired porcupine’s explosive quirk.

Shouji, Ojiro, Tokoyami, and Sato were also quick friends of yours as well. Though you didn’t hang out with them much, you always knew that you were welcome to hang out with them and just have a relaxing time. Sato had even baked you a few things as the two of you got closer, and now you were currently his sole taste tester when it came to baked goods.

You did try to befriend Mineta, but quite honestly, you’d rather take Bakugou’s anger issues and insults over the tiny boys perverted stares and attempts to touch you. Thankfully, Bakugou also recognized this as an issue for you, and even though he’d deny it to his dying day, he’d make sure that the perverted boy was never within six feet of you.

The most surprising friend you’d made, and the closest one you had, was the one and only Todoroki Shouto. How the two of you clicked was a mystery to the both of you. With his cold, aloof attitude at the beginning of the school year, and your rather boisterous personality, the two of you had formed some sort of mutual agreement to never speak to one another, both because Todoroki didn’t have the mindset of wanting to make friends, and you didn’t have the mental capacity and patience to deal with that boy without smacking him. However, shortly after the sports festival, he found himself sitting near Midoriya, formerly his only friend, which also meant that he was sitting close to you as well. After a few weeks of awkward silence between the two of you, you finally tried to start a conversation, hoping that your love for pro heroes and maternal personality would make him feel more at ease with you. While it worked to an extent, what really drove Todoroki to becoming your best friend was when you had accidentally let it slip that you didn’t really care for Endeavor, and before you could even attempt to take back what you said, Shouto told you he felt the same, and soon after the two of you became what seemed like the anti-Endeavor club. Instead of the two of you feeling awkward during lunch, you two had actually found yourself ignoring the rest of the group unintentionally, instead lost in your own conversation.

It was also safe to say that you did have relationships with the girls of 1-A as well, though they were more superficial than the ones that you’d made with the boys. You always made sure to exchange pleasantries with them in the morning, and you made it clear that if any of them needed someone to talk to, they could always reach out to you. Other than that, though, your friendships with them weren’t quite as deep as they were with the boys.

This didn’t stop them from caring about you, though. Even though you never hung out with them, they always made sure to pay close attention to you and your needs, in case you ever needed them.

So, it truly couldn’t be helped that, upon further inspection, they had come to the conclusion that, because you spent so much time with him, you were absolutely, one hundred percent without a doubt, in love with Todoroki.

It seemed obvious to them, as why would you spend so much time with the boy if you didn’t feel anything for him. You were always smiling around him, and you were one of the only people in the class who could get him to laugh and smile like a regular teenager. They didn’t even think that he could do that! So, in order to be the perfect wingwoman for you, Ashido, Uraraka, and Hagakure decided to plant the seed into some of the boys’ head, more specifically, Midoriya, Kaminari, and Kirishima’s heads. While the first had acted as he normally does, with a flustered look on his face, the other two had some of the most devious smiles you had ever seen.

Not long after, all of the boys, minus Todoroki, had been let in on your little “crush,” and they decided to hatch a plan to get the two of you together.

They weren’t subtle by any means, in fact, if you and Todoroki had more than one braincell shared by the two of you at any given point, you both probably would’ve recognized what your classmates were up to. Unfortunately for the both of you, while you were book smart, you were rather dense when it came to social cues, so every obvious attempt made by the other boys went over your head. You did start to pick up on certain things though, like how whenever there was a partner project, everyone would automatically push you towards Todoroki, saying that they already have a partner. Or when the two of you were sitting together at lunch, Midoriya, Iida, and Uraraka “conveniently” forgot to tell you that they weren’t able to sit with you, leaving you and Todoroki to eat by yourselves, not that you minded.

The most obvious way that the boys attempted to get you two together was whenever you all had hero training, whether it be in rescue or media, if there was a way that they could get you partnered together, then you better believe that was what they were planning.

Around the tenth time the boys had tried to set you up once again, only to fail miserably, as the two of you genuinely enjoyed each other’s company, and were about as smart as a brick. They were all so close to pulling out their hair, and before they could just call it like it was, Kirishima was the “voice of reason:”

“Those two already hang out a lot as is, right? Maybe they’re dating but they’re hiding it from us, so we should see if we can tail them,”

While most of the boys were agreeing to tail the two of you, with Iida going purely to put an end to any chaos they could cause, they missed the way you were wistfully sighing, and the way that Todoroki was trying to hold back his laughter at your love sick attitude. They also missed the way his eyes lit up with mischief as a certain pink haired girl walked by, waving at the two of you while holding back her pleased grin. Or how you immediately punched his shoulder to get him to stop from doing anything that would embarrass you more.

So, once school had let out, Kaminari, Kirishima, Midoriya, Sero, and Iida had followed closely behind you and Todoroki, hoping that the two of you would do something more interesting than just walking back to the dorms.

Luckily for them, the two of you had planned to head to one of your favorite cafes, just a little ways away from the campus. Blissfully unaware of the eyes glaring holes into the backs of your heads, you carried a pleasant conversation, talking about the training from today, and how both of you thought the other could improve. As you headed into the cafe, the stalkers you had acquired waited a couple of seconds before going in after the two of you, hoping that you two would keep being ignorant of your surroundings, for at least a few more minutes.

They couldn’t help but be amazed at the sight in front of them: with your arm wrapped securely around his, waiting in line as you pointed out all of the options you thought he’d like. Once the two of you were up to order, Todoroki had ordered for the both of you, and even paid with a shiny credit card that they were sure wasn’t his. Kirishima thought it was rather manly of him, whereas Kaminari was impressed that Todoroki could be “suave.” As the two of you sat down at one of the tables, they were starting to believe in Kirishima’s little theory before they heard you talking about someone else:

“Did you see how cool Mina looked during training today?” You sighed, resting your face against your palm as you stared off to the side.

“‘Mina?’” He teased, sipping on his drink and enjoying the way you seemed to grow embarrassed, “Since when were you two on a first name basis?”

You hid your face in between your hands, mumbling out a quiet “shut up.” He couldn’t help but laugh, leaning in to flick your head.

“You should just tell her you like her, I don’t see the harm from doing so,”

Your head shot straight up, sending a non-threatening glare towards the boy in front of you, “I can think of so many things that could go wrong. One: she could not like me, and then tell the rest of the girls in the class and get them all to hate me,” You took a minute to shove two fingers into his face, “Or two: she could just not like girls in general, and I could make her so uncomfortable that she’ll never want to see me again.”

“You are the most dramatic person I’ve ever met,”

“Well clearly you’ve never met yourself.”

As you both continued to bicker back and forth about your huge crush on the pink girl, the four boys, who were sitting right behind your table, found themselves dumbfounded. Kaminari turned towards the rest of the group, a puzzled look on his face.

“So, she doesn’t like Todoroki?”

#bnha #mha #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bnha imagines #mha imagines #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #mina ashido #ashido mina #mina x reader #ashido mina x reader #ashido x reader #mina ashido x reader

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abraxos-is-toothless · 4 years ago

Text

Where’s the Baby?

So I finally posted a part 2 to Coming Home. I have linked it, if you missed it. Though you probably did as I posted it a while ago.

I might work on more parts to this if you like it or if there’s something you’d like to see.☺️

—————

Stepping through the door to the townhouse brought Azriel a different sense of comfort and happiness than walking through the door of his and Elain’s cottage, despite that though, he still had to pay certain people a lesson in the training room. He had Luka in his arms as they rounded the corner to the sitting room. It was difficult to let his baby go ever since he’d returned home. Feyre and Rhys, were snuggled together on the sofa listening to whatever nonsense Cassian was spouting from where he was perched on the arm of Nesta’s chair while she read, unbothered by her mate’s bullshit. Mor was drinking a glass of wine, no surprise there, on the floor as she annoyed Amren, who was trying to put together yet another puzzle.

Mor squealed when she saw them in the doorway, even though Azriel knew she had scented them the minute they got within a few feet of the house, and was instantly making a grabby motion for Luka. He reluctantly handed him over after placing a quick kiss to the boy’s cheek, listening to his delighted giggles. Turning to his High Lord and Lady he gave a small nod and moved to stand behind them.

Cassian was clearly ecstatic to have him home, grinning from ear to ear as he asked “Care for a drink, dear brother. Rhysie just got a new batch in and I can vouch that it tastes wonderful.”

Nesta, without taking her eyes off of her book, reached over to pat Cass’ thigh. “That my love, is because you’ve drunk a whole bottle every night since he bought it. If you do so again tonight, you’ll be sleeping outside.”

His brother quickly shut his mouth, pouting as he stared wistfully at his nearly empty glass of liquor. Azriel couldn’t help the roll of his eyes.

“I’ll do a taster in a moment Cass, but first, there’s just one thing I need to do.” As soon as the last word left his mouth he banged the High Lord and Lady’s head together.

“Azriel!” his wife shouted. She’d gone slightly red in the cheeks and was looking at him sternly. He would deal with that scolding later, she was beautiful when she was angry and could always be soothed by his clever hands and tongue, before she was begging for something bigger.

Cassian was howling with laughter and nearly fell off of the chair, Mor had an astonished look on her face, Amren was smirking and Nesta had finally put down her book. It was difficult for Nes to be interested in much, so he felt quite proud in grabbing her attention. Meanwhile there were two sets of eyes glaring up at him.

Rhys was the first to recover, healing Feyre before himself as he said, “What the fuck was that for Az?”

“That was for sending me away on a ridiculously long mission and making me miss my son’s first steps.” His High Lord turned sheepish and guilty then, as if he had known already what he had caused and had most likely been punishing himself since. “As for you,” he pointed an accusing finger at Feyre “you know exactly what you did.” He said it with a blush, trying to push away the thoughts of how sinful Elain had looked in those leggings.

The High Lady of the Night Court just gave him a coy smile, and turned back to watch as her nephew pulled on Auntie Mor’s hair.

“You both owe me a few hours in the training room as payment, no holds barred.” He wouldn’t ever use even half of his full power against his family, but he felt some kind of sick satisfaction to watch as they gulped. He turned away from them then and began walking back over to his wife, but just before he got to her side, there was a quiet beat of tiny wings and Azriel turned in time to see his son disappear into shadows.

It took a few seconds to register what had happened but then Elain let out a small sob, calling out to Luka, and kicking everyone into action. Feyre began winnowing through each room of the townhouse, Rhys reached out with a tendril of power searching for any little thing and Az had stepped into his own shadows to search, while the rest searched all of the little nooks and crannies. When he stepped back out, everyone was back in the same room and he pulled Elain into his chest as Mor gravely shook her head at him.

“His shadows must be different to mine, I can’t see him anywhere.” Elain sobbed harder at that and so he just squeezed her tighter.

Rhys held a pained look on his face as the girls gathered their coats, planning on checking the gardens. “I can scent him but there’s no specific place, and I can hear muddled thoughts that don’t make any sense at all. It’s almost like he’s masking himself.”

Nesta spoke to her sister now, but he wasn’t totally sure his wife was paying any attention. “You’ve taken him to the gardens since he was born El, he might have gone somewhere he knew best and felt most comfortable. We’ll find him.”

Just before anyone could make it even three steps to the door, there was snap in the air and there were vague shadows gathering before Cassian was yelling out in pain. They all turned to the commander abruptly, stunned silently at what they saw. Luka was now sat atop his brother’s shoulders, pulling on fistfuls of long dark locks as he squealed “go’choo ass!” followed by a fit of giggles as Cassian held onto his chubby little legs. Elain let out a relieved breath, much like the rest of them, and proceed to translate baby talk at their confused faces.

“He says ‘got you, Cass!’ I think someone has been in the room too much while you boys have been discussing sneak attacks and strategy.”

Cassian finally mastered his astonishment at being bested by a child and pulled his nephew down from his shoulders and held the boy up in front of him. “Got me huh? That was quite a clever trick, little one, so much like your daddy.” And then he threw him up in the air, before taking him off to the kitchen, finding him his favourite soft biscuits no doubt. Cassian missed the awed look Nesta gave him as he left.

Azriel turned to Elain as the rest soon followed the sound of blabbering, baby and soldier alike, and cupped her face in his palms.

“Thank you my love, for blessing me with such a mischievous little boy. There’s never a dull moment with you, dearest.”

If he’d been drinking during her next words, he surely would have choked.

“I want another one.” She said it as if she’d been thinking on it for a while, and with a hint of nervousness, like she was scared he would say no.

“Are you sure? Luka is only just nearing a year old Ellie.”

“But girls are much easier. A sister may calm him down, and even give him a sense of responsibility as he grows older.” His wife smirked slyly at him before continuing, “Besides Feyre said they’d watch him tonight, to give us some alone time since you were gone so long.”

He leaned in and nipped at the point of her ear and whispered, “Naughty little temptress.”

He felt the shivers wrack through her body as he grabbed her hips and winnowed them home faster than he ever thought he had.

—————

Want more parts of there’s something you wan to see? Just let me know and I’ll do my best to get them out:))

ags: @starlitfangirl @starsauroras @drunken-starz @myfriendscallmeraba @thesirenwashere @empress-sei @elrielllll @stars-falling @cirieael @verifiefangirl @theshadowsinger-and-thefawn @fancyclodpaintercookie @acourtofterrasenandvelaris @silver-flames @queen-of-glass @bamchickawowow @empress-ofbloodshed @sleeping-and-books @b00kworm @kvi-arts @rhysandhlcor @tswaney17 @awkward-avocado-s @judexcardanxgreenbriar @junkiejosten10 @mu-si-ca-l @agem10 @harmonyindark245 @slightly-sane-fangirl @tanaquilpriscilla @bryaxisthefaceofnightmares

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rigelmejo · 3 years ago

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6/28 I DID A LOT

WOOH

I talked in chinese today! For around a half hour!! AHHHHHHHH

ANYWAY

AHHHHHHH

IM SO HAPPY I WAS UNDERSTANDABLE AHHGGHGSIUSJAJEJDJEEJIE

So first of all I practiced with Google translate today beforehand (lol yes machine translate isn’t perfect). I clicked the app, clicked transcribe, spoke in chinese then saw if the English translation it was producing was close enough to what I was trying to mean to say. (Also I learned chinese transcribe will need to process for a few moments if you play Chinese audio like from a podcast because at first it will give you a sucky transcription lol and then correct itself). Anyway so I did that and quickly learned: Google translate WILL fucking think I am speaking sentences when I’ve only said a couple words of my sentence because I pause “too long” so when I tried thinking of tones or grammar I spoke too fucking slow for the app so BAM I had to speak faster for the app just to comprehend me. So I did not practice Thinking about how the fuck to say things right much, just how to recall words on a fucking speed time limit lol. So uh that was an experience. I’ll definitely say that my 学习普通话 app is way better for me actually practicing pronunciation with any success, because Google just will NOT tolerate me speaking slowly goddamn.

Anyway so then tonight I spoke with my language partner. Well

WELL

good news: I was understood, I was told I sound pretty standard and they can tell I maybe imitate some peoples phrases and words from shows I watch (which in this case is a compliment since they said weeks ago when I asked how they improved their standard mandarin accent for a speech competition that’s what They did and the kind of shadowing they suggested I try doing more for accent work).

My grammar and word choice was understandable (I KNOW I wasn’t perfect and there were fucking mistakes Especially just notable spots where I forgot common words and tried to talk Circles around those words to describe them since I know Enough words to kind of “explain around” and come up with a more word description of a simple word I forgot sometimes but fuck is it probably awkward to listen to. Like I forgot “back then/at that time” so I said “the time when I was in high school” or “in high school I..” just because I couldn’t say “that time” on the spot, also fucking I forgot how to say “also” and “or” in certain ways and just had to figure out a different way to make my point like “this is like that” or “not the same” ToT).

Anyway regardless it’s a real big accomplishment to me. Reasons being: 1. I’ve never talked in chinese that long straight or to someone else communicating, or telling stories about my life and asking questions and actually testing my fucking communication abilities past small talk. Even talking alone to myself it’s just phrases or small situations where if I forget a word I just stop, so this was huge for me. 2. I did not have time to think about tones period while talking today with my language partner so like being comprehensible is!!!! GREAT. Considering I tried speaking to a language partner simple common word tone pair examples or very simple small talk at 5 months into learning and remember being incomprehensible like 50% of the time. Versus me now a little under 2 years in so being able to simply not be constantly thinking about tones and still know I might be understood (and in this specific case was understood) is nice to know. 3. I did better at winging vocabulary and talking my way around words I didn’t know than i thought I could. 4. REALLY simply tone and grammar being comprehensible is blowing my mind on its own - I know there were many mistakes (I personally could hear my 3rd tone not always sounding right to my own ear, and know I heard a few grammar mistakes I heard after I’d made my point lol). But just being comprehensible enough for someone understand my points even if I made those mistakes was really cool. 5. I’m hoping this means all the things I’ve been doing lately: the Listening Reading, the watching shows with English subs this month while repeating some of the Chinese lines to myself, listening to audiobooks and repeating many of the lines to myself, and the weekly language exchange I’ve been doing, have all been helping to some degree. Improving production skills is not something I’ve tried studying before and so basically all that I’m doing is flailing around trying stuff and hoping something is useful. It’s nice to see something must be if I’ve managed this.

Anyway it was just very very cool to be understandable. ;-; At this time last year I was absolutely assuming it would take years to get even a little understandable. Also for now idk this proved to me to maybe just stick to shadowing for a while and Not specifically thinking of tones While actively speaking. For a while I thought of them actively which made me clearer and I think was important and helped, at this point currently I think sometimes i overthink and trying to speak from memory/more shadowing practice might help it become a bit more automatic? And then I can go back to some corrective work where I’m messing up specifically or haven’t internalized certain words/phrases tones maybe.

—

IN OTHER NEWS

today I ALSO played 4 hours of Kingdom Hearts II in Japanese WHICH WAS AN EXPERIENCE

AN EXPERIENCE IVE NEVER HAD BEFORE LIKE FUCKING THIS

So 1. EONS easier than last time I studied Japanese. For context at 2-2.5 years into studying Japanese I played the opening of KH2. I remember it was brutal, I used my phone constantly to look up words, but I got through like the opening portion to the first save point after the haunted mansion (so like is that day 2? Basically what’s usually .5-1 hour of play or less that took me a few hours back then). It was doable, kinda brutal, but also I have kh2 near to my heart so I could play it without reading when I felt drained. Now?? I had over a year break from Japanese study (maybe 2-3 years break idk). I reviewed Japanese in I think March-April 2021 this year. April/May to June (now) I’ve been studying some new material. The biggest new material being some more Nukemarine memrise decks, and Clozemaster as of this month. So like... this Eons of improvement is after a long ass gap of no study, a cram review, and some just beyond last-times-progress kind of new study. It is a HUGE difference to me in how it feels.

I did not use a dictionary at all this time. I did not play slow either, I read at a speed much more bearable, I comprehended most sentences totally (understanding words because of a mix of knowing most words, knowing the context for the words since I know KH2 WELL, knowing Hanzi from chinese, and thanks to Clozemaster of all things feeling a lot better/quicker with Japanese grammar comprehension), and a few sentences I knew the overall gist because of recognizing the Hanzi (tho they were being used in words that aren’t similar to Chinese), the grammar overall (the rough intention of the sentence), and knowing KH2 well enough to remember the main idea of th English sentence. So it was overall a much more pleasant, easygoing experience this time around playing! It was something where I COULD play 50 hours of Japanese KH2 now.

This kind of showed me some things: first that knowing a basis in chinese (for me) makes a huge difference. Kanji now make words easier for me to learn and guess. I can now recognize when some pronunciations are somewhat similar to Chinese words. I can recognize when some kanji are used to mean Different things from Chinese (since I know the English context too). I can also now actually Like and Appreciate that KH2 specifically uses kanji in some speech bubbles and scenes then hiragana for the same words at other times - it gives me a chance to use context to see both versions of the word and learn both the pronunciation and kanji a bit more. Now I have katakana English like words and kanji (in the sense of their similarities to Hanzi) and my basic grammar grasp to rely on to parse sentences which makes all of it much easier. For me chinese was just easier, and that’s now paying off also in making Japanese easier in some ways than it was before.

I also appreciate now why “prior context” and “comprehensible input” are encouraged so much. My effort level is comfortable and NOT draining, so I could’ve kept my playing for hours and I did not need a dictionary for new words because I had TONS of context. Part of this is KH2 being a game I know super well (so even back at year 2 it was doable if draining when no other video game probably would’ve been doable at all). So it makes sense now it would be the first comfortable feeling one. It is VERY comprehensible input for me, especially now with some of the Japanese improvements I’ve made.

Whereas I tried to play crisis core a month ago (doable but DRAINING in part because I knew the game so comprehensible but I didn’t HAVE the game remembered by heart like KH2 so I had to slow down to read everything slowly and figure out words much slower with no prior meaning in my head for many parts), and persona 3 (which was doable but DRAINING in part because I have little prior context compared to cc or KH2 and in part because it has so much reading). Also KH2 is easier to read than cc or persona 3 - kh2 is obviously meant for age 10+ and so the amount of text I’m required to read is shorter, a lot of conversational stuff and not layered (cc had a lot of technical paragraphs of directions for missions and persona is aimed at older teens and has much more like “think about it more long term” conversations which I struggle more to parse). Also just persona 3 has so much dialogue I started speed reading just to get to a save point which felt Draining. Whereas KH2 the reading is comfortable so I don’t read too slow, and so it doesn’t feel as draining since it’s not slow nor do I have to rush at lower comprehension to get through it - I can just read and comprehend everything as much as I can at a reasonably non draining pace.

Also I DO think Clozemaster (so kudos to u app) is actually helping noticeably. I’m doing Clozemaster Japanese by common word tracks (still in the 100 most common words sentences and almost done). I’ve been doing listening mode and then reading sentences after. I can TELL it’s helped me already with the following. I’m doing better at recognizing some grammar structure particles/words/conjugations in various forms and levels of politeness. I now have much less issue telling how to separate sentences into word/grammar functions - it makes everything just much easier to start being able to segment my sentences as I read so I can just pinpoint WHAT parts I know versus don’t know and what their rough function is (and since in KH2 I know the English lines usually it makes it way easier to guess what words mean roughly what English translation). I also read some manga during this past month that’s also helped with this skill. I noticed Clozemaster also is just helping with it a lot since in Clozemaster the politeness level varies and stuff so I’m forced to practice guessing and figuring it out more with Clozemaster sentences over and over. The listening mode has helped because I can tell that some of the most common words I can hear more instinctively now and read aloud at a more normal pace now. I still CLEARLY read over listening when the subtitles in KH2 are there if I don’t know a word, so my listening has HUNDREDS or likely thousands of hours to go (my Chinese is much much better). But I can already notice the sheer fact Clozemaster listening question mode is forcing me to 1 HEAR Japanese more (and I need like what 2000 hours listening) and 2 start recognizing more easily at least recognizing words I’ve learned when I hear them (whereas before I would struggle to hear certain words even if I’d studied just because I’d read-studied a lot but not actually heard much of those words much). Now this all isn’t a huge help with new words in KH2 since I’m learning to read them from the game but my listening isn’t picking them up or Parsing them well. But as far as IN Clozemaster: yes the constant audio word drilling is helping me recognize words by sound which is great since thanks to Chinese kanji recognition is now not intensely difficult, it’s the sound recognition and match up to spelling that’s now the major confusion for me. I mean grammar is also confusing.. and will take years... I do think Clozemaster forcing me to practice interpreting the grammar somewhat with nothing to help me is helping me at least feel less drained by the grammar. I used Clozemaster before for french and chinese at the stage between graded readers and actual native speaker material, and I think for Japanese it’s also Good for this purpose. Clozemaster is good for a lot of immersion-like sentence reading practice, with tools to make it easier like a translation and mostly words you know in each sentence. Making it a bit easier than just diving into the deep end into a random novel. I do think it helps with preparing you for less learner-tailored materials a bit while still being easier than native speaker materials so you can practice without feeling youre drowning.

anyway ahh. WOOH I PLAYED KH2 in japanese today!!! I HAD FUN

gonna do it some more.

kh2 is maybe THE original reason i started trying to learn japanese. its really fun playing it now.

—-

And finally, while I’m at it: I am ALMOST done with the Sundial arc in Guardian Listening Reading wise. I’m on chapter 17. I have like 2 days left so who knows maybe I can manage to finish the sundial arc we’ll see.

What I mostly did this month was Redo L-R chapter 1-12 with a second audiobook, read the novel print version up to chapter 12, read chapter 1-2 in the traditional print version, also read maybe 4 chapters of other random things, listened to audiobook files of stuff overall idk 20+ times while repeating after a lot of lines, did a small amount of Clozemaster chinese (mostly just Radio mode), did 30 min - 1 hour writing or speaking language exchange sessions once a week, and watch a bunch of Chinese shows with English subs this month while repeating after a lot of lines.

As you can tell my reading Amount lowered significantly since the past couple months. However, I think I’ve pushed up my listening amounts a little.

#rant #June #June progress #I wonder if my 2021 horoscope says things I worked for years on are paying off #also looks like if I get into linguistics there’s a decent chance I’ll need French too so. French for a career is why I started learning #that baby way back when. so it really would be a bunch of old stuff paying off and becoming useful and needed. I even have job inquiries for #character artists for game companies rn! which is. literally what my dream was at age 11.#oh man when will I have time for the French... ToT I may actually NEED need it soon fuck #u know what I love about chinese and dread about Japanese and French? the grammar #Chinese grammar I may make some mistakes but I know I’m understandable and I DO in fact have some grammar exercise books I can do if they’l #help. and Chinese grammar is quite clear and idk logical to me. Japanese has.. so much politeness levels and casualness even after the gramm #I struggle to instinctively ‘get’. and French god if a teacher isn’t making me cojuygate I only use je vais je va j’ai va ToT #my French production skills are nightmarish #hey universe babe ;-; please be nice #whatever’s coming ayyy

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brella-boi · 3 years ago

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for the write a fic post: chili goes to therapy

Ya'll are just not gonna leave my son alone are you

Title: Doctor’s Home Tags: Cursing, bad english, bad therapist, Chili, Tai. Words: 1500

For weeks a certain someone decided to start making an effort to make amends. He would come every couple days with a pizza or a movie, hang out, and let his sister roam around while he fell asleep halfway through. In a way it was interesting to see someone you’d consider an asshole suddenly show a change of heart, but on the other hand Tai was curious of any ulterior motives that inkling had bubbling underneath the surface.

For one, Tai never trusted Chili. Not one bit. Not after seeing how he treated Mint. Several times, in fact. Though, he gave him the benefit of the doubt. Tai came over to his home a few times, tried to learn different things from the inkling. Granted, he did learn a few things that Mint was no help with, like which neighbourhoods to avoid, using the splatting weapons in turf wars, and general paperwork. Although it was a grueling process. Not only because the inkling held a heavy accent Tai found hard to understand at times, but also because he was so forceful and rude about everything. How did Mint find any part of that inkling appealing or tolerable is beyond him. To Tai, Chili was simply an asshole. An interesting asshole.

He quickly noticed how differently he acted around the vicinity of Mint, and immediately took interest in that.

Now, Tai may not know much about psychology, but he is well versed in the medical field. That’s close enough, isn’t it?

The next time Chili decided to show up at their apartment Tai was prepared. So prepared in fact, that he made sure Mint was still out and about in town and the two of them could get some private alone time. So when he finally knocked on the door, Tai was ready to answer with a smile.

“Hello Chili. I was waiting.”

The inkling grunted as a way to greet the octoling, focused on finding the other twin he was hoping to meet instead. “Mint’s stuck in traffic or what’s up?”

Tai tapped the wooden door rhythmically as he closed it behind Chili. “Hm. Yes.” They weren’t, but Tai wouldn’t pass the opportunity of an excuse like that.

“‘Aight. Ya won’t mind if I snag the couch for myself then.” He didn’t need an invitation, or a denial, he did as he pleased regardless of the answer he received.

“No. You can sit down.”

But the inkling stopped halfway, his eyes grazing across the living room. He wasn’t an idiot. Hearing Tai agree with anything, or say how he was waiting set his suspicions off. Something wasn’t right.

“Nah. Actually I’ll stand.” He watched Tai stalk towards the small island separating the living room and kitchen, and continued his tapping against its stone surface.

“I think you want have a seat.”

The two boys squinted at each other, neither of them budging from their place in the staring contest.

“‘Aight, I’ll bite. What do ya want from me? More teaching? Money? A beating?” Tai slowly approached the inkling as he continued talking. His height became more apparent with each step he took. “Silent treatment, eh? Or is my vocab too advanced for ya to understand? Damn, if only Mint was here to help ya out and translate like a good kind sibling.” By now the octoling stared down Chili from how close they were, and Chili felt himself leaning backwards and away from Tai who only continued to press forward. This was awkward. “The fuck ya want dude.”

“Hm. You want to be good boy, yes? For Mint? Sit.” He straightened up again, and let the inkling fall backwards into the couch with a dumbfounded expression.

Be good? A good boy? Him? Chili? He didn’t know what to say at the clear display of not-giving-a-fuck. There were times where this strange octopus would get into a specific mood. A mood that is both creepy, intimidating, unsettling, but also weird as fuck to deal with. When he does you cannot reason with him at all. Mint called those moods as a ‘crazy-scientist awakening’. Chili feared this was one of those moments.

“Good.” Tai flashed a faint smile as he himself took a seat on a chair across from Chili. He leaned back and inspected the tense inkling eyeing him suspiciously.

“I know what you play.” Chili raised an eyebrow and Tai continued. “Why?”

“Why what.”

“Why so nice beside Mint? You are jealous?”

Chili folded his arms with a bored expression. “Of what? There ain’t nothing Mint has I don’t.”

“Hm. Yes. A big home, good job, many friends... A boyfriend.” His eyes averted. One mental checkmark to Tai’s list of theories. “You are jealous.”

“Whatever ya think it is, Mr. Know It All, yer wrong. Newsflash, I’m also friends with Hiraeth and the system, and I don’t need a huge home or fulfilling work. So whatever’s brewin’ in yer head, stop it.”

“You sure? Why no talk with Mint for.. Hm. Weeks? But you talk with system. It make no sense.” Tai paused to think, his fingers tapping against the arm of the chair in thought before returning to waving around as he spoke again. “Unless… Halcyon say you are close to Pensacola. Very. And you ask me to slap you, like he. So,” he grinned toothily at Chili, excited to see the reaction to his theorie’s consensus, “You was scared of Mint because you like them, and Hiraeth was faster, so you run away. But now because he and Pensacola is gone, you come back. No threat, no worry. Yes~?”

Chili stared incredulously at the octoling who single handedly deciphered his entire motivation towards Mint in the most broken inklish he’s ever heard. It almost felt like an insult. This guy he knew for less than five months somehow found himself digging so deep inside him it was embarrassing. Has he really been hiding it that bad all this time? No, others never found out. So what gives Tai the right to know?

“Ha! Ya must be out of yer god damned mind. I’m done here. Have fun interviewing some other sucker that easily falls into your trap.” He stood up from the seat and took a step towards the door before a sudden sharp pain knocked into his neck.

He whipped around to face the smug octoling still sitting in the chair, but now brandishing a nerf gun in his hands aimed towards Chili. Before he could speak again another bullet smacked him in the eye and he doubled backwards from the sudden shock of it.

“Sit down.”

“What the FUCK is yer problem?” Shot again. “Stop it! Agh-! Fine!” He sat down into the seat once again with arms raised above his face to shield from any more oncoming bullets.

“Am I right or wrong.”

“You’re fucking stupid. OW-”

“Wrong answer.” Tai loaded another few rubber bullets into the gun. “I ask again. You like Mint?”

Chili stuck his middle fingers out at Tai through the shield and felt another three bullets pelt him in the stomach. “AgH- I ain’t gonna fuckin’ tell ya!”

“So yes. Okay.” He whistled at the hiding inkling who now sported a faint blush. “I won’t tell. But you are asshole.”

Chili groaned, “What’s new.”

“No. You are idiot. You pretend like you are good.”

“I’m trying real fuckin’ hard, so thanks.”

“You are happy to pretend? Only pretend? You are lying. Lies will bring death.”

Chili felt like his words got lost in translation. It was probably some octarian analogy. But he understood what he meant regardless. “Yer not a therapist Tai, ye don’t get a voice in this.”

“I am doctor. I have experience.” He did not, in fact, have experience in the mental health department. Ask him to stop bleeding? Place stitches? Sure. Ask him about depression? Anxiety? Relationship advice? Maybe not the best idea.

Chili huffed. He didn’t know about any of his prior experience, but he didn’t deny his medical knowledge was extensive. “I don’t need another therapist. So shut up and mind yer own fuckn’ business.”

Negotiating with Chili was brutal. Nothing goes into his head without going in one ear and out the other. Neither did he have the nerves or stamina to punch him like his friend to bring him to his senses, and he felt like he wasn’t being taken seriously either. What was he to do? The nerf gun would only get him so far, and three more shots did nothing but prompt more cursing.

“Stop lying to Mint. Is all I ask.” Tai stood up with a frown. “You are lost up here-” he tapped his own head as he headed towards the door, ”-and you are bad to me and you friends. You need understand what you are wanting before you lie again. Go. Think about it.”

Tai held the door open for Chili who looked like he was about murder Tai with his gaze alone. Red in the face and hands curled into fists. But, he stood up and wordlessly stepped outside the door as instructed. The octoling watched him with a solemn face and slowly shut it once he disappeared beneath the stairs.

“Ayayayay… So stuck up his own ass it’s impossible to get it out.”

#sorry this took a week lol #writing tai is really hard hes very out of my element #splatoon #fanfic #writing #splatoon 2 fanfiction #myart #chili #tai

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benichi · 4 years ago

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Collar X Malice - Unlimited - Spoiler Free Mini Review

- Unlimited - revisits the World and stories of Collar x Malice in varied ways. There are After Stories (also referred to as Epilogues) for the 5 Love Interests from the first game. Side stories that focus on (you guessed it) side characters plus the so called ADONIS mode which will give you the chance to find out more about the organizations members.

+ As with the first game both art and music are very nice. It's a blend between content from the previous entry, which gave a nice sense of nostalgia, and newly created sprites and music. I'll address the elephant in the room: considering the allegations against H*namarua M*i I did feel a little... odd looking at the art. But I'll have to take it at face value for now since there hasn't been any more news and the art - as we see it in game - looks good (aside from a few weird anatomy situations).

+ After Stories (Epilogue). These are probably what people have been looking forward to the most. It's nice to see these characters again and even more so to see how they act in a relationship. Personally I very much enjoy seeing how couples are once they're officially together (not just to the point until they get together) so I loved these. Obviously some stories more than others, we all have our favorites and so on. But overall I found all of them enjoyable and I think there's nice variation of fluff and drama between the stories. The only thing I'd like to remark is that there aren't a lot of puzzles, though I haven’t really made up my mind on how I feel about that. Because on one hand it’s nice they put more of a focus on the day to day lives, but on the other I do enjoy some good puzzles. So I’m kind of in the middle here and just wanted to point it out because the first game did have more.

+ Side Stories. There are 3 stories in total that consist of 2 parts each. I very much loved two of them, the third felt a little forced in my opinion (you’ll see which one I mean once you get there) but either way I think all of them are a nice addition for those that would have liked to spend some more time with certain side characters in the main game.

+ ADONIS. I'll be honest I loved this. Even if I do love me some sprakly butterfly Otome that Aksys seems to be against so much there’s definitely a big part of me loving dark and morally challenging stories. I don't even want to say too much but this mode was right up my alley and I hope people can get into it unspoiled. As I said in the beginning here’s where you’ll have the chance to find out more about each Adonis members, their motivations and stories. This obviously includes their leader (which a lot of people have always wanted to find out more about - me included). This mode may seem a little confusing at first but once you start playing it’s actually quite simple but still effective. The (true) ending was done well and I do think that ADONIS is a great way to say goodbye to the world of Collar x Malice.

- The limited edition feels like minimal effort. And not just for - Unlimited -, personally I find none of the LE Aksys puts out appealing. Compared to all of the content the Japanese version got we’re really getting the short end of the stick here. Again, this is how I feel about it. I’d love to buy some LE Otoge but not like this.

- The localization. I specifically chose “localization” because most people seem to be talking about translation which isn’t quite it in my opinion. Especially putting this game on Google Translate level. As someone who has played my fair share of Google Translate-esque Otome I can reassure you that C x M - Unlimited - is still far from that. I think to be on GT level it has to be at a point where you can’t even understand what’s going on at least half of the time, which is not the case here.

-- BUT there are some major problems. I’ve already talked about this previously so I’ll be keeping things a little more brief here...

My biggest issue is that the game often times feels unpleasant to read. Which is obviously a big problem for a visual novel. The game cuts sentences in a weird way that makes you wonder if part of it is missing - which is my main gripe cause this is a constant thing. There’s random numbers that shouldn’t even be there in the text, off wording and even coding issues (text outside the box or in places it shouldn’t be,...). So as I’ve said previously I do think that it’s difficult to put something with this much text out and do a completely flawless job. If there were some spelling mistakes here and there I wouldn’t mind it that much. In C x M - Unlimited - however there are times when it will be one mistake after the next in a consistent manner (Takeru’s AS is w i l d), then things will be perfectly fine again for a little while only to jump back to paragraphs of odd words, text outside the box or just awkward wording. It kind of feels like some of the employees took their work seriously and tried to put a good product out while the other half slept on their keyboard.

Conclusion: should you buy this? If you’re a big fan of the original I do think so, yes. I don’t really like the idea of boycotting or anything like that, I don’t think that’ll get us anywhere. Especially if you liked the original you shouldn’t deprive yourself of this experience. But we do have to hold Aksys accountable for what they’ve done. Because even if the Otome fanbase is struggling to get releases we shouldn’t just be happy getting Otoge at all - we do want quality.

Again this game is still far from some of the other bad localizations we’ve had to deal with, you’ll always understand what’s going on. However, I do have to say that the price of 50€ for the game - as it is right now - is not acceptable. I wouldn’t mind paying that price for a VN with great localization, but as you can see currently this game has too many issues to call it that. So if you’d like to hold off that’s perfectly understandable. Aksys is aware of their displeased fans so now it’s on them to take action.

I do think that we are a well- and outspoken fandom, so if you haven’t yet consider writing Aksys a polite email about the issues with - Unlimited -. Especially so if you’re reluctant about buying the game in it’s current state.

In short: Great game, as of now not so great localization. Let’s hope they put out a patch and - even more importanlty - that they’ll do better next time. Piofiore’s release is not that far off after all.

#collar x malice unlimited #c x m unlimited #c x m #review #otome game

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quaintqueer · 3 years ago

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I don't know what you think about labels, maybe you are the kind of person who watches shows like Marie Kondo where they organise people's houses and put sticky labels on everything so that you can easily identify the contents. Maybe you're the kind of person who does not like to be labelled or stereotyped. Maybe you prefer to be just yourself.

I have had a very complex relationship with labels and identity. You could say that I started off on the wrong foot. My mother went to a Baptist church on Sunday morning and a Charismatic/Pentecostal hands-in-the-air, shouting and screaming, spiritual warfare kind of church on Sunday night. And my dad had his Holy Communion as a kid and then went to mass on Easter and Christmas. So to begin with my labels were numerous and incongruent which did cause some issues for younger Zoe.

And I want to share with you about where God has led me through the understanding of this topic. I am not entirely sure where to start and I'm not sure how vague to be here but let's just say that at least the draft will be an explicit and partly chronological one.

12 year old Zoe I went to church most Sundays with her family and she was very very lucky to have a wonderful Christian friends in her life and at this point the label attached to her as a daughter was the unproblematic child and at school she was the sweet and friendly member of the God Squad or Singing Christians depending on how you asked. But those were the kind of labels that existed around that time.

What happens though to 12 year old Zoe is that she falls madly and instantaneously in love with her best friend. And almost immediately she thinks ‘am I in love with this girl? that must make me gay.’ And being a part of the circles that I was in a fairly conservative Christian family and a fairly conservative Christian School with Christian friends in that Christian school, I said ‘absolutely not. I don't want to have to deal with that.’ I was never hateful towards gay people in general I just thought I just didn't want to deal with it myself. My mum and I had had conversations about it when the plebiscite happened, and whenever we spoke about it, it was very much about ‘the gay people’ as opposed to anyone we knew or loved, let alone a Christian person, and so this whole gay thing wasn’t really thought about. Ao a few times over the next 2 or 3 years so I would ask, ‘am I in love with this girl’ And I always concluded ‘no no no you can't be in love cos you're not gay’.

By the time I’m about 14, I’ve been awoken to all different kinds of social justice movements, I took sociology, I’m going to save the world. THe labels I proudly wear are things like left wing, passionate, an ally to many different communities, in particular the lgbtq+ community.

Zoe at one point goes ‘frick frack, I'm definitely in love with this girl’. and because of the way that this world really loves labels, this was completely synonymous in my mind with being gay. My first response was probably because I'm bisexual so now that is an importand confusing label Zoë is wearing. I have somewhat fond somewhat mortifying memories of sitting on the Shinkansen, the bullet train, from Tokyo to Kyoto next to my dad doing every single ‘Am I gay’ quiz I could find online. Throughout this trip to Japan, I’m really testing the waters and every single younger woman I saw I was like ‘Is she cute? Am I attracted to her? Would I kiss her?’ and so that experience made me very nervous because I had still grown up with the mindset that if people were gay it was ok but they weren't Christian. And I was a Christian, so I just ignored it really. And this turned into a time of me hypersexualising sll of the boys that I had ever thought I had a crush on. I can quite confidently say that I didn't actually have a crush on many of them, I just thought that that was something that I should do. So there was a lot of ignoring this feeling.

We then reach year 10, 2020, a glorious year. In the first Lockdown, I finally caved and downloaded Tik Tok. The thing about Tik Tok is that it comes with its own world of labels, and I really would enjoy the kinds of conversations about what side of Tik Tok you are on. I loved that your For You Page automatically gave you certain labels to wear as a Tik Tok user, and I loved that those applied to real life. I quite quickly ended up on gay Tik Tok, among other things. I was also very firmly on Black Lives Matter Tik Tok, on disablrf Tik Tok, on Indigenous Tik Tok, so on and so forth. But much of my content was about the lgbtq community and this opened a ahole can of worms. I, at this time, carried a lot of shame for my attraction to women. For a bit of a backstory, I had been so severely heartbroken by this girl - not by her own intentional actions, I think that she was never going to feel about me the way that I felt about her and that was not her fault - but I was so seriously heartbroken that not only did I hold this moral shame but also this like emotional shame of my attraction to women. I felt like it was not a good thing morally and it didn't feel good emotionally because I had to still been really hurt about this girl and I have never really gotten over that. So for the first time on gay Tik Tok, I saw queerness and same-sex attraction as a positive thing not only in terms of ‘hey look these are women loving woman relationships that are working well’ but also ‘whether or not you're dating someone, queer identity is good for you and it's fun to talk about’. And as a type 4 on the enneagram, I love to feel special - not to say that I fabricated these feelings or that any queer person is queer for attention - but I think a big part of me felt validated or special because of my feelings and my queeness. It was like a new club that I could join. And so the labels that 15 year old Zoe wears largely consisted of queer. We had it dropped bisexual a little bit because at this point I was not sure if I like men at all and so we identified as queer or sapphic or bi or lesbian or gay - many of these words along with the left wing, Pro Black-lives-matter, pro-feminism, pro-lgbtq+, anti-colonialist anti-capitalist etc. etc. And I don't want to demonize any of those things - they are not at all negative things, I'm just painting a picture of the different labels that I wore.

Through out starting to come out to my friends and existing for longer periods of time not only on gay Tik Tok but now really searching all through the Internet for more LGBTQ+ identity - as I tried to confirm my traction for women, as I tried to decide about my attraction to men, about what label I should wear, and what it's like being in the LGBTQ+ community different, spaces where we interact, different identities and labels and experiences of queerness. So I really tied myself to this identity and it is I think so much because of the way the world sees labels as I said and so my first response was ‘well if I like girls I must be gay and if I'm gay I must identify that way and that has to be the most important thing about me’ because all the people I was seeing online really loved being gay. They were proud of their identity in their queeness. In the world as much as I think that we like to think we’ve got this ‘your sexuality or your gender identity doesn't matter. Gay and straight and bi and pan and whoever you are, we’re all human’, I think it often the world does like to draw those lines on both sides. Within queer communities there was - obviously ironically and satirically - this heterophobia honestly. (I'm joking!) But there was a real pride in this identity of whichever specific label you wear as well as the wider lgbtq plus label which led me to believe my sexuality was who I was. And that proved really quite awkward because I knew that my church and my family and many of my Christian friends believed that same sex marriage and romance was sinful. Because of the strong connection between my identity and my sexuality, if my sexuality was sinful, that meant that I was inherently and completely sinful and I didn't like that. It wasn't a fun feeling. After all of the years of learning about God’s gift of grace to us, kind of I lost in the crevices of my mind and whenever I thought about God I was met with feelings of shame and fear and dread and resentment sometimes even anger and I grew to be so despairing.

Eventually I tried the various progressive Christianity movements that teach that ‘God doesn't actually say the being gay is a sin, the Bible is pro queerness and don't even worry about it, God made you exactly the way that you are and he loves you the way that you are, go forth and have that lesbian relationship that you so desperately want’. But that never really sat right with me. It brought up other questions of ‘well if the current translation of the Bible says things like marriage is between a man and a woman, God made man and woman, any sex outside of marriage is sinful, or even the parts that say that ‘homosexuality is sinful, or man lying with man in certain translations, is sinful what happened to that part of the Bible?’ And of course I heard the response about how at the Bible was written by man and not by God and that it is fragile and can be manipulated and basically King James ruined the whole Bible when he wrote that translation and you don't have to listen to it. But that really didn't work for me. If that part of the Bible had been mistranslated how could I know that the rest of the Bible hadn't been mistranslated? If words like homosexuality weren't in the original text and they had been added there or mistranslated how could I understand the words like grace and love and hope and patience and kindness and peace and righteousness and holiness and justice? What if they were mistranslated? What if the whole Gospel was not how it was written in the Bible because the Bible was man-made? Pretty immediatelyI decided I couldn’t really understand a Christianity where homosexuality is not a sin because Christianity is written in the Bible and the Bible says that quite clearly. I believe that the Bible is directly the Word of God, that it is perfect, that the way that it is translated - obviously different translations vary - but that it is right from God’s mouth so imediately was like I can't believe in it Christianity where homosexuality is not a sin and so I've got to pick Christian or Gay.

And I didn’t want to choose Christian because I had this point has grown quite fond of being gay and I mean, I was truly just attracted to women, right, like I wanted a girlfriend and so I tried really hard to ignore God. I was still going to church, twice or three times a week and all that, and I could not shake the existence of God. I knew God existed. I knew that He created the world, that He was good and that they was the thing called sin that separated us from him. I knew that sin led to death. I knew that He had sent His Son to bridge the gap between himself and sinners. I knew that Son was Jesus and that He died on the cross and he rose again and I knew that if you believed in him you would spend eternity with God which was a really good thing. I could not shake those feelings, all those beliefs, and I absolutely praise God for that. I'm so beyond grateful that God did not leave me, even when I hated him and resented him and felt so much anger towards him. Praise Jesus!

All this left me thinking, well some people could go to heaven, but God hates me because of my feelings. He does not want me part of His kingdom if I'm gay. I can't ever go to heaven because I'm a sinner, and sinners don’t go to heaven. I truly don't know where all my years of learning about the grace of God had gone. This led me to a really distressed position, probably one of the lowest ever my mental health had been. I was just not coping and I ended up being kind of forced to tell my mum. I don't really want to say too much on this part of the story but by the middle-ish end of year 10 I ended up coming out to my mum and she told my dad, ‘cause I refused to do it myself, and then I got a therapist. Finally, now that my mum knew, I could ask her what I had so desperately wante to ask her - if she could please buy me some books about being gay and Christian. And so she did. And I slowly but surely started to read them, I started to read my Bible more and I started to really search for what it meant to have faith trust in God’s grace and not in your own work, not in your own actions or thoughts or words. The first book I got in particular was really hard to read it was based more on specific Theology and not on personal experience and I needed that foundation in what God really said because I had just had conversations with my mum and she had reminded me ‘God is real and he loves you and he sent his son to die for you and that is an option for you as much as it is for anyone else, your queerness does not separate you from Christ's death and resurrection’. There is a wonderful bible verse that became very important to me at this time. Romans 8, the very end of the chapter, says ‘for I'm convinced that neither death not life neither Angels not Demons need of a present or the future and or any Powers neither height nor depth nor anything else in All Creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our lord.’ So with this in mind, I decided that I could trust God and now I just needed to learn how. so I worked away through different books, through different parts of the Bible, praying really hard, searching online and asking really hard questions to some really awesome Christian women in my life, and asking God to reveal to me exactly what he thought about me and about queerness and so eventually we get to the present moment. I by no means know everything that I wish I knew, but now I can say that I wholly trust God with my next life - I trust that he has the power and the strength and the holiness to overcome even my sin which sometimes feels like the biggest there is. and I trust him with this life - that life with him is so much better than any lesbian affair I could ever experience.

I want to personally apologize to any one who the church or the world has ever made believe that they are somehow exempt from God’s love because of who they are or what they've done or how they’ve felt. That is false. There is no one that does not sin, no one that is not inherently separated from God. And there is no one who is too far from Jesus' power to be saved from that sin. God is bigger than your sin, I promise you.

I want to take this time to mourn for the lives lost and the joy and peace forfeited because of the way people who claim to know God treat queer people. I'm sorry if you have been made to feel less than because of the church. In the process of overcoming of guilt and shame that I have felt over the year, one more verse that I found really important. 1 John 1 says that ‘If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.’

So for me, I don't identify with my sexuality. I don't want to say that I'm straight now, that's not really true. but my sexuality is not what makes me who I am. I am a person fearfully and wonderfully made by God and I am a daughter of God in Christ. I am not ashamed of my feelings. I do think that it is worth mentioning that an attraction or a desire or an impulse is not the same as a sin. The Bible tells us that Jesus himself was tempted in every way and the Bible also tells us that Jesus is blameless and never sinned. And so I think it's worth the clarification that same-sex attraction or anything like that is not sinful itself and also that being gay is never worse than anyone else's sin, and it is never ever bigger than God.

I just want you all to know that there is nothing that you have done that makes you exempt from God’s love for you, to know that he is trustworthy, that the Bible is trustworthy, and I encourage you that your value is inherent as a person made in God’s image and that with Jesus, you can have identity in his son alone. When he sees you, he sees the goodness and perfection of Jesus if you believe in him.

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sugarcoated-eloquence · 5 years ago

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Foreboding (Targets: Part 2)

A/N: Hello, hello! Welcome to the shitshow, aka my blog. This is part two of a potential 4/5 part series that I am co-writing with the lovely @sweetestrequiems. Click here for Part 1. Each chapter is focused on a different queen or issue related to the queens. This specific chapter is Catherine Parr centric, but the other queens are all very present.

Please note the following ships are canon in this fic’s universe: Parrlyn, Aramour

{Trigger warnings: anxiety, mention of blood, slight violence}

I should also note some passages are written in German and Spanish and should be google searched to better comprehend the story.

Taglist: @sweetestrequiems, @theatergirl06, @silverpetals97, @six-fragile-dreams, @patdfobmcr-yt, @frogs-in-clogs, @mindless-pidgeon

Other than that..... enjoy! Below the cut.

It would not stop.

The constant feeling like something would go wrong.

Katherine Howard could not tell if it was the anxiety, or if it was something else. She physically felt okay, and everything seemed fine, but for the life of her, the girl could not put her finger on that bad feeling. Being so lost in her thoughts, Howard was found, brows furrowed, staring down at her food, rather than eating it. Of course, this raised concerns with her cousin, Anne Boleyn, and Jane Seymour. Boleyn’s face began to reflect the concern when she raised an eyebrow. Seymour had more of a sad-looking face, but nonetheless, the worry was quite present.

“Katherine?”

“Hey, Kitty… you okay?”

The two voices snapped Howard out of her trance. She looked up, shaking her head seconds after her attention went to the two women. “Yeah, yeah! Just had something come across my mind is all. I’m fine, really. Guess I’m just getting the typical pre-show jitters everyone gets,” which wasn’t a lie, either. But, Katherine did feel a pang of guilt in having to be dishonest with Jane and Anne. Howard was one of the Queens who always got some pre-show anxiety, alongside Catherine of Aragon– (much to everyone’s surprise)– and Boleyn. It wasn’t a rare occasion, though, considering they had just about an hour before they had to head to the theatre. It wouldn’t seem like much now, but this feeling Katherine Howard was having was not a good one.

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During the matinee, Katherine could not shake off that constant thought.

But she was not alone. The feeling had begun to haunt her cousin Anne.

Anne Boleyn’s eyes began to glance around the audience, knowing that Katherine was in the middle of delivering the roast of the century to Jane, Catherine Parr, and Anna of Cleves. A certain man had caught her eye up in the upper level; the second row in the left Circle Slip of the Arts Theatre, to be more precise. Something about that blond hair. And cold, blue eyes. Something about the way he was leaning on the railing while he sat began to bother Anne. Her attention snapped right back to the show when she heard Katherine say, “I can’t even begin to think of how I could compete with you all. Oh wait, like this!” to signal the start of All You Wanna Do. But even with her focus on the show, Boleyn’s glances kept going back up to that strange man.

“I think we can all agree I’m the ten amongst these threes!”

What about him bothered Anne Boleyn so much? She did not know.

Was it his face? No, he seemed to be fairly attractive. Was it the way he stared at all of them? Possibly, since he seemed to be rather uncomfortable when Aragon brought up Leviticus and Mary in No Way. He also looked disgusted during Boleyn’s spotlight in Don’t Lose Ur Head. He looked very, very abhorred with Haus of Holbein and Anna of Cleves. But his eyes when Katherine Howard was singing screamed danger, and Anne could see it. Her frequent glancing that first day saw him tense up upon a few lines:

“Tall, large, Henry the Eighth.

Supreme Head of the Church of England.

Globally revered, although you wouldn’t know it from the look of that beard.”

And the end of All You Wanna Do, as far as Anne could tell from where she was on the stage, had him gripping the railing tightly. Was anger the reason he furrowed his eyebrows, or something else? The distance was not helping her much. Overall, she was picking up a few assumptions just from the one matinee show. This guy was either a historian that pretty much agreed with Henry VIII’s horrible decisions in life, or someone the Queens knew personally. What Anne decided to think though, was the former. Maybe this guy was just a historian and unimpressed with the show, right?

That first show could have not ended sooner. But as the lights on the stage went somewhat dim to allow the six ladies to exit, Anne Boleyn paused and allowed the others to go in front of her. She kept her gaze on that very man, and watched him stand up, turn around, and head on out of the seating area. The fact that she was the last one to leave concerned Cleves a bit. Right before she could even reach the dressing room, the queen in red put a hand on the green queen’s shoulder. “Moment mal, Anne. Was stört dich? Du hast anscheinend nicht dein gewohntes Lächeln am Ende der Show gehabt,” the German gently gave the shoulder a squeeze. Boleyn found herself sighing. “What’s going on? You normally smile and you were barely holding one up today by the end of the show,” Cleves made herself translate what she had previously said.

“I don’t know, honestly. I guess I thought I saw someone that Maggie knew in the audience. It was weird. I’m normally not out of it either. Anyways, if Aragon took the couch, she’s going to regret it. It’s my nap time,” the cheeky grin came back to the ruby lips. A nod from Cleves, and the two were well on their way to the dressing room. Was Aragon on the couch? Absolutely. And Anne 100% kicked her off of it just so she could lay down and sleep after she changed back into her comfortable clothes. No space buns, no makeup– just a giant hoodie and some sweatpants.

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The other dressing room was a little more lively for a good while.

Katherine Howard was up on her feet, bouncing around with energy. Catherine Parr had decided to join her this afternoon. What were the two doing while Jane Seymour took the time to answer some tweets and messages? Dancing. The two ladies were dancing, which was almost the catalyst for Jane setting her phone down and joining them. In fact, she just wanted in on the fun. The three danced around for maybe half an hour, before a yawning Katherine Howard took to the couch to take a nap herself. Parr and Seymour stayed awake, with Parr looking for her notebook and Seymour going back to the tweets and messages.

“Cathy, look at this,” tapping her counterpart on the shoulder, the blonde woman moved her phone to be between them both. “It’s us with our kids!” If there was one thing Jane Seymour loved about the fans they had, it was all of the fanart of them with their kids. A smile was brought to Catherine Parr’s face as she looked up to meet Jane’s eyes. “If there’s one thing I have always appreciated, it’s that they know we aren’t the only Tudors that kicked some serious ass.” The laugh both of them shared was quiet, as to not wake Katherine up from her post-show nap.

The calligraphy pen twirled around Parr’s fingers for a solid minute or so before she finally began to write. Each queen had their thing to do post-matinee if it was a two-show day.

Catherine Parr wrote notes about her performances.

Jane Seymour responded to fans. And to as many of them as possible, too!

Both of the Beheaded Cousins slept their time away.

Anna of Cleves did various things, such as meditate and listen to music.

Catherine of Aragon normally left the dressing room to find a quiet spot in the theatre’s backstage to pray.

This normal routine was going to be shaken up a little too much. So much that Boleyn and Howard were too tense to take their usual between show naps.

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The same seat every damn time.

Who the hell was this guy?

And why was he now looking so bitter towards Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard?

Three weeks since the mystery man had first caught Boleyn’s eyes in the middle of a performance. But now it was a pattern. Two night shows and a matinee, and always on the exact same nights. Exact same seat, exact same everything. This was starting to piss Boleyn off, and scare Howard. He looked at them with more than just malicious intent in his eyes, to the point that Katherine sometimes blanked on her lines. It was to the point when Anne was singing, she’d put more emphasis on “Hold up, let me tell you how it went down.” just to spite him. This historian guy, or whoever he truly was, did not settle well with the cousins.

But on the night of a Sunday performance, the Queens all got a rude awakening they were not ready for. And the two to be given the first wave were none other than the Beheaded Cousins themselves:

Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard.

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This tension was so chilling that it even caused Anne to fumble a few of her lines. Even the infamous “Yeah, I read.” was not the usual confident, snarky remark it usually was. Having made eye contact with the mystery man while trying to deliver the line was definitely part of it, and for a moment there was a stiff awkwardness in the air. They’d recover quickly, of course, but the general consensus between the group was that something was wrong, and it didn’t take a genius to figure it out.

The man quickly left, before the end of bows, and somehow located an usher and told him he was an old friend of the girls’. The girls weren’t too akin to refusing to meet people, so immediately after stagedooring and meeting fans, they all headed backstage to meet whoever had requested a personal meet and greet. Kit’s the first through the door and she stops dead in her tracks. Those eyes. They were the same bright blue eyes that she saw in her dreams at night, the same eyes she stared into right before… well…

She swallows, backing up a little. Anne comes crashing through the door, chaos embodied, and happily dances around for a moment before noticing the anxiety seething from Howard’s small frame. “What’s wrong, love?” Kit simply points to the man, and Anne’s heart drops to her stomach as well. She too, can’t look away from those crystal eyes. The blond hair. The everything.

Anne can barely talk above a whisper could even tell it was him would make the situation less real. Maybe it wasn’t, maybe he was just another person. One can hope, but no luck there, Anne. She can feel Kit shaking, and reaches to take her hand, letting out a shaky breath and considering shouting for Parr.

The others trickle in quickly after, the ‘mystery man’ still just staring at the two cousins with ferocious intensity. The last to enter, though, is Jane Seymour. The metaphorical mother of the group, the caretaker, any other synonym you can think of. Jane is never one to cast judgement. She walks in, and despite the obvious tension, says a polite hello to the man. He simply nods in response.

Parr joins Anne at the hip, whispering to her. “Is he what’s got you all rattled, love?” Anne lets out a small nod. “It’s him.”

That statement reaches Jane’s ears and immediately her demeanor changes. She stands up a little straighter, setting her microphone down on the dressing room’s main table, and just looks at him. She moves a little closer, pushing the other girls behind her, and she can only say one thing.

“...Henry?”

He steps forward, and while the other girls move back, Jane stays planted to her spot. He smiles, trying to turn on the charm, reaching for her hands. “The one I truly lov—” He’s cut off by a slap. Yes, Jane Seymour just slapped a man. He brings a hand up to his red cheek, eye showing that it indeed, hurt. Cleves stifles a laugh.

“Don’t ever associate that word with me. You don’t know what love is.” A few tears well up in the blonde’s eyes, but refuses to let them fall. Not for him. “Love isn’t keeping your wife from holding her newborn child!” Her voice breaks slightly, but she takes a deep breath, centering herself.

“You all look so different.” The scruffy voice chimes, and immediately Kit visibly tenses up. She, unlike Jane, is unable to hold the tears in. Though they flow silently, they flow heavily. “There’s no need to cry, Katherine… or should I say ‘Kitty’, now?”

“Don’t speak to her. You do not have permission to do that.” Jane moves to block his view, but he simply repositions himself. Anne elects to go in for a dig. The devilish smirk returns, though small, and she gives Kit’s hand a squeeze before moving a tiny step forward.

“You know, mate, if you’re still having trouble… you know, with your little friend, we can get you a prescription for Viagra. Or Cialis, plenty of options.” She emphasizes ‘little’ by using her thumb and pointer finger to indicate his size. It makes Kit smile a little. The silence in the air was broken by a stifled laughter. That had to be the funniest thing Cleves ever heard Boleyn say outside of the wit written in the script. Aragon gave her a nudge, but even she agreed with the sentiment.

The blond man, finally revealed as the reincarnated Henry VIII, just narrowed his eyes. “How funny, laughter coming from someone who couldn’t perform.” Anne’s smirk went away, as she looked back towards Cleves with a hurt expression. Cleves’ grin was gone, with gritted teeth behind a closed mouth replacing it. Aragon let out a sigh. “That’s low for the man who so easily says he believes–”

“Catalina, don’t even get me started on you either.”

Not a single comment from Catherine Parr. She just stood there, feeling herself drift between a rational mind and pure impulse. Did this guy just come back to insult them, and get a second wind to take Katherine? Oh no, that was not happening. She saw it all, too. Jane’s reddening face from holding back the tears, Cleves’ rather tame anger, Aragon’s scowl… Kit’s pale face from the fear, and Anne being powerless. Jane Seymour honestly, had lost her mind way before Catherine Parr did in this scenario, but… there was always going to be a breaking point for the quiet one.

“So you and your whore cousin think you can just slander my name like that? I’d have you both back at the scaffold in front of the Tower if I had–”

“Scaffolds don’t exist anymore, you twat,” Boleyn hissed under her breath.

“Enough, Henry.”

This was where Parr had enough. The other Queens gave a glance at their surviving counterpart, who wasn’t even looking up at him. She was staring at the floor, but for now. “Cathy, you should probably not… y’know, say anything,” Boleyn barely managed to get that sentence out, considering the crushing feeling she had inside of her chest. All that got as a response was a laugh.

“The survivor, Catherine Parr. Tell me then, my love, are you just as stubborn as you were back then?” He got every other one to crack, but little did he know that he would be the one about to shatter like glass. “Because you should’ve been the one to meet an untimely fate like your counterparts here. Of course, new body means a second chance at being able to–”

Henry stops when he sees Parr’s shoulders shake a little. She’s… laughing?

That’s why she was looking down. When she did look up, one saw her smile shining on like a light. Safe to say, Catherine Parr was about to tear someone apart. “You’ve still got quite a loud mouth for an old man. Tell me, did you ever finally learn to take care of yourself, you bobolyne? Thinking you have any right to talk to the mother of not only your damned son, but also the woman who was loyal to you for twenty four years?! And even better, the one you so graciously called your sister after your marriage? You’ve got to be kidding me right now.”

Jane felt a little insulted that she had to take a jab at Edward, but had the feeling it was necessary considering the situation. Hopefully Parr would apologize for it later on.

“Okay, okay… fair. Not bad, Parr. But why do those two get to wear shiny chokers while the rest of you have crowns? Does it further emphasize my point that Anne Boleyn’s just a hell of a tempting woman and that Katherine Howard–”

The smile from Parr’s face faded. The anger was present and everyone was mortified to see someone so quiet speaking up like she was. With vitriol in her voice, Catherine Parr officially lost her temper.

“You KNOW exactly what the fuck happened, Henry.”

Aragon felt herself go to cover Katherine’s ears as her goddaughter began to lose her composure. “You KNOW why they have to wear those. You know damn well the crimes you fucking committed against them both, especially Katherine! She was a child, Henry! A fucking child who got manipulated and used! I want to hear nothing from your mouth, you snoutband! You have nothing to defend yourself with!”

Wiping a tear or two away, Jane Seymour began to lean into Anna of Cleves for some form of comfort. Even the German was surprised to be hearing the resentment coming out of such a powerful and rather cool-tempered woman. Just as Henry went to open his mouth, he stopped.

“Oh no, no sir! You have no right to talk here! Anne Boleyn lost her head over what, your delusions that she was out and about with men when you were just going around like you weren’t married? And because of that, she has to struggle to change her name? Are you actually insane or some shit?” The northern accent Parr had was thick. She was angry, and her voice said it for her if her facial expression did not. “Jane Seymour never got to hold Edward because you took him straight away for his christening. And she had to sit there, alone, in bed! Suffering through illness until she died without saying goodbye to her baby boy!”

Boleyn goes pale. Where did this anger even come from? She had no idea, but Parr was scaring her.

“My damn godmother was near a saint with all of the bullshit she had to put up with! Twenty four fucking years, and it wasn’t Anne who ruined the marriage. It was YOU. Aragon did some insanely remarkable things despite how you treated her! And Cleves! You just decide to take Cleves and humiliate her because she wasn’t beautiful enough for you? You’re an absolute wandought, Henry! You brought a Spanish lady and a German lady out of their comfort zones all because you didn’t know how to use your damn brain!”

At this point, Aragon had managed to sneak off into the dressing room, with Cleves now being the one to hold Howard. Boleyn was now hugging Seymour, actually terrified of not just Henry, but Parr.

Henry began to go pale. He was not going to recover from this.

“Who am I missing… let’s see, Katherine Howard? No, I got her. Anne Boleyn? Also got her. Jane Seymour? Check. Anna of Cleves? Check. Catherine of Aragon? Oh, yeah, her too. Would you look at that… I’m the only one left. Surprise surprise, the fucking survivor surviving again and this time, she gets to give it to you the exact way she wants to.”

“Cathy–”

“Shut up you lot. My turn to finally talk.”

A flinch from the group. Aragon had to take glances in and out of the dressing room.

“Oh wow, Catherine Parr. The survivor. The one who draws lines in arbitrary places, blah blah! She had two other husbands, what good could have she done being a Tudor queen? I DIDN’T TAKE ANY OF YOUR BULLSHIT IS WHAT I DID. Those books that everyone rumoured a woman was writing? Surprise, you tallowcatch! It was me! I’m the famed author of Tudor history. And I published under my own name once your pitiful body finally died. That can’t be that bad, Cathy. What a sad excuse for a sob story, right?”

Katherine Howard began to tremble more than she already was in Anna of Cleves’ arms. Catherine Parr made herself stand face to face with Henry.

“Ah, right, because she survived she deserves the backing vocals. WELL GUESS WHAT, HENRY? I’M HERE TO STAY. I HAD TO GIVE UP MY LIFE, MY LOVE, AND WHATEVER ELSE I WAS DOING TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR SORRY ASS. You might have forced these women into submission but no, I am not going to submit to some sad old man. You took away their rights, you took away their children… and poor Katherine…” A laugh. “You took poor Katherine’s childhood. You turned her into a disgraced whore. She is not and will never be one. She is a victim of your bullshit.”

“Catherine, my love–”

“No excuses now, Henry. I’m through. Your love ran cold years ago. And call me love one more damn time. See what happens.”

“My love–”

The weight of the sleeves helped Parr send her fist flying into his face. He stumbled back, feeling a warm sensation drip from his nose. Blood. He… was bleeding? “You actually got the nerve to punch an English King? You’re a mad woman, Parr. I’ll have you thrown on that scaffold just how–” A second punch, and this time, there was an audible crack of sorts.

“You wear a crown, but you’re no king. You’re a disgrace to human life, Henry. And this is for all of the women you hurt, manipulated, abused… and killed,” a lunge forward. The third strike was to his jaw, and the fourth was a solid kick to the chest with her heel being the first thing to make impact. Henry, having been taken by surprise from every hit, stumbled right back into a pair of men. Shaking her fist off, some of the blood ended up getting on the floor, and part of it remained on her hands.

“I’ll be back, Catherine! Mark my damn words! Let go of me, you imbeciles!”

“Like hell you’ll be back!”

And just as she took a step forward, Aragon went to hold on to one of her arms. “Someone help me hold her back!” Aragon needed the help. Parr was under such a fit of rage she was dragging her godmother across the hallway. Seymour had to let go of Boleyn to try and hold on to Parr’s other arm. She slowed down, but still had enough adrenaline surging through her to keep going. Cleves just gave Howard a gentle kiss on the cheek before running over to help the other two ladies. No arms? No problem. She just held on to one of Parr’s legs.

Boleyn pulled her cousin into a tight hug, feeling a shaky exhale leave her body. “Kitty? Kitty, are you okay?” Just a nod. Howard was terrified to open her mouth after seeing the ungodly wrath unfold before her eyes. “I-Is… she mad at us, Annie?” Quiet and almost inaudible. The poor girl was terrified to even talk out of fear that Parr was not just angry at Henry, but at them too.

“Catherine Parr, what in God’s name has gotten into you?” Aragon furrows her eyebrows. “This is not you. What is going on? Talk to me, please.”

Anne reaches to take Kit’s hand. “She’s… upset. Not at us, I promise.” Anne had to admit, all of the ferocity coming from Parr scared her a little bit. The yelling reminded her a little of when Henry first stormed in and accused her. Of course, she would set it aside, but it was scary in the moment. She looks in Kit’s eyes, which are now full of tears, sighing and pulling her into another tight hug and rubbing her back. “It’s okay, babes… He’s gonna go away and we will be okay, I promise. The girls aren’t gonna let him get to us.” Kit just buries her face into Anne’s shoulder and lets out the remainder of what she wouldn’t let out in front of Henry. Thank goodness the men had taken him into another room until the police arrived.

Anne pulls out of the hug for a moment and then walks Kit outside. “You look absolutely knackered, love… maybe we should head home as soon as all of this is over. Do you wanna change into something else? C’mon.” They both decide to change, but do so in the staff bathroom rather than in the dressing room. On the off chance Henry was able to see into the dressing room, they didn’t want him to see anything. Anne also thought a door with a lock was the safest.

Once they finish hanging up their costumes, the two settle into the couch, and just hold each other. Anne hums a little of La Vie en Rose, and quickly, Kit falls asleep. Anne doesn’t mind. They were all done with the day, it had already put them through the ringer.

There’s an apparent veil of exhaustion amongst all of the women, except Parr.

Sure, Henry had been apprehended at this point and he was stuck with his hands cuffed behind his back, but that didn’t stop him from being inches away from Parr’s face with a very devious smile. “I’ll be back, Catherine. And you six will have to deal with me all over again. Especially Kat–”

“Like hell you are!”

Catherine Parr broke her left arm free from Catherine of Aragon’s grip, and her right arm from Jane Seymour’s. The right hand took a vice-like grip on his shirt collar before her left fist came swinging at full power, and thensome since the weight of the costume added force. That impact had a very, very nasty sound to it. Even Cleves flinched at it, soon seeing the blond man fall straight to the floor with a bloody face. “Get anywhere near us and I will have you laying your head on a prison bench just how you made poor Katherine and Anne lay down as you murdered them!”

The officers picked up the unconscious Henry, and kindly thanked Jane, Anna, and Aragon for their cooperation. Parr however, got a warning, but that was about it.

Giving it a moment, knowing they would be out of earshot at this point, Parr releases a rather annoyed grumble. “He’ll fucking pay for his crimes against all of you. I swear on my life he will rot in a prison cell for what he did. If he thinks he can just show up out of nowhere and come back here to take us for fools, he’s wrong,” she almost hissed at the end. The thickness of her accent was making Aragon concerned, since to see someone as rational as her goddaughter be in such a state was a rare experience. Cleves and Seymour both looked up with mortified faces. Ever seen revenge personified as human? No? Now you have.

And her name was Catherine Parr.

“What in heaven was that?” Maggie asks, getting up and peeking out into the hallway. A small laugh. The thud was actually loud enough to wake the cousins, and they both get up, confused a little, and sleepily walk to join her at the door frame. Anne rubs her eyes and yawns, looking at Henry, now being pulled up by two police men.

She glances to Parr, and then to Henry, and upon sight of Parr’s hands, she lets out a small, startled gasp. His blood was actually on her knuckles. Probably mixed with her own, if her knuckles had bust. Kit has a similar reaction, coupled with hiding behind Anne at the sight of the wicked man. “Cathy… let me help you get cleaned up. Mags, can you grab the first aid kit out of my backpack?”

“Let’s just go home, first.” Parr says, a little cold, while watching an officer take Henry away. She wanted to watch up until he was inside of the car, so she could ensure he was going away for good. The other officer asks her a few questions about the situation, and she tells him everything that happened, down to the fact that they would be filing a restraining order, and that Henry was not allowed to see their show again.

––––––––––

The six women had gone home after waiting… maybe an extra ten minutes after Parr finished talking to the police officer. The car was dead silent on the ride back to the house, too.

“I’m actually mad about the fact that he’s actually attractive now,” Boleyn rolls her eyes as she walks in after Seymour. “I’m kidding, obvs. But how is he alive? We’ve been free for… who knows how long now and he comes back? What did he want, anyways?” Seymour turned to face Boleyn, giving the brunette a gentle pat on the head. “It sounded like revenge, but I think Cathy has the actual answer to that. We can talk to her when she’s a lot calmer, though… she’s very…”

“Upset, angry… name it, I am probably feeling it.”

“We all are, love…” Anne goes to her, gently taking her hands, looking at them carefully. One’s very busted up, and the blood has now dried and solidified. “Let me clean you up, c’mon.” She motions to the kitchen, and the two head in there, Parr sitting on the counter while Anne gets the first aid kit out. “I’m not ashamed of what I did today.” Parr stares at the floor, expecting some sort of lecture or argument to happen, but it doesn’t.

“You protected me. That’s all I could ever want.” Anne kisses her quickly on the cheek before pouring some hydrogen peroxide on a gauze cloth. Before she starts to press it to Cathy’s knuckles, she looks the girl straight in the eyes. “Don’t be mad for how much this is going to hurt, please.”

While those two work on that, the other girls drop their bags next to the door and slump into the chairs around the kitchen table, an apparent awkwardness in the air. Jane is the first to speak, and it’s absolutely filled with regret and apology. “Ladies, I am so sorry I lost my cool today. I shouldn’t have gotten so ‘up in arms.’ He just… I never…” She’s tearing up a little, and Kit offers a hand for her to squeeze as she tries to work through her words. She takes a deep breath, brushing some of her blonde hair out of her face.

“I never got to tell him all of that. All of the resentment.”

Cathy grumbles from the counter, agreeing with her statement. “He sure got a taste of all of my resentment.” Her cheeks were reddening, and Anne doesn’t know what else to do past wrapping the girl’s knuckles, so she lays a kiss on them, hoping that will calm her down. “Shhh… no need to get worked up over that toff, not again.” Her hand goes to hold Parr’s face. “Let’s be happy, okay?”

“Jane, we all had every right to react the way we did. Even Cathy had a right to bash his ugly face in.” Kit nods reassuringly, and the other queens mumble words of agreement, Anne and Parr silently making their way over to the table. Something about Parr’s energy was off, but the queens wouldn’t question it for the time being. They were all rattled, it didn’t take much to see it.

“I just feel that as the mother of the group, I reacted rather rashly. I think–” She has to hold back some tears. “I think I should’ve composed myself.” This ends with the ladies all essentially tackling Jane with a group hug, even Parr, though not really seeming to want to participate. It was getting late, anyways, and it was almost time for her to begin her nightly writing. It would help.

Anne clears her throat. “I think you did perfectly, Jane. He’s an absolute tosser for thinking he could face all six of us at once.” Kit laughs in agreement, and the two head upstairs. Parr quickly dismisses herself, Aragon trailing quickly behind after giving Jane a tight hug.

Cleves takes Jane’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “Gute Nacht, Jane. Versuche nicht zu viel darüber nachzudenken.” Jane sighs. “Still don’t speak German, love.”

“Try not to think too much about it.”

“Catherine,” Aragon knocks on the open door, furrowing her eyebrows. “Mija, what got into you today? That isn’t you. Where… where did you even go?” A sharp look from the sixth wife to the first, before it softened up. It eventually became more of a look of shame as Parr’s eyes went to the bandaged hand. She really did do a number on herself, but that blond haired Tudor nightmare deserved it. She wasn’t wrong, was she? Or, had her morality become such an ambiguous grey area that maybe it was wrong for her to have sucker punched the man who beheaded Katherine Howard so unfairly.

The shameful eyes look up, seeing Aragon’s concern despite the slight scowl. “I’m sorry, Lina. I… no se. Yo lo vi y... Me congelé. Es como si todo el sentido racional dejara mi cuerpo y me quedara con impulso. Lo juro, no... siempre así. Tu lo sabes! Aunque asusté a todos, no?” The hurt in her voice was evident. Parr knew she became the morally ambiguous of the group, which was normally not the good thing. Aragon’s expression lightened up just a little as she approached her goddaughter, and pulled her into a side hug. “Sucede, amor. Pero no te enfades tanto con alguien tan horrible. Seguimos amándote, y siempre nos preocuparemos por ti. Ninguna de nosotras te tiene miedo, y eso te lo prometo.”

Those last words gave Catherine Parr just a little bit of hope. Catherine of Aragon gave one last hug to the woman before heading on out the door, but not without “Don’t stay up late.” being the last thing she said to the sixth wife.

Kit and Anne stand in the hallway, chatting before going to their rooms, which were across from each other. “Lock your window, Annie, please.” It’s evident that Kit is still very worried about Henry figuring out where they live or figuring out how to get in. Anne nods, despite the fact that they lived on the second floor.. “Of course.” The girls hug and in a matter of seconds, they are both behind their respective closed doors.

Kit leans against the door for a moment after closing it, but not locking it, and a few silent tears fall before she starts to change into her pajamas. “You’re okay. You’re safe.” She mumbles to herself, turning on her string lights and turning off the main light of the room. She debates what kind of music to listen to, mulling over it for a few minutes before turning on some classical. It was different, but it would work.

Anne, on the other hand, immediately goes to lock her window and pull the shades closed, which was slightly saddening because she did enjoy looking at the night sky before she fell asleep. She sits on the edge of her bed for a moment, deep in thought about Cathy. She had to admit, the girl she saw today was one she had never seen before, and one she was pretty afraid of seeing again. That fire, while endearing… shook Anne a little. She has to force herself to shake off the thought that anger immediately translates to a person being anything remotely similar to Henry.

“Right, then… bed it is.” Anne shuts off her lights and lays down, picturing that starry sky in her own mind. It would do.

Jane settles in with the current book she was reading, a copy of Pride and Prejudice. A story of true love, one could say, and the text was actually helping to calm the blonde down about the events of the day. Aragon peeks in for a moment, and Jane gives her a soft smile, an unspoken agreement that they would be okay.

Though it seemed as if everyone was settling down, Catherine Parr had a storm bigger than a hurricane brewing inside.

––––––––––

Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

Catherine Parr let that be the only sound to fill the silence. Normally, it would be music or something, but not tonight.

The calligraphy pen in her hands danced around her fingers, barely having touched the pages of the open notebook. Her vision was still blurred, much to her own surprise. Wrath was a powerful thing, and to have something take over the body for an amount of time would lead to consequences later in the night. In her case, it was a very horrid case of insomnia. While she dealt with insomnia most nights, she had the slightest feeling this was not the typical time to go to bed at 2 in the morning case. The pen began to slow down in her hand, and she held it still for the first time that whole night.

“It’s not the first time you write about how you feel, Cathy. It’s fine. It’s perfectly fine.”

It was not fine.

No matter how many times she told herself it would be fine, she could never believe it. Catherine Parr saw her hand shake, just the slightest, every time she wrote. Every memory from the last few hours was hazy, but simultaneously at the forefront of her mind. The usually clean lines of her penmanship were just the bit off from the feelings. Word after word, the anger began to flow onto the pages like water flowing down a river’s stream. So shaky, and so violent were the movements of Parr’s wrist. In comparison to the surprisingly smooth transition from thought to thought, her actions made her look a little crazed. One could even say she looked oddly desperate to finish writing.

Almost as if she was running out of time.

She was a writer in her past life. An author, really. The woman wrote books, psalms, meditations… name it, she probably has a manuscript of it somewhere. But this? This was not her. This frantic drive to write and write until the pages could take no more and the ink began to go through them was not Catherine Parr. In a way, it was almost symbolic. Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

There it was again. The ticking of the clock.

Time was no longer a relevant thing for Parr. She just let the time go on.

Last she could remember, it was midnight. But nay, the clock spoke otherwise. A glance at it revealed it to be four in the morning. Her hand and wrist were cramped up, and the tears that she felt falling were drying on her face. The pages had become full of nonsensical phrases, mostly a result of the anger still in her system. But that anger began to fade from anger into a depression.

Why couldn’t she be stronger?

Why didn’t she do enough at the moment?

The pain finally struck her heart. Silence began to be her worst enemy, and something she thought she’d never do is what she did. Parr slams her hands on the desk, crying out, almost as if it were a scream or cry for help. The scream was enough to wake up Catherine of Aragon in an instant. A second and third one woke Jane Seymour and Anna of Cleves up. The fourth one got to Anne Boleyn. In a worried hurry, Aragon got out of bed and ran down the stairs to get to the door before almost ramming it down with her own body.

“Cathy? Mija, what’s the–… Cathy?”

What she saw was a torn woman in front of her. Her bandaged hand had a little blood seeping through the ends. Some of the curls were sticking to her face, and her eyes were all puffy and red. Aragon gently pulled Parr up and into a tight embrace. “Escúchame. Todo está bien, Cathy. Estamos en la casa.” Normally, Aragon had a commanding nature that gave off the feeling of someone being safeguarded behind a wall, but this was one of those moments she was willing to let her wall down. Parr’s grip tightened, with the tears coming back and rushing in like an ocean’s grey waves.

Catherine learned just a smidge of Spanish for her godmother. Enough to get by with a conversation or two, but she was not fluent in any way. “Duele, Lina,” a sniffle. “Todo esto duele y no hice lo suficiente para ayudar.” And there was something about her goddaughter using Spanish in such a defeated manner that made Aragon crack a little on the inside. Her own eyes were welling up with tears as she looked to the door.

Seymour, Cleves, and Boleyn.

All three of them with wide eyes and fairly concerned expressions. But it was Anne who saw the tears forming in Aragon’s eyes and threatening to spill. The two lock eyes and it takes everything in Anne to not crack too. She gives Aragon a look that says, ‘Let me try.’ Lina nods and gives Cathy’s hand a small squeeze, and Anne goes and kneels on the floor in front of her.

The other three stand in the hallway, knowing it was probably best to give the two a moment. “Did that not wake Kitty?” Cleves pauses, and then points in the general direction of Howard’s room, loud classical music streaming through her closed door.

Anne takes Parr’s hands. “Cathy, please talk to me… please, love.” It takes Parr a moment to look into Boleyn’s eyes, which are also filled with tears at this point. “It kills me to see you hurting.” A hand goes to wipe some tears from Parr’s cheeks. It lingers there, cupping her cheek, Anne’s thumb reflexively going back and forth to wipe more tears as they fall.

“It kills me to see you hurting.” Her statement is coupled with a small voice crack, and not one that you would usually find endearing. This was out of pure sadness and anger. She sighs. “I should’ve done more.” She looks at the floor, past Boleyn, though her head is now resting on the girl’s hand.

“He’s the one that deserves to be on a scaffold!” She starts to sob again, leaning forward, and Anne catches her, in a sense. Shaking with anger, she lets it out, nearly soaking Anne’s shirt in a matter of seconds. “He deserves to die! Why is he here?” Her breathing becomes slightly erratic, heaving breaths joining in with shallow sobs.

The three in the hallway silently elect to let the two work through it. It really seemed as if Anne was the only one who was going to be able to get her to calm down, even if only a fraction. Aragon lingers for a moment, and then decides finally to go back to her room, leaving the door open in case anyone needed anything. Jane does the same, but reads for a few minutes before going back to sleep.

Anne isn’t sure what to do, so she stands both of them up, having to support Parr a little, and just holds her, swaying back and forth slowly. “Shh… babe… he doesn’t deserve your tears…” Anne, you preach this, yet you’re a mess too. Albeit, a mess because Cathy is crying, but a mess nonetheless. “He… he’s getting his karma. He has to watch us thrive. And he can’t do a damned thing to us. We’re untouchable.” She was also telling herself this.

Parr nods quietly, latching on to Anne even more, as if letting her go would mean she’d disappear into thin air. Though she hadn’t actually said it, she knew she loved Anne. More than anything, and if punching Henry in the face was what she had to do to protect her, she’d do it every day for the rest of her life.

“Can I sleep in your room tonight?” She speaks softly, voice scratchy as a result of the outburst. It was nearing five o’clock at this point, but it didn’t matter. With no hesitation, Anne replies with a simple “Of course,” pulling away slightly to look Parr in the eyes. Those tired, red eyes, still wet with tears formed over a man who didn’t matter one bit. Not in this moment, he didn’t.

The two make their way to Boleyn’s room, a twin bed being the only place for them, but it would be plenty of space. Anne lays down first, patting the small space next to her for Parr to join. It’s almost as if they’re out as soon as they cover up.

Kit sleeps through all of this. Perhaps it’s the music blaring from her speakers, or the exhaustion from the events of the day, but it’s the first night the girl doesn’t wake up screaming. The other queens are really surprised to see her downstairs in the morning, looking well rested and pouring herself a cup of tea, seemingly fine. “G’morning.” She yawns, and the others just kind of look at each other as if reality has shifted. “Where are Cathy and Annie?”

“In bed, still.”

“Ja.”

“I should check on them.” Kit says, setting her tea down. Cleves joins her, cringing a little when Kit knocks awfully loudly on the door and pushes it open. “Halt die Klappe, Kit…” Kit turns and looks at her, a puzzled look on her face. Cleves rolls her eyes jokingly, and then whispers again. “You’re too loud.”

The sight upon opening the door is a combination of comedic and sweet. Parr is absolutely sprawled out on top of Anne, snoring loudly and taking up most of the bed. One of her hands is on Anne’s cheek, as if she had fallen asleep holding the girl’s face. Anne is awake, quietly scrolling through TikTok with headphones in. She looks at the two in the doorframe and smiles, looking down at Parr. ‘We’re okay.’ She mouths, and Jane and Aragon peek in, a small laugh coming from the Spanish queen. It warmed her heart to see the two all bundled up and Parr seemingly at peace, even if only for a moment.

Parr makes a small noise and shifts, essentially pulling Anne closer and wrapping a leg around her. The ladies all smile, electing to leave the two alone. It was evident that everything would be okay, at least for now. Anne kisses Cathy on the forehead, letting out a happy sigh. Parr subconsciously replies with a small snore, and the two stay there, safe in each other's arms, for most of the day.

A couple hours seem to pass and it’s about… noon, when Parr starts stirring. Anne notices this, and begins to smile. At least she was waking up. However, things were not going to go to plan, because in comparison to Anne, Catherine was a whole lot taller, and took up just a bit more space. Thinking for a moment she was still in her room, Parr went to try and roll to the other side of the bed, but immediately woke up at not having anything underneath her. A loud enough thudding noise got everyone’s attention.

The other four queens almost immediately ran to the doorframe, and Anne was sitting up.

In typical Boleyn fashion, she was laughing.

Parr on the other hand, was not very happy. “Ow…” Looking up, she just sees the green queen essentially laying back down because of the laughter, and a glance to the doorway reveals four others holding back laughter. “Oh haha, funny that Cathy Parr fell off a bed now is it?”

Through the laughter, Boleyn responds.

“It’s marvelous, love!”

#tw: blood #tw: violence #six #six musical #catherine parr #catherine of aragon #catalina de aragon #anna of cleves #anne boleyn #katherine howard #kitty howard #The Beheaded Cousins Write #sixfic #six fanfiction #parrlyn #aramour

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